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diff --git a/16504.txt b/16504.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6a68665 --- /dev/null +++ b/16504.txt @@ -0,0 +1,26371 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 +by John Addington Symonds + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 + The Catholic Reaction + +Author: John Addington Symonds + +Release Date: August 10, 2005 [EBook #16504] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RENAISSANCE IN ITALY *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Chuck Greif and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +RENAISSANCE IN ITALY + +_THE CATHOLIC REACTION_ + +In Two Parts + +BY + +JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS + + 'Deh! per Dio, donna, +Se romper si potria quelle grandi ale? + * * * * * +Tu piangi e taci; e questo meglio parmi' + + SAVONAROLA: _De Ruina Ecclesia_ + + + + +PART I + +NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1887 _AUTHOR'S EDITION_ + + + + +PREFACE. + + +At the end of the second volume of my 'Renaissance in Italy' I indulged +the hope that I might live to describe the phase of culture which closed +that brilliant epoch. It was in truth demanded that a work pretending to +display the manifold activity of the Italian genius during the 15th +century and the first quarter of the 16th, should also deal with the +causes which interrupted its further development upon the same lines. + +This study, forming a logically-necessitated supplement to the five +former volumes of 'Renaissance in Italy,' I have been permitted to +complete. The results are now offered to the public in these two parts. + +So far as it was possible, I have conducted my treatment of the Catholic +Revival on a method analogous to that adopted for the Renaissance. I +found it, however, needful to enter more minutely into details regarding +facts and institutions connected with the main theme of national +culture. + +The Catholic Revival was by its nature reactionary. In order to explain +its influences, I have been compelled to analyze the position of Spain +in the Italian peninsula, the conduct of the Tridentine Council, the +specific organization of the Holy Office and the Company of Jesus, and +the state of society upon which those forces were brought to bear. + +In the list of books which follows these prefatory remarks, I have +indicated the most important of the sources used by me. Special +references will be made in their proper places to works of a subordinate +value for the purposes of my inquiry. + +DAVOS PLATZ: _July_ 1886. + +_WORKS COMMONLY REFERRED TO IN THE TWO SUCCEEDING VOLUMES OF THIS +BOOK_. + +SISMONDI.--Histoire des Republiques Italiennes du Moyen Age. +RANKE.--History of the Popes. 3 vols. English edition: Bohn. +CREIGHTON.--History of the Papacy during the Reformation. 2 + vols. Macmillan. +BOTTA.--Storia d'Italia. Continuata da quella del Guicciardini + sino al 1789. +FERRARI.--Rivoluzioni d'Italia. 3 vols. +QUINET.--Les Revolutions d'Italie. +GALLUZZI.--Storia del Granducato di Toscana. +PALLAVICINI.--Storia del Concilio Tridentino. +SARPI.--Storia del Concilio. Vols. 1 and 2 of Sarpi's Opere. +DENNISTOUN'S Dukes of Urbino. 3 vols. +ALBERI.--Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti. +MUTINELLI.--Storia Arcana ed Aneddotica d'Italia. Raccontata + dai Veneti Ambasciatori. 4 vols. Venice. 1858. +MUTINELLI.--Annali Urbani di Venezia. +LITTA.--Famiglie Celebri Italiane. +PHIUPPSON.--La Contre-Revolution Religieuse au XVIme Siecle + Bruxelles. 1884. +DEJOB.--De l'Influence du Concile de Trente. Paris. 1884. +GIORDANI.--Delia Venuta e Dimora in Bologna del Sommo Pontefice + Clemente VII. per la Coronazione di Carlo V., Imperatore. Bologna. 1832. +BALBI.--Sommario della Storia d'Italia. +CANTU.--Gli Eretici d'Italia. 3 vols. Torino. 1866. +LLORENTE.--Histoire Critique de I'Inquisition d'Espagne. 4 vols. + Paris. 1818. +LAVALLEE.--Histoire des Inquisitions Religieuses. 2 vols. Paris. + 1808. +MCCRIE.--History of the Reformation in Italy. Edinburgh. 1827. +TIRABOSCHI.--Storia della Letteratura Italiana. +DE SANCTIS.--Storia della Letteratura Italiana. 2 vols. +SETTEMBRINI.--Storia della Letteratura Italiana. 3 vols. +CANTU.--Storia della Letteratura Italiana. Decreta, etc., + Societatis Jesu. Avignon. 1827. +CANTU.--Storia della Diocesi di Como. 2 vols. +DANDOLO.--La Signora di Monza e le Streghe del Tirolo. Milano. + 1855. +BONGHI.--Storia di Lucrezia Buonvisi. Lucca. 1864. + Archivio Storico Italiano. +BANDI LUCCHESI.--Bologna: Romagnoli. 1863. +BERTOLOTTI.--Francesco Cenci e la sua Famiglia. Firenze. 1877. +GNOLI.--Vittoria Accoramboni. Firenze: Le Monnier. 1870. +DAELLI.--Lorenzino de'Medici. Milano. 1862. +DE STENDHAL.--Chroniques et Nouvelles. Paris. 1855. +GIORDANO BRUNO.--Opere Italiane (Wagner). 2 vols. Leipzig. 1830. +JORDANUS BRUNUS.--Opera Latina. 2 vols. Neapoli. 1879. +BRUNO.--Scripta Latina (Gfoerer). Stuttgart. 1836. +BERTI.--Vita di Giordano Bruno. Firenze, Torino, Milano. 1868. +BRUNNHOFER.--Giordano Bruno's Weltanschauung und Verhangniss. + Leipzig. 1882. +PAOLO SARPI.--Opere. 6 vols. Helmstat. 1765. +FRA FULGENZIO MICANZI--Vita del Sarpi. +BIANCHI GIOVINI.--Biografia di Fra Paolo Sarpi. 2 vols. Bruxelles. 1836. + Lettere di Fra Paolo Sarpi. 2 vols. Firenze. 1863. +CAMPBELL.--Life of Fra Paolo Sarpi. London: Molini and Green. 1869 +DEJOB.--Marc-Antoine Muret. Paris: Thorin. 1881. +CHRISTIE.--Etienne Dolet. London: Macmillan. 1880. +RENOUARD.--Imprimerie des Aides. +TORQUATO TASSO.--Opere. Ed. Rosini. 33 vols. Pisa. 1822 + and on. + +_WORKS REFERRED TO IN THIS BOOK_. + +TASSO.--Le Lettere. Ed. Guasti. 5 vols. Firenze. 1855. +CECCHI.--T. Tasso e la Vita Italiana. Firenze. 1877. +CECCHI.--T. Tasso. Il Pensiero e le Belle Lettere, etc. Firenze. 1877. +D'OVIDIO.--Saggi Critici. Napoli. 1878. +MANSO.--Vita di T. Tasso, in Rosini's edition, vol. 33. +ROSINI.--Saggio sugli Amori di T. Tasso, in edition cited + above, vol. 33. +GUARINI.--Il Pastor Fido. Ed. Casella. Firenze: Barbera. 1866. +MARINO.--Adone, etc. Napoli. 1861. +CHIABRERA.--Ed. Polidori. Firenze: Barbera. 1865. +TASSONI.--La Secchia Rapita. Ed. Carducci. Firenze: Barbera 1861. + Il Parnaso Italiano. +BAINI.--Vita di G. P. L. Palestrina. +FELSINA PITTRICE.--2 vols. Bologna. 1841. +LANZI.--History of Painting in Italy. English Edition. + London. Bohn. Vol. 3. + + + + +CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. + + CHAPTER I. + + THE SPANISH HEGEMONY. + + Italy in the Renaissance--The Five Great Powers--The Kingdom of + Naples--The Papacy--The Duchy of Milan--Venice--The Florentine + Republic--Wars of Invasion closed by the Sack of Rome in + 1527--Concordat between Clement VII. and Charles V.--Treaty of + Barcelona and Paix des Dames--Charles lands at Genoa--His Journey + to Bologna--Entrance into Bologna and Reception by + Clement--Mustering of Italian Princes--Franceso Sforza replaced in + the Duchy of Milan--Venetian Embassy--Italian League signed on + Christmas Eve 1529--Florence alone excluded--The Siege of Florence + pressed by the Prince of Orange--Charles's Coronation as King of + Italy and Holy Roman Emperor--The Significance of this Ceremony at + Bologna--Ceremony in S. Petronio--Settlement of the Duchy of + Ferrara--Men of Letters and Arts at Bologna--The Emperor's Use of + the Spanish Habit--Charles and Clement leave Bologna in March + 1530--Review of the Settlement of Italy affected by Emperor and + Pope--Extinction of Republics--Subsequent Absorption of Ferrara and + Urbino into the Papal States--Savoy becomes an Italian + Power--Period between Charles's Coronation and the Peace of Cateau + Cambresis in 1559--Economical and Social Condition of the Italians + under Spanish Hegemony--The Nation still exists in Separate + Communities--Intellectual Conditions--Predominance of Spain and + Rome--Both Cosmopolitan Powers--Leveling down of the Component + Portions of the Nation in a Common Servitude--The Evils of Spanish + Rule + + CHAPTER II. + + THE PAPACY AND THE TRIDENTINE COUNCIL. + + + The Counter-Reformation--Its Intellectual and Moral + Character--Causes of the Gradual Extinction of Renaissance + Energy--Transition from the Renaissance to the Catholic + Revival--New Religious Spirit in Italy--Attitude of Italians toward + German Reformation--Oratory of Divine Love--Gasparo Contarini and + the Moderate Reformers--New Religious Orders--Paul III.--His early + History and Education--Political Attitude between France and + Spain--Creation of the Duchy of Parma--Imminence of a General + Council--Review of previous Councils--Paul's Uneasiness--Opens a + Council at Trent in 1542--Protestants virtually excluded, and + Catholic Dogmas confirmed in the first Sessions--Death of Paul in + 1549--Julius III.--Paul IV.--Character and Ruling Passions of G. P. + Caraffa--His Futile Opposition to Spain--Tyranny of His + Nephews--Their Downfall--Paul devotes himself to Church Reform and + the Inquisition--Pius IV.--His Minister Morone--Diplomatic Temper + of this Pope--His Management of the Council--Assistance rendered by + his Nephew Carlo Borromeo--Alarming State of Northern Europe--The + Council reopened at Trent in 1562--Subsequent History of the + Council--It closes with a complete Papal Triumph in 1563--Place of + Pius IV. in History--Pius V.--The Inquisitor Pope--Population of + Rome--Social Corruption--Sale of Offices and Justice--Tridentine + Reforms depress Wealth--Ascetic Purity of Manners becomes + fashionable--Catholic Reaction generates the + Counter-Reformation--Battle of Lepanto--Gregory XIII.--His + Relatives--Policy of enriching the Church at Expense of the + Barons--Brigandage in States of the Church--Sixtus V.--His Stern + Justice--Rigid Economy--Great Public Works--Taxation--The City of + Rome assumes its present form--Nepotism in the Counter-Reformation + Period--Various Estimates of the Wealth accumulated by Papal + Nephews--Rise of Princely Roman Families + + CHAPTER III. + + THE INQUISITION AND THE INDEX. + + Different Spirit in the Holy Office and the Company of Jesus--Both + needed by the Counter-Reformation--Heresy in the Early + Church--First Origins of the Inquisition in 1203--S. Dominic--The + Holy Office becomes a Dominican Institution--Recognized by the + Empire--Its early Organization--The Spanish Inquisition--Founded in + 1484--How it differed from the earlier Apostolical + Inquisition--Jews, Moors, New Christians--Organization and History + of the Holy Office in Spain--Torquemada and his Successors--The + Spanish Inquisition never introduced into Italy--How the Roman + Inquisition organized by Caraffa differed from it--_Autos da fe_ in + Rome--Proscription of suspected Lutherans--The Calabrian + Waldenses--Protestants at Locarno and Venice--Digression on the + Venetian Holy Office--Persecution of Free Thought in + Literature--Growth of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum--Sanction + given to it by the Council of Trent--The Roman Congregation of the + Index--Final Form of the Censorship of Books under Clement + VIII.--Analysis of its Regulations--Proscription of Heretical + Books--Correction of Texts--Purgation and Castration--Inquisitorial + and Episcopal Licenses--Working of the System of this Censorship in + Italy--Its long Delays--Hostility to Sound Learning--Ignorance of + the Censors--Interference with Scholars in their Work--Terrorism of + Booksellers--Vatican Scheme for the Restoration of Christian + Erudition--Frustrated by the Tyranny of the Index--Dishonesty of + the Vatican Scholars--Biblical Studies rendered nugatory by the + Tridentine Decree on the Vulgate--Decline of Learning in + Universities--Miserable Servitude of Professors--Greek dies + out--Muretus and Manutius in Rome--The Index and its Treatment of + Political Works--Machiavelli--_Ratio Status_--Encouragement of + Literature on Papal Absolutism--Sarpi's Attitude--Comparative + Indifference of Rome to Books of Obscene or Immoral + Tendency--Bandello and Boccaccio--Papal Attempts to control + Intercourse of Italians with Heretics + + CHAPTER IV. + + THE COMPANY OF JESUS. + + Vast Importance of the Jesuits in the Counter-Reformation--Ignatius + Loyola--His Youth--Retreat at Manresa--Journey to + Jerusalem--Studies in Spain and Paris--First Formation of his Order + at Sainte Barbe--Sojourn at Venice--Settlement at Rome--Papal + Recognition of the Order--Its Military Character--Absolutism of the + General--Devotion to the Roman Church--Choice of Members--Practical + and Positive Aims of the Founder--Exclusion of the Ascetic, + Acceptance of the Worldly Spirit--Review of the Order's Rapid + Extension over Europe--Loyola's Dealings with his Chief + Lieutenants--Propaganda--The Virtue of Obedience--The _Exercitia + Spiritualia_--Materialistic Imagination--Intensity and + Superficiality of Religious Training--The Status of the + Novice--Temporal Coadjutors--Scholastics--Professed of the Three + Vows--Professed of the Four Vows--The General--Control exercised + over him by his Assistants--His Relation to the General + Congregation--Espionage a Part of the Jesuit System--Advantageous + Position of a Contented Jesuit--The Vow of Poverty--Houses of the + Professed and Colleges--The Constitutions and Declarations--Problem + of the _Monita Secreta_--Reciprocal Relations of Rome and the + Company--Characteristics of Jesuit Education--Direction of + Consciences--Moral Laxity--Sarpi's + Critique--Casuistry--Interference in Affairs of State--Instigation + to Regicide and Political Conspiracy--Theories of Church + Supremacy--Insurgence of the European Nations against the Company + + + CHAPTER V. + + SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC MORALS I PART I. + + How did the Catholic Revival affect Italian Society?--Difficulty of + Answering this Question--Frequency of Private Crimes of + Violence--Homicides and Bandits--Savage Criminal Justice--Paid + Assassins--Toleration of Outlaws--Honorable Murder--Example of the + Lucchese Army--State of the Convents--The History of Virginia de + Leyva--Lucrezia Buonvisi--The True Tale of the Cenci--The Brothers + of the House of Massimo--Vittoria Accoramboni--The Duchess of + Palliano--Wife-Murders--The Family of Medici + + + CHAPTER VI. + + SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC MORALS: PART II. + + Tales illustrative of Bravi and Banditti--Cecco Bibboni--Ambrogio + Tremazzi--Lodovico dall'Armi--Brigandage--Piracy--Plagues--The + Plagues of Milan, Venice, Piedmont--Persecution of the + Untori--Moral State of the Proletariate--Witchcraft--Its Italian + Features--History of Giacomo Centini + + + + +RENAISSANCE IN ITALY. + +CHAPTER I. + +THE SPANISH HEGEMONY. + + + Italy in the Renaissance--The Five Great Powers--The Kingdom of + Naples--The Papacy--The Duchy of Milan--Venice--The Florentine + Republic--Wars of Invasion closed by the Sack of Rome in + 1527--Concordat between Clement VII. and Charles V.--Treaty of + Barcelona and Paix des Dames--Charles lands at Genoa--His Journey + to Bologna--Entrance into Bologna and Reception by + Clement--Mustering of Italian Princes--Francesco Sforza replaced in + the Duchy of Milan--Venetian Embassy--Italian League signed on + Christmas Eve, 1529--Florence alone excluded--The Siege of Florence + pressed by the Prince of Orange--Charles's Coronation as King of + Italy and Holy Roman Emperor--The Significance of this Ceremony at + Bologna--Ceremony in S. Petronio--Settlement of the Duchy of + Ferrara--Men of Letters and Arts at Bologna--The Emperor's Use of + the Spanish Habit--Charles and Clement leave Bologna in March, + 1530--Review of the Settlement of Italy effected by Emperor and + Pope--Extinction of Republics--Subsequent Absorption of Ferrara and + Urbino into the Papal States--Savoy becomes an Italian + Power--Period between Charles's Coronation and the Peace of Cateau + Cambresis in 1559--Economical and Social Condition of the Italians + under Spanish Hegemony--The Nation still Exists in Separate + Communities--Intellectual Conditions--Predominance of Spain and + Rome--Both Cosmopolitan Powers--Leveling down of the Component + Portions of the Nation in a Common Servitude--The Evils of Spanish + Rule. + + +In the first volume of my book on _Renaissance in Italy_ I attempted to +set forth the political and social phases through which the Italians +passed before their principal States fell into the hands of despots, and +to explain the conditions of mutual jealousy and military feebleness +which exposed those States to the assaults of foreign armies at the +close of the fifteenth century. + +In the year 1494, when Charles VIII. of France, at Lodovico Sforza's +invitation, crossed the Alps to make good his claim on Naples, the +peninsula was Independent. Internal peace had prevailed for a period of +nearly fifty years. An equilibrium had been established between the five +great native Powers, which secured the advantages of confederation and +diplomatic interaction. + +While using the word confederation, I do not, of course, imply that +anything similar to the federal union of Switzerland or of North America +existed in Italy. The contrary is proved by patent facts. On a miniature +scale, Italy then displayed political conditions analogous to those +which now prevail in Europe. The parcels of the nation adopted different +forms of self-government, sought divers foreign alliances, and owed no +allegiance to any central legislative or administrative body. I +therefore speak of the Italian confederation only in the same sense as +Europe may now be called a confederation of kindred races. + +In the year 1630, when Charles V. (of Austria and Spain) was crowned +Emperor at Bologna, this national independence had been irretrievably +lost by the Italians. This confederation of evenly-balanced Powers was +now exchanged for servitude beneath a foreign monarchy, and for +subjection to a cosmopolitan elective priesthood. + +The history of social, intellectual, and moral conditions in Italy +during the seventy years of the sixteenth century which followed +Charles's coronation at Bologna, forms the subject of this work; but +before entering upon these topics it will be well to devote one chapter +to considering with due brevity the partition of Italy into five States +in 1494, the dislocation of this order by the wars between Spain and +France for supremacy, the position in which the same States found +themselves respectively at the termination of those wars in 1527, and +the new settlement of the peninsula effected by Charles V. in 1529-30. + +The five members of the Italian federation in 1494 were the kingdom of +Naples, the Papacy, the Duchy of Milan, and the Republics of Venice and +Florence. Round them, in various relations of amity or hostility, were +grouped these minor Powers: the Republics of Genoa, Lucca, Siena; the +Duchy of Ferrara, including Modena and Reggio; the Marquisates of Mantua +and Montferrat; and the Duchy of Urbino. For our immediate purpose it is +not worth taking separate account of the Republic of Pisa, which was +practically though not thoroughly enslaved by Florence; or of the +despots in the cities of Romagna, the March. Umbria, and the Patrimony +of S. Peter, who were being gradually absorbed into the Papal +sovereignty. Nor need we at present notice Savoy, Piemonte, and Saluzzo. +Although these north-western provinces were all-important through the +period of Franco-Spanish wars, inasmuch as they opened the gate of Italy +to French armies, and supplied those armies with a base for military +operations, the Duchy of Savoy had not yet become an exclusively Italian +Power. + +The kingdom of Naples, on the death of Alfonso the Magnanimous in 1458, +had been separated from Sicily, and passed by testamentary appointment +to his natural son Ferdinand. The bastard Aragonese dynasty was Italian +in its tastes and interests, though unpopular both with the barons of +the realm and with the people, who in their restlessness were ready to +welcome any foreign deliverer from its oppressive yoke. This state of +general discontent rendered the revival of the old Angevine party, and +their resort to French aid, a source of peril to the monarchy. It also +served as a convenient fulcrum for the ambitious schemes of conquest +which the princes of the House of Aragon in Spain began to entertain. In +territorial extent the kingdom of Naples was the most considerable +parcel of the Italian community. It embraced the whole of Calabria, +Apulia, the Abruzzi, and the Terra di Lavoro; marching on its northern +boundary with the Papal States, and having no other neighbors. But +though so large and so compact a State, the semifeudal system of +government which had obtained in Naples since the first conquest of the +country by the Normans, the nature of its population, and the savage +dynastic wars to which it had been constantly exposed, rendered it more +backward in civilization than the northern and central provinces. + +The Papacy, after the ending of the schism and the settlement of +Nicholas V. at Rome in 1447, gradually tended to become an Italian +sovereignty. During the residence of the Popes at Avignon, and the +weakness of the Papal See which followed in the period of the Councils +(Pisa, Constance, and Basel), it had lost its hold not only on the +immediate neighborhood of Rome, but also on its outlying possessions in +Umbria, the Marches of Ancona, and the Exarchate of Ravenna. The great +Houses of Colonna and Orsini asserted independence in their +principalities. Bologna and Perugia pretended to republican government +under the shadow of noble families; Bentivogli, Bracci, Baglioni. Imola, +Faenza, Forli, Rimini, Pesaro, Urbino, Camerino, Citta di Castello, +obeyed the rule of tyrants, who were practically lords of these cities +though they bore the titles of Papal vicars, and who maintained +themselves in wealth and power by exercising the profession of +_condottieri_. It was the chief object of the Popes, after they were +freed from the pressing perils of General Councils, and were once more +settled in their capital and recognized as sovereigns by the European +Powers, to subdue their vassals and consolidate their provinces into a +homogeneous kingdom. This plan was conceived and carried out by a +succession of vigorous and unscrupulous Pontiffs--Sixtus IV., Alexander +VI., Julius II., and Leo X.--throughout the period of distracting +foreign wars which agitated Italy. They followed for the most part one +line of policy, which was to place the wealth and authority of the Holy +See at the disposal of their relatives, Riarios, Delia Roveres, Borgias, +and Medici. Their military delegates, among whom the most efficient +captain was the terrible Cesare Borgia, had full power to crush the +liberties of cities, exterminate the dynasties of despots, and reduce +refractory districts to the Papal sway. For these services they were +rewarded with ducal and princely titles, with the administration of +their conquests, and with the investiture of fiefs as vassals of the +Church. The system had its obvious disadvantages. It tended to indecent +nepotism; and as Pope succeeded Pope at intervals of a few years, each +bent on aggrandizing his own family at the expense of those of his +predecessors and the Church, the ecclesiastical States were kept in a +continual ferment of expropriation and internal revolution. Yet it is +difficult to conceive how a spiritual Power like the Papacy could have +solved the problem set before it of becoming a substantial secular +sovereignty, without recourse to this ruinous method. The Pope, a +lonely man upon an ill-established throne, surrounded by rivals whom +his elevation had disappointed, was compelled to rely on the strong arm +of adventurers with whose interests his own were indissolubly connected. +The profits of all these schemes of egotistical rapacity eventually +accrued, not to the relatives of the Pontiffs; none of whom, except the +Delia Roveres in Urbino, founded a permanent dynasty at this period; but +to the Holy See. Julius II., for example, on his election in 1503, +entered into possession of all that Cesare Borgia had attempted to grasp +for his own use. He found the Orsini and Colonna humbled, Romagna +reduced to submission; and he carried on the policy of conquest by +trampling out the liberties of Bologna and Perugia, recovering the +cities held by Venice on the coast of Ravenna, and extending his sway +over Emilia. The martial energy of Julius added Parma and Piacenza to +the States of the Church, and detached Modena and Reggio from the Duchy +of Ferrara. These new cities were gained by force; but Julius pretended +that they formed part of the Exarchate of Ravenna, which had been +granted to his predecessors by Pepin and Charles the Great. He pursued +the Papal line of conquest in a nobler spirit than his predecessors, not +seeking to advance his relatives so much as to reinstate the Church in +her dominions. But he was reckless in the means employed to secure this +object. Italy was devastated by wars stirred up, and by foreign armies +introduced, in order that the Pope might win a point in the great game +of ecclesiastical aggrandizement. That his successor, Leo X., reverted +to the former plan of carving principalities for his relatives out of +the possessions of their neighbors and the Church, may be counted among +the most important causes of the final ruin of Italian independence. + +Of the Duchy of Milan it is not necessary to speak at any great length, +although the wars between France and Spain were chiefly carried on for +its possession. It had been formed into a compact domain, of +comparatively small extent, but of vast commercial and agricultural +resources, by the two dynasties of Visconti and Sforza. In 1494 Lodovico +Sforza, surnamed Il Moro, ruled Milan for his nephew, the titular Duke, +whom he kept in gilded captivity, and whom he eventually murdered. In +order to secure his usurped authority, this would-be Machiavelli thought +it prudent to invite Charles VIII. into Italy. Charles was to assert his +right to the throne of Naples. Lodovico was to be established in the +Duchy of Milan. All his subsequent troubles arose from this transaction. +Charles came, conquered, and returned to France, disturbing the +political equilibrium of the Italian States, and founding a disastrous +precedent for future foreign interference. His successor in the French +kingdom, Louis XII., believed he had a title to the Duchy of Milan +through his grandmother Valentina, daughter of Gian Galeazzo Visconti. +The claim was not a legal one; for in the investiture of the Duchy +females were excluded. It sufficed, however, to inflame the cupidity of +Louis; and while he was still but Duke of Orleans, with no sure prospect +of inheriting the crown of France, he seems to have indulged the fancy +of annexing Milan. No sooner had he ascended the French throne than he +began to act upon this ambition. He descended into Lombardy, overran the +Milanese, sent Lodovico Sforza to die in a French prison, and initiated +the duel between Spain and France for mastery, which ended with the +capture of Francis I. at Pavia, and his final cession of all rights over +Italy to Charles V. by the Treaty of Cambray. + +Of all the republics which had conferred luster upon Italy in its +mediaeval period of prosperity Venice alone remained independent. She +never submitted to a tyrant; and her government, though growing yearly +more closely oligarchical, was acknowledged to be just and liberal. +During the centuries of her greatest power Venice hardly ranked among +Italian States. It had been her policy to confine herself to the lagoons +and to the extension of her dominion over the Levant. In the fifteenth +century, however, this policy was abandoned. Venice first possessed +herself of Padua, by exterminating the despotic House of Carrara; next +of Verona, by destroying the Scala dynasty. Subsequently, during the +long dogeship of Francesco Foscari (1423-1457), she devoted herself in +good earnest to the acquisition of territory upon the mainland. Then +she entered as a Power of the first magnitude into the system of purely +Italian politics. The Republic of S. Mark owned the sea coast of the +Adriatic from Aquileia to the mouths of the Po; and her Lombard +dependencies stretched as far as Bergamo westward. Her Italian neighbors +were, therefore, the Duchy of Milan, the little Marquisate of Mantua, +and the Duchy of Ferrara. When Constantinople fell in 1453, Venice was +still more tempted to pursue this new policy of Italian aggrandizement. +Meanwhile her growing empire seemed to menace the independence of less +wealthy neighbors. The jealousy thus created and the cupidity which +brought her into collision with Julius II. in 1508, exposed Venice to +the crushing blow inflicted on her power by the combined forces of +Europe in the war of the League of Cambray. From this blow, as well as +from the simultaneous decline of their Oriental and Levantine commerce, +the Venetians never recovered. + +When we turn to the Florentines, we find that at the same epoch, 1494, +their ancient republican constitution had been fatally undermined by the +advances of the family of Medici towards despotism. Lorenzo de'Medici, +who enjoyed the credit of maintaining the equilibrium of Italy by wise +diplomacy, had lately died. He left his son Piero, a hot-headed and rash +young man, to control the affairs of the commonwealth, as he had +previously controlled them, with a show of burgherlike equality, but +with the reality of princely power. Another of his sons, Giovanni, +received the honor of the Cardinalship. The one was destined to +compromise the ascendency of his family in Florence for a period of +eighteen years, the other was destined to re-establish that ascendency +on a new and more despotic basis. Piero had not his father's prudence, +and could not maintain himself in the delicate position of a commercial +and civil tyrant. During the disturbances caused by the invasion of +Charles VIII. he was driven with all his relatives into exile. The +Medici were restored in 1512, after the battle of Ravenna, by Spanish +troops, at the petition of the Cardinal Giovanni. The elevation of this +man to the Papacy in 1513 enabled him to plant two of his nephews, as +rulers, in Florence, and to pave the way whereby a third eventually rose +to the dignity of the tiara. Clement VII. finally succeeded in rendering +Florence subject to the Medici, by extinguishing the last sparks of +republican opposition, and by so modifying the dynastic protectorate of +his family that it was easily converted into a titular Grand Duchy. + +The federation of these five Powers had been artificially maintained +during the half century of Italy's highest intellectual activity. That +was the epoch when the Italians nearly attained to coherence as a +nation, through common interests in art and humanism, and by the +complicated machinery of diplomatic relations. The federation perished +when foreign Powers chose Lombardy and Naples for their fields of +battle. The disasters of the next thirty-three years (1494-1527) began +in earnest on the day when Louis XII. claimed Milan and the Regno. He +committed his first mistake by inviting Ferdinand the Catholic to share +in the partition of Naples. That province was easily conquered; but +Ferdinand retained the whole spoils for himself, securing a large +Italian dependency and a magnificent basis of operations for the Spanish +Crown. Then Louis made a second mistake by proposing to the visionary +Emperor Maximilian that he should aid France in subjugating Venice. We +have few instances on record of short-sighted diplomacy to match the +Treaties of Granada and Blois (1501 and 1504), through which this +monarch, acting rather as a Duke of Milan than a King of France, +complicated his Italian schemes by the introduction of two such +dangerous allies as the Austrian Emperor and the Spanish sovereign, +while the heir of both was in his cradle--that fatal child of fortune +Charles. + +The stage of Italy was now prepared for a conflict which in no wise +interested her prosperous cities and industrious population. Spain, +France, Germany, with their Swiss auxiliaries, had been summoned upon +various pretexts to partake of the rich prey she offered. Patriots like +Machiavelli perceived too late the suicidal self-indulgence which, by +substituting mercenary troops for national militia, and by accustoming +selfish tyrants to rely on foreign aid, had exposed the Italians +defenceless to the inroads of their warlike neighbors. Whatever parts +the Powers of Italy might play, the game was really in the hands of +French, Spanish, and German invaders. Meanwhile the mutual jealousies +and hatreds of those Powers, kept in check by no tie stronger than +diplomacy, prevented them from forming any scheme of common action. One +great province (Naples) had fallen into Spanish hands; another (Milan) +lay open through the passes of the Alps to France. The Papacy, in the +center, manipulated these two hostile foreign forces with some advantage +to itself, but with ever-deepening disaster for the race. As in the days +of Guelf and Ghibelline, so now again the nation was bisected. The +contest between French and Spanish factions became cruel. Personal +interests were substituted for principles; cross-combinations perplexed +the real issues of dispute; while one sole fact emerged into +distinctness--that, whatever happened, Italy must be the spoil of the +victorious duelist. + +The practical termination of this state of things arrived in the battle +of Pavia, when Francis was removed as a prisoner to Madrid, and in the +sack of Rome, when the Pope was imprisoned in the Castle of S. Angelo. +It was then found that the laurels and the profit of the bloody contest +remained with the King of Spain. What the people suffered from the +marching and countermarching of armies, from the military occupations of +towns, from the desolation of rural districts, from ruinous campaigns +and sanguinary battles, from the pillage of cities and the massacres of +their inhabitants, can best be read in Burigozzo's _Chronicle of Milan_, +in the details of the siege of Brescia and the destruction of Pavia, in +the _Chronicle of Prato_, and in the several annals of the sack of Rome. +The exhaustion of the country seemed complete; the spirit of the people +was broken. But what soon afterwards became apparent, and what in 1527 +might have been thought incredible, was that the single member of the +Italian union which profited by these apocalyptic sufferings of the +nation, was the Papacy. Clement VII., imprisoned in the Castle of S. +Angelo, forced day and night to gaze upon his capital in flames and hear +the groans of tortured Romans, emerged the only vigorous survivor of the +five great Powers on whose concert Italian independence had been +founded. Instead of being impaired, the position of the Papacy had been +immeasurably improved. Owing to the prostration of Italy, there was now +no resistance to the Pope's secular supremacy within the limits of his +authorized dominion. The defeat of France and the accession of a Spanish +monarch to the Empire guaranteed peace. No foreign force could levy +armies or foment uprisings in the name of independence. Venice had been +stunned and mutilated by the League of Cambray. Florence had been +enslaved after the battle of Ravenna. Milan had been relinquished, +out-worn, and depopulated, to the nominal ascendency of an impotent +Sforza. Naples was a province of the Spanish monarchy. The feudal +vassals and the subject cities of the Holy See had been ground and +churned together by a series of revolutions unexampled even in the +mediaeval history of the Italian communes. If, therefore, the Pope could +come to terms with the King of Spain for the partition of supreme +authority in the peninsula, they might henceforward share the mangled +remains of the Italian prey at peace together. This is precisely what +they resolved on doing. The basis of their agreement was laid in the +Treaty of Barcelona in 1529. It was ratified and secured by the Treaty +of Cambray in the same year. By the former of these compacts Charles and +Clement swore friendship. Clement promised the Imperial crown and the +investiture of Naples to the King of Spain. Charles agreed to reinstate +the Pope in Emilia, which had been seized from Ferrara by Julius II.; to +procure the restoration of Ravenna and Cervia by the Venetians; to +subdue Florence to the House of Medici; and to bestow the hand of his +natural daughter Margaret of Austria on Clement's bastard nephew +Alessandro, who was already designated ruler of the city. By the Treaty +of Cambray Francis I. relinquished his claims on Italy and abandoned his +Italian supporters without conditions, receiving in exchange the +possession of Burgundy. The French allies who were sacrificed on this +occasion by the Most Christian to the Most Catholic Monarch consisted +of the Republics of Venice and Florence, the Dukes of Milan and Ferrara, +the princely Houses of Orsini and Fregosi in Rome and Genoa, together +with the Angevine nobles in the realm of Naples. The Paix des Dames, as +this act of capitulation was called (since it had been drawn up in +private conclave by Louise of Savoy and Margaret of Austria, the mother +and the aunt of the two signatories), was a virtual acknowledgment of +the fact that French influence in Italy was at an end.[1] + +The surrender of Italy by Francis made it necessary that Charles V. +should put in order the vast estates to which he now succeeded as sole +master. He was, moreover, Emperor Elect; and he judged this occasion +good for assuming the two crowns according to antique custom. +Accordingly in July, 1529, he caused Andrea Doria to meet him at +Barcelona, crossed the Mediterranean in a rough passage of fourteen +days, landed at Genoa on August 12, and proceeded by Piacenza, Parma and +Modena to Bologna, where Clement VII. was already awaiting him. The +meeting of Charles and Clement at Bologna was so solemn an event in +Italian history, and its results were so important for the several +provinces of the peninsula, that I may be excused for enlarging at some +length upon this episode. + +[Footnote 1: It is significant for the future of Italy that both the +ladies who drew up this agreement were connected with Savoy. Louise, +Duchess of Angouleme, was a daughter of the house. Margaret, daughter of +Maximilian, was Duchess Dowager of Savoy.] + +With pomp and pageantry it closed an age of unrivaled intellectual +splendor and of unexampled sufferings through war. By diplomacy and +debate it prescribed laws for a new age of unexpected ecclesiastical +energy and of national peace procured at the price of slavery. +Illustrious survivors from the period of the pagan Renaissance met here +with young men destined to inaugurate the Catholic Revival. The compact +struck between Emperor and Pope in private conferences, laid a basis for +that firm alliance between Spain and Rome which seriously influenced the +destinies of Europe. Finally, this was the last occasion upon which a +modern Caesar received the iron and golden crowns in Italy from the +hands of a Roman Pontiff. The fortunate inheritor of Spain, the Two +Sicilies, Austria and the Low Countries, who then assumed them both at +the age of twenty-nine, was not only the last who wielded the Imperial +insignia with imperial authority, but was also a far more formidable +potentate in Italy than any of his predecessors since Charles the Great +had been.[2] + + +[Footnote 2: In what follows regarding Charles V. at Bologna I am +greatly indebted to Giordani's laboriously compiled volume: _Della +Venuta e Dimora in Bologna del Sommo Pont. Clemente VII. etc._ (Bologna, +1832).] + +That Charles should have employed the galleys of Doria for the +transhipment of his person, suite, and military escort from Barcelona, +deserves a word of comment. Andrea Doria had been bred in the service of +the French crown, upon which Genoa was in his youth dependent. He +formed a navy of decisive preponderance in the western Mediterranean, +and in return for services rendered to Francis in the Neapolitan +campaign of 1528, he demanded the liberation of his native city. When +this was refused, Doria transferred his allegiance to the Spaniard, +surprised Genoa and reinstated the republic, magnanimously refusing to +secure its tyranny for himself or even to set the ducal cap upon his +head. Charles invested him with the principality of Melfi and made him a +Grandee of Spain. By this series of events Genoa was prepared to accept +the yoke of Spanish influence and customs, which pressed so heavily in +the succeeding century on Italy. + +Charles had a body of 2000 Spaniards already quartered at Genoa, as well +as strong garrisons in the Milanese, and a force of about 7000 troops +collected by the Prince of Orange from the _debris_ of the army which +had plundered Rome. While he was on his road from Genoa to Bologna, this +force was already moving upon Florence. He brought with him as escort +some 10,000 men, counting horse and infantry. The total of the troops +which obeyed his word in Italy might be computed at about 27,000, +including Spanish cavalry and foot-soldiers, German lansknechts and +Italian mercenaries. This large army, partly stationed in important +posts of defence, partly in movement, was sufficient to make every word +of his a law. The French were in no position to interfere with his +arrangements. His brother Ferdinand, King of Bohemia and Hungary, was +engaged in a doubtful contest with Soliman before the gates of Vienna. +He was himself the most considerable potentate in Germany, then +distracted by the struggles of the Reformation. Italy lay crushed and +prostrate, trampled down by armies, exhausted by impost and exactions, +terrorized by brutal violence. That Charles had come to speak his will +and be obeyed was obvious. + +To greet the king on his arrival at Genoa, Clement deputed two +ambassadors, the Cardinals Ercole Gonzaga and Monsignor Gianmatteo +Giberti, Bishop of Verona. Gonzaga was destined to play a part of +critical importance in the Tridentine Council. Giberti had made himself +illustrious in the Church by the administration of his diocese on a +system which anticipated the coming ecclesiastical reforms, and was +already famous in the world of letters by his generous familiarity with +students.[3] Three other men of high distinction and of fateful future +waited on their imperial master. Of these the first was Cardinal +Alessandro Farnese, who succeeded Clement in the Papacy, opened the +Tridentine Council, and added a new reigning family to the Italian +princes. The others were the Pope's nephews, Alessandro de'Medici, Duke +of Florence designate, and his cousin the Cardinal Ippolito de'Media. +Six years later, Ippolito died at Itri, poisoned by his cousin +Alessandro, who was himself murdered at Florence in 1537 by another +cousin, Lorenzino de'Medici. + +[Footnote 3: See _Ren. in It._, vol. v. p. 357.] + +It had been intended that Charles should travel to Bologna from Parma +through Mantua, where the Marquis Federigo Gonzaga had made great +preparations for his reception. But the route by Reggio and Modena was +more direct; and, yielding to the solicitations of Alfonso, Duke of +Ferrara, he selected this instead. One of the stipulations of the Treaty +of Barcelona, it will be remembered, had been that the Emperor should +restore Emilia--that is to say, the cities and territories of Modena, +Reggio, and Rubbiera--to the Papacy. Clement regarded Alfonso as a +contumacious vassal, although his own right to that province only rested +on the force of arms by which Julius II. had detached it from the Duchy +of Ferrara. It was therefore somewhat difficult for Charles to accept +the duke's hospitality. But when he had once done so, Alfonso knew how +to ingratiate himself so well with the arbiter of Italy, that on taking +leave of his guest upon the confines of Bologna, he had already secured +the success of his own cause. + +Great preparations, meanwhile, were being made in Bologna. The misery +and destitution of the country rendered money scarce, and cast a gloom +over the people. It was noticed that when Clement entered the city on +October 24, none of the common folk responded to the shouts of his +attendants, _Viva Papa Clemente_! The Pope and his Court, too, were in +mourning. They had but recently escaped from the horrors of the Sack of +Rome, and were under a vow to wear their beards unshorn in memory of +their past sufferings. Yet the municipality and nobles of Bologna +exerted their utmost in these bad times to render the reception of the +Emperor worthy of the luster which his residence and coronation would +confer upon them. Gallant guests began to flock into the city. Among +these may be mentioned the brilliant Isabella d'Este, sister of Duke +Alfonso, and mother of the reigning Marquis of Mantua. She arrived on +November 1 with a glittering train of beautiful women, and took up her +residence in the Palazzo Manzoli. Her quarters obtained no good fame in +the following months; for the ladies of her suite were liberal of +favors. Jousts, masquerades, street-brawls, and duels were of frequent +occurrence beneath her windows--Spaniards and Italians disputing the +honor of those light amours. On November 3 came Andrea Doria with his +relative, the Cardinal Girolamo of that name. About the same time, +Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggi, Bishop of Bologna, returned from his legation +to England, where (as students of our history are well aware) he had +been engaged upon the question of Henry VIII.'s divorce from Katharine +of Aragon. Next day Charles arrived outside the gate, and took up his +quarters in the rich convent of Certosa, which now forms the Campo +Santo. + +He was surrounded by a multitude of ambassadors and delegates from the +Bolognese magistracy, by Cardinals and ecclesiastics of all ranks, some +of whom had attended him from the frontier, while others were drawn up +to receive him. November 5 was a Friday, and this day was reckoned lucky +by Charles. He therefore passed the night of the 4th at the Certosa, and +on the following morning made his solemn entry into the city. A +bodyguard of Germans, Burgundians, Spaniards, halberdiers, lansknechts, +men at arms, and cannoneers, preceded him. High above these was borne +the captain-general of the imperial force in Italy, the fierce and cruel +Antonio de Leyva, under whose oppression Milan had been groaning. This +ruthless tyrant was a martyr to gout and rheumatism. He could not ride +or walk; and though he retained the whole vigor of his intellect and +will, it was with difficulty that he moved his hands or head. He +advanced in a litter of purple velvet, supported on the shoulders of his +slaves. Among the splendid crowd of Spanish grandees who followed the +troops, it is enough to mention the Grand Marshal, Don Alvaro Osorio, +Marquis of Astorga, who carried a naked sword aloft. He was armed, on +horseback; and his mantle of cloth of gold blazed with dolphins worked +in pearls and precious stones. Next came Charles, mounted on a bay +jennet, armed at all points, and holding in his hand the scepter. +Twenty-four pages, chosen from the nobles of Bologna, waited on his +bridle and stirrups. The train was brought up by a multitude of secular +and ecclesiastical princes too numerous to record in detail. Conspicuous +among them for the historian were the Count of Nassau, Albert of +Brandenburg, and the Marquis Bonifazio of Montferrat, the scion of the +Eastern Paleologi. As this procession defiled through the streets of +Bologna, it was remarked that Charles, with true Spanish haughtiness, +made no response to the acclamations of the people, except once when, +passing beneath a balcony of noble ladies, he acknowledged their salute +by lifting the cap from his head. + +Clement, surrounded by a troop of prelates, was seated to receive him on +a platform raised before the church of San Petronio in the great piazza. +The king dismounted opposite the Papal throne, ascended the steps +beneath his canopy of gold and crimson, and knelt to kiss the Pontiff's +feet. When their eyes first met, it was observed that both turned pale; +for the memory of outraged Rome was in the minds of both; and Caesar, +while he paid this homage to Christ's Vicar, had the load of those long +months of suffering and insult on his conscience. Clement bent down, and +with streaming eyes saluted him upon the cheek. Then, when Charles was +still upon his knees, they exchanged a few set words referring to the +purpose of their meeting and their common desire for the pacification of +Christendom. After this the Emperor elect rose, seated himself for a +while beside the Pope, and next, at his invitation, escorted him to the +great portal of the church. On the way, he inquired after Clement's +health; to which the Pope replied somewhat significantly that, after +leaving Rome, it had steadily improved. He tempered this allusion to his +captivity, however, by adding that his eagerness to greet his Majesty +had inspired him with more than wonted strength and courage. At the +doorway they parted; and the Emperor, having paid his devotions to the +Sacrament and kissed the altar, was conducted to the apartments prepared +for him in the Palazzo Pubblico. These were adjacent to the Pope's +lodgings in the same palace, and were so arranged that the two +potentates could confer in private at all times. It is worthy of remark +that the negotiations for the settlement of Italy which took place +during the next six months in those rooms, were conducted personally by +the high contracting parties, and that none of their deliberations +transpired until the result of each was made public. + +The whole of November 5 had been occupied in these ceremonies. It was +late evening when the Emperor gained his lodgings. The few next days +were ostensibly occupied in receiving visitors. Among the first of these +was the unfortunate ex-queen of Naples, Isabella, widow of Frederick of +Aragon, the last king of the bastard dynasty founded by Alfonso. She was +living in poverty at Ferrara, under the protection of her relatives, the +Este family, On the 13th came the Prince of Orange and Don Ferrante +Gonzaga, from the camp before Florence. The siege had begun, but had not +yet been prosecuted with the strictest vigor. During the whole time of +Charles's residence at Bologna, it must be borne in mind that the siege +of Florence was being pressed. Superfluous troops detached from garrison +duty in the Lombard towns were drafted across the hills to Tuscany. +Whatever else the Emperor might decide for his Italian subjects, this at +least was certain: Florence should be restored to the Medicean tyrants, +as compensation to the Pope for Roman sufferings. The Prince of Orange +came to explain the state of things at Florence, where government and +people seemed prepared to resist to the death. Gonzaga had private +business of his own to conduct, touching his engagement to the Pope's +ward, Isabella, daughter and heiress of the wealthy Vespasiano Colonna. + +Meanwhile, ambassadors from all the States and lordships of Italy +flocked to Bologna. Great nobles from the South--Ascanio Colonna, Grand +Constable of Naples; Alfonso d'Avalos, Marquis of Vasto; Giovanni Luigi +Caraffa, Prince of Stigliano--took up their quarters in adjacent houses, +or in the upper story of the Public Palace. The Marquis of Vasto arrests +our graze for a moment. He was nephew to the Marquis of Pescara (husband +of Vittoria Colonna), who had the glory of taking Francis prisoner at +Pavia, and afterwards the infamy of betraying the unfortunate Girolamo +Morone and his master the Duke of Milan to the resentment of the Spanish +monarch. What part Pescara actually played in that dark passage of plot +and counterplot remains obscure. But there is no doubt that he employed +treachery, single if not double, for his own advantage. His arrogance +and avowed hostility to the Italians caused his very name to be +execrated; nor did his nephew, the Marquis of Vasto, differ in these +respects from the more famous chief of his house. This man was also +destined to obtain an evil reputation when he succeeded in 1532 to the +government of Milan. Here too may be noticed the presence at Bologna of +Girolamo Morone's son, who had been created Bishop of Modena in 1529. +For him a remarkable fate was waiting. Condemned to the dungeons of the +Inquisition as a heretic by Paul IV., rescued by Pius IV., and taken +into highest favor at that Pontiff's Court, he successfully manipulated +the closing of the Tridentine Council to the profit of the Papal See. + +Negotiations for the settlement of Italian affairs were proceeding +without noise, but with continual progress, through this month. The +lodgings of ambassadors and lords were so arranged in the Palazzo +Pubblico that they, like their Imperial and Papal masters, could confer +at all times and seasons. Every day brought some new illustrious +visitor. On the 22nd arrived Federigo Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, who +took up his quarters in immediate proximity to Charles and Clement. His +business required but little management. The house of Gonzaga was +already well affected to the Spanish cause, and counted several captains +in the imperial army. Charles showed his favor by raising Mantua to the +rank of a Duchy. It was different with the Republic of Venice and the +Duke of Milan. The Emperor elect had reasons to be strongly prejudiced +against them both--against Venice as the most formidable of the French +allies in the last war; against Francesco Maria Sforza, as having been +implicated, though obscurely, in Morone's conspiracy to drive the +Spaniards from Italy and place the crown of Naples on Pescara's head. +Clement took both under his protection. He had sufficient reasons to +believe that the Venetians would purchase peace by the cession of their +recent acquisitions on the Adriatic coast, and he knew that the +pacification of Italy could not be accomplished without their aid. In +effect, the Republic agreed to relinquish Cervia and Ravenna to the +Pope, and their Apulian ports to Charles, engaging at the same time to +pay a sum of 300,000 ducats and stipulating for an amnesty to all their +agents and dependents. It is not so clear why Clement warmly espoused +the cause of Sforza. That he did so is certain. He obtained a +safe-conduct for the duke, and made it a point of personal favor that he +should be received into the Emperor's grace. This stipulation appears to +have been taken into account when the affairs of Ferrara were decided +at a later date against the Papal interests. + +Francesco Maria Sforza appeared in Bologna on the 22nd. This unfortunate +bearer of one of the most coveted titles in Europe had lately lived a +prisoner in his own Castello, while the city at his doors and the +fertile country round it were being subjected to cruelest outrage and +oppression from Spanish, French, Swiss, and German mercenaries. He was a +man ruined in health as well as fortune. Six years before this date, one +of his chamberlains, Bonifazio Visconti, had given him a slight wound in +the shoulder with a poisoned dagger. From this wound he never recovered; +and it was pitiable to behold the broken man, unable to move or stand +without support, dragging himself upon his knees to Caesar's footstool. +Charles appears to have discerned that he had nothing to fear and much +to gain, if he showed clemency to so powerless a suitor. Franceso was +the last of his line. His health rendered it impossible that he should +expect heirs; and although he subsequently married a princess of the +House of Denmark, he died childless in the autumn of 1535. It was +therefore determined, in compliance with the Pope's request, that Sforza +should be confirmed in the Duchy of Milan. Pavia, however, was detached +and given to the terrible Antonio de Leyva for his lifetime. The +garrisons of Milan and Como were left in Spanish hands; and the duke +promised to wring 400,000 ducats as the price of his investiture, with +an additional sum of 500,000 ducats to be paid in ten yearly +instalments, from his already blood-sucked people. It will be observed +that money figured largely in all these high political transactions. +Charles, though lord of many lands, was, even at this early stage of his +career, distressed for want of cash. He rarely paid his troops, but +commissioned the captains in his service to levy contributions on the +provinces they occupied. The funds thus raised did not always reach the +pockets of the soldiers, who subsisted as best they could by marauding. +Having made these terms, Francesco Maria Sforza was received into the +Imperial favor. He returned to Milan, in no sense less a prisoner than +he had previously been, and with the heart-rending necessity of +extorting money from his subjects at the point of Spanish swords. In +exchange for the ducal title, he thus had made himself a tax-collector +for his natural enemies. Secluded in the dreary chambers of his castle, +assailed by the execrations of the Milanese, he may well have groaned, +like Marlowe's Edward-- + + But what are Kings, when regiment is gone, + But perfect shadows in a sunshine day? + My foemen rule; I bear the name of King; + I wear the crown; but am controlled by them. + +When he died he bequeathed his duchy to the crown of Spain. It was +detached from the Empire, and became the private property of Charles and +of his son, Philip II. + +During the month of December negotiations for the terms of peace in +Italy went briskly forward. On the part of Venice, two men of the +highest distinction arrived as orators. These were Pietro Bembo and +Gasparo Contarini, both of whom received the honors of the Cardinalate +from Paul III. on his accession. Of Bembo's place in Italian society, as +the dictator of literature at this epoch, I have already sufficiently +spoken in another part of my work on the Renaissance. Contarini will +more than once arrest our notice in the course of this volume. Of all +the Italians of the time, he was perhaps the greatest, wisest, and most +sympathetic. Had it been possible to avert the breach between +Catholicism and Protestantism, to curb the intolerance of Inquisitors +and the ambition of Jesuits, and to guide the reform of the Church by +principles of moderation and liberal piety, Contarini was the man who +might have restored unity to the Church in Europe. Once, indeed, at +Regensburg in 1541, he seemed upon the very point of effecting a +reconciliation between the parties that were tearing Christendom +asunder. But his failure was even more conspicuous than his momentary +semblance of success. It was not in the temper of the times to accept a +Concordat founded on however philosophical, however politic, +considerations. Contarini will be remembered as a 'beautiful soul,' born +out of the due moment, and by no means adequate to cope with the fierce +passions that raged round him. Among Protestants he was a Catholic, and +they regarded his half measures with contempt. Among Catholics he passed +for a suspected Lutheran, and his writings were only tolerated after +they had been subjected to rigorous castration at the hands of Papal +Inquisitors.[4] + +On Christmas eve the ambassadors and representatives of the Italian +powers met together in the chambers of Cardinal Gattinara, Grand +Chancellor of the Empire, to subscribe the terms of a confederation and +perpetual league for the maintenance of peace. From this important +document the Florentines were excluded, as open rebels to the will of +Charles and Clement. There was no justice in the rigor with which +Florence was now treated. Her republican independence had hitherto been +recognized, although her own internal discords exposed her to a virtual +despotism. But Clement stipulated and Charles conceded, as a _sine qua +non_ in the project of pacification, that Florence should be converted +into a Medicean duchy. For the Duke of Ferrara, whom the Pope regarded +as a contumacious vassal, and whose affairs were still the subject of +debate, a place was specially reserved in the treaty. He, as I have +already observed, had been taken under the Imperial protection; and a +satisfactory settlement of his claims was now a mere question of time. +On the evening of the same day, the Pope bestowed on Charles the Sword +of the Spirit, which it was the wont of Rome to confer on the +best-beloved of her secular sons at this festival. The peace was +publicly proclaimed, amid universal plaudits, on the last day of the +year 1529. + +[Footnote 4: See Ranke, vol. i. p. 153, note.] + +The chief affairs to be decided in the new year were the reduction of +Florence to submission and the coronation of the Emperor. The month of +January was passed in jousts and pastimes; ceremonial privileges were +conferred on the University of Bologna; magnificent embassies from the +Republic of S. Mark, glowing in senatorial robes of crimson silk, were +entertained; and a singular deputation from the African court of Prester +John obtained audience of the Roman Pontiff. Amid these festivities +there arrived, on January 16, three delegates from Florence, who spent +some weeks in fruitless efforts to obtain a hearing from the arbiters of +Italy. Clement refused to deal with them, because their commonwealth was +still refractory. Charles repelled them, because he wished to gratify +the Pope, and knew that Florence remained staunch in her devotion to the +French crown. The old proverb, 'Lilies with lilies,' the white lily of +Florence united with the golden fleur-de-lys of France, had still +political significance in this day of Italian degradation. Meanwhile +Francis I. treated his faithful allies with lukewarm tolerance. The +smaller fry of Italian potentates, worshipers of the rising sun of +Spain, curried favor with their masters by insulting the republic's +representatives. On their return to Florence, the ambassadors had to +report a total diplomatic failure. But this, far from breaking the +untamable spirit of the Signory and people, prompted them in February to +new efforts of resistance and to edicts of outlawry against citizens +whom they regarded as traitors to the State. Among the proscribed were +Francesco Guicciardini, Roberto Acciaiuoli, Francesco Vettori, and +Baccio Valori. Of these men Francesco Guicciardini, Francesco Vettori, +and Baccio Valori were attendant at Bologna upon the Pope. They all +adhered with fidelity to the Medicean party at this crisis of their +country's fate, and all paid dearly for their loyalty. When Cosimo I., +by their efforts, was established in the duchy, he made it one of his +first cares to rid himself of these too faithful servants. Baccio Valori +was beheaded after the battle of Montemurlo in 1537 for practice with +the exiles of Filippo Strozzi's party. Francesco Guicciardini, Francesco +Vettori, and Roberto Acciaiuoli died in disgrace before the year +1543--their only crime being that they had made themselves the ladder +whereby a Medici had climbed into his throne, and which it was his +business to upset when firmly seated. For the heroism of Florence at +this moment it would be difficult to find fit words of panegyric. The +republic stood alone, abandoned by France to the hot rage of Clement and +the cold contempt of Charles, deserted by the powers of Italy, betrayed +by lying captains, deluged on all sides with the scum of armies pouring +into Tuscany from the Lombard pandemonium of war. The situation was one +of impracticable difficulty. Florence could not but fall. Yet every +generous heart will throb with sympathy while reading the story of that +final stand for independence, in which a handful of burghers persisted, +though congregated princes licked the dust from feet of Emperor and +Pontiff. + +Charles had come to assume the iron and the golden crowns in Italy. He +ought to have journeyed to Monza or to S. Ambrogio at Milan for the +first, and to the Lateran in Rome for the second of these investitures. +An Emperor of the Swabian House would have been compelled by precedent +and superstition to observe this form. It is true that the coronation of +a German prince as the successor of Lombard kings and Roman Augusti, had +always been a symbolic ceremony rather than a rite which ratified +genuine Imperial authority. Still the ceremony connoted many mediaeval +aspirations. It was the outward sign of theories that had once exerted +an ideal influence. To dissociate the two-fold sacrament from Milan and +from Rome was the same as robbing it of its main virtue, the virtue of a +mystical conception. It was tantamount to a demonstration that the +belief in Universal Monarchy had passed away. By breaking the old rules +of his investiture, Charles notified the disappearance of the mediaeval +order, and proclaimed new political ideals to the world. When asked +whether he would not follow custom and seek the Lombard crown in Monza, +he brutally replied that he was not wont to run after crowns, but to +have crowns running after him. He trampled no less on that still more +venerable _religio loci_ which attached imperial rights to Rome. +Together with this ancient piety, he swept the Holy Roman Empire into +the dust-heap of archaic curiosities. By declaring his will to be +crowned where he chose, he emphasized the modern state motto of _L'etat, +c'est moi_, and prepared the way for a Pope's closing of a General +Council by the word _L'Eglise, c'est moi_. Charles had sufficient +reasons for acting as he did. The Holy Roman Empire ever since the first +event of Charles the Great's coronation, when it justified itself as a +diplomatical expedient for unifying Western Christendom, had existed +more or less as a shadow. Charles violated the duties which alone gave +the semblance of a substance to that shadow. As King of Italy, he had +desolated the Lombard realm of which he sought the title. As Emperor +elect, he had ravished his bride, the Eternal City. As suitor to the +Pope for both of his expected crowns, he stood responsible for the +multiplied insults to which Clement had been so recently exposed. No +Emperor had been more powerful since Charles the Great than this Charles +V., the last who took his crowns in Italy. It was significant that he +man in whose name Rome had suffered outrage, and who was about to detach +Lombardy from the Empire, was by his own will invested at Bologna. The +citizens of Monza were accordingly bidden to send the iron crown to +Bologna. It arrived on February 20, and on the 22nd Charles received it +from the hands of Clement in the chapel of the palace. The Cardinal who +performed the ceremony of unction was a Fleming, William Hencheneor, who +in the Sack of Rome had bought his freedom for the large sum of 40,000 +crowns. On this auspicious occasion he cut off half the beard which he +still wore in sign of mourning! + +The Duke and Duchess of Urbino made their entrance into Bologna on the +same day. Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, Prefect of Rome, +and Captain General of the armies of the Church, was one of the most +noted warriors of that time. Yet victory had rarely crowned his brows +with laurels. Imitating the cautious tactics of Braccio, and emulating +the fame of Fabius Cunctator, he reduced the art of war to a system of +manoeuvres, and rarely risked his fortune in the field. It was chiefly +due to his dilatory movements that the disaster of the Sack of Rome was +not averted. He had been expelled by Leo X. from his duchy to make room +for Lorenzo de'Medici, and report ran that a secret desire to witness +the humiliation of a Medicean Pontiff caused him to withhold his forces +from attacking the tumultuary troops of Bourbon. Francesco Maria was a +man of violent temper; nineteen years before, he had murdered the Pope's +Legate, Cardinal Francesco Alidosi, with his dagger, in the open +streets of Bologna. His wife, Eleanora Ippolita Gonzaga, presided with +grace over that brilliant and cultivated Court which Castiglione made +famous by his _Cortegiano_. The Duke and Duchess survive to posterity in +two masterpieces of portraiture by the hand of Titian which now adorn +the Gallery of the Uffizzi. + +February 24, which was the anniversary of Charles's birthday, had been +fixed for his coronation as Emperor in San Petronio. This church is one +of the largest Gothic buildings in Italy. Its facade occupies the +southern side of the piazza. The western side, on the left of the +church, is taken up by the Palazzo Pubblico. In order to facilitate the +passage of the Pope and Emperor with their Courts and train of princes +from the palace to the cathedral, a wooden bridge wide enough to take +six men abreast was constructed from an opening in the Hall of the +Ancients. The bridge descended by a gradual line to the piazza, +broadened out into a platform before the front of San Petronio, and then +again ascended through the nave to the high altar. It was covered with +blue draperies, and so arranged that the vast multitudes assembled in +the square and church to see the ceremony had free access to it on all +sides. On the morning of the 24th, the solemn procession issued from the +palace, and defiled in order down the gangway. Clement was borne aloft +by Pontifical grooms in their red liveries. He wore the tiara and a cope +of state fastened by Cellini's famous stud, in which blazed the +Burgundian diamond of Charles the Bold. Charles walked in royal robes +attended by the Count of Nassau and Don Pietro di Toledo, the Viceroy of +Naples, who afterwards gave his name to the chief street in that city. +Before him went the Marquis of Montferrat, bearing the scepter; Philip, +Duke of Bavaria, carrying the golden orb; the Duke of Urbino, with the +sword; and the Duke of Savoy, holding the imperial diadem. This Duke of +Savoy was uncle to Francis I. and brother-in-law to Charles--- his wife, +Beatrice, being a sister of the Empress, and his sister, Louise, mother +of the French king. This double relationship made his position during +the late wars a difficult one. Yet his territory had been regarded as +neutral, and in the pacification of Italy he judged it wise to adhere +without reserve to the victorious King of Spain. It was noticed that +Ferrante di Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno, though known to be in +Bologna, occupied no post of distinction in the imperial train. He was +closely related to the Emperor by his mother, Maria of Aragon, and had +done good service in the recent campaigns against Lautrec. The reason +for this neglect does not appear. But it may be mentioned that some +years later he espoused the French cause, and was deprived of his vast +hereditary fiefs. In his ruin the poet Bernardo, father of Torquato +Tasso, was involved. + +To enumerate all the nobles of Spain, Italy and Germany, with the +ambassadors from England, France, Scotland, Hungary, Bohemia and +Portugal; who swelled the Imperial _cortege_; to describe the series of +ceremonies by which Charles was first consecrated as a deacon, anointed, +dressed and undressed, and finally conducted to the Pope for coronation; +to narrate the breaking of the bridge at one point, and the squabbles +between the Genoese and Sienese delegates for precedence, would be +superfluously tedious. The day was well-nigh over when at length Charles +received the Imperial insignia from the Pope's hands. _Accipe gladium +sanctum, Accipe virgam, Accipe pomum, Accipe signum gloriae_! As Clement +pronounced these sentences, he gave the sword, the scepter, the globe, +and the diadem in succession to the Emperor, who knelt before him. +Charles bent and kissed the Papal feet. He then rose and took his throne +beside the Pope. It was placed two steps lower than that of Clement. The +ceremony of coronation and enthronization being now complete, Charles +was proclaimed: _Romanorum Imperator semper augustus, mundi totius +Dominus, universis Dominis, universis Principibus et Populis semper +venerandus_. When Mass was over, Pope and Emperor shook hands. At the +church-door, Charles held Clement's stirrup, and when the Pope had +mounted, he led his palfrey for some paces, in sign of filial +submission. + +The month of March was distinguished by the arrival of illustrious +visitors. The Duchess of Savoy, with an escort of eighteen lovely maids +of honor, made her pompous entry on the 4th, and took up her quarters in +the Palazzo Pepoli. On the 6th came the Duke of Ferrara, for whom +Charles had procured a safe-conduct from the Pope. During the Emperor's +stay at Bologna, Alfonso d'Este had been assiduous in paying him and his +Court small attentions, sending excellent provisions for the household +and furnishing the royal table with game and every kind of delicacy. The +settlement of his dispute with the Holy See was the only important +business that remained to be transacted. Charles prevailed upon both +Clement and Alfonso to state their cases in writing and to place them in +the hands of jurisconsults, to report upon. There is little doubt that +his own mind was already made up in favor of the duke; but he did not +pass sentence until the following December, nor was the decision +published before April in the year 1531. The substance of the final +agreement was as follows. Modena, Reggio and Rubbiera were declared +fiefs of the Empire, seeing that they had not been included in Pepin's +gift of the Exarchate. Charles confirmed their investiture to Alfonso, +in return for a considerable payment to the Imperial Chancery. He had +previously conferred the town of Carpi, forfeited by Alberto Pio as a +French adherent, on the Duke. Ferrara remained a fief of the Church, and +Clement consented to acknowledge Alfonso's tenure, upon his disbursement +of 100,000 ducats. This decision saved Modena to the bastard line of +Este, when Pope Clement VIII. seized Ferrara as a lapsed fief in 1598. +In the sixty-seven years which passed between the date of Charles's +coronation and the extinction of the duchy, Ferrara enjoyed the fame of +the most brilliant Court in Italy, and shone with the luster conferred +on it by men like Tasso and Guarini. + +The few weeks which now remained before Charles left Bologna were spent +for the most part in jousts and tournaments, visits to churches, and +social entertainments. Veronica Gambara threw her apartments open to the +numerous men of letters who crowded from all parts of Italy to witness +the ceremony, of Charles's coronation. This lady was widow to the late +lord of Correggio, and one of the two most illustrious women of her +time.[5] She dwelt with princely state in a palace of the Marsili; and +here might be seen the poets Bembo, Mauro, and Molza in conversation +with witty Berni, learned Vida, stately Trissino, and noble-hearted +Marcantonio Flaminio. Paolo Giovio and Francesco Guicciardini, the chief +historians of their time, were also to be found there, together with a +host of literary and diplomatic worthies attached to the Courts of +Urbino and Ferrara or attendant on the train of cardinals, who, like +Ippolito de'Medici, made a display of culture. Meanwhile the +Dowager-Marchioness of Mantua and the Duchess of Savoy entertained +Italian and Spanish nobles with masqued balls and carnival processions +in the Manzoli and Pepoli palaces. Frequent quarrels between hot-blooded +youths of the rival nations added a spice of chivalrous romance to +love-adventures in which the ladies of these Courts played a too +conspicuous part. What still remained to Italy of Renaissance splendor, +wit, and fashion, after the Sack of Rome and the prostration of her +wealthiest cities, was concentrated in this sunset blaze of sumptuous +festivity at Bologna. Nor were the arts without illustrious +representatives. Francesco Mazzola, surnamed Il Parmigianino, before +whose altar-piece in his Roman studio the rough soldiers of Bourbon's +army were said to have lately knelt in adoration, commemorated the hero +of the day by painting Charles attended by Fame who crowned his +forehead, and an infant Hercules who handed him the globe. Titian, too, +was there, and received the honor of several sittings from the Emperor. +His life-sized portrait of Charles in full armor, seated on a white +war-horse, has perished. But it gave such satisfaction at the moment +that the fortunate master was created knight and count palatine, and +appointed painter to the Emperor with a fixed pension. Titian also +painted portraits of Antonio de Leyva and Alfonso d'Avalos, but whether +upon this occasion or in 1532, when he was again summoned to the +Imperial Court at Bologna, is not certain. From this assemblage of +eminent personages we notice the absence of Pietro Aretino. He was at +the moment out of favor with Clement VII. But independently of this +obstacle, he may well have thought it imprudent to quit his Venetian +retreat and expose himself to the resentment of so many princes whom he +had alternately loaded with false praises and bemired with loathsome +libels. + +[Footnote 5: See _Ren. in It._ vol. v. p. 289.] + +People observed that the Emperor in his excursions through the streets +of Bologna usually wore the Spanish habit. He was dressed in black +velvet, with black silk stockings, black shoes, and a black velvet cap +adorned with black feathers. This somber costume received some relief +from jewels used for buttons; and the collar of the Golden Fleece shone +upon the monarch's breast. So slight a circumstance would scarcely +deserve attention, were it not that in a short space of time it became +the fashion throughout Italy to adopt the subdued tone of Spanish +clothing. The upper classes consented to exchange the varied and +brilliant dresses which gave gayety to the earlier Renaissance for the +dismal severity conspicuous in Morone's masterpieces, in the magnificent +gloom of the Genoese Brignoli, and in the portraits of Roman +inquisitors. It is as though the whole race had put on mourning for its +loss of liberty, its servitude to foreign tyrants and ecclesiastical +hypocrites. Nor is it fanciful to detect a note of moral sadness and +mental depression corresponding to these black garments in the faces of +that later generation. How different is Tasso's melancholy grace from +Ariosto's gentle joyousness; the dried-up precision of Baroccio's +Francesco Maria della Rovere from the sanguine joviality of Titian's +first duke of that name! One of the most acutely critical of +contemporary poets felt the change which I have indicated, and ascribed +it to the same cause. Campanella wrote as follows: + + Black robes befit our age. Once they were white; + Next many-hued; now dark as Afric's Moor, + Night-black, infernal, traitorous, obscure, + Horrid with ignorance and sick with fright. + For very shame we shun all colors bright, + Who mourn our end--the tyrants we endure, + The chains, the noose, the lead, the snares, the lure-- + Our dismal heroes, our souls sunk in night. + +In the midst of this mirth-making there arrived on March 20 an embassy +from England, announcing Henry VIII.'s resolve to divorce himself at any +cost from Katharine of Aragon. This may well have recalled both Pope and +Emperor to a sense of the gravity of European affairs. The schism of +England was now imminent. Germany was distracted by Protestant +revolution. The armies of Caesar were largely composed of mutinous +Lutherans. Some of these soldiers had even dared to overthrow a colossal +statue of Clement VII. and grind it into powder at Bologna; and this +outrage, as it appears, went unpunished. The very troops employed in +reducing rebellious Florence were commanded by a Lutheran general; and +Clement began to fear that, after Charles's departure, the Prince of +Orange might cross the Apennines and expose the Papal person to the +insults of another captivity in Bologna. Nor were the gathering forces +of revolutionary Protestants alone ominous. Though Soliman had been +repulsed before Vienna, the Turks were still advancing on the eastern +borders of the Empire. Their fleets swept the Levantine waters, while +the pirate dynasties of Tunis and Algiers threatened the whole +Mediterranean coast with ruin. Charles, still uncertain what part he +should take in the disputes of Germany, left Bologna for the Tyrol on +March 23. Clement, on the last day of the month, took his journey by +Loreto to Rome. + +It will be useful, at this point, to recapitulate the net results of +Charles's administration of Italian affairs in 1530. The kingdom of the +Two Sicilies, with the Island of Sardinia and the Duchy of Milan, became +Spanish provinces, and were ruled henceforth by viceroys. The House of +Este was confirmed in the Duchy of Ferrara, including Modena and Reggio. +The Duchies of Savoy and Mantua and the Marquisate of Montferrat, which +had espoused the Spanish cause, were undisturbed. Genoa and Siena, both +of them avowed allies of Spain, the former under Spanish protection, the +latter subject to Spanish coercion, remained with the name and empty +privileges of republics. Venice had made her peace with Spain, and +though she was still strong enough to pursue an independent policy, she +showed as yet no inclination, and had, indeed, no power, to stir up +enemies against the Spanish autocrat. The Duchy of Urbino, recognized +by Rome and subservient to Spanish influence, was permitted to exist. +The Papacy once more assumed a haughty tone, relying on the firm +alliance struck with Spain. This league, as years went by, was destined +to grow still closer, still more fruitful of results. + +Florence alone had been excepted from the articles of peace. It was +still enduring the horrors of the memorable siege when Clement left +Bologna at the end of May. The last hero of the republic, Francesco +Ferrucci, fell fighting at Gavignana on August 2. Their general, +Malatesta Baglioni, broke his faith with the citizens. Finally, on +August 12, the town capitulated. Alessandro de'Medici, who had received +the title of Duke of Florence from Charles at Bologna, took up his +residence there in July, 1531, and held the State by help of Spanish +mercenaries under the command of Alessandro Vitelli. When he was +murdered by his cousin in 1537, Cosimo de'Medici, the scion of another +branch of the ruling family, was appointed Duke. Charles V. recognized +his title, and Cosimo soon showed that he was determined to be master in +his own duchy. He crushed the exiled party of Filippo Strozzi, who +attempted a revolution of the State, exterminated its leaders, and +contrived to rid himself of the powerful adherents who had placed him on +the throne. But he remained a subservient though not very willing ally +of Spain; and when he expelled Alessandro Vitelli from the fortress that +commanded Florence, he admitted a Spaniard, Don Juan de Luna, in his +stead. During the petty wars of 1552-56 which Henri II. carried on with +Charles V. in Italy, Siena attempted to shake off the yoke of a Spanish +garrison established there in 1547 under the command of Don Hurtado de +Mendoza. The citizens appealed to France, who sent them the great +Marshal, Piero Strozzi, brother of Cosimo's vanquished enemy Filippo. +Cosimo through these years supported the Spanish cause with troops and +money, hoping to guide events in his own interest. At length, by the aid +of Gian Giacomo Medici, sprung from an obscure Milanese family, who had +been trained in the Spanish methods of warfare, he succeeded in subduing +Siena. He now reaped the fruits of his Spanish policy. In 1557 Philip +II. conceded the Sienese territory, reserving only its forts, to the +Duke of Florence, who in 1569 obtained the title of Grand Duke of +Tuscany from Pope Pius V. This title was confirmed by the Empire in 1575 +to his son Francesco. + +Thus the republics of Florence and Siena were extinguished. The Grand +Duchy of Tuscany was created. It became an Italian power of the first +magnitude, devoted to the absolutist principles of Spanish and Papal +sovereignty. The further changes which took place in Italy after the +year 1530, turned equally to the profit of Spain and Rome. These were +principally the creation of the Duchy of Parma for the Farnesi +(1545-1559), of which I shall have to speak in the next chapter; the +resumption of Ferrara by the Papacy in 1597, which reduced the House of +Este to the smaller fiefs of Modena and Reggio; the acquisition of +Montferrat by Mantua in 1536; the cession of Saluzzo to Savoy in 1598, +and the absorption of Urbino into the Papal domains in 1631. + +It was hoped when Charles and Clement proclaimed the pacification of +Italy at Bologna on the last day of 1529, that the peninsula would no +longer be the theater of wars for supremacy between the French and +Spaniards. This expectation proved delusive; for the struggle soon broke +out again. The people, however, suffered less extensively than in former +years; because the Spanish party, supported by Papal authority, was +decidedly predominant. The Italian princes, whether they liked it or +not, were compelled to follow in the main a Spanish policy. At length, +in 1559, by the Peace of Cateau Cambresis signed between Henri II. and +Philip II., the French claims were finally abandoned, and the Spanish +hegemony was formally acknowledged. The later treaty of Vervins, in +1598, ceded Saluzzo to the Duchy of Savoy, and shut the gates of Italy +to French interference. + +Though the people endured far less misery from foreign armies in the +period between 1630 and 1600 than they had done in the period from 1494 +to 1527, yet the state of the country grew ever more and more +deplorable. This was due in the first instance to the insane methods of +taxation adopted by the Spanish viceroys, who held monopolies of corn +and other necessary commodities in their hands and who invented imposts +for the meanest articles of consumption. Their example was followed by +the Pope and petty princes. Alfonso II. of Ferrara, for instance, levied +a tenth on all produce which passed his city gates, and on the capital +engaged in every contract. He monopolized the sale of salt, flour, +bread; and imposed a heavy tax on oil. Sixtus V. by exactions of a like +description and by the sale of numberless offices, accumulated a vast +sum of money, much of which bore heavy interest. He was so ignorant of +the first principle of political economy as to lock up the accruing +treasure in the Castle of S. Angelo. The rising of Masaniello in Naples +was simply due to the exasperation of the common folk at having even +fruit and vegetables taxed. In addition to such financial blunders, we +must take into account the policy pursued by all princes at this epoch, +of discouraging commerce and manufactures. Thus Cosimo I. of Tuscany +induced the old Florentine families to withdraw their capital from +trade, sink it in land, create entails in perpetuity on eldest sons, and +array themselves with gimcrack titles which he liberally supplied. Even +Venice showed at this epoch a contempt for the commerce which had +brought her into a position of unrivaled splendor. This wilful +depression of industry was partly the result of Spanish aristocratic +habits, which now invaded Italian society. But it was also deliberately +chosen as a means of extinguishing freedom. Finally, if war proved now +less burdensome, the exhaustion of Italy and the decay of military +spirit rendered the people liable to the scourge of piracy. The whole +sea-coast was systematically plundered by the navies of Barbarossa and +Dragut. The inhabitants of the ports and inland villages were carried +off into slavery, and many of the Italians themselves drove a brisk +trade in the sale of their compatriots. Brigandage, following in the +wake of agricultural depression and excessive taxation, depopulated the +central provinces. All these miseries were exacerbated by frequent +recurrences of plagues and famines. + +It is characteristic of the whole tenor of Italian history that, in +spite of the virtual hegemony which the Spaniards now exercised in the +peninsula, the nation continued to exist in separate parcels, each of +which retained a certain individuality. That Italy could not have been +treated as a single province by the Spanish autocrat will be manifest, +when we consider the European jealousy to which so summary an exhibition +of force would have given rise. It is also certain that the Papacy, +which had to be respected, would have resisted an openly declared +Spanish despotism. But more powerful, I think, than all these +considerations together, was the past prestige of the Italian States. +Europe was not prepared to regard that brilliant and hitherto respected +constellation of commonwealths, from which all intellectual culture, +arts of life, methods of commerce, and theories of political existence +had been diffused, as a single province of the Spanish monarchy. The +Spaniards themselves were scarcely in a position to entertain the +thought of reducing the peninsula to bondage _vi et armis_. And if they +had attempted any measure tending to this result, they would undoubtedly +have been resisted by an alliance of the European powers. What they +sought, and what they gained, was preponderating influence in each of +the parcels which they recognized as nominally independent. + +The intellectual and social life of the Italians, though much reduced in +vigor, was therefore still, as formerly, concentrated in cities marked +by distinct local qualities, and boastful of their ancient glories. The +Courts of Ferrara and Urbino continued to form centers for literary and +artistic coteries. Venice remained the stronghold of mental unrestraint +and moral license, where thinkers uttered their thoughts with tolerable +freedom, and libertines indulged their tastes unhindered. Rome early +assumed novel airs of piety, and external conformity to austere patterns +became the fashion here. Yet the Papal capital did not wholly cease to +be the resort of students and of artists. The universities maintained +themselves in a respectable position--- far different, indeed, from that +which they had held in the last century, yet not ignoble. Much was +being learned on many lines of study divergent from those prescribed by +earlier humanists. Padua, in particular, distinguished itself for +medical researches. This was the flourishing time, moreover, of +Academies, in which, notwithstanding nonsense talked and foolish tastes +indulged, some solid work was done for literature and science. The names +of the Cimento, Delia Crusca, and Palazzo Vernio at Florence, remind us +of not unimportant labors in physics, in the analysis of language, and +in the formation of a new dramatic style of music. At the same time the +resurgence of popular literature and the creation of popular theatrical +types deserve to be particularly noticed. It is as though the Italian +nation at this epoch, suffocated by Spanish etiquette, and poisoned by +Jesuitical hypocrisy, sought to expand healthy lungs in free spaces of +open air, indulging in dialectical niceties and immortalizing +street-jokes by the genius of masqued comedy. + +This most ancient and intensely vital race had given Europe the Roman +Republic, the Roman Empire, the system of Roman law, the Romance +languages, Latin Christianity, the Papacy, and, lastly, all that is +included in the art and culture of the Renaissance. It was time, +perhaps, that it should go to rest a century or so, and watch uprising +nations--the Spanish, English, French, and so forth--stir their stalwart +limbs in common strife and novel paths of pioneering industry. + +After such fashion let us, then, if we can contrive to do so, regard +the Italians during their subjection to the Church and Austria. Were it +not for these consolatory reflections, and for the present reappearance +of the nation in a new and previously unapprehended form of unity, the +history of the Counter-Reformation period would be almost too painful +for investigation. What the Italians actually accomplished during this +period in art, learning, science, and literature, was indeed more than +enough to have conferred undying luster on such races as the Dutch or +Germans at the same epoch. But it would be ridiculous to compare +Italians with either Dutchmen or Germans at a time when Italy was still +so incalculably superior. Compared with their own standard, compared +with what they might have achieved under more favorable conditions of +national independence, the products of this age are saddening. The +tragic elements of my present theme are summed up in the fact that Italy +during the Counter-Reformation was inferior to Italy during the +Renaissance, and that this inferiority was due to the interruption of +vital and organic processes by reactionary forces. + +It would not be just to condemn Spain and the Papacy because, being +reactionary powers, they quenched for three centuries the genial light +of Italy. We must rather bear in mind that both Spain and the Papacy +were at that time cosmopolitan factors of the first magnitude, with +perplexing world-problems confronting them. Charles bore upon his +shoulders the concerns of the Empire, the burden of the German +revolution, and the distracting anxiety of a duel with Islam. When his +son bowed to the yoke of government, he had to meet the same +perplexities, complicated with Netherlands in revolt, England in +antagonism, and France in dubious ferment. A succession of Popes were +hampered by painful European questions, which the instinct of +self-preservation taught them to regard as paramount. They were fighting +for existence; for the Catholic creed; for their own theocratic +sovereignty. They held strong cards. But against them were drawn up the +battalions of heresy, free thought, political insurgence in the modern +world. The _Zeitgeist_ that has made us what we are, had begun to +organize stern opposition to the Church. It was natural enough that both +the Spanish autocrat and the successor of S. Peter should at this crisis +have regarded Italian affairs as subordinate in importance to wider +matters which demanded their attention. Yet if we shift our point of +view from this high vantage-ground of Imperial and Papal anxieties, and +place ourselves in the center of Italy as our post of observation, it +will be apparent that nothing more ruinous for the prosperity of the +Italian people could have been devised than the joint autocracy accorded +at Bologna to two cosmopolitan but non-national forces in their midst. +An alien monarchy greedy for gold, a panic-stricken hierarchy in terror +for its life, warped the tendencies and throttled the energies of the +most artistically sensitive, the most heroically innovating of the +existing races. However we may judge the merits of the Spaniards, they +were assuredly not those which had brought Italy into the first rank of +European nations. The events of a single century proved that, far from +being able to govern other peoples, Spain was incapable of +self-government on any rational principle. Whatever may have been the +policy thrust upon the chief of Latin Christianity in the desperate +struggle with militant rationalism, the repressive measures which it +felt bound to adopt were eminently pernicious to a race like the +Italians, who showed no disposition for religious regeneration, and who +were yet submitted to the tyranny of ecclesiastical discipline and +intellectual intolerance at every point. + +The settlement made by Charles V. in 1530, and the various changes which +took place in the duchies between that date and the end of the century, +had then the effect of rendering the Papacy and Spain omnipotent in +Italy. These kindred autocrats were joined in firm alliance, except +during the brief period of Paul IV.'s French policy, which ended in the +Pope's complete discomfiture by Alva in 1557. They used their aggregated +forces for the riveting of spiritual, political, and social chains upon +the modern world. What they only partially effected in Europe at large, +by means of S. Bartholomew massacres, exterminations of Jews in Toledo +and of Mussulmans in Granada, holocausts of victims in the Low +Countries, wars against French Huguenots and German Lutherans, naval +expeditions and plots against the state of England, assassinations of +heretic princes, and occasional burning of free thinkers, they achieved +with plenary success in Italy. The center of the peninsula, from Ferrara +to Terracina, lay at the discretion of the Pope. The Two Sicilies, +Sardinia and the Duchy of Milan, were absolute dependencies of the +Spanish crown. Tuscany was linked by ties of interest, and by the +stronger bonds of terrorism, to Spain. The insignificant principalities +of Mantua, Modena, Parma could not do otherwise than submit to the same +predominant authority. It is not worth while to take into account the +tiny republics of Genoa and Lucca. Their history through this period, +though not so uneventful, is scarcely less insignificant than that of +San Marino. Venice alone stood independent, still powerful enough to +extinguish Bedmar's Spanish conspiracy in silence, still proud enough to +resist the encroachments of Paul V. with spirit, yet sensible of her +decline and spending her last energies on warfare with the Turk. + +At the close of the century, by the Peace of Vervins in 1598 and two +subsequent treaties, Spain and France settled their long dispute. France +was finally excluded from Italy by the cession of Saluzzo to Savoy, +while Savoy at the same moment, through the loss of its Burgundian +provinces, became an Italian power. The old antagonism which, dating +from the Guelf and Ghibelline contentions of the thirteenth century, +had taken a new form after the Papal investiture of Charles of Anjou +with the kingdoms of Sicily and Naples, now ceased. That antique +antagonism of parties, alien to the home interests of Italy, had been +exasperated by the rivalry of Angevine and Aragonese princes; had +assumed formidable intensity after the invasion of Charles VIII. in +1494; and had expanded under the reigns of Louis XII. and Francis I. +into an open struggle between France and Spain for the supremacy of +Italy. It now was finally terminated by the exclusion of the French and +the acknowledged overlordship of the Spaniard. But though peace seemed +to be secured to a nation tortured by so many desolating wars of foreign +armies, the Italians regarded the cession of Saluzzo with despondency. +The partisans of national independence and political freedom had become, +however illogically, accustomed to consider France as their ally.[6] +They now beheld the gates of Italy closed against the French; they saw +the extinction of their ancient Guelf policy of calling French arms into +Italy. They felt that rest from strife was dearly bought at the price of +prostrate servitude beneath Spanish and Austrian Hapsburgs, Spanish +Bourbons, and mongrel princelings bred by crossing these stocks with +decaying scions of Italian nobility. As a matter of fact, this was the +destiny which lay before them for nearly two centuries after the +signing of the Peace of Vervins. + +[Footnote 6: See, for instance, temp. Henri IV., _Sarpi's Letters_, vol. +i. p. 233.] + +Yet the cession of Saluzzo was really the first dawn of hope for Italy. +It determined the House of Savoy as an Italian dynasty, and brought for +the first time into the sphere of purely Italian interests that province +from which the future salvation of the nation was to come. From 1598 +until 1870 the destinies of Italy were bound up with the advance of +Savoy from a duchy to a kingdom, with its growth in wealth, military +resources and political self-consciousness, and with its ultimate +acceptance of the task, accomplished in our days, of freeing Italy from +foreign tyranny and forming a single nation out of many component +elements. Those component elements by their diversity had conferred +luster on the race in the Middle Ages, by their jealousies had wrecked +its independence in the Renaissance, and by their weakness had left it +at the period of the Counter-Reformation a helpless prey to Papal and +Spanish despotism. + +The leveling down of the component elements of the Italian race beneath +a common despotism, which began in the period I have chosen for this +work, was necessary perhaps before Italy could take her place as a +united nation gifted with constitutional self-government and +independence. Except, therefore, for the sufferings and the humiliations +inflicted on her people; except for their servitude beneath the most +degrading forms of ecclesiastical and temporal tyranny; except for the +annihilation of their beautiful Renaissance culture; except for the +depression of arts, learning, science, and literature, together with the +enfeeblement of political energy and domestic morality; except for the +loathsome domination of hypocrites and persecutors and informers; except +for the Jesuitical encouragement of every secret vice and every servile +superstition which might emasculate the race and render it subservient +to authority;--except for these appalling evils, we have no right +perhaps to deplore the settlement of Italy by Charles V. in 1530, or the +course of subsequent events. For it is tolerably certain that some such +leveling down as then commenced was needed to bring the constituent +States of Italy into accord; and it is indubitable, as I have had +occasion to point out, that the political force which eventually +introduced Italy into the European system of federated nations, was +determined in its character, if not created, then. None the less, the +history of this period (1530-1600) in Italy is a prolonged, a solemn, an +inexpressibly heart-rending tragedy. + +It is the tragic history of the eldest and most beautiful, the noblest +and most venerable, the freest and most gifted of Europe's daughters, +delivered over to the devilry that issued from the most incompetent and +arrogantly stupid of the European sisterhood, and to the cruelty, +inspired by panic, of an impious theocracy. When we use these terms to +designate the Papacy of the Counter-Reformation, it is not that we +forget how many of those Popes were men of blameless private life and +serious views for Catholic Christendom. When we use these terms to +designate the Spanish race in the sixteenth century, it is not that we +are ignorant of Spanish chivalry and colonizing enterprise, of Spanish +romance, or of the fact that Spain produced great painters, great +dramatists, and one great novelist in the brief period of her glory. We +use them deliberately, however, in both cases; because the Papacy at +this period committed itself to a policy of immoral, retrograde, and +cowardly repression of the most generous of human impulses under the +pressure of selfish terror; because the Spaniards abandoned themselves +to a dark fiend of religious fanaticism; because they were merciless in +their conquests and unintelligent in their administration of subjugated +provinces; because they glutted their lusts of avarice and hatred on +industrious folk of other creeds within their borders; because they +cultivated barren pride and self-conceit in social life; because at the +great epoch of Europe's reawakening they chose the wrong side and +adhered to it with fatal obstinacy. This obstinacy was disastrous to +their neighbors and ruinous to themselves. During the short period of +three reigns (between 1598 and 1700) they sank from the first to the +third grade in Europe, and saw the scepter passing in the New World from +their hands to those of more normally constituted races. That the +self-abandonment to sterilizing passions and ignoble persecutions which +marked Spain out for decay in the second half of the sixteenth century, +and rendered her the curse of her dependencies, can in part be ascribed +to the enthusiasm aroused in previous generations by the heroic conflict +with advancing Islam, is a thesis capable of demonstration. Yet none the +less is it true that her action at that period was calamitous to herself +and little short of destructive to Italy. + +After the year 1530 seven Spanish devils entered Italy. These were the +devil of the Inquisition, with stake and torture-room, and war declared +against the will and soul and heart and intellect of man; the devil of +Jesuitry, with its sham learning, shameless lying, and casuistical +economy of sins; the devil of vice-royal rule, with its life-draining +monopolies and gross incapacity for government; the devil of an insolent +soldiery, quartered on the people, clamorous for pay, outrageous in +their lusts and violences; the devil of fantastical taxation, levying +tolls upon the bare necessities of life, and drying up the founts of +national well-being at their sources; the devil of petty-princedom, +wallowing in sloth and cruelty upon a pinchbeck throne; the devil of +effeminate hidalgoism, ruinous in expenditure, mean and grasping, +corrupt in private life, in public ostentatious, vain of titles, +cringing to its masters, arrogant to its inferiors. In their train these +brought with them seven other devils, their pernicious offspring: +idleness, disease, brigandage, destitution, ignorance, superstition, +hypocritically sanctioned vice. These fourteen devils were welcomed, +entertained, and voluptuously lodged in all the fairest provinces of +Italy. The Popes opened wide for them the gates of outraged and +depopulated Rome. Dukes and marquises fell down and worshiped the golden +image of the Spanish Belial-Moloch--that hideous idol whose face was +blackened with soot from burning human flesh, and whose skirts were +dabbled with the blood of thousands slain in wars of persecution. After +a tranquil sojourn of some years in Italy, these devils had everywhere +spread desolation and corruption. Broad regions, like the Patrimony of +S. Peter and Calabria, were given over to marauding bandits; wide tracks +of fertile country, like the Sienese Maremma, were abandoned to malaria; +wolves prowled through empty villages round Milan; in every city the +pestilence swept off its hundreds daily; manufactures, commerce, +agriculture, the industries of town and rural district, ceased; the +Courts swarmed with petty nobles, who vaunted paltry titles; and +resigned their wives to cicisbei and their sons to sloth: art and +learning languished; there was not a man who ventured to speak out his +thought or write the truth; and over the Dead Sea of social putrefaction +floated the sickening oil of Jesuitical hypocrisy. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE PAPACY AND THE TRIDENTINE COUNCIL. + + + The Counter-Reformation--Its Intellectual and Moral + Character--Causes of the Gradual Extinction of Renaissance + Energy--Transition from the Renaissance to the Catholic + Revival--New Religious Spirit in Italy--Attitude of Italians toward + German Reformation--Oratory of Divine Love--Gasparo Contarini and + the Moderate Reformers--New Religious Orders--Paul III.--His early + History and Education--Political Attitude between France and + Spain--Creation of the Duchy of Parma--Imminence of a General + Council--Review of previous Councils--Paul's Uneasiness--Opens a + Council at Trent in 1542--Protestants virtually excluded, and + Catholic Dogmas confirmed in the first Sessions--Death of Paul in + 1549--Julius III.--Paul IV.--Character and Ruling Passions of G.P. + Caraffa--His Futile Opposition to Spain--Tyranny of his + Nephews--Their Downfall--Paul Devotes himself to Church Reform and + the Inquisition--Pius IV.--His Minister Morone--Diplomatic Temper + of this Pope--His Management of the Council--Assistance rendered by + his nephew Carlo Borromeo--Alarming State of Northern Europe--The + Council reopened at Trent in 1562--Subsequent History of the + Council--It closes with a complete Papal Triumph in 1563--Place of + Pius IV. in History--Pius V.--The Inquisitor Pope--Population of + Rome--Social Corruption--Sale of Offices and Justice--Tridentine + Reforms depress Wealth--Ascetic Purity of Manners becomes + fashionable--- Piety--The Catholic Reaction generates the + Counter-Reformation--Battle of Lepanto--Gregory XIII.--His + Relatives--Policy of Enriching the Church at Expense of the + Barons--Brigandage in States of the Church--Sixtus V.--His Stern + Justice--Rigid Economy--Great Public Works--Taxation--The City of + Rome assumes its present form--Nepotism in the Counter-Reformation + Period--Various Estimates of the Wealth accumulated by Papal + Nephews--Rise of Princely Roman Families. + + +It is not easy to define the intellectual and moral changes which passed +over Italy in the period of the Counter-Reformation[7]; it is still +less easy to refer those changes to distinct causes. Yet some analysis +tending toward such definition is demanded from a writer who has +undertaken to treat of Italian culture and manners between the years +1530 and 1600. + +In the last chapter I attempted to describe the depth of servitude to +which the States of Italy were severally reduced at the end of the wars +between France and Spain. The desolation of the country, the loss of +national independence, and the dominance of an alien race, can be +counted among the most important of those influences which produced the +changes in question. Whatever opinions we may hold regarding the +connection between political autonomy and mental vigor in a people, it +can hardly be disputed that a sudden and universal extinction of liberty +must be injurious to arts and studies that have grown up under free +institutions. + +But there were other causes at work. Among these a prominent place +should be given to an alteration in the intellectual interests of the +Italians themselves. The original impulses of the Renaissance, in +scholarship, painting, sculpture, architecture, and vernacular poetry, +had been exhausted. + +[Footnote 7: I may here state that I intend to use this term +Counter-Reformation to denote the reform of the Catholic Church, which +was stimulated by the German Reformation, and which, when the Council of +Trent had fixed the dogmas and discipline of Latin Christianity, enabled +the Papacy to assume a militant policy in Europe, whereby it regained a +large portion of the provinces, that had previously lapsed to Lutheran +and Calvinistic dissent.] + +Humanism, after recovering the classics and forming a new ideal of +culture, was sinking into pedantry and academic erudition. Painting and +sculpture, having culminated in the great work of Michelangelo, tended +toward a kind of empty mannerism. Architecture settled down into the +types fixed by Palladio and Barozzi. Poetry seemed to have reached its +highest point of development in Ariosto. The main motives supplied to +art by mediaeval traditions and humanistic enthusiasm were worked out. +Nor was this all. The Renaissance had created a critical spirit which +penetrated every branch of art and letters. It was not possible to +advance further on the old lines; yet painters, sculptors, architects, +and poets of the rising generation had before their eyes the +masterpieces of their predecessors, in their minds the precepts of the +learned. All alike were rendered awkward and self-conscious by the sense +of laboring at a disadvantage, and by the dread of academical +censorship. + +In truth, this critical spirit, which was the final product of the +Renaissance in Italy, favored the development of new powers in the +nation: it hampered workers in the elder spheres of art, literature, and +scholarship; but it set thinkers upon the track of those investigations +which we call scientific. I shall endeavor, in a future chapter, to show +how the Italians were now upon the point of carrying the ardor of the +Renaissance into fresh fields of physical discovery and speculation, +when their evolution was suspended by the Catholic Reaction. But here +it must suffice to observe that formalism had succeeded by the operation +of natural influences to the vigor and inventiveness of the national +genius in the main departments of literature and fine art. + +If we study the development of other European races, we shall find that +each of them in turn, at its due season, passed through similar phases. +The mediaeval period ends in the efflorescence of a new delightful +energy, which gives a Rabelais, a Shakspere, a Cervantes to the world. +The Renaissance riots itself away in Marinism, Gongorism, Euphuism, and +the affectations of the Hotel Rambouillet. This age is succeeded by a +colder, more critical, more formal age of obedience to fixed canons, +during which scholarly efforts are made to purify style and impose laws +on taste. The ensuing period of sense is also marked by profounder +inquiries into nature and more exact analysis of mental operations. The +correct school of poets, culminating in Dryden and Pope, holds sway in +England; while Newton, Locke, and Bentley extend the sphere of science. +In France the age of Rabelais and Montaigne yields place to the age of +Racine and Descartes. Germany was so distracted by religious wars, Spain +was so down-trodden by the Inquisition, that they do not offer equally +luminous examples.[8] It may be added that in all these nations the end +of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries are +marked by a similar revolt against formality and common sense, to which +we give the name of the Romantic movement. + +[Footnote 8: With regard to Germany, see Mr. T. S. Perry's acute and +philosophical study, entitled _From Opitz to Lessing_ (Boston).] + +Quitting this sphere of speculation, we may next point out that the +European system had undergone an incalculable process of transformation. +Powerful nationalities were in existence, who, having received their +education from Italy, were now beginning to think and express thought +with marked originality. The Italians stood no longer in a relation of +uncontested intellectual superiority to these peoples, while they met +them under decided disadvantages at all points of political efficiency. +The Mediterranean had ceased to be the high road of commercial +enterprise and naval energy. Charles V.'s famous device of the two +columns, with its motto _Plus Ultra_, indicated that illimitable +horizons had been opened, that an age had begun in which Spain, England +and Holland should dispute the sovereignty of the Atlantic and Pacific +oceans. Italy was left, with diminished forces of resistance, to bear +the brunt of Turk and Arab depredations. The point of gravity in the +civilized world had shifted. The Occidental nations looked no longer +toward the South of Europe. + +While these various causes were in operation, Catholic Christianity +showed signs of re-wakening. The Reformation called forth a new and +sincere spirit in the Latin Church; new antagonisms were evoked, and +new efforts after self-preservation had to be made by the Papal +hierarchy. The center of the world-wide movement which is termed the +Counter-Reformation was naturally Rome. Events had brought the Holy See +once more into a position of prominence. It was more powerful as an +Italian State now, through the support of Spain and the extinction of +national independence, than at any previous period of history. In +Catholic Christendom its prestige was immensely augmented by the Council +of Trent. At the same epoch, the foreigners who dominated Italy, threw +themselves with the enthusiasm of fanaticism into this Revival. Spain +furnished Rome with the militia of the Jesuits and with the engines of +the Inquisition. The Papacy was thus able to secure successes in Italy +which were elsewhere only partially achieved. It followed that the +moral, social, political and intellectual activities of the Italians at +this period were controlled and colored by influences hostile to the +earlier Renaissance. Italy underwent a metamorphosis, prescribed by the +Papacy and enforced by Spanish rule. In the process of this +transformation the people submitted to rigid ecclesiastical discipline, +and adopted, without assimilating, the customs of a foreign troop of +despots. + +At first sight we may wonder that the race which had shone with such +incomparable luster from Dante to Ariosto, and which had done so much to +create modern culture for Europe, should so quietly have accepted a +retrogressive revolution. Yet, when we look closer, this is not +surprising. The Italians were fatigued with creation, bewildered by the +complexity of their discoveries, uncertain as to the immediate course +before them. The Renaissance had been mainly the work of a select few. +It had transformed society without permeating the masses of the people. +Was it strange that the majority should reflect that, after all, the old +ways are the best? This led them to approve the Catholic Revival. Was it +strange that, after long distracting aimless wars, they should hail +peace at any price? This lent popular sanction to the Spanish hegemony, +in spite of its obvious drawbacks. + +These may be reckoned the main conditions which gave a peculiar but not +easily definable complexion of languor, melancholy, and dwindling +vitality to nearly every manifestation of Italian genius in the second +half of the sixteenth century, and which well nigh sterilized that +genius during the two succeeding centuries. In common with the rest of +Europe, and in consequence of an inevitable alteration of their mental +bias, they had lost the blithe spontaneity of the Renaissance. But they +were at the same time suffering from grievous exhaustion, humiliated by +the tyranny of foreign despotism, and terrorized by ecclesiastical +intolerance. In their case, therefore, a sort of moral and intellectual +atrophy becomes gradually more and more perceptible. The clear artistic +sense of rightness and of beauty yields to doubtful taste. The frank +audacity of the Renaissance is superseded by cringing timidity, +lumbering dulness, somnolent and stagnant acquiescence in accepted +formulae. At first the best minds of the nation fret and rebel, and meet +with the dungeon or the stake as the reward of contumacy. In the end +everybody seems to be indifferent, satisfied with vacuity, enamored of +insipidity. The brightest episode in this dreary period is the emergence +of modern music with incomparable sweetness and lucidity. + +It must not be supposed that the change which I have adumbrated, passed +rapidly over the Italian spirit. When Paul III. succeeded Clement on the +Papal throne in 1534, some of the giants of the Renaissance still +survived, and much of their great work was yet to be accomplished. +Michelangelo had neither painted the Last Judgment nor planned the +cupola which crowns S. Peter's. Cellini had not cast his Perseus for the +Loggia de'Lanzi, nor had Palladio raised San Giorgio from the sea at +Venice. Pietro Aretino still swaggered in lordly insolence; and though +Machiavelli was dead, the 'silver histories' of Guicciardini remained to +be written. Bandello, Giraldi and Il Lasca had not published their +Novelle, nor had Cecchi given the last touch to Florentine comedy. It +was chiefly at Venice, which preserved the ancient forms of her +oligarchical independence, that the grand style of the Renaissance +continued to flourish. Titian was in his prime; the stars of Tintoretto +and Veronese had scarcely risen above the horizon. Sansovino was still +producing masterpieces of picturesque beauty in architecture. + +In order to understand the transition of Italy from the Renaissance to +the Counter-Reformation manner, it will be well to concentrate attention +on the history of the Papacy during the eight reigns of Paul III., +Julius III., Paul IV., Pius IV., Pius V., Gregory XIII., Sixtus V., and +Clement VIII.[9] In the first of these reigns we hardly notice that the +Renaissance has passed away. In the last we are aware of a completely +altered Italy. And we perceive that this alteration has been chiefly due +to the ecclesiastical policy which brought the Council of Trent to a +successful issue in the reign of Pius IV. + +[Footnote 9: These eight reigns cover a space of time from 1534 to +1605.] + +Before engaging in this review of Papal history, I must give some brief +account of the more serious religious spirit which had been developed +within the Italian Church; since the determination of this spirit toward +rigid Catholicism in the second half of the sixteenth century decided +the character of Italian manners and culture. Protestantism in the +strict sense of the term took but little hold upon Italian society. It +is true that the minds of some philosophical students were deeply +stirred by the audacious discussion of theological principles in +Germany. Such men had been rendered receptive of new impressions by the +Platonizing speculations of Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, as well as +by the criticism of the Bible in its original languages which formed a +subordinate branch of humanistic education. They had, furthermore, been +powerfully affected by the tribulations of Rome at the time of Bourbon's +occupation, and had grown to regard these as a divine chastisement +inflicted on the Church for its corruption and ungodliness. Lutheranism +so far influenced their opinions that they became convinced of the +necessity of a return to the simpler elements of Christianity in creed +and conduct. They considered a thorough-going reform of the hierarchy +and of all Catholic institutions to be indispensable. They leant, +moreover, with partiality to some of the essential tenets of the +Reformation, notably to the doctrines of justification by faith and +salvation by the merits of Christ, and also to the principle that +Scripture is the sole authority in matters of belief and discipline. +Thus both the Cardinals Morone and Contarini, the poet Flaminio, and the +nobles of the Colonna family in Naples who imbibed the teaching of +Valdes, fell under the suspicion of heterodoxy on these points. But it +was characteristic of the members of this school that they had no will +to withhold allegiance from the Pope as chief of Christendom. They +shrank with horror from the thought of encouraging a schism or of +severing themselves from the communion of Catholics. The essential +difference between Italian and Teutonic thinkers on such subjects at +this epoch seems to have been this: Italians could not cease to be +Catholics without at the same time ceasing to be Christians. They could +not accommodate their faith to any of the compromises suggested by the +Reformation. Even when they left their country in a spirit of rebellion, +they felt ill at ease both with Lutherans and Calvinists. Like +Bernardino Ochino and the Anti-Trinitarians of the Socinian sect, they +wandered restlessly through Europe, incapable of settling down in +communion with any one of the established forms of Protestantism. Calvin +at Geneva instituted a real crusade against Italian thinkers, who +differed from his views. He drove Valentino Gentile to death on the +scaffold; and expelled Gribaldi, Simone, Biandrata, Alciati, Negro. Most +of these men found refuge in Poland, Transylvania, even Turkey.[10] + +There were bold speculators in Italy enough, who had practically +abandoned the Catholic faith. But the majority of these did not think it +worth their while to make an open rupture with the Church. Theological +hair-splitting reminded them only of the mediaeval scholasticism from +which they had been emancipated by classical culture. They were less +interested in questions touching the salvation of the individual or the +exact nature of the sacraments, than in metaphysical problems suggested +by the study of antique philosophers, or new theories of the material +universe. + +[Footnote 10: See Berti's _Vita di G. Bruno_, pp. 105-108.] + +The indifference of these men in religion rendered it easy for them to +conform in all external points to custom. Their fundamental axiom was +that a scientific thinker could hold one set of opinions as a +philosopher, and another set as a Christian. Their motto was the +celebrated _Foris ut moris, intus ut libet_.[11] Nor were ecclesiastical +authorities dissatisfied with this attitude during the ascendancy of +humanistic culture. It was, indeed, the attitude of Popes like Leo, +Cardinals like Bembo. And it only revealed its essential weakness when +the tide of general opinion, under the blast of Teutonic revolutionary +ideas, turned violently in favor of formal orthodoxy. Then indeed it +became dangerous to adopt the position of a Pomponazzo. + +[Footnote 11: This maxim is ascribed to the materialistic philosopher +Cremonini.] + +The mental attitude of such men is so well illustrated by a letter +written by Celio Calcagnini to Peregrino Morato, that I shall not +hesitate to transcribe it here. It seems that Morato had sent his +correspondent some treatise on the theological questions then in +dispute; and Calcagnini replies: + +'I have read the book relating to the controversies so much agitated at +present. I have thought on its contents, and weighed them in the balance +of reason. I find in it nothing which may not be approved and defended, +but some things which, as mysteries, it is safer to suppress and conceal +than to bring before the common people, inasmuch as they pertained to +the primitive and infant state of the Church. Now, when the decrees of +the fathers and long usage have introduced other modes, what necessity +is there for reviving antiquated practices which have long fallen into +desuetude, especially as neither piety nor the salvation of the soul is +concerned with them? Let us, then, I pray you, allow these things to +rest. Not that I disapprove of their being embraced by scholars and +lovers of antiquity; but I would not have them communicated to the +common people and those who are fond of innovations, lest they give +occasion to strife and sedition. There are unlearned and unqualified +persons who having, after long ignorance, read or heard certain new +opinions respecting baptism, the marriage of the clergy, ordination, the +distinction of days and food, and public penitence, instantly conceive +that these things are to be stiffly maintained and observed. Wherefore, +in my opinion, the discussion of these points ought to be confined to +the initiated, that so the seamless coat of our Lord may not be rent and +torn.... Seeing it is dangerous to treat such things before the +multitude and in public discourses, I must deem it safest to "speak with +the many and think with the few," and to keep in mind the advice of +Paul, "Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself before God."'[12] + +[Footnote 12: _C. Calcagnini Opera_, p. 195. I am indebted for the above +version to McCrie's _Reformation in Italy_, p. 183.] + +The new religious spirit which I have attempted to characterize as +tinctured by Protestant opinions but disinclined for severance from +Rome, manifested itself about the same time in several groups. One of +them was at Rome, where a society named the Oratory of Divine Love, +including from fifty to sixty members, began to meet as early as the +reign of Leo X. in the Trastevere. This pious association included men +of very various kinds. Sadoleto, Giberto, and Contarini were here in +close intimacy with Gaetano di Thiene, the sainted founder of the +Theatines, and with his friend Caraffa, the founder of the Roman +Inquisition. Venice was the center of another group, among whom may be +mentioned Reginald Pole, Gasparo Contarini, Luigi Priuli, and Antonio +Bruccioli, the translator of the Bible from the original tongues into +Italian. The poet Marcantonio Flaminio became a member of both +societies; and was furthermore the personal friend of the Genoese +Cardinals Sauli and Fregoso, whom we have a right to count among +thinkers of the same class. Flaminio, though he died in the Catholic +communion, was so far suspected of heresy that his works were placed +upon the Index of 1559. In Naples Juan Valdes made himself the leader of +a similar set of men. His views, embodied in the work of a disciple, and +revised by Marcantonio Flaminio, _On the Benefits of Christ's Death_, +revealed strong Lutheran tendencies, which at a later period would +certainly have condemned him to perpetual imprisonment or exile. This +book had a wide circulation in Italy, and was influential in directing +the minds of thoughtful Christians to the problems of Justification. It +was ascribed to Aonio Paleario, who suffered martyrdom at Rome for +maintaining doctrines similar to those of Valdes.[13] Round him gathered +several members of the great Colonna family, notably Vespasiano, Duke of +Palliano, and his wife, the star of Italian beauty, Giulia Gonzaga. +Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara, imbibed the new doctrines in +the same circle; and so did Bernardino Ochino. Modena could boast +another association, which met in the house of Grillenzone; while +Ferrara became the headquarters of a still more pronounced reforming +party under the patronage of the Duchess, Renee of France, daughter of +Louis XII. These various societies and coteries were bound together by +ties of friendship and literary correspondence, and were indirectly +connected with less fortunate reforming theologians; with Aonio +Paleario, Bernardino Ochino, Antonio dei Pagliaricci, Carnesecchi, and +others, whose tragic history will form a part of my chapter on the +Inquisition. + +[Footnote 13: Though as many as 40,000 copies were published, this book +was so successfully stamped out that it seemed to be irrecoverably lost. +The library of St. John's College at Cambridge, however, contains two +Italian copies and one French copy. That of Laibach possesses an Italian +and a Croat version. Cantu, _Gli Eretici_, vol. i. p. 360.] + +It does not fall within the province of this chapter to write an account +of what has, not very appropriately, been called the Reformation in +Italy. My purpose in the present book is, not to follow the fortunes of +Protestantism, but to trace the sequel of the Renaissance, the merging +of its impulse in new phases of European development. I shall therefore +content myself with pointing out that at the opening of Paul III.'s +reign, there was widely diffused throughout the chief Italian cities a +novel spirit of religious earnestness and enthusiasm, which as yet had +taken no determinate direction. This spirit burned most highly in +Gasparo Contarini, who in 1541 was commissioned by the Pope to attend a +conference at Rechensburg for the discussion of terms of reconciliation +with the Lutherans. He succeeded in drawing up satisfactory articles on +the main theological points regarding human nature, original sin, +redemption and justification. These were accepted by the Protestant +theologians at Rechensburg and might possibly have been ratified in +Rome, had not the Congress been broken up by Contarini's total failure +to accommodate differences touching the Pope's supremacy and the +conciliar principle.[14] He made concessions to the Reformers, which +roused the fury of the Roman Curia. At the same time political intrigues +were set on foot in France and Germany to avert a reconciliation which +would have immeasurably strengthened the Emperor's position. The +moderate sections of both parties, Lutheran and Catholic, failed at +Rechensburg. Indeed, it was inevitable that they should fail; for the +breach between the Roman Church and the Reformation was not of a nature +to be healed over at this date. Principles were involved which could not +now be harmonized, and both parties in the dispute were on the point of +developing their own forces with fresh internal vigor. + +[Footnote 14: It should be observed, however, that Luther rejected the +article on justification, and that Caraffa in Rome used his influence to +prevent its acceptance by Paul III.] + +The Italians who desired reform of the Church were now thrown back upon +the attempt to secure this object within the bosom of Catholicism. At +the request of Paul III. they presented a memorial on ecclesiastical +abuses, which was signed by Contarini, Caraffa, Sadoleto, Pole, Fregoso, +Giberto, Cortese and Aleander. These Cardinals did not spare plain +speech upon the burning problem of Papal misgovernment. + +Meanwhile, the new spirit began to manifest itself in the foundation of +orders and institutions tending to purification of Church discipline. +The most notable of these was the order of Theatines established by +Thiene and Caraffa. Its object was to improve the secular priesthood, +with a view to which end seminaries were opened for the education of +priests, who took monastic vows and devoted themselves to special +observance of their clerical duties, as preachers, administrators of the +sacraments, visitors of the poor and sick. + +A Venetian, Girolamo Miani, at the same period founded a congregation, +called the Somascan, for the education of the destitute and orphaned, +and for the reception of the sick and infirm into hospitals. The +terrible state in which Lombardy had been left by war rendered this +institution highly valuable. Of a similar type was the order of the +Barnabites, who were first incorporated at Milan, charged with the +performance of acts of mercy, education, preaching, and other forms of +Christian ministration. It may be finally added that the Camaldolese and +Franciscan orders had been in part reformed by a spontaneous movement +within their bodies. + +If we compare the spirit indicated by these efforts in the first half of +the sixteenth century with that of the earlier Renaissance, it will be +evident that the Italians were ready for religious change. They sink, +however, into insignificance beside two Spanish institutions which about +the same period added their weight and influence to the Catholic +revival. I mean, of course, the Inquisition and the Jesuit order. Paul +III. empowered Caraffa in 1542 to re-establish the Inquisition in Rome +upon a new basis resembling that of the Spanish Holy Office. The same +Pope sanctioned and confirmed the Company of Jesus between the years +1540 and 1543. The establishment of the Inquisition gave vast +disciplinary powers to the Church at the moment when the Council of +Trent fixed her dogmas and proclaimed the absolute authority of the +Popes. At the same time the Jesuits, devoted by their founder in blind +obedience--_perinde ac cadaver_--to the service of the Papacy, +penetrated Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and the transatlantic +colonies. + +The Pope who succeeded Clement VII. in 1534 was in all ways fitted to +represent the transition which I have indicated. Alessandro Farnese +sprang from an ancient but decayed family in the neighborhood of +Bolsena, several of whose members had played a foremost part in the +mediaeval revolutions of Orvieto. While still a young man of +twenty-five, he was raised to the Cardinalate by Alexander VI. This +advancement he owed to the influence of his sister Giulia, surnamed La +Bella, who was then the Borgia's mistress. It is characteristic of an +epoch during which the bold traditions of the fifteenth century still +lingered, that the undraped statue of this Giulia (representing Vanity) +was carved for the basement of Paul III.'s monument in the choir of S. +Peter's. The old stock of the Farnesi, once planted in the soil of Papal +corruption at its most licentious period, struck firm roots and +flourished. Alessandro was born in 1468, and received a humanistic +education according to the methods of the earlier Renaissance. He +studied literature with Pomponius Laetus in the Roman Academy, and +frequented the gardens of Lorenzo de'Medici at Florence. His character +and intellect were thus formed under the influences of the classical +revival and of the Pontifical Curia, at a time when pagan morality and +secular policy had obliterated the ideal of Catholic Christianity. His +sister was the Du Barry of the Borgian Court. He was himself the father +of several illegitimate children, whom he acknowledged, and on whose +advancement by the old system of Papal nepotism he spent the best years +of his reign. Both as a patron of the arts and as an elegant scholar in +the Latin and Italian languages, Alessandro showed throughout his life +the effects of this early training. He piqued himself on choice +expression, whenever he was called upon to use the pen in studied +documents, or to answer ambassadors in public audiences. To his taste +and love of splendor Rome owes the Farnese palace. He employed Cellini, +and forced Michelangelo to paint the Last Judgment. On ascending the +Papal throne he complained that this mighty genius had been too long +occupied for Delia Roveres and Medici. When the fresco was finished, he +set the old artist upon his last great task of completing S. Peter's. + +So far there was nothing to distinguish Alessandro Farnese from other +ecclesiastics of the Renaissance. As Cardinal he seemed destined, should +he ever attain the Papal dignity, to combine the qualities of the +Borgian and Medicean Pontiffs. But before his elevation to that supreme +height, he lived through the reigns of Julius II., Leo X., Adrian VI., +and Clement VII. Herein lies the peculiarity of his position as Paul +III. The pupil of Pomponius Laetus, the creature of Roderigo Borgia, the +representative of Italian manners and culture before the age of foreign +invasion had changed the face of Italy, Paul III. was called at the age +of sixty-six to steer the ship of the Church through troubled waters and +in very altered circumstances. He had witnessed the rise and progress of +Protestant revolt in Germany. He had observed the stirrings of a new and +sincere spirit of religious gravity, an earnest desire for +ecclesiastical reform in his own country. He had watched the duel +between France and Spain, during the course of which his predecessors +Alexander V. and Julius II. restored the secular authority of Rome. He +had seen that authority humbled to the dust in 1527, and miraculously +rehabilitated at Bologna in 1530. He had learned by the example of the +Borgias how difficult it was for any Papal family to found a substantial +principality; and the vicissitudes of Florence and Urbino had confirmed +this lesson. Finally, he had assisted at the coronation of Charles V.; +and when he took the reins of power into his hands, he was well aware +with what a formidable force he had to cope in the great Emperor. + +Paul III. knew that the old Papal game of pitting France against Spain +in the peninsula could not be played on the same grand scale as +formerly. This policy had been pursued with results ruinous to Italy but +favorable to the Church, by Julius. It had enabled Leo and Clement to +advance their families at the hazard of more important interests. But in +the reign of the latter Pope it had all but involved the Papacy itself +in the general confusion and desolation of the country. Moreover, France +was no longer an effective match for Spain; and though their struggle +was renewed, the issue was hardly doubtful. Spain had got too firm a +grip upon the land to be cast off. + +Yet Paul was a man of the elder generation. It could not be expected +that a Pope of the Renaissance should suddenly abandon the mediaeval +policy of Papal hostility to the Empire, especially when the Empire was +in the hands of so omnipotent a master as Charles. It could not be +expected that he should recognize the wisdom of confining Papal ambition +to ecclesiastical interests, and of forming a defensive and offensive +alliance with Catholic sovereigns for the maintenance of absolutism. It +could not be expected that he should forego the pleasures and apparent +profits of creating duchies for his bastards, whereby to dignify his +family and strengthen his personal authority as a temporal sovereign. It +is true that the experience of the last half century had pointed in the +direction of all these changes; and it is certain that the series of +events connected with the Council of Trent, which began in Paul III.'s +reign, rendered them both natural and necessary. Yet Paul, as a man of +the elder generation filling the Papal throne for fifteen years during a +period of transition, adhered in the main to the policy of his +predecessors. It was fortunate for him and for the Holy See that the +basis of his character was caution combined with tough tenacity of +purpose, capacity for dilatory action, diplomatic shiftiness and a +political versatility that can best be described by the word trimming. +These qualities enabled him to pass with safety through perils that +might have ruined a bolder, a hastier, or a franker Pope, and to achieve +the object of his heart's desire, where stronger men had failed, in the +foundation of a solid duchy for his heirs. + +Paul's jealousy of the Spanish ascendancy in Italian affairs caused him +to waver between the Papal and Imperial, Guelf and Ghibelline, parties. +These names had lost much of their significance; but the habit of +distinction into two camps was so rooted in Italian manners, that each +city counted its antagonistic factions, maintained by various forms of +local organization and headed by the leading families.[15] Burigozzo, +under the year 1517, tells how the whole population of Milan was divided +between Guelfs and Ghibellines, wearing different costumes; and it is +not uncommon to read of petty nobles in the country at this period, who +were styled Captains of one or the other party. + +[Footnote 15: See Bruno's _Cena delle Ceneri_, ed. Wagner, vol. i. p. +133, for a humorous story illustrative of the state of things ensuing +among the lower Italian classes.] + +The wars between France and Spain revived the almost obsolete dispute, +which the despots of the fifteenth century and the diplomatic +confederation of the five great powers had tended in large measure to +erase. The Guelfs and Ghibellines were now partisans of France and +Spain respectively. Thus a true political importance was regained for +the time-honored factions; and in the distracted state of Italy they +were further intensified by the antagonism between exiles and the ruling +families in cities. If Cosimo de'Medici, for example, was a Ghibelline +or Spanish partisan, it followed as a matter of course that Filippo +Strozzi was a Guelf and stood for France. Paul III. managed to maintain +himself by manipulating these factions and holding the balance between +them for the advantage of his family and of the Church. + +He thus succeeded in creating the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza for his +son, Pier Luigi Farnese, that outrageous representative of the worst +vices and worst violences of the Renaissance. It will be remembered that +Julius had detached these two cities from the Duchy of Milan, and +annexed them to the Papal States, on the plea that they formed part of +the old Exarchate of Ravenna. When Charles decided against this plea in +the matter of Modena and Reggio, he left the Church in occupation of +Parma and Piacenza. Paul created his son Duke of Nepi and Castro in +1537, and afterwards conferred the Duchy of Camerino on his grandson, +Ottavio, who was then married to Margaret of Austria, daughter of +Charles V., and widow of the murdered Alessandro de'Medici. The usual +system of massacre, exile, and confiscation had reduced the signorial +family of the Varani at Camerino to extremities. The fief reverted to +the Church, and Paul induced the Cardinals to sanction his investiture +of Ottavio Farnese with its rights and honors. He subsequently explained +to them that it would be more profitable for the Holy See to retain +Camerino and to relinquish Parma and Piacenza to the Farnesi in +exchange. There was sense in this arrangement; for Camerino formed an +integral part of the Papal States, while Parma and Piacenza were held +under a more than doubtful title. Pier Luigi did not long survive his +elevation to the dukedom of Parma. He was murdered by his exasperated +subjects in 1547. His son, Ottavio, with some difficulty, maintained his +hold upon this principality, until in 1559 he established himself and +his heirs, with the approval of Philip II., in its perpetual enjoyment. +The Farnesi repaid Spanish patronage by constant service, Alessandro, +Prince of Parma, and son of Ottavio, being illustrious in the annals of +the Netherlands. It would not have been worth while to enlarge on this +foundation of the Duchy of Parma, had it not furnished an excellent +example of my theme. By this act Paul III. proved himself a true and +able inheritor of those political traditions by which all Pontiffs from +Sixtus IV. to Clement VII. had sought to establish their relatives in +secular princedoms. It was the last eminent exhibition of that policy, +the last and the most brilliant display of nepotistical ambition in a +Pope. A new age had opened, in which such schemes became +impossible--when Popes could no longer dare to acknowledge and +legitimize their bastards, and when they had to administer their +dominions exclusively for the temporal and ecclesiastical aggrandizement +of the tiara. + +Nevertheless, Paul was living under the conditions which brought this +modern attitude of the Papacy into potent actuality. He was surrounded +by intellectual and moral forces of recent growth but of incalculable +potency. One of the first acts of his reign was to advance six members +of the moderate reforming party--Sadoleto, Pole, Giberto, Federigo, +Fregoso, Gasparo Contarini, and G.M. Caraffa--to the Cardinalate. By +this exercise of power he showed his willingness to recognize new +elements of very various qualities in the Catholic hierarchy. Five of +these men represented opinions which at the moment of their elevation to +the purple had a fair prospect of ultimate success. Imbued with a +profound sense of the need for ecclesiastical reform, and tinctured more +or less deeply with so-called Protestant opinions, they desired nothing +more intensely than a reconstitution of the Catholic Church upon a basis +which might render reconciliation with the Lutherans practicable. They +had their opportunity during the pontificate of Paul III. It was a +splendid one; and, as I have already shown, the Conference of +Rechensburg only just failed in securing the end they so profoundly +desired. But the Papacy was not prepared to concede so much as they were +anxious to grant: the German Reformers proved intractable; they were +themselves impeded by their loyalty to antique Catholic traditions, and +by their dread of a schism; finally, the militant expansive force of +Spanish orthodoxy, expressing itself already in the concentrated energy +of the Jesuit order, rendered attempts at fusion impossible. The victory +in Rome remained with the faction of _intransigeant_ Catholics; and +this was represented, in Paul III.'s first creation of Cardinals, by +Caraffa. Caraffa was destined to play a singular part in the transition +period of Papal history which I am reviewing. He belonged as essentially +to the future as Alessandro Farnese belonged to the past. He embodied +the spirit of the Inquisition, and upheld the principles of +ecclesiastical reform upon the narrow basis of Papal absolutism. He +openly signalized his disapproval of Paul's nepotism; and when his time +for ruling came, he displayed a remorseless spirit of justice without +mercy in dealing with his own family. Yet he hated the Spanish +ascendancy with a hatred far more fierce and bitter than that of Paul +III. His ineffectual efforts to shake off the yoke of Philip II. was the +last spasm of the older Papal policy of resistance to temporal +sovereigns, the last appeal made in pursuance of that policy to France +by an Italian Pontiff.[16] + +[Footnote 16: Paul IV. as Pope was feeble compared with his +predecessors, Julius II. and Leo X.; the Guises, on whom he relied for +resuscitating the old French party in the South, were but +half-successful adventurers, mere shadows of the Angevine invaders whom +they professed to represent.] + +The object of this excursion into the coming period is to show in how +deep a sense Paul III. may be regarded as the beginner of a new era, +while he was at the same time the last continuator of the old. The +Cardinals whom he promoted on his accession included the chief of those +men who strove in vain for a concordat between Rome and Reformation; it +also included the man who stamped Rome with the impress of the +Counter-Reformation. Yet Caraffa would not have had the fulcrum needed +for this decisive exertion of power, had it not been for another act of +Paul's reign. This was the convening of a Council at Trent. Paul's +attitude toward the Council, which he summoned with reluctance, which he +frustrated as far as in him lay, and the final outcome of which he was +far from anticipating, illustrates in a most decisive manner his destiny +as Pope of the transition. + +The very name of a Council was an abomination to the Papacy. This will +be apparent if we consider the previous history of the Church during the +first half of the fifteenth century, when the conciliar authority was +again invoked to regulate the Papal See and to check Papal encroachments +on the realms and Churches of the Western nations. The removal of the +Papal Court to Avignon, the great schism which resulted from this +measure, and the dissent which spread from England to Bohemia at the +close of the fourteenth century, rendered it necessary that the +representative powers of Christendom should combine for the purpose of +restoring order in the Church. Four main points lay before the powers of +Europe, thus brought for the first time into deliberative and +confederated congress to settle questions that vitally concerned them. +The most immediately urgent was the termination of the schism, and the +appointment of one Pope, who should represent the mediaeval idea of +ecclesiastical face to face with imperial unity. The second was the +definition of the indeterminate and ever-widening authority which the +Popes asserted over the kingdoms and the Churches of the West. The third +was the eradication of heresies which were rending Christendom asunder +and threatening to destroy that ideal of unity in creed to which the +Middle Ages clung with not unreasonable passion. The fourth was a reform +of the Church, considered as a vital element of Western Christendom, in +its head and in its members. + +The programme, very indistinctly formulated by the most advanced +thinkers of the age, and only gradually developed by practice into +actuality, was a vast one. It involved the embitterment of national +jealousies, the accentuation of national characteristics, and the +complication of antagonistic principles regarding secular and +ecclesiastical government, which rendered a complete and satisfactory +solution well-nigh impracticable. The effort to solve these problems +had, however, important influence in creating conditions under which the +politico-religious struggles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries +were conducted.[17] + +The first Council, opened at Pisa in 1409, was a congress of prelates +summoned by Cardinals for the conclusion of the schism. It deposed two +Popes, who still continued to assert their titles; it elected a third, +Alexander V., who had no real authority. For the rest, it effected no +reform, and cannot be said to have done much more than to give effect to +those aspirations after Church-government by means of Councils which had +been slowly forming during the continuance of the schism. + +The second Council, opened at Constance in 1414, was a Council not +convened by Cardinals, but by the universal demand of Europe that the +advances of the Papacy toward tyranny should be checked, and that the +innumerable abuses of the Church and Papal Curia should be reformed. It +received a different complexion from that of Pisa, through the +presidency of the Emperor and the attendance of representatives from the +chief nations. At Constance the Papacy and the Roman Curia stood +together, exposed to the hostile criticism of Europe. The authority of a +General Council was, after a sharp conflict, decreed superior to that of +the Bishop of Rome. Three Popes were forced to abdicate; and a fourth, +Martin V., was elected. + +[Footnote 17: The best account of the Councils will be found in +Professor Creighton's admirable _History of the Papacy during the +Reformation_, 2 vols. Longmans.] + +The Council further undertook to deal with heresy and with the reform of +the Church. It discharged the first of these offices by condemning Hus +and Jerome of Prague to the stake. It left the second practically +untouched. Yet the question of reform had been gravely raised, largely +discussed, and fundamentally examined. Two methods were posed at +Constance for the future consideration of earnest thinkers throughout +Europe. One was the way suggested by John Hus; that the Church should be +reconstituted, after a searching analysis of the real bases of Christian +conduct, an appeal to Scripture as the final authority, and a loyal +endeavor to satisfy the spiritual requirements of individual souls and +consciences. The second plan was that of inquiry into the existing order +of the Church and detailed amendment of its flagrant faults, with +preservation of the main system. The Council adopted satisfactory +measures of reform on neither of these methods. It contented itself with +stipulations and concordats, guaranteeing special privileges to the +Churches of the several nations. But in the following century it became +manifest that the Teutonic races had declared for the method suggested +by Hus; while the Latin races, in the Council of Trent, undertook a +purgation of the Church upon the second of the two plans. The +Reformation was the visible outcome of the one, the Counter-Reformation +of the other method. + +The Council of Constance was thus important in causing the recognition +of a single Pope, and in ventilating the divergent theories upon which +the question of reform was afterwards to be disputed. But perhaps the +most significant fact it brought into relief was the new phase of +political existence into which the European races had entered. +Nationality, as the main principle of modern history, was now +established; and the diplomatic relations of sovereigns as the +representatives of peoples were shown to be of overwhelming weight. The +visionary mediaeval polity of Emperor and Pope faded away before the +vivid actuality of full-formed individual nations, federally connected, +controlled by common but reciprocally hostile interests.[18] + +The Council of Basel, opened in 1431, was in appearance a continuation +of the Council of Constance. But its method of procedure ran counter to +the new direction which had been communicated to European federacy by +the action of the Constance congress. There the votes had been taken by +nations. At Basel they were taken by men, after the questions to be +decided had been previously discussed by special congregations and +committees deputed for preliminary deliberations. It soon appeared that +the fathers of the Basel Council aimed at opposing a lawfully-elected +Pope, and sought to assume the, administration of the Church into their +own hands. + +[Footnote 18: See above, p. 2, for the special sense in which I apply +the word federation to Italy before 1530, and to Europe at large in the +modern period.] + +Their struggle with Eugenius IV., their election of an antipope, Felix +V., and their manifest tendency to substitute oligarchical for Papal +tyranny in the Church, had the effect of bringing the conciliar +principle itself into disfavor with the European powers. The first +symptom of this repudiation of the Council by Europe was shown in the +neutrality proclaimed by Germany. The attitude of other Courts and +nations proved that the Western races were for the moment prepared to +leave the Papal question open on the basis supplied by the Council of +Constance. + +The result of this failure of the conciliar principle at Basel was that +Nicholas V. inaugurated a new age for the Papacy in Rome. I have already +described the chief features of the Papal government from his election +to the death of Clement VII. It was a period of unexampled splendor for +the Holy See, and of substantial temporal conquests. The second Council +of Pisa, which began its sittings, in 1511 under French sanction and +support, exercised no disastrous influence over the restored powers and +prestige of the Papacy. On the contrary, it gave occasion for a +counter-council, held at the Lateran under the auspices of Julius II. +and Leo X., in which the Popes established several points of +ecclesiastical discipline that were not without value to their +successors. But the leaven which had been scattered by Wyclif and Hus, +of which the Council of Constance had taken cognizance, but which had +not been extirpated, was spreading in Germany throughout this period. +The Popes themselves were doing all in their power to propagate dissent +and discontent. Well aware of the fierce light cast by the new learning +they had helped to disseminate, upon the dark places of their own +ecclesiastical administration, they still continued to raise money by +the sale of pardons and indulgences, to bleed their Christian flocks by +monstrous engines of taxation, and to offend the conscience of an +intelligent generation by their example of ungodly living. The +Reformation ran like wild-fire through the North. It grew daily more +obvious that a new Council must be summoned for carrying out measures of +internal reform, and for coping with the forces of belligerent +Protestantism. When things had reached this point, Charles V. declared +his earnest desire that the Pope should summon a General Council. Paul +III. now showed in how true a sense he was the man of a transitional +epoch. So long as possible he resisted, remembering to what straits his +predecessors had been reduced by previous Councils, and being deeply +conscious of scandals in his own domestic affairs which might expose him +to the fate of a John XXIII. Reviewing the whole series of events which +have next to be recorded, we are aware that Paul had no great cause for +agitation. The Council he so much dreaded was destined to exalt his +office, and to recombine the forces of Catholic Christendom under the +absolute supremacy of his successors. The Inquisition and the Company +of Jesus, both of which he sanctioned at this juncture, were to guard, +extend, and corroborate that supreme authority. But this was by no means +apparent in 1540. It is a character of all transitional periods that in +them the cautious men regard past precedents of peril rather than +sanguine expectations based on present chances. A hero, in such passes, +goes to meet the danger armed with his own cause and courage. A genius +divines the future, and interprets it, and through interpretation tries +to govern it. Paul was neither a hero nor a man of genius. Yet he did as +much as either could have done; and he did it in a temper which perhaps +the hero and the genius could not have commanded. He sent Legates to +publish the opening of a Council at Trent in the spring of 1545; and he +resolved to work this Council on the principles of diplomatical +conservatism, reserving for himself the power of watching events and of +enlarging or restricting its efficiency as might seem best to him.[19] + +[Footnote 19: The first official opening of the Council at Trent was in +November 1542, by Cardinals Pole and Morone as Legates. It was adjourned +in July, 1543, on account of insufficient attendance. When it again +opened in 1545, Pole reappeared as Legate. With him were associated two +future Popes, Giov. Maria del Monte (Julius III.), and Marcello Cervini +(Marcellus II.) The first session of the Council took place in December, +1545, four Cardinals, four Archbishops, twenty-one Bishops, and five +Generals of Orders attending. Among these were only five Spanish and two +French prelates; no German, unless we count Cristoforo Madrazzo, the +Cardinal Bishop of Trent, as one. No Protestants appeared; for Paul III. +had successfully opposed their ultimatum, which demanded that final +appeal on all debated points should be made to the sole authority of +Holy Scripture.] + +It is singular that the Council thus reluctantly conceded by Paul III. +should, during its first sessions and while he yet reigned, have +confirmed the dogmatic foundations of modern Catholicism, made +reconciliation with the Teutonic Reformers impossible, and committed the +secular powers which held with Rome to a policy that rendered the Papal +supremacy incontestable.[20] Face to face with the burning question of +the Protestant rebellion, the Tridentine fathers hastened to confirm the +following articles. First, they declared that divine revelation was +continuous in the Church of which the Pope was head; and that the chief +written depository of this revelation--namely, the Scriptures--had no +authority except in the version of the Vulgate. + +[Footnote 20: Throughout the sessions of the Council, Spanish, French, +and German representatives, whether fathers or ambassadors, maintained +the theory of Papal subjection to conciliar authority. The Spanish and +French were unanimous in zeal for episcopal independence. The French and +German were united in a wish to favor Protestants by reasonable +concessions. Thus the Papal supremacy had to face serious antagonism, +which it eventually conquered by the numerical preponderance of the +Italian prelates, by the energy of the Jesuits, by diplomatic intrigues, +and by manipulation of discords in the opposition. Though the Spanish +fathers held with the French and German on the points of episcopal +independence and conciliar authority, they disagreed whenever it became +a question of compromise with Protestants upon details of dogma or +ritual. The Papal Court persuaded the Catholic sovereigns of Spain and +France, and the Emperor, that episcopal independence would be dangerous +to their own prerogatives; and at every inconvenient turn in affairs, it +was made clear that Catholic sovereigns, threatened by the Protestant +revolution, could not afford to separate their cause from that of the +Pope.] + +Secondly, they condemned the doctrine of Justification by Faith, adding +such theological qualifications and reservations as need not, at this +distance of time, and on a point devoid of present actuality, be +scrupulously entertained. Thirdly, they confirmed the efficacy and the +binding authority of the Seven Sacraments. It is thus clear that, on +points of dogma, the Council convened by Pope and Emperor committed +Latin Christianity to a definite repudiation of the main articles for +which Luther had contended. Each of these points they successively +traversed, foreclosing every loophole for escape into accommodation. It +was in large measure due to Caraffa's energy and ability that these +results were attained. + +The method of procedure adopted by the Council, and the temper in which +its business was conducted, were no less favorable to the Papacy than +the authoritative sanction which it gave to dogmas. From the first, the +presidency and right of initiative in its sessions were conceded to the +Papal Legates; and it soon became customary to refer decrees, before +they were promulgated, to his Holiness in Rome for approval. The decrees +themselves were elaborated in three congregations, one appointed for +theological questions, the second for reforms, the third for supervision +and ratification. They were then proposed for discussion and acceptance +in general sessions of the Council. Here each vote told; and as there +was a standing majority of Italian prelates, it required but little +dexterity to secure the passing of any measure upon which the Court of +Rome insisted. The most formidable opposition to the Papal prerogatives +during these manoeuvres proceeded from the Spanish bishops, who urged +the introduction of reforms securing the independence of the episcopacy. + +We find a remarkable demonstration of Paul III.'s difficulties as Pope +of the transition, in the fact that while the Council of Trent was +waging this uncompromising war against Reformers, his dread of Charles +V. compelled him to suspend its sessions, transfer it to Bologna, and +declare himself the political ally of German Protestants. This +transference took place in 1547. His Legates received orders to invent +some decent excuse for a step which would certainly be resisted, since +Bologna was a city altogether subject to the Holy See. The Legates, by +the connivance of the physicians in Trent, managed to create a panic of +contagious epidemic.[21] Charles had won victories which seemed to place +Germany at his discretion. His preponderance in Italy was thereby +dangerously augmented. Paul, following the precedents of policy in which +he had been bred, thought it at this crisis necessary to subordinate +ecclesiastical to temporal interests. He interrupted the proceedings of +the Council in order to hamper the Emperor in Germany. He encouraged the +Northern Protestants in order that he might maintain an open issue in +the loins of his Spanish rival. Nothing could more delicately illustrate +the complications of European politics than the inverted attitude +assumed by the Roman Pontiff in his dealings with a Catholic Emperor at +this moment of time.[22] + +[Footnote 21: See Sarpi, p. 249.] + +[Footnote 22: Charles, at this juncture, was checkmated by Paul through +his own inability to dispense with the Pope's co-operation as chief of +the Catholic Church. So long as he opposed the Reformation, it was +impossible for him to assume an attitude of violent hostility to Rome.] + +The opposition of the Farnesi to Paul's scheme for restoring Parma to +the Holy See in 1549, broke Paul III.'s health and spirits. He died on +November 10, and was succeeded by the Cardinal Giovanni Maria del Monte, +of whose reign little need be said. Julius III. removed the Council from +Bologna to Trent in 1551, where it made some progress in questions +touching the Eucharist and the administration of episcopal sees; but in +the next year its sessions were suspended, owing to the disturbed state +of Southern Germany and the presence of a Protestant army under Maurice +of Saxony in the Tyrol.[23] This Pope passed his time agreeably and +innocently enough in the villa which he built near the Porta del Popolo. +His relatives were invested with several petty fiefs--that of their +birthplace, Monte Sansovino, by Cosimo de'Medici; that of Novara by the +Emperor, and that of Camerino by the Church. The old methods of Papal +nepotism were not as yet abandoned. His successor, Marcello II., +survived his elevation only three weeks; and in May 1555, Giovanni +Pietro Caraffa was elected, with the title of Paul IV. We have already +made the acquaintance of this Pope as a member of the Oratory of Divine +Love, as a co-founder of the Theatines, as the organizer of the Roman +Inquisition, and as a leader in the first sessions of the Tridentine +Council. Paul IV. sprang from a high and puissant family of Naples. He +was a man of fierce, impulsive and uncompromising temper, animated by +two ruling passions--burning hatred for the Spaniards who were trampling +on his native land, and ecclesiastical ambition intensified by rigid +Catholic orthodoxy. The first act of his reign was a vain effort to +expel the Spaniards from Italy by resorting to the old device of French +assistance. The abdication of Charles V. had placed Philip II. on the +throne of Spain, and the settlement whereby the Imperial crown passed to +his brother Ferdinand had substituted a feeble for a powerful Emperor. +But Philip's disengagement from the cares of Germany left him more at +liberty to maintain his preponderance in Southern Europe. It was +fortunate for Paul IV. that Philip was a bigoted Catholic and a +superstitiously obedient son of the Church. These two potentates, +who began to reign in the same year, were destined, after the +settlement of their early quarrel, to lead and organize the Catholic +Counter-Reformation. The Duke of Guise at the Pope's request marched a +French army into Italy. Paul raised a body of mercenaries, who were +chiefly German Protestants[24]; and opened negotiations with Soliman, +entreating the Turk to make a descent on Sicily by sea. Into such a +fantastically false position was the Chief of the Church, the most +Catholic of all her Pontiffs, driven by his jealous patriotism. We seem +to be transported back into the times of a Sixtus IV. or an Alexander +VI. And in truth, Paul's reversion to the antiquated Guelf policy of his +predecessors was an anachronism. That policy ceased to be efficient when +Francis I. signed the Treaty of Cambray; the Church, too, had gradually +assumed such a position that armed interference in the affairs of +secular sovereigns was suicidal. This became so manifest that Paul's +futile attack on Philip in 1556 may be reckoned the last war raised by a +Pope. From it we date the commencement of a new system of Papal +co-operation with Catholic powers. + +[Footnote 23: During the brief and unimportant sessions at Bologna, +Jesuit influences began to make themselves decidedly felt in the +Council, where Lainez and Salmeron attended as Theologians of the Papal +See. Up to this time the Dominicans had shaped decrees. Dogmatic +orthodoxy was secured by their means. Now the Jesuits were to fight and +win the battle of Papal Supremacy.] + +[Footnote 24: Sarpi, quoted in his Life by Fra Fulgenzio, p. 83, says +Paul called his Grisons mercenaries 'Angels sent from Heaven.'] + +The Duke of Alva put the forces at his disposal in the Two Sicilies into +motion, and advanced to meet the Duke of Guise. But while the campaign +dragged on, Philip won the decisive battle of S. Quentin. The Guise +hurried back to France, and Alva marched unresisted upon Rome. There was +no reason why the Eternal City should not have been subjected to another +siege and sack. The will was certainly not wanting in Alva to humiliate +the Pope, who never spoke of Spaniards but as renegade Jews, Marrani, +heretics, and personifications of pride. Philip, however, wrote +reminding his general that the date of his birth (1527) was that of +Rome's calamity, and vowing that he would not signalize the first year +of his reign by inflicting fresh miseries upon the capital of +Christendom. Alva was ordered to make peace on terms both honorable and +advantageous to his Holiness; since the King of Spain preferred to lose +the rights of his own crown rather than to impair those of the Holy See +in the least particular. Consequently, when Alva entered Rome in +peaceful pomp, he did homage for his master to the Pope, who was +generously willing to absolve him for his past offences. Paul IV. +publicly exulted in the abasement of his conquerors, declaring that it +would teach kings in future the obedience they owed to the Chief of the +Church. But Alva did not conceal his discontent. It would have been +better, he said, to have sent the Pope to sue for peace and pardon at +Brussels, than to allow him to obtain the one and grant the other on +these terms. + +Paul's ambition to expel the Spaniards from Italy exposed him to the +worst abuses of that Papal nepotism which he had denounced in others. He +judged it necessary to surround himself with trusty and powerful agents +of his own kindred.[25] + +[Footnote 25: New men--and Popes were always _novi homines_--are +compelled to take this course, and suffer when they take it. We might +compare their difficulties with those which hampered Napoleon when he +aspired to the Imperial tyranny over French conquests in Europe.] + +With that view he raised one of his nephews, Carlo, to the Cardinalate, +and bestowed on two others the principal fiefs of the Colonna family. +The Colonnas were by tradition Ghibelline. This sufficed for depriving +them of Palliano and Montebello. Carlo Caraffa, who obtained the +scarlet, had lived a disreputable life which notoriously unfitted him +for any ecclesiastical dignity. In the days of Sixtus and Alexander this +would have been no bar to his promotion. But the Church was rapidly +undergoing a change; and Carlo, complying with the hypocritical spirit +of his age, found it convenient to affect a thorough reformation, and to +make open show of penitence. Rome now presented the singular spectacle +of an inquisitorial Pope, unimpeachable in moral conduct and zealous for +Church reform, surrounded by nephews who were little better than +Borgias. The Caraffas began to dream of principalities and scepters. It +was their ambition to lay hold on Florence, where Cosimo de'Medici, as +a pronounced ally of Spain, had gained the bitter hatred of their uncle. +But their various misdoings, acts of violence and oppression, avarice +and sensuality, gradually reached the ears of the Pope. In an assembly +of the Inquisition, held in January 1559, he cried aloud, 'Reform! +reform! reform!' Cardinal Pacheco, a determined foe of the Caraffeschi, +raised his voice, and said, 'Holy Father! reform must first begin with +us.' Pallavicini adds the remark that Paul understood well who was meant +by _us_. He immediately retired to his apartments, instituted a +searching inquiry into the conduct of his nephews, and, before the month +was out, deprived them of all their offices and honors, and banished +them from Rome. He would not hear a word in their defence; and when +Cardinal Farnese endeavored to procure a mitigation of their sentence, +he brutally replied, 'If Paul III. had shown the same justice, your +father would not have been murdered and mutilated in the streets of +Piacenza.' In open consistory, before the Cardinals and high officials +of his realm, with tears streaming from his eyes, he exposed the evil +life of his relatives, declared his abhorrence of them, and protested +that he had dwelt in perfect ignorance of their crimes until that time. +This scene recalls a similar occasion, when Alexander VI. bewailed +himself aloud before his Cardinals after the murder of the Duke of +Gandia by Cesare. But Alexander's repentance was momentary; his grief +was that of a father for Absalom; his indignation gave way to paternal +weakness for the fratricide. Paul, though his love for his relatives +seems to have been fervent, never relaxed his first severity against +them. They were buried in oblivion; no one uttered their names in the +Pope's presence. The whole secular administration of the Papal States +was changed; not an official kept his place. For the first time Rome was +governed by ministers in no way related to the Holy Father. + +Paul now turned his attention, with the fiery passion that +distinguished him, to the reformation of ecclesiastical abuses. On his +accession he had published a Bull declaring that this would be a +principal object of his reign. Nor had he in the midst of other +occupations forgotten his engagement. A Congregation specially appointed +for examining, classifying, and remedying such abuses had been +established. It was divided into three committees, consisting of eight +Cardinals, fifteen prelates, and fifty men of learning. At the same time +the Inquisition was rigorously maintained. Paul extended its +jurisdiction, empowered it to use torture, and was constant in his +attendance on its meetings and _autos da fe_.[26] But now that his plans +for the expulsion of the Spaniards had failed, and his nephews had been +hurled from their high station into the dust, there remained no other +interest to distract his mind. Every day witnessed the promulgation of +some new edict touching monastic discipline, simony, sale of offices, +collation to benefices, church ritual, performance of clerical duties, +and appointment to ecclesiastical dignities. It was his favorite boast +that there would be no need of a Council to restore the Church to +purity, since he was doing it.[27] + +[Footnote 26: Pallavicini, in his history of the Council of Trent (Lib. +xiv. ix. 5), specially commends Paul's zeal for the Holy Office:--'Fra +esse d'eterna lode lo fa degno il tribunal dell'inquisizione, che dal +zelo di lui e prima in autorita di consigliero e poscia in podesta di +principe riconosce il presente suo vigor nell'Italia, e dal quale +riconosce l'Italia la sua conservata integrita della fede: e per quest' +opera salutare egli rimane ora tanto piu benemerito ed onorabile quantao +piu allora ne fu mal rimerilato e disonorato.'] + +[Footnote 27: See Luigi Mocenigo in _Rel. degli Amb. Veneti_, vol. x. p. +25.] And indeed his measures formed the nucleus of the Tridentine +decrees upon this topic in the final sessions of the Council. Under this +government Rome assumed an air of exemplary behavior which struck +foreigners with mute astonishment. Cardinals were compelled to preach in +their basilicas. The Pope himself, who was vain of his eloquence, +preached. Gravity of manners, external signs of piety, a composed and +contrite face, ostentation of orthodoxy by frequent confession and +attendance at the Mass, became fashionable; and the Court adopted for +its motto the _Si non caste tamen caute_ of the Counter-Reformation.[28] +Aretino, with his usual blackguardly pointedness of expression, has +given a hint of what the new _regime_ implied in the following satiric +lines:-- + + Carafla, ipocrita infingardo, + Che tien per coscienza spirituale + Quando si mette del pepe in sul cardo. + +Paul IV. brought the first period of the transition to an end. There +were no attempts at dislodging the Spaniard, no Papal wars, no tyranny +of Papal nephews converted into feudal princes, after his days. He +stamped Roman society with his own austere and bigoted religion. That he +was in any sense a hypocrite is wholly out of the question. But he made +Rome hypocritical, and by establishing the Inquisition on a firm basis, +he introduced a reign of spiritual terror into Italy. + +[Footnote 28: 'Roma a paragone delli tempi degli altri pontefici si +poteva riputar come un onesto monasterio di religiosi' (_op. cit._ p. +41).] + +At his death the people rose in revolt, broke into the dungeons of the +Inquisition, released the prisoners, and destroyed the archives. The +Holy Office was restored, however; and its higher posts of trust soon +came to be regarded as stepping-stones to the Pontifical dignity. + +The successor of Paul IV. was a man of very different quality and +antecedents. Giovanni Angelo Medici sprang, not from the Florentine +house of Medici, but from an obscure Lombard stem. His father acquired +some wealth by farming the customs in Milan; and his eldest brother, +Gian Giacomo, pushed his way to fame, fortune, and a title by piracy +upon the lake of Como.[29] Gian Giacomo established himself so securely +in his robber fortress of Musso that he soon became a power to reckon +with. He then entered the imperial service, was created Marquis of +Marignano by the Duke of Milan, and married a lady of the Orsini house, +the sister of the Duchess of Parma. At a subsequent period he succeeded +in subduing Siena to the rule of Cosimo de'Medici, who then +acknowledged a pretended consanguinity between the two families.[30] The +younger brother, Giovanni Angelo, had meanwhile been studying law, +practising as a jurist, and following the Court at Rome in the place of +prothonotary which, as the custom then was, he purchased in 1527. Paul +III. observed him, took him early into favor, and on the marriage of +Gian Giacomo, advanced him to the Cardinalate. This was the man who +assumed the title of Pius IV. on his election to the Papacy in 1559. + +[Footnote 29: In my _Sketches and Studies in Italy_ I have narrated the +romantic history of this filibuster.] + +[Footnote 30: Soranzo: Alberi, vol. x. p. 67. Pius IV. adopted the arms +of the Florentine Medici, and spent 30,000 scudi on carving them about +through Rome. See P. Tiepolo, _Ib._ p. 174.] + +Paul IV. hated Cardinal Medici, and drove him away from Rome. It is +probable that this antipathy contributed something to Giovanni Angelo's +elevation. Of humble Lombard blood, a jurist and a worldling, pacific in +his policy, devoted to Spanish interests, cautious and conciliatory in +the conduct of affairs, ignorant of theology and indifferent to niceties +of discipline, Pius IV. was at all points the exact opposite of the +fiery Neapolitan noble, the Inquisitor and fanatic, the haughty trampler +upon kings, the armed antagonist of Alva, the brusque, impulsive +autocrat, the purist of orthodoxy, who preceded him upon the Papal +throne.[31] His trusted counselor was Cardinal Morone, whom Paul had +thrown into the dungeons of the Inquisition on a charge of favoring +Lutheran opinions, and who was liberated by the rabble in their +fury.[32] + +[Footnote 31: 'Veramente quasi in ogni parte si puo chiamare il rovescio +dell' altro' (_op. cit._ p. 50).] + +[Footnote 32: Luigi Mocenigo says of him that Pius 'averlo per un angelo +di paradiso, e adoperandolo per consiglio in tutte le sue cose +importanti.' Alberi, vol. x. p. 40. The case made out against Morone +during the pontificate of Paul IV. may be studied in Cantu, _op. cit._ +vol. ii. pp. 171-192, together with his defence in full. It turned +mainly on these articles:--unsound opinions regarding justification by +faith, salvation by Christ's blood, good works, invocation of saints, +reliques; dissemination of the famous book on the _Benefits of Christ's +Death_; practice with heretics. He was imprisoned in the Castle of S. +Angelo from June, 1557 till August, 1559. Suspicions no doubt fell on +him through his friendship with several of the moderate reformers, and +from the fact that his diocese of Modena was a nest of liberal +thinkers--the Grillenzoni, Castelvetro, Filippo Valentini, Faloppio, +Camillo Molza, Francesco da Porto, Egidio Foscarari, and others, all of +whom are described by Cantu, _op. cit._ Disc, xxviii. The charges +brought against these persons prove at once the mainly speculative and +innocuous character of Italian heresy, and the implacable enmity which a +Pope of Caraffa's stamp exercised against the slightest shadow of +heterodoxy.] + +This in itself was significant of the new _regime_ which now began in +Rome. Morone, like his master, understood that the Church could best be +guided by diplomacy and arts of peace. The two together brought the +Council of Trent to that conclusion which left an undisputed sovereignty +in theological and ecclesiastical affairs to the Papacy. It would have +been impossible for a man of Caraffa's stamp to achieve what these +sagacious temporizers and adroit managers effected. + +Without advancing the same arrogant claims to spiritual supremacy as +Paul had made, Pius was by no means a feeble Pontiff. He knew that the +temper of the times demanded wise concessions; but he also knew how to +win through these concessions the reality of power. It was he who +initiated and firmly followed the policy of alliance between the Papacy +and the Catholic sovereigns.[33] Instead of asserting the interests of +the Church in antagonism to secular potentates, he undertook to prove +that their interests were identical. Militant Protestantism threatened +the civil no less than the ecclesiastical order. The episcopacy +attempted to liberate itself from monarchical and pontifical authority +alike. Pius proposed to the autocrats of Europe a compact for mutual +defence, divesting the Holy See of some of its privileges, but requiring +in return the recognition of its ecclesiastical absolutism. In all +difficult negotiations he was wont to depend upon himself; treating his +counselors as agents rather than as peers, and holding the threads of +diplomacy in his own hands. Thus he was able to transact business as a +sovereign with sovereigns, and came to terms with them by means of +personal correspondence. The reconstruction of Catholic Christendom, +which took visible shape in the decrees of the Tridentine Council, was +actually settled in the Courts of Spain, Austria, France and Rome. The +Fathers of the Council were the mouthpieces of royal and Papal cabinets. +The Holy Ghost, to quote a profane satire of the time, reached Trent in +the despatch-bags of couriers, in the sealed instructions issued to +ambassadors and legates. + +[Footnote 33: Soranzo, _op. cit._ p. 75, says: 'Con li principi tiene +modo affatto contrario al suo predecessore; perche mentre quello usava +dire, il grado dei pontefici esser per mettersi sotto i piedi +gl'imperatori e i re, questo dice che senza l'autorita dei principi non +si puo conservare quella dei pontefici.'] + +We observe throughout the negotiations which crowned the policy of this +Pope with success, the operation not only of a pacific and far-seeing +character, but also of the temper of a lawyer. Pius drew up the +Tridentine decrees as an able conveyancer draws up a complicated deed, +involving many trusts, recognizing conflicting rights, providing for +distant contingencies. It was in fact the marriage contract of +ecclesiastical and secular absolutism, by which the estates of Catholic +Christendom were put in trust and settlement for posterity. In +formulating its terms the Pope granted points to which an obstinate or +warlike predecessor, a Julius II. or a Paul IV., would never have +subscribed his signature. In purely theological matters, such as the +concession of the chalice to the laity and the marriage of the clergy, +he was even willing to yield more for the sake of peace than his Court +and clergy would agree to. But for each point he gave, he demanded a +substantial equivalent, and showed such address in bargaining, that Rome +gained far more than it relinquished. When the contract had been +drafted, he ratified it by a full and ready recognition, and lawyer-like +was punctual in executing all the terms to which he pledged himself. + +We must credit Pius IV. with keen insight into the new conditions of +Catholic Europe, and recognize him as the real founder of the modern as +distinguished from the mediaeval Papacy. That transition which I have +been describing in the present chapter remained uncertain in its issue +up to his pontificate. Before his death the salvation of Catholicism, +the integrity of the Catholic Church, the solidity of the Roman +hierarchy, and the possibility of a vigorous Counter-Reformation were +placed beyond all doubt. + +It is noticeable that these substantial successes were achieved, not by +a religious fanatic, but by a jurist; not by a saint, but by a genial +man of the world; not by force of intellect and will, but by adroitness; +not by masterful authority, but by pliant diplomacy; not by forcing but +by following the current of events. Since Gregory VII., no Pope had done +so much as Pius IV. for bracing the ancient fabric of the Church and +confirming the Papal prerogative. But what a difference there is between +a Hildebrand and a Giovanni Angelo Medici! How Europe had changed, when +a man of the latter's stamp was the right instrument of destiny for +starting the weather-beaten ship of the Church upon a new and prosperous +voyage. + +Pius IV. was greatly assisted in his work by circumstances, of which he +knew how to avail himself. Had it not been for the renewed spiritual +activity of Catholicism to which I have alluded in this chapter, he +might not have been able to carry that work through. He took no interest +in theology, and felt no sympathy for the Inquisition.[34] But he +prudently left that institution alone to pursue its function of policing +the ecclesiastical realm. The Jesuits rendered him important assistance +by propagating their doctrine of passive obedience to Rome. Spain +supported him with the massive strength of a nation Catholic to the +core; and when the Spanish prelates gave him trouble, he could rely for +aid upon the Spanish crown. His own independence, as a prudent man of +business, uninfluenced by bigoted prejudices or partialities for any +sect, enabled him to manipulate all resources at his disposal for the +main object of uniting Catholicism and securing Papal supremacy. He was +also fortunate in his family relations, having no occasion to complicate +his policy by nepotism. One of the first acts of his reign had been to +condemn four of the Caraffeschi--Cardinal Caraffa, the Duke of Palliano, +Count Aliffe and Leonardo di Cardine--to death; and this act of justice +ended forever the old forms of domestic ambition which had hampered the +Popes of the Renaissance in their ecclesiastical designs. His brother, +the Marquis of Marignano, died in 1555; and this event opened for him +the path to the Papacy, which he would never have attained in the +lifetime of so grasping and ambitious a man.[35] With his next brother, +Augusto, who succeeded to the marquisate, he felt no sympathy.[36] His +nephew Federigo Borromeo died in youth. His other nephew, Carlo +Borromeo, the sainted Archbishop of Milan, remained close to his person +in Rome.[37] But Carlo Borromeo was a man who personified the new spirit +of Catholicism. Sincerely pious, zealous for the faith, immaculate in +conduct, unwearied in the discharge of diocesan duties, charitable to +the poor, devoted to the sick, he summed up all the virtues of the +Counter-Reformation. Nor had he any of the virtues of the Renaissance. A +Venetian Ambassador described him as cold of political temperament, +little versed in worldly affairs, and perplexed when he attempted to +handle matters of grave moment.[38] His presence at the Papal Court, so +far from being perilous, as that of an ambitious Cardinal Nipote would +have been, or scandalous as that of former Riarios, Borgias, and +Caraffas had undoubtedly been, was a source of strength to Pius. It +imported into his immediate surroundings just what he himself lacked, +and saved him from imputations of worldliness which in the altered +temper of the Church might have proved inconvenient.[39] Truly, among +all Pontiffs who have occupied St. Peter's Chair, Pius IV. deserved in +the close of his life to be called fortunate. He had risen from +obscurity, had entered Rome in humble office at the moment of Rome's +deepest degradation. He had lived through troubled times, and for some +years had felt the whole weight of Catholic concerns upon his shoulders. +At the last, he was conscious of having opened a new era for the Church, +and of being able to transmit a scepter of undisputed authority to his +successors. His death-bed was troubled with no remorse, with no +ingratitude of relatives, with no political complications produced by +family ambition or by the sacrifice of his official duties to personal +aggrandizement. + +[Footnote 34: Soranzo, _op. cit._ p. 74.] + +[Footnote 35: Soranzo, _op. cit._ p. 71, says: 'II marchese suo fratello +con la moglie gli diede il cappello, e con la morte il papato.'] + +[Footnote 36: Mocenigo, _op. cit._ p. 52. Soranzo, _op. cit._ p. 93.] + +[Footnote 37: Margherita Medici, sister of the Pope, had married +Gilberto Borromeo.] + +[Footnote 38: See Mocenigo, _op. cit._ p. 53. Soranzo, _op. cit._ p. +91.] + +[Footnote 39: Gia. Soranzo (_op. cit._ p. 133) says of Carlo Borromeo, +'ch'egli solo faccia piu profitto nella Corte di Roma che tutti i +decreti del Concilio insieme.'] + +Soon after the election of Pope Pius IV. the state of Europe made the +calling of a General Council indispensable. Paul's impolitic pretensions +had finally alienated England from the Roman Church. Scotland was upon +the point of declaring herself Protestant. The Huguenots were growing +stronger every year in France, the Queen Mother, Catherine de'Medici, +being at that time inclined to favor them. The Confession of Augsburg +had long been recognized in Germany. The whole of Scandinavia, with +Denmark, was lost to Catholicism. The Low Countries, in spite of Philip, +Alva, and the Inquisition, remained intractable. Bohemia, Hungary, and +Poland were alienated, ripe for open schism. The tenets of Zwingli had +taken root in German Switzerland. Calvin was gaining ground in the +French cantons. Geneva had become a stationary fortress, the stronghold +of belligerent reformers, whence heresy sent forth its missionaries and +promulgated subversive doctrines through the medium of an ever-active +press. Transformed by Calvin from its earlier condition of a +pleasure-loving and commercial city, it was now what Deceleia under +Spartan discipline had been to Athens in the Peloponnesian war--a +permanent _epiteichismos_, perpetually garrisoned and on guard to harry +the flanks of Catholics. Faithful to the Roman See in a strict sense of +the term, there remained only Spain, Portugal, and Italy. As the events +of the next century proved, the disaffected nations still offered +rallying-points for the Catholic cause, from which the tide of conquest +was rolled back upon the Reformation. But in 1559 the outlook for the +Church was very gloomy; no one could predict whether a General Council +might not increase her difficulties by weakening the Papal power and +sowing further seeds of discord among her few faithful adherents. Yet +Pius, after an attempt to combine the Catholic nations in a crusade +against Geneva, which was frustrated by the jealousy of Spain, the +internal weakness of France and the respect inspired by Switzerland,[40] +determined to cast his fortunes on the Council. He had several strong +points in his favor. The reigning Emperor, Ferdinand, wielded a power +insignificant when compared with that of Charles V. The Protestants, +though formally invited, were certain not to attend a Council which had +already condemned the articles of their Confession. The cardinal dogmas +of Catholicism had been confirmed in the sessions of 1545-1552. It was +to be hoped that, with skillful management, existing differences of +opinion with regard to doctrine, church-management, and reformation of +abuses, might be settled to the satisfaction of the Catholic powers. + +[Footnote 40: See Sarpi, vol. ii. pp. 43, 44.] + +The Pope accordingly sent four Legates, the Cardinals Gonzaga, +Seripando, Simoneta, Hosius, and Puteo, to Trent, who opened the +Council on January 15, 1562.[41] As had been anticipated, the +Protestants showed strong disinclination to attend. The French prelates +were unable to appear, pending negotiations with the Huguenots at Poissy +and Pontoise. The German prelates intimated their reluctance to take +part in the proceedings. The Court of France demanded that the chalice +for the laity and the use of the vulgar tongue in religious services +should be conceded. The Emperor also insisted on these points, making a +further demand for the marriage of the clergy. Circumstances both in +France and Germany seemed to render these conditions imperative, if the +rapid spread of Protestant dissent were to be checked and the remnant of +the Catholic population to be kept in obedience. Of ecclesiastics, only +Spaniards and Italians, the latter in a large majority, appeared at +Trent. The Courts of other nations were represented by ambassadors, who +took no part in the deliberations of the Council.[42] + +[Footnote 41: Cardinal Puteo was soon replaced by a Papal nephew, the +Cardinal d'Altemps (Mark of Hohen Embs).] + +[Footnote 42: At the first session there were five Cardinals, one +hundred and four prelates, including Patriarchs, Archbishops and +Bishops, four Abbots, and four Generals of Orders. These were all +Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese. And yet this Conciliabulum called +itself a General Council, inspired by the Holy Ghost to legislate for +the whole of Latin and Teutonic Christianity.] + +In spite of this inauspicious commencement, Pius declared the Council a +General Council, and further decreed that it should be recognized as a +continuation of that Council which had begun at Trent in 1545. This +rendered co-operation of the Protestants impossible, since they would +have been compelled to accept the earlier dogmatic resolutions of the +Fathers. It was decided that no proxies should be allowed to absentees; +that the questions of doctrine and reform should be prepared for +discussion in two separate congregations, and should be taken into +consideration in full sessions simultaneously; finally that the Papal +Legates should alone have the privilege of proposing resolutions to the +fathers. This last point, by which the Court of Rome reserved to itself +the control of all proceedings in the Council, was carried by a clever +ruse. Until too late the Spanish prelates do not seem to have been aware +of the immense power they had conferred on Rome by passing the words +_Legatis proponentibus_.[43] The principle involved in this phrase +continued to be hotly disputed all through the sessions of the Council. +But Pius knew that so long as he stuck fast to it he always held the ace +of trumps, and nothing would induce him to relinquish it. + +[Footnote 43: See Sarpi, vol. ii. p. 87.] + +Fortified in this position of superiority, Pius now proceeded to +organize his forces and display his tactics. All through the sessions of +the Council they remained the same; and as the method resulted in his +final victory, it deserves to be briefly described. At any cost he +determined to secure a numerical majority in the Synod. This was +effected by drafting Italian prelates, as occasion required, to Trent. +Many of the poorer sort were subsidized, and placed under the +supervision of Cardinal Simoneta, who gave them orders how to vote. A +small squadron of witty bishops was told off to throw ridicule on +inconvenient speakers by satirical interpolations, or to hamper them by +sophistical arguments. Spies were introduced into the opposite camps, +who kept the Legates informed of what the French or Spaniards +deliberated in their private meetings. The Legates meanwhile established +a daily post of couriers, who carried the minutest details of the +Council to the Vatican. When the resolutions of the congregations on +which decrees were to be framed had been drawn up, they referred them to +his Holiness. Without his sanction they did not propose them in a +general session. In this fashion, by means of his standing majority, the +exclusive right of his Legates to propose resolutions, and the previous +reference of these resolutions to himself, Pius was enabled to direct +the affairs of the Council. It soon became manifest that while the +fathers were talking at Trent their final decisions were arranged in +Rome. This not unnaturally caused much discontent. It began to be +murmured that the Holy Ghost was sent from Rome to Trent in carpet-bags. +A man of more imperious nature than Pius might, by straining his +prerogatives, have produced an irreconcilable rupture. But he was aware +that the very existence of the Papacy depended on circumspection. He +therefore used all his advantages with caution, and resolved to win the +day by diplomacy. With this object in view he introduced the further +system of negotiating with the Catholic Courts through special agents. +Instead of framing the decrees upon the information furnished by his +Legates, he in his turn submitted them to Philip, Catherine de'Medici, +and Ferdinand, agreed on terms of mutual concession, persuaded the +princes that their interests were identical with his own, and then +returned such measures to the Council as could be safely passed. In +course of time the Holy Ghost was not packed up at Rome for Trent in +carpet-bags before he had gone round of Europe and made his bow in all +cabinets. + +It must not, however, be thought that matters went smoothly for the Pope +at first, or that so novel a method as that which I have described, +whereby the faith and discipline of Christendom were settled by +negotiations between sovereigns, came suddenly into existence. In its +first sessions the Council, to quote the Pope's own words, resembled the +Tower of Babel rather than a Synod of Fathers. The Spanish prelates +contended fiercely for two principles touching the episcopacy: one was +that the residence of bishops in their dioceses had been divinely +commanded; the other, that their authority is derived from Christ +immediately. The first struck at the Pope's power to dispense from the +duty of residence; and if it had been established, it would have ruined +his capital. The second would have rendered the episcopacy independent +of Rome, and have made the Holy Father one of a numerous oligarchy +instead of the absolute chief of a hierarchy. Pius was able to show +Philip that the independence of the bishops must inflict deep injuries +on the crown of Spain. Philip therefore wrote to forbid insistance on +this point. But the Spanish prelates, though coerced, were not silenced, +and the storm which they had raised went grumbling on. + +Difficulties of a no less serious nature arose when the French and +Imperial ambassadors arrived at Trent in the spring. They demanded, as I +have already stated, that the chalice should be conceded to the laity; +nor is it easy to understand why this point might not have been granted. +Pius himself was ready to make the concession; and the only valid +argument against it was that it imperiled the uniformity of ritual +throughout all Catholic countries. The Germans further stipulated for +the marriage of the clergy, which the Pope was also disposed to +entertain, until he reflected that celibacy alone retained the clergy +faithful to his interests and regardless of those of their own nations. +At this juncture of affairs, the Roman Court, which was strongly opposed +to both concessions, received material aid from the dissensions of the +Council. The Spaniards would hear nothing of the Eucharist under both +forms. The marriage of the clergy was opposed by French and Spaniards +alike. On the point of episcopal independence, the French supported the +Spaniards; but Pius used the same arguments in France which he had used +in Spain, with similar success. Thus there was no agreement on any of +the disputed questions between Spaniards, Frenchmen and Germans; and +since the ambassadors could neither propose nor vote, and the Italian +prelates were in a permanent majority, Pius was able to defer and +temporize at leisure. + +Nevertheless, he began to feel the gravity of the situation. He saw that +the embassies constituted dangerous centers of intrigue and national +organization at Trent. He was not entirely satisfied with his own +Legate, the Cardinal Gonzaga, who supported the divine right of the +episcopacy, and quarreled with his colleagues. The Spaniards, infuriated +at having sacrificed the right of proposing measures, began to talk +openly about the reform of the Papacy. Disagreeable messages reached +Rome from France, and Spain, and Germany, complaining of the Pope's +absolutism in Council, and demanding that the reform of the Church +should be taken into serious and instant consideration. His devoted +adherent, Lainez, General of the Jesuits, embittered opposition by +passionately preaching the doctrine of passive obedience. Two dangers +lay before him. One was that the Council should break up in confusion, +with discredit to Rome, and anarchy for the Catholic Church. The other +was that it should be prolonged in its dissensions by the princes, with +a view of depressing and enfeebling the Papal authority. Other perils +of an incalculable kind threatened him in the announced approach of the +mighty Cardinal of Lorraine, brother to the Duke of Guise, with a +retinue of French bishops released from the Conference at Poissy. Though +he kept on packing the Council with fresh relays of Italians, it was +much to be apprehended that they might be unable to oppose a coalition +between French and Spanish prelates, should that be now effected. + +Pius, at this crisis, resolved on two important lines of policy, the +energetic pursuit of which speedily brought the Council of Trent to a +peaceful termination. The first was to meet the demand for a searching +reformation of the Church with cheerful acquiescence; but to oppose a +counter-demand that the secular States in all their ecclesiastical +relations should at the same time be reformed. This implied a threat of +alienating patronage and revenue from the princes; it also indicated +plainly that the tiara and the crowns had interests in common. The +second was to develop the diplomatic system upon which he had already +tentatively entered. + +The events of the spring, 1563, hastened the adoption of these measures +by the Pope. Cardinal Lorraine had arrived with his French bishops[44]; +and the Papal Legates found themselves involved at once in intricate +disputes on questions touching the Huguenots and the interests of the +Gallican Church. The Italians were driven in despair to epigrams: _Dalla +scabie Spagnuola siamo caduti nel mal Francese_. Somewhat later, the +Emperor dispatched a bulky and verbose letter, announcing his intention +to play the part which Sigismund had assumed at the Council of +Constance. He complained roundly of the evils caused by the reference of +all resolutions to Rome, by the exclusive rights of the Legates to +propose decrees, and by the intrigues of the Italian majority in the +Synod. He wound up by declaring that the reformation of the Church must +be accomplished in Trent, not left to the judgment of the Papal Curia; +and threatened to arrive from Innsbruck by the Brenner. Though Ferdinand +was in a position of ecclesiastical and political weakness, such an +Imperial rescript could not be altogether contemned; especially as +Cardinal Lorraine, soon after his arrival, had made the journey to +Innsbruck on purpose to confer with the Emperor. It therefore behoved +the Pope to act with decision; and an important event happened in the +first days of March, which materially assisted him in doing so. This was +the death of Cardinal Gonzaga, whom Pius determined to replace by the +moderate and circumspect Morone.[45] + +[Footnote 44: He reached Trent, November 13, 1562, with eighteen +Bishops, and three Abbots of France, charged by Charles IX. to demand +purified ritual, reformed discipline of clergy, use of vernacular in +church services, and finally, if possible, the marriage of the clergy.] + +[Footnote 45: The confusion at Trent in the spring of 1563 is thus +described by the Bishop of Alife: 'Methinks Antichrist has come, so +greatly confounded are the perturbations of the holy Fathers here.' +Phillipson, p. 525.] + +Through Ippolito d'Este, Cardinal of Ferrara, he opened negotiations +with the French Court, showing that the wishes of the prelates in the +Council on the question of episcopacy were no less opposed to the crown +than to his own interests. Cardinal Simoneta urged the same point on the +Marquis of Pescara, who governed Milan for Philip, and was well inclined +to the Papal party. Cardinal Morone was sent on a special embassy to the +Emperor.[46] By wise concessions, in which the prerogatives of the +Imperial ambassadors at Trent were considerably enlarged, and a +searching reformation of the Church was promised, Morone succeeded in +establishing a good working basis for the future. It came to be +understood that while the Pope would allow no further freedom to the +bishops, he was well disposed to let his Legates admit the envoys of the +Catholic powers into their counsels. From this time forward the Synod +may be said to have existed only as a mouthpiece for uttering the terms +agreed on by the Pope and potentates. Morone returned to Trent, and the +Emperor withdrew from Innsbruck toward the north. + +[Footnote 46: When Morone set out, he told the Venetian envoy in Rome +that he was going on a forlorn hope. 'L'illmo Morone, quando parti per +il Concilio, mi disse che andava a cura disperata e che _nulla speserat_ +della religione Cattolica.' Soranzo, _op. cit._ p. 82. The Jesuit +Canisius, by his influence with Ferdinand, secured the success of +Morone's diplomacy.] + +The difficulty with regard to France and Germany consisted in this, that +politics forced both King and Emperor to consider the attitude of their +Protestant subjects. Yet both alike were unable to maintain their +position as Catholic sovereigns, if they came to open rupture with the +Papacy. Ferdinand, as we have just seen, had expressed himself contented +with the situation of affairs at Trent. But the French prelates still +remained in opposition, and the French Court was undecided. Cardinal +Morone, upon his arrival at Trent, began to flatter the Cardinal of +Lorraine, affecting to take no measures of importance without consulting +him. This conduct, together with timely compliments to several Frenchmen +of importance, smoothed the way for future agreement; while the couriers +who arrived from France, brought the assurance that Ippolito d'Este's +representations had not been fruitless. Pius, meanwhile, was playing the +same conciliatory game in Rome, where Don Luigi d'Avila arrived as a +special envoy from Philip. The ambassador obtained a lodging in the +Vatican, and was seen in daily social intercourse with his Holiness.[47] +But the climax of this policy was reached when Lorraine accepted the +Pope's invitation, and undertook a journey to Rome. This happened in +September. The French Cardinal was pompously received, entertained in +the palace, and honored with personal visits in his lodgings by the +Pope. Weary of Trent and the tiresome intrigues of the Council, this +unscrupulous prelate was still further inclined to negotiation after the +murder of his brother, Duke of Guise. It must be remembered that the +Guises in France were after all but a potent faction of semi-royal +adventurers, who had risen to eminence by an alliance with Diane de +Poitiers. The murder of the duke shook the foundations of their power; +and the Cardinal was naturally anxious to be back again in France. For +the moment he basked in the indolent atmosphere of Rome, surrounded by +those treasures of antique and Renaissance luxury which still remained +after the Sack of 1527. Pius held out flattering visions of succession +to the Papacy, and proved convincingly that nothing could sustain the +House of Guise or base the Catholic faith in France except alliance with +the Papal See. Lorraine, who had probably seen enough of episcopal +_canaillerie_ in the Council, and felt his inner self expand in the rich +climate of pontifical Rome, allowed his ambition to be caressed, +confessed himself convinced, and returned to Trent intoxicated with his +visit, the devoted friend of Rome. + +[Footnote 47: Sarpi says that Don Luigi resided in the lodgings of Count +Federigo Borromeo, a deceased nephew of the Pope.] + +Menaces, meanwhile, had been astutely mingled with cajoleries. The +French and the Imperial Courts were growing anxious on the subject of +reform in secular establishments. Pius had threatened to raise the whole +question of national Churches and the monarch's right of interfering in +their administration. This was tantamount to flinging a burning torch +into the powder-magazine of Huguenot and Lutheran grievances. In order +to save themselves from the disaster of explosion, they urged harmonious +action with the Papacy upon their envoys. The Spanish Court, through +Pescara, De Luna, and D'Avalos, wrote dispatches of like tenor. It was +now debated whether a congress of Crowned heads should not be held to +terminate the Council in accordance with the Papal programme. This would +have suited Pius. It was the point to which his policy had led. Yet no +such measure could be lightly hazarded. A congress while the Council was +yet sitting, would have been too palpable and cynical a declaration of +the Papal game. As events showed, it was not even necessary. When +Lorraine returned to Trent, the French opposition came to an end. The +Spanish had been already neutralized by the firm persistent exhibition +of Philip's will to work for Roman absolutism.[48] There was nothing +left but to settle details, to formulate the terms of ecclesiastical +reform, and to close the Council of Trent with a unanimous vote of +confidence in his Holiness. The main outlines of dogma and discipline +were quickly drawn. Numerous details were referred to the Pope for +definition. The Council terminated in December with an act of +submission, which placed all its decrees at the pleasure of the Papal +sanction. Pius was wise enough to pass and ratify the decrees of the +Tridentine fathers by a Bull dated on December 26, 1563, reserving to +the Papal sovereign the sole right of interpreting them in doubtful or +disputed cases. This he could well afford to do; for not an article had +been penned without his concurrence, and not a stipulation had been made +without a previous understanding with the Catholic powers. The very +terms, moreover, by which his ratification was conveyed, secured his +supremacy, and conferred upon his successors and himself the privileges +of a court of ultimate appeal. At no previous period in the history of +the Church had so wide, so undefined, and so unlimited an authority been +accorded to the See of Rome. Thus Pius IV. was triumphant in obtaining +conciliar sanction for Pontifical absolutism, and in maintaining the +fabric of the Roman hierarchy unimpaired, the cardinal dogmas of Latin +Christianity unimpeached and after formal inquisition reasserted in +precise definitions. A formidable armory had been placed at the disposal +of the Popes, who were fully empowered to use it, and who had two mighty +engines for its application ready in the Holy Office and the Company of +Jesus.[49] + +[Footnote 48: Yet the Spanish bishops fought to the end, under the +leadership of their chief Guerrero, for the principle of conciliar +independence and the episcopal prerogatives. 'We had better not have +come here, than be forced to stand by as witnesses,' says the Bishop of +Orense. Phillipson, p. 577.] + +[Footnote 49: The vague reference of all decrees passed by the +Tridentine Council to the Pope for interpretation enabled him and his +successors to manipulate them as they chose. It therefore happened, as +Sarpi says ('Tratt. delle Mat. Ben.' _Opere_, vol. iv. p. 161), that no +reform, with regard to the tenure of benefices, residence, pluralism, +etc., which the Council had decided, was adopted without qualifying +expedients which neutralized its spirit. If the continuance of benefices +_in commendam_ ceased, the device of _pensions_ upon benefices was +substituted; and a thousand pretexts put colossal fortunes extracted +from Church property, now as before, into the hands of Papal nephews. +Witness the contrivances whereby Cardinal Scipione Borghese enriched +himself in the Papacy of Paul V. The Council had decreed the residence +of bishops in their sees; but it had reserved to the Pope a power of +dispensation; so that those whom he chose to exile from Rome were bound +to reside, and those whom he desired to have about him were released +from this obligation. On each and all delicate points the Papacy was +more autocratic after than before the Council. One of Sarpi's letters +(vol. i. p. 371) to Jacques Leschassier, dated December 22, 1609, should +be studied by those who wish to penetrate the '_reserve ed altre arcane +arti_,' the '_renunzie_', '_pensioni_' and '_altri stratagemmi_,' by +means of which the Papal Curia, during the half-century after the +Tridentine Council, managed to evade its decrees, and to get such +control over Church property in Italy that 'out of 500 benefices not one +is conferred legally.' Compare the passage in the 'Trattato delle +Materie Beneficiarie,' p. 163. There Sarpi says that five-sixths of +Italian benefices are at the Pope's disposal, and that there is good +reason to suppose that he will acquire the remaining sixth.] + +After the termination of the Council there was nothing left for Pius but +to die. He stood upon a pinnacle which might well have made him +nervous--lest haply the Solonian maxim, 'Call no man fortunate until his +death,' should be verified in his person. During the two years of peace +and retirement which he had still to pass, the unsuccessful conspiracy +of Benedetto Accolti and Antonio Canossa against his life gave point to +this warning. But otherwise, withdrawn from cares of state, which he +committed to his nephew, Carlo Borromeo, he enjoyed the tranquillity +that follows successful labor, and sank with undiminished prestige into +his grave at the end of 1565. Those who believe in masterful and potent +leaders of humanity may be puzzled to account for the triumph achieved +by this common-place arbiter of destiny. Not by strength but by pliancy +of character he accomplished the transition from the mediaeval to the +modern epoch of Catholicism. He was no Cromwell, Frederick the Great, or +Bismarck; only a politic old man, contriving by adroit avoidance to +steer the ship of the Church clear through innumerable perils. This +scion of the Italian middle class, this moral mediocrity, placed his +successors in S. Peter's chair upon a throne of such supremacy that they +began immediately to claim jurisdiction over kings and nations. +Thirty-eight years before his death, when Clement VII. was shut up in S. +Angelo, it seemed as though the Papal power might be abolished. +Forty-five years after his death, Sarpi, writing to a friend in 1610, +expressed his firm opinion that the one, the burning question for Europe +was the Papal power.[50] Through him, poor product as he was of ordinary +Italian circumstances, elected to be Pope because of his easy-going +mildness by prelates worn to death in fiery Caraffa's reign, it happened +that the flood of Catholic reaction was rolled over Europe. In a certain +sense we may therefore regard him as a veritable _Flagellum Dei_, +wielded by inscrutable fate. It seems that at momentous epochs of +world-history no hero is needed to effect the purpose of the +Time-Spirit. A Gian Angelo Medici, agreeable, diplomatic, benevolent, +and pleasure-loving, sufficed to initiate a series of events which kept +the Occidental races in perturbation through two centuries. + +[Footnote 50: _Lettere_, vol. ii. p. 167.] + +A great step had been taken in the pontificate of Pius IV. That reform +of the Church, which the success of Protestantism rendered necessary, +and which the Catholic powers demanded, had been decreed by the Council +of Trent. Pius showed no unwillingness to give effect to the Council's +regulations; and the task was facilitated for him by his nephew, Carlo +Borromeo, and the Jesuits. It still remained, however, to be seen +whether a new Pope might not reverse the policy on which the +Counter-Reformation had been founded, and impede the beneficial inner +movement which was leading the Roman hierarchy into paths of sobriety. +Should this have happened, it would have been impossible for Romanism to +assume a warlike attitude of resistance toward the Protestants in +Europe, or to have rallied its own spiritual forces. The next election +was therefore a matter of grave import. + +Nothing is more remarkable in the history of the Papacy at this epoch +than the singular contrast offered by each Pontiff in succession to his +predecessor. The conclave was practically uncontrolled in its choice by +any external force of the first magnitude. Though a Duke of Florence +might now, by intrigue, determine the nomination of a Pius IV., no +commanding Emperor or King of France, as in the times of Otto the Great +or Philip le Bel, could designate his own candidate. There was no +strife, so open as in the Renaissance period, between Cardinals +subsidized by Spain or Austria or France.[51] The result was that the +deliberations of the conclave were determined by motives of petty +interests, personal jealousies, and local considerations, to such an +extent that the election seemed finally to be the result of chance or +inspiration. We find the most unlikely candidates, Caraffa and Peretti, +attributing their elevation to the direct influence of the Holy Ghost, +in the consciousness that they had slipped into S. Peter's Chair by the +maladroitness of conflicting factions. The upshot, however, of these +uninfluenced elections generally was to promote a man antagonistic to +his predecessor. The clash of parties and the numerical majority of +independent Cardinals excluded the creatures of the last reign, and +selected for advancement one who owed his position to the favor of an +antecedent Pontiff. This result was further secured by the natural +desire of all concerned in the election to nominate an old man, since it +was for the general advantage that a pontificate should, if possible, +not exceed five years. + +[Footnote 51: This does not mean that the Spanish crown had not a +powerful voice in the elections. See the history of the conclaves which +elected Urban VII., Gregory XIV., Innocent IX., Clement VIII., in Ranke, +vol. ii. pp. 31-39. Yet it was noticed by those close observers, the +Venetian envoys, that France and Spain had abandoned their former policy +of subsidizing the Cardinals who adhered to their respective factions.] + +The personal qualities of Carlo Borromeo were of grave importance in +the election of a successor to his uncle. He had ruled the Church during +the last years of Pius IV.; and the newly-appointed Cardinals were his +dependents. Had he attempted to exert his power for his own election, he +might have met with opposition. He chose to use it for what he +considered the deepest Catholic interests. This unselfishness led to the +selection of a man, Michele Ghislieri, whose antecedents rendered him +formidable to the still corrupt members of the Roman hierarchy, but +whose character was precisely of the stamp required for giving solidity +to the new phase on which the Church had entered. As Pius IV. had been +the exact opposite to Paul IV., so Pius V. was a complete contrast to +Pius IV. He had passed the best years of his life as chief of the +Inquisition. Devoted to theology and to religious exercises, he lacked +the legal and mundane faculties of his predecessor. But these were no +longer necessary. They had done their duty in bringing the Council to a +favorable close, and in establishing the Catholic concordat. What was +now required was a Pope who should, by personal example and rigid +discipline, impress Rome with the principles of orthodoxy and reform. +Carlo Borromeo, self-conscious, perhaps, of the political incapacity +which others noticed in him, and fervently zealous for the Catholic +Revival, devolved this duty on Michele Ghislieri, who completed the work +of his two predecessors. + +Paul IV. had laid a basis for the modern Roman Church by strengthening +the Inquisition and setting internal reforms on foot. Pius IV., +externally, by his settlement of the Tridentine Council, and by the +establishment of the Catholic concordat, built upon this basis an +edifice which was not as yet massive. Carlo Borromeo and the Jesuits +during the last pontificate prepared the way for a Pope who should +cement and gird that building, so that it should be capable of resisting +the inroads of time and should serve as a fortress of attack on heresy. +That Pope was Michele Ghislieri, who assumed the title of Pius V. in +1566. + +Before entering on the matter of his reign, it will be necessary to +review the state of Rome at this moment in the epoch of transition, when +the mediaeval and Renaissance phases were fast merging into the phase of +the Counter-Reformation. Old abuses which have once struck a deep root +in any institution, die slowly. It is therefore desirable to survey the +position in which the Papal Sovereign of the Holy City, as constituted +by the Council of Trent, held sway there. + +The population of Rome was singularly fluctuating. Being principally +composed of ecclesiastics with their households and dependents; +foreigners resident in the city as suitors or ambassadors; merchants, +tradespeople and artists attracted by the hope of gain; it rose or fell +according to the qualities of the reigning Pope, and the greater or less +train of life which happened to be fashionable. Noble families were +rather conspicuous by their absence than by their presence; for those of +the first rank, Colonna and Orsini, dwelt upon their fiefs, and visited +the capital only as occasion served. The minor aristocracy which gave +solidity to social relations in towns like Florence and Bologna, never +attained the rank of a substantial oligarchy in Rome. Nor was there an +established dynasty round which a circle of peers might gather in +permanent alliance with the Court. On the other hand, the frequent +succession of Pontiffs chosen from various districts encouraged the +growth of an ephemeral nobility, who battened for a while upon the favor +of their Papal kinsmen, flooded the city with retainers from their +province, and disappeared upon the election of a new Pope, to make room +for another flying squadron. Instead of a group of ancient Houses, +intermarrying and transmitting hereditary rights and honors to their +posterity, Rome presented the spectacle of numerous celibate +establishments, displaying great pomp, it is true, but dispersing and +disappearing upon the decease of the patrons who assembled them. The +households of wealthy Cardinals were formed upon the scale of princely +Courts. Yet no one, whether he depended on the mightiest or the feeblest +prelate, could reckon on the tenure of his place beyond the lifetime of +his master. Many reasons, again--among which may be reckoned the +hostility of reigning Pontiffs to the creatures of their predecessors or +to their old rivals in the conclave--caused the residence of the chief +ecclesiastics in Rome to be precarious. Thus the upper stratum of +society was always in a state of flux, its elements shifting according +to laws of chronic uncertainty. Beneath it spread a rabble of inferior +and dubious gentlefolk, living in idleness upon the favor of the Court, +serving the Cardinals and Bishops in immoral and dishonest offices, +selling their wives, their daughters and themselves, all eager to rise +by indirect means to places of emolument.[52] Lower down, existed the +_bourgeoisie_ of artists, bankers, builders, shopkeepers, and artisans; +and at the bottom of the scale came hordes of beggars. Rome, like all +Holy Cities, entertained multitudes of eleemosynary paupers. Gregory +XIII. is praised for having spent more than 200,000 crowns a year on +works of charity, and for having assigned the district of San Sisto (in +the neighborhood of Trinita del Monte, one of the best quarters of the +present city) to the beggars.[53] + + +[Footnote 52: See Mocenigo, _op. cit._ p. 35; Aretino's _Dialogo della +Corte di Roma_; and the private history of the Farnesi.] + +[Footnote 53: Giov. Carraro and Lor. Priuli, _op. cit._ pp. 275, 306.] + +Such being the social conditions of Rome, it is not surprising to learn +that during the reign of so harsh a Pontiff as Paul IV., the population +sank to a number estimated at between 40,000 and 50,000. It rose rapidly +to 70,000, and touched 80,000 in the reign of Pius IV. Afterwards it +gradually ascended to 90,000, and during the popular pontificate of +Gregory XIII. it is said to have reached the high figure of 140,000. +These calculations are based upon the reports of the Venetian +ambassadors, and can be considered as impartial, although they may not +be statistically exact.[54] + +What rendered Roman society rotten to the core was universal pecuniary +corruption. In Rome nothing could be had without payment; but men with +money in their purse obtained whatever they desired. The office of the +Datatario alone brought from ten to fourteen thousand crowns a month +into the Papal treasury in 1560.[55] This large sum accrued from the +composition of benefices and the sale of vacant offices. The Camera +Apostolica, or Chamber of Justice, was no less venal. A price was set on +every crime, for which its punishment could be commuted into +cash-payment. Even so severe a Pope as Paul IV. committed to his nephew, +by published and printed edict, the privilege of compounding with +criminals by fines.[56] One consequence of this vile system, rightly +called by the Venetian envoy 'the very strangest that could be witnessed +or heard of in such matters,' was that wealthy sinners indulged their +appetites at the expense of their families, and that innocent people +became the prey of sharpers and informers.[57] Rome had organized a vast +system of _chantage_. + +[Footnote 54: Alberi, vol. x. pp. 35, 83, 277.] + +[Footnote 55: Mocenigo's computation, _op. cit._ p. 29.] + +[Footnote 56: _Ibid._ p. 31.] + +[Footnote 57: The true history of the Cenci, as written by Bertolotti, +throws light upon these points.] Another consequence was that acts of +violence were frightfully common. Men could be hired to commit murders +at sums varying from ten to four scudi; and on the death of Paul IV., +when anarchy prevailed for a short while in Rome, an eye-witness asserts +that several hundred assassinations were committed within the walls in a +few days.[58] + +[Footnote 58: Mocenigo, _op. cit._ p. 38.] + +It was not to be expected that a population so corrupt, accustomed for +generations to fatten upon the venality and vices of the hierarchy, +should welcome those radical reforms which were the best fruits of the +Tridentine Council. They specially disliked the decrees which enforced +the residence of prelates and the limitation of benefices held by a +single ecclesiastic. These regulations implied the withdrawal of wealthy +patrons from Rome, together with an incalculable reduction in the amount +of foreign money spent there. Nor were the measures for abolishing a +simoniacal sale of offices, and the growing demand for decency in the +administration of justice, less unpopular. The one struck at the root of +private speculation in lucrative posts, and deprived the Court of +revenues which had to be replaced by taxes. The other destroyed the arts +of informers, checked lawlessness and license in the rich, and had the +same lamentable effect of impoverishing the Papal treasury. In +proportion as the Curia ceased to subsist upon the profits of simony, +superstition, and sin, it was forced to maintain itself by imposts on +the people, and by resuming, as Gregory XIII. attempted to do, its +obsolete rights over fiefs and lands accorded on easy terms or held by +doubtful titles. Meanwhile the retrenchment rendered necessary in all +households of the hierarchy, and the introduction of severer manners, +threatened many minor branches of industry with extinction. + +These changes began to manifest themselves during the pontificate of +Pius IV. The Pope himself was inclined to a liberal and joyous scale of +living. But he was not remarkable for generosity; and the new severity +of manners made itself felt by the example of his nephew Carlo +Borromeo--a man who, while living in the purple, practiced austerities +that were apparent in his emaciated countenance. The Jesuits ruled him; +and, through him, their influence was felt in every quarter of the +city.[59] 'The Court of Rome,' says the Venetian envoy in the year 1565, +'is no longer what it used to be either in the quality or the numbers of +the courtiers. This is principally due to the poverty of the Cardinals +and the parsimony of the Popes. In the old days, when they gave away +more liberally, men of ability flocked from all quarters. This reduction +of the Court dates from the Council; for the bishops and beneficed +clergy being now obliged to retire to their residences, the larger +portion of the Court has left Rome. To the same cause may be ascribed a +diminution in the numbers of those who serve the Pontiff, seeing that +since only one benefice can now be given, and that involves residence, +there are few who care to follow the Court at their own expense and +inconvenience without hope of greater reward. The poverty of the +Cardinals springs from two causes. The first is that they cannot now +obtain benefices of the first class, as was the case when England, +Germany, and other provinces were subject to the Holy See, and when +moreover they could hold three or four bishoprics apiece together with +other places of emolument, whereas they now can only have one apiece. +The second cause is that the number of the Cardinals has been increased +to seventy-five, and that the foreign powers have ceased to compliment +them with large presents and Benefices, as was the wont of Charles V. +and the French crown.' In the last of these clauses we find clearly +indicated one of the main results of the concordat established between +the Papacy and the Catholic sovereigns by the policy of Pius IV. It +secured Papal absolutism at the expense of the college. Soranzo proceeds +to describe the changes visible in Roman society. 'The train of life at +Court is therefore mean, partly through poverty, but also owing to the +good example of Cardinal Borromeo, seeing that people are wont to follow +the manners of their princes. The Cardinal holds in his hands all the +threads of the administration; and living religiously in the retirement +I have noticed, indulging in liberalities to none but persons of his +own stamp, there is neither Cardinal nor courtier who can expect any +favor from him unless he conform in fact or in appearance to his mode of +life. Consequently one observes that they have altogether withdrawn, in +public at any rate, from every sort of pleasures. One sees no longer +Cardinals in masquerade or on horseback, nor driving with women about +Rome for pastime, as the custom was of late; but the utmost they do is +to go alone in close coaches. Banquets, diversions, hunting parties, +splendid liveries and all the other signs of outward luxury have been +abolished; the more so that now there is at Court no layman of high +quality, as formerly when the Pope had many of his relatives or +dependents around him. The clergy always wear their robes, so that the +reform of the Church is manifested in their appearance. This state of +things, on the other hand, has been the ruin of the artisans and +merchants, since no money circulates. And while all offices and +magistracies are in the hands of Milanese, grasping and illiberal +persons, very few indeed can be still called satisfied with the present +reign.'[60] + +[Footnote 59: Giac. Soranzo, _op. cit._ pp. 131-136] + +[Footnote 60: Soranzo, _op. cit._ pp. 136-138.] + +One chief defect of Pius IV., judged by the standard of the new party in +the Church, had been his coldness in religious exercises. Paolo Tiepolo +remarks that during the last seven months of his life he never once +attended service in his chapel.[61] + +[Footnote 61: _Op. cit._ p. 171.] + +This indifference was combined with lukewarmness in the prosecution of +reforms. The Datatario still enriched itself by the composition of +benefices, and the Camera by the composition of crimes. Pius V., on the +contrary, embodied in himself those ascetic virtues which Carlo Borromeo +and the Jesuits were determined to propagate throughout the Catholic +world. He never missed a day's attendance on the prescribed services of +the Church, said frequent Masses, fasted at regular intervals, and +continued to wear the coarse woolen shirt which formed a part of his +friar's costume. In his piety there was no hypocrisy. The people saw +streams of tears pouring from the eyes of the Pontiff bowed in ecstacy +before the Host. A rigid reformation of the churches, monasteries, and +clergy was immediately set on foot throughout the Papal States. Monks +and nuns complained, not without cause, that austerities were expected +from them which were not included in the rules to which they vowed +obedience. The severity of the Inquisition was augmented, and the Index +Expurgatorius began to exercise a stricter jurisdiction over books. The +Pope spent half his time at the Holy Office, inquiring into cases of +heresy of ten or twenty years' standing. From Florence he caused +Carnesecchi to be dragged to Rome and burned; from Venice the refugee +Guido Zanetti of Fano was delivered over to his tender mercies; and the +excellent Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo, was sent from Spain to be +condemned to death before the Roman tribunal. Criminal justice, +meanwhile, was administered with greater purity, and the composition of +crimes for money, if not wholly abolished, was moderated. In the +collation to bishoprics and other benefices the same spirit of equity +appeared; for Pius inquired scrupulously into the character and fitness +of aspirants after office. + +The zeal manifested by Pius V. for a thorough-going reform of manners +may be illustrated by a curious circumstance related by the Venetian +ambassador in the first year of the pontificate.[62] On July 26, 1566, +an edict was issued, compelling all prostitutes to leave Rome within six +days, and to evacuate the States of the Church within twelve days. The +exodus began. But it was estimated that about 25,000 persons, counting +the women themselves with their hangers-on and dependents, would have to +quit the city if the edict were enforced.[63] The farmers of the customs +calculated that they would lose some 20,000 ducats a year in +consequence, and prayed the Pope for compensation. Meanwhile the roads +across the Campagna began to be thronged by caravans, which were exposed +to the attacks of robbers. The confusion became so great, and the public +discontent was so openly expressed, that on August 17 Pius repealed his +edict and permitted the prostitutes to reside in certain quarters of the +city. + +[Footnote 62: Mutinelli, _Storia Arcana_, etc., vol. i. pp. 51-54.] + +[Footnote 63: Assuming the population of Rome to have been about 90,000 +at that date, this number appears incredible. Yet we have it on the best +of all evidences, that of a resident Venetian envoy.] + +Pius IV. had wasted the greater part of his later life in bed, +neglecting business, entertaining his leisure with buffoons and good +companions, eating much and drinking more. Pius V., on the contrary, +carried the habits of the convent with him into the Vatican, and +bestowed the time he spared from devotion upon the transaction of +affairs. He was of choleric complexion, adust, lean, wasted, with sunken +eyes and snow-white hair, looking ten years older than he really was. + +Such a Pope changed the face of Rome, or rather stereotyped the change +which had been instituted by Cardinal Borromeo. 'People, even if they +are not really better, seem at least to be so,' says the Venetian envoy, +who has supplied me with the details I have condensed.[64] Retrenchments +in the Papal establishment were introduced; money was scarce; the Court +grew meaner in appearance; and nepotism may be said to have been extinct +in the days of Pius V. He did indeed advance one nephew, Michele +Bonelli, to the Cardinalate; but he showed no inclination to enrich or +favor him beyond due measure. A worn man, without ears, marked by the +bastinado, frequented the palace, and stood near the person of the Pope, +as Captain of the Guard. This was Paolo Ghislieri, a somewhat distant +relative of Pius, who had passed his life in servitude to Barbary +corsairs and had been ransomed by a merchant upon the election of his +kinsman. No other members of the Papal family were invited to Rome. + +[Footnote 64: Tiepolo, _op. cit._ p. 172.] + +Pius V., while living this exemplary monastic life upon the Papal +throne, ruled Catholic Christendom more absolutely than any of his +predecessors. As the Papacy recognized its dependence on the sovereigns, +so the sovereigns in their turn perceived that religious conformity was +the best safeguard of their secular authority. Therefore the Catholic +States subscribed, one after the other, to the Tridentive Profession of +Faith, and adopted one system in matters of Church discipline. A new +Breviary and a new Missal were published with the Papal sanction. +Seminaries were established for the education of ecclesiastics, and the +Jesuits labored in their propaganda. The Inquisition and the +Congregation of the Index redoubled their efforts to stamp out heresy by +fire and iron, and by the suppression or mutilation of books. A rigid +uniformity was impressed on Catholicism. The Pope, to whom such power +had been committed by the Council, stood at the head of each section and +department of the new organization. To his approval every measure in the +Church was referred, and the Jesuits executed his instructions with +punctual exactness. + +It is not, therefore, to be wondered that Pius V. should have opened the +era of active hostilities against Protestantism. Firmly allied with +Philip II., he advocated attacks upon the Huguenots in France, the +Protestants in Flanders, and the English crown. There is no evidence +that he was active in promoting the Massacre of S. Bartholomew, which +took place three months after his death; and the expedition of the +Invincible Armada against England was not equipped until another period +of fifteen years had elapsed. Yet the negotiations in which he was +engaged with Spain, involving enterprises to the detriment of the +English realm and the French Reformation, leave no doubt that both S. +Bartholomew and the Armada would have met with his hearty approval. One +glorious victory gave luster to the reign of Pius V. In 1571 the navies +of Spain, Venice and Rome inflicted a paralyzing blow upon the Turkish +power at Lepanto; and this success was potent in fanning the flame of +Catholic enthusiasm. + +The pontificates of Paul IV., Pius IV., and Pius V., differing as they +did in very important details, had achieved a solid triumph for reformed +Catholicism, of which both the diplomatical and the ascetic parties in +the Church, Jesuits and Theatines, were eager to take advantage. A new +spirit in the Roman polity prevailed, upon the reality of which its +future force depended; and the men who embodied this spirit had no mind +to relax their hold on its administration. After the death of Pius V. +they had to deal with a Pope who resembled his penultimate predecessor, +Pius IV., more than the last Pontiff. Ugo Buoncompagno, the scion of a +_bourgeois_ family settled in Bologna, began his career as a jurist. He +took orders in middle life, was promoted to the Cardinalate, and +attained the supreme honor of the Holy See in 1572. The man responded to +his name. He was a good companion, easy of access, genial in manners, +remarkable for the facility with which he cast off care and gave himself +to sanguine expectations.[65] In an earlier period of Church history he +might have reproduced the Papacy of Paul II. or Innocent VIII. As it +was, Gregory XIII. fell at once under the potent influence of Jesuit +directors. His confessor, the Spanish Francesco da Toledo, impressed +upon him the necessity of following the footsteps of Paul IV. and Pius +V. It was made plain that he must conform to the new tendencies of the +Catholic Church; and in his neophyte's zeal he determined to outdo his +predecessors. The example of Pius V. was not only imitated, but +surpassed. Gregory XIII. celebrated three Masses a week, built churches, +and enforced parochial obedience throughout his capital. The Jesuits in +his reign attained to the maximum of their wealth and influence. Rome, +'abandoning her ancient license, displayed a moderate and Christian mode +of living: and in so far as the external observance of religion was +concerned, she showed herself not far removed from such perfection as +human frailties allow.'[66] + +[Footnote 65: Paolo Tiepolo, _op. cit._ p. 312.] + +[Footnote 66: _Ibid._ p. 214.] + +While he was yet a layman, Gregory became the father of one son, +Giacomo. Born out of wedlock, he was yet acknowledged as a member of +the Buoncompagno family, and admitted under this name into the Venetian +nobility.[67] The Pope manifested paternal weakness in favor of his +offspring. He brought the young man to Rome, and made him Governatore di +Santa Chiesa with a salary of 10,000 ducats. The Jesuits and other +spiritual persons scented danger. They persuaded the Holy Father that +conscience and honor required the alienation of his bastard from the +sacred city. Giacomo was relegated to honorable exile in Ancona. But he +suffered so severely from this rebuff, that terms of accommodation were +agreed on. Giacomo received a lady of the Sforza family in marriage, and +was established at the Papal Court with a revenue amounting to about +25,000 crowns.[68] The ecclesiastical party now predominant in Rome, +took care that he should not acquire more than honorary importance in +the government. Two of the Pope's nephews were promoted to the +Cardinalate with provisions of about 10,000 crowns apiece. His old +brother abode in retirement at Bologna under strict orders not to seek +fortune or to perplex the Papal purity of rule in Rome.[69] + +[Footnote 67: The Venetians, when they inscribed his name upon the Libro +d'Oro, called him 'a near relative of his Holiness.'] + +[Footnote 68: This lady was a sister of the Count of Santa Fiora. For a +detailed account of the wedding, see Mutinelli, _Stor. arc._ +vol. i. p. 112.] + +[Footnote 69: Tiepolo, _op. cit._ pp. 213, 219--221, 263, 266.] + +I have introduced this sketch of Gregory's relations in order to show +how a Pope of his previous habits and personal proclivities was now +obliged to follow the new order of the Church. It was noticed that the +mode of life in Rome during his reign struck a just balance between +license and austerity, and that general satisfaction pervaded +society.[70] Outside the city this contentment did not prevail. Gregory +threw his States into disorder by reviving obsolete rights of the Church +over lands mortgaged or granted with obscure titles. The petty barons +rose in revolt, armed their peasants, fomented factions in the country +towns, and filled the land with brigands. Under the leadership of men +like Alfonso Piccolomini and Roberto Malatesta, these marauding bands +assumed the proportion of armies. The neighboring Italian +States--Tuscany, Venice, Naples, Parma, all of whom had found the Pope +arbitrary and aggressive in his dealings with them--encouraged the +bandits by offering them an asylum and refusing to co-operate with +Gregory for their reduction. + +[Footnote 70: Giov. Corraro, op. cit. p. 277.] + +His successor, Sixtus V., found the whole Papal dominion in confusion. +It was impossible to collect the taxes. Life and property were nowhere +safe. By a series of savage enactments and stern acts of justice, Sixtus +swept the brigands from his States. He then applied his powerful will to +the collection of money and the improvement of his provinces. In the +four years which followed his election he succeeded in accumulating a +round sum of four million crowns, which he stored up in the Castle of +S. Angelo. The total revenues of the Papacy at this epoch were roughly +estimated at 750,000 crowns, which in former reigns had been absorbed in +current costs and the pontifical establishment. By rigorous economy and +retrenchments of all kinds Sixtus reduced these annual expenses to a sum +of 250,000, thus making a clear profit of 500,000 crowns.[71] At the +same time he had already spent about a million and a half on works of +public utility, including the famous Acqua Felice, which brought +excellent water into Rome. Roads and bridges throughout the States of +the Church were repaired, The Chiana of Orvieto and the Pontine Marsh +were drained. Encouragement was extended, not only to agriculture, but +also to industries and manufactures. The country towns obtained wise +financial concessions, and the unpopular resumption of lapsed lands and +fiefs was discontinued. Rome meanwhile began to assume her present +aspect as a city, by the extensive architectural undertakings which +Sixtus set on foot. He loved building; but he was no lover of antiquity. +For pagan monuments of art he showed a monastic animosity, dispersing or +mutilating the statues of the Vatican and Capitol; turning a Minerva +into an image of the Faith by putting a cross in her hand; surmounting +the columns of Trajan and Antonine with figures of Peter and Paul; +destroying the Septizonium of Severus, and wishing to lay sacrilegious +hands on Caecilia Metella's tomb. To mediaeval relics he was hardly less +indifferent. The old buildings of the Lateran were thrown down to make +room for the heavy modern palace. But, to atone in some measure for +these acts of vandalism, Sixtus placed the cupola upon S. Peter's and +raised the obelisk in the great piazza which was destined to be circled +with Bernini's colonnades. This obelisk he tapped with a cross. +Christian inscriptions, signalizing the triumph of the Pontiff over +infidel emperors, the victory of Calvary over Olympus, the superiority +of Rome's saints and martyrs to Rome's old deities and heroes, left no +doubt that what remained of the imperial city had been subdued to Christ +and purged of paganism. Wandering through Rome at the present time, we +feel in every part the spirit of the Catholic Revival, and murmur to +ourselves those lines of Clough: + + O ye mighty and strange, ye ancient divine ones of Hellas! + Are ye Christian too? To convert and redeem and renew you, + Will the brief form have sufficed, that a Pope has sat up on the apex + Of the Egyptian stone that o'ertops you, the Christian symbol? + And ye, silent, supreme in serene and victorious marble, + Ye that encircle the walls of the stately Vatican chambers, + Are ye also baptized; are ye of the Kingdom of Heaven? + Utter, O some one, the word that shall reconcile Ancient and Modern. + +[Footnote 71: See Giov. Gritti, _op. cit._ p. 333.] + +Nothing was more absent from the mind of Sixtus than any attempt to +reconcile Ancient and Modern. He was bent on proclaiming the ultimate +triumph of Catholicism, not only over antiquity, but also over the +Renaissance. His inscriptions, crosses, and images of saints are the +enduring badges of serfdom set upon the monuments of ancient and +renascent Italy, bearing which they were permitted by the now absolute +Pontiff to remain as testimonies to his power. + +Retrenchment alone could not have sufficed for the accumulation of so +much idle capital, and for so extensive an expenditure on works of +public utility. Sixtus therefore had recourse to new taxation, new +loans, and the creation of new offices for sale. The Venetian envoy +mentions eighteen imposts levied in his reign; a sum of 600,000 crowns +accruing to the Camera by the sale of places; and extensive loans, or +Monti, which were principally financed by the Genoese.[72] It was +necessary for the Papacy, now that it had relinquished the larger part +of its revenues derived from Europe, to live upon the proceeds of the +Papal States. The complicated financial expedients on which successive +Popes relied for developing their exchequer, have been elaborately +explained by Ranke.[73] They were materially assisted in their efforts +to support the Papal dignity upon the resources of their realm, by the +new system of nepotism which now began to prevail. Since the Council of +Trent, it was impossible for a Pope to acknowledge his sons, and few, if +any, of the Popes after Pius IV. had sons to acknowledge.[74] + +[Footnote 72: Giov. Gritti, _op. cit._ p. 337.] + +[Footnote 73: _History of the Popes_, Book iv. section I.] + +[Footnote 74: Giacomo Buoncompagno was born while Gregory XIII. was +still a layman and a lawyer.] + +The tendencies of the Church rendered it also incompatible with the +Papal position that near relatives of the Pontiff should be advanced, as +formerly, to the dignity of independent princes. The custom was to +create one nephew Cardinal, with such wealth derived from office as +should enable him to benefit the Papal family at large. Another nephew +was usually ennobled, endowed with capital in the public funds for the +purchase of lands, and provided with lucrative places in the secular +administration. He then married into a Roman family of wealth and +founded one of the aristocratic houses of the Roman State. We possess +some details respecting the incomes of the Papal nephews at this period, +which may be of interest.[75] Carlo Borromeo was reasonably believed to +enjoy revenues amounting to 50,000 scudi. Giacomo Buoncompagno's whole +estate was estimated at 120,000 scudi; while the two Cardinal nephews of +Gregory XIII. had each about 10,000 a year. At the same epoch Paolo +Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, enjoyed an income of some 25,000, +his estate being worth 60,000, but being heavily encumbered. These +figures are taken from the Reports of the Venetian envoys. If we may +trust them as accurate, it will appear by a comparison of them with the +details furnished by Ranke, that Gregory's successors treated their +relatives with greater generosity.[76] Sixtus V. enriched the Cardinal +Montalto with an ecclesiastical income of 100,000 scudi. Clement VIII. +bestowed on two nephews--one Cardinal, the other layman--revenues of +about 60,000 apiece in 1599. He is computed to have hoarded altogether +for his family a round sum of 1,000,000 scudi. Paul V. was believed to +have given to his Borghese relatives nearly 700,000 scudi in cash, +24,600 scudi in funds, and 268,000 in the worth of offices.[77] The +Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, nephew of Gregory XV., had a reputed income +of 200,000 scudi; and the Ludovisi family obtained 800,000 in _luoghi di +monte_ or funds. Three nephews of Urban VIII., the brothers Barberini, +were said to have enjoyed joint revenues amounting to half a million +scudi, and their total gains from the pontificate touched the enormous +sum of 105,000,000. These are the families, sprung from obscurity or +mediocre station, whose palaces and villas adorn Rome, and who now rank, +though of such recent origin, with the aristocracy of Europe. + +Sixtus V. died in 1590. To follow the history of his successors would be +superfluous for the purpose of this book. The change in the Church which +began in the reign of Paul III. was completed in his pontificate. About +half a century, embracing seven tenures of the Holy Chair, had sufficed +to develop the new phase of the Papacy as an absolute sovereignty, +representing the modern European principle of absolutism, both as the +acknowledged Head of Catholic Christendom and also as a petty Italian +power. + +[Footnote 75: Sarpi writes: 'In my times Pius V., during five years, +accumulated 25,000 ducats for the Cardinal nephew; Gregory XIII., in +thirteen years, 30,000 for one nephew, and 20,000 for another; Sixtus +V., for his only nephew, 9,000; Clement VIII., in thirteen years, for +one nephew, 8,000, and for the other, 3,000; and this Pope, Paul V., in +four years, for one nephew alone, 40,000. To what depths are we destined +to fall in the future?' (_Lettere_, vol. i. p. 281). This final question +was justified by the event; for, after the Borghesi, came the Ludovisi +and Barberini, whose accumulations equalled, if they did not surpass, +those of any antecedent Papal families.] + +[Footnote 76: The details may be examined in Ranke, vol. ii. pp. +303-311.] + +[Footnote 77: Sarpi's Letters supply some details relating to Paul V.'s +nepotism. He describes the pleasure which this Pope took on one day of +each week in washing his hands in the gold of the Datatario and the +Camera (vol. i. p. 281), and says of him, 'attende solo a far danari' +(vol. ii. p. 237). When Paul gave his nephew Scipione the Abbey of +Vangadizza, with 12,000 ducats a year, Sarpi computed that the Cardinal +held about 100,000 ducats of ecclesiastical benefices (vol. i. p. 219). +When the Archbishopric of Bologna, worth over 16,000 ducats a year, fell +vacant in 1610, Paul gave this to Scipione, who held it a short time +without residence, and then abandoned it to Alessandro Ludovisi +retaining all its revenues, with the exception of 2,000 ducats, for +himself as a _pension_ (vol. ii. pp. 158, 300). In the year 1610 Sarpi +notices the purchase of Sulmona and other fiefs by Paul for his family, +at the expenditure of 160,000 ducats (vol. ii. p. 70). In another place +he speaks of another sum of 100,000 spent upon the same object (vol. i. +p. 249, note). Well might he exclaim, 'Il pontefice e attesa ad arrichir +la sua casa' (vol. i. p. 294).] + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE INQUISITION AND THE INDEX. + + Different Spirit in the Holy Office and the Company of Jesus--Both + needed by the Counter-Reformation--Heresy in the Early + Church--First Origins of the Inquisition in 1203--S. Dominic--The + Holy Office becomes a Dominican Institution--Recognized by the + Empire--Its early Organization--The Spanish Inquisition--Founded in + 1484--How it differed from the earlier Apostolical + Inquisition--Jews, Moors, New Christians--Organization and History + of the Holy Office in Spain--Torquemada and his Successors--The + Spanish Inquisition never introduced into Italy--How the Roman + Inquisition organized by Caraffa differed from it--_Autos da fe_ in + Rome--Proscription of suspected Lutherans--The Calabrian + Waldenses--Protestants at Locarno and Venice--Digression on the + Venetian Holy Office--Persecution of Free Thought in + Literature--Growth of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum--Sanction + given to it by the Council of Trent--The Roman Congregation of the + Index--Final Form of the Censorship of Books under Clement + VIII.--Analysis of its Regulations--Proscription of Heretical + Books--Correction of Texts--Purgation and Castration--Inquisitorial + and Episcopal Licenses--Working of the System of this Censorship in + Italy--Its long Delays--Hostility to Sound Learning--Ignorance of + the Censors--Interference with Scholars in their Work--Terrorism of + Booksellers--Vatican Scheme for the Restoration of Christian + Erudition--Frustrated by the Tyranny of the Index--Dishonesty of + the Vatican Scholars--Biblical Studies rendered nugatory by the + Tridentine Decree on the Vulgate--Decline of Learning in + Universities--Miserable Servitude of Professors--Greek dies + out--Muretus and Manutius in Rome--The Index and its Treatment of + Political Works--Machiavelli--_Ratio Status_--Encouragement of + Literature on Papal Absolutism--Sarpi's Attitude--Comparative + Indifference of Rome to Books of Obscene or Immoral + Tendency--Bandello and Boccaccio--Papal attempts to Control + Intercourse of Italians with Heretics. + + +In pursuing the plan of this book, which aims at showing how the spirit +of the Catholic revival penetrated every sphere of intellectual +activity in Italy, it will now be needful to consider the two agents, +both of Spanish origin, on whose assistance the Church relied in her +crusade against liberties of thought, speech, and action. These were the +Inquisition and the Company of Jesus. The one worked by extirpation and +forcible repression; the other by mental enfeeblement and moral +corruption. The one used fire, torture, imprisonment, confiscation of +goods, the proscription of learning, the destruction or emasculation of +books. The other employed subtle means to fill the vacuum thus created +with spurious erudition, sophistries, casuistical abominations and +false doctrines profitable to the Papal absolutism. Opposed in temper +and in method, the one fierce and rigid, the other saccharine and +pliant, these two bad angels of Rome contributed in almost equal measure +to the triumph of Catholicism. + +In the earlier ages of the Church, the definition of heresy had been +committed to episcopal authority. But the cognizance of heretics and the +determination of their punishment remained in the hands of secular +magistrates. At the end of the twelfth century the wide diffusion of the +Albigensian heterodoxy through Languedoc and Northern Italy alarmed the +chiefs of Christendom, and furnished the Papacy with a good pretext for +extending its prerogatives. Innocent III. in 1203 empowered two French +Cistercians, Pierre de Castelnau and Raoul, to preach against the +heretics of Provence. In the following year he ratified this commission +by a Bull, which censured the negligence and coldness of the bishops, +appointed the Abbot of Citeaux Papal delegate in matters of heresy, and +gave him authority to judge and punish misbelievers. This was the first +germ of the Holy Office as a separate Tribunal. In order to comprehend +the facility with which the Pope established so anomalous an +institution, we must bear in mind the intense horror which heresy +inspired in the Middle Ages. Being a distinct encroachment of the Papacy +upon the episcopal jurisdiction and prerogatives, the Inquisition met at +first with some opposition from the bishops. The people for whose +persecution it was designed, and at whose expense it carried on its +work, broke into rebellion; the first years of its annals were rendered +illustrious by the murder of one of its founders, Pierre de Castelnau. +He was canonized, and became the first Saint of the Inquisition. Two +other Peters obtained the like honor through their zeal for the Catholic +faith: Peter of Verona, commonly called Peter Martyr, the Italian saint +of the Dominican order; and Peter Arbues, the Spanish saint, who sealed +with his blood the charter of the Holy Office in Aragon. + +In spite of opposition, the Papal institution took root and flourished. +Philip Augustus responded to the appeals of Innocent; and a crusade +began against the Albigenses, in which Simon de Montfort won his +sinister celebrity. During those bloody wars the Inquisition developed +itself as a force of formidable expansive energy. Material assistance to +the cause was rendered by a Spanish monk of the Augustine order, who +settled in Provence on his way back from Rome in 1206. Domenigo de +Guzman, known to universal history as S. Dominic, organized a new +militia for the service of the orthodox Church between the years 1215 +and 1219. His order, called the Order of the Preachers, was originally +designed to repress heresy and confirm the faith by diffusing Catholic +doctrine and maintaining the creed in its purity. It consisted of three +sections: the Preaching Friars; nuns living in conventual retreat; and +laymen, entitled the Third Order of Penitence or the Militia of Christ, +who in after years were merged with the congregation of S. Peter Martyr, +and corresponded to the familiars of the Inquisition. Since the +Dominicans were established in the heat and passion of a crusade against +heresy, by a rigid Spaniard who employed his energies in persecuting +misbelievers, they assumed at the outset a belligerent and inquisitorial +attitude. Yet it is not strictly accurate to represent S. Dominic +himself as the first Grand Inquisitor. The Papacy proceeded with caution +in its design of forming a tribunal dependent on the Holy See and +independent of the bishops. Papal Legates with plenipotentiary authority +were sent to Languedoc, and decrees were issued against the heretics, in +which the Inquisition was rather implied than directly named; nor can I +find that S. Dominic, though he continued to be the soul of the new +institution until his death in 1221, obtained the title of Inquisitor. + +Notwithstanding this vagueness, the Holy Office may be said to have been +founded by S. Dominic; and it soon became apparent that the order he had +formed, was destined to monopolize its functions. The Emperor Frederick +II. on his coronation, in 1221, declared his willingness to support a +separate Apostolical tribunal for the suppression of heresy. He +sanctioned the penalty of death by fire for obstinate heretics, and +perpetual imprisonment for penitents--forms of punishment which became +stereotyped in the proceedings of the Holy Office.[78] The tribunal, now +recognized as a Dominican institution, derived its authority from the +Pope. The bishops were suffered to sit with the Inquisitors, but only in +such subordinate capacity as left to them a bare title of authority.[79] +The secular magistracy was represented by an assessor, who, being +nominated by the Inquisitor, became his servile instrument. The +expenses of the Court in prosecuting, punishing and imprisoning +heretics, together with the maintenance of the Inquisitors and their +guards, were thrown upon the communes which they visited. Such was the +organization which the Popes, aided by S. Dominic, and availing +themselves of the fanatical passions aroused in the Provencal wars, +succeeded in creating for their own aggrandizement. It is strange to +think that its ratification by the supreme secular power was obtained +from an Emperor who died in contumacy, excommunicated and persecuted as +an arch-heretic by the priests he had supported. + +[Footnote 78: See Cantu, _Gli Eretici d'Italia_, vol. i. Discorso 5, and +the notes appended to it, for Frederick's edicts and letters to Gregory +IX. upon this matter of heresy. The Emperor treats of _Heretica +Pravitas_ as a crime against society, and such, indeed, it then appeared +according to the mediaeval ideal of Christendom united under Church and +Empire. Yet Frederick himself, it will be remembered, died under the ban +of the Church, and was placed by Dante among the heresiarchs in the +tenth circle of Hell. We now regard him justly as one of the precursors +of the Renaissance. But at the beginning of his reign, in his peculiar +attitude of Holy Roman Emperor, he had to proceed with rigor against +free-thinkers in religion. They were foes to the mediseval order, of +which he was the secular head.] + +[Footnote 79: Sarpi, 'Discorso dell'Origine,' etc. _Opere_, vol. iv. p. +6.] + +This Apostolical Inquisition was at once introduced into Lombardy, +Romagna and the Marches of Treviso. The extreme rigor of its +proceedings, the extortions of monks, and the violent resistance offered +by the communes, led to some relaxation of its original constitution. +More authority had to be conceded to the bishops; and the right of the +Inquisitors to levy taxes on the people was modified. Yet it retained +its true form of a Papal organ, superseding the episcopal prerogatives, +and overriding the secular magistrates, who were bound to execute its +biddings. As such it was admitted into Tuscany, and established in +Aragon. Venice received it in 1289, with certain reservations that +placed its proceedings under the control of Doge and Council. In +Languedoc, the country of its birth, it remained rooted at Toulouse and +Carcassonne; but the Inquisition did not extend its authority over +central and northern France.[80] In Paris its functions were performed +by the Sorbonne. Nor did it obtain a footing in England, although the +statute 'De Haeretico Comburendo,' passed in 1401 at the instance of the +higher clergy, sanctioned the principles on which it existed. + +The wide and ready acceptance of so terrible an engine of oppression +enables us to estimate the profound horror which heresy inspired in the +Middle Ages.[81] On the whole, the Inquisition performed the work for +which it had been instituted. Those spreading sects, known as Waldenses, +Albigenses, Cathari and Paterines, whom it was commissioned to +extirpate, died away into obscurity during the fourteenth century; and +through the period of the Renaissance the Inquisition had little scope +for the display of energy in Italy. Though dormant, it was by no means +extinct, however; and the spirit which created it, needed only external +cause and circumstance to bring it once more into powerful operation. +Meanwhile the Popes throughout the Renaissance used the imputation of +heresy, which never lost its blighting stigma, in the prosecution of +their secular ambition. As Sarpi has pointed out, there were few of the +Italian princes with whom they came into political collision, who were +not made the subject of such accusation. + +[Footnote 80: See Christie's _Etienne Dolet_, chapter 21.] + +[Footnote 81: Visitors to Milan must have been struck with the +equestrian statue to the Podesta Oldrado da Trezzeno in the Piazza +de'Mercanti. Underneath it runs an epitaph containing among the praises +of this man: _Catharos ut debuit uxit_. An Archbishop of Milan of the +same period (middle of the thirteenth century), Enrico di Settala, is +also praised upon his epitaph because _jugulavit haereses_. See Cantu, +_Gli Eretici d Italia_, vol. i. p. 108.] + +The revival of the Holy Office on a new and far more murderous basis, +took place in 1484. We have seen that hitherto there had been two types +of inquisition into heresy. The first, which remained in force up to the +year 1203, may be called the episcopal. The second was the Apostolical +or Dominican: it transferred this jurisdiction from the bishops to the +Papacy, who employed the order of S. Dominic for the special service of +the tribunal instituted by the Imperial decrees of Frederick II. The +third deserves no other name than Spanish, though, after it had taken +shape in Spain, it was transferred to Portugal, applied in all the +Spanish and Portuguese colonies, and communicated with some +modifications to Italy and the Netherlands.[82] Both the second and +third types of Inquisition into heresy were Spanish inventions, patented +by the Roman Pontiffs and monopolized by the Dominican order. But the +third and final form of the Holy Office in Spain distinguished itself +by emancipation from Papal and Royal control, and by a specific +organization which rendered it the most formidable of irresponsible +engines in the annals of religious institutions. + +[Footnote 82: Sarpi estimates the number of victims in the Netherlands +during the reign of Charles V. at 50,000; Grotius at 100,000. In the +reign of Philip II. perhaps another 25,000 were sacrificed. Motley +(_Rise of the Dutch Republic_, vol. ii. p. 155) tells how in February +1568 a sentence of the Holy Office, confirmed by royal proclamation, +condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands, some three millions of +souls, with a few specially excepted persons, to death. It was customary +to burn the men and bury the women alive. In considering this +institution as a whole, we must bear in mind that it was extended to +Mexico, Lima, Carthagena, the Indies, Sicily, Sardinia, Oran, Malta. Of +the working of the Holy Office in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies we +possess but few authentic records. The _Histoire des Inquisitions_ of +Joseph Lavallee (Paris, 1809) may, however, be consulted. In vol. ii. +pp. 5-9 of this work there is a brief account of the Inquisition at Goa +written by one Pyrard; and pp. 45-157 extend the singularly detailed +narrative of a Frenchman, Dellon, imprisoned in its dungeons. Some +curious circumstances respecting delation, prison life, and _autos da +fe_ are here minutely recorded.] + +The crimes of which the second or Dominican Inquisition had taken +cognizance were designated under the generic name of heresy. Heretics +were either patent by profession of some heterodox cult or doctrine; or +they were suspected. The suspected included witches, sorcerers, and +blasphemers who invoked the devil's aid; Catholics abstaining from +confession and absolution; harborers of avowed heretics; legal defenders +of the cause of heretics; priests who gave Christian burial to heretics; +magistrates who showed lukewarmness in pursuit of heretics; the corpses +of dead heretics, and books that might be taxed with heretical opinions. +All ranks in the social hierarchy, except the Pope, his Legates and +Nuncios, and the bishops, were amenable to this Inquisition. The +Inquisitors could only be arraigned and judged by their peers. In order +to bring the machinery of imprisonment, torture and final sentence into +effect, it was needful that the credentials of the Inquisitor should be +approved by the sovereign, and that his procedure should be recognized +by the bishop. These limitations of the Inquisitorial authority +safeguarded the crown and the episcopacy in a legal sense. But since +both crown and episcopacy concurred in the object for which the Papacy +had established the tribunal, the Inquisitor was practically unimpeded +in his functions. Furnished with royal or princely letters patent, he +traveled from town to town, attended by his guards and notaries, +defraying current expenses at the cost of provinces and towns through +which he passed. Where he pitched his camp, he summoned the local +magistrates, swore them to obedience, and obtained assurance of their +willingness to execute such sentences as he might pronounce. Spies and +informers gathered round him, pledged to secrecy and guaranteed by +promises of State-protection. The Court opened; witnesses were examined; +the accused were acquitted or condemned. Then sentence was pronounced, +to which the bishop or his delegate, often an Inquisitor, gave a formal +sanction. Finally, the heretic was handed over to the secular arm for +the execution of justice. The extraordinary expenses of the tribunal +were defrayed by confiscation of goods, a certain portion being paid to +the district in which the crime had occurred, the rest being reserved +for the maintenance of the Holy Office. + +Such, roughly speaking, was the method of the Inquisition before 1484; +and it did not materially differ in Italy and Spain. Castile had +hitherto been free from the pest. But the conditions of that kingdom +offered a good occasion for its introduction at the date which I have +named. During the Middle Ages the Jews of Castile acquired vast wealth +and influence. Few families but felt the burden of their bonds and +mortgages. Religious fanaticism, social jealousy, and pecuniary distress +exasperated the Christian population; and as early as the year 1391, +more than 5000 Jews were massacred in one popular uprising. The Jews, in +fear, adopted Christianity. It is said that in the fifteenth century the +population counted some million of converts--called New Christians, or, +in contempt, Marranos: a word which may probably be derived from the +Hebrew Maranatha. These converted Jews, by their ability and wealth, +crept into high offices of state, obtained titles of aristocracy, and +founded noble houses. Their daughters were married with large dowers +into the best Spanish families; and their younger sons aspired to the +honors of the Church. Castilian society was being penetrated with Jews, +many of whom had undoubtedly conformed to Christianity in externals +only. Meanwhile a large section of the Hebrew race remained faithful to +their old traditions; and a mixed posterity grew up, which hardly knew +whether it was Christian or Jewish, and had opportunity for joining +either party. + +A fertile field was now opened for Inquisitorial energy. The orthodox +Dominican saw Christ's flock contaminated. Not without reason did +earnest Catholics dread that the Church in Castile would suffer from +this blending of the Jewish with the Spanish breed. But they had a fiery +Catholic enthusiasm to rely upon in the main body of the nation. And in +the crown they knew that there were passions of fear and cupidity, which +might be used with overmastering effect. It sufficed to point out to +Ferdinand that a persecution of the New Christians would flood his +coffers with gold extorted from suspected misbelievers. No merely fabled +El Dorado lay in the broad lands and costly merchandise of these +imperfect converts to the faith. It sufficed to insist upon the peril to +the State if an element so ill-assimilated to the nation were allowed to +increase unchecked. At the same time, the Papacy was nothing loth to +help them in their undertaking. Sixtus V., one of the worst of Pontiffs, +sat then on S. Peter's chair. He readily discerned that a considerable +portion of the booty might be indirectly drawn into his exchequer; and +he knew that any establishment of the Inquisition on an energetic basis +would strengthen the Papacy in its combat with national and episcopal +prerogatives. The Dominicans on their side can scarcely be credited with +a pure zeal for the faith. They had personal interests to serve by +spiritual aggrandizement, by the elevation of their order, and by the +exercise of an illimitable domination. + +It was a Sicilian Inquisitor, Philip Barberis, who suggested to +Ferdinand the Catholic the advantage he might secure by extending the +Holy Office to Castile. Ferdinand avowed his willingness; and Sixtus IV. +gave the project his approval in 1478. But it met with opposition from +the gentler-natured Isabella. She refused at first to sanction the +introduction of so sinister an engine into her hereditary dominions. The +clergy now contrived to raise a popular agitation against the Jews, +reviving old calumnies of impossible crimes, and accusing them of being +treasonable subjects. Then Isabella yielded; and in 1481 the Holy Office +was founded at Seville. It began its work by publishing a comprehensive +edict against all New Christians suspected of Judaizing, which offense +was so constructed as to cover the most innocent observance of national +customs. Resting from labor on Saturday; performing ablutions at stated +times; refusing to eat pork or puddings made of blood; and abstaining +from wine, sufficed to color accusations of heresy. Men who had joined +the Catholic communion after the habits of a lifetime had been formed, +thus found themselves exposed to peril of death by the retention of mere +sanitary rules.[83] + +[Footnote 83: See Lavallee, _Histoire des Inquisitions_, vol. ii. pp. +341-361, for the translation of a process instituted in 1570 against a +Mauresque female slave. Suspected of being a disguised infidel, she was +exposed to the temptations of a Moorish spy, and convicted mainly on the +evidence furnished by certain Mussulman habits to which she adhered. +Llorente reports a similar specimen case, vol. i. p. 442. The culprit +was a tinker aged 71, accused in 1528 of abstaining from pork and wine, +and using certain ablutions. He defended himself by pleading that, +having been converted at the age of 45, it did not suit his taste to eat +pork or drink wine, and that his trade obliged him to maintain +cleanliness by frequent washing. He was finally condemned to carry a +candle at an _auto da fe_ in sign of penitence, and to pay four ducats, +the costs of his trial. His detention lasted from September, 1529, till +December 18, 1530.] + +Upon the publication of this edict, there was an exodus of Jews by +thousands into the fiefs of independent vassals of the crown--the Duke +of Medina Sidonia, the Marquis of Cadiz, and the Count of Arcos. All +emigrants were _ipso facto_ declared heretics by the Holy Office. During +the first year after its foundation, Seville beheld 298 persons burned +alive, and 79 condemned to perpetual imprisonment. A large square stage +of stone, called the Quemadero, was erected for the execution of those +multitudes who were destined to suffer death by hanging or by flame. In +the same year, 2000 were burned and 17,000 condemned to public +penitence, while even a larger number were burned in effigy, in other +parts of the kingdom. + +While estimating the importance of these punishments we must remember +that they implied confiscation of property. Thus whole families were +orphaned and consigned to penury. Penitence in public carried with it +social infamy, loss of civil rights and honors, intolerable conditions +of ecclesiastical surveillance, and heavy pecuniary fines. Penitents who +had been reconciled, returned to society in a far more degraded +condition than convicts released on ticket of leave. The stigma attached +in perpetuity to the posterity of the condemned, whose names were +conspicuously emblazoned upon church-walls as foemen to Christ and to +the State. + +It is not strange that the New Christians, wealthy as they were and +allied with some of the best blood in Spain, should have sought to avert +the storm descending on them by appeals to Rome. In person or by +procurators, they carried their complaints to the Papal Curia, imploring +the relief of private reconciliation with the Church, special exemption +from the jurisdiction of the Holy Office, rehabilitation after the loss +of civil rights and honors, dispensation from humiliating penances, and +avvocation of causes tried by the Inquisition, to less prejudiced +tribunals. The object of these petitions was to avoid perpetual infamy, +to recover social status, and to obtain an impartial hearing in doubtful +cases. The Papal Curia had anticipated the profits to be derived from +such appeals. Sixtus IV. was liberal in briefs of indulgence, absolution +and exemption, to all comers who paid largely. But when his suitors +returned to Spain, they found their dearly-purchased parchments of no +more value than waste paper. The Holy Office laughed Papal Bulls of +Privilege to scorn, and the Pope was too indifferent to exert such +authority as he might have possessed. + +Meanwhile, the Inquisition rapidly took shape. In 1483 Thomas of +Torquemada was nominated Inquisitor General for Castile and Aragon. +Under his rule a Supreme Council was established, over which he +presided for life. The crown sent three assessors to this board; and the +Inquisitors were strengthened in their functions by a council of +jurists. Seville, Cordova, Jaen, Toledo, became the four subordinate +centers of the Holy Office, each with its own tribunal and its own right +of performing _autos da fe_. Commission was sent out to all Dominicans, +enjoining on them the prosecution of their task in every diocese. + +In 1484 a General Council was held, and the constitution of the +inquisition was established by articles. In these articles four main +points seem to have been held in view. The first related to the system +of confiscation, fines, civil disabilities, losses of office, property, +honors, rights, inheritances, which formed a part of the penitentiary +procedure, and by which the crown and Holy Office made pecuniary gains. +The second secured secrecy in the action of the tribunal, whereby a door +was opened to delation, and accused persons were rendered incapable of +rational defense. The third elaborated the judicial method, so as to +leave no loophole of escape even for those who showed a wish to be +converted, empowering the use of torture, precluding the accused from +choosing their own counsel, and excluding the bishops from active +participation in the sentence. The fourth multiplied the charges under +which suspected heretics, even after their death might be treated as +impenitent or relapsed, so as to increase the number of victims and +augment the booty. + +The two most formidable features of the Inquisition as thus constituted, +were the exclusion of the bishops from its tribunal and the secrecy of +its procedure. The accused was delivered over to a court that had no +mercy, no common human sympathies, no administrative interest in the +population. He knew nothing of his accusers; and when he died or +disappeared from view no record of his case survived him. + +The Inquisition rested on the double basis of ecclesiastical fanaticism +and protected delation. The court was _prima facie_ hostile to the +accused; and the accused could never hope to confront the detectives +upon whose testimony he was arraigned before it. Lives and reputations +lay thus at the mercy of professional informers, private enemies, +malicious calumniators. The denunciation was sometimes anonymous, +sometimes signed, with names of two corroborative witnesses. These +witnesses were examined, under a strict seal of secrecy, by the +Inquisitors, who drew up a form of accusation, which they submitted to +theologians called Qualificators. The qualificators were not informed of +the names of the accused, the delator, or the witnesses. It was their +business to qualify the case of heresy as light, grave, or violent. +Having placed it in one of these categories, they returned it to the +Inquisitors, who now arrested the accused and flung him into the secret +prisons of the Holy Office. After some lapse of time he was summoned for +a preliminary examination. Having first been cautioned to tell the +truth, he had to recite the Paternoster, Credo, Ten Commandments, and a +kind of catechism. His pedigree was also investigated, in the +expectation that some traces of Jewish or Moorish descent might serve to +incriminate him. If he failed in repeating the Christian shibboleths, or +if he was discovered to have infidel ancestry, there existed already a +good case to proceed upon. Finally, he was questioned upon the several +heads of accusation condensed from the first delation and the deposition +of the witnesses. If needful at this point, he was put to the torture, +again and yet again.[84] He never heard the names of his accusers, nor +was he furnished with a full bill of the charges against him in writing. +At this stage he was usually remanded, and the judicial proceedings were +deliberately lengthened out with a view of crushing his spirit and +bringing him to abject submission. For his defence he might select one +advocate, but only from a list furnished by his judges; and this +advocate in no case saw the original documents of the impeachment. It +rarely happened, upon this one-sided method of trial, that an accused +person was acquitted altogether. If he escaped burning or perpetual +incarceration, he was almost certainly exposed to the public ceremony +of penitence, with its attendant infamy, fines, civil disabilities, and +future discipline. Sentence was not passed upon condemned persons until +they appeared, dressed up in a San Benito, at the place of punishment. +This costume was a sort of sack, travestying a monk's frock, made of +coarse yellow stuff, and worked over with crosses, flames, and devils, +in glaring red. It differed in details according to the destination of +the victim: for some ornaments symbolized eternal hell, and others the +milder fires of purgatory. If sufficiently versed in the infernal +heraldry of the Holy Office, a condemned man might read his doom before +he reached the platform of the _auto_. There he heard whether he was +sentenced to relaxation--in other words, to burning at the hands of the +hangman--or to reconciliation by means of penitence. At the last moment, +he might by confession _in extremis_ obtain the commutation of a death +sentence into life-imprisonment, or receive the favor of being strangled +before he was burned. A relapsed heretic, however--that is, one who +after being reconciled had once again apostatized, was never exempted +from the penalty of burning. To make these holocausts of human beings +more ghastly, the pageant was enhanced by processions of exhumed corpses +and heretics in effigy. Artificial dolls and decomposed bodies, with +grinning lips and mouldy foreheads, were hauled to the huge bonfire, +side by side with living men, women, and children. All of them +alike--_fantoccini_, skeletons, and quick folk--were enveloped in the +same grotesquely ghastly San Benito, with the same hideous yellow miters +on their pasteboard, worm-eaten, or palpitating foreheads. The +procession presented an ingeniously picturesque discord of ugly shapes, +an artistically loathsome dissonance of red and yellow hues, as it +defiled, to the infernal music of growled psalms and screams and +moanings, beneath the torrid blaze of Spanish sunlight. + +[Footnote 84: The Supreme Council forbade the repetition of torture; but +this hypocritical law was evaded in practice by declaring that the +torture had been suspended. Llorente, vol. i. p. 307.] + +Spaniards--such is the barbarism of the Latinized Iberian +nature--delighted in these shows, as they did and do in bull-fights. +Butcheries of heretics formed the choicest spectacles at royal +christenings and bridals. + +At Seville the Quemadero was adorned with four colossal statues of +prophets, to which some of the condemned were bound, so that they might +burn to death in the flames arising from the human sacrifice between +them. + +In the autumn of 1484 the Inquisition was introduced into Aragon; and +Saragossa became its headquarters in that State. Though the Aragonese +were accustomed to the institution in its earlier and milder form, they +regarded the new Holy Office with just horror. The Marranos counted at +that epoch the Home Secretary, the Grand Treasurer, a Proto-notary, and +a Vice-Chancellor of the realm among their members; and they were allied +by marriage with the purest aristocracy. It is not, therefore, +marvelous that a conspiracy was formed to assassinate the Chief +Inquisitor, Peter Arbues. In spite of a coat-of-mail and an iron +skullcap worn beneath his monk's dress, Arbues was murdered one evening +while at prayer in church. But the revolt, notwithstanding this murder, +flashed, like an ill-loaded pistol, in the pan. Jealousies between the +old and new Christians prevented any common action; and the Inquisition +took a bloody vengeance upon all concerned. It even laid its hand on Don +James of Navarre, the Infant of Tudela. + +The Spanish Inquisition was now firmly grounded. Directed by Torquemada, +it began to encroach upon the crown, to insult the episcopacy, to defy +the Papacy, to grind the Commons, and to outrage by its insolence the +aristocracy. Ferdinand's avarice had overreached itself by creating an +ecclesiastical power dangerous to the best interests of the realm, but +which fascinated a fanatically-pious people, and the yoke of which could +not be thrown off. The Holy Office grew every year in pride, +pretensions, and exactions. It arrogated to its tribunal crimes of +usury, bigamy, blasphemous swearing, and unnatural vice, which +appertained by right to the secular courts. It depopulated Spain by the +extermination and banishment of at least three million industrious +subjects during the first 139 years of its existence. It attacked +princes of the blood,[85] archbishops, fathers of the Tridentine +Council. It filled every city in the kingdom, the convents of the +religious, and the palaces of the nobility, with spies. The Familiars, +or lay brethren devoted to its service, lived at charges of the +communes, and debauched society by crimes of rapine, lust, and +violence.[86] Ignorant and bloodthirsty monks composed its provincial +tribunals, who, like the horrible Lucero el Tenebroso at Cordova, +paralyzed whole provinces with a veritable reign of terror.[87] Hated +and worshiped, its officers swept through the realm in the guise of +powerful _condottieri_. The Grand Inquisitor maintained a bodyguard of +fifty mounted Familiars and two hundred infantry; his subordinates were +allowed ten horsemen and fifty archers apiece. Where these black guards +appeared, city gates were opened; magistrates swore fealty to masters of +more puissance than the king; the resources of flourishing districts +were placed at their disposal. Their arbitrary acts remained +unquestioned, their mysterious sentences irreversible. Shrouded in +secrecy, amenable to no jurisdiction but their own, they reveled in the +license of irresponsible dominion. Spain gradually fell beneath the +charm of their dark fascination. A brave though cruel nation drank +delirium from the poison-cup of these vile medicine-men, whose +Moloch-worship would have disgusted cannibals. + +[Footnote 85: Llorente, in his introduction to the _History of the +Inquisition_, gives a long list of illustrious Spanish victims.] + +[Footnote 86: See Llorente, vol. i. p. 349, for their outrages on +women.] + +[Footnote 87: For the history of Lucero's tyranny, read Llorente, vol. +i. pp. 345-353. When at last he had to be deposed, it was not to a +dungeon or the scaffold, but to his bishopric of Almeria that this +miscreant was relegated.] + +Torquemada was the genius of evil who created and presided over this +foul instrument of human crime and folly. During his eighteen years of +administration, reckoning from 1480 to 1498, he sacrificed, according to +Llorente's calculation, above 114,000 victims, of whom 10,220 were +burned alive, 6,860 burned in effigy, and 97,000 condemned to perpetual +imprisonment or public penitence.[88] He, too, it was who in 1492 +compelled Ferdinand to drive the Jews from his dominions. They offered +30,000 ducats for the war against Granada, and promised to abide in +Spain under heavy social disabilities, if only they might be spared this +act of national extermination. Then Torquemada appeared before the king, +and, raising his crucifix on high, cried: 'Judas sold Christ for thirty +pieces of silver. Look ye to it, if ye do the like!' The edict of +expulsion was issued on the last of March. Before the last of July all +Jews were sentenced to depart, carrying no gold or silver with them. +They disposed of their lands, houses, and goods for next to nothing, and +went forth to die by thousands on the shores of Africa and Italy. Twelve +who were found concealed at Malaga in August were condemned to be +pricked to death by pointed reeds.[89] + +The exodus of the Jews was followed in 1502 by a similar exodus of +Moors from Castile, and in 1524 by an exodus of Mauresques from Aragon. +To compute the loss of wealth and population inflicted upon Spain by +these mad edicts, would be impossible. We may wonder whether the +followers of Cortez, when they trod the teocallis of Mexico and gazed +with loathing on the gory elf-locks of the Aztec priests, were not +reminded of the Torquemada they had left at home. His cruelty became so +intolerable that even Alexander VI. was moved to horror. In 1494 the +Borgia appointed four assessors, with equal powers, to restrain the +blood-thirst of the fanatic. + +[Footnote 88: Llorente, vol. i. p. 229. The basis for these and +following calculations is explained _ib._ pp. 272-281.] + +[Footnote 89: _Ibid._ vol. i. p. 263.] + +After Torquemada, Diego Deza reigned as second Inquisitor General from +1498 to 1507. In these years, according to the same calculation, 2,592 +were burned alive, 896 burned in effigy, 34,952 condemned to prison or +public penitence.[90] Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros followed between 1507 +and 1517. The victims of this decade were 3,564 burned alive, 1,232 +burned in effigy, 48,059 condemned to prison or public penitence.[91] +Adrian, Bishop of Tortosa, tutor to Charles V., and afterwards Pope, was +Inquisitor General between 1516 and 1525. Castile, Aragon, and +Catalonia, at this epoch, simultaneously demanded a reform of the Holy +Office from their youthful sovereign. But Charles refused, and the tale +of Adrian's administration was 1,620 burned alive, 560 burned in effigy, +21,845 condemned to prison or public penitence.[92] The total, during +forty-three years, between 1481 and 1525, amounted to 234,526, including +all descriptions of condemned heretics.[93] These figures are of +necessity vague, for the Holy Office left but meager records of its +proceedings. The vast numbers of cases brought before the Inquisitors +rendered their method of procedure almost as summary as that of Fouquier +Thinville, while policy induced them to bury the memory of their victims +in oblivion.[94] + +[Footnote 90: Llorente, p. 341.] + +[Footnote 91: _Ibid._ p. 360.] + +[Footnote 92: Llorente, p. 406.] + +[Footnote 93: _Ib._ p. 407.] + +[Footnote 94: I know that Llorente's calculations have been disputed: +as, for instance, in some minor details by Prescott (_Ferd. and Isab._ +vol. iii. p. 492). The truth is that no data now exist for forming a +correct census of the victims of the Spanish Moloch; and Llorente, +though he writes with the moderation of evident sincerity, and though he +had access to the archives of the Inquisition, does not profess to do +more than give an estimate based upon certain fixed data. However, it +signifies but little whether we reckon by thousands or by fifteen +hundreds. That foul monster spawned in the unholy embracements of +perverted religion with purblind despotism cannot be defended by +discounting five or even ten per cent. Let its apologists write for +every 1000 of Llorente 100, and for every 100 of Llorente 10, and our +position will remain unaltered. The Jesuit historian of Spain, Mariana, +records the burning-of 2000 persons in Andalusia alone in 1482. +Bernaldez mentions 700 burned in the one town of Seville between 1482 +and 1489. An inscription carved above the portals of the Holy Office in +Seville stated that about 1000 had been burned between 1492 and 1524.] + +Sometimes, while reading the history of the Holy Office in Spain, we are +tempted to imagine that the whole is but a grim unwholesome nightmare, +or the fable of malignant calumny. That such is not the case, however, +is proved by a jubilant inscription on the palace of the Holy Office at +Seville, which records the triumphs of Torquemada. Of late years, too, +the earth herself has disgorged some secrets of the Inquisition. 'A most +curious discovery,' writes Lord Malmesbury in his Memoirs,[95] 'has been +made at Madrid. Just at the time when the question of religious liberty +was being discussed in the Cortes, Serrano had ordered a piece of ground +to be leveled, in order to build on it; and the workmen came upon large +quantities of human bones, skulls, lumps of blackening flesh, pieces of +chains, and braids of hair. It was then recollected that the _autos da +fe_ used to take place at that spot in former days. Crowds of people +rushed to the place, and the investigation was continued. They found +layer upon layer of human remains, showing that hundreds had been +inhumanly sacrificed. The excitement and indignation this produced among +the people was tremendous, and the party for religious freedom taking +advantage of it, a Bill on the subject was passed by an enormous +majority.' Let modern Spain remember that a similar Aceldama lies hidden +in the precincts of each of her chief towns! + +[Footnote 95: Vol. ii. p. 399.] + +I have enlarged upon the details of the Spanish Inquisition for two +reasons. In the first place it strikingly illustrates the character of +the people who now had the upper hand in Italy. In the second place, its +success induced Paul III., acting upon the advice of Giov. Paolo +Caraffa, to remodel the Roman office on a similar type in 1542. It may +at once be said that the real Spanish Inquisition was never introduced +into Italy.[96] Such an institution, claiming independent jurisdiction +and flaunting its cruelties in the light of day, would not have suited +the Papal policy. As temporal and spiritual autocrats, the Popes could +not permit a tribunal of which they were not the supreme authority. It +was their interest to consult their pecuniary advantage rather than to +indulge insane fanaticism; to repress liberty of thought by cautious +surveillance rather than by public terrorism and open acts of cruelty. +The Italian temperament was, moreover, more humane than the Spanish; nor +had the refining culture of the Renaissance left no traces in the +nation. Furthermore, the necessity for so Draconian an institution was +not felt. Catholicism in Italy had not to contend with Jews and Moors, +Marranos and Moriscoes. It was, indeed, alarmed by the spread of +Lutheran opinions. Caraffa complained to Paul III. that 'the whole of +Italy is infected with the Lutheran heresy, which has been embraced not +only by statesmen, but also by many ecclesiastics.'[97] Pius V. was so +panic-stricken by the prevalence of heresy in Faenza that he seriously +meditated destroying the town and dispersing its inhabitants.[98] Yet, +after a few years of active persecution, this peril proved to be unreal. +The Reformation had not taken root so deep and wide in Italy that it +could not be eradicated. When, therefore, the Spanish viceroys sought +to establish their national Inquisition in Naples and Milan, the +rebellious people received protection and support from the Papacy; and +the Holy Office, as remodeled in Rome, became a far less awful engine of +oppression than that of Seville. + +[Footnote 96: Naples and Milan passionately and successfully opposed its +introduction by the Spanish viceroys. But it ruled in Sicily and +Sardinia.] + +[Footnote 97: McCrie, p. 186.] + +[Footnote 98: Mutinelli, _Storia Arcana_, vol. i. p. 79.] + +It was sufficiently severe, however. 'At Rome,' writes a resident in +1568, 'some are daily burned, hanged, or beheaded; the prisons and +places of confinement are filled, and they are obliged to build new +ones.'[99] This general statement may be checked by extracts from the +despatches of Venetian ambassadors in Rome, which, though they are not +continuous, and cannot be supposed to give an exhaustive list of the +victims of the Inquisition, enable us to judge with some degree of +accuracy what the frequency of executions may have been.[100] + +[Footnote 99: McCrie, p. 272.] + +[Footnote 100: Mutinelli's _Storia Arcana_, etc. vol. i., is the source +from which I have drawn the details given above.] + +On September 27, 1567, a session of the Holy Office was held at S. Maria +sopra Minerva. Seventeen heretics were condemned. Fifteen of these were +sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, the galleys for life, fines, or +temporary imprisonment, according to the nature of their offenses. Two +were reserved for capital punishment--namely, Carnesecchi and a friar +from Cividale di Belluno. They were beheaded and burned upon the bridge +of S. Angelo on October 4. On May 28, 1569, there was an Act of the +Inquisition at the Minerva, twenty Cardinals attending. Four impenitent +heretics were condemned to the stake. Ten penitents were sentenced to +various punishments of less severity. On August 2, 1578, occurred a +singular scandal touching some Spaniards and Portuguese of evil manners, +all of whom were burned with the exception of those who contrived to +escape in time. On August 5, 1581, an English Protestant was burned for +grossly insulting the Host. On February 20, 1582, after an Act of the +Inquisition in due form, seventeen heretics were sentenced, three to +death, and the rest to imprisonment, etc. We must bear in mind that +Mutinelli, who published the extracts from the Venetian dispatches which +contain these details, does not profess to aim at completeness. Gaps of +several years occur between the documents of one envoy and those of his +successor. Nor does it appear that the writers themselves took notice of +more than solemn and ceremonial proceedings, in which the Acts of the +Inquisition were published with Pontifical and Curial pomp.[101] Still, +when these considerations have been weighed, it will appear that the +victims of the Inquisition, in Rome, could be counted, not by hundreds, +but by units. After illustrious examples, like those of Aonio Paleario, +Pietro Carnesecchi, Giordano Bruno, who were burned for Protestant or +Atheistical opinions, the names of distinguished sufferers are few. Wary +heretics, a Celio Secundo Curio, a Galeazzo Caracciolo, a Bernardino +Ochino, a Pietro Martire Vermigli, a Pietro Paolo Vergerio, a Lelio +Socino, escaped betimes to Switzerland, and carried on their warfare +with the Church by means of writings.[102] Others, tainted with heresy, +like Marco Antonio Flaminio, managed to satisfy the Inquisition by +timely concessions. The Protestant Churches, which had sprung up in +Venice, Lucca, Modena, Ferrara, Faenza, Vicenza, Bologna, Naples, and +Siena, were easily dispersed.[103] Their pastors fled or submitted. The +flocks conformed to Catholic orthodoxy. Only in a few cases was extreme +rigor displayed. A memorable massacre took place in the year 1561 in +Calabria within the province of Cosenza.[104] Here at the end of the +fourteenth century a colony of Waldensians had settled in some villages +upon the coast. They preserved their peculiar beliefs and ritual, and +after three centuries numbered about 4000 souls. Nearly the whole of +these, it seems, were exterminated by sword, fire, famine, torture, +noisome imprisonment, and hurling from the summits of high cliffs. A few +of the survivors were sent to work upon the Spanish galleys. Some women +and children were sold into slavery. At Locarno, on the Lago Maggiore, a +Protestant community of nearly 300 persons was driven into exile in +1555; and at Venice, in 1560-7, a small sect, holding reformed opinions, +suffered punishment of a peculiar kind. We read of five persons by name, +who, after being condemned by the Holy Office, were taken at night from +their dungeons to the Porto del Lido beyond the Due Castelli, and there +set upon a plank between two gondolas. The gondolas rowed asunder; and +one by one the martyrs fell and perished in the waters.[105] + +[Footnote 101: It is singular that only one contemporary writes from +Rome about Bruno's execution in 1600; whence, I think, we may infer that +such events were too common to excite much attention.] + +[Footnote 102: The main facts about these men may be found in Cantu's +_Gli Eretici d'Italia_, vol. ii. This work is written in no spirit of +sympathy with Reformers. But it is superior in learning and impartiality +to McCrie's.] + +[Footnote 103: For the repressive measures used at Lucca, see _Archivio +Storico_, vol. x. pp. 162-185. They include the prohibition of books, +regulation of the religious observances of Lucchese citizens abroad in +France or Flanders, and proscription of certain heretics, with whom all +intercourse was forbidden.] + +[Footnote 104: An eye-witness gives a heart-rending account of these +persecutions: sixty thrown from the tower of Guardia, eighty-eight +butchered like beasts in one day at Montalto, seven burned alive, one +hundred old women tortured and then slaughtered. _Arch. Stor._, vol. ix. +pp. 193-195.] + +[Footnote 105: McCrie, _op. cit._ p. 232-236. The five men were Giulio +Gherlandi of Spresian, near Treviso (executed in 1562), Antonio Rizzetta +of Vicenza (in 1566), Francesco Sega of Rovigo (sentenced in 1566), +Francesco Spinola of Milan (in 1567), and Fra Baldo Lupatino (1556). +McCrie bases his report upon the _Histoire des Martyrs_ (Geneve, 1597) +and De Porta's _Historia Reformationis Rhaeticarum Ecclesiarum_. +Thinking these sources somewhat suspicious, I applied to my friend Mr. +H.F. Brown, whose researches in the Venetian archives are becoming known +to students of Italian history. He tells me that all the above cases, +except that of Spinola, exist in the Frari. Lupatino was condemned as a +Lutheran; the others as Anabaptists. In passing sentence on Lupatino, +the Chief Inquisitor remarked that he could not condemn him to death by +fire in Venice, but must consign him to a watery grave. This is +characteristic of Venetian state policy. It appears that, of the +above-named persons, Sega, though sentenced to death by drowning, +recanted at the last moment, saying, 'Non voglio esser negato, ma voglio +redirmi et morir buon Christiano.' Mr. Brown adds that there is nothing +in the archives to prove that he was executed; but there is also nothing +to show that his sentence was commuted. Two other persons involved in +this trial, viz. Nic. Bucello of Padua and Alessio of Bellinzona, upon +recantation, were subjected to public penances and confessions for +different terms of years. Sega's fate must, therefore, be considered +doubtful; since the fact that no commutation of sentence is on record +lends some weight to the hypothesis that he withdrew his recantation, +and submitted to martyrdom. I will close this note by expressing my hope +that Mr. Brown, who is already engaged upon the papers of the Venetian +Holy Office, will make them shortly the subject of a special +publication. Considering how rare are the full and authentic records of +any Inquisition, this would be of incalculable value for students of +history. The series of trials in the Frari extends from 1541 to 1794, +embracing 1562 _processi_ for the sixteenth century, 1469 for the +seventeenth, 541 for the eighteenth, and 25 of no date. Nearly all the +towns and districts of the Venetian State are involved.] + +The position of the Holy Office in Venice was so far peculiar as to +justify a digression upon its special constitution. Always jealous of +ecclesiastical interference, the Republic insisted on the Inquisition +being made dependent on the State. Three nobles of senatorial rank were +chosen to act as Assessors of the Holy Office in the capital; and in the +subject cities this function was assigned to the Rectors, or lieutenants +of S. Mark. It was the duty of these lay members to see that justice was +impartially dealt by the ecclesiastical tribunal, to defend the State +against clerical encroachments, and to refer dubious cases to the Doge +in Council. They were forbidden to swear oaths of allegiance or of +secrecy to the Holy Office, and were bound to be present at all trials, +even in the case of ecclesiastical offenders. No causes could be +avvocated to Rome, and no crimes except heresy were held to lie within +the jurisdiction of the court. The State reserved to itself witchcraft, +profane swearing, bigamy and usury; allowed no interference with Jews, +infidels and Greeks; forbade the confiscation of goods in which the +heirs of condemned persons had interest; and made separate stipulations +with regard to the Index of Prohibited Books. It precluded the +Inquisition from extending its authority in any way, direct or indirect, +over trades, arts, guilds, magistrates, and communal officials.[106] The +tenor of this system was to repress ecclesiastical encroachments on the +State prerogatives, and to secure equity in the proceedings of the Holy +Office. Had practice answered to theory in the Venetian Inquisition, by +far the worst abuses of the institution would have been avoided. But as +a matter of fact, causes were not unfrequently transferred to Rome; +confiscations were permitted; and the lists of the condemned include +Mussulmans, witches, conjurors, men of scandalous life, etc., showing +that the jurisdiction of the Holy Office extended beyond heresy in +Venice.[107] + +[Footnote 106: See Sarpi's 'Discourse on the Inquisition,' _Opere_, vol. +iv.] + +[Footnote 107: I owe to Mr. H.F. Brown details about the register of +criminals condemned by the Holy Office, which substantiate my statement +regarding the various types of cases in its jurisdiction.] + +The truth is that the Venetians, though they were willing to risk an +open rupture with Rome, remained at heart sound Churchmen devoted to the +principles of the Catholic Reaction. The Republic conceded the fact of +Inquisitorial authority, while it reserved the letter of +State-supervision. Venetian decadence was marked by this hypocrisy of +pride; and so long as appearances were saved, the Holy Office exercised +its functions freely. The nobles who acted as assessors had no sympathy +with religious toleration, being themselves under the influence of +confessors and directors. + +How little the subjects of S. Mark at this epoch trusted the good faith +of laws securing liberty of thought in Venice, may be gathered from what +happened immediately after the publication of the Index Expurgatorius in +1596. From an official report upon the decline of the printing trade in +Venice, it appears that within the space of a few months the number of +presses fell from 125 to 40.[108] Printers were afraid to undertake +either old or new works, and the trade languished for lack of books to +publish. Yet an edict had been issued announcing that by the terms of +the Concordat with Clement VIII., the Venetian press would only be +subject to State control and not to the Roman tribunals.[109] The truth +is that, in regard both to the Holy Office and to the Index, Venice was +never strong enough to maintain the independence which she boasted. By +cunning use of the confessional, and by unscrupulous control of opinion, +the Church succeeded in doing there much the same as in any other +Italian city. Successive Popes made, indeed, a show of respecting the +liberties of the Republic. On material points, touching revenue and +State-administration, they felt it wise to concede even more than +complimentary privileges; and when Paul V. encroached upon these +privileges, the Venetians were ready to resist him. Yet the quarrels +between the Vatican and San Marco were, after all, but family disputes. +The Venetians at the close of the sixteenth century proved themselves no +better friends to spiritual freedom than were the Grand Dukes of +Tuscany. Their political jealousies, commercial anxieties, and feints of +maintaining a power that was rapidly decaying, denoted no partiality for +the opponents of Rome--unless, like Sarpi, these wore the livery of the +State, and defended with the pen its secular prerogatives. Therefore, +when the Signory published Clement VIII.'s Index, when copies of that +Index were sown broadcast, while only an edition of sixty was granted to +the Concordat, authors and publishers felt, and felt rightly, that their +day had passed. The art of printing sank at once to less than a third of +its productivity. The city where it had flourished so long, and where it +had effected so much of enduring value for European culture, was gagged +in scarcely a less degree than Rome. We have full right to insist upon +these facts, and to draw from them a stringent corollary. If Venice +allowed the trade in books, which had brought her so much profit and +such honor in the past, to be paralyzed by Clement's Index, what must +have happened in other Italian towns? The blow which maimed Venetian +literature, was mortal elsewhere; and the finest works of genius in the +first half of the seventeenth century had to find their publishers in +Paris.[110] But these reflections have led me to anticipate the proper +development of the subject of this chapter. + +[Footnote 108: The document in question, prepared for the use of the +Signoria, exists in MS. in the Marcian Library, Misc. Eccl. et Civ. +Class. VII. Cod. MDCCLXI.] + +[Footnote 109: This edict is dated August 24, 1596.] + +[Footnote 110: This will be apparent when I come to treat of Marino and +Tassoni.] + +In Italy at large, the forces of the Inquisition were directed, not as +in Spain against heretics in masses, but against the leaders of +heretical opinion; and less against personalities than against ideas. +Italy during the Renaissance had been the workshop of ideas for Europe. +It was the business of the Counter-Reformation to check the industry of +that _officina scientiarum_, to numb the nervous centers which had +previously emitted thought of pregnant import for the modern world, and +to prevent the reflux of ideas, elaborated by the northern races in +fresh forms, upon the intelligence which had evolved them. To do so now +was comparatively easy. It only needed to put the engine of the Index +Librorum Prohibitorum into working order in concert with the +Inquisition. + +Throughout the Middle Ages it had been customary to burn heretical +writings. The bishops, the universities, and the Dominican Inquisitors +exercised this privilege; and by their means, in the age of manuscripts, +the life of a book was soon extinguished. Whole libraries were sometimes +sacrificed at one fell swoop, as in the case of the 6000 volumes +destroyed at Salamanca in 1490 by Torquemada, on a charge of +sorcery.[111] After the invention of printing it became more difficult +to carry on this warfare against literature, while the rapid diffusion +of Protestant opinions through the press rendered the need for their +extermination urgent. Sixtus IV. laid a basis for the Index by +prohibiting the publication of any books which had not previously been +licensed by ecclesiastical authority. Alexander VI. by a brief of 15O1 +confirmed this measure, and placed books under the censorship of the +episcopacy and the Inquisition. Finally, the Lateran Council, in its +tenth session, held under the auspices of Leo X., gave solemn ecumenical +sanction to these regulations. + +The censorship having been thus established, the next step was to form a +list of books prohibited by the Inquisitors appointed for that purpose. +The Sorbonne in Paris drew one up for their own use, and even presented +a petition to Francis I. that publication through the press should be +forbidden altogether.[112] A royal edict to this effect was actually +promulgated in 1535. Charles V. commissioned the University of Louvain +in 1539 to furnish a similar catalogue, proclaiming at the same time the +penalty of death for all who read or owned the works of Luther in his +realms.[113] The University printed their catalogue with Papal approval +in 1549. + +[Footnote 111: Llorente, vol. i. p. 281.] + +[Footnote 112: Christie's _Etienne Dolet_, pp. 220-24.] + +[Footnote 113: Llorente, vol. i. p. 463.] + +These lists of the Sorbonne and Louvain formed the nucleus of the +Apostolic Index, which, after the close of the Council of Trent, became +binding upon Catholics. When the Inquisition had been established in +Rome, Caraffa, who was then at its head, obtained the sanction of Paul +III. for submitting all books, old or new, printed or in manuscript, to +the supervision of the Holy Office. He also contrived to place +booksellers, public and private libraries, colporteurs and officers of +customs, under the same authority; so that from 1543 forward it was a +penal offence to print, sell, own, convey or import any literature, of +which the Inquisition had not first been informed, and for the diffusion +or possession of which it had not given its permission. Giovanni della +Casa, who was sent in 1546 to Venice with commission to prosecute P. +Paolo Vergerio for heresy, drew up a list of about seventy prohibited +volumes, which was printed in that city.[114] Other lists appeared, at +Florence in 1552, and at Milan in 1554. Philip II. at last, in 1558, +issued a royal edict commanding the publication of one catalogue which +should form the standard for such Indices throughout his States.[115] +These lists, revised, collated, and confirmed by Papal authority, were +reprinted, in the form which ever afterwards obtained, at Rome, by +command of Paul IV. in 1559. + +[Footnote 114: In the year 1548. The MS. cited above (p. 192) mentions +another Index of the Venetian Holy Office published in 1554.] + +[Footnote 115: Sarpi, _Ist. del Conc. Tial_, vol. ii..p. 90.] + +The Tridentine Council ratified the regulations of the Inquisition and +the Index concerning prohibited books, and referred the execution of +them in detail to the Papacy. A congregation was appointed at Rome, +which, though technically independent of the Holy Office, worked in +concert with it. This Congregation of the Index brought the Tridentine +decrees into harmony with the practice that had been developed by +Caraffa as Inquisitor and Pope. Their list was published in 1564 with +the authority of Pius IV. Finally, in 1595 the decrees embodying the +statutes of the Church upon this topic were issued in print, together +with a largely augmented catalogue of interdicted books. This document +will form the basis of what I have to say with regard to the Catholic +crusade against literature. + +Not without reason did Aonio Paleario call this engine of the Index 'a +dagger drawn from the scabbard to assassinate letters'--_sica districta +in omnes scriptores_.[116] Not without reason did Sarpi describe it as +'the finest secret which has ever been discovered for applying religion +to the purpose of making men idiotic.'[117] + +[Footnote 116: In his _Oratio pro se ipso ad Senenses_. Printed by +Gryphius at Lyons in 1552.] + +[Footnote 117: _1st. del Conc. Trid_. vol. ii. p. 91. The passage +deserves to be Paul IV. designated in his transcribed. 'Sotto colore di +fede e religione sono vietati con la medesima severita e dannati gli +autori de'libri da'quali l'autorita del principe e magistrati temporali +e difesa dalle usurpazioni ecclesiastiche; dove l'autorita de' Concilj e +de'Vescovi e difesa dalle usurpazioni della Corte Romana; dove le +ipocrisie o tirannidi con le quali sotto pretesto di religione il popolo +e ingannato o violentato sono manifestate. In somma non fu mai trovato +piu bell'arcano per adoperare la religione a far gli uomini insensati.'] + + +Index Expurgatorius sixty-one printing firms by name, all of whose +publications were without exception prohibited, adding a similar +prohibition for the books edited by any printer who had published the +writings of any heretic; so that in fine, as Sarpi says, 'there was not +a book left to read.' Truly he might well exclaim in another passage +that the Church was doing its best to extinguish sound learning +altogether.[118] + +In order to gain a clear conception of the warfare carried on by Rome +against free literature, it will be well to consider first the rules for +the Index of Prohibited Books, sketched out by the fathers delegated by +the Tridentine Council, published by Pius IV., augmented by Sixtus V., +and reduced to their final form by Clement VIII. in 1595.[119] +Afterwards I shall proceed to explain the operation of the system, and +to illustrate by details the injury inflicted upon learning and +enlightenment. + +[Footnote 118: _Discorso Sopra l'Inq._ vol. iv. p. 54.] + +[Footnote 119: These rules form the Preface to modern editions of the +Index. The one I use is dated Naples, 1862. They are also printed in +vol. iv. of Sarpi's works.] + +The preambles to this document recite the circumstances under which the +necessity for digesting an Index or Catalogue of Prohibited Books arose. +These were the diffusion of heretical opinions at the epoch of the +Lutheran schism, and their propagation through the press. The Council of +Trent decreed that a list of writings 'heretical, or suspected of +heretical pravity, or injurious to manners and piety,' should be drawn +up. This charge they committed to prelates chosen from all nations, who, +when the catalogue had been completed, referred it for sanction and +approval to the Pope. He nominated a congregation of eminent +ecclesiastics, by whose care the catalogue was perfected, and rules were +framed, defining the use that should be made of it in future. It issued +officially, as I have already stated, in 1564, the fifth year of the +pontificate of Pius IV., with warning to all universities and civil and +ecclesiastical authorities that any person of what grade or condition +soever, whether clerk or layman, who should read or possess one or more +of the proscribed volumes, would be accounted _ipso jure_ excommunicate, +and liable to prosecution by the Inquisition on a charge of heresy.[120] +Booksellers, printers, merchants, and custom-house officials received +admonition that the threat of excommunication and prosecution concerned +them specially. + +[Footnote 120: Paulus Manutius Aldus printed this Index at Venice in +1564.] + +The first rules deal with the acknowledged writings of Protestant +heresiarchs. Those of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin, whether in their +original languages or translated, are condemned absolutely and without +exception. Next follow regulations for securing the monopoly of the +Vulgate, considered as the sole authorized version of the Holy +Scriptures. Translations of portions of the Bible made by learned men in +Latin may be used by scholars with permission of a bishop, provided it +be understood that they are never appealed to as the inspired text. +Translations into any vernacular idiom are strictly excluded from public +use and circulation, but may, under exceptional circumstances, be +allowed to students who have received license from a bishop or +Inquisitor at the recommendation of their parish priest or confessor. +Compilations made by heretics, in the form of dictionaries, +concordances, etc., are to be prohibited until they have been purged and +revised by censors of the press. The same regulation extends to +polemical and controversial works touching on matters of doctrine in +dispute between Catholics and Protestants. Next follow regulations +concerning books containing lascivious or obscene matter, which are to +be rigidly suppressed. Exception is made in favor of the classics, on +account of their style; with the proviso that they are on no account to +be given to boys to read. Treatises dealing professedly with occult +arts, magic, sorcery, predictions of future events, incantation of +spirits, and so forth, are to be proscribed; due reservation being made +in favor of scientific observations touching navigation, agriculture, +and the healing art, in which prognostics may be useful to mankind. +Having thus broadly defined the literature which has to be suppressed or +subjected to supervision, rules are laid down for the exercise of +censure. Books, whereof the general tendency is good, but which contain +passages savoring of heresy, superstition or divination, shall be +reserved for the consideration of Catholic theologians appointed by the +Inquisition; and this shall hold good also of prefaces, summaries, or +annotations. All writings printed in Rome must be submitted to the +judgment of the Vicar of the Pope, the Master of the Sacred Palace, or a +person nominated by the Pontiff. In other cities the bishop, or his +delegate, and the Inquisitor of the district, shall be responsible for +examining printed or manuscript works previous to publication; and +without their license it shall be illegal to circulate them. +Inquisitorial visits shall from time to time be made, under the +authority of the bishop and the Holy Office, in bookshops or printing +houses, for the removal and destruction of prohibited works. Colporteurs +of books across the frontiers, heirs and executors who have become +depositaries of books, collectors of private libraries, as well as +editors and booksellers, shall be liable to the same jurisdiction, bound +to declare their property by catalogue, and to show license for the use, +transmission, sale, or possession of the same. + +With regard to the correction of books, it is provided that this duty +shall fall conjointly on bishops and Inquisitors, who must appoint three +men distinguished for learning and piety to examine the text and make +the necessary changes in it. Upon the report of these censors, the +bishops and Inquisitors shall give license of publication, provided they +are satisfied that the work of emendation has been duly performed. The +censor must submit not only the body of a book, to scrupulous analysis; +but he must also investigate the notes, summaries, marginal remarks, +indexes, prefaces, and dedicatory epistles, lest haply pestilent +opinions lurk there in ambush. He must keep a sharp lookout for +heretical propositions, and arguments savoring of heresy; insinuations +against the established order of the sacraments, ceremonies, usages and +ritual of the Roman Church; new turns of phrase insidiously employed by +heretics, with dubious and ambiguous expressions that may mislead the +unwary; plausible citations of Scripture, or passages of holy writ +extracted from heretical translations; quotations from the authorized +text, which have been adduced in an unorthodox sense; epithets in honor +of heretics, and anything that may redound to the praise of such +persons; opinions savoring of sorcery and superstition; theories that +involve the subjection of the human will to fate, fortune, and +fallacious portents, or that imply paganism; aspersions upon +ecclesiastics and princes; impugnments of the liberties, immunities, and +jurisdiction of the Church; political doctrines in favor of antique +virtues, despotic government, and the so-called Reason of State, which +are in opposition to the evangelical and Christian law; satires on +ecclesiastical rites, religious orders, and the state, dignity, and +persons of the clergy; ribaldries or stories offensive and prejudicial +to the fame and estimation of one's neighbors, together with +lubricities, lascivious remarks, lewd pictures, and capital letters +adorned with obscene images. All such peccant passages are to be +expunged, obliterated, removed or radically altered, before the license +for publication be accorded by the ordinary. + +No book shall be printed without the author's name in full, together +with his nationality, upon the title-page. If there be sufficient reason +for giving an anonymous work to the world, the censor's name shall stand +for that of the author. Compilations of words, sentences, excerpts, +etc., shall pass under the name of the compiler. Publishers and +booksellers are to take care that the printed work agrees with the MS. +copy as licensed, and to see that all rules with regard to the author's +name and his authority to publish have been observed. They are, +moreover, to take an oath before the Master of the Sacred Palace in +Rome, or before the bishop and Inquisitor in other places, that they +will scrupulously follow the regulations of the Index. The bishops and +Inquisitors are held responsible for selecting as censors, men of +approved piety and learning, whose good faith and integrity they shall +guarantee, and who shall be such as will obey no promptings of private +hatred or of favor, but will do all for the glory of God and the +advantage of the faithful. The approbation of such censors, together +with the license of the bishop and Inquisitor, shall be printed at the +opening of every published book. Finally, if any work composed by a +condemned author shall be licensed after due purgation and castration, +it shall bear his name upon the title-page, together with the note of +condemnation, to the end that, though the book itself be accepted, the +author be understood to be rejected. Thus, for example, the title shall +run as follows: 'The Library, by Conrad Gesner, a writer condemned for +his opinions, which work was formerly published and proscribed, but is +now expurgated and licensed by superior authority.' + +The Holy Office was made virtually responsible for the censorship of +books. But, as I have already stated, there existed a Congregation of +prelates in Rome to whom the final verdict upon this matter Was +reserved. If an author in some provincial town composed a volume, he was +bound in the first instance to submit the MS. to the censor appointed by +the bishop and Inquisitor of his district. This man took time to weigh +the general matter of the work before him, to scrutinize its +propositions, verify quotations, and deliberate upon its tendency. When +the license of the ordinary had been obtained, it was referred to the +Roman Congregation of the Index, who might withhold or grant their +sanction. So complicated was the machinery, and so vast the pressure +upon the officials who were held responsible for the expurgation of +every book imprinted or reprinted in all the Catholic presses, that even +writers of conspicuous orthodoxy had to suffer grievous delays. An +archbishop writes to Cardinal Sirleto about a book which had been +examined thrice, at Rome, at Venice and again at Rome, and had obtained +the Pope's approval, and yet the license for reprinting it is never +issued.[121] The censors were not paid; and in addition to being +overworked and over-burdened with responsibility, they were rarely men +of adequate learning. In a letter from Bartolommeo de Valverde, chaplain +to Philip II., under date 1584, we read plain-spoken complaints against +these subordinates.[122] 'Unacquainted with literature, they discharge +the function of condemning books they cannot understand. Without +knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, and animated by a prejudiced hostility +against authors, they take the easy course of proscribing what they feel +incapable of judging. In this way the works of many sainted writers and +the useful commentaries made by Jews have been suppressed.' A memorial +to Sirleto, presented by Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti, points out the +negligence of the Index-makers and their superficial discharge of +onerous duties, praying that in future men of learning and honesty +should be employed, and that they should receive payment for their +labors.[123] These are the expostulations addressed by faithful +Catholics, engaged in literary work demanded by the Vatican, to a +Cardinal who was the soul and mover of the Congregation. They do not +question the salutary nature of the Index, but only call attention to +the incapacity and ignorance of its unpaid officials. + +[Footnote 121: Dejob, _De l'Influence_, etc. p. 60.] + +[Footnote 122: Id. _op. cit._ p. 76.] + +[Footnote 123: Id. _op. cit._ p. 78.] + +Meanwhile, it was no easy matter to appoint responsible and learned +scholars to the post. The inefficient censors proceeded with their work +of destruction and suppression. A commentator on a Greek Father, or the +Psalms, was corrected by an ignoramus who knew neither Greek nor Hebrew, +anxious to discover petty collisions with the Vulgate, and eager to +create annoyances for the author. Latino Latini, one of the students +employed by the Vatican, refused his name to an edition of Cyprian which +he had carefully prepared with far more than the average erudition, +because it had been changed throughout by the substitution of bad +readings for good, in defiance of MS. authority, with a view of +preserving a literal agreement with the Vulgate.[124] Sigonius, another +of the Vatican students, was instructed to prepare certain text-books by +Cardinal Paleotti. These were an Ecclesiastical History, a treatise on +the Hebrew Commonwealth, and an edition of Sulpicius Severus. The MSS. +were returned to him, accused of unsound doctrine, and scrawled over +with such remarks as 'false,' 'absurd.'[125] + +[Footnote 124: Dejob, _op. cit._ p. 74.] + +[Footnote 125: Id. _op. cit._ p. 54.] + +In addition to the intolerable delays of the Censure, and the arrogant +inadequacy of its officials, learned men suffered from the pettiest +persecution at the hands of informers. The Inquisitors themselves were +often spies and persons of base origin. 'The Roman Court,' says Sarpi, +'being anxious that the office of the Inquisition should not suffer +through negligence in its ministers, has confided these affairs to +individuals without occupation, and whose mean estate renders them proud +of their official position.'[126] It was not to be expected that such +people should discharge their duties with intelligence and scrupulous +equity. Pius V., himself an incorruptible Inquisitor, had to condemn one +of his lieutenants for corruption or extortion of money by menaces.[127] +There was still another source of peril and annoyance to which scholars +were exposed. Their comrades, engaged in similar pursuits, not +unfrequently wreaked private spite by denouncing them to the +Congregation.[128] Van Linden indicated heresies in Osorius, Giovius, +Albertus Pighius. The Jesuit Francesco Torres accused Maes, and +threatened Latini. Sigonius obtained a license for his _History of +Bologna_, but could not print it, owing to the delation of secret +enemies. Baronius, when he had finished his Martyrology, found that a +cabal had raised insuperable obstacles in the way of its publication. I +have been careful to select only examples of notoriously Catholic +authors, men who were in the pay and under the special protection of the +Vatican. How it fared with less favored scholars, may be left to the +imagination. We are not astonished to find a man like Latini writing +thus from Rome to Maes during the pontificate of Paul IV.[129] + +[Footnote 126: Discorso dell'Origine, etc. dell'Inquisizione,' _Opp._ +vol. iv. p. 34.] + +[Footnote 127: Mutinelli, _Storia Arcana_, vol. i. p. 277.] + +[Footnote 128: Dejob, _op. cit._ pp. 53-57.] + +[Footnote 129: Id. _op. cit._ p. 75.] + +'Have you not heard of the peril which threatens the very existence of +books? What are you dreaming of, when now that almost every published +book is interdicted, you still think of making new ones? Here, as I +imagine, there is no one who for many years to come will dare to write +except on business or to distant friends. An Index has been issued of +the works which none may possess under pain of excommunication; and the +number of them is so great that very few indeed are left to us, +especially of those which have been published in Germany. This +shipwreck, this holocaust of books will stop the production of them in +your country also, if I do not err, and will teach editors to be upon +their guard. As you love me and yourself, sit and look at your bookcases +without opening their doors, and beware lest the very cracks let +emanations come to you from those forbidden fruits of learning.' This +letter was written in 1559, when Paul proscribed sixty-one presses, and +prohibited the perusal of any work that issued from them. He afterwards +withdrew this interdict. But the Index did not stop its work of +extirpation. + +Another embarrassment which afflicted men of learning, was the danger of +possessing books by heretics and the difficulty of procuring them.[130] +Yet they could not carry on their Biblical studies without reference to +such authors as, for example, Erasmus or Reuchlin. The universities +loudly demanded that books of sound erudition by heretics should at +least be expurgated and republished. Yet the process of disfiguring +their arguments, effacing the names of authors, expunging the praises of +heretics, altering quotations and retouching them all over, involved so +much labor that the demand was never satisfied. The strict search +instituted at the frontiers stopped the importation of books,[131] and +carriers refused to transmit them. In their dread of the Inquisition, +these folk found it safer to abstain from book traffic altogether. +Public libraries were exposed to intermittent raids, nor were private +collections safe from such inspection. The not uncommon occurrence of +old books in which precious and interesting passages have been erased +with printer's ink, or pasted over with slips of opaque paper, testifies +to the frequency of these inquisitorial visitations.[132] Any casual +acquaintance, on leaving a man's house, might denounce him as the +possessor of a proscribed volume; and everybody who owned a book-case +was bound to furnish the Inquisitors with a copy of his catalogue. +Book-stalls lay open to the malevolence of informers. We possess an +insolent letter of Antonio Possevino to Cardinal Sirleto, telling him +that he had noticed a forbidden book by Filiarchi on a binder's counter, +and bidding him to do his duty by suppressing it.[133] When this +Cardinal's library was exposed for sale after his death, the curious +observed that it contained 1872 MSS. in Greek and Latin, 530 volumes of +printed Greek books, and 3939 volumes of Latin, among which 39 were on +the Index. But charity suggested that the Cardinal had retained these +last for censure. + +[Footnote 130: Sarpi's Letters abound in useful information on this +topic. Writing to French correspondents, he complains weekly of the +impossibility even in Venice of obtaining books. See, for instance, +_Lettere_, vol. i. pp. 286, 287, 360, vol. ii. p. 13. In one passage he +says that the importation of books into Italy is impeded at Innsbruck, +Trento, and throughout the Tyrolese frontiers (vol. i. p. 74). In +another he warns his friends not to send them concealed in merchandise, +since they will fall under so many eyes in the custom-houses and +lazzaretti (vol. i. p. 303).] + +[Footnote 131: It was usual at this epoch to send Protestant +publications from beyond the Alps in bales of cotton or other goods. +This appears from the Lucchese proclamations against heresy published in +_Arch. Stor._ vol. x.] + +[Footnote 132: I may mention that having occasion to consult +Savonarola's works in the Public Library of Perugia, which has a fairly +good collection of them, I found them useless for purposes of study by +reason of these erasures and Burke-plasters.] + +[Footnote 133: Dejob, _op. cit._ p. 43.] + +During the period of the Counter-Reformation it was the cherished object +of the Popes to restore ecclesiastical and theological learning. They +gathered men of erudition round them in the Vatican, and established a +press for the purpose of printing the Fathers and diffusing Catholic +literature. But they were met in the pursuance of this project by very +serious difficulties. Their own policy tended to stifle knowledge and +suppress criticism. The scholars whom they chose as champions of the +faith worked with tied hands. Baronio knew no Greek; Latini knew hardly +any; Bellarmino is thought to have known but little. And yet these were +the apostles of Catholic enlightenment, the defenders of the infallible +Church against students of the caliber of Erasmus, Casaubon, Sarpi! An +insuperable obstacle to sacred studies of a permanently useful kind was +the Tridentine decree which had declared the Vulgate inviolable. No +codex of age or authority which displayed a reading at variance with the +inspired Latin version might be cited. Sirleto, custodian of the Vatican +Library, refused lections from its MSS. to learned men, on the ground +that they might seem to impugn the Vulgate.[134] For the same reason, +the critical labors of all previous students, from Valla to Erasmus, on +the text of the Bible were suppressed, and the best MSS. of the Fathers +were ruthlessly garbled, in order to bring their quotations into +accordance with Jerome's translation. Galesini takes credit to himself +in a letter to Sirleto for having withheld a clearly right reading in +his edition of the Psalms, because it explained a mistake in the +Vulgate.[135] We have seen how Latini's Cyprian suffered from the +censure; and there is a lamentable history of the Vatican edition of +Ambrose, which was so mutilated that the Index had to protect it from +confrontation with the original codices.[136] This dishonest dealing not +only discouraged students and paralyzed the energy of critical +investigation; but it also involved the closing of public libraries to +scholars. The Vatican could not afford to let the light of science in +upon its workshop of forgeries and sophistications. + +[Footnote 134: Dejob, _op. cit._ p. 50. Also his _Muret_, pp. 223-227.] + +[Footnote 135: Dejob, _De l'Influence_, p. 49.] + +[Footnote 136: Id. _op. cit._ pp. 96-98.] + +A voice of reasonable remonstrance was sometimes raised by even the most +incorruptible children of the Church. Thus Bellarmino writes to Cardinal +Sirleto, suggesting a doubt whether it is obligatory to adhere to the +letter of the Tridentine decree upon the Vulgate.[137] Is it rational, +he asks, to maintain that every sentence in the Latin text is +impeccable? Must we reject those readings in the Hebrew and the Greek, +which elucidate the meaning of the Scriptures, in cases where Jerome has +followed a different and possibly a corrupt authority? Would it not be +more sensible to regard the Vulgate as the sole authorized version for +use in universities, pulpits, and divine service, while admitting that +it is not an infallible rendering of the inspired original? He also +touches, in a similar strain of scholar-like liberality, upon the +Septuagint, pointing out that this version cannot have been the work of +seventy men in unity, since the translator of Job seems to have been +better acquainted with Greek than Hebrew, while the reverse is true of +the translator of Solomon. Such remonstrances were not, however, +destined to make themselves effectively heard. Instead of relaxing its +severity after the pontificate of Pius IV., the Congregation of the +Index grew, as we have seen, more rigid, until, in the rules digested by +Clement VIII., it enforced the strictest letter of the law regarding the +Vulgate, and ratified all the hypocrisies and subterfuges which that +implied. + +[Footnote 137: This very interesting and valuable letter is printed by +Dejob in the work I have so often cited, p. 391.] + +Under the conditions which I have attempted to describe, it was +impossible that Italy should hold her place among the nations which +encouraged liberal studies. Rome had one object in view--to gag the +revolutionary free voice of the Renaissance, to protect conservative +principles, to establish her own supremacy, and to secure the triumph of +the Counter-Reformation. In pursuance of this policy, she had to react +against the learning and the culture of the classical revival; and her +views were seconded not only by the overwhelming political force of +Spain in the Peninsula, but also by the petty princes who felt that +their existence was imperiled. + +Independence of judgment was rigorously proscribed in all academies and +seats of erudition. New methods of education and new text-books were +forbidden. Professors found themselves hampered in their choice of +antique authors. Only those classics which were sanctioned by the +Congregation of the Index could be used in lecture-rooms. On the one +hand, the great republican advocates of independence had incurred +suspicion. On the other hand, the poets were prohibited as redolent of +paganism. To mingle philosophy with rhetoric was counted a crime. Thomas +Aquinas had set up Pillars of Hercules beyond which the reason might not +seek to travel. Roman law had to be treated from the orthodox scholastic +standpoint. Woe to the audacious jurist who made the Pandects serve for +disquisitions on the rights of men and nations! Scholars like Sigonius +found themselves tied down in their class-rooms to a weariful routine of +Cicero and Aristotle. Aonio Paleario complained that a professor was no +better than a donkey working in a mill; nothing remained for him but to +dole out commonplaces, avoiding every point of contact between the +authors he interpreted and the burning questions of modern life. +Muretus, who brought with him to Italy from France a ruined moral +reputation with a fervid zeal for literature, who sold his soul to +praise the Massacre of S. Bartholomew and purge by fulsome panegyrics of +great public crimes the taint of heresy that clung around him, found his +efforts to extend the course of studies in Rome thwarted.[138] He was +forbidden to lecture on Plato, forbidden to touch jurisprudence, +forbidden to consult a copy of Eunapius in the Vatican Library. It cost +him days and weeks of pleading to obtain permission to read Tacitus to +his classes. Greek, the literature of high thoughts, noble enthusiasms, +and virile sciences, was viewed with suspicion. As the monks of the +middle ages had written on the margins of their MSS.: _Graeca sunt, ergo +non legenda_, so these new obscurantists exclaimed: _Graeca sunt, +periculosa sunt, ergo non legenda_. 'I am forced,' he cries in this +extremity, 'to occupy myself with Latin and to abstain entirely from +Greek.' And yet he knew that 'if the men of our age advance one step +further in their neglect of Greek, doom and destruction are impending +over all sound arts and sciences.' 'It is my misery,' he groans, 'to +behold the gradual extinction and total decay of Greek letters, in whose +train I see the whole body of refined learning on the point of vanishing +away.[139] + +A vigorous passage from one of Sarpi's letters directly bearing on these +points may here be cited (vol. i. p. 170): 'The revival of polite +learning undermined the foundations of Papal monarchy. Nor was this to +be wondered at. This monarchy began and grew in barbarism; the cessation +of barbarism naturally curtailed and threatened it with extinction. This +we already see in Germany and France; but Spain and Italy are still +subject to barbarism. Legal studies sink daily from bad to worse. The +Roman Curia opposes every branch of learning which savors of polite +literature, while it defends its barbarism with tooth and nail. How can +it do otherwise? Abolish those books on Papal Supremacy, and where shall +they find that the Pope is another God, that he is almighty, that all +rights and laws are closed within the cabinet of his breast, that he can +shut up folk in hell, in a word that he has power to square the circle? +Destroy that false jurisprudence, and this tyranny will vanish; but the +two are reciprocally supporting, and we shall not do away with the +former until the latter falls, which will only happen at God's good +pleasure.' + +[Footnote 138: See Dejob's _Life of Muret_, pp. 231, 238, 274, 320.] + +[Footnote 139: _Op. cit_. pp. 262, 481.] + +The jealousy with which liberal studies were regarded by the Church +bred a contempt for them in the minds of students. Benci, a professor of +humane letters at Rome, says that his pupils walked about the class-room +during his lectures. With grim humor he adds that he does not object to +their sleeping, so long as they abstain from snoring.[140] But it is +impossible, he goes on to complain, that I should any longer look upon +the place in which I do my daily work as an academy of learning; I go to +it rather as to a mill in which I must grind out my tale of worthless +grain. Muretus, when he had labored twenty years in the chair of +rhetoric at Rome, begged for dismissal. His memorial to the authorities +presents a lamentable picture of the insubordination and indifference +from which he had suffered.[141] 'I have borne immeasurable indignities +from the continued insolence of these students, who interrupt me with +cries, whistlings, hisses, insults, and such opprobrious remarks that I +sometimes scarcely know whether I am standing on my head or heels.' +'They come to the lecture-room armed with poignards, and when I reprove +them for their indecencies, they threaten over and over again to cut my +face open if I do not hold my tongue.' The walls, he adds, are scrawled +over with obscene emblems and disgusting epigrams, so that this haunt of +learning presents the aspect of the lowest brothel; and the professor's +chair has become a more intolerable seat than the pillory, owing to the +missiles flung at him and the ribaldry with which he is assailed. The +manners and conversation of the students must have been disgusting +beyond measure, to judge by a letter of complaint from a father +detailing the contamination to which his son was exposed in the Roman +class-rooms, and the immunity with which the lewdest songs were publicly +recited there.[142] But the total degradation of learning at this epoch +in Rome is best described in one paragraph of Vittorio de'Rossi, +setting forth the neglect endured by Aldo Manuzio, the younger. This +scion of an illustrious family succeeded to the professorship of Muretus +in 1588. 'Then,' says Rossi, 'might one marvel at or rather mourn over, +the abject and down-trodden state of the liberal arts. Then might one +perceive with tears how those treasures of humane letters, which our +fathers exalted to the heavens, were degraded in the estimation of +youth. In the good old days men crossed the seas, undertook long +journeys, traversed the cities of Greece and Asia, in order to obtain +the palm of eloquence and salute the masters of languages and learning, +at whose feet they sat entranced by noble words. But now these fellows +poured scorn upon an unrivaled teacher of both Greek and Latin +eloquence, whose services were theirs for the asking, theirs without the +fatigue of travel, without expense, without exertion. Though he freely +offered them his abundance of erudition in both learned literatures, +they shut their ears against him. At the hours when his lecture-room +should have been thronged with multitudes of eager pupils you might see +him, abandoned by the crowd, pacing the pavement before the door of the +academy with one, or may be two, for his companions.'[143] + +[Footnote 140: Dejob, _Marc Antoine Muret_, p. 349.] + +[Footnote 141: The original is printed by Dejob, _Marc Antoine Muret_, +pp. 487-489.] + +[Footnote 142: The original letter, printed by Dejob, _op. cit._ p. 491, +is signed by Giustiniano Finetti, who seems to have been a professor of +medicine in the Roman University. His son, a youth of sixteen, +complained that the students had demanded and obtained leave to recite a +certain 'lettione che era carnavalesca d'ano et de priapo,' adding that +they were in the habit of holding debates upon the thesis that (LATIN: +'res sodcae erant praeferendae veneri naturali, et reprobabant rem +veneream cum feminis ac audabant masturbationem.') The dialogue which +the students obtained leave publicly to recite was probably similar to +one that might still be heard some years ago in spring upon the quays of +Naples, and which appeared to have descended from immemorial antiquity.] + +[Footnote 143: The Latin text is printed in Renouard's _Imprimerie des +Aldes_, p. 473.] + +To accuse the Church solely and wholly for this decay of humanistic +learning in Italy would be uncritical and unjust. We must remember that +after a period of feverish energy there comes a time of languor in all +epochs of great intellectual excitement. Nor was it to be expected that +the enthusiasm of the fifteenth century for classical studies should +have been prolonged into the second half of the sixteenth century. But +we are justified in blaming the ecclesiastical and civil authorities of +the Counter-Reformation for their determined opposition to the new +direction which that old enthusiasm for the classics was now +manifesting. They strove to force the stream of learning backward into +scholastic and linguistic channels, when it was already plowing for +itself a fresh course in the fields of philosophical and scientific +discovery. They made study odious, because they attempted to restrain it +to the out-worn husks of pedantry and rhetoric. These, they thought, +were innocuous. But what the intellectual appetite then craved, the +pabulum that it required to satisfy its yearning, was rigidly denied it. +Speculations concerning the nature of man and of the world, metaphysical +explorations into the regions of dimly apprehended mysteries, physics, +political problems, religious questions touching the great matters in +dispute through Europe, all the storm and stress of modern life, the +ferment of the modern mind and will and conscience, were excluded from +the schools, because they were antagonistic to the Counter-Reformation. +Italy was starved and demoralized in order to avert a revolution; and +learning was asphyxiated by confinement to a narrow chamber filled with +vitiated and exhausted air.[144] + +[Footnote 144: As Sarpi says: 'Of a truth the extraordinary rigor with +which books are hunted out for extirpation, shows how vigorous is the +light of that lantern which they have resolved to extinguish.' +_Lettere_, vol. i. p. 328.] + +Similar deductions may be drawn from the life of Paolo Manuzio in Rome. +He left Venice in 1561 at the invitation of Pius IV., who proposed to +establish a press 'for the publication of books printed with the finest +type and the utmost accuracy, and more especially of works bearing upon +sacred and ecclesiastical literature.'[145] Paolo's engagement was for +twelve years; his appointments were fixed at 300 ducats for traveling +expenses, 500 ducats of yearly salary, a press maintained at the +Pontifical expense, and a pension secured upon his son's life. The +scheme was a noble one. Paolo was to print all the Greek and Latin +Fathers, and to furnish the Catholic world with an arsenal of orthodox +learning. Yet, during his residence in Rome, no Greek book issued from +his press.[146] Of the Latin Fathers he gave the Epistles of Jerome, +Salvian, and Cyprian to the world. For the rest, he published the +Decrees of the Tridentine Council ten times, the Tridentine Catechism +eight times, the _Breviarium Romanum_ four times, and spent the greater +part of his leisure in editing minor translations, commentaries, and +polemical or educational treatises. The result was miserable, and the +man was ruined. + + +[Footnote 145: See Renouard, _op. cit._ pp. 442-459, for Paulus +Manutius's life at Rome.] + +[Footnote 146: _op. cit._ pp. 184-216.] + +It remains to notice the action of the Index with regard to secular +books in the modern languages. I will first repeat a significant passage +in its statutes touching upon political philosophy and the so-called +_Ratio Status_: 'Item, let all propositions, drawn from the digests, +manners, and examples of the Gentiles, which foster a tyrannical polity +and encourage what they falsely call the reason of state, in opposition +to the law of Christ and of the Gospel, be expunged.' This, says Sarpi +in his Discourse on Printing, is aimed in general against any doctrine +which impugns ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the civil sphere of +princes and magistrates, and the economy of the family.[147] Theories +drawn from whatever source to combat Papal and ecclesiastical +encroachments, and to defend the rights of the sovereign in his monarchy +or of the father in his, household, are denominated and denounced as +_Ratio Status_. The impugner of Papal absolutism in civil, as well as +ecclesiastical affairs, is accounted _ipso facto_ a heretic.[148] It +would appear at first sight as though the clause in question had been +specially framed to condemn Machiavelli and his school. The works of +Machiavelli were placed upon the Index in 1559, and a certain Cesare of +Pisa who had them in his library was put to the torture on this account +in 1610. It was afterwards proposed to correct and edit them without his +name; but his heirs very properly refused to sanction this proceeding, +knowing that he would be made to utter the very reverse of what he meant +in all that touched upon the Roman Church. + +[Footnote 147: Sarpi's Works, vol. iv. p. 4.] + +[Footnote 148: Sarpi, _Discorso_, vol. iv. p. 25, on Bellarmino's +doctrine. Sarpi's _Letters_, vol. i. pp. 138, 243. Sarpi says that he +and Gillot had both had their portraits painted in a picture of Hell and +shown to the common folk as foredoomed to eternal fire, because they +opposed doctrines of Papal omnipotence. _Ibid._ p. 151.] + +This paragraph in the statutes of the Index had, however, a further and +far more ambitious purpose than the suppression of Machiavelli, +Guicciardini, and Sarpi. By assuming to condemn all political writings +of which she disapproved, and by forbidding the secular authorities to +proscribe any works which had received her sanction, the Church obtained +a monopoly of popular instruction in theories of government. She +interdicted every treatise that exposed her own ambitious interference +in civil affairs or which maintained the rights of temporal rulers.[149] +She protected and propagated the works of her servile ministers, who +proclaimed that the ecclesiastical was superior in all points to the +civil power; that nations owed their first allegiance to the Pope, who +was divinely appointed to rule over them, and their second only to the +Prince, who was a delegate from their own body; and that tyrannicide +itself was justifiable when employed against a contumacious or heretical +sovereign. Such were the theories of the Jesuits--of Allen and Parsons +in England, Bellarmino in Italy, Suarez and Mariana in Spain, Boucher in +France. + +[Footnote 149: On this point, again, Sarpi's _Letters_ furnish valuable +details. He frequently remarks that a general order had been issued by +the Congregation of the Index to suppress all books against the writings +of Baronius, who was treated as a saint, vol. i. pp. 3, 147, ii. p. 35. +He relates how the Jesuits had procured the destruction of a book +written to uphold aristocracy in states, without touching upon +ecclesiastical questions, as being unfavorable to their theories of +absolutism (vol. i. p. 122). He tells the story of a confessor who +refused the sacraments to a nobleman, because he owned a treatise +written by Quirino in defense of the Venetian prerogatives (vol. i. p. +113). He refers to the suppression of James I.'s _Apologia_ and De +Thou's _Histories_ (vol. i. pp. 286, 287, 383).] + +In his critique of this monstrous unfairness Sarpi says: 'There are not +wanting men in Italy, pious and of sound learning, who hold the truth +upon such topics; but these can neither write nor send their writings to +the press.'[150] The best years and the best energies of Sarpi's life +were spent, as is well known, in combating the arrogance of Rome, and in +founding the relations of State to Church upon a basis of sound common +sense and equity. More than once he narrowly escaped martyrdom as the +reward of his temerity; and when the poignard of an assassin struck him, +his legend relates that he uttered the celebrated epigram: _Agnosco +stilum Curiae Romanae_. + + +[Footnote 150: In the Treatise on the Inquisition, _Opere_, vol. iv. p. +53. Sarpi, in a passage of his _Letters_ (vol. ii. p. 163), points out +why the secular authorities were ill fitted to retaliate in kind, upon +these Papal proscriptions.] + +Sarpi protested, not without good reason, that Rome was doing her best +to extinguish sound learning in Italy. But how did she deal with that +rank growth of licentious literature which had sprung up during the +Renaissance period? This is the question which should next engage us. We +have seen that the Council of Trent provided amply for the extirpation +of lewd and obscene publications. Accordingly, as though to satisfy the +sense of decency, some of the most flagrantly immoral books, including +the _Decameron_, the _Priapeia_, the collected works of Aretino, and +certain mediaeval romances, were placed upon the Index. Berni was +proscribed in 1559; but the interdict lasted only a short time, probably +because it was discovered that his poems, though licentious, were free +from the heresies which Pier Paolo Vergerio had sought to fix upon him. +Meanwhile no notice was taken of the _Orlando Furioso_, and a multitude +of novelists, of Beccadelli's and Pontano's verses, of Molza and +Firenzuola, of the whole mass of mundane writers in short, who had done +so much to reveal the corruption of Italian manners. It seemed as though +the Church cared less to ban obscenity than to burke those authors who +had spoken freely of her vices. When we come to examine the expurgated +editions of notorious authors, we shall see that this was literally the +case. A castrated version of Bandello, revised by Ascanio Centorio degli +Ortensi, was published in 1560.[151] It omitted the dedications and +preambles, suppressed some disquisitions which palliated vicious +conduct, expunged the novels that brought monks or priests into +ridicule, but left the impurities of the rest untouched. A reformed +version of Folengo's _Baldus_ appeared in 1561. The satires on religious +orders had been erased. Zambellus was cuckolded by a layman instead of a +priest. Otherwise the filth of the original received no cleansing +treatment. When Cosimo de'Medici requested that a revised edition of +the _Decameron_ might be licensed, Pius V. entrusted the affair to +Thomas Manrique, Master of the Sacred Palace. It was published by the +Giunti in 1573 under the auspices of Gregory XIII., with the approval +of the Holy Office and the Florentine Inquisition, fortified by +privileges from Spanish and French kings, dukes of Tuscany, Ferrara, and +so forth. The changes which Boccaccio's masterpiece had undergone were +these: passages savoring of doubtful dogma, sarcasms on monks and +clergy, the names of saints, allusions to the devil and hell, had +disappeared. Ecclesiastical sinners were transformed into students and +professors, nuns and abbesses into citizens' wives. Immorality in short +was secularized. But the book still offered the same allurements to a +prurient mind. Sixtus V. expressed his disapproval of this recension, +and new editions were licensed in 1582 and 1588 under the revision of +Lionardo Salviati and Luigi Groto. Both preserved the obscenities of the +_Decameron_, while they displayed more rigor with regard to satires on +ecclesiastical corruption. It may be added, in justice to the Roman +Church, that the _Decameron_ stands still upon the Index with the +annotation _donec expurgetur_.[152] Therefore we must presume that the +work of purification is not yet accomplished, though the Jesuits have +used parts of it as a text-book in their schools, while Panigarola +quoted it in his lectures on sacred eloquence. + +[Footnote 151: See Dejob, _De l'Influence, etc._ Chapter III.] + +[Footnote 152: _Index_, Naples, Pelella, 1862, p. 87.] + +It would weary the reader to enlarge upon this process of stupid or +hypocritical purgation, whereby the writings of men like Doni and +Straparola were stripped of their reflections on the clergy, while their +indecencies remained untouched; or to show how Ariosto's Comedies were +sanctioned, when his Satires, owing to their free speech upon the Papal +Court, received the stigma.[153] But I may refer to the grotesque +attempts which were made in this age to cast the mantle of spirituality +over profane literature. Thus Hieronimo Malipieri rewrote the +_Canzoniere_ of Petrarch, giving it a pious turn throughout; and the +_Orlando Furioso_ was converted by several hands into a religious +allegory.[154] + +[Footnote 153: This treatment of Ariosto is typical. Men of not over +scrupulous nicety may question whether his Comedies are altogether +wholesome reading. But not even a Puritan could find fault with his +Satires on the score of their morality. Yet Rome sanctioned the Comedies +and forbade the Satires.] + +[Footnote 154: Curious details on this topic are supplied by Dejob, _op. +cit._ pp. 179-181, and p. 184.] + +The action of Rome under the influence of the Counter-Reformation was +clearly guided by two objects: to preserve Catholic dogma in its +integrity, and to maintain the supremacy of the Church. She was eager to +extinguish learning and to paralyze intellectual energy. But she showed +no unwillingness to tolerate those pleasant vices which enervate a +nation. Compared with unsound doctrine and audacious speculation, +immorality appeared in her eyes a venial weakness. It was true that she +made serious efforts to reform the manners of her ministers, and was +fully alive to the necessity of enforcing decency and decorum. Yet a +radical purification of society seemed of less importance to her than +the conservation of Catholic orthodoxy and the inculcation of obedience +to ecclesiastical authority. When we analyze the Jesuits' system of +education, and their method of conducting the care of souls, we +shall see to what extent the deeply seated hypocrisy of the +Counter-Reformation had penetrated the most vital parts of the Catholic +system. It will suffice, at the close of this chapter, to touch upon one +other repressive measure adopted by the Church in its panic. Magistrates +received strict injunctions to impede the journeys of Italian subjects +into foreign countries where heresies were known to be rife, or where +the rites of the Roman Church were not regularly administered.[155] In +1595 Clement VIII. reduced these admonitions to Pontifical law in a +Bull, whereby he forbade Italians to travel without permission from the +Holy Office, or to reside abroad without annually remitting a +certificate of confession and communion to the Inquisitors. To ensure +obedience to this statute would have been impossible without the +co-operation of the Jesuits. They were, however, diffused throughout the +nations of North, East, South, and West. When an Italian arrived, the +Jesuit Fathers paid him a visit, and unless they received satisfactory +answers with regard to his license of travel and his willingness to +accept their spiritual direction, these serfs of Rome sent a delation +to the central Holy Office, upon the ground of which the Inquisitors of +his province instituted an action against him in his absence. Merchants, +who neglected these rules, found themselves exposed to serious +impediments in their trading operations, and to the peril of prosecution +involving confiscation of property at home. Sarpi, who composed a +vigorous critique of this abuse, points out what injury was done to +commerce by the system.[156] We may still further censure it as an +intolerable interference with the liberty of the individual; as an +odious exercise of spiritual tyranny on the part of an ambitious +ecclesiastical power which aimed at nothing less than universal +domination. + +[Footnote 155: Any correspondence with heretics was accounted sufficient +to implicate an Italian in the charge of heresy. Sarpi's Letters are +full of matter on this point. He always used Cipher, which he frequently +changed, addressed his letters under feigned names, and finally resolved +on writing in his own hand to no heretic. See _Lettere_, vol. ii. pp. 2, +151, 242, 248, 437. See also what Dejob relates about the timidity of +Muretus, _Muret_, pp. 229-231.] + +[Footnote 156: 'Treatise on the Inquisition,' _Opere_, vol. iv. p. 45.] + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE COMPANY OF JESUS. + + Vast Importance of the Jesuits in the Counter-Reformation--Ignatius + Loyola--His Youth--Retreat at Manresa--Journey to + Jerusalem--Studies in Spain and Paris--First Formation of his Order + at Sainte Barbe--Sojourn at Venice--Settlement at Rome--Papal + Recognition of the Order--Its Military Character--Absolutism of the + General--Devotion to the Roman Church--Choice of Members--Practical + and Positive Aims of the Founder--Exclusion of the Ascetic, + Acceptance of the Worldly Spirit--Review of the Order's Rapid + Extension over Europe--Loyola's Dealings with his Chief + Lieutenants--Propaganda--The Virtue of Obedience--The _Exercitia + Spiritualia_--Materialistic Imagination--Intensity and + Superficiality of Religious Training--The Status of the + Novice--Temporal Coadjutors--Scholastics--Professed of the Three + Vows--Professed of the Four Vows--The General--Control exercised + over him by his Assistants--His relation to the General + Congregation--Espionage a part of the Jesuit System--Advantageous + Position of a Contented Jesuit--The Vow of Poverty--Houses of the + Professed and Colleges--The Constitutions and Declarations--Problem + of the _Monita Secreta_--Reciprocal Relations of Rome and the + Company--Characteristics of Jesuit Education--Direction of + Consciences--Moral Laxity--Sarpi's + Critique--Casuistry--Interference in affairs of State--Instigation + to Regicide and Political Conspiracy--Theories of Church + Supremacy--Insurgence of the European Nations against the Company. + + +We have seen in the preceding chapters how Spain became dominant in +Italy, superseding the rivalry of confederate states by the monotony of +servitude, and lending its weight to Papal Rome. The internal changes +effected in the Church by the Tridentine Council, and the external power +conferred on it, were due in no small measure to Spanish influence or +sanction. A Spanish institution, the Inquisition, modified to suit +Italian requirements, lent revived Catholicism weapons of repression and +attack. We have now to learn by what means a partial vigor was +communicated to the failing body of Catholic beliefs, how the Tridentine +creed was propagated, the spiritual realm of the Roman Pontiff policed, +and his secular authority augmented. A Spanish Order rose at the right +moment to supply that intellectual and moral element of vitality without +which the Catholic Revival might have remained as inert as a stillborn +child. The devotion of the Jesuits to the Papacy, was in reality the +masterful Spanish spirit of that epoch, masking its world-grasping +ambition under the guise of obedience to Rome. This does not mean that +the founders and first organizers of the Company of Jesus consciously +pursued one object while they pretended to have another in view. The +impulse which moved Loyola was spontaneous and romantic. The world has +seen few examples of disinterested self-devotion equal to that of +Xavier. Yet the fact remains that Jesuitry, taking its germ and root in +the Spanish character, persisting as an organism within the Church, but +separate from the ecclesiastical hierarchy, devised the doctrine of +Papal absolutism, and became the prime agent of that Catholic policy in +Europe which passed for Papal during the Counter-Reformation. The +indissoluble connection between Rome, Spain, and the Jesuits, was +apparent to all unprejudiced observers. For this triad of reactionary +and belligerent forces Sarpi invented the name of the Diacatholicon, +alluding, under the metaphor of a drug, to the virus which was being +instilled in his days into all the States of Europe.[157] + +The founder of the Jesuit order was the thirteenth child of a Spanish +noble, born in 1491 at his father's castle of Loyola in the Basque +province of Guipuzcoa.[158] His full name was Inigo Lopez de Recalde; +but he is better known to history as Saint Ignatius Loyola. Ignatius +spent his boyhood as page in the service of King Ferdinand the Catholic, +whence he passed into that of the Duke of Najara, who was the hereditary +friend and patron of his family. At this time he thought of nothing but +feats of arms, military glory, and romantic adventures. + +[Footnote 157: For Sarpi's use of this phrase see his _Lettere_, vol. +ii. pp. 72, 80, 92. He clearly recognized the solidarity between the +Jesuits and Spain. 'The Jesuit is no more separable from the Spaniard +than the accident from the substance.' 'The Spaniard without the Jesuit +is not worth more than lettuce without oil.' 'For the Jesuits to deceive +Spain, would be tantamount to deceiving themselves.' _Ibid._ vol. i. pp. +203, 384, vol. ii. p. 48. Compare passages in vol. i. pp. 184, 189. He +only perceived a difference in the degrees of their noxiousness to +Europe. Thus, 'the worst Spaniard is better than the least bad of the +Jesuits' (vol. i. p. 212).] + +[Footnote 158: Study of the Jesuits must be founded on _Institutum +Societatis Jesu_, 7 vols. Avenione; Orlandino, _Hist. Soc. Jesu_; +Cretineau-Joly, _Histoire de la Compagnie de Jesus_; Ribadaneira, _Vita +Ignatii_; Genelli's Life of Ignatius in German, or the French +translation; the Jesuit work, _Imago Primi Saeculi_; Ranke's account in +his _History of the Popes_, and the three chapters assigned to this +subject in Philippson's _La Contre-Revolution Religieuse_. The latter +will be found a most valuable summary.] + +He could boast but little education; and his favorite reading was in +_Amadis of Gaul_. That romance appeared during the boy's earliest +childhood, and Spain was now devouring its high-flown rhapsodies with +rapture. The peculiar admixture of mystical piety, Catholic enthusiasm, +and chivalrous passion, which distinguishes _Amadis_, exactly +corresponded to the spirit of the Spaniards at an epoch when they had +terminated their age-long struggle with the Moors, and were combining +propagandist zeal with martial fervor in the conquest of the New World. +Its pages inflamed the imagination of Ignatius. He began to compose a +romance in honor of S. Peter, and chose a princess of blood royal for +his Oriana. Thus, in the first days of youth, while his heart was still +set on love and warfare, he revealed the three leading features of his +character--soaring ambition, the piety of a devotee, and the tendency to +view religion from the point of fiction. + +Ignatius was barely twenty when the events happened which determined the +future of his life and so powerfully affected the destinies of Catholic +Christendom. The French were invading Navarre; and he was engaged in the +defense of its capital, Pampeluna. On May 20, 1521, a bullet shattered +his right leg, while his left foot was injured by a fragment of stone +detached from a breach in the bastion. Transported to his father's +castle, he suffered protracted anguish under the hands of unskilled +medical attendants. The badly set bone in his right leg had twice to be +broken; and when at last it joined, the young knight found himself a +cripple. This limb was shorter than the other; the surgeons endeavored +to elongate it by machines of iron, which put him to exquisite pain. +After months of torture, he remained lame for life. + +During his illness Ignatius read such books as the castle of Loyola +contained. These were a 'Life of Christ' and the 'Flowers of the Saints' +in Spanish. His mind, prepared by chivalrous romance, and strongly +inclined to devotion, felt a special fascination in the tales of Dominic +and Francis. Their heroism suggested new paths which the aspirant after +fame might tread with honor. Military glory and the love of women had to +be renounced; for so ambitious a man could not content himself with the +successes of a cripple in these spheres of action. But the legends of +saints and martyrs pointed out careers no less noble, no less useful, +and even more enticing to the fancy. He would become the spiritual +Knight of Christ and Our Lady. To S. Peter, his chosen protector, he +prayed fervently; and when at length he rose from the bed of sickness, +he firmly believed that his life had been saved by the intercession of +this patron, and that it must be henceforth consecrated to the service +of the faith. The world should be abandoned. Instead of warring with the +enemies of Christ on earth, he would carry on a crusade against the +powers of darkness. They were first to be met and fought in his own +heart. Afterwards, he would form and lead a militia of like-hearted +champions against the strongholds of evil in human nature. + +It must not be thought that the scheme of founding a Society had so +early entered into the mind of Ignatius. What we have at the present +stage to notice is that he owed his adoption of the religious life to +romantic fancy and fervid ambition, combined with a devotion to Peter, +the saint of orthodoxy and the Church. Animated by this new enthusiasm, +he managed to escape from home in the spring of 1522. His friends +opposed themselves to his vocation; but he gave them the slip, took vows +of chastity and abstinence, and began a pilgrimage to our Lady of +Montserrat near Barcelona. On the road he scourged himself daily. When +he reached the shrine he hung his arms up as a votive offering, and +performed the vigil which chivalrous custom exacted from a squire before +the morning of his being dubbed a knight. This ceremony was observed +point by point, according to the ritual he had read in _Amadis of Gaul_. +Next day he gave his raiment to a beggar, and assumed the garb of a +mendicant pilgrim. By self-dedication he had now made himself the Knight +of Holy Church. + +His first intention was to set sail for Palestine, with the object of +preaching to the infidels. But the plague prevented him from leaving +port; and he retired to a Dominican convent at Manresa, a little town of +Catalonia, north-west of Barcelona. Here he abandoned himself to the +crudest self-discipline. Feeding upon bread and water, kneeling for +seven hours together rapt in prayer, scourging his flesh thrice daily, +and reducing sleep to the barest minimum, Ignatius sought by austerity +to snatch that crown of sainthood which he felt to be his due. Outraged +nature soon warned him that he was upon a path which led to failure. +Despair took possession of his soul, sometimes prompting him to end his +life by suicide, sometimes plaguing him with hideous visions. At last he +fell dangerously ill. Enlightened by the expectation of early death, he +then became convinced that his fanatical asceticism was a folly. The +despair, the dreadful phantoms which had haunted him, were ascribed +immediately to the devil. In those rarer visitings of brighter visions, +which sometimes brought consolation, bidding him repose upon God's +mercy, he recognized angels sent to lead him on the pathway of +salvation. God's hand appeared in these dealings; and he resolved to +dedicate his body as well as his soul to God's service, respecting both +as instruments of the divine will, and entertaining both in efficiency +for the work required of them. + +The experiences of Manresa proved eminently fruitful for the future +method of Ignatius. It was here that he began to regard self-discipline +and self-examination as the needful prelude to a consecrated life. It +was here that he learned to condemn the ascetism of anchorites as +pernicious or unprofitable to a militant Christian. It was here that, +while studying the manual of devotion written by Garcia de Cisneros, he +laid foundations for those famous _Exercitia_, which became his +instrument for rapidly passing neophytes through spiritual training +similar to his own. It was here that he first distinguished two kinds of +visions, infernal and celestial. Here also he grew familiar with the +uses of concrete imagination;, and understood how the faculty of +sensuous realization might be made a powerful engine for presenting the +past of sacred history or the dogmas of orthodox theology under shapes +of fancy to the mind. Finally, in all the experiences of Manresa, he +tried the temper of his own character, which was really not that of a +poet or a mystic, but of a sagacious man of action, preparing a system +calculated to subjugate the intelligence and will of millions. Tested by +self-imposed sufferings and by diseased hallucinations, his sound sense, +the sense of one destined to control men, gathered energy, and grew in, +solid strength: yet enough remained of his fanaticism to operate as a +motive force in the scheme which he afterwards developed; enough +survived from the ascetic phase he had surmounted, to make him +comprehend that some such agony as he had suffered should form the +vestibule to a devoted life. We may compare the throes of Ignatius at +Manresa with the contemporary struggles of Luther at Wittenberg and in +the Wartzburg. Our imagination will dwell upon the different issues to +which two heroes distinguished by practical ability were led through +their contention with the powers of spiritual evil. Protagonists +respectively of Reformation and Counter-Reformation, they arrived at +opposite conclusions; the one championing the cause of spiritual freedom +in the modern world, the other consecrating his genius to the +maintenance of Catholic orthodoxy by spiritual despotism. Yet each alike +fulfilled his mission by having conquered mysticism at the outset of his +world-historical career. + +Ignatius remained for the space of ten months at Manresa. He then found +means to realize his cherished journey to the Holy Land. In Palestine he +was treated with coldness as an ignorant enthusiast, capable of +subverting the existing order of things, but too feeble to be counted on +for permanent support. His motive ideas were still visionary; he could +not cope with conservatism and frigidity established in comfortable +places of emolument. It was necessary that he should learn the wisdom of +compromise. Accordingly he returned to Spain, and put himself to school. +Two years spent in preparatory studies at Barcelona, another period at +Alcala, and another at Salamanca, introduced him to languages, grammar, +philosophy, and theology. This man of noble blood and vast ambition, +past the age of thirty, sat with boys upon the common benches. This +self-consecrated saint imbibed the commonplaces of scholastic logic. It +was a further stage in the evolution of his iron character from romance +and mysticism, into political and practical sagacity. It was a further +education of his stubborn will to pliant temper. But he could not divest +himself of his mission as a founder and apostle. He taught disciples, +preached, and formed a sect of devotees. Then the Holy Office attacked +him. He was imprisoned, once at Alcala for forty-two days, once at +Salamanca for three weeks, upon charges of heresy. Ignatius proved his +innocence. The Inquisitors released him with certificates of acquittal; +but they sentenced him to four years' study of theology before he should +presume to preach. These years he resolved to spend at Paris. +Accordingly he performed the journey on foot, and arrived in the capital +of France upon February 2, 1528. He was then thirty-seven years old, and +sixteen years had elapsed since he received his wounds at Pampeluna. + +At Paris he had to go to school again from the beginning. The alms of +well-wishers, chiefly devout women at Barcelona, amply provided him with +funds. These he employed not only in advancing his own studies, but also +in securing the attachment of adherents to his cause. At this epoch he +visited the towns of Belgium and London during his vacations. But the +main outcome of his residence at Paris was the formation of the Company +of Jesus. Those long years of his novitiate and wandering were not +without their uses now. They had taught him, while clinging stubbornly +to the main projects of his life, prudence in the choice of means, +temperance in expectation, sagacity in the manipulation of +fellow-workers selected for the still romantic ends he had in view. His +first two disciples were a Savoyard, Peter Faber or Le Fevre, and +Francis Xavier of Pampeluna. Faber was a poor student, whom Ignatius +helped with money. Xavier sprang from a noble stock, famous in arms +through generations, for which he was eager to win the additional honors +of science and the Church. Ignatius assisted him by bringing students to +his lectures. Under the personal influence of their friend and +benefactor, both of these men determined to leave all and follow the new +light. Visionary as the object yet was, the firm will, fervent +confidence, and saintly life of Loyola inspired them with absolute +trust. That the Christian faith, as they understood it, remained exposed +to grievous dangers from without and form within, that millions of souls +were perishing through ignorance, that tens of thousands were falling +away through incredulity and heresy, was certain. The realm of Christ on +earth needed champions, soldiers devoted to a crusade against Satan and +his hosts. And here was a leader, a man among men, a man whose words +were as a fire, and whose method of spiritual discipline was salutary +and illuminative; and this man bade them join him in the Holy War. He +gained them in a hundred ways, by kindness, by precept, by patience, by +persuasion, by attention to their physical and spiritual needs, by words +of warmth and wisdom, by the direction of their conscience, by profound +and intense sympathy with souls struggling after the higher life. The +means he had employed to gain Faber and Xavier were used with equal +success in the case of seven other disciples. The names of these men +deserve to be recorded; for some of them played a part of importance in +European history, while all of them contributed to the foundation of the +Jesuits. They were James Lainez, Alfonzo Salmeron, and Nicholas +Bobadilla, three Spaniards; Simon Rodriguez d'Azevedo, a Portuguese; two +Frenchmen, Jean Codure and Brouet; and Claude le Jay, a Savoyard. All +these neophytes were subjected by Ignatius to rigid discipline, based +upon his _Exercitia_. They met together for prayer, meditation, and +discussion, in his chamber at the College of S. Barbe. Here he unfolded +to them his own plans, and poured out on them his spirit. At length, +upon August 15, 1534, the ten together took the vows of chastity and +poverty in the church of S. Mary at Montmartre, and bound themselves to +conduct a missionary crusade in Palestine, or, if this should prove +impracticable, to place themselves as devoted instruments, without +conditions and without remuneration, in the hands of the Sovereign +Pontiff. + +The society was thus established, although its purpose remained +indecisive. The founder's romantic dream of a crusade in Holy Land, +though never realized, gave an object of immediate interest to the +associated friends. Meanwhile two main features of its historical +manifestation, the propaganda of the Catholic faith and unqualified +devotion to the cause of the Roman See, had been clearly indicated. +Nothing proves the mastery which Ignatius had now acquired over his own +enthusiasm, or the insight he had gained into the right method of +dealing with men, more than the use he made of his authority in this +first instance. The society was bound to grow and to expand; and it was +fated to receive the lasting impress of his genius. But, as though +inspired by some prophetic vision of its future greatness, he refrained +from circumscribing the still tender embryo within definite limits which +might have been pernicious to its development. + +The associates completed their studies at Paris, and in 1535 they +separated, after agreeing to meet at Venice in the first months of 1537. +Ignatius meanwhile traveled to Spain, where he settled his affairs by +bestowing such property as he possessed on charitable institutions. He +also resumed preaching, with a zeal that aroused enthusiasm and extended +his personal influence. At the appointed time the ten came together at +Venice, ostensibly bent on carrying out their project of visiting +Palestine. But war was now declared between the Turks and the Republic +of S. Mark. Ignatius found himself once more accused of heresy, and had +some trouble in clearing himself before the Inquisition. It was resolved +in these circumstances to abandon the mission to Holy Land as +impracticable for the moment, and to remain in Venice waiting for more +favorable opportunities. We may believe that the romance of a crusade +among the infidels of Syria had already begun to fade from the +imagination of the founder, in whose career nothing is more striking +than his gradual abandonment of visionary for tangible ends, and his +progressive substitution of real for shadowy objects of ambition. + +Loyola's first contact with Italian society during this residence in +Venice exercised decisive influence over his plans. He seems to have +perceived with the acute scent of an eagle that here lay the quarry he +had sought so long. Italy, the fountain-head of intellectual +enlightenment for Europe, was the realm which he must win. Italy alone +offered the fulcrum needed by his firm and limitless desire of +domination over souls. It was with Caraffa and the Theatines that +Ignatius obtained a home. They were now established in the States of S. +Mark through the beneficence of a rich Venetian noble, Girolamo Miani, +who had opened religious houses and placed these at their disposition. +Under the direction of their founder, they carried on their designed +function of training a higher class of clergy for the duties of +preaching and the priesthood, and for the repression of heresy by +educational means. Caraffa's scheme was too limited to suit Ignatius: +and the characters of both men were ill adapted for co-operation. One +zeal for the faith inspired both. Here they agreed. But Ignatius was a +Spaniard; and the second passion in Caraffa's breast was a Neapolitan's +hatred for that nation. Ignatius, moreover, contemplated a vastly more +expansive and elastic machinery for his workers in the vineyard of the +faith, than the future Pope's coercive temper could have tolerated. +These two leaders of the Counter-Reformation, equally ambitious, equally +intolerant of opposition, equally bent upon a vast dominion, had to +separate. The one was destined to organize the Inquisition and the +Index. The other evolved what is historically known as Jesuitry. +Nevertheless we know that Ignatius learned much from Caraffa. The +subsequent organization of his Order showed that the Theatines suggested +many practical points in the method he eventually adopted for effecting +his designs. + +Some of his companions, meanwhile, journeyed to Rome. There they +obtained from Paul III. permission to visit Palestine upon a missionary +enterprise, together with special privileges for their entrance into +sacerdotal orders. Those of the ten friends who were not yet priests, +were ordained at Venice in June 1537. They then began to preach in +public, roaming the streets with faces emaciated by abstinence, clad in +ragged clothes, and using a language strangely compounded of Italian and +Spanish. Their obvious enthusiasm, and the holy lives they were known to +lead, brought them rapidly into high reputation of sanctity. Both the +secular and the religious clergy of Italy could show but few men at +that epoch equal to these brethren. It was settled in the autumn that +they should all revisit Rome, traveling by different routes, and +meditating on the form which the Order should assume. Palestine had now +been definitely, if tacitly, abandoned. As might have been expected, it +was Loyola who baptized his Order, and impressed a character upon the +infant institution. He determined to call it the Company of Jesus, with +direct reference to those Companies of Adventure which had given +irregular organization to restless military spirits in the past. The new +Company was to be a 'cohort, or century, combined for combat against +spiritual foes; men-at-arms, devoted, body and soul, to our Lord Jesus +Christ and to his true and lawful Vicar upon earth.'[159] An Englishman +of the present day may pause to meditate upon the grotesque parallel +between the nascent Order of the Jesuits and the Salvation Army, and can +draw such conclusions from it as may seem profitable. + +[Footnote 159: These phrases occur in the _Deliberatio primorum +patrum_.] + +Loyola's withdrawal from all participation in the nominal honor of his +institution, his enrollment of the militia he had levied under the name +of Jesus, and the combative functions which he ascribed to it, were very +decided marks of originality. It stamped the body with impersonality +from the outset, and indicated the belligerent attitude it was destined +to assume. There was nothing exactly similar to its dominant conception +in any of the previous religious orders. These had usually received +their title from the founder, had aimed at a life retired from the +world, had studied the sanctification of their individual members, and +had only contemplated an indirect operation upon society. Ignatius, on +the contrary, placed his community under the protection of Christ, and +defined it at the outset as a militant and movable legion of +auxiliaries, dedicated, not to retirement or to the pursuit of +salvation, but to freely avowed and active combat in defense of their +Master's vicegerent upon earth. It was as though he had divined the +deficiencies of Catholicism at that epoch, and had determined to +supplement them by the creation of a novel and a special weapon of +attack. Some institutions of mediaeval chivalry, the Knights of the +Temple, and S. John, for instance, furnished the closest analogy to his +foundation. Their spirit he transferred from the sphere of physical +combat with visible forces, infidel and Mussulman, to the sphere of +intellectual warfare against heresy, unbelief, insubordination in the +Church. He had refined upon the crude enthusiasm of romance which +inspired him at Montserrat. Without losing its intensity, this had +become a motive force of actual and political gravity. + +The Company of Jesus was far from obtaining the immediate approval of +the Church. Paul III. indeed, perceived its utility, and showed marked +favor to the associates when they arrived in Rome about the end of 1537. +The people, too, welcomed their ministration gladly, and recognized the +zeal which they displayed in acts of charity and their exemplary +behavior. But the Curia and higher clergy organized an opposition +against them. They were accused of heresy, and attempts to seduce the +common folk. Ignatius demanded full and public inquiry, which was at +first refused him. He then addressed the Pope in person, who ordered a +trial, out of which the brethren came with full acquittal. After this +success, they obtained a hold upon religious instruction in many schools +of Rome. Adherents flocked around them; and they saw that it was time to +give the society a defined organization, and to demand its official +recognition as an Order. It was resolved to add the vow of obedience to +their former vows of chastity and poverty. Obedience had always been a +prime virtue in monastic institutions; but Ignatius conceived of it in a +new and military spirit. The obedience of the Jesuits was to be +absolute, extending even to the duty of committing sins at a superior's +orders. The General, instead of holding office for a term of years, was +to be elected for life, with unlimited command over the whole Order in +its several degrees. He was to be regarded as Christ present and +personified. This autocracy of the General might have seemed to menace +the overlordship of the Holy See, but for a fourth vow which the Company +determined to adopt. It ran as follows: 'That the members will +consecrate their lives to the continual service of Christ and of the +Popes, will fight under the banner of the Cross, and will serve the +Lord and the Roman Pontiff as God's vicar upon earth, in such wise that +they shall be bound to execute immediately and without hesitation or +excuse all that the reigning Pope or his successors may enjoin upon them +for the profit of souls or for the propagation of the faith, and shall +do so in all provinces whithersoever he may send them, among Turks or +any other infidels, to furthest Ind, as well as in the region of +heretics, schismatics, or believers of any kind.' + +Loyola himself drew up these constitutions in five chapters, and had +them introduced to Paul III., with the petition that they might be +confirmed. This was in September 1539, and it is singular that the man +selected to bring them under the Pope's notice should have been Cardinal +Contarini. Paul had no difficulty in recognizing the support which this +new Order would bring to the Papacy in its conflict with Reformers, and +its diplomatic embarrassments with Charles V. He is even reported to +have said, 'The finger of God is there!' Yet he could not confirm the +constitutions without the previous approval of three Cardinals appointed +to report on them. This committee condemned Loyola's scheme; and nearly +a year passed in negotiations with foreign princes and powerful +prelates, before a reluctant consent was yielded to the Pope's avowed +inclination. At length the Bull of Sept. 27, 1540, _Regimini militantis +Ecclesiae_, launched the Society of Jesus on the world. Ignatius became +the first General of the Order; and the rest of his life, a period of +sixteen years, was spent in perfecting the machinery and extending the +growth of this institution, which in all essentials was the emanation of +his own mind. + +It may be well at this point to sketch the organization of the Jesuits, +and to describe the progress of the Society during its founder's +lifetime, in order that a correct conception may be gained of Loyola's +share in its creation. Many historians of eminence, and among them so +acute an observer as Paolo Sarpi, have been of the opinion that Jesuitry +in its later developments was a deflection from the spirit and intention +of Ignatius. It is affirmed that Lainez and Salmeron, rather than +Loyola, gave that complexion to the Order which has rendered it a mark +for the hatred and disgust of Europe. Aquaviva, the fifth General, has +been credited with its policy of interference in affairs of states and +nations. Yet I think it can be shown that the Society, as it appeared in +the seventeenth century, was a logical and necessary development of the +Society as Ignatius framed it in the sixteenth.[160] + +[Footnote 160: Sarpi, though he expressed an opinion that the Jesuits of +his day had departed from the spirit of their founders, spoke thus of +Loyola's worldly aims (_Lettere_, vol. i. p 224): 'Even Father Ignatius, +Founder of the Company, as his biography attests, based himself in such +wise upon human interest as though there were none divine to think +about.'] + +Lainez, who succeeded the founder as General, digested the constitutions +and supplied them with a commentary or Directorium. He defined, +formulated, and stereotyped the system; but the essential qualities of +Jesuitry, its concentration upon political objects, its unscrupulousness +in choice of means to ends, the worldliness which lurked beneath the +famous motto _Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam_, were implicit in Loyola's express +words, and in his actual administration. The framework of the Order, as +he fixed it, was so firmly traced, and so cunningly devised for +practical efficiency, that it admitted of no alteration except in the +direction of more rigid definition. Lainez may, indeed, have emphasized +its tendency to become a political machine, and may have weakened its +religious tone, by his rules for the interpretation of the +constitutions; but we have seen that the development of Loyola's own +ideas ran in this direction. The real strength, as well as the worst +vices of Jesuitry, were inherent in the system from the first; and in it +we have perhaps the most remarkable instance on record, of the evolution +of a cosmopolitan and world-important organism from the embryo of one +man's conception. + +The Bull _Regimini militantis Ecclesiae_ restricted the number of the +Jesuits to sixty. If Ignatius did not himself propose this limit, the +restriction may perhaps have suggested his policy of reserving the full +privileges of the Society for a small band of selected members--the very +essence of the body, extracted by processes which will be afterwards +described. Anyhow, it is certain that though the Papal limitation was +removed in 1543, and though candidates flowed on the tide of fashion +toward the Order, yet the representative and responsible Fathers +remained few in numbers. These were distributed as the General thought +fit. He stayed in Rome; for Rome was the chosen headquarters of the +Society, the nucleus of their growth, and the fulcrum of their energy. +From Rome, as from a center, Ignatius moved his men about the field of +Europe. We might compare him under one metaphor to a chess-player +directing his pieces upon the squares of the political and +ecclesiastical chessboard; under another, to a spider spinning his web +so as to net the greatest number of profitable partisans. The fathers +were kept in perpetual motion. To shift them from place to place, to +exclude them from their native soil, to render them cosmopolitan and +pliant was the first care of the founder. He forbade the follies of +ascetic piety, inculcated the study of languages and exact knowledge, +and above all things recommended the acquisition of those social arts +which find favor with princes and folk of high condition. 'Prudence of +an exquisite quality,' he said, 'combined with average sanctity, is more +valuable than eminent sanctity and less of prudence.' Also he bade them +keep their eyes open for neophytes 'less marked by pure goodness than by +firmness of character and ability in conduct of affairs, since men who +are not apt for public business do not suit the requirements of the +Company.' Orlandino tells us that though Ignatius felt drawn to men who +showed eminent gifts for erudition, he preferred, in the difficulties of +the Church, to choose such as knew the world well and were distinguished +by their social station. The fathers were to seek out youths 'of good +natural parts, adapted to the acquisition of knowledge and to practical +works of utility.' Their pupils were, if possible, to have physical +advantages and manners that should render them agreeable. These points +had more of practical value than a bare vocation for piety. In their +dealings with tender consciences, they were to act like 'good fishers of +souls, passing over many things in silence as though these had not been +observed, until the time came when the will was gained, and the +character could be directed as they thought best.'[161] Loyola's dislike +for the common forms of monasticism appears in his choice of the +ordinary secular priest's cassock for their dress, and in his +emancipation of the members from devotional exercises and attendance in +the choir. The aversion he felt for ascetic discipline is evinced in a +letter he addressed to Francis Borgia in 1548. It is better, he writes, +to strengthen your stomach and other faculties, than to impair the body +and enfeeble the intellect by fasting. God needs both our physical and +mental powers for his service; and every drop of blood you shed in +flagellation is a loss. + +[Footnote 161: See Philippson, _op. cit._ pp. 61, 62.] + +The end in view was to serve the Church by penetrating European society, +taking possession of its leaders in rank and hereditary influence, +directing education, assuming the control of the confessional, and +preaching the faith in forms adapted to the foibles and the fancies of +the age. The interests of the Church were paramount: 'If she teaches +that what seems to us white is black, we must declare it to be black +upon the spot.' There were other precepts added. These, for instance, +seem worth commemoration: 'The workers in the Lord's vineyard should +have but one foot on earth, the other should be raised to travel +forward.' 'The abnegation of our own will is of more value than if one +should bring the dead to life again.' 'No storm is so pernicious as a +calm, and no enemy is so dangerous as having none.' It will be seen that +what is known as Jesuitry, in its mundane force and in its personal +devotion to a cause, emerges from the precepts of Ignatius. We may +wonder how the romances of the mountain-keep of Loyola, the mysticism of +Montserrat, and the struggles of Manresa should have brought the founder +of the Jesuits to these results. Yet, if we analyze the problem, it will +yield a probable solution. What survived from that first period was the +spirit of enthusiastic service to the Church, the vast ambition of a man +who felt himself a destined instrument for shoring up the crumbling +walls of Catholicity, the martial instinct of a warrior fighting at +fearful odds with nations running toward infidelity. + +He had no doubt where the right lay. He was a Spaniard, a servant of S. +Peter; and for him the creed enounced by Rome was all in all. But his +commerce with the world, his astute Basque nature, and his judgment of +the European situation, taught him that he must use other means than +those which Francis and Dominic had employed. He had to make his +Company, that forlorn hope of Catholicism, the exponent of a decadent +and rotten faith. He had to adapt it to the necessities of Christendom +in dissolution, to constitute it by a guileful and sagacious method. He +had to render it wise in the wisdom of the world, in order that he might +catch the powers of this world by their interests and vices for the +Church. He was like Machiavelli, endeavoring to save a corrupt state by +utilizing corruption for ends acknowledged sound. And, like Machiavelli, +he was mistaken, because it will not profit man to trust in craft or the +manipulation of evil. Luther was stronger in his weakness than the +creator of the Jesuit machinery, wiser in his simplicity than the +deviser of that subtle engine. But Luther had the onward forces of +humanity upon his side. Ignatius could but retard them by his ingenuity. +We may be therefore excused if we admire Ignatius for the virile effort +which he made in a failing cause, and for the splendid gifts of +organizing prudence which he devoted to a misplaced object. + +Under his direction, the members of the Society spread themselves over +Europe, and always with similar results. Wherever they went, hundreds of +adherents joined the Order. Paul III. and Julius III. heaped privileges +upon it, seeing what a power it had become in warfare with heresy. +Ignatius spared no pains to secure his position in Rome, paying court to +Cardinals and prelates, visiting ambassadors and princes, soliciting +their favors and offering the service of his brethren in return. +Profitable negotiations were opened with the King of Spain and the Duke +of Bavaria, which, under cover of reforming convents, led to a partition +of ecclesiastical property between the Jesuits and the State. Good +reasons seemed to justify such acts of spoliation; for the old orders +were sunk in sloth and immorality beyond redemption, while the Company +kept alive all that was sound in Catholic discipline, preaching, and +instruction. In Italy the Jesuits made rapid progress from the first. +Lainez occupied the Venetian territory, opposing Protestant opinions in +Venice itself, at Brescia, and among the mountains of the Valtelline. Le +Jay combated the forces of Calvin and Renee of France at Ferrara. +Salmeron took possession of Naples and Sicily. Piacenza, Modena, Faenza, +Bologna, and Montepulciano received the fathers with open arms. The +Farnesi welcomed them in Parma. Wherever they went, they secured the +good will of noble women, and gained some hold on universities. Colleges +were founded in the chief cities of the peninsula, where they not only +taught gratis, but used methods superior to those previously in vogue. +Rome, however, remained the stronghold of the Company. Here Ignatius +founded its first house in 1550. This was the Collegium Romanum; and in +1555, some hundred pupils, who had followed a course of studies in +Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and theology, issued from its walls. In 1557 he +purchased the palace Salviati, on the site of which now stands the vast +establishment of the Gesu. In 1552 he started a separate institution, +Collegium Germanicum, for the special training of young Germans. There +was also a subordinate institution for the education of the sons of +nobles. These colleges afforded models for similar schools throughout +Europe; some of them intended to supply the society with members, and +some to impress the laity with Catholic principles. Uniformity was an +object which the Jesuits always held in view. + +They did not meet at first with like success in all Catholic countries. +In Spain, Charles V. treated them with suspicion as the sworn men of the +Papacy; and the Dominican order, so powerful through its hold upon the +Inquisition, regarded them justly as rivals. Though working for the same +end, the means employed by Jesuits and Dominicans were too diverse for +these champions of orthodoxy to work harmoniously together. The Jesuits +belonged to the future, to the party of accommodation and control by +subterfuge. The Dominicans were rooted in the past; their dogmatism +admitted of no compromise; they strove to rule by force. There was +therefore, at the outset, war between the kennels of the elder and the +younger dogs of God in Spain. Yet Jesuitism gained ground. It had the +advantage of being a native, and a recent product. It was powerful by +its appeals to the sensuous imagination and carnal superstitions of that +Iberian-Latin people. It was seductive by its mitigation of oppressive +orthodoxy and inflexible prescriptive law. Where the Dominican was +steel, the Jesuit was reed; where the Dominican breathed fire and +fagots, the Jesuit suggested casuistical distinctions; where the +Dominican raised difficulties, the Jesuit solved scruples; where the +Dominican presented theological abstractions, the Jesuit offered +stimulative or agreeable images; where the Dominican preached dogma, the +Jesuit retailed romance. It only needed one illustrious convert to plant +the Jesuits in Spain. Him they found in Francis Borgia, Duke of Gandia, +Viceroy of Catalonia, and subsequently the third General of the Order +and a saint. This man placed the university, which he had founded, in +their hands; and about the same time they gained a footing in the +university of Salamanca. Still they continued to retain their strongest +hold upon the people, who regarded them as saviours from the tyranny and +ennui of the established Dominican hierarchy. + +Portugal was won at a blow. Xavier and Rodriguez planted the Company +there under the affectionate protection of King John III. When Xavier +started on his mission to the Indies in 1541, Rodriguez took the affairs +of the realm into his hands, controlled the cabinet, and formed the +heir-apparent to their will. + +With France they had more trouble. Both the University and the +Parliament of Paris opposed their settlement. The Sorbonne even declared +them 'dangerous in matters of the faith, fit to disturb the peace of the +Church, and to reverse the order of monastic life; more adapted to +destroy than to build.' The Gallican Church scented danger in these +bondsmen of the Papacy; and it was only when they helped to organize the +League that the influence of the Guises gave them a foothold in the +kingdom. Even then their seminaries at Reims, Douai, and S. Omer must be +rather regarded as outposts _epiteichismoi_ against England and +Flanders, than, as nationally French establishments. In France they long +remained a seditious and belligerent faction.[162] + +[Footnote 162: It was not till the epoch of Maria de'Medici's Regency +that the Jesuits obtained firm hold on France.] + +They had the same partial and clandestine success in the Low Countries, +where their position was at first equivocal, though they early gained +some practical hold upon the University of Louvain. We are perhaps +justified in attributing the evil fame of Reims, Douai, S. Omer, and +Louvain to the incomplete sympathy which existed between the Jesuits and +the countries where they made these settlements. Not perfectly at home, +surrounded by discontent and jealousy, upon the borderlands of the +heresies they were bound to combat, their system assumed its darkest +colors in those hotbeds of intrigue and feverish fanaticism. In time, +however, the Jesuits fixed their talons firmly upon the Netherlands, +through the favor of Anne of Austria; and the year 1562 saw them +comfortably ensconced at Antwerp, Louvain, Brussels, and Lille, in spite +of the previous antipathy of the population. Here, as elsewhere, they +pushed their way by gaining women and people of birth to their cause, +and by showily meritorious services to education. Faber achieved +ephemeral success as lecturer at Louvain. + +To take firm hold on Germany had been the cherished wish of Ignatius; +'for there,' to use his own words, 'the pest of heresy exposed men to +graver dangers than elsewhere.' The Society had scarcely been founded +when Faber, Le Jay, and Bobadilla were sent north. Faber made small +progress, and was removed to Spain. But Bobadilla secured the confidence +of William, Duke of Bavaria; while Le Jay won that of Ferdinand of +Austria. In both provinces they avowed their intention of working at the +reformation of the clergy and the improvement of popular +education--ends, which in the disorganized condition of Germany, seemed +of highest importance to those princes. Through the influence of +Bavaria, Bobadilla succeeded in rendering the Interim proclaimed by +Charles V. nugatory; while Le Jay founded the college of the Order at +Vienna. In this important post he was soon succeeded by Canisius, +Ferdinand's confessor, through whose co-operation Cardinal Morone +afterwards brought this Emperor into harmony with the Papal plan for +winding up the Council of Trent. It should be added that Ingolstadt, in +Bavaria, became the second headquarters of the Jesuit propaganda in +Germany. + +The methods adopted by Ignatius in dealing with his three lieutenants, +Bobadilla, Le Jay, and Canisius, are so characteristic of Jesuit policy +that they demand particular attention. Checkmated by Bobadilla in the +matter of the Interim, Charles V. manifested his resentment. He was +already ill-affected toward the Society, and its founder felt the need +of humoring him. The highest grade of the Order was therefore +ostentatiously refused to Bobadilla, until such time as the Emperor's +attention was distracted from the cause of his disappointment. With Le +Jay and Canisius the case stood differently. Ferdinand wished to make +the former Bishop of Triest and the latter Archbishop of Vienna. +Ignatius opposed both projects, alleging that the Company of Jesus could +not afford to part with its best servants, and that their vows of +obedience and poverty were inconsistent with high office in the Church. +He discerned the necessity of reducing each member of the Society to +absolute dependence on the General, which would have been impracticable +if any one of them attained to the position of a prelate. A law was +therefore passed declaring it mortal sin for Jesuits to accept +bishoprics or other posts of honor in the Church. Instead of assuming +the miter, Canisius was permitted to administer the See of Vienna +without usufruct of its revenues. To the world this manifested the +disinterested zeal of the Jesuits in a seductive light; while the +integrity of the Society, as an independent self-sufficing body, +exacting the servitude of absolute devotion from its members, was +secured. Another instance of the same adroitness may be mentioned. The +Emperor in 1552 offered a Cardinal's hat to Francis Borgia, who was by +birth the most illustrious of living Jesuits. Ignatius refrained from +rebuffing the Emperor and insulting the Duke of Gandia by an open +prohibition; but he told the former to expect the Duke's refusal, while +he wrote to the latter expressing his own earnest hope that he would +renounce an honor injurious to the Society. This diplomacy elicited a +grateful but firm answer of _Nolo Episcopari_ from the Duke, who thus +took the responsibility of offending Charles V. upon himself. Meanwhile +the missionary objects of the Company were not neglected. Xavier left +Portugal in 1541 for that famous journey through India and China, the +facts of which may be compared for their romantic interest with Cortes' +or Pizarro's exploits. Brazil, the transatlantic Portugal, was abandoned +to the Jesuits, and they began to feel their way in Mexico. In the year +of Loyola's death, 1561, thirty-two members of the Society were +resident in South America; one hundred in India, China, and Japan; and a +mission was established in Ethiopia. Even Ireland had been explored by a +couple of fathers, who returned without success, after undergoing +terrible hardships. At this epoch the Society counted in round numbers +one thousand men. It was divided in Europe into thirteen provinces: +seven of these were Portuguese and Spanish; three were Italian, namely, +Rome, Upper Italy, and Sicily; one was French; two were German. Castile +contained ten colleges of the Order; Aragon, five; Andalusia, five. +Portugal was penetrated through and through with Jesuits. Rome displayed +the central Roman and Teutonic colleges. Upper Italy had ten colleges. +France could show only one college. In Upper Germany the Company held +firm hold on Vienna, Prag, Munich, and Ingolstadt. The province of Lower +Germany, including the Netherlands, was still undetermined. This +expansion of the Order during the first sixteen years of its existence, +enables us to form some conception of the intellectual vigor and +commanding will of Ignatius. He lived, as no founder of an order, as few +founders of religions, ever lived, to see his work accomplished, and the +impress of his genius stereotyped exactly in the forms he had designed, +upon the most formidable social and political organization of modern +Europe. + +In his administration of the Order, Ignatius was absolute and +autocratic. We have seen how he dealt with aspirants after +ecclesiastical honors, and how he shifted his subordinates, as he +thought best, from point to point upon the surface of the globe. The +least attempt at independence on the part of his most trusted +lieutenants was summarily checked by him. Simon Rodriguez, one of the +earliest disciples of the College of S. Barbe at Paris, ruled the +kingdom of Portugal through the ascendency which he had gained over John +III. Elated by the vastness of his victory, Rodriguez arrogated to +himself the right of private judgment, and introduced that ascetic +discipline into the houses of his province which Ignatius had forbidden +as inexpedient. Without loss of time, the General superseded him in his +command; and, after a sharp struggle, Rodriguez was compelled to spend +the rest of his days under strict surveillance at Rome. Lainez, in like +manner, while acting as Provincial of Upper Italy, thought fit to +complain that his best coadjutors were drawn from the colleges under his +control, to Rome. Ignatius wrote to this old friend, the man who best +understood the spirit of its institution, and who was destined to +succeed him in his headship, a cold and terrible epistle. 'Reflect upon +your conduct. Let me know whether you acknowledge your sin, and tell me +at the same time what punishment you are ready to undergo for this +dereliction of duty.' Lainez expressed immediate submission in the most +abject terms; he was ready to resign his post, abstain from preaching, +confine his studies to the Breviary, walk as a beggar to Rome, and +there teach grammar to children, or perform menial offices. This was all +Ignatius wanted. If he were the Christ of the Society, he well knew that +Lainez was its S. Paul. He could not prevent him from being his +successor, and he probably was well aware that Lainez would complete and +supplement what he must leave unfinished in his life-work. The groveling +apology of such an eminent apostle, dictated as it was by hypocrisy and +cunning, sufficed to procure his pardon, and remained among the archives +of the Jesuits as a model for the spirit in which obedience should be +manifested by them. + +Obedience was, in fact, the cardinal and dominant quality of the Jesuit +Order. To call it a virtue, in the sense in which Ignatius understood +it, is impossible. The _Exercitia_, the Constitutions, and the Letter to +the Portuguese Jesuits, all of which undoubtedly explain Loyola's views, +reveal to us the essence of historical Jesuitry, the _fons et origo_ of +that long-continued evil which impested modern society. Let us examine +some of his precepts on this topic. 'I ought to desire to be ruled by a +superior who endeavors to subjugate my judgment and subdue my +understanding.'--'When it seems to me that I am commanded by my superior +to do a thing against which my conscience revolts as sinful, and my +superior judges otherwise, it is my duty to yield my doubts to him, +unless I am constrained by evident reasons.'--'I ought not to be my own, +but His who created me, and his too through whom God governs me.'--'I +ought to be like a corpse, which has neither will nor understanding; +like a crucifix, that is turned about by him that holds it; like a staff +in the hands of an old man, who uses it at will for his assistance or +pleasure.'--'In our Company the person who commands must never be +regarded in his own capacity, but as Jesus Christ in him.'--'I desire +that you strive and exercise yourselves to recognize Christ our Lord in +every Superior.'--'He who wishes to offer himself wholly up to God, must +make the sacrifice not only of his will but of his intelligence.'--'In +order to secure the faithful and successful execution of a Superior's +orders, all private judgment must be yielded up.'--'A sin, whether +venial or mortal, must be committed, if it is commanded by the Superior +in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, or in virtue of obedience.' Of +such nature was the virtue of obedience within the Order.[163] It +rendered every member a tool in the hands of his immediate Superior, and +the whole body one instrument in the hand of the General. The General's +responsibility for the oblique acts and evasions of moral law, committed +in the name of this virtue, was covered by the sounding phrase, 'Unto +the greater glory of God.' + +[Footnote 163: The letter addressed by Ignatius to the Portuguese +Jesuits, March 22, 1553, on the virtue of obedience, the Constitutions +and the glosses on them called Declarations, and the last chapter of the +_Exercitia_, furnish the above sentences. _See_, too, Philippson, _op. +cit._ pp. 60, 120-124.] + +He had also his own duty of obedience, which was to Holy Church. 'In +making the sacrifice of our own judgment, the mind must keep itself ever +whole and ready for obedience to the spouse of Christ, our Holy Mother, +the Church orthodox, apostolical and hierarchical.'[164] Not a portion +of the Catholic creed, of Catholic habits, of Catholic institutions, of +Catholic superstitions, but must be valiantly defended.--'It is our duty +loudly to uphold reliques, the cult of saints, stations, pilgrimages +indulgences, jubilees, the candles which are lighted before altars.' To +criticise the clergy, even though notoriously corrupt, is a sin. The +philosophy of the Church, as expressed by S. Thomas Aquinas, S. +Bonaventura, and others, must be recognized as equal in authority with +Holy Writ. It follows that just as a subordinate was enjoined to sin, if +sin were ordered by his Superior, so the whole Company were bound to +lie, and do the things they disapproved, and preach the mummeries in +which they disbelieved, in virtue of obedience to the Church. They may +not even trust their senses; for 'If the Church pronounces a thing which +seems to us white to be black, we must immediately say that it is +black.'[165] + +[Footnote 164: Read in the _Exercitia_ (_Inst. Jesu_, vol. iv. p. +167-173) the Rules for right accord with the Orthodox Church. What +follows above is taken from that chapter.] + +[Footnote 165: _Exercitia_, ibid. p. 171. In this spirit a Jesuit of the +present century writing on astronomy develops the heliocentric theory +while he professes his submission to the geocentric theory as maintained +by the Church.] + +The Jesuits were enrolled as an army, in an hour of grave peril for the +Church, to undertake her defense. They pledged themselves, by this vow +of obedience, to perform that duty with their eyes shut. It was not +their mission to reform or purify or revivify Catholicism, but to +maintain it intact with all its intellectual anachronisms. How well they +succeeded may be judged from the issue of the Council of Trent, in which +Lainez and Salmeron played so prominent a part. That rigid enforcement +of every jot and tittle in the Catholic hierarchical organization, in +Catholic ritual, in the Catholic cult of saints and images, in the +Catholic interpretation of Sacraments, in Catholic tradition as of equal +value with the Bible, and lastly in the theory of Papal Supremacy, which +was the astounding result of a Council convened to alter and reform the +Church, can be attributed in no small measure to Jesuit persistency. + +Ignatius attained his object. Obedience, blind, servile, unquestioning, +unscrupulous, became the distinguishing feature of the Jesuits. But he +condemned his Order to mediocrity. No really great man in any department +of human knowledge or activity has arisen in the Company of Jesus. In +course of time it became obvious to any one of independent character and +original intellect that their ranks were not the place for him. And if +youths of real eminence entered it before they perceived this truth, +their spirit was crushed. The machine was powerful enough for good and +evil; but it remained an aggregate of individual inferiorities. Its +merit and its perfection lay in this, that so complex an instrument +could be moved by a single finger of the General in Rome. He +consistently employed its delicate system of wheels and pulleys for the +aggrandizement of the Order in the first place, in the second place for +the control of the Catholic Church, and always for the subjugation and +cretinization of the mind of Europe. + +The training of a Jesuit began with study of the _Exercitia +Spiritualia_.[166] This manual had been composed by Loyola himself at +intervals between 1522 and 1548, when it received the imprimatur of Pope +Paul III. He based it on his own experiences at Manresa, and meant it to +serve as a perpetual introduction to the mysteries of the religious +life. It was used under the direction of a father, who prescribed a +portion of its text for each day's meditation, employing various means +to concentrate attention and enforce effect. The whole course of this +spiritual drill extended over four weeks, during which the pupil +remained in solitude. Light and sound and all distractions of the outer +world were carefully excluded from his chamber. He was bidden to direct +his soul inward upon itself and God, and was led by graduated stages to +realize in the most vivid way the torments of the damned and the scheme +of man's, salvation. The first week was occupied in an examination of +the conscience; the second in contemplation of Christ's Kingdom upon +earth; the third in meditation on the Passion; the fourth in an ascent +to the glory of the risen Lord. Materialism of the crudest type mingled +with the indulgence of a reverie in this long spiritual journey. At +every step the neophyte employed his five senses in the effort of +intellectual realization. Prostrate upon the ground, gazing with closed +eyelids in the twilight of his cell upon the mirror of imagination, he +had to _see_ the boundless flames of hell and souls encased in burning +bodies, to _hear_ the shrieks and blasphemies, to _smell_ their sulphur +and intolerable stench, to _taste_ the bitterness of tears and _feel_ +the stings of ineffectual remorse. + +[Footnote 166: _Inst. Soc. Jesu_, vol. iv. The same volume contains the +Directorium, or rules for the use of the _Exercitia_.] + +He had to localize each object in the camera obscura of the brain. If +the Garden of Gethsemane, for instance, were the subject of his +meditation, he was bound to place Christ here and the sleeping apostles +there, and to form an accurate image of the angel and the cup. He gazed +and gazed, until he was able to handle the raiment of the Saviour, to +watch the drops of bloody sweat beading his forehead and trickling down +his cheeks, to grasp the chalice with the fingers of the soul. As each +carefully chosen and sagaciously suggested scene was presented, he had +to identify his very being, soul, will, intellect, and senses, with the +mental vision. He lived again, so far as this was possible through +fancy, the facts of sacred history. If the director judged it advisable, +symbolic objects were placed before him in the cell; at one time skulls +and bones, at another fresh sweetsmelling flowers. Fasting and +flagellation, peculiar postures of the body, groanings and weepings, +were prescribed as mechanical aids in cases where the soul seemed +sluggish. The sphere traversed in these exercises was a narrow one. The +drill aimed at intensity of discipline, at a concentrated and concrete +impression, not at width of education or at intellectual enlightenment. +Speculation upon the fundamental principles of religion was excluded. +God's dealings with mankind revealed in the Old Testament found no place +in this theory of salvation. Attention was riveted upon a very few +points in the life of Christ and Mary, such as every Catholic child +might be supposed to be familiar with. But it was fixed in such a way as +to bring the terrors and raptures of the mystics, of a S. Catharine or a +S. Teresa, within the reach of all; to place spiritual experience _a la +portee de tout le monde_. The vulgarity is only equaled by the ingenuity +and psychological adroitness of the method. The soul inspired with +carnal dread of the doom impending over it, passed into almost physical +contact with the incarnate Saviour. The designed effect was to induce a +vivid and varied hypnotic dream of thirty days, from the influence of +which a man should never wholly free himself. The end at which he +arrived upon this path of self-scrutiny and materialistic realization, +was the conclusion that his highest hope, his most imperative duty, lay +in the resignation of his intellect and will to spiritual guidance, and +in blind obedience to the Church. Thousands and thousands of souls in +the modern world have passed through this discipline; and those who +responded to it best, have ever been selected, when this was possible, +as novices of the Order. The director had ample opportunity of observing +at each turn in the process whether his neophyte displayed a likely +disposition. + +When the _Exercitia_ had been performed, there was an end of asceticism. +Ignatius, as we have seen, dreaded nothing more than the intrusion of +that dark spirit into his Company; he aimed at nothing more earnestly +than at securing agreeable manners, a cheerful temper, and ability for +worldly business in its members. + +The novice, when first received into one of the Jesuit houses, was +separated, so far as possible, for two years from his family, and placed +under the control of a master, who inspected his correspondence and +undertook the full surveillance of his life. He received cautiously +restricted information on the constitutions of the Society, and was +recommended, instead of renouncing his worldly possessions, to reserve +his legal rights and make oblation of them when he took the vows. It was +not then made clear to him that what he gave would never under any +circumstances be restored, although the Society might send him forth at +will a penniless wanderer into the world. Yet this was the hard +condition of a Jesuit's existence. After entering the order, he owned +nothing, and he had no power to depart if he repented. But the General +could cashier him by a stroke of the pen, condemning him to destitution +in every land where Jesuits held sway, and to suspicion in every land +where Jesuits were loathed. Before the end of two years, the novice +generally signed an obligation to assume the vows. He was then drafted +into the secular or spiritual service. Some novices became what is +called Temporal Coadjutors; their duty was to administer the property of +the Society, to superintend its houses, to distribute alms, to work in +hospitals, to cook, garden, wash, and act as porters. They took the +three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Those, on the other +hand, who showed some aptitude for learning, were classified as +Scholastics, and were distributed among the colleges of the order. They +studied languages, sciences, and theology, for a period of five years; +after which they taught in schools for another period of five or six +years; and when they reached the age of about thirty, they might be +ordained priests with the title of Spiritual Coadjutors. From this body +the Society drew the rectors and professors of its colleges, its +preachers, confessors, and teachers in schools for the laity. They were +not yet full members, though they had taken the three vows, and were +irrevocably devoted to the service of the order. The final stage of +initiation was reached toward the age of forty-five, after long and +various trials. Then the Jesuit received the title of Professed. He was +either a professed of the three vows, or a professed of the four vows; +having in the latter case dedicated his life to the special service of +the Papacy, in missions or in any other cause. The professed of four +vows constituted the veritable Company of Jesus, the kernel of the +organization. They were never numerous. At Loyola's death they numbered +thirty-five out of a thousand; and it has been calculated that their +average proportion to the whole body is as two to a hundred.[167] Even +these had no indefeasible tenure of their place in the Society. They +might be dismissed by the General without indemnification. + +[Footnote 167: Philippson, _op. cit._ p. 142.] + +The General was chosen for life from the professed of four vows by the +General Congregation, which consisted of the provincials and two members +of each province. He held the whole Society at his discretion; for he +could deal at pleasure with each part of its machinery. The +constitutions, strict as they appeared, imposed no barriers upon his +will; for almost unlimited power was surrendered to him of dispensing +with formalities, freeing from obligations, shortening or lengthening +the periods of initiation, retarding or advancing a member in his +career. Ideal fixity of type, qualified by the utmost elasticity in +practice, formed the essence of the system. And we shall see that this +principle pervaded the Jesuit treatment of morality. The General resided +at Rome, consecrated solely to the government of the Society, holding +the threads of all its complicated affairs in his hands, studying the +personal history of each of its members in the minute reports which he +constantly received from every province, and acting precisely as he +chose with the highest as well as the lowest of his subordinates. +Contrary to all precedents of previous religious orders, Ignatius framed +the Company of Jesus upon the lines of a close aristocracy with +autocratic authority confided to an elected chief. Yet the General of +the Jesuits, like the Doge of Venice, had his hands tied by subtly +powerful though almost invisible fetters. He was subjected at every hour +of the day and night to the surveillance of five sworn spies, especially +appointed to prevent him from altering the type or neglecting the +concerns of the Order. The first of these functionaries, named the +Administrator, who was frequently also the confessor of the General, +exhorted him to obedience, and reminded him that he must do all things +for the glory of God. Obedience and the glory of God, in Jesuit +phraseology, meant the maintenance of the Company. The other four were +styled Assistants. They had under their charge the affairs of the chief +provinces; one overseeing the Indies, another Portugal and Spain, a +third France and Germany, a fourth Italy and Sicily. Together with the +Administrator, the Assistants were nominated by the General Congregation +and could not be removed or replaced without its sanction. It was their +duty to regulate the daily life of the General, to control his private +expenditure on the scale which they determined, to prescribe what he +should eat and drink, and to appoint his hours for sleep, and religious +exercises, and the transaction of public business. If they saw grave +reasons for his deposition, they were bound to convene the General +Congregation for that purpose. And since the Founder knew that guardians +need to be guarded, he provided that the Provincials might convene this +assembly to call in question the acts of the Assistants. The General +himself had no power to oppose its convocation. + +The Company of Jesus was thus based upon a system of mutual and +pervasive espionage. The novice on first entering had all his acts, +habits, and personal qualities registered. As he advanced in his career, +he was surrounded by jealous brethren, who felt it their duty to report +his slightest weakness to a superior. The superiors were watched by one +another and by their inferiors. Masses of secret intelligence poured +into the central cabinet of the General; and the General himself ate, +slept, prayed, worked, and moved about the world beneath the fixed gaze +of ten vigilant eyes. Men accustomed to domesticity and freedom may +wonder that life should have been tolerable upon these terms. Yet we +must remember that from the moment when a youth had undergone the +_Exercitia_ and taken the vows, he became no less in fact than in spirit +_perinde ac cadaver_ in the hands of his superior. The Company replaced +for him both family and state; and in spite of the fourth vow, it is +very evident that the Black Pope, as the General came to be nicknamed, +owned more of his allegiance than the White Pope, who filled the chair +of S. Peter. He could, indeed, at any moment be expelled and ruined. But +if he served the Order well, he belonged to a vast incalculably-potent +organism, of which he might naturally, after such training as he had +received, be proud. The sacrifice of his personal volition and +intelligence made him part of an indestructible corporation, which +seemed capable of breaking all resistance by its continuity of will and +effecting all purposes by its condensed sagacity. Nor was he in the +hands of rigid disciplinarians. His peccadilloes were condoned, unless +the credit of the order came in question. His natural abilities obtained +free scope for their employment; for it suited the interest of the +Company to make the most of each member's special gifts. He had no +tedious duties of the regular monastic routine to follow. He was +encouraged to become a man of the world, and to mix freely with society. +And thus, while he resigned himself, he lived the large life of a +complex microcosm. Nor were men of resolute ambition without the +prospect of eventually swaying an authority beyond that possessed by +princes; for any one of the professed might rise to the supreme power in +the order. + +Something must be said about Loyola's interpretation of the vow of +poverty. During his lifetime the Company acquired considerable wealth; +and after his death it became a large owner of estates in Europe. How +was this consistent with the observance of that vow, so strictly +inculcated by the founder on his first disciples, and so pompously +proclaimed in their constitutions? The professed and all their houses, +as well as their churches, were bound to subsist on alms; they preached, +administered the sacraments of the Church, and educated gratis. They +could inherit nothing, and were not allowed to receive money for their +journeys. But here appeared the wisdom of restricting the numbers of the +professed to a small percentage of the whole Society. The same rigid +prohibition with regard to property was not imposed upon the houses of +novices, colleges, and other educational establishments of the Jesuits; +while the secular coadjutors were specially appointed for the +administration of wealth which the professed might use but could not +own.[168] In like manner, as they lived on alms, there was no objection +to a priest of the order receiving valuable gifts in cash or kind from +grateful recipients of his spiritual bounty. A separate article of the +constitutions furthermore reserved for the General the right of +accepting any donation whatsoever, made in favor of the whole Company, +and of assigning capital or revenue as he judged wisest. + +[Footnote 168: Quinet calculates that at the close of the sixteenth +century there were twenty-one houses of the professed (incapable of +owning property) to 293 colleges (free from this inability).] + +Scholastics, even after they had taken the vow of poverty, were not +obliged to relinquish their private possessions. Sooner or later, it was +hoped that these would become the property of the order. In a word, the +principle of this solemn obligation was so manipulated as to facilitate +the acquisition and accumulation of wealth by the Jesuit like any other +corporation. Only no individual Jesuit owned anything. He was rich or +poor, he wore the clothes of princes or the rags of a mendicant, he +lived sumptuously or begged in the street, he traveled with a following +of servants or he walked on foot, according as it seemed good to his +superiors. The vow of poverty, thus interpreted in practice, meant a +total disengagement from temporalities on the part of every member, an +absolute dependence of each subordinate upon his superior in the +hierarchy. + +Having thus far treated the organization of the Jesuits as implicit in +Loyola's own conception and administration, I ought to add that it +received definite form from his successor, Lainez. The founder +pronounced the Constitutions in 1553. But they were thoroughly revised +after his death in 1558, at which date they first issued from the press. +Lainez, again, supplemented these laws with a perpetual commentary, +which is styled the Declarations. These contain the bulk of those +easements and indulgent interpretations, whereby the strictness of the +original rules was explained away, and an almost unbounded elasticity +was communicated to the system. + +It would be rash to pronounce a decided opinion upon the much disputed +question, whether, in addition to their Constitutions and Declarations, +the Jesuits were provided with an esoteric code of rules known as +_Monita Secreta_.[169] The existence of such a manual, which was +supposed to contain the very pith of Jesuitical policy, has been +confidently asserted and no less confidently denied. In the absence of +direct evidence, it may be worth quoting two passages from Sarpi's +Letters, which prove that this keen-sighted observer believed the +Society to be governed in its practice by statutes inaccessible to all +but its most trusted members. 'I have always admired the policy of the +Jesuits,' he writes in 1608, 'and their method of maintaining secrecy. +Their Constitutions are in print, and yet one cannot set eyes upon a +copy. I do not mean their Rules, which are published at Lyons, for those +are mere puerilities; but the digest of laws which guide their conduct +of the order, and which they keep concealed. Every day many members +leave, or are expelled from the Company; and yet their artifices are not +exposed to view.'[170] In another letter, of the date 1610, Sarpi +returns to the same point. 'The Jesuits before this Aquaviva was elected +General were saints in comparison with what they afterwards became. +Formerly they had not mixed in affairs of state or thought of governing +cities. Since then, they have indulged a hope of controlling the whole +world. + +[Footnote 169: A book with this title was published in 1612 at Cracow. +It was declared a forgery at Rome by a congregation of Cardinals.] + +[Footnote 170: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 100.] + +And I am sure that the least part of their Cabala is in the Ordinances +and Constitutions of 1570. All the same, I am very glad to possess even +these. Their true Cabala they never communicate to any but men who have +been well tested, and proved by every species of trial; nor is it +possible for those who have been initiated into it, to think of retiring +from the order, since the congregation, through their excellent +management of its machinery, know how to procure the immediate death of +any such initiated member who may wish to leave their ranks.'[171] +Probably the mistake which Sarpi and the world made, was in supposing +that the Jesuits needed a written code for their most vital action. +Being a potent and life-penetrated organism, the secret of their policy +was not such as could be reduced to rule. It was not such as, if reduced +to rule, could have been plastic in the affairs of public importance +which the Company sought to control. Better than rule or statute, it was +biological function. The supreme deliberative bodies of the order +created, transmitted, and continuously modified its tradition of policy. +This tradition some member, partially initiated into their counsels, may +have reduced to precepts in the published _Monita Secreta_ of 1612. But +the quintessential flame which breathed a breath of life into the fabric +of the Jesuits through two centuries of organic activity, was far too +vivid and too spiritual to be condensed in any charter. A friar and a +jurist, like Sarpi, expected to discover some controlling code. The +public, grossly ignorant of evolutionary laws in the formation of social +organisms, could not comprehend the non-existence of this code. +Adventurers supplied the demand from their knowledge of the ruling +policy. But like the _Liber Trium Impostorum_ we may regard the _Monita +Secreta_ of the Jesuits as an _ex post facto_ fabrication. + +[Footnote 171: _Lettere_, vol. ii. p. 174.] + +There is no need to trace the further history of the Jesuits. Their part +in the Counter-Reformation has rather been exaggerated than +insufficiently recognized. Though it was incontestably considerable, we +cannot now concede, as Macaulay in his random way conceded to this +Company, the _spolia opima_ of down-beaten Protestantism. Without the +ecclesiastical reform which originated in the Tridentine Council; +without the gold and sword of Spain; without the stakes and prisons of +the Inquisition; without the warfare against thought conducted by the +Congregation of the Index; the Jesuits alone could not have masterfully +governed the Catholic revival. That revival was a movement of +world-historical importance, in which they participated. It was their +fortune to find forces in the world which they partially understood; it +was their merit to know how to manipulate those forces; it was their +misfortune and their demerit that they proved themselves incapable of +diverting those forces to any wholesome end. In Italy a succession of +worldly Popes, Paul III., Julius III., Pius IV., and Gregory XIII., +heaped favors and showered wealth upon the order. The Jesuits +incarnated the political spirit of the Papacy at this epoch; they lent +it a potency for good and evil which the decrepit but still vigorous +institution arrogated to itself. They adapted its anachronisms with +singular adroitness to the needs of modern society. They transfused +their throbbing blood into its flaccid veins, until it became doubtful +whether the Papacy had been absorbed into the Jesuits, or whether the +Jesuits had remodeled the Papacy for contemporary uses. But this +tendency in the aspiring order to identify itself with Rome, this +ambition to command the prestige of Rome as leverage for carrying out +its own designs, stirred the resentment of haughty and _intransigeant_ +Pontiffs. The Jesuits were not beloved by Paul IV., Pius V., and Sixtus +V. + +It remains, however, to inquire in what the originality, the effective +operation, and the modifying influence of the Jesuit Society consisted +during the period with which we are concerned. It was their object to +gain control over Europe by preaching, education, the direction of +souls, and the management of public affairs. In each of these +departments their immediate success was startling; for they labored with +zeal, and they adapted their methods to the requirements of the age. +Yet, in the long run, art, science, literature, religion, morality and +politics, all suffered from their interference. By preferring artifice +to reality, affectation to sincerity, shams and subterfuges to plain +principle and candor, they confused the conscience and enfeebled the +intellect of Catholic Europe. When we speak of the Jesuit style in +architecture, rhetoric and poetry, of Jesuit learning and scholarship, +of Jesuit casuistry and of Jesuit diplomacy, it is either with languid +contempt for bad taste and insipidity, or with the burning indignation +which systematic falsehood and corruption inspire in honorable minds. + +In education, the Jesuits, if they did not precisely innovate, improved +upon the methods of the grammarians which had persisted from the Middle +Ages through the Renaissance. They spared no pains in training a large +and competent body of professors, men of extensive culture, formed upon +one uniform pattern, and exercised in the art of popularizing knowledge. +These teachers were distributed over the Jesuit colleges; and in every +country their system was the same. New catechisms, grammars, primers, +manuals of history, enabled their pupils to learn with facility in a few +months what it had cost years of painful labor to acquire under pompous +pedants of the old _regime_. The mental and physical aptitudes of youths +committed to their charge were carefully observed; and classes were +adapted to various ages and degrees of capacity. Hours of recreation +alternated with hours of study, so that the effort of learning should be +neither irksome nor injurious to health. Nor was religious education +neglected. Attendance upon daily Mass, monthly confession, and +instruction in the articles of the faith, formed an indispensable part +of the system. When we remember that these advantages were offered +gratuitously to the public, it is not surprising that people of all +ranks and conditions should have sent their boys to the Jesuit colleges. +Even Protestants availed themselves of what appeared so excellent a +method; and the Jesuits obtained the reputation of being the best +instructors of youth.[172] It soon became the mark of a good Catholic to +have frequented Jesuit schools; and in after life a pupil who had +studied creditably in their colleges, found himself everywhere at home. +Yet the Society took but little interest in elementary or popular +education. Their object was to gain possession of the nobility, gentry, +and upper middle class. The proletariat might remain ignorant; it was +the destiny of such folk to be passive instruments in the hands of +spiritual and temporal rulers. Nor were they always scrupulous in the +means employed for taking hold on young men of distinction. One instance +of the animosity they aroused, even in Italy, at an early period of +their activity, will suffice. Tuscany was thrown into commotion by the +discovery of their designs upon the boys they undertook to teach. + +[Footnote 172: See Sarpi's _Letters_, vol. i. p. 352, for Protestant +pupils of Jesuits. Sarpi's _Memorial to the Signory of Venice on the +Collegio de'Greci in Rome_ exposes the fallacy of their being reputed +the best teachers of youth, by pointing out how their aim is to withdraw +their pupils' allegiance from the nation, the government, and the +family, to themselves.] + +'They were so madly bent,' says Galluzzi, 'upon filling the ranks of +their Company with individuals of wealth and birth, that in 1584, in the +single city of Siena, under the pretense of devotion, they seduced +thirty youths of the noblest and richest houses, not without great +injury to their families and grief to their parents. The most notorious +of these cases Was that of two sons of Pandolfo Petrucci, whose name +indicates his high position in the aristocracy of Siena. These young men +they got into their power by inducing them to commit a theft, and then +compelled them to pledge fealty to the Society. Escaping by night in the +direction of Rome, the lads were arrested by the city guards, and +confessed that they had agreed to meet two Jesuits, who were waiting to +conduct them on their journey.'[173] + +[Footnote 173: _Storia del Granducato di Toscana_, vol. iv. p. 275.] + +It was, indeed, not the propagation of sound principles or liberal +learning, but the aggrandizement of the order and the enforcement of +Catholic usages, at which the Jesuits aimed in their scheme of +education. This was noticeable in their attitude toward literature and +science. Michelet has described their method in a brilliant and exact +metaphor, as the attempt to counteract the poison of free thought and +stimulative studies by means of vaccination. They taught the classics in +expurgated editions, history in drugged epitomes, science in popular +lectures. Instead of banning what M. Renan is wont to style _etudes +fortes_, they undertook to emasculate these and render them innocuous. +While Bruno was burned by the Inquisition for proclaiming what the +Copernican discovery involved for faith and metaphysics, Father Koster +at Cologne vulgarized it into something pretty and agreeable. While +Scaliger and Casaubon used the humanities as a propaedeutic of the +virile reason, the Jesuits contrived to sterilize and mechanize their +influences by insipid rhetoric. Everywhere through Europe, by the side +of stalwart thinkers, crept plausible Jesuit professors, following the +light of learning like its shadow, mimicking the accent of the gods like +parrots, and mocking their gestures like apes. Their adroit admixture of +falsehood with truth in all departments of knowledge, their substitution +of veneer for solid timber, and of pinchbeck for sterling metal, was +more profitable to the end they had in view than the torture-chamber of +the Inquisition or the quarantine of the Index. Mediocrities and +respectabilities of every description--that is to say, the majority of +the influential classes--were delighted with their method. What could be +better than to see sons growing up, good Catholics in all external +observances, devoted to the order of society and Mother Church, and at +the same time showy Latinists, furnished with a cyclopaedia of current +knowledge, glib at speechifying, ingenious in the construction of an +epigram or compliment? If some of the more sensible sort grumbled that +Jesuit learning was shallow, and Jesuit morality of base alloy, the +reply, like that of an Italian draper selling palpable shoddy for +broadcloth, came easily and cynically to the surface: _Imita bene_! The +stuff is a good match enough! What more do you want? To produce +plausible imitations, to save appearances, to amuse the mind with +tricks, was the last resort of Catholicism in its warfare against +rationalism. And such is the banality of human nature as a whole, that +the Jesuits, those monopolists of Brummagem manufactures, achieved +eminent success. Their hideous churches, daubed with plaster painted to +resemble costly marbles, encrusted with stucco polished to deceive the +eye, loaded with gewgaws and tinsel and superfluous ornament and +frescoes, turning flat surfaces into cupolas and arcades, passed for +masterpieces of architectonic beauty. The conceits of their pulpit +oratory, its artificial cadences and flowery verbiage, its theatrical +appeals to gross sensations, wrought miracles and converted thousands. +Their sickly Ciceronian style, their sentimental books of piety, 'the +worse for being warm,' the execrable taste of their poetry, their flimsy +philosophy and disingenuous history, infected the taste of Catholic +Europe like a slow seductive poison, flattering and accelerating the +diseases of mental decadence. Sound learning died down beneath the +tyranny of the Inquisition, the Index, the Council of Trent, Spain and +the Papacy. A rank growth of unwholesome culture arose and flourished on +its tomb under the forcing-frames of Jesuitry. But if we peruse the +records of literature and science during the last three centuries, few +indeed are the eminences even of a second order which can be claimed by +the Company of Jesus. + +The same critique applies to Jesuit morality. It was the Company's aim +to control the conscience by direction and confession, and especially +the conscience of princes, women, youths in high position. To do so by +plain speaking and honest dealing was clearly dangerous. The world had +had enough of Dominican austerity and dogmatism. To do so by open +toleration and avowed cynicism did not suit the temper of the time. A +reform of the monastic orders and the regular clergy had been undertaken +by the Church. Pardoners, palmers, indulgence-mongers, jolly Franciscan +confessors, and such-like folk were out of date. But the Jesuits were +equal to the exigencies of the moment. We have seen how Ignatius +recommended fishers of souls to humor queasy consciences. His successors +expanded and applied the hint.--You must not begin by talking about +spiritual things to people immersed in worldly interests. That is as +simple as trying to fish without bait. On the contrary, you must +insinuate yourself into their confidence by studying their habits, and +spying out their propensities. You must appear to notice little at the +first, and show yourself a good companion. When you become acquainted +with the bosom sins and pleasant vices of folk in high position, you can +lead them on the path of virtue at your pleasure. You must certainly +tell them then that indulgence in sensuality, falsehood, fraud, +violence, covetousness, and tyrannical oppression, is unconditionally +wrong. Make no show of compromise with evil in the gross; but refine +away the evil by distinctions, reservations, hypothetical conditions, +until it disappears. Explain how hard it is to know whether a sin be +venial or mortal, and how many chances there are against its being in +any strict sense a sin at all. Do not leave folk to their own blunt +sense of right and wrong, but let them admire the finer edge of your +scalpel, while you shred up evil into morsels they can hardly see. A +ready way may thus be opened for the satisfaction of every human desire +without falling into theological faults. The advantages are manifest. +You will be able to absolve with a clear conscience. Your penitent will +abound in gratitude and open out his heart to you. You will fulfill your +function as confessor and counselor. He will be secured for the sacred +ends of our Society, and will contribute to the greater glory of +God.--It was thus that the Jesuit labyrinth of casuistry, with its +windings, turnings, secret chambers, whispering galleries, blind alleys, +issues of evasion, came into existence; the whole vicious and monstrous +edifice being crowned with the saving virtue of obedience, and the +theory of ends justifying means. After the irony of Pascal, the +condensed rage of La Chalotais, and the grave verdict of the Parlement +of Paris (1762), it is not necessary now to refute the errors or to +expose the abominations of this casuistry in detail.[174] Yet it cannot +be wholly passed in silence here; for its application materially favored +the influence of Jesuits in modern Europe. + +[Footnote 174: Having mentioned the names of these illustrious +Frenchmen, I feel bound to point out how accurately their criticism of +the Jesuits was anticipated by Paolo Sarpi. His correspondence between +the years 1608 and 1622 demonstrates that this body of social corrupters +had been early recognized by him in their true light. Sarpi calls them +'sottilissimi maestri in mal fare,' 'donde esce ogni falsita et +bestemmia,' 'il vero morbo Gallico,' 'peste pubblica,' 'peste del mondo' +(_Letters_, vol. i. pp. 142, 183, 245, ii. 82, 109). He says that they +'hanno messo l'ultima mano a stabilire una corruzione universale' (_ib._ +vol. i. p. 304). By their equivocations and mental reservations 'fanno +essi prova di gabbare Iddio' (_ib._ vol. ii. p. 82). 'La menzogna non +iscusano soltanto ma lodano' (_ib._ vol. ii. p. 106). So far, the +utterances which I have quoted might pass for the rhetoric of mere +spite. But the portrait gradually becomes more definite in details +limned from life. 'The Jesuits have so many loopholes for escape, +pretexts, colors of insinuation, that they are more changeful than the +Sophist of Plato; and when one thinks to have caught them between thumb +and finger, they wriggle out and vanish' (_ib._ vol. i. p. 230). 'The +Jesuit fathers have methods of acquiring in this world, and making their +neophytes acquire, heaven without diminution, or rather with +augmentation, of this life's indulgences' (_ib._ vol. i. p. 313). 'The +Jesuit fathers used to confer Paradise; they now have become dispensers +of fame in this world' (_ibid._ p. 363). 'When they seek entrance into +any place, they do not hesitate to make what promises may be demanded of +them, possessing as they do the art of escape by lying with +equivocations and mental reservations' (_ib._ vol. ii. p. 147). 'The +Jesuit is a man of every color; he repeats the marvel of the chameleon' +(_ibid._ p. 105). 'When they play a losing game, they yet rise winners +from the table. For it is their habit to insinuate themselves upon any +condition demanded, having arts enough whereby to make themselves +masters of those who bind them by prescribed rules. They are glad to +enter in the guise of galley-slaves with irons on their ankles; since, +when they have got in, they will find no difficulty in loosing their own +bonds and binding others' (_ibid._ p. 134). 'They command two arts: the +one of escaping from the bonds and obligations of any vow or promise +they shall have made, by means of equivocation, tacit reservation, and +mental restriction; the other of insinuating, like the hedgehog, into +the narrowest recesses, being well aware that when they unfold their +piercing bristles, they will obtain the full possession of the dwelling +and exclude its master' _(ibid_. p. 144). 'Everybody in Italy is well +aware how they have wrought confession into an art. They never receive +confidences under that seal without disclosing all particulars in the +conferences of their Society; and that with the view of using confession +to the advantage of their order and the Church. At the same time they +preach the doctrine that the seal of the confessional precludes a +penitent from disclosing what the confessor may have said to him, albeit +his utterances have had no reference to sins or to the safety of the +soul' (_ib._ vol. ii. p. 108). 'Should the Jesuits in France get hold of +education, they will dominate the university, and eradicate sound +letters. Yet why do I speak of healthy literature? I ought to have said +good and wholesome doctrine, the which is verily mortal to that Company' +(_ibid._ p. 162). 'Every species of vice finds its patronage in them. +The avaricious trust their maxims, for trafficking in spiritual +commodities; the superstitious, for substituting kisses upon images for +the exercise of Christian virtues; the base fry of ambitious upstarts, +for cloaking every act of scoundreldom with a veil of holiness. The +indifferent find in them a palliative for their spiritual deadness; and +whoso fears no God, has a visible God ready made for him, whom he may +worship with merit to his soul. In fine, there is nor perjury, nor +sacrilege, nor parricide, nor incest, nor rapine, nor fraud, nor +treason, which cannot be masked as meritorious beneath the mantle of +their dispensation' (_ibid._ p. 330). 'I apprehend the difficulty of +attacking their teachings; seeing that they merge their own interests +with those of the Papacy; and that not only in the article of Pontifical +authority, but in all points. At present they stand for themselves upon +the ground of equivocations. But believe me, they will adjust this also, +and that speedily; forasmuch as they are omnipotent in the Roman Court, +and the Pope himself fears them' (_ibid._ p. 333). 'Had S. Peter known +the creed of the Jesuits, he could have found a way to deny our Lord +without sinning' (_ibid._ p. 353). 'The Roman Court will never condemn +Jesuit doctrine; for this is the secret of its empire--a secret of the +highest and most capital importance, whereby those who openly refuse to +worship it are excommunicated, and those who would do so if they dared, +are held in check' (_ibid._ p. 105). The object of this lengthy note is +to vindicate for Sarpi a prominent and early place among those candid +analysts of Jesuitry who now are lost in the great light of Pascal's +genius. Sarpi's _Familiar Letters_ have for my mind even more weight +than the famous _Lettres Provinciales_ of Pascal. They were written with +no polemical or literary bias, at a period when Jesuitry was in its +prime; and their force as evidence is strengthened by their obvious +spontaneity. A book of some utility was published in 1703 at Salzburg +(?), under the title of _Artes Jesuiticae_ Christianus Aletophilus. This +contains a compendium of those passages in casuistical writings on which +Pascal based his brilliant satires. Paul Bert's modern work, _La Morale +des Jesuites_ (Paris: Charpentier, 1881), is intended to prove that +recent casuistical treatises of the school repeat those ancient +perversions of sound morals.] + +The working of the Company, as we have seen, depended upon a skillful +manipulation of apparently hard-and-fast principles. The Declarations +explained away the Constitutions; and an infinite number of minute +exceptions and distinctions volatilized vows and obligations into ether. +Transferring the same method to the sphere of ethics, they so wrought +upon the precepts of the moral law, whether expressed in holy writ, in +the ecclesiastical decrees, or in civil jurisprudence, as to deprive +them of their binding force. The subtlest elasticity had been gained for +the machinery of the order by casuistical interpretation. A like +elasticity was secured for the control and government of souls by an +identical process. It was no wonder that the Jesuits became rapidly +fashionable as confessors. The plainest prohibitions were as wax in +their hands. The Decalogue laid down as rules for conduct: 'Thou shalt +not steal;' 'Thou shalt not kill;' 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.' +Christ spiritualized these rules into their essence: 'Thou shalt love +thy neighbor as thyself;' 'Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after +her, hath committed adultery already with her in his heart.' It is +manifest that both the old and the new covenant upon which modern +Christianity is supposed to rest, suffered no transactions in matters +so clear to the human conscience. Jesus himself refined upon the +legality of the Mosaic code by defining sin as egotism or concupiscence. +But the Company of Jesus took pains in their casuistry to provide +attenuating circumstances for every sin in detail. By their doctrines of +the invincible erroneous conscience, of occult compensation, of +equivocation, of mental reservation, of probabilism, and of +philosophical sin, they afforded loopholes for the gratification of +every passion, and for the commission of every crime. Instead of +maintaining that any injury done to a neighbor is wrong, they multiplied +instances in which a neighbor may be injured. Instead of holding firm to +Christ's verdict that sexual vice is implicit in licentious desire, they +analyzed the sensual modes of crude voluptuousness, taxed each in turn +at arbitrary values, and provided plausible excuses for indulgence. +Instead of laying it down as a broad principle that men must keep their +word, they taught them how to lie with spiritual impunity and with +credit to their reputation as sons of the Church. Thus the inventive +genius of the casuist, bent on dissecting immorality and reducing it to +classes; the interrogative ingenuity of the confessor, pruriently +inquisitive into private experience; the apologetic subtlety of the +director, eager to supply his penitent with salves and anodynes; were +all alike and all together applied to anti-social contamination in +matters of lubricity, and to anti-social corruption in matters of +dishonesty, fraud, falsehood, illegality and violence. The single +doctrine of probabilism, as Pascal abundantly proved, facilitates the +commission of crime; for there is no perverse act which some casuist of +note has not plausibly excused. + +It may be urged that confession and direction, as adopted by the +Catholic Church, bring the abominations of casuistry logically in their +train. Priests who have to absolve sinners must be familiar with sin in +all its branches. In the confessional they will be forced to listen to +recitals, the exact bearings of which they cannot understand unless they +are previously instructed. Therefore the writings of Sanchez, Diana, +Liguori, Burchard, Billuard, Rousselot, Gordon, Gaisson, are put into +their hands at an early age--works which reveal more secrets of +impudicity than Aretino has described, or Commodus can have +practiced--works which recommend more craft and treachery and fraud and +falsehood than Machiavelli accorded to his misbegotten Saviour of +Society. In these writings men vowed to celibacy probe the foulest +labyrinths of sexual impurity; men claiming to stand outside the civil +order and the state, imbibe false theories upon property and probity and +public duty. + +The root of the matter is wrong indubitably. It is contrary to good +government that a sacerdotal class, by means of confession and +direction, should be placed in a position of deciding upon conduct. It +is revolting to human dignity that this same class, without national +allegiance, and without domestic ties, should have the opportunity of +infecting young minds by unhealthy questionings and dishonorable +suggestions. But this wrong, which is inherent in the modern Catholic +system, becomes an atrocity when it is employed, as the Jesuits employed +it, as an instrument for moulding and controlling society in their own +interest. + +While the Jesuits rendered themselves obnoxious to criticism by their +treatment of the individual in his private and social capacity, they +speedily became what Hallam cautiously styles 'rather dangerous +supporters of the See of Rome' in public and political affairs. The +ultimate failure of their diplomacy and intrigue over the whole field of +modern statecraft inclines historians of the present epoch to underrate +their mechanics of obstruction, and to underestimate the many occasions +on which they did successfully retard the progress of civil government +and intellectual freedom. It were wiser to regard them in the same light +as fanatics laying stones upon a railway, or of dynamiters blowing up an +emperor or a corner of Westminster Hall. The final end of the nefarious +traffic may not be attained. But credit can be claimed by those who took +their part in it, for the wreck of express trains, the perturbation of +cities, and the mourning of peaceable families. And thus it was with the +Jesuits. Though the results of their political intrigues had not +corresponded to their hopes, they yet worked appreciable mischief by +the organization of the League in France, and the Thirty Years' War in +Germany, and by their revolutionary theories which infected Europe with +conspiracy and murder. Their method was not original. Machiavelli had +expounded the doctrines they put in practice. He taught that in a +desperate state of the nation, men may have recourse to treachery and +violence. The nation of the Jesuits was a hybrid between their order and +Catholicism. The peril to the Church was imminent; its decadence +demanded desperate remedies. They invoked regicide, revolt, and treason, +to effect an impossible cure. + +The political theory of the Jesuits was deduced from their fundamental +principle of obedience to the Church. They maintained that the +ecclesiastical is _jure divino_ superior to the secular power. The Pope +through God's commission and appointment sways the Church; the Church +takes rank above the State, as the soul above the body. Consequently, +the first allegiance of a Christian nation, together with its secular +rulers, belongs of right to the Supreme Pontiff. The people is the real +sovereign; and kings are delegates from the people, with authority which +they can only justly exercise so long as they remain in obedience to +Rome. It follows from these positions that every nation must refuse +fealty to an irreligious or contumacious ruler. In the last resort they +may lawfully remove him by murder; and they are _ipso facto_ in a state +of mortal sin if they elect or recognize a heretic as sovereign. This +theory sprang from the writings of the English Jesuits, Allen and +Parsons. It was elaborated in Rome by Cardinal Bellarmino, applied in +Spain by Suarez and Mariana, and openly preached in France by Jean +Boucher. The best energies of Paolo Sarpi were devoted to combating the +main position of ecclesiastical supremacy. His works had a salutary +effect by delimiting the relations of the Church to the State, and by +demonstrating even to Catholics the pernicious results of acknowledging +a Papal overlordship in temporal affairs. At the same time the boldly +democratic principle of the sovereignty of the people, which the Jesuits +advanced in order to establish their doctrine of ecclesiastical +superiority, provoked opposition. It led to the contrary hypothesis of +the Divine Right of sovereigns, which found favor in Protestant +kingdoms, and especially in England under the Stuart dynasty. When the +French Catholics resolved to terminate the discords of their country by +the recognition of Henri IV., they had recourse to this argument for +justifying their obedience to a heretic. It was felt by all sound +thinkers and by every patriot in Europe, that the Papal prerogatives +claimed by the Jesuits were too inconsistent with national liberties to +be tolerated. The zeal of the Society had clearly outrun its discretion; +and the free discussion of the theory of government which their insolent +assumptions stimulated, weakened the cause they sought to strengthen. +Their ingenuity overreached itself. + +This, however, was as nothing compared with the hostility evoked by +their unscrupulous application of these principles in practice. There +was hardly a plot against established rule in Protestant countries with +which they were not known or believed to be connected. The invasion of +Ireland in 1579, the murder of the Regent Morton in Scotland, and +Babington's conspiracy against Elizabeth, emanated from their councils. +They were held responsible for the attempted murder of the Prince of +Orange in 1580, and for his actual murder in 1584. They loudly applauded +Jacques Clement, the assassin of Henri III. in 1589, as 'the eternal +glory of France.'[175] Numerous unsuccessful attacks upon the life of +Henri IV., culminating in that of Jean Chastel in 1594, caused their +expulsion from France. When they returned in 1603, they set to work +again;[176] and the assassin Ravaillac, who succeeded in removing the +obnoxious champion of European independence in 1610, was probably +inspired by their doctrine.[177] They had a hand in the Gunpowder Plot +of 1605, and were thought by some to have instigated the Massaere of S. +Bartholomew. They fomented the League of the Guises, which had for its +object a change in the French dynasty. They organized the Thirty Years' +War, and they procured the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. If it is +not possible to connect them immediately with all and each of the +criminal acts laid to their charge, the fact that a Jesuit in every case +was lurking in the background, counts by the force of cumulative +evidence heavily against them, and explains the universal suspicion with +which they came to be regarded as factious intermeddlers in the concerns +of nations. Moreover, their written words accused them; for the +tyrannicide of heretics was plainly advocated in their treatises on +government. So profound was the conviction of their guilt, that the +death of Sixtus V. in 1590, predicted by Bellarmino, the sudden death of +Urban VII. in the same year, and the death of Clement VIII. in 1805, +also predicted by Bellarmino--these three Popes being ill-affected +toward the order--were popularly ascribed to their agency. But of their +practical intervention there is no proof. Old age and fever must be +credited, in these as in other cases, with the decease of Roman Pontiffs +supposed to have been poisoned. + +[Footnote 175: See Mariana, _De Rege_, lib. i. cap. 6. This book, be it +remembered, was written for the instruction of the heir apparent, +afterwards Philip III.] + +[Footnote 176: Henri IV. let them return to France, in mere dread of +their machinations against him. See Sully, vol. v. p. 113.] + +[Footnote 177: Sarpi, who was living at the time of Henri's murder, and +who saw his best hopes for Italy and the Church of God extinguished by +that crime, at first credited the Jesuits with the deliberate +instigation Ravaillac. He gradually came to the conclusion that, though +they were not directly responsible, their doctrine of regicide had +inflamed the fanatic's imagination. See, in succession, _Letters_, vol. +ii. pp. 78, 79, 81, 83, 86, 91, 105, 121, 170, 181, 192.] + +It is not, however, to be wondered that sooner, or later the Jesuits +made themselves insupportable by their intrigues in all the countries +where they were established.[178] Even to the Papacy itself they proved +too irksome to be borne. The Company showed plainly that what they meant +by obedience to Rome was obedience to a Rome controlled and fashioned by +themselves. It was their ambition to stand in the same relation to the +Pope as the Shogun to the Mikado of Japan. Nor does the analysis of +their opinions fail to justify the condemnation passed upon them by the +Parlement of Paris in 1762. 'These doctrines tend to destroy the natural +law, that rule of manners which God Himself has imprinted on the hearts +of men, and in consequence to sever all the bonds of civil society, by +the authorization of theft, falsehood, perjury, the most culpable +impurity, and in a word each passion and each crime of human weakness; +to obliterate all sentiments of humanity by favoring homicide and +parricide; and to annihilate the authority of sovereigns in the State.' + +[Footnote 178: Expelled from Venice in 1606, from Bohemia in 1618, from +Naples and the Netherlands in 1622, from Russia in 1676, from Portugal +in 1759, from Spain in 1767, from France in 1764. Suppressed by the Bull +of Clement XIV. in 1773. Restored in 1814, as an instrument against the +Revolution.] + +Great psychological and pathological interest, attaches to the study of +the Jesuit order. To withhold our admiration from the zeal, energy, +self-devotion and constructive ability of its founders, would be +impossible. Equally futile would it be to affect indifference before the +sinister spectacle of so world-embracing an organism, persistently +maintained in action for an anti-social end. There is something Roman in +the colossal proportions of Loyola's idea, something Roman in the +durability of the structure which perpetuates it. Yet the philosopher +cannot but agree with the vulgar in his final judgment on the odiousness +of these sacerdotal despots, these unflinching foes not merely to the +heroes of the human intellect, and to the champions of right conduct, +but also to the very angels of Christianity. That the Jesuits should +claim to have been founded by Him who preached the Sermon on the Mount, +that they should flaunt their motto, A.M.D.G., in the sight of Him who +spake from Sinai, is one of those practical paradoxes in which the +history of decrepit religions abounds. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC MORALS: PART I. + + How did the Catholic Revival affect Italian Society?--Difficulty of + Answering this Question--Frequency of Private Crimes of + Violence--Homicides and Bandits--Savage Criminal Justice--Paid + Assassins--Toleration of Outlaws--Honorable Murder--Example of the + Lucchese Army--State of the Convents--The History of Virginia de + Leyva--Lucrezia Buonvisi--The True Tale of the Cenci--The Brothers + of the House of Massimo--Vittoria Accoramboni--The Duchess of + Palliano--Wife-Murders--The Family of Medici. + + +We are naturally led to inquire what discernible effect the Catholic +Revival and the Counter-Reformation had upon the manners and morals of +the Italians as a nation. Much has been said about the contrast between +intellectual refinement and almost savage license which marked the +Renaissance. Yet it can with justice be maintained that, while ferocity +and brutal sensuality survived from the Middle Ages, humanism, by means +of the new ideal it introduced, tended to civilize and educate the race. +Now, however, the Church was stifling culture and attempting to restore +that ecclesiastical conception of human life which the Renaissance had +superseded. Did then her resuscitated Catholicism succeed in permeating +the Italians with the spirit of Christ and of the Gospel? Were the +nobles more quiet in their demeanor, less quarrelsome and haughty, more +law-abiding and less given to acts of violence, than they had been in +the previous period? Were the people more contented and less torn by +factions, happier in their homes, less abandoned to the insanities of +baleful superstitions? + +It is obviously difficult to answer these questions with either +completeness or accuracy. In the first place, we have no right to expect +that the religious revival, signalized by the Tridentine Council, should +have made itself immediately felt in the sphere of national conduct. In +the second place, it was not, like the German Reformation, a renewal of +Christianity at its sources, but a resuscitation of mediaeval +Catholicity, in direct antagonism to the intellectual tendencies of the +age. The new learning among northern races disintegrated that system of +ideas upon which mediaeval society rested; but it also introduced +religious and moral conceptions more vital than those ideas in their +decadence. In Italy the disintegrating process had been no less +thorough, nay far more subtle and pervasive. Yet the new learning had +not led the nation to attempt a reconstruction of primitive +Christianity. The Catholic Revival gave nothing vital or enthusiastic to +the conscience of the race. It brought the old creeds, old cult, old +superstitions, old abuses back, with stricter discipline and under a +_regime_ of terror. Meanwhile, it resolutely ranged its forces in +opposition to what had been salutary and life-giving in the mental +movement of the Renaissance. It compelled people who had watched the +dawning of a new light, to shut their eyes upon that dayspring. It +extinguished the studies of the Classical Revival; bade philosophers +return to Thomas of Aquino; threatened thinkers with the dungeon or the +stake who should presume to pass the Pillars of Hercules, when a whole +Atlantic of knowledge had been opened to their curiosity. Under these +circumstances it was impossible that a revolution, so retrograde in its +nature, checking the tide of national energy in full flow, should have +exercised a healthy influence over the Italian temperament at large. We +have a right to expect, what in fact we find, the advent of hypocrisy +and ceremonial observances, but little actual amendment in manners. In +the third place, the question is still further complicated by the +Catholic Revival having been effected concurrently with the +establishment of the Spanish Hegemony. At the end of the first chapter +of this volume I pointed out the evils brought on Italy by her servitude +to a foreign and unsympathetic despot: the decline of commercial +activity, the multiplication of slothful lordlings, the depression of +industry, the diminution of wealth, and the suffering of the lower +classes from pirates, bandits and tax-gatherers. These conditions were +sufficient to demoralize a people. And mediaeval Catholicism, restored +by edict, enforced by the Inquisition, propagated by Jesuits, was not of +the fine enthusiastic quality to counteract them. Servile in its +conception, it sufficed to bridle and benumb a race of serfs, but not +to soften or to purify their brutal instincts.[179] + +In this chapter I shall not attempt a general survey of Italian +society.[180] I shall content myself with supplying materials for the +formation of a judgment by narrating some of the most remarkable +domestic tragedies of the second half of the sixteenth century, choosing +those only which rest upon well-sifted documentary evidence, and which +bring the social conditions of the country into strong relief. Before +engaging in these historical romances, it will be well to preface them +with a few general remarks upon the state of manners they will +illustrate. + +The first thing which strikes a student of Italy between 1530 and 1600 +is that crimes of violence, committed by private individuals for +personal ends, continued steadily upon the increase.[181] + +[Footnote 179: The last section of Loyola's _Exercitia_ is an epitome of +post-Tridentine Catholicism, though penned before the opening of the +Council. In its last paragraph it inculcates the fear of God: 'neque +porro is timor solum, quem filialem appellamus, qui pius est ac sanctus +maxime; verum etiam alter, servilis dictus' (_Inst. Soc. Jesu_, vol. iv. +p. 173).] + +[Footnote 180: An interesting survey of this wider kind has been +attempted by U.A. Canello for the whole sixteenth century in his _Storia +della Lett. It. nel Secolo XVI_. (Milano: Vallardi, 1880). He tries to +demonstrate that, in the sphere of private life, Italian society +gradually refined the brutal lusts of the Middle Ages, and passed +through fornication to a true conception of woman as man's companion in +the family. The theme is bold; and the author seems to have based it +upon too slight acquaintance with the real conditions of the Middle +Ages.] + +[Footnote 181: Galluzzi, in his _Storia del Granducato di Toscana_, vol. +iv. p. 34, estimates the murders committed in Florence alone during the +eighteen months which followed the death of Cosimo I., at 186.] + +Compared with the later Middle Ages, compared with the Renaissance, this +period is distinguished by extraordinary ferocity of temper and by an +almost unparalleled facility of bloodshed.[182] + +[Footnote 182: In drawing up these paragraphs I am greatly indebted to a +vigorous passage by Signor Salvatore Bonghi in his _Storia di Lucrezia +Buonvisi_, pp. 7-9, of which I have made free use, translating his words +when they served my purpose, and interpolating such further details as +might render the picture more complete.] + +The broad political and religious contests which had torn the country in +the first years of the sixteenth century, were pacified. Foreign armies +had ceased to dispute the provinces of Italy. The victorious powers of +Spain, the Church, and the protected principalities, seemed secure in +the possession of their gains. But those international quarrels which +kept the nation in unrest through a long period of municipal wars, +ending in the horrors of successive invasions, were now succeeded by an +almost universal discord between families and persons. Each province, +each city, each village became the theater of private feuds and +assassinations. Each household was the scene of homicide and +empoisonment. Italy presented the spectacle of a nation armed against +itself, not to decide the issue of antagonistic political principles by +civil strife, but to gratify lawless passions--cupidity, revenge, +resentment--by deeds of personal high-handedness. Among the common +people of the country and the towns, crimes of brutality and bloodshed +were of daily occurrence; every man bore weapons for self-defence, and +for attack upon his neighbor. The aristocracy and the upper classes of +the _bourgeoisie_ lived in a perpetual state of mutual mistrust, ready +upon the slightest occasion of fancied affront to blaze forth into +murder. Much of this savagery was due to the false ideas of honor and +punctilio which the Spaniards introduced. Quarrels arose concerning a +salute, a title, a question of precedence, a seat in church, a place in +the prince's ante-chamber, a meeting in the public streets. Noblemen +were ushered on their way by servants, who measured distances, and took +the height of dais or of bench, before their master committed his +dignity by advancing a step beyond the minimum that was due. +Love-affairs and the code of honor with regard to women opened endless +sources of implacable jealousies, irreconcilable hatreds, and offenses +that could only be wiped out with blood. On each and all of these +occasions, the sword was ready to the right hand; and where this +generous weapon would not reach, the harquebuss and knife of paid +assassins were employed without compunction.[183] We must not, however, +ascribe this condition of society wholly or chiefly to Spanish +influences. + +[Footnote 183: The lax indulgence accorded by the Jesuit casuists to +every kind of homicide appears in the extracts from those writers +collected in _Artes Jesuiticae_ (Salisburgi, 1703, pp. 75-83). +Tamburinus went so far as to hold that if a man mixed poison for his +enemy, and a friend came in and drank it up before his eyes, he was not +bound to warn his friend, nor was he guilty of his friend's death (_Ib._ +p. 135, Art. 651).] + +It was in fact a survival of mediaeval habits under altered +circumstances. During the municipal wars of the thirteenth century, and +afterwards during the struggle of the despots for ascendency, the nation +had become accustomed to internecine contests which set party against +party, household against household, man against man. These humors in the +cities, as Italian historians were wont to call them, had been partially +suppressed by the confederation of the five great Powers at the close of +the fifteenth century, and also by a prevalent urbanity of manners. At +that epoch, moreover, they were systematized and controlled by the +methods of _condottiere_ warfare, which offered a legitimate outlet to +the passions of turbulent young men. But when Italy sank into the sloth +of pacification after the settlement of Charles V. at Bologna in 1530, +when there were no longer _condottieri_ to levy troops in rival armies, +when political parties ceased in the cities, the old humors broke out +again under the aspect of private and personal feuds. Though the names +of Guelf and Ghibelline had lost their meaning, these factions +reappeared, and divided Milan, the towns of Romagna, the villages of the +Campagna. In the place of _condottieri_ arose brigand chiefs, who, like +Piccolomini and Sciarra, placed themselves at the head of regiments, and +swept the country on marauding expeditions. Instead of exiles, driven by +victorious parties in the state to seek precarious living on a foreign +soil, bandits, proscribed for acts of violence, abounded. Thus the +habits which had been created through centuries of political ferment, +subsisted when the nation was at rest in servitude, assuming baser and +more selfish forms of ferocity. The end of the sixteenth century +witnessed the final degeneration and corruption of a mediaeval state of +warfare, which the Renaissance had checked, but which the miseries of +foreign invasions had resuscitated by brutalizing the population, and +which now threatened to disintegrate society in aimless anarchy and +private lawlessness. + +It must not be imagined that governments and magistracies were slack in +their pursuit of criminals. Repressive statutes, proclamations of +outlawry, and elaborate prosecutions succeeded one another with +unwearied conscientiousness. The revenues of states were taxed to +furnish blood-money and to support spies. Large sums were invariably +offered for the capture or assassination of escaped delinquents; and woe +to the wretches who became involved in criminal proceedings! Witnesses +were tortured with infernal cruelty. Convicted culprits suffered +horrible agonies before their death, or were condemned to languish out a +miserable life in pestilential dungeons. But the very inhumanity of this +judicial method, without mercy for the innocent, from whom evidence +could be extorted, and frequently inequitable in the punishments +assigned to criminals of varying degrees of guilt, taught the people to +defy justice, and encouraged them in brutality. They found it more +tolerable to join the bands of brigands who preyed upon their fields +and villages, than to assist rulers who governed so unequally and +cruelly. We know, for instance, that a robber chief, Marianazzo, refused +the Pope's pardon, alleging that the profession of brigandage was more +lucrative and offered greater security of life than any trade within the +walls of Rome. Thus the bandits of that generation occupied the specious +attitude of opposition to oppressive governments. There were, moreover, +many favorable chances for a homicide. The Church was jealous of her +rights of sanctuary. Whatever may have been her zeal for orthodoxy, she +showed herself an indulgent mother to culprits who demanded an asylum. +Feudal nobles prided themselves on protecting refugees within their +fiefs and castles. There were innumerable petty domains left, which +carried privileges of signorial courts and local justice. Cardinals, +ambassadors, and powerful princes claimed immunity from common +jurisdiction in their palaces, the courts and basements of which soon +became the resort of escaped criminals. No extradition treaties +subsisted between the several and numerous states into which Italy was +then divided, so that it was only necessary to cross a frontier in order +to gain safety from the law. The position of an outlaw in that case was +tolerably secure, except against private vengeance or the cupidity of +professional cut-throats, who gained an honest livelihood by murdering +bandits with a good price on their heads. Condemned for the most part in +their absence, these homicides entered a recognized and not +dishonorable class. They were tolerated, received, and even favored by +neighboring princes, who generally had some grudge against the state +from which the outlaws fled. After obtaining letters of safe-conduct and +protection, they enrolled themselves in the militia of their adopted +country, while the worst of them became spies or secret agents of +police. No government seems to have regarded crimes of violence with +severity, provided these had been committed on a foreign soil. Murders +for the sake of robbery or rape were indeed esteemed ignoble. But a man +who had killed an avowed enemy, or had shed blood in the heat of a +quarrel, or had avenged his honor by the assassination of a sister +convicted of light love, only established a reputation for bravery, +which stood him in good stead. He was likely to make a stout soldier, +and he had done nothing socially discreditable. On the contrary, if he +had been useful in ridding the world of an outlaw some prince wished to +kill, this murder made him a hero. In addition to the blood-money, he +not unfrequently received lucrative office, or a pension for life. + +A very curious state of things resulted from these customs. States +depended, in large measure, for the execution of their judicial +sentences in cases of manslaughter and treason, upon foreign murderers +and traitors. Towns were full of outlaws, each with a price upon his +head, mutually suspicious, individually desirous of killing some +fellow-criminal and thereby enriching his own treasury. If he were +successful, he received a fair sum of money, with privileges and +immunities from the state which had advertised the outlaw; and not +unfrequently he obtained the further right of releasing one or more +bandits from penalties of death or prison. It may be imagined at what +cross-purposes the outlaws dwelt together, with crimes in many states +accumulated on their shoulders; and what peril might ensue to society +should they combine together, as indeed they tried to do in Bedmar's +conspiracy against Venice. Meanwhile, the states kept this floating +population of criminals in check by various political and social +contrivances, which grew up from the exigencies and the habits of the +moment. Instead of recruiting soldiers from the stationary population, +it became usual, when a war was imminent, to enroll outlaws. Thus, when +Lucca had to make an inroad into Garfagnana in 1613, the Republic issued +a proclamation promising pardon and pay to those of its own bandits who +should join its standard. Men to the number of 591 answered this call, +and the little war which followed was conducted with more than customary +fierceness.[184] + +[Footnote 184: See Salvatore Bonghi, _op. cit._ p. 159.] + +Even the ordinary police and guards of cities were composed of fugitives +from other states, care being taken to select by preference those who +came stained only with honorable bloodshed. In 1593 the guard of the +palace of Lucca was reinforced by the addition of forty-three men, +among whom four were bandits for wounds inflicted upon enemies in open +fight; twelve for homicide in duel, sword to sword; five for the murder +of more than one person in similar encounters; one for the murder of a +sister, and the wounding of her seducer; two for mutilating an enemy in +the face; one for unlawful recruiting; one for wounding; one for +countenancing bandits; and sixteen simple refugees.[185] The phrases +employed to describe these men in the official report are sufficiently +illustrative of contemporary moral standards. Thus we read 'Banditi per +omicidi semplici _da buono a buono_, a sangue caldo, da spada a spada, +_o di nemici_.' 'Per omicidio d'una sorella _per causa d'onore_.' To +murder an enemy, or a sister who had misbehaved herself, was accounted +excusable. + +The prevalence of lawlessness encouraged a domestic custom which soon +grew into a system. This was the maintenance of so-called _bravi_ by +nobles and folk rich enough to afford so expensive a luxury. The outlaws +found their advantage in the bargain which they drew with their +employers; for besides being lodged, fed, clothed and armed, they +obtained a certain protection from the spies and professional murderers +who were always on the watch to kill them. Their masters used them to +defend their persons when a feud was being carried on, or directed them +against private enemies whom they wished to injure. + +[Footnote 185: Bonghi, _op. cit._ p. 159, note.] + +It is not uncommon in the annals of these times to read: 'Messer +So-and-so, having received an affront from the Count of V., employed the +services of three _bravi_, valiant fellows up to any mischief, with whom +he retired to his country house.' Or again: 'The Marquis, perceiving +that his neighbor had a grudge against him on account of the Signora +Lucrezia, thought it prudent to increase his bodyguard, and therefore +added Pepi and Lo Scarabone, bandits from Tuscany for murders of a +priest and a citizen, to his household.' Or again: 'During the vacation +of the Holy See the Baron X had, as usual, engaged men-at-arms for the +protection of his palace.' + +In course of time it became the mark of birth and wealth to lodge a +rabble of such rascals. They lived on terms of familiarity with their +employer, shared his secrets, served him in his amours, and executed any +devil's job he chose to command. Apartments in the basement of the +palace were assigned to them, so that a nobleman's house continued to +resemble the castle of a mediaeval baron. But the _bravi_, unlike +soldiery, were rarely employed in honorable business. They formed a +permanent element of treachery and violence within the social organism. +Not a little singular were the relations thus established. The community +of crime, involving common interests and common perils, established a +peculiar bond between the noble and his _bravo_. This was complexioned +by a certain sense of 'honor rooted in dishonor,' and by a faint +reflection from elder retainership. The compact struck between +landowner and bandit parodied that which drew feudal lord and wandering +squire together. There was something ignobly noble in it, corresponding +to the confused conscience and perilous conditions of the epoch. + +While studying this organized and half-tolerated system of social +violence, we are surprised to observe how largely it was countenanced +and how frequently it was set in motion by the Church. In a previous +chapter on the Jesuits, I have adverted to their encouragement of +assassination for ends which they considered sacred. In a coming chapter +upon Sarpi, I shall show to what extent the Roman prelacy was implicated +in more than one attempt to take away his life. The chiefs of the +Church, then, instead of protesting against this vice of corrupt +civilization in Italy, lent the weight of their encouragement to what +strikes us now, not only as eminently unchristian, but also as +pernicious to healthy national conditions of existence. We may draw two +conclusions from these observations: first, that religions, except in +the first fervor of their growth and forward progress, recognize the +moral conventions of the society which they pretend to regulate: +secondly, that it is well-nigh impossible for men of one century to +sympathize with the ethics of a past and different epoch. We cannot +comprehend the regicidal theories of the Jesuits, or the murderous +intrigues of a Borghese Pontiff's Court, without admitting that priests, +specially dedicated to the service of Christ and to the propagation of +his gospel, felt themselves justified in employing the immoral and +unchristian means which social custom placed at their disposal for +ridding themselves of inconvenient enemies. This is at the same time +their defense as human beings in the sixteenth century, and their +indictment as self-styled and professed successors of the Founder who +rebuked Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane. + +To make general remarks upon the state of sexual morality at this epoch, +is hardly needful. Yet there are some peculiar circumstances which +deserve to be noticed, in order to render the typical stories which I +mean to relate intelligible. We have already seen that society condoned +the murder of a sister by a brother, if she brought dishonor on her +family; and the same privilege was extended to a husband in the case of +a notoriously faithless wife. Such homicides did not escape judicial +sentence, but they shared in the conventional toleration which was +extended to murders in hot blood or in the prosecution of a feud. The +state of the Italian convents at this period gave occasion to crimes in +which women played a prominent part. After the Council of Trent reforms +were instituted in religious houses. But they could not be immediately +carried out; and, meanwhile, the economical changes which were taking +place in the commercial aristocracy, filled nunneries with girls who had +no vocation for a secluded life. Less money was yearly made in trade; +merchants became nobles, investing their capital in land, and securing +their estates on their eldest sons by entails. It followed that they +could not afford to marry all their daughters with dowries befitting the +station they aspired to assume. A large percentage of well-born women, +accustomed to luxury, and vitiated by bad examples in their homes, were +thus thrown on a monastic life. Signor Bonghi reckons that at the end of +the sixteenth century, more than five hundred girls, who had become +superfluous in noble families, crowded the convents in the single little +town of Lucca. At a later epoch there would have been no special peril +in this circumstance. But at the time with which we are now occupied, an +objectionable license still survived from earlier ages. The nunneries +obtained evil notoriety as houses of licentious pleasure, to which +soldiers and youths of dissolute habits resorted by preference.[186] +There appears to have been a specific profligate fanaticism, a +well-marked morbid partiality for these amours with cloistered virgins. +The young men who prosecuted them, obtained a nickname indicative of +their absorbing passion.[187] The attraction of mystery and danger had +something, no doubt, to do with this infatuation; and the fascination +that sacrilege has for depraved natures, may also be reckoned into the +account. To enjoy a lawless amour was not enough; but to possess a woman +who alternated between transports of passion and torments of remorse, +added zest to guilty pleasure. For men who habitually tampered with +magic arts and believed firmly in the devil, this raised romance to +rapture. It was a common thing for debauchees to seek what they called +_peripetezie di nuova idea_, or novel and exciting adventures +stimulative of a jaded appetite, in consecrated places. At any rate, as +will appear in the sequel of this chapter, convent intrigues occupied a +large space in the criminal annals of the day. + +_The Lady of Monza_. + +Virginia Maria de Leyva was a descendant of Charles V.'s general, +Antonio de Leyva, who through many years administered the Duchy of +Milan, and died loaded with wealth and honors.[188] + +[Footnote 186: In support of this assertion I translate a letter +addressed (Milan, September 15, 1622) by Cardinal Federigo Borromeo to +the Prioress of the Convent of S. Margherita at Monza (Dandolo, _Signora +di Monza_, p. 132). 'Experience of similar cases has shown how dangerous +to your holy state is the vicinity of soldiers, owing to the +correspondence which young and idle soldiers continually try to +entertain with monasteries, sometimes even under fair and honorable +pretexts.... Wherefore we have heard with much displeasure that in those +places of our diocese where there are convents of nuns and congregations +of virgins, ordinary lodgings for the soldiery have been established, +called lonely houses (_case erme_), where they are suffered or obliged +to dwell through long periods.' The Bishop commands the Prioress to +admit no soldier, on any plea of piety, devotion or family relationship, +into her convent; to receive no servant or emissary of a soldier; to +forbid special services being performed in the chapel at the instance of +a soldier; and, finally, to institute a more rigorous system of watch +and ward than had been formerly practiced.] + +[Footnote 187: In Venice, for example, they were called _Monachini_. But +the name varied in various provinces.] + +[Footnote 188: The following abstract of the history of Virginia Maria +de Leyva is based on Dandolo's _Signora di Monza_ (Milano, 1855). +Readers of Manzoni's _I Promessi Sposi_, and of Rosini's tiresome novel, +_La Signora di Monza_, will be already familiar with her in romance +under the name of Gertrude.] + +For his military service he was rewarded with the principality of +Ascoli, the federal lordship of the town of Monza, and the life-tenure +of the city of Pavia. Virginia's father was named Martino, and upon his +death her cousin succeeded to the titles of the house. She, for family +reasons, entered the convent of S. Margherita at Monza, about the year +1595. Here she occupied a place of considerable importance, being the +daughter of the Lord of Monza, of princely blood, wealthy, and allied to +the great houses of the Milanese. S. Margherita was a convent of the +Umiliate, dedicated to the education of noble girls, in which, +therefore, considerable laxity of discipline prevailed.[189] + +[Footnote 189: Carlo Borromeo found it necessary to suppress the +Umiliati. But he left the female establishment of S. Margherita +untouched.] + +Sister Virginia dwelt at ease within its walls, holding a kind of little +court, and exercising an undefined authority in petty affairs which was +conceded to her rank. Among her favorite companions at the time of the +events I am about to narrate, were numbered the Sisters Ottavia Ricci, +Benedetta Homata, Candida Brancolina, and Silvia Casata; she was waited +on by a converse sister, Caterina da Meda. Adjoining the convent stood +the house and garden of a certain Gianpaolo Osio, who plays the +principal part in Virginia's tragedy. He must have been a young man of +distinguished appearance; for when Virginia first set eyes upon him +from a window overlooking his grounds, she exclaimed: 'Is it possible +that one could ever gaze on anything more beautiful?' He attracted her +notice as early as the year 1599 or 1600, under circumstances not very +favorable to the plan he had in view. His hands were red with the blood +of Virginia's bailiff, Giuseppe Molteno, whom he had murdered for some +cause unknown to us. During their first interview (Virginia leaning from +the window of her friend Candida's cell, and Osio standing on his +garden-plot beneath), the young man courteously excused himself for this +act of violence, adding that he would serve her even more devotedly than +the dead Molteno, and begging to be allowed to write her a letter. When +the letter came, it was couched in terms expressive of a lawless +passion. Virginia's noble blood rebelled against the insult, and she +sent an answer back, rebuffing her audacious suitor. The go-betweens in +the correspondence which ensued were the two nuns, Ottavia and +Benedetta, and a certain Giuseppe Pesen, who served as letter-carrier. +Osio did not allow himself to be discouraged by a first refusal, but +took the hazardous step of opening his mind to the confessor of the +convent, Paolo Arrigone, a priest of San Maurizio in Milan. Arrigone at +once lent himself to the intrigue, and taught Osio what kind of letters +he should write Virginia. They were to be courteous, respectful, +blending pious rhetoric with mystical suggestions of romantic passion. +It seems that the confessor composed these documents himself, and +advised his fair penitent that there was no sin in perusing them. From +correspondence, Osio next passed to interviews. By the aid of Arrigone +he gained access to the parlor of the convent, where he conversed with +Virginia through the bars. In their earlier meetings the lover did not +venture beyond compliments and modest protestations of devotion. But as +time went on, he advanced to kisses and caresses, and once he made +Virginia take a little jewel into her mouth. This was a white loadstone, +blessed by Arrigone, and intended to operate like a love-charm. The +girl, in fact, began to feel the influence of her seducer. In the final +confession which she made, she relates how she fought against +temptation. 'Some diabolical force compelled me to go to the window +overlooking his garden; and one day when Sister Ottavia told me that +Osio was standing there, I fainted from the effort to restrain myself. +This happened several times. At one moment I flew into a rage, and +prayed to God to help me; at another I felt lifted from the ground, and +forced to go and gaze on him. Sometimes when the fit was on me, I tore +my hair; I even thought of killing myself.' Virginia was surrounded by +persons who had an interest in helping Osio. Not only the confessor, who +was a man of infamous character, but her friends among the nuns, +themselves accustomed to intrigue of a like nature, led her down the +path to ruin. False keys were made, and one or other of the faithless +sisters introduced the young man into the convent at night. When +Virginia resisted, and enlarged upon the sacrilege of breaking cloister, +Arrigone supplied her with a printed book of casuistry, in which it was +written that though it might be sinful for a nun to leave her convent, +there was no sin in a man entering it. At last she fell; and for seven +years she lived in close intimacy with her lover, passing the nights +with him, either in his own house or in one of the cells of S. +Margherita. On one occasion, when he had to fly from justice, the girls +concealed him in their rooms for fifteen days. The first fruit of this +amour was a stillborn child; after giving birth to which, Virginia sold +all the silver she possessed, and sent a votive tablet to Our Lady of +Loreto, on which she had portrayed a nun and baby, kneeling and weeping. +'Twice again I sent the same memorial to our Lady, imploring the grace +of liberation from this passion. But the sorceries with which I was +surrounded, prevailed. In my bed were found the bones of the dead, hooks +of iron, and many other things, of which the nuns were well informed. +Nay, I would fain have given up my life to save my soul; and so great +were my afflictions, that in despair I went to throw myself into the +well, but was restrained by the image of the Virgin at the bottom of the +garden, for which I had a special devotion.' In course of time she gave +birth to a little girl, named Francesca, who frequented the convent, +and whom Osio legitimated as his child. + +It was impossible that a connection of long standing, known to several +accomplices, and corroborated by the presence of the child Francesca, +should remain hidden from the world. People began to speak about the +fact in Monza. A druggist, named Reinaro Soncini, gossiped somewhat too +openly. Osio had him shot one night by a servant in his pay. + +And now the lovers were engaged in a career of crime, which brought them +finally to justice. Virginia's waiting-woman Caterina fell into disgrace +with her mistress, and was shut up in a kind of prison by her orders. +The girl declared that she would bring the whole bad affair before the +superior authorities, and would do so immediately, seeing that Monsignor +Barca, the Visitor of S. Margherita, was about to make one of his +official tours of inspection. + +This threat cost Caterina her life. About midnight, while a +thunder-storm was raging, Virginia, accompanied by her usual associates, +Ottavia, Benedetta, Silvia, and Candida, entered the room where the girl +was confined. They were followed by Osio, holding in his hand a heavy +instrument of wood and iron, called _piede di bicocca_, which he had +snatched up in the convent outhouse. He found Caterina lying face +downward on the bed, and smashed her skull with a single blow. The body +was conveyed by him and the nuns into the fowl-house of the sisters, +whence he removed it on the following night by the aid of Benedetta into +his own dwelling. From evidence which afterwards transpired, Osio +decapitated the corpse, concealed the body in a sort of cellar, and +flung the head into an empty well at Velate. + +The disappearance of Caterina just before the visitation of Monsignor +Barca, roused suspicion; and, though a murder was not immediately +apprehended, the guilty associates felt that the cord of fate was being +drawn around them. In the autumn of 1607 the tempest broke upon their +heads. Virginia was removed from Monza to the convent called Del +Bocchetto at Milan; and on November 27 the depositions of the abbess, +prioress, and other members of S. Margherita were taken regarding Osio's +intrigues, the assassination of Soncini, and the disappearance of +Caterina. + +Among the nuns who had abetted Osio, the two most criminally implicated +were Ottavia and Benedetta. Their evidence, if closely scrutinized, must +reveal each secret of the past. It was much to Osio's interest, +therefore, that they should not fall into the hands of justice; nor had +he any difficulty in persuading them to rely on his assistance for +contriving their escape to some convent in the Bergamasque territory. We +may wonder, by the way, what sort of discipline was then maintained in +nunneries, if two so guilty sisters counted upon safe entrance into an +asylum, provided only they could leave the diocese of Milan for +another.[190] On the night of Thursday, November 30, 1607, Osio came to +the wall of the convent garden, and began to break a hole in it, through +which Ottavia and Benedetta crept. The three then prowled along the city +wall of Monza, till they found a breach wide enough for exit. Afterwards +they took a path beside the river Lambro, and stopped for awhile at the +church of the Madonna delle Grazie. Here the sisters prayed for +assistance from our Lady in their journey, and recited the _Salve +Regina_ seven times. Then they resumed their walk along the Lambro, and +at a certain point Ottavia fell into the river. In her dying depositions +she accused Osio of having pushed her in; and there seems little doubt +that he did so; for while she was struggling in the water, he disengaged +his harquebuss from his mantle and struck her several blows upon the +head and hands. + +[Footnote 190: In ecclesiastical affairs the diocese of Milan exercised +jurisdiction over that of Bergamo, although Bergamo was subject in civil +affairs to Venice. This makes the matter more puzzling.] + +She pretended to be dead, and was carried down the stream to a place +where she contrived to crawl to land. Some peasants came by, whose +assistance she implored. But they, observing that she was a nun of S. +Margherita by her dress, refused to house her for the rest of the night. +They gave her a staff to lean on, and after a painful journey she +regained the church of the Grazie at early dawn. Ottavia's wounds upon +the head, face, and right hand, inflicted by the stock of Osio's gun, +were so serious that after making a clean breast to her judges, she died +of them upon December 26, 1607. + +When Osio had pushed Ottavia into the Lambro, and had tried to smash her +brains out with his harquebuss, he resumed his midnight journey with +Sister Benedetta. They reached an uninhabited house in the country about +five or six miles distant from Monza. Here Osio shut Benedetta up in an +empty room with a stone bench running along the wall. She remained there +all Friday, visited once by her dreaded companion, who brought her +bread, cheese, and wine. She abstained from touching any of this food, +in fear of poison. About nine in the evening he returned, and bade her +prepare to march. They set out again, together, in the dark; and after +walking about three miles they came to a well, down which Osio threw +her. The well was deep, and had no water in it. Benedetta injured her +left side in the fall; and when she had reached the bottom, her would-be +murderer flung a big stone on her which broke her right leg. She +contrived to protect her head by gathering stones around it, and lay +without moaning or moving, in the fear that Osio would attempt fresh +violence unless he thought her dead. From the middle of Friday night, +until Sunday morning, she remained thus, exploring with her eyes the +surface of her dungeon. It was dry and strewn with bones. In one corner +lay a round black object which bore the aspect of a human skull. As it +eventually turned out, this was the head of Caterina, whom Benedetta +herself had helped to murder, and which Osio had thrown there. On +Sunday, during Mass, the men of the village of Velate were in church, +when they heard a voice from outside calling out, 'Help, help! I am at +the bottom of this well!' The well, as it happened, was distant some +dozen paces from the church door, and Benedetta had timed her call for +assistance at a lucky moment. The villagers ran to the spot, and drew +her out by means of a man who went down with a rope. She was then taken +to the house of a gentleman, Signor Alberico degli Alberici, who, when +no one else was charitable enough to receive her, opened his doors to +the exhausted victim of that murderous outrage. It may be remarked that +the same surgeon who had been employed to report on Ottavia's wounds, +now appeared to examine Benedetta. His name was Ambrogio Vimercati. +Benedetta was taken to the convent of S. Orsola, where her friend +Ottavia lay dying; and after making a full confession, she eventually +recovered her health, and suffered life-long incarceration in her old +convent. + +Osio was still at large. On December 20, he addressed a long letter to +the Cardinal Federigo Borromeo, in which he vainly attempted to defend +himself, and throw the blame on his associates. It is a loathsome +document, blending fulsome protestations and fawning phrases, with +brutal denouncements of his victims, and treacherous insinuations. One +passage deserves notice. 'Who was it,' he says, 'who suggested my +correspondence with Virginia? The priest Paolo Arrigone, that ruin of +the monastery! The Canon Pisnato, who is now confessor to the nuns of +Meda; in his house you will find what will never be discovered in mine, +presents from nuns, incitements to amours, and other such things. The +priest Giacomo Bertola, confessor of the nuns of S. Margherita; who was +his devotee? Sacha!--and he stayed there all the day through. These men, +being priests, are not prosecuted; they are protected by their cloth, +forsooth! It is only of poor Osio that folk talk. Only he is persecuted, +only he is a malefactor, only he is the traitor!' Arrigone, as a matter +of fact, was tried, and condemned to two years' labor at the galleys, +after the expiration of which term he was not to return to Monza or its +territory. This seems a slight sentence; for the judges found him +guilty, not only of promoting Osio's intrigue with Virginia, by +conducting the correspondence, and watching the door during their +interviews in the parlor, but also of pursuing the Signora himself with +infamous proposals. + +In his absence Osio was condemned to death on the gibbet. His goods were +confiscated to the State. His house in Monza was destroyed, and a +pillar of infamy recording his crimes, was erected on its site. A +proclamation of outlawry was issued on April 5, 1608, under the seal of +Don Pietro de Acevedo, Count of Fuentes, and governor of the State of +Milan, which offered 'to any person not himself an outlaw, or to any +commune, that shall consign Gianpaolo Osio to the hands of justice, the +reward of a thousand scudi from the royal ducal treasury, together with +the right to free four bandits condemned for similar or less offenses; +and in case of his being delivered dead, even though he shall be slain +in foreign parts, then the half of the aforesaid sum of money, and the +freedom of two bandits as above. And if the person who shall consign him +alive be himself an outlaw for similar or less offenses, he shall +receive, beside the freedom of himself and two other bandits, the half +of the aforesaid sum of money; and in the case of his consignment after +death, the freedom of himself and of two other bandits as aforesaid.' I +have recited this _Bando_, because it is a good instance of the +procedure in use under like conditions. Justice preferred to obtain the +culprit alive, and desired to receive him at honest hands. But there was +an expectation of getting hold of him through less reputable agents. +Therefore they offered free pardon to a bandit and a couple of +accomplices, who might undertake the capture or the murder of the +proscribed outlaw in concert, and in the event of his being produced +alive, a sum of money down. Osio, apparently, spent some years in +exile, changing place, and name, and dress, living as he could from hand +to mouth, until the rumor spread abroad that he was dead. He then +returned to his country, and begged for sanctuary from an old friend. +That friend betrayed him, had his throat cut in a cellar, and exposed +his head upon the public market place. + +Virginia was sentenced to perpetual incarceration in the convent of S. +Valeria at Milan. She was to be 'inclosed within a little dungeon, the +door of which shall be walled up with stones and mortar, so that the +said Virginia Maria shall abide there for the term of her natural life, +immured both day and night, never to issue thence, but shall receive +food and other necessaries through a small hole in the wall of the said +chamber, and light and air through an aperture or other opening.' This +sentence was carried into effect. But at the expiration of many years, +her behavior justified some mitigation of the penalty. She was set at +large, and allowed to occupy a more wholesome apartment, where the +charity of Cardinal Borromeo supplied her with comforts befitting her +station, and the reputation she acquired for sanctity. Her own family +cherished implacable sentiments of resentment against the woman who had +brought disgrace upon them. Ripamonte, the historian of Milan, says that +in his own time she was still alive: 'a bent old woman, tall of stature, +dried and fleshless, but venerable in her aspect, whom no one could +believe to have been once a charming and immodest beauty.' Her +associates in guilt, the nuns of S. Margherita, were consigned to +punishments resembling hers. Sisters Benedetta, Silvia and Candida +suffered the same close incarceration. + + +_Lucrezia Buonvisi_. + +The tale of Lucrezia Buonvisi presents some points of similarity to that +of the Signora di Monza.[191] + +[Footnote 191: _Storia di Lucrezia Buonvisi_, by Salvatore Bonghi, +Lucca, 1864. This is an admirably written historical monograph, based on +accurate studies and wide researches, containing a mine of valuable +information for a student of those times.] + +Her father was a Lucchese gentleman, named Vincenzo Malpigli, who passed +the better portion of his life at Ferrara, as treasurer to Duke Afonsono +II. He had four children; one son, Giovan Lorenzo, and three daughters, +of whom Lucrezia, born at Lucca in 1572, was probably the youngest. +Vincenzo's wife sprang from the noble Lucchese family of Buonvisi, at +that time by their wealth and alliances the most powerful house of the +Republic. Lucrezia spent some years of her girlhood at Ferrara, where +she formed a romantic friendship for a nobleman of Lucca named +Massimiliano Arnolfini. This early attachment was not countenanced by +her parents. They destined her to be the wife of one of Paolo Buonvisi's +numerous sons, her relatives upon the mother's side. In consequence of +this determination, she was first affianced to an heir of that house, +who died; again to another, who also died; and in the third place to +their brother, called Lelio, whom she eventually married in the year +1591. Lelio was then twenty-five years of age, and Lucrezia nineteen. +Her beauty was so distinguished, that in poems written on the ladies of +Lucca it received this celebration in a madrigal:-- + + Like the young maiden rose + Which at the opening of the dawn, + Still sprinkled with heaven's gracious dew, + Her beauty and her bosom on the lawn + Doth charmingly disclose, + For nymphs and amorous swains with love to view; + So delicate, so fair, Lucrezia yields + New pearls, new purple to our homely fields, + While Cupid plays and Flora laughs in her fresh hue. + +Less than a year after her marriage with Lelia Buonvisi, Lucrezia +resumed her former intimacy with Massimiliano Arnolfini. He was scarcely +two yeara her elder, and they had already exchanged vows of fidelity in +Ferrara. Massimiliano's temper inclined him to extreme courses; he was +quick and fervent in all the disputes of his age, ready to back his +quarrels with the sword, and impatient of delay in any matter he had +undertaken. Owing to a feud which then subsisted between the families of +Arnolfini and Boccella, he kept certain _bravi_ in his service, upon +whose devotion he relied. This young man soon found means to open a +correspondence with Lucrezia, and arranged meetings with her in the +house of some poor weavers who lived opposite the palace of the +Buonvisi. Nothing passed between them that exceeded the limits of +respectful courtship. But the situation became irksome to a lover so +hot of blood as Massimiliano was. On the evening of June 5, in 1593, his +men attacked Lelio Buonvisi, while returning with Lucrezia from prayers +in an adjacent church. Lelio fell, stabbed with nineteen thrusts of the +poignard, and was carried lifeless to his house. Lucrezia made her way +back alone; and when her husband's corpse was brought into the palace, +she requested that it should be laid out in the basement. A solitary +witness of this act of violence, Vincenzo di Coreglia, deposed to having +raised the dying man from the ground, put earth into his mouth by way of +Sacrament, and urged him to forgive his enemies before he breathed his +last. The weather had been very bad that day, and at nightfall it was +thundering incessantly. + +Inquisition was made immediately into the causes of Lelio's death. +According to Lucrezia's account, her husband had reproved some men upon +the road for singing obscene songs, whereupon they turned and murdered +him. The corpse was exposed in the Church of the Servi, where multitudes +of people gathered round it; and there an ancient dame of the Buonvisi +house, flinging herself upon her nephew's body, vowed vengeance, after +the old custom of the _Vocero_, against his murderers. Other members of +the family indicated Massimiliano as the probable assassin; but he +meantime had escaped, with three of his retainers, to a villa of his +mother's at S. Pancrazio, whence he managed to take the open country +and place himself in temporary safety. During this while, the judicial +authorities of Lucca were not idle. The Podesta issued a proclamation +inviting evidence, under the menace of decapitation and confiscation of +goods for whomsoever should be found to have withheld information. To +this call a certain Orazio Carli, most imprudently, responded. He +confessed to having been aware that Massimiliano was plotting the +assassination of somebody--not Lelio; and said that he had himself +facilitated the flight of the assassins by preparing a ladder, which he +placed in the hands of a _bravo_ called Ottavio da Trapani. This +revelation delivered him over, bound hand and foot, to the judicial +authorities, who at the same time imprisoned Vincenzo da Coreglia, the +soldier present at the murder. + +Massimiliano and his men meanwhile had made their way across the +frontier to Garfagnana. Their flight, and the suspicions which attached +to them, rendered it tolerably certain that they were the authors of the +crime. But justice demanded more circumstantial information, and the +Podesta decided to work upon the two men already in his clutches. On +June 4, Carli was submitted to the torture. The rack elicited nothing +new from him, but had the result of dislocating his arms. He was then +placed upon an instrument called the 'she-goat,' a sharp wooden trestle, +to which the man was bound with weights attached to his feet, and where +he sat for nearly four hours. In the course of this painful exercise, +he deposed that Massimiliano and Lucrezia had been in the habit of +meeting in the house of Vincenzo del Zoppo and Pollonia his wife, where +the _bravi_ also congregated and kept their arms. Grave suspicion was +thus cast on Lucrezia. Had she perchance connived at her husband's +murder? Was she an accomplice in the tragedy? + +Lucrezia's peril now became imminent. Her brother, Giovan Lorenzo +Malpigli, who remained her friend throughout, thought it best for her to +retire as secretly as possible into a convent. The house chosen was that +of S. Chiara in the town of Lucca. On June 5, she assumed the habit of +S. Francis, cut her hair, changed her name from Lucrezia to Umilia, and +offered two thousand crowns of dower to this monastery. Only four days +had elapsed since her husband's assassination. But she, at all events, +was safe from immediate peril; for the Church must now be dealt with; +and the Church neither relinquished its suppliants, nor disgorged the +wealth they poured into its coffers. The Podesta, when news of this +occurrence reached him, sent at once to make inquiries. His messenger, +Ser Vincenzo Petrucci, was informed by the Abbess that Lucrezia had just +arrived and was having her hair shorn. At his request, the novice +herself appeared--'a young woman, tall and pale, dressed in a nun's +habit, with a crown upon her head.' She declared herself to be 'Madonna +Lucretiina Malpigli, widow of Lelio Buonvisi.' The priest who had +conducted her reception, affirmed that 'the gentle lady, immediately +upon her husband's death, conceived this good prompting of the spirit, +and obeyed it on the spot.' + +For the moment, Lucrezia, whom in future we must call Sister Umilia, had +to be left unmolested. The judges returned to the interrogation of their +prisoners. Vincenzo del Zoppo and his wife Pollonia, in whose house the +lovers used to meet, were tortured; but nothing that implied a criminal +correspondence transpired from their evidence. Then the unlucky Carli +was once more put to the strappado. He fell into a deep swoon, and was +with difficulty brought to life again. Next his son, a youth of sixteen +years, was racked with similar results. On June 7, they resolved to have +another try at Vincenzo da Coreglia. This soldier had been kept on low +diet in his prison during the last week, and was therefore ripe, +according to the judicial theories of those times, for salutary +torments. Having been strung up by his hands, he was jerked and shaken +in the customary fashion, until he declared his willingness to make a +full confession. He had been informed, he said, that Massimiliano +intended to assassinate Lelio by means of his three bravi, Pietro da +Castelnuovo, Ottavio da Trapani, and Niccolo da Pariana. He engaged to +stand by and cover the retreat of these men. It was Carli, and not +Massimiliano, who had made overtures to him. On being once more +tortured, he only confirmed this confession. Carli was again summoned, +and set upon the 'she-goat,' with heavy weights attached to his feet. +The poor wretch sat for two hours on this infernal machine, the sharp +edges and spikes of which were so contrived as to press slowly and +deeply upon the tenderest portions of his body.[192] But he endured this +agony without uttering a word, until the judges perceived that he was at +the point of death. Next day, the 8th of June, Coreglia was again +summoned to the justice-chamber. Terrified by the prospect of future +torments, and wearied out with importunities, he at last made a clean +breast of all he knew. It was not Carli, but Massimiliano himself, who +had engaged him; and he had assisted at the murder of Lelio, which was +accomplished by two of the bravi, Ottavio and Pietro. Coreglia said +nothing to implicate Sister Umilia. On the contrary he asserted that she +seemed to lose her senses when she saw her husband fall. + +[Footnote 192: Campanelia, who was tortured in this way at Naples, says +that on one occasion a pound and a half of his flesh was macerated, and +ten pounds of his blood shed. 'Perduravi horis quadraginta, funiculis +arctissimis ossa usque secantibus ligatus, pendens manibus retro +contortis de fune super acutissimum lignum qui (?) carnis sextertium (?) +in posterioribus mihi devoravit et decem sanguinis libras tellus +ebibit.' Preface to _Atheismus Triumphatus_.] + +The General Council, to whom the results of these proceedings were +communicated, published an edict of outlawry against Massimiliano and +his three _bravi_. A price of 500 crowns was put upon the head of each, +wherever he should be killed; and 1,000 crowns were offered to any one +who should kill Massimiliano within the city or state of Lucca. At the +same time they sent an envoy to Rome requesting the Pope's permission to +arrest Umilia, on the ground that she was gravely suspected of being +privy to the murder, and of entering the convent to escape justice. A +few days afterwards, the miserable witnesses, Carli and Coreglia, were +beheaded in their prison. + +The Chancellor, Vincenzo Petrucci, left Lucca on June 12, and reached +Rome on the 14th. He obtained an audience from Clement VIII. upon the +15th. When the Pope had read the letter of the Republic, he struck his +palm down on his chair, and cried: 'Jesus! This is a grave case! It +seems hardly possible that a woman of her birth should have been induced +to take share in the murder of her husband.' After some conversation +with the envoy, he added: 'It is certainly an ugly business. But what +can we do now that she has taken the veil?' Then he promised to +deliberate upon the matter, and return an answer later. Petrucci soon +perceived that the Church did not mean to relinquish its privileges, and +that Umilia was supported by powerful friends at court. Cardinal +Castrucci remarked in casual conversation: 'She is surely punished +enough for her sins by the life of the cloister.' A second interview +with Clement on June 21 confirmed him in the opinion that the Republic +would not obtain the dispensation they requested. Meanwhile the Signory +of Lucca prepared a schedule of the suspicions against Umilia, grounded +upon her confused evidence, her correspondence with Massimiliano, the +fact that she had done nothing to rescue Lelio by calling out, and her +sudden resort to the convent. This paper reached the Pope, who, on July +8, expressed his view that the Republic ought to be content with leaving +Umilia immured in her monastery; and again, upon the 23rd, he pronounced +his final decision that 'the lady, being a nun, and tonsured and +prepared for the perfect life, is not within the jurisdiction of your +Signory. It is further clear that, finding herself exposed to the +calumnies of those two witnesses, and injured in her reputation, she +took the veil to screen her honor.' On August 13, Petrucci returned to +Lucca. + +Clement conceded one point. He gave commission to the Bishop of Lucca to +inquire into Umilia's conduct within the precincts of the monastery. But +the council refused this intervention, for they were on bad terms with +the Bishop, and resented ecclesiastical interference in secular causes. +Moreover, they judged that such an inquisition without torture used, and +in a place of safety, would prove worse than useless. Thus the affair +dropped. + +Meanwhile we may relate what happened to Massimiliano and his _bravi_. +They escaped, through Garfagnana and Massa, into the territory of +Alfonso Malaspina, Marquis of Villafranca and Tresana. This nobleman, +who delighted in protecting outlaws, placed the four men in security in +his stronghold of Tresana. Pietro da Castelnuovo was an outlaw from +Tuscany for the murder of a Carmelite friar, which he had committed at +Pietrasanta a few days before the assassination of Lelio. Seventeen +years after these events he was still alive, and wanted for grave crimes +committed in the Duchy of Modena. History knows no more about him, +except that he had a wife and family. Of Niccolo da Pariana nothing has +to be related. Ottavio da Trapani was caught at Milan, brought back to +Lucca, and hanged there on June 13, 1604, after being torn with pincers. +Massimiliano is said to have made his way to Flanders, where the +Lucchese enjoyed many privileges, and where his family had probably +hereditary connections.[193] Like all outlaws he lived in perpetual +peril of assassination. Remorse and shame invaded him, especially when +news arrived that the mistress, for whom he had risked all, was turning +to a dissolute life (as we shall shortly read) in her monastery. His +reason gave way; and, after twenty-two years of wandering, he returned +to Lucca and was caught. Instead of executing the capital sentence which +had been pronounced upon him, the Signory consigned him to perpetual +prison in the tower of Viareggio, which was then an insalubrious and +fever-stricken village on the coast. Here, walled up in a little room, +alone, deprived of light and air and physical decency, he remained +forgotten for ten years from 1615 to 1625. At the latter date report +was made that he had refused food for three days and was suffering from +a dangerous hemorrhage. When the authorities proposed to break the wall +of his dungeon and send a priest and surgeon to relieve him, he declared +that he would kill himself if they intruded on his misery. Nothing more +was heard of him until 1629, when he was again reported to be at the +point of death. This time he requested the assistance of a priest; and +it is probable that he then died at the age of sixty-nine, having +survived the other actors in this tragedy, and expiated the passion of +his youth by life-long sufferings. + +[Footnote 193: I may here allude to a portrait in our National Gallery +of a Lucchese Arnolfini and his wife, painted by Van Eyck.] + +When we return to Sister Umilia, and inquire how the years had worn with +her, a new chapter in the story opens. In 1606 she was still cloistered +in S. Chiara, which indeed remained her home until her death. She had +now reached the age of thirty-four. Suspicion meanwhile fell upon the +conduct of the nuns of S. Chiara; and on January 9, in that year, a +rope-ladder was discovered hanging from the garden wall of the convent. +Upon inquiry, it appeared that certain men were in the habit of entering +the house and holding secret correspondence with the sisters. Among +these the most notorious were Piero Passari, a painter, infamous for +vulgar profligacy, and a young nobleman of Lucca, Tommaso Samminiati. +Both of them contrived to evade justice, and were proclaimed, as usual, +outlaws. In the further course of investigation the strongest proofs +were brought to light, from which it appeared that the chief promoter +of these scandals was a man of high position in the state, advanced in +years, married to a second wife, and holding office of trust as +Protector of the Nunnery of S. Chiara. He was named Giovanbattista Dati, +and represented an ancient Lucchese family mentioned by Dante. While +Dati carried on his own intrigue with Sister Cherubina Mei, he did his +best to encourage the painter in promiscuous debauchery, and to foster +the passion which Samminiati entertained for Sister Umilia Malpigli. +Dati was taken prisoner and banished for life to the island of Sardinia; +but his papers fell into the hands of the Signory, who extracted from +them the evidence which follows, touching Umilia and Samminiati. This +young man was ten years her junior; yet the quiet life of the cloister +had preserved Umilia's beauty, and she was still capable of inspiring +enthusiastic adoration. This transpires in the letters which Samminiati +addressed to her through Dati from his asylum in Venice. They reveal, +says Signor Bonghi, a strange confusion of madness, crime, and +love.[194] + +[Footnote 194: Here again I have very closely followed the text of +Signor Bonghi's monograph, pp. 112-115.] + +Their style is that of a delirious rhetorician. One might fancy they had +been composed as exercises, except for certain traits which mark the +frenzy of genuine exaltation. Threats, imprecations, and blasphemies +alternate with prayers, vows of fidelity and reminiscences of past +delights in love. Samminiati bends before 'his lady' in an attitude of +respectful homage, offering upon his knees the service of awe-struck +devotion. At one time he calls her 'his most beauteous angel,' at +another 'his most lovely and adored enchantress.' He does not conceal +his firm belief that she has laid him under some spell of sorcery; but +entreats her to have mercy and to liberate him, reminding her how a +certain Florentine lady restored Giovan Lorenzo Malpigli to health after +keeping him in magic bondage till his life was in danger.[195] Then he +swears unalterable fealty; heaven and fortune shall not change his love. +It is untrue that at Florence, or at Venice, he has cast one glance on +any other woman. Let lightning strike him, if he deserts Umilia. But she +has caused him jealousy by stooping to a base amour. To this point he +returns with some persistence. Then he entreats her to send him her +portrait, painted in the character of S. Ursula. At another time he +gossips about the nuns, forwarding messages, alluding to their several +love-affairs, and condoling with them on the loss of a compliant +confessor. This was a priest, who, when the indescribable corruptions of +S. Chiara had been clearly proved, calmly remarked that there was no +reason to make such a fuss--they were only affairs of gentlefolk, _cose +di gentilhuomini_. The rival of whom Samminiati was jealous seems to +have been the painter Pietro, who held the key to all the scandals of +the convent in his hand. Umilia, Dati, and Samminiati at last agreed 'to +rid their neighborhood of that pest.' The man had escaped to Rovigo, +whither Samminiati repaired from Venice, 'attended by two good fellows +thoroughly acquainted with the district.' + +[Footnote 195: It appears that violent passion for a person was commonly +attributed at that epoch to enchantment. See above, the confession of +the Lady of Monza, p. 320.] + +But Pietro got away to Ferrara, his enemy following and again missing +him. Samminiati writes that he is resolved to hunt 'that rascal' out, +and make an end of him. Meanwhile Umilia is commissioned to do for +Calidonia Burlamacchi, a nun who had withdrawn from the company of her +guilty sisters, and knew too many of their secrets. Samminiati sends a +white powder, and a little phial containing a liquid, both of which, he +informs Umilia, are potent poisons, with instructions how to use them +and how to get Calidonia to swallow the ingredients. Then 'if the devil +does not help her, she will pass from this life in half a night's time, +and without the slightest sign of violence.' + +It may be imagined what disturbance was caused in the General Council by +the reading of this correspondence. Nearly all the noble families of +Lucca were connected by ties of blood or marriage with one or other of +the culprits; and when the relatives of the accused had been excluded +from the session, only sixty members were left to debate on further +measures. I will briefly relate what happened to the three outlaws. +Venice refused to give up Samminiati at the request of the Lucchese, +saying that 'the Republic of S. Mark would not initiate a course of +action prejudicial to the hospitality which every sort of person was +wont to enjoy there.' But the young man was banished to Candia, whither +he obediently retired. Pietro, the painter, was eventually permitted to +return to the territory but not the town of Lucca. Dati surrounded +himself with armed men, as was the custom of rich criminals on whose +head a price was set. After wandering some time, he submitted, and took +up his abode in Sardinia, whence he afterwards removed, by permission of +the Signory, to France. There he died. With regard to the nuns, it +seemed at first that the ends of justice would be defeated through the +jealousies which divided the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in +Lucca. The Bishop was absent, and his Vicar refused to institute a +criminal process. Umilia remained at large in the convent, and even +began a new intrigue with one Simo Menocchi. At last, in 1609, the Vicar +prepared his indictment against the guilty nuns, and forwarded it to +Rome. Their sentence was as follows: Sister Orizia condemned to +incarceration for life, and loss of all her privileges; Sister Umilia, +to the same penalties for a term of seven years; Sisters Paola, +Cherubina, and Dionea, received a lighter punishment. Orizia, it may be +mentioned, had written a letter with her own blood to some lover; but +nothing leads us to suppose that she was equally guilty with Umilia, +who had entered into the plot to poison Sister Calidonia. + +Umilia was duly immured, and bore her punishment until the year 1616, at +which time the sentence expired. But she was not released for another +two years; for she persistently refused to humble herself, or to request +that liberation as a grace which was her due in justice. Nor would she +submit to the shame of being seen about the convent without her monastic +habit. Finally, in 1618, she obtained freedom and restoration to her +privileges as a nun of S. Chiara. It may be added, as a last remark, +that, when the convent was being set to rights, Umilia's portrait in the +character of S. Ursula was ordered to be destroyed, or rendered fit for +devout uses by alterations. Any nun who kept it in her cell incurred the +penalty of excommunication. In what year Umilia died remains unknown. + + * * * * * + +_The Cenci_. + +Shifting the scene to Rome, we light upon a group of notable misdeeds +enacted in the last half of the sixteenth century, each of which is well +calculated to illustrate the conditions of society and manners at that +epoch. It may be well to begin with the Cenci tragedy. In Shelley's +powerful drama, in Guerrazzi's tedious novel, and Scolari's digest, the +legend of Beatrice Cenci has long appealed to modern sympathy. The real +facts, extracted from legal documents and public registers, reduce its +poetry of horror to comparatively squalid prose.[196] Yet, shorn of +romantic glamour, the bare history speaks significantly to a student of +Italian customs. Monsignore Cristoforo Cenci, who died about the year +1562, was in holy orders, yet not a priest. One of the clerks of the +Apostolic Camera, a Canon of S. Peter's, the titular incumbent of a +Roman parish, and an occupant of minor offices about the Papal Court and +Curia, he represented an epicene species, neither churchman nor layman, +which the circumstances of ecclesiastical sovereignty rendered +indispensable. Cristoforo belonged to a good family among that secondary +Roman aristocracy which ranked beneath the princely feudatories and the +Papal bastards. He accumulated large sums of money by maladministration +of his official trusts, inherited the estates of two uncles, and +bequeathed a colossal fortune to his son Francesco. This youth was the +offspring of an illicit connection carried on between Monsignore Cenci +and Beatrice Amias during the lifetime of that lady's husband. Upon the +death of the husband the Monsignore obtained dispensation from his +orders, married Beatrice, and legitimated his son, the inheritor of so +much wealth. Francesco was born in 1549, and had therefore reached the +age of thirteen when his father died. His mother, Beatrice, soon +contracted a third matrimonial union; but during her guardianship of the +boy she appeared before the courts, accused of having stolen clothing +from his tutor's wardrobe. + +[Footnote 196: _Francesco Cenci e la sua Famiglia_. Per A. Bertolotti, +Firenze, 1877.] + +Francesco Cenci disbursed a sum of 33,000 crowns to various public +offices, in order to be allowed to enter unmolested into the enjoyment +of his father's gains: 3,800 crowns of this sum went to the Chapter of +S. Peter's.[197] He showed a certain precocity; for at the age of +fourteen he owned an illegitimate child, and was accused of violence to +domestics. In 1563 his family married him to Ersilia, a daughter of the +noble Santa Croce house, who brought him a fair dowry. Francesco lived +for twenty-one years with this lady, by whom he had twelve children. +Upon her death he remained a widower for nine years, and in 1593 he +married Lucrezia Petroni, widow of a Roman called Velli. Francesco's +conduct during his first marriage was not without blame. Twice, at +least, he had to pay fines for acts of brutality to servants; and once +he was prosecuted for an attempt to murder a cousin, also named +Francesco Cenci. On another occasion we find him outlawed from the +States of the Church. Yet these offences were but peccadilloes in a +wealthy Roman baron; and Francesco used to boast that, with money in his +purse, he had no dread of justice. After the death of his wife Ersilia, +his behavior grew more irregular. Three times between 1591 and 1594 he +was sued for violent attacks on servants; and in February of the latter +year he remained six months in prison on multiplied charges of unnatural +vice. There was nothing even here to single Francesco Cenci out from +other nobles of his age.[198] Scarcely a week passed in Rome without +some affair of the sort involving outrage, being brought before the +judges. Cardinals, prelates, princes, professional men and people of the +lowest rank were alike implicated. The only difference between the +culprits was that the rich bought themselves off, while the destitute +were burned. Eleven poor Spaniards and Portuguese were sent to the stake +in 1578 for an offence which Francesco Cenci compounded in 1594 by the +payment of 100,000 crowns. After this warning and the loss of so much +money, he grew more circumspect, married his second wife Lucrezia, and +settled down to rule his family. His sons caused him considerable +anxiety. Giacomo, the eldest, married against his father's will, and +supported himself by forging obligations and raising money. Francesco's +displeasure showed itself in several lawsuits, one of which accused +Giacomo of having plotted against his life. The second son, Cristoforo, +was assassinated by Paolo Bruno, a Corsican, in the prosecution of a +love affair with the wife of a Trasteverine fisherman. The third son, +Rocco, spent his time in street adventures, and on one occasion laid his +hands on all the plate and portable property that he could carry off +from his father's house. This young ruffian, less than twenty years of +age, found a devoted friend in Monsignore Querro, a cousin of the family +well placed at court, who assisted him in the burglary of the Cenci +palace. Rocco was killed by Amilcare Orsini, a bastard of the Count of +Pitigliano, in a brawl at night. The young men met, Cenci attended by +three armed servants, Orsini by two. A single pass of rapiers, in which +Rocco was pierced through the right eye, ended the affair. + +[Footnote 197: He was afterwards forced, in 1590, to disgorge a second +sum of 25,000 crowns.] + +[Footnote 198: Prospero Farinaccio, the advocate of Cenci's murderers, +was himself tried for this crime (Bertolotti, _op. cit._ p. 104). The +curious story of the Spanish soldiers alluded to above will be found in +Mutinelli, _Stor. Arc_. vol. i. p. 121. See the same work of Mutinelli, +vol. i. p. 48, for a similar prosecution in Rome 1566; and vol. iv. p. +152 for another involving some hundred people of condition at Milan in +1679. Compare what Sarpi says about the Florentine merchants and Roman +_cinedi_ in his _Letters_, date 1609, vol. i. p. 288. For the manners of +the Neapolitans, _Vita di D. Pietro di Toledo (Arch. Stor. It_., vol. +ix. p. 23). The most scandalous example of such vice in high quarters +was given by Pietro de'Medici, one of Duke Cosimo's sons. _Galluzzi_, +vol. v. p. 174, and Litta's pedigree of the Medici. The _Bandi +Lucchesi_, ed. S. Bonghi, Bologna, 1863, pp. 377 381, treats the subject +in full; and it has been discussed by Canello, _op. cit._ pp. 20-23. The +_Artes Jesuiticae_, op. cit. Articles 62, 120, illustrate casuistry on +the topic.] + +In addition to his vindictive persecution of his worthless eldest son, +Francesco Cenci behaved with undue strictness to the younger, allowing +them less money than befitted their station and treating them with a +severity which contrasted comically with his own loose habits. The +legend which represents him as an exceptionally wicked man, cruel for +cruelty's sake and devoid of natural affection, receives some color from +the facts. Yet these alone are not sufficient to justify its darker +hues, while they amply prove that Francesco's children gave him +grievous provocation. The discontents of this ill-governed family +matured into rebellion; and in 1598 it was decided on removing the old +Cenci by murder. His second wife Lucrezia, his eldest son Giacomo, his +daughter Beatrice, and the youngest son Bernardo, were implicated in the +crime. It was successfully carried out at the Rocca di Petrella in the +Abruzzi on the night of September 9. Two hired _bravi_, Olimpio Calvetti +and Marzio Catalani, entered the old man's bedroom, drove a nail into +his head, and flung the corpse out from a gallery, whence it was alleged +that he had fallen by accident. Six days after this assassination +Giacomo and his brothers took out letters both at Rome and in the realm +of Naples for the administration of their father's property; nor does +suspicion seem for some time to have fallen upon them. It awoke at +Petrella in November, the feudatory of which fief, Marzio Colonna, +informed the government of Naples that proceedings ought to be taken +against the Cenci and their cut-throats. Accordingly, on December 10, a +ban was published against Olimpio and Marzio. Olimpio met his death at +an inn door in a little village called Cantalice. Three desperate +fellows, at the instigation of Giacomo de'Cenci and Monsignore Querro, +surprised him there. But Marzio fell into the hands of justice, and his +evidence caused the immediate arrest of the Cenci. It appears that they +were tortured and that none of them denied the accusation; so that +their advocates could only plead extenuating circumstances. To this fact +may possibly be due the legend of Beatrice. In order to mitigate the +guilt of parricide, Prospero Farinacci, who conducted her defense, +established a theory of enormous cruelty and unspeakable outrages +committed on her person by her father. With the same object in view, he +tried to make out that Bernardo was half-witted. There is quite +sufficient extant evidence to show that Bernardo was a young man of +average intelligence; and with regard to Beatrice, nothing now remains +to corroborate Farinaccio's hypothesis of incest. She was not a girl of +sixteen, as the legend runs, but a woman of twenty-two;[199] and the +codicils to her will render it nearly certain that she had given birth +to an illegitimate son, for whose maintenance she made elaborate and +secret provisions. That the picture ascribed to Guido Reni in the +Barberini palace is not a portrait of Beatrice in prison, appears +sufficiently proved. Guido did not come to Rome until 1608, nine years +after her death; and catalogues of the Barberini gallery, compiled in +1604 and 1623, contain no mention either of a painting by Guido or of +Beatrice's portrait. The Cenci were lodged successively in the prisons +of Torre di Nona, Savelli, and S. Angelo. They occupied wholesome +apartments and were allowed the attendance of their own domestics. That +their food was no scanty dungeon fare appears from the _menus_ of +dinners and suppers supplied to them, which include fish, flesh, fruit +salad, and snow to cool the water. In spite of powerful influence at +court, Clement VIII. at last resolved to exercise strict justice on the +Cenci. He was brought to this decision by a matricide perpetrated in +cold blood at Subiaco, on September 5, 1599. Paolo di S. Croce, a +relative of the Cenci, murdered his mother Costanza in her bed, with the +view of obtaining property over which she had control. The sentence +issued a few days after this event. Giacomo was condemned to be torn to +pieces by red hot pincers, and finished with a _coup de grace_ from the +hangman's hammer. Lucrezia and Beatrice received the slighter sentence +of decapitation; while Bernardo, in consideration of his youth, was let +off with the penalty of being present at the execution of his kinsfolk, +after which he was to be imprisoned for a year and then sent to the +galleys for life. Their property was confiscated to the Camera +Apostolica. These punishments were carried out.[200] But Bernardo, after +working at Civita Vecchia until 1606, obtained release and lived in +banishment till his death in 1627. Monsignor Querro, for his connivance +in the whole affair, was banished to the island of Malta, whence he +returned at some date before the year 1633 to Rome, having expiated his +guilt by long and painful exile. In this abstract of the Cenci tragedy, +I have followed the documents published by Signor Bertolotti. They are +at many points in startling contradiction to the legend, which is +founded on MS. accounts compiled at no distant period after the events. +One of these was translated by Shelley; another, differing in some +particulars, was translated by De Stendhal. Both agree in painting that +lurid portrait of Francesco Cenci which Shelley has animated with the +force of a great dramatist.[201] Unluckily, no copy of the legal +instructions upon which the trial was conducted is now extant. In the +absence of this all-important source of information, it would be unsafe +to adopt Bertolotti's argument, that the legend calumniates Francesco in +order to exculpate Beatrice, without some reservation. There is room for +the belief that facts adduced in evidence may have partly justified the +prevalent opinion of Beatrice's infamous persecution by her father. + +[Footnote 199: De Stendhal's MS. authority says she was sixteen, +Shelley's that she was twenty.] + +[Footnote 200: De Stendhal's MS. describes how Giacomo was torn by +pincers; Shelley's says that this part of the sentence was remitted.] + + + + +_The Massimi_. + + +The tragedy of the Cenci, about which so much has been written in +consequence of the supposed part taken in it by Beatrice, seems to me +common-place compared with that of the Massimi.[202] + +[Footnote 201: The author of De Stendhal's MS. professes to have known +the old Cenci, and gives a definite description of his personal +appearance.] + +[Footnote 202: Litta supplies the facts related above.] + +Whether this family really descended from the Roman Fabii matters but +little. In the sixteenth century they ranked, as they still rank, among +the proudest nobles of the Eternal City. Lelio, the head of the house, +had six stalwart sons by his first wife, Girolama Savelli. They were +conspicuous for their gigantic stature and herculean strength. After +their mother's death in 1571, their father became enamoured of a woman +inferior at all points, in birth, breeding, and antecedents, to a person +of his quality. She was a certain Eufrosina, who had been married to a +man called Corberio. The great Marc Antonio Colonna murdered this +husband, and brought the wife to Rome as his own mistress. Lelio Massimo +committed the grand error of so loving her, after she had served +Colonna's purpose, that he married her. This was an insult to the honor +of the house, which his sons could not or would not bear. On the night +of her wedding, in 1585, they refused to pay her their respects; and on +the next morning, five of them entered her apartments and shot her dead. +Only one of the six sons, Pompeo Massimo, bore no share in this +assassination. Him, the father, Lelio, blessed; but he solemnly cursed +the other five. After the lapse of a few weeks, he followed his wife to +the grave with a broken heart, leaving this imprecation unrecalled. +Pompeo grew up to continue the great line of Massimo. But disaster fell +on each of his five brothers, the flower of Roman youth, exulting in +their blood, and insolence, and vigor.--The first of them, Ottavio, was +killed by a cannon-ball at sea in honorable combat with the Turk. +Another, Girolamo, who sought refuge in France, was shot down in an +ambuscade while pursuing his amours with a gentle lady. A third, +Alessandro, died under arms before Paris in the troops of General +Farnese. A fourth, Luca, was imprisoned at Rome for his share of the +step-mother's murder, but was released on the plea that he had avenged +the wounded honor of his race. He died, however, poisoned by his own +brother, Marcantonio, in 1599.[203] Marcantonio was arrested on +suspicion and imprisoned in Torre di Nona, where he confessed his guilt. +He was shortly afterwards beheaded on the little square before the +bridge of S. Angelo. + + + +_Vittoria Accoramboni_. + + +Next in order, I shall take the story of Vittoria Accoramboni. It has +been often told already,[204] yet it combines so many points of interest +bearing upon the social life of the Italians in my period, that to omit +it would be to sacrifice the most important document bearing on the +matter of this chapter. As the Signora di Monza and Lucrezia Buonvisi +help us to understand the secret history of families and convents, so +Vittoria Accoramboni introduces us to that of courts. + +[Footnote 203: This fratricide, concurring with the matricide of S. +Croce, contributed to the rigor with which the Cenci parricide was +punished in that year of Roman crimes.] + +[Footnote 204: _The White Devil_, a tragedy by John Webster, London, +1612; De Stendhal's _Chroniques et Nouvelles_, Vittoria Accoramboni, +Paris 1855; _Vittoria Accoramboni_, D. Gnoli, Firenze, 1870; _Italian +Byways_, by J.A. Symonds, London, 1883. The greater part of follows +above is extracted from my _Italian Byways_.] + +It will be noticed how the same machinery of lawless nobles and +profligate _bravi_, acting in concert with bold women, is brought into +play throughout the tragedies which form the substance of our present +inquiry. + +Vittoria was born in 1557, of a noble but impoverished family, at Gubbio +among the hills of Umbria. Her biographers are rapturous in their +praises of her beauty, grace, and exceeding charm of manner. Not only +was her person most lovely, but her mind shone at first with all the +amiable luster of a modest, innocent, and winning youth. Her father, +Claudio Accoramboni, removed to Rome, where his numerous children were +brought up under the care of their mother, Tarquinia, an ambitious +woman, bent on rehabilitating the decayed honors of her house. Here +Vittoria in early girlhood soon became the fashion. She exercised an +irresistible influence over all who saw her, and many were the offers of +marriage she refused. At length a suitor appeared whose condition and +connection with the Roman ecclesiastical nobility rendered him +acceptable in the eyes of the Accoramboni. Francesco Peretti was +welcomed as the successful candidate for Vittoria's hand. His mother, +Camilla, was sister to Felice, Cardinal of Montalto; and her son, +Francesco Mignucci, had changed both of his names to Felice Peretti in +compliment to this illustrious relative.[205] + +It was the nephew, then, of the future Sixtus V., that Vittoria +Accoramboni married on June 28, 1573. For a short while the young couple +lived happily together. According to some accounts of their married +life, the bride secured the favor of her powerful uncle-in-law, who +indulged her costly fancies to the full. It is, however, more probable +that the Cardinal Montalto treated her follies with a grudging +parsimony; for we soon find the Peretti household hopelessly involved in +debt. Discord, too, arose between Vittoria and her husband on the score +of levity in her behavior; and it was rumored that even during the brief +space of their union she had proved a faithless wife. Yet she contrived +to keep Francesco's confidence, and it is certain that her family +profited by their connection with the Peretti. Of her six brothers, +Mario, the eldest, was a favorite courtier of the great Cardinal d'Este. +Ottavio was in orders, and through Montalto's influence obtained the See +of Fossombrone. The same eminent protector placed Scipione in the +service of the Cardinal Sforza. Camillo, famous for his beauty and his +courage, followed the fortunes of Filibert of Savoy, and died in France. +Flaminio was still a boy, dependent, as the sequel of this story shows, +upon his sister's destiny. + +[Footnote 205: I find a Felice Peretti mentioned in the will of Giacomo +Cenci condemned in 1597. But this was after the death of this Peretti, +whom I shall continue to call Francesco.] + +Of Marcello, the second in age and most important in the action of this +tragedy, it is needful to speak with more particularity. He was young, +and, like the rest of his breed, singularly handsome--so handsome, +indeed, that he is said to have gained an infamous ascendency over the +great Duke of Bracciano, whose privy chamberlain he had become. Marcello +was an outlaw for the murder of Matteo Pallavicino, the brother of the +Cardinal of that name. This did not, however, prevent the chief of the +Orsini house from making him his favorite and confidential friend. +Marcello, who seems to have realized in actual life the worst vices of +those Roman courtiers described for us by Aretino, very soon conceived +the plan of exalting his own fortunes by trading on his sister's beauty. +He worked upon the Duke of Bracciano's mind so cleverly that he brought +this haughty prince to the point of an insane passion for Peretti's +young wife; and meanwhile he so contrived to inflame the ambition of +Vittoria and her mother, Tarquinia, that both were prepared to dare the +worst of crimes in expectation of a dukedom. The game was a difficult +one to play. Not only had Francesco Peretti first to be murdered, but +the inequality of birth and wealth and station between Vittoria and the +Duke of Bracciano rendered a marriage almost impossible. It was also an +affair of delicacy to stimulate without satisfying the Duke s passion. +Yet Marcello did not despair. The stakes were high enough to justify +great risks; and all he put in peril was his sister's honor, the fame +of the Accoramboni, and the favor of Montalto. Vittoria, for her part, +trusted in her power to ensnare and secure the noble prey both had in +view. + +Paolo Giordano Orsini, born about the year 1637, was reigning Duke of +Bracciano. Among Italian princes he ranked almost upon a par with the +Dukes of Urbino; and his family, by its alliances, was more illustrious +than any of that time in Italy. He was a man of gigantic stature, +prodigious corpulence, and marked personal daring; agreeable in manners, +but subject to uncontrollable fits of passion, and incapable of +self-restraint when crossed in any whim or fancy. Upon the habit of his +body it is needful to insist, in order that the part he played in this +tragedy of intrigue, crime, and passion may be well defined. He found it +difficult to procure a charger equal to his weight, and he was so fat +that a special dispensation relieved him from the duty of genuflexion in +the Papal presence. Though lord of a large territory, yielding princely +revenues, he labored under heavy debts; for no great noble of the period +lived more splendidly, with less regard for his finances. In the +politics of that age and country, Paolo Giordano leaned towards France. +Yet he was a grandee of Spain, and had played a distinguished part in +the battle of Lepanto. Now, the Duke of Bracciano was a widower. He had +been married in 1553 to Isabella de'Medici, daughter of the Grand, Duke +Cosimo, sister of Francesco, Bianca Capello's lover, and of the +Cardinal Ferdinando. Suspicion of adultery with Troilo Orsini had fallen +on Isabella; and her husband, with the full concurrence of her brothers, +removed her in 1576 from this world by poison.[206] No one thought the +worse of Bracciano for this murder of his wife. In those days of +abandoned vice and intricate villany, certain points of honor were +maintained with scrupulous fidelity. A wife's adultery was enough to +justify the most savage and licentious husband in an act of +semi-judicial vengeance; and the shame she brought upon his head was +shared by the members of her own house, so that they stood by, +consenting to her death. Isabella, it may be said, left one son, +Virginio, who became, in due time, Duke of Bracciano. + +It appears that in the year 1581, four years after Vittoria's marriage, +the Duke of Bracciano satisfied Marcello of his intention to make her +his wife, and of his willingness to countenance Francesco Peretti's +murder. Marcello, feeling sure of his game, now introduced the Duke in +private to his sister, and induced her to overcome any natural +repugnance she may have felt for the unwieldy and gross lover. Having +reached this point, it was imperative to push matters quickly on toward +matrimony. + +[Footnote 206: The balance of probability leans against Isabella in this +affair. At the licentious court of the Medici she lived with +unpardonable freedom. Troilo Orsini was himself assassinated in Paris by +Bracciano's orders a few years afterwards.] + +But how should the unfortunate Francesco be entrapped? They caught him +in a snare of peculiar atrocity, by working on the kindly feelings which +his love for Vittoria had caused him to extend to all the Accoramboni. +Marcello, the outlaw, was her favorite brother, and Marcello at that +time lay in hiding, under the suspicion of more than ordinary crime, +beyond the walls of Rome. Late in the evening of April 18, while the +Peretti family were retiring to bed, a messenger from Marcello arrived, +entreating Francesco to repair at once to Monte Cavallo. Marcello had +affairs of the utmost importance to communicate, and begged his +brother-in-law not to fail him at a grievous pinch. The letter +containing this request was borne by one Dominico d'Aquaviva, _alias_ Il +Mancino, a confederate of Vittoria's waiting-maid. This fellow, like +Marcello, was an outlaw; but when he ventured into Rome he frequented +Peretti's house, and he had made himself familiar with its master as a +trusty bravo. Neither in the message, therefore, nor in the messenger +was there much to rouse suspicion. The time, indeed, was oddly chosen, +and Marcello had never made a similar appeal on any previous occasion. +Yet his necessities might surely have obliged him to demand some more +than ordinary favor from a brother. Francesco immediately made himself +ready to start out, armed only with his sword and attended by a single +servant. It was in vain that his wife and his mother reminded him of the +dangers of the night, the loneliness of Monte Cavallo, its ruinous +palaces and robber-haunted caves. He was resolved to undertake the +adventure, and went forth, never to return. As he ascended the hill, he +fell to earth, shot with three harquebusses. His body was afterwards +found on Monte Cavallo, stabbed through and through, without a trace +that could identify the murderers. Only, in the course of subsequent +investigations, Il Mancino (February 24, 1582) made the following +statements:--That Vittoria's mother, assisted by the waiting woman, had +planned the trap; that Marchionne of Gubbio and Paolo Barca of +Bracciano, two of the Duke's men, had despatched the victim. Marcello +himself, it seems, had come from Bracciano to conduct the whole affair. +Suspicion fell immediately upon Vittoria and her kindred, together with +the Duke of Bracciano; nor was this diminished when the Accoramboni, +fearing the pursuit of justice, took refuge in a villa of the Duke's at +Magnanapoli a few days after the murder. + +A cardinal's nephew, even in those troublous times, was not killed +without some noise being made about the matter. Accordingly, Pope +Gregory XIII. began to take measures for discovering the authors of the +crime. Strange to say, however, the Cardinal Montalto, notwithstanding +the great love he was known to bear his nephew, begged that the +investigation might be dropped. The coolness with which he first +received the news of Francesco Peretti's death, the dissimulation with +which he met the Pope's expression of sympathy in a full consistory, his +reserve while greeting friends on ceremonial visits of condolence, and, +more than all, the self-restraint he showed in the presence of the Duke +of Bracciano, impressed the society of Rome with the belief that he was +of a singularly moderate and patient temper. It was thought that the man +who could so tamely submit to his nephew's murder, and suspend the arm +of justice when already raised for vengeance, must prove a mild and +indulgent ruler. When, therefore, in the fifth year after this event, +Montalto was elected Pope, men ascribed his elevation in no small +measure to his conduct at the present crisis. Some, indeed, attributed +his extraordinary moderation and self-control to the right cause. +'_Veramente costui e un gran frate_!' was Gregory's remark at the close +of the consistory when Montalto begged him to let the matter of +Peretti's murder rest. '_Of a truth, that fellow is a consummate +hypocrite_!' How accurate this judgment was, appeared when Sixtus V. +assumed the reins of power. The priest who, as monk and cardinal, had +smiled on Bracciano, though he knew him to be his nephew's assassin, +now, as Pontiff and sovereign, bade the chief of the Orsini purge his +palace and dominions of the scoundrels he was wont to harbor, adding +significantly, that if the Cardinal Felice Peretti forgave what had been +done against him in a private station, the same man would exact +uttermost vengeance for disobedience to the will of Sixtus. The Duke of +Bracciano judged it best, after that warning, to withdraw from Rome. + +Francesco Peretti had been murdered on April 16, 1581. Sixtus V. was +proclaimed on April 24, 1585. In this interval Vittoria underwent a +series of extraordinary perils and adventures. First of all, she had +been secretly married to the Duke in his gardens of Magnanapoli at the +end of April 1581. That is to say, Marcello and she secured their prize, +as well as they were able, the moment after Francesco had been removed +by murder. But no sooner had the marriage become known, than the Pope, +moved by the scandal it created, no less than by the urgent instance of +the Orsini and Medici, declared it void. After some while spent in vain +resistance, Bracciano submitted, and sent Vittoria back to her father's +house. By an order issued under Gregory's own hand, she was next removed +to the prison of Corte Savella, thence to the monastery of S. Cecilia in +Trastevere, and finally to the Castle of S. Angelo. Here at the end of +December 1581, she was put on her trial for the murder of her first +husband. In prison she seems to have borne herself bravely, arraying her +beautiful person in delicate attire, entertaining visitors, exacting +from her friends the honors due to a duchess, and sustaining the +frequent examinations to which she was submitted with a bold, proud +front. In the middle of the month of July her constancy was sorely tried +by the receipt of a letter in the Duke's own handwriting, formally +renouncing his marriage. It was only by a lucky accident that she was +prevented on this occasion from committing suicide. The Papal court +meanwhile kept urging her either to retire to a monastery or to accept +another husband. She firmly refused to embrace the religious life, and +declared that she was already lawfully united to a living husband, the +Duke of Bracciano. It seemed impossible to deal with her; and at last, +on November 8, she was released from prison under the condition of +retirement to Gubbio. The Duke had lulled his enemies to rest by the +pretense of yielding to their wishes. But Marcello was continually +beside him at Bracciano, where we read of a mysterious Greek enchantress +whom he hired to brew love-philters for the furtherance of his ambitious +plots. Whether Bracciano was stimulated by the brother's arguments or by +the witch's potions need not be too curiously questioned. But it seems +in any case certain that absence inflamed his passion instead of cooling +it. + +Accordingly, in September 1583, under the excuse of a pilgrimage to +Loreto, he contrived to meet Vittoria at Trevi, whence he carried her in +triumph to Bracciano. Here he openly acknowledged her as his wife, +installing her with all the splendor due to a sovereign duchess. On +October 10 following, he once more performed the marriage ceremony in +the principal church of his fief; and in the January of 1584 he brought +her openly to Rome. This act of contumacy to the Pope, both as feudal +superior and as Supreme Pontiff, roused all the former opposition to his +marriage. Once more it was declared invalid. Once more the Duke +pretended to give way. But at this juncture Gregory died; and while the +conclave was sitting for the election of the new Pope, he resolved to +take the law into his own hands, and to ratify his union with Vittoria +by a third and public marriage in Rome. On the morning of April 24, +1585, their nuptials were accordingly once more solemnized in the Orsini +palace. Just one hour after the ceremony, as appears from the +marriage-register, the news arrived of Cardinal Montalto's election to +the Papacy. Vittoria lost no time in paying her respects to Camilla, +sister of the new Pope, her former mother-in-law. The Duke visited +Sixtus V. in state to compliment him on his elevation. But the reception +which both received proved that Rome was no safe place for them to live +in. They consequently made up their minds for flight. + +A chronic illness from which Bracciano had lately suffered furnished a +sufficient pretext. This seems to have been something of the nature of a +cancerous ulcer, which had to be treated by the application of raw meat +to open sores. Such details are only excusable in the present narrative +on the ground that Bracciano's disease considerably affects our moral +judgment of the woman who could marry a man thus physically tainted, and +with her husband's blood upon his hands. At any rate, the Duke's _lupa_ +justified his trying what change of air, together with the sulphur +waters of Abano, would do for him. + +The Duke and Duchess arrived in safety at Venice, where they had engaged +the Dandolo palace on the Zueca. There they only stayed a few days, +removing to Padua, where they had hired palaces of the Foscari in the +Arena and a house called De'Cavalli. At Salo, also, on the Lake of +Garda, they provided themselves with fit dwellings for their princely +state and their large retinues, intending to divide their time between +the pleasures which the capital of luxury afforded and the simpler +enjoyments of the most beautiful of the Italian lakes. But _la gioia dei +profani e un fumo passaggier_. Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, +died suddenly at Salo on November 10, 1585, leaving the young and +beautiful Vittoria helpless among enemies. What was the cause of his +death? It is not possible to give a clear and certain answer. We have +seen that he suffered from a horrible and voracious disease, which after +his removal from Rome seems to have made progress. Yet though this +malady may well have cut his life short, suspicion of poison was not, in +the circumstances, quite unreasonable. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, the +Pope, and the Orsini family were all interested in his death. Anyhow, he +had time to make a will in Vittoria's favor, leaving her large sums of +money, jewels, goods, and houses--enough, in fact, to support her ducal +dignity with splendor. His hereditary fiefs and honors passed by right +to his only son, Virginio. + +Vittoria, accompanied by her brother, Marcello, and the whole court of +Bracciano, repaired at once to Padua, where she was soon after joined by +Flaminio, and by the Prince Lodovico Orsini. Lodovico Orsini assumed the +duty of settling Vittoria's affairs under her dead husband's will. In +life he had been the duke's ally as well as relative. His family pride +was deeply wounded by what seemed to him an ignoble, as it was certainly +an unequal, marriage. He now showed himself the relentless enemy of the +Duchess. Disputes arose between them as to certain details, which seem +to have been legally decided in the widow's favor. On the night of +December 22, however, forty men, disguised in black and fantastically +tricked out to elude detection, surrounded her palace. Through the long +galleries and chambers hung with arras, eight of them went, bearing +torches, in search of Vittoria and her brothers. Marcello escaped, +having fled the house under suspicion of the murder of one of his own +followers. Flaminio, the innocent and young, was playing on his lute and +singing _Miserere_ in the great hall of the palace. The murderers +surprised him with a shot from one of their harquebusses. He ran, +wounded in the shoulder, to his sister's room. She, it is said, was +telling her beads before retiring for the night. When three of the +assassins entered, she knelt before the crucifix, and there they stabbed +her in the left breast, turning the poignard in the wound, and asking +her with savage insults if her heart was pierced. Her last words were, +'Jesus, I pardon you.' Then they turned to Flaminio, and left him +pierced with seventy-four stiletto wounds. + +The authorities of Padua identified the bodies of Vittoria and Flaminio, +and sent at once for further instructions to Venice. Meanwhile it +appears that both corpses were laid out in one open coffin for the +people to contemplate. The palace and the church of the Eremitani, to +which they had been removed, were crowded all through the following day +with a vast concourse of the Paduans. Vittoria's dead body, pale yet +sweet to look upon, the golden hair flowing around her marble shoulders, +the red wound in her breast uncovered, the stately limbs arrayed in +satin as she died, maddened the populace with its surpassing loveliness. +'_Dentibus fremebant_.' says the chronicler, when they beheld that +gracious lady stiff in death. And of a truth, if her corpse was actually +exposed in the chapel of the Eremitani, as we have some right to assume, +the spectacle must have been impressive. Those grim gaunt frescoes of +Mantegna looked down on her as she lay stretched upon her bier, solemn +and calm, and, but for pallor, beautiful as though in life. No wonder +that the folk forgot her first husband's murder, her less than comely +marriage to the second. It was enough for them that this flower of +surpassing loveliness had been cropped by villains in its bloom. +Gathering in knots around the torches placed beside the corpse, they +vowed vengeance against the Orsini; for suspicion, not unnaturally, fell +on Prince Lodovico. + +The Prince was arrested and interrogated before the court of Padua. He +entered their hall attended by forty armed men, responded haughtily to +their questions and demanded free passage for his courier to Virginio +Orsini, then at Florence. To this demand the court acceded; but the +precaution of waylaying the courier and searching his person was very +wisely taken. Besides some formal despatches which announced Vittoria's +assassination, they found in this man's boot a compromising letter, +declaring Virginio a party to the crime, and asserting that Lodovico had +with his own poignard killed their victim. Padua placed itself in a +state of defense, and prepared to besiege the palace of Prince Lodovico, +who also got himself in readiness for battle. Engines, culverins, and +fire-brands were directed against the barricades which he had raised. +The militia was called out and the Brenta was strongly guarded. +Meanwhile the Senate of S. Mark had despatched the Avogadore, Aloisio +Bragadin, with full power, to the scene of action. Lodovico Orsini, it +may be mentioned, was in their service: and had not this affair +intervened, he would in a few weeks have entered on his duties as +Governor for Venice of Corfu. + +The bombardment of Orsini's palace began on Christmas Day. Three of the +Prince's men were killed in the first assault; and since the artillery +brought to bear upon him threatened speedy ruin to the house and its +inhabitants, he made up his mind to surrender. 'The Prince Luigi,' +writes one chronicler of these events, 'walked attired in brown, his +poignard at his side, and his cloak slung elegantly under his arm. The +weapon being taken from him he leaned upon a balustrade, and began to +trim his nails with a little pair of scissors he happened to find +there.' + +On the 27th he was strangled in prison by order of the Venetian +Republic. His body was carried to be buried, according to his own will, +in the church of S. Maria dell'Orto at Venice. Two of his followers were +hanged next day. Fifteen were executed on the following Monday; two of +these were quartered alive; one of them the Conte Paganello, who +confessed to having slain Vittoria, had his left side probed with his +own cruel dagger. Eight were condemned to the galleys, six to prison, +and eleven were acquitted. + +Thus ended this terrible affair, which brought, it is said, good credit, +and renown to the lords of Venice through all nations of the civilized +world. It only remains to be added that Marcello Accoramboni was +surrendered to the Pope's vengeance and beheaded at Ancona, where also +his mysterious accomplice, the Greek sorceress, perished. + + + +_The Duchess of Palliano_. + + +It was the custom of Italians in the 16th and 17th centuries to compose +and circulate narratives of tragic or pathetic incidents in real life. +They were intended to satisfy curiosity in an age when newspapers and +law reports did not exist, and also to suit the taste of ladies and +gentlemen versed in Boccaccio and Bandello. Resembling the London +letters of our ancestors, they passed from hand to hand, rarely found +their way into the printing office, and when they had performed their +task were left to moulder in the dust of bookcases. The private archives +of noble families abound in volumes of such tales, and some may still be +found upon the shelves of public libraries. These MS. collections +furnish a mine of inexhaustible riches to the student of manners. When +checked by legal documents, they frequently reveal carelessness, +inaccuracy, or even willful distortion of facts. The genius of the +Novella, so paramount in popular Italian literature of that epoch, +presided over their composition, adding _intreccio_ to disconnected +facts, heightening sympathy by the suggestion of romantic motives, +turning the heroes or the heroines of their adventures into saints, and +blackening the faces of the villains. Yet these stories, pretending to +be veracious and aiming at information no less than entertainment, +present us with even a more vivid picture of customs than the Novelle. +By their truthful touches of landscape and incident painting, by their +unconscious revelation of contemporary sentiment in dialogue and ethical +analysis of motives, they enable us to give form and substance to the +drier details of the law-courts. One of these narratives I propose to +condense from the transcript made by Henri Beyle, for the sake of the +light it throws upon the tragedy of the Caraffa family.[207] It opens +with an account of Paul IV.'s ascent to power and a description of his +nephews. Don Giovanni, the eldest son of the Count of Montorio, was +married to Violante de Cardona, sister of the Count Aliffe. Paul +invested him with the Duchy of Palliano, which he wrested from Marc +Antonio Colonna. Don Carlo, the second son, who had passed his life as a +soldier, entered the Sacred College; and Don Antonio, the third, was +created Marquis of Montebello. The cardinal, as prime minister, assumed +the reins of government in Rome. The Duke of Palliano disposed of the +Papal soldiery. The Marquis of Montebello, commanding the guard of the +palace, excluded or admitted persons at his pleasure. Surrounded by +these nephews, Paul saw only with their eyes, heard only what they +whispered to him, and unwittingly lent his authority to their +lawlessness. They exercised an unlimited tyranny in Rome, laying hands +on property and abusing their position to gratify their lusts. No woman +who had the misfortune to please them was safe; and the cells of +convents were as little respected as the palaces of gentlefolk. To +arrive at justice was impossible; for the three brothers commanded all +avenues, civil, ecclesiastical, and military, by which the Pope could be +approached. + +Violante, Duchess of Palliano, was a young woman distinguished for her +beauty no less than for her Spanish pride. She had received a thoroughly +Italian education; could recite the sonnets of Petrarch and the stanzas +of Ariosto by heart, and repeated the tales of Ser Giovanni and other +novelists with an originality that lent new charm to their style.[208] +Her court was a splendid one, frequented by noble youths and gentlewomen +of the best blood in Naples. Two of these require particular notice: +Diana Brancaccio, a relative of the Marchioness of Montebello; and +Marcello Capecce, a young man of exceptional beauty. Diana was a woman +of thirty years, hot-tempered, tawny-haired, devotedly in love with +Domiziano Fornari, a squire of the Marchese di Montebello's household. +Marcello had conceived one of those bizarre passions for the Duchess, in +which an almost religious adoration was mingled with audacity, +persistence, and aptitude for any crime. The character of his mistress +gave him but little hope. Though profoundly wounded by her husband's +infidelities, insulted in her pride by the presence of his wanton +favorites under her own roof, and assailed by the importunities of the +most brilliant profligates in Rome, she held a haughty course, above +suspicion, free from taint or stain, Marcello could do nothing but sigh +at a distance and watch his opportunity. + +[Footnote 207: 'La Duchesse de Palliano,' in _Chroniques et Nouvelles_, +De Stendhal (Henri Beyle).] + +[Footnote 208: This touch shows what were then considered the +accomplishments of a noble woman.] + +At this point, the narrator seems to sacrifice historical accuracy for +the sake of combining his chief characters in one intrigue.[209] + +[Footnote 209: It was a street-brawl, in which the Cardinal Monte played +an indecent part, that finally aroused the anger of Paul IV. De +Stendhal's MS. shifts the chief blame on to the shoulders of Cardinal +Caraffa, who indeed appears to have been in the habit of keeping bad +company.] + +Though he assumes the tone of a novelist rather than a chronicler, there +has hitherto been nothing but what corresponds to fact in his +description of the Caraffa Cabal. He now explains their downfall; and +opens the subject after this fashion. At the beginning of the year 1559, +the Pope's confessor ventured to bring before his notice the scandalous +behavior of the Papal nephews. Paul at first refused to credit this +report. But an incident happened which convinced him of its truth. On +the feast of the Circumcision--a circumstance which aggravated matters +in the eyes of a strictly pious Pontiff--Andrea Lanfranchi, secretary to +the Duke of Palliano, invited the Cardinal Caraffa to a banquet. One of +the loveliest and most notorious courtesans of Rome, Martuccia, was +also present; and it so happened that Marcello Capecce at this epoch +believed he had more right to her favors than any other man in the +capital. That night he sought her in her lodgings, pursued her up and +down, and learned at last that she was supping with Lanfranchi and the +Cardinal. Attended by armed men, he made his way to Lanfranchi's house, +entered the banquet room, and ordered Martuccia to come away with him at +once. The Cardinal, who was dressed in secular habit, rose, and, drawing +his sword, protested against this high-handed proceeding. Martuccia, by +favor of their host, was his partner that evening. Upon this, Marcello +called his men; but when they recognized the Cardinal nephew, they +refused to employ violence. In the course of the quarrel, Martuccia made +her escape, followed by Marcello, Caraffa, and the company. There ensued +a street-brawl between the young man and the Cardinal; but no blood was +spilt, and the incident need have had but slight importance, if the Duke +of Palliano had not thought it necessary to place Lanfranchi and +Marcello under arrest. They were soon released, because it became +evident that the chief scandal would fall upon the Cardinal, who had +clearly been scuffling and crossing swords in a dispute about a common +prostitute. The three Caraffa brothers resolved on hushing the affair +up. But it was too late. The Pope heard something, which sufficed to +confirm his confessor's warnings; and on January 27, he pronounced the +famous sentence on his nephews. The Cardinal was banished to Civita +Lavinia, the Duke to Soriano, the Marquis to Montebello. The Duchess +took up her abode with her court in the little village of Gallese. It +was here that the episode of her love and tragic end ensued. + +Violante found herself almost alone in a simple village among mountains, +half-way between Rome and Orvieto, surrounded indeed by lovely forest +scenery, but deprived of all the luxuries and entertainments to which +she was accustomed. Marcello and Diana were at her side, the one eager +to pursue his hitherto hopeless suit, and the other to further it for +her own profit. One day Marcello committed the apparent imprudence of +avowing his passion. The Duchess rejected him with scorn, but disclosed +the fact to Diana, who calculated that if she could contrive to +compromise her mistress, she might herself be able to secure the end she +had in view of marrying Domiziano. In the solitude of those long days of +exile the waiting-woman returned again and again to the subject of +Marcello's devotion, his beauty, his noble blood and his manifold good +qualities. She arranged meetings in the woods between the Duchess and +her lover, and played her cards so well that during the course of the +fine summer weeks Violante yielded to Marcello. Diana now judged it wise +to press her own suit forward with Domiziano. But this cold-blooded +fellow knew that he was no fit match for a relative of the Marchioness +of Montebello. He felt, besides, but little sentiment for his fiery +_innamorata_. Dreading the poignard of the Caraffas, if he should +presume to marry her, he took the prudent course of slipping away in +disguise from the port of Nettuno. Diana maddened by disappointment, +flew to the conclusion that the Duchess had planned her lover's removal, +and resolved to take a cruel revenge. The Duke of Palliano was residing +at Soriano, only a few miles from Gallese. To bring him secret +information of his wife's intrigue was a matter of no difficulty. At +first he refused to believe her report. Had not Violante resisted the +seductions of all Rome, and repelled the advances even of the Duke of +Guise? At last she contrived to introduce him into the bedroom of the +Duchess at a moment when Marcello was also there. The circumstances were +not precisely indicative of guilt. The sun had only just gone down +behind the hills; a maid was in attendance; and the Duchess lay in bed, +penciling some memoranda. Yet they were sufficient to arouse the Duke's +anger. He disarmed Marcello and removed him to the prisons of Soriano, +leaving Violante under strict guard at Gallese. + +The Duke of Palliano had no intention of proclaiming his jealousy or of +suggesting his dishonor, until he had extracted complete proof. He +therefore pretended to have arrested Marcello on the suspicion of an +attempt to poison him. Some large toads, bought by the young man at a +high price two or three months earlier, lent color to this accusation. +Meanwhile the investigation was conducted as secretly as possible by the +Duke in person, his brother-in-law Count Aliffe, and a certain Antonio +Torando, with the sanction of the Podesta of Soriano. After examining +several witnesses, they became convinced of Violante's guilt. Marcello +was put to the torture, and eventually confessed. The Duke stabbed him +to death with his own hands, and afterwards cut Diana's throat for her +share in the business. Both bodies were thrown into the prison-sewer. +Meanwhile Paul IV. had retained the young Cardinal, Alfonso Caraffa, son +of the Marquis of Montebello, near his person. This prelate thought it +right to inform his grand-uncle of the occurrences at Soriano. The Pope +only answered: 'And the Duchess? What have they done with her?' Paul IV. +died in August, and the Conclave, which ended in the election of Pius +IV., was opened. During the important intrigues of that moment, Cardinal +Alfonso found time to write to the Duke, imploring him not to leave so +dark a stain upon his honor, but to exercise justice on a guilty wife. +On August 28, 1559, the Duke sent the Count Aliffe, and Don Leonardo del +Cardine, with a company of soldiers to Gallese. They told Violante that +they had arrived to kill her, and offered her the offices of two +Franciscan monks. Before her death, the Duchess repeatedly insisted on +her innocence, and received the Sacrament from the hands of Friar +Antonio of Pavia. The Count, her brother, then proceeded to her +execution. She covered her eyes with a handkerchief, which she, with +perfect _sang froid_, drew somewhat lower in order to shut his sight +out. Then he adjusted the cord to her neck; but, finding that it would +not exactly fit, he removed it and walked away. The Duchess raised the +bandage from her face, and said: "Well! what are we about then?" He +answered: "The cord was not quite right, and I am going to get another, +in order that you may not suffer." When he returned to the room, he +arranged the handkerchief again, fixed the cord, turned the wand in the +knot behind her neck, and strangled her. The whole incident, on the part +of the Duchess, passed in the tone of ordinary conversation. She died +like a good Christian, frequently repeating the words _Credo, Credo_. + +Contrary to the usual custom and opinion of the age, this murder of an +erring wife and sister formed part of the accusations brought against +the Duke of Palliano and Count Aliffe. It will be remembered that they +were executed in Rome, together with the elder Cardinal Caraffa, during +the pontificate of Pius IV. + +_Wife-Murders._ + +It would be difficult to give any adequate notion of the frequency of +wife-murders at this epoch in the higher ranks of society. I will, +however, mention a few, noticed by me in the course of study. Donna +Pellegrina, daughter of Bianca Capello before her marriage with the +Grand Duke of Tuscany, was killed at Bologna in 1598 by four masked +assassins at the order of her husband, Count Ulisse Bentivoglio. She had +been suspected or convicted of adultery; and the Court of Florence sent +word to the Count, 'che essendo vero quanto scriveva, facesse quello che +conveniva a cavaliere di honore.' In the light of open day, together +with two of her gentlewomen and her coachman, she was cut to pieces and +left on the road.[210] In 1690 at Naples Don Carlo Gesualdo, son of the +Prince of Venosta, assassinated his wife and cousin Donna Maria +d'Avalos, together with her lover, Fabricio Caraffa, Duke of Andri. This +crime was committed in his palace by the husband, attended by a band of +cut-throats.[211] In 1577, at Milan, Count Giovanni Borromeo, cousin of +the Cardinal Federigo, stabbed his wife, the Countess Giulia +Sanseverina, sister of the Contessa di Sala, at table, with three mortal +wounds. A mere domestic squabble gave rise to this tragedy.[212] In +1598, in his villa of Zenzalino at Ferrara, the Count Ercole Trotti, +with the assistance of a bravo called Jacopo Lazzarini, killed his wife +Anna, daughter of the poet Guarini. Her own brother Girolamo connived at +the act and helped to facilitate its execution. She was +accused--falsely, as it afterwards appeared from Girolamo's +confession--of an improper intimacy with the Count Ercole Bevilacqua. I +may add that Count Ercole Trotti's father, Alfonso, had murdered his own +wife, Michela Granzena, in the same villa.[213] + +[Footnote 210: Mutinelli, _Storia Arcana_, vol. ii. p. 64.] + +[Footnote 211: _Ib._ vol. ii. p. 162.] + +[Footnote 212: _Ib._ vol. i. p. 343.] + +_The Medici_. + +The history of the Medicean family during the sixteenth century +epitomizes the chief features of social morality upon which I have been +dwelling in this chapter. It will be remembered that Alessandro de' +Medici, the first Duke of Florence, poisoned his cousin Ippolito, and +was himself assassinated by his cousin Lorenzino. To the second of these +crimes Cosimo, afterwards Grand Duke of Tuscany, owed the throne of +Florence, on which, however, he was not secure until he had removed +Lorenzino from this world by the poignard of a bravo. Cosimo maintained +his authority by a system of espionage, remorseless persecution, and +assassination, which gave color even to the most improbable of +legends.[214] + +[Footnote 213: _I Guarini, Famiglia Nobile Ferrarese_ (Bologna, +Romagnoli, 1870), pp. 83-87.] + +[Footnote 214: In addition to the victims of his vengeance who perished +by the poignard, he publicly executed in Florence forty-two political +offenders.] + +But it is not of him so much as of his children that I have to speak. +Francesco, who reigned from 1564 till 1587, brought disgrace upon his +line by marrying the infamous Bianca Capello, after authorizing the +murder of her previous husband. Bianca, though incapable of bearing +children, flattered her besotted paramour before this marriage by +pretending to have borne a son. In reality, she had secured the +co-operation of three women on the point of child-birth; and when one of +these was delivered of a boy, she presented this infant to Francesco, +who christened him Antonio de'Medici. Of the three mothers who served +in this nefarious transaction, Bianca contrived to assassinate two, but +not before one of the victims to her dread of exposure made full +confession at the point of death. The third escaped. Another woman who +had superintended the affair was shot between Florence and Bologna in +the valleys of the Apennines. Yet after the manifestation of Bianca's +imposture, the Duke continued to recognize Antonio as belonging to the +Medicean family; and his successor was obliged to compel this young man +to assume the Cross of Malta, in order to exclude his posterity from the +line of princes.[215] + +[Footnote 215: See Mutinelli, _Storia Arcana_, vol. ii. pp.54-56, for +Antonio's reception into the Order.] + +The legend of Francesco's and Bianca's mysterious death is well known. +The Duchess had engaged in fresh intrigues for palming off a spurious +child upon her husband. These roused the suspicions of his brother +Cardinal Ferdinando de'Medici, heir presumptive to the crown. An angry +correspondence followed, ending in a reconciliation between the three +princes. They met in the autumn of 1587 at the villa of Poggio a Cajano. +Then the world was startled by the announcement that the Grand Duke had +died of fever after a few days' illness, and that Bianca had almost +immediately afterwards followed him to the grave. Ferdinand, on +succeeding to the throne, refused her the interment suited to her rank, +defaced her arms on public edifices, and for her name and titles in +official documents substituted the words, 'la pessima Bianca.' What +passed at Poggio a Cajano is not known. It was commonly believed in +Italy that Bianca, meaning to poison the Cardinal at supper, had been +frustrated in her designs by a blunder which made her husband the victim +of this plot, and that she ended her own life in despair or fell a +victim to the Cardinal's vengeance. This story is rejected both by Botta +and Galluzzi; but Litta has given it a partial credence.[216] Two of +Cosimo's sons died previously, in the year 1562, under circumstances +which gave rise to similar malignant rumors. Don Garzia and the Cardinal +Giovanni were hunting together in the Pisan marshes, when the latter +expired after a short illness, and the former in a few days met with a +like fate. Report ran that Don Garzia had stabbed his brother, and that +Cosimo, in a fit of rage, ran him through the body with his own sword. +In this case, although Litta attaches weight to the legend, the balance +of evidence is strongly in favor of both brothers having been carried +off by a pernicious fever contracted simultaneously during their +hunting expedition.[217] Each instance serves however, to show in what +an atmosphere of guilt the Medicean princes were enveloped. No one +believed that they could die except by fraternal or paternal hands. And +the authentic crimes of the family certainly justified this popular +belief. I have already alluded to the murders of Ippolito, Alessandro, +and Lorenzino. I have told how the Court of Florence sanctioned the +assassination of Bianca's daughter by her husband at Bologna.[218] I +must now proceed to relate the tragic tales of the princesses of the +house. + +Pietro de'Medici, a fifth of Cosimo's sons, had rendered himself +notorious in Spain and Italy by forming a secret society for the most +revolting debaucheries.[219] Yet he married the noble lady Eleonora di +Toledo, related by blood to Cosimo's first wife. Neglected and outraged +by her husband, she proved unfaithful, and Pietro hewed her in pieces +with his own hands at Caffaggiolo. Isabella de'Medici, daughter of +Cosimo, was married to the Duke of Bracciano. Educated in the empoisoned +atmosphere of Florence, she, like Eleonora di Toledo, yielded herself to +fashionable profligacy, and was strangled by her husband at +Cerretto.[220] + +[Footnote 216: I refer, of course, to Galluzzi's _Storia del Gran +Ducato_, vol. iv. pp. 241-244. Botta's _Storia d'Italia_, Book xiv., and +Litta's _Famiglie Celebri_ under the pedigree of Medici.] + +[Footnote 217: See Galluzzi, _op. cit._ vol. iii. p, 25, and Botta, _op. +cit._ Book xii.] + +[Footnote 218: See above, p. 381.] + +[Footnote 219: Litta may be consulted for details; also Galluzzi, _op. +cit._ vol. v. p. 174.] + +[Footnote 220: It maybe worth mentioning that Virginio Orsini, +Bracciano's son and heir, married Donna Flavia, grand niece of Sixtus +V., and consequently related to the man his father murdered in order to +possess Vittoria Accoramboni. See Mutinelli, _Storia Arcana_, vol. ii. +p. 72.] + +Both of these murders took place in 1576. Isabella's death, as I have +elsewhere related, opened the way for the Duke of Bracciano's marriage +with Vittoria Accoramboni, which had been prepared by the assassination +of her first husband, and which led to her own murder at Padua.[221] +Another of Cosimo's daughters, Lucrezia de'Medici, became Duchess of +Ferrara, fell under a suspicion of infidelity, and was possibly removed +by poison in 1561.[222] The last of his sons whom I have to mention, Don +Giovanni, married a dissolute woman of low birth called Livia, and +disgraced the name of Medici by the unprincely follies of his life. +Eleonora de'Medici, third of his daughters, introduces a comic element +into these funereal records. She was affianced to Vincenzo Gonzaga, heir +of the Duchy of Mantua. But suspicions, arising out of the circumstances +of his divorce from a former wife, obliged him to prove his marital +capacity before the completion of the contract. This he did at Venice, +before a witness, upon the person of a virgin selected for the +experiment.[223] Maria de'Medici, the only child of Duke Francesco, +became Queen of France. + +[Footnote 221: See above, pp. 361-369.] + +[Footnote 222: Galluzzi, vol. iii. p. 5, says that she died of a putrid +fever. Litta again inclines to the probability of poison. But this must +counted among the doubtful cases.] + +[Footnote 223: See Galluzzi, _op. cit._ vol. iv. pp. 195-197, for the +account of a transaction which throws curious light upon the customs of +the age. It was only stipulated that the trial should not take place +upon a Friday. Otherwise, the highest ecclesiastics gave it their full +approval.] The history of her amours with Concini forms an episode in +French annals. + +If now we eliminate the deaths of Don Garcia, Cardinal Giovanni, Duke +Francesco, Bianca Capello, and Lucrezia de'Medici, as doubtful, there +will still remain the murders of Cardinal Ippolito, Duke Alessandro, +Lorenzino de'Medici, Pietro Bonaventuri (Bianca's husband), Pellegrina +Bentivoglio (Bianca's daughter), Eleonora di Toledo, Francesco Casi +(Eleonora's lover), the Duchess of Bracciano, Troilo Orsini (lover of +this Duchess), Felice Peretti (husband of Vittoria Accoramboni), and +Vittoria Accoramboni--eleven murders, all occurring between 1535 and +1585, an exact half century, in a single princely family and its +immediate connections. The majority of these crimes, that is to say +seven, had their origin in lawless passion.[224] + +[Footnote 224: I have told the stories in this chapter as dryly as I +could. Yet it would be interesting to analyze the fascination they +exercised over our Elizabethan playwrights, some of whose Italian +tragedies handle the material with penetrative imagination. For the +English mode of interpreting southern passions see my _Italian Byways_, +pp. 142 _et seq._, and a brilliant essay in Vernon Lee's _Euphorion_.] + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC MORALS: PART II. + + + Tales illustrative of Bravi and Banditti--Cecco Bibboni--Ambrogio + Tremazzi--Lodovico dall'Armi--Brigandage--Piracy--Plagues--The + Plagues of Milan, Venice, Piedmont--Persecution of the + Untori--Moral State of the Proletariate--Witchcraft--Its Italian + Features--History of Giacomo Centini. + + +The stories related in the foregoing chapter abundantly demonstrate the +close connection between the aristocracy and their accomplices--bravos +and bandits. But it still remains to consider this connection from the +professional murderer's own point of view. And for this purpose, I will +now make use of two documents vividly illustrative of the habits, +sentiments, and social status of men who undertook to speculate in +bloodshed for reward. They are both autobiographical; and both relate +tragedies which occupied the attention of all Italy. + + +_Cecco Bibboni_. + +The first of these documents is the report made by Cecco Bibboni +concerning his method adopted for the murder of Lorenzino de'Medici at +Venice in 1546. Lorenzino, by the help of a bravo called Scoroncolo, had +assassinated his cousin Alessandro, Duke of Florence, in 1537. After +accomplishing this deed, which gained for him the name of Brutus, he +escaped from the city; and a distant relative of the murdered and the +murderer, Cosimo de'Medici, was chosen Duke in Alessandro's stead. One +of the first acts of his reign was to publish a ban of outlawry against +Lorenzino. His portrait was painted according to old Tuscan usage head +downwards, and suspended by one foot, upon the wall of Alessandro's +fortress. His house was cut in twain from roof to pavement, and a narrow +passage was driven through it, which received the name of Traitor's +Alley, _Chiasso del Traditore_. The price put upon his head was +enormous--four thousand golden florins, with a pension of one hundred +florins to the murderer and his heirs in perpetuity. The man who should +kill Lorenzino was, further, to enjoy amnesty from all offenses and to +exercise full civic rights; he was promised exemption from taxes, the +privilege of carrying arms with two attendants in the whole domain of +Florence, and the prerogative of restoring ten outlaws at his choice. If +he captured Lorenzino and brought him alive to Florence, the reward +would be double in each item. There was enough here to raise cupidity +and stir the speculative spirit. Cecco Bibboni shall tell us how the +business was brought to a successful termination.[225] + +[Footnote 225: For the Italian text see _Lorenzino de'Medici_, Daelli, +Milano, 1862. The above is borrowed from my _Italian Byways_.] + +'When I returned from Germany,' begins Bibboni, 'where I had been in +the pay of the Emperor, I found at Vicenza Bebo da Volterra, who was +staying in the house of M. Antonio da Roma, a nobleman of that city. +This gentleman employed him because of a great feud he had; and he was +mighty pleased, moreover, at my coming, and desired that I too should +take up my quarters in his palace.' + +Bibboni proceeds to say how another gentleman of Vicenza, M. Francesco +Manente, had at this time a feud with certain of the Guazzi and the +Laschi, which had lasted several years, and cost the lives of many +members of both parties and their following. M. Francesco, being a +friend of M. Antonio, besought that gentleman to lend him Bibboni and +Bebo for a season; and the two _bravi_ went together with their new +master to Celsano, a village in the neighborhood. 'There both parties +had estates, and all of them kept armed men in their houses, so that not +a day passed without feats of arms, and always there was some one killed +or wounded. One day, soon afterwards, the leaders of our party resolved +to attack the foe in their house, where we killed two, and the rest, +numbering five men, entrenched themselves in a ground-floor apartment; +whereupon we took possession of their harquebusses and other arms, which +forced them to abandon the villa and retire to Vicenza; and within a +short space of time this great feud was terminated by an ample peace.' +After this Bebo took service with the Rector of the University in Padua, +and was transferred by his new patron to Milan. Bibboni remained at +Vicenza with M. Galeazzo della Seta, who stood in great fear of his +life, notwithstanding the peace which had been concluded between the two +factions. At the end of ten months he returned to M. Antonio da Roma and +his six brothers, 'all of whom being very much attached to me, they +proposed that I should live my life with them, for good or ill, and be +treated as one of the family; upon the understanding that if war broke +out and I wanted to take part in it, I should always have twenty-five +crowns and arms and horse, with welcome home, so long as I lived; and in +case I did not care to join the troops, the same provision for my +maintenance.' + +From these details we comprehend the sort of calling which a bravo of +Bibboni's species followed. Meanwhile Bebo was at Milan. 'There it +happened that M. Francesco Vinta, of Volterra, was on embassy from the +Duke of Florence. He saw Bebo, and asked him what he was doing in Milan, +and Bebo answered that he was a knight errant.' This phrase--derived, no +doubt, from the romantic epics then in vogue--was a pretty euphemism for +a rogue of Bebo's quality. The ambassador now began cautiously to sound +his man, who seems to have been outlawed from the Tuscan duchy, telling +him he knew a way by which he might return with favor to his home, and +at last disclosing the affair of Lorenzino. Bebo was puzzled at first, +but when he understood the matter, he professed his willingness, took +letters from the envoy to the Duke of Florence, and, in a private +audience with Cosimo, informed him that he was ready to attempt +Lorenzino's assassination. He added that 'he had a comrade fit for such +a job, whose fellow for the business could not easily be found.' + +Bebo now traveled to Vicenza, and opened the whole matter to Bibboni, +who weighed it well, and at last, being convinced that the Duke's +commission to his comrade was _bona fide_, determined to take his share +in the undertaking. The two agreed to have no accomplices. They went to +Venice, and 'I,' says Bibboni, 'being most intimately acquainted with +all that city, and provided there with many friends, soon quietly +contrived to know where Lorenzino lodged, and took a room in the +neighborhood, and spent some days in seeing how we best might rule our +conduct.' Bibboni soon discovered that Lorenzino never left his palace; +and he therefore remained in much perplexity, until, by good luck, +Ruberto Strozzi arrived from France in Venice, bringing in his train a +Navarrese servant, who had the nickname of Spagnoletto. This fellow was +a great friend of the bravo. They met, and Bibboni told him that he +should like to go and kiss the hands of Messer Ruberto, whom he had +known in Rome. Strozzi inhabited the same palace as Lorenzino. 'When we +arrived there, both Messer Ruberto and Lorenzino were leaving the house, +and there were around them so many gentlemen and other persons, that I +could not present myself, and both straightway stepped into the +gondola. Then I, not having seen Lorenzino for a long while past, and +because he was very quietly attired, could not recognize the man +exactly, but only as it were between certainty and doubt. Wherefore I +said to Spagnoletto, "I think I know that gentleman, but don't remember +where I saw him." And Messer Ruberto was giving him his right hand. Then +Spagnoletto answered, "You know him well enough; he is Messer Lorenzino. +But see you tell this to nobody. He goes by the name of Messer Dario, +because he lives in great fear for his safety, and people don't know +that he is now in Venice." I answered that I marveled much, and if I +could have helped him, would have done so willingly. Then I asked where +they were going, and he said, to dine with Messer Giovanni della Casa, +who was the Pope's Legate. I did not leave the man till I had drawn from +him all I required.' + +Thus spoke the Italian Judas. The appearance of La Casa on the scene is +interesting. He was the celebrated author of the _Capitolo del Forno_, +the author of many sublime and melancholy sonnets, who was now at Venice +prosecuting a charge of heresy against Pier Paolo Vergerio, and paying +his addresses to a noble lady of the Quirini family. It seems that on +the territory of San Marco he made common cause with the exiles from +Florence, for he was himself by birth a Florentine, and he had no +objection to take Brutus-Lorenzino by the hand. + +After the noblemen had rowed off in their gondola to dine with the +Legate, Bibboni and his friend entered their palace, where he found +another old acquaintance, the house-steward, or _spenditore_ of +Lorenzino. From him he gathered much useful information. Pietro Strozzi, +it seems, had allowed the tyrannicide one thousand five hundred crowns a +year, with the keep of three brave and daring companions (_tre compagni +bravi e facinorosi_), and a palace worth fifty crowns on lease. But +Lorenzino had just taken another on the Campo di San Polo at three +hundred crowns a year, for which swagger (_altura_) Pietro Strozzi had +struck a thousand crowns off his allowance. Bibboni also learned that he +was keeping house with his uncle, Alessandro Soderini, another +Florentine outlaw, and that he was ardently in love with a certain +beautiful Barozza. This woman was apparently one of the grand courtesans +of Venice. He further ascertained the date when he was going to move +into the palace at San Polo, and, 'to put it briefly, knew everything he +did, and, as it were, how many times a day he spit.' Such were the +intelligences of the servants' hall, and of such value were they to men +of Bibboni's calling. + +In the Carnival of 1546 Lorenzino meant to go masqued in the habit of a +gypsy woman to the square of San Spirito, where there was to be a joust. +Great crowds of people would assemble, and Bibboni hoped to do his +business there. The assassination, however, failed on this occasion, and +Lorenzino took up his abode in the palace he had hired upon the Campo +di San Polo. This Campo is one of the largest open places in Venice, +shaped irregularly, with a finely curving line upon the western side, +where two of the noblest private houses in the city are still standing. +Nearly opposite these, in the south-western angle, stands, detached, the +little old church of San Polo. One of its side entrances opens upon the +square; the other on a lane which leads eventually to the Frari. There +is nothing in Bibboni's narrative to make it clear where Lorenzino hired +his dwelling. But it would seem from certain things which he says later +on, that in order to enter the church his victim had to cross the +square. Meanwhile Bibboni took the precaution of making friends with a +shoemaker, whose shop commanded the whole Campo, including Lorenzino's +palace. In this shop he began to spend much of his time; 'and oftentimes +I feigned to be asleep; but God knows whether I was sleeping, for my +mind, at any rate, was wide awake.' + +A second convenient occasion for murdering Lorenzino soon seemed to +offer. He was bidden to dine with Monsignor della Casa; and Bibboni, +putting a bold face on, entered the Legate's palace, having left Bebo +below in the loggia, fully resolved to do the business. 'But we found,' +he says, 'that they had gone to dine at Murano, so that we remained with +our tabors in their bag.' The island of Murano at that period was a +favorite resort of the Venetian nobles, especially of the more literary +and artistic, who kept country-houses there, where they enjoyed the +fresh air of the lagoons and the quiet of their gardens. + +The third occasion, after all these weeks of watching, brought success +to Bibboni's schemes. He had observed how Lorenzino occasionally so far +broke his rules of caution as to go on foot, past the church of San +Polo, to visit the beautiful Barozza; and he resolved, if possible, to +catch him on one of these journeys. 'It so chanced on February 28, which +was the second Sunday of Lent, that having gone, as was my wont, to pry +out whether Lorenzino would give orders for going abroad that day, I +entered the shoemaker's shop, and stayed awhile, until Lorenzino came to +the window with a napkin round his neck--for he was combing his hair +--and at the same moment I saw a certain Giovan Battista Martelli, who +kept his sword for the defense of Lorenzino's person, enter and come +forth again. Concluding that they would probably go abroad, I went home +to get ready and procure the necessary weapons, and there I found Bebo +asleep in bed, and made him get up at once, and we came to our +accustomed post of observation, by the church of San Polo, where our men +would have to pass.' Bibboni now retired to his friend the shoemaker's, +and Bebo took up his station at one of the side doors of San Polo: 'and, +as good luck would have it, Giovan Battista Martelli came forth, and +walked a piece in front, and then Lorenzino came, and then Alessandro +Soderini, going the one behind the other, like storks, and Lorenzino, on +entering the church, and lifting up the curtain of the door, was seen +from the opposite door by Bebo, who at the same time noticed how I had +left the shop, and so we met upon the street as we had agreed, and he +told me that Lorenzino was inside the church.' + +To any one who knows the Campo di San Polo, it will be apparent that +Lorenzino had crossed from the western side of the piazza and entered +the church by what is technically called its northern door. Bebo, +stationed at the southern door, could see him when he pushed the heavy +_stoia_ or leather curtain aside, and at the same time could observe +Bibboni's movements in the cobbler's shop. Meanwhile Lorenzino walked +across the church and came to the same door where Bebo had been +standing. 'I saw him issue from the church and take the main street; +then came Alessandro Soderini, and I walked last of all; and when we +reached the point we had determined on, I jumped in front of Alessandro +with the poignard in my hand, crying, "Hold hard, Alessandro, and get +along with you, in God's name, for we are not here for you!" He then +threw himself around my waist, and grasped my arms, and kept on calling +out. Seeing how wrong I had been to try to spare his life, I wrenched +myself as well as I could from his grip, and with my lifted poignard +struck him, as God willed, above the eyebrow, and a little blood +trickled from the wound. He, in high fury, gave me such a thrust that I +fell backward, and the ground besides was slippery from having rained a +little. Then Alessandro drew his sword, which he carried in its +scabbard, and thrust at me in front, and struck me on the corselet, +which for my good fortune was of double mail. Before I could get ready I +received three passes, which, had I worn a doublet instead of that +mailed corselet, would certainly have run me through. At the fourth pass +I had regained my strength and spirit, and closed with him, and stabbed +him four times in the head, and being so close he could not use his +sword, but tried to parry with his hand and hilt, and I, as God willed, +struck him at the wrist below the sleeve of mail, and cut his hand off +clean, and gave him then one last stroke on his head. Thereupon he +begged for God's sake spare his life, and I, in trouble about Bebo, left +him in the arms of a Venetian nobleman, who held him back from jumping +into the canal.' + +Who this Venetian nobleman, found unexpectedly upon the scene, was, does +not appear. Nor, what is still more curious, do we hear anything of that +Martelli, the bravo, 'who kept his sword for the defense of Lorenzino's +person.' The one had arrived accidentally, it seems. The other must have +been a coward and escaped from the scuffle. + +'When I turned,' proceeds Bibboni, 'I found Lorenzino on his knees. He +raised himself, and I in anger, gave him a great cut across the head, +which split it in two pieces, and laid him at my feet, and he never +rose again.' + +Bebo, meanwhile, had made off from the scene of action. And Bibboni, +taking to his heels, came up with him in the little square of San +Marcello. They now ran for their lives till they reached the traghetto +di San Spirito, where they threw their poignards into the water, +remembering that no man might carry these in Venice under penalty of the +galleys. Bibboni's white hose were drenched with blood. He therefore +agreed to separate from Bebo, having named a rendezvous. Left alone, his +ill luck brought him face to face with twenty constables (_sbirri_). 'In +a moment I conceived that they knew everything, and were come to capture +me, and of a truth I saw that it was over with me. As swiftly as I could +I quickened pace and got into a church, near to which was the house of a +Compagnia, and the one opened into the other, and knelt down and prayed +commending myself with fervor to God for my deliverance and safety. Yet +while I prayed, I kept my eyes well opened and saw the whole band pass +the church, except one man who entered, and I strained my sight so that +I seemed to see behind as well as in front, and then it was I longed for +my poignard, for I should not have heeded being in a church.' But the +constable, it soon appeared, was not looking for Bibboni. So he gathered +up his courage, and ran for the Church of San Spirito, where the Padre +Andrea Volterrano was preaching to a great congregation. He hoped to go +in by one door and out by the other, but the crowd prevented him, and he +had to turn back and face the _sbirri_. One of them followed him, having +probably caught sight of the blood upon his hose. Then Bibboni resolved +to have done with the fellow, and rushed at him, and flung him down with +his head upon the pavement, and ran like mad, and came at last, all out +of breath to San Marco. + +It seems clear that before Bibboni separated from Bebo they had crossed +the water, for the Sestiere di San Polo is separated from the Sestiere +di San Marco by the Grand Canal. And this they must have done at the +traghetto di San Spirito. Neither the church nor the traghetto are now +in existence, and this part of the story is therefore obscure.[226] + +[Footnote 226: So far as I can discover, the only church of San Spirito +in Venice was a building on the island of San Spirito, erected by +Sansavino, which belonged to the Sestiere di S. Croce, and which was +suppressed in 1656. Its plate and the fine pictures which Titian painted +there were transferred at that date to S. M. della Salute. I cannot help +inferring that either Bibboni's memory failed him, or that his words +were wrongly understood by printer or amanuensis. If for S. Spirito, we +substitute S. Stefano, the account would be intelligible.] + +Having reached San Marco, he took a gondola at the Ponte della Paglia, +where tourists are now wont to stand and contemplate the Ducal Palace +and the Bridge of Sighs. First, he sought the house of a woman of the +town who was his friend; then changed purpose, and rowed to the palace +of the Count Salici da Collalto. 'He was a great friend and intimate of +ours, because Bebo and I had done him many and great services in times +past. There I knocked; and Bebo opened the door, and when he saw me +dabbled with blood, he marveled that I had not come to grief and fallen +into the hands of justice; and, indeed, had feared as much because I had +remained so long away.' It appears, therefore, that the Palazzo Collalto +was their rendezvous. 'The Count was from home; but being known to all +his people, I played the master and went into the kitchen to the fire, +and with soap and water turned my hose, which had been white, to a grey +color.' This is a very delicate way of saying that he washed out the +blood of Alessandro and Lorenzino! + +Soon after the Count returned, and 'lavished caresses' upon Bebo and his +precious comrade. They did not tell him what they had achieved that +morning, but put him off with a story of having settled a _sbirro_ in a +quarrel about a girl. Then the Count invited them to dinner; and being +himself bound to entertain the first physician of Venice, requested them +to take it in an upper chamber. He and his secretary served them with +their own hands at table. When the physician arrived, the Count went +downstairs; and at this moment a messenger came from Lorenzino's mother, +begging the doctor to go at once to San Polo, for that her son had been +murdered and Soderini wounded to the death. It was now no longer +possible to conceal their doings from the Count, who told them to pluck +up courage and abide in patience. He had himself to dine and take his +siesta, and then to attend a meeting of the Council. + +About the hour of vespers, Bibboni determined to seek better refuge. +Followed at a discreet distance by Bebo, he first called at their +lodgings and ordered supper. Two priests came in and fell into +conversation with them. But something in the behavior of one of these +good men roused his suspicions. So they left the house, took a gondola, +and told the man to row hard to S. Maria Zobenigo. On the way he bade +him put them on shore, paid him well, and ordered him to wait for them. +They landed near the palace of the Spanish embassy; and here Bibboni +meant to seek sanctuary. For it must be remembered that the houses of +ambassadors, no less than those of princes of the Church, were +inviolable. They offered the most convenient harboring-places to +rascals. Charles V., moreover, was deeply interested in the vengeance +taken on Alessandro de'Medici's murderer, for his own natural daughter +was Alessandro's widow and Duchess of Florence. In the palace they were +received with much courtesy by about forty Spaniards, who showed +considerable curiosity, and told them that Lorenzino and Alessandro +Soderini had been murdered that morning by two men whose description +answered to their appearance. Bibboni put their questions by and asked +to see the ambassador. He was not at home. 'In that case,' said Bibboni, +'take us to the secretary. Attended by some thirty Spaniards, 'with +great joy and gladness,' they were shown into the secretary's chamber. +He sent the rest of the folk away, 'and locked the door well, and then +embraced and kissed us before we had said a word, and afterwards bade us +talk freely without any fear.' When Bibboni had told the whole story, he +was again embraced and kissed by the secretary, who thereupon left them +and went to the private apartment of the ambassador. Shortly after he +returned and led them by a winding staircase into the presence of his +master. The ambassador greeted them with great honor, told them he would +strain all the power of the empire to hand them in safety over to Duke +Cosimo, and that he had already sent a courier to the Emperor with the +good news. + +So they remained in hiding in the Spanish embassy; and in ten days' time +commands were received from Charles himself that everything should be +done to convey them safely to Florence. The difficulty was how to +smuggle them out of Venice, where the police of the Republic were on +watch, and Florentine outlaws were mounting guard on sea and shore to +catch them. The ambassador began by spreading reports on the Rialto +every morning of their having been seen at Padua, at Verona, in Friuli. +He then hired a palace at Malghera, near Mestre, and went out daily with +fifty Spaniards, and took carriage or amused himself with horse exercise +and shooting. The Florentines, who were on watch, could only discover +from his people that he did this for amusement. When he thought that he +had put them sufficiently off their guard, the ambassador one day took +Bibboni and Bebo out by Canaregio to Malghera, concealed in his own +gondola, with the whole train of Spaniards in attendance. And though on +landing, the Florentines challenged them, they durst not interfere with +an ambassador or come to battle with his men. So Bebo and Bibboni were +hustled into a coach, and afterwards provided with two comrades and four +horses. They rode for ninety miles without stopping to sleep, and on the +day following this long journey reached Trento, having probably threaded +the mountain valleys above Bassano, for Bibboni speaks of a certain +village where the people talked half German. The Imperial Ambassador at +Trento forwarded them next day to Mantua; from Mantua they came to +Piacenza; thence passing through the valley of the Taro, crossing the +Apennines at Cisa, descending on Pontremoli, and reaching Pisa at night, +the fourteenth day after their escape from Venice. + +When they arrived at Pisa, Duke Cosimo was supping. So they went to an +inn, and next morning presented themselves to his Grace. Cosimo welcomed +them kindly, assured them of his gratitude, confirmed them in the +enjoyment of their rewards and privileges, and swore that they might +rest secure of his protection in all parts of his dominion. We may +imagine how the men caroused together after this reception. As Bibboni +adds, 'We were now able for the whole time of life left us to live +splendidly, without a thought or care.' The last words of his narrative +are these: 'Bebo, from Pisa, at what date I know not, went home to +Volterra, his native town, and there finished his days; while I abode in +Florence, where I have had no further wish to hear of wars, but to live +my life in holy peace.' + +So ends the story of the two _bravi_. We have reason to believe, from +some contemporary documents which Cantu has brought to light, that +Bibboni exaggerated his own part in the affair. Luca Martelli, writing +to Varchi, says that it was Bebo who clove Lorenzino's skull with a +cutlass. He adds this curious detail, that the weapons of both men were +poisoned, and that the wound inflicted by Bibboni on Soderini's hand was +a slight one. Yet, the poignard being poisoned, Soderini died of it. In +other respects Martelli's brief account agrees with that given by +Bibboni, who probably did no more, his comrade being dead, than claim +for himself, at some expense of truth, the lion's share of their heroic +action. + +_Ambrogio Tremazzi_.[227] + +[Footnote 227: The text is published, from Florentine Archives, in +Gnoli's _Vittoria Accoramboni_, pp. 404-414.] + +In illustration of this narrative, and in evidence that it stands by no +means solitary on the records of that century, I shall extract some +passages from the report made by Ambrogio Tremazzi of Modigliana +concerning the assassination of Troilo Orsini. Troilo it will be +remembered, was the lover of the Medicean Duchess of Bracciano. After +the discovery of their amours, and while the lady was being strangled by +her husband, with the sanction of her brother Troilo escaped to France. +Ambrogio Tremazzi knowing that his murder would be acceptable to the +Medici, undertook the adventure; moved, as he says, 'solely by the +desire of bringing myself into favorable notice with the Grand Duke; for +my mind revolted at the thought of money payments, and I had in view the +acquisition of honor and praise rather, being willing to risk my life +for the credit of my Prince, and not my life only, but also to incur +deadly and perpetual feud with a powerful branch of the Orsini family.' +On his return from France, having successfully accomplished the mission, +Ambrogio Tremazzi found that the friends who had previously encouraged +his hopes, especially the Count Ridolfo Isolami, wished to compromise +his reward by the settlement of a pension on himself and his associate. +Whether he really aimed at a more honorable recognition of his services, +or whether he sought to obtain better pecuniary terms, does not appear. +But he represents himself as gravely insulted; 'seeing that my tenor of +life from boyhood upwards has been always honorable, and thus it ever +shall be.' After this exordium in the form of a letter addressed to one +Signor Antonio [Serguidi], he proceeds to render account of his +proceedings. It seems that Don Piero de'Medici gave him three hundred +crowns for his traveling expenses; after which, leaving his son, a boy +of twelve years, as hostage in the service of Piero, he set off and +reached Paris on August 12, 1577. There he took lodgings at the sign of +the Red Horse, near the Cordeilliers, and began at once to make +inquiries for Troilo. He had brought with him from Italy a man called +Hieronimo Savorano. Their joint investigations elicited the fact that +Troilo had been lately wounded in the service of the King of France, and +was expected to arrive in Paris with the Court. It was not until the eve +of All Saints' day that the Court returned. Soon afterwards, Ambrogio +was talking at the door of a house with some Italian comedians, when a +young man, covered with a tawny-colored mantle, passed by upon a brown +horse, bearing a servant behind him on the crupper. This was Troilo +Orsini; and Ambrogio marked him well. Troilo, after some minutes' +conversation with the players, rode forward to the Louvre. The _bravo_ +followed him and discovered from his servant where he lodged. +Accordingly, he engaged rooms in the Rue S. Honore, in order to be +nearer to his victim. + +Some time, however, elapsed before he was able to ascertain Troilo's +daily habits. Chance at last threw them together. He was playing +_primiero_ one evening in the house of an actress called Vittoria, when +Troilo entered, with two gentlemen of Florence. He said he had been +absent ten days from Paris. Ambrogio, who had left his harquebuss at +home, not expecting to meet him, 'was consequently on that occasion +unable to do anything.' Days passed without a better opportunity, till, +on November 30, 'the feast of S. Andrew, which is a lucky day for me, I +rose and went at once to the palace, and, immediately on my arrival, saw +him at the hour when the king goes forth to mass.' Ambrogio had to +return as he went; for Troilo was surrounded by too many gentlemen of +the French Court; but he made his mind up then and there 'to see the end +of him or me.' He called his comrade Hieronimo, posted him on a bridge +across the Seine, and proceeded to the Court, where Troilo was now +playing racquets with princes of the royal family. Ambrogio hung about +the gates until Troilo issued from the lodgings of Monseigneur de +Montmorenci, still tracked by his unknown enemy, and thence returned to +his own house on horseback attended by several servants. After waiting +till the night fell, Troilo again left home on horseback preceded by his +servants with torches. Ambrogio followed at full speed, watched a +favorable opportunity, and stopped the horse. When I came up with him, I +seized the reins with my left hand and with my right I set my harquebuss +against his side, pushing it with such violence that if it had failed to +go off it would at any rate have dislodged him from his seat. The gun +took effect and he fell crying out "Eh! Eh!" In the tumult which +ensued, I walked away, and do not know what happened afterwards.' +Ambrogio then made his way back to his lodgings, recharged his +harquebuss, ate some supper and went to bed. He told Hieronimo that +nothing had occurred that night. Next day he rose as usual, and returned +to the Court, hoping to hear news of Troilo. In the afternoon, at the +Italian theatre, he was informed that an Italian had been murdered, at +the instance, it was thought, of the Grand Duke of Florence. Hieronimo +touched his arm, and whispered that he must have done the deed; but +Ambrogio denied the fact. It seems to have been his object to reserve +the credit of the murder for himself, and also to avoid the possibility +of Hieronimo's treachery in case suspicion fell upon him. Afterwards he +learned that Troilo lay dangerously wounded by a harquebuss. Further +details made him aware that he was himself suspected of the murder, and +that Troilo could not recover. He therefore conferred upon the matter +with Hieronimo in Notre Dame, and both of them resolved to leave Paris +secretly. This they did at once, relinquishing clothes, arms, and +baggage in their lodgings, and reached Italy in safety. + +_Lodovico dall'Armi_. + +The relations of trust which _bravi_ occasionally maintained with +foreign Courts, supply some curious illustrations of their position in +Italian society. One characteristic instance may be selected from +documents in the Venetian Archives referring to Lodovico dall'Armi.[228] +This man belonged to a noble family of Bologna; and there are reasons +for supposing that his mother was sister to Cardinal Campeggi, famous in +the annals of the English Reformation. Outlawed from his native city for +a homicide, Lodovico adopted the profession of arms and the management +of secret diplomacy. He first took refuge at the Court of France, where +in 1541 he obtained such credit, especially with the Dauphin, that he +was entrusted with a mission for raising revolt in Siena against the +Spaniards.[229] His transactions in that city with Giulio Salvi, then +aspiring to its lordship, and in Rome with the French ambassador, led to +a conspiracy which only awaited the appearance of French troops upon the +Tuscan frontier to break out into open rebellion. The plot, however, +transpired before it had been matured; and Lodovico took flight through +the Florentine territory. He was arrested at Montevarchi and confined in +the fortress of Florence, where he made such revelations as rendered the +extinction of the Sienese revolt an easy matter. After this we do not +hear of him until he reappears at Venice in the year 1545. He was now +accredited to the English ambassador with the title of Henry VIII.'s +'Colonel,' and enjoyed the consideration accorded to a powerful +monarch's privy agent. + +[Footnote 228: See Rawdon Brown's _Calendar of State Papers_, vol. iv.] + +[Footnote 229: See Botta, Book IV., for the story of Lodovico's +intrigues at Siena.] + +His pension amounted to fifty crowns a month, while he kept eight +captains at his orders, each of whom received half that sum as pay. +These subordinates were people of some social standing. We find among +them a Trissino of Vicenza and a Bonifacio of Verona, the one entitled +Marquis and the other Count. What the object of Lodovico's residence in +Italy might be, did not appear. Though he carried letters of +recommendation from the English Court, he laid no claim to the rank of +diplomatic envoy. But it was tolerably well known that he employed +himself in levying troops. Whether these were meant to be used against +France or in favor of Savoy, or whether, as the Court of Rome suggested, +Henry had given orders for the murder of his cousin, Cardinal Pole, at +Trento, remained an open question. Lodovico might have dwelt in peace +under the tolerant rule of the Venetians, had he not exposed himself to +a collision with their police. In the month of August he assaulted the +captain of the night guard in a street brawl; and it was also proved +against him that he had despatched two of his men to inflict a wound of +infamy upon a gentleman at Treviso. These offenses, coinciding with +urgent remonstrances from the Papal Curia, gave the Venetian Government +fair pretext for expelling him from their dominions. A ban was therefore +published against him and fourteen of his followers. The English +ambassador declined to interfere in his behalf, and the man left Italy. +At the end of August he appeared at Brussels, where he attempted to +excuse himself in an interview with the Venetian ambassador. Now began a +diplomatic correspondence between the English Court and the Venetian +Council, which clearly demonstrates what kind of importance attached to +this private agent. The Chancellor Lord Wriothesley, and the Secretary +Sir William Paget, used considerable urgency to obtain a suspension of +the ban against Dall'Armi. After four months' negotiation, during which +the Papal Court endeavored to neutralize Henry's influence, the Doge +signed a safe-conduct for five years in favor of the bravo. Early in +1546 Lodovico reappeared in Lombardy. At Mantua he delivered a letter +signed by Henry himself to the Duke Francesco Gonzaga, introducing 'our +noble and beloved familiar Lodovico Dall'Armi,' and begging the Duke to +assist him in such matters as he should transact at Mantua in the king's +service.[230] Lodovico presented this letter in April; but the Duchess, +who then acted as regent for her son Francesco, refused to receive him. +She alleged that the Duke forbade the levying of troops for foreign +service, and declined to complicate his relations with foreign powers. +It seems, from a sufficiently extensive correspondence on the affairs of +Lodovico, that he was understood by the Italian princess to be charged +with some special commission for recruiting soldiers against the French. + +[Footnote 230: This letter is dated February 16, 1546.] + +The peace between England and France, signed at Guines in June, +rendered Lodovico's mission nugatory; and the death of Henry VIII. in +January 1547 deprived him of his only powerful support. Meanwhile he had +contrived to incur the serious displeasure of the Venetian Republic. In +the autumn of 1546 they outlawed one of their own nobles, Ser Mafio +Bernardo, on the charge of his having revealed state secrets to France. +About the middle of November, Bernardo, then living in concealment at +Ravenna, was lured into the pine forest by two men furnished with tokens +which secured his confidence. He was there murdered, and the assassins +turned out to be paid instruments of Lodovico. It now came to light that +Lodovico and Ser Mafio Bernardo had for some time past colluded in +political intrigue. If, therefore, the murder had a motive, this was +found in Lodovico's dread of revelations under the event of Ser Mario's +capture. Submitted to torture in the prisons of the Ten, Ser Mafio might +have incriminated his accomplice both with England and Venice. It was +obvious why he had been murdered by Lodovico's men. Dall'Armi was +consequently arrested and confined in Venice. After examination, +followed by a temporary release, he prudently took flight into the Duchy +of Milan. Though they held proof of his guilt in the matter of Ser +Mafio's murder, the Venetians were apparently unwilling to proceed to +extremities against the King of England's man. Early in February, +however, Sir William Paget surrendered him in the name of Lord +Protector Somerset to the discretion of S. Mark. Furnished with this +assurance that Dall'Armi had lost the favor of England, the Signory +wrote to demand his arrest and extradition from the Spanish governor in +Milan. He was in fact arrested on February 10. The letter announcing his +capture describes him as a man of remarkably handsome figure, accustomed +to wear a crimson velvet cloak and a red cap trimmed with gold. It is +exactly in this costume that Lodovico has been represented by Bonifazio +in a picture of the Massacre of the Innocents. The bravo there stands +with his back partly turned, gazing stolidly upon a complex scene of +bloodshed. He wears a crimson velvet mantle, scarlet cap and white +feather, scarlet stockings, crimson velvet shoes, and rose-colored silk +underjacket. His person is that of a gallant past the age of thirty, +high-complexioned, with short brown beard, spare whiskers and moustache. +He is good to look at, except that the sharp set mouth suggests cynical +vulgarity and shallow rashness. On being arrested in Milan, Lodovico +proclaimed himself a privileged person _(persona pubblica)_, bearing +credentials from the King of England; and, during the first weeks of his +confinement, he wrote to the Emperor for help. This was an idle step. +Henry's death had left him without protectors, and Charles V. felt no +hesitation in abandoning his suppliant to the Venetians. When the usual +formalities regarding extradition had been completed, the Milanese +Government delivered Lodovico at the end of April into the hands of the +Rector of Brescia, who forwarded him under a guard of two hundred men to +Padua. He was hand-cuffed; and special directions were given regarding +his safety, it being even prescribed that if he refused food it should +be thrust down his throat. What passed in the prisons of the State, +after his arrival at Venice, is not known. But on May 14, he was +beheaded between the columns on the Molo. + +Venice, at this epoch, incurred the reproaches of her neighbors for +harboring adventurers of Lodovico's stamp. One of the Fregosi of Genoa a +certain Valerio, and Pietro Strozzi, the notorious French agent, all of +whom habitually haunted the lagoons, roused sufficient public anxiety to +necessitate diplomatic communications between Courts, and to disquiet +fretful Italian princelings. Banished from their own provinces, and +plying a petty Condottiere trade, such men, when they came together on a +neutral ground, engaged in cross-intrigues which made them politically +dangerous. They served no interest but that of their own egotism, and +they were notoriously unscrupulous in the means employed to effect +immediate objects. At the same time, the protection which they claimed +from foreign potentates withdrew them from the customary justice of the +State. Bedmar's conspiracy in 1617-18 revealed to Venice the full extent +of the peril which this harborage of ruffians involved; for though +grandees of the distinction of the Duke of Ossuna were involved in it, +the main agents, on whose ambition and audacity all depended, sprang +from those French, English, Spanish, and Italian mercenaries, who +crowded the low quarters of the city, alert for any mischief, and +inflamed with the wildest projects of self-aggrandizement by policy and +bloodshed. Nothing testifies to the social and political decrepitude of +Italy in this period more plainly than the importance which folk like +Lodovico Dall'Armi acquired, and the revolutionary force which a man +like Jaffier commanded. + + +_Brigands, Pirates, Plague_. + +After collecting these stories, which illustrate the manners of the +upper classes in society and prove their dependence upon henchmen paid +to subserve lawless passions, it would be interesting to lay bare the +life of the common people with equal lucidity. This, however, is a more +difficult matter. Statistics of dubious value can indeed be gathered +regarding the desolation of villages by brigands, the multitudes +destroyed by pestilence and famine, and the inroads of Mediterranean +pirates. I propose, therefore, to touch lightly upon these points, and +especially to use our records of plague in different Italian districts +as tests for contrasting the condition of the people at this epoch with +that of the same people in the Middle Ages. + +Brigandage, though this was certainly a curse of the first magnitude to +Central and Southern Italy, cannot be paralleled, either for the +miseries it inflicted, or for the ferocity it stimulated, with the +municipal warfare of the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. +In those internecine struggles whole cities disappeared, and fertile +districts were periodically abandoned to wolves. The bands of an Alfonso +Piccolomini or a Sciarra Colonna plundered villages, exacted black mail, +and held prisoners for ransom.[231] But their barbarities were +insignificant, when compared with those commonly perpetrated by +wandering companies of adventure before the days of Alberigo da +Barbiano; nor did brigands cost Italy so much as the mercenary troops, +which, after the Condottiere system had been developed, became a +permanent drain upon the resources of the country. The raids of Tunisian +and Algerian Corsairs were more seriously mischievous; since the whole +sea-board from Nice to Reggio lay open to the ravages of such incarnate +fiends as Barbarossa and Dragut, while the Adriatic was infested by +Uscocchi, and the natives of the Regno not unfrequently turned pirates +in emulation of their persecutors.[232] + +[Footnote 231: See Mutinelli, _Storia Arcana_, vol. ii. p. 167, for the +pillage of Lucera by Pacchiarotto.] + +[Footnote 232: Sarpi's _History of the Uscocchi_ may be consulted for +this singular episode in the Iliad of human savagery. See Mutinelli, +_op. cit._ vol. ii. p. 182, on the case of the son and heir of the Duke +of Termoli joining them; and _ibid._ p. 180 on the existence of pirates +at Capri.] + +Yet even these injuries may be reckoned light, when we consider what +Italy had suffered between 1494 and 1527 from French, Spanish, German +and Swiss troops in combat on her soil. The pestilences of the Middle +Ages notably the Black Death of 1348, of which Boccaccio has left an +immortal description, exceeded in virulence those which depopulated +Italian cities during the period of my history. But plagues continued to +be frequent; and some of these are so memorable that they require to be +particularly noticed. At Venice in 1575-77, a total of about 50,000 +persons perished; and in 1630-31, 46,490 were carried off within a space +of sixteen months in the city, while the number of those who died at +large in the lagoons amounted to 94,235.[233] On these two occasions the +Venetians commemorated their deliverance by the erection of the +Redentore and S. Maria della Salute, churches which now form principal +ornaments of the Giudecca and the Grand Canal. Milan was devastated at +the same periods by plagues, of which we have detailed accounts in the +dispatches of resident Venetian envoys.[234] The mortality in the second +of these visitations was terrible. Before September 1629, fourteen +thousand had succumbed; between May and August 1630, forty-five thousand +victims had been added to the tale.[235] + +[Footnote 233: Mutinelli, _Annali Urbani di Venezia_, pp. +470-483,549-550.] + +[Footnote 234: Mutinelli, _Storia Arcana_, vol. i. p. 310-340, and vol. +xiv. pp. 30-65.] + +[Footnote 235: It is worth mentioning that Ripamonte calculates the +mortality from plague in Milan in 1524 at 140,000.] + +At Naples in the year 1656, more than fifty thousand perished between +May and July; the dead were cast naked into the sea, and the Venetian +envoy describes the city as _'non piu citta ma spelonca di +morti_.'[236] In July his diary is suddenly interrupted, whether by +departure from the stricken town, or more probably by death, we know +not. Savoy was scourged by a fearful pestilence in the years 1598-1600. +Of this plague we possess a frightfully graphic picture in the same +accurate series of the State documents.[237] Simeone Contarini, then +resident at Savigliano, relates that more than two-thirds of the +population in that province had been swept away before the autumn of +1598, and that the evil was spreading far and wide through Piedmont. In +Alpignano, a village of some four hundred inhabitants, only two +remained. In Val Moriana, forty thousand expired out of a total of +seventy thousand. The village of San Giovanni counted but twelve +survivors from a population of more than four thousand souls. In May +1599, the inhabitants of Turin were reduced by flight and death to four +thousand; and of these there died daily numbers gradually rising through +the summer from 50 to 180. The streets were encumbered with unburied +corpses, the houses infested by robbers and marauders. Some incidents +reported of this plague are ghastly in their horror. The infected were +treated with inhuman barbarity, and retorted with savage fury, battering +their assailants with the pestiferous bodies of unburied victims. + +[Footnote 236: Mutinelli, _op. cit._ vol. in. pp. 229-233. Botta has +given an account of this plague in the twenty-sixth book of his +_History_.] + +[Footnote 237: Mutinelli, _op. cit._ vol. ii. pp. 287-307.] + +To the miseries of pestilence and its attendant famine were added +lawlessness and license, raging fires, and what was worst of all, the +dark suspicion that the sickness had been introduced by malefactors. +This belief appears to have taken hold upon the popular mind during the +plague of 1598 in Savoy and in Milan.[238] Simeone Contarini reports +that two men from Geneva confessed to having come with the express +purpose of disseminating infection. He also gives curious particulars of +two who were burned, and four who were quartered at Turin in 1600 for +this offense.[239] 'These spirits of hell,' as he calls them, indicated +a wood in which they declared that they had buried a pestilential liquid +intended to be used for smearing houses. The wood was searched, and some +jars were discovered. A surgeon at the same epoch confessed to having +meant to spread the plague at Mondovi. Other persons, declaring +themselves guilty of a similar intention, described a horn filled with +poisonous stuff collected from the sores of plague-stricken corpses, +which they had concealed outside the walls of Turin. This too was +discovered; and these apparent proofs of guilt so infuriated the people +that every day some criminals were sacrificed to judicial vengeance. + +[Footnote 238: See Mutinelli, _op. cit._ p. 241 and p. 289. We hear of +the same belief at Milan in 1576, _op. cit._ vol. i. pp. 311-315.] + +[Footnote 239: _Ibid._ p. 309. See also vol. iii. p. 254 for a similar +narration.] + +The name given to the unfortunate creatures accused of this diabolical +conspiracy was _Untori_ or the Smearers. The plague of Milan in 1629-30 +obtained the name of 'La Peste degli Untori' (as that of 1576 had been +called 'La Peste di S. Carlo'), because of the prominent part played in +it by the smearers.[240] They were popularly supposed to go about the +city daubing walls, doors, furniture, choir-stalls, flowers, and +articles of food with plague stuff. They scattered powders in the air, +or spread them in circles on the pavement. To set a foot upon one of +these circles involved certain destruction. Hundreds of such _untori_ +were condemned to the most cruel deaths by justice firmly persuaded of +their criminality. Exposed to prolonged tortures, the majority confessed +palpable absurdities. One woman at Milan said she had killed four +thousand people. But, says Pier Antonio Marioni, the Venetian envoy, +although tormented to the utmost, none of them were capable of revealing +the prime instigators of the plot. So thoroughly convinced was he, +together with the whole world, of their guilt, that he never paused to +reflect upon the fallacy contained in this remark. The rack-stretched +wretches could not reveal their instigators, because there were none; +and the acts of which they accused themselves were the delirious +figments of their own torture-fretted brains. We possess documents +relating to the trial of the Milanese _untori_, which make it clear that +crimes of this sort must have been imaginary. As in cases of +witchcraft, the first accusation was founded upon gossip and delation. +The judicial proceedings were ruled by prejudice and cruelty. Fear and +physical pain extorted confessions and complicated accusations of their +neighbors from multitudes of innocent people.[241] Indeed the parallel +between these unfortunate smearers and no less wretched witches is a +close one. I am inclined to think that, as some crazy women fancied they +were witches, so some morbid persons of this period in Italy believed in +their power of spreading plague, and yielded to the fascination of +malignity. Whether such moral mad folk really extended the sphere of the +pestilence to any appreciable extent remains a matter for conjecture; +and it is quite certain that all but a small percentage of the accused +were victims of calumny. + +After taking brigandage, piracy, and pestilence into account, the +decline of Italy must be attributed to other causes. These I believe to +have been the extinction of commercial republics, the decay of free +commonwealths, iniquitous systems of taxation, the insane display of +wealth by unproductive princes, and the diversion of trade into foreign +channels. Florence ceased to be the center of wool manufacture, Venice +lost her hold upon the traffic between East and West.[242] Stagnation +fell like night upon the land, and the population suffered from a +general atrophy. + +[Footnote 240: Mutinelli, _op. cit._ vol. ii. pp. 51-65.] + + +[Footnote 241: Cantu's _Ragionamenti sulla Storia Lombarda del Secolo +XVII._ Milano, 1832. The trial may also be read in Mutinelli, _Storm +Arcana_, vol. iv. pp. 175-201. Mutinelli inclines to believe in the +_Untori_. So do many grave historians, including Nani and Botta. See +Cantu, _Storia degli Italiani_, Milano, 1876, vol. ii. p. 215.] + +[Footnote 242: Mr. Ruskin has somewhere maintained that the decline of +Venice was not due to this cause, but to fornication. He should read the +record given by Mutinelli (_Diari Urbani_, p. 157), of Venetian +fornication in 1340, at the time when the Ducal Palace was being covered +with its sculpture. The public prostitutes were reckoned then at 11,654. +Adulteries, rapes, infanticides were matters of daily occurrence. Yet +the Renaissance had not begun, and the expansion of Venice, which roused +the envious hostility of Europe, had yet to happen.] + +_The Proletariate_. + +In what concerns social morality it would be almost impossible to define +the position of the proletariate, tillers of the soil, and artisans, at +this epoch. These classes vary in their goodness and their badness, in +their drawbacks and advantages, from age to age far less than those who +mold the character of marked historical periods by culture. They enjoy +indeed a greater or a smaller immunity from pressing miseries. They are +innocent or criminal in different degrees. But the ground-work of +humanity in them remains comparatively unaltered; and their moral +qualities, so far as these may be exceptional, reflect the influences of +an upper social stratum. It is clear from the histories related in this +chapter that members of the lowest classes were continually mixing with +the nobles and the gentry in the wild adventures of that troubled +century. They, like their betters, were undergoing a tardy +metamorphosis from mediaeval to modern conditions, retaining vices of +ferocity and grossness, virtues of loyalty and self-reliance, which +belonged to earlier periods. They, too, were now infected by the +sensuous romance of pietism, the superstitious respect for sacraments +and ceremonial observances which had been wrought by the Catholic +Revival into ecstatic frenzy. They shared those correlative yearnings +after sacrilegious debauchery, felt those allurements of magic arts, +indulged that perverted sense of personal honor which constituted +psychological disease in the century which we are studying. It can, +moreover, be maintained that Italian society at no epoch has been so +sharply divided into sections as that of the feudalized races. In this +period of one hundred years, from 1530 to 1630, when education was a +privilege of the few, and when Church and princes combined to retard +intellectual progress, the distinction between noble and plebeian, +burgher and plowman, though outwardly defined, was spiritually and +morally insignificant. As in the Renaissance, so now, vice trickled +downwards from above, infiltrating the masses of the people with its +virus. But now, even more decidedly than then, the upper classes +displayed obliquities of meanness, baseness, intemperance, cowardice, +and brutal violence, which are commonly supposed to characterize +villeins. + +I had thought to throw some light upon the manners of the Italian +proletariate by exploring the archives of trials for witchcraft. But I +found that these were less common than in Germany, France, Spain, and +England at a corresponding period. In Italy witchcraft, pure and simple, +was confined, for the most part, to mountain regions, the Apennines of +the Abruzzi, and the Alps of Bergamo and Tyrol.[243] In other provinces +it was confounded with crimes of poisoning, the procuring of abortion, +and the fomentation of conspiracies in private families. These facts +speak much for the superior civilization of the Italian people +considered as a whole. We discover a common fund of intelligence, vice, +superstition, prejudice, enthusiasm, craft, devotion, self-assertion, +possessed by the race at large. Only in districts remote from civil life +did witchcraft assume those anti-social and repulsive features which are +familiar to Northern nations. Elsewhere it penetrated, as a subtle +poison, through society, lending its supposed assistance to passions +already powerful enough to work their own accomplishment. It existed, +not as an endemic disease, a permanent delirium of maddened peasants, +but as a weapon in the arsenal of malice on a par with poisons and +provocatives to lust. + +I might illustrate this position by the relation of a fantastic attempt +made against the life of Pope Urban VIII.[244] + +[Footnote 243: Dandolo's _Streghe Tirolesi_, and Cantu's work on the +Diocese of Como show how much Subalpine Italy had in common in Northern +Europe in this matter.] + +[Footnote 244: See _Rassegna Settimanale_, September 18, 1881.] + +Giacomo Centini, the nephew of Cardinal d'Ascoli, fostered a fixed idea, +the motive of his madness being the promotion of his uncle to S. Peter's +Chair. In 1633 he applied to a hermit, who professed profound science in +the occult arts and close familiarity with demons. The man, in answer to +Giacomo's inquiries, said that Urban had still many years to live, that +the Cardinal d'Ascoli would certainly succeed him, and that he held it +in his power to shorten the Pope's days. He added that a certain Fra +Cherubino would be useful, if any matter of grave moment were resolved +on; nor did he reject the assistance of other discreet persons. Giacomo, +on his side, produced a Fra Domenico; and the four accomplices set at +work to destroy the reigning Pope by means of sorcery. They caused a +knife to be forged, after the model of the Key of Solomon, and had it +inscribed with Cabalistic symbols. A clean virgin was employed to spin +hemp into a thread. Then they resorted to a distant room in Giacomo's +palace, where a circle was drawn with the mystic thread, a fire was +lighted in the center, and upon it was placed an image of Pope Urban +formed of purest wax. The devil was invoked to appear and answer whether +Urban had deceased this life after the melting of the image. No infernal +visitor responded to the call; and the hermit accounted for this failure +by suggesting that some murder had been committed in the palace. As +things went at that period, this excuse was by no means feeble, if only +the audience, bent on unholy invocation of the power of evil, would +accept it as sufficient. Probably more than one murder had taken place +there, of which the owner was dimly conscious. The psychological +curiosity to note is that avowed malefactors reckoned purity an +essential element in their nefarious practice. They tried once more in a +vineyard, under the open heavens at night. But no demon issued from the +darkness, and the hermit laid this second mischance to the score of bad +weather. Giacomo was incapable of holding his tongue. He talked about +his undertaking to the neighbors, and promised to make them all +Cardinals when he should become the Papal nephew. Meanwhile he pressed +the hermit forward on the path of folly; and this man, driven to his +wits' end for a device, said that they must find seven priests together, +one of whom should be assassinated to enforce the spell. It was natural, +while the countryside was being raked for seven convenient priests by +such a tattler as Giacomo, that suspicions should be generated in the +people. Information reached Rome, in consequence of which the persons +implicated in this idiotic plot were conveyed thither and given over to +the mercies of the Holy Office. The upshot of their trial was that +Giacomo lost his head, while the hermit and Fra Cherubino were burned +alive, and Fra Domenico went to the galleys for life. Several other men +involved in the process received punishments of considerable severity. +It must be added in conclusion that the whole story rests upon the +testimony of Inquisitorial archives, and that the real method of Giacomo +Centini's apparent madness yet remains to be investigated. The few facts +that we know about him, from his behavior on the scaffold and a letter +he wrote his wife, prejudice me in his favor. + +Enough, and more than enough, perhaps, has been collected in this +chapter, to throw light upon the manners of Italians during the +Counter-Reformation. It would have been easy to repeat the story of the +Countess of Cellant and her murdered lovers, or of the Duchess of Amalfi +strangled by her brothers for a marriage below her station. The +massacres committed by the Raspanti in Ravenna would furnish a whole +series of illustrative crimes. From the deeds of Alfonso Piccolomini, +Sciarra and Fabrizio Colonna details sufficient to fill a volume with +records of atrocious savagery could be drawn. The single episode of +Elena Campireali, who plighted her troth to a bandit, became Abbess of +the Convent at Castro, intrigued with a bishop, and killed herself for +shame on the return of her first lover, would epitomize in one drama all +the principal features of this social discord. The dreadful tale of the +Baron of Montebello might be told again, who assaulted the castle of the +Marquis of Pratidattolo, and, by the connivance of a sister whom he +subsequently married, murdered the Marquis with his mother, children, +and relatives. The hunted life of Alessandro Antelminelli, pursued +through all the States of Europe by assassins, could be used to +exemplify the miseries of proscribed exiles. But what is the use of +multiplying instances, when every pedigree in Litta, every chronicle of +the time, every history of the most insignificant township, swarms with +evidence to the same purpose? We need not adopt the opinion that society +had greatly altered for the worse. We must rather decide that mediaeval +ferocity survived throughout the whole of that period which witnessed +the Catholic Revival, and that the piety which distinguished it was not +influential in curbing vehement passions. + +The conclusions to be drawn from the facts before us seem to be in +general these. The link between government and governed in Italy had +snapped. The social bond was broken, and the constituents that form a +nation were pursuing divers aims. On the one hand stood Popes and +princes, founding their claims to absolute authority upon titles that +had slight rational or national validity. These potentates were +ill-combined among themselves, and mutually jealous. On the other side +were ranged disruptive forces of the most heterogeneous kinds--remnants +from antique party-warfare, fragments of obsolete domestic feuds, new +strivings after freer life in mentally down-trodden populations, +blending with crime and misery and want and profligacy to compose an +opposition which exasperated despotism. These anarchical conditions were +due in large measure to the troubles caused by foreign campaigns of +invasion. They were also due to the Spanish type of manners imposed upon +the ruling classes, which the native genius accepted with fraudulent +intelligence, and to which it adapted itself by artifice. We must +further reckon the division between cultured and uncultured people, +which humanism had effected, and which subsisted after the benefits +conferred by humanism had been withdrawn from the race. The retirement +of the commercial aristocracy from trade, and their assumption of +princely indolence in this period of political stagnation, was another +factor of importance. But the truest cause of Italian retrogression +towards barbarism must finally be discerned in the sharp check given to +intellectual evolution by the repressive forces of the Counter-Reformation. + + +END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. + + + + +INDEX. + + +A + +ACADEMIES, Italian, the flourishing time of, i. 52. + +ACCIAIUOLI, Roberto, i. 33. + +ACCOLTI, Benedetto, conspirator against Pius IV., i. 132. + +ACCORAMBONI, Claudio (father of Vittoria), i. 356. + +---Marcello (brother of Vittoria): + intrigues for the marriage of his sister with the + Duke of Bracciano, i. 358 _sqq._; + procures the murder of her husband, 362; + employs a Greek enchantress to brew love-philters, 365; + his death, 372. + +---Tarquinia (mother of Vittoria), i. 356. + +---Vittoria, the story of, i. 355 _sqq._; + her birth and parentage, 356; + marriage with Felice Peretti, 357; + intrigue with the Duke of Bracciano, 360; + the murder of her husband, 362; + her marriage with Bracciano, 364; + annulled by the Pope, 364, 366; + the union renounced by the Duke, 365; + put on trial for the murder of Peretti, _ib._; + their union publicly ratified by the Duke, 366; + flight from Rome, _ib._; + death of Bracciano, 367; + her murder procured by Lodovico Orsini, 369. + +'ACTS of Faith,' i. 107, 176, 187. + +ADMINISTRATOR, the (Jesuit functionary), i. 273. + +'ADONE,' Marino's: + its publication, ii. 264; + critique of the poem, 266 _sqq._ + +ALBANI, Francesco, Bolognese painter, ii. 355, 358. + +ALEXANDER VI., Pope, parallel between, and Pope Paul IV., i. 106. + +ALFONSO II., Duke of Ferrara: + sketch of his Court, ii. 28 _sqq._; + his second marriage, 30; + treatment of Tasso, 38, 51, 53, 58, 60 _sqq._; + his third marriage, 66; + estimate of the reasons why he imprisoned Tasso, 66 _sqq._ + +ALFONSO the Magnanimous: + arrangements under his will, i. 4. + +ALIDOSI, Cardinal Francesco, murder of, i. 36. + +ALLEGORY, hypocrisy of the, exemplified in Tasso, ii. 44; + in Marino, 272; + in Ortensi's moral interpretations of Bandello's + _Novelle_, 272 _n._ + +ALTEMPS, Cardinal d' (Mark of Hohen Ems), legate at Trent, i. 119 _n._ + +ALVA, Duke of, defeat of the Duke of Guise by, i. 103. + +'AMADIS of Gaul,' the favorite book of Loyola in his youth, i. 232. + +AMIAS, Beatrice, mother of Francesco Cenci, i. 346. + +'AMINTA,' Tasso's pastoral drama, first production of, ii. 39; + its style, 114. + +ANGELUZZO, Giovanni, Tasso's first teacher, ii. 12. + +ANIMA Mundi, Bruno's doctrine of, ii. 177. + +ANTONIANO, a censor of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, ii. 43. + +---Silvio, a boy _improvvisatore_, anecdote of, ii. 328. + +AQUAVIVA, the fifth General of the Jesuits, i. 248. + +AQUITAINE, Duke of, Guercino's painting of in Bologna, ii. 367. + +ARAGONESE Dynasty, the, in Italy, i. 4. + +ARBUES, Peter, Saint of the Inquisition in Aragon, i. 161, 178. + +ARETINO, Pietro, i. 42, 70; + satire of on Paul IV., 108. + +'ARIE Divote,' Palestrina's, ii. 335. + +ARISTOTLE'S Axiom on Taste, ii. 371, 374. + +ARMADA, Spanish, i. 149. + +ARMI, Lodovico dall', a _bravo_ of noble family, i. 409; + accredited at Venice as Henry VIII.'s 'Colonel,' 410; + his career of secret diplomacy, 411; + negotiations between Lord Wriothesley and Venice regarding + the ban issued against him, 412; + his downfall, 413; + personal appearance, 414; + execution, 415. + +ARNOLFINI, Massimiliano, paramour of Lucrezia Buonvisi, i. 331; + procures the assassination of her husband, 332; + flight from justice, 332; + outlawed, 336; + his wanderings and wretched end, 339. + +ART of Memory, Bruno's, ii. 139. + +ART of Poetry, Tasso's Dialogues on the, ii. 22, 24; + influence of its theory on Tasso's own work, 25. + +ASSISTANTS, the (Jesuit functionaries), i. 273. + +ASTORGA, Marquis of, i. 22. + +AURORA, the Ludovisi fresco of, ii. 368. + +AVILA, Don Luigi d', i. 128. + + +B + +BAGLIONI, Malatesta, i. 46. + +BAINI'S _Life of Palestrina_, ii. 316 _sqq._ + +BALBI, Cesare, on Italian decadence, ii. 3. + +BANDITTI, tales illustrative of, i. 388 _sqq._ + +'BANDO' (of outlawry), recitation of the terms of a, i. 328. + +BARBIERI, Giovanni Francesco, _see_ IL GUERCINO. + +BARCELONA, the Treaty of, i. 15. + +BARNABITES, Order of the: + their foundation, i. 80. + +BAROCCIO, Federigo, ii. 349. + +BAROZZA, a Venetian courtezan, i. 394, 396. + +BASEL, Council of, i. 94. + +BEARD, unshorn, worn in sign of mourning, i. 36. + +BEDELL, William (Bishop of Kilmore), on Fra Paolo and + Fra Fulgenzio, ii. 231. + +BEDMAR'S conspiracy, ii. 186. + +BELLARMINO, Cardinal, on the inviolability of the Vulgate, i. 212; + relations of, with Fra Paolo Sarpi, ii. 213, 222; + his censure of the _Pastor Fido_, 251. + +BELRIGUARDO, the villa of, Tasso at, ii. 53. + +BEMBO, Pietro, i. 30, 41. + +BENDEDEI, Taddea, wife of Guarini, ii. 245. + +BENTIVOGLI, the semi-royal offspring of King Enzo of Sardinia, ii. 304. + +BIBBONI, Cecco: + his account of how he murdered Lorenzino de'Medici, i. 488 _sqq._; + his associate, Bebo, details of the life of a _bravo_, 389; + tracking an outlaw, 392; + the wages of a tyrannicide, 394; + the _bravo's_ patient watching, 395; + the murder, 397; + flight of the assassins, 399; + their reception by Count Collalto, 401; + they seek refuge at the Spanish embassy, 402; + protected by Charles V.'s orders, 403; + conveyed to Pisa, 404; + well provided for their future life, _ib._ + +BITONTO. Pasquale di, one of the assassins of Sarpi, ii. 212. + +BLACK garments of Charles V., the, i. 43. + +BLACK Pope, the, i. 275. + +BLOIS, Treaty of, i. 12. + +BOBADILLA, Nicholas, associate of Ignatius Loyola, i. 240; + his work as a Jesuit in Bavaria, 258. + +BOLOGNA and Modena, humors of the conflict between, ii. 304. + +BOLOGNESE school of painters, the, ii. 343 _sqq._; + why their paintings are now neglected, 375 _sqq._; + mental condition of Bolognese art, 376. + +BONELLI, Michele, nephew of Pius V., i. 147. + +BONIFAZIO of Montferrat, Marquis, one of the Paleologi, i. 23. + +BORGIA, Francis (Duke of Gandia), third General of the Jesuits, i. 256; + prevented by Loyola from accepting a Cardinal's hat, 260. + +BORROMEO, Carlo: + his character, i. 115; + a possible successor to Pius IV., 135; + ruled in Rome by the Jesuits, 142; + his intimacy with Sarpi, ii. 194. + +---Federigo, i. 115; + letter of, forbidding soldiers' visits to convents, 316 _n._ + +BRANCACCIO, Diana, treachery of, towards the Duchess of Palliano, i. 378; + her murder, 379. + +'BRAVI,' maintenance of by Italian nobles, i. 313; + tales illustrative of, 388 _sqq._; + relations of trust between _bravi_ and foreign Courts, 409. + +BRIGANDAGE in Italy, i. 416. + +BROWN, Mr. H.F., his researches in the Venetian archives, i. 189 _n._ + +BRUCCIOLI, Antonio, translator of the Bible into Italian, i. 76. + +BRUNO, Giordano: + his birth, and training as a Dominican, ii. 129; + early speculative doubts, 130; + _Il Candelajo_, 131, 183; + early studies, 133; + prosecution for heresy, 134; + a wandering student, 135; + at Geneva, 136; + Toulouse, 137; + at the Sorbonne, 138; + the Art of Memory, 139, 154; + _De Umbris Idearum_, _ib._; + relations with Henri III., 140; + Bruno's person and conversation, 141; + in England, _ib._; + works printed in London, 142; + descriptions of London life, _ib._; + opinion of Queen Elizabeth, 143; + lecturer at Oxford, 144; + address to the Vice-Chancellor, 146; + academical opposition, 147; + the Ash-Wednesday Supper, _ib._; + in the family of Castelnau, 148; + in Germany, 149; + Bruno's opinion of the Reformers, _ib._; + the _De Monade_ and _De Triplici Minimo_, 150; + Bruno in a monastery at Frankfort, 151; + invited to Venice, 153; + a guest of Mocenigo there, 154; + his occupations, 156; + denounced by Mocenigo and imprisoned by the Inquisition, 157; + the heads of the accusation, 157 _sqq._; + trial, 159; + recantation, 160; + estimate of Bruno's apology, 161; + his removal to and long imprisonment at Rome, 163; + his execution, 164; + evidence of his martyrdom, 164 _sqq._; + Schoppe's account, 165; + details of Bruno's treatment in Rome, 167; + the burning at the stake, 167 _sq._; + Bruno a martyr, 168; + contrast with Tasso, 169; + Bruno's mental attitude, 170 _sq._; + his championship of the Copernican system, 172; + his relation to modern science and philosophy, 173; + conception of the universe, 173 _sqq._; + his theology, 175; + the _Anima Mundi_, 177; + anticipations of modern thought, 178, 182; + his want of method, 180; + the treatise on the Seven Arts, 182; + Bruno's literary style, 182 _sqq._; + his death contrasted with that of Sarpi, 239 _n._ + +BRUSANTINI, Count Alessandro (Tassoni's 'Conte Culagna'), ii. 301, 306. + +BUCKET, the Bolognese, ii. 305. + +BUONCOMPAGNO, Giacomo, bastard, son of Gregory XIII., i. 150. + +---Ugo, _see_ GREGORY XIII. + +BUONVISI, Lucrezia, story of, i. 330; + intrigue with Arnolfini, 331; + murder of her husband, 332; + Lucrezia suspected of complicity, 334; + becomes a nun (Sister Umilia), _ib._; + the case against her, 338; + amours of inmates of her convent, 340; + Umilia's intrigue with Samminiati, _ib._; + discovery of their correspondence, 341; + trial and sentences of the nuns, 344; + Umilia's last days, 345. + +---Lelio, assassination of, i. 332. + +BURGUNDIAN diamond of Charles the Bold, the, i. 38. + + +C + +CALCAGNINI, Celio, letter of, on religious controversies, i. 74. + +CALVAERT, Dionysius, a Flemish painter in Bologna, ii. 355. + +CALVETTI, Olimpio (one of the assassins of Francesco Cenci), i. 350. + +CALVIN, i. 73; + his relation to modern civilization, ii. 402. + +CAMBRAY, Treaty of (the Paix des Dames), i. 9, 15. + +CAMERA Apostolica, the, venality of, i. 140. + +CAMERINO, Duchy of, i. 86. + +CAMPANELLA, on the black robes of the Spaniards in Italy, i. 44. + +CAMPEGGI, Cardinal Lorenzo, i. 21. + +CAMPIREALI, Elena, the tale of, i. 428. + +CANELLO, U.A., on Italian society in the sixteenth century, i. 304 _n._ + +CANISIUS, lieutenant of Loyola in Austria, i. 259; + appointed to the administration of the see of Vienna, 260. + +CANOSSA, Antonio, conspirator against Pius IV., i. 132. + +CAPELLO, Bianca, the story of, i. 382. + +CAPPELLA, Giulia (Rome), school for training choristers, ii. 316. + +CARACCI, the, Bolognese painters, ii. 345, 349 _sqq._ + +CARAFFA, Cardinal, condemned to death by Pius IV., i. 115. + +---Giovanni Pietro (afterwards Pope Paul IV.), + causes the rejection of Contarini's + arrangement with the Lutherans, i. 78; + helps to found the Theatines, 79; + made Cardinal by Paul III., 88; + hatred of Spanish ascendency, 89; + becomes Pope Paul IV., 102; + quarrel with Philip II., 102 _sqq._; + opens negotiations with Soliman, 103; + reconciliation with Spain, 104; + nepotism, _ib._; + indignation against the misdoings of his relatives, 106; + ecclesiastical reforms, 107 _sq._; + zeal for the Holy Office, 107 _n._; + personal character, 108; + his death, _ib._; + his earlier relations with Ignatius Loyola, 242. + +CARAFFESCHI, evil character of the, i. 105; + four condemned to death by Pius IV., 115, 318. + +CARAVAGGIO, Michelangelo Amerighi da, Italian Realist painter, ii. 363 _n._ + +CARDINE, Aliffe and Leonardo di (Caraffeschi), + condemned to death by Pius IV., i. 115. + +CARDONA, Violante de (Duchess of Palliano), story of, i. 373 _sqq._; + her accomplishments, 374; + character, _ib._; + passion of Marcello Capecce for her, _ib._; + her character compromised through Diana Brancaccio, 378; + murder of Marcello and Diana by the Duke, _ib._; + death of Violante at the hands of her brother, 380. + +CARLI, Orazio: + description of his being put to the torture, i. 333 _sq._ + +CARLO Emmanuele of Savoy, Italian hopes founded on, ii. 246, 286; + friend of Marino, 262; + kindness to Chiabrera, 290; + treatment of Tassoni, 298. + +CARNESECCHI, condemned by the Roman Inquisition to be burned, i. 145. + +CARPI, attached to Ferrara, i. 40. + +CARRANZA, Archbishop of Toledo, condemned by the + Roman Inquisition to be burned, i. 145. + +CASA, Giovanni della (author of the _Capitolo del Forno_), i. 393, 395. + +CASTELNAU, Michel de, kindness of towards Giordano Bruno, ii. 141, 148. + +---Marie de, Bruno's admiration for, ii. 148. + +---Pierre de, the first Saint of the Inquisition, i. 161. + +CATALANI, Marzio (one of the assassins of Francesco Cenci), i. 350. + +CATEAU Cambresis, the Peace of, i. 48. + +CATHOLIC Revival, the inaugurators of, at Bologna, i. 16; + transition from the Renaissance to, 65; + new religious spirit in Italy, 67; + the Popes and the Council of Trent, 96 _sqq._; + a Papal triumph, 130; + the Catholic Reaction generated the Counter-Reformation, 133; + its effect on social and domestic morals, 301 _sqq._ + +CELEBRITY, vicissitudes of, ii. 368. + +CELIBACY, clerical, the question of, at Trent, i. 123. + +CELLANT, Contessa di, the model of Luini's S. Catherine, ii. 360 _n._ + +'CENA delle Ceneri, La,' Bruno's, i. 85 _n._; ii. 140, 142, 183. + +CENCI, Beatrice, examination of the legend of, i. 351 _sqq._ + +---Francesco: bastard son of Cristoforo Cenci, i. 346; + his early life, _ib._; + disgraceful charges against him, 348; + compounds by heavy money payment for his crimes, _ib._; + violent deaths of his sons, _ib._; + severity towards his children, 349; + his assassination procured by his wife and three children, 350; + the murderers denounced, _ib._; + their trial and punishments, 351. + +---Msgr. Christoforo, father of Francesco Cenci, i. 346. + +CENTINI, Giacomo: story of his attempts by sorcery on the + life of Urban VIII., i. 425. + +CESI, Msgr., invites Tasso to Bologna, ii. 22. + +CHARLES V., his compact with Clement VII., i. 15; + Emperor Elect, 16; + relations with Andrea Doria, 17; + at Genoa, 18; + his journey to Bologna, 20; + his reception there, 22; + the meeting with Clement, 23; + mustering of Italian princes, 25; + negotiations on Italian affairs, 26 _sqq._; + a treaty of peace signed, 31; + the difficulty with Florence, 32; + the question of the two crowns, 34 _sqq._; + description of the coronation, 37 _sqq._; + the events that followed, 39 _sqq._; + the net results of Charles's administration of Italian affairs, 45 _sqq._; + his relations with Paul III., 100; + his abdication, 102; + he protects the assassins of Lorenzino de'Medici, 403. + +CHARLES VIII., of France: his invasion of Italy, i. 8. + +CHIABRERA, Gabriello: his birth, ii. 287; + educated by the Jesuits, _ib._; + his youth, 288; + the occupations of a long life, 289; + courtliness, 290; + ode to Cesare d'Este, 291; + Chiabrera's aim to remodel Italian poetry on a Greek pattern. 292 _sqq._; + would-be Pindaric flights, 296; + comparison with Marino and Tassoni, _ib._ + +CIOTTO, Giambattista, relations of, with Giordano Bruno, ii. 152 _sqq._ + +CISNEROS, Garcia de, author of a work which suggested + S. Ignatius's _Exercitia_, i. 236. + +CLEMENT VII.: a prisoner in S. Angelo, i. 14; + compact with Charles V., 15; + their meeting at Bologna, 16 _sqq._; + negotiations with the Emperor Elect, 26 _sqq._; + peace signed, 31. + +CLEMENT VIII.: his Concordat with Venice, i. 193; + Index of Prohibited Books issued by him, _ib._; + his rules for the censorship of books, 198 _sqq._; + he confers a pension on Tasso, ii. 76. + +CLOUGH, Mr., lines of, on 'Christianized' monuments in Papal Rome, i. 154. + +COADJUTORS, Temporal and Spiritual (Jesuit grades), i. 271. + +COLLALTO, Count Salici da, patron of the _bravo_ Bibboni, i. 400. + +COLONNA, the, reduced to submission to the Popes, i. 7. + +---Vespasiano, Duke of Palliano, i. 77. + +---Vittoria, i. 77; + letter to, from Tasso in his childhood, ii. 15. + +COMANDINO, Federigo, Tasso's teacher, ii. 19. + +COMPANY OF JESUS, _see_ JESUITS. + +CONCLAVES, external influences on, in the election of Popes, i. 134. + +CONFEDERATION between Clement VII. and Charles V., i. 31. + +'CONFIRMATIONS,' Fra Fulgenzio's, ii. 201. + +CONSERVATISM and Liberalism, necessary contest between, ii. 386. + +'CONSIDERATIONS on the Censures,' Sarpi's, ii. 201. + +CONSTANCE, Council of, i. 92. + +CONTARINI, Gasparo: his negotiations between Catholics + and Protestants, i. 30; + treatment of his writings by Inquisitors, 31; + suspected of heterodoxy, 72; + intimacy with Gaetano di Thiene, 76; + his concessions to the Reformers repudiated by the Curia, 78; + memorial on ecclesiastical abuses, 79. + +---Simeone: his account of a plague at Savigliano, i. 419 _sq._ + +'CONTRIBUTIONS of the Clergy, Discourse upon the,' Sarpi's, ii. 221. + +COPERNICAN system, the, Bruno's championship of, ii. 172. + +COREGLIA, one of the assassins of Lelio Buonvisi, i. 333 _sqq._ + +CORONATION of Charles V., description of, i. 34 _sqq._; + notable people present at, 39 _sqq._ + +CORSAIRS, Tunisian and Algerian, raids of, on Italian coasts, i. 417. + +COSCIA, Giangiacopo, guardian of Tasso's sister, ii. 16. + +COSIMO I. of Tuscany, the rule of, i. 46, 47. + +COSTANTINI, Antonio, Tasso's last letter written to, ii. 77; + sonnet on the poet, 78. + +COTERIES, religious, in Rome, Venice, Naples, i. 75 _sqq._ + +COUNTER-REFORMATION: its intellectual and moral character, i. 63; + the term defined, 64 _n._; + decline of Renaissance impulse, 65; + criticism and formalism in Italy, _ib._; + contrast with the development of other European races, 66; + transition to the Catholic Revival, 67; + attitudes of Italians towards the German Reformation, 71; + free-thinkers, 73; + the Oratory of Divine Love, 76; + the Moderate Reformers, _ib._; + Gasparo Contarini, 78; + new Religious Orders, 79; + the Council of Trent, 97, 119; + Tridentine Reforms, 107, 134; + asceticism fashionable in Rome, 108, 142; + active hostilities against Protestantism, 148; + the new spirit of Roman polity, 149 _sqq._; + work of the Inquisition, 159 _sqq._; + the Index, 195 _sqq._; + twofold aim of Papal policy, 226; + the Jesuits, 229 _sqq._; + an estimate of the results of the Reformation + and of the Counter-Reformation, ii. 385 _sqq._ + +COURIERS, daily post of, between the Council of Trent + and the Vatican, i. 121. + +COURT life in Italy, i. 20, 37, 41, 51; ii. 17, 29, 65, 201, 251. + +CRIMES of violence, in Italy in the sixteenth century, i. 304 _sqq._ + +CRIMINAL procedure, of Italian governments in the sixteenth + century, i. 308 _sqq._ + +CRITICISM, fundamental principles of, ii. 370; + the future of, 374. + +CROWNS, the iron and the golden, of the Emperor, i. 34. + +CULAGNA, Conte di, _see_ BRUSANTINI. + +CURIA, the, complicity of, with the attempts on Sarpi's life, ii. 213. + + +D + +'DATATARIO:' amount and sources of its income, i. 140. + +DATI, Giovanbattista, amount of, with nuns, i. 341 _sq._ + +'DECAMERONE,' Boccaccio's expurgated editions of, issued + in Rome, i. 224 _sq._ + +DELLA CRUSCANS, the, attack of, on Tasso's poetry, ii. 35, 72, 117 _n._ + +'DE Monade,' Bruno's, ii. 150, 152 _n._, 167. + +DEPRES, Josquin, the leader of the contrapuntal style in music, ii. 316. + +'DE Triplici Minimo,' Bruno's, ii. 150, 152 _n._, 167. + +'DE Umbris Idearum,' Bruno's, ii. 139. + +DEZA, Diego, Spanish Inquisitor, i. 182. + +DIACATHOLICON, the, meaning of the term as used by Sarpi, i. 231; ii. 202. + +DIALOGUES, Tasso's, ii. 22, 112. + +DIRECTORIUM, the (Lainez' commentary on the constitution + of the Jesuits), i. 249. + +DIVINE Right of sovereigns, the: why it found favor + among Protestants, i. 296. + +DOMENICHINO, Bolognese painter, ii. 355; + critique of Mr. Ruskin's invectives against his work, 359 _sqq._ + +DOMINICANS, the, ousted as theologians by the Jesuits at Trent, i. 101; + their reputation for learning, ii. 130. + +DOMINIS, Marcantonio de, publishes in England + Sarpi's _History of the Council of Trent_, ii. 223. + +DONATO, Leonardo, Doge of Venice, ii. 198. + +DORIA, Andrea: + his relations with Charles V., i. 18. + +---Cardinal Girolamo, i. 21. + + +E + +ECLECTICISM in painting, ii. 345 _sqq._, 375 _sqq._ + +ECONOMICAL stagnation in Italy, i. 423. + +ELIZABETH, Queen (of England), Bruno's admiration of, ii. 143. + +EMANCIPATION of the reason, retarded by both the Reformation and the + Counter-Reformation, ii. 385 _sqq._ + +EMIGRANTS from Italy, regulations of the Inquisition regarding, i. 227. + +ENZO, King (of Sardinia), a prisoner at Bologna, ii. 304. + +EPIC poetry, Italian speculations on, ii. 24; + Tasso's Dialogues on, 26. + +'EROICI Furori, Gli,' Bruno's, ii. 142, 183. + +ESPIONAGE, system of among the Jesuits, i. 273. + +ESTE, Alfonso d' (Duke of Ferrara), relations of, with Charles V., i. 40. + +---Cardinal Ippolito d', i. 127 _sq._ + +---Cardinal Luigi d', Tasso in the service of, ii. 12, 27. + +---Don Cesare d', Chiabrera's Ode to, ii. 291. + +---House of, their possessions in Italy, i. 45. 48. + +---Isabella d', at the coronation of Charles V.. i. 21. + +---Leonora d', the nature of Tasso's attachment to, ii. 31 _sqq._, 36, 40, + 51, 54 _n._, 56, 68; + her death, 71. + +---Lucrezia d', Tasso's attachment to, ii. 32, 39; + her marriage, 35; + her death, 40 _n._ + +EVOLUTION in relation to Art, ii. 371 _sqq._ + +'EXERCITIA Spiritualia' (Loyola's), i. 236; + manner of their use, 267 _sqq._ + +EXTINCTION of republics in Italy, i. 45 _sqq._ + + +F + +FABER, Peter, associate of Loyola, i. 239; + his work as a Jesuit in Spain, 258. + +FARNESE, Alessandro, _see_ PAUL III. + +---Giulia, mistress of Alexander VI., i. 81. + +---Ottavio (grandson of Paul III.), Duke of Camerino, i. 86. + +---Pier Luigi (son of Paul III.), Duke of Parma, i. 86. + +FEDERATION, Italian, the five members of the, i. 3 _sqq._; + how it was broken up, 11. + +FERDINAND, Emperor, successor of Charles V., i. 102, 118; + his relations with Canisius and the Jesuits, 259. + +FERRARA, i. 7; + settlement of the Duchy of, by Charles V., i. 40; + life at the Court of, ii. 29, 65, 247, 251. + +FERRUCCI, Francesco, i. 46. + +FESTA, Costanzo, the _Te Deum_ of, ii. 329. + +FINANCES of the Papacy under Sixtus V., i. 152. + +FIORENZA, Giovanni di, one of the assassins of Sarpi, ii. 212. + +FLAMINIO, Marcantonio, i. 76. + +FLEMISH musicians in Rome, ii. 316 _sqq._ + +FLORENCE: + condition of the Republic in 1494, i. 10; + Siege of the town (1530), 30 _sq._; + capitulation, 46; + under the rule of Spain, _ib._; + extinction of the Republic, 47; + the rule of Cosimo I., 49. + +FORMALISM, the development of, i. 66. + +FOSCARI, Francesco, the dogeship of, i. 9. + +FRANCIS I.: his capture at Pavia, i. 9, 13. + +FRECCI, Maddalo de', the betrayer of Tasso's love-affairs, ii. 51. + +FREDERICK II., Emperor: his edicts against heresy, i. 163. + +FREETHINKERS, Italian, i. 73 _sq._ + +FULGENZIO, Fra, the preaching of at Venice, ii. 207; + his biography of Sarpi, _ib._ + +FULKE GREVILLE, a supper at the house of, described + by Giordano Bruno, ii. 142, 147. + + +G + +GALLICAN CHURCH, the: its interests in the Council of Trent, i. 126. + +GALLUZZI'S record of Jesuit attempts to seduce youth, i. 284. + +GATTINARA, Cardinal, Grand Chancellor of the Empire, i. 31. + +GAMBARA, Veronica, i. 41. + +GENERAL Congregation of the Jesuits, functions of the, i. 273. + +GENERAL of the Jesuits, position of, in regard to the Order, i. 272. + +GENOA, becomes subject to Spain, i. 18. + +GENTILE, Valentino, i. 73. + +GERSON'S _Considerations upon Papal Excommunications_, + translated by Sarpi, ii. 200. + +'GERUSALEMME Conquistata,' Tasso's, ii. 75, 114 _sq._, 124. + +'GERUSALEMME Liberata:' at first called _Gottifredo_, ii. 35; + its dedication, 38, 47 _sq._; + submitted by Tasso to censors, 43; + their criticisms, 43 _sq._, 50; + successful publication of the poem, 71; + its subject-matter, 92; + the romance of the epic, 93; + Tancredi, the hero, 94; + imitations of Dante and Virgil, 95 _sqq._; + artificiality, 100; + pompous cadences, 101; + oratorical dexterity, 102; + the similes and metaphors, _ib._; + Armida, the heroine, 106. + +GHISLIERI, Michele, _see_ PIUS V. + +---Paolo, a relative of Pius V., i. 147. + +GIBERTI, Gianmatteo, Bishop of Verona, i. 19. + +GILLOT, Jacques, letter from Sarpi to, on the relations + of Church and State, ii. 203. + +GIOVANNI FRANCESCO, Fra, an accomplice in the attacks on Sarpi, ii. 214. + +'GLI ETEREI,' Academy of, at Padua, ii. 26. + +GOLDEN crown, the, significance of, i. 34. + +GONGORISM, i. 66. + +GONZAGA, Cardinal Ercole, ambassador from Clement VII. + to Charles V., i. 19. + +---Cardinal Scipione, a friend of Tasso, ii. 26, 42, 46, 67, 73. + +---Don Ferrante, i. 25. + +---Eleanora Ippolita, Duchess of Urbino, i. 37. + +---Federigo, Marquis of Mantua, i. 26. + +---Vincenzo, obtains Tasso's release, ii. 73; + the circumstances of his marriage, i. 386. + +'GOTTIFREDO.' Tasso's first title for the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, ii. 35. + +GOUDIMEL, Claude: his school of music at Rome, ii. 323. + +GRANADA, Treaty of, i. 12. + +GRAND style (in art), the so-called, ii. 379. + +GREGORY XIII., Pope (Ugo Buoncompagno): his early career + and election, i. 149; + manner of life, 150; + treatment of his relatives, 151; + revival of obsolete rights of the Church, 152; + consequent confusion in the Papal States, _ib._ + +GRISON mercenaries in Italy, i. 103 _n._ + +GUARINI, on the death of Tasso, ii. 69 _n._; + publishes a revised edition of Tasso's lyrics, 72; + Guarini's parentage, 244; + at the Court of Alfonso II. of Ferrara, 245; + a rival of Tasso, _ib._; + engaged on foreign embassies, 246; + appointed Court poet, 247; + domestic troubles, 249; + his last years, 251; + his death, _ib._; + argument of the _Pastor Fido_, _ib._; + satire upon the Court of Ferrara, 254; + critique of the poem, 255; + its style, 256; + comparison with Tasso's _Aminta_, 275. + +GUELF and Ghibelline contentions: how they ended in Italy, i. 57. + +GUICCIARDINI, Francesco, i. 33. + +GUISE, Duke of: his defeat by Alva, i. 103; + his murder, 129. + +GUZMAN, Domenigo de (S. Dominic), founder of the Dominican Order, i. 162. + + +H + +HEGEMONY, Spanish, economical and social condition of + the Italians under, i. 50; + the evils of, 61. + +HENCHENEOR, Cardinal William, i. 36. + +HENRI III., favor shown to Giordano Bruno by, ii. 139. + +HENRI IV., the murder of, i. 297. + +HENRY VIII.: his divorce from Katharine of Aragon, i. 44. + +HEROICO-comic poetry, Tassoni's _Secchia Rapita_, + the first example of, ii. 303. + +'HISTORY of the Council of Trent,' Sarpi's, ii. 222 _sqq._ + +HOLY Office, _see_ INQUISITION. + +HOLY Roman Empire, the, ii. 393. + +HOMATA, Benedetta, attempted murder of by Gianpaolo Osio, i. 323 _sqq._ + +HOMICIDE, lax morality of the Jesuits in regard to, i. 306 _n._ + +HOSIUS, Cardinal, legate at Trent, i. 118. + +HUMANISM, the work of, ii. 385, 391; + what it involved, 392; + Rationalism, its offspring, 404. + +HUMANITY, the past and future of, ii. 408 _sqq._ + + +I + +IL BORGA, a censor of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, ii. 43. + +'IL Candelajo,' Giordano Bruno's comedy, ii. 131, 183. + +IL GUERCINO (G.F. Barbieri), Bolognese painter, ii. 365; + his masterpieces, 367. + +'IL PADRE di Famiglio,' Tasso's Dialogue, ii. 63. + +'IL Pentito,' Tasso's name as one of Gli Eterei, ii. 26. + +INGEGNERI, Antonio, a friend of Tasso, ii. 64; + publishes the _Gerusalemme_, 71. + +INDEX Expurgatorius: + its first publication at Venice, i. 192; + effects on the printing trade there, 193; + the Index in concert with the Inquisition, 194; + origin of the Index, 195; + local lists of prohibited books, _ib._; + establishment of the Congregation of the Index, 197; + Index of Clement VIII., 198; + its preambles, _ib._; + regulations, 199 _sq._; + details of the censorship and correction of books, 201; + rules as to printers, publishers, and booksellers, 203; + responsibility of the Holy Office, 204; + annoyances arising from delays and ignorance on the part of censors, 205; + spiteful delators of charges of heresy, 207; + extirpation of books, 208; + proscribed literature, 209; + garbled works by Vatican students, 210; + effect of the Tridentine decree about the Vulgate, 212; + influence of the Index on schools and lecture-rooms, 213; + decline of humanism, 218; + the statutes on the _Ratio Status_, 220; + their object and effect, 221; + the treatment of lewd and obscene publications, 223; + expurgation of secular books, 224. + +INQUISITION, the, i. 159 _sqq._; + the first germ of the Holy Office, 161; + developed during the crusade against the Albigenses, _ib._; + S. Dominic its founder, 162; + introduced into Lombardy, etc., 164; + the stigma of heresy, 165; + three types of Inquisition, 166; + the number of victims, 166 _n._; + the crimes of which it took cognizance, 167; + the methods of the Apostolical Holy Office, 168; + treatment of the New Christians in Castile, 169, 171; + origin of the Spanish Holy Office, 170; + opposition of Queen Isabella, 171; + exodus of New Christians, 172; + the punishments inflicted, _ib._; + futile appeals to Rome, 173; + constitution of the Inquisition, 174; + its two most formidable features, 175; + method of its judicial proceedings, 176; + the sentence and its execution, 177; + the holocausts and their pageant, _ib._; + Torquemada's insolence, 179; + the body-guard of the Grand Inquisitor, 180; + number of Torquemada's victims, 181; + exodus of Moors from Castile, 182; + victims under Torquemada's successors, _ib._; + an Aceldama at Madrid, 184; + the Roman Holy Office, _ib._; + remodelled by Giov. Paolo Caraffa, 185; + 'Acts of Faith' in Rome, 186; + numbers of the victims, 187; + in other parts of Italy, 188; + the Venetian Holy Office, 190; + dependent on + the State, _ib._; + Tasso's dread of the Inquisition, ii. 42, 45, 49, 51; + the case of Giordano Bruno, 134, 157 _sqq._; + Sarpi denounced to the Holy Office, 195. + +INTELLECTUAL and social activity in Italian cities, i. 51. + +INTERDICT of Venice (1606), ii. 198 _sqq._; + the compromise, 205. + +INVASION, wars of, in Italy, i. 11 _sqq._ + +IRON crown, the, sent from Monza to Bologna, i. 36. + +'ITALIA Liberata,' Trissino's, ii. 24, 303. + +ITALIA Unita, ii. 407. + +ITALY: + its political conditions in 1494, i. 2 _sqq._; + the five members of its federation, 3; + how the federation was broken up, 11; + the League between Clement VII. and Charles V., 31; + review of the settlement of Italy effected by Emperor + and Pope, 45 _sqq._; + extinction of republics, 47; + economical and social condition of the Italians under + Spanish hegemony, 48; + intellectual life, 51; + predominance of Spain and Rome, 53 _sqq._; + Italian servitude, 58; + the evils of Spanish rule, 59 _sqq._; + seven Spanish devils in Italy, 61; + changes wrought by the Counter-Reformation, 64 _sqq._; + criticism and formalism, 65; + transition from the Renaissance to the Catholic Revival, _ib._; + attitude of Italians towards the German Reformation, 71. + + +J + +JESUITS, Order of: + its importance in the Counter-Reformation, i. 229; + the Diacatholicon, 231; + works on the history of the Order, 231 _n._; + sketch of the life of Ignatius Loyola, 231 _sqq._; + the first foundation of the _Exercitia_, 236; + Peter Faber and Francis Xavier, 239; + the vows taken by Ignatius and his neophytes at Paris, 240; + their proposed mission to the Holy Land, 241; + their visits to Venice and Rome, 242 _sq._; + the name of the Order, 244; + negotiations in Rome, 245; + the fourth vow, 246; + the constitutions approved by Paul III., 247; + the Directorium of Lainez, 249; + the original limit of the number of members, _ib._; + Loyola's administration, 250; + asceticism deprecated, 251; + worldly wisdom of the founder, 253; + rapid spread of the Order, 254; + the Collegium Romanum, 255; + Collegium Germanicum, _ib._; + the Order deemed rivals by the Dominicans in Spain, _ib._; + successes in Portugal, 256; + difficulties in France, 257; + in the Low Countries, _ib._; + in Bavaria and Austria, 258; + Loyola's dictatorship, 259; + his adroitness in managing distinguished members of his Order, 260; + statistics of the Jesuits at Loyola's death, _ib._; + the autocracy of the General, 261; + Jesuit precepts on obedience, 263 _sq._; + addiction to Catholicism, 266; + the spiritual drill of the _Exercitia Spiritualia_, 267; + materialistic imagination, 268; + psychological adroitness of the method, 269; + position and treatment of the novice, 270; + the Jesuit Hierarchy, 271; + the General, 272; + five sworn spies to watch him, 273; + a system of espionage through the Order, 274; + position of a Jesuit, _ib._; + the Black Pope, 275; + the working of the Jesuit vow of poverty, 275 _sq._; + revision of the Constitutions by Lainez, 277; + the question about the _Monita Secreta_, 277 _sqq._; + estimate of the historical importance of the Jesuits, 280 _sq._; + their methods of mental tyranny, 281; + Jesuitical education, 282; + desire to gain the control of youth, 283; + their general aim the aggrandizement of the Order, 284; + treatment of _etudes fortes_, _ib._; + admixture of falsehood and truth, 285; + sham learning and sham art, 286; + Jesuit morality, 287; + manipulation of the conscience, 288; + casuistical ethics, 290; + system of confession and direction, 293; + political intrigues and doctrines, 294 _sqq._; + the theory of the sovereignty of the people, 296; + Jesuit connection with political plots, 297; + suspected in regard to the deaths of Popes, 298; + the Order expelled from various countries, 299 _n._; + relations of Jesuits to Rome, 299; + their lax morality in regard to homicide, 306 _n._, 314; + their support of the Interdict of Venice, ii. 198 _sqq._ + +JEWS, Spanish, wealth and influence of, i. 169; + adoption of Christianity, _ib._; + attacked by the Inquisition, 170; + the edict for their expulsion, 171; + its results, 172. + +JULIUS II.: + results of his martial energy, i. 7. + +---III., Pope (Giov. Maria del Monte), i. 101. + + +K + +KEPLER, high opinion of Bruno's speculations held by, ii. 164. + +KINGDOMS and States of Italy in 1494, enumeration of, i. 3. + + +L + +'LA Cuccagna,' a satire by Marino, ii. 263. + +LAINEZ, James, associate of Ignatius Loyola, i. 240; + his influence on the development of the Jesuits, 248; + his commentary on the Constitutions (the Directorium), 249; + his work in Venice, etc., 254; + abject submission to Loyola, 262. + +LATERAN, Council of the, i. 95. + +LATIN and Teutonic factors in European civilization, ii. 393 _sqq._ + +LATINI, Latino, on the extirpation of books by the Index, i. 208. + +LEGATES, Papal, at Trent, i. 97 _n._, 119. + +LE JAY, Claude, associate of Ignatius Loyola, i. 240; + his work as a Jesuit at Ferrara, 254; + in Austria. 258. + +LEONI, Giambattista, employed by Sarpi to write against + the Jesuits, ii. 200. + +LEPANTO, battle of, i. 149. + +LESCHASSIER, Sarpi's letters to, ii. 229, 235. + +'LE Sette Giornate,' Tasso's, ii. 75, 115, 124. + +LEYVA, Antonio de, at Bologna, i. 22. + +---Virginia Maria de (the Lady of Monza): + birth and parentage, i. 317; + a nun in a convent of the Umiliate, 318; + her seduction by Gianpaolo Osio, 318 _sqq._; + birth of her child, 321; + murder of her waiting-woman by Osio, 322; + the intrigue discovered, 323; + attempted murder by Osio of two of her associates, 324; + Virginia's punishment and after-life, 329. + +LONDON, Bruno's account of the life of the people of, ii. 142; + social life in, 143. + +LORENTE'S History of the Inquisition, cited, 171 _sqq._; + his account of the number of victims of the Holy Office, i. 181, 183 _n._ + +LORRAINE, Cardinal: + his influence in the Council of Trent, i. 125 _sq._ + +LO SPAGNOLETTO (Giuseppe Ribera), Italian Realist painter, ii. 363. + +LOUISA of Savoy, one of the arrangers of the Paix des Dames, i. 16. + +LOUIS XII.: his descent into Lombardy, and its results, i. 9; + allied with the Austrian Emperor and the King of Spain, i. 12. + +LOYOLA, Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits: + his birth and childhood, i. 231; + his youth and early training, _ib._; + illness at Pampeluna, 232; + pilgrimage to Montserrat, 234; + retreat at Manresa, _ib._; + his romance and discipline, 235; + journey to the Holy Land, 237; + his apprenticeship to his future calling, _ib._; + imprisoned by the Inquisition, 238; + studies theology in Paris, _ib._; + gains disciples there, 239; + his methods with them, _ib._; + with ten companions takes the vows of chastity and poverty, 240; + Ignatius at Venice, 241; + his relations with Caraffa and the Theatines, 242; + in Rome, 243; + the name of the new Order, 244; + its military organization, 245; + the project favored by Paul III., _ib._; + the Constitution approved by the Pope, 247; + his worldly wisdom, 248 _n._; + Loyola's creative force, 249; + his administration, 250 _sq._; + dislike of the common forms of monasticism, 251; + his aims and principles, 252; + comparison with Luther, 253; + rapid spread of the Order, 254; + special desire of Ignatius to get a firm hold on Germany, 258; + his dictatorship, 259; + adroitness in managing his subordinates, 260; + autocratic administration, 261; + insistence on the virtue of obedience, 263; + devotion to the Roman Church, 265; + the _Exercitia Spiritualia_, 267 _sqq._; + Loyola's dislike of asceticism, 270; + his interpretation of the vow of poverty, 275; + his instructions as to the management of consciences, 287 _sq._; + his doctrine on the fear of God, 304 _n._ + +LUCERO EL TENEBROSO, the Spanish Inquisitor, i. 180. + +LUINI'S picture of S. Catherine, ii. 360. + +LULLY, Raymond: + his Art of Memory and Classification of the Sciences, + adapted by Giordano Bruno, ii. 139. + +LUNA, Don Juan de, i. 47. + +LUTHER, Bruno's high estimate of, ii. 149; + his relation to modern civilization, 402. + +LUTHERAN soldiers in Italy, i. 44. + +LUTHERANISM in Italy, i. 185. + + +M + +MACAULAY, Lord, on Sarpi's religious opinions, ii. 227 _n._; + critique of his survey of the Catholic Revival, 400 _sqq._ + +MAIN events in modern history, the, ii. 383 _sqq._ + +MALATESTA, Roberto, leader of bandits in the Papal States, i. 152. + +MALIPIERO, Alessandro, a friend of Sarpi, ii. 210. + +MALVASIA, Count C.C., writings of, on the Bolognese painters, ii. 350 _n._ + +MANRESA, Ignatius Loyola at, i. 234. + +MANRIQUE, Thomas, Master of the Sacred Palace, an expurgated + edition of the _Decamerone_ issued by, i. 224. + +MANSO, Marquis: + his _Life of Tasso_, ii. 54, 56, 58, 64, 70, 115; + friend of Marino in his youth, 261. + +MANTUA, raised to the rank of a duchy, i. 27. + +MANUZIO, Aldo (the younger), ill-treatment of, in Rome, i. 217 _sq._ + +---Paolo: + works produced at his press in Rome, i. 220; + a friend of Chiabrera, ii. 287. + +MARCELLUS II., Pope (Marcello Cervini), i. 97, 101. + +MARGARET of Austria, one of the arrangers of the Paix des Dames, i. 16. + +MARIANAZZO, a robber chief, refusal of pardon by, i. 309. + +MARIGNANO, Marquis of (Gian Giacomo Medici), i. 109, 115. + +MARINISM, i. 66; ii. 299, 302. + +MARINO, Giovanni Battista: + his birth and parentage, ii. 260; + escapades of his youth in Naples, 261; + at the Court of Carlo Emanuele, 262; + his life in Turin, _ib._; + at the Court of Maria de'Medici, 263; + successful publication of the _Adone_, 264; + return to Naples, 265; + critique of the _Adone_, 266 _sq._; + the Epic of Voluptuousness, 268; + its effeminate sensuality, 268 _sq._; + cynical hypocrisy, 270; + the character of Adonis, 272; + ugliness and discord, 273; + Marino's poetic gifts, 274; + great variety of episodes, 276; + unity of theme, 277; + purity of poetic style rarely attained, 279; + false rhetoric, 280; + Marinism, 281; + verbal fireworks, 282; + Marino's real inadequacy, 285; + the _Pianto d'Italia_, 286; + comparison of Marino with Chiabrera, 296. + +MARTELLI, Giovan Battista, a _bravo_ attendant on + Lorenzino de'Medici, i. 396. + +MARTUCCIA, a notorious Roman courtesan, i. 375. + +MASANIELLO, cause of the rising of, in Naples, i. 49. + +MASSACRE of S. Bartholomew, i. 55, 149. + +MASSIMI, Eufrosina (second wife of Lelio Massimi), the + murder of, i. 354 _sq._ + +---Lelio: violent deaths of the five sons whom he cursed, i. 355 _sq._ + +'MATERIE Beneficiarie, Delle,' Sarpi's, ii. 219. + +MAXIMILIAN, Emperor, allied against Venice with Louis XII., i. 12. + +MAZZOLA, Francesco (Il Parmigianino), i. 42. + +MEDA, Caterina da (waiting-woman of Virginia de Leyva), murder of, i. 322. + +MEDIAEVAL habits, survival of, in Italy in the sixteenth century, i. 306. + +MEDICI, de', family of: + their advances towards Despotism, i. 10; + violent deaths of members, 382 _sqq._; + eleven murdered in a half-century, 387. + +---Alessandro, Duke of Florence, i. 19, 46, 388. + +---Cosimo, i. 46; + made Grand Duke of Tuscany, 47. + +---Giovanni, i. 11. + +---Ippolito, i. 19. + +---Lorenzino, assassination of his cousin Alessandro + (Duke of Florence) by, i. 388; + details of his own murder, 389 _sqq._ + +---Lorenzo, i. 10. + +---Maria, the Court of, as Regent of France, ii. 263. + +---Piero, i. 10. + +MEDICI, Gian Giacomo (brother of Pius IV.), i. 50, 109. + +---Giovanni Angelo, _see_ PIUS IV. + +---Margherita (sister of Pius IV.), mother of Carlo Borromeo, i. 115 _n._ + +MENDOZA, Don Hurtado de, i. 47. + +MERSENNE, evidence of, as to the burning of Giordano Bruno, ii. 164 _n._ + +METAPHYSICAL speculators in Italy, i. 73. + +METAURUS, the, Tasso's ode to, ii. 63. + +METEMPSYCHOSIS, Bruno's doctrine of, ii. 160. + +MEXICO, the early Jesuits in, i. 260. + +MIANI, Girolamo, founder of the congregation of the Somascans, i. 79; + his relations with Loyola, 242. + +MICANZI, Fulgenzio, _see_ FULGENZIO, FRA. + +MILAN, Duchy of: + its state in 1494, i. 8. + +MOCENIGO, Giovanni: + his character, ii. 152; + invites Giordano Bruno to Venice, 153; + the object of the invitation, 154; + their intercourse, 155; + Bruno denounced to the Inquisition by Mocenigo, 157. + +---Luigi, on the relations between Pius IV. and Cardinal Morone, i. 110 _n._ + +MODENA and Bologna, humors of the conflict between, ii. 304. + +MONOPOLIES, system of, in Italy, i. 49. + +MONTALTO, Cardinal, nephew of Sixtus V., i. 157. + +MONTEBELLO, Baron, the tale of, i. 428. + +MONTECATINO, Antonio, an enemy of Tasso at Ferrara, ii. 48, 50, 60, 62; + his downfall, 66. + +MONTE OLIVETO, the monastery of, Tasso at, ii, 74. + +MONZA, the Lady of, _see_ LEYVA, VIRGINIA MARIA DE. + +MORALS, social and domestic, in Italy, effect of the + Catholic Revival on, i. 301 _sqq._; + outcome of the Tridentine decrees, 302; + hypocrisy and ceremonial observances, 303; + sufferings of the lower classes, _ib._; + increase of crimes of violence, 304; + mistrust between the aristocracy and the _bourgeoisie_, 306; + survival of mediaeval habits, _ib._; + brigandage, 307; + criminal procedure, 308; + mutual jealousy of States afforded security to refugee homicides, 309; + toleration of outlaws, 310; + the Lucchese army of bandits, 311; + honorable murder, 312; + maintenance of _bravi_, _ib._; +social violence countenanced by the Church, 314; + sexual morality, 315; + state of convents, 316; + profligate fanaticism, _ib._; + convent intrigues, 318 _sqq._ + +MORATO, Peregrino, letter from Celio Calcagnini to, i. 74. + +MORNAY, Duplessis, Sarpi's letters to, ii. 229. + +MORONE, Cardinal, i. 26; + Papal legate at Trent, 97 _n._; + imprisoned by Paul IV., 110; + relations with Pius IV., _ib._; + liberal thinkers among his associates, 111 _n._; + his work in connection with the Council of Trent, 127. + +---Girolamo, i. 26, 72. + +MUNICIPAL wars, Italian, ii. 304. + +MURDERS in Italy in the sixteenth century, i. 305 _sqq._ + +MURETUS: + his difficulties as a professor in Rome, i. 214, 216. + +MURTOLA, Gasparo, attempted assassination of the poet Marino by, ii. 263. + +MUSIC, Italian, decadence of, in the sixteenth century, ii. 315; + foreign musicians in Rome, 316; + the contrapuntal style, 317; + licenses allowed to performers, _ib._; + the medleys prepared by composers, _ib._; + disgraceful condition of Church music, 318; + orchestral _ricercari_, 320 _n._; + Savonarola's opinion of the Church music of his time, _ib._; + musical aptitude of the people, 322; + lack of a controlling element of correct taste, _ib._; + advent of Palestrina, _ib._; + the Congregation for the Reform of Music, 325; + rise of the Oratorio, 334; + music in England in the sixteenth century, 338; + rise of the Opera, 340. + +MUSICIANS, Italian, of the seventeenth cenutry, ii. 243. + + +N + +NAPLES, kingdom of, separated from Sicily, i. 4; + its extent, _ib._; + in the hands of Spain, 12. + +NASSAU, Count of, i. 38. + +NATURE, the study of, among Italian philosophers, ii. 128. + +NEPOTISM, Papal: + the Caraffas, i. 104 _sq._; + the Borromeos, 115; + the Ghislieri, 147; + Gregory XIII.'s relatives, 151; + estimate of the incomes of Papal nephews, 156 _sqq._ + +NEW Christians, the, in Spain, _see_ JEWS. + +NOBILI, Flaminio de', a censor of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, ii. 43. + +NOLA, survival of Greek customs in, ii. 132. + +NOVICES, Jesuit, position of, i. 271. + +NUNNERIES, state of, in the sixteenth century, i. 315 _sqq._ + + +O + +OMERO, Fuggiguerra, sobriquet chosen by Tasso in his wanderings, ii. 64. + +OPERA, rise of the, in Florence, ii. 341. + +ORANGE, Prince of, leader of the Spanish army in + the siege of Florence, i. 18. + +ORATORIO (Musical), the: + its origins in Rome, ii. 334. + +ORATORY of Divine Love, the, i. 76. + +ORSINI, the, reduced to submission to the Popes, i. 7. + +---Paolo Giordano (Duke of Bracciano): + his passion for Vittoria Accoramboni, i. 358; + his gigantic stature and corpulence, 359; + poisons his first wife, 360; + treatment by Sixtus V., 363; + secret marriage with Vittoria, 364; + renounces the marriage, 365; + ratifies the union by public marriage, 366; + flight from Rome, _ib._: + death of the Duke, 367. + +---Prince Lodovico: + procures the murder of Vittoria Accoramboni and her brother, i. 368; + siege of his palace, 370; + his violent death, 371. + +---Troilo, lover of the Duchess of Bracciano, i. 360; + details of his murder by Ambrogio Tremazzi, 405 _sqq._ + +OSIO, Gianpaolo: + his intrigue with Virginia de Leyva, i. 318 _sqq._; + murders her waiting-woman, 322; + attempts to murder two other nuns, 324; + his letter of defence to Cardinal Federigo Borromeo, 326; + condemned to death and outlawed, 327; + terms of the _Bando_, 328; + his end, 329. + +OSORIO, Don Alvaro, Grand Marshal of Spain, i. 22. + +OUTLAWRY in Italy in the sixteenth century, i. 307 _sqq._ + +OXFORD, Giordano Bruno's reception at, ii. 144. + + +P + +PACHECO, Cardinal, the foe of the Caraffeschi, i. 105. + +PADUAN school of scepictism, the, influence of, on Tasso, ii. 20. + +PAGANELLO, Conte, assassin of Vittoria Accoramboni, i. 371. + +PAINTING in the late years of the sixteenth century, ii. 344; + Eclecticism, 345; + influence of the Tridentine Council, 347; + the Mannerists, 348; + Baroccio, 349; + the Caracci, 350 _sqq._; + studies of the Bolognese painters, 352; + academical ideality, 354; + Guido, Albani, Domenichino, 355 _sqq._; + criticism of Domenichino's work, 359; + the Italian Realists, 363 _sqq._; + Lo Spada, 364; + Il Guercino, 365; + critical reaction against the Eclectics, 368; + fundamental principles of criticism, 370 _sqq._ + +PAIX des Dames, i. 9, 16. + +PALAZZO Vernio, Academy (musical) of the, ii. 340; + distinguished composers of its school, 341. + +PALEARIO, Aonio: + his opinion of the Index, i. 197, 214. + +PALESTRINA, Giovanni Pier Luigi: + his birth and early musical training, ii. 323; + uneventful life of the _Princeps Musicae_, 324; + relations with the Congregation for Musical Reform, 325; + the legend and the facts about + _Missa Papae Marcelli_, 326 _sqq._, 331 _n._; + Palestrina's commission, 331; + the three Masses in competition, 332; + the award by the Congregation and the Pope, 334; + Palestrina's connection with S. Filippo Neri, 334; + _Arie Divote_ composed for the Oratory, 335 _sq._; + character of the new music, 335; + influence of Palestrina on Italian music, 336; + estimate of the general benefit derived by music from him, 337 _sq._ + +PALLAVICINI, on Paul IV.'s seal for the Holy Office, i. 107 _n._ + +PALLAVICINO, Matteo, murder of, by Marcello Accoramboni, i. 358. + +PALLIANO, Duchess of, _see_ CARDONA, VIOLANTE DE. + +---Duke of (nephew of Paul IV.), murders committed by, i. 379; + his execution, 380. + +PANCIROLI, Guido, Tasso's master in the study of law, ii. 20. + +PAPACY, the, its position after the sack of Rome, i. 13; + tyranny of, arising from the instinct of self-preservation, 54; + dislike of, for General Councils, 90; + manipulation of the Council of Trent, 97 _sqq._, 119 _sqq._; + its supremacy founded by that Council, 131; + later policy of the Popes, 149 _sqq._, 226. + +PAPAL States, the: + their condition in 1447, i. 5; + attempts to consolidate them into a kingdom, 6. + +PARMA and Piacenza, creation of the Duchy of, by Paul III., i. 86. + +PARMA, Duchy of, added to the States of the Church, i. 7. + +PARMIGIANINO, Il, painting of Charles V. by, i. 42. + +PARRASIO, Alessandro, one of the assassins of Sarpi, ii. 212. + +PART-SONGS, French Protestant, influence of, on Palestrina, ii. 324. + +PASSARI, Pietro, amours of, with the nuns of S. Chiara, Lucca, i. 340 _sq._ + +'PASTOR Fido,' Guarini's, critique of, ii. 252 _sqq._ + +PAUL III., Pope, sends Contarini to the conference at Rechensburg, i. 78; + receives a memorial on ecclesiastical abuses, 79; + establishes the Roman Holy Office, 80; + sanctions the Company of Jesus, _ib._; + his early life and education, 81; + love of splendor, 82; + peculiarity of his position, _ib._; + the Pope of the transition, 84; + jealous of Spanish ascendency in Italy, 85; + creates the Duchy of Parma for his son, 86 _sqq._; + members of the moderate reforming party made Cardinals, 88; + his repugnance to a General Council, 90; + indiction of a Council to be held at Trent, 97; + difficulties of his position, 100; + his death, 101; + his connection with the founding of the Jesuit Order, 245. + +PAUL IV., Pope, _see_ CARAFFA, GIOV. PIETRO. + +PAUL V., Pope: + details of his nepotism, i. 157 _n._; + places Venice under an interdict, ii. 198. + +PAVIA, the battle of, 13. + +PELLEGRINI, Cammillo, panegyrist of Tasso, ii. 72. + +PEPERARA, Laura, Tasso's relations with, ii. 31. + +PERETTI, Felice (nephew of Sixtus V.), husband of Vittoria + Accoramboni, i. 357; + his murder, 358. + +PESCARA, Marquis of, husband of Vittoria Colonna, i. 25. + +'PESTE di S. Carlo, La,' i. 421. + +'PETRARCA, Considerazioni sopra le Rime, del,' Tassoni's, ii. 298, 300. + +PETRONI, Lucrezia, second wife of Francesco Cenci, i. 348 _sq._ + +PETRONIO, S., Bologna, reception of Charles V. by Clement VII. at, i. 23; + the Emperor's coronation at, 37 _sqq._ + +PETRUCCI, Pandolfo, seduction of two sons of, by the Jesuits, i. 284. + +PHILIP II. of Spain: + his quarrel with Paul IV., i. 102; + the reconciliation, 104. + +PHILOSOPHERS of Southern Italy in the sixteenth century, ii. 126 _sqq._ + +PIACENZA, added to the States of the Church, i. 7. + +PICCOLOMINI, Alfonso, leader of bandits in the Papal States, i. 152. + +'PIETRO Soave Polano,' anagram of 'Paolo Sarpi Veneto,' ii. 223. + +PIGNA (secretary to the Duke of Ferrara), a rival of Tasso, ii. 34, 45, 48. + +PINDAR, the professed model of Chiabrera's poetry, ii. 291, 294. + +PIRATES, raids of, on Italy, i. 417. + +PISA, first Council of, i. 92; + the second, 95. + +PIUS IV., Pope (Giov. Angelo Medici): + his parentage, i. 109; + Caraffa's antipathy to him, 110; + makes Cardinal Morone his counsellor, _ib._; + negotiations with the autocrats of Europe, 111; + his diplomatic character, 112; + the Tridentine decrees, _ib._; + keen insight into the political conditions of his time, 113; + independent spirit, 115; + treatment of his relatives, _ib._; + his brother's death helped him to the Papacy, _ib._; + the felicity of his life, 116; + the religious condition of Northern Europe in his reign, 117; + re-opening of the Council of Trent, 119; + his management of the difficulties connected with the Council, 127 _sqq._; + use of cajoleries and menaces, 129; + success of the Pope's plans, 130; + his Bull of ratification of the Tridentine decrees, 131; + his last days, 132; + estimate of the work of his reign, 133 _sqq._; + his lack of generosity, 142; + coldness in religious exercises, 144; + love of ease and good companions, 147. + +PIUS V., Pope (Michele Ghislieri): + his election, i. 137; + influence of Carlo Borromeo on him, 137, 145, 147; + ascetic virtues, 145; + zeal for the Holy Office, 145; + edict for the expulsion of prostitutes from Rome, 146; + his exercise of the Papal Supremacy, 148; + his Tridentine Profession of Faith, _ib._; + advocates rigid uniformity, 148; + promotes attacks on Protestants, _ib._ + +PLAGUES: + in Venice, i. 418; + at Naples and in Savoy, _ib._; + statistics of the mortality, 418 _n._; + disease supposed to be wilfully spread by malefactors, 420. + +POETRY, Heroic, the problem of creating, in Italy, ii. 80. + +POLAND, the crown of, sought by Italian princes, ii. 246. + +POLE, Cardinal Reginald, i. 76; + Papal legate at Trent, 97 _n._ + +POMA, Ridolfo, one of the assassins of Sarpi, ii. 212. + +POMPONIUS LAETUS, the teacher of Paul III., i. 81, 82. + +POPULAR melodies employed in Church music in the + sixteenth century, ii. 318. + +PORTRAIT of Charles V. by Titian, i. 42. + +'PRESS, Discourse upon the,' Sarpi's, ii. 220. + +'PRINCEPS Musicae,' the title inscribed on Palestrina's tomb, ii. 325. + +PRINTING: + effects of the Index Expurgatorius on the trade in Venice, i. 192; + firms denounced by name by Paul IV., 198, 208. + +PROFESSED of three and of four vows (Jesuit grades), i. 271 _sq._ + +PROLETARIATE, the Italian, social morality of in the + sixteenth century, i. 224 _sqq._ + +PROSTITUTES, Roman, expulsion of by Pius V., i. 146. + +PROTESTANT Churches in Italy, persecution of, i. 186. + +PROTESTANTISM in Italy, i. 71. + +PROVINCES, Jesuit, enumeration of the, i. 161. + +PUNCTILIO in the Sei Cento, ii. 288. + +PURISTS, Tuscan, Tassoni's ridicule of, ii. 308. + +PUTEO, Cardinal, legate at Trent, i. 119. + + +Q + +QUEMADERO, the Inquisition's place of punishment at Seville, i. 178. + +QUENTIN, S., battle of, i. 103. + +QUERRO, Msgr., an associate of the Cenci family, i. 349, 350, 352. + + +R + +'RAGGUAGLI di Parnaso,' Boccalini's, ii. 313. + +RANGONI, the, friends of Tasso and of his father, ii. 6, 23. + +'RATIO Status,' statutes of the Index on the, i. 220. + +RATIONALISM, the real offspring of Humanism, ii. 404. + +RAVENNA, exarchate of, i. 7. + +REALISTS, Italian school of painters, ii. 363 _sqq._ + +RECHENSBURG, the conference at, i. 78, 88 + +'RECITATIVO,' Claudio Monteverde the pioneer of, ii. 341. + +REFORMATION, the: position of Italians towards its doctrines, i. 72. + +REFORMING theologians in Italy, i. 76 _sq._ + +RELIGIOUS Orders, new, foundation of, in Italy, i. 79 _sq._ + +RELIGIOUS spirit of the Italian Church in the sixteenth century, i. 71. + +RENAISSANCE and Reformation: the impulses of both + simultaneously received by England, ii. 388. + +RENEE of France, Duchess of Ferrara, i. 77. + +RENI, Guido, Bolognese painter, ii. 355; + his masterpieces, 358. + +REPUBLICAN governments in Italy, i. 5. + +RETROSPECT over the Renaissance, ii. 389 _sqq._ + +REYNOLDS, Sir Joshua, admiration of, for the Bolognese + painters, ii. 359, 375. + +RIBERA, Giuseppe, _see_ LO SPAGNOLETTO. + +RICEI, Ottavia, attempted murder of, by Gianpaolo Osio, i. 323 _sqq._ + +'RICERCARI,' employment of, in Italian music, ii. 343. + +RINALDO, Tasso's, first appearance of, ii. 22; + its preface, 82; + its subject-matter, 84; + its religious motive, 86; + its style, 86 _sqq._ + +RODRIGUEZ d'Azevedo, Simon, associate of Ignatius Loyola, i. 240; + his work as a Jesuit in Portugal, 256, 262. + +ROMAN University, the, degraded condition of, in the sixteenth + century, i. 216. + +ROME, fluctuating population of, i. 137; + eleemosynary paupers, 139; + reform of Roman manners after the Council of Trent, 141; + expulsion of prostitutes, 146; + Roman society in Gregory XIII.'s reign, 152; + the headquarters of Catholicism, ii. 397; + relations with the Counter-Reformation, 398; + the complicated correlation of Italians with Papal Rome, 399; + the capital of a regenerated people, 408. + +RONDINELLI, Ercole, Tasso's instructions to, in regard to his MSS., ii. 35. + +ROSSI, Bastiano de', a critic of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, ii. 72. + +---Porzia de' (mother of Torquato Tasso): + her parentage, ii. 5, 7; + her marriage, 7; + her death, probably by poison, 9; + her character, 12; + Torquato's love for her, 15. + +---Vittorio de': + his description of the ill-treatment of Aldo Manuzio in Rome, i. 217 _sq._ + +ROVERE, Francesco della (Duke of Urbino), account of, i. 36. + +RUBBIERA, a fief of the Empire, i. 40. + +RUSKIN, Mr., on the cause of the decline of Venice, i. 423 _n._; + invectives of, against Domenichino's work, ii. 359. + + +S + +SACRED Palace, the Master of the: + censor of books in Rome, i. 201. + +SALMERON, Alfonzo, associate of Ignatius Loyola, i. 240; + in Naples and Sicily, 254. + +SALUZZO ceded to Savoy, i. 56. + +SALVIATI, Leonardo, a critic of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, ii. 72. + +SAMMINIATI, Tommaso, intrigue and correspondence of, with + Sister Umilia (Lucrezia Buonvisi), i. 341 _sqq._; + banished from Lucca, 344. + +S. ANNA, the hospital of, Tasso's confinement at, ii. 66 _sqq._ + +SAN BENITO, the costume of persons condemned by the Inquisition, i. 177. + +SANSEVERINO, Amerigo, a friend of Bernardo Tasso, ii. 14. + +---Ferrante di, Prince of Salerno, i. 38; ii. 6 _sqq._ + +SANTA CROCE, Ersilia di, first wife of Francesco Cenci, i. 347. + +SANVITALE, Eleonora, Tasso's love-affair with, ii. 48. + +SARDINIA, the island of, a Spanish province, i. 45. + +SARPI, Fra Paolo: + his birth and parentage, ii. 185; + his position in the history of Venice, 186; + his physical constitution, 189; + moral temperament, 190; + mental perspicacity, 191; + discoveries in magnetism and optics, 192; + studies and conversation, 193; + early entry into the Order of the Servites, _ib._; + his English type of character, 194; + denounced to the Inquisition, 195; + his independent attitude, 196; + his great love for Venice, 197; + the interdict of 1606, 198; + Sarpi's defence of Venice against the Jesuits, 199 _sqq._; + pamphlet warfare, 201; + importance of this episode, 202; + Sarpi's theory of Church and State, 203; + boldness of his views, 205; + compromise of the quarrel of the interdict, _ib._; + Sarpi's relations with Fra Fulgenzio, 207; + Sarpi warned by Schoppe of danger to his life, 208; + attacked by assassins, 209; + the _Stilus Romanae Curiae_, 211; + history of the assassins, 212; + complicity of the Papal Court, 213; + other attempts on Sarpi's life, 214 _sq._; + his opinion of the instigators, 216; + his so called heresy, 218; + his work as Theologian to the Republic, 219; + his minor writings, 221; + his opposition to Papal Supremacy, _ib._; + the _History of the Council of Trent_, 222; + its sources, 223; + its argument, 224; + deformation, not reformation, wrought by the Council, 225; + Sarpi's impartiality, 226; + was Sarpi a Protestant? 228; + his religious opinions, 229; + views on the possibility of uniting Christendom, 230; + hostility to ultra-papal Catholicism, 231; + critique of Jesuitry, 233; + of ultramontane education, 235; + the Tridentine Seminaries, 235; + Sarpi's dread lest Europe should succumb to Rome, 237; + his last days, 238; + his death contrasted with that of Giordano Bruno, 239 _n._; + his creed, 239; + Sarpi a Christian Stoic, 240. + +SARPI, citations from his writings, on the Papal + interpretation of the Tridentine decrees, i. 131 _n._; + details of the nepotism of the Popes, 156 _n._, 157 _n._; + denunciation of the Index, 197 _n._, 206, 208 _n._; + on the revival of polite learning, 215; + on the political philosophy of the statutes of the Index, 221; + on the Inquisition rules regarding emigrants from Italy, 227 _sq._; + his invention of the name 'Diacatholicon,' 231; + on the deflection of Jesuitry from Loyola's spirit and intention, 248; + on the secret statutes of the Jesuits, 278; + denunciations of Jesuit morality, 289 _n._; + on the murder of Henri IV., 297 _n._; + on the instigators of the attempts on his own life, ii. 215 _n._; + on the attitude of the Roman Court towards murder, 216; + on the literary polemics of James I., 229; + on Jesuit education and the Tridentine Seminaries, 237. + +SAVONAROLA'S opinion of the Church music of his time, ii. 320 _n._ + +SAVOY, the house of: + its connection with important events in Italy, i. 16 _n._, 38, 56; + becomes an Italian dynasty, 58. + +'SCHERNO DEGLI DEI,' Bracciolini's, ii. 313. + +SCHOLASTICS (Jesuit grade), i. 271. + +SCHOPPE (Scioppius), Gaspar: + sketch of his career, ii. 165, 208; + his account of Bruno's heterodox opinions, 166; + description of the last hours of Bruno, 167. + +'SECCHIA RAPITA, LA,' Tassoni's, ii. 301 _sqq._ + +SECONDARY writers of the Sei Cento, ii. 313. + +SEI CENTO, the, decline of culture in Italy in, ii. 242; + its musicians, 243. + +SEMINARIES, Tridentine, ii. 235. + +SERIPANDO, Cardinal, legate at Trent, i. 118. + +SERSALE, Alessandro and Antonio, Tasso's nephews, ii. 72. + +---Cornelia (sister of Tasso), ii. 7, 9, 15 _sq._, 55, 64; + her children, 72. + +SERVITES, General of the, complicity of, in the attempts on + Sarpi's life, ii. 214. + +SETTLEMENT of Italy effected by Charles V. and Clement VII., + net results of, i. 45 _sqq._ + +'SEVEN Liberal Arts, On the,' a lost treatise by Giordano + Bruno, ii. 156, 182. + +SFORZA, Francesco Maria, his relations with Charles V., i. 28. + +---Lodovico (Il Moro, ruler of Milan), invites Charles VIII. + into Italy, i. 8. + +SICILY, separated from Naples, i. 4. + +SIENA, republic of, subdued by Florence, i. 47. + +'SIGNS of the Times, The,' a lost work by Giordano Bruno, ii. 136. + +SIGONIUS: his _History of Bologna_ blocked by the Index, i. 207. + +SIMONETA, Cardinal, legate at Trent, i. 118, 121. + +SIXTUS V., Pope: + short-sighted hoarding of treasure by, i. 153; + his enactments against brigandage, 152; + accumulation of Papal revenues, _ib._; + public works, 153; + animosity against pagan art, _ib._; + works on and about S. Peter's, 154; + methods of increasing revenue, 155; + nepotism, 157; + development of the Papacy in his reign, 158; + his death predicted by Bellarmino, 298; + his behavior after the murder of his nephew (Felice Peretti), 362. + +SODERINI, Alessandro, assassinated together with his nephew + Lorenzino de'Medici, i. 398. + +SOLIMAN, Paul IV.'s negotiations with, i. 103. + +SOMASCAN Fathers, Congregation of the, i. 79. + +S. ONOFRIO, Tasso's death at, ii. 78; + the mask of his face at, 116. + +SORANZO, on the character of Pius IV., i. 111 _n._; + on Carlo Borromeo, 116 _n._; + on the changes in Roman society in 1565, 143. + +'SPACCIO della Bestia Trionfante, Lo,' Giordano Bruno's, + ii. 132 _n._, 140, 165, 183 _sq._ + +SPADA, Lionello, Bolognese painter, ii. 364. + +SPAIN: + its position in Italy after the battle of Pavia, i. 14. + +SPANIARDS of the sixteenth century, character of, i. 59. + +SPERONI, Sperone: + his criticism of Tasso's _Gerusalemme_, ii. 44; + a friend of Chiabrera, 287. + +SPHERE, the, Giordano Bruno's doctrine of, ii. 135, 144 _sq._ + +STENDHAL, De (Henri Beyle): + his _Chroniques et Nouvelles_ cited: + on the Cenci, i. 351 _sq._; + the Duchess of Palliano, 373. + +STERILITY of Protestantism, ii. 401. + +STROZZI, Filippo, i. 46. + +---Piero, i. 47. + + +T + +TASSO, Bernardo (father of Torquato), i. 38; + his birth and parentage, ii. 5; + the _Amadigi_, 7, 11, 18, 35; + his youth and marriage, 7; + misfortunes, _ib._; + exile and poverty, 8; + death of his wife, 9; + his death, 10, 35; + his character, _ib._; + his _Floridante_, 35. + +---Christoforo (cousin of Torquato), ii. 14. + +---Torquato: + his relation to his epoch, ii. 2; + to the influences of Italian decadence, 4; + his father's position, 6; + Torquato's birth, 7; + the death of his mother, 9, 15; + what Tasso inherited from his father, 11; + Bernardo's treatment of his son, _ib._; + Tasso's precocity as a child, 12; + his early teachers, _ib._; + pious ecstasy in his ninth year, 13; + with his father in Rome, 14; + his first extant letter, 15; + his education, 16; + with his father at the Court of Urbino, 17; + mode of life here, 18; + acquires familiarity with Virgil, 19; + studies and annotates the _Divina Commedia_, _ib._; + metaphysical studies and religious doubts, 20; + reaction, _ib._; + the appearance of the _Rinaldo_, 21; + leaves Padua for Bologna, _ib._; + Dialogues on the Art of Poetry, 22, 24, 26; + flight to Modena, 22; + speculations upon Poetry, 23; + Tasso's theory of the Epic, 24; + he joins the Academy 'Gli Eterei' at Padua, as 'Il Pentito,' 26; + enters the service of Luigi d'Este, 27; + life at the Court of Ferrara, 28; + Tasso's love-affairs, 31; + the problem of his relations with Leonora and Lucrezia + d'Este, 32 _sqq._, 48, 51; + quarrel with Pigna, 34; + his want of tact, _ib._; + edits his _Floridante_, 35; + visit to Paris, _ib._; + the _Gottifredo_ (_Gerusalemme Liberata_), 35, 38, 42, 48, 50; + his instructions to Rondinelli, _ib._; + life at the Court of Charles IX., 36; + rupture with Luigi d'Este, 38; + enters the service of Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, _ib._; + renewed relations with Leonora, _ib._; + production and success of _Aminta_, 39; + relations with Lucrezia d'Este (Duchess of Urbino), _ib._; + his letters to Leonora, 41; + his triumphant career, _ib._; + submits the _Gerusalemme_ to seven censors, 43; + their criticisms, _ib._; + literary annoyances, 44; + discontent with Ferrara, 45; + Tasso's sense of his importance, _ib._; + the beginning of his ruin, 46; + he courts the Medici, 47; + action of his enemies at Ferrara, 48; + doubts as to his sanity, 49; + his dread of the Inquisition, _ib._; + persecution by the courtiers, 50; + revelation of his love affairs by Maddalo de'Frecci, 51; + Tasso's fear of being poisoned, _ib._; + outbreak of mental malady, 52; + temporary imprisonment, _ib._; + estimate of the hypothesis that Tasso feigned madness, 53; + his escape from the Convent of S. Francis, 54; + with his sister at Sorrento, 55; + hankering after Ferrara, 56; + his attachment to the House of Este, 57; + terms on which he is received back, 58; + second flight from Ferrara, 61; + at Venice, Urbino, Turin, 63; + 'Omero Fuggiguerra,' 64; + recall to Ferrara, 65; + imprisoned at S. Anna, 66; + reasons for his arrest, 67; + nature of his malady, 69; + life in the hospital, 71; + release and wanderings, 73; + the _Torrismondo_, _ib._; + work on the _Gerusalemme Conquistata_ and + the _Sette Giornate_, 75; + last years at Naples and Rome, 76; + at S. Onofrio, 76; + death, 78; + imaginary Tassos, 79; + condition of romantic and heroic poetry in Tasso's youth, 80; + his first essay in poetry, 81; + the preface to _Rinaldo_, 82; + subject-matter of the poem, 84; + its religious motive, 86; + Latinity of diction, _ib._; + weak points of style, 88; + lyrism and idyll, 89; + subject of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, 92; + its romance, 94; + imitation of Virgil, 97; + of Dante, 97, 99; + rhetorical artificiality, 100; + sonorous verses, 101; + oratorical dexterity, 102; + similes and metaphors, _ib._; + majestic simplicity, 104; + the heroine, 106; + Tasso, the poet of Sentiment, 108; + the _Non so che_, 109 _sq._; + Sofronia, Erminia, Clorinda, 109 _sqq._; + the Dialogues and the tragedy _Torrismondo_, 113; + the _Gerusalemme Conquistata_ and + _Le Sette Giornate_, 115, 124; + personal appearance of Tasso, 115; + general survey of his character, 116 _sqq._; + his relation to his age, 120; + his mental attitude, 122; + his native genius, 124. + +TASSONI, Alessandro: + his birth, ii. 297; + treatment by Carlo Emmanuele, 298; + his independent spirit, _ib._; + aim at originality of thought, 299; + his criticism of Dante and Petrarch, 300; + the _Secchia Rapita_: + its origin and motive, 301; + its circulation in manuscript copies, 302; + Tassoni the inventor of heroico-comic poetry, 303; + humor and sarcasm in Italian municipal wars, 304; + the episode of the Bolognese bucket, _ib._; + irony of the _Secchia Rapita_, 306; + method of Tassoni's art, _ib._; + ridicule of contemporary poets, 307; + satire and parody, 308; + French imitators of Tasso, 310; + episodes of pure poetry, 311; + sustained antithesis between poetry and melodiously-worded slang, 312; + Tassoni's rank as a literary artist, _ib._ + +TAXATION, the methods of, adopted by Spanish Viceroys in Italy, i. 49. + +TENEBROSI, the (school of painters), ii. 365. + +TESTI, Fulvio, Modenese poet, ii. 314. + +TEUTONIC tribes, relations of with the Italians, ii. 393; + unreconciled antagonisms, 394; + divergence, 395; + the Church, the battle-field of Renaissance and Reformation, 395. + +THEATINES, foundation of the Order of, i. 79. + +THEORY, Italian love of, in Tasso's time, ii. 25; + critique of Tasso's theory of poetry, 26, 42. + +THIENE, Gaetano di, founder of the Theatines, i. 76. + +THIRTY Divine Attributes, Bruno's doctrine of, ii. 139. + +TINTORETTO'S picture of S. Agnes, ii. 361. + +TITIAN, portrait of Charles V. by, i. 42. + +TOLEDO, Don Pietro di, Viceroy of Naples, i. 38; ii. 7. + +---Francesco da, confessor of Gregory XIII., i. 150. + +TORQUEMADA, the Spanish Inquisitor, i. 173, 179, 181. + +TORRE, Delia, the family of, ancestors, of the Tassi, ii. 5. + +'TORRISMONDO,' Tasso's tragedy of, ii. 73, 113 _sq._ + +TORTURE, cases of witnesses put to, i. 333 _sqq._ + +TOUCH, the sense of, Marino's praises of, ii. 270. + +TOULOUSE, power of the Inquisition in, ii. 137. + +TRAGIC narratives circulated in manuscript in the + sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, i. 372. + +'TREATISE on the Inquisition,' Sarpi's, ii. 220. + +---'on the Interdict,' Sarpi's, ii. 201. + +TREMAZZI, Ambrogio: + his own report of how he wrought the murder of Troilo + Orsini, i. 405 _sqq._; + his notions about his due reward, 406. + +TRENT, Council of: + Indiction of, by Paul III., i. 97; + numbers of its members, 97 _n._, 119 _n._; + diverse objects of the Spanish, French, and German + representatives, 98, 122; + the articles which it confirmed, 98; + method of procedure, 99, 120; + the Council transferred to Bologna, 100; + Paul IV.'s measures of ecclesiastical reform, 107; + the Council's decrees actually settled in the four Courts, 112, 119; + its organization by Pius IV., 118 _sqq._; + inauspicious commencement, 119; + the privileges of the Papal legates, 120; + daily post of couriers to the Vatican, 121; + arts of the Roman Curia, 122; + Spanish, French, Imperial Opposition, 123; + clerical celibacy and Communion under both forms, _ib._; + packing the Council with Italian bishops, 125; + the interests of the Gallican Church, 126; + interference of the Emperor Ferdinand, _ib._; + confusion in the Council, 126 _n._; + envoys to France and the Emperor, 127; + cajoleries and menaces, 129; + action of the Court of Spain, 130; + firmness of the Spanish bishops, 130 _n._; + Papal Supremacy decreed, 131; + reservation in the Papal Bull of ratification, 131 _and note_; + Tridentine Profession of Faith (Creed of Pius V.), 148. + +TUSCANY, creation of the Grand Duchy of, i. 47. + +TWO SICILIES, the kingdom of the, i. 45. + +'TYRANNY of the kiss,' the, exemplified in the _Rinaldo_, ii. 90; + in the _Pastor Fido_, 255; + in the _Adone_, 272. + + +U + +UNIVERSAL Monarchy, end of the belief in, i. 34. + +UNIVERSE, Bruno's conception of the, ii. 173 _sqq._ + +UNIVERSITIES, Italian, i. 51. + +'UNTORI, La Peste degli,' i. 421; + trial of the _Untoti_, 421. + +URBAN VIII., fantastic attempt made against the life of, i. 425 _sq._ + +URBINO, the Court of, life at, ii. 17 _sq._ + + +V + +VALDES, Juan: + his work _On the Benefits of Christ's Death_, i. 76. + +VALORI, Baccio, i. 33. + +VASTO, Marquis of, i. 25. + +VENETIAN ambassadors' despatches cited: + on the manners of the Roman Court in 1565, i. 142, 147; + the expulsion of prostitutes from Rome, 146. + +VENICE, the Republic of, its possessions in the fifteenth century, i. 9; + relations with Spain in 1530, 45; + rise of a contempt for commerce in, 49; + the constitution of its Holy Office, 190; + Concordat with Clement VIII., 193; + Tasso at, ii. 19 _sq._; + its condition in Sarpi's youth, 185; + political indifference of its aristocracy, 186; + put under interdict by Paul V., 198. + +VENIERO, Maffeo, on Tasso's mental malady, ii. 52, 63. + +VERONA, Peter of (Peter Martyr), Italian Dominican Saint + of the Inquisition, i. 161. + +VERVINS, the Treaty of, i. 48, 56. + +VETTORI, Francesco, i. 33. + +VIRGIL, Tasso's admiration of, ii. 25; + translations and adaptations from, 98. + +VISCONTI, the dynasty of, i. 8. + +---Valentina, grandmother of Louis XII. of France, i. 8. + +VITELLI, Alessandro, i. 46. + +VITELLOZZI, Vitellozzo, influence of, in the reform of + Church music, ii. 325. + +VITI, Michele, one of the assassins of Sarpi, ii. 212. + +'VOCERO,' the, i. 332. + +VOLTERRA, Bebo da, associate of Bibboni in the murder of + Lorenzino de'Medici, i. 390 _sqq._ + +VULGATE, the: + results of its being declared inviolable, i. 210. + + +W + +WALDENSIANS in Calabria, the, i. 188. + +WITCHCRAFT, chiefly confined to the mountain regions of Italy, i. 425; + mainly used as a weapon of malice, _ib._; + details of the sorcery practised by Giacomo Centini, 425 _sqq._ + +WIFE-MURDERS in Italy in the sixteenth century, i. 380 _sq._, 385. + + +X + +XAVIER, Francis, associate of Ignatius Loyola, i. 239; + his work as a Jesuit in Portugal, 256; + his mission to the Indies, 260. + +XIMENES, Cardinal, as Inquisitor General, i. 182. + + +Z + +ZANETTI, Guido, delivered over to the Roman Inquisition, i. 145. + + + + + + +RENAISSANCE IN ITALY + +_THE CATHOLIC REACTION_ + +In Two Parts + +BY + +JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS + + _'Il mondo invecchia, + E invecchiando intristisce_' + + TASSO, _Aminta_, Act 2, sc. 2 + + +PART II + +NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + +1887 _AUTHOR'S EDITION_ + + + + +CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. + + * * * * * + + + CHAPTER VII. + + TORQUATO TASSO. + + Tasso's Relation to his Age--Balbi on that Period--The Life of + Bernardo Tasso--Torquato's Boyhood--Sorrento, Naples, Rome, + Urbino--His first Glimpse of the Court--Student Life at Padua and + Bologna--The _Rinaldo_--Dialogues on Epic Poetry--Enters the + Service of Cardinal d'Este--The Court of Ferrara--Alfonso II. and + the Princesses--Problem of Tasso's Love--Goes to France with + Cardinal d'Este--Enters the Service of Duke Alfonso--The + _Aminta_--Tasso at Urbino--Return to Ferrara--Revision of the + _Gerusalemme_--Jealousies at Court--Tasso's Sense of His own + Importance--Plans a Change from Ferrara to Florence--First Symptoms + of Mental Disorder--Persecutions of the Ferrarese Courtiers--Tasso + confined as a Semi-madman--Goes with Duke Alfonso to + Belriguardo--Flies in Disguise from Ferrara to Sorrento--Returns to + Court Life at Ferrara--Problem of his Madness--Flies again--Mantua, + Venice, Urbino, Turin--Returns once more to Ferrara--Alfonso's + Third Marriage--Tasso's Discontent--Imprisoned for Seven Years in + the Madhouse of S. Anna--Character of Tasso--Character of Duke + Alfonso--Nature of the Poet's Malady--His Course of Life in + Prison--Released at the Intercession of Vincenzo Gonzaga--Goes to + Mantua--The _Torrismondo_--An Odyssey of Nine Years--Death at Sant + Onofrio in Rome--Constantini's Sonnet + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + THE "GERUSALEMME LIBERATA." + + Problem of Creating Heroic Poetry--The Preface to Tasso's + _Rinaldo_--Subject of _Rinaldo_--Blending of Romantic Motives with + Heroic Style--Imitation of Virgil--Melody and Sentiment--Choice of + Theme for the _Gerusalemme_--It becomes a Romantic Poem after + all--Tancredi the real Hero--Nobility of Tone--Virgilian + Imitation--Borrowings from Dante--Involved Diction--Employment of + Sonorous Polysyllabic Words--Quality of Religious Emotion in this + Poem--Rhetoric--Similes--The Grand Style of Pathos--Verbal + Music--The Chant d'Amour--Armida--Tasso's Favorite Phrase, _Un non + so che_--His Power over Melody and Tender Feeling--Critique of + Tasso's Later Poems--General Survey of his Character + + + CHAPTER IX. + + GIORDANO BRUNO. + + Scientific Bias of the Italians checked by Catholic + Revival--Boyhood of Bruno--Enters Order of S. Dominic at + Naples--Early Accusations of Heresy--Escapes to Rome--Teaches the + Sphere at Noli--Visits Venice--At Geneva--At Toulouse--At + Paris--His Intercourse with Henri III.--Visits England--The French + Ambassador in London--Oxford--Bruno's Literary Work in + England--Returns to Paris--Journeys into Germany--Wittenberg, + Helmstaedt, Frankfort--Invitation to Venice from Giovanni + Mocenigo--His Life in Venice--Mocenigo denounces him to the + Inquisition--His Trial at Venice--Removal to Rome--Death by Burning + in 1600--Bruno's Relation to the Thought of his Age and to the + Thought of Modern Europe--Outlines of his Philosophy + + + CHAPTER X. + + FRA PAOLO SARPI. + + Sarpi's Position in the History of Venice--Parents and + Boyhood--Entrance into the Order of the Servites--His Personal + Qualities--Achievements as a Scholar and a Man of Science--His Life + among the Servites--In Bad Odor at Rome--Paul V. places Venice + under Interdict--Sarpi elected Theologian and Counselor of the + Republic--His Polemical Writings--Views on Church and State--The + Interdict Removed--Roman Vengeance--Sarpi attacked by Bravi--His + Wounds, Illness, Recovery--Subsequent History of the + Assassins--Further Attempts on Sarpi's Life--Sarpi's Political and + Historical Works--History of the Council of Trent--Sarpi's Attitude + towards Protestantism His Judgment of the Jesuits--Sarpi's + Death--The Christian Stoic + + + CHAPTER XI. + + GUARINI, MARINO, CHIABRERA, TASSONI. + + Dearth of Great Men--Guarini a Link between Tasso and the + Seventeenth Century--His Biography--The _Pastor Fido_--Qualities of + Guarini as Poet--Marino the Dictator of Letters--His Riotous Youth + at Naples--Life at Rome, Turin, Paris--Publishes the _Adone_--The + Epic of Voluptuousness--Character and Action of Adonis--Marino's + Hypocrisy--Sentimental Sweetness--Brutal Violence--Violation of + Artistic Taste--Great Powers of the Poet--Structure of the + _Adone_--Musical Fluency--Marinism--Marino's Patriotic + Verses--Contrast between Chiabrera and Marino--An Aspirant after + Pindar--Chiabrera's Biography--His Court Life--Efforts of Poets in + the Seventeenth Century to attain to Novelty--Chiabrera's + Failure--Tassoni's Life--His Thirst to Innovate--Origin of the + _Secchia Rapita_--Mock-Heroic Poetiy--The Plot of this Poem--Its + Peculiar Humor--Irony and Satire--Novelty of the Species--Lyrical + Interbreathings--Sustained Contrast of Parody and Pathos--The Poet + Testi + + + CHAPTER XII. + + PALESTRINA AND THE ORIGINS OF MODERN MUSIC. + + Italy in Renaissance produces no National School of Music--Flemish + Composers in Rome--Singers and Orchestra--The Chaotic, Indecency + of this Contrapuntal Style--Palestrina's Birth and Early + History--Decrees of the Tridentine Council upon Church Music--The + Mass of Pope Marcello--Palestrina Satisfies the Cardinals with his + New Style of Sacred Music--Pius IV. and his Partiality for + Music--Palestrina and Filippo Neri--His Motetts--The Song of + Solomon set to Melody--Palestrina, the Saviour of Music--The + Founder of the Modern Style--Florentine Essays in the Oratorio + + + CHAPTER XIII. + + THE BOLOGNESE SCHOOL OF PAINTERS. + + Decline of Plastic Art--Dates of the Eclectic Masters--The + Mannerists--Baroccio--Reaction started by Lodovico Caracci--His + Cousins Annibale and Agostino--Their Studies--Their Academy at + Bologna--Their Artistic Aims--Dionysius Calvaert--Guido Reni--The + Man and his Art--Domenichino--Ruskin's Criticism--Relation of + Domenichino to the Piety of his Age--Caravaggio and the + Realists--Ribera--Lo Spagna--Guercino--His Qualities as + Colorist--His Terribleness--Private Life--Digression upon + Criticism--Reasons why the Bolognese Painters, are justly now + Neglected + + + CHAPTER XIV. + + CONCLUSION. + + The Main Events of European History--Italy in the + Renaissance--Germany and Reformation--Catholic Reaction--Its + Antagonism to Renaissance and Reformation--Profound Identity of + Renaissance and Reformation--Place of Italy in European + Civilization--Want of Sympathy between Latin and Teutonic + Races--Relation of Rome to Italy--Macaulay on the Roman Church--On + Protestantism--Early Decline of Renaissance Enthusiasms--Italy's + Present and Future + + + + +RENAISSANCE IN ITALY. + + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +TORQUATO TASSO. + + Tasso's Relation to his Age--Balbi on that Period--The Life of + Bernardo Tasso--Torquato's Boyhood--Sorrento, Naples, Rome, + Urbino--His first Glimpse of the Court--Student Life at Padua and + Bologna--The _Rinaldo_--Dialogues on Epic Poetry--Enters the + Service of Cardinal d'Este--The Court of Ferrara--Alfonso II. and + the Princesses--Problem of Tasso's Love--Goes to France with + Cardinal d'Este--Enters the Service of Duke Alfonso--The + _Aminta_--Tasso at Urbino--Return to Ferrara--Revision of the + _Gerusalemme_--Jealousies at Court--Tasso's Sense of His own + Importance--Plans a Change from Ferrara to Florence--First Symptoms + of Mental Disorder--Persecutions of the Ferrarese Courtiers--Tasso + confined as a Semi-madman--Goes with Duke Alfonso to + Belriguardo--Flies in Disguise from Ferrara to Sorrento--Returns to + Court Life at Ferrara--Problem of his madness--Flies again--Mantua, + Venice, Urbino, Turin--Returns once more to Ferrara--Alfonso's + Third Marriage--Tasso's Discontent--Imprisoned for Seven years in + the madhouse of S. Anna--Character of Tasso--Character of Duke + Alfonso--Nature of the Poet's Malady--His Course of Life in + Prison--Released at the Intercession of Vincenzo Gonzaga--Goes to + Mantua--The _Torrismondo_--An Odyssey of nine Years--Death at Sant + Onofrio in Rome--Constantini's Sonnet. + + +It was under the conditions which have been set forth in the foregoing +chapters that the greatest literary genius of his years in Europe, the +poet who ranks among the four first of Italy, was educated, rose to +eminence, and suffered. The political changes introduced in 1530, the +tendencies of the Catholic Revival, the terrorism of the Inquisition, +and the educational energy of the Jesuits had, each and all, their +manifest effect in molding Tasso's character. He represents that period +when the culture of the Renaissance was being superseded, when the +caries of court-service was eating into the bone and marrow of Italian +life, when earlier forms of art were tending to decay, or were passing +into the new form of music. Tasso was at once the representative poet of +his age and the representative martyr of his age. He was the latter, +though this may seem paradoxical, in even a stricter sense than Bruno. +Bruno, coming into violent collision with the prejudices of the century, +expiated his antagonism by a cruel death. Tasso, yielding to those +influences, lingered out a life of irresolute misery. His nature was +such, that the very conditions which shaped it sufficed to enfeeble, +envenom, and finally reduce it to a pitiable ruin. + +Some memorable words of Cesare Balbi may serve as introduction to a +sketch of Tasso's life. 'If that can be called felicity which gives to +the people peace without activity; to nobles rank without power; to +princes undisturbed authority within their States without true +independence or full sovereignty; to literary men and artists numerous +occasions for writing, painting, making statues, and erecting edifices +with the applause of contemporaries but the ridicule of posterity; to +the whole nation ease without dignity and facilities for sinking +tranquilly into corruption; then no period of her history was so +felicitous for Italy as the 140 years which followed the peace of +Cateau-Cambresis. Invasions ceased: her foreign lord saved Italy from +intermeddling rivals. Internal struggles ceased: her foreign lord +removed their causes and curbed national ambitions. Popular revolutions +ceased: her foreign lord bitted and bridled the population of her +provinces. Of bravi, highwaymen, vulgar acts of vengeance, tragedies +among nobles and princes, we find indeed abundance; but these affected +the mass of the people to no serious extent. The Italians enjoyed life, +indulged in the sweets of leisure, the sweets of vice, the sweets of +making love and dangling after women. From the camp and the +council-chamber, where they had formerly been bred, the nobles passed +into petty courts and moldered in a multitude of little capitals. Men +bearing historic names, insensible of their own degradation, bowed the +neck gladly, groveled in beatitude. Deprived of power, they consoled +themselves with privileges, patented favors, impertinences vented on the +common people. The princes amused themselves by debasing the old +aristocracy to the mire, depreciating their honors by the creations of +new titles, multiplying frivolous concessions, adding class to class of +idle and servile dependents on their personal bounty. In one word, the +paradise of mediocrities came into being.' + +Tasso was born before the beginning of this epoch. But he lived into +the last decade of the sixteenth century. In every fiber of his +character he felt the influences of Italian decadence, even while he +reacted against them. His misfortunes resulted in great measure from his +not having wholly discarded the traditions of the Renaissance, though +his temperament and acquired habits made him in many points sympathetic +to the Counter-Reformation. At the same time, he was not a mediocrity, +but the last of an illustrious race of nobly gifted men of genius. +Therefore he never patiently submitted to the humiliating conditions +which his own conception of the Court, the Prince, the Church, and the +Italian gentleman logically involved at that period. He could not be +contented with the paradise of mediocrities described by Balbi. Yet he +had not strength to live outside its pale. It was the pathos of his +situation that he persisted in idealizing this paradise, and expected to +find in it a paradise of exceptional natures. This it could not be. No +one turns Circe's pigsty into a Parnassus. If Tasso had possessed force +of character enough to rend the trammels of convention and to live his +own life in a self-constructed sphere, he might still have been +unfortunate. Nature condemned him to suffering. But from the study of +his history we then had risen invigorated by the contemplation of +heroism, instead of quitting it, as now we do, with pity, but with pity +tempered by a slight contempt. + +Bernardo, the father of Torquato Tasso, drew noble blood from both his +parents. The Tassi claimed to be a branch of that ancient Guelf house of +Delia Torre, lords of Milan, who were all but extirpated by the Visconti +in the fourteenth century. A remnant established themselves in mountain +strongholds between Bergamo and Como, and afterwards took rank among the +more distinguished families of the former city. Manso affirms that +Bernardo's mother was a daughter of those Venetian Cornari who gave a +queen to Cyprus.[1] He was born at Venice in the year 1493; and, since +he died in 1568, his life covered the whole period of national glory, +humiliation, and attempted reconstruction which began with the invasion +of Charles VIII. and ended with the closing of the Council of Trent. +Born in the pontificate of Alexander VI., he witnessed the reigns of +Julius II., Leo X., Clement VII., Paul IV., Pius IV., and died in that +of Pius V. + +All the illustrious works of Italian art and letters were produced while +he was moving in the society of princes and scholars. He saw the +Renaissance in its splendor and decline. He watched the growth, +progress, and final triumph of the Catholic Revival. Having stated that +the curve of his existence led upward from a Borgia and down to a +Ghislieri Vicar of Christ, the merest tyro in Italian history knows what +vicissitudes it spanned. + +[Footnote 1: This is doubtful. Serrassi believed that Bernardo's mother +was also a Tasso.] + +Though the Tassi were so noble, Bernardo owned no wealth. He was left +an orphan at an early age under the care of his uncle, Bishop of +Recanati. But in 1520 the poignard of an assassin cut short this +guardian's life; and, at the age of seventeen, he was thrown upon the +world. After studying at Padua, where he enjoyed the patronage of Bembo, +and laid foundations for his future fame as poet, Bernardo entered the +service of the Modenese Rangoni in the capacity of secretary. Thus began +the long career of servitude to princes, of which he frequently +complained, but which only ended with his death.[2] The affairs of his +first patrons took him to Paris at the time when a marriage was arranged +between Renee of France and Ercole d'Este. He obtained the post of +secretary to this princess, and having taken leave of the Rangoni, he +next established himself at Ferrara. Only for three years, however; for +in 1532 reasons of which we are ignorant, but which may have been +connected with the heretical sympathies of Renee, induced him to resign +his post. Shortly after this date, we find him attached to the person of +Ferrante Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno, one of the chief feudatories +and quasi-independent vassals of the Crown of Naples. In the quality of +secretary he attended this patron through the campaign of Tunis in 1535, +and accompanied him on all his diplomatic expeditions. + +[Footnote 2: He speaks in his letters of the difficulty 'di sottrarre il +collo all difficile noioso arduo giogo della servitu dei Principi.' +_Lettere Ined._ Bologna, Romagnoli, p. 34.] + +The Prince of Salerno treated him more as an honored friend and +confidential adviser than as a paid official. His income was good, and +leisure was allowed him for the prosecution of his literary studies. In +this flourishing state of his affairs, Bernardo contracted an alliance +with Porzia de'Rossi, a lady of a noble house, which came originally +from Pistoja, but had been established for some generations in Naples. +She was connected by descent or marriage with the houses of Gambacorti, +Caracciolo, and Caraffa. Their first child, Cornelia, was born about the +year 1537. Their second, Torquato, saw the light in March 1544 at +Sorrento, where his father had been living some months previously and +working at his poem, the _Amadigi_. + +At the time of Torquato's birth Bernardo was away from home, in +Lombardy, France, and Flanders, traveling on missions from his Prince. +However, he returned to Sorrento for a short while in 1545, and then +again was forced to leave his family. Married at the mature age of +forty-three, Bernardo was affectionately attached to his young wife, and +proud of his children. But the exigencies of a courtier's life debarred +him from enjoying the domestic happiness for which his sober and gentle +nature would have fitted him. In 1547 the events happened which ruined +him for life, separated him for ever from Porzia, drove him into +indigent exile, and marred the prospects of his children. In that year, +the Spanish Viceroy, Don Pietro Toledo, attempted to introduce the +Inquisition, on its Spanish basis, into Naples. The population resented +this exercise of authority with the fury of despair, rightly judging +that the last remnants of their liberty would be devoured by the foul +monster of the Holy Office. They besought the Prince of Salerno to +intercede for them with his master, Charles V., whom he had served +loyally up to this time, and who might therefore be inclined to yield to +his expostulations. The Prince doubted much whether it would be prudent +to accept the mission of intercessor. He had two counsellors, Bernardo +Tasso and Vincenzo Martelli. The latter, who was an astute Florentine, +advised him to undertake nothing so perilous as interposition between +the Viceroy and the people. Tasso, on the contrary, exhorted him to +sacrifice personal interest, honors, and glory, for the duty which he +owed his country. The Prince chose the course which Tasso recommended. +Charles V. disgraced him, and he fled from Naples to France, adopting +openly the cause of his imperial sovereign's enemies. He was immediately +declared a rebel, with confiscation of his fiefs and property. Bernardo +and his infant son were included in the sentence. After twenty-two years +of service, Bernardo now found himself obliged to choose between +disloyalty to his Prince or a disastrous exile. He took the latter +course, and followed Ferrante Sanseverino to Paris. But Bernardo Tasso, +though proving himself a man of honor in this severe trial, was not of +the stuff of Shakespeare's Kent; and when the Prince of Salerno +suspended payment of his salary he took leave of that master. Some +differences arising from the discomforts and irritations of both exiles +had early intervened between them. Tasso was miserably poor. 'I have to +stay in bed,' he writes, 'to mend my hose; and if it were not for the +old arras I brought with me from home, I should not know how to cover my +nakedness.'[3] Besides this he suffered grievously in the separation +from his wife, who was detained at Naples by her relatives--'brothers +who, instead of being brothers, are deadly foes, cruel wild beasts +rather than men; a mother who is no mother but a fell enemy, a fury from +hell rather than a woman.'[4] His wretchedness attained its climax when +Porzia died suddenly on February 3, 1556. Bernardo suspected that her +family had poisoned her; and this may well have been. His son Torquato, +meanwhile had joined him in Rome; but Porzia's brothers refused to +surrender his daughter Cornelia, whom they married to a Sorrentine +gentleman, Marzio Sersale, much to Bernardo's disgust, for Sersale was +apparently of inferior blood. They also withheld Porzia's dowry and the +jointure settled on her by Bernardo--property of considerable value +which neither he nor Torquato were subsequently able to recover. + +[Footnote 3: _Lett. Ined_. p. 100] + +[Footnote 4: _Letter di Torquato Tasso_, February 15, 1556, vol. II. p. +157.] + +In this desperate condition of affairs, without friends or credit, but +conscious of his noble birth and true to honor, the unhappy poet +bethought him of the Church. If he could obtain a benefice, he would +take orders. But the King of France and Margaret of Valois, on whose +patronage he relied, turned him a deaf ear; and when war broke out +between Paul IV. and Spain, he felt it prudent to leave Rome. It was at +this epoch that Bernardo entered the service of Guidubaldo della Rovere, +Duke of Urbino, with whom he remained until 1563, when he accepted the +post of secretary from Guglielmo, Duke of Mantua. He died in 1569 at +Ostiglia, so poor that his son could scarcely collect money enough to +bury him after selling his effects. Manso says that a couple of +door-curtains, embroidered with the arms of Tasso and De'Rossi, passed +on this occasion into the wardrobe of the Gonzaghi. Thus it seems that +the needy nobleman had preserved a scrap of his heraldic trophies till +the last, although he had to patch his one pain of breeches in bed at +Rome. It may be added, as characteristic of Bernardo's misfortunes, that +even the plain marble sarcophagus, inscribed with the words _Ossa +Bernardi Tassi_ which Duke Guglielmo erected to his memory in S. Egidio +at Mantua, was removed in compliance with a papal edict ordering that +monuments at a certain height above the ground should be destroyed to +save the dignity of neighboring altars! + +Such were the events of Bernardo Tasso's life. I have dwelt upon them +in detail, since they foreshadow and illustrate the miseries of his more +famous son. In character and physical qualities Torquato inherited no +little from his father. Bernardo was handsome, well-grown, conscious of +his double dignity as a nobleman and poet. From the rules of honor, as +he understood them, he deviated in no important point of conduct. Yet +the life of courts made him an incorrigible dangler after princely +favors. The _Amadigi_, upon which he set such store, was first planned +and dedicated to Charles V., then altered to suit Henri II. of France, +and finally adapted to the flattery of Philip II., according as its +author's interests with the Prince of Salerno and the Duke of Urbino +varied. No substantial reward accrued to him, however, from its +publication. His compliments wasted their sweetness on the dull ears of +the despot of Madrid. In misfortune Bernardo sank to neither crime nor +baseness, even when he had no clothes to put upon his back. Yet he took +the world to witness of his woes, as though his person ought to have +been sacred from calamities of common manhood. A similar dependent +spirit was manifested in his action as a man of letters. Before +publishing the _Amadigi_ he submitted it to private criticism, with the +inevitable result of obtaining feigned praises and malevolent +strictures. Irresolution lay at the root of his treatment of Torquato. +While groaning under the collar of courtly servitude, he determined +that the youth should study law. While reckoning how little his own +literary fame had helped him, he resolved that his son should adopt a +lucrative profession. Yet no sooner had Torquato composed his _Rinaldo_, +than the fond parent had it printed, and immediately procured a place +for him in the train of the Cardinal Luigi d'Este. It is singular that +the young man, witnessing the wretchedness of his father's life, should +not have shunned a like career of gilded misery and famous indigence. +But Torquato was born to reproduce Bernardo's qualities in their +feebleness and respectability, to outshine him in genius, and to +outstrip him in the celebrity of his misfortunes. + +In the absence of his father little Torquato grew up with his mother and +sister at Sorrento under the care of a good man, Giovanni Angeluzzo who +gave him the first rudiments of education. He was a precocious infant, +grave in manners, quick at learning, free from the ordinary +naughtinesses of childhood. Manso reports that he began to speak at six +months, and that from the first he formed syllables with precision. His +mother Porzia appears to have been a woman of much grace and sweetness, +but timid and incapable of fighting the hard battle of the world. A +certain shade of melancholy fell across the boy's path even in these +earliest years, for Porzia, as we have seen, met with cruel treatment +from her relatives, and her only support, Bernardo, was far away in +exile. In 1552 she removed with her children to Naples, where Torquato +was sent at once to the school which the Jesuits had opened there in the +preceding year. These astute instructors soon perceived that they had no +ordinary boy to deal with. They did their best to stimulate his mental +faculties and to exalt his religious sentiments; so that he learned +Greek and Latin before the age of ten, and was in the habit of +communicating at the altar with transports of pious ecstasy in his ninth +year.[5] The child recited speeches and poems in public, and received an +elementary training in the arts of composition. He was in fact the +infant prodigy of those plausible Fathers, the prize specimen of their +educational method. As might have been expected, this forcing system +overtaxed his nerves. He rose daily before daybreak to attack his books, +and when the nights were long he went to morning school attended by a +servant carrying torches. + +[Footnote 5: 'Sentendo in me non so qual nuova insolita contentezza,' +'non so qual segreta divozione.' _Lettere_, vol. ii. p. 90.] + +Without seeking to press unduly on these circumstances, we may fairly +assume that Torquato's character received a permanent impression from +the fever of study and the premature pietism excited in him by the +Jesuits in Naples. His servile attitude toward speculative thought, that +anxious dependence upon ecclesiastical authority, that scrupulous +mistrust of his own mental faculties, that pretense of solving problems +by accumulated citations instead of going to the root of the matter, +whereby his philosophical writings are rendered nugatory, may with +probability be traced to the mechanical and interested system of the +Jesuits. He was their pupil for three years, after which he joined his +father in Rome. There he seems to have passed at once into a healthier +atmosphere. Bernardo, though a sound Catholic, was no bigot; and he had +the good sense to choose an able master for his son--'a man of profound +learning, possessed of both the ancient languages, whose method of +teaching is the finest and most time-saving that has yet been tried; a +gentleman withal, with nothing of the pedant in him.'[6] The boy was +lucky also in the companion of his studies, a cousin, Cristoforo Tasso, +who had come from Bergamo to profit by the tutor's care. + +[Footnote 6: Bernardo's _Letter to Cav. Giangiacopo Tasso_, December 6, +1554.] + +The young Tasso's home cannot, however, have been a cheerful one. The +elderly hidalgo sitting up in bed to darn a single pair of hose, the +absent mother pining for her husband and tormented by her savage +brother's avarice, environed the precocious child of ten with sad +presentiments. That melancholy temperament which he inherited from +Bernardo was nourished by the half-concealed mysteriously-haunting +troubles of his parents. And when Porzia died suddenly, in 1556, we can +hardly doubt that the father broke out before his son into some such +expressions of ungovernable grief as he openly expressed in the letter +to Amerigo Sanseverino.[7] Is it possible, then, thought Torquato, that +the mother from whose tender kisses and streaming tears I was severed +but one year ago,[8] has died of poison--poisoned by my uncles? Sinking +into the consciousness of a child so sensitive by nature and so early +toned to sadness, this terrible suspicion of a secret death by poison +incorporated itself with the very essence of his melancholy humor, and +lurked within him to flash forth in madness at a future period of life. +That he was well acquainted with the doleful situation of his family is +proved by his first extant letter. Addressed to the noble lady Vittoria +Colonna on behalf of Bernardo and his sister, this is a remarkable +composition for a boy of twelve.[9] His poor father, he says, is on the +point of dying of despair, oppressed by the malignity of fortune and the +rapacity of impious men. His uncle is bent on marrying Cornelia to some +needy gentleman, in order to secure her mother's estate for himself. +'The grief, illustrious lady, of the loss of property is great, but that +of blood is crushing. This poor old man has naught but my sister and +myself; and now that fortune has deprived him of wealth and of the wife +he loved like his own soul, he cannot bear that that man's avarice +should rob him of his beloved daughter, with whom he hoped to end in +rest these last years of his failing age. In Naples we have no friends; +for my father's disaster makes every one shy of us: our relatives are +our enemies. Cornelia is kept in the house of my uncle's kinsman +Giangiacopo Coscia, where no one is allowed to speak to her or give her +letters.' + +[Footnote 7: Dated February 13, 1556.] + +[Footnote 8: See _Opere_, vol. iv. p. 100, for Tasso's description of +the farewell to his mother, which he remembered deeply, even in later +life.] + +[Footnote 9: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 6.] + +In the midst of these afflictions, which already tuned the future poet's +utterance to a note of plaintive pathos and ingenuous appeal for aid, +Torquato's studies were continued on a sounder plan and in a healthier +spirit than at Naples. The perennial consolation of his troubled life, +that delight in literature which made him able to anticipate the lines +of Goethe-- + + That naught belongs to me I know, + Save thoughts that never cease to flow + From founts that cannot perish, + And every fleeting shape of bliss + Which kindly fortune lets me kiss, + Or in my bosom cherish-- + +now became the source of an inner brightness which not even the +'malignity of fortune,' the 'impiety of men,' the tragedy of his +mother's death, the imprisonment of his sister, and the ever-present +sorrow of his father, 'the poor gentleman fallen into misery and +misfortune through no fault of his own,' could wholly overcloud. The boy +had been accustomed in Naples to the applause of his teachers and +friends. In Rome he began to cherish a presentiment of his own genius. A +'vision splendid' dawned upon his mind; and every step he made in +knowledge and in mastery of language enforced the delightful conviction +that 'I too am a poet.' Nothing in Tasso's character was more tenacious +than the consciousness of his vocation and the kind of self-support he +gained from it. Like the melancholy humor which degenerated into +madness, this sense of his own intellectual dignity assumed extravagant +proportions, passed over into vanity, and encouraged him to indulge +fantastic dreams of greatness. Yet it must be reckoned as a mitigation +of his suffering; and what was solid in it at the period of which I now +am writing, was the certainty of his rare gifts for art. + +The Roman residence was broken by Bernardo's journey to Urbino in quest +of the appointment he expected from Duke Guidubaldo. He sent Torquato +with his cousin Cristoforo meanwhile to Bergamo, where the boy enjoyed a +few months of sympathy and freedom. This appears to have been the only +period of his life in which Tasso experienced the wholesome influences +of domesticity. In 1557 his father sent for him to Pesaro, and Tasso +made his first entrance into a Court at the age of thirteen. This event +decided the future of his existence. Urbino was not what it had been in +the time of Duke Federigo, or when Castiglione composed his Mirror of +the Courtier on its model. Yet it retained the old traditions of gentle +living, splendor tempered by polite culture, aristocratic urbanity +refined by arts and letters. The evil days of Spanish manners and +Spanish bigotry, of exhausted revenues and insane taxation, were but +dawning; and the young prince, Francesco Maria, who was destined to +survive his heir and transfer a ruined duchy to the mortmain of the +Church, was now a boy of eight years old. In fact, though the Court of +Urbino labored already under that manifold disease of waste which +drained the marrow of Italian principalities, its atrophy was not +apparent to the eye. It could still boast of magnificent pageants, +trains of noble youths and ladies moving through its stately palaces and +shady villa-gardens, academies of learned men discussing the merits of +Homer and Ariosto and discoursing on the principles of poetry and drama. +Bernardo Tasso read his _Amadigi_ in the evenings to the Duchess. The +days were spent in hunting and athletic exercises; the nights in +masquerades or dances. Love and ambition wore an external garb of +ceremonious beauty; the former draped itself in sonnets, the latter in +rhetorical orations. Torquato, who was assigned as the companion in +sport and study to the heir-apparent, shared in all these pleasures of +the Court. After the melancholy of Rome, his visionary nature expanded +under influences which he idealized with fatal facility. Too young to +penetrate below that glittering surface, flattered by the attention paid +to his personal charm or premature genius, stimulated by the +conversation of politely educated pedants, encouraged in studies for +which he felt a natural aptitude, gratified by the comradeship of the +young prince whose temperament corresponded to his own in gravity, he +conceived that radiant and romantic conception of Courts, as the only +fit places of abode for men of noble birth and eminent abilities, which +no disillusionment in after life was able to obscure. We cannot blame +him for this error, though error it indubitably was. It was one which he +shared with all men of his station at that period, which the poverty of +his estate, the habits of his father, and his own ignorance of home-life +almost forced upon his poet's temperament. + +At Urbino Tasso read mathematics under a real master, Federigo +Comandino, and carried on his literary studies with enthusiasm. It was +probably at this time that he acquired the familiar knowledge of Virgil +which so powerfully influenced his style, and that he began to form his +theory of epic as distinguished from romantic poetry. After a residence +of two years he removed to Venice, where his father was engaged in +polishing the _Amadigi_ for publication. Here a new scene of interest +opened out for him; and here he first enjoyed the sweets of literary +fame. Bernardo had been chosen secretary by an Academy, in which men +like Veniero, Molino, Gradenigo, Mocenigo, and Manuzio, the most learned +and the noblest Venetians, met together for discussion. The slim lad of +fifteen was admitted to their sessions, and surprised these elders by +his eloquence and erudition. It is noticeable that at this time he +carefully studied and annotated Dante's _Divine Comedy_, a poem almost +neglected by Italians in the Cinque Cento. It seemed good to his father +now that he should prosecute his studies in earnest, with the view of +choosing a more lucrative profession than that of letters or +Court-service. Bernardo, while finishing the _Amadigi_, which he +dedicated to Philip II., sent his son in 1560 to Padua. He was to become +a lawyer under the guidance of Guido Panciroli. But Tasso, like Ovid, +like Petrarch, like a hundred other poets, felt no inclination for +juristic learning. He freely and frankly abandoned himself to the +metaphysical conclusions which were being then tried between Piccolomini +and Pendasio, the one an Aristotelian dualist, the other a materialist +for whom the soul was not immortal. Without force of mind enough to +penetrate the deepest problems of philosophy, Tasso was quick to +apprehend their bearings. The Paduan school of scepticism, the logomachy +in vogue there, unsettled his religious opinions. He began by +criticising the doubts of others in his light of Jesuit-instilled +belief; next he found a satisfaction for self-esteem in doubting too; +finally he called the mysteries of the Creed in question, and debated +the articles of creation, incarnation, and immortality. Yet he had not +the mental vigor either to cut this Gordian knot, or to untie it by +sound thinking. His erudition confused him; and he mistook the lumber of +miscellaneous reading for philosophy. Then a reaction set in. He +remembered those childish ecstasies before the Eucharist: he recalled +the pictures of a burning hell his Jesuit teachers had painted; he +heard the trumpets of the Day of Judgment, and the sentence 'Go ye +wicked!' On the brink of heresy he trembled and recoiled. The spirit of +the coming age, the spirit of Bruno, was not in him. To all appearances +he had not heard of the Copernican discovery. He wished to remain a true +son of the Church, and was in fact of such stuff as the Catholic Revival +wanted. Yet the memory of these early doubts clung to him, principally, +we may believe, because he had not force to purge them either by severe +science or by vivid faith. Later, when his mind was yielding to +disorder, they returned in the form of torturing scruples and vain +terrors, which his fervent but superficial pietism, his imaginative but +sensuous religion, were unable to efface. Meanwhile, with one part of +his mind devoted to these problems, the larger and the livelier was +occupied with poetry. To law, the _Brod-Studium_ indicated by his +position in the world, he only paid perfunctory attention. The +consequence was that before he had completed two years of residence in +Padua, his first long poem, the _Rinaldo_, saw the light. In another +chapter I mean to discuss the development of Tasso's literary theories +and achievements. It is enough here to say that the applause which +greeted the _Rinaldo_, conquered his father's opposition. Proud of its +success, Bernardo had it printed, and Torquato in the beginning of his +nineteenth year counted among the notable romantic poets of his +country. + +At the end of 1563, Tasso received an invitation to transfer himself +from Padua to Bologna. This proposal came from Monsignor Cesi, who had +recently been appointed by Pope Pius IV. to superintend public studies +in that city. The university was being placed on a new footing, and to +secure the presence of a young man already famous seemed desirable. An +exhibition was therefore offered as an inducement; and this Tasso +readily accepted. He spent about two years at Bologna, studying +philosophy and literature, planning his Dialogues on the Art of Poetry, +and making projects for an epic on the history of Godfred. Yet in spite +of public admiration and official favor, things did not go smoothly with +Tasso at Bologna. One main defect of his character, which was a want of +tact, began to manifest itself. He showed Monsignor Cesi that he had a +poor opinion of his literary judgment, came into collision with the +pedants who despised Italian, and finally uttered satiric epigrams in +writing on various members of the university. Other students indulged +their humor in like pasquinades. But those of Tasso were biting, and he +had not contrived to render himself generally popular. His rooms were +ransacked, his papers searched; and finding himself threatened with a +prosecution for libel, he took flight to Modena. No importance can be +attached to this insignificant affair, except in so far as it +illustrates the unlucky aptitude for making enemies by want of _savoir +vivre_ which pursued Tasso through life. His real superiority aroused +jealousy; his frankness wounded the self-love of rivals whom he treated +with a shadow of contempt. As these were unable to compete with him in +eloquence, or to beat him in debate, they soothed their injured feelings +by conspiracy and calumny against him. + +In an age of artifice and circumspection, while paying theoretical +homage to its pedantries, and following the fashion of its compliments, +Tasso was nothing if not spontaneous and heedless. This appears in the +style of his letters and prose compositions, which have the air of being +uttered from the heart. The excellences and defects of his poetry, +soaring to the height of song and sinking into frigidity or baldness +when the lyric impulse flags, reveal a similar quality. In conduct this +spontaneity assumed a form of inconsiderate rashness, which brought him +into collision with persons of importance, and rendered universities and +Courts, the sphere of his adoption, perilous to the peace of so +naturally out-spoken and self-engrossed a man. His irritable +sensibilities caused him to suffer intensely from the petty vengeance of +the people he annoyed; while a kind of amiable egotism blinded his eyes +to his own faults, and made him blame fortune for sufferings of which +his indiscretion was the cause. + +After leaving Bologna, Tasso became for some months house-guest of his +father's earliest patrons, the Modenese Rangoni. With them he seems to +have composed his Dialogues upon the Art of Poetry. For many years the +learned men of Italy had been contesting the true nature of the Epic. +One party affirmed that the ancients ought to be followed; and that the +rules of Aristotle regarding unity of plot, dignity of style, and +subordination of episodes, should be observed. The other party upheld +the romantic manner of Ariosto, pleading for liberty of fancy, richness +of execution, variety of incident, intricacy of design. Torquato from +his earliest boyhood had heard these points discussed, and had watched +his father's epic, the _Amadigi_, which was in effect a romantic poem +petrified by classical convention, in process of production. Meanwhile +he carefully studied the text of Homer and the Latin epics, examined +Horace and Aristotle, and perused the numerous romances of the Italian +school. Two conclusions were drawn from this preliminary course of +reading: first, that Italy as yet possessed no proper epic; Trissino's +_Italia Liberata_ was too tiresome, the _Orlando Furioso_ too +capricious; secondly, that the _spolia opima_ in this field of art would +be achieved by him who should combine the classic and romantic manners +in a single work, enriching the unity of the antique epic with the +graces of modern romance, choosing a noble and serious subject, +sustaining style at a sublime altitude, but gratifying the prevalent +desire for beauty in variety by the introduction of attractive episodes +and the ornaments of picturesque description. Tasso, in fact, declared +himself an eclectic; and the deep affinity he felt for Virgil, indicated +the lines upon which the Latin language in its romantic or Italian stage +of evolution might be made to yield a second Aeneid adapted to the +requirements of modern taste. He had, indeed, already set before himself +the high ambition of supplying this desideratum. The note of prelude had +been struck in _Rinaldo_; the subject of the _Gerusalemme_ had been +chosen. But the age in which he lived was nothing if not critical and +argumentative. The time had long gone by when Dante's massive cathedral, +Boccaccio's pleasure domes, Boiardo's and Ariosto's palaces of +enchantment, arose as though unbidden and unreasoned from the maker's +brain. It was now impossible to take a step in poetry or art without a +theory; and, what was worse, that theory had to be exposed for +dissertation and discussion. Therefore Tasso, though by genius the most +spontaneous of men, commenced the great work of his life with criticism. +Already acclimatized to courts, coteries, academies, formed in the +school of disputants and pedants, he propounded his _Ars Poetica_ before +establishing it by an example. This was undoubtedly beginning at the +wrong end; he committed himself to principles which he was bound to +illustrate by practice. In the state of thought at that time prevalent +in Italy, burdened as he was with an irresolute and diffident +self-consciousness, Tasso could not deviate from the theory he had +promulgated. How this hampered him, will appear in the sequel, when we +come to notice the discrepancy between his critical and creative +faculties. For the moment, however, the Dialogues on Epic Poetry only +augmented his fame. + +Scipione Gonzaga, one of Tasso's firmest and most illustrious friends, +had recently established an Academy at Padua under the name of Gli +Eterei. At his invitation the young poet joined this club in the autumn +of 1564, assumed the title of Il Pentito in allusion to his desertion of +legal studies, and soon became the soul of its society. His dialogues +excited deep and wide-spread interest. After so much wrangling between +classical and romantic champions, he had transferred the contest to new +ground and introduced a fresh principle into the discussion. This +principle was, in effect, that of common sense, good taste and instinct. +Tasso meant to say: there is no vital discord between classical and +romantic art; both have excellences, and it is possible to find defects +in both; pedantic adherence to antique precedent must end in frigid +failure under the present conditions of intellectual culture; yet it +cannot be denied that the cycle of Renaissance poetry was closed by +Ariosto; let us therefore attempt creation in a liberal spirit, trained +by both these influences. He could not, however, when he put this theory +forward in elaborate prose, abstain from propositions, distinctions, +deductions, and conclusions, all of which were discutable, and each of +which his critics and his honor held him bound to follow. In short, +while planning and producing the _Gerusalemme_, he was involved in +controversies on the very essence of his art. These controversies had +been started by himself and he could not do otherwise than maintain the +position he had chosen. His poet's inspiration, his singer's +spontaneity, came thus constantly into collision with his own deliberate +utterances. A perplexed self-scrutiny was the inevitable result, which +pedagogues who were not inspired and could not sing, but who delighted +in minute discussion, took good care to stimulate. The worst, however, +was that he had erected in his own mind a critical standard with which +his genius was not in harmony. The scholar and the poet disagreed in +Tasso; and it must be reckoned one of the drawbacks of his age and +education that the former preceded the latter in development. Something +of the same discord can be traced in contemporary painting, as will be +shown when I come to consider the founders of the Bolognese Academy. + +At the end of 1565 Tasso was withdrawn from literary studies and society +in Padua. The Cardinal Luigi d'Este offered him a place in his +household; and since this opened the way to Ferrara and Court-service, +it was readily accepted. It would have been well for Tasso, at this +crisis of his fate, if the line of his beloved Aeneid-- + + Heu, fuge crudeles terras, fuge littus avarum-- + +that line which warned young Savonarola away from Ferrara, had sounded +in his ears, or met his eyes in some Virgilian _Sortes_. It would have +been well if his father, disillusioned by the _Amadigi's_ ill-success, +and groaning under the galling yoke of servitude to Princes, had +forbidden instead of encouraging this fatal step. He might himself have +listened to the words of old Speroni, painting the Court as he had +learned to know it, a Siren fair to behold and ravishing of song, but +hiding in her secret caves the bones of men devoured, and 'mighty poets +in their misery dead.' He might even have turned the pages of Aretino's +_Dialogo delle Corti_, and have observed how the ruffian who best could +profit by the vices of a Court, refused to bow his neck to servitude in +their corruption. But no man avoids his destiny, because few draw wisdom +from the past and none foresee the future. To Ferrara Tasso went with a +blithe heart. Inclination, the custom of his country, the necessities of +that poet's vocation for which he had abandoned a profession, poverty +and ambition, vanity and the delights of life, combined to lure him to +his ruin. + +He found Ferrara far more magnificent than Urbino. Pageants, hunting +parties, theatrical entertainments, assumed fantastic forms of splendor +in this capital, which no other city of Italy, except Florence and +Venice upon rare occasions, rivaled. For a long while past Ferrara had +been the center of a semi-feudal, semi-humanistic culture, out of which +the Masque and Drama, music and painting, scholarship and poetry, +emerged with brilliant originality, blending mediaeval and antique +elements in a specific type of modern romance. This culminated in the +permanent and monumental work began by Boiardo in the morning, and +completed by Ariosto in the meridian of the Renaissance. Within the +circuit of the Court the whole life of the Duchy seemed to concentrate +itself. From the frontier of Venice to the Apennines a tract of fertile +country, yielding all necessaries of life, corn, wine, cattle, game, +fish, in abundance, poured its produce into the palaces and castles of +the Duke. He, like other Princes of his epoch, sucked each province dry +in order to maintain a dazzling show of artificial wealth. The people +were ground down by taxes, monopolies of corn and salt, and sanguinary +game-laws. Brutalized by being forced to serve the pleasures of their +masters, they lived the lives of swine. But why repaint the picture of +Italian decadence, or dwell again upon the fever of that phthisical +consumption? Men like Tasso saw nothing to attract attention in the +rotten state of Ferrara. They were only fascinated by the hectic bloom +and rouged refinement of its Court. And even the least sympathetic +student must confess that the Court at any rate was seductive. A more +cunningly combined medley of polite culture, political astuteness, +urbane learning, sumptuous display, diplomatic love-intrigue and genial +artistic productiveness, never before or since has been exhibited upon a +scale so grandiose within limits so precisely circumscribed, or been +raised to eminence so high from such inadequate foundations of +substantial wealth. Compare Ferrara in the sixteenth with Weimar in the +eighteenth century, and reflect how wonderfully the Italians even at +their last gasp understood the art of exquisite existence! + +Alfonso II., who was always vainly trying to bless Ferrara with an heir, +had arranged his second sterile nuptials when Tasso joined the Court in +1565. It was therefore at a moment of more than usual parade of splendor +that the poet entered on the scene of his renown and his misfortune. He +was twenty-one years of age; and twenty-one years had to elapse before +he should quit Ferrara, ruined in physical and mental health,--_quantum +mutatus ab illo_ Torquato! The diffident and handsome stripling, famous +as the author of _Rinaldo_, was welcomed in person with special honors +by the Cardinal, his patron. Of such favors as Court-lacqueys prize, +Tasso from the first had plenty. He did not sit at the common table of +the serving gentlemen, but ate his food apart; and after a short +residence, the Princesses, sisters of the Duke, invited him to share +their meals. The next five years formed the happiest and most tranquil +period of his existence. He continued working at the poem which had then +no name, but which we know as the _Gerusalemme Liberata_. Envies and +jealousies had not arisen to mar the serenity in which he basked. Women +contended for his smiles and sonnets. He repaid their kindness with +somewhat indiscriminate homage and with the verses of occasion which +flowed so easily from his pen. It is difficult to trace the history of +Tasso's loves through the labyrinth of madrigals, odes and sonnets which +belong to this epoch of his life. These compositions bear, indeed, the +mark of a distinguished genius; no one but Tasso could have written them +at that period of Italian literature. Yet they lack individuality of +emotion, specific passion, insight into the profundities of human +feeling. Such shades of difference as we perceive in them, indicate the +rhetorician seeking to set forth his motive, rather than the lover +pouring out his soul. Contrary to the commonly received legend, I am +bound to record my opinion that love played a secondary part in Tasso's +destinies. It is true that we can discern the silhouettes of some +Court-ladies whom he fancied more than others. The first of these was +Laura Peperara, for whom he is supposed to have produced some sixty +compositions. The second was the Princess Leonora d'Este. Tasso's +attachment to her has been so shrouded in mystery, conjecture and +hair-splitting criticism, that none but a very rash man will pronounce +confident judgment as to its real nature. Nearly the same may be said +about his relations to her sister, Lucrezia. He has posed in literary +history as the Rizzio of the one lady and the Chastelard of the other. +Yet he was probably in no position at any moment of his Ferrarese +existence to be more than the familiar friend and most devoted slave of +either. When he joined the Court, Lucrezia was ten and Leonora nine +years his senior. Each of the sisters was highly accomplished, graceful +and of royal carriage. Neither could boast of eminent beauty. Of the +two, Lucrezia possessed the more commanding character. It was she who +left her husband, Francesco Maria della Rovere, because his society +wearied her, and who helped Clement VIII. to ruin her family, when the +Papacy resolved upon the conquest of Ferrara. Leonora's health was +sickly. For this reason she refused marriage, living retired in studies, +acts of charity, religion, and the company of intellectual men. +Something in her won respect and touched the heart at the same moment; +so that the verses in her honor, from whatever pen they flowed, ring +with more than merely ceremonial compliment. The people revered her like +a saint; and in times of difficulty she displayed high courage and the +gifts of one born to govern. From the first entrance of Tasso into +Ferrara, the sisters took him under their protection. He lived with them +on terms of more than courtly intimacy; and for Leonora there is no +doubt that he cherished something like a romantic attachment. This is +proved by the episode of Sofronia and Olindo in the _Gerusalemme_, which +points in carefully constructed innuendoes to his affection. It can +even be conceded that Tasso, who was wont to indulge fantastic visions +of unattainable greatness, may have raised his hopes so high as +sometimes to entertain the possibility of winning her hand. But if he +did dally with such dreams, the realities of his position must in sober +moments have convinced him of their folly. Had not a Duchess of Amalfi +been murdered for contracting a marriage with a gentleman of her +household? And Leonora was a grand-daughter of France; and the cordon of +royalty was being drawn tighter and tighter yearly in the Italy of his +day. That a sympathy of no commonplace kind subsisted between this +delicate and polished princess and her sensitively gifted poet, is +apparent. But it may be doubted whether Tasso had in him the stuff of a +grand passion. Mobile and impressible, he wandered from object to object +without seeking or attaining permanence. He was neither a Dante nor a +Petrarch; and nothing in his _Rime_ reveals solidity of emotion. It may +finally be said that had Leonora returned real love, or had Tasso felt +for her real love, his earnest wish to quit Ferrara when the Court grew +irksome, would be inexplicable. Had their _liaison_ been scandalous, as +some have fancied, his life would not have been worth two hours' +Purchase either in the palace or the prison of Alfonso. + +Whatever may be thought of Tasso's love-relations to these sisters--and +the problem is open to all conjectures in the absence of clear +testimony--it is certain that he owed a great deal to their kindness. +The marked favor they extended to him, was worth much at Court: and +their maturer age and wider experience enabled them to give him many +useful hints of conduct. Thus, when he blundered into seeming rivalry +with Pigna (the Duke's secretary, the Cecil of that little state), by +praising Pigna's mistress, Lucrezia Bendidio, in terms of imprudent +warmth, it was Leonora who warned him to appease the great man's anger. +This he did by writing a commentary upon three of Pigna's leaden +Canzoni, which he had the impudence to rank beside the famous three +sisters of Petrarch's Canzoniere. The flattery was swallowed, and the +peril was averted. Yet in this first affair with Pigna we already hear +the grumbling of that tempest which eventually ruined Tasso. So eminent +a poet and so handsome a young man was insupportable among a crowd of +literary mediocrities and middle-aged gallants. Furthermore the +brilliant being, who aroused the jealousies of rhymesters and of lovers, +had one fatal failing--want of tact. In 1568, for example, he set +himself up as a target to all malice by sustaining fifty conclusions in +the Science of Love before the Academy of Ferrara. As he afterwards +confessed, he ran the greatest risks in this adventure; but who, he +said, could take up arms against a lover? Doubtless there were many +lovers present; but none of Tasso's eloquence and skill in argument. + +In 1569, Tasso was called to his father's sickbed at Ostiglia on the Po. +He found the old man destitute and dying. There was not money to bury +him decently; and when the funeral rites had been performed by the help +of money-lenders, nothing remained to pay for a monument above his +graven What the Romans called _pietas_ was a strong feature in +Torquato's character. At crises of his life he invariably appealed to +the memory of his parents for counsel and support. When the Delia +Cruscans attacked his own poetry, he answered them with a defense of the +_Amadigi_; and he spent much time and pains in editing the _Floridante_, +which naught but filial feeling could possibly have made him value at +the worth of publication. + +In the spring of the next year, Lucrezia d'Este made her inauspicious +match with the Duke of Urbino, Tasso's former playmate. She was a woman +of thirty-four, he a young man of twenty-one. They did not love each +other, had no children, and soon parted with a sense of mutual relief. +In the auturmn Tasso accompanied the Cardinal Luigi d'Este into France, +leaving his MSS. in the charge of Ercole Rondinelli. The document drawn +up for this friend's instructions in case of his death abroad is +interesting. It proves that the _Gerusalemme_, here called _Gottifredo_, +was nearly finished; for Tasso wished the last six cantos and portions +of the first two to be published. He also gave directions for collection +and publication of his lovesonnets and madrigals, but requested +Rondinelli to bury 'the others, whether of love or other matters which +were written in the service of some friend,' in his grave. This last +commission demands comment. That Tasso should have written verses to +oblige a friend, was not only natural but consistent with custom. Light +wares like sonnets could be easily produced by a practiced man of +letters, and the friend might find them valuable in bringing a fair foe +to terms. But why should any one desire to have such verses buried in +his grave? The hypothesis which has been strongly urged by those who +believe in the gravity of Tasso's _liaison_ with Leonora, is that he +used this phrase to indicate love-poems which might compromise his +mistress. We cannot, however, do more than speculate upon the point. +There is nothing to confirm or to refute conjecture in the evidence +before us. + +Tasso met with his usual fortunes at the Court of Charles IX. That is to +say, he was petted and caressed, wrote verses, and paid compliments. It +was just two years before the Massacre of S. Bartholomew, and France +presented to the eyes of earnest Catholics the spectacle of truly +horrifying anarchy. Catherine de'Medici inclined to compromise matters +with the Huguenots. The social atmosphere reeked with heresy and +cynicism. In that Italianated Court, public affairs and religious +questions were treated from a purely diplomatic point of view. Not +principle, but practical convenience ruled conduct and opinion. The +large scale on which Machiavellism manifested itself in the discordant +realm of France, the apparent breakdown of Catholicism as a national +institution, struck Tasso with horror. He openly proclaimed his views, +and roundly taxed the government with dereliction of their duty to the +Church. An incurable idealist by temperament, he could not comprehend +the stubborn actualities of politics. A pupil of the Jesuits, he would +not admit that men like Coligny deserved a hearing. An Italian of the +decadence, he found it hard to tolerate the humors of a puissant nation +in a state of civil warfare. But his master, Luigi d'Este, well +understood the practical difficulties which forced the Valois into +compromise, and felt no personal aversion for lucrative transaction with +the heretic. Though a prince of the Church, he had not taken priest's +orders. He kept two objects in view. One was succession to the Duchy of +Ferrara, in case Alfonso should die without heirs.[10] + +[Footnote 10: Cardinal Ferdinando de'Medici succeeded in a like position +to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. But Luigi d'Este did not survive his +brother.] + +The other was election to the Papacy. In the latter event France, the +natural ally of the Estensi, would be of service to him, and the Valois +monarchs, his cousins, must therefore be supported in their policy. +Tasso had been brought to Paris to look graceful and to write madrigals. +It was inconvenient, it was unseemly, that a man of letters in the +Cardinal's train should utter censures on the Crown, and should profess +more Catholic opinions than his patron. Without the scandal of a public +dismissal, it was therefore contrived that Tasso should return to Italy; +and after this rupture, the suspicious poet regarded Luigi d'Este as his +enemy. During his confinement in S. Anna he even threw the chief blame +of his detention upon the Cardinal.[11] + +After spending a short time at Rome in the company of the Cardinals +Ippolito d'Este and Albano, Tasso returned to Ferrara in 1572. Alfonso +offered him a place in his own household with an annual stipend worth +about 88 _l_. of our money. No duties were attached to this post, except +the delivery of a weekly lecture in the university. For the rest, Tasso +was to prosecute his studies, polish his great poem, and augment the +luster of the court by his accomplishments.[12] It was of course +understood that the _Gerusalemme_, when completed, should be dedicated +to the Duke and shed its splendor on the House of Este. Who was happier +than Torquato now? Having recently experienced the discomforts of +uncongenial service, he took his place again upon a firmer footing in +the city of his dreams. The courtiers welcomed him with smiles. He was +once more close to Leonora, basking like Rinaldo in Armida's garden, +with golden prospects of the fame his epic would achieve to lift him +higher in the coming years. + +[Footnote 11: See _Lettere_, vol. ii. p. 80: to Giacomo Buoncompagno.] + +[Footnote 12: 'Egli mi disse, allor che suo mi fece: Tu canta, or che +se' 'n ozio.'] + +No wonder that the felicity of this moment expanded in a flower of +lyric beauty which surpassed all that Tasso had yet published. He +produced _Aminta_ in the winter of 1572-3. It was acted with +unparalleled applause; for this pastoral drama offered something +ravishingly new, something which interpreted and gave a vocal utterance +to tastes and sentiments that ruled the age. While professing to exalt +the virtues of rusticity, the _Aminta_ was in truth a panegyric of Court +life, and Silvia reflected Leonora in the magic mirror of languidly +luxurious verse. Poetry melted into music. Emotion exhaled itself in +sensuous harmony. The art of the next two centuries, the supreme art of +song, of words subservient to musical expression, had been indicated. +This explains the sudden and extraordinary success of the _Aminta_. It +was nothing less than the discovery of a new realm, the revelation of a +specific faculty which made its author master of the heart of Italy. The +very lack of concentrated passion lent it power. Its suffusion of +emotion in a shimmering atmosphere toned with voluptuous melancholy, +seemed to invite the lutes and viols, the mellow tenors, and the trained +soprano voices of the dawning age of melody. We may here remember that +Palestrina, seven years earlier in Rome, had already given his Mass of +Pope Marcello to the world. + +Lucrezia d'Este, now Duchess of Urbino, who was anxious to share the +raptures of _Aminta_, invited Tasso to Pesaro in the summer of 1573, +and took him with her to the mountain villa of Casteldurante. She was an +unhappy wife, just on the point of breaking her irksome bonds of +matrimony. Tasso, if we may credit the deductions which have been drawn +from passages in his letters, had the privilege of consoling the +disappointed woman and of distracting her tedious hours. They roamed +together through the villa gardens, and spent days of quiet in the +recesses of her apartments. He read aloud passages from his unpublished +poem, and composed sonnets in her honor, praising the full-blown beauty +of the rose as lovelier than its budding charm. The duke her husband, +far from resenting this intimacy, heaped favors and substantial gifts +upon his former comrade. He had not, indeed, enough affection for his +wife to be jealous of her. Yet it is indubitable that if he had +suspected her of infidelity the Italian code of honor would have +compelled him to make short work with Tasso.[13] + +[Footnote 13: This is how he wrote in his Diary about Lucrezia. 'Finally +the Duke decided upon his marriage with Donna Lucrezia d'Este, which +took place, though little to his taste, for she was old enough to have +been his mother.' 'The Duchess wished to return to Ferrara, where she +subsequently chose to remain, a resolution which gave no annoyance to +her husband; for, as she was unlikely to bring him a family, her absence +mattered little.' 'February 15, 1598. Heard that Madame Lucrezia d'Este, +Duchess of Urbino, my wife, died at Ferrara during the night of the +11th.' (Dennistoun's _Dukes of Urbino_, vol. iii. pp. 127, 146, 156.) +Francesco Maria had been attached in Spain to a lady of unsuitable +condition, and his marriage with Lucrezia was arranged to keep him out +of a _mesalliance_.] + +Meanwhile it seemed as though Leonora had been forgotten by her servant. +We possess one letter written to her from Casteldurante on September 3, +1573, in which he encloses a sonnet, disparaging it by comparison with +those which he believes she has been receiving from another poet +(Guarino probably), and saying that, though the verses were written, not +for himself, but 'at the requisition of a poor lover, who, having been +for some while angry with his lady, now is forced to yield and crave for +pardon,' yet he hopes that they 'will effect the purpose he +desires.'[14] Few of Tasso's letters to Leonora have survived. This, +therefore, is a document of much importance; and it is difficult to +resist the conclusion that he was indirectly begging Leonora to forgive +him for some piece of petulance or irritation. At any rate, his position +between the two princesses at this moment was one of delicacy, in which +a less vain and more cautious man than Tasso might have found it hard to +keep his head cool. + +[Footnote 14: _Lettere_, vol. i, p. 47. The sonnet begins, 'Sdegno, +debil guerrier.'] + +Up to the present time his life had been, in spite of poverty and +domestic misfortunes, one almost uninterrupted career of triumph. But +his fiber had been relaxed in the irresponsible luxurious atmosphere of +Courts, and his self-esteem had been inflated by the honors paid to him +as the first poet of his age in Europe. Moreover, he had been +continuously over-worked and over-wrought from childhood onwards. Now, +when he returned to Ferrara with the Duchess of Urbino at the age of +twenty-nine, it remained to be seen whether he could support himself +with stability upon the slippery foundation of princely favor, whether +his health would hold out, and whether he would be able to bring the +publication of his long expected poem to a successful issue. + +In 1574 he accompanied Duke Alfonso to Venice, and witnessed the +magnificent reception of Henri III, on his return from Poland. A fever, +contracted during those weeks of pleasure, prevented him from working at +the epic for many months. This is the first sign of any serious failure +in Tasso's health. At the end of August 1574, however, the _Gerusalemme_ +was finished, and in the following February he began sending the MS. to +Scipione Gonzaga at Rome. So much depended on its success, that doubts +immediately rose within its author's mind. Will it fulfill the +expectation raised in every Court and literary coterie of Italy? Will it +bear investigation in the light of the Dialogues on Epic Poetry? Will +the Church be satisfied with its morality; the Holy Office with its +doctrine? None of these diffidences assailed Tasso when he flung +_Aminta_ negligently forth and found he had produced a masterpiece. It +would have been well for him if he had turned a deaf ear to the doubting +voice on this occasion also. But he was not of an independent character +to start with; and his life had made him sensitively deferent to +literary opinion. Therefore, in an evil hour, yielding to Gonzaga's +advice, he resolved to submit the _Gerusalemme_ in MS. to four +censors--Il Borga, Flaminio de'Nobili, vulpine Speroni with his +poisoned fang of pedantry, precise Antoniano with his inquisitorial +prudery. They were to pass their several criticisms on the plot, +characters, diction, and ethics of the _Gerusalemme_; Tasso was to +entertain and weigh their arguments, reserving the right of following or +rejecting their advice, but promising to defend his own views. To the +number of this committee he shortly after added three more scholars, +Francesco Piccolomini, Domenico Veniero, and Celio Magno.[15] Not to +have been half maddened by these critics would have proved Tasso more or +less than human. They picked holes in the structure of the epic, in its +episodes, in its theology, in its incidents, in its language, in its +title. One censor required one alteration, and another demanded the +contrary. This man seemed animated by an acrid spite; that veiled his +malice in the flatteries of candid friendship. Antoniano was for cutting +out the love passages: Armida, Sofronia, Erminia, Clorinda, were to +vanish or to be adapted to conventual proprieties. It seemed to him more +than doubtful whether the enchanted forest did not come within the +prohibitions of the Tridentine decrees. As the revision advanced, +matters grew more serious. Antoniano threw out some decided hints of +ecclesiastical displeasure; Tasso, reading between the lines, scented +the style of the Collegium Germanicum. + +[Footnote 15: Tasso consulted almost every scholar he could press into +his service. But the official tribunal of correction was limited to the +above named four acting in concert with Scipione Gonzaga.] + +Speroni spoke openly of plagiarism--plagiarism from himself +forsooth!--and murmured the terrible words between his teeth, 'Tasso is +mad!' He was in fact driven wild, and told his tormentors that he would +delay the publication of the epic, perhaps for a year, perhaps for his +whole life, so little hope had he of its success.[16] At last he +resolved to compose an allegory to explain and moralize the poem. When +he wrote the _Gerusalemme_ he had no thought of hidden meanings; but +this seemed the only way of preventing it from being dismembered by +hypocrites and pedants.[17] The expedient proved partially successful. +When Antoniano and his friends were bidden to perceive a symbol in the +enchanted wood and other marvels, a symbol in the loves of heroines and +heroes, a symbol even in Armida, they relaxed their wrath. The +_Gerusalemme_ might possibly pass muster now before the Congregation of +the Index. Tasso's correspondence between March 1575 and July 1576 shows +what he suffered at the hands of his revisers, and helps to explain the +series of events which rendered the autumn of that latter year +calamitous for him.[18] There are, indeed, already indications in the +letters of those months that his nerves, enfeebled by the quartan fever +under which he labored, and exasperated by carping or envious criticism, +were overstrung. + +[Footnote 16: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 114.] + +[Footnote 17: _Ib_. vol. i. p. 192.] + +[Footnote 18: Vol. i. pp. 55-215.] + +Suspicions began to invade his mind. He complained of headache. His +spirits alternated between depression and hysterical gayety. A dread +lest the Inquisition should refuse the imprimatur to his poem haunted +him. He grew restless, and yearned for change of scene. + +The events of 1575, 1576, and 1577 require to be minutely studied: for +upon our interpretation of them must depend the theory which we hold of +Tasso's subsequent misfortunes. It appears that early in the year 1575 +he was becoming discontented with Ferrara. A party in the Court, led by +Pigna, did their best to make his life there disagreeable. They were +jealous of the poet's fame, which shone with trebled splendor after the +production of _Aminta_. Tasso's own behavior provoked, if it did not +exactly justify their animosity. He treated men at least his equals in +position with haughtiness, which his irritable temper rendered +insupportable. We have it from his own pen that 'he could not bear to +live in a city where the nobles did not yield him the first place, or at +least admit him to absolute equality'; that 'he expected to be adored by +friends, served by serving-men, caressed by domestics, honored by +masters, celebrated by poets, and pointed out by all.'[19] + +[Footnote 19: _Lettere_, vol. iii. p. 41, iv. p. 332.] + +He admitted that it was his habit 'to build castles in the air of +honors, favors, gifts and graces, showered on him by emperors and kings +and mighty princes'; that 'the slightest coldness from a patron seemed +to him a tacit act of dismissal, or rather an open act of +violence.'[20] His blood, he argued, placed him on a level with the +aristocracy of Italy; but his poetry lifted him far above the vulgar +herd of noblemen. At the same time, while claiming so much, he +constantly declared himself unfit for any work or office but literary +study, and expressed his opinion that princes ought to be his +tributaries.[21] Though such pretensions may not have been openly +expressed at this period of his life, it cannot be doubted that Tasso's +temper made him an unpleasant comrade in Court-service. His +sensitiveness, as well as the actual slenderness of his fortunes, +exposed him only too obviously to the malevolent tricks and petty +bullyings of rivals. One knows what a boy of that stamp has to suffer at +public schools, and a Court is after all not very different from an +academy. + +Such being the temper of his mind, Tasso at this epoch turned his +thoughts to bettering himself, as servants say. His friend Scipione +Gonzaga pointed out that both the Cardinal de'Medici and the Grand Duke +of Tuscany would be glad to welcome him as an ornament of their +households. Tasso nibbled at the bait all through the summer; and in +November, under the pretext of profiting by the Jubilee, he traveled to +Rome. This journey, as he afterwards declared, was the beginning of his +ruin.[22] It was certainly one of the principal steps which led to the +prison of S. Anna. + +[Footnote 20: _Lettere_, vol. iii. p. 164, v. p. 6.] + +[Footnote 21: _Ib._ vol. iii. pp. 85, 86, 88, 163, iv. pp. 8, 166, v. p. +87.] + +[Footnote 22: Letter to Fabio Gonzaga in 1590 (vol. iv. p. 296).] + +There were many reasons why Alfonso should resent Tasso's entrance into +other service at this moment. The House of Este had treated him with +uniform kindness. The Cardinal, the duke and the princesses had +severally marked him out by special tokens of esteem. In return they +expected from him the honors of his now immortal epic. That he should +desert them and transfer the dedication of the _Gerusalemme_ to the +Medici, would have been nothing short of an insult; for it was notorious +that the Estensi and the Medici were bitter foes, not only on account of +domestic disagreements and political jealousies, but also because of the +dispute about precedence in their titles which had agitated Italian +society for some time past. In his impatience to leave Ferrara, Tasso +cast prudence to the winds, and entered into negotiations with the +Cardinal de'Medici in Rome. When he traveled northwards at the beginning +of 1576, he betook himself to Florence. What passed between him and the +Grand Duke is not apparent. Yet he seems to have still further +complicated his position by making political disclosures which were +injurious to the Duke of Ferrara. Nor did he gain anything by the offer +of his services and his poem to Francesco de'Medici. In a letter of +February 4, 1576, the Grand Duke wrote that the Florentine visit of that +fellow, 'whether to call him a mad or an amusing and astute spirit, I +hardly know,'[23] had been throughout a ridiculous affair; and that +nothing could be less convenient than his putting the _Gerusalemme_ up +to auction among princes. One year later, he said bluntly that 'he did +not want to have a madman at his Court.'[24] Thus Tasso, like his +father, discovered that a noble poem, the product of his best pains, had +but small substantial value. It might, indeed, be worth something to the +patron who paid a yearly exhibition to its author; but it was not a gem +of such high price as to be wrangled for by dukes who had the cares of +state upon their shoulders. He compromised himself with the Estensi, and +failed to secure a retreat in Florence. + +[Footnote 23: _Lettere_, vol. iii. p. viii.] + +Meanwhile his enemies at Ferrara were not idle. Pigna had died in the +preceding November. But Antonio Montecatino, who succeeded him as ducal +secretary, proved even a more malicious foe, and poisoned Alfonso's mind +against the unfortunate poet. The two princesses still remained his +faithful friends, until Tasso's own want of tact alienated the +sympathies of Leonora. When he returned in 1576, he found the beautiful +Eleonora Sanvitale, Countess of Scandiano, at Court. Whether he really +fell in love with her at first sight, or pretended to do so in order to +revive Leonora d'Este's affection by jealousy, is uncertain.[25] At any +rate he paid the countess such marked attentions, and wrote for her and +a lady of her suite such splendid poetry, that all Ferrara rang with +this amour. A sonnet in Tasso's handwriting, addressed to Leonora d'Este +and commented by her own pen, which even Guasti, no credulous believer +in the legend of the poet's love, accepts as genuine, may be taken as +affording proof that the princess was deeply wounded by her servant's +conduct.[26] + +[Footnote 24: _Lettere_, vol. iii. p. xxx. note 34.] + +[Footnote 25: Guarino, in a sonnet, hinted at the second supposition. +See Rosini's _Saggio sugli Amori_, &c. vol. xxxiii. of his edition of +Tasso, p. 51.] + +[Footnote 26: _Lettere_, vol. iii. p. xxxi.] + +It is obvious that, though Tasso's letters at this period show no signs +of a diseased mind, his conduct began to strike outsiders as insane. +Francesco de'Medici used the plain words _matto_ and _pazzo_. The +courtiers of Ferrara, some in pity, some in derision, muttered 'Madman,' +when he passed. And he spared no pains to prove that he was losing +self-control. In the month of January 1577, he was seized with scruples +of faith, and conceived the notion that he ought to open his mind to the +Holy Office. Accordingly, he appeared before the Inquisitor of Bologna, +who after hearing his confession, bade him be of good cheer, for his +self-accusations were the outcome of a melancholy humor. Tasso was, in +fact, a Catholic molded by Jesuit instruction in his earliest childhood; +and though, like most young students, he had speculated on the +groundwork of theology and metaphysic, there was no taint of heresy or +disobedience to the Church in his nature. The terror of the Inquisition +was a morbid nightmare, first implanted in his mind by the experience of +his father's collision with the Holy Office, enforced by Antoniano's +strictures on his poem, and justified to some extent by the sinister +activity of the institution which had burned a Carnesecchi and a +Paleario. However it grew up, this fancy that he was suspected as a +heretic took firm possession of his brain, and subsequently formed a +main feature of his mental disease. It combined with the suspiciousness +which now became habitual. He thought that secret enemies were in the +habit of forwarding delations against him to Rome. + +All through these years (1575-1577) his enemies drew tighter cords +around him. They were led and directed by Montecatino, the omnipotent +persecutor, and hypocritical betrayer. In his heedlessness Tasso left +books and papers loose about his rooms. These, he had good reason to +suppose, were ransacked in his absence. There follows a melancholy tale +of treacherous friends, dishonest servants, false keys, forged +correspondence, scraps and fragments of imprudent compositions pieced +together and brought forth to incriminate him behind his back. These +arts were employed all through the year which followed his return to +Ferrara in 1576. But they reached their climax in the spring of 1577. He +had lost his prestige, and every servant might insult him, and every cur +snap at his heels. Even the _Gerusalemme_, became an object of derision. +It transpired that the revisers, to whom he had confided it, were +picking the poem to pieces; ignoramuses who could not scan a line, went +about parroting their pedantries and strictures. At the beginning of +1576 Tasso had begged Alfonso to give him the post of historiographer +left vacant by Pigna. It was his secret hope that this would be refused, +and that so he would obtain a good excuse for leaving Ferrara.[27] But +the duke granted his request. In the autumn of that year, one of the +band of his tormentors, Maddalo de'Frecci, betrayed some details of his +love-affairs. What these were we do not know. Tasso resented the insult, +and gave the traitor a box on the ears in the courtyard of the castle. +Maddalo and his brothers, after this, attacked Tasso on the piazza, but +ran away before they reached him with their swords. They were outlawed +for the outrage, and the duke of Ferrara, still benignant to his poet, +sent him a kind message by one of his servants. This incident weighed on +Tasso's memory. The terror of the Inquisition blended now with two new +terrors. He conceived that his exiled foes were plotting to poison him. +He wondered whether Maddalo's revelations had reached the duke's ears, +and if so, whether Alfonso would not inflict sudden vengeance. There is +no sufficient reason, however, to surmise that Tasso's conscience was +really burdened with a guilty secret touching Leonora d'Este. On the +contrary, everything points to a different conclusion. His mind was +simply giving way. Just as he conjured up the ghastly specter of the +Inquisition, so he fancied that the duke would murder him. Both the +Inquisition and the duke were formidable; but the Holy Office mildly +told him to set his morbid doubts at rest, and the duke on a subsequent +occasion coldly wrote: 'I know he thinks I want to kill him. But if +indeed I did so, it would be easy enough.' The duke, in fact, had no +sufficient reason and no inclination to tread upon this insect. + +[Footnote 27: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 139.] + +In June 1577, the crisis came. On the seventeenth evening of the month +Tasso was in the apartments of the Duchess of Urbino. He had just been +declaiming on the subject of his imaginary difficulties with the +Inquisition, when something in the manner of a servant who passed by +aroused his suspicion. He drew a knife upon the man--like Hamlet in his +mother's bedchamber. He was immediately put under arrest, and confined +in a room of the castle. Next day Maffeo Veniero wrote thus to the Grand +Duke of Tuscany about the incident. 'Yesterday Tasso was imprisoned for +having drawn a knife upon a servant in the apartment of the Duchess of +Urbino. The intention has been to stay disorder and to cure him, rather +than to inflict punishment. He suffers under peculiar delusions, +believing himself guilty of heresy and dreading poison; which state of +mind arises, I incline to think, from melancholic blood forced in upon +the heart and vaporing to the brain. A wretched case, in truth, +considering his great parts and his goodness!'[28] + +Tasso was soon released, and taken by the duke his villa of Belriguardo. +Probably this excursion was designed to soothe the perturbed spirits of +the poet. But it may also have had a different object. Alfonso may have +judged it prudent to sift the information laid before him by Tasso's +enemies. We do not know what passed between them. Whether moral pressure +was applied, resulting in the disclosure of secrets compromising Leonora +d'Este, cannot now be ascertained; nor is it worth while to discuss the +hypothesis that the Duke, in order to secure his family's honor, imposed +on Tasso the obligation of feigning madness.[29] There is a something +not entirely elucidated, a sediment of mystery in Tasso's fate, after +this visit to Belriguardo, which criticism will not neglect to notice, +but which no testing, no clarifying process of study, has hitherto +explained. All we can rely upon for certain is that Alfonso sent him +back to Ferrara to be treated physically and spiritually for +derangement; and that Tasso thought his life was in danger. He took up +his abode in the Convent of S. Francis, submitted to be purged, and +began writing eloquent letters to his friends and patrons. + +[Footnote 28: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 228.] + +[Footnote 29: This is Rosini's hypothesis in the Essay cited above. The +whole of his elaborate and ingenious theory rests upon the supposition +that Alfonso at Belriguardo extorted from Tasso an acknowledgment of his +_liaison_ Leonora, and spared his life on the condition of his playing a +fool's part before the world. But we have no evidence whatever adequate +to support the supposition.] + +Those which he addressed to the Duke of Ferrara at this crisis, weigh +naturally heaviest in the scale of criticism.[30] They turn upon his +dread of the Inquisition, his fear of poison, and his diplomatic +practice with Florence. While admitting 'faults of grave importance' and +'vacillation in the service of his prince,' he maintains that his secret +foes have exaggerated these offenses, and have succeeded in prejudicing +the magnanimous and clement spirit of Alfonso. He is particularly +anxious about the charge of heresy. Nothing indicates that any guilt of +greater moment weighed upon his conscience.[31] After scrutinizing all +accessible sources of information, we are thus driven to accept the +prosaic hypothesis that Tasso was deranged, and that his Court-rivals +had availed themselves of a favorable opportunity for making the duke +sensible of his insanity. + +After the middle of July, the Convent of S. Francis became intolerable +to Tasso. His malady had assumed the form of a multiplex fear, which +never afterwards relaxed its hold on his imagination. The Inquisition, +the duke, the multitude of secret enemies plotting murder, haunted him +day and night like furies. He escaped, and made his way, disguised in a +peasant's costume, avoiding cities, harboring in mountain hamlets, to +Sorrento. + +[Footnote 30: _Lettere_, vol. i. 257-262.] + +[Footnote 31: Those who adhere to the belief that all Tasso's troubles +came upon him through his _liaison_ with Leonora, are here of course +justified in arguing that on _this_ point he could not write openly to +the Duke. Or they may question the integrity of the document.] + +Manos, who wrote the history of Tasso's life in the spirit of a +novelist, has painted for us a romantic picture of the poet in a +shepherd's hut.[32] It recalls Erminia among the pastoral people. +Indeed, the interest of that episode in the _Gerusalemme_ is heightened +by the fact that its ill-starred author tested the reality of his +creation ofttimes in the course of this pathetic pilgrimage. Artists of +the Bolognese Academy have placed Erminia on their canvases. But, up to +the present time, I know of no great painter who has chosen the more +striking incident of Tasso exchanging his Court-dress for sheepskin and +a fustian jacket in the smoky cottage at Velletri. + +He reached Sorrento safely--'that most enchanting region, which at all +times offers a delightful sojourn to men and to the Muses; but at the +warm season of the year, when other places are intolerable, affords +peculiar solace in the verdure of its foliage, the shadow of its woods, +the lightness of the fanning airs, the freshness of the limpid waters +flowing from impendent hills, the fertile expanse of tilth, the serene +air, the tranquil sea, the fishes and the birds and savory fruits in +marvelous variety; all which delights compose a garden for the intellect +and senses, planned by Nature in her rarest mood, and perfected by art +with most consummate curiosity.'[33] Into this earthly paradise the +wayworn pilgrim entered. + +[Footnote 32: Rosini's edition of Tasso, vol. xxx. p. 144.] + +[Footnote 33: Manso, _ib._ p. 46.] + +It was his birthplace; and here his sister still dwelt with her +children. Tasso sought Cornelia's home. After a dramatic scene of +suspense, he threw aside his disguise, declared himself to be the poet +of Italy and her brother; and for a short while he seemed to forget +Courts and schools, pedants and princes, in that genial atmosphere. + +Why did he ever leave Sorrento? That is the question which leaps to the +lips of a modern free man. The question itself implies imperfect +comprehension of Tasso's century and training. Outside the Court, there +was no place for him. He had been molded for Court-life from childhood. +It was not merely that he had no money; assiduous labor might have +supplied him with means of subsistence. But his friends, his fame, his +habits, his ingrained sense of service, called him back to Ferrara. He +was not simply a man, but that specific sort of man which Italians +called _gentiluomo_--a man definitely modified and wound about with +intricacies of association. Therefore, he soon began a correspondence +with the House of Este. If we may trust Manso, Leonora herself wrote +urgently insisting upon his return.[34] Yet in his own letters Tasso +says that he addressed apologies to the duke and both princesses. +Alfonso and Lucrezia vouchsafed no answer. Leonora replied coldly that +she could not help him.[35] + +[Footnote 34: Manso, _ib._ p. 147.] + +[Footnote 35: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 275.] + +Anyhow, Ferrara drew him back. It is of some importance here to +understand Tasso's own feeling for the duke, his master. A few months +later, after he had once more experienced the miseries of Court-life, +he wrote: 'I trusted in him, not as one hopes in men but as one trusts +in God.... I was inflamed with the affection for my lord more than ever +was man with the love of woman, and became unawares half an idolater.... +He it was who from the obscurity of my low fortunes raised me to the +light and reputation of the Court; who relieved me from discomforts, and +placed me in a position of honorable ease; he conferred value on my +compositions by listening to them when I read them, and by every mark of +favor; he deigned to honor me with a seat at his table and with his +familiar conversation; he never refused a favor which I begged for; +lastly, at the commencement of my troubles, he showed me the affection, +not of a master, but of a father and a brother.'[36] These words, though +meant for publication, have the ring of truth in them. Tasso was +actually attached to the House of Este, and cherished a vassal's loyalty +for the duke, in spite of the many efforts which he made to break the +fetters of Ferrara. At a distance, in the isolation and the ennui of a +village, the irksomeness of those chains was forgotten. The poet only +remembered how sweet his happier years at Court had been. The sentiment +of fidelity revived. His sanguine and visionary temperament made him +hope that all might yet be well. + +Without receiving direct encouragement from the duke, Tasso accordingly +decided on returning. + +[Footnote 36: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 278, ii. p. 26.] + +His sister is said to have dissuaded him; and he is reported to have +replied that he was going to place himself in a voluntary prison.[37] He +first went to Rome, and opened negotiations with Alfonso's agents. In +reply to their communications, the duke wrote upon March 22, 1578, as +follows: 'We are content to take Tasso back; but first he must recognize +the fact that he is full of melancholic humors, and that his old notions +of enmities and persecutions are solely caused by the said humors. Among +other signs of his disorder, he has conceived the idea that we want to +compass his death, whereas we have always received him gladly and shown +favor to him. It can easily be understood that if we had entertained +such a fancy, the execution of it would have presented no difficulty. +Therefore let him make his mind up well, before he comes, to submit +quietly and unconditionally to medical treatment. Otherwise, if he means +to scatter hints and words again as he did formerly, we shall not only +give ourselves no further trouble about him, but if he should stay here +without being willing to undergo a course of cure, we shall at once +expel him from our state with the order not to return.'[38] Words could +not be plainer than these. Yet, in spite of them, such was the +allurement of the cage for this clipped singing-bird, that Tasso went +obediently back to Ferrara. Possibly he had not read the letter written +by a greater poet on a similar occasion: 'This is not the way of coming +home, my father! Yet if you or others find one not beneath the fame of +Dante and his honor, that will I pursue with no slack step. But if none +such give entrance to Florence, I will never enter Florence. How! Shall +I not behold the sun and stars from every spot of earth? Shall I not be +free to meditate the sweetest truths in every place beneath the sky +unless I make myself ignoble, nay, ignominious to the people and the +state of Florence? Nor truly will bread fail.' These words, if Tasso had +remembered them, might have made his cheek blush for his own servility +and for the servile age in which he lived. But the truth is that the +fleshpots of Egyptian bondage enticed him; and moreover he knew, as +half-insane people always know, that he required treatment for his +mental infirmities. In his heart of hearts he acknowledged the justice +of the duke's conditions. + +[Footnote 37: Manso, p. 147. Here again the believers in the Leonora +_liaison_ may argue that by prison he meant love-bondage, hopeless +servitude to the lady from whom he could expect nothing now that her +brother was acquainted with the truth.] + +[Footnote 38: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 233.] + +An Epistle or Oration addressed by Tasso to the Duke of Urbino, sets +forth what happened after his return to Ferrara in 1578.[39] + +[Footnote 39: _Lettere_, i. pp. 271-290.] + +He was aware that Alfonso thought him both malicious and mad. The first +of these opinions, which he knew to be false, he resolved to pass in +silence. But he openly admitted the latter, 'esteeming it no disgrace to +make a third to Solon and Brutus.' Therefore he began to act the madman +even in Rome, neglecting his health, exposing himself to hardships, and +indulging intemperately in food and wine. By these means, strange as it +may seem, he hoped to win back confidence and prove himself a discreet +servant of Alfonso. Soon after reaching Ferrara, Tasso thought that he +was gaining ground. He hints that the duke showed signs of raising him +to such greatness and showering favors upon him so abundant that the +sleeping viper of Court envy stirred. Montecatino now persuaded his +master that prudence and his own dignity indicated a very different line +of treatment. If Tasso was to be great and honored, he must feel that +his reputation flowed wholly from the princely favor, not from his +studies and illustrious works. Alfonso accordingly affected to despise +the poems which Tasso presented, and showed his will that: 'I should +aspire to no eminence of intellect, to no glory of literature, but +should lead a soft delicate and idle life immersed in sloth and +pleasure, escaping like a runaway from the honor of Parnassus, the +Lyceum and the Academy, into the lodgings of Epicurus, and should harbor +in those lodgings in a quarter where neither Virgil nor Catullus nor +Horace nor Lucretius himself had ever stayed.' This excited such +indignation in the poet's breast that: 'I said oftentimes with open face +and free speech that I would rather be a servant of any prince his enemy +than submit to this indignity, and in short _odia verbis aspera movi_.' +Whereupon, the duke caused his papers to be seized, in order that the +still imperfect epic might be prepared for publication by the hated +hypocritical Montecatino. When Tasso complained, he only received +indirect answers; and when he tried to gain access to the princesses, he +was repulsed by their doorkeepers. At last: 'My infinite patience was +exhausted. Leaving my books and writings, after the service of thirteen +years, persisted in with luckless constancy, I wandered forth like a new +Bias, and betook myself to Mantua, where I met with the same treatment +as at Ferrara.' + +This account sufficiently betrays the diseased state of Tasso's mind. +Being really deranged, yet still possessed of all his literary +faculties, he affected that his eccentricity was feigned. The duke had +formed a firm opinion of his madness; and he chose to flatter this whim. +Yet when he arrived at Ferrara he forgot the strict conditions upon +which Alfonso sanctioned his return, began to indulge in dreams of +greatness, and refused the life of careless ease which formed part of +the programme for his restoration to health. In these circumstances he +became the laughing-stock of his detractors; and it is not impossible +that Alfonso, convinced of his insanity, treated him like a Court-fool. +Then he burst out into menaces and mutterings of anger. Having made +himself wholly intolerable, his papers were sequestrated, very likely +under the impression that he might destroy them or escape with them into +some quarter where they would be used against the interests of his +patron. Finally he so fatigued everybody by his suspicions and +recriminations that the duke forebore to speak with him, and the +princesses closed their doors against him. + +From this moment Tasso was a ruined man; he had become that worst of +social scourges, a courtier with a grievance, a semi-lunatic all the +more dangerous and tiresome because his mental powers were not so much +impaired as warped. Studying his elaborate apology, we do not know +whether to despise the obstinacy of his devotion to the House of Este, +or to respect the sentiment of loyalty which survived all real or +fancied insults. Against the duke he utters no word of blame. Alfonso is +always magnanimous and clement, excellent in mind and body, good and +courteous by nature, deserving the faithful service and warm love of his +dependents. Montecatino is the real villain. 'The princes are not +tyrants--they are not, no, no: he is the tyrant.'[40] + +After quitting Ferrara, Tasso wandered through Mantua, Padua, Venice, +coldly received in all these cities; for 'the hearts of men were +hardened by their interests against him.' Writing from Venice to the +Grand Duke in July, Maffeo Veniero says: 'Tasso is here, disturbed in +mind; and though his intellect is certainly not sound, he shows more +signs of affliction than of insanity.'[41] + +[Footnote 40: _Lettere_, ibid. p. 289.] + +[Footnote 41: _Lettere_, ibid. p. 233.] + +The sequestration of his only copy of the _Gerusalemme_ not unnaturally +caused him much distress; and Veniero adds that the chief difficulty +under which he labored was want of money. Veniero hardly understood the +case. Even with a competence it is incredible that Tasso would have been +contented to work quietly at literature in a private position.[42] From +Venice he found his way southward to Urbino, writing one of his +sublimest odes upon the road from Pesaro.[43] + +[Footnote 42: Tasso declares his inability to live outside the Court. +'Se fra i mali de l'animo, uno de'piu gravi e l'ambizione, egli ammalo +di questo male gia molti anni sono, ne mai e risanato in modo ch'io +abbia potuto sprezzare affatto i favori e gli onori del mondo, e chi puo +dargli' (_Lettere_, vol. iii. p. 56). 'Io non posso acquetarmi in altra +fortuna di quella ne la quale gia nacqui' (_Ibid._ p. 243).] + +[Footnote 43: It is addressed to the Metaurus, and begins: 'O del grand, +Apennino.'] + +Francesco Maria della Rovere received him with accustomed kindness; but +the spirit of unrest drove him forth again, and after two months we find +him once more, an indigent and homeless pedestrian, upon the banks of +the Sesia. He wanted to reach Vercelli, but the river was in flood, and +he owed a night's lodging to the chance courtesy of a young nobleman. +Among the many picturesque episodes in Tasso's wanderings none is more +idyllically beautiful than the tale of his meeting with this handsome +youth. He has told it himself in the exordium to his Dialogue _Il Padre +di Famiglia_. When asked who he was and whither he was going, he +answered: 'I was born in the realm of Naples, and my mother was a +Neapolitan; but I draw my paternal blood from Bergamo, a Lombard city. +My name and surname I pass in silence: they are so obscure that if I +uttered them, you would know neither more nor less of my condition. I am +flying from the anger of a prince and fortune. My destination is the +state of Savoy.' Upon this pilgrimage Tasso chose the sobriquet of +_Omero Fuggiguerra_. Arriving at Turin, he was refused entrance by the +guardians of the gate. The rags upon his back made them suspect he was a +vagabond infected with the plague. A friend who knew him, Angelo +Ingegneri, happened to pass by, and guaranteed his respectability. Manso +compares the journey of this penniless and haggard fugitive through the +cities of Italy to the meteoric passage of a comet.[44] Wherever he +appeared, he blazed with momentary splendor. Nor was Turin slow to hail +the lustrous apparition. The Marchese Filippo da Este entertained him in +his palace. The Archbishop, Girolamo della Rovere, begged the honor of +his company. The Duke of Savoy, Carlo Emanuele, offered him the same +appointments as he had enjoyed at Ferrara. Nothing, however, would +content his morbid spirit. Flattered and caressed through the months of +October and November he began once more in December to hanker after his +old home. Inconceivable as it may seem, he opened fresh negotiations +with the duke; and Alfonso, on his side, already showed a will to take +him back. Writing to his sister from Pesaro at the end of September, +Tasso stay that a gentleman had been sent from Ferrara expressly to +recall him.[45] The fact seems to be that Tasso was too illustrious to +be neglected by the House of Este. Away from their protection, he was +capable of bringing on their name the slur of bad treatment and +ingratitude. Nor would it have looked well to publish the _Gerusalemme_ +with its praises of Alfonso, while the poet was lamenting his hard fate +in every town of Italy. The upshot of these negotiations was that Tasso +resolved on retracing his steps. He reached Ferrara again upon February +21, 1579, two days before Margherita Gonzaga, the duke's new bride, made +her pompous entrance into the city. But his reception was far from being +what he had expected. The duke's heart seemed hardened. Apartments +inferior to his quality were assigned him, and to these he was conducted +by a courtier with ill-disguised insolence. The princesses refused him +access to their lodgings, and his old enemies openly manifested their +derision for the kill-joy and the skeleton who had returned to spoil +their festival. Tasso, querulous as he was about his own share in the +disagreeables of existence, remained wholly unsympathetic to the trials +of his fellow-creatures. Self-engrossment closed him in a magic +prison-house of discontent. + +[Footnote 44: _Op. cit._ p. 143.] + +[Footnote 45: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 268.] + +Therefore when he saw Ferrara full of merry-making guests, and heard +the marriage music ringing through the courtyards of the castle, he +failed to reflect with what a heavy heart the duke might now be entering +upon his third sterile nuptials. Alfonso was childless, brotherless, +with no legitimate heir to defend his duchy from the Church in case of +his decease. The irritable poet forgot how distasteful at such a moment +of forced gayety and hollow parade his reappearance, with the old +complaining murmurs, the old suspicions, the old restless eyes, might be +to the master who had certainly borne much and long with him. He only +felt himself neglected, insulted, outraged: + + Questa e la data fede? + Son questi i miei bramati alti ritorni?[46] + +Then he burst out into angry words, which he afterwards acknowledged to +have been 'false, mad and rash.'[47] The duke's patience had reached its +utmost limit. Tasso was arrested, and confined in the hospital for mad +folk at S. Anna. This happened in March 1579. He was detained there +until July 19, 1586, a period of seven years and four months. + +[Footnote 46: From the sonnet, _Sposa regal_ (_Opere_ vol. iii. p. +218).] + +[Footnote 47: _Lettere_, vol. ii. p. 67.] + +No one who has read the foregoing pages will wonder why Tasso was +imprisoned. The marvel is rather that the fact should have roused so +many speculations. Alfonso was an autocratic princeling. His favorite +minister Montecatino fell in one moment from a height of power to +irrecoverable ruin. The famous preacher Panigarola, for whom he +negotiated a Cardinal's hat, lost his esteem by seeking promotion at +another Court, and had to fly Ferrara. His friend, Ercole Contrario, was +strangled in the castle on suspicion of having concealed a murder. Tasso +had been warned repeatedly, repeatedly forgiven; and now when he turned +up again with the same complaints and the same menaces, Alfonso +determined to have done with the nuisance. He would not kill him, but he +would put him out of sight and hearing. If he was guilty, S. Anna would +be punishment enough. If he was mad, it might be hoped that S. Anna +would cure him. To blame the duke for this exercise of authority, is +difficult. Noble as is the poet's calling, and faithful as are the +wounds of a devoted friend and servant, there are limits to princely +patience. It is easier to blame Tasso for the incurable idealism which, +when he was in comfort at Turin, made him pine 'to kiss the hand of his +Highness, and recover some part of his favor on the occasion of his +marriage.'[48] + +Three long letters, written by Tasso during the early months of his +imprisonment, discuss the reasons for his arrest.[49] Two of these are +directed to his staunch friend Scipione Gonzaga, the third to Giacomo +Buoncompagno, nephew of Pope Gregory XIII. Partly owing to omissions +made by the editors before publication, and partly perhaps to the +writer's reticence, they throw no very certain light even on his own +opinion.[50] But this much appears tolerably clear. Tasso was half-mad +and altogether irritable. He had used language which could not be +overlooked. The Duke continued to resent his former practice with the +Medici, and disapproved of his perpetual wanderings. The courtiers had +done their utmost to prejudice his mind by calumnies and gossip, raking +up all that seemed injurious to Tasso's reputation in the past acts of +his life and in the looser verses found among his papers. It may also be +conceded that they contrived to cast an unfavorable light upon his +affectionate correspondence with the two princesses. Tasso himself laid +great stress upon his want of absolute loyalty, upon some lascivious +compositions, and lastly upon his supposed heresies. It is not probable +that the duke attached importance to such poetry as Tasso may have +written in the heat of youth; and it is certain that he regarded the +heresies as part of the poet's hallucinations. It is also far more +likely that the Leonora episode passed in his mind for another proof of +mental infirmity than that he judged it seriously. It was quite enough +that Tasso had put himself in the wrong by petulant abuse of his +benefactor and by persistent fretfulness. Moreover, he was plainly +brain-sick. That alone justified Alfonso in his own eyes. + + +[Footnote 48: _Lettere_, vol. ii. 34.] + +[Footnote 49: _Ibid._ pp. 7-62, 80-93.] + +[Footnote 50: We are met here as elsewhere in the perplexing problem of +Tasso's misfortunes with the difficulty of having to deal with mutilated +documents. Still the mere fact that Tasso was allowed to correspond +freely with friends and patrons, shows that Alfonso dreaded no +disclosures, and confirms the theory that he only kept Tasso locked up +out of harm's way.] + +And brain-sick Tasso was, without a shadow of doubt.[51] It is hardly +needful to recapitulate his terror of the Inquisition, dread of being +poisoned, incapacity for self-control in word and act, and other signs +of incipient disease. During the residence in S. Anna this malady made +progress. He was tormented by spectral voices and apparitions. He +believed himself to be under the influence of magic charms. He was +haunted by a sprite, who stole his books and flung his MSS. about the +room. A good genius, in the form of a handsome youth, appeared and +conversed with him. He lost himself for hours together in abstraction, +talking aloud, staring into vacancy, and expressing surprise that other +people could not see the phantoms which surrounded him. He complained +that his melancholy passed at moments into delirium (which he called +_frenesia_), after which he suffered from loss of memory and +prostration. His own mind became a constant cause of self-torture. +Suspicious of others, he grew to be suspicious of himself. And when he +left S. Anna, these disorders, instead of abating, continued to afflict +him, so that his most enthusiastic admirers were forced to admit that +'he was subject to constitutional melancholy with crises of delirium, +but not to actual insanity.'[52] At first, his infirmity did not +interfere with intellectual production of a high order, though none of +his poetry, after the _Gerusalemme_ was completed in 1574, rose to the +level of his earlier work. But in course of time the artist's faculty +itself was injured, and the creations of his later life are unworthy of +his genius. + +[Footnote 51: A letter written by Guarini, the old friend, rival and +constant Court-companion of Tasso at Ferrara, upon the news of his death +in 1595, shows how a man of cold intellect judged his case. 'The death +by which Tasso has now paid his debt to nature, seems to me like the +termination of that death of his in this world which only bore the outer +semblance of life.' See Casella's _Pastor Fido_, p. xxxii. Guarini means +that when Tasso's mind gave way, he had really died in his own higher +self, and that his actual death was a release.] + +[Footnote 52: Tasso's own letters after the beginning of 1579, and +Manso's Life (_op. cit._ pp. 156-176), are the authorities for the +symptoms detailed above. Tasso so often alludes to his infirmities that +it is not needful to accumulate citations. I will, however, quote two +striking examples. 'Sono infermo come soleva, e stanco della infermita, +la quale e _non sol malattia del corpo ma de la mente_' (_Lettere_, vol. +iii. p. 160). 'Io sono poco sano e tanto maninconico che _sono riputato +matto da gli altri e da me stesso_' (_Ib._ p. 262).] + +The seven years and four months of Tasso's imprisonment may be passed +over briefly. With regard to his so-called dungeon, it is certain that, +after some months spent in a narrow chamber, he obtained an apartment of +several rooms. He was allowed to write and receive as many letters as he +chose. Friends paid him visits, and he went abroad under surveillance in +the city of Ferrara. To extenuate the suffering which a man of his +temper endured in this enforced seclusion would be unjust to Tasso. +There is no doubt that he was most unhappy. But to exaggerate his +discomforts would be unjust to the duke. Even Manso describes 'the +excellent and most convenient lodgings' assigned him in S. Anna, +alludes to the provision for his cure by medicine, and remarks upon the +opposition which he offered to medical treatment. According to this +biographer, his own endeavors to escape necessitated a strict watch upon +his movements.[53] Unless, therefore, we flatly deny the fact of his +derangement, which is supported by a mass of testimony, it may be +doubted whether Tasso was more miserable in S. Anna than he would have +been at large. The subsequent events of his life prove that his release +brought no mitigation of his malady. + +[Footnote 53: _Op. cit._ p. 155.] + +It was, however, a dreary time. He spent his days in writing letters to +all the princes of Italy, to Naples, to Bergamo, to the Roman Curia, +declaiming on his wretchedness and begging for emancipation. Occasional +poems flowed from his pen. But during this period he devoted his serious +hours mainly to prose composition. The bulk of his Dialogues issued from +S. Anna. On August 7, 1580, Celio Malaspina published a portion of the +_Gerusalemme_ at Venice, under the title of _Il Gottifredo di M. +Torquato Tasso_. In February of the following year, his friend Angelo +Ingegneri gave the whole epic to the world. Within six months from that +date the poem was seven times reissued. This happened without the +sanction or the supervision of the luckless author; and from the sale of +the book he obtained no profit. Leonora d'Este died upon February 10, +1581. A volume of elegies appeared on this occasion; but Tasso's Muse +uttered no sound.[54] He wrote to Panigarola that 'a certain tacit +repugnance of his genius' forced him to be mute.[55] His rival Guarini +undertook a revised edition of his lyrics in 1582. Tasso had to bear +this dubious compliment in silence. All Europe was devouring his poems; +scribes and versifiers were building up their reputation on his fame. +Yet he could do nothing. Embittered by the piracies of publishers, +infuriated by the impertinence of editors, he lay like one forgotten in +that hospital. His celebrity grew daily; but he languished, penniless +and wretched, in confinement which he loathed. The strangest light is +cast upon his state of mind by the efforts which he now made to place +two of his sister's children in Court-service. He even tried to +introduce one of them as a page into the household of Alfonso. +Eventually, Alessandro Sersale was consigned to Odoardo Farnese, and +Antonio to the Duke of Mantua. In 1585 new sources of annoyance rose. +Two members of the Delia Crusca Academy in Florence, Leonardo Salviati +and Bastiano de'Rossi, attacked the _Gerusalemme_. Their malevolence was +aroused by the panegyric written on it by Cammillo Pellegrini, a +Neapolitan, and they exposed it to pedantically quibbling criticism. +Tasso replied in a dignified apology. But he does not seem to have +troubled himself overmuch with this literary warfare, which served +meanwhile to extend the fame of his immortal poem. At this time new +friends gathered round him. Among these the excellent Benedictine, +Angelo Grillo, and the faithful Antonio Costantini demand commemoration +from all who appreciate disinterested devotion to genius in distress. At +length, in July 1586, Vincenzo Gonzaga, heir apparent to the Duchy of +Mantua, obtained Tasso's release. He rode off with this new patron to +Mantua, leaving his effects at S. Anna, and only regretting that he had +not waited on the Duke of Ferrara to kiss his hand as in duty bound.[56] +Thus to the end he remained an incorrigible courtier; or rather shall we +say that, after all his tribulations, he preserved a doglike feeling of +attachment for his master? + +[Footnote 54: _Lacrime di diversi poeti volgari_, &c. (Vicenza, 1585).] + +[Footnote 55: _Lettere_, vol. ii. p. 103. The significance of this +message to Panigarola is doubtful. Did Tasso mean that the contrast +between past and present was too bitter? 'Most friendship is feigning, +most loving mere folly.'] + +[Footnote 56: All the letters written from Mantua abound in references +to this neglect of duty.] + +The rest of Tasso's life was an Odyssey of nine years. He seemed at +first contented with Mantua, wrote dialogues, completed the tragedy of +_Torrismondo_ and edited his father's _Floridante_. But when Vincenzo +Gonzaga succeeded to the dukedom, the restless poet felt himself +neglected. His young friend had not leisure to pay him due attention. He +therefore started on a journey to Loreto, which had long been the object +of his pious aspiration. Loreto led to Rome, where Scipione Gonzaga +resided as Patriarch of Jerusalem and Cardinal. Rome suggested Southern +Italy, and Tasso hankered after the recovery of his mother's fortune. +Accordingly he set off in March 1588 for Naples, where he stayed, partly +with the monks of Monte Oliveto, and partly with the Marchese Manso. +Rome saw him again in November; and not long afterwards an agent of the +Duke of Urbino wrote this pitiful report of his condition. 'Every one is +ready to welcome him to hearth and heart; but his humors render him +mistrustful of mankind at large. In the palace of the Cardinal Gonzaga +there are rooms and beds always ready for his use, and men reserved for +his especial service. Yet he runs away and mistrusts even that friendly +lord. In short, it is a sad misfortune that the present age should be +deprived of the greatest genius which has appeared for centuries. What +wise man ever spoke in prose or verse better than this madman?[57] In +the following August, Scipione Gonzaga's servants, unable to endure +Tasso's eccentricities, turned him from their master's house, and he +took refuge in a monastery of the Olivetan monks. Soon afterwards he was +carried to the hospital of the Bergamasques. His misery now was great, +and his health so bad that friends expected a speedy end.[58] Yet the +Cardinal Gonzaga again opened his doors to him in the spring of 1590. +Then the morbid poet turned suspicious, and began to indulge fresh hopes +of fortune in another place. He would again offer himself to the +Medici. In April he set off for Tuscany, and alighted at the convent of +Monte Oliveto, near Florence. Nobody wanted him; he wandered about the +Pitti like a spectre, and the Florentines wrote: _actum est de eo_.[59] +Some parting compliments and presents from the Grand Duke sweetened his +dismissal. He returned to Rome; but each new journey told upon his +broken health, and another illness made him desire a change of scene. +This time Antonio Costantini offered to attend upon him. They visited +Siena, Bologna and Mantua. At Mantua, Tasso made some halt, and took a +new long poem, the _Gerusalemme Conquistata_, seriously in hand. But the +demon of unrest pursued him, and in November 1591 he was off again with +the Duke of Mantua to Rome. From Rome he went to Naples at the beginning +of the following year, worked at the _Conquistata_, and began his poem +of the _Sette Giornate_.[60] He was always occupied with the vain hope +of recovering a portion of his mother's estate. April saw him once more +upon his way to Rome. Clement VIII. had been elected, and Tasso expected +patronage from the Papal nephews.[61] + +[Footnote 57: _Lettere_, vol. iv. p. 147.] + +[Footnote 58: _Ibid._ p. 229.] + +[Footnote 59: _Lettere_, vol. iv. p. 315.] + +[Footnote 60: Yet he now felt that his genius had expired. 'Non posso +piu fare un verso: la vena e secca, e l'ingegno e stanco' (_Lettere_, +vol. v. p. 90).] + +[Footnote 61: During the whole period of his Roman residence, Tasso, +like his father in similar circumstances, hankered after ecclesiastical +honors. His letters refer frequently to this ambition. He felt the +parallel between himself and Bernardo Tasso: 'La mia depressa +condizione, e la mia infelicita, quasi ereditaria' (vol. iv. p. 288).] + +He was not disappointed. They received him into their houses, and for a +while he sojourned in the Vatican. The year 1593 seems, through their +means, to have been one of comparative peace and prosperity. Early in +the summer of 1594 his health obliged him to seek change of air. He went +for the last time to Naples. The Cardinal of S. Giorgio, one of the +Pope's nephews, recalled him in November to be crowned poet in Rome. His +entrance into the Eternal City was honorable, and Clement granted him a +special audience; but the ceremony of coronation had to be deferred +because of the Cardinal's ill health. + +Meanwhile his prospects seemed likely to improve. Clement conferred on +him a pension of one hundred ducats, and the Prince of Avellino, who had +detained his mother's estate, compounded with him for a life-income of +two hundred ducats. This good fortune came in the spring of 1595. But it +came too late; for his death-illness was upon him. On the first of April +he had himself transported to the convent of S. Onofrio, which overlooks +Rome from the Janiculan hill. 'Torrents of rain were falling with a +furious wind, when the carriage of Cardinal Cinzio was seen climbing the +steep ascent. The badness of the weather made the fathers think there +must be some grave cause for this arrival. So the prior and others +hurried to the gate, where Tasso descended with considerable difficulty, +greeting the monks with these words: 'I am come to die among you.''[62] +The last of Tasso's letters, written to Antonio Costantini from S. +Onofrio, has the quiet dignity of one who struggles for the last time +with the frailty of his mortal nature.[63] + +'What will my good lord Antonio say when he shall hear of his Tasso's +death? The news, as I incline to think, will not be long in coming; for +I feel that I have reached the end of life, being unable to discover any +remedy for this tedious indisposition which has supervened on the many +others I am used to--like a rapid torrent resistlessly sweeping me away. +The time is past when I should speak of my stubborn fate, to mention not +the world's ingratitude, which, however, has willed to gain the victory +of bearing me to the grave a pauper; the while I kept on thinking that +the glory which, despite of those that like it not, this age will +inherit from my writings, would not have left me wholly without guerdon. +I have had myself carried to this monastery of S. Onofrio; not only +because the air is commended by physicians above that of any other part +of Rome, but also as it were upon this elevated spot and by the +conversation of these devout fathers to commence my conversation in +heaven. Pray God for me; and rest assured that as I have loved and +honored you always in the present life, so will I perform for you in +that other and more real life what appertains not to feigned but to +veritable charity. And to the Divine grace I recommend you and myself.' + +[Footnote 62: Manso _op. cit._ p. 215.] + +[Footnote 63: This letter proves conclusively that, whatever was the +nature of Tasso's malady, and however it had enfeebled his faculties as +poet, he was in no vulgar sense a lunatic.] + +On April 25, Tasso expired at midnight, with the words _In manus tuas, +Domine_, upon his lips. Had Costantini, his sincerest friend, been +there, he might have said like Kent: + + O, let him pass! he hates him much + That would upon the rack of this tough world + Stretch him out longer. + +But Costantini was in Mantua; and this sonnet, which he had written for +his master, remains Tasso's truest epitaph, the pithiest summary of a +life pathetically tragic in its adverse fate-- + + Friends, this is Tasso, not the sire but son; + For he of human offspring had no heed, + Begetting for himself immortal seed + Of art, style, genius and instruction. + + In exile long he lived and utmost need; + In palace, temple, school, he dwelt alone; + He fled, and wandered through wild woods unknown; + On earth, on sea, suffered in thought and deed. + + He knocked at death's door; yet he vanquished him + With lofty prose and with undying rhyme; + But fortune not, who laid him where he lies. + + Guerdon for singing loves and arms sublime, + And showing truth whose light makes vices dim, + Is one green wreath; yet this the world denies. + +The wreath of laurel which the world grudged was placed upon his bier; +and a simple stone, engraved with the words _Hic jacet Torquatus +Tassus_, marked the spot where he was buried. + +The foregoing sketch of Tasso's life and character differs in some +points from the prevalent conceptions of the poet. There is a legendary +Tasso, the victim of malevolent persecution by pedants, the mysterious +lover condemned to misery in prison by a tyrannous duke. There is also a +Tasso formed by men of learning upon ingeniously constructed systems; +Rosini's Tasso, condemned to feign madness in punishment for courting +Leonora d'Este with lascivious verses; Capponi's Tasso, punished for +seeking to exchange the service of the House of Este for that of the +House of Medici; a Tasso who was wholly mad; a Tasso who remained +through life the victim of Jesuitical influences. In short, there are as +many Tassos as there are Hamlets. Yet these Tassos of the legend and of +erudition do not reproduce his self-revealed lineaments. Tasso's letters +furnish documents of sufficient extent to make the real man visible, +though something yet remains perhaps not wholly explicable in his +tragedy. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE GERUSALEMME LIBERATA. + + Problem of Creating Heroic Poetry--The Preface to Tasso's + _Rinaldo_--Subject of _Rinaldo_--Blending of Romantic Motives with + Heroic Style--Imitation of Virgil--Melody and Sentiment--Choice of + Theme for the _Gerusalemme_--It becomes a Romantic Poem after + all--Tancredi the real Hero--Nobility of Tone--Virgilian + Imitation--Borrowings from Dante--Involved Diction--Employment of + Sonorous Polysyllabic Words--Quality of Religious Emotion in this + Poem--Rhetoric--Similes--The Grand Style of Pathos--Verbal + Music--The Chant d'Amour--Armida--Tasso's Favorite Phrase, _Un non + so che_--His Power over Melody and Tender Feeling--Critique of + Tasso's Later Poems--General Survey of his Character. + + +In a previous portion of this work, I attempted to define the Italian +Romantic Epic, and traced the tale of Orlando from Pulci through Boiardo +and Ariosto to the burlesque of Folengo. There is an element of humor +more or less predominant in the _Morgante Maggiore_, the _Orlando +Innamorato_, and the _Orlando Furioso_. This element might almost be +regarded as inseparable from the species. Yet two circumstances +contributed to alter the character of Italian Romance after the +publication of the _Furioso_. One of these was the unapproachable +perfection of that poem. No one could hope to surpass Ariosto in his own +style, or to give a fresh turn to his humor without passing into broad +burlesque. The romantic poet had therefore to choose between sinking +into parody with Folengo and Aretino, or soaring into the sublimities of +solemn art. Another circumstance was the keen interest aroused in +academic circles by Trissino's unsuccessful epic, and by the discussion +of heroic poetry which it stimulated. The Italian nation was becoming +critical, and this critical spirit lent itself readily to experiments in +hybrid styles of composition which aimed at combining the graces of the +Romantic with the dignity of the Heroic poem. The most meritorious of +these hybrids was Bernardo Tasso's _Amadigi_, a long romance in octave +stanzas, sustained upon a grave tone throughout, and distinguished from +the earlier romantic epics by a more obvious unity of subject. Bernardo +Tasso possessed qualities of genius and temper which suited his proposed +task. Deficient in humor, he had no difficulty in eliminating that +element from the _Amadigi_. Chivalrous sentiment took the place of +irony; scholarly method supplied the want of wayward fancy. + +It was just at this point that the young Torquato Tasso made his first +essay in poetry. He had inherited his father's temperament, its want of +humor, its melancholy, its aristocratic sensitiveness. At the age of +seventeen he was already a ripe scholar, versed in the critical +questions which then agitated learned coteries in Italy. The wilding +graces and the freshness of the Romantic Epic, as conceived by Boiardo +and perfected by Ariosto, had forever disappeared. To 'recapture that +first fine careless rapture' was impossible. Contemporary conditions of +society and thought rendered any attempt to do so futile. Italy had +passed into a different stage of culture; and the representative poem of +Tasso's epoch was imperatively forced to assume a different character. +Its type already existed in the _Amadigi_, though Bernardo Tasso had not +the genius to disengage it clearly, or to render it attractive. How +Torquato, while still a student in his teens at Padua, attacked the +problem of narrative poetry, appears distinctly in his preface to +_Rinaldo_. 'I believe,' he says, 'that you, my gentle readers, will not +take it amiss if I have diverged from the path of modern poets, and have +sought to approach the best among the ancients. You shall not, however, +find that I am bound by the precise rules of Aristotle, which often +render those poems irksome which might otherwise have yielded you much +pleasure. I have only followed such of his precepts as do not limit your +delight: for instance, in the frequent use of episodes, making the +characters talk in their own persons, introducing recognitions and +peripeties by necessary or plausible motives, and withdrawing the poet +as far as possible from the narration. I have also endeavored to +construct my poem with unity of interest and action, not, indeed, in any +strict sense, but so that the subordinate portions should be seen to +have their due relation to the whole.' He then proceeds to explain why +he has abandoned the discourses on moral and general topics with which +Ariosto opened his Cantos, and hints that he has taken Virgil, the +'Prince of Poets,' for his model. Thus the Romantic Epic, as conceived +by Tasso, was to break with the tradition of the Cantastorie, who told +the tale in his own person and introduced reflections on its incidents. +It was to aim at unity of subject and to observe classical rules of art, +without, however, sacrificing the charm of variety and those delights +which episodes and marvelous adventures yielded to a modern audience. +The youthful poet begs that his _Rinaldo_ should not be censured on the +one hand by severely Aristotelian critics who exclude pleasure from +their ideal, or on the other by amateurs who regard the _Orlando +Furioso_ as the perfection of poetic art. In a word, he hopes to produce +something midway between the strict heroic epic, which had failed in +Trissino's _Italia Liberata_ through dullness, and the genuine romantic +epic, which in Ariosto's masterpiece diverged too widely from the rules +of classical pure taste. This new species, combining the attractions of +romance with the simplicity of epic poetry, was the gift which Tasso at +the age of eighteen sought to present in his _Rinaldo_ to Italy. The +_Rinaldo_ fulfilled fairly well the conditions propounded by its author. +It had a single hero and a single subject-- + + Canto i felici affanni, e i primi ardori, + Che giovinetto ancor soffri Rinaldo, + E come il trasse in perigliosi errori + Desir di gloria ed amoroso caldo. + +The perilous achievements and the passion of Rinaldo in his youth form +the theme of a poem which is systematically evolved from the first +meeting of the son of Amon with Clarice to their marriage under the +auspices of Malagigi. There are interesting episodes like those of young +Florindo and Olinda, unhappy Clizia and abandoned Floriana. Rinaldo's +combat with Orlando in the Christian camp furnishes an anagnorisis; +while the plot is brought to its conclusion by the peripeteia of +Clarice's jealousy and the accidents which restore her to her lover's +arms. Yet though observant of his own classical rules, Tasso remained in +all essential points beneath the spell of the Romantic Epic. The changes +which he introduced were obvious to none but professional critics. In +warp and woof the _Rinaldo_ is similar to Boiardo's and Ariosto's tale +of chivalry; only the loom is narrower, and the pattern of the web less +intricate. The air of artlessness which lent its charm to Romance in +Italy has disappeared, yielding place to sustained elaboration of +Latinizing style. Otherwise the fabric remains substantially +unaltered--like a Gothic dwelling furnished with Palladian +window-frames. We move in the old familiar sphere of Paladins and +Paynims, knights errant and Oriental damsels, magicians and distressed +maidens. The action is impelled by the same series of marvelous +adventures and felicitous mishaps. There are the same encounters in war +and rivalries in love between Christian and Pagan champions; journeys +through undiscovered lands and over untracked oceans; fantastic +hyperboles of desire, ambition, jealousy, and rage, employed as motive +passions. Enchanted forests; fairy ships that skim the waves without +helm or pilot; lances endowed with supernatural virtues; charmed gardens +of perpetual spring; dismal dungeons and glittering palaces, supply the +furniture of this romance no less than of its predecessors. Rinaldo, +like any other hero of the Renaissance, is agitated by burning thirst +for fame and blind devotion to a woman's beauty. We first behold him +pining in inglorious leisure[64]:-- + + Poi, ch'oprar non poss'io che di me s'oda + Con mia gloria ed onor novella alcuna, + O cosa, ond' io pregio n'acquisti e loda, + E mia fama rischiari oscura e bruna. + +The vision of Clarice, appearing like Virgil's Camilla, stirs him from +this lethargy. He falls in love at first sight, as Tasso's heroes always +do, and vows to prove himself her worthy knight by deeds of unexampled +daring. Thus the plot is put in motion; and we read in well-appointed +order how the hero acquired his horse, Baiardo, Tristram's magic lance, +his sword Fusberta from Atlante, his armor from Orlando, the trappings +of his charger from the House of Courtesy, the ensign of the lion +rampant on his shield from Chiarello, and the hand of his lady after +some delays from Malagigi. + +[Footnote 64: Canto i. 17.] + +No new principle is introduced into the romance. As in earlier poems of +this species, the religious motive of Christendom at war with Islam +becomes a mere machine; the chivalrous environment affords a vehicle for +fanciful adventures. Humor, indeed, is conspicuous by its absence. +Charles the Great assumes the sobriety of empire; and his camp, in its +well-ordered gravity, prefigures that of Goffredo in the +_Gerusalemme_.[65] Thus Tasso's originality must not be sought in the +material of his work, which is precisely that of the Italian romantic +school in general, nor yet in its form, which departs from the romantic +tradition in details so insignificant as to be inessential. We find it +rather in his touch upon the old material, in his handling of the +familiar form. The qualities of style, sympathy, sentiment, selection in +the use of phrase and image, which determined his individuality as a +poet, rendered the _Rinaldo_ a novelty in literature. It will be +therefore well to concentrate attention for a while upon those +subjective peculiarities by right of which the _Rinaldo_ ranks as a +precursor of the _Gerusalemme_. + +The first and the most salient of these is a pronounced effort to +heighten style by imitation of Latin poets. The presiding genius of the +work is Virgil. Pulci's racy Florentine idiom; Boiardo's frank and +natural Lombard manner; Ariosto's transparent and unfettered modern +phrase, have been supplanted by a pompous intricacy of construction. + +[Footnote 65: Canto vi. 64-9.] + +The effort to impose Latin rules of syntax on Italian is obvious in +such lines as the following:[66] + + Torre ei l'immagin volle, che sospesa + Era presso l'altar gemmato e sacro, + Ove in chiaro cristal lampade accesa + Fea lume di Ciprigna al simulacro: + +or in these: + + Umida i gigli e le vermiglie rose + Del volto, e gli occhi bei conversa al piano, + Gli occhi, onde in perle accolto il pianto uscia, + La giovinetta il cavalier seguia. + +Virgil is directly imitated, where he is least worthy of imitation, in +the details of his battle-pieces. Thus:[67] + + Si riversa Isolier tremando al piano, + Privo di senso e di vigore ignudo, + Ed a lui gli occhi oscura notte involve, + Ed ogni membro ancor se gli dissolve. + + * * * * * + + Quel col braccio sospeso in aria stando, + Ne lo movendo a questa o a quella parte, + Che dalla spada cio gli era conteso, + Voto sembrava in sacro tempio appeso. + + * * * * * + + Mentre ignaro di cio che 'l ciel destine, + Cosi diceva ancor, la lancia ultrice + Rinaldo per la bocca entro gli mise, + E la lingua e 'l parlar per mezzo incise. + +This Virgilian imitation yields some glowing flowers of poetry in longer +passages of description. Among these may be cited the conquest of +Baiardo in the second canto, the shipwreck in the tenth, the chariot of +Pluto in the fourth, and the supper with queen Floriana in the ninth. + +[Footnote 66: Canto iii. 40, 45.] + +[Footnote 67: Canto ii. 22, iv. 28, 33.] + +The episode of Floriana, while closely studied upon the Aeneid, is also +a first sketch for that of Armida. Indeed, it should be said in passing +that Tasso anticipates the _Gerusalemme_ throughout the _Rinaldo_. The +murder of Anselmo by Rinaldo (Canto XI.) forecasts the murder of +Gernando by his namesake, and leads to the same result of the hero's +banishment. The shipwreck, the garden of courtesy, the enchanted boat, +and the charmed forest, are motives which reappear improved and +elaborated in Tasso's masterpiece.[68] + +While Tasso thus sought to heighten diction by Latinisms, he revealed +another specific quality of his manner in _Rinaldo_. This is the +inability to sustain heroic style at its ambitious level. He frequently +drops at the close of the octave stanza into a prosaic couplet, which +has all the effect of bathos. Instances are not far to seek:[69] + + Gia tal insegna acquisto l'avo, e poi + La portar molti de'nipoti suoi. + * * * * * + E a questi segni ed al crin raro e bianco + Monstrava esser dagli anni oppresses e stanco. + * * * * * + Fu qui vicin dal saggio Alchiso il Mago, + Di far qualch'opra memorabil vago. + * * * * * + Io son Rinaldo, + Solo di servir voi bramoso e caldo. + +[Footnote 68: _Rinaldo_, cantos x. vii.] + +[Footnote 69: Canto i. 25, 31, 41, 64.] + +The reduplication of epithets, and the occasional use of long sonorous +Latin words, which characterize Tasso's later manner, are also +noticeable in these couplets. Side by side with such weak endings should +be placed some specimens, no less characteristic, of vigorous and noble +lines:[70] + + Nel cor consiston l'armi, + Onde il forte non e chi mai disarmi. + * * * * * + Si sta placido e cheto, + Ma serba dell'altiero nel mansueto. + +If the _Rinaldo_ prefigures Tasso's maturer qualities of style, it is no +less conspicuous for the light it throws upon his eminent poetic +faculty. Nothing distinguished him more decidedly from the earlier +romantic poets than power over pathetic sentiment conveyed in melodious +cadences of oratory. This emerges in Clarice's monologue on love and +honor, that combat of the soul which forms a main feature of the lyrics +in _Aminta_ and of Erminia's episode in the _Gerusalemme_.[71] This +steeps the whole story of Clizia in a delicious melancholy, +foreshadowing the death-scene of Clorinda.[72] This rises in the +father's lamentation over his slain Ugone, into the music of a threnody +that now recalls Euripides and now reminds us of mediaeval litanies.[73] +Censure might be passed upon rhetorical conceits and frigid affectations +in these characteristic outpourings of pathetic feeling. Yet no one can +ignore their liquid melody, their transference of emotion through sound +into modulated verse. + +[Footnote 70: _Rinaldo_, Canto ii. 28, 44.] + +[Footnote 71: Canto ii. 3-11.] + +[Footnote 72: Canto vii. 16-51.] + +[Footnote 73: Canto vii. 3-11.] + +That lyrical outcry, finding rhythmic utterance for tender sentiment, +which may be recognized as Tasso's chief addition to romantic poetry, +pierces like a song through many passages of mere narration. Rinaldo, +while carrying Clarice away upon Baiardo, with no chaste intention in +his heart, bids her thus dry her tears:[74] + + Egli dice: Signora, onde vi viene + Si spietato martir, si grave affanno? + Perche le luci angeliche e serene + Ricopre della doglia oscuro panno? + Forse fia l'util vostro e 'l vostro bene + Quel ch'or vi sembra insupportabil danno, + Deh! per Dio, rasciugate il caldo pianto. + E l'atroce dolor temprate alquanto. + +It is not that we do not find similar lyrical interbreathings in the +narrative of Ariosto. But Tasso developed the lyrism of the octave +stanza into something special, lulling the soul upon gentle waves of +rising and falling rhythm, foreshadowing the coming age of music in +cadences that are untranslateable except by vocal melody. In like +manner, the idyl, which had played a prominent part in Boiardo's and in +Ariosto's romance, detaches itself with a peculiar sweetness from the +course of Tasso's narrative. This appears in the story of Florindo, +which contains within itself the germ of the _Aminta_, the _Pastor Fido_ +and the _Adone_.[75] Together with the bad taste of the artificial +pastoral, its preposterous costume (stanza 13), its luxury of tears +(stanza 23), we find the tyranny of kisses (stanzas 28, 52), the +yearning after the Golden Age (stanza 29), and all the other apparatus +of that operatic species. Tasso was the first poet to bathe Arcady in a +golden afternoon light of sensuously sentimental pathos. In his idyllic +as in his lyrical interbreathings, melody seems absolutely demanded to +interpret and complete the plangent rhythm of his dulcet numbers. +Emotion so far predominates over intelligence, so yearns to exhale +itself in sound and shun the laws of language, that we find already in +_Rinaldo_ Tasso's familiar _Non so che_ continually used to adumbrate +sentiments for which plain words are not indefinite enough. + +[Footnote 74: Canto iv. 47.] + +[Footnote 75: Canto v. 12-57.] + +The _Rinaldo_ was a very remarkable production for a young man of +eighteen. It showed the poet in possession of his style and displayed +the specific faculties of his imagination. Nothing remained for Tasso +now but to perfect and develop the type of art which he had there +created. Soon after his first settlement in Ferrara, he began to +meditate a more ambitious undertaking. His object was to produce the +heroic poem for which Italy had long been waiting, and in this way to +rival or surpass the fame of Ariosto. Trissino had chosen a national +subject for his epic; but the _Italia Liberata_ was an acknowledged +failure, and neither the past nor the present conditions of the Italian +people offered good material for a serious poem. The heroic enthusiasms +of the age were religious. Revived Catholicism had assumed an attitude +of defiance. The Company of Jesus was declaring its crusade against +heresy and infidelity throughout the world. Not a quarter of a century +had elapsed since Charles V. attacked the Mussulman in Tunis; and before +a few more years had passed, the victory of Lepanto was to be won by +Italian and Spanish navies. Tasso, therefore, obeyed a wise instinct +when he made choice of the first crusade for his theme, and of Godfrey +of Boulogne for his hero. Having to deal with historical facts, he +studied the best authorities in chronicles, ransacked such books of +geography and travel as were then accessible, paid attention to +topography, and sought to acquire what we now call local coloring for +the details of his poem. Without the sacrifice of truth in any important +point, he contrived to give unity to the conduct of his narrative, while +interweaving a number of fictitious characters and marvelous +circumstances with the historical personages and actual events of the +crusade. The vital interest of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_ flows from +this interpolated material, from the loves of Rinaldo and Tancredi, from +the adventures of the Pagan damsels Erminia, Armida and Clorinda. The +_Gerusalemme_ is in truth a Virgilian epic, upon which a romantic poem +has been engrafted. Goffredo, idealized into statuesque frigidity, +repeats the virtues of Aeneas; but the episode of Dido, which enlivens +Virgil's hero, is transferred to Rinaldo's part in Tasso's story. The +battles of Crusaders and Saracens are tedious copies of the battle in +the tenth Aeneid; but the duels of Tancredi with Clorinda and Argante +breathe the spirit and the fire of chivalry. The celestial and infernal +councils, adopted as machinery, recall the rival factions in Olympus; +but the force by which the plot moves is love. Pluto and the angel +Gabriel are inactive by comparison with Armida, Erminia and Clorinda. +Tasso in truth thought that he was writing a religious and heroic poem. +What he did write, was a poem of sentiment and passion--a romance. Like +Anacreon he might have cried: + + thelo legein Atreidas + thelo de Kadmon adein, + ha barbitos de chordais + Erota mounon echei. + +He displayed, indeed, marvelous ingenuity and art in so connecting the +two strains of his subject, the stately Virgilian history and the +glowing modern romance, that they should contribute to the working of a +single plot. Yet he could not succeed in vitalizing the former, whereas +the latter will live as long as human interest in poetry endures. No one +who has studied the _Gerusalemme_ returns with pleasure to Goffredo, or +feels that the piety of the Christian heroes is inspired. He skips canto +after canto dealing with the crusade, to dwell upon those lyrical +outpourings of love, grief, anguish, vain remorse and injured affection +which the supreme poet of sentiment has invented for his heroines; he +recognizes the genuine inspiration of Erminia's pastoral idyl, of +Armida's sensuous charms, of Clorinda's dying words, of the Siren's +song and the music of the magic bird: of all, in fact, which is not +pious in the poem. + +Tancredi, between Erminia and Clorinda, the one woman adoring him, the +other beloved by him--the melancholy graceful modern Tancredi, Tasso's +own soul's image--is the veritable hero of the _Gerusalemme_; and by a +curious unintended propriety he disappears from the action before the +close, without a word. The force of the poem is spiritualized and +concentrated in Clorinda's death, which may be cited as an instance of +sublimity in pathos. It is idyllized in the episode of Erminia among the +shepherds, and sensualized in the supreme beauty of Armida's garden. +Rinaldo is second in importance to Tancredi; and Goffredo, on whom Tasso +bestows the blare of his Virgilian trumpet from the first line to the +last, is poetically of no importance whatsoever. Argante, Solimano, +Tisaferno, excite our interest, and win the sympathy we cannot spare the +saintly hero; and in the death of Solimano Tasso's style, for once, +verges upon tragic sublimity. + +What Tasso aimed at in the _Gerusalemme_ was nobility. This quality had +not been prominent in Ariosto's art. If he could attain it, his ambition +to rival the _Orlando Furioso_ would be satisfied. One main condition of +success Tasso brought to the achievement. His mind itself was eminently +noble, incapable of baseness, fixed on fair and worthy objects of +contemplation. Yet the personal nobility which distinguished him as a +thinker and a man, was not of the heroic type. He had nothing Homeric +in his inspiration, nothing of the warrior or the patriot in his nature. +His genius, when it pursued its bias, found instinctive utterance in +elegy and idyl, in meditative rhetoric and pastoral melody. In order to +assume the heroic strain, Tasso had recourse to scholarship, and gave +himself up blindly to the guidance of Latin poets. This was consistent +with the tendency of the Classical Revival; but since the subject to be +dignified by epic style was Christian and mediaeval, a discord between +matter and manner amounting almost to insincerity resulted. Some +examples will make the meaning of this criticism more apparent. When +Goffredo rejects the embassy of Atlete and Argante, he declares his firm +intention of delivering Jerusalem in spite of overwhelming perils. The +crusaders can but perish: + + Noi morirem, ma non morremo inulti. (i. 86.) + +This of course is a reminiscence of Dido's last words, and the +difference between the two situations creates a disagreeable +incongruity. The nod of Jove upon Olympus is translated to express the +fiat of the Almighty (xiii. 74); Gabriel is tricked out in the plumes +and colors of Mercury (i. 13-15); the very angels sinning round the +throne become 'dive sirene' (xiv. 9); the armory of heaven is described +in terms which reduce Michael's spear and the arrows of pestilence to +ordinary weapons (vii. 81); Hell is filled with harpies, centaurs, +hydras, pythons, the common lumber of classical Tartarus (iv. 5); the +angel sent to cure Goffredo's wound culls dittany on Ida (xi. 72); the +heralds, interposing between Tancredi and Argante, hold pacific scepters +and have naught of chivalry (vi. 51). It may be said that both Dante +before Tasso, and Milton after him, employed similar classical language +in dealing with Christian and mediaeval motives. But this will hardly +serve as an excuse; for Dante and Milton communicate so intense a +conviction of religious earnestness that their Latinisms, even though +incongruous, are recognized as the mere clothing of profoundly felt +ideas. The sublimity, the seriousness, the spiritual dignity is in their +thought, not in its expression; whereas Tasso too frequently leaves us +with the certainty that he has sought by ceremonious language to realize +more than he could grasp with the imagination. In his council of the +powers of hell, for instance, he creates monsters of huge dimensions and +statuesque distinctness; but these are neither grotesquely horrible like +Dante's, nor are they spirits with incalculable capacity for evil like +Milton's. + + Stampano alcuni il suol di ferine orme, + E in fronte umana ban chiome d'angui attorte; + E lor s'aggira dietro immensa coda, + Che quasi sferza si ripiega e snoda. + +Against this we have to place the dreadful scene of Satan with his +angels transformed to snakes (_Par. Lost_, x. 508-584), and the +Dantesque horror of the 'vermo reo che 'l mondo fora' (_Inf._ xxxiv. +108). Again when Dante cries-- + + O Sommo Giove, + Che fosti in terra per noi crocifisso! + +we feel that the Latin phrase is accidental. The spirit of the poet +remains profoundly Christian. Tasso's Jehovah-Jupiter is always 'il Re +del Ciel'; and the court of blessed spirits which surrounds his 'gran +seggio,' though described with solemn pomp of phrase, cannot be compared +with the Mystic Rose of Paradise (ix. 55-60). What Tasso lacks is +authenticity of vision; and his heightened style only renders this +imaginative poverty, this want of spiritual conviction, more apparent. + +His frequent borrowings from Virgil are less unsuccessful when the +matter to be illustrated is not of this exalted order. Many similes +(vii. 55, vii. 76, viii. 74) have been transplanted with nice propriety. +Many descriptions, like that of the approach of night (ii-96), of the +nightingale mourning for her young (xii. 90), of the flying dream (xiv. +6), have been translated with exquisite taste. Dido's impassioned +apostrophe to Aeneas reappears appropriately upon Armida's lips (xvi. +56). We welcome such culled phrases as the following: + + l'orticel dispensa + Cibi non compri alia mia parca mensa (vii. 10). + + Premer gli alteri, e sollevar gl'imbelli (x. 76). + + E Tisaferno, il folgore di Marte (xvii. 31). + + Va, vedi, e vinci (xvii. 38). + + Ma mentre dolce parla e dolce ride (iv. 92). + + Che vinta la materia e dal lavoro (xvi. 2). + + Non temo io te, ne tuoi gran vanti, o fero: + Ma il Cielo e il mio nemico amor pavento (xix. 73). + +It may, however, be observed that in the last of these passages Tasso +does not show a just discriminative faculty. Turnus said: + + Non me tua fervida terrent + Dicta, ferox: Di me terrent et Jupiter hostis. + +From Jupiter to Amor is a descent from sublimity to pathos. In like +manner when Hector's ghost reappears in the ghost of Armida's mother, + + Quanto diversa, oime, da quel che pria + Visto altrove (iv. 49), + +the reminiscence suggests ideas that are unfavorable to the modern +version. + +In his description of battles, the mustering of armies, and military +operations, Tasso neither draws from mediaeval sources nor from +experience, but imitates the battle-pieces of Virgil and Lucan, +sometimes with fine rhetorical effect and sometimes with wearisome +frigidity. The death of Latino and his five sons is both touching in +itself, and a good example of this Virgilian mannerism (ix. 35). The +death of Dudone is justly celebrated as a sample of successful imitation +(iii. 45): + + Cade; e gli occhi, ch'appena aprir si ponno, + Dura quiete preme e ferreo sonno. + +The wound of Gerniero, on the contrary, illustrates the peril of +seeking after conceits in the inferior manner of the master (ix. 69): + + La destra di Gerniero, onde ferita + Ella fu pria, manda recisa al piano; + Tratto anco il ferro, e con tremanti dita + Semiviva nel suol guizza la mano. + +The same may be said about the wound of Algazel (ix. 78) and the death +of Ardonio (xx. 39). In the description of the felling of the forest +(iii. 75, 76) and of the mustering of the Egyptian army (xvii. 1-36) +Tasso's Virgilian style attains real grandeur and poetic beauty. + +Tasso was nothing if not a learned poet. It would be easy to illustrate +what he has borrowed from Lucretius, or to point out that the pathos of +Clorinda's apparition to Tancredi after death is a debt to Petrarch. It +may, however, suffice here to indicate six phrases taken straight from +Dante; since the _Divine Comedy_ was little studied in Tasso's age, and +his selection of these lines reflects credit on his taste. These are: + + Onorate l'altissimo campione! (iii. 73: _Inf._ iv.) + + Goffredo intorno gli occhi gravi e tardi (vii. 58: _Inf._. iv.). + + a riveder le stelle (iv. 18: _Inf._ xxxiv.). + + Ond' e ch'or tanto ardire in voi s'alletti? (ix. 76: _Inf._ ix.) + + A guisa di leon quando si posa (x. 56: _Purg._ vi.) + + e guardi e passi (xx. 43: _Inf._ in.) + +As in the _Rinaldo_, so also in the _Gerusalemme_, Tasso's classical +proclivities betrayed him into violation of the clear Italian language. +Afraid of what is natural and common, he produced what is artificial and +conceited. Hence came involved octaves like the following (vi. 109): + + Siccome cerva, ch'assetata il passo + Mova a cercar d'acque lucenti e vive, + Ove un bel fonte distillar da un sasso + O vide un fiume tra frondose rive, + Se incontra i cani allor che il corpo lasso + Ristorar crede all'onde, all'ombre estive, + Volge indietro fuggendo, e la paura + La stanchezza obbliar face e l'arsura. + +The image is beautiful; but the diction is elaborately intricate, +rhetorically indistinct. We find the same stylistic involution in these +lines (xii. 6): + + Ma s'egli avverra pur che mia ventura + Nel mio ritorno mi rinchiuda il passo, + D'uom che in amor m'e padre a te la cura + E delle fide mie donzelle io lasso. + +The limpid well of native utterance is troubled at its source by +scholastic artifices in these as in so many other passages of Tasso's +masterpiece. Nor was he yet emancipated from the weakness of _Rinaldo_. +Trying to soar upon the borrowed plumes of pseudo-classical sublimity, +he often fell back wearied by this uncongenial effort into prose. Lame +endings to stanzas, sudden descents from highly-wrought to pedestrian +diction, are not uncommon in the _Gerusalemme_. The poet, diffident of +his own inspiration, sought inspiration from books. In the magnificence +of single lines again, the _Gerusalemme_ reminds us of _Rinaldo_. Tasso +gained dignity of rhythm by choosing Latin adjectives and adverbs with +pompous cadences. No versifier before his date had consciously employed +the sonorous music of such lines as the following:-- + + Foro, tentando inaccessibil via (ii. 29). + + Ond' Amor l'arco inevitabil tende (iii. 24). + + Questa muraglia impenetrabil fosse (iii. 51). + + Furon vedute fiammeggiare insieme (v. 28). + + Qual capitan ch'inespugnabil terra (v. 64). + + Sotto l'inevitabile tua spada (xvi. 33). + + Immense solitudini d'arena (xvii. I). + +The last of these lines presents an impressive landscape in three +melodious words. + +These verbal and stylistic criticisms are not meant to cast reproach on +Tasso as a poet. If they have any value, it is the light they throw upon +conditions under which the poet was constrained to work. Humanism and +the Catholic Revival reduced this greatest genius of his age to the +necessity of clothing religious sentiments in scholastic phraseology, +with the view of attaining to epic grandeur. But the Catholic Revival +was no regeneration of Christianity from living sources; and humanism +had run its course in Italy, and was ending in the sands of critical +self-consciousness. Thus piety in Tasso appears superficial and +conventional rather than profoundly felt or originally vigorous; while +the scholarship which supplied his epic style is scrupulous and timid. + +The enduring qualities of Tasso as a modern poet have still to be +indicated; and to this more grateful portion of my argument I now +address myself. Much might be said in the first place about his +rhetorical dexterity--the flexibility of language in his hands, and the +copiousness of thought, whereby he was able to adorn varied situations +and depict diversity of passions with appropriate diction. Whether Alete +is subtly pleading a seductive cause, or Goffredo is answering his +sophistries with well-weighed arguments; whether Pluto addresses the +potentates of hell, or Erminia wavers between love and honor; whether +Tancredi pours forth the extremity of his despair, or Armida heaps +reproaches on Rinaldo in his flight; the musical and luminously polished +stanzas lend themselves without change of style to every gradation of +the speaker's mood. In this art of rhetoric, Tasso seems to have taken +Livy for his model; and many of his speeches which adorn the graver +portions of his poem are noticeable for compact sententious wisdom. + +In fancy Tasso was not so naturally rich and inventive as the author of +_Orlando Furioso_. Yet a gallery of highly-finished pictures might be +collected from his similes and metaphors. What pride and swiftness mark +this vision of a thunderbolt: + + Grande ma breve fulmine il diresti, + Che inaspettato sopraggiunga e passi; + Ma del suo corso momentaneo resti + Vestigio eterno in dirupati sassi (xx. 93). + +How delicately touched is this uprising of the morning star from ocean: + + Qual mattutina Stella esce dell'onde + Rugiadosa e stillante; o come fuore + Spunto nascendo gia dalle feconde + Spume dell'ocean la Dea d'amore (xv. 60). + +Here is an image executed in the style of Ariosto. Clorinda has received +a wound on her uncovered head: + + Fu levissima piaga, e i biondi crini + Rosseggiaron cosi d'alquante stille, + Come rosseggia l'or che di rubini + Per man d'illustre artefice sfaville (iii. 30). + +Flowers furnish the poet with exquisite suggestions of color: + + D'un bel pallor ha il bianco volto asperso, + Come a gigli sarian miste viole (xii. 69). + + Quale a pioggia d'argento e mattutina + Si rabbellisce scolorita rosa (xx. 129). + +Sometimes the painting is minutely finished like a miniature: + + Cosi piuma talor, che di gentile + Amorosa colomba il collo cinge, + Mai non si scorge a se stessa simile, + Ma in diversi colori al sol si tinge: + Or d'accesi rubin sembra un monile, + Or di verdi smeraldi il lume finge, + Or insieme li mesce, e varia e vaga + In cento modi i riguardanti appaga (xv. 5). + +Sometimes the style is broad, the touch vigorous: + + Qual feroce destrier, ch'al faticoso + Onor dell'arme vincitor sia tolto, + E lascivo marito in vil riposo + Fra gli armenti e ne'paschi erri disciolto, + + Se il desta o suon di tromba, o luminoso + Acciar, cola tosto annitrendo e volto; + Gia gia brama l'arringo, el'uom sul dorso + Portando, urtato riurtar nel corso (xvi. 28). + +I will content myself with referring to the admirably conceived simile +of a bulky galleon at sea attacked by a swifter and more agile vessel +(xix. 13), which may perhaps have suggested to Fuller his famous +comparison of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson in their wit encounters. + +But Tasso was really himself, incomparable and unapproachable, when he +wrote in what musicians would call the _largo e maestoso_ mood. + + Giace l'alta Cartago; appena i segni + Dell'alte sue ruine il lido serba. + Muoino le citta, muoino i regni; + Copre i fasti e le pompe arena ed erba; + E l'uomo d'esser mortal par che si sdegni! + Oh nostra mente cupida e superba! (xv. 20). + +This is perfect in its measured melancholy, the liquid flow of its +majestic simplicity. The same musical breadth, the same noble sweetness, +pervade a passage on the eternal beauty of the heavens compared with the +brief brightness of a woman's eyes: + + oh quante belle + Luci il tempio celeste in se raguna! + Ha il suo gran carro il di; le aurate stelle + Spiega la notte e l'argentata luna; + Ma non e chi vagheggi o questa o quelle; + E miriam noi torbida luce e bruna, + Che un girar d'occhi, un balenar di riso + Scopre in breve confin di fragil viso (xviii. 15). + +This verbal music culminates in the two songs of earthly joy, the +_chants d'amour_, or hymns to pleasure, sung by Armida's ministers +(xiv. 60-65, xvi. 12, 13). Boiardo and Ariosto had painted the +seductions of enchanted gardens, where valor was enthralled by beauty, +and virtue dulled by voluptuous delights. It remained for Tasso to give +that magic of the senses vocal utterance. From the myrtle groves of +Orontes, from the spell-bound summer amid snows upon the mountains of +the Fortunate Isle, these lyrics with their penetrative sweetness, their +lingering regret, pass into the silence of the soul. It is eminently +characteristic of Tasso's mood and age that the melody of both these +honeyed songs should thrill with sadness. Nature is at war with honor; +youth passes like a flower away; therefore let us love and yield our +hearts to pleasure while we can. _Sehnsucht_, the soul of modern +sentiment, the inner core of modern music, makes its entrance into the +sphere of art with these two hymns. The division of the mind, wavering +between natural impulse and acquired morality, gives the tone of +melancholy to the one chant. In the other, the invitation to +self-abandonment is mingled with a forecast of old age and death. Only +Catullus, in his song to Lesbia, among the ancients touched this note; +only Villon, perhaps, in his Ballade of Dead Ladies, touched it among +the moderns before Tasso. But it has gone on sounding ever since through +centuries which have enjoyed the luxury of grief in music. + +If Tancredi be the real hero of the _Gerusalemme_, Armida is the +heroine. The action of the epic follows her movements. She combines the +parts of Angelica and Alcina in one that is original and novel. A +sorceress, deputed by the powers of hell to defeat the arms of the +crusaders, Armida falls herself in love with a Christian champion. Love +changes her from a beautiful white witch into a woman.[76] When she +meets Rinaldo in the battle, she discharges all her arrows vainly at the +man who has deserted her. One by one, they fly and fall; and as they +wing their flight, Love wounds her own heart with his shafts: + + Scocca I' arco piu volte, e non fa piaga + E, mentre ella saetta, amor lei piaga (xx. 65). + +Then she turns to die in solitude. Rinaldo follows, and stays her in the +suicidal act. Despised and rejected as she is, she cannot hate him. The +man she had entangled in her wiles has conquered and subdued her nature. +To the now repentant minister of hell he proposes baptism; and Armida +consents: + + Si parla, e prega; e i preghi bagna e scalda + Or di lagrime rare, or di sospiri: + Onde, siccome suol nevosa falda + Dov'arde il sole, o tepid' aura spiri, + Cosi l'ira che in lei parea si salda, + Solvesi, e restan sol gli altri desiri. + _Ecco l'ancilla tua_; d'essa a tuo senno + Dispon, gli disse, e le fia legge il cenno (xx. 136). + +[Footnote 76: I may incidentally point out how often this motive has +supplied the plot to modern ballets.] + +This metamorphosis of the enchantress into the woman in Armida, is the +climax of the _Gerusalemme_. It is also the climax and conclusion of +Italian romantic poetry, the resolution of its magic and marvels into +the truths of human affection. Notice, too, with what audacity Tasso has +placed the words of Mary on the lips of his converted sorceress! +Deliberately planning a religious and heroic poem, he assigns the spoils +of conquered hell to love triumphant in a woman's breast. Beauty, which +in itself is diabolical, the servant of the lords of Hades, attains to +apotheosis through affection. In Armida we already surmise _das ewig +Weibliche_ of Goethe's Faust, Gretchen saving her lover's soul before +Madonna's throne in glory. + +What was it, then, that Tasso, this 'child of a later and a colder age,' +as Shelley called him, gave of permanent value to European literature? +We have seen that the _Gerusalemme_ did not fulfill the promise of +heroic poetry for that eminently unheroic period. We know that neither +the Virgilian hero nor the laboriously developed theme commands the +interest of posterity. We feel that religious emotion is feeble here, +and that the classical enthusiasm of the Renaissance is on the point of +expiring in those Latinistic artifices. Yet the interwoven romance +contains a something difficult to analyze, intangible and +evanescent--_un non so che_, to use the poet's favorite phrase--which +riveted attention in the sixteenth century, and which harmonizes with +our own sensibility to beauty. Tasso, in one word, was the poet, not of +passion, not of humor, not of piety, not of elevated action, but of +that new and undefined emotion which we call Sentiment. Unknown to the +ancients, implicit in later mediaeval art, but not evolved with +clearness from romance, alien to the sympathies of the Renaissance as +determined by the Classical Revival, sentiment, that _non so che_ of +modern feeling, waited for its first apocalypse in Tasso's work. The +phrase which I have quoted, and which occurs so frequently in this +poet's verse, indicates the intrusion of a new element into the sphere +of European feeling. Vague, indistinct, avoiding outline, the phrase _un +non so che_ leaves definition to the instinct of those who feel, but +will not risk the limitation of their feeling by submitting it to words. +Nothing in antique psychology demanded a term of this kind. Classical +literature, in close affinity to sculpture, dealt with concrete images +and conscious thoughts. The mediaeval art of Dante, precisely, +mathematically measured, had not felt the need of it. Boccaccio's +clear-cut intaglios from life and nature, Petrarch's compassed melodies, +Poliziano's polished arabesques, Ariosto's bright and many colored +pencilings, were all of them, in all their varied phases of Renaissance +expression, distinguished by decision and firmness of drawing. +Vagueness, therefore, had hitherto found no place in European poetry or +plastic art. But music, the supreme symbol of spiritual infinity in art, +was now about to be developed; and the specific touch of Tasso, the +musician-poet, upon portraiture and feeling, called forth this quality +of vagueness, a vagueness that demanded melody to give what it refused +from language to accept. Mendelssohn when some one asked him what is +meant by music, replied that it had meanings for his mind more +unmistakable than those which words convey; but what these meanings +were, he did not or he could not make clear. This certainty of +sentiment, seeming vague only because it floats beyond the scope of +language in regions of tone and color and emotion, is what Tasso's _non +so che_ suggests to those who comprehend. And Tasso, by his frequent +appeal to it, by his migration from the plastic into the melodic realm +of the poetic art, proved himself the first genuinely sentimental artist +of the modern age. It is just this which gave him a wider and more +lasting empire over the heart through the next two centuries than that +claimed by Ariosto. + +It may not be unprofitable to examine in detail Tasso's use of the +phrase to which so much importance has been assigned in the foregoing +paragraph. We meet it first in the episode of Olindo and Sofronia. +Sofronia, of all the heroines of the _Gerusalemme_, is the least +interesting, notwithstanding her magnanimous mendacity and Jesuitical +acceptance of martyrdom. Olindo touches the weaker fibers of our +sympathy by his feminine devotion to a woman placed above him in the +moral scale, whose love he wins by splendid falsehood equal to her own. +The episode, entirely idle in the action of the poem, has little to +recommend it, if we exclude the traditionally accepted reference to +Tasso's love for Leonora d'Este. But when Olindo and Sofronia are +standing, back to back, against the stake, Aladino, who has decreed +their death by burning, feels his rude bosom touched with sudden pity: + + Un non so che d'inusitato e molle + Par che nel duro petto al re trapasse: + Ei presentillo, e si sdegno; ne voile + Piegarsi, e gli occhi torse, e si ritrasse (ii. 37). + +The intrusion of a lyrical emotion, unknown before in the tyrant's +breast, against which he contends with anger, and before the force of +which he bends, prepares us for the happy _denouement_ brought about by +Clorinda. This vague stirring of the soul, this _non so che_, this +sentiment, is the real agent in Sofronia's release and Olindo's +beatification. + +Clorinda is about to march upon her doom. She is inflamed with the +ambition to destroy the engines of the Christian host by fire at night; +and she calls Argante to her counsels: + + Buona pezza e, signor, che in se raggira + Un non so che d'insolito e d'audace + La mia mente inquieta; o Dio l'inspira, + O l'uom del suo voler suo Dio si face (xii. 5). + +Thus at this solemn point of time, when death is certainly in front, +when she knows not whether God has inspired her or whether she has made +of her own wish a deity, Clorinda utters the mystic word of vague +compulsive feeling. + +Erminia, taken captive by Tancredi after the siege of Antioch, is +brought into her master's tent. He treats her with chivalrous courtesy, +and offers her a knight's protection: + + Allora un non so che soave e piano + Sentii, ch'al cor mi scese, e vi s'affisse, + Che, serpendomi poi per l'alma vaga, + Non so come, divenne incendio e piaga (xix. 94). + +At that moment, by the distillation of that vague emotion into vein and +marrow, Erminia becomes Tancredi's slave, and her future is determined. + +These examples are, perhaps, sufficient to show how Tasso, at the +turning-points of destiny for his most cherished personages, invoked +indefinite emotion to adumbrate the forces with which will contends in +vain. But the master phrase rings even yet more tyrannously in the +passage of Clorinda's death, which sums up all of sentiment included in +romance. Long had Tancredi loved Clorinda. Meeting her in battle, he +stood her blows defenseless; for Clorinda was an Amazon, reduced by +Tasso's gentle genius to womanhood from the proportions of Marfisa. +Finally, with heart surcharged with love for her, he has to cross his +sword in deadly duel with this lady. Malign stars rule the hour: he +knows not who she is: misadventure makes her, instead of him, the victim +of their encounter. With her last breath she demands baptism--the good +Tasso, so it seems, could not send so fair a creature of his fancy as +Clorinda to the shades without viaticum; and his poetry rises to the +sublime of pathos in this stanza: + + Amico, hai vinto: io ti perdon: perdona + Tu ancora: al corpo no, che nulla pave; + All'alma si: deh! per lei prega; e dona + Battesmo a me ch'ogni mia colpa lave. + In queste voci languide risuona + Un non so che di flebile e soave + Ch'al cor gli serpe, ed ogni sdegno ammorza, + E gli occhi a lagrimar gl'invoglia e sforza (xii. 66). + +Here the vague emotion, the _non so che_, distils itself through +Clorinda's voice into Tancredi's being. Afterwards it thrills there like +moaning winds in an Aeolian lyre, reducing him to despair upon his bed +of sickness, and reasserting its lyrical charm in the vision which he +has of Clorinda among the trees of the enchanted forest. He stands +before the cypress where the soul of his dead lady seems to his +misguided fancy prisoned; and the branches murmur in his ears: + + Fremere intanto udia continuo il vento + Tra le frondi del bosco e tra i virgulti, + E trarne un suon che flebile concento + Par d'umani sospiri e di singulti; + E un non so che confuso instilla al core + Di pieta, di spavento e di dolore (xiii. 40). + +The master word, the magic word of Tasso's sentiment, is uttered at this +moment of illusion. The poet has no key to mysteries locked up within +the human breast more powerful than this indefinite _un non so che_. + +Enough has been said to show how Tasso used the potent spell of +vagueness, when he found himself in front of supreme situations. This +is in truth the secret of his mastery over sentiment, the spell whereby +he brings nature and night, the immense solitudes of deserts, the +darkness of forests, the wailings of the winds and the plangent litanies +of sea-waves into accord with overstrained humanity. It was a great +discovery; by right of it Tasso proved himself the poet of the coming +age. + +When the _Gerusalemme_ was completed, Tasso had done his best work as a +poet. The misfortunes which began to gather round him in his +thirty-first year, made him well-nigh indifferent to the fate of the +poem which had drained his life-force, and from which he had expected so +much glory. It was published without his permission or supervision. He, +meanwhile, in the prison of S. Anna, turned his attention to prose +composition. The long series of dialogues, with which he occupied the +irksome leisure of seven years, interesting as they are in matter and +genial in style, indicate that the poet was now in abeyance. It remained +to be seen whether inspiration would revive with freedom. No sooner were +the bolts withdrawn than his genius essayed a fresh flight. He had long +meditated the composition of a tragedy, and had already written some +scenes. At Mantua in 1586-7 this work took the form of _Torrismondo_. It +cannot be called a great drama, for it belongs to the rigid declamatory +species of Italian tragedy; and Tasso's genius was romantic, idyllic, +elegiac, anything but genuinely tragic. Yet the style is eminent for +nobility and purity. Just as the _Aminta_ showed how unaffected Tasso +could be when writing without preconceived theories of heightened +diction, so the _Torrismondo_ displays an unstrained dignity of simple +dialogue. It testifies to the plasticity of language in the hands of a +master, who deliberately chose and sustained different styles in +different species of poetry, and makes us regret that he should have +formed his epic manner upon so artificial a type. The last chorus of +_Torrismondo_ deserves to be mentioned as a perfect example of Tasso's +melancholy elegiac pathos. + +Meanwhile he began to be dissatisfied with the _Gerusalemme_, and in +1588 he resolved upon remodeling his masterpiece. The real vitality of +that poem was, as we have seen, in its romance. But Tasso thought +otherwise. During the fourteen years which elapsed since its completion, +the poet's youthful fervor had been gradually fading out. Inspiration +yielded to criticism; piety succeeded to sentiment and enthusiasm for +art. Therefore, in this later phase of his maturity, with powers +impaired by prolonged sufferings and wretched health, tormented by +religious scruples and vague persistent fear, he determined to eliminate +the romance from the epic, to render its unity of theme more rigorous, +and to concentrate attention upon the serious aspects of the subject. +The result of this plan, pursued through five years of wandering, was +the _Gerusalemme Conquistata_, a poem which the world has willingly let +die, in which the style of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_ is worsened, and +which now serves mainly to establish by comparison the fact that what +was immortal in Tasso's art was the romance he ruthlessly rooted out. A +further step in this transition from art to piety is marked by the poem +upon the Creation of the World, called _Le Sette Giornate_. Written in +blank verse, it religiously but tamely narrates the operation of the +Divine Artificer, following the first chapter of Genesis and expanding +the motive of each of the seven days with facile rhetoric. Of action and +of human interest the poem has none; of artistic beauty little. The +sustained descriptive style wearies; and were not this the last work of +Tasso, it would not be mentioned by posterity. + +Tasso has already occupied us through two chapters. Before passing +onward I must, however, invite the reader to pause awhile and +reconsider, even at the risk of retrospect and repetition, some of the +salient features of his character. And now I remember that of his +personal appearance nothing has hitherto been said. 'Tasso was tall, +well-proportioned, and of very fair complexion. His thick hair and beard +were of a light-brown color. His head was large, forehead broad and +square, eyebrows dark, eyes large, lively and blue, nose large and +curved toward the mouth, lips thin and pale.' So writes Manso, the +poet's friend and biographer, adding: 'His voice was clear and sonorous; +but he read his poems badly, because of a slight impediment in his +speech, and because he was short-sighted.' I know not whether I am +justified in drawing from this description the conclusion that Tasso +was, physically, a man of mixed lymphatic and melancholic temperament, +of more than ordinary sensitiveness. Imperfection, at any rate, is +indicated by the thin pale lips, the incoherent utterance and the +uncertain vision to which his friend in faithfulness bears witness. Of +painted portraits representing Tasso in later life there are many; but +most of these seem to be based upon the mask taken from his face after +death, which still exists at S. Onofrio. Twenty-one years ago I gazed +upon this mask, before I knew then more than every schoolboy knows of +Tasso's life and writings. This is what I wrote about it in my Roman +diary: 'The face is mild and weak, especially in the thin short chin and +feeble mouth.[77] The forehead round, and ample in proportion to the +other features. The eyes are small, but this may be due to the +contraction of death. The mouth is almost vulgar, very flat in the upper +lip; but this also ought perhaps to be attributed to the relaxation of +tissue by death. + +Tasso was constitutionally inclined to pensive moods. His outlook over +life was melancholy.[78] + +[Footnote 77: Giov. Imperiale in the _Museum Historicum_ describes him +thus: 'Perpetuo moerentis et altius cogitantis gessit aspectum, _gracili +mento_, facie decolori, conniventibus cavisque oculis.'] + +[Footnote 78: 'La mia fiera malinconia' is a phrase which often recurs +in his letters.] + +The tone of his literary work, whether in prose or poetry, is +elegiac--musically, often querulously plaintive. There rests a shadow of +dejection over all he wrote and thought and acted. Yet he was finely +sensitive to pleasure, thrillingly alive to sentimental beauty.[79] +Though the man lived purely, untainted by the license of the age, his +genius soared highest when he sang some soft luxurious strain of love. +He was wholly deficient in humor. Taking himself and the world of men +and things too much in earnest, he weighed heavily alike on art and +life. The smallest trifles, if they touched him, seemed to him +important.[80] Before imaginary terrors he shook like an aspen. The +slightest provocation roused his momentary resentment. The most +insignificant sign of neglect or coldness wounded his self-esteem. +Plaintive, sensitive to beauty, sentimental, tender, touchy, +self-engrossed, devoid of humor--what a sentient instrument was this for +uttering Aeolian melodies, and straining discords through storm-jangled +strings! + +[Footnote 79: 'Questo segno mi ho proposto: piacere ed onore' +(_Lettere_, vol. v. p. 87).] + +[Footnote 80: It should be said that as a man of letters he bore with +fools gladly, and showed a noble patience. Of this there is a fine +example in his controversy with Della Cruscans. He was not so patient +with the publishers and pirates of his works. No wonder, when they +robbed him so!] + +From the Jesuits, in childhood, he received religious impressions which +might almost be described as mesmeric or hypnotic in their influence +upon his nerves. These abode with him through manhood; and in later +life morbid scruples and superstitious anxieties about his soul laid +hold on his imagination. Yet religion did not penetrate Tasso's nature. +As he conceived it, there was nothing solid and supporting in its +substance. Piety was neither deeply rooted nor indigenous, neither +impassioned nor logically reasoned, in the adult man.[81] What it might +have been, but for those gimcrack ecstasies before the Host in boyhood, +cannot now be fancied. If he contained the stuff of saint or simple +Christian, this was sterilized and stunted by the clever fathers in +their school at Naples. + +During the years of his feverishly active adolescence Tasso played for a +while with philosophical doubts. But though he read widely and +speculated diffusely on the problems of the universe, he failed to +pierce below the surface of the questions which he handled. His own +beliefs had been tested in no red-hot crucible, before he recoiled with +terror from their analysis. The man, to put it plainly, was incapable of +honest revolt against the pietistic fashions of his age, incapable of +exploratory efforts, and yet too intelligent to rest satisfied with +gross dogmatism or smug hypocrisy. Neither as a thinker, nor as a +Christian, nor yet again as that epicene religious being, a Catholic of +the Counter-Reformation, did this noble and ingenuous, but weakly nature +attain to thoroughness. + +[Footnote 81: Tasso's diffuse paraphrase of the _Stabat Mater_ might be +selected to illustrate the sentimental tenderness rather than strength +of his religious feeling.] + +Tasso's mind was lively and sympathetic; not penetrative, not fitted for +forming original or comprehensive views. He lived for no great object, +whether political, moral, religious, or scientific. He committed himself +to no vice. He obeyed no absorbing passion of love or hatred. In his +misfortunes he displayed the helplessness which stirs mere pity for a +prostrate human being. The poet who complained so querulously, who wept +so copiously, who forgot offense so nonchalantly, cannot command +admiration. + +There is nothing sublimely tragic in Tasso's suffering. The sentiment +inspired by it is that at best of pathos. An almost childish +self-engrossment restricted his thoughts, his aims and aspirations, to a +narrow sphere, within which he wandered incurably idealistic, pursuing +prosaic or utilitarian objects--the favor of princes, place at Courts, +the recovery of his inheritance--in a romantic and unpractical +spirit.[82] Vacillating, irresolute, peevish, he roamed through all the +towns of Italy, demanding more than sympathy could give, exhausting +friendship, changing from place to place, from lord to lord. Yet how +touching was the destiny of this laureled exile, this brilliant wayfarer +on the highroads of a world he never understood! Shelley's phrase, 'the +world's rejected guest' exactly seems to suit him. + +[Footnote 82: The numerous plaintive requests for a silver cup, a ring, +a silk cloak and such trifles in his later letters indicate something +quite childish in his pre-occupations.] + +And yet he allowed himself to become the spoiled child of his +misfortunes. Without them, largely self-created as they were, Tasso +could not now appeal to our hearts. Nor does he appeal to us as Dante, +eating the salt bread of patrons' tables, does; as Milton, blind and +fallen on evil days; as Chatterton, perishing in pride and silence; as +Johnson, turning from the stairs of Chesterfield; as Bruno, averting +stern eyes from the crucifix; as Leopardi, infusing the virus of his +suffering into the veins of humanity; as Heine, motionless upon his +mattress grave. These more potent personalities, bequeathing to the +world examples of endurance, have won the wreath of never-blasted bays +which shall not be set on Tasso's forehead. We crown him with frailer +leaves, bedewed with tears tender as his own sentiment, and aureoled +with the light that emanates from pure and delicate creations of his +fancy. + +Though Tasso does not command admiration by heroism, he wins compassion +as a beautiful and finely-gifted nature inadequate to cope with the +conditions of his century. For a poet to be independent in that age of +intellectual servitude was well-nigh impossible. To be light-hearted and +ironically indifferent lay not in Tasso's temperament. It was no less +difficult for a man of his mental education to maintain the balance +between orthodoxy and speculation, faith and reason, classical culture +and Catholicism, the Renaissance and the Counter-Reformation. He +belonged in one sense too much, and in another sense too little, to his +epoch. One eminent critic calls him the only Christian of the Italian +Renaissance, another with equal justice treats him as the humanistic +poet of the Catholic Revival.[83] + +Properly speaking, he was the genius of that transition from the +Renaissance to the Counter-Reformation, on which I dwelt in the second +chapter of this work. By natural inclination he belonged to the line of +artists which began with Boccaccio and culminated in Ariosto. But his +training and the bias of the times in which he lived, made him break +with Boccaccio's tradition. He tried to be the poet of the Council of +Trent, without having assimilated hypocrisy or acquired false taste, +without comprehending the essentially prosaic and worldly nature of that +religious revolution. He therefore lived and worked in a continual +discord. This may not suffice to account for the unhingement of his +reason. I prefer to explain that by the fatigue of intellectual labor +and worry acting on a brain predisposed for melancholia and overtasked +from infancy. But it does account for the moral martyrdom he suffered, +and the internal perplexity to which he was habitually subject. + +[Footnote 83: Carducci, in his essay _Dello Svolgimento della +Letteratura Nazionale_, and Quinet, in his _Revolutions d'ltalie_.] + +When Tasso first saw the light, the Italians had rejected the +Reformation and consented to stifle free thought. The culture of the +Renaissance had been condemned; the Spanish hegemony had been accepted. +Of this new attitude the concordat between Charles and Clement, the +Tridentine Council, the Inquisition and the Company of Jesus were +external signs. But these potent agencies had not accomplished their +work in Tasso's lifetime. He was rent in twain because he could not +react against them as Bruno did, and could not identify himself with +them as Loyola was doing. As an artist he belonged to the old order +which was passing, as a Christian to the new order which was emerging. +His position as a courtier, when the Augustan civility of the earlier +Medici was being superseded by dynastic absolutism, complicated his +difficulties. While accepting service in the modern spirit of +subjection, he dreamed of masters who should be Maecenases, and fondly +imagined that poets might still live, like Petrarch, on terms of +equality with princes. + +We therefore see in Tasso one who obeyed influences to which his real +self never wholly or consciously submitted. He was not so much out of +harmony with his age as the incarnation of its still unharmonized +contradictions. The pietism instilled into his mind at Naples; the +theories of art imbibed at Padua and Venice; the classical lumber +absorbed during his precocious course of academical studies; the +hypocritical employment of allegory to render sensuous poetry decorous; +the deference to critical opinion and the dictates of literary +lawgivers; the reverence for priests and princes interposed between the +soul and God: these were principles which Tasso accepted without having +properly assimilated and incorporated their substance into his spiritual +being. What the poet in him really was, we perceive when he wrote, to +use Dante's words, as Love dictates; or as Plato said, when he submitted +to the mania of the Muse; or as Horace counseled, when he indulged his +genius. It is in the _Aminta_, in the episodes of the _Gerusalemme_, in +a small percentage of the _Rime_, that we find the true Tasso. For the +rest, he had not the advantages enjoyed by Boiardo and Ariosto in a less +self-conscious age, of yielding to natural impulse after a full and +sympathetic study of classical and mediaeval sources. The analytical +labors of the previous century hampered his creativeness. He brought to +his task preoccupations of divers and self-contradictory +pedantries--pedantries of Catholicism, pedantries of scholasticism, +pedantries of humanism in its exhausted phase, pedantries of criticism +refined and subtilized within a narrow range of problems. He had, +moreover, weighing on his native genius the fears which brooded like +feverish exhalations over the evil days in which he lived--fears of +Church-censure, fears of despotic princes, fears of the Inquisition, +fears of hell, fears of the judgment of academies, fears of social +custom and courtly conventionalities. Neither as poet nor as man had he +the courage of originality. What he lacked was character. He obeyed the +spirit of his age, in so far as he did not, like young David, decline +Saul's armor and enter into combat with Philistinism, wielding his +sling and stone of native force alone. Yet that native force was so +vigorous that, in spite of the panoply of prejudice he wore, in spite of +the cumbrous armor lent him by authority, he moved at times with superb +freedom. In those rare intervals of personal inspiration he dictated the +love-tales of Erminia and Armida, the death-scene of Clorinda, the +pastoral of Aminta and Silvia--episodes which created the music and the +painting of two centuries, and which still live upon the lips of the +people. But inasmuch as his genius labored beneath the superincumbent +weight of precedents and deferences, the poet's nature was strained to +the uttermost and his nervous elasticity was overtaxed. No sooner had he +poured forth freely what flowed freely from his soul, than he returned +on it with scrupulous analysis. The product of his spirit stood before +him as a thing to be submitted to opinion, as a substance subject to the +test of all those pedantries and fears. We cannot wonder that the +subsequent conflict perplexed his reason and sterilized his creative +faculty to such an extent that he spent the second half of his life in +attempting to undo the great work of his prime. The _Gerusalemme +Conquistata_ and the _Sette Giornate_ are thus the splendid triumph +achieved by the feebler over the stronger portions of his nature, the +golden tribute paid by his genius to the evil genius of the age +controlling him. He was a poet who, had he lived in the days of Ariosto, +would have created in all senses spontaneously, producing works of +Virgilian beauty and divine melancholy to match the Homeric beauty and +the divine irony of his great peer. But this was not to be. The spirit +of the times which governed his education, with which he was not +revolutionary enough to break, which he strove as a critic to assimilate +and as a social being to obey, destroyed his independence, perplexed his +judgment, and impaired his nervous energy. His best work was +consequently of unequal value; pure and base metal mingled in its +composition. His worst was a barren and lifeless failure. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +GIORDANO BRUNO. + + Scientific Bias of the Italians checked by Catholic + Revival--Boyhood of Bruno--Enters Order of S. Dominic at + Naples--Early Accusations of Heresy--Escapes to Rome--Teaches the + Sphere at Noli--Visits Venice--At Geneva--At Toulouse--At + Paris--His Intercourse with Henri III.--Visits England--The French + Ambassador in London--Oxford--Bruno's Literary Work in + England--Returns to Paris--Journeys into Germany--Wittenberg, + Helmstaedt, Frankfort--Invitation to Venice from Giovanni + Mocenigo--His Life in Venice--Mocenigo denounces him to the + Inquisition--His Trial at Venice--Removal to Rome--Death by Burning + in 1600--Bruno's Relation to the Thought of his Age and to the + Thought of Modern Europe--Outlines of his Philosophy. + +The humanistic and artistic impulses of the Renaissance were at the +point of exhaustion in Italy. Scholarship declined; the passion for +antiquity expired. All those forms of literature which Boccaccio +initiated--comedy, romance, the idyl, the lyric and the novel--had been +worked out by a succession of great writers. It became clear that the +nation was not destined to create tragic or heroic types of poetry. +Architecture, sculpture and painting had performed their task of +developing mediaeval motives by the light of classic models, and were +now entering on the stage of academical inanity. Yet the mental vigor of +the Italians was by no means exhausted. Early in the sixteenth century +Machiavelli had inaugurated a new method for political philosophy; +Pompanazzo at Padua and Telesio at Cosenza disclosed new horizons for +psychology and the science of nature. It seemed as though the +Renaissance in Italy were about to assume a fresh and more serious +character without losing its essential inspiration. That evolution of +intellectual energy which had begun with the assimilation of the +classics, with the first attempts at criticism, with the elaboration of +style and the perfection of artistic form, now promised to invade the +fields of metaphysical and scientific speculation. It is true, as we +have seen, that the theological problems of the German Reformation took +but slight hold on Italians. Their thinkers were already too far +advanced upon the paths of modern rationalism to feel the actuality of +questions which divided Luther from Zwingli, Calvin from Servetus, Knox +from Cranmer. But they promised to accomplish master-works of +incalculable magnitude in wider provinces of exploration and +investigation. And had this progress not been checked, Italy would have +crowned and completed the process commenced by humanism. In addition to +the intellectual culture already given to Europe, she might have +revealed right methods of mental analysis and physical research. For +this further step in the discovery of man and of the world, the nation +was prepared to bring an army of new pioneers into the field--the +philosophers of the south, and the physicists of the Lombard +universities. + +Humanism effected the emancipation of intellect by culture. It called +attention to the beauty and delightfulness of nature, restored man to a +sense of his dignity, and freed him from theological authority. But in +Italy, at any rate, it left his conscience, his religion, his +sociological ideas, the deeper problems which concern his relation to +the universe, the subtler secrets of the world in which he lives, +untouched. + +These _novi homines_ of the later Renaissance, as Bacon called them, +these _novatori_, as they were contemptuously styled in Italy, prepared +the further emancipation of the intellect by science. They asserted the +liberty of thought and speech, proclaimed the paramount authority of +that inner light or indwelling deity which man owns in his brain and +breast, and rehabilitated nature from the stigma cast on it by +Christianity. What the Bible was for Luther, that was the great Book of +Nature for Telesio, Bruno, Campanella. The German reformer appealed to +the reason of the individual as conscience; the school of southern Italy +made a similar appeal to intelligence. In different ways Luther and +these speculative thinkers maintained the direct illumination of the +human soul by God, man's immediate dependence on his Maker, repudiating +ecclesiastical intervention, and refusing to rely on any principle but +earnest love of truth. + +Had this new phase of the Italian Renaissance been permitted to evolve +itself unhindered, there is no saying how much earlier Europe might have +entered into the possession of that kingdom of unprejudiced research +which is now secured for us. But it was just at the moment when Italy +became aware of the arduous task before her, that the Catholic reaction +set in with all its rigor. The still creative spirit of her children +succumbed to the Inquisition, the Congregation of the Index, the decrees +of Trent, the intellectual submission of the Jesuits, the physical force +of Spanish tyranny, and Roman absolutism. Carnesecchi was burned alive; +Paleario was burned alive; Bruno was burned alive: these three at Rome. +Vanini was burned at Toulouse. Valentino Gentile was executed by +Calvinists at Berne. Campanella was cruelly tortured and imprisoned for +twenty-seven years at Naples. Galileo was forced to humble himself +before ignorant and arrogant monks, and to hide his head in a country +villa. Sarpi felt the knife of an assassin, and would certainly have +perished at the instigation of his Roman enemies but for the protection +guaranteed him by the Signory of Venice. In this way did Italy--or +rather, let us say, the Church which dominated Italy--devour her sons of +light. It is my purpose in the present chapter to narrate the life of +Bruno and to give some account of his philosophy, taking him as the most +illustrious example of the school exterminated by reactionary Rome. + +Giordano Bruno was born in 1548 at Nola, an ancient Greek city close to +Naples. He received the baptismal name of Filippo, which he exchanged +for Giordano on assuming the Dominican habit. His parents, though +people of some condition, were poor; and this circumstance may perhaps +be reckoned the chief reason why Bruno entered the convent of S. Dominic +at Naples before he had completed his fifteenth year. It will be +remembered that Sarpi joined the Servites at the age of thirteen, and +Campanella the Dominicans at that of fourteen. In each of these +memorable cases it is probable that poverty had something to do with +deciding a vocation so premature. But there were other inducements, +which rendered the monastic life not unattractive, to a young man +seeking knowledge at a period and in a district where instruction was +both costly and difficult to obtain. Campanella himself informs us that +he was drawn to the order of S. Dominic by its reputation for learning +and by the great names of S. Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus. Bruno +possibly felt a similar attraction; for there is nothing in the temper +of his mind to make us believe that he inclined seriously to the +religious life of the cloister. + +During his novitiate he came into conflict with the superiors of his +convent for the first time. It was proved against him that he had given +away certain images of saints, keeping only the crucifix; also that he +had told a comrade to lay aside a rhymed version of the Seven Joys of +Mary, and to read the lives of the Fathers of the Church instead. On +these two evidences of insufficient piety, an accusation was prepared +against him which might have led to serious results. But the master of +the novices preferred to destroy the document, retaining only a +memorandum of the fact for future use in case of need.[84] Bruno, after +this event, obeyed the cloistral discipline in quiet, and received +priest's orders in 1572. + +At this epoch of his life, when he had attained his twenty-fourth year, +he visited several Dominican convents of the Neapolitan province, and +entered with the want of prudence which was habitual to him into +disputations on theology. Some remarks he let fall on transubstantiation +and the Divinity of Christ, exposed him to a suspicion of Arianism, a +heresy at that time rife in southern Italy. Bruno afterwards confessed +that from an early age he had entertained speculative doubts upon the +metaphysics of the Trinity, though he was always prepared to accept that +dogma in faith as a good Catholic. The Inquisition took the matter up in +earnest, and began to institute proceedings of so grave a nature that +the young priest felt himself in danger. He escaped in his monk's dress, +and traveled to Rome, where he obtained admittance for a short while to +the convent of the Minerva. + +[Footnote 84: The final case drawn up against Bruno as heresiarch makes +it appear that his record included even these boyish errors. See the +letter of Gaspar Schopp in Berti.] + +We know very little what had been his occupations up to this date. It is +only certain that he had already composed a comedy, _Il Candelajo_: +which furnishes sufficient proof of his familiarity with mundane +manners. It is, in fact, one of the freest and most frankly satirical +compositions for the stage produced at that epoch, and reveals a +previous study of Aretino. Nola, Bruno's birthplace, was famous for the +license of its country folk. Since the day of its foundation by +Chalkidian colonists, its inhabitants had preserved their Hellenic +traditions intact. The vintage, for example, was celebrated with an +extravagance of obscene banter, which scandalized Philip II.'s viceroy +in the sixteenth century.[85] During the period of Bruno's novitiate, +the ordinances of the Council of Trent for discipline in monasteries +were not yet in operation; and it is probable that throughout the +thirteen years of his conventual experience, he mixed freely with the +people and shared the pleasures of youth in that voluptuous climate. He +was never delicate in his choice of phrase, and made no secret of the +admiration which the beauty of women excited in his nature. The +accusations brought against him at Venice contained one article of +indictment implying that he professed distinctly profligate opinions; +and though there is nothing to prove that his private life was vicious, +the tenor of his philosophy favors more liberty of manners than the +Church allowed in theory to her ministers.[86] + +[Footnote 85: See 'Vita di Don Pietro di Toledo'_ (Arch. Stov._ vol. ix. +p. 23)] + +[Footnote 86: See the passage on polygamy in the _Spaccio della Bestia_. +I may here remark that Campanella, though more orthodox than Bruno, +published opinions upon the relations of the sexes analogous to those of +Plato's Republic in his _Citta del Sole_. He even recommended the +institution of brothels as annexes to schools for boys, in order to +avoid the worse evil of unnatural vice in youth.] + +It is of some importance to dwell on this topic; for Bruno's character +and temper, so markedly different from that of Sarpi, for example, +affected in no small measure the form and quality of his philosophy. He +was a poet, gifted with keen and lively sensibilities, open at all pores +to the delightfulness of nature, recoiling from nothing that is human. +At no period of his life was he merely a solitary thinker or a student +of books. When he came to philosophize, when the spiritual mistress, +Sophia, absorbed all other passions in his breast, his method of +exposition retained a tincture of that earlier phase of his experience. + +It must not be thought, however, that Bruno prosecuted no serious +studies during this period. On the contrary, he seems to have amassed +considerable erudition in various departments of learning: a fact which +should make us cautious against condemning conventual education as of +necessity narrow and pedantic. When he left Naples, he had acquired +sufficient knowledge of Aristotle and the Schoolmen, among whom he paid +particular attention to S. Thomas and to Raymond Lully. Plato, as +expounded by Plotinus, had taken firm hold on his imagination. He was +versed in the dialectics of the previous age, had mastered mediaeval +cosmography and mathematics, and was probably already acquainted with +Copernicus. The fragments of the Greek philosophers, especially of +Pythagoras and Parmenides, whose metaphysics powerfully influenced his +mind, had been assimilated. Perhaps the writings of Cardinal Cusa, the +theologian who applied mathematics to philosophy, were also in his hands +at the same period. Beside Italian, he possessed the Spanish language, +could write and speak Latin with fluency, and knew something of Greek. +It is clear that he had practiced poetry in the vernacular under the +immediate influence of Tansillo. Theological studies had not been wholly +neglected; for he left behind him at Naples editions of Jerome and +Chrysostom with commentaries of Erasmus. These were books which exposed +their possessors to the interdiction of the Index. + +It seems strange that a Dominican, escaping from his convent to avoid a +trial for heresy, should have sought refuge at S. Maria Sopra Minerva, +then the headquarters of the Roman Inquisition. We must, however, +remember that much freedom of movement was allowed to monks, who found a +temporary home in any monastery of their order. Without money, Bruno had +no roof but that of a religious house to shelter him; and he probably +reckoned on evading pursuit till the fatigues of his journey from Naples +had been forgotten. At any rate, he made no lengthy stay in Rome. News +soon reached him that the prosecution begun at Naples was being +transferred to the metropolis. This implied so serious a danger that he +determined to quit Rome in secret. Having flung his frock to the +nettles, he journeyed--how, we do not know--to Genoa, and thence to Noli +on the Riviera. The next time Bruno entered the Dominican convent of S. +Maria sopra Minerva, it was as a culprit condemned to death by the +Inquisition. + +At Noli Bruno gained a living for about five months by teaching grammar +to boys and lecturing in private to some gentlefolk upon the Sphere. The +doctrine of the Sphere formed a somewhat miscellaneous branch of +mediaeval science. It embraced the exposition of Ptolemaic astronomy, +together with speculations on the locality of heaven, the motive +principle of the world, and the operation of angelical intelligences. +Bruno, who professed this subject at various times throughout his +wanderings, began now to use it as a vehicle for disseminating +Copernican opinions. It is certain that cosmography formed the basis of +his philosophy, and this may be ascribed to his early occupation with +the sphere. But his restless spirit would not suffer him to linger in +those regions where olive and orange and palm flourish almost more +luxuriantly than in his native Nola. The gust of travel was upon him. A +new philosophy occupied his brain, vertiginously big with incoherent +births of modern thought. What Carlyle called 'the fire in the belly' +burned and irritated his young blood. Unsettled, cast adrift from +convent moorings, attainted for heresy, out of sympathy with resurgent +Catholicism, he became a Vagus Quidam--a wandering student, like the +Goliardi of the Middle Ages. From Noli he passed to Savona; from Savona +to Turin; from Turin to Venice. There his feet might perhaps have found +rest; for Venice was the harbor of all vagrant spirits in that age. But +the city was laid waste with plague. Bruno wrote a little book, now +lost, on 'The Signs of the Times,' and lived upon the sale of it for +some two months. Then he removed to Padua. Here friends persuaded him to +reassume the cowl. There were more than 40,000 monks abroad in Italy, +beyond the limits of their convent. Why should not he avail himself of +house-roof in his travels, a privilege which was always open to friars? +From Padua he journeyed rapidly again through Brescia, Bergamo and Milan +to Turin, crossed Mont Cenis, tarried at Chambery, and finally betook +himself to Geneva. + +Geneva was no fit resting-place for Bruno. He felt an even fiercer +antipathy for dissenting than for orthodox bigotry. The despotism of a +belligerent and persecuting sectarian seemed to him more intolerable, +because less excusable, than the Catholic despotism from which he was +escaping. Galeazzo Caracciolo, Marquis of Vico, who then presided over +the Italian refugees in Geneva, came to visit him. At the suggestion of +this man Bruno once more laid aside his Dominican attire, and began to +earn his bread by working as a reader for the press--a common resort of +needy men of learning in those times. But he soon perceived that the +Calvinistic stronghold offered no freedom, no security of life even, to +one whose mind was bent on new developments of thought. After two +months' residence on the shores of Lake Leman he departed for Toulouse, +which he entered early in 1577. + +We cannot help wondering why Bruno chose that city for his refuge. +Toulouse, the only town in France where the Inquisition took firm root +and flourished, Toulouse so perilous to Muret, so mortal to Dolet and +Vanini, ought, one might have fancied, to have been avoided by an +innovator flying from a charge of heresy.[87] Still it must be +remembered that Toulouse was French. Italian influence did not reach so +far. Nor had Bruno committed himself even in thought to open rupture +with Catholicism. He held the opinion, so common at that epoch, so +inexplicable to us now, that the same man could countermine dogmatic +theology as a philosopher, while he maintained it as a Christian. This +was the paradox on which Pomponazzo based his apology, which kept +Campanella within the pale of the Church, and to which Bruno appealed +for his justification when afterwards arraigned before the Inquisitors +at Venice. + + +[Footnote 87: On the city, university and Inquisition of Toulouse in the +sixteenth century see Christie's _Etiennne Dolet_--a work of sterling +merit and sound scholarship.] + +It appears from his own autobiographical confessions that Bruno spent +some six months at Toulouse, lecturing in private on the peripatetic +psychology; after which time he obtained the degree of Doctor in +Philosophy, and was admitted to a Readership in the university. This +post he occupied two years. It was a matter of some moment to him that +professors at Toulouse were not obliged to attend Mass. In his dubious +position, as an escaped friar and disguised priest, to partake of the +Sacrament would have been dangerous. Yet he now appears to have +contemplated the possibility of reconciling himself to the Church, and +resuming his vows in the Dominican order. He went so far as to open his +mind upon this subject to a Jesuit; and afterwards at Paris he again +resorted to Jesuit advice. But these conferences led to nothing. It may +be presumed that the trial begun at Naples and removed to Rome, combined +with the circumstances of his flight and recusant behavior, rendered the +case too grave for compromise. No one but the Pope in Rome could decide +it. + +There is no apparent reason why Bruno left Toulouse, except the +restlessness which had become a marked feature in his character. We find +him at Paris in 1579, where he at once began to lecture at the Sorbonne. +It seems to have been his practice now in every town he visited, to +combine private instruction with public disputation. His manners were +agreeable; his conversation was eloquent and witty. He found no +difficulty in gaining access to good society, especially in a city like +Paris, which was then thronged with Italian exiles and courtiers. +Meanwhile his public lectures met with less success than his private +teaching. In conversation with men of birth and liberal culture he was +able to expound views fascinating by their novelty and boldness. Before +an academical audience it behoved him to be circumspect; nor could he +transgress the formal methods of scholastic argumentation. + +Two principal subjects seem to have formed the groundwork of his +teaching at this period. The first was the doctrine of the Thirty Divine +Attributes, based on S. Thomas of Aquino. The second was Lully's Art of +Memory and Classification of the Sciences. This twofold material he +worked up into a single treatise, called _De Umbris Idearum_, which he +published in 1582 at Paris, and which contains the germ of all his +leading speculations. Bruno's metaphysics attracted less attention than +his professed Art of Memory. In an age credulous of occult science, when +men believed that power over nature was being won by alchemy and magic, +there was no difficulty in persuading people that knowledge might be +communicated in its essence, and that the faculties of the mind could be +indefinitely extended, without a toilsome course of study. Whether Bruno +lent himself wittingly to any imposture in his exposition of mnemonics, +cannot be asserted. But it is certain that the public were led to expect +from his method more than it could give. + +The fame of his Art of Memory reached the king's ears; and Henri III. +sent for him. 'The king, says Bruno, 'had me called one day, being +desirous to know whether the memory I possessed and professed, was +natural or the result of magic art. I gave him satisfaction; by my +explanations and by demonstrations to his own experience, convincing +him that it was not an affair of magic but of science.' Henri, who might +have been disappointed by this result, was taken with his teacher, and +appointed him Reader Extraordinary--a post that did not oblige Bruno to +hear Mass. The Ordinary Readers at Paris had to conform to the usages of +the Catholic Church. On his side, Bruno appears to have conceived high +admiration for the king's ability. In the _Cena della Ceneri_ and the +_Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante,_ composed and published after he had +left France, he paid him compliments in terms of hyperbolical laudation. +It would be vain to comment on these facts. No one conversant with +French society at that epoch could have been ignorant of Henri's +character and vicious life. No one could have pretended that his +employment of the kingdom's wealth to enrich unworthy favorites was +anything but dishonorable, or have maintained that his flagrant +effeminacy was beneficial to society. The fantastic superstition which +the king indulged alternately with sensual extravagances, must have been +odious to one whose spiritual mistress was divine Sophia, and whose +religion was an adoration of the intellect for the One Cause. But Henri +had one quality which seemed of supreme excellence to Bruno. He +appreciated speculation and encouraged men of learning. A man so +enthusiastic as our philosopher may have thought that his own teaching +could expel that Beast Triumphant of the vices from a royal heart +tainted by bad education in a corrupt Court. Bruno, moreover, it must be +remembered, remained curiously inappreciative of the revolution effected +in humanity by Christian morals. Much that is repulsive to us in the +manners of the Valois, may have been indifferent to him. + +Bruno had just passed his thirtieth year. He was a man of middling +height, spare figure, and olive complexion, wearing a short +chestnut-colored beard. He spoke with vivacity and copious rhetoric, +aiming rather at force than at purity of diction, indulging in trenchant +metaphors to adumbrate recondite thoughts, passing from grotesque images +to impassioned flights of declamation, blending acute arguments and +pungent satires with grave mystical discourses. The impression of +originality produced by his familiar conversation rendered him agreeable +to princes. There was nothing of the pedant in his nature, nothing about +him of the doctor but his title. + +After a residence of rather less than four years in Paris, he resolved +upon a journey to England. Henri supplied him with letters of +introduction to the French ambassador in London, Michel de Castelnau de +la Mauvissiere. This excellent man, who was then attempting to negotiate +the marriage of Elizabeth with the Duke of Anjou, received Bruno into +his own family as one of the gentlemen of his suite. Under his roof the +wandering scholar enjoyed a quiet home during the two years which he +passed in England--years that were undoubtedly the happiest, as they +were the most industrious, of his checkered life. It is somewhat strange +that Bruno left no trace of his English visit in contemporary +literature. Seven of his most important works were printed in London, +though they bore the impress of Paris and Venice--for the very +characteristic reason that English people only cared for foreign +publications. Four of these, on purely metaphysical topics, were +dedicated to Michel de Castelnau; two, treating of moral and +psychological questions, the famous _Spaccio della Bestia_ and _Gli +eroici Furori_, were inscribed to Sidney. The _Cena delle Ceneri_ +describes a supper party at the house of Fulke Greville; and it is clear +from numerous allusions scattered up and down these writings, that their +author was admitted on terms of familiarity to the best English society. +Yet no one mentions him. Fulke Greville in his Life of Sidney passes him +by in silence; nor am I aware that any one of Sidney's panegyrists, the +name of whom is legion, alludes to the homage paid him by the Italian +philosopher. + +On his side, Bruno has bequeathed to us animated pictures of his life in +London, portraying the English of that period as they impressed a +sensitive Italian.[88] His descriptions are valuable, since they dwell +on slight particulars unnoticed by ambassadors in their dispatches. He +was much struck with the filth and unkempt desolation of the streets +adjacent to the Thames, the rudeness of the watermen who plied their +craft upon the river, and the stalwart beef-eating brutality of +prentices and porters. The population of London displayed its antipathy +to foreigners by loud remarks, hustled them in narrow lanes, and played +at rough-and-tumble with them after the manners of a bear-garden. But +there is no hint that these big fellows shouldering through the crowd +were treacherous or ready with their knives. The servants of great +houses seemed to Bruno discourteous and savage; yet he says nothing +about such subtlety and vice as rendered the retainers of Italian nobles +perilous to order. He paints the broad portrait of a muscular and +insolently insular people, untainted by the evils of corrupt +civilization. Mounting higher in the social scale, Bruno renders +deserved homage to the graceful and unaffected manners of young English +noblemen, from whom he singles Sidney out as the star of cultivated +chivalry.[89] + +[Footnote 88: The 'Cena delle Ceneri,' _Op. It._ vol. i. pp. 137-151]. + +[Footnote 89: Signor Berti conjectures that Bruno may have met Sidney +first at Milan. But Bruno informs us that he did not become acquainted +with him till he came to London: 'Tra' quali e tanto conosciuto, per +fama prima quanbo eravamo in Milano et in Francia, e poi per experienza +or che siamo ne la sua patria' (_Op. It._ vol. i. p. 145).] + +What he says about the well-born youth of England, shows that the flower +of our gentlefolk delighted Southern observers by their mixture of +simplicity and sweetness with good breeding and sound sense. For the +ladies of England he cannot find words fair enough to extol the beauties +of their persons and the purity of their affections. Elizabeth herself +he calls a goddess, _diva_, using phrases which were afterwards recited +in the terms of his indictment before the Inquisition. What pleased him +most in England, was the liberty of speech and thought he there +enjoyed.[90] Society was so urbane, government was so unsuspicious, that +a man could venture to call things by their proper names and speak his +heart out without reserve. That Bruno's panegyric was not prompted by +any wish to flatter national vanity, is proved by the hard truths he +spoke about the grossness of the people, and by his sarcasms on Oxford +pedants. He also ventured to condemn in no unmeasured terms some customs +which surprised him in domestic intercourse. He drew, for instance, a +really gruesome picture of the loving-cup, as it passed round the table, +tasted by a mixed assemblage.[91] + +A visit paid by Bruno to Oxford forms a curious episode in his English +experiences. He found that university possessed by pedants and ignorant +professors of the old learning. 'Men of choice,' he calls them, +'trailing their long velvet gowns, this one arrayed with two bright +chains of gold around his neck, that one, good heavens! with such a +valuable hand--twelve rings upon two fingers, giving him the look of +some rich jeweler.'[92] These excellent dons, blest in the possession of +fat fellowships, felt no sympathy for an eccentric interloper of Bruno's +stamp. They allowed him to lecture on the Soul and the Sphere. + +[Footnote 90: Preface to 'Lo Spaccio della Bestia' (_Op. It._ vol. ii. +p. 108).] + +[Footnote 91: _Op. It._ vol. i. p. 150.] + +[Footnote 92: _Op. It._ vol. i. p. 123.] + +They even condescended to dispute with him. Yet they made Oxford so +unpleasant a place of residence that after three months he returned to +London. The treatment he experienced rankled in his memory. 'Look where +you like at the present moment, you will find but doctors in grammar +here; for in this happy realm there reigns a constellation of pedantic +stubborn ignorance and presumption mixed with a rustic incivility that +would disturb Job's patience. If you do not believe it, go to Oxford, +and ask to hear what happened to the Nolan, when he disputed publicly +with those doctors of theology in the presence of the Polish Prince +Alasco.[93] Make them tell you how they answered to his syllogisms; how +the pitiful professor, whom they put before them on that grave occasion +as the Corypheus of their university, bungled fifteen times with fifteen +syllogisms, like a chicken in the stubble. Make them tell you with what +rudeness and discourtesy that pig behaved; what patience and humanity he +met from his opponent, who, in truth, proclaimed himself a Neapolitan, +born and brought up beneath more genial heavens. Then learn after what +fashion they brought his public lectures to an end, those on the +Immortality of the Soul and those on the Quintuple Sphere.'[94] The Soul +and the Sphere were Bruno's favorite themes. He handled both at this +period of life with startling audacity. + +[Footnote 93: See Wood, _Ath. Oxon._ p. 300.] + +[Footnote 94: _Op. It._ vol. i. p. 179.] + +They had become for him the means of ventilating speculations on +terrestrial movement, on the multiplicity of habitable worlds, on the +principle of the universe, and on the infinite modes of psychical +metamorphosis. Such topics were not calculated to endear him to people +of importance on the banks of Isis. That he did not humor their +prejudices, appears from a Latin epistle which he sent before him by way +of introduction to the Vice Chancellor.[95] It contains these pompous +phrases: 'Philotheus Jordanus Brunus Nolanus magis laboratae theologiae +doctor, purioris et innocuae sapientiae professor. In praecipuis Europae +academiis notus, probatus et honorifice exceptus philosophus. Nullibi +praeterquam apud barbaros et ignobiles peregrinus. Dormitantium animarum +excubitor. Praesuntuosae et recalcitrantis ignorantiae domitor. Qui in +actibus universis generalem philantropiam protestatur. Qui non magis +Italum quam Britannum, marem quam foeminam, mitratum quam coronatum, +togatum quam armatum, cucullatum hominem quam sine cucullo virum: sed +ilium cujus pacatior, civilior, fidelior et utilior est conversatio +diligit.' Which may thus be Englished: 'Giordano Bruno of Nola, the +God-loving, of the more highly-wrought theology doctor, of the purer and +harmless wisdom professor. In the chief universities of Europe known, +approved, and honorably received as philosopher. Nowhere save among +barbarians and the ignoble a stranger. The awakener of sleeping souls. +The trampler upon presuming and recalcitrant ignorance. Who in all his +acts proclaims a universal benevolence toward man. Who loveth not +Italian more than Briton, male than female, mitred than crowned head, +gowned than armed, frocked than frockless; but seeketh after him whose +conversation is the more peaceful, more civil, more loyal, and more +profitable.' This manifesto, in the style of a mountebank, must have +sounded like a trumpet-blast to set the humdrum English doctors with +sleepy brains and moldy science on their guard against a man whom they +naturally regarded as an Italian charlatan. What, indeed, was this more +highly-wrought theology, this purer wisdom? What call had this +self-panegyrist to stir souls from comfortable slumbers? What right had +he to style the knowledge of his brethren ignorance? Probably he was but +some pestilent fellow, preaching unsound doctrine on the Trinity, like +Peter Martyr Vermigli, who had been properly hissed out of Oxford a +quarter of a century earlier. When Bruno arrived and lectured, their +worst prognostications were fulfilled. Did he not maintain a theory of +the universe which even that perilous speculator and political schemer, +Francis Bacon, sneered at as nugatory? + +[Footnote 95: Printed in the _Explicatio triginta Sigillarum_.] + +In spite of academical opposition, Bruno enjoyed fair weather, halcyon +months, in England. His description of the Ash Wednesday Supper at Fulke +Greville's, shows that a niche had been carved out for him in London, +where he occupied a pedestal of some importance. Those gentlemen of +Elizabeth's Court did not certainly exaggerate the value of their +Italian guest. In Italy, most of them had met with spirits of Bruno's +stamp, whom they had not time or opportunity to prove. He was one among +a hundred interesting foreigners; and his martyrdom had not as yet set +the crown of glory or of shame upon his forehead. They probably accepted +him as London society of the present day accepts a theosophist from +Simla or Thibet. But his real home at this epoch, the only home, so far +as I can see, that Bruno ever had, after he left his mother at the age +of thirteen for a convent, was the house of Castelnau. The truest chords +in the Italian's voice vibrate when he speaks of that sound Frenchman. +To Mme. de Castelnau he alludes with respectful sincerity, paying her +the moderate and well-weighed homage which, for a noble woman, is the +finest praise. There is no rhetoric in the words he uses to express his +sense of obligation to her kindness. They are delicate, inspired with a +tact which makes us trust the writer's sense of fitness.[96] But Bruno +indulges in softer phrases, drawn from the heart, and eminently +characteristic of his predominant enthusiastic mood, when he comes to +talk of the little girl, Marie, who brightened the home of the +Castelnaus. 'What shall I say of their noble-natured daughter? She has +gazed upon the sun barely one luster and one year; but so far as +language goes, I know not how to judge whether she springs from Italy or +France or England! From her hand, touching the instruments of music, no +man could reckon if she be of corporate or incorporeal substance. Her +perfected goodness makes one marvel whether she be flown from heaven, or +be a creature of this common earth. It is at least evident to every man +that for the shaping of so fair a body the blood of both her parents has +contributed, while for the tissue of her rare spirit the virtues of +their heroic souls have been combined.'[97] + +[Footnote 96: _Op. It._ vol. i. p. 267.] + +[Footnote 97: _Loc. cit._ p. 267.] + +It was time to leave these excellent and hospitable friends. 'Forth from +the tranquil to the trembling air' Bruno's unquiet impulse drove him. He +returned to Paris at the end of 1585, disputed before the Sorbonne with +some success of scandal, and then, disquieted by the disorders of the +realm, set out for Germany. We find him at Marburg in the following +year, ill-received by the University, but welcomed by the Prince. Thence +we follow him to Mainz, and afterwards to Wittenberg, where he spent two +years. Here he conceived a high opinion of the Germans. He foresaw that +when they turned their attention from theology to science and pure +speculation, great results might be expected from their solid +intellectual capacity. He seems in fact to have taken a pretty accurate +measure of the race as it has subsequently shown itself. Wittenberg he +called the German Athens. Luther, he recognized as a hero of humanity, +who, like himself, defied authority in the defense of truth. Yet he felt +no sympathy for the German reformers. When asked by the Inquisitors at +Venice what he thought about these men, he replied: 'I regard them as +more ignorant than I am. I despise them and their doctrines. They do not +deserve the name of theologians, but of pedants.' That this reply was +sincere, is abundantly proved by passages in the least orthodox of +Bruno's writings. It was the weakness of a philosopher's position at +that moment that he derived no support from either of the camps into +which Christendom was then divided. Catholics and Protestants of every +shade regarded him with mistrust. + +A change in the religious policy of Saxony, introduced after the death +of the Elector Augustus, caused Bruno to leave Wittenberg for Prague in +1588. From Prague he passed to Helmstaedt, where the Duke Heinrich Julius +of Brunswick-Wolfenbuettel received him with distinction, and bestowed on +him a purse of eighty dollars.[98] Here he conceived two of his most +important works, the _De Monade_ and _De Triplici Minimo_, both written +in Latin hexameters.[99] Why he adopted this new form of exposition is +not manifest. Possibly he was tired of dialogues, through which he had +expressed his thought so freely in England. Possibly a German public +would have been indifferent to Italian. Possibly he was emulous of his +old masters, Parmenides and Lucretius. + +[Footnote 98: It is a curious fact that the single copy of Campanella's +poems on which Orelli based his edition of 1834, came from +Wolfenbuettel.] + +[Footnote 99: They were published at Frankfort, and dedicated to the +friendly Prince of Wolfenbuettel.] + +At Helmstaedt he came into collision with Boetius, the rector of the +Evangelical church, who issued a sentence of excommunication against +him. Like a new Odysseus, he set forth once again upon his voyage, and +in the spring of 1590 anchored in Frankfort on the Main. A convent (that +of the Carmelites) sheltered him in this city, where he lived on terms +of intimacy with the printers Wechel and Fischer, and other men of +learning. It would appear from evidence laid before the Venetian +Inquisitors that the prior of the monastery judged him to be a man of +genius and doctrine, devoid of definite religion, addicted to fantastic +studies, and bent on the elaboration of a philosophy that should +supersede existing creeds.[100] This was a not inaccurate portrait of +Bruno as he then appeared to conservatives of commonplace capacity. Yet +nothing occurred to irritate him in the shape of persecution or +disturbance. Bruno worked in quiet at Frankfort, pouring forth thousands +of metaphysical verses, some at least of which were committed to the +press in three volumes published by the Wechels. + +[Footnote 100: Britanno's Deposition, Berti's _Vita di G.B._ p. 337.] + +Between Frankfort and Italy literary communications were kept open +through the medium of the great fair, which took place every year at +Michaelmas.[101] Books formed one of the principal commodities, and the +Italian bibliopoles traveled across the Alps to transact business on +these important occasions. It happened by such means that a work of +Bruno's, perhaps the _De Monude_, found its way to Venice.[102] Exposed +on the counter of Giambattista Ciotto, then plying the trade of +bookseller in that city, this treatise met the eyes of a Venetian +gentleman called Giovanni Mocenigo. He belonged to one of the most +illustrious of the still surviving noble families in Venice. The long +line of their palaces upon the Grand Canal has impressed the mind of +every tourist. One of these houses, it may be remarked, was occupied by +Lord Byron, who, had he known of Bruno's connection with the Mocenighi, +would undoubtedly have given to the world a poem or a drama on the fate +of our philosopher. Giovanni Mocenigo was a man verging on middle life, +superstitious, acknowledging the dominion of his priest, but alive in a +furtive way to perilous ideas. Morally, he stands before us as a twofold +traitor: a traitor to his Church, so long as he hoped to gain illicit +power by magic arts; a traitor to his guest, so soon as he discovered +that his soul's risk brought himself no profit.[103] He seems to have +imagined that Bruno might teach him occult science or direct him on a +royal way to knowledge without strenuous study. Subsequent events proved +that, though he had no solid culture, he was fascinated by the +expectation of discovering some great secret. It was the vice of the age +to confound science with sorcery, and Bruno had lent himself to this +delusion by his whimsical style. Perhaps the booksellers, who then +played a part scarcely less prominent than that of the barbers in +diffusing gossip, inflamed Mocenigo's curiosity by painting the author +of the puzzling volume in seductive colors. Any how this man sent two +letters, one through Ciotto, and one direct to Bruno, praying him to +visit Venice, professing his desire for instruction, and offering him an +honorable place of residence. + +[Footnote 101: Sarpi mentions the return of Ciotto from the fair +(_Lettere_, vol. i. p. 527).] + +[Footnote 102: Ciotto, before the Inquisition, called the book _De +Minimo Magno et Mensura_. It may therefore have been the _De Triplici +Minimo et Mensura_, and not the _De Monade_ (_Vita di G.B._ p. 334).] + +[Footnote 103: Mocenigo told Ciotto: I wish first to see what I can get +from him of those things which he promised me, so as not wholly to lose +what I have given him, and afterwards I mean to surrender him to the +censure of the Holy Office' (Berti, p. 335).] + +In an evil hour Bruno accepted this invitation. No doubt he longed to +see Italy again after so many years of exile. Certainly he had the right +to believe that he would find hospitality and a safe refuge in Venice. +Had not a Venetian noble pledged his word for the former? Was not the +latter a privilege which S. Mark extended to all suppliants? The +Republic professed to shield even the outlaws of the Inquisition, if +they claimed her jurisdiction. There was therefore no palpable +imprudence in the step which Bruno now took. Yet he took it under +circumstances which would have made a cautious man mistrustful. Of +Mocenigo he knew merely nothing. But he did know that writs from the +Holy Office had been out against himself in Italy for many years, during +which he had spent his time in conversing with heretics and printing +works of more than questionable orthodoxy.[104] Nothing proves the force +of the vagrant's impulse which possessed Bruno, more than his light and +ready consent to Giovanni Mocenigo's proposal. + +He set off at once from Frankfort, leaving the MS. of one of his +metaphysical poems in Wechel's hands to print, and found himself at the +end of 1591 a guest of his unknown patron. I have already described what +Mocenigo hoped to gain from Bruno--the arts of memory and invention, +together with glimpses into occult science.[105] We know how little +Bruno was able to satisfy an in satiable curiosity in such matters. One +of his main weaknesses was a habit of boasting and exaggerating his own +powers, which at first imposed upon a vulgar audience and then left them +under the impression that he was a charlatan. The bookseller Ciotto +learned from students who had conversed with him at Frankfort, that 'he +professed an art of memory and other secrets in the sciences, but that +all the persons who had dealt with him in such matters, had left him +discontinued.'[106] + +[Footnote 104: Mere correspondence with heretics exposed an Italian to +the Inquisition. Residence in heretical lands, except with episcopal +license, was forbidden. The rules of the Index proscribed books in which +the name of a heretic was cited with approval.] + +[Footnote 105: Bruno speaks himself of 'arte della memoria et inventiva' +(_op. cit._ p. 339). Ciotto mentions 'la memoria et altre scientie' +(_ib._ p. 334).] + +[Footnote 106: _Op. cit._ p. 335.] + +Another weakness in his character was extraordinary want of caution. +Having lived about the world so long, and changed from town to town, +supporting himself as he best could, he had acquired the custom of +attracting notice by startling paradoxes. Nor does he seem to have cared +to whom he made the dangerous confidence of his esoteric beliefs. +His public writings, presumably composed with a certain +circumspection--since everybody knows the proverb _litera scripta +manet_--contain such perilous stuff that--when we consider what their +author may have let fall in unguarded conversation--we are prepared to +credit the charges brought against him by Mocenigo. For it must now be +said that this man, 'induced by the obligation of his conscience and by +order of his confessor,' denounced Bruno to the Inquisition on May 23, +1592. + +When the two men, so entirely opposite in their natures, first came +together, Bruno began to instruct his patron in the famous art of memory +and mathematics. At the same time he discoursed freely and copiously, +according to his wont, upon his own philosophy. Mocenigo took no +interest in metaphysics, and was terrified by the audacity of Bruno's +speculations. It enraged him to find how meager was Bruno's vaunted +method for acquiring and retaining knowledge without pains. In his +secret heart he believed that the teacher whom he had maintained at a +considerable cost, was withholding the occult knowledge he so much +coveted. Bruno, meanwhile, attended Andrea Morosini's receptions in the +palace at S. Luca, and frequented those of Bernardo Secchini at the sign +of the Golden Ship in the Merceria. He made friends with scholars and +men of fashion; absented himself for weeks together at Padua; showed +that he was tired of Mocenigo; and ended by rousing that man's +suspicious jealousy. Mocenigo felt that he had been deceived by an +impostor, who, instead of furnishing the wares for which he bargained, +put him off with declamations on the nature of the universe. What was +even more terrible, he became convinced that this charlatan was an +obstinate heretic. + +Whether Bruno perceived the gathering of the storm above his head, +whether he was only wearied with the importunities of his host, or +whether, as he told the Inquisitors, he wished to superintend the +publication of some books at Frankfort, does not greatly signify. At any +rate, he begged Mocenigo to excuse him from further attendance, since he +meant to leave Venice. This happened on Thursday, May 21. Next day, +Mocenigo sent his bodyservant together with five or six gondoliers into +Bruno's apartment, seized him, and had him locked up in a ground-floor +room of the palace. At the same time he laid hands on all Bruno's +effects, including the MS. of one important treatise _On the Seven +Liberal Arts_, which was about to be dedicated to Pope Clement VIII. +This, together with other unpublished works, exists probably in the +Vatican Archives, having been sent with the papers referring to Bruno's +trial from Venice when he was transported to Rome. The following day, +which was a Saturday, Mocenigo caused Bruno to be carried to one of +those cellars (_magazzeni terreni_) which are used in Venice for storing +wood, merchandise or implements belonging to gondolas. In the evening, a +Captain of the Council of Ten removed him to the dungeons of the +Inquisition. On the same day, May 23, Mocenigo lodged his denunciation +with the Holy Office. + +The heads of this accusation, extracted from the first report and from +two subsequent additions made by the delator, amount to these. Though +Bruno was adverse to religions altogether, he preferred the Catholic to +any other; but he believed it to stand in need of thorough reform. The +doctrines of the Trinity, the miraculous birth of Christ, and +transubstantiation, were insults to the Divine Being. Christ had seduced +the people by working apparent miracles. So also had the Apostles. To +develop a new philosophy which should supersede religions, and to prove +his superiority in knowledge over S. Thomas and all the theologians, was +Bruno's cherished scheme. He did not believe in the punishment of sins; +but held a doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and of the +generation of the human soul from refuse. The world he thought to be +eternal. He maintained that there were infinite worlds, all made by God, +who wills to do what he can do, and therefore produces infinity. The +religious orders of Catholicism defile the earth by evil life, +hypocrisy, and avarice. All friars are only asses. Indulgence in carnal +pleasures ought not to be reckoned sinful. The man confessed to having +freely satisfied his passions to the utmost of his opportunities. + +On being questioned before the Inquisitors, Mocenigo supported these +charges. He added that when he had threatened Bruno with delation, Bruno +replied, first, that he did not believe he would betray his confidence +by making private conversation the groundwork of criminal charges; +secondly, that the utmost the Inquisition could do, would be to inflict +some penance and force him to resume the cowl. These, which are +important assertions, bearing the mark of truth, throw light on his want +of caution in dealing with Mocenigo, and explain the attitude he +afterwards assumed before the Holy Office. + +Mocenigo's accusations in the main yield evidences of sincerity. They +are exactly what we should expect from the distortion of Bruno's +doctrines by a mind incapable of comprehending them. In short, they are +as veracious as the image of a face reflected on a spoon. Certain gross +details (the charges, for example, of having called Christ a _tristo_ +who was deservedly hung, and of having sneered at the virginity of Mary) +may possibly have emanated from the delator's own imagination.[107] + +[Footnote 107: They remind us of the blasphemies imputed to Christopher +Marlowe.] + +Bruno emphatically repudiated these; though some passages in his +philosophical poems, published at Frankfort, contain the substance of +their blasphemies. A man of Mocenigo's stamp probably thought that he +was faithfully representing the heretic's views, while in reality he was +drawing his own gross conclusions from skeptical utterances about the +origin of Christianity which he obscurely understood. It does not seem +incredible, however, that Bruno, who was never nice in his choice of +language, and who certainly despised historical Christianity, let fall +crude witticisms upon such and other points in Mocenigo's presence. + +Bruno appeared before the Venetian Inquisition on May 29. His +examination was continued at intervals from this date till July 30. His +depositions consist for the most part of an autobiographical statement +which he volunteered, and of a frank elucidation of his philosophical +doctrines in their relation to orthodox belief. While reading the +lengthy pages of his trial, we seem to overhear a man conversing +confidentially with judges from whom he expected liberal sympathy. Over +and over again, he relies for his defense upon the old distinction +between philosophy and faith, claiming to have advocated views as a +thinker which he does not hold as a Christian. 'In all my books I have +used philosophical methods of definition according to the principles and +light of nature, not taking chief regard of that which ought to be held +in faith; and I believe they do not contain anything which can support +the accusation that I have professedly impugned religion rather than +that I have sought to exalt philosophy; though I may have expounded many +impieties based upon my natural light.'[108] In another place he uses +the antithesis, 'speaking like a Christian and according to +theology'--'speaking after the manner of philosophy.'[109] The same +antithesis is employed to justify his doctrine of metempsychosis: +'Speaking as a Catholic, souls do not pass from one body into another, +but go to paradise or purgatory or hell; yet, following philosophical +reasonings, I have argued that, the soul being inexistent without the +body and inexistent in the body, it can be indifferently in one or in +another body, and can pass from one into another, which, if it be not +true, seems at any rate probable according to the opinion of +Pythagoras.'[110] + + +[Footnote 108: _Op. cit._ p. 352.] + +[Footnote 109: _Ibid._ p. 355.] + +[Footnote 110: _Ibid._ p. 362.] + +That he expected no severe punishment appears from the terms of his +so-called recantation. 'I said that I wished to present myself before +the feet of his Holiness with certain books which I approve, though I +have published others which I do not now approve; whereby I meant to say +that some works composed and published by me do not meet with my +approbation, inasmuch as in these I have spoken and discussed too +philosophically, in unseemly wise, not altogether as a good Christian +ought; in particular I know that in some of these works I have taught +and philosophically held things which ought to be attributed to the +power, wisdom and goodness of God according to the Christian faith, +founding doctrine in such matters on sense and reason, not upon +faith.'[111] At the very end of his examination, he placed himself in +the hands of his judges, 'confessing his errors with a willing mind,' +acknowledging that he had 'erred and strayed from the Church,' begging +for such castigation as shall not 'bring public dishonor on the sacred +robe which he had worn,' and promising to 'show a noteworthy reform, and +to recompense the scandal he had caused by edification at least equal in +magnitude.'[112] These professions he made upon his knees, evincing +clearly, as it seems to me, that at this epoch he was ready to rejoin +the Dominican order, and that, as he affirmed to Mocenigo, he expected +no worse punishment than this. + +In attempting to estimate Bruno's recantation, we must remember that he +felt no sympathy at all for heretics. When questioned about them, he was +able to quote passages from his own works in which he called the +Reformation a Deformation of religion.[113] Lutheran and Calvinist +theologians were alike pedants in his eyes.[114] There is no doubt that +Bruno meant what he said; and had he been compelled to choose one of the +existing religions, he would have preferred Catholicism. He was, in +fact, at a period of life when he wished to dedicate his time in quiet +to metaphysical studies. He had matured his philosophy and brought it +to a point at which he thought it could be presented as a peace-offering +to the Supreme Pontiff. Conformity to ecclesiastical observances seemed +no longer irksome to the world-experienced, wide-reaching mind of the +man. Nor does he appear to have anticipated that his formal submission +would not be readily accepted. He reckoned strangely, in this matter, +without the murderous host into whose clutches he had fallen. + +[Footnote 111: _Op. cit._ p. 349] + +[Footnote 112: _Ibid._ p. 384] + +[Footnote 113: _Ibid._ p. 364] + +[Footnote 114: _Ibid._ p. 363] + +Searching interrogations touching other heads in the evidence against +him, as blasphemous remarks on sacred persons, intercourse with +heretics, abuse of the religious orders, dealings in magic arts, +licentious principles of conduct, were answered by Bruno with a frank +assurance, which proves his good conscience in essentials and his firm +expectation of a favorable issue to the affair. Mocenigo had described +him as _indemoniato_; and considering the manifest peril in which he now +stood, there is something scarcely sane in the confidence he showed. For +Mocenigo himself he reserved words of bitterest scorn and indignation. +When questioned in the usual terms whether he had enemies at Venice, he +replied: 'I know of none but Ser Giovanni Mocenigo and his train of +servants. By him I have been grievously injured, more so than by living +man, seeing he has murdered me in my life, my honor and my property, +having imprisoned me in his own house and stolen all my writings, books, +and other effects. And this he did because he not only wished that I +should teach him everything I know, but also wished to prevent my +teaching it to any one but him. He has continued to threaten me upon the +points of life and honor, unless I should teach him everything I +knew.'[115] + +The scene closes over Bruno in the Venetian Inquisition on July 30, +1592. We do not behold him again till he enters the Minerva at Rome to +receive his death-sentence on February 9, 1600. What happened in the +interval is almost a blank. An exchange of letters took place between +Rome and Venice concerning his extradition, and the Republic made some +show of reluctance to part with a refugee within its jurisdiction. But +this diplomatic affair was settled to the satisfaction of both parties, +and Bruno disappeared into the dungeons of the Roman Inquisition in the +month of January 1593. + +Seven years of imprisonment was a long period.[116] + +[Footnote 115: _Op. cit._ p. 378.] + +[Footnote 116: These years were not all spent at Rome. From the Records +of the Inquisition, it appears that he arrived in Rome on February 27, +1598, and that his trial in form began in February 1599. The Pope +ratified his sentence of death on January 20, 1600; this was publicly +promulgated on February 8, and carried into effect on the subsequent +17th. Where Bruno was imprisoned between January 1593, and February 1598 +is not known.] + +We find it hard to understand why Bruno's prosecution occupied the Holy +Office through this space of time. But conjectures on the subject are +now useless. Equally futile is it to speculate whether Bruno offered to +conform in life and doctrine to the Church at Rome as he had done at +Venice. The temptation to do so must have been great. Most probably he +begged for grace, but grace was not accorded on his own terms; and he +chose death rather than dishonor and a lie in the last resort, or rather +than life-long incarceration. It is also singular that but few +contemporaries mention the fact of his condemnation and execution. Rome +was crowded in the jubilee year of 1600. Bruno was burned in open +daylight on the Campo di Fiora. Yet the only eye-witness who records the +event, is Gaspar Schoppe, or Scioppius, who wrote a letter on the +subject to his friend Rittershausen. Kepler, eight years afterwards, +informed his correspondent Breugger that Bruno had been really burned: +'he bore his agonizing death with fortitude, abiding by the asseveration +that all religions are vain, and that God identifies himself with the +world, circumference and center.' Kepler, it may be observed, conceived +a high opinion of Bruno's speculations, and pointed him out to Galileo +as the man who had divined the infinity of solar systems in their +correlation to one infinite order of the universe.[117] + +[Footnote 117: Doubts have recently been raised as to whether Bruno was +really burned. But these are finally disposed of by a succinct and +convincing exposition of the evidence by Mr. R.C. Christie, in +_Macmillan's Magazine_, October 1885. In addition to Schoppe and Kepler, +we have the reference to Bruno's burning published by Mersenne in 1624; +but what is far more important, the _Avviso di Roma_ for February +19,1600, records this event as having occurred upon the preceding +Thursday. To Signor Berti's two works, _Documenti intorno a G. Bruno_ +(Roma, 1880), and _Copernico e le vicende_, etc. (Roma, 1876), we owe +most of the material which has been lucidly sifted by Mr. R.C. +Christie.] + +Scioppius was a German humanist of the elder Italianated type, an +elegant Latin stylist, who commented indifferently on the _Priapeia_ and +the Stoic philosophy. He abjured Protestantism, and like Muretus, sold +his pen to Rome. The Jesuits, in his pompous panegyric, were first +saluted as 'the praetorian cohort of the camp of God.' Afterwards, when +he quarreled with their Order, he showered invectives on them in the +manner of a Poggio or Filelfo. The literary infamies of the fifteenth +century reappeared in his polemical attacks on Protestants, and in his +satires upon Scaliger. Yet he was a man of versatile talents and +considerable erudition. It must be mentioned in his honor that he +visited Campanella in his prison, and exerted himself for his +liberation. Campanella dedicated his _Atheismus Triumphatus_ to +Scioppius, calling him 'the dawn-star of our age.' Schoppe was also the +first credible authority to warn Sarpi of the imminent peril he ran from +Roman hired assassins, as I hope to relate in my chapter upon Sarpi's +life. This man's letter to his friend is the single trustworthy document +which we possess regarding the last hours of Bruno. Its inaccuracies on +minor points may be held to corroborate his testimony. + +Scioppius refers to Bruno's early heresies on Transubstantiation and the +Virginity of Mary. He alludes to the _Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante_, +as though it had been a libel on the Pope.[118] + +[Footnote 118: 'Londinam perfectus, libellum istic edit de Bestia +triumphante, h.e. de Papa. quem vestri honoris causa bestiam appellare +solent.'] + +He then enumerates Bruno's heterodox opinions, which had been recited +in the public condemnation pronounced on the heresiarch. 'Horrible and +most utterly absurd are the views he entertained, as, for example, that +there are innumerable worlds; that the soul migrates from body to body, +yea into another world, and that one soul can inform two bodies; that +magic is good and lawful; that the Holy Spirit is nothing but the Soul +of the World, which Moses meant when he wrote that it brooded on the +waters; that the world has existed from eternity; that Moses wrought his +miracles by magic, being more versed therein than the Egyptians, and +that he composed his own laws; that the Holy Scriptures are a dream, and +that the devils will be saved; that only the Jews descend from Adam and +Eve, the rest of men from that pair whom God created earlier; that +Christ is not God, but that he was an eminent magician who deluded +mankind, and was therefore rightly hanged, not crucified; that the +prophets and Apostles were men of naught, magicians, and for the most +part hanged: in short, without detailing all the monstrosities in which +his books abound, and which he maintained in conversation, it may be +summed up in one word that he defended every error that has been +advanced by pagan philosophers or by heretics of earlier and present +times.' Accepting this list as tolerably faithful to the terms of +Bruno's sentence, heard by Scioppius in the hall of Minerva, we can see +how Mocenigo's accusation had been verified by reference to his +published works. The _De Monade_ and _De Triplici_ contain enough +heterodoxy to substantiate each point. + +On February 9, Bruno was brought before the Holy Office at S. Maria +sopra Minerva. In the presence of assembled Cardinals, theologians, and +civil magistrates, his heresies were first recited. Then he was +excommunicated, and degraded from his priestly and monastic offices. +Lastly, he was handed over to the secular arm, 'to be punished with all +clemency and without effusion of blood.' This meant in plain language to +be burned alive. Thereupon Bruno uttered the memorable and monumental +words: 'Peradventure ye pronounce this sentence on me with a greater +fear than I receive it.' They were the last words he spoke in public. He +was removed to the prisons of the State, where he remained eight days, +in order that he might have time to repent. But he continued obdurate. +Being an apostate priest and a relapsed heretic, he could hope for no +remission of his sentence. Therefore, on February 17, he marched to a +certain and horrible death. The stake was built up on the Campo di +Fiora. Just before the wood was set on fire, they offered him the +crucifix.[119] He turned his face away from it in stern disdain. It was +not Christ but his own soul, wherein he believed the Diety resided, that +sustained Bruno at the supreme moment. + +[Footnote 119: We may remember that while a novice at Naples, he first +got into trouble by keeping the crucifix as the only religious symbol +which he respected, when he parted with images of saints.] + +No cry, no groan, escaped his lips. Thus, as Scioppius affectedly +remarked, 'he perished miserably in flames, and went to report in those +other worlds of his imagination, how blasphemous and impious men are +handled by the Romans.' + +Whatever we may think of the good taste of Bruno's sarcasms upon the +faith in which he had been bred--and it is certain that he never rightly +apprehended Christianity in its essence--there is no doubt he died a +valiant martyr to the truth as he conceived it. 'His death like that of +Paleario, Carnesecchi, and so many more, no less than countless exiles +suffered for religious causes, are a proof that in Italy men had begun +to recognize their obligation to a faith, the duty of obedience to a +thought: an immense progress, not sufficiently appreciated even by +modern historians.'[120] Bruno was a hero in the battle for the freedom +of the conscience, for the right of man to think and speak in +liberty.[121] + +[Footnote 120: These pregnant words are in Berti's _Vita di G.B._ p. +299.] + +[Footnote 121: He well deserves this name, in spite of his recantation +at Venice; for it seems incredible that he could not by concessions have +purchased his life. As Breugger wrote with brutal crudity to Kepler: +'What profit did he gain by enduring such torments? If there were no God +to punish crimes, as he believed, could he not have pretended any thing +to save his life?' We may add that the alternative to death for a +relapsed apostate was perpetual incarceration; and seven years of prison +may well have made Bruno prefer death with honor.] + +Just five years before this memorable 17th of February, Tasso had passed +quietly away in S. Onofrio. 'How dissimilar in genius and fortune,' +exclaims Berti, 'were these men, though born under the same skies, +though in childhood they breathed the same air! Tasso a Christian and +poet of the cross; Bruno hostile to all religious symbols. The one, +tired and disillusioned of the world, ends his days in the repose of the +convent; the other sets out from the convent to expire upon the +scaffold, turning his eyes away from the crucifix.'[122] And yet how +much alike in some important circumstances of their lives were these two +men! Both wanderers, possessed by that spirit of vagrancy which is the +outward expression of an inner restlessness. The unfrocked friar, the +courtier out of service, had no home in Italy. Both were pursued by an +oestrum corresponding to the intellectual perturbations which closed the +sixteenth century, so different from the idyllic calm that rested upon +Ariosto and the artists of its opening years. Sufficient justice has not +yet been done in history to the Italian wanderers and exiles of this +period, men who carried the spirit of the Renaissance abroad, after the +Renaissance had ended in Italy, to the extremest verges of the civilized +world. An enumeration of their names, an examination of their services +to modern thought, would show how puissant was the intellectual +influence of Italy in that period of her political decadence.[123] + + +[Footnote 122: _op. cit._ p. 70.] + +[Footnote 123: Both Berti and Quinet have made similar remarks, which, +indeed, force themselves upon a student of the sixteenth century.] + +Bruno has to be treated from two distinct but interdependent points of +view--in his relation to contemporary thought and the Renaissance; and +in his relation to the evolution of modern philosophy--as the critic of +mediaeval speculation and the champion of sixteenth-century enthusiasm; +and also as the precursor of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Schelling, +Hegel, Darwin. + +From the former of these two points of view Bruno appears before us as +the man who most vitally and comprehensively grasped the leading +tendencies of his age in their intellectual essence. He left behind him +the mediaeval conception of an extra-mundane God, creating a finite +world, of which this globe is the center, and the principal episode in +the history of which is the series of events from the Fall, through the +Incarnation and Crucifixion, to the Last Judgment.[124] He substituted +the conception of an ever-living, ever-acting, ever-self-effectuating +God, immanent in an infinite universe, to the contemplation of whose +attributes the mind of man ascends by study of Nature and interrogation +of his conscience. The rehabilitation of the physical world and of +humanity as part of its order, which the Renaissance had already +indirectly effected through the medium of arts and literature and modes +of life, found in Bruno an impassioned metaphysical supporter. He +divinized Nature, not by degrading the Deity to matter, but by lifting +matter to participation in the divine existence. The Renaissance had +proclaimed the dignity of man considered as a mundane creature, and not +in his relation to a hypothetical other-world. It abundantly manifested +the beauty and the joy afforded by existence on this planet, and +laughingly discarded past theological determinations to the contrary of +its new Gospel. Bruno undertook the systematization of Renaissance +intuitions; declared the divine reality of Nature and of man; +demonstrated that we cannot speculate God, cannot think ourselves, +cannot envisage the universe, except under the form of one living, +infinite, eternal, divinely-sustained and soul-penetrated complex. He +repudiated authority of every sort, refusing to acknowledge the decrees +of the Church, freely criticising past philosophers, availing himself of +all that seemed to him substantial in their speculations, but appealing +in the last resort to that inner witness, that light of reason, which +corresponds in the mental order to conscience in the moral. As he +deified Nature, so he emancipated man as forming with Nature an integral +part of the supreme Being. He was led upon this path to combat Aristotle +and to satirize Christian beliefs, with a subtlety of scholastic +argumentation and an acerbity of rhetoric that now pass for antiquated. +Much that is obsolete in his writings must be referred to the polemical +necessities of an age enthralled by peripatetic conceptions, and +saturated with the ecclesiastical divinity of the schoolmen. + + +[Footnote 124: This theological conception of history inspired the +sacred drama of the Middle Ages, known to us as Cyclical Miracle Plays.] + +These forces of the philosophy he sought to supersede, had to be +attacked with their own weapons and by methods adapted to the spirit of +his age. Similar judgment may be passed upon his championship of the +Copernican system. That system was the pivot of his metaphysic, the +revelation to which he owed his own conception of the universe. His +strenuous and ingenious endeavors to prove its veracity, his elaborate +and often-repeated refutations of the Ptolemaic theory, appear to modern +minds superfluous. But we must remember what a deeply-penetrating, +widely-working revolution Copernicus effected in cosmology, how he +dislocated the whole fabric upon which Catholic theology rested, how new +and unintelligible his doctrine then seemed, and what vast horizons he +opened for speculation on the destinies of man. Bruno was the first +fully to grasp the importance of the Copernican hypothesis, to perceive +its issues and to adapt it to the formation of a new ontology. +Copernicus, though he proclaimed the central position of the sun in our +system, had not ventured to maintain the infinity of the universe. For +him, as for the elder physicists, there remained a sphere of fixed stars +inclosing the world perceived by our senses within walls of crystal. +Bruno broke those walls, and boldly asserted the now recognized +existence of numberless worlds in space illimitable. His originality +lies in the clear and comprehensive notion he formed of the Copernican +discovery, and in his application of its corollaries to the Renaissance +apocalypse of deified nature and emancipated man. The deductions he drew +were so manifold and so acute that they enabled him to forecast the +course which human thought has followed in all provinces of speculation. + +This leads us to consider how Bruno is related to modern science and +philosophy. The main point seems to be that he obtained a vivid mental +picture (_Vorstellung_) of the physical universe, differing but little +in essentials from that which has now come to be generally accepted. In +reasoning from this concept as a starting-point, he formed opinions upon +problems of theology, ontology, biology and psychology, which placed him +out of harmony with medaeival thought, and in agreement with the thought +of our own time. Why this was so, can easily be explained. Bruno, first +of all philosophers, adapted science, in the modern sense of that term, +to metaphysic. He was the first to perceive that a revolution in our +conception of the material universe, so momentous as that effected by +Copernicus, necessitated a new theology and a new philosophical method. +Man had ceased to be the center of all things; this globe was no longer +'the hub of the universe,' but a small speck floating on infinity. The +Christian scheme of the Fall and the Redemption, if not absolutely +incompatible with the new cosmology was rendered by it less conceivable +in any literal sense. Some of the main points on which the early +Christians based their faith, and which had hardened into dogmas +through the course of centuries--such, for instance, as the Ascension +and the Second Advent--ceased to have their old significance. In a world +where there was neither up nor down, the translation of a corporeal +Deity to some place above the clouds, whence he would descend to judge +men at the last day, had only a grotesque or a symbolic meaning; whereas +to the first disciples, imbued with theories of a fixed celestial +sphere, it presented a solemn and apparently well-founded expectation. +The fundamental doctrine of the Incarnation, in like manner, lost +intelligibility and value, when God had to be thought no longer as the +Creator of a finite cosmos, but as a Being commensurate with infinity. +It was clear to a mind so acute as Bruno's that the dogmas of the Church +were correlated to a view of the world which had been superseded; and he +drew the logical inference that they were at bottom but poetical and +popular adumbrations of the Deity in terms concordant with erroneous +physical notions. Aristotle and Ptolemy, the masters of philosophy and +cosmography based upon a theory of the universe as finite and +circumscribed within fixed limits, lent admirable aid to the theological +constructions of the Middle Ages. The Church, adopting their science, +gave metaphysical and logical consistency to those earlier poetical and +popular conceptions of the religious sense. The _naif_ hopes and +romantic mythologies of the first Christians stiffened into syllogisms +and ossified in the huge fabric of the _Summa_. But Aristotle and +Ptolemy were now dethroned. Bruno, in a far truer sense than Democritus +before him, + + extra + Processit longe flammantia moenia mundi. + +Bolder even than Copernicus, and nearer in his intuition to the truth, +he denied that the universe had 'flaming walls' or any walls at all. +That 'immaginata circonferenza,' 'quella margine immaginata del cielo,' +on which antique science and Christian theology alike reposed, was the +object of his ceaseless satire, his oft-repeated polemic. What, then, +rendered Bruno the precursor of modern thought in its various +manifestations, was that he grasped the fundamental truth upon which +modern science rests, and foresaw the conclusions which must be drawn +from it. He speculated boldly, incoherently, vehemently; but he +speculated with a clear conception of the universe, as we still +apprehend it. Through the course of three centuries we have been engaged +in verifying the guesses, deepening, broadening and solidifying the +hypotheses, which Bruno's extension of the Copernican theory, and his +application of it to pure thought, suggested to his penetrating and +audacious intellect, Bruno was convinced that religion in its higher +essence would not suffer from the new philosophy. Larger horizons +extended before the human intellect. The soul expanded in more +exhilarating regions than the old theologies had offered. The sense of +the Divine in Nature, instead of dwindling down to atheism, received +fresh stimulus from the immeasurable prospect of an infinite and living +universe. Bruno, even more than Spinoza, was a God-intoxicated man. The +inebriation of the Renaissance, inspired by golden visions of truth and +knowledge close within man's grasp, inflamed with joy at escaping from +out-worn wearying formula into what appeared to be the simple intuition +of an everlasting verity, pulses through all his utterances. He has the +same cherubic confidence in the renascent age, that charms us in the +work of Rabelais. The slow, painful, often thwarted, ever more dubious +elaboration of modern metaphysic in _rapport_ with modern science--that +process which, after completing the cycle of all knowledge and sounding +the fathomless depth of all ignorance, has left us in grave +disillusionment and sturdy patience--swam before Bruno in a rapturous +vision. The Inquisition and the stake put an end abruptly to his dream. +But the dream was so golden, so divine, that it was worth the pangs of +martyrdom. Can we say the same for Hegel's system, or for Schopenhauers +or for the encyclopaedic ingenuity of Herbert Spencer? + +Bruno imagined the universe as infinite space, filled with ether, in +which an infinite number of worlds, or solar systems resembling our own, +composed of similar materials and inhabited by countless living +creatures, move with freedom. The whole of this infinite and complex +cosmos he conceived to be animated by a single principle of thought and +life. This indwelling force, or God, he described in Platonic +phraseology sometimes as the Anima Mundi, sometimes as the Artificer, +who by working from within molds infinite substance into an infinity of +finite modes. Though we are compelled to think of the world under the +two categories of spirit and matter, these apparently contradictory +constituents are forever reconciled and harmonized in the divine +existence, whereof illimitable activity, illimitable volition, and +illimitable potentiality are correlated and reciprocally necessary +terms. In Aristotelian language, Bruno assumed infinite form and +infinite matter as movements of an eternal process, by which the +infinite unity manifests itself in concrete reality. This being the +case, it follows that nothing exists which has not life, and is not part +of God. The universe itself is one immeasurable animal, or animated +Being. The solar systems are huge animals; the globes are lesser +animals; and so forth down to the monad of molecular cohesion. As the +universe is infinite and eternal, motion, place and time do not qualify +it; these are terms applicable only to the finite parts of which it is +composed. For the same reason nothing in the universe can perish. What +we call birth and death, generation and dissolution, is only the passage +of the infinite, and homogeneous entity through successive phases of +finite and differentiated existence; this continuous process of exchange +and transformation being stimulated and sustained by attraction and +repulsion, properties of the indwelling divine soul aiming at +self-realization. + +Having formed this conception, Bruno supported it by metaphysical +demonstration, and deduced conclusions bearing on psychology, religion, +ethics. Much of his polemic was directed against the deeply-rooted +notion of a finite world derived from Aristotle. Much was devoted to the +proof of the Copernican discovery. Orthodox theology was indirectly +combated or plausibly caressed. There are consequently many pages in his +dialogues which do not interest a modern reader, seeing that we have +outlived the conditions of thought that rendered them important. In the +process of his argument, he established the theory of a philosophical +belief, a religion of religions, or 'religione della mente,' as he +phrased it, prior to and comprehensive of all historical creeds. He +speculated, as probabilities, the transmigration of souls, and the +interchangeability of types in living creatures. He further postulated a +concordance between the order of thought and the order of existence in +the universe, and inclined to the doctrine of necessity in morals. Bruno +thus obtained _per saltum_ a prospect over the whole domain of knowledge +subsequently traversed by rationalism in metaphysics, theology and +ethics. In the course of these demonstrations and deductions he +anticipated Descartes' position of the identity of mind and being. He +supplied Spinoza with the substance of his reasoned pantheism; Leibnitz +with his theory of monadism and pre-established harmony. He laid down +Hegel's doctrine of contraries, and perceived that thought was a +dialectic process. The modern theory of evolution was enunciated by him +in pretty plain terms. He had grasped the physical law of the +conservation of energy. He solved the problem of evil by defining it to +be a relative condition of imperfect development. He denied that +Paradise or a Golden Age is possible for man, or that, if possible, it +can be considered higher in the moral scale than organic struggle toward +completion by reconciliation of opposites through pain and labor. He +sketched in outline the comparative study of religions, which is now +beginning to be recognized as the proper basis for theology. Finally, he +had a firm and vital hold upon that supreme speculation of the universe, +considered no longer as the battle-ground of dual principles, or as the +finite fabric of an almighty designer, but as the self-effectuation of +an infinite unity, appearing to our intelligence as spirit and +matter--that speculation which in one shape or another controls the +course of modern thought.[125] + +[Footnote 125: It was my intention to support the statements in this +paragraph by translating the passages which seem to me to justify them; +and I had gone so far as to make English versions of some twenty pages +in length, when I found that this material would overweight my book. A +study of Bruno as the great precursor of modern thought in its more +poetical and widely synthetic speculation must be left for a separate +essay. Here I may remark that the most faithful and pithily condensed +abstract of Bruno's philosophy is contained in Goethe's poem _Proemium +zu Gott und Welt_. Yet this poem expresses Goethe's thought, and it is +doubtful whether Goethe had studied Bruno except in the work of his +disciple Spinoza.] + +It must not be supposed that Bruno apprehended these points with +distinctness, or that he expressed them precisely in the forms with +which we are familiar. The hackneyed metaphor of a Pisgah view across +the promised land applies to him with singular propriety. Moreover, as +an acute critic has remarked, things old and new are so curiously +blended in his writings that what at first sight appears modern, is +often found upon reflection to be antique, and what is couched in +obsolete scholastic terminology, turns out upon analysis to contain the +germs of advanced theories.[126] The peculiar forms adapted for the +exposition of his thoughts contribute to the difficulty of obtaining a +methodical view of Bruno's philosophy. It has, therefore, been disputed +whether he was a pantheist or an atheist, a materialist or a +spiritualist, a mystic or an agnostic. No one would have contended more +earnestly than Bruno himself, that the sage can hold each and all of +these apparent contradictions together, with the exception of atheism; +which last is a simple impossibility. The fragmentary and impassioned +exposition which Bruno gave to his opinions in a series of Italian +dialogues and Latin poems will not discourage those of his admirers who +estimate the conspicuous failure made by all elaborate system-builders +from Aristotle to Hegel. To fathom the mystery of the world, and to +express that mystery in terms of logic, is clearly beyond the faculty of +man. Philosophies that aim at universe-embracing, God-explaining, +nature-elucidating, man-illuminating, comprehensiveness, have justly, +therefore, become objects of suspicion. The utmost that man can do, +placed as he is at obvious disadvantages for obtaining a complete survey +of the whole, is to whet his intelligence upon confessedly insoluble +problems, to extend the sphere of his practical experience, to improve +his dominion over matter, to study the elevation of his moral nature, +and to encourage himself for positive achievements by the indulgence in +those glorious dreams from which regenerative creeds and inspiring +philosophies have sprung-- + + Still climbing after knowledge infinite, + And ever moving as the restless spheres. + +[Footnote 126: Spaventa in his _Saggi di Critica_.] + +Faith and poetry are the highest regions in which his spirit can +profitably move. The study of government, law, and social ethics, the +analysis of physical conditions to which he is subject, and over which +he has an undefined, though limited, control, form the practical sphere +of his intelligence. Bruno traversed these regions; and, forasmuch as +the outcome of his exploration was no system, but a congeries of poetic +visions, shrewd guesses, profound intuitions, and passionate +enthusiasms, bound together and sustained by a burning sense of the +Divine unity in nature and in man, we may be permitted to regard him as +more fortunate than those cloud-castle-builders whose classifications of +absolute existences are successively proved by the advance of relative +knowledge to be but catalogues of some few objects apprehended by the +vision of each partially-instructed age. We have, indeed, reason to +marvel how many of Bruno's intuitions have formed the stuff of later, +more elaborated systems, and still remain the best which these contain. +We have reason to wonder how many of his divinations have worked +themselves into the common fund of modern beliefs, and have become +philosophical truisms. + +It is probable that if Bruno's career had not been cut short by the +dungeon and the stake at the early age of thirty-four, he might have +produced some final work in which his theories would have assumed a +formal shape. It is possible that the Vatican even now contains the +first sketch for such a studied exposition in the treatise on the Seven +Arts, which Giovanni Mocenigo handed over to the Inquisition, and which +the philosopher intended to dedicate to Clement VIII. But the loss of +this elaborated system is hardly to be regretted, except for the clearer +light it must have thrown upon the workings of the most illuminated +intellect in the sixteenth century. We know that it could not have +revealed to us the secret of things. + +Bruno cast his thoughts in two molds: the dialogue, and Latin +hexameters. He was attracted to the latter by his early study of +Parmenides and Lucretius. The former seems to have been natural to the +man. We must not forget that he was a Neapolitan, accustomed from +childhood to the farces of his native land, vividly alive to the comic +aspects of existence, and joyously appreciative of reality. His first +known composition was a comedy, _Il Candelajo_; and something of the +drama can be traced in all those Italian compositions which distinguish +the period of his activity as an author in London. Lucian rather than +Plato or Cicero determined the form of his dialogue. An element of the +burlesque distinguishes his method of approaching religious and moral +problems in the _Spaccio della Bestia_, and the _Cavallo Pegaseo_. And +though he exchanged the manner of his model for more serious exposition +in the trio of metaphysical dialogues, named _La Cena delle Ceneri, +Della Causa_, and _Dell' Infinito Universo_, yet the irresistible +tendency to dramatic satire emerges even there in the description of +England and in the characters of the indispensable pedant buffoon. His +dialogue on the _Eroici Furori_ is sustained at a high pitch of aspiring +fervor. Mystical in its attempt to adumbrate the soul's thirst for truth +and beauty, it adopts the method of a running commentary upon poems, in +the manner of a discursive and fantastic _Vita Nuova_. In his Italian +style, Bruno owed much to the fashion set by Aretino. The study of +Aretino's comedies is apparent in _Il Candelajo_. The stringing together +of words and ideas in triplets, balanced by a second set of words and +ideas in antithetical triplets--this trick of rhetoric, which wearies a +modern reader of his prose, seems to have been copied straight from +Aretino. The coinage of fantastic titles, of which _Lo Spaccio della +Bestia Trionfante_ contributed in some appreciable degree to Bruno's +martyrdom, should be ascribed to the same influence. The source of these +literary affectations was a bad one. Aretino, Doni, and such folk were +no fit masters for Giordano Bruno even in so slight a matter as artistic +form. Yet, in this respect, he shared a corrupt taste which was common +to his generation, and proved how fully he represented the age in which +he lived. It is not improbable that the few contemporary readers of his +works, especially in euphuistic England, admired the gewgaws he so +plentifully scattered and rendered so brilliant by the coruscations of +his wit. When, however, the real divine oestrum descends upon him, he +discards those follies. Then his language, like his thought, is all his +own: sublime, impassioned, burning, turbid; instinct with a deep +volcanic fire of genuine enthusiasm. The thought is simple; the diction +direct; the attitude of mind and the turn of expression are singularly +living, surprisingly modern. We hear the man speak, as he spoke at Fulke +Greville's supper-party, as he spoke at Oxford, as he spoke before the +Sorbonne, as he might be speaking now. There is no air of literary +effort, no tincture of antiquated style, in these masculine utterances. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +FRA PAOLO SARPI. + + Sarpi's Position in the History of Venice--Parents and + Boyhood--Entrance into the Order of the Servites--His Personal + Qualities--Achievements as a Scholar and Man of Science--His Life + among the Servites--In Bad Odor at Rome--Paul V. places Venice + under Interdict--Sarpi elected Theologian and Counselor of the + Republic--His Polemical Writings--Views on Church and State--The + Interdict Removed--Roman Vengeance--Sarpi attacked by Bravi--His + Wounds, Illness, Recovery--Subsequent History of the + Assassins--Further Attempts on Sarpi's Life--Sarpi's Political and + Historical Works--History of the Council of Trent--Sarpi's Attitude + toward Protestantism--His Judgment of the Jesuits--Sarpi's + Death--The Christian Stoic. + +Fra Paolo was the son of Francesco Sarpi and Isabella Morelli, Venetians +of the humbler middle class. He was born in 1552, christened Pietro, and +nicknamed Pierino because of his diminutive stature. On entering the +Order of the Servites he adopted the religious name of Paolo, which he +subsequently rendered famous throughout Europe. Since he died in 1623, +Sarpi's life coincided with a period of supreme interest and manifold +vicissitudes in the decline of Venice. After the battle of Lepanto in +1571, he saw the nobles of S. Mark welcome their victorious admiral +Sebastiano Veniero and confer on him the honors of the Dogeship. In +1606, he aided the Republic to withstand the thunders of the Vatican +and defy the excommunication of a Pope. Eight years later he attended at +those councils of state which unmasked the conspiracy, known as +Bedmar's, to destroy Venice. In his early manhood Cyprus had been +wrested from the hands of S. Mark; and inasmuch as the Venetians alone +sustained the cause of Christian civilization against Turk and pirate in +the Eastern seas, he was able before his death to anticipate the ruin +which the war of Candia subsequently brought upon his country. During +the last eighteen years of his existence Sarpi was the intellect of the +Republic; the man of will and mind who gave voice and vigor to her +policy of independence; the statesman who most clearly penetrated the +conditions of her strength and weakness. This friar incarnated the +Venetian spirit at a moment when, upon the verge of decadence, it had +attained self-consciousness; and so instinctively devoted are Venetians +to their State that in his lifetime he was recognized by them as hero, +and after his death venerated as saint. + +No sooner had the dispute with Paul V. been compromised, than Sarpi +noticed how the aristocracy of Venice yielded themselves to sloth and +political indifference. The religious obsequiousness to Rome and the +'peace or rather cowardice of slaves,' which were gradually immersing +Italy in mental torpor and luxurious idleness, invaded this last +stronghold of freedom. Though Sarpi's Christian Stoicism and practical +sagacity saved him from playing the then futile part of public agitator, +his private correspondence shows how low his hope had sunk for Italy. +Nothing but a general war could free her from the yoke of arrogant Rome +and foreign despotism. Meanwhile the Papal Court, Spain and the House of +Austria, having everything to lose by contest, preserved the peace of +Italy at any cost. Princes whose petty thrones depended on Spanish and +Papal good-will, dreaded to disturb the equilibrium of servitude; the +population, dulled by superstition, emasculated by Jesuitical corruption +and intimidated by Church tyranny, slumbered in the gross mud-honey of +slavish pleasures. From his cell in the convent of the Servites Sarpi +swept the whole political horizon, eagerly anticipating some dawn-star +of deliverance. At one time his eyes rested on the Duke of Savoy, but +that unquiet spirit failed to steer his course clear between Spanish and +French interests, Roman jealousies, and the ill-concealed hostilities of +Italian potentates. At another time, like all lovers of freedom +throughout Europe, he looked with confidence to Henri IV. But a +fanatic's dagger, sharpened by the Jesuits, cut short the monarch's life +and gave up France to the government of astute Florentine adventurers. +Germany was too distracted by internal dissensions, Holland too distant +and preoccupied with her own struggle for existence, to offer immediate +aid. It was in vain that Sarpi told his foreign correspondents that the +war of liberty in Europe must be carried into the stronghold of +absolutism. To secure a victory over the triple forces of Spain, the +Papal Court and Jesuitry, Rome had to be attacked in Italy. His +reasoning was correct. But peoples fighting for freedom on their native +soil could not risk an adventure which only some central power of the +first magnitude like France might have conducted with fair prospect of +success. In the meantime what Sarpi called the Diacatholicon, that +absolutist alliance of Rome, Spain and Austria, supported by the +Inquisition and the Jesuits, accepted by the states of Italy and firmly +rooted in some parts of Germany, invaded even those provinces where the +traditions of independence still survived. After 1610 the Jesuits +obtained possession of France; and though they did not effect their +re-entrance into Venice, the ruling classes of the Republic allowed +themselves to be drugged by the prevalent narcotic. Venice, too, was +fighting for her life in the Adriatic and the Levant, while her nobles +became daily more supine in aristocratic leisure, more papalizing in +their private sympathies. Thus the last years of Sarpi's life were +overclouded by a deep discouragement, which did not, indeed, extinguish +his trust in the divine Providence or his certain belief that the right +would ultimately prevail, but which adds a tragic interest to the old +age of this champion of political and moral liberty fallen on evil days. + +I have thought it well to preface what I have to say about Sarpi with +this forecast of his final attitude. As the Italian who most clearly +comprehended the full consequences of the Catholic Revival, and who +practically resisted what was evil for his nation in that reactionary +movement, he demands a prominent place in this book. On his claims to +scientific discoveries and his special service rendered to the Venetian +Republic it will suffice to touch but lightly. + +Sarpi's father was short of stature, brown-complexioned, choleric and +restless. His mother was tall, pale, lymphatic, devoted to religious +exercises and austerities. The son of their ill-assorted wedlock +inherited something of both temperaments. In his face and eyes he +resembled his mother; and he derived from her the piety which marked his +course through life. His short, spare person, his vivid, ever-active +intellect testified to the paternal impress. This blending of two +diverse strains produced in him a singular tenacity of fiber. Man's +tenement of clay has rarely lodged a spirit so passionless, so fine, so +nearly disembodied. Of extreme physical tenuity, but gifted with +inexhaustible mental energy, indefatigable in study, limitless in +capacity for acquiring and retaining knowledge, he accentuated the type +which nature gave him by the sustained habits of a lifetime. In diet he +abstained from flesh and abhorred wine. His habitual weaknesses were +those of one who subdues the body to mental government. As costive as +Scaliger,[127] Sarpi suffered from hepatic hemorrhage, retention of +urine, prolapsus recti, and hemorrhoids. Intermittent fevers reduced his +strength, but rarely interfered with his activity. He refused to treat +himself as an invalid, never altered his course of life for any illness, +and went about his daily avocations when men of laxer tissue would have +taken to their bed. His indifference to danger was that of the Stoic or +the Mussulman. During a period of fifteen years he knew that restless +foes were continually lying in wait to compass his death by poison or +the dagger. Yet he could hardly be persuaded to use the most ordinary +precautions. 'I am resolved,' he wrote, in 1609, 'to give no thought +whatever to these wretchednesses. He who thinks too much of living knows +not how to live well. One is bound to die once; to be curious about the +day or place or manner of dying is unprofitable. Whatsoever is God's +will is good.'[128] As fear had no hold upon his nature, so was he +wholly free from the dominion of the senses. A woman's name, if we +except that of the Queen of France, is, I think, not once mentioned in +his correspondence. Even natural affections seem to have been +obliterated; for he records nothing of his mother or his father or a +sister who survived their deaths. One suit of clothes sufficed him; and +his cell was furnished with three hour-glasses, a picture of Christ in +the Garden, and a crucifix raised above a human skull. + +[Footnote 127: We may remind our readers of Henri IV.'s parting words to +Joseph Scaliger: 'Est-il vrai que vous avez ete de Paris a Dijon sans +aller a la selle?'] + +[Footnote 128: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 239.] + +His physical sensitiveness, developed by austerity of life, was of the +highest acuteness. Sight, touch, and taste in him acquired the most +exquisite delicacy. He was wont to say that he feared no poison in his +food, since he could discriminate the least adulteration of natural +flavors. His mental perspicacity was equally subtle. As a boy he could +recite thirty lines of Virgil after hearing them read over once. Books +were not so much perused by him as penetrated at a glance; and what he +had but casually noticed, never afterwards escaped his memory. In the +vast Venetian archives he could lay his hand on any document without +referring to registers or catalogues. The minutest details of houses +visited or places passed through, remained indelibly engraved upon his +memory. The characters of men lay open to his insight through their +physiognomy and gestures. When new scientific instruments were submitted +to his curiosity, he divined their uses and comprehended their mechanism +without effort. Thus endowed with a rare combination of physical and +intellectual faculties, it is no wonder that Sarpi became one of the +most learned men of his age or of any age. He was an excellent Greek, +Latin, and Hebrew scholar; an adequate master of the French and Spanish +languages; profoundly versed in canon and civil law; accomplished in the +erudition of classical and scholastic philosophy; thoroughly acquainted +with secular and ecclesiastical history. Every branch of mathematics and +natural science had been explored by him with the enthusiasm of a +pioneer. He made experiments in chemistry, mechanics, mineralogy, +metallurgy, vegetable and animal physiology. His practical studies in +anatomy were carried on by the aid of vivisection. Following independent +paths, he worked out some of Gilbert's discoveries in magnetism, and of +Da Porta's in optics, demonstrated the valves of the veins, and the +function of the uvea in vision, divined the uses of the telescope and +thermometer. When he turned his attention to astronomy, he at once +declared the futility of judicial astrology; and while recognizing the +validity of Galileo's system, predicted that this truth would involve +its promulgator in serious difficulties with the Roman Inquisition. In +his treatises on psychology and metaphysics, he originated a theory of +sensationalism akin to that of Locke. There was, in fact, no field of +knowledge which he had not traversed with the energy of a discoverer. +Only to poetry and _belles lettres_ he paid but little heed, disdaining +the puerilities of rhetoric then in vogue, and using language as the +simplest vehicle of thought. In conversation he was reticent, speaking +little, but always to the purpose, and rather choosing to stimulate his +collocutors than to make display of eloquence or erudition. Yet his +company was eagerly sought, and he delighted in the society, not only of +learned men and students, but of travelers, politicians, merchants, and +citizens of the world. His favorite places of resort were the saloons of +Andrea Morosini, and the shop of the Secchini at the sign of the Nave +d'Oro. Here, after days spent in religious exercises, sacerdotal +duties, and prolonged studies, he relaxed his mind in converse with the +miscellaneous crowd of eminent persons who visited Venice for business +or pleasure. A certain subacid humor, combining irony without +bitterness, and proverbial pungency without sententiousness, added +piquancy to his discourse. We have, unfortunately, no record of the +wit-encounters which may have taken place under Morosini's or Secchini's +roof between this friar, so punctual in his religious observances, so +scrupulously pure in conduct, so cold in temperament, so acute in +intellect, so modest in self-esteem, so cautious, so impermeable, and +his contemporary, Bruno, the unfrocked friar of genius more daring but +less sure, who was mentally in all points, saving their common love of +truth and freedom, the opposite to Sarpi. + +Sarpi entered the Order of the Servi, or Servants of the Blessed Virgin, +at the age of fourteen, renewed his vows at twenty, and was ordained +priest at twenty-two.[129] His great worth brought him early into +notice, and he filled posts of considerable importance in his Order. +Several years of his manhood were spent in Rome, transacting the +business and conducting the legal causes of the Fathers. At Mantua he +gained the esteem of Guglielmo Gonzaga. At Milan he was admitted to +familiar intimacy with the sainted Carlo Borromeo, who consulted him +upon matters of reform in the diocese, and insisted on his hearing +confessions. This duty was not agreeable to Sarpi; and though he +habitually in after life said Mass and preached, he abstained from those +functions of the priesthood which would have brought him into close +relation with individuals. The bent of his mind rendered him averse to +all forms of superstition and sacerdotal encroachments upon the freedom +of the conscience. As he fought the battle of political independence +against ecclesiastical aggression, so he maintained the prerogatives of +personal liberty. The arts whereby Jesuits gained hold on families and +individuals, inspired in him no less disgust than the illegal despotism +of the Papacy. This blending of sincere piety and moral rectitude with a +passion for secular freedom and a hatred of priestly craft, has +something in it closely akin to the English temperament. Sarpi was a +sound Catholic Christian in religion, and in politics what we should +call a staunch Whig. So far as it is now possible to penetrate his +somewhat baffling personality, we might compare him to a Macaulay of +finer edge, to a Dean Stanley of more vigorous build. He was less +commonplace than the one, more substantial than the other. But we must +be cautious in offering any interpretation of his real opinions. It was +not for nothing that he dedicated himself to the monastic life in +boyhood, and persevered in it to the end of his long career. The +discipline of the convent renders every friar inscrutable; and Sarpi +himself assured his friends that he, like all Italians of his day, was +bound to wear a mask.[130] + +[Footnote 129: It was under the supervision of the Servites that Sarpi +gained the first rudiments of education. Thirst for knowledge may +explain his early entrance into their brotherhood. Like Virgil and like +Milton, he received among the companions of his youthful studies the +honorable nickname of 'The Maiden.' Gross conversation, such as lads +use, even in convents, ceased at his approach. And yet he does not seem +to have lost influence among his comrades by the purity which marked him +out as exceptional.] + +[Footnote 130: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 237.] + +Be this as it may, Sarpi was not the man to work his way by monkish +intrigue or courtly service into high place either in his Order or the +Church. Long before he unsheathed the sword in defense of Venetian +liberties, he had become an object of suspicion to Rome and his +superiors. Some frank words which escaped him in correspondence, +regarding the corruption of the Papal Curia, closed every avenue to +office. Men of less mark obtained the purple. The meanest and poorest +bishoprics were refused to Sarpi. He was thrice denounced, on frivolous +charges, to the Inquisition; but on each occasion the indictment was +dismissed without a hearing. The General of the Servites accused him of +wearing cap and slippers uncanonical in cut, and of not reciting the +_Salve Regina_. After a solemn trial, Sarpi was acquitted; and it came +to be proverbially whispered that 'even the slippers of the +incorruptible Fra Paolo had been canonized.' Being a sincere Catholic at +heart, as well as a man of profound learning and prudent speech, his +papalistic enemies could get no grip upon him. Yet they instinctively +hated and dreaded one whom they felt to be opposed, in his strength, +fearlessness and freedom of soul, to their exorbitant pretensions and +underhand aggressions upon public liberties. His commerce with heretics +both in correspondence with learned Frenchmen and in conversation with +distinguished foreigners at Venice, was made a ground of accusation, and +Clement VIII. declared that this alone sufficed to exclude him from any +dignity in the Church. + +It does not appear that Sarpi troubled his head about these things. Had +he cared for power, there was no distinction to which he might not have +aspired by stooping to common arts and by compromising his liberty of +conscience. But he was indifferent to rank and wealth. Public business +he discharged upon occasion from a sense of duty to his Order. For the +rest, so long as he was left to pursue his studies in tranquillity, +Sarpi had happiness enough; and his modesty was so great that he did not +even seek to publish the results of his discoveries in science. For this +reason they have now been lost to the world; only the memory of them +surviving in the notes of Foscarini and Grisellini, who inspected his +MSS. before they were accidentally destroyed by fire in 1769. + +Though renowned through Europe as the _orbis terrae ocellus_, the man +sought out by every visitor to Venice as the rarest citizen of the +Republic, Sarpi might have quitted this earthly scene with only the +faint fame of a thinker whose eminent gifts blossomed in obscurity, had +it not been for a public opportunity which forced him to forsake his +studies and his cell for a place at the Council-board and for the +functions of a polemical writer. That robust manliness of mind, which +makes an Englishman hail English virtues in Sarpi, led him to affirm +that 'every man of excellence is bound to pay attention to +politics.'[131] Yet politics were not his special sphere. Up to the age +of fifty-four he ripened in the assiduous studies of which I have made +mention, in the discharge of his official duties as a friar, and his +religious duties as a priest. He had distinguished himself amid the +practical affairs of life by judicial acuteness, unswerving justice, +infallible perspicacity, and inexhaustible stores of erudition brought +to bear with facility on every detail of any matter in dispute. But +nature and inclination seemed to mark him out through early manhood for +experimental and speculative science rather than for action. Now a +demand was made on his deep fount of energy, which evolved the latent +forces of a character unique in many-sided strength. He had dedicated +himself to religion and to the pursuit of knowledge. But he was a +Venetian of the Venetians, the very soul of Venice. After God, his +Prince and the Republic claimed obedience; and when S. Mark called, +Sarpi abandoned science for the service of his country. 'Singularly +composed of active and contemplative energies was the life of our +Father; yielding to God that which he was able, to his Prince that which +duty dictated, and to the domain of Venice more than any law but that of +love demanded.'[132] + +[Footnote 131: _Lettere_, vol. ii, p. 80.] + +[Footnote 132: Sarpi's _Life_ by Fra Fulgenzio, p. 64.] + +Paul V. assumed the tiara with the fixed resolve of making good the +Papal claims to supremacy. Between Venice and the Holy See numerous +disputed points of jurisdiction, relating to the semi-ecclesiastical +fief of Ceneda, the investiture of the Patriarch, the navigation of the +Po, and the right of the Republic to exercise judgment in criminal cases +affecting priests, offered this Pope opportunities of interference. The +Venetians maintained their customary prerogatives; and in April 1606 +Paul laid them under interdict and excommunication. The Republic denied +the legitimacy of this proceeding. The Doge, Leonardo Donato, issued a +proclamation to the clergy of all degrees within the domain, appealing +to their loyalty and enjoining on them the discharge of their sacerdotal +duties in spite of the Papal interdict. Only Jesuits at first disobeyed +the ducal mandate. When they refused to say Mass in the excommunicated +city, they were formally expelled as contumacious subjects; and the +fathers took ship amid the maledictions of the populace: '_Andate in +malora_.' Their example was subsequently followed by the reformed +Capuchins and the Theatines. Otherwise the Venetian clergy, like the +people, remained firm in their allegiance to the state. 'We are +Venetians first, Christians afterwards,' was a proverb dating from this +incident. Venice, conscious of the justice of her cause, prepared to +resist the Pope's arrogant demands if need were with arms, and to +exercise religious rites within her towns in spite of Camillo Borghese's +excommunication. The Senate, some time before these events happened, +had perceived the advantage which would accrue to the Republic from the +service of a practised Canonist and jurisprudent in ecclesiastical +affairs. Sarpi attracted their attention at an early stage of the +dispute by a memorial which he drew up and presented to the Doge upon +the best means of repelling Papal aggression. After perusing his report, +in the month of January 1606, they appointed him Theologian and Canonist +to the Republic, with a yearly salary of 200 ducats. This post he +occupied until his death, having at a later period been raised to the +still more important office of Counselor of State, which eventually he +filled alone without a single coadjutor. + +From the month of January 1606, for the remaining seventeen years of his +life, Sarpi was intellectually the most prominent personage of Venice, +the man who for the world at large represented her policy of moderate +but firm resistance to ecclesiastical tyranny. Greatness had been thrust +upon the modest and retiring student; and Father Paul's name became the +watchword of political independence throughout Europe. + +The Jesuists acting in concert with Spain, as well-informed historians +held certain, first inspired Camillo Borghese with his ill-considered +attempt upon the liberties of Venice.[133] It was now the Jesuits, after +their expulsion from the Republic, who opened the batteries of literary +warfare against the Venetian government. They wrote and published +manifestoes through the Bergamasque territory, which province +acknowledged the episcopal jurisdiction of Milan, though it belonged to +the Venetian domain. In these writings it was argued that, so long as +the Papal interdict remained in force, all sacraments would be invalid, +marriages null, and offspring illegitimate. The population, trained +already in doctrines of Papal supremacy, were warned that should they +remain loyal to a contumacious State, their own souls would perish +through the lack of sacerdotal ministrations, and their posterity would +roam the world as bastards and accursed. To traverse this argument of +sarcerdotal tyranny, exorbitant in any age of the Latin Church, but +preposterous after the illumination of the sixteenth century in Europe, +was a citizen's plain duty. Sarpi therefore supplied an elegant Italian +stylist, Giambattista Leoni, with material for setting forth a statement +of the controversy between Venice and Rome. It would have been well if +he had taken up the pen with his own hand. But at this early period of +his career as publicist, he seems to have been diffident about his +literary powers. The result was that Leoni's main defense of the +Republic fell flat; and the war was waged for a while upon side issues. +Sarpi drew a treatise by Gerson, the learned French champion of Catholic +independence, forth from the dust of libraries, translated it into +Italian, and gave it to the press accompanied by an introductory letter +which he signed.[134] Cardinal Bellarmino responded from Rome with an +attack on Sarpi's orthodoxy and Gerson's authority. Sarpi replied in an +Apology for Gerson. Then, finding that Leoni's narrative had missed its +mark, he poured forth pamphlet upon pamphlet, penning his own +_Considerations on the Censures_, inspiring Fra Fulgenzio Micanzi with a +work styled _Confirmations_, and finally reducing the whole matter of +the controversy into a book entitled a _Treatise on the Interdict_, +which he signed together with six brother theologians of the Venetian +party. It is not needful in this place to institute a minute +investigation into the merits of this pamphlet warfare. In its details, +whether we regard the haughty claims of delegated omnipotence advanced +by Rome, or the carefully studied historical and canonistic arguments +built up by Sarpi, the quarrel has lost actuality. Common sense and +freedom have so far conquered in Europe that Sarpi's opinions, then +denounced as heresies, sound now like truisms; and his candid boast that +he was the first to break the neck of Papal encroachments upon secular +prerogative, may pass for insignificant in an age which has little to +fear from ecclesiastical violence. + +[Footnote 133: Fra Fulgenzio's _Vita di F. Paolo_, p. 42. Venetian +Dispatches in Mutinelli's _Storia Arcana_, vol. iii. p. 67.] + +[Footnote 134: The treatise which Sarpi translated was Gerson's +_Considerations upon Papal Excommunications_. Gerson's part in the +Council of Constance will be remembered. See Creighton's _History of the +Papacy_, vol. i. p. 211.] + +Yet we must not forget that, during the first years of the seventeenth +century, the Venetian conflict with Papal absolutism, considered merely +as a test-case in international jurisprudence, was one of vitally +important interest. When we reflect how the Catholic Alliance was then +engaged in rolling back the tide of Reformation, how the forces of Rome +had been rallied by the Tridentine Council, and how the organism of the +Jesuits had been created to promulgate new dogmas of Papal almightiness +in Church and State, this resistance of Venice, stoutly Catholic in +creed, valiant in her defense of Christendom against the Moslem, +supported by her faithful churchman and accomplished canonist, was no +inconsiderable factor in the European strife for light and liberty. The +occasion was one of crucial gravity. Reconstituted Rome had not as yet +been brought into abrupt collision with any commonwealth which abode in +her communion. Had Venice yielded in that issue, the Papacy might have +augured for itself a general victory. That Venice finally submitted to +Roman influence, while preserving the semblance of independence, +detracts, indeed, from the importance of this Interdict-affair +considered as an episode in the struggle for spiritual freedom. +Moreover, we know now that the presumptuous pretensions of the Papacy at +large were destined, before many years had passed, to be pared down, +diminished and obliterated by the mere advance of intellectual +enlightenment. Yet none of these considerations diminish Sarpi's claim +to rank as hero in the forefront of a battle which in his time was +being waged with still uncertain prospects.[135] In their comparatively +narrow spheres Venice and Sarpi, not less than Holland, England, Sweden +and the Protestants of Germany, on their wider platform at a later date, +were fighting for a principle upon which the liberty of States depended. +And they were the first to fight for it upon the ground most perilous to +the common adversary. In all his writings Sarpi sought to prove that men +might remain sound Catholics and yet resist Roman aggression; that the +Roman Court and its modern champions had introduced new doctrine, +deviating from the pristine polity of Christendom; that the +post-Tridentine theory of Papal absolutism was a deformation of that +order which Christ founded, which the Apostles edified, and which the +Councils of a purer age had built into the living temple of God's Church +on earth. + +[Footnote 135: Sarpi's correspondence abundantly proves how very grave +was the peril of Papal Absolutism in his days. The tide had not begun to +turn with force against the Jesuit doctrines of Papal Supremacy. See +Ranke, vol. ii. pp. 4-12, on these doctrines and the counter-theories to +which they gave rise. We must remember that the Papal power was now at +the height of its ascension; and Sarpi can be excused for not having +reckoned on the inevitable decline it suffered during the next century.] + +A passage from Sarpi's correspondence may be cited, as sounding the +keynote to all his writings in this famous controversy. 'I imagine,' he +writes to Jacques Gillot in 1609, 'that the State and the Church are two +realms, composed, however, of the same human beings. The one is wholly +heavenly, the other earthly. Each has its own sovereignty, defended by +its own arms and fortifications. Nothing is held by them in common, and +there should be no occasion for the one to declare war upon the other. +Christ said that he and his disciples were not of this world. S. Paul +affirms that our city is in the heavens. I take the word Church to +signify an assembly of the faithful, not of priests only; for when we +regard it as confined to those, it ceases to be Christ's kingdom, and +becomes a portion of the commonwealth in this world, subject to the +highest authority of State, as also are the laity.[136] This emphatic +distinction between Church and State, both fulfilling the needs of +humanity but in diverse relations, lay at the root of Sarpi's doctrine. +He regarded the claim of the Church to interfere in State management, +not only as an infringement of the prince's prerogative, but also as +patent rebellion against the law of God which had committed the temporal +government of nations in sacred trust to secular rulers. As the State +has no call to meddle in the creation and promulgation of dogmas, or to +impose its ordinances on the religious conscience of its subjects, so +the Church has no right to tamper with affairs of government, to +accumulate wealth and arrogate secular power, or to withdraw its +ministers from the jurisdiction of the prince in matters which concern +the operation of criminal and civil legislature. The ultramontanism of +the Jesuits appeared to him destructive of social order; but, more than +this, he considered it as impious, as a deflection from the form of +Christian economy, as a mischievous seduction of the Church into a +slough of self-annihilating cupidity and concupiscence. + +Sarpi's views seemed audacious in his own age. But they have become the +commonplaces of posterity. We can therefore hardly do justice to the +originality and audacity which they displayed at an epoch when only +Protestants at war with Rome advanced the like in deadly hatred--when +the Catholic pulpits of Europe were ringing with newly-promulgated +doctrines of Papal supremacy over princes and peoples, of national +rights to depose or assassinate excommunicated sovereigns, and of blind +unreasoning obedience to Rome as the sole sure method of salvation. Upon +the path of that Papal triumph toward the Capitol of world-dominion, +Sarpi, the puny friar from his cell at Venice, rose like a specter +announcing certain doom with the irrefragable arguments of reason. The +minatory words he uttered were all the more significant because neither +he nor the State he represented sought to break with Catholic +traditions. His voice was terrible and mighty, inasmuch as he denounced +Rome by an indictment which proclaimed her to be the perturbing power in +Christendom, the troubler of Israel, the whore who poured her cup of +fornications forth to sup with princes. + +[Footnote 136: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 312.] + +After sixteen months, the quarrel of the interdict was compromised. +Venice, in duel with Islam, could ill afford to break with Rome, even if +her national traditions of eight centuries, intertwined with rites of +Latin piety, had not forbidden open rupture. The Papal Court, cowed into +resentful silence by antagonism which threatened intellectual revolt +through Europe, waived a portion of its claims. Three French converts +from Huguenot opinions to Catholicism, Henri IV., the Cardinal du +Perron, and M. de Canaye, adjusted matters. The interdict was dismissed +from Venice rather than removed--in haughty silence, without the +clashing of bells from S. Pietro di Castello and S. Marco, without +manifestation of joy in the city which regarded Papal interdicts as +illegitimate, without the parade of public absolution by the Pope. Thus +the Republic maintained its dignity of self-respect. But Camillo +Borghese, while proclaiming a general amnesty, reserved _in petto_ +implacable animosity against the theologians of the Venetian party. Two +of these, Marsilio. and Rubetti, died suddenly under suspicion of +poison.[137] A third, Fulgenzio Manfredi, was lured to Rome, treated +with fair show of favor, and finally hung in the Campo di Fiora by order +of the Holy Office.[138] A fourth, Capello, abjured his so-called +heresies, and was assigned a pittance for the last days of his failing +life in Rome.[139] It remained, if possible, to lay hands on Fra Paolo +and his devoted secretary, Fra Fulgenzio Micanzi, of the Servites. + +[Footnote 137: Sarpi's _Letters_, vol. ii. pp. 179, 284.] + +[Footnote 138: _Ibid._ pp. 100-102.] + +[Footnote 139: Bianchi Giovini, _Vita di Fra P. Sarpi_, vol. ii. p. 49.] + +Neither threats nor promises availed to make these friends quit Venice. +During the interdict and afterwards, Fulgenzio Micanzi preached the +gospel there. He told the people that in the New Testament he had found +truth; but he bade them take notice that for the laity this book was +even a dead letter through the will of Rome.[140] Paul V. complained in +words like these: Fra Fulgenzio's doctrine contains, indeed, no patent +heresy, but it rests so clearly on the Bible as to prejudice the +Catholic faith.[141] Sarpi informed his French correspondents that +Christ and the truth had been openly preached in Venice by this +man.[142] Fulgenzio survived the troubles of those times, steadily +devoted to his master, of whom he has bequeathed to posterity, a +faithful portrait in that biography which combines the dove-like +simplicity of the fourteenth century with something of Roger North's +sagacity and humor.[143] Of Fulgenzio we take no further notice here, +having paid him our debt of gratitude for genial service rendered in the +sympathetic delineation of so eminent a character as Sarpi's. A +side-regret may be expressed that some such simple and affectionate +record of Bruno as a man still fails us, and alas, must ever fail. +Fulgenzio, by his love, makes us love Sarpi, who otherwise might coldly +win our admiration. But for Bruno, that scapegoat of the spirit in the +world's wilderness, there is none to speak words of worship and +affection. + +[Footnote 140: A.G. Campbell's _Life of Sarpi_, p. 174.] + +[Footnote 141: Sarpi's _Letters_, vol. i. pp. 231, 239.] + +[Footnote 142: _Ibid._ pp. 220, 222, 225.] + +[Footnote 143: _Vita del Padre F. Paolo Sarpi_, Helmstat, per Jacopo +Mulleri, MDCCXXXXX.] + +The first definite warning that his life was in danger came to Sarpi +from Caspar Schoppe, the publicist. Scioppius (so his contemporaries +called him) was a man of doubtful character and unsteady principles, +who, according as his interests varied, used a fluent pen and limpid +Latin style for or against the Jesuit faction. History would hardly +condescend to notice him but for the singular luck he had of coming at +critical moments into contact with the three chief Italian thinkers of +his time. We know already that a letter of this man is the one +contemporary testimony of an eye-witness to Bruno's condemnation which +we possess. He also deserves mention for having visited Campanella in +prison and helped to procure his liberation. Now in the year 1607, while +passing through Venice, Schoppe sought a private interview with Sarpi, +pointed out the odium which Fra Paolo had gained in Rome by his +writings, and concluded by asserting that the Pope meant to have him +alive or to compass his assassination. If Sarpi wished to make his peace +with Paul V., Schoppe was ready to conduct the reconciliation upon +honorable terms, having already several affairs of like import in his +charge. To this proposal Sarpi replied that the cause he had defended +was a just one, that he had done nothing to offend his Holiness, and +that all plots against his liberty or life he left within the hands of +God. To these words he significantly added that, even in the Pope's +grasp, a man was always 'master over his own life'--a sentence which +seems to indicate suicide as the last resort of self-defense. In +September of the same year the Venetian ambassador at Rome received +private information regarding some mysterious design against a person or +persons unknown, at Venice, in which the Papal Court was implicated, and +which was speedily to take effect.[144] On October 5 Sarpi was returning +about 5 o'clock in the afternoon to his convent at S. Fosca, when he was +attacked upon a bridge by five ruffians. It so happened that on this +occasion he had no attendance but his servant Fra Marino; Fra Fulgenzio +and a man of courage who usually accompanied him, having taken another +route home. The assassins were armed with harquebusses, pistols and +poniards. One of them went straight at Sarpi, while the others stood on +guard and held down Fra Marino. Fifteen blows in all were aimed at +Sarpi, three of which struck him in the neck and face. The stiletto +remained firmly embedded in his cheekbone between the right ear and +nose. He fell to the ground senseless; and a cry being raised by some +women who had witnessed the outrage from a window, the assassins made +off, leaving their victim for dead. It was noticed that they took +refuge in the palace of the Papal Nuncio, whence they escaped that same +evening to the Lido _en route_ for the States of the Church. An old +Venetian nobleman of the highest birth, Alessandro Malipiero, who bore a +singular affection for the champion of his country's liberty, was +walking a short way in front of Sarpi beyond the bridge upon which the +assault was perpetrated. He rushed to his friend's aid, dragged out the +dagger from his face, and bore him to the convent. There Sarpi lay for +many weeks in danger, suffering as much, it seems, from his physicians +as from the wounds. Not satisfied with the attendance of his own +surgeon, Alvise Ragoza, the Venetians insisted on sending all the +eminent doctors of the city and of Padua to his bedside. The illustrious +Acquapendente formed one of this miscellaneous _cortege_; and when the +cure was completed, he received a rich gold chain and knighthood for his +service. Every medical man suggested some fresh application. Some of +them, suspecting poison, treated the wounds with theriac and antidotes. +Others cut into the flesh and probed. Meanwhile the loss of blood had so +exhausted Sarpi's meager frame that for more than twenty days he had no +strength to move or lift his hands. Not a word of impatience escaped his +lips; and when Acquapendente began to medicate the worst wound in his +face, he moved the dozen doctors to laughter by wittily observing, 'And +yet the world maintains that it was given _Stilo Romanae Curiae_.'[145] +His old friend Malipiero would fain have kept the dagger as a relic. But +Sarpi suspended it at the foot of a crucifix in the church of the Servi, +with this appropriate inscription, _Dei Filio Liberatori_. When he had +recovered from his long suffering, the Republic assigned their Counselor +an increase of pension in order that he might maintain a body of armed +guards, and voted him a house in S. Marco for the greater security of +his person. But Sarpi begged to be allowed to remain among the friars, +with whom he had spent his life, and where his vocation bound him. In +the future he took a few obvious precautions, passing in a gondola to +the Rialto and thence on foot through the crowded Merceria to the Ducal +Palace, and furthermore securing the good offices of his attendants in +the convent by liberal gifts of money. Otherwise, he refused to alter +the customary tenor of his way. + +[Footnote 144: Dispatch to Fr. Contarini under date September 25, 1607, +quoted in Campbell's _Life of Sarpi_, p. 145.] + +[Footnote 145: Fulgenzio's _Life_, p. 61. A.G. Campbell asserts that +this celebrated _mot_ of Sarpi's is not to be found in Fulgenzio's MS. +It occurs, however, quite naturally in the published work. The first +edition of the _Life_ appeared in 1646, eight years before Fulgenzio's +death. The discrepancies between it and the MS. may therefore have been +intended by the author.] + +The State of Venice resented this attack upon their servant as though it +had been directed against the majesty of the Republic. A proclamation +was immediately issued, offering enormous rewards for the capture or +murder of the criminals, especially so worded as to insinuate the belief +that men of high position in Rome were implicated. The names of the +chief conspirators were as follows: Ridolfo Poma, a broken Venetian +merchant; Alessandro Parrasio of Ancona, outlawed for the murder of his +uncle; a priest, Michele Viti of Bergamo; and two soldiers of adventure, +Giovanni di Fiorenza and Pasquale di Bitonto. Having escaped to the +Lido, they took ship for Ravenna and arrived in due course at Ancona, +where they drew 1000 crowns from the Papal Camera, and proceeded to make +triumphal progress through Romagna. Their joy was dashed by hearing that +Fra Paolo had not been killed. The Venetian _bando_ filled them with +fears and mutual suspicions, each man's hand being now set against his +comrade, and every ruffian on the road having an interest in their +capture. Yet after some time they continued their journey to Rome, and +sought sanctuary in the palace of Cardinal Colonna. Here their reception +was not what they had anticipated. Having failed in the main object and +brought scandal on the Church, they were maintained for some months in +obscurity, and then coldly bidden to depart with scanty recompense. All +this while their lives remained exposed to the Venetian ban. Under these +circumstances it is not strange that the men were half-maddened. Poma +raged like a wild beast, worshiping the devil in his private chamber, +planning schemes of piracy and fresh attacks on Sarpi, even +contemplating a last conspiracy against the person of the Pope. He was +seized in Rome by the _sbirri_ of the government, and one of his sons +perished in the scuffle. Another returned to Venice, and ended his days +there as a vagrant lunatic. Poma himself died mad in the prison of +Civita Vecchia. Viti also died mad in the same prison. Parrasio died in +prison at Rome. One of the soldiers was beheaded at Perugia, and the +other fell a victim to cut-throats on the high road. Such was the end of +the five conspirators against Fra Paolo Sarpi's life.[146] A priest, +Franceschi, who had aided and abetted their plot, disappeared soon after +the explosion; and we may rest tolerably assured that his was no natural +removal to another world. + +It is just to add that the instigation of this murderous plot was never +brought home by direct testimony to any members of the Papal Court. But +the recourse which the assassins first had to the asylum of the Nuncio +in Venice, their triumphal progress through cities of the Church, the +moneys they drew on several occasions, the interest taken in them by +Cardinal Borghese when they finally reached Rome, and their deaths in +Papal dungeons, are circumstances of overwhelming cumulative evidence +against the Curia. Sarpi's life was frequently attempted in the +following years. On one occasion, Cardinal Bellarmino, more mindful of +private friendship than of public feud, sent him warning that he must +live prepared for fresh attacks from Rome. + +[Footnote 146: A full account of them is given by Bianchi Giovini in his +_Biografia_, chap. xvii.] + +Indeed, it may be said that he now passed his days in continual +expectation of poison or the dagger. This appears plainly in Fulgenzio's +biography and in the pages of his private correspondence. The most +considerable of these later conspiracies, of which Fra Fulgenzio gives a +full account, implicated Cardinal Borghese and the General of the +Servite Order.[147] The history seems in brief to be as follows. One Fra +Bernardo of Perugia, who had served the Cardinal during their student +days, took up his residence in Rome so soon as Scipione Borghese became +a profitable patron. In the course of the year 1609, this Fra Bernardo +dispatched a fellow-citizen of his, named Fra Giovanni Francesco, to +Padua, whence he frequently came across to Venice and tampered with +Sarpi's secretary, Fra Antonio of Viterbo. These three friars were all +of them Servites; and it appears that the General looked with approval +on their undertaking. The upshot of the traffic was that Fra Antonio, +having ready access to Sarpi's apartments and person, agreed either to +murder him with a razor or to put poison in his food, or, what was +finally determined on, to introduce a couple of assassins into his +bedchamber at night. An accident revealed the plot, and placed a +voluminous cyphered correspondence in the hands of the Venetian +Inquisitor of State. Fra Fulgenzio significantly adds that of all the +persons incriminated by these letters, none, with the exception of the +General of the Servites, was under the rank of Cardinal. The wording of +his sentence is intentionally obscure, but one expression seems even to +point at the Pope.[148] + +[Footnote 147: _Vita di F. Paolo_, pp. 67-70.] + + +At the close of this affair, so disgraceful to the Church and to his +Order, Fra Paolo besought the Signory of Venice on his bended knees, as +a return for services rendered by him to the State, that no public +punishment should be inflicted on the culprits. He could not bear, he +said, to be the cause of bringing a blot of infamy upon his religion, or +of ruining the career of any man. Fra Giovanni Francesco afterwards +redeemed his life by offering weighty evidence against his powerful +accomplices. But what he revealed is buried in the oblivion with which +the Council of Ten in Venice chose to cover judicial acts of +State-importance. + +It is worth considering that in all the attempts upon Sarpi's life, +priests, friars, and prelates of high place were the prime agents.[149] +Poor devils like Poma and Parrasio lay ready to their hands as +sanguinary instruments, which, after work performed, could be broken if +occasion served. What, then, was the religious reformation of which the +Roman Court made ostentatious display when it secured its unexpected +triumph in the Council of Trent? + +[Footnote 148: _Vita di F. Paolo_, p. 68: 'Le cose che vennero a +pubblica notizia e certe sono: che molte persone nominate in quella +cifra, di _Padre_, fratelli, e cugini, per le contracifre consto, dal +Generale de' Servi in fuori, niuna esser di dignita inferiore alia +Cardinalizia.'] + +[Footnote 149: Sarpi says that no crime happened in Venice without a +friar or priest being mixed in it (_Lettere_, vol. i. 351).] + +We must reply that in essential points of moral conduct this +reformation amounted to almost nothing, and in some points to +considerably less than nothing. The Church of God, as Sarpi held, +suffered deformation rather than reformation. That is to say, this +Church, instead of being brought back to primitive simplicity and purged +of temporal abuses, now lay at the mercy of ambitious hypocrites who +with the Supreme Pontiff's sanction, pursued their ends by treachery and +violence. Its hostility to heretics and its new-fangled doctrine of +Papal almightiness encouraged the spread of a pernicious casuistry which +favored assassination. Kings at strife with the Catholic Alliance, +honest Christians defending the prerogatives of their commonwealth, +erudite historians and jurists who disapproved of substituting Popes in +Rome for God in heaven, might be massacred or kidnapped by ruffians red +with the blood of their nearest relatives and carrying the condemnation +of their native States upon their forehead. According to the +post-Tridentine morality of Rome, that morality which the Jesuits openly +preached and published, which was disseminated in every prelate's +ante-chamber, and whispered in every parish-priest's confessional, +enormous sins could be atoned and eternal grace be gained by the +merciless and traitorous murder of any notable man who savored of +heresy. If the Holy Office had instituted a prosecution against the +victim and had condemned him in his absence, the path was plain. +Sentence of excommunication and death publicly pronounced on such a man +reduced him to the condition of a wild beast, whose head was worth solid +coin and plenary absolution to the cut-throat. A private minute recorded +on the books of the Inquisitors had almost equal value; and Sarpi was +under the impression that some such underhand proceeding against himself +had loosed a score of knives. But short of these official or +semi-judicial preliminaries, it was maintained upon the best casuistical +authority that to take the life of any suspected heretic, of any one +reputed heterodox in Roman circles, should be esteemed a work of merit +creditable to the miscreant who perpetrated the deed, and certain, even +should he die for it, to yield him in the other world the joys of +Paradise. These joys the Jesuits described in language worthy of the +Koran. Dabbled in Sarpi's or Duplessis Mornay's blood, quartered and +tortured like Ravaillac, the desperado of so pious a crime would swim +forever in oceans of ecstatic pleasure. The priest, ambitious for his +hierarchy, fanatical in his devotion to the Church, relying upon +privilege if he should chance to be detected, had a plain interest in +promoting and directing such conspiracies. Men of blood, and bandits up +to the hilts in crimes of violence, rendered reckless by the +indiscriminate cruelty of justice in those days, allured by the double +hope of pay and spiritual benefit, rushed without a back-thought into +like adventures. Ready to risk their lives in an unholy cause, such +ruffians were doubly glad to do so when the bait of heaven's felicity +was offered to their grosser understanding. These considerations +explain, but are far indeed from exculpating, the complicity of clergy +and cut-throats in every crime of violence attempted against foes of +Papal Rome. + +Sarpi's worst enemies could scarcely fix on him the crime of heresy. He +was a staunch Catholic; so profoundly versed both in dogmatic theology +and in ecclesiastical procedure, that to remain within the straitest +limits of orthodoxy, while opposing the presumption of the Papal Court, +gave him no trouble. Yet at the time in which he lived, the bare act of +resistance to any will or whim of Rome, passed with those doctors who +were forging new systems of Pontifical supremacy, for heretical. In this +arbitrary and uncanonical sense of the phrase Sarpi was undoubtedly a +heretic. He had deserved the hatred of the Curia, the Inquisition, the +Jesuits, and their myrmidons. Steadily, with caution and a sober spirit, +he had employed his energies and vast accumulated stores of knowledge in +piling up breakwaters against their pernicious innovations. In all his +controversial writings during the interdict Sarpi used none but solid +arguments, drawn from Scripture, canon law, and the Councils of the +early Church, in order to deduce one single principle: namely that both +secular and ecclesiastical organisms, the State and the Church, are +divinely appointed, but with several jurisdictions and for diverse ends. +He pressed this principle home with hammer-strokes of most convincing +proof on common sense and reason. He did so even superfluously to our +modern intellect, which is fatigued by following so elaborate a chain of +precedents up to a foregone conclusion. But he let no word fall, except +by way of passing irony, which could bring contempt upon existing +ecclesiastical potentates; and he maintained a dispassionate temper, +while dealing with topics which at that epoch inflamed the fiercest +party strife. His antagonists, not having sound learning, reason, and +the Scripture on their side, were driven to employ the rhetoric of +personal abuse and the stiletto. In the end the badness of their cause +was proved by the recourse they had to conspiracies of pimps, friars, +murderers, and fanatics, in order to stifle that voice of truth which +told them of their aberration from the laws of God. + +It was not merely by his polemical writings during the interdict, that +Sarpi won the fame of heretic in ultra-papal circles. In his office as +Theologian to the Republic he had to report upon all matters touching +the relations of State to Church; and the treatises which he prepared on +such occasions assumed the proportions, in many instances, of important +literary works. Among these the most considerable is entitled _Delle +Materie Beneficiarie_. Professing to be a discourse upon ecclesiastical +benefices, it combines a brief but sufficient history of the temporal +power of the Papacy, an inquiry into the arts whereby the Church's +property had been accumulated, and a critique of various devices +employed by the Roman Curia to divert that wealth from its original +objects. In 'this golden volume,' to use Gibbon's words, 'the Papal +system is deeply studied and freely described.' Speaking of its purport, +Hallam observes: 'That object was neither more nor less than to +represent the wealth and power of the Church as ill-gotten and +excessive.' Next in importance is a _Treatise on the Inquisition_, which +gives a condensed sketch of the origin and development of the Holy +Office, enlarging upon the special modifications of that institution as +it existed in Venice. Here likewise Sarpi set himself to resist +ecclesiastical encroachments upon the domain of secular jurisdiction. He +pointed out how the right of inquiring into cases of heretical opinion +had been gradually wrested from the hands of the bishop and the State, +and committed to a specially-elected body which held itself only +responsible to Rome. He showed how this powerful tribunal was being used +to the detriment of States, by extending its operation into the sphere +of politics, excluding the secular magistracy from participation in its +judgments, and arrogating to itself the cognizance of civil crimes. A +third _Discourse upon the Press_ brought the same system of attack to +bear upon the Index of prohibited books. Sarpi was here able to +demonstrate that a power originally delegated to the bishops of +proscribing works pernicious to morality and religion, was now employed +for the suppression of sound learning and enlightenment by a +Congregation sworn to support the Papacy. Passing from their proper +sphere of theology and ethics, these ecclesiastics condemned as +heretical all writings which denied the supremacy of Rome over nations +and commonwealths, prevented the publication and sale of books which +defended the rights of princes and republics, and flooded Europe with +doctrines of regicide, Pontifical omnipotence, and hierarchical +predominance in secular affairs. These are the most important of Sarpi's +minor works. But the same spirit of liberal resistance against Church +aggression, supported by the same erudition and critical sagacity, is +noticeable in a short tract explaining how the Right of Asylum had been +abused to the prejudice of public justice; in a _Discourse upon the +Contributions of the Clergy_, distinguishing their real from their +assumed immunities; and in a brief memorandum upon the Greek College in +Rome, exposing the mischief wrought in commonwealths and families by the +Jesuit system of education. + +In all these writings Sarpi held firmly by his main principle, that the +State, no less than the Church, exists _jure divino_. The papal +usurpation of secular prerogatives was in his eyes not merely a +violation of the divinely appointed order of government, but also a +deformation of the ecclesiastical ideal. Those, he argued, are the real +heretics who deprave the antique organism of the Church by making the +Pope absolute, who preach the deity of the Roman Pontiff as though he +were a second God equal in almightiness to God in heaven. 'Nay,' he +exclaims in a passage marked by more than usual heat, 'should one drag +God from heaven they would not stir a finger, provided the Pope +preserved his vice-divinity or rather super-divinity. Bellarmino clearly +states that to restrict the Papal authority to spiritual affairs is the +same as to annihilate it; showing that they value the spiritual at just +zero.'[150] Sarpi saw that the ultra-papalists of his day, by +subordinating the State, the family and the individual to the worldly +interests of Rome, by repressing knowledge and liberty of conscience, +preaching immoral and anti-social doctrines, encouraging superstition +and emasculating education, for the maintenance of those same worldly +interests, were advancing steadily upon the path of self-destruction. +The essence of Christianity was neglected in this brutal struggle for +supremacy; while truth, virtue and religion, those sacred safe-guards of +humanity, which the Church was instituted to preserve, ran no uncertain +risk of perishing through the unnatural perversion of its aims. + +[Footnote 150: _Lettere_, vol. ii. p. 169.] + +The work which won for Sarpi a permanent place in the history of +literature, and which in his lifetime did more than any other of his +writings to expose the Papal system, is the history of the Tridentine +Council. It was not published with his name or with his sanction. A +manuscript copy lent by him to Marcantonio de Dominis, Archbishop of +Spalatro, was taken by that waverer between Catholicism and +Protestantism to England, and published in London under the pseudonym of +Pietro Soave Polano--an anagram of Paolo Sarpi Veneto--in the year 1619. +That Sarpi was the real author admits of no doubt. The book bears every +stamp of genuineness. It is written in the lucid, nervous, +straightforward style of the man, who always sought for mathematical +precision rather than rhetorical elegance in his use of language. Sarpi +had taken special pains to collect materials for a History of the +Council; and in doing so he had enjoyed exceptional advantages. Early in +his manhood he formed at Mantua a close friendship with Camillo Olivo, +who had been secretary to the Papal Legate, Cardinal Gonzaga of Mantua, +at Trent. During his residence in Rome between 1585 and 1587 he became +intimately acquainted with Cardinal Castagna, president of the committee +appointed for drawing up the decrees of the Council. In addition to the +information afforded by these persons, officially connected with the +transactions of the Council, Sarpi had at his command the Archives of +Venice, including the dispatches of ambassadors, and a vast store of +published documents, not to mention numerous details which in the course +of his long commerce with society he had obtained from the lips of +credible witnesses. All these sources, grasped in their diversity by his +powerful memory and animated with his vivid intellect, are worked into +an even, plain, dispassionate narration, which, in spite of the dryness +of the subject, forms a truly fascinating whole. That Sarpi was strictly +fair in his conception of the Council, can scarcely be maintained; for +he wrote in a spirit of distinct antagonism to the ends which it +achieved. Yet the more we examine the series of events described by him, +the more are we convinced that in its main features the work is just. +When Sir Roger Twysden pronounced it 'to be written with so great +moderation, learning and wisdom, as might deserve a place among the +exactest pieces of ecclesiastic story any age had produced,' he did not +overshoot the mark. Nor has the avowedly hostile investigation to which +Cardinal Pallavicini submitted it, done more than to confirm its credit +by showing that a deadly enemy, with all the arsenal of Roman documents +at his command, could only detect inaccuracies in minor details and +express rage at the controlling animus of the work. + +It was Sarpi's object to demonstrate that the Council of Trent, instead +of being a free and open Synod of Christians assembled to discuss points +at issue between the Catholic and Protestant Churches, was in reality a +closely-packed conciliabulum, from which Protestants were excluded, and +where Catholics were dominated by the Italian agents of the Roman Court. +He made it clear, and in this he is confirmed by masses of collateral +proofs, that the presiding spirit of the Council was human diplomacy +rather than divine inspiration, and that Roman intrigue conducted its +transactions to an issue favorable for Papal supremacy by carefully +manipulating the interests of princes and the passions of individuals. +'I shall narrate the causes,' he remarks, in his exordium, 'and the +negotiations of an ecclesiastical convocation during the course of +twenty-two years, for divers ends and with varied means; by whom +promoted and solicited, by whom impeded and delayed; for another +eighteen years, now brought together, now dissolved; always held with +various ends; and which received a form and accomplishment quite +contrary to the design of those who set it going, as also to the fear of +those who took all pains to interrupt it. A clear monition that man +ought to yield his thoughts resignedly to God and not to trust in human +prudence. Forasmuch as this Council, desired and put in motion by pious +men for the reunion of the Church which had begun to break asunder, hath +so established schism and embittered factions that it has rendered those +discords irreconcilable; handled by princes for the reform of the +ecclesiastical system, has caused the greatest deformation that hath +ever been since the name of Christian came into existence; by bishops +with hope expected as that which would restore the episcopal authority, +now in large part absorbed by the sole Roman Pontiff, hath been the +reason of their losing the last vestige of it and of their reduction to +still greater servitude. On the other hand, dreaded and evaded by the +Court of Rome, as an efficient instrument for curbing that exorbitant +power, which from small beginnings hath arrived by various advances to +limitless excess, it has so established and confirmed it over the +portion still left subject to it, as that it never was so vast nor so +well-rooted.' In treating of what he pithily calls 'the Iliad of our +age,' Sarpi promises to observe the truth, and protests that he is +governed by no passion. This promise the historian kept faithfully. His +animus is never allowed to transpire in any direct tirades; his irony +emerges rather in reporting epigrams of others than in personal sarcasms +or innuendoes; his own prepossessions and opinions are carefully veiled. +After reading the whole voluminous history we feel that it would be as +inaccurate to claim Sarpi for Protestantism as to maintain that he was a +friend of ultra-papal Catholicism. What he really had at heart was the +restoration of the Church of God to unity, to purer discipline and to +sincere spirituality. This reconstruction of Christendom upon a sound +basis was, as he perceived, rendered impossible by the Tridentine +decrees. Yet, though the dearest hope of his heart had been thus +frustrated, he set nothing down in malice, nor vented his own +disappointment in laments which might have seemed rebellious against the +Divine will. Sarpi's personality shows itself most clearly in the +luminous discourses with which from time to time he elucidates obscure +matters of ecclesiastical history. Those on episcopal residence, +pluralism, episcopal jurisdiction, the censure of books, and the +malappropriation of endowments, are specially valuable.[151] If no other +proof existed, these digressions would render Sarpi's authorship of the +History unmistakable. They are identical in style and in intention with +his acknowledged treatises, firmly but calmly expressing a sound +scholar's disapproval of abuses which had grown up like morbid +excrescences upon the Church. Taken in connection with the interpolated +summaries of public opinion regarding the Council's method of procedure +and its successive decrees, these discourses betray a spirit of +hostility to Rome which is nowhere openly expressed. Sarpi illustrated +Aretino's cynical sentence: 'How can you speak evil of your neighbor? By +speaking the truth, by speaking the truth!'--without rancor and without +passion. Nothing, in fact, could have been more damaging to Rome than +his precise analysis of her arts in the Council. + +I have said that the History of the Tridentine Council, though it +confirmed Sarpi's heretical reputation, would not justify us in +believing him at heart a Protestant.[152] + +[Footnote 151: _Opere di Paolo Sarpi_, Helmstaedt, 1761, vol. i. pp. 200, +233, 311; vol. ii. pp. 89, 187.] + +[Footnote 152: This contradicts the opinion of Hallam and Macaulay, both +of whom were convinced that Sarpi was a Protestant at heart. Macaulay +wishes that he had thrown off the friar's frock. In a certain sense +Sarpi can be classified with the larger minds among the Reformed +Churches of his age. But to call him a Protestant who concealed his real +faith, argues coarseness of perception, incapacity for comprehending any +attitude above and beyond belligerent Catholicism and Protestantism, or +of sympathizing with the deeply-religious feelings of one who, after +calculating all chances and surveying all dogmatic differences, thought +that he could serve God as well and his country better in that communion +which was his by birthright. To an illuminated intellect there was not +in the seventeenth century much reason to prefer one of the Reformed +Churches to Catholicism, except for the sake of political freedom. It +being impossible to change the State-religion in Venice, Sarpi had no +inducement to leave his country and to pass his life in exile among +prejudiced sectarians.] + +Very much depends on how we define the word Protestant. If Sarpi's +known opinions regarding the worldliness of Rome, ecclesiastical abuses, +and Papal supremacy, constitute a Protestant, then he certainly was one. +But if antagonism to Catholic dogma, repudiation of the Catholic +Sacraments and abhorrence of monastic institutions are also necessary to +the definition, then Sarpi was as certainly no Protestant. He seems to +have anticipated the position of those Christians who now are known as +Old Catholics. This appears from his vivid sympathy with the Gallican +Church, and from his zealous defense of those prerogatives and +privileges in which the Venetian Church resembled that of France. We +must go to his collected letters in order to penetrate his real way of +thinking on the subject of reform. The most important of these are +addressed to Frenchmen--Ph. Duplessis Mornay, De l'Isle Groslot, +Leschassier, a certain Roux, Gillot, and Casaubon. If we could be quite +sure that the text of these familiar letters had not been tampered with +before publication, their testimony would be doubly valuable. As it is, +no one at all acquainted with Sarpi's style will doubt that in the main +they are trustworthy. Here and there it may be that a phrase has been +inserted or modified to give a stronger Protestant coloring. The +frequent allusion to the Court of Rome under the title of _La +Meretrice_, especially in letters to Duplessis Mornay, looks +suspicious.[153] Yet Dante, Petrarch and Savonarola used similar +metaphors, when describing the secular ambition of the Papacy. Having +pointed out a weakness in this important series of documents, I will +translate some obviously genuine passages which illustrate Sarpi's +attitude toward reform. + +Writing to Leschassier upon the literary warfare of James I., he says it +is a pity that the king did not abstain from theology and confine +himself to the defense of his princely prerogatives against the claims +of Rome. He has exposed himself to the imputation of wishing to upset +the foundations of the faith. 'With regard to our own affairs [_i.e._ in +Venice], we do not seek to mix up heaven and earth, things human and +things divine. Our desire is to leave the sacraments and all that +pertains to religion as they are, believing that we can uphold the +secular government in those rights which Scripture and the teaching of +the Fathers confirm.'[154] In another place he says: 'I have well +considered the reasons which drew Germany and England into changing the +observances of religion; but upon us neither these nor others of greater +weight will exercise any influence. + +[Footnote 153: _Lettere_, vol. ii. pp. 3, 18, 96, 109, and elsewhere.] + +[Footnote 154: _Ib._ vol. ii. p. 6.] + +It is better to suffer certain rules and customs that are not in all +points commendable, than to acquire a taste for revolution and to yield +to the temptation of confounding all things in chaos.'[155] His own +grievance against the Popes, he adds, is that they are innovating and +destroying the primitive constitution of the Church. With regard to the +possibility of uniting Christendom, he writes that many of the +differences between Catholics and Protestants seem to him verbal; many, +such as could be tolerated in one communion; and many capable of +adjustment. But a good occasion must be waited for.[156] Nothing can be +done in Italy without a general war, that shall shake the powers of +Spain and Rome.[157] Both Spain and Rome are so well aware of their +peril that they use every means to keep Italy in peace.[158] If the +Protestants of Europe are bent on victory, they must imitate the policy +of Scipio and attack the Jesuits and Rome in their headquarters.[159] +'There is no enterprise of greater moment than to destroy the credit of +the Jesuits. When they are conquered, Rome is taken; and without Rome, +religion reforms itself spontaneously.'[160] 'Changes in State are +inextricably involved in changes of religion;'[161] and Italy will never +be free so long as the Diacatholicon lasts. + +[Footnote 155: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 237.] + +[Footnote 156: _Ib._ p. 268.] + +[Footnote 157: _Ib._ vol. ii. pp. 29, 48, 59, 60, 125.] + +[Footnote 158: _Ib._ p. 120, 124.] + +[Footnote 159: _Ib._ p. 226.] + +[Footnote 160: _Ib._ p. 217.] + +[Footnote 161: _Ib._ p. 427.] + +Meanwhile, 'were it not for State policy there would be found hundreds +ready to leap from this ditch of Rome to the summit of Reform.'[162] The +hope of some improvement at Venice depends mainly upon the presence +there of embassies from Protestant powers--England, Holland and the +Grisons.[163] These give an opportunity to free religious discussion, +and to the dissemination of Gospel truth. Sarpi is strong in his praise +of Fra Fulgenzio for fearlessly preaching Christ and the truth, and +repeats the Pope's complaint that the Bible is injurious to the Catholic +faith.[164] He led William Bedell, chaplain to Sir H. Wotton and +afterwards Bishop of Kilmore, to believe that Fra Fulgenzio and himself +were ripe for Reform. 'These two I know,' writes Bedell to Prince Henry, +'as having practiced with them, to desire nothing so much as the +Reformation of the Church, and, in a word, for the substance of religion +they are wholly ours.'[165] During the interdict Diodati came from +Geneva to Venice, and Sarpi informed him that some 12,000 persons in the +city wished for rupture with Rome; but the government and the +aristocracy being against it, nothing could be done.[166] + +[Footnote 162: _Lettere_, vol. ii. p. 283.] + +[Footnote 163: _Ib._ p. 110, 311.] + +[Footnote 164: _Ib._ vol. i. pp. 220, 222, 225, 231, 239.] + +[Footnote 165: Campbell's _Life_, p. 132.] + +[Footnote 166: _Ib._ p. 133, 135.] + +Enough has now been quoted to throw some light upon Sarpi's attitude +toward Protestantism. That he most earnestly desired the overthrow of +ultra-papal Catholicism, is apparent. So also are his sympathies with +those reformed nations which enjoyed liberty of conscience and +independence of ecclesiastical control. Yet his first duty was to +Venice; and since the State remained Catholic, he personally had no +intention of quitting the communion into which he had been born and in +which he was an ordained priest. All Churches, he wrote in one memorable +letter to Casaubon, have their imperfections. The Church of Corinth, in +the days of the Apostles, was corrupt.[167] 'The fabric of the Church of +God,' being on earth, cannot expect immunity from earthly +frailties.[168] Such imperfections and such frailties as the Catholic +Church shared with all things of this world, Sarpi was willing to +tolerate. The deformation of that Church by Rome and Jesuitry he +manfully withstood; but he saw no valid reason why he should abandon her +for Protestantism. In his own conscience he remained free to serve God +in spirit and in truth. The mind of the man in fact was too far-seeing +and too philosophical to exchange old lamps for new without a better +prospect of attaining to absolute truth than the dissenters from +Catholicism afforded. His interest in Protestant, as separate from +Catholic Reform, was rather civil and political than religious or +theological. Could those soaring wings of Rome be broken, then and not +till then might the Italians enjoy freedom of conscience, liberty of +discussion and research, purer piety, and a healthier activity as +citizens. + +[Footnote 167: _Lettere_, vol. ii. p. 86.] + +[Footnote 168: _Ib._ vol. i. p. 283.] + +Side light may be thrown upon Sarpi's judgment of the European situation +by considering in detail what he said about the Jesuits. This company, +as we have seen, lent its support to Papal absolutism; and during the +later years of Sarpi's life it seemed destined to carry the world before +it, by control of education, by devotion to Rome, by adroit manipulation +of the religious consciousness for anti-social ends and ecclesiastical +aggrandizement. + +The sure sign of being in the right, said Sarpi, is when one finds +himself in contradiction to the Jesuits. They are most subtle masters in +ill-doing, men who, if their needs demand, are ready to commit crimes +worse than those of which they now are guilty. All falsehood and all +blasphemy proceed from them. They have set the last hand at establishing +universal corruption. They are a public plague, the plague of the world, +chameleons who take their color from the soil they squat on, flatterers +of princes, perverters of youth. They not only excuse but laud lying; +their dissimulation is bare and unqualified mendacity; their malice is +inestimable. They have the art so to blend their interests and that of +Rome, seeking for themselves and the Papacy the empire of the world, +that the Curia must needs support them, while it cowers before their +inscrutable authority. They are the ruin of good literature and +wholesome doctrine by their pitiful pretense of learning and their +machinery of false teaching. On ignorance rests their power, and truth +is mortal to them. Every vice of which humanity is capable, every +frailty to which it is subject, finds from them support and consolation. +If S. Peter had been directed by a Jesuit confessor he might have +arrived at denying Christ without sin. The use the confessional as an +instrument of political and domestic influence, reciprocating its +confidences one with the other in their own debates, but menacing their +penitents with penalties if a word of their counsel be bruited to the +world. Expelled from Venice, they work more mischief there by their +intrigues than they did when they were tolerated.[169] They scheme to +get a hold on Constantinople and Palestine, in order to establish +seminaries of fanatics and assassins. They are responsible for the +murder of Henri IV., for if they did not instigate Ravaillac, their +doctrine of regicide inspired him. They can creep into any kingdom, any +institution, any household, because they readily accept any terms and +subscribe to any conditions in the certainty that by the adroit use of +flattery, humbug, falsehood, and corruption, they will soon become +masters of the situation. In France they are the real Morbus Gallicus. +In Italy they are the soul of the Diacatholicon. + +[Footnote 169: It is worthy of notice, as a stern Venetian joke, that +when the Jesuits eventually returned to Rialto, they were bade walk in +processions upon ceremonial occasions between the Fraternities of S. +Marco and S. Teodoro--saints amid whose columns on the Molo criminals +were executed.] + +The torrent of Sarpi's indignation against the Jesuits, as perverters of +sound doctrine in the Church, disturbers of kingdoms, sappers of +morality and disseminators of vile customs through society, runs so +violently forward that we are fain to check it, while acknowledging its +justice. One passage only, from the many passages bearing on this topic +in his correspondence, demands special citation, since it deals directly +with the whole material of the present work. Writing to his friend +Leschassier, he speaks as follows: 'Nothing can be of more mischief to +you in France than the dishonesty of bad confessors and their +determination to aggrandize Rome by any means, together with the +mistaken zeal of the good sort. We have arrived at a point where cure of +the disease must even be despaired of. Fifty years ago things went well +in Italy. There was no public system of education for training young men +to the profit of the clergy. They were brought up by their parents in +private, more for the advantage of their families than for that of the +hierarchy. In religious houses, where studies flourished, attention was +paid to scholastic logic. The jurisdiction and the authority of the Pope +were hardly touched on; and while theology was pursued at leisure, the +majority passed their years in contemplation of the Deity and angels. +Recently, through the decrees of the Tridentine Council, schools have +been opened in every State, which are called Seminaries, where education +is concentrated on the sole end of augmenting ecclesiastical supremacy. +Furthermore, the prelates of each district, partly with a view of saving +their own pockets, and partly that they may display a fashionable show +of zeal, have committed the charge of those institutions to Jesuits. +This has caused a most important alteration in the aspect of +affairs.'[170] It would be difficult to state the changes effected by +the Tridentine Council and the commission of education to the Jesuits +more precisely and more fairly than in this paragraph. How deeply Sarpi +had penetrated the Jesuitical arts in education, can be further +demonstrated from another passage in his minor works.[171] In a memoir +prepared for the Venetian Signory, he says that the Jesuits are vulgarly +supposed to be unrivaled as trainers of youth. But a patent equivocation +lurks under this phrase 'unrivaled.' Education must be considered with +regard to the utility of the State. 'Now the education of the Jesuits +consists in stripping the pupil of every obligation to his father, to +his country, and to his natural prince; in diverting all his love and +fear toward a spiritual superior, on whose nod, beck and word he is +dependent. This system of training is useful for the supremacy of +ecclesiastics and for such secular governments as they are ready to +submit to; and none can deny that the Jesuits are without equals in +their employment of it. Yet in so far as it is advantageous in such +cases, so also is it prejudicial to States, the end whereof is liberty +and real virtue, and with whom the ecclesiastical faction remains in +bad accord. From the Jesuit colleges there never issued a son obedient +to his father, devoted to his country, loyal to his prince. The cause of +this is that the Jesuits employ their best energies in destroying +natural affection, respect for parents, reverence for princes. Therefore +they only deserve to be admired by those whose interest it is to subject +family, country and government to ecclesiastical interests.' + + +[Footnote 170: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 126; _Opere_, vol. vi. p. 40.] + +[Footnote 171: _Opere_, vol. vi. p. 145.] + +The Provincial Letters of Pascal, which Sarpi anticipated in so many +points, suffice to prove that he was justified in this hostility to +ultramontanism backed up by Jesuit artifices. He was writing, be it +remembered, at the very high tide of Papal domination, when Henri IV. +had been assassinated, and when the overwhelming forces of secular +interests combined with intellectual progress had not as yet set limits +on ecclesiastical encroachment. The dread lest Europe should succumb to +Rome, now proved by subsequent events an unsubstantial nightmare, was +real enough for this Venetian friar, who ran daily risk of assassination +in down-trodden servile Italy, with Spanish plots threatening the +arsenal, with France delivered into the hands of Florentines and +casuists, with England in the grip of Stuarts, and with Germany +distracted by intrigues. He could not foresee that in the course of a +century the Jesuits would be discredited by their own arts, and that the +Papacy would subside into a pacific sovereignty bent on securing its own +temporal existence by accommodation. + +The end of Sarpi's life consecrated the principles of duty to God and +allegiance to his country which had animated its whole course. He fell +into a bad state of health; yet nothing would divert him from the due +discharge of public business. 'All the signs of the soul's speedy +departure from that age-enfeebled body, were visible; but his +indefatigable spirit sustained him in such wise that he bore exactly all +his usual burdens. When his friends and masters bade him relax his +energies, he used to answer: My duty is to serve and not to live; there +is some one daily dying in his office.[172] When at length the very +sources of existence failed, and the firm brain wandered for a moment, +he was once heard to say: 'Let us go to S. Mark, for it is late.'[173] +The very last words he uttered, frequently repeated, but scarcely +intelligible, were: 'Esto Perpetua.'[174] _May Venice last forever_! +This was the dying prayer of the man who had consecrated his best +faculties to the service of his country. But before he passed away into +that half slumber which precedes death, he made confession to his +accustomed spiritual father, received the Eucharist and Extreme Unction, +and bade farewell to the superior of the Servites, in the following +sentence: 'Go ye to rest, and I will return to God, from whom I came.' +With these words he closed his lips in silence, crossing his hands upon +his breast and fixing his eyes upon a crucifix that stood before +him.[175] + +[Footnote 172: Fulgenzio's _Life_, p. 98.] + +[Footnote 173: _Ibid._ p. 105.] + +[Footnote 174: _Ibid._] + +[Footnote 175: Letter of the Superior to the Venetian Senate, printed in +the _Lettere_, vol. ii. pp. 450-453. It is worth meditating on the +contrast between Sarpi's and Bruno's deaths. Sarpi died with the +consolations of religion on his bed in the convent which had been his +life-long home. Bruno was burned alive, with eyes averted from the +crucifix in bitter scorn, after seven and a half years spent in the +prisons of the Inquisition. Sarpi exhaled his last breath amid +sympathizing friends, in the service of a grateful country. Bruno panted +his death-pangs of suffocation and combustion out, surrounded by +menacing Dominicans, in the midst of hostile Rome celebrating her +triumphant jubilee. Sarpi's last thoughts were given to the God of +Christendom and the Republic. Bruno had no country; the God in whom he +trusted at that grim hour, was the God within his soul, unrealized, +detached by his own reason from every Church and every creed.] + + I will return to God from whom I came. + +These words--not the last, for the last were _Esto perpetua_; but the +last spoken in the presence of his fraternity--have a deep significance +for those who would fain understand the soul of Sarpi. When in his +lifetime he spoke of the Church, it was always as 'the Church of God.' +When he relegated his own anxieties for the welfare of society to a +superior power, it was not to Mary, as Jesuits advised, nor even to +Christ, but invariably to the Providence of God. Sarpi, we have the +right to assume, lived and died a sincere believer in the God who orders +and disposes of the universe; and this God, identical in fact though not +in form with Bruno's, he worshiped through such symbols of ceremony and +religion as had been adopted by him in his youth. An intellect so clear +of insight as this, knew that 'God is a spirit, and they that worship +him must worship him in spirit and in truth.' He knew that 'neither on +this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem,' neither in Protestant communities +nor yet in Rome was the authentic God made tangible; but that a loyal +human being, created in God's image, could serve him and adore him with +life-worship under any of the spiritual shapes which mortal frailty has +fashioned for its needs. + +To penetrate the abyss of any human personality is impossible. No man +truly sees into his living neighbor's, brother's, wife's, nay even his +own soul. How futile, therefore, is the effort which we make to seize +and sketch the vital lineaments of men long dead, divided from us not +merely by the grave which has absorbed their fleshly form and deprived +us of their tone of voice, but also by those differences in thought and +feeling which separate the centuries of culture! Yet this impossible +task lies ever before the historian. Few characters are more patently +difficult to comprehend than that of Sarpi. Ultimately, so far as it is +possible to formulate a view, I think he may be defined as a Christian +Stoic, possessed with two main governing ideas, duty to God and duty to +Venice. His last words were for Venice; the penultimate consigned his +soul to God. For a mind like his, so philosophically tempered, so versed +in all the history of the world to us-wards, the materials of dispute +between Catholic and Protestant must have seemed but trifles. He stayed +where he had early taken root, in his Servite convent at S. Fosca, +because he there could dedicate his life to God and Venice better than +in any Protestant conventicle. Had Venice inclined toward rupture with +Rome, had the Republic possessed the power to make that rupture with +success, Sarpi would have hailed the event gladly, as introducing for +Italy the prospect of spiritual freedom, purer piety, and the overthrow +of Papal-Spanish despotism. But Venice chose to abide in the old ways, +and her Counselor of State knew better than any one that she had not the +strength to cope with Spain, Rome, Jesuitry and Islam single-handed. +Therefore he possessed his soul in patience, worshiping God under forms +and symbols to which he had from youth been used, trusting the while +that sooner or later God would break those mighty wings of Papal +domination. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +GUARINO, MARINO, CHIABRERA, TASSONI. + + Dearth of Great Men--Guarini a Link between Tasso and the + Seventeenth Century--His Biography--The _Pastor Fido_--Qualities of + Guarini as Poet--Marino the Dictator of Letters--His Riotous Youth + at Naples--Life at Rome, Turin, Paris--Publishes the _Adone_--The + Epic of Voluptuousness--Character and Action of Adonis--Marino's + Hypocrisy--Sentimental Sweetness--Brutal Violence--Violation of + Artistic Taste--Great Powers of the Poet--Structure of the + _Adone_--Musical Fluency--Marinism--Marino's Patriotic + Verses--Contrast between Chiabrera and Marino--An Aspirant after + Pindar--Chiabrera's Biography--His Court Life--Efforts of Poets in + the Seventeenth Century to attain to Novelty--Chiabrera's + Failure--Tassoni's Life--His Thirst to Innovate--Origin of the + _Secchia Rapita_--Mock-Heroic Poetry--The Plot of this Poem--Its + Peculiar Humor--Irony and Satire--Novelty of the Species--Lyrical + Interbreathings--Sustained Contrast of Parody and Pathos--The Poet + Testi. + +Soon after 1600 it became manifest that lapse of years and +ecclesiastical intolerance had rendered Italy nearly destitute of great +men. Her famous sons were all either dead, murdered or exiled; reduced +to silence by the scythe of time or by the Roman 'arguments of sword and +halter.' Bruno burned, Vanini burned, Carnesecchi burned, Paleario +burned, Bonfadio burned; Campanella banished, after a quarter of a +century's imprisonment with torture; the leaders of free religious +thought in exile, scattered over northern Europe. Tasso, worn out with +misery and madness, rested at length in his tomb on the Janiculan; +Sarpi survived the stylus of the Roman Curia with calm inscrutability at +S. Fosca; Galileo meditated with closed lips in his watch-tower behind +Bello Sguardo. With Michelangelo in 1564, Palladio in 1580, Tintoretto +in 1594, the godlike lineage of the Renaissance artists ended; and what +children of the sixteenth century still survived to sustain the nation's +prestige, to carry on its glorious traditions? The list is but a poor +one. Marino, Tassoni, the younger Buonarroti, Boccalini and Chiabrera in +literature. The Bolognese Academy in painting. After these men expand +arid wildernesses of the Sei Cento--barocco architecture, false taste, +frivolity, grimace, affectation--Jesuitry translated into culture. On +one bright point, indeed, the eye rests with hope and comfort. +Palestrina, when he died in 1594, did not close but opened an age for +music. His posterity, those composers, lutists, violists and singers, +from whom the modern art of arts has drawn her being, down to the sweet +fellowship of Pergolese, Marcello and Jomelli, of Guarneri, Amati and +Stradivari, of Farinelli, Caffarielli and La Romanina, were as yet but +rising dimly heralded with light of dawn upon their foreheads. + +In making the transition from the _Gerusalemme_ to the _Adone_, from the +last great poem of the Cinque Cento to the epic of the Sei Cento, it is +indispensable that notice should be taken of the _Pastor Fido_ and its +author. Giambattista Guarini forms a link between Vasso and the poets of +the seventeenth century. He belonged less to the Renaissance, more to +the culture of the age created by the Council of Trent, than did Tasso. +His life, in many of its details similar, in others most dissimilar, to +that of Tasso, illustrates and helps us in some measure to explain the +latter. It must therefore form the subject of a somewhat detailed study. + +Guarini drew his blood on the paternal side from the illustrious +humanist Guarino of Verona, who settled at Ferrara in the fifteenth +century as tutor to Leonello d'Este.[176] By his mother he claimed +descent from the Florentine house of Machiavelli. Born in 1537, he was +seven years older than Torquato Tasso, whom he survived eighteen years, +not closing his long life until 1612. He received a solid education both +at Pisa and Padua, and was called at the early age of eighteen to +profess moral philosophy in the University of Ferrara. Being of noble +birth and inheriting a considerable patrimony, Guarini might have +enjoyed a life of uninterrupted literary leisure, if he had chosen to +forego empty honors and shun the idle distractions of Courts. But it was +the fate of distinguished men in that age to plunge into those +quicksands. Guarini had a character and intellect suited to the conduct +of state affairs; and he shared the delusion prevalent among his +contemporaries, that the petty Italian principalities could offer a +field for the exercise of these talents. 'If our country is reduced to +the sole government of a prince,' he writes, 'the man who serves his +prince will serve his country, a duty both natural and binding upon +all.'[177] Accordingly, soon after his marriage to Taddea of the noble +Bendedei family, he entered the service of Alfonso II. This was in 1567. +Tasso, in his quality of gentleman to Cardinal d'Este, had already shed +lustre on Ferrara through the past two years. Guarini first made Tasso's +friendship at Padua, where both were Eterei and house-guests of Scipione +Gonzaga. The two poets now came together in a rivalry which was not +altogether amicable. The genius of Tasso, in the prime of youth and +heyday of Court-favor, roused Guarini's jealousy. And yet their +positions were so different that Guarini might have been well satisfied +to pursue his own course without envy. A married and elder man, he had +no right to compete in gallantry with the brilliant young bachelor. +Destined for diplomacy and affairs of state, he had no cause to grudge +the Court poet his laurels. Writing in 1595, Guarini avers that 'poetry +has been my pastime, never my profession'; and yet he made it his +business at Ferrara to rival Tasso both as a lyrist and as a servant of +dames. Like Tasso, he suffered from the spite of Alfonso's secretaries, +Pigna and Montecatino, who seem to have incarnated the malevolence of +courtiers in its basest form. So far, there was a close parallel between +the careers of the two men at Ferrara. + +[Footnote 176: See _Renaissance in Italy_, vol. ii. pp. 299, 300.] + +[Footnote 177: _Lettere del Guarini_, Venezia, 1596, p. 2.] + +But Guarini's wealth and avowed objects in life caused the duke from +the first to employ him in a different kind of service. Alfonso sent him +as ambassador to Venice, Rome, and Turin, giving him the rank of +Cavaliere in order that he might perform his missions with more dignity. +At Turin, where he resided for some time, Guarini conceived a just +opinion of the growing importance of the House of Savoy. Like all the +finest spirits of his age, Tassoni, Sarpi, Chiabrera, Marino, Testi, he +became convinced that if Italy were to recover her independence, it +could only be by the opposition of the Dukes of Savoy to Spain. How +nearly the hopes of these men were being realized by Carlo Emmanuele, +and how those hopes were frustrated by Roman intrigues and the jealousy +of Italian despots, is matter of history. Yet the student may observe +with interest that the most penetrating minds of the sixteenth century +already discerned the power by means of which, after the lapse of nearly +three hundred years, the emancipation of Italy has been achieved. + +In 1574 Guarini was sent to Poland, to congratulate Henri III. upon his +election to that monarchy. He went a second time in the following year +to conduct more delicate negotiations. The crown of Poland was now +thrown open to candidature; and more than one of the Italian Princes +thought seriously of competing for this honor. The Grand Duke of Tuscany +entertained the notion and abandoned it. But Alfonso II. of Ferrara, who +had fought with honor in his youth in Hungary, made it a serious object +of ambition. Manolesso, the Venetian envoy in 1575 at Ferrara, relates +how the duke spent laborious hours in acquiring the German language, +'which no one learns for pleasure, since it is most barbarous, nor +quickly, but with industry and large expenditure of time.' He also +writes: 'The duke aspires to greatness, nor is satisfied with his +present State; and therefore he has entered into the Polish affair, +encouraged thereto by his brother the Cardinal and by his ambassador in +Poland.'[178] + +These embassies were a serious drain upon Guarini's resources; for it +appears certain that if he received any appointments, they were +inadequate to the expenses of long journeys and the maintenance of a +becoming state. He therefore returned to Ferrara, considerably burdened +with debts; and this was just the time at which Tasso's mental +derangement began to manifest itself. Between 1575 and 1579, the date of +Tasso's imprisonment at Sant' Anna, the two men lived together at the +Court. Guarini's rivalry induced him at this period to cultivate poetry +with such success that, when the author of the _Gerusalemme_ failed, +Alfonso commanded him to take the vacant place of Court poet. There is +an interesting letter extant from Guarini to his friend Cornelio +Bentivoglio, describing the efforts he made to comply with the Duke's +pleasure. 'I strove to transform myself into another man, and, like a +playactor, to reassume the character, manners and emotions of a past +period. Mature in age, I forced myself to appear young; exchanged my +melancholy for gayety: affected loves I did not feel; turned my wisdom +into folly, and, in a word, passed from philosopher to poet.'[179] How +ill-adapted he was to this masquerade existence may be gathered from +another sentence in the same letter. 'I am already in my forty-fourth +year, burdened with debts, the father of eight children, two of my sons +old enough to be my judges, and with my daughters to marry.' + +[Footnote 178: Alberi, _Relazioni_, series 2, vol. ii. pp. 423-425.] + +At last, abandoning this uncongenial strain upon his faculties, Guarini +retired in 1582 to the villa which he had built upon his ancestral +estate in the Polesine, that delightful rustic region between Adige and +Po. Here he gave himself up to the cares of his family, the nursing of +his dilapidated fortune, and the composition of the _Pastor Fido_. It is +not yet the time to speak of that work, upon which Guarini's fame as +poet rests; for the drama, though suggested by Tasso's _Aminta_, was not +finally perfected until 1602.[180] Yet we may pause to remark upon the +circumstances under which he wrote it. A disappointed courtier, past the +prime of manhood, feeling his true vocation to be for severe studies and +practical affairs, he yet devoted years of leisure to the slow +elaboration of a dramatic masterpiece which is worthy to rank with the +classics of Italian literature. During this period his domestic lot was +not a happy one. He lost his wife, quarreled with his elder sons, and +involved himself in a series of lawsuits.[181] Litigation seems to have +been an inveterate vice of his maturity, and he bequeathed to his +descendants a coil of legal troubles. Having married one of his +daughters, Anna, to Count Ercole Trotti, he had the misery of hearing in +1596 that she had fallen an innocent victim to her husband's jealousy, +and that his third son, Girolamo connived at her assassination. In the +midst of these annoyances and sorrows, he maintained a grave and robust +attitude, uttering none of those querulous lamentations which flowed so +readily from Tasso's pen. + +[Footnote 179: _Lettere_, p. 195.] + +[Footnote 180: In this year it was published with the author's revision +by Ciotto at Venice. It had been represented at Turin in 1585, and first +printed at Venice in 1590.] + +Tasso had used the Pastoral Drama to idealize Courts. Guarini vented all +the bitterness of his soul against them in his _Pastor Fido_. He also +wrote from his retirement: 'I am at ease in the enjoyment of liberty, +studies, the management of my household.'[182] Yet in 1585, while on a +visit to Turin, he again accepted proposals from Alfonso. He had gone +there in order to superintend the first representation of his Pastoral, +which was dedicated to the Duke of Savoy. Extremely averse to his old +servants taking office under other princes, the Duke of Ferrara seems to +have feared lest Guarini should pass into the Court of Carlo Emmanuele. +He therefore appointed him Secretary of State; and Guarini entered upon +the post in the same year that Tasso issued from his prison. This +reconciliation did not last long. Alfonso took the side of Alessandro +Guarini in a lawsuit with his father; and the irritable poet retired in +indignation to Florence. The Duke of Ferrara, however, was determined +that he should not serve another master. At Florence, Turin, Mantua and +Rome, his attempts to obtain firm foothold in offices of trust were +invariably frustrated; and Coccapani, the Duke's envoy, hinted that if +Guarini were not circumspect, 'he might suffer the same fate as Tasso.' +To shut Guarini up in a madhouse would have been difficult. Still he +might easily have been dispatched by the poniard; and these words throw +not insignificant light upon Tasso's terror of assassination. + +[Footnote 181: Guarini may be compared with Trissino in these points of +his private life. See _Renaissance in Italy_, vol. v. 303-305.] + +[Footnote 182: _Lettere_, p. 196.] + +The Duke Alfonso died in 1597, and Ferrara reverted to the Holy See. +Upon this occasion, Guarini was free to follow his own inclinations. He +therefore established himself at the Court of the Grand Duke, into whose +confidence he entered upon terms of flattering familiarity. Ferdinando +de'Medici 'fell in love with him as a man may with a fine woman,' says +his son Alessandro in one of his apologetic writings. This, however, +meant but little; for compliments passed freely between princes and +their courtiers; which, when affairs of purse or honor were at stake, +soon turned to discontent and hatred. So it fared with Guarini at +Florence. His son, Guarino, made a marriage of which he disapproved, but +which the Grand Duke countenanced. So slight a disagreement snapped the +ties of friendship, and the restless poet removed to the Court of +Urbino. There the last duke of the House of Rovere, Francesco Maria II., +Tasso's schoolfellow and patron, was spending his widowed years in +gloomy Spanish pride. The mortmain of the Church was soon to fall upon +Urbino, as it had already fallen on Ferrara. Guarini wrote: 'The former +Court in Italy is a dead thing. One may see the shadow, but not the +substance of it nowadays. Ours is an age of appearances, and one goes +a-masquerading all the year.' A sad but sincere epitaph, inscribed by +one who had gone the round of all the Courts of Italy, and had survived +the grand free life of the Renaissance. + +These words close Guarini's career as courtier. He returned to Ferrara +in 1604, and in 1605 carried the compliments of that now Pontifical city +to Paul V. in Rome on his election to the Papacy. Upon this occasion +Cardinal Bellarmino told him that he had inflicted as much harm on +Christendom by his _Pastor Fido_ as Luther and Calvin by their heresies. +He retorted with a sarcasm which has not been transmitted to us, but +which may probably have reflected on the pollution of Christian morals +by the Jesuits. In 1612 Guarini died at Venice, whither he was summoned +by one of his innumerable and interminable lawsuits. + +Bellarmino's censure of the _Pastor Fido_ strikes a modern reader as +inexplicably severe. Yet it is certain that the dissolute seventeenth +century recognized this drama as one of the most potent agents of +corruption. Not infrequent references in the literature of that age to +the ruin of families and reputations by its means, warn us to remember +how difficult it is to estimate the ethical sensibilities of society in +periods remote from our own.[183] In the course of the analysis which I +now propose to make of this play, I shall attempt to show how, coming +midway between Tasso's _Aminta_ and Marino's _Adone_, and appealing to +the dominant musical enthusiasms of the epoch, Guarini's _Pastor Fido_ +may have merited the condemnation of far-sighted moralists. Not +censurable in itself, it was so related to the sentimental sensuality of +its period as to form a link in the chain of enervation which weighed on +Italy. + +[Footnote 183: _Il Pastor Fido_, per cura di G. Casella (Firenze, +Barbera, 1866), p. liv.] + +The _Pastor Fido_ is a tragi-comedy, as its author points out with some +elaboration in the critical essay he composed upon that species of the +drama. The scene is laid in Arcadia, where according to Guarini it was +customary to sacrifice a maiden each year to Diana, in expiation of an +ancient curse brought upon the country by a woman's infidelity. An +oracle has declared that when two scions of divine lineage are united in +marriage, and a faithful shepherd atones for woman's faithlessness, +this inhuman rite shall cease. The only youth and girl who fulfill these +conditions of divine descent are the daughter of Titiro named Amarilli, +and Silvio, the son of the high priest Montano. They have accordingly +been betrothed. But Silvio is indifferent to womankind in general, and +Amarilli loves a handsome stranger, Mirtillo, supposed to be the son of +Carino. The plot turns upon the unexpected fulfillment of the prophecy, +in spite of the human means which have been blindly taken to secure its +accomplishment. Amarilli is condemned to death for suspected misconduct +with a lover; and Mirtillo, who has substituted himself as victim in her +place, is found to be the lost son of Montano. This solution of the +intrigue, effected by an anagnorisis like that of the _Oedipus +Tyrannus_, supplies a series of dramatic scenes and thrilling situations +in the last act. Meanwhile the passion of Dorinda for Silvio, and the +accident whereby he is brought to return her affection at the moment +when his dart has wounded her, form a picturesque underplot of +considerable interest. Both plot and underplot are so connected in the +main action and so interwoven by links of mutual dependency that they +form one richly varied fabric. Regarded as a piece of cunning mechanism, +the complicated structure of the _Pastor Fido_ leaves nothing to be +desired. In its kind, this pastoral drama is a monumental work of art, +glittering and faultless like a polished bas-relief of hard Corinthian +bronze. Each motive has been carefully prepared, each situation amply +and logically developed. The characters are firmly traced, and sustained +with consistency. The cold and eager hunter Silvio contrasts with tender +and romantic Mirtillo. Corisca's meretricious arts and systematized +profligacy enhance the pure affection of Amarilli. Dorinda presents +another type of love, so impulsive that it conquers maidenly modesty. +The Satyr is a creature of rude lust, foiled in its brutal appetite by +the courtesan Corisca's wiliness. Carino brings the corruption of towns +into comparison with the innocence of the country. + +In Carino the poet painted his own experience; and here his satire upon +the Court of Ferrara is none the less biting because it takes the form +of well-weighed and gravely-measured censure, instead of vehement +invective. The following lines may serve as a specimen of Guarini's +style in this species:-- + + I' mi pensai che ne' reali alberghi + Fossero tanto piu le genti umane, + Quant'esse ban piu di tutto quel dovizia, + Ond' e l'umanita si nobil fregio. + Ma mi trovai tutto 'l contrario, Uranio. + Gente di nome e di parlar cortese, + Ma d'opre scarsa, e di pieta nemica: + Gente placida in vista e mansueta, + Ma piu del cupo mar tumida e fera: + Gente sol d'apparenza, in cui se miri + Viso di carita, mente d'invidia + Poi trovi, e 'n dritto sguardo animo bieco, + E minor fede allor che pin lusinga. + Quel ch'altrove e virtu, quivi e difetto: + Dir vero, oprar non torto, amar non finto, + Pieta sincera, inviolabil fede, + E di core e di man vita innocente, + Stiman d'animo vil, di basso ingegno, + Sciochezza e vanita degna di riso. + L'ingannare, il mentir, la frode, il furto, + E la rapina di pieta vestita, + Crescer col danno e precipizio altrui, + E far a se dell'altrui biasimo onore, + Son le virtu di quella gente infida. + Non merto, non valor, non riverenza + Ne d'eta ne di grado ne di legge; + Non freno di vergogna, non rispetto + Ne d'amor ne di sangue, non memoria + Di ricevuto ben; ne, finalmente, + Cosa si venerabile o si santa + O si giusta esser puo, ch'a quella vasta + Cupidigia d'onori, a quella ingorda + Fama d'avere, inviolabil sia. + +The _Pastor Fido_ was written in open emulation of Tasso's _Aminta_, and +many of its most brilliant passages are borrowed from that play. Such, +for example, is the Chorus on the Golden Age which closes the fourth +act. Such, too, is the long description by Mirtillo of the kiss he stole +from Amarilli (act ii. sc. 1). The motive here is taken from _Rinaldo_ +(canto v.), and the spirit from _Aminta_ (act i. sc. 2). Guarini's Satyr +is a studied picture from the sketch in Tasso's pastoral. The dialogue +between Silvio and Linco (act i. sc. 1) with its lyrical refrain: + + Lascia, lascia le selve, + Folle garzon, lascia le fere, ed ama: + +reproduces the dialogue between Silvia and Dafne (act i. sc. 1) with its +similar refrain: + + Cangia, cangia consiglio, + Pazzarella che sei. + +In all these instances Guarini works up Tasso's motives into more +elaborate forms. He expands the simple suggestions of his model; and +employs the artifices of rhetoric where Tasso yielded to inspiration. +One example will suffice to contrast the methods of the spontaneous and +the reflective poet. Tasso with divine impulse had exclaimed: + + Odi quell'usignuolo, + Che va di ramo in ramo + Cantando: Io amo, io amo! + +This, in Guarini's hands, becomes: + + Quell'augellin, che canta + Si dolcemente, e lascivetto vola + Or dall'abete al faggio, + Ed or dal faggio al mirto, + S'avesse umano spirto, + Direbbe: Ardo d'amore, ardo d'amore. + +Here a laborious effort of the constructive fancy has been substituted +for a single flash of sympathetic imagination. Tasso does not doubt that +the nightingale is pouring out her love in song. Guarini says that if +the bird had human soul, it would exclaim, _Ardo d'amore_. Tasso sees it +flying from branch to branch. Guarini teases our sense of mental vision +by particularizing pine and beech and myrtle. The same is true of +Linco's speech in general when compared with Dafne's on the ruling power +of love in earth and heaven. + +Of imagination in the true sense of the term Guarini had none. Of +fancy, dwelling gracefully, ingeniously, suggestively, upon externals he +had plenty. The minute care with which he worked out each vein of +thought and spun each thread of sentiment, was that of the rhetorician +rather than the poet. Tasso had made Aminta say: + + La semplicetta Silvia + Pietosa del mio male, + S'offri di dar aita + Alla finta ferita, ahi lassole fece + Piu cupa, e piu mortale + La mia piaga verace, + Quando le labbra sue + Giunse alle labbra mie. + Ne l'api d'alcun fiore + Colgan si dolce il sugo, + Come fa dolce il mel, ch'allora io colsi + Da quelle fresche rose. + +Now listen to Guarini's Mirtillo: + + Amor si stava, Ergasto, + Com'ape suol, nelle due fresche rose + Di quelle labbra ascoso; + E mentre ella si stette + Con la baciata bocca + Al baciar della mia + Immobile e ristretta, + La dolcezza del mel sola gustai; + Ma poiche mi s'offerse anch'ella, e porse + L'una e l'altra dolcissima sua rosa.... + +This is enough to illustrate Guarini's laborious method of adding touch +to touch without augmenting th force of the picture.[184] We find +already here the transition from Tasso's measured art to the fantastic +prolixity of Marino. And though Guarini was upon the whole chaste in use +of language, his rhetorical love of amplification and fanciful +refinement not unfrequently betrayed him into Marinistic conceits. +Dorinda, for instance, thus addresses Silvio (act iv. sc. 9): + + O bellissimo scoglio + Gia dall'onda e dal vento + Delle lagrime mie, de'miei sospiri + Si spesso invan percosso! + +Sighs are said to be (act i. sc. 2): + + impetuosi venti + Che spiran nell'incendio, e 'l fan maggiore + Con turbini d'Amore, + Ch' apportan sempre ai miserelli amanti + Foschi nembi di duol, piogge di pianti. + +From this to the style of the _Adone_ there was only one step to be +taken. + +[Footnote 184: I might have further illustrated this point by quoting +the thirty-five lines in which Titiro compares a maiden to the rose +which fades upon the spray after the fervors of the noon have robbed its +freshness (act i. sc. 4). To contest the beauty of the comparison would +be impossible. Yet when we turn to the two passages in Ariosto (_Orl. +Fur._ i. 42, 43, and xxiv. 80) on which it has been modeled, we shall +perceive how much Guarini lost in force by not writing with his eye upon +the object or with the authenticity of inward vision, but with a +self-conscious effort to improve by artifices and refinements upon +something he has read. See my essay on 'The Pathos of the Rose in Time,' +April, 1886.] + +Though the scene of the _Pastor Fido_ was laid in Arcadia, the play +really represented polite Italian society. In the softness of its +sentiment, its voluptuous verbal melody, and its reiterated descant upon +effeminate love-pleasure, it corresponded exactly to the spirit of its +age.[185] This was the secret of its success; and this explains its +seduction. Not Corisca's wanton blandishments and professed cynicism, +but Mirtillo's rapturous dithyrambs on kissing, Dorinda's melting moods +of tenderness, and Amarilli's delicate regrets that love must be +postponed to honor, justified Bellarmino's censure. Without anywhere +transgressing the limits of decorum, the _Pastor Fido_ is steeped in +sensuousness. The sentiment of love idealized in Mirtillo and Amarilli +is pure and self-sacrificing. _Ama l'onesta mia, s'amante sei_, says +this maiden to her lover; and he obeys her. Yet, though the drama is +dedicated to virtue, no one can read it without perceiving the +blandishments of its luxurious rhetoric. The sensual refinement proper +to an age of social decadence found in it exact expression, and it +became the code of gallantry for the next two centuries. + +[Footnote 185: Even Silvio, the most masculine of the young men, whose +heart is closed to love, appears before us thus: + + Oh Silvio, Silvio! a che ti die Natura + Ne' piu begli anni tuoi + Fior di belta si delicato e vago, + Se tu se' tanto a calpestarlo intento? + Che s'avess'io cotesta tua si bella + E si fiorita guancia, + Addio selve, direi: + E seguendo altre fere, + E la vita passando in festa e'n gioco, + Farei la state all'ombra, e 'l verno al foco. +] + +Meanwhile the literary dictator of the seventeenth century was +undoubtedly Marino. On him devolved the scepter which Petrarch +bequeathed to Politian, Politian to Bembo, and Bembo to Torquato Tasso. +In natural gifts he was no unworthy successor of these poets, though the +gifts he shared with them were conspicuously employed by him for +purposes below the scope of any of his predecessors. In artistic +achievement he concentrated the less admirable qualities of all, and +brought the Italian poetry of the Renaissance to a close by exaggerating +its previous defects. Yet, as a man, Marino is interesting, more +interesting in many respects than the melancholy discontented Tasso. He +accepted the conditions of his age with genial and careless sympathy, +making himself at once its idol, its interpreter, and its buffoon. +Finally, he illustrates the law of change which transferred to +Neapolitans in this age the scepter which had formerly been swayed by +Tuscans and Lombards.[186] + +Giovanni Battista Marino was born at Naples in 1569. His father, a +jurist of eminence, bred him for the law. But the attractions of poetry +and pleasure were irresistible by this mobile son of the warm South-- + + La lusinga del Genio in me prevalse, + E la toga deposta, altrui lascisi + Parolette smaltir mendaci e false. + Ne dubbi testi interpretar curai, + Ne discordi accordar chiose mi calse, + Quella stimando sol perfetta legge + Che de'sensi sfrenati il fren corregge. + Legge omai piu non v' ha la qual per dritto + Punisca il fallo o ricompensi il merto. + Sembra quando e fin qui deciso e scritto + D'opinion confuse abisso incerto. + Dalle calumnie il litigante afflitto + Somiglia in vasto mar legno inesperto, + Reggono il tutto con affetto ingordo, + Passion cieca ed interesse sordo. + +[Footnote 186: Telesio, Bruno, Campanella, Salvator Rosa, Vico, were, +like Marino, natives of the Regno.] + +Such, in the poet's maturity, was his judgment upon law; and probably he +expressed the same opinion with frankness in his youth. Seeing these +dispositions in his son, the severe parent cast him out of doors, and +young Marino was free to indulge vagabond instincts with lazzaroni and +loose companions on the quays and strands of Naples. In that luxurious +climate a healthy native, full of youth and vigor, needs but little to +support existence. Marino set his wits to work, and reaped too facile +laurels in the fields of Venus and the Muses. His verses speedily +attracted the notice of noble patrons, among whom the Duke of Bovino, +the Prince of Conca, and Tasso's friend the Marquis Manso have to be +commemorated. They took care that so genuine and genial a poet should +not starve. It was in one of Manso's palaces that Marino had an +opportunity of worshiping the singer of Armida and Erminia at a +distance. He had already acquired dubious celebrity as a juvenile Don +Juan and a writer of audaciously licentious lyrics, when disaster +overtook him. He assisted one of his profligate friends in the abduction +of a girl. For this breach of the law both were thrown together into +prison, and Marino only escaped justice by the sudden death of his +accomplice. His patrons now thought it desirable that he should leave +Naples for a time. Accordingly they sent him with letters of +recommendation to Rome, where he was well received by members of the +Crescenzio and Aldobrandino families. The Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandino +made him private secretary, and took him on a journey to Ravenna and +Turin. From the commencement to the end of his literary career Marino's +march through life was one triumphal progress. At Turin, as formerly in +Naples and Rome, he achieved a notable success. The Duke of Savoy, Carlo +Emmanuele, offered him a place at Court, appointed him secretary, and +dubbed him Knight of S. Maurice. + + Vidi la corte, e nella corte io vidi + Promesse lunghe e guiderdoni avari, + Favori ingiusti e patrocini infidi, + Speranze dolci e pentimenti amari, + Sorrisi traditor, vezzi omicidi, + Ed acquisti dubbiosi e danni chiari, + E voti vani ed idoli bugiardi, + Onde il male e sicuro e il ben vien tardi. + +It was the custom of all poets in that age to live in Courts and to +abuse them, to adulate princes and to vilify these patrons. Marino, +however, had real cause to complain of the treachery of courtiers. He +appears to have been a man of easy-going temper, popular among +acquaintances, and serviceable to the society he frequented. This +comradely disposition did not save him, however, from jealousies and +hatreds; for he had, besides, a Neapolitan's inclination for satire. +There was a Genoese poetaster named Gasparo Murtola established in +Court-service at Turin, who had recently composed a lumbering poem, _Il +Mondo Creato_. Marino made fun of it in a sonnet; Murtola retorted; and +a warfare of invectives began which equaled for scurrility and filth the +duels of Poggio and Valla. Murtola, seeing that he was likely to be +worsted by his livelier antagonist, waited for him one day round a +corner, gun in hand. The gun was discharged, and wounded, not Marino, +but a favorite servant of the duke. For this offense the assassin was +condemned to death; and would apparently have been executed, but for +Marino's generosity. He procured his enemy's pardon, and was repaid with +the blackest ingratitude. On his release from prison Murtola laid hands +upon a satire, _La Cuccagna_, written some time previously by his rival. +This he laid before the duke, as a seditious attack upon the government +of Savoy. Marino now in his turn was imprisoned; but he proved, through +the intervention of Manso, that the _Cuccagna_ had been published long +before his arrival at Turin. Disgusted by these incidents, he next +accepted an invitation from the French Court, and journeyed to Paris in +1615, where the Italianated society of that city received him like a +living Phoebus. Maria de Medici, as Regent, with Concini for her +counselor and lover, was then in all her vulgar glory. Richelieu's star +had not arisen to eclipse Italian intrigue and to form French taste by +the Academy. D'Urfe and Du Bartas, more marinistic than Marino, more +euphuistic than Euphues, gave laws to literature; and the pageant +pictures by Rubens, which still adorn the Gallery of the Louvre, marked +the full-blown and sensuous splendor of Maria's equipage. Marino's +genius corresponded nicely to the environment in which he now found +himself; the Italians of the French Court discerned in him the poet who +could best express their ideal of existence. He was idolized, glutted +with gold, indulged and flattered to the top of his bent. Yearly +appointments estimated at 10,000 crowns were augmented by presents in +return for complimentary verses or for copies of the poem he was then +composing. This poem was the _Adone_, the theme of which had been +suggested by Carlo Emmanuele, and which he now adroitly used as a means +of flattering the French throne. First printed at Paris in 1623, its +reception both there and in Italy secured apotheosis in his lifetime for +the poet.[187] One minor point in this magnificent first folio edition +of _Adone_ deserves notice, as not uncharacteristic of the age. Only two +Cantos out of the twenty are distinguished by anything peculiar in their +engraved decorations. Of these two, the eleventh displays the shield of +France; the thirteenth, which describes Falsirena's incantations and +enchantments, is ornamented with the symbol of the Jesuits, IHS. For +this the publishers alone were probably responsible. Yet it may stand as +a parable of all-pervasive Jesuitry. Even among the roses and raptures +of the most voluptuous poem of the century their presence makes itself +felt, as though to hint that the _Adone_ is capable of being used +according to Jesuitical rules of casuistry A.M.D.G. One warning voice +was raised before the publication of this epic. Cardinal Bentivoglio +wrote from Italy beseeching Marino to 'purge it of lasciviousness in +such wise that it may not have to dread the lash of our Italian +censure.' Whether he followed this advice, in other words whether the +original MS. of the _Adone_ was more openly licentious than the +published poem, I do not know. Anyhow, it was put upon the Index in +1627. This does not, however, appear to have impaired its popularity, or +to have injured its author's reputation. Soon after the appearance of +_Adone_, Marino, then past fifty, returned to Naples. He was desirous of +reposing on his laurels, wealthy, honored, and adored, among the scenes +from which he fled in danger and disgrace thirty years before. His +entrance into Naples was an ovation. The Iazzaroni came to meet his +coach, dancing and scattering roses; noblemen attended him on +horse-back; ladies gazed on him from balconies. A banner waving to the +wind announced the advent of 'that ocean of incomparable learning, soul +of lyres, subject for pens, material for ink, most eloquent, most +fertile, phoenix of felicity, ornament of the laurel, of swans in their +divine leisure chief and uncontested leader.' At Naples he died in +1625--felicitous in not having survived the fame which attended him +through life and reached its climax just before his death. + +[Footnote 187: It is worth noting that Shakespeare's _Venus and Adonis_ +was first printed in 1593, thirty years previously.] + +The _Adone_ strikes us at first sight as the supreme poem of epicene +voluptuousness. Its smooth-chinned hero, beautiful as a girl, soft as a +girl, sentimental as a girl, with nothing of the man about him--except +that 'Nature, as she wrought him, fell adoting,'--threads a labyrinth of +suggestive adventures, in each of which he is more the patient than the +agent of desire. Mercury introduces him to our attention in a series of +those fables (tales of Narcissus, Ganymede, Cyparissus, Hylas, Atys) by +which antiquity figured the seductiveness of adolescence. Venus woos +him, and Falserina tries to force him. Captured in feminine attire by +brigands, he is detained in a cave as the mistress of their chief, and +doted on by the effeminate companion of his prison. Finally, he contends +for the throne of Cyprus with a band of luxurious youths-- + + Bardassonacci, paggi da taverna. + +The crown is destined for the physically fairest. The rival charms of +the competitors are minutely noted, their personal blemishes sagaciously +detected, by a council of pleasure-sated worldlings. In his death Adonis +succumbs to the assault of a boar, fatally inflamed with lust, who +wounds the young man in his groin, dealing destruction where the beast +meant only amorous caresses. Gods and godesses console Venus in her +sorrow for his loss, each of whom relates the tale of similar disasters. +Among these legends Apollo's love for Hyacinth and Phoebus' love for +Pampinus figure conspicuously. Thus Marino's Adonis excites unhealthy +interest by the spectacle of boyhood exposed to the caprices and +allurements of both sexes doting on unfledged virility. + +What contributes to this effect, in the central motive of the poem, is +that Venus herself is no artless virgin, no innocent Chloe, +corresponding to a rustic Daphnis. She is already wife, mother, +adulteress, _femme entretenue_, before she meets the lad. Her method of +treating him is that of a licentious queen, who, after seducing page or +groom, keeps the instrument of her pleasures in seclusion for occasional +indulgence during intervals of public business. Vulcan and Mars, her +husband and her _cicisbeo_, contest the woman's right to this caprice; +and when the god of war compels, she yields him the crapulous fruition +of her charms before the eye of her disconsolate boy-paramour. Her +pre-occupation with Court affairs in Cythera--balls, pageants, +sacrifices, and a people's homage--brings about the catastrophe. Through +her temporary neglect, Adonis falls victim to a conspiracy of the gods. +Thus the part which the female plays in this amorous epic is that of an +accomplished courtesan, highly placed in society. All the pathos, all +the attraction of beauty and of sentiment, is reserved for the +adolescent male. + +This fact, though disagreeable, has to be noted. It is too +characteristic of the wave of feeling at that time passing over Europe, +to be ignored. The morbid strain which touched the Courts alike of +Valois, Medici and Stuarts; which infected the poetry of Marlowe and of +Shakespeare; which cast a sickly pallor even over sainthood and over +painting in the school of Bologna, cannot be neglected. In Marino's +_Adone_ it reaches its artistic climax.[188] + +This, however, is not the main point about the poem. The _Adone_ should +rather be classed as the epic of voluptuousness in all its forms and +species. If the love-poetry of the Italian Renaissance began with the +sensuality of Boccaccio's _Amoroso Visione_, it ended, after traversing +the idyl, the novel, the pastoral, the elegy and the romance, in the +more complex sensuality of Marino's _Adone_; for this, like the _Amoroso +Visione_, but far more emphatically, proclaims the beatification of man +by sexual pleasure:-- + + Tramortiscon di gioia ebbre e languenti + L'anime stanche, al ciel d'Amor rapite. + Gl'iterati sospiri, i rotti accenti, + Le dolcissime guerre e le ferite, + Narrar non so--fresche aure, onde correnti, + Voi che il miraste, e ben l'udiste, il dite! + Voi secretari de'felici amori, + Verdi mirti, alti pini, ombrosi allori! (Canto viii.) + +[Footnote 188: Ferrari, in his _Rivolnzioni d'Italia_, vol. iii. p. 563, +observes: 'Una Venere sospetta versa lagrime forse maschili sul +bellissimo Adonide,' etc. Shakespeare's _Venus and Adonis_, in like +manner, is so written as to force the reader to feel with Venus the +seduction of Adonis.] + +Thus voluptuousness has its transcendentalism; and Marino finds even his +prolific vocabulary inadequate to express the mysteries of this heaven +of sensuous delights.[189] + +It must not be thought that the _Adone_ is an obscene poem. Marino was +too skillful a master in the craft of pleasure to revolt or to regale +his readers with grossness. He had too much of the Neapolitan's frank +self-abandonment to nature for broad indecency in art to afford him +special satisfaction; and the taste of his age demanded innuendo. The +laureate of Courts and cities saturated with licentiousness knew well +that Coan vestments are more provocative than nudity. It was his object +to flatter the senses and seduce the understanding rather than to +stimulate coarse appetite. Refinement was the aphrodisiac of a +sated society, and millinery formed a main ingredient in its +love-philters.[190] Marino, therefore, took the carnal instincts for +granted, and played upon them as a lutist plays the strings of some lax +thrilling instrument. Of moral judgment, of antipathy to this or that +form of lust, of prejudice or preference in the material of pleasure, +there is no trace. He shows himself equally indulgent to the passion of +Mirra for her father, of Jove for Ganymede, of Bacchus for Pampinus, of +Venus for Adonis, of Apollo for Hyacinth. He tells the disgusting story +of Cinisca with the same fluent ease as the lovely tale of Psyche; +passes with the same light touch over Falserina at the bedside of Adonis +and Feronia in his dungeon; uses the same palette for the picture of +Venus caressing Mars and the struggles of the nymph and satyr. All he +demanded was a basis of soft sensuality, from which, as from putrescent +soil, might spring the pale and scented flower of artful luxury. + +[Footnote 189: With the stanza quoted above Marino closes the cycle +which Boccaccio in the _Amoroso Visione_ (canto xlix.) had opened.] + +[Footnote 190: On this point I may call attention to the elaborate +portraits drawn by Marino (canto xvi.) of the seven young men who +contend with Adonis for the prize of beauty and the crown of Cyprus. +Quite as many words are bestowed upon their costumes, jewelry and +hair-dressing as upon their personal charms.] + +In harmony with the spirit of an age reformed or deformed by the +Catholic Revival, Marino parades cynical hypocrisy. The eighth canto of +_Adone_ is an elaborately-wrought initiation into the mysteries of +carnal pleasure. It is a hymn to the sense of touch:[191] + + Ogni altro senso puo ben di leggiero + Deluso esser talor da falsi oggetti: + Questo sol no, lo qual sempre e del vero + Fido ministro e padre dei diletti. + Gli altri non possedendo il corpo intero, + Ma qualche parte sol, non son perfetti. + Questo con atto universal distende + Lesue forze per tutto, e tutto il prende. + +[Footnote 191: I have pleasure in inviting my readers to study the true +doctrine regarding the place of touch among the senses as laid down by +Ruskin in _Modern Painters_, part iii. sec. 1, chap. ii.] + +We are led by subtle gradations, by labyrinthine delays, to the final +beatification of Adonis. Picture is interwoven with picture, each in +turn contributing to the panorama of sensual Paradise. Yet while +straining all the resources of his art, with intense sympathy, to seduce +his reader, the poet drops of set purpose phrases like the following: + + Flora non so, non so se Frine o Taide + Trovar mai seppe oscenita si laide. + +Here the ape masked in the man turns around and grins, gibbering vulgar +words to point his meaning, and casting dirt on his pretended decency. +While racking the resources of allusive diction to veil and to suggest +an immodest movement of his hero (Adonis being goaded beyond the bounds +of boyish delicacy by lascivious sights), he suddenly subsides with a +knavish titter into prose: + + Cosi il fanciullo all'inonesto gioco. + +But the end of all this practice is that innocent Adonis has been +conducted by slow and artfully contrived approaches to a wanton's +embrace, and that the spectators of his seduction have become, as it +were, parties to his fall. To make Marino's cynicism of hypocrisy more +glaring, he prefaces each canto with an allegory, declaring that Adonis +and Venus symbolize the human soul abandoned to vice, and the +allurements of sensuality which work its ruin. In the poem itself, +meanwhile, the hero and heroine are consistently treated as a pair of +enviable, devoted, and at last unfortunate lovers.[192] + +It is characteristic of the mood expressed in the _Adone_ that +voluptuousness should not be passionate, but sentimental. Instead of +fire, the poet gives us honeyed tears to drink, and rocks the soul upon +an ever-rippling tide of Lydian melody. The acme of pleasure, as +conceived by him, is kissing. Twenty-three of the most inspired stanzas +of the eighth canto are allotted to a panegyric of the kiss, in which +delight all other amorous delights are drowned.[193] Tasso's melancholy +yearning after forbidden fruit is now replaced by satiety contemplating +the image of past joys with purring satisfaction. This quality of +self-contented sentiment partly explains why the type of beauty adored +is neither womanly nor manly, but adolescent. It has to be tender, +fragile, solicitous, unripe; appealing to sensibility, not to passion, +by feminine charms in nerveless and soulless boyhood. The most +distinctive mark of Adonis is that he has no character, no will, no +intellect. He is all sentiment, sighs, tears, pliability, and sweetness. + +[Footnote 192: The hypocrisy of the allegory is highly significant for +this phase of Italian culture. We have seen how even Tasso condescended +to apply it to his noble epic, which needed no such miserable pretense. +Exquisitely grotesque was the attempt made by Centorio degli Ortensi to +sanctify Bandello's _Novelle_ by supplying each one of them with a moral +interpretation (ed. Milano: Gio. Antonio degli Antoni, 1560, See +Passano's _Novellieri in Prosa_, p. 28).] + +[Footnote 193: What I have elsewhere, called 'the tyranny of the kiss' +in Italian poetry, begins in Tasso's _Rinaldo_, acquires vast +proportions in Guarino's _Pastor Fido_, and becomes intolerable in +Marino's _Adone_.] + +This emasculate nature displays itself with consummate effect in the +sobbing farewell, followed by the pretty pettishnesses, of the +seventeenth canto. + +As a contrast to his over-sweet and cloying ideal of lascivious grace, +Marino counterposes extravagant forms of ugliness. He loves to describe +the loathsome incantations of witches. He shows Falserina prowling among +corpses on a battle-field, and injecting the congealed veins of her +resuscitated victim with abominable juices. He crowds the Cave of +Jealousy with monsters horrible to sight and sense; depicts the +brutality of brigands; paints hideous portraits of eunuchs, deformed +hags, unnameable abortions. He gloats over cruelty, and revels in +violence.[194] When Mars appears upon the scene, the orchestra of lutes +and cymbals with which we had been lulled to sleep, is exchanged for a +Corybantic din of dissonances. Orgonte, the emblem of pride, outdoes the +hyperboles of Rodomonte and the lunes of Tamburlaine. Nowhere, either in +his voluptuousness or in its counterpart of disgust, is there +moderation. The Hellenic precept, 'Nothing overmuch,' the gracious Greek +virtue of temperate restraint, which is for art what training is for +athletes, discipline for soldiers, and pruning for orchard trees, has +been violated in every canto, each phrase, the slightest motive of this +poem. Sensuality can bear such violation better than sublimity; +therefore the perfume of voluptuousness in the _Adone_, though +excessive, is both penetrating and profound; while those passages which +aim at inspiring terror or dilating the imagination, fail totally of +their effect. The ghastly, grotesque, repulsive images are so +overcharged that they cease even to offend. We find ourselves in a +region where tact, sense of proportion, moral judgment, and right +adjustment of means to ends, have been wantonly abandoned. Marino avowed +that he only aimed at surprising his readers: + + E del poeta il fin la meraviglia. + +[Footnote 194: See the climax to the episode of Filauro and Filora.] + +But 45,000 lines of sustained astonishment, of industrious and +indefatigable appeals to wonder by devices of language, devices of +incident, devices of rhodomontade, devices of innuendo, devices of +_capricci_ and _concetti_, induce the stolidity of callousness. We leave +off marveling, and yield what is left of our sensibility to the +fascination of inexhaustible picturesqueness. For, with all his faults, +Marino was a master of the picturesque, and did possess an art of +fascination. The picturesque, so difficult to define, so different from +the pictorial and the poetical, was a quality of the seventeenth century +corresponding to its defects of bad taste. And this gift no poet shared +in larger measure than Marino. + +Granted his own conditions, granted the emptiness of moral and +intellectual substance in the man and in his age, we are compelled to +acknowledge that his literary powers were rich and various. Few +writers, at the same time, illustrate the vices of decadence more +luminously than this Protean poet of vacuity. Few display more clearly +the 'expense of spirit in a waste of shame.' None teach the dependence +of art upon moralized and humane motives more significantly than this +drunken Helot of genius. His indifference to truth, his defiance of +sobriety, his conviction that the sole end of art is astonishment, have +doomed him to oblivion not wholly merited. The critic, whose duty forces +him to read through the _Adone_, will be left bewildered by the +spectacle of such profuse wealth so wantonly squandered.[195] In spite +of fatigue, in spite of disgust, he will probably be constrained to +record his opinion that, while Tasso represented the last effort of +noble poetry struggling after modern expression under out-worn forms of +the Classical Revival, it was left for Marino in his levity and license +to evoke a real and novel though _rococo_ form, which nicely +corresponded to the temper of his times, and determined the immediate +future of art. For this reason he requires the attention which has here +been paid him. + +[Footnote 195: In support of this opinion upon Marino's merit as a poet, +I will cite the episode of Clizio (canto i. p. 17); the tale of Psyche +(iv. 65); the tale of the nightingale and the boy--which occurs both in +Ford and Crashaw, by the way (vii. 112); the hymn to pleasure (vii. +116); the passage of Venus and Adonis to the bath (viii. 133); the +picture of the nymph and satyr (viii. 135); the personification of the +Court (x. 167); the Cave of Jealousy (xii. 204-206); the jewel-garden of +Falserina (xii. 218); Falserina watching Adonis asleep (xii. 225); +Falserina's incantations (xiii. 233); Mars in the lap of Venus +surrounded by the loves (xiii. 245); Venus disguised as a gypsy (xv. +290); the game of chess (xv. 297); the leave-taking of Venus and Adonis +(xvii. 332); the phantom of dead Adonis (xviii. 357); the grief of Venus +(xviii. 358-362); the tales of Hyacinth and Pampinus (xix. 372-378). The +references are to ed. Napoli, Boutteaux, 1861.] + +But how, it may be asked, was it possible to expand the story of Venus +and Adonis into an epic of 45,000 lines? The answer to this question +could best be given by an analysis of the twenty cantos: and since few +living students have perused them, such a display of erudition would be +pardonable. Marini does not, however, deserve so many pages in a work +devoted to the close of the Italian Renaissance. It will suffice to say +that the slender narrative of the amour of Venus and her boyish idol, +his coronation as king of Cyprus, and his death by the boar's tusk, is +ingeniously interwoven with a great variety of episodes. The poet finds +occasion to relate the principal myths of Hellenic passion treating +these in a style which frequently reminds us of Ovid's Metamorphoses; he +borrows tales from Apuleius, Lucian, and the pastoral novelists; he +develops the theme of jealousy in Mars and Vulcan, introduces his own +autobiography, digresses into romantic adventures by sea and land, +creates a rival to Venus in the sorceress Falserina, sketches the +progress of poetry in one canto and devotes another to a panegyric of +Italian princes, extols the House of France and adulates Marie de +Medicis, surveys the science of the century, describes fantastic palaces +and magic gardens, enters with curious minuteness into the several +delights of the five senses, discourses upon Courts, ambition, avarice +and honor, journeys over the Mediterranean, conducts a game of chess +through fifty brilliant stanzas; in brief, while keeping his main theme +in view, is careful to excite and sustain the attention of his readers +by a succession of varied and ingeniously suggested novelties. +Prolixity, indefatigable straining after sensational effect, +interminable description, are the defects of the _Adone_; but they are +defects related to great qualities possessed by the author, to +inexhaustible resources, curious knowledge, the improvisatore's +facility, the trained rhetorician's dexterity in the use of language, +the artist's fervid delight in the exercise of his craft. + +Allowing for Marino's peculiar method, his _Adone_ has the excellence of +unity which was so highly prized by the poets of his age and nation. +Critics have maintained that the whole epic is but a development of the +episode of Rinaldo in Armida's garden. But it is more than this. It +contains all the main ingredients of the Italian Romance, with the +exception of chivalry and war. There is a pastoral episode corresponding +to that of Erminia among the shepherds, a magnificent enchantress in the +manner of Alcina, an imprisonment of the hero which reminds us of +Ruggiero in Atlante's magic castle, a journey like Astolfo's to the +moon, a conflict between good and evil supernatural powers, a thread of +allegory more or less apparent, a side glance at contemporary history; +and these elements are so combined as to render the _Adone_ one of the +many poems in the long romantic tradition. It differs mainly from its +predecessors in the strict unity of subject, which subordinates each +episode and each digression to the personal adventures of the heroine +and hero; while the death and obsequies of Adonis afford a tragic close +that is lacking to previous poems detached from the Carolingian cycle. +Contemporary writers praised it as a poem of peace. But it is the poem +of ignoble peace, of such peace as Italy enjoyed in servitude, when a +nation of _cicisbei_ had naught to occupy their energies but sensual +pleasure. Ingenious as Marino truly was in conducting his romance upon +so vast a scheme through all its windings to one issue, we feel that the +slender tale of a boy's passion for the queen of courtesans and his +metamorphosis into the scarlet windflower of the forest supplied no +worthy motive for this intricate machinery. The metaphor of an alum +basket crystallized upon a petty frame of wire occurs to us when we +contemplate its glittering ornaments, and reflect upon the poverty of +the sustaining theme. It might in fact stand for a symbol of the +intellectual vacancy of the age which welcomed it with rapture, and of +the society which formed a century of taste upon its pattern. + +In another and higher literary quality the _Adone_ represents that +moment of Italian development. A foreigner may hardly pass magisterial +judgment on its diction. Yet I venture to remark that Marino only at +rare intervals attains to purity of poetic style; even his best passages +are deformed, not merely by conceits to which the name of _Marinism_ has +been given, but also by gross vulgarities and lapses into trivial prose. +Notwithstanding this want of distinction, however, he has a melody that +never fails. The undulating, evenly on-flowing _cantilena_ of his verbal +music sustains the reader on a tide of song. That element of poetry, +which, as I have observed, was developed with remarkable success by +Tasso in some parts of the _Gerusalemme_ is the main strength of the +_Adone_. With Marino the _Chant d'Amour_ never rises so high, thrills so +subtly, touches the soul so sweetly and so sadly, as it does in Tasso's +verse. But in all those five thousand octave stanzas it is rarely +altogether absent. The singing faculty of the Neapolitan was given to +this poet of voluptuousness; and if the song is neither deep nor +stirring, neither stately nor sublime, it is because his soul held +nothing in its vast vacuity but sensuous joy.[196] A musical Casanova, +an unmalignant Aretino, he sang as vulgar nature prompted; but he always +kept on singing. His partiality for detonating dissonances, squibs and +crackers of pyrotechnical rhetoric, braying trumpets and exploding +popguns, which deafen and distract our ears attuned to the suave cadence +of the _cantilena_, is no less characteristic of the Neapolitan. Marino +had the improvisatory exuberance, the impudence, the superficial +passion, the luxurious delight in life, and the noisiness of his +birthplace. He also shared its love of the grotesque as complement and +contrast to pervading beauty. + +[Footnote 196: There are passages of pure _cantilena_ in this poem, +where sense is absolutely swallowed up in sound, and words become the +mere vehicle for rhythmic melody. Of this verbal music the dirge of the +nymphs for Adonis and the threnos of Venus afford excellent examples +(xix. pp. 358-361). Note especially the stanza beginning: + + Adone, Adone, o bell'Adon, tu giaci, + Ne senti i miei sospir, ne miri il pianto! + O bell'Adone, o caro Adon, tu taci, + Ne rispondi a colei che amasti tanto! + +There is nothing more similar to this in literature than Fra Jacopone's +delirium of mystic love: + + Amor amor Jesu, son giunto a porto; + Amor amor Jesu, tu m'hai menato; + Amor amor Jesu, dammi conforto; + Amor amor Jesu, si m'hai enfiamato. + +Only the one is written in a Mixo-Lydian, the other in a Hyper-Phrygian +mood. +] + +A serious fault to be found with Marino's style is its involved +exaggeration in description. Who, for instance, can tolerate this +picture of a young man's foot shod with a blue buskin? + + L'animato del pie molle alabastro + Che oscura il latte del sentier celeste + Stretto alla gamba con purpureo nastro + Di cuoio azzurro un borsacchin gli veste. + +Again he carries to the point of lunacy that casuistical rhetoric, +introduced by Ariosto and refined upon by Tasso, with which luckless +heroines or heroes announce their doubts and difficulties to the world +in long soliloquies. The ten stanzas which set forth Falserina's +feelings after she has felt the pangs of love for Adonis, might pass for +a parody: + + Ardo, lassa, o non ardo! ahi qual io sento + Stranio nel cor non conosciuto affetto! + E forse ardore? ardor non e, che spento + L'avrei col pianto; e ben d'ardor sospetto! + Sospetto no, piuttosto egli e tormento. + Come tormento fia, se da diletto? + +And so forth through eighty lines in which every conceivable change is +rung upon _Amo o non amo?... Io vivo e moro pur.... Io non ho core +e lo mio cor n'ha dui.... With all this effort no one is convinced of +Falserina's emotion, and her long-winded oration reads like a +schoolboy's exercise upon some line of the fourth Aeneid. Yet if we +allow the sense of rhythmical melody to intervene between our +intellectual perception and Marino's language, we shall still be able to +translate these outpourings into something which upon the operatic stage +would keep its value. False rhetoric and the inability to stop when +enough and more than enough has been said upon any theme to be +developed, are the incurable defects of Marino. His profuse _fioriture_ +compared with the simpler descant of Ariosto or Tasso remind us of +Rossini's florid roulades beside the grace of Pergolese's or the majesty +of Marcello's song. + +The peculiar quality of bad taste which is known in Italy as +_Marinismo_, consisted in a perpetual straining after effect by +antitheses, conceits, plans on words degenerating into equivocation, and +such-like rhetorical grimaces. Marino's _ars poetica_ was summed up in +this sentence: 'Chi non sa far stupir, vada alia striglia.' Therefore, +he finds periphrases for the simplest expressions. He calls the +nightingale _sirena de'boschi_, gunpowder _l'irreparabil fulmine +terreno_, Columbus _il ligure Argonauta_, Galileo _il novello +Endimione_. In these instances, what might have been expanded into a +simile, is substituted for the proper word in order to surprise the +reader. When he alludes to Dante, he poses a conundrum on that poet's +surname: _Ben sull'ali liggier tre mondi canta_. The younger Palma is +complimented on wresting the _palm_ from Titian and Veronese. Guido Reni +is apostrophized as: _Reni onde il maggior Reno all'altro cede_[197] We +are never safe in reading his pages from the whirr and whistle of such +verbal fireworks. And yet it must be allowed that Marino's style is on +the whole freer from literary affectations than that of our own +Euphuists. It is only at intervals that the temptation to make a point +by clever trickery seems irresistible. When he is seriously engaged upon +a topic that stirs his nature to the depth, as in the eighth canto, +description flows on for stanza after stanza with limpid swiftness. +Another kind of artifice to which he has resort, is the repetition of a +dominant word: + +[Footnote 197: There is a streamlet called Reno near Bologna.] + + Con tai lusinghe il lusinghiero amante + La lusinghiera Dea lusinga e prega. + + * * * * * + + Godiamci, amiamei. Amor d'amor mercede, + Degno cambio d'amore e solo amore. + +This play on a word sometimes passes over into a palpable pun, as in the +following pretty phrase: + + O mia dorata ed adorata Dea. + +Still we feel that Shakespeare was guilty of precisely the same verbal +impertinences. It is only intensity of feeling which prevents such lines +as: + + Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all; + What hast thou then more than thou hadst before? + No love, my love, that thou may'st true love call: + All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more: + +from being Marinistic. But it must be added that this intensity of +feeling renders the artifice employed sublimely natural. Here we lay our +finger on the crucial point at issue in any estimate of literary +mannerism. What is the force of thought, the fervor of emotion, the +acute perception of truth in nature and in man, which lies behind that +manneristic screen? If, as in the case of Shakespeare, sufficiency or +superabundance of these essential elements is palpable, we pardon, we +ignore, the euphuism. But should the quality of substance fail, then we +repudiate it and despise it. Therefore Marino, who is certainly not more +euphuistic than Shakespeare, but who has immeasurably less of potent +stuff in him, wears the motley of his barocco style in limbo bordering +upon oblivion, while the Swan of Avon parades the same literary livery +upon both summits of Parnassus. So true it is that poetry cannot be +estimated apart from intellectual and moral contents. Had Marino +written: + + Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down: + +or: + + 'twould anger him + To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle + Of some strange nature, letting it there stand + Till she had laid it and conjured it down: + +or: + + The bawdy hand of the dial is now upon + The prick of noon: + +he would have furnished his accusers with far stronger diatribes against +words of double meaning and licentious conceits than his own pages +offer. But since it was out of the fullness of world-wisdom that +Shakespeare penned those phrases for Mercutio, and set them as pendants +to the impassioned descants upon love and death which he poured from the +lips of Romeo, they pass condoned and unperceived. + +Only poverty of matter and insincerity of fancy damn in Marino those +literary affectations which he held in common with a host of +writers--with Gorgias, Aeschylus, Chaeremon, Philostratus, among Greeks; +with Petrarch, Boccaccio, Bembo, Aretino, Tasso, Guarini, among +Italians; with Calderon and Cervantes, not to mention Gongora, among +Spaniards; with the foremost French and English writers of the +Renaissance; with all verbal artists in any age, who have sought unduly +to refine upon their material of language. In a word, Marino is not +condemned by his so-called Marinism. His true stigma is the inadequacy +to conceive of human nature except under a twofold mask of sensuous +voluptuousness and sensuous ferocity. It is this narrow and ignoble +range of imagination which constitutes his real inferiority, far more +than any poetical extravagance in diction. The same mean conception of +humanity brands with ignominy the four generations over which he +dominated--that brood of eunuchs and courtiers, churchmen and _Cavalieri +serventi_, barocco architects and brigands, casuists and bravi, +grimacers, hypocrites, confessors, impostors, bastards of the spirit, +who controlled Italian culture for a hundred years. + +At a first glance we shall be astonished to find that this poet, who may +justly be regarded as the corypheus of Circean orgies in the seventeenth +century, left in MS. a grave lament upon the woes of Italy. Marino's +_Pianto d'Italia_ has no trace of Marinism. It is composed with sobriety +in a pedestrian style of plainness, and it tells the truth without +reserve. Italy traces her wretchedness to one sole cause, subjection +under Spanish rule. + + Lascio ch'un re che di real non tiene + Altro che il nome effemminato e vile + A sua voglia mi reggi, e di catene + Barbare mi circondi il pie servile. + +This tyrant foments jealousy and sows seeds of discord between the +Italian states. His viceroys are elected from the cruelest, the most +unjust, the most rapacious, and the most luxurious of the courtiers +crawling round his throne. The College of Cardinals is bought and sold. +No prince dares move a finger in his family or state without consulting +the Iberian senate; still less can he levy troops for self-defense. Yet +throughout Europe Spanish victories have been obtained by Italian +generals; the bravest soldiers in foreign armies are Italian exiles. +Perhaps it may be argued that the empty titles which abound in every +petty city, the fulsome promises on which those miserable vassals found +their hopes, are makeweights for such miseries. Call them rather chains +to bind the nation, lures and birdlime such as snarers use. There is but +one quarter to which the widowed and discrowned Queen of Nations can +appeal for succor. She turns to Carlo Emmanuele, Duke of Savoy, to the +hills whence cometh help. It was not, however, until two centuries after +Marino penned these patriotic stanzas, that her prayer was answered. And +the reflection forced upon us when we read the _Pianto d'Italia_, is +that Marino composed it to flatter a patron who at that moment +entertained visionary schemes of attacking the Spanish hegemony. + +To make any but an abrupt transition from Marino to Chiabrera would be +impossible. It is like passing from some luxurious grove of oranges and +roses to a barren hill-top without prospect over sea or champaign. We +are fortunate in possessing a few pages of autobiography, from which +all that is needful to remember of Gabriello Chiabrera's personal +history may be extracted. He was born in 1552 at Savona, fifteen days +after his father's death. His mother made a second marriage, and left +him to the care of an uncle, with whom at the age of nine he went to +reside in Rome. In the house of this bachelor uncle the poor little +orphan pined away. Fever succeeded fever, until his guardian felt that +companionship with boys in play and study was the only chance of saving +so frail a life as Gabriello's. Accordingly he placed the invalid under +the care of the Jesuits in their Collegio Romano. Here the child's +health revived, and his education till the age of twenty throve apace. +The Jesuits seem to have been liberal in their course of training; for +young Chiabrera benefited by private conversation with Paolo Manuzio and +Sperone Speroni, while he attended the lectures of Muretus in the +university. + +How different was this adolescence from that of Marino! Both youths grew +to manhood without domestic influences; and both were conspicuous in +after life for the want of that affection which abounds in Tasso. But +here the parallel between them ends. Marino, running wild upon the +streets of Naples, taking his fill of pleasure and adventure, picking up +ill-digested information at hap-hazard, and forming his poetic style as +nature prompted; Chiabrera, disciplined in piety and morals by Jesuit +directors, imbued with erudition by an arid scholar, a formal pedant +and an accomplished rhetorician, the three chief representatives of +decadent Italian humanism: no contrast can be imagined greater than that +which marked these two lads out for diverse paths in literature. The one +was formed to be the poet of caprice and license, openly ranking with +those + + Che la ragion sommettono al talento, + +and making _s'ei piace ei lice_ his rule of conduct and of art. The +other received a rigid bent toward decorum, in religious observances, in +ethical severity, and in literature of a strictly scholastic type. + +Yet Chiabrera was not without the hot blood of Italian youth. His uncle +died, and he found himself alone in the world. After spending a few +years in the service of Cardinal Cornaro, he quarreled with a Roman +gentleman, vindicated his honor by some act of violence, and was +outlawed from the city. Upon this he retired to Savona; and here again +he met with similar adventures. Wounded in a brawl, he took the law into +his own hands, and revenged himself upon his assailant. This punctilio +proved him to be a true child of his age; and if we may credit his own +account of both incidents, he behaved himself as became a gentleman of +the period. It involved him, however, in serious annoyances both at Rome +and Savona, from which he only extricated himself with difficulty and +which impaired his fortune. Up to the age of fifty he remained +unmarried, and then took a wife by whom he had no children. He lived to +the ripe age of eighty-four, always at Savona, excepting occasional +visits to friends in Italian cities, and he died unmolested by serious +illness after his first entrance into the Collegio Romano. How he +occupied the leisure of that lengthy solitude may be gathered from his +published works--two or three thick volumes of lyrics; four bulky poems +of heroic narrative; twelve dramas, including two tragedies; thirty +satires or epistles; and about forty miscellaneous poems in divers +meters. In a word, he devoted his whole life to the art of poetry, for +which he was not naturally gifted, and which he pursued in a gravely +methodical spirit. It may be said at once that the body of his work, +with the exception of some simple pieces of occasion, and a few chastely +written epistles, is such as nobody can read without weariness. + +Before investigating Chiabrera's claim to rank among Italian poets, it +may be well to examine his autobiography in those points which touch +upon the temper of society. Short as it is, this document is precious +for the light it casts upon contemporary custom. As a writer, Chiabrera +was distinguished by sobriety of judgment, rectitude, piety, purity of +feeling, justice toward his fellow-workers in literature, and an earnest +desire to revive the antique virtues among his countrymen. There is no +reason to suppose that these estimable qualities did not distinguish him +in private life. Yet eight out of the eighteen pages of his biography +are devoted to comically solemn details regarding the honors paid him +by Italian princes. The Grand Duke of Florence, Ferdinand I., noticed +him standing with uncovered head at a theatrical representation in the +Pitti Palace. He bade the poet put his cap on and sit down. Cosimo, the +heir apparent, showed the same condescending courtesy. When he was at +Turin, Carlo Emmanuele, Duke of Savoy, placed a coach and pair at his +disposal, and allowed him 300 lire for traveling expenses to and from +Savona. But this prince omitted to appoint him lodgings in the palace, +nor did he invite him to cover in the presence. This perhaps is one +reason why Chiabrera refused the duke's offer of a secretaryship at +Court. Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, on the contrary, allotted him +rooms and always suffered him to keep his hat on. The Pope, who was an +old college friend of Chiabrera, made him handsome presents, and on one +delightful occasion allowed him to hear a sermon in the Papal pew. The +Doge of Genoa, officially particular in points of etiquette, always took +care to bid him cover, although he was a subject born of the Republic. + +Basely insignificant as are these details, they serve to show what value +was then ascribed even by men of real respectability to trifling +princely favors. The unction with which Chiabrera relates them, warming +his cold style into a glow of satisfaction, is a practical satire upon +his endeavor to resuscitate the virtues of antique republics in that +Italy. To do this was his principal aim as a moralist; to revive the +grand style of Pindar was his object as an artist. Each attempt involved +impossibility, and argued a visionary ambition dimly conscious of its +scope. Without freedom, without the living mythology of Hellas, without +a triumphant national cause, in the very death of independence, at the +end of a long age of glorious but artificial culture, how could +Chiabrera dare to pose as Pindar? Instead of the youth of Greece +ascending with free flight and all the future of the world before it, +decrepit Italy, the Italy so rightly drawn by Marino in his _Pianto_, +lay groveling in the dust of decaying thrones. Her lyrist had to sing of +pallone-matches instead of Panhellenic games; to celebrate the heroic +conquest of two Turkish galleys by a Tuscan fleet, instead of Marathon +and Salamis; to praise S. Lucy and S. Paul with tepid fervor, instead of +telling how Rhodes swam at her god's bidding upward from the waves. + +One example will serve as well as many to illustrate the false attitude +assumed by Chiabrera when he posed as a new Pindar in the midst of +seventeenth-century Italians. I will select the Ode to Don Cesare +d'Este. There is something pathetically ridiculous, in this would-be +swan of the Dircean fount, this apostle of pagan virtues, admonishing +the heir of Alfonso II to prove himself an obedient son of the Church by +relinquishing his Duchy of Ferrara to the Holy See. The poet asks him, +in fine classic phrases, whether he could bear to look on desecrated +altars, confessionals without absolving priests, chapels without +choristers, a people barred with bolt and lock from Paradise. How +trivial are earthly compared with heavenly crowns! How vulgar is the +love of power and gold! The exhortation, exquisite enough in chastened +style, closes with this hypocritical appeal to Cesare's aristocratic +prejudices: + + Parli la plebe a suo volere, e pensi-- + Non con la plebe hanno da gir gli Estensi. + +That is to say, nobility demands that the House of Este should desert +its subjects, sacrifice its throne, crawl at a Pontiff's feet, and +starve among a crowd of disthroned princes, wrapping the ragged purple +of its misery around it till it, too, mixes with the people it contemns. + +Hopeless as the venture was, Chiabrera made it the one preoccupation of +his life, in these untoward circumstances, to remodel Italian poetry +upon the Greek pattern. It was a merit of the Sei Cento, a sign of +grace, that the Italians now at last threw orthodox aesthetic precepts +to the winds, and avowed their inability to carry the Petrarchistic +tradition further. The best of them, Campanella and Bruno, molded vulgar +language like metal in the furnace of a vehement imagination, making it +the vehicle of fantastic passion and enthusiastic philosophy. From their +crucible the Sonnet and the Ode emerged with no resemblance to +academical standards. Grotesque, angular, gnarled, contorted, Gothic +even, these antiquated forms beneath their wayward touch were scarcely +recognizable. They had become the receptacles of burning, scalding, +trenchant realities. Salvator Rosa, next below the best, forced +indignation to lend him wings, and scaled Parnassus with brass-bound +feet and fury. Marino, bent on riveting attention by surprises, fervid +with his own reality of lust, employed the octave stanza as a Turkish +Bey might use an odalisque. 'The only rule worth thinking of,' he said, +'is to know how and when and where to break all rules, adapting +ourselves to current taste and the fashions of the age.' His epic +represents a successful, because a vivid, reaction against +conventionality. The life that throbs in it is incontestable, even +though that life may be nothing better than ephemeral. With like +brutality of instinct, healthy because natural, the barocco architects +embraced ugliness, discord, deformity, spasm, as an escape from harmony +and regularity with which the times were satiated. Prose-writers burst +the bonds of Bembo, trampled on Boccaccio, reveled in the stylistic +debaucheries of Bartolo. Painters, rendered academic in vain by those +Fabii of Bologna who had striven to restore the commonwealth of art by +temporizing, launched themselves upon a sea of massacre and murder, +blood and entrails, horrors of dark woods and Bacchanalia of chubby +Cupids. The popular Muse of Italy meanwhile emerged with furtive grace +and inexhaustible vivacity in dialectic poems, dances, Pulcinello, +Bergamasque Pantaloon, and what of parody and satire, Harlequinades, and +carnival diversions, any local soil might cherish.[198] All this revolt +against precedent, this resurrection of primeval instinct, crude and +grinning, took place, let us remember, under the eyes of the Jesuits, +within the shadow of the Inquisition, in an age reformed and ordered by +the Council of Trent. Art was following Aretino, the reprobate and +rebel. He first amid the languors of the golden age--and this is +Aretino's merit--discerned that the only escape from its inevitable +exhaustion was by passing over into crudest naturalism. + +[Footnote 198: See Scherillo's two books on the _Commedia dell'Arte_ and +the _Opera Buffa_.] + +But for Chiabrera, the excellent gentleman, the patronized of princes, +scrupulous upon the point of honor, pupil of Jesuits, pious, twisted +back on humanism by his Roman tutors, what escape was left for him? Obey +the genius of his times he must. Innovate he must. He chose the least +indecorous sphere at hand for innovation; and felt therewith most +innocently happy. Without being precisely conscious of it, he had +discovered a way of adhering to time-honored precedent while following +the general impulse to discard precedent. He threw Petrarch overboard, +but he took on Pindar for his pilot. 'When I see anything eminently +beautiful, or hear something, or taste something that is excellent, I +say: It is Greek Poetry.' In this self-revealing sentence lies the +ruling instinct of the man as scholar. The highest praise he can confer +upon Italian matters, is to call them Greek Poetry. 'When I have to +express my aims in verse, I compare myself to Columbus, who said that he +would discover a new world or drown.' Again, in this self-revealing +sentence, Chiabrera betrays the instinct which in common with his period +he obeyed. He was bound to startle society by a discovery or to drown. +For this, be it remembered, was the time in which Pallavicino, like +Marino, declared that poetry must make men raise their eyebrows in +astonishment. For Chiabrera, educated as he had been, that new world +toward which he navigated was a new Hellenic style of Italian poetry; +and the Theban was to guide him toward its shores. But on the voyage +Chiabrera drowned: drowned for eternity in hyper-atlantic whirlpools of +oblivion. Some critics, pitying so lofty, so respectable an ambition, +have whispered that he found a little Island of the Blest and there +planted modest myrtles of mediocre immortality. Yet this is not the +truth. On such a quest there was only failure or success. He did not +succeed. His cold mincemeat from Diocean tables, tepid historic +parallels, artificially concocted legends, could not create Greek poetry +again beneath the ribs of death. The age was destined to be saved by +music. License was its only liberty, as the _Adone_ taught. Unmusical +Chiabrera, buckram'd up by old mythologies and sterling precepts, left +its life untouched. His antique virtues stood, like stucco gods and +goddesses, on pedestals in garden groves, and moldered. His Pindaric +flights were such as a sparrow, gazing upward at a hawk, might venture +on. Those abrupt transitions, whereby he sought to simulate the lordly +_sprezzatura_ of the Theban eagle, 'soaring with supreme dominion in the +azure depths of air,' remind us mainly of the hoppings of a frog. +Chiabrera failed: failed all the more lamentably because he was so +scholarly, so estimable. He is chiefly interesting now as the example of +a man devoted to the Church, a pupil of Jesuits, a moralist, and a +humanist, in some sense also a patriot, who felt the temper of his time, +and strove to innovate in literature. Devoid of sincere sympathy with +his academically chosen models, thinking he had discovered a safe path +for innovation, he fell flat in the slime and perished. + +Marino had human life and vulgar nature, the sensualities and +frivolities of the century, to help him. Chiabrera claimed none of these +advantages. What had Tassoni for his outfit? Sound common sense, +critical acumen, the irony of humor, hatred of tyrants and humbug, an +acrid temper mollified by genial love of letters, a manly spirit of +independence. Last, but not least, he inherited something of the old +Elysian smile which played upon the lips of Ariosto, from which Tasso's +melancholy shrank discomfited, which Marino smothered in the kisses of +his courtesans, and Chiabrera banned as too ignoble for Dircean bards. +This smile it was that cheered Tassoni's leisure when, fallen on evil +days, he penned the _Socchia Rapita_. + +Alessandro Tassoni was born in 1565 of a noble Modenese family. Before +completing his nineteenth year he won the degree of Doctor of Laws, and +afterwards spent twelve years in studying at the chief universities of +Lombardy. Between 1599 and 1603 he served the Cardinal Ascanio Colonna +both in Spain and Rome, as secretary. The insight he then gained into +the working of Spanish despotism made him a relentless enemy of that +already decadent monarchy. When Carlo Emmanuele, Duke of Savoy, sent +back his Collar of the Golden Fleece in 1613 and drew the sword of +resistance against Philip III., Tassoni penned two philippics against +Spaniards, which are the firmest, most embittered expression of +patriotism as it then existed. He had the acuteness to perceive that the +Spanish state was no longer in its prime of vigor, and the noble +ingenuousness to dream that Italian princes might be roused to sink +their rancors in a common effort after independence. As a matter of +fact, Estensi, Medici, Farnesi, Gonzaghi, all the reigning houses as yet +unabsorbed by Church or Spain, preferred the predominance of a power +which sanctioned their local tyrannies, irksome and degrading as that +overlordship was, to the hegemony of Piedmontese Macedon. And like all +Italian patriots, strong in mind, feeble in muscle, he failed to reckon +with the actual soldierly superiority of Spaniards. Italy could give +generals at this epoch to her masters; but she could not count on +levying privates for her own defense. Carlo Emmanuele rewarded the +generous ardor of Tassoni by grants of pensions which were never paid, +and by offices at Court which involved the poet-student in perilous +intrigue. 'My service with the princes of the House of Savoy,' so he +wrote at a later period, 'did not take its origin in benefits or favors +received or expected. It sprang from a pure spontaneous motion of the +soul, which inspired me with love for the noble character of Duke +Charles.' When he finally withdrew from that service, he had his +portrait painted. In his hands he held a fig, and beneath the picture +ran a couplet ending with the words, 'this the Court gave me.' +Throughout his life Tassoni showed an independence rare in that century. +His principal works were published without dedications to patrons. In +the preface to his _Remarks on Petrarch_ he expressed his opinion thus: +'I leave to those who like them the fruitless dedications, not to say +flatteries, which are customary nowadays. I seek no protection; for a +lie does not deserve it, and truth is indifferent to it. Let such as +opine that the shadow of great personages can conceal the ineptitude of +authors, make the most of this advantage.' Believing firmly in +astrology, he judged that his own horoscope condemned him to +ill-success. It appears that he was born under the influence of Saturn, +when the sun and moon were in conjunction; and he held that this +combination of the heavenly bodies boded 'things noteworthy, yet not +felicitous.' It was, however, difficult for a man of Tassoni's condition +in that state of society to draw breath outside the circle of a Court. +Accordingly, in 1626, he entered the service of the Pope's nephew, +Cardinal Lodovisio. He did not find this much to his liking: 'I may +compare myself to P. Emilius Metellus, when he was shod with those +elegant boots which pinched his feet. Everybody said, Oh what fine +boots, how well they fit! But the wretch was unable to walk in them.' On +the Cardinal's death in 1632 Tassoni removed to the Court of Francesco +I. of Modena, and died there in 1635. + +As a writer, Tassoni, in common with the best spirits of his time, aimed +at innovation. It had become palpable to the Italians that the +Renaissance was over, and that they must break with the traditions of +the past. This, as I have already pointed out, was the saving virtue of +the early seventeenth century; but what good fruits it might have +fostered, had not the political and ecclesiastical conditions of the age +been adverse, remains a matter for conjecture. 'It is my will and object +to utter new opinions,' he wrote to a friend; and acting upon this +principle, he attacked the chief prejudices of his age in philosophy and +literature. One of his earliest publications was a miscellaneous +collection of _Divers Thoughts_, in which he derided Aristotle's Physics +and propounded speculations similar to those developed by Gassendi. He +dared to cast scorn on Homer, as rude and barbarous, poor in the faculty +of invention, taxable with at least five hundred flagrant defects. How +little Tassoni really comprehended Homer may be judged from his +complacent assertion that the episode of Luna and Endymion (_Secchia +Rapita_, canto viii.) was composed in the Homeric manner. In truth he +could estimate the Iliad and Odyssey no better than Chiabrera could the +Pythians and Olympians of Pindar. A just sense of criticism failed the +scholars of that age, which was too remote in its customs, too imperfect +in its science of history, to understand the essence of Greek art. With +equally amusing candor Tassoni passed judgments upon Dante, and thought +that he had rivaled the Purgatory in his description of the Dawn +(_Secchia Rapita_, viii. 15, the author's note). We must, however, be +circumspect and take these criticisms with a grain of salt; for one +never knows how far Tassoni may be laughing in his sleeve. There is no +doubt, however, regarding the sincerity of his strictures upon the Della +Cruscan Vocabulary of 1612, or the more famous inquiry into Petrarch's +style. The _Considerazioni sopra le Rime del Petrarca_ were composed in +1602-3 during a sea voyage from Genoa to Spain. They told what now must +be considered the plain truth of common sense about the affectations +into which a servile study of the _Canzoniere_ had betrayed generations +of Italian rhymesters. Tassoni had in view Petrarch's pedantic +imitators rather than their master; and when the storm of literary fury, +stirred up by his work, was raging round him, he thus established his +position: 'Surely it is allowable to censure Petrarch's poems, if a man +does this, not from malignant envy, but from a wish to remove the +superstitions and abuses which beget such evil effects, and to confound +the sects of the Rabbins hardened in their perfidy of obsolete opinion, +and in particular of such as think they cannot write straight without +the _falsariga_ of their model.' I may observe in passing that the +points in this paragraph are borrowed from a sympathizing letter which +Marino addressed to the author on his essay. In another place Tassoni +stated, 'It was never my intention to speak evil of this poet +[Petrarch], whom I have always admired above any lyrist of ancient or +modern times.' + +So independent in his conduct and so bold in his opinions was the author +of the _Secchia Rapita_. The composition of this poem grew out of the +disputes which followed Tassoni's _Remarks on Petrarch_. He found +himself assailed by two scurrilous libels, which were traced to the +Count Alessandro Brusantini, feudal lord of Culagna and Bismozza. +Justice could not be obtained upon the person of so eminent a noble. +Tassoni, with true Italian refinement, resolved to give himself the +unique pleasure of ingenious vengeance. The name of the Count's fief +supplied him with a standing dish of sarcasm. He would write a satiric +poem, of which the Conte Culagna should be the burlesque hero. After ten +months' labor, probably in the year 1615, the _Secchia Rapita_ already +went abroad in MS.[199] Tassoni sought to pass it off as a product of +his youth; but both the style and the personalities which it contained +rendered this impossible. Privately issued, the poem had a great +success. 'In less than a year,' writes the author, 'more MS. copies were +in circulation than are usually sent forth from the press in ten years +of the most famous works.' One professional scribe made 200 ducats in +the course of a few months by reproducing it; and the price paid for +each copy was eight crowns. It became necessary to publish the _Secchia +Rapita_. But now arose innumerable difficulties. The printers of Modena +and Padua refused; Giuliano Cassiani had been sent to prison in 1617 for +publishing some verses of Testi against Spain. The Inquisition withheld +its _imprimatur_. Attempts were made to have it printed on the sly at +Padua; but the craftsman who engaged to execute this job was imprisoned. +At last, in 1622, Tassoni contrived to have the poem published in Paris. +The edition soon reached Italy. In Rome it was prohibited, but freely +sold; and at last Gregory XV. allowed it to be reprinted with some +canceled passages. There is, in truth, nothing prejudicial either to the +Catholic creed or to general morality in the _Secchia Rapita_. We note, +meanwhile, with interest, that it first saw the light at Paris, sharing +thus the fortunes of the _Adone_, which it preceded by one year. If the +greatest living Italians at this time were exiles, it appears that the +two most eminent poems of their literature first saw the light on +foreign shores. + +[Footnote 199: For the date 1615 see Carducci's learned essay prefixed +to his edition of the _Secchia Rapita_ (Barbera, 1861).] + +The _Secchia Rapita_ is the first example of heroico-comic poetry. +Tassoni claims in print the honor of inventing this new species, and +tells his friends that 'though he will not pique himself on being a +poet, still he sets some store on having discovered a new kind of poem +and occupied a vacant seat.' The seat--and it was no Siege +Perilous--stood indeed empty and ready to be won by any free-lance of +letters. Folengo had burlesqued romance. But no one as yet had made a +parody of that which still existed mainly as the unaccomplished hope of +literature. Trissino with his _Italia Liberata_, Tasso with his +_Gerusalemme Liberata_, tried to persuade themselves and the world that +they had succeeded in delivering Italy in labor of an epic. But their +maieutic ingenuity was vain. The nation carried no epic in her womb. +Trissino's _Italia_ was a weazened changeling of erudition, and Tasso's +_Gerusalemme_ a florid bastard of romance. Tassoni, noticing the +imposition of these two eminent and worthy writers, determined to give +his century an epic or heroic poem in the only form which then was +possible. Briefly, he produced a caricature, modeled upon no existing +work of modern art, but corresponding to the lineaments of that Desired +of the Nation which pedants had prophesied. Unity of action celestial +machinery, races in conflict, contrasted heroes, the wavering chance of +war, episodes, bards, heroines, and love subordinated to the martial +motive--all these features of the epic he viewed through the distorting +medium of his comic art. + +In the days of the second Lombard League, when Frederick II. was +fighting a losing battle with the Church, Guelf Bologna came into grim +conflict with her Ghibelline neighbor Modena. The territory of these two +cities formed the _champ clos_ of a duel in which the forces of Germany +and nearly all Italy took part; and in one engagement, at Fossalta, the +Emperor's heir, King Enzo of Sardinia, was taken captive. How he passed +the rest of his days, a prisoner of the Bolognese, and how he begat the +semi-royal brood of Bentivogli, is matter of history and legend. During +this conflict memorable among the many municipal wars of Italy in the +middle ages, it happened that some Modenese soldiers, who had pushed +their way into the suburbs of Bologna, carried off a bucket and +suspended it as a trophy in the bell-tower of the cathedral, where it +may still be seen. One of the peculiarities of those mediaeval struggles +which roused the rivalry of towns separated from each other by a few +miles of fertile country, and which raged through generations till the +real interests at issue were confounded in blind animosity of neighbor +against neighbor--was the sense of humor and of sarcasm they encouraged. +To hurl dead donkey against your enemy's town-wall passed for a good +joke, and discredited his honor more than the loss of a hundred fighting +men in a pitched battle. Frontier fortresses received insulting names, +like the Perugian _Becca di questo_, or like the Bolognese _Grevalcore_. +There was much, in fact, in these Italian wars which reminds one of the +hostilities between rival houses in a public school. + +Such being the element of humor ready to hand in the annals of his +country, Tassoni chose the episode of the Bolognese bucket for the theme +of a mock-heroic epic. He made what had been an insignificant incident +the real occasion of the war, and grouped the facts of history around it +by ingenious distortions of the truth. The bucket is the Helen of his +Iliad:[200] + + Vedrai s'al cantar mio porgi l'orecchia, + Elena trasformarsi in una secchia. + +[Footnote 200: Canto i. 2.] + +A mere trifle thus becomes a point of dispute capable of bringing gods, +popes, emperors, kings, princes, cities, and whole nations into +conflict. At the same time the satirist betrays his malice by departing +as little as possible from the main current of actual events. History +lends verisimilitude to the preposterous assumption that heaven and +earth were drawn into a squabble about a bucket: and if there is any +moral to be derived from the _Secchia Rapita_ we have it here. At the +end of the contention, when both parties are exhausted, it is found +that the person of a king weighs in the scale of nations no more than an +empty bucket:[201] + + Riserbando ne' patti a i Modanesi + La secchia, e 'l re de'Sardi ai Bolognesi. + +Such is the main subject of the _Secchia Rapita_; and such is Tassoni's +irony, an irony worthy of Aristophanes in its far-reaching indulgent +contempt for human circumstance. But the poem has another object. It was +written to punish Count Alessandro Brusantini. The leading episode, +which occupies about three cantos of the twelve, is an elaborate +vilification of this personal enemy travestied as the contemptible Conte +di Culagna. + +Tassoni's method of art corresponds to the irony of his inspiration. We +find his originality in a peculiar blending of serious and burlesque +styles, in abrupt but always well-contrived transitions from heroical +magniloquence to plebeian farce and from scurrility to poetic elevation, +finally in a frequent employment of the figure which the Greeks called +[Greek: para prosdokian]. His poem is a parody of the Aristophanic type. +'Like a fantastically ironical magic tree, the world-subversive idea +which lies at the root of it springs up with blooming ornament of +thoughts, with singing nightingales and climbing chattering apes.'[202] +To seek a central motive or a sober meaning in this caprice of the +satirical imagination would be idle. Tassoni had no intention, as some +critics have pretended, to exhibit the folly of those party wars which +tore the heart of Italy three centuries before his epoch, to teach the +people of his day the miseries of foreign interference, or to strike a +death-blow at classical mythology. The lesson which can be drawn from +his cantos, that man in warfare disquiets himself in vain for naught, +that a bucket is as good a _casus belli_ as Helen, the moral which +Southey pointed in his ballad of the Battle of Blenheim, emerges, not +from the poet's design, but from the inevitable logic of his humor. +Pique inspired the _Secchia Rapita_, and in the despicable character of +Count Culagna he fully revenged the slight which had been put upon him. +The revenge is savage, certainly; for the Count remains 'immortally +immerded' in the long-drawn episode which brought to view the shame of +his domestic life. Yet while Tassoni drew blood, he never ceased to +smile; and Count Culagna remains for us a personage of comedy rather +than of satire. + +[Footnote 201: Canto xii. 77.] + +[Footnote 202: So Heine wrote of Aristophanes. See my essay in _Studies +of the Greek Poets_.] + +In the next place, Tassoni meant to ridicule the poets of his time. He +calls the _Secchia Rapita_ 'an absurd caprice, written to burlesque the +modern poets.' His genius was nothing if not critical, and literature +afforded him plenty of material for fun. Romance-writers with their +jousts and duels and armed heroines, would-be epic poets with their +extra-mundane machinery and pomp of phrase, Marino and his hyperbolical +conceits, Tuscan purists bent on using only words of the Tre Cento, +Petrarchisti spinning cobwebs of old metaphors and obsolete periphrases, +all felt in turn the touch of his light lash. The homage paid to +Petrarch's stuffed cat at Arqua supplied him with a truly Aristophanic +gibe.[203] Society comes next beneath his ferule. There is not a city of +Italy which Tassoni did not wring in the withers of its self-conceit. +The dialects of Ferrara, Bologna, Bergamo, Florence, Rome, lend the +satirist vulgar phrases when he quits the grand style and, taking +Virgil's golden trumpet from his lips, slides off into a _canaille_ +drawl or sluice of Billingsgate. Modena is burlesqued in her presiding +Potta, gibbeted for her filthy streets. The Sienese discover that the +world accounts them lunatics. The Florentines and Perugians are branded +for notorious vice. Roman foppery, fantastical in feminine +pretentiousness, serves as a foil to drag Culagna down into the ditch of +ignominy. Here and there, Tassoni's satire is both venomous and pungent, +as when he paints the dotage of the Empire, stabs Spanish pride of +sovereignty, and menaces the Papacy with insurrection. But for the most +part, like Horace in the phrase of Persius, he plays about the vitals of +the victims who admit him to their confidence--_admissus circum +praecordia ludit_. + +[Footnote 203: Canto viii. 33, 34.] + +We can but regret that so clear-sighted, so urbane and so truly +Aristophanic a satirist had not a wider field to work in. +Seventeenth-century Italy was all too narrow for his genius; and if the +_Secchia Rapita_ has lost its savor, this is less the poet's fault than +the defect of his material. He was strong enough to have brought the +Athens of Cleon, the France of Henri III., or the England of James I. +within the range of his distorting truth-revealing mirror. Yet, even as +it was, Tassoni opened several paths for modern humorists. Rabelais +might have owned that caricature of Mars and Bacchus rioting in a tavern +bed with Venus travestied as a boy, and in the morning, after +breakfasting divinely on two hundred restorative eggs, escaping with the +fear of a scandalized host and the police-court before their eyes. Yet +Rabelais would hardly have brought this cynical picture of crude +debauchery into so fine a contrast with the celestial environment of +gods and goddesses. True to his principle of effect by alternation, +Tassoni sometimes sketches the deities whom he derides, in the style of +Volpato engravings after Guido. They move across his canvas with +ethereal grace. What can be more charming than Diana visiting Endymion, +and confessing to the Loves that all her past career as huntress and as +chaste had been an error? Venus, too, when she takes that sensuously +dreamy all-poetic journey across the blue Mediterranean to visit +golden-haired King Enzo in his sleep, makes us forget her entrance into +Modena disguised as a lad trained to play female parts upon the stage. +This blending of true elegance with broad farce is a novelty in modern +literature. We are reminded of the songs of the Mystae on the meadows of +Elysium in the _Frogs_. Scarron and Voltaire, through the French +imitators of Tassoni, took lessons from his caricature of Saturn, the +old diseased senator traveling in a sedan chair to the celestial +parliament, with a clyster-pipe in front of him and his seat upon a +close stool. Moliere and Swift, votaries of Cloacina, were anticipated +in the climax of Count Culagna's attempt to poison his wife, and in the +invention of the enchanted ass so formidable by Parthian discharges on +its adversary. Over these births of Tassoni's genius the Maccaronic Muse +of Folengo and his Bolognese predecessors presided. There is something +Lombard, a smack of sausage in the humor. But it remained for the +Modenese poet to bring this Mafelina into the comity of nations. We are +not, indeed, bound to pay her homage. Yet when we find her inspiring +such writers as Swift, Voltaire, Sterne and Heine, it is well to +remember that Tassoni first evoked her from Mantuan gutters and the +tripe-shops of Bologna. + +'The fantastically ironical magic tree' of the _Secchia Rapita_ spread +its green boughs not merely for chattering baboons. Nightingales sang +there. The monkey-like Culagna, with his tricks and antics, disappears. +Virtuous Renoppia, that wholesome country lass, the _bourgeois_ +counterpart of Bradamante, withholds her slipper from the poet's head +when he is singing sad or lovely things of human fortune. Our eyes, +rendered sensitive by vulgar sights, dwell with unwonted pleasure on the +chivalrous beauty of King Enzo. Ernesto's death touches our sympathy +with pathos, in spite of the innuendo cast upon his comrade Jaconia. +Paolo Malatesta rides with the shades of doom, the Dantesque cloud of +love and destiny, around his forehead, through that motley mock-heroic +band of burghers. Manfredi, consumed by an unholy passion for his +sister, burns for one moment, like a face revealed by lightning, on our +vision and is gone. Finally, when the mood seizes him (for Tassoni +persuades us into thinking he is but the creature of caprice), he tunes +the soft idyllic harp and sings Endymion's love-tale in strains soft as +Marino's, sweet as Tasso's, outdoing Marino in delicacy, Tasso in +reserve. This episode moved rigid Alfieri to admiration. It remains +embedded in a burlesque poem, one of the most perfectly outlined +triumphs of refined Italian romantic art. Yet such was the strength of +the master's hand, so loyal was he to his principle of contrast, that he +cuts the melodious idyl short with a twang of the guitar-strings, and +strikes up a tavern ballad on Lucrezia. The irony which ruled his art +demanded this inversion of proprieties. Cynthia wooing Endymion shows us +woman in her frailty; Lucrece violated by Tarquin is woman in her +dignity. The ironical poet had to adorn the first story with his +choicest flowers of style and feeling, to burlesque the second with his +grossest realism. + +This antithesis between sustained poetry and melodiously-worded slang, +between radiant forms of beauty and grotesque ugliness, penetrates the +_Secchia Rapita_ in every canto and in every detail. We pass from +battle-scenes worthy of Ariosto and Tasso at their best into ditches of +liquid dung. Ambassadors are introduced with touches that degrade them +to the rank of _commis voyageurs_. Before the senate the same men utter +orations in the style of Livy. The pomp of war is paraded, its machinery +of catapults is put in motion, to discharge a dead ass into a besieged +town; and when the beleagured garrison behold it flying through the air, +they do not take the donkey for a taunt, but for a heavenly portent. A +tournament is held and very brave in their attire are all the +combatants. But according to its rules the greatest sluggard wins the +crown of honor. Even in the similes, which formed so important an +element of epic decoration, the same principle of contrast is +maintained. Fine vignettes from nature in the style consecrated by +Ariosto and Tasso introduce ludicrous incidents. Vulgar details picked +up from the streets prepare us for touches of pathos or poetry. + +Tassoni takes high rank as a literary artist for the firmness with which +he adhered to his principle of irony, and for the facility of vigor +which conceals all traces of effort in so difficult a task. I may be +thought to have pitched his praise too high. But those will forgive me +who enjoy the play of pure sharp-witted fancy, or who reflect upon the +sadness of the theme which occupies my pen in these two volumes. + +Of the four poets to whom this chapter is devoted, Guarini, Marino, and +Tassoni were successful, Chiabrera was a respectable failure. The reason +of this difference is apparent. In the then conditions of Italian +society, at the close of a great and glorious period of varied culture, +beneath the shadow of a score of Spaniardizing princelings, with the +spies of the Inquisition at every corner, and the drill of the +Tridentine Council to be gone through under Jesuitical direction, there +was no place for a second Pindar. But there was scope for decorative +art, for sensuous indulgence, and for genial irony. Happy the man who +paced his vineyards, dreaming musically of Arcadia! Happy the man who +rolled in Circe's pigsty! Happy the man who sat in his study and +laughed! Therefore the most meritorious productions of the time, +Boccalini's _Ragguagli di Parnaso_, Bracciolini's _Scherno degli Dei_, +have a touch of Tassoni's humor in them; while Achillini and Preti limp +somewhat feebly after Marino's Alcibidean swagger, and endless pastorals +pullulate from Guarini's tragi-comedy. We need not occupy our minds with +these secondary writers, nor do more than indicate the scholarly +niceness with which Filicaja in the second half of the seventeenth +century continued Chiabrera's tradition. But one word must be said in +honor of Fulvio Testi, the Modenese poet and statesman, who paid for the +fame of a Canzone with his head. He has a double interest for us: first, +because Leopardi esteemed him the noblest of Italian lyrists after +Petrarch; secondly, because his fate proved that Tasso's dread of +assassination was not wholly an illusion. Reading the ode addressed to +Count Raimondo Montecuccoli, _Ruscelletto orgoglioso_, the ode which +brought Testi to the block in a dungeon of the Estensi, we comprehend +what Leopardi meant by his high panegyric. It is a piece of poetry, +lofty in style, grave in movement, pregnant with weighty thought, stern +and rugged, steeped in a sublimity of gloom and Stoicism which remind us +of the author of _La Ginestra_. The century produced little that bore a +stamp so evident of dignity and greatness. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +PALESTRINA AND THE ORIGINS OF MODERN MUSIC. + + Italy in Renaissance produces no National School of Music--Flemish + Composers in Rome--Singers and Orchestra--The Chaotic Indecency of + this Contrapuntal Style--Palestrina's Birth and Early + History--Decrees of the Tridentine Council upon Church Music--The + Mass of Pope Marcello--Palestrina Satisfies the Cardinals with his + New Style of Sacred Music--Pius IV. and his Partiality for + Music--Palestrina and Filippo Neri--His Motetts--The Song of + Solomon set to Melody--Palestrina, the Saviour of Music--The + Founder of the Modern Style--Florentine Essays in the Oratorio. + +It is a singular fact that while Italy led all the European races in +scholarship and literature, in the arts of sculpture and painting, in +commerce and the sciences of life, she had developed no national school +of music in the middle of the sixteenth century. Native melody might +indeed be heard in abundance along her shores and hillsides, in city +streets and on the squares where men and girls danced together at +evening. But such melody was popular; it could not be called artistic or +scientific. The music which resounded through the Sistine Chapel, +beneath the Prophets of Michel Angelo, on high days and festivals, was +not Italian. The composers of it came for the most part from Flemish or +French provinces, bearing the names of Josquin Depres, of Andrew +Willaert, of Eleazar Genet, of James Arkadelt, of Claude Gondimel; and +the performers were in like manner chiefly ultramontanes. Julius II. in +1513 founded a chapel in the Vatican Basilica called the Cappella Giulia +for the maintenance of twelve male singers, twelve boys, and two masters +of the choristers. In doing so it was his object to encourage a Roman +school of music and to free the Chapter of S. Peter's from the +inconvenience of being forced to engage foreign choir-men. His scheme, +however, had been only partially successful. As late as 1540, we find +that the principal composers and musicians in Rome were still +foreigners. To three Italians of repute, there were five Flemings, three +Frenchmen, three Spaniards, one German, and one Portuguese.[204] + +[Footnote 204: See Baini, _Life of Palestrina_, vol. ii. p. 20.] + +The Flemish style of contrapuntal or figured harmony, which had +enchanted Europe by its novelty and grace when Josquin Depres, in the +last quarter of the fifteenth century, brought it into universal vogue, +was still dominant in Italy. But this style already showed unmistakable +signs of decadence and dissolution. It had become unfit for +ecclesiastical uses, and by the exaggeration of its qualities it was +tending to anarchy. The grand defect of Flemish music, considered as an +art of expression, was that it ignored propriety and neglected the +libretto. Instead of exercising original invention, instead of suiting +melodies to words by appropriate combinations of sound and sense, the +composers chose any musical themes that came to hand, and wrought them +up into elaborate contrapuntal structures without regard for their book. +The first words of a passage from the Creed, for instance, were briefly +indicated at the outset of the number: what followed was but a +reiteration of the same syllables, and divided in the most arbitrary +manner to suit the complicated descant which they had to serve. The +singers could not adapt their melodic phrases to the liturgical text, +since sometimes passages of considerable length fell upon a couple of +syllables, while on the contrary a long sentence might have no more than +a bar or even less assigned to it. They were consequently in the habit +of drawling out or gabbling over the words, regardless of both sense and +sentiment. Nor was this all. The composers of the Flemish school prided +themselves on overloading their work with every kind of intricate and +difficult ornament, exhibiting their dexterity by canons of many types, +inversions, imitations, contrapuntal devices of divers ingenious and +distracting species. The verbal theme became a mere basis for the +utterance of scientific artifices and the display of vocal gymnastics. +The singers, for their part, were allowed innumerable licenses. While +the bass sustained the melody, the other voices indulged in extempore +descant (_composizione alla mente_) and in extravagances of technical +execution (_rifiorimenti_), regardless of the style of the main +composition, violating time, and setting even the fundamental tone at +defiance. + +The composers, to advance another step in the analysis of this strange +medley, took particular delight in combining different sets of words, +melodies of widely diverse character, antagonistic rhythms and divergent +systems of accentuation in a single piece. They assigned these several +ingredients to several parts; and for the further exhibition of their +perverse skill, went even to the length of coupling themes in the major +and the minor. + +The most obvious result of such practice was that it became impossible +to understand what words were being sung, and that instead of concord +and order in the choir, a confused discord and anarchy of dinning sounds +prevailed. What made the matter from an ecclesiastical point of view +still worse, was that these scholastically artificial compositions were +frequently based on trivial and vulgar tunes, suggesting the tavern, the +dancing-room, or even worse places, to worshipers assembled for the +celebration of a Sacrament. Masses bore titles adopted from the popular +melodies on which they were founded: such, for example, as 'Adieu mes +amours,' 'A l'ombre d'un buissonnet,' 'Baise-moi,' 'L'ami baudichon +madame,' 'Le vilain jaloux.' Even the words of love-ditties and obscene +ballads in French, Flemish, and Italian, were being squalled out by the +tenor while the bass gave utterance to an _Agnus_ or a _Benedictus_, and +the soprano was engaged upon the verses of a Latin hymn. Baini, who +examined hundreds of these Masses and motetts in MS., says that the +words imported into them from vulgar sources 'make one's flesh creep and +one's hair stand on end.' He does not venture to do more than indicate a +few of the more decent of these interloping verses; but mentions one +_Kyrie_, in which the tenor sang _Je ne vis oncques la pareille_; a +_Sanctus_, in which he had to utter _gracieuse gente mounyere_; and a +_Benedictus_, where the same offender was employed on _Madame, faites +moy scavoir_. As an augmentation of this indecency, numbers from a Mass +or motett which started with the grave rhythm of a Gregorian tone, were +brought to their conclusion on the dance measure of a popular _ballata_, +so that _Incarnatus est_ or _Kyrie eleison_ went jigging off into +suggestions of Masetto and Zerlina at a village ball. + +To describe all the impertinences to which the customs of vocal +execution then in vogue gave rise, by means of flourishes, +improvisations, accelerations of time and multitudinous artifices +derived from the _ad libitum_ abuses of the fugal machinery, would serve +no purpose. But it may be profitably mentioned that the mischief was not +confined to the vocal parts. Organ and orchestra of divers instruments +were allowed the same liberty of improvising on the given theme, +embroidering these with fanciful _capricci_, and indulging their own +taste in symphonies connected with the main structure by slight and +artificial links. Instrumental music had not yet taken an independent +place in art. The lute, the trumpet, or the stops of the organ, followed +and imitated the voice; and thus in this confusion a choir of stringed +and wind instruments was placed in competition with the singing +choir.[205] It would appear that the composer frequently gave but a +ground-sketch of his plan, without troubling himself to distribute +written parts to the executants. The efflorescences, excursuses and +episodes to which I have alluded, were supplied by artists whom long +training in this kind of music enabled to perform their separate sallies +and to execute their several antics within certain limits of recognized +license. But since each vied with the other to produce striking effects, +the choir rivaling the orchestra, the tenor competing with the bass, the +organ with the viol, it followed that the din of their accumulated +efforts was not unjustly compared to that made by a 'sty of grunting +pigs,' the builders of the Tower of Babel, or the 'squalling of cats in +January.'[206] 'All their happiness,' writes a contemporary critic, +'consisted in keeping the bass singer to the fugue, while at the same +time one voice was shouting out _Sanctus_, another _Sabaoth_, a third +_gloria tua_, with howlings, bellowings and squealings that cannot be +described.' + +[Footnote 205: While the choir was singing, the orchestra was playing +concerted pieces called _ricercari_, in which the vocal parts were +reproduced.] + +[Footnote 206: See the original passages from contemporary writers +quoted by Baini, vol. i. pp. 102-104. Savonarola went so far as to +affirm: 'Che questo canto figurato l'ha trovato Satanasso,' a phrase +quite in the style of a Puritan abusing choirs and organs.] + +It must not be thought that this almost unimaginable state of things +indicated a defect either of intellectual capacity or of artistic skill. +It was due rather to the abuse of science and of virtuosity, both of +which had attained to a high degree of development. It manifested the +decadence of music in its immaturity, through over-confident employment +of exuberant resources on an end inadequate for the fulfillment of the +art. Music, it must be remembered, unlike literature and plastic art, +had no antique tradition to assimilate, no masterpieces of accomplished +form to study. In the modern world it was an art without connecting +links to bind it to the past. And this circumstance rendered it liable +to negligent treatment by a society that prided itself upon the recovery +of the classics. The cultivated classes abandoned it in practice to +popular creators of melody upon the one hand, and to grotesque +scholastic pedants on the other. And from the blending of those +ill-accorded elements arose the chaos which I have attempted to +describe. + +Learned composers in the style developed by the Flemish masters had +grown tired of writing simple music for four voices and a single choir. +They reveled in the opportunity of combining eight vocal parts and +bringing three choirs with accompanying orchestras into play at the same +time. They were proud of proving how by counterpoint the most dissimilar +and mutually-jarring factors could be wrought into a whole, intelligible +to the scientific musician, though unedifying to the public. In the +neglect of their art, considered as an art of interpretation and +expression, they abandoned themselves to intricate problems and to the +presentation of incongruous complexities. + +The singers were expert in rendering difficult passages, in developing +unpromising motives, and in embroidering the arras-work of the composer +with fanciful extravagances of vocal execution. The instrumentalists +were trained in the art of copying effects of fugue or madrigal by lutes +and viols in concerted pieces. The people were used to dance and sing +and touch the mandoline together; in every house were found amateurs who +could with voice and string produce the studied compositions of the +masters. + +What was really lacking, amid this exuberance of musical resources, in +this thick jungle of technical facilities, was a controlling element of +correct taste, a right sense of the proper function of music as an +interpretative art. On the very threshold of its modern development, +music had fallen into early decay owing to the misapplication of the +means so copiously provided by nature and by exercise. A man of genius +and of substantial intuition into the real ends of vocal music was +demanded at this moment, who should guide the art into its destined +channel. And in order to elicit such a creator of new impulses, such a +Nomothetes of the disordered state, it was requisite that external +pressure should be brought to bear upon the art. An initiator of the +right caliber was found in Palestrina. The pressure from without was +supplied by the Council of Trent. + +It may here be parenthetically remarked that music, all through modern +history, has needed such legislators and initiators of new methods. +Considered as an art of expression, she has always tended to elude +control, to create for herself a domain extraneous to her proper +function, and to erect her resources of mere sound into +self-sufficingness. What Palestrina effected in the sixteenth century, +was afterwards accomplished on a wider platform by Gluck in the +eighteenth, and in our own days the same deliverance has been attempted +by Wagner. The efforts of all these epoch-making musicians have been +directed toward restraining the tendencies of music to assert an +independence, which for herself becomes the source of weakness by +reducing her to co-operation with insignificant words, and which renders +her subservient to merely technical dexterities. + +Giovanni Pier Luigi, called Palestrina from his birthplace in one of the +Colonna fiefs near Rome, the ancient Praeneste, was born of poor +parents, in the year 1524, He went to Rome about 1540, and began his +musical career probably as a choir-boy in one of the Basilicas. Claude +Goudimel, the Besancon composer, who subsequently met a tragic death at +Lyons in a massacre of Huguenots, had opened a school of harmony in +Rome, where Palestrina learned the first rudiments of that science. What +Palestrina owed to Goudimel, is not clear. But we have the right to +assume that the Protestant part-songs of the French people which +Goudimel transferred to the hymn-books of the Huguenots, had a potent +influence upon the formation of his style. They may have been for him +what the Chorales of Germany were for the school of Bach.[207] +Externally, Palestrina's life was a very uneventful one, and the records +collected with indefatigable diligence by his biographer have only +brought to light changes from one post to another in several Basilicas, +and unceasing industry in composition. The vast number of works +published by Palestrina in his lifetime, or left in MS. at his death, or +known to have been written and now lost, would be truly astonishing were +it not a fact that very eminent creative genius is always copious, and +in no province of the arts more fertile than in that of music. +Palestrina lived and died a poor man. In his dedications he occasionally +remarks with sober pathos on the difficulty of pursuing scientific +studies in the midst of domestic anxiety. His pay was very small, and +the expense of publishing his works, which does not seem to have been +defrayed by patrons, was at that time very great. Yet he enjoyed an +uncontested reputation as the first of living composers, the saviour of +Church music, the creator of a new style; and on his tomb, in 1594, was +inscribed this title: _Princeps Musicae_. + +[Footnote 207: See Michelet, _Histoire de France_, vol. xi. pp. 76, 101, +vol. xii. p. 383 (Paris: Lacroix, 1877).] + +The state of confusion into which ecclesiastical music had fallen, +rendered it inevitable that some notice of so grave a scandal should be +taken by the Fathers of the Tridentine Council in their deliberations on +reform of ritual. It appears, therefore, that in their twenty-second +session (September 17, 1562) they enjoined upon the Ordinaries to +'exclude from churches all such music as, whether through the organ or +the singing, introduces anything of impure or lascivious, in order that +the house of God may truly be seen to be and may be called the house of +prayer.'[208] In order to give effect to this decree of the Tridentine +Council, Pius IV. appointed a congregation of eight Cardinals upon +August 2, 1564, among whom three deserve especial mention--Michele +Ghislieri, the Inquisitor, who was afterwards Pope Pius V.; Carlo +Borromeo, the sainted Archbishop of Milan; and Vitellozzo Vitellozzi. It +was their business, among other matters of reform, to see that the +Church music of Rome was instantly reduced to proper order in accordance +with the decree of the Council. Carlo Borromeo was nephew and chief +minister of the reigning Pope. Vitellozzo Vitellozzi was a young man of +thirty-three years, who possessed a singular passion for music. + +[Footnote 208: Baini, i. p. 196.] + +To these two members of the congregation, as a sub-committee, was +deputed the special task of settling the question of ecclesiastical +music, it being stipulated that they should by all means see that +sufficient clearness was introduced into the enunciation of the +liturgical words by the singers. + +I will here interrupt the thread of the narration, in order to touch +upon the legendary story which connects Palestrina incorrectly with what +subsequently happened. It was well known that on the decisions of the +sub-committee of the congregation hung the fate of Church music. For +some while it seemed as though music might be altogether expelled from +the rites of the Catholic Ecclesia. And it soon became matter of history +that Palestrina had won the cause of his art, had maintained it in its +eminent position in the ritual of Rome, and at the same time had opened +a new period in the development of modern music by the production of his +Mass called the _Mass of Pope Marcellus_ at this critical moment. These +things were true; and when the peril had been overpassed, and the actual +circumstances of the salvation and revolution of Church music had been +forgotten, the memory of the crisis and the title of the victorious Mass +remained to form a mythus. The story ran that the good Pope Marcellus, +who occupied the Holy See for only twenty-two days, in the year 1555, +determined on the abolition of all music but Plain Song in the Church; +hearing of which resolve, Palestrina besought him to suspend his decree +until he had himself produced and presented a Mass conformable to +ecclesiastical propriety. Marcello granted the chapel-master this +request; and on Easter Day, the Mass, which saved Church music from +destruction, was performed with the papal approval and the applause of +Rome. It is not necessary to point out the many impossibilities and +contradictions involved in this legend, since the real history of the +Mass which wrought salvation for Church music, lies before us plainly +written in the prolix pages of Baini. Yet it would have vexed me to pass +by in silence so interesting and instructive an example of the mode by +which the truth of history is veiled in legend. + +Truth is always more interesting than fiction, and the facts of this +important episode in musical history are not without their element of +romance. There is no doubt that there was a powerful party in the +Catholic Church imbued with a stern ascetic or puritanical spirit, who +would gladly have excluded all but Plain Song from her services. Had +Michele Ghislieri instead of the somewhat worldly Angelo de'Medici been +on the Papal throne, or had the decision of the musical difficulty been +delegated to him by the congregation of eight Cardinals in 1564, +Palestrina might not have obtained that opportunity of which he so +triumphantly availed himself. But it happened that the reigning Pope was +a lover of the art, and had a special reason for being almost +superstitiously indulgent to its professors. While he was yet a +Cardinal, in the easy-going days of Julius III., Angelo de'Medici had +been invited with other princes of the Church to hear the marvelous +performances upon the lute and the incomparable improvisations of a boy +called Silvio Antoniano. The meeting took place at a banquet in the +palace of the Venetian Cardinal Pisani. When the guests were assembled, +the Cardinal Rannuccio Farnese put together a bouquet of flowers, and +presenting these to the musician, bade him give them to that one of the +Cardinals who should one day be chosen Pope. Silvio without hesitation +handed the flowers to Angelo de'Medici, and taking up his lute began to +sing his praises in impassioned extempore verse. After his election to +the Papacy, with the title of Pius IV., Angelo de'Medici took Silvio +into his service, and employed him in such honorable offices that the +fortunate youth was finally advanced to the dignity of Cardinal under +the reign of Clement VIII., in 1598.[209] + +[Footnote 209: It will be remembered that this Silvio Antoniano was one +of the revisers of Tasso's poem, and the one who gave him most trouble.] + +It was therefore necessary for the congregation of musical reform to +take the Pope's partiality for this art into consideration; and they +showed their good will by choosing his own nephew, together with a +notorious amateur of music, for their sub-committee. The two Cardinals +applied to the College of Pontifical Singers for advice; and these +deputed eight of their number--three Spaniards, one Fleming, and four +Italians--to act as assistants in the coming deliberations. It was soon +agreed that Masses and motetts in which different verbal themes were +jumbled, should be prohibited; that musical motives taken from profane +songs should be abandoned; and that no countenance should be given to +compositions or words invented by contemporary poets. These three +conditions were probably laid down as indispensable by the Cardinals in +office before proceeding to the more difficult question of securing a +plain and intelligible enunciation of the sacred text. When the +Cardinals demanded this as the essential point in the proposed reform, +the singers replied that it would be impossible in practice. They were +so used to the complicated structure of figured music, with its canons, +fugal intricacies, imitations and inversions, that they could not even +imagine a music that should be simple and straightforward, retaining the +essential features of vocal harmony, and yet allowing the words on which +it was composed to be distinctly heard. The Cardinals rebutted these +objections by pointing to the Te Deum of Costanzo Festa (a piece which +has been always sung on the election of a new Pope from that day to our +own times) and to the Improperia of Palestrina, which also holds its own +in the service of the Sistine. But the singers answered that these were +exceptional pieces, which, though they might fulfill the requirements of +the Congregation of Reform, could not be taken as the sole models for +compositions involving such variety and length of execution as the Mass. +Their answer proved conclusively to what extent the contrapuntal style +had dissociated itself from the right object of all vocal music, that of +interpreting, enforcing, and transfiguring the words with which it +deals, and how it had become a mere art for the scientific development +of irrelevant and often impertinent melodic themes. + +In order to avoid an absolute deadlock, which might have resulted in the +sacrifice of ecclesiastical harmony, and have inflicted a death-blow on +modern music, the committee agreed to refer their difficulties to +Palestrina. On the principle of _solvitur ambulando_, he was invited to +study the problem, and to produce a trial piece which should satisfy the +conditions exacted by the Congregation as well as the requirements of +the artists. Literally, he received commission to write a Mass in sober +ecclesiastical style, free from all impure and light suggestions in the +themes, the melodies and the rhythms, which should allow the sacred +words in their full sense to be distinctly heard, without sacrificing +vocal harmony and the customary interlacing of fugued passages. If he +succeeded, the Cardinals promised to make no further innovation; but if +he failed, Carlo Borromeo warned him that the Congregation of Reform +would disband the choral establishments of the Pontifical Chapel and the +Roman churches, and prohibit the figured style in vogue, in pursuance +of the clear decision of the Tridentine Council. + +This was a task of Hercules imposed on Palestrina. The art to which he +had devoted his lifetime, the fame which he had acquired as a composer, +the profession by which he and all his colleagues gained their daily +bread, depended on his working out the problem. He was practically +commanded to discover a new species of Church music, or to behold the +ruin of himself and his companions, the extinction of the art and +science he so passionately loved. Truly may his biographer remark: 'I am +deliberately of opinion that no artist either before or since has ever +found himself in a parallel strait.' + +We have no exact record of the spirit in which he approached this +labor.[210] But he was a man of sincere piety, a great and enthusiastic +servant of art. The command he had received came from a quarter which at +that period and in Rome had almost divine authority. He knew that music +hung trembling in the balance upon his failure or success. + +[Footnote 210: In the Dedication of the _Mass of Pope Marcello_ to +Philip II. in 1567 Palestrina only says that he had been constrained by +the order of men of the highest gravity and most approved piety to apply +himself _ad sanctissimum Missae sacrificium novo modorum genere +decorandum_, and that he had performed his task with indefatigable pains +and industry (Baini, _op. cit._ vol. i. p. 280). But it is noteworthy +that of the three Masses furnished for the approval of the congregation, +the first was entitled _Illumina oculos meos_, and that an anecdote +referring to this title relates Palestrina's earnest prayers for grace +and inspiration during the execution of the work (_ibid._ p. 223, +note.)] + +And these two motives, the motive of religious zeal and the motive of +devotion to art, inspired him for the creation of a new musical world. +Analysis of his work and comparison of it with the style which he was +called on to supersede, show pretty clearly what were the principles +that governed him. With a view to securing the main object of rendering +the text intelligible to the faithful, he had to dispense with the +complicated Flemish system of combined melodies in counterpoint, and to +employ his scientific resources of fugue and canon with parsimony, so +that in future they should subserve and not tyrannize over expression. +He determined to write for six voices, two of which should be bass, in +order that the fundamental themes should be sustained with dignity and +continuity. But what he had principally in view, what in fact he had +been called on to initiate, was that novel adaptation of melody and +science to verbal phrase and sense, whereby music should be made an art +interpretative of religious sentiment, powerful to clothe each shade of +meaning in the text with appropriate and beautiful sound, instead of +remaining a merely artificial and mechanical structure of sounds +disconnected from the words employed in giving them vocal utterance. + +Palestrina set to work, and composed three Masses, which were performed +upon April 28, 1565, before the eight Cardinals of the congregation in +the palace of Cardinal Vitellozzi. All three were approved of; but the +first two still left something to be desired. Baini reports that they +preserved somewhat too much of the cumbrous Flemish manner; and that +though the words were more intelligible, the fugal artifices overlaid +their clear enunciation. In the third, however, it was unanimously +agreed that Palestrina had solved the problem satisfactorily. 'Its style +is always equal, always noble, always alive, always full of thought and +sincere feeling, rising and ascending to the climax; not to understand +the words would be impossible; the melodies combine to stimulate +devotion; the harmonies touch the heart; it delights without +distracting; satisfies desire without tickling the senses; it is +beautiful in all the beauties of the sanctuary.' So writes Palestrina's +enthusiastic biographer; so apparently thought the Cardinals of the +congregation; and when this Mass (called the _Mass of Pope Marcellus_, +out of grateful tribute to the Pontiff, whose untimely death had +extinguished many sanguine expectations) was given to the world, the +whole of Italy welcomed it with a burst of passionate applause. Church +music had been saved. Modern music had been created. A new and +lovely-form of art had arisen like a star. + +It was not enough that the _Mass of Pope Marcellus_ should have +satisfied the congregation. It had next to receive the approval of the +Pope, who heard it on June 19. On this occasion, if the Court Chronicle +be correct, Pius made a pretty speech, declaring that 'of such nature +must have been the harmonies of the new song heard by John the Apostle +in the heavenly Jerusalem, and that another John had given us a taste of +them in the Jerusalem of the Church Militant.' He seems, indeed, to have +been convinced that the main problem of preserving clearness of +enunciation in the uttered words had been solved, and that there was now +no reason to deprive the faithful of the artistic and devotional value +of melodious music. He consequently appointed Palestrina to the post of +composer for the Papal Chapel, and created a monopoly for the +performance of his works. This measure, which roused considerable +jealousy among musicians at the moment, had the salutary effect of +rendering the new style permanent in usage. + +Of Palestrina's voluminous compositions this is not the place to speak. +It is enough to have indicated the decisive part which he took in the +reformation of Church music at a moment when its very existence was +imperiled, and to have described the principles upon which he laid down +new laws for the art. I must not, however, omit to dwell upon his +subsequent connection with S. Filippo Neri, since the music he composed +for the Oratory of that saint contributed much toward the creation of a +semi-lyrical and semi-dramatic style to which we may refer the origins +of the modern Oratorio. Filippo Neri was the spiritual director of +Palestrina, and appointed him composer to his devout confraternity. For +the use of that society the master wrote a series of _Arie Divote_ on +Italian words. They were meant to be sung by the members, and to +supersede the old usages of Laud-music, which had chiefly consisted in +adapting popular street-tunes to sacred words.[211] + +[Footnote 211: See _Renaissance in Italy_, vol. iv. pp. 263, 305.] + +To the same connection with the Oratory we owe one of the most +remarkable series of Palestrina's compositions. These were written upon +the words of an Italian Canzone in thirty octave stanzas, addressed as a +prayer to the Virgin. Palestrina set each stanza, after the fashion of a +Madrigal, to different melodies; and the whole work proved a manual of +devotional music, in the purest artistic taste, and the most delicately +sentimental key of feeling. Together with this collection of spiritual +songs should be mentioned Palestrina's setting of passages from the Song +of Solomon in a series of motetts; which were dedicated to Gregory +XIII., in 1584. They had an enormous success. Ten editions between that +date and 1650 were poured out from the presses of Rome and Venice, to +satisfy the impatience of thousands who desired to feed upon 'the nectar +of their sweetness.' Palestrina chose for the motives of his +compositions such voluptuous phrases of the Vulgate as the following: +_Fasciculus myrrhae dilectus meus mihi._ _Fulcite me floribus, stipate +me malis, quia amore langueo._ _Vulnerasti cor meum, soror, sponsa mea._ +This was the period when Italy was ringing with the secular sweetnesses +of Tasso's _Aminta_ and of Guarini's _Pastor fido_; when the devotion of +the cloister was becoming languorous and soft; when the cult of the +Virgin was assuming the extravagant proportions satirized by Pascal; +finally, when manners were affecting a tone of swooning piety blent with +sensuous luxuriousness. Palestrina's setting of the Canticle and of the +Hymn to Mary provided the public with music which, according to the +taste of that epoch, transferred terrestrial emotions into the regions +of paradisal bliss, and justified the definition of music as the +_Lamento dell'amore o la preghiera agli dei_. The great creator of a new +ecclesiastical style, the 'imitator of nature,' as Vincenzo Galilei +styled him, the 'prince of music,' as his epitaph proclaimed him, lent +his genius to an art, vacillating between mundane sensuality and +celestial rapture, which, however innocently developed by him in the +sphere of music, was symptomatic of the most unhealthy tendencies of his +race and age. While singing these madrigals and these motetts the youth +of either sex were no longer reminded, it is true, of tavern ditties or +dance measures. But the emotions of luxurious delight or passionate +ecstasy deep in their own natures were drawn forth, and sanctified by +application to the language of effeminate devotion. + +I have dwelt upon these two sets of compositions, rather than upon the +masses of strictly and severely ecclesiastical music which Palestrina +produced with inexhaustible industry, partly because they appear to have +been extraordinarily popular, and partly because they illustrate those +tendencies in art and manners which the sentimental school of Bolognese +painters attempted to embody. They belong to that religious sphere which +the Jesuit Order occupied, governed, and administered upon the lines of +their prescribed discipline. These considerations are not merely +irrelevant. The specific qualities of Italian music for the next two +centuries were undoubtedly determined by the atmosphere of sensuous +pietism in which it flourished, at the very time when German music was +striking far other roots in the Chorales of the Reformation epoch. What +Palestrina effected was to substitute in Church music the clear and +melodious manner of the secular madrigal for the heavy and scholastic +science of the Flemish school, and to produce masterpieces of religious +art in his motetts on the Canticles which confounded the lines of +demarcation between pious and profane expression. He taught music to +utter the emotions of the heart; but those emotions in his land and race +were already tending in religion toward the sentimental and voluptuous. + +There is no doubt that the peril to which music was exposed at the time +of the Tridentine Council was a serious and real one. When we remember +how intimate was the connection between the higher kinds of music and +the ritual of the Church, this will be apparent. Nor is it too much to +affirm that the art at that crisis, but for the favor shown to it by +Pius IV. and for Palestrina's intervention, might have been well-nigh +extinguished in Italy. How fatal the results would then have been for +the development of modern music, can be estimated by considering the +decisive part played by the Italians in the formation of musical style +from the end of the sixteenth century onwards to the age of Gluck, +Handel, Haydn and Mozart. Had the music of the Church in Italy been +confined at that epoch to Plain Song, as the Congregation of Reform +threatened, the great Italian school of vocalization would not have been +founded, the Conservatories of Naples and the Scuole of Venice would +have been silent, and the style upon which, dating from Palestrina's +inventions, the evolution of all species of the art proceeded, would +have passed into oblivion. + +That this proposition is not extravagant, the history of music in +England will suffice to prove. Before the victory of Puritan principles +in Church and State, the English were well abreast of other races in +this art. During the sixteenth century, Tallis, Byrd, Morland, Wilbye, +Dowland and Orlando Gibbons could hold their own against Italian +masters. The musical establishments of cathedrals, royal and collegiate +chapels, and noble houses were nurseries for artists. Every English +home, in that age, like every German home in the eighteenth century, +abounded in amateurs who were capable of performing part-songs and +concerted pieces on the lute and viol with correctness. Under the +_regime_ of the Commonwealth this national growth of music received a +check from which it never afterwards recovered. Though the seventeenth +century witnessed the rising of one eminent composer, Purcell; though +the eighteenth was adorned with meritorious writers of the stamp of Blow +and Boyce; yet it is obvious that the art remained among us +unprogressive, at a time when it was making gigantic strides in Italy +and Germany. It is always dangerous to attribute the decline of art in a +nation to any one cause. Yet I think it can scarcely be contested that +the change of manners and of temperament wrought in England by the +prevalence of Puritan opinion, had much to answer for in this premature +decay of music. We may therefore fairly argue that if the gloomy passion +of intolerant fanaticism which burned in men like Caraffa and Ghislieri +had prevailed in Italy--a passion analogous in its exclusiveness to +Puritanism--or if no composer, in the place of Palestrina, had satisfied +the requirements of the Council and the congregation, the history of +music in Italy and Europe to us-wards would have been far different. + +These considerations are adduced to justify the importance attached by +me to the episode of which Palestrina was the hero. Yet it should not be +forgotten that other influences were at work at the same time in Italy, +which greatly stimulated the advance of music. If space permitted, it +would be interesting to enlarge upon the work of Luca Marenzio, the +prince of madrigal-writers, and on the services rendered by Vincenzo +Galileo, father of the greatest man of science in his age, in placing +the practice of stringed instruments on a sound basis. It should also be +remembered that in the society of Filippo Neri at Rome, the Oratorio was +taking shape, and emerging from the simple elements of the Spiritual +Laud and _Aria Divota_. This form, however, would certainly have +perished if the austere party in the Church had prevailed against the +lenient for the exclusion of figured music, from religious exercises. + +There was, moreover, an interesting contemporary movement at Florence, +which deserves some detailed mention. A private academy of amateurs and +artists formed itself for the avowed purpose of reviving the musical +declamation of the Greeks. As the new ecclesiastical style created by +Palestrina grew out of the Counter-Reformation embodied in the decrees +of the Tridentine Council, so this movement, which eventually resulted +in the Opera, attached itself to the earlier enthusiasms of the +Classical Revival. The humanists had restored Latin poetry; the +architects had perfected a neo-Latin manner; sculptors and painters had +profited by the study of antique fragments, and had reproduced the +bas-reliefs and arabesques of Roman palaces. It was now, much later in +the day, the turn of the musicians to make a similar attempt. Their +quest was vague and visionary. Nothing remained of Greek or Roman music. +To guide these explorers, there was only a dim instinct that the +ancients had declaimed dramatic verse with musical intonation. But, as +the alchemists sought the philosopher's stone, and founded modern +chemistry; as, according to an ancient proverb, they who search for +silver find gold; so it happened that, from the pedantic and +ill-directed attempts of this academy proceeded the system on which the +modern Oratorio and Opera were based. What is noticeable in these +experiments is, that a new form of musical expression, declamatory and +continuous, therefore dramatic, as opposed to the lyrical and fugal +methods of the contrapuntists, was in process of elaboration. Claudio +Monteverde, who may be termed the pioneer of _recitativo_, in his opera +of _Orfeo_; Giacomo Carissimi, in whose _Jephtha_ the form of the +Oratorio it already outlined, were the most eminent masters of the +school which took its origin in the Florentine Academy of the Palazzo +Vernio. + +To pursue the subject further, would be to transgress the chronological +limits of my subject. It is enough to have attempted in this chapter to +show how the destinies of Italian music were secured and its species +determined in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. How that art +at its climax in the eighteenth century affected the manners, penetrated +the whole life, and influenced the literature of the Italians, may be +read in an English work of singular ability and originality.[212] + +[Footnote 212: _Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy_, by Vernon +Lee.] + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE BOLOGNESE SCHOOL OF PAINTERS. + + Decline of Plastic Art--Dates of the Eclectic Masters--The + Mannerists--Baroccio--Reaction started by Lodovico Caracci--His + Cousins Annibale and Agostino--Their Studies--Their Academy at + Bologna--Their Artistic Aims--Dionysius Calvaert--Guido Reni--The + Man and His Art--Domenichino--Ruskin's Criticism--Relation of + Domenichino to the Piety of His Age--Caravaggio and the + Realists--Ribera--Lo Spagna--Guercino--His qualities as + Colorist--His Terribleness--Private Life--Digression upon + Criticism--Reasons why the Bolognese Painters are justly now + neglected. + +After tracing the origin of modern music at its fountain head in +Palestrina, it requires some courage to approach the plastic arts at +this same epoch. + +Music was the last real manifestation of the creative genius in Italy. +Rarefied to evanescent currents of emotional and sensuous +out-breathings, the spirit of the race exhaled itself in song from human +throats, in melody on lute and viol, until the whole of Europe thrilled +with the marvel and the mystery of this new language of the soul. Music +was the fittest utterance for the Italians of the Counter-Reformation +period. Debarred from political activity, denied the liberty of thought +and speech, that gifted people found an inarticulate vehicle of +expression in tone; tone which conveys all meanings to the nerves that +feel, advances nothing to the mind that reasons, says everything without +formulating a proposition. + +Only a sense of duty to my subject, which demands completion, makes me +treat of painting in the last years of the sixteenth century. The great +Italian cycle, rounded by Lionardo, Raffaello, Michelangelo, Correggio +and Tiziano, was being closed at Venice by Tintoretto. After him +invention ceased. But there arose at Bologna a school, bent on +resuscitating the traditions of an art which had already done its utmost +to interpret mind to mind through mediums of lovely form and color. The +founders of the Bolognese Academy, like Medea operating on decrepit +Aeson, chopped up the limbs of painting which had ceased to throb with +organic life, recombined them by an act of intellect and will, and +having pieced them together, set the composite machine in motion on the +path of studied method. Their aim was analogous to that of the Church in +its reconstitution of Catholicism; and they succeeded, in so far as they +achieved a partial success, through the inspiration which the Catholic +Revival gave them. These painters are known as the Eclectics and this +title sufficiently indicates their effort to revive art by recomposing +what lay before them in disintegrated fragments. They did not explore +new territory or invent fresh vehicles of expression. They sought to +select the best points of Graeco-Roman and Italian style, unconscious +that the physical type of the Niobids, the voluptuous charm of +Correggio, the luminous color of Titian, the terribleness of +Michelangelo, and the serenity of Raphael, being the ultimate +expressions of distinct artistic qualities, were incompatible. A still +deeper truth escaped their notice--namely, that art is valueless unless +the artist has something intensely felt to say, and that where this +intensity of feeling exists, it finds for itself its own specific and +inevitable form. + + 'Poems distilled from other poems pass away, + The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass, and leave ashes; + Admirers, importers, obedient persons, + make but the soil of literature.' + +These profound sentences are the epitaph, not only of imitative poetry, +but also of such eclectic art as the Caracci instituted. Very little of +it bears examination now. We regard it with listlessness or loathing. We +turn from it without regret. We cannot, or do not, wish to keep it in +our memory. + +Yet no student of Italian painting will refuse the Caracci that tribute +of respect which is due to virile effort. They were in vital sympathy +with the critical and analytical spirit of their age--an age mournfully +conscious that its scepter had departed--that + + 'Nothing can bring back the hour + Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;' + +an age incapable as yet of acquiescing in this gloom, strenuously eager +by study and by labor to regain the kingdom which belongs alone to +inspiration. Science and industry enabled them to galvanize the corpse +of art; into this they breathed the breath of the religion _a la mode_, +of fashionable sensuousness and prevalent sentimentality. + +Michelangelo died in 1564, Paolo Veronese in 1588, Tintoretto in 1594. +These were the three latest survivors of the great generation, and each +of them had enjoyed a life of activity prolonged into extreme old age. +Their intellectual peers had long ago departed; Lionardo in 1520, +Raphael in 1522, Correggio in 1534. + + 'Theirs was the giant race, before the flood.' + +These dates have to be kept in mind; for the painters of the Bolognese +School were all born after 1550, born for the most part at that decisive +epoch of the Tridentine Council which might be compared to a watershed +of time between the Renaissance and the Counter-Reformation--Lodovico +Caracci in 1555, Agostino in 1558, Annibale in 1560, Guido Reni in 1574, +Lionello Spada in 1576, Francesco Albani in 1578, Domenichino in 1581, +Guercino in 1590.[213] With the last of these men the eclectic impulse +was exhausted; and a second generation, derived in part from them, +linked the painters of the Renaissance to those of modern times. It is +sufficient to mention Nicholas and Gaspar Poussin, Claude Lorraine, +Salvator Rosa, Luca Giordano, and Canaletto as chief representatives of +this secondary group.[214] + +On examining the dates which I have given, it will be noticed that the +Bolognese Eclectics, intervening between the age of Michelangelo and the +age of Nicholas Poussin, worked during the first fervor of the Catholic +Revival. Their art may therefore be taken as fairly representative of +the religious temper and the profane culture of the Italians in the +period influenced by the Council of Trent. It represents that temper and +that culture before the decline of the same influence, when the Counter +Reformation was in active progress and the Papal pretensions to absolute +dominion had received no check. + +[Footnote 213: The three founders of the school were thus born precisely +during the most critical years of the Council. They felt the Catholic +reaction least. That expressed itself most markedly in Domenichino, born +seventeen years after its close.] + +[Footnote 214: Nich. Poussin, b. 1594; Claude, 1600; Gaspar Poussin, +1613; Salvator Rosa, 1615; Luca Giordano, 1632; Canaletto, 1697.] + +We should be wrong, however, to treat the Eclectics as though they +succeeded without interruption to that 'giant race, before the flood.' +Their movement was emphatically one of revival; and revival implies +decadence. After 1541, when Michelangelo finished the Last Judgment, and +before 1584, when the Caracci were working on their frescoes in the +Palazzo Fava at Bologna--that is to say, between the last of the genuine +Renaissance paintings and the first of the Revival--nearly half a +century elapsed, during which art sank into a slough of slovenly and +soulless putrescence.[215] Every city of Italy swarmed with artists, +adequately educated in technical methods, and apt at aping the grand +style of their masters. But in all their work there is nothing felt, +nothing thought out, nothing expressed, nothing imagined. It is a vast +vacuity of meaningless and worthless brush-play, a wilderness of hollow +trickery and futile fumbling with conventional forms. The Mannerists, as +they were called, covered acres of palace and church walls with +allegories, histories, and legends, carelessly designed, rapidly +executed, but pleasing the eye with crowds of figures and with gaudy +colors. Their colors are now faded. Their figures are now seen to be +reminiscences of Raphael's, Correggio's, Buonarroti's draughtsmanship. +Yet they satisfied the patrons of that time, who required hasty work, +and had not much money wherewith to reward the mature labors of a +conscientious student. In relation, moreover, to the spiritless and +insincere architecture then coming into vogue, this art of the +Mannerists can scarcely be judged out of place. When I divulge the names +of Giorgio Vasari, Giuseppe Cesari (Cav. d'Arpino), Tempesta, Fontana, +Tibaldi, the Zuccari, the Procaccini, the Campi of Cremona, the scholars +of Perino del Vaga, I shall probably call up before the reluctant eyes +of many of my readers visions of dreary wanderings through weariful +saloons and of disconsolate starings up at stuccoed cupolas in Rome and +Genoa, in Florence and Naples, and in all the towns of Lombardy.[216] + +In an earlier volume I briefly sketched the development of this +pernicious mannerism, which now deluged the arts of Italy. Only one +painter, outside Venice, seems to have carried on a fairly good +tradition. This was Federigo Baroccio (1528-1612), who feebly continued +the style of Correggio, with a certain hectic originality, infusing +sentimental pietism into that great master's pagan sensuousness. The +mixture is disagreeable; and when one is obliged to mention Baroccio as +the best in a bad period, this accentuates the badness of his +contemporaries. He has however, historical value from another point of +view, inasmuch as nothing more strongly characterizes the eclecticism of +the Caracci than their partiality for Correggio.[217] Though I have no +reason to suppose that Baroccio, living chiefly as he did at Urbino, +directly influenced their style, the similarity between his ideal and +theirs is certainly striking. It seems to point at something inevitable +in the direction taken by the Eclectics. + +[Footnote 215: I of course except Venice, for reasons which I have +sufficiently set forth in _Renaissance in Italy_, vol. iii. p. 347. Long +after other schools of Italy the Venetian was still only adolescent.] + +[Footnote 216: I have not thought it worth while to write down more than +a very few names of the Mannerists. Notice how often they worked in +whole families and indistinguishable coteries.] + +[Footnote 217: Everyone familiar with European picture-galleries will +remember cabinet pieces by the Caracci, especially Ecce Homos, Pietas, +Agonies in the Garden, which look like copies from Correggio with a dash +of added sentimentalism.] + +Such was the state of art in Italy when Lodovico Caracci, the son of a +Bolognese butcher, conceived his plan of replacing it upon a sounder +system.[218] Instinct led him to Venice, where painting was still alive. +The veteran Tintoretto warned him that he had no vocation. But Lodovico +obstinately resolved to win by industry what nature seemed to have +denied him. He studied diligently at Florence, Parma, Mantua, and +Venice, founding his style upon those of Andrea del Sarto, Correggio, +Titian, Parmigiano, Giulio Romano, and Primaticcio. When he again +settled at Bologna, he induced his two cousins, Agostino and Annibale, +the sons of a tailor, to join him in the serious pursuit of art. +Agostino was a goldsmith by trade, already expert in the use of the +burin, which he afterwards employed more frequently than the brush.[219] +Of the three Caracci he was the most versatile, and perhaps the most +gifted. There is a note of distinction and attainment in his work. +Annibale, the youngest, was a rough, wild, hasty, and hot-tempered lad, +of robust build and vigorous intellect, but boorish in his manners, +fond of low society, and eaten up with jealousy. They called him the +_ragazzaccio_, or 'lout of a boy,' when he began to make his mark at +Bologna. Agostino presented a strong contrast to his brother, being an +accomplished musician, an excellent dancer, a fair poet, fit to converse +with noblemen, and possessed of very considerable culture. Lodovico, the +eldest of the cousins, acted as mentor and instructor to the others. He +pacified their quarrels, when Annibale's jealousy burst out; set them +upon the right methods of study, and passed judgment on their paintings. + +[Footnote 218: I have mainly used the encyclopedic work entitled +_Felsina Pittrice_ (Bologna, 1841, 2 vols.) for my study of the +Eclectics. This is based upon the voluminous writings of the Count C.C. +Malvasia, who, having been born in 1616, and having enjoyed personal +intercourse with the later survivors of the Bolognese Academy, was able +to bequeath a vast mass of anecdotical and other material to posterity. +The collection contains critical annotations and additions by the hand +of Zanotti and later art students, together with many illustrative +documents of the highest value. Reading this miscellaneous repertory, we +are forced to regret that the same amount of characteristic and +authentic information has not been preserved about one of the greater +schools of Italy--the Venetian, for example.] + +[Footnote 219: He acquired a somewhat infamous celebrity by his obscene +engravings in the style of Giulio Romano.] + +Like Lodovico, the brothers served their first apprenticeship in art at +Parma and Venice. Annibale's letters from the former place show how +Correggio subdued him, and the large copies he there made still preserve +for us some shadows of Correggio's time-ruined frescoes. At Venice he +executed a copy of Titian's Peter Martyr. This picture, the most +dramatic of Titian's works, and the most elaborate in its landscape, was +destined to exercise a decisive influence over the Eclectic school. From +the Caracci to Domenichino we are able to trace the dominant tone and +composition of that masterpiece. No less decisive, as I have already +observed, was the influence of Correggio's peculiar style in the choice +of type, the light and shade, and the foreshortenings of the Bolognese +painters. In some degree, the manner of Paolo Veronese may also be +discerned. The Caracci avoided Tintoretto, and at the beginning of +their career they derived but little from Raphael or Michelangelo. +Theirs was at first a mainly Veneto-Lombardic eclecticism, dashed with +something absorbed from Giulio Romano and something from the later +Florentines. It must not however, be supposed that they confined their +attention to Italian painters. They contrived to collect casts from +antique marbles, coins, engravings of the best German and Italian +workmanship, books on architecture and perspective, original drawings, +and similar academical appliances. Nor were they neglectful of drawing +from the nude, or of anatomy. Indeed, their days and nights were spent +in one continuous round of study, which had for its main object the +comparison of dead and living nature with the best specimens of art in +all ages. It may seem strange that this assiduity and thoroughness of +method did not produce work of higher quality. Yet we must remember that +even enthusiastic devotion to art will not give inspiration, and that +the most thorough science cannot communicate charm. Though the Caracci +invented fresh attitudes and showed complete mastery of the human form, +their types remained commonplace. Though their chiaroscuro was +accurately based on that of Correggio, it lacked his aerial play of +semitones. Though they went straight to Titian for color, they never +approached Venetian lucidity and glow. There was something vulgar in +their imagination, prosaic in their feeling, leaden in their frigid +touch on legend. Who wants those countless gods and goddesses of the +Farnese Gallery, those beblubbered saints and colossal Sibyls of the +Bolognese Pinacoteca, those chubby cherubs and buxom nymphs, those +Satyrs and S. Sebastians, to come down from the walls and live with us? +The grace of Raphael's Galatea, the inspiration of Michelangelo's Genii +of the Sistine, the mystery of Lionardo's Faun-S. John, the wilding +grace of Correggio's Diana, the voluptuous fascination of Titian's +Venus, the mundane seductiveness of Veronese's Europa, the golden glory +of Tintoretto's Bacchus,--all have evanesced, and in their place are +hard mechanic figures, excellently drawn, correctly posed, but with no +touch of poetry. Where, indeed, shall we find 'the light that never was +on sea or land' throughout Bologna?[220] + +[Footnote 220: Malvasia has preserved, in his _Life of Primaticcio_, a +sonnet written by Agostino Caracci, in which the aims of the Eclectics +are clearly indicated. The good painter must have at his command Roman +or classic design, Venetian movement and shadow, Lombard coloring, the +sublimity of Michelangelo, the truth to nature of Titian, the pure and +sovereign style of Correggio, Raphael's symmetry, Tibaldi's fitness and +solidity, Primaticcio's erudite invention, with something of +Parmigianino's grace (_Fels. Pittr._ vol. i. p. 129). Zanotti adds: +'This sonnet is assuredly one which every painter ought to learn by +heart and observe in practice.'] + +Part of this failure must be ascribed to a radically false conception of +the way to combine studies of nature with studies of art. The Eclectics +in general started with the theory that a painter ought to form mental +ideals of beauty, strength, dignity, ferocity, and so forth, from the +observation of characteristic individuals and acknowledged +masterpieces. These ideal types he has to preserve in his memory, and +to use living persons only as external means for bringing them into +play. Thus, it was indifferent who sat to him as model. He believed that +he could invest the ugliest lump of living flesh with the loveliest +fancy. Lodovico supplied Annibale Caracci with the fleshy back of a +naked Venus. Guido Reni painted his Madonna's heads from any beardless +pupil who came handy, and turned his deformed color-grinder--a man 'with +a muzzle like a renegado'--into the penitent Magdalen.[221] It was +inevitable that forms and faces thus evolved should bear the stamp of +mediocrity, monotony, and dullness on them. Few, very few, +painters--perhaps only Michelangelo--have been able to give to purely +imagined forms the value and the individuality of persons; and he +succeeded best in this perilous attempt when he designed the passionate +Genii of the Sistine frescoes. Such flights were far beyond the grasp of +the Eclectics. Seeking after the 'grand style,' they fell, as I shall +show in the sequel of this chapter, into commonplace vacuity, which +makes them now insipid.[222] + +[Footnote 221: See Malvasia, _op. cit._ vol. i. p. 277; vol. ii. p. 57. +The odd thing is that Malvasia tells these stories of the +Lodovico-Aphrodite and the color-grinder-Magdalen with applause, as +though they proved the mastery of Annibale Caracci and Guido.] + +[Footnote 222: The later Eclectics--Spada, Domenichino, Guercino--were +to some extent saved by the influences they derived from Caravaggio and +the Naturalisti. But they had not the tact to see where the finer point +of naturalistic art lies for a delicately minded painter. They added its +brutality, as employed by Caravaggio, to the insipidities of the +Caracci, and produced such horrors as Domenichino's Martyrdom of S. +Agnes.] + +There was at this time a native of Antwerp named Dionysius Calvaert, a +coarse fellow of violent manners, who kept open school in Bologna. The +best of the Caracci's pupils--Guido Reni, Domenichino and +Albani--emigrated to their academy from this man's workshop. Something, +as it seems to me, peculiar in the method of handling oil paint, which +all three have in common, may perhaps be ascribed to early training +under their Flemish master. His brutality drove them out of doors; and, +having sought the protection of Lodovico Caracci, they successively made +such progress in the methods of painting as rendered them the most +distinguished representatives of the Bolognese Revival. All three were +men of immaculate manners. Guido Reni, beautiful as a Sibyl in youth, +with blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair complexion, was, to the end of his +illustrious career, reputed a virgin. Albani, who translated into +delicate oil-painting the sensuousness of the _Adone_, studied the forms +of Nymphs and Venuses from his lovely wife, and the limbs of Amorini +from the children whom she bore him regularly every year. Domenichino, a +man of shy, retiring habits, preoccupied with the psychological problems +which he strove to translate into dramatic pictures, doted on one woman, +whom he married, and who lived to deplore his death (as she believed) by +poison. Guido was specially characterized by devotion to Madonna. He was +a singular child. On every Christmas eve, for seven successive years, +ghostly knockings were heard upon his chamber door; and, every night, +when he awoke from sleep, the darkness above his bed was illuminated by +a mysterious egg-shaped globe of light.[223] His eccentricity in later +life amounted to insanity, and at last he gave himself up wholly to the +demon of the gaming-table. Domenichino obeyed only one passion, if we +except his passion for the wife he loved so dearly, and this was music. +He displayed some strangeness of temperament in a morbid dislike of +noise and interruptions. Otherwise, nothing disturbed the even current +of an existence dedicated to solving questions of art. Albani mixed more +freely in the world than Domenichino, enjoyed the pleasures of the table +and of sumptuous living, but with Italian sobriety, and expatiated in +those spheres of literature which supplied him with motives for his +coldly sensual pictures. Yet he maintained the credit of a thoroughly +domestic, soundly natured, and vigorously wholesome man. + +[Footnote 223: This tradition of Guido's childhood I give for what it is +worth, from Malvasia, _op. cit._ vol. ii. p. 53. In after life, beside +being piously addicted to Madonna-worship, he had a great dread of women +in general and witches in particular. What some will call spiritual, +others effeminate, in his mature work, may be due to the temperament +thus indicated.] + +I have thought it well thus to preface what I have to say about these +masters, partly because critics of the modern stamp, trusting more to +their subjective impressions than to authoritative records, have painted +the moral characters of Guido and Domenichino in lurid colors, and also +because there is certainly something in their work which leaves a +painful memory of unhealthy sentiment, impassiveness to pain, and +polished carnalism on the mind. It may incidentally be recorded that +Lodovico Caracci, Guido Reni, and Francesco Albani are all of them, on +very good authority, reported to have been even prudishly modest in +their use of female models. They never permitted a woman to strip +entirely, and Guido carried his reserve to such a pitch that he +preferred to leave his studio door open while drawing from a woman.[224] +Malevolence might suggest that this was only part and parcel of +post-Tridentine hypocrisy; and probably there is truth in the +suggestion. I certainly do not reckon such solicitous respect for +garments entirely to their credit. But it helps us to understand the +eccentric compound of sentiment, sensuality, piety, and uneasy morality +which distinguished the age, and which is continually perplexing the +student of its art. + +[Footnote 224: Malvasia, _op. cit._ p. 53, p. 178. The latter passage is +preceded by a discussion of the nude in art which shows how Malvasia had +imbibed Tridentine morality in the middle of Italy glowing with +Renaissance masterpieces.] + +Of these three men, Guido was the most genially endowed. He alone +derived a true spark from the previous age of inspiration. He wearies us +indeed with his effeminacy, and with the reiteration of a physical type +sentimentalized from the head and bust of Niobe. But thoughts of real +originality and grace not seldom visited his meditations; and he alone +deserved the name of colorist among the painters I have as yet ascribed +to the Bolognese School.[225] Guido affected a cool harmony of blue, +white, and deadened gold, which in the best pictures of his second +manner--the Fortune, the Bacchus and Ariadne of S. Luke's in Rome, the +Crucifixion at Modena--has a charm akin to that of Metastasio's silvery +lyrics. The samson at Bologna rises above these works both in force of +conception and glow of color. The Aurora of the Rospigliosi Casino +attempts a wider scheme of hues, and is certainly, except for some lack +of refinement in the attendant Hours, a very noble composition. The S. +Michael of the Cappuccini is seductive by its rich bravura style; and +the large Pieta in the Bolognese Gallery impresses our mind by a +monumental sadness and sobriety of tone. The Massacre of the Innocents, +though one of Guido's most ambitious efforts, and though it displays an +ingenious adaptation of the Niobe to Raphael's mannerism, fails by +falling between two aims--the aim to secure dramatic effect, and the aim +to treat a terrible subject with harmonious repose. + +[Footnote 225: Lo Spada and Guercino, afterwards to be mentioned, were +certainly colorists.] + +Of Albani nothing need be said in detail. Most people knew his pictures +of the Four Elements, so neatly executed in a style adapting Flemish +smoothness of surface to Italian suavity of line. This sort of art +delighted the cardinals and Monsignori of the seventeenth century. But +it has nothing whatsoever to say to and human soul. + +On Domenichino's two most famous pictures at Bologna Mr. Ruskin has +written one of his over-poweringly virulent invectives.[226] It is worth +inserting here at length. More passionate words could hardly be chosen +to express the disgust inspired in minds attuned to earlier Italian art +by these once worshiped paintings. Mr. Ruskin's obvious injustice, +intemperance, and ostentatious emphasis will serve to point the change +of opinion which has passed over England since Sir Joshua Reynolds +wrote. His denunciation of the badness of Domenichino's art, though +expressed with such a clangor of exaggeration, fairly represents the +feeling of modern students. 'The man,' he says, 'who painted the Madonna +del Rosario and Martyrdom of S. Agnes in the gallery of Bologna, is +palpably incapable of doing anything good, great, or right in any field, +way, or kind whatsoever.... This is no rash method of judgment, sweeping +and hasty as it may appear. From the weaknesses of an artist, or +failures, however numerous, we have no right to conjecture his total +inability; a time may come when he shall rise into sudden strength, or +an instance occur when his efforts shall be successful. But there are +some pictures which rank not under the head of failures, but of +perpetrations or commissions; some things which a man cannot do or say +without sealing forever his character and capacity. The angel holding +the cross with his finger in his eye, the roaring, red-faced children +about the crown of thorns, the blasphemous (I speak deliberately and +determinedly) head of Christ upon the handkerchief, and the mode in +which the martyrdom of the saint is exhibited (I do not choose to use +the expressions which alone could characterize it), are perfect, +sufficient, incontrovertible proofs that whatever appears good in any of +the doings of such a painter must be deceptive, and that we may be +assured that our taste is corrupted and false whenever we feel disposed +to admire him. I am prepared to support this position, however +uncharitable it may seem; a man may be tempted into a gross sin by +passion, and forgiven; and yet there are some kinds of sins into which +only men of a certain kind can be tempted, and which cannot be forgiven. +It should be added, however, that the artistical qualities of these +pictures are in every way worthy of the conceptions they realize. I do +not recollect any instance of color or execution so coarse and +feelingless.' + +[Footnote 226: _Modern Painters_, vol. i. p. 87.] + + +We have only to think of the S. Agnes by Tintoretto, or of Luini's St. +Catherine, in order to be well aware how far Domenichino, as a painter, +deviated from the right path of art.[227] + +[Footnote 227: I allude to the Tintoretto in S. Maria dell'Orto at +Venice, and to the Luini in the Monastero Maggiore at Milan. Yet the +model of Luini's S. Catherine was the infamous Contessa di Cellant, who +murdered her husband and some lovers, and was beheaded for her crimes in +Milan. This fact demonstrates the value of the model in the hands of an +artist capable of using it.] + +Yet we are bound to acquit him, as a man, of that moral obliquity which +Mr. Ruskin seems to impute. Indeed, we know Domenichino to have been an +unaffectedly good fellow. He was misled by his dramatic bias, and also +by the prevalent religious temper of his age. Jesuitry had saturated the +Italian mind; and in a former chapter I have dwelt upon the concrete +materialism which formed the basis of the Jesuitical imagination. In +portraying the martyrdom of S. Agnes as he has done, Domenichino was +only obeying the rules of Loyola's _Exercitia_. That he belonged to a +school which was essentially vulgar in its choice of type, to a city +never distinguished for delicacy of taste, and to a generation which was +rapidly losing the sense of artistic reserve, suffices to explain the +crude brutality of the conceptions which he formed of tragic +episodes.[228] The same may be said about all those horrible pictures of +tortures, martyrdoms, and acts of violence which were produced by the +dozen in Italy at this epoch. We turn from them with loathing. They +inspire neither terror nor pity, only the sickness of the shambles. And +yet it would be unjust to ascribe their unimaginative ghastliness to any +special love of cruelty. This evil element may be rationally deduced +from false dramatic instinct and perverted habits of brooding sensuously +on our Lord's Passion, in minds deprived of the right feeling for +artistic beauty. + +[Footnote 228: When I assert that the age was losing the sense of +artistic reserve, I wish to refer back to what I have written about +Marino, the dictator of the age in matters of taste. See above, pp. 273, +274.] + +Probably Domenichino thought that he was surpassing Titian's Peter +Martyr when he painted his hard and hideous parody of that great +picture. Yet Titian had already touched the extreme verge of allowable +realization, and his work belonged to the sphere of higher pictorial art +mainly by right of noble treatment. Of this noble treatment, and of the +harmonious coloring which shed a sanctifying splendor over the painful +scene, Domenichino stripped his master's design. What he added was +grimace, spasm, and the expression of degrading physical terror. + +That Domenichino could be, in his own way, stately, is proved by the +Communion of S. Jerome, in which he rehandled Agostino Caracci's fine +conception. Though devoid of charm, this justly celebrated painting +remains a monument of the success which may be achieved by the vigorous +application of robust intellectual powers to the working out of a +well-conceived and fully developed composition. Domenichino's gigantic +saints and Sibyls, with their fleshy limbs, red cheeks, and upturned +eyes, though famous enough in the last century, do not demand a word of +comment now.[229] So strangely has taste altered, that to our eyes they +seem scarcely decorative. + +[Footnote 229: Go to S. Andrea nella Valle in Rome, to study the best of +them.] + +While the Caracci were reviving art at Bologna in the way that I have +described, Caravaggio in Rome opposed the Mannerists after his own and a +very different fashion.[230] The insipidities of men like Cesari drove +him into a crude realism. He resolved to describe sacred and historical +events just as though they were being enacted in the Ghetto by butchers +and fishwives. This reaction against flimsy emptiness was wholesome; and +many interesting studies from the taverns of Italy, portraits of +gamesters, sharpers, _bravi_ and the like, remain to prove Caravaggio's +mastery over scenes of common life.[231] But when he applied his +principles to higher subjects, their vulgarity became apparent. Only in +one picture, the Entombment in the Vatican, did he succeed in affecting +imagination forcibly by the evident realization of a tragic scene. His +martyrdoms are inexpressibly revolting, without appeal to any sense but +savage blood-lust. It seems difficult for realism, either in literature +or art, not to fasten upon ugliness, vice, pain, and disease, as though +these imperfections of our nature were more real than beauty, goodness, +pleasure, and health. Therefore Caravaggio, the leader of a school which +the Italians christened Naturalists, may be compared to Zola. + + +[Footnote 230: Michelangelo Amerighi da Caravaggio (1569-1609).] + +[Footnote 231: For the historian of manners in seventeenth-century Italy +those pictures have a truly precious value, as they are executed with +such passion as to raise them above the more careful but more lymphatic +transcripts from beer-cellars in Dutch painting.] + +A Spaniard, settled at Naples--Giuseppe Ribera, nicknamed Lo +Spagnoletto--carried on Caravaggio's tradition. Spagnoletto surpassed +his master in the brutally realistic expression of physical anguish. +His Prometheus writhing under the beak of the vulture, his disembowelled +martyrs and skinless S. Bartholomews, are among the most nauseous +products of a masculine nature blessed with robust health. Were they +delirious or hysterical, they would be less disgusting. But no; they are +merely vigorous and faithful representations of what anybody might have +witnessed, when a traitor like Ravaillac or a Lombard _untore_ was being +put to death in agony. His firm mental grip on cruelty, and the somber +gloom with which he invested these ghastly transcripts from the +torture-chamber, prove Ribera true to his Spanish origin. Caravaggio +delighted in color, and was indeed a colorist of high rank, considering +the times in which he lived. Spagnoletto rejoiced in somber shadows, as +though to illustrate the striking sonnet I have quoted in another place +from Campanella.[232] + +[Footnote 232: See above, part I. p. 47.] + +This digression upon the Naturalists was needed partly to illustrate the +nature of the attempted revival of the art of painting at this epoch, +and partly to introduce two notable masters of the Bolognese school. +Lionello Spada, a street-arab of Bologna, found his way into the studio +of the Caracci, where he made himself a favorite by roguish ways and +ready wit. He afterwards joined Caravaggio, and, when he reappeared in +Lombardy, he had formed a manner of his own, more resplendent in color +and more naturalistic than that of the Caracci, but with less of realism +than his Roman teacher's. If I could afford space for anecdotical +details, the romance of Spada's life would furnish much entertaining +material. But I must press on toward Guercino, who represents in a more +famous personality this blending of the Bolognese and Naturalistic +styles. Giovanni Francesco Barbieri got his nickname of Il Guercino, or +the 'Squintling,' from an accident which distorted his right eye in +babyhood. Born of poor parents, he was apprenticed to indifferent +painters in Bologna at an early age, his father agreeing to pay for the +boy's education by a load of grain and a vat of grapes delivered yearly. +Thus Guercino owed far less to academical studies than to his own +genius. Being Lodovico Caracci's junior by thirty-five years, and +Annibale's by thirty, he had ample opportunities for studying the +products of their school in Bologna, without joining the Academy. A +generation lay between him and the first Eclectics. Nearly the same +space of time separated Guercino from the founder of the Naturalists, +and it was universally admitted in his lifetime that he owed to +Caravaggio in coloring no less than he derived from the Caracci in +sobriety and dignity of conception. These qualities of divergent schools +Guercino combined in a manner marked by salient individuality. As a +colorist, he approached the Tenebrosi--those lovers of surcharged +shadows and darkened hues, whose gloom culminated in Ribera. But we +note a fat and buttery _impasto_ in Guercino, which distinguishes his +work from the drier and more meager manner of the Roman-Neapolitan +painters. It is something characteristic of Bologna, a richness which we +might flippantly compare to sausage, or a Flemish smoothness, indicating +Calvaert's influence. More than this, Guercino possessed a harmony of +tones peculiar to himself, and strongly contrasted with Guido's +silver-gray gradations. Guido's coloring, at its best, often reminds one +of olive branches set against a blue sea and pale horizon in faintly +amber morning light. The empurpled indigoes, relieved by smouldering +Venetian red, which Guercino loved, suggest thunder-clouds, dispersed, +rolling away through dun subdued glare of sunset reflected upward from +the west. And this scheme of color, vivid but heavy, luminous but +sullen, corresponded to what contemporaries called the Terribilita of +Guercino's conception. Terribleness was a word which came into vogue to +describe Michelangelo's grand manner. It implied audacity of +imagination, dashing draughtsmanship, colossal scale, something demonic +and decisive in execution.[233] The terrible takes in Guercino's work +far lower flights than in the Sistine Chapel. With Michelangelo it +soared like an eagle; with Guercino it flitted like a bat. His brawny +saints are ponderous, not awe-inspiring. + +[Footnote 233: But the men who used the word failed to perceive that +what justified these qualities in Michelangelo's work was piercing, +poignant, spiritual passion, of which their age had nothing.] + +Yet we feel that the man loved largeness, massiveness, and volume; that +he was preoccupied with intellectual problems; planning deeply, and +constructing strongly, under conditions unfavorable to spiritual +freedom. + +Guercino lived the life of an anchorite, absorbed in studies, unwived, +sober, pious, truthful, sincere in his commerce with the world, +unaffectedly virtuous, devoted to his art and God. Some of his pictures +bring forcibly before our minds the religious _milieu_ created by the +Catholic Revival. I will take the single instance of a large +oil-painting in the Bolognese Gallery. It represents the reception of a +Duke of Aquitaine into monastic orders by S. Bernard. The knightly +quality of the hero is adequately portrayed; his piety is masculine. But +an accessory to the main subject of the composition arrests attention. A +monk, earnestly pleading, emphatically gesticulating, addresses himself +to the task of converting a young squire. Perugino, or even Raphael, +would have brought the scene quite otherwise before us. The Duke's +consecration would of course have occupied a commanding place in the +picture. But the episodes would have been composed of comely groups or +animated portraits. Guercino, obedient to the religious spirit of the +Counter-Reformation, compels sympathy with ecclesiastical propaganda. + +Guido exercised a powerful influence over his immediate successors. +Guercino felt it when he painted that soulless picture of Abraham and +Hagar, in the Brera--the picture which excited Byron's admiration, which +has been praised for its accurate delineation of a teardrop, and which, +when all is reckoned, has just nothing of emotion in it but a frigid +inhumanity. He competed with Guido in the fresco of the Lodovisi Aurora, +a substantial work certainly, yet one that lacks the saving qualities of +the Rospigliosi ceiling--grace and geniality of fancy. + +In the history of criticism there are few things more perplexing than +the vicissitudes of taste and celebrity, whereby the idols of past +generations crumble suddenly to dust, while the despised and rejected +are lifted to pinnacles of glory. Successive waves of aesthetical +preference, following one upon the other with curious rapidity, sweep +ancient fortresses of fame from their venerable basements, and raise +upon the crests of wordy foam some delicate seashell that erewhile lay +embedded in oblivious sand. During the last half-century, taste has been +more capricious, revolutionary, and apparently anarchical than at any +previous epoch. The unity of orthodox opinion has broken up. Critics +have sought to display originality by depreciating names famous in +former ages, and by exalting minor stars to the rank of luminaries of +the first magnitude. A man, yet in middle life, can remember with what +reverence engravings after Raphael, the Caracci, and Poussin were +treated in his boyhood; how Fra Angelico and Perugino ruled at a +somewhat later period; how one set of eloquent writers discovered +Blake, another Botticelli, and a third Carpaccio; how Signorelli and +Bellini and Mantegna received tardy recognition; and now, of late years, +how Tiepolo has bidden fair to obtain the European _grido_. He will also +bear in mind that the conditions of his own development--studies in the +Elgin marbles, the application of photography to works of art, the +publications of the Arundel Society, and that genius of new culture in +the air which is more potent than all teaching, rendered for himself +each oracular utterance interesting but comparatively unimportant--as it +were but talk about truths evident to sight. + +Meanwhile, amid this gabble of 'sects and schisms,' this disputation +which makes a simple mind take refuge in the epigram attributed to Swift +on Handel and Bononcini,[234] criticism and popular intelligence have +been unanimous upon two points, first, in manifesting a general dislike +for Italian art after the date of Raphael's third manner, and a +particular dislike for the Bolognese painters; secondly, in an earnest +effort to discriminate and exhibit what is sincere and beautiful in +works to which our forefathers were unintelligibly irresponsive. A +wholesome reaction, in one word, has taken place against academical +dogmatism; and the study of art has been based upon appreciably better +historical and aesthetical principles. + +[Footnote 234: + 'Strange that such difference should be + 'Twixt tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee.'] + +The seeming confusion of the last half-century ought not, therefore, to +shake our confidence in the possibility of arriving at stable laws of +taste. Radical revolutions, however salutary, cannot be effected without +some injustice to ideals of the past and without some ill-grounded +enthusiasm for the ideals of the moment. Nor can so wide a region as +that of modern European art be explored except by divers pioneers, each +biassed by personal predilections and peculiar sensibilities, each +liable to changes of opinion under the excitement of discovery, each +followed by a coterie sworn to support their master's _ipse dixit_. + +The chief thing is to obtain a clear conception of the mental atmosphere +in which sound criticism has to live and move and have its being. 'The +form of this world passes; and I would fain occupy myself only with that +which constitutes abiding relations.' So said Goethe; and these words +have much the same effect as that admonition of his 'to live with steady +purpose in the Whole, the Good, the Beautiful.' The true critic must +divert his mind from what is transient and ephemeral, must fasten upon +abiding relations, _bleibende Verhaeltnisse_. He notes that one age is +classical, another romantic; that _this_ swears by Giotto, _that_ by the +Caracci. Meanwhile, he resolves to maintain that classics and romantics, +the Caracci and Giotto, are alike only worthy of regard in so far as +they exemplify the qualities which bring art into the sphere of abiding +relations. One writer is eloquent for Fra Angelico, another for Rubens; +the one has personal sympathy for the Fiesolan monk, the other for the +Flemish courtier. Our true critic renounces idiosyncratic whims and +partialities, striving to enter with firm purpose into the understanding +of universal goodness and beauty. In so far as he finds truth in +Angelico and Rubens, will he be appreciative of both. + +Aristotle laid it down as an axiom that the ultimate verdict in matters +of taste is 'what the man of enlightened intelligence would decide.' The +critic becomes a man of enlightened intelligence, a [Greek: phronimos], +by following the line of Goethe's precepts. In working out self-culture, +he will derive assistance by the way from the commanding philosophical +conception of our century. All things with which we are acquainted are +in evolutionary process. Everything belonging to human nature is in a +state of organic transition--passing through necessary phases of birth, +growth, decline, and death. Art, in any one of its specific +manifestations--Italian painting for example--avoids this law of organic +evolution, arrests development at the fairest season of growth, averts +the decadence which ends in death, no more than does an oak. The oak, +starting from an acorn, nourished by earth, air, light, and water, +offers indeed a simpler problem than so complex an organism as Italian +painting, developed under conditions of manifold diversity. Yet the +dominant law controls both equally. + +It is not, however, in evolutions that we must seek the abiding +relations spoken of by Goethe. The evolutionary conception does not +supply those to students of art, though it unfolds a law which is +permanent and of universal application in the world at large. It forces +us to dwell on necessary conditions of mutability and transformation. It +leads the critic to comprehend the whole, and encourages the habit of +scientific tolerance. We are saved by it from uselessly fretting +ourselves because of the ungodly and the inevitable; from mourning over +the decline of Gothic architecture into Perpendicular aridity and +flamboyant feebleness, over the passage of the scepter from Sophocles to +Euripides or from Tasso to Marino, over the chaos of Mannerism, +Eclecticism and Naturalism into which Italian painting plunged from the +height of its maturity. This toleration and acceptance of unavoidable +change need not imply want of discriminative perception. We can apply +the evolutionary canon in all strictness without ignoring that adult +manhood is preferable to senile decrepitude, that Pheidias surpasses the +sculptors of Antinous, that one Madonna of Gian Bellini is worth all the +pictures of the younger Palma, and that Dossi's portrait of the +Ferrarese jester is better worth having than the whole of Annibale +Caracci's Galleria Farnesina.[235] It will even lead us to select for +models those works which bear the mark of adolescence or vigorous +maturity, as supplying more fruitful sources for our own artistic +education. + +[Footnote 235: The great picture by Dosso Dossi, to which I have +alluded, is in the Modenese gallery.] + +Nevertheless, not in evolution, but in man's soul, his intellectual and +moral nature, must be sought those abiding relations which constitute +sound art, and are the test of right aesthetic judgment. These are such +as truth, simplicity, sobriety, love, grace, patience, modesty, +thoughtfulness, repose, health, vigor, brain-stuff, dignity of +imagination, lucidity of vision, purity, and depth of feeling. Wherever +the critic finds these--whether it be in Giotto at the dawn or in Guido +at the evensong of Italian painting, in Homer or Theocritus at the two +extremes of Greek poetry--he will recognize the work as ranking with +those things from which the soul draws nourishment. At the same time, he +may not neglect the claims of craftsmanship. Each art has its own +vehicle of expression, and exacts some innate capacity for the use of +that vehicle from the artist. Therefore the critic must be also +sufficiently versed in technicalities to give them their due value. It +can, however, be laid down, as a general truth, that while immature or +awkward workmanship is compatible with aesthetic excellence, technical +dexterity, however skillfully applied, has never done anything for a +soulless painter. + +Criticism, furthermore, implies judgment; and that judgment must be +adjusted to the special nature of the thing criticised. Art is different +from ethics, from the physical world, from sensuality, however refined. +It will not, therefore, in the long run do for the critic of an art to +apply the same rules as the moralist, the naturalist, or the hedonist. +It will not do for him to be contented with edification, or +differentiation of species, or demonstrable delightfulness as the +test-stone of artistic excellence. All art is a presentation of the +inner human being, his thought and feeling, through the medium of +beautiful symbols in form, color, and sound. Our verdict must therefore +be determined by the amount of thought, the amount of feeling, proper to +noble humanity, which we find adequately expressed in beautiful +aesthetic symbols. And the man who shall pronounce this verdict is, now +as in the days of Aristotle, the man of enlightened intelligence, sound +in his own nature and open to ideas. Even his verdict will not be final; +for no one is wholly free from partialities due to the age in which he +lives, and to his special temperament. Still, a consensus of such +verdicts eventually forms that voice of the people which, according to +an old proverb, is the voice of God. Slowly, and after many successive +siftings, the cumulative votes of the _phronimoi_ decide. Insurgents +against their judgment, in the case of acknowledged masters like +Pheidias, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, are doomed to final defeat, because +this judgment is really based upon abiding relations between art and +human nature. + +Our hope with regard to the unity of taste in the future then is, that, +all sentimental or academical seekings after the ideal having been +abandoned, momentary theories founded upon idiosyncratic or temporary +partialities exploded, and nothing accepted but what is solid and +positive, the scientific spirit shall make men progressively more and +more conscious of those _bleibende Verhaeltnisse_, more and more capable +of living in the whole; also that, in proportion as we gain a firmer +hold upon our own place in the world, we shall come to comprehend with +more instinctive certitude what is simple, natural, and honest, +welcoming with gladness all artistic products that exhibit these +qualities. The perception of the enlightened man will then be the taste +of a healthy person who has made himself acquainted with the laws of +evolution in art and in society, and is able to test the excellence of +work in any stage, from immaturity to decadence, by discerning what +there is of truth, sincerity, and natural vigor in it. + +This digression was forced upon me by the difficulty of properly +appreciating the Bolognese Eclectics now. What would be the amused +astonishment of Sir Joshua Reynolds, if he returned to London at the +present moment, and beheld the Dagon of his esteemed Caracci dashed to +pieces by the ark of Botticelli--Carpaccio enthroned--Raffaello +stigmatized as the stone of stumbling and the origin of evil? Yet +Reynolds had as good a right to his opinion as any living master of the +brush, or any living masters of language. There is no doubt that the +Bolognese painters sufficed for the eighteenth century, whose taste +indeed they had created.[236] There is equally no doubt that for the +nineteenth they are insufficient.[237] The main business of a critic is +to try to answer two questions: first why did the epoch produce such +art, and why did it rejoice in it?--secondly, has this art any real +worth beyond a documentary value for the students of one defined +historical period; has it enduring qualities of originality, strength, +beauty, and inspiration? To the first of these questions I have already +given some answer by showing under what conditions the Caracci reacted +against mannerism. In the due consideration of the second we are +hampered by the culture of our period, which has strongly prejudiced all +minds against the results of that reaction. + +[Footnote 236: The passage from Lodovico Caracci through Poussin to +Reynolds is direct and unbroken. 'Poussin,' says Lanzi, 'ranked +Domenichino directly next to Raffaello.' _History of Painting in Italy_, +Engl. Tr. vol. iii. p. 84.] + +[Footnote 237: Perhaps a generation will yet arise which shall take the +Caracci and their scholars into favor, even as people of refinement in +our own days find a charm in patches, powder, perukes, sedan-chairs, +patchouli, and other lumber from the age despised by Keats. I remember +visiting a noble English lady at her country seat. We drank tea in her +room, decorated by a fashionable 'Queen Anne' artist. She told us that +the quaintly pretty furniture of the last century which adorned it had +recently been brought down from the attic, whither her fore bears had +consigned it as tasteless--Gillow in their minds superseding +Chippendale.] + +The painting of the Eclectics was not spontaneous art. It was art +mechanically revived during a period of critical hesitancy and declining +enthusiasms. It was produced at Bologna, 'la dotta' or 'la grassa,' by +Bolognese craftsmen. This is worth remembering; for except Guido +Guinicelli and Francesco Raibolini, no natives of Bologna were eminently +gifted for the arts. And Bologna was the city famous for her ponderous +learning, famous also for the good cheer of her table, neither erudition +nor savory meats being essential to the artist's temperament. The +painting which emerged there at the close of the sixteenth century +embodied religion and culture, both of a base alloy. The Christianity of +the age was not naive, simple, sincere, and popular, like that of the +thirteenth century; but hysterical, dogmatic, hypocritical, and +sacerdotal. It was not Christianity indeed, but Catholicism galvanized +by terror into reactionary movement. The culture of the age was on the +wane. Men had long lost their first clean perception of classical +literature, and the motives of the mediaeval past were exhausted. +Therefore, though the Eclectics went on painting the old subjects, they +painted all alike with frigid superficiality. If we examine the lists of +pictures turned out by the Caracci and Guercino, we shall find a pretty +equal quantity of saints and Susannas, Judiths and Cleopatras, Davids +and Bacchuses, Jehovahs and Jupiters, anchorites and Bassarids, Faiths +and Fortunes, cherubs and Cupids. Artistically, all are on the same dead +level of inspiration. Nothing new or vital, fanciful or imaginative, has +been breathed into antique mythology. What has been added to religious +expression is repellent. Extravagantly ideal in ecstatic Magdalens and +Maries, extravagantly realistic in martyrdoms and torments, +extravagantly harsh in dogmatic mysteries and the ecclesiastical parade +of power, extravagantly soft in sentimental tenderness and tearful +piety, this new religious element, the element of the Inquisition, the +Tridentine Council, and the Jesuits, contradicts the true gospel of +Christ. The painting which embodies it belongs to a spirit at strife +with what was vital and progressive in the modern world. It is therefore +naturally abhorrent to us now; nor can it be appreciated except by those +who yearn for the triumph of ultramontane principles. + +If we turn from the intellectual content of this art to its external +manifestation, we shall find similar reasons for its failure to delight +or satisfy. The ambition of the Caracci was to combine in one the +salient qualities of earlier masters. This ambition doomed their style +to the sterility of hybrids. Moreover, in selecting, they omitted just +those features which had given grace and character to their models. The +substitution of generic types for portraiture, the avoidance of +individuality, the contempt for what is simple and natural in details, +deprived their work of attractiveness and suggestion. It is noticeable +that they never painted flowers. While studying Titian's landscapes, +they omitted the iris and the caper-blossom and the columbine which star +the grass beneath Ariadne's feet. The lessons of the rocks and +chestnut-trees of his S. Jeromes Solitude were lost on them. They began +the false system of depicting ideal foliage and ideal precipices--that +is to say, trees which are not trees, and cliffs which cannot be +distinguished from cork or stucco. In like manner, the clothes wherewith +they clad their personages were not of brocade or satin or broadcloth, +but of that empty lie called drapery. The purpled silks of Titian's +Lilac Lady, in the Pitti, the embroidered hems of Boccaccini da Cremona, +the crimson velvet of Raphael's Joanna of Aragon, Veronese's cloth of +silver and shot taffety, are replaced by one monotonous nondescript +stuff, differently dyed in dull or glaring colors, but always shoddy. +Characteristic costumes have disappeared. We shall not find in any of +their Massacres of the Innocents a soldier like Bonifazio's Dall'Armi. +In lieu of gems with flashing facets, or of quaint jewels from the +Oreficeria, they adorn their kings and princesses with nothing less +elevated than polished gold and ropes of pearls. After the same fashion, +furniture, utensils, houses, animals, birds, weapons, are +idealized--stripped, that is to say, of what in these things is specific +and vital. + +It would be incorrect to say that there are no exceptions in Eclectic +painting to this evil system. Yet the sweeping truth remains that the +Caracci returned, not to what was best in their predecessors, but to +what was dangerous and misleading. + +The 'grand style,' in Sir Joshua's sense of that phrase, denoting style +which eliminates specific and characteristic qualities from objects, +replacing them by so-called 'ideal' generalities, had already made its +appearance in Raphael, Correggio, and Buonarroti We even find it in Da +Vinci's Last Supper. Yet in Raphael it comes attended with divine grace; +in Correggio with faun-like radiancy of gladness; in Buonarroti with +Sinaitic sublimity; in Da Vinci with penetrative force of psychological +characterization. The Caracci and their followers, with a few +exceptions--Guido at his best being the notablest--brought nothing of +these saving virtues to the pseudo-grand style. + +It was this delusion regarding nobility and elevation in style which +betrayed so genial a painter as Reynolds into his appreciation of the +Bolognese masters. He admired them; but he admired Titian, Raphael, +Correggio, and Buonarroti more. And he admired the Eclectics because +they developed the perilous part of the great Italian tradition. Just as +Coleridge recommended young students of dramatic verse to found their +style at first on Massinger rather than on Shakespeare, so Reynolds +thought that the Caracci were sound models for beginners in the science +of idealization. Shakespeare and Michelangelo are inimitable; Massinger +and the Caracci exhibit the one thing needful to be learned, upon a +scale not wholly unattainable by industry and talent. That was the line +of argument; and, granted that the pseudo-grand style is a _sine qua +non_ of painting, Reynolds's position was logical.[238] + +[Footnote 238: It is only because I am an Englishman, writing a popular +book for English folk, that I thus spend time in noticing the opinions +of Joshua Reynolds. Addressing a European audience in this year grace, I +should not have thought of eddying about his obsolete doctrine.] + +The criticism and the art-practice of this century have combined to +shake our faith in the grand style. The spirit of the Romantic movement, +penetrating poetry first, then manifesting itself in the reflective +writings of Rio and Lord Lindsay, Ruskin and Gautier, producing the +English landscape-painters and pre-Raphaelites, the French Realists and +Impressionists, has shifted the center of gravity in taste. Science, +too, contributes its quota. Histories of painting, like Kugler's, and +Crowe and Cavalcaselle's, composed in an impartial and searching spirit +of investigation, place students at a point of view removed from +prejudice and academical canons of perfection. Only here and there, +under special reactionary influences, as in the Dusseldorf and Munich +schools of religious purists, has anything approaching to the +eighteenth-century 'grand style' delusion reappeared. + +Why, therefore, the Eclectics are at present pining in the shade of +neglect is now sufficiently apparent. We dislike their religious +sentiments. We repudiate their false and unimaginative ideality. We +recognize their touch on antique mythology to be cold and lifeless. +Superficial imitations of Niobe and the Belvedere Apollo have no +attraction for a generation educated by the marbles of the Parthenon. +Dull reproductions of Raphael's manner at his worst cannot delight men +satiated with Raphael's manner at his best. Whether the whirligig of +time will bring about a revenge for the Eclectics yet remains to be +seen. Taste is so capricious, or rather the conditions which create +taste are so complex and inscrutable, that even this, which now seems +impossible, may happen in the future. But a modest prediction can be +hazarded that nothing short of the substitution of Catholicism for +science and of Jesuitry for truth in the European mind will work a +general revolution in their favor. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +CONCLUSION. + + The main Events of European History--Italy in the + Renaissance--Germany and Reformation--Catholic Reaction--Its + Antagonism to Renaissance and Reformation--Profound Identity of + Renaissance and Reformation--Place of Italy in European + Civilization--Want of Sympathy between Latin and Teutonic + Races--Relation of Rome to Italy--Macaulay on the Roman Church--On + Protestantism--Early Decline of Renaissance Enthusiasms--Italy's + Present and Future. + +I. + +The four main events of European history since the death of Christ are +the decline of Graeco-Roman civilization, the triumph of Christianity as +a new humanizing agency, the intrusion of Teutonic and Slavonic tribes +into the comity of nations, and the construction of the modern world of +thought by Renaissance and Reformation. + +As seems to be inevitable in the progress of our species, each of these +changes involved losses, compensated by final gains; for humanity moves +like a glacier, plastically, but with alternating phases of advance and +retreat, obeying laws of fracture and regelation. + +It would thus be easy to deplore the collapse of that mighty and +beneficent organism which we call the Roman Empire. Yet without this +collapse how could the Catholic Church have supplied inspiration to +peoples gifted with fresh faculties, endowed with insight differing from +that of Greeks and Romans? + +It is tempting to lament the extinction of arts letters, and elaborated +habits of civility, which followed the barbarian invasions. Yet without +such extinction, how can we imagine to ourselves the growth of those new +arts, original literatures, and varied modes of social culture, to which +we give the names of mediaeval, chivalrous, or feudal? + +It is obvious that we can quarrel with the Renaissance for having put an +end to purely Christian arts and letters by imposing a kind of pagan +mannerism on the spontaneous products of the later mediaeval genius. But +without this reversion to the remaining models of antique culture, how +could the European races have become conscious of historical continuity; +how could the corrupt system of Papal domination have been broken by +Reform; how, finally, could Science, the vital principle of our present +civilization, have been evolved? + +In all these instances it appears that the old order must yield place to +the new, not only because the new is destined to incorporate and +supersede it, but also because the old has become unfruitful. Thus, the +Roman Empire, having discharged its organizing function, was decrepit, +and classical civilization, after exhibiting its strength in season, was +decaying when the Latin priesthood and the barbarians entered that +closed garden of antiquity, and trampled it beneath their feet. +Mediaeval religion and modes of thought, in like manner, were at the +point of ossifying, when Humanism intervened to twine the threads of +past and present into strands that should be strong as cables for the +furtherance of future energy. + +It is incontestable that the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, +each of them on different grounds antagonistic to the Renaissance, +appear to have retarded that emancipation of the reason, begun by +Humanism, which is still in progress. Nevertheless, the strife of +Protestantism and Catholicism was needed for preserving moral and +religious elements which might have been too lightly dropped, and for +working these into the staple of the modern consciousness. The process +of the last three centuries, attended as it has been by serious +drawbacks to the Spanish and Italian peoples, and by a lamentable waste +of vigor to the Teutonic nations, has yet resulted in a permeation of +the modern compost with the leaven of Christianity. Unchecked, it is +probable that the Renaissance would have swept away much that was +valuable and deserved to be permanent. Nor, without the flux and reflux +of contending principles by which Europe was agitated in the +Counter-Reformation period, could the equipoise of reciprocally +attracting and repelling States, which constitutes the modern as +different from the ancient or the mediaeval groundwork of political +existence, have been so efficiently established. + + +II. + +Permanence and homogeneity are not to be predicated of 'anything that's +merely ours and mortal.' We have missed the whole teaching of history if +we wail aloud because Greek and Roman culture succumbed to barbarism, +out of which mediaeval Christianity emerged; because the revival of +learning diverted arts and letters in each Occidental nation from their +home-plowed channels; because Protestant theologians and Spanish Jesuits +impeded that self-evolution of the reason which Italian humanists +inaugurated. No less futile were it to waste declamatory tears upon the +strife of absolutism with new-fledged democracy, or to vaticinate a +reign of socialistic terror for the immediate future. We have to +recognize that man cannot be other than what he makes himself; and he +makes himself in obedience to immutable although unwritten laws, whereof +he only of late years became dimly conscious. It is well, then, while +reflecting on the lessons of some deeply studied epoch in world-history, +to regard the developments with which we have been specially occupied, +no less than the ephemeral activity of each particular individual, as +factors in a universal process, whereof none sees the issue, but which, +willing or unwilling, each man helps to further. We shall then +acknowledge that a contest between Conservatism and Liberalism, between +established order and the order that is destined to replace it, between +custom and innovation, constitutes the essence of vitality in human +affairs. The nations by turns are protagonists in the drama of progress; +by turns are doomed to play the part of obstructive agents. Intermingled +in conflict which is active life, they contribute by their phases of +declension and resistance, no less than by their forward movements, to +the growth of an organism which shall probably in the far future be +coextensive with the whole human race. + + +III. + +These considerations are suggested to us by the subject I have handled +in this work. The first five volumes were devoted to showing how Italy, +in the Renaissance, elaborated a new way of regarding man and the world, +a new system of education, new social manners, and a new type of culture +for herself and Europe. This was her pioneer's work in the period of +transition from the middle ages; and while she was engaged in it, all +classes, from popes and princes down to poetlings and pedants, seemed +for a while to have lost sight of Catholic Christianity. They were +equally indifferent to that corresponding and contemporary movement +across the Alps, which is known as Reformation. They could not discern +the close link of connection which binds Renaissance to Reformation. +Though at root identical in tendency towards freedom, these stirrings of +the modern spirit assumed externally such diverse forms as made them +reciprocally repellent. Only one European nation received both impulses +simultaneously. That was England, which adopted Protestantism and +produced the literature of Spenser, Bacon, and Shakespeare at the same +epoch. France, earlier than England, felt Renaissance influences, and +for some while seemed upon the point of joining the Reformation. But +while the French were hesitating, Spain proclaimed herself the +uncompromising enemy of Protestantism, and Rome, supported by this +powerful ally, dragged Italy into the Catholic reaction. That effort +aimed at galvanizing a decrepit Church into the semblance of vital +energy, and, while professing the reformation of its corrupt system, +stereotyped all that was antagonistic in its creed and customs to the +spirit of the modern world. The Catholic Revival necessitated vigorous +reaction, not only against Protestantism, but also against the +Liberalism of the Renaissance and the political liberties of peoples. It +triumphed throughout Southern Europe chiefly because France chose at +length the Catholic side. But the triumph was only partial, condemning +Spain and Italy indeed to intellectual barrenness for a season, but not +sufficing to dominate and suppress the development of rationalism. The +pioneer's work of Italy was over. She joined the ranks of obscurantists +and obstructives. Germany, having failed to accomplish the Reformation +in time, was distracted by the Catholic reaction, which plunged her +into a series of disastrous wars. It remained for England and Holland, +not, however, without similar perturbations in both countries, to lead +the van of progress through two centuries; after which this foremost +post was assigned to France and the United States. + + +IV. + +The views which I have maintained throughout my work upon the +Renaissance will be found, I think, to be coherent. They have received +such varied illustrations that it is difficult to recapitulate the +principles on which they rest, without repetition. The main outline of +the argument, however, is as follows. During the middle ages, Western +Christendom recognized, in theory at least, the ideal of European unity +under the dual headship of the Papacy and Empire. There was one civil +order and one Church. Emperor and Pope, though frequently at strife, +were supposed to support each other for the common welfare of +Christendom. That mediaeval conception has now, in the centuries which +we call modern, passed into oblivion; and the period in which it ceased +to have effective value we denote as the period of the Renaissance and +the Reformation. So long as the ideal held good, it was possible for the +Papacy to stamp out heresies and to stifle the earlier stirrings of +antagonistic culture. Thus the precursory movements to which I alluded +in the first chapter of my 'Age of the Despots,' seemed to be abortive; +and no less apparently abortive were the reformatory efforts of Wyclif +and Huss. Yet Europe was slowly undergoing mental and moral changes, +which announced the advent of a new era. These changes were more +apparent in Italy than elsewhere, through the revival of arts and +letters early in the fourteenth century. Cimabue, Giotto, and the +Pisani, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, set culture forward on fresh +paths divergent from previous mediaeval tradition. The gradual +enfeeblement of the Empire and the distraction of the Church during the +Great Schism prepared the means whereby both Renaissance and Reformation +were eventually realized. The Council of Constance brought the Western +nations into active diplomatical relations, and sowed seeds of thought +which afterwards sprang up in Luther. + +Meanwhile a special nidus had been created in the South. The Italian +communes freed themselves from all but titular subjection to the Empire, +and were practically independent of the Papacy during its exile in +Avignon. They succumbed to despots, and from Italian despotism emerged +the Machiavellian conception of the State. This conception, modified in +various ways, by Sarpi's theory of Church and State, by the Jesuit +theory of Papal Supremacy, by the counter-theory of the Divine Right of +Kings, by theories of Social Contract and the Divine Right of Nations, +superseded the elder ideal of Universal Monarchy. It grew originally +out of the specific conditions of Italy in the fifteenth century, and +acquired force from that habit of mind, fostered by the Classical +Revival, which we call humanism. Humanism had flourished in Italy since +the days of Petrarch, and had been communicated by Italian teachers to +the rest of Europe. As in the South it generated the new learning and +the new culture which I have described in the first five volumes of my +work, and acted as a solvent on the mediaeval idea of the Empire, so in +the North it generated a new religious enthusiasm and acted as a solvent +on the mediaeval idea of the Church. All through the middle ages, +nothing seemed more formidable to the European mind than heresy. Any +sacrifices were willingly made in order to secure the unity of the +Catholic Communion. But now, by the Protestant rebellion, that spell was +broken, and the right of peoples to choose their faith, in dissent from +a Church declared corrupt, was loudly proclaimed. + +So long as we keep this line of reasoning in view, we shall recognize +why it is not only uncritical, but also impossible, to separate the two +movements severally called Renaissance and Reformation. Both had a +common root in humanism, and humanism owed its existence on the one hand +to the recovery of antique literature, on the other to the fact that the +Papacy, instead of striving to stamp it out as it had stamped out +Provencal civilization, viewed it at first with approval. The new +learning, as our ancestors were wont to call it, involved, in +Michelet's pregnant formula, the discovery of the world and man, and +developed a spirit of revolt against mediaevalism in all its +manifestations. Its fruits were speedily discerned in bold exploratory +studies, sound methods of criticism, audacious speculation, and the free +play of the intellect over every field of knowledge. This new learning +had time and opportunity for full development in Italy, and for adequate +extension to the Northern races, before its real tendencies were +suspected. When that happened, the transition from the mediaeval to the +modern age had been secured. The Empire was obsolete. The Church was +forced into reaction. Europe became the battle-field of progressive and +retrogressive forces, the scene of a struggle between two parties which +can best be termed Liberalism and Conservatism. + +Stripping the subject of those artistic and literary associations which +we are accustomed to connect with the word Renaissance, these seem to me +the most essential points to bear in mind about this movement. Then, +when we have studied the diverse antecedent circumstances of the German +and Italian races, when we take into account their national qualities, +and estimate the different aims and divergent enthusiasms evoked in each +by humanistic ardor, we shall perceive how it came to pass that +Renaissance and Reformation clashed together in discordant opposition to +the Catholic Revival. + + +V. + +Italy, through the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire, and the Roman +Church, gave discipline, culture, and religion to the Western world. +But, during the course of this civilizing process, a force arose in +Northern Europe which was destined to transfer the center of gravity +from the Mediterranean basin northwards. The Teutonic tribes effaced the +Western Empire, adopted Christianity, and profoundly modified what still +survived of Latin civility among the Occidental races. A new factor was +thus introduced into the European community, which had to be assimilated +to the old; and the genius of the Italian people never displayed itself +more luminously than in the ability with which the Bishops of Rome +availed themselves of this occasion. They separated the Latin from the +Greek Church, and, by the figment of the Holy Roman Empire, cemented +Southern and Northern Europe into an apparently cohesive whole. After +the year A.D. 800, Europe, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, +acknowledged a dual headship; Papacy and Empire ranking as ideals under +which the unity of Christendom subsisted in a multiplicity of separate +and self-evolving nations. + +The concordat between Latin Church and German Empire, the one +representing traditions of antique intelligence and southern habits of +State organization, the other introducing the young energies of +half-cultivated peoples and the chivalry of the North, was never +perfect. Yet, incomplete as the fusion between Roman and Teuton actually +was, it had a common basis in religion, and it enabled the federated +peoples to maintain recognized international relations. What we now call +Renaissance and Reformation revealed still unreconciled antagonisms +between Southern and Northern, Latin and German, factors in this +mediaeval Europe. Italy, freed for a while from both Papacy and Empire, +expressed her intellectual energy in the Revival of Learning, developing +that bold investigating spirit to which the names of Humanism or of +Rationalism may be given. The new learning, the new enthusiasm for +inquiry, the new study of the world and man, as subjects of vital +interest irrespective of our dreamed-of life beyond the grave, +stimulated in Italy what we know as Renaissance; while in Germany it led +to what we know as Reformation. The Reformation must be regarded as the +Teutonic counterpart to the Italian Renaissance. It was what emerged +from the core of that huge barbarian factor, which had sapped the Roman +Empire, and accepted Catholicism; which lent its vigor to the mediaeval +Empire, and which now participated in the culture of the classical +Revival. As Italy restored freedom to human intelligence and the senses +by arts and letters and amenities of refined existence, so Germany +restored freedom to the soul and conscience by strenuous efforts after +religious sincerity and political independence. The one people aiming +at a restoration of pagan civility beneath the shadow of Catholicism, +the other seeking after a purer Christianity in antagonism to the Papal +hierarchy, initiated from opposite points of view that complete +emancipation of the modern mind which has not yet been fully realized. + +If we inquire why the final end to which both Renaissance and +Reformation tended--namely, the liberation of the spirit from mediaeval +prepossessions and impediments--has not been more perfectly attained, we +find the cause of this partial failure in the contradictory conceptions +formed by South and North of a problem which was at root one. Both +Renaissance and Reformation had their origin in the revival of learning, +or rather in that humanistic enthusiasm which was its vital essence. But +the race-differences involved in these two movements were so +irreconcilable, the objects pursued were so divergent, that Renaissance +and Reformation came into the conflict of chemical combination, +producing a ferment out of which the intellectual unity of Europe has +not as yet clearly emerged. The Latin race, having created a new +learning and a new culture, found itself at strife with the Teutonic +race, which at the same period developed new religious conceptions and +new political energies. + +The Church supplied a battle-field for these hostilities. The +Renaissance was by no means favorable to the principles of Catholic +orthodoxy; and the Italians showed themselves to be Christians by +convention and tradition rather than by conviction in the fifteenth +century. Yet Italy was well content to let the corrupt hierarchy of +Papal Rome subsist, provided Rome maintained the attitude which Leo X. +had adopted toward the liberal spirit of the Classical Revival. The +Reformation, on the other hand, was openly antagonistic to the Catholic +Church. Protestantism repudiated the toleration professed by skeptical +philosophers and indulgent free-thinkers in the South, while it repelled +those refined persons by theological fervor and moral indignation which +they could not comprehend. Thus the Italian and the German children of +humanism failed to make common cause against Catholicism, with which the +former felt no sympathy and which the latter vehemently attacked. +Meanwhile the Church awoke to a sense of her peril. The Papacy was still +a force of the first magnitude; and it only required a vigorous effort +to place it once more in an attitude of domination and resistance. This +effort it made by reforming the ecclesiastical hierarchy, defining +Catholic dogma, and carrying on a war of extermination against the +twofold Liberalism of Renaissance and Reformation. + +That reactionary movement against the progress of free thought which +extinguished the Italian Renaissance and repelled the Reformation, has +formed the subject of the two preceding volumes of my work. It could not +have been conducted by the Court of Rome without the help of Spain. The +Spanish nation, at this epoch paramount in Europe, declared itself +fanatically and unanimously for the Catholic Revival. In Italy it lent +the weight of arms and overlordship to the Church for the suppression of +popular liberties. It provided the Papacy with a spiritual militia +specially disciplined to meet the exigencies of the moment. Yet the +center of the reaction was still Rome; and the Spanish hegemony enabled +the Roman hierarchy to consolidate an organism which has long survived +its own influence in European affairs. + + +VI. + +After the close of the Great Schism Rome began to obey the national +impulses of the Italians, entered into their confederation as one of the +five leading powers, and assumed externally the humanistic culture then +in vogue. But the Church was a cosmopolitan institution. Its interests +extended beyond the Alps, beyond the Pyrenees, beyond the oceans +traversed by Portuguese and Spanish navigators. The Renaissance so far +modified its structure that the Papacy continued politically to rank as +an Italian power. Its headquarters could not be removed from the Tiber, +and by the tacit consent of Latin Catholicism the Supreme Pontiff was +selected from Italian prelates. Yet now, in 1530, it began to play a new +part more consonant with its mediaeval functions and pretensions. Rome +indeed had ceased to be the imperial capital of Europe, where the +secular head of Christendom assumed the crown of Empire from his peer +the spiritual chieftain. The Eternal City in this new phase of modern +history, which lasted until Vittorio Emmanuele's entrance into the +Quirinal in 1870, gave the Pope a place among Catholic sovereigns. From +his throne upon the seven hills he conducted with their approval and +assistance the campaign of the Counter-Reformation. Instead of +encouraging and developing what yet remained of Renaissance in Italy, +instead of directing that movement of the self-emancipating mind beyond +the stage of art and humanism into the stage of rationalism and science, +the Church used its authority to bring back the middle ages and to +repress national impulses. It made common cause with Spain for a common +object--the maintenance of Italy in a state of political and +intellectual bondage, and the subjugation of such provinces in Europe as +had not been irretrievably lost to the Catholic cause. The Italians, as +a nation, remained passive, but not altogether unwilling or unapproving +spectators of the drama which was being enacted under Papal leadership +beyond their boundaries. Once again their activity was merged in that of +Rome--in the action of that State which had first secured for them the +Empire of the habitable globe, and next the spiritual hegemony of the +Western races, and from the predominance of which they had partially +disengaged themselves during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It +was the Papacy's sense of its own danger as a cosmopolitan institution, +combined with the crushing superiority of Spain in the peninsula, which +determined this phase of Italian history. + +The Catholic Revival, like the Renaissance, may in a certain sense be +viewed as a product of Italian genius. This is sufficiently proved by +the diplomatic history of the Tridentine Council, and by the dedication +of the Jesuits to Papal service. It must, however, be remembered that +while the Renaissance emanated from the race at large, from its +confederation of independent republics and tyrannies, the Catholic +Revival emanated from that portion of the race which is called Rome, +from the ecclesiastical hierarchy imbued with world-wide ambitions in +which national interests were drowned. There is nothing more interesting +to the biographer of the Italians than the complicated correlation in +which they have always stood to the cosmopolitan organism of Rome, +itself Italian. In their antique days of greatness Rome subdued them, +and by their native legions won the overlordship of the world. After the +downfall of the Empire the Church continued Roman traditions in an +altered form, but it found itself unable to dispense with the foreign +assistance of Franks and Germans. The price now paid by Italy for +spiritual headship in Europe was subjection to Teutonic suzerains and +perpetual intriguing interference in her affairs. During the Avignonian +captivity and the Great Schism, Italy developed intellectual and +confederative unity, imposing her laws of culture and of state-craft +even on the Papacy when it returned to Rome. But again at the close of +the Renaissance, when Italian independence had collapsed, the Church +aspired to spiritual supremacy; and at this epoch she recompensed her +Spanish ally by aiding and abetting in the enslavement of the peninsula. +Still the Roman Pontiff, who acted as generalissimo of the Catholic +armies throughout Europe, was now more than ever recognized as an +Italian power. + + +VII. + +In his review of Ranke's _History of the Popes_ Lord Macaulay insists +with brilliant eloquence upon the marvelous vitality and longevity of +the Roman Catholic Church. He describes the insurrection of the +intellect against her rule in Provence, and her triumph in the Crusade +which sacrificed a nation to the conception of mediaeval religious +unity. He dwells on her humiliation in exile at Avignon, her +enfeeblement during the Great Schism, and her restoration to splendor +and power at the close of the Councils. Then he devotes his vast +accumulated stores of learning and his force of rhetoric to explain the +Reformation, the Catholic Revival, and the Counter-Reformation. He +proves abundantly what there was in the organism of the Catholic Church +and in the temper of Papal Rome, which made these now reactionary powers +more than a match for Protestantism. 'In fifty years from the day on +which Luther publicly renounced communion with the Papacy, and burned +the bull of Leo before the gates of Wittenberg, Protestantism attained +its highest ascendency, an ascendency which it soon lost, and which it +never regained.' This sentence forms the theme for Lord Macaulay's +survey of the Catholic Revival. Dazzling and fascinating as that survey +is, it fails through misconception of one all-important point. Lord +Macaulay takes for granted that conflict in Europe, since the +publication of Luther's manifesto against Rome, has been between +Catholicism and Protestantism. Even after describing the cataclysm of +the French Revolution, he winds up his argument with these words: 'We +think it a most remarkable fact that no Christian nation, which did not +adopt the principles of the Reformation before the end of the sixteenth +century, should ever have adopted them. Catholic communities have, since +that time, become infidel and Catholic again; but none has become +Protestant.' This is tantamount to regarding Protestantism as something +fixed and final in itself, as a permanent and necessary form of +Christianity. Here lies the fallacy which makes his reasoning, in spite +of all its eloquence, but superficial. Protestantism, in truth, has +never been more than a half-way house or halting-place between +Catholicism and what may variously be described as free thought or +science or rationalism. Being in its origin critical--being, as its name +implies, a protest and an opposition--Protestantism was doomed to +sterility, whenever it hardened into one or other of its dogmatic +forms. As critics and insurgents, Luther and Calvin rank among the +liberators of the modern intellect. As founders of intolerant and +mutually hostile Christian sects, Luther and Calvin rank among the +retarders of modern civilization. In subsequent thinkers of whom both +sects have disapproved, we may recognize the veritable continuators of +their work in its best aspect. The Lutheran and Calvinist Churches are +but backwaters and stagnant pools, left behind by the subsidence of +rivers in flood, separated from the tidal stress of cosmic forces. +Macaulay's misconception of the true character of Protestantism, which +is to Catholicism what the several dissenting bodies are to the English +Establishment, has diverted his attention from the deeper issues +involved in the Counter-Reformation. He hardly touches upon Rome's +persecution of free thought, upon her obstinate opposition to science. +Consequently, he is not sufficiently aware that Copernicus and Bruno +were, even in the sixteenth century, far more dangerous foes to +Catholicism than were the leaders of the Reformed Churches. Copernicus +and Bruno, the lineal ancestors of Helmholtz and Darwin, headed that +opposition to Catholicism which has been continuous and potent to the +present day, which has never retreated into backwaters or stagnated in +slumbrous pools. From this opposition the essence of Christianity, the +spirit which Christ bequeathed to his disciples, has nothing to fear. +But Catholicism and Protestantism alike, in so far as both are dogmatic +and reactionary, clinging to creeds which will not bear the test of +scientific investigation, to myths which have lost their significance in +the light of advancing knowledge, and to methods of interpreting the +Scriptures at variance with the canons of historical criticism, have +very much to fear from this opposition. Lord Macaulay thinks it a most +remarkable fact that no Christian nation has adopted the principles of +the Reformation since the end of the sixteenth century. He does not +perceive that, in every race of Europe, all enlightened thinkers, +whether we name Bacon or Descartes, Spinoza or Leibnitz, Goethe or +Mazzini, have adopted and carried forward those principles in their +essence. That they have not proclaimed themselves Protestants unless +they happened to be born Protestants, ought not to arouse his wonder, +any more than that Washington and Heine did not proclaim themselves +Whigs. For Protestantism, when it became dogmatic and stereotyped itself +in sects, ceased to hold any vital relation to the forward movement of +modern thought. The Reformation, in its origin, was, as I have tried to +show, the Northern and Teutonic manifestation of that struggle after +intellectual freedom, which in Italy and France had taken shape as +Renaissance. But Calvinism, Lutheranism, Zwinglianism, and Anglicanism +renounced that struggle only less decidedly than Catholicism; and in +some of their specific phases, in Puritanism for example, they showed +themselves even more antagonistic to liberal culture and progressive +thought than did the Roman Church. + +Whatever may be thought about the future of Catholicism (and no prudent +man will utter prophecies upon such matters), there can be no doubt that +the universal mind of the Christian races, whether Catholic or +Protestant, has been profoundly penetrated and permeated with +rationalism, which, springing simultaneously in Reformation and +Renaissance out of humanism, has supplied the spiritual life of the last +four centuries. This has created science in all its branches. This has +stimulated critical and historical curiosity. This has substituted sound +for false methods of inquiry, the love of truth for attachment to +venerable delusion. This has sustained the unconquerable soul of man in +its persistent effort after liberty and its revolt against the tyranny +of priests and princes. At present, civilization seems threatened by +more potent foes than the Roman Church, nor is it likely that these foes +will seek a coalition with Catholicism. + +As a final remark upon this topic, it should be pointed out that +Protestantism, in spite of the shortcomings I have indicated, has, on +the whole, been more favorable to intellectual progress than +Catholicism. For Protestantism was never altogether oblivious of its +origin in revolt against unjust spiritual domination, while Catholicism +has steadily maintained its conservative attitude of self-defense by +repression. This suffices to explain another point insisted on by Lord +Macaulay--namely, that those nations in which Protestantism took root +have steadily advanced, while the decay of Southern Europe can be mainly +ascribed to the Catholic Revival. The one group of nations have made +progress, not indeed because they were Protestants, but because they +were more obedient to the Divine Mind, more in sympathy with the vital +principle of movement, more open to rationalism. The other group of +nations have declined, because Catholicism after the year 1530, wilfully +separated itself from truth and liberty and living force, and +obstinately persisted in serving the false deities of an antiquated +religion. + + +VIII. + +Few periods in history illustrate the law of reaction and retrogression, +to which all processes of civil progress are subject, more plainly and +more sadly than the one with which I have been dealing in these volumes. +The Renaissance in Italy started with the fascination of a golden dream; +and like the music of a dream, it floated over Europe. But the force +which had stimulated humanity to this delightful reawakening of senses +and intelligence, stirred also the slumbering religious conscience, and +a yearning after personal emancipation. Protestantism arose like a stern +reality, plunging the nations into confused and deadly conflict, +arousing antagonisms in established orders, unleashing cupidities and +passions which had lurked within the breasts of manifold adventurers. +The fifteenth century closed to a solemn symphony. After the middle of +the sixteenth, discord sounded from every quarter of the Occidental +world. Italy lay trampled on and dying. Spain reared her dragon's crest +of menacing ambition and remorseless fanaticism. France was torn by +factions and devoured by vicious favorites of corrupt kings. Germany +heaved like a huge ocean in the grip of a tumultuous gyrating cyclone. +England passed through a complex revolution, the issue of which, under +the sway of three Tudor monarchs, appeared undecided, until the fourth +by happy fate secured the future of her people. It is not to be wondered +that, in these circumstances, a mournful discouragement should have +descended on the age; that men should have become more dubitative; that +arts and letters should have seemed to pine upon unfertile ground. The +nutriment they needed was absorbed by plants of fiercer and ranker +growth, religious hatreds, political greeds, relentless passions burning +in the hearts of princes and of populations. + + +IX. + +Italy had already given so much of mental and social civilization to +Europe, that her quiescence at this epoch can scarcely supply a +substantial theme for rhetorical lamentations. Marino and Guido Reni +prove that the richer veins of Renaissance art and poetry had been +worked out. The lives of Aldus the younger and Muretus show that +humanism was well-nigh exhausted on its native soil. This will not, +however, prevent us from deploring the untimely frost cast by +persecution on Italy's budding boughs of knowledge. While we rejoice in +Galileo, we must needs shed tears of fiery wrath over the passion of +Campanella and the stake of Bruno. Meanwhile the tree of genius was ever +green and vital in that Saturnian land of culture. Poetry, painting, +sculpture, and architecture, having borne their flowers and fruits, +retired to rest. Scholarship faded; science was nipped in its unfolding +season by unkindly influences. But music put forth lusty shoots and +flourished, yielding a new paradise of harmless joy, which even priests +could grudge not to the world, and which lulled tyranny to sleep with +silvery numbers. + +Thanks be to God that I who pen these pages, and that you who read them, +have before us in this year of grace the spectacle of a resuscitated +Italy! In this last quarter of the nineteenth century, the work of her +heroes, Vittorio Emmanuele, Mazzini, Garibaldi, and Cavour, stands +firmly founded. The creation of united Italy, that latest birth of the +Italian genius, that most impossible of dreamed-of triumphs through long +ages of her glory and greatness, compensates for all that she has borne +in these three hundred years. Now that Rome is no longer the seat of a +cosmopolitan theocracy, but the capital of a regenerated people; now +that Venice joins hands with Genoa, forgetful of Curzola and Chioggia; +now that Florence and Pisa and Siena stand like sisters on the sacred +Tuscan soil, while Milan has no strife with Naples, and the Alps and +sea-waves gird one harmony of cities who have drowned their ancient +spites in amity,--the student of the splendid and the bitter past may +pause and bow his head in gratitude to Heaven and swear that, after all, +all things are well. + + +X. + +There is no finality in human history. It is folly to believe that any +religions, any social orders, any scientific hypotheses, are more than +provisional, and partially possessed of truth. Let us assume that the +whole curve of human existence on this planet describes a parabola of +some twenty millions of years in duration.[239] Of this we have already +exhausted unreckoned centuries in the evolution of pre-historic man, and +perhaps five thousand years in the ages of historic records. How much of +time remains in front? Through that past period of five thousand years +preserved for purblind retrospect in records, what changes of opinion, +what peripeties of empire, may we not observe and ponder! How many +theologies, cosmological conceptions, polities, moralities, dominions, +ways of living and of looking upon life, have followed one upon another! +The space itself is brief; compared with the incalculable longevity of +the globe, it is but a bare 'scape in oblivion.' And, however ephemeral +the persistence of humanity may be in this its earthly dwelling-place, +the conscious past sinks into insignificance before those aeons of the +conscious future, those on-coming and out-rolling waves of further +evolution which bear posterity forward. Has any solid gain of man been +lost on the stream of time to us-ward? We doubt that. Has anything final +and conclusive been arrived at? We doubt that also. The river broadens, +as it bears us on. But the rills from which it gathered, and the ocean +whereto it tends, are now, as ever in the past, inscrutable. It is +therefore futile to suppose, at this short stage upon our journey, while +the infant founts of knowledge are still murmuring to our ears, that any +form of faith or science has been attained as permanent; that any +Pillars of Hercules have been set up against the Atlantic Ocean of +experience and exploration. Think of that curve of possibly twenty +million years, and of the five thousand years remembered by humanity! +How much, how incalculably much longer is the space to be traversed than +that which we have left behind! It seems, therefore, our truest, as it +is our humblest, wisdom to live by faith and love. 'And now abideth +faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is +charity.' Love is the greatest; and against love man has sinned most in +the short but blood-bedabbled annals of his past. Hope is the virtue +from which a faithful human being can best afford to abstain, unless +hope wait as patient handmaid upon faith. Faith is the steadying and +sustaining force, holding fast by which each one of us dares defy +change, and gaze with eyes of curious contemplation on the tide which +brought us, and is carrying, and will bear us where we see not. 'I know +not how I came of you and I know not where I go with you; but I know I +came well and I shall go well.' Man can do no better than live in +Eternity's Sunrise, as Blake put it. To live in the eternal sunrise of +God's presence, ever rising, not yet risen, which will never reach its +meridian on this globe, seems to be the destiny, as it should also be +the blessing, of mankind. + +[Footnote 239: Twenty millions of years is of course a mere symbol, _x_ +or _y_.] + + + + +INDEX. + + +A + +ACADEMIES, Italian, the flourishing time of, i. 52. + +ACCIAIUOLI, Roberto, i. 33. + +ACCOLTI, Benedetto, conspirator against Pius IV., i. 132. + +ACCORAMBONI, Claudio (father of Vittoria), i. 356. + +---Marcello (brother of Vittoria): + intrigues for the marriage of his sister with the + Duke of Bracciano, i. 358 _sqq._; + procures the murder of her husband, 362; + employs a Greek enchantress to brew love-philters, 365; + his death, 372. + +---Tarquinia (mother of Vittoria), i. 356. + +---Vittoria, the story of, i. 355 _sqq._; + her birth and parentage, 356; + marriage with Felice Peretti, 357; + intrigue with the Duke of Bracciano, 360; + the murder of her husband, 362; + her marriage with Bracciano, 364; + annulled by the Pope, 364, 366; + the union renounced by the Duke, 365; + put on trial for the murder of Peretti, _ib._; + their union publicly ratified by the Duke, 366; + flight from Rome, _ib._; + death of Bracciano, 367; + her murder procured by Lodovico Orsini, 369. + +'ACTS of Faith,' i. 107, 176, 187. + +ADMINISTRATOR, the (Jesuit functionary), i. 273. + +'ADONE,' Marino's: + its publication, ii. 264; + critique of the poem, 266 _sqq._ + +ALBANI, Francesco, Bolognese painter, ii. 355, 358. + +ALEXANDER VI., Pope, parallel between, and Pope Paul IV., i. 106. + +ALFONSO II., Duke of Ferrara: + sketch of his Court, ii. 28 _sqq._; + his second marriage, 30; + treatment of Tasso, 38, 51, 53, 58, 60 _sqq._; + his third marriage, 66; + estimate of the reasons why he imprisoned Tasso, 66 _sqq._ + +ALFONSO the Magnanimous: + arrangements under his will, i. 4. + +ALIDOSI, Cardinal Francesco, murder of, i. 36. + +ALLEGORY, hypocrisy of the, exemplified in Tasso, ii. 44; + in Marino, 272; + in Ortensi's moral interpretations of Bandello's + _Novelle_, 272 _n._ + +ALTEMPS, Cardinal d' (Mark of Hohen Ems), legate at Trent, i. 119 _n._ + +ALVA, Duke of, defeat of the Duke of Guise by, i. 103. + +'AMADIS of Gaul,' the favorite book of Loyola in his youth, i. 232. + +AMIAS, Beatrice, mother of Francesco Cenci, i. 346. + +'AMINTA,' Tasso's pastoral drama, first production of, ii. 39; + its style, 114. + +ANGELUZZO, Giovanni, Tasso's first teacher, ii. 12. + +ANIMA Mundi, Bruno's doctrine of, ii. 177. + +ANTONIANO, a censor of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, ii. 43. + +---Silvio, a boy _improvvisatore_, anecdote of, ii. 328. + +AQUAVIVA, the fifth General of the Jesuits, i. 248. + +AQUITAINE, Duke of, Guercino's painting of in Bologna, ii. 367. + +ARAGONESE Dynasty, the, in Italy, i. 4. + +ARBUES, Peter, Saint of the Inquisition in Aragon, i. 161, 178. + +ARETINO, Pietro, i. 42, 70; + satire of on Paul IV., 108. + +'ARIE Divote,' Palestrina's, ii. 335. + +ARISTOTLE'S Axiom on Taste, ii. 371, 374. + +ARMADA, Spanish, i. 149. + +ARMI, Lodovico dall', a _bravo_ of noble family, i. 409; + accredited at Venice as Henry VIII.'s 'Colonel,' 410; + his career of secret diplomacy, 411; + negotiations between Lord Wriothesley and Venice regarding + the ban issued against him, 412; + his downfall, 413; + personal appearance, 414; + execution, 415. + +ARNOLFINI, Massimiliano, paramour of Lucrezia Buonvisi, i. 331; + procures the assassination of her husband, 332; + flight from justice, 332; + outlawed, 336; + his wanderings and wretched end, 339. + +ART of Memory, Bruno's, ii. 139. + +ART of Poetry, Tasso's Dialogues on the, ii. 22, 24; + influence of its theory on Tasso's own work, 25. + +ASSISTANTS, the (Jesuit functionaries), i. 273. + +ASTORGA, Marquis of, i. 22. + +AURORA, the Ludovisi fresco of, ii. 368. + +AVILA, Don Luigi d', i. 128. + + +B + +BAGLIONI, Malatesta, i. 46. + +BAINI'S _Life of Palestrina_, ii. 316 _sqq._ + +BALBI, Cesare, on Italian decadence, ii. 3. + +BANDITTI, tales illustrative of, i. 388 _sqq._ + +'BANDO' (of outlawry), recitation of the terms of a, i. 328. + +BARBIERI, Giovanni Francesco, _see_ IL GUERCINO. + +BARCELONA, the Treaty of, i. 15. + +BARNABITES, Order of the: + their foundation, i. 80. + +BAROCCIO, Federigo, ii. 349. + +BAROZZA, a Venetian courtezan, i. 394, 396. + +BASEL, Council of, i. 94. + +BEARD, unshorn, worn in sign of mourning, i. 36. + +BEDELL, William (Bishop of Kilmore), on Fra Paolo and + Fra Fulgenzio, ii. 231. + +BEDMAR'S conspiracy, ii. 186. + +BELLARMINO, Cardinal, on the inviolability of the Vulgate, i. 212; + relations of, with Fra Paolo Sarpi, ii. 213, 222; + his censure of the _Pastor Fido_, 251. + +BELRIGUARDO, the villa of, Tasso at, ii. 53. + +BEMBO, Pietro, i. 30, 41. + +BENDEDEI, Taddea, wife of Guarini, ii. 245. + +BENTIVOGLI, the semi-royal offspring of King Enzo of Sardinia, ii. 304. + +BIBBONI, Cecco: + his account of how he murdered Lorenzino de'Medici, i. 488 _sqq._; + his associate, Bebo, details of the life of a _bravo_, 389; + tracking an outlaw, 392; + the wages of a tyrannicide, 394; + the _bravo's_ patient watching, 395; + the murder, 397; + flight of the assassins, 399; + their reception by Count Collalto, 401; + they seek refuge at the Spanish embassy, 402; + protected by Charles V.'s orders, 403; + conveyed to Pisa, 404; + well provided for their future life, _ib._ + +BITONTO. Pasquale di, one of the assassins of Sarpi, ii. 212. + +BLACK garments of Charles V., the, i. 43. + +BLACK Pope, the, i. 275. + +BLOIS, Treaty of, i. 12. + +BOBADILLA, Nicholas, associate of Ignatius Loyola, i. 240; + his work as a Jesuit in Bavaria, 258. + +BOLOGNA and Modena, humors of the conflict between, ii. 304. + +BOLOGNESE school of painters, the, ii. 343 _sqq._; + why their paintings are now neglected, 375 _sqq._; + mental condition of Bolognese art, 376. + +BONELLI, Michele, nephew of Pius V., i. 147. + +BONIFAZIO of Montferrat, Marquis, one of the Paleologi, i. 23. + +BORGIA, Francis (Duke of Gandia), third General of the Jesuits, i. 256; + prevented by Loyola from accepting a Cardinal's hat, 260. + +BORROMEO, Carlo: + his character, i. 115; + a possible successor to Pius IV., 135; + ruled in Rome by the Jesuits, 142; + his intimacy with Sarpi, ii. 194. + +---Federigo, i. 115; + letter of, forbidding soldiers' visits to convents, 316 _n._ + +BRANCACCIO, Diana, treachery of, towards the Duchess of Palliano, i. 378; + her murder, 379. + +'BRAVI,' maintenance of by Italian nobles, i. 313; + tales illustrative of, 388 _sqq._; + relations of trust between _bravi_ and foreign Courts, 409. + +BRIGANDAGE in Italy, i. 416. + +BROWN, Mr. H.F., his researches in the Venetian archives, i. 189 _n._ + +BRUCCIOLI, Antonio, translator of the Bible into Italian, i. 76. + +BRUNO, Giordano: + his birth, and training as a Dominican, ii. 129; + early speculative doubts, 130; + _Il Candelajo_, 131, 183; + early studies, 133; + prosecution for heresy, 134; + a wandering student, 135; + at Geneva, 136; + Toulouse, 137; + at the Sorbonne, 138; + the Art of Memory, 139, 154; + _De Umbris Idearum_, _ib._; + relations with Henri III., 140; + Bruno's person and conversation, 141; + in England, _ib._; + works printed in London, 142; + descriptions of London life, _ib._; + opinion of Queen Elizabeth, 143; + lecturer at Oxford, 144; + address to the Vice-Chancellor, 146; + academical opposition, 147; + the Ash-Wednesday Supper, _ib._; + in the family of Castelnau, 148; + in Germany, 149; + Bruno's opinion of the Reformers, _ib._; + the _De Monade_ and _De Triplici Minimo_, 150; + Bruno in a monastery at Frankfort, 151; + invited to Venice, 153; + a guest of Mocenigo there, 154; + his occupations, 156; + denounced by Mocenigo and imprisoned by the Inquisition, 157; + the heads of the accusation, 157 _sqq._; + trial, 159; + recantation, 160; + estimate of Bruno's apology, 161; + his removal to and long imprisonment at Rome, 163; + his execution, 164; + evidence of his martyrdom, 164 _sqq._; + Schoppe's account, 165; + details of Bruno's treatment in Rome, 167; + the burning at the stake, 167 _sq._; + Bruno a martyr, 168; + contrast with Tasso, 169; + Bruno's mental attitude, 170 _sq._; + his championship of the Copernican system, 172; + his relation to modern science and philosophy, 173; + conception of the universe, 173 _sqq._; + his theology, 175; + the _Anima Mundi_, 177; + anticipations of modern thought, 178, 182; + his want of method, 180; + the treatise on the Seven Arts, 182; + Bruno's literary style, 182 _sqq._; + his death contrasted with that of Sarpi, 239 _n._ + +BRUSANTINI, Count Alessandro (Tassoni's 'Conte Culagna'), ii. 301, 306. + +BUCKET, the Bolognese, ii. 305. + +BUONCOMPAGNO, Giacomo, bastard, son of Gregory XIII., i. 150. + +---Ugo, _see_ GREGORY XIII. + +BUONVISI, Lucrezia, story of, i. 330; + intrigue with Arnolfini, 331; + murder of her husband, 332; + Lucrezia suspected of complicity, 334; + becomes a nun (Sister Umilia), _ib._; + the case against her, 338; + amours of inmates of her convent, 340; + Umilia's intrigue with Samminiati, _ib._; + discovery of their correspondence, 341; + trial and sentences of the nuns, 344; + Umilia's last days, 345. + +---Lelio, assassination of, i. 332. + +BURGUNDIAN diamond of Charles the Bold, the, i. 38. + + +C + +CALCAGNINI, Celio, letter of, on religious controversies, i. 74. + +CALVAERT, Dionysius, a Flemish painter in Bologna, ii. 355. + +CALVETTI, Olimpio (one of the assassins of Francesco Cenci), i. 350. + +CALVIN, i. 73; + his relation to modern civilization, ii. 402. + +CAMBRAY, Treaty of (the Paix des Dames), i. 9, 15. + +CAMERA Apostolica, the, venality of, i. 140. + +CAMERINO, Duchy of, i. 86. + +CAMPANELLA, on the black robes of the Spaniards in Italy, i. 44. + +CAMPEGGI, Cardinal Lorenzo, i. 21. + +CAMPIREALI, Elena, the tale of, i. 428. + +CANELLO, U.A., on Italian society in the sixteenth century, i. 304 _n._ + +CANISIUS, lieutenant of Loyola in Austria, i. 259; + appointed to the administration of the see of Vienna, 260. + +CANOSSA, Antonio, conspirator against Pius IV., i. 132. + +CAPELLO, Bianca, the story of, i. 382. + +CAPPELLA, Giulia (Rome), school for training choristers, ii. 316. + +CARACCI, the, Bolognese painters, ii. 345, 349 _sqq._ + +CARAFFA, Cardinal, condemned to death by Pius IV., i. 115. + +---Giovanni Pietro (afterwards Pope Paul IV.), + causes the rejection of Contarini's + arrangement with the Lutherans, i. 78; + helps to found the Theatines, 79; + made Cardinal by Paul III., 88; + hatred of Spanish ascendency, 89; + becomes Pope Paul IV., 102; + quarrel with Philip II., 102 _sqq._; + opens negotiations with Soliman, 103; + reconciliation with Spain, 104; + nepotism, _ib._; + indignation against the misdoings of his relatives, 106; + ecclesiastical reforms, 107 _sq._; + zeal for the Holy Office, 107 _n._; + personal character, 108; + his death, _ib._; + his earlier relations with Ignatius Loyola, 242. + +CARAFFESCHI, evil character of the, i. 105; + four condemned to death by Pius IV., 115, 318. + +CARAVAGGIO, Michelangelo Amerighi da, Italian Realist painter, ii. 363 _n._ + +CARDINE, Aliffe and Leonardo di (Caraffeschi), + condemned to death by Pius IV., i. 115. + +CARDONA, Violante de (Duchess of Palliano), story of, i. 373 _sqq._; + her accomplishments, 374; + character, _ib._; + passion of Marcello Capecce for her, _ib._; + her character compromised through Diana Brancaccio, 378; + murder of Marcello and Diana by the Duke, _ib._; + death of Violante at the hands of her brother, 380. + +CARLI, Orazio: + description of his being put to the torture, i. 333 _sq._ + +CARLO Emmanuele of Savoy, Italian hopes founded on, ii. 246, 286; + friend of Marino, 262; + kindness to Chiabrera, 290; + treatment of Tassoni, 298. + +CARNESECCHI, condemned by the Roman Inquisition to be burned, i. 145. + +CARPI, attached to Ferrara, i. 40. + +CARRANZA, Archbishop of Toledo, condemned by the + Roman Inquisition to be burned, i. 145. + +CASA, Giovanni della (author of the _Capitolo del Forno_), i. 393, 395. + +CASTELNAU, Michel de, kindness of towards Giordano Bruno, ii. 141, 148. + +---Marie de, Bruno's admiration for, ii. 148. + +---Pierre de, the first Saint of the Inquisition, i. 161. + +CATALANI, Marzio (one of the assassins of Francesco Cenci), i. 350. + +CATEAU Cambresis, the Peace of, i. 48. + +CATHOLIC Revival, the inaugurators of, at Bologna, i. 16; + transition from the Renaissance to, 65; + new religious spirit in Italy, 67; + the Popes and the Council of Trent, 96 _sqq._; + a Papal triumph, 130; + the Catholic Reaction generated the Counter-Reformation, 133; + its effect on social and domestic morals, 301 _sqq._ + +CELEBRITY, vicissitudes of, ii. 368. + +CELIBACY, clerical, the question of, at Trent, i. 123. + +CELLANT, Contessa di, the model of Luini's S. Catherine, ii. 360 _n._ + +'CENA delle Ceneri, La,' Bruno's, i. 85 _n._; ii. 140, 142, 183. + +CENCI, Beatrice, examination of the legend of, i. 351 _sqq._ + +---Francesco: bastard son of Cristoforo Cenci, i. 346; + his early life, _ib._; + disgraceful charges against him, 348; + compounds by heavy money payment for his crimes, _ib._; + violent deaths of his sons, _ib._; + severity towards his children, 349; + his assassination procured by his wife and three children, 350; + the murderers denounced, _ib._; + their trial and punishments, 351. + +---Msgr. Christoforo, father of Francesco Cenci, i. 346. + +CENTINI, Giacomo: story of his attempts by sorcery on the + life of Urban VIII., i. 425. + +CESI, Msgr., invites Tasso to Bologna, ii. 22. + +CHARLES V., his compact with Clement VII., i. 15; + Emperor Elect, 16; + relations with Andrea Doria, 17; + at Genoa, 18; + his journey to Bologna, 20; + his reception there, 22; + the meeting with Clement, 23; + mustering of Italian princes, 25; + negotiations on Italian affairs, 26 _sqq._; + a treaty of peace signed, 31; + the difficulty with Florence, 32; + the question of the two crowns, 34 _sqq._; + description of the coronation, 37 _sqq._; + the events that followed, 39 _sqq._; + the net results of Charles's administration of Italian affairs, 45 _sqq._; + his relations with Paul III., 100; + his abdication, 102; + he protects the assassins of Lorenzino de'Medici, 403. + +CHARLES VIII., of France: his invasion of Italy, i. 8. + +CHIABRERA, Gabriello: his birth, ii. 287; + educated by the Jesuits, _ib._; + his youth, 288; + the occupations of a long life, 289; + courtliness, 290; + ode to Cesare d'Este, 291; + Chiabrera's aim to remodel Italian poetry on a Greek pattern. 292 _sqq._; + would-be Pindaric flights, 296; + comparison with Marino and Tassoni, _ib._ + +CIOTTO, Giambattista, relations of, with Giordano Bruno, ii. 152 _sqq._ + +CISNEROS, Garcia de, author of a work which suggested + S. Ignatius's _Exercitia_, i. 236. + +CLEMENT VII.: a prisoner in S. Angelo, i. 14; + compact with Charles V., 15; + their meeting at Bologna, 16 _sqq._; + negotiations with the Emperor Elect, 26 _sqq._; + peace signed, 31. + +CLEMENT VIII.: his Concordat with Venice, i. 193; + Index of Prohibited Books issued by him, _ib._; + his rules for the censorship of books, 198 _sqq._; + he confers a pension on Tasso, ii. 76. + +CLOUGH, Mr., lines of, on 'Christianized' monuments in Papal Rome, i. 154. + +COADJUTORS, Temporal and Spiritual (Jesuit grades), i. 271. + +COLLALTO, Count Salici da, patron of the _bravo_ Bibboni, i. 400. + +COLONNA, the, reduced to submission to the Popes, i. 7. + +---Vespasiano, Duke of Palliano, i. 77. + +---Vittoria, i. 77; + letter to, from Tasso in his childhood, ii. 15. + +COMANDINO, Federigo, Tasso's teacher, ii. 19. + +COMPANY OF JESUS, _see_ JESUITS. + +CONCLAVES, external influences on, in the election of Popes, i. 134. + +CONFEDERATION between Clement VII. and Charles V., i. 31. + +'CONFIRMATIONS,' Fra Fulgenzio's, ii. 201. + +CONSERVATISM and Liberalism, necessary contest between, ii. 386. + +'CONSIDERATIONS on the Censures,' Sarpi's, ii. 201. + +CONSTANCE, Council of, i. 92. + +CONTARINI, Gasparo: his negotiations between Catholics + and Protestants, i. 30; + treatment of his writings by Inquisitors, 31; + suspected of heterodoxy, 72; + intimacy with Gaetano di Thiene, 76; + his concessions to the Reformers repudiated by the Curia, 78; + memorial on ecclesiastical abuses, 79. + +---Simeone: his account of a plague at Savigliano, i. 419 _sq._ + +'CONTRIBUTIONS of the Clergy, Discourse upon the,' Sarpi's, ii. 221. + +COPERNICAN system, the, Bruno's championship of, ii. 172. + +COREGLIA, one of the assassins of Lelio Buonvisi, i. 333 _sqq._ + +CORONATION of Charles V., description of, i. 34 _sqq._; + notable people present at, 39 _sqq._ + +CORSAIRS, Tunisian and Algerian, raids of, on Italian coasts, i. 417. + +COSCIA, Giangiacopo, guardian of Tasso's sister, ii. 16. + +COSIMO I. of Tuscany, the rule of, i. 46, 47. + +COSTANTINI, Antonio, Tasso's last letter written to, ii. 77; + sonnet on the poet, 78. + +COTERIES, religious, in Rome, Venice, Naples, i. 75 _sqq._ + +COUNTER-REFORMATION: its intellectual and moral character, i. 63; + the term defined, 64 _n._; + decline of Renaissance impulse, 65; + criticism and formalism in Italy, _ib._; + contrast with the development of other European races, 66; + transition to the Catholic Revival, 67; + attitudes of Italians towards the German Reformation, 71; + free-thinkers, 73; + the Oratory of Divine Love, 76; + the Moderate Reformers, _ib._; + Gasparo Contarini, 78; + new Religious Orders, 79; + the Council of Trent, 97, 119; + Tridentine Reforms, 107, 134; + asceticism fashionable in Rome, 108, 142; + active hostilities against Protestantism, 148; + the new spirit of Roman polity, 149 _sqq._; + work of the Inquisition, 159 _sqq._; + the Index, 195 _sqq._; + twofold aim of Papal policy, 226; + the Jesuits, 229 _sqq._; + an estimate of the results of the Reformation + and of the Counter-Reformation, ii. 385 _sqq._ + +COURIERS, daily post of, between the Council of Trent + and the Vatican, i. 121. + +COURT life in Italy, i. 20, 37, 41, 51; ii. 17, 29, 65, 201, 251. + +CRIMES of violence, in Italy in the sixteenth century, i. 304 _sqq._ + +CRIMINAL procedure, of Italian governments in the sixteenth + century, i. 308 _sqq._ + +CRITICISM, fundamental principles of, ii. 370; + the future of, 374. + +CROWNS, the iron and the golden, of the Emperor, i. 34. + +CULAGNA, Conte di, _see_ BRUSANTINI. + +CURIA, the, complicity of, with the attempts on Sarpi's life, ii. 213. + + +D + +'DATATARIO:' amount and sources of its income, i. 140. + +DATI, Giovanbattista, amount of, with nuns, i. 341 _sq._ + +'DECAMERONE,' Boccaccio's expurgated editions of, issued + in Rome, i. 224 _sq._ + +DELLA CRUSCANS, the, attack of, on Tasso's poetry, ii. 35, 72, 117 _n._ + +'DE Monade,' Bruno's, ii. 150, 152 _n._, 167. + +DEPRES, Josquin, the leader of the contrapuntal style in music, ii. 316. + +'DE Triplici Minimo,' Bruno's, ii. 150, 152 _n._, 167. + +'DE Umbris Idearum,' Bruno's, ii. 139. + +DEZA, Diego, Spanish Inquisitor, i. 182. + +DIACATHOLICON, the, meaning of the term as used by Sarpi, i. 231; ii. 202. + +DIALOGUES, Tasso's, ii. 22, 112. + +DIRECTORIUM, the (Lainez' commentary on the constitution + of the Jesuits), i. 249. + +DIVINE Right of sovereigns, the: why it found favor + among Protestants, i. 296. + +DOMENICHINO, Bolognese painter, ii. 355; + critique of Mr. Ruskin's invectives against his work, 359 _sqq._ + +DOMINICANS, the, ousted as theologians by the Jesuits at Trent, i. 101; + their reputation for learning, ii. 130. + +DOMINIS, Marcantonio de, publishes in England + Sarpi's _History of the Council of Trent_, ii. 223. + +DONATO, Leonardo, Doge of Venice, ii. 198. + +DORIA, Andrea: + his relations with Charles V., i. 18. + +---Cardinal Girolamo, i. 21. + + +E + +ECLECTICISM in painting, ii. 345 _sqq._, 375 _sqq._ + +ECONOMICAL stagnation in Italy, i. 423. + +ELIZABETH, Queen (of England), Bruno's admiration of, ii. 143. + +EMANCIPATION of the reason, retarded by both the Reformation and the + Counter-Reformation, ii. 385 _sqq._ + +EMIGRANTS from Italy, regulations of the Inquisition regarding, i. 227. + +ENZO, King (of Sardinia), a prisoner at Bologna, ii. 304. + +EPIC poetry, Italian speculations on, ii. 24; + Tasso's Dialogues on, 26. + +'EROICI Furori, Gli,' Bruno's, ii. 142, 183. + +ESPIONAGE, system of among the Jesuits, i. 273. + +ESTE, Alfonso d' (Duke of Ferrara), relations of, with Charles V., i. 40. + +---Cardinal Ippolito d', i. 127 _sq._ + +---Cardinal Luigi d', Tasso in the service of, ii. 12, 27. + +---Don Cesare d', Chiabrera's Ode to, ii. 291. + +---House of, their possessions in Italy, i. 45. 48. + +---Isabella d', at the coronation of Charles V.. i. 21. + +---Leonora d', the nature of Tasso's attachment to, ii. 31 _sqq._, 36, 40, + 51, 54 _n._, 56, 68; + her death, 71. + +---Lucrezia d', Tasso's attachment to, ii. 32, 39; + her marriage, 35; + her death, 40 _n._ + +EVOLUTION in relation to Art, ii. 371 _sqq._ + +'EXERCITIA Spiritualia' (Loyola's), i. 236; + manner of their use, 267 _sqq._ + +EXTINCTION of republics in Italy, i. 45 _sqq._ + + +F + +FABER, Peter, associate of Loyola, i. 239; + his work as a Jesuit in Spain, 258. + +FARNESE, Alessandro, _see_ PAUL III. + +---Giulia, mistress of Alexander VI., i. 81. + +---Ottavio (grandson of Paul III.), Duke of Camerino, i. 86. + +---Pier Luigi (son of Paul III.), Duke of Parma, i. 86. + +FEDERATION, Italian, the five members of the, i. 3 _sqq._; + how it was broken up, 11. + +FERDINAND, Emperor, successor of Charles V., i. 102, 118; + his relations with Canisius and the Jesuits, 259. + +FERRARA, i. 7; + settlement of the Duchy of, by Charles V., i. 40; + life at the Court of, ii. 29, 65, 247, 251. + +FERRUCCI, Francesco, i. 46. + +FESTA, Costanzo, the _Te Deum_ of, ii. 329. + +FINANCES of the Papacy under Sixtus V., i. 152. + +FIORENZA, Giovanni di, one of the assassins of Sarpi, ii. 212. + +FLAMINIO, Marcantonio, i. 76. + +FLEMISH musicians in Rome, ii. 316 _sqq._ + +FLORENCE: + condition of the Republic in 1494, i. 10; + Siege of the town (1530), 30 _sq._; + capitulation, 46; + under the rule of Spain, _ib._; + extinction of the Republic, 47; + the rule of Cosimo I., 49. + +FORMALISM, the development of, i. 66. + +FOSCARI, Francesco, the dogeship of, i. 9. + +FRANCIS I.: his capture at Pavia, i. 9, 13. + +FRECCI, Maddalo de', the betrayer of Tasso's love-affairs, ii. 51. + +FREDERICK II., Emperor: his edicts against heresy, i. 163. + +FREETHINKERS, Italian, i. 73 _sq._ + +FULGENZIO, Fra, the preaching of at Venice, ii. 207; + his biography of Sarpi, _ib._ + +FULKE GREVILLE, a supper at the house of, described + by Giordano Bruno, ii. 142, 147. + + +G + +GALLICAN CHURCH, the: its interests in the Council of Trent, i. 126. + +GALLUZZI'S record of Jesuit attempts to seduce youth, i. 284. + +GATTINARA, Cardinal, Grand Chancellor of the Empire, i. 31. + +GAMBARA, Veronica, i. 41. + +GENERAL Congregation of the Jesuits, functions of the, i. 273. + +GENERAL of the Jesuits, position of, in regard to the Order, i. 272. + +GENOA, becomes subject to Spain, i. 18. + +GENTILE, Valentino, i. 73. + +GERSON'S _Considerations upon Papal Excommunications_, + translated by Sarpi, ii. 200. + +'GERUSALEMME Conquistata,' Tasso's, ii. 75, 114 _sq._, 124. + +'GERUSALEMME Liberata:' at first called _Gottifredo_, ii. 35; + its dedication, 38, 47 _sq._; + submitted by Tasso to censors, 43; + their criticisms, 43 _sq._, 50; + successful publication of the poem, 71; + its subject-matter, 92; + the romance of the epic, 93; + Tancredi, the hero, 94; + imitations of Dante and Virgil, 95 _sqq._; + artificiality, 100; + pompous cadences, 101; + oratorical dexterity, 102; + the similes and metaphors, _ib._; + Armida, the heroine, 106. + +GHISLIERI, Michele, _see_ PIUS V. + +---Paolo, a relative of Pius V., i. 147. + +GIBERTI, Gianmatteo, Bishop of Verona, i. 19. + +GILLOT, Jacques, letter from Sarpi to, on the relations + of Church and State, ii. 203. + +GIOVANNI FRANCESCO, Fra, an accomplice in the attacks on Sarpi, ii. 214. + +'GLI ETEREI,' Academy of, at Padua, ii. 26. + +GOLDEN crown, the, significance of, i. 34. + +GONGORISM, i. 66. + +GONZAGA, Cardinal Ercole, ambassador from Clement VII. + to Charles V., i. 19. + +---Cardinal Scipione, a friend of Tasso, ii. 26, 42, 46, 67, 73. + +---Don Ferrante, i. 25. + +---Eleanora Ippolita, Duchess of Urbino, i. 37. + +---Federigo, Marquis of Mantua, i. 26. + +---Vincenzo, obtains Tasso's release, ii. 73; + the circumstances of his marriage, i. 386. + +'GOTTIFREDO.' Tasso's first title for the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, ii. 35. + +GOUDIMEL, Claude: his school of music at Rome, ii. 323. + +GRANADA, Treaty of, i. 12. + +GRAND style (in art), the so-called, ii. 379. + +GREGORY XIII., Pope (Ugo Buoncompagno): his early career + and election, i. 149; + manner of life, 150; + treatment of his relatives, 151; + revival of obsolete rights of the Church, 152; + consequent confusion in the Papal States, _ib._ + +GRISON mercenaries in Italy, i. 103 _n._ + +GUARINI, on the death of Tasso, ii. 69 _n._; + publishes a revised edition of Tasso's lyrics, 72; + Guarini's parentage, 244; + at the Court of Alfonso II. of Ferrara, 245; + a rival of Tasso, _ib._; + engaged on foreign embassies, 246; + appointed Court poet, 247; + domestic troubles, 249; + his last years, 251; + his death, _ib._; + argument of the _Pastor Fido_, _ib._; + satire upon the Court of Ferrara, 254; + critique of the poem, 255; + its style, 256; + comparison with Tasso's _Aminta_, 275. + +GUELF and Ghibelline contentions: how they ended in Italy, i. 57. + +GUICCIARDINI, Francesco, i. 33. + +GUISE, Duke of: his defeat by Alva, i. 103; + his murder, 129. + +GUZMAN, Domenigo de (S. Dominic), founder of the Dominican Order, i. 162. + + +H + +HEGEMONY, Spanish, economical and social condition of + the Italians under, i. 50; + the evils of, 61. + +HENCHENEOR, Cardinal William, i. 36. + +HENRI III., favor shown to Giordano Bruno by, ii. 139. + +HENRI IV., the murder of, i. 297. + +HENRY VIII.: his divorce from Katharine of Aragon, i. 44. + +HEROICO-comic poetry, Tassoni's _Secchia Rapita_, + the first example of, ii. 303. + +'HISTORY of the Council of Trent,' Sarpi's, ii. 222 _sqq._ + +HOLY Office, _see_ INQUISITION. + +HOLY Roman Empire, the, ii. 393. + +HOMATA, Benedetta, attempted murder of by Gianpaolo Osio, i. 323 _sqq._ + +HOMICIDE, lax morality of the Jesuits in regard to, i. 306 _n._ + +HOSIUS, Cardinal, legate at Trent, i. 118. + +HUMANISM, the work of, ii. 385, 391; + what it involved, 392; + Rationalism, its offspring, 404. + +HUMANITY, the past and future of, ii. 408 _sqq._ + + +I + +IL BORGA, a censor of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, ii. 43. + +'IL Candelajo,' Giordano Bruno's comedy, ii. 131, 183. + +IL GUERCINO (G.F. Barbieri), Bolognese painter, ii. 365; + his masterpieces, 367. + +'IL PADRE di Famiglio,' Tasso's Dialogue, ii. 63. + +'IL Pentito,' Tasso's name as one of Gli Eterei, ii. 26. + +INGEGNERI, Antonio, a friend of Tasso, ii. 64; + publishes the _Gerusalemme_, 71. + +INDEX Expurgatorius: + its first publication at Venice, i. 192; + effects on the printing trade there, 193; + the Index in concert with the Inquisition, 194; + origin of the Index, 195; + local lists of prohibited books, _ib._; + establishment of the Congregation of the Index, 197; + Index of Clement VIII., 198; + its preambles, _ib._; + regulations, 199 _sq._; + details of the censorship and correction of books, 201; + rules as to printers, publishers, and booksellers, 203; + responsibility of the Holy Office, 204; + annoyances arising from delays and ignorance on the part of censors, 205; + spiteful delators of charges of heresy, 207; + extirpation of books, 208; + proscribed literature, 209; + garbled works by Vatican students, 210; + effect of the Tridentine decree about the Vulgate, 212; + influence of the Index on schools and lecture-rooms, 213; + decline of humanism, 218; + the statutes on the _Ratio Status_, 220; + their object and effect, 221; + the treatment of lewd and obscene publications, 223; + expurgation of secular books, 224. + +INQUISITION, the, i. 159 _sqq._; + the first germ of the Holy Office, 161; + developed during the crusade against the Albigenses, _ib._; + S. Dominic its founder, 162; + introduced into Lombardy, etc., 164; + the stigma of heresy, 165; + three types of Inquisition, 166; + the number of victims, 166 _n._; + the crimes of which it took cognizance, 167; + the methods of the Apostolical Holy Office, 168; + treatment of the New Christians in Castile, 169, 171; + origin of the Spanish Holy Office, 170; + opposition of Queen Isabella, 171; + exodus of New Christians, 172; + the punishments inflicted, _ib._; + futile appeals to Rome, 173; + constitution of the Inquisition, 174; + its two most formidable features, 175; + method of its judicial proceedings, 176; + the sentence and its execution, 177; + the holocausts and their pageant, _ib._; + Torquemada's insolence, 179; + the body-guard of the Grand Inquisitor, 180; + number of Torquemada's victims, 181; + exodus of Moors from Castile, 182; + victims under Torquemada's successors, _ib._; + an Aceldama at Madrid, 184; + the Roman Holy Office, _ib._; + remodelled by Giov. Paolo Caraffa, 185; + 'Acts of Faith' in Rome, 186; + numbers of the victims, 187; + in other parts of Italy, 188; + the Venetian Holy Office, 190; + dependent on + the State, _ib._; + Tasso's dread of the Inquisition, ii. 42, 45, 49, 51; + the case of Giordano Bruno, 134, 157 _sqq._; + Sarpi denounced to the Holy Office, 195. + +INTELLECTUAL and social activity in Italian cities, i. 51. + +INTERDICT of Venice (1606), ii. 198 _sqq._; + the compromise, 205. + +INVASION, wars of, in Italy, i. 11 _sqq._ + +IRON crown, the, sent from Monza to Bologna, i. 36. + +'ITALIA Liberata,' Trissino's, ii. 24, 303. + +ITALIA Unita, ii. 407. + +ITALY: + its political conditions in 1494, i. 2 _sqq._; + the five members of its federation, 3; + how the federation was broken up, 11; + the League between Clement VII. and Charles V., 31; + review of the settlement of Italy effected by Emperor + and Pope, 45 _sqq._; + extinction of republics, 47; + economical and social condition of the Italians under + Spanish hegemony, 48; + intellectual life, 51; + predominance of Spain and Rome, 53 _sqq._; + Italian servitude, 58; + the evils of Spanish rule, 59 _sqq._; + seven Spanish devils in Italy, 61; + changes wrought by the Counter-Reformation, 64 _sqq._; + criticism and formalism, 65; + transition from the Renaissance to the Catholic Revival, _ib._; + attitude of Italians towards the German Reformation, 71. + + +J + +JESUITS, Order of: + its importance in the Counter-Reformation, i. 229; + the Diacatholicon, 231; + works on the history of the Order, 231 _n._; + sketch of the life of Ignatius Loyola, 231 _sqq._; + the first foundation of the _Exercitia_, 236; + Peter Faber and Francis Xavier, 239; + the vows taken by Ignatius and his neophytes at Paris, 240; + their proposed mission to the Holy Land, 241; + their visits to Venice and Rome, 242 _sq._; + the name of the Order, 244; + negotiations in Rome, 245; + the fourth vow, 246; + the constitutions approved by Paul III., 247; + the Directorium of Lainez, 249; + the original limit of the number of members, _ib._; + Loyola's administration, 250; + asceticism deprecated, 251; + worldly wisdom of the founder, 253; + rapid spread of the Order, 254; + the Collegium Romanum, 255; + Collegium Germanicum, _ib._; + the Order deemed rivals by the Dominicans in Spain, _ib._; + successes in Portugal, 256; + difficulties in France, 257; + in the Low Countries, _ib._; + in Bavaria and Austria, 258; + Loyola's dictatorship, 259; + his adroitness in managing distinguished members of his Order, 260; + statistics of the Jesuits at Loyola's death, _ib._; + the autocracy of the General, 261; + Jesuit precepts on obedience, 263 _sq._; + addiction to Catholicism, 266; + the spiritual drill of the _Exercitia Spiritualia_, 267; + materialistic imagination, 268; + psychological adroitness of the method, 269; + position and treatment of the novice, 270; + the Jesuit Hierarchy, 271; + the General, 272; + five sworn spies to watch him, 273; + a system of espionage through the Order, 274; + position of a Jesuit, _ib._; + the Black Pope, 275; + the working of the Jesuit vow of poverty, 275 _sq._; + revision of the Constitutions by Lainez, 277; + the question about the _Monita Secreta_, 277 _sqq._; + estimate of the historical importance of the Jesuits, 280 _sq._; + their methods of mental tyranny, 281; + Jesuitical education, 282; + desire to gain the control of youth, 283; + their general aim the aggrandizement of the Order, 284; + treatment of _etudes fortes_, _ib._; + admixture of falsehood and truth, 285; + sham learning and sham art, 286; + Jesuit morality, 287; + manipulation of the conscience, 288; + casuistical ethics, 290; + system of confession and direction, 293; + political intrigues and doctrines, 294 _sqq._; + the theory of the sovereignty of the people, 296; + Jesuit connection with political plots, 297; + suspected in regard to the deaths of Popes, 298; + the Order expelled from various countries, 299 _n._; + relations of Jesuits to Rome, 299; + their lax morality in regard to homicide, 306 _n._, 314; + their support of the Interdict of Venice, ii. 198 _sqq._ + +JEWS, Spanish, wealth and influence of, i. 169; + adoption of Christianity, _ib._; + attacked by the Inquisition, 170; + the edict for their expulsion, 171; + its results, 172. + +JULIUS II.: + results of his martial energy, i. 7. + +---III., Pope (Giov. Maria del Monte), i. 101. + + +K + +KEPLER, high opinion of Bruno's speculations held by, ii. 164. + +KINGDOMS and States of Italy in 1494, enumeration of, i. 3. + + +L + +'LA Cuccagna,' a satire by Marino, ii. 263. + +LAINEZ, James, associate of Ignatius Loyola, i. 240; + his influence on the development of the Jesuits, 248; + his commentary on the Constitutions (the Directorium), 249; + his work in Venice, etc., 254; + abject submission to Loyola, 262. + +LATERAN, Council of the, i. 95. + +LATIN and Teutonic factors in European civilization, ii. 393 _sqq._ + +LATINI, Latino, on the extirpation of books by the Index, i. 208. + +LEGATES, Papal, at Trent, i. 97 _n._, 119. + +LE JAY, Claude, associate of Ignatius Loyola, i. 240; + his work as a Jesuit at Ferrara, 254; + in Austria. 258. + +LEONI, Giambattista, employed by Sarpi to write against + the Jesuits, ii. 200. + +LEPANTO, battle of, i. 149. + +LESCHASSIER, Sarpi's letters to, ii. 229, 235. + +'LE Sette Giornate,' Tasso's, ii. 75, 115, 124. + +LEYVA, Antonio de, at Bologna, i. 22. + +---Virginia Maria de (the Lady of Monza): + birth and parentage, i. 317; + a nun in a convent of the Umiliate, 318; + her seduction by Gianpaolo Osio, 318 _sqq._; + birth of her child, 321; + murder of her waiting-woman by Osio, 322; + the intrigue discovered, 323; + attempted murder by Osio of two of her associates, 324; + Virginia's punishment and after-life, 329. + +LONDON, Bruno's account of the life of the people of, ii. 142; + social life in, 143. + +LORENTE'S History of the Inquisition, cited, 171 _sqq._; + his account of the number of victims of the Holy Office, i. 181, 183 _n._ + +LORRAINE, Cardinal: + his influence in the Council of Trent, i. 125 _sq._ + +LO SPAGNOLETTO (Giuseppe Ribera), Italian Realist painter, ii. 363. + +LOUISA of Savoy, one of the arrangers of the Paix des Dames, i. 16. + +LOUIS XII.: his descent into Lombardy, and its results, i. 9; + allied with the Austrian Emperor and the King of Spain, i. 12. + +LOYOLA, Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits: + his birth and childhood, i. 231; + his youth and early training, _ib._; + illness at Pampeluna, 232; + pilgrimage to Montserrat, 234; + retreat at Manresa, _ib._; + his romance and discipline, 235; + journey to the Holy Land, 237; + his apprenticeship to his future calling, _ib._; + imprisoned by the Inquisition, 238; + studies theology in Paris, _ib._; + gains disciples there, 239; + his methods with them, _ib._; + with ten companions takes the vows of chastity and poverty, 240; + Ignatius at Venice, 241; + his relations with Caraffa and the Theatines, 242; + in Rome, 243; + the name of the new Order, 244; + its military organization, 245; + the project favored by Paul III., _ib._; + the Constitution approved by the Pope, 247; + his worldly wisdom, 248 _n._; + Loyola's creative force, 249; + his administration, 250 _sq._; + dislike of the common forms of monasticism, 251; + his aims and principles, 252; + comparison with Luther, 253; + rapid spread of the Order, 254; + special desire of Ignatius to get a firm hold on Germany, 258; + his dictatorship, 259; + adroitness in managing his subordinates, 260; + autocratic administration, 261; + insistence on the virtue of obedience, 263; + devotion to the Roman Church, 265; + the _Exercitia Spiritualia_, 267 _sqq._; + Loyola's dislike of asceticism, 270; + his interpretation of the vow of poverty, 275; + his instructions as to the management of consciences, 287 _sq._; + his doctrine on the fear of God, 304 _n._ + +LUCERO EL TENEBROSO, the Spanish Inquisitor, i. 180. + +LUINI'S picture of S. Catherine, ii. 360. + +LULLY, Raymond: + his Art of Memory and Classification of the Sciences, + adapted by Giordano Bruno, ii. 139. + +LUNA, Don Juan de, i. 47. + +LUTHER, Bruno's high estimate of, ii. 149; + his relation to modern civilization, 402. + +LUTHERAN soldiers in Italy, i. 44. + +LUTHERANISM in Italy, i. 185. + + +M + +MACAULAY, Lord, on Sarpi's religious opinions, ii. 227 _n._; + critique of his survey of the Catholic Revival, 400 _sqq._ + +MAIN events in modern history, the, ii. 383 _sqq._ + +MALATESTA, Roberto, leader of bandits in the Papal States, i. 152. + +MALIPIERO, Alessandro, a friend of Sarpi, ii. 210. + +MALVASIA, Count C.C., writings of, on the Bolognese painters, ii. 350 _n._ + +MANRESA, Ignatius Loyola at, i. 234. + +MANRIQUE, Thomas, Master of the Sacred Palace, an expurgated + edition of the _Decamerone_ issued by, i. 224. + +MANSO, Marquis: + his _Life of Tasso_, ii. 54, 56, 58, 64, 70, 115; + friend of Marino in his youth, 261. + +MANTUA, raised to the rank of a duchy, i. 27. + +MANUZIO, Aldo (the younger), ill-treatment of, in Rome, i. 217 _sq._ + +---Paolo: + works produced at his press in Rome, i. 220; + a friend of Chiabrera, ii. 287. + +MARCELLUS II., Pope (Marcello Cervini), i. 97, 101. + +MARGARET of Austria, one of the arrangers of the Paix des Dames, i. 16. + +MARIANAZZO, a robber chief, refusal of pardon by, i. 309. + +MARIGNANO, Marquis of (Gian Giacomo Medici), i. 109, 115. + +MARINISM, i. 66; ii. 299, 302. + +MARINO, Giovanni Battista: + his birth and parentage, ii. 260; + escapades of his youth in Naples, 261; + at the Court of Carlo Emanuele, 262; + his life in Turin, _ib._; + at the Court of Maria de'Medici, 263; + successful publication of the _Adone_, 264; + return to Naples, 265; + critique of the _Adone_, 266 _sq._; + the Epic of Voluptuousness, 268; + its effeminate sensuality, 268 _sq._; + cynical hypocrisy, 270; + the character of Adonis, 272; + ugliness and discord, 273; + Marino's poetic gifts, 274; + great variety of episodes, 276; + unity of theme, 277; + purity of poetic style rarely attained, 279; + false rhetoric, 280; + Marinism, 281; + verbal fireworks, 282; + Marino's real inadequacy, 285; + the _Pianto d'Italia_, 286; + comparison of Marino with Chiabrera, 296. + +MARTELLI, Giovan Battista, a _bravo_ attendant on + Lorenzino de'Medici, i. 396. + +MARTUCCIA, a notorious Roman courtesan, i. 375. + +MASANIELLO, cause of the rising of, in Naples, i. 49. + +MASSACRE of S. Bartholomew, i. 55, 149. + +MASSIMI, Eufrosina (second wife of Lelio Massimi), the + murder of, i. 354 _sq._ + +---Lelio: violent deaths of the five sons whom he cursed, i. 355 _sq._ + +'MATERIE Beneficiarie, Delle,' Sarpi's, ii. 219. + +MAXIMILIAN, Emperor, allied against Venice with Louis XII., i. 12. + +MAZZOLA, Francesco (Il Parmigianino), i. 42. + +MEDA, Caterina da (waiting-woman of Virginia de Leyva), murder of, i. 322. + +MEDIAEVAL habits, survival of, in Italy in the sixteenth century, i. 306. + +MEDICI, de', family of: + their advances towards Despotism, i. 10; + violent deaths of members, 382 _sqq._; + eleven murdered in a half-century, 387. + +---Alessandro, Duke of Florence, i. 19, 46, 388. + +---Cosimo, i. 46; + made Grand Duke of Tuscany, 47. + +---Giovanni, i. 11. + +---Ippolito, i. 19. + +---Lorenzino, assassination of his cousin Alessandro + (Duke of Florence) by, i. 388; + details of his own murder, 389 _sqq._ + +---Lorenzo, i. 10. + +---Maria, the Court of, as Regent of France, ii. 263. + +---Piero, i. 10. + +MEDICI, Gian Giacomo (brother of Pius IV.), i. 50, 109. + +---Giovanni Angelo, _see_ PIUS IV. + +---Margherita (sister of Pius IV.), mother of Carlo Borromeo, i. 115 _n._ + +MENDOZA, Don Hurtado de, i. 47. + +MERSENNE, evidence of, as to the burning of Giordano Bruno, ii. 164 _n._ + +METAPHYSICAL speculators in Italy, i. 73. + +METAURUS, the, Tasso's ode to, ii. 63. + +METEMPSYCHOSIS, Bruno's doctrine of, ii. 160. + +MEXICO, the early Jesuits in, i. 260. + +MIANI, Girolamo, founder of the congregation of the Somascans, i. 79; + his relations with Loyola, 242. + +MICANZI, Fulgenzio, _see_ FULGENZIO, FRA. + +MILAN, Duchy of: + its state in 1494, i. 8. + +MOCENIGO, Giovanni: + his character, ii. 152; + invites Giordano Bruno to Venice, 153; + the object of the invitation, 154; + their intercourse, 155; + Bruno denounced to the Inquisition by Mocenigo, 157. + +---Luigi, on the relations between Pius IV. and Cardinal Morone, i. 110 _n._ + +MODENA and Bologna, humors of the conflict between, ii. 304. + +MONOPOLIES, system of, in Italy, i. 49. + +MONTALTO, Cardinal, nephew of Sixtus V., i. 157. + +MONTEBELLO, Baron, the tale of, i. 428. + +MONTECATINO, Antonio, an enemy of Tasso at Ferrara, ii. 48, 50, 60, 62; + his downfall, 66. + +MONTE OLIVETO, the monastery of, Tasso at, ii, 74. + +MONZA, the Lady of, _see_ LEYVA, VIRGINIA MARIA DE. + +MORALS, social and domestic, in Italy, effect of the + Catholic Revival on, i. 301 _sqq._; + outcome of the Tridentine decrees, 302; + hypocrisy and ceremonial observances, 303; + sufferings of the lower classes, _ib._; + increase of crimes of violence, 304; + mistrust between the aristocracy and the _bourgeoisie_, 306; + survival of mediaeval habits, _ib._; + brigandage, 307; + criminal procedure, 308; + mutual jealousy of States afforded security to refugee homicides, 309; + toleration of outlaws, 310; + the Lucchese army of bandits, 311; + honorable murder, 312; + maintenance of _bravi_, _ib._; +social violence countenanced by the Church, 314; + sexual morality, 315; + state of convents, 316; + profligate fanaticism, _ib._; + convent intrigues, 318 _sqq._ + +MORATO, Peregrino, letter from Celio Calcagnini to, i. 74. + +MORNAY, Duplessis, Sarpi's letters to, ii. 229. + +MORONE, Cardinal, i. 26; + Papal legate at Trent, 97 _n._; + imprisoned by Paul IV., 110; + relations with Pius IV., _ib._; + liberal thinkers among his associates, 111 _n._; + his work in connection with the Council of Trent, 127. + +---Girolamo, i. 26, 72. + +MUNICIPAL wars, Italian, ii. 304. + +MURDERS in Italy in the sixteenth century, i. 305 _sqq._ + +MURETUS: + his difficulties as a professor in Rome, i. 214, 216. + +MURTOLA, Gasparo, attempted assassination of the poet Marino by, ii. 263. + +MUSIC, Italian, decadence of, in the sixteenth century, ii. 315; + foreign musicians in Rome, 316; + the contrapuntal style, 317; + licenses allowed to performers, _ib._; + the medleys prepared by composers, _ib._; + disgraceful condition of Church music, 318; + orchestral _ricercari_, 320 _n._; + Savonarola's opinion of the Church music of his time, _ib._; + musical aptitude of the people, 322; + lack of a controlling element of correct taste, _ib._; + advent of Palestrina, _ib._; + the Congregation for the Reform of Music, 325; + rise of the Oratorio, 334; + music in England in the sixteenth century, 338; + rise of the Opera, 340. + +MUSICIANS, Italian, of the seventeenth cenutry, ii. 243. + + +N + +NAPLES, kingdom of, separated from Sicily, i. 4; + its extent, _ib._; + in the hands of Spain, 12. + +NASSAU, Count of, i. 38. + +NATURE, the study of, among Italian philosophers, ii. 128. + +NEPOTISM, Papal: + the Caraffas, i. 104 _sq._; + the Borromeos, 115; + the Ghislieri, 147; + Gregory XIII.'s relatives, 151; + estimate of the incomes of Papal nephews, 156 _sqq._ + +NEW Christians, the, in Spain, _see_ JEWS. + +NOBILI, Flaminio de', a censor of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, ii. 43. + +NOLA, survival of Greek customs in, ii. 132. + +NOVICES, Jesuit, position of, i. 271. + +NUNNERIES, state of, in the sixteenth century, i. 315 _sqq._ + + +O + +OMERO, Fuggiguerra, sobriquet chosen by Tasso in his wanderings, ii. 64. + +OPERA, rise of the, in Florence, ii. 341. + +ORANGE, Prince of, leader of the Spanish army in + the siege of Florence, i. 18. + +ORATORIO (Musical), the: + its origins in Rome, ii. 334. + +ORATORY of Divine Love, the, i. 76. + +ORSINI, the, reduced to submission to the Popes, i. 7. + +---Paolo Giordano (Duke of Bracciano): + his passion for Vittoria Accoramboni, i. 358; + his gigantic stature and corpulence, 359; + poisons his first wife, 360; + treatment by Sixtus V., 363; + secret marriage with Vittoria, 364; + renounces the marriage, 365; + ratifies the union by public marriage, 366; + flight from Rome, _ib._: + death of the Duke, 367. + +---Prince Lodovico: + procures the murder of Vittoria Accoramboni and her brother, i. 368; + siege of his palace, 370; + his violent death, 371. + +---Troilo, lover of the Duchess of Bracciano, i. 360; + details of his murder by Ambrogio Tremazzi, 405 _sqq._ + +OSIO, Gianpaolo: + his intrigue with Virginia de Leyva, i. 318 _sqq._; + murders her waiting-woman, 322; + attempts to murder two other nuns, 324; + his letter of defence to Cardinal Federigo Borromeo, 326; + condemned to death and outlawed, 327; + terms of the _Bando_, 328; + his end, 329. + +OSORIO, Don Alvaro, Grand Marshal of Spain, i. 22. + +OUTLAWRY in Italy in the sixteenth century, i. 307 _sqq._ + +OXFORD, Giordano Bruno's reception at, ii. 144. + + +P + +PACHECO, Cardinal, the foe of the Caraffeschi, i. 105. + +PADUAN school of scepictism, the, influence of, on Tasso, ii. 20. + +PAGANELLO, Conte, assassin of Vittoria Accoramboni, i. 371. + +PAINTING in the late years of the sixteenth century, ii. 344; + Eclecticism, 345; + influence of the Tridentine Council, 347; + the Mannerists, 348; + Baroccio, 349; + the Caracci, 350 _sqq._; + studies of the Bolognese painters, 352; + academical ideality, 354; + Guido, Albani, Domenichino, 355 _sqq._; + criticism of Domenichino's work, 359; + the Italian Realists, 363 _sqq._; + Lo Spada, 364; + Il Guercino, 365; + critical reaction against the Eclectics, 368; + fundamental principles of criticism, 370 _sqq._ + +PAIX des Dames, i. 9, 16. + +PALAZZO Vernio, Academy (musical) of the, ii. 340; + distinguished composers of its school, 341. + +PALEARIO, Aonio: + his opinion of the Index, i. 197, 214. + +PALESTRINA, Giovanni Pier Luigi: + his birth and early musical training, ii. 323; + uneventful life of the _Princeps Musicae_, 324; + relations with the Congregation for Musical Reform, 325; + the legend and the facts about + _Missa Papae Marcelli_, 326 _sqq._, 331 _n._; + Palestrina's commission, 331; + the three Masses in competition, 332; + the award by the Congregation and the Pope, 334; + Palestrina's connection with S. Filippo Neri, 334; + _Arie Divote_ composed for the Oratory, 335 _sq._; + character of the new music, 335; + influence of Palestrina on Italian music, 336; + estimate of the general benefit derived by music from him, 337 _sq._ + +PALLAVICINI, on Paul IV.'s seal for the Holy Office, i. 107 _n._ + +PALLAVICINO, Matteo, murder of, by Marcello Accoramboni, i. 358. + +PALLIANO, Duchess of, _see_ CARDONA, VIOLANTE DE. + +---Duke of (nephew of Paul IV.), murders committed by, i. 379; + his execution, 380. + +PANCIROLI, Guido, Tasso's master in the study of law, ii. 20. + +PAPACY, the, its position after the sack of Rome, i. 13; + tyranny of, arising from the instinct of self-preservation, 54; + dislike of, for General Councils, 90; + manipulation of the Council of Trent, 97 _sqq._, 119 _sqq._; + its supremacy founded by that Council, 131; + later policy of the Popes, 149 _sqq._, 226. + +PAPAL States, the: + their condition in 1447, i. 5; + attempts to consolidate them into a kingdom, 6. + +PARMA and Piacenza, creation of the Duchy of, by Paul III., i. 86. + +PARMA, Duchy of, added to the States of the Church, i. 7. + +PARMIGIANINO, Il, painting of Charles V. by, i. 42. + +PARRASIO, Alessandro, one of the assassins of Sarpi, ii. 212. + +PART-SONGS, French Protestant, influence of, on Palestrina, ii. 324. + +PASSARI, Pietro, amours of, with the nuns of S. Chiara, Lucca, i. 340 _sq._ + +'PASTOR Fido,' Guarini's, critique of, ii. 252 _sqq._ + +PAUL III., Pope, sends Contarini to the conference at Rechensburg, i. 78; + receives a memorial on ecclesiastical abuses, 79; + establishes the Roman Holy Office, 80; + sanctions the Company of Jesus, _ib._; + his early life and education, 81; + love of splendor, 82; + peculiarity of his position, _ib._; + the Pope of the transition, 84; + jealous of Spanish ascendency in Italy, 85; + creates the Duchy of Parma for his son, 86 _sqq._; + members of the moderate reforming party made Cardinals, 88; + his repugnance to a General Council, 90; + indiction of a Council to be held at Trent, 97; + difficulties of his position, 100; + his death, 101; + his connection with the founding of the Jesuit Order, 245. + +PAUL IV., Pope, _see_ CARAFFA, GIOV. PIETRO. + +PAUL V., Pope: + details of his nepotism, i. 157 _n._; + places Venice under an interdict, ii. 198. + +PAVIA, the battle of, 13. + +PELLEGRINI, Cammillo, panegyrist of Tasso, ii. 72. + +PEPERARA, Laura, Tasso's relations with, ii. 31. + +PERETTI, Felice (nephew of Sixtus V.), husband of Vittoria + Accoramboni, i. 357; + his murder, 358. + +PESCARA, Marquis of, husband of Vittoria Colonna, i. 25. + +'PESTE di S. Carlo, La,' i. 421. + +'PETRARCA, Considerazioni sopra le Rime, del,' Tassoni's, ii. 298, 300. + +PETRONI, Lucrezia, second wife of Francesco Cenci, i. 348 _sq._ + +PETRONIO, S., Bologna, reception of Charles V. by Clement VII. at, i. 23; + the Emperor's coronation at, 37 _sqq._ + +PETRUCCI, Pandolfo, seduction of two sons of, by the Jesuits, i. 284. + +PHILIP II. of Spain: + his quarrel with Paul IV., i. 102; + the reconciliation, 104. + +PHILOSOPHERS of Southern Italy in the sixteenth century, ii. 126 _sqq._ + +PIACENZA, added to the States of the Church, i. 7. + +PICCOLOMINI, Alfonso, leader of bandits in the Papal States, i. 152. + +'PIETRO Soave Polano,' anagram of 'Paolo Sarpi Veneto,' ii. 223. + +PIGNA (secretary to the Duke of Ferrara), a rival of Tasso, ii. 34, 45, 48. + +PINDAR, the professed model of Chiabrera's poetry, ii. 291, 294. + +PIRATES, raids of, on Italy, i. 417. + +PISA, first Council of, i. 92; + the second, 95. + +PIUS IV., Pope (Giov. Angelo Medici): + his parentage, i. 109; + Caraffa's antipathy to him, 110; + makes Cardinal Morone his counsellor, _ib._; + negotiations with the autocrats of Europe, 111; + his diplomatic character, 112; + the Tridentine decrees, _ib._; + keen insight into the political conditions of his time, 113; + independent spirit, 115; + treatment of his relatives, _ib._; + his brother's death helped him to the Papacy, _ib._; + the felicity of his life, 116; + the religious condition of Northern Europe in his reign, 117; + re-opening of the Council of Trent, 119; + his management of the difficulties connected with the Council, 127 _sqq._; + use of cajoleries and menaces, 129; + success of the Pope's plans, 130; + his Bull of ratification of the Tridentine decrees, 131; + his last days, 132; + estimate of the work of his reign, 133 _sqq._; + his lack of generosity, 142; + coldness in religious exercises, 144; + love of ease and good companions, 147. + +PIUS V., Pope (Michele Ghislieri): + his election, i. 137; + influence of Carlo Borromeo on him, 137, 145, 147; + ascetic virtues, 145; + zeal for the Holy Office, 145; + edict for the expulsion of prostitutes from Rome, 146; + his exercise of the Papal Supremacy, 148; + his Tridentine Profession of Faith, _ib._; + advocates rigid uniformity, 148; + promotes attacks on Protestants, _ib._ + +PLAGUES: + in Venice, i. 418; + at Naples and in Savoy, _ib._; + statistics of the mortality, 418 _n._; + disease supposed to be wilfully spread by malefactors, 420. + +POETRY, Heroic, the problem of creating, in Italy, ii. 80. + +POLAND, the crown of, sought by Italian princes, ii. 246. + +POLE, Cardinal Reginald, i. 76; + Papal legate at Trent, 97 _n._ + +POMA, Ridolfo, one of the assassins of Sarpi, ii. 212. + +POMPONIUS LAETUS, the teacher of Paul III., i. 81, 82. + +POPULAR melodies employed in Church music in the + sixteenth century, ii. 318. + +PORTRAIT of Charles V. by Titian, i. 42. + +'PRESS, Discourse upon the,' Sarpi's, ii. 220. + +'PRINCEPS Musicae,' the title inscribed on Palestrina's tomb, ii. 325. + +PRINTING: + effects of the Index Expurgatorius on the trade in Venice, i. 192; + firms denounced by name by Paul IV., 198, 208. + +PROFESSED of three and of four vows (Jesuit grades), i. 271 _sq._ + +PROLETARIATE, the Italian, social morality of in the + sixteenth century, i. 224 _sqq._ + +PROSTITUTES, Roman, expulsion of by Pius V., i. 146. + +PROTESTANT Churches in Italy, persecution of, i. 186. + +PROTESTANTISM in Italy, i. 71. + +PROVINCES, Jesuit, enumeration of the, i. 161. + +PUNCTILIO in the Sei Cento, ii. 288. + +PURISTS, Tuscan, Tassoni's ridicule of, ii. 308. + +PUTEO, Cardinal, legate at Trent, i. 119. + + +Q + +QUEMADERO, the Inquisition's place of punishment at Seville, i. 178. + +QUENTIN, S., battle of, i. 103. + +QUERRO, Msgr., an associate of the Cenci family, i. 349, 350, 352. + + +R + +'RAGGUAGLI di Parnaso,' Boccalini's, ii. 313. + +RANGONI, the, friends of Tasso and of his father, ii. 6, 23. + +'RATIO Status,' statutes of the Index on the, i. 220. + +RATIONALISM, the real offspring of Humanism, ii. 404. + +RAVENNA, exarchate of, i. 7. + +REALISTS, Italian school of painters, ii. 363 _sqq._ + +RECHENSBURG, the conference at, i. 78, 88 + +'RECITATIVO,' Claudio Monteverde the pioneer of, ii. 341. + +REFORMATION, the: position of Italians towards its doctrines, i. 72. + +REFORMING theologians in Italy, i. 76 _sq._ + +RELIGIOUS Orders, new, foundation of, in Italy, i. 79 _sq._ + +RELIGIOUS spirit of the Italian Church in the sixteenth century, i. 71. + +RENAISSANCE and Reformation: the impulses of both + simultaneously received by England, ii. 388. + +RENEE of France, Duchess of Ferrara, i. 77. + +RENI, Guido, Bolognese painter, ii. 355; + his masterpieces, 358. + +REPUBLICAN governments in Italy, i. 5. + +RETROSPECT over the Renaissance, ii. 389 _sqq._ + +REYNOLDS, Sir Joshua, admiration of, for the Bolognese + painters, ii. 359, 375. + +RIBERA, Giuseppe, _see_ LO SPAGNOLETTO. + +RICEI, Ottavia, attempted murder of, by Gianpaolo Osio, i. 323 _sqq._ + +'RICERCARI,' employment of, in Italian music, ii. 343. + +RINALDO, Tasso's, first appearance of, ii. 22; + its preface, 82; + its subject-matter, 84; + its religious motive, 86; + its style, 86 _sqq._ + +RODRIGUEZ d'Azevedo, Simon, associate of Ignatius Loyola, i. 240; + his work as a Jesuit in Portugal, 256, 262. + +ROMAN University, the, degraded condition of, in the sixteenth + century, i. 216. + +ROME, fluctuating population of, i. 137; + eleemosynary paupers, 139; + reform of Roman manners after the Council of Trent, 141; + expulsion of prostitutes, 146; + Roman society in Gregory XIII.'s reign, 152; + the headquarters of Catholicism, ii. 397; + relations with the Counter-Reformation, 398; + the complicated correlation of Italians with Papal Rome, 399; + the capital of a regenerated people, 408. + +RONDINELLI, Ercole, Tasso's instructions to, in regard to his MSS., ii. 35. + +ROSSI, Bastiano de', a critic of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, ii. 72. + +---Porzia de' (mother of Torquato Tasso): + her parentage, ii. 5, 7; + her marriage, 7; + her death, probably by poison, 9; + her character, 12; + Torquato's love for her, 15. + +---Vittorio de': + his description of the ill-treatment of Aldo Manuzio in Rome, i. 217 _sq._ + +ROVERE, Francesco della (Duke of Urbino), account of, i. 36. + +RUBBIERA, a fief of the Empire, i. 40. + +RUSKIN, Mr., on the cause of the decline of Venice, i. 423 _n._; + invectives of, against Domenichino's work, ii. 359. + + +S + +SACRED Palace, the Master of the: + censor of books in Rome, i. 201. + +SALMERON, Alfonzo, associate of Ignatius Loyola, i. 240; + in Naples and Sicily, 254. + +SALUZZO ceded to Savoy, i. 56. + +SALVIATI, Leonardo, a critic of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, ii. 72. + +SAMMINIATI, Tommaso, intrigue and correspondence of, with + Sister Umilia (Lucrezia Buonvisi), i. 341 _sqq._; + banished from Lucca, 344. + +S. ANNA, the hospital of, Tasso's confinement at, ii. 66 _sqq._ + +SAN BENITO, the costume of persons condemned by the Inquisition, i. 177. + +SANSEVERINO, Amerigo, a friend of Bernardo Tasso, ii. 14. + +---Ferrante di, Prince of Salerno, i. 38; ii. 6 _sqq._ + +SANTA CROCE, Ersilia di, first wife of Francesco Cenci, i. 347. + +SANVITALE, Eleonora, Tasso's love-affair with, ii. 48. + +SARDINIA, the island of, a Spanish province, i. 45. + +SARPI, Fra Paolo: + his birth and parentage, ii. 185; + his position in the history of Venice, 186; + his physical constitution, 189; + moral temperament, 190; + mental perspicacity, 191; + discoveries in magnetism and optics, 192; + studies and conversation, 193; + early entry into the Order of the Servites, _ib._; + his English type of character, 194; + denounced to the Inquisition, 195; + his independent attitude, 196; + his great love for Venice, 197; + the interdict of 1606, 198; + Sarpi's defence of Venice against the Jesuits, 199 _sqq._; + pamphlet warfare, 201; + importance of this episode, 202; + Sarpi's theory of Church and State, 203; + boldness of his views, 205; + compromise of the quarrel of the interdict, _ib._; + Sarpi's relations with Fra Fulgenzio, 207; + Sarpi warned by Schoppe of danger to his life, 208; + attacked by assassins, 209; + the _Stilus Romanae Curiae_, 211; + history of the assassins, 212; + complicity of the Papal Court, 213; + other attempts on Sarpi's life, 214 _sq._; + his opinion of the instigators, 216; + his so called heresy, 218; + his work as Theologian to the Republic, 219; + his minor writings, 221; + his opposition to Papal Supremacy, _ib._; + the _History of the Council of Trent_, 222; + its sources, 223; + its argument, 224; + deformation, not reformation, wrought by the Council, 225; + Sarpi's impartiality, 226; + was Sarpi a Protestant? 228; + his religious opinions, 229; + views on the possibility of uniting Christendom, 230; + hostility to ultra-papal Catholicism, 231; + critique of Jesuitry, 233; + of ultramontane education, 235; + the Tridentine Seminaries, 235; + Sarpi's dread lest Europe should succumb to Rome, 237; + his last days, 238; + his death contrasted with that of Giordano Bruno, 239 _n._; + his creed, 239; + Sarpi a Christian Stoic, 240. + +SARPI, citations from his writings, on the Papal + interpretation of the Tridentine decrees, i. 131 _n._; + details of the nepotism of the Popes, 156 _n._, 157 _n._; + denunciation of the Index, 197 _n._, 206, 208 _n._; + on the revival of polite learning, 215; + on the political philosophy of the statutes of the Index, 221; + on the Inquisition rules regarding emigrants from Italy, 227 _sq._; + his invention of the name 'Diacatholicon,' 231; + on the deflection of Jesuitry from Loyola's spirit and intention, 248; + on the secret statutes of the Jesuits, 278; + denunciations of Jesuit morality, 289 _n._; + on the murder of Henri IV., 297 _n._; + on the instigators of the attempts on his own life, ii. 215 _n._; + on the attitude of the Roman Court towards murder, 216; + on the literary polemics of James I., 229; + on Jesuit education and the Tridentine Seminaries, 237. + +SAVONAROLA'S opinion of the Church music of his time, ii. 320 _n._ + +SAVOY, the house of: + its connection with important events in Italy, i. 16 _n._, 38, 56; + becomes an Italian dynasty, 58. + +'SCHERNO DEGLI DEI,' Bracciolini's, ii. 313. + +SCHOLASTICS (Jesuit grade), i. 271. + +SCHOPPE (Scioppius), Gaspar: + sketch of his career, ii. 165, 208; + his account of Bruno's heterodox opinions, 166; + description of the last hours of Bruno, 167. + +'SECCHIA RAPITA, LA,' Tassoni's, ii. 301 _sqq._ + +SECONDARY writers of the Sei Cento, ii. 313. + +SEI CENTO, the, decline of culture in Italy in, ii. 242; + its musicians, 243. + +SEMINARIES, Tridentine, ii. 235. + +SERIPANDO, Cardinal, legate at Trent, i. 118. + +SERSALE, Alessandro and Antonio, Tasso's nephews, ii. 72. + +---Cornelia (sister of Tasso), ii. 7, 9, 15 _sq._, 55, 64; + her children, 72. + +SERVITES, General of the, complicity of, in the attempts on + Sarpi's life, ii. 214. + +SETTLEMENT of Italy effected by Charles V. and Clement VII., + net results of, i. 45 _sqq._ + +'SEVEN Liberal Arts, On the,' a lost treatise by Giordano + Bruno, ii. 156, 182. + +SFORZA, Francesco Maria, his relations with Charles V., i. 28. + +---Lodovico (Il Moro, ruler of Milan), invites Charles VIII. + into Italy, i. 8. + +SICILY, separated from Naples, i. 4. + +SIENA, republic of, subdued by Florence, i. 47. + +'SIGNS of the Times, The,' a lost work by Giordano Bruno, ii. 136. + +SIGONIUS: his _History of Bologna_ blocked by the Index, i. 207. + +SIMONETA, Cardinal, legate at Trent, i. 118, 121. + +SIXTUS V., Pope: + short-sighted hoarding of treasure by, i. 153; + his enactments against brigandage, 152; + accumulation of Papal revenues, _ib._; + public works, 153; + animosity against pagan art, _ib._; + works on and about S. Peter's, 154; + methods of increasing revenue, 155; + nepotism, 157; + development of the Papacy in his reign, 158; + his death predicted by Bellarmino, 298; + his behavior after the murder of his nephew (Felice Peretti), 362. + +SODERINI, Alessandro, assassinated together with his nephew + Lorenzino de'Medici, i. 398. + +SOLIMAN, Paul IV.'s negotiations with, i. 103. + +SOMASCAN Fathers, Congregation of the, i. 79. + +S. ONOFRIO, Tasso's death at, ii. 78; + the mask of his face at, 116. + +SORANZO, on the character of Pius IV., i. 111 _n._; + on Carlo Borromeo, 116 _n._; + on the changes in Roman society in 1565, 143. + +'SPACCIO della Bestia Trionfante, Lo,' Giordano Bruno's, + ii. 132 _n._, 140, 165, 183 _sq._ + +SPADA, Lionello, Bolognese painter, ii. 364. + +SPAIN: + its position in Italy after the battle of Pavia, i. 14. + +SPANIARDS of the sixteenth century, character of, i. 59. + +SPERONI, Sperone: + his criticism of Tasso's _Gerusalemme_, ii. 44; + a friend of Chiabrera, 287. + +SPHERE, the, Giordano Bruno's doctrine of, ii. 135, 144 _sq._ + +STENDHAL, De (Henri Beyle): + his _Chroniques et Nouvelles_ cited: + on the Cenci, i. 351 _sq._; + the Duchess of Palliano, 373. + +STERILITY of Protestantism, ii. 401. + +STROZZI, Filippo, i. 46. + +---Piero, i. 47. + + +T + +TASSO, Bernardo (father of Torquato), i. 38; + his birth and parentage, ii. 5; + the _Amadigi_, 7, 11, 18, 35; + his youth and marriage, 7; + misfortunes, _ib._; + exile and poverty, 8; + death of his wife, 9; + his death, 10, 35; + his character, _ib._; + his _Floridante_, 35. + +---Christoforo (cousin of Torquato), ii. 14. + +---Torquato: + his relation to his epoch, ii. 2; + to the influences of Italian decadence, 4; + his father's position, 6; + Torquato's birth, 7; + the death of his mother, 9, 15; + what Tasso inherited from his father, 11; + Bernardo's treatment of his son, _ib._; + Tasso's precocity as a child, 12; + his early teachers, _ib._; + pious ecstasy in his ninth year, 13; + with his father in Rome, 14; + his first extant letter, 15; + his education, 16; + with his father at the Court of Urbino, 17; + mode of life here, 18; + acquires familiarity with Virgil, 19; + studies and annotates the _Divina Commedia_, _ib._; + metaphysical studies and religious doubts, 20; + reaction, _ib._; + the appearance of the _Rinaldo_, 21; + leaves Padua for Bologna, _ib._; + Dialogues on the Art of Poetry, 22, 24, 26; + flight to Modena, 22; + speculations upon Poetry, 23; + Tasso's theory of the Epic, 24; + he joins the Academy 'Gli Eterei' at Padua, as 'Il Pentito,' 26; + enters the service of Luigi d'Este, 27; + life at the Court of Ferrara, 28; + Tasso's love-affairs, 31; + the problem of his relations with Leonora and Lucrezia + d'Este, 32 _sqq._, 48, 51; + quarrel with Pigna, 34; + his want of tact, _ib._; + edits his _Floridante_, 35; + visit to Paris, _ib._; + the _Gottifredo_ (_Gerusalemme Liberata_), 35, 38, 42, 48, 50; + his instructions to Rondinelli, _ib._; + life at the Court of Charles IX., 36; + rupture with Luigi d'Este, 38; + enters the service of Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, _ib._; + renewed relations with Leonora, _ib._; + production and success of _Aminta_, 39; + relations with Lucrezia d'Este (Duchess of Urbino), _ib._; + his letters to Leonora, 41; + his triumphant career, _ib._; + submits the _Gerusalemme_ to seven censors, 43; + their criticisms, _ib._; + literary annoyances, 44; + discontent with Ferrara, 45; + Tasso's sense of his importance, _ib._; + the beginning of his ruin, 46; + he courts the Medici, 47; + action of his enemies at Ferrara, 48; + doubts as to his sanity, 49; + his dread of the Inquisition, _ib._; + persecution by the courtiers, 50; + revelation of his love affairs by Maddalo de'Frecci, 51; + Tasso's fear of being poisoned, _ib._; + outbreak of mental malady, 52; + temporary imprisonment, _ib._; + estimate of the hypothesis that Tasso feigned madness, 53; + his escape from the Convent of S. Francis, 54; + with his sister at Sorrento, 55; + hankering after Ferrara, 56; + his attachment to the House of Este, 57; + terms on which he is received back, 58; + second flight from Ferrara, 61; + at Venice, Urbino, Turin, 63; + 'Omero Fuggiguerra,' 64; + recall to Ferrara, 65; + imprisoned at S. Anna, 66; + reasons for his arrest, 67; + nature of his malady, 69; + life in the hospital, 71; + release and wanderings, 73; + the _Torrismondo_, _ib._; + work on the _Gerusalemme Conquistata_ and + the _Sette Giornate_, 75; + last years at Naples and Rome, 76; + at S. Onofrio, 76; + death, 78; + imaginary Tassos, 79; + condition of romantic and heroic poetry in Tasso's youth, 80; + his first essay in poetry, 81; + the preface to _Rinaldo_, 82; + subject-matter of the poem, 84; + its religious motive, 86; + Latinity of diction, _ib._; + weak points of style, 88; + lyrism and idyll, 89; + subject of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, 92; + its romance, 94; + imitation of Virgil, 97; + of Dante, 97, 99; + rhetorical artificiality, 100; + sonorous verses, 101; + oratorical dexterity, 102; + similes and metaphors, _ib._; + majestic simplicity, 104; + the heroine, 106; + Tasso, the poet of Sentiment, 108; + the _Non so che_, 109 _sq._; + Sofronia, Erminia, Clorinda, 109 _sqq._; + the Dialogues and the tragedy _Torrismondo_, 113; + the _Gerusalemme Conquistata_ and + _Le Sette Giornate_, 115, 124; + personal appearance of Tasso, 115; + general survey of his character, 116 _sqq._; + his relation to his age, 120; + his mental attitude, 122; + his native genius, 124. + +TASSONI, Alessandro: + his birth, ii. 297; + treatment by Carlo Emmanuele, 298; + his independent spirit, _ib._; + aim at originality of thought, 299; + his criticism of Dante and Petrarch, 300; + the _Secchia Rapita_: + its origin and motive, 301; + its circulation in manuscript copies, 302; + Tassoni the inventor of heroico-comic poetry, 303; + humor and sarcasm in Italian municipal wars, 304; + the episode of the Bolognese bucket, _ib._; + irony of the _Secchia Rapita_, 306; + method of Tassoni's art, _ib._; + ridicule of contemporary poets, 307; + satire and parody, 308; + French imitators of Tasso, 310; + episodes of pure poetry, 311; + sustained antithesis between poetry and melodiously-worded slang, 312; + Tassoni's rank as a literary artist, _ib._ + +TAXATION, the methods of, adopted by Spanish Viceroys in Italy, i. 49. + +TENEBROSI, the (school of painters), ii. 365. + +TESTI, Fulvio, Modenese poet, ii. 314. + +TEUTONIC tribes, relations of with the Italians, ii. 393; + unreconciled antagonisms, 394; + divergence, 395; + the Church, the battle-field of Renaissance and Reformation, 395. + +THEATINES, foundation of the Order of, i. 79. + +THEORY, Italian love of, in Tasso's time, ii. 25; + critique of Tasso's theory of poetry, 26, 42. + +THIENE, Gaetano di, founder of the Theatines, i. 76. + +THIRTY Divine Attributes, Bruno's doctrine of, ii. 139. + +TINTORETTO'S picture of S. Agnes, ii. 361. + +TITIAN, portrait of Charles V. by, i. 42. + +TOLEDO, Don Pietro di, Viceroy of Naples, i. 38; ii. 7. + +---Francesco da, confessor of Gregory XIII., i. 150. + +TORQUEMADA, the Spanish Inquisitor, i. 173, 179, 181. + +TORRE, Delia, the family of, ancestors, of the Tassi, ii. 5. + +'TORRISMONDO,' Tasso's tragedy of, ii. 73, 113 _sq._ + +TORTURE, cases of witnesses put to, i. 333 _sqq._ + +TOUCH, the sense of, Marino's praises of, ii. 270. + +TOULOUSE, power of the Inquisition in, ii. 137. + +TRAGIC narratives circulated in manuscript in the + sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, i. 372. + +'TREATISE on the Inquisition,' Sarpi's, ii. 220. + +---'on the Interdict,' Sarpi's, ii. 201. + +TREMAZZI, Ambrogio: + his own report of how he wrought the murder of Troilo + Orsini, i. 405 _sqq._; + his notions about his due reward, 406. + +TRENT, Council of: + Indiction of, by Paul III., i. 97; + numbers of its members, 97 _n._, 119 _n._; + diverse objects of the Spanish, French, and German + representatives, 98, 122; + the articles which it confirmed, 98; + method of procedure, 99, 120; + the Council transferred to Bologna, 100; + Paul IV.'s measures of ecclesiastical reform, 107; + the Council's decrees actually settled in the four Courts, 112, 119; + its organization by Pius IV., 118 _sqq._; + inauspicious commencement, 119; + the privileges of the Papal legates, 120; + daily post of couriers to the Vatican, 121; + arts of the Roman Curia, 122; + Spanish, French, Imperial Opposition, 123; + clerical celibacy and Communion under both forms, _ib._; + packing the Council with Italian bishops, 125; + the interests of the Gallican Church, 126; + interference of the Emperor Ferdinand, _ib._; + confusion in the Council, 126 _n._; + envoys to France and the Emperor, 127; + cajoleries and menaces, 129; + action of the Court of Spain, 130; + firmness of the Spanish bishops, 130 _n._; + Papal Supremacy decreed, 131; + reservation in the Papal Bull of ratification, 131 _and note_; + Tridentine Profession of Faith (Creed of Pius V.), 148. + +TUSCANY, creation of the Grand Duchy of, i. 47. + +TWO SICILIES, the kingdom of the, i. 45. + +'TYRANNY of the kiss,' the, exemplified in the _Rinaldo_, ii. 90; + in the _Pastor Fido_, 255; + in the _Adone_, 272. + + +U + +UNIVERSAL Monarchy, end of the belief in, i. 34. + +UNIVERSE, Bruno's conception of the, ii. 173 _sqq._ + +UNIVERSITIES, Italian, i. 51. + +'UNTORI, La Peste degli,' i. 421; + trial of the _Untoti_, 421. + +URBAN VIII., fantastic attempt made against the life of, i. 425 _sq._ + +URBINO, the Court of, life at, ii. 17 _sq._ + + +V + +VALDES, Juan: + his work _On the Benefits of Christ's Death_, i. 76. + +VALORI, Baccio, i. 33. + +VASTO, Marquis of, i. 25. + +VENETIAN ambassadors' despatches cited: + on the manners of the Roman Court in 1565, i. 142, 147; + the expulsion of prostitutes from Rome, 146. + +VENICE, the Republic of, its possessions in the fifteenth century, i. 9; + relations with Spain in 1530, 45; + rise of a contempt for commerce in, 49; + the constitution of its Holy Office, 190; + Concordat with Clement VIII., 193; + Tasso at, ii. 19 _sq._; + its condition in Sarpi's youth, 185; + political indifference of its aristocracy, 186; + put under interdict by Paul V., 198. + +VENIERO, Maffeo, on Tasso's mental malady, ii. 52, 63. + +VERONA, Peter of (Peter Martyr), Italian Dominican Saint + of the Inquisition, i. 161. + +VERVINS, the Treaty of, i. 48, 56. + +VETTORI, Francesco, i. 33. + +VIRGIL, Tasso's admiration of, ii. 25; + translations and adaptations from, 98. + +VISCONTI, the dynasty of, i. 8. + +---Valentina, grandmother of Louis XII. of France, i. 8. + +VITELLI, Alessandro, i. 46. + +VITELLOZZI, Vitellozzo, influence of, in the reform of + Church music, ii. 325. + +VITI, Michele, one of the assassins of Sarpi, ii. 212. + +'VOCERO,' the, i. 332. + +VOLTERRA, Bebo da, associate of Bibboni in the murder of + Lorenzino de'Medici, i. 390 _sqq._ + +VULGATE, the: + results of its being declared inviolable, i. 210. + + +W + +WALDENSIANS in Calabria, the, i. 188. + +WITCHCRAFT, chiefly confined to the mountain regions of Italy, i. 425; + mainly used as a weapon of malice, _ib._; + details of the sorcery practised by Giacomo Centini, 425 _sqq._ + +WIFE-MURDERS in Italy in the sixteenth century, i. 380 _sq._, 385. + + +X + +XAVIER, Francis, associate of Ignatius Loyola, i. 239; + his work as a Jesuit in Portugal, 256; + his mission to the Indies, 260. + +XIMENES, Cardinal, as Inquisitor General, i. 182. + + +Z + +ZANETTI, Guido, delivered over to the Roman Inquisition, i. 145. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 +by John Addington Symonds + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RENAISSANCE IN ITALY *** + +***** This file should be named 16504.txt or 16504.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/5/0/16504/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Chuck Greif and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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