We have heard of a man who, after writing two hundred volumes or so on various learned subjects, added a “Eulogy of Silence.” Among other curious things, he said that he was “never more with those he loved than when alone.” Men have sometimes been known to prefer society in this form, but women rarely; they like things in the concrete, and they like to talk about them. They may turn to a life of the spirit, but even this they do not care to live in solitude. There are few anchorets among them. In their exaltation, as in their pursuit of knowledge, they seek companionship.
Just how much women had to do with awakening the world from its long sleep we do not know, but they were very active in keeping it awake afterit began to open its eyes. They mastered old languages, studied old manuscripts, held public discussions on classic themes, wrote verses, and entered with enthusiasm into the search for records that had been lying in the dust for a thousand years. But they did more than this: they revived the art of conversation and created society anew. Possibly this was the most distinct heritage they left to the coming ages.
If conversation did not reach its maturity in Italy, it had its brilliant youth there. Later it was taken up in France, spiced with Gallic wit, and raised to the dignity of a fine art; but it lost a little of its first seriousness. The accomplished princesses of the Renaissance, who raved over a new-found line of Plato or Socrates, and expatiated on the merits of a long-buried statue they had helped to unearth, recalled the famous circle of Aspasia and made social centers of their own. But they added a fresh and original flavor. One does not copy accurately after fifteen or twenty centuries, nor even after two or three; but we are safe in thinking that these groups of poets, statesmen, prelates, artists, wits, and litterateurs, who discussed the new life and thought, were not far behind their model in brilliancy. If the men were not so great, the world was older, the field of knowledge was wider, and there was more to talk about. Then, there was but one Aspasia. If there were lesserstars of her own sex, we do not know who they were. It was a brave woman, whatever her abilities may have been, if she had a reputation to lose, that would show her face in the society of those grand old Greeks who claimed the universe for themselves and made of her an insignificant vassal. But there was a multitude of women, both clever and learned, who added life and piquancy to the coteries of the Renaissance. Men were proud of the versatile wives and daughters who made their courts centers of light and learning; if they were without lettered tastes themselves, they were glad of the reflected glory. So, naturally, it was the ambition of every well-born girl to fit herself to shine in these brilliant circles, and every father who had a daughter of talent was conscious of possessing a treasure of great value upon which too much care could not be lavished.
It must not be thought, however, that the women who made their courts so famous were simply devotees of fashion, or the pretty toys of men’s caprices, any more than they were colorless saints of the household or cloister. They were not without high domestic and womanly virtues, but they had also intelligence, a grasp of affairs, masterly character, and the tact to make all these qualities available for the good of their families and society. They were versed not only in classic lore, but in the art of living. It was not weakness that constitutedtheir charm; it was their symmetry and the fullness of their strength.
As we have already seen, it was an age of educated women. A lady was expected to understand Latin, at least, besides her own language, and Greek was a common acquirement. The earliest Greek grammar was written by the celebrated Lascaris for Ippolita Sforza, the wife of Alfonso and a ruling spirit at the lettered court of Naples. In her precocious childhood this brilliant princess made a collection of Latin apothegms, and a translation of Cicero’s “De Senectute,” which is said to be still preserved in a convent at Rome. Plato, Seneca, and other philosophers supplied the great ladies of four centuries ago with moral nutriment, and Cicero was studied as a model of style. With the exception of Vergil and parts of Horace, the Latin poets were too coarse, and Boccaccio was forbidden; but Dante was a favorite companion of leisure hours, and Petrarch, the high priest of Platonism, an idol. The “Lives of the Fathers” and the chronicles of the saints were antidotes to the worldliness of poets and historians. It was understood, however, that literary tastes must not interfere with prayers and an intelligent oversight of the household.
Of their talent for administration these versatile princesses gave ample evidence. They were constantly called upon to hold the reins of governmentwhen their husbands were absent, and ruled with great wisdom and skill. We do not hear that they talked much of their ability to do various things not usually included among a woman’s duties, but they did them at need as a matter of course. In affairs of delicate diplomacy they were of special value, also in questions pertaining to morals. It is interesting to know that this quarrelsome period had its peace societies, as well as our own, and that the Pacieri, which was organized to prevent litigation, was made up of men and women. Veronica Gambara used her influence and her pen in the interest of peace, also Vittoria Colonna, and many others.
Some of the women who ruled so ably, however, were of virile temper, and threw themselves with passionate energy into the storm and stress of affairs, though it was rarely, if ever, from choice. In an emergency they could ride fearlessly to the field of battle, or address a foreign council. It was to save her children’s heritage that Caterina Sforza defended the rocky fortress of Forli after the violent death of her husband. She was a picturesque figure, this imposing lady of fair face, golden hair, indomitable spirit, and fiery temper, as accomplished as she was beautiful and brave, who rode at the head of her troops, and graciously smiled upon the people, who loved her and were ready to die for her. As a lovely bride of fifteen she had made atriumphal entry into Rome, where she lived like a queen, and literally controlled the fate of every one who sought aid, promotion, or a place of her uncle, the formidable Sixtus IV, but she was destined to come to the front in many a stormy crisis. She was only twenty-two when the Pope died suddenly, but she took prompt possession of the castle ofSt.Angelo in the name of her absent husband, who was Commander of the Forces, and found there an asylum for her children until she could make terms that saved the family fortunes. No wonder the husband took her with him when he went to Venice, that he might avail himself of her swift and clear judgment in his delicate negotiations.
The history of this fifteenth-century heroine reads like the most improbable romance. With the daring of a man, she had the flexibility of a woman. If she could hold her own against an army and crush an enemy with inexorable decision, she could care for the wounded like a nurse. She danced as vigorously as she ruled, and did not disdain the arts of a coquette or a diplomatist. One and the most obscure of her three husbands she loved, but the others she served well. Of fear she was incapable. “I am used to grief; I am not afraid of it,” she wrote to her son from the solitary cell at Rome, where she was caged for a time by the terrible Borgia Pope in the fortress over which she had once ruled. But the careful, devoted mother, whowas so full of energy, so generous to her friends, so courageous in war, so subtle in diplomacy, so dignified in misfortune, turned in her last years to spiritual things with the same ardor she had given to mundane ones. She had lived her life, and retired from its storms at thirty-nine. Then she gave herself to the austerities of a convent at Florence, still directing the education of her young children. If we do not approve of all the methods of this irrepressible woman of clear head and strong heart, we have to judge her by the standards of an age in which the directors of the world’s conscience scoffed at morality and gave the prizes of life to libertines and assassins. I quote her as one out of many, to show the firm quality and abounding vitality as well as the solid attainments of the women of this remarkable period.
But the special mission of these princesses, so valiant on occasion, was to patronize learning and the arts, to aid men of letters, to diffuse a taste for the beautiful, to put a curb on license, so far as this was possible, and to foster discussions of things high and serious. They vied with one another in making their courts intellectually luminous. The more we study them, the more we are convinced of the beneficent influence of thoroughly trained, broad-minded women in molding the destinies of nations as well as of individuals. We are fascinated by their variable charm, their mastery of life in its larger aswell as its smaller phases. The woman who led all hearts captive with her beauty, her gaiety, her kindness, the faithful wife, the tender mother, the sympathetic friend, was also the woman of lucid intellect and strong soul, who sustained her husband in his darkest hours and added laurels to his glory while winning some for herself.
Of the Italian courts, it was only those led by able women that left a permanent fame. If they are associated with the names of great men who gave them the halo of their own glory, it was women who made a society for these men, inspired them, and centralized their influence. Urbino was called the Athens of Italy. During the reign of the Duchess Elisabetta it is safe to say that there was hardly a man of distinction in the country, whether poet, artist, prelate, or statesman, who did not find his way there sooner or later. It may be pleasant to dwell a little on this brilliant court, which was the best and purest of its time and furnished the model upon which the Hôtel de Rambouillet was founded more than a century afterward. It was more fortunate than others in having a chronicler. Count Castiglione left a graphic picture of its personnel and amusements, as well as a record of some of its conversations, so that we know notonly the quality of the people who met there, but what they thought, what they talked about, and what they did. He gives us the best glimpse we have of the society and manners of the golden age of the Renaissance.
But this atmosphere of culture and refinement was not made in a day. It was largely due to the more or less gifted princesses who had lived or ruled there for more than a hundred years. Far back toward the beginning of the fifteenth century there was a Battista who was distinguished for her piety, her talents, and her noble character. A worthless husband drove her to seek refuge with her brother at Urbino, where she solaced the wounds of her heart in writing sonnets and moral essays on faith and human frailty, also in corresponding with scholars and sending Latin letters to her father-in-law, a Malatesta, who had fostered her literary tastes and evidently remained her friend. Her daughter inherited her sorrows with her talents, and both closed their lives, after the fashion of women to whom the world has not been kind or has lost its charm, in the austerities of a convent. Her granddaughter was Costanza Varana, a valued friend of philosophers and men of learning; but she died early, leaving another Battista, who was sent to Milan at four to be educated with her precocious cousin Ippolita Sforza. The extraordinary gifts of this child have already been mentioned,but she more than fulfilled her promise. At fifteen, or earlier, she was married to Federigo, the great Duke of Urbino, who shared the enthusiasm of the Medici in the revival of the classics. This small duchess of vigorous intellect, much learning, and strong character, was in full sympathy with her husband’s tastes, and he speaks of her as “the ornament of his house, the delight of his public and private hours.” If she could read Demosthenes and Plato, and talk with the wisdom of Cicero, as one of her contemporaries tells us, she was not spoiled for the practical duties of her position. At an age when our school-girls are playing golf or conning their lessons, she was prudently managing affairs of the State of which she was regent in her husband’s absence. She was simple in manners, cared little for dress, and put on her magnificent robes only for courtly ceremonies to maintain the outward dignity of her place. At Rome she was greatly honored by the Pope, whom she addressed in Latin, much to his delight. But this beautiful, gifted, efficient, and adored woman died at twenty-six, leaving seven children, a broken-hearted husband, and a sorrowing people. The glories of her short, full life were sung by poets, statesmen, and churchmen alike. She left the imperishable stamp of intellect and taste on all her surroundings, and is of special interest to us as the grandmother of Vittoria Colonna, in whomthe talent of generations found its consummate flower.
But the luminous period of Urbino was during the reign of her son, who added to the martial qualities and manly accomplishments of his age, remarkable talent, great learning, and a singularly gentle character. This was the Duke Guidobaldo, who consoled his friends in his last moments with lines from Vergil. His health was always delicate, and the brilliancy of his court was due to his wife, the celebrated Elisabetta Gonzaga, who had been reared in the scholarly air of Mantua, where the daughters were educated with the sons. She found in her new home standards of culture that had been set, as we have seen, by a long line of princesses devoted to things of the intellect.
In its palmy days, the young Giuliano de’ Medici, son of the great Lorenzo and brother of Leo X,—the one who was immortalized by Michelangelo in the statue so familiar to the traveler in the Medicean Chapel at Florence,—was living at Urbino during the exile of his family. It was also the home of the “divine Bembo,” critic, Platonist, arbiter of letters, finally cardinal, and one of the most famous men of his time, though his claim to be called “divine” is not apparent. The witty Mæcenas of this group was Bibbiena, poet, diplomat, man of the world, a dilettante in taste and an Epicurean in philosophy, also a cardinal and an aspirant for thepapal throne. There were, too, the Fregosos, men of strong intellect, many personal attractions, and manly character, one of whom became the Doge of Genoa, and the other a cardinal—with many others of fame and learning whose names signify little to us to-day. By no means the least important member of the household was Castiglione, the courtier and diplomat of classical tastes and varied accomplishments, who has given us so pleasant a glimpse of its sayings and doings. To this intellectual Mecca came, from time to time, literary pilgrims from all parts of the world.
It was the special mission of the Duchess Elisabetta to fuse these elements into a society that should be a model for other courts and coming generations. Here lies her originality and her claim to distinction. This clever princess, who loved her husband devotedly, cared for the poor and sorrowing among her people, and had moral convictions of her own as well as ideas, was well fitted for her position. Without any pretension to genius, she had a clear, discriminating mind, rare intelligence, great beauty, and gracious manners. Her character had a fine symmetry, and she was equally successful in directing her household, conversing with great men, and holding the reins of government when her husband—a condottiere by profession, like most of the smaller princes—was in the field elsewhere. Surrounded by adorersin an age when indiscretions, even sins, were easily forgiven, no breath of censure ever touched her fair name. Her dignity and a reserve that verged upon coldness gave a pure tone to her court. She permitted neither malicious gossip nor heated talk, and required unsullied honor and exemplary conduct of her friends. We might question the standards a little, as men at least were privileged beings not to be too closely scrutinized.
In her social duties she had the efficient aid of Emilia Pia, the duke’s sister-in-law, a woman of brilliant intellect and high character, who had lost her husband in youth, and lived at Urbino. Of a gayer turn, her ready wit and happy temperament, added to her knowledge and personal fascination, made her the life of the house. Other and younger ladies of well-known names and kindred tastes figure in its diversions.
The magnificent old palace that overlooked the city from its picturesque site among the hills was one of the finest in Italy. Its stately rooms were filled with rare treasures of painting, sculpture, mosaic, and costly furniture. There were exquisite decorations in marble and tarsia, and the walls were draped with rich tapestries. Raphael was a youth then, and no doubt his first dreams had been of these beautiful things, among which he must have rambled. It is likely, too, that he met here the friends who were of so much service to him afterwardat Rome, among them Bibbiena, to whose grandniece he was betrothed. His father had painted some of the frescos, and was a welcome visitor. Other artists were invited there, and added to the glories of the famous pile. Among these surroundings of art and beauty, with the traditions of culture that lay behind them, clever, thoughtful women and brilliant men met evening after evening to talk of the world and its affairs, of things light and serious, of love, manners, literature, statecraft, and philosophy. When they tired of grave themes, they amused themselves with allegories, playful badinage, witty repartees, and devices of all sorts to stimulate the intellect. After supper there was music and dancing, if the conversation did not last until the morning hours. Sometimes they had their own plays acted in the pretty little theater. It was here that Bibbiena’s famous comedy, “Calandra,” with its gorgeous pagan setting and its curious blending of love and mythology, of nymphs, Cupids, and goddesses, was first given to an admiring world.
But we are most interested to-day in the conversations. Many evenings were devoted to defining the character and duties of a courtier, which differed little from those of a modern gentleman, except in the exaggerated deference claimed to be due to a superior and verging upon servility. It is more to the purpose here to touch upon thediscussions relating to women, as they furnish a key to fifteenth-century manners which were the basis of all modern codes, though to-day many of the best of their formulas are more conspicuous in the breach than in the observance.
It was agreed that a lady must be gracious, affable, discreet, of character above reproach, free from pride or envy, and neither vain, contentious, nor arrogant. To speak of the failings of others, or listen to reflections upon them, was taken as an indication that one’s own follies needed a vindication or a veil. This model lady must dress with taste, but not think too much about it, and she was forbidden to dye her hair, or use cosmetics and other artificial aids to beauty. Her personal distinction lay in an elegant simplicity, without luxury or pretension. She must know how to manage her children and her fortune, as well as her household; but she was expected to be versed in letters, music, and the arts, also to be able to converse on any topic of the day without childish affectation of knowledge which she did not possess. Modesty, tact, decorum, and purity of thought were cardinal virtues, and religion was a matter of course. Noisy manners, egotism, and familiarity were unpardonable. Dignity, self-possession, and a gentle urbanity were marks of good breeding. No license in language was permitted, but we cannot help wondering what they called license. Men,it must be added, could be about as wicked as they liked, and, if history is to be trusted, many in high places were very wicked indeed. The latitude of the best of them in speech would be rather embarrassing to the sensitive woman of our time; but the days of the précieuses had not dawned, and no one hesitated to call a spade a spade, even if it were a very black one. Women might blush and be silent, but further protest was set down as disagreeable prudery. Perhaps the frank naturalism of the Latin races must be taken into account, as it often quite unconsciously shocks our own more delicate tastes even to-day. But it was conceded that no man was so bad as not to esteem a woman of pure character and refined sensibilities.
These men and women who lived on the confines of two great centuries and tried to introduce a finer code of manners and morals, touched also on the equality of the sexes, a question which agitated that world as it does our own. Some one asks, one evening, why women should not be permitted to govern cities, make laws, and command armies.
Giuliano de’ Medici, who was an ardent champion of the dependent sex, replies that it might not be amiss. Many of them he declares to be as capable of doing these things as men, and he cites history to show that they have led armies and governed with equal prudence. To a friend who mildly suggeststhat women are inferior, he says that “the difference is accidental, not essential,” adding that the qualities of strength, activity, and endurance are not always most esteemed, even in men. As to mind, “whatever men can know and understand, women can also; where one intellect penetrates, so does the other.... Many have been learned in philosophy, written poetry, practised law, and spoken with eloquence.”
A gentleman of the party ungallantly remarks that women desire to be men so as to be more perfect.
Giuliano wisely answers that it is not for perfection, but for liberty to shake off the power that men assume over them. He says they are more firm and constant in affection, as men are apt to be wandering and unsettled. When asked to name women who are equal to men, he replies that he is confounded by numbers, but mentions, among others, “Portia, Cornelia, and Nicostrata, mother of Evander, who taught the Latins the use of letters.” “Rome,” he adds, “owes its greatness as much to women as to men.... They were never in any age inferior, nor are they now.” He goes on to cite Countess Matilda, Anne of France, wife of two kings in succession, and inferior to neither, Marguerite, daughter of Maximilian, famed for prudence and justice, Isabella of Mantua, singularly great and virtuous, with many other noted womenof his time. “If there are Cleopatras, there are multitudes of Sardanapali who are much worse.”
The limits of this paper permit only the suggestion of a few points in a long conversation which touched the subject on every side. It was interspersed with thoughtful questions from the duchess, who did not fail to interfere if it took too free a turn, also with brilliant sallies of wit from Emilia Pia, and spicy comments from the less serious members of the party. They were not all in accord with the opinions quoted here, but, on the whole, Giuliano de’ Medici and his supporters, who paid a fine tribute to the abilities of women without wishing to impose upon them heavier duties, had the best of the argument.
From men, women, and manners, the transition to love was an easy one, and this fifteenth-century coterie discussed it in all its variations, as we discuss the last play, or the last novel, or the last word in sociology, or the misty era of universal peace. It was not a new thing to discourse upon the most interesting of human passions. Men had talked of it centuries before on the banks of the Ilissus; but when they passed from its lowest phases they lost themselves in metaphysical subtleties. It became an intellectual aspiration, a “passion of the reason,” without warmth or life. Diotima, a woman quoted by Socrates, called it “a mystic dream of the beautifuland good”; but if she was not a myth herself, she could not join the symposia of philosophers. Outside of the circle of Aspasia, no respectable woman was admitted to the conversations of men; indeed, these finely drawn dissertations on love had small reference to her. In the classic world women had no part in the marriage of souls. Love, when not purely a thing of the senses, was a worship of beauty, and the Greek ideal of beauty was a masculine one. They might die for a Helen, but it was not for love. These wise talkers sent the flute-players to amuse their wives and daughters in the inner court, while they considered high things, as well as many not suitable for delicate ears. The coarser Romans treated love as altogether a thing of the senses, with Ovid as a text.
But in the golden age of the Renaissance, women no longer stayed in the inner court, to gossip and listen to flute-players, while their husbands talked on themes high or low. The worship of the Madonna, if it had done little else, had idealized the pure affection of an exalted womanhood. Chivalry following in its train had made the cult of woman a fashion by giving her more or less of the homage already paid to her divine representative, though this sentiment was less active in Italy than in Provence or among the more romantic races. It was a tribute of strength to helplessness, and had its roots in the finest traits of men; but it exalted moral qualitiesrather than intellectual ones, and was largely theoretical outside of a limited class. Now that men had begun to dip into classic lore, however, they found a valuable ally in women, and the old cult became a companionship. To be educated and a princess was to be doubly a power, to have opinions which it was worth while to consider.
The princesses of Urbino had doubtless read Plato. In an age, too, that occupied itself with Boccaccio, who had glorified the senses and written books that no pure and refined woman could read, they had turned to Dante and the spiritual love which was an inspiration and a benediction. In the white soul of Beatrice they found the exquisite flower of womanhood. They caught also the subtle fragrance of the ideal love which Petrarch gave, first to a woman, then to an unfading memory. It was of such a love they dreamed and liked to talk. Then one of the chief apostles of Platonism was the brilliant Bembo, who was the star of this company. “Through love,” he says, “the supreme virtues rule the inferior.” He puts on record and dedicates to Lucrezia Borgia the conversations of three days on its joys and sorrows; but the subject was evidently exhausted, as, at the end, a hermit gives a homily on the vanity of the world. He closes an eloquent apostrophe, however, with these words: “Chase away ignorance and make us see celestial beauty in its perfection. Love, it is the communion withdivine beauty, the banquet of angels, the heavenly ambrosia.” On this theme his listeners rang the changes, but not always on so ethereal a plane. The relative constancy of the sexes, the divine right of man, the passive nature of woman, who was called a pale moon to the masculine sun, and various other points, had their fair share of discussion. Between terrestrial and celestial love there are many gradations, and the character and temperament of the men were clearly revealed in their opinions. Some were disposed to be autocrats, others took issue with masculine egotism, and still others dwelt on the sentimental side of the question. One of the Fregosos rather ungraciously assumed the traditional attitude of his sex and contended that women are “imperfect animals,” not at all to be compared with men. But he was in an unpopular minority. The Duchess Elisabetta was a well-poised, discreet woman, who was devoted to her invalid husband, kept her admirers at a prudent distance, and was in no wise a victim to superfluous sensibility. The effusive Bembo, who was given to friendships touched with the fire of the imagination, was untiring in his devotion to this Minerva, but he confessedly adored her as a goddess from afar. The witty and brilliant Emilia Pia had a temperament the reverse of sentimental, and was ready to demolish any castle of moonlight with a shaft of merciless satire. Both brought a solid equipmentof common sense into an analysis that often reached a very fine point. But this friendship that was not love, this love that was a sublimated friendship, appealed to them as it did to many others besides poets in a grossly material age. To separate the soul from the senses and intellectualize the emotions, was the natural protest of intelligent women against the old traditions that considered them only as servants or toys of men’s fancies. It took them out of the realm of the passions and “gave them wings for a sublime flight.” The mysticism of love is closely related to the mysticism of religion, and the faith that sees God in ecstatic visions is not far from the love that feeds itself from spiritual sources. These rambling talks, to which the young ladies listened curiously and with interest, though usually in discreet silence, proved so absorbing that on the last of a series of evenings devoted to the subject, the party forgot its usual gaieties, and did not disperse until the birds began to sing in the trees and the rosy dawn shone over the rugged heights of Monte Catri.
It was these conversations that set in motion the wave of Platonism which swept over the surface of society for two or three centuries, until it lost itself in the pale inanities and vapid phrases of the précieuses.We find it difficult now to conceive of a company of grave dignitaries old and young, statesmen, wits, men of letters, and clever women, chasing theories of love through an infinity of shades and gradations, as seriously as we talk of trusts, strikes, education, and the best means of making everybody happy. The subject had a perennial interest for them. They considered it mathematically as to quantity, spiritually as to quality. They quoted Plato on love and divine beauty, but no one would have been more surprised at the application than the philosopher himself. They proposed to do away with all the chagrins and disenchantments of love, by making it altogether a dream, beautiful, no doubt, but shadowy. As a last refuge, they put terrestrial love into celestial robes and drowned themselves in illusions. Bembo wished to serve Isabella d’Este “as if she were Pope,” but he sends her quite tenderly the kiss of his soul, which she, no doubt, took gracefully and at its value. She was not a sentimental woman; a clear, vigorous intellect is a very good antidote against false sensibility. But these other vigorous intellects were so busy weaving the tissue of their dreams that they did not trouble themselves much about possible applications.
This Platonic mania, which ran through Italian society, and, if it did nothing else, tempered its grossness and spiritualized its ideals, did not originateat Urbino, though it probably blossomed into a fashion there. Petrarch found the germ in Plato, but he developed it into fruit of quite another color, and furnished the poets after him with a new background for their fantasy-flowers. The magnificent Lorenzo, poet, ruler, patron of letters, Platonist, and buffoon, went into poetic raptures at the sight of the beautiful face of “la belle Simonetta” as she lay white and cold on the bier that passed him in the street. He dreamed of it, apostrophized it, grew melancholy over it, until he found a living face almost as lovely about which to drape the pearls of his poetic fancy. He wrote sonnets à la Petrarch, without the genuine ring of Petrarch. It was all moonlight, the pale copy of a paler emotion. But he did not in the least lose control of what he called his heart, as he dutifully married the woman his clear-headed mother chose for him; she was not at all a figure of romance and, it is to be hoped, had small knowledge of the vagaries of her theoretically Platonic husband. In any case, it was the destiny of her sex to submit to the inevitable.
But the dreams of the poets naturally found an echo in the hearts of lonely women and artless maidens. When marriage was a matter of bargain and sale, a union of fortune and interest in which love played no part, sensibility was a subtle factor difficult to reckon with. A man had legally, as well as morally, supreme control over his wife. He mighthappen to love her and be kind to her, but if he chose to neglect her or beat her, there was no one to find fault with him. This “divine right” of man was the foundation-stone of society, and it was no more possible to question it than it was to question the divine right of popes and kings. Princesses were privileged beings who were both useful and ornamental, but this did not save them from being ill-treated to the last degree. No one thought of interfering when one of the later Medici, angry at his sister, sent for her husband and, after telling him that her frivolous conduct reflected on the decorum of his very disreputable court, bade him remember that he was a Christian and a gentleman, placed a villa at his disposal, and the hapless but too gay Isabella, who went there with suspicious reluctance, suddenly died of a convenient apoplexy, and appeared no more on this earthly scene to be a thorn in the side of her brother’s favorite, the very beautiful but too aspiring Bianca Capello. His sister-in-law, a much-wronged Spanish princess, was invited to a gloomy old castle among the hills at the same time, and disposed of in a similar way, by her amiable husband, who asked forty thousand ducats for the deed, and expiated it at once by a prayer to the Virgin, and a vow which he forgot.
With all these tragic possibilities, it was out of the question to secure a divorce for any incompatibilityof temper, small or great, unless his Holiness saw that it would serve some interest or caprice of his own, and incidentally add to the glory of the church. But pent-up emotions are apt to be troublesome, and it is hardly strange that these women, with an abyss on one side and a vacuum on the other, sought a way of reconciling matters that infringed visibly on no man’s rights. They adopted the fashion of supplementing a terrestrial love that was not very comfortable with a celestial one which, if rather attenuated, seemed quite innocent and harmless, and gave them something pleasant to think about. These airy and Platonic sentiments had a much more substantial character among men and women who lived at a high mental altitude. It is to live confessedly on a very low plane to deny that there is a tie of the intellect which tends only to fine issues, and is a source of light and inspiration. But this implies first of all an intellect of distinct range, and a clear moral sense, that are not always forthcoming. The friendship between Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna was a sympathy between two exalted souls who dwelt habitually on the heights, far above the mists of sense and the banalities of lesser minds. “Friendship is not a sentiment without fire,” wrote the cold and skeptical Buffon toMme.Necker, nearly four centuries later; “it is rather a warming of the soul, an emotion, a movement sweeter than that of any otherpassion, and also quite as strong.” But this passion of friendship can exist in its perfection only between those in whom sensibility lights the intellect without submerging it; on a lower plane it has its dangers.
In the days of the précieuses, the apostles of Platonic love cut the cord that bound them to reality, and floated away on a cloud of pure emotionalism. Merged in affectations, it finally evaporated in phrases on the lips of sighing youths and romantic maidens. In the Anglo-Saxon world it never had a very strong foothold. The race is not sufficiently imaginative.
There is no doubt that there has been a great deal of senseless talk about Platonic love, and that it drew after it much that was far from Platonic. We all know that one of the most conspicuous daughters of devotion is hypocrisy, but who can hold religion responsible because its garb is put on to disguise sin? The trouble is that the finest spirits are apt to be measured by the standards of the lowest. It is not easy to convince people of material ideals that all things are not to be brought to their level. But this curious agitation had its place and did its work. We may smile at the finely drawn sophistries of a Bembo, who pointed to an ideal he sometimes failed to reach. It is easy enough for cynics to say that Beatrice, the apotheosis of spiritual love, died early, and was worshiped, not asa woman, but as a star shining from inaccessible heights; that Laura, the ideal of the high priest of Platonism, was simply a dream, intangible as the moonlight and cold as the everlasting snows; that it is not good for every-day men and women to see such visions, even if it were possible, nor to dream such dreams, nor to live at such an altitude—all of which no doubt has its side of truth. But the fact remains that it was largely through the inspired vision, which looked past the entanglements of sense into the pure heart and transparent soul of an idealized womanhood, that the long-enduring sex came into its intellectual kingdom. To the old ties of interest, passion, and habit, were added those of the intellect and spirit. In this new contact of intelligences society had its birth, women took their rightful places, and the world found a new regenerating force.
The life at Urbino, with its literary flavor, its refined manners, its serious conversations, and its Platonic dreams, took another tone at Ferrara. This court was gayer, but hardly less noted as a center of culture. No one chronicled its conversations, but the fame of its poets illuminated it. Boiardo lived and wrote and administered affairs in the magnificent old castle whose four towers frown to-day in lonely grandeur over the silent and grass-grown streets ofthe once lively city; Ariosto immortalized the women “as fair as good, and as learned as they were fair,” who gathered artists, men of letters, statesmen, cardinals, and philosophers within its tapestried walls; and the genius of Tasso still sheds over it a melancholy splendor strangely contrasting with the tragedy that left so dark a cloud on the last days of its glory.
The Duke Hercules I did a wise thing for the brilliancy of his reign when he chose for his wife the learned and accomplished Leonora of Aragon, who had grown up in the intellectual atmosphere of her royal father’s court at Naples. She was a versatile princess, a lover of art, a patron of letters, and an able, efficient woman, who gave equal care to the fostering of talent and the practical interests of her people. The art of gold and silver metal work, on which she was an authority, reached great perfection under her patronage, and she gave her personal supervision to the skilled embroiderers whom she brought from elsewhere to stimulate the native artists. When her husband was absent he left the government in her charge. Nothing shows more clearly the masterful ability of these Italian princesses than the wisdom and facility with which they managed public affairs, and the confidence reposed in them. In this model republic of the twentieth century, who would think of intrusting matters of State to the wife of president or governorin any emergency whatever? Let us admit that women are not trained here for such responsibilities, even if they cared to assume them; but why treat us to a homily on their natural incapacity for affairs of State, in the face of innumerable examples in the past that prove the contrary?
And these women lost neither their charm nor their essentially feminine qualities. Certainly there was no wiser mother than this same Duchess Leonora. Her daughters had the best of masters, and were versed in all the knowledge of the day, as well as in the lighter accomplishments. They were schooled also in the duties of their high position, and were never permitted to neglect their serious studies for amusement. While they were busy with their tapestries some man of letters recited or read to them. Perhaps it was Boiardo, perhaps another of the literary stars of the court. The untiring mother had her reward in the fame and virtuous character of these children. One of them, the beautiful and gifted Isabella d’Este, had a brilliant career as the Marchioness of Mantua, and her scarcely less fascinating sister Beatrice carried the tastes of her own youth to the more splendid but corrupt court of the Sforzas at Milan.
The enlightened duchess, who seems to have been as kind as she was capable, did not escape calumny, as few did in that age of license; but she has a blessed immortality in the glowing lines ofAriosto, who paid an eloquent tribute to her talents and virtues at her death. The court of Ferrara never lost the lettered tone which she gave it, though its fashions of living and thinking changed from time to time.
One cannot quote her son’s wife, the fair-haired Lucrezia Borgia, as a model princess, though in later years she partly redeemed the faults of her past by her kindness to the poor, her intelligent patronage of art and letters, and her devotion as wife and mother. It is not likely that she was as black as she has been painted, or, as has been suggested by later historians, Ariosto, with all his courtier love for paying pretty compliments to women, especially princesses, would hardly have dared to put her on a level with the Roman Lucretia in “charms and chastity,” in a country where satire was merciless and scandal many-tongued. In her tragical youth she was possibly more sinned against than sinning. With a father who was the embodiment of all the vices, and brothers as powerful as they were infamous, one can readily imagine that she had little choice in her manner of life. It was quite in the interest of this terrible trio that her three husbands were disposed of in one way or another, and it was equally in their interest that the widowed Duke Alfonso was virtually forced to marry her, though evidently against his inclination. The wishes of a Holy Fatherwith unlimited power were compelling. And so it happened that this beautiful, clever, and much-talked-of woman went to Ferrara with a flourish of trumpets, as became a pope’s daughter. She was only twenty-five, though she had seen tragedies enough to color a lifetime. On her way she visited Urbino with her two thousand attendants,—princesses were costly guests in those days,—and the good Duchess Elisabetta, by command of this wicked and grasping Holy Father, who had designs on her own domains that might be furthered by her absence, went with the much heralded bride to take part in the magnificent wedding festivities. There was little in the entry of this brilliant but very much clouded Lucrezia on her white jennet, resplendent in satin and gold and flashing jewels, to suggest the beauty and desirableness of “plain living and high thinking.” To be sure, she had university dons to support her canopy, and all the learning of Ferrara in her train; but it was a fashion of these princesses to honor scholars. Then there were comedies of Plautus to give the occasion a classic flavor, besides music, dancing, medieval combats, Moorish interludes, and more barbaric amusements for the multitude. The splendors of dress, the wealth of velvets, brocades, gold, and gems, were all duly chronicled by the society reporter of the time, and the descriptions of modern court balls seem modest and tame in comparison.The good Duchess Leonora had been sleeping in her tomb with the other princesses many a year, duly labeled by Ariosto. But the pure-souled Isabella d’Este was there with a new and regal costume for every scene, and no doubt various misgivings about her imposing sister-in-law which she thought best to say nothing about.
This dangerous Lucrezia, however, had her serious moments. After the pageants were over, she took out of her traveling-case the Dante and Petrarch she had brought for her daily reading, also some histories, with her manual of devotion. She had, too, her literary circle of poets, savants, men of letters, prelates, cardinals, and clever women who spoke in Latin and wrote Greek quite naturally and as a matter of course. They talked of manners, art, and philosophy, as at Urbino, but perhaps not quite so seriously; they talked also of love, spiritual and otherwise. The inevitable Bembo was there for a time, and afterward wrote Platonic letters about literature to the friend of his soul, which she answered with insight and discrimination as well as matronly discretion. These letters were preserved, with a lock of her golden hair.
There is little trace of the early Lucrezia in her later years. No more worldly vanities. She prayed a great deal, and spent her evenings in working beautiful designs in embroidery with the ladies of her court. “Her husband and his subjects all lovedher for her gracious manners and her piety,” we are told. She was not old when she died,—two or three years past forty,—leaving an inconsolable husband and several children. In a letter of condolence the Doge of Venice gives great praise to her devotion and her fine qualities of character. The most distinguished prelates of the day pay a tribute to her many virtues. The experiences of her life, which were dark enough at its beginning and too surely not blameless, are wrapped in a mystery so deep that we cannot fairly judge them to-day.
If the court of Ferrara was gay, literary, artistic, with more or less of a dilettante tone under Lucrezia, it took quite another color in the reign of her daughter-in-law, the serious and thoughtful Renée. This princess had more solid qualities of intellect, but less beauty and less charm. “She was good and clever, with a mind the best and most acute possible,” says Brantôme. Her father was Louis XII, and her mother Anne of Bretagne, whose talent and independent spirit she inherited. She had Protestant tendencies, and brought strange guests to these stately halls and haunts of poets. Calvin was among them. He was young then, and came under the name of Charles d’Espeville—which was much safer for an arch-heretic. With him came Clément Marot, a poet and a heretic of milder type, who shone brilliantly at the court of the clever Marguerite of Navarre. The stern moralist andascetic reformer was no friend to women, except as convenient appendages, and these were apt to be troublesome unless kept in their lowly place. He looked upon their government as “a deviation from the original and proper order of nature, to be ranked no less than slavery among the punishments consequent upon the fall of man.” In this case he evidently found the punishment rather pleasant, as he stayed many months in a court where the power of women was very muchen évidence, though it fell under an eclipse because of him. Perhaps he modified his opinions for the moment in so stimulating an atmosphere. While he never fails to denounce the “inferior sex” in plain terms, he is kind enough to make discreet exceptions as to women in high places, who were not made of common clay. It was certainly inconvenient for the duke to have a wife with convictions, who persisted in compromising him with the higher powers; but what would have become of the superior Calvin, with the door closed upon him and the Inquisition on his track, if this incapable being had been superintending the cook and the maids or working patterns in embroidery, as she plainly ought to have been, instead of courageously and with clear foresight despatching some trustworthy friends to liberate the reverend suspect from his dangerous and uncomfortable surveillance, and send him on his way to a freer air?
There was much talk on free will and election, as well as of sinners in power, and the need of grace and reformation, when Vittoria Colonna came, a little later, to enjoy the liberty of thought and literary discussion for which this court was famous, also to forward the interest of her friend, the eloquent Fra Bernardino, who wished to found here a Capuchin convent. It was quite safe to sit on the grass or in the gardens during the long summer evenings, listening to a Greek play, and talking about the respective merits of Homer and Petrarch, who had been dead a long time, or the genius of Ariosto, who had just closed his eyes after charming his age and saying so many agreeable things about its women. But it was not so safe to reflect on wicked popes, or call in question whatever dogma they might choose to present to a credulous world. The Duchess Renée was made sadly conscious of this fact, as was her gifted protégée, Olympia Morata. Her mind had a mystical quality, and the germs of a more spiritual faith had taken root there. But her amiable husband applied the screw as he was told. To have one’s children taken away and to be confined in a remote corner of one’s castle was too much to bear, and a suspiciously sudden conversion under good orthodox ministrations was the result, with convenient mental reservations to serve until the duke died and the lady was safely back in France with her royal kinand the protecting sympathy of her heretical friend, the gifted and powerful Marguerite of many-sided fame.
But in the meantime the literary talks went on, led by her brilliant daughters, who contented themselves with topics that were less explosive. Tasso said that Lucrezia and Leonora d’Este were “so well versed in affairs of State and literature that no one could listen to their conversation without amazement.” Here, as elsewhere, they talked a great deal about matters of sentiment. Tasso held a controversy at the academy on “Fifty Points of Love.” One of them was a question whether men or women love the more constantly and intensely. Orsini Cavaletti, a lady of distinction in literature and philosophy, claimed the palm for her own sex, and came off with equal if not superior honors before a learned and brilliant audience. What the other points were I do not know. The amount of energy expended on such trivial themes was curiously illustrated a few years before by Isotta Nogarola, a lady of Verona, who discussed with learned men the question as to whether Adam or Eve was the more guilty, and wrote a defense of Eve which must have created more than a ripple of interest, as it was printed a century afterward. This champion of justice was not a reformer nor anemancipée, but a woman of rank and a friend of popes, who had the courage to come to the rescueof her sex from the denunciations of ages. Doubtless the discussion was largely a play of wit and an exercise in analysis that applied itself to small things, since it was not safe to attack great ones.
But our unfortunate poet did not confine himself to theory, and love proved a more disastrous subject for him than did religion for some of his friends. It was to this same brilliant Leonora, whom he lauded to the skies, that Tasso dared lift his eyes in too familiar or ambitious a fashion before he was shut out of the world seven years as a madman. Whatever the facts of this tragical romance may have been, we know that the lady died at forty-five, in the odor of sanctity and unmarried, while her gayer but equally clever sister became the wife of the last Duke of Urbino, whom she found so dull and tiresome that she returned after three years to her brother’s court, where the livelier tastes were more to her liking. But its glories had already paled and its stars had mostly set. Tasso was the last.
The traveler of to-day looks with curious eye on the faded splendors of the grim old castle, and speculates idly upon the tragedies that have been acted within its silent walls. But he goes away to the poor little cell at the hospital ofSt.Anna and drops a tear over the fate of the poet who ate his heart out there. Time brings strange reparations, but they are always too late.
In the days when they were talking of men, women, and manners at Urbino, and the brilliant Bembo was writing high-flown letters about literature and celestial love to Lucrezia Borgia, or discoursing upon the same themes, in the intervals of many graver ones, at Ferrara, and Alexander VI was making the society of Rome as wicked as he knew how, which was very wicked indeed, Isabella d’Este, wife of the Marquis of Mantua, was the central figure of one of the most charming and intellectual courts in Italy. This “noble-minded Isabel,” of whom Ariosto says,
I know not well if she more fairMay be entitled, or more chaste and sage,
carried with her to the banks of the Mincio, already made classic as the birthplace of Vergil, the literary tastes which had been nurtured in the scholarly air of Ferrara. We have seen her developing as a child under the care of the wise Leonora. At six she astonished the envoy sent to arrange her betrothal, by her precocious intelligence, engaging conversation, and graceful manners. It was a kindly fate that led her to the court of the Gonzagas, which was famous for the learning and culture of its women.
Of all the princesses who shed such luster on this period she had, perhaps, the most personal distinction. To the wisdom and force of her mother she added more esprit and a warmer temperament. In tact, dignity, learning, and the virtues of a well-poised character, she did not surpass her husband’s sister, the much-loved Duchess Elisabetta of Urbino, but she seems to have had more native brilliancy of intellect. Living from 1474 to 1525, she was brought into familiar contact with the most famous men and women of the golden age of the Renaissance, and played an important part in many of its stormy crises, but, under all conditions, one is impressed with her strong individuality, her versatility, her intrepid spirit, and her unfailing charm. She combined the tenderness of a woman with the mental vigor of a man. Fair, witty, gracious, and a noted beauty, she was equally at home discussing art and literature with the masters, and grave political problems with popes and kings, arranging fêtes, ordering a picture, selecting a brocade, or playing with a child.
The old and imposing palace of Mantua to this day shows traces of the taste and generosity of its most distinguished mistress. She filled it with rare books, exquisite tapestries, and curios of all sorts, chosen with the discrimination of a connoisseur. Its walls were decorated with the masterpieces of Correggio, Mantegna, Perugino, and other great artists whomshe was proud to call her friends. Chief among those in whose conversation she delighted were Titian and Leonardo da Vinci, who immortalized her. A living portrait by the latter is still one of the treasures of the Louvre. Her keen critical taste was quick to divine intrinsic values, and she was always on the alert for fresh talent to add to the glories of her little court. It was not rich, and we find her troubled at the prospect of entertaining her sister’s magnificent husband, Lodovico Sforza, who proposed to visit her with a retinue of a thousand or so. But her money went freely for everything pertaining to matters of intellect and taste. She sent her agents in all directions, even to the far East, and a new-found statue, a rare bit of tapestry, or a precious mosaic was an event of joy. Her own teeming imagination was full of pictures, and she liked to suggest themes to artists, which were not always easy to put into living form. But her sympathetic and intelligent enthusiasm was in itself an inspiration.
This critical, art-loving Isabella, however, was more than a dilettante. Her heart went out to every form of suffering. Running over with kindness, and always ready to help the needy and deserving, her sympathies sometimes got the better of her judgment, and more than once she had to regret enlisting her friends in the cause of the unworthy. This generous quality was a part of herrich temperament. With her intellectual tastes, and the many cares and responsibilities of her position, she was no grave and cold Minerva. We find her everywhere entering into the sports and gaieties of her age with the zest of a woman abounding in spirit, vitality, and the joy of life. When she went to see her sister at Milan, she rode, danced, hunted, made impromptu verses, dazzled her friends with flashes of wit, and fascinated old and young alike with her winning, lively ways. Her powerful brother-in-law was always glad to consult her on serious questions of State, as well as on his vast plans for making a beautiful and artistic city. The things that were shaping themselves in the minds of great artists appealed to her ardent imagination. “This is the school of themasterand of those whoknow, the home of art and understanding,” she wrote from there.
Her letters to her family are always full of vivacity, clear and to the point, but glowing with affection. The friendships she inspired were devoted, even passionate. “It seems as if I had lost not only a tenderly loved sister, but a part of myself,” wrote the Duchess Elisabetta, after one of her visits. “I long to write to you every hour.... If I could clearly express to you my grief, I am sure it would have so much force that compassion would bring you back.” In such a spirit these women wrote to one another. The Latin race is effusive, and theart of expression, which is its supreme gift, no doubt often ran ahead of the feeling or the thought; but these familiar letters bear the stamp of sincerity and help us to know the manner of woman that wrote them.
This noble lady of so many gifts and graces was born to lead and not to follow. She could take the affairs of government on occasion, and was amply fitted to rule firmly and wisely. Her first aim was to win the love of her people, which, she says, is of “more value to a State than all its fortresses, treasures, and men-at-arms.” When her husband had matters to settle that required delicate diplomacy, he sent her on a special embassy to the Vatican, where the Pope loaded her with honors and had Bibbiena’s new comedy, “Calandra,” played for her entertainment. A helpful wife was this queen of the Renaissance, and no one knew it better than her husband, whose profession was war, which often led him far from the court she had made so famous. Perhaps she had a trace of pardonable vanity. She deferred a visit to Venice because she did not care to have her modest train brought into so close a contrast with the imposing splendors of the “little sister” whom she loved but did not attempt to rival on her own ground. The glories she most sought were of the intellect and not to be bought with money.
The distinctive quality she impressed upon hercourt was an artistic one. Its art treasures were of the choicest, and the best plays, classical or modern, were brought out there. Music was her passion. She sang well herself, also played the lute and viol. In the days before Palestrina had opened a new world of harmony, she maintained one of the finest orchestras in Italy. No gifted musician ever appealed to her in vain. But there was no field of thought in her time which she did not explore. If her knowledge was not profound, it was wide, and she looked at things largely from a human point of view, not superficially, but sympathetically. She applied her intelligence and her talents not only to the advancement of the fine arts, to the cultivation of the best in literature, to the interests of her people, but to the art of living with due regard for one’s duties and responsibilities to the future as well as to the present. If Vittoria Colonna represents the highest thought of her age as applied to things spiritual and literary, Isabella d’Este is a living example of its finest mundane side. No one better illustrates the power and the penetrating fragrance of a strong and vivid personality. It is a type that has many imitators, but such a gift, which is an assemblage of many gifts, cannot be copied.
A court dominated by so rare a spirit, and attracting all the refinement, talent, and intelligence of a brilliant age, could not be otherwise than luminous.We have no record of its conversations, but we know that its standards were high, and that the best passports of admission there were achievements of the intellect. Rank no doubt had its place, and manners were indispensable, but to genius and learning much was forgiven. Purely material splendors had small weight. Some of its princes had left traditions of culture, but it was a woman of intellect, force, independence, and charm who gathered these into a society that proved a center of light which shone brightly on after generations.
Of scarcely less interest than Isabella d’Este is her sister Beatrice, the fresh, dark-eyed, dark-haired, gay, and laughing girl who went to Milan at fifteen as the bride of Lodovico Sforza, and died before she was twenty-two, after condensing the experiences of a lifetime in a few short years. This court has left the record of much sin and many tragedies, and it furnished some great princesses to the smaller and less imposing ones, but its literary glory was not so conspicuous as its splendor and its crimes. A court that numbered Bramante and Leonardo da Vinci among its stars, however, is not to be passed lightly. These colossal men were not easy to command, and prince as well as princess often appealed to them in vain. Itis not likely that they gave much precious time to courtly pleasures, as the first order of genius thrives better in solitude or the sympathetic companionship of the few, though Leonardo was much sought after for his personal accomplishments. But the inspiration of an intelligent woman has more to do with the results of genius than an unthinking and altogether material world is apt to imagine. The Duchess Beatrice was the moving spirit at Milan when its greatest artists were creating the monuments that were to be its lasting glory. Under her critical eye, too, the architects, painters, sculptors, and decorators made the church and cloisters of Certosa things of imperishable beauty, happily unconscious that they were building and carving the tomb of the little lady who was so gracious and so appreciative.
These artistic tastes, which she shared with her sister, were inherited from her mother, and they were fostered in the court of her grandfather at Naples, where she spent her childhood. At Ferrara she was a trifle overshadowed by the more gifted and beautiful Isabella, but she still lived in a stimulating atmosphere. From a worldly point of view it was a brilliant prospect that opened before the young girl when she went away from classical Ferrara as the child-wife of a man she had never seen. On the personal side the clouds were dark, but that inner realm in which lies happiness or misery was never considered. The formidable Lodovicowas certainly not good, but he had the cultivated tastes of his time, and magnificent projects, into which the small but clever duchess entered with enthusiasm. With grace, generosity, a fine intellect, and a singularly brave and vigorous character, she captivated at once the heart of the blasé prince, who had been none too well pleased with the policy of her coming. No one loved better the pageants, tournaments, and amusements of her age. No one rode more fearlessly, hunted with more zest, or danced with more pleasure. She pursued everything with the ardor of youth and a happy temperament. But her careful training had not been in vain. This fifteen-year-old wife reserved her leisure hours for serious things. She had a fine literary as well as artistic taste, and filled her cabinet with rare and costly books. It is common enough to collect costly books which are never read, but not so common for pleasure-loving girls to take delight in the masters of literature. Even in our enlightened day they are apt to prefer novels, and usually very poor ones. Doubtless the Duchess Beatrice had learned advisers, but she knew how to select them, which is in itself a talent. There were many men of letters about the court, and some of them read to her while she was busy with her needle, just as others used to do in the old days at Ferrara. They did not read the last romance, but great poems, sometimes the “Divine Comedy,” sometimes Petrarch,sometimes later verses, or histories. The grand Lodovico often stole in to listen, and gave thoughtful attention, especially to the greater master. Perhaps he recalled those happy moments in his sad captivity when the only thing he asked was a copy of Dante to while away the long and lonely hours in a French prison.
In the quiet summer days, among the groves and fountains of Vigevano or Pavia, when the dripping of the water and the rustling of the leaves made a sweet accompaniment for the strains of the orchestra that floated away past the tree-tops and lost themselves in the upper air, we find her listening to an animated discussion between Bramante and Gaspari Visconti on the relative merits of Dante and Petrarch, with her own sympathies on the side of the more spiritual poet. It was this same Visconti who said that the talents and virtues of the discriminating duchess surpassed those of the greatest women of antiquity. Giuliano de’ Medici also speaks of her as a woman of “wonderful parts.” Poets, artists, and singers flocked to her for patronage and recognition from many countries, sure of a generous sympathy.
Nor were her tastes and abilities limited to things gay, artistic, and literary. She had a clear head and a facile talent. When scarcely more than eighteen her husband sent her on a diplomatic mission to Venice, where she spoke with graceand dignity before the doge and seigniory on a matter of politics. No one questioned her modesty in doing so, and every one praised her wise and tactful eloquence. She confesses to a little tremulous apprehension, but writes in a naïve and artless way of her cordial reception by the councilors, also of the magnificent fêtes given in her honor.
In the troubled days of Milan, when the aspiring Lodovico proved weak and faint-hearted, it was his brave little wife who went with him to the camp, reconciled the differences among the officers, and inspired the soldiers with her own courage and enthusiasm. In the final crisis, at this time, it was still the young and fearless woman who took prompt measures to defend the city after her husband had fled and left her to bear all the burdens alone. It is not a question here whether he was right or wrong. The morals of politics were worse then, if possible, than they are now, and he had at least a powerful following. On a matter of public policy it is clear enough that she could not lead a party in opposition to him. What she thought we do not know, though her courage and her swift resources showed the quality of the woman.
Many were the sad hours this inconstant husband gave her, but when she was gone in the freshness of her innocent youth, he put himself and everything about him in sable, refused to be comforted,and mourned her the rest of his life. In spite of his wandering fancies, which she had the spirit to curb, he said that he loved her better than himself,—which, if true, was saying a great deal,—and that she had been his adored companion no less in the cares of State than in his hours of ease. That she shared his cruelties is not supposable from anything we know of her character, but it is certain that he owed to her taste and counsel much of his reputation as an enlightened ruler who crowned his city with the glories of art.
With her loss his star began to wane. “When the Duchess Beatrice died, everything fell into ruin. The court, which had been a paradise of joy, became a dark and gloomy inferno; poets and artists were forced to seek another place.” So writes a man of letters, in the last days of the fifteenth century, of a woman of twenty-one who had tried to make the richest and worst court in Italy a home for literature, art, and all that makes for the intellectual good of the race.
If I have lingered a little over personal details in these brief sketches, it is the better to show the versatile character of the women who shed so much luster on the golden age of the Renaissance. Of the relative moral value of these representativewomen of their time I think there is little question, in spite of the fact that the age is so persistently quoted to prove that women degenerate in virtue as they advance in intelligence. That the tone of morality was very low, that vice was scarcely frowned upon, that men in power and out of it broke every commandment in the decalogue without compunction or even taking the trouble to put on a veil of respectability, and that a large class of women were swept into the vortex of corruption, is true enough. But it is also true that the strongest protest against this state of affairs was made by women, and that the few prelates who dared lift their voices against the scandals in high places numbered their most zealous assistants among them. To say nothing of the multitudes who cast their jewels and ornaments into the flames at the bidding of Savonarola, and consecrated themselves to a pure and simple if not ascetic life,—all of which may be set down to the account of emotionalism rather than intelligence,—it was the women most noted for talent and learning, whether princess, poet, or university professor, who were most honored for their virtues. The pure-minded Contarini found in Vittoria Colonna his strongest support in a hopeless struggle against the sins and corruptions of the church. Olympia Morata was a conspicuous example of great intellect and great learning put to the service of a bettered humanity at serious, indeed fatal,personal sacrifice. And she was not alone. There were numbers of these women—poets, scholars, and thinkers—who lived spotless lives and worked for the good of their sex and race.
Of the noble ladies who presided over the literary courts, the few we have recalled were among the greatest, and, with one exception, it is generally conceded that their lives were without reproach. Others were victims of a power over which they had no control. It must be remembered that these women, however capable or high in place, were in the last resort subject to the will of men. Their new intelligence had made them helpers to be respected, and tempered a little the possible tyranny of their self-constituted masters, but men themselves, the nobler and wiser, saw the dangers in the abuse of their own power. “If women corrupt, they have first been corrupted by their age,” said Giuliano de’ Medici, the best and purest of his family, in one of the conversations at Urbino, which, thanks to its women, had not only the most intelligent but the most virtuous court in Italy.
When a Borgia or some other pope equally devoid of moral sense, who sits at the head of Christendom and directs its conscience, orders at pleasure the marriage and divorce of his own daughter, or of any other woman who can serve his political or mercenary ends, giving her no choice and no recourse; when Imperias and Tullias presideover the salons of Rome because etiquette forbids a pure and high-minded woman to live in this lax society of prelates and cardinals, which she would be likely to find neither safe nor agreeable, there is little to be said about the connection between woman’s intelligence and moral decadence. Imperias and Tullias have lived in all ages, and they have flourished best where good women were the most ignorant and colorless. Some of them have had talent and esprit. They have sung, acted, danced, written sonnets, affected learning, patronized the arts, even put on the garb of virtue and piety; but they can be no more cited as representatives of the women of centuries ago than the same class to-day can be taken as a measure of our own moral standards, which is clearly impossible. Intelligence was never a guaranty of morals, as the mind can be sharpened for bad ends as well as good ones. It is even possible that the woman of education and strong mental fiber may be more easily led into the sins of ambition, but she is far less likely to drift into the follies of vanity, passion, and a weak will than the ignorant one who has no rational outlet for her energies and her untempered sensibilities. The faults, too, of a luminous age are seen in a glare of light that is wholly wanting in periods of darkness when vice shelters itself behind closed doors upon which it too often hangs the drapery of virtue.
It is difficult to measure the intellectual value of the women of the Renaissance, as their influence went out in a thousand rills, seen and unseen, to fertilize after-ages, and not least our own. There were many good writers, but no great ones, unless we except Vittoria Colonna, whose poems, though unequal, were of a high and intrinsic literary as well as moral quality. As anin memoriamher sonnets to her husband are not likely to die, and as the first collection of sacred poems her later work has a distinct and honorable place on the world’s records. Why there were no artists of note is a problem not easy to solve, as the field is one in which women seem especially fitted to excel. Elisabetta Sirani might have won a high place on the roll of fame, as great critics were struck with her vigor, her grasp of large subjects, her facile style, and her careful finish; but she lived in the decline of art, and died at twenty-six. Women were more famous as scholars, and many of them stood on a level with distinguished men. Educated with them in the best schools, their tastes were formed on the best models. A lady who converses or lectures before learned dons in Latin, and writes the purest Greek, is not a shallow pretender, though she may be neither original nor profound. Nor do they seem to have been pedants, though much of the phraseology of both men and women strikes us now as stilted and inflated; itwas the style of the day. No doubt there was more or less dilettantism, which was a weakness of the time that ended in the destruction of literary values; it is quite possible, too, that many liked what it was the fashion to like, as they have done in all ages, without any clear tastes or convictions of their own, though this foible is by no means confined to women. That period, like our own, had its army of pale imitators who follow in the wake of every movement that is likely to reflect on them a small degree of honor, and in the end sink its finest standards in hopeless mediocrity.