Browning's Italy : a study of Italian life and art in Browning
— AWNING'S ITALY BY ;LD itn ;LT) £ HELEN A CLARKE iru < PS 1 ING I \ STUDIA IN THE LIBRARY of VICTORIA UNIVERSITY Toronto ' BROWNING'S ITALY \ Browning's Italy A STUDY OF ITALIAN LIFE AND ART IN BROWNING BY HELEN ARCHIBALD CLARKE GToronto THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY LIMITED r\ p. Copyright, 1907, by THK BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY Published, October, 1907 C&3 558^8 The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A. INTRODUCTION THE inspiration for much of Robert Browning's work was found elsewhere than in Italy, yet the fact that many of his most popular shorter poems as well as his great crux "Sordello" and his great master- piece "The Ring and the Book" blossomed from the soil of Italian life and art has brought into prominence his debt to Italian sources. Doubtless his many years of happy life with Mrs. Browning in Italy, as well as her enthu- siasm for the cause of Italian independence, served to intensify the interest and delight which he felt upon his initial visit to the land that was to become one of enchantment to him. His first journey thither was taken in 1838, with a view to becoming familiar with the scenes among which " Sordello" had been conceived. The special experience of this visit seems to have been the admiration awak- ened in him for the beautiful little hill-town of Asolo, — the play-kingdom of Caterina Cornaro. His first love among Italian cities vi INTRODUCTION he was wont to call it. So intense was his feeling for this town that he used frequently to dream of it. He described this dream, which had haunted him, to his friend, Mrs. Bronson: "I am traveling with a friend, sometimes with one person, sometimes with another, oftenest with one I do not recognize. Suddenly I see the town I love sparkling in the sun on the hillside. I cry to my com- panion, 'Look! look! there is Asolo! Oh, do let us go there!' The friend invariably an- swers, 'Impossible; we cannot stop.' 'Pray, pray, let us go there,' I entreat. 'No/ per- sists the friend, 'we cannot; we must go on and leave Asolo for another day,' and so I arn hurried away, and wake to know that I have been dreaming it all, both pleasure and disappointment. ' ' This deep sentiment for Asolo lasted to the end of his life, and was enshrined not only in his poetry but in the gift which the younger Browning made the town in memory of his father — namely, the establishment of the lace industry. A visitor to Asolo now will find "il poeta," as he is called, held in reveren- tial memory. There he heard, in his early manhood, the little peasant child singing a snatch of Sordello's poetry as he climbed his way up the mountain toward the sky; here INTRODUCTION vii he imagined the little silk-winder Pippa scat- tering, all-unconscious, her uplifting influences in a "naughty world," "so far a little candle throws its beams," - and put her into a play of which Mrs. Browning said she distinctly envied the authorship; and here, at the very last, he and his sister spent royal days with their kind American friend Mrs. Bronson. He prepared his last volume, "Asolando," for the press here, and dedicated it with most appreciative words to Mrs. Bronson. But a few short weeks later, upon the day this volume was published in England, he died in Venice. "In a Gondola" gives his impressions of Venice received on this first visit to Italy, though the poem was directly inspired by a picture of Maclise's, "a divine Venetian work," the poet calls it, for which he was asked to write appropriate lines. These grew into the longer poem. Another visit to Italy in 1844 is made mem- orable in Browning's literary life by his poem, 'The Englishman in Italy." In this is given a wonderful picture of a sirocco on the plain of Sorrento. It has his usual dramatic touch. The storm is not described for itself, but, by the way, as he tries to comfort a little Italian girl, who is frightened at the black clouds, viii INTRODUCTION with stories of what he sees the peasant folk do when getting ready for the storm, and how nature is affected by the coming fury of wind and wave. He has nowhere given a more charming picture of Italian scenery unless it be in the poem, "Two in the Campagna": "The champaign with its endless fleece Of feathery grasses everywhere. Silence and passion, joy and peace, An everlasting wash of air — Rome's ghost since her decease." In 1846 he went to Italy with his wife, and during her life they lived most of the time at Casa Guidi in Florence, with summer excur- sions to the Baths of Lucca and other places and an occasional winter in Rome. Up to the time of his continued residence in Italy, Browning had written some dozen poems on Italian subjects, including all the dramas and several of the Renaissance poems: "My Last Duchess," "The Bishop Orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's," "Pictor Ignotus," "In a Gondola." In 1855, after nine years in Italy, he pub- lished his two volumes called "Men and Women," with a dedicatory poem to Mrs. Browning. In this, Italian subjects are still INTRODUCTION ix prominent, and include some of his most im- portant work, as, for example, "Fra Lippo Lippi," "A Toccata of Galuppi's," "The Statue and the Bust," "Andrea del Sarto," "A Grammarian's Funeral." Shortly before Mrs. Browning's death, he had found one day on a book stall, in the Piazza san Lorenzo in Florence, the original parchment-bound record of the Franceschini case, which was after several years to be transmuted into his greatest work and his last work 011 an Italian subject of deep significance. This poem, with its beautiful apostrophe to his dead wife, his " Lyric Love, half angel and half bird," and its marvelous insight into the most exalted heights of a woman's soul as portrayed in Pompilia, is a superb monument to her "of whom enamored was his soul," as he elsewhere expresses his abiding devotion to her. Unless we except "Cenciaja," "Pietro of Abano," in the "Parleyings," those with Bar- toli and Furini, and a few unimportant things in "Asolando" which remind one of a sort of Italian "St. Martin's Summer," he wrote no more great Italian poems. During the thirty years of literary activity left him, he went almost entirely to other sources for inspiration, and produced many poems which, in spite of the carping of some x INTRODUCTION critics at his later work, have won as wide an appreciation as anything he has written, such as "Herve Kiel," "Caliban," "At the Mer- maid," " Balaustian's Adventure," and many others. Thus, it becomes evident that his Italian enthusiasm belonged to the days of his early manhood, when life held out to him its golden promises; to the succeeding days of the ful- filment of a rare happiness in his beloved land; and finally closed with a glorious swan- song in "The Ring and the Book" which has immortalized forever the two great pas- sions of the poet's life — his artistic enthu- siasm for Italy and his soul-love for Mrs. Browning. Of the one he wrote: "Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it 'Italy.'" Of the other, in Venice, many years after her death : "Then the cloud-rift broadens, spanning earth that's under, Wide our world displays its worth, man's strife and strife's success: All the good and beauty, wonder crowning wonder, Till my heart and soul applaud perfection, nothing less. "Only, at heart's utmost joy and triumph, terror Sudden turns the blood to ice: a chill wind disencharms AH the late enchantment! What if all be error — If the halo irised round my head were, Love, thine arms." TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE THE DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 1 CHAPTER H GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 58 CHAPTER HI THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 166 CHAPTER IV THE ARTIST AND His ART 209 CHAPTER V PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 287 ILLUSTRATIONS A Gondola Frontispiece FACING PAGE Statue of Dante in the Ufizzi, Florence .... 6 Arena at Verona 20 Gate of Bosari, Verona (1600 years old) .... 42 The Duomo, Florence 70 Porto Romano, Florence 88 Turin 114 Florence, Old and New: Old Gate and Triumphal Arch 210 The Campanile 220 Sculpture from Campanile Representing Agriculture . 224 Coronation of the Virgin, by Fra Angelico .... 240 Coronation of the Virgin, by Fra Lippo Lippi . . 248 Portrait of Andrea del Sarto, by Himself .... 262 The Annunciation, by Andrea del Sarto .... 268 Piazza del Popolo, Rome 326 Church of San Lorenzo, Rome 342 Statue of Duke Ferdinand, Florence 364 Venice 368 Saint Mark's, Venice. Before the Fall of the Tower 372 Interior of St. Mark's, Venice 376 The Rialto— "Shylock's Bridge," at Venice ... 380 BROWNING'S ITALY BROWNING'S ITALY THE DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE "Love's undoing Taught me the worth of love in man's estate, And what proportion love should hold with power In his right constitution: love preceding Power, and with much power, always much more love." — Paracelsus. IN the Italy of History and Biography the name of Sordello, the Italian troubadour, is hardly known ; but in the Italy of Browning he is one of the most conspicuous figures, and stands for the first faint streaks of daybreak of that great movement in art and literature known as the Italian Renaissance. He is celebrated by Browning as the forerunner of Dante, whose full dawn splendor would have blotted out this earlier, lesser light completely had it not been that the great poet himself mentions the lesser one several times in his Divine Comedy and elsewhere, with enthu- siasm. Though there is no mention of Sordello in ordinary histories, many conflicting accounts 2 BROWNING'S ITALY exist of him in early Italian archives, and many of the commentators of Dante have had their say about him, so that to any one bury- ing himself in Sordello literature this poet looms up large in the perspective of his time — so large, in fact, that Justin H. Smith writes of him in "The Troubadours at Home": " Nothing in the life or the times of Sordello was so extraordinary as the trail of glory that perpetuated his fame, and we must end as we began by exclaiming: What an extraor- dinary destiny!" The real Sordello — that is, as far as he is discoverable from the conflicting accounts — was one of many Italian troubadours who flourished in the twelfth and thirteenth cen- turies. He was born in Goito, a quiet little town, nine or ten miles from Mantua, on the right bank of the Mincio. This town had strong walls and a castle, and here, as in Browning's poem, the young Sordello spent his early years. It is not long, however, ere he comes before the eyes of men — not as the hyper-sensitive poet, with complicated psychological makeup, which Browning de- picts, but as a brawler in taverns. From this he goes on to an elopement with Cunizza, the wife of Count Richard, under peculiar DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 3 circumstances. Sordello had attached him- self to the Court of Richard, which was held both in Mantua and Verona, and soon became the close friend of this liberal and cultured Count. But Ecelin, at first a friend of Rich- ard's, — the two having married sisters, — later desired to injure his brother-in-law, and so arranged with Sordello that he should run away with Richard's wife. Later we see him carrying off a lady without the knowledge of her family and marrying her. Thereupon the lady's family, the Strassos, joined with the partisans of Count Richard and waged such persistent warfare against him that he found it necessary to protect himself with a large troop. Then we hear of him journeying through Italy and France, Spain and Portugal, preach- ing the doctrine of pleasure wherever he goes, and evidently following his own preachments if we may trust accounts. Drifting to Prov- ence again, after a stay at Rodez, he attaches himself to Charles of Anjou, and becomes prominent in public affairs. When Charles invaded Italy, to seize the crown of Naples and Sicily, Sordello assisted him and received as his reward no less than five castles. To- ward the last of his life he falls into pleasant relations with the Pope, and turns his atten- 4 BROWNING'S ITALY tion from love-poems to a long poem of a didactic nature in which he tells young nobles how to win God and the world. Justin H. Smith rather fiercely describes him as a "bold, unprincipled, licentious, and unflinch- ingly practical adventurer," who yet left a remarkable impress upon his own age and the ages to come. He sums up his career with graphic force as a "man who won his fame by singing in a foreign tongue upon a foreign soil, who was enriched by fighting against Italy for a Gallic oppressor, and who in spite of this is mentioned by Dante as the ideal patriot, the embodiment of Ital- ian aspirations. This error so thoroughly planted throve on the ignorance of Dante's commentators, and still more upon the in- ventive ability of Aliprandi; and eventually Emeric David thought that he found three distinct men in the inflated volumes of his legend." So much for the real Sordello! Brown- ing's imagination was evidently fired by Dante's enthusiasm, and in creating his char- acter of Sordello the poet seized upon any hints in the accounts that best fitted into his conception of the sort of person the fore- runner of Dante should be, taking his cue from Dante's reference to Sordello in the DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 5 sixth book of the " Purgatorio," and from a prose writing, "De Vulgar! Eloquentia." The passage in the " Purgatorio " is as follows: "'But yonder there behold! a soul that stationed All, all alone is looking hitherward; It will point out to us the quickest way.' We came up onto it; O Lombard soul, How lofty and disdainful thou didst bear thee, And grand and slow in moving of thine eyes. "Nothing whatever did it say to us, But let us go our way, eyeing us only After the manner of a couchant lion; Still near to it Virgilius drew, entreating That it would point us out the best ascent; And it replied not unto his demand, But of our native land and of our life It questioned us; and the sweet Guide began: ' Mantua,' — and the shade, all in itself recluse, Rose tow'rds him from the place where first it was, Saying: 'O Mantuan, I am Sordello Of thine own land ! ' and one embraced the other. "That noble soul was so impatient, only At the sweet sound of his own native land, To make its citizen glad welcome there." In the "De Vulgari Eloquentia," Dante declares that Sordello excelled in all kinds of composition and that he helped to form the Tuscan tongue by some happy attempts which he made in the dialects of Cremona, 6 BROWNING'S ITALY Brescia, and Verona — cities not far re- moved from Mantua. From such meager material as this Brown- ing evolves a being who comprises in his own soul all the complex possibilities of the coming quickening of the human mind and spirit which was so remarkable a feature of the intellectual and artistic life of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and which, taking its rise in Italy, made Italy the beacon light for the rest of Europe. Dante's feeling for Sordello is intensified tenfold in the modern poet's attitude, who thus shows forth the relation of Sordello to Dante, as he conceives it and as he develops it in his poem. '" For he — for he, Gate-vein of this hearts' blood of Lombardy, (If I should falter now) — for he is thine! Sordello, thy forerunner, Florentine! A herald-star I know thou didst absorb Relentless into the consummate orb That scared it from its right to roll along A sempiternal path with dance and song Fulfilling its allotted period, Serenest of the progeny of God — Who yet resigns it not! His darling stoops With no quenched lights, desponds with no blank troops Of disenfranchised brilliances, for, blent Utterly with thee, its shy element Like thine upbumeth prosperous and clear. STATUE OF DANTE IN THE UFIZZI, FLORENCE. DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 7 Still, what if I approach the august sphere Named now with only one name, disentwine That under-current soft and argentine From its fierce mate in the majestic mass Leavened as the sea whose fire was mixt with glass In John's transcendent vision, — launch once more That lustre? Dante, pacer of the shore Where glutted hell disgorgeth filthiest gloom, Unbitten by its whirring sulphur-spume — Or whence the grieved and obscure waters slope Into a darkness quieted by hope; Plucker of amaranths grown beneath God's eye In gracious twilights where his chosen lie, — I would do this! If I should falter now!" The Sordello of Browning has the latent power to be a creator in poetry and a leader in the cause of patriotism, but so many con- flicting forces contend for mastery within him that his life is spent mostly in unraveling the problems of his soul. The tangled strands of Sordello's psychology, as Browning has made him, have been the despair of many readers and the joy of the few who have had the patience to untangle the strands and receive the reward of a full revelation of the soul-struggles of this sensitive, vacillating and tortured being. For both classes of readers he has thus attained an immortality more lasting than any bestowed upon him by Aliprandi, or other verbose Chroniclers. 8 BROWNING'S ITALY To add to the complexities of the poem, Sordello has been placed by Browning in the historical setting of a period distinguished for its chaotic political conditions. Guelf and Ghibelline are names with which we become familiar at school, but they seldom are more than names, and when we pick up a poem wherein these names and the political struggles they stand for are talked of with the familiarity with which we might discuss the last dog show, the effect is be- wildering indeed. Yet, in spite of all this, there are clear, sharp-cut pictures scattered throughout the poem, and one may gain through the poet's eyes many a vivid glimpse of the life and social conditions of thirteenth century Italy. The birthplace of Sordello is introduced to us in the following beautiful description: "In Mantua territory half is slough, Half pine-tree forest; maples, scarlet oaks Breed o'er the river-beds; even Mincio chokes With sand the summer through: but 'tis morass In winter up to Mantua walls. There was, Some thirty years before this evening's coil, One spot reclaimed from the surrounding spoil, Goito; just a castle built amid A few low mountains; firs and larches hid Their main defiles, and rings of vineyard bound DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 9 The rest. Some captured creature in a pound. Whose artless wonder quite precludes distress, Secure beside in its own loveliness, So peered with airy head, below, above, The castle at its toils, the lapwings love To glean among at grape-time." The poet then proceeds to the inside of the castle where he represents Sordello as having passed his boyhood. "Pass within. A maze of corridors contrived for sin, Dusk winding-stairs, dim galleries got past, You gain the inmost chambers, gain at last A maple-panelled room; that haze which seems Floating about the panel, if there gleams A sunbeam over it, will turn to gold And in light-graven characters unfold The Arab's wisdom everywhere; what shade Marred them a moment, those slim pillars made, Cut like a company of palms to prop The roof, each kissing top entwined with top, Leaning together; in the carver's mind Some knot of bacchanals, flushed cheek combined With straining forehead, shoulders purpled, hair Diffused between, who in a goat-skin bear A vintage; graceful sister-palms! But quick To the main wonder, now. A vault, see; thick Black shade about the ceiling, though fine slits Across the buttress suffer light by fits Upon a marvel in the midst. Nay, stoop — A dullish gray-streaked cumbrous font, a group Round it, — each side of it, where'er one sees, — 10 BROWNING'S ITALY Upholds it; shrinking Caryatides Of just-tinged marble like Eve's lilied flesh Beneath her maker's finger when the fresh First pulse of life shot brightening the snow. The font's edge burthens every shoulder, so They muse upon the ground, eyelids half closed; Some, with meek arms behind their backs disposed, Some, crossed above their bosoms, some, to veil Their eyes, some, propping chin and cheek so pale, Some, hanging slack an utter helpless length Dead as a buried vestal whose whole strength Goes when the grate above shuts heavily. So dwell these noiseless girls, patient to see, Like priestesses because of sin impure Penanced forever, who resigned endure, Having that once drunk sweetness to the dregs. And every eve, Sordello's visit begs Pardon for them: constant as eve he came To sit beside each in her turn, the same As one of them, a certain space: and awe Made a great indistinctness till he saw Sunset slant cheerful through the buttress-chinks, Gold seven times globed; surely our maiden shrinks And a smile stirs her as if one faint grain Her load were lightened, one shade less the strain Obscured her forehead, yet one more bead slipt From off the rosary whereby the crypt Keeps count of the contritions of its charge ? Then with a step more light, a heart more large, He may depart, leave her and every one To linger out the penance in mute stone." I am told by an authority in Italian art that such a fountain could not have existed DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 11 in Italy in Sordello's time since caryatid figures were not introduced from Greece until the fifteenth century. The poet refers to this fountain again later on as a Messina Marble, "Like those Messina marbles Constance took Delight in, or Taurello's self conveyed To Mantua for his mistress, Adelaide, — A certain font with caryatides Since cloistered at Goito." However that may be, their use by Browning as a subtly suggestive force in the education of the mind of the young Sordello is much more effective than if he had taken him through a University course such as he might have had even in those early days. The rest of his education was derived from nature. "... beyond the glades On the fir-forest border, and the rim Of the low range of mountain, was for him No other world: but this appeared his own To wander through at pleasure and alone. The castle, too, seemed empty; far and wide Might he disport; only the northern side Lay under a mysterious interdict — Slight, just enough remembered to restrict His roaming to the corridors, the vault Where those font-bearers expiate their fault, The maple-chamber, and the little nooks And nests, and breezy parapet that looks 12 BROWNING'S ITALY Over the woods to Mantua: there he strolled. Some foreign women-servants, very old, Tended and crept about him — all his clue To the world's business and embroiled ado Distant a dozen hill-tops at the most." Passing from the particular individual life described here we may next get a view of Sordello upon his first contact with the social life of the time when, wandering one day beyond his usual range, he comes upon a Court of Love where Palma, the girl he has caught a glimpse of in the castle, is to choose her minstrel. A vision of her draws him on until he chances upon a ''startling spectacle." "Mantua, this time! Under the walls — a crowd Indeed, real men and women, gay and loud Round a pavilion. How he stood!" " What next ? The curtains see Dividing! She is there; and presently He will be there — the proper You, at length — In your own cherished dress of grace and strength: It was a showy man advanced; but though A glad cry welcomed him, then every sound Sank and the crowd disposed themselves around, — 'This is not he! Sordello felt; while, 'Place For the best Troubadour of Boniface!' Hollaed the Jongleurs, — 'Eglamor, whose lay Concludes his patron's Court of Love to-day!' DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 13. Has he ceased And, lo, the people's frank applause half done, Sordello was beside him, had begun (Spite of indignant twitchings from his friend The Trouvere) the true lay with the true end, Taking the other's names and time and place For his. On flew the song, a giddy race, After the flying story; word made leap Out word, rhyme — rhyme; the lay could barely keep Pace with the action visibly rushing past: Both ended. Back fell Naddo more aghast Than some Egyptian from the harassed bull That wheeled abrupt and, bellowing, fronted full His plague, who spied a scarab 'neath the tongue, And found 'twas Apis' flank his hasty prong Insulted. But the people — but the cries, The crowding round, and proffering the prize! — For he had gained some prize. He seemed to shrink Into a sleepy cloud, just at whose brink One sight withheld him. He answered something, anything; and she Unbound a scarf and laid it heavily Upon him, her neck's warmth and all. Again Moved the arrested magic; in his brain Noises grew, and a light that turned to glare, And greater glare, until the intense flare Engulfed him, shut the whole scene from his sense. And when he woke 'twas many a furlong thence, At home; the sun shining his ruddy wont; 14 BROWNING'S ITALY The customary birds'-chirp; but his front Was crowned — was crowned ! Her scented scarf around His neck! Whose gorgeous vesture heaps the ground? A prize ? He turned, and peeringly on him Brooded the women-faces, kind and dim, Ready to talk — 'The Jongleurs in a troop Had brought him back, Naddo, and Squarcialupe And Tagliafer; how strange! a childhood spent In taking, well for him, so brave a bent! Since Eglamor,' they heard, 'was dead with spite,' And Palma chose him for her minstrel." In calling this poetical contest in which Sordello engaged a Court of Love, Brown- ing has adopted a term which should properly be applied to a court where difficult questions in the rigid etiquette of chivalric love were decided. Though we read of such Courts in literature recent investigators of the sub- ject declare that no such Courts existed, the first mention of them occurring in a book by Martial of Auvergne three hundred years later than they were said to have flourished. Justin H. Smith in a note to his "Trouba- dours at Home," points out that the silence of the troubadours is especially convincing against the alleged Courts, because we often see them feeling the need of such a tribunal and finding themselves compelled to choose their own arbiters. Further, these arbiters were men rather oftener than women, whereas DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 15 the Courts were supposed to have consisted of women only. Browning really has in mind the poetical tournaments of the Middle Ages, held at a Court where a presiding lady acted as judge, awarding the laurel crown and other prizes, usually rich raiment, as the poet intimates, to the poet who sang best — all the con- testants taking the same theme. Palma, who figures here, is Browning's substitution for the Cunizza of the biogra- phies. She is the betrothed of Count Richard, but loves Sordello who turns out to be the son of Taurello, head of the Ghibelline party, according to our poet. As we shall see later, she determines to marry Sordello but his death prevents it. A stirring historical picture is brought be- fore us in this description of a scene in Verona, later in the life of Sordello, where he reaches the turning point in his career. "Lo, the past is hurled In twain: up-thrust, out-staggering on the world. Subsiding into shape, a darkness rears Its outline, kindles at the core, appears Verona. 'Tis six hundred years and more Since an event. The Second Friedrich wore The purple, and the Third Honorius filled The holy chair. That autumn eve was stilled: A last remains of sunset dimly burned 16 BROWNING'S ITALY O'er the far forests, like a torch-flame turned By the wind back upon its bearer's hand In one long flare of crimson; as a brand, The woods beneath lay black. A single eye From all Verona cared for the soft sky. But, gathering in its ancient market-place, Talked group with restless group; and not a face But wrath made livid, for among them were Death's staunch purveyors, such as have in care To feast him. Fear had long since taken root In every breast, and now these crushed its fruit, The ripe hate, like a wine: to note the way It worked while each grew drunk! Men grave and gray Stood, with shut eyelids, rocking to and fro, Letting the silent luxury trickle slow About the hollows where a heart should be; But the young gulped with a delirious glee Some foretaste of their first debauch in blood At the fierce news: for, be it understood, Envoys apprised Verona that her prince, Count Richard of Saint Boniface, joined since A year with Azzo, Este's Lord, to thrust Taurello Salinguerra, prince in trust With Ecelin Romano, from his seat Ferrara, — over zealous in the feat And stumbling on a peril unaware, Was captive, trammelled in his proper snare, They phrase it, taken by his own intrigue. Immediate succor from the Lombard league Of fifteen cities that affect the Pope, For Azzo, therefore, and his fellow-hope Of the Guelf cause, a glory overcast! Men's faces, late agape, are now aghast. 'Prone is the purple pavis; Este makes DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 17 Mirth for the devil where he undertakes To play the Ecelin; as if it cost Merely your pushing by to gain a post Like his ! The patron tells ye, once for all, There be sound reasons that preferment fall On our beloved.' . .. 'Duke o' the Rood, why not?' This passage places before us a crisis in the struggles of the Guelfs and the Ghibel- lines. It will be worth while to pause a moment here to try and gain a clear notion of the historical events that form the back- ground of the poem. Various origins of the terms Guelf and Ghibelline have been suggested, but the most authentic is probably that sanctioned by Cabot's History of Italy, which traces their derivation to Germany. Here they had been the rallying words of faction for more than half a century before they appeared on Italian soil. The name of Guelf belonged to an illustrious family, several of whom had been dukes of Bavaria in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The heiress of the last of these intermarried with a younger son of the house of Este, a noble family settled near Padua, and the owners of great estates on each bank of the lower Po. The name of Ghibelline is supposed to have been derived 18 BROWNING'S ITALY from a village in Franconia, whence Conrad the Salic came, the progenitor, through females, of the Suabian emperors. At the election of Lothaire in 1125, the Suabian family were disappointed of what they considered almost an hereditary possession; and at this time a hostility appears to have commenced be- tween them and the house of Guelf, which was nearly related to Lothaire. The elder branch of this house flourished in Italy. When, about the year 1200, the cities of Lombardy wanted some designations by which they could distinguish the two leading par- ties, and though full of mutual animosity had no general subject of contention, they chose these appellations. Generally speak- ing, the 'Guelfs were on the side of the Pope and the Ghibellines on the side of the Emperor. At the time when the second Frederick wore the purple, and the third Honorius was Pope, the contest between Pope and Emperor was nearing that climax which was to end in the downfall of the temporal power in Italy. Frederick II was one of the most remark- able figures in Italian history, and though himself doomed to destruction, he as much as Dante was the torch-bearer of the coming intellectual awakening. If Sordello was the DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 19 forerunner of Dante, Frederick might well have been called the forerunner of the Medicis. The description given of him by Sedgwick in his "Short History of Italy" brings his qualities before us vividly. "Frederick him- self is the central figure of the period. In his lifetime he excited love and hate to extrava- gance and he still excites the enthusiasm of scholars." Dante Gabriel Rossetti places him among the poets in Dante's circle. Sedgwick goes on "His is the most interest- ing Italian personality between St. Francis and Dante, for though he inherited the Hohen- stauffen vigor and energy, he got his chief traits from his Sicilian mother. Poet, law- giver, soldier, statesman, he was the wonder of the world. Impetuous, terrible, voluptu- ous, refined, he was a kind of Caesarian Byron. In most ways he outstripped con- temporary thought, in many ways he out- stripped contemporary sympathy. He was sceptical of the Athanasian creed, of Com- munal freedom, and of other things which his Italian countrymen believed devoutly while they were sceptical of the divine right of the Empire, of the blessing of a strong central government, and of other matters which he believed!" After several years of skirmishing, the 20 BROWNING'S ITALY hatred of Frederick II and his policy among the Guelf cities of Lombardy, broke out in a protracted war. Among the Lombardy cities engaged in this warfare the most im- portant to us is the city of Verona. It falls into a group along with Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso — all inclined to Guelf interests. But there was a powerful body of small nobility who had fortified themselves in the hilly country in the neighborhood, and who had never been forced to quit their fortresses or to reside within the walls. These attached themselves to the side of the Emperor. Among those who became important in the civil feuds of that time, the Ecelins were con- spicuous, and, as we shall see later, Ezzel- lino da Romano or Ecelinlllwasof so ferocious a nature, that even his supporters turned against him. The Ecelin mentioned in this passage was the father of Ecelin III, Alberic and Palma, his wife being the Adelaide of the poem. Ecelin II, called the hillcat, was the representative of the Emperor and head of the Ghibelline party, but in 1223 he divided his lands between his two sons and himself became a monk. Browning repre- sents him at this time as dozing at Oliero, "with dry lips Telling upon his perished finger-tips DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 21 How many ancestors are to depose Ere he be Satan's Viceroy when the doze Deposits him in hell." Taurello Salinguerra was Ecelin's chief lieutenant, and head of the Ghibelline party at Ferrara. Opposed to these Ghibelline leaders were Azzo VII, Marquis of Este and Ancona, and Count Richard of St. Boniface, Prince of Verona. History explains that the Marquises of Este were by far the most powerful nobles in eastern Lombardy, and about the end of the twelfth century began to be considered the heads of the church party in their neighborhood. They were frequently chosen for the chief magistrate or Podesta, by the cities of Romagna, and in 1208 the people of Ferrara set the fatal ex- ample of sacrificing their freedom for tran- quillity by electing Azzo VII, Marquis of Este, as their lord or sovereign. Such was the general state of affairs — all that ordinary history usually goes into, when the event happened that Browning describes in this passage, and for the history of which we may glean a little in Muratori's "Annals," made accessible by W. M. Rossetti's trans- lations. Browning describes the life of Tau- rello leading up to this event in a passage in Book IV, where he tells how Taurello dwelt 22 BROWNING'S ITALY at Ferrara, representing, of course, the side of the Emperor. The Estes did not inter- fere with him until Linguetta Marchesalla, left heiress of her house, was about to be married to Taurello. The Guelfs of Ravenna, afraid that if this marriage was consummated, Ferrara would fall into the hands of Taurello, attacked Ferrara and car- ried off the bride. Azzo VI was invited to the city, and while Taurello was sent off hunting, entered with the bride Linguetta. Taurello took refuge in the court of Sicily, ruled over at that time by Henry (VI). He married Retrude, of Henry's family, and suddenly returned to Ferrara, powerfully be- friended by Ecelin and the Emperor. He built a fine palace for his bride. But Azzo and Boniface, afraid of trouble, took the initiative, and attacked Taurello and Ecelin when conferring together at Vicenza, where Ecelin was Podesta. Here Retrude was mortally wounded and her child supposed to be lost; but the Guelfs were at last re- pulsed and Taurello became only second in control to Ecelin. At the time of the episode described in the passage quoted from the poem, Azzo VII had succeeded to the Azzo who stole the young Taurello's bride. He, according to DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 23 Muratori, resided frequently in Ferrara, as being head of the Guelf faction and possess- ing here great plenty of property and vassals, — one of whom was Salinguerra, himself, head of the Ghibellines. It was ill brooked by his adherents that Salinguerra and his partisans should enjoy the best offices of the Republic. Consequently, in the month of August (1221), taking up arms they assailed the party of Salinguerra, and after a severe fight they forced him to abandon the city. Or, as Muratori adds, "This Guelf success led to a treaty which resulted in an agree- ment reinstating the Guelf s." The next year (according to Browning, next week) Salin- guerra returned and Azzo with his Guelfic party had to quit the city. To recover from this affront the Marquis got together an army collected at Rovigo and from his other states, and from Lombardy and the march of Verona, and went to pitch his camp under Ferrara. This was in 1222. In 1224 there was a renewed attack with an army, collected "from his own states and from his friends in Mantua, Padua, and Verona, bent upon vengeance." The siege was ended by the capture of Boniface as described in the poem, and of which Muratori gives this account : 24 BROWNING'S ITALY "The astute Salinguerra exerted himself so much by affectionate letters and em- bassies that he induced Count Richard of San Bonifazio, with a certain number of horsemen, to enter Ferrara under the pretext of concluding a friendly pact. But, on enter- ing, he was at once made prisoner with all his company; and therefore the Marquis of Este, disappointed, retired from the siege." In the poem this bit of history is further enlarged upon by an envoy. "Taurello," quoth an envoy, "as in wane Dwelt at Ferrara. Like an osprey fain To fly but forced the earth his couch to make Far inland, till his friend the tempest wake, Waits he the Kaiser's coming; and as yet That fast friend sleeps, and he too sleeps: but let Only the billow freshen, and he snuffs The aroused hurricane ere it enroughs The sea it means to cross because of him. Sinketh the breeze? His hope-sick eye grows dim; Creep closer on the creature! Every day Strengthens the Pontiff; Ecelin, they say, Dozes now at Oliero, with dry lips Telling upon his perished finger-tips How many ancestors are to depose Ere he be Satan's Viceroy when the doze Deposits him in hell. So, Guelfs rebuilt Their houses; not a drop of blood was spilt When Cino Bocchimpane chanced to meet Buccio Virtu — God's wafer, and the street DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 25 Is narrow! Tutti Santi, think, a-swarm With Ghibellins, and yet he took no harm! This could not last. Off Salinguerra went To Padua, Podesta, 'with pure intent,' Said he, 'my presence, judged the single bar To permanent tranquillity, may jar No longer' — so! his back is fairly turned! The pair of goodly palaces are burned, The gardens ravaged, and our Guelfs laugh, drunk A week with joy. The next, their laughter sunk In sobs of blood, for they found, some strange way, Old Salinguerra back again — I say, Old Salinguerra in the town once more Uprooting, overturning, flame before, Blood fetlock-high beneath him. Azzo fled; Who 'scaped the carnage followed; then the dead Were pushed aside from Salinguerra 's throne, He ruled once more Ferrara, all alone, Till Azzo, stunned awhile, revived, would pounce Coupled with Boniface, like lynx and ounce On the gorged bird. The burghers ground their teeth To see troop after troop encamp beneath I' the standing corn thick o'er the scanty patch It took so many patient months to snatch Out of the marsh; while just within their walls Men fed on men. At length Taurello calls A parley; 'let the Count wind up the war! Richard, light-hearted as a plunging star, Agrees to enter for the kindest ends Ferrara, flanked with fifty chosen friends, No horse-boy more, for fear your timid sort Should fly Ferrara at the bare report. Quietly through the town they rode, jog-jog; 'Ten, twenty, thirty, — curse the catalogue 26 BROWNING'S ITALY Of burnt Guelf houses! Strange, Taurello shows Not the least sign of life ' — whereat arose A general growl : ' How ? With his victors by ? I and my Veronese ? My troops and I ? Receive us, was your word ? ' So jogged they on, Nor laughed their host too openly: once gone Into the trap ! " — The story of the especial relations of Frederick II to the Pope forms an interesting chapter in the great struggle of Pope and Emperor, and is thus touched upon by Browning : "When the new Hohenstauffen dropped the mask, Flung John of Brienne's favor from his casque, Forswore crusading, had no mind to leave Saint Peter's proxy leisure to retrieve Losses to Otho and to Barbaross, Or make the Alps less easy to recross, And, thus confirming Pope Honorius' fear, Was excommunicate that very year. 