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[Illustration: BIANCA CAPPELLO.]

_From an Original Painting by Cristofero Allori in the Uffizi at
Florence._




  A DECADE

  OF

  ITALIAN WOMEN.


  BY

  T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE,

  AUTHOR OF "THE GIRLHOOD OF CATHERINE DE' MEDICI."


  IN TWO VOLUMES.

  VOL. II.

  LONDON:

  CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.

  1859.

  [_The right of Translation is reserved._]


  LONDON

  BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.




CONTENTS.


TULLIA D'ARAGONA.

Born, about 1510. Died, about 1570.


CHAPTER I.

                                                                    PAGE

My Lord Cardinal's daughter                                            1


CHAPTER II.

Aspasia rediviva                                                      10


CHAPTER III.

"All's well, that ends well"                                          21


OLYMPIA MORATA.

Born, 1526. Died, 1555.


CHAPTER I.

Good old times in Ferrara.—How a Pope's daughter became a
Duchess; bygones were bygones; and Love was still the lord of
all                                                                   30


CHAPTER II.

Troublous new times in Ferrara.—How a French King's daughter
became a Duchess; bygones were aught but bygones; and Mitre
and Cowl were lords of all                                            54


CHAPTER III.

How shall a Pope be saved? with the answer thereto.—How shall
our Olympia be saved? To be taken into consideration in a
subsequent chapter                                                    77


CHAPTER IV.

"The whirligig of time brings in his revenges."—Still
Undine.—The "salvation" question stands over                          92


CHAPTER V.

Dark days.—The great question begins to be answered                  108


CHAPTER VI.

The question fully answered at last.—Farewell,
Ferrara!—Welcome inhospitable Caucasus.—Omne solum forti
patria est                                                           122


CHAPTER VII.

At Augsburg; and at Würzburg                                         143


CHAPTER VIII.

The home at Schweinfurth                                             154


CHAPTER IX.

The makers of history.—The flight from Schweinfurth                  168

CHAPTER X.

A new home in Heidelberg; and a last home beneath it.—What is
Olympia Morata to us?                                                182


ISABELLA ANDREINI.

Born, 1562. Died, 1604.

Italian love for the Theatre.—Italian Dramatic
Literature.—Tragedy.—Comedy.—Tiraboschi's notion of
it.—Macchiavelli's Mandragola.—Isabella's high standing among
her contemporaries.—Her husband.—Her high character.—Death,
and Epitaph.—Her writings.—Nature and value of histrionic art
                                                                     205


BIANCA CAPPELLO.

Born, 1548. Died, 1587.


CHAPTER I.

The pretty version of the story; and the true version
of the same.—St. Mark's Square at Florence.—Bianca's
beauty.—The Medici _en famille_.—The Casino of St. Mark.—The
proprieties.—"Cosa di Francesco"                                     220


CHAPTER II.

A favourite's husband.—The natural course of things.—Italian
respectability.—The three brothers, Francesco, Ferdinand,
and Pietro.—The ladies of the court.—Francesco's temper—his
avarice—and wealth.—Frolicsome days at Florence.—The Cardinal
recommends respectability.—The Duke ensures it.—A court
dialogue                                                             234


CHAPTER III.

Bianca balances her accounts.—Dangers in her path.—A bold
step—and its consequences.—Facilis descensus.—A proud
father.—Bianca's witchcraft.—The Cardinal is checkmated, for
this game                                                            257


CHAPTER IV.

The Duchess Giovanna and her sorrows.—An heir is born.—Bianca
in the shade.—The "Orti Oricellari."—Bianca entertains the
Court there.—A summer night's amusement in 1577.—The death of
Giovanna                                                             271


CHAPTER V.

What is Francesco to do now?—The Cardinal and Bianca try
another fall.—Cardinal down again.—Francesco's vengeance.—What
does the Church say?—Bianca at Bologna.—The marriage privately
performed.—The Cardinal learns the secret.—The daughtership of
St. Mark.—Venetian doings _versus_ Venetian sayings.—Embassy
to Florence.—Suppose we could have her crowned!—The marriage
publicly solemnised                                                  284


CHAPTER VI.

Bianca's new policy.—New phase of the battle between the
woman and the priest.—Serene, or not serene! that is the
question.—Bianca protests against sisters.—Death of the
child Filippo.—Bianca's troubles and struggles.—The villa of
Pratolino.—Francesco's extraordinary mode of life there              303


CHAPTER VII.

The family feeling in Italy.—Who shall be the heir?—Bianca
at Cerreto.—Camilla di Martelli.—Don Pietro on the watch.—
Bianca at her tricks again.—The Cardinal comes to look
after matters.—Was Francesco dupe or accomplice?—Bianca's
comedy becomes a very broad farce.—A "Villeggiatura" at
Poggio–a–Cajano.—The Cardinal wins the game                          317

CHAPTER VIII.

Three hypotheses respecting the deaths of Francesco and
Bianca.—The official version of the story.—The Novelist's
version of the story.—A third possibility.—Circumstances that
followed the two deaths.—Bianca's grave; and epitaphs for it
by the Florentines.—Ferdinand's final success                        333


OLYMPIA PAMFILI.

Born, 1594. Died, 1656.

Pope Joan rediviva.—Olympia's outlook on life.—Her mode of
"opening the oyster."—She succeeds in opening it.—Olympia's
son.—Olympia at home in the Vatican.—Her trade.—A Cardinal's
escape from the purple.—Olympia under a cloud. Is once
more at the head of the field; and in at the death.—A
Conclave.—Olympia's star wanes.—Pœna pede claudo                     346


ELISABETTA SIRANI.

Born, 1638. Died, 1665.


CHAPTER I.

Her life                                                             366


CHAPTER II.

Her death                                                            379


LA CORILLA.

Born, 1740. Died, 1800.


CHAPTER I.

The apprenticeship to the laurel                                     393


CHAPTER II.

The coronation                                                       403


APPENDIX                                                    417


NOTES                                                       429


INDEX                                                       437




A DECADE OF ITALIAN WOMEN.




TULLIA D'ARAGONA.

(About 1510—about 1570.)

CHAPTER I.

MY LORD CARDINAL'S DAUGHTER.


One remarkable circumstance among those which specially characterised
the great intellectual movement in Italy in the sixteenth century, was
the large part taken in it by women. The writers of literary history,—a
class especially abundant to the south of the Alps,—enumerate a
surprisingly long catalogue of ladies more or less celebrated for their
works. The list of poetesses registered by Tiraboschi as flourishing
during the first half of the sixteenth century, consists of some forty
names. And he intimates, that it might have been made much longer,
had he thought it worth while to record every name mentioned by the
chroniclers of such matters, who preceded him. A great many more are
noticed as having been "learned" or "skilled in polite literature."

Such facts constitute a very noteworthy feature of the social aspect
of the period in question; and doubtless influenced largely the
tone of society and manners, as well as the position and well–being
of the sex. But it is very questionable, whether certain theories
respecting the comparative value of modern female education, to which
all this sixteenth century galaxy has given rise, be not founded on
misconception partly of the value of the learning possessed by these
ladies, and more still of the circumstances and appearance, under which
it presented itself to them.

Intellectual culture in that day meant especially, almost exclusively,
what has been since more technically called "learning." The movement,
which was then once again stirring up the mind of the educated classes
arose mainly, as every body knows, from the discovery and resuscitation
of the literature of ancient Greece and Rome. To be, if not a good
Grecian, at least a competent Latin scholar, was the first step
absolutely necessary in the liberal education of either male or female.
Nay, it constituted very frequently not only the first step, but the
entire course. In Italy this was in an especial degree the case. Not
only the fashion of literature, but the general tone of the educated
mind became classical,—and pagan. And the rapidity with which the new
modes of thought and fashion of taste spread, and,—speaking of course
with reference only to the educated classes,—popularised themselves, is
very striking. But they did so, because they were eminently suited to
the proclivity of the minds to which they were presented.

[Sidenote: THE NEW LEARNING.]

For this new learning came to them as an emancipation and a licence.
Such learning as had been before in existence was dry, severe,
repulsive, associated only with ideas of discipline, sacrifice, and
renunciation of the world and its pleasures—the proper business of
ascetic priests and hermits. The new studies were the reverse of
all this. Elegant, facile, materialistic in all their tendencies
and associations, adapting themselves readily to the amusements and
passions of the young and gay, they must be compared, if we would
parallel them with aught of modern culture, with the lighter of
those accomplishments, which are now called ornamental. The total
unchristianising of Italian society, which the rage for classical
literature very rapidly produced, was such as strikingly to justify the
modern[1] crusade against classical culture preached by those who are
anxious to preserve such Christianity as that, which then went down
before the irruption of literary paganism. The exquisitely organised
æsthetic faculties of the southern mind eagerly imbibed and readily
assimilated the habits of thought, generated by a religion, whose only
real object of worship was material beauty. The extremely relaxed
morality of the time was subjected to a refining influence, but by no
means checked by a literature rich in poetical drapery for every form
of vice. And the lightest, gayest, freest portion of society, beginning
now to be awakened to a relish for the elegances of life by increasing
wealth and luxury, found exactly what suited them in the revived
literature of the forefathers of their race; a literature which was the
product of generations uninfluenced by the wholly irreconcilable ideas
of a philosophy and religion imposed on their descendants with very
partial success by men of differently constituted races from the east
and from the north.

Englishmen are wont to estimate the study of the literature of Greece
and Rome in a manner very much at variance with the ideas expressed
in the above sentences; and judging it, as of course we do, from its
results among ourselves, most justly so. It would take us much too far
afield to examine satisfactorily why these results should have been so
different in the two cases. The most important portion of the causes of
difference would probably be found to consist in the dissimilarity of
our northern idiosyncrasies to those of the ancient writers. In Italy,
the old tree bore its own natural fruit. With us, it was engrafted on
another stock. The southern mind became all classical. The northern
mind was modified only by contact with the ancient literature. Perhaps
also, some weight may be allowed to the greater difficulty of the study
in our case; whence it has arisen, that the thorough and analytical
study of the dead languages, has been deemed eminently profitable as
intellectual discipline, and as the best foundation of general mental
culture.

And these views of classic learning lead us to attribute almost
instinctively, as it were, a high degree of solidity, grave scholastic
laboriousness, and respectability to the acquirements of those who
possess it. A lady well read in Greek and Latin, appears to us to
have necessarily reached an intellectual elevation which places her
above the shallowness, superficiality, and frivolousness with which
modern female education is ordinarily reproached. And we sigh over the
supposed inferiority in this respect, of England in the nineteenth
century, to the brilliant Italy of the sixteenth. It is true, that in
the case of Vittoria Colonna, we have seen a product of the classical
training of that day, which—_mutatis mutandis_—we might be content to
reproduce. But the instance is wholly exceptional; and the qualities,
moreover, which we admire in Vittoria are to be traced, probably, as
far as they are independent on constitutional idiosyncrasy, to those
associations with some very remarkable men, which taught her to use her
ancient learning as a tool, and not a final object.

[Sidenote