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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: COUNCIL OF TRENT.]

The subject of these pages is a less exceptional product of Italian
sixteenth century classical studies; but by no means a less curious and
suggestive exponent of one phase of the social life and manners of that
epoch.

Among the grave and reverend seniors industriously busy at Trent, in
the year 1552, at their great work of constructing a dam to stop the
course of a perennial river, may be observed one Peter Tagliavia,
Archbishop of Palermo, a silver–haired and right reverend old man, very
prudent, wise, and sagacious, we are told, in the management of affairs
of all[2] sorts. There he is sagaciously dragging forward his bit of
stick to contribute to the formation of the great dam, undismayed by
the swift running of the stream the while. He is much puzzled by the
consideration of the manner and style in which it will be proper for
the assembled Fathers of the Church to communicate with heretics.
For it is quite clear, on the one hand, that _being_ heretics and
excommunicate, and damned already accordingly, all propriety and Church
etiquette would require that they should be treated and addressed as
such. But, on the other hand, there is reason to believe that their
arrogance will reach the height of expecting to be treated like
Christians, and that failing such treatment, no reply will be got from
them at all, and so all proceedings be stopped _in limine_.[3] Very
perplexing!

The sagacious Archbishop insisted much on this point, dragging up his
bit of drift wood to the dam with pertinacious industry. He was made a
cardinal in the following year for this and other merits; partly also,
because he had royal blood in his veins,—writing himself "Tagliavia
d'Aragona." He died five years later, in 1558, still busy in damming
that terrible river, which was already changing the face of things
around him. Even Rome itself was very unlike what he had remembered it
in the good old times, some fifty years ago or thereabouts. Ah! Rome
was worth living in and living for in those days! Happy days! when, as
His Eminence of Bibbiena used to say, we wanted nothing but a court
with ladies. Court, with ladies, quotha!

And with that our Archbishop's musings on the brave old days, when the
second Julius was Pope, and no heretical turbulence had yet disturbed
the sacerdotal empyrean, could hardly fail to recall a tolerably
brilliant galaxy of such ladies, as were especially attracted from all
parts of Italy, to a court whose numerous and wealthy courtiers were
all professionally and permanently bachelors.

"Poor Giulia!" sighed the Archbishop, "sometimes I wonder what became
of her?"

We will not ask for a reference to the accurate historian, who
overheard, and has chronicled these words. Roccho Pirro, in his learned
and voluminous history of the Sicilian prelates, it is true, omits
to mention them. Yet, I think, that if his Eminence, Pietro Tagliavia
d'Aragona, had been satisfactorily Boswellised, they must have been
recorded. For "poor Giulia" had been the mother[4] of the rising young
churchman's daughter some fifty years or so before the time at which we
find his Eminence working in his vocation at the great dam. And this
daughter was the celebrated Tullia (more or less) d'Aragona.

[Sidenote: GIULIA OF FERRARA.]

What _did_ become of poor Giulia? Giulia of Ferrara, the most
celebrated beauty of her day, in all Italy: the noted toast of
Rome,—the be–rhymed of ecclesiastical sonnetteers—the sighed–for
by purple–stockinged swains: Giulia, the Aspasia of many a frocked
Pericles, and the mother of a royal–blooded churchman's child! How
should respectable Mnemosyne know what becomes of such? Mnemosyne
mentions, with a blush, having just seen her once in the pride of her
beauty, flashing with cortège of horses and attendants, and glitter
through the streets of Rome.[5] And that is all. Mnemosyne begs to
be asked nothing more about her; and proceeds to relate with much
complacency the fortunes and preferments of the excellent Cardinal
Archbishop, the rules that he made for his clergy, and the privileges
and property he acquired for his Church.

Yet despite all this propriety on the part of respectable Mnemosyne,
despite her decent reticences, and official records of Palermo
chapterhouse doings, and Trent diplomacy, despite learned Roccho
Pirro's folios and immortality in the columns of Ciacconius,[6] the
fact is, that if the name of Archbishop Peter Tagliavia d'Aragona
is ever now spoken by the lips of living nineteenth–century men, it
is owing, incredible as the circumstance would have seemed to his
Eminence, solely to his relationship to little _nullius filia_ Tullia.
Not that the blood–royal young churchman, candidate as he was there at
Rome, under the immediate eye of infallibility for the Church's highest
honours—scarlet stockings, palliums, red hats, and what not—seems to
have felt any scruples and embarrassment about the matter. At all
events he provided abundantly for his "furtively received daughter,"
as Zilioli phrases it; and took care that she should receive an
education, calculated to make the most of the brilliant talents of all
sorts, manifested by her from her earliest childhood. "To the utter
astonishment of learned men," says Zilioli, "she was heard to carry on
a disputation in Latin while yet a child. She wrote also both in Latin
and in Italian compositions worthy of any literary man. So that, when
grown up, joining as she did, to her knowledge and worth, an exquisite
elegance of manner, she acquired the reputation of being the most
perfectly accomplished woman of her time. She appeared in public with
so much grace, with such beauty, and such affability of manner, that
when to all that was added the magnificence and adornment of dress,
calculated to set off all the charms of her person[7] to the utmost,
it is impossible to imagine anything more charming and exquisitely
finished than she was. Her musical touch was so exquisite, and she
managed her voice in singing so sweetly, that the first professors
were astonished at her performance. She spoke with grace and with rare
eloquence, so that whether in light conversation or serious discussion,
she delighted and captivated her hearers, like a second Cleopatra;
and at the same time, her lovely and ever cheerful features were not
wanting in those more potent charms, which admirers of female beauty
are wont to look for in a beautiful face."

[Sidenote: HER ACCOMPLISHMENTS.]

So richly had nature endowed, and so successfully had art cultivated
the child of the rising churchman! Father and daughter were both,
during those early years of the sixteenth century, perfecting
themselves for their subsequent destinies in the strangely jumbled
social world of that wonderful old Rome; he duly progressing towards
scarlet stockings and hats; and she to the somewhat similarly 
promotion, in the enjoyment of which, painfully blushing Mnemosyne next
authentically falls in with her.




CHAPTER II.

ASPASIA REDIVIVA.


It is fancied, with small reason probably, that to grow old is
necessarily more disagreeable to women than to men. And dates are
therefore popularly held to be especially detestable facts to the fair
sex. If this be so, the world in this matter, as in most others, showed
itself excessively complaisant to our fascinating sixteenth century,
Aspasia. For her contemporaries have been most strangely silent on
the subject as regards her. The year of her birth, and more strangely
still, that of her death, are alike unknown and undiscoverable. Must
we therefore conclude, that the departure of the superannuated beauty,
was as little interesting to the world as the arrival of the "furtively
received" infant?

The literary historians content themselves with vaguely stating, that
Tullia "flourished" in 1550.[8] It is true, that a difference of
opinion may be supposed to exist as to the portion of her career best
deserving to be so characterised. But it is to be feared, that poor
Tullia herself must have considered her "flourishing" to be over and
gone for ever, by the time she reached that period. For in the total
silence and negligence of every regular clerk in Mnemosyne's office,
some not–to–be–baffled, Dryasdust, whom our brilliant Tullia would
doubtless have hated with instinctive aversion, has succeeded in poking
out a certain letter that blabs much. Ah! those old letters in dusty
yellow bundles, with the unimpeachable evidences of their signatures,
addresses, and dates, hoarded by some correspondent's preserving
instincts, in many cases little counted on by the writer, how much of
all we know about our predecessors on earth's surface is due to their
unforeseen tale–telling!

[Sidenote: FILIPPO STROZZI.]

In the year 1531, Rome was settling down into her usual way of life,
after the dreadful catastrophes of 1527. Pope Clement the Seventh had
got over the most perilous and immediate of his troubles, but was,
as Popes are wont to be, very much in need of assistance from his
banker. Now, this necessary and important person was no other than
the celebrated Filippo Strozzi, who was then in Rome, busied in the
political as well as the monetary affairs of the papacy. But Strozzi
was one of those marvellous men, whose abounding vital energies
enable them to unite in their own persons, characters, pursuits, and
occupations, which might seem to belong to half a dozen most dissimilar
individuals. His political speculations and intrigues did not interfere
with his much–loved literary pursuits. His free–thinking philosophy did
not prevent his close intimacy with the Pope. And his vast commercial
and banking operations were somehow made compatible with the career of
a very notorious man of pleasure.

How nearly two of the manifestations of this multiform character
would occasionally chance to jostle each other, is indicated by
the conclusion of a long and important letter[9] on matters of high
political moment to Francesco Vettori. "Write to me in reply," he
says, "and be sure, that your letter shall be seen by no one but His
Holiness, as I desire may be the case with this of mine, written in
much haste, and with Tullia at my side." Dated, Rome, 28th January,
1531.

Was the bewitching Tullia close enough to his side to look over his
shoulder, as the plotting politician wrote matters to be shown only
to the Pope? Did she interest herself in schemes for the keeping
a Florentine oligarchy in check? Or did she sit patiently at the
writer's elbow, while he penned a letter of sixty–four lines of small
print, waiting till he was at leisure to bestow some attention on his
companion? In either case the degree of intimacy indicated is much
closer than an ordinary one. Yet the next letter,[10] written little
more than a month later to the same correspondent, seems in its sadly
Don–Juan–like tone, to afford very clear evidence that the writer,
if not already tired of his gifted Sappho, certainly considered his
_liaison_ with her in the nature of a "terminable contract."

After a few lines on political matters, this Don Juan of a middle–aged
banker[11] writes as follows:

"As for my own private affairs, I should be sorry, that you should
have believed certain silly stories of challenges and quarrels, about
matters which in truth passed amicably among friends here. For though
I do not pretend to take rank among your very prudent people, still
I don't want to be set down as a perfect fool, as truly I should
deserve to be, had I got into any such scrape for Tullia, or any other
woman. She is not, as you say, beautiful; but she is, if I am not
mistaken, highly gifted with talent and wit; and on that account, as
it is impossible to me to live without the society of women, I have
preferred hers to that of others.[12] And I have assisted her in some
of her necessities, to prevent her from going to the wall by unjust
oppression, during the period of my connection with her, which would
have been painful and discreditable to me."

[Sidenote: DATE OF HER BIRTH.]

The date of this letter is March the 2nd, 1531.

And as this date, with that of the preceding letter, are among the very
few of any kind discoverable with reference to Tullia's biography,
we must make the most of them. It is to be presumed, then, from the
above passages, that she must have been at least twenty, and probably
older, in 1531. But as her father died in 1558, and appears to have
been engaged in active business up to the time of his death, and as no
intimation is found of his age, as would probably have been the case,
if he had lived to be remarkably old, we can hardly be very far wrong,
in supposing him to have been about seventy at the time of his death,
and accordingly two–and–twenty in 1510. It would seem, therefore, that
Tullia could not have been born much before, and certainly not much
after that date.

In one respect, however, poor Tullia was assuredly wronged by the
wealthy and libertine Florence banker. He says that she was not
beautiful. Now, the testimony of a dozen enamoured poets might be
adduced in favour of her rare and fascinating beauty. And if it should
be thought that evidence of this kind, however abundant and concurrent,
needs confirmation, it has been supplied by the sister art. There is
an admirable portrait of her by Bonvicini, a contemporary of Raphael,
more generally known as Il Moretto da Brescia, which was engraved
very tolerably at Milan, in 1823, by Caterina Piotti. It represents a
very lovely face of the genuine regal type of Roman beauty. The brow
is noble; and the magnificently cut, but rather large and statuesque
features might perhaps seem somewhat hard in the firmness of their rich
contour, were not the expression softened by an eye eloquent of all the
tenderer emotions. Laurel branches fill the whole background of the
picture, in token of the lady's rank as a poetess.

How long after the date of the above–mentioned letters Tullia continued
her residence in Rome, there remain no means of ascertaining. Zilioli
says that she left it "after the death of her husband." And this one
phrase is the only intimation of any sort we meet with, that such
a person as Tullia's husband ever existed. It is true that such an
appendage is not of a nature likely to be dwelt much on in love verses
addressed to a lady. And to this category belong the greatest number of
the notices of her, which have come down to us. Yet it seems strange
that a wife should be celebrated from one end of Italy to the other,
and recorded, or at least mentioned, in the pages of every literary
historian of her country, and that she should have a husband whose name
even was never, as it should seem, alluded to by his cotemporaries,
and who has not left the slightest trace of his existence. It must
be supposed that, if ever spoken of at all, he was only known as "La
Tullia's" husband, a member of society discharging functions somewhat
analogous to those of a Ballerina's mama. It is, at all events, certain
that the lady was never known either among her contemporaries, or
subsequently, by any other name than that of Tullia d'Aragona, and
more commonly simply "La Tullia." And the strangeness of the view
of sixteenth century society offered to us by an examination of the
position "La Tullia" occupied in it, is not a little increased by the
fact of her having had a sort of behind–the–scenes husband, who appears
to have exercised about as much influence on her social standing as her
waiting–maid.

[Sidenote: HER HUSBAND.]

There is reason to suppose that her residence in Rome must have
continued till 1540 or 1541. For among the "Strozziane"[13] MSS.
preserved in the Magliabecchian library at Florence, there is a volume
containing the rules, members' names, transactions, &c. of the Academy
of the "Humidi," in which are entered three or four sonnets sent from
Rome to the Society by Tullia. They are not dated; but the Academy was
founded in 1540, and the volume bears at the end the date of 1541.
Nothing can be conceived more insipid and dry, than the lucubrations
of these "Humid" Academicians; and in truth the effusions despatched
to them by Tullia, and honoured by the Academy with insertion in
their solemn Archives, are quite worthy of their place in the Humid
annals. One is a sonnet in praise of Cosmo I. It begins "Almo pastor,"
and attributes to that lowminded debauchee and cruel tyrant all the
virtues that can possibly be packed into fourteen lines.

And this was written a couple of years after Filippo Strozzi (the
very particular friend and protector, by whose side it was a pleasure
to sit, while he wrote long business letters in 1531) put himself to
death in despair, in preference to remaining in the power of Cosmo, his
mortal and vindictive enemy. One might suspect that the fair Tullia
had had an opportunity of looking over his shoulder also when he was
writing that second letter, in which he had dared to say that she was
not beautiful!

Another of the sonnets sent by Tullia, and preserved by the "Humidi,"
is inscribed to Maria Salviati, and begins—

  "Soul pure and bright, as when thou cam'st from God!"

Whence it may be inferred that there was in those days no such yawning
abyss between the "monde" and "demi–monde," as to prevent a lady highly
placed in the former from being addressed acceptably by one who,
according to nineteenth century notions, must be deemed a denizen of
the latter.

It must be understood, however, that any such phrase applied to
Tullia's social position in her own sixteenth century, would give a
very erroneous idea of what that in reality was. The classic Hetaira
seems more akin to this Apollo–chartered libertine of an age bent on
being equally classical.

Accordingly we find that the house of La Tullia—_her_ house! no mention
or hint of that Junius–like individual (Il Tullio, shall we call him?),
who must nevertheless be supposed to have been at home there under
hatches somewhere, or acting perhaps as groom–porter, and shouting the
names and titles of the Monsignori and Eminences, as they arrived;—the
house of La Tullia was frequented by the "best society" in Rome.
Ludovico Domenichi of Piacenza, himself a poet and a curious specimen
of a sixteenth century professional literary man,