Italy, the Magic Land Part 13

It might have been in this pictured dream-region that Hercules came to rest.

"When Heracles, the twelve great labors done, To Calpe came, and there his journey stayed, He raised two pillars toward the evening sun, And carved them by a G.o.ddess' subtle aid.

Upon their shafts were sacred legends traced, And round the twain a serpent cincture placed: 'T was at this bound the primal world stood still, And of Atlantis dreamed, with baffled will."

But still in unmeasured s.p.a.ce, still beyond and afar and unattained, still lost in the unpenetrated realms of the poet's fancy,--

"Atlantis lies beyond the pillars yet!"

_"Here Ischia smiles O'er liquid miles."_

_High o'er the sea-surge and the sands, Like a great galleon wrecked and cast Ash.o.r.e by storms, thy Castle stands A mouldering landmark of the Past._

_Upon its terrace-walk, I see A phantom gliding to and fro; It is Colonna,--it is she Who lived and loved so long ago._

LONGFELLOW.

_We are the only two that, face to face, Do know each other, as G.o.d doth know us both.

--O fearless friends.h.i.+p, that held nothing back!

O absolute trust, that yielded every key, And flung each curtain up, and drew me on To enter the white temple of thy soul, So vast, so cold, so waste!--and give thee sense Of living warmth, of throbbing tenderness, Of soft dependencies! O faith that made Thee free to seek the spot where my dead hopes Have sepulture, and read above the crypt Deep graven, the tearful legend of my life!

There, gloomed with the memorials of my past, Thou once for all didst learn what man accepts Lothly--(how should he else?)--that never woman, Fas.h.i.+oned a woman,--heart, brain, body, soul,-- Ever twice loved._

"_Vittoria Colonna to Michael Angelo._"

MARGARET J. PRESTON.

IV

A PAGE DE CONTI FROM ISCHIA

"Unto my buried lord I give myself."

Michael Angelo!

A man that all men honor, and the model That all should follow; one who works and prays, For work is prayer, and consecrates his life To the sublime ideal of his art Till art and life are one.

LONGFELLOW, from "_Michael Angelo; A Fragment_."

In that poetic sail along the Italian coast between Naples and Genoa the voyager feels that it is

"On no earthly sea with transient roar"

that his bark is floating; that

"Unto no earthly airs he trims his sail,"

as he flits along this coast when violet waves dash against a brilliant background of sky. Ischia reveals herself through the blue, transparent air, gleaming with opalescent lights, quivering, fading and flaming again as the afterglow in the east rivals in its coloring the sunset splendors of the west. Is there in the air a faint, lingering echo of the _chant d'amour_ of sirens on the rocky sh.o.r.es? Is Parthenope still to be descried? Gazing upon Ischia there is a rush of romantic impressions as if one were transported into ideal regions of song, before this impression begins to resolve itself into definite remembrance of fact and incident. Surely some exquisite a.s.sociations in the past had enchanted this island in memory and invested it with the magic light that never was on sea or land. Traditions of beauty; of the lives of scholar and savant and princes of the church; of a court of n.o.bility enriched and adorned by prelate and by poet; traditions, too, of a woman's consecration to an immortal love and the solace of grief by poetic genius and exalted friends.h.i.+ps,--all these seem to cling about Ischia in a vague, atmospheric way till memory, still groping backward in the twilight of the richly historic past, suddenly crystallized into recognition that it was Ischia which was the home of Vittoria Colonna, the greatest woman poet of the Italian Renaissance. Lines, long since read, arose like an incantation; and like bars of music, each note of which vibrated in the air, came this fragment of one of her songs:--

"If in these rude and artless songs of mine I never take the file in hand, nor try With curious care and nice, fastidious eye To deck and polish each uncultured line, 'T is that it makes small merit of my name To merit praise....

But it must be that heaven's own gracious gift Which, with its breath, divine, inspires my soul, Strikes forth these sparks unbidden by my will."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ISCHIA, FROM THE SEA _Page 282_]

Vittoria Colonna was called the most beautiful and gifted woman of her time in all Italy. Her life of nearly sixty years (1490-1547) lay entirely in that period when the apathy of ten centuries was broken, when the darkness fled before the dawning of a glorious day. New methods of thought, revised taste in poetry, new discoveries of science, a n.o.bler progress in criticism, great discoveries, and a lofty and unprecedented freedom of conviction marked the century between 1450 and 1550, stamping it as the marvellous time which we know as the Renaissance, "that solemn fifteenth century which can hardly be studied too much, not merely for its positive results in the things of the intellect and the imagination, its concrete works of art, its special and prominent personalities, with their profound aesthetic charm, but for its general spirit and character, for the ethical qualities of which it is a consummate type."

It was peculiarly fitting that Italy should take the initiative in inaugurating this _vita nuova_. Italy had a language and literature and art. Dante had delivered his solemn message and Petrarca his impa.s.sioned song. Boccaccio had taught the gospel of gladness. Who shall a.n.a.lyze the secret springs of their inspiration and reveal to what degree Ovid and Horace and Virgil influenced the later literature? A new solar system was established by Copernicus. America was discovered. Science entered on her definite and ceaseless progress, and religion and art became significant forces in human life. Printing had been invented and the compa.s.s discovered.

Into this time of new forces, when everything was throbbing and pulsating with life, was Vittoria Colonna born into social prestige and splendor. Her father, Fabrizio Colonna, and her mother, Agnesina di Montefeltro, a daughter of the Duke of Urbino, were then domiciled in the castle of Marino, on the Lago d'Albano, a magnificent palace some twelve miles from Rome, in which the Duke d'Amalfi (the father of Fabrizio Colonna) lived, and which is still standing, filled with memorials and relics of historic interest. Urbino, the seat of the Montefeltro, is renowned as having been the birthplace of Raphael, who

"Only drank the precious wine of youth,"

but who

"... lives immortal in the hearts of men, ... and the world is fairer That he lived in it."

The Colonna date back to the eleventh century, and they gave many princes and cardinals to the country. At the close of the thirteenth century they were arrayed against Boniface VIII, the Pope, who accused them of crime, while they disputed the validity of his election to the holy office. In retaliation, the Pope excommunicated the entire family, anathematized them as heretics and declared their estates forfeited to the church. The Colonna, far from being intimidated, commanded three hundred armed hors.e.m.e.n, attacked the papal palace, which they plundered, and made him a prisoner,--an incident referred to by Dante in the "Inferno." The Colonna and the Orsini were also at warfare, and when a member of the former family was elevated to the papacy under the name of Martin V, they despoiled property of the Orsini.

Gay excursionists to-day, who fly over the Campagna in their twentieth-century touring cars to the lovely towns of the Alban hills, may look down from Castel Gandolfo on the gloomy, mediaeval little town of Marino, part way up a steep hillside, whose summit is crowned by the castle once belonging to the Colonna and in which Vittoria pa.s.sed her early childhood. "Nothing," in his "Roba di Roma," says Story, "can be more rich and varied than this magnificent amphitheatre of the Campagna of Rome, ... sometimes drear, mysterious, and melancholy in desolate stretches; sometimes rolling like an inland sea whose waves have suddenly become green with gra.s.s, golden with grain, and gracious with myriads of wild flowers, where scarlet poppies blaze and pink daisies cover vast meadows and vines shroud the picturesque ruins of antique villas, aqueducts, and tombs, or drop from mediaeval towers and fortresses."

Flying in the swift motor-car of the time toward the Alban hills, Marino may be easily reached in less than an hour from the Porta San Giovanni, and in the near distance Monte Albani, rising into the cone of Monte Cavi, is a picture before the eye, while on the lower slopes gleam the white villages of Albani, Marino, Castel Gandolfo, and Frascati, with the campanile of a cathedral, a fortress-like ruin, or gardens and olive orchards clambering up the heights. The Papal town of Rocca di Papa crowns one summit where once Tarquin's temple to Jupiter stood and on whose ruins now gleam afar in the Italian suns.h.i.+ne the white walls of the Pa.s.sionist convent of Monte Cavi, built by Cardinal York. From this height Juno gazed upon the great conflict of contending armies, if Virgil's topography be ent.i.tled to authority. And here, through a defile in the hills, one may look toward Naples, "and then rising abruptly with sheer limestone cliffs and creva.s.ses, where transparent purple shadows sleep all day long, towers the grand range of the Sabine mountains, whose lofty peaks surround the Campagna to the east and north like a curved amphitheatre.... Again, skirting the Pontine Marshes on the east, are the Volscian mountains, closing up the Campagna at Terracina, where they overhang the road and affront the sea with their great barrier. Following along the Sabine hills, you will see at intervals the towns of Palestrina and Tivoli, where the Anio tumbles in foam, and other little mountain towns nestled here and there among the soft airy hollows, or perched on the cliffs."

In this landscape there are three ruined villages--Colonna, Gallicano, and Zagarda--perched on their respective hills. The castle of the Colonna family is now restored and modernized to a degree that leaves little trace of that former stately grandeur which is trans.m.u.ted into modern convenience and comfort.

In this scene of romantic beauty, with the vista of beauty almost incomparable in any inland view in Italy, Vittoria pa.s.sed her infancy, until, at the age of four, her childhood was transplanted to fairy Ischia. In all this chain of Alban towns, including Marino, Viterbo, Ariccia, and Rocca di Papa, the great family of the Colonna owned extensive estates, each crowning some height, while the defiles between were filled, then as now, with the foam and blossom of riotous greenery.

Then, as now, across the mystic Campagna, the dome of St. Peter's silhouetted itself against a golden background of western sky.

One needs not to have had privileged access to the sibylline leaves of the c.u.maean soothsayer to recognize that Vittoria Colonna was born under the star of destiny. Her horoscope seemed to be inextricably entwined with that of Italy; and the events which created and determined the conditions of her life and its panoramic series of circ.u.mstances were the events of Italy and of Europe as well--in political aspects and in the influence on general progress, brought to bear by strong and prominent individualities whose gifts, genius, or force dominated the movements of the day.

To her father's change of political allegiance, from the French to the Spanish side, in the war raging between those countries in 1494, Vittoria owed all her life in Ischia; and her marriage, and all that resulted from her becoming a member of the d'Avalos family, was due to this espousal of a new political faith on the part of Fabrizio Colonna.

To the fact that in 1425 the war with France again broke out was due the loss of her husband and the conditions that consecrated her life to poetry, to learning, and that made possible the beautiful and sympathetic friends.h.i.+p between herself and Michael Angelo. Her life presents the most forcible ill.u.s.tration of the overruling power on human life and destiny.

It was the political change of faith on the part of Fabrizio Colonna that initiated an unforeseen and undreamed-of drama of life for his infant daughter, the first act of which included the command of the King of Naples that the little Vittoria should be betrothed to Francesco d'Avalos, the son of Alphonso, Marchese di Pescara, of Ischia, one of the n.o.bles who stood nearest to the king in those troubled days.

Francesco was born in the castle on Ischia in 1489, and was one year older than Vittoria. Fabrizio exchanged his castle at Marino for one in Naples, which city made him the Grand Constable. The d'Avalos castle in Ischia had at this time for its chatelaine the d.u.c.h.essa di Francavilla, who is said by some authorities to have been the elder sister and by others to have been the aunt of Francesco. Donna Constanza d'Avalos, later the d.u.c.h.essa di Francavilla, had been made the Castellana of the island for her courage in refusing to capitulate to the French troops when, after the death of her father, she was left in sole charge of the d'Avalos estates, and Emperor Charles V elevated her rank to that of Principessa. The d.u.c.h.essa was one of the most remarkable women of the day. She was a cla.s.sical scholar, and herself a writer, the author of a book ent.i.tled "_Degli Infortuni e Travagli del Mondo_." To the care of this learned and brilliant woman, a great lady in the social life of the time, the care of the little Vittoria was committed, and she studied and played and grew up with Francesco, her future husband. The d'Avalos family ranked among the highest n.o.bility of the Court of Naples, and the Principessa reigned as a queen of letters and society in her island kingdom. It was under her care that the two children, Francesco and Vittoria, pursued their studies together and acquired every grace of scholars.h.i.+p and accomplishment of society. The circles which the d.u.c.h.essa drew around her included many gentlewomen from Sicily and from Naples; and "the life at Castel d'Ischia was synonymous with everything glorious and elegant," recorded Visconti, "and its fame has been immortalized." Although Francesco (the future Marchese di Pescara) was born in Italian dominions, yet the d'Avalos family were of Spanish ancestry and traditions. The musical Castilian was the language of the household. The race ideals of Spain--the poetic, the impa.s.sioned, the joy in color and movement--pervaded the very atmosphere of Castel d'Ischia. Vittoria's earliest girlhood revealed her exceptional beauty and charm, and gave evidence that the G.o.ds loved her and had dowered her with their immortal gifts and genius, which flowered, under the sympathetic guidance and stimulus of such a woman as the Principessa (the d.u.c.h.essa di Francavilla) and the society she drew around her, as the orange and the myrtle flower under the southern suns.h.i.+ne.