Woman in the golden ages

by Amelia Gere Mason

One is constantly surprised by the extraordinary precocity of the young girls. Cecilia, the daughter of an early Marquis of Mantua, was trained with her brothers by the most famous master in Italy, and wrote Greek with singular purity at ten. She refused a brilliant but distasteful marriage, and devoted her life to literature. The little Battista, whose talents descended to her illustrious granddaughter, Vittoria Colonna, was chosen, at an age when girls are usually playing with dolls or learning their letters, to greet Pius II in a Latin address. Anna d’Este, who became the wife of the Duke of Guise, and in later life was so prominent a patroness of letters in France, translated Italian into Latin with ease at ten, and was otherwise a prodigy. One might imagine these children to have been insufferable little prigs, but such does not seem to have been the case. So far as we can learn, they did not lose their simplicity, and grew up to be capable, many-sided, and charming women, quite free from pedantry or affectation of any sort. Without attaching too much importance to these childish efforts, which were by no means uncommon, they are of value mainly in showing the care given to the serious education of girls.

It is certain that the place held by educated women was a new and exceptional one. They filled chairs of philosophy and law, discoursed in Latin before bishops and cardinals, spoke half a dozen or more languages, understood the mysteries of statecraft better than any of us do to-day, and were consulted on public affairs by the greatest sovereigns of their age. Nor do we hear that they were unsexed or out of their sphere. On the contrary, men recognized their talents and gave them cordial appreciation. While the shafts of satire fell thick and fast upon the follies peculiar to ignorance and weakness, they were rarely aimed at those who, even to-day, would be more or less stigmatized as strong-minded. Possibly a clue to this may be found in the fact that in training the intellect they did not lose their distinctive virtues and graces; they simply added the cult of knowledge, which heightened all other charms. We find constant reference to their attractions of person and character, as well as of mind. Novella d’Andrea took her father’s place in his absence and lectured on jurisprudence at the University of Bologna; but, either from modesty or from the fear of distracting the too susceptible students, she hid her lovely face behind a curtain. At a later time Elena Cornaro—who was not only versed in mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, theology, and six languages, but sang her own verses, gave Latin eulogies, and lectured on various sciences—was crowned doctor of philosophy at Padua. She took her honors modestly, and is said to have been as pious as she was learned.

In these days of specialties one looks with distrust on so formidable an array of accomplishments. We are apt to think of such women as either hopelessly superficial, or pedants without any fine human quality. A few salient points from the life of one of the most distinguished may serve to correct this impression.

IV

Olympia Morata deserves, for her own sake, more than a passing mention. She was by no means a simple receptacle of heterogeneous knowledge, but a woman as noted for feminine virtues and strength of character as for the brilliancy of her intellect. Her father was a distinguished professor in the University of Ferrara, and his gifted daughter was fed from infancy on the classics. At six she was taught by a learned canon who advised her parents to put a pen in her hand instead of a needle. At twelve she was well versed in Greek, Latin, and the sciences of the day, petted and flattered by scholars old and young, compared to the Muses and to all the feminine stars of antiquity, and in the way of being altogether spoiled. In the midst of this chorus of praise she donned the habit of a professor at sixteen, wrote dialogues in the language of Vergil and Plato, a Greek essay on the Stoics, and many poems. She also lectured without notes at the academy, before the court and the university dons, on such themes as the paradoxes of Cicero, speaking in Latin, and improvising at pleasure with perfect ease. The great Roman orator was her model of style, and in a preface to one of her lectures she says: “I come to my task as an unskilled artist who can make nothing of a coarse-grained marble. But if you offer a block of Parian to his chisel, he will no longer deem his work useless. The beauty of the material will give value to his production. Perhaps it will be so with mine. There are some tunes so full of melody that they retain their sweetness even when played upon a poor instrument. Such are the words of my author. In passing through my lips they will lose nothing of their grace and majesty.”

This brilliant and classical maiden passed eight or ten years of her youth at the court of Ferrara in intimate companionship with Anna d’Este and her mother, the “wise, witty, and virtuous” Duchess Renée. These were the days when the latter had Bernardo Tasso, a fashionable poet who was eclipsed by his greater son, for her private secretary, and delighted to fill her apartments with men of learning. The little Anna, too, a child of ten, had been brought up on the classics, and the two girls, who studied Greek together, liked to talk of Plato, Apollo, and the Muses much better than to gossip about dress and society, or the gallants of the court. Even their diversions had a pagan flavor. When Paul III came on a visit, the royal children played a comedy of Terence to entertain his eighteen cardinals and forty bishops, with all the magnates and great ladies that usually grace such festivities. It is quite probable that the clever Olympia had much to do in directing it.

The literary academy of the duchess had a singular fascination for the gifted young girl, who was one of its brightest ornaments. “Her enthusiasm over antiquity became an idolatry, and badly prepared her intellect for the doctrines of grace,” wrote one of her friends. “She loved better the wisdom of Homer and Plato than the foolishness of St. Paul.” She says of herself that she was full of the vanities of her sex, though it is difficult to conceive of this worshiper of poets and philosophers as very frivolous. That she had many attractions is certain, as she won all hearts. “Thy face is not only beautiful and thy grace charming,” said one of the great scholars of the time, “but thou hast been elevated to the court by thy virtues.... Happy the princess who has such a companion! Happy the parents of such a child, who pronounce thy beautiful name within their doors! Blessed the husband who shall win thy hand!”

But this sunny life could not go on forever. The “Tenth Muse” was called home to care for her father in his last illness, and proved as capable in the qualities of a nurse as in those of a muse. At his death the little family was left to her care. To make the prospect darker, her friend Anna d’Este had just married and gone off to her brilliant but not altogether smooth career in France, and the duchess gave her a chilling reception that boded no good; indeed, night had overtaken her, and she found herself cruelly dismissed in her hour of sorrow and trouble.

Other subjects had been discussed in this literary circle besides Greek poetry and Ariosto and the courtly Bembo and the rising stars of the day. Calvin had been there in disguise, and they had talked of free will, predestination, and like heresies, much to the discomfiture of the orthodox duke, whose interests did not lie in that direction. The young savante had listened to these things, and her eager mind had pondered on them. Perhaps, too, she was one of the group that discussed high and grave themes when Vittoria Colonna was there. At all events, the duchess had fallen into disgrace for her Protestant leanings, and could do no more for her favorite, who was branded with a suspicion of the same heresy. Indeed, she was herself confined for a time to one wing of the palace and forbidden to see her children lest she should contaminate them with her own liberal views. The only powerful friend left to the desolate girl in her adversity was Lavinia della Rovere of the ducal family of Urbino, who had shared her tastes, sympathized with her views in happier times, and now proved her loyalty in various ways that sustained her drooping heart. But there was another, equally helpful if not so powerful, a young German of good family, who had been a medical student in the university, and fallen in love with this paragon of learning and accomplishments. He was true when others fell away, and she gave him the devotion of her life. Both were under the same ban, and soon after their marriage fled to Germany, with the blessing of Lavinia and some valuable letters to her friends.

It was a strange series of misfortunes that pursued this brave couple. After drifting about in the vain search for a foothold in an unsympathetic world, where they could think their own thoughts and satisfy their modest wants, they found at last a home in which they set up their household goods and gathered their few treasures with their much-loved books. But when kings fall out other people suffer. No sooner were they settled than the small city was besieged, and for many months they went through all the horrors of war, famine, pestilence, and, in the end, fire, which destroyed their small possessions, and compelled them to flee for their lives through a hostile country, scantily clothed, unprotected, and penniless.