Fabiani had hardly reached Modena when he was seized with fever—the terrible perniciosa of the Italian summer and autumn—and was carried off after an illness of a few days, at the early age of twenty-four. As soon as the melancholy news reached Bologna, Mezzofanti wrote once more to his friend Cavedoni.
Bologna, November 12, 1829.
“Death has snatched Don Ubaldo from us! Alas, how much have we lost in him!—how miserably have we seen all the hopes which we placed in him, cut off in a single moment! What might we not have expected from a young ecclesiastic, so entirely devoted to piety and to letters!
As for himself, his only aspirations were for heaven. His studies had no other end or aim, save God: and God has been pleased to take him to Himself, crowning with an early reward a virtue which, even in the first flower of years, had attained to its full maturity. Ah, let us hope that our dear Don Ubaldo, now close to the Divine Fountain, is there admitted to the hidden source of the divine oracles, to the study of which he addressed himself here with such indefatigable application. Now he will recall to memory, the affectionate care bestowed upon him here by his parents, by his dear Don Celestino, and even by his last master—last in merit as well as in time—and will feel the force of the words which I often repeated to him, never with more tenderness than at our last parting—‘Ah, Don Ubaldo, give thyself entirely to the Lord!’ He feels now, I confidently trust, what a thing it is to ‘belong entirely to the Lord.’
Ah, my dear Don Celestino, I should not be acting worthily, if, on such an event, I gave room for a single moment to earthly thoughts. Our friend has flown to heaven:—let our hearts also turn thither, where we hope to meet him in everlasting joy. Assist me by your prayers to attain this end. When you see our deceased friend’s parents, comfort them with the true and blessed consolations which our holy religion bestows; and let us when, in the Adorable Sacrifice, we offer prayers for those who are in tribulation, never fail to pray for each other, and continually strive to disentangle ourselves more and more from the vanity of the world.”
The premature death of this excellent young clergyman was felt at Modena as a real calamity. His friend, the abate Cavedoni, published these simple but touching letters of Mezzofanti in the Memorie[430] of Modena, as the best testimony which could be offered to the rare merit of the deceased; but, although already known in Italy, they are well worthy of being preserved, not merely as a tribute to the memory of the youth whose death they record, but as representing most truthfully the piety, the sensibility, the fervour, and above all, the amiable and affectionate disposition, of the writer himself.
Soon after the date of these letters was founded at Bologna a literary Academy, which has some interest in connexion with the history of Mezzofanti. Like many of the older learned societies of Italy,[431] it took to itself a somewhat fanciful designation, although one which falls far short in oddity of those of many among its predecessors;—as the Oziosi, or the Inquieti, of Bologna, the Insensati of Perugia, the Assorditi of Urbino, or (strangest of all), the Umidi[432] of Florence, who carried the fancy so far as to designate themselves by the names of fish and water-fowls. Mezzofanti and his fellow Academicians contented themselves with the less startling, though somewhat affected, title of Filopieri, “Lovers of the Muses.” Their Society received the formal approval of the Congregation of Studies, in the beginning of 1830, and commenced to hold its meetings in the same year. But, in connexion with the life of Mezzofanti, it is chiefly memorable for a curious volume of verses, addressed to him by the members, on the occasion of his elevation to the Cardinalate.[433]