The life of Cardinal Mezzofanti / With an introductory memoir of eminent linguists, ancient and modern

by Charles William Russell

From the very moment of his arrival there, his gift of language was daily, and almost hourly, exposed to an ordeal at once more varied and more severe than it would have encountered in any other city in the world. Without taking into account the many eminent linguists, native and foreign, for whom Rome has ever been celebrated; without reckoning the varying periodical influx of sight-seers, from every country in Europe, who are attracted to that city by the unrivalled splendour of her sacred ceremonial, and the more constant, though less noisy, stream of pilgrims from the remotest lands, who are drawn by duty, by devotion, or by ecclesiastical affairs, to the great centre of Catholic unity;—the permanent population of the Eternal City will be found to comprise a variety of races and tongues, such as would be sought in vain in any other region of the earth. From a very early period, the pious liberality, sometimes of the popes, sometimes of the natives of the various countries themselves, began to found colleges for the education, under the very shadow of the chair of Peter, of at least a select few among the clergy of each people; and, notwithstanding the confiscations of later times, there are few among the more prominent nationalities which do not even still possess in Rome, either a special national establishment, or, at least, a special foundation for national purposes in some of the many general establishments of the city. In like manner, most of the great religious orders, both of the East and of the West, possess separate houses for each of the countries in which they are established; and few, even of the most superficial visitors of Rome, can have failed to observe, among the animated groups which throng the Pincian Hill or the Strada Pia, at the approach of the Ave Maria, the striking variety of picturesque costumes by which these national orders are distinguished. Each, again, of the several rites in communion with the Holy See—the Greek, the Syrian, the Coptic, the Armenian—has, for the most part, an archbishop or bishop resident at Rome, to afford information or counsel on affairs connected with its national usages, and to take a part in all the solemn ceremonials, as a living witness of the universality of the Church.

But before all, and more than all, is the great Urban College—the college of the Propaganda—which unites in itself all the nationalities already described, together with many others of which no type is found elsewhere in Europe. Every variety of language and dialect throughout the wide range of western Christendom;—every eastern form of speech

From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon;

many of the half explored languages of the northern and southern continents of America; and more than one of the rude jargons of north and north-eastern Africa, may be found habitually domiciled within its walls. In the year 1837, when Dr. Wap, a Dutch traveller, who has written well and learnedly on Rome, visited the establishment, the hundred and fourteen students who appeared upon its register, comprised no less than forty-one distinct nationalities.[440]

Amid the vast variety of speech with which he was thus brought habitually into contact, Mezzofanti, even if he had desired to “economize” his reputed gifts, could not possibly have done so without provoking a suspicion of their questionableness, or at least of their superficial character. Nor, on the other hand, would he have ventured to expose the undeniable reputation which he had already established, although upon a provincial theatre, to the ordeal which awaited him in the great centre of languages, living or dead, had he not been supported by the consciousness of the reality of his attainments, as well as attracted by the very prospect of increased facilities for pursuing and extending the researches which had been the business and the enjoyment of his life. At all events, we shall see that from the first moment of his establishment in Rome, so far from having “economized” his extraordinary faculty of language, he was most assiduous, and in truth prodigal, in its exercise.

Immediately on his arrival he was appointed canon of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. This, however, was but an earnest of the intentions of the Pope, who, from the first, destined him for the highest honours of the Roman Church. It is clear, nevertheless, from his correspondence, that his affections still clung to his beloved Bologna. On occasion of his first new year in his new residence, he received many letters from his old friends, conveying to him the ordinary new year’s greetings. From his reply to one of these letters which was addressed to him by a friend, Signor Michele Ferrucci, professor of Eloquence in the university, we may gather how warm and cordial were the attachments which he had left behind.

Rome, January 4, 1852.

“The new-year greetings which, for so many years, I used to receive from you in person, were always most grateful to me, because I knew them to be the genuine expression of your affection for me. In like manner the kind wishes conveyed in your letter are no less acceptable, since they show me that separation has not diminished your regard. I shall always retain a lively sense of it; and wherever I may be, it shall be my endeavour to give proofs by my conduct that I am not insensible to it. Let one of these be the assurance of my most zealous exertions to secure for you the change of position which you are seeking, from the chair of eloquence to that of assistant professor of archæology. I think it advisable that means should be taken to make known here the wishes of the professor himself, the Canonico Schiassi; and it is indispensable that the measure should not only originate with his eminence the arch-chancellor, but should have his most earnest support. So far as I am concerned, I shall leave nothing undone that may tend to further your wishes.

I was deeply affected in reading your wife’s sonnets on the death of her sister and her father. May God grant that, this great affliction past, a heart so full of tenderness as hers, may meet nothing in life but joy and consolation in the continued prosperity of her dear family! Present my respects to her, and make my compliments to my old associates in the library. I never for a single day forget that happy spot, and I seldom cease to speak of it.