Gerolamo Ruscelli da Viterbo, a literary man of high repute among his contemporaries, tells us that the greater part of the Genoese gentlewomen cultivated belles-lettres; and in an epistle which he published in 1552, he enumerates among the most rare women of Italy twenty-three of Genoa and six of Savona. He mentions among the first of Genoese ladies, Pellegrina, Lercari, “a virgin not less virtuous than beautiful,” and Nicoletta Centurione-Grimaldi, on whom he lavishes every sort of praise. Among those of Savona he speaks of Leonora Falletti, countess of Melazzo, as one whose happy compositions had stimulated the ambition of many learned men. Among the poetesses of Liguria, are also to be numbered Benedetta Spinola, daughter of Alfonso marquis of Garessio, and wife of Giovanni Battista, prince of the blood of Savoy and lord of Racconigi; Claudia della Rovere, countess of Vinovo in Piedmont; and Caterina Gastodenghi, who enjoyed the praises of Dolce, Parabasco, and many others.
The gentle consort of Count Fieschi held the central place in this circle of cultivated gentlewomen; but unfortunately the rhymes of Eleonora, which gave her so much credit with her contemporaries, are no longer in existence. The few specimens of her talent which remain to us give ample proof of her genius. They were published in Turin in 1573, with the verses of Faustino Tasso, a Venitian, and of three other poetesses, of whom one belonged to her husband’s house, that is, Ortensia Lomellina de’ Fieschi. The others were Nicoletta Celsa and Laura Gabrielli degli Alciati, Eleonora was not inferior to her aunt Caterina, duchess of Camerino, who knew Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and who found comfort when Paul III. deprived her husband of his possessions, in the friendship of wise men and in philosophical studies.
But the genial studies, the love and charms of his wife, did not enervate the manly spirit of the count. At every step his mother’s voice reproached him for attempting no daring enterprises. From the towers of his palace he saw Genoa lying at his feet and seeming to call him to deliver her. He looked out upon the sea and saw it whitened with the sails of Gianettino, his rival and the expected despot of his native land. A sense of magnanimous indignation warmed his bosom. The son of Sinibaldo, the heir of such an illustrious house, could not endure the sight of his country sitting under the shadow of a foreign power, if not enslaved, certainly not free.
[CHAPTER V.]
THE PLOTS OF FIESCHI.
The political ideas of the sixteenth century—The advice of Donato Gianotto to the Italians—Generous aims of Gianluigi Fieschi—His reported plots with Cesare Fregoso disproved—The conspiracy with Pietro Strozzi a fable—Fieschi has secret conferences with Barnaba Adorno, lord of Silvano—Pier Luca Fieschi and his part in the conspiracy of Gianluigi—The Count sends Cagnino Gonzaga to treat with France—The purchase of the Farnesian galleys—Francesco Burlamacchi.
According to our belief, a single idea directed the movements of the Peninsula in the first part of the sixteenth century—the thought common to all the people of emancipating the country from that foreign power which was corrupting the national character, literature, and art. Classic and courtly history has found in these stormy years only local and isolated conspiracies; few writers, we might almost say none, have heard, in these risings of peoples crushed under the ambitions of the great, the mighty groan of a dying nation not yet resigned to her terrible fate.
The national Guelph tradition refused to yield place to the new imperial system which was slowly destroying the old charters of the communes. There were generous throbs which showed that the old body politic, though sore wounded, still contained the breath of life; every city of Italy on the verge of the grave rose up with the last strength of an expiring man, protested with blood, and died.