Although Baldi appears to have entered the Church rather from temporal considerations than any spiritual vocation, no priest was ever more tenacious of rights and privileges; and it was his misfortune to find, in the exercise of his ecclesiastical functions, ever-recurring misunderstandings with his clergy or the civil authorities, and even with the superior tribunals at Rome. Through these we shall not follow him. As early as 1590, the Duke of Urbino interfered as a friendly counsellor to recommend him moderate measures; but new jars from time to time recurred, and in 1609 he carried into effect a step which he had proposed seventeen years before, by resigning his benefice, under reservation of two-fifths of its income. But these wranglings penetrated not within the portal of his study, where his active mind and adamantine pen laboured assiduously, through good report and bad, upon the most incongruous matters.
The Abbot renounced his preferment on the plea of family matters, requiring his presence in his native city, and, faithful to this domestic duty, declined an offer from Cardinal d'Este of a situation in his household. His own sovereign received him with that friendship he ever extended to men of piety and literary merit, and, in 1612, sent him on a mission to congratulate the New Doge of Venice.[*146] The remainder of his life passed in peace, amid the varied resources of an ever-busy mind, interrupted only by those occasional bereavements, whereby, as years wear on, death warns us that our turn will also come. Besides sad breaches in his domestic circle, Baldi had to mourn his long-attached friend Baroccio, the painter, who died in 1612. Prepared by such proofs of human frailty, he resigned his spirit on the 10th of October, after a lingering but lenient malady, and was carried to the tomb amid the sincere regrets of many friends and admirers.[*147] It was remarked that, in his long and minute will, he left no instructions regarding his multifarious unpublished works, most of which passed into the library of his relations, the Albani, where they remain at Rome. His epitaph reckons his compositions at forty-eight,[*148] and the languages he knew at twelve, which Crescimbeni increases to sixteen—substantial testimony to that avidity of application which is said to have been habitually appeased by perusing the Fathers whilst at table, and by conning over Euclid in Arabic, as an aid to digestion. To detail and criticise the results of labours as Protean as Herculean is a task which we cannot attempt. His diligent biographer Affò enumerates about thirty printed works, running to above two thousand 4to pages, and seventy left in manuscript, some of which have been since published. They may be thus classed:—
| Printed. | MSS. | |
| In Theology and biblical criticism | 13 | |
| ” Mathematics | 7 | 14 |
| ” Philosophy | 2 | |
| ” Geography | 2 | |
| ” Law | 2 | |
| ” History | 1 | 8 |
| ” Topography and antiquities | 4 | 4 |
| ” Poetry | 10 | 8 |
| ” General literature and philology | 4 | 16 |
Of these a number were translations, chiefly from Arabic and other Oriental tongues. It is evident that his own preference lay towards his compositions in verse, a judgment which wants confirmation if continued popularity be the test. Yet several of his fugitive poems, and especially some sonnets on the ruins of Rome, possess much lyric beauty; and, though his epic on the Deluge is but a wretched attempt at novelty in versification, that on the Art of Navigation is a work of merit for the age which produced it. Hallam, after classing it with Bernardo Tasso's Amadigi, as two of the most remarkable productions of that sort then written in Italy, pronounces the Nautica "a didactic poem in blank verse, too minute sometimes, and prosaic in detail, like most of its class, but neither low, turgid, or obscure, as many others have been. The descriptions, though never very animated, are sometimes poetical and pleasing. Baldi is diffuse, and this conspires with the triteness of his matter to render the poem somewhat uninteresting. He by no means wants power to adorn his subject, but does not always trouble himself to exert it, and is tame where he might be spirited. Few poems bear more evident marks that their substance had been previously written down in prose." But what he wanted in genius—for therein lay his great deficiency—he in some degree supplied by wonderful versatility. Whichever of his many subjects he took up seemed that in which he was born to excel. Of his painstaking diligence we have said much, but we may add the pertinent remark of Grossi, "that so extensive was his reading as apparently to leave no time for writing, and yet that he wrote about as much as it seemed possible for any one to read." To this Tiraboschi adds the more flattering testimony that "his praises would be appropriate to almost each chapter of this history, for there was scarcely any department of literature and science in which he did not apply himself and attain excellence."
By an author so prolific, redundancy and diffuseness, the blemishes of his age, were inevitable. But in his lives of the two Montefeltrian dukes, these are conjoined with a tendency to elaborate his details into microscopic minuteness, which weary and distract the reader, and which, though valuable adjuncts to the testimony of an eye-witness, engender more suspicion than credit in a narrative compiled, after a long interval, from less specific authorities. Being, however, a shrewd observer and diligent narrator, anxious to do full justice to his subject, these works, although deficient in personal interest, and relieved by no enlarged views or general application, fulfil the task prescribed by his patron, the last Duke della Rovere; and, were his life of Francesco Maria I. to be published,[149] Baldi would be our standard historiographer of the duchy. In him are, indeed, wanting the qualities of a philosophic historian,—elevation of sentiment, variety of matter, selection of incident; but they belonged not to his age, and were scarcely compatible with his position. The fate of Scarpi and Varchi gave timely warning to the literary world, that historic verity might have its martyrs, as well as metaphysical speculation of religious truth. His life of Duke Federigo, written in 1603, was printed in 1824; that of Guidobaldo I., completed in 1615, saw the light in 1821. The substance of these narratives had, however, been appropriated and published by Reposati, omitting imaginary conversations and supposititious harangues. Of the degree of impartiality with which they were compiled, an idea may be formed from the following extracts of letters addressed to their author by his sovereign, proving that his judgment was not by any means left unfettered:—"It has given me satisfaction to hear all that you have written me in regard to the life of Duke Federigo of happy memory, and I fail not to acknowledge with pleasure your devotion and diligence. In mentioning my house, I approve of your naming it of Montefeltro rather than Feltrian, but as to seeking out its source and foundation, I do not recollect telling you to pass these over in silence. On the contrary, I deem it necessary to discuss this, yet not in the way I saw it treated at Urbino, attributing to it a mere bourgeois and private origin, much humbler than its deserts. It will, therefore, be well to keep this in view, observing in your eulogies, and generally throughout the work, a becoming consideration and regard for it, such as, without further hint, I look for from your sound discretion."—"As to the Life of Duke Federigo, only a few days have passed since I have done looking through it; but we must talk it over together more than once, ere anything can be decided on."[150]
Had Baldi lived among our fathers, he would have dwelt in Grub Street, and become, by his powers of application and memory, a successful book-maker; among ourselves, he would have proved valuable as a penny-per-line scribe. In Italy, his renown was, for a time, more brilliant, but it has now passed into comparative, and not unmerited, neglect. Yet his is a name of which his native city may justly be proud, and may cherish with respectful approbation this epitaph, once proposed for his tomb:—
|
"Ah! happy he who spent a lengthened span, Not in the vulgar dreams of grovelling man, But passed his days in living truly well; Urbino's honour! Passenger, farewell." |
Among the literary labourers of this age Girolamo Muzio[*151] is entitled to a prominent place, more from the variety and volume of his writings than from their actual worth. The epithet Giustinopolite, usually applied to him, is latinised from Capo d'Istria, the adopted home of his family, who were originally emigrants from Udine, and spelt their name Nuzio. He, however, was born at Padua, in 1496, and, after receiving a good education, finding himself dependent upon his own exertions, was fain to sell his services of sword or pen to the highest bidder. The same rule of self-interest that actuated Italian condottieri was too often followed by literary adventurers in that country, conscience and glory being generally made subservient by both to a livelihood. Girolamo had a double chance, in his twofold capacity of soldier and author, and tells us "that it was ever his fate to earn his bread by serving in the armies and courts of popes, emperors, kings, or petty princes; sometimes with one Italian commander, sometimes with another; now in France, then in Upper, again in Lower Germany." Through these vicissitudes it were needless to follow him. For a time he was rival or successor of Bernardo Tasso in the promiscuous affections of Tullia d'Aragona, a lettered courtezan, and, without her sanction, published, in 1547, her Dialogue on the Infinitude of Love. In the preface he avowed a connection which occasioned him neither compunction nor shame, and which, in days when love was a science as well as a passion, was openly shared by Varchi, Speroni, Strozzi, and Molza. Four years later a dangerous illness taught him reflection on his past ways, and brought him to a devotional frame of mind. It was about the same time that he became an inmate of the court of Urbino, receiving from Duke Guidobaldo the ample pension of 400 scudi, with permission to "attend to his studies, appearing only when he chose." The Duchess Vittoria countenanced him much, and he spent a good deal of time in her society, probably in consequence of his appointment as governor to her eldest son, and of his marrying a lady of her suite. From thence he went to reside at Rome, about 1567, and died in Tuscany, in 1576.