Such appeals were impotent. Yet they proved a consciousness of the situation, an unextinguished sense of duty, in the man who penned them.[341]
The Court-life followed by professional men of letters made it difficult for them to utter their real feelings in an age of bitter political jealousies. They either held their tongues, or kept within the safer regions of compliment and fancy. The biographies of Annibale Caro and Lodovico Castelvetro illustrate the ordinary conditions as well as the exceptional vicissitudes of the literary career at this epoch. Annibale Caro was born in 1507 at Civitanuova in the March of Ancona. Being poor and of humble origin, he entered the family of Luigi Gaddi at Florence, in the quality of tutor to his children. This patron died in 1541, and Caro then took service under Pier Luigi Farnese, one of the worst princelings of the period. When the Duke was murdered in 1547, he transferred himself to Parma, still following the fortunes of the Farnesi. Employed as secretary by the Cardinal Ranuccio and afterwards by the Cardinal Alessandro of that house, he lived at ease until his death in 1566. Caro's letters, written for his patrons, and his correspondence with the famous scholars of the day, pass for models of Italian epistolography. Less rigid than La Casa's, less manneristic than Bembo's, his style is distinguished by a natural grace and elegance of diction. He formed his manner by translation from the Greek, especially by a version of Daphnis and Chloe, which may be compared with Firenzuola's Asino d'Oro for classic beauty and facility of phrase. But the great achievement of his life was a transcription of the Æneid into blank verse. Though Caro's poem exceeds the original by about 5,500 lines, and therefore cannot pass for an exact copy of Virgil's form, Italians still reckon it the standard translation of their national epic. The charm of Caro's prose was communicated to his versi sciolti, always easy, always flowing, with varied cadence and sustained melody of rhythm. A Diceria de' Nasi, or discourse on noses, and a dissertation called Ficheide, commenting on Molza's Fichi, prove that Caro lent himself with pleasure to the academical follies of his contemporaries. It seems incredible that a learned man, who had spent the best years of his maturity in diplomatic missions to the Courts of princes, should have employed the leisure of his age in polishing these trifles. Yet such was the temper of the times that this frivolity passed for a commendable exercise of ingenuity.
Caro's original poems have not much to recommend them beyond limpidity of language. The sonnets to an imaginary mistress repeat conventional antitheses and complimentary concetti.[342] The adulatory odes are stiff and labored, as, indeed, they might be, when we consider that they were made to order upon Charles V., the Casa Farnese, and the lilies of France, by a plebeian scholar from Ancona.[343] The last-named of these flatteries, "Venite all'ombra de' gran gigli d'oro," is a masterpiece of prize poetry, produced with labor, filed to superficial smoothness, and overloaded with conceits. On its appearance it was hailed with acclamation as the final triumph of Italian writing. The Farnesi, who had recently placed themselves under the protection of France, and who bore her lilies on their scutcheon, used all their influence to get their servant's work applauded. The Academies were delighted with a display of consummate artifice and mechanical ability. One only voice was raised in criticism. Aurelio Bellincini, a gentleman of Modena, had sent a copy of the ode to Lodovico Castelvetro, with a request that he should pronounce upon its merits. Castelvetro, who was wayward and independent beyond the usual prudence of his class, replied with a free censure of the "plebeian diction, empty phrases, strange digressions, purple patches, poverty of argument, and absence of sentiment or inspiration," he detected in its stanzas. At the same time he begged his friend to keep this criticism to himself. Bellincini was indiscreet, and the letter found its way to Caro. Then arose a literary quarrel, which held all Italy in suspense, and equaled in ferocity the combats of the humanists.
Lodovico Castelvetro was born in 1505 at Modena. He studied successively at Bologna, Ferrara, Padua, and Siena. Thence he passed to Rome, where strong pressure was put upon him to enter orders. His uncle, Giovanni Maria della Porta, promised, if he did so, to procure for him the bishopric of Gubbio. But Castelvetro had no mind to become a priest. He escaped clandestinely from Rome, and, after a brief sojourn at Siena, returned to Modena. Here in 1542 he subscribed the Formulary of Faith dictated by Cardinal Contarini, and thereby fell under suspicion of heresy. Though he escaped inquisitorial censure at the moment, the charges of Lutheranism were revived in 1554, when Caro declared open war against him. Invectives, apologies, censures, and replies were briskly interchanged between the principals, while half the scholars of Italy allowed themselves to be drawn into the fray—Varchi and Molza siding with Caro, Gian Maria Barbieri and other friends of Castelvetro taking up the cudgels for the opposite champion.[344] The bitterness of the contending parties may be gathered from the fact that Castelvetro was accused of having murdered a friend of Caro's, and Caro of having hired assassins to take Castelvetro's life.[345] It seems tolerably certain that either Caro or one of his supporters denounced their enemy to the Inquisition. He was summoned to Rome, and in 1560 was confined in the convent of S. Maria in Via to await his trial. After undergoing some preliminary examinations, Castelvetro became persuaded that his life was in peril. He contrived to escape by night from Rome, and, after a journey of much anxiety and danger, took refuge in Chiavenna, at that time a city of the Grisons. The Holy Office condemned him as a contumacious heretic in his absence. Wandering from Chiavenna to Lyons and Geneva, and back again to Chiavenna, he spent the rest of his life in exile, and died at the last place in 1571.
Castelvetro's publications do not correspond to his fame; for though he gave signs of an acute wit and a biting pen in his debate with Caro, he left but little highly-finished work to posterity. In addition to critical annotations upon Bembo's prose, published in his lifetime, he wrote a treatise upon Rhetoric, which was printed at Modena in 1653, and sent an Italian version of Aristotle's Poetics to the press in 1570. This book was the idol of his later years. It is said that, while residing at Lyons, his house took fire, and Castelvetro, careless of all else, kept crying out "The Poetics, the Poetics! Save me my Poetics!" He may be fairly reckoned among the men who did solid service in the cause of graver studies. Yet, but for the vicissitudes of his career, he could hardly claim a foremost place in literary history.
The ladies who cultivated poetry and maintained relations with illustrious men of letters at this epoch, were almost as numerous as the songsters of the other sex. Lodovico Domenichi in the year 1559 published the poems of no less than fifty authoresses in his Rime di alcune nobilissime e virtuosissime Donne. Subjected to the same intellectual training as men, they felt the same influences, and passed at the same moment from humanism to renascent Italian literature.[346] Many of these Viragos,[347] as it was the fashion of the age approvingly and with no touch of sarcasm to call them, were dames of high degree and leaders of society. Some, like la bella Imperia, were better known in the resorts of pleasure. All were distinguished by intercourse with artists and writers of eminence. It is impossible to render an account of their literary labors. But the names of a few, interesting alike for their talents and their amours, may here be recorded. Tullia di Aragona, the mistress of Girolamo Muzio, who ruled society in Rome, and lived in infamy at Venice[348]—Vittoria Accoramboni, whose tragedy thrilled Italy, and gave a masterpiece to our Elizabethan stage—Tarquinia Molza, granddaughter of the poet, and maid of honor at Ferrara in Guarini's brilliant days—Laura Terracina, with whose marriage and murder romance employed itself at the expense of probability—Veronica Franco, who entertained Montaigne in her Venetian home in 1580—Ersilia Cortese, the natural daughter of a humanist and wife of a Pope's nephew—Gaspara Stampa, "sweet songstress and most excellent musician":—such were the women, to whom Bembo and Aretino addressed letters, and whose drawing-rooms were the resort of Bandello's heroes.
Two poetesses have to be distinguished from the common herd. These are Veronica Gambara and Vittoria Colonna. Veronica was the daughter of Count Gianfrancesco Gambara and his wife Alda Pia of Carpi, whose name recalls the fervid days of humanism at its noon.[349] She was born in 1485, and was therefore contemporary with the restorers of Italian literature. Bembo was the guide of her youth, and Vittoria Colonna the friend of her maturer years. In 1509 she married Giberto, lord of Correggio, by whom she had two sons, Ippolito and Girolamo. Her husband died after nine years of matrimony, and she was left to educate her children for the State and Church. She discharged her duties as a mother with praiseworthy diligence, and died in 1550, respected by all Italy, the type of what a noble woman should be in an age when virtue shone by contrast with especial luster. Her letters and her poems were collected and published in 1759 at Brescia, the city of her birth. Except for the purity of their sentiments and the sincerity of their expression, her verses do not rise far above mediocrity. Like literary ladies of the French metropolis, she owed her fame to personal rather than to literary excellence. "The house of Veronica," writes a biographer of the sixteenth century, "was an Academy, where every day she gathered round her for discourse on noble questions Bembo and Cappello, Molza and Mauro, and all the famous men of Europe who followed the Italian Courts."[350]
Fabrizio, the father of Vittoria Colonna, was Grand Constable of Naples. He married Agnesina di Montefeltro, daughter of Duke Federigo of Urbino. Their child Vittoria was born at Marino, a feud of the Colonna family, in the year 1490. At the age of four she was betrothed to Ferrante Francesco D'Avalos, a boy of the same age, the only son of the Marchese di Pescara. His father died while he was still a child: and in their nineteenth year the affianced couple were married at Ischia, the residence of the house of D'Avalos. The splendor of two princely families alike distinguished in the annals of Spanish and Italian history and illustrious by their military honors, conferred unusual luster upon this marriage. It was, moreover, on the bride's side at least, a love-match. Vittoria was beautiful and cultivated; the young Marquis of Pescara chivalrous and brave. She was tenderly attached to him, and he had not as yet revealed the darker side of his mixed character. Yet their happiness proved of very short duration. In 1512 he was wounded and made prisoner at the battle of Ravenna; and though he returned to his wife for a short interval, his duties again called him to the field of war in Lombardy in 1515. Vittoria never saw him after this date; and before his death the honor of her hero was tarnished by one of the darkest deeds of treason recorded in Italian history. Acting as general for the Spanish emperor, the Marquis entered Milan immediately after the battle of Pavia in 1525. He there and then began his intrigues with Girolamo Morone, Grand Chancellor of Francesco Sforza's duchy. Morone had formed a plan for reinstating his master in Milan by the help of an Italian coalition. With the view of securing the Marquis of Pescara, by which bold stroke he would have paralyzed the Spanish military power, Morone offered the young general the crown of Naples, if he would consent to join the league. D'Avalos turned a not unwilling ear to these proposals; but while the plot was hatching, he saw good reason to doubt of its success, and determined to clear himself with Charles V. by revealing the conspiracy. Accordingly, he made his lieutenant, Antonio de Leyva, assist at a privy conference between Morone and himself. Concealed behind the arras, this Spanish officer heard enough to be able afterwards to deliver direct testimony against the conspirators, while the Marquis averred that he had led them on designedly to this end. It may be difficult to estimate the precise amount of Pescara's guilt. But whether he was deceiving Morone from the first, or whether, as seems more probable, he entered the negotiation resolved to side with Charles or with the League as best might suit his purpose, there can be no doubt that he played an odious part in this transaction. He did not long survive the treason; for his constitution had been ruined by wounds received at Pavia. It was also rumored that Charles accelerated his death by poison. He died on November 25, 1525, execrated by the Italians, and handed down by their historians too perpetual infamy. Something of national jealousy mingled undoubtedly in their resentment. D'Avalos was a Spaniard, and made no concealment of his contempt for the Italian character. Finally, it must be admitted that if he really was acting throughout in his master's interest, his betrayal of Morone was but a bold stroke of policy which Machiavelli might have approved. The game was a dangerous one; but it was thoroughly consistent with statecraft as then understood.[351]