"For fifty-two consecutive years (1834-1886) her salon was the rendezvous not merely of her compatriots but of intellectual Europe. The list of celebrities who thronged her modest drawing- room rivals that of Belgiojoso's Parisian salon, and includes many of the same immortal names. Daniel Stern, Balzac, Manzoni, Liszt, Verdi, and a score of others, are of international fame; but the annuals of Italian patriotism, belles-lettres and art teem with the names of men and women who, during that half century of uninterrupted hospitality, sought guidance, inspiration and intellectual entertainment among the politicians, poets, musicians and wits who congregated round the hostess."[*]
[*] W. R. Whitehouse, /A Revolutionary Princess/.
Balzac arrived in Milan in February, 1837, was well received, and was invited to the famous salon of Countess Maffei. The novelist was at once charmed with his hostess, whom he called /la petite Maffei/, and for whom he soon began to show a tender friendship which later became blended with affection.
Unfortunately Balzac did not like Milan; only the fascination of the
Countess Maffei pleased him. He quarreled with the Princess San-
Severino Porcia, who would not allow him to say anything unkind about
Italy, and was depressed when calling on the Princess Bolognini, who
laughed at him for it.
In the salon of the Countess Maffei the novelist preferred listening to talking; occasionally he would break out into sonorous laughter, and would then listen again, and—in spite of his excessive use of coffee—would fall asleep. The Countess was often embarrassed by Balzac's disdainful expressions about people he did not like but who were her friends. She tried to please him, however and had many of her French-speaking friends to meet him, but he seemed most to enjoy tea with her alone. Referring to her age, he wrote in her album: "At twenty-three years of age, all is in the future."
After Balzac's return to Paris he asked her, in response to one of her letters, to please ascertain why the Princess San-Severino was angry with him. Later he showed his appreciation of her kindness by sending her the corrected proofs of /Martyres ignores/, and by dedicating to her /La fausse Maitresse/, published in 1841. The dedication, however, did not appear until several months later.
In a long and beautiful dedication, Balzac inscribed /Les Employes/ to the Comtesse Serafina San-Severino, nee Porcia, and to her brother, Prince Alfonso Serafino di Porcia, he dedicated /Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes/, concerning which he thought a great deal while visiting in the latter's home in Milan. The hotel having become intolerable to the novelist, he was invited by Prince Porcia to occupy a little room in his home, overlooking the gardens, where he could work at his ease. The Prince, a man of about Balzac's age, was very much in love with the Countess Bolognini, and was unwilling to marry at all unless he could marry her, but her husband was still living. The Prince lived only ten doors from his Countess, and his happiness in seeing her so frequently, together with his riches, provoked gloomy meditations in the mind of the poor author, who was so far from his /Predilecta/, so overcome with debts, and forced to work so hard.
To Madame la Comtesse Bolognini, nee Vimercati, who was afterwards married to Prince Porcia, Balzac dedicated /Une Fille d'Eve/:
"If you remember, madame, the pleasure your conversation gave to a certain traveler, making Paris live for him in Milan, you will not be surprised that he should lay one of his works at your feet, as a token of gratitude for so many delightful evenings spent in your society, nor that he should seek for it in the shelter of your name which, in old times, was given to not a few of the tales by one of your early writers, dear to the Milanese. You have a Eugenie, already beautiful, whose clever smile proclaims her to have inherited from you the most precious gifts a woman can possess, and whose childhood, it is certain, will be rich in all those joys which a sad mother refused to the Eugenie of these pages. If Frenchmen are accused of bring frivolous and inconstant, I, you see, am Italian in my faithfulness and attachments. How often, as I write the name of Eugenie, have my thoughts carried me back to the cool stuccoed drawing-room and little garden of the /Viccolo dei Capuccini/, which used to resound to the dear child's merry laughter, to our quarrels, and our stories. You have left the /Corso/ for the /Tre Monasteri/, where I know nothing of your manner of life, and I am forced to picture you, no longer amongst the pretty things, which doubtless still surround you, but like one of the beautiful heads of Raffaelle, Titian, Correggio or Allori which, in their remoteness, seem to us like abstractions. If this book succeeds in making its way across the Alps, it will prove to you the lively gratitude and respectful friendship of your humble servant,