SUSANNAH AND THE ELDERS
FROM THE SERIES OF FRESCOES PAINTED BY PINTORRICCHIO AT THE VATICAN
There is no habit so pernicious as that of deducing evil from trivial whimsicalities. No judgment that is unaware of the inner subtleties—the whole complex growth of any given circumstance—does aright to suppose harmfulness. A lock of hair may be the result of sheer frowardness, or it may be the outcome of the most unaccompanied compassion: it may be the meaningless consequence of sudden unconsidered laughter, or the proffered comfort of a heart with nothing else to offer. But in all cases it is entirely destitute, by itself, of anything justifying a condemnatory construction.
Bembo is too well known among Renaissance celebrities to need personal explanations. Vasari says of him: “The Italians cannot be sufficiently thankful to Bembo for having not only purified their language from the rust of ages, but given it such regularity and clearness that it has become what we see.” Few men have known a life of more sustained triumph. At the time of his friendship with Lucrezia he was young—a good-looking man of about twenty-eight—but already he had attained a widespread appreciation.
He was not the only clever man in the duchess’s society at Ferrara; the traditions of the house were intellectual. Lucrezia, at last, had fallen into excellent hands, and was being formed in the best school possible. Men, notable not only for genius, but for serious qualities of temperament, educated her by companionship. Bembo, Castiglione, Aldo Manuce, were all men who thought with some profundity and breadth. Ariosto, from 1503 in the service of Hippolyte D’Este, was another man of genius she must have known intimately, and among minor intellects the two Strozzi poets, as well as Tebaldeo and Callagnini, sang her praises from personal acquaintance.
It was not altogether, however, an easy-minded society. Alphonso, though he mixed little with his wife’s entourage, formed a constantly dangerous background to it. His suspicions were always alert. The murder of the poet Strozzi is put down to him, and in 1505 Tebaldeo wrote to Isabella: “This duke hates me, though I do not know why, and it is not safe for me to stay in the town.” Even Bembo, in his relations to his friend, had to be girded with the uttermost caution, and finally for him also it became unadvisable to remain longer in Ferrara. With his going one of the most delicate affections of Lucrezia’s life fell to pieces. And yet not altogether; Bembo, though he took mistresses he loved to distraction, continued for fifteen years to correspond with his Ferrarese duchess. Unless their friendship had been very real and very rich in sincerities, it would have crumbled into nothingness within a year.
Lucrezia’s intimacy with Castiglione was a slighter affair. He had no importance in her life, save as being among those who helped to give her culture. That she should have known him is interesting, however, because in his great book Castiglione expressed with a limpid particularity the Renaissance ideal of womanhood. On the whole it was an unimaginative conception—at least expressed as Castiglione expressed it. For no book ever avoided more completely than “The Courtier” any obliqueness or any individual frankness of idiosyncrasy. Tact, according to Castiglione, was the essential mainspring of feminine fascination—tact and the art of conversation. One wise point he insisted upon—suavity. That, he said, should be inseparable from every woman’s society. The remark lingers in the memory,—suavity, a soft and soothing composure, having so nearly passed out of even the conception of good manners. Scandals, especially of her own sex, it was unpardonable for a woman either to utter or to attend to. Dancing and other accomplishments he urged as a necessary part of education; but, on the other hand, he did not encourage naturalness. He wrote: “When she cometh to dance or to show any kind of music, she ought to be brought to it with suffering herself somewhat to be prayed, and with a certain bashfulness that may declare the noble shamefastness that is contrary to headiness.” The early Victorian code of good manners was therefore only a return to a former fashion, and a fashion instigated by men and not by women at all.
Castiglione wrote at length upon the question of dress. Here his common sense is unimpeachable: “Women ought to have a judgment to know what manner of garments set her out best, and be most fit for the exercise she intendeth to undertake at that instant, and with them array herself.” He urged keenly that lean and fat should pay attention to their peculiarities. Every woman, he insisted, ought to do all in her power to keep herself “cleanly and handsome.”
Upon the subject of morality, Castiglione possessed no grave feelings. He advocated virtue, but not because conduct is vital, far-reaching, touching momentarily the character and fate of so many besides the doer, but almost entirely on account of the greater safety attaching to circumspection. Intrigue involved so many dangers. Consequently, he urged women “to be heedful, and remember that men with less jeopardy show to be in love than women.” He begged a woman to “give her lover nothing but her mind when either hatred of her husband or the love he beareth to others inclineth her to love.” Words were so much vapour, but a definite action was perilously apt to produce definite consequences. Husbands had a knack of revenging in their own wives what they asked from the wives of others.
A quaint and almost subtle stipulation ends the list. The perfect lady, according to Castiglione, “must not only be learned, but able to devise sports and pastimes.” All active brains need rest. The desirable woman should know, in consequence, how to relax the tension of absorbing thoughts, as well as how to tender the encouragement of sympathy. Health demands some intervals for relaxation and foolishness.
Castiglione himself married a child called Ippolyta Torelli, whose life was tragically brief. As a husband, nothing is known of him except that he was a good deal away from home. His wife wrote one exquisite letter—one loves her because of it—and that is practically all that remains of their domestic existence. The note was written just before her death, which took place through the birth of her third child. She lay in bed, and put on paper—