FORTUNES OF NAPLES.
Meanwhile, the royal accomplices having duly shared their booty, instantly began to quarrel, as thieves are wont to do, over the division of it. Each in fact had from the first determined eventually to possess himself of the whole; proving, that if indeed there be honour among thieves, the proverb must not be understood to apply to such as are "Most Christian," and "Most Catholic."
Naples thus became the battle-field, as well as the prize of the contending parties; and was torn to pieces in the struggle while waiting to see which invader was to be her master. At length the Spaniard proved the stronger, as he was also the more iniquitous of the two; and on the 1st of January, 1504, the French finally quitted the kingdom of Naples, leaving it in the entire and peaceful possession of Ferdinand of Spain. Under him, and his successors on the Spanish throne, the unhappy province was governed by a series of viceroys, of whom, says Colletta,[149] "one here and there was good, many bad enough, and several execrable," for a period of 230 years, with results still visible.
Such was the scene on which our heroine had to enter in the year 1490. She was the daughter of Fabrizio, brother of that protonotary Colonna, whose miserable death at the hands of the hereditary enemies of his family, the Orsini, allied with the Riarii, then in power for the nonce during the popedom of Sixtus IV., has been related in the life of Caterina Sforza. Her mother was Agnes of Montefeltre; and all the biographers and historians tell us, that she was the youngest of six children born to her parents. The statement is a curious instance of the extreme and very easily detected inaccuracy, which may often be found handed on unchallenged from one generation to another of Italian writers of biography and history.
The Cavaliere Pietro Visconti, the latest Italian, and by far the most complete of Vittoria's biographers, who edited a handsome edition of her works, not published, but printed in 1840 at the expense of the prince-banker, Torlonia, on the occasion of his marriage with the Princess Donna Teresa Colonna, writes thus at page lv of the life prefixed to this votive volume:—"The child (Vittoria) increased and completed the number of children whom Agnes of Montefeltre, daughter of Frederick, Duke of Urbino, had presented to her husband." He adds, in a note, "this Princess had already had five sons, Frederick, Ascanio, Ferdinando, Camillo, Sciarra."
Coppi, in his "Memorie Colonnesi," makes no mention[150] of the last three,—giving as the offspring of Fabrizio and Agnes, only Frederick, Ascanio, and Vittoria. Led by this discrepancy to examine further the accuracy of Visconti's statement, I found that Agnes di Montefeltre was born in 1472; and was, consequently, eighteen years old at the time of Vittoria's birth. It became clear, therefore, that it was exceedingly improbable, not to say impossible, that she should have had five children previously. But I found farther, that Frederick the eldest son, and always hitherto said to have been the eldest child of Agnes, died according to the testimony of his tombstone,[151] still existing in the Church of Santa Maria di Pallazzola, in the year 1516, being then in his nineteenth year. He was, therefore, born in 1497 or 1498, and must have been seven or eight years younger than Vittoria; who must, it should seem, have been the eldest and not the youngest of her parent's children.
THE HOUSE OF COLONNA.
It can scarcely be necessary to tell even the most exclusively English reader, how ancient, how noble, how magnificent, was the princely house of Colonna. They were so noble, that their lawless violence, free-booting habits, private wars, and clan enmities, rendered them a scourge to their country; and for several centuries contributed largely to the mass of anarchy and barbarism, that rendered Rome one of the most insecure places of abode in Europe, and still taints the instincts of its populace with characteristics, which make it one of the least civilisable races of Italy. The Orsini being equally noble, and equally powerful and lawless, the high-bred mastiffs of either princely house for more than 200 years, with short respites of ill-kept truce, never lost an opportunity of flying at each other's throats, to the infinite annoyance and injury of their less noble and more peaceably disposed fellow-citizens.
Though the possessions of the Colonna clan had before been wide-spread and extensive, they received considerable additions during the Papacy of the Colonna pope, Martin V., great uncle of Fabrizio, Vittoria's father, who occupied the Papal chair from 1417 to 1431. At the period of our heroine's birth the family property was immense.
Very many were the fiefs held by the Colonna in the immediate neighbourhood of the city, and especially among the hills to the east and south-east of the Campagna. There several of the strongest positions, and most delightfully situated towns and castles, belonged to them.