A Decade of Italian Women, vol. 1 (of 2)

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

And, indeed, as far as the feeling of nationality is concerned, the institution of knighthood itself, as it then existed, was calculated to prevent the growth of patriotic sentiment. For the commonwealth of chivalry was of European extent. The knights of England, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, were brothers in arms, linked together by a community of thought and sentiment infinitely stronger than any which bound them to the other classes of their own countrymen. The aggregation of caste wholly overbore that of nationality. And the nature of the former, though not wholly evil in its influences, any more than that of the latter is wholly good, is yet infinitely narrower, less humanising, and less ennobling in its action on human motives and conduct. And war, the leading aggregative occupation of those days, was proportionably narrowed in its scope, deteriorated in its influences, and rendered incapable of supplying that stimulus to healthy human development which it has in its more noble forms, indisputably sometimes furnished to mankind.

And it is important to the great history of modern civilisation, that these truths should be recognised and clearly understood. For this same period, which is here in question, was, as all know, one of great intellectual activity, of rapid development, and of fruitful progress. And historical speculators on these facts, finding this unusual movement of mind contemporaneous with a time of almost universal and unceasing warfare, have thought, that some of the producing causes of the former fact were to be found in the existence of the latter; and have argued, that the general ferment, and stirring up, produced by these chivalrous, but truly ignoble wars, assisted mainly in generating that exceptionally fervid condition of the human mind. But, admitting that a time of national struggle for some worthy object may probably be found to exercise such an influence, as that attributed to the Italian wars of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it is certain that these latter were of no such ennobling nature. And the causes of the great intellectual movement of those centuries must therefore be sought elsewhere.

From the time when "il gran Capitano" Consalvo, on behalf of his master, Ferdinand of Spain, having previously assisted the French in driving out the unfortunate Frederick, the last of the Aragonese kings of Naples, had afterwards finally succeeded in expelling the French from their share of the stolen kingdom, the affairs of the Colonna cousins, Fabrizio and Prospero, began to brighten. The last French troops quitted Naples on January 1, 1504. By a diploma, bearing date November 15, 1504,[160] and still preserved among the Colonna archives, eighteen baronies were conferred on Prospero Colonna by Ferdinand. On the 28th of the same month, all the fiefs which Fabrizio had formerly possessed in the Abruzzi were restored to him; and by another deed, dated the same day, thirty-three others, in the Abruzzi and the Terra di Lavoro, were bestowed on him.

In the meantime, earth had been relieved from the presence of the Borgia Vicegerent of heaven, and Julius II. reigned in his stead. By him the Colonna were relieved from their excommunication, and restored to all their Roman possessions. So that the news of the family fortunes, which from time to time reached the daughter of the house in her happy retirement in rocky Ischia, from the period at which she began to be of an age to appreciate the importance of such matters, were altogether favourable.

AFFAIRS IN NAPLES.

But the tranquil life there during these years was not unbroken by sympathy with the vicissitudes which were variously affecting the excitable city, over which the little recluse court looked from their island home. The untimely death of Ferdinand II., on Friday, October 7, 1496, threw the first deep shade over the household of the Duchessa di Francavilla, which had crossed it since Vittoria had become its inmate. Never, according to the contemporary journalist, Giuliano Passeri,[161] was prince more truly lamented by his people of every class. Almost immediately after his marriage, the young king and his wife both fell ill at Somma, near Naples. The diarist describes the melancholy spectacle of the two biers, supporting the sick king and queen, entering their capital side by side. Everything that the science of the time could suggest, even to the carrying in procession of the head as well as the blood of St. Januarius, was tried in vain. The young king, of whom so much was hoped, died; and there arose throughout the city, writes Passeri, "a cry of weeping so great, that it seemed as if the whole world were falling in ruin, all, both great and small, male and female, crying aloud to heaven for pity. So that I truly think, that since God made the world, a greater weeping than this was never known."

Then came the great Jubilee year, 1500; on which occasion a circumstance occurred, that set all Naples talking. It was discussed, we may shrewdly conjecture, in a somewhat different spirit in that Ischia household, which most interests us, from the tone in which the excitable city chattered of it. At the beginning of April,[162] the Neapolitans, in honour of the great Jubilee, sent a deputation, carrying with them the celebrated Virgin, della Bruna dello Carmine, who justified her reputation, and did credit to her country by working innumerable miracles all the way as she went. But what was the mortification of her bearers, when arrived at Rome, the result of the fame arising from their triumphant progress was, that Pope Borgia, jealous of a foreign Virgin, which might divert the alms of the faithful from the Roman begging boxes, showed himself so thorough a protectionist of the home manufacture, that he ordered the Neapolitan Virgin to be carried back again immediately. This had to be done; but Madonna della Bruna, nothing daunted, worked miracles faster than ever as she was being carried off, and continued to do so all the way home.

In July, 1501, there came a guest to the dwelling of Costanza d'Avalos, whose coming and going must have made a durable impression on the opening mind of Vittoria, then just eleven years old. This was Frederick, the last of the Aragonese kings. When all had gone against him, and the French had taken, and most cruelly sacked Capua, and were advancing on Naples,[163] he sought refuge with his wife and children on the Island of Ischia, and remained there till he left it on the 6th of September to throw himself on the generosity of the French King. Fabrizio Colonna was, it is recorded, with him on the island, where the fallen king left for awhile his wife and children; and had then an opportunity of seeing,—as far as the brave condottiere chieftain had eyes to see such matters,—the progress his daughter had made in all graces and good gifts during six years of the superintendence of Costanza d'Avalos.

FERDINAND LANDS IN NAPLES.

Then there came occasionally events, which doubtless called the Duchessa di Francavilla from her retirement to the neighbouring, but strongly contrasted scene of Naples; and in all probability furnished opportunities of showing her young pupil something of the great and gay world of the brilliant and always noisy capital. Such, for instance, was the entry of Ferdinand of Spain into Naples, on November I, 1506. The same people, who so recently were making the greatest lamentation ever heard in the world over the death of Ferdinand of Aragon, were now equally loud and vehement[164] in their welcome to his false usurping kinsman, Ferdinand of Castile. A pier was run out an hundred paces into the sea for him and his queen to land at, and a tabernacle, "all of fine wrought gold," says Passeri, erected on it for him to rest in. The city wall was thrown down to make a new passage for his entrance into the city; all Naples was gay with triumphal arches and hangings. The mole, writes the same gossiping authority, was so crowded, that a grain of millet thrown among them would not have reached the ground. Nothing was to be heard in all Naples but the thunder of cannon, and nothing to be seen but velvet, silk, and brocade, and gold on all sides. The streets were lined with richly tapestried seats, filled with all the noble dames of Naples, who, as the royal cortege passed, rose, and advancing, kissed the hands of the king, "et lo signore Re di questo si pigliava gran piacere." It is a characteristic incident of the times, that as quick as the cortege passed, all the rich and costly preparations for its passage were, as Passeri tells us, scrambled for and made booty of by the populace.