There, indeed, the lesson he is in search of, is so written, that he who runs, even though he speed on with the haste of the posting traveller, eager to leave the abomination of desolation behind him, may read it without fear of blundering. There indeed is a city and people unmistakably marked by Holy Mother Church, as her own; silence and solitude, decay, dilapidation, neglect, and sordid squallor, characterise the impress of her paternal hand. And yet more forcibly to point the moral of the spectacle, there remains sufficient traces of what Ferrara was in the young ungodly days of her lay government, to give all the force of contrast to her present condition. There is the gaunt frame of a city calculated to house four times the amount of its present population. The lofty walls of vast palaces enclose wide and spacious streets, over which the green weeds are growing, and a dead silence broods. In the centre is the moated castle of the old Dukes of Ferrara, now the monstrously disproportioned residence of the priest, who governs (!) Ferrara and its legation. Around this still lingers what little of life and movement is left in the paralysis–struck city. The more distant streets may be traversed from end to end without the sight of a living creature, save perhaps a group of half–naked mendicants basking in the sun, or the still more unpleasing figure of a capuchin friar, sauntering along with his wallet over his shoulder, on his daily quest, like some unclean reptile of ill omen crawling among ruins which are its appropriate dwelling–place.
FERRARA UNDER HER DUKES.
Such are the normal and necessary results as they lie developed and palpable before our eyes, of that system which was inaugurated at the period to which the subject of these pages belongs. But let ascetic theologians console themselves, and defend the issues of their handywork, as they may, it is undeniable, that, be they as sincere as they will, all such considerations are but after–thoughts. The production of a society vowed to apostolic poverty and heedlessness of the morrow, was not the object which the sixteenth century popes, and those misguided rulers who played into their hands, had in view. They intended to bring about very different issues. Yet this, which we see, was the only one in the long run possible, as the upshot of their doings. Divine providence so over–ruled the matter, quite in accordance with divine precedent, having very irreversibly laid down the law for the regulation of all such cases, at the time of man's first creation.
Previously to the inauguration of this fatal policy, the rule of the earlier dukes of Ferrara of the house of Este had aimed at, and in very considerable degree attained, quite other results. Beginning with old Borso the first duke, who was invested with that dignity in 1471, and who left behind him so good a name, that when in after and worser times, men grumbled in Ferrara,[19] they would say, "Ah, 'tis not now as in Duke Borso's days," down to his great nephew Hercules the Second, who ruled the duchy at the period to which our subject belongs; the Ferrarese princes had been very favourable specimens of the Italian sovereigns of those days.
As for good–old–times Borso, the just, though he had not the advantage of book–learning himself, he honoured it in others. The fact of his own deficiency in this respect, we gather from the amusingly frank avowal of a contemporary chronicler, who in a dedication of his book to his sovereign,[20] remarks that, "Fortune, ever the enemy of worth, has not willed, that to your other singular accomplishments should be added that of literature." From the records of his reign however, it would seem, that illiterate as he was, he must have had talents, that would make an invaluable chancellor of the exchequer. For the same historians, who give us the most glowing accounts of his magnificence assure us, that he never oppressed his subjects with unjust or grievous taxation. He dressed we are told, even when in the country, in brocade and cloth of gold; he never went without a chain about his neck of the value of seventy thousand ducats (!!), kept seven hundred magnificent horses in his stables, and dogs and falcons in proportion. Then his buildings were on a scale that might rival the doings of Napoleon the Third. But that collar! We have heard of the oppressive weight of the trappings of state, but little thought of the terrible extent of the reality. For seventy thousand ducats must be reckoned at the lowest calculation to be worth at the present day thirty–five thousand pounds, and to be equivalent to about two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds weight of gold. Now, admitting that nine–tenths of this value was represented by the exquisite workmanship of the celebrated Venetian goldsmiths, still we must suppose, poor Duke Borso to have walked about the world with upwards of two hundred weight of gold round his neck!
HERCULES THE FIRST.
Borso's brother, Hercules the First, who succeeded to him in 1471, is also spoken of with high praise by the contemporary chroniclers.[21] They tell us, that his title to the dukedom was maintained against a collateral pretender by seventy thousand inhabitants of Ferrara. He signalised his accession by the remission of several taxes, which seems somewhat incompatible with the praises previously bestowed on Borso on that head; and still more so with the accounts we have of his own magnificent doings. For he also was a mighty builder both of palaces and villas for his own pleasure, and of improved and increased dwellings for that of his people. Towards the end of the century, the population of Ferrara, which we have already seen rated at seventy thousand, had become so largely increased, chiefly in consequence of the expulsion from Spain and Portugal of the Jews, who thronged in great numbers into Italy, and especially settled themselves at Ferrara under the then tolerant rule of its popular dukes, that a writer of the time[22] declares, that no dwelling was to be found there for money. Hercules, therefore, in 1492, undertook the herculean task of erecting buildings to such a number as to double the size of his capital.
The work was commenced on such a scale, that the cautious Venetian senators, his neighbours, were startled, and deemed it prudent to ask what was intended by such vast preparations for construction. Duke Hercules answered, that he was building houses for his subjects to live in, and the Queen of the Adriatic seems to have been contented with the reply. Various taxes were imposed, not on Ferrara only, but on the whole of the Duke's dominions, including Modena and Reggio, to supply the means of executing these works. But there is no indication to be found of their having been considered grievous or excessive. And we have no means of ascertaining whose property the newly–raised quarters of the city were considered when built. Did they become crown property, and thus enormously increase the already large means of which the princes of the house of Este disposed, independently of taxation? Or, as seems under the circumstances of the case hardly possible, were any accounts kept, and means adopted to make the proceeds of the new property available, in the shape of interest, to those who had contributed to their expense?
Next to his ruling passion for building, spectacles of all sorts, dramatic and others, and travelling, were the great delight of Hercules I. All these were costly pleasures; and we find that, in contradiction to the policy of the early days of his reign, want of money often induced him to lay heavy burthens on his subjects. Nevertheless, he had the art of making himself exceedingly beloved by his people. He never hoarded money, but spent it almost entirely among the citizens in making his court and capital the gayest and most splendid in Italy. It was always "festa," always carnival at Ferrara. "Tournaments, races of horses, of oxen, of asses, of girls and boys, shooting matches, and hunting parties succeeded each other without interruption."[23] Then the good Duke would sally forth o' nights, and looking in quite unexpectedly take pot luck at supper with his loving subjects, in genuine Caliph Haroun Alraschid fashion.
ALPHONSO THE FIRST.