Then, again, the disputes inevitably arising from the conflicting interests of adjacent districts, in this respect, were further complicated by differences of an exactly opposite kind. For the waters, which, under certain conditions, were agents of destruction, which all were eager to escape at the expense of their neighbours, were, under other circumstances, creators of fertility and wealth, which all sought to appropriate to their own advantage.
Thus the Reno, which comes from the Apennines above Bologna, and is one of the most important of the tributaries of the Lower Po, had been modified in its course by embankments, which tended to divert its waters from the extensive rice grounds of Bologna and Imola, and bring them into the Ferrarese branch of the Po, which the people of that city at that time feared would, from the encumberment of its bed, soon become unnavigable.[66]
WATER DISPUTES.
Here then was matter for interminable dispute and negotiation between the two governments,—disputes, too, which, in the hands of their more immediately interested subjects, gave rise to perpetual acts of lawless violence, to quarrels, and, on more than one occasion, even to pitched battles between commune and commune. For in the season of the floods, when the ruin of a whole district from anticipated inundation might be prevented by the cutting of an embankment, and thus averting the devastation from one's own to one's neighbour's fields; or when, in the summer, the fertilising stream, precious as a Pactolus, was insufficient for all the demands upon it, it could hardly be expected that such acts should not be resorted to, especially when, from the undecided condition of all the questions concerning the law of the case, either party honestly believed themselves to be in the right.
Thus, thrice in the course of the year 1542, the embankments of the Reno had been cut through in the night–time,[67] and it was whispered that the Duke himself was the instigator of the deed,—an opinion, which was strengthened by the evident unwillingness of the authorities to discover and punish the offenders.
But in this matter of the waters, as in the other affair, the Duke had to concede all and obtain nothing. The Pope deferred his decision till his return to Rome, and then gave sentence in his own favour, by awarding to the Bolognese all the advantages in dispute.
Olympia continued to be an inmate of the palace for about five years after the memorable visit of Pope Paul to Ferrara: five more happy sunshine years of Undine–Muse existence. The public declamations, the triumphs, the homage of the learned,[68] the interchange of complimentary poetry, the heathen philosophisings on Scipio's dream, and such like matters, went on as before. A more brilliant creature than this beautiful young priestess in the Temple of Minerva, or a sunnier existence, it is impossible to conceive. But had her life reached its term before the end of this summer–tide period, she would not have left behind her the fair claim to be remembered as one of the noblest types on record of true womanly excellence, which she afterwards made good. The depths of her moral nature slept like an unstirred lake, while the intellectual portion of her being was in full and energetic activity. And the subsequent completion of a noble character by the awakening of her soul at that fire–touch, which is woman's true Prometheus spark, shows us a psychological study of great beauty and interest.
But a very noteworthy indication of the genuineness of her nature, of the sincere simplicity of her enthusiasm and Muse–ship, and the sympathetic loveableness of her character, is to be found in the fact, that in the midst of her triumphant career, while she was the cynosure of all male eyes, and the object of so much male admiration, she formed the most durable and loving friendships with all that was best and noblest in the female world around her.
FEMALE FRIENDS.
The attachment which existed between her and the companion of her studies, Anne d'Este, has been mentioned. It must have been at an early period of her residence at the court, that she and one of the ladies of the Duchess, Francesca Bucyronia, were drawn together rather by a similarity of qualities of heart than of intellectual pursuits. The learned German, John Sinapi, Olympia's Greek master, and second father, as she considered him, had also discovered the good qualities of Francesca, and induced her to leave the sunny skies of her own Italy and accompany him to Germany as his wife. The friendship which had been formed between the two young women in the bright springtide of their existence was life–long, and became strengthened in their after life under less brilliant skies, and in less brilliant fortunes.