They are the first and second of the entire Decameron; a circumstance which looks as if it had been the translator's intention to proceed with the work. But they are such as to make the selection of them, if they were selected, sufficiently indicative of the tone of thinking and speaking of Church matters in those secret inner women's chambers of the Ferrara palace, which the Duke found it so impossible to purify from the heretical smell.
In the first place it may be observed, that the two "Novelle" in question are free from the indecency which marks so many of the collection. But they are among those which hit hardest the ecclesiastical shortcomings and absurdities of the age. In the first Ser Ciappelletto, who is described as one of the most worthless scoundrels who ever lived, sends for a friar when on his death–bed, and makes such a confession of all sorts of virtues, under the guise of remorseful dissatisfaction at the imperfection of them, that the confessor has him buried in a costly tomb at the expense of his convent, where his body forthwith begins to work miracles in the most satisfactory manner. The author, as if afraid of the telling force of his own satire, and the conclusions to which it naturally points, finishes by remarking, that after all it is impossible to deny that Ser Ciappelletto may have become San Ciappelletto in the other world by force of a sincere, even though momentary repentance in the last instants of his life!
The second story tells how a rich Jew was induced by a Christian friend to go to Rome for the purpose of examining Christianity at its fountain head, with a view to conversion in case conviction of the truth should reach his mind. The Jew notes well all that he can see and hear in the capital of Christianity, returns, and is baptised at once, alleging that nothing but divine miraculous interposition could possibly enable a religion preached and maintained by such men and such means to subsist and find credence among mankind.
EARLY COMPOSITIONS.
We can easily imagine, that such fun as this would be well relished with all the zest of forbidden fruit in the young Muse's classical version by the initiated set of erudite freethinkers, male and female, that made the circle of the Duchess of Renée. But Boccaccio is not the author, to whom Calvin, or even Celio Curione would have recommended one struggling with religious doubts and difficulties to resort. Nor can we doubt that Olympia, while thus occupying herself, was in that state of religious indifferentism, which she subsequently as we have seen, regarded as one of perdition.
Another extant fragment of her composition, which is marked by its subject as belonging to the last year of her court life, places her before us, still as the heathen Muse, drawing all her inspiration and her imagery from pagan sources, even on an occasion which might seem by its nature to require, if merely as a matter of art, a Christian treatment.
Cardinal Bembo died on the 18th of February 1547; and his loss, keenly felt by the literary world in all parts of Italy, was especially lamented in Ferrara, where he had been so well known and highly valued by all the learned society gathered there. Bembo was, it is true, a Churchman of the old school of Leo X.'s easy going days, who found more pleasure in reading Plato than St. Paul, and liked Cicero infinitely better than the vulgate. Though inclined in all ways to liberal opinions, he probably would have had as little disposition to meddle in the controversy between the old and new theology, as many a greek–play–learned Bishop of George III's time, would have felt to be made moderator between the "high" and "low" schools of our own day. Cardinal as he was, he might no doubt have been permitted to be present at any of those little gatherings of the unorthodox, under the rose, in the apartments of the Duchess, without danger to any of the set; and if he had there heard Olympia's Boccaccio translations, he would have laughed at the fun, and been delighted with the classical latinity as much as any there. And this aspect of very mildly ecclesiastical literary Mæcenas–ship was doubtless that under which the amiable and generally beloved Cardinal had appeared to Olympia.
Yet, had her mind not been still in 1547 wholly uninfluenced by any deep religious impressions, she would not have written on the death of a prince of the Church in so thoroughly a heathen spirit as that of the following lines:[71]
"Bembo, the great light of the sea–girt queen,
The Muse's glory, Bembo hath gone hence;
Nor left his equal 'mong the sons of men
In noble deeds, or witching eloquence.