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

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

The citizens of Schweinfurth resolved that the house Olympia had inhabited among them should be rebuilt at the public cost, and marked out to the respect of future generations by an inscription commemorative of her having dwelt on that spot. The inscription is indicative of the high esteem of the worthy burghers for their celebrated fellow–citizen, rather than of any æsthetic appreciation of her productions. For the hexameters and pentameters into which Schweinfurth has painfully packed its sentiments, are of a kind to make the classical ghost of Olympia shudder, if that erudite and gentle spirit may be supposed to have cognisance of them.

HER HIGH REPUTE.

Olympia Morata had in the course of this short life acquired a high European reputation. The loving care of Celio Curione, the editor of her works, has collected and appended to them, after the fashion of that day, an abundant selection of the "favourable notices" of her learned contemporaries. And M. Bonnet has gathered some further testimonies to the same effect. Many pages might be filled with the laudatory sayings of these high authorities. But it will probably be thought sufficient to state that the "eruditorum testimonia" do certainly prove that Olympia was very highly esteemed by the contemporary literary world of Europe. The most compendious and undeniable evidence of this may be found moreover in the fact, that four editions of her works were printed within twenty–five years after her death.[134]

To the present writer's thinking, the greatness of this reputation must appear to us of the nineteenth century a noticeable indication of a past and gone phase of literary history, rather than as a result that we should have anticipated from an examination of the works in question. In Curione's dedication of the volume to Queen Elizabeth, he says; "This book will prove the marvellous knowledge of Olympia, her zeal for religion, her patience under severe trials, and her unshakeable constancy in adversity." Understanding "marvellous knowledge" to mean very remarkable accuracy of classical scholarship, it is true, that the book does prove all this. And there is every reason to think that nothing more would be proved if we were in possession of those other writings whose loss Curione and M. Bonnet deplore. "She had composed," her old friend goes on to say in his dedication, "many other writings which should have perpetuated the fame of her faith and her talents, but which perished in the destruction of her adopted country. That which remains will suffice to give you an idea of that which has been lost." In another passage of the dedication he tells us what these were.

"She had written observations on Homer; she had composed with great elegance many verses, especially on divine themes; and certain dialogues, both Latin and Greek had been elaborated by her with such a perfection of imitation of Plato and Cicero, that not Zoilus himself could have found any fault in them."

There is no reason to doubt that, as Curione says, the remaining writings give a very sufficient idea of those which have perished; and as little to question the very remarkable skill in classical imitation which marked them.

Nevertheless, the world will hardly be persuaded that it has sustained any loss by the destruction of these once so much prized manuscripts. The loss of the letters, which form the bulk of the volume that good Curione's care has given us, would have been more regrettable. These have still an historical interest, as contributing many graphic touches to the picture we are able to form for ourselves, of that complex, seething, labouring time. It may be added, that they offer also an ethical delineation which the world has still a use for. These letters do, as Curione says, show a lively picture of the writer's "zeal for religion, patience under trial, and unshakeable constancy in adversity;" one of these pictures which the world cannot wisely allow to be effaced.

[Sidene: HER CLASSICAL SKILL.]

But it was not the manifestation of these fine qualities which obtained for Olympia that great reputation among her contemporaries which is itself an historical phenomenon of no slight importance. It was not her patience under trial, and constancy in adversity, that caused Europe so to ring with her name that the echo of it has reached these days. Fine and noble things as these are, the world has at no time been so poor in them, as not to have possessed many noteworthy examples of them, which fame has had no time to note. Olympia's reputation was due to her learning, exclusive, be it observed, of any of the affectionate sympathy with which she was regarded by her co–religionists on account of her steady adherence to her religious convictions. For Tiraboschi, Quadrio, and other Romanist writers, while lamenting her heresy, speak as warmly as any of her literary merits. Her fame was the reward of such skilful "perfection in the imitation of Cicero and Plato, that not even Zoilus could pick out a fault in her compositions." Many a scholar of mature age enjoyed the respect of his contemporaries in that century, in virtue of a life spent in obtaining that proficiency of which Olympia was mistress in her teens. And though such an amount of admiration for scholarship must seem strange and excessive to an age which considers similar proficiency in young gentlemen in their teens quite sufficiently rewarded by the presentation of a handsomely bound volume with some school–founder's arms stamped in gold on the side; still it must be borne in mind, that the difficulties overcome by the sixteenth century young lady were of a very far more formidable kind, than those, which lie in the way of the nineteenth century young gentleman. Corrupt texts, and scarcity of them, inexperienced and but partially competent teachers, unsettled and very little understood principles of exegesis and criticism, the absence of all that luxury of philological apparatus, which waits on the modern scholar, made the path of the medieval explorers into the jungle of the ancient literature, a very different thing from that of the traveller along its roads, cleared and embellished by the assiduous labour of three hundred years.

Much indefatigable industry, many long and weary hours passed in bending over books, while others were spending youthful hours in youthful enjoyments, and very considerable aptitude for appreciating the beauties, analogies, and delicacies of language, must have gone to the acquirement of that amount of scholarship which Olympia possessed at sixteen. But the same amount of industry and talent expended on any other subject would not have produced any such meed of enthusiastic admiration. And the position she occupied in her own day, must be considered as a curious indication of the avidity with which the cultivated minds of Europe seized on the new field opened to them, and seemed to think that it might be made to yield all that the human intelligence was then thirsting for.