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

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

How nearly two of the manifestations of this multiform character would occasionally chance to jostle each other, is indicated by the conclusion of a long and important letter[9] on matters of high political moment to Francesco Vettori. "Write to me in reply," he says, "and be sure, that your letter shall be seen by no one but His Holiness, as I desire may be the case with this of mine, written in much haste, and with Tullia at my side." Dated, Rome, 28th January, 1531.

Was the bewitching Tullia close enough to his side to look over his shoulder, as the plotting politician wrote matters to be shown only to the Pope? Did she interest herself in schemes for the keeping a Florentine oligarchy in check? Or did she sit patiently at the writer's elbow, while he penned a letter of sixty–four lines of small print, waiting till he was at leisure to bestow some attention on his companion? In either case the degree of intimacy indicated is much closer than an ordinary one. Yet the next letter,[10] written little more than a month later to the same correspondent, seems in its sadly Don–Juan–like tone, to afford very clear evidence that the writer, if not already tired of his gifted Sappho, certainly considered his liaison with her in the nature of a "terminable contract."

After a few lines on political matters, this Don Juan of a middle–aged banker[11] writes as follows:

"As for my own private affairs, I should be sorry, that you should have believed certain silly stories of challenges and quarrels, about matters which in truth passed amicably among friends here. For though I do not pretend to take rank among your very prudent people, still I don't want to be set down as a perfect fool, as truly I should deserve to be, had I got into any such scrape for Tullia, or any other woman. She is not, as you say, beautiful; but she is, if I am not mistaken, highly gifted with talent and wit; and on that account, as it is impossible to me to live without the society of women, I have preferred hers to that of others.[12] And I have assisted her in some of her necessities, to prevent her from going to the wall by unjust oppression, during the period of my connection with her, which would have been painful and discreditable to me."

DATE OF HER BIRTH.

The date of this letter is March the 2nd, 1531.

And as this date, with that of the preceding letter, are among the very few of any kind discoverable with reference to Tullia's biography, we must make the most of them. It is to be presumed, then, from the above passages, that she must have been at least twenty, and probably older, in 1531. But as her father died in 1558, and appears to have been engaged in active business up to the time of his death, and as no intimation is found of his age, as would probably have been the case, if he had lived to be remarkably old, we can hardly be very far wrong, in supposing him to have been about seventy at the time of his death, and accordingly two–and–twenty in 1510. It would seem, therefore, that Tullia could not have been born much before, and certainly not much after that date.

In one respect, however, poor Tullia was assuredly wronged by the wealthy and libertine Florence banker. He says that she was not beautiful. Now, the testimony of a dozen enamoured poets might be adduced in favour of her rare and fascinating beauty. And if it should be thought that evidence of this kind, however abundant and concurrent, needs confirmation, it has been supplied by the sister art. There is an admirable portrait of her by Bonvicini, a contemporary of Raphael, more generally known as Il Moretto da Brescia, which was engraved very tolerably at Milan, in 1823, by Caterina Piotti. It represents a very lovely face of the genuine regal type of Roman beauty. The brow is noble; and the magnificently cut, but rather large and statuesque features might perhaps seem somewhat hard in the firmness of their rich contour, were not the expression softened by an eye eloquent of all the tenderer emotions. Laurel branches fill the whole background of the picture, in token of the lady's rank as a poetess.

How long after the date of the above–mentioned letters Tullia continued her residence in Rome, there remain no means of ascertaining. Zilioli says that she left it "after the death of her husband." And this one phrase is the only intimation of any sort we meet with, that such a person as Tullia's husband ever existed. It is true that such an appendage is not of a nature likely to be dwelt much on in love verses addressed to a lady. And to this category belong the greatest number of the notices of her, which have come down to us. Yet it seems strange that a wife should be celebrated from one end of Italy to the other, and recorded, or at least mentioned, in the pages of every literary historian of her country, and that she should have a husband whose name even was never, as it should seem, alluded to by his cotemporaries, and who has not left the slightest trace of his existence. It must be supposed that, if ever spoken of at all, he was only known as "La Tullia's" husband, a member of society discharging functions somewhat analogous to those of a Ballerina's mama. It is, at all events, certain that the lady was never known either among her contemporaries, or subsequently, by any other name than that of Tullia d'Aragona, and more commonly simply "La Tullia." And the strangeness of the view of sixteenth century society offered to us by an examination of the position "La Tullia" occupied in it, is not a little increased by the fact of her having had a sort of behind–the–scenes husband, who appears to have exercised about as much influence on her social standing as her waiting–maid.

HER HUSBAND.