Vittoria's Married Life—Pescara goes where Glory Waits Him—The Rout of Ravenna—Pescara in Prison turns Penman—His "Dialogo di amore"—Vittoria's Poetical Epistle to her Husband—Vittoria and the Marchese del Vasto—Three Cart-loads of Ladies, and three Mule-loads of Sweetmeats—Character of Pescara—His Cruelty—Anecdote in Proof of it.

The two years which followed, Vittoria always looked back on as the only truly happy portion of her life, and many are the passages of her poems which recall their tranquil and unbroken felicity, a sweet dream, from which she was too soon to be awakened to the ordinary vicissitudes of sixteenth century life. The happiest years of individuals, as of nations, afford least materials for history, and of Vittoria's two years of honeymoon in Ischia, the whole record is that she was happy; and she wrote no poetry.

Early in 1512 came the waking from this pleasant dream. Pescara was, of course, to be a soldier. In his position not to have begun to fight, as soon as his beard was fairly grown, would have been little short of infamy. So he set forth to join the army in Lombardy, in company with his father-in-law, Fabrizio. Of course there was an army in Lombardy, where towns were being besieged, fields laid waste, and glory to be had for the winning. There always was, in those good old times of course. French, Swiss, Spanish, German, Venetian, Papal, and Milanese troops were fighting each other, with changes of alliances and sides almost as frequent and as confusing as the changing of partners in a cotillion. It is troublesome and not of much consequence to understand who were just then friends and who foes, and what were the exact objects all the different parties had in cutting each other's throats. And it will be quite sufficient to say that the Duchy of Milan was at that moment the chief bone of contention,—that the principal pretenders to the glory of "annexing" it were the King of France and the King of Spain, who was now also King of Naples—that the Pope was just then allied with Spain, and the Venetians with France, and that Italy generally was preparing for the destiny she has worked out for herself, by the constant endeavour to avail herself of the destroying presence of these foreign troops, and their rivalries, for the prosecution of her internal quarrels, and the attainment of equally low and yet more unjustifiable, because fratricidal aims.

Pescara, as a Neapolitan subject of the King of Spain, joined the army opposed to the French, under the walls of Ravenna. Vittoria, though her subsequent writings prove how much the parting cost her, showed how thoroughly she was a soldier's daughter and a soldier's wife. There had been some suggestion, it seems, that the marquis, as the sole surviving scion of an ancient and noble name, might fairly consider it his duty not to subject it to the risk of extinction by exposing his life in the field. The young soldier, however, wholly refused to listen to such counsels; and his wife strongly supported his view of the course honour counselled him to follow, by advice, which a young and beautiful wife, who was to remain surrounded by a brilliant circle of wits and poets, would scarcely have ventured on offering, had she not felt a perfect security from all danger of being misinterpreted, equally creditable to wife and husband.

So the young soldier took for a motto on his shield, the well-known "With this, or on this;" and having expended, we are told, much care and cash on a magnificent equipment, was at once appointed to the command of the light cavalry. The knowledge and experience necessary for such a position comes by nature, it must be supposed, to the descendant of a long line of noble knights, as surely as pointing does to the scion of a race of pointers. But the young warrior's episcopal[168] biographer cursorily mentions, that certain old and trusty veterans, who had obtained their military science by experience, and not by right of birth, were attached to his person.

The general of light cavalry arrived at the camp at an unfortunate moment. The total defeat of the United Spanish and Papal army by the French before Ravenna on the 9th of April, 1512, immediately followed. Fabrizio Colonna and his son-in-law were both made prisoners. The latter had been left for dead on the field, covered with wounds, which subsequently gave occasion to Isabella of Aragon, Duchess of Milan, to say, "I would fain be a man, Signor Marchese, if it were only to receive such wounds as yours in the face, that I might see if they would become me as they do you."[169]

Pescara, when picked up from the field, was carried a prisoner to Milan, where, by means of the good offices and powerful influence of Trivulzio, who had married Beatrice d'Avalos, Pescara's aunt, and was now a general in the service of France, his detention was rendered as little disagreeable as possible, and he was, as soon as his wounds were healed, permitted to ransom himself for six thousand ducats.[170]

During his short confinement he amused his leisure by composing a "Dialogo d'Amore," which he inscribed and sent to his wife. The Bishop of Como, his biographer, testifies that this work was exceedingly pleasant reading—"summÆ jucunditatis"—and full of grave and witty conceits and thoughts. The world, however, has seen fit to allow this treasury of wit to perish, notwithstanding the episcopal criticism. And in all probability the world was in the right. If, indeed, the literary general of light horse had written his own real thoughts and speculations on love, there might have been some interest in seeing a sixteenth century soldier's views on that ever interesting subject. But we may be quite certain, that the Dialogo, "stuffed full," as Giovio says, "of grave sentiments and exquisite conceits," contained only a reproduction of the classic banalities, and ingenious absurdities, which were current in the fashionable literature of the day. Yet it must be admitted, that the employment of his leisure in any such manner, and still more, the dedication of his labours on such a subject to his wife, are indications of an amount of cultivation and right feeling, which would hardly have been found, either one or the other, among many of the preux chevaliers, his brothers-in-arms.

Meanwhile, Vittoria, on her part, wrote a poetical epistle to her husband in prison, which is the first production of her pen that has reached us. It is written in Dante's "terza rima," and consists of 112 lines. Both Italian and French critics have expressed highly favourable judgments of this little poem. And it may be admitted that the lines are elegant, classical, well-turned, and ingenious. But those who seek something more than all this in poetry—who look for passion, high and noble thoughts, happy illustration or deep analysis of human feeling, will find nothing of the sort. That Vittoria did feel acutely her husband's misfortune, and bitterly regret his absence from her, there is every reason to believe. But she is unable to express these sentiments naturally or forcibly. She, in all probability made no attempt to do so, judging from the models on which she had been taught to form her style, that when she sat down to make poetry, the aim to be kept in view was a very different one. Hence we have talk of Hector and Achilles, Eolus, Sirens, and marine deities, Pompey, Cornelia, Cato, Martia, and Mithridates—a parade of all the treasures of the schoolroom. The pangs of the wife left lonely in her home are in neatly antithetical phrase contrasted with the dangers and toils of the husband in the field. Then we have a punning allusion to her own name:—

"Se Vittoria volevi, io t'era appresso;
Ma tu, lasciando me, lasciasti lei."

"If victory was thy desire, I was by thy side; but in leaving me, thou didst leave also her."

The best, because the simplest and most natural lines are the following:—

"Seguir si deve il sposo e dentro e fora;
E, s'egli pate affanno, ella patisca;
Se lieto, lieta; e se vi more, mora.
A quel che arrisca l'un, l'altro s'arrisca;
Eguali in vita, eguali siano in morte;
E ciÒ che avviene a lui, a lei sortisca."

"At home or abroad the wife should follow her husband; and if he suffers distress, she should suffer; should be joyful if he is joyful, and should die if he dies. The danger confronted by the one should be confronted by the other; equals in life, they should be equal in death; and that which happens to him should be her lot also,"—a mere farrago of rhetorical prettinesses, as cold as a school-boy's prize verses, and unanimated by a spark of genuine feeling; although the writer was as truly affectionate a wife as ever man had.

But, although all that Vittoria wrote, and all that the vast number of the poets and poetesses, her contemporaries, wrote, was obnoxious to the same remarks; still it will be seen, that in the maturity of her powers she could do better than this. Her religious poetry may be said, generally, to be much superior to her love verses; either because they were composed when her mind had grown to its full stature, or, as seems probable, because, model wife as she was, the subject took a deeper hold of her mind, and stirred the depths of her heart more powerfully.

Very shortly after the despatch of her poetical epistle, Vittoria was overjoyed by the unexpected return of her husband. And again for a brief interval she considered herself the happiest of women.

One circumstance indeed there was to mar the entirety of her contentment. She was still childless. And it seems, that the science of that day, ignorantly dogmatical, undertook to assert, that she would continue to be so. Both husband and wife seem to have submitted to the award undoubtingly; and the dictum, however rashly uttered, was justified by the event.

Under these circumstances, Vittoria undertook the education of Alphonso d'Avalos, Marchese del Vasto, a young cousin of her husband's. The task was a sufficiently arduous one;[171] for the boy, beautiful, it is recorded, as an angel, and endowed with excellent capabilities of all sorts, was so wholly unbroken, and of so violent and ungovernable a disposition, that he had been the despair and terror of all who had hitherto attempted to educate him. Vittoria thought that she saw in the wild and passionate boy the materials of a worthy man. The event fully justified her judgment, and proved the really superior powers of mind she must have brought to the accomplishment of it. Alphonso became a soldier of renown, not untinctured by those literary tastes which so remarkably distinguished his gentle preceptress. A strong and lasting affection grew between them; and Vittoria, proud with good reason of her work, was often wont to say, that the reproach of being childless ought not to be deemed applicable to her whose moral nature might well be said to have brought forth that of her pupil.

Pescara's visit to Naples was a very short one. Early in 1513, we find him again with the armies in Lombardy, taking part in most of the mischief and glory going.

Under the date of July the 4th in that year, the gossiping Naples weaver, who rarely fails to note the doings of the Neapolitan General of light horse with infinite pride and admiration, has preserved for us a rather picturesque little bit of Ariosto-flavoured camp life. The Spanish army, under Don Raymond di Cardona, who, on Consalvo's death had succeeded him as Viceroy of Naples, was on its march from Peshiera to Verona, when a messenger from the beautiful young Marchioness of Mantua came to the General-in-chief to say that she wished to see those celebrated Spanish troops, who were marching under his banners, and was then waiting their passage in the vineyards of the Castle of Villafranca. "A certain gentle lady of Mantua, named the Signora Laura, with whom Don Raymond was in love," writes the weaver, was with the Marchioness; and much pleased was he at the message. So word was passed to the various captains; and when the column reached the spot, where the Marchioness with a great number of ladies and cavaliers of Mantua were reposing in the shade of the vines, "Don Ferrante d'Alarcone, as Chief Marshal, with his bÂton in his hand made all the troops halt, and place themselves in order of battle; and the Signor Marchese di Pescara marched at the head of the infantry, with a pair of breeches cut after the Swiss fashion, and a plume on his head, and a two-handed sword in his hand, and all the standards were unfurled." And when the Marchioness from among the vines looking down through the chequered shade on to the road saw that all was in order, she and her ladies got into three carts, so that there came out of the vineyard, says Passeri, three cartsful of ladies surrounded by the cavaliers of Mantua on horseback. There they came very slowly jolting over the cultivated ground, those three heavy bullock carts, with their primitive wheels of one solid circular piece of wood, and their huge cream-coloured oxen with enormous horned heads gaily decorated, as Leopold Robert shows them to us, and the brilliant tinted dresses of the laughing bevy drawn by them, glancing gaudily in the sunlight among the soberer colouring of the vineyards in their summer pride of green. Then Don Raymond and Pescara advanced to the carts, and handed from them the Marchioness and Donna Laura, who mounted on handsomely equipped jennets prepared for them. It does not appear that this attention was extended to any of the other ladies, who must therefore be supposed to have remained sitting in the carts, while the Marchioness and the favoured Donna Laura rode through the ranks "con multa festa et gloria." And when she had seen all, with much pleasure and admiration, on a given signal three mules loaded with sweetmeats were led forward, with which the gay Marchioness "regaled all the captains." Then all the company with much content,—excepting, it is to be feared, the soldiers, who had to stand at arms under the July sun, while their officers were eating sugar-plums, and Don Raymond and Donna Laura were saying and swallowing sweet things,—took leave of each other, the army pursuing its march towards Verona, and the Marchioness and her ladies returning in their carts to Mantua.[172]

The other scattered notices of Pescara's doings during his campaign are of a less festive character. They show him to have been a hard and cruel man, reckless of human suffering, and eminent even among his fellow captains for the ferocity, and often wantonness of the ravages and wide-spread misery he wrought. On more than one occasion, Passeri winds up his narrative of some destruction of a town, or desolation of a fertile and cultivated district, by the remark, that the cruelty committed was worse than Turks would have been guilty of. Yet this same Passeri, an artisan, belonging to a class which had all to suffer and nothing to gain from such atrocities, writes, when chronicling this same Pescara's[173] death, that "on that day died, I would have you know, gentle readers, the most glorious and honoured captain that the world has seen for the last hundred years." It is curious to observe how wholly the popular mind was enslaved to the prejudices and conventional absurdities of the ruling classes; how entirely the feelings of the masses were in unison with those of the caste which oppressed them; how little reason they conceived they had to complain under the most intolerable treatment, and how little hope of progressive amelioration there was from the action of native-bred public opinion.

Bishop Giovio, the biographer and panegyrist of Pescara admits, that he was a stern and cruelly-severe disciplinarian; and mentions an anecdote in proof of it. A soldier was brought before him for having entered a house en route for the purpose of plundering. The General ordered that his ears should be cut off. The culprit remonstrated; and begged, with many entreaties, to be spared so dishonouring and ignominious a punishment, saying in his distress that death itself would have been more tolerable.

"The grace demanded is granted," rejoined Pescara instantly, with grim pleasantry. "Take this soldier, who is so careful of his honour, and hang him to that tree!"

In vain did the wretch beg not to be taken at his word so cruelly, no entreaties sufficed to change the savage decree.

It will be well that we should bear in mind these indications of the essential nature of this great and glorious captain, who had studied those ingenuous arts which soften the character, and do not suffer men to be ferocious, as the poet assures us, and who could write dialogues on love, when we come to consider the curious phenomenon of Vittoria's unmeasured love for her husband.