Good Old Times in Ferrara—How a Pope's Daughter became a Duchess—Bygones were bygones—and Love was still the Lord of all.

A certain class of writers, probably among the most sincere and earnest of the defenders of the Catholic faith, have been driven by the social aspect presented by all those countries in which Catholicism has power, to admit, accept, and justify the absence of material, and even intellectual prosperity, as a necessary consequence of catholic views of life here and hereafter. Material prosperity, say these ascetics,—plenty to eat and to drink, good clothing, commodious habitations, life–embellishing arts, and ministrations of all sorts to corporeal well–being, are not the proper objects of man here on this earth. Nay, the wisest of mankind have in all ages, they say, recognised such things as highly inimical to the pursuit of that better aim, to which all human endeavour should tend. While the fatal consequences resulting from untrammelled intellectual culture, are among the surest and saddest teachings of human experience. That the true and faithful fashioning of life therefore in accordance with the doctrines of a creed, the whole scope and tendency of which is the undivided pursuit of that higher and better aim, should be found unconducive to material and merely human intellectual advantages, is, they urge, not only what might reasonably be anticipated, but is a confirmatory proof of the correctness of those views, which it cannot be denied have made Catholic countries what they are.

Such doctrine, though little likely to be deemed conclusive by enlightened intelligence, or acceptable by the popular mind, has at all events the advantage of moving the question into a strictly theological court, into which the economist, the historian, the moralist, the politician, and the philanthropist, are not obliged to follow it. For their purposes it is sufficient, that the tendency of Catholicism to produce poverty, squalor, ignorance, and depopulation, should be admitted and registered. And they may well afford, at this period of the world's history, to treat with a silent shrug, the theory of those, who declare that these things are preferable to enlightenment, abundance, and material prosperity.

But if it be indeed true, that intellectual and material decadence is the proof and guarantee of a people's spiritual advancement; if the desolating blight which marks unmistakeably every land overshadowed by the wings of the Roman Church, be indeed an indication of its ripeness for a better harvest than any to be garnered on this side of the grave; then assuredly may we expect to find the purest and brightest spiritual life ever yet manifested by a nation, among the happy populations—fortunati nimium sua si bona nÔrint—subjected to the immediate sway of the successors of St. Peter. And should any curious student of the modus operandi and results of ecclesiastical government, desire to know where he may advantageously examine such phenomena in their most unmitigated form and perfect development, he may be safely advised to bestow his researches on the city and district of Ferrara.

There, indeed, the lesson he is in search of, is so written, that he who runs, even though he speed on with the haste of the posting traveller, eager to leave the abomination of desolation behind him, may read it without fear of blundering. There indeed is a city and people unmistakably marked by Holy Mother Church, as her own; silence and solitude, decay, dilapidation, neglect, and sordid squallor, characterise the impress of her paternal hand. And yet more forcibly to point the moral of the spectacle, there remains sufficient traces of what Ferrara was in the young ungodly days of her lay government, to give all the force of contrast to her present condition. There is the gaunt frame of a city calculated to house four times the amount of its present population. The lofty walls of vast palaces enclose wide and spacious streets, over which the green weeds are growing, and a dead silence broods. In the centre is the moated castle of the old Dukes of Ferrara, now the monstrously disproportioned residence of the priest, who governs (!) Ferrara and its legation. Around this still lingers what little of life and movement is left in the paralysis–struck city. The more distant streets may be traversed from end to end without the sight of a living creature, save perhaps a group of half–naked mendicants basking in the sun, or the still more unpleasing figure of a capuchin friar, sauntering along with his wallet over his shoulder, on his daily quest, like some unclean reptile of ill omen crawling among ruins which are its appropriate dwelling–place.

Such are the normal and necessary results as they lie developed and palpable before our eyes, of that system which was inaugurated at the period to which the subject of these pages belongs. But let ascetic theologians console themselves, and defend the issues of their handywork, as they may, it is undeniable, that, be they as sincere as they will, all such considerations are but after–thoughts. The production of a society vowed to apostolic poverty and heedlessness of the morrow, was not the object which the sixteenth century popes, and those misguided rulers who played into their hands, had in view. They intended to bring about very different issues. Yet this, which we see, was the only one in the long run possible, as the upshot of their doings. Divine providence so over–ruled the matter, quite in accordance with divine precedent, having very irreversibly laid down the law for the regulation of all such cases, at the time of man's first creation.

Previously to the inauguration of this fatal policy, the rule of the earlier dukes of Ferrara of the house of Este had aimed at, and in very considerable degree attained, quite other results. Beginning with old Borso the first duke, who was invested with that dignity in 1471, and who left behind him so good a name, that when in after and worser times, men grumbled in Ferrara,[19] they would say, "Ah, 'tis not now as in Duke Borso's days," down to his great nephew Hercules the Second, who ruled the duchy at the period to which our subject belongs; the Ferrarese princes had been very favourable specimens of the Italian sovereigns of those days.

As for good–old–times Borso, the just, though he had not the advantage of book–learning himself, he honoured it in others. The fact of his own deficiency in this respect, we gather from the amusingly frank avowal of a contemporary chronicler, who in a dedication of his book to his sovereign,[20] remarks that, "Fortune, ever the enemy of worth, has not willed, that to your other singular accomplishments should be added that of literature." From the records of his reign however, it would seem, that illiterate as he was, he must have had talents, that would make an invaluable chancellor of the exchequer. For the same historians, who give us the most glowing accounts of his magnificence assure us, that he never oppressed his subjects with unjust or grievous taxation. He dressed we are told, even when in the country, in brocade and cloth of gold; he never went without a chain about his neck of the value of seventy thousand ducats (!!), kept seven hundred magnificent horses in his stables, and dogs and falcons in proportion. Then his buildings were on a scale that might rival the doings of Napoleon the Third. But that collar! We have heard of the oppressive weight of the trappings of state, but little thought of the terrible extent of the reality. For seventy thousand ducats must be reckoned at the lowest calculation to be worth at the present day thirty–five thousand pounds, and to be equivalent to about two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds weight of gold. Now, admitting that nine–tenths of this value was represented by the exquisite workmanship of the celebrated Venetian goldsmiths, still we must suppose, poor Duke Borso to have walked about the world with upwards of two hundred weight of gold round his neck!

Borso's brother, Hercules the First, who succeeded to him in 1471, is also spoken of with high praise by the contemporary chroniclers.[21] They tell us, that his title to the dukedom was maintained against a collateral pretender by seventy thousand inhabitants of Ferrara. He signalised his accession by the remission of several taxes, which seems somewhat incompatible with the praises previously bestowed on Borso on that head; and still more so with the accounts we have of his own magnificent doings. For he also was a mighty builder both of palaces and villas for his own pleasure, and of improved and increased dwellings for that of his people. Towards the end of the century, the population of Ferrara, which we have already seen rated at seventy thousand, had become so largely increased, chiefly in consequence of the expulsion from Spain and Portugal of the Jews, who thronged in great numbers into Italy, and especially settled themselves at Ferrara under the then tolerant rule of its popular dukes, that a writer of the time[22] declares, that no dwelling was to be found there for money. Hercules, therefore, in 1492, undertook the herculean task of erecting buildings to such a number as to double the size of his capital.

The work was commenced on such a scale, that the cautious Venetian senators, his neighbours, were startled, and deemed it prudent to ask what was intended by such vast preparations for construction. Duke Hercules answered, that he was building houses for his subjects to live in, and the Queen of the Adriatic seems to have been contented with the reply. Various taxes were imposed, not on Ferrara only, but on the whole of the Duke's dominions, including Modena and Reggio, to supply the means of executing these works. But there is no indication to be found of their having been considered grievous or excessive. And we have no means of ascertaining whose property the newly–raised quarters of the city were considered when built. Did they become crown property, and thus enormously increase the already large means of which the princes of the house of Este disposed, independently of taxation? Or, as seems under the circumstances of the case hardly possible, were any accounts kept, and means adopted to make the proceeds of the new property available, in the shape of interest, to those who had contributed to their expense?

Next to his ruling passion for building, spectacles of all sorts, dramatic and others, and travelling, were the great delight of Hercules I. All these were costly pleasures; and we find that, in contradiction to the policy of the early days of his reign, want of money often induced him to lay heavy burthens on his subjects. Nevertheless, he had the art of making himself exceedingly beloved by his people. He never hoarded money, but spent it almost entirely among the citizens in making his court and capital the gayest and most splendid in Italy. It was always "festa," always carnival at Ferrara. "Tournaments, races of horses, of oxen, of asses, of girls and boys, shooting matches, and hunting parties succeeded each other without interruption."[23] Then the good Duke would sally forth o' nights, and looking in quite unexpectedly take pot luck at supper with his loving subjects, in genuine Caliph Haroun Alraschid fashion.

Neither then nor at any other time was any court in Italy so thronged with men of learning and genius. For such, come they from what nation they might, there was always a warm welcome, and assistance, if they needed it. Then again the court of Ferrara was a noted resort of noble knights, who had differences touching their honour, to put to the arbitrement of the sword. For the sport–loving Duke was always ready to afford a tilting–ground, and the countenance of his august presence to champions in need of such accommodation. Many accordingly were the celebrated duels which came off at Ferrara, to the infinite satisfaction and diversion of the Duke and his subjects. Then as for his piety, if all the churches and monasteries he built were not enough to vouch for it, says Frizzi, piously, it is abundantly proved by his habit of going to various churches accompanied by all his famous band, there to have mass celebrated with all the attractions of music. Besides, in holy week, he used to wash the feet of hundreds of old men! What more would you have?

His son Alphonso, born in 1476, succeeded him in 1505. This prince's first wife, Anna Strozzi, having died in 1477, he married in 1501 the too celebrated Lucrezia Borgia. That such a marriage could have been thought possible, that it should have been proposed to the court of Ferrara, and accepted by Alphonso and his father, are facts which very strikingly set before us the vastness of the difference between the habits of thought and feeling of an Italian of the fifteenth and an Englishman of the nineteenth century. The consideration of a gulf of separation so impassable warns us of the exceeding difficulty of so sympathising with the men of that time and country, as to form any tolerably fair appreciation of their conduct; not merely in the sense of morally judging of it, with reference to the responsibilities of the individual, with which wholly impossible task we have fortunately no need to meddle; but in the sense of comprehending the bearing and weight of the motives which regulated it.

Lucrezia was twenty–five at the time of this her fourth marriage. What the tenour of her life had been, and the nature of the scenes she had passed through, the English reader is probably in some small degree aware; in a very small degree, unless indeed he happens to have sought out in the folio Latin columns of the contemporary chroniclers the details of abominations wholly unreproducible in any modern page. And yet this woman, whose moral nature, if judged according to our habits of thought, must be deemed to have been saturated with impurity, and hopelessly depraved and destroyed, is proposed and accepted as the wife of a prince, whose character stands higher than that of any of his contemporaries of the sovereign houses of Italy, and whose family was already remarkable among them for enlightenment and respectability!—accepted to be the mother of his children, and the means of transmitting his unsullied name and crown!

A very noteworthy instance of the extraordinary incompatibility of the moral feelings of those times with our own, or of our imperfect appreciation of the exact value of the terms used, occurs in a passage of the "Relazione,[24]" of the Venetian ambassador Paolo Cappello, who, returning from Alexander the Sixth's Court in 1500, tells the Senate that Lucrezia is "prudent and liberal"—savia e liberale—and adds within five lines, without further remark, that it is said, that she had an incestuous connection with her brother![25]

But perhaps the most extraordinary and interesting fact of Lucrezia's history, is that after her marriage with Alphonso, not only was her life blameless, but her conduct was such as to merit and secure her high–minded husband's affection and esteem, and in all respects to do honour to her station. Her marriage with Alphonso therefore divides, as by an abruptly and suddenly drawn line, the life of Lucrezia into two portions, the earlier all black with atrocities and abominations unspeakable, the latter shining with purity and many noble virtues. Such a statement has been deemed to involve an absolute moral impossibility; and Roscoe has been induced by the consideration of it, to attempt a denial of the charges which have made Lucrezia Borgia's name a by–word of infamy.

"If the Ethiopian cannot change his skin," he writes,[26] "nor the leopard his spots, how are we to conceive it possible that a person, who had during so many years of her life been sunk into the lowest depths of guilt and infamy could at once emerge to respectability and virtue? The history of mankind furnishes no instances of such a rapid change."

But Roscoe's elaborate though weak defence signally breaks down. It would extend what has already undesignedly assumed the proportions of a digression far too much to enter into an examination of the historical evidence on the subject. It will be sufficient to observe, that Roscoe's "chivalrous" attempt, as somebody with infinite absurdity somewhere calls it, was abundantly demolished by the "Edinbro' Review," January, 1806, at the time. And further evidence than was then accessible to the reviewer, has since been made available to establish the historical certainty, that the earlier portion of Lucrezia's life was in truth all that it has been ordinarily supposed to have been. On the correctness of the account of the latter portion, as stated above, no doubt has ever been cast. So that we in reality have this whitewashed–black–a–moor phenomenon before us, to make of it what we may.

Gibbon disposes[27] of the matter by observing, that "perhaps the youth of Lucrezia had been seduced by example; perhaps she had been satiated by pleasure; perhaps she was awed by the authority of her new parent and husband," Alphonso, and his father Hercules. But the moral philosopher will hardly deem any of these suppositions a satisfactory explanation of the facts before him. And a more serious consideration of them will perhaps lead him to the conclusion, that whatever of strangeness or novelty they may present, is rather matter for the historian's study than for his own.

Well convinced of the reality of the impossibility alleged, that any human being should pass suddenly from such a moral state as that indicated to our judgments by the facts of Lucrezia's early career, to such an ethical condition as that presumed to accompany her later life, while he in no wise seeks to invalidate the historical evidence of the case, he will yet deny such change to have been accomplished. Knowing how large a portion of the spiritual deterioration arising from any outward acts, is dependent on the degree to which the conscience of the agent is enlightened, he will deny that Lucrezia's moral state during the first part of her life was such as we are apt to conceive that it needs must have been. Aware how very much of the difficulty of turning from evil to good, consists in the arduousness of the struggle to rise from infamy to good repute, he will assert, that Lucrezia could not have been sunk in that depth of infamy to which we suppose that the admitted facts of her conduct must necessarily have consigned her.

For the moralist there will be nothing new or striking in all this. The interesting significance of the phenomenon is for the historian. That restoration and rehabilitation, it would appear, which would be impossible in the nineteenth, was possible in the fifteenth century. The gulf which would now be wholly impassable, did not then yawn so wide as to make crossing it impossible. Here is to be found the explanation, and herein consists the historical interest of the facts of the case. The finely organised moral sense of the nineteenth century would have been wholly killed by similar wounds, and the spiritual destruction of the individual would have been irretrievable. But the lower, coarser, more rudimentary moral sense of the "ages of faith" was not wholly killed by such injuries. And the extraordinary social phenomenon of the marriage is only explicable in the same manner. The moral reprobation, which among us would doom such an offender to the isolation of a leper, did not exist in that age and country. When the aged Pontiff Paul III. characterised the even more horrible atrocities of his son Piero Luigi Farnese as juvenile indiscretions, though the respectable world of the sixteenth century was revolted, the discrepancy between the moral judgment of Heaven's vicegerent and that of his faithful people, was very far from being as monstrous as that between his and our nineteenth century English feeling. The career of Lucrezia was also doubtless deemed highly reprehensible by her contemporaries. Indeed we find it made the subject of invective and epigram. But it is clear, that none of the horror and the loathing attached to it with which we now regard it. It is evident that she was not deemed hopelessly and irrecoverably soiled and destroyed by it.

And such proofs of the enormous amount of the advance in the moral sense of mankind, which has been accomplished in the world, that according to theologians, has been staggering onwards amid tottering creeds and ever–multiplying heresies towards a religious cataclysm, are among the most important fruits of historical study.

When the marriage was first proposed to the court of Ferrara by Alexander VI., both Alphonso and his father Hercules were extremely averse to it[28]. The Pope induced Louis XII. to use his influence with the Ferrarese princes; and the king deputed a posse of churchmen, the Cardinal of Rohan, the Archdeacon of Chalon, and the Archbishop of Narbonne, to persuade Hercules and his son of the desirableness of such an union. Their arguments seem to have consisted entirely in setting forth the dangers that would arise to Ferrara from refusal. The father was thus first brought over. Alphonso still expressed the greatest reluctance. But when his father declared, that under the pressure of the circumstances, he would himself, were it not for his advanced age, accept the hand of Lucrezia, the son consented.

The bribes administered by the Pope in the shape of dower, were very considerable. The investiture of his Duchy, which had hitherto been conferred by the Apostolic see for three generations only, was made perpetual. The tribute payable on account of it was reduced from four thousand ducats to one hundred florins. An hundred thousand ducats was also paid down in gold; and the bride carried with her to Ferrara the value of an hundred and seventeen thousand ducats in precious stones and jewelry; besides a proportionate amount of property in dresses and furniture. And it was especially provided in the marriage contract, that, in case of Lucrezia's death, Alphonso should not be called on to restore any portion of this property.[29]

The marriage was celebrated at Rome on the 29th December, 1501, Alphonso's brother Don Ferrante standing proxy for the bridegroom.

On the 1st of February the bride reached Ferrara, where the preparations for receiving her may be said to have been nearly the sole occupation of the entire city, during the interval between the marriage and her arrival in her new home. And although Donna Lucrezia and her extraordinary marriage have already too much lengthened these notices of the court of Ferrara, the only scope of which is to give the reader some idea of the scene on which the subject of these pages is to appear, yet some of the details of these preparations, as recorded by the contemporary diarist above cited, afford so curious a peep at the manners and customs of the period, that the somewhat undue extension of a merely prefatory chapter will probably be pardoned for the sake of the interest attaching to them.

On the 22nd of December, the diarist notes, that fourteen bushels of comfits were already prepared, counting up to that night, and that the ducal confectioners would continue to increase the store with all diligence. It has been seen already how large a part preparations of sugar played on all such occasions.

Then we have a very curious illustration of a custom, traces of which still remain among the people in several parts of Italy. On the night before the Epiphany, children are in these days wont to hang up a stocking, or some other such receptacle outside their chambers, into which their friends put little presents, which the child finds in the morning, and considers, or makes fun of pretending to consider, as the gifts of the fairy "Beffana;" for such is the popular conception of the meaning of the term Epiphany! Now see of how mighty a wallet is the poor child's stocking the dwindled representative. The enormous expense of the wedding preparations made a few "Beffana" presents especially welcome to the young prince Alphonso at the Epiphany tide of 1502. So at nightfall he rode forth accompanied by twenty–five horsemen, with drums and trumpets, and went through the city "per la sua ventura," in quest of fortune, or, as we might say, to see what luck would send him. "And he got for his fairing, 'di sua ventura,' three hundred head of oxen, an equal number of large cheeses, upwards of a thousand couple of capons, and other things to the estimated value of a thousand ducats."

In truth, the Beffana was something like a good fairy in the good old times, especially when a gallant young prince sought her favour!

But the Beffana could not supply all that was needed. For on the following Sunday came out the list of appointments to offices for the year. "And every man in the list paid for his place through the nose." Bonifacio Ariosto and Battista di Zilioli, among others, paid an immense sum for the post of commissioners of customs. And Tito Strozzi, the Latin poet, was continued in his place of judge, to the great discontent of all the people, "but it cost him very dear."

Besides all this, the ducal palace was open to all loyal subjects, who came with anything eatable or drinkable to assist their sovereign in the coming tremendous call on his hospitality. It was counted that up to the evening of the 27th, among other things, fifteen thousand head of poultry had been brought in as presents. Indeed the zeal of the Ferrarese outran the necessity of the case, great as it was; for a few days later we find that a large quantity of game and poultry had to be thrown into the Po, because it had become unusable.

From the 25th to the end of the month, all Ferrara was hard at work adorning the streets, levelling places that were uneven, putting up scaffolding for seats where the bride would pass on her entry, preparing accommodation for the five thousand three hundred horses which were expected, contriving as far as possible means of lodging the "incredible number" of strangers, who were continually arriving to witness the festival; putting new marble steps to the altar in the cathedral; and, lastly, in erecting over the door of the palace a blazonry of the Pope's arms, together with those of the King of France, and those of the most illustrious House of Este, "with angels and hydras, and other exquisitely beautiful ornaments."

But a most provoking thing was, that in the midst of all this bustle we had to send out a party on horseback to meet a certain French cardinal, who was coming to Ferrara on his way from the King of France to the Pope. And they had their ride for nothing, "for his most reverend lordship determined to stay the night where he was, because his most reverend lordship had not got his clothes with him."

At last on the 2nd of February the bride and her immense cortÈge, increased by the Duke and the bridegroom, together with all that was either noble or learned in Ferrara, who had gone out to meet them, made their triumphal entry into the city. Alphonso, whose aversion to the match has been mentioned, was more than reconciled to his lot by the sight of the bride,[30] whose rare beauty at once captivated him. She passed the night of the first of February at a villa outside of the city, in order to make her ceremonial entry on the following day, when according to courtly etiquette she was to be duly presented to her bridegroom with infinite laborious co–operation of bishops and benedictions, trumpeters, heralds, court–ushers, and bell–ringers. And doubtless when the appointed moment came, both the lady and gentleman performed their part of the show, and made their first acquaintance with each other in the presence of assembled Italy with all propriety. But it did so happen that a certain lynx–eyed "gentleman of the press," (who was early afoot in the exercise of his profession on the morning of the great day of the 2nd, picking up stray facts to present them,—if not all hot to "our readers" at their breakfast tables in a second edition of the Ferrara Times, yet embedded fossil–like in the vast strata of Muratori's colossal folios, to us and all future generations) did see a figure, whom he perfectly well recognised as the Prince Alphonso, quietly slipping out from a side entrance of the villa, which held the bride, and hastening back to the city to prepare himself for his part in the coming pageant.

Early it must have been that "our reporter" was guilty of this professional indiscretion, for both dame and cavalier had much to do in preparation for their day's work. She had to dress her head with a cap and jewels valued at fifteen thousand ducats, and her feet with sandals worth two thousand. She had to get on her state dress of gold brocade and black satin, heavy with such a vast quantity of precious stones that the value of it was incalculable. Thus accoutred she had to get upon a white jennet entirely covered with gold brocade, under a canopy supported by all the doctors of the University of Ferrara, and manage him as best she might, despite his starting (duly chronicled) every time the salvos of cannon were fired. Last, and by no means probably least, she had to get her following of ladies of honour stowed in sixteen carts.

As for Alphonso, he had only to put on a cloak all of plates of beaten gold, of the value of eight thousand ducats, and hang chains about his neck to the value of almost as much more, then to mount his black charger, and ride forth at the head of all the Ferrarese nobility.

Then followed Pantagruelian feastings and junketings for several days; in which the usual order seems to have been to dance all day, and after the feast at night, to see "comedies" and "Moresche" or morris dances. Then there were most extraordinary feats of rope–dancing. Among others, a certain youth—uno zovene nominato cingano—probably "zingaro" or the gypsy, passed along a cord stretched across the whole piazza of Ferrara, from the summit of the bishop's residence to the summit of the ducal palace, frightening all the ladies by pretending to fall when half way across, and catching himself by hooking his foot on the cord!

After having narrated all that the Duke's lieges did for their sovereign on this grand occasion, it would not be fair to quit the subject, without recording what the good Duke did for them in return. On the morning of 23rd, all Ferrara was gladdened by a proclamation made with sound of trumpet throughout the city, to the effect that his Highness had obtained from Pope Alexander, permission for all the subjects of the Duke of Ferrara to eat eggs and milk on all days whatsoever, no further dispensation being needed than that signified by the present proclamation!

So old Duke Hercules was laid in the family vault in the early days of 1505, not unlamented by his people, leaving behind him a favourable old–King–Cole sort of reputation, as the most junketing cake–and–ale loving sovereign of his day. But he had pretty well seen the last of the good cake–and–ale times in Italy, for many a long year to come. His son Alphonso had his lot cast in very different days.

Italy begins to be overrun by the troops of the most Catholic Emperor, and the most Christian King; and famine and pestilence follow in their wake. Ferrara is afflicted by both scourges. And we catch a glimpse[31] of the young duke striving at the opening of his reign to do his duty by his subjects, by starting off himself in quest of corn. Carrying with him good store of gold, he takes several of those huge ungainly vessels, half ship half barge, such as may be still seen on the rivers and canals of the Delta of the Po, goes to buy corn in Venice, and returns with his fleet laden, with wretched stuff indeed, and bought at an enormous price, but most welcome to starving Ferrara.

Then comes the pestilence, against which no ducal treasures avail aught. Such general provisions, as fear and the rude science of the time dictate, are enforced. Infected houses are shut up absolutely,—none permitted to enter or come out from them. The great convent of Franciscans is thus closed upon its wretched inmates. The University is shut up; and all tribunals of whatsoever kind suspend their business. But in five months the deaths amount to six thousand; while other four thousand have saved themselves by flight.

But these are only the beginnings of misfortune. That terrible and indomitable old man, Julius II., was on the papal throne;—a pope, who really does seem to have had some idea of doing his duty as Heaven's vicegerent on earth, on the theory that this was most effectually to be accomplished by crying war to the knife against all who withheld from St. Peter, dues, titles, or dominions, that should, could, or might be his. Ferrara occupied a singularly provocative position on the map to a Holy Father of this temperament. And what could be easier than to find at Mother Church's need some flaw to a feudal title, among the forgotten deeds of ecclesiastical archives, carefully hoarded, ad hoc. Besides, if there were nothing else to be said, the Duke makes salt in the marshes of Comacchio, to the damage of the apostolical trade in that article; and is therefore hereby excommunicated, and declared deposed from his Duchy, and his subjects released from their allegiance!

A very hard struggle had Alphonso to hold his own against all the spiritual and carnal weapons of the Church. It must be admitted, that the latter seem to have troubled him by far the most. And more than once it appeared as if he must have been overwhelmed by the superiority of the force against him. But partly by his own military talents, partly by the aid of the French, and partly by good fortune, he won through, till the death of Julius allowed him, and the rest of the world, a short breathing time of repose.

Not that his difficulties with Mother Church were at an end. Leo X., though as mild a mannered Pope as ever launched a curse, had no intention of abandoning all the Church's claims on a vassal in disgrace. He relieved him from the excommunication, and permitted him to hold Ferrara, but still maintained a claim on Modena, and made good his hold on that city.

In 1519, Alphonso lost, and as it would seem, bitterly regretted, his wife Lucrezia. "Her husband and his subjects," writes Frizzi,[32] "all loved her for her gracious manners and for her piety, to which," as Giovio says, "having long before abandoned all worldly vanities, she wholly dedicated herself. She used to spend the morning in prayer; and in the evening, would invite the ladies of Ferrara to embroidery–working parties, in which accomplishment she greatly excelled. Her liberality to the poor, and to men of letters, which generally means one and the same thing," says Frizzi, "was especially notable."

Clement VII., if not so terrible an adversary as Julius II., was one quite as difficult to deal with. Promises made only to delude, negotiations entered on with no intention that they should lead to anything, treaties made only to be broken, a dexterous playing off of one potentate against another,—these were the arts by which Clement sought to steer his devious and trimming course among the difficulties of the time; and which at last landed him a prisoner in his own fortress of St. Angelo, while his and the world's capital was being sacked beneath his eyes. In this predicament Clement had by his duly authorised representative, Cardinal Cibo, in consideration of Alphonso's joining the French King in a league against the Emperor, conceded all the points in dispute between them. The investiture of Ferrara was to be renewed and confirmed; all claim of the Apostolic See to Modena, Reggio, &c., was to be abandoned; Ippolito the Duke's second son was to have a Cardinal's hat and the bishopric of Modena; and Alphonso was to make as much salt at Comacchio as he pleased.

But hardly was the treaty signed before the Pope escaped from St. Angelo to Orvieto, and thereupon unblushingly refused to perform any one of the promises made. And Alphonso, who had incurred great risk of the Emperor's displeasure by performing his share of the bargain, had to turn about with all possible speed, break with the King of France, and hope by humble excuses to be able to make it up again with Charles.

Thus in Ferrara, as indeed throughout Italy, things were very different from what they had been during the latter half of the fifteenth century. Men might with some show of reason talk of the good old times, and look out on those around them with misgiving and despondency. And yet the Phoenix was burning herself as usual; only, as must be admitted, with more than ordinary amount of pestilential stench and stifling smoke,—smoke so stifling, so pestilential, that but few of those, who had to draw their life–breath, as best they might, in the midst of it, attained to any remotest guess that all this so sulphureous smother, and confused darkness of the air, was in truth but caused by that Phoenix burning, and preparatory for a purer atmosphere when it was accomplished. Few in any age can gain such Pisgah–glimpse of the coming time; fewest in that of which this writing treats.

But of those few our Olympia, as it is hoped the reader will see reason to believe, was one. Yet that terrible burning time,—such a Phoenix burning as the world has once and once only seen since—was but on the eve of beginning in the scene on which Olympia had to appear, at the time of her appearance. Her mortal career had to be passed in the midst of the very densest smoke–clouds of the funeral pyre.

Easy for us, looking back over the traversed maze with chart in hand, to understand the plan of it! Easy enough to talk of renaissance and glorious morning–tide spring of human thought! To those in the thick of the sweltering struggle, it was as the eve of dissolution and universal cataclysm.