ASPASIA REDIVIVA.

It is fancied, with small reason probably, that to grow old is necessarily more disagreeable to women than to men. And dates are therefore popularly held to be especially detestable facts to the fair sex. If this be so, the world in this matter, as in most others, showed itself excessively complaisant to our fascinating sixteenth century, Aspasia. For her contemporaries have been most strangely silent on the subject as regards her. The year of her birth, and more strangely still, that of her death, are alike unknown and undiscoverable. Must we therefore conclude, that the departure of the superannuated beauty, was as little interesting to the world as the arrival of the "furtively received" infant?

The literary historians content themselves with vaguely stating, that Tullia "flourished" in 1550.[8] It is true, that a difference of opinion may be supposed to exist as to the portion of her career best deserving to be so characterised. But it is to be feared, that poor Tullia herself must have considered her "flourishing" to be over and gone for ever, by the time she reached that period. For in the total silence and negligence of every regular clerk in Mnemosyne's office, some not–to–be–baffled, Dryasdust, whom our brilliant Tullia would doubtless have hated with instinctive aversion, has succeeded in poking out a certain letter that blabs much. Ah! those old letters in dusty yellow bundles, with the unimpeachable evidences of their signatures, addresses, and dates, hoarded by some correspondent's preserving instincts, in many cases little counted on by the writer, how much of all we know about our predecessors on earth's surface is due to their unforeseen tale–telling!

In the year 1531, Rome was settling down into her usual way of life, after the dreadful catastrophes of 1527. Pope Clement the Seventh had got over the most perilous and immediate of his troubles, but was, as Popes are wont to be, very much in need of assistance from his banker. Now, this necessary and important person was no other than the celebrated Filippo Strozzi, who was then in Rome, busied in the political as well as the monetary affairs of the papacy. But Strozzi was one of those marvellous men, whose abounding vital energies enable them to unite in their own persons, characters, pursuits, and occupations, which might seem to belong to half a dozen most dissimilar individuals. His political speculations and intrigues did not interfere with his much–loved literary pursuits. His free–thinking philosophy did not prevent his close intimacy with the Pope. And his vast commercial and banking operations were somehow made compatible with the career of a very notorious man of pleasure.

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."

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.

There is reason to suppose that her residence in Rome must have continued till 1540 or 1541. For among the "Strozziane"[13] MSS. preserved in the Magliabecchian library at Florence, there is a volume containing the rules, members' names, transactions, &c. of the Academy of the "Humidi," in which are entered three or four sonnets sent from Rome to the Society by Tullia. They are not dated; but the Academy was founded in 1540, and the volume bears at the end the date of 1541. Nothing can be conceived more insipid and dry, than the lucubrations of these "Humid" Academicians; and in truth the effusions despatched to them by Tullia, and honoured by the Academy with insertion in their solemn Archives, are quite worthy of their place in the Humid annals. One is a sonnet in praise of Cosmo I. It begins "Almo pastor," and attributes to that lowminded debauchee and cruel tyrant all the virtues that can possibly be packed into fourteen lines.

And this was written a couple of years after Filippo Strozzi (the very particular friend and protector, by whose side it was a pleasure to sit, while he wrote long business letters in 1531) put himself to death in despair, in preference to remaining in the power of Cosmo, his mortal and vindictive enemy. One might suspect that the fair Tullia had had an opportunity of looking over his shoulder also when he was writing that second letter, in which he had dared to say that she was not beautiful!

Another of the sonnets sent by Tullia, and preserved by the "Humidi," is inscribed to Maria Salviati, and begins—

"Soul pure and bright, as when thou cam'st from God!"

Whence it may be inferred that there was in those days no such yawning abyss between the "monde" and "demi–monde," as to prevent a lady highly placed in the former from being addressed acceptably by one who, according to nineteenth century notions, must be deemed a denizen of the latter.

It must be understood, however, that any such phrase applied to Tullia's social position in her own sixteenth century, would give a very erroneous idea of what that in reality was. The classic Hetaira seems more akin to this Apollo–chartered libertine of an age bent on being equally classical.

Accordingly we find that the house of La Tullia—her house! no mention or hint of that Junius–like individual (Il Tullio, shall we call him?), who must nevertheless be supposed to have been at home there under hatches somewhere, or acting perhaps as groom–porter, and shouting the names and titles of the Monsignori and Eminences, as they arrived;—the house of La Tullia was frequented by the "best society" in Rome. Ludovico Domenichi of Piacenza, himself a poet and a curious specimen of a sixteenth century professional literary man, who must have known Tullia at Florence in the latter years of her life, has recorded some of the sayings and doings of a company assembled at her house in Rome.[14]

A party of "gentilhuomini virtuosi" there were discussing Petrarch; and the question was raised, how far he had availed himself of ideas suggested to him by ancient Tuscan and ProvenÇal poets. While this was being debated, "L'Humore da Bologna" came in. This personage is mentioned frequently by Domenichi as a sayer and doer of eccentricities and droll things; but I have not succeeded in finding any account of him; and think it probable that "L'Humore" may have been one of those nicknames which the Italians are so fond of bestowing on one another. He at once showed himself to be quite at home, says Ludovico, laid aside his cloak; and entering into the conversation, gave it as his opinion that Petrarch had served the verses of his predecessors as Spaniards serve the cloaks, which they steal in the night; put fresh ornaments and trimmings on them, so that when they appear in them the next day, they are no longer recognisable. Upon which a Spaniard, who chanced to be among the company, attempted to call "L'Humore" to account for this insulting mention of his countrymen. "What!" cried the wit, "is your Excellency a Spaniard? Boy, bring me my cloak directly!" And so saying, he put it on, and wrapped it closely round him, as he sat, to the infinite amusement, says Domenichi, of the assembled company.

After the death of that mysterious phantom, her husband, says Zilioli, Tullia left Rome in search of "fresh fields and pastures new." We can only know that this was after 1540. But it must have been much after this that she took up her residence in Florence. For the same writer tells us, that she was then both in years and appearance pretty nearly an old woman.[15] In 1562 she was, according to the date we have assigned to her birth, only fifty–two or three, or thereabouts. And she must have resided in Florence several years prior to that date. For she lived there, we are told, under the patronage of Cosmo's Duchess Eleonora of Toledo, who died in that year. So that she could not have been much more than half–way between forty and fifty, when she appeared to be "half an old woman."

Supposing her to have gone to Florence about 1555, and to have left Rome not long after 1540, there is a space of some twelve or fifteen years, during which we very nearly lose all sight of her.

Very nearly, but not quite; for we hear of long residences at Venice and Ferrara; and can trace her to Bologna by a phrase in an epigram too coarsely abusive to be reproduced, which Pasquin fired after her when she quitted Rome. Little cared the brilliant poetess—errant for pasquinades let off behind her back, while her course from one pleasure–loving court to another was tracked, as Zilioli writes, by "an infinite number of lovers, especially among the poets, who pursued her like a pack of greyhounds, striving to bring her down by volleys of odes and sonnets," to which our not insensible Sappho was ready enough to reply in similar strain.

Here, as a specimen of "her make," as the Italians say, is a sonnet addressed by her to Pietro Manelli, of Florence, who was one of her most devoted slaves:

"Qual vaga Filomena, che fuggita
È dall'odiata gabbia, ed in superba
Vista sen va tra gli arboscelli e l'erba
Tornata in libertate, e lieta vita;

Ed io dagli amorosi lacci uscita,
Schernendo ogni martir, e pena acerba
Dell'incredibil duol, che in se riserba
Qual ha per troppo amar l'alma smarrita;

Ben avev'io ritolte, ahi stella fiera!
Dal tempio di Ciprigna le mie spoglie
E di lor premio me n'andava altera.

Quando a me Amor; le tue ritrose voglie
MuterÒ, disse; e femmi prigioniera
Di tua virtÙ, per rinovar mie doglie."

Which may be Englished as follows, without, it is to be hoped, any very cruel injury to the original:

"As when from her abhorr'd captivity
Fair Philomel hath fled, and proudly takes
Her way through grassy meads and bushy brakes
Restored to joyous life and liberty;

So I, from amorous bonds escaping free,
All torment scorning, and the poignant aches
Of grief untold, which too much loving makes
The doom of such, as love–bewilder'd be,

Had borne (alas! my hapless stars!) away
My garments from the Cyprian Goddess' shrine
Proud of the feat, when Love to me did say,

'I will transform that stubborn will of thine;'
And so he made me captive to thy power,
Renewing all my torments from that hour."

This sonnet is not worse than thousands of other such, which obtained for their fabricators the name and reputation of poets in that age of vaunted intellectual movement; and it is certainly better than the majority of them.

And thus our brilliant Aspasia of the renaissance fluttered from court to court, everywhere received with open arms, everywhere the cynosure of all eyes, everywhere the centre of a knot of poets and littÉrateurs; and flashing off her sonnets and canzonets right and left; now as offerings to be laid at the feet of some most illustrious duke or duchess, and now in loving or saucy requital of those addressed to her by her brethren of the guild.

But as

"All that's bright must fade,
The brightest still the fleetest,"

the inexorable years too soon brought poor Tullia to that period of "half old–womanhood," as Zilioli so uncourteously terms it, which must have nearly coincided with the date assigned by grave Mazzuchelli to that period of "flourishing," which, it is to be feared, the "half–old woman" would have fixed some five–and–twenty years earlier.

And what was to be done by a brilliant Apollo–chartered Aspasia, when fallen into half old–womanhood?