Italy, the Magic Land Part 16

"Lady Marchioness, being myself in Rome, I thought it hardly fitting to give the Crucified Christ to Messer Tommaso, and to make him an intermediary between your ladyship and me, especially because it has been my earnest wish to perform more for you than for any one I ever knew upon the world. But absorbing occupations, which still engage me, have prevented my informing your ladyship of this. Moreover, knowing that you know love needs no taskmaster, and that he who loves doth not sleep, I thought the less of using go-betweens. And though I seemed to have forgotten, I was doing what I did not talk about, in order to effect a thing that was not looked for, my purpose has been spoiled. He sins who faith like this so soon forgets."

[Ill.u.s.tration: VITTORIA COLONNA, GALLERIA BUONARROTI, FLORENCE _Page 312_]

In reply Vittoria Colonna wrote:--

"Unique Master Angelo and my most singular friend: I have received your letter and examined the crucifix which truly hath crucified in my memory every other picture I ever saw. Nowhere could one find another figure of our Lord so well executed, so living, and so exquisitely finished. I cannot express in words how subtly and marvellously it is designed. Wherefore I am resolved to take the work as coming from no other hand but yours.... I have examined it minutely in full light and by the lens and mirror, and never saw anything more perfect."

She added:--

"... Your works forcibly stimulate the judgment of all who would look at them. My study of them made me speak of adding goodness to things perfect in themselves, and I have seen now that 'all is possible to him who believes.' I had the greatest faith in G.o.d that He would bestow upon you supernatural grace for the making of this Christ. When I came to examine it I found it so marvellous that it surpa.s.ses all my expectations. Wherefore, emboldened by your miracles I conceived a great desire for that which I now see marvellously accomplished: I mean that the design is in all parts perfect and consummate. I tell you that I am pleased that the angel on the right hand is by far the fairer, since Michael will place you, with all angels, upon the right hand of the Lord some day.

Meanwhile I do not know how else to serve you, than by making orisons to this sweet Christ, whom you have drawn so well and exquisitely, and praying you to hold me yours to command as yours in all and for all."

Again Vittoria wrote to him:--

"I beg you to let me have the crucifix a short while in my keeping, even though it be unfinished. I want to show it to some gentlemen who have come from the most reverend, the Cardinal of Mantua. If you are not working will you not come at your leisure to-day and talk with me?"

It is an interesting fact to the visitor in the Rome of to-day that the convent of San Silvestre where Vittoria Colonna lived was attached to the church of San Silvestre in Capite, now used as the English-speaking Catholic church in the Eternal City. The wing which was formerly the convent (founded in 1318) is now converted into the central post office.

It was in the sacristy of San Silvestre, decorated with frescoes by Domenichino, that a memorable meeting and conversation took place, one Sunday afternoon in those far-away days of nearly five hundred years ago, between Michael Angelo and Francesco d'Ollanda, a Spanish miniature artist,--the meeting brought about by Vittoria Colonna. The Spanish artist was a worshipper of Michael Angelo, who "awakened such a feeling of love," that if d'Ollanda met him in the street "the stars would come out in the sky," he says, "before I would let him go again." This fervent worship was hardly enjoyed by its object, who avoided the Spanish enthusiast. One Sunday, however, d'Ollanda had gone to San Silvestre finding there Tolomei, to whom he was also devoted, and Vittoria Colonna, both of whom had gone to hear the celebrated Fra Ambrosia of Siena expound the Epistles of St. Paul. The Marchesa di Pescara observed that she felt sure their Spanish friend would far rather hear Michael Angelo discuss painting than to hear Fra Ambrosia on the wisdom of St. Paul. Summoning an attendant she directed him to find Michael Angelo and tell him how cool and delightful was the church that morning and to beg him to join Messer Tolomei and herself; but to make no mention of the presence of d'Ollanda. Her woman's tact and her faultless courtesy were successful in procuring this inestimable privilege for the Spanish painter. Michael Angelo came, and began the conversation--which was a monologue, rather, as all three of the friends wished only to listen to the master--by defending artists from the charge of eccentric and difficult methods. With somewhat startling candor Michael Angelo proceeded:--

"I dare affirm that any artist who tries to satisfy the better vulgar rather than men of his own craft will never become a superior talent. For my part, I am bound to confess that even his Holiness wearies and annoys me by begging for too much of my company. I am most anxious to serve him, ... but I think I can do so better by studying at home than by dancing attendance on my legs in his reception room."

Another meeting of this little group was appointed for the next Sunday in the Colonna gardens behind the convent, under the shadow of the laurel trees in the air fragrant with roses and orange blossoms, where they sat with Rome spread out like a picture at their feet. That beautiful terrace of the Colonna gardens, to which the visitor in Rome to-day always makes his pilgrimage, with the ruined statues and the broken marble flights of steps, is the scene of this meeting of Vittoria Colonna, Michael Angelo, and Francesco d'Ollanda. On this second occasion the sculptor a.s.serted his belief that while all things are worthy the artist's attention, the real test of his art is in the representation of the human form. He extolled the art of design. He emphasized the essential nature of n.o.bleness in the artist, and added:--

"In order to represent in some degree the adored image of our Lord, it is not enough that a master should be great and able. I maintain that he must also be a man of good conduct and morals, if possible a saint, in order that the Holy Ghost may rain down inspiration on his understanding."

Of the relative degree of swiftness in work Michael Angelo said:--

"We must regard it as a special gift from G.o.d to be able to do that in a few hours which other men can only perform in many days of labor. But should this rapidity cause a man to fail in his best realization it would be better to proceed slowly. No artist should allow his eagerness to hinder him from the supreme end of art--perfection."

Mr. Longfellow, in his unfinished dramatic poem, "Michael Angelo" (to which reference has already been made), has one scene laid in the convent chapel of San Silvestre, in which these pa.s.sages occur:--

VITTORIA.

"Here let us rest awhile, until the crowd Has left the church. I have already sent For Michael Angelo to join us here."

MESSER CLAUDIO.

"After Fra Bernardino's wise discourse On the Pauline Epistles, certainly Some words of Michael Angelo on Art Were not amiss, to bring us back to earth."

MICHAEL ANGELO, _at the door_.

"How like a Saint or G.o.ddess she appears!

Diana or Madonna, which I know not, In att.i.tude and aspect formed to be At once the artist's worship and despair!"

VITTORIA.

"Welcome, Maestro. We were waiting for you."

MICHAEL ANGELO.

"I met your messenger upon the way.

And hastened hither."

VITTORIA.

"It is kind of you To come to us, who linger here like gossips Wasting the afternoon in idle talk.

These are all friends of mine and friends of yours."

MICHAEL ANGELO.

"If friends of yours, then are they friends of mine.

Pardon me, gentlemen. But when I entered I saw but the Marchesa."

Vittoria tells the master that the Pope has granted her permission to build a convent, and Michael Angelo replies:--

"Ah, to build, to build!

That is the n.o.blest art of all the arts.

Painting and sculpture are but images, Are merely shadows cast by outward things On stone or canvas, having in themselves No separate existence. Architecture, Existing in itself, and not in seeming A something it is not, surpa.s.ses them As substance shadow....

... Yet he beholds Far n.o.bler works who looks upon the ruins Of temples in the Forum here in Rome.

If G.o.d should give me power in my old age To build for Him a temple half as grand As those were in their glory, I should count My age more excellent than youth itself, And all that I have hitherto accomplished As only vanity."

To which Vittoria responds:--

"I understand you.

Art is the gift of G.o.d, and must be used Unto His glory. That in art is highest Which aims at this."

The poet, with his characteristically delicate divination, has entered into the inner spirit of these two immortal friends.

Walter Pater, writing of Michael Angelo, truly says:--

"Michael Angelo is always pressing forward from the outward beauty--_il bel del fuor che agli occhi piace_--to apprehend the unseen beauty; _trascenda nella forma universale_--that abstract form of beauty about which the Platonists reason. And this gives the impression in him of something flitting and unfixed, of the houseless and complaining spirit, almost clairvoyant through the frail and yielding flesh."

Again we find Pater saying:--

"Though it is quite possible that Michael Angelo had seen Vittoria, that somewhat shadowy figure, as early as 1537, yet their closer intimacy did not begin till about the year 1542, when Michael Angelo was nearly seventy years old. Vittoria herself, an ardent Neo-Catholic, vowed to perpetual widowhood since the news had reached her, seventeen years before, that her husband, the youthful and princely Marquess of Pescara, lay dead of the wounds he had received in the battle of Pavia, was then no longer an object of great pa.s.sion. In a dialogue written by the painter, Francesco d'Ollanda, we catch a glimpse of them together in an empty church at Rome, one Sunday afternoon, discussing indeed the characteristics of various schools of art, but still more the writings of St. Paul, already following the ways and tasting the sunless pleasures of weary people, whose hold on outward things is slackening. In a letter still extant he regrets that when he visited her after death he had kissed her hands only. He made, or set to work to make, a crucifix for her use, and two drawings, perhaps in preparation for it, are now in Oxford.... In many ways no sentiment could have been less like Dante's love for Beatrice than Michael Angelo's for Vittoria Colonna. Dante's comes in early youth; Beatrice is a child, with the wistful, ambiguous vision of a child, with a character still unaccentuated by the influence of outward circ.u.mstances, almost expressionless. Vittoria is a woman already weary, in advanced age, of grave intellectual qualities.

Dante's story is a piece of figured work inlaid with lovely incidents. In Michael Angelo's poems frost and fire are almost the only images--the refining fire of the goldsmith; once or twice the phoenix; ice melting at the fire; fire struck from the rock which it afterwards consumes."

Visconti notes that among Italian poets, Vittoria Colonna was the first to make religion a subject of poetic treatment, and the first to introduce nature's ministry to man into poetry. Rota, her Italian biographer, states that she died in February of 1547, in the Palazzo Cesarini. This palace is in Genzano, on Lago di Nemi, and has been one of the Colonna estates; but from Visconti and other authorities it is evident that she died in Rome, either in the convent of Santa Anna or in the palace of Cesarini, the husband of her kinswoman, Giulio Colonna, which must have been near the convent in Trastevere, the old portion of Rome across the Tiber. Visconti records that on the last evening of her life when Michael Angelo was beside her, she said: "I die. Help me to repeat my last prayer. I do not now remember the words." He clasped her hand and repeated it to her, while her own lips moved, she gazed intently on him, smiled and pa.s.sed away. This translation has been made of Vittoria Colonna's last prayer:--

"Grant, I beseech Thee, O Lord, that I may ever worship Thee with such humility of mind as becometh my lowliness and such elevation of mind as Thy loftiness demandeth.... I entreat, O Most Holy Father, that Thy most living flame may so urge me forward that, not being hindered by any mortal imperfections, I may happily and safely again return to Thee."

It is recorded by an authority that her body, "enclosed in a casket of cypress wood, lined with embroidered velvet," was placed in the chapel of Santa Anna which has since been destroyed. Visconti says: "She desired, with Christian humility, to be buried in the manner in which the sisters were buried when they died. And, as I suppose, her body was placed in the common sepulchre of the nuns of Santa Anna." Grimm declares that he cannot discover the place of her burial, and Visconti declares that her tomb remains unknown.

But it is apparently a fact that the body of Vittoria Colonna is entombed in the sacristy of Santa Domenica Maggiore in Naples, the sarcophagus containing it resting by the side of the one containing the body of her husband, Francesco d'Avalos, Marchese of Pescara. This church is one of the finest in Naples, with twenty-seven chapels and twelve altars, and it is here that nearly all the great n.o.bles of the kingdom of Naples are entombed. Here is the tomb of the learned Thomas Aquinas and here is shown, in relief, the miracle of the crucifix by Tommaso de Stefani, which--as the legend runs--thus addressed the learned doctor:--