Renaissance in Italy Volume VI Part 34

Such being the temper of his mind, Ta.s.so at this epoch turned his thoughts to bettering himself, as servants say. His friend Scipione Gonzaga pointed out that both the Cardinal de'Medici and the Grand Duke of Tuscany would be glad to welcome him as an ornament of their households. Ta.s.so nibbled at the bait all through the summer; and in November, under the pretext of profiting by the Jubilee, he traveled to Rome. This journey, as he afterwards declared, was the beginning of his ruin.[22] It was certainly one of the princ.i.p.al steps which led to the prison of S. Anna.

[Footnote 20: _Lettere_, vol. iii. p. 164, v. p. 6.]

[Footnote 21: _Ib._ vol. iii. pp. 85, 86, 88, 163, iv. pp. 8, 166, v. p.

87.]

[Footnote 22: Letter to Fabio Gonzaga in 1590 (vol. iv. p. 296).]

There were many reasons why Alfonso should resent Ta.s.so's entrance into other service at this moment. The House of Este had treated him with uniform kindness. The Cardinal, the duke and the princesses had severally marked him out by special tokens of esteem. In return they expected from him the honors of his now immortal epic. That he should desert them and transfer the dedication of the _Gerusalemme_ to the Medici, would have been nothing short of an insult; for it was notorious that the Estensi and the Medici were bitter foes, not only on account of domestic disagreements and political jealousies, but also because of the dispute about precedence in their t.i.tles which had agitated Italian society for some time past. In his impatience to leave Ferrara, Ta.s.so cast prudence to the winds, and entered into negotiations with the Cardinal de'Medici in Rome. When he traveled northwards at the beginning of 1576, he betook himself to Florence. What pa.s.sed between him and the Grand Duke is not apparent. Yet he seems to have still further complicated his position by making political disclosures which were injurious to the Duke of Ferrara. Nor did he gain anything by the offer of his services and his poem to Francesco de'Medici. In a letter of February 4, 1576, the Grand Duke wrote that the Florentine visit of that fellow, 'whether to call him a mad or an amusing and astute spirit, I hardly know,'[23] had been throughout a ridiculous affair; and that nothing could be less convenient than his putting the _Gerusalemme_ up to auction among princes. One year later, he said bluntly that 'he did not want to have a madman at his Court.'[24] Thus Ta.s.so, like his father, discovered that a n.o.ble poem, the product of his best pains, had but small substantial value. It might, indeed, be worth something to the patron who paid a yearly exhibition to its author; but it was not a gem of such high price as to be wrangled for by dukes who had the cares of state upon their shoulders. He compromised himself with the Estensi, and failed to secure a retreat in Florence.

[Footnote 23: _Lettere_, vol. iii. p. viii.]

Meanwhile his enemies at Ferrara were not idle. Pigna had died in the preceding November. But Antonio Montecatino, who succeeded him as ducal secretary, proved even a more malicious foe, and poisoned Alfonso's mind against the unfortunate poet. The two princesses still remained his faithful friends, until Ta.s.so's own want of tact alienated the sympathies of Leonora. When he returned in 1576, he found the beautiful Eleonora Sanvitale, Countess of Scandiano, at Court. Whether he really fell in love with her at first sight, or pretended to do so in order to revive Leonora d'Este's affection by jealousy, is uncertain.[25] At any rate he paid the countess such marked attentions, and wrote for her and a lady of her suite such splendid poetry, that all Ferrara rang with this amour. A sonnet in Ta.s.so's handwriting, addressed to Leonora d'Este and commented by her own pen, which even Guasti, no credulous believer in the legend of the poet's love, accepts as genuine, may be taken as affording proof that the princess was deeply wounded by her servant's conduct.[26]

[Footnote 24: _Lettere_, vol. iii. p. x.x.x. note 34.]

[Footnote 25: Guarino, in a sonnet, hinted at the second supposition.

See Rosini's _Saggio sugli Amori_, &c. vol. x.x.xiii. of his edition of Ta.s.so, p. 51.]

[Footnote 26: _Lettere_, vol. iii. p. x.x.xi.]

It is obvious that, though Ta.s.so's letters at this period show no signs of a diseased mind, his conduct began to strike outsiders as insane.

Francesco de'Medici used the plain words _matto_ and _pazzo_. The courtiers of Ferrara, some in pity, some in derision, muttered 'Madman,'

when he pa.s.sed. And he spared no pains to prove that he was losing self-control. In the month of January 1577, he was seized with scruples of faith, and conceived the notion that he ought to open his mind to the Holy Office. Accordingly, he appeared before the Inquisitor of Bologna, who after hearing his confession, bade him be of good cheer, for his self-accusations were the outcome of a melancholy humor. Ta.s.so was, in fact, a Catholic molded by Jesuit instruction in his earliest childhood; and though, like most young students, he had speculated on the groundwork of theology and metaphysic, there was no taint of heresy or disobedience to the Church in his nature. The terror of the Inquisition was a morbid nightmare, first implanted in his mind by the experience of his father's collision with the Holy Office, enforced by Antoniano's strictures on his poem, and justified to some extent by the sinister activity of the inst.i.tution which had burned a Carnesecchi and a Paleario. However it grew up, this fancy that he was suspected as a heretic took firm possession of his brain, and subsequently formed a main feature of his mental disease. It combined with the suspiciousness which now became habitual. He thought that secret enemies were in the habit of forwarding delations against him to Rome.

All through these years (1575-1577) his enemies drew tighter cords around him. They were led and directed by Montecatino, the omnipotent persecutor, and hypocritical betrayer. In his heedlessness Ta.s.so left books and papers loose about his rooms. These, he had good reason to suppose, were ransacked in his absence. There follows a melancholy tale of treacherous friends, dishonest servants, false keys, forged correspondence, sc.r.a.ps and fragments of imprudent compositions pieced together and brought forth to incriminate him behind his back. These arts were employed all through the year which followed his return to Ferrara in 1576. But they reached their climax in the spring of 1577. He had lost his prestige, and every servant might insult him, and every cur snap at his heels. Even the _Gerusalemme_, became an object of derision.

It transpired that the revisers, to whom he had confided it, were picking the poem to pieces; ignoramuses who could not scan a line, went about parroting their pedantries and strictures. At the beginning of 1576 Ta.s.so had begged Alfonso to give him the post of historiographer left vacant by Pigna. It was his secret hope that this would be refused, and that so he would obtain a good excuse for leaving Ferrara.[27] But the duke granted his request. In the autumn of that year, one of the band of his tormentors, Maddal de'Frecci, betrayed some details of his love-affairs. What these were we do not know. Ta.s.so resented the insult, and gave the traitor a box on the ears in the courtyard of the castle.

Maddal and his brothers, after this, attacked Ta.s.so on the piazza, but ran away before they reached him with their swords. They were outlawed for the outrage, and the duke of Ferrara, still benignant to his poet, sent him a kind message by one of his servants. This incident weighed on Ta.s.so's memory. The terror of the Inquisition blended now with two new terrors. He conceived that his exiled foes were plotting to poison him.

He wondered whether Maddal's revelations had reached the duke's ears, and if so, whether Alfonso would not inflict sudden vengeance. There is no sufficient reason, however, to surmise that Ta.s.so's conscience was really burdened with a guilty secret touching Leonora d'Este. On the contrary, everything points to a different conclusion. His mind was simply giving way. Just as he conjured up the ghastly specter of the Inquisition, so he fancied that the duke would murder him. Both the Inquisition and the duke were formidable; but the Holy Office mildly told him to set his morbid doubts at rest, and the duke on a subsequent occasion coldly wrote: 'I know he thinks I want to kill him. But if indeed I did so, it would be easy enough.' The duke, in fact, had no sufficient reason and no inclination to tread upon this insect.

[Footnote 27: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 139.]

In June 1577, the crisis came. On the seventeenth evening of the month Ta.s.so was in the apartments of the d.u.c.h.ess of Urbino. He had just been declaiming on the subject of his imaginary difficulties with the Inquisition, when something in the manner of a servant who pa.s.sed by aroused his suspicion. He drew a knife upon the man--like Hamlet in his mother's bedchamber. He was immediately put under arrest, and confined in a room of the castle. Next day Maffeo Veniero wrote thus to the Grand Duke of Tuscany about the incident. 'Yesterday Ta.s.so was imprisoned for having drawn a knife upon a servant in the apartment of the d.u.c.h.ess of Urbino. The intention has been to stay disorder and to cure him, rather than to inflict punishment. He suffers under peculiar delusions, believing himself guilty of heresy and dreading poison; which state of mind arises, I incline to think, from melancholic blood forced in upon the heart and vaporing to the brain. A wretched case, in truth, considering his great parts and his goodness!'[28]

Ta.s.so was soon released, and taken by the duke his villa of Belriguardo.

Probably this excursion was designed to soothe the perturbed spirits of the poet. But it may also have had a different object. Alfonso may have judged it prudent to sift the information laid before him by Ta.s.so's enemies. We do not know what pa.s.sed between them. Whether moral pressure was applied, resulting in the disclosure of secrets compromising Leonora d'Este, cannot now be ascertained; nor is it worth while to discuss the hypothesis that the Duke, in order to secure his family's honor, imposed on Ta.s.so the obligation of feigning madness.[29] There is a something not entirely elucidated, a sediment of mystery in Ta.s.so's fate, after this visit to Belriguardo, which criticism will not neglect to notice, but which no testing, no clarifying process of study, has. .h.i.therto explained. All we can rely upon for certain is that Alfonso sent him back to Ferrara to be treated physically and spiritually for derangement; and that Ta.s.so thought his life was in danger. He took up his abode in the Convent of S. Francis, submitted to be purged, and began writing eloquent letters to his friends and patrons.

[Footnote 28: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 228.]

[Footnote 29: This is Rosini's hypothesis in the Essay cited above. The whole of his elaborate and ingenious theory rests upon the supposition that Alfonso at Belriguardo extorted from Ta.s.so an acknowledgment of his _liaison_ Leonora, and spared his life on the condition of his playing a fool's part before the world. But we have no evidence whatever adequate to support the supposition.]

Those which he addressed to the Duke of Ferrara at this crisis, weigh naturally heaviest in the scale of criticism.[30] They turn upon his dread of the Inquisition, his fear of poison, and his diplomatic practice with Florence. While admitting 'faults of grave importance' and 'vacillation in the service of his prince,' he maintains that his secret foes have exaggerated these offenses, and have succeeded in prejudicing the magnanimous and clement spirit of Alfonso. He is particularly anxious about the charge of heresy. Nothing indicates that any guilt of greater moment weighed upon his conscience.[31] After scrutinizing all accessible sources of information, we are thus driven to accept the prosaic hypothesis that Ta.s.so was deranged, and that his Court-rivals had availed themselves of a favorable opportunity for making the duke sensible of his insanity.

After the middle of July, the Convent of S. Francis became intolerable to Ta.s.so. His malady had a.s.sumed the form of a multiplex fear, which never afterwards relaxed its hold on his imagination. The Inquisition, the duke, the mult.i.tude of secret enemies plotting murder, haunted him day and night like furies. He escaped, and made his way, disguised in a peasant's costume, avoiding cities, harboring in mountain hamlets, to Sorrento.

[Footnote 30: _Lettere_, vol. i. 257-262.]

[Footnote 31: Those who adhere to the belief that all Ta.s.so's troubles came upon him through his _liaison_ with Leonora, are here of course justified in arguing that on _this_ point he could not write openly to the Duke. Or they may question the integrity of the doc.u.ment.]

Manos, who wrote the history of Ta.s.so's life in the spirit of a novelist, has painted for us a romantic picture of the poet in a shepherd's hut.[32] It recalls Erminia among the pastoral people.

Indeed, the interest of that episode in the _Gerusalemme_ is heightened by the fact that its ill-starred author tested the reality of his creation ofttimes in the course of this pathetic pilgrimage. Artists of the Bolognese Academy have placed Erminia on their canvases. But, up to the present time, I know of no great painter who has chosen the more striking incident of Ta.s.so exchanging his Court-dress for sheepskin and a fustian jacket in the smoky cottage at Velletri.

He reached Sorrento safely--'that most enchanting region, which at all times offers a delightful sojourn to men and to the Muses; but at the warm season of the year, when other places are intolerable, affords peculiar solace in the verdure of its foliage, the shadow of its woods, the lightness of the fanning airs, the freshness of the limpid waters flowing from impendent hills, the fertile expanse of tilth, the serene air, the tranquil sea, the fishes and the birds and savory fruits in marvelous variety; all which delights compose a garden for the intellect and senses, planned by Nature in her rarest mood, and perfected by art with most consummate curiosity.'[33] Into this earthly paradise the wayworn pilgrim entered.

[Footnote 32: Rosini's edition of Ta.s.so, vol. x.x.x. p. 144.]

[Footnote 33: Manso, _ib._ p. 46.]

It was his birthplace; and here his sister still dwelt with her children. Ta.s.so sought Cornelia's home. After a dramatic scene of suspense, he threw aside his disguise, declared himself to be the poet of Italy and her brother; and for a short while he seemed to forget Courts and schools, pedants and princes, in that genial atmosphere.

Why did he ever leave Sorrento? That is the question which leaps to the lips of a modern free man. The question itself implies imperfect comprehension of Ta.s.so's century and training. Outside the Court, there was no place for him. He had been molded for Court-life from childhood.

It was not merely that he had no money; a.s.siduous labor might have supplied him with means of subsistence. But his friends, his fame, his habits, his ingrained sense of service, called him back to Ferrara. He was not simply a man, but that specific sort of man which Italians called _gentiluomo_--a man definitely modified and wound about with intricacies of a.s.sociation. Therefore, he soon began a correspondence with the House of Este. If we may trust Manso, Leonora herself wrote urgently insisting upon his return.[34] Yet in his own letters Ta.s.so says that he addressed apologies to the duke and both princesses.

Alfonso and Lucrezia vouchsafed no answer. Leonora replied coldly that she could not help him.[35]

[Footnote 34: Manso, _ib._ p. 147.]

[Footnote 35: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 275.]

Anyhow, Ferrara drew him back. It is of some importance here to understand Ta.s.so's own feeling for the duke, his master. A few months later, after he had once more experienced the miseries of Court-life, he wrote: 'I trusted in him, not as one hopes in men but as one trusts in G.o.d.... I was inflamed with the affection for my lord more than ever was man with the love of woman, and became unawares half an idolater....

He it was who from the obscurity of my low fortunes raised me to the light and reputation of the Court; who relieved me from discomforts, and placed me in a position of honorable ease; he conferred value on my compositions by listening to them when I read them, and by every mark of favor; he deigned to honor me with a seat at his table and with his familiar conversation; he never refused a favor which I begged for; lastly, at the commencement of my troubles, he showed me the affection, not of a master, but of a father and a brother.'[36] These words, though meant for publication, have the ring of truth in them. Ta.s.so was actually attached to the House of Este, and cherished a va.s.sal's loyalty for the duke, in spite of the many efforts which he made to break the fetters of Ferrara. At a distance, in the isolation and the ennui of a village, the irksomeness of those chains was forgotten. The poet only remembered how sweet his happier years at Court had been. The sentiment of fidelity revived. His sanguine and visionary temperament made him hope that all might yet be well.

Without receiving direct encouragement from the duke, Ta.s.so accordingly decided on returning.

[Footnote 36: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 278, ii. p. 26.]

His sister is said to have dissuaded him; and he is reported to have replied that he was going to place himself in a voluntary prison.[37] He first went to Rome, and opened negotiations with Alfonso's agents. In reply to their communications, the duke wrote upon March 22, 1578, as follows: 'We are content to take Ta.s.so back; but first he must recognize the fact that he is full of melancholic humors, and that his old notions of enmities and persecutions are solely caused by the said humors. Among other signs of his disorder, he has conceived the idea that we want to compa.s.s his death, whereas we have always received him gladly and shown favor to him. It can easily be understood that if we had entertained such a fancy, the execution of it would have presented no difficulty.

Therefore let him make his mind up well, before he comes, to submit quietly and unconditionally to medical treatment. Otherwise, if he means to scatter hints and words again as he did formerly, we shall not only give ourselves no further trouble about him, but if he should stay here without being willing to undergo a course of cure, we shall at once expel him from our state with the order not to return.'[38] Words could not be plainer than these. Yet, in spite of them, such was the allurement of the cage for this clipped singing-bird, that Ta.s.so went obediently back to Ferrara. Possibly he had not read the letter written by a greater poet on a similar occasion: 'This is not the way of coming home, my father! Yet if you or others find one not beneath the fame of Dante and his honor, that will I pursue with no slack step. But if none such give entrance to Florence, I will never enter Florence. How! Shall I not behold the sun and stars from every spot of earth? Shall I not be free to meditate the sweetest truths in every place beneath the sky unless I make myself ign.o.ble, nay, ignominious to the people and the state of Florence? Nor truly will bread fail.' These words, if Ta.s.so had remembered them, might have made his cheek blush for his own servility and for the servile age in which he lived. But the truth is that the fleshpots of Egyptian bondage enticed him; and moreover he knew, as half-insane people always know, that he required treatment for his mental infirmities. In his heart of hearts he acknowledged the justice of the duke's conditions.

[Footnote 37: Manso, p. 147. Here again the believers in the Leonora _liaison_ may argue that by prison he meant love-bondage, hopeless servitude to the lady from whom he could expect nothing now that her brother was acquainted with the truth.]

[Footnote 38: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 233.]

An Epistle or Oration addressed by Ta.s.so to the Duke of Urbino, sets forth what happened after his return to Ferrara in 1578.[39]

[Footnote 39: _Lettere_, i. pp. 271-290.]

He was aware that Alfonso thought him both malicious and mad. The first of these opinions, which he knew to be false, he resolved to pa.s.s in silence. But he openly admitted the latter, 'esteeming it no disgrace to make a third to Solon and Brutus.' Therefore he began to act the madman even in Rome, neglecting his health, exposing himself to hardships, and indulging intemperately in food and wine. By these means, strange as it may seem, he hoped to win back confidence and prove himself a discreet servant of Alfonso. Soon after reaching Ferrara, Ta.s.so thought that he was gaining ground. He hints that the duke showed signs of raising him to such greatness and showering favors upon him so abundant that the sleeping viper of Court envy stirred. Montecatino now persuaded his master that prudence and his own dignity indicated a very different line of treatment. If Ta.s.so was to be great and honored, he must feel that his reputation flowed wholly from the princely favor, not from his studies and ill.u.s.trious works. Alfonso accordingly affected to despise the poems which Ta.s.so presented, and showed his will that: 'I should aspire to no eminence of intellect, to no glory of literature, but should lead a soft delicate and idle life immersed in sloth and pleasure, escaping like a runaway from the honor of Parna.s.sus, the Lyceum and the Academy, into the lodgings of Epicurus, and should harbor in those lodgings in a quarter where neither Virgil nor Catullus nor Horace nor Lucretius himself had ever stayed.' This excited such indignation in the poet's breast that: 'I said oftentimes with open face and free speech that I would rather be a servant of any prince his enemy than submit to this indignity, and in short _odia verbis aspera movi_.'

Whereupon, the duke caused his papers to be seized, in order that the still imperfect epic might be prepared for publication by the hated hypocritical Montecatino. When Ta.s.so complained, he only received indirect answers; and when he tried to gain access to the princesses, he was repulsed by their doorkeepers. At last: 'My infinite patience was exhausted. Leaving my books and writings, after the service of thirteen years, persisted in with luckless constancy, I wandered forth like a new Bias, and betook myself to Mantua, where I met with the same treatment as at Ferrara.'

This account sufficiently betrays the diseased state of Ta.s.so's mind.

Being really deranged, yet still possessed of all his literary faculties, he affected that his eccentricity was feigned. The duke had formed a firm opinion of his madness; and he chose to flatter this whim.

Yet when he arrived at Ferrara he forgot the strict conditions upon which Alfonso sanctioned his return, began to indulge in dreams of greatness, and refused the life of careless ease which formed part of the programme for his restoration to health. In these circ.u.mstances he became the laughing-stock of his detractors; and it is not impossible that Alfonso, convinced of his insanity, treated him like a Court-fool.

Then he burst out into menaces and mutterings of anger. Having made himself wholly intolerable, his papers were sequestrated, very likely under the impression that he might destroy them or escape with them into some quarter where they would be used against the interests of his patron. Finally he so fatigued everybody by his suspicions and recriminations that the duke forebore to speak with him, and the princesses closed their doors against him.

From this moment Ta.s.so was a ruined man; he had become that worst of social scourges, a courtier with a grievance, a semi-lunatic all the more dangerous and tiresome because his mental powers were not so much impaired as warped. Studying his elaborate apology, we do not know whether to despise the obstinacy of his devotion to the House of Este, or to respect the sentiment of loyalty which survived all real or fancied insults. Against the duke he utters no word of blame. Alfonso is always magnanimous and clement, excellent in mind and body, good and courteous by nature, deserving the faithful service and warm love of his dependents. Montecatino is the real villain. 'The princes are not tyrants--they are not, no, no: he is the tyrant.'[40]

After quitting Ferrara, Ta.s.so wandered through Mantua, Padua, Venice, coldly received in all these cities; for 'the hearts of men were hardened by their interests against him.' Writing from Venice to the Grand Duke in July, Maffeo Veniero says: 'Ta.s.so is here, disturbed in mind; and though his intellect is certainly not sound, he shows more signs of affliction than of insanity.'[41]