Romance of Roman Villas Part 16

"Gramercy," he cried, "shall so fair a prize be won foully by false plagiarism?"

"What charge is this you make," demanded Queen Eleanor.

"That yon traitor stole from me that songlet of the peach, and though he has trussed it out of countenance with gawds of his own invention still the root of the matter is mine."

"What answer you to this accusation, Richard?" asked the Queen.

"That he speaks truly," Richard replied, "mine is indeed a spilling cup."

The queen was loth to give judgment against her favourite and there was wrangling between her advisors as to what amount of theft were admissible in literature, but their opinion was stricter than I pray yours may be, most gentle reader, and they gave their verdict, "The prize is to Prince Aldobrandino."

At that verdict Sancie fainted in the arms of Queen Marguerite, and Richard hid his face in his hands, crying, "I cannot bear it."

Then Prince Aldobrandino spoke and they saw how they had misjudged the man.

"You cannot bear this disappointment, say you, Ricciardo? Look you at the device upon my shield, Atlas, and the motto, _Sustino omnes_. I can bear all things, even such loss as this, and, since I see well that the lady loves me not, of my own motive yield I the prize to you, Ricciardo, who well deserve what you have truly won."

"Nay," cried Richard, for admiration of so great magnanimity fired his emulation, and he would not be outdone. "Nay, my lord, the judgment of this court cannot be thus lightly set aside. 'The prize' it has decreed, 'must be to Prince Aldobrandino.' Thy oath also that the Lady Sancie shall be mother of the Aldobrandini is registered in heaven."

"I would forfeit neither prize nor oath," replied Aldobrandino, "but there is a scripture on which I have pondered much of late--'Who knoweth,' quoth the wise man, 'who shall reign after thee, and whether thy son shall be a fool?' So might he well be if he resembled me, and against such ill-chancing will I now be a.s.sured. A son after my own heart do I find in thee, Ricciardo, for I have probed and proved thee, taking the measure of thy mind until I know thee clean of soul as thou art strong of body. I go in fulfilment of a secret vow, neither recently nor lightly made, to end my days with the brotherhood of St. Benedict, but first I do adopt thee son, and heir to all my estates. Let the judgment of this court stand and the prize be to Prince Aldobrandino for henceforth that is thy name and t.i.tle."

The good man could not be swerved from this resolution. The lawyers drew up the act of relinquishment, Archbishop Boniface blessed the happy pair, who spent their honeymoon in their villa at Frascati, and from thence was Richard called by election to be King of the Romans. It was an honour which he held not long, nor did children of his continue the line of the Aldobrandini. Too careless was he of his own advantage when it ran counter to the desires of another; but in the magnificent Frascati villa, where he made such short tarrying, you may still find Richard's fountain not far from that of Atlas.

To his estates in Cornwall he shortly returned; and testimony to his character corroborative of this story, and as credible as that of the Italian authorities we have quoted (Sacchetti and Ser Giovanni), you may read in the ballad of

ERL RICHARD, KING OF GOOD FELLOWS.

"His wine was for others' sipping, For lightly he gave it up, There's slipping 'twixt pouring and lipping And his was a spilling cup.

"But ne'er for the lost good liquor Was Richard heard to sigh.

'I shall not bicker so friends grow thicker, And the cup of love hold I.'

"So in praise of that loser willing They carved his cup awry,-- Spilling----but aye re-filling To witness if I lie!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Alinari_

Villa d'Este, at Tivoli--Present State]

CHAPTER V

WITH Ta.s.sO AT VILLA D'ESTE

His weary heart awhile to soothe He wove all into verses smooth.

for soothly he Was deemed a craft-master to be In those most n.o.ble days of old, Whose lays were e'en as kingly gold To our thin bra.s.s or drossy lead; Well, e'en so all the tale is said How twain grew one and came to bliss?

Woe's me, an idle dream it is!

WILLIAM MORRIS.

Supreme above all the enchanted gardens of Italy, both in the bewildering beauty of its sensuous charm and in the potency of its appeal to the imagination, stands the Villa d'Este at Tivoli.

It is a hillside villa, a succession of terraces forming a stairway of flowers between the palace and the lower garden, where

"Cypress and fig tree and orange in tier upon tier still repeated, Rose-garden on garden upheaved in balconies step to the sky."

But it is also a superb water-staircase, for the river Anio, turned from its course by a gigantic feat of engineering, leaps in a magnificent cascade, laughs in the spray of a thousand fountain jets, and makes the bosquets which shadow the regal staircase a haunt of the water nymphs as well as of the Dryads. You fancy, as your unwary foot presses the concealed springs that it is the white hands of mischievous Naiads which dash the water in your face, a pensive melancholy settles upon you with the mysterious dusk, and you are startled by Undine's "short, quick sobs," and are loth to believe that the plaintive sounds with which the air pulses are but the dropping of rills in and out of the shadowy pools.

The pompous hydraulic organ no longer thunders its "full-mouthed diapason," but the nightingales fill the long summer nights with their surges of wild rhapsodies. Both the eye and the ear of the artist receive refreshment and stimulus here. The garden is a bath of verdancy and coolness even upon the most torrid day. The very light which filters through the dense foliage is tinged with green. The marbles are velvety and moist with moss, and the maidenhair fern drips lush and dank. Here Liszt drew inspiration from the harmonies of water notes blended with the chiming of distant bells, and Watteau showed in the many studies which he made in the garden how potent was its influence in investing his _fetes champetres_ with the grace of the idyl.

[Ill.u.s.tration: In the Garden of Villa d'Este

From a photograph by Mr. Charles S. Platt]

That its appeal was no less powerful to a poet, the "craft-master" of his day, it is our purpose later to show.

Many minor poets also have felt and, with more or less success, have interpreted its wondrous charm--Story perhaps best of all.

"What peace and quiet in this villa sleep!

Here let us pause nor chase for pleasure on, Nothing can be more exquisite than this.

See how the old house lifts its face of light Against the pallid olives that between Throng up the hill. Look down this vista's shade Of dark square-shaven ilexes where sports The fountain's, thin white thread and blows away.

And mark! along the terraced bal.u.s.trade Two contadini stopping in the shade With copper vases poised upon their heads, How their red jackets tell against the green!

Old, all is old,--what charm there is in age!

Do you believe this villa when 'twas new Was half so beautiful as now it seems?

Look at these bal.u.s.trades of travertine-- Had they the charm when fresh and shapely carved As now that they are stained and graved with time And mossed with lichens, every grim old mask That grins upon their pillars bearded o'er With waving sprays of slender maidenhair?

Ah, no! I cannot think it; things of art s.n.a.t.c.h nature's graces from the hand of Time."

But it is the view afforded by the double arcade of loggias and by every window of the palace facade which was the crowning glory of the villa.

The amethystine Sabine Hills and the immense Campagna encircle the Eternal City, from whose mists the dome of Saint Peter's seems to rise a buoyant, iridescent bubble.

It was Pirro Ligorio (architect also of the exquisite Villa Pia) who in 1545 accomplished the miracle of converting the savage cliff into a staircase of enchantment. Nature had given the villa its marvellous site and genius availed itself of all the resources of art and wealth to effect the wonder.

Cardinal Ippolito's orders to Ligorio were: "Surpa.s.s the work of Vignola in the villas of Caprarola and Lante. Restore the glory of Tivoli in the Augustan age."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hydraulic Organ, Villa d'Este.]

Excavations in the neighbourhood were daily bringing to light masterpieces of cla.s.sical sculpture, and for the "statues which whiten the shadow" of Villa d'Este, Ligorio was given carte blanche to despoil the gardens of Hadrian's palace. To-day only a long procession of broken pedestals bears witness to statues of emperors, G.o.ds, and G.o.ddesses long since removed to different museums.

The exodus began immediately upon the succession of Ippolito's nephew, Cardinal Luigi d'Este, who came to his inheritance deeply in debt; but that spendthrift prelate retained sixty statues, some of which are seen in the etching made by Piranesi, and it was not until 1745 that these were purchased by Cardinal Albani.

The creator of this paradise, Cardinal Ippolito d'Este II., son of Lucrezia Borgia, was, like his villa, a refined product of the later Renaissance and must not be confounded with his uncle, Cardinal Ippolito d'Este I.

This first Cardinal Ippolito was a man of very different fibre, as may be seen from a single incident. Sent to Rome as his brother's envoy, on the occasion of Duke Alphonso's marriage, he fell in love with a pretty cousin of Lucrezia Borgia who accompanied the bride on her wedding journey to Ferrara.