Romance of Roman Villas Part 17

Unfortunately the coquettish girl praised the beautiful eyes of Giulio d'Este, the Cardinal's younger brother, whereupon this prince of the Church hired a.s.sa.s.sins who waylaid his brother and tore out his offending eyes.

The Duke banished Ippolito temporarily, but Giulio brooded over the injury and conspired to depose Alphonso and place another brother, Don Ferrante, on the throne. For this act both Ferrante and Giulio were condemned to be imprisoned for life. Ferrante died in confinement but Giulio, after fifty-three years spent in a dungeon of the castle, was finally released.

It might have been expected that the blending of d'Este brutality with the unscrupulous Borgia craft would have given as a result only a more refined cruelty; but if this was the case Cardinal Ippolito II.

completely deceived his contemporaries and has left the reputation (through the pen of his panegyrist Mureto) of the utmost affable condescension and magnificent patronage of men of genius. He was himself a dilettante; and it was his ambition to pose as the most cultured and brilliant of the great cardinals of his day. Ippolito I. had been a boon companion of Leo X. in his hunting parties at the Villa La Magliana, but it was not as a "_cacciator signorile_" or "sporting gentleman" that Ippolito II. wished to eclipse the then ill.u.s.trious representative of the house of Medici, Cardinal Ferdinando, who was attempting to rival him in his magnificent villa on the Pincian hill.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Villa d'Este in 1740

From an etching by Piranesi]

It does not seem to have occurred to Mureto that both of these men were looking forward to the papacy, and desired to emulate in their own pontificates that of Leo X. Each piece of sculpture acquired for their villas, every literary man attached to their service was a step toward that end. Ippolito II. was as keen a hunter of genius as his uncle had been of deer or boar; and having once bagged his game, as capable of availing himself without scruple of his trophies as Ippolito I. of tearing the antlers from a dying stag.

The princely Cardinal entertained on one occasion a house party of two hundred and fifty guests in his palatial villa, and established here a veritable court. The grandiose frescoes of Zuccari, Tempesta, Muziano, and Vasari still celebrate the glories of his family under the guise of the heroes of mythology garlanded by troops and bevies of cupids, "_una copiosa quant.i.ta di Amorini_." But the G.o.ds and demiG.o.ds banquet all alone on the ceiling of the great hall where they once looked down upon the revels of the Cardinal's convives--n.o.ble or distinguished men all of them in their day, although the one name that comes to us of all who shared Ippolito's lavish hospitality and that sheds most glory upon his proud house is that of a poet, by turns patronised as a dependent, ungratefully neglected, and cruelly wronged.

The visitor is shown with pride the room so whimsically decorated with singing birds, where Ta.s.so wrote his _Amyntas_, and the Fountain of Nature in the lower garden where the pastoral was presented with musical accompaniment before a distinguished audience.

That Leonora d'Este was among those who listened, and indeed had been her uncle's guest and Ta.s.so's good and evil fate during the months which he spent at Villa d'Este, is the only conclusion possible for the thoughtful reader of the poem; and the idyl composed under such circ.u.mstances leads inevitably to the tragedy (enacted at that other villa) of Belriguardo, of which Goethe has given us so truthful and so masterly a transcription.

Cardinal Ippolito, as his portraits make him known to us, has none of the sensuality which stamped the face of his grandfather Pope Alexander Borgia, or the heaviness of jaw expressing the stubborness and brutality of the earlier D'Estes; on the contrary, every line of the slight figure is expressive of refinement, the delicate red-stockinged feet are as shapely as a woman's, the expressive, almost transparent hands might be those of an artist as they finger caressingly his collection of intaglios and luxuriate in the smoothness of jades and ivory carvings. His excessive pallor and thinness would give an expression of asceticism, almost of spirituality to the intellectual face were it not in a measure contradicted by the craft in the close-set, slanting eyes, which with the pointed, fulvous beard suggest a possibility of foxy cunning, and inspire in the beholder an uncomfortable, haunting feeling of distrust even when the Cardinal's manner is most condescending and cajoling.

So, robed in filmy lace over rosy velvet, we may see him in imagination tripping daintily down his monumental staircase, his train islanding his figure as in some ensanguined pool and slipping after him adown the steps like the drip of some trail of blood which strangely leaves no stain upon the white marble.

But his face is wreathed with smiles, for he genuinely loves his two beautiful nieces, Lucrezia, d.u.c.h.ess of Urbino, and the gentle Leonora, who are his guests, and he loves his villa, whose beauties he is pointing out to them.

"You do not see the garden at its best," he cavils. "Wait till the roses garland the bal.u.s.trades. It is too early yet to enjoy Tivoli; the frost may have left the ground but it lingers still in the pavements of this great palace. The halls are damp as vaults; we would have done well, my nieces, to have remained another month in Rome. Not till the middle of May will society desert the city for its _villeggiatura_. What do you say, Leonora, shall we confess that we have made a mistake and return?"

"Dear uncle, as you say, it is only the palace which, in spite of its braziers, retains the winter chill. Here in the garden the air is balmy, and the Judas trees are all a crimson mist. See how the green is creeping, like an inundation through the russets of last year's gra.s.ses.

In another fortnight all this magical change will have been wrought, and those who come later will have missed the fairy spectacle."

"Spectacle! ah! that reminds me," replied the Cardinal; "while Nature is shifting the scenes we must prepare the _scenario_. Confess that I have provided a worthy theatre, one which should suggest to a poet a worthy theme. There, alas! is my great lack--I have no poet. How wastefully on those who need them not are the most precious gifts bestowed! My uncle and G.o.dfather, Cardinal Ippolito--the saints rest his soul!--was a dull-brained barbarian and yet he had attached to his service that pearl of poets Ariosto, whom he had neither the intelligence to appreciate nor the justice to reward. What think you was Ariosto's meed for dedicating to his patron the _Orlando Furioso_? He was made governor of that nest of bandits, the mountain district of Garf.a.gnana, and it in open insurrection against the Duke of Ferrara. A pretty post for a scholar and a poet! But to it he went, and conquered the brigands, proving himself as expert in the use of the sword as in that of the pen.

"We produce no such men now. Bernardo Ta.s.so, to whom I gave employment when he was exiled from Naples, and who wandered freely in this garden, felt not its charm, for he was but a third-rate poet, and even he is dead. Who in our day can interpret the poetry which I feel here but cannot express? And with but so little more of endowment I might have done it, for after all is not the inner ear, the second sight, the major part of genius?

"Listen, and tell me what you hear. Only the musical plash of the fountains and the sonorous undertone of the organ, like the distant roar of surf upon the beach? Ah, me! ah, me! how materialistic you are, my children. Your old uncle hears in these myriad-voiced fountains the musical instruments which Boccaccio gave to the Satyrs; 'cymbals, pipes, and whistling reeds,' and the song of the nymphs. Did you note that startled cry? It is the Oread Arethusa flying from the river-G.o.d Alpheus. He is imprisoned in the organ, where he is mightily bellowing, and whence he will presently burst forth. But Arethusa will slip away (coquette that she is), under ground and under sea to her Sicilian home; for fable and stream sing eternally the same story, _Mulier hominis confusio est_.

"Tell me, my niece, have we in all Italy a poet who can voice such a theme?"

"Yes, uncle," the d.u.c.h.ess of Urbino interposed, "Bernardo Ta.s.so's little son heard and understood the song of the fountains when he played here in his childhood. He told me that he believed a _folletto_ or tricksy spirit talked with him here and promised him that if he came again he would find here both love and fame. He can interpret your songs for you, for he has grown a man, and is a greater poet than his father."

"And meantime," added Leonora, "he has absorbed all that the universities of Bologna and Padua can give him, and has written a romantic poem, the _Rinaldo_, on the exploits of one of our ancestors, that mythical old peer of Charlemagne, which he has dedicated to our house. It is in recognition of this tribute that our brother Luigi has made him his secretary."

"And Luigi is at the French Court intriguing with the Queen Mother, Catherine de' Medici. Torquato is doubtless with him," replied the Cardinal. "I ask you of what good to tantalise me with impossible suggestions? He had the eyes of a poet, that lad, and he might have served my turn."

"He may still serve you, Uncle Ippolito, for he has quarrelled with Luigi, and is in Rome."

"And wherefore in Rome? To curry favour with Cardinal de' Medici?"

"Possibly, for Ta.s.so is writing a great epic on the taking of Jerusalem by G.o.dfrey of Bouillon and his crusaders."

"'Tis no epic that I wish, but a pastoral--a mere trifle. Yet not so fast. A poem such as you describe, if it were indeed a work of genius, might rouse Christendom to another crusade, a life-work worthy of the next Pope. Lucrezia, the boy must not submit his poem to Cardinal de'

Medici. Can you summon him to me, and will he come instantly?"

"If Leonora calls him," the d.u.c.h.ess replied, "he will come."

Cardinal Ippolito lifted his eyebrows almost imperceptibly and darted a keen, sidelong glance at Leonora. She had not heard her sister's last remark, the name of Torquato Ta.s.so had obliterated the present and she was gazing dreamily at the rainbow-tinted dome of St. Peter's.

"Leonora," the Cardinal said softly, "have you heard what Lucrezia was saying, that this young poet has written an epic? If I could see it I might be able to help him in his career, perhaps give him fame."

"O Uncle, will you? How good you are! I will write him at once."

"My dear, I am not good, or disinterested. I am a selfish, an ambitious old man. This festival, given ostensibly for the entertainment of my friends and to introduce my charming nieces, is a part of my deep, ulterior motives. Come, I will confess the machinations of my wicked old heart. Why not, since my ambitions are for you as well as for myself?

Nay, Leonora, never flush and tremble, I have no wish to buy my own advancement by selling you to some degenerate prince. Matchmaking is not my kind of diplomacy. I have seen enough in our own family of magnificence won through the martyrdom of women. Your mother, Renee of France, though a king's daughter, brought with her a dowry of unhappiness. My own mother, innocent though she was, bequeathed to us the shameful legacy of the Borgias' deeds and instincts. You may be happy, Lucrezia, with your Duke of Urbino. I ask no confidences, but I am glad that I am not responsible for your marriage.

"You, at least, Leonora, shall live your own life wedded or unwedded as you like. I shall be so great that I can enn.o.ble whom I will, and you, beloved child, shall be the power behind the throne to advise me on whom to shower my benefits."

Lucrezia clapped her hands softly. "Bravo, dear Uncle, I have guessed this ambition, have I not? Cardinal de' Medici is already spoken of as the Pope's successor. But the Medici b.a.l.l.s have been carved too often over St. Peter's chair, and you are minded to blazon in their place the d'Este eagle. You need not answer for I know that I am right."

The Cardinal smiled mysteriously. "Too shrewd, my niece, too shrewd by half. How your woman's intuition leaps over intervening obstacles. Never a whisper of this guess at my aims. Remember, it is but your own surmise and that I have never breathed such an aspiration. The immediate object of my solicitude is to secure a charming play worthy of the setting of Villa d'Este breathing the spirit of Ovid and Anacreon, one which will make the old Greek G.o.ds live again in these delicious haunts and will redound to the reputation of your uncle's taste in literature."

"How magnanimous you are," cried Leonora, "to disclaim your princ.i.p.al motive, that of helping Ta.s.so! He shall come, and he will give you the most beautiful idyl that was ever written."

And who shall say that Ta.s.so did not make good the promise of his patroness? In the _Amyntas_ we have the development of a theme which is the inevitable product of such a temperament in such a situation, and to the poem itself we will now look for a record of what transpired at Villa d'Este during the writing and the presentation of the pastoral.

To us it is true that the archaic quality, the pseudo-cla.s.sicism of this pastoral seems at first artificial. "It has only so much of rustic nature as suits a graceful urban fancy." Arcadia is a no man's land, so far from our desires that we cannot picture it even in imagination; but to one who knows how sincere was the enthusiasm of the Renaissance for Greek ideals as well as for modes of expression, how cla.s.sicism had come to be understood as a synonym for perfection in form whether in literature or the plastic arts,--all the pretty imagery of the Golden Age and its demiG.o.ds becomes as natural a poetic rendering of sincere feeling as the equally formal restrictions of the measure of the sonnet or the rules which govern the composition of a concerto. Having once learned its technique genius and pa.s.sion were unconscious of their limitations, but flowed with as true and spontaneous an impulse within these formal bounds as waters in their marble fountains and conduits.

"All the melodies that had been growing through two centuries in Italy [says Symonds] are concentrated in the songs of the _Amyntas_ and the _Pastor Fido_. The idyllic voluptuousness which permeated literature and art steeps their pictures in a golden glow. While we recognise in both these poems--the one perfumed and delicate like flowers of spring, the other sculptured in pure forms of cla.s.sic grace--evident signs of a civilisation sinking to decay, we are bound to confess that to this goal the Italian genius had been steadily advancing. They complete and close the Renaissance."

But the living quality in the _Amyntas_ which makes it a thousand-fold more real to us than the Elizabethan masques is not its perfectness of form but the stamp which it bears of being the expression of personal experience and longing but thinly veiled in poetic imagery. Reading the poem at Villa d'Este we read between the lines and recognise the _scena_ of the pastoral and the love which inspired its plot.

In spite of the changes wrought by time we discover the origin of each descriptive pa.s.sage. This rocky reservoir whose shadowy surface seems to mirror reflections of mysterious faces is surely--

"Dian's pool Where the great plane's cool shade to cooler waves Invites the huntress nymphs."

Its encircling laurel thickets might mask to-day strange woodland deities like the Satyr of the play who while Sylvia bathed

"Crouched lynx-eyed among the thick-set shrubs."

The description of the tumultuous pursuit of this Satyr calls up so vividly the Polyphemus in the _Triumph of Galatea_ that we are convinced that Ta.s.so must have been influenced by Raphael's great painting in the Farnesina.

"Not all am I A despicable thing,..."

He makes the Satyr say;

"This ruddy russet front, these shoulders huge, These nervy bull-thewed arms, this silky breast, And these my velvet thighs are manhood's mould robust.

Ill favoured I? Not so!"