| Italian Poets 2 - Italy - It is thought probable,... |
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Index | pg. 54 |Previous Page - Next Page It is thought probable, ...It is thought probable, however, that if the poet had been less a friend to the house of Este, Leo would have kept his word with him, for their intimacy had undoubtedly been of the most cordial description. But it is supposed that Leo was afraid he should have a Ferrarese envoy constantly about him, had he detained Ariosto in Rome. The poet, however, it is admitted, was not a good hunter of preferment. He could not play the assenter, and bow and importune: and sovereigns, however friendly they may have been before their elevation, go the way of most princely flesh when they have attained it. They like to take out a man's gratitude beforehand, perhaps because they feel little security in it afterwards.The elevation to the papacy of the cheerful and indulgent son of Lorenzo de' Medici, after the troublous reign of Julius, was hailed with delight by all Christendom, and nowhere more so than in the pope's native place, Florence. Ariosto went there to see the spectacles; and there, in the midst of them, he found himself robbed of his heart by the lady whom he afterwards married. Her name was Alessandra Benucci. She was the widow of one of the Strozzi family, whom he had known in Ferrara, and he had long admired her. The poet, who, like Petrarch and Boccaccio, has recorded the day on which he fell in love, which was that of St. John the Baptist (the showy saint-days of the south offer special temptations to that effect), dwells with minute fondness on the particulars of the lady's appearance. Her dress was black silk, embroidered with two grape-bearing vines intertwisted; and "between her serene forehead and the path that went dividing in two her rich and golden tresses," was a sprig of laurel in bud. Her observer, probably her welcome if not yet accepted lover, beheld something very significant in this attire; and a mysterious poem, in which he records a device of a black pen feathered with gold, which he wore embroidered on a gown of his own, has been supposed to allude to it. As every body is tempted to make his guess on such occasions, I take the pen to have been the black-haired poet himself, and the golden feather the tresses of the lady. Beautiful as he describes her, with a face full of sweetness, and manners noble and engaging, he speaks most of the charms of her golden locks. The black gown could hardly have implied her widowhood: the allusion would not have been delicate. The vine belongs to dramatic poets, among whom the lover was at that time to be classed, the _Orlando_ not having appeared. Its duplification intimated another self; and the crowning laurel was the success that awaited the heroic poet and the conqueror of the lady's heart.[14] The marriage was never acknowledged. The husband was in the receipt of profits arising from church-offices, which put him into the condition of the fellow of a college with us, who cannot marry so long as he retains his fellowship: but it is proved to have taken place, though the date of it is uncertain. Ariosto, in a satire written three or four years after his falling in love, says he never intends either to marry or to take orders; because, if he takes orders, he cannot marry; and if he marries, he cannot take orders--that is to say, must give up his semi-priestly emoluments. This is one of the falsehoods which the Roman Catholic religion thinks itself warranted in tempting honest men to fall into; thus perplexing their faith as to the very roots of all faith, and tending to maintain a sensual hypocrisy, which can do no good to the strongest minds, and must terribly injure the weak. Ariosto's love for this lady I take to have been one of the causes of dissatisfaction between him and the cardinal. "Fortunately for the poet," as Panizzi observes, Ippolito was not always in Ferrara. He travelled in Italy, and he had an archbishopric in Hungary, the tenure of which compelled occasional residence. His company was not desired in Rome, so that he was seldom there. Ariosto, however, was an amusing companion; and the cardinal seems not to have liked to go anywhere without him. In the year 1515 he was attended by the poet part of the way on a journey to Rome and Urbino; but Ariosto fell ill, and had leave to return. He confesses that his illness was owing to an anxiety of love; and he even makes an appeal to the cardinal's experience of such feelings; so that it might seem he was not afraid of Ippolito's displeasure in that direction. But the weakness which selfish people excuse in themselves becomes a "very different thing" (as they phrase it) in another. The appeal to the cardinal's experience might only have exasperated him, in its assumption of the identity of the case. However, the poet was, at all events, left this time to the indulgence of his love and his poetry; and in the course of the ensuing year, a copy of the first edition of the _Orlando Furioso_, in forty cantos, was put into the hands of the illustrious person to whom it was dedicated. The words in which the cardinal was pleased to express himself on this occasion have become memorable. "Where the devil, Master Lodovick," said the reverend personage, "have you picked up such a parcel of trumpery?" The original term is much stronger, aggravating the insult with indecency. There is no equivalent for it in English; and I shall not repeat it in Italian. "It is as low and indecent," says Panizzi, "as any in the language." Suffice it to say that, although the age was not scrupulous in such matters, it was one of the last words befitting the lips of the reverend Catholic; and that, when Ippolito of Este (as Ginguene observes) made that speech to the great poet, "he uttered--prince, cardinal, and mathematician as he was--an impertinence."[15] Index | pg. 54 |Previous Page - Next Page Italy Hotels - Italy Hostels - Italy Sights ................................................................ Other popular Italy book pages: Macaroni with Tomatoes Macaroni alla Casalinga Macaroni al Sughillo Macaroni alla Livornese Tagliarelle and Lobster Polenta Polenta Pasticciata Online Italy Books Italian Renaissance Italian Recipes Italian Poetry Roman Mythology |
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