THE LITERARY COURTS AND PLATONIC LOVE
· Social Spirit of Women ·
· Accomplished Princesses · Their Executive Ability ·
· Caterina Sforza · Patrons of Letters ·
· Court of Urbino ·
· Duchess Elisabetta · Count Castiglione ·
· Record of Conversations · Qualities of a Lady ·
· A Medici Champion of Women ·
· Platonic Love · Court of Ferrara ·
· Boiardo · Ariosto · Duchess Leonora ·
· Lucrezia Borgia · Renée · Tasso’s Leonora ·
· Court of Mantua · Isabella d’Este ·
· Court of Milan · Beatrice d’Este ·
· Moral and Intellectual Value of Women of the Renaissance ·
· From Court to Literary Salon ·
We have heard of a man who, after writing two hundred volumes or so on various learned subjects, added a “Eulogy of Silence.” Among other curious things, he said that he was “never more with those he loved than when alone.” Men have sometimes been known to prefer society in this form, but women rarely; they like things in the concrete, and they like to talk about them. They may turn to a life of the spirit, but even this they do not care to live in solitude. There are few anchorets among them. In their exaltation, as in their pursuit of knowledge, they seek companionship.
Just how much women had to do with awakening the world from its long sleep we do not know, but they were very active in keeping it awake after it began to open its eyes. They mastered old languages, studied old manuscripts, held public discussions on classic themes, wrote verses, and entered with enthusiasm into the search for records that had been lying in the dust for a thousand years. But they did more than this: they revived the art of conversation and created society anew. Possibly this was the most distinct heritage they left to the coming ages.
If conversation did not reach its maturity in Italy, it had its brilliant youth there. Later it was taken up in France, spiced with Gallic wit, and raised to the dignity of a fine art; but it lost a little of its first seriousness. The accomplished princesses of the Renaissance, who raved over a new-found line of Plato or Socrates, and expatiated on the merits of a long-buried statue they had helped to unearth, recalled the famous circle of Aspasia and made social centers of their own. But they added a fresh and original flavor. One does not copy accurately after fifteen or twenty centuries, nor even after two or three; but we are safe in thinking that these groups of poets, statesmen, prelates, artists, wits, and litterateurs, who discussed the new life and thought, were not far behind their model in brilliancy. If the men were not so great, the world was older, the field of knowledge was wider, and there was more to talk about. Then, there was but one Aspasia. If there were lesser stars of her own sex, we do not know who they were. It was a brave woman, whatever her abilities may have been, if she had a reputation to lose, that would show her face in the society of those grand old Greeks who claimed the universe for themselves and made of her an insignificant vassal. But there was a multitude of women, both clever and learned, who added life and piquancy to the coteries of the Renaissance. Men were proud of the versatile wives and daughters who made their courts centers of light and learning; if they were without lettered tastes themselves, they were glad of the reflected glory. So, naturally, it was the ambition of every well-born girl to fit herself to shine in these brilliant circles, and every father who had a daughter of talent was conscious of possessing a treasure of great value upon which too much care could not be lavished.
It must not be thought, however, that the women who made their courts so famous were simply devotees of fashion, or the pretty toys of men’s caprices, any more than they were colorless saints of the household or cloister. They were not without high domestic and womanly virtues, but they had also intelligence, a grasp of affairs, masterly character, and the tact to make all these qualities available for the good of their families and society. They were versed not only in classic lore, but in the art of living. It was not weakness that constituted their charm; it was their symmetry and the fullness of their strength.
As we have already seen, it was an age of educated women. A lady was expected to understand Latin, at least, besides her own language, and Greek was a common acquirement. The earliest Greek grammar was written by the celebrated Lascaris for Ippolita Sforza, the wife of Alfonso and a ruling spirit at the lettered court of Naples. In her precocious childhood this brilliant princess made a collection of Latin apothegms, and a translation of Cicero’s “De Senectute,” which is said to be still preserved in a convent at Rome. Plato, Seneca, and other philosophers supplied the great ladies of four centuries ago with moral nutriment, and Cicero was studied as a model of style. With the exception of Vergil and parts of Horace, the Latin poets were too coarse, and Boccaccio was forbidden; but Dante was a favorite companion of leisure hours, and Petrarch, the high priest of Platonism, an idol. The “Lives of the Fathers” and the chronicles of the saints were antidotes to the worldliness of poets and historians. It was understood, however, that literary tastes must not interfere with prayers and an intelligent oversight of the household.
Of their talent for administration these versatile princesses gave ample evidence. They were constantly called upon to hold the reins of government when their husbands were absent, and ruled with great wisdom and skill. We do not hear that they talked much of their ability to do various things not usually included among a woman’s duties, but they did them at need as a matter of course. In affairs of delicate diplomacy they were of special value, also in questions pertaining to morals. It is interesting to know that this quarrelsome period had its peace societies, as well as our own, and that the Pacieri, which was organized to prevent litigation, was made up of men and women. Veronica Gambara used her influence and her pen in the interest of peace, also Vittoria Colonna, and many others.
Some of the women who ruled so ably, however, were of virile temper, and threw themselves with passionate energy into the storm and stress of affairs, though it was rarely, if ever, from choice. In an emergency they could ride fearlessly to the field of battle, or address a foreign council. It was to save her children’s heritage that Caterina Sforza defended the rocky fortress of Forli after the violent death of her husband. She was a picturesque figure, this imposing lady of fair face, golden hair, indomitable spirit, and fiery temper, as accomplished as she was beautiful and brave, who rode at the head of her troops, and graciously smiled upon the people, who loved her and were ready to die for her. As a lovely bride of fifteen she had made a triumphal entry into Rome, where she lived like a queen, and literally controlled the fate of every one who sought aid, promotion, or a place of her uncle, the formidable Sixtus IV, but she was destined to come to the front in many a stormy crisis. She was only twenty-two when the Pope died suddenly, but she took prompt possession of the castle of St. Angelo in the name of her absent husband, who was Commander of the Forces, and found there an asylum for her children until she could make terms that saved the family fortunes. No wonder the husband took her with him when he went to Venice, that he might avail himself of her swift and clear judgment in his delicate negotiations.
The history of this fifteenth-century heroine reads like the most improbable romance. With the daring of a man, she had the flexibility of a woman. If she could hold her own against an army and crush an enemy with inexorable decision, she could care for the wounded like a nurse. She danced as vigorously as she ruled, and did not disdain the arts of a coquette or a diplomatist. One and the most obscure of her three husbands she loved, but the others she served well. Of fear she was incapable. “I am used to grief; I am not afraid of it,” she wrote to her son from the solitary cell at Rome, where she was caged for a time by the terrible Borgia Pope in the fortress over which she had once ruled. But the careful, devoted mother, who was so full of energy, so generous to her friends, so courageous in war, so subtle in diplomacy, so dignified in misfortune, turned in her last years to spiritual things with the same ardor she had given to mundane ones. She had lived her life, and retired from its storms at thirty-nine. Then she gave herself to the austerities of a convent at Florence, still directing the education of her young children. If we do not approve of all the methods of this irrepressible woman of clear head and strong heart, we have to judge her by the standards of an age in which the directors of the world’s conscience scoffed at morality and gave the prizes of life to libertines and assassins. I quote her as one out of many, to show the firm quality and abounding vitality as well as the solid attainments of the women of this remarkable period.
But the special mission of these princesses, so valiant on occasion, was to patronize learning and the arts, to aid men of letters, to diffuse a taste for the beautiful, to put a curb on license, so far as this was possible, and to foster discussions of things high and serious. They vied with one another in making their courts intellectually luminous. The more we study them, the more we are convinced of the beneficent influence of thoroughly trained, broad-minded women in molding the destinies of nations as well as of individuals. We are fascinated by their variable charm, their mastery of life in its larger as well as its smaller phases. The woman who led all hearts captive with her beauty, her gaiety, her kindness, the faithful wife, the tender mother, the sympathetic friend, was also the woman of lucid intellect and strong soul, who sustained her husband in his darkest hours and added laurels to his glory while winning some for herself.
Of the Italian courts, it was only those led by able women that left a permanent fame. If they are associated with the names of great men who gave them the halo of their own glory, it was women who made a society for these men, inspired them, and centralized their influence. Urbino was called the Athens of Italy. During the reign of the Duchess Elisabetta it is safe to say that there was hardly a man of distinction in the country, whether poet, artist, prelate, or statesman, who did not find his way there sooner or later. It may be pleasant to dwell a little on this brilliant court, which was the best and purest of its time and furnished the model upon which the Hôtel de Rambouillet was founded more than a century afterward. It was more fortunate than others in having a chronicler. Count Castiglione left a graphic picture of its personnel and amusements, as well as a record of some of its conversations, so that we know not only the quality of the people who met there, but what they thought, what they talked about, and what they did. He gives us the best glimpse we have of the society and manners of the golden age of the Renaissance.
But this atmosphere of culture and refinement was not made in a day. It was largely due to the more or less gifted princesses who had lived or ruled there for more than a hundred years. Far back toward the beginning of the fifteenth century there was a Battista who was distinguished for her piety, her talents, and her noble character. A worthless husband drove her to seek refuge with her brother at Urbino, where she solaced the wounds of her heart in writing sonnets and moral essays on faith and human frailty, also in corresponding with scholars and sending Latin letters to her father-in-law, a Malatesta, who had fostered her literary tastes and evidently remained her friend. Her daughter inherited her sorrows with her talents, and both closed their lives, after the fashion of women to whom the world has not been kind or has lost its charm, in the austerities of a convent. Her granddaughter was Costanza Varana, a valued friend of philosophers and men of learning; but she died early, leaving another Battista, who was sent to Milan at four to be educated with her precocious cousin Ippolita Sforza. The extraordinary gifts of this child have already been mentioned, but she more than fulfilled her promise. At fifteen, or earlier, she was married to Federigo, the great Duke of Urbino, who shared the enthusiasm of the Medici in the revival of the classics. This small duchess of vigorous intellect, much learning, and strong character, was in full sympathy with her husband’s tastes, and he speaks of her as “the ornament of his house, the delight of his public and private hours.” If she could read Demosthenes and Plato, and talk with the wisdom of Cicero, as one of her contemporaries tells us, she was not spoiled for the practical duties of her position. At an age when our school-girls are playing golf or conning their lessons, she was prudently managing affairs of the State of which she was regent in her husband’s absence. She was simple in manners, cared little for dress, and put on her magnificent robes only for courtly ceremonies to maintain the outward dignity of her place. At Rome she was greatly honored by the Pope, whom she addressed in Latin, much to his delight. But this beautiful, gifted, efficient, and adored woman died at twenty-six, leaving seven children, a broken-hearted husband, and a sorrowing people. The glories of her short, full life were sung by poets, statesmen, and churchmen alike. She left the imperishable stamp of intellect and taste on all her surroundings, and is of special interest to us as the grandmother of Vittoria Colonna, in whom the talent of generations found its consummate flower.
But the luminous period of Urbino was during the reign of her son, who added to the martial qualities and manly accomplishments of his age, remarkable talent, great learning, and a singularly gentle character. This was the Duke Guidobaldo, who consoled his friends in his last moments with lines from Vergil. His health was always delicate, and the brilliancy of his court was due to his wife, the celebrated Elisabetta Gonzaga, who had been reared in the scholarly air of Mantua, where the daughters were educated with the sons. She found in her new home standards of culture that had been set, as we have seen, by a long line of princesses devoted to things of the intellect.
In its palmy days, the young Giuliano de’ Medici, son of the great Lorenzo and brother of Leo X,—the one who was immortalized by Michelangelo in the statue so familiar to the traveler in the Medicean Chapel at Florence,—was living at Urbino during the exile of his family. It was also the home of the “divine Bembo,” critic, Platonist, arbiter of letters, finally cardinal, and one of the most famous men of his time, though his claim to be called “divine” is not apparent. The witty Mæcenas of this group was Bibbiena, poet, diplomat, man of the world, a dilettante in taste and an Epicurean in philosophy, also a cardinal and an aspirant for the papal throne. There were, too, the Fregosos, men of strong intellect, many personal attractions, and manly character, one of whom became the Doge of Genoa, and the other a cardinal—with many others of fame and learning whose names signify little to us to-day. By no means the least important member of the household was Castiglione, the courtier and diplomat of classical tastes and varied accomplishments, who has given us so pleasant a glimpse of its sayings and doings. To this intellectual Mecca came, from time to time, literary pilgrims from all parts of the world.
It was the special mission of the Duchess Elisabetta to fuse these elements into a society that should be a model for other courts and coming generations. Here lies her originality and her claim to distinction. This clever princess, who loved her husband devotedly, cared for the poor and sorrowing among her people, and had moral convictions of her own as well as ideas, was well fitted for her position. Without any pretension to genius, she had a clear, discriminating mind, rare intelligence, great beauty, and gracious manners. Her character had a fine symmetry, and she was equally successful in directing her household, conversing with great men, and holding the reins of government when her husband—a condottiere by profession, like most of the smaller princes—was in the field elsewhere. Surrounded by adorers in an age when indiscretions, even sins, were easily forgiven, no breath of censure ever touched her fair name. Her dignity and a reserve that verged upon coldness gave a pure tone to her court. She permitted neither malicious gossip nor heated talk, and required unsullied honor and exemplary conduct of her friends. We might question the standards a little, as men at least were privileged beings not to be too closely scrutinized.
In her social duties she had the efficient aid of Emilia Pia, the duke’s sister-in-law, a woman of brilliant intellect and high character, who had lost her husband in youth, and lived at Urbino. Of a gayer turn, her ready wit and happy temperament, added to her knowledge and personal fascination, made her the life of the house. Other and younger ladies of well-known names and kindred tastes figure in its diversions.
The magnificent old palace that overlooked the city from its picturesque site among the hills was one of the finest in Italy. Its stately rooms were filled with rare treasures of painting, sculpture, mosaic, and costly furniture. There were exquisite decorations in marble and tarsia, and the walls were draped with rich tapestries. Raphael was a youth then, and no doubt his first dreams had been of these beautiful things, among which he must have rambled. It is likely, too, that he met here the friends who were of so much service to him afterward at Rome, among them Bibbiena, to whose grandniece he was betrothed. His father had painted some of the frescos, and was a welcome visitor. Other artists were invited there, and added to the glories of the famous pile. Among these surroundings of art and beauty, with the traditions of culture that lay behind them, clever, thoughtful women and brilliant men met evening after evening to talk of the world and its affairs, of things light and serious, of love, manners, literature, statecraft, and philosophy. When they tired of grave themes, they amused themselves with allegories, playful badinage, witty repartees, and devices of all sorts to stimulate the intellect. After supper there was music and dancing, if the conversation did not last until the morning hours. Sometimes they had their own plays acted in the pretty little theater. It was here that Bibbiena’s famous comedy, “Calandra,” with its gorgeous pagan setting and its curious blending of love and mythology, of nymphs, Cupids, and goddesses, was first given to an admiring world.
But we are most interested to-day in the conversations. Many evenings were devoted to defining the character and duties of a courtier, which differed little from those of a modern gentleman, except in the exaggerated deference claimed to be due to a superior and verging upon servility. It is more to the purpose here to touch upon the discussions relating to women, as they furnish a key to fifteenth-century manners which were the basis of all modern codes, though to-day many of the best of their formulas are more conspicuous in the breach than in the observance.
It was agreed that a lady must be gracious, affable, discreet, of character above reproach, free from pride or envy, and neither vain, contentious, nor arrogant. To speak of the failings of others, or listen to reflections upon them, was taken as an indication that one’s own follies needed a vindication or a veil. This model lady must dress with taste, but not think too much about it, and she was forbidden to dye her hair, or use cosmetics and other artificial aids to beauty. Her personal distinction lay in an elegant simplicity, without luxury or pretension. She must know how to manage her children and her fortune, as well as her household; but she was expected to be versed in letters, music, and the arts, also to be able to converse on any topic of the day without childish affectation of knowledge which she did not possess. Modesty, tact, decorum, and purity of thought were cardinal virtues, and religion was a matter of course. Noisy manners, egotism, and familiarity were unpardonable. Dignity, self-possession, and a gentle urbanity were marks of good breeding. No license in language was permitted, but we cannot help wondering what they called license. Men, it must be added, could be about as wicked as they liked, and, if history is to be trusted, many in high places were very wicked indeed. The latitude of the best of them in speech would be rather embarrassing to the sensitive woman of our time; but the days of the précieuses had not dawned, and no one hesitated to call a spade a spade, even if it were a very black one. Women might blush and be silent, but further protest was set down as disagreeable prudery. Perhaps the frank naturalism of the Latin races must be taken into account, as it often quite unconsciously shocks our own more delicate tastes even to-day. But it was conceded that no man was so bad as not to esteem a woman of pure character and refined sensibilities.
These men and women who lived on the confines of two great centuries and tried to introduce a finer code of manners and morals, touched also on the equality of the sexes, a question which agitated that world as it does our own. Some one asks, one evening, why women should not be permitted to govern cities, make laws, and command armies.
Giuliano de’ Medici, who was an ardent champion of the dependent sex, replies that it might not be amiss. Many of them he declares to be as capable of doing these things as men, and he cites history to show that they have led armies and governed with equal prudence. To a friend who mildly suggests that women are inferior, he says that “the difference is accidental, not essential,” adding that the qualities of strength, activity, and endurance are not always most esteemed, even in men. As to mind, “whatever men can know and understand, women can also; where one intellect penetrates, so does the other.... Many have been learned in philosophy, written poetry, practised law, and spoken with eloquence.”
A gentleman of the party ungallantly remarks that women desire to be men so as to be more perfect.
Giuliano wisely answers that it is not for perfection, but for liberty to shake off the power that men assume over them. He says they are more firm and constant in affection, as men are apt to be wandering and unsettled. When asked to name women who are equal to men, he replies that he is confounded by numbers, but mentions, among others, “Portia, Cornelia, and Nicostrata, mother of Evander, who taught the Latins the use of letters.” “Rome,” he adds, “owes its greatness as much to women as to men.... They were never in any age inferior, nor are they now.” He goes on to cite Countess Matilda, Anne of France, wife of two kings in succession, and inferior to neither, Marguerite, daughter of Maximilian, famed for prudence and justice, Isabella of Mantua, singularly great and virtuous, with many other noted women of his time. “If there are Cleopatras, there are multitudes of Sardanapali who are much worse.”
The limits of this paper permit only the suggestion of a few points in a long conversation which touched the subject on every side. It was interspersed with thoughtful questions from the duchess, who did not fail to interfere if it took too free a turn, also with brilliant sallies of wit from Emilia Pia, and spicy comments from the less serious members of the party. They were not all in accord with the opinions quoted here, but, on the whole, Giuliano de’ Medici and his supporters, who paid a fine tribute to the abilities of women without wishing to impose upon them heavier duties, had the best of the argument.
From men, women, and manners, the transition to love was an easy one, and this fifteenth-century coterie discussed it in all its variations, as we discuss the last play, or the last novel, or the last word in sociology, or the misty era of universal peace. It was not a new thing to discourse upon the most interesting of human passions. Men had talked of it centuries before on the banks of the Ilissus; but when they passed from its lowest phases they lost themselves in metaphysical subtleties. It became an intellectual aspiration, a “passion of the reason,” without warmth or life. Diotima, a woman quoted by Socrates, called it “a mystic dream of the beautiful and good”; but if she was not a myth herself, she could not join the symposia of philosophers. Outside of the circle of Aspasia, no respectable woman was admitted to the conversations of men; indeed, these finely drawn dissertations on love had small reference to her. In the classic world women had no part in the marriage of souls. Love, when not purely a thing of the senses, was a worship of beauty, and the Greek ideal of beauty was a masculine one. They might die for a Helen, but it was not for love. These wise talkers sent the flute-players to amuse their wives and daughters in the inner court, while they considered high things, as well as many not suitable for delicate ears. The coarser Romans treated love as altogether a thing of the senses, with Ovid as a text.
But in the golden age of the Renaissance, women no longer stayed in the inner court, to gossip and listen to flute-players, while their husbands talked on themes high or low. The worship of the Madonna, if it had done little else, had idealized the pure affection of an exalted womanhood. Chivalry following in its train had made the cult of woman a fashion by giving her more or less of the homage already paid to her divine representative, though this sentiment was less active in Italy than in Provence or among the more romantic races. It was a tribute of strength to helplessness, and had its roots in the finest traits of men; but it exalted moral qualities rather than intellectual ones, and was largely theoretical outside of a limited class. Now that men had begun to dip into classic lore, however, they found a valuable ally in women, and the old cult became a companionship. To be educated and a princess was to be doubly a power, to have opinions which it was worth while to consider.
The princesses of Urbino had doubtless read Plato. In an age, too, that occupied itself with Boccaccio, who had glorified the senses and written books that no pure and refined woman could read, they had turned to Dante and the spiritual love which was an inspiration and a benediction. In the white soul of Beatrice they found the exquisite flower of womanhood. They caught also the subtle fragrance of the ideal love which Petrarch gave, first to a woman, then to an unfading memory. It was of such a love they dreamed and liked to talk. Then one of the chief apostles of Platonism was the brilliant Bembo, who was the star of this company. “Through love,” he says, “the supreme virtues rule the inferior.” He puts on record and dedicates to Lucrezia Borgia the conversations of three days on its joys and sorrows; but the subject was evidently exhausted, as, at the end, a hermit gives a homily on the vanity of the world. He closes an eloquent apostrophe, however, with these words: “Chase away ignorance and make us see celestial beauty in its perfection. Love, it is the communion with divine beauty, the banquet of angels, the heavenly ambrosia.” On this theme his listeners rang the changes, but not always on so ethereal a plane. The relative constancy of the sexes, the divine right of man, the passive nature of woman, who was called a pale moon to the masculine sun, and various other points, had their fair share of discussion. Between terrestrial and celestial love there are many gradations, and the character and temperament of the men were clearly revealed in their opinions. Some were disposed to be autocrats, others took issue with masculine egotism, and still others dwelt on the sentimental side of the question. One of the Fregosos rather ungraciously assumed the traditional attitude of his sex and contended that women are “imperfect animals,” not at all to be compared with men. But he was in an unpopular minority. The Duchess Elisabetta was a well-poised, discreet woman, who was devoted to her invalid husband, kept her admirers at a prudent distance, and was in no wise a victim to superfluous sensibility. The effusive Bembo, who was given to friendships touched with the fire of the imagination, was untiring in his devotion to this Minerva, but he confessedly adored her as a goddess from afar. The witty and brilliant Emilia Pia had a temperament the reverse of sentimental, and was ready to demolish any castle of moonlight with a shaft of merciless satire. Both brought a solid equipment of common sense into an analysis that often reached a very fine point. But this friendship that was not love, this love that was a sublimated friendship, appealed to them as it did to many others besides poets in a grossly material age. To separate the soul from the senses and intellectualize the emotions, was the natural protest of intelligent women against the old traditions that considered them only as servants or toys of men’s fancies. It took them out of the realm of the passions and “gave them wings for a sublime flight.” The mysticism of love is closely related to the mysticism of religion, and the faith that sees God in ecstatic visions is not far from the love that feeds itself from spiritual sources. These rambling talks, to which the young ladies listened curiously and with interest, though usually in discreet silence, proved so absorbing that on the last of a series of evenings devoted to the subject, the party forgot its usual gaieties, and did not disperse until the birds began to sing in the trees and the rosy dawn shone over the rugged heights of Monte Catri.
It was these conversations that set in motion the wave of Platonism which swept over the surface of society for two or three centuries, until it lost itself in the pale inanities and vapid phrases of the précieuses. We find it difficult now to conceive of a company of grave dignitaries old and young, statesmen, wits, men of letters, and clever women, chasing theories of love through an infinity of shades and gradations, as seriously as we talk of trusts, strikes, education, and the best means of making everybody happy. The subject had a perennial interest for them. They considered it mathematically as to quantity, spiritually as to quality. They quoted Plato on love and divine beauty, but no one would have been more surprised at the application than the philosopher himself. They proposed to do away with all the chagrins and disenchantments of love, by making it altogether a dream, beautiful, no doubt, but shadowy. As a last refuge, they put terrestrial love into celestial robes and drowned themselves in illusions. Bembo wish
