The hopes and efforts of Salviati must serve to show the cotemporary opinion as to the nature of the poet's imprisonment; and will fill up the measure of our indignation at the tyrant jailer*. In fact, the antagonist of Tasso was not disappointed in the reception given to his criticism; he was called to the court of Ferrara, where, having endeavoured to heighten his claims to favour, by panegyrics on the family of his sovereignt, he was in turn abandoned, and expired in neglected poverty. The opposition of the Cruscans was brought to a close in six years after the commencement of the controversy; and if the academy owed its first renown to having almost opened with such a paradox, it is probable that, on the other hand, the care of his reputation alleviated rather than aggravated the imprisonment of the injured poet. The defence of his father and of himself, for both were involved in the censure of Salviati, found employment for many of his solitary hours, and the captive could have been but little embarrassed to reply to accusations, where, amongst other delinquencies, he was charged with invidiously omitting, in his comparison between France and Italy, to make any mention of the cupola of St. Maria del Fiore at Florence §. The late biographer of Ariosto seems as if willing to renew the controversy by doubting the interpretation of Tasso's self-estimation || related in Serassi's life of the poet. But Tiraboschi had before laid that rivalry at rest¶, by showing, that between For further, and, it is hoped, decisive proof, that Tasso was neither more nor less than a prisoner of state, the reader is referred to "Historical Illustrations of the IVth Canto of Childe Harold," pag. 5, and following. + Orazioni funebri ... delle lodi di Don Luigi Cardinal d'Este... delle lodi di Donno Alfonso d'Este. See La Vita, lib. iii. p. 117. It was founded in 1582, and the Cruscan answer to Pellegrino's Caraffa or epica poesia was published in 1584. §"Cotanto potè sempre in lui il veleno della sua pessima volontà contro alla nazion Fiorentina." La Vita, lib. iii. p. 96, 98. tom. ii. La Vita di M. L. Ariosto, scritta dall' Abate Girolamo Baruffaldi Giuniore, &c., Ferrara, 1807, lib. iii. p. 262. See Historical Illustrations, &c. p. 26. Storia della Lett. &c. lib. iii. tom. vii. par. iii. p. 1220. sect. 4. Ariosto and Tasso it is not a question of comparison, but of preference. 19. The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust The iron crown of laurel's mimick'd leaves. Before the remains of Ariosto were removed from the Benedictine church to the library of Ferrara, his bust, which surmounted the tomb, was struck by lightning, and a crown of iron laurels melted away. The event has been recorded by a writer of the last century *. The transfer of these sacred ashes on the 6th of June, 1801, was one of the most brilliant spectacles of the short-lived Italian Republic; and to consecrate the memory of the ceremony, the once famous fallen Intrepidi were revived and re-formed into the Ariostean academy. The large public place through which the procession paraded was then for the first time called Ariosto Square. The author of the Orlando is jealously claimed as the Homer, not of Italy, but Ferrara †. mother of Ariosto was of Reggio, and the house in which he was born is carefully distinguished by a tablet with these words: "Qui nacque Ludovico Ariosto il giorno 8 di Settembre dell' anno 1474." But the Ferrarese make light of the accident by which their poet was born abroad, and claim him exclusively for their own. They possess his bones, they show his arm-chair, and his inkstand, and his autographs. The The house where he lived, the room where he died, are de * "Mi raccontarono que' mouaci, ch' essendo caduto un fulmine nella loro chiesa schiantò esso dalle tempie la corona di lauro a quell' immortale poeta." Op. di Bianconi, vol. iii. p. 176. ed. Milano, 1802; lettera al Signor Guido Savini Arcifisiocritico, sull' indole di un fulmine caduto in Dresda l'anno 1759. t Appassionato ammiratore ed invitto apologista dell' Omero Ferrarese." The title was first given by Tasso, and is quoted to the confusion of the Tassisti, lib. iii. pp. 262. 265. La Vita di M. L. Ariosto, &c. signated by his own replaced memorial*, and by a recent inscription. The Ferrarese are more jealous of their claims since the animosity of Denina, arising from a cause which their apologists mysteriously hint is not unknown to them, ventured to degrade their soil and climate to a Boeotian incapacity for all spiritual productions. A quarto volume has been called forth by the detraction, and this supplement to Barotti's Memoirs of the illustrious Ferrarese has been considered a triumphant reply to the "Quadro Storico Statistico dell' Alta Italia." 20. For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves Stanza xli. lines 4 and 5. The eagle, the sea calf, the laurelt, and the white vine ‡, were amongst the most approved preservatives against lightning: Jupiter chose the first, Augustus Cæsar the second §, and Tiberius never failed to wear a wreath of the third when the sky threatened a thunder-storm [. These superstitions may be received without a sneer in a country where the magical properties of the hazel twig have not lost all their credit; and perhaps the reader may not be much surprised to find that a commentator on Suetonius has taken upon himself gravely to disprove the imputed virtues of the crown of Tiberius, by mentioning that a few years before he wrote a laurel was actually struck by lightning at Rome ¶. 21. Know that the lightning sanctifies below. Stanza xli. line 8. The Curtian lake and the Ruminal fig-tree in the Fo "Parva sed apta mihi, sed nulli obnoxia, sed non Aquila, vitulus marinus, et laurus, fulmine non feriuntur. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. ii. cap. lv. Columella, lib. x. Sueton. in Vit. August. cap. xc. Sueton. in Vit. Tiberii, cap. Ixix. ¶Note 2. p. 409. edit. Lugd. Bat. 1667. rum, having been touched by lightning, were held sacred, and the memory of the accident was preserved by a puteal, or altar, resembling the mouth of a well, with a little chapel covering the cavity supposed to be made by the thunderbolt. Bodies scathed and persons struck dead were thought to be incorruptible*; and a stroke not fatal conferred perpetual dignity upon the man so distinguished by heaven †. Those killed by lightning were wrapped in a white garment, and buried where they fell. The superstition was not confined to the worshippers of Jupiter: the Lombards believed in the omens furnished by lightning, and a Christian priest confesses that, by a diabolical skill in interpreting thunder, a seer foretold to Agilulf, duke of Turin, an event which came to pass, and gave him a queen and a crown. There was, however, something equivocal in this sign, which the ancient inhabitants of Rome did not always consider propitious; and as the fears are likely to last longer than the consolations of superstition, it is not strange that the Romans of the age of Leo X. should have been so much terrified at some misinterpreted storms as to require the exhortations of a scholar, who arrayed all the learning on thunder and lightning to prove the omen favourable; beginning with the flash which struck the walls of Velitræ, and including that which played upon a gate at Florence, and foretold the pontificate of one of its citizens §. 22. Italia! oh Italia! &c. Stanza xlii. line 1. The two stanzas, XLII. and XLIII., are, with the exception of a line or two, a translation of the famous sonnet of Filicaja: "Italia, Italia, O tu cui feo la sorte." * Vid. J. C. Bullenger, de Terræ Motu et Fulminib. lib. v. cap. xi. † Ουδεὶς κεραυνωθεὶς ἄτιμος ἐστι, ὅθεν καὶ ὡς θεὸς τιμᾶται. Plut. Sympos. vid. J. C. Bulleng. ut sup. Pauli Diaconi, de Gestis Langobard. lib. iii. cap. xiv. fo. 15. edit. Taurin. 1527. § I. P. Valeriani de fulminum significationibus declamatio, ap. Græv. Antiq. Rom. tom. v. p. 593. The declamation is addressed to Julian of Medicis. 23. Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him, The celebrated letter of Servius Sulpicius to Cicero on the death of his daughter describes as it then was, and now is, a path which I often traced in Greece, both by sea and land, in different journeys and voyages. "On my return from Asia, as I was sailing from Ægina towards Megara, I began to contemplate the prospect of the countries around me: Ægina was behind, Megara before me; Piræus on the right, Corinth on the left; all which towns, once famous and flourishing, now lie overturned and buried in their ruins. Upon this sight, I could not but think presently within myself, Alas! how do we poor mortals fret and vex ourselves if any of our friends happen to die or be killed, whose life is yet so short, when the carcasses of so many noble cities lie here exposed before me in one view*." 24. And we pass The skeleton of her Titanic form. Stanza xlvi. lines 7 and 8. It is Poggio who, looking from the Capitoline hill upon ruined Rome, breaks forth into the exclamation, "Ut nunc omni decore nudata, prostrata jacet, instar gigantei cadaveris corrupti atque undique exesi †." 25. There, too, the Goddess loves in stone. Stanza xlix. line 1. The view of the Venus of Medicis instantly suggests the lines in the Seasons, and the comparison of the object with the description proves, not only the correctness of the portrait, but the peculiar turn of thought, and, if the term may be used, the sexual imagination of the descriptive poet. * Dr. Middleton-History of the Life of M. Tullius Cicero, sect. vii. p. 371. vol. ii. † De fortunæ varietate urbis Romæ, et de ruinis ejusdem descriptio, ap. Sallengre, Thesaur. tom. i. p. 501. |