Women of the Romance Countries (Illustrated)

Not long after this Florentine queen of France was playing her part in public affairs, all Europe was surprised by another woman, whose actions were without parallel and whose case seems to be the opposite of the one just cited. Marie de' Medici left Italy to become a queen, and now a queen is seen to abdicate that she may go to Rome to live. Christine, Queen of Sweden, a most enlightened woman and the daughter of the great Gustavus Adolphus who had brought about the triumph of the Protestant arms in Germany, relinquished her royal robes in the year 1654, announced her conversion to Catholicism, and finally went to Rome, where she ended her days. She was given a veritable ovation on her arrival there, as may well be imagined, for the Church rarely made so distinguished a convert, and Christine, in acknowledgment of this attention, presented her crown and sceptre as a votive offering to the church of the Santa Casa at Loretto. At Rome she lived in one of the most beautiful palaces in the city, and there divided her time between study and amusements. Through it all she was never able to forget the fact that she had been a queen, and many examples might be given of her haughty demeanor in the presence of those who were unwilling to do her bidding. Before leaving Sweden, Christine had tried to gather a circle of learned men about her at Stockholm, and the great French philosopher Descartes spent some months in her palace. Later, when in Paris, on her way to Italy, a special session of the French Academy had been held in her honor, and all of the literary men of France went out to the palace at Fontainebleau while she was domiciled there, to do her honor. Once in Rome, it was her immediate desire to become the centre of a literary coterie, and to that end she was most generous in her gifts to artists and men of letters. Her intelligence and her liberality soon gave her great influence, and before long she was able to organize an Academy in due form under her own roof. She was for many years a most conspicuous figure in Roman society, and at the time of her death, in 1689, Filicaïa, a poet of some local reputation, declared that her kingdom comprised "all those who thought, all those who acted, and all those who were endowed with intelligence."

In this seventeenth century, as in the one before, parents were continually compelling their children and especially their daughters to enter upon a religious career, and many of them were forced to this course in spite of their protestations. Cantu tells of the case of Archangela Tarabotti, who was compelled to enter the convent of Saint Anne at Venice, though all her interests and all her ways were worldly in the extreme. To the convent she went, however, at the age of thirteen, because she was proving a difficult child to control, and there she was left to grind her teeth in impotent rage. In common with many other young girls of her time, she had never been taught to read or write, as the benefit of such accomplishments was not appreciated in any general way-at least so far as women were concerned; but, once within the convent walls, from sheer ennui, Archangela began to study most assiduously, and finally published a number of books which present an interesting description and criticism of existing manners and customs in so far as they had to do with women and their attitude toward conventual institutions. Having entered upon this life under protest, her first books were written in a wild, passionate style, and it was her purpose to make public the violence of which she had been a victim, and to prove, by copious references to authorities both sacred and profane, that women should be allowed entire liberty in their choice of a career. Incidentally, she cursed most thoroughly the fathers who compelled their daughters to take the veil in spite of their expressed unwillingness. Perhaps the most important of these protests, which was given an Elzevir edition in 1654, was entitled Innocence Deceived, or The Tyranny of Parents. This special edition was dedicated to God, and bore the epigraph: "Compulsory devotion is not agreeable to God!" Another of these books was entitled The Hell of Convent Life, and these titles are certainly enough to show that she set about her task of religious-or, rather, social-reform with a most fervid, though somewhat bitter, zeal. Naturally, these open criticisms caused a great scandal in ecclesiastical circles, and many vigorous attempts were made to reconcile the recalcitrant nun and induce her to modify her views. Finally, moved by the pious exhortations of the patriarch, Federigo Cornaro, she became somewhat resigned to her fate. Then it was said of her that "she abandoned the pomp of fine garments, which had possessed so great a charm for her," and the records show that the last years of her life were spent in an endeavor to atone for the extravagances of her youthful conduct. A number of devout books were produced by her during this time, and among them the following curious titles may be noticed: The Paved Road to Heaven and The Purgatory of Unhappily Married Women.

A somewhat similar case of petty tyranny, and one which was soon the talk of all Europe, is the pathetic story of Roberto Acciaïuoli and Elizabetta Marmoraï. These two young people loved each other in spite of the fact that Elizabetta was the wife of Giulio Berardi; when the latter died, everyone supposed that the lovers would marry, and such was their intention, but they found an unexpected obstacle in their path, for Roberto's uncle, the Cardinal Acciaïuoli, had other views on the subject. It was his desire that his nephew should contract a marriage with some wealthy Roman family whose influence might aid him to become pope. The young man refused to further this project in any way, and insisted upon marrying the woman of his choice; the cardinal, in despair, had to fall back upon the assistance of his ruling prince, Cosmo II., Grand Duke of Tuscany. Cosmo, unwilling to offend this prelate who might some day become the head of the Church, took action in his behalf and ordered that Elizabetta should be confined in a Florentine convent. Thereupon Roberto fled to Mantua, and, after having married her by letter, publicly proclaimed his act and demanded that his wife be delivered up to him. The best lawyers in Lombardy now declared the marriage a valid one, but in Florence the steps taken were considered merely as the equivalent of a public betrothal. So the matter stood for a time, until the pope died and the ambitious cardinal presented himself as a candidate for the pontiff's chair. Then the outraged nephew sent to each one of the papal electors a detailed account of what had taken place, with the result that his uncle's candidacy was a complete failure. Cosmo, moved somewhat by public opinion, which was all upon the side of the lovers, ordered Elizabetta to be released from her captivity, whereupon she joined her husband in Venice, that she might share his exile. They were not allowed to remain there for a long time in peace, however, as Cosmo, smarting under the lash of popular disapproval, decided to make an effort to get them within his power again, that he might wreak his vengeance upon them. Accordingly, he demanded that the Venetian republic should deliver them up, charging that they had been guilty of gross disrespect toward him, their sovereign. Hearing of this requisition, Roberto and Elizabetta, disguised as monks, fled to Germany, but were recognized at Trent and taken back to Tuscany. Acciaïuoli was then deprived of all his property and imprisoned for life in the fortress of Volterra, and his wife was threatened with the same treatment if she persisted in maintaining the validity of the marriage. Worn by all this trouble and persecution, Elizabetta weakened, failed to show the courage which might be expected from the heroine of such a dramatic story, and preferred to live alone for the rest of her days than to spend her life in prison with her devoted husband.

The eighteenth century found Italy still under the control of foreign rulers, and the national spirit was still unborn; public morals seem to have degenerated rather than improved, and then, as always, the women were no better than the men desired them to be. Details of the life of this period are extremely difficult to obtain, as the social aspects of Italian life from the decline of the Renaissance to the Napoleonic era have been quite generally neglected by historians; the information which is obtainable must be derived in large measure from books and letters on Italian travel, written for the most part by foreigners. One of the most interesting volumes of this kind was written by a Mrs. Piozzi, the English wife of an Italian, who had unusual opportunities for a close observation of social conditions; several of the following paragraphs are based upon her experiences.

The most striking thing in the social life of this time is the domestic arrangement whereby every married woman was supposed to have at her beck and call, in addition to her husband, another cavalier, who was known as a cicisbeo and was the natural successor of the Florentine cavaliere before mentioned. Cicisbeism has been much criticised and much discussed as to its bearing upon public morals, and many opposite opinions have been expressed with regard to it. The Countess Martinengo Cesaresco, who is a most careful and able student of Italian life, has the following to say upon the subject: "He [the cicisbeo] was frequently a humble relative-in every family were cadets too poor to marry, as they could not work for their living, or too sincere to become priests, to whom cavalier service secured a dinner, at any rate, if they wanted one. It was the custom to go to the theatre every evening-the box at the opera was an integral part of the household arrangements, a continuation of the salon-only it could not be reached without an escort. The chaperon did not exist, because a woman, no matter how old, was no escort for another woman, nor could she herself dispense with an attendant of the other sex. A dowager of sixty and a bride of sixteen had equally to stay at home if there was not a man to accompany them. The cavalier's service was particularly in request at the theatre, but he was more or less on duty whenever his lady left her house for any purpose, with the doubtful exception of going to church. No husband outside a honeymoon could be expected to perform all these functions: he, therefore, appointed or agreed upon the appointment of somebody else to act as his substitute. This was, in nine cases out of ten, the eminently unromantic cavalier servitude of fact. The high-flown, complimentary language, the profound bowing and hand-kissing of the period, combined to mystify strangers as to its real significance. Sometimes, when there was really a lover in the question, the cavalier servente must have been a serious impediment; he was always Là planté … à contrecarrer un pauvre tiers, in the words of the witty Président de Brosses, who, though he did not wholly credit the assurances he received as to the invariable innocence of the institution, was yet far from passing on it the sweeping judgment arrived at by most foreigners. There is no doubt that habit and opportunity did, now and then, prove too strong for the two individuals thrown so constantly together. 'Juxtaposition is great,' as Clough says in his Amours de Voyage; but that such lapses represented the rule rather than the exception is not borne out either by reason or record."

Mrs. Piozzi is somewhat dubious in regard to this condition of affairs and is hardly disposed to take the charitable view which has just been given, but the general trend of more enlightened comment seems to agree with the Countess Cesaresco. In Sheridan's School for Scandal occur the following lines, which convey the same idea:

LADY TEAZLE. – "You know I admit you as a lover no farther than fashion sanctions."

JOSEPH SURFACE. – "True-a mere platonic cicisbeo-what every wife is entitled to."

Fragments taken somewhat at random regarding the women of several of the more important cities of Italy may serve to give some idea regarding their general position and condition throughout the country at large. Writing from Milan, Mrs. Piozzi says: "There is a degree of effrontery among the women that amazes me, and of which I had no idea till a friend showed me, one evening, from my own box at the opera, fifty or a hundred low shopkeepers' wives dispersed about the pit at the theatre, dressed in men's clothes (per disempegno, as they call it), that they might be more at liberty, forsooth, to clap and hiss and quarrel and jostle! I felt shocked." Venice was, as it had ever been, a city of pleasure. The women, generally married at fifteen, were old at thirty, and such was the intensity of life in this "water-logged town" – as F. Hopkinson Smith somewhat irreverently called it upon one occasion-that a traveller was led to remark: On ne goûte pas ses plaisirs, on les avale. Here, as in all parts of Italy for that matter, the conditions of domestic life were somewhat unusual at this time, as it was the custom to employ menservants almost exclusively; as these servitors were under the control of the master of the house, it was quite common for the women to intrust to their husbands the entire management of household affairs. Thus freed from family cares, Venetian ladies had little to occupy their time outside of the pleasures of society. Nothing was expected of them on the intellectual side; they had no thought of education, found no resource in study, and were not compelled to read in order to keep up with society small-talk; so long as they found a means to charm their masculine admirers, nothing more was demanded. Apparently, for them to charm and fascinate was not difficult, for, according to Mrs. Piozzi, "a woman in Italy is sure of applause, so she takes little pains to secure it." Accordingly, the women of Venice seem to have been quite unpretentious in their manners and dress. They wore little or no rouge, though they were much addicted to the use of powder, and their dresses were very plain and presented little variety. "The hair was dressed in a simple way, flat on top, all of one length, hanging in long curls about the neck or sides, as it happens." During the summer season it was the custom literally to turn night into daytime, as social functions were rarely begun before midnight, and it was dawn before the revellers were brought home in their gondolas. At one place in Venice were literary topics much discussed, and that was at Quirini's Casino, a semi-public resort where ladies were much in evidence, and this was but the exception which proved the rule.

Genoa has been thus described: "It possesses men without honesty, women without modesty, a sea without fish, and a woods with no birds," and, without going into the merits of each of these statements, it is safe to say that the state of public morals in this city was about the same as that to be found in any other Italian city. Apropos of the poor heating arrangements in Genoese houses, Mrs. Piozzi makes the following remark, which gives a sidelight upon some of the customs of the place and will interest the curious: "To church, however, and to the theatre in winter, they have carried a great green velvet bag, adorned with gold tassels and lined with fur to keep their feet from freezing, as carpets are not in use. Poor women run about the streets with a little earthen pipkin hanging on their arm filled with fire, even if they are sent on an errand."

In Florence, the art of making improviso verses-which has ever been popular in southern countries-seems to have reached its highest state of perfection during this eighteenth century, and a woman, the celebrated Corilla, was acknowledged to be the most expert in this accomplishment. At Rome, when at the climax of her wonderful career, she was publicly crowned with the laurel in the presence of thousands of applauding spectators; and in her later years, at Florence, her drawing room was ever filled with curious and admiring crowds. Without pretensions to immaculate character, deep erudition, or high birth, which an Italian esteems above all earthly things, Corilla so made her way in the world that members of the nobility were wont to throng to her house, and many sovereigns, en passage at Florence, took pains to seek her society. Corilla's successor was the beautiful Fantastici, a young woman of pleasing personality and remarkable powers of improvisation, who soon became a popular favorite.

Both at home and abroad, Italian women were coming to the fore in musical circles, and no opera in any one of the continental capitals was complete without its prima donna. Among the distinguished singers of this epoch the two most celebrated were Faustina Bordoni and Catarina Gabrielli. Faustina, born in the year 1700, was the daughter of a noble Venetian family, and at an early age began to study music under the direction of Gasparoni; when she was but sixteen, she made her début with such success that she was immediately given place as one of the greatest artists on the lyric stage. In Venice, Naples, Florence, and Vienna, she displayed such dramatic skill and such a wonderful voice that she was soon acknowledged as the most brilliant singer in Europe. Later, she was brought to London, under the management of the great composer Händel, and there she finally displaced in the public favor her old-time rival, Cuzzoni. The singer known as Catarina Gabrielli was the daughter of the cook of the celebrated Cardinal Gabrielli; in spite of her low origin, she was possessed of a great though insolent beauty, in addition to her wonderful vocal powers, and her brilliant career in Europe was most exceptional in every way. In Italy, later in Vienna, and even in far-away St. Petersburg, she not only achieved wonderful success as a singer, but by her coquettish ways she contrived to attract a crowd of most jealous and ardent admirers, who pursued her and more than once fought for her favors. During her stay in Vienna, the French ambassador, who had fallen a victim to her charms, became so madly jealous of the Portuguese minister, that he drew his sword on Catarina upon one occasion, and had it not been for her whalebone bodice she would have lost her life. As it was, she received a slight scratch, which calmed the enraged diplomat and brought him to his knees. She would pardon him only on condition that he would present her with his sword, on which were to be inscribed the following words: "Sword of M… who dared strike La Gabrielli." Through the intervention of friends, however, this heavy penalty was never imposed, and the Frenchman was spared the ridicule which would have surely followed. Catarina, after a long and somewhat reckless career, passed her last years in Bologna, where she died, in 1796, at the age of sixty-six, after having won general esteem and admiration by her charities and by her steadiness of character, which was in notable contrast to the extravagance of her earlier life.

Perhaps the three most distinguished Italian women in all the century were Clelia Borromeo, Laura Bassi, and Gaetana Agnesi. The Countess Clelia was a veritable grande dame, who exerted a wide influence for good in all the north of Italy; Laura Bassi was a most learned and distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of Bologna; and the last member of this illustrious triad, Gaetana Agnesi, became so famous in the scholarly world that her achievements must be recounted with some attention to detail. At the time of her birth, in 1718, her father was professor of mathematics at Bologna, and it appears that she was so precocious that at the age of nine she had such command of the Latin language that she was able to publish a long and carefully prepared address written in that classic tongue, contending that there was no reason why women should not devote themselves to the pursuit of liberal studies. By the time she was thirteen she knew-in addition to Latin-Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, German, and several other languages, and was so renowned for her linguistic attainments that she was called, familiarly, the "walking polyglot." When she was fifteen, her father began to invite the most learned men of Bologna to assemble at his house and listen to her essays and discussions upon the most difficult philosophical problems; in spite of the fact that this display of her learning was known to be distasteful to the young girl, it was not until she reached her twentieth year that she was allowed to withdraw from society. In welcome seclusion, she devoted herself to the study of mathematics, and published several mathematical works whose value is still recognized. In 1752 her father fell ill, and, by Pope Benedict XIV., Gaetana was appointed to occupy his professorial chair, which she did with distinction. At her father's death, two years later, she withdrew from this active career; and after a most careful study of theology, she satisfied a long-cherished wish and entered a convent, joining the Order of Blue Nuns, at Milan. She was most actively interested in hospital work and charities of all kinds, and, as her death did not occur until 1799, lived a long life of usefulness.

CHAPTER XI

ITALIAN WOMEN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

After the torpor and stagnation of the last two centuries, after the self-abasement of the people, and the apparent extinction of all spirit of national pride, the French invasion and domination, under the stern rule of Bonaparte, was a rude awakening. Old boundaries were swept aside, old traditions were disregarded, old rulers were dethroned; everywhere were the French, with their Republican banners, mouthing the great words Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, ravaging and plundering in the most shameless fashion, and extorting the most exorbitant taxes. But the contagion spread-the Italians were impressed with the wonderful exploits of the one-time Corsican corporal, and they, in turn, began to wag their heads in serious discussion of the "rights of man," as the French had done a decade before. For the dissemination of the new ideas, political clubs were organized throughout Italy as they had existed in France, and the whole country was in ferment. Add to that the fact that Napoleon began to levy troops in Italy as soon as his position warranted this action, and that soon Italian soldiers were in all parts of Europe fighting under the French flag, and one can perhaps have some picture of the complete way in which French influences were made to prevail. In this conquered territory the population may be divided into three classes: first, the deposed nobility, who had for the most part left the country; second, the middle class, composed of professional men and the wealthier citizens; and third, the common people. Of these three classes, the second was the one which Napoleon tried in every way to conciliate, for he counted upon its aid in the moulding of public opinion. He had little to do with the departed nobility, the common people were helping him fight his battles, but, if he hoped to occupy Italy permanently, his real appeal had to be made to the educated class. Accordingly, the arts of peace were used in the interests of the god of war; public improvements of all kinds were begun over all Italy, under the supervision of the French officials, canals were built, marshes were drained, academies of learning were founded, commerce was stimulated, schools for girls were started at Milan, Bologna, and Verona in imitation of those which had already been established in France, and, in fact, everything was done to prove to the people that the rule of the French was beneficial to the best interests of the peninsula. Many men of letters were won over by fair promises, and scientific men were, in many instances, so aided in their researches and so loaded with honors that it was difficult to resist the approaches of the emperor; and there resulted much fulsome praise in honor of Napoleon, who was hailed as a veritable god. Some there were, however, who resisted the advances of the conquerors and were loath to see the country so completely in the control of a foreign nation. It is true that Italy was enjoying a great prosperity in spite of the demands made upon it by the French, but this sudden accession of Republican ideas and the consciousness that Italian armies were fighting bravely all over the continent had aroused a national spirit which had lain dormant for centuries; the more far-seeing patriots were already looking forward to a time when Italy might be not only free but independent.