Alexander Farnese, 1st Duke of Parma

“ Charles of Austria, now emperor, took Milan, Mantua, Naples and Sardinia for his portion of the Italian spoil. Philip founded the Bourbon line of Spanish kings, renouncing in Italy all that his Habsburg predecessors had gained. Discontented with this diminution 43 of the Spanish heritage, Philip V. married Elisabetta Farnese, heiress to the last duke of Parma, in 1714. He hoped to secure this duchy for his son, Don Carlos; and Elisabetta further brought with her a claim to the grand-duchy of Tuscany, which would soon become vacant by the death of Gian Gastone de’ Medici. ”

“ Annibale Caro was born in 1507 at Civitanuova in the March of Ancona. Being poor and of humble origin, he entered the family of Luigi Gaddi at Florence, in the quality of tutor to his children. This patron died in 1541, and Caro then took service under Pier Luigi Farnese, one of the worst princelings of the period. When the Duke was murdered in 1547, he transferred himself to Parma, still following the fortunes of the Farnesi. Employed as secretary by the Cardinal Ranuccio and afterwards by the Cardinal Alessandro of that house, he lived at ease until his death in 1566. ”

“ Pier Luigi Farnese, Paul III’s bastard, was successively created Gonfaloniere of the Church, Duke of Castro, Marquis of Novara, and finally Duke of Parma and Piacenza in 1545. He was murdered at Parma by his own courtiers in 1547. He was a man of infamous habits, quite unfit for the high dignities conferred on him. ”

“ But what they had suffered hitherto would be as nothing to what they must suffer if the Pope now had his way and if Pier Luigi Farnese were to become their duke—an independent prince. He would break the nobles utterly, to remain undisputed master of the territory. ”

“ Her blonde beauty is of the most ethereal kind, and her dainty person is distinguished by so much aristocratic elegance that no one to look at her would ever dream that her father had begun his career as a mere stable-boy, who, in the service of the last reigning Duke of Parma, was promoted from one post to another until he blossomed forth as a general, a baron, and as Prime Minister of the Duchy of Parma, besides being decorated with the grand crosses of most of the orders of chivalry of Europe. ”

“ The family derived further advantages at the time of Pope Alexander VI., who was the lover of the beautiful Giulia Farnese, known as Giulia Bella, and created her brother Alessandro a cardinal (1493) . The latter was elected pope as Paul III. in 1534, and it is from that moment that the great importance of the family dates. An unblushing nepotist, he alienated immense fiefs belonging to the Holy See in favour of his natural children. Of these the most famous was Pierluigi Farnese (1503–1547) , who served in the papal army in various campaigns, but also took part in the sack of Rome in 1527. ”

“ On almost every Italian town, whatever succession of masters it may have known, some one family has left its dominant mark; and Parma is distinctively the city of the Farnesi. Late-comers though they were, their lilies are everywhere, over gateways, on palace-fronts and in the aisles of churches; and they have bequeathed to the town a number of its most characteristic buildings, from the immense unfinished Palazzo della Pilotta to the baroque fountain of parti-coloured marbles which enlivens with its graceful nymphs and river-gods the grassy solitude of the palace-square. ”

“ These summits, always covered in snow, even in the month of August which it then was, give one as it were a reminder of coolness in the midst of these scorching plains; the eye can follow them in the minutest detail, and yet they are more than thirty leagues from the citadel of Parma. This expansive view from the governor's charming palazzo is broken at one corner towards the south by the Torre Farnese, in which a room was being hastily prepared for Fabrizio. ”

“ When on the outbreak of the war of 1859 Francis V., duke of Modena, was expelled and a provisional government set up, Farini was sent as Piedmontese commissioner to that city; but although recalled after the peace of Villafranca he was determined on the annexation of central Italy to Piedmont and remained behind, becoming a Modenese citizen and dictator of the state. He negotiated an alliance with Parma, Romagna and Tuscany, when other provisional governments had been established, and entrusted the task of organizing an army for this central Italian league to General Fanti (q.v.) ”

“ Parma was thus governed for several years by Moreau de Saint-Mery and by Junot. At the congress of Vienna, Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla were assigned to Marie Louise (daughter of Francis I. of Austria and Napoleon’s second consort) , and on her death they passed in 1847 to Charles II. (son of Louis of Etruria and Marie Louise, daughter of Charles IV., king of Spain) . The new duke, unwilling to yield to the wishes of his people for greater political liberty, was soon compelled to take flight, and the duchy was for a time ruled by a provisional government and by Charles Albert of Sardinia ”

“ The Flemings replied, however, to these two checks by naming the Prince of Orange governor-general of Brabant.
Don John died in his turn, and Alexander Farnese succeeded him. He was a clever prince, charming in his manners, which were at once gentle and firm; a skillful politician, and a good general. Flanders trembled at hearing that soft Italian voice call her friend, instead of treating her as a rebel. William knew that Farnese would do more for Spain with his promises than the Duc d'Alva with his punishments. ”

“ Morone, a decided Imperialist, was proposed next, and proposed by Pole himself; but the French were able to keep out Morone, though unable to carry their own candidate Salviati; and, in the end, Farnese brought forward the president of the council at Bologna, Cardinal del Monte; del Monte having privately promised that, if elected, he would forsake France, no longer oppose the Emperor, restore Parma to Octavio, and reunite the council at Trent.
Easy, timid, and self-indulgent, Cardinal del Monte was a neutral character on which opposing factions could agree. On him the choice fell at last ”

“ A man named Alessandro Farnese—the one who was pope 1534-49, and who undertook to regulate the morals of various persons, besides Henry VIII., with indifferent success—once made a discovery so astonishing that he must have been inspired. ”

“ The interior is an extremely fine early Renaissance work. The frescoes on the cupola representing the vision of S. John are by Correggio, and the arabesques on the vault of the nave by Anselmi. The Madonna della Steccata (Our Lady of the Palisade) , a fine church in the form of a Greek cross, erected between 1521 and 1539 after Zaccagni’s designs, contai'ns the tombs and monuments of many of the Bourbon and Farnese dukes of Parma, and preserves its pictures, Parmigiano’s “Moses Breaking the Tables of the Law” and Anselmi’s “Coronation of the Virgin.” ”

“ In the town of Parma there is one surpassingly strange relic of the past. The palace of the Farnesi, like many a haunt of upstart tyranny and beggared pride on these Italian plains, rises misshapen and disconsolate above the stream that bears the city's name. The squalor of this grey-brown edifice of formless brick, left naked like the palace of the same Farnesi at Piacenza, has something even horrid in it now that only vague memory survives of its former uses. ”

“ The Duchess, too, travels always, but in a different direction, and the people complain loudly of the desertion. For many years they have now been both absent and parted. The Duke is a member of the royal family of Spain, and at the death of Maria Louisa of 268 Parma, he becomes Duke of Parma, and the duchy goes to Tuscany.
From Lucca we crossed the Appenines, by a road seldom travelled, performing the hundred miles to Modena in three days. We suffered, as all must who leave the high roads in continental countries, more privations than the novelty was worth. ”

“ The worthy Don Cesare allowed Fabrizio to walk for half an hour every Thursday, in the daytime, on the terrace of the Farnese Tower. But on the other days his exercise, which might have been observed by all the dwellers in and around Parma, and thus seriously compromised the governor, was taken after nightfall. The only staircase by which the terrace of the Farnese Tower could be reached was that in the little bell tower of the chapel, with its gloomy black and white marble decorations, of which my reader may retain some recollection. ”

“ The Pope precipitated the final catastrophe by a further act of imprudence. The young Duke of Parma, a prince of the house of Bourbon, had excluded the Jesuits from his duchy, and had published certain ecclesiastical regulations detrimental to the ancient pretensions of the Roman See. Clement XIII., reviving an antiquated title in virtue of which Parma was claimed as a dependent fief of the Papacy, was rash enough to launch a bull of excommunication against the Duke, and deprived him of his dominions as a rebellious vassal. ”

“ If the Grand Duke or his son return to Florence, then, in less than a month, Tuscany will be the head quarters of Mazzini and of the belligerent revolution. Perhaps it will be said that the Duchess or Parma is a strong-minded woman, and is not unappreciated. However this may be, the so hateful remembrances of the father could not be effaced, nor could confidence be inspired in the son. Besides, the system of compensations which some would wish to apply in favour of this branch of the Bourbon family is in direct collision with the sentiments and the ideas which now prevail in Europe. ”

“ It was remembered that Ottavio Farnese—Pier Luigi's son—was married to Margaret of Austria, the Emperor's daughter, and that if a Farnese dominion there was to be in Parma and Piacenza, the Emperor would prefer that it should be that of his own son-in-law, who would hold the duchy as a fief of the Empire. Further was it known that Ottavio was intriguing with Pope and Emperor to gain the investiture in his own father's stead. ”

“ Oxford and Cambridge Club.
Allow me to correct the statement made by your correspondent, that the Duke of Parma represented the Royal House of Stuart. The mother of the late Duke of Parma had an elder sister, Maria Beatrice, who married Francis IV., late Duke of Modena, and upon her death, in 1840, the representation devolved upon her son, Francis V., the present Duke of Modena, who was born in 1819.
P. V.
Allow me to remark on the article of E. S. S. W. (Vol. ix., p. 417.) ”

“ In the adjoining palace no such revival is possible. Most museums in Italy are dead palaces, and none is more inanimate than that of Parma. Many of the ducal treasures are still left—family portraits by Suttermans and Sir Antony Mor, Bernini-like busts of the Bourbon dukes of Parma, with voluminous wigs and fluttering steinkerks; old furniture, old majolica, and all those frail elaborate trifles that the irony of fate preserves when brick and marble crumble. ”

“ He is most pleasing in his small cabinet pictures, which are finished in the first style of excellence. One of the best of these, formerly possessed by the Duke of Urbino, is now in the collection of the noble family of Leopardi, in Osimo. It is a Nativity of our Lord, in Taddeo's best manner, but none of his productions have added so much to his celebrity as the pictures in the Farnese Palace of Caprarola, which were engraved by Preninner in 1748. They represent the civil and military history of the illustrious family of the Farnesi. ”

“ The countess saw the duke at a ball at the Scala, and thought him very presentable. In one of their last conversations, Mosca thus summed up the matter: “We must take some decisive step if we want to spend our lives happily, and not to grow old before our time. The prince has given his approbation. Sanseverina is really rather attractive than otherwise. He owns the finest palace in Parma and a huge fortune; he is sixty-eight years old, and is madly in love with the Collar of an Order; but there is one great blot upon his life—he bought a bust of Napoleon by Canova, for ten thousand francs. ”

“ The Palazzo Farnese in Rome, one of the finest specimens of Roman Renaissance architecture, was begun under Paul III., while he was cardinal, by Antonio da San Gallo, and completed by his nephew Cardinal Alessandro under the direction of Michelangelo (1526) . It was inherited by Don Carlos, afterwards king of Naples and Spain, and most of the pictures were removed to Naples. It now contains the French embassy to the Italian court, as well as the French school of Rome. ”

“ The fountains were erected by the Farnese family to add the final touch of distinction to their new palace. They owe their unique combination of original classic features and seventeenth-century taste to the genius and opportunities of Paul III and his grandson, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese II, and to a still later descendant Cardinal Odoardo Farnese. The Pope and the earlier cardinal, men of wide culture and enormous wealth, were the first to excavate and exploit the Baths of Caracalla. ”

“ There he was well received by the Farnese Pope, and with much cordiality by Cardinal Bembo. Rooms were accorded to him in the Belvedere section of the Vatican Palace, and there no doubt he painted the unfinished portrait-group Paul III. with Cardinal Alessandro Farnese and Ottavio Farnese, which has been already described, and with it other pieces of the same type, and portraits of the Farnese family and circle now no longer to be traced. ”