Cesena

“ Swords were drawn and blood flowed in the streets, until the governor was constrained to summon Ercole Bentivogli and his horse from Forli to quell the rioting. The direct outcome of this was that—the Ghibellines predominating in council—Cesena sent an embassy to Rome to beg his Holiness to give the lordship of the fief to the Duke of Valentinois. To this the Pope acceded, and on August 2 Cesare was duly appointed Lord Vicar of Cesena. ”

“ Lamberto made himself lord and reigned till 1316, when he was succeeded by his nephew Guido Novello, the consul of Cesena, who thus brought Cesena into the lordship. It is with this man that a universal interest in Ravenna may be said for a moment to revive, for it was he who had the honour to be the host of Dante Alighieri. ”

“ And when the massacre of Cesena was found to have been in vain, and the Church was compelled to treat with the revolted cities who had united to mourn for her victories, Florence sent her a living saint, Catherine of Siena, for her political Ambassador.
271. Of Michael Angelo I need not tell you: of the others, we will read the lives, and think over them one by one; the great fact which I have written this course of lectures to enforce upon your minds is the dependence of all the arts on the virtue of the State, and its kindly order. ”

“ Then, seeing that neither excommunications nor assaults could help him, Caesar converted the siege into a blockade: all the roads leading to Faenza were cut off, all communications stopped; and further, as various signs of revolt had been remarked at Cesena, a governor was installed there whose powerful will was well known to Caesar, Ramiro d'Orco, with powers of life and death over the inhabitants; he then waited quietly before Faenza, till hunger should drive out the citizens from those walls they defended with such vehement enthusiasm. ”

“ And in the pleasant consideration of this heartening fact he rode across the bridge over the Savio, and so entered the strong city of Cesena.
First to the Half-Moon to leave his horse in charge of the gaping, cross-eyed landlord—Giannozza's puny and most unworthy sire; then to a barber's to have his hair and beard trimmed combed and perfumed, that that part of him should be in harmony with the whole; then back to the Half-Moon to dine in an inner chamber which he had bespoken, with Giannozza to bring his meat and pour his wine.
In the common-room men stared at him, as he swept through ”

“ But Caesar, saying nothing of his intentions, started on the 10th of December, and made his way to Cesena with a powerful army once more under his command. Fear began to spread on all sides, not only in Romagna but in the whole of Northern Italy; Florence, seeing him move away from her, only thought it a blind to conceal his intentions; while Venice, seeing him approach her frontiers, despatched all her troops to the banks of the Po. ”

“ In this exigency, Cesare proposed to surrender to the Pope the citadels of Cesena, Bertinoro, Forlì, and Forlimpopoli, as a means of immediately arresting the progress of their assailants, and of cutting short the schemes of Venice, offering to serve the Church during the rest of his-29- life in any capacity that was thought expedient. This offer Julius declined, but gave him liberty to repair to the scene of action, and act for the best with what troops he could raise. He accordingly went to Ostia on the 19th of November, meaning to take shipping for Upper Italy ”

“ From this you will gather that out of a spirit of self-defence, if not to earn the reward which we have bound ourselves to pay you, it is expedient that you should not fail us. The occasion of the Duke’s visit to Cesena will be, of all, the most propitious for our purpose. Have your arbalister posed, and may God strengthen his arm and render true his aim to the end that Italy may be rid of a tyrant. ”

“ Carrascosa managed to drive some Austrians—it is all but impossible to arrive at the real figures and facts of these contests, but I should be inclined to say about 1,500—from Cesena. Later they came upon some more at Anzola, and these retired before them, probably, or, I should say, certainly, under orders. ”

“ XXVI AFTER a while the formal embassy sent to Cesena came back with the message that the Protonotary Savello had been filled with doubts as to whether he should accept the town or no; but seeing the Forlivesi firm in their desire to come under the papal rule, and being convinced that their pious wish had been inspired by the most High Ruler of Kings, he had not ventured to contradict the manifest will of Heaven, and therefore would come and take possession of the city in person. ”

“ The father of Marzia at that moment reached Cesena, and his passage had been facilitated by the legate. He entreated his heroic daughter to surrender, as bravery had accomplished its utmost, and still the besiegers were gradually prevailing. Her reply was simple and firm,—that her husband had given her a duty to perform, and that she must obey, without forming any opinion on the nature of his command. Her heroism was not supported by the people, for they unanimously declared the folly of further resistance. ”

“ Leonardo had been in Milan until the summer of 1500, when he repaired to Florence in quest of better fortune; but, finding little or no work to engage him there, he took the chance of the duke of Valentinois’s passage to offer his service to one whose liberal patronage of the arts was become proverbial. Cesare took him into his employ as engineer and architect, leaving him in the Romagna for the present. Leonardo may have superintended the repairs of the Castle of Forli, whilst he certainly built the canal from Cesena to the Porto Cesenatico, before rejoining the duke in Rome. ”

“ Bobbio, Cesena, Forlimpopoli, Forli, Faenza, Imola, Bologna, Ferrara, Comacle, Adria, and Gabello, with all the territories and islands by land and sea which belong to the aforesaid cities; (4) likewise also the Pentapolis; that is, Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Sinigaglia, Ancona, Osimo, Humana, Iesi, Forum Sempronii, Montefeltre, Urbino, and the territory of Balneum, Cagli, Lucioli, and Gubbio, with all the territories belonging to the aforesaid cities; (5) likewise the whole Sabine territory as it was granted to St. Peter by our predecessor, emperor Karl, by a deed of gift ”

“ Wine, hemp and silk are the main articles of trade. About the ancient Caesena little is said in classical authors: it is mentioned as a station on the Via Aemilia and as a fortress in the wars of Theodoric and Narses. During the middle ages it was at first independent. In 1357 it was unsuccessfully defended by the wife of Francesco Ordelaffi, lord of Forlì, against the papal troops under Albornoz. ”

“ Cesare could find no allies, and it seemed as though all Italy was about to turn against the hated family, when the French king promised help, and this was enough to frighten the confederates into coming to terms. Most of them had shown very little political or military skill, and several were ready to betray each other. But Cesare, while trusting no one, proved a match for them all. During his operations in northern Romagna, Vitelli, Oliverotto, Paolo Orsini, and the duke of Gravina, to show their repentance, seized Senigallia, which still held for the duke of Urbino, in his name. ”

“ Little Cesare, a dark-faced Italian boy, takes up his position with pencil and slate, and draws by the light of the blaze genii and castles. The old one-eyed teacher of Enrica lays his snuff box upon the table, and his handkerchief across his lap, and with his spectacles upon his nose, and his big fingers on the lesson, runs through the French tenses of the verb amare. The father, a sallow-faced, keen-eyed man, with true Italian visage, sits with his arms upon the elbows of his chair, and talks of the pope, or of the weather. ”

“ So we came through Tuscany to Siena, and found her all agog with excitement for the Palio, with pennons flying and music echoing down her streets, and her inns already full to overflowing.
Ah, Siena, with your gaunt red palaces and your lily tower, and your ineffectual walls which thread the vineyards like old men dreaming life away in memories, it is you who are the heart of Tuscany! You are not pale and beautiful like Florence, not such a great lady; nor have you the silent grace of Pisa, but how lovable, how intimate you are! ”

“ Certosa is a large and beautiful place that tops a hill, about three miles outside of Florence, and I enjoyed going there, although it made me feel sad. I suppose my feeling was silly, but the order is an ancient one; they take in no new members, and all that are left to rattle around in the very big place are a half dozen tottering old men, whose hands shake as they unlock the heavy doors for you, and whose breath grows short as they travel the long stairs that take one up to the Capella Prima, which means the main chapel. ”

“ In fact an Italian village is simply a miniature Italian city, and its various parts imply a town of fifty times the size. At Genzano are neither dahlias nor lilacs, and no odours but foul ones. Flowers and other graces are all confined to the high-walled precincts of Duke Cesarini, to which you must obtain admission twenty miles away. ”

“ The town of Cesi, 3 m. to the south-east, has polygonal walls, and may perhaps be regarded as an Umbrian city which was destroyed by the Romans, Carsulae being constructed in its stead. The medieval city, as so often happened in Italy, returned to the pre-Roman site. ”

“ But as the delicate meats succeeded each other—each duly tasted by Grifone before a morsel [Pg 210] went to plate—there was one, in the surge of her terrors, struck dumb with what was, rather, wonder. The magnificent Cesare went his road over the feelings of his host; the host bowed and waved his hands. Why should he not? Never one word of answer, never a gleam of attention did he win from the Roman. Why should he care? His wife was doing her duty, his enemy was webbed: what else could matter? The Italian shrug goes deeper than the shoulders; sometimes it strokes the heart of a man. ”

“ If Venice was jealous and hostile in the north, Florence was scarcely less so in mid-Italy—though perhaps with rather more justification, for Cesare’s growing power and boundless ambition kept the latter Republic in perpetual fear of being absorbed into his dominions—into that kingdom which it was his ultimate aim to found. ”

“ On a fine spring evening, the young Spanish Count Cesara came, with his companions, Schoppe and Dian, to Sesto, in order the next morning to cross over to the Borromæan island, Isola Bella, in Lago Maggiore. The proudly blooming youth glowed with the excitement of travelling, and with thoughts of the coming morrow, when he should see the isle, that gayly decorated throne of Spring, and on it a man who had been promised him for twenty years. This twofold glow exalted my picturesque hero to the form of an angry god of the Muses. ”

“ Everything that industrious Campania, or opulent Bruttii, or cattle-breeding Calabria [571] , or strong Apulia produces, is there to be found exposed for sale, on such reasonable terms that no buyer goes away dissatisfied. It is a charming sight to see the broad plains filled with suddenly-reared houses formed of leafy branches intertwined: all the beauty of the most leisurely-built city, and yet not a wall to be seen. There stand ready boys and girls, with the attractions which belong to their respective sexes and ages, whom not captivity but freedom sets a price upon. ”

“ Casentino and its woods and streams, Val d'Arno, Val di Tevere, the hills of Perugia, the valleys of Umbria, the lean, wolfish country of the Marche, the rugged mountains of Romagna. There, on the summit of La Verna, you look down on the broken fortresses of countless wars, the passes through which army after army, company upon company, has marched to victory or fled in defeat; every hill-top seems to bear some ruined Rocca, every valley to be a forgotten battlefield, every stream has run red with blood. All is forgotten, all is over, all is done with. ”

“ Is it really so certain that all virtues of race dwell with those who can rest amid the ugly and know it not for ugliness?
The new age declares itself here and there at Cosenza. A squalid railway station, a hideous railway bridge, have brought the town into the European network; and the craze for building, which has disfigured and half ruined Italy, shows itself in an immense new theatre—Teatro Garibaldi—just being finished. ”

“ Desolate and sober enough on a day of rain, when the sun shines this gaunt outpost of Pisa, for it is little more, is as gay as a flower by the wayside. The road runs through it, giving it its one long and almost straight street, while behind the poor houses that have so little to boast of, lies a beautiful old Piazza, with a great palace seemingly deserted on one side and an old tower and a church with a beautiful façade on another. Always a prize of the enemy, Cascina in the Pisan wars fell to Lucca, to the Guelph League, and to Florence. ”

“ Moreover, people who had villas gave afternoon teas, without any pretence of giving garden parties, and there also the young ones danced, sometimes on marble pavements in great old rooms that smelt slightly of musty furniture, but were cool and pleasant. Besides these things, there were picnic dinners at Frascati and Castel Gandolfo, and everybody drove home across the Campagna by moonlight. Altogether, and chiefly in Cecilia Palladio's honour, there was a very pretty little revival of winter gaiety, which is not always very gay in Rome, nowadays. ”