Duke of Modena

“ But why should the high and mighty borgello send me away from Modena?”
“I don’t know, but do you take my advice and go and speak to him; you will find him a fine fellow.”
Instead of going to see this b. . . . I called on the Abbé Testa Grossa, whom I had known at Venice in 1753. Although he was a man of low extraction he had a keen wit. At this time he was old and resting on his laurels; he had fought his way into favour by the sheer force of merit, and his master, the Duke of Modena, had long chosen him as his representative with other powers. ”

“ We reached the gates just as a fine sunset was reddening the ramparts and towers, and giving up our passports to the soldier on guard, rattled into the hotel.
The town is full of Austrian troops, and in our walk to the ducal palace we met scarce any one else. The streets look gloomy and neglected, and the people singularly dispirited and poor. This petty Duke of Modena is a man of about fifty, and said to be the greatest tyrant, after Don Miguel, in the world. The prisons are full of suspected traitors; one hundred and thirty of the best families of the duchy are banished for liberal opinions ”

“ See VERONA, THE CONGRESS OF. ITALY: A. D. 1830-1832. Revolt in Modena, Parma, and the Papal States, suppressed by Austrian troops. "The Revolution of 1830 [in France] made a natural impression in a country which had many evils to complain of and which had so lately been connected with France. The duke of Modena, Francis IV., sought to make use of the liberal movement to extend his rule over northern Italy. But at the last moment he was terrified by threats from Vienna, turned against his fellow-conspirators, and imprisoned them (February 3, 1831) . ”

“ The court of Vienna having dropped for the present the scheme for electing a king of the Romans, concluded a very extraordinary treaty with the duke of Modena, stipulating that his serene highness should be appointed perpetual governor of the duchy of Milan, with a salary of ninety thousand florins, on condition that he should maintain a body of four thousand men, to be at the disposal of the empress-queen ”

“ Panizzi, a native of Modena, who has now been for many years resident in England, who holds the appointment of Keeper of the Printed Books in the British Museum, wishes to go to Italy in the course of this autumn, and to visit Naples. Mr. Panizzi was, many years ago, connected with some persons who, on account of their political opinions, had incurred the displeasure of the late Duke of Modena ”

“ The late Duke was undoubtedly a descendant of Charles I. through his mother; but his mother had an elder sister, Beatrice, late Duchess of Modena, whose son, Francis V., now Duke of Modena, born 1st June, 1819, is the unquestionable heir to the House of Stuart, and, as a Jacobite would say, if any such curiosity there be in existence, legitimate King of Great Britain and Ireland. ”

“ 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.) ”

“ Lucca is given to the Parmesan Bourbons who are to recover Parma and Piacenza at the death of Maria Louisa, Napoleon’s wife, to whom they are allotted as a duchy. Ferdinand III is restored to Tuscany, and he is to receive Lucca when the Parmesan house takes possession of its own territory. Francis IV is made duke of Modena and he is to receive Lunigiana from the grand duke of Tuscany when the latter takes possession of Lucca. The papal states are restored to Pope Pius VII. San Marino remains undisturbed, the only Italian republic. ”

“ On the fall of Napoleon in 1814 Francis received the duchy of Modena, including Massa-Carrara and Lunigiana; his mother’s advice was “to be above the law ... never to forgive the Republicans of 1796, nor to listen to the complaints of his subjects, whom nothing satisfies; the poorer they are the quieter they are” (Silingardi, “Ciro Menotti,” in Rivista europea, Florence, 1880) .
The duke was well received at Modena; inordinately ambitious, strong-willed, immensely rich, avaricious but not unintelligent, he soon proved one of the most reactionary despots in Italy. ”

“ To levy on obnoxious states or princes the means of paying or accommodating troops, would have been only what has been practised by victors in all ages. But an exaction of a new kind was now for the first time imposed on these Italian Princes. The Duke of Modena, like the Duke of Parma, was compelled to{74} surrender twenty of his choicest pictures, to be selected at the choice of the French general, and the persons of taste with whom he might advise. ”

“ The Duke of Modena had been compelled to invoke Austrian assistance against his revolted subjects, and, on February 5, the Carbonari raised the standard of rebellion at Bologna. The States of the Pope extended from the Latin coast across the Campagna to the marches of Ancona, and, spreading out into the plains of Romagna, were bounded by the Po. In the opinion of Chateaubriand, [104] who was ambassador at Rome in 1828, one of the chief defects of the Papal government lay in the fact that “old men appoint an old man, and he in turn makes none but old men cardinals.” ”

“ Nominated in 1770 librarian to Francis III., duke of Modena, he turned to account the copious materials there accumulated for the composition of his Storia della Letteratura Italiana. This vast work, in which the progress of Italian literature from the time of the Etruscans to the end of the 17th century is traced in detail, occupied eleven assiduous years, 177182, and the thirteen quarto volumes embodying it appeared successively at Modena during that period. ”

“ The Grand Duke of Tuscany however, engages, should the said reversion fall to him, to cede to the Duke of Modena, as soon as he shall have entered into possession of the principality of Lucca, the following territories:
1. The Tuscan districts of Tivizano, Pietra Santa, and Barga. ”

“ Mysterious Personage (Vol. viii., p. 34.) .—There is no mystery about the legitimate claimant of the British throne. He is the Duke of Modena, lineally descended from Henrietta of England, youngest daughter of Charles I.: she married Philip Duke of Orleans, son of Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria, and had two daughters; Louisa married to Charles II. of Spain (she died without issue) , and Anna Maria, married to Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy and King of Sardinia. ”

“ Austria received the whole of Venetia and Lombardy, in the place of Mantua and the Milanese, which she had possessed before 1789. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany, with the principality of Piombino, was restored to the Grand Duke Ferdinand, the uncle of the Emperor Francis of Austria, with the eventual succession to the Duchy of Lucca. The Pope received back his dominions including the Legations of Bologna and Ferrara, and Duke Francis, the grandson of Hercules III., was recognised as Duke of Modena, to which duchy he would have succeeded had not Napoleon absorbed it in his kingdom of Italy. ”

“ The acquisition of Ferrara was too fine a thing for the pope not to procure all the decretals and decisions of those brave theologians, who declare that the pope can render just that which is unjust. Consequently he first excommunicated Cæsar d'Este, and as excommunication necessarily deprives a man of all his property, the common father of the faithful raised his troops against the excommunicated, to rob him of his inheritance in the name of the Church. These troops were defeated, but the duke of Modena soon saw his finances exhausted, and his friends become cool. ”

“ Bonaparte had employed the recent interlude in consolidating French influence in Italy. Against the wishes of the Directors he dethroned the duke of Modena, and formed his territories into the Cispadane Republic. Then he tried to induce Piedmont and Venice to join France, but both states preferred to retain their neutral position. This was another of the charges which the general was preparing against Venice. On the news of the Austrian advance, Bonaparte marched against Alvinzi, and checked him at Carmignano (6 November) . But meanwhile Davidowich had taken Trent and was approaching Rivoli. ”

“ The Pope, Pius IX., extended the freedom of the press, gave a liberal charter to the City of Rome, and began the formation of an Italian confederacy. In Sicily a revolutionary outbreak took place, and the King of Naples was compelled to give his people a constitution and a parliament. His example was followed in Tuscany and Sardinia. The tyrannical Duke of Modena was forced to fly from the vengeance of his people, and the throne of Parma became vacant by the death in 1847 of Maria Louisa, the widow of Napoleon Bonaparte, a woman little loved and less respected. ”

“ He was intensely ambitious, and one of his subjects, a man, in other respects, of high intelligence, thought that his ambition could be turned to account for Italy. It was the mistake over again that Machiavelli had made with Cesare Borgia.
Ciro Menotti, who conceived the plan of uniting Italy under the Duke of Modena, was a Modenese landed proprietor who had exerted himself to promote the industry of straw-plaiting, and the other branches of commerce likely to be of advantage to an agricultural population. ”

“ Notwithstanding his double connexion with the Imperial family, the principality of Modena was so small that he might have been passed over as scarce worthy of notice, but for the temptation of his treasures, in the works of art, as well as in specie. On the approach of a column of the French army to Modena, the duke fled from his capital, but sent his brother, the Chevalier d'Este, to capitulate with Napoleon, [May 20.] ”

“ Under a free government he might have been a great citizen, but the circumstances of his age left him no other sphere than court or diplomatic employment. He was not the man to run easily in harness, and spent his life in losing and regaining the favour of the Este princes, now come down to be Dukes of Modena, but still with places and pensions in their gift, and died in prison, just as, if the Duke may be believed, he was on the point of being released. ”

“ And the King said that when the French King should be Duke of Milan he would be ready to observe the treaties.” [634] In a final letter to Francis on 21st October 1540, Marillac calls Modena a “painter and sculptor,” and says that “the King said he would not speak of Modena until justice had been done in his own case” (i.e. the detention in France of Blanche Rose) . [635] A further interesting reference to Modena is to be found in a long letter from Wallop to Henry VIII, written from Melun on 17th November 1540, in which he describes a visit to Fontainebleau and an interview with Francis. ”

“ Feeling his position insecure, the duke asked for and obtained an Austrian garrison, but on the outbreak of revolution throughout Italy and at Vienna in 1848, further disorders occurred in the duchy, and on the 20th of March he fled with his family to Mantua. A provisional government was formed, and volunteers were raised who fought with the Piedmontese against Austria. But after the Piedmontese defeat Francis returned to Modena, with Austrian assistance, in August and conferred many appointments on Austrian officers. ”

“ Went back to Italy in 1623, and was accorded a triumph at Naples. Died there. Wrote L'Adone, a poem of 45,000 lines. Imitated Ovid and Tibullus; wrote idylls, burlesques, and occasional verse. [La Lira, Venezia, 1602-14.]
Testi. Born at Ferrara, educated at the Universities of Bologna and Ferrara. Lived in Rome, Naples, and Modena. His patrons were Carlo Emanuele of Savoy and Francis I, Duke of Modena. He went on various missions for the latter. Governor of the Garfagnana, 1640. Imprisoned (1646) by the Duke because he had entered the service of Mazarin. Died in prison. ”

“ The sovereign pontiff and the republic of Venice were the only powers in Italy which still preserved some shadow of independence. Julius II had succeeded in uniting Romagna, the Marches, the patrimony and campagna of Rome, to the holy see. Amongst all the vassals of the church, he had spared only his own nephew, Gian Maria della Rovere, duke of Urbino. On the defeat of the French, he further seized Parma and Piacenza, which he detached from the Milanese, without having the remotest title to their possession, as he also took Modena from the duke of Ferrara, whom he detested. ”

“ He conferred on Alfonso the possession of Modena, Reggio, and Rubiera, as fiefs of the empire; and he made the pope give him the investiture of Ferrara. On the 25th of March, 1530, a diploma of the emperor raised the marquisate of Mantua to a duchy, in favour of Federigo de Gonzaga. The duke of Savoy and the marquis of Montferrat, till then protected by France, arrived at Bologna, to place themselves under the protection of the emperor. The duke of Urbino was recommended to him by the Venetians, and obtained some promises of favour. ”

“ Modenese artists in terra-cotta worked at Ferrara, and Cristoforo da Modena was boccalaro to the duke of that territory in the{180} sixteenth century. Piccolpasso names Modena as a place where maiolica was produced, but whether of a superior or of a more ordinary kind we are not informed. In the last century Geminiano Cozzi, of that city, was the leading maker of porcelain at Venice about 1765, but the monopoly granted to the fabrique of Sassuolo impeded the manufacture of enamelled wares elsewhere in the duchy. ”