Marquis of Mantua

“ The young Marquis of Mantua, Gian Francesco Gonzaga, had proved himself a more ardent lover than Lodovico Sforza. He frequently exchanged letters and compliments with his youthful bride, or sent Isabella presents and verses written in her honour by Mantuan poets. After his father's death in 1484, he visited Mantua, and brought Duchess Leonora a Madonna painted by the hand of the great Paduan master, Andrea Mantegna, the court painter of the Gonzagas. ”

“ Francesco Monsignori of Verona had painted many sacred subjects with the highest success before he was engaged to paint St. Sebastian for the Church of the Madonna, outside Mantua. The saint was shot to death with arrows. While the painter was at work on the picture the Marquis of Mantua called and asked him whether he had got a good model for this difficult picture. The [Pg 484] painter said he had selected a very beautiful person who was a porter, and who would no doubt allow himself to be tied to the stake and assume the proper attitudes. ”

“ At length the latent mass of disaffection found an object on which to vent itself, in the person of their commander-in-chief, the marquis of Mantua, never popular with the French soldiers. They now loudly taxed him with imbecility, accused him of a secret understanding with the enemy, and loaded him with the opprobrious epithets with which Trans-alpine insolence was accustomed to stigmatize the Italians. In all this, they were secretly supported by Ives d'Allègre, Sandricourt, and other French officers, who had always regarded with dissatisfaction the elevation of the Italian general ”

“ In deference to their representations, he opened a negotiation with the French general, wherein, far from assuming a suppliant air, he prescribed as a preliminary stipulation, the sacrifice of the Duke of Ferrara to his vengeance, as a rebellious vassal. Thus passing
he sent a summary threat to his Venetian allies, and to the Marquis of Mantua, that unless their promised contingents instantly marched to his support, he would arrange matters with the French King for their extermination. ”

“ The Church of Our Lady of Victory is the only edifice which he added to it; and this was merely in glorification of his own triumph over the French at Taro. Mantegna painted an altar-piece for it, representing the Marquis and his wife on their knees before the Virgin, in act of rendering her thanks for the victory. The French nation avenged itself for whatever wrong was done its pride in this picture by stealing it away from Mantua in Napoleon's time; and it now hangs in the gallery of the Louvre. ”

“ The taking of Milan by the French in 1499 and the triumphant entry into the conquered city of Louis XII.—who, the little dauphin having died shortly before his father, had become King of France on the death of Charles VIII.—with all the terrible consequences to the Sforza family, cast a gloom over the court of Mantua for the rest of the reign of the Marquis Francesco, and both he and Isabella found their best distraction from their many sorrows in watching their court painter at work. ”

“ He died at Mantua in March 1519, his widow surviving him until 1539. Among the many dignities acquired by the Marquis in the course of his singularly chequered life was that of gonfalonier of the Holy Church, conferred upon him by Julius II.—L. and En.
The Marchioness, who desired that Pauline should through her favour make a more wealthy marriage, discouraged her as much as she could from wedding the gentleman, and often hindered the two lovers from talking together, pointing out to them that, should the marriage take place, they would be the poorest and sorriest couple in all Italy. ”

“ After they left, the work on the “Triumph of Cæsar” proceeded apace, interrupted only now and then for the execution of minor commissions, such as the designing of jewellery, drinking-cups, &c.; but in 1488 came a very unwelcome summons for Mantegna to go to Rome, Pope Innocent VIII., who had heard of the beauty of the frescoes at Padua and Mantua, wishing to have a chapel in the Vatican decorated by their artist. Such an invitation had all the force of a command, and the Marquis was reluctantly compelled to let his beloved painter go ”

“ But that night Mantua, as though jealous that a stranger from beyond the snowy mountains on the Lombard frontier should have come there to seize its secrets from out of its dark old palaces, that have seen so many crimes and kept so many mysteries untold, Mantua, as though angered against him, poured into his throat the poison of her subtle vapours, of her fever mists, that lurk for ever amidst her long fields of reeds and her pale-gleaming water-meadows. ”

“ Mantua will be not ill rid of Luitbrand d'Este.'
Then he again, in obstinacy and against all the priest's better knowledge as a Mantuan, had insisted and said, 'the man is innocent.'
And the sun had gone down as he had spoken, and the priest had smiled—a smile cold as a dagger's blade—perhaps recalling sins confessed to him of love that had changed to hate, of fierce delight ending in as fierce a death-blow. Mantua in her day has seen so much alike of love and hate. ”

“ Men of heavier science likewise nourished, and we read of jurists and astronomers born in those troublous days, as well as of a distinguished physician, who wrote a ponderous dictionary of simples, and dedicated it to King Robert of Naples. But by far the greatest Mantuan of this time was he of whom readers have heard something from a modern poet. He is the haughty Lombard soul, "in the movement of the eyes honest and slow," whom Dante, ascending the inexplicable heights of Purgatory, beheld; and who, summoning all himself, leaped to the heart of Virgil when he named Mantua: "O Mantuan! ”

“ Grander pomp than Mantua's there was never known in Italy. Felix Mantua!—and now it is all decaying, mouldering, sinking, fading; it is silent as death; the mists, the waters, the empty palaces, the walls that the marshes are eating little by little every day, the grass and the moss and the wild birds' nests on the roofs, on the temples, on the bridges, all are desolate in Mantua now. Yet is it beautiful in its loneliness, when the sunrise comes over the seas of reeds, and the towers and the arches are reflected in the pools and streams ”

“ You mean, my Lord, that you being Duke of Mantua, while she——If she knew that; knew it not merely as a fact, but as one knows the full savour of grief,—well, she was indeed the paragon you think; one might indeed say, bating one point, a virtuous woman.
DUKE
Thou hast understood, dear Diego, and I thank thee for it.
DIEGO
But I fear, my Lord, she did not know these things. Such as she, as yourself remarked, are not trained to conceive of duty, even in others. Passion moves them; and they believe in passion. You loved her; good. Why then, at Mantua as in Barbary. ”

“ How can you harbour him? how can you care for him? He is a felon.'
'He is innocent. He never killed her.'
He did not reply. The scene in the judgment-hall of Mantua rose up before his eyes.
Watching him she grew angry at his looks and at his silence.
'You believe he is innocent? You must; you shall. He loved her; he would not have hurt a hair of her head.'
'I was present at his trial,' said Sanctis coldly. 'Mantua believed him guilty.'
'Mantua might; you could not? You are a painter of men's faces-look in his.'
He was silent a moment. Then the justice of his nature conquered him ”

“ The hollow-hearted Eustachio and the rapacious Leonardo, their virtual rulers, might indeed be little sensible to this enthusiasm, but they could not disregard the general drift of public opinion, which said clearly: “Mantua is trying a great experiment. Woe to you if you bring it to nought by your selfish quarrels!”
The best proof that there was something in Manto’s idea was that after a while the Emperor Frederick took alarm, and signified to the Mantuans that they must cease their mumming and fooling and acknowledge him as their sovereign, failing which he would besiege their city. ”

“ He gathered artists, poets, and learned men about him, and did much to foster all arts. In his time, Mantua had rest from war, and grew to have twenty-eight thousand inhabitants; but it was not in the nature of a city of the Middle Ages to be long without a calamity of some sort, and it is a kind of relief to know that Mantua, under this peaceful prince, was well-nigh depopulated by a pestilence.
In 1381 he died, and with his son Francesco the blood-letting began again. Indeed, this captain spent nearly his whole life in war with those pleasant people, the Visconti of Milan. ”

“ These (you may imagine) , were lamentable spectacles to the Duke and citie of Mantua, who, casting down their faces for shame, knew not what course to take for reparation of their honour. The conquering duellist, proud of a victory so highly tending to both his honour and profit, for the space of a whole fortnight, or two weeks together, marched daily along the streets of Mantua, (without any opposition or controulment) , like another Romulus or Marcellus in triumph ”

“ Strange human or half-human kennels, one trusts never really put to use, and built as a mere brutal jest by a Duke of Mantua smarting under the sway of some saturnine little monster, like the ones who stand at the knee of Mantegna's frescoed Gonzagas.
After seeing the Castello and the Corte Nuova one naturally thinks it one's duty to go and see the little Palazzo del Te, just outside the town. Inconceivable frescoes, colossal, sprawling gods and goddesses, all chalk and brick dust, enough to make Rafael, who was responsible for them through his abominable pupils, turn for ever in his coffin. ”

“ Did this happen in consequence of the invective? Bartholomæus Facius (De Vir. Ill. p. 9 sqq. in the Life of P. P. V. 1456) says it did, ‘Carolum Malatestam invectus Virgilii statua, quam ille Mantuæ in foro everterat, quoniam gentilis fuerat, ut ibidem restitueretur, effecit;’ but his evidence stands alone. It is true that, so far as we know, there are no contemporary chronicles for the history of Mantua at that period (Platina, Hist. Mant. in Murat. xx. contains nothing about the matter) , but later historians are agreed that the statue was not restored. ”

“ The ladies all have some erudite associations with the place as giving the term of mantua-making to the art of dress, and most persons have heard that Mantua's law was once death to any he that uttered mortal drugs there, and that the place was till a few years since an Austrian fortress on the Mincio. Of Giulio Romano, and his works to Mantua, a good many have heard; and there is something known to the reader of the punctuated edition of Browning about Sordello. But of the Gonzagas of Mantua, and their duchy, what do you know, gentle reader? ”

“ Those purple mountains lay on the horizon, then, for certain; and the dresses of these peasant girls, who wear a great, knobbed, silver pin like an English "life-preserver" through their hair behind, can hardly be much changed. The hopeful feeling of so bright a morning, and so exquisite a sunrise, can have been no stranger, even to an exiled lover's breast; and Mantua itself must have broken on him in the prospect, with its towers, and walls, and water, pretty much as on a common-place and matrimonial omnibus. ”

“ They felt prouder of themselves for being governed by a great man—one in comparison with whom kings and pontiffs were the creatures of a day. They would not, if they could help it, disgrace themselves by disgracing their hero; they would not have it said that Mantua, which had not been too weak to bear him, had been too weak to endure his government. ”

“ Manto sat on the rampart, still and silent as its stones. Anon she rose, and roved about as if distraught, reciting verses from Virgil.
Night had fallen. Benedetto lay wakeful in his cell. A female figure stood before him bearing a lamp. It was Manto.
“Benedetto,” she said, “I am a wretch, faithless to my country and to my master. I did but even now open his sacred volume at hazard, and on what did my eye first fall?
Trojaque nunc stares, Priamique arx alta maneres. But I can no other. I am a woman. May Mantua never entrust her fortunes to the like of me again! ”

“ Mantua had looked beautiful in her golden mantle of sunshine and silver veil of mist; there was a white, light fog on the water meadows and the lakes, and under it the willows waved and the tall reeds rustled; whilst the dark towers, the forked battlements, the vast Lombard walls, seemed to float on it like sombre vessels on a foamy sea. ”

“ Manto, often called Daphne, remained for some time at Delphi, where she officiated as priestess, and where she gave oracles. From Delphi she came to Claros in Ionia, where she established an oracle of Apollo. Here she married Rhadius the sovereign of the country, by whom she had a son called Mopsus. Manto afterwards visited Italy, where she married Tiberinus the king of Alba, or, as the poets mention, the god of the river Tiber. From this marriage sprang Ocnus, who built a town in the neighbourhood, which, in honour of his mother, he called Mantua. ”

“ At evening time a man would walk, the same way always, out westward by the Argine del Mulino, and would watch the sun go down in the west where Maremma lay far away beside the sea, and would say to himself as he looked, 'What does the sun see in that green land?'
The people of Mantua only knew him as a stranger, one of the many travelling painters who were lured there by the sad charm of the pale waters reflecting the domes and towers and walls, and the arches of the bridges, and the tall belfries whose metal tongues called but to mass, and never more to war. ”