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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES 375
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WOMEN OF THE HOUSE OF MONTEFELTRO.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Biographical Notices 375
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES 375
Women Of The House Of Montefeltro.
WOMEN OF THE HOUSE OF MONTEFELTRO .
" Which A plant whitens they have at the yielding heart a ere three noon -leaved . " bell ,
The tnesses " know Who ? began " you
grea Sordetto . The student of Italian history is frequently startled to perceive how
in single families the power of genius makes itself felt for centuries , not always skiing * like other " pestilent evils , " the second
generations , but handed pp , quietly down , from mother to daughter and grand-daughter . It is a peculiarity of historianswhich may serve
, to show the way in which women are regarded , that , in writing of distinguished women , they never fail to tell you who they married ;
and should it happen to have been to a man of wealth and station , the wife is treated as an appendage to that wealth and station , and
if she was worthy , we are told how she adorned it . But distinguished men are persons of _tJiemselves . We are told how they go to the
wars or stay at home , disposing of their children in marriage , and should these children show noble traits hardly to be expected from
the rank or the wickedness of their sires , we are frequently left in doubt as to the mothers that bore them . It seems as if they thought
the mother of no importance , unless from her political connections she increased the power or the domain of her husband . Thus the
mothers of natural children are almost never mentioned ; and yet it was this infusion of vigorous plebeian blood into the veins of noble
families , brought about to be sure by a laxity of public morals which , nothing could make tolerable , that saved such families as the
Sforze , the Visconti , and tlie Malatesti from utter extinction . Whatever were the legal rihts of natural children , these succeeded
g to The the famil house y honors of Montefeltro by mere force of strength noble and women ability to . the noble gave many
lines of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in upper Italy . It was of a warlike familthat Battista da Montefeltro was born .
y Pier father was Count Antonio Montefeltro , Lord of Urbino . We are not told even the name of her mother , and we are left in utter
ignorance why a leader among the Grhibellines should have married his Guel onl ph y . daug It seems hter to fair a Malatesti to suggest , who that must such have a measure been a between prominent may have the
been intended to heal local divisions , like the marriage houses of Torelli and Adelardi at Eerrara . Be this as it Battista was one of the most remarkable women
of Si her ismun century dPop . may e Martin On , several Vand occasions the College she addressed of Cardinals the in Emperor Latin .
g , , , erudition _Bishop ) Campano felt himself states , entirel that the unable pope , to althoug answer h her a . ma _, She u of taug much ht
, y
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1859, page 375, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081859/page/15/
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