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No. 473, Apaii.16, 1859-] THE LEADER 493...
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modified, and partly formed. The conditi...
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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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No. 473, Apaii.16, 1859-] The Leader 493...
No . 473 , Apaii . 16 , 1859- ] THE LEADER 493 _
Modified, And Partly Formed. The Conditi...
modified , and partly formed . The conditions of the stage on which they exhibited were peculiar , encumbered with difficulties and dangers ^ full of illusions and temptations , and for the most part as arbitrary as they were false and noxious . Only one of the selected ten appears in true womanly proportions , free from the vices and impurities- of time and plaee , and altogether a genuine heroine . That one was the popular actress of the sixteenth century , Isabella Andreini ;—in the words of the author , " a daughter of the people , and iii that , as
A DECADE OF ITALIAN WOMEN , A Decade of Italian Women . By T . Adolphus Trollope . In 2 vols . . Chapman and Hall . The position of woman in societ : one of the most significant types of the civilisation of a country . Impressed with this truth , Mr . TroUope has in the present work , sought to illustrate the condition of Italy , by tracing the lives often of its most eminent women . For this purpose he commences with the fourteenth century , and continues his selection down to the present . In forming an opinion of the character of these ladies , it is expedient , if not needful , as our author virtually cautions -us , to consider their environment—the circumstances by which they were surrounded , and
is said , perilous walk in life , a model of correct conduct in the midst of loose-lived princesses . " Nor does there seem in her time to have been that opposition between " the world and the stage " which has since existed ; in her ease , all the vices were on the side of the former , all the virtues on her own . Even the Church seems to have exhibited ho antagonism against her ; but , not only to have permitted her burial in consecrated ground , but the erection of a monument to her meinoi-y , which still exists to her glory : —
" All this gifted woman ' s contemporaries , are unanimous in testifying to her perfect propriety of conduct . In an age when the relaxation of morals ¦ was extreme , arid general , when princesses led tlie lives of courtesans , when nunneries were scenes of disorder , and princes of the church were noticeable among other princes for greater dissoluteness , this beautiful and universally nattered and courted actress won her way through all the difficulties , dangers , and snares that must have . beset her path ,
without a stain on her character . We know that much of what she must have been obliged to touch , was pitch ; and yet she remained uridefiled . Mazzuchelli writes : ' What was most remarkable in her was , that in a profession universally judged to be dangerous to female honour , she joined to a rare beauty the most perfect correctness and a most blameless life . ' And he adds ; oddly enough , ' tlie value of these good gifts was increased by her skill in singing , and music , and by her knowledge of Spanish ! ' '
" On the 10 th of June , 1604 , Isabella died in childbirth , at Lyons , in the forty-second year of'her age , and was buried by the municipality of that city witli inuch pomp , and all sorts of honours . Iler husband placed the following inscription over her tomb ;—" 'D . O . M . " ' Isabella Andreiha , Patavina , Mulier mngna virtute pradita , Honestatis Ornamentum , maritulisque Pudicitite Decus , Ore faeunda , Mente ftccumla , religiosa , pia , Musis arnica , et Artis scenicaj Caput , luc Kssurrectionem oxpoctat . Ob Obortum obiit iv . Idus Junii , MDCIV . annum agena XLII . Px'anciscus Andrcinus Conjux moostissinius posuit . ' ., " In English , freely rendered-
" ' Isabella Andreini , of Padua , a most highly gifted woman , tho Soul of Honour , a model of conjugal chastity , eloquent of tongue , fertile ) of genius , religious , pious , beloved by tho Muses , and a most distinguished member of tho histrionic profession , hero awaits her Resurrection . She diod from a miscarriage on tho 10 th of June , 1004 , in , the 42 nd year of her ago . Francesco Andreini , Her deeply afflicted husband , placod this monument . ' " Boyle remarks on the close juxtaposition of tho statement of hop profession , and her expectation of resurrection ; and observes that the circumstance may servo to prove that the severity of the Church
the fourteenth century was blind to the philosophy by which the eighteenth is able to explain sucbV anomalies . We might hesitate , howeveri " and justly , to admit that the story of the female saint in any sense was one that illustrated the position of Italian woman ; had the case been that of a cataleptic man , it might equally have answered the purpose Of priestcraft . Nevertheless , the example serves to lay bare the root of the matter . Igno--ranee is the foundation of superstition . The diffei * ent desrrees of isrnorance mark the difference of
periods . The later have fewer of these marks ; and in proportion as man ascends the ladder , and approaches the summit of the scale where the light of intelligence begins to dawn , the ages show an amelioration of manners and signs of social improvement . The historian passes on into the fifteenth century ; from the affected poverty of the church into the pride , pomp , and circumstance " of state life , of the
while he describes the progress ^ feudal Chatelaine , and invokes what he calls the " Nemesis of despotism . " It was the time of the great ^ familyfounding Popes , and nepotism , was at its height . Cateriria Sforza is the heroine . Gorgeoits hospitalities , glittering cavalcades , re veilings , costumings , and reckless profusions of all kinds , diversified the scene . Catherine , only just eleven years old , was a bride , betrothed publicly to Grirolamo ELiario , and was dazzled and delisrhted with maerhineence and
splendour , and perhaps shocked also , by the occurrence of assassination and tyrannicide . The wild justice of revenge was then asocial principle , and law was but little respected . Profligate debauchery was then the rule of life . Her beauty seems to have made a great impression on the Roman courtiers ; and soon it happened that she found herself more powerful and eminent than any woman in Italy had been before ; so great a favourite with the Pope that most of the native princes who had to petition the apostolic " see , availed themselves of her intercession . But she was surrounded with perils as well as with pleasures . Her husband was implicated , with Po 2 > e Sixtus , in the celebrated Pazzi murders . It is uncertain whether his young wife
shared in the knowledge of the guilt , bhe seems , however , to have been equal to stern duties , as occasion required in that irregular and disjointed state of society , when the safety of the mass consisted in imposing such inert , resistance as was possible to the unreasonable will of an unrespected master . Even in her fall , Catherine was not stunned . Increasing difficulties only showed her the moire heroic ; in our author ' s words , " Catherine was the very belle-ideale of a sovereign Chatelaine in that stormy fifteenth century . At the age of
twenty-six , her husband having been assassinated , she became a widow with six cliildren . Per daring rose . with the occasion , and the conspirators of Forli found themselves checkmated by a woman ; by her -prudence , also , the city was saved from sack . She proved herself " capable of standing alone , and holding her own and her son ' s inheritance , by her sole unaided prudence and energy . " Indeed , Mr . Trollope lias written her story to show how a woman under the feudal system could occupy a man ' s place , and demonstrate herself to be masculine enough to sustain its responsibility . Into the story of her second and third mai'riages , and the murder of her second husband , wo cannot
met by , the polemical battle-front which it has shown to its enemies from Pekiri to Peru , lias never been straight drawn by the rule of immutable principles , but ever a wavy line , with undulations constantly ' in movement . And the startling fact that at liyons , in the year 1604 , Isabella Andreini , avowing her calling , was at the same time permitted to assert publicly , that she hoped for resurrection _ to life eternal , shows only that so audacious a solecism was overlooked , because her standing in the public esteem , and the mood of the Lyons world at the moment , made it unwise to select that occasion for asserting the ecclesiastical claims . " .
Af ter all , her peculiar profession is a world iii itself ; and perhaps that fact may account for her comparative freedom from the baleful influences for which the outer world was distinguished . It is by the principle of sacerdotal celibacy that Roman society is governed . It is this that , for the doubtful benefit of one class , sacrifices all the others —a doubtful benefit indeed ! For the nature is violated in their persons that takes its revenges on the rest . The supposed policy has operated with a fatal skill , though with marvellous success . It has indeed , to adopt in part our author ' s language , cut off" its priests from the great family of mankind , all the most sanctif
fenced out their hearts from ying and ennobling sympathies of humanity , and made their interests , affections , prejudices , ambitions always distinct from , and often hostile to , those of their -fellow creatures . Still , in this , as in every case of battle with the laws of nature , the measure of success accomplished does not ^ attain to the reversal of these laws , but is limited to causing them to operate injuriously instead of beneficially , for the race . More or less the female character must suffer from the corruption necessarily consequent on such an institution . From , the Saint to the Arcadian Improvisatrice with which the scries concludes , the women of every
class are tainted with the general plague-spot" the trail of the serpent is over them all . " The earliest manifestations in which the-system originated have a profound psychological interest . Mr . Trollope has indeed endeavoured to trace this in his biography of Saint Catherine of Siena , who was born in 1347 . There are not , lie tells us , many chapters of history more extraordinary and more perplexing than that which relates her story . Even in " the dim despised wilderness of Romish hagiography" a stranger instance is scarcely discoverable ; yet is it " not the product of the dark ni & ht-time of history . " Petrarch
and Boccaccio were writing while she was working miracles . The scene of her strange doings was one of the centres of human civilisation and progress . " Their historian was " the Blessed Raymond of Capua , " whose biograghy Mr . Trollope subjects to severe criticism . The reprint of it , published in 1851 , in a popular form and at a popular price , he regards with no favourable eye . The circulation of such u safe literature" he characterises us so much * ' deliberate , calculated , and intentional soul-mui'der . " He passes , however , a milder opinion on Father Burlamacchi , who has edited her letters with the learning and loaning of a Jesuit . The fact of the case appears to be that
St . Catherine was a person subject to the cataleptic trance , which by practice she was enabled voluntarily to induce . By these means she gained such . influence , tJiut oven Pope Gregory listened to her advice and returned to Romo at her request . She practised severe austerities , and had , when a , child , a great dialike to washing her face ; when induced to do it by her ¦ mother and sister , who felt that she had committed a great sin , and ever aifter spoke of her fault , at confession particularly , "with sobs and tears . So abstinent was she , that at last she contrived to live without food for many years . Slio had many visions , in one of which she was espoused by tho Lord , who left on her finger n golden vinjy , with four pearls and a magnificent diamond in it , as witness of tho transaction ; only it was invisible to all but tho saint herself . . She
enter . Altogether Catei'ina Sforza is a strong dramatic character , and therefore it is that we have been at pains to sketch it rather fully . Her faults were those of her age . Passing into the sixteenth century , we recognise changes in Italian life , and in Vittoria Colomia an intellectual princess , highly educated , and uttering the fulness of her rich nature in poetry . Her sonnets , however , betray that a potential Protestantism was insinuating itself into the weft nud woof of Catholic thought , and preparing tho way for
farther and more important clnui & vs . With nor portrait , the first volume of the work is embellished . She waa a groat writer of sonnets , some ot which aro fairly translated . Her moral conduct , both as a wife and mother , was irreproachable She was evidently a person in advance of her age . The ago , meanwhile , itself advances ; and the life of Tullia JD'Amgona testifies to its growing literary character . Education then meant a knowledge of Grook and Latin literature--it was olassicol and pagan . Tho famous Tullia was tho daughter of Cardinal Tagliavia d' Aragonia , by 3 iuDa- of Forrara , a kind of Asparia in her time
was also a recipient of tho stigmata , thus imparting' to tho Dominicans tho distinction which the Franciscans had long exclusively possessed . She could also turn water into wine . Indeed , thoro is no end of her miracles , and in all she excels all previous miraolo-dooi's . The literary works of wliioh she ia tho roputod author wore taken from her dictation when entranced . Similar phenomena and similar works aro witnessed anil written among tho American Spiritualists at tho present day . Modern science is now familiar with , such onece , and their natural solution is not hurd to hit . But
on the subject of tho sepulture of comedians had been much exaggerated . But it would bo more correct to say , that it proves tho action of MioOhurcU in carrying out its views and principles to have boon fitful , irregular , and subordinated to circumstances ,, as it in Uruth ovor has boon . In the long , coasoloas battle of the Church through century after century , against all that is not-church , it has always known how to retiro temporarily from a point likely to bo too fyotly contested , without by any means abandoning the hopo of roconquoning the ground at a mgre favourable moment . Always pushing on tho advanced posts of its pretensions in accurate correspondence with the amount of rosistanco it lias been
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 16, 1859, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_16041859/page/13/
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