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THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
- .
• .
i
ADDITIONS
TO
«MY PRISONS."
ADDITIONS
TO
"MY PRISONS,
MEMOIRS
OF
SILVIO PELLICO,"
WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF PELLICO.
By PIERO MARONCELLI OF FOR LI.
TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIA*, UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OV THE AUTHOR.
CAMBRIDGE:
PRINTED J5Y CHARLES 1'OLSOM,
U DOCO XXXVI.
Entered according to the act of Congress in the year 1S36, by Piero Maroncelli, in the Clerk's office of the Dis- trict Court of the District of Massachusetts.
■
CONTENTS.
MOGRAFHICAL NOTICE OF SILVIO PELLICO
|
ADDITIONS TO THE " PRISONS " OF |
||
|
SILVIO PELLICO .... |
•53 |
|
|
I. |
The Sons of Count Porro |
55 |
|
II. |
Melchiorre Gioja .... |
57 |
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III. |
Maddalena |
58 |
|
IV. |
The Pretended Louis the Seventeenth |
62 |
|
V. |
Individuals on whom Sentence was pass- |
|
|
ed after the first Trials at Venice . |
03 |
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|
VI. |
Professors Romagnosi and Ressi |
67 |
|
VII. |
Si "-nor Canova .... |
74 |
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VIII. |
Speech of One of the Judges on the Day |
|
|
of Sentence |
74 |
|
|
IX. |
Cesare Arniari .... |
75 |
|
X. |
Demonstrations of Benevolence . |
75 |
|
XI. |
Confalonieri |
7> |
|
Ml. |
Brennsuppe ..... |
78 |
|
Mil. |
711 |
1360156
VI CONTENTS.
XIV. Kunda . . ... . .81
XV. Cherries 82
XVI. Krai and Kubitski .... 83
XVII. The Wife of the Superintendent . 84
XVIII. Death of Oroboni . ... 85
XIX. Our Confessors, Sturm, Battista, Wrba,
Ziak ...... 86
XX. Privation of Books .... 87
XXI. The Visits 90
XXII. Compulsory Labor .... Ill
XXIII. Sentence of Excommunication ; Fa-
ther Paulowich . • . 114
XXIV. Schiller's God-daughter . . .119 XXV. Don Marco Fortini ... 120
XXVI. A Song 121
XXVII. Silvio restored to Liberty . . 125 XXVIII. Conclusion 126
APPENDIX 129
(A.) Notices of Italian History. — Massacre of
Prina. — Counts Porro and Confalonieri 131
(B.) The Conciliatore. — Cor-mentalism . 145
(C.) Fate of Individuals connected with the Conciliatore. — Escape of Count Giovan- ni Arrivabene with Two Friends. — Ar- rest of Count Confalonieri . . . 219
(D.) Ceppo Monumentale d' Oroboni . . 230
CONTENTS.
VU
Sulla creduta Morte di Silvio Pellico . 234 Program of various Works proposed to be published by Piero Maroncelli . • 239
Remembrances 246
3ther Poems by Piero Maroncelli . 256 Psalmo Notturno .... 256
Translation of the Same . . . 260 Psalmo Ante-lucano .... 264 Translation of the Same . . . 269 " My life is like the summer rose " . 273 Sullo stesso Soggetto . . . 274 "Like southern birds, whose wings of
[light " 275 Sullo stesso Soggetto . . . 275
I
V
■
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE
OF
SILVIO PELLICO.
IOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.
%
consequence of having shared the captivity at extraordinary man, the author of " My ms," and of our mutual friendship, cement- y ten years of suffering and chains, I have called upon to prepare a few notices of ife. But I must confess, that M. de La- * has preceded me with such success as to : me no hope of rivalling him. ssides, the materials of M. de Latour's were furnished by me, according to my conceptions and feelings ; I cannot there- state the circumstances differently from he has done, or present them under an- ;ispect. Hence I have necessarily adopt- is narrative so far as it extends, and have ■times Ixiiiowcd his very words.
"he author of the French translation of Le Mit Pro- i and of the account of Pellico prefixed to it.
4 MEMOIR OF PELL ICO.
My friend was born in Piedmont, within the walls of the city of Saluzzo, formerly a mar- quisate. His family was then in good circum- stances, and the parents of his father, Signor Onorato, were still living. His father was blessed with other children. Luigi and Gio- seffina were born before Silvio saw the light ; with him was born a twin sister, who was called Rosina ; afterwards Francesco and Marietta com- pleted the charming family of Signor Onorato.
Silvio's mother is a Savoyard, born at Cham- bery, and she still retains her maiden name, Tournier. The traits of that well-known goodness which characterizes the people of Savoy appear in this excellent woman ; or rather she comprises within herself all their virtues ; virtues that have never failed during the many vicissitudes of a life full of peril. She nursed all her chil- dren, and was their first instructer ; not in reading only ; she taught them good principles, which were enforced by the best examples. This school began early. Signor Onorato had the reputation of belonging to the King's party, and, amid the troubles inevitable when great changes take place in society, he was of the number of the persecuted. He became a fugi-
MEMOIR OF PELLICO,
among the Alps, accompanied by his wife, was about to be confined,) and followed is little children. Then it was, that Silvio tirst made acquainted with misfortune, and, le same time, was instructed by the ex- e of his father in the dignity with which it Id be borne by a man of true heart. For- , however, suddenly changed ; the cause te King again prevailed ; Signor Onorato's e was then considered as a safe asylum ; those who had been of the opposite party, ring well the exalted virtue of his chival-
character, took refuge there. Certainly or Onorato never inquired to what party
< \iles belonged, jrfect purity of manners, hospitality never sed but always proffered, an uninterrupted cise of Christian charity, which recognised i neighbour, not only the Christian and the list, but every one, and especially every
who was unhappy, made the house in •h Silvio was born and lived, a temple ed to every social virtue. Here began the ited love which he ever felt for Ins parents, in be was compelled to esteem as the best tuman beings. Religious themselves, and
b MEMOIR OF PELL ICO.
professing that particular form of religion in which they had been educated, Silvio saw them united by the ties of sincere friendship with others who were honest, but not religious men, and who had adopted atheistic opinions. The children of the family thus learnt tolerance ; they never perceived in their parents signs of enmity towards any thing but superstition, fanat- icism, and injustice; — nor were those signs un- accompanied by charity toward the superstitious, the fanatical, and the unjust.
His excellent mother was constantly atten- tive to draw subjects of instruction from the most trifling domestic occurrences. The crown of her many virtues was the manner in which they were exercised. It was distinguished by simplicity, courtesy, and modesty ; her services were burdensome, neither to herself, nor to those who were the objects of her kindness. The benefits she conferred appeared to spring up accidentally in the common course of events. Such a school was well adapted to form a char- acter like Silvio's ; and when he speaks of his mother, his soul is an incarnate, living hymn of adoration to God as manifested in his creatures.
He suffered much during his childhood.
MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
Ki :
jely had he recovered from one severe ;s, when he was seized by another ; and physicians believed that he would die at 1 years of age. When he had survived period, they said ; " He has got through irst seven, but he will not outlive the second, ill die at fourteen." That period having ed and Silvio being still alive, they then ired that he might live till he was twenty- but not longer. This third prediction also 1 of its accomplishment, though certainly lealth was not less infirm in his youth than is infancy.
is ill health afforded scope for the exercise is mother's sagacity. At one time, before vas seven years old, when the physicians priests had left him, entirely despairing of life, this excellent mother placed herself Je the pillow of her almost exhausted child, offered to nourish him from her breast. this means he was immediately revived ; he ually gained strength, and his recovery wed. Who will deny that his life was thus atedly his mother's gift '■ should regard myself as omitting what, ihologicallj considered, is of the greatest
i
8 MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
importance, if in this attempt to illustrate Sil- vio's character as it now is, I should pass over, without notice, its earliest developements. In them is to be found the primitive and adequate origin of what he afterward became as a man, a poet, a son, and a citizen. I ought then further to mention, that he regarded death, not with indifference only, but with pleasure : it was in his view the end of a severe and cruel struggle ; and hence he was led to say when he had ar- rived at maturity ;
" The most delightful day of my life will be that on which I shall die."
A remarkable impression was made upon him, when severely afflicted with disease, by the reasoning of one of his companions, seven or eight years old. The child went up to him and said in a tone of mystery, as if he were telling a secret 5 " My dear Silvio, do you know that there is no God ? If there were a God, it is impossible he should leave you to suffer thus." The boy then appeared quite confounded and almost frightened at having ut- tered those words.
In the intervals between one illness and an- other, Silvio and Luigi, his elder brother, pur-
.MEMOIR OF PELL ICO.
'
[ their elementary studies ; and they soon the assistance of a priest, Don Manavella name, who instructed them at home, and •ared them for the examinations which after- I took place at the puhlic schools, when passed from one class to another. It was a part of their education, to commit to lory plays or rather detached scenes, which recited in the presence of friends ; the top bureau, on which they were mounted, serv- them both for a stage. These plays, or ctions from plays, were for the most part positions of Signor Onorato, who also wrote [1 lyric verses, in that style which com- s morality with amusement. y these sparks what a light was kindled ! Lu- lias written good comedies, and Silvio is with- dispute the first living dramatist of Italy, v could it be otherwise ? Silvio was not years old, or was scarcely ten, before he mpted to compose a tragedy on a subject :n from Ossian. Cesarotti, that admirable LUS, who has infused into the fictions of spherson so much of his own poetry as to aform Ossian into an original Italian poet,
10 MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
Cesarotti was the inspirer of this tragedian of ten years old.
During the time of which I have spoken, Signor Onorato had established a manufactory for winding silk at Pinerolo, where he had gone with all his family, except his aged father and mother, who remained at Saluzzo. From that place he removed to Turin, having received an office from the government. He had been be- fore in the post-office, whether in Pinerolo or Saluzzo I do not know.
In connexion with Silvio's early residence at Pinerolo, M. de Latour refers to that famous prisoner, The Iron Mask, and says ;
" I imagine, that afterward, when, in the long nights at Spielberg, Silvio called up the image of his happy childhood, the castle of Pinerolo with its strange prisoner recurred more than once to his memory. Who could have anticipated, while the boy was listening to that mysterious tale upon his mother's lap, that he also should one day find himself buried in the dungeons of a fortress, far from his friends, far from his coun- try, under the cold and stormy sky of Mora- via."
MEMOIR OF PELL ICO.
11
it is ! How often at Spielberg have we :rsed together about the mysterious Iron I
speaking of the infancy of Pellico, I must )mit to mention a very peculiar malady, ing both his mind and body, to which he for a long time subject. It was the con- :nce of a fright. Every evening, when it i to grow dark, he saw strange phantoms g around him, and, even after the lights
brought, he continued to see them in the :r parts of tbe room. The irrepressible tears sobs of the poor boy pierced the heart ; was it possible to soothe him. He was ™ing under a sort of waking nightmare, n his grandmother (an excellent lady) ques- d him as to the appearance of those ghastly toms which distressed him so much, his an-
was, " They look like you, grandmama." remote cause of this fact may perhaps have
the circumstance, that his grandmother pos- :d the mysterious book of the Seven Trinn-
and thai the hoy, already in an excitable
of mind produced by debilitating diseasea by fright, had heated his imagination by
12 MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
reading during the day that strange and foolish book.
When the republican government was estab- lished, the pi'obity of Signor Onorato, not found- ed upon human laws, but upon the principles of eternal justice, (those principles the adoption of which can alone render any government just, by whatever name it may be called,) caused him to be regarded as the best man under the repub- lic, having before been the best under the King. As the duty of a citizen required, he regularly attended the public assemblies, where, in all he said, he had but one purpose, to promote the public happiness by promoting in a proper man- ner the happiness of individuals. And this pattern of a good citizen never went alone, but always took with him, notwithstanding their youth, his two little sons, Luigi and Silvio. Thus their education in public justice was com- pleted, their education in those moral senti- ments, not less practical than theoretical, which they saw continually operating within the do- mestic circle and without. A common mind might have thought it idle to carry two little boys to those public meetings. — " What will they understand ? " They understood every-
.
MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
13
; and, among the many recollections of his , this has struck such deep roots in the
of Silvio, that he talks of it still, as if ere listening to the speakers arid witness- leir gestures, and the discussion of public 3 were actually going on. file at Turin, Silvio continued to pursue udies with Don Manavella. Here, too, he comedies with his brother and other chil- af both sexes, from twelve to fourteen years e ; — now certainly with something better
stage than the top of a bureau. Thus il his childhood.
ong the boys and girls who joined in these lions, there was one who was an object of ular attraction to him. He loved a little named Carlotta, fourteen years of age, died shortly after. There are persons of austere temper, that if they find a trait ktiment related, they call the narrative a ice, as if sentiment and poetry were out lure, and their proper place was only in Bad books, however, are those which lit of nature. Such men will not believe the memory of this youthful passion was iit to the mind of the captive of Spielberg,
E
14 MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
as the melancholy occupation of his thoughts for hours and days ; and that the anniversary of the death of Carlotta was marked by an address of more than usual interest and fervor to her spirit, for ever blessed in the bosom of God.
Hence it may perhaps be understood, that to a soul so affectionate as that of Silvio, Spiel- berg was peopled with other forms than those which the bodily eye might discern. Oh ! what pure joy, and what sharp suffering too, did this varied population occasion us ! But it afforded the only means of creating a mental life, which had all the vicissitudes of real life, and was divided into a life of study and a life of action.
Our life of study was this. By the assistance of certain mechanical rules, such as any one may easily form for himself, we distributed the objects of knowledge into several classes ; we arranged all that we knew under these different heads, and connected our ideas into such reg- ular series, as served to keep them in mem- ory, and sometimes even to increase our small stock. Thus we formed synopses of different subjects, more or less full, and each of us ran them over in his own mind, except when any one
MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
15
i the assistance of the memory of his com- i, or desired to be instructed by him in a t concerning which he was better inform- )ne day was regularly set apart to such a ' of history, another was given to philoso- nd others to geography, chronology, math- s, the fine arts, &.c. One day we spoke mch, another in German, another in Latin, :r in English, according to our respective ^dge of those languages. 5, which was only passive study, was al- erminated by active study. I mean, that er was capable of it, concentrated his its upon one subject, and labored on the )tion of some work, which perhaps he en- completed, through an intense mental like that of Newton, who said that he ble to extract the cube root without the a pen. He who was a poet exercised hiin- us, and even made poems. For him who ot a poet, nor an author of any kind, ject for active study was not wanting, was one, common to us, pursued by all, idy of himself with the intention of mak- mself better ; a study altogether iudc- ii *>',' our respective religious opinions ;
16 MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
a study to which every one devoted himself by a true philosophic vow, pronounced on the day of his sentence or afterward. It was this :
" We are the victims of misfortune, not of justice. Let it appear that the blow has fallen upon men, and not upon children. Every con- dition has its duties. The first duty of every unfortunate man, free or in bondage, is to suf- fer with dignity ; the second, to gain wisdom from misfortune ; the third, to forgive. Long since, these words were inscribed on our hearts ;
'For Justice, Truth, and Liberty, I sigh! '
Shall adversity have power to cancel this in- scription ? Let us conquer, and not be subdued by it. Should any one of us hereafter see the light, let him bear testimony to those who must perish here ; and let our vow be fulfilled with- out reference to the humanity or inhumanity of him who smites us. Inhumanity shall be to us only an occasion and a stimulus to greater vir- tue ; that virtue let us prepare to attain, and let us rejoice in a necessity which will make us better."
Europe has judged by the work of Pellico, a book of great truths and great omissions, whether
MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
17
vho smote us were merciful or inhuman.
in the midst of inhumanity some virtues >een seen to spring up in the afflicted, all dare to say ; " The credit is due to who smote them"? One who has the ad heart thus to speak, might entitle Nero factor of men, and an apostle of conver- because by his inflictions he increased :alogue of steadfast souls, life of action was this. After the hours d to active and passive study were end- ! proceeded to arrange in the order of II the events of our past history, and thus ur lives over again, loving what was good, testing what deserved to be hated, so as forget to love and hate ; I mean, to love n ; to hate the evil they commit, and to
those who commit it. Will it be thought, y recalling the age of infancy, we could icome infants again ? Oh, how false is tinion ! Let it be said, that these were h amusements ; — the sages who may des- tiem could teach nothing more moral or iseful. Let it be said, that one must have Hide, poetical, sentimental genius to es- rom the sad surrounding reality, and, in 2
18 MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
the midst of present sufferings, to live upon joys called back from the past. Would it then be better to be tormented with spleen, and to be- come furious, in order to have the satisfaction of saying ; " No, I am no poet ; illusions have no power over me 5 these chains are not orna- mental decorations ; these boards are not a bed of down ; this water is not wine ; these are but bare walls ; — I am alone, alone with my grief; and there is none to whom I can pour it out ! '
Admirable philosophy ! Excellent orators of reason are ye, while we are poor victims of po- etry ! How true is that sublime saying ; " There is one, more to be pitied than he who seems the dupe of all ; it is he who is the dupe of no one.'*
Let us judge by the results. What good would these orators against delusion secure ? Unfortu- nate is the prisoner who does not soon fall into a delirium ; he will else become a misanthrope, a devil ; and should he perform an act of virtue, he would say ; " It is not mine ; for, if I have been able to do it, it only proves that my tor- mentor has left me the ability."
Instead of this, what do the poets obtain ? A life consoled by dear remembrances, a continu- ed union with humanity in bonds of peace, the
•
MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
19
of meditation on the past, and faith in iture. And if they perform any good deed, ire not guilty of the folly or the weakness muncing the consciousness of it ; and it is sentiment only which leads to well-doing, uides us in our progress from one step to er.
• life of action, then, was not a mere chain
ollections, sad or joyful, but a chain of love
kept Humanity alive within our hearts ;
it when we returned to her bosom, it was
e who had found her, but she who had
us.
>py are those who have been able to ac- ish so noble a purpose. But certainly, if urpose be peculiar to poets, the name of vould be only another name for what is i in the highest sense ; and to attain to is human in the highest sense is the whole
of the soul while connected with clay.
return to Silvio, whom we left at the age one ceases to be a boy and becomes a
man ; an age in which there is little origi-
the character, in which we cease to he ing and have not yet become another ; and,
20 MEMOIR OF PELL ICO.
above all, when we are not ourselves, but are imitators.
Let us pass over this period which offers a scantier harvest of observation to the student of mind, than original, self-creating childhood.
The twin sister of Silvio, Rosina, was beauti- ful as an angel, and, as is said by M. De Latour, " he had loved her from the first with that lively affection which sometimes exists between twins, as if God in the two bodies had put but one soul." A cousin of Signora Pellico-Tournier, established at Lyons, had obtained the hand of Rosina. Her mother and her twin brother ac- companied her to France. The former after a short time returned. Silvio remained to drink large draughts from the flood of life with ju- venile eagerness. Four years did he struggle in the labyrinth of youth, and he came forth with victory. Yet his recollections of this period were mingled with regret.
An event occurred, that disturbed the ordi- nary course of his thoughts, his habits, and his studies, which had been devoted to French lite- rature. In 1806, Foscolo's poem, I Sepohri, (The Tombs,) appeared in Italy, and, not long after, it was sent to Silvio by his brother Luigi.
<
MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
21
s poem was to him the buckler of Rinal- ■ As he read it, he felt himself again an a and a poet. Yes, again a poet ; for he mew that he had been one before, mnot describe better, than in the language
De Latour, the creative fever produced in ind of Silvio by the reading of this poem ; e of feeling of which he himself has often
me an animated account. Ixcited, full of what he had read, he seeks
to mingle with the world ; but the ideas
i had seized upon his mind retain their
He seems to listen for new tones from
lip ; to expect to find the Sepolcri of Fos- n every book. You would have said, that srceived for the first time that our language French) has something of rudeness, and >ur atmosphere wants the purity of an Ital- ky ; Italy seizes upon all his thoughts, it sses his whole soul. His friends are aston-
; they inquire of him the cause of his iuI abstraction, of a melancholy which they im t seen in aim before. He tells them emotion, that there is on the other side of
[ • M. De Latour. See Tasso, Cant. X\ 1 1 J
22 MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
the Alps a poet, whose verses produce the long- ing of an exile for his native land. They wish to be informed concerning this poet, they ask his name, they urge him to translate some of his verses. The young man opens the magic book, and in animated, ardent, highly colored prose, improvisating a translation of a fragment of the poem, inspires those who hear him with his own enthusiasm."
His studies immediately received a new direc- tion, which continued till his return to his coun- try. This was, I think, in 1810, when all his family wer.e together at Milan. Signor Onorato was the head of a department under the Minister of War, and his brother Luigi a secretary to the Grand Equerry of the Kingdom of Italy, the Marquis Caprara of Bologna. We may suppose that his little sister Marietta then formed her first acquaintance with him ; — that sister, who, when he became a captive, withdrew herself from the world and its concerns to end her days in a convent.
Here the early domestic piety and love, the influence of which we have traced in his child- hood, resumed all their power ; and here his studies took a higher flight. He became profes-
.MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
23
f the French language in the College of ry Orphans, and was occupied for an hour i daily in the duties of his office ; the rest
day he could devote to the creations of nius. Milan, during the reign of Napoleon, uly the Athens of Italy ; and two individu- ho did both good and evil, divided the em- f letters. In my Essay on the Conciliatore,* e described the characters of Monti and lo. Silvio was, of course, acquainted with
Both received him kindly. Monti, who ut little persistency, was always at peace, lo, whose will was strong, was always at
His soul sighed for liberty, nor did he ive that he made himself the slave of earth. as a living contradiction, yet always full of y, through which he could not fail to make, ,er obliquely, some advance. He called to reverence the sepulchres of the dead ; i attempting to establish this reverence, he >yed it, by taking away all which gives hope death, the doctrine of immortality. He i ;i true Nebuchadnezzar's statue, bcauti- iid colossal, Itut with feet of clay. The
[* See the Appendix to this volume]
'
24 MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
first stone which, displaced by the wind from the mountain-top, fell and struck against it, overthrew the colossus and it was broken to pieces. And Ugo felt that its base was of clay ; and it is this which shows him to have been a great man. Hence he presaged its fall ; hence arose that internal warfare, which in all his rela- tions, literary and political, continually torment- ed him ; and caused him often to be condemned by the vulgar, who could not estimate his noble though unsuccessful efforts, as a mere knight- errant in philosophy and the arts. How we are constrained to respect the picture of his moral misery, which he gives in his Didimo Chierico * (Didymus, the Clerk). How high he rises above all contemporary pretenders to eminence in Italy. True, Ugo and those pretenders were all cov- ered with sores and lying on a dunghill ; but he was the only Job among them who mourned over his evils, and for him alone was there hope of cure. The others, always blind, always un- der enchantment, were in a state of inextinguish- able laughter, like the gods of Homer, and
[* The Introduction to his translation of Sterne's " Sen- timental Journey."]
•
MEMOIR OF PELL ICO.
25
their academies were styes of Circe, in they took the form of swine, they believ- imselves to be on Olympus, and as beau- ls Apollo. It is another great honor to lo, that he was not swallowed up by the tide around him ; but rose in the midst, a isthmus leading to a continent, where hu- r may find an honorable resting-place and Etl abode.
lermit, a prophet, having the knowledge I, like Enoch and Elijah, had raised him- gh in air, leaving the corruptions of Italy th him, and was as it were the voice of rovidence, which counsels and advises, but 10 force upon our will, which
" Cum summfl revercntia disponit nos."
3 Ippolito Pindemonte ; who said to Fos-
" You are in error, but you are better
hose you correct ; you will lead them into
way ; I am out of their track ; there
o means of communication between mc
i< in, as there are between them and you."
lemonte is evidently to be reganlrd as the
-m- of Pellico ; but (hey scarcely saw each
and lived at a distance. It will readily
26 MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
be believed, that of the two paths into which the course of Italian literature diverged, Pellico did not choose the one which conducted to the giddy academies of Circean enchantments, but rather the rough and desert path of the great genius whose voice could, even at Lyons, touch his heart, and rouse him from his slumbers. They were friends, and justly so. His brother Luigi had before enjoyed the friendship of Fos- colo, as had also that other noble genius (my fellow-citizen) who still languishes in the dun- geons of Spielberg.
I cannot here repeat the beautiful language with which M. De Latour describes that reli- gious anxiety which he, in common with us all, has felt when approaching the threshold of a great man. His description is dramatic, is true. But Silvio knew what Monti was ; he also knew what Foscolo was. I believe that, if he had been transported to Verona, he would have touched the hand of Pindemonte as something holy ; nor would he have been less affected by the sight of Ludovico di Breme, had his fame risen to the height of his merit. But the dis- covery of each other's character was the result of close observation in both ; and hence followed
•
.MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
27
respect, but respect such as springs from firms the love of brothers. while, Monti who was courteous, and n his courtesy, urged Silvio to visit him ; )n his doing so, made without reserve an linary communication to him. He dis-
0 him his manner of working ; putting hands a vast farrago, an immense ward-
1 which he had collected the literary of past ages ; or, as M. De Latour de- it, " a Babel of poetry, in which were ogether all languages and all times ; a ;tiona y of poetic thoughts, where each \ its class and page with every variety lations and metaphorical expressions of lis was to Monti the source, not only of *inal inspiration to which the contempla-
the best models may give birth, but
of that perfection in details which is
by the Mending together of words and
Monti, perhaps, thought himself imi-
lie ancient sculptor, who, in forming his
borrowed a grace from each of the
beauties of Athens ; but he forgot that
; <if design, always more or less bound
) reality, by the material through which
28 MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
they express themselves and by which they are limited, demand, in the visible presentation of the conception which is their soul, a rigorous exact- ness to which a model is essential. It is not so with poetry. In this, the conception creates, if I may so say, the language of its external form, and shapes it to itself. Silvio was confounded at the sight of this receptacle of talent ;"' — or compilation, as it might be called, of the leaves of the poetic Sibyl.
Silvio frequently visited Foscolo ; but did not in consequence take any part in the various deplorable contests between him and Monti, nor side with the adherents of either. He freely expressed his agreement or disagreement with any disputant ; but he went no further. Hav- ing done this, his words and actions only tended to reconciliation.
Monti was one day sitting in the Verri coffee- house. This place may well be named here, since a period of our literary history takes its name from it, and since our southern manners make a coffee-house a sort of general exchange, where political and literary credit, as well as other kinds of credit, rises and falls. Nor would it be extravagant to call our coffee-houses, by
•
MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
29
r metaphor, the representative chambers, [ and municipal, of those Italian states, re under an absolute government. At the lentioned, Silvio met Monti. The hostil- veen his partisans and those of Foscolo ;n at its height. Monti entered into an nt with Silvio, whom he rightly esteemed diced. " What," said he ; " will you hat Foscolo is my enemy and decries How ungrateful ! Who has been the f his rising into credit but myself ? His i never would have been heard of, had I nounced it sublime ; and I might by a sin- •d throw it back into the obscurity whence it." Silvio answered ; " Softly, my dear it is true that you were the cause that oolcri was highly esteemed. It is a fact oes honor to your critical judgment, when you follow the impulses of your llways leads you to act nobly. But could a word consign the Sepolcri to obscu- You do not think so ; or your critical nt deceives you, as it has done often. iuld not, if you would, do away what you me, because those whose eyes you have , dow, thanks to you, themselves sec the
30 MEMOIR OF PELL ICO.
light, and judge of colors as well as you. Be- fore you had unsealed their eyes, you might have made them affirm after hearing the sound of a trumpet, ' That is scarlet, we know ; ' but this cannot now be done. As for saying that he is your enemy and decries you, I know to the con- trary. I know that he is the enemy of your enemies ; and that, in this very coffee-house, in the room where we are sitting, he gave a sharp rebuke to one, who with the purpose of flatter- ing him, spoke disrespectfully of you."
Monti struck his forehead with his hand, say- ing ; " And yet I have been able to forget him ! " He went away much moved, and confessed that a base and malignant set had intruded between him and Foscolo, men who could hope for lite- rary existence only by feeding on the crumbs which fell from the tables of those who, had they been united, would have had no occasion to support such satellites.
Meanwhile Silvio labored incessantly by him- self. For, among the many plagues which then prevailed in Italy, one was, that if an author yet undistinguished showed his productions to a man of celebrity, they were at once considered as dictated, re-fashioned, re-made, by the latter.
31 E 31 O I R OF P E L L I C O .
31
it for those whose works had the greatest i. So much the less were they thought ie real authors of those works. Nor was inion without foundation. It was only at the satellites just mentioned maintain- r literary existence. But how was one, heir number, to escape the imputation of so ? Nothing remained for the noble- few but to labor alone, i had often said to Silvio ; " You are Lted with the English language ; come let us translate the whole of Byron, and sion shall bear the names of both." But influenced by a thousand considerations acy, did not feel that he ought to engage >rk which would take from him the free his powers, and in which the exchange equal. Certainly the labor would have ilmost wholly upon him, and the credit een given almost wholly to the other, complained of this refusal, and likewise Silvio had not consulted him before pub- his Francesco and Eufemio ; and Silvio t gave him the satisfactory reasons lor luct.
32 MEMOIR OF PELL ICO.
But on what did Silvio labor ? On a tragedy upon a Grecian subject, Laodicea. But be- tween 1810 and 1812, there appeared in a small theatre of Milan, (Santa Kadagonda, — now no longer in existence,) a young girl, named Car- lotta Marchionni, from twelve to fourteen years old, who became the first actress of Italy, both in tragedy and comedy ; and Silvio, inspired by her pale and expressive countenance, was led to portray the love of Francesca and Paolo, which from the stormy circle of Dante's Inferno comes to pay sad visits to the early years of every Italian scholar. He composed his tra- gedy, and gave it to Foscolo to read ; who the next day said to him ; " Listen to me ; throw your Francesca into the fire. Do not let us call up the spirits of the damned from Dante's In- ferno. They will frighten the living. — Throw it into the fire and bring me something else." Silvio brought him his Laodicea. " Ah this is good," said Foscolo ; " go on in this course."
Silvio, obeying that great law of taste, which makes the true artist conscious of the beautiful in his productions, (even when through the pre- judices of some school it is not yet acknowl- edged by more practised critics,) preserved
■
.MEMOIR OF PELL ICO.
33
ncesca, and burnt or entirely suppress- Laodicea.
years after Carlotta appeared again at a full-grown woman, acknowledged to be
a rival in her art. She performed at al theatre. Silvio and Ludovico Breme cquainted with her ; and the neglected ca, which lay covered with dust in the the author, was brought to light, the laracter being played by Carlotta. Its lance was repeated at Naples, Florence,
almost all the theatres of Italy, with tly increasing interest. government of Napoleon was overthrown, mily of Silvio returned to Turin, where Onorato was called to the direction of a lent under the Minister of War. Silvio emained at Milan, domesticated in the of Count Brichc, — where he received expression of esteem and affection, — as tructer of a youth of the best promise, Odoardo, whom he loved as a son. Af- I- be removed into the family of Count o form the hearts and minds of his two >ys, Mimino and Giulio. One day 0<1<>- me to visit him ; he was melancholy, or 3
34 MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
rather something appeared to weigh upon his mind. He inquired for a book, but seemed as if he wished to have some further communica- tion. Silvio was with visitors from whom he could not disengage himself, and said to him ; " Go into the library and take it ; do you wish for any thing beside ? " Odoardo answered, " No," and went away. He proceeded to a country- house belonging to his father at Loreto, which is just out of Milan, where, saying that he would go a shooting, he asked for a fowling-piece, and was found dead. The next day his father and Silvio, upon receiving the news, hastened thither, and found him bathed in his blood. He was as beautiful as an angel. This event took its place in the mind of Silvio among those solemn oc- currences, which contributed to sadden his life. In 1815-16 Ludovico Breme was desirous of bringing upon the stage a drama written by him- self, called, if I do not mistake, Ida ; and the care of it was intrusted to Cailotta Marchionni, who was then at Mantua. Ludovico made a visit to that place, and Silvio accompanied him. In the fortress at Mantua were confined the cele- brated physician Rasori, Colonel Gasparinetti, and the others involved in the Ghislieri prose-
•
•■
MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
35
in 1815, of which I have spoken in an- >art of this volume. Silvio, during the y of Rasori, had been a father and in- - to his daughter ; and finding himself at i, he earnestly pressed for leave to visit Uount Giovanni Arrivabene used all the in his power to obtain this permission for rid ; and it was at last arranged that Silvio ' should have an interview with the gen- lio was commandant of the fortress. This sarted German, a man very rigid in his ne, but of honorable feelings, said to him, hat do you want of Rasori ? " ivish to consult him as a physician." hat is your complaint ? " 1 affection of the breast." l affection of the breast ! An affection of ast ! " And as he spoke he laid his hand le breast of Silvio, adding ; " This affec- f the breast is friendship ! It is friend- ' And his voice faltered as he spoke, as * one deeply moved. The good old man
dead. May God reward him for permit- iends to give and to receive consolation :ach other. Silvio was admitted into the 9, and saw and conversed with Rasori ;
36 MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
certainly without having the thought pass through his mind, that he himself should one day be in confinement, — a confinement much more se- vere, — and that no one of his old friends, either through favor or by address, would be able to pass the inexorable gates of Spielberg. Yet may it not be said, that when he found Schiller humane, when he saw tears in the eyes of those who were ministers in our sufferings, — tears protesting as it were against the severity of their office; — these consolations, — truly divine con- solations ! — were a recompense conferred on him, who while life was in its flower, had thought on one buried in affliction.
He returned to Milan, and continued to re- side from that time in the house of Count Porro, which was frequented by all the most distin- guished men of science and art in the country, and by all the most distinguished travellers who visited Italy. There he saw and conversed with Madame de Stael and Schlegel, who served as a medium of communication between the leaders of German and Italian literature. There he saw Lord Byron and Hobhouse, who in the same manner brought into connexion our literature and that of England. There he met with Davy,
V
MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
37
iam, Thorwaldsen, and many others. It be said that Dante and Shakspeare, ;h and Schiller, poetry and science, the and the patriot, came together to hold I intercourse in this temple of Upper ,vhere Silvio was the priest. ) had translated Byron's Manfred. Byron ;ed to see the manuscript of Francesco,, is yet had only been acted, not printed. i it, and, two days after, upon returning , " Do not be displeased, if I have trans- ." He had translated it in verse. "You have given a translation of Manfred in 1 said he. But Silvio thought differently, opinion this could not be done, at least in language as the Italian, without adding ;ing away so much, as to substitute an- rork for tbe original. In 1819, Ludovico procured tbe publication of an edition of ca and the translation of Manfred in one
year after, 1820, Pellico wished to pub- other tragedy, Eufemio da Messina ; but tered many obstacles from the censor- While the subject was under discussion n, tli»- sons of I'oito, who had transcribed
■V v.'\
38
MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
it, gave a copy to their father, without the knowl- edge of Pellico, in order that he might procure its publication elsewhere. This was done ; but at last the printing of it was permitted even at Milan, upon condition that it should not be acted. During the interval between these two publica- tions, Silvio gave his assistance to another great undertaking, which even to this day has found no critic bold enough justly to appreciate its merits, such is the state of servitude into which Italy has been sinking deeper and deeper. This undertaking was the journal entitled The Con- ciliator. But, in order to form a just estimate of it as a whole, not only should the journal itself be read, but the character of the society that conducted it should also be well understood. The associates met three times a week in the house of Porro ; Silvio was the secretary, the undertaking having been commenced principally at his suggestion, and through the impulse given by him. They were aware that there was much which the government would not permit ; though they could not anticipate all the re- strictions actually imposed. Hence this society operated not merely in the journal, but out of the journal ; not merely in writing, but in con-
\
MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
39
on. It educated, or at least prepared, a ace of authors ; not so much by its pub- is as by the other various modes of in- 3 exerted by such a circle of men ; so ts roost important and characteristic re- being those which were incidental, can be Uy represented only by one who lived in lidst of it. Its spirit was developed in ations distinct from the journal ; in the orks of Hermes Visconti, one, " On the iitic," and the other, "On Style " ; in one •chet in his "Evenings with my Uncle the i," and another of Manzoni, " On Dra- Poetry," a masterpiece, yet unpublished, however well the Concilialors thought that knew what would be permitted them by vernment, how often were they deceived ! v be sufficient to mention that a person yed in the Court of Appeal \v„ • directed } Presidcot of that court <o dLconiiuue 5 in the journal under pen. by of losing ice ; and that another excellent individual epeatedly called before the police, and >I<1 by Signor Villata that, if he did not r: his tone in the articles laid before ihe whip, (those presented had been regularly
" ' '•• •• .
40 MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
rejected or mutilated,) the police would be oblig- ed to request him to remove from Lombardy. The author, who was thus criminated, replied ; " What then is my offence ? There is a police, initiated in the whole science of government, that alone with its censors of the press knows the limits which must not be passed. We who are uninitiated lay before you, as our labors, what in our ignorance flows from our pens. It can poison no one, for you, as moral surgeons, cut away without mercy whatever appears to you infected. Our articles pass through your Pur- gatory, and, when they come out from it, are like angels of Paradise. It is this which gives me confidence when I write ; and instead of racking my brains in idle conjectures about what you will expunge or leave, I exhaust my subject as far as I can, in the assurance, that, if any thing displeases you, you will have the goodness to strike it out."
Notwithstanding the reasonableness of this pro- test, such threats were repeated ; and the pro- cess of excision to which the articles were sub- jected, was carried so far, that the contributors to the work, not being able to fill its num- bers, separated in despair. Thus it appears,
MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
41
e Conciliator, as seen by the public, was ent thing from what had been prepared, it its spirit is not to be sought in the por- thought which was published, but in that is traditional. Its authors composed a both political and literary ; its censors ed all the political part and mutilated the r. I have given its twofold profession of ith all openness in a critical essay insert- this work ; in which I have also spoken Francesco- and Eufemio ; but only in a cur- lanner ; as the dramatic works of Silvio, •)• with his other poetry, epic and lyric, published and partly unpublished, demand rate examination in order fully to exhibit aracter of their author. is dramas, in his other works, and in his and actions, the ruling sentiments of Sil- \<- always been, family love, the love of •on nt i-v, the love of man. We have seen e various germs from which they sprung mplanted in bis breast during childhood, ii Id not fail to bear fruit ; they grew amid ;irs and sports of the boy, and became ligiou of bis public and private life. All lifferenl forms of charity sprung from one
42 MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
universal sentiment, more deep than all, and into which all in their turn were resolved. This charity, deprived of the power of action, caused his torture in the prison of Spielberg ; this char- ity in action was the inspiration of the poet when at liberty.
To form anew the national character of Italy upon sound principles of metaphysics and taste, was in the view of Breme, while he lived, — and is regarded by Silvio, the heir of his noble heart and high genius, — by the author of Cor- mentalism, and by others whom it would be im- prudent to name, — not only desirable, but indis- pensable. With us it is a fundamental principle, that Italy will be enslaved as long as her chil- dren are ignorant and selfish ; and that ignorance and selfishness will prevail as long as the ruling philosophy is materialism. This destiny which I predict for Italy, I predict for the world. Ev- ery other means of regeneration is violent and will not last. Violence, whether exercised by the good to implant what is good, or by the bad for an opposite end, is equally transient in its effects. How, for example, could another form of government be given to Austria, so long as people do not feel that they are deprived of any
■*.
MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
43
while their sense of dignity is not offend- d while the mildness of the shepherd, who hem every day to pasture and brings them at night to the sheepfold, is blessed by ts if it were paternal solicitude ? All de- upon the key-note which has been struck, is be changed in Austria, till public opin-
reformed, it would be madness to endeav- make that country other than what it is, — idness, as Silvio has expressed it, of im- ; one's self to have to do with another
living in a different age. The alteration )e violent, and would not last, taly the noble tribune from which a change lion might have been expected was closed, was," says M. De Latour, " a cruel day it brilliant school at Milan, when, its dis- n being resolved upon, each of its mem- idly returned to his solitary studies. Sur- ;d by the literary world of its own crea- t misrht have viewed itself for a moment
oung and free Italy by the side of the
old and conquered.
le cifi/.ens of this imaginary country were
ng allowed to dwell on BO many vanished
The shock of the Neapolitan revolution
%
44 MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
was felt throughout Lombardy. Arrests took place. The proclamations of the Austrian gov- ernment against secret associations were not warnings to the members of such societies ; they were denunciations immediately carried into effect. New arrests were made, and, at this time, of individuals from the ranks of the Con- ciliator."
Oh how seasonable was the death of Ludovico Breme ! How much suffering was he spared ! Silvio went to Turin to attend his dying friend ; he remained there about a month ; and for some days the health of Ludovico was better. Dur- ing this interval, when there appeared a pros- pect of its being established, Silvio returned to Milan. Shortly after, on the loth of August (1820), Ludovico was no more. On the 2d of September, Silvio left Pavia in a steam-boat for Venice. The occasion of this journey is re- lated elsewhere in this volume. He returned to Milan, came to my house, and was told that Piero was arrested. He had promised Count Porro to attend to some family concerns of his at Balbianino upon the Lake of Como. He went there calmly, and calmly returned to Milan, where some one whispered in his ear, The offi- cers of police are in search of you. He answered,
'.,
MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
45
now where Hive; I shall go and ivait for He went, and found them in waiting. His , including his poems, tragedies, and let- ere seized, and he was requested to follow ) the Santa Margherita. He went of his ;cord, but did not return. It was on the f October, 1820.
it," says M. De Latour, " before inflict- is blow, and as it were to aid him in ting his misfortune, Providence provided ith a friend. There was at that time in inting establishment of Nicholas Bettoni, lg man from Forli, gifted by nature with mblc inspiration of poetry and music ; as Piero Maroncelli. It is, I avow, with reliest emotion, that I here write for the ime the name of one who suffered so in company with Silvio Pellico. To him indebted for the greater portion of the comprised in this account. He had ar- at the end of his touching recital with- iving said one word of himself, without - informed me whence arose this fraternity ul, so sacredly preserved through all the es of imprisonment ; and upon my calling tention to (he fact, I read in lii> look of sc something which seemed with infinite
46 MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
sweetness to say, that, in giving this account of his friend, he thought he had said every thing necessary about himself.
" Their first introduction took place at the resi- dence of that celebrated Marchionni, whose name is associated with the earliest literary fame of Pellico. An animated discussion upon a sys- tem of music first made them known to each other, and thus it might almost be said, that the foundations of their friendship were laid in a dis- pute ; but it was one of those noble discussions about art from which two such spirits under- stand each other entirely. When Maroncelli arose to take leave, Silvio followed him ; they walked some distance together, and before part- ing had already formed an unchangeable friend- ship. It may seem as if a presentiment of their common misfortunes had taught them beforehand the importance of securing the solace of friend- ship for the sad days which were to come. They made haste to love each other, that they might be prepared to share each other's sor- rows, when the hour for it should arrive.
" Piero Maroncelli was arrested the 7th of October, six days before his friend."
At this point of time the narrative of Silvio commences, and I refer the reader to him.
.MEMOIR OF PELL ICO.
47
RISON OF SANTA MARGHERITA, AND THE PRISONS AT VENICE.
-a Margherita, anciently a nunnery, stands centre of the city of Milan, between the delta Scala and the Piazza de' Mercanli. the nunnery was suppressed, the building led for the General Office of Police. With connected a long range of cells appro- to different purposes ; some for individ- harged with various crimes ; some for i apprehended as unlicensed prostitutes ; hers for persons who had been accused n suspected of a political taint. In 1820, Is for the latter class not being sufficient fiber, others were constructed, all placed : ground floor ; so damp, that the greater f the prisoners of state lost their hair ; k, as to occasion diseases of the eyes, en- ding the sight ; so gloomy, fetid, and com- s, that they were named Dante's dens and ; and the worst of all, where lay the Frederigo Confalonieri, was called the maxima.
48 MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
These names made a part of the dialect used by the prisoners of state among themselves to guard their conversation from the danger of ill- disposed listeners.
In a book that treats of imprisonments, and especially considering the occasion on which those new cells were built, — for prisoners of state, — it may not be useless to describe their construction. Hence a comparison may be made between the political jealousy of barbarous times and that which exists in this age of civilization. It will be seen how the torch of improvement, having fallen into evil hands, has lighted the way to evil inventions ; a fatality to which what- ever is most excellent and holy is exposed ; for man, who can ennoble or profane any thing, may make it an instrument of his purposes.
The famous prisons of the Republic of Ven- ice, the Pozzi, (the Wells,) the Piombi, (the Leads,) and the dark dungeons of the Bridge of Sighs, are known to every traveller, and I may almost speak of myself as having been a tenant of all. They are all constructed in the same manner. There is an outer and an inner door, sometimes of double planks of oak, some- times of double plates of iron. In some, the
•
MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
49
I is not more than three feet in height, one cannot enter without stooping. The re of blocks of stone, three or four feet i both the inner and outer walls having lickness. It was the case not merely le Wells, in which I was not confined, h the other cells, such as I have de- , that the water of the surrounding La- >rced its way into them, penetrating the nd rising through the floor. Every kind isome insect was there. window opening through the thick wall •mod by three or four gratings of large yet through these the solitary prisoner see the heavens and the sun ; he might )t below him, but at a distance, houses uares and men and other living, or at oving, objects. Behind him was the door, aovable and silent door, which yet seem- ecure to the captive, and to be the only h;it did secure to him, a certain degree pendence. " I may do," he could say, I will. I may laugh, or I may weep, oose ; I may l>l«ss or 1 may curse ; my ta will remain my own, and uot become ey of ;m informer, ready to bring :i 4
50 MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
criminal charge against me. Nay, I can dash my head against the bars, the stone walls, or the door, and then farewell to all state-trials, fare- well to physical and moral torture. I am not yet wholly a captive ; my powers are called forth in a struggle, in which it depends upon myself whether I shall conquer or suffer myself to be conquered."
Such were the ancient prisons of political jeal- ousy. Let us see what improvements were made in the new. The window was grated as before ; but beyond the bars there was no free opening to the air, no view of the heavens or the sun, of men or things ; nothing but a box of wood, close at the sides and in front, and only admitting air and light from above, a faint and deceptive light, and air still less refreshing. The door was no longer the immovable, silent door, which seemed to secure some independ- ence to the captive ; it was a frame of wood, filled with panes of glass, and we were there within, like diamonds in an open setting. Be- yond the glass was a blind, and upon this blind rested the nose of a gendarme, a spy upon every thing we did.
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MEMOIR OF PELLICO.
51
ch was the construction of the new cells risoners of state, that were attached to those mta Margherita in Milan, in the year 1821, g the reign of Francis the First, Emperor astria.
'
ADDITIONS
TO THE
BISONS" OF SILVIO PELLICO.
.■ .
•■
I
ADDITIONS
TO THE
tISONS" OF SILVIO PELLICO
THE SONS OF COUNT PORRO.
K
See Chapter VIII.
x I not bear witness to the many tears you
for those dear children and for their fath-
( !an I not also bear witness to your sighs
irayers for them, during that severe illness
I brought you to the verge of the grave ?
II you were scarcely recovered, their names on your lips ; and, two years after, when
condemned Milanese arrived at Spielherg, ret wish of your heart was to learn what M re of your family were yet living ; that ( included your parents, brothers, sisters, i Porro, and the dear children Mimino and >. These children, as you know, became also to nic I first hecaiw: acquainted with only a few months previous to our arrest;
56 ADDITIONS TO THE
yet they were already fondly attached to me. Dear Mimino and Giulio ! you saw me so sel- dom, that perhaps you preserve no remembrance of the fellow-captive of your Silvio ; you were at that age when the impression of events, and the sentiments they awaken, are easily effaced by the rapidity of their succession ; and the youthful mind is too fully occupied, to be able to retain them all permanently.
I recollect, that, whenever I came to your house to see Silvio, you stole quietly away to the garden or the green-house, and, gathering a few sprigs and flowers, you asked old Angiola for a silken thread to tie them together ; then you came to the pavilion where we were seated, concealing behind you the pretty gift, till you had reached my side, when you offered it to me, saying ; " This is for yourself, and this is for the one you love best." — Now you are men ; but surely you will not despise these reminiscences of your childhood. And may you never forget your distinguished preceptor ; he espoused a holy cause, and never was unfaithful to it, even amidst the most acute and protracted sufferings. The noblest moral legacy that Sil- vio, your second parent, can bequeath you, his adopted children, is — his example.
.
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
57
II.
MELCHIORRE GIOJA.
See Chapter X.
lchiorre Gioja, the strongest-minded po- economist that Italy, or perhaps any other ry, has produced during the present age, lso a man of general erudition. His nu- ts works form an imperishable monument, he has raised to his country's honor and vn.
;entle girl, Bianca Milcsi, lavished all the ions of a daughter on the venerable old luring the whole period of his imprison- Having finished, while in confinement, isay Delle Ingiurie, he published it imme- y after his release, and, as a mark of ade, dedicated it to this excellent young 1, who had greatly contributed to his lib- n. (jiioja belonged to the Society of the liatore.
R
58 ADDITIONS TO THE
III
MADDALENA.
See Chapter XL
My cell was the other side of the arch, ter- minating the gallery on which Silvio was lodged, being on one side of the court in which were the hospitals. It was numbered eleven ; Mad- dalena's was numbered nine. Twice a week, permission was given to all the tenants of num- ber nine, to go into the gallery to take the air for fifteen or twenty minutes. This gal- lery being less exposed to observation than that of Silvio, the secondino was not obliged to watch it so rigidly, and the unknown singer of the Litany once approached my window, and said in a low voice ; "Good evening." I was reading ; I raised my eyes, and saw a young creature, who to me appeared beautiful. Her head was inclined over one shoulder, her cheek was somewhat pale, and her eyes expressive and melancholy. She seemed awaiting an answer to her kind salutation. I replied with mingled sad- ness and pleasure ; " Oh good evening ! " and
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
59
one of my voice was meant to express, am sure did express ; — "And how, kind ire, were you inspired to grant me a sight n ! the sight of a woman ! a beautiful, corn- mate woman ! "
7ho are you, poor young man ? " she said, 'he charge against me relates to politics." arbonarism ? " es."
h God!" — she sighed profoundly, as if ould have foretold to me the train of woes nust follow.
!an I render you any service ? I have liberty than you ; do you understand
>h yes, I understand, and would beg
leak, — speak, — I will do it with pleas- f it be possible."
a- on the point of saying, " Bring me a I checked myself. It was not that I any personal risk, nor certainly that I ited (In- expression of her countenance, so f sympathy ; bul ii seemed to me impru- 'i expose her, myself, and others. I had ed no reply from Silvio, the old man hud
60 ADDITIONS TO THE
not again appeared, and though I did not know that evil had befallen either, I suspected it might be so, and wished to avoid the possibility of its recurrence. I changed the conversation.
" Well ! you wished to ask something of me ; — you are distrustful, — or you may think me unworthy ? "
"Poor girl ! no, — no, — on my honor ! "
The gentle reproof awakened so much re- morse for having excited these doubts in her, that I felt myself constrained to make some reparation ; and, extending my hand through the bars, I offered it to her, she pressed it, and I was relieved.
" You often sing," said she, " and your songs appear to me so beautiful ! — How gladly would I learn them ! "
" They have two great faults," I replied. They are too long and too melancholy. For me they are fitting, for I must accustom myself to long-continued suffering. I shall never see the world again."
" What, never ? "
" Go in ! go in ! " cried one of the secondini ; and she, knowing the brutality they sometimes showed, when not promptly obeyed, had only time to give me one sad and thoughtful glance.
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
61
e mingled pleasure and pain, which this e apparition caused me, is indescribable, lother rose before me, — my sisters, and
other excellent women whom I had known,
[ felt a premonition that I was torn from
for ever. I had been lost in these rev-
for two hours, when (it was now eight ik) I heard a voice call, " Number elev- I did not reply, and it repeated, " Elev- leven ! "
Vho calls me ? "
he of number nine, who bids good night mber eleven. "
return it with all my heart ; God bless
)h ! God bless us all ! "
lever saw ber afterwards. Probably be-
this slight favor of taking the air for fif- or twenty minutes cost each time a small of money, which was more than the poor on Id pay ; but, from that evening forward,
s at eighl o'clock .she called to member , to wish liiiu health, patience, and sweet
62 ADDITIONS TO THE
IV.
THE PRETENDED LOUIS THE SEVENTEENTH.
See Chapter XIX.
I knew a young girl at Bologna, who attended Louis the Seventeenth, as he called himself, dur- ing his illness, and to whom he confided the se- cret of his rank. I knew this some time previ- ous to my arrest, while yet pursuing my studies at the University. Could I then have believed that we should soon be fellow-prisoners under the Austrian government ? I heard much of him from the Milanese prisoners of state, who suc- ceeded us in the prisons of Santa Margherita ; he was known to all of them. I recollect that Signor Angiolino used to say to me, after his conversations with Louis ; "I hope that, when he is King, he will at least make me his chief porter ; indeed, I have already had the frank- ness to ask it, and he the goodness to promise it to me."
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
63
V.
IDUALS ON WHOM SENTENCE WAS PASSED AFTER THE FIRST TRIALS AT VENICE.
See Chapter XLVII.
ree or nearly four years before our im- mient, forty or fifty persons were arrest- ome at Ferrara, and some in the Polesine >vigo, under an accusation of Carbonarism. cchetti of Fratta, . Caravieri of Crispino, laldi of Bologna,
e Marquis Canonici of Ferrara, and nine s, were condemned to death ; and the pun- r nt was afterwards commuted for some to mid for others to six years of severe lin- iment in the castle of Laybach. e following persons were condemned to . : j 1 1 < 1 the punishment of a part was after- ■! commuted to twenty years of severe Bonment at Spielberg, and of the rest to
I
e advocate Police Foresti, praetor at Cris- in the Polesine ;
64 ADDITIONS TO THE
The advocate Antonio Solera, praetor on the Lake of Iseo ;
Costantino Munari of Calto ;
Giovanni Bachiega of Gambarare ;
The priest Don Marco Fortini ;
Antonio Villa ;
Count Antonio Oroboni. The last three were from Fratta in the Polesine.
Foresti, Munari, and Solera alone were told, that the sentence of death would be executed upon them. A senator, Signor M came ex- pressly from Verona to Venice, and announced this intelligence to each one in particular. After having allowed them, for some time, to suffer the distress that must follow, he produced an autograph note from the Emperor, commencing with the loving words,
"Dear Peltnitz."
Peltnitz was President of the Senate, and the Emperor wrote to him to remit the sentence of death to these three persons, on the sole con- dition of their consenting to make important disclosures. The proposal being made to them, all three replied ; " Then we must indeed suffer the penalty of death, for we have nothing to disclose."
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
65
be it then," answered the senator : the te Solera smiled, hy do you smile ? " cause I do not believe you." >u do not believe me ? you do not believe mperor's handwriting. This want of re- for things so deserving of reverence is thy of you."
is by no means a want of respect, but of tion. I cannot persuade myself that the •or, who is so desirous of being just, would irily condemn us, while be knows our nee, and when the law rendering it crimi-
belong to any secret society was not made ter our arrest. The scene you are now
is therefore a moral torture, a final blow ed to discover if we concealed any thing r trial. For my part, I have nothing to se."
i senator became furious, and, separating ti, Solera, and Munari, bad them loaded chains, and bound so closely to the wall, hev could not make tbe least movement. 3 unfortunate Costaritino Munari, a vener-
ild man, then said to him ; ■~j
~~ '
66 ADDITIONS TO THE
" Signor Senator, you see me with tears in my eyes, but they are wrung from me by phys- ical suffering. I entreat you to desist from this useless cruelty. Look at my wrists ; the veins are red and swollen, the blood is ready to start out ; my enfeebled frame can endure no more ; but I can add nothing to my former depositions."
The senator had the manacles a little loosen- ed, and left them in this torture for some days.
Munari and the advocate Solera actually be- lieved, that, as they had nothing to disclose, the strictness of the Emperor's order would not admit any mitigation of the sentence of death. The old man suffered in consequence a danger- ous stricture of the bladder, and voided much blood. The young man, anxious to escape the revolting form of death which awaited him, — the gibbet, — (under the Austrian government the favor of dying by the axe is granted only to nobles,) when confined in his dungeon, broke a large glass bottle into small pieces and swal- lowed it all. So strict was the watch over us, that one of the guards discovered this, and gave immediate information. The senator him- self came to insure instant assistance.
.. i
PRISONS OF PELLICO,
67
Te wished to terrify you," he said, " with od intention of discovering the whole evil radicating it ; but, since you really have g to disclose, I hope, that, as clemency ready spoken conditionally in the heart of -nperor, she will speak once more, uncon- illy."
the end of a month an order arrived for >mmutation of their punishment to twenty of severe imprisonment at Spielberg.
VI.
PROFESSORS R03IAGNOSI AXD RESSI.
See Chapter LI.
in the Italian government established a :hool of law for youths who had finished ollegiate studies, the following individuals ippointed its professors : "he excellent Salfi, who died a short time it Passy, near Paris, to the sorrow of hie nd his country's friends. He was the
68 ADDITIONS TO THE
instructor of Count Federigo Confalonieri ; and this unfortunate man is doubtless ignorant of the death of the preceptor whom he remembered with so much affection.
2. The advocate Anelli.
3. Romagnosi, who is esteemed in Italy as the gi'eatest scholar of the nineteenth century. Beside his principal work on the Derivation of Penal Law, various other literary and philosoph- ical writings have proceeded from his immortal pen. The important part he took in forming the Code of Criminal Procedure, for the Kingdom of Italy, should not be passed over in silence. This venerable man was forced to dispute, step by step, the few victories that he obtained over a sanhedrim of passion and cruelty. More than once he threw on the ground the manuscript of his proposed statutes, that had been rejected as too lenient, and exclaimed to those conceited pettifoggers, all Knights of the Iron Crown ;
" By heaven ! history will say, that the cross you wear on your breasts is the head of Me- dusa, turning your hearts to stone."
The Italians rally round Romagnosi, as the great monumental column of the age ; for where is the scholar, who has not, either from his lips
.:
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
69
>ugh his writings, received the doctrines have emanated from him in so many va- ranches of knowledge ? inot think it improper to repeat here, a i that is frequently on the lips of this larian cosmopolite. " Courage, courage ! vents, the disciples of brotherly love are eading the earth." He thus expresses ifidence, that the good cause will finally
>ng his pupils in the abovementioned
was the Tyrolese Salvotti of Trent, who
terwards his and our inquisitorial judge.
to all, and to enemies even before friends.
in the London edition of Pellico's work
lat the prosecution of Romagnosi, " was
equence of the accusation of an ungrate-
rolese, whom he had instructed." Sal-
here evidently alluded to ; but we as-
3 respectable annotator, that he has been
i iiii-d. The good old man knew who was
user, and did not impute to him either
or calumny : he used to say, without
st irritation ; "I am here in consequence
►Uthful indiscretion, an imprudent miner-
70 ADDITIONS TO THE
The truth was as follows : — A young man had been to see him about his studies ; the con- versation turned upon Carbonarism, but alto- gether theoretically, that is, as a new social element, which, like all other great associations, history was bound to notice, for the purpose of estimating its influence upon the course of events. This youth, afterwards arrested and taken to Venice, was asked ; " With whom have you talked of Carbonarism ? " He an- swered ; " With my professors of the political sciences, Romagnosi and Ressi." " Then," it was concluded, " Romagnosi and Ressi are guilty of high treason ; for they entered no ac- cusation against their pupil, who spoke of Car- bonarism, and was therefore a Carbonaro." For- tunately Pellico could testify, that the conver- sation between Romagnosi and his pupil, at which he had been present, had been occasioned by the change of government in Naples, lately brought about by the influence of Carbonarism, and that it had not transgressed the limits of a speculative discussion. To this Romagnosi owed his escape ; Pellico was unable to bear the same testimony in favor of the good Ressi, and the professor, for having been the auditor of a con- versation, was condemned to death ; which pun-
L
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
71
it was afterwards commuted, by the clem- of the Emperor, to five years of severe onment at Laybach. He died the day that appointed for the reading of his ce.
wife, who had come from Milan to Ven-
see her husband, was not permitted to
him during his last illness. He died
gaolers, whom he drove from him with
t repugnance. He fell into a lethargy
lours before his death ; and the chaplain,
ng that he had lost his hearing, began to
out incessantly the commendatory prayers
: dying, which he continued during the
time that poor Ressi lay in the agonies
th, — from dusk till three o'clock in the
ig. His loud voice, reechoed by the vast
of the convent of San Michele, resound-
»Ugh the long corridors, till it reached all
Us. Sometimes we heard a Latin verse ;
re mei, Dens : then a disgusting transition
Venetian dialect ; Lit diga Ik u su} si no
occa, col cdr : Beata Verzene, r< rze le braza
emelavostra bela fazia.* This mixture of
now, with your heart, it' not with poui lipn; \ irgin, open tliy anus and show me thy beautiful
in* ,-.
72 ADDITIONS TO THE
the holy and the profane, the inconsiderate vul- garity of this incessant shouting, and the heavy step of the soldier marching up and down be- fore our doors, fell heavily on my soul, as if he were some infernal sentinel, whose startling apparition announced a doom, without hope of rescue, to all the prisoners of state. It filled me with consternation.
Poor Ressi was constantly before my eyes, as I had seen him in one of the brightest mo- ments of his life ; and its contrast with the pres- ent deepened the profound sadness of the ca- tastrophe. A year before my arrest, the last evening that my brother, the physician, spent in Milan, we went with two of our friends (Drs. Bucci and Utili, who were about to ac- company my brother to Romagna,) to visit the professor. They complained, that remittances which they had expected for the purchase of various articles, particularly of some expensive anatomical tables, had not arrived ; they had at length resolved to depart without the wished-for treasure, and took leave at midnight. Scarcely had they reached their dwelling, when a mes- senger came with the money, and a moment after the good Ressi appeared, (in spite of the
... <
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
73
! of the hour, the cold, and a slight in-
ion,) and offered to the three friends
pains.
jy are at your service," said he.
anks, Professor ! a thousand thanks,
" and they showed him the money they
?t received. We embraced him with
of the utmost tenderness, and accom- him home. Neither my brother, Bucci, li ever saw him more ! name and title were Count Adeodato
he was a native of Cervia, in Ro-
his wife was a niece of Moscati, who t the age of ninety, president of the Institute.
! revered friend ! wherever thy spirit inder, I salute thee, and impart a secret, 1 soothe the sorrow of having found thy »nl routing thee as an accuser before the ribunal. I saw his tears, and I believe ncere. He was unfortunate, not wick- ■give him. We should all forgive, for stand in need of forgiveness.
74 ADDITIONS TO THE
VII.
SIGNOR CANOVA.
See Chapter LI.
Signor Canova has been manager of several of the principal theatres of Italy.*
VIII.
SPEECH OF ONE OF THE JUDGES ON THE DAY OF SENTENCE.
See Chapter LI.
" He said something courteous, which yet seemed cutting. "
This judge was Salvotti. The next day he repeated his words in my presence ; they were, " I thought that you would be condemned to more, and Maroncelli to less."
[ * Some brief notices of other individuals mentioned in the fifty-first Chapter are here omitted, they having been anticipated in the notes to Pellico's Memoirs, published simultaneously with this work.]
E£*-:
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
75
" '
IX.
CESARE ARMARI.
See Chapter LII.
r our departure from Spielberg, Armari erated, having had a public trial. The sioners were satisfied with saying ; " The e is not sufficient. Meanwhile he is ed from residing within the Austrian do- . " This banishment has been very in- to his interests, as he holds property in mbardo-Venetian Kingdom.
V
■'■
)EMONSTRATIONS OF BENEVOLENCE.
See Chapter LVI.
ij God bit 88 nil lliose generous souls, who ashamed h> Inn l/i, unfortunate." generous souls, allow me also, with a in ail, to invoke for you all the bless- heaven and earth.
-'
76 ADDITIONS TO THE
Speaking of the municipal secretary at Lay- bach, Silvio says, " I am sorry to have been so careless as to forget his name." I had noted it in my port-folio, which I hoped to re- cover when released from prison. There I had also recorded various other tokens of generous sympathy with our misfortunes : all was lost. None of the books and papers that we carried to Spielberg, and of which we made a double assignment, one to the governor of the prov- ince, and another to the director, were ever restored to us.
But I shall never forget a sweet young lady, whom I saw on Easter-day at Schott-Wien. Should these pages meet her eye, she will re- member the gentle courtesy for which I am grateful to her.
I shall also bear in mind the ladies who await- ed us at the barriers of Vienna at a late hour of the night, and who, approaching my carriage, said to me :
" In which carriage is the father ? and in which the son ? "
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
77
this is Piero Mai'oncelli, in the next Sil- llico, intimate friends, but not father and
hat is the sentence ? "
yenty years' imprisonment for me, and
for my friend ; but he is so ill, that I willingly add his term to mine, to pro- le release of one so dear to me." i ! my dear Sir, confide, confide in our or ; he is so good that he will not leave ng at Spielberg. We are sure that our
will not. He cannot know that you are ing so heavily chained."
guards did not dare to interrupt this con- on, as they believed the ladies to be of ink ; it therefore continued as long as our jes stopped ; it was a great comfort to
78 ADDITIONS TO THE
XI. CONPALONIERI.
See Chapter LVII.
The London annotator must permit me to rectify an error. It is incorrect to say that Con- falonieri was condemned to the severest impris- onment (carcere durissimo) ; he was condemned for life to severe imprisonment (carcere duro).
XII.
BRENNSUPPE.
See Chapter LXI.
" J endeavoured to swalloio some spoonfuls of the broth ; but it was impossible."
The proper name of this broth in German is Brennsuppe. Twice a year the contractor of Spielberg fried flour in lard, and, when it was completely cooked, put it into large pots, in which it was kept for six months. Every morn- ing he took out great ladlefuls of it, and threw
.. .- /v •■'
"
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
79
boiling water, which dissolved the flour.
the German Brcrmsuppe, which perhaps
ad when properly prepared, but at Spiel-
is disgusting. When I have been asked
it elsewhere, my imagination may per-
ive acted too strongly on my palate ; but
always thought it abominable and anti- an. I recollect that Silvio used to take
pieces of rye bread out of this execrable and place them on a square of blotting that served us for napkins, and at dinner Id add them to his scanty allowance of
Bretmsuppe composed the morning and ; meals of those prisoners who were put tarter-portion.
XIII
CHAINS.
See Chapter LXII.
n General Lafayette was arrested in his
1 i u lit leagues from Olmiitz, tbe captain
district came there the next day, and
he made him enter the carriage which
80 ADDITIONS TO THE
was to convey him back to his prison, he said ;
" Je vous prie de jmsser dans Vautre piece, ou le serrurier vous attend."*
11 Et pourquoi le serrurier," j" said Lafayette.
11 Pour vous mettre les fers, General." %
" Ah ! (said Lafayette) voild une etrange pro- position. Si votre Empereur en etait instruit, vous verriez comme il vous traiterait pour en avoir eu la pensee." §
Lafayette, from whose lips I have repeatedly heard this anecdote, when speaking of the chains we wore at Spielberg, used to say :
" Cette plaisanterie, faite d'un ton menapant, deconcerta le capitaine, qui renonpa a son projet.\\
From reverence for my venerable friend, I have quoted his words in the language in which he pronounced them.
* Will you please to walk into the other room, where the blacksmith is waiting for you.
t The blacksmith ? for what ?
\ To put you in irons, General.
§ Ah ! that is a strange proposal. If your Emperor were informed of it, you would see how he would treat you for having thought of such a thing.
|| This pleasantry, uttered in a threatening tone, discon- certed the captain, who gave up his design.
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
81
XIV.
KXXDA.
See Chapter LXIV. were in truth much indebted to this good t. There was no service in his power he did not willingly render to us all. ay he brought, without its being seen, or is though seen it was suffered to pass, a loaf of black bread to our fellow captive, 10 Villa. It looked as large as a wheel. . whispered ; " Hide it under the cover- will last you for a week, and then you have another." I recall the fact even ith dismay ; in two hours the immense loaf had disappeared"! Villa, who in prison ;en surnamed " the Elephant," was really iphantine size, and absolutely required a quantity of food. It is no exaggeration to lat his illness was caused by hunger, and 3 was actually starved to death. -c of us Were more fortunate who, from institution, could subsisl on little uourish- Bul we all Buffered from hunger, and io Villa was not its only victim ; this nl enemy killed poor Oroboni also. 6
82 ADDITIONS TO THE
XV.
CHERRIES.
See Chapter LXIV.
Those cherries were given me by poor Krai, who almost forced me to accept them. But I could not resolve to taste the delicious fruit till I had set apart half of it for you, my dear Sil- vio, and persuaded Schiller to consent to take it to you. He promised, and I trusted to Schiller's promises. But he added ; " I cannot say who sent them ; I will give them to him as if they were mine ; that I can do."
" Well, let it be so ; but certainly it would be far more grateful to him, if he could asso- ciate this pleasing surprise with the name of his friend, and the assurance that he has partaken of them."
Then I ate them one by one very slowly, and I may say, without exaggeration, that this slight repast was to me an almost endless enjoyment. It seemed to me that I was in Italy ; the dark walls of my dungeon disappeared ; all smiled and brightened around me ; the fetters dropped
:.. -
PRISONS OFPELLICO.
83
iy limbs, I walked beneath the fig trees e orange trees of Naples, where the time of my life had been passed.
Y
XVI
KRAL AND KUBITSKI.
See Chapter LXV.
worthy men, whom we shall never for- rhey did not betray their duty, and yet ow much gentleness was it discharged ! vhen it bore hardest upon us, it lost its y ; for Krai had always a word, a ges- r a glance of the eye, that said ; " It I me to do so, but I must." And Ku-
who had a great respect for Krai, fol- his example. May health and happiness you wherever you may be, and may mis-
be far from your thresholds, — far from 'ho so greatly alleviated the sorrows of >st unfortunate of men.
84 ADDITIONS TO THE
XVII. THE WIFE OF THE SUPERINTENDENT.
See Chapter LXVI.
I too saw this lady, pale, exhausted, stretch- ed upon a mattress, and surrounded by her be- loved children, Odoardo, Filippo, and Maria. She was sensible of her approaching dissolution ; and yet, when she looked upon those little an- gels, she lost her assurance of death, and it seemed to her as if a single breath of life might preserve her for ever here below.
I should be ungrateful, were I not to speak of the mother and aunt of the superintendent. Their affection for me was a great consolation in my misfortunes. The last day that they were at Spielberg, they sent me word that they were about to depart, but that I might feel assured that I should never be forgotten ; — that, remem- bering each other in our prayers, we might daily meet in spirit, until reunited in the presence of God.
PRISONS OF PELLICO,
85
XVIII
DEATH OF OROBONI.
See Chapter LXXVI.
[ous that his dear remains should be in- with all possible decency, we commended o Krai. He assured us, that he had him- osed the eyes of the deceased, that he -ected and assisted in the last sad offices, s had placed a bunch of flowers on his and wrapped him in one of his own
a favor not granted to other convicts, kind heart was certainly not induced to
these attentions by any hope of recom- from Oroboni's parents ; they are no
He will be rewarded by the Father of
i of us composed an epitaph on our de- fellow captive, in the fond delusion, that t of us who should leave Moravia might, c future day, be permitted to place a stone ;k, to mark the spot where those wearied have at length found repose. My epitaph elected from the rest. Delusive as have >ur hopes, 1 preserve the epitaph in this
?
■
86 ADDITIONS TO THE
work,* as a simple testimony of the pious pur- pose, which must remain unexecuted till milder times arrive.
XIX.
OUR CONFESSORS, STURM, BATTISTA, WRBA, ZIAK.
See Chapters LXIII., LXXVIIL, XC.
I fully coincide in my friend's opinion with regard to the powerful influence of which he speaks in Chapter LXXVIII. ; and can bear wit- ness to the eminent degree in which it was pos- sessed by the excellent Father Battista. His goodness and learning produced on me a benefi- cial effect, which, I trust, will prove as lasting as my life. By a singular coincidence I was the first of the prisoners of state, who conversed with Father Battista, with Father Wrba, who so much resembled him, and with Father Paolo- wich, now Bishop of Cattaro. The opinion, which I then formed of their respective characters, re- mained unchanged, and was shared by all my
* See Appendix.
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
37
;aptives. I also foresaw that the services three would be very differently rewarded. ; " If these men should be removed from resent situation, two of them will remain s they now - are ; the Dalmatian Paolo- ill have a mitre and crosier." last confessor with whom we were favor- i Father Ziak, who proved a worthy suc- of those excellent German priests, Sturm, and Father Battista, by the depth of rning, by a becoming reserve in his in- , by his example of charity, and by his g readiness to anticipate and satisfy our for information.
*v^
•"
XX.
PRIVATION OF BOOKS.
See Chapter LXXX.
prisoners of Olmutz likewise were de-
of their books, but with this qualifica-
the imperial decree excluded from their
collection those only which were printed
. and those in which the word repub~
:urr< (I.
av*-,
i
K
88 ADDITIONS TO THE
" A-t-on pew" said Lafayette to the governor- general of Olmutz, " que j'apprenne la Decla- ration des Droits? C'est moi qui I'ai faite." *
Lafayette also said ; " On nous conjisqua un volume d'introduction du Voyage d'A>iacharsisy parcequ'on y rencontrait le mot republique."f
Apropos of the books taken from us by the Emperor's express order ; (Pellico calls them his friends, and they were also mine ;) I heard from the lips of Confalonieri the words address- ed to him by Melzi, vice-president of the Italian Republic, with regard to one of them, Thomas a Kempis. It was the same Melzi, who, as is elsewhere mentioned, refused the nomination of King of Italy, because, said he, " a president may not change his title for another."
Melzi lived at a delightful villa on the Lake of Como, and in the autumn many nobles of Lombardy go to rusticate in the neighbourhood. One morning, Confalonieri went to see the ven- erable man, who was still in bed ; and, observ-
* Is there an apprehension that I may become acquaint- ed with the Declaration of Rights ? I was its author.
t A volume containing the Introduction to the Travels of Anacharsis was seized, because the word republic was found in it.
•
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
89
ir."
I
handsomely bound volume lying open on lble, he was curious to know what it might After the usual friendly inquiries had pass- stween them, he took it in his hand, and "Thomas a Kempis." lzi, who did not know what impression it
make on the mind of Confalonieri, sought iticipate an unfavorable one, and said at : " You, being in the vigor of your age, g yet to run your whole career, and, hav- luch good to do, require to be stimulated tive life. I advise you to it with all that and ever youthful feeling, which binds me r dear country with unextinguishable love ; I urge you to it with these aged hands, i have grown hard in managing, — perhaps nworthily, — the helm of the public weal. emember further, that, when age and in- ies shall have put an end to the career lich you are thus about to engage, another e of benevolence and love awaits you ; he practical code of this new charity, you and in the neglected but sacred volume nomas a Kempis. And (lien think of me." afalonieri heard with veneration the words
aged friend, and stored them in his mem- >r his own and others' benefit.
,•
90 ADDITIONS TO THE
XXI.
THE VISITS.
See Chapters LXXX., LXXXIV.
My mind shrinks from relating the particular acts of cruelty, on each recurrence of those tormenting visits. Having declared that we everywhere met with those who were discreet and compassionate, I may, perhaps, scarcely be believed, when I say, that the respect due to us as men was violated, and that our treat- ment by the visitors amounted to brutality. Such however was the fact ; and it had its origin in causes which have ever made the peo- ple of Austria to be regarded by historians, as the problem, or rather the enigma, of the hu- man race. The Austrian is good ; yet he will commit a cruel action, an outrage, with sin- cere and deep devotional feeling !
" Es gilt des Kaisers Dienst ; " (It is for the service of the Emperor.) This to an Austrian is his rule of right. He can discern neither justice nor injustice except through the medium of the imperial will. The meanest office, if performed in the service of the Emperor, is
• \* ,'-. :: r
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
91
bling ; the most revolting is executed with tion, self-denial, and enthusiasm, as if it
something heroic, of which one might justly roud. For this reason, the noble Germanic n disowns the Austrians, and will on no lint allow them to be called Germans. This : is not peculiar to them ; it is shared by Bohemians and the Hungarians. The time come, when the Austrian may recover his ty ; and, becoming once more a member ie Teutonic body, may understand how he
without servility, unite goodness of heart
fidelity to the state. Let him learn at • from the exemplary people of Wiirtem-
; and they, together with those of Saxony, over, Baden, and Bavaria, will then salute as a brother. It must be agreed, that no ruble man, in the employment of any of 3 German states, would have consented to vbat the governors-general of police, sen- l, Aulic counsellors, and counsellors of state s accustomed to practise towards us. Let
66 what it was.
ie director-general of police (who was a
isellor of .-laic, made the first inquisitorial
on the 17th of March, 1826. lie was
iU
92 ADDITIONS TO THE
accompanied by a certain Pancraz, his aid, whom we called Draghignazzo, on account of his strong resemblance to the demon of that name, described in the Inferno of Dante, and not from any wickedness that he manifested to- wards us. He was a good devil in the true sense of the them ; and so was the director of police. There were seven rooms, of which ours was the first examined. The visit began at seven o'clock in the morning, with lights, and was finished with lights, at seven in the even- ing. If it be considered, that our furniture consisted of two bags of straw, two coverlets, two pitchers for water, and two wooden spoons, it will be difficult to understand what could re- quire an examination of twelve hours ; but it proves the jealous care with which it was con- ducted. The two bags of straw were carried out on the terrace, that Draghignazzo might take out all the straw, and examine carefully if any thing were concealed there. The coverlets were shaken, the pitchers were emptied ; there were no secrets in the spoons. Afterwards we were both stripped naked, our shirts taken off and put on again, and we were then left in that condi- tion, while the director-general of police took a knife from his pocket, and began to rip all the
yy '
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
93
s of our pantaloons and waistcoats. Our ; would have undergone a like examination, I not interfered, being excited to a degree dignation which I had never felt before.
proceeding seemed to me so indecorous, :ie who was engaged in it, so low, that I lyself degraded, in standing before a worm iman kind, decorated with orders, while he
disgraced the dignity of the Emperor, in e name he was acting. On the other side )oor Pellico, his teeth chattering from cold fever ; Pellico, who had remained for three ;ers of an hour in his shirt, waiting until :ounsellor had finished his abominable rip- I could bear it no longer, and, clenching Fists, I desired him, in a trembling voice scarcely suppressing the contempt I felt iim, to give a coverlet to my friend. Donnez une couverture d mon ami." Ji m puis jxis, il find qu'auparavant je tse tout 1 1 In." ' Donnez la couverture; rien n'empechc que
ne dccowiitz aprfo, autani i/nc bon vous fe."|
cannot ; I mud I through this ripping.
five him the coverlet; there ia nothing to prevent
•<>m ripping afterwards as much aa yon please.
94 ADDITIONS TO THE
" JYein, ich . . . (No, I . . . ).
" Gib eine Decke, sage ich dir ! " (I tell you to give him a coverlet !) And in my blind fury I thought I had strength enough to tear out the long thick chain which was fixed in the wall, and beat it about his head. Fortunately the good Krai anticipated my violence, and, taking up a coverlet, he said to the direc- tor ; "Das, das." (That, that.) u Ach I eine Cotze ! " (Ah, a coverlet!) he replied with astonishment. " I did not understand, that by the name of couverture and decke you meant a coverlet. Je croyais que vous demandiez de cou- vrir} oder decken, voire ami, avec les habits que je suis en train de decoudre. Voild eine Cotze ! ': He gave it to him, and it was all that could be obtained to protect the poor invalid from cold. This cost him a severe complaint of the lungs.
* I thought you asked for the clothes of your friend, which I am ripping, to cover him. There is a coverlet.
'""AJL*
PRISONS OF PELLICO,
95
FIRST SEIZURE.
: next day we were examined, to give an nt of the articles taken from us at the
They were as follows ; m Pellico, a pair of spectacles ; from me, e-glass.
m Pellico, a wooden fork ; from me, a n fork.
io was called up, and the director of po- iquired : " Who gave you permission to these spectacles ? " 1 very body and nobody ; during the three
that I have been at Spielberg, I have
them constantly, except at night ; as I efore done when at liberty. The gover- Count Mitrowski, the superintendent of juse, and you yourself, have always seen ith them and never objected to them."
have never seen them ... I do not re- er ... it is an irregularity ... I cannut i them."
a privation was inconceivably distressing or Silvio. He said ; "Sir, you do more the Bmperor : he condemned me to fifteen
I
r
96 ADDITIONS TO THE
years of severe imprisonment, but he did not deprive me of the sense of sight. You, on the contrary, would make me blind." The direc- tor shrugged his shoulders, and proceeded to another inquiry.
" A wooden fork ! but do you know that a wooden fork is a great violation of discipline ? '
Silvio was mild and patient, but he could not endure certain stupid exactions, made under the pretence of being necessary to good order. It appeared to him that there could be no violation of order in leaving us a wooden fork. In vain : the harmlessness of such a concession could not enter heads more wooden than the forks. We were therefore in the habit of repeating on similar occasions a saying proverbial through- out Italy, which is essentially characteristic of the good people of Austria : Lidietro ti e mura, (Back with you and the wall.)* Under these vexations, Silvio could no longer restrain hirn-
[* Indietro tu c il muro : the proverb refers to an order given by the Austrian soldiers, who during a procession at Naples directed the crowd to fall back. They were an- swered, that it was impossible to fall back farther, as the walls of the houses were already pressed against. Back with you and the wall! was the rejoinder.]
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
97
' Will it shake the Austrian empire," , " if, instead of eating filthily with my
I make use of a piece of wood ? "
excellent Count Mitrowski, now high
lor and minister of state, then governor-
of the two provinces of Moravia and
always treated us with great considera- ble came to see us, and lamented our idition, the more, as he was unable to : it, even by restoring the wooden forks
spectacles. He said : ;he director of police had not sequester- ! trifles, — a la bonne heure ; * but, as he e so, I cannot give them to you, causa
•"t
1 where is this great cause of the wood-
a pending ? "
Vienna, my friends, at Vienna, and be-
Emperor himself." i refusal of the forks is more ridiculous id ; but your Excellency must allow,
were not condemned to blindness, but irere imprisonment."
mid have been all easy. • the ■ pending.
7
S
98 ADDITIONS TO THE
"Oh true, true," he replied with emotion; at the same time raising his hand by an involun- tary movement to the spectacles which he al- ways wore, he took them off, and, startled by the sudden dimness which came upon him, he felt all the distress of Silvio, and made a gesture which seemed to say, " Accept them, and you will do me a favor." He was answered by a cordial pressure of the hand, expressive of gratitude for the offer, which was declined, without giving offence.
This excellent man was much agitated, when he left us, and, the next day, the spectacles and eye-glass, which had been sequestered, were restored to us. I do not know whether he acted on his own authority or in compliance with the Emperor's will ; but I know that an order came, that the forks should be refused.
Three years after, that is, in 1828, Count Mitrowski having been promoted at Vienna, and a new superintendent appointed, we re- peated our request, without alluding to the Emperor's former refusal. Our argument was strong ; we said : " They give us five long, thick, wooden needles to knit stockings, which, if we please, we can tie together, and form a
yv
PRISONS OF PELLICO,
99
artificial fork ; what objection can there jiving us one with two or three prongs ? " iew superintendent felt its truth, and re- " It does not appear to me beyond my ity ; I will give it to you and take the sibility ; only, pro forma, I shall give no- ' the secretary of the governor." lyette, during his imprisonment of five and a half at Olmiitz, could not obtain a a fork for himself or his family. One te commandant, being present at his mis- dinner, inquired if it was not new to ) eat with his fingers. " Pas tant que ;ro?/<.r," replied Lafyette ; "pendant la ion des Etats-Unis, j'ai eu beaucoup de ts avec les Iroquois, et j'ai mange chez
tve described the system of the monthly if the director of police ; but before this, perintendent of the prison used to make
so much so as you may suppose ; during the .n Revolution, I was much connected with the . and I have eaten with them. [The words, which i' nt in the original, .'ire now copied, says Signoi ■Hi in a note to the Editor, from a memorandum <l him by General Lafayette.]
5
100 ADDITIONS TO THE
one on his own account. Nor was this enough. As the director of police controlled the superin- tendent, so an Aulic counsellor, or a senator, or perhaps a minister of state, had control over the director of police. The Emperor, from year to year, sent some such personage from Vienna for this express purpose ; and he came upon us unexpectedly, without even forewarning the governor of the province. The first of these high ministerial visitors was the Baron Munch von Berlinghausen ; the second was the Count or Baron von Vogel ; the name of the third was unknown to us, but they gave him the title of Counsellor of State.
The first two complained chiefly of the com- munication which we were said to have with persons without. This was false ; but, to satisfy the Emperor's doubts, a drawing was made of the coxTidor on which our cells opened, show- ing their communication with the terrace which served for exercise, and the direct passage from the terrace to the choir of the church. The doors, windows, and openings of every kind, had been walled up, so that we might not be seen, as we passed, by the other convicts, and still less by any persons without. A list of
•
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
101
Avas annexed to this plan, by which the x>r might see, that water was brought to Us at one hour, bread at another, dinner ither, and that at another the visits were that the occupant of number one was g at such an hour, of number two at an-
and so on. Thus his Majesty, sitting in •set, might give orders with more certainty ild Schiller, — " Now they must eat, now now walk, and now stand still." Besides, sits which were made every month gave lotice, whether every thing remained in \uo. For this end a suitable report was
up, and, in the course of time, the fol- seizures v/ere made of articles pro- ed irregular.
SECOND SEIZURE.
\
: Baron Munch von Berlinghausen saw a >f knit gloves, made of coarse yarn, ly- n the plank which served Foresti as a on leaving the cell, he said to the gov- ( 'ount Mitrowski ; ow .- gloves also ? "
102 ADDITIONS TO THE
The governor appealed to the superintendent, and to the sccondini ; who all declared, that if their Excellencies would only descend to the subterranean dungeons, they would see all the convicts at liberty to wear such woollen gloves, if they pleased ; that they were ordered by the physician, and were indispensable on account of the cold. They took away our gloves the next day notwithstanding, and then called us to an examination.
The director of police : — " Who gave you these gloves, and who permitted them ? "
" You permitted them ; — we gave them to ourselves."
" I permitted them ? That is not true."
" It is true. Do you not remember, that when winter came on, being required to furnish woollen stockings by compulsory labor, we ask- ed your permission to protect our hands from the severity of the season by making, with the yarn and knitting-needles, such gloves as all the convicts wear ? "
" Tricoter ties has (that you should knit stock- ings) is the will of the Emperor, and therefore your indispensable and sacred duty ; but with the yarn and needles tricoter aussi des gants,
wf,
PRISONS OF P E L L I C O .
103
'passe ..." (to knit gloves also is going 1 bounds.)
se good people again exposed themselves lent language on our part, which certainly >uld better not have uttered ; but our en- e had been already so severely tried in sand instances, that this trifling circum-
was amply sufficient to draw forth a burst ing, so much the more bitter, because cavils seemed to proceed from affected
than real stupidity.
THIRD SEIZURE.
second ministerial personage who came
it us, the Count or Baron von Vogel,
2red a breach of order in a small cush-
hich he saw on the bed of Confalonieri.
tory is as follows :
Countess had come to Vienna to solicit
fur her husband. His fate was decided,
courier \\;is despatched at midnight with
ntence of death. The kind-hearted Em-
unable to save his life, sent ;i chamber-
o the Countess, to express to her the
3
-•
104 ADDITIONS TO THE
sorrow of his angelic sovereign that she had not been able to obtain a pardon. Teresa Confalo- nieri hastened in a carriage to the palace, not- withstanding the lateness of the hour ; the Em- press had retired, but could not refuse to receive her ; she wept, their tears were mingled, and the Empress, overcome by her distress, rushed with dishevelled hair into the apartment of her consort, and after some time (what an age of misery for an anxious wife !) she returned with a grant of his life. Haste ! haste ! the courier must be overtaken, must be passed, — he bears the sentence of death ! Teresa threw herself into a carriage, and without a moment's repose or taking any nourishment but a little liquid, and bribing the postillions to the utmost speed, she arrived in time at Milan, and Confalonieri escaped the gibbet. During the journey, her head rested upon a small cushion, which she moistened with her tears ; tears of mortal anx- iety lest she should arrive too late, tears of hope, of conjugal love. This cushion, the con- fidant of the most solemn and most tragic mo- ments in the lives of both, was consigned to the judges who had condemned Confalonieri to death ; they religiously transmitted it to the
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
105
d husband ; he brought it with him to 3rg. There, stripped of his clothes, load- h chains, lying upon straw, deprived of comfort, his cushion still remained to all the superintendents, the governors, Munch von Berlinghausen had respected le Baron or Count von Vogel thought it i irregularity, and took it from him !
circumstance, if compared with that of me spider of Pellisson, crushed by his
will appear much the more barbarous, cushion was a sacred relic*
gnor Maroncelli observes, in a note to the Editor, '■■nut views are given by Pellico and himself of : two noblemen who were sent from Vienna to prison. " But if we consider.'' he says, " the very circumstances in which the relators were placed, ?rence will prove to be only apparent. Pellico nder a severe censorship, which would have pro- iny thing derogatory to a minister of Austria in irvice, while Maroncelli was free from any similar •"J
106 ADDITIONS TO THE
FOURTH SEIZURE.
It happened one day, that the ex-lieutenant Bachiega, returning from the little terrace, on which we were daily permitted to take the air, brought into his dungeon a young sparrow, which, unseen by the guards, he had found in a hole in the wall. This sparrow was his con- stant companion till the day of the monthly visit ; but when that arrived, while they were as usual examining the straw, the bird escaped from under the bed, where it had been con- cealed. The director of police dismissed the guards for want of vigilance ; he took posses- sion of the sparrow, and the poor prisoner was deprived of the only amusement and solace, which remained to him in his separation from all things living;. When he was threatened, that this breach of discipline should be reported to the Emperor, he protested against the use of such a term, and desired them to subjoin to the report, that he did not think he was act- ing at variance with the regulations of the state in rearing a sparrow, and moreover, that he formally requested permission to have one.
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
107
1 poor Villa said to the director of po- " Since you are going to draw up a report to his Majesty to obtain a spar- e pleased, at the same time, to mention to protect my baldness ; for the physi- id the superintendent of the prison say ey are not authorized to go to this ex- lary expense."
director could not refuse to transmit our :s ; he complied ; and after two months ijesty wrote to the governor, to consult le superintendent as to the manner of r the convicts in case of baldness. The itendent replied, that they gave them 1 caps.
Emperor, after another interval of two , replied to the governor, that, as regard- In"- baldness, no distinction should be etween him and the other convicts. But id not avail himself of the imperial grant, c the woollen cap made his head too \ third petition was sent, and, as be- lftcr two months an imperial autograph d, that a sparrow should be given I" Ba- tor In- comfort, and a wig to Villa. I know whether his Majesty wrote with
■
I
;<lv< v
/'•
108 ADDITIONS TO THE
his own hand, that the latter, for the sake of economy, should not be made of human hair ; but well do I know, that he who executed his sovereign's pleasure thought to conform to it, by presenting Villa with a wretched fabric of dog's hair, instead of a wig made in the usual manner.
We were told that our last visitor was a counsellor of state ; but we did not know his name. His deportment was noble and exem- plary ; we saw that he was moved by the sight of so much misery ; but, being unable to alle- viate it, he spoke to no one except to me ; — he made some inquiries about my recent illness. This was the only visit, which did not add some new evil or privation to those we already en- dured.
If any one has said, or shall say, that any other visitors, before the end of July, 1830, came to see us at Spielberg, I assure him pub- licly that he is mistaken. It is true, that they frequently announced to us the intended visit of some member of the imperial family, such as
"
,vv
PRISONS OF PELLICO.
109
ond son, the Archduke Charles-Francis, tie to Spielberg, but would not consent the prisoners of state. We interpreted usal as a proof of modesty, and were to discover such a feeling in the young
:
t has been reported that the Archduke h, Archbishop of Olmiitz, with some of lily of the Duke of Modena, and other
in his suite, were introduced into our 3 a mark of distinction. It is false. It jn added that Confalonieri, the proud, ued Confalonieri, during the visit, turn- back upon these princes, and would not i- his head ; so that the keeper went up
took off his prison-cap, and threw it on aund. This is false ; it is a calumny ; shameful calumny, which should fill with B whoever could be guilty of uttering it high-minded and honorable a man as »nieri ; an honor, not only to Italy and i age, but to the past and future history
world. What meanness ! Could Con- ■i be capable of an indecorum ? lie re- himself too much to be guilty of one, >Wards his gaolers. True it is, that, in
4
?
110 ADDITIONS TO THE
presence of the great personages who came to visit us, we seemed to be the judges, they the guilty criminals. But was it our fault, if a sense of the noble cause for which we were imprisoned, imparted dignity to us, while a con- trary feeling bowed down the Barons Vogel and Berlinghausen ? And why did the third, that honorable man, whose countenance spoke so much compassion, give no sign whatever of abasement ? Was it that the former were charg- ed with a servile mission, and, while engaged in its execution, blushed in the presence of those who, though bound with chains, were no slaves ; while the other, though he might not refuse to be a witness of our misery, came not like them to increase its bitterness ? This cal- umny against Confalonieri proceeded from the court of the Duke of Modena, where once there lived an angel of goodness, afterwards Empress, who was foster-sister to that magnanimous suf- ferer.
PRISONS OF PELLICO. HI
XXII. COMPULSORY LABOR.
Three kinds of compulsory labor were re- quired of us ; sawing wood, making lint, and particularly knitting stockings.
While I was sawing wood, or making lint, my hand alone was enslaved ; my thoughts roved at pleasure ; but in knitting stockings, my mind, and my eye, and my hand, must be chained down there, — to those stitches, — fix- ed desperately there, — and I could not think ! This was a double slavery, far more intolera- ble than the first. Not to think of my mother, my sisters, or my friends ! Not even to think of my grief ; — and this was the most edifying occupation that Spielberg could afford me ! The employment was physically disgusting and un- healthy ; but they would not understand, or rather would not regard, any of our reraon- strances. They gave us a large ball of offen- sive yarn, (offensive, because it was saturated witli bad oil or grease ;) the cell was soon in- fected with it, and an intolerable headache was
the first consequence of that foul exhalation,
112 ADDITIONS TO THE
from which our cells were never afterwards free.
And yet the same superintendent, who felt how cruel it was to deny us wooden forks, and therefore had given them to us, was never able to understand the cruelty of this labor. Com- pulsory labor we had not refused to perform ; this alone we could not do. In vain : he made use of rude treatment and threats of every kind ; it is no exaggeration to say, — brutal threats ! I have seen poor Munari, a gray-headed man, more than seventy years old, who had frequently been chief magistrate at Bologna, Ferrara, and Modena, and whose character and learning enti- tled him to respect, — I have seen him unmoved by the physical evils which he suffered without intermission, and yet weep like a child because obliged to knit stockings, and to furnish one pair, at least, every week. Those who did not fulfil their task, were threatened with the depriva- tion of food and exercise, with blows, and with a report to Vienna. The first two threats were never executed.
"I also will make a report to Vienna!" I replied, one day, to the superintendent. " Do you believe that the Emperor would refuse to
PRISONS OF PELLICO. 113
grant an exemption from work, and from such foolish work, to a man who has had the circu- lation of his blood interrupted by the amputa- tion of his leg, and who cannot remain seated for any long time without being subject to painful cramps ? " (I suffered dreadfully from them for two years.) "Besides, the rheumatism has attacked my whole person," (even now that I am at liberty I am not free from it,) " and, affecting my hands particularly, it prevents me from holding the needles."
Silvio added : " If my friend were to write to the Emperor, be would tell him things that would make him shudder ; and not he only, but all of us, would be exempted. It is time to cease from a persecution so disgraceful, so atrocious, so contrary, I might say, to the will of the Emperor. All the great personages who have come from Vienna and from whom we have sougbt relief from this Labor, have replied, tli.it the labor was granted by his Majesty as a relief. Now you convert a relaxation into a task, rind threaten us with moral and physical tortures, which, nevertheless, you dare not put in execution. You yourself will be punished for men presumption ! "
8
114 ADDITIONS TO THE
Such was our situation. The last of these omissions took place on the last day of our abode at Spielberg ; and when we were sum- moned to the office to hear the news of our liberation, we thought, at first, that it was to receive notice of some punishment, as that morning we had not finished the pair of stock- ings due every Sunday.
XXIII
SENTENCE OF EXCOMMUNICATION ; FATHER PAULOWICH.
In order to give currency to all the evil as- sertions against Confalonieri, many other unjust imputations, with regard to religion, have been cast upon him. It is said, that he alone refus- ed the consolations of religion, and thus brought upon himself greater privations than were suf- fered by his companions. This is false. The true state of the case is as follows. The Dal- matian confessor, Father Stefano Paulowich, came to Spielberg with what purported to be
PRISONS OF PELLICO. 115
a sentence of excommunication from the Pope, pretending that we were included in it, and offered us the means of returning into the bo- som of the church.
We answered with calmness and dignity, that the excommunication could have no reference whatever to us, since the Carbonari were there described as, by virtue of their institution, the authors of the most atrocious crimes ; while those of us who were Carbonari had embraced Carbonarism on purpose to have more power- ful, compact, and active means of exercising the noblest and most difficult virtues prescribed by Christianity ; and that our conspiracy (which was a conspiracy of Christians, by whatever name it might be called,) was the Conciliatore. It was a conspiracy in open day, founded upon principles, and supported by measures, which had received the sanction of eternal justice ; principles and measures so honorable to those who professed them, that they would degrade themselves by submitting to an excommunica- tion, which was no other than a base and slan- derous imputation of the blackest crimes, that the infernal regions have ever poured forth upon tin earth. Tins protest concluded with a decla-
116 ADDITIONS TO THE
ration, that we were ever the first to invoke the blessed consolations of religion, but never at the price of infamy.
To this Father Stefano Paulowich replied : " I do indeed believe, Gentlemen, that you are not guilty of any of the crimes enumerated in the papal excommunication ; therefore I trust altogether to you, with regard to the honorable and highly moral designs of the associations censured by Rome. Neither may I withhold the confession, that, commissioned as I am to direct your consciences, I have in conversing with you always met with new and highly in- structive lessons, combined with examples of practical charity, which have at once edified me, and made me blush, while I acknowledge how much better you are than myself. I then receive you all into the bosom of the church, and release you from any interdict that you may have incurred ; on the single condition, that you will disclose all you know respecting any individual who has desired to overturn the Austrian government, or any other government whatsoever."
We believed, that neither Paulowich, nor any other true minister of God, had a right to im-
PRISONS OF PELLICO. 117
pose terms which, by the general sense of rec- titude, are pronounced infamous. None but a minister of state, a minister of men, using, or rather abusing his power, could make them the conditions of an act of justice, of equitable reparation ; such as our readmission into the church. Therefore, without accepting this re- admission on any terms, we declared, of our own free and spontaneous will, that we had no disclosures to make.
Thus we were all admitted, and Confaloni- eri as well as the others. Afterwards, affairs changed ; a revolution broke out in Russia after the death of Alexander, and Paulowich came to torment the prisoners of state, under the pretence that they had affirmed what was false, when they said that they had no disclosures to make, and that, if they had made them, such events would not have taken place in Russia. As it" we must be responsible for all the strug- glea for liberty which the oppressed nations of Europe cannot forbear from making ! No answer was returned to the charges of Paulowich, and he issued his interdicts, first against one, and then against another.
Throughout this transaction, where is there an\ insubordination on our pari f Is this pride ?
118 ADDITIONS TO THE
At least, do not pervert language, and above all, do not calumniate innocence.
In general, my kind readers, fellow country- men and strangers, be ever ready to believe good of the absent, — but never evil ; because, if others accuse them falsely, they cannot de- fend themselves, and an evil report may gain credit to the great injury of truth, of an individual, perhaps of a nation, perhaps of all mankind. You may thus retard some social improvement, which one man might have been able to produce, and which the united efforts of many others may prove incapable of effect- ing, even in a long course of time.
To Signor Carlo Uboldi, and to all the friends and relatives of Confalonieri (for it is unne- cessary to name you separately), I would say ; Do not distress yourselves by the thought, that he is restless, troubled, and impatient of re- straint. According to the manner in which lan- guage is used by Silvio, by his fellow-captives at Spielberg, and by all who are not abject, Christian resignation is the science of suffering nobly ; and Confalonieri is more resigned than most men, inasmuch as he stands preeminent in wisdom and virtue.
PRISONS OF PELLICO. 119
XXIV
schiller's god-daughter.
See Chapter LXXXI.
We used to see her in the first year of our captivity, as we were walking on the large ter- race, a privilege taken from us on the arrival of the Milanese. She was not more than twelve or thirteen years old, and used to play round the immensely tall old man, with a grace and naivete not easy to describe, when one remem- bers, that a German girl of thirteen, notwith- standing her physical developement, is much younger in mind, than a French or Italian of the same age.
Before we left Spielberg, we learned that the god-daughter of our good Schiller was married.
120 ADDITIONS TO THE
XXV.
DON MARCO FORTINI.
See Chapter LXXXV.
He was an excellent priest. One day some of his friends took him to one of their meet- ings, and by way of amusement made him un- dergo some ceremonies to which they gave the name of an institution into Carbonarism, — but it was no such thing ! Being arrested as a real Carbonaro, and, as such, condemned to fifteen years of severe imprisonment at Spielberg, the day when sentence was pronounced on him in Venice, he said to a friend ; " But tell me at least what is a Carbonaro ! "
He did not leave Spielberg till 1826, after nine years of confinement, six of which were passed in severe imprisonment.
PRISONS OF PELLICO. 121
XXVI.
A SOxVG.
See Chapter LXXXVII.
The surgeons were in the adjoining room for three quarters of an hour, making preparations for the operation.
After the hopes which I had been allowed to indulge, in April and May, of recovering the use of my limb, the spring had quite passed away, and this was the end of all ! Filled with this thought, and, on the one hand, little expect- ing a favorable result, and, on the other, regard- ing even the worst without much apprehension, I sang as follows. These verses being intended for my mother, and other dear friends, when I should be no more, it was proper that they should wear the semblance of composure, that they might l>c the less unworthy of the noble objects for whom they were designed.
Primaverlli aurette Chfi [talis sorvolate,
Voi iju'i non m.'ii spirato S nil" egro prigionier.
222 ADDITIONS TO THE
Quanto d' aprile e maggio Chiamata 6 la reddita ! Venner . . . ma non an vita Per 1' egro prigionier.
Sotto moravo cielo Bella natura langue, Ne ricomporre il sangue Puo all' egro prigionier.
Quanto durai di spasimi ? Quanto a durarne 6 ancora Sin die una dolce aurora Disciolga il prigionier !
Surga ! e che alfine io senta Madre, fratello e suore Sanar col loro amore Lo sciolto prigionier.
Ahime ! — speranze tante Vidi voltarsi in guai, Che piu speranza omai Non ride al prigionier.
TRANSLATED BY MR. HALLECK.
Winds of the wakened Spring !
O'er my loved land, my Italy, again Ye speed with happy wing, —
But visit not my prison-couch of pain.
PRISONS OF PELLICO. 123
For April's dewy air,
For smiling May I prayed, but prayed in vain ; They came — but could not bear
Their blessing to my prison-couch of pain.
These cold Moravian skies,
That wither Spring's first buds on hill and plain, Fright from my suffering eyes
Her power to soothe my prison-couch of pain.
How many pangs have passed !
How many more must rack me, limb and brain, Ere the day dawns, at last,
That frees me from my prison-couch of pain !
Blest day ! when on the arm
Of mother, sister, brother, deep I drain
The cup of Love, whose charm
Will heal my prison-wounds of grief and pain !
Alas ! these dreams of sleep
Break but to rivet my unbroken chain,
And Hope but comes to weep
Beside me at my prison-couch of pain !
k
T subjoin the letter, in which I enclosed these verses to the admirable translator of the iV<- giom of Pellico, Monsieur A. Dc Latour, as the design I had in composing them is there mentioned.
124 ADDITIONS TO THE
" Sir,
'3
"I send you the poor verses which I sung ex- temporaneously, in the interval while they were preparing the instruments to amputate my leg; how long that interval appeared to me ! Pellico alludes to them in his Memoirs, which you are translating with so much grace and beauty. When I composed them, they were designed for my mother, as a legacy, which I confided to the memory of my friend, that they might be religiously transmitted, word for word, to those who were dear to me. If this bequest had been in prose, those dear friends might have doubted its authenticity ; but such a doubt could not arise with regard to words connected by rhyme. This influenced me ; — and not the desire of writing verses.
" The consequences of the amputation were not fatal. Two years after, I regained my lib- erty ; but my mother has not yet been able to embrace her son, nor to read the words I dic- tated for her. My life is indeed a tissue of misfortunes.
" PlERO MaROXCELLI."
PRISONS OF PELLICO. 125
XXVII. SILVIO RESTORED TO LIBERTY.
See Chapter XCIX.
The joy, the enthusiasm, that the return of an Italian so beloved must have awakened among his countrymen, will be better under- stood by learning how deeply he was lament- ed, when it w;is believed that he had died at Spielberg. A distinguished lyric poet has writ- ten a noble ode,* which the evil state of the times, and the oppression that the Italians suf- fer in Italy, prevented him from printing. It was, however, generally circulated, with ap- plause equal to that bestowed on Manzoni's cel- ebrated ode on the death of Napoleon. The Peninsula was full of it, and let that prove to his Excellency the Bishop of Cattaro (Father Stefano Paulowich), formerly our confessor, that he v.:i- grossly mistaken when he said to us at Spielberg ;
' Thia poem ia ^-i vn in the Appendix.
126 ADDITIONS TO THE
" You must know, my friends, that the Em- peror would willingly release you, the rather that your maintenance is a prodigious expense ; and if he does not, it is for your good, because the Emperor is so beloved in Italy, and you are so hated, that, were he to restore you to liberty, the people would stone you. He keeps you here, therefore, entirely for your own safe- ty,— to preserve your lives."
XXVIII
CONCLUSION.
For myself, having been released from Spiel- berg, I went into Italy and entered Ferrara to obtain a passage to Rome, where my family resided (an aged mother, two sisters, and a brother) : the Cardinal d'Arezzo ordered me to depart ; at Bologna, the Cardinal Bernetti did the same ; at Florence I was allowed to remain by the Grand Duke, but Count Saurau, the Austrian minister, (after I had proved, what he did not believe, that my limb had been ampu-
PRISONS OF PELLICO. 127
tated by the man whose business it was to shave us for eight years and a half,) required the Duke to expel me from his dominions. Mean- while the Papal government banisbed my brother from Rome, that he might not welcome to the bosom of his family the captive now returning home after eleven years of absence and suffer- ing.
As there was no longer in Italy a spot of ground which might venture to receive me, I was once more compelled to abandon my dear country. I came to France, which I found divided by various political opinions, — perhaps it is more correct to say parties. I was kindly regarded by all, and one evening (March oth, 1831), as I was leaning on the arm of the venerable Lafayette, in a saloon of the Hotel- de-Ville, I, for the first time, met the King, the Queen, and all the royal family.
The King desired me (<> rely upon his kind- ness, and I answered: "I avail myself of it immediately, t<> entreal thai it may all be ex- erted m behalf of my poor companions whom I lefl at Spielberg ; nine are still there, ami one of them i- a French citizen."
128 ADDITIONS TO THE
The King and Queen expressed great solici- tude to comply with my request, — and it is but justice to say, that they have adopted every means for that purpose.
We had been conversing in French, when the King, changing his language, said to me in excellent Italian : " It will be more agreeable to you to speak your own beautiful language ; tell me in it how I can gratify you."
Without concealing how much I was touched by this gentle courtesy, I changed my language but not my entreaty, and we continued to con- verse in Italian.
APPENDIX
APPENDIX.
(A.)
rr
NOTICES OF ITALIAN HISTORY. MASSACRE OF
PRINA. COUNTS PORUO AND CONFALONIERI.
Count Luigi Porro Lambertenghi of Como was a gentleman of noble sentiments, unstained with ambition, ardently devoted to his country, and ever ready to sacrifice all in her cause. His country was not Lombardy alone ; it em- braced Italy. "When the moment for action fame, he was a man to stand forth and say, " I will act, — who will act with me ? " With Count Porro for its leader, all Lombardy would have put itself in motion, so unanimous was the opinion of bi.s probity and disinterestedness.
[• The three following articles, in the original, form one long Addixione. It has been thought advisable to them, and place them in the Appendix. The translation •l Sedgwick.]
132 APPENDIX.
The first circumstance that occurs to me has become so much a matter of history, that I must be pardoned if I exceed the ordinary limit of these notes to vindicate the reputation of men worthy of all honor.
Eugene Beauharnais was at Mantua, expect- ing the senate of Milan to proclaim him king. There were reasons for and against this meas- ure. Its rejection might prove (as it did) fatal to the Italian cause ; but, instead of proceeding from anti-nationalism, that is, from a desire to call in the Germans, it sprung from an utter weariness of every foreign name.
The Milanese nobility believed they could institute an independent government, that, like the ancient league of Lombardy, of which Pope Alexander the Third was the glorious founder and chief, would prove the nucleus and bulwark of Italian liberty. A sublime project, but liable to be crushed in the germ by the Austrian arms, — and it was thus crushed !
Meanwhile Count Ghislieri, Aulic Counsellor of Francis the First, came to Milan, and kept himself concealed in the house of an illustrious family, well affected to Austria. There he saw the old adherents of the Mta Casa (House of
MASSACRE OF PRINA. 133
Austria), and there it was determined, that the massacre of Prina should he effected on the same day that the senate should reject Prince Eugene and declare itself sovereign. The con- spirators (all rich Lombard proprietors) agreed, in order to effect their purpose, to summon the peasants, from their respective estates, di- recting them to enter the city unarmed, and at different gates, as if coming to market. After- wards, at the Palace of , they were to be
supplied with clubs and stones, and some with arms. When the senate should be assembled, this rabble was to burst in upon them, and with tumultuous outcries to demand the minister Pri- na, in order to sacrifice him to the vengeance of the people, as the author or adviser of the exorbitant taxes.
The aim of the conspirators was to excite a popular commotion, which by intimidation should prevent the senate from taking the final vote ; bo that before Eugene should be nominated, and before the senate should constitute itself an independent regency, the adherents of the Alia Caaa Bhould raise a shout for Froncw, and thus the conquest of Lombardy, if not more easily achieved, would be accelerated.
134 APPENDIX.
The necessary consequence of the success of this iniquity was to bring the whole to light ; but those who plotted it spared no effort to conceal its real authors ; that, when it should serve their purpose, they might impute it to the advocates of the independence of Italy. This atrocious calumny was afterwards propa- gated, and supported with such successful hy- pocrisy, that it has been admitted as a demon- strated truth even by distinguished writers.
The day arrived. The mountains about Co- mo and those that surround Lago Maggiore, and the plains opposite, poured forth in torrents the inhabitants of their villages and shores, — a savage, threatening multitude, who may well have asked one of another, " What crime is it they would buy of us ? " The rendezvous was at the palace where Count Ghislieri had resided incognito. He it was, from whom the watch- word and the impulse were received. The un- bridled rabble ran tumultuously through the streets and squares, till they reached the senate- house. Prina was not there. They rushed like madmen through the city, till they reached San Fedele. There was Prina's palace, and there he was taken. An instant before, a friendly
"MASSACRE OF PRINA. 135
individual had seen him and said, "Fly." The unfortunate man replied, " I should not then be a Piedinontese."
The murderous populace dismantled the house, and ransacked the minister's strong-box. The treasures of Croesus, that had been amassed by draining out the very life-blood of the poor people, consisted of ninety francs in money, some memoranda of debts, but no records of property, for the simple reason that he had none.
Greece and Rome in their golden days pos- sessed great souls that equalled, none that sur- passed him in purity.
Meanwhile the good looked on and groaned. Counts Confalonieri and Porro alone mounted their horses and cried to the people, "What madness has seized you ? Forbear ! Your enterprise is infamous. Those who set you on deceive you. Do you not seethe snare that is prepared for you ? Be not Frenchmen, — be not Austrian s, — be yourselves ! Behold your senate on the very point of making you free ;iinl independent, — aboui to decree that your money shall n<» lunger be sent out of Italy, — that, for tin- future, your blood Bhall be shed < > 1 1 1 ■ to maintain your own sovereignty; and you,
136 APPENDIX.
at this solemn crisis, stain poor Milan and the Lombard name with the crime of assassination. Are you drunk with rage — direct it against the standard of a despotism which has ceased, and generously and manfully hazard your lives to prevent the imposition of another foreign yoke ! " It was all in vain ! Confalonieri and Porro then hastened to General Pino. They entreated him to assemble the small military force, not to harm, but to curb the mad popu- lace. Pino dreaded compromising the credit of the hoped-for government. He feared that rigor might seem like violence, and he pre- ferred to conciliate the populace whose assent in this exigency he deemed essential to the due recognition of the sovereignty of the Milanese regency. He therefore withheld the military force, and, mounting his horse, mingled with the multitude, soothing them with mild language, while they, ignorant of the difficult part he sus- tained, regarded the conduct of this honest man as connivance. The three noblemen, failing in their efforts to pacify the implacable Hydra, as a last expedient, applied to the curate of San Fedele, and implored him to appear in proces- sion with the host. The venerable presence of
MASSACRE OF PRINA. 137
a priest bearing aloft the host of peace would have operated on the raging waves of the mul- titude like the presence of Israel on the waters of the Red Sea, the people dividing and stand- ing immovable like two walls, while the res- cued Prina, following the minister of Heaven and overshadowed by the wing of God, would have passed through unharmed. But the curate was of a poor spirit. He did not feel his mis- sion, and he refused. The massacre of Prina was consummated. There are persons, who maintain that Pino wished to be nominated King of Italy. There may have been some who de- sired this, and it is quite possible that Pino himself hoped for it. Certain it is, that the old vice-president, Melzi, the venerable relic of the Cisalpine Republic, the Washington of Italy, when the regal nomination was offered to him, showed the crutches which supported his feeble frame, and uttered these beautiful words : " A President does not change that title for an- other ; — you need a youthful king who can lead you to battle, — elect Pino."
There are those, too, who maintain that Eu- gene had given personal offence to Count Con- falonieri. This is not true, unless it be proved
138 APPENDIX.
by Eugene's having wished, on several occa- sions, to appoint Confalonieri to eminent offices, or unless it be proved by these being invaluably refused.
There are no presumptions against Count Porro, and all, even his enemies, admit that, in the affair of Prina, his conduct was irre- proachable. This concession in his favor is a virtual acquittal of his two friends ; because Porro was before, and at that time, in the closest bonds of intimacy with Pino and Con- falonieri. With the latter he continued after- wards associated in all public and private af- fairs. Not so with General Pino, for he with- drew wholly into the country, where, stricken more by calumny than infirmity, he closed his life, honored and lamented.
There are two facts which enhance the value of the tribute due to the spotless name of Federigo Confalonieri. The one relates to the Countess Calderara, the countrywoman and in- timate friend of Prina, who, though before his death she had no acquaintance with Federigo, afterwards sought his friendship, expressing her sense of all he had done to save her illustrious, ill-fated countryman. Her brother, a resident in
.MASSACRE OF PRINA. 139
the house of Porro, met there as a weekly visiter this new and noble friend of his sister and him- self. The other fact alluded to is this : Con- falonieri published a justification of himself, from which it was so evident, that the murder- ous populace was urged on by the same hand that first unfurled in Milan the standard of the Alta Casa, that this power had no sooner es- tablished its domination in the Italian provinces, on which it was pleased to bestow the name of the Lombard-Venetian Kingdom, than an order was issued to Count Confalonieri to expatriate himself for some months in expiation of the high-minded publication. As to the rest, jus- tice to all ! It is no novelty in history to meet with rash ministers, who carry their zeal so far as to commit the most atrocious crimes without tin- previous knowledge or subsequent appro- bation «if their masters.
I firmly believe the House of Austria to be innocent of tin- murder of Prina, with which the bloodthirsty Ghislieri laid tin: foundation of the Anti-Italian kingdom in Lombardy. I believe it to be innocent, because gratuitous and indi- vidual iniquities ordinarily proceed from per- sonal enmity or self-interest, not from govern-
140 APPENDIX.
ments. Prina never had provoked the displeas- ure of the House of Austria; whereas Ghislieri, blinded by selfishness, hoped for a reward for his voluntary act. I believe Austria innocent, because Ghislieri was not rewarded for this, nor for other similar misdeeds.
Ghislieri was the principal agent in the pro- cess by which the celebrated physican Rasori, General Demeester, Colonels Gasparinetti, Mo- retti, Ullini, and others, were condemned. At the conclusion of this secret inquisition the House of Austria disgraced Ghislieri ; and he, abandoned by those whom he thought to have served, cast down from the atmosphere of court favor, which till then had confounded his moral perception of right and wrong, came to himself, and, seeing the evil he had done, it seemed to him that an infernal mantle, cov- ering him from head to foot, was fastened to his shoulders and could not be thrown off. To divest himself of it, he tore away the secular dress, — in vain. To hide it, he put on the Franciscan habit ; — this too was in vain. It still wrapped him about, and, racked by remorse, he expired a few months after.
MASSACRE OF PRINA. 141
We hate no man. Our controversy is with evil, not with the penitent. Penitence in her sackcloth is as spotless as innocence in her robe, and both repose together in purity on the bosom of God. May he vouchsafe his peace to that unfortunate man !
In speaking of a curate of San Fedele, I have said, that he had a poor spirit. To avoid misunderstanding, I add, that the true and re- spectable curate of San Fedele had, for many years, been apoplectic, and was represented by a colleague, who might have been, in his own curacy, a lion of Judah, but, being responsible to another, he doubted, trembled, and, like Niobe, was petrified. I saw the excellent apoplectic and octogenarian curate four years after the event. He grasped my hand, and wept while he said to me ; " Had Counts Porro and Con- falonieri, who were once of my flock, come to me whilst I was in my parochial seat, and en- treated me to go forth with the host to save Prina, 1 certainly should not have made them wait tor me. Oh ! I would have done it with- out 1 >< • i 1 1 lt asked ! "
142 APPENDIX.
The senate, inimical to France and fearing Austria, dissolved itself, and a regency was nominated ; not one representing the Kingdom of Italy, as composed by Napoleon, but mere- ly a Lombard regency. Its first act was the selection of three commissioners to be sent to foreign powers. The commissioners were Counts Federigo Confalonieri, Luigi Porro, and Baron Trecchi. Confalonieri went to Paris, where the Congress then was ; Trecchi to Genoa to Lord Bentinck ; and Porro to the Austrian camp beyond the Ticino, to meet General Belle- garde. Lord Bentinck received Trecchi cour- teously, and promised all that was in his power, whatever service his good will could render him, but nothing from his government. Gen- eral Bellegarde, respecting in Porro neither the rights of man, nor the sacred character of an ambassador, replied by making him a prisoner, breaking up the camp before his eyes, and put- ting his troops in motion to descend into Lom- bardy. Porro escaped from the enemy's hands, and returned to the regency with the sad news. Confalonieri presented himself at Paris to Francis the First, who was all amazement, that his ancient subjects of Lombardy, after twenty
PORRO AND CONFALONIERI. 143
years of French occupation, should presume to harbour the thought of independence. "Go," he exclaimed, " and say to them, that new rights are added to the old ones. While I speak, my armies have reconquered them, and thus they are doubly my property," (cosa mia.)
Thus the regency was crushed. Bellegarde established a provisional government, during which Rasori's conspiracy occurred, and the criminal process consequent upon it was com- menced by Ghislieri.
But Counts Porro and Confalonieri were not found among the conspirators. They again ap- peared, but ever without disguise ; when called forth by a day of peril which they had not pro- voked, in a period when it was the duty of every citizen to remember that lie has a coun- try, and when not to remember it was a crime, — then, without recourse to violence, they took advantage of all the means which circumstances presented them.
Alter that desolation of Italy, called the Rcsto- ration, Porro went to Naples. There he learnt from Murat'a prcpn f;ii ions, both open and se- cret, his purpose to extend his power. On his return he visited Pius the Seventh, who, cm-
144 APPENDIX.
bracing him before he knelt, demanded the news from Naples. Porro communicated what he had observed. Pius replied, " I am not un- friendly to Murat's enterprise, nor to the secret means by which he operates. The Carbonari have Italian hearts. You are an Italian, Count Porro, and so am I."
Whoever was acquainted with Pius the Sev- enth knows, that no one was more impatient than he of the Austrian yoke, and that these were not hollow phrases, but the true sentiments of that good old man. Cardinal Spina, his in- timate friend, professed like principles ; and, as long as he was legate at Bologna, he saved the Carbonari of that place from the requisi- tion of the Austrian government. So much can- not be said for all the Cardinals who were legates.
But the enterprise of Murat failed.
THE CONCILIATORE. 145
(B.)
THE CONCILIATORE. COR-MENTALISM.
Count Porro returned to Milan. The Aus- trian provisional government had become per- manent, so that nothing remained for the true- hearted citizen but to wait, and, during this hol- low and uncertain peace, generously to foster industry, commerce, agriculture, and the arts. For this end Confalonieri and Porro again com- bined their efforts. " Let us regenerate our country," they said, " totally regenerate it ! " Letters, arts, schools, and manufactures were all brought into action to advance this new pro- ject for the improvement of Italy.
Tiny began by instituting, in the house of Porro, the celebrated journal the Conciliator e, of which Silvio Pellico was the Editor. Through thi^ journal they hoped to give a new literary direction to the intellect, or, in other words, to letters to their pure and primary end, 10
146 APPENDIX.
that is to say, to lead to the true by means of the beautiful.
They aimed to strike down the narrow limits of an intolerant and exclusive system of criti- cism, to produce a higher appreciation of the riches of our native literature, a better use of that of other nations, and to encourage such writers as should abandon the dogmas of con- ventional and counterfeit nature, to study her as she is, — one and multiform, but always pure and full of life.
The tragedies of Silvio Pellico, which may be called psychological, the historical tragedies of Alessandro Manzoni, the sublime odes of the latter, the tender and felicitous Canliche of the former, the Ildegonda and the Crociati of Grossi, the Promessi Sposi, in short our most beautiful literary productions from 1819 to the present moment, are due to the salutary and enlight- ened impulse then given. When, in the place of nerveless, garrulous, and empty writers, Al- fieri had appeared, who, like a mighty Samp- son, breasted himself against the literature of two centuries, grasping and annihilating it, and crushing a herd of profane Philistines; — when two only, burning with the sacred fire of the
THE CONC1LIATORE. 147
God of Israel, escaped the general ruin, he * who sang the Christians' victories over the Turks, and he | who so powerfully personified
* Vincenzo Felicaja, the sublimest of all the lyrical poets of Italy that have appeared for four hundred years, from Petrarch to Manzoni.
i Andreini, author of the remarkable tragedy of "Adam" (Adamo), in which Heaven, Earth, and Hell bear a part. The gigantic imaginations, and the bold and happy flights of genius, that his drama presents, which, according to the true nature of dramatic poetry, is not composed of nar- ration, but of action, exalt Andreini to the rank of the most powerful inventors. His tragedy was represented at Milan, and received with indescribable enthusiasm. With the dramatic company which he directed, he was invited by Mary de' Medici to the French Court, where honors, extraordinary in those times, awaited him. A magnificent edition of the Jidamo, with plates, was issued at Milan before Andreini's departure for Paris. It bears date IG17. After this Andreini fill into oblivion, and, if he wore now and then disinterred, it was to be ridiculed. It is true, that Andreini belonged to an age of bad taste in writ- ing . hot. ought any school, however correct, to tread under foot the substance of his sublime conception? It may easily be understood, that, before a good style and good thoughts were both attained, the human mind, in its natural progress (which is slow, gradual, and not by leaps) will ;irriv ;it a period when style becoming despotic will arbitrarily condemn merely good thoughts. Thus the fate
148 APPENDIX.
the allegory of the origin of man, — the Vico of poets, — like him sublime, barbarous, and un- known, the inspirer of the magnificent imagi- nations of Milton, as is Vico of the profound truths which now pervade every school of phi- losophy ; — when the colossal Alfieri was en- circled by a noble and pure band of writers, exquisite in their different styles 5 — when not a few of them, as Foscolo, Pindemonte, and Parini, had happily inwoven a moral purpose into their works ; — when another writer,* like
of Andreini in an age of nothingness was such as might have been expected, but, with equal reason, may we ex- pect that now, while his weak side is admitted, due honor and justice should be rendered to the conceptions and im- agery of this surpassing poet. I shall esteem myself happy if I shall have been the cause of inciting my fellow- citizens to redeem from oblivion an Italian reputation which will augment the credit of our literature at home and abroad, especially with the English, who owe their " Para- dise Lost " to Andreini. Milton's first purpose was to follow in the track of his inspirer Andreini, and to com- pose a tragedy as he did ; but, after a few scenes, he trans- ferred his creative pencil to a vaster canvass.
* Carlo Gozzi, whom strangers honor and Italians de- ride ; I mean Italians of the age of nothingness, the age when style alone was regarded. It is hardly necessary to
THE CONCILIATORE. 149
Shakspeare, Calderon, and Schiller, had soared far beyond the prescribed dramatic arena, falsely called Aristotelian ; — it was time that a new literature should spring forth, nourished by great thoughts and lofty sentiments, teaching great truths, and impelling to great deeds.
Monti, that fortunate patriarch of good taste, who possessed nothing of his own but brilliant language, had wonderful talent for clothing in Italian costume literature which he did not cre- ate. He composed amorous meditations with thoughts from Goethe's Werter, gave in Italian
say, that the followers of the drama (for the most part) regard Carlo Gozzi as one of the most powerful creators in their department, and as truly an original genius. Yet he, with Andreini, awaits from his country that favorable re- ception which she has hitherto denied; and it becomes us, political exiles, to band ourselves with these our illustri- ous countrymen, who have suffered literary ostracism, and with them await the striking of that hour, when union, liberty, and Independence shall lie the inheritance that every man in Italy shall leave to his sons. And when that. hour climes, since, according to psychological laws one species of freedom does not exist without, another, we would then place in the Capitol the pedestals that shall
support their statins, anil the homage which shall follow
will be an atonement fur past ingratitude.
150 APPENDIX.
the epic poetry of Homer and Virgil, and pro- duced tragedies and odes founded upon the works of the best tragic and lyric writers who had preceded him. When he attempted to be original, his greatest work, though a miracle of style, was a paltry affair, a theft, or rather con- geries of thefts, and an offence against morals.
Italy felt the necessity of a purification from the stain of the Basvilliana, as if by that work Monti had polluted his country. And the other evil of imitation had plunged us into a gen- eral debasement, from which we did not rise till the dawning of a new day in the Conciliatore. Monti and the writers in the new journal were the true representatives of Italy, as seen under widely different moral phases.
Servile Italy was represented by Monti, who bent himself thirty times, not to thirty different opinions, but to thirty different masters. His mind inclined neither to freedom, nor to despo- tism, nor to any thing in itself considered. His was a feudal soul, devoted to men, not prin- ciples. He neither lauded a monarchy nor a democracy ; but Napoleon the Emperor, and Bo- naparte the Consul, both were alike to him. He could, as chance willed, change indifferently
THE CONCILIATORE. 151
Napoleon for Washington, Bonaparte the Con- sul for Francis the First of Austria, Lafayette for Pius the Sixth. In truth, several of his poems have successively borne all these names.
" A slave is but half a man," says Homer. It would seem that the anti-liberal condition in which Monti and his contemporaries were born, allowed them but half a soul, — capable of feel- ing, but not of creating, the beautiful. His in- dignation was unmeasured against what he term- ed a passion for originality. In his opinion, it was enough to imitate, or even remodel, what had been before produced.
But there was yet in servile Italy a certain unquiet spirit, that could not brook the common bondage ; and this maintained a conflict, to which our country will one day owe its salvation. It was a apark of that sacred fire which preserved life in Italy, and gave birth to the transition from servility to freedom. Of this transition Foscolo was the representative.
Certainly Foscolo was highly liberal in his political opinions ; but J speak of both civil and literary liberty, a^ well as of civil and literary servitude. Winn Italy willed her freedom, she po-sessed the nun of the Conciliator* ; so true
152 APPENDIX.
is it, that in the moral kingdom, as in that of taste, all is so accorded and knit together, that the arts become the expression of the civil, po- litical, and religious condition of a people. He who fails to develope a principle in all its con- sequences stops half way, while another reaches the goal. The one is a good logician, the other is inconsistent with himself. We have in Italy eminent men whom I regard as my masters, who, like Foscolo, maintaining civil liberty on- the one hand, and literary servitude on the other, do not perceive that the transition has been accomplished by him, that it was mag- nanimous, an advance, but that, this advance having been effected, they are retrograde, an obstacle to further improvement, illiberal.
In order to understand the great importance of the establishment of the Conciliatore, it has been necessary fully to develope its moral prin- ciple. It was a logical school of liberty. The Austrian government called it a conspiracy ; and it is most true, that in a certain sense, every honest effort for social amelioration is a conspiracy, — a conspiracy of the good against the bad, — a conspiracy prescribed by the Gos- pel against all error, prejudice, and iniquity.
THE CONCILIATORE. 153
There were two professors at Bologna, both of them my venerable masters, one of whom, like Foscolo, maintained the principle of civil liberty alone, the other, that of both civil and literary liberty. The first is the honored Paolo Costa, to whom, though dissenting from him, I would express my gratitude. The name of the second belongs to Europe, Francesco Orioli, who, as Professor of Etruscan Antiquities, and afterwards of Psychological Philosophy, aston- ished Paris. It may be said, that he founded a colony in Bologna, professing the double lib- erty of the Conciliatore ; and further, that he felt the moral and aesthetic beauty of the reli- gious principle ; nor did he believe it incompat- ible with true patriotism.
The Conciliatore, in its miraculous effects, may be compared to the tree of Nebuchadnezzar, which in one night produced flowers and fruit ; and all the flocks of the field came to feed un- der its ample branches. The Conciliatore at once brought out two great tragedians, who essayed to resolve two great problems of hu- man ii-it it re. Pellico, scrutana corda et renes, selected the individual, and had before his eyes a purely spiritual iuiivcr.se. Manzoni took man-
154 APPENDIX.
kind collectively, — nations in their various stages of barbarism and civilization ; he there- fore had a plastic universe of inanimate forms, into which he breathed the breath of life. Thus all external things, which according to the views of Pellico, were mere accessories, became to Manzoni of primary importance. While Pellico and Manzoni were quietly fulfilling the mission of teaching the present generation by depicting, each in his own mode, the passions and char- acters, virtues and vices, oppressions and wants of every age, Berchet, the Tyrtseus of Italy, composed poems for the present moment and for the most enslaved provinces, which produce homesickness in the poor exile, and kindle the fire of independence in the bosoms of those who breathe the air of our beautiful and adored Peninsula.
Should it be said, " His is a local poetry, — it is not Italian, — it is not universal, — it ivill not live," we admit it. Berchet may have done little for the art, but he has done a vast deal for his country. We owe him our gratitude and veneration, that, while having the capacity to achieve much more, he has sacrificed a part of the duration of his name to the supreme earthly good, — the liberty of his native land.
THE CONCILIATORE. 155
Many eminent Italians residing abroad were contributors to the Conciliatore. Such were Pel- legrino Rossi, and Sismondi, both residents in Geneva. In political economy the writers were Gioja, Romagnosi, Ressi, Pecchio, the Marquis Hermes Visconti, and the Counts dal Pozzo and Giovanni Arrivabene. In medical science, the colossal Rasori. In the exact sciences, the astronomers Plana, Carlini, and Mussotti. In belles-lettres, besides those already named, Ba- ron Camillo Ugoni, who gave the first example of elegant criticism in our language, Giovita Scalvini, Monsignor Ludovico de' Marchesi di Breme, and Don Pietro Borsieri.
The new aesthetic doctrine of the Conciliatore was maintained by many critics independently of the journal itself.
Berchet first published a volume of " Con- versations with liis Uncle," for whom he had translated and elucidated the Leonora of Bur- ger. This was an actual example of possible excellence beyond the sphere, which alone, ac- cording to the rhetoricians, we were permitted to traverse. But they had forgotten, through blindness or ingratitude, thai from Guido (■ui- nizzelli (the poetical ancestor of Dante, and t he
156 APPENDIX.
first parent of Italian literature) to Carlo Gozzi, the glorious sublimities of our muse were cre- ated and multiplied out of the prescribed sphere, and hence were wholly primogenial and original among us. Nevertheless the rhetoricians had prevailed. Dante, Petrarca, and all that school which arose by its own creative force, and not by imitation, had been shamefully renounced. Even Monti, with his store of words taken from every extrinsic source, reproached himself with not having sometimes been more Homeric, and thought that his beautiful version of the Iliad (which proves, as I have said above, that he could give an Italian costume to a work which he did not originate, and nothing more) would atone to the rhetoricians for his neglect of legiti- mate forms in his Bardo and other writings, till the appearance of the Feroniade should pro- claim him perfectly orthodox.
All Italy now resumed the reading of the Divina Commedia and the lyrics of Petrarch. But this was an illusive spectacle, like the Au- rora Borealis, which counterfeits the true light of day and the vital heat of the genial sun. Italy was ignorant of the hidden treasures these books contained ; that is to say, of the vivify-
THE CONCILIATORE. 157
ing principle she might have extracted from them, if she had known how, and had dasired to read them with a mental vision as pure, inde- pendent, and free, as the uncorrupted and un- shackled spirits of the masterly patriot-poets who produced them. But (with shame he it confessed) Dante and Petrarca were then to Italy nothing more than two revived vocabula- ries or manuals of words and phrases, far better certainly than those of Frugoni and Bettinelli ; and there was loud exultation that an end was made of the domination of these two pompous and stupid men of icords. But what Dante and Petrarca really were, still remained involved in the obscurity of dense night. Gasparo Gozzi, a man of honorable mind and delicate per- ception, a good observer in morals, but a most timid critic, on I lie one side drawn by the power- ful genius of hia brother Carlo, and devoted, on the other, to tbc paltry precepts of the pigmy Boileaus of Italy, endeavoured to reconcile two contradictory and irreconcilable extremes. In If-.-1 vied apology for the Divina Com/niedia, he pretends to show that the Epic mould or stamp, with all its machinery and artificial con- trivance , was used, in an especial manner, by
158 APPENDIX.
Alighieri. This was a scandal upon the arts ; but it was a proof of Gasparo's desire to save (rather from an instinctive feeling of the beau- tiful, than from any aesthetic clearsightedness,) the greatest poet of all ages and nations. Gas- paro Gozzi rendered one service ; he caused Dante to be received, though received as a Ho- merist; but this, instead of dispelling the clouds that involved the sublime and mysterious spirit of our ancient literature, and thus preparing for the dawn of a new day, only made the dark- ness more intense. Thus the ignorance which had existed was not removed, but an error was added to it.
In order therefore to gain attention, Berchet did wisely in coming forward with examples of a literature not national. If he had done oth- erwise, he would have had two difficulties to overcome, first, in establishing his new princi- ple, and, secondly, in proving that it was in fact nothing more than our ancient and original principle. Every one had Dante at his fingers' ends, and how could he fail to understand his most hidden mysteries ? To have pretended that new purposes had been discovered in the poet, would have seemed like a dream ; and,
THE CONCILIATORE. 159
had conviction been less difficult, still self-love would have opposed a formidable obstacle to it. Thus it happened to my distinguished friend Gabriele Rossetti, though he supported his hypothesis by unanswerable proofs. And thus eminent professors have recently discussed Dante before foreign nations, who, while their audiences were awed by the bare utterance of his name, flippantly pursued the worn and wretched track, misinterpreting the work of this masterly reorganize!* of popular freedom. There are others, who perceive in Dante something magnificent, but it grieves me that they have not yet discovered in what this magnificence consists. More noble was the conduct of the learned Gravina, who said ; " I discover in Dante an immense mystery ; I have not the key to it, but I see, afar off, the day when it will be possessed, and his work will he regarded from a far higher point of view." Notwithstanding this confessed ignorance, Gravina bestowed on Dante, among other lofty titles, that of the Poet-Legislator ; for so, it seems, even in his darkness, Dante appeared to him. Now those critics, who have no! taken ;i single Btep in advance of Gravina, have in one view retro-
160 APPENDIX.
graded ; for, while they repeat his positive asser- tions, they do not, like him, admit that any thing remains to be discovered. We must have patience, if the fear of committing themselves prevents their giving in their adhesion to Ros- setti ; but let them not be ashamed to confess frankly, that there is one who has attempted to reveal the vast mystery, without making them- selves responsible for the gigantic attempt.
If the incidental and passing notice in these pages would atone in the slightest degree for the pusillanimous (I will not say envious) silence of the professed expositors of Dante, I might cite distinguished names among the adherents of Rossetti. I might mention Camillo Ugoni, the elegant author of the history of one period of our literature, and the acute Francesco Orioli, already mentioned, to whose merit all praise is inadequate. I might have added Salfi, but he, after having once given his assent, has retract- ed, from deference to those judicious persons who said to him, "How then! have you and I studied our Dante these twenty years without comprehending him ? " To return to Berchet ; it was his business to simplify, not to embarrass, the question ; he therefore did not meddle with
THE CONCILIATORE. 161
that which was already known, and came forward with the unknown. No one among us had as yet pronounced upon this, and no one amono- us found any obstacle to receiving it into that new school which he made us anticipate.
-Monsignore Ludovico de' Marchesi di Breme, a strong-minded and noble-hearted man, dis- cerned clearly that a literature could not be reformed without introducing a great principle, fruitful in its results, and that this, the princi-. pie of regeneration, must also be the offspring of another principle, into which it is engrafted and by which it is nourished.
But for this principle we should relapse into pure selfishness, all save the upright, the dis- interested, the Lafayettes of every country ; and these are so rare, that the age and nation is distinguished which can boast of such men.
There musl be faith in something. The phi- losophy, that then prevailed in Italy, was adapt- ed to destroy all faith, and not produce it. It an experimental philosophy, utterly barren of sentiment. Hut the philosophy of Ludovico ,u ,!"'»"-, :i man of religious spirit, and the intimate friend of Silvio Pellico, was founded "" ;i &* better basis than empiricism, lie sub- 1 1
162 APPENDIX.
sequently unfolded it, supporting it with irre- sistible arguments, and enforcing it with a per- suasive, fascinating eloquence, that captivated his hearers. His was the philosophy of Christ. How omnipotent is the truth ! Breme and Manzoni, who alone were imbued with the spirit of the Gospel, were surrounded by chez'- ished friends, whose reason and feeling both rejected it. It was a triumph to find among them even a Deist. By degrees, serious medi- tations on the absolute necessity of a social reorganization, honest investigations in which former prejudices were put aside, just conclu- sions, that is to say, fair deductions from un- exceptionable and incontestable principles, con- quered now this, and now that strong-hold of infidelity ; till finally those stubborn spirits con- fessed the Christian principle to be the only one by which society (even though not Chris- tian) can subsist, — the only one by which in- dividuals (themselves not Christian) can main- tain mutual toleration, respect, and love. They perceived that the Christian principle must exist where man is, because it is not a human dis- covery, but has its foundation in human nature ; and hence it more or less pervades all schools,
THE CONCILIATORE. 163
all systems of philosophy, and all religions, just in proportion as they tend to humanize the sons of Adam. The solution of the problem thus philosophically demonstrated is, then, Jill that is human is Christian, all that is unchris- tian is at enmity with humanity. Breme had ar- ranged in his fine mind a book which he called the Harmonics of JYature ; it was the philoso- phy of love, — a hymn to God. In this he gave a scientific form to the Gospel, maintain- ing its principles by reasoning adapted to con- strain every unprejudiced and honest man to enter the immense circle of creation, from a regard to his own interests, or, in breaking from it, to confess himself an emissary of Satan, a being devoid of love, self-debased, destructive. Every right and its exercise, all equity, all mor- als, all liberal principles, friendship, brother- hood, equality, derive their origin from this circle of creation, which it is the mission of hu- manity to perfect. Injustice, immorality, usur- pation, despotism, the distinction of castes, all thai tends to the destruction of man, are with- out this circle, maintaining the direful conflict of Lucifer. Unfortunately Breme died before ln~ book saw the light; and, what was still worse,
164 APPENDIX.
without leaving any written materials by which others might profit. He composed two dramas, Ida and Emestina. They were not printed, but were represented at Milan and Mantua by the Marchionni company. They were teeming with cardinal and original beauties.
The Marquis Hermes Visconti undertook to give an exposition of the poetical tenets of the Conciliatorc with reference to the ultra-montane distinction of the classic and romantic schools, which has caused so many disputes and con- flicting errors. The time had not yet come to reveal to the public, whom it was wished to re- lease from civil and literary bondage, the lofty theories which Breme's book would have set forth. The purpose of making men more spir- itual could be effected only by degrees. To place the history of the middle ages, as a source of poetry, on the same level as the history of Greece and Rome, to admit their analogous customs and faith (such as chivalry, vassalage, and monotheism) to be equivalent or even preferable to the customs and faith of another form of society (consisting of patricians, ple- beians, and polytheists), was only enlarging the field of action, it was not getting rid of mate-
THE CONCILIATORE. 165
riality, it was only exchanging one long-used material for another, newer, fresher, and purer. Let the old material, by a conventional distinc- tion, be called classic, with reference to the languages and works of the ancient Greeks and Romans, which have now become classic ; and let the new material be termed romantic (from the nations who, when the ancient Greek and Latin fell into disuse, spoke languages which, being derived from that of the Romans, gave to their literature the epithet romantic) ; or in other words (for the reasons above stated) let a theme derived from ancient story designate the composition as classic, and one from modern story as romantic. This is all conventional, and well enough. Still we see, that this change is a change of material, not of essence, and there- fore can only be a transition towards a subse- quent essential change. It is to the poetry of (In- state of transition that the book of Hermes Visconti relates.
As I have Baid, Brcmc died without leaving any traces of his book, which doubtless would have furnished ;L complement to the future work of the CoTlciliatore, to which the treatise of Vis- conti may be considered as an introduction.
166 APPENDIX.
That the Conciliatore at first belonged to a transition state is declared by its title. The word Conciliation expresses an eclectic view, not one original, fixed, and methodized. I had no acquaintance with Breme, nor with his doc- trines of spirituality, which he unfolded in con- versation with his friends. They were after- wards communicated to me by Silvio Pellico at Spielberg ; but before that, and while I was im- prisoned at Venice with the excellent Count Giovanni Arrivabene, he proposed this problem to me ; " Which have done most honor to the human mind, the productions of the classic, or those of the romantic literature ? "
Called upon for a solution, I examined the past and the present ; the Eastern, Western, Southern, and Northern nations. I perceived in every production two essential characteris- tics, not belonging to eras, climes, or languages, but to the social condition ; I mean, to the moral, political, and religious condition, pecu- liar to every different period of literature, and distinct from that resulting from the particular circumstances of every individual. All nations and ages furnished me promiscuously with abun- dant illustrations of this truth. They were to
COR-MENTALIS.M. 167
be derived from the ancient remains of the In- dians and Persians, — of the believers in Brah- ma, Vishnu, Siva, Buddha, Oromasdes, and Arimanes, — of the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Hebrews, — those of the Graeco-Latin races, — those belonging to the subjects of the Druidical theocracy, — those of the believers in the North- ern or Tartaric traditions, — those of Greece and Rome ; from the middle and latter ages ; and, finally, from the era of modern civilization. There are writers, who are unfaithful to the fortunate position in which the course of events has placed them, and who go backward. They are children of error, ministers of darkness, a portion of that Evil which is the condition of all finite things, and from which even Paradise was not exempt. But there are others who second the spirit of the age, if it be good, and improve and urge it onward. They are the prophets and leaders of a more advanced stage of civilization. Between these two ex- tremes the gradations are infinite.
If then, to ascertain the pasl condition of arts and letters, it i< essential to know what men have been, and what have been their respective form-; of Bociety, I would fn-t ask 111 general,
168 APPENDIX.
" What is man ? What is society ? What was paganism ? And what effect is designed by the new principle of the Gospel ? " Surveying the subject from a philosophical elevation, we per- ceive, that man is made for a social state, and not for himself alone, and that it is impossible society should subsist without Charity. Charity is the only social law, — the only law which regards futurity, the only law of progress. Pa- ganism is selfish and material. The domination of brute force, of riches, of inhumanity, and of materiality, accords with paganism ; for they are all logical corollaries from the same principle of selfishness and materialism, by which it is in- formed. It matters not, that these consequences have not always, in their full extent, been all involved in paganism. It must be granted, that they might have been, since the basis of pagan- ism is in opposition to every form of human society, even to the domestic state.
This being admitted (and it is undeniable), I request my readers to adhere strictly to the inferences. In examining, for instance, the liter- ature of the Old Testament, I find in it an element common to the religious character of Christian times, — Monotheism ; but I also find
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the stiff-necked Jews (always bending earth- ward) in direct opposition to the spirituality of the Gospel. Christ blessing the jjoor in spirit annihilates with a single word, on one side, the selfishness and materiality of paganism, and, on the other, the outward form of Judaism. I utterly disregard the flippant interpretation of Voltaire, who believed, or would have others believe, that it was the intellectual poverty of fools which was blessed, and not a separation of the soul from our material part and all that surrounds it.
Now I ask, first, What is the character of the literature of pagan Greece and Rome ? Certainly it is for the most part material, sel- fish, plastic, presenting every thing, if I may so speak, in profile, since it is utterly devoid of the principle of seriousness which should have infused into it heart and mind. I am well aware that exceptions may be adduced ; but the per- sons who form the exceptions, are in opposi- tion, whether it be for good or evil, to the actual state of things ; like the great Socrates, who with bis monotheism was not the representative, but the opposer, of the prevailing theogony. Had be written poetry, it would have resembled that of the I lelu cw a,
170 APPENDIX.
Secondly, I proceed to the inquiry, What is the literature of the Old Testament ? Precisely the opposite of the material, selfish, and pro- filary literature of paganism ; but it may, like that, be plastic.
And, thirdly, what is Christian literature ? Dante is the most complete exemplification of Christian literature, and on that account is in- comparably superior to all other poets. Chris- tian literature, like that of the Old Testament, is neither material, selfish, nor profilary. The plastic principle is found in it as in that ; but with this difference, that in the former this charac- teristic reigns alone, in the latter it is entirely subordinate to the spiritual principle, though united to it and informed by it, as the body is guided, governed, and informed by the thinking faculty. Here we have the whole principle of art among Christians ; and we must begin to discern it even among those not Christian, for the reason, often repeated, that the principle of Christianity is in human nature. And hence its traces, more or less distinct, may and should be perceived prior to man's reception of it from the Gospel (as among the Indian Monotheists, the Hebrews, and, at a later period, among the
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Mahometans), excepting only where the principle contrary to that of charity has prevailed, the anti-human, destructive, selfish principle. This was incontestably the case with pagan nations ; and whoever among them made himself eminent either in theory or in practice, waged war against it. This, as we have said, was done in theory by Socrates. It was done by Plato, by the Alexandrine School, and by the Stoics down to Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. The prin- ciple of the Christian religion was practically manifested in all that partial love of country, that so abounded in Greece and Rome; — a strik- ing contradiction to certain dogmatic systems of morals most in vogue, and the strongest proof that the principle of Christianity exists in hu- man nature, and that it springs up even amid the thorns and briars that threaten to choke it.
Hence is apparent the great hallucination of certain critics, who pretend, "that Christianity has destroyed the arts, since it no longer spirit- ualizes them as did the Greeks." The princi- ple of spirit twilization reigns supreme in Chris- tianity, forming its primal essence, and that of whatever it. touches, penetrates, influences. The
172 APPENDIX.
Greeks had only conceptions of outward forms, not merely in the fine arts which address the eye, but in those also which address the im- agination. Open Homer, Sophocles, Pindar, — their poetry all refers to external appearances. Whence comes this character exclusively plastic in the fine arts of the pagans ? The reason is this. The pagan separates himself from his fel- low men ; he is a selfish and solitary being ; he views himself as the centre towards which all the rays from the periphery of creation should converge. Creation is to him merely a re- pository of various materials, more or less splen- did, which he may, according to his will and knowledge, adapt to his use ; and, as he is finite, and all things bear a relation to his finiteness, he takes only finite views of the creation.
This pagan world is but a poor thing. And what is the immediate consequence to the arts ? It is this ; they become the exhibition of the materials found in this storehouse, and, whether the choice be confined to a certain class of subjects or not, this circumstance constitutes but a mere distinction between different schools ; an exhibition, which the arts produce by their ap- propriate means, whether they operate in space,
COR-MENTALISM. 173
and thus produce painting, sculpture, architec- ture, and whatever implies extension, — or in time, producing poetry, music, and all that im- plies succession. This exhibition is that which has been always called imitation ; and this is the originating principle of the pagan arts. That is to say ;
Imitation is the origin of the arts.
Reality is the effect of the arts.
Pleasure the end of the arts.
Imitation; — but finite and low, limiting itself (with or without selection) to the representa- tion of the external world, considered only as a means of pleasure.
Reality; — the art, and the artist have attain- ed their highest excellence, when the bird pecks at the painted grapes, or when the Athenian would withdraw the veil to behold the lady it conceals. What marvellous puerility ! What ignoJ ;i nee of the sublime and spiritual aspira- tions of art. This reality threatened the de- .-l niri ion of the drama, when it decreed, that the duration of the action should not exceed the time of the Bcenic performance, and after- wards graciously extended it to a day, or a day and a half. Poetical reality is (h<; h:isis of
174 APPENDIX.
art ; naked reality the absence of art. This last reality has been annihilated by Manzoni, in his invaluable system of dramatic poetry.
Pleasure ; — here is the secret of the whole ; selfish pleasure without elevation.
But such is not Christian art, or that form of art suitable to man, when he is true to his nature, and would fulfil the end of his creation.
Such a man thus reflects : " If I am born not to exist as a mere individual, but as one of the members of a larger body, — society, the pre- serving principle of all its members must be harmony, love, charity, equality, brotherhood, the renunciation of all partial and private ad- vantage for the good of the whole. Every act of mine must be an act of cooperation. Every process of thought in my own mind, every effect which it may produce in the external world, must be cooperation. If, as a teacher, I devote myself to the theory of morals, or if, in some political or military office, my attention is direct- ed to practical morality, I understand to what ends they should be subservient. If I devote myself to the sciences, these likewise must be cooperative. The cooperation of these modes of life with any social order whatsoever, may
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be easily understood. If I am devoted to the arts, this pursuit, not less than the preceding, must enter into the great circle of creation, — love, harmony, cooperation."
Farther, since society is the indispensable condition of human existence ; since the sacri- fice of individual pleasure and indulgence is a law of morality, that is to say, essential to the good, the progress, and the elevation of the whole united human race ; then this united, en- nobled race, when, in the fulness of time, it shall have attained its highest point, must find other destinies in reserve. Hence follows a future state. Hence follows the necessity of a wise Disposer of that state. Hence it follows, that there is a God. To acknowledge that Charity is the only law of society, and not to acknowl- e that d posteriori (or by analysis) we must ascend from society and charity to God, even as d priori charity and society proceed from him, is a solemn ahsurdity. What then arc God, humanity, individuality, creation, to the social in. hi, or, what is the same thing, to the Chris- tian?— since the principle of Christianity and the laws or possibility <<f association are identi- cal. And here we come anew to the question
176 APPENDIX.
proposed on a former page, which could be fully answered only after the preceding remarks.
God is the author of all ; all is in Him, noth- ing is without Him. From Him all proceeds ; to Him all returns. Humanity, individuality, creation, are a manifestation of Him, his image, his likeness. God is substance, for he is the only self-existent being. Creation is a form of this substance. God is goodness, truth, poetry. Creation is beauty, is art, is the mirror that re- flects the goodness, truth, and poetry which are the Divine essence. Substance and form are not separate, but constitute a unity : form is a condition of space and time ; substance is absolute.
Thus the type of the arts to the pagan con- sists in the representation of finite nature as it appears to us ; to the Christian, it consists in the expression of the Infinite, of that which is beyond nature, and of which nature is but the manifestation, form, and reflection. Christian art seeks to present God through the medium of forms. God is the end ; form, the vehicle. Pagan art seeks to present man, not man in the abstract, but individual man, and, though by the same means employed by Christian art,
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pagan art is very far from deriving from them the same results. Why ? Because the Word is wanting, at the bare utterance of which the veil is rent, and the inquirer is introduced into the Holy of Holies. This is susceptible of logi- cal proof. In Christian art, finite nature being required to portray the Infinite itself, rises, as it were, to infinity. In pagan art, it debases and degrades itself, since, while it is the mani- festation, form, and reflection of the infinite God, instead of remounting to its sun, substance, and hidden source, it is unsphered, and made sub- servient to finite man.
After this glance at the different character of pagan and Christian art, it is apparent that the latter, claiming to have its model above na- ture, does not imitate that model, but has an inward feeling of it, divines it, aspires to it, anil i>, in turn, inspired by it, ajflatur a nwmine. Therefore,
Inspiration is the origin of the arts ;
l>< '/»/'/, the means (or instrument) of the arts ;
<• "/, the end of the arts. Tlini is i<> Bay, the aim of the arts is always thai charity, that love, thai social harmony } which conducts to God, who is goodness, truth, and 12
178 APPENDIX,
poetry. Hence the terms inspired arts, fine arts (arti belle), liberal arts (arti buone), are perfect- ly correct ; one denomination does not exclude the others, they are coincident ; it is only to be remarked that they should be considered as referring to the origin, means, or end of those arts. It is obvious, that whatever is, must have an origin, means, and an end.
The pagan artist scales the loftiest summit of the Andes, but there heaven is excluded from his view as by a vault of adamant, which (save in its proportions) is to him, like the wall of his studio, bounded on every side. Hence he surveys the earth, to him the universe ; and this supposed universe is the palette which sup- plies him with colors to paint ; — What ? — Himself.
The Christian artist feels himself unbound, not only from earth, but from the whole crea- tion over which he has dominion. He grasps it in his hand, and, bearing it upward to Him of whom it is the image, they there repose in a divine union with the Universal Being.
These, and these only, are the principles from which the Christian arts proceed. He who, born in Christian times, does not conform to
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them, is hostile to the principle of good, as Soc- rates was to the principle of evil. He who, not being born in Christian times, conforms to them, obeys the final laws of the universe. There is no alternative.
Things must exist first; the knowledge of them, science, afterwards. But Science is sometimes a false interpreter of things, whose spirit has not been revealed to her, when she notwithstand- ing undertakes to reveal it. Thus it was with Schlegel, the illustrious William Schlegel. He disavowed the end, that is, the whole essence of the Christian arts, which, as we have said, is the only final essence of the arts.
It is true, that none can be called a follower of the arts simply from having proposed to him- self good as his aim ; for then a sermon, or the Gospel, would be most conspicuous productions of the arts. They have the basis upon which they might become so ; but are deficient in the norms necessary to constitute them such; these meant being, as we have said, the beautiful. The Epistles of Horace are only naked philoso- phy in excellent verse. The philosophy may, or may oot, be Christian, o? social ; it may be good or bad ; but it is not philosophical pot In/,
180 APPENDIX.
nor social poetry, simply because, though there is no want of philosophy, the Epistles are not •poems.
Philosophy should be infused into the soul of the poem ; that is, it should proceed from the nature, from the vital principle, of the subject, which in all its parts should express its aim, even when it is not directly inculcated in words. Take, for example, an ode, or a ballad. There may not be manifested, in the whole poem, an act or a character, that in its internal springs accords with any affection or social harmony that leads to God ; but, instead of this, the poet (or perhaps some personage of the piece) makes a splendid harangue replete with fine sentiments. I do not say that this may not be useful to the reader. I respect the intention of the worthy author ; but I cannot say that he has employed an artist's means to accomplish his good work. He is one of that class of philosophers who lec- ture from the chair, without poetry ; with this only difference, that he speaks in verse.
In fine, the end (good) should be infused into the poem, whether epic, lyric, or dramatic, and not taught in the didactic form. To main- tain that art is its own end, as William Schlegel
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has said, and Victor Hugo repeated, and then to add that art and the artist should instruct incidentally, incite to good, unfold truth and cause it to be loved, is inconsistent. The view which I have presented must be substantially correct. Schlegel and Hugo, whom I respect as superior writers (if not always and in all things as great artists), are, then, as it appears to me, in the wrong, and an honest conscience emboldens me to say so.
I had arranged all these reflections in my mind, preparatory to the solution of the problem proposed by Arrivabene, when it occurred to me on a sudden to discard the terms classic and romantic (derived, not from the essence, but the material), which had been adopted during the period of the transition above indicated. Since the characteristic results, which I had noticed in the literature of every age and nation, bore at one time the impress of profound thought and sentiment, and, at another, that of superficial- ness in both ; since the terms classic and roman- tic (expressing a change of material, and not of essence,) were invented for transient and false purposes, and I had shown them i" l><! such; I woe compelled to substitute others suited to
182 APPENDIX.
the necessity of the case. The word spirituality presents too many significations ; and I was un- willing to limit it by a definition, since defini- tions do little to secure from error. A proof, in point, of this is the thousand acceptations of the terms classic and romantic, upon which critics have never agreed, because the words in them- selves do not express what is intended. Pro- found poetry, whether of thought, imagination, or sentiment, might, as I believed, be described by two words ; — the one, mente (mind), comprehend- ing thought and imagination ; the other, cure (heart), expressing sentiment. From these I have ventured to form the compounds cor-mental, cor- mentalism, and cor-menlalist. In this compound, the word mente is used to denote every crea- tion properly called intellectual ; and the word core, every creation emanating from the feel- ings, from the gentlest breath of affection to the strongest emotion. From the intellect, as from a mother, proceeds the newly formed idea; the heart, like a tender nurse, receives and cherishes it into youth and manhood.
That poetry which neither thinks, imagines, nor feels profoundly, which skims over the sur- face without ever sounding the depths, not from
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being faulty in its kind, but from its nature (thus forming a distinct species, good in its way, but the reverse of the other), might be defined by the words superficialness and superfi- cial, if they had not been perverted from their pure and original meaning, and become terms of censure. We would avoid needless occa- sions of misunderstanding. The words sketch and profile are familiar in the fine arts, and either of them would designate admirably that species of composition, which touches without penetrat- ing, which delineates without coloring. If we prefer the second as more definite, we may de- rive from it projilism, profilary, and profiUst.
Thus, not restricted to ages or nations, I should say, that nearly all the literature of the Bible is cor-menlal, and that of Greece and Rome almost wholly profilary. Virgil, a poet who had a presentiment of Christianity, was an illustration of the transition from the profilary poetry of paganism to the cor-mental poetry of Christianity. This characteristic of his poetry is manifest in his manner of portraying scnti- nif-nt . Ovid sometimes enters into the passions, and not in a manner altogether profilary. Ta- citus is a writer entirely cor-mental. Dante,
!84 APPENDIX.
Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, and Guarini are cor- mental poets ; Dante, from his profound thought, imagination, and feeling ; Petrarca, more from the latter quality than the two former; and Ari- osto, from that kind of imagination which may be called mechanical or plastic, which is more extended than elevated, and which differs widely from another kind of imagination which may be called spiritual. Further than this, Ariosto was ignorant how to create those characters com-