tended to be by that apostle; it is sence, whose loss was so bitter an afflic- Non ego nunc vivo, conjux dulcissima: vitam Hippolyte Taurellæ, quæ in ambiguo reliquit, utrum pulchrior an castior fuerit. Primos juventæ annos vix. The church delle Grazie contains the sepultures of several princes of the Gonzaga family and of illustrious Mantuans. Such is the mausoleum erected by Bar-Baldassar Castilion insatiabiliter mæbara Agnelli to her husband Bernardino Corradi, deceased at the age of thirtyfive, July 23, 1489, the worthy son of the celebrated Ludovico Corradi, lieutenant-general of the dukes of Savoy, to whom the emperors Frederick III. and Maximilian I. gave permission to bear the title of Corradi of Austria, a great lord and politician of the fifteenth century, who nevertheless_translated from Greek into Latin the Commentaries of the physician Philotheos on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates. One monument is very interesting, the mausoleum of Count Baltassare Castiglione, author of the Cortegiano, the friend and counsellor of Michael Angelo and Raphael, and connected with the most illustrious literati of the revival; the design, in the antique style, is by Giulio Romano; the epitaph, by Bembo. The marble tomb is surmounted with the statue of Jesus Christ in stucco, stated in the Monumenti illustri d'Italia to have been a heathen statue of Time. Though he died at Toledo, Castiglione wished to be buried at Nostra Signora delle Grazie, near his young consort who had so tenderly lamented his ab 'See ante, book v. ch. vi.; and post, book 11. chap. il. * See Castiglione's elegant epistle, entitled, Hippolyte, Balthasari Castiglioni conjugi. This epistle has given rise to an opinion that the countess Castighone cultivated Latin poetry. It is probable, remarks Roscoe (Life and Pontificate of Leo X. ch. I) that it contains the sentiments expressed in be countess's letters to her husband. He bad left her bis portrait painted by Raphael: Sole tuos vultus referens, Raphaelis imago rens posuit anno Dom. MDXX.3 To confer greater honour on the memory of Castiglione, his son went to Rome for the purpose of engaging the ablest artists, and he afterwards, in his old age, obtained a sonnet from Tasso in his father's praise.4 The inscription on Castiglione's tomb imports that it was erected to him by his mother, Luigia Gonzaga, who had the grief to survive him (contra votum superstes filio bene merito). The worthy son of Count Baltassare, Camillo, also desired to be interred in this noble chapel of the Castiglione; he lies near his wife; his sons erected a tomb to his memory, and the inscription which enumerates his titles and offices, states that he had practiced his father's book. The celebrated work of Castiglione, instead of being limited to the use of courts, has been extended by the progress of civilisation to the whole human species. The advice he gives respecting conduct, manners, and the necessity of speaking little of one's self, is applicable to all well-bred persons. The beauty and good fame of his court lady are advantages to which every woman in the world may Agnoscit, balboque patrem puer ore salutat; See Carmina quinque Illustr. Poetar. ed. Ven. 1548, p. 171, and the Appendix to the Italian translation of Roscoe's Leo X., vol. IX., no. cxcvi. Raphael's fine portrait of Count Castiglione is now at the Museum of the Louvre. 3 This incription is not given in the Life of Castiglione, by Serassi; like the authors of the Lit. Hist. of Italy and the Life and Pontificate of Leo X., who have however spoken much of Castiglione, he bas given Bembo's inscription only. 4 Lagrime, voce, e vila a' bianchi marmi, etc. See Tasso's letter to Antonio Beffa Negrini, the 18th of the Unpublished Letters. મા મ 3 aspire. The Cortegiano has become a pleasing book of morals and literature, which must be acceptable to cultivated minds of all conditions; it paints with fidelity the opinions and manners of the time, political proceedings, military habits, national prejudices, disorders of the clergy, the subtle and gallant conversational galimatias of the little courts of Italy; it contains some shrewd thoughts, and some excellent remarks on taste and style: such is the counsel he gives the Tuscans to regenerate their Janguage which they were suffering to perish through delicacy, to readopt the old expressions of Petrarch and Boccaccio, retained by the artisans and peasants,5 a counsel followed with such ardour by Alfieri more than two centuries later; in The following passage shows how rude and barbarous France appeared to Italy before Francis I. whom Castiglione styles the father of letters: "Benchè i Francesi solamente conoscano la nobilità delle arme, e tutto il resto nulla estimino, di modo che, non solamente non apprezzano le lettere, ma le abboriscono, e tutti i litterati tengon per vilissimi uomini, e pare lor dir gran villania a chi si sia, quando lo chiamano ciero. Allora il magnifico Giuliano, voi dite il vero, rispose, che questo orrore già gran tempo regna tra' Francesi : ma se la buona sorte vuole che monsignor d'Angolem (come si spera) succeda alla corona, estimo, che si come la gloria dell' arme fiorisce e risplende in Francia, così vi debba ancor con supremo ornamento florir quella delle lettere." Lib. 1. The presumption forbidden the courtier by lord Federico gives rise to these curious observations on the familiar liberty of the lords at the court of France, even with the king: "Se considerate la corte di Francia, la qual oggidì è una delle plù nobili di cristianità, troverete che tutti quelli che in essa hanno grazia universale teng in del prosuntuoso; e non solamente l'uno con l' altro, ma col re medesimo. Questo non dite già, rispose messer Federico anzi in Francia sono modestissimi, e cortesi gentiluomini; vero è che usano una certa libertà, e domestichezza senza ceremonia, la qual ad essi è propria, e naturale; e però non si dee chiamar prosunzione, perchè in quella sua così fatta maniera, benchè ridano, e piglino piacere dei prosuntuosi, pur apprezzano molto quelli che loro pajono aver in se valore, e modestia." The scene between the monk of Padua and his bishop, narrated by Castiglione, is characteristic and full of humour: the five nuns of a convent that he directed happened to be pregnant; as he was a scholar and a worthy man, bis numerous friends endeavoured to excuse him per la comodità del loco, per la fragilità umana; the incensed prelate would hear nothing: "What shall I answer to God," cried be, when he says to me on the day of judgment; Redde rationem villicationis tuæ ?" Marcantonio (the monk), nothing daunted, replied: "My lord, you will also answer in the words of the short, like Dante and Manzoni, Castiglione is of opinion that Italian writers ought to admit the words of the various dialects, provided they are harmonious and expressive, and he repels the pretensions of the Tuscans to impose their idiom on the rest of Italy. Among the exterior inscriptions on Nostra Signora delle Grazie, is a very remarkable one of Marius Equicola, a gallant warrior and the best historian of Mantua, which commemorates the noble defence of Pavia by Federico Gonzaga, then only twenty-two years of age; it is beside the French balls offered ex voto, placed in the church wall; these balls are small, not having at that time attained the calibre of the bolts of Austerlitz, Wagram, Algiers, and Antwerp. Gospel Domine, quinque talenta tradidisti mihi : ecce alia quinque super/ucratus sum." The bishop, mollified. could not repress a smile, and be mitigated the punishment of the criminal. The unintelligible dissertations of the lord Magnifico on form, matter, etc., which were so exceedingly irksome to the lady Emilia, were probably not altogether unlike some elaborate dissertations of the present day. Lib. II. 4 Sin through ignorance seems pretty clearly defined in this passage: "Però la virtù si può quasi dir una prudenza, ed un saper eleggere il bene; e'l vizio una imprudenza, ed ignoranza, che induce a giudicar falsamente; perchè non eleggono mai gli uomini il male con opinion che sia male, ma s'ingannano per una certa similitudine di bene," Lib. IV. 5 Lib. I. 6 Celta ferox, Venetus prudens, Elvetius atrox, Et Mariæ hostiles ponimus bos globulos. Marlus Equicola has also composed a small treatise in Latiu, translated into French under the title of Apologie de Marvs Equicolus gentilhomme Italien contre les mesd, antz de la nation françoise, by Michel Roté, official clerk to the celebrated Renée of France, duchess of Ferrara (Paris, Sertenas, 4550, in 120.), a scarce book, dedicated to Giovanni Lascari. Equicola's master. It contains a learned and warm eulogium of the soil of France and the character and courage of its Inhabitants. A copy of this translation, bound in parchment with arabesques in gold of the time, is preserved in the library recently created at the palace of Versatiles, and it is not fil-placed beside the museum consecrated to all the glories of France. CHAPTER XXIII. Pletola. Two miles from Mantua is Pietola, which a rather doubtful tradition makes the Andes of antiquity, Virgil's country: Manina musarum domus, atque ad sidera cantu This tradition has, however, obtained generally; Dante has sung of Pietola E quell' ombra gentil per cul si noma and it was visited by Petrarch. Another circumstance seems to increase the literary solemnity of this small village; it was at Pietola, in the ancient palace of the dukes of Mantua, called also the Virgiliana, that Cardinal de' Medici, afterwards Leo X., found a secret asylum when he escaped from the French, who took him prisoner at the battle of Ravenna. During the campaign of Italy, Virgil's name was not less advantageous to the inhabitants of Pietola than that of Catullus had been to those of Sermicne; they were indemnified for their losses, and exempted from the war charges. A festival was celebrated by General Miolis; but there is no vestige now left of the pompous obelisk he erected and his fantastical temple of Apollo, with his figures of male and female saints economically metamorphosed into mythological divinities: St. Christopher was converted into Charon; Magdalen, into Venus; St. Ursule, into MiGerva, etc. of Virgil, a teagarden summer-house, over which, by a singular chance, the Gonzaga arms still remained, I should have preferred the shade of the planetree ministrantem... potantibus umbras. › The nature of the soil does not seem improper for this imitation, and the towers of the citadel of Tarentum (OEbaliæ turribus arcis, forgotten by Delille, would be well replaced and even surpassed by the redoubtable fort of Pietola and the fortifications of Mantua. CHAPTER XXIV. Cremona.-Tower.-Cathedral.-Zodiac. - Baptistry. Churches.- Campi.- Vida. -Public palace. -Surprise of Cremona.-Saint Sigismund-Pizzighettone. The road from Mantua to Cremona on the banks of the Mincio still retains the Virgilian aspect of the Serraglio, Mantua væ miseræ nimium vicina Cremonæ, and the same fields must have been shared among the soldiers of Octavius. The tower of Cremona, which is visible at a great distance, is one of the boldest and most noted among the Gothic towers of Italy. The cathedral, finished about 1319, has the grand and fantastical character of the time. On the front are some curious basso-relievos of the thirteenth century, representing the twelve signs of the zodiac reversed, and the labours of the field, regarded by the learned and precipitate M. de Hammer as emblematical of his worship of Mithra, and they have had the honour of figuring under that head among the eighty-six monuments of the same religion which he imagines he has discovered,4 but are only another proof of the mixture of pagan and christian ideas, so common on the churches of the middle ages. Over the great door are the figures of the prophets, the work of Jacopo Porrata, of the year 1274, accord The building of the Virgiliana is much decayed, and the gardens have dwindled into something like a neglected kitchen garden, which greatly needs the attentions of the old man of the Galesus. Besides, I do not know whether the exact realisation of the garden Virgil makes this old man cultivate would not be the kind of monument best suited to Pietola; instead of the ridiculous bowering to the inscription. Silius Italicus, Punic., llb. vm1, 593. The jealous Batonality of Maffei wanted to fix the place of Virgis birth at the foot of the Veronese bills, between the Volta and Cauriana; another estimable antiquary, S.Viso, (Notizie storiche Mant.) pretends that none of Virgil's verses could relate to either Pietals or Cauriana. See ante, book v. cb. viii. 3 Georg. IV. 146. The property attributed to the planetree by botanists, of purifying the air, would render it still more useful on this insalubrious plain. 4 See the atlas of his Mémoire sur le culte de Mithra, sent to the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres of the Institute of France. The interior presents some good paintings by Cremonese masters: the Presentation in the temple, natural, by Bembo, an artist of the middle of the fifteenth century; the Christ on the cross, surrounded with saints, by Malosso, in the best Venetian style; the Christ before Annas the high priest, true, touching, majestic, by Cristoforo Moretti; in the choir, a superb Christ, colossal, seated on a throne between four saints, and giving his blessing; a pleasing and noble Sposalizio; a Nativity of the Virgin, by Boccaccio Boccacino, the Raphael of Cremona. The first of these chefsd'œuvre so enraptured Garofolo, that he immediately attached himself to the author, and studied two years under him before going to Rome. As to the two cavaliers, said to represent the dukes of Milan, and apparently forced on the artist, they are very fine, but somewhat oddly introduced in a Nativity. A Flight into Egypt, poetic, is not without some exaggeration and refinement, although by Altobello Melone and of the good epoch. A great and admirable Assumption, a Nativity, which recalls, for its charming effect, the celebrated Night of Correggio, are by Sojaro, a worthy pupil and almost rival of such a master. The Virgin, St. Anthony the abbot, St. John Baptist contemplating the infant Jesus on the ground, of a sweet heavenly expression, and wonderful colouring, is by Aleni. A Crucifixion, a vast fresco by Pordenone, is extraordinary, the characters are in Spanish costume; in front stands a knight with his sword drawn, who must surpass all those whose heavy blows Froissart and Madame de Sevigné so much loved. The four frescos, larger than nature, by S. Diotti, especially the last, finished in 1835, representing Christ giving the keys to St. Peter, pass for the best works of this master. The altar of Saint Nicholas is an esteemed work of two Cremonese artists, Tommaso Amici and Mabila F. di Mazo, of the year 1494, as the inscription states. The white marble altar of Sts. Peter and Marcellinus, an unappreciated performance of a great sculptor of Cremona of the thirteenth century, Brainante Sacchi, is remarkable for the beauty and expression of the figures, the excellence of the perspective, and the worthy of the fifteenth century. The choir books, embellished with miniatures executed in 1484, by Antonio Cicognara, are superb. The baptistry, the third monument of Cremona, after the tower and the cathedral, is not less remarkable for its antiquity and construction. Saint Nazarius, where the brothers Campi are interred, clever artists of Cremona, offers some of their masterpieces; such are the two Virgins, one in the clouds, at the high altar, and the other with her son, St. Jerome, and St. Joseph, by Giulio, the eldest, who is as the Ludovico of these Cremonese Carracci. An excellent painting by their father, Galeazzo Campi, the Rosary of the Madonna, is at the church of Saint Dominick. A Nativity, regarded as an epitome of the perfections of painting. is reckoned the best work of Bernardino Campi, who appears to be of a different family from the other painters of that name. A Beheading of St. John, remarkable for variety in the figures, is by his brilliant pupil, Malosso, who in his turn became the chief of the first school of Cremona, one of the most renowned in Lombardy. The Death of the Virgin is by Cesare Procaccini. The cupola of Saint Abondio is the largest and one of the finest and cleverest works of Malosso, but it was designed by Giulio Campi. The stuccos of Barberini, representing the Passion of Jesus Christ, at the church of Saint Augustine, are esteemed for their lifelike figures. A Virgin, by Perugino; a great St. Augustine, giving his rules to several religious orders, full of variety, the masterpiece of Massarotti, are excellent. Saint Peter al Pò is one of the first churches of Cremona, and is attributed to Palladio. The Divine Virtues are by Malosso. Saint Laurence has one of those paintings of Mutius Scævola, which has already struck us as a singular subject for a church: the deed of the haughty Roman seems here, at least, to have some analogy with the martyrdom of the saint, a comparison made by Dante: Se fosse stato il lor volere intero, Come tenne Lorenzɔ in su la grada, E fece Muzio alla sua man severo. elegance of the ornaments, which seem see ante, book vir, cb. lii. Parad. cento iv. 82. 307 The fine elegant mausoleum of Gio- | subject, and probably a better source of vanni Antonio Amadeo, a Pavian sculp-inspiration. tor, is said to enclose the relics of Saint Marius and Saint Martha, deposited there by the abbé Antonio Mellio, jurisconsult, who is interred below. In the parish church of Saint Victor, Jesus Christ giving the ring to St. Catherine, is one of Antonio Campi's good works. Saint Pelagia was painted almost throughout by Giulio Campi, at the solicitation of Geronimo Vida, bishop of Alba on the Tanaro, and prior of the monastery. Near the high altar are two inscriptions by this illustrious Cremonese poet, whom Ariosto ranks among the great men that have thrown a lustre on Italy: . 11 Vida Cremonese, D'alta facondia Inessiccabil vena.' Fida, who was copied by Tasso, compared by Pope to Virgil, and associated with Raphael: & Raphael painted, and a Vida sung: Ingaburtal Vida! on whose honour'd brow The poet's bays and critic's ivy grow: Cremona now shall ever boast thy name, As next in place to Mantua, next in fame!3 whose Christiad was perhaps imitated by Mikon, and his Ars Poetica is annexed, not without honour, to those of Aristotle, Horace, and Boileau.4 Vida composed a hymn in honour of Saint Pelagia, patroness of this parish, but it is not one of bis good works. The prison of SaintePélagie at Paris, with its writers, poets, rich debtors, etc., would be a happier Griend. canto XLVI. st. 13. The scene of the assembly of demous at the beglazing of canto iv of the Gerusalemme, and the speech that Tasso's puts in Pluto's mouth, are a eral translation of Vida's Christiad. Easy on Criticism, part III. If we were surprised at finding that Virgil had ever been printed at Mantua, Cremona cannot be and of the same negligence towards her poet. Tila's Ars Poetica not being printed, the municipality obtained the manuscript, jealous to give the Erst edition at the public expense. Cremona had been beaoured with a printing-office nearly half a tury; two Italian printers, Bernardino de Miunis of Pavla and Cesare of Parma had issued here in 1192 the Libro de Bataglie de Tristano e Lancelotto e Ghalaso e della raina Isola. has a singular inscription indicative of Cremona has some picture galleries; The new market, the gates of Saint structions by S. Voghera, a distinguished Luke and Saint Margaret, are good conarchitect of Cremona. The house where Marshal Villeroy was surprised by Prince Eugene still exists at Cremona. Then began the reverses of the latter days of Louis XIV murmurs were heard even in the palace,6 and the army with all France amused themselves with songs on the favourite of the grand roi.7 The church of Saint Sigismund, one mile from Cremona, is worth a visit. This ancient abbey was founded by Francesco Sforza, and his politic marriage with Bianca Visconti, daughter of the duke of Milan, Filippo Maria, was celebrated there. The frescos by Giulio Campi, which cover the entrances and The Ascension of Jesus Christ, by Sothe ceiling of the nave, are full of fancy. jaro, so admirable in every point, seems also, by its colouring, worthy of his master, Correggio, whom he knew how ments and arabesques between the coto imitate without copying. The ornalumns are exquisitely elegant. The Jonas thrown on shore by the whale, by Domenico of Bologna, is celebrated for its per 5 Mic locus odit, amat, punit, conservat, honorat, The regimen of each verb is placed beneath it. 6 7 Saint-Simon, who bas sketched a satirical portrait of Villeroy, adduces some tolerable arguments in justification of his surprise at Cremona. "It is not for him," says be, "who arrived at Cremona on the eve of the surprise, to know that aqueduct and walled-up gate, nor whether imperial soldiers were already introduced and hidden.... be could do nothing better than haste to the great square, nor foresee his capture at the turning of a street on going thither." Neither was Villeroy sleeping in security at that moment, as asserted by Voltaire (Siècle de Louis XIV. ch. xix), and often repeated since: "that very morning, at dawn," Saint-Simon |