H.M.Gbldber nis BOOK [ITALIAN GEMS. II] NEARLY READY BY THE SAME PUBLISHERS (The Solution of a Roman Enigma of a Hundred Years Ago) BY J. F. B. FRANCESCA DA RIMINI SILVIO PELLICO. PORTRAIT FROM WHICH 18 COPIED THE STATUE IN THE PIAZZA AND THE BAS-RELIEF ON THE MONUMENT IN THE CAMPO SANTO AT SALUZZO. [ITALIAN GEMS. I] FRANCESCA DA RIMINI E BY SILVIO PELLICO With Portrait and Illustrations TRANSLATED IN ENGLISH VERSE WITH CRITICAL PREFACE AND HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION BY THE REV. J. F. BINGHAM, D.D. Lecturer on Italian Literature in Trinity College HARTFORD, CONN. THIRD EDITION. "FRANCESCA, your sad fate Even to tears my grief and pity moves" DANTE CHARLES W. SEVER AND COMPANY. MDCCCXCVIII. COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY J. P. BlNGHAM All fights reserved ETBRATIY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA TO OF THE LECTURE-ROOM I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE GLIMPSE THROUGH AN ENGLISH ATMOSPHERE UPON THE GENIUS AND SENTIMENT OF ITALY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS i PORTRAIT OF SILVIO PELLICO . . . Frontispiece II PALACE OF THEODORIC PERSPECTIVE . Facing page xxxix III BRIDGE OF AUGUSTUS -RIMINI . LVI IV FRANCESCA AND PAOLO ...."" 3 V CHURCH OF SANTO APOLLINARE NUOVO " " 9 VI CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA IN PORTO FUORI " " 16 VII TOMB OF THEODORIC RAVENNA " " 22 VIII PINETA (PINE-FOREST OF RAVENNA) . . " " 7 IX ARCH OF AUGUSTUS -RIMINI " " 4* X GALLA PLACIDIA'S TOMB RAVENNA . " " 50 XI MAUSOLEUM OF THE MALATESTI RIMINI " " 7* XII PALACE OF THEODORIC NEAR VIEW . " " 76 XIII DANTE'S LOVERS IN HELL (FLAXMAN) . " " 88 PREFACE IN that little curious old provincial capital, Saluzzo, some thirty miles southeast of Turin, stands a monument to the memory of her most illustrious son a name now as familiar as that of DANTE throughout the civilized world SILVIO PELLICO. Here he and a twin-sister of extraordinary beauty were born on the 2ist of June, 1789. The mother was a Tournier (name famous in the manufacture of silk) of Chambery, the ancient capital of Savoy, then as now, after several alter- nations, a province of France, and always an im- portant intellectual center, as well as a leader in silk manufactures. Mademoiselle Tournier had re- lations also in the silk trade in Lyons. So prized or so important was the name regarded, that she retained it after her marriage, and is always .spoken of as La Signora Pellico-Tournier. iz PREFACE The father and mother of SILVIO were culti- vated and religious people. The father was also a poet of some fame, and formerly held an im- portant civil office in the government. During the political overturnings of the stormy times which ushered in this century in Europe, he lost his civil function and engaged in the manufacture of silk. The children, of whom there were six, three boys and three girls, alternating with each other in the order of their birth, were educated with the aid of tutors at home which home was changed, first to Turin, and finally to Milan, where the father had been restored to a place in the civil government. This education of the children under the devoted care of these excellent people, in an atmosphere of religion, learning, and the purest domestic love, told with beautiful effect on both the mind and heart of SILVIO and left a distinct impress on his whole life and work. His adored twin-sister he always speaks of as PREFACE beautiful and lovely beyond description. To her lie was inseparably attached ; and her, beyond a doubt, he had in his mind's eye in his impassioned vision of FRANCESCA and of her relations with the beautiful brother-in-law of the Tragedy. In her eighteenth year, this sister was married to a rich silk merchant of Lyons. SILVIO went with her on the bridal journey to her home and remained in her house four studious years. It is easily possible, of course, to imagine his meeting some object-lessons there some painful exhibi- tions of jealousy on the part of the brother-in-law husband toward a brother so in love with and so absorptive of the attention of his wife ; in a mar- riage, too, not improbably (especially in those countries and times), contracted rather from mo- tives of convenience, 1 than of affection or of con- geniality. Although there is not a vestige of proof in this direction, yet, however this may have been, all the coincidences conspire to the conclu- sion that it was under the genial influence of her 1 It is said that the husband was also a cousin to the wife on the mother's side. PREFACE presence, her smiles, her love, that this pure and lovely master-piece in tragedy was conceived and built up; though it was certainly filed and pol- ished under Italian skies and in the tragic atmos- phere that surrounded him in Milan; where he lived in the close companionship of Foscolo and Monti, and enjoyed the inspiring acquaintance of Madame de Stael and Lord Byron and of a passing flow of other names belonging to the literary Mite of the world. The talents and temperament of PELLICO, and not less the principal environments of his whole life, were at once peculiar and extraordinary and bore very remarkable fruit both in his literary work and in his contemporary and posthumous fame. He is surely not to be set in the front rank of modern creative genius, with DANTE and SHAKSPEARE and GOETHE. Nor, if the compari- son be limited even to modern tragedy in Italy, is it needful to discuss whether, or how far, he should be reckoned the peer of Alfieri, Leopardi, xU PREFACE Foscolo, or the adored Manzoni. Still, however this may be, it is certain that none of these bril- liant names, last mentioned, would ever, or could ever, have produced FRANCESCA DA RIMINI. The literary fortune also of PELLICO, considered by itself, is almost the most remarkable in the history of literature. A dark chapter in his per- sonal destiny, which seemed to have blotted out every hope, was transformed by his character and genius into the most efficient means of a world- wide and assured literary fame. The FRANCESCA DA RIMINI had been produced. It had caught the ear of the people. Fame seemed to be coming. But he was still a youth. His name was new to the world. Only the first trembling notes of the uncertain trumpet were beginning to echo in Italy.* Suddenly, in this first budding of youthful promise, he was with- drawn from view, as entirely as if he were in his 1 Of his eight published tragedies, three saw the light before his arrest, viz. : the Francesco, 1814 ; the Eufemio da Messina^ 1820: the Ester cT Engaddi^ 1820 ; and one, the Iginia d* Astt, issued from the press in 1821, while he was in prison in Venice. Four others, the Leoniero da Dertona, the Gismonda da. Mettdrisio, the Erodiade, the Tommasa More, came out after his release^ between 1830 and 1834. xiii PREFACE grave. He was virtually in the chambers of the dead even in Hell itself. Arrested and con- demned for constructive treason, he was incarcer- ated, practically for life, first in the dreadful tomb of the Piombi in Venice, 1 and finally in the still more horrible sepulchre of the Spielberg in Moravia. He lived to issue to the light and air of this living world ; and to recount the tremendous and refined tortures undergone by the wretched hu- man beings who moved and breathed and suffered in these infernal abodes, still this side the river of death. No sooner was that story uttered upon the free air of heaven, than it was evi- dent to all the world that the star of PELLICO had not set. It had emerged from the black cloud which ten years before had seemed to quench it, now like a comet blazing in the face of the uni- verse. 1 The Piomii, t. e., " the Leads," are prisons under the leaden roof of the Palace of the Doges. These, long closed to the public, after the uprising of the people in 1797, and during the years of Austrian domination, and the Pozzi, i. e., "the Wells," a series of dungeons with a torture-chamber and a place of execution for political criminals object-lessons concerning Austrian tyranny are now, under redeemed Italy, made accessible to visitors. riv PREFACE The book, MY IMPRISONMENTS (Le Mie Prigioni), was first published at Turin in 1832. It was written in prose of unpretending simplicity, with an almost superhuman gentleness and sincerity, and with an angelic pathos all his own, without one blast of malediction, one growling thunder of the coming storm ; but, in the event, it made the Austrian powers turn pale and shook that old iron throne. For it was quickly translated into every language of modern Europe, carried the civilized world off its feet with admiration and astonishment, made all Christendom blush with inextinguishable sympathy and anger; and, as was acutely remarked by an eminent statesman of the time, " It struck a heavier blow upon the tyranny of Austria and for Italian liberty, than would have been the loss of an army in battle." Yet it was not the wild intensity of Al fieri, nor the blazing intelligence of Leopardi, nor the Gre- cian affluence of Foscolo it was a singular magnetic pathos a peculiar and peerless timbre, so to speak, in that tearful voice which excited these PREFACE world-wide applauses and wrung from the eyes of the nations these passionate tears. It is this same quality, and exercised in a strik- ingly similar manner, which made the FRANCESCA, twenty years earlier, a master-piece not to astonish, or terrify ; but to fill our hearts with sorrow and our eyes with tears. It was the pos- sessor of this same gentle, pure, beautiful soul, in his years of early bloom ; when his faculties were already fully ripe, his studies arrived at their climax, the passions of youth still glowing ; and above all, while the atrocious sufferings of the Austrian prisons had not yet weakened the forces of his body, nor depressed the elasticity of his spirit it was this same subtile intellect and this same peerless heart which created the FRANCESCA in the high-noon of brightness, fancy, and passion. Of course the phenomenal currency and tclat of the Prigioni comparable to nothing in mod- ern times, excepting, perhaps, Mrs. Stowe's sen- sational story on American negro slavery after the first mad furor had died away, was found to xvi PREFACE have lifted PELLICO into an assured literary emi- nence before the world ; and turned the thoughts of men back, to contemplate anew the creations he had already produced before the catastrophe came ; to wonder what might have been, if that misfortune had never befel; and to lament the loss of what now could never be expected from that lovely, magnetic pen. But the sweet, heart- touching FRANCESCA was safe ; and, indeed, more interesting and more lovely still, in sounding its sad, silver plaint across the dead, distant silence of the abyss that lay between the two immortal master-pieces. It is also true, indeed, that in the tragedy of FRANCESCA, PELLICO was greatly fortunate in his subject, not only from a national standpoint, but as well from whatever point of view we regard it. The theme was certainly essentially Italian and patriotic, being at once conspicuously historic and inextricably entangled in the meshes of a political destiny with which his countrymen were still environed. PREFACE Apart from all other causes of its perennial popularity in Italy, it were perhaps enough, that there is, running through, it, a vein of sincere, glowing, palpitating patriotism a pulse which never fails to stir the Italian heart ; and when those thrilling words drop from the lips of Paolo, in the 5th Scene of the First Act, 4 it was not and is not to-day an uncommon thing, for the excited audi- ence to rise upon their feet and cheer to the echo, so that the actors must pause till the spasm of patriotism is quieted. But the tragedy, again, was built upon a theme of uniquely universal human feeling a fatefully twisted cord of innocent love, sorrow, suffering in which all men, and nearly all alike, are inter- ested; and than which no other in the whole cycle of human sympathies appeals more power- fully to the tenderest sentiment, of our common humanity. Besides this, it has ever been and is, of course, a very great thing, that the story lies under the * " For whom -wot stained my brand -with slaughter t " etc. See page 21. PREFACE aegis and blazes with t/ie reflected glory of the Dantean song. Those seventy wonderful lines of the Divine Comedy which immortalize the plot and are treasured in every memory, 6 and the specta- cle, living in every fancy, of the great poet weep- ing and fainting and falling to the ground, " as a death-struck body falls" at FRANCESCA'S sweetly sad recital of her story, would alone set the theme of the tragedy before the world in a position of dignity and expecta- tion which no other could possibly surpass. Beyond this, the crowning article of PEL- uco's good fortune has been, that the theme of this tragedy was of that class than which no other could be more distinctly, in the language of Italy itself, il suo proprio ; preeminently suited to his own peculiar powers, experience, and tem- perament ; to his singularly trusting and affect- ionate disposition ; to the sensitiveness of wounds then still fresh in his own heart from two expe- riences of unfortunate love; to the keenness of ' See Introduction, page xl. jdx PREFACE his patriotism, already writhing in the iron grasp of Austrian tyranny, and the unrestrainable ac- tivity of which was about to carry him into Aus- trian dungeons ; and finally to that almost mystic sentiment of moral purity in which he was infL nitely the superior of all the bright modern names mentioned above ; unless we except Manzoni, who,, notwithstanding the virtues of his latest years, cannot in this regard be set down as his peer. The conception of actual stain on the character of his heroine was too repulsive to the virgin purity of PELLICO'S soul to be tolerated in his thoughts or admitted into his plot ; and here his art is beautifully conspicuous in keeping the idea of guilt within the limits of powerful temptation, that is to say, feminine tenderness and frailty battling with conditions that stir our souls in a heart-wringing sympathy with the wavering struggles of innocence against nature itself; while with a self-sacrificing loyalty to husband, father, and heaven, she accepts as guilt the secret and stifled suggestions of her heart, and at last zz PREFACE flings away her life under a cloud of unjust accu? sations and in an effort to prevent crime and pror mote the happiness of others at any and every sacrifice of her own. So that in PELLICO'S tragedy there is not a word unfit for a virgins or an angel's ear, or " which dying he could wish to blot." The result of all has been a masterfully execu- ted master-plot in tragedy: a husband's tender yet maddening grief; an aged father's heart- breaking shame and agony; the unspeakable anguish of filial love enforced by conscientious conjugal duty and unbending religious scruple, battling to the death against a passion innocently conceived in early maidenhood and become in- vincible with growing years ; heroic struggles to quench the flame, which is evermore reenkindled by unexpected, unsought, persistent contacts with the torch itself through inevitable destiny ; all in such words and under such lights and shad- ows of sentiment as only PELLICO'S mind and heart could conceive; and finally so purified from grossness in passing through the sublimated ad PREFACE atmosphere of PELLICO'S soul that the shadow of crime, if crime there be, is dissolved away in the sentiment of the reader's heart: "Oh the pity the endless pity of it ! " or constrains him, meta- phorically, to make his own Dante's picturesque words : di piatade r vannt men cosl com" to morisse; caddi come corps morto cade* If anything more were needed to set forth in a conspicuous light the sweet subtilty of PELLICO'S genius and, above all, the exalted standard of his own moral sentiments, beautifully exemplified in the execution of this tragedy, it would easily be found in a comparison of his work with that of other well-known names who have essayed with much Mat to handle this same delicate and uncertain material. For a great example : There can be no doubt that the appearance of this tragedy of PELLICO, coming out with such suc- cess in Italy in 1814, was the inspiring cause of * ... through pity I fainted so as I had died ; And fell as a dead body falls. See Flaxman's design opposite page 88. ZZU PREFACE Leigh Hunt's Story of Rimini, appearing in 1816. For Hunt was living with Byron in Italy at that time ; and in fact some lines of this tragedy are found entire in that poem. The poem, as is well-known, met with instant and, to a certain extent, deserved success. It is safe to say that by it Hunt made his own most lasting mark on English literature. But nothing could more clearly show the impassable gulf between the genius, intellectual and moral, of Hunt and of PELLICO, than a comparison of this production founded on the same possible mate- rial, and so greatly and, as I have said, to a certain extent justly praised, for its bright coloring, its striking lines of word-painting, its many touches of sensuous beauty notwithstanding its dull, un- poetic diction, the general commonplaceness, superficiality, and worldliness (not to say fleshi- ness) of the amorous sentiments, and the clumsy if not coarse allusions with the evenly beautiful and poetic diction, the Grecian severity of expres- sion, the profound stir of heart-rending grief, and PREFACE the almost superhuman purity of the amorous emotions which find utterance in PELLICO'S tragedy in words and scenes that are, in the closing words of the tragedy itself : . .... basta, onde tra POCO Inorridisca al suo ritorno il sole.' 1 PELLICO, though classed by the critics, technic- ally, and I suppose correctly, among Roman- ticists*, nevertheless adheres, with classical pre- 7 enough to make The sun at his return to creep with chills. ' I suppose that the principal elements of Romanticism^ technically so called, as distinguished from Classicism (as far, at least, as the literature of Italy was concerned in PELLICO'S day), may be reduced to the following heads. z. As to material, Romanticism replaced the Mythology and History of Ancient Greece and Rome by Christianity and the annals of the Middle Ages ; embracing as an important factor the Medieval faiths and superstitions ; and add- ing a strong tincture of the customs of Chivalry. a. As to method, the Romantic posed as excluding the severities of the ancient schools ; e. ., with regard to mingling the noble with the base, the serious with the ridiculous, observing the unities of time and place ; aiming above all at effect and emotion ; coloring as faithfully as possible, nature and the history of different countries and ages, without artificial embellishments ; adapting all to the capacity of the common people, with less regard to elegance and polish of style. In respect of material, PELLICO'S work lies clearly in this category. His rejection of the old mythology is absolute. The patriotism of his heroes and heroines is everywhere marked. Of his eight published tragedies, six have medieval Italian subjects, the other two Scriptural themes. In this regard he stands in eminent romantic precedence before A I fieri. In respect of method, also, he abjures, with the Romanticists, studied polish and regularities, aims at simple and faithful coloring of nature, at intensity of effect, and labors to adapt his style to the common mind. He differs from the Romanticists, toto cotfo, in banishing every coarse word or vicious allusion, as well as the Pagan taint that inheres in the medieval chivalry. xxiv PREFACE cision, to the 'unities' as severely as did Alfieri, or even as the most severe of the ancient Greeks. There is no by-play in his work, no counter-plot. His story always unfolds with Grecian simplicity. In the FRANCESCA, four speaking persons only are represented. The interest is enkindled wholly from the sentiment and art of the dialogue ; and grows with the steadily intensifying consecu- tion of the thought. It is, in a word, the differ- ence between Sophocles and Shakspeare. No doubt, as an instantaneous and catching power on the unintelligent or unthinking, it is a weak- ness, but it is a delightful and fast-binding charm upon an intellectual audience, or upon a reader perusing it thoughtfully in his closet. For such the charm of the FRANCESCA never for an instant flags. A bewitchment, ever more and still more absorbing, gathers around us as we read, comparable only to the fascination of the greater tragedies of all time ; and hardly sur- passed by any of these. It is not too much to say that neither the ALCESTIS of Euripides, nor PREFACE the ANTIGONE of Sophocles both of which, to- gether with the same noble absence of all coarse or lubricious allusions, are addressed to much the same sympathies raises in our judgment a more exalted respect for the sublime innocence of her soul, or more powerfully touches our pity for the sweetly passionate heroine's cruel fate. I, surely, for one, should be sorry to be the man who could read the FRANCESCA, especially the third act, without being powerfully moved, not to say without palpitations and tears. xxvi INTRODUCTION. The FRANCESCA was first published in 1814, and was immediately received with applause, particularly by Alfieri and Foscolo and Leopardi, and by Lord Byron, who was living much in Italy (and most of all in his favorite Ravenna), in 1816. It first made the circuit of the Italian theatres in 1818, with the celebrated Carlotta Marchionni as FRANCESCA. It was everywhere a success from the first, and has never ceased to be a popular favorite in Italy. The tragedy was operaized about 1820 by Felice Romani, the most famous libretto-poet of Italy and of his time. To meet the necessary brevity of an operatic libretto, the drama was condensed into xxvii INTRODUCTION two acts the first three of the tragedy going into the first act of the Opera ; and the fourth and fifth of the tragedy, much shortened, consti- tuting the brief final act of the Opera. In this condensation, three or four of the less dramatic scenes of the tragedy were altogether omitted from the libretto ; but in the choruses and airs, for the most part, the sentiments and x the order of the tragic thought appear; and to a considerable extent, words and expressions of the tragedy are interwoven. In the recitative, this is not only true, but here and there, whole lines are transferred entire. Of new material, not more than some twenty lines have been added mainly such only as were needed to complete the connections. To meet the requirements for operatic effect, also, two new speaking characters were intro- duced : ISAURE, female friend of FRANCESCA. GUELFO, an officer of LANCIOTTO. xxviii INTRODUCTION Also, knights, ladies, soldiers, and citizens were added as a silent exhibit. 1 The several successive musical composers, to- meet their own ideas of beauty, or novelty, or ef- fect, or some peculiarity in their own music, took considerable liberties in abridging and altering the libretti of their predecessors. E. g., Giuseppe Staffa, following Carlini by six years in the Royal Theatre of San Carlo in Naples, shortened for his own music Carlini 's libretto-text about one-fifth omitting several whole scenes in the first act and changing some forty or fifty lines,. 1 This libretto has been set to music by many compos- ers, among the most noted of whom are the following : Strepponi, Padua, 1823. Tamburini, Rimini, 1836. CARLINI, Naples, 1825. Borgatta, Genoa, 1840. Mtrcadante, Madrid, 1828. Milan Conservatory, 184 1_ Quilchi, Lucca, 1829. Canelli, Vincenza, 1843. GV