Durant W. The Renaissance. A History of Civilization in Italy from 1304-1576 A.D

usual adroitness, won the coveted cardinalate for Ercole, and returned

to Mantua in triumph.

In 1529, attractive at fifty-five, she went to the Congress of

Bologna, courted Emperor and Pope, helped the lords of Urbino and

Ferrara to keep their principalities from being absorbed into the

Papal States, and persuaded Charles V to make Federigo a duke. In that

same year Titian came to Mantua and painted a famous portrait of

her; the fate of this picture is uncertain, but the copy made of it by

Rubens shows a woman still in the vigor and love of life. Bembo,

visiting her eight years later, was amazed by her vivacity, the

alertness of her mind, the scope of her interests. He called her

"the wisest and most fortunate of women," `05099 but her wisdom fell

short of accepting old age cheerfully. She died in 1539, aged

sixty-four, and was buried with preceding rulers of Mantua in the

Capella dei Signori in the church of San Francesco. Her son ordered

a handsome tomb to be raised to her memory, and joined her in death

a year later. When the French pillaged Mantua in 1797 the tombs of the

Mantuan princes and princesses were shattered, and the ashes they

contained were mingled in the indiscriminate dust.

CHAPTER X: Ferrara: 1378-1534

I. THE HOUSE OF ESTE

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IN the first quarter of the sixteenth century the most active

centers of the Renaissance were Ferrara, Venice, and Rome. The student

who wanders through Ferrara today can hardly believe- until he

enters the mighty Castello- that this slumbering city was once the

home of a powerful dynasty, whose court was the most splendid in

Europe, and whose pensioners included the greatest poet of the time.

The city owed its existence partly to its position on the route of

commerce between Bologna and Venice, partly to the agricultural

hinterland that used it as a mart and was itself enriched by three

branches of the Po. It was included in the territory given to the

papacy by Pepin III (756) and Charlemagne (773), and was again

deeded to the Church by the Countess Matilda of Tuscany (1107).

While formally acknowledging itself to be a papal fief it governed

itself as an independent commune, dominated by rival mercantile

families. Disordered by these feuds it accepted Count Azzo VI of

Este as its podesta (1208), and made this office hereditary in his

progeny. Este was a small Imperial fief, some forty miles north of

Ferrara, which had been given to Count Azzo I of Canossa by the

Emperor Otho I (961); in 1056 it became the seat of the family, and

soon gave it its name. From this historic house came the later royal

families of Brunswick and Hanover.

From 1208 to 1597 the Estensi ruled Ferrara technically as vassals

of the Empire and the papacy, but practically as independent lords,

with the title of marquis or (after 1470) duke. Under their government

the people prospered tolerably, and supplied the needs and luxuries of

a court that entertained emperors and popes, and supported a notable

retinue of scholars, artists, poets, and priests. Despite lawless

cruelties and frequent wars, the Estensi retained the loyalty of their

subjects through four centuries. When a legate of Pope Clement V

expelled the Estensi and proclaimed Ferrara a papal state (1311),

the people found ecclesiastical rule more irksome than secular

exploitation; they drove out the legate, and restored the Estensi to

power (1317). Pope John XXII laid an interdict upon the city; soon the

people, deprived of the sacraments, began to murmur. The Estensi

sought reconciliation with the Church, and obtained it on hard

conditions: they acknowledged Ferrara to be a papal fief, which they

would rule as vicars of the popes; and they pledged themselves and

their successors to pay, from the revenues of the state, an annual

tribute of 10,000 ducats ($250,000?) to the papacy. `05101

During the long rule (1393-1441) of Niccolo III the house of Este

reached the acme of its power, governing not only Ferrara but also

Rovigo, Modena, Reggio, Parma, and even, briefly, Milan. Niccolo

married as widely as he ruled, having a long succession of wives and

mistresses. One especially pretty and popular wife, Parisina

Malatesta, committed adultery with her stepson Ugo; Niccolo had them

both beheaded (1425), and ordered that all Farrarese women convicted

of adultery should be put to death. When it became clear that this

edict threatened to depopulate Ferrara, it was no longer enforced. For

the rest Niccolo ruled well. He reduced taxes, encouraged industry and

commerce, summoned Theodorus Gaza to teach Greek in the university,

and engaged Guarino da Verona to establish at Ferrara a school

rivaling in fame and result the school of Vittorino da Feltre at

Mantua.

Niccolo's son Leonello (1441-50) was a rare phenomenon- a ruler both

gentle and virile, refined and competent, intellectual and

practical. Trained in all the arts of war, he cherished peace, and

became the favored arbiter and peacemaker among his fellow rulers in

Italy. Taught letters and literature by Guarino, he became- a

generation before Lorenzo de' Medici- one of the most cultivated men

of the age; the learned Filelfo was astonished by Leonello's mastery

of Latin and Greek, rhetoric and poetry, philosophy and law. This

Marquis was the scholar who first suggested that the supposed

letters of St. Paul to Seneca were spurious. `05102 He established a

public library, provided fresh funds and inspiration for the

University of Ferrara, brought to its staff the best scholars that

he could find, and participated actively in their discussions. No

scandal or bloodshed or tragedy marred his reign, except its tragic

brevity. When he died at forty, all Italy mourned.

A succession of able rulers continued the Golden Age that Leonello

had begun. His brother Borso (1450-71) was a man of sterner stuff, but

he maintained the policy of peace, and Ferrara's prosperity became the

envy of other states. He did not care for literature or art, yet he

supported them amply. He administered his realm with skill and

comparative justice, but he taxed his people heavily, and spent much

of their substance on court pageants and displays. He loved rank and

title, and longed to be a duke like the Visconti of Milan; by

expensive gifts he persuaded the Emperor Frederick III to invest him

with the dignity of Duke of Modena and Reggio (1452), and marked the

occasion with a costly festival. Nineteen years later he secured

from his other feudal lord, Pope Paul II, the title of Duke of

Ferrara. His fame spread throughout the Mediterranean world; the

Moslem sovereigns of Babylonia and Tunis sent him gifts, presuming him

to be the greatest ruler in Italy.

Borso was fortunate in his brothers: Leonello, who had given him the

best of examples; and Ercole, who had refused to sanction a conspiracy

to depose him, had remained his loyal aide to the end, and now

succeeded to his power. For six years Ercole continued the reign of

peace, pageantry, poetry, art, and taxation. He cemented friendship

with Naples by marrying King Ferrante's daughter Eleonora of Aragon,

and welcomed her with the most lavish festivities that Ferrara had

ever seen (1473). But in 1478, when Sixtus IV declared war on Florence

because of its punishment of the Pazzi conspirators, Ercole joined

Florence and Milan against Naples and the papacy. That war having

ended, Sixtus induced Venice to join him in attacking Ferrara

(1482). While Ercole lay sick in bed the Venetian forces advanced to

within four miles of the city; the dispossessed peasantry crowded

within the gates, and joined in the general starvation. Then the

temperamental Pope, fearing that Venice, not the papacy or his nephew,

would get Ferrara, made peace with Ercole; and the Venetians,

retaining Rovigo, retired to their lagoons.

The fields were planted again, food came into the city, trade was

resumed, taxes could be gathered. Ercole complained that the fines

levied for blasphemous profanity were falling away from the normal

total of 6000 crowns a year ($150,000?); he could not believe that

profanity was any less popular than before; he demanded strict

enforcement of the law. `05103 Every penny was needed, for Ercole,

perceiving that the people had multiplied beyond their housing,

built an extension as large as the older city. He had this Addizione

Erculea designed with such wide straight streets as no Italian town

had known since Roman days; the new Ferrara was "the first really

modern city in Europe." `05104 Within a decade the growth and influx

of population had filled the added space. Ercole raised churches,

palaces, and convents, and coaxed holy women to make Ferrara their

home.

The focus of the people's life was the twelfth-century cathedral.

The elite preferred the giant Castello that Niccolo II had built

(1385) to protect the government from foreign attack or domestic

revolt. Restored and transformed through seven generations, its

massive towers still dominate the central square of the city. Below

are the dungeons in which Parisina and many others died; above are the

spacious halls, adorned by Dosso Dossi and his assistants, where

duke and duchess held court, musicians played and sang, dwarfs

pranced, poets recited their verses, buffoons put on their antic

jests, male sought female, ladies and cavaliers danced through the

night, and on quieter days, in quieter rooms, dames and lasses read

romances of chivalry. Isabella and Beatrice d'Este, born to Ercole and

Eleonora in 1474 and 1475, grew up like fairy princesses in this

environment of wealth and festival, war and song and art. But a fond

grandfather lured Beatrice to Naples, a betrothed called her to Milan;

and in that same year 1490 Isabella left for Mantua. Their departure

saddened many hearts in Ferrara, but their marriages strengthened

the alliance of the Estensi with the Sforzas and Gonzagas. Ippolito,

one of several sons, was made an archbishop at eleven, a cardinal at

fourteen, and became one of the most cultured and dissolute prelates

of the age.

We should in fairness note again that such ecclesiastical

appointments, ignoring fitness and age, were part of the diplomatic

alliances of the time. Alexander VI, pope since 1492, was eager to

please Ercole, for he aimed at making his daughter, Lucrezia Borgia,

the duchess of Ferrara. When he proposed to Ercole that Alfonso, son

and heir of the Duke, should marry Lucrezia, Ercole received the

proposal coldly, for Lucrezia had not then the fumigated reputation

that she has now. He finally consented, but after wringing from the

eager father such concessions as made Alexander call him a haggling

shopkeeper. The Pope was to give Lucrezia a dowry of 100,000 ducats

($1,250,000?); the annual tribute of Ferrara to the papacy was to be

reduced from four thousand to one hundred florins ($1250?); and the

duchy of Ferrara was to be settled by papal confirmation upon

Alfonso and his heirs forever. Despite all this Alfonso was reluctant,

until he saw the bride. We shall see later how he welcomed her.

In 1505 he succeeded to the ducal throne. He was a new type among

the Estensi. He had traveled through France, the Lowlands, and

England, studying industrial and commercial techniques. Leaving to

Lucrezia the patronage of arts and letters, he devoted himself to

government, machinery, and pottery. With his own hands he made a

painted fine majolica, and founded the best cannon of the time. He

studied the art of fortification until he was the leading authority on

the subject in Europe. He was normally a just man; he treated Lucrezia

kindly, despite her epistolary flirtations; but when he dealt with

external enemies or internal revolt he gave scant play to sentiment.

One of Lucrezia's ladies, Angela, charmed two of Alfonso's brothers:

Ippolito and Giulio. In a moment of thoughtless arrogance Angela

taunted Ippolito by telling him that his whole person was worth less

to her than the eyes of his brother. The Cardinal, with a band of

bravos, waylaid Giulio, and looked on while these pierced Giulio's

eyes with stakes (1506). Giulio appealed to Alfonso to avenge him; the

Duke banished the Cardinal, but soon allowed him to return. Stung by

Alfonso's apparent indifference, Giulio conspired with another

brother, Ferrante, to murder both the Duke and the Cardinal. The

plot was discovered, and Giulio and Ferrante were imprisoned in the

cells of the Castello. Ferrante died there in 1540; Giulio was freed

by Alfonso II in 1558, after fifty years of genteel confinement; he

emerged an old man, white of hair and beard, and dressed in the

fashion of half a century before. He died shortly after his release.

Alfonso's qualities were what his government needed, for Venice

was expanding into the Romagna and was plotting to absorb Ferrara;

while Julius II, the new Pope, resenting the concessions made to the

Estensi in connection with Lucrezia's marriage, was resolved to reduce

the principality to the status of an obedient and profitable fief.

In 1508 Julius persuaded Alfonso to join with him and France and Spain

in subduing Venice; Alfonso agreed because he yearned to recover

Rovigo. The Venetians concentrated their attack upon Ferrara. Their

fleet, sailing up the Po, was destroyed by Alfonso's concealed

artillery; and their soldiers were routed by Ferrarese troops under

Cardinal Ippolito, who enjoyed war only next to venery. When Venice

seemed on the verge of defeat, Julius, not wishing to weaken

irreparably the strongest Italian bulwark against the Turks, made

peace with her, and ordered Alfonso to do the same. Alfonso refused,

and found himself at war with both his enemy and his late ally. Reggio

and Modena fell to the papal forces, and Alfonso seemed lost. In

desperation he went to Rome and asked the Pope for terms; Julius

demanded the complete abdication of the Estensi and the absorption

of Ferrara into the Papal States. When Alfonso rejected these

demands Julius tried to arrest him; Alfonso escaped, and after three

months of disguises, wanderings, and perils, reached his capital.

Julius died (1513); Alfonso retook Reggio and Modena. Leo X resumed

the war of the papacy for Ferrara; Alfonso, always improving his

artillery and shifting his diplomacy, held his own obstinately until

Leo too died (1521). Pope Adrian VI gave the indomitable Duke an

honorable settlement, and Alfonso was allowed, for a spell, to turn

his talents to the arts of peace.

II. THE ARTS IN FERRARA

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Ferrarese culture was purely aristocratic, and its arts sedulously

served the few. The ducal family, so often at war with the papacy, had

no stronger stimulus to piety than to give a devout example to the

people. Some new churches were built, but of no memorable quality. The

cathedral received in the fifteenth century an unprepossessing

campanile, a choir in the Renaissance style, and a pretty Gothic

loggia and Virgin in its facade; non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e

passa. The architects of the time, and their patrons, preferred

palaces. About 1495 Biagio Rossetti designed one of the finest, the

Palazzo di Lodovico il Moro; according to a doubtful tradition

Lodovico had commissioned it in the thought that he might some day

be driven from Milan; it was left unfinished when he was taken to

France; its cortile, with simple but graceful arcades, is among the

lesser jewels of the Renaissance. Lovelier still was the court of

the palace built for the Strozzi (1499), and now named Bevilacqua

(Drinkwater) from a later occupant. Imposing is the Palazzo de'

Diamanti, designed by Rossetti (1492) for Duke Ercole's brother

Sigismondo, and faced with 12,000 marble bosses whose diamond shape

gave the building its name.

Pleasure palaces were in fashion, and had fancy names: Belfiore,

Belriguardo, La Rotonda, Belvedere, and, above all, the summer

palace of the Estensi, the Palazzo di Schifanoia- "Skip Annoyance,"

or, as Frederick the Great would say, Sans Souci ("Without Care").

Begun in 1391, finished by Borso about 1469, it served as one home

of the court, and as a dwelling for minor members of the ducal family.

When Ferrara declined, the palace was turned into a tobacco factory,

and the murals that Cossa, Tura, and others had painted in the main

hall were covered with calcimine. In 1840 this was removed, and

seven of the twelve panels were salvaged. They constitute a remarkable

record of the costumes, industries, pageantry, and sports of Borso's

time, strangely mingled with personages from pagan mythology. These

frescoes are the happiest product of a school of painting that for

half a century made Ferrara a busy center of Italian art.

Ferrarese painters humbly followed the Giottesque tradition until

Niccolo III stirred the stagnant waters by bringing in foreign artists

to compete with them- Iacopo Bellini from Venice, Mantegna from Padua,

Pisanello from Verona. Leonello added stimulus by welcoming Rogier van

der Weyden (1449), who helped to turn Italian painters to the use of

oil. In the same year Piero della Francesca came from Borgo San

Sepolcro to paint murals (now lost) in the Ducal Palace. What

finally formed the Ferrara school was Cosimo Tura's zealous study of

Mantegna's frescoes at Padua, and of the techniques taught there by

Francesco Squarcione.

Tura became court painter to Borso (1458), made portraits of the

ducal family, shared in decorating the Schifanoia palace, and won such

acclaim that Raphael's father ranked him among the leading painters of

Italy. Giovanni Santi apparently relished Cosimo's dignified and

somber figures, his ornate architectural backgrounds, his landscapes

of fantastic rocks; but Raffaello Santi would have missed in these

pictures any element of tenderness or grace. We find those elements in

Tura's pupil Ercole de' Roberti, who succeeded his teacher as court

painter in 1495; but this Hercules lacked power and vitality, unless

we except the Frans-Halsian Concert once ascribed to him in the

London Gallery. Francesco Cossa, the greatest of Tura's pupils,

painted in the Schifanoia two masterpieces rich in both vitality and

grace: The Triumph of Venus and The Races, revealing the charm and

joy of life at the Ferrara court. When Borso paid him for these at the

official rate- ten bolognini per foot of painted space- Cossa

protested; and when Borso failed to see the point Francesco took his

talents to Bologna (1470). Lorenzo Costa did likewise thirteen years

later, and the school of Ferrara lost two of its best men.

Dosso Dossi revitalized it by studying in Venice in the heyday of

Giorgione (1477-1510). Returning to Ferrara, he became the favorite

painter of Duke Alfonso I. Ariosto, his friend, ranked him and a

forgotten brother among the immortals:

-

Leonardo, Andrea Mantegna, Gian Bellino,

Duo Dossi, e quel ch'a par sculpe e colora

Michel, piu che mortale, angel divino,

Bastiano, Rafael, Tizian. `05105

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We can understand why Ariosto liked Dosso, who brought into his

pictures an outdoor quality almost illustrative of Ariosto's sylvan

epic, and bathed them in the warm colors that he had borrowed from the

sumptuous Venetians. It was Dosso and his pupils who decorated the

Sala di Consiglio in the Castello with lively scenes of athletic

contests in the ancient style, for Alfonso liked athletics more than

poetry. In his later years Dosso painted with uneven hand the

allegorical and mythological scenes on the ceiling of the Sala dell'

Aurora. Here the pagan motives rampant in Italy triumphed in a

celebration of physical beauty and sensuous life. Perhaps the

decadence that now began in Ferrarese art- due chiefly to the

exhausting cost of Alfonso's wars- had one source in this victory of

flesh over spirit; the passion and grandeur of the old religious

themes faded from a largely secular art, leaving it predominantly

decoration.

The most brilliant figure in this decline was Benvenuto Tisi,

named Garofalo from his native town. On two visits to Rome he became

so enamored of Raphael's art that, though two years his senior, he

enrolled as an assistant in the young master's studio. When family

affairs recalled him to Ferrara he promised Raphael to return, but

Alfonso and the nobility gave him so many commissions that he could

never tear himself away. He consumed his energy, and divided his

ability, in producing a multitude of paintings, of which some

seventy remain. They lack both force and finish; and yet one Holy

Family, in the Vatican, shows how even the minor artists of the

Renaissance could now and then touch greatness.

The painters and the architects were only a fraction of the

artists who labored to please the fortunates of Ferrara.

Miniaturists produced there, as elsewhere in that eager age, works

of a delicate beauty on which the eye rests longer and more

contentedly than on many a famous painting; the Schifanoia palace

has preserved several of these gems of illumination and calligraphy.

Niccolo III brought in tapestry weavers from Flanders; Ferrarese

artists furnished designs; the patient art flourished under Leonello

and Borso; the resulting tapestries decorated palace walls, and were

lent to princes and nobles for their special festivities. Goldsmiths

were kept busy making ecclesiastical vessels and personal ornaments.

Sperandio of Mantua and Pisanello of Verona made here some of the

finest medallions of the Renaissance.

Last and least was sculpture. Cristoforo da Firenze molded the

man, Niccolo Baroncelli the horse, for a bronze statue of Niccolo III;

it was set up in 1451, two years before Donatello's Gattamelata rose

in Padua. Beside it, in 1470, was placed a bronze statue of Duke

Borso, calmly seated as became a man of peace. In 1796 both

monuments were destroyed by revolutionists who branded the bronzes

as mementos of tyranny, and melted them into cannon to end all tyranny

and all wars. Alfonso Lombardi adorned the "Alabaster Chambers" of the

Castello with stately statuary; then, like so many Ferrarese

artists, he decamped to Bologna, where we shall find him in glory. The

court of Ferrara was too narrow in its ideas, tastes, and fees to

transmute evanescent wealth into immortal art.

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III. LETTERS

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The intellectual life of Ferrara had two roots: the University,

and Guarino da Verona. Founded in 1391, the University had soon closed

for lack of funds; reopened by Niccolo III, it led a half-starved

existence until Leonello (1442) reorganized and refinanced it with

an edict whose prelude deserves commemoration:

-

It is an ancient opinion, not only of the Christians but of the

Gentiles, that the heavens, the sea, and the earth must some day

perish; in like manner, of many magnificent cities nothing but ruins

leveled with the ground can now be seen, and Rome the conqueror

herself lies in the dust and is reduced to fragments; while only the

understanding of things divine and human, which we call wisdom, is not

extinguished by length of years, but retains its rights in

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