by Mary Shelley
One of the most interesting paintings in the world has been lately discovered at Florence; the portrait of Dante, by his friend Giotto. Vasari mentions that Giotto was employed to paint the walls of the chapel of the Palace of the Podesta at Florence, and that he introduced into his picture a portrait of his contemporary and dear friend, Dante Alighieri, in addition to other renowned citizens of the time. This palace has been turned to the unworthy use of a public prison, and the desecrated chapel was whitewashed, and divided into cells. These have now been demolished, and the whitewash is in process of being removed. Almost at the first the portrait of Dante was discovered: he makes one in a solemn procession, and holds a flower in his hand. Before it vanishes all the preconceived notions of the crabbed severity of his physiognomy, which have originated in portraits taken later in his life. We see here the lover of Beatrice. His lip is proud — for proud, every contemporary asserts that he was — and he himself confesses it in the Purgatorio; but there is sensibility, gentleness and love; the countenance breathes the spirit of the Vita Nuova.
I often visit the various churches of Florence. The old paintings to be found in them attract me; but you must not imagine that the interior of these Florentine cathedrals and churches is to be compared to our Gothic edifices. The space within a large building of this sort often defies the talent of the architect: the Greek temples had but small interior shrines. Their rows of columns may be said to bear resemblance to the trunks of trees; while the capital, and architrave, and roof, does not imitate the shadowy boughs, though their purpose is the same. Gothic architecture, on the contrary, resembles the overarching branches, and imparts the same solemn tranquillity as the aspect of a venerable avenue or darksome glade. The Italian architects seem not to have known well what to do with the vast space enclosed by the majestic walls of their edifices. They afforded glorious room for the painter; but where not adorned by him, they are bare, presenting no image of beauty, and inspiring no solemn feeling. The pictures and sculpture we find are, however, sources of ever new delight; it is here that we may study the infancy and progress of the art — here also, alas! we may perceive its degeneracy — till, last and worst of all, we see raising to the walls, on which inimitable frescoes are fading away, daubs that — I am not fond of ill-natured criticism, so will say no more.
Let us turn, rather, to the gates of the Batistero, worthy of Paradise. Here we view all that man can achieve of beautiful in sculpture, when his conceptions rise to the height of grace, majesty, and simplicity. Look at these, and a certain feeling of exalted delight will enter at your eyes and penetrate your heart, which is the praise to which a painter or a sculptor aspires. Nor forget when you visit the church of Santa Croce, to look at some fast-fading frescoes, on the loggie of a palace, on the right hand of the piazza. The perfect taste exhibited in the ease and dignity of attitude and gesture of the figures will well reward you for careful examination.
LETTER XIV.
The Carbonari.
OF late years there has been a spirit in Italy tending towards improvement; this, perhaps, is less outwardly developed in Florence than elsewhere, yet here also it exists. Politically and materially considered, Tuscany is looked upon as the best governed and happiest Italian state, but in some respects this very circumstance has kept back its inhabitants. The foreign power that rules Lombardy exciting undisguised hatred, and the misrule of the Popes being beyond all question quite intolerable — the people of those states are in avowed opposition to government, while in Tuscany there is little to complain of, beyond the torpedo influence of a system of things that undeviatingly tends towards the deterioration.
The reign of Leopold I. was the golden age of Florence. He was grandduke at a time when a good sovereign was the dearest wish of a people, and the notion of governing themselves was not looked upon even as desirable. The French came next, and the tendency of their government was always to destroy the nationality of any people subdued by them. But this had a certain good effect in Italy. The curse of that country is its divisions, — while the other nations of Europe, in the middle ages, became divided into feudal tenures, and possessed by nobles, who, unable to maintain their independence, at last became mere courtiers of an absolute monarch, — Italy was divided into municipal republics, or small states, — the mutual rivalry and quarrels of which were the fatal causes that France and Spain disputed alternately, making Italy their field of battle, and Italian met Italian in opposing fight; and Fisa was willing to abase Florence; and Bologna gloried in the misfortunes of Ferrara: — the union of the whole of northern Italy under the French was the first circumstance that checked a spirit so inimical to all prosperity, — all improvement.
When the French were driven from Italy the peninsula became politically Austrian. The Austrian cabinet directed all the councils, and guided every act of the various states. If Ferdinand contrived to maintain a more beneficent internal government, it was only because the Tuscans shewed no inclination to join in the revolutionary movement. But while Austria substantially ruled the whole, it was well aware of the benefit to be derived from disunion, and it stirred up the spirit of discord by a curious contrivance; — a tub was thrown to the whale; — the government ordered the institute of Milan to occupy itself in the reform of the National Dictionary, and hence arose a fierce battle between the Della Crusca Academy and the authors of the “Proposta” on the score of language. Did the Italians speak Tuscan, or Italian? such was the mighty question that engrossed the learned of Italy; it was never started among two or three men without exciting the most violent party feeling, and for many years it set Tuscan against Lombard. Monti, by no means a pure political character, is accused of undertaking this war to please the Austrians, with his eyes open to the end in view. His son-in-law, Perticari, who shewed himself very earnest in the discussion, was too much honoured and loved, his memory is too entirely reverenced, for him to be open to the same accusation. For seven years the battle raged, exciting a virulence of party and municipal feeling, quite inexplicable out of Italy. It ended at last, as the question of big-endians and small-endians terminated in Liliput, by every one breaking his egg at whichever end he pleased; — the Lombards came to the conclusion that the Tuscans might like their language best if they chose — and they must choose, for it is not only the purest and the most idiomatic, but it is the only language at once spoken and written, except, indeed, the Roman; but that is very inferior in strength and vivacity.
Other influences were at work in Italy to turn the Italians from such puerile contests. The sect of the Carbonari had spread throughout the peninsula, and the hope of throwing off a foreign yoke and achieving more liberal institutions animated every Italian heart.
Colletta, in speaking of the Carbonari, considers this sect to be derived from the Freemasons of Germany — transported into their country by the Neapolitan exiles of 1799, on their return. I have heard Italians well versed in the secrets of Carbonarism deny this. They say that the deeply religious and mystic spirit of the sect at its commencement, proves its Neapolitan origin, and that it was founded by men, Neapolitans themselves, who knew how to adapt their doctrines and their rites to the temperament of a people, at once superstitious and lovers of the marvellous.
The hopes of political liberty which all nations entertained when the armies of the allies quailed before those of republican France, found an echo in Naples; while Ferdinand and his queen, who before the French Revolution had shown an inclination to imitate Joseph and Leopold of Austria, in reforming the laws of their kingdom, taking sudden fright, indulged in such acts of arbitrary power as incited rather than repressed the desire for change. Many Neapolitans, therefore, welcomed the French with enthusiasm, and rejoiced in the flight of their sovereign. The liberators, as they delighted to call themselves, soon, however, showed the cloven foot, and appeared in their true light, of invaders and spoilers. The hearts of all real lovers of their country were alienated from them; and if Ferdinand, on his return, during Napoleon’s expe
dition to Egypt, when the French were driven from Italy, had shewn himself moderate and forgiving, he had acquired the affection of all his subjects. But both he and his queen seemed to be driven mad by hatred and terror of the new doctrine of a people’s right to be well governed. Executions — the most barbarous imprisonments — persecutions that, blinded by fury, rather attacked a friend than forgave an enemy, followed their restoration. All the constitutionalists or republicans fled — some to France, Germany, or Switzerland, some to the wild and pathless mountains of the Abruzzi and the Calabrias.
When the French returned, the situation of the exiles was not mended; and many among them continued to dwell in unknown and savage retreats, among the inaccessible mountains and solitary valleys of those regions. They lived without any bond to unite them together, yet not so isolated but that they frequently met, and communicated to each other their hopes and projects. More than the Bourbon who had persecuted them, they hated the usurpation of the stranger. The most earnest desire of their hearts was to drive the French from their country, while some among them, looking beyond that time, revolved the means of strengthening their party, so that a republic might be instituted; or, at any rate, if Ferdinand returned, that he should be forced to concede just and free institutions to his people.
Among the refugees of Calabria, who were not to be subdued by persecution and adversity, was a young man of high courage, strong understanding, and gifted with wonderful powers of persuasion. Capo Bianco had first appeared as the bold leader of the militia of his native place (in Calabria), and had won the love, respect, and blind obedience of his followers. He possessed all the qualities belonging to the head and founder of a sect. I am told that he was handsome in person, and courteous in manners, but of a stem and inflexible disposition; severe towards delinquents, gentle and kind to the inoffensive, and to his friends. He added enthusiasm to these qualities, or he would never have erected himself into the founder of a sect. He abhorred the name of king — not because he had been persecuted by his sovereign, but because the power of royalty was detestable in his eyes — so that not one among his followers ever dared name before him Napoleon or Ferdinand; Austrian or French. He would consent only to republican institutions for his country; he desired the same government to prevail all over Italy, and argued warmly in favour of Italian union and independence. Such was Capo Bianco, as he is represented by the friends who survived him: he was the founder of the most celebrated sect of modern times, and died on the scaffold, a martyr to the cause he advocated.
Capo Bianco had taken shelter in a spot, to which he gave the strength of a rocky fortress, among the most rugged fastnesses of the hither Calabria; he there defied the power of his enemies. Nor did he remain shut up: he frequently called together and appeared among his faithful adherents; and, communicating his bold projects, and wanning them by his persuasive eloquence, he induced them to believe that the hour was come when they might unite with the population of their country, to throw off the detested yoke of the French usurpation.
The Carbonari, who have survived a time now almost forgotten, relate how, in the silence of a dark night, Capo Bianco assembled his most attached friends near a poor hut, situated in the depth of a thick forest, and there laid the first stone of the edifice of his sect. He explained its principles and its spirit, and caused them to swear a fearful secrecy on the cross. Prom this focus the new association spread, guarded by tremendous oaths, and by menaces of a dreadful vengeance to be taken upon traitors; by all the precaution, resolution and terror, that its originator could devise. He gave his adherents the name of Carbonari, because the society was founded in a district principally inhabited by charcoal burners; and men who followed that trade were among the first, appertaining to the lower classes, who were initiated into the secrets of the sect. They, descending from the mountains for the purposes of traffic, carried with them and propagated, wherever they went, the tenets of their founder.
Capo Bianco understood the disposition of his countrymen, and gave a religious and mystic colouring to his society. Striking rites were established; the initiation was terrible; the lessons taught often apparently abstruse; the end was single — to overturn monarchy in all its forms, and erect republics on the ruin of thrones. To attain this among a people pious to superstition, it was necessary to mingle mystic tenets with political opinions; in short, to erect and disseminate a political religion; and thus, not long ago, Carbonarism was professed, and found proselytes among the mountains of Corsica and Sardinia. The laws of the Carbonari were, they declared, founded on the equality of the gospel, and on the traditions of Freemasonry. The initiated swore to take terrible vengeance for the Lamb, sacrificed by the Wolves, The religion of Christ was the lamb; kings were typified in the wolves. They said that Jesus, who was the Word of God, had been the first who proclaimed upon earth the abolition of ancient servitude, and taught brotherhood and equality among men. He was therefore crucified by the wolves of his age, and died an illustrious victim of tyranny. The Carbonari swore to vindicate the death of Christ, and to exterminate the race of wolves, that is of kings, who inherited the guilt and infamy of the assassins of the Son of God. To strike the vulgar eye, fearful representations were made in their ceremonies, apt to excite the imaginations of a southern people of a highly religious temperament, and the proselytes pronounced tremendous oaths upon the cross and the dagger. The initiation was accompanied by various circumstances calculated to test the moral and physical courage of the novices; and the slightest sign of shrinking, caused them to be irrevocably rejected.
The Carbonari had, like the Freemasons, distinctive grades in their society; they recognised each other by mysterious signs, and called themselves by a secret name — that of “Buoni Cugin,” or good cousins. They took an oath to succour, at their need, every other Carbonaro, and to defend the honour of their women. They swore, if ever they themselves became traitors, to consent that their bodies should be torn to pieces, burnt, and the ashes cast to the winds; that their name should be cursed, and become a warning to all the Carbonari scattered over the face of the earth.
Carbonarism took deep root and spread rapidly. At one time, Murat was induced to look upon it as a means for civilising the wild Calabrians, and to regard it with favour. But the sect hated the French too much for this to continue. Ferdinand, meanwhile, in his retreat at Naples, spared no endeavour to disturb the government of the invader, and, if possible, to drive him from the kingdom. Banditti were enrolled; a crusade preached by the churchmen among the ignorant peasantry; and a civil war ensued, at the horrors of which the heart sickens. He heard of the growing power of the Carbonari, and had recourse to them.
Already, indeed, led by Capo Bianco, the Carbonari had assembled in arms in the neighbourhood of Catanzaro; they scoured the country, attacked the towns, drove out the partisans of the French, and, raising a cry that the reign of Joachim had come to an end, they hoisted the tri-coloured flag of the sect, and set up wherever they could republican institutions. Become strong in the places of which they had possessed themselves, they sent letters and emissaries to every vendita, inciting the sectaries to raise the standard of liberty and come to their aid. Capo Bianco was the soul of all, and inflamed their zeal by his eloquence. “My Italian brothers,” he cried, “you are the slaves of the French. You have changed masters, but not your state. Your new rulers, — prouder, more insolent, and more rapacious than those of old, — give you no repose, and you lavish without advantage your possessions, your own and your children’s lives! Will you remain slaves — the scorn and mock of the stranger, who heaps wrongs upon you — the victims of the insolence and rapine of a lawless soldiery?” It were long to recount all the arguments of the chief. He concluded by telling them that if they joined his forces, they would command victory, and Italy, liberated, would acquire greater splendour and power than she had ever before enjoyed. “The destiny of our unfortunate country,” he concluded, “is in your hands; and posterity will either bless or curse you for your
deeds.”
While this was going on at one place, Ferdinand had given it in charge to Prince Moliterno, who was at the head of the royal forces in Calabria, to treat with other leaders of the sect, and invite them to espouse his cause. The Prince had ever professed republican principles; and even then, while heading an army in the name of Ferdinand, liberty and the union and independence of Italy were the watchwords he adopted. He endeavoured to persuade the chiefs of the sect that, by using their influence to drive out Murat, they would acquire such power as would force Ferdinand on his restoration to give his people a constitution, as, indeed, he had passed his royal word to do. Many of the Carbonari, although at that time the society was the mark of persecution of the French Government, shrunk from alliance with a sovereign, whom they knew to be in his heart a despot; while others among them gave ear to his promises, and joined the royalists. Both parties, royalists and Carbonari, while they thought it necessary to unite to drive out the French, fostered the secret hope that the victory once gained over the stranger, they could easily get rid of their confederate. Capo Bianco, however, never yielded, nor gave ear to the emissaries of the King. “You mistake,” he said to those of his partisans who took the other course; “and whether the royalists are victorious or defeated, you sharpen the sword that will destroy you; and build the scaffold on which I and my partisans will inevitably perish.”
