Chapter I: M̈́ai. ð. XII

The inscription in S. Croce in Gerusalemme has been removed. It seems to have been _in situ_ in 1592, as it is referred to in Schrader’s _Monumentorum Italiæ Descriptio_, published that same year.

[120] _Essais_, ii. 15: “Voyez en Italie, où il y a plus de beaulté à vendre, et de la plus fine, comment il fault qu’elle cherche d’aultres moyens estrangiers et d’aultres arts pour se rendre agréable.” Also _Essais_, iii. 5: “Ils font les poursuyvants en Italie et les transis de celles mesmes qui sont à vendre; et se deffendent ainsi: Qu’il y a des degrez en la jouissance, et que par des services il veulent obtenir pour eulx celle qui est la plus entière: elles ne vendent que le corps: la volonté ne peult estre mise en vente, elle est trop libre et trop sienne.”

Madame Le Brun writes of a similar fashion at the end of the eighteenth century: “On les voit à leur fenêtres coiffées avec des fleurs, des plumes, fardées de rouge et de blanc: le haut de leur corsage, que l’on aperçoit, annonce une forte grande parure; en sorte qu’un amateur novice, qui veut faire connaissance avec elles, est tout surpris, quand il entre dans leurs chambres, de les trouver seulement vêtues d’un jupon sale.”--_Souvenirs_ (Paris).

[121] _Essais_, i. 11. “Mais ne veoid on encores touts les jours, au vendredi sainct, en divers lieux, un grand nombre d’hommes et de femmes se battre jusques à se deschirer la chair et percer jusques aux os? Cela ay je veu souvent et sans enchantement: et disoit on (car ils vont masquez) qu’il y en avoit qui pour de l’argent entreprenoient en cela de garantir la religion d’aultruy, par un mépris de la douleur d’autant plus grand, que plus peuvent les aiguillons de la dévotion que de l’avarice.”

[122] An account of these relics may be found in Cancellieri, _Memorie istoriche delle sagre teste dei SS. Apostoli P. e P._ (Roma, 1806), and in the Dictionary of Moroni, _Teste dei SS. Pietro e Paolo_.

[123] Montaigne met Maldonat at Epernay, vol. i., p. 32.

[124] Of these gardens the Villa d’Este is now covered by the palace and gardens of the Quirinale. The Orsini possessed gardens or vineyards on Monte Cavallo, on the Pincio, and on the Aventine. The Sforza had one garden near Monte Testaccio and one near the Barberini Palace. The Farnese, Medici, Madama, and Papa Giulio exist at present. The Farnese _a Trastevere_ is now the site of the Villa Farnesina.

[125] This function was the charge of the Confraternity of the Annunziata, founded in 1460, and attached to the church of S. Maria sopra Minerva by Pius II. Pius V. and Urban VII. left thereto large benefactions.

[126] _Essais_, iii. 9: “Et puis cette mesme Rome que nous voyons, merite qu’on l’aime: confederée de si longtemps, et par tant de tiltres à nostre Couronne: seule ville commune et universelle. Le Magistrat souverain qui y commande, est recognu pareillement ailleurs: c’est la ville Métropolitaine de toutes les nations Chrestiennes. L’Espagnol et le François chacun y est chez soy: pour estre des princes de cet Estat, il ne faut estre que de Chrestienté où qu’elle soit. Il n’est lieu ça bas que le Ciel ait embrassé avec telle influence de faveur et telle constance: sa ruine mesme est glorieuse et enflée.”

[127] Montaigne writes at length over this event in _Essais_, iii. 9.

[128] The Villa d’Este was built by Pirro Ligorio for the Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, son of Alfonso II. of Ferrara, in the middle of the sixteenth century. Eustace, who visited it in 1801, describes it as fallen to decay.

[129] The statues which Montaigne saw were all found in Hadrian’s Villa. In 1780 a certain number of them were taken by Duke Ercole III. to Modena, and the remainder removed to Rome and added to the Capitoline Museum. The last-named statue was covered with a bronze robe by Bernini in deference to current notions of propriety.

[130] This is all the mention he makes of Hadrian’s Villa.

[131] Montaigne notes his first interview with this official and the objections taken to his writings on page 139.

[132] 4 A.M.

[133] Stanislaus Hosius or Hozyusz was a native of Cracow, and was educated at Padua, where he was a fellow-student with Reginald Pole, and at Bologna. He introduced the Jesuits into Poland in 1569, and was charged with many confidential missions between Pius IV. and the Emperor Ferdinand during the sittings of the Council of Trent. He founded the hospital of S. Stanislaus for his countrymen in Rome. He died at Capranica in 1579. Possibly the Pole mentioned by Montaigne was Stanislaus Reskke, who has left a life of Cardinal Hosius, _Stanislai Hosii Cardinalis Vita_, Roma, 1587.

[134] She was the daughter of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who, according to the current saying in Rome, had made the three most beautiful things in the city: the Palazzo Farnese, the Church of the Gesù, and La bella Clelia. After the death of her husband in 1585, she gave occasion for scandal on account of her connection with the Cardinal dei Medici and Alfonso Vitelli. Her father ultimately compelled her to marry Marco Pio of Savoy, who was ten years her junior. The marriage was an unhappy one.

[135] Probably a misprint for Noirmôutier.

[136] Orte. The foundations of the present bridge are the work of Augustus; the more recent portions having been built by Sixtus V.

[137] He had invited Montaigne to dine with him at his villa near Porto. See page 128.

[138] It is strange that Montaigne, with his partiality for artificial waterworks, should leave the Falls of Terni unnoticed.

[139] L’Angeloni, in his _Storia di Terni_ (Pisa, 1878), describes a figure of Neptune found in some excavations near Lago Velino with the following inscription:--

Neptuno Sacrum
L. Valerius Nigri Lib. Menander
Portitor Ocrisiva.

He also gives the inscription mentioned by Montaigne:--

A. Pompejo A. F.
Clu. Q. Patrono
Municipi Interamnat.
Nahartis quod ejus
Opera universum
Municipium ex summis
Periculis et Difficultatibus
expeditum
et conservatum est ex
Testamento L. Licini T. F.
Statua statuta est.

[140] Petrino was one of the most celebrated brigands of the cinquecento. He began his career about 1577, and for several years afterwards kept in terror the duchy of Spoleto and the south of Umbria. He was active in these parts as late as 1581. His death and capture were several times reported, but he seems to have escaped to Spain, where he lived until 1640, and returned under the favour of the Farnesi. He died at an advanced age in 1650.

Brigandage was rife throughout the papal territories at this time. Gregory XIII. was on bad terms with all his neighbours on account of his arrogance and extortions, and the Florentines and Venetians allowed the bandits to take refuge in their dominions when pressed by the papal forces. It is strange that Montaigne should have had so little to say about it.

[141] Sainte Foix, in Périgord, close to Montaigne’s home.

[142] Now the department of Lot-et-Garonne. Matteo Bandello had held the bishopric of Agen until a few years before this time.

[143] The Palazzo dei Diamanti, now the Pinacoteca, built for Sigismondo d’Este in 1493. The building alluded to by Montaigne is probably the Palazzo Mignardi.

[144] In the time of Leo X. the neighbouring city of Recanati had been burnt by the Turks.

[145] The Santa Casa is built of stone and not of brick.

[146] Montaigne’s offering had probably disappeared before the shrine was pillaged by the French, as there is no mention of it in a catalogue of the _ex votos_ by Murri, printed in 1792.

In 1802 Eustace visited Loreto and found the treasury empty. “No vestige now remains of this celebrated collection of everything that was valuable; rows of empty shelves and numberless cases only enable the treasurer to enlarge on its immensity and curse the banditti that plundered it. ‘Galli,’ he adds, ‘semper rapaces, crudeles, barbarorum omnium Italis infestissimi.’”--_Classical Tour_, i. 166.

[147] The marble casing of the Santa Casa was designed by Bramante and the sculptures executed by Sansovino, Girolamo Lombardo, Bandinelli, Giovanni da Bologna, Guglielmo della Porta, Raffaele da Montelupo, Sangallo, and others. It was begun under Leo X. and finished under Paul III.

[148] Louis d’Amboise was born in 1479, and made cardinal by Julius II. He died at Ancona in 1517.

[149] Georges d’Armagnac was born in Gascony in 1500, and became a Spanish ecclesiastic. He subsequently was made archbishop of Toulouse, and died at Avignon in 1585.

[150] The principal works now in the church are by Luca Signorelli, and Melozzo da Forli. Montaigne does not notice the bronze doors by Girolamo Lombardo, which rival Ghiberti’s at Florence. The church was begun in 1468 on the site of an ancient one which, according to Vasari, was adorned with frescoes by Domenico Veneziano and his pupil Piero della Francesca.

[151] According to Querlon, there is no record of any such person in the _Nomenclature alphabétique des nobles de Paris et provinces voisines_, a list made at the end of the sixteenth century. Neither does the Abbé Lebœuf, in his _Histoire de la ville et du diocese de Paris_, find the name of Marteau in connection with any one of the four places called La Chapelle described in his book.

Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

Italics are represented thus _italic_.