Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, no. 25, November 1859 | Page 3

a foreign tongue, the
_caffès_ of Milan resound with Teutonic gutturals, and under the
arcades of Bologna every other face wears the yellow beard of the
North; yet the family portraits in the vast palace-chambers, the eyes and
dialect of the people, the monumental inscriptions, announce an
indigenous and superseded race; their industry, civil rights, property,
and free expression in art, literature, and even speech, being forcibly

and systematically repressed: while in the mountains of Savoy, the
streets of Turin, and the harbor of Genoa, the stir and zest, the
productiveness, and the felicity of national life greet the senses and
gladden the soul. Statistics evidence what observation hints; Cavour
wins the respect of Europe; D'Azeglio illustrates the inspiration which
liberty yields to genius; journalism ventilates political rancor; debate
neutralizes aggressive prejudice; physical resources become available;
talent finds scope, character self-assertion; Protestantism builds altars,
patriotism shrines; and genuine Italian nationality has a vital existence
so palpably reproachful of circumjacent stagnation, ruin, and wrong,
that no laws or material force can interpose a permanent obstacle to its
indefinite extension and salutary reign.
In his first youth, Foresti imbibed the creative spirit breathed into the
social and civic life of Italy by Napoleon's victories and administration;
it was at that vivid epoch when the military, political, artistic, and
literary talent of the land, so long repressed and thwarted by
superstition and despotism, broke forth, that his studies were achieved.
We have only to compare what was done, thought, and felt in the
Peninsula, during the ten years between the coronation of Bonaparte at
Milan and his overthrow at Waterloo, with the subsequent dearth of
national triumphs in every sphere, and with the inert, apprehensive,
baffled existence of the Italians in the grasp of reinstated and reinforced
imbecile, yet tyrannic governments, to appreciate the feelings of a
young, well-born, gifted citizen, when suddenly checked in a liberal
and progressive career, and remanded, as it were, from the bracing
atmosphere of modern civilization and enlightened activity, to the
passive, silent endurance of obsolete feudalism. It was the inevitable
and deliberate protest against this wicked and absurd reaction which
gave birth to the political organization of the _Carbonari_; wherein the
noblest men and the wisest princes of that day enrolled themselves; and
the inefficiency of whose far-reaching, secret, and solemn aims can be
accounted for only by the fatal error of trusting in the magnanimity of
an order born to hereditary power, and overlooking, in their municipal
fraternities, the vast importance of the more scattered, but not less
capable and patriotic agricultural class.
Foresti was born at Conselice in the Ferrarese. Few American travellers
linger in Ferrara. Fresh from the more imposing attractions of Florence

or Venice, this ancient Italian city offers little in comparison to detain
the eager pilgrim; and yet to one cognizant of its history and alive to
imaginative associations, this neglect might increase the charm of a
brief sojourn. It is pleasant to explore the less hackneyed stories of
history and tradition, to enjoy an isolated scene fraught with grand or
tender sentiment, to turn aside from the trampled highway and the
crowded resort, to listen to some plaintive whisper from the Past amid
the deserted memorials of its glory and grief. Such a place is Ferrara.
The broad and regular streets and the massive palaces emphatically
declare its former splendor; and its actual decadence is no less manifest
in the grass-grown pavement of the one and the crumbling and dreary
aspect of the other. It requires no small effort of fancy, as we walk
through some deserted by-way, wherein our footsteps echo audibly at
noonday, to realize that this was the splendid arena where the House of
Este so long held sway, limited in extent, but in its palmy days the
centre of a brilliant court, a famous school of pictorial art, the seat of a
university whose fame drew scholars from distant Britain, and whose
ducal family gave birth to the Brunswick dynasty, whence descended
the royalty of England. The city dates its origin from the fifth century,
when its marshy site gave refuge from the pursuing Huns, and the
ambition of its rulers gradually concentrated around the unpromising
domain those elements of ecclesiastical prestige, knightly valor, artistic
and literary resources which enriched and signalized the Italian cities of
the Middle Ages. Enlightened, though capricious patronage made this
halting-place between Bologna and Venice, Padua and Rome, the
nucleus of talent, enterprise, and diplomacy, the fruits whereof are
permanent. But there are two hallowed associations which in a
remarkable degree consecrated Ferrara and endeared her to the memory
of later generations: she gave an asylum to the persecuted Christian
Reformers, and was the home and haunt of poets. It is this recollection
which stays the feet and warms the heart of the