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Ferdinand Gregorovius 1892 697 Ferdinand Gregorovius "FERDINAND GEEGOEOVIUS, who died at Munich on 1 May of Downloaded from J. last year and was cremated at Gotha a few days later, was mourned by two nations, the Italian and the German. A citizen of Neidenburg, in East Prussia, where he was born in 1821, and also of the Eternal City, which had conferred on him the dignity of civi$ Romania, Gregorovius was a cosmopolite. The mind which http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ produced the ' History of Medieval Rome'' and the ' History of Medieval .Athens'a had an equally comprehensive grasp of its sub- ject in dealing with the Mediterranean world. In 1854, at the age of thirty-three, he published his first work, on ' Corsica,' of which three English translations speedily appeared, in London, in Edin- burgh, and in America. Cosmopolitan as he was by nature, Gregorovius was peculiarly fitted to ingratiate himself and his writings with the greater nations at University of Winnipeg on August 27, 2015 of Europe. He soon, however, came to look upon Italy as his second home. His subjects are principally Italian ; and even before he had crossed the Alps he was already in spirit in Rome. In 1857 he published a history of the emperor Hadrian, and shortly after a drama entitled ' The Death of Tiberius.' In these youthful pro- ductions may be detected all the characteristics of his later works— a noble striving after freedom, a tendency to humanism, and an artistic perception drawing inspiration from the Greeks. Once in Italy, he felt himself to be in his proper element. Rome affected him as it did Gibbon. Gibbon, seated amidst the ruins of ancient Rome, and listening to the vesper chants of the monks of Aracoeli, was stirred with the desire of describing how the cross was planted on the temples of antiquity. Instead, however, of carrying out this idea, and writing on medieval Rome, Gibbon wrote the history of the ' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.' Gregorovius took up the task which Gibbon abandoned. Standing one evening on the Ponte San Bartolommeo, the island bridge leading to Traste- vere, he saw before him a prospect such as Rome alone can offer— ' a picture,' to use his own words, ' evolved from centuries of union between two epochs of civilisation, the classic and the Christian.' 1 GetehichU der Stadt Bom im MitttlaHer. ' GuchichU der Stadt Athen im MUUlalter. 698 FERDINAND GREGOROVIUS Oct. The sight of the city, wrapped in medieval slumber, gave the idea of writing its history daring the middle ages. Borne had kept herself so completely isolated from the modernising tendencies of Europe, and even of Italy, that the political life on the banks of the Tiber was entirely subservient to the ecclesiastical. In the Borne of Pins IX, still a vast, ruin-bestrewn necropolis, the turbu- lent spirit of the young Prussian, dissatisfied with the internal con- ditions of his own country, found a resting-place. From 1855 to 1872 Gregorovius was engaged upon his 'History of Medieval Borne.' In a letter addressed by him to the writer of this article he says:— Downloaded from My history of the city of Rome is a record of the middle ages, written during a period which witnessed the extinction of the temporal power of the papacy, and produced among those very monuments which reflect this great epoch in the history of mankind. The idea of writing the history of Rome in the middle ages was then suggested to my mind, and I was http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ enabled by a fortunate inspiration to grasp the phantom and give it shape. For years I toiled in libraries and among archives, accumulating the mass of materials requisite for the task. This conception of medieval Rome as a city originated with me. I gave it a literary form and carried out Gibbon's first idea ; for it is well known that he had originally intended to write the history of the city of Rome during the middle ages. In furtherance of this work, which became the purpose of his life, Gregorovius made a point of seeing every spot connected with medi- at University of Winnipeg on August 27, 2015 eval times, visiting even the most insignificant places which had formerly been seats of local administration, and discerning in the architectural features of each town the spirit of its history. Gre- gorovius had to contend with many difficulties, both material and personal, while engaged upon his great work. Material difficulties were pressing, for having no fortune, he was compelled to depend upon the very slender income which his writings produced. A German writer's lot in those days was anything but enviable. Some of his embarrassments were, however, removed by the inter- vention of Bunsen, who employed his influence on behalf of the young historian, and succeeded in obtaining from the Prussian government a yearly pension which freed him from pecuniary anxiety, and enabled him to devote himself wholly to his work. But personal difficulties had also to be combated. Gregorovius was a protestant, and moreover a freethinker, and papal Borne was disposed at first to regard him with suspicion. Gradually, however, this was overcome. He. was allowed access to archives hitherto unexplored, and even the manuscripts in the Vatican library were placed at his disposal. He counted among his friends in Borne both the Veronese Count Paolo Perez (an enthusiastic a<lmirer of the writings of Thomas Aquinas and Dante, who died a Bosminian monk in the monastery at Stresa) and the duke of Sermoneta, the 1892 FERDINAND GREQOBOVIUS 699 influential head of the Caetani family. Through them he obtained introductions to the principal Roman houses, and was permitted to carry on his researches among family archives, which he often found banished to the moat remote corner of the mansion and en- crusted with the dust of ages. His work, however, was not merely the history of a city, as its name might lead one to suppose. Leopold von Ranke rightly observed that Gregorovius's work was rather the history of the popes than of the city of Rome and its municipality. The matter relating to this last, indeed, would scarcely exceed a single thick volume. His work is less to be regarded as a consecutive whole Downloaded from than as a succession of historical paintings instinct with descriptive power, and a series of portraits of popes, heroes, and women. They are drawn with vigour and enthusiasm by a writer who is at home in the historical relations between popes and emperors, but whose sympathies are specially enlisted in the scenic effects of history, http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ and who cares little for the more ordinary aspects of life, its prin- ciples of administration and of domestic economy. Gregorovius's vivid imagination carries him far beyond the dry text of documents; his facts and characters are apt to be too strongly impregnated with his own energetic temperament. He writes con amort, but love is often blind. His German nationality asserts itself when recording the vicissitudes of medieval Rome; and he can never forget the painful relations ono.e subsisting between Italy and his own father- at University of Winnipeg on August 27, 2015 land, to whose emperors the road to Rome was often a veritable via crucit. He certainly misjudged his own character when he con- sidered the scientific element in it to be more developed than the artistic. In his charming little book ' Corfu: an Ionian Idyll' he sets forth his own estimate of the historian's vocation. All the works of Gregorovius abound in somewhat fantastic hypotheses. He launches out into suppositions, not only about events, but as to the sentimentB of prominent historical personages. His monograph 'Lucrezia Borgia, based upon Documents and Letters of her own Day,' is an example of this. It is an artist's account of the times of Pope Alexander VI; the interest centres in the person of the beautiful Lucrezia, the daughter of Alexander and of his mistress Vannozza Catanei; but it is replete with conjectures, and the suppositions occupy almost more space in the volume than the actual facts. Yet, notwithstanding its weak points, the book is a fascinating one. Not only the spirit interests the author, but also the flesh; and even the costume of the day has its attractions for him. In his pages we seem to hear the rustle of silk and satin, of purple .and gold brocade. He never loses his admiration for the great moral characters which stand out in history, though he often lets mere magnificence stand abreast of virtue. He could scarcely make a vestal virgin out of Lucrezia Borgia, nor beatify a woman 700 FERDINAND GKEGOROVIUS Oct. who in the dim light of tradition appears as a poisoner. Never- theless he succeeds in rehabilitating her to some extent; and rightly observes that the contrast between the sanctity of the office held by Alexander VI, the head of the Borgias, and the evil deeds of the whole family causes their crimes to appear more terrible to us than they were in reality. Perhaps his vindication of Lucrezia may account for the favour which the historian found in the eyeff of Italian women. His portraits of the women of the Renaissance are drawn with warmth and energy. The duchess of Urbino, for instance, or the duchess of Mantua, proud and beautiful dames, enthroned in princely state, appear glittering with jewels, awaiting their cavaliers beneath golden baldacchinos.8 Downloaded from ' Athenais: the History of a Byzantine Empress,' which appeared in 1882,4 is a companion picture to ' Lucrezia Borgia.' In dealing with the history of that empress Gregorovius leads his readers to the three great centres of ancient culture, Athens, Constantinople, http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ and Jerusalem, where the life of his heroine was passed.
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