The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 25, November, 1859. Various
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 transatlantic visitor, as he roams at twilight around the venerable castle "flanked with towers," traces the dim fresco in a church Giotto decorated, reads "Parisina" in Byron's paraphrase near the dungeons where she and her lover were slain, or gazes with mingled curiosity and love on the chirography of St. Chrysostom, the original manuscripts of Tasso, Ariosto, and Guarini, or the inscription of Victor Alfieri in the Studio Publico. It is because Calvin was here sheltered, and Olympia Morata found sympathy and respect,—because the author of "Jerusalem Delivered" here loved, triumphed, and despaired, and the author of the "Orlando Furioso" so assiduously labored for his orphaned family, the exacting Cardinal Ippolito, and the cause of learning, and strung a lyre which has for centuries vibrated in the popular heart and fancy,—because, in a word, Ferrara contains the prison of Tasso, and the home of Ariosto, who called her "città bene avventurosa," as did Tassoni the "gran donna del Po,"—that the desolate old city is revived to the imagination, with its hundred thousand people, its gay courtiers and brave knights, the romance of its feats of minstrelsy and arms whereat noble beauties and immortal bards assisted, and Art, Chivalry, Learning, Church, and State held festival with the Muses to adorn and perpetuate the transient pageant, the loveliness, and the rule,—otherwise since consigned to the monotonous record of vanished pomp and arbitrary sway.
When Napoleon fell, Foresti was a student at the University of Bologna, whence he returned to his native capital, after obtaining the degree of Doctor of Laws. His earliest forensic labors, like those of our young advocates, were in the defence of accused criminals; and, limited as is this sphere, he must have displayed unusual maturity of judgment and natural eloquence, to have received successively the eminent appointments of Provisory Assistant Judge in the Court of Justice of Ferrara, Supplementary Professor of Eloquence and Belles Lettres in the Lyceum, and Judge of the Peace, by virtue of which latter office he crossed the Po to practise at Polesino,—wisely preferring the Austrian to the Papal jurisdiction. In Crespino, in the province of Rovigo, in the Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom, Foresti was made Praetor under the Emperor's warrant. Coincident with this recognition of his judicial knowledge and skill, was a kindred appreciation on the part of his liberal and patriotic countrymen; they beheld in the vigorous and disciplined mind and generous heart of Foresti, in his civic wisdom and courage, the representative and ally they sought in this portion of their beautiful and unhappy land. To disseminate the principles and secure the cooperation of Venice became the special office of the Carbonari leaders of Ferrara, and they had only to reveal the high and holy object they cherished, to one who so well knew the wants and woes of his country as Foresti, to enlist his adventurous sympathy. The delicate and difficult mission, fraught with the dearest prospects of Italy, was nearly consummated, when a treacherous colleague revealed to the accredited agents both of Austria and the Pope the system of this mysterious revolutionary combination in and around Ferrara. The latter shrank from extreme measures, and was content with an oath of retraction; but the Austrian government gave instant orders to the chiefs of police, both there and at Venice, to arrest those whom the perjured Count Villa named as adherents of Carbonarism. The decree was executed with military force; and, without warning, preparation, or even a parting interview with their families and friends, the suspected were hurried off to the Piombi, that Venetian prison so graphically described by Pellico. All correspondence and personal intercourse was denied. Meantime, an ingenious and persevering investigation went on, to ascertain the scope of the enterprise thus summarily baffled, the means proposed, and the individuals implicated. To complicate still further the situation of the victims, in other quarters the flame they had secretly fed burst forth conspicuously; Naples and Piedmont were in arms; and Austria conceived an alarming idea of the national spirit she had partially contravened. The rigor of espionage towards the imprisoned and their friends increased; the prosecution was insidiously prolonged; privation and solitude, vigilance and suspense were made instruments for subduing the resolution and invading the confidence of the captives; they pined in desolation, ignorant of their fate, uninformed of the welfare of those most dear to them, without resources of defence or consolation, except what the strength of individual character yields; physically weakened, morally isolated; sometimes roused from sleep and bewildered with questions; at other times told they were to die, that some companion had confessed, or that some loved one had ceased to exist;—and all these crises of feeling and anxiety, of surprise and despair, induced with a fiendish deliberation, to startle honor into self-betrayal, wring from exhausted Nature what conscious rectitude would not divulge, or agonize human love into inadvertent disloyalty.
At length their fate was decided. Foresti's companion in prison was the son of a judge of Ferrara; and, one November midnight, their conversation was interrupted by the unexpected entrance of the jailer, who bade Foresti follow him. The hour and the manner of the official convinced both him and his comrade that his sacrifice was resolved upon; they embraced, and he left the cell to find himself strictly guarded by six soldiers. This nocturnal procession marched silently through the vast, lonely, and magnificent rooms of the Ducal Palace to the door which leads to the Bridge of Sighs: it was the old road to destruction,—the mysterious process, made familiar by novelists and poets, by which the ancient and sinister republic made more fearful the vengeance of government. As the unfortunate youth passed through a labyrinth of gloomy corridors, he recognized the haunts of the ancient Inquisition; the atmosphere was clogged with damp; moisture dripped from the stones. A dungeon, lighted only by a lamp suspended from the vault, and narrow, humid, and unfurnished,