Those who take the trouble to study the speech in the 'Cortigiano' will see how poor an idea of it can be given by an extract.There were then living in Italy several distinguished women, who owed their celebrity chiefly to relations of this kind, such as Giulia Gonzaga, Veronica da Correggio, and, above all, Vittoria Colonna.The land of profligates and scoffers respected these women and this sort of love--and what more can be said in their favour? We cannot tell how far vanity had to do with the matter, how far Vittoria was flattered to hear around her the sublimated utterances of hopeless love from the most famous men in Italy.If the thing was here and there a fashion, it was still no trifling praise for Vittoria that she, as least, never went out of fashion, and in her latest years produced the most profound impressions.It was long before other countries had anything similar to show.
In the imagination then, which governed this people more than any other, lies one general reason why the course of every passion was violent, and why the means used for the gratification of passion were often criminal.There is a violence which cannot control itself because it is born of weakness; but in Italy we find what is the corruption of powerful natures.Sometimes this corruption assumes a colossal shape, and crime seems to acquire almost a personal existence of its own.