The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 36, October, 1860

Thus did Hercules or Alexander change his name for that of Pasquin, and soon became almost as well known throughout Europe under his new designation as under his old. If the statue were not dug up, as is said, until the sixteenth century, its fame spread rapidly; for, before Luther had made himself feared at Rome, Pasquin was already well known as the satirist of the vices of Pope and Cardinals, and as a bold enemy of the abuses of the Church.

But the history of Pasquin is not a mere story of Roman jests, nor is its interest such alone as may arise from an amusing, though neglected series of literary anecdotes. In the dearth of material for the popular history of modern Rome, it is of value as affording indications of the turn of feeling and the opinions of the Romans, and of the regard in which they held their rulers. The free speech, which was prohibited and dangerous to the living subjects of the temporal power of the Popes, was a privilege which, in spite of prohibition, Pasquin insisted upon exercising. Whatever precautions might be taken, whatever penalties imposed, means were always found, when occasion arose, to affix to the battered marble papers bearing stinging epigrams or satirical verses, which, once read, fastened themselves in the memory, and spread quickly by repetition. He could not be silenced. "Great sums," said he one day, in an epigram addressed to Paul III., who was Pope from 1534 to 1549, "great sums were formerly given to poets for singing: how much will you give me, O Paul, to be silent?"

"Ut canerent data multa olim sunt vatibus aera:
Ut taceam, quantum tu mihi, Paule, dabis?"

In his life of Adrian VI., the successor of Leo X., Paulus Jovius, not indeed the most trustworthy of authorities, tells a story which, if not true, might well be so. He says, that the Pope, being vexed at the free speech of Pasquin, proposed to have him thrown into the Tiber, thinking thus to stop his tongue; but the Spanish legate dissuaded him, by suggesting, with grave Spanish wisdom, that all the frogs of the river, becoming infected with his spirit, would adopt his style of speech and croak only pasquinades. The contemptibleness of the assailant made him the more dreaded. Did not the very reeds tell the fatal secret about King Midas?

Pasquin was by no means the only figure in Rome who gave expression to thoughts and feelings which it would have been dangerous to the living subjects of the ecclesiastical rule to utter aloud. His most distinguished companion was Marforio, a colossal statue of an ocean or river god, which was discovered in the sixteenth century near the forum of Mars, from which he derived his name. Toward the end of the same century, he was placed in the lower court of the Palazzo de' Conservatori, on the Capitol, and here he has since remained. Dialogues were often carried on between him and his friend Pasquin, and a share in their conversation was sometimes taken by the Facchino, or so called Porter of the Palazzo Piombino. In his "Roma Nova," published in 1660, Sprenger says that Pasquin was assigned to the nobles, Marforio to the citizens, and the Facchino to the common people. But besides these there were the Abate Luigi of the Palazzo Valle,—Madama Lucrezia, who still sits behind the Venetian palace near the Church of St. Mark,—the Baboon, from which the Via Babbuino takes its name,—and the marble portrait of Scanderbeg, the great enemy of the Turks, on the façade of the house which he at one time occupied in Rome. Each of these personages now and then issued an epigram or took part in the satirical talk of his companions. Such a number of cold and secure censors is not surprising in a city like Rome, where the checks upon open speech are so many, and where priests and spies exercise so close a scrutiny over the thoughts and words of men. Oppression begets hypocrisy, and a tyrant adds to the faults of his subjects the vices of cowardice and secrecy. Caustic Forsyth, speaking of the Romans, begins with the bitter remark, that "the national character is the most ruined thing at Rome"; and in the same section he adds, "Their humor is naturally caustic; but they lampoon, as they stab, only in the dark. The danger attending open attacks forces them to confine their satire within epigram; and thus pasquinade is but the offspring of hypocrisy, the only resource of wits who are obliged to be grave on so many absurdities in religion, and respectful to so many upstarts in purple." Thus if the Romans lampoon only in the dark, the fault is to be charged against their rulers rather than themselves. The talent for sarcastic epigram is hereditary with the people. The pointed style of Martial was handed down through successive generations. The epigram in his hands was no longer a mere inscription, an idyl, or an elegy; it had lost its ancient grace, but it took on a new energy, and it set the model, which the later Romans knew well how to copy, of satire condensed into wit, in lines each of whose words had a sting.

The first true Pasquinades—that is, the first of the epigrams which were affixed to Pasquin, and hence derived their name—are perhaps those which belong to the reign of Leo X. We at least have found no earlier ones of undoubted genuineness; but satires similar to those of Pasquin, and possibly originating with him, as they now go under the general name of Pasquinades, were published against the Popes who preceded Leo. The infamous Alexander VI., the Pope who has made his name synonymous with the worst infamies that disgrace mankind, was not spared the attacks of the subjects whom he and his children, not unworthy of such a father, degraded and abused. Two lines could say much:—

"Sextus Tarquinius, Sextus Nero, Sextus et iste:
Semper sub Sextis perdita Roma fuit."

"Sextus Tarquinius, Sextus Nero, this also a Sextus" (Alexander Sextus, that is, Alexander the Sixth): "always under the Sextuses has Rome been ruined." And as if this were not enough, another distich struck with more directness at the vices of the Pope:—

"Vendit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum:
Emerat ille prius, vendere jure potest."

"Alexander sells the keys, the altars, Christ. He bought them first, and has good right to sell."[3 - Mrs. Piozzi, in her amusing Journey through Italy, ii. 113, quotes these verses and gives a translation of them which shows that she quite mistook their point. In spite of her quoting Latin, Greek, and even on occasion Hebrew, her scholarship was not very accurate or deep.]

Alexander had gained his election by bribes which he did not pay, and promises which he did not keep; and Guicciardini tells in a few words what use he made of his holy office, declaring, that, "with his immoderate ambition and poisoned infidelity, together with all the horrible examples of cruelty, luxury and monstrous covetousness, selling without distinction both holy things and profane things, he infected the whole world."[4 - The Historie of Guicciardin, reduced into English by Geffray Fenton. 1579. p. 308. Another epigram of barbarous bitterness against Alexander refers, if we understand it aright, to one of the gloomiest events of his pontificate, the murder of his son Giovanni, Duca di Gandia, by his other son, Caesar Borgia. Giovanni was killed at night, and his body was thrown into the Tiber, from which it was recovered the next morning.Piscatorem hominum ne te non, Sexte, putemus,Piscaris natum retibus ecce tuum.""Lest we should not fancy you, O Sextus, a fisher of men, you fish for your own son with nets."]

In 1503, after a pontificate of eleven years, Alexander died. Rome rejoiced. Peace, which for a long time had been banished from her borders, returned, and she enjoyed for a few days unwonted freedom from alarm and trouble. Her happiness found expression in verse:—

"Dic unde, Alecto, pax haec effulsit, et unde
Tam subito reticent proelia? Sextus obit."

"Say whence, Alecto, has this peace shone forth? wherefore so suddenly has the noise of battle ceased? Alexander is dead."

The rule of Borgia's successor, Pius III., lasting only twenty-seven days, afforded little opportunity to the play of indignant wit; but the nine years' reign of Julius II., which followed, was a period whose troubled history is recorded in the numerous epigrams and satires to which it gave birth. The impulsive and passionate vigor of the character of Julius, the various fortunes of his rash enterprises, the troubles which his stormy and rapacious career brought to the Papal city, are all more or less minutely told. The Pope began his reign with warlike enterprises, and as soon as he could gather sufficient force he set out to recover from the Venetians territory of which they had possession, and which he claimed as the property of the Papal state. It was said, that, in leading his troops out of Rome, he threw into the Tiber, with characteristic impetuosity, the keys of Peter, and, drawing his sword from its sheath, declared that henceforth he would trust to the sword of Paul. The story was too good to be lost, and it gave point to many epigrams, of which, perhaps, the one preserved by Bayle is the best:—

"Cum Petri nihil efficiant ad proelia claves,
Auxilio Pauli forsitan ensis erit."

"Since the keys of Peter profit not for battle, perchance, with the aid of Paul, the sword will answer."[5 - Vasari relates, that Michel Angelo, when he was making the bronze statue of Julius, at Bologna, having asked the Pope if he should put a book in his left hand,—"No," replied the fiery old man, "put a sword in it, for I know not letters": "Mettivi una spada, che io non so lettere."]

Julius was the first of the Popes of recent times to allow his beard to grow, and Raphael's noble portrait of him shows what dignity it gave to his strongly marked face. The beard was also regarded traditionally as having belonged to Saint Paul. "For me," the Pope was represented as saying, "for me the beard of Paul, the sword of Paul, all things of Paul: that key-bearer, Peter, is no way to my liking."

"Huc barbam Pauli, gladium Pauli, omnia Pauli:
Claviger ille nihil ad mea vota Petrus."

But the most savage epigram against Julius was one that recalled the name of the great Roman, which the Pope was supposed to have adopted in emulation of that of Alexander, borne by his predecessor:—

"Julius est Romae. Quid abest? Date, numina, Brutum.
Nam quoties Romae est Julius, illa perit."
"Julius is at Rome. What is wanting?

Ye gods, give us a Brutus! For

when Julius is at Rome, the city is lost."

Pasquin became a recognized institution, as we have said, under Leo X., and was taken under the protection of the Roman people.[6 - At the beginning of his pontificate, upon occasion of Leo's taking possession of the Lateran with a solemn procession, an arch of triumph was erected at the bridge of Sant' Angelo, which bore an inscription worthy of the tailor's successor:—"Olim habuit Cypria sua tempera, tempora MavorsOlim habuit, sua nunc tempora Pallas habet.""Venus once had her time, Mars also hashad his, but now Minerva rules."] His popularity was such as to lead to consequences of which he himself complained. He was made the vehicle of the effusions of worthless versifiers, and he was forced to cry out, "Woe is me! even the copyist fixes his verses upon me, and every one bestows on me his silly trifles."

The application of these verses was alike appropriate to the life of the Pope, or to the reigns of Alexander VI., Julius II., and the one just beginning.

"Me miserum! Copista etiam mihi carmina figit;
Et tribuit nugas jam mihi quisque suas."

He seems to have been successful in putting a stop to this injurious treatment; for not long after he declared, with a sarcasm directed against the prominent qualities of his fellow-citizens, "There is no better man at Rome than I. I seek nothing from any one. I am not wordy. I sit here and am silent."

"Non homo me melior Rome est. Ego nil peto ab ullo.
Non sum verbosus. Hic sedeo et taceo."

It had become the custom, upon occasions of public festivity, to adorn Pasquin with suits of garments, and with paint, forcing him to assume from time to time different characters according to the fancy of his protectors. Sometimes he appeared as Neptune, sometimes as Chance or Fate, as Apollo or Bacchus. Thus, in the year 1515, he became Orpheus, and, while adorned with the plectrum and the lyre of the poet, Marforio addressed a distich to him in his new character, which hints at the popular appreciation of the Pope. The year 1515 was that of the descent of Francis I, into Italy, and of the bloody battle of Marignano. "In the midst of war and slaughter and the sound of trumpets," said Marforio, "you sing and strike your lyre: this is to understand the temper of your Lord."

"Inter bella, tubas, caedes, canis ipse, lyramque
Percutis. Hoc sapere est ingenium Domini."[7 - In Murray's Handbook for Rome, a book for the most part of great accuracy, there is a curious blunder in the account of Pasquin. It is said, that, "on the election of Pope Leo X., in 1440, the following satirical acrostic appeared, to mark the date MCCCCXL:—'Multi caeci cardinales creaverunt caecum decimum (X) Leonem: 'Many blind cardinals have created a tenth blind Lion.'" Now in 1440 Leo was not born, and no Pope was chosen in that year. Leo was not made Pope till 1513, and the acrostic has apparently nothing to do with the date of his accession to the pontificate.]

But the character of most of those pasquinades which belong to the pontificate of Leo is so coarse as to render them unfit for reproduction. A general licentiousness pervaded Rome, and the vices of the Pope and the higher clergy, veiled, but not hidden, under the displays of sensual magnificence and the pretended refinements of degraded art, were readily imitated by a people taught to follow and obey the teachings of their ecclesiastical rulers. Corruption of every sort was common. Virtue and vice, profane and sacred things, were alike for sale. The Pope made money by the sale of cardinalates and traffic in indulgences. "Give me gifts, ye spectators," begged Pasquin; "bring me not verses: divine Money alone rules the ethereal gods."

"Dona date, astantes; versus ne reddite: sola
Imperat aethereis alma Moneta deis."

Leo's fondness for buffoons, with whom he mercilessly amused himself by tormenting them and exciting them to make themselves ridiculous, is recorded in a question put to Pasquin on one of his changes of figure. "Why have you not asked, O Pasquil, to be made a buffoon? for at Rome everything is now permitted to the buffoons."

"Cur non te fingi scurram, Pasquille, rogâsti?
Cum Romae scurris omnia jam liceant."

Leo died in 1521. His death was sudden, and not without suspicion of poison. It was said that the last offices of the Church were not performed for the dying man, and an epigram sharply embodied the report. "Do you ask why at his last hour Leo could not take the sacred things? He had sold them."

"Sacra sub extremâ, si forte requiritis, horâ
Cur Leo non potuit sumere: Vendiderat."

The spirit of Luther had penetrated through the walls of Rome; and though all tongues but those of statues might be silenced, eyes were not blinded, nor could ears be made deaf. Nowhere was the need of reform so felt as at Rome, but nowhere was there so little hope for it; for the people stood in equal need of it with the Church, whose ministers had corrupted them, and whose rulers tyrannized over them. "Farewell, Rome!" said Pasquin.

"Roma, vale! Satis est vidisse. Revertar
Quum leno, meretrix, scurra, cinaedus ero."

When Leo's short-lived successor, the gloomy Fleming, Adrian VI., who was the author of the proposal to destroy Pasquin, despatched his nuncio to the diet of Nuremberg to oppose the progress of Luther, he told him in his instructions to "avow frankly that God has permitted this schism and this persecution on account of the sins of men, and, above all, of those of the priests and the prelates of the Church." Pasquin could not have improved on these words. And when, twenty months after his elevation to the papacy, this hard old man died, the inscription—which he ordered to be put upon his tomb was in words fit to disarm the satirist:—"Here lies Adrian VI., who esteemed nothing in his life more unhappy than that he had been called to rule": "_Adrianus VI. hîc situs est, qui nil sibi infelicius in vitâ quam quod imperaret duxit."

During the pontificate of Clement VII., Rome suffered under calamities too terrible and too depressing to admit of the frequent display of the humor or the satire of Pasquin. The siege and sack of the city by the army of the Constable de Bourbon wrought too much misery to be set in verse or to be sharpened in epigram. One shrewd jest of this time has, indeed, been preserved. Clement was for months a prisoner in the Castle of Sant' Angelo, unable to stir abroad. "Papa non potest errare" said Pasquin, or one of his friends, with a play on the double meaning of the last word, and a scoff at Papal pretension: "The Pope cannot err": he is too well guarded to stray. But when the Pope died in 1534, Pasquin did not spare his memory. He had lately changed his physician, and taken one named Matteo Curzio or Curtius; and when his death took place, not without suspicion of malpractice, the satisfaction of the people was expressed by the appearance of a portrait of this new doctor, with the inscription, in words borrowed from the Vulgate, "Ecce agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccata mundi!" "Curtius has killed Clement," said Pasquin. "Curtius, who has secured the public health, should be rewarded."

"Curtis occidit Clementem. Curtius auro
Donandus, per quem publica parta salus."

Nor was this all. Pasquin declared, that, on occasion of Clement's death, a bitter strife arose between Pluto and Saint Peter as to which should receive the Pope:—