August 18, 2025 • 19 mins
In the words of Lucy Madox Brown Rossetti, I have to thank all the previous students of Shelley as poet and man—not last nor least among whom is my husband—for their loving and truthful research on all the subjects surrounding the life of Mrs. Shelley. This biography delves into the remarkable life of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley, the brilliant author of Frankenstein and other significant works. As the wife of Percy Shelley and the daughter of the pioneering feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and philosopher William Godwin, Mary’s story is one of passion, intellect, and creativity. At just nineteen, she crafted a tale that has woven itself into the fabric of our culture. Join us as we explore the extraordinary journey of a woman whose legacy continues to inspire generations. This narrative is brought to life by Lucy Madox Brown Rossetti, daughter of artist Ford Madox Brown and wife of William Michael Rossetti from the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. (Summary by A.L. Gramour)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section nineteen of Missus Shelley. This is the LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Missus
Shelley by Lucy Maddox Brown Rosetti, Chapter eleven. Godwin and Belpurga.
At this time, while political events were absorbing England and
(00:21):
Shelley was weaving them into poetry in Italy. During the
remainder of his residence in Florence, Godwin's personal difficulties were
reaching their climax when he lost in an action for
the rent of his house. Shelley came to his help,
but in some way Godwin expected more than he received
and became very unpleasant in his correspondence, so much so
that Shelley had to beg him not to write to
(00:42):
Mary on these subjects, as her health was not then
in October eighteen nineteen able to bear the strain, and
the subject of money was not a fitting one to
be pressed on her by him. Mary had not the
disposal of money. If she had, she would give it
all to her father. He assured Godwin that the four
or five thousand pounds already expended on him might have
(01:05):
made him comfortable for the remainder of his life. Missus
Godwin naturally would not hear of abandoning the Skinner Street
business as being the only provision for herself when Godwin
should die. It is extremely painful at this stage of
Godwin's career to witness the lowering effects of his wife's
smaller nature upon him, as he certainly allowed himself to
(01:25):
be unduly influenced by her excited and not always truthful
views as known since the earlier days of their married life.
We have seen Missus Gisborne's diary showing how Missus Godwin
could not endure to see anyone in eighteen twenty who
had an attachment for Mary, whom, as Godwin told Missus Gisborne,
she considered her greatest enemy. And although he described his
(01:47):
wife as of the most irritable disposition possible, he listened
to and repeated her conjectures to the disparagement of Shelley
and Mary at the time when she did not hesitate
to accept with her husband the large sums of money
which Shelley with difficulty raised for them. All the facts
shown in this diary proved that Mary and Fanny must
(02:09):
have had a sufficiently trying life at home to account
for the result in either case, especially when we consider
that Claire and her brother Charles both preferred to leave
Godwin's house on the first possible occasion, Charles having left
for France immediately after Mary and Claire's departure with Shelley.
William alone remained at home, but four years passed in
(02:29):
a boarding school at Greenwich from eighteen fourteen must have
helped him to endure the discomforts of the time. Before
Missus Gisborne's return to Italy, Godwin gave her a detailed
account in writing of his money transactions with Shelley, which
had become very painful to both. In January eighteen twenty, Florence,
proving unsuitable for Shelley's health, they left for Pisa, the
(02:51):
mild climate of which city made it a favorite resort
of the poet during most of the short remainder of
his life. Mary ever hospitable, although as Shelley said, the
bills for printing his poems must be paid for by
stinting himself in meat and drink. Hoped that Missus Gisborne
would have stayed with them during her husband's visit to
England in eighteen twenty, as they had moved into a
(03:12):
pleasant apartment in March, this idea was not carried out.
About this time Mary and Claire, both with their own
absorbing anxieties, became again irksome to each other. Mary found
relief when Claire was absent, and Claire notes how the
Claire and the may find something to fight about every day,
a way of putting it which indicates differences, but certainly
(03:34):
no grave cause of disturbance. This was after their removal
to Leygorn, where they went towards the end of June
to be near the lawyer on account of Paollo. At
the beginning of August, the heat at Leghorn caused the
Shelleys to migrate to the baths at San Guiliano, where
Shelley found a very pleasant house, Casaprini. The moderate rent
suited their slender purse, which had so many outside calls
(03:55):
upon it. In October, Claire's departure for Florence as governess
and the family of Professor Bochtee, where she went by
the advice of her friend, Missus Mason, formerly Lady Montcashell,
brought an end to her permanent residence with the Shelleys,
although she was still to look upon their house as
her home, and she visited them either for her pleasure
or to assist them. Her absence from her friends gives
(04:17):
us the advantage of letters from them, letters full of
a certain exaggeration of affection and sympathy from Shelley, who
felt more acutely than Mary that Claire might be unhappy
under a strange roof Mary, less anxious on those grounds,
writes about the operas she has seen, giving good descriptions
of them. One of her letters is full of anxiety
as to Allegra, who has been placed in the convent
(04:39):
of Bagnica Valio by Byron. She feels that the child ought,
as soon as possible, be taken out of the hands
of so remorseless an unprincipled a man, but advises caution
in waiting for a favorable opportunity. She hopes that he
may be returning to England, he may be reconciled with
his wife. At any rate, Bagnaca Valo is high in
(04:59):
an a healthy position, quite different from the dirty canals
of Venice, which might injure any child's health. Mary thus
tries to console Claire, who was planning in her imagination
various ways of getting at her child, and corresponding with
and seeing Shelley on the subject, Mary dissuades Claire from
attempting anything. In the spring their unlucky time. It was
(05:20):
in the second spring Claire met l b et cetera.
The third they went to Marlowe, no wise thing at least,
the fourth uncomfortable in London, fifth, their Roman Misery, the
sixth Paola at Pisa, the seventh a mixture of amelia
and a chancery suit. Mary acknowledges this superstitious feeling is
more in Claire's line than her own, but thinks it
(05:42):
is worth considering. But this letter to Claire carries us
a year in advance. During the summer of eighteen twenty,
Mary had some of the delightful times she loved so dearly,
of poetic wanderings with Shelley through the woods and by
the river, one of which she remembers long afterwards. When
making her note to the Skylark, she recalls how she
and Shelley, wandering through the lanes whose myrtle hedges were
(06:04):
the bowers of the firefly, heard the caroling of the Skylark,
which inspired one of the most beautiful of his poems,
Precious Memories, which helped her through many after years devoided
the sympathy she yearned for. At the baths, they had
the pleasure of a visit from Medwin, who gave a
description of how Shelley, his wife and child had to
escape from the upper windows of their house in a
(06:24):
boat when the canal overflowed and inundated the valley. Mary
speaks of it as a very picturesque sight, with the
herdsmen driving their cattle. During the short absence of Shelley
when he took Clare to Florence, Mary was occupied planning
her novel of Valpurga, for which she studied Villani's chronicle
and Sismondi's history on leaving the baths of Sanguiliano. After
(06:46):
the floods, the Shelleys returned to Pisa, where they passed
the late autumn and winter of eighteen twenty and the
spring of eighteen twenty one. Here they made more acquaintances
than heretofore, Professor Pacciani also called Il Diavolo and reducing
them to Prince Mavrocordado, the Princess Agiropoli, the Improvisatore Segrici Taaffi,
(07:08):
and last, not least to Amelia Viviani. Here Mary continued
to write Valpurga and pursued her Latin, Spanish and Greek studies.
The latter the Prince Mavrocordato assisted her with. As Mary
writes to missus Gisborne, do not you envy me my
luck that, having begun Greek and amiable, young, agreeable and
learned Greek prince comes every morning to give me a
(07:29):
lesson of an hour and a half. But the person
of most moment at this time was undoubtedly the Contessina
Emelia Viviani, whom, accompanied by Pacciani, Claire, then Mary, and
then Shelley, visited at the Convent of Santana. This beautiful
girl with profuse black hair, Grecian profile, and dreamy eyes,
placed in the convent till she should be married. To
(07:51):
satisfy the jealousy of her stepmother. Became naturally an object
of extreme interest to the Shelleys. Many visits were paid,
and Mary invited her to stay with them at Chrisps.
Shelley was convinced that she had great talent, if not genius,
Shelley and Mary sent her books, and Claire gave her
English lessons at her convent while she was taking a
holiday from the Botchtis. Many letters are preserved from the
(08:14):
beautiful Amelia to Shelley and Mary, letters which translated into
English seem overflowing with sentiment and affection, but which to
Italians would indicate rather the style cultivated by Italian ladies,
which to this day seems one of their chief accomplishments
if they are not gifted with a voice to sing.
To Mary, she complains of a certain coldness, but certainly
(08:35):
this could not be brought to the charge of Shelley,
who was now inspired to write his epipsychicion To him,
Amelia was as the skylock, an emanation of the beautiful.
But to Mary, for a time, during Shelley's transitory adoration,
the event evidently became painful. With all her philosophy and
belief in her husband, she could not regard the lovely
girl who took walks with him as the skylock that
(08:57):
soared over their heads. And the Epipsychiceon was evidently not
a favorite poem of Mary. Surely we may ascribe to
this time in the spring of eighteen twenty one, the
poem written by Shelley to Lieutenant Williams, whose acquaintance he
had made in January. There is no month affixed to
the serpent is cast out from paradise, and it might
well apply, with its reference to my cold home, to
(09:18):
the time when Mary, in depression and pique, did not
always give her likewise sensitive husband all the welcome he
was accustomed to, and Shelley took refuge in a poem
by way of a letter. For this is the time
referred to by Mary in her letter to Claire as
their seventh unfortunate spring, a mixture of Amelia in a
chancery suit. It was not till the next spring that
Amelia was married, and that her husband and mother in law,
(09:41):
as Mary puts it, a devil of a life. We
have only to be grateful to Amelia for having inspired
one of the most wondrous poems in any language. The Williamses,
to whom Shelley's poem is addressed, were met by them
in January. Mary writes of the fascinating Jane missus Williams
that she is certainly very pretty, but want's animation, while
Shelley writes that she is extremely pretty and gentle, but
(10:04):
apparently not very clever, that he liked her much, but
had only seen her for an hour. Mary, among her
multifarious reading, notes an article by Medwin on animal magnetism
and Shelley, who suffered severely at this time, shortly afterwards,
tried its effect through Medwin. The latter bored Mary excessively.
Possibly she found the magnetizing a wearisome operation. Although Shelley
(10:26):
is said to have been relieved by it, his highly
nervous temperament was evidently impressed. When Medwin left, Missus Williams
undertook to carry on the cure. The chancery suit referred
to by Mary was an attempt between Sir Timothy's attorney
and Shelley's to throw their affairs into chancery, causing great
alarm to them in Italy, till Horace Smith came to
(10:47):
their rescue in England and with indignant letters, settled the
inconsiderate litigation. Missus Shelley, in her Notes to Poems in
eighteen twenty one, recounts how Shelley was nearly drowned by
a flat boat which he had recently acquired, being overturned
in the canal near Pisa. When returning from Layhorn, Williams
upset the boat by standing up and holding the mast.
(11:07):
Henry Revillie, Missus Gisborne's son, rescued Shelley and brought him
to land, where he fainted with the cold. At this
time at Pisa, Mary had to consider with Shelley a
matter of great importance to Claire. Byron, now at Ravenna,
had placed Allegra, as already stated in the convent of
Bagneca Valio. He told Missus Hopner that she had become
so unmanageable by servants that it was necessary to have
(11:29):
her under better care than he could secure, and he
considered that it would be preferable to bring her up
as a Roman Catholic with an Italian education, as in
that way, with a fortune of five or six thousand pounds,
she would marry an Italian and be provided for, whereas
she would always hold an anomalous position in England. At
this proposal, Claire was extremely indignant, but Shelley and Mary
(11:51):
took the opposite view and considered that Byron acted for
the best, as the convent was in a healthy position
and the nuns would be kind to the child. This
idea of Mary would naturally be agreed with by some
and disapproved of by others, But at that time there
was certainly no cause to indicate that Bagna Cavallio would
be more fatal to Allegra than in the other place,
(12:12):
although Claire's apprehensions were cruelly realized. From this time Claire
and Byron wrote letters of recrimination to each other, which,
considering Byrone's obduracy against the feelings of the mother Shelley
and Mary, came to hold as tyrannically unfeeling. In May,
Shelley and his wife and son returned to the baths
of San Guiliano, and while here Shelley's Adenaeus was published.
(12:36):
In eighteen twenty, when the Shelleys heard of Keats's fatal
illness for Missus Gisborne, she having met him the day
after he had received his death warrant from the doctor,
they were the first to beg him to join them
at Pisa. A small touch of poetical criticism, however, appears
to have weighed more with the sensitive Keats than these
friendly considerations for his health, and as he was about
(12:57):
to accompany his friend mister Severn to Rome. He did
not accept their kind offer, though in all probability Pisa
would have been better for him. During this summer at
the baths, Mary had finished her Romance of Valpurga and
read it to her husband, who admired it extremely. He
considered it to be a living and moving picture of
an age almost forgotten, A profound study of the passions
(13:19):
of human nature. Valpurga, published in eighteen twenty three, the
year after Shelley's death, is a romance of the fourteenth
century in Italy, during the height of the struggle between
the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, when each state in almost
each town was at war with the other, a condition
of things which lends itself to romance. Mary Shelley's intimate
(13:40):
acquaintance with Italy and the Italians gives her the necessary
knowledge to write on this subject. Her zealous Italian studies
came to her aid, and her love of nature give
life and vitality to the scene. Valpurga, the ancestral castle
home of Euthanasia, a Florentine lady of the Guelph faction,
is most picturesquely described on its ledge of rejecting rock
(14:01):
overlooking the plain of Lucca, the dependent peasants around happy
under the protection of their good Senora. That this beautiful
and high minded lady should be affiance to a gibeling
leader is a natural combination. But when her lover, Castruccio,
Prince of Lucca, carries his political enthusiasm the length of
making war on her native city of Florence, whose republican
(14:22):
greatness and love of art are happily described, Euthanasia cannot
let love stand in the way of duty and gratitude
to all those dearest to her. The severe struggle is
well described, for Euthanasia has loved Castuccio from their childhood.
When they played about the mountain grounds of her home
at Valpurga, Castuccio learned the secret paths to the castle,
(14:42):
which knowledge later helped him to take the fortress when
Euthanasia refused to yield it to him. Castuccio's character is
also well described, his devoted attachment to Euthanasia, from which
nothing could turn him till the passions of the conqueror
and party faction are still stronger, and the irresistible force
which impels him to make war and subdue the Guelphs,
which by her is regarded as murder and rapine disunites
(15:05):
beings seemingly formed for each other. All these different emotions
are portrayed with great beauty and simplicity. The Italian superstitions
are well shown, as how the Florentines ascribed all good
and evil fortune to conjunction of stars. The power of
the Inquisition in Rome comes likewise into play when the
beautiful prophetess Betrici, the child of the Prophetess Wilhelmina, who
(15:29):
had to be given to the leper for protection, as
even his filthy and deserted hut was safer for her
than that it should be known to the Inquisition that
she existed. She is rescued from the leper by a
bishop who heard her story from the death bed of
the woman to whom her mother, when dying, had confided her.
She was then brought up by the bishop's sister. Her
(15:49):
mother's spirit of prophecy was inherited by the daughter, and
as the mother believed herself to be an emanation of
the Holy Spirit, so Beatrici thought herself the antilla dae.
These mystical phantasies and their workings are depicted with much
beauty and strength. These Donna Estetici first appear in Italy
after the twelfth century, and had continued to the time
(16:10):
which Mary Shelley selected for her romance. After giving an
account of their pretensions, Moratory gravely observes, we may piously
believe that some were distinguished by supernatural gifts and admitted
to the secrets of heaven. But we may justly suspect
that the source of many of their revelations was their
ardent imagination, filled with ideas of religion and piety. But
(16:33):
Tricci on prophesying the Gibelian rule in Fererra, is seized
by the emissaries of the Pope, and has to undergo
the ordeal of the white hot plowshares, through which she
passes unscathed, there having apparently been connivance to help her through.
Her exaltation and enthusiasm became intense, and it is only
after a great shock that she grows conscious of the
(16:55):
falseness of her position. For having met Castruccio on his
mission to for she is irresistibly attracted by him, and
mixing up her infactuation with her mystical ideas, does not
hesitate to make secret appointments with him. Never doubting that
her love is returned and that they are wont at heart.
When at length Gastruccio has to return to Lucca and
(17:16):
to his betrothed Euthanasia, the shock to the poor mystical
Beatrici is terrible. Finally, she is met as a pilgrim
wending her weary way to Rome. Assuredly, Shelley was justified
in admiring this character. There is a straightforwardness in the
plot into which the stormy history of the period is
clearly introduced, which gives much interest to this romance. And
(17:39):
it is a decided advance upon Frankenstein, though her age
when that was written must not be forgotten. A book
of this kind shows forcibly the troubles to which a
lovely country like Italy is exposed through disunion, and must
fill the hearts of all lovers of this beautiful land
with gratitude to the noble men who willingly sacrifice themselves
to help in the cause of united Italy, those whose
(18:01):
songs roused the people and carried hope into the hearts
of even the prisoners in the palsy of Venice. For
the man of idea who can rouse the nation by
his songs does not help less than the brave soldier
who can aid with his arms, though alas he does
not always live to see the triumph he has helped
to achieve. Footnote. Gabriela Rossetti, whom Mary Shelley knew and
(18:23):
to whom she referred for information while writing her Lies
of Italian Poets, has been said to have been the
first who in modern times had the idea of a
united Italy under a constitutional monarch. For which idea and
for his rousing songs, he was forced to leave Italy
by Ferdinand the First of Naples in eighteen twenty one,
and remained in exile in England till his death in
(18:45):
eighteen fifty four at the age of seventy one. How
Mary Shelley with her husband must have sympathized in these
ideas with the love of Italy can be understood, although
it was the climate and the beauty of Italy more
than the people that charmed Shelley. But then was he
not also an exile from his native land? End of footnote.
This work, when completed, was sent to her father by Mary,
(19:08):
for it had been a labor of love, and the
sum of four hundred pounds which Godman obtained, for it
was devoted to help him in his difficulties. Unhappily, the
romance was not published till the year after her husband's death.
End of Chapter eleven.
Section nineteen of Missus Shelley. This is the LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Missus
Shelley by Lucy Maddox Brown Rosetti, Chapter eleven. Godwin and Belpurga.
At this time, while political events were absorbing England and
(00:21):
Shelley was weaving them into poetry in Italy. During the
remainder of his residence in Florence, Godwin's personal difficulties were
reaching their climax when he lost in an action for
the rent of his house. Shelley came to his help,
but in some way Godwin expected more than he received
and became very unpleasant in his correspondence, so much so
that Shelley had to beg him not to write to
(00:42):
Mary on these subjects, as her health was not then
in October eighteen nineteen able to bear the strain, and
the subject of money was not a fitting one to
be pressed on her by him. Mary had not the
disposal of money. If she had, she would give it
all to her father. He assured Godwin that the four
or five thousand pounds already expended on him might have
(01:05):
made him comfortable for the remainder of his life. Missus
Godwin naturally would not hear of abandoning the Skinner Street
business as being the only provision for herself when Godwin
should die. It is extremely painful at this stage of
Godwin's career to witness the lowering effects of his wife's
smaller nature upon him, as he certainly allowed himself to
(01:25):
be unduly influenced by her excited and not always truthful
views as known since the earlier days of their married life.
We have seen Missus Gisborne's diary showing how Missus Godwin
could not endure to see anyone in eighteen twenty who
had an attachment for Mary, whom, as Godwin told Missus Gisborne,
she considered her greatest enemy. And although he described his
(01:47):
wife as of the most irritable disposition possible, he listened
to and repeated her conjectures to the disparagement of Shelley
and Mary at the time when she did not hesitate
to accept with her husband the large sums of money
which Shelley with difficulty raised for them. All the facts
shown in this diary proved that Mary and Fanny must
(02:09):
have had a sufficiently trying life at home to account
for the result in either case, especially when we consider
that Claire and her brother Charles both preferred to leave
Godwin's house on the first possible occasion, Charles having left
for France immediately after Mary and Claire's departure with Shelley.
William alone remained at home, but four years passed in
(02:29):
a boarding school at Greenwich from eighteen fourteen must have
helped him to endure the discomforts of the time. Before
Missus Gisborne's return to Italy, Godwin gave her a detailed
account in writing of his money transactions with Shelley, which
had become very painful to both. In January eighteen twenty, Florence,
proving unsuitable for Shelley's health, they left for Pisa, the
(02:51):
mild climate of which city made it a favorite resort
of the poet during most of the short remainder of
his life. Mary ever hospitable, although as Shelley said, the
bills for printing his poems must be paid for by
stinting himself in meat and drink. Hoped that Missus Gisborne
would have stayed with them during her husband's visit to
England in eighteen twenty, as they had moved into a
(03:12):
pleasant apartment in March, this idea was not carried out.
About this time Mary and Claire, both with their own
absorbing anxieties, became again irksome to each other. Mary found
relief when Claire was absent, and Claire notes how the
Claire and the may find something to fight about every day,
a way of putting it which indicates differences, but certainly
(03:34):
no grave cause of disturbance. This was after their removal
to Leygorn, where they went towards the end of June
to be near the lawyer on account of Paollo. At
the beginning of August, the heat at Leghorn caused the
Shelleys to migrate to the baths at San Guiliano, where
Shelley found a very pleasant house, Casaprini. The moderate rent
suited their slender purse, which had so many outside calls
(03:55):
upon it. In October, Claire's departure for Florence as governess
and the family of Professor Bochtee, where she went by
the advice of her friend, Missus Mason, formerly Lady Montcashell,
brought an end to her permanent residence with the Shelleys,
although she was still to look upon their house as
her home, and she visited them either for her pleasure
or to assist them. Her absence from her friends gives
(04:17):
us the advantage of letters from them, letters full of
a certain exaggeration of affection and sympathy from Shelley, who
felt more acutely than Mary that Claire might be unhappy
under a strange roof Mary, less anxious on those grounds,
writes about the operas she has seen, giving good descriptions
of them. One of her letters is full of anxiety
as to Allegra, who has been placed in the convent
(04:39):
of Bagnica Valio by Byron. She feels that the child ought,
as soon as possible, be taken out of the hands
of so remorseless an unprincipled a man, but advises caution
in waiting for a favorable opportunity. She hopes that he
may be returning to England, he may be reconciled with
his wife. At any rate, Bagnaca Valo is high in
(04:59):
an a healthy position, quite different from the dirty canals
of Venice, which might injure any child's health. Mary thus
tries to console Claire, who was planning in her imagination
various ways of getting at her child, and corresponding with
and seeing Shelley on the subject, Mary dissuades Claire from
attempting anything. In the spring their unlucky time. It was
(05:20):
in the second spring Claire met l b et cetera.
The third they went to Marlowe, no wise thing at least,
the fourth uncomfortable in London, fifth, their Roman Misery, the
sixth Paola at Pisa, the seventh a mixture of amelia
and a chancery suit. Mary acknowledges this superstitious feeling is
more in Claire's line than her own, but thinks it
(05:42):
is worth considering. But this letter to Claire carries us
a year in advance. During the summer of eighteen twenty,
Mary had some of the delightful times she loved so dearly,
of poetic wanderings with Shelley through the woods and by
the river, one of which she remembers long afterwards. When
making her note to the Skylark, she recalls how she
and Shelley, wandering through the lanes whose myrtle hedges were
(06:04):
the bowers of the firefly, heard the caroling of the Skylark,
which inspired one of the most beautiful of his poems,
Precious Memories, which helped her through many after years devoided
the sympathy she yearned for. At the baths, they had
the pleasure of a visit from Medwin, who gave a
description of how Shelley, his wife and child had to
escape from the upper windows of their house in a
(06:24):
boat when the canal overflowed and inundated the valley. Mary
speaks of it as a very picturesque sight, with the
herdsmen driving their cattle. During the short absence of Shelley
when he took Clare to Florence, Mary was occupied planning
her novel of Valpurga, for which she studied Villani's chronicle
and Sismondi's history on leaving the baths of Sanguiliano. After
(06:46):
the floods, the Shelleys returned to Pisa, where they passed
the late autumn and winter of eighteen twenty and the
spring of eighteen twenty one. Here they made more acquaintances
than heretofore, Professor Pacciani also called Il Diavolo and reducing
them to Prince Mavrocordado, the Princess Agiropoli, the Improvisatore Segrici Taaffi,
(07:08):
and last, not least to Amelia Viviani. Here Mary continued
to write Valpurga and pursued her Latin, Spanish and Greek studies.
The latter the Prince Mavrocordato assisted her with. As Mary
writes to missus Gisborne, do not you envy me my
luck that, having begun Greek and amiable, young, agreeable and
learned Greek prince comes every morning to give me a
(07:29):
lesson of an hour and a half. But the person
of most moment at this time was undoubtedly the Contessina
Emelia Viviani, whom, accompanied by Pacciani, Claire, then Mary, and
then Shelley, visited at the Convent of Santana. This beautiful
girl with profuse black hair, Grecian profile, and dreamy eyes,
placed in the convent till she should be married. To
(07:51):
satisfy the jealousy of her stepmother. Became naturally an object
of extreme interest to the Shelleys. Many visits were paid,
and Mary invited her to stay with them at Chrisps.
Shelley was convinced that she had great talent, if not genius,
Shelley and Mary sent her books, and Claire gave her
English lessons at her convent while she was taking a
holiday from the Botchtis. Many letters are preserved from the
(08:14):
beautiful Amelia to Shelley and Mary, letters which translated into
English seem overflowing with sentiment and affection, but which to
Italians would indicate rather the style cultivated by Italian ladies,
which to this day seems one of their chief accomplishments
if they are not gifted with a voice to sing.
To Mary, she complains of a certain coldness, but certainly
(08:35):
this could not be brought to the charge of Shelley,
who was now inspired to write his epipsychicion To him,
Amelia was as the skylock, an emanation of the beautiful.
But to Mary, for a time, during Shelley's transitory adoration,
the event evidently became painful. With all her philosophy and
belief in her husband, she could not regard the lovely
girl who took walks with him as the skylock that
(08:57):
soared over their heads. And the Epipsychiceon was evidently not
a favorite poem of Mary. Surely we may ascribe to
this time in the spring of eighteen twenty one, the
poem written by Shelley to Lieutenant Williams, whose acquaintance he
had made in January. There is no month affixed to
the serpent is cast out from paradise, and it might
well apply, with its reference to my cold home, to
(09:18):
the time when Mary, in depression and pique, did not
always give her likewise sensitive husband all the welcome he
was accustomed to, and Shelley took refuge in a poem
by way of a letter. For this is the time
referred to by Mary in her letter to Claire as
their seventh unfortunate spring, a mixture of Amelia in a
chancery suit. It was not till the next spring that
Amelia was married, and that her husband and mother in law,
(09:41):
as Mary puts it, a devil of a life. We
have only to be grateful to Amelia for having inspired
one of the most wondrous poems in any language. The Williamses,
to whom Shelley's poem is addressed, were met by them
in January. Mary writes of the fascinating Jane missus Williams
that she is certainly very pretty, but want's animation, while
Shelley writes that she is extremely pretty and gentle, but
(10:04):
apparently not very clever, that he liked her much, but
had only seen her for an hour. Mary, among her
multifarious reading, notes an article by Medwin on animal magnetism
and Shelley, who suffered severely at this time, shortly afterwards,
tried its effect through Medwin. The latter bored Mary excessively.
Possibly she found the magnetizing a wearisome operation. Although Shelley
(10:26):
is said to have been relieved by it, his highly
nervous temperament was evidently impressed. When Medwin left, Missus Williams
undertook to carry on the cure. The chancery suit referred
to by Mary was an attempt between Sir Timothy's attorney
and Shelley's to throw their affairs into chancery, causing great
alarm to them in Italy, till Horace Smith came to
(10:47):
their rescue in England and with indignant letters, settled the
inconsiderate litigation. Missus Shelley, in her Notes to Poems in
eighteen twenty one, recounts how Shelley was nearly drowned by
a flat boat which he had recently acquired, being overturned
in the canal near Pisa. When returning from Layhorn, Williams
upset the boat by standing up and holding the mast.
(11:07):
Henry Revillie, Missus Gisborne's son, rescued Shelley and brought him
to land, where he fainted with the cold. At this
time at Pisa, Mary had to consider with Shelley a
matter of great importance to Claire. Byron, now at Ravenna,
had placed Allegra, as already stated in the convent of
Bagneca Valio. He told Missus Hopner that she had become
so unmanageable by servants that it was necessary to have
(11:29):
her under better care than he could secure, and he
considered that it would be preferable to bring her up
as a Roman Catholic with an Italian education, as in
that way, with a fortune of five or six thousand pounds,
she would marry an Italian and be provided for, whereas
she would always hold an anomalous position in England. At
this proposal, Claire was extremely indignant, but Shelley and Mary
(11:51):
took the opposite view and considered that Byron acted for
the best, as the convent was in a healthy position
and the nuns would be kind to the child. This
idea of Mary would naturally be agreed with by some
and disapproved of by others, But at that time there
was certainly no cause to indicate that Bagna Cavallio would
be more fatal to Allegra than in the other place,
(12:12):
although Claire's apprehensions were cruelly realized. From this time Claire
and Byron wrote letters of recrimination to each other, which,
considering Byrone's obduracy against the feelings of the mother Shelley
and Mary, came to hold as tyrannically unfeeling. In May,
Shelley and his wife and son returned to the baths
of San Guiliano, and while here Shelley's Adenaeus was published.
(12:36):
In eighteen twenty, when the Shelleys heard of Keats's fatal
illness for Missus Gisborne, she having met him the day
after he had received his death warrant from the doctor,
they were the first to beg him to join them
at Pisa. A small touch of poetical criticism, however, appears
to have weighed more with the sensitive Keats than these
friendly considerations for his health, and as he was about
(12:57):
to accompany his friend mister Severn to Rome. He did
not accept their kind offer, though in all probability Pisa
would have been better for him. During this summer at
the baths, Mary had finished her Romance of Valpurga and
read it to her husband, who admired it extremely. He
considered it to be a living and moving picture of
an age almost forgotten, A profound study of the passions
(13:19):
of human nature. Valpurga, published in eighteen twenty three, the
year after Shelley's death, is a romance of the fourteenth
century in Italy, during the height of the struggle between
the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, when each state in almost
each town was at war with the other, a condition
of things which lends itself to romance. Mary Shelley's intimate
(13:40):
acquaintance with Italy and the Italians gives her the necessary
knowledge to write on this subject. Her zealous Italian studies
came to her aid, and her love of nature give
life and vitality to the scene. Valpurga, the ancestral castle
home of Euthanasia, a Florentine lady of the Guelph faction,
is most picturesquely described on its ledge of rejecting rock
(14:01):
overlooking the plain of Lucca, the dependent peasants around happy
under the protection of their good Senora. That this beautiful
and high minded lady should be affiance to a gibeling
leader is a natural combination. But when her lover, Castruccio,
Prince of Lucca, carries his political enthusiasm the length of
making war on her native city of Florence, whose republican
(14:22):
greatness and love of art are happily described, Euthanasia cannot
let love stand in the way of duty and gratitude
to all those dearest to her. The severe struggle is
well described, for Euthanasia has loved Castuccio from their childhood.
When they played about the mountain grounds of her home
at Valpurga, Castuccio learned the secret paths to the castle,
(14:42):
which knowledge later helped him to take the fortress when
Euthanasia refused to yield it to him. Castuccio's character is
also well described, his devoted attachment to Euthanasia, from which
nothing could turn him till the passions of the conqueror
and party faction are still stronger, and the irresistible force
which impels him to make war and subdue the Guelphs,
which by her is regarded as murder and rapine disunites
(15:05):
beings seemingly formed for each other. All these different emotions
are portrayed with great beauty and simplicity. The Italian superstitions
are well shown, as how the Florentines ascribed all good
and evil fortune to conjunction of stars. The power of
the Inquisition in Rome comes likewise into play when the
beautiful prophetess Betrici, the child of the Prophetess Wilhelmina, who
(15:29):
had to be given to the leper for protection, as
even his filthy and deserted hut was safer for her
than that it should be known to the Inquisition that
she existed. She is rescued from the leper by a
bishop who heard her story from the death bed of
the woman to whom her mother, when dying, had confided her.
She was then brought up by the bishop's sister. Her
(15:49):
mother's spirit of prophecy was inherited by the daughter, and
as the mother believed herself to be an emanation of
the Holy Spirit, so Beatrici thought herself the antilla dae.
These mystical phantasies and their workings are depicted with much
beauty and strength. These Donna Estetici first appear in Italy
after the twelfth century, and had continued to the time
(16:10):
which Mary Shelley selected for her romance. After giving an
account of their pretensions, Moratory gravely observes, we may piously
believe that some were distinguished by supernatural gifts and admitted
to the secrets of heaven. But we may justly suspect
that the source of many of their revelations was their
ardent imagination, filled with ideas of religion and piety. But
(16:33):
Tricci on prophesying the Gibelian rule in Fererra, is seized
by the emissaries of the Pope, and has to undergo
the ordeal of the white hot plowshares, through which she
passes unscathed, there having apparently been connivance to help her through.
Her exaltation and enthusiasm became intense, and it is only
after a great shock that she grows conscious of the
(16:55):
falseness of her position. For having met Castruccio on his
mission to for she is irresistibly attracted by him, and
mixing up her infactuation with her mystical ideas, does not
hesitate to make secret appointments with him. Never doubting that
her love is returned and that they are wont at heart.
When at length Gastruccio has to return to Lucca and
(17:16):
to his betrothed Euthanasia, the shock to the poor mystical
Beatrici is terrible. Finally, she is met as a pilgrim
wending her weary way to Rome. Assuredly, Shelley was justified
in admiring this character. There is a straightforwardness in the
plot into which the stormy history of the period is
clearly introduced, which gives much interest to this romance. And
(17:39):
it is a decided advance upon Frankenstein, though her age
when that was written must not be forgotten. A book
of this kind shows forcibly the troubles to which a
lovely country like Italy is exposed through disunion, and must
fill the hearts of all lovers of this beautiful land
with gratitude to the noble men who willingly sacrifice themselves
to help in the cause of united Italy, those whose
(18:01):
songs roused the people and carried hope into the hearts
of even the prisoners in the palsy of Venice. For
the man of idea who can rouse the nation by
his songs does not help less than the brave soldier
who can aid with his arms, though alas he does
not always live to see the triumph he has helped
to achieve. Footnote. Gabriela Rossetti, whom Mary Shelley knew and
(18:23):
to whom she referred for information while writing her Lies
of Italian Poets, has been said to have been the
first who in modern times had the idea of a
united Italy under a constitutional monarch. For which idea and
for his rousing songs, he was forced to leave Italy
by Ferdinand the First of Naples in eighteen twenty one,
and remained in exile in England till his death in
(18:45):
eighteen fifty four at the age of seventy one. How
Mary Shelley with her husband must have sympathized in these
ideas with the love of Italy can be understood, although
it was the climate and the beauty of Italy more
than the people that charmed Shelley. But then was he
not also an exile from his native land? End of footnote.
This work, when completed, was sent to her father by Mary,
(19:08):
for it had been a labor of love, and the
sum of four hundred pounds which Godman obtained, for it
was devoted to help him in his difficulties. Unhappily, the
romance was not published till the year after her husband's death.
End of Chapter eleven.
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