Читать книгу The Mystical Element of Religion - Friedrich von Hügel - Страница 137

It is nine months after Giuliano’s death, on May 19, 1498, that we can watch and see how Catherine has been attempting to execute her trust, and how her nature has responded to these various difficult calls upon it, and to the claims of her own family. She first of all, then, orders her body to be buried in the same grave with her husband, in the Hospital Church; and that only the Friars and Clergy of the Hospital shall be present at the funeral; and leaves £10 for her obsequies and £50 for Masses for herself. She next leaves to the Priest Blasio Cicero four shares of the Bank of St. George (about £200), of which he is to pay £150 to a certain female Religious, in satisfaction for a certain debt. And she abrogates Giuliano’s legacy to the Hospital, and, in its place, herself leaves it four shares of St. George’s (at the time about £200, but always tending to increase in value), in liquidation of the £300 that remained unpaid from among the £500 of that legacy. She next leaves to Benedetta Lombarda one share of Saint George’s, in addition to the similar share left her by Giuliano; and to “Antonietta, dwelling with Testatrix, £25, in case she shall live with her up to her death.” As to the two carati, she leaves them to Giovanni Adorno, in lieu of the money bequeathed to him by Giuliano. As to her own relations, she leaves two shares of St. George’s apiece to her two nieces Maria and Battista, the daughters of her eldest brother Jacobo, for their marriage portions; and, if they all die before marriage, then all this money is to go to their father. She leaves £10 to her Augustinian Canoness sister Limbania; and institutes her three brothers Jacobo, Giovanni and Lorenzo, and their heirs, her residuary legatees.

Here four things are noticeable. Catherine has herself undertaken the expenses of Thobia’s keep; the apparent lessening on her part of the sum originally apportioned for the purpose by Giuliano is doubtless only apparent, and must proceed from the same cause which has produced a similar apparent diminution in the amount of Giuliano’s legacy to his nephew from £2,000 to £1,500. In the next place, this is the only one out of the couple’s four Wills, in which the second maid is not Mariola Bastarda, but a certain Antonietta. Catherine feels uncertain as to whether Antonietta will persevere in her service to the end; and we shall find that she has again disappeared in Catherine’s next Will of 1506, and that Mariola has again taken up her old place. We shall find that a story, of which the authenticity and significance are most difficult to fix, attaches without doubt to one or the other of these maids. In the third place, Catherine does not sell the two carati, but leaves them, in lieu of the money bequeathed to him, to Giovanni Adorno; no doubt from the feeling that thus, at her death, this her share in the government and exploitation of the Greek island would be in the hands of a man in the prime of life, who could help to check malpractices. And lastly, she shows a generous forgiveness of Giuliano, a delicate magnanimity towards Thobia and Thobia’s mother, and a thoughtful affection for all her own near and grown-up relations, by ordering her body to be buried in the same grave with Giuliano; by herself undertaking the charges of Thobia’s keep, and appointing a priest by name for handing over Giuliano’s legacy to the still unnamed mother of Thobia; and by remembering her sister, although she had long been provided for in her Convent, her three brothers, who were no doubt indefinitely richer than herself, and especially her two marriageable nieces. Altogether, of the £2,304 definitely accounted for in the Will, she leaves £69 for her own funeral and for Masses for herself; £400 for Thobia and her mother; £210 to her own relations; £125 to servants; and £1,500 to her husband’s nephew. There is no trace here of any indifference to the natural ties of kindred, or of an abstraction of mind rendering her incapable of a careful consideration and firm decision in matters of business: a point which we shall find to be of much importance, later on.