A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Fernandez, Maria Maddalena Morelli
FERNANDEZ, MARIA MADDALENA MORELLI,
Won the admiration of all Italy as an improvisatrice. The talent of improvising in poetry seems to be almost exclusively allotted to the Italians, among whom the structure of their verse, and the conventional, ever-recurring rhymes, render it an easier matter to employ this frame-work to thought, than would be possible under a different system of prosody. If, however, the powers of ordinary improvisatori, for these reasons, are not to be overvalued,—when thought, imagery, feeling, passion, harmony of numbers, flow spontaneously, the admiration and wonder they excite must be unbounded, as these qualities are independent of any rhythm, and would command praise and enthusiasm, even when such effusions were produced upon study, and corrected efforts.
Among the improvisatori whose fame has been more than ephemeral, perhaps the first was Maria Morelli. She was born of noble parents, in the city of Pistoja, in the year 1740. From her earliest years she manifested a quick ear for harmony, and a talent for improvisation. This talent was heightened by an excellent education; her mind was stored with history and science, and her imagination improved by assiduous reading of the best poets. Her parents, proud of her genius, took her to Rome, to exhibit her powers to the academy of "Arcadia." Gifted with personal beauty and grace, she received the highest applause, and was made a member of that society, under the name of Gorilla Olympia, by which she was afterwards universally designated. At Naples she was received with enthusiasm, and there captivated a young Sicilian gentleman, named Fernandez, to whom she was united in marriage. Her fame soon resounded throughout Europe, and she was noticed by the most illustrious persons of the age. The Emperor Joseph the Second visited her at Naples; and Pope Clement the Fourteenth directed to her an honourable brief, by which he permitted her to read forbidden books. She published some poems, an epic poem dedicated to the Empress of Russia, an epistle to Metastasio, and some others. In 1776, she went through the ordeal of a trial of her poetic powers, for three days, at Rome, before a vast concourse of literary and noble personages. Some of the subjects were, Moral Philosophy, Revealed Religion, Physics, Metaphysics, Heroic Poetry, Harmony, Pastoral Poetry, etc. These were handed to her in order, in sealed notes, and she acquitted herself in every case so as to disarm criticism. She then was solemnly crowned with a laurel wreath. A minute description of this ceremony, which was accompanied with wonderful poipp and pageantry, has been written by two literary abbés, and published by the celebrated Bodoni, in 1779. Our poetess, after passing her youth amidst the homage of the great and powerful, retired upon her laurels to Florence, where she lived tranquilly to the age of sixty. She died in 1800.