An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry Part 16

Mr. Ernest Radford, quoting this pa.s.sage, in the Browning Society's 'Ill.u.s.trations to Browning's Poems', remarks that "nearly the whole POEM of 'Andrea del Sarto' is a mere translation into the SUBJECTIVE Mood (if I may so say) of this pa.s.sage in which the painter's work is criticised from an external standpoint. . . .

"Recent researches into Andrea's life throw doubt upon a good deal that Vasari has written concerning the unhappiness of his marriage and the manner of his death. And the biographer himself modifies, in his second edition, the account he had given of the fair Lucrezia.

Vasari, it should be said, was a pupil of Andrea, and therefore must, in this instance, have had special opportunities of knowledge, though he may, on the same account, have had some special 'animus'

when he wrote. For the purposes of his poem, Browning is content to take the traditional account of the matter, which, after all, seems to substantially accurate. The following is from the first edition:--

"At that time there was a most beautiful girl in Via di San Gallo, who was married to a cap-maker, and who, though born of a poor and vicious father, carried about her as much pride and haughtiness, as beauty and fascination. She delighted in trapping the hearts of men, and amongst others ensnared the unlucky Andrea, whose immoderate love for her soon caused him to neglect the studies demanded by his art, and in great measure to discontinue the a.s.sistance which he had given to his parents.

"Certain pictures of Andrea's which had been painted for the King of France were received with much favor, and an invitation to Andrea soon followed their delivery, to 'go and paint at the French Court'. He went accordingly, and 'painted proudly', as Browning relates, and prospered every way. But one day, being employed on the figure of a St. Jerome doing penance, which he was painting for the mother of the King, there came to him certain letters from Florence; these were written him by his wife; and from that time (whatever may have been the cause) he began to think of leaving France. He asked permission to that effect from the French King accordingly, saying that he desired to return to Florence, but that, when he had arranged his affairs in that city, he would return without fail to his Majesty; he added, that when he came back, his wife should accompany him, to the end that he might remain in France the more quietly; and that he would bring with him pictures and sculptures of great value. The King, confiding in these promises, gave him money for the purchase of those pictures and sculptures, Andrea taking an oath on the gospels to return within the s.p.a.ce of a few months, and that done he departed to his native city.

"He arrived safely in Florence, enjoying the society of his beautiful wife, and that of his friends, with the sight of his native city, during several months; but when the period specified by the King, and that at which he ought to have returned, had come and pa.s.sed, he found himself at the end, not only of his own money, but, what with building" (the "melancholy little house they built to be so gay with") "indulging himself with various pleasures, and doing no work, of that belonging to the French monarch also, the whole of which he had consumed.

He was, nevertheless, determined to return to France, but the prayers and tears of his wife had more power than his own necessities, or the faith which he had pledged to the King."

"And so for a pretty woman's sake, was a great nature degraded.

And out of sympathy with its impulses, broad, and deep, and tender as only the greatest can show, 'Andrea del Sarto', our great, sad poem, was written."

The monologue exhibits great perfection of finish. Its composition was occasioned, as Mr. Furnivall learned from the poet himself (see 'Browning Society's Papers', Part II., p. 161), by the portrait of Andrea del Sarto and his wife, painted by himself, and now in the Pitti Palace, in Florence. Mr. Browning's friend, and his wife's friend, Mr. John Kenyon (the same to whom Mrs. Browning dedicated 'Aurora Leigh'), had asked the poet to buy him a copy of Andrea del Sarto's picture. None could be got, and so Mr. Browning put into a poem what the picture had said to himself, and sent it to Mr. Kenyon. It was certainly a worthy subst.i.tute.

Fra Lippo Lippi.

The Italian artist, Lippi, is the speaker. Lippi was one of the representatives of the protest made in the fifteenth century against the conventional spiritualization in the art of his time.

In the monologue he gives expression to his faith in the real, in the absolute spiritual significance of the lineaments of the human face, and in the forms of nature. The circ.u.mstances under which this faith is expressed, are somewhat droll.

Lippi was a wild fellow and given to excesses of various kinds.

When a boy he took refuge against starvation in the convent of the Carmelites, in Florence, and became a monk; but he proved unfaithful to his religious vows, and, impelled by his genius for art, made his escape from the convent, having first profited by the work of Masaccio, and devoted himself to painting. After many romantic experiences, and having risen to distinction in his art, he returned to Florence and became known to Cosimo de' Medici, in whose employ he is at the time he is presented to us in the monologue. It appears he had been shut up by his patron, for three weeks, in order to be kept at work, "a-painting for the great man, saints and saints and saints again. I could not paint all night--Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air.

There came a hurry of feet, and little feet, a sweep of lutestrings, laughs, and whifts of song,"--etc. In his eagerness to join in the fun, he tears into shreds curtain, and counterpane, and coverlet, makes a rope, descends, and comes up with the fun hard by Saint Laurence, hail fellow, well met. On his way back toward daybreak, he is throttled by the police, and it is to them the monologue is addressed. He ingratiates himself with them by telling his history, and by his talk on art, and a most interesting and deeply significant talk it is, the gist of it being well expressed in a pa.s.sage of Mrs. Browning's 'Aurora Leigh', "paint a body well, you paint a soul by implication, like the grand first Master. . . .

Without the spiritual, observe, the natural's impossible;-- no form, no motion! Without sensuous, spiritual is inappreciable;-- no beauty or power! And in this twofold sphere the two-fold man (and still the artist is intensely a man) holds firmly by the natural, to reach the spiritual beyond it,--fixes still the type with mortal vision, to pierce through, with eyes immortal, to the antetype, some call the ideal,--better called the real, and certain to be called so presently when things shall have their names."

Browning has closely followed, in the monologue, the art-historian, Giorgio Vasari, as the following extracts will show (the translation is that of Mrs. Jonathan Foster, in the Bohn Library):--

"The Carmelite monk, Fra Filippo di Tommaso Lippi (1412-1469) *1*

was born at Florence in a bye-street called Ardiglione, under the Canto alla Cuculia, and behind the convent of the Carmelites.

By the death of his father he was left a friendless orphan at the age of two years, his mother having also died shortly after his birth.

The child was for some time under the care of a certain Mona Lapaccia, his aunt, the sister of his father, who brought him up with very great difficulty till he had attained his eighth year, when, being no longer able to support the burden of his maintenance, she placed him in the above-named convent of the Carmelites.

Here, in proportion as he showed himself dexterous and ingenious in all works performed by hand, did he manifest the utmost dulness and incapacity in letters, to which he would never apply himself, nor would he take any pleasure in learning of any kind. The boy continued to be called by his worldly name of Filippo, *2* and being placed with others, who like himself were in the house of the novices, under the care of the master, to the end that the latter might see what could be done with him; in place of studying, he never did anything but daub his own books, and those of the other boys, with caricatures, whereupon the prior determined to give him all means and every opportunity for learning to draw.

The chapel of the Carmine had then been newly painted by Masaccio, and this being exceedingly beautiful, pleased Fra Filippo greatly, wherefore he frequented it daily for his recreation, and, continually practising there, in company with many other youths, who were constantly drawing in that place, he surpa.s.sed all the others by very much in dexterity and knowledge. . . . Proceeding thus, and improving from day to day, he had so closely followed the manner of Masaccio, and his works displayed so much similarity to those of the latter, that many affirmed the spirit of Masaccio to have entered the body of Fra Filippo. . . .

-- *1* The date of birth differs in the biographies, it being variously given as 1400, 1406, 1410, and 1412. But the latter appears to be the one generally accepted.

*2* It was customary, on entering a convent, to change the baptismal name for some other.

"It is said that Fra Filippo was much addicted to the pleasures of sense, insomuch that he would give all he possessed to secure the gratification of whatever inclination might at the moment be predominant; . . . It was known that, while occupied in the pursuit of his pleasures, the works undertaken by him received little or none of his attention; for which reason Cosimo de' Medici, wishing him to execute a work in his own palace, shut him up, that he might not waste his time in running about; but having endured this confinement for two days, he then made ropes with the sheets of his bed, which he cut to pieces for that purpose, and so having let himself down from a window, escaped, and for several days gave himself up to his amus.e.m.e.nts.

When Cosimo found that the painter had disappeared, he caused him to be sought, and Fra Filippo at last returned to his work, but from that time forward Cosimo gave him liberty to go in and out at his pleasure, repenting greatly of having previously shut him up, when he considered the danger that Fra Filippo had incurred by his folly in descending from the window; and ever afterwards laboring to keep him to his work by kindness only, he was by this means much more promptly and effectually served by the painter, and was wont to say that the excellencies of rare genius were as forms of light and not beasts of burden."

A Face.

The speaker imagines the head of a beautiful girl he knows, "painted upon a background of pale gold, such as the Tuscan's early art prefers", and details the picture as he would have it.

The Bishop orders his Tomb.

The Bishop orders his Tomb at St. Praxed's Church. *

{Rome, 15--.}

-- * First published in 'Hood's Magazine', March, 1845, No.

III., vol. iii., pp. 237-239, under the t.i.tle 'The Tomb at St. Praxed's (Rome, 15--)'.

"This poem and 'The Flight of the d.u.c.h.ess' were sent by Browning to help make up the numbers of the magazine while Hood lay dying."--Furnivall's 'Bibliography of Robert Browning', p. 48.

The dying Bishop pleads with his natural sons that they give him the sumptuous tomb they stand pledged to,--such a tomb as will excite the envy of his old enemy Gandolf, who cheated him out of a favorite niche in St. Praxed's Church, by dying before him, and securing it for his tomb.

It is not necessary to suppose that the natural sons are present.

His, perhaps, delirious mind is occupied with the precious marbles and stones and other luxuries he has loved to much, and with his old rival and enemy, Gandolf.

John Ruskin, in his 'Modern Painters' (Vol. IV., chap. XX., Section 32), remarks:--

"Robert Browning is unerring in every sentence he writes of the Middle Ages; always vital, right, and profound; so that in the matter of art, . . .there is hardly a principle connected with the mediaeval temper, that he has not struck upon in those seemingly careless and too rugged rhymes of his.

There is a curious instance, by the way, in a short poem *1*

referring to this very subject of tomb and image sculpture; all ill.u.s.trating just one of those phases of local human character which, though belonging to Shakespeare's own age, he {Shakespeare} never noticed, because it was specially Italian and un-English; connected also closely with the influence of mountains on the heart, and therefore with our immediate inquiries.*2* I mean the kind of admiration with which a southern artist regarded the STONE he worked in; and the pride which populace or priest took in the possession of precious mountain substance, worked into the pavements of their cathedrals, and the shafts of their tombs.

-- *1* 'The Bishop orders his Tomb in St. Praxed's Church'.

*2* 'The Mountain Glory', the subject of the chapter from which this is taken.

"Observe, Shakespeare, in the midst of architecture and tombs of wood, or freestone, or bra.s.s, naturally thinks of GOLD as the best enriching and enn.o.bling substance for them; in the midst also of the fever of the Renaissance he writes, as every one else did, in praise of precisely the most vicious master of that school-- Giulio Romano*; but the modern poet, living much in Italy, and quit of the Renaissance influence, is able fully to enter into the Italian feeling, and to see the evil of the Renaissance tendency, not because he is greater than Shakespeare, but because he is in another element, and has seen other things. . . .

-- * 'Winter's Tale', V. 2. 106.