Renaissance in Italy Volume III Part 22

[411] Mr. Perkins, following the suggestion of Panza, in his _Istoria dell' Antica Republica d'Amalfi_, is inclined to think that this head represents, not Sigelgaita, but Joanna II. of Naples, and is therefore more than a century later in date than the pulpit. See _Italian Sculptors_, p. 51.

APPENDIX II

_Michael Angelo's Sonnets_

After the death of Michael Angelo, the ma.n.u.scripts of his sonnets, madrigals, and other poems, written at various periods of his life, and well known to his intimate friends, pa.s.sed into the hands of his nephew, Lionardo Buonarroti. From Lionardo they descended to his son, Michael Angelo, who was himself a poet of some mark. This grand-nephew of the sculptor prepared them for the press, and gave them to the world in 1623.

On his redaction the commonly received version of the poems rested until 1863, when Signor Cesare Guasti of Florence, having gained access to the original ma.n.u.scripts, published a critical edition, preserving every peculiarity of the autograph, and adding a prose paraphrase for the explanation of the text.

The younger Michael Angelo, working in an age of literary pedantry and moral prudery, fancied that it was his duty to refine the style of his great ancestor, and to remove allusions open to ignorant misconstruction.

Instead, therefore, of giving an exact transcript of the original poems, he set himself to soften down their harshness, to clear away their obscurity, to amplify, transpose, and mutilate according to his own ideas of syntax, taste, and rhetoric. On the Dantesque ruggedness of Michael Angelo he engrafted the prettiness of the seventeenth Petrarchisti; and where he thought the morality of the poems was questionable, especially in the case of those addressed to Cavalieri, he did not hesitate to introduce such alterations as destroyed their obvious intention. In order to understand the effect of this method, it is only necessary to compare the autograph as printed by Guasti with the version of 1623. In Sonnet x.x.xi., for example, the two copies agree in only one line, while the remaining thirteen are distorted and adorned with superfluous conceits by the over-scrupulous but not too conscientious editor of 1623.[412]

Michael Angelo's poems, even after his grand-nephew had tried to reduce them to lucidity and order, have always been considered obscure and crabbed. Nor can it be pretended that they gain in smoothness and clearness by the restoration of the true readings. On the contrary, instances of defective grammar, harsh elisions, strained metaphors, and incomplete expressions are multiplied. The difficulty of comprehending the sense is rather increased than diminished, and the obstacles to a translator become still more insurmountable than Wordsworth found them.[413] This being undoubtedly the case, the value of Guasti's edition for students of Michael Angelo is nevertheless inestimable. We read now for the first time what the greatest man of the sixteenth century actually wrote, and are able to enter, without the interference of a fict.i.tious veil, into the shrine of his own thought and feeling. His sonnets form the best commentary on Michael Angelo's solitary life and on his sublime ideal of art. This reflection has guided me in the choice of those now offered in English, as an ill.u.s.tration of the chapter in this volume devoted to their author's biography.

Though the dates of Michael Angelo's compositions are conjectural, it may be a.s.sumed that the two sonnets on Dante were written when he was himself in exile. We know that, while sojourning in the house of Gian Francesco Aldovrandini at Bologna, he used to spend a portion of his time in reading Dante aloud to his protector;[414] and the indignation expressed against Florence, then as ever fickle and ungrateful, the _gente avara, invidiosa, e superba_, to use Dante's own words, seems proper to a period of just resentment. Still there is no certainty that they belong to 1495; for throughout his long life Michael Angelo was occupied with Dante. A story told of him in 1506, together with the dialogues reported by Donato Giannotti, prove that he was regarded by his fellow-citizens as an authority upon the meaning of the "Divine Comedy."[415] In 1518, when the Florentine Academy pet.i.tioned Leo X. to transport the bones of Dante from Ravenna to Florence, Michael Angelo subscribed the doc.u.ment and offered to erect a statue worthy of the poet.[416] How deeply the study of Dante influenced his art, appears not only in the lower part of the "Last Judgment:" we feel that source of stern and lofty inspiration in his style at large; nor can we reckon what the world lost when his volume of drawings in ill.u.s.tration of the "Divine Comedy" perished at sea.[417] The two following sonnets, therefore, whenever written, may be taken as expressing his settled feeling about the first and greatest of Italian poets:[418]--

DAL CIEL DISCESE

From heaven his spirit came, and robed in clay The realms of justice and of mercy trod, Then rose a living man to gaze on G.o.d, That he might make the truth as clear as day.

For that pure star that brightened with his ray The ill-deserving nest where I was born, The whole wide world would be a prize to scorn; None but his Maker can due guerdon pay.

I speak of Dante, whose high work remains Unknown, unhonoured by that thankless brood, Who only to just men deny their wage.

Were I but he! Born for like lingering pains, Against his exile coupled with his good I'd gladly change the world's best heritage!

QUANTE DIRNI SI DE'

No tongue can tell of him what should be told, For on blind eyes his splendour shines too strong; 'Twere easier to blame those who wrought him wrong, Than sound his least praise with a mouth of gold.

He to explore the place of pain was bold, Then soared to G.o.d, to teach our souls by song; The gates heaven oped to bear his feet along, Against his just desire his country rolled.

Thankless I call her, and to her own pain The nurse of fell mischance; for sign take this, That ever to the best she deals more scorn: Among a thousand proofs let one remain; Though ne'er was fortune more unjust than his, His equal or his better ne'er was born.

About the date of the two next sonnets there is less doubt. The first was clearly written when Michael Angelo was smarting under a sense of the ill-treatment he received from Julius. The second, composed at Rome, is interesting as the only proof we possess of the impression made upon his mind by the anomalies of the Papal rule. Here, in the capital of Christendom, he writes, holy things are sold for money to be used in warfare, and the pontiff, _quel nel manto_, paralyses the powers of the sculptor by refusing him employment.[419]

SIGNOR, SE VERO e

My Lord! if ever ancient saw spake sooth, Hear this which saith: Who can, doth never will.

Lo! thou hast lent thine ear to fables still, Rewarding those who hate the name of truth.

I am thy drudge and have been from my youth-- Thine, like the rays which the sun's circle fill; Yet of my dear time's waste thou think'st no ills The more I toil, the less I move thy ruth.

Once 'twas my hope to raise me by thy height; But 'tis the balance and the powerful sword Of Justice, not false Echo, that we need.

Heaven, as it seems, plants virtue in despite Here on the earth, if this be our reward-- To seek for fruit on trees too dry to breed.

QUA SI FA ELMI

Here helms and swords are made of chalices: The blood of Christ is sold so much the quart: His cross and thorns are spears and shields; and short Must be the time ere even his patience cease.

Nay let Him come no more to raise the fees Of fraud and sacrilege beyond report!

For Rome still slays and sells Him at the court, Where paths are closed to virtue's fair increase.

Now were fit time for me to sc.r.a.pe a treasure, Seeing that work and gain are gone; while he Who wears the robe, is my Medusa still.

Perchance in heaven poverty is a pleasure: But of that better life what hope have we, When the blessed banner leads to nought but ill?

A third sonnet of this period is intended to be half burlesque, and, therefore, is composed _a coda_, as the Italians describe the lengthened form of the conclusion. It was written while Michael Angelo was painting the roof of the Sistine, and was sent to his friend Giovanni da Pistoja.

The effect of this work, as Vasari tells us, on his eyesight was so injurious, that, for some time after its completion, he could only read by placing the book or ma.n.u.script above his head and looking up.[420]

I' HO GIa FATTO UN GOZZO

I've grown a goitre by dwelling in this den-- As cats from stagnant streams in Lombardy, Or in what other land they hap to be-- Which drives the belly close beneath the chin: My beard turns up to heaven; my nape falls in, Fixed on my spine: my breast-bone visibly Grows like a harp: a rich embroidery Bedews my face from brush-drops thick and thin.

My loins into my paunch like levers grind; My b.u.t.tock like a crupper bears my weight; My feet unguided wander to and fro;

In front my skin grows loose and long; behind, By bending it becomes more taut and strait; Backward I strain me like a Syrian bow: Whence false and quaint, I know, Must be the fruit of squinting brain and eye; For ill can aim the gun that bends awry.

Come then, Giovanni, try To succour my dead pictures and my fame; Since foul I fare and painting is my shame.

The majority of the sonnets are devoted to love and beauty, conceived in the spirit of exalted Platonism. They are supposed to have been written in the latter period of his life, when he was about sixty years of age; and though we do not know for certain to whom they were in every case addressed, they may be used in confirmation of what I have said about his admiration for Vittoria Colonna and Tommaso Cavalieri.[421] The following, with its somewhat obscure adaptation of a Platonic theory of creation to his own art, was probably composed soon after Vittoria Colonna's death.[422]

SE 'L MIO ROZZO MARTELLO

When my rude hammer to the stubborn stone Gives human shape, now that, now this, at will, Following his hand who wields and guides it still, It moves upon another's feet alone.

But He who dwells in heaven all things doth fill With beauty by pure motions of his own; And since tools fashion tools which else were none, His life makes all that lives with living skill.

Now, for that every stroke excels the more The closer to the forge it still ascend, Her soul that quickened mine hath sought the skies: Wherefore I find my toil will never end, If G.o.d, the great artificer, denies That tool which was my only aid before.

The next is peculiarly valuable, as proving with what intense and religious fervour Michael Angelo addressed himself to the worship of intellectual beauty. He alone, in that age of sensuality and animalism, pierced through the form of flesh and sought the divine idea it imprisoned:[423]--

PER RITORNAR La

As one who will reseek her home of light, Thy form immortal to this prison-house Descended, like an angel piteous, To heal all hearts and make the whole world bright.

'Tis this that thralls my heart in love's delight, Not thy clear face of beauty glorious; For he who harbours virtue, still will choose To love what neither years nor death can blight.

So fares it ever with things high and rare, Wrought in the sweat of nature; heaven above Showers on their birth the blessings of her prime; Nor hath G.o.d deigned to show Himself elsewhere More clearly than in human forms sublime; Which, since they image Him, compel my love.

The same Platonic theme is slightly varied in the two following sonnets:[424]--

SPIRTO BEN NATO

Choice soul, in whom, as in a gla.s.s, we see, Mirrored in thy pure form and delicate, What beauties heaven and nature can create, The paragon of all their works to be!

Fair soul, in whom love, pity, piety, Have found a home, as from thy outward state We clearly read, and are so rare and great That they adorn none other like to thee!

Love takes me captive; beauty binds my soul; Pity and mercy with their gentle eyes Wake in my heart a hope that cannot cheat.

What law, what destiny, what fell control, What cruelty, or late or soon, denies That death should spare perfection so complete?

DAI DOLCE PIANTO