The Romance of Biography Volume II Part 10

CHAPTER VIII.

CONJUGAL POETRY CONTINUED.

THE TWO ZAPPI.

We find among the minor poets of Italy, a charming, and I believe a singular instance of a husband and a wife, both highly gifted, devoting their talents to celebrate each other. These were Giambattista Zappi,[59] the famous Roman advocate, and his wife Faustina, the daughter of Carlo Maratti, the painter.

Zappi, after completing his legal studies at Bologna, came to reside at Rome, where he distinguished himself in his profession, and was one of the founders of the academy of the Arcadii. Faustina Maratti was many years younger than her husband, and extremely beautiful: she was her father's favourite model for his Madonnas, Muses, and Vestal Virgins.

From a description of her, in an Epithalamium[60] on her marriage, it appears that her eyes and hair were jet black, her features regular, and her complexion pale and delicate; a style of beauty which, in its perfection, is almost peculiar to Italy. To the mutual tenderness of these married lovers, we owe some of the most elegant among the lighter Italian lyrics. Zappi, in a Sonnet addressed to his wife some time after their union, reminds her, with a tender exultation, of the moment they first met; when she swept by him in all the pride of beauty, careless or unconscious of his admiration,--and he bowed low before her, scarcely daring to lift his eyes on the charms that were destined to bless him; "Who," he says, "would then have whispered me, the day will come when you will smile to remember her disdain, for all this blaze of beauty was created for you alone!" or would have said to her, "Know you who is destined to touch that virgin heart? Even he, whom you now pa.s.s by without even a look! Such are the miracles of love!"

La prima volta ch'io m'avenni in quella Ninfa, che il cor m'accese, e ancor l'accende, Io dissi, donna o dea, ninfa si bella?

Giunse dal prato, o pur dal ciel discende?

La fronte inchin in umil atto, ed ella La merc pur d'un sguardo a me non rende; Qual vagheggiata in cielo, o luna, o stella, Che segue altera il suo viaggio, e splende.

Chi detto avesse a me, "costei ti sprezza, Ma un di ti riderai del suo rigore!

Che nacque sol per te tanta bellezza."

Chi detto avesse ad ella: "Il tuo bel core Sai chi l'avra? Costui ch'or non t'apprezza"

Or negate i miracoli d'Amore!

The first Sonnet in Faustina's Canzoniere,

Dolce sollievo delle umane cure,

is an eulogium on her husband, and describes her own confiding tenderness. It is full of grace and sweetness, and feminine feeling:

Soave cortesa, vezzosi accenti, Virt, senno, valor d'alma gentile, Spogliato hanno 'l mio cor d'ogni timore;

Or tu gli affetti miei puri innocenti Pasci cortese, e non cangiar tuo stile Dolce sollievo de' miei mali, amore!

Others are of a melancholy character; and one or two allude to the death of an infant son, whom she tenderly laments. But the most finished of all her poems is a Sonnet addressed to a lady whom her husband had formerly loved;[61] the sentiment of which is truly beautiful and feminine: never was jealousy so amiably, or so delicately expressed.

There is something very dramatic and picturesque in the apostrophe which Faustina addresses to her rival, and in the image of the lady "casting down her large bright eyes:" as well as affecting in the abrupt recoil of feeling in the last lines.

SONETTO.

Donna! che tanto al mio bel sol piacesti!

Che ancor de' pregi tuoi parla sovente, Lodando, ora il bel crine, ora il ridente Tuo labbro, ed ora i saggi detti onesti.

Dimmi, quando le voci a lui volgesti Tacque egli mai, qual uom che nulla sente?

O le turbate luci alteramente, (Come a me volge) a te volger vedesti?

De tuoi bei lumi, a le due chiare faci Io so ch'egli a.r.s.e un tempo, e so che allora-- Ma tu declini al suol gli occhi vivaci!

Veggo il rossor che le tue guance infiora; Parla, rispondi! Ah non rispondi! taci Taci! se mi vuoi dir ch'ei t'ama ancora!

TRANSLATION.

Lady, that once so charm'd my life's fair Sun,[62]

That of thy beauties still he talketh oft,-- Thy mouth, fair hair, and words discreet and soft.

Speak! when thou look'dst, was he from silence won?

Or, did he turn those sweet and troubled eyes On thee, and gaze as now on me he gazeth?

(For ah! I know _thy_ love was then the prize, And then he _felt_ the grace that still he praiseth.) But why dost thou those beaming glances turn Thus downwards? Ha! I see (against thy will) All o'er thy cheek the crimsoning blushes burn.

Speak out! oh answer me!--yet, no, no,--stay!

Be dumb, be silent, if thou need'st must say That he who once adored thee, loves thee still.[63]

Neither Zappi nor his wife were authors by profession: her poems are few; and all seem to flow from some incident or feeling, which awakened her genius, and caused that "craving of the heart and the fancy to break out into voluntary song, which men call inspiration." She became a member of the Arcadia, under the pastoral name of Aglaura Cidonia; and it is remarkable, that though she survived her husband many years, I cannot find any poem referring to her loss, nor of a subsequent date: neither did she marry again, though in the prime of her life and beauty.

Zappi was a great and celebrated lawyer, and his legal skill raised him to an office of trust, under the Pontificate of Clement XI. In one of his Sonnets, which has great sweetness and picturesque effect, he compares himself to the Venetian Gondolier, who in the calm or the storm pours forth his songs on the Lagune, careless of blame or praise, asking no auditors but the silent seas and the quiet moon, and seeking only to "unburthen his full soul" in lays of love and joy--

Il Gondolier, sebben la notte imbruna, Remo non posa, e fende il mar spumante; Lieto cantando a un bel raggio di Luna-- "Intanto Erminia infra l'ombrose piante."

That Zappi could be sublime, is proved by his well-known Sonnet on the Moses of Michel Angelo; but his forte is the graceful and the gay. His Anacreontics, and particularly his little drinking song,

Come far? Far cos!

are very elegant, and almost equal to Chiabrera. It is difficult to sympathize with English drinking songs, and all the vulgar a.s.sociations of flowing bowls, taverns, three times three, and the table in a roar.

An Italian _Brindisi_ transports us at once among flasks and vineyards, guitars and dances, a dinner _al fresco_, a group _ la Stothard_. It is all the difference between the ivy-crowned Bacchus, and the bloated Silenus. "b.u.mper, Squire Jones," or, "Waiter, bring clean gla.s.ses," do not _sound_ so well as

Damigella Tutta bella Versa, versa, il bel vino! &c.

FOOTNOTES:

[59] Born at Imola, 1668; died at Rome, 1719.

[60] See the Epithalamium on her marriage with Zappi, prefixed to their works.

[61] Probably the same he had celebrated under the name of Filli, and who married another. Zappi's Sonnet to this lady, "Ardo per Filli," is elaborately elegant; sparkling and pointed as a pyramid of gems.

[62] "Il mio bel sol" is a poetical term of endearment, which it is not easy to reduce gracefully into English.

[63] Translated by a friend.

CHAPTER IX.

CONJUGAL POETRY CONTINUED.

LORD LYTTELTON.

Lord Lyttelton has told us in a very sweet line,