The Sonnets Of Michael Angelo Buonarroti And Tommaso Campanella Part 24

pensieri: e quando arete ottantuno anni, come io, mi crederete.

Pregovi gli diate a messer Giovan Francesco Fattucci, che me ne a chiesti. Vostro Michelagniolo Buonarroti in Roma_. The first was also sent to Monsignor Beccadelli, Archbishop of Ragusa, who replied to it.

For his sonnet, see Signor Guasti's edition, p. 233.

LXVIII. Date 1556. Written in reply to his friend's invitation that he should pay him a visit at Ragusa. Line 10: this Urbino was M.A.'s old and faithful servant, Francesco d'Amadore di Casteldurante, who lived with him twenty-six years, and died at Rome in 1556.

LXIX.-LXXVII. The dates of this series of penitential sonnets are not known. It is clear that they were written in old age. It will be remembered that the latest piece of marble on which Michael Angelo worked, was the unfinished Pieta now standing behind the choir of the Duomo at Florence. Many of his latest drawings are designs for a Crucifixion.

NOTES ON CAMPANELLA'S SONNETS.

I. Line 1: the Italian words which I have translated _G.o.d's Wisdom_ and _Philosophy_ are _Senno_ and _Sofia_. Campanella held that the divine _Senno_ penetrated the whole universe, and, meeting with created _Sofia_, gave birth to Science. This sonnet is therefore a sort of Mythopoem, figuring the process whereby true knowledge, as distinguished from sophistry, is derived by the human reason interrogating G.o.d in Nature and within the soul. Line 5: Sofia has for her husband Senno; the human intellect is married to the divine. Line 9: it was the doctrine of Campanella and the school to which he belonged, that no advance in knowledge could be made except by the direct exploration of the universe, and that the authority of schoolmen, Aristotelians, and the like, must be broken down before a step could be made in the right direction. This germ of modern science is sufficiently familiar to us in the exposition of Bacon. Line 12: repeats the same idea. Facts presented by Nature are of more value than any _Ipse dixit_. Line 14: he compares himself not without reason to Prometheus; for twenty-five years spent in prison were his reward for the revelation which has added a new sphere to human thought.

II. The bitter words of this sonnet will not seem unmerited to those who have studied Italian poetry in the Cinque Cento--the refined playthings of verse, the romances, and the burlesque nonsense, which amused a corrupt though highly cultivated age.

III. Campanella held the doctrine of an Anima Mundi in the fullest and deepest sense of the term. The larger and more complex the organism, the more it held, in his opinion, of thought and sentient life. Thus the stars, in the language of Aristotle, are [Greek: thiotera aemon].

Compare Sonnets VIII., XIX.

IV. Though the material seat of the mind is so insignificant, the mind itself is infinite, a.n.a.logous to G.o.d in its capacity. Aristarchus and Metrodorus symbolise, perhaps, the spheres of literature and mathematics. This infinitude of the intellect is our real proof of G.o.d, our inner witness of the Deity. We may arrive at G.o.d by reasoning; we may trust authority; but it is only by impregnating our minds with G.o.d in Nature that we come into immediate contact with Him. Cp. Sonnet VI., last line.

V. The theme of this sonnet is the well-known Baconian principle of the interrogation of Nature. The true philosopher must go straight to the universe, and not confine himself to books. Cp. Sonnets I., LV., LVI.

VI. A further development of the same thought. Tyrants, hypocrites, sophists are the three plagues of humanity, standing between our intellect and G.o.d, who is the source of freedom, goodness, and true wisdom. In the last line Campanella expresses his opinion that G.o.d is knowable by an immediate act of perception a.n.a.logous to the sense of taste: _Se tutti al Senno non rendiamo il gusto_. Compare Sonnet IV., last line.

VII. Ignorance is the parent of tyranny, sophistry, hypocrisy; and the arms against this trinity of error are power, wisdom, love, the three main attributes of G.o.d.

VIII. Human egotism inclines men to deny the spiritual life of the universe, to favour their own nation, to love their individual selves exclusively, to eliminate the true G.o.d from the world, to wors.h.i.+p false G.o.ds fas.h.i.+oned from them selves, and at last to fancy themselves central and creative in the Cosmos. Adami calls this sonnet _scoprimento stupendo_.

IX. The quatrains set forth the condition of the soul besotted with self love. We may see in this picture a critique of Machiavelli's _Principe_, which was for Campanella the very ideal portrait of a tyrant. The love of G.o.d, rightly understood, places man _en rapport_ with all created things. S. Francis, for example, loved not only his fellow men, but recognised the brotherhood of birds and fishes.

X. Ignorance, the source of all our miseries, blinds us to celestial beauty and makes us follow carnal l.u.s.t. Yet what is best in s.e.xual love is the radiance of heavenly beauty s.h.i.+ning through the form of flesh.

This sonnet receives abundant ill.u.s.tration in Michael Angelo's poems.

XI, XII. Two sonnets on the condition of the philosopher in a world that understands him not. The first expresses that sense of inborn royalty which sustained Campanella through his long martyrdom. The second expands the picture drawn of the philosopher in Plato's _Republic_ after his return to the cave from the region of truth.

XIII. Campanella frequently expressed his theological fatalism by this metaphor of a comedy. G.o.d wrote the drama which men have to play. In this life we cannot understand our parts. We act what is appointed for us, and it is only when the comedy is finished, that we shall see how good and evil, happiness and misery, were all needed by the great life of the universe. The following stanza from one of his Canzoni may be cited in ill.u.s.tration:

War, ignorance, fraud, tyranny, Death, homicide, abortion, woe-- These to the world are fair, as we Reckon the chase or gladiatorial show To pile our hearth we fell the tree, Kill bird or beast our strength to stay, The vines, the hives our wants obey-- Like spiders spreading nets, we take and slay As tragedy gives men delight, So the exchange of death and strife Still yields a pleasure infinite To the great world's triumphant life Nay seeming ugliness and pain Avert returning Chaos' reign-- Thus the whole world's a comedy, And they who by philosophy Unite themselves to G.o.d, will see In ugliness and evil nought But beauteous masks--oh, mirthful thought!

XIV. The same theme is continued with a further development. Men among themselves play their own comedy, but do not rightly a.s.sign the parts.

They make kings of slavish souls, and elevate the impious to the rank of saints. They ignore their true and natural leaders, and stone the real prophets.

XV. Between the false kings of men, who owe their thrones to accident, and the really royal, who by chance of birth or station are a prey to tyrants, there is everlasting war. Yet the spirit of the martyrs survives, and long after their death they rule.

XVI. True kinghood is independent of royal birth or power or ensigns.

High moral and intellectual qualities make the natural kings of men, and these are so rarely found in sceptred families that a republic is the safest form of government. See Sonnets x.x.xI., x.x.xVII.

XVII. As men mistake their kings, so they mistake the saints. The true spirit of Christ is ignored, and if Christ were to return to earth, they would persecute him, even as they persecute those who follow him most closely in their lives and doctrines.

XVIII. Christ symbolises and includes all saintly truth-seeking souls.

Compare the three last lines of this sonnet with the three last lines of No. XV. and No. XX.

XIX., XX., XXI. Expanding the same themes, Campanella contrasts the ignorance of self-love with the divine illumination of the true philosopher, and insists that, in spite of persecution and martyrdom, saintly and truth-seeking souls will triumph.

XXII. Resumes the thought of No. X. If only the soul of man, infinite in its capacity, could be enamoured of G.o.d, it would at once work miracles and attain to Deity.

XXIII. A bitter satire on love in the seventeenth century. Lines 9-11: as Adami sometimes says, _qui legit intelligat_. Line 12: _la squilla mia_ is a pun on Campanella's name. He means that he has shown the world a more excellent way of love. Cp. No. XXII.

XXIV. The essence of n.o.bility is subjected to the same critique as kinghood in No. XVI. Line 11: the Turk is Europe's foe. Campanella praises the Turks because they had no hereditary n.o.bility, and conferred honours on men according to their actions.

XXV. That this sonnet should have been written by a Dominican monk in a Neapolitan prison in the first half of the seventeenth century, is truly note-worthy. It expresses the essence of democracy in a critique of the then existing social order.

XXVI. A very obscure piece of writing. The first quatrain lays down the principle that ill-doing brings its own inevitable punishment. The second distinguishes between the unblessed suffering which plagues the soul, and that which we welcome as a process of purgation. The first terzet makes heaven and h.e.l.l respectively consist of a clean and a burdened conscience. The second, referring to a legend of S. Peter's controversy with Simon Magus, finds a proof of immortality in this condition of conscience.

XXVII. A bold and perilous image of the Machiavellian Prince, who drains the commonwealth for his own selfish pleasures. The play upon the words _mentola_ and _mente_ in the first line is hardly capable of reproduction.

XXVIII. Adami says in a note: _Questo sonetto e fatto perche l'intendano pochi; ne io voglio dichiararlo_. Under these circ.u.mstances it is dangerous to attempt an explanation. Yet something may be hazarded. Line 1: the lady is Italy. Line 3: the stranger races are Rome's va.s.sals. Line 7: Dinah is again Italy(?). Line 8: Simeon and Levi are the Princes of Italy and the Papacy. Line 9: Jerusalem probably stands for Rome. Line 10: Nazareth is the Gospel of Christ, and Athens is philosophy. Here again Adami warns us: _qui legit intelligat_. Line 13: a critique of the ruinous policy of calling strangers in to interfere in Italian affairs.

XXIX. Line 2: Attila is meant. The Venetian Lagoons were the refuge of the last and best Italians of the Roman age, when the incursions of the barbarians destroyed the cla.s.sical civility. Line 12: alludes to the fixity of the Venetian Const.i.tution and the deliberate caution of Venetian policy.

x.x.x. The quatrains describe the old power of Genoa, who conquered Pisa, abased Venice, planted colonies in the East, and discovered America.

Line 10: throws the blame of Genoese decrepitude upon the n.o.bles.

x.x.xI. Campanella praises the Poles for their elective monarchy, but blames them for choosing the scions of royal houses, instead of seeking out the real kings of men, such as he described in No. XVI.

x.x.xII. A similar criticism of the Swiss, who played so important and yet so contemptible a part in the Italian wars of the sixteenth century. With the terzets compare No. XXV. Line 11: stands thus in the original--_La croce bianca e'l prato si contende_.

x.x.xIII. A clever adaptation of the parable of the Samaritan, conceived and executed in the spirit of a modern poet like A.H. Clough.

x.x.xIV. Line 4: the hypocritical priest makes profit by preaching for holiness what is really hurtful to the soul. Lines 5-11 contrast the acknowledged sinners with the covert and crafty pretenders to virtue.

Line 8: I have ventured to correct the punctuation. D'Ancona reads:

_E poco e il male in cui poco e l'inganno. Ti puoi guardar:_

but I am not sure that I am justified in the sense I put upon the verb _guardarsi._

x.x.xV. A similar arraignment of impostors, comparing perfidious priests with the foulest literary scoundrel of the age, Pietro Aretino. The first terzet in the original is obscure.

x.x.xVI. I do not understand the allusion in the last line. The whole sonnet is directed against hypocritical priests.

x.x.xVII., x.x.xVIII., x.x.xIX. A commentary on the first clauses of the Lord's Prayer. Campanella tells the Italians they have no right to call themselves men, the children of G.o.d in heaven, while they bow to tyrants worse than beasts, and believe the lying priests who call that adulation loyalty. If they free their souls from this vile servitude, they may then pray with hopeful heart for the coming upon earth of G.o.d's kingdom, which shall satisfy poets, philosophers, and prophets with more than they had dreamed. It will be noticed that the rhymes are carried from sonnet to sonnet; so that the three form one poem, described by Adami as _sonetto trigemino_. In x.x.xVII., 13, I have corrected _cenno_ into _senno_. In x.x.xIX., 1, I have ventured to render _con ogni istanza_ by _with every hour that flies_, though _istanza_ is not _istante_.

XL., XLL, XLII. These three sonnets, though not linked by rhymes, form a series, predicting the speedy overthrow of tyrants, sophists, hypocrites--Campanella's natural enemies--and the coming of a better age for human society. They were probably written early, when his heart was still hot with the hopes of a new reign of right and reason, which even he might help to inaugurate. The eagle, bear, lion, crow, fox, wolf, etc., are the evil princ.i.p.alities and powers of earth. No. XL., line 9: the giants are, I think, those lawless, selfish, anti-social forces idealised by Machiavelli in his _Principe_, as Campanella read that treatise--the strong men and mighty ones of an impious and G.o.dless world. No. XLL, line 4: concerning _Taida, Sinon, Giuda, ed Omero_, Adami says: 'These are the four evangelists of the dark age of Abaddon.' Thais is a symbol of lechery; Sinon of fraud; Judas of treason; Homer of lying fiction. So at least I read the allegory. No.

XLII., lines 9-14 are noticeable, since they set forth Campanella's philosophical or evangelical communism, for a detailed exposition of which see the _Civitas Solis_.