Renaissance in Italy Volume II Part 25

Ipse ego bina tibi solenni altaria ritu, Et geminos sacra e quercu lauroque virenti Vicino lucos Nanceli in litore ponam.[484]

[Footnote 484: 'Therefore shall all our shepherds pay thee divine honours, as to Pan or Phoebus, on fixed days, great Father; and long shalt thou be celebrated in our forests. Thy praise, Julius the Great, the cliffs, the rocks, the hollow valleys, and the woodland echoes shall repeat. Wherever in our groves an oak tree stands, as spring and summer bring the flowers, its branches shall be hung with wreaths, its trunk shall be inscribed with thy auspicious name. As often as our shepherds drive the flocks afield, or bring them pastured home, each one, remembering that he does this under thy protection, shall pour libations of new milk forth to thee, and rear thee tender lambs for sacrifice. Nay, if thou spurn not rustic prayers, before all G.o.ds shall we invoke thee in our supplications. I myself will build and dedicate to thee two altars, and will plant twin groves of sacred oak and laurel evergreen for thee.'--_Carmina_, &c. pp. 58, 59.]

It will be remembered that the oak was the ensign of the Della Rovere family, so that when the poets exalted Julius to Olympus, they were not in want of a tree sacred to the new deity. To trace this Pagan flattery of the Popes through all its forms would be a tedious business. It will be enough to quote Poliziano's 'Sapphics' to Innocent VIII.:--

Roma cui paret dominusque Tibris, Qui vicem summi geris hic Tonantis, Qui potes magnum reserare et idem Claudere coelum.[485]

[Footnote 485: 'Thou whom Rome obeys, and royal Tiber, who wieldest upon earth the Thunderer's power, whose it is to lock and open the gates of heaven.'--_Ib._ p. 260.]

A more quaint confusion of Latin mythology and mediaeval superst.i.tion, more glibly and trippingly conveyed in flimsy verse, can hardly be imagined; and yet even this, I think, is beaten by the ponderous conceits of Fracastoro, who, through the mouth of the goat-footed Pan, saluted Julius III. as the mountain of salvation, playing on his name Del Monte:--

Hoc in Monte Dei pecudes pascentur et agni, Graminis aeterni pingues et velleris aurei; Exsilient et aquae vivae, quibus ubera caprae Grandia distendant, distendant ubera vaccae.[486]

[Footnote 486: 'In this mountain of the Lord shall flocks and herds feed, fat with eternal pastures and golden-fleeced. Living waters too shall leap forth, wherewith the goats shall swell their udders, and the kine likewise.'--_Poemata Selecta_, p. 132.]

The mountain soon becomes a shepherd, and the shepherd not only rules the people, and feeds the sheep of G.o.d, but chains the monsters of the Reformation to a rock in Caucasus, and gives peace and plenty to Italy:--

aeternis illum numeris ad sidera tollent, Heroemque, deumque, salutiferumque vocabunt.[487]

[Footnote 487: 'Him with immortal verse the poets shall exalt to heaven, and call him hero, G.o.d, and saviour.'--_Ib._ p. 133.]

Returning to Castiglione: I have already spoken of his epitaph on Raphael and his description of the newly-discovered 'Ariadne.'[488]

The latter exercise in rhetoric competes with Sadoleto's laboured hexameters on the Laoc.o.o.n. These verses, frigid as a prize poem in our estimation, moved Bembo to enthusiasm. When they appeared he wrote to Sadoleto, 'I have read your poem on Laoc.o.o.n a hundred times. O wonder-working bard! Not only have you made for us, as it were, a second statue to match that masterpiece; but you have engraved upon my mind the very statue itself.' This panegyric stirs a smile when we compare it with Sadoleto's own prolusion, the fruit of a grave intellect and cultivated taste rather than of genius and inspiration.[489]

[Footnote 488: See above, pp. 312, 317.]

[Footnote 489: See _Carmina Quinque Poetarum_, pp. 318-336.]

Time would fail to tell of all the later Latin poets--of La Casa's polished lyrics in the style of Horace, of Amalteo's waxen eclogues, of Aonio Paleario's fantastic hexameters upon the 'Immortality of the Soul,'[490] of Strozzi's elegies, of Ariosto's epigrams, and Calcagnini's learned muse. When I repeat that every educated man wrote Latin verses in that century, and that all who could committed their productions to the press, enough has been said to prove the impossibility of dealing more than superficially with so vast a ma.s.s of meritorious mediocrity.

[Footnote 490: A didactic poem in three books; Pope's _Poemata Italorum_, vol. i. pp. 211-270. The description of the Resurrection, the Last Judgment, and the entrance of the blessed into Paradise, forming the conclusion of the last book, is an excellent specimen of _barocco_ style and bathos. Virgil had written, '_Ite domum pasti, si quis pudor, ite juvenci!_' Paleario makes the Judge address the d.a.m.ned souls thus: '_Ite domum in tristem, si quis pudor, ite ruentes_,' &c.

How close Milton's path lay to the worst faults in poetry, and how wonderfully he escaped, may well be calculated by the study of such verse as this.]

One name remains to be rescued from the decent obscurity of the 'Delitiae Poetarum Italorum.' Marcantonio Flaminio was born at Seravalle in 1498. He came, while yet a young man, to the Court of Leo armed with Latin poetry for his credentials. No better claim on patronage from Pope or cardinal could be preferred in that age of tw.a.n.ging lyres. At Rome Flaminio lived in the service of Alessandro Farnese, whose hospitality he afterwards repaid with verses honourable alike to poet and patron by their freedom from vulgar flattery. The atmosphere of a Court, however, was uncongenial to Flaminio. Fond of country life, addicted to serious studies, sober in his tastes, and cheerful in his spirits, pious, and unaffectedly unambitious, he avoided the stream of the great world and lived retired. Community of interests brought him into close connection with the Cardinals Pole and Contarini, from whom he caught so much of the Reformation spirit as a philosophical Italian could a.s.similate; but it was not in his modest and quiet nature to raise the cry of revolt against authority.[491] The most distinguished wits and scholars of the age were among his intimate friends. Both his poems and his correspondence reflect an agreeable light upon the literary society of the late Renaissance. The Latin verses, with which we are at present occupied, breathe genuine piety, healthful simplicity, and moral purity, in strong contrast with the neopaganism of the Roman circle. These qualities suit the robust style, clear, terse, and nervous, he knew how to use. It is pleasant to close the series of Italian Latinists with one who combined the best art of his century with the temper of a republican and the spirit of a Christian.

[Footnote 491: This epigram on Savonarola shows Flaminio's sympathy with the preachers of pure doctrine:--

Dum fera flamma tuos, Hieronyme, pascitur artus, Relligio, sacras dilaniata comas, Flevit, et o, dixit, crudeles parcite flammae, Parcite, sunt isto viscera nostra rogo.]

The most prominent quality of Flaminio as a poet is love of the country. Three little compositions describing his own farm are animated with the enthusiasm of genuine affection.[492] We feel that no mere reminiscence of Catullus makes him write--

Jam vos revisam, jam juvabit arbores Manu paterna consitas Videre, jam libebit in cubiculo Molles inire somnulos.[493]

[Footnote 492: 'Ad Agellum suum.'--_Poemata Selecta_, pp. 155, 156, 177.]

[Footnote 493: 'Now shall I see you once again; now shall I have the joy of gazing on the trees my father planted, and falling into gentle slumber in his little room.']

Nor is it an idle prayer he addresses to the Muses in these lines:--

At vos, o Heliconiae puellae, Queis fontes et amoena rura cordi, Si cara mihi luce cariores Estis, jam miserescite obsecrantis, Meque, urbis strepitu tumultuosae Ereptum, in placido locate agello.[494]

[Footnote 494: 'Maidens of Helicon, who love the fountains and the pleasant fields, as you are dearer to me than the dear light, have pity now upon your suppliant, take me from the tumult of the noisy town, and place me in my tranquil farm.']

He is never tired of contrasting the pleasures of the country with the noise and weariness of Rome:--

Ipse miser tumultuosa Urbe detinear; tibi benignus Dedit Jupiter in remoto agello Latentem placida frui quiete, Inter Socraticos libros, et inter Nymphas et Satyros, nihil profani Curantem populi leves honores.[495]

[Footnote 495: 'I, poor wretch, am prisoned in the noisy town. Kind Jupiter allows you, secluded in your distant farm, to take the joys of peace among Socratic books, among the nymphs and satyrs, unheeding the light honours of the vulgar crowd.'--'Ad Honoratum Fascitellum,'

_Poemata Selecta_, p. 178.]

Flaminio's thought of the country is always connected with the thought of study. The picture of a tranquil scholar's life among the fields, diversified by sport and simple pleasures of the rustic folk, gives freshness to his hendecasyllables, whether addressed to his patron Alessandro Farnese, or to his friends Galeazzo Florimonte and Francesco Torriani:[496]--

Inde ocellos Ut primum sopor incubans gravabit, Jucundissime amice, te sub antrum Ducam, quod croceis tegunt corymbis Serpentes hederae, imminensque laurus Suaviter foliis susurrat: at tu Ne febrim metuas gravedinemve; Est enim locus innocens: ubi ergo Hic satis requieveris, legentur Lusus Virgilii, et Syracusani Vatis, quo nihil est magis venustum, Nihil dulcius, ut mihi videtur.

c.u.m se fregerit aestus, in virenti Convalle spatiabimur; sequetur Brevis coena; redibis inde ad urbem.[497]

[Footnote 496: _Poemata Selecta_, pp. 153, 169, 173.]

[Footnote 497: 'Then, when sleep descends upon your eyes, best friend of mine, I'll lead you to a cave o'ercurtained by the wandering ivy's yellow bunches, whereby the sheltering laurel murmurs with her gently waving leaves. Fear no fever or dull headache. The place is safe. So when you are rested, we will read the rustic songs of Virgil or Theocritus; sweet and more charming verse I know not; and after the day's heat is past, we will stroll in some green valley. A light supper follows, and then you shall return to town.'--_Ib._ p. 174.]

One of Flaminio's best poems is written from his friend Stefano Sauli's villa near Genoa.[498] It describes how he spends his time between the philosophy of Aristotle and the verses of Catullus, while Sauli at his side devotes himself to Cicero. The fall of evening lures them from their study to the sea-beach: perched upon a water-girded rock, they angle with long reeds for fishes, or watch the white sails on the purple waves. The same theme is repeated in a copy of hexameters addressed to Sauli.[499] Flaminio had fallen ill of fever at Rome. To quit the city was his cure:--

Scilicet ut Romae corruptas fugimus auras, Et riguos patriae montes saltusque salubres Venimus, effoetos venit quoque robur in artus: Diffugit macies, diffugit corpore pallor; Et somnus vigiles irrepsit blandus ocellos, Quem neque desiliens crepitanti rivulus unda, Nec Lethea mihi duxere papavera quondam.[500]

[Footnote 498: 'Ad Christophorum Longolium,' _Ib._]

[Footnote 499: _Poemata Selecta_, p. 163.]

[Footnote 500: 'No sooner had I left Rome's tainted air for the clear streams and healthful forests of my native land, than strength returned into my wasted limbs; my body lost the pallor and emaciation of disease, and sweet sleep crept upon my wakeful eyes, such as no waters falling with a tinkling sound or Lethe's poppies had induced before.']

Sauli, for his part, is congratulated on having exchanged the cares of Church and State for Ciceronian studies among his laurel groves and gleaming orange gardens.

Flaminio's intimate relations with the ablest men of the century, those especially who were engaged in grave and Christian studies, add extrinsic interest to his fugitive pieces. In one poem he alludes to the weak health of Cardinal Pole;[501] in another he compares Plato's description of the ideal republic with Contarini's work upon the magistrates and commonwealth of Venice:--

Descripsit ille maximus quondam Plato Longis suorum ambagibus voluminum, Quis civitatis optimus foret status: Sed hunc ab ipsa saeculorum origine Nec ulla vidit, nec videbit civitas.

At Contarenus optimam rempublicam Parvi libelli disputationibus Illam probavit esse, plus millesima Quam cernit aestas Adriatico in mari Florere pace, litteris, pecunia.[502]

[Footnote 501: _Poemata Selecta_, p. 162.]

[Footnote 502: 'Plato, the greatest of sages, once described in his long volumes the best form of a State; but this from the beginning of the world till now hath never yet been seen, nor will it afterwards be seen in any city. Contarini in his little book has proved that the best commonwealth is that which now for more than a thousand years has flourished in the Adriatic with peace, letters, and wealth.'--_Poemata Selecta_, p. 162.]

When Vittoria Colonna died, Flaminio wrote a lamentation on the loss he had sustained, and on the extinction of so great a light for Italy.

These verses are remarkable for their sobriety and strength:--

Cui mens candida, candidique mores, Virtus vivida, comitasque sancta, Coeleste ingenium, eruditioque Rara, nectare dulciora verba, Summa n.o.bilitas, decora vults Majestas, opulenta sed bonorum Et res et domus usque aperta ad usus.[503]

[Footnote 503: 'Ad Hieronymum Turrianum,' _ib._ p. 168. 'Her mind was pure, her manners pure; her virtue lively, her courtesy without a taint of earth; her intellect was heavenly, her learning rare; her words sweeter than nectar; her n.o.bility the highest; her features beautiful in their majesty; her wealth liberally open to the use of good men.']

The same firm and delicate touch in the delineation of character gives value to the lines written on his father's death:--