The subject in itself is poor. The author must have felt this, even had he not been warned by Luca Pulci’s verses on the tournament of Lorenzo. The ‘Stanzas’—the title by which Poliziano’s poem is best known—are counted among the gems of Italian literature. They were the first of the kind expressing real melody without artificiality, being remarkable for their artistic flow and carefulness of composition. But for a few harsh and ignoble expressions, they have never since been surpassed in point of form, though Ariosto may have more variety and freedom of movement, and Tasso more harmony. But how do these beautiful stanzas of ottava rima treat their subject? In the first book it is left altogether out of sight. The tournament gives place to mythology, the Piazza Sta. Croce to the gardens and palace of Venus. All the flowers and trees of the most highly-favoured climates, all animals of the chase and the peaceful park, the whole of Olympus, are introduced; reminiscences of all the classic poets from Lucretius to Claudian, even to the Christian singers, wanderings of an exuberant fancy through the realms of beauty and love,—all these combine and disport themselves in such perfect freedom, that it matters not whether they have anything to do with the subject or not. At the beginning of the second book the poet seems at last to bethink himself that he intended to sing the praises of a Medici. He therefore makes Cupid relate to Venus the glories of the Tuscan race, and begins with the preparations for great deeds which such vast mythological machinery demands. The youth is awakened and armed, but not without assistance from Olympus. The poem breaks off abruptly, and in its closing stanzas there gleams a sad presentiment of the cruel fate which was so soon to put an end to a life apparently destined to glory and happiness, and with it to a work already highly valued as a fragment, and which gave the tone to the poetry of the age just beginning. Who shall say whether it was not well for the poem that it remained a fragment? for the disproportion between the unimportance of the subject and the pomp of the treatment might have come out too strikingly had it been continued. This poem, intended to celebrate the acts of Giuliano, is addressed to his brother. The dedicatory stanza speaks of Lorenzo without circumlocution as the ruler of Florence:
High-born Lorenzo, laurel[38] in whose shade
Thy Florence rests nor fears the lowering storm,
Nor threatening signs in heaven’s high front displayed,
Nor Jove’s dread anger in its fiercest form;
O to the trembling Muse afford thine aid—
The Muse that courts thee timorous and forlorn,
Lives in the shadow of thy prosperous tree,
And bounds her every fond desire to thee.[39]
Angelo Poliziano continued to write Latin verses. His epigrams, odes, and elegies are valuable both as conveying a knowledge of the persons and tendencies of a memorable period, and as proofs of a versatility and classical spirit to be found in none of his contemporaries and in few subsequent writers. The philologers of the fifteenth century wrote Latin verses with ease; but the only poet among them is Poliziano. His works abound in imitations of all kinds, as do those of the later Roman poets. But Poliziano feels, thinks, and writes like a Roman; if not like a poet of the Augustan age, at least like one of the time of Statius, whom he resembles in more ways than one, having written ‘Sylvæ’ like him. He is more classical than some of those who are included in the ranks of the poets of antiquity.
A peculiar grace, fulness of thought, and great variety, give to his poems a charm not often found in modern Latin verses, which seldom display a living individuality. To descriptions of modern life and modern localities, whose very names seem unsuitable to a classic sphere, he can give a native classical colouring, without any apparent effort, yet with the most consummate art. Most remarkable among his writings, by its grace and naturalness and an intermingling of joy and sadness, is the elegy on a bunch of violets given him by a beloved hand; a poem which, in the sixteenth century and in our own, has been an object of study to the choice spirits who wish to acquire pure classic inspiration in a modern form.[40] Poliziano here challenges a comparison with Lorenzo de’ Medici, who treated the same subject in two of his loveliest sonnets. The ‘Sylvæ,’ poems of Angelo’s later years, from 1482 to 1486, added to his reputation, though in happy turns of thought and warmth of feeling they are inferior to many of his smaller pieces. They are four poems in heroic metre, prolusions to his philological lectures at the Florence University, to a chair in which he was appointed on December 23, 1485, the degree of Doctor of Common Law being conferred on him by Archbishop Rinaldo Orsini at his palace, in the presence of Lorenzo’s son Piero.[41] The first of these poems,[42] ‘Manto’ (the name of the Theban prophetess, which was assumed by the Italian city founded by her son), treats of Virgil, his works, his place in literature, his importance for all time.
As the first of the ‘Sylvæ’ was intended as an introduction to Virgil’s ‘Bucolics,’ so the second, ‘Rusticus,’ was to serve the same purpose for the ‘Georgics,’ and for the works and times of Hesiod. The third, ‘Ambra,’ took its name from the Medicean Poggio a Cajano, but the name has little connection with the poem, which refers to localities only at its close, and is devoted to an analysis of Homeric plays regarded from a pseudo-Herodotean and pseudo-Plutarchian point of view. The last and longest of the ‘Sylvæ,’ bearing the strange title of ‘Nutricia: the Reward of the Nursing-mother,’ describes the origin, progress, and influence of the poetry and the poetics of classical times, passes on to the author of the ‘Divine Comedy,’ and ends by singing the praises of Cosimo de’ Medici and his successors. The abundance and versatility of Lorenzo’s talents were perhaps never more truly and happily expressed than in the closing verses of this poem; and when the praises of living and powerful men appear in such a setting as this, we may accept them without complaining. After describing his labours in the field of sentimental poetry, to which belong the greater part of Lorenzo’s earlier poems, his other poetical productions and his whole intellectual character are thus spoken of:—
Non vacat argutosque sales, Satyraque bibaces
Descriptos memorare senes, non carmina festis
Excipienda choris, querulasve animantia chordas.
Idem etiam tacitæ referens pastoria vitæ
Otia, et urbanos thyrso extimulante labores,
Mox fugis in cœlum, non seu per lubrica nisus
Extremamque boni gaudes contingere metam.
Quodque alii studiumque vocant, durumque laborem,
Hic tibi ludus erit, fessus civilibus actis,
Huc is emeritas acuens ad carmina vires.
Felix ingenio, felix cui pectore tantas
Instaurare vices, cui fas tam magna capaci
Alternare animo, et varias ita nectere curas.
Poliziano wrote the ‘Nutricia’ in October 1486, at the villa of Fiesole. In the following verses he prophesied of the times to come and the future greatness of his pupil, Piero, if the latter, fulfilling the bright promise of his youth, should walk in the footsteps of his father:—
It jam pene prior, sic, ô sic pergat, et ipsum
Me superet majore gradu, longeque relinquat
Protinus, et dulci potius plaudatur alumno,
Bisque mei victor illo celebrentur honores.
A merciful fate spared the poet from witnessing the failure of hopes the fulfilment of which had already become very doubtful when he was prematurely called away. Anyone versed in the history of those days who may now climb the pleasant heights of Fiesole, which new buildings and roads have altered but not transformed, will think with interest of Angelo’s abode here in the country-house of the Medici, which he describes in a letter to Marsilio Ficino. ‘If the summer heat oppress thee at Careggi, the cooler air of Fiesole will be pleasant to thee. We have plenty of water between the slopes of the hill, and while gentle winds constantly refresh us, the glare of the sun troubles us little. During the ascent to the villa it appears enclosed in trees, but the spot, when reached, commands an extensive view as far as the town. The neighbourhood is thickly inhabited, yet I find here the quiet which suits me. But I will tempt thee with yet another attraction. Pico sometimes wanders beyond the limits of his own grounds, breaks in unexpectedly upon my solitude, and carries me away from my shady gardens to his evening meal. You know how things are there; no superfluities, but everything as it should be, and with the spice of his conversation. But thou must be my guest; with me thou shalt find as good a table and perhaps better wine, for Pico and I are rivals in respect to wine.’[43]