Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent (vol. 2 of 2)

by Alfred von Reumont

The three idyls which we possess of Lorenzo de’ Medici are so many witnesses to the many-sidedness of his genius. The first, ‘Corinto’ (the name of the shepherd who sings his love), resembles the eclogues of the ancients, which were soon to become the models of so many writers, and especially of Sannazaro. Following the precedent of Boccaccio, it is in terza rima, a metre better suited to a series of narratives and descriptions than to a subject in which the lyrical element preponderates. ‘Nencia da Barberino’ is pure nature—in some parts severe nature, with a rich vein of quaint humour and a charming local colour. It is an idyl in eight-lined stanzas, redolent of Tuscan soil, describing the Tuscan people, their manners and modes of speech, with a succession of apostrophes, eulogies, and comparisons, including some that are strange enough. Such are the so-called rispetti,—those songs of the people, especially country people, which sometimes in their fantastic flights soar up to the sun and stars, and sometimes borrow their similes from the humblest things. Lorenzo has, in fact, here put together a whole poem of rispetti, in which the serious and the comic alternate, and through the mouth of a lover has applied to one rustic beauty what would have sufficed for a whole bevy of maidens. These rispetti are evidently learned from the people, who to this day produce thousands of these half-lyric, half-epigrammatic songs, particularly in the hill-country of Pistoja, for, as an old proverb says, ‘the mountaineers have thick shoes and fine brains.’[4] They are to be heard also in other parts of the Florentine and Sienese dominions, as far as the Maremma, from whence they extend into the Roman Campagna. Some of the rustic verses are peculiar to the poet, who exercises himself freely in a style that permits great variety, and who rivals the people among whom he mingles in fantastic flights and quaint similes, producing a somewhat motley but richly coloured and life-like picture. Luigi Pulci has furnished a companion piece to ‘Nencia.’ Poliziano, without confining himself to a special subject, has also tried his hand at these little songs, which seem to flow spontaneously from Tuscan pens, and form a branch of literature highly important in its relation to the character of the people.

While in ‘Nencia’ the popular and burlesque element prevails, the third of these idyls, ‘Ambra,’ belongs to the province of mythology. Its importance lies far less in the story itself—one of the oft-told tales after the Ovidian pattern—than in the grand descriptions of nature to which the fable gives rise. The scene is the villa of Poggio a Cajano, on the decoration of which the princely owner bestowed so much trouble and expense, the results of his work being repeatedly destroyed by the overflow of the Ombrone in its descent from the Pistojan mountains to the level ground around the low hill on which Cajano stood. A small islet in the river bore the name of Ambra, which was transferred to the villa itself. The dykes raised for its defence did not fulfil Poliziano’s hope that the stream would spare the flower-garden. In the poem, Ambra is the nymph beloved by the shepherd Lauro. Her charms, seen when bathing, attract the river god, and she only escapes from his wild pursuit by the help of Diana, who, at her entreaty, changes her into a rock, on which the villa is then built. As in ‘Nencia’ the ottava rima adapts itself to a burlesque and popular subject, so here it developes a surprising power in descriptions of the natural occurrences that caused the destruction of the pleasant rustic dwelling, and of the events which are made to precede them.

As ‘Ambra’ inclines to the descriptive, so does another little poem in eight-line stanzas called ‘The Hawking Party’ (‘La Caccia con Falcone’), a lively picture of a universally favourite pastime to which our poet was almost passionately addicted. The fresh morning on which the party sets out, the adventures and intermezzos on the way, the rivalry and excitement of the huntsmen, the manœuvres of the chase, with the birds and dogs, carefully trained, yet not always to be relied on, the return in midday heat, and the cheerful meal, which reconciles the tired disputants and brings the day to a close,—all this is described with the most vivid reality, and with an amount of detail that could only come from an initiated sportsman. We are in the midst of the cheerful company that crowded around the gay and stately young man. For the poem dates some time before the year 1478, as is proved by the circumstance that Lorenzo’s brother-in-law, Guglielmo de’ Pazzi, is one of the chief persons present, together with Luigi Pulci, Foglia Amieri, Dionigi Pucci, and several others less easy to distinguish by name. A whole stanza is taken up with the names of the falcons, the number of which shows that this was indeed a princely hunt, such as often took place at Pisa or Poggio a Cajano.

The poem in terza rima which bears the name of ‘I Beoni’ (‘The Drinkers’), or ‘Simposio,’ resembles the ‘Nencia’ and the ‘Hawking Party’ in so far as it describes Florentine and Tuscan manners. In rhythm, tone, and manner, it is very different from the others; for although in ‘Nencia’ peasant life sometimes receives a burlesque covering, the poem never becomes satire, nor sinks to that degree of low comedy which degenerates into vulgarity. This, however, is the case in the ‘Beoni,’ a series of chapters in which the poet describes the manners and adventures of a company of jolly fellows, whom he meets near Porta Faenza as he is returning from Careggi, at the moment when they are setting out for Ponte a Rifredi, a little place about a mile away from the town, and which takes its name from a bridge over the little stream Terzolle. The business of the company is to taste a cask of wine which they have heard highly praised. The poem is not wanting in humour, and offers a lively picture of convivial rather than social manners, such as long existed in Tuscany, and of which we possess many literary monuments. Although unfinished, it is long, and monotonous in spite of the variety of its situations; its dry comedy often degenerates into downright coarseness, such as might lead to very unfavourable conclusions with regard to the morals even of the higher classes and the clergy, who in part are represented here. ‘I Beoni’ makes an unpleasant impression from another point of view. Not only is the metre that of the most sublime poems in the Italian language; the outward arrangement of the poem, as well as a number of particular turns, are burlesque imitations of the great poets. This is a proof of keen observation, of wonderful and many-sided power; but it has a darker side. If we are to recognise in this production the beginning of Italian satire, we can all the more justly measure the distance between these ‘chapters’ and those brilliant mirrors of the time which immediately followed that of Lorenzo de’ Medici—the satires of Lodovico Ariosto.

Like the ‘Beoni,’ the dance-songs (‘Canzoni a ballo’) and the songs of the carnival (‘Canti carnascialeschi’), especially the latter, often pass the limits which separate social gaiety from burlesque and satire. Yet the nature and object of these songs demand the predominance of the lyrical element. The dance songs are explained by the old traditional customs of the Tuscan people, and Lorenzo did but follow examples furnished by the age of Dante; examples differing in character of all degrees, from the grave and sententious to the popular and comic. The musical accompaniment, in which popular old tunes alternate with later compositions, naturally influences the form of these songs; but the poet handles the form with the greatest ease, and knows how to give to metre and rhyme a variety that corresponds with the changes of mood, and prevents the monotony which the matter and subject might produce. For the subject is love and its enjoyments, in which the sensual and humorous preponderate. Here prevails the sway of that epicureanism which sees in the material satisfaction of our desire for enjoyment the solution of the problem of life, which regards as lost the time spent on all else, snaps its fingers at a severe moral judgment, and ends in outspoken nihilism, mocking even at love and happiness. The sum of worldly wisdom here taught is—enjoy yourself as much as you can, and lose no time about it; it is not the action that matters, but only that it should not reach the ears of those who would be sure to give it a bad name; ill-will and the conflict of interests bring blame, not things in themselves. Even more clearly than in the dance-songs is this cynicism seen in the ‘Lays of the Carnival,’ which, like the former, are intended for choruses, mostly with alternate parts.

The following pages, which treat of the manners of the time, will describe the bacchanals, which were not new in Florence, but which Lorenzo de’ Medici increased, and not merely for the humour of the thing, to a degree that has cast on his memory a reflection which an exact comparison of the poet’s circumstances with the past would hardly justify. The abundant imagination and many-sided wit of these gay compositions may be admired, but, even were the licence less, it would be impossible to take real pleasure in them when once the purpose underlying them is perceived. Such songs were traditional in Florence and other places, as were also the people’s carnival societies, of which Lorenzo made use for his popular festivals, and for which he wrote even in the days of his highest authority—perhaps even more especially then. To these songs the accomplished choir-master of San Giovanni, the German Heinrich Isaak, commonly called Arrigo Tedesco, composed melodies for three voices. Even before the event which exercised so great and injurious an influence on life and morals—the plague of 1348—songs were openly sung, the levity and revolting coarseness of which contrasted strangely with the pious canticles which resounded in the evening before the image of the Madonna and other shrines. The ‘Decameron’ refers to them, and the Chronicles of Modena give us the beginning of a drinking-song which bears witness to the confusion of tongues that had arisen, probably among the mercenary bands: ‘Trinche gote Malvasie—mi non biver oter vin.’ The poems destined for singing increase in number from the fourteenth century onwards.[5] Lorenzo only perfected in form, rendered more significant, and finally turned to account for other purposes, what he found ready in the life of the people. A greater contrast to these frivolous productions than even his wanderings on the heights of speculation, his effusions of philosophic poetry and tender aspiring sentiment, is offered by the poems on religious subjects, of which Lorenzo found examples in his own family. The mystery-play, ‘Rappresentazione dei SS. Giovanni e Paolo,’ composed, according to the prologue spoken by the angel of the Annunciation, for the brotherhood of San Giovanni, is said to have been acted at the festivities which celebrated the marriage of Maddalena de’ Medici. It is certain that Lorenzo’s son, Giuliano, then just ten, and perhaps also Piero, took part with other youths and boys of noble houses in the representation held by the said company in 1489. The legend of Constantia, daughter of Constantine the Great, who was said to have been cured of leprosy at the tomb of St. Agnes on the Nomentan Way, and that of the martyrs John and Paul, who suffered death in Rome on the Cœlian, are here blended with the story of the division of the empire among Constantine’s sons, of the reign of Julian the Apostate, and his death in the Parthian war, and formed into a whole in which strange confusion and leaps from one subject to another do not prevent much poetical beauty and moral and political teaching. Like other earlier and contemporary pieces of this kind, it is more lyric than dramatic; in particular it has no dramatic unity. But if the dramatic element is weak, the historical character of one of the two chief persons, the Emperor Julian, shows an accuracy of conception which, with regard to this prince, must have been rare at that period. In this respect Lorenzo’s drama commands an interest far superior to that which we take in most productions of this class. Since the statue of Victory was taken away from the Curia—so speaks the Emperor—success no longer crowns the Roman arms, which once subdued the world. Only by returning to our old gods can we recall victory to our standards. But the object is not to be attained by this alone, or by taking from the Christians wealth and goods which should be forbidden them by the teachings of their own faith. The head of the empire must again command the old reverence, and this cannot be if the ruler hands over the cares of government to others, while he heaps up treasure and thinks only of amusement. If he is rich, his riches are but lent him to share with his people, and relieve necessity wherever he finds it. Power and property belong not to him, but to the community; he is the steward who has the satisfaction and the glory of distributing to others what fate has placed in his hands.

Julian is a man of energy, conscious of the extent and difficulty of his task; Constantine in his old age is the representative of the melancholy which overcomes him, who feels that the burden of government has become too heavy for his shoulders. Who knows whether the poet is not drawing from the experience of his own heart when he puts into the mouth of his hero the description of the labours and dangers of sovereignty, which wear out body and soul, while others see in it the height of happiness, never reflecting that they can sleep while one is watching who holds the scales in his hand, to whom all eyes are turned; who lives not for himself, but for others, who must be the servant of servants:

How often does the man that envies me
Not know that happier far than I is he.

Strange contrasts of height and depth there were in this man—contradictions in his life as well as in his poetry. Like his mother, he tried his hand on spiritual songs, and his hymns of praise display an individuality and fulness of conception wanting to other compositions of this kind which perhaps surpass his in freshness and simplicity. Besides songs in which the teachings of Platonism give a peculiar colouring to the faith of the Church, we find others in which the tone of the older hymns to Mary has been successfully adopted. If these lauds have not the same ardently soaring strain as those of Benivieni; still we can well imagine that they were sung alternately with the latter when the opposition to the worldly spirit encouraged by their author had gained the victory. This, too, is one of the contrasts which abound in the history of Lorenzo de’ Medici. The lauds give us a deep insight into his mind. They are, in some degree, the agonised cry of a soul which, instead of finding satisfaction in the glory and splendour, the wealth and enjoyments of the world, is repelled by its emptiness, and feels driven further and further away from the highest good, of which the love once kindled within it had grown cold amid the cares and pleasures of this life:

Thou seekest life where nought hath living breath;
Thou seekest joy where nought avails save death.