He published his "Adone" while at Paris. The popularity of this poem was extraordinary; nothing was spoken of but it and its author, and the rapid sale enriched Marini, though it also exposed him to much literary enmity, and the censures of the church. Italian critics have since become exceedingly indignant, and consider it the origin of the false taste, the conceits, and flowery style of the seicentisti. But, while it must be allowed that the imitators of Marini form a school of poetry remarkable for its corrupt style, its mannerism, and false and metaphoric imagery, it is impossible not to admit that the "Adone" itself is a work of great beauty and imagination: it wants sublimity, and deep pathos and masculine dignity; but its fancy, its descriptions, its didactic passages, are animated by the undeniable spirit of poetry. Marini possessed an extreme ease of versification, and a versatility and fecundity of style that carries the reader along with it. The "Adone" is founded on the well-known mythological story of Venus and Adonis. Cupid, having been chastised by his goddess mother, in revenge, resolves to wreak on her the miseries of love. He brings the son of Myrrha to the shores of Cyprus, and while the Queen of Beauty is regarding the beautiful youth as he sleeps, her wily son pierces her heart with his love-poisoned arrow. She falls in love on the instant, and Adonis, on awakening, is not slow to return her passion. Venus conducts him to her palace, where Cupid relates to him his adventures with Psyche, and Mercury those of Narcissus, Hylas, Actæon, and other victims of love. He is then led through the gardens of pleasure, into the tower of delight; but the loves of the goddess and her favourite are interrupted by the jealousy of Mars, and Adonis flies in alarm from the angry god. He falls afterwards into the hands of a fairy, who imprisons and annoys him: he escapes, and, after many wanderings and adventures, returns to Venus. It is then that he departs on that fatal hunting expedition which brings on the catastrophe. Mars and the malicious fairy unite in sending the hoar against him, by which he is destroyed: his death—the grief of Venus—his interment—and the combats with which the goddess celebrates his funeral, conclude the poem. Its chief fault is, that it is terribly wiredrawn, even in the particular descriptions; for as to the story itself, that forms but a slender portion of the whole composition. Besides this, we are told that an allegory of youth is contained in the temptations, pleasures, and fatal catastrophe of the young lover; and this, as well as the unreal and fantastic nature of the personages, deprives it of all vivid interest. It is far removed from the fire of Ariosto, or the pathos and dignity of Tasso; still it is pleasing, varied, and imaginative, and but for its length would to this day be a more general favourite.
The cardinal Ludovisio, nephew of pope Gregory XV., earnestly entreated Marini to forsake Paris and repair to Rome. The king and queen of France permitted him to accept the invitation; and he returned to Italy, unterrified by the accusation that hung over his head, on account of the licentiousness of his work. He was received at Rome with enthusiasm, and his society was courted by every person of distinction. Here, as elsewhere, however, he was involved in literary squabbles; so that at last he resolved to retreat to the home he had prepared for himself at Naples. The tribunal, meanwhile, demanded alterations in his poem, accused of licentiousness and a tendency to impiety. Two of his friends appeared to answer for him; but he permitted two stanzas only to be altered. The poem of Marini is certainly in its very texture soft, effeminate, and amorous; but there are no passages so reprehensible as many in Ariosto: the "Orlando Furioso" was never denounced; and it is singular that so pertinacious an outcry should have been raised against the "Adone."
Its author, however, was not destined to suffer persecution, nor to enjoy his success for any long time. Soon after his return to Naples, he established himself at his delightful villa at Posilippo, where his life came to a sudden close: he fell ill of a painful malady, and died on the 25th of March, 1625, aged fifty-six. He was buried in the cloister of the Theatin Fathers, to whom he had bequeathed his valuable library.
[FILICAJA]
1642-1707.
Vincenzo da Filicaja was born at Florence, on the 30th of December, 1642. The families of both his parents were noble; his mother being the daughter of Christofano Spini, one of the most distinguished families of Tuscany. His father educated him with care, and he attended the public schools of Florence. He gave early token of his literary and poetic genius: his memory was tenacious, and his industry indefatigable; while the seriousness of his disposition rendered retirement and study natural and easy to him. Perceiving his inclination for learning, his father sent him to the university of Pisa, to fit him for pursuing the legal profession. Filicaja attended the lectures of the professors on this subject; yet he could not induce himself to bestow his whole time on the law, but applied himself also to philosophy and theology, and to the imbuing himself with a perfect knowledge of the Latin and Italian languages. He was naturally inclined to piety, and spent much of his time in prayer and devout exercises. His habits were regulated by strict principles of morality; and so devoted was he to the cultivation of his intellect, that he always rose two hours before dawn, finding his mind clearer, and more capable of grappling with the abstruse subjects of his contemplation, in the early hours of morning.
While yet a student at Pisa, when on a visit to his home during the vacation, he fell in love; and his poetic talent first developed itself in verses addressed to the beautiful and noble girl who was the object of his affection. She died soon after, and he lamented her death in poetry; but the exact moral discipline to which he subjected his inclinations reproached him for giving himself up to the influence of passion; and he burnt all his love poetry, and made a resolution, which he kept to the end of his life, of dedicating his genius to the celebration only of moral and sacred subjects.
After a residence of five years at Pisa, having taken the degree of doctor of laws, he returned to Florence, and was placed under Giovanni Federighi, a jurisconsult of eminence, that he might add to his theoretical, a practical knowledge of law. At the age of thirty-two, he married Anna, the daughter of the marchese Capponi. Soon after his father died; and, freed from all restraint, he followed the bent of his disposition, by retiring into the country, where he spent the greater part of each year in domestic retirement, devoting himself to the education of his two sons.
Hitherto his poetic merits were unknown beyond the limits of a small circle of friends; but public events called his genius to higher flights. The Turkish army overrunning Hungary, laid siege to Vienna, and filled Christendom with alarm. The enthusiastic piety of Filicaja added to the natural disquietude inspired by such a disaster; and while the fate of the war was in suspense, and afterwards, when victory drove the infidels from the gates of the capital of Austria, he poured out his terrors and his exulting triumph in odes, which breathe a pure and elevated lyric spirit.
At the time when he wrote, Italian poetry had received a check from that unfortunate propensity men have to shackle the free course of genius by rules and precedent. There was a distinction made between the poetic and prosaic style; the former was founded upon Petrarch, and it became a law to use no expressions but such as had his authority. The language of Italian verse was thus becoming, as it were, a dead idiom; repeating itself, and incapable of any original expressions. Filicaja disdained these shackles, and revivified his poetic diction by transfusing into it many elevated and energetic modes of speech, hitherto reserved for prose only. Facility, dignity, and clearness are his characteristics; and the grandeur of his ideas gives force to the originality of his expressions; which, emanating spontaneously, as they did, from a mind full of his subject, found an echo in the hearts of his readers.