[494] From Le Stanze, i. 7, we learn that he interrupted the translation of the Iliad in order to begin this poem in Italian. He never took it up again. It remains a noble torso, the most splendid extant version of a Greek poem in Latin by a modern hand.
[495] By a strange coincidence this was the anniversary of his love, Simonetta's, death in 1476. The close connection between her untimely end—celebrated by Lorenzo de' Medici in his earlier Rime, by Poliziano in his Latin Elegy and again in the Giostra—and the renascence of Italian poetry, makes her portrait by Botticelli della Francesca in the Pitti interesting.
[496] I must refer my readers to the original, and to the translations published by me in [Sketches and Studies in Italy], pp. 217-224. The description of Simonetta in the meadow (Giostra, i. 43 and following) might be compared to a Florentine Idyll by Benozzo Gozzoli; the birth of Venus from the waves (i. 99-107) is a blending of Botticelli's Venus in the Uffizzi with his Primavera in the Belle Arti; the picture of Venus in the lap of Mars (i. 122-124) might be compared to work by Piero di Cosimo, or, since poetry embraces many suggestions, to paintings from the schools of Venice. The metamorphoses of Jupiter (i. 104-107) remind us of Giulio Romano. The episode of Ariadne and the Bacchic revel (i. 110-112) is in the style of Mantegna's engravings. All these passages will be found translated by me in the book above quoted.
[497] I believe the Favola di Orfeo, first published in 1494, and republished from time to time up to the year 1776, was the original play acted at Mantua before the Cardinal Gonzaga. It is not divided into acts, and has the usual "Annunziatore della Festa," of the Sacre Rappresentazioni. The Orphei Tragædia, published by the Padre Ireneo Affò at Venice in 1776, from two MSS. collated by him, may be regarded as a subsequent recension of his own work made by Poliziano. It is divided into five acts, and is far richer in lyrical passages. Carducci prints both in his excellent edition of Poliziano's Italian poems. I may refer English readers to my own translation of the Orfeo and the note upon its text, [Studies and Sketches in Italy], pp. 226-242, 429, 430.
[498] The popularity of Poliziano's poems is proved by the frequency of their editions. The Orfeo and the Stanze were printed together or separately twenty-two times between 1494 and 1541, thirteen times between 1541 and 1653. A redaction of the Orfeo in octave stanzas was published at Florence in 1558 for the use of the common people. It was entitled La Historia e Favola d'Orfeo alla dolce lira. This narrative version of Poliziano's play is still reprinted from time to time for the Tuscan contadini. Carducci cites an edition of Prato, 1860.
[499] No one who has read Poliziano's Greek epigrams on Chrysocomus, or who knows the scandal falsely circulated regarding his death, will have failed to connect the sentiments put into the mouth of Orpheus (Carducci, pp. 109-110) with the personality of the poet-scholar. That the passage in question could have been recited with applause before a Cardinal, is a fact of much significance.
[500] Perhaps Ficino was the first to give him this title. In a letter of his to Lorenzo de' Medici we read: "Nutris domi Homericum ilium adolescentem Angelum Politianum qui Græcam Homeri personam Latinis coloribus exprimat. Exprimit jam; atque, id quod mirum est ita tenerâ ætate, ita exprimit ut nisi quivis Græcum fuisse Homerum noverit dubitaturus sit e duobus uter naturalis sit et uter pictus Homerus" (Ep. ed. Flor. 1494, lib. i. p. 6). Ficino always addressed Poliziano as "Poeta Homericus."
[501] Among the frescoes by Signorelli at Orvieto there is a tondo in monochrome, representing Orpheus before the throne of Pluto. He is dressed like a poet, with a laurel crown, and he is playing on a violin of antique form. Medieval demons are guarding the prostrate Eurydice. It would be curious to know whether a rumor of the Mantuan pageant had reached the ears of the Cortonese painter, or whether he had read the edition of 1494.
[502] The original should be read in the version first published by the Padre Affò (Carducci, pp. 148-154). My translation will be found in [Studies and Sketches in Italy], pp. 235-237.
[503] "La notte esceva per Barletta (rè Manfredi) cantando strambotti e canzoni, che iva pigliando lo frisco, e con isso ivano due musici Siciliani ch'erano gran romanzatori." M. Spinello, in Scr. Rer. Ital. vii. Spinello's Chronicles are, however, probably a sixteenth-century forgery.