Neither Zappi nor his wife were authors by profession: her poems are few; and all seem to flow from some incident or feeling, which awakened her genius, and caused that "craving of the heart and the fancy to break out into voluntary song, which men call inspiration." She became a member of the Arcadia, under the pastoral name of Aglaura Cidonia; and it is remarkable, that though she survived her husband many years, I cannot find any poem referring to her loss, nor of a subsequent date: neither did she marry again, though in the prime of her life and beauty.
Zappi was a great and celebrated lawyer, and his legal skill raised him to an office of trust, under the Pontificate of Clement XI. In one of his Sonnets, which has great sweetness and picturesque effect, he compares himself to the Venetian Gondolier, who in the calm or the storm pours forth his songs on the Lagune, careless of blame or praise, asking no auditors but the silent seas and the quiet moon, and seeking only to "unburthen his full soul" in lays of love and joy—
Il Gondolier, sebben la notte imbruna,
Remo non posa, e fende il mar spumante;
Lieto cantando a un bel raggio di Luna—
"Intanto Erminia infra l'ombrose piante."
That Zappi could be sublime, is proved by his well-known Sonnet on the Moses of Michel Angelo; but his forte is the graceful and the gay. His Anacreontics, and particularly his little drinking song,
Come farò? Farò così!
are very elegant, and almost equal to Chiabrera. It is difficult to sympathize with English drinking songs, and all the vulgar associations of flowing bowls, taverns, three times three, and the table in a roar. An Italian Brindisi transports us at once among flasks and vineyards, guitars and dances, a dinner al fresco, a group à la Stothard. It is all the difference between the ivy-crowned Bacchus, and the bloated Silenus. "Bumper, Squire Jones," or, "Waiter, bring clean glasses," do not sound so well as
Damigella
Tutta bella
Versa, versa, il bel vino! &c.
FOOTNOTES:
[59] Born at Imola, 1668; died at Rome, 1719.
[60] See the Epithalamium on her marriage with Zappi, prefixed to their works.