It was while at Venice, at least so it is believed, that Michel Angelo learned the death of Luigia de' Medici. An expression of profound sadness and manly resignation pervades the poems which escaped from his oppressed soul, already familiarized with grief: he knew "that death and love are the two wings which bear man from earth to heaven."
... "chi ama, qual chi muore,
Non ha da gire al ciel dal mondo altr'ale."
(Sonnetto: Dall' aspra piaga.)
There are, in Angelo's collection, four compositions which may be regarded as dedicated to the memory of Luigia de Medici; first, the sonnet.—"Spirto ben nato," ... in which the poet deplores "the cruel law which has not spared tenderness, compassion, mercy—treasures so rare, united to so much of beauty and fidelity; then the Sonnets 27, 28, and 30, where Michel Angelo, as though emboldened by the irreparable calamity which had befallen him, raises the veil under which the circumstances and the illusions of his love had hitherto been shrouded, for every one, and almost for himself. Now he exclaims:—"Oh, fallacious hopes! where shall I now seek thee—liberated soul? Earth has received thy beauteous form, and Heaven thy holy thoughts!—(Sonnetto 27.).... This first love, which fixed my wandering affections, now overwhelms my exhausted soul with an insupportable weight.—(Sonnetto 28.) ... Yes, the brightness of the flame, which nourished while consuming my heart, is taken from me by heaven; but one teeming spark remains to me, and I would wish to be reduced to ashes only after shining in my turn." The sense of the latter triplet is very enigmatical; it is here interpreted in accordance with the known character of the poet, and the direction which he delayed not to give to his faculties. From this moment Angelo, devoted to the threefold worship of God, art, and his country, constantly refused to think of other ties. He had, he remarked, "espoused the affectionate fantasy which makes of Art a monarch, an idol; "my children," he added, "will be the works that I shall leave behind me." More than thirty years were to elapse, ere in this heart, yet youthful at the approach of age, another woman, and she the first of her era, (Vittoria Colonna,) occupied in part the place left vacant by Luigia de' Medici.
It is to these few imperfect indications, conjectures, and fugitive glimpses, to which the most perspicacious care has not always succeeded in giving a positive consistency, that all our knowledge is reduced of one of the purest and most amiable forms presented by the historical and poetical gallery of Florence, during what is named her golden age. But what destiny was more worthy than that of Luigia de' Medici to excite a generous envy? Orphan from her birth, her life experienced that alone which elevates and purifies: hope, grief, and love. No vulgar cares abased her thoughts; no bitter experience withered her heart; death, in compassion, spared her the spectacle of the reverses of her family, and participation in the guilty successes which followed those disasters. Delicate and stainless flower, she closed on the eve of the storm that would have bathed her in tears and blood! The only evidence remaining to us of her is poetry of a fame almost divine—of a purity almost religious; and this young maiden, of whom no mention has come down to us, in addressing herself to our imagination, borrows the accents of the most extraordinary genius possessed by a generation hitherto unequalled in achievements of the mind. The place of sepulture of Luigia de' Medici is unknown; her remains were most probably deposited, without monumental inscription, in the vaults of San Lorenzo, the gentilizia church of her house. Among the epitaphs composed by Angelo, without attempting to indicate for whom, there is one whose application to Luigia de' Medici would be apt and touching. It may be thus translated:—"To earth the dust, to heaven the soul, have been returned by death. To him who yet loves me, dead, I have bequeathed the thought of my beauty and my glory, that he may perpetuate in marble the beautiful mask which I have left."
The editors of Michel Angelo have assumed that this admirable composition, as well as those which accompany it under the same title, were written for a certain Francesco Bracci. The expression "chi morta ancor m' ama" is sufficient to refute this singular supposition.
We shall now attempt to give some idea of the poetical compositions from which we have not yet quoted, and which we conjecture to have been similarly inspired in Michel Angelo by his love for Luigia de' Medici. We incline to consider as belonging to the earliest poetic age of the great artist, to the epoch of the first and only real love experienced by him, all the pieces forming the first part of his work, commencing with the celebrated sonnet—
"Non ha l'ottimo artista," * * *
and ending with the thirtieth—
"Qual meraviglia è se vicino al fuoco."
* * *
in addition, the sonnet, three madrigali, (pieces without division of stanzas or couplets,) and one canzone, which the editors have placed at the head of the collection, entitled by them—"Componimenti men gravi e giocosi." The commencement of a new era in Angelo's thoughts and poetic style appears to us marked by the composition of the two admirable pieces which he dedicated to the memory of Dante Alighieri:—