Tell me of art in Venice. Three great names,
Giorgione, Titian, and the Tintoretto,
Illustrate your Venetian school, and send
A challenge to the world. The first is dead,
But Tintoretto lives.
TITIAN.
And paints with fire, 30
Sudden and splendid, as the lightning paints
The cloudy vault of heaven.
GIORGIO.
Does he still keep
Above his door the arrogant inscription
That once was painted there,— “The color of Titian,
With the design of Michael Angelo”? 35
TITIAN.
Indeed, I know not. ‘T was a foolish boast,
And does no harm to any but himself.
Perhaps he has grown wiser.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
When you two
Are gone, who is there that remains behind
To seize the pencil falling from your fingers? 40
GIORGIO.
Oh, there are many hands upraised already
To clutch at such a prize, and hardly wait
For death to loose your grasp, — a hundred of them:
Schiavone, Bonifazio, Campagnola,
Moretto, and Moroni; who can count them, 45
Or measure their ambition?
TITIAN.
When we are gone,
The generation that comes after us
Will have far other thoughts than ours. Our ruins
Will serve to build their palaces or tombs.
They will possess the world that we think ours, 50
And fashion it far otherwise.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
I hear
Your son Orazio and your nephew Marco
Mentioned with honor.
TITIAN.
Ay, brave lads, brave lads.
But time will show. There is a youth in Venice,
One Paul Cagliari, called the Veronese, 55
Still a mere stripling, but of such rare promise
That we must guard our laurels, or may lose them.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
These are good tidings; for I sometimes fear
That, when we die, with us all art will die.
‘T is but a fancy. Nature will provide 60
Others to take our places. I rejoice
To see the young spring forward in the race,
Eager as we were, and as full of hope
And the sublime audacity of youth.
TITIAN.
Men die and are forgotten. The great world 65
Goes on the same. Among the myriads
Of men that live, or have lived, or shall live,
What is a single life, or thine or mine,
That we should think all nature would stand still
If we were gone? We must make room for others. 70
MICHAEL ANGELO.
And now, Maestro, pray unveil your picture
Of Danaë, of which I hear such praise.
TITIAN, drawing back the curtain.
What think you?
MICHAEL ANGELO.
That Acrisius did well
To lock such beauty in a brazen tower,
And hide it from all eyes.
TITIAN.
The model truly 75
Was beautiful.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
And more, that you were present,
And saw the showery Jove from high Olympus
Descend in all his splendor.
TITIAN.
From your lips
Such words are full of sweetness.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
You have caught
These golden hues from your Venetian sunsets. 80
TITIAN.
Possibly.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Or from sunshine through a shower
On the lagoons, or the broad Adriatic.
Nature reveals herself in all our arts.
The pavements and the palaces of cities
Hint at the nature of the neighboring hills. 85
Red lavas from the Euganean quarries
Of Padua pave your streets; your palaces
Are the white stones of Istria, and gleam
Reflected in your waters and your pictures.
And thus the works of every artist show 90
Something of his surroundings and his habits.
The uttermost that can be reached by color
Is here accomplished. Warmth and light and softness
Mingle together. Never yet was flesh
Painted by hand of artist, dead or living, 95
With such divine perfection.
TITIAN.
I am grateful
For so much praise from you, who are a master;
While mostly those who praise and those who blame
Know nothing of the matter, so that mainly
Their censure sounds like praise, their praise like censure. 100
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Wonderful! wonderful! The charm of color
Fascinates me the more that in myself
The gift is wanting. I am not a painter.
GIORGIO.
Messer Michele, all the arts are yours,
Not one alone; and therefore I may venture 105
To put a question to you.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Well, speak on.
GIORGIO.
Two nephews of the Cardinal Farnese
Have made me umpire in dispute between them
Which is the greater of the sister arts,
Painting or sculpture. Solve for me the doubt. 110
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Sculpture and painting have a common goal,
And whosoever would attain to it,
Whichever path he take, will find that goal
Equally hard to reach.
GIORGIO.
No doubt, no doubt;
But you evade the question.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
When I stand 115
In presence of this picture, I concede
That painting has attained its uttermost;
But in the presence of my sculptured figures
I feel that my conception soars beyond
All limit I have reached.
GIORGIO.
You still evade me. 120
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Giorgio Vasari, I have often said
That I account that painting as the best
Which most resembles sculpture. Here before us
We have the proof. Behold these rounded limbs!
How from the canvas they detach themselves, 125
Till they deceive the eye, and one would say,
It is a statue with a screen behind it!
TITIAN.
Signori, pardon me; but all such questions
Seem to me idle.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Idle as the wind.
And now, Maestro, I will say once more 130
How admirable I esteem your work,
And leave you, without further interruption.
TITIAN.
Your friendly visit hath much honored me.
GIORGIO.
Farewell.
MICHAEL ANGELO to GIORGIO, going out.
If the Venetian painters knew
But half as much of drawing as of color, 135
They would indeed work miracles in art,
And the world see what it hath never seen.
VI.
Palazzo Cesarini
SCENE I. — VITTORIA COLONNA, seated in an arm-chair; JULIA GONZAGA, standing near her.
JULIA.
IT grieves me that I find you still so weak
And suffering.
VITTORIA.
No, not suffering; only dying.
Death is the chillness that precedes the dawn;
We shudder for a moment, then awake
In the broad sunshine of the other lif
e. 5
I am a shadow, merely, and these hands,
These cheeks, these eyes, these tresses that my husband
Once thought so beautiful, and I was proud of
Because he thought them so, are faded quite, —
All beauty gone from them.
JULIA.
Ah, no, not that. 10
Paler you are, but not less beautiful.
VITTORIA, folding her hands.
O gentle spirit, unto the third circle
Of heaven among the blessed souls ascended,
Who living for the faith and dying for it,
Have gone to their reward, I do not mourn 15
For thee as being dead, but for myself
That I am still alive. A little longer
Have patience with me, and if I am wanting
To thy well-being as thou art to mine,
Have patience; I will come to thee ere long. 20
JULIA.
Do not give way to these foreboding thoughts.
VITTORIA.
Hand me the mirror. I would fain behold
What change comes o’er our features when we die.
Thank you. And now sit down beside me here.
How glad I am that you have come to-day, 25
Above all other days, and at the hour
When most I need you.
JULIA.
Do you ever need me?
VITTORIA.
Always, and most of all to-day and now.
Do you remember, Julia, when we walked,
One afternoon, upon the castle terrace 30
At Ischia, on the day before you left me?
JULIA.
Well I remember; but it seems to me
Something unreal that has never been,
Something that I have read of in a book,
Or heard of some one else.
VITTORIA.
Ten years and more 35
Have passed since then; and many things have happened
In those ten years, and many friends have died:
Marco Flaminio, whom we all admired
And loved as our Catullus; dear Valdesso,
The noble champion of free thought and speech; 40
And Cardinal Ippolito, your friend.
JULIA.
Oh, do not speak of him! His sudden death
O’ercomes me now, as it o’ercame me then.
Let me forget it; for my memory
Serves me too often as an unkind friend, 45
And I remember things I would forget,
While I forget the things I would remember.
VITTORIA.
Forgive me; I will speak of him no more.
The good Fra Bernardino has departed,
Has fled from Italy, and crossed the Alps, 50
Fearing Caraffa’s wrath, because he taught
That He who made us all without our help
Could also save us without aid of ours.
Renée of France, the Duchess of Ferrara,
That Lily of the Loire, is bowed by winds 55
That blow from Rome; Olympia Morata
Banished from court because of this new doctrine.
Therefore be cautious. Keep your secret thought
Locked in your breast.
JULIA.
I will be very prudent.
But speak no more, I pray; it wearies you. 60
VITTORIA.
Yes, I am very weary. Read to me.
JULIA.
Most willingly. What shall I read?
VITTORIA.
Petrarca’s
Triumph of Death. The book lies on the table,
Beside the casket there. Read where you find
The leaf turned down. ‘T was there I left off reading. 65
JULIA reads.
“Not as a flame that by some force is spent,
But one that of itself consumeth quite,
Departed hence in peace the soul content,
In fashion of a soft and lucent light
Whose nutriment by slow gradation goes, 70
Keeping until the end its lustre bright.
Not pale, but whiter than the sheet of snows
That without wind on some fair hill-top lies,
Her weary body seemed to find repose.
Like a sweet slumber in her lovely eyes, 75
When now the spirit was no longer there,
Was what is dying called by the unwise.
E’en Death itself in her fair face seemed fair.”
Is it of Laura that he here is speaking? —
She doth not answer, yet is not asleep; 80
Her eyes are full of light and fixed on something
Above her in the air. I can see naught
Except the painted angels on the ceiling.
Vittoria! speak! What is it? Answer me! —
She only smiles, and stretches out her hands.
[The mirror falls and breaks. 85
VITTORIA.
Call my confessor! —
Not disobedient to the heavenly vision!
Pescara! my Pescara! [Dies.
JULIA.
Holy Virgin!
Her body sinks together, — she is dead!
[Kneels, and hides her face in Vittoria’s lap.
SCENE II. — JULIA GONZAGA, MICHAEL ANGELO.
JULIA.
Hush! make no noise.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
How is she?
JULIA.
Never better. 90
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Then she is dead!
JULIA.
Alas! yes, she is dead!
Even death itself in her fair face seems fair.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
How wonderful! The light upon her face
Shines from the windows of another world.
Saints only have such faces. Holy Angels! 95
Bear her like sainted Catherine to her rest!
[Kisses Vittoria’s hand.
PART THIRD.
I.
Monologue
Macello de’ Corvi. A room in MICHAEL ANGELO’S house.
MICHAEL ANGELO, standing before a model of St. Peter’s.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
BETTER than thou I cannot, Brunelleschi,
And less than thou I will not! If the thought
Could, like a windlass, lift the ponderous stones
And swing them to their places; if a breath
Could blow this rounded dome into the air, 5
As if it were a bubble, and these statues
Spring at a signal to their sacred stations,
As sentinels mount guard upon a wall,
Then were my task completed. Now, alas!
Naught am I but a Saint Sebaldus, holding 10
Upon his hand the model of a church,
As German artists paint him; and what years,
What weary years, must drag themselves along,
Ere this be turned to stone! What hindrances
Must block the way; what idle interferences 15
Of Cardinals and Canons of St. Peter’s,
Who nothing know of art beyond the color
Of cloaks and stockings, nor of any building
Save that of their own fortunes! And what then?
I must then the short-coming of my means 20
Piece out by stepping forward, as the Spartan
Was told to add a step to his short sword. [A pause.
And is Fra Bastian dead? Is all that light
Gone out? that sunshine darkened? all that music
And merriment, that used to make our lives 25
Less melancholy, swallowed up in silence
Like madrigals sung in the street at night
By passing revellers? It is strange indeed
That he should die before me. ‘T is against
The laws of nature that the young should die, 30
And the old live; unless it be that some
Have long bee
n dead who think themselves alive,
Because not buried. Well, what matters it,
Since now that greater light, that was my sun,
Is set, and all is darkness, all is darkness! 35
Death’s lightnings strike to right and left of me,
And, like a ruined wall, the world around me
Crumbles away, and I am left alone.
I have no friends, and want none. My own thoughts
Are now my sole companions, — thoughts of her, 40
That like a benediction from the skies
Come to me in my solitude and soothe me.
When men are old, the incessant thought of Death
Follows them like their shadow; sits with them
At every meal; sleeps with them when they sleep; 45
And when they wake already is awake,
And standing by their bedside. Then, what folly
It is in us to make an enemy
Of this importunate follower, not a friend!
To me a friend, and not an enemy, 50
Has he become since all my friends are dead.
II.
Vigna di Papa Giulio
SCENE I. — POPE JULIUS III. seated by the Fountain of Acqua Vergine, surrounded by Cardinals.
JULIUS.
TELL me, why is it ye are discontent,
You, Cardinals Salviati and Marcello,
With Michael Angelo? What has he done,
Or left undone, that ye are set against him?
When one Pope dies, another is soon made; 5
And I can make a dozen Cardinals,
But cannot make one Michael Angelo.
CARDINAL SALVIATI.
Your Holiness, we are not set against him;
We but deplore his incapacity.
He is too old.
JULIUS.
You, Cardinal Salviati, 10
Are an old man. Are you incapable?
‘T is the old ox that draws the straightest furrow.
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 130
