Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 373, November 1846

"How, separated from you, shall I ever have the power to guide my life, if I can not, at parting, implore your assistance?

Lest absence condemn my loyal devotion to forgetfulness, in remembrance of my long affliction, take, Signora, take in pledge a heart which hereafter belongs no more to me." – (Madrigale 11. )

And in another place:

"He who departs from you has no more hope of light: where you are not, there is no more heaven." – (Madrigale 9. )

The hour approached, however, when, according to the usage of the country, and the relations of her family, Luigia's lot should be decided. Various projects of alliance were discussed. The choice hesitated between two brothers, descended from Giovanni de' Medici, a branch from the dominant house, and of that which took the name of its individual ancestor, Lorenzo. The latter, brother of Cosmo, Pater Patriæ, had, by Ginevra Cavalcanti Piero Francesco, to whom his wife, Landomia Acciajuoli, brought two sons, Lorenzo and Giovanni. Both had arrived at the age of maturity, and were reckoned among the most considerable citizens of Florence. The marriage, however, did not take place. It is said that Luigia herself prevented its conclusion, until a misunderstanding, caused by some opposition of interests, had definitely separated Pietro from the two brothers, more especially from Giovanni, upon whom the reigning prince appears principally to have reckoned. Others, however, have supposed that the obstacles to the proposed union arose only on the part of Giovanni and his brother, who, in fact, followed the principal citizens in the opposition, then planned, against Pietro's unskilful administration. And last, it has been asserted, that Luigia was betrothed to Giovanni, but died before the time fixed for the marriage. Among these opinions, Litta appears to incline to the second; Roscoe adopts the last. However it may be, it is only certain that, alone of all Lorenzo's daughters, Luigia left the paternal house but to exchange it for the repose of the tomb.

According to the historians, she died a few days before the catastrophe which overturned Pietro's government, and condemned all the descendants of Cosmo l'Antico to an exile of sixteen years. It was consequently late in the autumn of 1494 that Luigia departed this life. Amid the passionate prejudices which prepared, and the convulsions which followed, the Florentine revolution, the extinction of the beauteous light excited no sensation.

Michel Angelo was not at that moment in Florence. Politiano's death seems to have broken the last ties that attached him to the obligations contracted in his early youth. His penetrating intelligence warned him of the coming fall of the Medici. He neither wished to renounce his ancient attachments, nor to give them the predominance over the duties of a citizen, to a free state, which it was of the highest importance to wean from a blind and dangerous course. In this painful alternative, Michel Angelo determined to withdraw for a time. He went first to Venice, and afterwards to Bologna, where the warm reception of the Aldrovandi kept him during an entire year, and even longer.

According to all appearance, on quitting Florence, Buonarotti was aware of Luigia's declining health; and his poetry shows us the courageous artist sinking under the burden of his melancholy presentiments: —

"Be sure, O eyes, that the time is past, that the hour approaches which will close the passage to your regards, even to your tears. Remain, in pity to me, remain open while this divine maiden deigns yet to dwell on this earth. But when the heaven shall open to receive these unique and pure beauties … when she shall ascend to the abode of glorified and happy souls, then close; I bid you farewell." – (Madrigale 40. )

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: —

"Dal mondo scese ai ciechi abissi;"

* * *

and

"Quanto dime si dee non si può dire."

Michel Angelo petitioned but once: this was that Leo X. would grant the ashes of Dante to Florence, where the artist "offered to give a becoming burial to the divine poet, in an honourable place in the city." – (Condivi, Vita di Michel Angelo.)

Previously a stranger to the sentiments of love, the young artist at first wonders and fears at their violence:

"Who, then, has lifted me by main force above myself? How can it be that I am no longer my own? And what is the unknown power which, nearer then myself, influences me; which has more control over me; passes into my soul by the eyes; increases there without limit, and overflows my whole being?" —Madrigali, 3, 4.

Soon, however, he no longer doubts upon the character of this intoxication; he feels that he loves; he traces in sport the most graceful and animated picture of her who has captivated his heart! But this pure and ardent soul speedily becomes alarmed at the profound agitation in which it sees itself plunged; desires to go back to the cause, to recognise its origin, and measure its danger. Michel Angelo recognises, in conjunction with the danger, a sublime reward reserved for him who shall know how to merit it.

"The evil which I ought to shun, and the good to which I aspire, are united and hidden in thee, noble and divine beauty! * * * Love, beauty, fortune, or rigour of destiny, it is not you that I can reproach for my sufferings; for in her heart she bears at once compassion and death! Woe to me if my feeble genius succeed only, while consuming itself, in obtaining death from it!"57

Yes, dangerous and often fatal is that passion which seems to choose its favourite victims among hearts the most generous – intelligence the most ample:

"Very few are the men who raise themselves to the heaven; to him who lives in the fire of love, and drinks of its poison, (for to love is one of life's fatal conditions,) if grace transport him not towards supreme and incorruptible beauties – if all his desires learn not to direct themselves thither – Ah! what miseries overwhelm the condition of lover!" – (Sonnet 10.)

But this declaration has not been applied to all passionate and deep affections:

"No, it is not always a mortal and impious fault to burn with an immense love for a perfect beauty, if this love afterwards leave the heart so softened that the arrows of divine beauty may penetrate it."

"Love wakens the soul, and lends it wings for its sublime flight: often its ardour is the first step by which, discontented with earth, the soul remounts towards her Creator." – (Sonnet 8.)

Transported with this thought, in which he feels the passion to which he has yielded at once transforming and tranquillising itself, Michel Angelo gives to it in his verses the most eloquent and most ingenious developments.

"No, it is not a mortal thing which my eyes perceived, when in them was reflected, for the first time, the light of thine; but in thy look, my soul, inquiet, because it mounts towards its object without repose, has conceived the hope of finding her peace."

"She ascends, stretching her wings towards the abode from whence she descended! The beauty which charms the eyes calls to her on her flight; but, finding her weak and fugitive, she passes onwards to the universal form, the divine archetype."

This expression, and many others dispersed throughout the collection, show that he had profited more than he cared to acknowledge by the discourses of the Platonic Academy.

"Yes, I perceive it; that which must die can offer no repose to the wise man. * * * That which kills the soul is not love; it is the unbridled disorder of the senses. Love can render our souls perfect here below, and yet more in heaven!" – (Sonnet 2.)

And fruther on:

"From the stars most near to the empyrean, descends sometimes a brightness which attracts our desires towards them: it is that which is called love!" – (Mad. 8.)

But this celestial route demands extraordinary efforts on the part of him who aspires to travel it:

"How rash and how unworthy are the understandings, which bring down to the level of the senses this beauty whose approaches aid the true intelligence to remount to the skies. But feeble eyes cannot go from the mortal to the divine;58 never will they raise themselves to that throne, where, without the grace from on high, it is a vain thought to think of rising."

Michel Angelo believed that he recognised these characteristics, as rare as sublime, in the love which pervaded his own heart.

"The life of my love is not the all in my heart. * * This affection turns to that point where no earthly weakness, no guilty thought, could exist."

"Love, when my soul left the presence of her Creator, made of her a pure eye, of thee a splendour, and my ardent desire finds it every hour in that which must, alas! one day die of thee."

"Like as heat and fire, so is the Beautiful inseparable from the Eternal. * * * I see Paradise in thy eyes, and so return there where I loved thee before this life,59 I recur every hour to consume myself under thy looks." – (Sonnet 6.)

He writes elsewhere, with a singular mixture of affectionate ardour and metaphysical boldness, —

"I know not if this is, in thee, the prolific light from its Supreme Author which my soul feels, or if from the mysterious treasures of her memory some other beauty, earlier perceived, shines with thy aspect in my heart."60

"Or if the brilliant ray of thy former existence is reflected in my soul, leaving behind this kind of painful joy, which perhaps, at this moment, is the cause of the tears I shed;"

"But after all, that which I feel, and see, which guides me, is not with me, is not in me, * * sometimes I imagine that thou aidest me to distinguish it." * * * * (Sonnet 7.)

It is easy to conjecture the danger of this inclination to metaphysical speculation for an ardent and subtile genius, which, even in its works of art, has left the proof of a constant disposition towards an obscure mysticism or a sombre austerity. Michel Angelo was enabled to avoid these two dangers, on one or the other of which he would have seen his genius wrecked, by the noble confidence which he ever maintained in "the two beacons of his navigation," tenderness of heart, and pure worship of beauty.

Thus, we shall see with what outpouring he proclaims the necessity, for the human soul, to attach itself strongly to some generous love:

"The memory of the eyes, and this hope which suffices to my life, and more to my happiness, * * * reason and passion, love and nature, constrain me to fix my regard upon thee during the whole time given me. * * * Eyes serene and sparkling; he who lives not in you is not yet born!"

And again:

"It is to thee that it belongs to bring out from the coarse and rude bark within which my soul is imprisoned, that which has brought and linked together in my intelligence, reason strength, and love of the good." (Mad. 10.)

Then was renewed that sweet and pregnant security in which the soul, "under the armour of a conscience which feels its purity," may gain new energy and journey towards her repose:61

"Yes, sometimes, with my ardent desire, my hope may also ascend; it will not deceive me, for if all our affections are displeasing to heaven, to what end would this world have been created by God?

"And what cause more just of the love with which I burn for thee, than the duty of rendering glory to that eternal peace, whence springs the divine charm which emanates from thee, which makes every heart, worthy to comprehend thee, chaste and pious?

"Firm is the hope founded on a noble heart, the changes of the mortal bark strip no leaves from its crown; never does it languish, and even here it receives an assurance of heaven." – (Sonnet 9.)

Now it is with accents of triumph and anon with the serener emotion of an immortal gratitude, that the poet exhibits the luminous ladder which his love assists him to mount, the support he finds in it when he descends again to the earth:

"The power of a beautiful countenance, the only joy I know on earth, urges me to the heaven, I rise, yet living, to the abode of elect souls – favour granted rarely to our mortal state!

"So perfect is the agreement of this divine work with its Creator, that I ascend to Him on the wings of this celestial fervour; and there I form all my thoughts, and purify all my words.

"In her beautiful eyes, from which mine cannot divert themselves, I behold the light, guide upon the way which leads to God;

"Thus, in my noble fire, calmly shines the felicity which smiles, eternal, in the heavens! – (Sonnet 3.)

"With your beautiful eyes I see the mild light which my darkened eyes could not discern. Your support enables me to bear a burden which my weary steps could not endure to the end."

"My thoughts are shaped in your heart; my words are born in your mind.

"With regard to you, I am like the orb of night in its career; our eyes can only perceive the portion on which the sun sheds his rays." – (Sonnet 12.)

The admirable picture of indissoluble union in a settled tenderness, one of the most perfect pieces which has come from Angelo's pen, was sketched, doubtless, in one of those moments of severe and entire felicity:

"A refined love, a supreme affection, an equal fortune between two hearts, to whom joys and sorrows are in common, because one single mind actuates them both;

"One soul in two bodies, raising both to heaven, and upon equal wings;

"To love the other always, and one's self never, to desire of Love no other prize than himself; to anticipate every hour the wishes with which the reciprocal empire regulates two existences:

"Such are the certain signs of an inviolable faith; shall disdain or anger dissolve such a tie?" – (Sonnet 20.)

The last verse makes allusion to some incident of which we have been unable to find any historical explanation:

"Or potra sdegno tanto nodo sciorre?"

But these ill-founded fears soon gave way to the presentiment of the cruel, the imminent trial, for which the poet's affection was reserved.

"Spirit born under happy auspices, to show us, in the chaste beauty of thy terrestrial envelope, all the gifts which nature and heaven can bestow on their favourite creation!"

"What inexorable law denies to this faithless world, to this mournful and fallacious life, the long possession of such a treasure? Why cannot death pardon so beautiful a work?" – (Sonnet 25.)

The poet, however, already knew that such is the law, severe in appearance, but merciful in reality, which governs all things on this earth, "where nothing endures but tears."62 It was then that Michel Angelo discovered in his heart that treasure of energy destined to sustain him in the multiplied trials of a life, of which he measured the probable length with a melancholy resignation.63

"Why," he exclaims, "grant to my wounded soul the vain solace of tears and groaning words, since heaven, which clothed a heart with bitterness, takes it away but late, and perhaps only in the tomb?"

"Another must die. Why this haste to follow her? Will not the remembrance of her look soothe my last hours? And what other blessing would be worth so much as one of my sorrows?"64

In fine, armed with "the faith that raises souls65 to God, and sweetens their death," Michel Angelo, when the fatal blow fell, was enabled to impart to his regrets an expression of thankfulness to the Supreme Dispenser of our destinies; and giving a voice from the tomb to her whom he had so deeply loved, he puts these sublime words into her mouth:

"I was a mortal, now I am an angel. The world knew me for a little space, and I possess heaven for ever. I rejoice at the glorious exchange, and exult over the death which struck, to lead me to eternal life!" —Epitaffio, v.

THINGS IN GENERAL

A Gossiping Letter from the Seaside to Christopher North, Esq.By an Old Contributor-Near – , England,October 1846.

My Dear Christopher, – Where am I? What am I doing? Why have I forgotten you and Maga? Bless us! what a pother! – Give a man time, my revered friend, to answer: I have not forgotten either you or Maga; I am at the seaside; and I am doing, as well as I can, nothing. There are your testy questions answered: and as to divers objurgatory observations of your's, I shall not attempt to reply to them – regarding them as the results of some gout-twinges which have, I fear, a little quickened and heated the temper of that "old man eloquent," who, when in good health, plays but one part – that of a caressing father towards his children; for as such Christopher North has ever (as far as I know) regarded his contributors. "Why don't you review something or other? There's – , an impudent knave! – has just sent me his – : you will find it pleasant to flagellate him, or – , a Cockney coxcomb! And if you be not in that humour, there are several excellent, and one or two admirable works, which have appeared within the last eighteen months, and which really have as strong a claim on Maga as she has on her truant sons, – and you, among the rest, have repeatedly promised to take one, at least, in hand. If you be not in the critical vein – do, for heaven's sake, turn your hand to something else – you have lain fallow long enough! – With one of the many articles which you have so often told me that you were 'seriously thinking of' on – , or – , or – , &c., &c., &c.; and if that won't do – why, rather than do nothing, set to work for an hour or two on a couple of mornings, and write me a gossiping sort of letter – such as I can print – such as you have once before done, and I printed, – on Things in General. Surely the last few months have witnessed events which must have set you, and all observant men, thinking, and thinking very earnestly. Set to work, be it only in a simple, natural, easy way – care not you, as I care not, how discursively – a little touch of modest egotism, even, I will forgive on this occasion, if you find that – " Here, dear Christopher, I recalcitrate, and decline printing the rest of the sentence; but as to "Things in General" – I am somewhat smitten with the suggestion. 'Tis a taking title – a roomy subject, in which one can flit about from gay to grave, from lively to severe, according to the humour of the moment; and since you really do not dislike the idea of an old contributor's gossip on men and things, given you in his own way, I shall forthwith begin to pour out my little thoughts as unreservedly as if you and I were sitting together alone here. Here; but where? As I said before, at the seaside; at my favourite resort – where (eschewing "Watering-places" with lively disgust) I have spent many a happy autumn. When I first found it out, I thought that the lines had indeed fallen to me in pleasant places, and I still think so; but were I to tell the public, through your pages, of this green spot, I suspect that by this time next year the sweet solitude and primitive simplicity of the scene around me would have vanished: greedy speculating builders, tempting the proprietors of the soil, would run up in all directions vile, pert, vulgar, brick-built, slate-roofed, Quakerish-looking abominations, exactly as a once lovely nook in the Isle of Wight – Ventnor to wit – has become a mere assemblage of eyesores, a mass of unfavourable eruptions, so to speak – Bah! I once used to look forward to the Isle of Wight with springy satisfaction. Why, the infatuated inhabitants were lately talking of having a railroad in the island!!