In groves, such golden tresses ever threw
Upon the gust? What heart such virtues knew? —
Though her chief virtue with my death is fraught.
He looks in vain for heavenly beauty, he
Who never looked upon her perfect eyes,
The vivid blue orbs burning brilliantly—
He does not know how Love yields and denies;
He only knows who knows how sweetly she
Can talk and laugh, the sweetness of her sighs.5
*“A young woman is flighty, eager for many lovers; she rates her beauty beyond what the mirror shows; and is proud…. She knows neither virtue nor intelligence, always giddy like a leaf in the wind.”
*The term medieval is used in these volumes as denoting European history and civilization between A.D. 325 and 1492—between Constantine and Columbus.
*The Italians call the fourteenth century trecento, three hundred; the fifteenth century quattrocento, four hundred; the sixteenth century cinquecento, etc.
*The revolt of the Sienese workers in 1371, the Ciompi revolt in Florence in 1378, the almost simultaneous rebellion of Wat Tyler in England, and the uprisings in France about 1380 suggest a Continental wave of revolution, and a greater measure of intercommunication and mutual influence, among the working classes in Western Europe, than has generally been supposed.
*All three of these coins, prior to 1490, will be loosely reckoned in this volume as having the purchasing power of $25 in the currency of the United States of America in 1952; after 1490 at $12.50. A slow inflation cut the value of Italian currencies by approximately fifty per cent between 1400 and 1580.54a
* The Papal States may be listed under four provinces:
I. LATIUM, containing the cities of Tivoli, Civita Castellana, Subiaco, Viterbo, Anagni, Ostia, and Rome;
II. UMBRIA, with Narni, Spoleto, Foligno, Assisi, Perugia, and Gubbio;
III. THE MARCHES, with Ascoli, Loreto, Ancona, Senigallia, Urbino, Camerino, Fabriano, and Pesaro; and
IV. THE ROMAGNA, with Rimini, Cesena, Forlì, Faenza, Ravenna, Imola, Bologna, and Ferrara.
* Since 1274 it had been the custom to lock up the cardinals when they met in conclave (con clave, with a key) to choose a pope.
* Vasari, in his Vite de’ più eccelenti architetti, pittori, e scultori Italiam (1550), established the term Rinascita, and the French Encyclopédie of 1751–72 first definitely used the word Renaissance, to denote the flowering of letters and arts in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries.
* The origin of their name is a mystery. There is no evidence that they were physicians, though they may at one time have joined a medical guild in the loose way of Florentine guild demarcations. Nor do we know the meaning of their famous emblem, the six red balls (palle) on a field of gold. These balls, reduced to three, became the insignia of pawnbrokers in later times.
* Or San Michele, erected by Francesco and Simone Talenti and Benci di Cione (1337–1404), was the religious shrine of the Greater Guilds. Each guild was represented by a statue placed in a niche on the outer walls. Figures were contributed to this series by Ghiberti, Verrocchio, Nanni di Banco, and Gian Bologna.
* Cf. his busts of Marietta Strozzi in the Morgan Library, New York, and in the National Gallery at Washington.
* E.g., the Annunciation in San Lorenzo at Florence—a peasant girl in modest deprecation; the Virgin Adoring the Child (Berlin), rich in the blue of the Virgin’s gown and the green bed of flowers beneath the Child; a Madonna in the Uffizi, with grave blonde face, flowing veil, and beautifully drawn robe; the Madonna of the Pitti Gallery; the Madonna and Child of the Medici Palace; the Virgin and Child Between Saints Frediano and Augustine, in the Louvre; the Coronation of the Virgin, in the Vatican Pinacoteca; and the Coronation in the Uffizi, with its graceful auxiliary figures, and Filippo himself, kneeling in prayer, penitent at last.
* Pulci published first the cantos referring to Morgante; the completed poem was called Morgante maggiore—The Greater Morgante.
* Called II Cronaca from the lively record he wrote of his travels and studies.
* Crowe and Cavalcaselle have labored to restore Filippino’s legitimacy, but their argument reduces itself to a gallant wish.33
* The Church, to check false prophets, had pronounced such claims to be heretical.
* Such bonfires of vanities were an old custom with mission friars,
† A reference to Alexander VI’s candor about his children.
* So named from the avenging fates represented on the pedestal.
* Giangaleazzo, who had prayed to the Virgin for a son, was so grateful for his success in begetting one that he vowed that all his progeny should bear her name.
* A precious but untranslatable sample by Poggio about Filelfo: Itaque Chrysoloras, moerore corrfectus, compulsus precibus, malo coactus, filiam tibi nuptui dedit a te corruptam, quae si extitisset integra, ne pilum quidem tibi abrasum ab illius natibus ostendisset.23
* This portrait is by some students ascribed to Leonardo da Vinci, and may represent Franchino Gaffuri, a musician at Lodovico’s court.
* “And they will go wild for the things that are most beautiful to seek after, to possess and make use of their vilest parts….3 The act of procreation and the members employed therein are so repulsive that if it were not for the beauty of the faces, and the adornment of the actors, and the pent-up impulse, nature would lose the human species.”4
* The story may be a legend; we have only Vasari’s evidence for it. There is no evidence I against it except a tradition which reports that The Last Supper contained no likenesses of I living men.7
* In 1797 the lower panels were appropriated by French conquerors; the Garden of Olives and the Resurrection are in Tours, the Crucifixion is in the Louvre; good copies have replaced these originals in the Verona polyptych.
* The derivation and significance of this word are uncertain.
* Would that my fire might warm this frigid ice,
And turn, with tears, this dust to living flesh,
And give to thee anew the joy of life!
Then would I boldly, ardently, confront
The man who snapped our dearest bond, and cry,
“O cruel monster! See what love can do!”
* O God Redeemer! even while I sing
I see all Italy in flame and fire,
Brough by these Gauls who, spurred with courage high,
Advance to make a desert everywhere.
* Called “Door of the Paper” because on a bulletin board near it the Signory posted its decrees.
* Cf. the seed-sower on the title page of this volume.
* Cf. the honest portrait of Leonello d’Este (Bergamo); the pensive Princess of the House of Este (Louvre), in a pretty entourage of flowers and shells; the Profile of a Lady (Washington); an impressive fresco, St. George, in St. Anastasia, Verona; and a striking study in light and shade, St. Eustachius (London).
* All these, with Ferrara and Ravenna, constitute the modern compartimento of Emilia. Southeast of Rimini are the Marches, or frontier provinces, of Pesaro and Urbino, Ancona, Macerata, and Ascoli Piceno.
* Says the judicious Roscoe: “His attachment to Vanozza appears to have been sincere and uniform; and although his connexion was necessarily disavowed, he regarded her as a legitimate wife.”6