No More Learning

And wherefore go to hear Francesco Berni,
When I have Dante Alighieri here.
The greatest of all poets?

FRA SEBASTIANO.
And the dullest;
And only to be read in episodes.
His day is past. Petrarca is our poet.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Petrarca is for women and for lovers
And for those soft Abati, who delight
To wander down long garden walks in summer,
Tinkling their little sonnets all day long,
As lap dogs do their bells.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
I love Petrarca.
How sweetly of his absent love he sings
When journeying in the forest of Ardennes!
"I seem to hear her, hearing the boughs and breezes
And leaves and birds lamenting, and the waters
Murmuring flee along the verdant herbage. "

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Enough. It is all seeming, and no being.
If you would know how a man speaks in earnest,
Read here this passage, where St. Peter thunders
In Paradise against degenerate Popes
And the corruptions of the church, till all
The heaven about him blushes like a sunset.
I beg you to take note of what he says
About the Papal seals, for that concerns
Your office and yourself.

FRA SEBASTIANO, reading.
Is this the passage?
"Nor I be made the figure of a seal
To privileges venal and mendacious,
Whereat I often redden and flash with fire! "--
That is not poetry.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
What is it, then?

FRA SEBASTIANO.
Vituperation; gall that might have spirited
From Aretino's pen.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Name not that man!
A profligate, whom your Francesco Berni
Describes as having one foot in the brothel
And the other in the hospital; who lives
By flattering or maligning, as best serves
His purpose at the time. He writes to me
With easy arrogance of my Last Judgment,
In such familiar tone that one would say
The great event already had occurred,
And he was present, and from observation
Informed me how the picture should be painted.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
What unassuming, unobtrusive men
These critics are! Now, to have Aretino
Aiming his shafts at you brings back to mind
The Gascon archers in the square of Milan,
Shooting their arrows at Duke Sforza's statue,
By Leonardo, and the foolish rabble
Of envious Florentines, that at your David
Threw stones at night. But Aretino praised you.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
His praises were ironical. He knows
How to use words as weapons, and to wound
While seeming to defend. But look, Bastiano,
See how the setting sun lights up that picture!

FRA SEBASTIANO.
My portrait of Vittoria Colonna.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
It makes her look as she will look hereafter,
When she becomes a saint!

FRA SEBASTIANO.
A noble woman!

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Ah, these old hands can fashion fairer shapes
In marble, and can paint diviner pictures,
Since I have known her.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
And you like this picture.
And yet it is in oil; which you detest.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
When that barbarian Jan Van Eyck discovered
The use of oil in painting, he degraded
His art into a handicraft, and made it
Sign-painting, merely, for a country inn
Or wayside wine-shop. 'T is an art for women,
Or for such leisurely and idle people
As you, Fra Bastiano. Nature paints not
In oils, but frescoes the great dome of heaven
With sunset; and the lovely forms of clouds
And flying vapors.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
And how soon they fade!
Behold yon line of roofs and belfries painted
Upon the golden background of the sky,
Like a Byzantine picture, or a portrait
Of Cimabue. See how hard the outline,
Sharp-cut and clear, not rounded into shadow.
Yet that is nature.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
She is always right.
The picture that approaches sculpture nearest
Is the best picture.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
Leonardo thinks
The open air too bright. We ought to paint
As if the sun were shining through a mist.
'T is easier done in oil than in distemper.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Do not revive again the old dispute;
I have an excellent memory for forgetting,
But I still feel the hurt. Wounds are not healed
By the unbending of the bow that made them.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
So say Petrarca and the ancient proverb.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
But that is past. Now I am angry with you,
Not that you paint in oils, but that grown fat
And indolent, you do not paint at all.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
Why should I paint? Why should I toil and sweat,
Who now am rich enough to live at ease,
And take my pleasure?

MICHAEL ANGELO.
When Pope Leo died,
He who had been so lavish of the wealth
His predecessors left him, who received
A basket of gold-pieces every morning,
Which every night was empty, left behind
Hardly enough to pay his funeral.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
I care for banquets, not for funerals,
As did his Holiness. I have forbidden
All tapers at my burial, and procession
Of priests and friars and monks; and have provided
The cost thereof be given to the poor!

MICHAEL ANGELO.
You have done wisely, but of that I speak not.
Ghiberti left behind him wealth and children;
But who to-day would know that he had lived,
If he had never made those gates of bronze
In the old Baptistery,--those gates of bronze,
Worthy to be the gates of Paradise.
His wealth is scattered to the winds; his children
Are long since dead; but those celestial gates
Survive, and keep his name and memory green.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
But why should I fatigue myself? I think
That all things it is possible to paint
Have been already painted; and if not,
Why, there are painters in the world at present
Who can accomplish more in two short months
Than I could in two years; so it is well
That some one is contented to do nothing,
And leave the field to others.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
O blasphemer!
Not without reason do the people call you
Sebastian del Piombo, for the lead
Of all the Papal bulls is heavy upon you,
And wraps you like a shroud.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
Misericordia!
Sharp is the vinegar of sweet wine, and sharp
The words you speak, because the heart within you
Is sweet unto the core.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
How changed you are
From the Sebastiano I once knew,
When poor, laborious, emulous to excel,
You strove in rivalry with Badassare
And Raphael Sanzio.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
Raphael is dead;
He is but dust and ashes in his grave,
While I am living and enjoying life,
And so am victor. One live Pope is worth
A dozen dead ones.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Raphael is not dead;
He doth but sleep; for how can he be dead
Who lives immortal in the hearts of men?
He only drank the precious wine of youth,
The outbreak of the grapes, before the vintage
Was trodden to bitterness by the feet of men.
The gods have given him sleep. We never were
Nor could be foes, although our followers,
Who are distorted shadows of ourselves,
Have striven to make us so; but each one worked
Unconsciously upon the other's thought;
Both giving and receiving. He perchance
Caught strength from me, and I some greater sweetness
And tenderness from his more gentle nature.
I have but words of praise and admiration
For his great genius; and the world is fairer
That he lived in it.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
We at least are friends;
So come with me.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
No, no; I am best pleased
When I'm not asked to banquets. I have reached
A time of life when daily walks are shortened,
And even the houses of our dearest friends,
That used to be so near, seem far away.

FRA SEBASTIANO.
Then we must sup without you. We shall laugh
At those who toil for fame, and make their lives
A tedious martyrdom, that they may live
A little longer in the mouths of men!
And so, good-night.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Good-night, my Fra Bastiano.

[Returning to his work.

How will men speak of me when I am gone,
When all this colorless, sad life is ended,
And I am dust? They will remember only
The wrinkled forehead, the marred countenance,
The rudeness of my speech, and my rough manners,
And never dream that underneath them all
There was a woman's heart of tenderness.
They will not know the secret of my life,
Locked up in silence, or but vaguely hinted
In uncouth rhymes, that may perchance survive
Some little space in memories of men!
Each one performs his life-work, and then leaves it;
Those that come after him will estimate
His influence on the age in which he lived.



V

PALAZZO BELVEDERE

TITIAN'S studio. A painting of Danae with a curtain before it.
TITIAN,
MICHAEL ANGELO, and GIORGIO VASARI.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
So you have left at last your still lagoons,
Your City of Silence floating in the sea,
And come to us in Rome.

TITIAN.
I come to learn,
But I have come too late. I should have seen
Rome in my youth, when all my mind was open
To new impressions. Our Vasari here
Leads me about, a blind man, groping darkly
Among the marvels of the past. I touch them,
But do not see them.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
There are things in Rome
That one might walk bare-footed here from Venice
But to see once, and then to die content.

TITIAN.
I must confess that these majestic ruins
Oppress me with their gloom. I feel as one
Who in the twilight stumbles among tombs,
And cannot read the inscriptions carved upon them.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
I felt so once; but I have grown familiar
With desolation, and it has become
No more a pain to me, but a delight.

TITIAN.
I could not live here. I must have the sea,
And the sea-mist, with sunshine interwoven
Like cloth of gold; must have beneath my windows
The laughter of the waves, and at my door
Their pattering footsteps, or I am not happy.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Then tell me of your city in the sea,
Paved with red basalt of the Paduan hills.
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 fires
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"?

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?

GIORGIO.
Oh there are many hands upraised already
To clutch at such a prize, which hardly wait
For death to loose your grasp,--a hundred of them;
Schiavone, Bonifazio, Campagnola,
Moretto, and Moroni; who can count them,
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,
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,
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
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
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 mime,
That we should think all nature would stand still
If we were gone? We must make room for others.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
And now, Maestro, pray unveil your picture
Of Danae, of which I hear such praise.

TITIAN, drawing hack 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
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.

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.
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
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,
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.

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
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.

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
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.

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 those rounded limbs!
How from the canvas they detach themselves,
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
How admirable I esteem your work,
And leave you, without further interruption.

TITIAN.
Your friendly visit hath much honored me.

GIOROIO.
Farewell.

MICHAEL ANGELO to GIORGIO, going out.

If the Venetian painters knew
But half as much of drawing as of color,
They would indeed work miracles in art,
And the world see what it hath never seen.



VI

PALAZZO CESARINI

VITTORIA COLONNA, seated in an armchair; 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 life.
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.
Paler you are, but not less beautiful.

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,
Above all other days, and at the hour
When most I need you!

JULIA.
Do you ever need me?

VICTORIA.

Always, and most of all to-day and now.
Do you remember, Julia, when we walked,
One afternoon, upon the castle terrace
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
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 Valldesso,
The noble champion of free thought and speech;
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,
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,
Fearing Caraffa's wrath, because he taught
That He who made us all without our help
Could also save us without aid of ours.
Renee of France, the Duchess of Ferrara,
That Lily of the Loire, is bowed by winds
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.

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.

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,
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,
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;
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.

VITTORIA.
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.

Enter MICHAEL ANGELO.

JULIA.
Hush! make no noise.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
How is she?

JULIA.
Never better.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Then she is dead!

JULIA.
Alas! yes, she is dead!
Even death itself in her fair face seems fair.
How wonderful! The light upon her face
Shines from the windows of another world.
Saint only have such faces. Holy Angels!
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,
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
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
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
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
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,
And the old live; unless it be that some
Have long been 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!
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,
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;
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,
Has he become since all my friends are dead.



II

VIGNA DI PAPA GIULIO

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;
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,
Are an old man. Are you incapable?
'T is the old ox that draws the straightest furrow.

CARDINAL MARCELLO.
Your Holiness remembers he was charged
With the repairs upon St. Mary's bridge;
Made cofferdams, and heaped up load on load
Of timber and travertine; and yet for years
The bridge remained unfinished, till we gave it
To Baccio Bigio.

JULIUS.
Always Baccio Bigio!
Is there no other architect on earth?
Was it not he that sometime had in charge
The harbor of Ancona.

CARDINAL MARCELLO.
Ay, the same.

JULIUS.
Then let me tell you that your Baccio Bigio
Did greater damage in a single day
To that fair harbor than the sea had done
Or would do in ten years. And him you think
To put in place of Michael Angelo,
In building the Basilica of St. Peter!
The ass that thinks himself a stag discovers
His error when he comes to leap the ditch.

CARDINAL MARCELLO.
He does not build; he but demolishes
The labors of Bramante and San Gallo.

JULIUS.
Only to build more grandly.

CARDINAL MARCELLO.
But time passes:
Year after year goes by, and yet the work
Is not completed. Michael Angelo
Is a great sculptor, but no architect.
His plans are faulty.

JULIUS.
I have seen his model,
And have approved it. But here comes the artist.
Beware of him. He may make Persians of you,
To carry burdens on your backs forever.


SCENE II.

The same: MICHAEL ANGELO.

JULIUS.
Come forward, dear Maestro! In these gardens
All ceremonies of our court are banished.