Chapter IV: Part 4

[1] “Rome itself had never gathered the Italian cities into what we call a nation; and when Rome, the world's head, fell, the municipalities of Italy remained, and the Italian people sprang to life again by contact with their irrecoverable past. Then, though the church swayed Europe from Italian soil, she had nowhere less devoted subjects than in Italy. Proud as the Italians had been of the empire, proud as they now were of the church, still neither the Roman Empire nor the Roman Church imposed on the Italian character.”—_Symonds's_ “Renaissance in Italy.” _Literature._ II., p. 524.

[2] See _La Poesia e l'Italia nella Quarta Crociata_. Discourses in the presence of her Majesty the Queen. _Nuova Antologia_, Rome, February, 1889.

The poems of Carducci have been published for the most part in the following collections: _Poesie_ (Florence, G. Barbera, 1871) comprises the poems previously published under the pseudonym Enotrio Romano in three successive issues—1, _Juvenilia_, the author's early productions in the years 1850-1857, 2, _Levia Gravia_, written between the years 1857 and 1870, and 3, _Decennali_, produced in the decade 1860-1870; _Nuove Poesie_, 1879; _Odi Barbare_, Bologna, 1877; _Nuove Odi Barbare_, 1886; _Nuove Rime_, Bologna, 1887. Besides the last named the publisher Zanichelli, in Bologna, has also issued editions of the author's _Discorsi Letterari e Storici_ and _Primi Saggi_; and a complete edition of the author's writings, in twenty vols. 16mo, is promised by the same publisher.

[3] Is there an allusion here to Michael Angelo's Christ in the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva at Rome?

[4] “Doubtless the great painters saw, first and before all things, the human being; but in this being they saw the race, and they could not discern the race without disengaging the vague ideal which struggles in it, which exists even in inferior creatures, unknown to themselves and yet consubstantial with their blood. The languor and, at the same time, the strength of this land of mountains, whose feet are bathed by the waters of fever-breeding marshes, the mysticism and the wildness of the compatriots of St. Francis of Assisi, the dreamy melancholy inspired by the contemplation of sleeping lakes—all those traits, elaborated by the working of heredity through centuries, Perugino saw more clearly than any one else, but he had only to detect them. He divined them instinctively in the outline of the cheek, the colour of the eye, the turn of the head. It is in this interpretation, at once humble and sympathetic, that the veritable imitation of nature consists, in which all is soul, even, and above all the form—a soul which seeks itself, disguises itself at times and even debases itself, but a soul nevertheless and one that reveals itself only to the soul.”

[5] Goethe's Friendship with Schiller. _Fortnightly Review_, Aug., 1891.

[6] Familiar contraction of the name Beatrice.

[7] The allusion is to the figure of “Roma” as seen upon ancient coins.

Transcriber's Notes

Original spelling and punctuation have been preserved as much as possible. Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.