Macello De' Corvi

So, Benvenuto, you return once moreTo the Eternal City. 'T is the centreTo which all gravitates. One finds no restElsewhere than here. There may be other citiesThat please us for a while, but Rome aloneCompletely satisfies. It becomes to allA second native land by predilection,And not by accident of birth alone.

BENVENUTO.I am but just arrived, and am now lodgingWith Bindo Altoviti. I have beenTo kiss the feet of our most Holy Father,And now am come in haste to kiss the handsOf my miraculous Master.

And to find himGrown very old.

BENVENUTO.You know that precious stonesNever grow old.

Half sunk beneath the horizon,And yet not gone. Twelve years are a long while.Tell me of France.

BENVENUTO.It were too long a taleTo tell you all. Suffice in brief to sayThe King received me well, and loved me well;Gave me the annual pension that before meOur Leonardo had, nor more nor less,And for my residence the Tour de Nesle,Upon the river-side.

A princely lodging.

BENVENUTO.What in return I did now matters not,For there are other things, of greater moment,I wish to speak of. First of all, the letterYou wrote me, not long since, about my bustOf Bindo Altoviti, here in Rome. You said,"My Benvenuto, I for many yearsHave known you as the greatest of all goldsmiths,And now I know you as no less a sculptor."Ah, generous Master! How shall I e'er thank youFor such kind language?

By believing it.I saw the bust at Messer Bindo's house,And thought it worthy of the ancient masters,And said so. That is all.

BENVENUTO.It is too much;And I should stand abashed here in your presence,Had I done nothing worthier of your praiseThan Bindo's bust.

What have you done that's better?

BENVENUTO.When I left Rome for Paris, you rememberI promised you that if I went a goldsmithI would return a sculptor. I have keptThe promise I then made.

Dear Benvenuto,I recognized the latent genius in you,But feared your vices.

BENVENUTO.I have turned them allTo virtues. My impatient, wayward nature,That made me quick in quarrel, now has served meWhere meekness could not, and where patience could not,As you shall hear now. I have cast in bronzeA statue of Perseus, holding thus aloftIn his left hand the head of the Medusa,And in his right the sword that severed it;His right foot planted on the lifeless corse;His face superb and pitiful, with eyesDown-looking on the victim of his vengeance.

I see it as it should be.

BENVENUTO.As it will beWhen it is placed upon the Ducal Square,Half-way between your David and the JudithOf Donatello.

Rival of them both!

BENVENUTO.But ah, what infinite trouble have I hadWith Bandinello, and that stupid beast,The major-domo of Duke Cosimo,Francesco Ricci, and their wretched agentGorini, who came crawling round about meLike a black spider, with his whining voiceThat sounded like the buzz of a mosquito!Oh, I have wept in utter desperation,And wished a thousand times I had not leftMy Tour do Nesle, nor e'er returned to Florence,Or thought of Perseus. What malignant falsehoodsThey told the Grand Duke, to impede my work,And make me desperate!

The nimble lieIs like the second-hand upon a clock;We see it fly; while the hour-hand of truthSeems to stand still, and yet it moves unseen,And wins at last, for the clock will not strikeTill it has reached the goal.

BENVENUTO.My obstinacyStood me in stead, and helped me to o'ercomeThe hindrances that envy and ill-willPut in my way.

When anything is donePeople see not the patient doing of it,Nor think how great would be the loss to manIf it had not been done. As in a buildingStone rests on stone, and wanting the foundationAll would be wanting, so in human lifeEach action rests on the foregone event,That made it possible, but is forgottenAnd buried in the earth.

BENVENUTO.Even Bandinello,Who never yet spake well of anything,Speaks well of this; and yet he told the DukeThat, though I cast small figures well enough,I never could cast this.

But you have done it,And proved Ser Bandinello a false prophet.That is the wisest way.

BENVENUTO.And ah, that castingWhat a wild scene it was, as late at night,A night of wind and rain, we heaped the furnaceWith pine of Serristori, till the flamesCaught in the rafters over us, and threatenedTo send the burning roof upon our heads;And from the garden side the wind and rainPoured in upon us, and half quenched our fires.I was beside myself with desperation.A shudder came upon me, then a fever;I thought that I was dying, and was forcedTo leave the work-shop, and to throw myselfUpon my bed, as one who has no hope.And as I lay there, a deformed old manAppeared before me, and with dismal voice,Like one who doth exhort a criminalLed forth to death, exclaimed, "Poor Benvenuto,Thy work is spoiled! There is no remedy!"Then, with a cry so loud it might have reachedThe heaven of fire, I bounded to my feet,And rushed back to my workmen. They all stoodBewildered and desponding; and I lookedInto the furnace, and beheld the massHalf molten only, and in my despairI fed the fire with oak, whose terrible heatSoon made the sluggish metal shine and sparkle.Then followed a bright flash, and an explosion,As if a thunderbolt had fallen among us.The covering of the furnace had been rentAsunder, and the bronze was flowing over;So that I straightway opened all the sluicesTo fill the mould. The metal ran like lava,Sluggish and heavy; and I sent my workmenTo ransack the whole house, and bring togetherMy pewter plates and pans, two hundred of them,And cast them one by one into the furnaceTo liquefy the mass, and in a momentThe mould was filled! I fell upon my kneesAnd thanked the Lord; and then we ate and drankAnd went to bed, all hearty and contented.It was two hours before the break of day.My fever was quite gone.

A strange adventure,That could have happened to no man aliveBut you, my Benvenuto.

BENVENUTO.As my workmen saidTo major-domo Ricci afterward,When he inquired of them: "'T was not a man,But an express great devil."

And the statue?

BENVENUTO.Perfect in every part, save the right footOf Perseus, as I had foretold the Duke.There was just bronze enough to fill the mould;Not a drop over, not a drop too little.I looked upon it as a miracleWrought by the hand of God.

And now I seeHow you have turned your vices into virtues.

BENVENUTO.But wherefore do I prate of this? I cameTo speak of other things. Duke CosimoThrough me invites you to return to Florence,And offers you great honors, even to make youOne of the Forty-Eight, his Senators.

His Senators! That is enough. Since FlorenceWas changed by Clement Seventh from a RepublicInto a Dukedom, I no longer wishTo be a Florentine. That dream is ended.The Grand Duke Cosimo now reigns supreme;All liberty is dead. Ah, woe is me!I hoped to see my country rise to heightsOf happiness and freedom yet unreachedBy other nations, but the climbing wavePauses, lets go its hold, and slides againBack to the common level, with a hoarseDeath rattle in its throat. I am too oldTo hope for better days. I will stay hereAnd die in Rome. The very weeds, that growAmong the broken fragments of her ruins,Are sweeter to me than the garden flowersOf other cities; and the desolate ringOf the Campagna round about her wallsFairer than all the villas that encircleThe towns of Tuscany.

BENVENUTO.But your old friends!

All dead by violence. Baccio ValoriHas been beheaded; Guicciardini poisoned;Philippo Strozzi strangled in his prison.Is Florence then a place for honest menTo flourish in? What is there to preventMy sharing the same fate?

BENVENUTO.Why this: if allYour friends are dead, so are your enemies.

Is Aretino dead?

BENVENUTO.He lives in Venice,And not in Florence.

'T is the same to meThis wretched mountebank, whom flatterersCall the Divine, as if to make the wordUnpleasant in the mouths of those who speak itAnd in the ears of those who hear it, sends meA letter written for the public eye,And with such subtle and infernal malice,I wonder at his wickedness. 'T is heIs the express great devil, and not you.Some years ago he told me how to paintThe scenes of the Last Judgment.

BENVENUTO.I remember.

Well, now he writes to me that, as a Christian,He is ashamed of the unbounded freedomWith which I represent it.

BENVENUTO.Hypocrite!

He says I show mankind that I am wantingIn piety and religion, in proportionAs I profess perfection in my art.Profess perfection? Why, 't is only menLike Bugiardini who are satisfiedWith what they do. I never am content,But always see the labors of my handFall short of my conception.

BENVENUTO.I perceiveThe malice of this creature. He would taint youWith heresy, and in a time like this!'T is infamous!

I represent the angelsWithout their heavenly glory, and the saintsWithout a trace of earthly modesty.

BENVENUTO.Incredible audacity!

The heathenVeiled their Diana with some drapery,And when they represented Venus nakedThey made her by her modest attitude,Appear half clothed. But I, who am a Christian,Do so subordinate belief to artThat I have made the very violationOf modesty in martyrs and in virginsA spectacle at which all men would gazeWith half-averted eyes even in a brothel.

BENVENUTO.He is at home there, and he ought to knowWhat men avert their eyes from in such places;From the Last Judgment chiefly, I imagine.

But divine Providence will never leaveThe boldness of my marvellous work unpunished;And the more marvellous it is, the more'T is sure to prove the ruin of my fame!And finally, if in this compositionI had pursued the instructions that he gave meConcerning heaven and hell and paradise,In that same letter, known to all the world,Nature would not be forced, as she is now,To feel ashamed that she invested meWith such great talent; that I stand myselfA very idol in the world of art.He taunts me also with the MausoleumOf Julius, still unfinished, for the reasonThat men persuaded the inane old manIt was of evil augury to buildHis tomb while he was living; and he speaksOf heaps of gold this Pope bequeathed to me,And calls it robbery;--that is what he says.What prompted such a letter?

BENVENUTO.Vanity.He is a clever writer, and he likesTo draw his pen, and flourish it in the faceOf every honest man, as swordsmen doTheir rapiers on occasion, but to showHow skilfully they do it. Had you followedThe advice he gave, or even thanked him for it,You would have seen another style of fence.'T is but his wounded vanity, and the wishTo see his name in print. So give it notA moment's thought; it soon will be forgotten.

I will not think of it, but let it passFor a rude speech thrown at me in the street,As boys threw stones at Dante.

BENVENUTO.And what answerShall I take back to Grand Duke Cosimo?He does not ask your labor or your service;Only your presence in the city of Florence,With such advice upon his work in handAs he may ask, and you may choose to give.

You have my answer. Nothing he can offerShall tempt me to leave Rome. My work is here,And only here, the building of St. Peter's.What other things I hitherto have doneHave fallen from me, are no longer mine;I have passed on beyond them, and have left themAs milestones on the way. What lies before me,That is still mine, and while it is unfinishedNo one shall draw me from it, or persuade me,By promises of ease, or wealth, or honor,Till I behold the finished dome upriseComplete, as now I see it in my thought.

BENVENUTO.And will you paint no more?

No more.

BENVENUTO.'T is well.Sculpture is more divine, and more like Nature,That fashions all her works in high relief,And that is sculpture. This vast ball, the Earth,Was moulded out of clay, and baked in fire;Men, women, and all animals that breatheAre statues, and not paintings. Even the plants,The flowers, the fruits, the grasses, were first sculptured,And colored later. Painting is a lie,A shadow merely.

Truly, as you say,Sculpture is more than painting. It is greaterTo raise the dead to life than to createPhantoms that seem to live. The most majesticOf the three sister arts is that which builds;The eldest of them all, to whom the othersAre but the hand-maids and the servitors,Being but imitation, not creation.Henceforth I dedicate myself to her.

BENVENUTO.And no more from the marble hew those formsThat fill us all with wonder?

Many statuesWill there be room for in my work. Their stationAlready is assigned them in my mind.But things move slowly. There are hindrances,Want of material, want of means, delaysAnd interruptions, endless interferenceOf Cardinal Commissioners, and disputesAnd jealousies of artists, that annoy me.But twill persevere until the workIs wholly finished, or till I sink downSurprised by death, that unexpected guest,Who waits for no man's leisure, but steps in,Unasked and unannounced, to put a stopTo all our occupations and designs.And then perhaps I may go back to Florence;This is my answer to Duke Cosimo.