Sonnets

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by Michael Angelo
Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
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Title: Sonnets
Author: Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
Release Date: November 26, 2003 [EBook #10314]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
0. START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONNETS
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THE SONNETS
OF
MICHAEL ANGELO BUONARROTI
AND
TOMMASO CAMPANELLA
NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME TRANSLATED INTO RHYMED
ENGLISH
BY
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS

AUTHOR OF 'RENAISSANCE IN ITALY' 'STUDIES OF THE
GREEK POETS' 'SKETCHES IN ITALY AND GREECE'
'INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF DANTE'
[Greek: Chruseon chalkeia]
1878
_TO
S.F.A._
PREFATORY NOTE.
After some deliberation, and at the risk of offending the sensibility of
scholars, I have adopted the old English spelling of Michael Angelo's
name, feeling that no orthographical accuracy can outweigh the
associations implied in that familiar title. Michael Angelo has a place
among the highest with Homer and Titian, with Virgil and Petrarch,
with Raphael and Paul; nor do I imagine that any alteration for the
better would be effected by substituting for these time-honoured names
Homêros and Tiziano, Vergilius and Petrarca, Raffaello and Paulus.
I wish here to express my heartiest thanks to Signore Pasquale Villari
for valuable assistance kindly rendered in the interpretation of some
difficult passages of Campanella, and to Signore V. de Tivoli for
calling my attention to the sonnet of Michael Angelo deciphered by
him on the back of a drawing in the Taylor Gallery at Oxford.
Portions both of the Introduction and the Translations forming this
volume, have already appeared in the 'Contemporary Review' and the
'Cornhill Magazine.'
DAVOS PLATZ:
Dec. 1877.
CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION
PROEM
MICHAEL ANGELO'S SONNETS
CAMPANELLA'S SONNETS
NOTES TO MICHAEL ANGELO'S SONNETS
NOTES TO CAMPANELLA'S SONNETS
APPENDICES
INTRODUCTION.
I.
It is with diffidence that I offer a translation of Michael Angelo's
sonnets, for the first time completely rendered into English rhyme, and
that I venture on a version of Campanella's philosophical poems. My
excuse, if I can plead any for so bold an attempt, may be found in
this--that, so far as I am aware, no other English writer has dealt with
Michael Angelo's verses since the publication of his autograph; while
Campanella's sonnets have hitherto been almost utterly unknown.
Something must be said to justify the issue of poems so dissimilar in a
single volume. Michael Angelo and Campanella represent widely
sundered, though almost contemporaneous, moments in the evolution
of the Italian genius. Michael Angelo was essentially an artist, living in
the prime of the Renaissance. Campanella was a philosopher, born
when the Counter-Reformation was doing all it could to blight the free
thought of the sixteenth century; and when the modern spirit of exact
enquiry, in a few philosophical martyrs, was opening a new stage for
European science. The one devoted all his mental energies to the
realisation of beauty: the other strove to ascertain truth. The one clung
to Ficino's dream of Platonising Christianity: the other constructed for
himself a new theology, founded on the conception of God immanent

in nature. Michael Angelo expressed the aspirations of a solitary life
dedicated to the service of art, at a time when art received the suffrage
and the admiration of all Italy. Campanella gave utterance to a spirit,
exiled and isolated, misunderstood by those with whom he lived, at a
moment when philosophy was hunted down as heresy and imprisoned
as treason to the public weal.
The marks of this difference in the external and internal circumstances
of the two poets might be multiplied indefinitely. Yet they had much in
common. Both stood above their age, and in a sense aloof from it. Both
approached poetry in the spirit of thinkers bent upon extricating
themselves from the trivialities of contemporary literature. The sonnets
of both alike are contributions to philosophical poetry in an age when
the Italians had lost their ancient manliness and energy. Both were
united by the ties of study and affection to the greatest singer of their
nation, Dante, at a time when Petrarch, thrice diluted and emasculated,
was the Phoebus of academies and coteries.
This common antagonism to the degenerate genius of Italian literature
is the link which binds Michael Angelo, the veteran giant of the
Renaissance, to Campanella, the audacious Titan of the modern age.
II.
My translation of Michael Angelo's sonnets has been made from Signor
Cesare Guasti's edition of the autograph, first given to the world in
1863.[1] This masterpiece of laborious and minute scholarship is based
upon a collation of the various