Lorenzo’s part as the patron of art and letters is so considerable, that his writings, important as they are, appear almost insignificant in comparison. The most elaborate of his poems might be classed as idylls. They comprise the _Ambra_, a graceful and fanciful Ovidian allegory on the metamorphosis of the nymph Ambra into a rock to escape the pursuit of a river-god; _La Caccia col Falcone_, a lively description of this aristocratic sport; and _La Nencia di Barberino_, no less vivid in its portraiture of the humours of plebeian love-making. Lorenzo’s own love poetry consists chiefly of canzoni, more remarkable for elegance than depth of feeling, but perfectly in the character of a man of pleasure who is also a refined gentleman. The spirituality of Dante and his contemporaries, the romantic passion of Petrarch, no longer suited the age. The temple of Love, like the temple of the Church, had been secularised; in everything men habitually lived at a lower level. Yet this declension is compensated in a great degree by the enhanced feeling of reality: there can be no such controversy over Lorenzo’s innamorata as over Beatrice and Laura. The following is a fair example of his erotic style: _Thy beauty, gentle Violet, was born Where for the look of Love I first was fain, And my bright stream of bitter tears was rain That beauty to accomplish and adorn. And such desire was from compassion born, That from the happy nook where thou wert lain The fair hand gathered thee, and not in vain, For by my own it willed thee to be borne. And, as to me appears, thou wouldst return Once more to that fair hand, whence thee upon My naked breast I have securely set: The naked breast that doth desire and burn, And holds thee in her heart’s place, that hath gone To dwell where thou wert late, my Violet._ If there is more gallantry than passion in compositions of this nature, they show at least that the lute of Love had received a new string since the time of the troubadours. Love of a sensuous kind is a chief ingredient in Lorenzo’s _Canti Carnascialeschi_, which are sometimes highly licentious. He is accused of having composed them with a special view of diverting the minds of the young Florentines from politics; but it seems unnecessary to go beyond the temptation to licence afforded by the general relaxation of the carnival. The gay and the serious Lorenzo were very different people, as remarked by that acute observer Machiavelli. His epistle to his own son Giovanni, afterwards Leo X., on his elevation to the Cardinalate at fourteen, is a model of wisdom and right feeling. His spiritual poems, _Laudi_, moreover, frequently speak the language of true religious emotion.