[Footnote 92: _Ibid._, No. 368, f. 188.]
Among the minor fry slumbering unknown in the Vatican Library
is URBANI of Urbino, who left a few rude elegiac and complimentary
ditties in Latin or Italian upon members of the Montefeltrian line,
and compiled a confused account of their pedigree. We may also name
ANTONIO RUSTICO of Florence, whose _Panegiricon Comitis Federici_,
dedicated to him in 1472, contains above seven hundred Italian lines
of _terza rima_, unpolished in style, and in matter a mere tissue of
fatiguing verbiage. Scarcely more valuable is NALDIO'S account of the
Volterran campaign of 1572 in Latin verse, to which we have vainly
had recourse for new information on that obscure passage of our
memoirs.[93]
[Footnote 93: These three works are Nos. 736, 743, and 373.]
* * * * *
While enumerating in our twenty-first chapter the celebrities of Duke
Guidobaldo's court, we mentioned Bernardo Accolti, and endeavoured
to explain the inadequacy of his published works to sustain his
contemporary reputation, by supposing that his strength lay in
extemporé recitation. The high place which his vanity claimed, in
assuming "the Unique" as a surname, appears to have been freely
accorded by the most able of his contemporaries. Ariosto says of him,
not perhaps without a sneer at his notorious conceit,--
"The cavalier amid that band, whom they
So honour, unless dazzled in mine eye
By those fair faces, is the shining light
Of his Arezzo, and Accolti hight."[94]
[Footnote 94: STEWART ROSE'S Translation, XLVI., 10.]
Castiglione assigns him a prominent rank among the Urbino stars,
whilst Bembo and Pietro Aretino testify to his merits. We, however,
would try these by his surviving works, which, as Roscoe observes,
are fatal to his reputation, and which are indeed rather a beacon
than a model to succeeding genius. It is, therefore, unnecessary
to pause upon them, or to add here to our previous notice of their
author and his position at the Montefeltrian court. Nor was Accolti
the only poetaster who attained in that polished circle, or in other
Italian courtlets, a celebrity from which posterity has withheld
its seal. A solution of this success may perhaps be found in the
circumstance that many of these owed it either to personal popularity
or to their musical accomplishments. Thus SERAFINO D'AQUILA,
who either improviséed his verses, or chanted them to his own
accompaniment on the lute, was generally preferred to Petrarch.
He died at thirty-four, in 1500, after being sought by all the
petty sovereigns from Milan to Naples, and ere two generations had
passed away his poetry was utterly forgotten. So, too, AGOSTINO
STACCOLI of Urbino, whose sonnets delighted Duke Federigo, and
obtained for him a diplomatic mission to Rome in 1485, has been long
consigned to oblivion.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account