Of Poliziano’s plagiarism—­if this be the right word to apply to the process of assimilation and selection, by means of which the poet-scholar of Florence taught the Italians how to use the riches of the ancient languages and their own literature—­here are some specimens.  In stanza 42 of the ‘Giostra’ he says of Simonetta:—­

  E ’n lei discerne un non so che divino.

Dante has the line:—­

  Vostri risplende un non so che divino.

In the 44th he speaks about the birds:—­

  E canta ogni augelletto in suo latino.

This comes from Cavalcanti’s:—­

  E cantinne gli augelli. 
  Ciascuno in suo latino.

Stanza 45 is taken bodily from Claudian, Dante, and Cavalcanti.  It would seem as though Poliziano wished to show that the classic and medieval literature of Italy was all one, and that a poet of the Renaissance could carry on the continuous tradition in his own style.  A, line in stanza 54 seems perfectly original:—­

  E gia dall’alte ville il fumo esala.

It comes straight from Virgil:—­

  Et jam summa pocul villarum culmina fumant.

In the next stanza the line—­

  Tal che ’l ciel tutto rassereno d’intorno,

is Petrarch’s.  So in the 56th, is the phrase ’il dolce andar celeste.’  In stanza 57—­

  Par che ’l cor del petto se gli schianti,

belongs to Boccaccio.  In stanza 60 the first line:—­

  La notte che le cose ci nasconde,

together with its rhyme, ‘sotto le amate fronde,’ is borrowed from the 23rd canto of the ‘Paradiso.’  In the second line, ‘Stellato ammanto’ is Claudian’s ‘stellantes sinus’ applied to the heaven.  When we reach the garden of Venus we find whole passages translated from Claudian’s ‘Marriage of Honorius,’ and from the ‘Metamorphoses’ of Ovid.

Poliziano’s second poem of importance, which indeed may historically be said to take precedence of ‘La Giostra,’ was the so-called tragedy of ‘Orfeo.’  The English version of this lyrical drama must be reserved for a separate study:  yet it belongs to the subject of this, inasmuch as the ‘Orfeo’ is a classical legend treated in a form already familiar to the Italian people.  Nearly all the popular kinds of poetry of which specimens have been translated in this chapter, will be found combined in its six short scenes.

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ORFEO

The ‘Orfeo’ of Messer Angelo Poliziano ranks amongst the most important poems of the fifteenth century.  It was composed at Mantua in the short space of two days, on the occasion of Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga’s visit to his native town in 1472.  But, though so hastily put together, the ‘Orfeo’ marks an epoch in the evolution of Italian poetry.  It is the earliest example of a secular drama, containing within the compass of its brief scenes the germ of the opera, the tragedy, and the pastoral play.