"Sovra quel _biondo crin_" ...
(_Sonnetto ultimo._)
Never does he write a word that can be referred to the difference of
rank existing between them, to the splendour which had surrounded the
cradle even of the daughter of the great citizen whom all Italy seems to
have made the arbiter of her political combinations. Michel Angelo
speaks only of the touching beauty of her who has subjugated him by
"that serene grace, certain mark of the nobility and purity of a soul in
perfect harmony with its Creator;" (_Sonnetto 3, et passim_ in the first
part.) Never does he give us to understand that his love received the
least encouragement. It has been thought, however, that Luigia had
detected the attachment of the youth whose genius had as yet been
attested by no great work, and that she rewarded it by the tenderest
friendship. It is certain that, in a transport of gratitude, Angelo
wrote the beautiful verse--
"Unico spirto, e da me solo inteso!"
(_Sonnetto_ 16.)
and that, in another _morceau_, he thanks "those beautiful eyes which
lend him their sweet light, the genius that raises his own to heaven,
the support that steadies his tottering steps,"
"Veggio co'bei vostri occhi un dolce lume." ...
--(_Sonnetto_ 12.)
But, checking himself immediately in these half-revelations, the poet,
on the contrary, multiplies the complaints torn from him by the coldness
and apparent indifference of her whose beauty he celebrates, whom he can
render immortal. See more particularly Sonnet 21--
"Perche d'ogni mia speme il verde e spento."
He exclaims even that he has rarely enjoyed the presence on which his
happiness depends:--"You know neither custom nor opportunity have served
my affection: it is very rarely that my eyes kindle themselves at the
fire which burns in yours, guarded by a reserve to which desire scarcely
dares to approach--
----'gli occhi vostri
Circonscritti ov' appena il desir vola.'
A single look has made my destiny, and I have seen you, to say truly,
but once."--(_Madrigale_ 5.)
It has been said that the "divine hand" of Michel Angelo painted the
portrait of Luigia de' Medici. This is the name given, in reality,
during the last century, to the head of a young female, "handsome rather
than really beautiful," writes father Della Valle--a work in which
Buonarotti's drawing was said to be recognised, with a softer and more
lively colouring than obtains in the other pictures from his easel.
Angelo's repugnance to paint portraits is one of the best established
traits of his character. But he sculptured several--among those
positively known are that of Julius II., lost in the chateau of Ferrara,
and another of Gabriel Faerne, preserved in the Museum Capitolinum. We
know, besides, that he consented to paint the portrait of the noble and
witty Messer Tomasso de' Cavalieri, (see _Vasari_,) of the natural size;
but that was a rare favour. "For," said he, "I abhor the obligation to
copy that which, in nature, is not of infinite beauty." In another
place, sonnet nineteen, addressing the object of his tenderness, Michel
Angelo reminds her, that works of art are endowed, so to say, with
eternal life and youth. "Perhaps," he adds, (_Sonnetto_ 19 ,) "I shall
be able to prolong thy life and mine beyond the tomb, by employing, if
thou wilt, colour, or marble, if thou preferest, to fix the lines of our
features and the resemblance of our affection!"
Again he writes--"While I paint her features, why cannot I convey to her
face the pallor which disfigures mine, and which comes from her cruelty
to me?"--(_Madrigale_ 24.) But in some others of Angelo's poems, mention
is made of a statue, or more probably of a bust, on which the young
artist worked with an impassioned mixture of zeal and
faint-heartedness.
"I fear," he says, "to draw from the marble, instead of her image, that
of my features worn, and void of grace."--(_Madrigale 22._ ) And when he
drew near the term of his labour--"Behold," he exclaims, "an animated
stone, which, a thousand years hence, will seem to breathe! What, then,
ought heaven to do for her, its own work, while the portrait only is
mine; for her whom the whole world, and not myself alone, regard as a
goddess rather than a mortal? Nevertheless the stone remains, while she
is about to depart."--(_Madrigale 39._)
It was probably on this occasion that Michel Angelo wrote those
charming, and mysterious verses, whose sense it is otherwise difficult
to determine:-
"Qui risi e piansi, e con doglia infinita,
Da questo sasso vidi far partita
Colei ch 'a me mi tolse, e non mi volse."
(_Sonnetto 29._)
The bust of Luigia de' Medici, if it really came from the hands of
Angelo, has shared the fate of many other _chefs-d'oeuvres_, of which
his contemporaries appear to have spoken with such great enthusiasm,
only to increase our regret; while the most diligent researches have led
to no recovery since their disappearance, caused by the disasters that
visited Florence, and by the culpable negligence which, throughout the
whole of Italy, followed the period of which Buonarotti was the
principal ornament.
If it be to the affection of Luigia de' Medici that Angelo's nineteenth
sonnet[55] really refers, we are led to the belief that this lofty soul,
temperate in its own hopes, yet imbued with a generous ambition, had
suffered itself, for a moment, to be carried away by the illusion of a
permanent happiness; but a blow, as terrible as unforeseen, scattered
these thoughts. The "Magnificent" Lorenzo, scarcely in his forty-second
year, sunk at his seat of Careggi, under a short illness, but of which
he foresaw the inevitable term with great resignation from the earliest
moment. With Lorenzo de' Medici descended to the tomb all that was yet
bright in the glory of his family--all that was real in the prosperity
of Florence--all that was assured in the fortune, or attractive in the
labours of the young Buonarotti, then only seventeen years of age.
Of the three sons left by Lorenzo, not one was capable of replacing him.
The Cardinal Giovanni had a cultivated mind, engaging manners, and vast
ambition; but, overwhelmed already, in spite of his youth,[56] with the
weight of his benefices and ecclesiastical dignities, he pursued, at the
Papal Court, the high fortune of which he then foresaw the
accomplishment. Giuliano, born in 1478, was as yet little more than a
child, in whom appeared the germ of amiable and even generous qualities,
spoiled by pride, the hereditary vice of his house. With regard to
Pietro, the new prince of the government--for he succeeded without
opposition to the ill-defined and conventional, rather than regularly
constituted authority which his ancestors and his father had left in his
possession--he evinced only incapacity, presumption, improvidence, and
foolish vanity. Aged twenty-one, he had already espoused Alfonsina
Orsini, and drew a false security from an alliance in which he hoped for
the support of one of the most warlike and powerful families of southern
Italy. Michel Angelo felt the necessity of quitting the abode of the
Medici, where Pietro, of too vulgar a mind to appreciate the artist's
character, displayed a soul mean enough to make him feel the bitterness
of protection. He returned to the paternal home; and although he
continued to show a marked attachment for the legitimate interests of
the Medici, and was even again sometimes employed--but not in important
matters--by the younger members of the family, the separation was final,
and the republican convictions of the young artist developed themselves,
after that time, at full liberty. Angelo's poetical collection proves to
us how cruelly his removal, from the house where Lorenzo had entertained
him with the most agreeable hospitality, affected his heart. In future
it must become a stranger, at least in looks and conversation, to her
whom he loved with an inquiet fervour.
"How, separated from you, shall I ever have the power to guide my
life, if I can not, at parting, implore your assistance?
* * * * *
Lest absence condemn my loyal devotion to forgetfulness, in
remembrance of my long affliction, take, Signora, take in pledge a
heart which hereafter belongs no more to me."--(_Madrigale 11._ )
And in another place:
"He who departs from you has no more hope of light: where you are
not, there is no more heaven."--(_Madrigale 9._ )
The hour approached, however, when, according to the usage of the
country, and the relations of her family, Luigia's lot should be
decided. Various projects of alliance were discussed. The choice
hesitated between two brothers, descended from Giovanni de' Medici, a
branch from the dominant house, and of that which took the name of its
individual ancestor, Lorenzo. The latter, brother of Cosmo, Pater
Patriae, had, by Ginevra Cavalcanti Piero Francesco, to whom his wife,
Landomia Acciajuoli, brought two sons, Lorenzo and Giovanni. Both had
arrived at the age of maturity, and were reckoned among the most
considerable citizens of Florence. The marriage, however, did not take
place. It is said that Luigia herself prevented its conclusion, until a
misunderstanding, caused by some opposition of interests, had definitely
separated Pietro from the two brothers, more especially from Giovanni,
upon whom the reigning prince appears principally to have reckoned.
Others, however, have supposed that the obstacles to the proposed union
arose only on the part of Giovanni and his brother, who, in fact,
followed the principal citizens in the opposition, then planned, against
Pietro's unskilful administration. And last, it has been asserted, that
Luigia was betrothed to Giovanni, but died before the time fixed for the
marriage. Among these opinions, Litta appears to incline to the second;
Roscoe adopts the last. However it may be, it is only certain that,
alone of all Lorenzo's daughters, Luigia left the paternal house but to
exchange it for the repose of the tomb.
According to the historians, she died a few days before the catastrophe
which overturned Pietro's government, and condemned all the descendants
of Cosmo l'Antico to an exile of sixteen years. It was consequently late
in the autumn of 1494 that Luigia departed this life. Amid the
passionate prejudices which prepared, and the convulsions which
followed, the Florentine revolution, the extinction of the beauteous
light excited no sensation.
Michel Angelo was not at that moment in Florence. Politiano's death
seems to have broken the last ties that attached him to the obligations
contracted in his early youth. His penetrating intelligence warned him
of the coming fall of the Medici. He neither wished to renounce his
ancient attachments, nor to give them the predominance over the duties
of a citizen, to a free state, which it was of the highest importance to
wean from a blind and dangerous course. In this painful alternative,
Michel Angelo determined to withdraw for a time. He went first to
Venice, and afterwards to Bologna, where the warm reception of the
Aldrovandi kept him during an entire year, and even longer.
According to all appearance, on quitting Florence, Buonarotti was aware
of Luigia's declining health; and his poetry shows us the courageous
artist sinking under the burden of his melancholy presentiments:--
"Be sure, O eyes, that the time is past, that the hour approaches
which will close the passage to your regards, even to your tears.
Remain, in pity to me, remain open while this divine maiden deigns
yet to dwell on this earth. But when the heaven shall open to
receive these unique and pure beauties ..., when she shall ascend
to the abode of glorified and happy souls, then close; I bid you
farewell."--(_Madrigale 40._ )
It was while at Venice, at least so it is believed, that Michel Angelo
learned the death of Luigia de' Medici. An expression of profound
sadness and manly resignation pervades the poems which escaped from his
oppressed soul, already familiarized with grief: he knew "that death and
love are the two wings which bear man from earth to heaven."
... "chi ama, qual chi muore,
Non ha da gire al ciel dal mondo altr'ale."
(Sonnetto: _Dall' aspra piaga._)
There are, in Angelo's collection, four compositions which may be
regarded as dedicated to the memory of Luigia de Medici; first, the
sonnet.--"Spirto ben nato," ... in which the poet deplores "the cruel
law which has not spared tenderness, compassion, mercy--treasures so
rare, united to so much of beauty and fidelity; then the Sonnets 27, 28,
and 30, where Michel Angelo, as though emboldened by the irreparable
calamity which had befallen him, raises the veil under which the
circumstances and the illusions of his love had hitherto been shrouded,
for every one, and almost for himself. Now he exclaims:--"Oh, fallacious
hopes! where shall I now seek thee--liberated soul? Earth has received
thy beauteous form, and Heaven thy holy thoughts!--(_Sonnetto 27._)....
This _first love_, which fixed my wandering affections, now overwhelms
my exhausted soul with an insupportable weight.--(_Sonnetto 28._) ...
Yes, the brightness of the flame, which nourished while consuming my
heart, is taken from me by heaven; but one teeming spark remains to me,
and I would wish to be reduced to ashes only after shining in my turn."
The sense of the latter triplet is very enigmatical; it is here
interpreted in accordance with the known character of the poet, and the
direction which he delayed not to give to his faculties. From this
moment Angelo, devoted to the threefold worship of God, art, and his
country, constantly refused to think of other ties. He had, he remarked,
"espoused the affectionate fantasy which makes of Art a monarch, an
idol; "my children," he added, "will be the works that I shall leave
behind me." More than thirty years were to elapse, ere in this heart,
yet youthful at the approach of age, another woman, and she the first of
her era, (Vittoria Colonna,) occupied in part the place left vacant by
Luigia de' Medici.
It is to these few imperfect indications, conjectures, and fugitive
glimpses, to which the most perspicacious care has not always succeeded
in giving a positive consistency, that all our knowledge is reduced of
one of the purest and most amiable forms presented by the historical and
poetical gallery of Florence, during what is named her _golden age_. But
what destiny was more worthy than that of Luigia de' Medici to excite a
generous envy? Orphan from her birth, her life experienced that alone
which elevates and purifies: hope, grief, and love. No vulgar cares
abased her thoughts; no bitter experience withered her heart; death, in
compassion, spared her the spectacle of the reverses of her family, and
participation in the guilty successes which followed those disasters.
Delicate and stainless flower, she closed on the eve of the storm that
would have bathed her in tears and blood! The only evidence remaining to
us of her is poetry of a fame almost divine--of a purity almost
religious; and this young maiden, of whom no mention has come down to
us, in addressing herself to our imagination, borrows the accents of the
most extraordinary genius possessed by a generation hitherto unequalled
in achievements of the mind. The place of sepulture of Luigia de' Medici
is unknown; her remains were most probably deposited, without monumental
inscription, in the vaults of San Lorenzo, the _gentilizia_ church of
her house. Among the epitaphs composed by Angelo, without attempting to
indicate for whom, there is one whose application to Luigia de' Medici
would be apt and touching. It may be thus translated:--"To earth the
dust, to heaven the soul, have been returned by death. To him who yet
loves me, dead, I have bequeathed the thought of my beauty and my glory,
that he may perpetuate in marble the beautiful mask which I have left."
The editors of Michel Angelo have assumed that this admirable
composition, as well as those which accompany it under the same title,
were written for a certain Francesco Bracci. The expression "chi _morta_
ancor m' ama" is sufficient to refute this singular supposition.
We shall now attempt to give some idea of the poetical compositions from
which we have not yet quoted, and which we conjecture to have been
similarly inspired in Michel Angelo by his love for Luigia de' Medici.
We incline to consider as belonging to the earliest poetic age of the
great artist, to the epoch of the first and only real love experienced
by him, all the pieces forming the first part of his work, commencing
with the celebrated sonnet--
"Non ha l'ottimo artista," * * *
and ending with the thirtieth--
"Qual meraviglia e se vicino al fuoco."
* * *
in addition, the sonnet, three _madrigali_, (pieces without division of
stanzas or couplets,) and one _canzone_, which the editors have placed
at the head of the collection, entitled by them--"Componimenti men gravi
e giocosi." The commencement of a new era in Angelo's thoughts and
poetic style appears to us marked by the composition of the two
admirable pieces which he dedicated to the memory of Dante Alighieri:--
"Dal mondo scese ai ciechi abissi;"
* * *
and
"Quanto dime si dee non si puo dire."
Michel Angelo _petitioned_ but once: this was that Leo X. would grant
the ashes of Dante to Florence, where the artist "offered to give a
becoming burial to the divine poet, in an honourable place in the
city."--(Condivi, _Vita di Michel Angelo_.)
Previously a stranger to the sentiments of love, the young artist at
first wonders and fears at their violence:
"Who, then, has lifted me by main force above myself? How can it be
that I am no longer my own? And what is the unknown power which,
nearer then myself, influences me; which has more control over me;
passes into my soul by the eyes; increases there without limit, and
overflows my whole being?"--_Madrigali_, 3, 4.
Soon, however, he no longer doubts upon the character of this
intoxication; he feels that he loves; he traces in sport the most
graceful and animated picture of her who has captivated his heart! But
this pure and ardent soul speedily becomes alarmed at the profound
agitation in which it sees itself plunged; desires to go back to the
cause, to recognise its origin, and measure its danger. Michel Angelo
recognises, in conjunction with the danger, a sublime reward reserved
for him who shall know how to merit it.
"The evil which I ought to shun, and the good to which I aspire,
are united and hidden in thee, noble and divine beauty! * * * Love,
beauty, fortune, or rigour of destiny, it is not you that I can
reproach for my sufferings; for in her heart she bears at once
compassion and death! Woe to me if my feeble genius succeed only,
while consuming itself, in obtaining death from it!"[57]
Yes, dangerous and often fatal is that passion which seems to choose its
favourite victims among hearts the most generous--intelligence the most
ample:
"Very few are the men who raise themselves to the heaven; to him
who lives in the fire of love, and drinks of its poison, (for to
love is one of life's fatal conditions,) if grace transport him not
towards supreme and incorruptible beauties--if all his desires
learn not to direct themselves thither--Ah! what miseries overwhelm
the condition of lover!"--(_Sonnet_ 10.)
But this declaration has not been applied to all passionate and deep
affections:
"No, it is not always a mortal and impious fault to burn with an
immense love for a perfect beauty, if this love afterwards leave
the heart so softened that the arrows of divine beauty may
penetrate it."
"Love wakens the soul, and lends it
wings for its sublime flight: often its ardour is the first step by
which, discontented with earth, the soul remounts towards her
Creator."--(_Sonnet_ 8.)
Transported with this thought, in which he feels the passion to which he
has yielded at once transforming and tranquillising itself, Michel
Angelo gives to it in his verses the most eloquent and most ingenious
developments.
"No, it is not a mortal thing which my eyes perceived, when in them
was reflected, for the first time, the light of thine; but in thy
look, my soul, inquiet, because it mounts towards its object
without repose, has conceived the hope of finding her peace."
"She ascends, stretching her wings towards the abode from whence
she descended! The beauty which charms the eyes calls to her on her
flight; but, finding her weak and fugitive, she passes onwards to
the universal form, the divine archetype."
This expression, and many others dispersed throughout the collection,
show that he had profited more than he cared to acknowledge by the
discourses of the Platonic Academy.
"Yes, I perceive it; that which must die can offer no repose to the
wise man. * * * That which kills the soul is not love; it is the
unbridled disorder of the senses. Love can render our souls perfect
here below, and yet more in heaven!"--(_Sonnet_ 2.)
And fruther on:
"From the stars most near to the empyrean, descends sometimes a
brightness which attracts our desires towards them: it is that
which is called love!"--(_Mad._ 8.)
But this celestial route demands extraordinary efforts on the part of
him who aspires to travel it:
"How rash and how unworthy are the understandings, which bring down
to the level of the senses this beauty whose approaches aid the
true intelligence to remount to the skies. But feeble eyes cannot
go from the mortal to the divine;[58] never will they raise
themselves to that throne, where, without the grace from on high,
it is a vain thought to think of rising."
Michel Angelo believed that he recognised these characteristics, as rare
as sublime, in the love which pervaded his own heart.
"The life of my love is not the all in my heart. * * This affection
turns to that point where no earthly weakness, no guilty thought,
could exist."
"Love, when my soul left the presence of her Creator, made of her a
pure eye, of thee a splendour, and my ardent desire finds it every
hour in that which must, alas! one day die of thee."
"Like as heat and fire, so is the Beautiful inseparable from the
Eternal. * * * I see Paradise in thy eyes, and so return there
where I loved thee before this life,[59] I recur every hour to
consume myself under thy looks."--(_Sonnet_ 6.)
He writes elsewhere, with a singular mixture of affectionate ardour and
metaphysical boldness,--
"I know not if this is, in thee, the prolific light from its
Supreme Author which my soul feels, or if from the mysterious
treasures of her memory some other beauty, earlier perceived,
shines with thy aspect in my heart."[60]
"Or if the brilliant ray of _thy former existence_ is reflected in
my soul, leaving behind this kind of painful joy, which perhaps, at
this moment, is the cause of the tears I shed;"
"But after all, that which I feel, and see, which guides me, is not
with me, is not in me, * * sometimes I imagine that thou aidest me
to distinguish it." * * * * (_Sonnet_ 7.)
It is easy to conjecture the danger of this inclination to metaphysical
speculation for an ardent and subtile genius, which, even in its works
of art, has left the proof of a constant disposition towards an obscure
mysticism or a sombre austerity. Michel Angelo was enabled to avoid
these two dangers, on one or the other of which he would have seen his
genius wrecked, by the noble confidence which he ever maintained in "the
two beacons of his navigation," tenderness of heart, and pure worship of
beauty.
Thus, we shall see with what outpouring he proclaims the necessity, for
the human soul, to attach itself strongly to some generous love:
"The memory of the eyes, and this hope which suffices to my life,
and more to my happiness, * * * reason and passion, love and
nature, constrain me to fix my regard upon thee during the whole
time given me. * * * Eyes serene and sparkling; he who lives not in
you is not yet born!"
And again:
"It is to thee that it belongs to bring out from the coarse and
rude bark within which my soul is imprisoned, that which has
brought and linked together in my intelligence, reason strength,
and love of the good." (_Mad._ 10.)
Then was renewed that sweet and pregnant security in which the soul,
"under the armour of a conscience which feels its purity," may gain new
energy and journey towards her repose:[61]
"Yes, sometimes, with my ardent desire, my hope may also ascend; it
will not deceive me, for if all our affections are displeasing to
heaven, to what end would this world have been created by God?
"And what cause more just of the love with which I burn for thee,
than the duty of rendering glory to that eternal peace, whence
springs the divine charm which emanates from thee, which makes
every heart, worthy to comprehend thee, chaste and pious?
* * * * *
"Firm is the hope founded on a noble heart, the changes of the
mortal bark strip no leaves from its crown; never does it languish,
and even here it receives an assurance of heaven."--(_Sonnet_ 9.)
Now it is with accents of triumph and anon with the serener emotion of
an immortal gratitude, that the poet exhibits the luminous ladder which
his love assists him to mount, the support he finds in it when he
descends again to the earth:
"The power of a beautiful countenance, the only joy I know on
earth, urges me to the heaven, I rise, yet living, to the abode of
elect souls--favour granted rarely to our mortal state!
"So perfect is the agreement of this divine work with its Creator,
that I ascend to Him on the wings of this celestial fervour; and
there I form all my thoughts, and purify all my words.
* * * * *
"In her beautiful eyes, from which mine cannot divert themselves, I
behold the light, guide upon the way which leads to God;
* * * * *
"Thus, in my noble fire, calmly shines the felicity which smiles,
eternal, in the heavens!--(_Sonnet_ 3.)
"With _your_ beautiful eyes I see the mild light which my darkened
eyes could not discern. Your support enables me to bear a burden
which my weary steps could not endure to the end."
* * * * *
"My thoughts are shaped in your heart; my words are born in your
mind.
"With regard to you, I am like the orb of night in its career; our
eyes can only perceive the portion on which the sun sheds his
rays."--(_Sonnet_ 12.)
The admirable picture of indissoluble union in a settled tenderness, one
of the most perfect pieces which has come from Angelo's pen, was
sketched, doubtless, in one of those moments of severe and entire
felicity:
"A refined love, a supreme affection, an equal fortune between two
hearts, to whom joys and sorrows are in common,
because one single mind actuates them both;
"One soul in two bodies, raising both to heaven, and upon equal
wings;
* * * * *
"To love the other always, and one's self never, to desire of Love
no other prize than himself; to anticipate every hour the wishes
with which the reciprocal empire regulates two existences:
"Such are the certain signs of an inviolable faith; shall disdain
or anger dissolve such a tie?"--(_Sonnet_ 20.)
The last verse makes allusion to some incident of which we have been
unable to find any historical explanation:
"Or potra _sdegno_ tanto nodo sciorre?"
But these ill-founded fears soon gave way to the presentiment of the
cruel, the imminent trial, for which the poet's affection was reserved.
"Spirit born under happy auspices, to show us, in the chaste beauty
of thy terrestrial envelope, all the gifts which nature and heaven
can bestow on their favourite creation!"
* * * * *
"What inexorable law denies to this faithless world, to this
mournful and fallacious life, the long possession of such a
treasure? Why cannot death pardon so beautiful a work?"--(_Sonnet_
25.)
The poet, however, already knew that such is the law, severe in
appearance, but merciful in reality, which governs all things on this
earth, "where nothing endures but tears."[62] It was then that Michel
Angelo discovered in his heart that treasure of energy destined to
sustain him in the multiplied trials of a life, of which he measured the
probable length with a melancholy resignation.[63]
"Why," he exclaims, "grant to my wounded soul the vain solace of
tears and groaning words, since heaven, which clothed a heart with
bitterness, takes it away but late, and perhaps only in the tomb?"
"_Another_ must die. Why this haste to follow her? Will not the
remembrance of her look soothe my last hours? And what other
blessing would be worth so much as one of my sorrows?"[64]
In fine, armed with "the faith that raises souls[65] to God, and
sweetens their death," Michel Angelo, when the fatal blow fell, was
enabled to impart to his regrets an expression of thankfulness to the
Supreme Dispenser of our destinies; and giving a voice from the tomb to
her whom he had so deeply loved, he puts these sublime words into her
mouth:
"I was a mortal, now I am an angel. The world knew me for a little
space, and I possess heaven for ever. I rejoice at the glorious
exchange, and exult over the death which struck, to lead me to
eternal life!"--_Epitaffio_, v.