"Andrea del Sarto." This monologue reveals, beside the personalities
of both Andrea and Lucretia and the main incidents of their lives,
the relations existing between Andrea's character, his choice of a
wife, and the peculiar quality of his art; the whole serving, also,
to illustrate the picture on which the poem is based. The gray tone
that silvers the picture pervades the poem with an air of helpless,
resigned melancholy, and sets forth the fatal quality of facile
craftsmanship joined with a flaccid spirit. --Mr. John Kenyon,
Mrs. Browning's cousin, asked Browning to get him a copy of the
picture of Andrea and his wife in the Pitti Palace. Browning, being
unable to find one, wrote this poem describing it, instead. Andrea
(1486-1531), because his father was a tailor, was called del Sarto,
also, il pittore senza errori, "the faultless painter."
2. Lucrezia: di Baccio del Fede, a cap-maker's widow, says Vasari,
who ensnared Andrea "before her husband's death, and who delighted
in trapping the hearts of men."
15. Fiesole: a hillside city on the Arno, three miles west of
Florence.
93. Morello: the highest of the Apennine mountains north of
Florence.
105. The Urbinate: Raphael Santi (1483-1520), so called because born
at Urbino.
106. Vasari: painter and writer of the "Lives of the Most Excellent
Italian Painters," which supplied Browning with material for this
poem and for "Fra Lippo."
130. Agnolo: Michel Agnolo Buonarotti, painter, sculptor, and
1architect (1475-564).
149. Francis: Francis I of France (1494-1547), who invited Andrea to
his Court at Fontainebleau, where he was loaded with gifts and
honors, until, says Vasari, "came to him certain letters from
Florence written to him by his wife . . . with bitter complaints,"
when, taking "the money which the king confided to him for the
purchase of pictures and statues, . . . he set off . . . having
sworn on the Gospels to return in a few months. Arrived in
Florence, he lived joyously with his wife for some time, making
presents to her father and sisters, but doing nothing for his own
parents, who died in poverty and misery. When the period specified
by the king had come . . . he found himself at the end not only of
his own money but . . . of that of the king."
184. Agnolo . . . to Rafael: Angelo's remark is given thus by
Bocchi, "Bellezze di Firenze"; "There is a bit of a manikin in
Florence who, if he chanced to be employed in great undertakings as
you have happened to be, would compel you to look well about you."
210. Cue-owls: the owl's cry gives it its common name in various
languages and countries; the peculiarity of its cry as to the
predominant sound of oo or ow naming the species. This Italian
<a`>ulo> is probably the <Bubo>, of the same family as our cat-owl.
Buffon gives its note, <he-hoo>, <boo-hoo>; hence the Latin name,
<Bubo>.