Page:A History of Italian Literature - Garnett (1898).djvu/133

Rh 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:

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.