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My name is Benvenuto, the son of Maestro Giovanni Cellini; my mother was Maria Lisabetta, daughter to Stefano Granacci; and both my parents were citizens of Florence. My ancestors lived in the valley of Ambra, where they were lords of considerable domains; they were all trained to arms, and distinguished for military prowess.
It is written in somewhat cumbrous ottava rima, and seldom shows any conspicuous power of narrative. Belonging to the same class of composition, though of a very different order of poetic merit, is Lorenzo's wonderfully graceful tale of Ambra. The grace lies in the telling, for the plot was probably already stale when Phoebus and Daphne were protagonists.
But important as is the "Nencia," Lorenzo has left behind him another poem, greatly inferior in completeness, but which settles beyond power of doubt that in him the Renaissance was not merely no longer mediæval, but most intensely modern. This poem is the "Ambra."
So far, therefore, there is plenty to enjoy, but nothing to astonish, in the "Ambra." But the Magnificent Lorenzo has had the extraordinary whim of beginning his allegory with a description, twenty-one stanzas long, of the season of floods.
In some respects, therefore, there is in the "Ambra" somewhat more artificial, more barrocco than that early Renaissance of Politian and Pontano would warrant.
"We must first fortify our camp," answered Marius quietly. The soldiers obeyed: but the hour of battle had come, and well did Marius know it. It commenced on the brink of the Coenus, between some Ambrons who were bathing and some Roman slaves gone down to draw water. When the whole horde of the Ambrons advanced to the battle, shouting their war-cry of Ambra!
The most notable points in the poem are the loves of the rivers Bregog and Mulla, the famous list of contemporary poets, and the presentation of the seamy side of court life, recalling the more direct satire of the probably contemporary Mother Hubberd's Tale. The first of these belongs to the class of Ovidian myths already noticed in such works as Lorenzo's Ambra.
The poem recounts how the wood-nymph Ambra, beloved of Lauro, is pursued by the river-god Ombrone, one of Arno's tributary divinities, and praying to Diana in her hour of need, is by her transformed into a rock . Lorenzo's Selva d'amore and Caccia col falcone might also be mentioned in the same connexion.
Their cry brought others to their assistance, so that now it was no longer possible for Marius to restrain the impetuosity of his soldiers, who were uneasy for the fate of their servants. Besides, these were the Ambrons, who had defeated Manlius and Caepio, that they saw before them." The contest became general. The Ambrons rushed across the river, yelling "Ambra!
His Selve d'Amore, his Corinto, his Ambra, his La Nencia da Barberino, his Laude, his Sonetti, his Cansoni, etc., are all poems that live in the Italian literature of to-day. Not as a man ashamed of the vernacular, and forced to use it because he can command no better, does Lorenzo write.
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