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There was Lancino di Corte, or, as he preferred to style himself, Lancinus Curtius, the writer of Latin epigrams; and Antonio di Fregoso, the noble Genoese youth who, like Niccolo, won Calmeta and Ariosto's praises, and whose poetic disputes with Lancinus were a feature of Cecilia Gallerani's entertainments; and Baldassare Taccone of Alessandria; and Pietro Lazzarone of the Valtellina.
"Guarde pur come è bello quel cavallo Leonardo Vinci a farli sol s'è mosso Statura bon pictore, e bon geometra Un tanto ingegno rar dal ciel s'impetra." So Baldassare Taccone sang in his poem on Bianca's wedding, while a greater scholar, Lancinus Curtius, recorded the completion of the long-expected work in the following epigram:
Lancinus Curtius shall live through all the centuries, and visit every shore on earth. Such power have the Muses." The time-worn poet reclines, as though sleeping or resting, ready to be waked; his head is covered with flowing hair, and crowned with laurel; it leans upon his left hand. On either side of his couch stand cupids or genii with torches turned to earth.
And so the foremost scholars and the finest artists, Giorgio Merula and Lancinus Curtius, Caradosso and Cristoforo Romano, Bramante and Leonardo, were all drawn to Milan in turn, and, having once entered the Moro's service, remained there until the end.
As for his old friends and comrades, the poets and scholars of Lodovico's court, their indignation knew no bounds, Lancinus Curtius hurled bitter epigrams at his head, and Pistoia held him up to the scorn of the whole world in some of his finest sonnets.
In the Sculpture Gallery of the Brera is preserved a fair white marble tomb, carved by that excellent Lombard sculptor Agostino Busti. The epitaph runs as follows: En Virtutem Mortis nesciam. Vivet Lancinus Curtius Sæcula per omnia Quascunque lustrans oras, Tantum possunt Camoenæ. "Look here on Virtue that knows naught of Death!
As the Milanese poet Lancinus Curtius sang in his Latin rhymes, "The fair-skinned Germans with their long hair flowing on their necks, the English and the knights from Gaul, the Iberian from the golden sands of Tagus, all hasten thither from the far North.
Above is a group of the three Graces, flanked by winged Pegasi. Higher up are throned two Victories with palms, and at the top a naked Fame. We need not ask who was Lancinus Curtius. He is forgotten, and his virtue has not saved him from oblivion; though he strove in his lifetime, pro virili parte, for the palm that Busti carved upon his grave.
En Virtutem Mortis nesciam. Vivet Lancinus Curtius Sæcula per omnia Quascunque lustrans oras, Tantum possunt Camoenæ. 'Look here on Virtue that knows nought of Death! Lancinus Curtius shall live through all the centuries, and visit every shore of earth.
If Busti's Lancinus Curtius be the portrait of a humanist, careworn with study, burdened by the laurel leaves that were so dry and dusty; if Gaston de Foix in the Brera, smiling at death and beautiful in the cropped bloom of youth, idealize the hero of romance; if Michael Angelo's Penseroso translate in marble the dark broodings of a despot's soul; if Della Porta's Julia Farnese be the Roman courtesan magnificently throned in nonchalance at a pope's footstool; if Verocchio's Colleoni on his horse at Venice impersonate the pomp and circumstance of scientific war surely this Medea exhales the flower-like graces, the sweet sanctities of human life, that even in that turbid age were found among high-bred Italian ladies.
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