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But such instances weigh nothing against the direct testimony of a contemporary like Varchi, into whose hands Michelangelo's poems came at the time of their composition, and who was well acquainted with the circumstances of their composition. There is, moreover, a fact of singular importance bearing on this question, to which Signor Guasti has not attached the value it deserves.
The bibliography of editions and translations which Guasti gives is enough to show the popularity of the sonnets, their universal character, their international currency. There are upward of one hundred sonnets in every stage of perfection, and they have given rise not only to a literature of translations, but to a literature of comment. Some years ago Mrs.
The extent and atrocity of his emendations can be realized by a comparison of texts. But the sonnets survived the improvements, and even made headway under them; and when, in 1863, Guasti gave the original readings to the public, the world was prepared for them.
In order to understand the effect of this method, it is only necessary to compare the autograph as printed by Guasti with the version of 1623. In Sonnet xxxi., for example, the two copies agree in only one line, while the remaining thirteen are distorted and adorned with superfluous conceits by the over-scrupulous but not too conscientious editor of 1623.
A learned Italian, Signor Cesare Guasti, undertook to collate this autograph with other manuscripts at the Vatican and elsewhere, and in 1863 published a true version of Michelangelo's poems, with dissertations and a paraphrase.* *The sonnets have been translated into English, with much poetic taste and skill, by Mr. J. A. Symonds.
Another is that we are continually hampered by the false traditions invented by Michelangelo the younger. Even Wadsworth's translations, fine as they are, have lost a large portion of their interest since the publication of the autographs by Cesare Guasti in 1863. It is certain that the younger Michelangelo meant well to his illustrious ancestor.
On his redaction the commonly received version of the poems rested until 1863, when Signor Cesare Guasti of Florence, having gained access to the original manuscripts, published a critical edition, preserving every peculiarity of the autograph, and adding a prose paraphrase for the explanation of the text.
Part only of her face and throat is visible, where may be read a look of blank bewilderment and stupefaction, a struggle with death's slumber in obedience to some inner impulse. Yet she is rising slowly, half awake, and scarcely conscious, to await a doom still undetermined. Thus Michael Angelo interpreted the meaning of his age. See Guasti, Le Rime di Michael Angelo, p. 173.
It seems clear from the correspondence in the Archivio Buonarroti, recently published, that when Michael Angelo fled from Florence to Venice in 1529, he did so under the pressure of no ignoble panic, but because his life was threatened by a traitor, acting possibly at the secret instance of Malatesta Baglioni. See Heath Wilson, pp. 326-330. See Guasti, p. 4. Vol. I., Age of the Despots, p. 251.
Officio del Savonarola, with preface by Cesare Guasti. Firenze, 1863. Guicciardini, in his Ricordt, No. i., refers the incredible obstinacy of the Florentines at this period in hoping against all hope and reason to Savonarola: 'questa ostinazione ha causata in gran parte a fede di non potere perire, secondo le predicazioni di Fra Jeronirno da Ferrara.
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