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In some respects, therefore, there is in the "Ambra" somewhat more artificial, more barrocco than that early Renaissance of Politian and Pontano would warrant.
It must, however, be said that four hundred years earlier Pontano had expressed this same erotic unity far more robustly and wholesomely than Schlegel, though the Latin verse in which he wrote, fresh and vital as it is, remained without influence. Pontano's Carmina, including the "De Amore Conjugali," have at length been reprinted in a scholarly edition by Soldati.
Gioviano Pontano ingeniously illustrates the nature of that mysterious something which men call Fortune by a hundred incidents, most of which belonged to his own experience. The subject is treated more humorously by Aeneas Sylvius, in the form of a vision seen in a dream.
And among many portraits that are in this work may be seen portraits from life of Giulio himself, the painter; of Count Baldassarre Castiglioni, the author of the "Cortigiano," and very much his friend; of Pontano and Marullo; and of many other men of letters and courtiers.
Guicciardini, who recounts the whole matter at length, says that all Italy believed the Duke had been murdered, and quotes Teodoro da Pavia, one of the royal physicians, who attested to having seen clear signs of a slow poison in the young man. Pontano, de Prudentiâ, lib. 4, repeats the accusation. Guicciardini only doubts Lodovico's motives.
He was of Spanish extraction, as his name implies, became a Carmelite, and rose to be general of the order, but retired in 1515, the year before his death. Three eclogues are extant from the pen of Pontano, a distinguished humanist at the court of Ferdinand I and his successors at Naples, and a Latin poet of considerable grace and feeling.
Gioviano Pontano, for example, in his book on Fate, had recognized the science, and in a great work of his had expounded the whole theory of it in the style of the old Firmicus, ascribing to the stars the growth of every bodily and spiritual quality. Astrology remained more or less in fashion, but seems not to have governed human life in the way it formerly had done.
He also brought from Flanders masters in the art of tapestry. Pontano, Ficino, and Poggio dedicated works of importance to his name; and Pirro Perrotti, in the preface to his uncle's 'Cornucopia, draws a quaint picture of the reception which so learned a book was sure to meet with at Urbino. But Frederick was not merely an accomplished prince.
Pontano, who was Ferdinand's secretary, told a different tale. He affirmed that the real father of the Duke of Calabria was a Marrano of Valentia. This last story is rendered probable by the brusque contrast between the character of Alfonso and that of Ferdinand. It would be terrible to think that such a father could have been the parent of such a son.
Gioviano Pontano mentions with admiration instances of the fortitude of the savage inhabitants of the Abruzzi; in the biographical collections and in the novelists we meet with the figure of the heroic peasant-maiden who hazards her life to defend her family and her honour. Such conditions made the poetical treatment of country life possible.
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