#rime sparse

[twintailedsiren]

Late 16th century portrait of a young lady, North Italian School. She’s in a red costume with her hands resting on a two tailed siren and a basilisk. Portrait in the manner of Agnolo Allori, il Bronzino. 'INFINITA BELLEZZA E POCA FEDE’ is inscribed on the top edge of the painting. Painting location: private sale.

“Infinita bellezza e poca fede” is a line from Italian lyric poet Petrarch, in Il Canzoniere, or the Rime sparse, written in the 1300s. Here’s Sonnet 203, with the line in English:

“Infinite beauty and little faith, do you not see my heart in my eyes?”

Petrarch devoted much of the Rime sparse to describing and praising Laura, his love— but this love is an idealised, abstract love, as she was already married. Here, he compares her voice to a siren’s, in Sonnet 167:

“When Love bends her lovely eyes to the ground and with his own hands gathers together her wandering breath into a sigh and then looses it in a clear, soft, angelic, divine voice, 

I feel my heart sweetly stolen away and my thoughts and desires so change within me that I say: ‘Now comes the final plundering of me, if Heaven reserves me for so virtuous a death.’ 

But the sound that binds my senses with its sweetness, reins in my soul, though ready to depart, with the great desire for the blessedness of listening; 

so I live on, and thus she both threads and unwinds the spool of my appointed life, this only heavenly Siren among us.” 

Petrarch’s sonnet is reminiscent of Plato’s description of the heavenly sirens. “Agnolo Allori, il Bronzino” is Agnolo di Cosimo, also known as Bronzino. He was an Italian Renaissance painter whose work includes a number of portraits.

To me, I think the two tailed siren and basilisk could also represent heraldry, as those mythical animals were used in family coats of arms, particularly from Italy. I’m excited about this painting, for it’s only the second time I’ve seen a two tailed siren in an oil painting.

Thank you to @neritesanteros for bringing this painting to my attention!

If we look at the two tailed siren in detail, we see she has a skirt of some type, long flowing hair, and her two tails could end in fins or perhaps in vegetation. She reminds me a bit of this Roman period mosaic in Turkey.

Sources

The siren sonnet:

Petrarch, poem 167, page 312: Petrarch. Petrarch's Lyric Poems: The Rime Sparse and Other Lyrics. Translated by Robert M. Durling. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976.

Sonnet 203 is on page 348-349.

Photo and some information via Bonham's.

Additional information from Christie's.

[wendy-born]

Ogni volta che stai male, sto male anche io per te. Ma, rilassiamoci difronte a questo mare, perché noi sappiamo davvero cosa vuol dire amare. Questo mondo infame vuole farci crollare, ma non sanno che l'arte del saper parlare può devastare.

Wendy-born

[shannonscommonplace]

I wept and sang; I cannot change my ways: but night and day the grief my soul collected I pour forth with my tongue and through my eyes

Petrarch

[theseasquallgirl]

Petrarca, Rerum vulgarium fragmenta.

[daughtryeland]

365 I' vo piangendo i miei passati tempi i quai posi in amar cosa mortale senza levarmi a volo, abbiendi' io l'ale per dar forse di me non bassi esempi. Tu che vedi i miei mali indegni et empi, Re del Cielo, invisibile, immortale: soccorri a l'alma disviata et frale e 'l suo defetto di tua grazia adempi, sì che, s' io vissi in guerra et in tempesta, mora in pace et in porto; et se la stanza fu vana, almen sia la partita onesta. A quel poco di viver che m'avanza et al morir degni esser tua man presta: tu sai ben che 'n altrui non ò speranza. –– I go weeping for my past time, which I spent in loving a mortal thing without lifting myself in flight, though I had wings to make of myself perhaps not a base example. You who see all my unworthy and wicked sufferings, invisible, immortal King of Heaven: help my strayed frail soul and fill out with your grace all that she lacks, so that, though I have lived in war and in storm, I may die in peace and in port, and if my sojourn has been vain, my departure at least may be virtuous. To what little life remains to me and to my dying deign to be present: You know well that I have no hope in anyone else.

Petrarch

[asocialwaste]

Il mondo inverso

I Nel mondo inverso l’uomo fu catapultato Colori inghiottititi, gravità contraria Silenzio innaturale, contesti assenti Gli rimane solo la sua volontà di potenza Per affrontare il grande demone Per affrontare la grande ombra Nel mondo inverso è grande inverno La vita è ferma, il tempo non scorre Lì sulla linea di confine Fra reale ed irreale Fra sogno e incubo L’uomo affrontò l’ennesimo ciclo della sua vita Si gettò nel grande buio Che lo avvolse Percepisci i suoi battiti veloci? Senti il suo respiro corto? Riassaporerà la dolce luce? O diverrà il principe delle ombre? Grandi finali attendono l’uomo La sconosciuta legge del mondo inverso Non rende schiavi

[provisionally]

Christ gives no full comments or continu’d discourses, but scatters the heavnly grain of his doctrin like pearle heer and there, which requires a skilful and laborious gatherer; who must compare the words he finds, with other precepts.

-Milton, Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce

[lonelysilverrain]

Rime sparse 365, Petrarch

I go weeping for my past time which I spent in loving a mortal thing without lifting myself in flight, though I had wings to make of myself perhaps not a base example. You who see all my unworthy and wicked sufferings; invisible, immortal King of Heaven: help my strayed frail soul and help fill out with your grace all that she lacks, so that, though I have lived in war and in storm, I may die in peace and in port, and if my sojurn has been vain my departure at least may be virtuous. To what little life remains to me and to my dying deign to be present: You know well that I have no hope in anyone else.