rt was beautiful as the star Diana, so
beautiful as a baby that the Pope christened her with his own hands; the
quavering nasal cadence of the stornello saying by chance--

Flower of the Palm, &c.,

did at last waken the attention of one lettered man, a man of curious
and somewhat misshapen body and mind, of features satyr-like in
ugliness, yet moody and mystical in their very earthiness; a man
essentially of the senses, yet imperfect in them, without taste or
smell, and, over and above, with a marvellously supple intellect; weak
and coarse and idealistic; and at once feebly the slave of his times,
and so boldly, spontaneously innovating as to be quite unconscious of
innovation: the mixed nature, or rather the nature in many heterogeneous
bits, of the man of letters who is artistic almost to the point of being
an actor, natural in every style because morally connected with no style
at all. The man was Lorenzo di Piero dei Medici, for whom posterity has
exclusively reserved the civic title of all his family and similar town
despots, calling him the Magnificent. It is the fashion at present to
give Lorenzo only the leavings, as it were, of our admiration for the
weaker, less original, nay, considerably enervate, humanistic exquisite
Politian; and this absurd injustice appears to me to show that the very
essence and excellence of Lorenzo is not nowadays perceived. The
Renaissance produced several versatile and charming poets; and, in the
midst of classic imitation, one or two, of whom one is certainly
Boiardo, of real freshness and raciness. But of this new element in the
Renaissance, this element which is neither imitation of antiquity nor
revival of mediaeval, which is original, vital, fruitful, in short,
modern, Lorenzo is the most versatile example. He is new, Renaissance,
modern; not merely in this or that quality, he is so all round. And this
in the first place because he is so completely the man of impressions;
the man not uttering wonderful things, nor elaborating exquisite ones,
but artistically embodying with marvellous versatility whatever strikes
his fancy and feeling--fancy and feeling which are as new as the
untouched sculptor's clay. And this extraordinary temper of art for
art's sake, or rather effect for effect and form's sake, was possible in
that day only in a man equally without strong passions, and without
strong convictions. He is naturally attracted most by what is most
opposed to the acade