. Florence in poetry, history and art . e, and after spending a few years uponthe work it was abandoned, and his cartoon wasalso lost or destroyed. About this time, 1504,he finished his celebrated Mona Lisa, the por-trait of the third wife of Zanobi de Giaconda,which Francis I of France purchased for 4,000gold florins, and which has so recently beenstolen from the Louvre, where it was one of themost precious treasures. LEONARDOS MONA LISA. * Make thyself known, Sibyl, or let despairOf knowing thee be absolute; I waitHour-long and waste a soul. What word of fateHides twixt the lips that smile a
. Florence in poetry, history and art . e, and after spending a few years uponthe work it was abandoned, and his cartoon wasalso lost or destroyed. About this time, 1504,he finished his celebrated Mona Lisa, the por-trait of the third wife of Zanobi de Giaconda,which Francis I of France purchased for 4,000gold florins, and which has so recently beenstolen from the Louvre, where it was one of themost precious treasures. LEONARDOS MONA LISA. * Make thyself known, Sibyl, or let despairOf knowing thee be absolute; I waitHour-long and waste a soul. What word of fateHides twixt the lips that smile and still for-bear?Secret perfection! Mystery too fair!Tangle the sense no more, lest I should hateThe delicate tyranny, the inviolatePoise of thy folded hands, the fallen , nay,—I wrong thee with rough words; still beSerene, victorious, inaccessible;Still smile but speak not; lightest ironyLurk ever neath thy eyelids shadow; stillO ertop our knowledge; Sphinx of Italy,Allure us and reject us at thy will! —Edward Mona Lisa Da Vind Leonardo da LISA. 1 She gave me all a woman can,Nor her souls nunnery forego,A confidence that man to manWithout remorse can never show. Rare art, that can the sense refineTill not a pulse rebellious stirs,And, since she never can be mine,Makes it seem sweeter to be hers! —James Russell Lowell. ON THE MEDUSA OF LEONARDO DA VINCI,IN THE FLORENTINE GALLERY. It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky,Upon the cloudy mountain peak supine;Below, far lands are seen tremblingly;Its horror and its beauty are its lips and eyelids seems to lieLoveliness like a shadow, from which shine,Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath,The agonies of anguish and of death. Yet it is less horror than the graceWhich turns the gazers spirit into stone,Whereon the lineaments of that dead faceAre graven, till the characters be grownInto itself, and thought no more can trace;Tis the melodious hue of beauty thrownAthwart the darkness and t
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidflorenceinpo, bookyear1913
