Browning's Italy; A Study of Italian Life and Art in Browning (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE "A people is but the attempt of many To rise to the completer life of one; And those who live as models for the mass Are singly of more value than they all." ? I. a r in. IN four out of the seven dramas written by Browning, he has given through the optic glass of his own vision a characteristic view of some phase of political life in Italy. With the exception of "King Victor and King Charles" ? a tolerably accurate portrayal of an actual series of events in one of the side issues of Italian History, these plays have for atmosphere known historical conditions in the midst of which move beings of the poet's own imagination, such as might have existed. To begin with "Luria," which chronologically comes first, the scene is Florence, the date 14?, a sufficiently vague date to allow one's imagination to range through the whole of the fifteenth century in conjuring up the setting of the play, Accordingly if we saythat, broadly speaking, "Luria" stands for fifteenth century Florentine civilization, we shall come near hitting the mark. The central event of the play is a war between Florence and Pisa. The history of the century has two wars between Florence and Pisa to show, one near the beginning of the century, 1406, and one near the end, about 1494. No events in either of these wars can be found exactly parallel to those Browning describes, yet he has taken hints from both to build up his imaginary situation. This was the century of the Medicis in Florence and of Savonarola, the first standing for much that was good and for much that was bad in the Renaissance spirit, the second, for much that was good and something that was bad in the religious attitude of the age. It is impossible here to go into the details of the fierce strugg...