Enea Poems - Poems about Enea

Word and Thought And can you say exactly what’s a word? (Seems easy, but it isn’t!) It’s a thought that takes on form: once wraith, it now is wrought, much in the way that milk morphs into curd (no Middle East ethnicity inferred). A word’s a winged idea that’s been caught, a spirit turning physical. In short, an abstract concept which...

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Paint and Plaster So what, in essence, is this thing called paint? A coloured liquid which, applied to plaster, will fuse and forge a thing securer, faster, and far more comely than before. How quaint! Attaching thought to walls is not restraint, not loss. It dries, and then the thought feels vaster! And plaster’s porous, not like alabaster, and so it’s fixed....

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Anxious in Ancona (2) The Doge has apportioned a fleet for his use, but is proving an Indian giver. A pope with a navy (and with a screw loose) is no-one’s idea of chopped liver, so Venice, delaying and playing obtuse, is selling the pope down the river. A Christian army, devoted to God, is what Pius imagines he’s shaping, but this one is...

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Anxious in Ancona (1) His plan, as he’s boarding his baldachined barge en route for the easterly sea, (arthritis allowing) is giving it large, but the pain is as bad as can be: though Rome is his home, he must go and take charge: Cortona is cortisone-free. One thousand four hundred the Christian years (and then we’ll add sixty-four more): Pope Pius the Second,...

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Points Above and Below the Line (Enea Canonises Catherine of Siena) It's not a thing we go for any more, that hierarchy malarkey, but in fact the medieval mind set mega store by stairs and ladders. All things interact, and therefore can be neatly classified. (There's endless fun in drawing up these lists!) The lowest rung is...

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The Conference at Mantua Ah, what a scene of tranquil learnedness! The scholars nurse their tomes like babes in arms: white locks: heads cocked to savor the address of Pius, in his charming Latin: balm floats in through high-arched, airy colonnades. The lake is laced with skittish little skiffs: those rolling lawns of Mantua could be...

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Enea's Pope! (2) I suppose it’s common knowledge (and not tedious, I hope!) that two-thirds of the Sacred College must concur to elect a pope. With eighteen cardinals gathered, twelve was the number to get. They were nervous, preoccupied, lathered, for there was no favourite yet. Day One turned out quite indecisive, Calindrini accomplishing five: Enea’s vote,...

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Enea is Pope! (1) It doesn’t look good. There is restiveness around the ‘hood. Naples is in turmoil, a bastard claiming the throne – but is...

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Enea Gets the Red Hat Finally, he's getting somewhere. Fifty years of age and almost crippled, prematurely aged, but at last, sweet recognition rains down on the poet. Kneeling before Calixtus, he accepts the Cardinal's hat. Fancy that. With every triumph, we're swept nearer Hell. Each anthem that we sing's a kind of knell. No matter...

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Gate and Column Enea celebrates the wedding of Frederick and Leonor He owned a benefice “out there”, beyond Ravenna, but now, in middle age, he’s coming home. The action’s moved to native-town Siena, though interspersed with roistering in Rome. The countryside was never lusher, blander (at centre-right, the campanile and dome of Enea’s cathedral). Now a pandar, and Bishop of Siena, there he...

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Enea, at the Scottish Court The critics claim that this is far the worst of all the frescoes. Enea the star? No inkling here. Can that be James the First? And that’s the Clyde? It looks more like the Arno. A spartan Stuart court? Or is it Bourbon? Less Edinburgh in feel, and more Locarno. Whoever saw...

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Enea, Embarking at Piombino An impecunious nobleman he was, with all the grace and arrogance of youth: he signed with Capranica, just because the latter (who was longer in the tooth, with deeper pockets) offered him, in truth, a chance to show his intellectual wares – and fortune loves a comely youth who dares. This Capranica bore Colonna blood, the Pope, new-voted, was Orsini...

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(In the early years of the 16th century, the artist Pinturicchio was employed by Cardinal Piccolomini to decorate the library of Siena Cathedral with fresco scenes from the life of his ancestor, Enea.) The Contract The Cardinal requires Ser Bernardino, as high contracting party to the tasks, to paint ten histories in damasceno, in gold, vermilion: also asks that other pleasing...

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