Lorenzo surrenders himself
purposely to the realism of simple, rough country life, and yet his
work makes upon us the impression of true poetry.
The 'Beca da Dicomano' of Luigi Pulci is an admitted counterpart to the
'Nencia' of Lorenzo. But the deeper purpose is wanting. The 'Beca' is
written not so much from the inward need to give a picture of popular
life, as from the desire to win the approbation of the educated
Florentine world by a successful poem. Hence the greater and more
deliberate coarseness of the scenes, and the indecent jokes.
Nevertheless, the point of view of the rustic lover is admirably
maintained.
Third in this company of poets comes Angelo Poliziano, with his
'Rusticus' in Latin hexameters. Keeping clear of all imitation of
Virgil's Georgics, he describes the year of the Tuscan peasant,
beginning with the late autumn, when the countryman gets ready his new
plough and prepares the seed for the winter. The picture of the meadows
in spring is full and beautiful, and the 'Summer' has fine passages;
but the vintage-feast in autumn is one of the gems of modern Latin
poetry. Politian wrote poems in Italian as well as Latin, from which we
may infer that in Lorenzo's circle it was possible to give a realistic
picture of the passionate life of the lower classes. His gipsy's love-
song is one of the earliest products of that wholly modern tendency to
put oneself with poetic consciousness into the position of another
class.
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