Part 1 — CHAPTER VI. (continued 2)

Hanc, o cœlicolæ magni, concedite vitam! Sic mihi delicias, sic blandimenta laborum, Sic faciles date semper opes; hac improba sunto Vota tenus. Nunquam certe, nunquam ilia precabor, Splendeat ut rutilo frons invidiosa galero, Tergeminaque gravis surgat mihi mitra corona.

That is the heart-felt prayer of Poliziano. Give me the tranquil scholar's life among the pleasures of the fields; my books for serious thought in studious hours; the woods and fields for recreation; with moderate wealth well-gotten without toil; no bishop's miter or triple tiara to vex my brows. It is the same ideal as Alberti's. From this background of the modest rural life emerge three splendid visions—the Golden Age, when all was plenitude and peace; Orpheus of the dulcet lyre, evoking harmony from discord in man's jarring life; and Venus rising from the waves to bless the world with beauty felt through art. Such was the programme of human life sketched by the representative mind of his century, in an age when the Italians were summoned to do battle with France, Germany and Spain invasive of their borders.

Poliziano died before the great catastrophe. He sank at the meridian of his fame, in the same month nearly as Pico, two years later than Lorenzo, a little earlier than Ficino, in the year 1494, so fatal to his country, the date that marks the boundary between two ages in Italian history.