77. ‘Per mirar Policleto a prova fiso’

Polyclitus gazing fixedly a thousand years

with the others who were famous in his art,

would not have seen the least part

of the beauty that has vanquished my heart.

But Simone must have been in Paradise

(from where this gentle lady came)

saw her there, and portrayed her in paint,

to give us proof here of such loveliness.

This work is truly one of those that might

be conceived in heaven, not among us here,

where we have bodies that conceal the soul.

Grace made it: he could work on it no further

when he’d descended to our heat and cold,

where his eyes had only mortal seeing.

Note: Polyclitus was the Greek artist of the fifth century BC. Simone Martini the Sienese painter (1283-1344) was a friend of Petrarch and painted a (lost) portrait of Laura to which this poem refers.

‘Saint John the Evangelist’ - Lippo Memmi, workshop of Simone Martini (Italian, 1284 - 1344), The Yale University Art Gallery