10. ‘Gloriosa columna in cui s’appoggia’

Glorious pillar in whom rests

our hope and the great Latin name,

that Jupiter’s anger through wind and rain

still does not twist from the true way,

who raise our intellect from earth to heaven,

not in a palace, a theatre, or arcade,

but instead in fir, beech or pine,

on the green grass and the lovely nearby mountain,

from which poetry descends and rests;

and the nightingale that laments and weeps

all night long, sweetly, in the shadows,

fills the heart with thoughts of love:

but you by departing from us my lord,

only cut off such beauty, and make it imperfect.

Note: Stefano Colonna (‘the column’) is referred to. His son Cardinal Giovanni was Petrarch’s patron, another son Giacomo was Bishop of Lombez in the Pyrenees.

‘Study for the Portrait of Stefano Colonna’ - Agnolo di Cosimo (Italian, 1503 – 1572), The Rijksmuseum