Veronese's "Allegory of Wisdom and Strength"

I

Venice, 1576.All summer the sun beats down

On the paving stones, and the city is eerily empty

And quiet. Black gondolas zigzag across

The lagoon to the lazaretto on San Erasmo,

Bringing victims from the plague-ridden city.

While discoloured festering bodies pile up

On the streets, Paolo Veronese, in his studio,

Bony faced and darkbearded, stern of mien,

Among ledgerbooks, terracotta busts and torsos,

Wax model hands, and shelves of pigment jars,

White lead, lac and massicot, smalt and cendre,

Minium, indigo, verdigris and ultramarine,-

Examines his skin in the mnring light

For the telltale stigmata,-will he live

To complete this new creation?-then begins

A grand new canvas, his hand at first hesitant

Then gathering confidence, force and speed,

Commissioned by Rudolf II of Prague himself,

So craving the mythological and the erotic,

The monumental and the minute.


O, Venice of watered silk, taffeta and brocade!

Gentlewomen linger all day in dressmakers’ shops,

Fingering satins, velevets, damasks and laces.

In tapestried palazzos, while acrobats and clowns

Sport for their pleasure, rich guests feast to the sound

Of fife and flute, and dance capellos and torcias,

And sup vernaccia and matricali flavoured

With perfumes, spiked with drugs.

Among glowing aquariums and sugar statuettes

Of the Popes, and even cutlery moulded

Out of confectionery, and the toothpick gold…

Sumptuous world that Veronese made his own!

The folds in brocade, the gold filigree of pitchers,

Sheen of pink and green on velvet gowns

All attract his prying eye and yearning hand…

Alchemist in search of the ultimate tincture,

He mixes sulphur and mercury in a crucible,

Distilling cinnabar; copper dissolved in vinegar

Crystallize verdigris; each precious pigment

Materializes, unique to its moment and mood.


II


In the Hradčany Palace, on Prague’s height,

Rudolf II, bulbous eyes in his ponderous head;

Wanders round his cabinet of curiosities,

Bewitched by the unicorn’s horn, his mind

All writhing mercurial serpents and toads,

In love with the Kabbalah of difficult art,

Ostentatious surprise made artifice supreme…

All the world’s freaks and weird toys

Cannot sate his appetite for the obscure,

Feasting on automata and flying machines...

I am damned and possessed by the Devil!-


And so, by my life’s wizardry, to square


The circle and discover the elixir!


All the secrets of nature shall be mine…

Ever more reclusive and secretive, Rdolf

Lives on hidden codes and wild flights,

The ominous end of century bearing down

On his spirit,-the heavens are in turmoil,

And numerologists trace the panic in dates

As a nova streaks across the night sky.



Rudolf dead, the Swedes storm the city

And, marauding through the corridors

Of Hradčany, marvel at the treasures,

Walls line with paintings, chabers crammed

With wondrous sculptures and artefacts.

Penetrating deeper into the castle, soe troops

Come to the Spanish Wing, where hundreds

Of the finest pictures hang, among them

Veronese’s “Allegory of Wisdom and Strength”.

Greedily the plunderers steal the works

To bring back in tribute to their queen,

Waiting impatiently back in Stockholm.



III


In Stockholm Castle, Queen Christina paces

To and fro in her chambers, avoiding

He own unlovely image in the mirror,

(Before her birth, the astrologer had predicted

A boy, and, when she emerged from he mother,

Hirsute ad in a caul, the king was told

He had a son. Even when the error was discovered

No one dared tell His Majesty the truth,

Till eventually his sister carried the infant

To him and he saw for himself, and smiled

As he held Christina in his arms-

“Well, she ought to be clever. See how easily

She deceived us all!”From that day on,

She was raised as a boy, and seldom spoke

To women, disdaining her own sex,

-Ugly Christina, cerebral and witty,

Sterling virago and king amongst kings!



The booty from Prague arrives in crates

Just as the Queen is dreaming of the south,

Her heart set on Italy and incomparable Rome.

That winter, also comes the great Descartes,

Dressed as a courtier with lace-trimmed gloves,

Eager and expecting of the celebrated queen,

All too soon disappointed in her intellect,

Finding her besotted with trivial sophistry,

While she, for her part, inatntly dislikes shim

For his ugliness and arrogance,-

How dare he disdain and contradict her!

Henceforth she scornfully neglects him,

While the arctic winter attacks his lungs

And rapidly lays him on his deathbed.



Irked by her office, Christina abdicates

And heads south, with her treasures,

Head shorn and wearing men’s garb,

Short corpulent lopsided steatopygus troll,

Big nosed and bigmouthed, with fierce blue eyes,

Whiskery double chin and manly voice…

In the Rome of morbid ecstasies and icons,

She dwells among jasmine pergolas,

Regretting lost splendours and times,

For Raphael and his ilk are no more.

As she hosts the sacra conversazione

Of scholars and artists, her paintings

Gaze down from the walls, and bless

The noble strivings of abject souls.


IV


Crimson and mirrored, ornate apartments

Of the Palais Royal in Paris, home

To Philippe II, Duke of Orleans, man of talents

Forever fighting boredom, the deadliest foe,

With the habits of scholar, soldier, and roué,

Regent without office at court, an outsider,

Taking low women as mistresses, defying

Church and society with cynical wit.

At Mass, while all around read prayerbooks

He studies a volume of Rabelais,

And, at home, conducts elite orgies,

Exploring all possible sexual combinations,

With contests to see which woman

Excels in genital pulchritude.

Here hangs “Wisdom and Strength”,

And, as the picture ages, a pentimento

Shows thorugh, painted-over billowing

Of cloth, that haunts and disfigures,

As the browning canvas exudes

A mellow golden glow…

When Philippe dies, his son Louis,

Reared as a trainee roué,

Dismisses his mistresses, cancels his orgies

And turns to religion with a vengeance;

He slashes and mutilates some

Of his precious erotic paintings

And retreats to an abbey to live

As an ascetic, sleeping on straw,

And distributng alms to the needy,

Refusing even to attend his mother’s funeral

On the grounds that “there is no such thing as death.”