CANTO IX
In a Europe not YET rotted by usury, but outside the then system, and pretty much against the power that was, and in any case without great material resources, Sigismundo cut his notch. He registered a state of mind, of sensibility, of all-roundness and awareness.
He had a little of the best there in Rimini. He had perhaps Zuan Bellin’s best bit of painting. He had all he cd. get of Pier della Francesca. Federigo Urbino was his Amy Lowell, Federigo with more wealth got the seconds. The Tempio was stopped by a fluke? or Sigismundo had the flair when to stop it? You get civilization in the seals. I mean it was carried down and out into details. The little wafer of wax between the sheets of letter paper in Modena is, culturally, level with the Medallions. The Young Salustio is there in the wax as Isotta and Sigismundo in the bronze discs of Pisanello. Intaglio existed. Painting existed. The medal has never been higher. All that a single man could, Malatesta managed against the current of power.
Ezra Pound. Guide to Kulchur 159.
RELATED CANTOS
CANTO XLV [artists at the Tempio Malatestiano]
