“Seeing Foreign Parts” 1638–1639Milton would have had letters of introduction from his Florentine friends to
some of the Roman literati, whom he characterizes as “men endowed with both
learning and wit” (CPW IV.1, 618), and through them he could have had entrée to
Roman academies devoted to literature, eloquence, and poetry. It is quite likely
that he attended meetings of the Fantastici, since he received an astonishingly lauda-
tory epigram from one of its members, Giovanni Salzilli, a lyric poet of some repute
whose poems had appeared the previous year in a volume of verse by that acad-
emy’s members.^33 I think it somewhat more likely that Salzilli’s tribute was pre-
sented on Milton’s first visit to Rome rather than on his return visit, since he is
likely to have sought connections with Roman academies at once, having so en-
joyed the academies in Florence. Salzilli’s tribute suggests that Milton had made
some display of his poetry in Latin, Greek, and Italian and that he had spoken about
his intentions to write epic. Milton published it among the several commendations
prefacing the Latin section of his 1645 Poems:
To John Milton, Englishman, who deserves to be Crowned with the Triple Laurel
wreath of Poetry, Greek certainly, Latin, and Tuscan, an Epigram by Joannes Salsillus,
Roman.Yield Meles, let Mincius yield with lowered urn;
Let Sebetus cease to speak constantly of Tasso.
But let the victorious Thames carry his waves higher than all the rest
For through you, Milton, he alone will be equal to all three.^34Milton responded to Salzilli’s florid epigram with a 41-line Latin verse epistle Ad
Salzillum, “Scazons addressed to Salzilli, a Roman poet, when he was ill.”^35 He
acknowledges with a polite disclaimer (l. 8) Salzilli’s hyperbolic praises that “quite
undeservedly... ranks me above great and divine poets” – Homer, Virgil, and
Tasso – but his deft allusions to Greek, Latin, and contemporary Italian poems
intimate that he might indeed merit such praise. Chiefly, however, the poem la-
ments Salzilli’s desperate illness and expresses Milton’s hopes for his recovery.^36 His
metrical choice is a witty gesture to Salzilli’s illness – scazons, a halting or “limping”
meter created by substituting a spondee or trochee for the final foot, departing from
the iambic norm.^37 The poem alludes to many myths associated with Rome –
Faunus, Evander, Numa, Portumnus, and especially the river Tiber – and those
allusions forge complex links with Salzilli’s own poems, after the manner of learned
civility honored in the academies. It also exhibits the etymological word-play the
academicians so much enjoyed.^38
The poem revisits some themes of Lycidas, posing alternatives. Both poems are
concerned with the danger to poets from nature, set over against the power of their
art to control nature. Here the problem is posed through Salzilli, whose wasted
body may indicate a mortal illness, even though he writes elegant Greek lyrics in