“Seeing Foreign Parts” 1638–1639epigram (10 lines) invites pairing in some respects with Milton’s little ode, At a
Solemn Music, which celebrates voice and verse as “Sphear-born” Neoplatonic si-
rens that elevate the soul to heaven. This epigram makes Leonora’s song a vehicle
for God’s voice which, either directly or through some Neoplatonic “Third Mind”
(“mens tertia”) teaches “mortal hearers how they may gradually become accus-
tomed to immortal tones.” Milton goes well beyond conventional hyperbole in
associating Leonora’s voice with that of God himself: “the music of your voice itself
bespeaks the presence of God /... In you alone he speaks and possesses all His
other creatures in silence.”^70 The second epigram (12 lines) recalls Leonora d’Este
for whose love Tasso ran mad, opposing her to this Leonora, whose harmonious
song would have cured Tasso’s rages, brought “peace into his diseased breast,” and
restored him to himself. The third epigram (8 lines) also looks back to At a Solemn
Music, constructing Leonora as another kind of siren – Parthenope – whose haunt-
ing voice casts spells on mariners. The Neapolitans, foolishly supposing her dead,
honored Parthenope with a splendid monument, but that siren is in fact Leonora,
who has left Naples for Rome and now “lays the spell of her song upon both men
and gods.”
Probably in early March Milton returned to Florence, where he remained an-
other two months, meeting his friends again and attending meetings of the acad-
emies – more frequently than before, it seems. On March 7/17, records of the
Svogliati list him among those who “brought and read some noble Latin verses.”^71
At another meeting of that academy on March 14/24 Buonmattei expounded a
chapter of the Ethics, then “an elegy and a sonnet were recited by Signor Cavalcanti,
various Tuscan poems [were recited] by Signors Bartolommei, Buonmattei, and
Doni, who read a scene from his tragedy, and various Latin poems [were read] by
Signor Milton, and an epigram by Signor Girolami” (LR I, 409). Milton may have
read his recently composed epigrams to Leonora or the tribute to Manso. On March
21/31 he again attended a Svogliati meeting, though not as a contributor (LR I,
414). He attempted to carry out Holste’s commission to copy a manuscript in the
Laurentian library, but learned that library rules would not allow it, and in his letter
of March 19/29 to Holste he suggested another expedient.^72
Returning to Florence after three months’ travel was like coming home: he
found “friends who were as anxious to see me as if it were my native land to which
I had returned” (CPW IV.1, 619). It was during this second visit that he probably
received the tributes of Dati and Francini^73 that he later included among the com-
mendations to the Latin/Greek section of his 1645 Poems; in the Epitaphium Damonis
(line l37) he mentions them as the two friends who made his name known in Italy.
While hyperbole is common in such encomia, the specific terms suggest what the
Italian academicians, especially the youthful ones, found attractive in Milton: his
wide learning, his skill in several languages (especially the Tuscan dialect), his
highminded virtue, and his lofty poetic aspirations. The warmth of their praise
indicates that they liked him and found him amiable, sociable, and eager for new