“For Lady Serafina degli Aldobrandeschi de Firenze”

A Petrarchan Sonnet commissioned by Despotes Charimmos for his wife

Thou, Angel, make the Arno shuttle down its flow

Deep indigo from Appenine to Pisan seas;

T’would spool back up like sailor’s Cord if it should please

My Lady, weaver of all paths I care to know.

For Thou would each street warp, Firenze made to go

Due east by west; while, high above, the scarlet trees,

Impassioned by an autumn blush, would spin the breeze

Vermillion red, should thou, fair Seraf, wish it so.

My hopes and heartstrings wait, the weft upon thy loom;

What thy soul’s tapestry depicts, that will my love

Imbue with life. Should blinding winter follow fall,

And all my dreams confinéd be in narrow room,

Then in thy verdant glitt’ring eye, like sun above,

I find my world’s entire span without a wall.

Writing a Commission

This was the first time I had ever been asked to write a commission. Despotes Charimmos wanted to surprise his wife with poetry at Pennsic, and asked that I write something that fit closely to her persona, that of a 15th century Italian.

I knew right away that a sonnet would be the right choice for such a dedicated subject and the chivalric, dutiful love I would need to craft in the work. To avoid the heavy drum of English iambic pentameter, I chose the meter iambic hexameter to better approximate the Italian originals. But I needed more details in order to truly personalize the piece. And so, I asked Charimmos some pointed questions that would evoke imagery I could use: what his favorite thing about her was, what her favorite season was, the kinds of activities she pursues in Society. And so I got the following list:

Fall

Twinkling green eyes
Seamstress, weaver, organizer
Constant source of motivation and inspiration to do better, be better, and stay positive.

Ultimately, I decided on using the play on her name to reference her angelic nature, as well as connect her Persona's city of Firenze to her weaving, ending up with the central metaphor of the landscape of Firenze being like her cloth, her thread, her loom: in fact, as one of the heads who mapped out camps at Pennsic that year, this was an important inclusion!

I'm happy to report she was absolutely delighted with the poem, and insisted I read it multiple times the evening it was delivered to her; as was my patron, who paid me in fencing instruction.

Florence as depicted in the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle, by Hartmann Schedel. You can see the Appenine's in the background of this engraving, and the Arno river running through Florence. Although this engraving names the city "Florencia", I use its italian name "Firenze" in the piece.

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