Io vidi già seder nell'arme irato, by Leon Battista Alberti

Today we read Io vidi già seder nell’arme irato, by Leon Battista Alberti. Leon Battista Alberti was one of the great architects of the Italian Renaissance, but like many humanists of the period he wore several other hats: he was a mathematician and cryptographer, a linguist, an inventor.
And most of his professional writings were in Latin, as traditional at the time. The hat we are interested in now, however, was that of poet, and in particular of poet writing in vulgar, i.e. in Italian. After writing sonnets after the manner of Petrarca, in 1441 he organized the Certame Coronario, a poetry competition for verses written in Italian on the theme of friendship. The judges, being stuck-up big-wigs that looked down on anything in the “new language,” decided that no one had deserved the prize (a silver laurel crown, hence the name), but the staging of the thing was worthy in itself. In this sonnet, Leon Battista Alberti explores the mismatch between human desire and things as they turn out, and in particular the frustrating effect of wanting something too much, and for that reason, losing it. As he pithily puts it in the last verse, troppo voler mal corrisponde: “too much willing is a bad match.” To drive the point home, the poem shows us a sequence of examples: an enraged man ready for battle, yet trembling; a lover so sorrowful that he can’t cry; someone so hungry he can’t even eat; a dog so fast that he loses his prey. The original: Io vidi già seder nell’arme irato
uomo furioso palido e tremare;
e gli occhi vidi spesso lagrimare
per troppo caldo che al core è nato.
E vidi amante troppo adolorato
poter né lagrimar né sospirare,
né raro vidi chi né pur gustare
puote alcun cibo ov’è troppo affamato.
E vela vidi volar sopra l’onde,
qual troppo vento la summerse e affisse;
e veltra vidi, a cui par l’aura ceda,
per troppo esser veloce perder preda.
Così tal forza in noi natura immisse,
a cui troppo voler mal corrisponde.\ The music in this episode is Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in G minor (Christmas Concerto), Op. 6, No. 8, played by the Advent Chamber Orchestra (licensed under Creative Commons).