.MTM5Ng.MTIwNzEw

unclear whobows crossed out: bends his large head - justify their unnatural postures by their gaze fixed upon the bard discovered/revealed in an attitude of inspiration: and their motions thus fixed, conform to the quill in the poet's hand, the tree which bends over him, the profile of the flocks, the trunks and bows, crossed out: and the young shoots coiling like the pruning hook, even to the crossed out: spread wings in which the pages seem [to terminate. Ut poesis pictura, we might well say,

             Here the author/owner and the consigner hovered/stood/impinged 

from close at hand. But what were my emotions, if I may be permitted a personal confession, when I found before me, in the National Gallery of London the Hilton diptych in which I seemed to recognize crossed out: see a perfect figurative equivalent, devoid of anecdotal link of the vision of Petrarch. With this single crossed out: personal subjective impression I will close this recapitulation of data and commentary from a chapter which is one of the most seductive in the history of occidental culture.