He borrows no illustrations from external nature.

The beauty of the world and all that lives in it might have been non-existent so far as he was concerned.

Nor do his octave stanzas in praise of rural life form an exception to this statement; for these are imitated from Poliziano, so far as they attempt pictures of the country, and their chief poetical feature is the masque of vices belonging to human nature in the city.

His stock-in-trade consists of a few Platonic notions and a few Petrarchan antitheses.

In the very large number of compositions which are devoted to love, this one idea predominates: that physical beauty is a direct beam sent from the eternal source of all reality, in order to elevate the lover's soul and lead him on the upward path toward heaven.