LITERATI AT MY STUDIO, AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON MY WORK—CALAMATTA'S OPINION OF TENERANI, OF BARTOLINI, AND OF MYSELF—HIS DEFENCE OF MY ABEL IN PARIS—PIUS II.—ACADEMICIANS AND "NATURALISTI"—LUIGI VENTURI—PRINCE ANATOLIA DEMIDOFF AND THE PRINCESS MATILDE—THE STATUETTE IN CLAY OF THE PRINCESS MATILDE IS DESTROYED—OUR MINISTER NIGRA PRESENTS ME TO THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON III.—BEAUTY DOES NOT EXIST OUTSIDE OF NATURE—PRAISE PUTS ONE TO SLEEP—THE INCOHERENCE OF BARTOLINI.

M My studio, as I think I have already said, was the resort of many of the literary men of the time—Giusti, Thouar, Montazio, La Farina, F. S. Orlandini, Enrico Mayer, Girolamo Gargiolli, Giovanni Chiarini, Filippo MoisÈ, and sometimes, but rarely, G. B. Niccolini, Atto Vannucci, and Giuseppe Arcangeli. These distinguished men, all talking with me, and bringing forward their theories of Art, somewhat confused me in my ideas. I said, at the very beginning of these memoirs—and the reader, I hope, keeps it in mind—that I had received no education, and my judgment was not trained to discern and distinguish the laws of the beautiful, which, the more deeply one studies them, the more they scatter, and seem, as it were, to fly from us. I was attracted to Art by a purely natural sentiment, which I sought to express by a simple imitation of nature; and so far, I think I was right, for whatever other path we may take, supported however it may be by philosophic and Æsthetic reasons, it will prove utterly fallacious unless it lead to this end, of imitating the beautiful in nature, and will surely lead astray the young artist, even though he has a good natural talent and a lively fancy.

Yes, sir; my poor head was perplexed, and I began to distrust nature, with its imperfections and its vulgarity. The warm and imaginative utterances of La Farina made all the words of Niccolini seem colourless to me, for though given with antique beauty, they came from him with difficulty. The pure and touching morality of Thouar conflicted with the humoristic and cynical freedom of Montazio. Giusti, who might have set me right in my opinions, kept at a distance without giving a reason why; and in this he was wrong, for I should have given heed to him. But he contented himself with writing to the advocate Galeotti, telling him that I was surrounded by a number of fops who spoiled me, and that if I did not shut myself up in my studio, as I did when I made the Abel, I should not succeed in making anything good. This outburst of Giusti's I only knew many years afterwards, on the publication of his letters.

I remember one day, when Giusti was with me, I recited from memory the canto in the 'Inferno' relating to Francesca, but when I came to this passage—

he interrupted me, saying, "You recite well and intelligently the verses of the divine poet; but you, too, fall into the error into which so many have fallen—copyists, printers, and commentators—that of placing the semicolon at the end of the line, after the word portate, instead of putting it in the middle of the line, after the word aere. This punctuation makes Dante guilty of a blunder, he attributing to the doves, besides desire, which is most proper, also will, which belongs properly to man. Try and place the comma and the pause after the word aere, and you will see what a stupendous philosophical value it gives to the verses. Listen; I will repeat them to you:—

This correction, so clear, so easy, so just, satisfied me immediately, and from that day I have always recited these lines in this way. The unintelligent did not perceive the change of sense, but those who were more attentive and refined gave me praise for it; but I rejected it at once as belonging to me, saying that the correction was due to Giuseppe Giusti.[6]

In making my Giotto, I followed my inspiration by drawing upon nature for that type of rude good-nature which constituted the outward character of my statue; and although some of my literary friends, who were more attached to the antique and the so-called bello ideale, blamed me, and some artists of distinction opposed me openly, I firmly adhered to the sound principle of imitating nature. The Giotto was finished without a moment's indecision, although, as I have said, I had been revolving over and over again in my mind the conception of a beauty ideal and beyond nature, but which, without great judgment, becomes conventional.

About this time a controversy occurred between me and a great artist which it may be well to speak of here, because, although it will show how tenacious I was of this principle of imitating nature, yet it will also show how much I was affected by it, and how the acerbity of this artist produced a change in me, which certainly he did not desire. His fear was lest I should fall into a servile copying of life; and had his language been more measured, we should easily have understood each other. But he took a different course, and I now proceed to give the history of this controversy.

I had a short time previously completed my model of Giotto, and, as I have said, some among the artists most tenacious of the classic rules attacked me sharply, but Bartolini defended me. I was therefore somewhat irritated when Calamatta, accompanied by Signor Floridi, the draughtsman, came to my studio. He came in with a magisterial and rather arrogant air. I received him politely and with respectful words, such as became me towards the author of the famous mask of Napoleon I. He looked at "Abel" and "Cain" without opening his mouth, and as if he found in them nothing either to praise or to blame; but when he came to the "Giotto," he said, "I have heard a good deal of talk about you, in which you have been lauded to the skies, and I wished to come and ascertain with my own eyes whether you were entitled to your fame; and I confess to you, though what I shall say may seem bitter to you, that in the presence of your works your fame disappears; and if it be permitted to me to make a comparison, I should say that you produce the same effect upon me as if I saw a balloon inflated with gas rising majestically in the air, and which, after arriving at a certain height, bursts, and afterwards leaves nothing to be seen." I answered that such things might be thought, and even spoken, but a little more graciously, and I said no more. Calamatta rejoined, with some irritation, that he was a person who could not endure the ugly—that it was his instinct to denounce it with the same vivacity and earnestness that one does when there is a cry of fire, and some place is in flames. I began then to lose my patience: still I only contented myself with asking whether he was quite sure that there was a conflagration, and whether he was absolutely called upon to extinguish it; and finally, added that Bartolini, Tenerani, and others had seen my works, and had spoken of them in very different terms. This only more irritated poor Calamatta, and he said that he had just come from Paris, and had visited Tenerani at Rome, and his insipid and hard mysticism had seemed pitiable to him; and that, on coming to Florence, he had found in Bartolini the most filthy and offensive realism, carried to the point of proclaiming the beauty of deformity, and that in response to his just criticisms upon the injury that he was thus doing to the true principles of Art, Bartolini had advised him to come to my studio and see the application of those principles which he censured,—and now, after examining my works, he perceived that I was sliding down a steep declivity, which would soon precipitate me into naturalism and deformity, and though he recognised in me a certain talent, he warned me to avoid that false school and those insidious precepts, and more than all, to be on my guard against treacherous and lying praises. All this was very fine, if it were granted that I was on a false road. But as I did not think so then, and still less now,—and besides, as I was young, flattered, and praised, and those words of his, "that I should be on my guard against insidious precepts and treacherous praises," seemed to me a very unjust accusation against Bartolini,—I indicated to him that I should be glad if he would leave me in peace, and in fact, as he had declared my works to be ugly, and of an ugliness that he abhorred, he was not in his proper place here; and as to his counsel, not having asked for it, I should not take the trouble to consider it. Poor Calamatta was angry at this, and taking by the hand Floridi, who during the whole squabble was on thorns, he said, "Let us go away; let us go away; let us go away"—and away he went.

Poor Calamatta, my illustrious friend. If any one had said on that day, when we separated with such unpleasant feelings, and on my part with so little kindness, "The time will come, and soon, when he will be your most open defender and friend," I would not have believed him, and I should not have wished to believe him,—and yet it so turned out. In 1855, eleven years after our disagreement, he was in Paris, and on the Jury of the Fine Arts at the World's Exhibition. I had sent a model of the "Abel" in plaster, and among the jury the doubt arose whether it was not cast from life. As in Florence that opinion was originated out of evil-mindedness, so it was repeated in Paris from speciousness, and heedlessness of judgment. Calamatta, whom I had not seen since that famous day, although he frequently returned to Florence, undertook to defend my work with sound reasoning and friendly warmth, but he did not succeed in convincing the entire body of the jury of their error of judgment; and in assigning the prizes, out of mere regard for Calamatta they gave to "Abel" one of the last. Calamatta then rose and said, "Gentlemen, our judgment of this work must not be given in this way. I have endeavoured to show you by artistic reasoning that this statue is really modelled in clay, in imitation of beautiful nature. I have pointed out that certain imperfections which are always found in nature have been wisely avoided by the artist. I have shown you clear proofs of modelling in the mode of working the clay. I thought that I had convinced you that so noble and refined a whole is rather the creation of the mind, through a studious and loving imitation of parts, than a mechanical reproduction by casting; and finally, I have demonstrated, and you have conceded to me, that the head is of equal merit with all the rest of the body, and this could not have been cast from life. From these considerations, which arise from the examination of the work itself, and without regard to the artist, whom I have only once met in Florence, and who is, I believe, inimical to me, I am of opinion that your judgment of this work should be reconsidered, and if it seems to you to be proved that this statue is a cast from nature and not modelled, and in consequence a falsification and not a work of art, you ought not to adjudge to it even the lowest prize, but to exclude it entirely from the Exhibition, and in so doing you should give your reasons for such a decision in writing, and under your signatures,—and in such case I shall retire from the Jury of Fine Arts, and shall publish in the journals of Paris my reasons for withdrawing." After this discourse there arose an exceedingly animated discussion, and the President decided that a new examination of the model should be made; and as many were convinced by the good reasons put forward by Calamatta, the second examination of "Abel" resulted in a complete success, and at the next voting the golden medal of the First Class was awarded to me. The news of this, derived directly from Calamatta himself, was sent to me at once by Rossini, who had conceived a strong affection for me, and honoured me with his friendship.

I now return to the point where I left off. After Giotto I began Pius II.; and filled as my head was by the criticism of the academicians, the eulogies of the naturalisti, the contempt of some to whom the subject was displeasing, and more than all by the exceptional character of the studies I had made for this work, I began it unwillingly, and strove (strangely enough) to conciliate the academicians, copying from the life with timidity, where boldness and fidelity were required—boldness, that is to say, in accepting frankly the stiff paper-like folds of the pontifical mantle, and fidelity in copying them. In consequence I made a washed-out work, and I pleased neither one party nor the other, and much less myself. I make this statement so that young men may be on their guard against allowing themselves to stray from the true path, which is this—viz., to embody the subject in its appropriate form by the imitation of living nature, to strive for truth of character in the general action and in all the particulars, and in proportion as the subject is historical and natural, as in portraiture, to adhere all the more closely to nature. In such a case as this statue of Pius II., it is necessary to be naturalistic—avoiding, of course, all minutiÆ which add nothing to the beauty of general effect and the truth of character.

Has it ever happened to you, courteous reader, to meet a person with whom your personal relations brought you often in contact, and who, reserved and serious by nature as well as on account of his social position, differed from you, who are perhaps too vivacious and open; and on the one side you feared to displease him by your vivacity, and on the other you were annoyed by his reserve? In such a case, if certain allowance be made on both sides—as far as you are concerned by listening with attentive deference to his wise counsels, austere maxims, and high principles, and on his part by an indulgent consideration for your free and vivacious nature—has it not happened to you that insensibly and firmly a harmony of relation has established itself which it is difficult to break,—and this for the undeniable, however recondite reason, that there is a sympathy between entirely different natures which causes each to compensate for the other?

In like manner as this may have happened to you, so it happened to me with Luigi Venturi, then private secretary of his Royal and Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Leopold II. He often came to my studio by order of the Grand Duke, for whom I was making a statuette of Dante and another of Beatrice. He took a liking to me, which I have returned sincerely, even till to-day; and he is the oldest and most affectionate of my friends. After the revolution of '59, with the loss of his high position he lost also a great portion of such friends as come with Fortune and flee with her. But neither the ingratitude of some nor the fickleness of others ever drew from him a lament. He was contented with those who remained, and I was one of them. Our long and intimate connection has at last harmonised our characters,—he making me more temperate, and I (as I dare to hope) making him more open and vivacious. His friendship, as well as that of others of whom I shall speak in the proper place, has strengthened my judgment and tempered my fancies. Trustworthy, honest, and sincere friends are a great fortune—and I have had such, and have kept them. To distinguish the good from the bad requires study, and we must learn how to get rid of chatterers and adulators.

And this warning I feel it my duty to give to young artists, for whom these memoirs are specially written. I have already said, in speaking of models, "Girls unaccompanied as models, no!" now I add, "Nor even married women without the express consent of their husbands." Here is a little incident which may serve as a lesson.

Prince Anatolio Demidoff often came to my studio. He gave vent to his annoyance at the delays and the infinite difficulties interposed by Bartolini in completing the groups and statues of the monument ordered by him in honour of the memory of his dead father. To listen to the Prince, he seemed to have a thousand good reasons; but the consequences he drew from them, and the bold, unjust measures which he proposed, I could not but think blameworthy, and I strove in every way to moderate him, and to dissuade him from carrying out his intentions. My frank and loyal defence of Bartolini, so far from exasperating him, as often happened when he was opposed, made him more kindly towards me, and he proposed to order of me a great work worthy, as he was pleased to say, of my genius. He had a thousand projects, and among them he spoke to me of a colossal statue of Napoleon I. He was at that time tenderly inclined toward the Bonaparte family. His pride in being connected with it, as well as the charms of the beautiful Princess, his wife, were in great measure the cause of this enthusiasm. He treated me with great kindness, invited me often to dinner and to his evening receptions, and talked very freely with me in regard to works that he wished me to make for him.

About this time the Princess came one day to my studio, and told me that she wished me to make her portrait—not merely a bust, but the whole figure, almost half the size of life. I answered that I should like much to make it, for I was persuaded that it would give the Prince pleasure; but she hastened to say that the Prince must know nothing about it. I had not sufficient presence of mind to reply that without his consent I could not undertake it—and I was wrong, I confess: but the Princess stood before me blandly insisting; and overcome by the beauty of the model, I agreed to make it and keep it a secret from the Prince. She gave me a number of sittings, and I was going on satisfactorily with the statuette, and had already a good likeness, when unexpectedly the Prince came one day to see me, and after exchanging a few words and taking a turn through the room, he stopped before the modelling-stand, on which was the clay of the statuette covered with wet cloths, and said—

"And what have you got here?"

"Nothing, your Excellency—nothing."

"Let me see what there is under here."

"But there is nothing; it is only a mass of infirm clay, and is not in a state to show."

"Let us see, my friend,—I am extremely curious." And so saying he lifted up the cloths, looked at it, and then said seriously, "Very good—very like;" and then in a sharp tone added, "And who has ordered this?"

"Listen, Signor Principe. The Princess has ordered this statuette of me, for I see that you recognise it as her portrait—and she ordered me to show it to no one, not even to you, Signor Principe; for I believe she wished to give you a surprise, and to present it to you when it should be finished in marble."

He answered, "The Princess has done wrong in ordering her portrait without my consent, and you have done wrong in complying with her request. I do not like these surprises, and when the Princess returns for a sitting you must request her to go about her business; and you may tell her that you do this by my order. And besides—and this I say particularly to you—destroy this work, and think no more about it."

I felt that the Prince was right, but to throw down this work was a bitter pain to me; and besides, I was unwilling to displease the Princess, who so earnestly desired to have this statuette, and who had already expressed her satisfaction with it. My face must have been very expressive at that moment, for the Prince, taking my hands in his, said—

"My dear DuprÈ, I understand your embarrassment and annoyance, but it is necessary that this should be done. I do not like, and I will not have this sort of thing, and I like still less this way of doing it. Do you understand? A portrait of the Princess, or even a statue of her, would be a charming possession, and I should particularly like one by you. I have already a beautiful statue of Madame Letizia by Canova, and this of my wife would make an admirable pendant; but I repeat that this way of doing it does not please me, and though I may seem harsh, I again say to you—Destroy this statuette, and let us say no more about it."

While he was speaking I thought to myself—This statuette and portrait of his wife he does not wish to have, but rather wishes to have a statue of her of life size; and so much the better. And then, considering that he had said he did not like the way in which it was done, I perceived, as I ought from the first to have perceived, that he objected to the Princess coming to my studio to sit, and I answered—

"You shall be obeyed. To-morrow the Princess is to return to give me a sitting, and I will tell her all, and this clay shall go back into the tank. But I hope that you will not forget that you have spoken of a life-size statue of the Princess; and as this work would require considerable time, and it might be more convenient to her that I should model it in your own palace, I could——"

He did not let me finish my sentence, but, embracing me warmly and kissing me, said—

"Thanks, dear DuprÈ, that is right. That is what pleases me, and that is the way it shall be done. And now, addio." And pressing my hand, he departed.

The day after, at one o'clock, the usual hour, the Princess arrived, gay and laughing, as usual; and after giving a glance at herself in the mirror, and arranging a little her hair, she seated herself and said—

"I am ready."

I had not as yet thrown down the statuette. There it stood uncovered, just as the Prince had left it the day before.

"I am very sorry, Signora Principessa," I began, "to give you some bad news. The Prince was here yesterday."

"I hope you did not allow him to see this portrait?"

"Yes, he has seen it—he has seen it, Signora Principessa. It was useless to try to conceal it from him, and I did wrong to endeavour to do so, for he was perfectly aware of its existence when he came here. He must have been exactly informed about it; and so sure was he that I was making your portrait, that he planted himself here precisely before the modelling-stand, and seeing that I was unwilling to uncover it, he uncovered it himself without any ceremony. He told me that I did wrong to begin the work, and that I must not go on with it, and, in fact, he has expressly ordered me to destroy it and throw it down."

While I was thus speaking she stood disquieted and frowning, and then said that it was unjust, absurd, and ridiculous, and that I must not give heed to him, but that she should stay, and I must go on with the portrait. After a while, however, she grew calmer, and decided to go away; and this was well. But she did not give up the matter, and the day after, she wrote to me to say that she should return to give me more sittings. I had not yet thrown down the clay, not only on account of my natural unwillingness to do so, which is excusable, but also because of the advice of Prince Jerome, the brother of the Princess Matilde, who insisted that the Prince could not pretend to anything more than that the work should be suspended. But of this I was a safer and better advised judge than he, and well knew that a husband is the legitimate master of his own wife, and of any portrait of her. But I repeat, I allowed the statuette to remain because I disliked to destroy it. The Princess did not return as she had promised, and wrote again to me to expect her another day. This went on for some time; and finally, when I saw her again, she told me that she was going to Paris with the Prince, and that on her return we must go on, and if the Prince persisted in his ideas, she would recompense me for the work I had done on it.

In fact, she went to Paris with the Prince, and there she remained; while he, recalled by the Emperor Nicholas of Russia, went to St Petersburg, where he found that a decree of divorce had been demanded by the Princess and signed by the Emperor. The Prince gave me nothing further to do, except some slight things which are scarcely worth mentioning, and the Princess entirely forgot her promise. And as I am now on this matter, and in order to make an end of it, let me leap over eleven years, and say that, having exhibited in Paris at the Exposition of 1855, besides the model in plaster of the Abel (as I have before narrated), a reproduction in small of this statue in marble, which I desired to sell, I wrote to the Princess asking her to purchase it. This I did to remind her indirectly of her promise to recompense me for the labour I had given to her statuette, but she never answered. I now make another leap over twelve years more. In the Exposition Universelle at Paris in 1867, I was one of the Italian Jury on Sculpture; and one evening, at a reception at the Tuilleries, I was presented by our minister Nigra to the Emperor, who had on his arm the Princess Matilde. As soon as she saw me she said, "We have known each other a long time;" but I, remembering how she had treated me, pretended to have no remembrance of her. And the Emperor looked at me through his sleepy eyes, and must have thought me either remarkably forgetful or a great fool. The Princess, naturally, never deigned to give me another look.

And now again I return to my works. After Pius II., I put up a figure of life-size representing Innocence. This was ordered of me by Signor Tommasi of Leghorn; but later, with my full consent, it remained on my hands, and was bought by Prince Constantine of Russia. I have determined not to judge my own works, though here and there I may give a little hint; but in order that these memoirs may be of some use, it is well that I should indicate the spirit of the principles which guided me in my work. I have said that my faith in the pure imitation of nature was somewhat shaken by the criticisms of my Giotto as being too naturalistic. Some reasonings by my friends, and above all, certain articles by Giuseppe Arcangeli in the 'Rivista, Sul Bello Ideale,' as well as the compliments and eulogies of my statue of Innocence by Borghi, finally persuaded me that there does exist a bello ideale impossible to find in nature, and this beauty should be arrived at by an imitation of the antique, and by the aid of memory.

Nothing is more dangerous than this theory. Beauty is scattered over universal nature. The artist born to feel and perceive this beauty (which is the object of art) has his mind and heart always exercised in seeking it out and expressing it. He discerns in nature one or more living forms that in some degree approximate to the type he has in his mind, and the reality of these, by strengthening his ideals, enables him to work the latter properly out. The artist who is without his ideal, and forces himself to find it outside of nature, torturing his memory with what he has seen or studied in the works of others, makes but a cold and conventional work. The animating spark, the heat, the life, does not inform his work, for he is not the father, but only the stepfather of his children. To this school belong the imitators—that is, the timid friends of nature.

On the other side, but in much greater numbers and with much greater petulance, are the naturalisti, who despise every kind of ideality, and especially despise it because they have it not. Neither is their heart warmed by strong and sweet affections, nor do they with their eyes or their mind seize, among the multiform shapes of nature, a type, a movement, or an expression which, assiduously pursued, awakens and fecundates the idea within them. The first ruffian or harlot of the streets taken by evil chance suffices for them, and they delight to drag this noble art of ours through filth and ugliness.

Each of these extremes I have sought to avoid. But it is none the less true that, at the period to which I have arrived in my narrative, I was carried a little away, by the discourses and writings of literary men and critics of Art, on the road that leads to the conventional and academic. This bad influence weakened my faith in nature and my courage in my work. And the Pius II., the Innocence, and the Purity are, so to speak, the mirrors in which are reflected my want of faith, uncertainty, and weakness of mind during these three years of artistic irresolution. In seeking after the perfect I lost the little good that my genius had produced in my first years, uninfluenced by all these discussions, and what is of more importance, by all eulogies both of good and of bad alloy. Yes, also of bad alloy. The young artist should take heed of all the praise that he receives. He should hold it in suspicion, and weigh it, and make a large deduction. Eulogy is like a perfume, grateful to the sense, but it is better to inhale it but little, little, little, because it goes to the head, lulls us to sleep, and sometimes intoxicates us and bewilders us so that we lose our compass. One must be prudent. Flowers of too strong an odour must be kept outside the room. Air is necessary—air. I hope that these words will fall into the ear of some to whom they may do good—I mean, of those who not only sniff up praise with eagerness, but are discontented because they do not think it sufficient, and who re-read it and talk of it with others so as to prolong their pleasure, and preserve all the papers and writings which speak of them, without perceiving that this is all vanity and pettiness of heart.

For the rest, it is very easy to see how one may vaccilate, and even fall; and on this account I deem it my duty, for the love that I bear to young men, to put them on their guard against the blandishments of praise. Imagine, dear reader, an inexperienced youth of spirit and lively fancy, who in his first essays in Art finds it said and written of him that he has surpassed all others, has begun where others ended, that he is born perhaps to outdo the Greeks with his chisel, that Michael Angelo must descend from the pedestal he has occupied for centuries, and other similar stuff—more than this, expose him to the envy of the MÆviis, and those light and inconsiderate flatteries, which are all the more dangerous when made attractive by courtesy and refinement of expression,—and you will have the secret of his vaccilations, even if with God's help he is not led utterly astray.

At this most trying time of my life the peace of my family was somewhat disturbed by these influences. My wife was disquieted because I had prevented her from carrying on her occupation. Our daily necessities increased with the growth of our children. Then there were requirements and troubles on account of my father, thoughts about my sister, as well as my brother, who wished to become a rougher-out in marble, and who brought to my studio very little aptitude united with great pretensions on the score of being my brother. All these annoyances were partly confided to my friend Venturi, to whom I poured out all my mind; and he with wise and kindly words consoled me.

Not the least affliction to me was Bartolini's unconcealed animosity, of which I had a new proof in a fact which it is here the place to narrate. I hope that the reader will remember that I made, while in the studio of Sani, a little crucifix which the Signor Emanuel Fenzi bought for the chamber of his son Orazio, who married the noble Lady Emilia of the Counts Delia Gherardesca. About this time Signor Emanuel desired to make my acquaintance, and having become intimate with me, wished to have me often with him. Thus he discovered that this crucifix he had bought of Sani was my work, and I cannot say how much this delighted him. To his dinners and conversazioni, which were frequented by many foreigners as well as Italians, Bartolini often came; but he was never willing to renew his relations with me, although my bearing towards him was that of the most affectionate consideration. As long as this unwillingness was concealed or perceived by few, I bore it quietly; but it happened that it was soon openly exhibited. One evening after dinner the salon of Signor Fenzi was filled with guests, and gay with all sorts of talk. Soon, as was natural, the conversation fell upon Art; and Bartolini, who was an easy and clever talker, affirmed that the arts were in decadence, for various reasons: first, because of the want of enthusiasm and faith among the lower and upper classes, both of whom were sleeping in a dolce far niente; and second, because the artists had abandoned the right road of imitation of beautiful nature, and were pursuing with panting breath a chimerical beauty, which they called a bello ideale; and last, because the vices of both had usurped the place of the virtues of our ancestors, and luxury, apathy, and avarice had drawn out of our beautiful country activity, temperance, modesty, and liberality,—and he illustrated this by various instances of ancient temperance and modesty. While Bartolini was speaking, Signor Fenzi went into the chamber of the Cavaliere Orazio and brought out the "Christ," which, by reason of the long time that it had been executed, and perhaps of the kisses of the pious Signora Emilia, had an antique look, and showing it to the maestro, said—

"Look at this work."

After examining it, he said, "The proof that our artists of old were as able as they were modest can be seen in this work. The artist who made it, and who probably was only an intagliatore, would have been able to make a statue such as perhaps no one to-day could."

At this Fenzi replied, with a smile, "Excuse me, but you are in error. This is a modern work, and there is the artist who made it," pointing me out, who was just coming in at that moment.

Bartolini laid down the "Christ," spoke not a word more, and did not deign even to look at me, although he had praised the work. This did not seem just, either to Fenzi or to any of the persons there present.