The Duchess of Trajetto Part 8

"I grant it; but the eye of an intelligent, a refined person, is not pleased by that which offends the mind."

"I thought you Venetians cared more for colour than for drawing or expression."

"I did so as long as I was a pupil of Giorgione's. But when I came to Rome, Michael Angelo showed me where I was wrong. He said, 'It is a pity you Venetians do not learn to draw better in your youth, and adopt a better manner of study.' I took the hint, and drew diligently from the living model. But even this did not content him. 'You neglect the ideal beauty of form,' said he, 'and propriety of expression,' I treasured this hint, too. I said to him, 'If you would condescend to unite our colouring to your drawing, you would be--what, after all, you are already--such a master as the world ne'er saw,' 'That may not be,' said he, half-smiling; 'you might as well try to graft a rose on an oak: but if _you_, my son, would unite good drawing to your colouring, you might distance Raffaelle.' And, taking up a piece of pipeclay, he sketched out a Lazarus, and splashed in the colour. I do not altogether like it, the action is too violent, and he has made him as black as your Moorish girl; but still it is a grand thing--a very grand thing--the action of the toe, trying to disentangle the bandage of the left leg, is wonderfully original. I have tried to paint all the rest of my picture up to it. A little more to the right, Signora!"

"Cardinal Ippolito told me that picture of yours was very grand," said the d.u.c.h.ess. "He especially admired the different expressions of the two sisters. But he thought the figure of the Saviour too small."

"----Well," said Sebastian, after drawing for a few minutes in silence, "perfect proportion always gives the idea of smallness. The figure was on the same scale with the rest, till Michael Angelo put in his great Lazarus: and you know I could not re-touch the master's work."

"Michael Angelo writes to me sometimes," observed the d.u.c.h.ess, "but he is a better correspondent of my cousin, Vittoria Colonna."

Sebastian worked a little while in silence, and then said:

"Is not the Marchioness somewhat tinctured with the new opinions?"

"Yes," said Giulia, "I am afraid she is. That's the worst of being too clever."

"Is it a proof of being so?"

"Well, clever people are apt to run after new things."

"Perhaps they see more in them than the less clever do."

"They think they do, at any rate."

"Has your ladyship looked yet into the works of the Prince of Carpi?"

"Do you mean the great heavy books you brought me from the Cardinal?

No."

"They contain a masterly refutation of the heresies of Erasmus. The Cardinal thought they might confirm you in the faith."

"I am happy to say my faith wants no confirming. I would rather have had some novels. You may tell him so, if he says anything to you about it.... Have you read the books yourself?"

"I have looked into them."

"Have you read Erasmus's books?"

"No."

"Well, when I attack controversy, I will read both sides."

"That will be rather dangerous."

"How can that be? Only one side can be right."

"Your excellency is of course above danger," said Sebastian, with a little cough, "but, for common minds, there is the danger of not distinguishing which _is_ the right. For myself, being but a moderate logician, and still slighter theologian, I prefer taking my religion as I have been taught it, to meddling with edged tools. The Church is irrefutable: the Church has foundations that will never be shaken. And I am content to abide by its decisions.--A little more to the right."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE d.u.c.h.eSS AND THE PAINTER.

After the steed is stolen, we shut the stable-door; and the d.u.c.h.ess, who now felt very cowardly after dark, set a regular watch on the battlements, whose orders were that he should wind his horn every hour, as he paced his rounds, that she might be certified he was on the alert.

The prolonged, wailing note of this horn, piercing the solemn stillness of night, had something infinitely melancholy in it, and often woke her with a start; but then she had the satisfaction of thinking all was safe, and soon yielded herself again to soft repose. Her maids, of whom she had as many as the d.u.c.h.ess in Don Quixote, were much more timorous than she was, and yielded a good deal to their fears, thinking it rather pretty and interesting to start and shriek on the smallest alarm, till they were scolded out of it by the Mother of the maids. This important functionary, whose name, like that of Giulia's nurse, was Caterina, but who bore the dignified prefix of Donna, was of Spanish birth, starched and stiff as Leslie's duenna. In the feudal times, when the sons of knights and n.o.bles took service in the household of some brother n.o.ble or knight, and performed the various duties of page and squire, their sisters in like manner attended on the said n.o.ble's lady, somewhat in the capacity of maids of honour, under the strict surveillance of the Mother of the maids, who initiated them into all feminine crafts and handiworks, as well as into the decorums and duties of life. That the d.u.c.h.ess's household comprised many of these girls, we know from her will, leaving them marriage portions, generally with the addition of a bed and bedding. Doubtless there was some Altesidora among them, accustomed to wear the old Duenna's heart out with her mischief and fun; but, on the whole, Donna Caterina's rule was popular. Obedience, the grand principle of peace and order, once enforced, she exercised no vexatious petty tyrannies.

On the first rumour of Barbarossa's invasion, Donna Caterina had swept off all these young people into the cellar, and there locked them and herself in, while Caterina, the nurse, devoted herself to securing the jewels and plate, which she did with complete success.

Sebastian del Piombo made many studies of the d.u.c.h.ess before he could please himself; and the irresolution with which captious cavillers have chosen to charge him was indicated in the deliberation with which he poised and valued the merits of each before his final decision was made.

But deliberation is a very different thing from vacillation; and even irresolution is as often an evidence of a great mind before the ultimate choice, as it is of a little one after it. Plenty of ill.u.s.trations will occur to you, without any impertinent suggestions.

After sketching her, then, as a nymph, an angel, a G.o.ddess, he chose the simplest of his studies: one that represented her as

"A creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food; But yet an angel, too, and bright With something of celestial light:"

and then, to it he set _con furore_, grasping palette and brushes as Jove might his thunder-bolts, and painting up his study with consummate art and science, often in dead silence only broken by "A little more to the right."

As for the d.u.c.h.ess, when she was off duty, that is, when Sebastian was getting his picture together, and bringing the separate parts well up at the same time--as nature creates her works--she would dabble a little in the arts herself, and pore over a few inches of paper, working as if for her bread; with now and then a modest appeal,--"Is this altogether ill-done? Is this a trifle better? Just put in a touch or two."

O, delightful art of painting! Who can pursue you and not be happy?

Those artists who have known envy, jealousy, and malice, have not loved you for yourself, but for ends far below you; for you are infinitely calming! The true painter knows no rivalry but with nature, no master but truth, no mistress but purity, no reward but success. As Garibaldi, king of men, said last year, "When G.o.d puts you in the way of doing a good thing, _do it_, and hold your tongue."

"Do you think," said Giulia, one day, "I might become a good painter, if I gave my mind to it?"

"Certainly, if you gave your mind to it. But you never will! You are too rich to be a good painter. A certain degree of excellence you may attain, that will embellish your life and charm your leisure; but, to become really _great_, one must attack painting like any mechanical trade, and apply to it like an apprentice, not merely when the fancy inclines, but at all times, willing or unwilling."

"Ah, that would never suit me," said the d.u.c.h.ess. "But, supposing I could leap over the apprenticeship, and become at once a great artist like Michael Angelo, I might have underlings to do all the rough work for me, and only do what was pleasant."

"That is not Michael Angelo's way at all," said Sebastian. "He grinds his own colours, I promise you, and lays his own palette, as I myself do when at leisure. One thinks out many profitable thoughts at such times. And no one can prepare our colours to please us as we can ourselves. Though many of the early stages of sculpture are executed from the clay model by rule and plummet, yet I a.s.sure you Michael Angelo trusts it to no inferior workman, but does it himself. He is a great man! a truly great man! And one of his great achievements has been to sweep away the gold and purple backgrounds and other puerilities of the dark ages."

Sebastian little thought art would ever make a _retrograde progress_ to pre-Raffaelitism. _Do_ we then, after all, move in a circle?

In a month, the picture was finished. It was curious that Giulia should have sat for it, at Ippolito's request, and for Ippolito; but we know that she did. Affo supposes that she could not in courtesy refuse him, after his coming so chivalrously to her succour. You may see the picture now, at the National Gallery. The d.u.c.h.ess and the painter had quite a friendly parting; and she engaged him, at his earliest leisure, to paint her a portrait of himself.

When the Cardinal saw the picture, it gave him a strange mixture of pleasure and pain.

"You have doubtless had a pleasant month," said he, moodily. "I wish you had been Ippolito and I Sebastian."

And when he found that Sebastian had promised Giulia his own picture, he begged him to introduce _his_ portrait into it--which he did.

"Ippolito had, at all events," says one of his chroniclers, "some loveable and estimable qualities, and most of the historians have a good word for him."[9] Doubtless this was owing to the genuine love of letters which made the Medici the idols of the literati. Endowed by Clement the Seventh with immense wealth, he was, says Roscoe, "the patron, the companion, and the rival of all the poets, musicians, and wits of his time. Without territories and without subjects, Ippolito maintained at Bologna a court far more splendid than that of any Italian potentate. His a.s.sociates and attendants, all of whom could boast of some peculiar merit or distinction which had ent.i.tled them to his notice, generally formed a body of about three hundred persons. Shocked at his profusion, which only the revenues of the church were competent to supply, Clement the Seventh is said to have engaged the _maestro di casa_ of Ippolito to remonstrate with him on his conduct, and to request that he would dismiss some of his attendants as unnecessary to him.

'No,' replied Ippolito, 'I do not retain them at my court because I have occasion for their services, but because they have occasion for mine.'"

An answer worthy of a Medici, "His translation of the Eneid into Italian blank verse is considered one of the happiest efforts of the language, and has been frequently reprinted. Amongst the collections of Italian poetry, also, may be found some pieces of his composition, which do credit to his talents."[10]

[9] T. A. Trollope.