Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art by Shearjashub Spooner (love letters to the dead txt) 📕

humor was as racy as her wine; and many of the men of wit and pleasure about town were in the habit of lounging in the Sala Commune of Dame Gaetano, merely for the pleasure of drawing her out. Among these were Lorenzo Lippi and Salvator Rosa; and, although this Tuscan Dame Quickly was in her seventieth year, hideously ugly, and grotesquely dressed, yet she was so far from esteeming her age an "antidote to the tender passion," that she distinguished Salvator Rosa by a preference, which deemed itself not altogether hopeless of return. Emboldened by his familiarity and condescension, she had the vanity to solicit him to paint her portrait, "that she might," she said, "reach posterity by the hand of the greatest master of the age."

Salvator at first received her proposition as a joke; but perpetually teased by her reiterated importunities, and provoked by her pertinacity, he at last exclaimed, "Well, Madonna, I have resolved to comply with your desire; but with this agreement, that, not to distract my mind during my work, I desire you will not move from your seat until I have finished the picture." Madonna, willing to submit to any penalty in order to obtain an honor which was to immortalize her charms, joyfully agreed to the proposition; and Salvator, sending for an easel and painting materials, drew her as she sat before him, to the life. The portrait was dashed off with the usual rapidity and spirit of the master, and was a chef d'œuvre. But when at last the vain and impatient hostess was permitted to look upon it, she perceived that to a strong and inveterate likeness the painter had added a long beard; and that she figured on the canvas as an ancient male pilgrim—a character admirably suited to her furrowed face, weather-beaten complexion, strong lineaments, and grey hairs. Her mortified vanity vented itself in the most violent abuse of the ungallant painter, in rich Tuscan Billingsgate. Salvator, probably less annoyed by her animosity than disgusted by her preference, called upon some of her guests to judge between them. The artists saw only the merits of the picture, the laughers looked only to the joke. The value affixed to the exquisite portrait soon reconciled the vanity of the original through her interest. After the death of Madonna Anna, her portrait was sold by her heirs at an enormous price, and is said to be still in existence.—Lady Morgan.

SALVATOR ROSA'S RETURN TO ROME.

At the time of Salvator Rosa's return to Rome says Pascoli, he figured away as the great painter, opening his house to all his friends, who came from all parts to visit him, and among others, Antonio Abbati, who had resided for many years in Germany. This old acquaintance of the poor Salvatoriello of the Chiesa della Morte at Viterbo, was not a little amazed to find his patient and humble auditor of former times one of the most distinguished geniuses and hospitable Amphitryons of the day. Pascoli gives a curious picture of the prevailing pedantry of the times, by describing a discourse of Antonio Abbati's at Salvator's dinner-table, on the superior merits of the ancient painters over the moderns, in which he "bestowed all the tediousness" of his erudition on the company. Salvator answered him in his own style, and having overturned all his arguments in favor of antiquity with more learning than they had been supported, ended with an impromptu epigram, in his usual way, which brought the laugher's on his side.

SALVATOR ROSA'S LOVE OF MAGNIFICENCE.

Salvator Rosa was fond of splendor and ostentatious display. He courted admiration from whatever source it could be obtained, and even sought it by means to which the frivolous and the vain are supposed alone to resort. He is described, therefore, as returning to Rome, from which he had made so perilous and furtive an escape, in a showy and pompous equipage, with "servants in rich liveries, armed with silver hafted swords, and otherwise well accoutred." The beautiful Lucrezia, as "sua Governante," accompanied him, and the little Rosalvo gave no scandal in a society where the instructions of religion substitute license for legitimate indulgence. Immediately on his arrival in Rome, Salvator fixed upon one of the loveliest of her hills for his residence, and purchased a handsome house upon the Monte Pincio, on the Piazza della Trinità del Monte—"which," says Pascoli, "he furnished with noble and rich furniture, establishing himself on the great scale, and in a lordly manner." A site more favorable than the Pincio, for a man of Salvator's taste and genius, could scarcely be imagined, commanding at once within the scope of its vast prospect, picturesque views, and splendid monuments of the most important events in the history of man—the Capitol and the Campus Martius, the groves of the Quirinal and the cupola of St. Peter's, the ruined palaces of the Cæsars, and sumptuous villas of the sons of the reigning church. Such was then, as now, the range of unrivalled objects which the Pincio commanded; but the noble terrace smoothed over its acclivities, which recalled the memory of Aurelian and the feast of Belisarius, presented at that period a far different aspect from that which it now offers. Everything in this enchanting sight was then fresh and splendid; the halls of the Villa Medici, which at present only echo to the steps of a few French students or English travelers, were then the bustling and splendid residence of the old intriguing Cardinal Carlo de Medici, called the Cardinal of Tuscany, whose followers and faction were perpetually going to and fro, mingling their showy uniforms and liveries with the sober vestments of the neighboring monks of the convent della Trinità! The delicious groves and gardens of the Villa de Medici then covered more than two English miles, and amidst cypress shades and shrubberies, watered by clear springs, and reflected in translucent fountains, stood exposed to public gaze all that now form the most precious treasures of the Florentine Gallery—the Niobe, the Wrestlers, the Apollo, the Vase, and above all, the Venus of Venuses, which has derived its distinguishing appellation from these gardens, of which it was long the boast and ornament.

SALVATOR ROSA'S LAST WORKS.

The last performances of Salvator's pencil were a collection of portraits of obnoxious persons in Rome—in other words, a series of caricatures, by which he would have an opportunity of giving vent to his satirical genius; but whilst he was engaged on his own portrait, intending it as the concluding one of the series he was attacked with a dropsy, which in the course of a few months brought him to the grave.

SALVATOR ROSA'S DESIRE TO BE CONSIDERED AN HISTORICAL PAINTER.

Salvator Rosa's greatest talent lay in landscape painting, a branch which he affected to despise, as he was ambitious of being called an historical painter. Hence he called his wild scenes, with small figures merely accessory, historical paintings, and was offended if others called them landscapes. Pascoli relates that Prince Francisco Ximenes, soon after his arrival at Rome, in the midst of the honors paid him, found time to visit the studio of Salvator Rosa, who showed him into his gallery. The Prince frankly said, "I have come, Signor Rosa, for the purpose of seeing and purchasing some of those beautiful landscapes, whose subjects and manner have delighted me in many foreign collections."—"Be it known then, to your excellency," interrupted Salvator impetuously, "that I know nothing of landscape painting. Something indeed I do know of painting figures and historical subjects, which I strive to exhibit to such eminent judges as yourself, in order that, once for all, I may banish from the public mind that fantastic humor of supposing I am a landscape and not an historical painter." At another time, a very rich (ricchissimo) Cardinal called on Salvator to purchase some of his pictures As he walked up and down the gallery, he paused before the landscapes, but only glanced at the historical subjects, while Salvator muttered from time to time, "sempre, sempre, paesi piccoli," (always, always, some little landscape.) When, at length, the Cardinal carelessly glanced his eye over one of Salvator's great historical pictures, and asked the price, as a sort of introduction, the painter bellowed out, un milione; his Eminence, justly offended, made an unceremonious retreat without making his intended purchases, and returned no more.

DON MARIO GHIGI, HIS PHYSICIAN, AND SALVATOR ROSA.

(From Lady Morgan's Life of Salvator Rosa.)

The princes of the family of Ghigi had been among the first of the aristocratic virtuosi of Rome to acknowledge the merits of Salvator Rosa, as their ancestors had been to appreciate the genius of Raffaelle. Between the Prince Don Mario Ghigi, (whose brother Fabio was raised to the pontifical throne by the name of Alexander VII.) and Salvator, there seems to have existed a personal intimacy; and the prince's fondness for the painter's conversation was such, that during a long illness he induced Salvator to bring his easel to his bedside, and to work in his chamber at a small picture he was then painting for the prince. It happened, that while Rosa was sketching and chatting by the prince's couch, one of the most fashionable physicians in Rome entered the apartment. He appears to have been one of those professional coxcombs, whose pretensions, founded on unmerited vogue, throws ridicule on the gravest calling.

After some trite remarks upon the art, the doctor, either to flatter Salvator, or in imitation of the physician of the Cardinal Colonna, who asked for one of Raffaelle's finest pictures as a fee for saving the Cardinal's life, requested Don Mario to give him a picture by Salvator as a remuneration for his attendance. The prince willingly agreed to the proposal; and the doctor, debating on the subject he should choose, turned to Salvator and begged that he would not lay pencil to canvas, until he, the Signor Dottore, should find leisure to dictate to him il pensiero e concetto della sua pittura, the idea and conceit of his picture! Salvator bowed a modest acquiescence, and went on with his sketch. The doctor having gone the round of professional questions with his wonted pomposity, rose to write his prescription; when, as he sat before the table with eyes upturned, and pen suspended over the paper, Salvator approached him on tiptoe, and drawing the pen gently through his fingers, with one of his old Coviello gesticulations in his character of the mountebank, he said, "fermati dottor mio! stop doctor, you must not lay pen to paper till I have leisure to dictate the idea and conceit of the prescription I may think proper for the malady of his Excellency."

"Diavalo!" cried the amazed physician, "you dictate a prescription! why, I am the prince's physician, and not you!"

"And I, Caro," said Salvator, "am a painter, and not you. I leave it to the prince whether I could not prove myself a better physician than you a painter; and write a better prescription than you paint a picture."

The prince, much amused, decided in favor of the painter; Salvator coolly resumed his pencil, and the medical cognoscente permitted the idea of the picture to die away, sul proprio letto.

DEATH OF SALVATOR ROSA.

Salvator Rosa, in his last illness, demanded of the priests and others that surrounded him, what they required of him. They replied, "in the first instance to receive the sacrament as it is administered in Rome to the dying." "To receive the sacrament," says his confessor, Baldovini, "he showed no repugnance, but he vehemently and positively refused to allow the host, with all the solemn pomp of its procession, to be brought to his house, which he deemed unworthy of the divine presence." He objected to the ostentation of