I Have Stood With Delight In One Of The
Chapels Of The Annunciata, And Heard The Crowd Extol The Seraphic
Beauty Of A Saint Which I Had Painted; I Have Seen Them Bow Down In
Adoration Before The Painting:
They were bowing before the loveliness
of Bianca.
I existed in this kind of dream, I might almost say delirium, for
upwards of a year. Such is the tenacity of my imagination that the
image which was formed in it continued in all its power and freshness.
Indeed, I was a solitary, meditative being, much given to reverie, and
apt to foster ideas which had once taken strong possession of me. I was
roused from this fond, melancholy, delicious dream by the death of my
worthy benefactor. I cannot describe the pangs his death occasioned me.
It left me alone and almost broken-hearted. He bequeathed to me his
little property; which, from the liberality of his disposition and his
expensive style of living, was indeed but small; and he most
particularly recommended me, in dying, to the protection of a nobleman
who had been his patron.
The latter was a man who passed for munificent. He was a lover and an
encourager of the arts, and evidently wished to be thought so. He
fancied he saw in me indications of future excellence; my pencil had
already attracted attention; he took me at once under his protection;
seeing that I was overwhelmed with grief, and incapable of exerting
myself in the mansion of my late benefactor, he invited me to sojourn
for a time in a villa which he possessed on the border of the sea, in
the picturesque neighborhood of Sestri de Ponenti.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 82 of 433
Words from 21758 to 22040
of 115667