I took up my studio life again. As I stood before my work that I had left when in a state of such utter prostration, it seemed to me that I had almost a new spirit within me. The head of the Madonna, who, when I left, looked as if she was sorrowing for me, now seemed to me so full of sadness that I did not touch it again, and it remains just as it was when I left, tormented by the insupportable, atrocious, and stunning noise in my head. Tears of emotion, of gratitude, and of feeling ran down my cheeks as I stood before the clay, and, full of confidence, I set myself again to work. In thought I returned to the days of my sufferings, when the fear of losing my mind frightened me, and I dared not look at my children or at my good wife. These remembrances quickened the pleasure I felt in my new state of health, and I thanked the Lord from the bottom of my heart.
TRIA, THE MODEL OF MY "CHRIST."
I had taken Tonino Liverani (nick-named Tria) as a model for my "Christ." He was rather too old for a "Christ," but I was not able to find another who united such majesty and grace of movement and of parts. Hardly had I put the whole masses together and begun to define some of the outlines, when he fell ill and died in a few days. I went to see him when he was at his worst, and the poor man was glad to see me, and was pained (as he said) not to be able to finish the "Dead Christ." With his deep sunk eyes, mouth half opened, and with the pallor of death upon him, he looked marvellously beautiful, and strangely like that type of Christ that good artists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have handed down to us. Poor Tria, I still remember the long, piteous look you gave me when we bade each other good-bye!
Scarcely had I finished the model for the "Pietà," when I modelled the statue of Astronomy for the Mossotti monument, which is in the Campo Santo at Pisa, a work that I had pledged myself to make for its mere cost; and I did so most willingly on account of the reverent friendship that I had had for Mossotti. But even the expenses were not covered, and to all my pressing inquiries I never got a word of answer from the treasurer of the committee, in consequence of which the committee itself was never able to publish a report of its administration. But, that the word expenses may be clearly understood, I wish it to be known that that statue, with its sarcophagus, base, and ornamentation, I had pledged myself to make, and did make, for six thousand lire. I have received five thousand eight hundred and fifty; there remain the hundred and fifty, which I am obliged to make a present of, after having given gratuitously my work on the models and the finishing of it in marble. I don't know if it is so with other artists, but with me it has always happened that the works I have been desirous of making for their mere cost—which is like saying, as a present—have not been accepted, or, besides giving my own work, I have been obliged to add something from my pocket! Before these memoirs are finished the reader will find something else of the same kind which will serve as a lesson and warning to young artists, even if they ever feel within them the "softness" to work for nothing.
BUST OF VICTOR EMMANUEL.
In another place I have said that, in the enumeration of my works, I should not make mention of the portraits. I was obliged, however, to deviate from that promise to speak of one that had occasioned a great deal of talk and false reports about me. I must now speak of another that I was to have made, and did not—that is to say, the portrait of his Majesty King Victor Emmanuel. Why I never made it I cannot say myself, and perhaps the reader himself will not know after he has read the following account, unless he is satisfied with the explanation that I shall presently give.
The Superintendent of the Archives, Commendatore Francesco Bonaini, after having put in order and nearly reconstructed the archives of Pisa, wished to put in the main hall a marble bust, of almost colossal size, of Victor Emmanuel; and in order to determine the size and study the light, I went with him to Pisa to see the place itself where the bust of the King was to stand. Having seen it and fixed upon the size of the bust, I made one condition, agreeing to all arrangements as to price and time for making it. The condition that I made—a most natural one—was that his Majesty should concede to me the sittings required, that I might model him from life and not from photograph. The syndic of the day (Cavaliere Senatore Ruschi, if my memory serves me) went to Florence, accompanied by some of the assessori, to ask the King, first for the permission of placing his portrait in the Great Hall of the Pisan Archives, and then to grant the necessary sittings to the artist, and settle the place, the time, and the length of the sittings, according to his Majesty's pleasure. Both the one request and the other were granted most graciously by the King with his usual affability, and he added that he knew the artist and was well satisfied, and that, in the meanwhile, they were to wait for notice to communicate to me that I might begin my work. Months passed, and this notice never came; Bonaini was pressing me, being in a hurry to have the archives inaugurated, and I appealed to his Excellency Marchese di Breme, Minister of the Royal House, to beg the King to let me have the required sittings, but my request met with no good result. Later, after the death of Di Breme, I made the same appeal to the Marchese Filippo Gualterio, who succeeded him in that office; but this appeal not only had no good result, but did not even receive an answer. As the affair of the inauguration of the Pisan Archives had boiled over, Bonaini did not speak of it again, and naturally neither did I. Here there would be some observations to be made on this favour having been asked for and granted, and then given up. As for me, I resolve the question in a few simple words and say, that as it is a most boring thing to all to stand as model, for a king it must be excessively so and insufferable, and therefore the notice to begin this boring business never came from the person who was to undergo it; and it is reasonable enough, and even satisfies me, who have posed as model two or three times.
JURY OF ARTISTS ON CAVOUR'S MONUMENT.
About this time the Syndic of Turin invited me to form part of a commission of artists to pass judgment on the models sent up for Cavour's monument. I was then at Leghorn with my family, as my little girls were in need of sea-bathing. I had no need for it myself, and, in fact, I think that the damp salt air was not good for me, and I stayed there most unwillingly, so that when the invitation to go to Turin came I instantly accepted it with pleasure as a fortunate opportunity to change the air and have something to occupy my mind; and leaving my wife with the two youngest little girls, I took Amalia with me.
This competition, of which we were to judge, was a second trial, as the first had failed; the competitors were many, and some of them praiseworthy. My colleagues in the jury were, if I remember right, the Professors Santo Varni of Genoa, Innocenzo Fraccaroli of Milan, Ceppi of Turin, and another whose name I cannot recall. The examination was a long one, and the discussion, although opinions differed, was a quiet one: the majority pronounced itself favourable to a project of the architect Cipolla, which was in drawing; my vote had been for one of the two designs in relief by Vela. The reporter of our decision was Professor Ceppi. I returned to Leghorn to my family, and from there to Florence, where I again took up my work.