And on this, note two things: the first, that all the great early Italian masters of painting and sculpture, without exception, began by being goldsmiths’ apprentices: the second, that they all felt themselves so indebted to, and formed by the master-craftsman who had mainly disciplined their fingers, whether in work on gold or marble, that they practically considered him their father, and took his name rather than their own; so that most of the great Italian workmen are now known, not by their own names, but by those of their masters,[1] the master being himself often entirely forgotten by the public, and eclipsed by his pupil; but immortal in his pupil, and named in his name. Thus, our Sandro, Alessandro, or Alexander’s own name was Filipepi; which name you never heard of, I suppose, till now: nor I, often, but his master’s was Botticello; of which master we nevertheless know only that he so formed, and informed, this boy, that thenceforward the boy thought it right to be called “Botticello’s Sandro,” and nobody else’s. Which in Italian is Sandro di Botticello; and that is abbreviated into Sandro Botticelli. So, Francesco Francia is short for Francesco di Francia, or “Francia’s Francis,” though nobody ever heard, except thus, of his master the goldsmith, Francia. But his own name was Raibolini. So, Philip Brunelleschi is short for Brunellesco’s Philip, Brunellesco being his father’s Christian name, to show how much he owed to his father’s careful training; (the family name was Lippo;) and, which is the prettiest instance of all, “Piero della Francesca,” means ‘Francesca’s Peter;’ because he was chiefly trained by his mother, Francesca. All of which I beg you to take to heart, and meditate on, concerning Mastership and Pupilage.
But to return to Sandro.
Having learned prosperously how to manage gold, he takes a fancy to know how to manage colour; and is put by his good father under, as it chanced, the best master in Florence, or the world, at that time—the Monk Lippi, whose work is the finest, out and out, that ever monk did; which I attribute, myself, to what is usually considered faultful in him,—his having run away with a pretty novice out of a convent. I am not jesting, I assure you, in the least; but how can I possibly help the nature of things, when that chances to be laughable? Nay, if you think of it, perhaps you will not find it so laughable that Lippi should be the only monk (if this be a fact), who ever did good painter’s work.
Be that as it may, Lippi and his pupil were happy in each other; and the boy soon became a smiter of colour, or colour-smith, no less than a gold-smith; and eventually an “Alexander the Coppersmith,” also, not inimical to St. Paul, and for whom Christian people may wish, not revengefully, “the Lord reward him according to his works,” though he was fain, Demetrius-like, sometimes to shrine Diana. And he painted, for a beginning, a figure of Fortitude; and then, one of St. Jerome, and then, one of our Lady, and then, one of Pallas, and then, one of Venus with the Graces and Zephyrs, and especially the Spring aforesaid with flowery petticoats; and, finally, the Assumption of our Lady, with the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Apostles, the Evangelists, the Martyrs, the Confessors, the Doctors, the Virgins, and the Hierarchies. It is to be presumed that by this time he had learned to read, though we hear nothing of it, (rather the contrary, for he is taunted late in life with rude scholarship,)—and then paints under notable circumstances, of which presently, the calling of Moses, and of Aaron, and of Christ,—all well preserved and wonderful pieces, which no person now ever thinks of looking at, though they are the best works of pictorial divinity extant in Europe. And having thus obtained great honour and reputation, and considerable sums of money, he squandered all the last away; and then, returning to Florence, set himself to comment upon and illustrate Dante, engraving some plates for that purpose which I will try to give you a notion of, some day. And at this time, Savonarola beginning to make himself heard, and founding in Florence the company of the Piagnoni, (Mourners, or Grumblers, as opposed to the men of pleasure,) Sandro made a Grumbler of himself, being then some forty years old; and,—his new master being burned in the great square of Florence, a year afterwards (1498),—became a Grumbler to purpose; and doing what he could to show “che cosa è la fede,” namely, in engraving Savonarola’s “Triumph of Faith,” fell sadder, wiser, and poorer, day by day; until he became a poor bedesman of Lorenzo de’ Medici; and having gone some time on crutches, being unable to stand upright, and received his due share of what I hope we may call discriminate charity, died peacefully in his fifty-eighth year, having lived a glorious life; and was buried at Florence, in the Church of all Saints, three hundred and fifty-seven years ago.
So much for my vignette. For my title, see II. 2, and XIII. 3. I mean it, as you will see by the latter passage, to be read, in English, as “Fortune the Nail-bearer,” and that the book itself should show you how to form, or make, this Fortune, see the fifth sentence down the page, in II. 2; and compare III. 2, 3.
And in the course of the first year’s letters, I tried gradually to illustrate to you certain general propositions, which, if I had set them down in form at once, might have seemed to you too startling, or disputable, to be discussed with patience. So I tried to lead you into some discussion of them first, and now hope that you may endure the clearer statement of them, as follows:—
Proposition I. (I. 3, 4).—The English nation is beginning another group of ten years, empty in purse, empty in stomach, and in a state of terrified hostility to every other nation under the sun.
I assert this very firmly and seriously. But in the course of these papers every important assertion on the opposite side shall be fairly inserted; so that you may consider of them at your leisure. Here is one, for instance, from the ‘Morning Post’ of Saturday, August 31, of this year:—“The country is at the present moment in a state of such unexampled prosperity that it is actually suffering from the very superabundance of its riches.… Coals and meat are at famine prices, we are threatened with a strike among the bakers, and there is hardly a single department of industry in which the cost of production has not been enhanced.”
This is exceedingly true; the ‘Morning Post’ ought to have congratulated you further on the fact that the things produced by this greater cost are now usually good for nothing: Hear on this head, what Mr. Emerson said of us, even so far back as 1856 (and we have made much inferior articles since then). “England is aghast at the disclosure of her fraud in the adulteration of food, of drugs, and of almost every fabric in her mills and shops; finding that milk will not nourish, nor sugar sweeten, nor bread satisfy, nor pepper bite the tongue, nor glue stick. In true England all is false and forged.… It is rare to find a merchant who knows why a crisis occurs in trade,—why prices rise or fall, or who knows the mischief of paper money.[2] In the culmination of National Prosperity, in the annexation of countries; building of ships, depôts, towns; in the influx of tons of gold and silver; amid the chuckle of chancellors and financiers, it was found that bread rose to famine prices, that the yeoman was forced to sell his cow and pig, his tools, and his acre of land; and the dreadful barometer of the poor-rates was touching the point of ruin.”[3]
Proposition II. (I. 5).—Of such prosperity I, for one, have seen enough, and will endure it no longer quietly; but will set aside some part of my income to help, if anybody else will join me, in forming a National store instead of a National Debt; and will explain to you as I have time and power, how to avoid such distress in future, by adhering to the elementary principles of Human Economy, which have been of late wilfully entombed under pyramids of falsehood.