Salvator Rosa is said never to have suffered the rank or office of his auditors to interfere with the freedom of his expressions in his poetic recitations. Cardinal Sforza Pullavicini, one of the most generous patrons of the fine arts, and a rigid critic of his day, was curious to hear the improvisatore of the Via Babbuina, and sent an invitation requesting Salvator's company at his palace. Salvator frankly declared that two conditions were annexed to his accepting the honor of his Eminence's acquaintance; first, that the Cardinal should come to his house, as he never recited in any other; and second, that he should not object to any passage, the omission of which would detract from the original character of his work, or compromise his own sincerity. The Cardinal accepted the conditions. The next day all the literary coxcombs of Rome crowded to the levee of the hypercritical prelate to learn his opinion of the poet, whose style was without precedent. The Cardinal declared, with a justice which posterity has sanctioned, that "Salvator's poetry was full of splendid passages, but that, as a whole, it was unequal."
SALVATOR ROSA'S MANIFESTO CONCERNING HIS SATIRICAL PICTURE LA FORTUNA.
In Salvator Rosa's celebrated picture of La Fortuna, the nose of one powerful ecclesiastic, and the eye of another were detected in the brutish physiognomy of the swine treading upon pearls, and in an ass, scattering with his hoofs the laurel and myrtle which lay in his path; and in an old goat, reposing on roses, some there were, who even fancied they discovered the Infallible Lover of Donna Olympia, the Sultana, queen of the Quirinal!
The cry of atheism and sedition—of contempt of established authorities—was thus raised under the influence of private pique and long-cherished envy: it soon found an echo in the painted walls where the conclave sat "in close divan," and it was handed about from mouth to mouth, till it reached the ears of the Inquisitor, within the dark recesses of his house of terror. A cloud was now gathering over the head of the devoted Salvator which it seemed no human power could avert. But ere the bolt fell, his fast and tried friend Don Maria Ghigi threw himself between his protégé and the horrible fate which awaited him, by forcing the sullen satirist to draw up an apology, or rather an explanation of his offensive picture.
This explanation, bearing title of a "Manifesto," he obtained permission to present to those powerful and indignant persons in whose hands the fate of Salvator now lay; Rosa explained away all that was supposed to be personal in his picture, and proved that his hogs were not churchmen, his mules pretending pedants, his asses Roman nobles, and his birds and beasts of prey the reigning despots of Italy. His imprudence however, subsequently raised such a storm that he was obliged to quit Rome, when he fled to Florence.
SALVATOR ROSA'S BANISHMENT FROM ROME.
Salvator Rosa secretly deplored his banishment from Rome; and his impatience at being separated from Carlo Rossi and some other of his friends, was so great that he narrowly escaped losing his liberty to obtain an interview with them. About three years after his arrival in Florence, he took post-horses, and at midnight set off for Rome. Having reached the gardens of the "Vigna Navicella," and bribed the custode to lend them for a few hours, and otherwise to assist him, he dispatched a circular billet to eighteen of his friends, supplicating them to give him a rendezvous at the Navicella. Each believed that Salvator had fallen into some new difficulty, which had obliged him to fly from Florence, and all attended his summons. He received them at the head of a well furnished table, embraced them with tenderness, feasted them sumptuously, and then mounting his horse, returned to Florence before his Roman persecutors or Tuscan friends were aware of his adventure.