MONUMENT TO DONIZETTI IN THE CATHEDRAL AT BERGAMO.
Executed by the sculptor Vincenzo Vela. Erected in 1855 by his brothers Giuseppe and Francesco
But Paris was constantly reclaiming him, and in 1840 "La Fille du Régiment"—"created" to a French text—made its brilliant entrance at the Opéra Comique, and public, press and court bestowed upon its author all their honors. Already resident in Paris for some two years, Donizetti saw that it was best for him to remain there, not only because there was more money to be made, but also because there was more to learn and to be inspired by. He began to modify his native fun according to the lighter humor of France, and during the next three years he composed "La Favorite," "Linda di Chamounix" and "Don Pasquale," besides such graver things as "Les Martyrs," (known in Italian as "Il Poliuto"), "Maria di Rohan," "Dom Sebastien," "Maria Padilla" and "Adelia," even the few which were written to Italian texts for Milan, Rome and Vienna, being sent out from Paris.
DONIZETTI.
Bust by Dantan in the Carnavalet Museum, Paris.
In 1840 he visited Switzerland for his health and crossed the frontier to Milan and Bergamo, where his townsfolk drew his carriage home after a festival performance at the theatre. But if he had hoped to be called on to Naples for the position which had been virtually promised him, he was disappointed, for Mercadante about this time received the appointment, and Donizetti soon returned to Paris and his work. Other brief visits to Italy and to Germany were made during this epoch, and among many honorary tributes came some from the Sultan of Turkey and Pope Gregory XVI. In Vienna, whither he went early in 1842 to direct his "Linda," he had also great honor, and was named royal Kapellmeister and director of the opera, with an honorarium of four thousand florins and without the obligation of permanent residence.
The next few years were divided between Paris and Vienna, and his operas passed out of Europe across the Atlantic and even reached Constantinople and Calcutta. Men distinguished in art, science and letters became his friends, and his income was constantly augmenting. But early in 1845 he was found one morning senseless upon his bedroom floor in Paris, and from that hour dated the dreadful decay of mind and body which ended at last in death on April 8, 1848, after several years passed in private lunatic asylums. His sensitive and susceptible nature, excited and worn by his eager and exhausting industry, and perhaps by some irregularities of life, had given warnings in intense headaches, and bewildering depressions, against which he had nerved himself with a destructive strain. The dreary imbecility of these later years made death welcome, when at last it came to him in Bergamo, whither he had been removed in the care of a nephew and his physician in the autumn of 1847. Bergamo gave him a noble funeral and assigned him a tomb in the cathedral beside that of his master, Mayer, who had died three years before, and in 1855 his brothers Giuseppe and Francesco erected a stately monument made by Vincenzo Vela.