Go from me! Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow,
deserves immortality.
But to return to Mr. Hart's studio. One of the most remarkable things I saw in Florence was this artist's invention to reduce certain details of sculpture to a mechanical process. This machine at first sight struck me as a queer kind of ancient armor. In brief, the subject is placed in position, when the front part of this armor, set on some kind, of hinge, swings round before him, and the sculptor makes measurements by means of numberless long metal needles, which are so arranged as to run in and touch the subject: A stationary mark is placed where the needle touches, and then I think it is pulled back. So the artist goes on, until some hundreds of measurements are made, if necessary, when the process is finished and the subject is released. How these measurements are made to serve the artist in modeling the statue I cannot very well describe, but I understood that by their aid Mr. Hart had modeled a bust from life in the incredible space of two days! I further understood that Mr. Hart's portrait-busts are remarkable for their correct likeness, which of course they must be if they are mathematically correct in their proportions. Many of the artists in Florence have the bad taste to make sport of this machine; but if Mr. Hart's portrait-busts are what they have the reputation of being, this sport is only a mask for jealousy. Mr. Hart was extremely sensitive to the light manner Mr. Powers and others have of speaking of this invention. One day he was much annoyed when a visitor, after examining the machine very attentively for some time, exclaimed, "Mr. Hart, what if you should have a man shut in there among those points, and he should happen to sneeze?"
The Pitti Palace was one of my favorite haunts, and I often spent whole hours there in a single salon. There I almost always saw Mr. G——, a German-American, copying from the masters; and he could copy too! What an indefatigable worker he was! Slight and delicate of frame, he seemed absolutely incapable of growing weary. He often toiled there all day long, his hands red and swollen with the cold, for the winter, as I have before remarked, was unusually severe. For many days I saw him working on a Descent from the Cross by Tintoretto—a bold attempt, for Tintoretto's colors are as baffling as those of the great Venetian master himself. This copy had received very general praise, and one day I took a Lucca friend, a dilettante, to see it. Mr. G—— brought the canvas out in the hall, that we might see it outside of the ocean of color which surrounded it in the gallery. When we reached the hall, Mr. G—— turned the picture full to the light. The effect was astounding. It was so brilliant that you could hardly look at it. It seemed a mass of molten gold reflecting the sun. "Good God!" exclaimed G——, "did I do that?" and an expression of bitter disappointment passed over his face. I ventured to suggest that as everybody had found it good while it was in the gallery, this brilliant effect must be from the cold gray marble of the hall. G—— could not pardon the picture, and nothing that the Italian or I could say had the least effect. He would hear no excuse for it, and, evidently quite mortified at the début of his Tintoretto, he hurried the canvas back to the easel. The sister of the czar of Russia was greatly pleased with this copy, and proposed to buy it, but whether she did or not I forgot to ascertain.
Alone as I was in Florence, cultivating only the acquaintance of Italians, yet was I never troubled with ennui. I read much at Vieussieux's, and when I grew tired of that and of music, I made long sables on the Lung Arno to the Cascine, through the charming Boboli gardens, or out to Fiesole. Fiesole is some two miles from Florence, and once on my way there I stopped at the Protestant burying-ground and pilfered a little wildflower from Theodore Parker's grave to send home to one of his romantic admirers. Fiesole must be a very ancient town, for there is a ruined amphitheatre there, and the remains of walls so old that they are called Pelasgic in their origin; which is, I take it, sufficiently vague. The high hill is composed of the most solid marble; so the guidebooks say, at least. This is five hundred and seventy-five feet above the sea, and on its summit stands the cathedral, very old indeed, and built in the form of a basilica, like that of San Miniato. From this hill you look down upon the plain beneath, with the Arno winding through it, and upon Florence and the Apennine chain, above which rise the high mountains of Carrara. Here, on the highest available point of the rock, I used to sit reading, and looking upon the panorama beneath, until the sinking sun warned me that I had only time to reach the city before its setting. I used to love to look also at works of art in this way, for by so doing I fixed them in my mind for future reference. I never passed the Piazza della Signoria without standing some minutes before the Loggia dei Lanzi and the old ducal palace with its marvelous tower. Before this palace, exposed to the weather for three hundred and fifty years, stands Michael Angelo's David; to the left, the fountain on the spot where Savonarola was burnt alive by the order of Alexander VI.; and immediately facing this is the post-office. I never could pass the post-office without thinking of the poet Shelley, who was there brutally felled to the earth by an Englishman, who accused him of being an infidel, struck his blow and escaped.
I made many visits to the Nuova Sacrista to see the tombs of the two Medici by Michael Angelo. The one at the right on entering is that of Giuliano, duke of Nemours, brother of Leo X. The two allegorical figures reclining beneath are Morning and Night. The tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici, duke of Urfrino, stands on the other side of the chapel, facing that of the duke de Nemours. The statue of Lorenzo, for grace of attitude and beauty of expression, has, in my opinion, never been equaled. The allegorical figures at the feet of this Medici are more beautiful and more easily understood than most of Michael Angelo's allegorical figures. Nevertheless, I used sometimes, when looking at these four figures, to think that they had been created merely as architectural auxiliaries, and that their expression was an accident or a freak of the artist's fancy, rather than the expression of some particular thought: at other times I saw as much in them as most enthusiasts do—enough, I have no doubt, to astonish their great author himself. I believe that very few people really experience rapturous sensations when they look at works of art. People are generally much more moved by the sight of the two canes preserved in Casa Buonarotti, upon which the great master in his latter days supported his tottering frame, than they are by the noblest achievements of his genius.
The Carnival in Florence was a meagre affair compared with the same fête in Rome. During the afternoon, however, there was goodly procession of masks in carriages on the Lung' Arno, and in the evening there was a feeble moccoletti display. The grand masked ball at the Casino about this time presents an irresistible attraction to the floating population in Florence. I was foolish enough to go. All were obliged to be dressed in character or in full ball-costume: no dominoes allowed. The Casino, I was told, is the largest club-house in the world; and salon after salon of that immense building was so crowded that locomotion was nearly impossible. The floral decorations were magnificent, the music was excellent, and some of the ten thousand people present tried to dance, but the sets formed were soon squeezed into a ball. Then they gave up in despair, while the men swore under their breath, and the women repaired to the dressing-rooms to sew on flounces or other skirt-trimmings. Masks wriggled about, and spoke to each other in the ridiculously squeaky voice generally adopted on such occasions. Most of their conversation was English, and of this very exciting order: "You don't know me?" "Yes I do." "No you don't." "I know what you did yesterday," etc., etc., ad nauseam. How fine masked balls are in sensational novels! how absolutely flat and unsatisfactory in fact! There was on this occasion a vast display of dress and jewelry, and among the babel of languages spoken the most prominent was the beautiful London dialect sometimes irreverently called Cockney. I lost my cavalier at one time, and while I waited for him to find me I retired to a corner and challenged a mask to a game of chess. He proved to be a Russian who spoke neither French nor Italian. We got along famously, however. He said something very polite in Russian, I responded irrelevantly in French, and then we looked at each other and grinned. He subsequently, thinking he had made an impression, ventured to press my hand; I drew it away and told him he was an idiot, at which he was greatly flattered; and then we grinned at each other again. It was very exciting indeed. I won the game easily, because he knew nothing of chess, and then he said something in his mother-tongue, placing his hand upon his heart. I could have sworn that it meant, "Of course I would not be so rude as to win when playing with a lady." I thought so, principally because he was a man, for I never knew a man under such circumstances who did not immediately betray his self-conceit by making that gallant declaration. Feeling sure that the Russian had done so, when we placed the pieces on the board again I offered him my queen. He seemed astounded and hurt; and then for the first time I thought that if this Russian were an exception to his sex, and I had not understood his remark, then it was a rudeness to offer him my queen. I was fortunately relieved from my perplexing situation by the approach of my cavalier, and as he led me away I gave my other hand to my antagonist in the most impressive manner, by way of atonement in case there had been anything wrong in my conduct toward him.
One day during the latter part of my stay in Florence I went the second time to the splendid studio of Mr. Powers. He talked very eloquently upon art. He said that some of the classic statues had become famous, and deservedly so, although they were sometimes false in proportion and disposed in attitudes quite impossible in nature. He illustrated this by a fine plaster cast of the Venus of Milo, before which we were standing. He showed that the spinal cord in the neck could never, from the position of the head, have joined that of the body, that there was a radical fault in the termination of the spinal column, and that the navel was located falsely with respect to height. As he proceeded he convinced me that he was correct; and in defence of this, my most cherished idol after the Apollo Belvedere, I only asked the iconoclast whether these defects might not have been intentional, in order to make the statue appear more natural when looked at in its elevated position from below. I subsequently repeated Mr. Powers's criticism of the Venus of Milo in the studio of another of our distinguished sculptors, and he treated it with great levity, especially when I told him my authority. There is a spirit of rivalry among sculptors which does not always manifest itself in that courteous and well-bred manner which distinguishes the medical faculty, for instance, in their dealings with each other. This courtesy is well illustrated by an anecdote I have recently heard. A gentleman fell down in a fit, and a physician entering saw a man kneeling over the patient and grasping him firmly by the throat; whereupon the physician exclaimed, "Why, sir, you are stopping the circulation in the jugular vein!" "Sir," replied the other, "I am a doctor of medicine." To which the first M.D. remarked, "Ah! I beg your pardon," and stood by very composedly until the patient was comfortably dead.
While Mr. Powers was conversing with me about the Venus of Milo, there entered two Englishwomen dressed very richly in brocades and velvets. They seemed very anxious to see everything in the studio, talked in loud tones of the various objects of art, passed us, and occupied themselves for some time before the statue called California. I heard one of them say, "I wonder if there's anybody 'ere that talks Hinglish?" and in the same breath she called out to Mr. Powers, "Come 'ere!" He was at work that day, and wore his studio costume. I was somewhat surprised to see him immediately obey the rude command, and the following conversation occurred: