CHAPTER II.
At an early hour on the following morning I heard the emphatic tread of the young painter in the corridor. In a moment he entered my apartment, and his appearance renewed in some degree my emotion. “Our feelings had too much of lyric riot in them last night,” said he, smiling; “such excitement is exhausting, and cannot be long sustained without approximation to fever. I shall never learn moderation in my attachments, but I am resolved to lower the expression of them to a more temperate standard; and with this object I will, if agreeable to you, endeavour to create occupation for our intellects as well as our feelings.”
He then inquired if I had practised drawing, and to what extent. I told him that I had been in the habit of sketching the fine lake and mountain scenery of Lombardy; but that my ambition was to draw the human figure from living models, which I regarded as the only avenue by which any degree of excellence could be attained.
“If you will accept of my assistance,” he replied, “we can immediately commence a course of elementary studies of the human figure; after which,” added he sportively, “you may employ me as a model. In return for my instructions in painting, you must promote my ardent wish to attain a competent knowledge of modern Greek. I have a sacred duty to perform in one of the Greek islands, and shall proceed there in the ensuing autumn.”
“We cannot effectually realise your suggestion,” I rejoined, “unless we abandon for a while the riot and revelry of Venice. My father is at present in Dalmatia, and I am pledged to pass the summer in the country with my excellent and respected mother, who is preparing for departure, and will probably quit Venice at the close of the present week. The villa we inhabit during the summer heats is in the most charming district of Lombardy, and near the spot where the rapid Mincio receives the pure waters of the lake of Garda. You must accompany me to this earthly paradise, where we can enjoy the cool breezes from the lake and mountains, and explore the bright scenery of its classic shores and the peninsula of Sirmio, sung in glowing verse by Catullus. There we can repose under the dark umbrage of orange and myrtle groves, drink deep of the beauties of Pindar, and bind our temples with wreaths of laurel. But I have not yet introduced you to my mother. She is aware that a stranger saved me from a watery death in the harbour, and will welcome gratefully the preserver of her only son. She has a fine taste for pictures, and is an enthusiastic admirer of beautiful Madonnas. If you will paint one for her private chapel, and subdue in some measure the impetuous ardour of your deportment in her presence, she will receive and cherish you as a son.”
While thus addressing him, I perceived a sudden contraction of his fine features, indicative of strong internal emotion, the mystery of which was not developed for a considerable period after this conversation. At length he approached me, and, with a look of intense interest, inquired how near my father’s villa was to Peschiera on the lake of Garda. “Within a league of it,” I replied. Again he paced the apartment in silent abstraction, when suddenly his eagle-eye was lighted up with more than its wonted fire, and he exclaimed with animation, “Agreed! I will accompany you to Lombardy, and should I prove acceptable to your mother as a guest, I will paint a Madonna for her chapel. On my discretion, and my respect for her habits and feelings, you may rely.”
On the succeeding day I introduced him to my mother. The elegant freedom of his address, and the spirit and originality of his conversation, made an immediate and favourable impression upon my beloved parent; and she afterwards acknowledged to me that, independently of his noble exterior, and his powerful claim upon her gratitude, she had never been so strongly prepossessed. It was on this occasion that he named himself Colonna. Since his refusal to reveal his name on the first day of our acquaintance, I had never repeated the inquiry. Subsequently, however, I discovered that this appellation had been assumed under circumstances of a disastrous and compulsory nature. After his interview with my mother, I accompanied him to his abode, where I was gratified with a view of the paintings and sketches which he had executed in Venice. His figures were fresh and masterly; his colouring had all the brilliant glow of the Venetian painters; while his bold and beautiful designs betrayed, as I had anticipated, the accurate drawing of the Tuscan school. His studies were from the antique, and from Italian life: naked figures, or with little drapery; female heads abounding with expression and loveliness; arms and legs, backs and busts; naked boys, bathing, running, and wrestling. He intimated that he had never yet painted for emolument, nor for the gratification of others; and added, carelessly, “what farther concerns me shall be revealed to you in our hours of leisure by the lake of Garda.”
On the appointed morning we quitted Venice. Our bark issued from the grand canal at an early hour, glided silently over the smooth surface of the laguna, and approached the entrance of the Brenta. The sun was rising in veiled and purple majesty through the soft mists of a summer morning, and the towers and churches of Venice appeared floating in thin vapour. Colonna ascended the deck, and, folding his arms, gazed with evident emotion on the “City of Palaces,” until it disappeared behind a bank of fog. His chest heaved with some powerful sympathy, and, for a moment, tears suffused his eyes and veiled their brightness. His manner implied, I thought, some painful recollections, or a presentiment that he should never behold Venice again. To me our departure was a source of relief and enjoyment. In the winter season Venice is a cheerful and desirable abode, because the population is dense, and the local peculiarities contribute greatly to promote public and private festivity: but, during the heats of summer and the exhalations of autumn, no place is more offensive and pestilential.
At Padua we separated from my mother, who proceeded with her domestics by the direct road to Peschiera, while Colonna and I made a deviation to Vicenza, whither we journeyed on foot; a mode of travelling the most favourable to colloquial enjoyment, and to an accurate and comprehensive view of the country. We found the numerous edifices of Palladio in Vicenza and its vicinity in many respects unworthy of that noble architect; many of them are indeed remodelled fronts of old houses, in which the pure taste of the artist was warped by the want of capability in the original elevations. The palaces built after his designs are deficient in extent and variety, and may be termed experimental models, rather than effective illustrations, of his chaste and classical conceptions. In his triumphal arch at the entrance of the Campo Marzo we found much to admire, and not less in his beautiful bridge which spans the Bacchiglione. How bold, and light, and elegant the arch, like the daring leap of a youthful amazon! And how cheerful the open balustrade, through which the clear and sparkling waters are seen rolling their rapid course to the adjacent city!
It is in Venice that the fine genius of Palladio develops all its supremacy. The Cornaro palace on the grand canal, and the unfinished convent of La Carità, are splendid efforts of pure taste in design and decoration; and as perfect in execution and finish as if cast in a mould. His churches too, especially that glorious edifice, Al Redentore—how simple in design, and yet how beautifully effective and harmonious in proportion and outline!