on the edge, and the iron rods for pulley, wrought into the form of a cross, to make it a perfect little cloister. ‘Tis true that the resemblance might be impaired by the large chicken-coop in the corner, which emitted a chorus of cackling suggestive of a prosperous barnyard. But a flourishing coop is no contemptible accessory to the effects of a religious community; and as for its encumbering the cloister, that is very easily explained. The consideration of the civil power for religious communities has disencumbered them of all their property outside the walls, and even extended itself to everything within that is worth taking care of. A marble pavement of variegated pieces, formed into mosaics of no definable pattern, extends around the garden. The walls of the house are studded with fragments of sarcophagi and frieze-work—here the hand of a child, there a lion’s head, yonder a foot—while these are interspersed with lamps of terra-cotta, such as are found in the Catacombs; and, high above all, a row of Roman vases let into the wall as far as the neck gives it the appearance of a battery of cannon. The well, which, sunk in the centre of the garden, would have completed the picture of a cloister, is over against the wall. An attempt had been made to apply a fly-wheel and a crank, with some other complicated machinery of ropes and pulleys, to the process of drawing water, but evidently didn’t approach a success, as the crank is rusty and the rope frayed with age and exposure. On the other side of the garden stands a large cistern of water literally alive with gold-fish. The house itself is built around the garden, save the portion enclosed by the wall. It is but one story high generally. It seems, however,
that the builder, some time after the completion of the lower story, wanted to try the effect of another story; so, with an utter disregard of architectural designs and proportions, he raised the four walls at the fenestral apertures of which the fossil appeared. I ascertained afterwards that this addition forms the “apartments” of her antiquity. On the corner diagonally opposite arises a similar portion, which is reached by stairs on the outside—evidently the residence of the lord of the premises. A railing extends around the roof, while vines on trailers and a great fig-tree, which towers out of the garden and up to the roof, give the establishment quite an Oriental aspect. We only want a patriarch taking his evening promenade on the roof, and we have Syria in the shadow of the Colosseum. While I was contemplating all this the dog barked impatiently, ran ahead to an open door underneath a pent roof, and then trotted back, giving me to understand that he was very impatient to usher me in there. A Maltese cat appeared on the scene, walked furtively around me, inspected me from head to foot, and finally came to a halt in front of me and fixed his great, amber eyes upon me with an inquiring look, as which should say, “Are your intentions peaceful?” My addressing him by the name of “puss” seemed to satisfy him, and he trotted on with the dog.
The first object which met my gaze as I entered the door caused me to start back with a shudder; for I was not prepared for such a sight. On a table, stretched at full length, lay a human skeleton, with the head turned towards the door. It seemed to have taken that position of itself, with a view of seeing who passed in and out. The floor was littered with cartoons and bits of old lumber.
In a corner stood an ancient-looking painting of a skeleton seated in a meditative attitude—one bony leg crossed on the other, the elbow planted on the knee, and the chin resting on the hand. It had not the appearance of a caricature, for the lipless mouth and fleshless jaws wore a solemn and awful expression, which the most intemperate and frivolous fancy could not associate with the ridiculous. The walls, too, were covered with cartoons of different sizes, some of which were very beautiful. One especially struck me with admiration. It represented the Eternal Father gazing out into the chaotic darkness which preceded the great act of volition, “Fiat lux.” The perfection of the actus purus and existentia, which are identical in God, was powerfully expressed in the intensely active expression of the eyes and forehead. While all this occurred to me, a consciousness of the spirit of love, which mellowed and softened the sternness of that face, affected me. Passing another door, I found myself in a large room painted a Pompeian red. My first impression was that I had walked into the laboratory of an alchemist—a very justifiable impression. A long table in the middle of the room was crowded with vials of all sizes and every variety of form, containing liquids of the strangest colors. Crucibles, mortars, glass tubes, bellows, scales, and spirit-lamps were scattered over the table confusedly. A row of shelves garnished one of the walls, and upon them were arranged, in something like order, busts of different sizes and casts in plaster of arms, legs, feet, and hands. From the beams of the ceiling dangled a number of little cherubs of Berninian propensities—that
is to say, they were very plump, very short, and kicked and doubled themselves up into the most impossible attitudes for little fellows of their exaggerated proportions. These, coupled with several chunks of half-wrought clay tumbled promiscuously into one corner, and a number of modelling tools, a sponge, and an elevated stool, would perhaps incline the visitor to the belief that he was in the sanctum of a sculptor. The other three walls were covered with pictures representing a variety of subjects, sacred and profane. Here a muscular, sightless Samson coped with the pillars of the temple of the Philistines, to the seemingly intense interest of a demure cardinal on the opposite wall. There Justice poised her scales in front of a sketch, which the most unpractised eye would have no difficulty in recognizing as the work of Fra Angelico, portraying the Last Judgment. The activity of the devils as they scourged the damned into the bottomless pit is striking. Farther on a “Battle of the Centaurs” afforded an interesting anatomical study. But the sweetest picture of all was a little one not over a foot square, which represented with vivid simplicity the dispute between the two hermits, St. Paul and St. Anthony. The latter holds up one hand argumentatively, and points with the other to the untouched loaf, while his earnest face seems to say: “Paul, take up the loaf and break it.” Paul looks respectful, but not overcome. He leans upon his long staff with both hands, and contemplates the loaf with a face betokening his resolution not to touch it, at least until more conclusive arguments be adduced; and, after all, it is a quiet, domestic sort of a
picture. Beside this was another of about the same dimensions—one that pleased the eye not so much as the heart. It was St. Jerome in the wilderness. The crucifix is suspended high upon a thin sapling, and the great doctor kneels off at a distance, and prays with his hands joined before his breast. It is one of those prayerful pictures which recall Fra Bartolomeo, but the coloring was Timoteo Vite’s, and none else’s. In the corner of the room nearest the window I observed a ladder, made of iron bars, fastened into the wall, which terminated in a trap-door in the ceiling. At the foot of this ladder, right under the window, stood what seemed to be a sedan-chair. It was covered on all sides with oilcloth turned wrongside out. Before this chair stood an easel, on the easel a small picture, which I perceived was being touched by a brush; and I observed, furthermore, that the brush was manipulated by a hand of powerful proportions, such a hand as would have been enough of itself to build up that strange old house from the foundation-stone. Then a man’s head, adorned with gray locks and an old cap with a pair of turned-up flaps, emerged from the darkness, and I saw a pair of dark, bright, benevolent eyes smiling up at me. The face was bronzed, the beard gray and not heavy, but growing in a heavy instalment around the mouth and chin, then light on the under jaws, and developing into a bushy abundance in the direction of the ears. It was a pleasant, happy face, still possessing the ingenuous expression of the happy boy. As he worked himself out of the nook in which he was ensconced, and stood up to welcome me, giving me at the same time a grip of that
powerful hand which I associated above with the construction of the house, but which then referred me to a blacksmith-shop, I had an opportunity of surveying his figure.
I should have said, rather, I saw an old dressing-gown of brown stuff which buttoned closely at the chin, was tied around him with a rope, and terminated in a pair of heavy brogans. I introduced myself by stating that the père had requested me to call and see how the picture was doing. “Ah! there it is,” said the old man, and a smile of happy excitement mantled upon his face as he looked at the little picture on the easel, La Notte del Correggio. He gazed more intently than before, and then sank down quietly on one knee and scanned the face of the kneeling Virgin Mother, in whose face is reflected that wonderful intense light which concentrated in the face of the Child, as if desirous of seeing underneath the coloring. “The spirit of Correggio is here,” continued he in a musing strain; “no man living possessed his secret of blending colors into one another. I will not touch the face of the Child.”
“Then you believe,” said I, “that this is an original?”
“I feel it,” added he warmly. “Correggio may repeat himself, but he cannot be copied, at least in two pictures, his Giorno and his Notte. The dominating, character of Correggio’s paintings in oil, that something which proclaims him on the instant, is the coloring, penetrating and brilliant as enamelling—of such a kind that the lights assume an indefinable splendor, the shadows have a depth and transparency which no painter, and much less a copyist, ever produced, save Correggio. There”—and he arose and drew the curtain over