The consequence was, that our artist was obliged to fly from Rome, after waiting a little to see if the storm would blow over, and to seek an asylum in the court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany at Florence. Here he passed some of the happiest years of his life, flattered by princes, feasting nobles, conversing with poets, receiving the suggestions of critics, painting landscapes or history as he liked best, composing and reciting his own verses, and making a fortune, which he flung away again as soon as he had made it, with the characteristic improvidence of genius. Of the gay, careless, and friendly intercourse in which he passed his time, the following passages give a very lively intimation.
‘It happened that Rosa, in one of those fits of idleness to which even his strenuous spirit was occasionally liable, flung down his pencil, and sallied forth to communicate the infection of his far niente to his friend Lippi. On entering his studio, however, he found him labouring with great impetuosity on the back-ground of his picture of the Flight into Egypt; but in such sullen vehemence, or in such evident ill-humour, that Salvator demanded, “Che fai, amico?”—“What am I about?” said Lippi; “I am going mad with vexation. Here is one of my best pictures ruined: I am under a spell, and cannot even draw the branch of a tree, nor a tuft of herbage.”—“Signore Dio!” exclaimed Rosa, twisting the paletti off his friend’s thumb, “what colours are here?” and scraping them off, and gently pushing away Lippi, he took his place, murmuring, “Let me see! who knows but I may help you out of the scrape?” Half in jest and half in earnest, he began to touch and retouch, and change, till nightfall found him at the easel, finishing one of the best back-ground landscapes he ever painted. All Florence came the next day to look at his chef-d’œuvre, and the first artists of the age took it as a study.
‘A few days afterwards, Salvator called upon Lippi, found him preparing a canvas, while Malatesta read aloud to him and Ludovico Seranai the astronomer, the MS. of his poem of the Sphynx. Salvator, with a noiseless step, took his seat in an old Gothic window, and, placing himself in a listening attitude, with a bright light falling through stained glass upon his fine head, produced a splendid study, of which Lippi, without a word of his intention, availed himself; and executed, with incredible rapidity, the finest picture of Salvator that was ever painted. Several copies of it were taken with Lippi’s permission, and Ludovico Seranai purchased the original at a considerable price. In this picture Salvator is dressed in a cloth habit, with richly slashed sleeves, turnovers, and a collar. It is only a head and bust, and the eyes are looking towards the spectator.’ II. 66.
At one time, his impatience at being separated from Carlo Rossi and other friends was so great, that he narrowly risked his safety to obtain an interview with them. About three years after he had been at Florence, he took post-horses, and set off for Rome at midnight. Having arrived at an inn in the suburbs, he despatched messages to eighteen of his friends, who all came, thinking he had got into some new scrape; breakfasted with them, and returned to Florence, before his Roman persecutors or his Tuscan friends were aware of his adventure.
Salvator, however, was discontented even with this splendid lot, and sought to embower himself in entire seclusion, and in deeper bliss, in the palace of the Counts Maffei at Volterra, and in the solitudes in its neighbourhood. Here he wandered night and morn, drinking in that slow poison of reflection which his soul loved best—planning his Catiline Conspiracy—preparing his Satires for the press—and weeding out their Neapolitanisms, in which he was assisted by the fine taste and quick tact of his friend Redi. This appears to have been the only part of his life to which he looked back with pleasure or regret. He however left this enviable retreat soon after, to return to Rome, partly for family reasons, and partly, no doubt, because the deepest love of solitude and privacy does not wean the mind, that has once felt the feverish appetite, from the desire of popularity and distinction. Here, then, he planted himself on the Monte Pincio, in a house situated between those of Claude Lorraine and Nicholas Poussin—and used to walk out of an evening on the fine promenade near it, at the head of a group of gay cavaliers, musicians, and aspiring artists; while Nicholas Poussin, the very genius of antiquity personified, and now bent down with age himself, led another band of reverential disciples, side by side, with some learned virtuoso or pious churchman! Meantime, commissions poured in upon Salvator, and he painted successively his Jonas for the King of Denmark—his Battle-piece for Louis XIV., still in the Museum at Paris—and, lastly, to his infinite delight, an Altar-piece for one of the churches in Rome. Salvator, about this time, seems to have imbibed (even before he was lectured on his want of economy by the Fool at the house of his friend Minucci) some idea of making the best use of his time and talents.
‘The Constable Colonna (it is reported) sent a purse of gold to Salvator Rosa on receiving one of his beautiful landscapes. The painter, not to be outdone in generosity, sent the prince another picture, as a present,—which the prince insisted on remunerating with another purse; another present and another purse followed; and this struggle between generosity and liberality continued, to the tune of many other pictures and presents, until the prince, finding himself a loser by the contest, sent Salvator two purses, with an assurance that he gave in, et lui céda le champ de bataille.’
Salvator was tenacious in demanding the highest prices for his pictures, and brooking no question as to any abatement; but when he had promised his friend Ricciardi a picture, he proposed to restrict himself to a subject of one or two figures; and they had nearly a quarrel about it.
‘In April 1662,’ says his biographer, ‘and not long after his return to Rome, his love of wild and mountainous scenery, and perhaps his wandering tendencies, revived by his recent journey, induced him to visit Loretto, or at least to make that holy city the shrine of a pilgrimage, which it appears was one rather of taste than of devotion. His feelings on this journey are well described in one of his own Letters inserted in the Appendix. “I could not,” says Salvator, “give you any account of my return from Loretto, till I arrived here on the sixth of May. I was for fifteen days in perpetual motion. The journey was beyond all description curious and picturesque: much more so than the route from hence to Florence. There is a strange mixture of savage wildness and domestic scenery, of plain and precipice, such as the eye delights to wander over. I can safely swear to you, that the tints of these mountains by far exceed all I have ever observed under your Tuscan skies; and as for your Verucola, which I once thought a dreary desert, I shall henceforth deem it a fair garden, in comparison with the scenes I have now explored in these Alpine solitudes. O God! how often have I sighed to possess, how often since called to mind, those solitary hermitages which I passed on my way! How often wished that fortune had reserved for me such a destiny! I went by Ancona and Torolo, and on my return visited Assisa—all sites of extraordinary interest to the genius of painting. I saw at Terni (four miles out of the high road) the famous waterfal of Velino; an object to satisfy the boldest imagination by its terrific beauty—a river dashing down a mountainous precipice of near a mile in height, and then flinging up its foam to nearly an equal altitude! Believe, that while in this spot, I moved not, saw not, without bearing you full in my mind and memory.” See p. 277.
He begins another letter, of a later date, on his being employed to paint the altar of San Giovanni de Fiorentini, thus gaily:—
‘Sonate le campane—Ring out the chimes!—At last after thirty years existence in Rome, of hopes blasted and complaints reiterated against men and gods, the occasion is accorded me for giving one altar-piece to the public.’