Volume II Part 17 (1/2)

SUPPLIED BY THE TRANSLATOR

Gozzi broke off his Meht years, and died upon the 4th of April 1806, aged eighty-six On reviewing his life, we find four clearly marked periods The first ends with the death of his father in 1745, and includes his three years'

service in Dalmatia The second closes with the year 1756, and is eations and affairs of business which for series of years Short as was this second period, it gave a decisive tone to his character by confiriousness Undoubtedly it was not for nothing that he frequented the Venetian law-courts and studied the arts of chicanery In all his poles we detect the habit of forensic warfare, the wariness of an experienced pleader, and the licensed plausibility of one who is accustonifying the shortco attention to practical matters made him an experienced man of business This was the true Carlo Gozzi; not that fantastic drea of the sprites and fairies which his romantic French and German critics have discerned in the author of the _Fiabe_ At the salected literature, but went on writing in the intervals of serious affairs Self-taught, well-nigh devoid of systeifted with a sincere admiration for the best Italian authors, with an active fancy and a natural bias for burlesque humour, he formed that peculiar manner, at once prolix and forcible, effective and slovenly, which distinguishes his published works Unequal in style, incorrect in diction, incapable of giving perfect form or polish to his compositions, he nevertheless posed as a purist and threw himself with passion as a conservative into the literary polemics of his day The Accadenised in hihter I have mentioned the year 1756 as the date which opens the third period in Gozzi's life It li Influssi_ and the return of Sacchi's company to Venice This period terminates in 1781, and includes all that was most memorable in his career--the quarrel with Goldoni and Chiari, the alliance with Sacchi, the composition of the _Fiabe_ and twenty-three plays on Spanish subjects, the liaison with Teodora Ricci, and the episode of Gratarol Gozzi was past sixty when Sacchi's coht upon his past theatrical career The fourth period of seventeen years is distinguished by little literary activity Yet e to it the _Memorie Inutili_, which were professedly written as an answer to Gratarol's _Narrazione Apologetica_ Partly composed in 1780, but suppressed by order of the Governht until the year 1797-98, when Gozzi completed the work and sent it in a hurry to the press Meanwhile the Republic of S Mark had fallen, never to rise again In the midst of this political earthquake, Gozzi retained his old aristocratic principles intact, though he bowed to custom and used the shi+bboleths of the French Revolution, as he confesses, with conscious cynicise was passed in comparative solitude, cheered, however, by the friendly relations which hemembers of his family The cycle of his dramatic works was closed; and after 1782 he had the lected, while Goldoni's star reascended the firmament of popularity and fa the improvised style of comedy, to support which Gozzi coined iiven by the last debris of Sacchi's company; but when the old _Commedia dell'Arte_ and the old actors died out, the _Fiabe_ were relegated to marionettes and puppet-shows The poet and the man of letters dwindled in Gozzi, but thethis fourth period shows hied in various commercial affairs upon a sation, attentive to the produce of his far in lace and stuffs, groceries, wine, fowls, and carriages[86] This forms a curious contrast to the romantic portrait of the old man vamped up for us by Paul de Musset The ordinary troubles of advanced age--rheums, aches, and infirmities--fell upon him In one of his letters to Innocenzio Massiazette” On the 13th of February 1804 he signed a holographic will, which shows hiion, politics, philosophy, andin the Caelo, one of the broadest, busiest, and sunniest squares of Venice Indeed, he had quitted the ancestral palace of the Gozzi at S Cassianoit too distant fro while he occupied a casino alone in the Calle Lunga S Moise The little dwelling belonged to hie of his Memoirs, which did not lend itself to the scheme of my translation, he relates the circumstances of his removal to this habitation[87] I shall insert it here, because it throws light upon the last stage of Gozzi's journey in this world ”Many years,” he says, ”had passed away since my brothers Francesco and Almor with their families were established in Friuli, while I remained at Venice, the sole occupant of our paternal mansion For me alone, the vast place was like a wilderness In the winter I shi+vered with cold there Snow, rain, and the Rialto caused ht to gainold, and this made the journey seem each year more irksoo, Calle Lunga S Moise, not far from S Marco, had been let for sixty ducats a year to the majordomo of a Venetian nobleiving me no notice that he had sold his furniture and handed over my casino to the mistress of soes, the teneh the hands of several woot the rent and asked no questions The best of it was that the yrics on the heroism of my female tenants The last of these heroines sent to tell ly I went there, and was received by a well-restored relic of woed necessary in her dwelling-place Casting ht that they would serve my purpose aded her honeyed tone and language of affected flattery to oaths and threats and declarations that nothing in the world would matically remarked that she had no lease, that rant her sufficient time to seek another nest In such matters, as is well known to readers of these Me over certain pieces of daed furniture, I came to terms with the Nymph of Cocytus, and installed myself in my casino I did it up, and stayed there fourteen years, letting on lease my former abode at S Cassiano I should have been there still, had not my brother Almor written to say that he was tired of Friuli A ith a son and daughter, he should like to send the former to the university at Padua, and to e ly, we took a larger house at S Benedetto; and here ed in my eyes, as I must probably have seemed in his, came to live with me His children, whoiants Before a year was over, the daughter ood match in Friuli, and the son went to Padua, whence the troubles of the Revolution drove hiree In that commotion the laurel, destined for the brows of students, was consecrated to the kitchen and the garnishi+ng of dishes on the table”[88]

It is possible that the e of his nephew broke up the joint-household at S Benedetto, and that Gozzi then reelo[89]

Almor and his son Gasparo were appointed executors to Carlo Gozzi's will, which winds up with the following characteristic ad man: ”Preserve your affection for your well-bred, well-behaved, and excellent wife Look to the careful education of your children, and protect them from the false e, involving all humanity in disastrous mists of error and confusion, in labyrinths of infelicity and misery” Gozzi died on the 4th of April 1806, and was buried in the church of S Cassiano

PIETRO LONGHI,

THE PAINTER OF VENETIAN SOCIETY DURING THE PERIOD OF GOZZI AND GOLDONI[90]

I

The eighteenth century wasFour contehi, and Guardi--have left abundance of meritorious work, which illustrates the taste and manners of society, sho men and women dressed and moved and took their pastime in the City of the Waters, and preserves for us the external features of Venice during the last hundred years of the Republic[91]

As an artist, Tiepolo was undoubtedly the strongest of these four In hienius of the first order, who, had he been born in the great age of Italian painting, ht have disputed the palm with men like Tintoretto His frescoes in the Palazzo labia, representing the embarkation of Antony and Cleopatra on the Cydnus, and their famous banquet at Canopus, are worthy to be classed with the finest decorative work of Paolo Veronese Indeed, the sense for colour, the robust breadth of design, and the firreat master, seem to have passed into Tiepolo, who revives the splendours of the sixteenth century in these superbly painted pageants It is to be regretted that one so eifted should have condescended to the barocco taste of the age in those ories and celestial trius of palaces and the cupolas of churches Little, except the frescoes of the labia reception-hall, survives to shohat Tiepolo ht have achieved had he remained true to his native instinct for heroic subjects and for masculine sobriety of workmanshi+p

Of Canaletti it is not necessary to say land has been obscured of late years--to some extent, perhaps by the fussy eloquence of Mr Ruskin, but really by the finer sense for landscape and the truer way of rendering nature which have sprung up in Europe Canaletti's pictures of Venetian buildings and canals strike us as cold, taic of Turner's palette and the penetrative force of his iination

Guardi, the pupil and in some respects the imitator of Canaletti, hasthe heyday of hisreputation on account of certain qualities peculiar to hireeable sketchiness; his colouring a graceful geold But what has mainly served to win for Guardi popularity is the attention he paid to contee canvasses with mathematical perspectives of city and water

At the same time he omitted life and incident There is little to remind us that the Venice he so laboriously depicted was the Venice of perukes and bag-wigs, of uises Guardi had an eye for local colour and for fashi+onable humours The result is that some of his small pictures--one, for instance, which represents a brilliant reception in the Sala del Collegio of the Ducal Palace--have a real value for us by recalling the life of a vanished and irrecoverable past Thus Guardi illustrates the truth that artists may acquire posthumous importance by felicitous accident in their choice of subjects or the bias of their sye a dozen so-called ”historical pictures” for one fresh and vivid scene which brings a bygone phase of civilisation before our eyes[92]

In this particular respect Longhi surpasses Guardi, and deserves to be styled the pictorial chronicler of Venetian society in the eighteenth century He has even been called the Venetian Hogarth and the Venetian Boucher Neither of these titles, however, as I shall attehtly characterise his specific quality Could his numerous works be collected in one place, or be adequately reproduced, we should possess a coe which developed Goldoni and Casanova, Carlo Gozzi and Caterina Dolfin-Tron

II

Very little is known of Longhi's career, and that little has no great ioldsht up to his father's trade While yet a lad, Pietro showed unusual powers of invention and elegance of drawing in the designs he made for ornamental silver-work This induced his parents to let hioldsmith's trade, however, seeenius A love of delicate line remained with him, and he displayed an affectionate partiality for the minutest details of decorative furniture, dress, and articles of luxury

Sos of plate--coffee-pots, chocolate-mills, ewers, salvers, water-vessels--are exquisite for their instinctive sense of graceful curve and unerring precision of contour It was a period, as we know, during which such things acquired an alhi felt them with the enthusias under Antonio Balestra at Venice, and also under Giuseppe Maria Crespi at Bologna The baneful influences of the latter cityThis is an elaborate work in fresco at the Sagredo Palace on the Grand Canal The patrician family of that name inhabited an old Venetian-Gothic house at San Felice Early in the last century they rebuilt the hall and staircase in Palladian style, leaving the front with its beautiful arcades untouched The decoration of this addition to their hi in 1734 The subject, chosen by himself or indicated by his patron, was the Fall of the Giants--_La Caduta dei Giganti_ Longhi treated this uneable theme as follows He placed the deities of Oly Jupiter in the centre advances, brandishi+ng his ars on the titans, who are precipitated headlong a solid purple clouds andthe three sides of the staircase The scene is represented without dignity, dra throughout is feeble, the colouring heavy and tahi had no notion hoork in fresco, differing herein notably froar Jove, particularly vulgar in the decla, tittering leer upon her coical grandeur

The titans are a confused heap of brawny, sprawling nudities--studied, perhaps, fro a want of even academical adroitness in their ill-drawn extres It was essential in such a subject that hi has contrived to h they were irreed into their places on the walls, while his ruining giants are clearly transcripts fro we catch a note of graceful fancy, especially in a group of lightly-painted Goddesses,--elegant and natural fereens and pinks, with a silvery illumination from the upper sky But the somewhat effeminate sweetness of this episode is ill-co after violent effect in the main subject; and the whole composition leaves upon our ”

III

It is singular that Longhi should have reached the age of thirty-tithout discovering his real vocation The absence of brain-force in the conception, of strength in the design, and of any effective adaptation to architecture, which dah to prove that he was here engaged on work for which he had no faculty and felt no sympathy

What revealed to him the true bias of his talent? Did he perchance, just about this period, coarth? That is very possible But the records of his life are so hopelessly e in conjecture