these things, he overpassed the bounds of moderation, permitting himself such indulgences as were unworthy of a good and upright artist, and thus diminishing the reputation which he had obtained by his earlier labours, since he no longer bestowed the attention which he had at first given to his vocation. One evening he chanced to be present at a wedding in the house of a Bolognese Count, when it so happened that he was invited to dance the torch-dance, by a gentlewoman of very honourable condition, for whom he had long permitted himself to entertain sentiments of excessive admiration, wherefore, dancing as we have said with this lady, and losing sight of all propriety in his vain conceit, he ventured to regard his partner with eyes full of adoration, and sending forth a never-ending sigh, inquired with a trembling voice:—
“What is it then, that thus I feel! what is it, if not love?”[1]
Which the gentlewoman hearing, and being a person of good sense, was resolved to make him feel the full extent of the great impertinence whereof he had been guilty; she therefore turned a look of contempt on her adorer and replied, “Without doubt some flea[2] or a viler animal.” And this response, being repeated by not a few, was soon spread through all Bologna, Alfonso becoming the object of not a little scorn and mocking accordingly.[3] It is nevertheless to be regretted that this artist had not devoted himself to the labours of his art rather than to the vanities of the world, seeing that he would in such case have produced without doubt very admirable works, for since he accomplished so much and that wdth the slight pains which he took, what might he not have done had he set himself conscientiously to the fitting duties of his vocation?
When the Emperor Charles V. was in Bologna, the portrait of His Majesty was taken by the most excellent Tiziano of Cadore, which Alfonso seeing, desired to try his skill likewise in a portrait of the same monarch. But having no
- ↑ The line, as our readers will perceive, is from a sonnet by Petrarch.
- ↑ Let the reader be pleased to excuse this his compelled introduction to’so unwonted an acquaintance.
- ↑ Frediani, Ragionamento, &c., denies the truth of this statement, but without having adduced the shadow of a reason for doing so.
