Chapter I: Page

My motive for writing these Memoirs--My father's family--Removal
of the family to Florence--My childhood--My father takes me to
Pistoia, but I run away from his house to return to my
mother--From Pistoia I go with my father to Prato--My first
study in drawing--Strong impression made upon me by an old
print--My father's opposition to my studies--My sorrow at being
so far from my mother--I run the risk of being burnt--Having
grown tall, fears are entertained for my health--I return to my
mother at Florence and work with Ammanati--I go to Siena and
study ornate design in the Academy--Carlo Pini gives me lessons
in drawing the human figure--Signor Angelo Barbetti's
prophecy--I run away from Siena, and on foot go to my mother at
Florence--Signor Paolo Sani--Death of my sister Clementina--My
mother's infirmity of eyesight--My brother Lorenzo goes to the
poorhouse--My aversion to learn reading and writing--My first
library, and inexperience of books, 1

CHAPTER II.

Without knowing it, I was doing what Leonardo advises--New way
of decorating the walls of one's house--I wish to study design
at the Academy, but cannot carry this into effect--A bottle of
anise-seed cordial--Intelligent people are benevolent, not so
those of mediocre minds--The statues in the Piazza della
Signoria and alabaster figures--The discovery of a hidden
well--My father returns home without work, and leaves for
Rome--Young Signor Emilio del Fabris--Sea-baths and cholera at
Leghorn--With help I save a woman from drowning--I go to San
Piero di Bagno--My uncle the provost dies--My father returns
from Rome, and settles in Florence--My work, a group of a Holy
Family, is stolen--Description of this group, 18

CHAPTER III.

A punishment well deserved, and my satisfaction--Different
times, different customs--The use of the birch given up in
schools--A portrait--Companions and bad habits--How I became
acquainted with my dear Marina--My first time of speaking with
her--Difficulty to obtain my mother's consent to our
marriage--She makes trouble, thinking to do well--I am sent away
from my betrothed, and return to bad habits--An escapade--The
public baths of Vaga-Loggia--My clothes stolen, 35

CHAPTER IV.

Return to the house of my betrothed, and put an end to my
thoughtless ways--A talking parrot--He who does not wish to read
these pages knows what he has to do--How I went to prison, and
how I passed my time there--"The Death of Ferruccio," by the
painter Bertoli--Signor Luigi Magi, the sculptor--How I learnt
to become economical--Shirts with plaited wrist-bands--The first
love-kiss, and a little bunch of lemon-verbena--My marriage--My
wife has doubts as to my resolution of studying
sculpture--Pacetti's shop in Palazzo Borghese--I sell the "Santa
Filomena" to a Russian, who re-christens her "Hope"--I begin to
work on marble--I make a little crucifix in boxwood, which is
bought by Cav. Emanuel Fenzi--Verses by Giovanni Battista
Niccolini, 52

CHAPTER V.

A warning to young artists--Professor Cambi's propositions--A
financial problem: to increase gain by diminishing the means
that produce it--I leave Sani's shop to have more time and
liberty to study--An imitation is not so bad, but a
falsification is indeed an ugly thing--The Marchesa Poldi and a
casket, supposed to be an antique--How a master should be--The
death of my mother, September 1840--Opinion of the Academy--The
"Tipsy Bacchante"--A divided vote--The "Cariatidi" of the
Rossini Theatre at Leghorn, 72

CHAPTER VI.

An unjust law--The "Abel"--Brina the model and I in danger of
being asphyxiated--My first request--Benvenuti wishes to change
the name of my Abel for that of Adonis--I invite Bartolini to
decide on the name of my statue--Bartolini at my studio--His
advice and corrections on the Abel--Lorenzo Bartolini--Giuseppe
Sabatelli--Exhibition of the Abel--It is said to be cast from
life--I ask for a small studio, but do not obtain it--My second
and last request--The President Antonio Montalvo--I don't
succeed somehow in doing anything as I should--I talk over
matters at home--Count del Benino a true friend and true
benefactor--His generous action, 89

CHAPTER VII.

The Grand Duchess Maria of Russia and the commission for the
Cain and Abel--The Prince of Leuchtenberg and a plate of
_caviale_ at Caffè Doney--An unusual amusement that did some
good--Again the generosity of Count del Benino--Bartolini's
Hunchback, and in consequence a return to the Abel--Bartolini
gets angry with me--Examination of the materialistic or
realistic in art--Effects of the realistic--Do not have girls
alone by themselves for models--Subscription got up by the
Sienese to have my Abel executed in marble--A new way of curing
a cough--Signora Letizia's receipt, who sent it and paid for it
herself--One must never offer works gratis, for they are not
accepted--The Grand Duchess Marie Antoinetta orders the "Giotto"
for the Uffizi--Has Abel killed Cain?--Statue of Pius II.--A
foolish opinion and impertinent answer--I defy the law that
prohibits eating, 110

CHAPTER VIII.

_Literati_ at my studio, and their influence on my
work--Calamatta's opinion of Tenerani, of Bartolini, and of
myself--His defence of my Abel in Paris--Pius II.--Academicians
and "Naturalisti"--Luigi Venturi--Prince Anatolia Demidoff and
the Princess Matilde--The statuette in clay of the Princess
Matilde is destroyed--Our minister Nigra presents me to the
Emperor Napoleon III.--Beauty does not exist outside of
nature--Praise puts one to sleep--The incoherence of Bartolini,
139

CHAPTER IX.

The political reforms of the year 1847 in Tuscany--My first
scholars--Ciseri, Prati, Aleardi, Fusinato, Coletti, and
Chiarini the _improvisatore_--Inedited verses by Prati--Giuseppe
Verdi--A digression on artistic individuality--The Emperor of
Russia's visit to my studio--Reactionary movement of the 12th of
April 1849--I am in danger of my life--The return of the Grand
Duke, 159

CHAPTER X.

My wife, my little girls, and my work--Death of my brother
Lorenzo--Death of Lorenzo Bartolini--The base for the
"Tazza"--Eight years of work, only to obtain a living--Mussini
and his school--Pollastrini--The school in Via
Sant'Apollini--Prince Demidoff and the monument by
Bartolini--The Nymph of the Scorpion and the Nymph of the
Serpent, by Bartolini--Marchese Ala--Count Arese--The four
statuettes for Demidoff--Amerigo of the Prince Corsinis--His
Royal Highness Count of Syracuse, a sculptor--"Sant'Antonino"
statue at the Uffizi, 179

CHAPTER XI.

Close imitation from life--My illness--I am in danger of losing
my life--Luigi del Punta, head physician at Court--The Grand
Duke furnishes me with the means for going to Naples--I leave
for Naples--A beggar impostor--Another and my
boots--Sorrento--My Neapolitan friends--Professor Tartaglia and
the hydropathic cure--The museum at Naples--Let us study the
good wherever it is to be found--A strange presentation, 203

CHAPTER XII.

Pompeii--A cameo--Sketch for the Bacco della
Crittogama--Professor Angelini the sculptor--One must not offer
one's hand with too much freedom to ladies--A hard-hearted
woman with small intelligence--The San Carlo, the San Carlino,
the Fenice, and the Sebeto--Monument by Donatello at Naples--The
Barocco and mistaken opinions--_Dilettanti_ in the fine
arts--Prince Don Sebastian of Bourbon--Is the beard a sign of
being Legitimist or Liberal?--I am taken for a prince or
something like one--"The bottle" for doorkeepers and _custodi_
of the public museums of Naples--Phidias, Demosthenes, and
Cicero all against Ruggero Bonghi, 223

CHAPTER XIII.

Never make a present of your works--Pope Rezzonico by
Canova--Tenerani--Overbeck's theories--Minardi and his school--A
woman from the Trastevere who looked like the Venus of
Milo--Conventionalists and Realists--An ambitious question and
bitter answer--Filippo Gualterio, 242

CHAPTER XIV.

The nude--The statue of David--Rauch--The base of the Tazza--The
chapel of the Madonna del Soccorso--Sepulchral monuments for San
Lorenzo--The 27th of April 1859--Count Scipione Borghesi--A
group of the Deluge--Competition for Wellington's monument, and
a great help, 259

CHAPTER XV.

Patience a most essential virtue--Trust was a good man, but
Trust-no-one a better--A competition either attracts or drives
away men of talent--A study from life of a lion by
Marrocchetti--Assistant modellers--Sydenham and its wonders--One
of "Abel's" fingers--New judgment of Solomon--An important
question--An Indian who speaks about things as they
are--Professor Papi and the failure of the first cast in bronze
of the "Abel"--A medicine not sold by the chemist, 277

CHAPTER XVI.

On the study of expression from life--The care one must take in
making studies from life--A _genre_ picture and Raphael's
cartoon of the "Massacre of the Innocents"--I lose myself in
London--The housemaid at Hotel Granara--The inconvenience of
being ignorant and absent-minded--Ristori and Piccolomini in
London--The cartoons of Raphael at Hampton Court--Fantasy runs
away with me--A curious but just law--The result of fasting--The
villa of Quarto and a prince's "early hour"--Again of Prince
Demidoff, 301

CHAPTER XVII.

My father's death--A turn in the omnibus--The Ferrari
monument--I keep the "Sappho" for myself--The "Tired Bacchante"
and the little model--Raphael and the Fornarina--The Madonna and
bas-reliefs at Santa Croce and Cavaliere Sloane--My daughter
Amalia and her works--My daughter Beppina--Description of the
bas-relief on the façade of Santa Croce--I am taken for the
wrong person by the Holy Father Pius IX.--Marshal
Haynau--Professor Bezzuoli and Haynau's portrait, 322

CHAPTER XVIII.

One of my colleagues--A mysterious voice--The group of the
"Pietà"--Very clear Latin--A professor who ignores the 'Divina
Commedia'--Composition of the group of the
"Pietà"--Digression--A good lesson and nervous
attack--Mancinelli and Celentano, 345

CHAPTER XIX.

A prophetic dream--Giovanni Strazza--Signor Vonwiller and
societies for promoting art--Return from Naples to Rome, and my
daughter Luisina's illness--Our return to Florence--Death of
Tria the model--The Mossotti monument at Pisa--How it was that I
did not make the portrait of his Majesty the King--The
competition for Cavour's monument--I go to Turin to pass
judgment on it--The "Christ after the Resurrection," a
commission of Signor Filippi di Buti--Religious art and
Alessandro Manzoni and Gino Capponi--Thought is not
free--Cavour's monument--The description of it, 365

CHAPTER XX.

Allegories in art--The Monga monument at Verona--Of my late
daughter Luisina--Her death--How I was robbed--Monsignore
Archbishop Limberti's charitable project--One of my
colleagues--Nicolô Puccini and the statue of Cardinal
Forteguerri--Cesare Sighinolfi--Cardinal Corsi, Archbishop of
Pisa, 385

CHAPTER XXI.

The Universal Exhibition at Paris in 1867--The imitators of
Vela--Inedited music by Rossini and Gustave Doré--Domenico
Morelli--Group of Prince Trabia's children and the
thieves--"Stick no bills"--The statue of Marshal
Pallavicini--The Empress Maria Teresa and Marshal Pallavicini--A
memorial monument to Fra Girolamo Savonarola--The Universal
Exhibition at Vienna--A tiny room--Excellent and very dear--On
harmony of sounds--On the harmony in the animal world--The
harmony of the human form as manifested by the inner beauty of
the soul--The campanile of St Stephen's and Canova's monument,
402

CHAPTER XXII.

The palace of the Exhibition at Vienna--Why, with my attributes
of President, I was in such haste--Michael Angelo and
Garibaldi--A Viennese cabman--The Camerini monument--Duke
Camerini--An anecdote of his life--Statue of Michael Angelo in
the future--The centenary festival of Michael Angelo--Signora
Adelina Patti--A greedy young man of little judgment--The Favard
monument, 418

CHAPTER XXIII.

Pius IX. objects to having me make his bust--I go to Rome to see
the Pope--The Exhibition at Naples--Again on idealism and
naturalism--The masters of Italian melody--Vincenzo Bellini and
his monument--Conclusion, 438

INDEX, 453

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS

OF

GIOVANNI DUPRÈ.