In Salvator Rosa's celebrated picture of La Fortuna, the nose of one
powerful ecclesiastic, and the eye of another were detected in the
brutish physiognomy of the swine treading upon pearls, and in an ass,
scattering with his hoofs the laurel and myrtle which lay in his path;
and in an old goat, reposing on roses, some there were, who even fancied
they discovered the Infallible Lover of Donna Olympia, the Sultana,
queen of the Quirinal!
The cry of atheism and sedition--of contempt of established
authorities--was thus raised under the influence of private pique and
long-cherished envy: it soon found an echo in the painted walls where
the conclave sat "in close divan," and it was handed about from mouth to
mouth, till it reached the ears of the Inquisitor, within the dark
recesses of his house of terror. A cloud was now gathering over the head
of the devoted Salvator which it seemed no human power could avert. But
ere the bolt fell, his fast and tried friend Don Maria Ghigi threw
himself between his protégé and the horrible fate which awaited him, by
forcing the sullen satirist to draw up an apology, or rather an
explanation of his offensive picture.
This explanation, bearing title of a "Manifesto," he obtained permission
to present to those powerful and indignant persons in whose hands the
fate of Salvator now lay; Rosa explained away all that was supposed to
be personal in his picture, and proved that his hogs were not churchmen,
his mules pretending pedants, his asses Roman nobles, and his birds and
beasts of prey the reigning despots of Italy. His imprudence however,
subsequently raised such a storm that he was obliged to quit Rome, when
he fled to Florence.