Salvator Rosa, in his last illness, demanded of the priests and others
that surrounded him, what they required of him. They replied, "in the
first instance to receive the sacrament as it is administered in Rome to
the dying." "To receive the sacrament," says his confessor, Baldovini,
"he showed no repugnance, but he vehemently and positively refused to
allow the host, with all the solemn pomp of its procession, to be
brought to his house, which he deemed unworthy of the divine presence."
He objected to the ostentation of the ceremony, to its _éclat_, to the
noise and bustle, smoke and heat it would create in the close sick
chamber. He appears to have objected to more than it was discreet to
object to in Rome: and all that his family and his confessor could
extort from him on the subject was, that he would permit himself to be
carried from his bed to the parish church, and there, with the humility
of a contrite heart, would consent to receive the sacrament at the foot
of the altar.
As immediate death might have been the consequence of this act of
indiscretion, his family, who were scarcely less interested for a life
so precious, than for the soul which was the object of their pious
apprehensions, gave up the point altogether; and on account of the
vehemence with which Salvator spoke on the subject, and the agitation it
had occasioned, they carefully avoided renewing a proposition which had
rallied all his force of character and volition to their long abandoned
post.
The rejection of a ceremony which was deemed in Rome indispensably
necessary to salvation, by one who was already stamped with the church's
reprobation, soon spread; report exaggerated the circumstance into a
positive expression of infidelity; and the gossip of the Roman
ante-rooms was supplied for the time with a subject of discussion, in
perfect harmony with their love for slander, bigotry, and idleness.
"As I went forth from Salvator's door," relates the worthy Baldovini, "I
met the _Canonico Scornio_, a man who has taken out a license to speak
of all men as he pleases. 'And how goes it with Salvator?' demands this
Canonico of me. 'Bad enough, I fear.'--Well, a few nights back,
happening to be in the anteroom of a certain great prelate, I found
myself in the centre of a circle of disputants, who were busily
discussing whether the aforesaid Salvator would die a Schismatic, a
Huguenot, a Calvinist, or a Lutheran?--'He will die, Signor Canonico,' I
replied, 'when it pleases God, a better Catholic than any of those who
now speak so slightingly of him!'--and so pursued my way."
This _Canonico_, whose sneer at the undecided faith of Salvator roused
all the bile of the tolerant and charitable Baldovini, was the near
neighbor of Salvator, a frequenter of his hospitable house, and one of
whom the credulous Salvator speaks in one of his letters as being "his
neighbor, and an excellent gentleman."
On the following day, as the Padre sat by the pillow of the suffering
Rosa, he had the simplicity, in the garrulity of his heart, to repeat
all these idle reports and malicious insinuations to the invalid: "But,"
says Baldovini, "as I spoke, Rosa only shrugged his shoulders."
Early on the morning of the fifteenth of March, that month so delightful
in Rome, the anxious and affectionate confessor, who seems to have been
always at his post, ascended the Monte della Trinità, for the purpose of
taking up his usual station by the bed's head of the fast declining
Salvator. The young Agosto flew to meet him at the door, and with a
countenance radiant with joy, informed him of the good news, that "his
dear father had given evident symptoms of recovery, in consequence of
the bursting of an inward ulcer."
Baldovini followed the sanguine boy to Iris father's chamber; but, to
all appearance Salvator was suffering great agony. "How goes it with
thee, Rosa?" asked Baldovini kindly, as he approached him.
"Bad, bad!" was the emphatic reply. While writhing with pain, the
sufferer added after a moment:--"To judge by what I now endure, the hand
of death grasps me sharply."
In the restlessness of pain he then threw himself on the edge of the
bed, and placed his head on the bosom of Lucrezia, who sat supporting
and weeping over him. His afflicted son and friend took their station at
the other side of the couch, and stood in mournful silence watching the
issue of these sudden and frightful spasms. At that moment a celebrated
Roman physician, the Doctor Catanni, entered the apartment. He felt the
pulse of Salvator, and perceived that he was fast sinking. He
communicated his approaching dissolution to those most interested in the
melancholy intelligence, and it struck all present with unutterable
grief. Baldovini, however, true to his sacred calling, even in the depth
of his human affliction, instantly despatched the young Agosto to the
neighboring Convent della Trinità, for the holy Viaticum. While life was
still fluttering at the heart of Salvator, the officiating priest of
the day arrived, bearing with him the holy apparatus of the last
mysterious ceremony of the church. The shoulders of Salvator were laid
bare, and anointed with the consecrated oil; some prayed fervently,
others wept, and all even still hoped; but the taper which the Doctor
Catanni held to the lips of Salvator while the Viaticum was
administered, burned brightly and steadily! Life's last sigh had
transpired, as religion performed her last rite.
Between that luminous and soul-breathing form of genius, and the clod of
the valley, there was now no difference; and the "end and object" of a
man's brief existence was now accomplished in him who, while yet all
young and ardent, had viewed the bitter perspective of humanity with a
philosophic eye and pronounced even on the bosom of pleasure,
"Nasci poena--Vita labor--Necesse mori."
On the evening of the fifteenth of March, 1673, all that remained of the
author of Regulus, of Catiline, and the Satires--the gay Formica, the
witty Coviello--of the elegant composer, and greatest painter of his
time and country--of Salvator Rosa! was conveyed to the tomb, in the
church of Santa Maria degli Angioli alle Terme--that magnificent temple,
unrivalled even at Rome in interest and grandeur, which now stands as it
stood when it formed the Pinacotheca of the Thermæ of Dioclesian. There,
accompanied by much funeral pomp, the body of Salvator lay in state;
the head and face, according to the Italian custom, being exposed to
view. All Rome poured into the vast circumference of the church, to take
a last view of the painter of the Roman people--the "Nostro Signor
Salvatore" of the Pantheon; and the popular feelings of regret and
admiration were expressed with the usual bursts of audible emotions in
which Italian sensibility on such occasions loves to indulge. Some few
there were, who gathered closely and in silence round the bier of the
great master of the Neapolitan school; and who, weeping the loss of the
man, forgot for a moment even that genius which had already secured its
own meed of immortality. These were Carlo Rossi, Francesco Baldovini,
and Paolo Oliva, each of whom returned from the grave of the friend he
loved, to record the high endowments and powerful talents of the painter
he admired, and the poet he revered. Baldovini retired to his cell to
write the Life of Salvator Rosa, and then to resign his own; Oliva to
his monastery, to compose the epitaph which is still read on the tomb of
his friend; and Carlo Rossi to select from his gallery such works of his
beloved painter, as might best adorn the walls of that chapel, now
exclusively consecrated to his memory.
On the following night, the remains of Salvator Rosa were deposited,
with all the awful forms of the Roman church, in a grave opened
expressly in the beautiful vestibule of Santa Maria degli Angioli alle
Terme. Never did the ashes of departed genius find a more appropriate
resting place;--the Pinacotheca of the Thermæ of Dioclesian had once
been the repository of all that the genius of antiquity had perfected in
the arts; and in the vast interval of time which had since elapsed, it
had suffered no change, save that impressed upon it by the mighty mind
of Michael Angelo.--_Lady Morgan._