A few days later Signer Benedetto informed his pupils in
ceremonious audience of the duke's command and of his own
intentions; he did not pronounce his daughter's name to the
youths, but he spoke in terms that were clear enough to assure
them that whoever had the good fortune and high merit to gain the
duke's choice of his pottery should have the honor of becoming
associate in his own famous bottega. Now, it had been known in
Urbino ever since Pacifica had gone to her first communion that
whoever pleased her father well enough to become his partner would
have also to please her as her husband. Not much attention was
given to maidens' wishes in those times, and no one thought the
master-potter either unjust or cruel in thus suiting himself
before he suited his daughter. And what made the hearts of all the
young men quake and sink the lowest was the fact that Signer
Benedetto offered the competition, not only to his own apprentices,
but to any native of the duchy of Urbino. For who could tell what
hero might not step forth from obscurity and gain the great prize
of this fair hand of Pacifica's? And with her hand would go many
a broad gold ducat, and heritage of the wide old gray stone house,
and many an old jewel and old brocade that were kept there in dusky
sweet-smelling cabinets, and also more than one good piece of land,
smiling with corn and fruit trees, outside the gates in the lower
pastures to the westward.
Luca, indeed, never thought of these things, but the other three
pupils did, and other youths as well. Had it not been for the
limitation as to birth within the duchy, many a gallant young
painter from the other side of the Apennines, many a lusty
vasalino or boccalino from the workshops of fair Florence herself,
or from the Lombard cities, might have traveled there in hot haste
as fast as horses could carry them, and come to paint the clay for
the sake of so precious a recompense. But Urbino men they had to
be; and poor Luca, who was so full of despair that he could almost
have thrown himself headlong from the rocks, was thankful to
destiny for even so much slender mercy as this,--that the number
of his rivals was limited.
"Had I been you," Giovanni Sanzio ventured once to say
respectfully to Signor Benedetto, "I think I should have picked
out for my son-in-law the best youth that I knew, not the best
painter; for be it said in all reverence, my friend, the greatest
artist is not always the truest man, and by the hearthstone humble
virtues have sometimes high claim."
Then Signor Benedetto had set his stern face like a flint, knowing
very well what youth Messer Giovanni would have liked to name to
him.
"I have need of a good artist in my bottega to keep up its fame,"
he had said stiffly. "My vision is not what it was, and I should
be loath to see Urbino ware fall back, whilst Pesaro and Gubbio
and Castel Durante gain ground every day. Pacifica must pay the
penalty, if penalty there be, for being the daughter of a great
artist."
Mirthful, keen-witted Sanzio smiled to himself, and went his way
in silence; for he who loved Andrea Mantegna did not bow down in
homage before the old master-potter's estimation of himself, which
was in truth somewhat overweening in its vanity.
"Poor Pacifica!" he thought; "if only my 'Faello were but some
decade older!"
He, who could not foresee the future, the splendid, wondrous,
unequaled future that awaited his young son, wished nothing better
for him than a peaceful painter's life here in old Urbino, under
the friendly shadow of the Montefeltro's palace walls.
Meanwhile, where think you was Raffaelle? Half the day, or all the
day, and every day whenever he could? Where think you was he?
Well, in the attic of Luca, before a bowl and a dish almost as big
as himself. The attic was a breezy, naked place, underneath the
arches supporting the roof of Maestro Benedetto's dwelling. Each
pupil had one of these garrets to himself,--a rare boon, for which
Luca came to be very thankful, for without it he could not have
sheltered his angel; and the secret that Raffaelle had whispered
to him that day of the first conference had been, "Let ME try and
paint it!"
For a long time Luca had been afraid to comply, had only forborne
indeed from utter laughter at the idea from his love and reverence
for the little speaker. Baby Sanzio, who was only just seven years
old as the April tulips reddened the corn, painting a majolica
dish and vase to go to the Gonzaga of Mantua! The good fellow
could scarcely restrain his shouts of mirth at the audacious
fancy; and nothing had kept him grave but the sight of that most
serious face of Raffaelle, looking up to his with serene, sublime
self-confidence, nay, perhaps, rather, confidence in heaven and in
heaven's gifts.
"Let me try!" said the child a hundred times. He would tell no
one, only Luca would know; and if he failed--well, there would
only be the spoiled pottery to pay for, and had he not two whole
ducats that the duke had given him when the court had come to
behold his father's designs for the altar frescos at San Dominico
di Cagli?
So utterly in earnest was he, and so intense and blank was Luca's
absolute despair, that the young man had in turn given way to his
entreaties. "Never can I do aught," he thought, bitterly, looking
at his own clumsy designs, "And sometimes by the help of cherubs
the saints work miracles,"
"It will be no miracle," said Raffaelle, hearing him murmur this;
"it will be myself, and that which the dear God has put into me."
From that hour Luca let him do what he would, and through all
these lovely early summer days the child came and shut himself up
in the garret, and studied, and thought, and worked, and knitted
his pretty fair brows, and smiled in tranquil satisfaction,
according to the mood he was in and the progress of his labors.
Giovanni Sanzio went away at that time to paint an altar-piece
over at Citta di Castello, and his little son for once was glad he
was absent. Messer Giovanni would surely have remarked the long
and frequent visits of Raffaelle to the attic, and would, in all
likelihood, have obliged him to pore over his Latin or to take
exercise in the open fields; but his mother said nothing, content
that he should be amused and safe, and knowing well that Pacifica
loved him and would let him come to no harm under her roof.
Pacifica herself did wonder that he deserted her so perpetually
for the garret. But one day when she questioned him the sweet-
faced rogue clung to her and murmured, "Oh, Pacifica, I do want
Luca to win you, because he loves you so; and I do love you both!"
And she grew pale, and answered him, "Ah, dear, if he could!" and
then said never a word more, but went to her distaff; and
Raffaelle saw great tears fall off her lashes down among the flax.
She thought he went to the attic to watch how Luca painted, and
loved him more than ever for that, but knew in the hopelessness of
her heart--as Luca also knew it in his--that the good and gallant
youth would never be able to create anything that would go as the
duke's gifts to the Gonzaga of Mantua. And she did care for Luca!
She had spoken to him but rarely indeed, yet passing in and out of
the same doors, and going to the same church offices, and dwelling
always beneath the same roof, he had found means of late for a
word, a flower, a serenade. And he was so handsome and so brave,
and so gentle, too, and so full of deference. Poor Pacifica cared
not in the least whether he could paint or not. He could have made
her happy.
In the attic Raffaelle passed the most anxious hours of all his
sunny little life. He would not allow Luca even to look at what he
did. He barred the door and worked; when he went away he locked
his work up in a wardrobe. The swallows came in and out of the
unglazed window, and fluttered all around him; the morning
sunbeams came in, too, and made a nimbus round his golden head,
like that which his father gilded above the heads of saints.
Raffaelle worked on, not looking off, though clang of trumpet, or
fanfare of cymbal, often told him there was much going on worth
looking at down below. He was only seven years old, but he labored
as earnestly as if he were a man grown, his little rosy ringers
gripping that pencil which was to make him in life and death
famous as kings are not famous, and let his tender body lie in its
last sleep in the Pantheon of Rome.
He had covered hundreds of sheets with designs before he had
succeeded in getting embodied the ideas that haunted him. When he
had pleased himself at last, he set to work to transfer his
imaginations to the clay in color in the subtile luminous metallic
enamel that characterizes Urbino majolica.
Ah, how glad he was now that his father had let him draw from the
time he was two years old, and that of late Messer Benedetto had
shown him something of the mysteries of painting on biscuit and
producing the metallic lustre which was the especial glory of the
pottery of the duchy!
How glad he was, and how his little heart bounded and seemed to
sing in this his first enjoyment of the joyous liberties and
powers of creative work!
A well-known writer has said that genius is the power of taking
pains; he should have said rather that genius HAS this power also,
but that first and foremost it possesses the power of spontaneous
and exquisite production without effort and with delight.
Luca looked at him (not at his work, for the child had made him
promise not to do so) and began to marvel at his absorption, his
intentness, the evident facility with which he worked: the little
figure leaning over the great dish on the bare board of the table,
with the oval opening of the window and the blue sky beyond it,
began to grow sacred to him with more than the sanctity of
childhood. Raffaelle's face grew very serious, too, and lost its
color, and his large hazel eyes looked very big and grave and
dark.
"Perhaps Signer Giovanni will be angry with me if ever he knows,"
thought poor Luca; but it was too late to alter anything now. The
child Sanzio had become his master.
So Raffaelle, unknown to any one else, worked on and on there in
the attic while the tulips bloomed and withered, and the
honeysuckle was in flower in the hedges, and the wheat and barley
were being cut in the quiet fields lying far down below in the
sunshine. For midsummer was come; the three months all but a week
had passed by. It was known that every one was ready to compete
for the duke's choice.
One afternoon Raffaelle took Luca by the hand and said to him,
"Come."
He led the young man up to the table, beneath the unglazed window,
where he had passed so many of these ninety days of the spring and
summer.
Luca gave a great cry, and stood gazing, gazing, gazing. Then he
fell on his knees and embraced the little feet of the child: it
was the first homage that he, whose life became one beautiful song
of praise, received from man.
"Dear Luca," he said softly, "do not do that. If it be indeed
good, let us thank God."
What his friend saw were the great oval dish and the great jar or
vase standing with the sunbeams full upon them, and the brushes
and the tools and the colors all strewn around. And they shone
with lustrous opaline hues and wondrous flame-like glories and
gleaming iridescence, like melted jewels, and there were all
manner of graceful symbols and classic designs wrought upon them;
and their borders were garlanded with cherubs and flowers, bearing
the arms of Montefeltro, and the landscapes were the tender,
homely landscapes round about Urbino; and the mountains had the
solemn radiance that the Apennines wore at eveningtime; and amidst
the figures there was one supreme, white-robed, golden-crowned
Esther, to whom the child painter had given the face of Pacifica.
And this wondrous creation, wrought by a baby's hand, had safely
and secretly passed the ordeal of the furnace, and had come forth
without spot or flaw.
Luca ceased not from kneeling at the feet of Raffaelle, as ever
since has kneeled the world.
"Oh, wondrous boy! Oh, angel sent unto men!" sighed the poor
'prentice, as he gazed; and his heart was so full that he burst
into tears.
"Let us thank God," said little Raffaelle again; and he joined his
small hands that had wrought this miracle, and said his Laus
Domini.
When the precious jar and the great platter were removed to the
wardrobe and shut up in safety behind the steel wards of the
locker, Luca said timidly, feeling twenty years in age behind the
wisdom of this divine child: "But, dearest boy, I do not see how
your marvelous and most exquisite accomplishment can advantage me.
Even if you would allow it to pass as mine, I could not accept
such a thing; it would be a fraud, a shame: not even to win
Pacifica could I consent."
"Be not so hasty, good friend," said Raffaelle. "Wait just a
little longer yet and see. I have my own idea. Do trust in me."
"Heaven speaks in you, that I believe," said Luca, humbly.
Raffaelle answered not, but ran downstairs, and, passing Pacifica,
threw his arms about her in more than his usual affectionate
caresses.
"Pacifica, be of good heart," he murmured, and would not be
questioned, but ran homeward to his mother.
"Can it be that Luca has done well," thought Pacifica; but she
feared the child's wishes had outrun his wisdom. He could not be
any judge, a child of seven years, even though he were the son of
that good and honest painter and poet, Giovanni Sanzio.
The next morning was midsummer day. Now, the pottery was all to be
placed on this forenoon in the bottega of Signor Benedetto; and
the Duke Guidobaldo was then to come and make his choice from
amidst them; and the master-potter, a little because he was a
courtier, and more because he liked to affect a mighty indifference
and to show he had no favoritism, had declared that he would not
himself see the competing works of art until the eyes of the Lord
of Montefeltro also fell upon them.
As for Pacifica, she had locked herself in her chamber, alone with
her intense agitation. The young men were swaggering about, and
taunting each other, and boasting. Luca alone sat apart, thrumming
an old lute. Giovanni Sanzio, who had ridden home at evening from
Citta di Castello, came in from his own house and put his hand on
the youth's shoulder.
"I hear the Pesaro men have brought fine things. Take courage, my
lad. Maybe we can entreat the duke to dissuade Pacifica's father
from this tyrannous disposal of her hand."
Luca shook his head wearily.
There would be one beautiful thing there, indeed, he knew; but
what use would that be to him?
"The child--the child--" he stammered, and then remembered that he
must not disclose Raffaelle's secret.
"My child?" said Signor Giovanni. "Oh, he will be here; he will be
sure to be here: wherever there is a painted thing to be seen,
there always, be sure, is Raffaelle."
Then the good man sauntered within from the loggia, to exchange
salutations with Ser Benedetto, who, in a suit of fine crimson
with doublet of sad-colored velvet, was standing ready to advance
bareheaded into the street as soon as the hoofs of the duke's
charger should strike on the stones.
"You must be anxious in your thoughts," said Signor Giovanni to
him. "They say a youth from Pesaro brings something fine: if you
should find yourself bound to take a stranger into your workroom
and your home--"
"If he be a man of genius, he will be welcome," answered Messer
Ronconi, pompously. "Be he of Pesaro, or of Fano, or of Castel
Durante, I go not back from my word: I keep my word, to my own
hindrance even, ever."
"Let us hope it will bring you only joy and triumph here," said
his neighbor, who knew him to be an honest man and a true, if
over-obstinate and too vain of his own place in Urbino.
"Our lord the duke!" shouted the people standing in the street;
and Ser Benedetto walked out with stately tread to receive the
honor of his master's visit to his bottega.
Raffaelle slipped noiselessly up to his father's side, and slid
his little hand into Sanzio's.
"You are not surely afraid of our good Guidobaldo!" said his
father, with a laugh and some little surprise, for Raffaelle was
very pale, and his lower lip trembled a little.
"No," said the child, simply.
The young duke and his court came riding down the street, and
paused before the old stone house of the master-potter,--splendid
gentlemen, though only in their morning apparel, with noble
Barbary steeds fretting under them, and little pages and liveried
varlets about their steps. Usually, unless he went hunting or on a
visit to some noble, Guidobaldo, like his father, walked about
Urbino like any one of his citizens; but he knew the pompous and
somewhat vainglorious temper of Messer Benedetto, and good-
naturedly was willing to humor its harmless vanities. Bowing to
the ground, the master-potter led the way, walking backward into
his bottega; the courtiers followed their prince; Giovanni Sanzio
with his little son and a few other privileged persons went in
also at due distance. At the farther end of the workshop stood the
pupils and the artists from Pesaro and other places in the duchy
whose works were there in competition. In all there were some ten
competitors: poor Luca, who had set his own work on the table with
the rest as he was obliged to do, stood hindmost of all, shrinking
back, to hide his misery, into the deepest shadow of the deep-
bayed latticed window.
On the narrow deal benches that served as tables on working days
to the pottery painters were ranged the dishes and the jars, with
a number attached to each--no name to any, because Signor
Benedetto was resolute to prove his own absolute disinterestedness
in the matter of choice: he wished for the best artist. Prince
Guidobaldo, doffing his plumed cap courteously, walked down the
long room and examined each production in its turn. On the whole,
the collection made a brave display of majolica, though he was
perhaps a little disappointed at the result in each individual
case, for he had wanted something out of the common run and
absolutely perfect. Still, with fair words he complimented Signor
Benedetto on the brave show, and only before the work of poor Luca
was he entirely silent, since indeed silence was the greatest
kindness he could show to it: the drawing was bold and regular,
but the coloring was hopelessly crude, glaring, and ill-disposed.
At last, before a vase and a dish that stood modestly at the very
farthest end of the deal bench, the duke gave a sudden exclamation
of delight, and Signor Benedetto grew crimson with pleasure and
surprise, and Giovanni Sanzio pressed a little nearer and tried to
see over the shoulders of the gentlemen of the court, feeling sure
that something rare and beautiful must have called forth that cry
of wonder from the Lord of Montefeltro, and having seen at a
glance that for his poor friend Luca there was no sort of hope.
"This is beyond all comparison," said Guidobaldo, taking the great
oval dish up reverently in his hands. "Maestro Benedetto, I do
felicitate you indeed that you should possess such a pupil. He
will be a glory to our beloved Urbino."
"It is indeed most excellent work, my lord duke," said the master-
potter, who was trembling with surprise and dared not show all the
astonishment and emotion that he felt at the discovery of so
exquisite a creation in his bottega. "It must be," he added, for
he was a very honest man, "the work of one of the lads of Pesaro
or Castel Durante. I have no such craftsman in my workshop. It is
beautiful exceedingly!"
"It is worth its weight in gold!" said the prince, sharing his
emotion. "Look, gentlemen--look! Will not the fame of Urbino be
borne beyond the Apennines and Alps?"
Thus summoned, the court and the citizens came to look, and
averred that truly never in Urbino had they seen such painting on
majolica. "But whose is it?" said Guidobaldo, impatiently, casting
his eyes over the gathered group in the background of apprentices
and artists. "Maestro Benedetto, I pray you, the name of the
artist; I pray you, quick!"
"It is marked number eleven, my lord," answered the master-potter.
"Ho, you who reply to that number, stand out and give your name.
My lord duke has chosen your work. Ho, there! do you hear me?"
But not one of the group moved. The young men looked from one to
another. Who was this nameless rival? There were but ten of
themselves.
"Ho, there!" repeated Signor Benedetto, getting angry. "Cannot you
find a tongue, I say? Who has wrought this work? Silence is but
insolence to his highness and to me!"
Then the child Sanzio loosened his little hand from his father's
hold, and went forward, and stood before the master-potter.
"I painted it," he said, with a pleased smile; "I, Raffaelle."
Can you not fancy, without telling, the confusion, the wonder, the
rapture, the incredulity, the questions, the wild ecstasy of
praise, that followed on the discovery of the child artist? Only
the presence of Guidobaldo kept it in anything like decent
quietude, and even he, all duke though he was, felt his eyes wet
and felt his heart swell; for he himself was childless, and for
the joy that Giovanni Sanzio felt that day he would have given his
patrimony and duchy.
He took a jewel hung on a gold chain from his own breast and threw
it over Raffaelle's shoulders.
"There is your first guerdon," he said; "you will have many, O
wondrous child, who shall live when we are dust!"
Raffaelle, who himself was all the while quite tranquil and
unmoved, kissed the duke's hand with sweetest grace, then turned
to his own father.
"It is true I have won my lord duke's prize?"
"Quite true, my angel!" said Giovanni Sanzio, with tremulous
voice.
Raffaelle looked up at Maestro Benedetto.
"Then I claim the hand of Pacifica!"
There was a smile on all the faces round, even on the darker
countenances of the vanquished painters.
"Oh, would indeed you were of age to be my son by marriage, as you
are the son of my heart!" murmured Signor Benedetto. "Dear and
marvelous child, you are but jesting, I know. Tell me what it is
indeed that you would have. I could deny you nothing; and truly it
is you who are my master."
"I am your pupil," said Raffaelle, with that pretty serious smile
of his, his little fingers playing with the ducal jewel. "I could
never have painted that majolica yonder had you not taught me the
secrets and management of your colors. Now, dear maestro mine, and
you, O my lord duke, do hear me! I by the terms of the contest
have won the hand of Pacifica and the right of association with
Messer Ronconi. I take these rights and I give them over to my
dear friend Luca of Fano, because he is the honestest man in all
the world, and does honor Signor Benedetto and love Pacifica as no
other can do so well, and Pacifica loves him, and my lord duke
will say that thus all will be well."
So with the grave, innocent audacity of a child he spoke--this
seven-year-old painter who was greater than any there.
Signor Benedetto stood mute, sombre, agitated. Luca had sprung
forward and dropped on one knee; he was as pale as ashes.
Raffaelle looked at him with a smile.
"My lord duke," he said, with his little gentle smile, "you have
chosen my work; defend me in my rights."
"Listen to the voice of an angel, my good Benedetto; heaven speaks
by him," said Guidobaldo, gravely, laying his hand on the arm of
his master-potter.
Harsh Signor Benedetto burst into tears.
"I can refuse him nothing," he said, with a sob. "He will give
such glory unto Urbino as never the world hath seen!"
"And call down this fair Pacifica whom Raffaelle has won," said
the sovereign of the duchy, "and I will give her myself as her
dower as many gold pieces as we can cram into this famous vase. An
honest youth who loves her and whom she loves--what better can you
do, Benedetto? Young man, rise up and be happy. An angel has
descended on earth this day for you."
But Luca heard not; he was still kneeling at the feet of
Raffaelle, where the world has knelt ever since.