Читать книгу Weird Tales (Vol. 1&2) - E. T. A. Hoffmann - Страница 15

FOOTNOTES TO "SIGNOR FORMICA":

PART I.

1. This tale was written for the Leipsic Taschenbuch zum geselligen Vergnügen for the year 1820.

2. Respecting the facts of Salvator Rosa's life there exists more than one disputed statement; and of these perhaps the most disputed is his share of complicity (if any) in the evil doings of Calabrian banditti. Poor, and of a wild and self-willed disposition, but with a strong and independent character, he was unable to find a suitable master in Naples, so, at the age of eighteen, he set out to study the lineaments of nature face to face, and spent some time amidst the grand and savage scenery of Calabria. Here it is certain that he came into contact with the banditti who haunted those wild regions. He is alleged to have been taken prisoner by a band, and to have become a member of the troop. Accepting this as true, we may perhaps charitably believe that he was prompted not so much by a regard for his own safety, as by the wish to secure a rare opportunity for studying his art unhindered, and also charitably hope that the accusations of his enemies, that he actively participated in the deeds of his companions, are unfounded, or, at any rate, exaggerations. It may be remarked that the "Life and Times of Salvator Rosa" by Lady Morgan (1824) is admittedly a romance rather than an accurate and faithful biography.

3. Masaniello, a poor fisherman of Naples, was for a week in July, 1647, absolute king of his native city. At that time Naples was subject to the crown of Spain. The people, provoked by the exasperating rapacity and extortion of the Viceroy of the King of Spain, rose in rebellion, choosing Masaniello as their captain and leader.

4. Aniello Falcone (1600–65), teacher of Salvator Rosa and founder of the Compagnia della Morte, painted battle-pieces which bear a high reputation. His works are said to be scarce and much sought after.

5. At first the young fisherman administered stern but impartial justice; but afterwards his mind seems to have reeled under the intense excitement and strain of his position, and he began to act the part of an arbitrary and cruel tyrant. Several hundreds of persons are said to have been put to death by his order during the few days he held power.

6. Amongst them more than one by Salvator himself.

7. A French painter and writer on painting; was born near Bordeaux in 1746, and died at Paris in 1809. Besides other works he wrote Observations sur quelques grands peintres (1807).

8. The sequin was a gold coin of Venice and Tuscany, worth about 9s. 3d. It is sometimes used as equivalent to ducat (see note p. 98).

9. The Corso is a wide thoroughfare running almost north and south from the Piazza del Popolo, a square on the north side of Rome, to the centre of the city. It is in the Corso that the horse-races used to take place during the Carnival.

10. The great painter Sanzio Raphael.]

PART II.

1. Annabale Caracci, a painter of Bologna of the latter half of the sixteenth century. His most celebrated work is a series of frescoes on mythological subjects in the Farnese Palace at Rome. Along with his cousin Lodovico and his brother Agostino he founded the so-called Eclectic School of Painting; their maxim was that "accurate observation of Nature should be combined with judicious imitation of the best masters." The Caracci enjoyed the highest reputation amongst their contemporaries as teachers of their art. Annibale died in 1609; Masaniello's revolt occurred, as already mentioned, in 1647; Antonio must therefore have been at least fifty years of age. This however is not the only anachronism that Hoffmann is guilty of.

2. The well-known painter Guido, born in 1575 and died in 1642. He early excited the envy of Annibale Caracci.

3. Mattia Preti, known as Il Cavaliere Calabrese, from his having been born in Calabria. He was a painter of the Neapolitan school and a pupil of Lanfranco, and lived during the greater part of the seventeenth century. Owing to his many disputes and quarrels he was more than once compelled to flee for his life.

4. The Accademia di San Luca, a school of art, founded at Rome about 1595, Federigo Zuccaro being its first director.

5. Alessandro Tiarini (1577–1668) of Bologna, was a pupil of the Caracci.

6. Giovanni Francesco Gessi (1588–1649), sometimes called "The second Guido," was a pupil of Guido.

7. Sementi or Semenza (1580–1638), also a pupil of Guido.

8. Giovanni Lanfranco (1581–1647), studied first under Agostino Caracci. He was the first to encourage the early genius of Salvator Rosa.

9. Zampieri Domenichino (1581–1641) was a pupil of the Caracci. The work here referred to is a series of frescoes, which he did not live to quite finish, representing the events of the life of St. Januarius, in the chapel of the Tesoro of the cathedral at Naples, which he began in 1630.

The malicious spite which the text attributes to the rivals of Domenichino is not at all exaggerated. There did really exist a so-called "Cabal of Naples," consisting chiefly of the painters Corenzio, Ribera, and Caracciolo, who leagued together to shut out all competition from other artists; and their persecution of the Bolognese Domenichino is well known. Often on returning to his work in the morning he found that some one had obliterated what he had done on the previous day.

Not only have we a faithful picture of the Italian artist's life in the middle of the seventeenth century depicted in this tale, but the actual facts of the lives of Salvator Rosa, of Preti, of the Caracci, as well as the existence of Falcone's Compagnia della Morte, furnish ample materials and illustrations of the wild lives they did lead, of their jealousies and heartburnings, of their quarrelsomeness and revengefulness. They seem to have been ready on all occasions to exchange the brush for the sword. They were filled to overflowing with restless energy. The atmosphere of the age they lived in was highly charged with vigour of thought and an irrepressible vitality for artistic production. Under the conditions which these things suppose the artists of that age could not well have been otherwise than what they were.

10. Belisario Corenzio, a Greek (1558–1643). "Envious, jealous, cunning, treacherous, quarrelsome, he looked upon all other painters as his enemies."

11. Giuseppe Ribera, called Il Spagnoletto, a Spaniard by birth (1589), was a painter of the Neapolitan school, and delighted in horrible and gloomy subjects. He died in 1656.

12. Don Diego Velazquez de Silva, the great Spanish painter, born in 1599, died in 1660. He twice visited Italy and Naples, in 1629–31 and in 1648–51, and was for a time intimate with Ribera.

13. This suggests the legend of Quentin Massys of Antwerp and the fly, or the still older, but perhaps not more historical story of the Greek painters, Zeuxis and the bunch of grapes, which the birds came to peck at, and Parrhasius, whose curtain deceived even Zeuxis himself.

14. Giuseppe Cesari, colled Josépin or the Chevalier d'Arpin, a painter of the Roman school, born in 1560 or 1568, died in 1640. He posed as an artistic critic in Rome during the later years of his life, and his judgment was claimed by his friends to be authoritative and final in all matters connected with art.

15. In a previous note it was stated that the Via del Corse ran from the Piazza del Popolo southwards to the centre of the city of Rome. Besides this street there are two others which run from the same square in almost the same direction, the Via di Ripetta and the Via del Babuino, the former being to the west of the Via del Corso and the latter to the east, and each gradually gets more distant from the Via del Corso the farther it recedes from the Square. On the opposite side of the Piazza del Popolo is the Porta del Popolo.

16. Girolamo Frescobaldi, the most distinguished organist of the seventeenth century, born about 1587 or 1588. He early won a reputation both as a singer and as an organist.

17. Senigaglia or Senigallia, a town on the Adriatic, in the province of Ancona.

18. Pietro Francesco Cavalli, whose real name was Caletti-Bruni. He was organist at St. Mark's at Venice for about thirty-six years (1640–1676). He composed both for the Church and for the stage.

19. Giacomo Carissimi, attached during the greater part of his life to the church of San Apollinaris at Rome. He died in 1674. He did much for musical art, perfecting recitative and advancing the development of the sacred cantata. His accompaniments are generally distinguished for "lightness and variety."

PART III.

1. The first silver ducat is believed to have been struck in 1140 by Roger II., Norman king of Sicily; and ducats have been struck constantly since the twelfth century, especially at Venice (see Merchant of Venice). They have varied considerably both in weight and fineness, and consequently in value, at different times and places. Ducats have been struck in both gold and silver. The early Venetian silver ducat was worth about five shillings. The name is said, according to one account, to have been derived from the last word of the Latin legend found on the earliest Venetian gold coins:—Sit tibi, Christe, datus, quem tu regis, ducatus (duchy); according to another account it is taken from "il ducato," the name generally applied to the duchy of Apulia.

PART IV.

1. Female parts continued to be played by boys in England down to the Restoration (1660). The practice of women playing in female parts was introduced somewhat earlier in Italy, but only in certain kinds of performances.

2. This word is undoubtedly connected with Pasquillo (a satire), or with Pasquino, a Roman cobbler of the fifteenth century, whose shop stood near the Braschi Palace, near the Piazza Navona. He lashed the follies of his day, particularly the vices of the clergy, with caustic satire, scathing wit, and bitter stinging irony. After his death his name was transferred to a mutilated statue, upon which such satiric effusions continued to be fastened.

Pasquarello would thus combine the characteristics of the English clown with those of the Roman Pasquino.

3. Doctor Gratiano, a character in the popular Italian theatre called Commedia dell' Arte, was represented as a Bolognese doctor, and wore a mask with black nose and forehead and red cheeks. His rôle was that of a "pedantic and tedious poser."

PART VI.

1. This was Ferdinand II., a member of the illustrious Florentine family of the Medici. He upheld the family tradition by his liberal patronage of science and letters.

2. Evangelista Torricelli, the successor of the great Galileo in the chair of philosophy and mathematics at Florence, is inseparably associated with the discovery that water in a suction-pump will only rise to the height of about thirty-two feet. This paved the way to his invention of the barometer in 1643.

Other members of the Accademia de' Percossi were Dati, Lippi, Viviani, Bandinelli, &c.

3. An allusion to the well-known nepotism of the Popes. The man here mentioned is one of the Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII.

4. Cetonia aurata, L., called also the gold-chafer; it is coloured green and gold.

5. The painter Salvator Rosa did really play at Rome the rôle of Pasquarello here attributed to him; but it was on the occasion of his second visit to the Eternal City about 1639. On the other hand, it was after 1647 (the year of Masaniello's revolt at Naples) that Salvator again came to Rome (the third visit), where he stayed until he was obliged to flee farther, namely, to Florence, in consequence of the two pictures already mentioned. It seems evident therefore that Hoffmann has not troubled himself about his dates, or strict historical fidelity, but seems rather to have combined the incidents of the painter's two visits to Rome—i.e., his second and his third visit.