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This book contains the record of the life and thoughts upon Art of Giovanni Duprè, one of the most eminent sculptors of the present century in Italy. It was written by him from time to time, during the latter years of his life, in the intervals of work in his studio, and given to the public about three years before his death. Those three years, of which it contains no account, were assiduously devoted to his art. Every day had its work, and it was done faithfully and joyously even to the last. "Nulla dies sine linea." Within these years, among other works of less importance, he successively executed a basso-relievo of the Baptism of our Lord, a portrait statue of Pius IX. for the Cathedral of Piacenza, one of Victor Emmanuel for the public square at Trapani, one of Raimondo Lullo for a chapel in the island of Majorca, and one of St. Francis of Assisi which now adorns the front of the Cathedral at Assisi. This was the last statue which he ever made. The model he had completed in clay and cast in plaster, and had somewhat advanced in executing it in marble, when death arrested his hand. It was finished by his daughter Amalia, who had for years been his loving and faithful pupil, and who had already won distinction for herself as a sculptor. In this his last work he found a peculiar attractiveness, and his heart and hand were earnestly given to it. "I am most happy," he says in his reply to the authorities of Assisi, who gave him this order, "that the Commission has thought of me—not so much on account of what little talent I may possess, as for the love I bear to religious art." The statue itself is very simple, and informed by a deep religious sentiment. It is clothed in the dress of the order which St. Francis founded, the hands crossed over the breast, the cowl falling behind, the head bent, and the eyes cast down in an attitude of submission and devotion.

The statue had not only deeply interested all his feelings and sympathies, but in its treatment and sentiment he seems to have been satisfied. A singular presentiment, however, came over him as he was showing it to a friend upon its completion. "It will be a triumph to you and a glory to Assisi," said his friend. "Ah," he answered, "who knows that it may not be the last!" So indeed it proved. But a few days after this conversation he was seized by an attack of peritonitis. From this, however, he recovered, as well as from a second attack, which shortly afterwards followed. As he was recovering from this second attack he wrote to Monsignore Andrea Ulli: "The doctor has no doubt that I shall get well, and in a few days I hope he will allow me to return to my studio. But how I have suffered!—doubly suffered from having been deprived of the occupation that most delights me. This is my joy and my life. What a happy day it will be when I am permitted to put my foot again into my studio, and to resume my work and my St. Francis."

His hopes, however, were fated to be disappointed. Although he sufficiently recovered to go to his studio, he was able to do but little work; and shortly afterwards—on the 1st of January—he was again prostrated by a third attack of the same disease. His death, he felt, was now certain; but he met its approach with the courage, resignation, and piety that had always characterised him, looking forward with certainty to a reunion with the dear ones who had gone before him—Luisina, his daughter, whose loss he had so bitterly felt, and his wife Marina, his steadfast help and loving companion for so many years, who had died seven years previously. One regret constantly possessed him during these last days, that he should not be able, as he had projected, to model the statue of the Madonna for the Duomo at Florence, upon which he had set his heart. One day when he gave expression to this feeling, his daughter Amalia sought to console him by saying, "But you have already made her statue, and it is so beautiful—the addolorata for Santa Croce." "Ah!" he answered, "but I desired to model her as Queen of Florence." This apparently was the only desire that haunted him during his last attack. In regard to all other things he was resigned; and after lingering in almost constant pain for ten days, he expired on the 10th of January 1882, at the age of sixty-five.

The announcement of his death was received everywhere in Italy with the warmest expressions of sorrow. It was felt to be a national loss. His life had been so pure, so conscientious, and so animated by high purpose—his temper and character had been so blameless and free from envy and stain of any kind—he had been so generous and kindly in all the varied relations of life, as a son, as a husband, as a father, as a friend—and he had so greatly distinguished himself as a sculptor, that over his grave the carping voice of criticism was hushed, and a universal voice of praise and sorrow went up everywhere. All classes united to do him reverence, from the highest to the lowest. Funeral ceremonies were celebrated in his honour, not only in Florence, where a great procession accompanied his remains to the church where the last rites were performed, but also in Siena, his birthplace, in Fiesole, where he was buried in the family chapel, and in Antella and Agnone. The press of his native country gave expression to high eulogiums on him as an artist and as a man. Public honours were decreed to him. In front of the house where he was born in Siena, the municipality placed this inscription: "This humble abode, in which was born Giovanni Duprè, honour of Art and Italy, may teach the sons of the people what height can be reached by the force of genius and will." In the Parrocchial Church dell'Onda (in Siena) was placed a bust of the artist executed by his daughter Amalia; and in Florence, over the house where he had passed a large portion of his life, a tablet is inserted, on which is inscribed these words: "The Municipality of Florence, in whose council sat Giovanni Duprè, has placed this memorial on the house where for twenty years lived the great sculptor, glory of Italy and of Art, and in which he died on the 10th day of 1882."

During his life, honours had been showered upon him at home and abroad—honours well deserved and meekly borne, without vanity or pretension. He had been made a knight and counsellor of the Civil Order of Savoy, a member of the Institute of France, a knight of the Tuscan Order of Merit and of the Legion of Honour in France, an officer of the Brazilian Order of the Rose, a commander of the Order of the Corona d'Italia, Mexico and Guadaloupe, an associate of the Academy of St. Luke, and of various other academies in Italy and elsewhere. The Municipal Council of Siena also commissioned his friend and pupil, Tito Sarrocchi, to execute for it a bust of his master in marble during his lifetime, on which was this inscription: "To Giovanni Duprè of Siena, who to the glories of Italian Art has added, by the wonders of his chisel, new and immortal glories. The city of Siena—xii. July 1867."

His life was a busy and an earnest one. During his forty years of patient labour he executed about a hundred works in the round and in relief, including a considerable number of busts and statuettes. Of these, perhaps the most important are: The statues of Cain and Abel, the original bronzes of which are in the Pitti Palace in Florence, and by which he leaped at once to fame as a sculptor; the group of the Pietà in the cemetery of Siena; the large bas-relief of the Triumph of the Cross on the façade of the Church of Santa Croce in Florence; the monument to Cavour at Milan; the Ferrari monument in San Lorenzo, with the angel of the resurrection; the Sappho; the pedestal for the colossal Egyptian Tazza, with its alto-reliefs, representing Thebes, Imperial Rome, Papal Rome, and Tuscany, each with its accompanying genius; the portrait statue of Giotto; the ideal statue of St. Francis; and the Risen Christ.

The Tazza, the Pietà, the Triumph of the Cross, and the Risen Christ, were selected by him out of all his works to send to the French Exposition of 1867, and it may therefore be supposed that he considered them as the best representatives of his genius and power. Indeed, in a letter to Professor Pietro Dotto (1866) he mentions particularly these last three as the statues which in conception he considers to be the most worthy of praise of all his works. This selection also indicates the religious character of his mind and his works. At this Exposition he was one of the jury on Sculpture, and though he gave his own vote in favour of the eminent sculptor Signor Vela of Milan, who exhibited on that occasion his celebrated statue of the Last Hours of Napoleon I., to his surprise the grand medal of honour was awarded to himself. He had scarcely dared to hope for this; and in his letters to his family he wrote that he considered it certain that the distinction would be conferred upon Signor Vela. When the award was made to him, he wrote a most characteristic letter to his daughter, announcing the result. "Mia cara Beppina," he says, "I have just returned from the sitting of the jury, and hasten at once to answer your dear letter. It is true that the Napoleon I. of Vela is a beautiful statue. There is always a crowd about it, and consequently every one thought it would receive the first prize. I have given him my vote; but the public and I and you, Beppina, were wrong. The first prize has come to me, your father! Vela received two votes with mine. You see, my dear, how the Holy Virgin has answered your and our prayer. Let us seek to render ourselves worthy of her powerful protection."

It was toward the close of his life, as has already been said, that he wrote his 'Biographical Reminiscences and Thoughts upon Art,' of which the present book is a translation. It was at once received by the Italian public with great favour, and is by no means the least remarkable of his works. It would be difficult for any autobiography to be more simple, honest, frank, and fearless. The whole character of the man is in it. It is an unaffected and unpretending record of his life and thoughts. He has no concealment to make, no glosses to put upon the real facts. He speaks to the public as if he were talking to a friend, never posing for effect, never boasting of his successes, never exaggerating his powers, never assailing his enemies and detractors, never depreciating his fellow-artists, but ever striving to be generous and just to all. There is no bitterness, no envy, no arrogance to deform a single page; but, on the contrary, a simplicity, a naïveté, a sincerity of utterance, which are remarkable. The history of his early struggles and poverty, the pictures of his childhood and youth, are eminently interesting; and the story of his love, courtship, and early married life is a pure Italian idyl of the middle class of society in Florence, which could scarcely be surpassed for its truth to nature and its rare delicacy and gentleness of feeling. If the 'Thoughts upon Art' do not exhibit any great profundity of thinking, they are earnest, instructive, and characteristic. His descriptions of his travels in France and England; his criticisms and anecdotes of artists and persons in Florence; his account of his daily life in his studio and at his home—are lively and amusing. Altogether, the book has a special charm which it is not easy to define. In reading it, we feel that we are in the presence and taken into the confidence of a person of great simplicity and purity of character, of admirable instincts and perceptions, of true kindness of heart, and of a certain childlike naïveté of feeling and expression, which is scarcely to be found out of Italy.

In respect of style, this autobiography resembles more the spoken than the written literary language of Italy. It is free, natural, unstudied, and often careless. But its very carelessness has a charm. Duprè was not a scholar nor a literary man. He was not bound by the rigid forms of what is called in Italy "lo stile," which but too often is the enemy of natural utterance. Undoubtedly this book needs compression; but no exactness of style and form could compensate for the absence of that unstudied natural ease and familiarity which are among its greatest charms. The writer, fortunately for the reader, is as unconscious of elaborated style as Monsieur Jourdain was that he was talking prose. The character of Duprè's writing has been admirably caught and reproduced by Madame Peruzzi, in the translation to which these few words may serve as preface.

As an artist, Duprè was not endowed with a great creative or imaginative power. His spirit never broke out of the Roman Church in which he was brought up, and all that he did and thought was coloured by its influence. The subjects which he chose in preference to all others were of a religious character, and his works are animated by a spirit of humility and devotion, rather than of power and intensity. His piety—and he was a truly pious man—narrowed the field of his imagination, and restricted the flights of his genius. "But even his failings leaned to virtue's side," and what he lacked in breadth of conception, was compensated by his deep sincerity of purpose and religious feeling. He was not a daring creator—not an originator of ideas—not a bold discoverer. He hugged the shore of his Church. He wanted the passion and overplus of nature that might have borne him to new heights, and new continents of thought and feeling. His Cain, almost alone of all his works, breathes a spirit of defiance and rebellion, and breaks through the limitations of his usual conceptions. But it was not in harmony with his genius; and in natural expression it falls so far below his previous statue of Abel, that it was epigrammatically said that his Abel killed his Cain. There was undoubtedly a certain truth in this criticism, for though the Cain is vigorously conceived and admirably executed, the heart of the man was not in it, as it was in the gentle and placid figure of Abel. In mastery of modelling and truth to nature, this latter statue could scarcely be surpassed. Indeed, so remarkable was it for these qualities, that it gave rise in Florence to the scandalous calumny that it had been cast, not modelled, from nature—a calumny which, it is scarcely necessary to add, was as false in fact as it was inconsistent with the honest and lofty spirit of Duprè; and which, though intended as a reproach, proved to be the highest testimonial to the extraordinary skill of the artist.

Within the bounded domain of thought and conception which his religious faith had set for him, he worked with great earnestness and devotion of spirit. Though he created no works which are stamped by the audacity of genius, or intensified by passion, or characterised by bold originality and reach of power, yet the work he did do is eminently faithful, admirably executed, and informed by knowledge as well as feeling. His artistic honesty cannot be too highly praised. He spared no pains to make his work as perfect as his powers would permit. He had an accurate eye, a remarkable talent for modelling from nature, and an indefatigable perseverance. He never lent his hand to low, paltry, and unworthy work. Art and religion went hand in hand in all he did. He sought for the beautiful and the noble—sought it everywhere with an inquiring and susceptible spirit; despised the brutal, the low, and the trifling; never truckled to popularity, or sought for fame unworthily; and scorned to degrade his art by sensuality. As the man was, so his work was—pure, refined, faithful to nature and to his own nature. He pandered to no low passions; he modelled no form, he drew no line, that dying he could wish to blot; and the world of Art is better that he has lived. While he bent his head to Nature, the whole stress of his life as an artist was to realise his favourite motto, "Il vero nel bello"—the true in the beautiful.

His last letter, written only three days before his final attack, was addressed to his friend Professor Giambattista Giuliani, and as it breathes the whole spirit of the man, it may form a fit conclusion to these few words: "My excellent friend—We also, Amalia and I, wish you truly from our hearts, now and always, every good from our blessed God—perfect health, elevation of spirit, serene affections, peace of heart in the contemplation of the beautiful and the good, and the immortal hope of a future life, that supreme good that the modern Sadducees deny—unhappy beings!"

W. W. STORY.