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They were pretty, faultless paintings, for which they used as models a manikin, or the families of ciociari whom they hired every morning in the Piazza di Espagna beside the Sealinata of the Trinity; the everlasting country-woman, swarthy and black-eyed, with great hoops in her ears and wearing a green skirt, a black waist and a white head-dress caught up on her hair with large pins; the usual old man with sandals, a woolen cloak and a pointed hat with spiral bands on his snowy head that was a fitting model for the Eternal Father.
To give freshness to his stock, he would interpolate a sacristy scene with much show of embroidered chasubles and golden incensaries, or an occasional bacchanalian, imitating from memory, without models, Titians' voluptuous forms and amber flesh. When the list was ended, the ciociari were once more in style and could be begun again.
On further conversation with my ciociari, I found that they came yearly from Sora, a town in the Abruzzi, about one hundred miles from Rome, making the journey on foot, and picking up by the way whatever trifle of copper they could. In this manner they travelled the whole distance in five days, living upon onions, lettuce, oil, and black bread.
What would his comrades in Rome say, whose lot consisted in living with the ciociari who served as their models, and marrying them afterward out of fear for the stiletto of the venerable Calabrian who insisted on providing a legitimate father for his grandsons!
Besides, the true pifferaro wears his costume as if it belonged to him and had always been worn by him, so that it has none of that got-up look which spoils everything. From the sandals and corded leggings, which, in the Neapolitan dialect, are termed cioce, the pifferari are often called ciociari.
He had sold his brush for a year to one of those Jewish dealers who exported paintings at so much a picture, and under agreement not to paint for any other dealer. Renovales worked from morning till night changing subjects when it was demanded by what he called his impresario. "Enough ciociari, now for some Moors."
They flatly contradicted one another; and the Pope inclined to the opinion of his Minister. "Since your Holiness," said the noble Altieri, "accords belief to a ciociari rather than to a Roman prince, I have nothing to do but to withdraw." The Apostles themselves appear to entertain no very amicable feelings towards the Secretary of State. Peter and St. Paul were completely hidden.
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