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And the countenance had not lost its freshness, the eye its lustre. But," he suddenly added, "your Highness knows of whom I speak. The lady is Fulvia Vivaldi, the daughter of the philosopher at whose feet we sat in our youth." Fulvia Vivaldi! Odo raised his head with a start. She had left Geneva then, had returned to Italy.
The University of Pianura was lodged in the ancient Signoria or Town Hall of the free city; and here, on the afternoon of the Duke's birthday, the civic dignitaries and the leading men of the learned professions had assembled to see the doctorate conferred on the Signorina Fulvia Vivaldi and on several less conspicuous candidates of the other sex. The city was again in gala dress.
Professor Orazio Vivaldi, after filling with distinction the chair of Philosophy at the University of Turin, had lately resigned his office that he might have leisure to complete a long-contemplated work on the Origin of Civilisation.
They lodged in a corner adjoining the library, spending their days in studious seclusion, their evenings in conversation with some of the first scholars of Europe: the learned botanist Scopoli, Spallanzani, Volta, and Father Fontana, the famous mathematician. In such surroundings Vivaldi might have pursued his task contentedly enough, but for the thought of Fulvia's future.
Odo, at first, had been careful not to visit Vivaldi too often; but the Professor's conversation was so instructive, and his library so inviting, that inclination got the better of prudence, and the young man fell into the habit of turning almost daily down the lane behind the Corpus Domini.
"The Barons are your best customers," quoth the minor noble. "Much, much!" said the draper. "'Tis a pity that they are thus roughly expelled," said Montreal, in a melancholy tone. "It surely might be possible," returned Vivaldi; "the Savelli alone spend more with me than all the rest of Rome."
Efforts, feeble indeed, but still giving pleasure to us and our friends. "I say, old boy, draw us Vivaldi tortured in the Inquisition," or, "Draw us Don Quixote and the windmills, you know," amateurs would say, to boys who had a love of drawing. I don't remember having Sterne in the school library, no doubt because the works of that divine were not considered decent for young people.
Alfieri, indeed, paced the farther end of the room with the air of awaiting the despatch of some tedious business; but the others were engaged in an animated discussion necessitating frequent reference to the folios Vivaldi had brought from his study. The latter turned to Odo as though to include him in the group.
A safe-conduct from the Papal Nuncio to Fulvia Vivaldi was equivalent to her release from her vows; and this in turn implied that, for the moment, religious discipline had been frankly sacrificed to the pressure of political necessities. How the invisible hands made and unmade the destinies of those who came in their way!
He had in the mean time studied the organ at Lübeck under the celebrated Buxtehude, and made himself thoroughly a master of the great Italian composers of sacred music Palestrina, Lotti, Vivaldi, and others. At this period Germany was beginning to experience its musical renaissance.
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