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Gaetano Pugnani was a native of Turin, and to him more than to any other master is due the preservation of the pure, grand style of Corelli, Tartini, and Vivaldi, for he combined the prominent qualities of style and technique of all three. He became first violin to the Sardinian court in 1752, but travelled extensively.
Vivaldi, pleased by his new pupil's eagerness to learn, took pains to set before him this aspect of the struggle. "You will now see," he said, after one of their long talks about the Encyclopaedists, "why we who have at heart the mental and social regeneration of our countrymen are so desirous of making a concerted effort against the established system.
The scene is Naples, the date about 1764; the topic is the thwarted loves of Vivaldi and Ellena; the villain is the admirable Schedoni, the prototype of Byron's lurid characters. "The Italian" is an excellent novel. The Prelude, "the dark and vaulted gateway," is not unworthy of Hawthorne, who, I suspect, had studied Mrs. Radcliffe. The theme is more like a theme of this world than usual.
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's allusions to the learned ladies for whom Italy was noted made Odo curious to meet the wives and daughters of his new friends; for he knew it was only in their class that women received something more than the ordinary conventual education; and he felt a secret desire to compare Fulvia Vivaldi with other young girls of her kind.
People know the name of "The Mysteries of Udolpho;" they know that boys would say to Thackeray, at school, "Old fellow, draw us Vivaldi in the Inquisition." But have they penetrated into the chill galleries of the Castle of Udolpho? Have they shuddered for Vivaldi in face of the sable-clad and masked Inquisition? Certainly Mrs. Radcliffe, within the memory of man, has been extremely popular.
"I hope, sir," said he, again turning to Vivaldi, and blushing furiously as he spoke, "that you feel assured of my discretion; but I ought perhaps to warn you that my companion yonder, though the good-naturedest fellow alive, is not one to live long on good terms with a secret, whether his own or another's."
"Sir," cried the other, flushing from red to purple at this assault, "I know not on what ground you insinuate that my private convictions differ from my public doctrine " But here, with a firmness tempered by the most scrupulous courtesy, Professor Vivaldi intervened.
Even under a comparatively liberal government it was small advantage to be marked by the Holy Office; and though he received much kindness, and even material aid, from those of his way of thinking, Vivaldi was unable to obtain the professorship he had hoped for.
Only by similar means could the ideals of the Piedmontese reformers be realised; and in those early days of universal illusion none appeared to suspect the danger of arming inexperienced hands with untried weapons. Utopia was already in sight; and all the world was setting out for it as for some heavenly picnic ground. Of Vivaldi himself, Alfieri spoke with extravagant admiration.
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