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The result, joined with the Northern Rising, the Ridolfi plot, and the indignation aroused by the day of St. Bartholomew, was to strengthen the hands of the Puritans and to give open Catholicism the character of a political offence; and to this an enormously increased force was added in 1581 by the Jesuit mission.
"Ah, I remember," said Niccolo Ridolfi, a middle-aged man, with that negligent ease of manner which, seeming to claim nothing, is really based on the lifelong consciousness of commanding rank "I remember our Antonio getting bitter about his chiselling and enamelling of these metal things, and taking in a fury to painting, because, said he, `the artist who puts his work into gold and silver, puts his brains into the melting-pot."
One Ridolfi, a Florentine, long resident in England, had been sent to the Netherlands as secret agent of the Duke of Norfolk. Alva read his character immediately, and denounced him to Philip as a loose, prating creature, utterly unfit to be entrusted with affairs of importance.
At the same time he constructed another, in like manner, for Stiatta Ridolfi, in the church of Santo Jacopo sopr' Arno; that, namely, beside the chapel of the High Altar; and these works obtained him more credit than was given to his words.
Baccio, who stood hidden behind the door-curtain, was not able to contain himself until Solosmeo should have finished, and, bursting out scowling and full of rage, said to Solosmeo: "What have I done to you, that you should speak of me with such scant respect?" Dumbfounded at the appearance of Baccio, Solosmeo turned to Ridolfi and said: "What tricks are these, my lord?
One Ridolfi, a Florentine, long resident in England, had been sent to the Netherlands as secret agent of the Duke of Norfolk. Alva read his character immediately, and denounced him to Philip as a loose, prating creature, utterly unfit to be entrusted with affairs of importance.
Even Hopper at Madrid knew nothing of the matter, while the King had only expressed himself in general terms to the nuncio and to Ridolfi, then already on his way to the Netherlands. The King concluded his letter by saying, that from what he had now written with his own hand, the Duke could infer how much he had this affair at heart.
A warning clang from the belfry, two or three harsh strokes, the tall houses disgorged, the streets packed; Capulet faced Montague, Bevilacqua caught Ridolfi by the throat, and Della Scala sitting in his hall knew that he must do murder if he would live a prince. It seems odd that the suckling of a little shopkeeper should lead to such issues; but so it was. And thus it was.
According to Vasari, Giorgione, like his master Bellini, painted the Doge Leonardo Loredan, but the picture, where is it? And where are others mentioned by Vasari and Ridolfi? So fervid a lover of nature and his art must have painted much; yet there is but little left now. Can there be discoveries of Giorgiones still to be made?
What is not doubtful is, that, accustomed as they were to being lectured and bullied by foreign courts, the Italians derived the greatest encouragement from the openly expressed sympathy of well-known English visitors, whether they came in an official capacity like Lord Minto, or unofficially like Mr Cobden, who travelled as a missionary of Free Trade, and was received with rapture with which, it is to be feared, Free Trade had little to do by the leading Liberals in Italy: Massimo d'Azeglio at Genoa, Mancini at Naples Cavour and Scialoja at Turin, Minghetti at Bologna, Ridolfi at Florence, and Manin and Tommaseo at Venice.
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