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Later, at Venice, the Countess Cicognara was again the centre of a group of free-thinkers, and there it was that she first felt the displeasure of Napoleon.
He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers. "'From Cardinal Cicognara, said one of the men.
"Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella's statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet's Endymion; you yourself recognized the type in Adonis."
These were of unquestionable value; for has not Cicognara engraved them on a page of his classic monograph? The thin silver plates, over which once passed the burin of Maso Finiguerra, cutting lines finer than hairs, and setting here a shadow in dull acid-eaten grey, and there a high light of exquisite polish, were far more delicate than any proofs impressed from them.
This race of ancient rulers still gives birth to kings Lagrange, Volta, Rasori, Canova, Rossini, Bartolini, Galvani, Vigano, Beccaria, Cicognara, Corvetto. These Italians are masters of the scientific peaks on which they stand, or of the arts to which they devote themselves.
Among the number of these Italian women who were daring enough to oppose his success, one of the most influential and best known was the Countess Cicognara. Her husband, Count Leopold Cicognara, was an archæologist of some reputation, who is to-day best known by his Storía della Scultura; he was precisely the type of man whose friendship and good will Napoleon was anxious to obtain.
Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his protege's glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an abbe, who instantly disappeared.
"They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul.
"'Tell me the truth, he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara "Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head. "'Ah! you are a woman! cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a "He did not finish the sentence. "'No, he continued, 'even he could not be so utterly base. "'Oh, do not kill me! cried Zambinella, bursting into tears.
Cicognara kept his distance, however, and in his determination to hold himself aloof from all actual participation in the new order of things he was ably seconded by his wife, who was a most ardent partisan.
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