Giovanni Costa : his life, work, & times

Preface

This biography was begun during the lifetime, and with the consent of, the artist whose well-spent life and noble work I have described. I thus had the inestimable benefit of many long talks with Giovanni Costa, who, up to the last, retained a singularly keen intellect and vivid, picturesque memory. From him I heard many particulars and anecdotes of his early years, so generously spent in the cause of his country’s freedom, and of the men, famous in politics or art, with whom he came in contact. The hours thus spent with him in his apartment in the Palazzo Odescalchi in Rome, and at his villa at Marina di Pisa, will always remain among the most delightful of my life, and any interest this book may have is largely due to them.

I found it impossible to write of a man who lived at such a momentous period of his country’s history, and who took so active a share in public life, without devoting several pages to historical matter, not actually connected with Costa, but necessary to a proper understanding of the events in which he took part. In writing on these subjects I have done my best to be correct, going to the original documents, and studying the question in an impartial spirit ; but a good deal of the history of that period, especially that referring to the events which preceded the battle of Montana, is yet to be written, and party interest and personal feeling still keep back or distort information

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Preface necessary to a real understanding of the whole question. I cannot, therefore, disguise to myself the fact that I may be guilty of some inaccuracies ; I will only say that I have done my best to avoid them.

As to that section of the Life which treats of artistic questions, I may here state that I have not endeavoured to write a book of art criticism, but a biographical survey of an artist’s work.

My grateful thanks for valuable help received are due to Signora Costa, Mrs. Stillman, Sir William Richmond, and Lord Carlisle ; to Mrs. Mathews and the late Mrs. Sutherland Orr, to Giovanni Fattori and to the Rev. Stopford Brooke for permission to publish letters ; to Professor Ciampoli, librarian of the Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele in Rome, who greatly facilitated my historical researches; and to the Hon. Giovanni Cadolini for much important information concerning the period preceding Mentana.

OLIVIA ROSSETTI AGRESTI.

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Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH i

II. HISTORICAL RETROSPECT 14

Chapter I

Rarely in these days, when public curiosity allows no personage of note to pass by without a biography, when we are no longer willing to let a man live solely by his works, and stand or fall by them as they are weighed in the impartial scale of time, but when we wish to know his personality, his life, the why and the wherefore of his work, rarely does it fall to the lot of the biographer to chronicle the career of an artist so rich in events as that of Giovanni Costa.

We must, indeed, go back to the glorious period of the Italian Renaissance, to the period when Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Cellini divided their time between their studios and the courts of emperors, kings, and popes, between their art and the affairs of state, to find an artist whose life has been so earnestly, so passionately devoted to his work, and who has yet so constantly and so actively played his part in the public life of his country. And if this combination of the artist and the patriot is rare, still rarer is it to find a man who has pursued both these aims with such singleness of purpose, such disinterested enthusiasm, as Giovanni Costa invariably showed in the whole course of his long career. At the date of his birth Italy was at her lowest ebb, both politically and artistically. He played his part valorously in her political regeneration, and if her art can now boast works not entirely unworthy of her great traditions, and if the outlook for the future is hopeful, this is in great measure due to the work and influence of Costa.

Giovanni, or Nino Costa, to use the Roman abbreviation by which he was known in the artistic world, was born in Rome on the 15th October, 1826.

He was the son of Gioacchino and Maria Costa, and one of sixteen children, of whom Giovanni was the fourteenth.

His father was the wealthy owner of a large wool-spinning industry carried on in the Trastevere district of Rome, the portion of the city which till quite recently preserved its mediaeval character, and whose population prides itself on the purity of its blood and the beauty of its women. Gioacchino Costa was one of those masters of the old stamp who have almost completely disappeared before the inroads of modern industrialism. He lived hard by his factory, in Piazza San Francesco a Ripa, in one of those large, roomy old houses, surrounded by a garden shut in by high walls, which are characteristic of the Trastevere district. He dwelt in the midst of his working-folk, respected and loved by them, and even to this day his memory is still cherished by the older inhabitants as that of a man who knew how to unite cordial — almost paternal — relations with his employees, along with the simple dignity of a capo popolo. In the neighbouring church of San Francesco a Ripa, famous for its Franciscan traditions (for in the convent attached to the church St. Francis lodged when in Rome), facing on the charming Piazza, stands a monument erected to the memory of

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PLATE II

THE ARTIST'S MOTHER

Gioacchino and Maria Costa, who died in 1842 and 1857 respectively. This monument is the work of Domenico Morani, and is in the neo-classic style proper to that period, a style to which the typically Roman heads of our artist’s parents lent themselves admirably.

Of this formidable family of sixteen children, no fewer than five brothers were destined to distinguish themselves in various walks of life. Antonio, the eldest, on his father s death, assumed the direction of the family affairs, managing the wool-spinning business, which continued a source of wealth to the brothers. So highly was he esteemed in Rome that in later life he occupied the important position of Vice-Director of the Bank of Rome. Filippo followed the profession of engineer, and to him Terracina owes her port ; he was author of a scheme for constructing a ship-canal between Ostia and Rome, which would have realised the dream of the third Italy, making the capital a seaport ; this scheme was never carried out owing to lack of funds. Like his brother Giovanni, he was a patriot ; he joined an artillery regiment, of which he became major, and distinguished himself during the defence of Ancona in 1866. Paolo became an accountant, and the foundation of the Savings Bank in Rome is largely due to his efforts. Giuseppe was well known in his native city as a writer of verse in the Roman dialect ; he was also author of a verse translation of the “ Song of Solomon,” which was much admired by the learned monks of the Benedictine order ; moreover, Giuseppe, Paolo, and Filippo were all three distinguished musicians. The fifth to distinguish himself was Giovanni, the subject of this biography.

In this busy and populous Trastevere district of the

Eternal City, within a stone’s throw of the little river-side port of Ripa Grande, picturesque with the rigging and coloured sails of the small sailing ships which ply their trade between Sicily, Naples, Liguria, and Rome, surrounded by mediaeval churches, by palace and convent gardens shut in by high walls, in an atmosphere of honest and industrious independence, Giovanni Costa spent the first twelve years of his life, passing the summer months with his family in their vineyard outside the Porta Portese, amidst which stood their villa, decorated with plaster reliefs and sculptured garlands in true eighteenth century style. This, along with so many other picturesque survivals of a past age, has disappeared, destroyed by the works for the embankment of the Tiber.

In those days, especially in Rome, education was entirely in the hands of the clergy, and at the age of six Costa was entrusted to his earliest preceptor, a priest, Don Pasquale by name. Of this excellent man Costa always preserved the most affectionate remembrance, though he could not recollect his surname, which has been lost to memory. He was an idealist and a republican, aflame with enthusiasm for the great deeds and heroes of classic antiquity, and he nurtured in his pupil the innate idealistic tendencies. The education of the period was strictly classical, and Plutarch’s “ Lives of the Famous Greeks and Romans,” Livy’s History, and the Bible stories, formed the basis of Costa’s early studies, and often whilst reading of the heroic deeds of the mighty dead, master and pupil would be moved to tears.

It is interesting to note the influence exercised on the whole generation of revolutionists, from the athletes of the

first French Revolution to the heroes of Italian independence, by the traditions of classic republicanism. The historical criticism in vogue to-day had not yet upset preconceived ideas, by turning the Caesars into the champions of democracy, and showing the younger Brutus, Cato, and their colleagues in the light of a tyrannical and rapacious oligarchy, jealous of the rights and liberties granted to the newer citizens of the world-wide Republic. The men of that age were steeped in classic lore ; the histories of Livy, of Tacitus, of Plutarch, were to them the realities of life, the heroes of antiquity seemed to brood over them, moulding these moderns after their own image.

Spite of his religious training, Costa, from his earliest years, showed himself to be of a sceptical disposition. His temperament was idealistic, and, in that sense, religious ; but he was unable to narrow his conceptions of the divinity to fit in with the requirements of Catholic dogma, and even from his tenderest years he could not believe in the Padre Eterno as an old Man with a beard, living up in the clouds, and he would affirm his incredulity with such assurance that even Don Pasquale felt it useless to attempt to convince him. Still, of course, as far as his education went, all was most orthodox, and amongst his earliest recollections was that of serving the mass at the parish church of Sta. Maria delF Orto, and of the mischievous impatience with which he, and other little boys likewise employed, used to attempt to hurry through their duties, forcing the priest to scamper through the prayers by ringing precipitately the little bell which announces the consecration and elevation of the Host ; whilst a favourite pastime of his was to induce the sacristan to let him into the belfry, there to swing on to the ropes and help ring out the chimes.

The artistic temperament almost always manifests itself early in life, and from childhood the little Nino was constantly busy with paper and pencil, and even before entering college at the age of twelve, he had shown some of his drawings to the painter Camuccini, and had received from him encouragement and advice.

At that period {circa 1838) the Baron Camuccini shared with Agricola the reputation of being the foremost of Italian artists, and though Italian art was then in full decadence these two prided themselves on being the heirs and legitimate descendants of Michelangelo and Raphael. Camuccini was a follower of the neo-classic school, founded by the French David, then in fashion (and in this school of art we can again trace the influence of the classic republican education of which I have spoken), and was greatly admired in Rome during the first half of the century. To him was given the commission to decorate with frescoes the apartment occupied in the Quirinal palace by the Empress Josephine. Amongst his chief works are “Caesar’s Wife,” “Judith thanking God after killing Holofernes,” the “ Death of Caesar,” and the “Death of Virginia”; the very titles of which pictures are inspired by the spirit of Livy and Plutarch, though their artificial theatricality belies the dignified simplicity of genuine classic art. To this artist, then, as to the best authority of the day, were shown Nino Costa’s early drawings. Camuccini was much interested in the boy’s work ; he showed him his own sketch-books containing studies from nature, amongst others one which especially struck Nino of a group of beggars seated on the steps leading to the church of St. Agnese. As Costa observed,

Camuccini drew from the life accurately and vigorously, but he neglected to place his figures in their true relation to the background and surroundings, by the observance of which alone is art able to interpret nature, and in which lies the true test of the artist’s powers. After carefully examining his work, Camuccini advised Costa to look about him, to study nature, to work direct from life. Strange advice might this seem coming from an academician devoted to classical models, cold and artificial in style as was the Baron ; but no doubt he too had worked hard from the life in his youth, and evidently he was artist enough to detect promise in the boy’s rude work, and to understand that his was a poetic temperament which would never bend to the stiff rules and artificiality of academic art.

At the age of twelve Costa left Rome, and the parental roof, to enter a college kept by priests at Montefiascone, celebrated for the excellency of its classical, and more especially Latin instruction ; and there he passed the next five years. It was during these years that Costa acquired the great love of nature which distinguishes his work from that of the majority of Italian artists, in whom scenery is almost always subordinate to the human interest, and which was to make of him one of the great landscape painters of his day.

The small town of Montefiascone is perched on the top of a mountain, at the foot of which stretches a wide, fertile, and highly-cultivated valley, in whose midst glitters the broad expanse of the lake of Bolsena with its islands of Marta and Bisultina, where the Gothic queen, Amalasuntha, was imprisoned. The valley is surrounded by hills, crowned with their fortified mediaeval village fortresses, grey masses of stone, standing out against the sky, culminating in the tower of the village belfry. Through the valley, flowing from the lake of Bolsena to the Tyrrhene Sea, which is visible as a blue streak on the horizon, meanders the little river Marta, a mere silver line as seen from the heights of Montefiascone ; and rising in the plain one can discern the Etruscan town of Toscanella, whose architecture still bears the imprint of those earliest inhabitants and civilisers of Italy ; Corneto, girt with her towers, stands out boldly against the sea-line.

The collegians were not allowed into the town, but used daily to take long walks in the country, and the splendid scenery by which he was here surrounded first inspired Costa with his love of nature, whilst the constant study of Virgil and Theocritus taught him to see landscape in a special way ; and it was here that he first began to make pen and pencil drawings from nature.

These early drawings were not without a practical value to the boy. The keen mountain air, and the long country walks, combined to bless the scholars with hunters’ appetites, whereas the fare provided by the good priests was of a decidedly frugal character, and they were careful not to afford their charges the opportunity of giving way to the deadly sin of gluttony. Costa’s drawings were much appreciated by his fellow-pupils, who were anxious to become possessed of them, and so he was enabled to exchange them with those boys who could boast pocketmoney, and whose anxious mammas provided them with hampers, for some substantial dainty with which to eke out the fast-day diet provided by the school. Thus early in life did our artist begin to execute commissions for his admirers !

The education imparted at Montefiascone was imbued with the same spirit of republican enthusiasm which had characterised the early tuition imparted by Don Pasquale. In the clerical schools and seminaries of those years was educated the generation which in 1848 was to strike the initial death-blow to the papal temporal power, and proclaim the triumph of free thought. In Costas own words, the education given by the priests was of a dead age ; the pupils lived in the past, but death, the dead, are always dignified. A noble idealism, an ardent love of country, that patriotism which the ancients considered the greatest of all virtues, and above all an invincible belief in the destinies and greatness of Rome, and a longing to see her return to her pristine glory, were sown in the hearts and brains of the youth which was to yield so rich a harvest of heroism in 1848 and 1849. How different all this from the modern, self-styled scientific education which seems to aim — to judge at least by its results — at stifling the enthusiastic, disinterested idealism, the rightful characteristic of youth, and which has given us a generation all too often old in its teens, which in Italy smiles with pitying contempt at the incorrigible idealism, the quarantottate of its elders.

Costa’s classical studies progressed rapidly at Montefiascone. In the college Latin was the tongue currently talked in school hours, and thus real mastery of the language was obtained. One of the features of the education given in the schools of the day was the theological discussion or debate which the pupils were required to hold amongst themselves. These controversies were carried on in Latin, one pupil advocating an opinion which another had to oppose. On one occasion it fell to Costa to assume the part of Advocatus Diaboli in a debate on the “Existence of God.” For three whole days did this wordy contest last, and Costa sustained his negative position with such conviction and valour that at last one of the teachers had to come to the assistance of theism and its advocate, as otherwise the victory seemed likely to remain on the side of atheism.

In 1843, at the age of seventeen, Costa left Montefiascone, and returned to Rome, where he entered the Bandinelli College, also kept by priests, staying there for another two years. Here he first began to study drawing regularly under a teacher, by name Durantini. It had by now become clear that his vocation was that of an artist ; his early love of art had become a passion, and he longed to dedicate himself entirely to the studies necessary for following a painters career. His elder brothers, however, on whom had devolved the management of family affairs on the death of their father, Gioacchino Costa, in 1842, did not sympathise with these ideas. They themselves were all in business ; in those days the profession of artist was hardly considered a creditable career, and they were anxious for Giovanni to select a regular official employment. Doubtless his eldest brother, Antonio, who was then managing the family business, did not consider that pictures were likely to yield the comfortable profits derived from wool ; nor, indeed, if such considerations guided his opposition to his younger brother’s wishes, was he mistaken. Costa certainly spent more on his art than it ever yielded him ; and as with all men in advance of their age, and of the popular taste of their day, his work and influence for good on modern Italian art will only be fully appreciated with time.

But, in Costa’s case, as in that of almost all really gifted men, his firm will triumphed over all opposition, and, on leaving the Bandinelli College, where he had completed his studies, at the age of nineteen, he entered the studio of Baron Camuccini, who had been the first to encourage and counsel him in his artistic efforts. The element of struggling poverty, which so very generally characterises the early career of artists destined to become famous, was fortunately unknown to Costa ; and I say fortunately, because his poetic temperament and passionate love of his art needed not the goad of poverty which, in so many cases, has urged on men in whom wealth and success have afterwards stifled the artist’s soul.

In Camuccini’s studio, however, the youth was not destined to remain long. Academic artificiality was not to his taste, and he was too mindful of the Baron’s early advice of studying direct from nature, to feel satisfied with his teacher ; so that after a few months they parted company. From this studio Costa passed to the official academy, where he worked a little under Coghetti, a Bergamasc artist noted for his religious pictures ; under Baron Podesti, a painter of the romantic school much admired in those days ; and under Agricola. But none of these artists realised Costa’s ideal ; he was destined to be an innovator, and he felt that he could derive no real benefit from such studies. Nature was the only mistress who could teach him what he wished to learn ; he felt that he must acquire by patient study and loving research the knowledge he desired ; and he bade goodbye to academies and masters, and started once more to spell out the page which nature had first spread out for him in the mountains and valleys round about Montefiascone.

It was at this period, or to be precise in 1847, that he began one of his first pictures ; a minute and delicate study of a wood of hazelnut trees, on which he worked at intervals during a period of six years. This we shall notice again when reviewing the productions of his first period of serious artistic activity, when, finally freed from all doubts as to his right course of action, he broke with schools and traditions, and, burying himself in the country, worked patiently and enthusiastically from nature, conquering one by one the difficulties which beset his path, and asserting himself as a leader and reformer in modern Italian art. To this period (1847-48) belong a number of drawings and oil studies now belonging to his widow ; all permeated with the romantic spirit then prevalent in art, but giving promise even then of future developments.

All this was to be. But the period we have reached was one when no true Italian could stand by, or hesitate as to where his duty lay. The seed sown by the great French Revolution and by the Napoleonic invasion was bearing fruit, and the revolution which had long been smouldering, and which had already given many martyrs to the great cause of national independence, was preparing to burst forth with renewed and unprecedented energy. Italy was in travail, giving birth to a new order of things in politics, in literature, and in art ; and Costa, who, from his earliest years, had thrilled at the word Liberty, who by education was a citizen of the mighty Rome of antiquity, who had wept with emotion when reading of the heroic patriotism of the great citizens of ancient Greece and Rome, was not one who could sit still and look on when his country needed her sons to fight for her. His natural inclination, and the education he had received, both combined to make him feel it his duty to take part in the national struggle ; and though his family, by position and tradition, belonged to the clerical party and were strongly opposed to revolutionary ideas, he experienced not a minute’s hesitation. For his ideas he was willing to sacrifice his worldly interests, and laying aside his pencils and brushes till happier, or at least quieter, days should dawn, he was among the very first to answer the call to arms.

Chapter II

In order to understand the events which we shall now have to chronicle it is necessary to retrace our steps, and to note the conditions prevailing in Italy and Rome ; to glance rapidly at the environment into which Nino Costa was born.

The last decades of papal rule in Rome, which preceded the revolutionary reawakening of 1848, witnessed a period of lethargy and decadence in politics, art, and social conditions in the Eternal City.

The Rome of 1820-48 was indeed different from the Italian capital of to-day ; more picturesque and more squalid, more beautiful, and at the same time, uglier from certain points of view, whilst morally and intellectually it offered the spectacle of a population forgetful of its great traditions, contented to live a slothful and ignorant existence.

The French invasion under Napoleon had passed over Rome without leaving any permanent results, at least, any easily appreciable to the observer. Yet it is true that the electric shock administered to the whole Peninsula by the cataclysmic events of the French Revolution, and the subsequent Napoleonic exploits, was the signal for the reawakening of Italy ; and the spark of national feeling then kindled never died, though for many years it

smouldered unobserved, only manifesting itself now and again by the flaming of revolts, apparently easily stifled, but none the less significant for that. Yet of all the different states into which Italy was divided, none seemed more thoroughly somnolent than the papal dominions, more especially the city of Rome. The French had come and gone as strangers ; they had carried off the pope, Pius VII., and had sent him back again, and the people seemed hardly to have noticed their passage. By order of the Emperor Napoleon, under the papacy of Pius VII., the excavations of the Forum had been undertaken, and the temples of Peace, of Antoninus and Faustina, of Concord, of Jupiter Stator, and the arches of Titus and Septimius Severus, had been disencumbered from the hovels which surrounded and shut them out of sight, and, rising from the soil which still half-buried them, they reappeared, eloquent monitors of past greatness. The Forum was no longer used as a cattle-market, and the designation of Campo Vaccino, by which it had been known since the Middle Ages till 1812, was abandoned. But in all these works, and in the civil reforms and innovations introduced by the Imperial government, the population of the city took scant interest.

In 1823 Pius VII., who, on resuming the temporal power, had conceded a civil and commercial code, and who had abolished torture in all its forms, with the exception of flogging, from the penal code, was succeeded by Leo XII., who mounted the papal throne with a liberal reputation which had given rise throughout his states to hopes which his weak, irresolute rule was not slow to belie. In 1829 he was in his turn succeeded by Pius VIII., who, during his brief reign of one sole year, brought about no change of any sort; and finally, in 1831, after a conclave which lasted no less than sixty-four days, Gregory XVI. was elected.

Gregory XVI. was a monk of the Camaldolese order, versed in theological studies, to which he admitted as fellow-student his barber, the learned Domenico Moroni. In private life he was self-indulgent, and his drinking habits furnished ready matter for the satires of the day ; in politics he was devoted to Austria, and his election was due in no small part to the intrigues of the court of Vienna. His rule, which lasted sixteen years, was marked by a blind, unreasoning haired of progress under any and every form, from railroads to gas, constitutions, and legal reforms ; and he hesitated at no form of cruelty and oppression by which to enforce his despotic rule.

During the first year of his reign the Great Powers had presented to him a memorandum setting forth various moderate reforms which they considered necessary in order to correct' the shocking abuses which were rife throughout the papal states, and more especially in Romagna ; but no steps were taken to act on the advice offered. On the contrary, every aspiration, every thought towards liberty, was severely punished and repressed if openly manifested. On the other hand, criminals enjoyed a large degree of immunity, due to carelessness and incapacity on the part of the authorities, when, indeed, they were not favoured, if enjoying the protection of some influential person ; and the insecurity of both person and property throughout the papal states was proverbial. The one unpardonable sin was liberalism, and for this no mercy was to be hoped. During the reign of this pontiff, Mastro Titto, the headsman, carried out no fewer

than 5 1 7 capital sentences, mostly passed on persons guilty of daring to think for themselves in matters of religion and politics.

The severity shown by Pope Gregory towards the liberals, in such striking contrast with the culpable toleration extended to common malefactors, was the result of an astute policy cleverly and persistently followed. Under pretext of reforming morals and of combating heresy and incredulity, the Pope favoured the existence of a state of things which later on gave rise to the formation of bands of brigands, who, in return for the leniency shown them by the papal authorities, were willing to become, when needful, powerful instruments in the hands of these latter wherewith to oppose the revolutionary uprisings of the liberals.

No more astute despot ever sat on the throne of St. Peter than this monk, whose conduct was stamped by the petty meanness and short-sighted policy of the monastery, and who, whilst showing himself merciless and inexorable towards thinkers, pandered in every way to the passions of the populace.