Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction by John Addington Symonds
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page 43 of 866 (04%)
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appointed painter to the Emperor with a fixed pension. Titian also
painted portraits of Antonio de Leyva and Alfonso d'Avalos, but whether upon this occasion or in 1532, when he was again summoned to the Imperial Court at Bologna, is not certain. From this assemblage of eminent personages we notice the absence of Pietro Aretino. He was at the moment out of favor with Clement VII. But independently of this obstacle, he may well have thought it imprudent to quit his Venetian retreat and expose himself to the resentment of so many princes whom he had alternately loaded with false praises and bemired with loathsome libels. [Footnote 5: See _Ren. in It._ vol. v. p. 289.] People observed that the Emperor in his excursions through the streets of Bologna usually wore the Spanish habit. He was dressed in black velvet, with black silk stockings, black shoes, and a black velvet cap adorned with black feathers. This somber costume received some relief from jewels used for buttons; and the collar of the Golden Fleece shone upon the monarch's breast. So slight a circumstance would scarcely deserve attention, were it not that in a short space of time it became the fashion throughout Italy to adopt the subdued tone of Spanish clothing. The upper classes consented to exchange the varied and brilliant dresses which gave gayety to the earlier Renaissance for the dismal severity conspicuous in Morone's masterpieces, in the magnificent gloom of the Genoese Brignoli, and in the portraits of Roman inquisitors. It is as though the whole race had put on mourning for its loss of liberty, its servitude to foreign tyrants and ecclesiastical hypocrites. Nor is it fanciful to detect a note of moral sadness and mental depression corresponding to these black garments in the faces of that later generation. How different is Tasso's melancholy grace from |
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