The Crayon Papers

President of the School of Sculpture in the Imperial and Royal Academy, Signor Paolo Ferroni, of the noble family of that name, who has exhibited considerable talent for painting, and Signor Gasparini, also an artist. This petition was urged and supported with indefatigable zeal by Signor Bezzi; and being warmly countenanced by Count Nerli and other functionaries, met with more prompt success than had been anticipated. Signor Marini, a skillful artist, who had succeeded in similar operations, was now employed to remove the whitewash by a process of his own, by which any fresco painting that might exist beneath would be protected from injury. He set to work patiently and cautiously. In a short time he met with evidence of the existence of the fresco. From under the coat of whitewash the head of an angel gradually made its appearance, and was pronounced to be by the pencil of Giotto.
    The enterprise was now prosecuted with increased ardor. Several months were expended on the task, and three sides of the chapel wall were uncovered; they were all painted in fresco by Giotto, with the history of the Magdalen, exhibiting her conversion, her penance, and her beatification. The figures, however, were all those of saints and angels; no historical portraits had yet been discovered, and doubts began to be entertained whether there were any. Still the recovery of an indisputable work of Giotto’s was considered an ample reward for any toil; and the Ministers of the grandduke, acting under his directions, assumed on his behalf the past charges and future management of the enterprise.
    At length, on the uncovering of the fourth wall, the undertaking was crowned with complete success. A number of historical figures were brought to light, and among them the undoubted likeness of Dante. He was represented in full length, in the garb of the time, with a book under his arm, designed most probably to represent the “Vita Nuova,” for the “Comedia” was not yet composed, and to all appearance from thirty to thirty-five years of age. The face was in profile and in excellent preservation, excepting that at some former period a nail had unfortunately been driven into the eye. The outline of the eyelid was perfect, so that the injury could easily be remedied. The countenance was extremely handsome, yet bore a strong resemblance to the portraits of the poet taken later in life.
    It is not easy to appreciate the delight of Mr. Wilde and his coadjutors at this triumphant result of their researches; nor the sensation produced, not merely in Florence but throughout Italy, by this discovery of a veritable portrait of Dante, in the prime of his days. It was some such sensation as would be produced in England by the sudden discovery of a perfectly well authenticated likeness of Shakespeare; with a difference in intensity proportioned to the superior sensitiveness of the Italians.
    The recovery of this portrait of the “divine poet” has occasioned fresh inquiry into the origin of the masks said to have been made from a cast of his face taken after death. One of these masks, in the possession of the Marquess of Torrigiani, has been pronounced as certainly the original . Several artists of high talent have concurred in this opinion; among these may be named Jesi, the first engraver in Florence; Seymour Kirkup, Esq., a painter and antiquary; and our own countryman Powers, whose genius, by the way, is very highly appreciated by the Italians.
    We may expect from the accomplished pen of Carlo Torrigiani, son of the marquess, and who is advantageously known in this country, from having traveled here, an account of this curious and valuable relic, which has been upward of a century in the possession of his family.
    Should Mr. Wilde finish his biographical work concerning Dante, which promises to be a proud achievement in American literature, he intends, I understand, to apply for permission to have both likenesses copied, and should circumstances warrant the expense, to have them engraved by eminent artists. We shall then have the features of Dante while in the prime of life as well as at the moment of his death.
G. C.

THE TAKING OF THE VEIL
    One of the most remarkable personages in Parisian society during the last century was Renée Charlotte Victoire de Froulay De Tesse, Marchioness De Crequi. She sprang from the highest and proudest of the old French nobility, and ever maintained the most exalted notions of the purity and antiquity of blood,