Paolo

“ It is a solid, six-roomed place, about fifty years old, having been rebuilt by Paolo's uncle. Here we came to live for a time with the Fiori, Maria and Paolo, and their three children, Giovanni and Marco and Felicina.
Paolo had inherited, or partly inherited, San Gaudenzio, which had been in his family for generations. He was a peasant of fifty-three, very grey and wrinkled and worn-looking, but at the same time robust, with full strong limbs and a powerful chest. His face was old, but his body was solid and powerful. His eyes were blue like upper ice, beautiful. ”

“ Paolo is a married man. That mischievous urchin is his own first-born, who leans against the boat with his calves in deep water—as the calves of the rising generation are apt to be; his hard young hands are eager to help, his keen black eyes look for the signal. And that is Paolo’s wife—that broad-hipped woman with the full, free figure, who waits upon the beach with the swaddled infant in one arm and the year-old boy clinging to her skirt; all the other children play around, they are waiting to see father away. ”

“ In Italy I can add to the reputation he owns already in England! I want his name to blacken and blister wherever it is spoken! That’s why!”
The count made an exclamation, as through his fevered blood the idea of the truth raced swiftly. The town loungers had gaped at the osteria to see the carousal of the milord—so Paolo had said. Why, it was as good as a play! He smiled—and thought further:
The Englishman had been in Ravenna and had eluded his grasp. Here before him was youth, clever and unscrupulous; if less cunning, yet bolder—a hatred antedating his own—a ready tool. ”

“ And think what Paolo has done for her in his sublime devotion!”
“I know others who would do as much,” said Despard, in a voice that seemed full of tears; “I know others who, like him, would go to the grave to rescue the one they loved, and make all life one long devotion. I know others,” he continued, “who would gladly die, if by dying they could gain what he has won—the possession of the one they love. Ah me! Paolo is happy and blessed beyond all men. Between him and her there is no insuperable barrier, no gulf as deep as death.” ”

“ Altissimo, you have deigned to make me the Prince of the Apostolic College, the Keeper of the Keys of Heaven, and the Head of Your Church on earth, and it is not fitting that the churches which men build in my honour should be less magnificent than those which they build for San Paolo. Therefore, in taking these pillars that San Paolo makes such a ridiculous fuss about, I am simply within my right—a right which belongs to the dignity of the rank which the immortal splendour of your Majesty has been graciously pleased to confer upon me. ”

“ Something like this thought was in Paolo's mind when he stood at sunset and peered in at the golden rays falling athwart the green, but he did not know it. Paolo was not a philosopher, but he loved beauty and beautiful things, and was conscious of a great hunger which there was nothing in his narrow world to satisfy.
Certainly not in the tenement. It was old and rickety and wretched, in keeping with the slum of which it formed a part. The whitewash was peeling from the walls, the stairs were patched, and the door-step long since worn entirely away. ”

“ Paolo is too magnificent for a church. It has a fine architectural pedigree up to Constantine, having endured all the horrors for generations of decay and fire, to be only rebuilt at greater cost than before.
I did not go on purpose to behold the church, but to almost adore the ancient cloisters at the back. The delicately twisted columns of the arches are so winning, they actually awake one’s affections; and if thinking of a thing ever after is love, they fill you with this fondest of recollections.
A good many of us rise in life. ”

“ He had told Paolo to show the stranger up to his library,—or study, as he modestly called it.
It was a pleasant room enough, with a lookout on the lake in one direction, and the wooded hill in another. The tenant had fitted it up in scholarly fashion. The books Paolo spoke of were conspicuous, many of them, by their white vellum binding and tasteful gilding, showing that probably they had been bound in Rome, or some other Italian city. With these were older volumes in their dark original leather, and recent ones in cloth or paper. ”

“ Exeunt PAOLO and FRANCESCA, with PAGES.
RITTA. O! misery, misery!—it is plain as day—
She loves Paolo! Why will those I love
Forever get themselves ensnared, and heaven
Forever call on me to succor them? ”

“ A finer nature, a higher understanding, took in a greater circle, comprehended the whole. So that when Paolo was in relation to a man of further vision, he himself was extended towards the whole. Thus he was fulfilled. And his initial assumption was that every signore, every gentleman, was a man of further, purer vision than himself. This assumption was false. But Maria's assumption, that no one had a further vision, no one was more elect than herself, that we are all one flesh and blood and being, was even more false. Paolo was mistaken in actual life, but Maria was ultimately mistaken. ”

“ He then bared his shoulders, and applied the scourge till the blood flowed, repeating between every stroke, “My God, I ask pardon of thee for having given the slightest comfort or relief to Fra Paolo, during his merited penance.” He performed all this, cherishing in the bottom of his soul an intention still to comfort and relieve Fra Paolo, whenever he could find opportunity. He then thought all was over. ”

“ Yet his reverence for Fra Paolo's great knowledge and holy life made him unwilling to criticize where he unconsciously questioned. It was the severest test of friendship to keep his faith and affectionate devotion in one who was taking so prominent a part in a movement opposing papal authority; but sometimes, when Fra Paolo had uttered many things he would not have tolerated in any other priest, Fra Francesco said only to himself, in great sadness, "It is God who maketh men different; we do not know the why!" ”

“ He would often sit looking at Paolo, as he lolled with careless grace in some part of the boat, singing or reciting something with all the characteristic animation of his country, and wondered what each would have been had their conditions been reversed,—had Paolo been the highly-born rich man, and he the poor lowly fisherman. ”

“ Frosties' Chorus—
Last night his heart was all aglow,
Last night he loved Virginia so;
But wintry dawn has brought despair
Of ever winning maid so fair.
Paolo—
And now when days seem dreary,
And hope begins to wane,
My thoughts run back and I wonder—
Will we ever meet again.
Ever my heart is yearning
For a voice that is far away:
For a smile that is bright and cheering
As sunshine and waves at play.
[Enter Cupid.]
Paolo—
Good morrow, Cupid. (C.) I salute thee too.
Paolo—
What errand brings you out amid the snow?
Perchance you've lost your way, rash Cupid. (C.) No. ”

“ The wife of Paolo, bearing the singular name of Tomyris Macachio, bore him three sons and four daughters. Paolo died at Bergamo on 19th August 1506 at the age of sixty-three, and was buried in S. Agostino at Padua. Paolo was the author of a variety of legal treatises and the like, and also published at Verona in 1483 both a corrected edition and an Italian translation of a once famous book, Valturius, De re militari, dedicating both to Pandolfo Malatesta of Rimini. ”

“ His eyes fixed themselves upon the smooth tonsure at the back of Paolo's head, and slowly his right hand issued from his pocket with the sharp instrument firmly clenched in it. He raised it to the level of his head, just above that smooth shaven circle in the dark hair. His eyes dilated and his mouth worked nervously as the pale lips stretched themselves across the yellow teeth. ”

“ We understand each other. What is your name?"
"Paolo."
"Paolo, eh? None other? Perhaps you prefer a single name. The great men of Greece had but one. Well, Paolo, you must know every face in this little town. Tell us whether this old man is an inhabitant of Rivoli."
"He is a complete stranger to me," replied the attendant. "I have never seen his face till this morning."
"If, Paolo, you can find out for us what his name is, where he is staying, whence he came, and what business brings him here," my uncle continued, "I will give you more money than you can earn in a twelvemonth. ”

“ As was natural, his editions after his removal to Rome were mostly Latin works of theology and Biblical or patristic literature.
Paolo married Caterina Odoni in 1546. She brought him three sons and one daughter. His eldest son, the younger Aldus, succeeded him in the management of the Venetian printing house when his father settled at Rome in 1561. Paolo had never been a strong man, and his health was overtaxed with studies and commercial worries. Yet he lived into his sixty-second year, and died at Rome in 1574. ”

“ Paolo's teacher stood by, and nodded approvingly as his little fingers played so deftly with the clay, his face all lighted up with joy at this strange kind of a school-lesson.
After that he had a new and faithful friend, and, as he worked away, putting his whole young soul into the tasks that filled it with radiant hope, other friends, rich and powerful, found him out in his slum. They brought better-paying work for his mother than sewing pants for the sweater, and Uncle Pasquale abandoned the scows to become a porter in a big shipping-house on the West Side. ”

“ All the while Paolo stood by, somehow excluded from the mystery, talking to me, to Faustino. And Il Duro answered easily, as if his mind were disengaged. It was his senses that were absorbed in the sensible life of the plant, and the lime and the cow-dung he handled.
Watching him, watching his absorbed, bestial, and yet godlike crouching before the plant, as if he were the god of lower life, I somehow understood his isolation, why he did not marry. Pan and the ministers of Pan do not marry, the sylvan gods. They are single and isolated in their being. ”

“ Our surgeon was to come again at daybreak, and the light was scarce up when I heard his voice upon the riva. He found Paolo to be doing well, and would not have him waked from the deep sleep into which he had fallen. The wound, he said, was near to the heart, and could be healed only by sustained rest and quiet. ”

“ Don Paolo rose and carefully brushed the dust from his cassock and mantle, and smoothed the long silk nap of his hat. He was a very neat man and scrupulous as to his appearance. Moreover, he regarded the Cardinal with a certain awe, as being far removed beyond the sphere of ordinary humanity, even though he had known him intimately for years. This idea of the great importance of the princes of the Church is inherent in the Roman mind. There is no particular reason why it should be eradicated, since it exists, and does no harm to any one, but it is a singular fact and worthy of remark. ”

“ Yet Paolo’s life was not wholly without its bright spots. Far from it. There were the occasional trips to the dump with Uncle Pasquale’s dinner, where there was always sport to be had in chasing the rats that overran the place, fighting for the scraps and bones the trimmers had rescued from the scows. There were so many of them, and so bold were they, that an old Italian who could no longer dig was employed to sit on a bale of rags and throw things at them, lest they carry off the whole establishment. ”

“ Not so—for Don Ambrogio hath little learning; but Paolo will cover us with honor. In learning he is never weary, yet hath he an understanding greater than mine own, and in docility he hath no equal. In his duty in the convent and in the church he is even more punctilious. ”

“ After this event his grandfather and two uncles, the three Asolani, carried on the Aldine press, while Paolo prosecuted his early studies at Venice. Excessive application hurt his health, which remained weak during the rest of his life. At the age of twenty-one he had acquired a solid reputation for scholarship and learning. In 1533 Paolo undertook the conduct of his father’s business, which had latterly been much neglected by his uncles. In the interregnum between Aldo’s death and Paolo’s succession (1514–1533) the Asolani continued to issue books, the best of which were Latin classics. ”

“ It may be read in the work of Antonio Filarete that Paolo was not only a sculptor but also an able goldsmith, and that he wrought part of the twelve Apostles in silver which stood, before the sack of Rome, over the altar of the Papal Chapel. Part of the work of these statues was done by Niccolò della Guardia and Pietro Paolo da Todi, disciples of Paolo, who were afterwards passing good masters in sculpture, as is seen from the tombs of Pope Pius II and Pope Pius III, on which the said Pontiffs are portrayed from nature. ”

“ Paolo, di Moniglia (1444-1502) , a member of the order of Dominicans, was, from a comparatively early age, prior of their convent at Genoa. As a preacher he was very successful, and his talents were fully recognized by successive popes, by whom he was made master of the sacred palace, inquisitor-general for all the Genoese dominions, and ultimately bishop of Scio and Hungarian legate. ”

“ Antonio Pollaiolo for the church of San Giovanni at Florence. These were carried out by Paolo da Verona, and took twenty-six years for their completion; and they were only one set of vestments, “embroidered by the most subtle master of the art, Paolo da Verona, a man most eminent in his calling, and of incomparable ingenuity (ingenio) . The figures are no less admirably executed with the needle than drawn by Pollaiolo with the pencil,—and thus we are largely indebted to one master for his design, and to the other for his patience” (plate 68) . ”