Fairy Tales

The bronze pig stood unmoving, and the fresh water spurted from its mouth. The boy sat there like a horseman, and then something tugged at his clothes. He looked over and saw that it was little, closely-clipped Bellissima. The dog had slipped out of the house with him and had followed without the boy noticing. Bellissima barked as if it wanted to say, “See, I came too. Why are you sitting here?” Not even a fire-breathing dragon could have frightened the boy more than that little dog in this place. Bellissima on the street and without being dressed, as the signora called it! How would this go? The dog never went outside in the winter without wearing a little sheepskin coat that had been cut out and sewn for it. The coat could be tied tightly around the neck with a red band, and there were bells and ribbons on it. There was a similar band under the belly. The dog almost looked like a little lamb in this outfit when it was allowed to walk out in the winter time with its mistress. Bellissima had come along and wasn’t dressed! Oh, what would happen? All his fantasies disappeared. The boy kissed the bronze pig and took Bellissima in his arms. The little dog was trembling with cold, and so the boy ran as fast as he could.

“What’s that you’re running with?” called two policemen who encountered him, and Bellissima barked. “Where have you stolen that cute little dog?” they asked and took it from him.

“Oh, give it back to me!” pleaded the boy.

“If you haven’t stolen it, then you can report at home that the dog can be picked up at the station,” and they gave the location and went away with Bellissima.

Now the boy was in a fine fix. He didn’t know whether to jump into the Arno, or go home and admit everything. They would probably kill him, he thought. “But I want to be killed. I will die, and then I’ll go to Jesus and Madonna!” and he went home, chiefly in order to be killed.

The door was closed, and he couldn’t reach the knocker. There was no one on the street, but there was a loose stone, and with that he pounded on the door. “Who is it?” someone called from inside.

“It’s me,” he said. “Bellissima is gone! Open up and then kill me!”

There was a hue and cry for poor Bellissima, especially from the signora. She looked at once at the wall where the dog’s outfit should be hanging, and the little sheepskin was there.

“Bellissima at the police station!” she yelled loudly. “You evil child! Why did you take him out? He’ll freeze to death! That delicate animal with those coarse officers!”

And the old man had to go at once. The signora moaned, and the boy cried. All the people in the house gathered, including the painter. He took the boy on his knee and questioned him, and in bits and pieces he got the whole story about the bronze pig and the gallery. It wasn’t easy to understand. The painter consoled the little one and defended him before the woman, but she wasn’t satisfied until her husband came back with Bellissima, who had been among the officers. Then there was joy, and the painter patted the poor boy and gave him a handful of pictures.

Oh, what marvelous pictures, and comical heads! But best of all, there was the bronze pig itself, so lifelike! Oh, nothing could have been more splendid! With a few lines, there it was on the paper, and even the house behind it was depicted.

“Oh, to be able to draw and paint! Then you can capture the whole world!”

The next day, as soon as he was alone, the little one grasped a pencil and tried to reproduce the drawing of the bronze pig on the white side of one of the drawings. He was successful! A little crooked, a little up and down, one leg thick, another thin, but you could make it out. He himself was thrilled with it. He noticed that the pencil wouldn’t quite go just as straight as it should, but the next day another bronze pig was standing beside the first. It was a hundred times better, and the third was so good that everyone could recognize it.

But things did not work out so well with the glove-making, and he was slow at doing his errands. The bronze pig had taught him that all pictures can be transferred to paper, and the city of Florence is an entire picture book; you only have to turn the pages. There is a slender column on the piazza della Trinita, and on the top stands a blind-folded Goddess of Justice holding her scales. Soon she was on paper, and it was the glove-maker’s little lad who had put her there. The picture collection grew, but all the pictures were still of inanimate things. Then one day Bellissima jumped in front of him. “Stand still!” he said, “and you will become lovely and be one of my pictures.” But Bellissima wouldn’t stand still, so he had to be tied up. His head and tail were tied, and he barked and squirmed so the cord had to be tightened. Then the signora came!

“You ungodly boy! That poor animal!” was all she could say, and she pushed the boy to the side, kicked him with her foot, and threw him out of the house. He was the most ungrateful wretch, the most ungodly child! And she kissed her little half-strangled Bellissima tearfully.

Just at the same time the painter came up the steps, and that’s the turning point in the story.

In 1834 there was an exhibition at the Academy of Art in Florence. Two paintings displayed beside each other attracted a lot of viewers. On the smallest painting a little boy was portrayed. He was drawing, and for a model he had a little white closely-clipped dog, but the animal wouldn’t stand still and was therefore tied with string both at the head and the tail. The life and reality in the painting appealed to all who saw it. They said that the painter was a young Florentine who had been found on the streets as a little child. He had been raised by an old glove-maker and had taught himself to draw. An artist who had become famous had discovered the boy’s talent when he had been chased away because he had tied up his mistress’s favorite, the little dog, to use as a model.

That the glove-maker’s little apprentice had become a great painter was clear from this painting, but even more so from the one next to it. Here only one figure was represented: a lovely tattered boy who sat sleeping on the street next to the bronze pig on Porta Rossa street. All of the spectators knew the spot. The child’s arm rested on the pig’s head, and the little one slept so securely. The lamp by the Madonna painting cast a strong light on the child’s marvelous, pale face. It was a magnificent painting, enclosed by a big gilded frame. On the corner of the frame a laurel wreath was hanging, but between the green leaves a black ribbon was entwined—and a long black mourning crepe hung down from it.—

For the young artist had just died.

NOTES

1 Italian artist Agnolo di Cosimo, called II Bronzino (1503-1572); he painted Descent of Christ into Hell, which hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

2 Italian dramatist and poet Vittorio Alfieri ( 1749-1803) was a leading figure in the development of modern Italy.

3 Just opposite Galileo’s tomb is Michelangelo’s. On his monument are located his bust, as well as three figures: Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture. Close by is Dante’s tomb (but the body itself is buried in Ravenna).