But Urbino men they had to
be; and poor Luca, who was so full of despair that he could almost
have thrown himself headlong from the rocks, was thankful to
destiny for even so much slender mercy as this,--that the number
of his rivals was limited.
"Had I been you," Giovanni Sanzio ventured once to say
respectfully to Signor Benedetto, "I think I should have picked
out for my son-in-law the best youth that I knew, not the best
painter; for be it said in all reverence, my friend, the greatest
artist is not always the truest man, and by the hearthstone humble
virtues have sometimes high claim."
Then Signor Benedetto had set his stern face like a flint, knowing
very well what youth Messer Giovanni would have liked to name to
him.
"I have need of a good artist in my bottega to keep up its fame,"
he had said stiffly. "My vision is not what it was, and I should
be loath to see Urbino ware fall back, whilst Pesaro and Gubbio
and Castel Durante gain ground every day. Pacifica must pay the
penalty, if penalty there be, for being the daughter of a great
artist."
Mirthful, keen-witted Sanzio smiled to himself, and went his way
in silence; for he who loved Andrea Mantegna did not bow down in
homage before the old master-potter's estimation of himself, which
was in truth somewhat overweening in its vanity.
"Poor Pacifica!" he thought; "if only my 'Faello were but some
decade older!"
He, who could not foresee the future, the splendid, wondrous,
unequaled future that awaited his young son, wished nothing better
for him than a peaceful painter's life here in old Urbino, under
the friendly shadow of the Montefeltro's palace walls.
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