Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1882 — Elisabetta Sirani. [ARTICLE]

Elisabetta Sirani.

Among the followers of Guido Reni, this Young woman, who died when but twenty-five years old, is conspicuous for her talents and interesting on account of the story of her life. She was the daughter of a reputable artist, and was born at Bologna about 1649. She was certainly very industrious, since one of her biographers names one hundred and fifty pictures and etchings made by her, and all these must have been done within a period of about ten years. Much has l>een said of the ease and rapidity with which she worked; one anecdote relates that on an occasion when it happened that the Duchess of Brunswick, the Duchess of Miraudola, ami Duke Cosimo de’ Medici, with other persons, all met at her studio, she astonished and delighted them by the ease ami skill with which she sketched and shaded drawings of the subjects which one after another named to her. The story of her life, aside from her art, gives an undying interest to her name, and insures her remembrance for all time. In person she was beautiful, and the sweetness of her character and manner won for her the love of all those who were associated with her. She was also a charming singer, and was ever ready to give pleasure to her friends. Her admiring biographers also commend her taste in dress, which was very simple; and they even go so far as to praise her for her moderation in eating! She was well skilled in all domestic matters, and would rise at daybreak to perform her lowly household duties, never allowing her art to displace the homely occupations which properly, as she thought, made a part of her life. Elisabetta Sirani’s name has come down through two hundred and seventeen years as one whose “devoted filial affection, feminine grace, and artless benignity of manner added a luster to her great talents, and completed a personality which her friends regarded as an ideal of perfection.” The sudden death of this artist has added a tragic element to her story. The cause of it has never been known, but the theory that she died from poison, has been very generally accepted. Several reasons for this crime have been given: one is, that she was sacrificed to the jealousy of other artists, as Domenichino had been; another belief was that a princely lover, whom she had treated with scorn, had taken her life because she had dared to place herself, in her lowly station, above his rank and power. A servant girl named Lucia Tolonielli, who had been long in the service of the Sirani family, was suspected and tried for this crime. She was sentenced to banishment; but, after a time, Elisabetta’s father requested that Lucia should be allowed to return, as he had no reason for believing her guilty. And so the mystery of the cause of her death has never been solved; but its effect upon the whole city of Bologna, where it occurred, is an exact matter of history. The entire people felt a personal loss in her death, and the day of her burial was one of general mourning. The ceremonies of her funeral were attended with gr eat pomp, and she was buried beside her master, Guido Reni, in the chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary, in the magnificent Church of the Dominicans. Poets and orators vied with one another in sounding her praises, and a book published soon after her death, called “HPennello Lagrimato,” is a collection of orations, sonnets, odes, anagrams, and epitaphs in both Latin and Italian, all telling of the love for her which filled the city, and describing the charms and virtues of this gifted artist. Her portrait is in the Ercolani Gallery at Bologna.— “ Stories of Art and Artists,” by Mrs. Clement, in St. Nicholas. A member of a certain church was laid aside by illness, and complained bit’erly to his pastor that only one or two persons had come to see him. “My friend,” said the minister, “jAm have bee.i a professing Christian for thirty years. During this long time how many sick have you visited?” “Oh,” he replied, “it never struck me in that light. I thought of only the relation of others to me, and not of my relation to them." The United States Commissioner of Education gives figures to show that in ten years private benevolence in this country has given for educational purposes no less than $61,374,060, and this does not include the recent gifts of Slater and others, amounting to $8,000,000. The largest sum in any single year was $11,226,000 in 1873, and the smallest $3,015,000 in 1877. School swings banks are to be introduced in lowa.