His type of beauty is so exotic that it
fascinates a larger number than it delights, and seems more than that of
any other artist to reflect ideas and views and some scheme of the world
within; so that he seemed to his contemporaries to be the possessor of
some unsanctified and sacred wisdom; as to Michelet and others to have
anticipated modern ideas. He trifles with his genius, and crowds all his
chief work into a few tormented years of later life; yet he is so
possessed by his genius that he passes unmoved through the most tragic
events, overwhelming his country and friends, like one who comes across
them by chance on some secret errand.
His legend, as the French say, with the anecdotes which every one knows,
is one of the most brilliant in Vasari. Later writers merely copied it,
until, in 1804, Carlo Amoretti applied to it a criticism which left
hardly a date fixed, and not one of those anecdotes untouched. The
various questions thus raised have since that time become, one after
another, subjects of special study, and mere antiquarianism has in this
direction little more to do.
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