GIOVANNI COSTA 



in a rapture of joy of thanksgiving as the sun, rising 

 above the dark mass of Monte Subasio, floods the land 

 of the saint's birth with splendour. Below lies the 

 broad bed of the Tiber and, in all its varied loveliness, 

 the fair Umbrian valley with bell-towers and villages, 

 grey olives and tall cypresses, scattered over the plain. 

 Every detail of leaf and flower is painted with infinite 

 love and patience, and hill and valley are blended 

 together in one rich harmony of colour. When Costa 

 painted that picture he evidently had in his mind the 

 lines of the Paradiso, in which Dante sings of the fortu- 

 nate city hanging on the mountain-side, where rose 

 on the world the new sun whose bright beams were 

 to gladden the whole earth. " Therefore, let he who 

 names yonder city no longer say Assisi but Orient ! " 

 In 1885 Costa bought a villa at Bocca d'Arno, that 

 region where he had already painted some of his 

 finest pictures and where he spent the summer and 

 autumn months of his remaining years. Here Leigh- 

 ton and his other English friends came to see him, and 

 his happiest hours were spent in sketching among 

 the hills. Up to the last days of his life the old 

 maestro might be seen, going out before dawn on 

 September mornings, followed by a child bearing his 

 easel and brushes, to watch the sunrise or catch some 

 new effect of light or colour that he was trying to 



paint. Years had bowed his back and weakened his 



289 T 



