REVIEWS—HISTORICAL PICTURES RETOUCHED. 535 
reached the ears of Clement VII. Having crowned Charles V. at Bologna in 
15380, he sought out Properzia. She had died that very week, and been buried, at 
her own request, in the Spedale delle Morte. 
Vasari describes in highest terms of admiration the drawings of this 
gifted and versatile artist; and specimens of her sculpture and 
exquisite minature carvings remain to attest her singular genius. On 
a peach-stone, still preserved in the Florentine Cabinet, there is a 
“Glory of the Saints,” carved by Properzia, on which more than 
sixty heads may be counted. Our authoress repels with just scorn 
some vulgar slanders associated by modern Italian cicerones with this 
gifted woman’s name; but she is, perhaps, disposed to look with 
scarcely less favour on so undignified an episode in the life of one 
whom genius had so elevated above the capacities common to either 
sex as “a disappointment in love ;” and remands to a foot note the 
romantic incidents, vaguely glanced at by biographers, but which 
chiefly touched the tender poetical sympathies of the gentle authoress 
of “‘the Records of Women.” “The simple fact,” says our authoress, 
“appears to be, that she loved and was beloved by a man greatly her 
superior in rank; that her eyes opened too late, when she found in 
what manner he sought her, and her woman’s heart broke with a 
grief too heavy for the artist’s pride.” 
Felicia Hemans took hold of a diverse art-tradition better suited to 
her vein of thought, and the tremulous, tearful sympathies which her 
own life-drama had intensified, in a peculiarly tender womanly nature. 
A painting by Ducis represents the fair Bolognese sculptor showing her 
last work, a basso-relievo of Ariadne, to a Roman Knight, the object of 
her unrequited affection, and while she looks wistfully in his eyes to 
read the impression which the poetry of her chisel produces, he 
regards it with cold indifference. It may be the mere romance of the 
painter’s pencil, eked out by a confused tradition ; but gifted men, and 
women too, have been even so o’ermastered; nor would we willingly 
believe that the intensifying fire of genius quickens the intellect of 
woman at the expense of her susceptibilities to those deep loving 
emotions of lover, sister, wife, and mother, on which the authoress of 
“The Records of Women ”’ dwelt perhaps too fondly. In her poetical 
picturing of Properzia Rossi, the soul’s lofty gifts have proved vain to 
quench its haunting thirst for happiness. The Knight has looked 
