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 
