* * * * *
The day was drawing near when Marcantonio Giustiniani, the only son of
Giustinian Giustiniani, a noble of the Senate and of the Council of the
Ten, should present himself before the _Avvocato del Comun_ to claim
admission to the Great Council as a noble, born in lawful wedlock, of
noble parents, inscribed in the Golden Book.
To the young fellow himself this twenty-fifth anniversary of his birth,
when, by Venetian law, the ceremony must take place, approached with
needlessly rapid footsteps; he was not yet ready for the duties it would
bring, so much more did he incline to that measure of boyish freedom
which had thus far been his, so unwilling was he to renounce his longing
for some form of art life--the impulse to which fretted him almost
unbearably, in view of the political career which opened mercilessly
before him, threatening every dearer project.
Not that he felt himself born to be an artist--Paolo Cagliari laughed at
his studies while he encouraged his coming to the studio, telling him
that for one who had not chosen Art for his mistress the drawings were
"well enough"; and from the Veronese the words were consoling.
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