His
mother had been afraid of this taste for art, which, for a short time,
had exercised such sway over his fancy, stimulated by his _culte_ for
the beautiful, that he had plead with her to win his father's consent
for an art life. Yet he had himself acquiesced in her quiet but
inflexible showing of the futility of attempting such an overturning of
Giustiniani traditions, though he still went with dangerous frequency to
the studio of the Veronese, to which she had procured him entrance upon
his promise that he would not seriously consider that impossible
possibility at which he had hinted. There had been mention of Pordenone
and of Aretino, with a certain cool scorn that was worse than censure,
and as convincing, there was the Titian, than whom, in art and
sumptuousness, one could not be greater; but, even for him, Cavaliere of
France, there was no place in the Consiglio!
Not that Marcantonio would voluntarily have relinquished his hereditary
place in the state, his possible part in its glory--the dream which came
to all young noblemen of the portrait in that splendid Sala di Consiglio
of his own face grown venerable, wearing the ermine and the ducal
coronet, in token of that supremacy so dear to each Venetian heart, but
jealously held by every noble of the Republic within confines which
lessened with each succession, until the crown was assumed in trembling
and ignominious restriction--if with external pomp and honor that might
befit a king.
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