Cicognara had the servants bring out another wine, one with a ruby-red hue.
"This is a fifteen-year-aged Barolo, my personal favorite," Cicognara told the two of them.
Georgiana accepted the wine and sniffed it carefully. It carried the fragrance of roses, along with a cedar-like woody scent. No wonder Bonaparte drank perfume like wine.
"Could you tell me why you sold that Isabella of Ferrara painted by Titian? What was wrong with it?" Cicognara asked.
Because it was not real.
Georgiana thought to herself that the woman in the painting was already sixty, yet she had Titian paint her as she had looked at twenty.
"I think artists should have the freedom to create," Georgiana said, looking at Cicognara, "rather than being forced by their patrons to create according to their wishes."
"I have quite a few works like that here. Unfortunately, they are neither liked by buyers nor recognized by the public," Cicognara said. "Even Canova has to be called the modern Michelangelo, though their styles are clearly different."
Georgiana agreed with that.
Canova had chosen Sèvres for his studio because he first made his sketches into clay figures, then fired them in a kiln. Once the form was settled, he made plaster copies, which his assistants then transformed into marble. Throughout the process, Canova needed many measuring tools and marked black dots on the plaster models as fixed points. His assistants carved through careful and precise measurements, whereas Michelangelo carved directly into marble.
After finishing the letter, Georgiana folded it and placed it in an envelope. She hesitated over whether to seal it, since that would save "everyone" some trouble.
Just as the General Essay on Tactics written by Count Jacques de Guibert, a French general Napoleon had encountered at the Paris Military School, stated: "The standing army