DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62819#0031
LIFE OF RUBENS.
xxiii
representing the Circumcision, and St. Ignatius healing
the diseased
The extraordinary number of portraits and historical
compositions which he painted in this city detained him
there much longer than at any other place, excepting
Mantua; as, in addition to his usual pursuit, his atten-
tion being taken with the beauty and magnificence
of its edifices, he made plans and drawings of the eleva-
tions and decorations of several palaces and public
buildings f. While thus engaged, intelligence arrived
that his mother was dangerously ill; upon the receipt
of this news he instantly set off for Antwerp, and while
on his journey thither he received the announcement of
her death : the shock was rendered more severe in con-
sequence of an absence of eight years and five months
from her to whom he owed so much. On his arrival at
Antwerp he entered the Abbey of St. Michael, where
his parent was buried, and remained there many weeks,
devoted to filial sorrow. A tomb in the church, erected
by the family, records that she died the 14th of Novem-
ber, 1608, aged seventy years.
The honours and celebrity which Rubens had acquired
in Italy had long been proclaimed among his country-
men, who, as soon as he appeared in public, were eager
* Pages 153 and 154.
j- These were subsequently engraved under his own direction, and
published at Antwerp, in 1622, entitled Palazzi Antichi e Moderni
di Genoa, raccolti e designate da Pietro Paulo Rubens. A second part
appeared in 1652, folio, 189 plates. Colonel Bentinck has in his
possession a thick book containing numerous sketches of parts of
buildings, with detached portions of altars, termini, and other archi-
tectural objects, most of which are interspersed with numerous
memoranda in various languages.
xxiii
representing the Circumcision, and St. Ignatius healing
the diseased
The extraordinary number of portraits and historical
compositions which he painted in this city detained him
there much longer than at any other place, excepting
Mantua; as, in addition to his usual pursuit, his atten-
tion being taken with the beauty and magnificence
of its edifices, he made plans and drawings of the eleva-
tions and decorations of several palaces and public
buildings f. While thus engaged, intelligence arrived
that his mother was dangerously ill; upon the receipt
of this news he instantly set off for Antwerp, and while
on his journey thither he received the announcement of
her death : the shock was rendered more severe in con-
sequence of an absence of eight years and five months
from her to whom he owed so much. On his arrival at
Antwerp he entered the Abbey of St. Michael, where
his parent was buried, and remained there many weeks,
devoted to filial sorrow. A tomb in the church, erected
by the family, records that she died the 14th of Novem-
ber, 1608, aged seventy years.
The honours and celebrity which Rubens had acquired
in Italy had long been proclaimed among his country-
men, who, as soon as he appeared in public, were eager
* Pages 153 and 154.
j- These were subsequently engraved under his own direction, and
published at Antwerp, in 1622, entitled Palazzi Antichi e Moderni
di Genoa, raccolti e designate da Pietro Paulo Rubens. A second part
appeared in 1652, folio, 189 plates. Colonel Bentinck has in his
possession a thick book containing numerous sketches of parts of
buildings, with detached portions of altars, termini, and other archi-
tectural objects, most of which are interspersed with numerous
memoranda in various languages.