ABSTRACT
The pride of Ancestry and a haughty consciousness of his descent (which he strove in vain to dissemble) rendered him obnoxious to the World in general. And finding himself disliked and dreaded, he had retired from court to the solitude of an ancient castle in the midst of his Duchy, where he employed himself in literary pursuits and forgot his ennuis and illhumours in the cultivation of the arts and the sciences. He was surrounded by poets, musicians, sculptors and designers, who lost and gained by turns the empire of his mind. Sometimes he was enchanted by chemical researches; another moment, Architecture engaged his attention, and he built lofty towers in the morisco style, and added magificent corinthian porticos to the gothic abodes of his ancestors. When this rage was subsided, the fury of antiquities began to predominate. Every comer of his domain was first ransacked for medals and tesselated pavements; then collectors were sent out to explore the most remote provinces of the Kingdom in search of rusty helmets, tattered shields, inscriptions and broken milestones. Meanwhile, commissions being sent to Sicily and Greece, whole shiploads of mutilated figures were landed at Alicant, and these pagan images scandalously usurped the nitches of the best Saints in the Calendar. When this passion had worn itself out, a violent admiration of paintings succeeded. Nothing pleased the Grandee but the productions of the pencil. He filled his appartments with the works of Raphael, Titian and Julio Romano at an immense expense, and constructed whole suites of rooms purposely to display them.
