A few days finished my task; Bianca returned to her convent, but her image remained indelibly impressed upon my heart.  It dwelt on my imagination; it became my pervading idea of beauty.  It had an effect even upon my pencil; I became noted for my felicity in depicting female loveliness; it was but because I multiplied the image of Bianca.  I soothed, and yet fed my fancy, by introducing her in all the productions of my master.  I have stood with delight in one of the chapels of the Annunciata, and heard the crowd extol the seraphic beauty of a saint which I had painted; I have seen them bow down in adoration before the painting:  they were bowing before the loveliness of Bianca.

I existed in this kind of dream, I might almost say delirium, for upwards of a year.  Such is the tenacity of my imagination that the image which was formed in it continued in all its power and freshness.  Indeed, I was a solitary, meditative being, much given to reverie, and apt to foster ideas which had once taken strong possession of me.  I was roused from this fond, melancholy, delicious dream by the death of my worthy benefactor.  I cannot describe the pangs his death occasioned me.  It left me alone and almost broken-hearted.  He bequeathed to me his little property; which, from the liberality of his disposition and his expensive style of living, was indeed but small; and he most particularly recommended me, in dying, to the protection of a nobleman who had been his patron.

The latter was a man who passed for munificent.  He was a lover and an encourager of the arts, and evidently wished to be thought so.  He fancied he saw in me indications of future excellence; my pencil had already attracted attention; he took me at once under his protection; seeing that I was overwhelmed with grief, and incapable of exerting myself in the mansion of my late benefactor, he invited me to sojourn for a time in a villa which he possessed on the border of the sea, in the picturesque neighborhood of Sestri de Ponenti.

I found at the villa the Count’s only son, Filippo:  he was nearly of my age, prepossessing in his appearance, and fascinating in his manners; he attached himself to me, and seemed to court my good opinion.  I thought there was something of profession in his kindness, and of caprice in his disposition; but I had nothing else near me to attach myself to, and my heart felt the need of something to repose itself upon.  His education had been neglected; he looked upon me as his superior in mental powers and acquirements, and tacitly acknowledged my superiority.  I felt that I was his equal in birth, and that gave an independence to my manner which had its effect.  The caprice and tyranny I saw sometimes exercised on others, over whom he had power, were never manifested towards me.  We became intimate friends, and frequent companions.  Still I loved to be alone, and to indulge in the reveries of my own imagination, among the beautiful scenery by which I was surrounded.