sun go down in the west where Maremma lay far away beside the sea, and would say to himself as he looked, 'What does the sun see in that green land?'
The people of Mantua only knew him as a stranger, one of the many travelling painters who were lured there by the sad charm of the pale waters reflecting the domes and towers and walls, and the arches of the bridges, and the tall belfries whose metal tongues called but to mass, and never more to war. He was silent, reserved; they thought him poor; he passed his days drawing the austere palaces, the ruined fortresses, the many stories told in stone; sometimes he took a boat and passed long hours out on the lagoons still grey and windblown with the lingering winter's breath. No one noticed him; he was but a painter like so many; out in the world he might be famous, but here in Mantua he was unknown and disregarded.
Mantua slept like a magician enchanted by his own spells, whilst the grass grew long on the roofs and the battlements, and the works of gorgeous Giulio faded and dropped to dust in the palaces above the waters or down beneath the blue acacia shadow.
