We have seen how the spirit and sentiment of Italy continually remained by the artist in his German studio, and how in Frankfort his artistic imagination returned again and again to Florence, and to the early Florentines of his particular adoration--Cimabue and Giotto. The recall to Italy came inevitably, as Steinle's teaching at last had fully worked its purpose. Steinle himself counselled the move, and gave his favourite pupil an introduction to Cornelius in Rome. It was to Rome, therefore, and not to Florence, that the young artist went--to Rome where sooner or later the steps of all men who work for art or for religion tend, and where so few stay. This was in 1852, the year which was represented in the Commemorative Exhibition at Burlington House by _A Persian Pedlar_, a small full-length figure of a man in Oriental costume, seated cross-legged on a divan, with a long pipe in his hand. To 1853 belongs a _Portrait of Miss Laing_ (Lady Nias), which was shown again at the same time. The Rome of the mid-century was Rome at its best, with much artistic stimulus of the present, as well as of the past. The English colony was particularly strong. Thackeray was there, moving about after his wont in the studios and salons; the Brownings were there, and in their prime. The young painter and his work, including the _Cimabue's Madonna_ in its earlier stages, made a great impression on Thackeray, who turned prophet for once on the strength of it. On returning to London and meeting Millais, he prophesied gaily to that ardent Pre-Raphaelite, then marching on from success to success: "Millais! my boy, I have met in Rome a versatile young dog called Leighton, who will one of these days run you hard for the presidentship!" This was early days for such a rumour to reach the Academy, who knew an older school, represented by Landseer and Eastlake, and a younger school, represented by Millais and Rossetti, but as yet knew not Leighton. Among the leading artists in Rome at this time, beside Cornelius, were the two French painters, Bouguereau and Gerome. To these, especially to Bouguereau, who was a great believer in "scientific composition," Leighton was, on his own testimony, largely indebted for his fine sense of form. Yet another famous Frenchman, Robert Fleury, whom he afterwards met in Paris, may be mentioned here, since from him he learnt much in the way of colouring, and the technique of his art. Turning from the painters to the poets, it was at Rome that Robert Browning, who was at this time writing his "Men and Women," formed close acquaintance with the young artist. Something of the atmosphere which permeates such poems as "Bishop Blougram's Apology," "Andrea del Sarto," and others of the same series, seems to linger yet in the record of those early meetings of poets and painters, with all their associations: "The Vatican, Greek busts, Venetian paintings, Roman walls, And English books."