Profiting by our stay in Florence, Sergy wanted me to be immortalised by brushes and chisels, on canvas and on marble. He ordered my portrait to be taken by Parrini, a well-known painter, and my bust by Romanelli, the famous sculptor, who took us to his “studio,” full of nymphs and cupids and limbs; a moving platform for the model occupied the middle of the room. I had to sit from nine o’clock in the morning until six in the evening, which was rather fatiguing. Whilst Parrini painted my portrait, his wife, Signora Adelgunda, a buxom, pleasant-faced lady, stood behind and generally approved, nodded her head and murmured, caressing her husband’s cheek, “_Bene, bene, caro, Beppé_.” Signora Adelgunda was also a painter, and had exhibited several times. She has watched for eight years the right to obtain the first place to copy Rafaele’s Madonna at the Pitti Galleries. Her picture had found its way into the Museum and was sold for the sum of two thousand francs. Parrini, during the sittings, told me little humorous things he could think of, trying to keep me amused. I laughed very much when he related to me that he had just received from America the photographs of a gentleman and his wife who wanted to have their portraits painted conformably to these photos, only the gentleman wished to be reproduced with less hair on his head and ten years more on his shoulders, whilst his spouse, on the contrary, wanted him to drop ten years of her age. Parrini related to me that when Mme. Lebrun, the celebrated lady-painter, in her old age, visited the Pitti Galleries and saw an oil painting of her, reproducing her young and beautiful, the poor woman had a fit of hysterics and nearly fainted away. Yes, certainly, it must not be pleasant to grow old, especially when one has been gifted by good looks. I felt very flattered when Parrini told me in his artistic language, that like Mme. Lebrun my face had warm and cold touches. Shall I ever fall into a swoon, if I ever reach old age, when looking at my portrait painted by Parrini, I wonder? The Parrinis have got a little son named Mario, a premature painter, who puts paint on the doors, walls and statues which adorn his father’s “studio.” He is a very lively and noisy little boy, who gives trouble and puts things out of place. His last exploit was to daub with red paint the statue of the daughter of Niobe, and to adorn her beautiful face with long black moustaches. Romanelli is over seventy years old but carries them lightly on his shoulders. He wears a red scarf round his throat, carpet slippers, and a black velvet “calotte” pushed off on the back of his bald head. At my first sitting I felt rather shy when the sculptor placed me in a seat standing on the turning pedestal, but at the second sitting it went off all right, I mounted bravely on my elevated throne. The bust of a young woman, made in clay, stood on my right hand and Romanelli modelled it here and there, according to my features, diminishing or