Anyone who comes to Florence can find the place. He only has to ask the first beggar he sees about the bronze pig, and he’ll find it.

It was late one winter evening. There was snow on the mountains, but there was moonlight, and moonlight in Italy gives a light that is just as good as a dark winter day in the North. Well, actually even better because the air has a shine to it; it lifts you up, while in the North the cold lead-grey sky presses us to the ground—the cold wet ground that one day will press on our coffins.

Over in the Duke’s Palace garden under a roof of pines, where thousands of roses bloom in the wintertime, a little ragged boy had been sitting all day, a boy who might be the picture of Italy, so lovely and smiling, but yet so full of suffering. He was hungry and thirsty. No one had given him a penny, and when it became dark and the garden was to be locked up for the night, the porter chased him away. For a long time he stood dreaming on the bridge over the Arno River and looked at the stars that twinkled in the water between him and the magnificent marble bridge.

He took the road to the bronze pig, knelt half down, threw his arms around its neck, and set his little mouth to the shining snout and drank deep draughts of the fresh water. Close by lay some lettuce leaves and a couple of chestnuts that became his evening meal. There wasn’t a soul on the street—he was quite alone. He sat down on the bronze pig’s back and leaned forward so his little curly head rested on the pig’s, and before he was aware of it, he fell asleep.

It was midnight. The bronze pig moved, and he heard it say quite distinctly, “Little boy, hold on tight. I’m going to run!” and away it ran with him. It was an odd ride—First they came to the Piazza del Granduca, and the bronze horse who bore the Duke’s statue neighed loudly. The colored coat-of-arms on the old court house shone like transparent pictures, and Michelangelo’s David swung his sling. There was a strange life everywhere. The bronze group with Perseus and the Rape of the Sabines was a bit too life-like: a deathly scream flew from them across the magnificent empty plaza.

At the Uffizi Palace, in the arcade where the aristocracy gathers for Carnival, the bronze pig stopped.

“Hold on tight!” the animal said. “Hold on tight because now we’re going up the steps!” The little boy didn’t say anything. He was half trembling, half happy.

They entered a long gallery that he knew well. He’d been there before. The walls were covered with paintings. There were statues and busts, all seen in the most beautiful light as though it were daytime. But the most magnificent was when the door to a side gallery was opened. The little boy remembered this splendid sight, although in this night everything looked its most beautiful.

Here stood a lovely, naked woman, as beautiful as only nature and marble’s greatest master could form her. She moved her lovely limbs while dolphins leaped at her feet, and immortality shone from her eyes. The world calls her the Venus de Medici. On each side of her were resplendent marble statues, handsome men; one of them was sharpening a sword. He is called the Knife Grinder. The Wrestlers composed the other group. The sword was sharpened, and the warriors fought for the Goddess of Beauty.

The boy was as if blinded by the magnificence. The walls were shining with colors, and everything was alive and moving there. The earthly Venus appeared as Titian had seen her, so buxom and ardent, but as if doubled. There were two paintings of lovely women. The beautiful bare arms stretched out on the soft cushions, the breasts heaved and the heads moved so that the rich locks fell down on the round shoulders while the dark eyes expressed fiery thoughts, but none of the pictures dared to step completely out of their frames. The Goddess of Beauty herself, the Wrestlers, and the Knife Grinder remained in their places because the glory that streamed from the Madonna, Jesus, and John bound them. The holy pictures were no longer just pictures; they were the holy ones themselves.

What brilliance and what beauty from gallery to gallery! And the little boy saw it all. The bronze pig went step by step through all the splendor and magnificence. One sight superseded the next, but just one picture engraved itself in his thoughts, and that was because of the happy, joyful children in it. He had once nodded to them in daylight.

Many pass quickly by this picture, and yet it holds a treasure of poetry. It shows Christ descending to the underworld, but it isn’t the damned you see around him, but rather the heathen. Angolo Bronzino¹ from Florence painted this picture. The most splendid thing is the expression of the children’s certainty that they are going to heaven. Two little ones are caressing each other. One reaches his hand to another below and points to himself as if he is saying, “I am going to heaven!” All the adults stand doubtfully, hopefully, or bowed humbly before the Lord Jesus.

The little boy looked at this picture longer than at any of the others. The bronze pig rested quietly in front of it, and a slow sigh was heard. Did it come from the painting or from the animal’s breast? The boy lifted his hand towards the smiling children, and then the animal tore away with him again, away through the open vestibule.

“Thanks and blessings, you wonderful animal!” the little boy said, and patted the bronze pig, who thump! thump!—ran down the steps with him.

“Thanks and blessings yourself,” said the bronze pig. “I’ve helped you, and you’ve helped me because only with an innocent child on my back do I have enough energy to run. You see, I even dare go into the light of the lamp in front of the Madonna. I can carry you anywhere except into the church, but when you are with me, I can see through the open door. Don’t climb off my back because if you do that, I will lie dead like you see me during the day on Porta Rossa street.”

“I’ll stay with you, my dear animal,” said the little boy, and they flew with great speed through Florence’s streets to the plaza in front of the Church of Santa Croce. The great double doors flew open, and light streamed from the altar through the church and out onto the empty plaza.

A strange beam of light shone from a sarcophagus in the left aisle, and thousands of moving stars seemed to form a halo around it. There was a coat-of-arms on the grave, a red ladder on a blue field, and it seemed to glow like fire. This was the grave of Galileo. It is a simple monument, but the red ladder on the blue field is a meaningful symbol. It could be Art’s own because its road always goes up a glowing ladder, but to heaven. All the prophets of the spirit go to heaven like the prophet Elijah.

All the statues on the rich tombs in the right aisle of the church seemed to be alive. Here stood Michelangelo; there Dante with a laural wreath on his head. Alfieri,² Machiavelli, side by side these great men rest, the pride of Italy.³ It is a magnificent church and much more beautiful, if not as large as Florence’s marble Cathedral.

It was as if the marble clothing moved, as if the big figures lifted their heads and gazed in the night, amid singing and music, towards the colorful, gleaming altar where white-clad boys swung golden censers. The strong scent streamed from the church onto the open plaza.

The boy stretched his hand out towards the radiance of light, and at the same instant the bronze pig took off again. The boy had to hang on tightly. The wind whistled around his ears, and he heard the church doors creak on their hinges as they closed, but then he lost consciousness. He felt an icy chill—and opened his eyes.

It was morning. He had slid part way off the bronze pig which was standing where it always stood in Porta Rossa street.⁴

Fear and dread filled the boy as he thought of the person he called mother. She had sent him out yesterday and told him to get money. He didn’t have any, and he was hungry and thirsty. Once again he grabbed the bronze pig by the neck, kissed its snout, nodded to it, and wandered away to one of the narrowest streets, only wide enough for a pack donkey. He came to a big, iron-clad door that stood ajar. He went in and up a stone stairway between dirty walls that had an oily rope as a banister and came to an open balcony where rags were hanging. A staircase led from here to the courtyard where there was a well. From there big iron wires led to all stories of the building, and one water pail swayed next to another while the pulley squeaked. The pails danced in the air so that water splashed down in the courtyard. He went further up yet another dilapidated stone staircase. Two sailors, Russians, came lurching down cheerfully and almost knocked the poor boy down. They were coming from their nightly merriment. A strongly built woman, not young, with thick, dark hair came behind them. “What have you brought?” she asked the boy.

“Don’t be angry,” he begged. “I got nothing, nothing at all!” And he grabbed his mother’s dress as if he wanted to kiss it. They went into their room. I won’t describe it, only to say that there was ajar with handles with charcoal burning in there—it’s called a marito. She picked it up, warmed her fingers and thrust at the boy with her elbow. “Of course you’ve got money!” she said.

The child cried. She kicked at him with her foot, and he moaned aloud. “Shut up, or I’ll smash your bawling head to pieces!” she yelled and swung the firepot that she had in her hand. The boy ducked down to the floor with a shriek. Then the neighbor came through the door. She had her marito on her arm also. “Felicita! What are you doing to the child?”

“The child is mine,” said Felicita. “I can murder him if I want to, and you too Gianina!” and she swung the firepot. The other lifted hers in the air in defense, and both pots crashed into each other so that shards, fire, and ashes flew around the room. The boy was out the door in the same instant, across the courtyard, and out of the house. The poor child ran until he finally couldn’t breathe at all. He stopped by the Church of Santa Croce, the church that had opened its wide doors to him the night before. He went inside where radiance shone from everything, and knelt by the first tomb to the right. It was Michelangelo’s, and soon he was sobbing aloud. People came and went. Mass was said, but no one paid any attention to the boy. Only an elderly man stopped, looked at him, and then went away like the others.

The little one was suffering from hunger and thirst. He felt quite faint and sick and crawled into the corner between the wall and the marble monument and fell asleep. It was almost evening when he awoke from someone shaking him. He sprung up startled, and the same old man stood in front of him.

“Are you sick? Where do you live? Have you been here all day?” were some of the many questions the old man asked him. After the boy answered them, the old man took him along to a little house close by in one of the side streets. They walked into a glove-making workshop and found the old man’s wife sewing busily when they entered. A little white Bolognese dog, clipped so closely that the pink skin showed, was hopping on the table, and jumped to the little boy.

“Innocent souls recognize each other,” said the signora and petted both dog and boy. These good people gave him food and drink, and they said he could spend the night there. The next day old Giuseppe would talk to his mother. He was given a small, simple bed, but for him it was princely since he often slept on the hard stone floor. He slept very well and dreamed about the precious paintings and about the bronze pig.

The next morning old Giuseppe set out, and the poor child wasn’t happy about it because he knew that the old man was going to arrange to take him back to his mother. He cried and kissed the lively little dog, and the woman nodded to them both.

And what news did old Giuseppe bring back? He talked a long time to his wife, and she nodded and petted the boy. “He’s a lovely child,” she said. “He will be a good glove-maker, like you were! And he has the fingers for it, so fine and flexible. Madonna has determined him to be a glove-maker.”

And the boy stayed there, and the signora herself taught him to sew. He ate well. He slept well. He grew cheerful, and he started to tease Bellissima. That was the little dog’s name. The woman shook her fingers at him, scolded, and was angry, and the little boy took it to heart. He sat thoughtfully in his little chamber that faced the street. Hides were being dried in there, and there were thick iron bars on the windows. He couldn’t sleep, and the bronze pig was in his thoughts. Suddenly he heard “clop, clop.” Oh, it must be him! He ran to the window, but there was nothing to see. It had already gone by.

“Help the gentleman to carry his paint box!” said the signora to the boy in the morning, as the young neighbor, who was a painter, came lugging his box and a big, rolled-up canvas. The child took the box and followed the artist, and they took the road to the gallery. They went up the same steps that he remembered well from the night he rode on the bronze pig. He recognized statues and paintings, the beautiful marble Venus, and the living colorful portraits. He once again saw the Mother of God, Jesus, and John.

Now they stood silently in front of the painting by Bronzino, where Christ descends into hell, and the children around him smile in sweet anticipation of heaven. The poor boy smiled too because he was in his heaven here.

“Well, go home now,” the artist told him after he had stood there so long that the painter had raised his easel.

“Can I watch you paint?” asked the boy. “Can I see how you get the picture over to this white sheet?”

“I’m not going to paint now,” the man answered and took out his black chalk. Quickly his hand moved, and his eye measured the big painting. Even if it was only a thin line, there stood Christ outlined as on the colorful painting.

“Go away now,” said the artist, and the boy wandered quietly home, sat up at the table, and learned to sew gloves.

But the entire day his thoughts were in the gallery, and because of that he stuck himself in the fingers and was clumsy, but he didn’t tease Bellissima either. When evening came, and the street door stood ajar, he slipped outside. It was cold, but there was lovely, clear starlight. He wandered through the quiet streets, and soon he was standing in front of the bronze pig. He leaned over it, kissed its shiny snout, and sat on its back. “You dear animal,” he said, “how I have longed for you. We must take a ride tonight!”

The bronze pig stood unmoving, and the fresh water spurted from its mouth. The boy sat there like a horseman, and then something tugged at his clothes. He looked over and saw that it was little, closely-clipped Bellissima. The dog had slipped out of the house with him and had followed without the boy noticing. Bellissima barked as if it wanted to say, “See, I came too. Why are you sitting here?” Not even a fire-breathing dragon could have frightened the boy more than that little dog in this place. Bellissima on the street and without being dressed, as the signora called it! How would this go? The dog never went outside in the winter without wearing a little sheepskin coat that had been cut out and sewn for it. The coat could be tied tightly around the neck with a red band, and there were bells and ribbons on it. There was a similar band under the belly. The dog almost looked like a little lamb in this outfit when it was allowed to walk out in the winter time with its mistress. Bellissima had come along and wasn’t dressed! Oh, what would happen? All his fantasies disappeared. The boy kissed the bronze pig and took Bellissima in his arms. The little dog was trembling with cold, and so the boy ran as fast as he could.

“What’s that you’re running with?” called two policemen who encountered him, and Bellissima barked. “Where have you stolen that cute little dog?” they asked and took it from him.

“Oh, give it back to me!” pleaded the boy.

“If you haven’t stolen it, then you can report at home that the dog can be picked up at the station,” and they gave the location and went away with Bellissima.

Now the boy was in a fine fix. He didn’t know whether to jump into the Arno, or go home and admit everything. They would probably kill him, he thought. “But I want to be killed. I will die, and then I’ll go to Jesus and Madonna!” and he went home, chiefly in order to be killed.

The door was closed, and he couldn’t reach the knocker. There was no one on the street, but there was a loose stone, and with that he pounded on the door. “Who is it?” someone called from inside.

“It’s me,” he said. “Bellissima is gone! Open up and then kill me!”

There was a hue and cry for poor Bellissima, especially from the signora. She looked at once at the wall where the dog’s outfit should be hanging, and the little sheepskin was there.

“Bellissima at the police station!” she yelled loudly. “You evil child! Why did you take him out? He’ll freeze to death! That delicate animal with those coarse officers!”

And the old man had to go at once. The signora moaned, and the boy cried. All the people in the house gathered, including the painter. He took the boy on his knee and questioned him, and in bits and pieces he got the whole story about the bronze pig and the gallery. It wasn’t easy to understand. The painter consoled the little one and defended him before the woman, but she wasn’t satisfied until her husband came back with Bellissima, who had been among the officers. Then there was joy, and the painter patted the poor boy and gave him a handful of pictures.

Oh, what marvelous pictures, and comical heads! But best of all, there was the bronze pig itself, so lifelike! Oh, nothing could have been more splendid! With a few lines, there it was on the paper, and even the house behind it was depicted.

“Oh, to be able to draw and paint! Then you can capture the whole world!”

The next day, as soon as he was alone, the little one grasped a pencil and tried to reproduce the drawing of the bronze pig on the white side of one of the drawings. He was successful! A little crooked, a little up and down, one leg thick, another thin, but you could make it out. He himself was thrilled with it. He noticed that the pencil wouldn’t quite go just as straight as it should, but the next day another bronze pig was standing beside the first. It was a hundred times better, and the third was so good that everyone could recognize it.

But things did not work out so well with the glove-making, and he was slow at doing his errands. The bronze pig had taught him that all pictures can be transferred to paper, and the city of Florence is an entire picture book; you only have to turn the pages. There is a slender column on the piazza della Trinità, and on the top stands a blind-folded Goddess of Justice holding her scales. Soon she was on paper, and it was the glove-maker’s little lad who had put her there. The picture collection grew, but all the pictures were still of inanimate things. Then one day Bellissima jumped in front of him. “Stand still!” he said, “and you will become lovely and be one of my pictures.” But Bellissima wouldn’t stand still, so he had to be tied up. His head and tail were tied, and he barked and squirmed so the cord had to be tightened. Then the signora came!

“You ungodly boy! That poor animal!” was all she could say, and she pushed the boy to the side, kicked him with her foot, and threw him out of the house. He was the most ungrateful wretch, the most ungodly child! And she kissed her little half-strangled Bellissima tearfully.

Just at the same time the painter came up the steps, and that’s the turning point in the story.

In 1834 there was an exhibition at the Academy of Art in Florence. Two paintings displayed beside each other attracted a lot of viewers. On the smallest painting a little boy was portrayed. He was drawing, and for a model he had a little white closely-clipped dog, but the animal wouldn’t stand still and was therefore tied with string both at the head and the tail. The life and reality in the painting appealed to all who saw it. They said that the painter was a young Florentine who had been found on the streets as a little child. He had been raised by an old glove-maker and had taught himself to draw. An artist who had become famous had discovered the boy’s talent when he had been chased away because he had tied up his mistress’s favorite, the little dog, to use as a model.

That the glove-maker’s little apprentice had become a great painter was clear from this painting, but even more so from the one next to it. Here only one figure was represented: a lovely tattered boy who sat sleeping on the street next to the bronze pig on Porta Rossa street. All of the spectators knew the spot. The child’s arm rested on the pig’s head, and the little one slept so securely. The lamp by the Madonna painting cast a strong light on the child’s marvelous, pale face. It was a magnificent painting, enclosed by a big gilded frame. On the corner of the frame a laurel wreath was hanging, but between the green leaves a black ribbon was entwined—and a long black mourning crepe hung down from it.—

For the young artist had just died.