similiano, who had
then just died. Cammuccini, the historical painter, proposed Gibson, and
with the ardent assistance of Thorwaldsen he was elected resident
Academician of merit. "Like Canova, Thorwaldsen was most generous to
young artists," says Gibson of the great Danish master, "and he freely
visited all who required his advice. I profited greatly by the knowledge
which this splendid sculptor had of his art. On every occasion when I
was modelling a new work he came to me, and corrected whatever he
thought amiss. I also often went to his studio and contemplated his
glorious works, always in the noblest style, full of pure and severe
simplicity. His studio was a safe school for the young, and was the
resort of artists and lovers of art from all nations. The old man's
person can never be forgotten by those who saw him. Tall and strong,--he
never lost a tooth in his life,--he was most venerable looking. His kind
countenance was marked with hard thinking, his eyes were gray, and his
white locks lay upon his broad shoulders. At great assemblies his breast
was covered with orders."

Thorwaldsen (born in Copenhagen, Nov. 19, 1770) went to Rome in
1797--sent by the government of Denmark as a pensioner. It is said that,
in his enthusiasm for Rome, Thorwaldsen dated his birth from the hour he
entered the Eternal City. "Before that day," he exclaimed, "I existed; I
did not live." For nearly fifty years--until his death in 1844--he lived
and worked in Rome, occupying at one time the studio in Via Babuino that
had formerly been that of Flaxman.

John Gibson, who went to Rome in 1817,--twenty years after Thorwaldsen
first arrived,--had the good fortune to be for five years a pupil of
Canova, whose death in 1822 terminated this inestimable privilege. The
elevation of purpose that characterized the young English student made
his progress and development a matter of peculiar interest to the
master. Gibson, also, bears his testimony to the stimulus of the Roman
environment. "Rome above all other cities," he says, "has a peculiar
influence upon and charm for the real student; he feels himself in the
very university of art, where it is the one thing talked about and
thought about. Constantly did I feel the presence of this influence.
Every morning I rose with the sun, my soul gladdened by a new day of a
happy and delightful pursuit; and as I walked to my breakfast at the
Caffe Greco and watched with new pleasure the tops of the churche