by Unknown
Foxx grinned. It had to be.
Galileo!
He had just read about Galileo and his experiments in his guidebook.
He sketched the man into his scene, Galileo leaning out over the tower’s precarious balcony. Foxx drew two round wooden balls the man had dropped, one rather large and the other quite small, just before they hit the ground … together.
On the island of Sicily, Foxx climbed the smoking slopes of Mount Etna. He sketched the city of Catania far below, with its neoclassical buildings and Roman ruins, and the spreading blue waters of the Mediterranean beyond. As he outlined the last spiny cactus in the lower foreground, the prism suddenly darkened, filling with ash and fire. Lava poured in a fiery stream just to the right of where he sat and he almost fell backwards in fear, until he looked away from the camera lucida and saw that the mountainside was quite free from lava, the air around him clear and cool.
Looking back down through the prism into the apocalypse that was Etna erupting, he gasped as a group of men climbing up out of Catania, shovels and poles in hand. Sketching frantically, Foxx drew as the men hacked holes in the sides of the lava’s hardening channel, diverting the flow away from their city … until another group, from a small village towards which the lava was now heading, rushed up and chased off the Catanians. And soon the lava was flowing once more toward Catania.
Foxx knew the city was doomed, even before he reread his guidebook: “… Catania was destroyed in the eruption of 1669, most of its twenty-thousand inhabitants killed…”
A few days later Foxx was sketching the plains of Cannae, the site of the brutal defeat of the Roman army in 216 BC. Harriet had loved teaching her students about it; he suspected it was because the arrogant Roman army got crushed so soundly by a smaller but smarter force.
After he finished penciling in the nearby farmhouses, the peaceful scene suddenly became a nightmare as Hannibal the Carthaginian, outnumbered and far from his African home, outmaneuvered and utterly destroyed the defending Roman army. Foxx frantically sketched the charging Roman cavalry and their heedless destruction at the hands of Hannibal’s well-positioned infantry. He drew severed limbs and broken spears and bloodied helmets, piles of bodies stacked like hillocks. He had never sketched so rapidly in his life, and it was all he could do to not leap aside every time a riderless horse or wounded soldier ran past him as he watched the carnage through the prism.
So it went as Foxx zig-zagged across Italy, the camera lucida showing him the impossible as he sketched his way toward Rome, where he would spend the remainder of his time until the money was gone—just as he and Harriet had planned.
oOo
Rome in mid-December was a city gone dormant: bare trees, few tourists. Foxx walked quiet streets, a rough woolen scarf around his neck to stave off the chill.
Now comfortable with whatever the camera lucida revealed to him, he drew images of a bygone Rome with abandon: Senators taking their baths; merchants selling olives from huge clay pots; dark-skinned Africans and red-haired Gaels being sold in the slave markets, their wrists and ankles in chains; crusaders passing through on their way to the Holy Land; the great dome going up, brick-by-brick, over St. Peters. Whatever period of time he concentrated on as he drew was what came alive through the prism when his sketch was finished.
One cold afternoon he sat sketching the Colosseum. He had just traced the rounded walls with their stacked arches when the camera lucida showed him throngs of Romans, milling about and waiting to see the day’s combat. Some were well-to-do citizens, most were plebians, poor and restless—the mobs Emperor Vespasian had built the Colosseum to mollify.
Foxx was sketching the Romans filing into the arena when a tall gladiator swaggered up out of the stone tunnels from beneath the Colosseum. The giant man walked along the flagstone street while the gathered crowd cheered, at least visibly. Foxx could, of course, hear nothing.
The gladiator’s strutting brought him near where Foxx sat, giving him a close-up view of the polished iron helmet pushed back on the fighter’s broad forehead. Foxx drew in the man’s leather and iron armor, the greaves strapped around his thick calves, the sandals on his feet. He could almost smell the dust and sweat as his pencil flicked and scratched, his memory capturing and filling in the details even after the gladiator disappeared back underneath the Colosseum.
A breeze twirled leaves around the legs of his drawing table as he sketched, and it was then, from the corner of his downcast eyes—out from beyond the perspective of the prism—that Foxx caught sight of the toes of a pair of fine leather boots.
He had grown used to people looking over his shoulder while he drew. Most only stared for a minute before moving on, occasionally commenting on his clever historical embellishments.
But today these boots stayed. Three minutes. Five. Then ten. Foxx was absorbed with the gladiator and soon forgot about the observer.
When he finally put down the pencil, the boots shuffled and a voice said, “I say. Very sorry to disturb, but that’s quite remarkable.”
Foxx looked up.
The man was tall, about his own age. English—his accent conveyed breeding and wealth. He was dressed expensively, an ivory-topped cane in one hand, a well-tailored coat over his shoulders.
“Thank you.”
“Your speculations on the attire of the ancient Roman citizenry, and that gladiator, seem quite specific,” the man said, indicating the sketch. “An educated guess? Perhaps based on the displays in the museums?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, an impressive drawing, accurate or not. You’ve a good imagination, and a great hand. I wonder …”
The man trailed off, scanning the exterior of the Colosseum. Foxx followed his eyes and saw a young boy, small wooden sword in hand, running back and forth among the arches. The child was engaged in mock combat with unseen adversaries.
“That’s my son,” the man said, a note of sadness in his voice. “He’s recently lost his mother. He’s been inconsolable, so I thought a trip to Rome might do us both some good. Warmer climate, exploring the ruins. Oscar—that’s his name—is fascinated with the Romans. Anything to do with their battles and armor and weapons. Mark my words, someday he’ll either be teaching classics at Oxford or developing strategy at the Royal Military College. He’s obsessed. But at least it keeps his mind off of …”
Foxx said nothing, letting the man talk. The late afternoon sun spread long shadows across the cobbles and a distant church bell tolled. Otherwise the streets were quiet, a few Romans hurrying home, or to mass.
The man continued. “We return to London in a few days. Oscar has wanted a souvenir of our trip, something unique. Do you perhaps do commissions? Something like your sketch there. He would be thrilled, as would I.”
“Commissions?” said Foxx, surprised.
“I’ll pay you, of course,” the man continued quickly, misinterpreting Foxx’s reaction. “Would five guineas do it?”
Foxx nearly choked. “F-f-five?” he stammered. That could keep him in Rome for another two months.
“Dear me, I’m sorry. That must be terribly insulting. Your sketches certainly are unique, and well contrived. I do hope I have not offended you, Mr. … ?”
“Foxx. John Foxx.”
“Mr. Foxx. Shall we say ten guineas, then? I hope that is more acceptable.”
Foxx nodded, stunned, and the man extended his hand.
“Settled, then. I’m Clifford Rotham. Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Foxx.”
“Clifford Rotham? Earl of Lowestoft?” Foxx said, stunned once more.
“Yes, yes,” the man said. “But that matters not here, eh, Mr. Foxx? I’m just a father, trying to secure some measure of happiness for his son.”
Then he turned toward the Colosseum. “Oscar! Come here please.”
The boy disengaged from imaginary combat and walked toward them, sulking at being brought back to reality. Foxx knew all too well how that felt, and thought perhaps he could do something abo
ut it.
“Oscar, this is Mr. Foxx. What do you think of his drawing here?”
The boy stared down at the strutting gladiator and his scowl disappeared. “Brilliant!” he beamed. “Can he do one for me? Please, papa?”
“How about,” Foxx said, an idea forming, “I do one of you?”
oOo
The sketch of the boy fighting inside the Colosseum had been easy enough to manage, even in the fading daylight. They made their way inside the arena, and while Foxx set up the camera lucida and sketched the interior from the perspective of a spectator in the stands, the boy and his father, following Foxx’s instruction, found a flat spot down on the floor, careful to avoid the areas that had collapsed over the centuries.
By the time the boy was in position Foxx had finished his sketch. He thought of the gladiator and the Colosseum—to Foxx’s eyes at least—came alive. Colored banners streamed from the highest arches, canopies hung over long poles for shade, and bare-chested drummers beat giant sideways drums. The crowds were thick, the seats nearly full. Foxx could imagine the tremendous noise of such a spectacle.
Down on the arena floor, two gladiators—chained together at their waists and each bearing a short sword and small, round shield—battled a half-starved bear. The bear eventually lost, but not before delivering a nasty gash to the leg of one of his attackers.
Then the gladiator that Foxx had drawn earlier appeared from behind two wooden doors, and the crowd stood to cheer. He was far bigger than the two who had just killed the bear, and he was their next challenge. Though Foxx could not hear the crowd, he knew they were rooting for this lone champion, who raised a long spear over his head and pumped his arms.
The boy, Oscar, was juxtaposed over this scene in Foxx’s prism. Foxx called down to the boy to act like he was in combat with a gladiator. The boy started posturing, shouting, “How’s this, Mr. Foxx? Shall I jab, or swing wide?”
“Whatever you like!” Foxx called back, and drew the boy—attacking aggressively here, parrying there—so that little Oscar appeared to be battling the champion in different locations across the arena floor.
The lone gladiator, strong and swift as he was, should have defeated the two smaller combatants. But to Foxx’s surprise the pair eventually overcame him, by clever use of the chain that bound them together to trip him up and their swords to finish him off. As they stood over the fallen champion’s body, Foxx called down to Oscar.
“Stand over there. No, there! Yes, good. Now, lift your foot and bend your knee just so. Excellent!” And he drew the boy, foot atop the fallen champion, sword raised high.
Oscar was beside himself with the finished sketch, delighted to see himself drawn as an ancient gladiator—attacking, feinting, parrying, and finally victorious over a much larger foe.
His father was even more pleased.
“He hasn’t smiled this much since before his mother passed,” he said as he pressed the payment into Foxx’s hand.
Ten guineas, as agreed, plus one extra.
“For his happiness,” the Earl said. And then, as if an afterthought, he handed Foxx a small card. “If you’ll be in Rome next summer, please send word to me at this address in London. I’ll be sure to recommend you to those in my circle who will be making the Tour. If you do other Roman scenes—you know, the baths for the ladies, chariot races for the men—with your artistic skill, and a copy of Tacitus or Gibbon … why, Mr. Foxx, you could be a very wealthy man!”
They disappeared into the late December evening, the sketch rolled under the Earl’s arm and Oscar swiping emphatically at invisible foes.
oOo
December became January, which passed into February. With the money from the Earl’s commission, and frugal living, Foxx could afford to remain in Rome through summer.
He rented a small room near the Pantheon and spent his days sketching.
He mastered the trick behind whatever it was that made the camera lucida open a vista onto the past. All he had to do was draw the scene before him, and then think about some known historical event that occurred there. The more detailed his thoughts, the more specific the scene would be. And then, as if someone pulled back a curtain, the past came alive before him.
Tacitus and Gibbon, indeed! He found second-hand English copies of The Histories and The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, read everything he could on the Renaissance masters, and daily congratulated himself for having paid such close attention to Harriet’s fervent historical discussions.
One glorious April morning during Holy Week, when the trees on Palatine Hill were a riot of pink blossoms and Rome was filled with pilgrims, he convinced a priest at the Vatican to let him into the Sistine Chapel between morning Mass and afternoon Vespers. After sketching the silent, gorgeous chamber he thought of Michelangelo, high on his scaffold, dabbing at the ceiling.
And then, through the prism, the chapel was suddenly filled with rickety wooden platforms. On the topmost stood the master himself, painting his fresco. From down below Foxx watched as the artist’s arm reached up and spread wet plaster, then applied a few strokes from his brush before it dried. Inch by inch, a small section of one of the Renaissance’s most celebrated frescos was painted before his eyes.
Foxx also learned with regret that once he observed a scene, he could not go back and observe it again. So it was. But with all of history at his disposal, he never seemed to run out of material. And so he adopted Rome as his own even as the city, and the rest of the Italian peninsula, grew restless. There were rumors of revolution, that the great patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi might even return from South America to lead the fight to unify Italy’s various kingdoms into a single state.
Meanwhile his money dwindled. In March Foxx had sent a short letter to the Earl in London, politely reminding him of their meeting, and informing him that during the coming tourist season Foxx would be doing sketches daily at the Colosseum, in the Forum, in front of St. Peters, and elsewhere around Rome. Foxx included his address, hoped for the best, and eventually forgot about the letter until late May, when a small package arrived.
It was a copy of Murray’s Hand-Book for Travelers in Italy, 1846—a small red book, sized to fit in a coat pocket, freshly printed. A white card was inserted near the middle, and when Foxx opened it to that page he found a section of text had been circled in thick, black ink.
… As to souvenirs of Rome, the Earl of Lowestoft reports that a certain expatriate sketch artist, by the name of Foxx, does remarkable drawings with his camera lucida in which tourists are inserted into imagined recreations of past events. We have observed a drawing that this Mr. Foxx has done of the Honourable Oscar Rotham, the Earl’s son, and it is truly remarkable, casting the boy in the likeness of a gladiator engaged in combat within the Colosseum itself! Such fanciful historical sketches would make wonderful souvenirs for the traveler who already has enough of the olive-wood carvings and leaded-glass religious baubles that constitute the usual Roman momentos. Mr. Foxx can be found sketching in the vicinity of the major attractions of Rome, or can be hired for commissions directly at his studio near the Pantheon …
The bookmark was another of the Earl’s calling cards. On the back was a short message:
Good luck, Mr. Foxx! —C. Rotham
He smiled. June was just around the corner. The days were lengthening, and already the first English accents could be heard calling through the streets of Rome.
Foxx hurried out to buy more paper.
oOo
November, 1851
Mayfair, London
Foxx’s Historical Artworks was a small place on Cork Street, just north of the Burlington Arcade and a two-minute walk from the Royal Academy of Art. It had a small shop in front, where light from tall windows fell upon display tables stacked with books and woodcuts, and a private studio in the back. The little bell on the front door chimed as someone stepped in off the sidewalk.
Foxx’s assistant, George, stood to greet the customer while Foxx himself, back in the stud
io, finished inscribing copies of his latest folio book, Historical Sketches, Vol. 18: The Late Italian Renaissance Reimagined.
When the London publishers saw samples of his work coming up out of Italy in 1846, and learned of his growing popularity among wealthy vacationing nobles, they outbid each other for themed volumes of his sketches, which Foxx sent to London from his studio in Rome. Renaissance Italy Revealed was an instant bestseller, and was followed by other wildly popular works, some now into their fourth or fifth printing: Florence Through the Ages, Rome During the Time of the Apostles, and Leonardo in his Studio. And although no one was willing to admit it openly, Foxx’s Techniques of Michelangelo, though never an official part of the curriculum of the Royal Academy, was secretly read and reread by the faculty and students alike.
By the end of his first summer doing souvenir sketches in Rome, he was as much a tourist attraction as were the Trevi Fountain or the Spanish Steps. But in June of that year Rome had a new Pope, Pius IX, whom Italian patriots believed would support their unification efforts. Tensions heightened all over Italy and by the following summer of 1847 the tourists were far fewer. Foxx read the writing on the wall; before the revolutions broke out in January, 1848, he left Italy and took his camera lucida north of the Alps.
Other bestsellers soon followed: The Construction of Chartres Cathedral, Paris and the Court of Louis XIV, and Famous Battles of the Thirty Years War. Even as the revolutions of 1848 spread out of Italy and engulfed Europe, Foxx traveled and sketched, careful to avoid the areas where the uprisings were most destructive. He eventually returned to London in 1851.
Thus six years passed and Foxx became a minor celebrity. His display in the Fine Art Courts of the Crystal Palace at London’s Great Exhibition that year was constantly filled with visitors. Prince Albert came through and shook his hand, and after that every English family with a claim to noble blood wanted a Foxx historical portrait—showing them triumphant on the fields of Agincourt, or looking grave and solemn at the signing of the Magna Carta. Those who could not afford a private sitting gladly settled for one of his limited-edition “historical recreations”—Wellington at Waterloo, Nelson at Trafalgar. Military victories were perennial favorites. But the gruesome posthumous beheading of Oliver Cromwell’s corpse was, somewhat disturbingly, far and away his best seller.