Utopia
was already in sight; and all the world was setting out for it as for
some heavenly picnic ground.
Of Vivaldi himself, Alfieri spoke with extravagant admiration. His
affable exterior was said to conceal the moral courage of one of
Plutarch's heroes. He was a man after the antique pattern, ready to lay
down fortune, credit and freedom in the defence of his convictions. "An
Agamemnon," Alfieri exclaimed, "who would not hesitate to sacrifice his
daughter to obtain a favourable wind for his enterprise!"
The metaphor was perhaps scarcely to Odo's taste; but at least it gave
him the chance for which he had waited. "And the daughter?" he asked.
"The lovely doctoress?" said Alfieri carelessly. "Oh, she's one of your
prodigies of female learning, such as our topsy-turvy land produces: an
incipient Laura Bassi or Gaetana Agnesi, to name the most distinguished
of their tribe; though I believe that hitherto her father's good sense
or her own has kept her from aspiring to academic honours. The beautiful
Fulvia is a good daughter, and devotes herself, I'm told, to helping
Vivaldi in his work; a far more becoming employment for one of her age
and sex than defending Latin theses before a crew of ribald students."
In this Odo was of one mind with him; for though Italy was used to the
spectacle of the Improvisatrice and the female doctor of philosophy, it
is doubtful if the character was one in which any admirer cared to see
his divinity figure. Odo, at any rate, felt a distinct satisfaction in
learning that Fulvia Vivaldi had thus far made no public display of her
learning.
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