Greetings,
My name is Lizzare Atisione. Many of you may not know me now, but in the year of our Lord 1493 I brought a particularly successful brand of oil paint to the Italian shores.
It was a mixture I'd spent years perfecting: balancing out each ingredient to complement all the others. It was long, tedious and delicate work, but it proved to be my masterpiece.
I sold my paint from small stores in Italy, travelling around the country as I went, trying to offer my product to whomever would be willing to try it out for their recreation. Thus, I hoped to make a good living. Only, I was more fortunate than that.
I was truly blessed to have lived in this era of our world's history - the birth of the Renaissance. As people all around Europe started exploring their artistic capabilities, looking back at the glorious past and progressing into aesthetics in its purest forms, craftsmen, sculptors, writers and painters alike flourished among my contemporaries.
It was the last group that noticed my particular brand of paint and word of its grand quality spread rapidly. At first, sales only steadily grew, but soon I was overwhelmed by the demand for my work. It quickly became the most used and most appreciated among Italy's most renowned painters.
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, the famed architect used my paint. Leonardo da Vinci, inventor and savant used my paint. Michelangelo Buonarroti, the would-be creator of the Sistine Chapel used my paint.
My paint. My child. My legacy.
My business thrived and I lived happily. I had more success than I could have ever hoped for and it was only surpassed by these artists who used the fruit of my labour. Their paintings were numerous and each one more beautiful than the last. They invented and discovered. New techniques surfaced - perspective, scaling, and creating three dimensionality on a two dimensional surface. They gained acclaim, becoming both famous and loved by the people. For many years, their works were displayed in galleries and the public looked on in awe, astounded by these masterpieces.
Ten years later I developed a new formula. The new oil paint was mixed with varnish and anything made with it would shine like the silver moon itself. Sure of my success, I returned to Italy after spending many years abroad. To my amazement, people were still looking at the old paintings, not giving my new product a second thought or seeming to desire change at all.
I sent out letters to the painters to tell them I had decided they had to recall their paintings, taking them from the galleries and storing them away. It was my paint after all.
It did come to my mind that people might miss looking at the beautiful art that was once created from my efforts. I decided I needed to fill this hole. I visited my friend Gomi Televiccini and paid him handsomely to take up painting. I was sure people would love the works made with my new, shiny paint and ensured all who asked that my actions were beneficial to the development of our new day's art.
Thus I made the artistic world of Italy's renaissance a better place, making sure the works then created were supervised by a capable figure and with the optimal equipment. There is no need to thank me, I lived to serve.
My paint. My child. My legacy.
Signed,
Lizzare Atisione
By 1503, the Mona Lisa was not painted.
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Many a dart
Of sore lament assail’d me, headed all
With points of thrilling pity, that I closed
Both ears against the volley with mine hands.
As were the torment, if each lazar-house
Had heap’d their maladies all in one foss
Together; such was here the torment: dire
The stench, as issuing streams from fester’d limbs.
Dante's Inferno - 8th Circle: Liars
Of sore lament assail’d me, headed all
With points of thrilling pity, that I closed
Both ears against the volley with mine hands.
As were the torment, if each lazar-house
Had heap’d their maladies all in one foss
Together; such was here the torment: dire
The stench, as issuing streams from fester’d limbs.
Dante's Inferno - 8th Circle: Liars
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A lake, whose frozen surface liker seem'd
To glass than water.
Blue pinch'd and shrined in ice the spirits stood,
Moving their teeth in shrill note like the stork.
His face each downward held; their mouth the cold,
Their eyes express'd the dolour of their heart.
Dante's Inferno - 9th Circle: Betrayers
To glass than water.
Blue pinch'd and shrined in ice the spirits stood,
Moving their teeth in shrill note like the stork.
His face each downward held; their mouth the cold,
Their eyes express'd the dolour of their heart.
Dante's Inferno - 9th Circle: Betrayers
Thanks to Delerium, flamewheel, flicky and disciple