The shoes of the low fellows too particularly attract my
notice: they exactly resemble the ancient ones, and when Persius
mentions his ploughman _peronatus arator_, one sees he would say so
to-day.
The Dorian palace calls however, and people must give way to things
where the miraculous powers of Benvenuto Garofani are concerned; where
Lodovico Caracci exhibits a _testa del redentore_ beyond all praise,
uniting every excellence, and expressing every perfection; where, in the
deluge represented by Bonati, one sees the eagle drooping from a weight
of rain, majestic in his distress, and looking up to the luminous part
of the picture as if hoping to discover some ray of that sun he never
shall see again. How characteristic! how tasteful is the expression! The
famous Virgin and Child too, so often engraved and copied.
I will run away from this Doria; it is too full of beauty--it dazzles:
and I will let them shew the pale green Gaspar Pouffins, so valuable,
so curious, to whom they please, while Nature and Claude content my
fancy and fill up every idea.
At the Colonna palace what have I remarked? That it possesses the gayest
gallery belonging to any subject upon earth: one hundred and thirty-nine
feet long, thirty-four broad, and seventy high: profusely ornamented
with pillars, pictures, statues, to a degree of magnificence difficult
to express.
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