The Herodias here by Guido, is the perfection of dancing
grace. No Frenchman enters the room that does not bear testimony to its
peculiar excellence. But here's Guercino's sweet returning Prodigal, and
here is a _Madonna disperata_ bursting as from a cavern to embrace the
body of her dead son and saviour.--Such a sky too! But it is treating
too theatrically a subject which impresses one more at last in the
simple _Pieta_[AI] d'Annibale Caracci at Palazzo Doria.
[Footnote AI: The Christ in his mother's lap, after crucifixion, is
always called in Italy a _Pieta_.]
One wonderfully-imagined picture by Andrea Sacchi, of Cain flying from
the sight of his murdered brother, shall alone detain me from mentioning
here at Rome what certainly would never have been thought on by
Englishmen had it remained at Windsor; no other than our old King
Charles's cabinet, sold to the Colonna family by Cromwell, and set about
in the old-fashioned way with gems, cameos, &c. one of which has been
stolen.
And now to the Borghese, which I am told is for a time to finish my
fatigues, as after three days more we go to Naples. News perfectly
agreeable to me, who never have been well here for two hours together.
All the great churches remain yet unvisited: they are to be taken at our
return in spring; mean while I will go see Mons Sacer in spite of
connoisseurship, though the place it seems is nothing, and the prospect
from it dull; but it produces thoughts, or what is next to
thought,--recollection of books read, and events related in one's early
youth, when names and stories make impression on a mind not yet hardened
by age, or contracted by necessary duty, so as no longer to receive with
equal relish the _tales of other times.
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