February 25th. [1858]
We went this forenoon to the Palazzo Borghese, which is situated on a street that runs at right angles with the Corso, and very near the latter. Most of the palaces in Rome, and the Borghese among them, were built somewhere about the sixteenth century; this in 1590, I believe. It is an immense edifice, standing round the four sides of a quadrangle; and though the suite of rooms, comprising the picture-gallery, forms an almost interminable vista, they occupy only a part of the ground floor of one side. We enter from the street into a large court, surrounded with a corridor, the arches of which support a second series of arches above. The picture-rooms open from one into another, and have many points of magnificence, being large and lofty, with vaulted ceilings and beautiful frescoes, generally of mythological subjects, in the flat central part of the vault. The cornices are gilded; the deep embrasures of the windows are panelled with wood work; the door-ways are of polished and variegated marble, or covered with a composition as hard, and seemingly as durable. The whole has a kind of splendid shabbiness thrown over it, like a slight coating of rust; the furniture, at least the damask chairs, being a good deal worn, though there are marble and mosaic tables which may serve to adorn another palace when this one crumbles away with age. One beautiful hall, with a ceiling more richly gilded than the rest, is panelled all round with large looking-glasses, on which are painted pictures, both landscapes and human figures, in oil; so that the effect is somewhat as if you saw these objects represented in the mirrors. These glasses must be of old date, perhaps coeval with the first building of the palace; for they are so much dimmed, that one's own figure appears indistinct in them, and more difficult to be traced than the pictures which cover them half over. It was very comfortless indeed, I suppose nobody ever thought of being comfortable there, since the house was built but especially uncomfortable on a chill, damp day like this. My fingers were quite numb before I got half way through the suite of apartments, in spite of a brazier of charcoal which was smouldering into ashes in two or three of the rooms. There was not, so far as I remember, a single fire-place in the suite. A considerable number of visitors were there, and a good many artists; and three or four ladies among them were making copies of the more celebrated pictures, and in all or in most cases missing the especial points that made their celebrity and value. The Prince. Borghese certainly demeans himself like a kind and liberal gentleman, in throwing open this invaluable collection to the public to see, and for artists to carry away with them, and diffuse all over the world, so far as their own power and skill will permit. It is open every day of the week, except Saturday and Sunday, without any irksome restriction or supervision; and the fee, which custom requires the visitor to pay to the custode, has the good effect of making us feel that we are not intruders, nor received in an exactly eleemosynary way. The thing could not be better managed. The collection is one of the most celebrated in the world, and contains between eight and nine hundred pictures, many of which are esteemed masterpieces. I think I was not in a frame for admiration to-day, nor could achieve that free and generous surrender of myself which I have already said is essential to the proper estimate of anything excellent. Besides, how is it possible to give one's soul, or any considerable part of it, to a single picture, seen for the first time, among a thousand others, all of which set forth their own claims in an equally good light? Furthermore, there is an external weariness, and sense of a thousandfold sameness to be overcome, before we can begin to enjoy a gallery of the old Italian masters. . .I remember but one painter, Francia, who seems really to have approached this awful class of subjects [Christs and Madonnas] in a fitting spirit; his pictures are very singular and awkward, if you look at them with merely an external eye, but they are full of the beauty of holiness and evidently wrought out as acts of devotion with the deepest sincerity, and are veritable prayers upon canvas. . .
I was glad, in the very last of the twelve rooms, to come upon some Dutch and Flemish pictures, very few, but very welcome; Rubens, Rembrandt, Van dyke, Paul Potter, Teniers, and others men of flesh and blood, and warm fists and human hearts. As compared with them, these mighty Italian masters seem men of polished steel; not human, nor addressing themselves so much to human sympathies as to a formed, intellectual taste.
We went this forenoon to the Palazzo Borghese, which is situated on a street that runs at right angles with the Corso, and very near the latter. Most of the palaces in Rome, and the Borghese among them, were built somewhere about the sixteenth century; this in 1590, I believe. It is an immense edifice, standing round the four sides of a quadrangle; and though the suite of rooms, comprising the picture-gallery, forms an almost interminable vista, they occupy only a part of the ground floor of one side. We enter from the street into a large court, surrounded with a corridor, the arches of which support a second series of arches above. The picture-rooms open from one into another, and have many points of magnificence, being large and lofty, with vaulted ceilings and beautiful frescoes, generally of mythological subjects, in the flat central part of the vault. The cornices are gilded; the deep embrasures of the windows are panelled with wood work; the door-ways are of polished and variegated marble, or covered with a composition as hard, and seemingly as durable. The whole has a kind of splendid shabbiness thrown over it, like a slight coating of rust; the furniture, at least the damask chairs, being a good deal worn, though there are marble and mosaic tables which may serve to adorn another palace when this one crumbles away with age. One beautiful hall, with a ceiling more richly gilded than the rest, is panelled all round with large looking-glasses, on which are painted pictures, both landscapes and human figures, in oil; so that the effect is somewhat as if you saw these objects represented in the mirrors. These glasses must be of old date, perhaps coeval with the first building of the palace; for they are so much dimmed, that one's own figure appears indistinct in them, and more difficult to be traced than the pictures which cover them half over. It was very comfortless indeed, I suppose nobody ever thought of being comfortable there, since the house was built but especially uncomfortable on a chill, damp day like this. My fingers were quite numb before I got half way through the suite of apartments, in spite of a brazier of charcoal which was smouldering into ashes in two or three of the rooms. There was not, so far as I remember, a single fire-place in the suite. A considerable number of visitors were there, and a good many artists; and three or four ladies among them were making copies of the more celebrated pictures, and in all or in most cases missing the especial points that made their celebrity and value. The Prince. Borghese certainly demeans himself like a kind and liberal gentleman, in throwing open this invaluable collection to the public to see, and for artists to carry away with them, and diffuse all over the world, so far as their own power and skill will permit. It is open every day of the week, except Saturday and Sunday, without any irksome restriction or supervision; and the fee, which custom requires the visitor to pay to the custode, has the good effect of making us feel that we are not intruders, nor received in an exactly eleemosynary way. The thing could not be better managed. The collection is one of the most celebrated in the world, and contains between eight and nine hundred pictures, many of which are esteemed masterpieces. I think I was not in a frame for admiration to-day, nor could achieve that free and generous surrender of myself which I have already said is essential to the proper estimate of anything excellent. Besides, how is it possible to give one's soul, or any considerable part of it, to a single picture, seen for the first time, among a thousand others, all of which set forth their own claims in an equally good light? Furthermore, there is an external weariness, and sense of a thousandfold sameness to be overcome, before we can begin to enjoy a gallery of the old Italian masters. . .I remember but one painter, Francia, who seems really to have approached this awful class of subjects [Christs and Madonnas] in a fitting spirit; his pictures are very singular and awkward, if you look at them with merely an external eye, but they are full of the beauty of holiness and evidently wrought out as acts of devotion with the deepest sincerity, and are veritable prayers upon canvas. . .
I was glad, in the very last of the twelve rooms, to come upon some Dutch and Flemish pictures, very few, but very welcome; Rubens, Rembrandt, Van dyke, Paul Potter, Teniers, and others men of flesh and blood, and warm fists and human hearts. As compared with them, these mighty Italian masters seem men of polished steel; not human, nor addressing themselves so much to human sympathies as to a formed, intellectual taste.
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