April 16th. [1858]
We went this morning to the Academy of St. Luke (the Fine Arts Academy at Rome), in the Via Bonella, close by the Forum. We rang the bell at the house-door ; and after a few moments it was unlocked or unbolted by some unseen agency from above, no one making his appearance to admit us. We ascended two or three flights of stairs, and entered a hall, where wras a young man, the custode, and two or three artists engaged in copying some of the pictures. The collection not being vastly large, and the pictures being in more presentable condition than usual, I enjoyed them more than I generally do; particularly a Virgin and Child by Vandyke, where two angels are singing and playing, one on a lute and the other on a violin, to remind the holy infant of the strains he used to hear in heaven. It is one of the few pictures that there is really any pleasure in looking at. There were several paintings by Titian, mostly of a voluptuous character, but not very charming; also two or more by Guido, one of which, representing Fortune, is celebrated. They did not impress me much, nor do I find myself strongly drawn to wards Guido, though there is no other painter who seems to achieve things so magically and inscrutably as he sometimes does. Perhaps it requires a finer taste than mine to appreciate him; and yet I do appreciate him so far as to see that his Michael, for instance, is perfectly beautiful . . . In the gallery, there are whole rows of portraits of members of the Academy of St. Luke, most of whom, judging by their physiognomies, were very common place people a fact which makes itself visible in a portrait, however much the painter may try to flatter his sitter. Several of the pictures by Titian, Paul Veronese, and other artists, now exhibited in the gallery, were formerly kept in a secret cabinet in the Capitol, being considered of a too voluptuous character for the public eye. I did not think them noticeably indecorous, as compared with a hundred other pictures that are shown and looked at without scruple, Calypso and her nymphs, a knot of nude women by Titian, is perhaps as objectionable as any.
But even Titian's flesh tints cannot keep, and have not kept their warmth through all these centuries. The illusion and life-likeness effervesces and exhales. out of a picture as it grows old; and we go on talking of a charm that has for ever vanished.
From St. Luke's we went to San Pietro in Vinioli occupying a fine position on or near the summit of the Esquiline mount. A little abortion of a man (and, by-the-bye, there are more diminutive and illshapen men and women in Rome than I ever saw elsewhere a phenomenon to be accounted for, perhaps, by their custom of wrapping the new-born infant in swaddling clothes) -- this two-foot abortion hast ened before us, as we drew nigh, to summon the sacristan to open the church door. It was a needless service, for which we rewarded him with two baiocchi. San Pietro is a simple and noble church, consisting of a nave divided from the side aisles by rows of columns, that once adorned some ancient temple; and its wide, unincumbered interior affords better breathing space than most churches in Rome. The statue of Moses occupies a niche in one of the side aisles on the right, not far from the high altar. I found it grand and sublime, with a beard flowing down like a cataract; a truly majestic figure, but not so benign as it were desirable that such strength should be. The horns, about which so much has been said, are not a very prominent feature of the statue, being merely two diminutive tips rising straight up over his forehead, neither adding to the grandeur of the head, nor detracting sensibly from it. The whole force of this statue is not to be felt in one brief visit, but I agree with an English gentle man who, with a large party, entered the church while we were there, in thinking that Moses has "very fine features" a compliment for which the colossal Hebrew ought to have made the Englishman a bow.
Besides the Moses, the church contains some attractions of a pictorial kind, which are reposited in the sacristy, into which we passed through a side door. The most remarkable of these pictures is a face and bust of Hope, by Guido, with beautiful eyes lifted upwards; it has a grace which artists are continually trying to get into their innumerable copies, but always without success; for, indeed, though nothing is more true than the existence of this charm in the picture, yet if you try to analyse it, or even look too intently at it, it vanishes, till you look again with more trusting simplicity.
Leaving the church, we wandered to the Coliseum, and to the public grounds contiguous to them, where a score and more of French drummers were beating each man his drum, without reference to any rub-adub but his own. This seems to be a daily or periodical practice and point of duty with them. After resting ourselves on one of the marble benches, we came slowly home, through the basilica of Constantine, and along the shady sides of the streets and piazzas, sometimes perforce striking boldly through the white sunshine, which, however, was not so hot as to shrivel us up bodily. It has been a most beautiful and perfect day as regards weather -- clear and bright, very warm in the sunshine, yet freshened throughout by a quiet stir in the air. Still there is something in this air malevolent, or, at least, not friendly. The Romans lie down and fall asleep in it -- in any vacant part of the streets, and wherever they can find any spot sufficiently clean, and among the ruins of temples. I would not sleep in the open air for whatever my life may be worth.
On our way home, sitting in one of the narrow streets, we saw an old woman spinning with a distaff -- a far more ancient implement than the spinningwheel, which the housewives of other nations have long since laid aside.
We went this morning to the Academy of St. Luke (the Fine Arts Academy at Rome), in the Via Bonella, close by the Forum. We rang the bell at the house-door ; and after a few moments it was unlocked or unbolted by some unseen agency from above, no one making his appearance to admit us. We ascended two or three flights of stairs, and entered a hall, where wras a young man, the custode, and two or three artists engaged in copying some of the pictures. The collection not being vastly large, and the pictures being in more presentable condition than usual, I enjoyed them more than I generally do; particularly a Virgin and Child by Vandyke, where two angels are singing and playing, one on a lute and the other on a violin, to remind the holy infant of the strains he used to hear in heaven. It is one of the few pictures that there is really any pleasure in looking at. There were several paintings by Titian, mostly of a voluptuous character, but not very charming; also two or more by Guido, one of which, representing Fortune, is celebrated. They did not impress me much, nor do I find myself strongly drawn to wards Guido, though there is no other painter who seems to achieve things so magically and inscrutably as he sometimes does. Perhaps it requires a finer taste than mine to appreciate him; and yet I do appreciate him so far as to see that his Michael, for instance, is perfectly beautiful . . . In the gallery, there are whole rows of portraits of members of the Academy of St. Luke, most of whom, judging by their physiognomies, were very common place people a fact which makes itself visible in a portrait, however much the painter may try to flatter his sitter. Several of the pictures by Titian, Paul Veronese, and other artists, now exhibited in the gallery, were formerly kept in a secret cabinet in the Capitol, being considered of a too voluptuous character for the public eye. I did not think them noticeably indecorous, as compared with a hundred other pictures that are shown and looked at without scruple, Calypso and her nymphs, a knot of nude women by Titian, is perhaps as objectionable as any.
But even Titian's flesh tints cannot keep, and have not kept their warmth through all these centuries. The illusion and life-likeness effervesces and exhales. out of a picture as it grows old; and we go on talking of a charm that has for ever vanished.
From St. Luke's we went to San Pietro in Vinioli occupying a fine position on or near the summit of the Esquiline mount. A little abortion of a man (and, by-the-bye, there are more diminutive and illshapen men and women in Rome than I ever saw elsewhere a phenomenon to be accounted for, perhaps, by their custom of wrapping the new-born infant in swaddling clothes) -- this two-foot abortion hast ened before us, as we drew nigh, to summon the sacristan to open the church door. It was a needless service, for which we rewarded him with two baiocchi. San Pietro is a simple and noble church, consisting of a nave divided from the side aisles by rows of columns, that once adorned some ancient temple; and its wide, unincumbered interior affords better breathing space than most churches in Rome. The statue of Moses occupies a niche in one of the side aisles on the right, not far from the high altar. I found it grand and sublime, with a beard flowing down like a cataract; a truly majestic figure, but not so benign as it were desirable that such strength should be. The horns, about which so much has been said, are not a very prominent feature of the statue, being merely two diminutive tips rising straight up over his forehead, neither adding to the grandeur of the head, nor detracting sensibly from it. The whole force of this statue is not to be felt in one brief visit, but I agree with an English gentle man who, with a large party, entered the church while we were there, in thinking that Moses has "very fine features" a compliment for which the colossal Hebrew ought to have made the Englishman a bow.
Besides the Moses, the church contains some attractions of a pictorial kind, which are reposited in the sacristy, into which we passed through a side door. The most remarkable of these pictures is a face and bust of Hope, by Guido, with beautiful eyes lifted upwards; it has a grace which artists are continually trying to get into their innumerable copies, but always without success; for, indeed, though nothing is more true than the existence of this charm in the picture, yet if you try to analyse it, or even look too intently at it, it vanishes, till you look again with more trusting simplicity.
Leaving the church, we wandered to the Coliseum, and to the public grounds contiguous to them, where a score and more of French drummers were beating each man his drum, without reference to any rub-adub but his own. This seems to be a daily or periodical practice and point of duty with them. After resting ourselves on one of the marble benches, we came slowly home, through the basilica of Constantine, and along the shady sides of the streets and piazzas, sometimes perforce striking boldly through the white sunshine, which, however, was not so hot as to shrivel us up bodily. It has been a most beautiful and perfect day as regards weather -- clear and bright, very warm in the sunshine, yet freshened throughout by a quiet stir in the air. Still there is something in this air malevolent, or, at least, not friendly. The Romans lie down and fall asleep in it -- in any vacant part of the streets, and wherever they can find any spot sufficiently clean, and among the ruins of temples. I would not sleep in the open air for whatever my life may be worth.
On our way home, sitting in one of the narrow streets, we saw an old woman spinning with a distaff -- a far more ancient implement than the spinningwheel, which the housewives of other nations have long since laid aside.
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