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I was intently gazing upon these mysterious pictures when my friend entered the saloon, and in reply to my eager inquiries, informed me that the series of paintings around us portrayed some romantic family incidents which had occurred in the sixteenth century; and that these frescos had been designed by an able amateur artist, who was indeed the hero of this romance of Italian life, and after whom this apartment was still called the Saloon of Colonna.
English collectors have long had a passion for Raphael, and England is almost as rich in his works in oils as Italy herself. Italy, however, keeps his frescos; and may she long keep them! There are more than thirty works ascribed to Raphael hanging on the walls of the Exhibition. Many of them are of doubtful genuineness; many of them have been restored.
The Tre Croci had been in happier days a Bishop's lodging, and possessed a dining-hall ceiled with black oak and adorned with frescos. It was used as a general salle a manger for all dwellers in the inn, and there accordingly I sat down to my long-deferred meal. At first there were no other diners, and I had two maids, as well as Gianbattista, to attend on my wants.
Lustrissimo was long gone with all his guests; but there in the roof were the amazing frescos of Tiepolo's school, which had smiled down on them, as now they smiled on us, great piles of architecture, airy tops of palaces, swimming in summer sky, and wantoned over by a joyous populace of divinities of the lovelier sex that had nothing but their loveliness to clothe them and keep them afloat; the whole grandiose and superb beyond the effect of words, and luminous with delicious color.
A long, beautiful room, two hundred feet of bookcases, and tasteful frescos by Tibaldi and Carducho, representing the march of the liberal sciences. Most of the older folios are bound in vellum, with their gilded edges, on which the title is stamped, turned to the front. A precious collection of old books and older manuscripts, useless to the world as the hoard of a miser.
There can be no doubt that while these frescos continued in their perfection, there was nothing else to be compared with the magnificent and solemn beauty of this chapel.
At this time the frescos which Raphael and his pupils were painting in the chambers of the Vatican had excited the admiration of all Rome.
The art of perspective was mastered; and real life, more or less idealized, was the subject of delineation. In Italy, there arose various distinct styles or schools. The Florentine school reached its height of attainment in the majestic works of Michael Angelo, the frescos of the Sistine Chapel at Rome.
On looking again at the Palazzo Publico, I see that the pillared portal which I have spoken of does not cover an entrance to the palace, but is a chapel, with an altar, and frescos above it. Bouquets of fresh flowers are on the altar, and a lamp burns, in all the daylight, before the crucifix.
We breakfasted at Simoneau's, in the inner room, with its frescos done in beer and shoeblacking by a brace of hungry Bohemians, who used to frequent the place and thus settle their bill. Five of us sat at that uninviting board and awaited our turn, while Simoneau hovered over a stove that was by no means equal to the occasion.
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