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A simple list of the pictures to be found here would cover many pages in print, embracing the names of such artists as Salvator Rosa, Giorgone, Bassano, Perugino, Carlo Dolce, Guido Reni, Rembrandt, Andrea del Sarto, Van Dyck, etc. All of these paintings are high in artistic merit; many of them are admirable, and all are beyond price in money.
Alberti tells us, that 'we ought not so much to love the likeness as the beauty, and to choose from the fairest bodies, severally, the fairest parts. Da Vinci uses almost the same words, and desires the painter to form the idea for himself; and the incomparable Raphael thus writes to Castiglione concerning his Galatea: 'To paint a fair one, it is necessary for me to see many fair ones; but because there is so great a scarcity of lovely women, I am constrained to make use of one certain idea, which I have formed in my own fancy. Guido Reni approaches still closer to the pure ideal of the great Christian School of Painting, when he wishes for the wings of an angel, to ascend to Paradise, and see, with his own eyes, the forms and faces of the blessed spirits, that he might put more of heaven into his pictures.
A feebly false Guido Reni, "The Sacrifice of Isaac," held the center of one wall, making vehement claim to be just as well worth looking at as the famous Titian opposite.
I had never been able to tolerate Guido Reni; but his playing angels in the chapel of San Gregorio excited my profound admiration, and it was a satisfaction to me to pour this into the receptive ear of a girl compatriot. These angels delighted me so that I could hardly tear myself away from them.
It is a common and curious custom in Madagascar for parents sometimes to drop their own names and take the name of their eldest child with the word raini, "father of," or reni, "mother of," prefixed. Now this amiable little elderly woman had been married young, and it so happened that her husband was away on an expedition to the coast when the first and only son was born.
Jules Reni was a big Frenchman, one of that sort of early ranchers who were owners of small ranches and a limited number of cattle and horses just enough to act as a shield for thefts of live stock, and to offer encouragement to such thefts. Before long Jules was back at his old stamping-grounds, where he was looked on as something of a bully; and at once he renewed his threats against Slade.
His wife was very handsome, and they had twelve lovely children, so lovely that it is said that other artists besides himself made use of them for models. She was an imitator of the attractive manner of Guido Reni. The heads of her madonnas and magdalens are charming, and, indeed, all her work speaks of the innate refinement of her nature.
Gently the youth lifted her, and set her on her feet, whereupon she sank down again with a little shriek, and looked up with an expression of mingled humour and pain. "My leg, I think, is broken!" said Reni. For the sake of brevity we will drop the "Mamba." "Surely not, mother; it has been too tough and strong to break ever since I knew it."
She was born in Bologna about 1640, and, like Artemisia Gentileschi, was the daughter of a painter of the school of Guido Reni, whose follower Elisabetta also became. From the study of her master she seems to have acquired the power to perceive and reproduce the greatest possible beauty with which her subjects could be invested.
Part of the Cenci estates were conveyed to one of the pope's nephews, and became the Villa Borghese, wherein may still be seen portraits of Lucrezia Petroni and Beatrice Cenci, the latter by the well-known Guido Reni.
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