disperata

Updated: May 3, 2025

At the Colonna palace what have I remarked? That it possesses the gayest gallery belonging to any subject upon earth: one hundred and thirty-nine feet long, thirty-four broad, and seventy high: profusely ornamented with pillars, pictures, statues, to a degree of magnificence difficult to express. 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 Piet

Hester Lynch Piozzi - Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I