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Paintings of value adorned the walls, and frescoes ornamented the ceilings; while every object of vertu that was known to the age, lay in elegant profusion about this luxurious abode.
Then when the boys grew older, they were allowed to go into the church and watch those wonderful frescoes, which grew under the hand of the great awkward painter, 'Ugly Tom, as he was called. Together Filippo and Diamante stood and watched with awe, learning lessons there which the good father had not been able to teach.
He is recorded to have called statues "idols of the Pagans," and he spent no money on pictures or frescoes. No wonder the artists who were accustomed to the patronage of the Popes rejoiced when he died, notwithstanding his goodness, and hailed his physician as saviour of the Fatherland. Therefore, serve well and with faithfulness, so that we may have honour."
Michelangelo and Whistler were both fine artists; but one is obviously public, the other obviously private, or, rather, not obvious at all. Michelangelo's frescoes are doubtless finer than the popular judgment, but they are plainly meant to strike the popular judgment. Whistler's pictures seem often meant to escape the popular judgment; they even seem meant to escape the popular admiration.
Stones, flowers, mountains all equally asking one to look at them; a history to every foot of ground, and a picture on every foot of wall; frescoes fading away in the neglected streets like the colours of the dolphin."
There are, by the way, two very ambitious altars on either side the main arch leading to the chancel in the church at Naters, of which the one on the south side contains obvious reminiscences of Gaudenzio Ferrari's Sta. Maria frescoes at Varallo; but none of the four altar-pieces in the two transepts tempted me to give them much attention.
Now its ancient walls, dating as far back as the year 900, had been freshly decorated with frescoes, and the long arcades and loggias, with their massive pillars and Byzantine capitals of grey marble, were enriched with shields carved with the unicorns and lilies of the house of Este.
Annunciate is rich in splendid frescoes; those placed round the walls in the courtyard of the church, and surrounded by a glass gallery, are particularly handsome. On the left as we enter we find the costly chapel of our Lady "dell' Annunciata," in which the altar, the immense candelabra, the angels and draperies, in short every thing is of silver.
The dining-room was divided into the grand saloon, where they supped amid rococo sculptures and frescoes, and the glazed veranda opening by vast windows on a spread of tables without, which were already filling up for the evening concert.
Vasari's letter to Michelangelo shows that up to this date none of the statues had been erected in their proper places, and that it was intended to add a great number of figures, as well as to adorn blank spaces in the walls with frescoes.
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