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Fra Angelico should have confined himself to miniature heads, in which his delicacy of touch and minute labor often produce an excellent effect. The custode informed us that there were more frescos of this pious artist in the interior of the convent, into which I might be allowed admittance, but not my wife. I declined seeing them, and heartily thanked heaven for my escape.
At one side were stored some rather dilapidated and dirty wax figures which reclined in various postures, somewhat too lifelike in the gloom of the chamber, and entirely ludicrous, so much so that it was with much difficulty that we controlled our smiles. The roving eye of the surly custode, however, warned us against levity of any sort.
It was an extensive one, surrounded with a species of iron net work, through which might be seen ranges of red earthen vases. Acme turned to the custode, and asked if this was the burial place of some noble family. "No! Signora! this is where the ashes of the gladiators are preserved."
We would have tarried here, but the custode was very nervous and hurried us through the thickets of bushes growing up between the stones of the pavement, and fairly pushed us out again into the small parkway, accepting the very generous fee which I gave him with what I should call surliness. But we ignored this completely, after the manner of old travelers, which we had been advised to adopt.
The custode dipped an iron ladle into the miraculous water, and we each of us drank a sip; and, what is very remarkable, to me it seemed hard water and almost brackish, while many persons think it the sweetest in Rome. I suspect that St. Peter still dabbles in this water, and tempers its qualities according to the faith of those who drink it.
What is left of them, however fragmentary, however ruinous, however obscured and defiled, is almost always the real thing; there are no fresh readings: and therefore the greatest treasures of art which Europe at this moment possesses are pieces of old plaster on ruinous brick walls, where the lizards burrow and bask, and which few other living creatures ever approach; and torn sheets of dim canvas, in waste corners of churches; and mildewed stains, in the shape of human figures, on the walls of dark chambers, which now and then an exploring traveller causes to be unlocked by their tottering custode, looks hastily round, and retreats from in a weary satisfaction at his accomplished duty.
About three years after his arrival in Florence, he took post-horses, and at midnight set off for Rome. Having reached the gardens of the "Vigna Navicella," and bribed the custode to lend them for a few hours, and otherwise to assist him, he dispatched a circular billet to eighteen of his friends, supplicating them to give him a rendezvous at the Navicella.
He found her living in one of the stately houses of the Via dell' Angelo Custode, and, rather to his surprise, was told she was at home. He passed through half a dozen rooms and was ushered into an immense saloon, at one end of which sat the mistress of the establishment, with a piece of embroidery.
Each visitor was provided with a wax taper, and the custode gave one to each of us, bidding us wait a moment while he conducted the other party to the upper air.
For that I am grateful. I tip the custode with my sincere thanks. I bow to the door-keeper with hearty acknowledgment. I shall go again and again with great pleasure. But I shall not make the singular mistake of supposing that he bears the same relation to his possessions that the musician bears to his music, and the scholar to his knowledge, and the traveller to his shrewd observation.
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