barous. It stands on an elevated platform of white marble, to which you ascend by a flight of steps running along the whole breadth of its front, and enter by three principal doors. Few will stop to criticise a pile of such greatness and magnificence, adorned with such labour, and formed of such costly materials. But it is to these too splendid materials, that alternation of colour, and that overpowering profusion of ornament, that I object. Marble sounds more magnificently, but stone, in my humble opinion, is infinitely better adapted for exterior building; it looks nearly as well even at first, sustains far less injury from time and exposure to weather, and when marble would be stained, moss-covered, and decayed by age, it preserves a smooth, solid, and unspotted surface; but whatever may be thought on this head, the mixture of contrasting colours, either in marble, or any other kind of buildings, must ever be offensive to the eye of taste. Only conceive what would be the effect of Westminster Abbey or York Minster, covered from top to bottom with black and white horizontal stripes!

-Yet such are the cathedrals of Florence and Siena. Equally remote from the venerable majesty of the Gothic aisle, or the lengthening beauty of the Grecian colonnade, here-round, heavy Gothic arches rest their unmerciful weight on deformed Grecian pillars, and a load of ornament frittered away into little mean details, over-runs every part of the edifice, perplexing the wearied eye with its useless in

tricacies.

The slender supporting columns of the huge massive door-ways rest on the backs of crouching lions; a barbarism we observed through the whole of the Milanese, and which, I believe, is of Lombard origin.

In the interior, nothing meets the eye but the pomp of marble magnificence. Above your head, the lofty dome, and azure, vault, studded with golden stars, represent the glories of the firmament; and beneath your feet is spread a pavement which was the work of ages, for four centuries passed away before it was completed.

Solely by means of a dark-grey marble, inlaid upon a white ground, is represented with all the force of painting, various events of sacred history, of which the Sacrifice of Isaac struck me with the highest admiration, though I believe Moses striking the Rock is generally the most esteemed. The figure of Abraham grasping his knife, is one which will not easily pass away from the memory. It was designed by Beecafiume, (detto il Meccarino,) a Sienese painter of the fifteenth century, with great spirit and truth; and the ease of the flowing outline, the dignity of the head, and the force of expression, make it rather seem a fine design drawn on marble, than formed of such intractable materials.

After having been worn by the unceasing tread of feet upwards of a century, this wonderful pavement has at last been covered with a moveable wooden flooring, which is raised to shew you its several parts or pictures.

The eye is bewildered with the varieties of splendour that attract it in every direction, and wanders from Papal busts to Grecian statues; from the magnificent marble pulpit, richly adorned with basso relievo, and its beautiful stair-case, to the splendidly dirty baptistery, and the Ghigi Chapel, on which piety has heaped more magnificence than taste would perhaps have directed.

It is adorned with a copy in Mosaic, executed at Rome, of a picture of Carlo Maratti's, so admirably done, that I could scarcely believe it was Mosaic, and not painting. It is wonderful with what fidelity, both in design and colouring, a mere mechanic art can give back the copy in stone, of the masterpieces of the pencil. The most delicate touches are imitated.

In the niches of the chapel stand two celebrated statues by Bernini-St Jerome and a Magdalen. The former is the best; but the affectation of attitude, the distortion of limb and feature, and overcharged expression, the want of nature and simplicity, which are the irredeemable faults of his style, are still but too apparent, even in these much-extolled performances.

We stopped at the door of the sacristy adjoining the church, to examine a beautiful Pagan altar of Parian marble, adorned with rams' heads and wreaths of flowers, found in digging the foundations of the cathedral, and converted into the pedestal of one of the pillars of the door-way.

At the same time and place, was dug up a mutilated group of the Graces, universally allowed to

be the finest representation of them in the world. They are placed in the library, to the greatest pos sible disadvantage; so injudiciously elevated, that the smallness of their stature (for they are considerably below the human size) makes them appear contemptible, and so lost in the glare of the large solitary window, that the eye can with difficulty trace the perfect symmetry of their forms. From these circumstances, from their dirty discoloration, and their mutilated state, (one head, and various arms and legs being wanting,) it is not till after some examination that their excellence becomes apparent. My first sensation was disappointment, my last delighted admiration; and it was with difficulty I tore myself from gazing on their faultless beauty. The air of easy and unstudied grace, the unrestrained simplicity of attitude, the chaste design, the freedom of nature, and beauty of expression, proclaim this admirable group to be one of the purest models of Grecian sculpture.

When Raphael was only sixteen years old, he came to Siena to assist Pinturicchio, (another and a senior pupil of his master, Pietro Perugino,) to paint the walls of this library in fresco; and as he generally gets the whole credit, or discredit, of every work his pencil ever touched, we were assured they were his work. The fact is, that the designs were his, and there is no doubt that one compartment, (that on the right side of the room on entering, and nearest the window,) in which his own portrait is introduced as a youth on horseback, was executed by his own hand.

But he was sent for to Rome when the painting of this library had made but little progress;* and there is no reason to think that he ever painted any more of it. This is believed to be his earliest existing work, and it is therefore valuable, for it is certainly interesting to trace the progress of genius from its first faint essays to its latest perfection; but I will not attempt to conceal from you that these hard, rigid, upright figures, struck me as almost the most hideous old things I had ever beheld in painting. But for the name of Raphael, I should never have looked at them twice; and long and vainly did I look, in the hope of finding out their excellence. The inspection of them, indeed, raised my admiration of Raphael higher than ever, not from their beauty, but their excessive ugliness. That the same hand which feebly sketched these straight, stiff, Gothic figures, should ever have pourtrayed the sublime form of St John in the Desert, the angelic beauty of the Madona della Sedia,† or the faultless perfection of the Martyrdom of St Stephen,‡ was indeed a proud triumph to genius.

.

Sixteen years had not elapsed between the execution of these two widely different works,-the extremes of good and ill. What a transition! What

Lanzi. Storia Pittorica.

+ In the Palazzo Pitti at Florence; almost the only picture I had then seen in that invaluable collection.

At Genoa, in the Church of S. Stefano. It is worth while to go there, were it only to see this picture. It is partly painted by Guilio Romano, but designed by Raphael.