It is one of the few pictures that there is really any
pleasure in looking at. There were several paintings by Titian, mostly
of a voluptuous character, but not very charming; also two or more by
Guido, one of which, representing Fortune, is celebrated. They did not
impress me much, nor do I find myself strongly drawn towards Guido,
though there is no other painter who seems to achieve things so magically
and inscrutably as he sometimes does. Perhaps it requires a finer taste
than mine to appreciate him; and yet I do appreciate him so far as to see
that his Michael, for instance, is perfectly beautiful. . . . . In the
gallery, there are whole rows of portraits of members of the Academy of
St. Luke, most of whom, judging by their physiognomies, were very
commonplace people; a fact which makes itself visible in a portrait,
however much the painter may try to flatter his sitter. Several of the
pictures by Titian, Paul Veronese, and other artists, now exhibited in
the gallery, were formerly kept in a secret cabinet in the Capitol, being
considered of a too voluptuous character for the public eye.
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