eBooks Base 2000

After their
departure, the wedding guests took their leave; the most noteworthy
person being the Pope's Nuncio (the young man being son of the Pope's
Chamberlain, and one of the Grand Duke's Noble Guard), an ecclesiastical
personage in purple stockings, attended by two priests, all of whom got
into a coach, the driver and footmen of which wore gold-laced cocked hats
and other splendors.
To-day I paid a short visit to the gallery of the Pitti Palace. I looked
long at a Madonna of Raphael's, the one which is usually kept in the
Grand Duke's private apartments, only brought into the public gallery for
the purpose of being copied. It is the holiest of all Raphael's
Madonnas, with a great reserve in the expression, a sense of being apart,
and yet with the utmost tenderness and sweetness; although she drops her
eyelids before her like a veil, as it were, and has a primness of eternal
virginity about the mouth. It is one of Raphael's earlier works, when he
mixed more religious sentiment with his paint than afterwards.


Pages:
559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583