One of the halls was hung with the
portraits of eight popes and nearly forty cardinals, who were natives of
Siena. I have done hardly any other sight-seeing except a daily visit to
the cathedral, which I admire and love the more the oftener I go thither.
Its striped peculiarity ceases entirely to interfere with the grandeur
and venerable beauty of its impression; and I am never weary of gazing
through the vista of its arches, and noting continually something that I
had not seen before in its exuberant adornment. The pavement alone is
inexhaustible, being covered all over with figures of life-size or
larger, which look like immense engravings of Gothic or Scriptural
scenes. There is Absalom hanging by his hair, and Joab slaying him with
a spear. There is Samson belaboring the Philistines with the jawbone of
an ass. There are armed knights in the tumult of battle, all wrought
with wonderful expression. The figures are in white marble, inlaid with
darker stone, and the shading is effected by means of engraved lines in
the marble, filled in with black.
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