Salas XXVI. and XXVII. contain works of the Bolognese school of the Caracci; Sala XXVIII., works of the Roman school of the seventeenth century; Sala XXIX., works of the Genovese school, including pictures by Salvator Rosa. Sala XXX. and XXXI., foreign schools, mostly Flemish and Dutch, of the seventeenth century. The remaining rooms have modern Italian pictures.
CHAPTER XV
Other Galleries and Museums
(The Poldi-Pezzoli Museum—The Ambrosiana Library and Museums—The Borromeo and Trivulzio Collections, etc.)
The Poldi-Pezzoli Art Museum contains an admirable collection of pictures of the greatest period of Italian art, and artistic treasures of various kinds, and one has the added pleasure of seeing these things in the harmonious surroundings of a luxurious house. The very sound of the water pleasantly dripping from the fountain in the hall as we enter is a promise of refreshment and delight. The palace and the collections were the generous legacy of the Cavaliere Poldi-Pezzoli to the city, and it remains much the same as when it was a private dwelling. The somewhat florid decorations of the rooms are very obviously of recent date.
In the downstairs rooms there are some fine sixteenth century tapestries, antique Eastern carpets, and cases containing antique stuffs; a few pieces of antique sculpture, and pictures, chiefly portraits, of the late Renaissance and modern periods.
Sala Verde, at the top of the staircase, contains pictures of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; two bas-reliefs (100-101) of the Adoration of the Magi, and St. Giuliano Killing his Parents, German work of the sixteenth century; landscapes by Guardi, Canaletto and Zucarelli; Joshua stopping the Sun in its Course (111), and other paintings by Tiepolo; and a beautiful Flemish tapestry (1201) of the early fifteenth century—the Queen of Sheba before Solomon. There are also some fine marriage chests; two exquisite chess-boards (122, 123) of the sixteenth century, one of them with the stemma of the Visconti, and other interesting objects.
Ante-sala.—Pictures of the late sixteenth century.
Sala Gialla.—A very ornate Seicento clock; some Oriental porcelain; two Sèvres vases (149), etc.
Salone Dorato contains many treasures. The Madonna and Child, by Botticelli (156), though much restored, is a lovely picture, with that incomparable distinction of line and colour that characterise his work. The Portrait of a Young Woman (157) is ascribed to Piero dei Franceschi, but Verrocchio and Antonio Pollajuolo have also been suggested as the author. The outline has the play and movement, and the character a vivacity that one associates with Florentine painting, and the peculiarly large and impersonal qualities that Piero gets even into his portraits are absent. But whoever the artist may be, it is a very attractive work. The Madonna and Child (158) is by Rafaello Caponi, a Florentine Cinquecento painter. The Madonna Enthroned with Angels (154) is of the fifteenth century school of Murano.
Apart from the pictures, the most precious object in the room is a marvellous Persian Carpet (159) of the fifteenth or sixteenth century, of large size and in perfect preservation. The beauty of the design and the exquisite colour make this carpet a miracle of decorative art. It was made for the feet of princes, as the legend, worked in silver round the border, records:—Blessed is the carpet which in a pleasant company has become shadowed beneath the footsteps of the Shah.