The dying Gladiator is the chief boast of the Capitol. The antiquarian Nibby insists that this statue represents a Gaul, that the sculpture is Grecian, that it formed part of a group on a pediment, representing the vengeance which Apollo took on the Gauls, when, under their king Brennus, they attacked the temple of Delphi: that the cord round the neck is a twisted chain, an ornament peculiar to the Gauls; and that the form of the shield, the bugles, the style of the hair, and the mustachios, all prove it to be a Gaul. I asked, "why should such faultless, such exquisite sculpture be thrown away upon a high pediment? the affecting expression of the countenance, the head 'bowed low and full of death,' the gradual failure of the strength and sinking of the form, the blood slowly trickling from his side—how could any spectator, contemplating it at a vast height, be sensible of these minute traits—the distinguishing perfections of this matchless statue?" It was replied, that many of the ancient buildings were so constructed, that it was possible to ascend and examine the sculpture above the cornice, and though some statues so placed were unfinished at the back, (for instance, some of the figures which belonged to the group of Niobe,) others (and he mentioned the Ægina marbles as an example) were as highly finished behind as before. I owned myself unwilling to consider the Gladiator a Gaul, but the reasoning struck me, and I am too unlearned to weigh the arguments he used, much less confute them. That the statue being of Grecian marble and Grecian sculpture must therefore have come from Greece, does not appear a conclusive argument, since the Romans commonly employed Greek artists: and as to the rest of the argument,—suppose that in a dozen centuries hence, the charming statue of Lady Louisa Russell should be discovered under the ruins of Woburn Abbey, and that by a parity of reasoning, the production of Chantrey's chisel should be attributed to Italy and Canova, merely because it is cut from a block of Carrara marble? we might smile at such a conclusion.
Among the pictures in the gallery of the Capitol, the one most highly valued pleases me least of all—the Europa of Paul Veronese. The splendid colouring and copious fancy of this master can never reconcile me to his strange anomalies in composition, and his sins against good taste and propriety. One wishes that he had allayed the heat of his fancy with some cooling drops of discretion. Even his colouring so admired in general, has something florid and meretricious to my eye and taste.
One of the finest pictures here is Domenichino's Cumean Sibyl, which, like all other masterpieces, defies the copyist and engraver. The Sibilla Persica of Guercino hangs a little to the left; and with her contemplative air, and the pen in her hand, she looks as if she were recording the effusions of her more inspired sister. The former is a chaste and beautiful picture, full of feeling and sweetly coloured; but the vicinity of Domenichino's magnificent creation throws it rather into shade. Two unfinished pictures upon which Guido was employed at the time of his death are preserved in the Capitol: one is the Bacchus and Ariadne, so often engraved and copied; the other, a single figure, the size of life, represents the Soul of the righteous man ascending to heaven. Had Guido lived to finish this divine picture, it would have been one of his most splendid productions; but he was snatched away to realize, I trust, in his own person, his sublime conception. The head alone is finished, or nearly so; and has a most extatic expression. The globe of the earth seems to sink from beneath the floating figure, which is just sketched upon the canvass, and has a shadowy indistinctness which to my fancy added to its effect. Guercino's chef-d'œuvre, the Resurrection of Saint Petronilla, (a saint, I believe, of very hypothetical fame,) is also here; and has been copied in mosaic for St. Peters. A magnificent Rubens, the She Wolf nursing Romulus and Remus; a fine copy of Raffaelle's Triumph of Galatea by Giulo Romano; Domenichino's Saint Barbara, with the same lovely inspired eyes he always gives his female saints, and a long et cetera.
From the Capitol we immediately drove to the Borghese palace, where I spent half an hour looking at the picture called the Cumean Sibyl of Domenichino, and am more and more convinced that it is a Saint Cecilia and not a Sibyl.
We have now visited the Borghese palace four times; and à-propos to pictures, I may as well make a few memoranda of its contents. It is not the most numerous, but it is by far the most valuable and select private gallery in Rome.
Domenichino's Chase of Diana, with the two beautiful nymphs in the foreground, is a splendid picture. Titian's Sacred and Profane Love puzzles me completely: I neither understand the name nor the intention of the picture. It is evidently allegorical: but an allegory very clumsily expressed. The aspect of Sacred Love would answer just as well for Profane Love. What is that little cupid about, who is groping in the cistern behind? why does Profane Love wear gloves? The picture, though so provokingly obscure in its subject, is most divinely painted. The three Graces by the same master is also here; two heads by Giorgione, distinguished by all his peculiar depth of character and sentiment, some exquisite Albanos; one of Raffaelle's finest portraits—and in short, an endless variety of excellence. I feel my taste become more and more fastidious every day.
This morning we heard mass at the Pope's Chapel; the service was read by Cardinal Fesche, and the venerable old pope himself, robed and mitred en grand costume, was present. No females are allowed to enter without veils, and we were very ungallantly shut up behind a sort of grating, where, though we had a tolerable view of the ceremonial going forward, it was scarcely possible for us to be seen. Cardinal Gonsalvi sat so near us, that I had leisure and opportunity to contemplate the fine intellectual head and acute features of this remarkable man. I thought his countenance had something of the Wellesley cast.
The Pope's Chapel is decorated in the most exquisite taste; splendid at once and chaste. There are no colours—the whole interior being white and gold.
At an unfortunate moment, Lady Morgan's ludicrous description of the twisting and untwisting of the Cardinal's tails came across me, and made me smile very mal à-propos: it is certainly from the life. Whenever this lively and clever woman describes what she has actually seen with her own eyes, she is as accurately true as she is witty and entertaining. Her sketches after nature are admirable; but her observations and inferences are coloured by her peculiar and rather unfeminine habits of thinking. I never read her "Italy" till the other day, when L., whose valet had contrived to smuggle it into Rome, offered to lend it to me. It is one of the books most rigorously proscribed here; and if the Padre Anfossi or any of his satellites had discovered it in my hands, I should assuredly have been fined in a sum beyond what I should have liked to pay.