Look at Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper at Milan, in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie: it is amongst the finest pictures in the world. And was it not inspired?
Look at the Twilight and the Dawn, the Night and Morning, of Michael Angelo: would it not illustrate the book of the creation?
Look at the Paradiso of Fra Angelico for a new art testament, and for an old one go back to the Parthenon, to the sculptures of ancient Greece.
During my short stay I visited all my most valued friends, and on the 21st of November I took train to Rome.
LXIV.
It is an amusing journey from Firenze to Rome. The Apennines, no longer imposing to one familiar with the Alps, spin with you; arches that you see above you go round and return nearer to you; then, swinging round once more, you are upon them, and finally above them.
A young Jesuit sat in the corner of the carriage opposite to my corner. On my first sight of him his eyes were closed, and his lips were moving as one sees in the low muttering delirium of the semi-conscious sick. In due time he took out a breviary, counted the beads on a string that hung from him, played with them as a child with sugar-plums, and pursued the silent muttering, as if reading a delirious dream. This went on for a fatiguing length of time. Being unaccustomed to religious manners, I felt sorry, because I thought the good man was fatuously disposed, when suddenly he, having counted his last bead, shut his book joyfully, and his intellect seemed restored.
He addressed me in sweet Italian, in la lingua Toscana in bocca Romana. We were gliding alongside the lake of Perugia, and from that time he did not cease to instruct me until our journey’s end.
A Jesuit is never wanting in knowledge, whatever a priest may be.