CHAPTER XLVI.
ROME—ITS ART AND ARCHITECTURE.
A Question Asked—Answer Given—Nature as Teacher—Italians as Pupils—Great Artists—The Inferno—The Cardinal in Hell—The Pope’s Reply—A Thing of Beauty—The Beloved—The Transfiguration—Architecture—Marble Men Struggle to Speak—Resplendent Gems.
“WHAT are the chief features of Rome?” was the second question asked me by a friend whom I met yesterday. “Art and Architecture,” was the unhesitating reply. Indeed hesitation was unnecessary; my mind was already made up on that point, and there can be no question as to the correctness of the answer.
Nature seems to have implanted a love for Art in the sons of Italy, and whispered its secrets to them as to no other people. She teaches them by object lessons. At night she embosoms the moon in her soft blue sky like a silver crescent in a velvet cushion, and the stars with their new polished lustre seem to bestud God’s diamond throne. In the morning the same azure sky is “flecked with blushes and gattled with fire.” As the Italian at the evening hour stands under the sunny vine, on the green hillside, looking at the glowing, lighted west through the molten bars of twilight; as he sees the purple clouds, lying along the horizon, fade from rich purple to pale blue—from blue to lavender—to pink—to scarlet—then to banks of molten gold; as he beholds the imperial splendors of the setting sun “vast mirrored on the sea,”—he gathers inspiration—his soul catches the fire—the whole scene is photographed on the landscape of his memory. He there learns how best to blend his colors, and next day as he stands before his canvas beauty hangs upon his brush like sparks of livid light.