t. Luke's.--St Peter's.--
Chiesa Nuova.--Painting at the Vatican.--Beggar monks.--Fata of the
Annunciation.--Soiree at Palazzo Simbaldi.--Passion Sunday.--Horace
Vernet.--Lying in state of a cardinal.--_Miserere_ at Sistine Chapel.--
Holy Thursday at St Peter's.--Third cardinal dies.--Meets Thorwaldsen at
Signor Persianis's.--Manners of English, French, and Americans.--Landi's
pictures.--Funeral of a young girl.--Trip to Tivoli, Subiaco.--Procession
of the _Corpus Domini._--Disagreeable experience.

The enthusiastic artist was now in Italy, the land of his dreams, and his
notebooks are filled with short comments or longer descriptions of
churches, palaces, and pictures in Genoa and in the other towns through
which he passed on his way to Rome, or with pen-pictures of the wild
country through which he and his fellow travellers journeyed.

In Genoa, where he stopped several days, he was delighted with the
palaces and churches, and yet he found material for criticism:--

"The next place of interest was the Serra Palace, now inhabited by one of
that family, who, we understood, was insane. After stopping a moment in
the anteroom, the ceiling of which is painted in fresco by Somnio, we
were ushered into the room called the most splendid in Europe, and, if
carving and gilding and mirrors and chandeliers and costly colors can
make a splendid room, this is certainly that room. The chandeliers and
mirrored sides are so arranged as to create the illusion that the room is
of indefinite extent. To me it appeared, on the whole, tawdry, seeing it
in broad daylight. In the evening, when the chandeliers are lighted, I
have no doubt of its being a most gorgeous exhibition, but, like some
showy belle dressed and painted for evening effect, the daylight turns
her gold into tinsel and her bloom into rouge.

"After having stayed nearly four days in Genoa, and after having made
arrangements with our honest _vetturino_, Dominique, to take us to Rome,
stopping at various places on the way long enough to see them, we retired
late to bed to prepare for our journey in the morning.

"On Wednesday morning, February 10, we rose at five o'clock, and, after
breakfast of coffee, etc., we set out at six on our journey towards
Rome."

I shall not follow them every step of the way, but shall select only the
more personal entries in the diary.

"A little after eleven o'clock we stopped at a single house upon a high
hill overlooking the sea, to breakf