Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence, Ed. by Lord J. Russell (Volume 6) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1853 Excerpt: ... her, but he would not; said it would not be proper, and forced me instead into an introduction to her husband. Much talk with Adair about politics. I was mentioning to Chantrey my having been particularly struck by Michael Angelo's sitting warrior (Lorenzo de Medici) over the monument in San Lorenzo at Florence, and he said, "You are quite right; that is the finest thing of Michael Angelo's I have seen." 30th. Chantrey called upon me, with Jackson the painter. Went with Chantrey to St. Peter's; the high garret windows of the Vatican, on one side of it, rising almost to the same altitude, quite kill the effect of its size. Ought not the colonnades to sweep round to the church instead of terminating each side thus ( ? The perspective of the Scala Regia curious; borrowed by Bernini from what I saw at the Palazzo Spada yesterday by Borromini. The statue of Constantine by Bernini full of flutter and effort; the vestibule, at one end of which it stands, magnificent. The Pieta of Michael Angelo on the right as you enter the church is by no means pleasing: a most absurd monument of Bernini's in the right nave to Alexander VII.; a gilt figure of death is seen lifting a heavy mass of marble drapery. Chantrey remarked very truly that groups of statues, wanting that connecting medium and those gradations of colouring which painters give to an assemblage of figures, never have a good effect; they are always best detached. Before we went to St. Peter's we had been at Canova's workshop, and saw the cast for his colossal bronze equestrian statue of the last king of Naples. Canova is to do a statue of the last Pope, to be placed over the sepulchre of St. Peter, that gorgeous spot round which the lamps are ever burning. As Chantrey said, what a place to work for what an exc...