In The Palazzo Pubblico (Hotel De Ville) Is A Christ And A Samson By
Guido Reni; But What Pleased Me Most In The Way Of Painting Was The
Collection In The Gallery Of Count Marescalchi.
The Count has been at great
pains to form it and has shown great taste and discernment.
It is a small
but unique collection. Here is to be seen a head of Christ, the colouring
of which is so brilliant as to illuminate the room in which it is appended,
when the shutters are closed, and in the absence of all other light except
what appears thro' the crevices of the window shutters. This head, however,
does not seem characteristic of Christ; it wants the gravity, the soft
melancholy and unassuming meekness of the great Reformer: in short, from
the vivid fire of the eyes and the too great self-complacency of the
countenance, it gave me rather the idea
Del biondo Dio che in Tessalia si adora.
I passed two hours in this cabinet. I next repaired to the centre of the
city with the intention of ascending one at least of the two square towers
or campanili which stand close together, one of which is strait, the
other a leaning one. Garisendi is the name of the leaning tower, and it
forms a parallelipipedon of 140 feet in height and about twenty feet in
breath and length. It leans so much as to form an angle of seventy-five
degrees with the ground on which it stands. The other tower, the strait
one, is called Asinelli and is a parallelipipedon of 310 feet in height
and about twenty-five feet in length and breadth. I ascended the leaning
tower, but I found the fatigue so great that I was scarcely repaid by the
fine view of the surrounding country, which presents on one side an immense
plain covered with towns, villages and villas, and on the other the
Appennines towering one above another. When on the top of Garisendi,
Asinelli appears to be four times higher than its neighbour, and the bare
aspect of its enormous height deterred me from even making the attempt of
ascending it. When viewed or rather looked down upon from Garisendi,
Bologna, from its being of an elliptical form and surrounded by a wall and
from having these two enormous towers in the centre, resembles a boat with
masts.
From the great celebrity of its University and the eminent men it has
produced, Bologna is considered as the most litterary city of Italy.
Galvani was born in Bologna and studied at this University, and among the
modern prodigies is a young lady who is professor of Greek and who is by
all accounts the most amiable Bas bleu that ever existed.[82] The
Bolognese are a remarkably fine, intelligent and robust race of people, and
are renowned for their republican spirit, and the energy with which they at
all times resisted the encroachments of the Holy See. Bologna was at one
time a Republic, and on their coins is the word Libertas.
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