DUCAL PALACE

CHAPTER XI.

CHURCH OF ST. AMBROSE ➡ CHURCH, AND BRIDGE, OF SA. MARIA DI CARIGNANO-HOSPITAL OF INCURABLES-PALAZZO SERRA, AND SALOON OF THE SUNPALAZZO DURAZZO-DITTO OF ANDREW DORIA-CATHEDRAL OF ST. LAWRENCE-EMERALD DISH- -PICTURES IN THE BRIGNOLE PALACE-ARSENAL-ROMAN PROW-SCULPTURE BY MICHAEL ANGELO-STREETS, HOUSES, &c. OF GENOAGENOESE CHARACTER-INN OF LA CROCE DI MALTA ---THEATRES.

HAVING thus given a summary account of the Government of Genoa by Doges, I may here appropriately speak of the Ducal Palace, whose great saloon was its Senate Hall in the time of its Dukes. Its dimensions are 122 feet in length, 52 in breadth, and 70 in height. Round the room are 38 columns, and pilasters, of Brocatello marble, of the Corinthian order. The marble statues that once adorned the niches were destroyed by the Genoese themselves in some insurrection, and they are now supplied with bad plaster copies. The trouble of casting the draperies is avoided by an ingenious contrivance; they being composed of calico; the folds are beautiful, and the delusion is very complete. No use is now made of this hall, except on occasional public fêtes; while the remaining apartments of this former residence of the Doges are now appropriated as public offices.

The church of St. Ambrose is distinguished by the profusion of marbles with which it may be said to be entirely encrusted. To me, the sight of such varieties of colours, and contrasts, was unpleasing, still more so as utterly destroying the solemnity of a church; its high altar is adorned with a picture of the Circumcision of Jesus by Rubens, placed between four lofty columns of the black marble called Basdiglio di Porto Venere, and two colossal statues of St. Peter, and St. Paul.

In a chapel on the left is another by Rubens, of a Saint curing a man possessed of the Devil; and raising infants again to life; but, above all, in the opposite chapel on the right is Guido's well known, and divine, picture of the Assumption of the Virgin.

The next church visited was Santa Maria di Carignano, celebrated for its noble, and simple, architectural grandeur.

In the nave, among other statues, is a chef d'œuvre of Puget :-a dying St. Sebastian, who was shot to death by arrows. The expression, the agony, the swollen muscles, and bursting skin, pronounce it a master-piece. We ascended the topmost tower of this church to view the enchanting panorama. It is said that on the verge of the expanded ocean, the Island of Corsica may be sometimes seen.

Close by is Il Ponte di Carignano, a bridge not

thrown over a stream, but over a street; it has seven arches, the three central ones are stupendously solid, and unite the two hills of Sarzan, and Carig

nano.

It is somewhat terrific to look down from a parapet wall on the lofty houses below, many of which are six stories high.

One more sight, sad, and horrible, concluded this day. We chanced to walk into their Hospital of Incurables: here were the old and the young, stretched upon their miserable beds of straw, too many doomed ne'er again to rise from them! All kinds of nameless diseases! Livid and ghastly faces! squalid miseries, and hopeless wretchedness! All those who could totter presently surrounded us, with clamorous cries for charity; while the more helpless stretched out their pallid hands from their bed! Perhaps it was even more pitiable to behold so many infants and little children, so blighted, and withered, in their birth; so horribly deformed!

Upstairs are the wards for the Mad. Here were about thirty spectacles of man with all his faculties perverted; of man without one glimmering of reason! Furious, diabolical, raving; and lashed to their beds by the wrists with the strongest iron chains!

The horrors, and blasphemies, of this scene I forbear to describe.

176

Saloon of the Sun.

19th Inst. To-day three Palaces, besides Churches. To speak impartially, these palaces, now-a-days, seem to me to possess nothing particularly worthy of notice, or admiration, except their imposing exterior grandeur, and size; and one or two matters in each which I willingly record.

The chief object in the Palazzo Serra, in the Strada Nuova, is the Grand Saloon designed, and decorated by a French architect, Wailly. In size it is comparatively small, forty-five feet by twenty-eight wide; though very lofty. The floor is of polished mastic, stained to imitate Oriental Breccia; sixteen fluted columns, of the Corinthian order, surmounted by a rich entablature, sustain an arch whose capacious pannels are adorned with foliage, arabesques, and eight Cariatides; and which terminate in an oval dome painted with the Apotheosis of Ambrose Spinola. This saloon is almost entirely golden, and is further adorned with silken draperies, tapestry, and lapis lazuli: it has cost an enormous sum; it may be fairly said to be fit for the presence of any sovereign; and is appropriately termed the Saloon of the Sun.

Il Palazzo Durazzo belonging to the noble family of that name in the Strada Balbi, extends in front above 300 feet; the grand portal is ornamented with four noble columns of white marble, of one entire piece, and of the Doric order.

Here is of course an immense range of rooms;

Andrew Doria's Palace.

177

but all that I particularly remember as admirable amidst the mass is a sculpture of Schiaffino, a Genoese, representing the Rape of Proserpine, and including the Nymph, Pluto, and Cerberus ;-a picture in the chapel by Titian of Christ bearing the Cross; and certainly a chef d'œuvre of Paul Veronese, the Magdalen at the feet of the Saviour.

Its grandeur of composition, facility of pencil, but particularly the harmonious arrangement of the very fresh, and vivid, colours, with the carnations of the flesh, &c. arrest, and charm, the attention.

I must not omit to say that this palace contains a very choice and valuable library; nor do I mean to depreciate the other pictures, such as those by Giordano, Tintoretto, and other great masters; though I necessarily omit to detail them. In this palace, so proud a memento of the once famed grandeur, and wealth, of the Genoese nobility, the Emperor Joseph II. lodged for a short time.

First and dearest to historic recollections, though now sadly neglected, and ruinous, stands the palace of Andrew Doria. It possesses a most commanding view of the city and the expansive ocean. The garden has a sculpture of Neptune, of the size of life, in his car, but which is only valuable as a portrait of Andrew. In traversing its interior courts, scarce one object will be seen to distract the pleas ingly solemn reflections that we are treading the same galleries where once lived the illustrious great,