Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Passages from the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete by Nathaniel Hawthorne
page 64 of 504 (12%)
ridden down by the dragoons in clearing the course.

After leaving Canova's studio, I stepped into the church of San Luigi de'
Francesi, in the Via di Ripetta. It was built, I believe, by Catherine
de' Medici, and is under the protection of the French government, and a
most shamefully dirty place of worship, the beautiful marble columns
looking dingy, for the want of loving and pious care. There are many
tombs and monuments of French people, both of the past and present,--
artists, soldiers, priests, and others, who have died in Rome. It was so
dusky within the church that I could hardly distinguish the pictures in
the chapels and over the altar, nor did I know that there were any worth
looking for. Nevertheless, there were frescos by Domenichino, and
oil-paintings by Guido and others. I found it peculiarly touching to
read the records, in Latin or French, of persons who had died in this
foreign laud, though they were not my own country-people, and though I
was even less akin to them than they to Italy. Still, there was a sort
of relationship in the fact that neither they nor I belonged here.


February 17th.--Yesterday morning was perfectly sunny, and we went out
betimes to see churches; going first to the Capuchins', close by the
Piazza Barberini.

["The Marble Faun" takes up this description of the church and of the
dead monk, which we really saw, just as recounted, even to the sudden
stream of blood which flowed from the nostrils, as we looked at him.--
ED.]

We next went to the Trinita de' Monti, which stands at the head of the
steps, leading, in several flights, from the Piazza de' Spagna. It is
DigitalOcean Referral Badge