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of money from his audience; and, though his faith is not questioned, insists much less on the dogmas of the Church than on the reformation of the people.
I went, too, to see Count Alberti, who has the famous contested manuscripts of Tasso, and made an appointment with him to come and look them over.
He seemed to me to have all his nation's acuteness and dexterity, and was extremely polite, and somewhat prepossessing in his manners. . . .
March 5.—. . . . We went to see Thorwaldsen in his own house.
He received us in a slovenly dishabille, too neglected to be quite fit to see ladies; but this is the only way he is ever found, and we forgot his appearance in his good-nature and his kindness.
He showed us everything; his collection of pictures, chiefly of living German artists, with one or two ancient ones, and a pencil-sketch by Raffaelle over the head of his bed, and a few things of his own in progress, especially the fresh model in clay of a statue of Conradin—mentioned by Dante—which he is making for the Crown Prince of Bavaria, who intends it for the grave of that unfortunate Prince at Naples.1 . . . .
Thorwaldsen has for some years refused to receive any fresh orders, and I think for a good while he has ceased to do more than to model, and to touch the marble enough to call it his work.
His skill with the chisel was, I suppose, always small, and a statue modelled by him, and executed by such artists as he could easily procure in Rome, would probably be finer than anything entirely by his own hand.
The poetry of his bas-reliefs seems to me to exceed anything in modern sculpture.
He showed us one to-day containing, first, Apollo in his car, followed by the Muses and the Graces, and then a procession to consist of all the great poets, artists, etc., of all ages.
He has modelled it as far as Homer, and if it is ever finished it will be a magnificent work indeed. . . . .
March 7.—Mezzofanti came to see us to-day, the famous linguist, who talks some forty languages without having ever been out of Italy.
He is a small, lively little gentleman, with something partly nervous and partly modest in his manner, but great apparent simplicity and good-nature.
As head of the Vatican Library he is quite in his place; besides which, he enjoys a good deal of consideration, is a Monsignor
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1 Note by Mr. Ticknor: ‘The last of the Hohenstauffen is now buried so obscurely in a church in Naples, that his grave is rarely noticed; but Dante's verse and Thorwaldsen's statue will prevent him from ever being forgotten.’ This work was left unfinished by Thorwaldsen, but was completed by Schopf, and set up in the church of the Madonna del Carmine at Naples, in 1847.
Boston, J. R. Osgood and company, 1876.
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