horizon was dimmed by vapours: Mount Viso and the whole chain of the Alps were tinted of a rosy hue by his first rays, and appeared in the distance like immense brilliant pyramids. The Superga temple, which is said to be so called from its position on the ridge of these mountains, super terga montium, crowns this beauteous hill. It was built in 1706, by King Victor Amadeus I., in pursuance of a vow he had made to the Virgin, if the attack he concerted on that very spot with Prince Eugene should compel the French to raise the siege of Turin. This church and its monastery, of a fine architectural disposition, despite its impurities, pass for the best and most ingenious of Juvara's constructions. The Superga church is the burial place of the sovereigns of Piedmont, but the modern vaults of this Savoyard Saint Denis, all lined with white, yellow, and green marble, and light as day, seemed to me devoid of majesty and sadness; the fantastic ornaments of the architecture, not with standing the richness of its materials, are unsuited to the tombs of kings, and the stone arches, the caverns blackened by ages of the old basilics, are far more fitting for the sanctuaries of death. In a separate vault are the remains of the children and princes of the royal family that never ascended the throne: the first lived but a few days in innocence; the second may have been honoured as benefactors; both seemed to me happy in baving escaped the throne. This little throne of Savoy is, moreover, the one that numbers most abdications. One would say that these kings of the Alps, the sovereigns of ice and rock, whose dominions are nearest the heavens, take disgust at the earth more easily than others. In the apartment intended for the king is a complete collection of portraits of the popes, two hundred and fifty-three in number, from Saint Peter to the present possessor of his chair. When we reflect on the fact that the first thirty of these pontiffs were all martyrs, it is impossible not to admire and respect this new courage, unique in history, and this same and intrepid sacrifice to the same truth. If while con ⚫ Amadeus VIII. in 4434; Victor Amadeus In 4730; Charles Emmanuel IV. In 1802; Victor Emnanuel in 1821.. templating the portraits of the succeeding popes, I sometimes fell on unworthy portions of this great history, the general impression was not destroyed, and instead of all the phantoms of human power, the exhibition of material and physical strength that pursues you in the other galleries, I loved to contemplate all these laborious helmsmen of Saint Peter's bark, the eternal representatives of the greatest moral power that ever acted on the world. CHAPTER XII. Pignerol.-Fortress.-Iron Mask, Fouquet, Lauzun. -Vaudese.-Susa.-Mount Cenis. The duties of an old friendship led me to Pignerol, a little, agreeable, busy, garrison town, six miles from Turin, the retreat of a lady distinguished by her birth, ber successes, and her misfortunes. A pile of stones on a high mountain is the only remaining vestige of the castle that was the prison of the Iron Mask, Fouquet, and Lauzun, the first an anonymous victim of policy; the other two, illustrious coxcombs: Lauzun, of the court; Fouquet, of the bar and finance. Though the histories of prisoners are in general most attractive, the memory of the two last confined in Pignerol did not inspire me with the profound pity that belongs to captives who have suffered for some grand conviction of thought or conscience. Perhaps also the vain and pedantic passion of Lauzun and Mademoiselle disposed me but little to the melting mood; and when we see this princess console herself for her spoiled teeth, because they would remind her lover that she was cousin to the king, it is impossible to suppress a laugh at such egregious coquetry. As I passed over these rugged mountains, I remembered the not inapposite answer of Lauzun, which proves that misfortune may also have its vanity, and that, after a great catastrophe, little troubles seem unworthy of our notice. Being invited to alight from the carriage at a dangerous pass, he refused, saying, "Those mishaps are not made for me." At the sight of the ruins of this ancient fortress of France, I regretted that the author of the Lépreux and of Prascovie had declined publishing his novel of the Pri 706 VAUD. sonnière de Pignerol; I fancied that The adjacent valleys, near the river See a note in the Expédition nocturne autour de ma Chambre, by Count X. de Maistre. [BOOR XXL turing cloth. There are twelve furnaces dred and fifty men engaged in manufacand several foundries in the valleys, which produce about five hundred tons the Vaudese to possess property out of of iron a year. The law that forbade their valleys, and the impossibility of obtaining military rank, are unjust inequalities that have now nearly ceased, the present king having raised several of them to the rank of officers. for its marble triumphal arch consecrated Susa, a little pleasant town, is noted to Augustus, remarkable for the bassosacrifice,—a monument which recalls the relievos of its frieze representing a triple antique arches of Rome, and seemed to me a noble entrance to Italy. I have twice crossed Mount Cenis in December when returning to France; foggy; the paved road was dirty and dull, the first time, the weather was mild and without physiognomy or character. I passed it on the second occasion in a sledge drawn along the snow, during a hard frost. with rime and presented a superb spectacle; its torrents were frozen and moMount Cenis was loaded tionless nature alone can enchant the of cristal, hanging from the rocks, were devastators she sends, and their festoons reflected the light and the solar rays. like dazzling lustres which beautifully The deep precipices, the black and roarI often appealed to Dante for descriptions ing abysses were all silent and gloriously white. If in my journeys through Italy, try, he still offered me, at the summit of of the sites and monuments of his counthe Alps, his harmonious and picturesque falling lightly on the moantain top: language to express the lakes of snow Come di neve in Alpe senza vento. reco work, inspired by the aspect or Inf. XIV. 30. THE END. PRINTED BY CASIMIR, 42, RUE DE LA VIEILLE-MONNAIE. INDEX. A. Abano, Pietro, physician, philosopher,heretic: Abate, Nicholas dell', painter of the Mode- Abbiati. Filippo, painter of the Milanese Abbondio, St., his bust at the Lyceum of Abondio, St., church at Cremona, 306. Academy, house of Cicero, 472. -, Aldine, at Venice, formed for the exami- - of Cortona, 653. of France at Rome, 571. - of Fine Arts, at Florence, 379. - of the Innominati, at Orvieto, 632. elementary, of Fine Arts at Ravenna, 419. of Sciences, Letters, and Arts, at Arezzo, - of Sciences, Letters, and Arts, at Pistoja, -, Olympic, at Vicenza; its dramatic perform- Philharmonic, at Rome, 573. , Platonic, at Florence, 371. royal, formerly degl' Oscuri, at Lucca, 674. Accaramboni, Virginia: her elegy on the Adjutori, the canon Don Desiderio de': his Adonis, house of, at Pompeii, 481. Adrian, emperor, 472, 523. His mausoleum, - VI., pope, supposed by some Italtan -, St., church at Pavia, 78. Ætion, Greek painter : his Marriage of Alex- Agigulphus, duke of Turin: his marriage with Agincourt, d' opinion of the his church of St. Michael at Pavia contradicted by San- Agli, Antonio degli, a competitor for the Agnelli, Barbara, erected a mausoleum to her Agnello a capo Napoli, St., church at Naples, 453. Agnes. St., church at Rome, 554. -extra muros, church near Rome, 503, 547, Agnese, female mathematician of Milan: her Agnesiana, library of Vercelli, 33. di Tura, chronicler, 627. of Siena, sculptor 4th century), 534, Agricola, Cav. Filippo, painter, 419. Airenti, Filippo, bishop of Savona, 689. Alassio, town, 680. Alba, town of the Equi, now a village, 494. Albani, countess of, friend of Alfieri, 325, 534; her tomb, 336. Albani, villa, 596. - palace at Rome, 567. -, cardinal, 429. Albano, Francesco, painter of the Bolognese Albarese, marshes of, near Siena, 635. Albenga, town, 689. Albergati Capacelli, palace at Bologna, 256. (16th century): his statue of the Virgin Albergo de' Poveri, hospital at Genoa, 686. Alberoni, legate of Romagna, 421, 426. -da Borgo San Sepolcro, Alberto, architect -, Leone Battista, great Florentine archi- Florentine paint Albertinelli, Mariotto, Aldini, Giovanni, professor at Bologna, 260 villa, 602. Aldobrandini Marriage, antique painting, 508 Aldus the elder, 466; his application to - the younger, his intention of bequeathing Aleotti, Giambattista, architect, 283. Alessandrin, cardinal: his tomb, 550. Alexander della Croce, St., church at Ber- -, St., church at Brescia, 97. in colonna, St., church at Bergamo, 87. -, St., church at Fiesole, 590. St., church at Lucca, 668. in Zebedia, church at Milan, 43. St., church at Parma, 280. dying, colossal head so called, 322. VI. (Borgia) compared to God, 508, 582. VIII., pope, 140. - Severus, emperor, 474, 494, 567, 573, 588. Alfieri: his verses upon the Brescian women Aliberti, the abbé, Piemontese painter (48th,Tommaso, sculptor, of Cremona (15th cen- Aliense, surname of Antonio Vassilacchi, Allatius, Leone, prefect of the Vatican, 554; Allegranza, Padre his opinion on the pre- Allegri: his Miserere, 507. Allent his reasonable conjectures on the death of Pietro Navarro, in his Histoire du Alpino, Prospero, physician, traveller, bo- Altemps, palace at Rome, 573. -, cardinal, built the Mondragone villa to Alvarez, contemporary Spanish sculptor, 535. tury), 306. Aminado, Giulio-Cesare, painter of the Par- Ammirato, Scipio, historian, 374 n.; attacks - Amphitheatre of Arezzo, 657— of Capua, 495 Anachronisms of Venetian painters, 99. Ancre, Marshal d', of Arezzo, 657. - d'Alessandro, of Brescia, sculptor 16th -d'Assisi, painter of the Roman school (13th - of Fiesole, sculptor (15th century), 247. - Pisano, architect (14th century): error of - - of Salerno, or Sabbatini, painter of the Nea -, Novella d', daughter of the professor of 237. |