Go to them! Relate what you have seen;
and do not doubt that sufficient money will be forthcoming to erect
my chapel, or that it will, afterwards, be handsomely maintained.'
All of which (miraculously) turned out to be quite true. And in
proof of this prediction and revelation, there is the chapel of the
Madonna della Guardia, rich and flourishing at this day.
The splendour and variety of the Genoese churches, can hardly be
exaggerated. The church of the Annunciata especially: built, like
many of the others, at the cost of one noble family, and now in
slow progress of repair: from the outer door to the utmost height
of the high cupola, is so elaborately painted and set in gold, that
it looks (as SIMOND describes it, in his charming book on Italy)
like a great enamelled snuff-box. Most of the richer churches
contain some beautiful pictures, or other embellishments of great
price, almost universally set, side by side, with sprawling
effigies of maudlin monks, and the veriest trash and tinsel ever
seen.
It may be a consequence of the frequent direction of the popular
mind, and pocket, to the souls in Purgatory, but there is very
little tenderness for the BODIES of the dead here.
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