Again, rich churches, drowsy Masses, curling
incense, tinkling bells, priests in bright vestments: pictures,
tapers, laced altar cloths, crosses, images, and artificial
flowers.
There is a grave and learned air about the city, and a pleasant
gloom upon it, that would leave it, a distinct and separate
impression in the mind, among a crowd of cities, though it were not
still further marked in the traveller's remembrance by the two
brick leaning towers (sufficiently unsightly in themselves, it must
be acknowledged), inclining cross-wise as if they were bowing
stiffly to each other--a most extraordinary termination to the
perspective of some of the narrow streets. The colleges, and
churches too, and palaces: and above all the academy of Fine Arts,
where there are a host of interesting pictures, especially by
GUIDO, DOMENICHINO, and LUDOVICO CARACCI: give it a place of its
own in the memory. Even though these were not, and there were
nothing else to remember it by, the great Meridian on the pavement
of the church of San Petronio, where the sunbeams mark the time
among the kneeling people, would give it a fanciful and pleasant
interest.
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