There is a
picture of St. Agnes, by Andrea del Sarto, in the former, and there
are a variety of rich columns in the latter, that tempt me
strongly.
It is, I hope, no breach of my resolution not to be tempted into
elaborate descriptions, to remember the Campo Santo; where grass-
grown graves are dug in earth brought more than six hundred years
ago, from the Holy Land; and where there are, surrounding them,
such cloisters, with such playing lights and shadows falling
through their delicate tracery on the stone pavement, as surely the
dullest memory could never forget. On the walls of this solemn and
lovely place, are ancient frescoes, very much obliterated and
decayed, but very curious. As usually happens in almost any
collection of paintings, of any sort, in Italy, where there are
many heads, there is, in one of them, a striking accidental
likeness of Napoleon. At one time, I used to please my fancy with
the speculation whether these old painters, at their work, had a
foreboding knowledge of the man who would one day arise to wreak
such destruction upon art: whose soldiers would make targets of
great pictures, and stable their horses among triumphs of
architecture.
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