a member of the Academy, and, as this work testifies, a man of first-rate talent.

Our perambulation was continued to the Dominican Church of the Madonna delle Grazie. The columns of this building are in the Roman stile, with the acanthus leaf on the capitals. Here we find Titian's picture-the Crowning of our Saviour with Thorns (one of his very best) in a state of injury absolutely for want of care and cleaning. There are in this place some well painted altar pieces, by old masters, as well as modern artists. In a Crucifixion, (on stucco) A. Ferrari, to render the man who spears our Saviour as revolting to the sight as possible, has made him goitrous! Tinsel crowns stuck on the heads of the holy personages, in a Descent from the Cross, spoil a noble effort of M. A. Caravaggio's pencil. A Scourging of Christ and an Ecce Homo by Ferrari; and a Madonna and Child by Fiamingini, are all of them superior pictures. The St. Paul and the paintings of the Dome by Gaudenzio Ferrari, present fine specimens of the art. In the cloisters of the Church is an effigy of Diego Ramirez, a Spanish Commandant of Milan, excellently sculptured. The walls still retain some of the paintings of Zenale. The Sacristy contains an Assumption of the Virgin, finely done by F. Bonalli, and a fresco by Luini, of which the colours are well preserved. The room is lined with portraits of Saints and Popes, and with legendary subjects. It also contains a bust of St. Charles Borromeo, and a portrait of his uncle Pius IV.

The altar of the Chapel of the Madonna is ornamented with her picture by Leonardo da Vinci. Also a fiue group, consisting of the Madonna and Child, St. Dominic, and St. Francis, by Camillo Procaccini. But the grand

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decoration delle Grazie is the Virgin, with a crown on her head and a sceptre in her right hand. The face is waxwork, adorned with luxuriant ringlets of hair; the figure, size of life, is dressed in a stiff brocade of silk and gold. The Queen-of all the Dolls! In the palm of her left hand sits a ludicrously dressed-up image of a child with a little flaxen frizzed-out wig, and over that a little golden crown! Near this "Privileged Altar," are hung up petticoats, stays, and other female habiliments, forming a kind of ex-voto wardrobe for the Great Diana!

And it is with trumpery like this, that the works of a Leonardo, a Titian, and a Caravaggio are condemned to be mingled in one of the most frequented churches. The manifest object of this medley-the hardly disguised aim of the whole factitious system, is to secure the deluding and deluded heart in its favour, through the medium of the senses. The "seal of the Fisherman" sanctions the use of various hooks and all kinds of baits, to catch each sort and condition in the world. It is to this end that highly polished and delicate ones are used for the rich and mighty, the learned and refined; whilst others, roughly hewn and coarsely laden, are employed upon the poor and ignorant. Fine music, fine pictures, fine statues are indeed indispensable things to keep in countenance and good humour those who would turn with disgust from a church, which should have nothing better to offer them than mere puppet-shews got up for the edification of the vulgar. Thus the will of Rome is daily done in Milan; and Christianity looks in vain for its own likeness.

We were glad enough to be able to give our English

taste and Protestant feeling a little refreshment in the refectory of the (ci-devant) Dominicans, justly celebrated and visited on account of the large fresco by Da Vinci, representing the Last Supper. This, perhaps, noblest effort of an almost universal genius, is now but the ghost of a picture: the spectre of a Divine and Apostolic subject. In this grand work simplicity of general design and force of individual expression were happily united. These still gleam dimly as it were through the veil which the decomposition of the stucco has thrown over what formerly could doubtless boast a clear outline and a powerful, though probably never a florid, tone of colouring. It is mortifying to think, that, whilst the worthless memory of a hundred lying legends will be preserved and multiplied through the intervention of pictorial art, this truly fine piece of Scripture History painting, which the Christian and the Connoisseur may contemplate with equal admiration, is inevitably going "to cureless ruin." The abilities of Morghen and Rinaldi have, however, secured from the grasp of "dull forgetfulness" the Cenacolo of Leonardo, by engravings that, in doing justice to his work, have for ever established their own fame. The lower part of this famous painting is about seven or eight feet from the floor of the large and lofty apartment. On ascending the platform which, for the greater satisfaction of public curiosity, has been erected close to it, we passed our hands along the wall, and found it damp and rough to a degree, that left little doubt in our minds respecting the cause to which the unfortunate condition of the picture is mainly to be ascribed. At the opposite end of the Refectory is a fresco Crucifixion, painted on an equally large scale, by Dio Donatus Montefanus; it bears the date of 1495,

and is a fine composition though in the Gothic taste.* The Convent itself has long been used as a depôt of artillery. And the cloister, on the walls of which the same Montefanus had represented all the credible and incredible incidents of meek Dominic's biography, is nearly destroyed.

We next proceeded to the conventual Church of St. Ambrosio. The dilapidated cloister through which we pass to it, is a quadrangle of thick columns, with curiously wrought capitals of stone, whence spring ranges of brick arcades. There are some remarkable frescoes still remaining on the walls, and a great many very ancient sepulchral effigies of Bishops and Abbots, on the pavement. The church is said to have been erected on the ruins of a temple of Minerva; and among the existing evidences that countenance this assertion, is a corinthian pillar, evidently Roman, which stands near the western portal. The pulpit is supported by a very ancient and elaborate relievo in alabaster, containing a multitude of figures relating to the history of the Patron Saint. A Crucifixion sculptured also in alabaster over the door in the south transept, is another interesting monument of antiquity. There are numerous fresco paintings in the church, some by Luini. Behind the grand altar is a

"The true causes (says Lady Morgan) of the present faded and decayed state of Leonardo da Vinci's celebrated fresco are the bad quality of the materials of which the wall itself is constructed, and its exposure to the north." Italy p. 81.)-This remark meets with additional support from the fact that the fresco by Montefanus at the opposite end of the Refectory preserves its colours much better, though it has sustained injury in other respects. Even as early as 1646 (we learn from Mr. Evelyn's Diary) "Leonardo's incomparable piece" had become exceedingly impaired."

semi-circular chapel, being, it is said, that part of the church which St. Ambrose consecrated hireself to the Saints Gervasius and Protasius, about the year 387.* In this elevated sanctuary we were shewn the marble chair of the venerable Archbishop; whose body is interred under the altar, beneath a shrine supported by columns of porphyry, the canopy of which is elaborately covered with reliefs, executed in a stile that strongly marks its remote date. There is much here to engage the attention of the architectural antiquary: the oldest part of the building being contemporaneous with the age of Charlemagne, and greatly resembling the stile of St. Irenæus at Lyon, Aix-la-Chapelle Cathedral, and Saint Germain des Prés, at Paris. Here they shew us the place where St. Austin is stated to have received baptism from the hands of St. Ambrose; also the tombs of Louis the Emperor, and two of the sons of Charlemagne. We find chapel after chapel filled with paintings. The one dedicated to Marcellina, sister of St. Ambrose, contains an altar piece, surmounted by a beautiful figure in marble, of that Virgin devotee, recently executed by Pacatti. The iron gates of the western entrance are said to be of the time of St. Ambrose.+

*There are, however, grounds for believing that such puerile and superstitious trash as one finds accumulated in the churches at Milan, would have been swept out with other corruptions of Christianity, by one of its first Archbishops.——“ Ambrose, who presided over the diocese of the north of Italy, and was contemporary with Basil, Jerome, and Cyril, the advocates of relics, openly reproved the mother of Augustine, for attempting to introduce, what he properly called the heathenish custom, of resorting to the graves of the dead, with lamps and tapers, and adoring their remains. (Aug. Con. lib. vi. c. 2.)”—See Gilly's researches among the Vaudois. Chap. xi.

This Church is also famous for some Councils that have been held there, and for the Coronation of divers Italian Kings and Emperors, re