"Here," he resumed, arising and leaning on my arm as he sauntered
around the apartment, "here are paintings from the Greeks to
Cimabue, and from Cimabue to the present hour. Many are chosen, as you
see, with little deference to the opinions of Virtu. They are all,
however, fitting tapestry for a chamber such as this. Here too, are
some chefs d'oeuvre of the unknown great --and here unfinished designs
by men, celebrated in their day, whose very names the perspicacity
of the academies has left to silence and to me. What think you,"
said he, turning abruptly as he spoke --"what think you of this
Madonna della Pieta?"
It is Guido's own!" I said with all the enthusiasm of my nature, for
I had been poring intently over its surpassing loveliness. "It is
Guido's own! --how could you have obtained it? --she is undoubtedly in
painting what the Venus is in sculpture."
"Ha!" said he thoughtfully, "the Venus --the beautiful Venus?
--the Venus of the Medici? --she of the diminutive head and the gilded
hair? Part of the left arm (here his voice dropped so as to be heard
with difficulty,) and all the right are restorations, and in the
coquetry of that right arm lies, I think, the quintessence of all
affectation.
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