Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/105

Rh has since then elevated himself to an independent working out of his genius.

At Giacometti's, the author of the two groups at the foot of La Scala Santa, I admired the first models for these great works, which appeared to me to possess a still higher degree of power. Giacometti did not, until his fiftieth year, produce any thing extraordinary, when, all at once, by these groups, he placed himself at the summit of the scala santa of art.

Later, on the same day, at a small, select dinner party, at the polite Bavarian minister's, I heard a young Italian poetess—a Countess Cantalamessa, married to a Captain of the Pope's Swiss guard,—repeat her own verses. As far as I understood them, they were beautiful and pure, and the expression of the refined, sweet figure, when animated by the recitation, was most fascinating. She seemed to have wings. The gift of writing, and also of improvising verse, appears not to be unfrequent amongst Italian ladies, even of the higher class. Some ladies belonging to the higher circles of Rome, are known as distinguished poetesses.

Christmas Day.—Grand opera-performance at St. Peters! Jenny and I were present in the gallery erected for the occasion, where all the ladies sit in black dresses and vails. The centre nave of the church was occupied by the French guards, arranged in long lines. The pope was borne along in the procession, on men's shoulders, or heads, I could not see which, and surrounded on both sides by two immense peacock-fans, seemed to me so like an idol-image, that I could not get the idea out of my mind, as he, with