Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/79

Rh Giacometti, by name, who obtained at once, by these statues, rank and fame amongst the first sculptors of Rome.

Sunday, December 6th.—Divine Service in the Sistine Chapel. Mass performed by the Pope himself, with an agreeable, but somewhat weak voice. The voice resembles his figure and his manner, which indicate an amiable friendly character, but deficient in energy. The service seemed to me a species of worship offered to the person of the Pope. He sits upon his throne and the cardinals advance one after another to kiss his hand, their trains borne by servants. The Pope, as well during mass as at the administration of the sacrament, is waited upon just as though he were an automaton which could not do any thing for itself. Most of these cardinals are old men with placid features, large pale countenances, several, at the same time, are very fat. (Cardinal Antonelli, the absolutist principle in the papal cabinet and the most influential person of the Roman state, but the most hated by all nationally-minded Italians, was not present.) The sermon was in Latin, and preached by a monk in black, who seemed to preach merely for the Pope, to whom his gestures and his discourse were exclusively directed. The music was learned and strong, but not musically executed; two beautiful soprano voices sung and warbled with wonderful art, but without feeling for the sentiment of it. It seems to me here, as in Florence, that music is treated as an art, but not as a fine art.

The greater proportion of those present were foreigners; the ladies all in black silk and with black vails.