Page:The Diary of Dr John William Polidori.djvu/194

182 Brelaz and Bertolini seemed to be together, and that the man seemed worked off his legs.

My life at Milan was very methodical. I got up, went to the hospital, breakfasted, came home, studied, dined, and then at 7 went to the theatre. Between breakfast and study went to de Breme to help him in English. It was proposed too, by him, to teach English, which I had intended to do.

I saw only the dome under which is the chapel of St. Borromeo—very rich in silver, crystal, and jewels. The body is vested in pontificals, and quite dry. The orbits seem only filled with a little heap of black dirt, and the skull etc. is black. There is here the gnometer of Cassini. They preserve here a nail of the cross of Christ.—St. Ambrose, the ancient Cathedral. It was at the gates of this that Theodosius was refused entrance.—The Brera library; and the Ambrosian, where I saw the Virgil with marginal notes of Petrarch; some of the pieces of MSS. of the Plautus and Terence, fragments edited by Mai.—Some of the paintings there are beautiful. The Milanese Raphael has some heads expressing such mild heavenly meekness as is scarcely imagined.

[This Raphael is, as many readers will know, the Sposalizio, or Espousal of the Virgin Mary and Joseph. Being an early work by the master, it exhibits, in its "mild heavenly meekness," more of