A massive iron door, made ingeniously to imitate a rope-netting, opens from the side of the church into the _library_. It contained some twenty volumes in black letter, bound with enormous clasps and placed upon inclined shelves. It would have been a task for a man of moderate strength to lift either of them from the floor. The little sacristan found great difficulty in only opening one to show us the letter.
In the centre of the chapel on a high pedestal, stands the original antique group, so often copied, of the three Grecian Graces. It is shockingly mutilated; but its original beauty is still in a great measure discernable. Three naked women are an odd ornament for the private chapel of a cathedral.[1] One often wonders, however, in Italian churches, whether his devotion is most called upon by the arts or the Deity.
As we were leaving the church, four young officers passed us in gay uniform, their long steel scabbards rattling on the pavement, and their heavy tread disturbing visibly every person present. As I turned to look after them, with some remark on their coxcombry, they dropped on their knees at the bases of the tall pillars about the altar, and burying their faces in their caps, bowed their heads nearly to the floor, in attitudes of the deepest devotion. Sincere or not, Catholic worshippers of all classes _seem_ absorbed in their religious duties. You can scarce withdraw the attention even of a child in such places. In the six months that I have been in Italy, I never saw anything like irreverence within the church walls.
The public promenade, on the edge of the hill upon which the town is beautifully situated, commands a noble view of the country about. The peculiar landscape of Italy lay before us in all its loveliness--the far-off hills lightly tinted with the divided colors of distance, the atmosphere between absolutely clear and invisible, and villages clustered about, each with its ancient castle on the hill-top above, just as it was settled in feudal times, and as painters and poets would imagine it. You never get a view in this "garden of the world" that would not excuse very extravagant description.
Sienna is said to be the best place for learning the language. Just between Florence and Rome, it combines the "_lingua Toscano_," with the "_bocca Romano_"--the Roman pronunciation with the Florentine purity of language. It looks like a dull place, however, and I was very glad after dinner to resume my passport at the gate and get on.