I Never In My Life Possessed Descriptive Powers, Even For Objects
Of No Great Importance:
How then could I attempt to delineate the
innumerable beauties of this edifice?
Yet, vast as it is, the proportions
of the facade are so correct, that they, together with the semi-circular
colonnaded portico, serve to diminish its apparent size and to render its
mass less imposing, but perhaps more beautiful. On this account it appears
at first sight of less size than the Church of St Paul's in London. The
beauty of the architecture, viz., of the facade and of the colonnaded
portico would require days to examine and admire. What shall I say then of
the wonders of the interior, crowded and charged as it is with the finest
pieces of sculpture, columns of the most beautiful verd antique and of
jaune antique; the masterpieces of painting copied in mosaic; the
precious, stones and marbles of all sorts that adorn the variety of
magnificent chapels and altars; the immense baldachin with its twisted
columns of bronze (the spoils of the Pantheon and of the temple of
Jerusalem); the profusion of gilding and ornament of all sorts and where in
spite of this profusion there seems rien de trop. At first entrance the
eye is so dazzled with the magnificent tout ensemble as to be incapable
for a long time of examining any thing in detail. Each chapel abounds in
the choicest marbles and precious stones: in a word it would seem as if the
whole wealth of the Earth were concentrated here.
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