wet.

designed with admirable life. The style of the entire work is, it is true, affected by the naturalism which marked the entire fifteenth century, but it is softened by a decided sense of the beautiful. The drapery, with its delicate folds, is treated as a thin material which clings to the body almost transparently, as though it had been put on Altogether all the figures display in their attitude and action, and in their type of countenance and expression, the general character common to the Lombardic School, but the execution is unusually tender and perfect in the smallest detail; the hands are full of life, the hair displays masterly freedom, and S. John the Evangelist especially is among the most beautiful inspirations of the period.'—Lübke, ‘History of Sculpture.'

Left Aisle, 1st Altar. A relief by Alfonso Lombardi da Ferrara, 1488-1537.

In the centre is S. Leonardo in a monk's cowl, which falls down in large simply arranged masses, and holding a chain with which he is raising his right hand. A thick curling beard encircles the beautiful head. To the left is S. Christopher, with the lovely infant Christ, who is playing with his full beard. He is represented in an advancing attitude, the short light garment leaving the powerful and beautifully formed thigh almost free; his hand is resting on the rude stem of a tree. On the right is S. Eustachius in the attire of a Roman warrior, rather indicated than fully detailed; the upper part of the figure is bare and the arms are naked, and the mantle has fallen down over the shoulders in rather elegant than grand folds. The head is charming in its youthful s lendour, and is surrounded with long curls; in form and expression it calls to mind the splendid heads of Sodoma, and is one of the most exquisite creations of this golden age. The artist of these three figures still adheres in the fine and careful treatment of the drapery, which affords an effective contrast to the simple monkish habit of S. Leonardo, to the tradition of the fifteenth century; but the figures, in their vigorous organisation, mature and beautiful forms, and perfect understanding of structure, give the impression of an art which had arrived at the height of perfection. The head of S. Eustachius is equal to the finest works of Andrea Sansovino.'-Lübke.

On a hill a short distance from the town are the Benedictine Church and Convent of the Madonna del Monte, where Pius VII. ( Padre Chiaramonte') was a monk.

Savignano (Stat.). The birthplace of the Archaeologist Borghese, 1781. Soon after leaving this, the blue overhanging mountain of S. Marino comes in sight upon the right. It is just such a mountain as we see in the backgrounds of Palmezzano and other painters.

Sant Angelo in Vado (Stat.). The birthplace of Pope Clement XIV. (Lorenzo Ganganelli), 1705.

Rimini (Stat.). Inns-Tre Rè, close to the station, a most comfortable small Italian inn; Aquila d'Oro, in the town, very inferior.

For those who are not in a hurry, or wish to rest, Rimini is a most pleasant place to stay at for a few days, and the air is delicious and invigorating.

'No one with any tincture of literary knowledge is ignorant of the fame at least of the great Malatesta family-the house of the Wrongheads, as they were rightly called by some prevision of their future part in Lombard history. The readers of the twenty-seventh and twentyeighth cantos of the "Inferno" have all heard of

"E il mastin vecchio e il nuovo da Verucchio
Che fecer di Montagna il mal governo ;

while the story of Francesca da Polenta, who was wedded to the hunchback Giovanni Malatesta and murdered by him with her lover Paolo, is known not merely to students of Dante, but to readers of Byron and Leigh Hunt, to admirers of Flaxman, Ary Scheffer, Doré-to all, in fact, who have of art and letters any love.

'The history of these Malatesti, from their first establishment under Otho III. as lieutenant for the Empire in the Marches of Ancona, down to their final subjugation by the Papacy in the age of the Renaissance, is made up of all the vicissitudes which could befall a mediæval Italian despotism. Acquiring an unlawful right over the towns of Rimini, Cesena, Sogliano, Ghiacciuolo, they ruled their petty principalities like tyrants by the help of the Guelf and Ghibelline factions, inclining to the one or the other as it suited their humour or their interest; wrangling among themselves, transmitting the succession of their dynasty through bastards or by deeds of force, quarrelling with their neighbours the Counts of Urbino, alternately defying and submitting to the Papal legates in Romagna, serving as condottiere in the wars of the Visconti and the State of Venice, and by their restlessness and genius for military intrigues contributing in no slight measure to the general disturbance of Italy. The Malatesti were a race of stronglymarked character: more, perhaps, than any other house of Italian tyrants, they combined for generations those qualities of the fox and the lion, which Machiavelli thought indispensable to a successful despot. Their power, based on force, was maintained by craft and crime, and transmitted through tortuous channels by intrigue, and while false in their dealings with the world at large, they were diabolical in the perfidy with which they treated one another.

'As far as Rimini is concerned, the house of Malatesta culminated in Sigismondo Pandolfo, son of Gian Galeazzo Visconti's general, the perfidious Pandolfo. It was he who built the Rocca and remodelled the Cathedral. He was one of the strangest products of the earlier Renaissance. To enumerate the crimes which he committed within the sphere of his own family would violate the decencies of literature. It is enough to mention that he murdered three wives in succession, Bussoni di Carmagnuola, Guinipera d'Este, and Polixena Sforza.'— F. A. Symonds.

The broad road from the station leads to the gate of the town, beyond which it becomes Via Principe Umberto. Hence, on the left, the Via al Tempio Malatestiano leads to the famous Church of S. Francesco, generally called Tempio dei Malatesti, a Gothic church entirely transmogrified by Alberti.

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By introducing the joint initials of Sigismund Pandolfo and his mistress Isotta degli Atti into the ornamentation of the building, by inscribing Sigismund's name upon the façade, and by placing sarcophagi in which the eminent men of the court of Rimini were buried, under the arches upon the side of the building, Alberti made it a great mausoleum to the memory of Sigismund and his friends, and much more like a Pagan temple than a Christian church. Nor is this illusion dispelled by the interior, which with its heathen emblems, its deification of Sigismund and Isotta in the statues of SS. Sigismund and Michael, its medallions, bas-reliefs, and inscriptions in Latin and Greek, has so heathen an aspect, that we involuntarily look towards the altar for a train of chaplet-crowned priests and augurs, about to offer a milk-white heifer in sacrifice to the god and goddess of Rimini.

'The woman who shares this homage with Sigismund, as she shared his life, was the daughter of Francesco di Atto, of the noble family of the Atti; her liaison with Sigismund Pandolfo commenced during the lifetime of his wife Polixena, daughter of Francesco Sforza, whom he is said to have strangled. The Neapolitan poet Porcellio, who lived at the court of Rimini, states that Isotta's father strongly condemned her conduct, and makes this the argument of three Elegiac Epistles, one of which (feignedly written by Isotta) pleads the irresistible power of love as an excuse for her fault, and the other (put into her father's mouth) replies, that the love which has subdued her is a false god, and that duty demands of her to leave her lover, and conduct herself henceforth like a virtuous woman.

'This account conflicts with Tito Strozzi's statement that Francesco di Atto, Isotta's father, was Sigismund's faithful friend and counsellor, and can only be made to agree with it if we believe that the lovers

were married after the death of Polixena Sforza, and that Isotta's father was reconciled to her. Besides these two elegies, other "Isottaei" are to be found in a rare book of poems, treating of the imaginary love of Jupiter for Isotta, which she repulses on account of her passion for Sigismund, and exalting her as more beautiful than Tyndaris, a better poetess than Sappho, and more constant than Penelope.

'She was really but moderately handsome, judging from models, busts, and pictures, was clever as a writer of Latin verses, learned in physics and moral philosophy, and, as far as we know, constant to one lover. Through her influence, Sigismund was led to repent of his sins and to expiate by benefits and kind actions the injuries which he had formerly inflicted upon so many of his subjects; and so great was his confidence in her judgment and experience, that at his death he left her joint ruler of Rimini with his natural son Sallustio. Fearful, however, that the Romish Church would seize upon her dominions on the plea of Sallustio's never having been legitimatized, she called Roberto, another illegitimate son of her husband, to a share in the government, who, being ambitious and wicked, caused Sallustio to be assassinated, and is said to have assisted by poison the progress of a slow fever, which attacked Isotta in 1470 and quickly carried her to the grave.' -Perkins's Tuscan Sculptors.'

The incompleteness of the Interior, and its barn-like roof, prevent S. Francesco from being beautiful, but the rich adornment of its chapels is deserving of careful examination. The transformation of the church by Sigismondo Malatesta was arrested at the fourth chapel. On the right of the entrance is the tomb of Sigismondo himself, ob. 1468, the simplest in the family mausoleum.

Right. The 1st Chapel, of S. Sigismund, has his statue over the altar. The beautiful pillars of the arch are supported by elephants, the Malatesta crest. The statues are by Ciuffagni. The low reliefs of angels on the inner wall are by Simone da Firenze, whose works resemble those of Donatello. The altar-piece of the Holy Family is by Luca Longhi da Ravenna.

*The 2nd Chapel (of the Relics) contains a most beautiful fresco by Piero della Francesca, representing Sigismondo kneeling at the feet of his patron saint, S. Sigismund, king of Hungary. Behind him, are his favourite greyhounds, and the castle which he built at Rimini is introduced. The fresco is signed Pietri de Burgo opus, 1481.'

The 3rd Chapel is especially devoted to Isotta. Here, raised high against the wall, supported by elephants, is her sarcophagus, and over the altar is her statue as S. Michael vanquishing the Devil! One of

the shields which are held by the angels on the screen bears the portraits of the three Malatesta brothers, Sigismondo, Paolo, and Lanciano. The low reliefs by Simone in this and the opposite chapel on a blue ground look like works of Luca della Robbia, but are certainly not by him.1

Left. The 1st Chapel (spoilt by modern gilding) has a magnificent sarcophagus containing the remains of the Famiglia Malatesta.' It is adorned with reliefs by Ghiberti. The beautiful statuettes of the Sibyls on the pillars are by Simone.

This church is the chief monument of Sigismondo's fame. It is here that all the Malatesta lie. Here too is the chapel dedicated to Isotta-"Divae Isottae Sacrum ;" and the tomb of the Malatesta ladies, "Malatestorum domûs heroidum sepulchrum ; and Sigismondo's own grave with the cuckold's horns and the scornful epitaph—

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"Porto le corna ch' ognuno le vede,

E tal le porta che non se le crede.”

Nothing but the fact that the church is duly dedicated to S. Francis, and that its outer shell of classic marble encases an old Gothic edifice, remains to remind us that it is a Christian place of worship. It has no sanctity, no spirit of piety. The pride of the tyrant whose legendSigismundus Pandulphus Malatesta Pan F. Fecit Anno Gratiae MCCCL "--occupies every arch and string-course of the architecture, and whose coat-of-arms and portrait in medallion, with his cipher and his emblems of an elephant and a rose, are wrought in every piece of sculptured work throughout the building, seems so to fill this house of prayer that there is no room left for God. Yet the cathedral of Rimini remains a monument of first-rate importance for all students who seek to penetrate the revived Paganism of the fifteenth century. It serves also to bring a far more interesting Italian of that period than the tyrant of Rimini himself before our notice. For, in the execution of his design, Sigismondo received the assistance of one of the most remarkable men of this or any other age, Leo Battista Alberti. . . . All that Alberti could do was to alter the whole exterior of the church, by affixing a screen-work of Roman arches and Corinthian pilasters, so as to hide the old design and yet leave the main features of the fabric, the windows and doors especially, in statu quo. With the interior he dealt upon the same general principle, by not disturbing its structure, while he covered every available square inch of surface with decorations alien to the Gothic manner. Externally, San Francesco is perhaps the most

Luca della Robbia is said by Vasari to have worked at fifteen on the tomb of Isctta. This is a mistake: Isotta died in 1470, Luca was born in 1399.

2 The account of this church given by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini ('Pii Secundi Comment.' ii. 92) deserves quotation: 'Aedificavit tamen nobile templum Arimini in honorem divi Francisci, verum ita gentilibus operibus implevit, ut non tam Christianorum quam infidelium daemones adorantium templum esse videatur.'