At the beginning of winter, this young gentleman was still lingering
in a country house situated at the base of the Tyrolese Alps, and
purchased in the previous spring by the Duchess Cataneo. The house,
erected by Palladio for the Piepolo family, is a square building of
the finest style of architecture. There is a stately staircase with a
marble portico on each side; the vestibules are crowded with frescoes,
and made light by sky-blue ceilings across which graceful figures
float amid ornament rich in design, but so well proportioned that the
building carries it, as a woman carries her head-dress, with an ease
that charms the eye; in short, the grace and dignity that characterize
the _Procuratie_ in the piazetta at Venice. Stone walls, admirably
decorated, keep the rooms at a pleasantly cool temperature. Verandas
outside, painted in fresco, screen off the glare. The flooring
throughout is the old Venetian inlay of marbles, cut into unfading
flowers.
The furniture, like that of all Italian palaces, was rich with
handsome silks, judiciously employed, and valuable pictures favorably
hung; some by the Genoese priest, known as _il Capucino_, several by
Leonardo da Vinci, Carlo Dolci, Tintoretto, and Titian.
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