well fitted for commemoration in the
arts. It is the apotheosis of human life resolved into undying memory
because of one great deed. It is the supreme portrait in modern times of
a young hero, chiselled by artists belonging to a race no longer heroic,
but capable of comprehending and expressing the aesthetic charm of
heroism. Standing before it, we may say of Gaston what Arrian wrote to
Hadrian of Achilles: "That he was a hero, if hero ever lived, I cannot
doubt; for his birth and blood were noble, and he was beautiful, and his
spirit was mighty, and he passed in youth's prime away from men."
Italian sculpture, under the condition of the _cinquecento_, had indeed
no more congenial theme than this of bravery and beauty, youth and
fame, immortal honor and untimely death; nor could any sculptor of death
have poetized the theme more thoroughly than Agostino Busti, whose
simple instinct, unlike that of Michael Angelo, led him to subordinate
his own imagination to the pathos of reality.

SARONNO.

The Church of Saronno is a pretty building with a Bramantesque cupola,
standing among meadows at some distance from the little town. It is the
object of a special cult, which draws pilgrims from the neighboring
country-side; but the concourse is not large enough to load the
sanctuary with unnecessary wealth. Everything is very quiet in the holy
place, and the offerings of the pious seem to have been only just enough
to keep the building and its treasures of art in repair. The church
consists of a nave, a central cupola, a vestibule leading to the choir,
the choir itself, and a small tribune behind the choir. No other single
building in North Italy can boast so much that is first-rate of the work
of Luini and Gaudenzio Ferrari.

The cupola is raised on a sort of drum composed of twelve pieces,
perforated with round windows and supported on four massive piers. On
the level of the eye are frescos by Luini of St. Rocco, St. Sebastian,
St. Christopher, and St. Anthony--by no means in his best style, and
inferior to all his other paintings in this church. The Sebastian, for
example, shows an effort to vary the traditional treatment of this
saint. He is tied in a sprawling attitude to a tree; and little of
Luini's special pathos or sense of beauty--the melody of idyllic grace
made spiritual--appears in him. These four saints are on the piers.
Above are frescos from the early Bible history by Lanini, painted in
continuation of Ferrari