[Illustration: JEREMIAH EVARTS From a portrait painted by Morse owned by Sherman Evarts, Esq.] CHAPTER XVI FEBRUARY 6, 1880--JUNE 15, 1830 Serra Palace in Genoa.--Starts for Rome.--Rain in the mountains.--A brigand.--Carrara.--First mention of a railroad.--Pisa.--The leaning tower.--Rome at last.--Begins copying at once.--Notebooks.--Ceremonies at the Vatican.--Pope Pius VIII.--Academy of St. Luke's.--St Peter's.-- Chiesa Nuova.--Painting at the Vatican.--Beggar monks.--Fata of the Annunciation.--Soirée at Palazzo Simbaldi.--Passion Sunday.--Horace Vernet.--Lying in state of a cardinal.--_Miserere_ at Sistine Chapel.-- Holy Thursday at St Peter's.--Third cardinal dies.--Meets Thorwaldsen at Signor Persianis's.--Manners of English, French, and Americans.--Landi's pictures.--Funeral of a young girl.--Trip to Tivoli, Subiaco.--Procession of the _Corpus Domini._--Disagreeable experience. The enthusiastic artist was now in Italy, the land of his dreams, and his notebooks are filled with short comments or longer descriptions of churches, palaces, and pictures in Genoa and in the other towns through which he passed on his way to Rome, or with pen-pictures of the wild country through which he and his fellow travellers journeyed. In Genoa, where he stopped several days, he was delighted with the palaces and churches, and yet he found material for criticism:-- "The next place of interest was the Serra Palace, now inhabited by one of that family, who, we understood, was insane. After stopping a moment in the anteroom, the ceiling of which is painted in fresco by Somnio, we were ushered into the room called the most splendid in Europe, and, if carving and gilding and mirrors and chandeliers and costly colors can make a splendid room, this is certainly that room. The chandeliers and mirrored sides are so arranged as to create the illusion that the room is of indefinite extent. To me it appeared, on the whole, tawdry, seeing it in broad daylight. In the evening, when the chandeliers are lighted, I have no doubt of its being a most gorgeous exhibition, but, like some showy belle dressed and painted for evening effect, the daylight turns her gold into tinsel and her bloom into rouge. "After having stayed nearly four days in Genoa, and after having made arrangements with our honest _vetturino_, Dominique, to take us to Rome, stopping at various places on the way long enough to see them, we retired late to bed to prepare for our journey in the morning. "On Wednesday morning, February 10, we rose at five o'clock, and, after breakfast of coffee, etc., we set out at six on our journey towards Rome." I shall not follow them every step of the way, but shall select only the more personal entries in the diary.