"The Aurora."

GUIDO RENI, 1575-1642. ROSPIGLIOSI PALACE, ROME.

The palace on the Quirinal (now belonging to the Rospigliosi family), was built by Cardinal Borghese on the site of the Baths of Constantine. Borghese ordered Guido to fresco the Casino of the palace, and the result was his masterpiece, "The Aurora." The Casino is open to visitors only on Wednesdays and Saturdays. It consists of three halls on the ground floor, and "the Aurora" is on the ceiling of the central one. It is one of the most celebrated frescoes in Rome. Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, is represented as scattering flowers before the chariot of the sun, drawn by four piebald horses. Seven female figures in graceful action, linked hand in hand, encircle the chariot, in which Phoebus, god of the sun, is seated; they typify the hours. Cupid attends the chariot as morning star.

Cupid, Aurora and Phoebus form a climax of beauty, and the Hours seem as light as the clouds upon which they dance.

Thousands of tourists are admitted yearly to the Casino of this palace to view this masterpiece of Guido. A large mirror has been so placed as to enable visitors to view the fresco with ease and comfort. The charm is thus doubled, as when " the swans in sweet St. Mary's lake float twin-like, swan and shadow." During the siege of Rome, in 1849, a twenty-pound shot from the French batteries struck the roof of one of the lateral pavilions, shattering one fresco. All the other works of art narrowly escaped injury. The cannon ball is preserved, with an inscription, on a table in one of the rooms.

Byron says of the Aurora: "It is worth a journey to Rome to see it."

Hawthorne: "It could not be more lustrous in its hues if he had given the last touch an hour ago."

Burckhardt: "Certainly, taking all in all, the most perfect painting in the last two hundred years."