“We hâve seen several palaces these days; first the
Farnese Palace, the most beautiful of all, built by Sangallo and Michel-
angelo of stones plundered from the Colosseum and the theatre of
Marcellus. This isolated palace has the form of a perfect square, and it
stands on a very attractive little piazza. Like the palaces of Florence it is
also a fortress. Danger lurked everywhere in the streets of Rome in the
fourteenth century; popes were deposed and massacred like the dey of
Algiers today; but as an effect of this singular and non-military
despotism, the history of Rome is far more savage and interesting than
that of Bologna, Milan or Florence.
The Farnese Palace, admirable because of Michelangelo’s architec¬
ture, would be regarded today as horribly gloomy. I quite understand
how, on the first day, a young Frenchwoman accustomed to our houses
pierced by a hundred Windows, might hâve the impression of a prison.
A court closed on four sides is always an absurdity in a palace that is
not a fortress, and whose master is supposed to be rich enough to buy
ail the necessary ground, since he aims at magnificence…” (Stendhal)