flying towards the centre: the artist never departing from the purpose he had proposed to himself in any portion of the picture; by this invention of the fire for example, he gave an appropriate as well as beautiful character to his chimneypiece; and the same may be said of every other part of the painting.[1]
To render his work still more fearful and terrible, Giulio has exhibited many of the giants, who are of the most extraordinary forms, as well as of immense stature, in the act of falling to the earth, some backwards, others on their faces, as they are differently struck and wounded by the lightnings and thunder-bolts; some are already dead, others writhing with their wounds, and still more lying crushed and partially covered by the mountains and edifices which have fallen upon them. Wherefore let none believe that he could ever behold any work of the pencil better calculated to awaken fear and horror, or more truly natural and life-like, than that before us; nay, whosoever enters that chamber and sees all the doors, windows, and other parts, constructed as they areawry, and as it were on the point of falling with the buildings, and even the mountains tumbling around in ruin, cannot fail to be in doubt whether all be not about to topple down upon him, and the rather as he sees the very gods in heaven, some rushing here, and others there, but all taking to flight.[2]
Another circumstance remarkable in this work is the fact, that it has neither beginning nor end; the whole is nevertheless well connected in all its parts, and continued throughout unbroken by division or the intervention of frame-work or decorations, so that all the objects which are near the buildings appear to be of great size, while those at a distance and scattered about the landscapes[3] seem to diminish gradually,
- ↑ The chimney was closed up, the fires made in it doing injury, by the smoke they threw out, to the pictures above. These were cleaned towards the year 1786 by the painter Carlo Bottani, the author of the Descrizione Storica, before cited.
- ↑ Pietro Santi Bartoli gives eight engravings of the pictures in this room, but would seem to have copied from the Cartoons of Giulio Romano, since the engravings do not strictly follow the paintings, in which the master is known to have made several changes from the original designs.
- ↑ According to Gaye, the Landscape in this work is by Fermo of Caravaggio.
