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last judgment: it is the greatest work of Michael Angelo, and perhaps of man. Nothing can be conceived more astonish- ing and dreadful than the ideas and fi- gures which his dark imagination has produced; neither the Inferno of Dante, nor the hell of Milton, can furnish any thing more terrible. But this amazing work is greatly discoloured, and the ceiling, by the same painter, is in many places broken down two or three feet in breadth. The sides are painted by Pietro Perugino, and are the best works that I have seen of this famous master of the divine Raphael.
I went into the orchestra with respect- ful curiosity, to see the place sacred to the works of Palestrina. It seems hardly large enough to contain thirty performers, the ordinary number of singers in the Pope's service; and yet, on great festivals, super- numeraries are added to these. There was nothing in the orchestra now but a large wooden desk for the score-book of the
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