On my journey from Turin to Milan, I had the mighty Mont Rosa, with its
powerful snow mass, and the St. Bernard, over which Buonaparte led his
tattered troops, before my eyes. We went across maize fields, through
thickets, over the battlefield of Magenta. From reading Beyle, I had
pictured Milan as a beautiful town, full of free delight in life. Only
to see it would be happiness. And it was,--the cupola gallery, the
dome, from the roof of which, immediately after my arrival, I looked
out over the town, shining under a pure, dark-blue sky. In the evening,
in the public gardens, I revelled in the beauty of the Milanese women.
Italian ladies at that time still wore black lace over their heads
instead of hats. Their dresses were open in front, the neck being bare
half-way down the chest. I was struck by the feminine type. Upright,
slender-waisted women; delicate, generally bare hands; oval faces, the
eyebrows of an absolutely perfect regularity; narrow noses, well
formed, the nostrils curving slightly upwards and outwards--the models
of Leonardo and Luini.
The _Last Supper_, in the church of St. Maria delle Grazie, and the
drawings in the Ambrose Library, brought me closer to Leonardo than I
had ever been able to get before, through reproductions; I saw the true
expression in the face of the Christ in the _Last Supper_, which copies
cannot avoid distorting.