Magnificent it certainly was, but coarsely magnificent,
like so much elsewhere in Genoa; but, if we had been at ten times the
trouble we were in seeing the Palace of the Municipality, I should not
think it too much. There in the great hall are the monuments of those
Genoese notables whose munificence their country wished to remember in
the order of their generosity. I do not remember just what the maximum
was, but the Doge or other leading citizen who gave, say, twenty-five
thousand ducats to the state had a statue erected to him; one who gave
fifteen, a bust; and one who gave five, an honorary tablet. The
surprising thing is that nearly all the statues and busts, whether good
likenesses or not, are delightful art: it is as if the noble acts of the
benefactors of their country had inspired the sculptors to reproduce
them not only in true character, but in due dignity. To the American who
views them and remembers that we have now so much money that some of us
do not know what to do with it, they will suggest that our millionaires
have an unrivalled opportunity of immortality in the same sort.
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