I Need Not Mention The Two Equestrian Statues Of Constantine The
Great, And Charlemagne, Which Stand At Opposite Ends Of The Great
Portico Of St. Peter's Church; Because There Is Nothing In Them
Which Particularly Engaged My Attention.
The sleeping Cleopatra,
as you enter the court of the Belvedere, in the Vatican, is much
admired; but I was better pleased with the Apollo, which I take
to be the most beautiful statue that ever was formed.
The Nile,
which lies in the open court, surmounted with the little
children, has infinite merit; but is much damaged, and altogether
neglected. Whether it is the same described in Pliny, as having
been placed by Vespasian in the Temple of Peace, I do not know.
The sixteen children playing about it, denoted the swelling of
the Nile, which never rose above sixteen cubits. As for the
famous groupe of Laocoon, it surpassed my expectation. It was not
without reason that Buonaroti called it a portentous work; and
Pliny has done it no more than justice in saying it is the most
excellent piece that ever was cut in marble; and yet the famous
Fulvius Ursini is of opinion that this is not the same statue
which Pliny described. His reasons, mentioned by Montfaucon, are
these. The statues described by Pliny were of one stone; but
these are not. Antonioli, the antiquary, has in his Possession,
pieces of Laocoon's snakes, which were found in the ground, where
the baths of Titus actually stood, agreeable to Pliny, who says
these statues were placed in the buildings of Titus. Be that as
it may, the work which we now see does honour to antiquity. As
you have seen innumerable copies and casts of it, in marble,
plaister, copper, lead, drawings, and prints, and read the
description of it in Keysler, and twenty other books of travels,
I shall say nothing more on the subject; but that neither they
nor I, nor any other person, could say too much in its praise. It
is not of one piece indeed. In that particular Pliny himself
might be mistaken. "Opus omnibus et picturae, et statuariae artis
praeponendum. Ex uno lapide eum et Liberos draconumque mirabiles
nexus de consilii sententia fecere succubi artifices." "A work
preferable to all the other Efforts of Painting and Statuary. The
most excellent artists joined their Talents in making the Father
and his Sons, together with the admirable Twinings of the
Serpents, of one Block." Buonaroti discovered the joinings,
though they were so artfully concealed as to be before invisible.
This amazing groupe is the work of three Rhodian sculptors,
called Agesander, Polydore, and Athenodorus, and was found in the
thermae of Titus Vespasian, still supposing it to be the true
antique. As for the torso, or mutilated trunk of a statue, which
is called the school of Michael Angelo, I had not time to
consider it attentively; nor taste enough to perceive its
beauties at first sight. The famous horses on Monte Cavallo,
before the pope's palace, which are said to have been made in
emulation, by Phidias and Praxiteles, I have seen, and likewise
those in the front of the Capitol, with the statues of Castor and
Pollux; but what pleased me infinitely more than all of them
together, is the equestrian statue of Corinthian brass, standing
in the middle of this Piazza (I mean at the Capitol) said to
represent the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Others suppose it was
intended for Lucius Verus; a third set of antiquaries contend for
Lucius Septimius Severus; and a fourth, for Constantine, because
it stood in the Piazza of the Lateran palace, built by that
emperor, from whence pope Paul III. caused it to be removed to
the Capitol. I considered the trophy of Marius as a very curious
piece of sculpture, and admired the two sphinxes at the bottom of
the stairs leading to this Piazza, as the only good specimens of
design I have ever seen from Aegypt: for the two idols of that
country, which stand in the ground floor of the Musaeum of the
Capitol, and indeed all the Aegyptian statues in the Camera
Aegyptiaca of this very building, are such monstrous
misrepresentations of nature, that they never could have obtained
a place among the statues of Rome, except as curiosities of
foreign superstition, or on account of the materials, as they are
generally of basaltes, porphyry, or oriental granite.
At the farther end of the court of this Musaeum, fronting the
entrance, is a handsome fountain, with the statue of a river-god
reclining on his urn; this is no other than the famous Marforio,
so called from its having been found in Martis Fore. It is
remarkable only as being the conveyance of the answers to the
satires which are found pasted upon Pasquin, another mutilated
statue, standing at the corner of a street.
The marble coffin, supposed to have contained the ashes of
Alexander Severus, which we find in one of these apartments, is a
curious antique, valuable for its sculpture in basso relievo,
especially for the figures on the cover, representilig that
emperor and his mother Julia Mammea.
I was sorry I had not time to consider the antient plan of Rome,
disposed in six classes, on the stair-case of this Musaeum, which
was brought hither from a temple that stood in the Forum Boarium,
now called Campo vaccine.
It would be ridiculous in me to enter into a detail of the vast
collection of marbles, basso relievos, inscriptions, urns, busts,
and statues, which are placed in the upper apartments of this
edifice. I saw them but once, and then I was struck with the
following particulars. A bacchanalian drunk; a Jupiter and Leda,
at least equal to that in the gallery at Florence; an old
praesica, or hired mourner, very much resembling those wrinkled
hags still employed in Ireland, and in the Highlands of Scotland,
to sing the coronach at funerals, in praise of the deceased; the
famous Antinous, an elegant figure, which Pousin studied as canon
or rule of symmetry; the two fauns; and above all the mirmillone,
or dying gladiator; the attitude of the body, the expression of
the countenance, the elegance of the limbs, and the swelling of
the muscles, in this statue, are universally admired; but the
execution of the back is incredibly delicate.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 118 of 141
Words from 119254 to 120314
of 143308
