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. The course of the
muscles called longissimi dorsi, are so naturally marked and
tenderly executed, that the marble actually emulates the softness
of the flesh; and you may count all the spines of the vertebrae,
raising up the skin as in the living body; yet this statue, with
all its merit, seems inferior to the celebrated dying gladiator
of Ctesilas, as described by Pliny, who says the expression of it
was such, as appears altogether incredible. In the court, on the
opposite side of the Capitol, there is an admirable statue of a
lion devouring an horse, which was found by the gate of Ostia,
near the pyramid of Caius Cestius; and here on the left hand,
under a colonade, is what they call the Columna Rostrata, erected
in honour of Caius Duilius, who first triumphed over the
Carthaginians by sea.
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