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.
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