But This Is A Modern Pillar, With The Old
Inscription, Which Is So Defaced As Not To Be Legible.
Among the
pictures in the gallery and saloon above, what pleased me most
was the Bacchus and Ariadne of Guido Rheni; and the wolf suckling
Romulus and Remus, by Rubens.
The court of the Palazzo Farnese is
surrounded with antique statues, among which the most celebrated
are, the Flora, with a most delicate drapery; the gladiator, with
a dead boy over his shoulder; the Hercules, with the spoils of
the Nemean lion, but that which the connoisseurs justly esteem
above all the rest is Hercules, by Glycon, which you know as well
as I do, by the great reputation it has acquired. This admirable
statue having been found without the legs, these were supplied by
Gulielmo de la Porta so happily, that when afterwards the
original limbs were discovered, Michael Angelo preferred those of
the modern artist, both in grace and proportion; and they have
been retained accordingly. In a little house, or shed, behind the
court, is preserved the wonderful group of Dirce, commonly called
the Toro Farnese, which was brought hither from the thermae
Caracallae. There is such spirit, ferocity, and indignant
resistance expressed in the bull, to whose horns Dirce is tied by
the hair, that I have never seen anything like it, either upon
canvass, or in stone. The statues of the two brothers
endeavouring to throw him into the sea are beautiful figures,
finely contrasted; and the rope, which one of them holds in a
sort of loose coil, is so surprisingly chizzelled, that one can
hardly believe it is of stone.
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