into barracks, a cursory view often produces disappointment, and close attention is required to discover all their merits. Another Department of the Vatican, comprising a suite of half a dozen chambers, contains a small but choice collection of pictures by the first masters. The most celebrated of these is the Transfiguration, by Raphael, the merits of which have in my opinion been greatly overrated. Truth compels me to confess, that it afforded me very little pleasure-far less than many of the minor pieces of the same artist. My disappointment was perhaps in part owing as usual to exaggerated expectations. Yet it appeared to me there are intrinsic and obvious defects in the design, the composition, and expression. Of the other rare pictures in this gallery, the most remarkable are the Medonna di Foligno, and the Coronation of the Madonna, by Raphael; the Crucifixion of St. Peter, by Guido; the Incredulity of St. Thomas, and a Magdalen, by Guercino; a Holy Family, by Caravaggio; a Madonna and Saints, ascribed to Titian; the Communion of St. Jerome, by Domenichino. These are all gems. The two first and the last are inimitable productions. Most of them have crossed the Alps and attracted crowds of admirers to the Louvre, where they remained till the restoration of the Bourbons. The apartments in which they are at present deposited, are open to the public twice a week, and at all times accessible to artists, to whom every facility is afforded for tak ing copies and prosecuting their professional pursuits, LETTER LXXIII. ROME CONTINUED-VATICAN MUSEUM-LIBRARY-GARDENSKETCH OF THE PRESENT POPE. Juue, 1826.-The Chiaramonti and Pio-Clementino Museums at the Vatican are so extensive, and contain such an infinite variety of articles, that I almost recoil from the task of retracing the labyrinth of sumptuous saloons, and of attempting to give even so much as a desultory notice of their splendid treasures. In comparison with this display of papal magnificence, the halls of the Louvre, the galleries of Florence, and the Studii at Naples are but toy-shops. Here are not less than fifty apartments, or more properly superb temples of the arts, of different sizes and the most beautiful forms; sometimes opening immediately into another, and at others, connected by long corridors, presenting the finest vistas imaginable; with pavements of the richest mosaic, walls lined with pillars of porphyry, alabaster, and Parian marble, and roofs bright with azure and gold; all filled with the choicest collections of antiquities, sculptures, busts, and statues. Several visits are required, to catch even a hasty glance at the innumerable objects, which challenge attention and bewilder the mind of the spectator. The entrance to the Museum is from the quarter of the Vatican denominated the Belvidere, through a gallery something like a thousand feet in length, and fifteen or twenty feet in width, the walls of which are lined from the floor to the ceiling with ancient inscriptions. Those on the right are taken from the tombs, tablets, and sarcophagi of the old Romans; while those upon the left were chiefly found in the catacombs, and relate to the early christians. The original fragments of marble are arranged with care, and firmly fixed, so as to form the permanent facing of the wall. Having traversed this Campo Santo of the Vatican, the traveller who has set out on the interesting journey of the rounds of the Museum, arrives at an iron railing, extending across the hall, with a gate under lock and key, which is opened only twice a week to the public. On both sides of the hall extend long ranges of antique statues, busts, hermes, bas-reliefs, urns, and sarcophagi, of the richest materials and the most finished workmanship. Apartment opens after apartment, where under the auspices of munificent Pontiffs, the divinities of antiquity repose in more sumptuous alcoves, than they enjoyed in the day of their glory, and imperial heads are mounted upon prouder pedestals, than they ever found in the palaces of the Cæsars. The Belvidere Torso, so much admired and studied by Michael Angelo, can afford little pleasure to any one, except a connoiseur or an artist. In the vestibule which contains it are to be seen the sarcophagus and bust of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, taken from the tomb of that illustrious family, alluded to in one of my previous letters. There is a character of rude unostentatious grandeur and republican simplicity about these memorials of the dead, which exalts them above the tawdry decorations of later times. The material is of peperino, a common kind of stone used for building, and the sole object of these stern monuments seems to have been, to designate the ashes and perpetuate the name of a great man. There could indeed have been no other motive; for it will be remembered, that the tomb of the Scipios was a plain subterranean vault, like that of our own immortal Washington at Mount Vernon, with no imperial mausoleum towering to the skies, to court the admiration of the passenger. From the corridor which looks into one of the twenty spacious courts of the Vatican, I saw a beautiful model of a ship in bronze, floating on the undulations of the fountain below. Here also is deposited a sun-dial of the old Romans, on which time is measured according to the ancient mode of computation. The elegant little temple denominated the first cabinet, contains the Perseus and the Boxers of Canova, which are almost the only modern statues to be found in this immense collection; a signal honour, though conferred perhaps less from an acknowledgment of his pre-eminent claims as an artist, than on account of his invaluable services in the arrangement of the Museum. The works of any modern artist, whatever may be his merits, must suffer by a comparison with the master-pieces of antiquity; and the Perseus and Boxers of Canova are severely put to the test, by being placed in contiguity with the group of Laocoon and the Belvidere Apollo. Much as I had heard of the former of these immortal works, the half had not been told me and the reality far exceeded my expectations. It is utterly impossible to convey either by words or copies an adequte idea of the original, which in my opinion is the ne plus ultra of human art, and the next step to creative power. Never was greater force of expression imparted to inanimate matter, which is here invested with all the attributes of feeling and suffering, except the vital principle itself. Every school-boy, who has read Virgil or heard of the Trojan horse, is familiar with the story of Laocoon. It is indeed highly probable, that the poet drew his animated description of the ill-fated son of Priam from this very statue, which is satisfactorily proved to have existed long before the Eneid was written. Pliny states it to be the joint production of three artists of Rhodes, who lived four hundred years before the christian era. It was considered in his time as the greatest work of the kind, either in statuary or painting. His account of it leaves it in the Palace of Titus; and it was found in the Baths of that emperor in the 16th century. The right arm was missing, which Michael Angelo attempted to restore, but could not satisfy himself, and after several trials gave up the undertaking. A higher compliment could not be paid to the merits of the original. The defect was supplied by a cast of Bernini. Laocoon and his two sons, with a host of other antiques in this Museum, paid their court to Napoleon, and for several years enriched the collection of the Louvre. More copies of it are to be found than of any other work, and it may fairly be considered as the finest group of statuary now in existence. The Belvidere Apollo, that beautiful idol at whose shrine thousands have worshipped, and whose praises have been hymned with as much enthusiasm by modern amateurs,* as they once were by the circle of the Muses, received no servile act of homage from me. I walked erect into his presence, with as stubborn a republican knee, as was sometimes preserved in my approaches to his Holiness, while the multitude were prostrate upon the pavement.† His pretensions * Winkelman concludes his elaborate description of this statue with the following rhapsody : "When I behold this prodigy of art, I forget all the universe; I assume a more dignified attitude, to be worthy to contemplate it. From adiniration I pass into ecstacy. Penetrated with respect, I feel my bosom heave and dilate itself, as in those filled with the spirit of prophecy. I am transported to Delos, and the sacred groves of Lycia, once honoured by the presence of the god; for the beauty before me seems to acquire motion, like that produced of old by the chisel of Pygmalion. How is it possible to describe thee, thou inimitable master-piece, unless I had the help of ancient science itself to inspire me, and guide my pen? I lay at thy feet the sketch I have rudely attempted; as those who cannot reach the brows of the divinity they adore, offer at its footstool the garlands with which they would fain have crowned its head." Such is the enthusiastic apostrophe of a grave antiquary. It is the merest rant, and rant too with not even the merit of originality. For Lord Byron's beautiful hymn to the Apollo Belvidere, the reader is referred to the 4th Canto of Childe Harold. † I was sometimes extremely embarrassed to know what to do, when the Pope was coming, and the crowd cowered to earth like a flock of pigeons. To kneel to a mortal was contrary fo my feelings; and to stand upright whilst others knelt, looked like singularity and ill manners. The old adage, "when you are with the Romans do as the Romans do," furnishes perhaps the best general rule of conduct in a foreign country. A pleasant anec dote is related of Horace Walpole, in his visit to Italy. As he entered the door of the Pope's apartment at the Vatican, and stood hesitating whether he would conform to the usual act of humiliation, the aged Pontiff observed his embarrassment and relieved it by saying---"Kneel, my son, and receive the blessing of an old man: it can do you no harm." to divinity, (I mean Apollo, and not Leo XII.) are unobtrusive, and certainly at the first glance the god does not stand confessed. There is not so much of majesty in the face, form or attitude, as one might expect to find in the son of Jove, with the attributes ascribed to him by Homer. The predominant character of the statue appeared to me to be that of beauty, rather than of dignity or grandeur. Its height is but little above the human stature; its proportions symmetrical and manly, without any tension of muscles, or affected exhibition of strength; and its position is light, easy, and graceful. My obtuse perceptions were unable to detect in the features and the expression of the face any of those super-human traits-that "beautiful disdain," which Byron discovers in the eye, and which Winkelman finds seated on the lip. The poet and antiquary are here sadly at variance, as to the locus in quo. The latter says that "his eye is all sweetness, as if he were now surrounded by the Muses, eager to offer him their caressing homage." Madam Starke concludes her description of the statue with the remark, that "it exhibits all the masculine beauty, grace, and dignity, with which we may suppose Adam to have been adorned before the fall!" This opinion approximates somewhat to that of Sir Benjamin West, who thought it an exact model of the North American Indian. But not to detail all the ridiculous things that have been said of the Belvidere Apollo, it is doubtless a work of transcendant merit, and the unknown artist, who may almost be said to have breathed into its nostrils the breath of life, has furnished a beautiful illustration of the ancient fable, alluded to in the following passage of Childe Harold: "And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 'twas wrought." The Hall of Animals is one of the most interesting and * This statue was found in the 15th century at Antium, a seaport thirty miles from the mouth of the Tiber, and is supposed to have been brought thither by the emperor Nero, a native of that place, on his return from Greece. |