" ... Pourquoi le torse du Vatican ne serait-il pas d'Alcamene, ou, si l'on veut, d'apres Alcamene, par Apollonius?"--_Ampere, Hist.

Rome_, iii. p. 360, 363.

Close by, in a niche, is the celebrated peperino *Tomb of L. Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, consul B.C. 297. It supports a bust, supposed, upon slight foundation, to be that of the poet Ennius. Inscriptions from other tombs of the Scipios are inserted in the neighbouring wall.[347]

"L'epitaphe de Scipion le Barbu semble le resume d'une oraison funebre; elle s'adresse aux spectateurs: 'Cornelius Scipion Barbatus, ne d'un pere vaillant, homme courageux et prudent, dont la beaute egalait la vertu. Il a ete parmi vous consul, censeur, edile; il a pris Taurasia, Cisauna, le Samnium. Ayant soumis toute la Lucanie, il en a emmene des otages.'

"Y a-t-il rien de plus grand? Il a pris le Samnium et la Lucanie.

Voila tout.

"Ce sarcophage est un des plus curieux monuments de Rome. Par la matiere, par la forme des lettres et le style de l'inscription, il vous represente la rudesse des Romains au sixieme siecle. Le gout tres-pur de l'architecture et des ornements vous montre l'avenement de l'art grec tombant, pour ainsi dire, en pleine sauvagerie romaine. Le tombeau de Scipion le Barbu est en peperin, ce tuf rugueux, grisatre, seme de taches noires. Les caracteres sont irreguliers, les lignes sont loin d'etre droites, le latin est antique et barbare, mais la forme et les ornements du tombeau sont grecs. Il y a la des volutes, des triglyphes, des denticules; on ne saurait rien imaginer qui fasse mieux voir la culture grecque venant surprendre et saisir la rudesse latine."--_Ampere, Hist.

Rom._ iii. 132.

The _Round Vestibule_ contains a fine vase of pavonazzetto.

The adjoining balcony contains a curious Wind Indicator, found (1779) near the Coliseum. Hence there is a lovely view over the city. In the garden beneath is a fountain with a curious bronze ship floating in its bason (see Vatican Gardens).

At the end of the _3rd Vestibule_ stands the *Statue of Meleager, with a boar's head and a dog, supposed to have been begun in Greece by some famous sculptor, and finished in Rome (the dog, &c.) by an inferior workman.

"Meleager is represented in a position of repose, leaning on his spear, the mark of the junction of which, with the plinth, is still to be seen. The want of the spear gives the statue the appearance of leaning too much to one side, but if you can imagine it replaced, you will see that the pose is perfectly and truthfully rendered. This statue was found at the commencement of the sixteenth century, outside the Porta Portese, in a vineyard close to the Tiber."--_Shakspere Wood._

"Ce Meleagre du Vatican respire une grace tranquille, et, place entre le sublime _Torse_ et les merveilles du Belvedere, semble etre la pour attendre et pour accueillir de son air aimable et un peu melancolique, ou l'on a cru voir le signe d'une destinee qui devait etre courte, l'enthousiasme du voyageur."--_Ampere, Hist.

Rom._ iii. 515.

From the central vestibule we enter the _Cortile del Belvidere_, an octagonal court built by _Bramante_, having a fountain in the centre, and decorated with fine sarcophagi and vases, &c. From this opens, beginning from the right, the--

_First Cabinet_, containing the Perseus, and the two Boxers--Kreugas and Damoxenus, by _Canova_.

_The Second Cabinet_, containing *the Antinous (now called Mercury), perhaps the most beautiful statue in the world. It was found on the Esquiline near S. Martino al Monte. It has never been injured by restoration, but was broken across the ankles when found, and has been unskilfully put together.

"Je suis bien tente de rapporter a un original de Polyclete, qui aimait les formes carrees, le Mercure du Belvedere, qui n'est pas tres-svelte pour un Mercure. On a cru reconnaitre que les proportions de cette statue se rapprochaient beaucoup des proportions prescrites par Polyclete. Poussin, comme Polyclete, ami des formes carrees, declarait le Mercure, qu'on appelait alors sans motif un Antinous, le modele le plus parfait des proportions du corps humain; il pourrait a ce titre remplacer jusqu'a un certain point la statue de Polyclete, appelee _la regle_, parcequ'elle passait pour offrir ce modele parfait, et _faisait regle_ a cet egard. De plus, on sait qu'un Mercure de Polyclete avait ete apporte a Rome."--_Ampere, Hist. Rom._ iii. 267.

_Third Cabinet_, of *the Laocoon. This wonderful group was discovered near the Sette Sale on the Esquiline in 1506, while Michael-Angelo was at Rome. The right arm of the father is a terra-cotta restoration, and is said by Winckelmann to be the work of Bernini; the arms of the sons are additions by Agostino Cornacchini of Pistoia. There is now no doubt that the Laocoon is the group described by Pliny.

"The fame of many sculptors is less diffused, because the number employed upon great works prevented their celebrity; for there is no one artist to receive the honour of the work, and where there are more than one they cannot all obtain an equal fame. Of this the Laocoon is an example, which stands in the palace of the emperor Titus,--a work which may be considered superior to all others both in painting and statuary. The whole group,--the father, the boys, and the awful folds of the serpents,--were formed out of a single block, in accordance with a vote of the senate, by Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, Rhodian sculptors of the highest merit."--_Pliny_, lib. xxxvi. c. 4.

"Les trois sculpteurs rhodiens qui travaillerent ensemble au Laocoon etaient probablement un pere et ses deux fils, qui executerent l'un la statue du pere, et les autres celles des deux fils, touchante analogie entre les auteurs et l'ouvrage.

"Les auteurs du Laocoon etaient Rhodiens, ce peuple auquel, dit Pindare, Minerve a donne de l'emporter sur tous les mortels par le travail habile de leurs mains, et dont les rues etaient garnies de figures vivantes qui semblaient marcher. Or, le grand eclat, la grande puissance de Rhodes, appartiennent surtout a l'epoque qui suivit la mort d'Alexandre. Apres qu'elle se fut delivree du joug macedonien, presque toujours alliee de Rome, Rhodes fut florissante par le commerce, les armes et la liberte, jusqu'au jour on elle eut embrasse le parti de Cesar; Cassius prit d'assaut la capitale de l'ile et depouilla ses temples de tous leurs ornements. Le coup fut mortel a la republique de Rhodes, qui depuis ne s'en releva plus.

"C'est avant cette fatale epoque, dans l'epoque de la prosperite rhodienne, entre Alexandre et Cesar, que se place le grand developpement de l'art comme de la puissance des Rhodiens, et qu'on est conduit naturellement a placer la creation d'un chef-d'uvre tel que le Laocoon.

"Pline dit que les trois statues dont se compose le groupe etaient d'un seul morceau, et ce groupe est forme de plusieurs, on en a compte jusqu'a six. Ceci semblerait faire croire que nous n'avons qu'une copie, mais j'avoue ne pas attacher une grande importance a cette indication de Pline, compilateur plus erudit qu'observateur attentif. Michel-Ange, dit-on, remarqua le premier que le Laocoon n'etait pas d'un seul morceau; Pline a tres-bien pu ne pas s'en apercevoir plus que nous et repeter de confiance une assertion inexacte."--_Ampere, Hist. Rom._ iii. 382, 385, 387.

... "Turning to the Vatican, go see Laocoon's torture dignifying pain-- A father's love and mortal's agony With an immortal's patience blending, vain The struggle; vain against the coiling strain And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp, The old man's clench; the long envenom'd chain Rivets the living links,--the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp."

_Childe Harold._

"The circumstance of the two sons being so much smaller than the father, has been criticised by some, but this seems to have been necessary to the harmony of the composition. The same apparent disproportion exists between Niobe and her children, in the celebrated group at Florence, supposed to be by Scopas. The raised arms of the three figures are all restorations, as are some portions of the serpents. Originally, the raised hands of the old man rested on his head, and the traces of the junction are clearly discernible. For this we have also the evidence of an antique gem, on which it is thus engraved. This work was found in the baths (?) of Titus, in the reign of Julius II., by a certain Felix de Fredis, who received half the revenue of the gabella of the Porta San Giovanni as a reward, and whose epitaph, in the church of Ara Cli, records the fact."--_Shakspere Wood._

"Il y avait dans la vie, au seizieme siecle, je ne sais qu'elle excitation febrile, quelle aspiration vers le beau, vers l'inconnu, qui disposait les esprits a l'enthousiasme.... Felix de Fredis fut gratifie d'une part dans les revenus de la porte de Saint Jean de Latran, pour avoir trouve le groupe du Laocoon, et, lorsque l'ordre fut donne de transporter au Belvedere le Laocoon, l'Apollon, la Venus, Rome entiere s'emut, on jetait des fleurs au marbre, on battait des mains; depuis les thermes de Titus jusqu'au Vatican, le Laocoon fut porte en triomphe; et Sadolet chantait sur le mode virgilien que durent reconnaitre les echos de l'Esquilin et du palais d'Auguste."--_Gournerie, Rome Chretienne._

"I felt the Laocoon very powerfully, though very quietly; an immortal agony, with a strange calmness diffused through it, so that it resembles the vast rage of the sea, calm on account of its immensity; or the tumult of Niagara, which does not seem to be tumult, because it keeps pouring on for ever and ever."

"It is a type of human beings, struggling with an inexplicable trouble, and entangled in a complication which they cannot free themselves from by their own efforts, and out of which Heaven alone can help them."--_Hawthorne, Notes on Italy._

_The Fourth Cabinet_ contains *the Apollo Belvedere, found in the sixteenth century at Porto d'Anzio (Antium), and purchased by Julius II.

for the Belvedere Palace, which was at that time a garden pavilion separated from the rest of the Vatican, and used as a museum of sculpture. It is now decided that this statue, beautiful as it is, is not the original work of a Greek sculptor, but a copy, probably from the bronze of Calamides, which represented Apollo, as the defender of the city, and which was erected at Athens after the cessation of a great plague. Four famous statues of Apollo are mentioned by Pliny as existing at Rome in his time, but this is not one of them.

"Or view the Lord of the unerring bow, The God of life, and poesy, and light-- The Sun in human limbs array'd, and brow All radiant from his triumph in the fight; The shaft hath just been shot--the arrow bright With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye And nostril beautiful disdain, and might, And majesty flash their full lightnings by, Developing in that one glance the Deity."

_Childe Harold._

"Bright kindling with a conqueror's stem delight, His keen eye tracks the arrow's fateful flight: Burns his indignant cheek with vengeful fire, And his lip quivers with insulting ire: Firm fix'd his tread, yet light, as when on high He walks th' impalpable and pathless sky: The rich luxuriance of his hair, confined In graceful ringlets, wantons on the wind, That lifts in sport his mantle's drooping fold, Proud to display that form of faultless mould.

Mighty Ephesian! with an eagle's flight Thy proud soul mounted through the fields of light, View'd the bright conclave of Heaven's blest abode, And the cold marble leapt to life a god: Contagious awe through breathless myriads ran, And nations bow'd before the work of man.

For mild he seem'd, as in Elysian bowers, Wasting in careless ease the joyous hours; Haughty, as bards have sung, with princely sway Curbing the fierce flame-breathing steeds of day; Beauteous as vision seen in dreamy sleep By holy maid on Delphi's haunted steep, Mid the dim twilight of the laurel grove, Too fair to worship, too divine to love."

_Henry Hart Milman._

In the second portico, between Canova's statues and the Antinous, is (No. 43) a Venus and Cupid,--interesting because the Venus is a portrait of Sallustia Barbia Orbiana, wife of Alexander Severus. It was discovered in the fifteenth century, in the ruin near Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme, to which it has given a name. In the third portico, between the Antinous and the Laocoon, are two beautiful dogs. Between these we enter:

The _Sala degli Animali_, containing a number of representations of animals in marble and alabaster. Perhaps the best is No. 116--two greyhounds playing. The statue of Commodus on horseback (No. 139) served as a model to Bernini for his figure of Constantine in the portico of St. Peter's.

"La Salle des Animaux au Vatican est comme un musee de l'ecole de Myron; le naturel parfait qu'il donna a ses representations d'animaux y eclate partout. C'est une sorte de menagerie de l'art, et elle merite de s'appeler, comme celle du Jardin des Plantes, une menagerie _d'animaux vivants_.

"Ces animaux sont pourtant d'un merite inegal: parmi les meilleurs morceaux on compte des chiens qui jouent ensemble avec beaucoup de verite, un cygne dont le duvet, un mouton tue dont la toison sont tres-bien rendus, une tete d'ane tres-vraie et portant une couronne de lierre, allusion au role de l'ane de Silene dans les mysteres bacchiques."--_Ampere, Hist. Rom._ iii. 276.

On the right we enter:

The _Galleria delle Statue_, once a summer-house of Innocent VIII., but arranged as a statue-gallery under Pius VI. In its lunettes are remains of frescoes by _Pinturicchio_. Beginning on the right, are:

248. An armed statue of Claudius Albinus standing on a cippus which marked the spot where the body of Caius Caesar was burnt, inscribed C. CaeSAR GERMANICI CaeSARIS HIC CREMATUS EST.

250. The *Statue called "The Genius of the Vatican," supposed to be a copy from a Cupid of Praxiteles which existed in the Portico of Octavia in the time of Pliny. On the back are the holes for the metal pins which supported the wings.

251. Athlete.

253. Triton, from Tivoli.

255. Paris.

Le Vatican possede une statue de Paris jugeant les deesses. Cette statue est-elle, comme on le pense generalement, une copie du Paris d'Euphranor?

"Euphranor avait-il choisi le moment ou Paris juge les deesses? Les expressions de Pline pourraient en faire douter: il ne l'affirme point; il dit que dans la statue d'Euphranor on eut pu reconnaitre le juge des trois deesses, l'amant d'Helene et le vainqueur d'Achille.

"La statue du Vatican est de beaucoup la plus remarquable des statues de Paris. On y sent, malgre ses imperfections, la presence d'un original fameux; de plus, son attitude est celle de Paris sur plusieurs vases peints et sur plusieurs bas-reliefs, et nous verrons que les bas-reliefs reproduisaient tres-souvent une statue celebre. Il m'est impossible, il est vrai, de voir dans le Paris du Vatican tout ce que Pline dit du Paris d'Euphranor. Je ne puis y voir que le juge des deesses. L'expression de son visage montre qu'il a contemple la beaute de Venus, et que le prix va etre donne.

Rien n'annonce l'amant d'Helene, ni surtout le vainqueur d'Achille; mais ce qui etait dans l'original aurait pu disparaitre de la copie."--_Ampere, Hist. Rom._ iii. 300.