_The 4th Room_--

Is the Chamber of Terra-cottas. In the centre is a most beautiful statue of Mercury found at Tivoli. At the sides are fragments of female figures from Vulci,--and an interesting terra-cotta urn from Toscanella, with a youth lying on a couch. "From the gash in his thigh, and the hound at his bed-side, he is usually called Adonis; but it may be merely the effigy of some young Etruscan, who met his death in the wild-boar chase."

_The 5th Room_--

This and the three following rooms are occupied by Vases. The vases in the 5th room are mostly small amphorae, in the second or Archaic style, with black figures on the ground of the clay. On a column, near the window, is a _Crater_, or mixing-vase, from Vulci, with parti-coloured figures on a very pale ground, and in the most beautiful style of Greek art. It represents Mercury presenting the infant Bacchus to Silenus. To the left of the window is a humorous representation of the visit of Jupiter and Mercury to Alcmena, who is looking at them out of a window. In the cabinets are objects in crystal from Palestrina.

_The 6th Room_--

In the centre of this room are five magnificent vases. The central, from Cervetri, "is of the rare form called _Holmos_--a large globe-shaped bowl on a tall stand, like an enormous cup and ball;"

its paintings are of wild animals. Nearest the entrance is, with three handles, "a _Calpis_, of the third or perfect style," from Vulci, with paintings of Apollo and six Muses. Behind this, from Vulci, is "a large _Amphora_ of the second or Archaic style," in which hardness and severity of design are combined with most conscientious execution of detail. It represents Achilles ("Achilleos") and Ajax ("Aiantos") playing at dice, or _astralagi_.

Achilles cries "Four!" and Ajax "Three!"--the said words, in choice Attic, issuing from their mouths. The maker's name, "Echsekias," is recorded, as well as that of "the brave Onetorides" to whom it was presented. On the other side of the vase is a family scene of "Kastor" with his horse, and "Poludeukes" playing with his dog, "Tyndareos" and "Leda" standing by. 4th, is an _Amphora_ from Caere, representing the body of Achilles borne to Peleus and Thetis. 5th, is a _Calpis_ from Vulci, representing the death of Hector in the arms of Minerva.

The 6th vase on the shelf of the entrance wall is the kind of amphora called a _Pelice_, from Caere. "Two men are represented sitting under an olive-tree, each with an amphora at his feet," and one who is measuring the oil exclaims, "O father Jupiter, would that I were rich!" On the reverse of the vase is the same pair, at a subsequent period, when the prayer has been heard, and the oil-dealer cries, "Verily, yea, verily, it hath been filled to overflowing." By the window is a _Calpis_, representing a boy with a hoop in one hand, and a stolen cock in the other, for which his tutor is reproving him.

_The 7th Room_--

Is an arched corridor. In the second niche, is a _Hydria_ with Minerva and Hercules, from Vulci. Sixth on the line, is an _Amphora_ from Vulci; "'Ekabe' (Hecuba) presents a goblet to her son, 'the brave Hector,'--and regards him with such intense interest, that she spills the wine as she pours it out to him.

'Priamos' stands by, leaning on his staff, looking mournfully at his son, as if presaging his fate." Many other vases in this room are of great beauty.

_The 8th Room_--

"Contains _Cylices_ or _Paterae_, which are more rare than the upright vases, and not inferior in beauty."

_The 9th Room_--

Entered from the 6th room, is the jewel room. Among the bronzes on the right, is a warrior in armour found at Todi in 1835 and a bronze couch with a raised place for the head, found in the Regulini Galassi tomb at Cervetri, where it bore the corpse of a high priest. A boy with a bulla, sitting, from Tarquinii, is "supposed to represent Tages, the mysterious boy-god, who sprung from the furrows of that site."

At the opposite end of the room is a biga or war-chariot, not Etruscan, but Roman, found in the villa of the Quintilii, near the Via Appia. Near this are some colossal fragments of bronze statues, found near Civita Vecchia. A beautiful oval _Cista_, with a handle formed by two swans bearing a boy and a girl, is from Vulci; and so are the braziers or censers retaining the tongs, shovel, and rake, found with them:--"the tongs are on wheels, and terminate in serpents' heads; the shovel handle ends in a swan's neck; and the rake in a human hand." Among the smaller relics are a curious bottle from Caere, with an Etruscan alphabet and spelling lesson (!) scratched upon it, and a pair of Etruscan clogs found in a tomb at Vulci.

In the centre of the room is the jewel-case of glass. The whole of the upper division and one compartment of the lower are devoted to Cervetri (Caere). All these objects are from the Regulini Galassi tomb, for all the other tombs had been rifled at an early period, except one, whence the objects were taken by Campana. The magnificent oak-wreath with the small ornaments and the large ear-rings were worn by a lady, over whom was written in Etruscan characters, "Me Larthia,"--I, the Great Lady,--evidently because at the time of her death, 3000 years ago, it was supposed that she was so very great that the memory of her name could never by any possibility perish, and that therefore it was quite unnecessary to record it. The tomb was divided, and she was walled up with precious spices (showing what the commerce of Etruria must have been) in one half of it. It was several hundred years before any one was found of sufficient dignity to occupy the other half of the great lady's tomb. Then the high priest of Etruria died, and was buried there with all his ornaments. His were the large bracelets, the fillets for the head, with the plate of gold covering the head, and a second plate of gold which covered the forehead--worn only on the most solemn occasions. This may be considered to have been the headdress of Aaron. His also was the broad plate of gold, covering the breast, reminding of the Urim and Thummim. The bronze bed on which he lay (and on which the ornaments were found lying where the body had mouldered) is preserved in another part of the room, and the great incense burner filled with precious spices which was found by his side. The three large bollas on his breast were filled with incense, whose perfume was still so strong when the tomb was opened, that those who burnt it could not remain in the room.

The ivy leaves on the ornaments denote the worship of Bacchus, a late period in Etruria: laurel denotes a victor in battle or the games.

_The 10th Room_--

(Entrance on right of the jewel-room), is a passage containing a number of Roman water-pipes of lead, and the bronze figure of a boy with a bird and an Etruscan inscription on his leg, from Perugia.

_The 11th Room_--

Is hung with paintings on canvas copied from the principal tombs of Vulci and Tarquinii. Beginning from the right, on entering, they take the following order:

From the Camera del Morto: Tarquinii.

From the Grotta delle Bighe, or Grotta Stackelberg: Tarquinii.

From the Grotta Querciola: Tarquinii From the Grotta della Iscrizioni: Tarquinii.

From the Grotta del Triclinio, or Grotta Marzi: Tarquinii.

From the Grotta del Barone, or Grotta del Ministro: Tarquinii.

From the painted tomb at Vulci.

"All the paintings from Tarquinii are still to be seen on that site, though not in so perfect a state as they are here represented. But the tomb at Vulci is utterly destroyed."

Each of the paintings is most interesting. That of the death-bed scene proves that the Etruscans believed in the immortality of the soul. In the upper division a daughter is mounting on a stool to reach the high bed and give a last kiss to her dying father, while the son is wailing and lamenting in the background. Below, is the rejoicing spirit, freed from the trammels of the flesh.

In the scenes representing the games, the horses are painted bright red and bright blue, or black and red. These may be considered to have been the different colours of the rival parties. A number of jars for oil and wine are arranged in this room. All the black pottery is from Northern Etruria.

_The 12th Room_ (entered from the left of the jewel room) is a very meagre and most inefficient facsimile of an ordinary Etruscan tomb. It is guarded by two lions in nenfro, found at Vulci.[350]

_The Egyptian Museum_ is entered by a door on the left of the entrance of the Museo Pio-Clementino. It is open gratis on Mondays from 12 to 3.

The collection is chiefly due to Pius VII. and Gregory XVI. The greater part is of no especial importance.

_The 6th Room_ contains eight statues of the goddess Pasht from Carnac.

_The 8th Room_ is occupied by Roman imitations of Egyptian statues, from the Villa Adriana.

"Ces statues sont toutes des traductions de l'art egyptien en art grec. L'alliance, la fusion de la sculpture egyptienne et de la sculpture greco-romaine est un des traits les plus saillantes de cosmopolitisme si etranger a d'anciennes traditions nationales, et dont Adrien, par ses voyages, ses gouts, ces monuments, fut la plus eclatante manifestation.

"Sauf l'Antinous, les produits de cette sculpture d'imitation bien que datant d'une epoque encore brillante de l'art romain, ne sauraient le disputer a leurs modeles. Pour s'en convaincre, il suffit de les comparer aux statues vraiment egyptiennes qui remplissent une salle voisine. Dans celles-ci, la realite du detail est meprisee et sacrifiee; mais les traits fondamentaux, les lineaments essentiels de la forme sont rendus admirablement. De la un grand style, car employer l'expression la plus generale, c'est le secret de la grandeur du style, comme a dit Buffon. Cette elevation, cette sobriete du genie egyptien ne se retrouvent plus dans les imitations batardes du temps d'Adrien."--_Ampere, Emp._ ii. 197, 202.

On the right is the Nile in black marble; opposite the entrance is a colossal statue of Antinous, the favourite of Hadrian, in white marble.

"Il est naturel qu'Antinous, qui s'etait, disait-on, precipite dans le Nil, ait ete represente sous les traits d'un dieu egyptien ...

La physiognomie triste d'Antinous sied bien a un dieu d'Egypte, et le style grec emprunte au reflet du style egyptien une grandeur sombre."--_Ampere, Emp._ ii 196.

_The 9th Room_ contains colossal Egyptian statues. On the right is the figure of the mother of Rhamses II. (Sesostris) between two lions of basalt, which were found in the Baths of Agrippa, and which long decorated the Fontana dei Termini. Upon the base of these lions is inscribed the name of the Egyptian king Nectanebo.

"Dans cette sculpture bien egyptienne, on sent deja le souffle de l'art grec. La pose de ces lions est la pose roide et monumentale des lions a tete humaine de Louqsor; la criniere est encore de convention, mais la vie est exprimee, les muscles sont accuses avec un soin et un relief que la sculpture purement egyptienne n'a pas connus."--_Ampere, Emp._ ii. 198.

"Ces lions ont une expression remarquable de force et de repos; il y a quelque chose dans leur physiognomie qui n'appartient ni a l'animal ni a l'homme: ils semblent une puissance de la nature, et l'on concoit, en les voyant, comment les dieux du paganisme pouvaient etre representes sous cet embleme."--_Mad. de Stael._

In the centre of the entrance-wall are, Ptolemy-Philadelphus, and, on his left, his queen Arsinoe, of red granite. These were found in the gardens of Sallust, and were formerly preserved in the Senator's Palace.

"There is a fine collection of Egyptian antiquities in the Vatican; and the ceilings of the rooms in which they are arranged, are painted to represent a starlight sky in the desert. It may seem an odd idea, but it is very effective. The grim, half-human monsters from the temples, look more grim and monstrous underneath the deep dark blue; it sheds a strange uncertain gloomy air on everything--a mystery adapted to the objects; and you leave them, as you find them, shrouded in a solemn night."--_Dickens._

The Egyptian Gallery has an egress into the Sala a Croce Greca.

The windows of the Egyptian Museum look upon the inner _Garden of the Vatican_, which may be reached by a door at the end of the long gallery of the Museo Chiaramonti, before ascending to the Torso. The garden which is thus entered, called _Giardino della Pigna_, is in fact merely the second great quadrangle of the Vatican, planted with shrubs and flowers. Several interesting relics are preserved here. In the centre is the _Pedestal of the Column of Antoninus Pius_, found in 1709 on the Monte Citorio. The column was a simple memorial pillar of granite, erected by the two adopted sons of the emperor, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. It was broken up to mend the obelisk of Psammeticus I. at the Monte Citorio. Among the reliefs of the pedestal is one of a winged genius guiding Antoninus and Faustina to Olympus. In the great semicircular niche of Bramante, at the end of the court-garden, is the famous _Pigna_, a gigantic fir-cone, which once crowned the summit of the Mausoleum of Hadrian. Thence it was first removed to the front of the old basilica of St. Peter's. In the fresco of the old St. Peter's at S. Martino al Monte, the pigna is introduced, but it is there placed in the centre of the nave, a position it never occupied. Dante saw it at St. Peter's, and compares it to a giant's head (it is eleven feet high) which he saw through the mist in the last circle of hell.

"La faccia mi parea lunga e grossa Come la pina di S. Pietro in Roma."

On either side of the pigna are two bronze peacocks, which are said to have stood on either side the entrance of Hadrian's Mausoleum.

"Je pense qu'ils y avaient ete places en l'honneur des imperatrices dont les cendres devaient s'y trouver. La paon consacre a Junon etait le symbole de l'apotheose des imperatrices, comme l'oiseau dedie a Jupiter celui de l'apotheose des empereurs, car le mausolee d'Adrien n'etait pas pour lui seul, mais, comme avaient ete le mausolee d'Auguste et le temple des Flaviens, pour toute la famille imperiale."--_Ampere, Emp._ ii. 212.

A flight of steps leads from this court to the narrow _Terrace of the Navicella_, in front of the palace, so called from a bronze ship with which its fountain is decorated. The visitor should beware of the tricksome water-works upon this terrace.