FLORENCE.

I HAD the good luck to be at Florence when there was an opera acted, which was the eighth that I had seen in Italy. I could not but smile to read the solemn protestation of the poet in the first page, where he declares that he believes neither in the fates, deities, nor destinies; and that if he has made use of the words, it is purely out of a poetical liberty, and not from his real sentiments, for that in all these particulars, he believes as the holy mother church believes and commands:

PROTESTA.

Le voci fato, deità, destino, e simili, che per entro questo drama trovarai, son messe per ischerzo poetico, e non per sentimento vero, credendo sempre in tutto quello, che crede, e comanda santa madre chiesa.

There are some beautiful palaces in Florence; and as Tuscan pillars and rustic work owe their original to this country, the architects always take care to give them a place in the great edifices that are raised in Tuscany. The duke's new palace is a very noble pile, built after this manner, which makes it look extremely solid and majestic. It is not unlike that of Luxemburg at Paris, which was built by Mary of Medicis, and for that reason, perhaps, the workmen fell into the Tuscan humour. I found in the court of this palace what I could not meet with anywhere in Rome. I mean an antique statue of Hercules lifting up Antæus from the earth, which I have already had occasion to speak of. It was found in Rome, and brought hither under

the reign of Leo the tenth. There are abundance of pictures in the several apartments, by the hands of the greatest masters.

But it is the famous gallery of the old palace, where are, perhaps, the noblest collections of curiosities to be met with in any part of the whole world. The gallery itself is made in the shape of an L, according to Mr. Lassel, but, if it must needs be like a letter, it resembles the Greek II most. It is adorned with admirable pieces of sculpture, as well modern as ancient. Of the last sort I shall mention those that are rarest, either for the person they represent or the beauty of the sculpture. Among the busts of the emperors and empresses there are these that follow, which are all very scarce, and some of them almost singular in their kind: Agrippa, Caligula, Otho, Nerva, Ælius Verus, Pertinax, Geta, Didius Julianus, Albinus, extremely well wrought; and, what is seldom seen, in alabaster, Gordianus Africanus the elder, Eliogabalus, Galien the elder, and the younger Pupienus. I have put Agrippa among the emperors, because he is generally ranged so in sets of medals, as some that follow among the empresses have no other right to the company they are joined with. Domitia, Agrippina wife of Germanicus, Antonia, Matidia, Plotina, Mallia Scantilla, falsely inscribed under her bust Julia Severa, Aquilia Severa, Julia Mæsa. I have generally observed at Rome, which is the great magazine of these antiquities, that the same heads which are rare in medals are also rare in marble; and, indeed, one may commonly assign the same reason for both, which was the shortness of the emperors' reigns, that did not give the workmen time to make many of their figures; and as the shortness of their reigns

was generally occasioned by the advancement of a rival, it is no wonder that nobody worked on the figure of a deceased emperor, when his enemy was on the throne. This observation, however, does not always hold. An Agrippa or Caligula, for example, is a common coin, but a very extraordinary bust; and a Tiberius a rare coin, but a common bust, which one would the more wonder at, if we consider the indignities that were offered to this emperor's statues after his death. The Tiberius in Tiberim is a known instance.

Among the busts of such emperors as are common enough, there are several in the gallery that deserve to be taken notice of for the excellence of the sculpture, as those of Augustus, Vespasian, Adrian, Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus, Septimius Severus, Caracalla, Geta. There is in the same gallery a beautiful bust of Alexander the Great, casting up his face to heaven, with a noble air of grief or discontentedness in his looks. I have seen two or three antique busts of Alexander in the same air and posture, and am apt to think the sculptor had in his thoughts the conqueror's weeping for new worlds, or some other the like circumstance of his history. There is also, in porphyry, the head of a faun, and of the god Pan. Among the entire figures I took particular notice of a vestal Virgin, with the holy fire burning before her. This statue, I think, may decide that notable controversy among the antiquaries, whether the vestals, after having received the tonsure, ever suffered their hair to come again, for it is here full grown, and gathered under the veil. The brazen figure of the consul, with the ring on his finger, reminded me of Juvenal's majoris pondera gemmæ. There is another statue in brass, sup

posed to be of Apollo, with this modern inscription on the pedestal, which I must confess I do not know what to make of: Ut potui huc veni musis et fratre relicto. I saw in the same gallery the famous figure of the Wild Boar, the Gladiator, the Narcissus, the Cupid and Psyche, the Flora, with some modern statues that several others have described. Among the antique figures, there is a fine one of Morpheus in touchstone. I have always observed, that this god is represented by the ancient statuaries under the figure of a boy asleep, with a bundle of poppy in his hand. I at first took it for a Cupid, till I had taken notice that it had neither bow nor quiver. I suppose doctor Lister has been guilty of the same mistake in the reflections he makes on what he calls the sleeping Cupid with poppy in his hands:

Qualia namque

Corpora nudorum tabulâ pinguntur Amorum
Talis erat: sed, nè faciat discrimina cultus,
Aut huic adde leves aut illis deme Pharetras.

Ov. Met. lib. 10.

Such are the Cupids that in paint we view;
But that the likeness may be nicely true,
A loaden quiver to his shoulders tie,
Or bid the Cupids lay their quivers by.

It is probable they chose to represent the god of sleep under the figure of a boy, contrary to all our modern designers, because it is that age which has its repose the least broken by cares and anxieties. Statius, in his celebrated invocation of sleep, addresses himself to him under the same figure:

Crimine quo merui juvenis, placidissime divûm,
Quove errore miser, donis ut solus egerem,

Somne, tuis? tacet omne pecus, volucresque, feræque, etc.

SILV. lib. 5,

Tell me, thou best of gods, thou gentle youth,
Tell me my sad offence; that only I,
While hush'd at ease thy drowsy subjects lie,
In the dead silence of the night complain,
Nor taste the blessings of thy peaceful reign.

I never saw any figure of Sleep that was not of black marble, which has probably some relation to the night, which is the proper season for rest. I should not have made this remark, but that I remember to have read in one of the ancient authors, that the Nile is generally represented in stone of this colour, because it flows from the country of the Æthiopians; which shows us that the statuaries had. sometimes an eye to the person they were to represent, in the choice they made of their marble. There are still at Rome some of these black statues of the Nile, which are cut in a kind of touchstone:

Usque coloratis amnis deverus ab Indis.

VIRG. Georg. 4. de Nilo.

At one end of the gallery stand two antique marble pillars, curiously wrought with the figures of the old Roman arms and instruments of war. After a full survey of the gallery, we were led into four or five chambers of curiosities that stand on the side of it. The first was a cabinet of antiquities, made up chiefly of idols, talismans, lamps, and hieroglyphics. I saw nothing in it that I was not before acquainted with, except the four following figures in brass:

I. A little image of Juno Sispita, or Sospita, which, perhaps, is not to be met with anywhere else but on medals. She is clothed in a goat's skin, the horns sticking out above her head. The right arm is broken, that probably supported a shield, and the

VOL. IV.

S