A Tour Up the Straits, from Gibraltar to Constantinople: With the Leading Events in the Present War Between the Austrians, Russians, and the Turks, to the Commencement of the Year 1789Sutherland, David, Captain
History
A Tour Up the Straits, from Gibraltar to Constantinople: With the Leading Events in the Present War Between the Austrians, Russians, and the Turks, to the Commencement of the Year 1789
Sutherland, David, Captain
Mediterranean Region -- Description and travel; Russo-Turkish War, 1787-1792
The next four chambers contain the Venus Anadyomene, and a few more
statues in marble; together with a variety of beautiful vases, plates,
cups, and tables, richly inlaid with lapis lazuli and other rich stone;
near four hundred paintings in the Flemish manner; a collection of
original designs, or rough sketches, of the best masters, and another of
prints; but these are very inferior to those of the moderns, and are
only meant to show the progress of the art.
The cabinet of jewels and precious stones, cameos, intaglios, &c. closes
the Eastern range.
It is with great pain that I find myself inadequate to an entertaining
description of these invaluable treasures. The picture of St. Lawrence
conducted to the tyrant; Hercules after he had killed the Giants, by
Alexander Allori; Helena Forman, by Paul Rubens; the pearl fishery, in
lapis lazuli, by Anthony Tempesta; the Rape of Dejanira, by Giordano;
the copy of Correggio's Mary Magdalen, and many others I could gaze upon
for ever. But the objects of admiration I here meet with, are too
numerous to permit me to send you even a list of them.--I have already
transgressed the bounds I had proposed to myself; but having gone thus
far, I will proceed in the same style through the apartments on the west
side.
The first then is called the Cabinet of Medals, and contains a well
arranged collection, amounting to the astonishing number of upwards of
fourteen thousand. Many false antiques have been admitted, that amateurs
may have an opportunity of studying the difference between them and real
ones. Over the seven bureaux, in which the medals are preserved, the
Labours of Hercules are represented in as many silver groupes, copied
from John Bologna.
But these are not the only masterpieces contained in this chamber. Over
the chimney there is a hand in relief, by Michael Angelo, equal to his
most celebrated work; and the walls are ornamented by thirty-six
pictures, painted at Florence.
The second and third rooms contain the portraits of several hundred
painters, most of them drawn by themselves. What a satisfaction to
contemplate the characters of those celebrated masters, whose works have
afforded us the highest gratification. But as admittance has never been
refused to the most humble candidate for fame, who may choose to send
his portrait, many have gained a place here, who will soon be forgotten
every where else. In point of execution, my friend the Princess
Belmonté, I am afraid, is among this number; but as a patroness of the
arts and sciences, she is justly entitled to a place in the gallery of
Florence; and, as long as St. Cecilia is held in veneration, the
tuneful, the generous Belmonté will ever be remembered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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