The celebrated vases made for the spezieria of the duke were produced at the Fontana fabrique, and subsequently presented to the Santa Casa at Loreto where many of them are still preserved. Those shown to the writer on his visit to that celebrated shrine some few years since did not strike him as being of such extraordinary beauty and great artistic excellence, as the high-flown eulogy bestowed upon them by some writers would have led him to expect. The majority of the pieces are drug pots of a not unusual form, but all or nearly all of them are “istoriati,” instead of being, as is generally the case, simply decorated with “trofei,” “foglie,” “grotesche,” the more usual and less costly ornamentation. Some of the pieces have serpent handles, mask spouts, &c. but he vainly looked for the magnificent vases of unsurpassed beauty, nor indeed did he see anything equal to the shaped pieces preserved in the Bargello at Florence. The work of the well-known hands of the Fontana fabrique is clearly recognisable, and several pieces are probably by Orazio. Some, more important, preserved in a low press were finer examples. We have said that the pieces individually are not so striking but taken as a whole it is a very remarkable service, said to have originally numbered 380 vases, all painted with subjects after the designs of Battista Franco, Giulio Romano, Angelo, and Raffaelle; and as the work of one private artistic pottery in the comparatively remote capital of a small duchy, it bears no slight testimony to the extraordinary development of every branch of art-industry in the various districts of Italy during the sixteenth century. They were made by order of Guidobaldo II., but on the accession of Francesco Maria II. in 1574 he found the financial condition of the duchy in a state so embarrassed that he was obliged to devote less attention to the encouragement of art. He abdicated in favour of the Holy See and died in 1631. The vases of the Spezieria were presented to our Lady of Loreto, while his valuable art collections were removed to Florence. On the vases of Loreto, says Mr. Marryat, “the subjects are the four evangelists, the twelve apostles, St. John, St. Paul, Susannah and Job. The others represent incidents in the Old Testament, actions of the Romans, their naval battles and the metamorphoses of Ovid. On eighty-five of the vases are pourtrayed the games of children, each differing from the other. These vases are highly prized for their beauty as well as for their variety. They have been engraved by Bartoli. A Grand Duke of Florence was so desirous of purchasing them, that he proposed giving in exchange a like number of silver vessels of equal weight; while Christina of Sweden was known to say, that of all the treasures of the Santa Casa she esteemed these the most. Louis XIV. is reported to have offered for the four evangelists and St. Paul an equal number of gold statues.”