[Footnote 401: See Rosmini's _Vittorino da Feltre_, p. 63, note.] [Footnote 402: See Ghiberti's _Commentario_, in Le Monnier's Vasari, vol. i. p. xiv.] [Footnote 403: Alberi, _Relazioni Venete_, serie ii. vol. iii. p. 114, &c.] Adrian VI., soon after his accession, had walled up eleven of the twelve doors, leading to the Belvedere. The Venetian envoys, however, received permission to visit this portion of the Vatican palace, and the single entrance was unlocked for them. After describing the beauty of the gardens, their cypresses and orangeries, the greenness of their lawns and the stately order of their paved avenues, the writer of the report arrives at the statues. 'In the midst of the garden are two very large men of marble, facing one another, twice the size of life, who lie in the attitude of sleep. One of these is the Tiber, the other the Nile, figures of vast antiquity; and from beneath them issue two fair fountains. On the first entrance into the garden, on the left hand, there is a kind of little chapel let into the wall, where, on a pedestal of marble, stands the Apollo, famous throughout the world, a statue of incomparable beauty and dignity, of life size and of finest marble. Somewhat farther on, in a similar alcove and raised on a like pedestal to the height of an altar from the ground, opposite a well of most perfect fashion, is the Laocoon, celebrated throughout the world, a statue of the highest excellence, of size like a natural man, with hairy beard, all naked. The sinews, veins, and proper muscles in each part are seen as well as in a living body; breath alone is wanting. He is in a posture between sitting and standing, with his two sons, one on either hand, both, together with himself, twined by the serpents, as Virgil says. And herein is seen so great merit of the artist, that better could not be; the languishing and dying are manifest to sight, and one of the boys on the right side is most tightly clipped by the snake twice girdled round him; one of the coils crossing his breasts and squeezing his heart, so that he is on the point of dying. The other boy on the left side is also girdled round by another serpent. While he seeks to drag the raging worm from his leg with his little arm, and cannot help himself at all, he raises his face, all tearful, crying to his father, and holding him with his other hand by the left arm. And seeing his unhappy father more deadly struck than he is, the double grief of this child is clear to view, the one for his own coming death, the other for his father's helplessness; and he so faints withal, that nothing remains for him but to breathe his last. It is impossible that human art can arrive at producing so great and so natural a masterpiece. Every part is perfect, except that Laocoon's right arm is wanting. He seems about forty years of age, and resembles Messer Girolamo Marcello of S. Tommaso; the two boys look eight and nine respectively.