Not far distant, and similarly placed, is a very beautiful Venus of natural size, naked, with a little drapery on her shoulder, that covers a portion of the waist; as very fair a figure as can be imagined by the mind; but the excellence of the Laocoon makes one forget this and the Apollo, who before was so famous.' A systematic plan for exploring the monuments of old Rome, excavating its ruins, and bringing its buried treasures of statuary to light was furnished by Raphael in 1518. Leo had made him master of the works at S. Peter's and general superintendent of antiquities.[404] For some time previously he had been studying Vitruvius in the Italian translation prepared for his use by Fabio Calvi of Ravenna. How enthusiastically he followed in the traces of the ancients, the arabesques of the Loggie, imitated from the frescoes of the Baths of Titus, amply prove. He now, not long before his death, laid down a ground-plan of the city, divided into fourteen regions, and set forth his project in a memorable letter to the Pope. This epistle, written in choice old Italian, has more than once been printed: it will be found in Passavant's Life of the painter. Raphael begins by describing the abandonment and desolation of the city, and by characterising its several styles of architecture--classical, Lombard, Gothic, and modern.[405] Some phrases that occur in this exordium deserve to be cited for the light they cast upon the passion which inspired those early excavators. 'Considerando la divinitate di quelli animi antichi ... vedendo quasi il cadavere di quest'alma nobile cittate, che è stata regia del mondo, così miseramente lacerato ... quanti pontefici hanno permesso le ruine et disfacimenti delli templi antichi, delle statue, delli archi et altri edificii, gloria delli lor fondatori! Quanti hanno comportato che solamente per pigliare terra pozzolana si siano scavati i fondamenti! Onde in poco tempo li edificii sono venuti a terra. Quanta calcina si è fatta di statue e d'altri ornamenti antichi! che ardirei dire che tutta questa nova Roma, che hor si vede, quanto grande ch'ella vi sia, quanto bella, quanto ornata di pallazzi, di chiese et di altri edificii, sia fabricata di calcina fatta di marmi antichi.'[406] He then observes that during his twelve years' residence in Rome the Meta in the Via Alexandrina, the arches at the entrance to the Baths of Diocletian and the Temple of Ceres in the Via Sacra, part of the Foro Transitorio, and the larger portion of the Basilica del Foro have been destroyed. Therefore he prays Leo to arrest this work of the new Vandals, and, by pursuing a well-considered scheme of operations, to lay bare and to protect what still remains of antique monuments in the Eternal City. [Footnote 404: By a brief dated Aug. 27, 1515.] [Footnote 405: It may be observed that he calls the round-arched buildings of the Middle Ages Gothic; the pointed style German.]