Et Graffiacan, che gli era più di contra Gli arroncigliò l'impegolate chiome; E trasse 'l sù, che mi parve una lontra. None has noticed as imitations of Dante in the xxivth book, the astonishing groups in the Lunetta of the brazen serpent; none the various hints from the Inferno and Purgatorio scattered over the attitudes and expressions of the figures rising from their graves. In the Lunetta of Haman, we owe the sublime conception of his figure to the subsequent passage in the xviith c. of Purgatory: Poi piobbe dentro al' alta phantasia Un Crucifisso, dispettoso e fiero Nella sua vista, e lo qual si moria. The basso-relievo on the border of the second rock, in Purgatory, furnished the idea of the Annunziata, painted by Marcello Venusti from his design, in the sacristy of St. Giov. Lateran, by order of Tommaso de' Cavalieri, the select friend and favourite of Michael Angelo. We are told that Michael Angelo represented the Ugolino of Dante, inclosed in the tower of Pisa: if he did, his own work is lost; but if, as some suppose, the basso-relievo of that subject by Pierino da Vinci be taken from his idea, notwithstanding the greater latitude, which the sculptor might claim, in divesting the figures of drapery and costume; he appears to me to have erred in the means employed to rouse our sympathy. A sullen but muscular character, with groups of muscular bodies and forms of strength, about him, with the allegoric figure of the Arno at their feet, and that of famine hovering over their heads, are not the fierce Gothic chief, deprived of revenge, brooding over despair in the stony cage; are not the exhausted agonies of a father, petrified by the helpless groans of an expiring family, offering their own bodies for his food, to prolong his life. [77] Dixeris egregiè, notum si callida verbum Reddiderit junctura novum.---- Q. Horat. Flacci de A. P. v. 47. [78] Matt. xvii. 5, 6. See Fiorillo, geschichte, &c. 104. seq. [79] The vision on Tabor, as represented here, is the most characteristic produced by modern art. Whether we consider the action of the apostles overpowered by the divine effulgence, and divided between adoration and astonishment, or the forms of the prophets ascending like flame, and attracted by the lucid centre, or the majesty of Jesus himself, whose countenance is the only one we know expressive of his superhuman nature. That the unison of such powers should not, for once, have disarmed the burlesque of the French critic, rouses equal surprise and indignation. FOURTH LECTURE. INVENTION. PART II. ΦΘΟΝΕΡΑ Δ' ΑΛΛΟΣ ἈΝΗΡ ΒΛΕΠΩΝ, ΓΝΩΜΑΝ ΚΕΝΕΑΝ ΣΚΟΤΩΙ ΚΥΛΙΝΔΕΙ ΧΑΜΑΙΠΕΤΟΙΣΑΝ. ΠΙΝΔΑΡ. ΝΕΜ. ΕΙΔ. Δ. ARGUMENT. Choice of subjects; divided into positive, negative, repulsive.--Observations on the Parerga, or Accessories of Invention. FOURTH LECTURE.