Polycletus and Praxiteles raised, indeed, in his mind a prudent degree of scepticism; but he dwelt with fond anticipation upon the pleasure which he should experience on the arrival of the busts; and he instantly assigned to each of his expected guests their proper stations in his villa. “Minerva,” says he in a letter to Niccolo Niccoli, “will not, I trust, think herself improperly situated beneath my roof—I will place her in my library. I am sure Bacchus will find himself at home in my house; for if any place is his appropriated residence, that place is my native district, where he is held in peculiar honour. As to Juno, she shall retaliate the infidelities of her straying husband by becoming my mistress.”[258] The busts in question arrived in safety at the place of their destination;[259] but Francesco alleged that the statue had been stolen out of the ship in which he returned from Greece.[260] Poggio strongly suspected that the plunderer who had deprived him of this portion of his expected treasure was no other than Francesco himself. In this suspicion he was confirmed by his subsequent conduct. For this faithless agent having been afterwards commissioned by Andreolo Giustiniano, a Genoese of considerable learning, to convey to Poggio some antique busts, disposed of this valuable deposit to Cosmo de’ Medici. Poggio did not tamely bear this injury, but inveighed against the dishonesty of the Pistoian with great bitterness in a letter which he addressed to Giustiniano.[261] From this letter it appears, that in addition to his groups of ancient statues, Poggio had adorned his villa by a collection of antique coins and gems. To these pursuits he was instigated, not merely by the desire of illustrating the classic authors by a reference to works of ancient art, but also by an enthusiastic admiration of the sculptured wonders, the productions of men endowed with superlative talents, who, rising from individual to general nature, combined in their imaginations, and embodied with their plastic hands, those finished forms which, as it were, fill the mind of the spectator, and raise him to the exalted idea of perfection.[262] On this subject he thus expressed himself in a letter to Francesco di Pistoia. “I am struck with awe by the genius of the artist, when I see the powers of nature herself represented in marble. Different men are visited by different diseases. My infirmity is an admiration of the works of excellent sculptors: for I cannot but be affected with astonishment by the skill of the man who gives to inanimate substance the expression of animation.”[263]