Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- History
To the R. of the Salle de la Venus de Milo is the Salle Melpomene,
with a fine colossal figure of the Tragic Muse, and, No. 419[196]
(163), an excellent Head of a Woman. We enter the Salle de la Pallas
de Velletri, and ranged along its centre find: 436, a fine bust of
Alexander the Great; the Venus of Arles, 439, said to be a copy of an
early work by Praxiteles; a magnificent Head of Homer, 440; and 441,
Apollo, the Lizard-slayer, after a bronze by Praxiteles. The colossal
Pallas, in a recess to the R., was found at Velletri in 1797: it is
another Roman reproduction of a Greek bronze. Near the entrance to the
next room stands a pleasing Venus, 525, and in the centre the famous
"Borghese Gladiator" or _Heros Combattant_, actually, a warrior
attacking a mounted Amazon. An inscription states that it is the work
of Agasias of Ephesus. To the R. is a fine Marsyas, doomed to be
flayed alive by order of Apollo; to L. 562, the Borghese Centaur, and
near the exit, 529, the charming Diana of Gabii, a Greek girl
fastening her mantle. We pass to the Salle du Tibre, in the centre of
which stands the famous Diana and the Stag, acquired for Francis I.,
much admired and over-rated by the sculptors of the renaissance: at
the end is a colossal group, symbolising the Tiber and Rome. We turn
R. and again enter the Corridor de Pan, pass through the Salle Grecque
and reach the Rotonde with the Borghese Mars in its centre. We turn
L., continue direct through Rooms XIV. to XVIII. the old Petite
Galerie[197] and the apartments of the queen mothers of France still
retaining their ceiling decorations by Romanelli. We then turn R. to
the spacious Salle d'Auguste, (XIX), at the end of which, in a recess,
stands a majestic draped statue of Augustus. In the centre are a bust,
1204, said to be the head of Antiochus III., king of Syria 223-187
B.C., and 1207 the stately Roman Orator as Mercury, which an
inscription on the tortoise states to be the work of Cleomanes, an
Athenian. In this and the subsequent halls are placed many imperial
busts[198] of much historical and some artistic interest.
[Footnote 196: Unfortunately the numeration of the sculpture in the
Louvre is in a most chaotic state. Some of the objects are unnumbered;
others retain their old numbers, yet others have both old and new
numbers.]
[Footnote 197: There was originally a fosse between it and the garden
which Marie de' Medici bridged by a wooden structure, known as the
Pont d'Amour, to facilitate interviews with her favourite Concini.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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