assages through mysterious corridors and vast
halls, cautious showings amid a crowd of family-retainers or a retinue
of monks. Sometimes the most wary is thus seduced into offering tenfold
its worth for a common object thus seen by a carefully arranged light
and with artificial surroundings.

Many good pictures are still to be had in Italy, if properly approached
by those who know thoroughly the habits of the country. There are,
however, but two means of procuring them: either to pay their full
value as fixed by rival collectors, or to secure them by fortuitous
circumstances for trifling sums. The extraordinary chances of discovery
and the extreme variations of price attending this pursuit are curious
and instructive. A few examples are worth relating. In 1856, a small
picture, by Niccolo d'Alunno, was sold in Florence, by an artist to a
dealer, for forty dollars; in a few weeks resold to an Englishman
for five hundred; exhibited at the Manchester Exhibition, whence it
subsequently passed into the gallery of a distinguished personage for
twenty-five hundred dollars. The "Leda" of Leonardo, repainted from
motives of prudery by the great-grandfather of Louis-Philippe, was
bought at the sale of that ex-king's pictures in Paris, in 1849, for
thirty dollars, restored to its primitive condition, and sold, we are
informed, for one hundred thousand francs. Ten years ago, an Angel, by
the same artist, was found in the old-clothes market at Florence by an
artist, bought for a few pence, cleaned and sold to Prince Galitzin for
twenty-two thousand francs. The "Fortune" of Michel Angelo, or what was
supposed to be, not long since was discovered in the same locality in a
disastrous condition, secured for a few shillings, put in such order as
was possible, and parted with to a French gentleman for three hundred
dollars and a pension of one dollar a day during the lives of the seller
and his son. Quite recently one of Correggio's most beautiful works was
discovered under the canvas of a worthless picture acquired at a public
auction in Rome for a few dimes, at the sale by a princely family of
discarded pictures, and resold by its fortunate discoverer for fifteen
thousand dollars, although the original proprietor instituted a suit
against him for its recovery, but without success. In Florence, within
three years past, a fine portrait, by Titian, of the Doge Andrea Gritti,
was picked out from a large lot of worthless canvases for six doll