olic
cause, the subtle and elegant Catholic Barberini, called the protector
of the English at Rome, introduced Panzani to the king's favour, by
making him appear an agent rather for procuring him fine pictures,
statues, and curiosities: and the earnest inquiries and orders given by
Charles the First prove his perfect knowledge of the most beautiful
existing remains of ancient art. "The statues go on prosperously," says
Cardinal Barberini, in a letter to a Mazarin, "nor shall I hesitate to
rob Rome of her most valuable ornaments, if in exchange we might be so
happy as to have the King of England's name among those princes who
submit to the Apostolic See." Charles the First was particularly urgent
to procure a statue of Adonis in the Villa Ludovisia: every effort was
made by the queen's confessor, Father Philips, and the vigilant cardinal
at Rome; but the inexorable Duchess of Fiano would not suffer it to be
separated from her rich collection of statues and paintings, even for
the chance conversion of a whole kingdom of heretics."[190]

This monarch, who possessed "four-and-twenty palaces, all of them
elegantly and completely furnished," had formed very considerable
collections. "The value of pictures had doubled in Europe, by the
emulation between our Charles and Philip the Fourth of Spain, who was
touched with the same elegant passion." When the rulers of fanaticism
began their reign, "all the king's furniture was put to sale; his
pictures, disposed of at very low prices, enriched all the collections
in Europe; the cartoons when complete were only appraised at L300,
though the whole collection of the king's curiosities were sold at above
L50,000.[191] Hume adds, "the very library and medals at St. James's
were intended by the generals to be brought to auction, in order to pay
the arrears of some regiments of cavalry; but Selden, apprehensive of
this loss, engaged his friend Whitelocke, then lord-keeper of the
Commonwealth, to apply for the office of librarian. This contrivance
saved that valuable collection." This account is only partly correct:
the love of books, which formed the passion of the two learned scholars
whom Hume notices, fortunately intervened to save the royal collection
from the intended scattering; but the pictures and medals were, perhaps,
objects too slight in the eyes of the book-learned; they wore resigned
to the singular fate of appraisement. After the Restoration very many
books were missing; but