the great
number of pictures in this Tribuna, I was most charmed with the Venus
by Titian, which has a sweetness of expression and tenderness of
colouring, not to be described. In this apartment, they reckon three
hundred pieces, the greatest part by the best masters, particularly by
Raphael, in the three manners by which he distinguished himself at
different periods of his life. As for the celebrated statue of the
hermaphrodite, which we find in another room, I give the sculptor
credit for his ingenuity in mingling the sexes in the composition; but
it is, at best, no other than a monster in nature, which I never had
any pleasure in viewing: nor, indeed, do I think there was much talent
required in representing a figure with the head and breasts of a woman,
and all the other parts of the body masculine. There is such a
profusion of curiosities in this celebrated musaeum; statues, busts,
pictures, medals, tables inlaid in the way of marquetry, cabinets
adorned with precious stones, jewels of all sorts, mathematical
instruments, antient arms and military machines, that the imagination
is bewildered, and a stranger of a visionary turn, would be apt to
fancy himself in a palace of the fairies, raised and adorned by the
power of inchantment.

In one of the detached apartments, I saw the antependium of the altar,
designed for the famous chapel of St. Lorenzo. It is a curious piece of
architecture, inlaid with coloured marble and precious stones, so as to
represent an infinite variety of natural objects. It is adorned with
some crystal pillars, with capitals of beaten gold. The second story of
the building is occupied by a great number of artists employed in this
very curious work of marquetry, representing figures with gems and
different kinds of coloured marble, for the use of the emperor. The
Italians call it pietre commesse, a sort of inlaying with stones,
analogous to the fineering of cabinets in wood. It is peculiar to
Florence, and seems to be still more curious than the Mosaic work,
which the Romans have brought to great perfection.

The cathedral of Florence is a great Gothic building, encrusted on the
outside with marble; it is remarkable for nothing but its cupola, which
is said to have been copied by the architect of St. Peter's at Rome,
and for its size, which is much greater than that of any other church
in Christendom. [In this cathedral is the Tomb of Johannes Acutus
Anglus, which a man would naturally inter