has in his
Possession, pieces of Laocoon's snakes, which were found in the ground,
where the baths of Titus actually stood, agreeable to Pliny, who says
these statues were placed in the buildings of Titus. Be that as it may,
the work which we now see does honour to antiquity. As you have seen
innumerable copies and casts of it, in marble, plaister, copper, lead,
drawings, and prints, and read the description of it in Keysler, and
twenty other books of travels, I shall say nothing more on the subject;
but that neither they nor I, nor any other person, could say too much
in its praise. It is not of one piece indeed. In that particular Pliny
himself might be mistaken. "Opus omnibus et picturae, et statuariae
artis praeponendum. Ex uno lapide eum et Liberos draconumque mirabiles
nexus de consilii sententia fecere succubi artifices." "A work
preferable to all the other Efforts of Painting and Statuary. The most
excellent artists joined their Talents in making the Father and his
Sons, together with the admirable Twinings of the Serpents, of one
Block." Buonaroti discovered the joinings, though they were so artfully
concealed as to be before invisible. This amazing groupe is the work of
three Rhodian sculptors, called Agesander, Polydore, and Athenodorus,
and was found in the thermae of Titus Vespasian, still supposing it to
be the true antique. As for the torso, or mutilated trunk of a statue,
which is called the school of Michael Angelo, I had not time to
consider it attentively; nor taste enough to perceive its beauties at
first sight. The famous horses on Monte Cavallo, before the pope's
palace, which are said to have been made in emulation, by Phidias and
Praxiteles, I have seen, and likewise those in the front of the
Capitol, with the statues of Castor and Pollux; but what pleased me
infinitely more than all of them together, is the equestrian statue of
Corinthian brass, standing in the middle of this Piazza (I mean at the
Capitol) said to represent the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Others suppose
it was intended for Lucius Verus; a third set of antiquaries contend
for Lucius Septimius Severus; and a fourth, for Constantine, because it
stood in the Piazza of the Lateran palace, built by that emperor, from
whence pope Paul III. caused it to be removed to the Capitol. I
considered the trophy of Marius as a very curious piece of sculpture,
and admired the two sphinxes at the bottom of the stairs leading to
this Piazza, as the onl