larete, though never
carried beyond the first volume, is an amazing and wearisome display of
the author's archaeological learning. It contains exact descriptions of
all the rarities of ancient art, and of things Oriental which he had
seen, and pages of transcripts from obscure Latin and Greek authors,
descriptive of religious ceremonies; varied with Platonic philosophy,
Decameronian obscenities, in laboured pseudo-Florentine style, and
Dantesque visions, all held together by the confused narrative of an
allegorical journey performed by the author. It is profusely ornamented
with woodcuts, representing architectural designs of a fantastic, rather
Oriental description, restorations of ancient buildings, reproductions
of antique inscriptions and designs, and last, but far from least, a
certain number of small compositions, of Mantegnesque quality, but
Botticellian charm, showing the various adventures of the hero in
terrible woods, delicious gardens, and in the company of nymphs, demigods,
and allegorical personages. These latter are undoubtedly from the hand
of Domenico Neroni; and it was while discussing these delightful damsels
seated with lutes and psalteries under vine-trellises, these scholars
in cap and gown, weeping in quaint chambers with canopied beds and
carnations growing on the window, these processions--suggesting
Mantegna's Triumph of Julius Caesar--of priests and priestesses with
victories and trophies, that the painter from Volterra and the Apulian
humanist would discuss the secret of antique beauty--discuss it for
hours, surrounded by the precious manuscripts and inscriptions, the
fragments of sculpture, the Eastern rarities, of Filarete's little house
on the Quirinal hill, or among the box-hedges, clipped cypresses, and
fountains of his garden; while the riots and massacres, the fanatical
processions and feudal wars, of mediaeval Rome raged unnoticed below. For
Pope Sixtus and his Riarios, and Pope Innocent and his Cybos, thirsting
for power and gold, drunken with lust and bloodshed, were benign and
courteous patrons of all art and all learning.

V

But that number nine, attained with so much difficulty, although it put
the human proportion into visible connection with the sun, with beaten
gold, the smell of the heliotrope, and the god Apollo, and opened a vista
of complicated astral influences, did not in reality bring Domenico one
step nearer the object of his desires. It had enabled those ancient m