t of his wife, in the Tribuna, while
No. 216--the Bacchanale--is so coarse as almost to send one's feet
there too.

Looking round the room, after Rubens has been dismissed, it is too
evident that the best of the Uffizi collection is behind us. There
are interesting portraits here, but biographically rather than
artistically. Here are one or two fine Sustermans' (1597-1681),
that imported painter whom we shall find in such rare form at the
Pitti. Here, for example, is Ferdinand II, who did so much for the
Uffizi and so little for Galileo; and his cousin and wife Vittoria
della Rovere, daughter of Claudia de' Medici (whose portrait, No. 763,
is on the easel), and Federigo della Rovere, Duke of Urbino. This
silly, plump lady had been married at the age of fourteen, and she
brought her husband a little money and many pictures from Urbino,
notably those delightful portraits of an earlier Duke and Duchess of
Urbino by Piero della Francesca, and also the two Titian "Venuses"
in the Tribuna. Ferdinand II and his Grand Duchess were on bad terms
for most of their lives, and she behaved foolishly, and brought up
her son Cosimo III foolishly, and altogether was a misfortune to
Florence. Sustermans the painter she held in the highest esteem, and
in return he painted her not only as herself but in various unlikely
characters, among them a Vestal Virgin and even the Madonna.

Here also is No. 196, Van Dyck's portrait of Margherita of Lorraine,
whose daughter became Cosimo III's wife--a mischievous, weak face
but magnificently painted; and No. 1536, a vividly-painted elderly
widow by Jordaens (1593-1678); and on each side of the outrageous
Rubens a distinguished Dutch gentleman and lady by the placid,
refined Mierevelt.

The two priceless rooms devoted to Iscrizioni come next, but we
will finish the pictures first and therefore pass on to the Sala di
Baroccio. Federigo Baroccio (1528-1612) is one of the later painters
for whom I, at any rate, cannot feel any enthusiasm. His position in
the Uffizi is due rather to the circumstance that he was a protege of
the Cardinal della Rovere at Rome, whose collection came here, than to
his genius. This room again is of interest rather historically than
artistically. Here, for example, are some good Medici portraits by
Bronzino, among them the famous Eleanora of Toledo, wife of Cosimo I,
in a rich brocade (in which she was buried), with the little staring
Ferdinand I beside her. Eleanora, as we