oom the beautiful Venus Anadyomene engrossed my chief
attention; and in the cabinet of Venus the Venus Callipygos forms an
exquisite sidepiece to the Venus de Medicis.

The upper regions of this splendid building contain an extensive
library and a picture-gallery.

I also paid a visit to the catacombs of St. Januarius, which extend
three stories high on a mountain, and are full of little niches,
five or six of which are often found one above the other.

In the chapel Santa Maria della Pieta, in the palace St. Severino, I
admired three of the finest and most valuable marble statues that
can be found any where; I mean, "Veiled Innocence," "Malice in a
Net," and a veiled recumbent figure of Christ. All three are by the
sculptor Bernini.

The largest church in the town is the cathedral dedicated to St.
Januarius. This structure rests on a hundred and ten columns of
Egyptian and African granite, standing three by three, embedded in
the walls. The church has not a very imposing appearance. The
chief altar, beneath which the body of St. Januarius is deposited,
is ornamented with many kinds of valuable marble. Here I saw a
great number of pictures, most of them of considerable merit. The
chapel of St. Januarius, also called the "chapel of the treasure,"
is one of the most gorgeous shrines that can be conceived. The
Neapolitans built it as a thank-offering at the cessation of a
plague. The cost was above a million of ducats, and the wealth of
this chapel is greater than that of any church in Christendom. It
is built in a circular form, and all the resources of art have been
lavished on the decoration of the chief altar. Every spot is
covered with treasures and works of art, and the roof is supported
by forty-two Corinthian pillars of dark-red stone. All the
decorations of the high altar, the immense candelabra and massive
flower-vases, are of silver. At a grand festival, when every thing
is richly illuminated, the appearance of this chapel must be
gorgeous in the extreme. The head and two bottles of the blood of
St. Januarius are preserved here; the people assert that this blood
liquefies every year. The frescoes on the ceiling are splendidly
painted; and on the square before the church is to be seen an
obelisk surmounted by a statue of St. Januarius.

St. Jeronimo has an imposing appearance when one first enters. The
whole roof of this church as far downwards as the pillars is covered
with beautiful arabes