throned figure, with a glory round the head, laying his left hand on the
head of a naked youth, and sustaining him with his right hand. The
inscription puzzled me for a long time; but except the lost r and m of
"formavit," and a letter quite undefaced, but to me unintelligble,
before the word Eva, in the shape of a figure of 7, I have safely
ascertained the rest.
"DELIMO DSADA DECO STAFO * * AVIT7EVA."
Or
"De limo Dominus Adam, de costa fo(rm) avit Evam;"
From the dust the Lord made Adam, and from the rib Eve.
I imagine the whole of this capital, therefore--the principal one of the
old palace,--to have been intended to signify, first, the formation of
the planets for the service of man upon the earth; secondly, the entire
subjection of the fates and fortune of man to the will of God, as
determined from the time when the earth and stars were made, and, in
fact, written in the volume of the stars themselves.
Thus interpreted, the doctrines of judicial astrology were not only
consistent with, but an aid to, the most spiritual and humble
Christianity.
In the workmanship and grouping of its foliage, this capital is, on the
whole, the finest I know in Europe. The Sculptor has put his whole
strength into it. I trust that it will appear among the other Venetian
casts lately taken for the Crystal Palace; but if not, I have myself
cast all its figures, and two of its leaves, and I intend to give
drawings of them on a large scale in my folio work.