228. _Rinuccini Gallery._--I see by a late number of the _Athenaeum_
newspaper, that the splendid collection of pictures preserved in the
Rinuccini Palace at Florence will be brought to the hammer in the month
of May 1852. It has been stated, that amongst the works of art at one
period extant in the Rinuccini Palace, were a number of paintings made
by Italian artists for Cardinal Rinuccini, when on his Legatine mission
to Ireland in the middle of the seventeenth century, and representing
his triumphal entry into Kilkenny in November 1645. It has also been
asserted that these interesting historical paintings were wilfully
destroyed from a very discreditable motive. The importance of these
cartoons, as illustrating a period when Ireland became the final
battle-field of the contending parties which then divided the British
dominions, will at once be acknowledged; and at this period, when so
many foreigners are assembled in London, perhaps some reader of "NOTES
AND QUERIES" may be able to set the question of the existence or
destruction of these cartoons at rest. Or, at all events, some person
about to seek the genial air of Italy during the winter may bear this
"Query" in mind, and forward to your valuable paper a "Note" of the
contents of the Rinuccini Gallery. I need hardly say that the person so
doing will confer a favour on every student of Irish History.