NICE, February 5, 1765.
DEAR SIR,--Your entertaining letter of the fifth of last month, was a
very charitable and a very agreeable donation: but your suspicion is
groundless. I assure you, upon my honour, I have no share whatever in
any of the disputes which agitate the public: nor do I know any thing
of your political transactions, except what I casually see in one of
your newspapers, with the perusal of which I am sometimes favoured by
our consul at Villefranche. You insist upon my being more particular in
my remarks on what I saw at Florence, and I shall obey the injunction.
The famous gallery which contains the antiquities, is the third story
of a noble stone-edifice, built in the form of the Greek Pi, the upper
part fronting the river Arno, and one of the legs adjoining to the
ducal-palace, where the courts of justice are held. As the house of
Medici had for some centuries resided in the palace of Pitti, situated
on the other side of the river, a full mile from these tribunals, the
architect Vasari, who planned the new edifice, at the same time
contrived a corridore, or covered passage, extending from the palace of
Pitti along one of the bridges, to the gallery of curiosities, through
which the grand-duke passed unseen, when he was disposed either to
amuse himself with his antiquities, or to assist at his courts of
judicature: but there is nothing very extraordinary either in the
contrivance or execution of this corridore.
If I resided in Florence I would give something extraordinary for
permission to walk every day in the gallery, which I should much prefer
to the Lycaeum, the groves of Academus, or any porch or philosophical
alley in Athens or in Rome. Here by viewing the statues and busts
ranged on each side, I should become acquainted with the faces of all
the remarkable personages, male and female, of antiquity, and even be
able to trace their different characters from the expression of their
features. This collection is a most excellent commentary upon the Roman
historians, particularly Suetonius and Dion Cassius. There was one
circumstance that struck me in viewing the busts of Caracalla, both
here and in the Capitol at Rome; there was a certain ferocity in the
eyes, which seemed to contradict the sweetness of the other features,
and remarkably justified the epithet Caracuyl, by which he was
distinguished by the antient inhabitants of North-Britain. In the
language of the Highlanders caracuyl signifies cruel eye, as we are
given to understand by the ingenious editor of Fingal, who seems to
think that Caracalla is no other than the Celtic word, adapted to the
pronunciation of the Romans: but the truth is, Caracalla was the name
of a Gaulish vestment, which this prince affected to wear; and hence he
derived that surname. The Caracuyl of the Britons, is the same as the
upodra idon of the Greeks, which Homer has so often applied to his
Scolding Heroes. I like the Bacchanalian, chiefly for the fine drapery.
The wind, occasioned by her motion, seems to have swelled and raised it
from the parts of the body which it covers. There is another gay
Bacchanalian, in the attitude of dancing, crowned with ivy, holding in
her right hand a bunch of grapes, and in her left the thyrsus. The head
of the celebrated Flora is very beautiful: the groupe of Cupid and
Psyche, however, did not give me all the pleasure I expected from it.
Of all the marbles that appear in the open gallery, the following are
those I most admire. Leda with the Swan; as for Jupiter, in this
transformation, he has much the appearance of a goose. I have not seen
any thing tamer; but the sculptor has admirably shewn his art in
representing Leda's hand partly hid among the feathers, which are so
lightly touched off, that the very shape of the fingers are seen
underneath. The statue of a youth, supposed to be Ganymede, is compared
by the connoisseurs to the celebrated Venus, and as far as I can judge,
not without reason: it is however, rather agreeable than striking, and
will please a connoisseur much more than a common spectator. I know not
whether it is my regard to the faculty that inhances the value of the
noted Esculapius, who appears with a venerable beard of delicate
workmanship. He is larger than the life, cloathed in a magnificent
pallium, his left arm resting on a knotted staff, round which the snake
is twined according to Ovid.