As For The
Famous Groupe Of Laocoon, It Surpassed My Expectation.
It was not
without reason that Buonaroti called it a portentous work; and
Pliny has done it no more
Than justice in saying it is the most
excellent piece that ever was cut in marble; and yet the famous
Fulvius Ursini is of opinion that this is not the same statue
which Pliny described. His reasons, mentioned by Montfaucon, are
these. The statues described by Pliny were of one stone; but
these are not. Antonioli, the antiquary, has in his Possession,
pieces of Laocoon's snakes, which were found in the ground, where
the baths of Titus actually stood, agreeable to Pliny, who says
these statues were placed in the buildings of Titus. Be that as
it may, the work which we now see does honour to antiquity. As
you have seen innumerable copies and casts of it, in marble,
plaister, copper, lead, drawings, and prints, and read the
description of it in Keysler, and twenty other books of travels,
I shall say nothing more on the subject; but that neither they
nor I, nor any other person, could say too much in its praise. It
is not of one piece indeed. In that particular Pliny himself
might be mistaken. "Opus omnibus et picturae, et statuariae artis
praeponendum. Ex uno lapide eum et Liberos draconumque mirabiles
nexus de consilii sententia fecere succubi artifices." "A work
preferable to all the other Efforts of Painting and Statuary. The
most excellent artists joined their Talents in making the Father
and his Sons, together with the admirable Twinings of the
Serpents, of one Block." Buonaroti discovered the joinings,
though they were so artfully concealed as to be before invisible.
This amazing groupe is the work of three Rhodian sculptors,
called Agesander, Polydore, and Athenodorus, and was found in the
thermae of Titus Vespasian, still supposing it to be the true
antique. As for the torso, or mutilated trunk of a statue, which
is called the school of Michael Angelo, I had not time to
consider it attentively; nor taste enough to perceive its
beauties at first sight. The famous horses on Monte Cavallo,
before the pope's palace, which are said to have been made in
emulation, by Phidias and Praxiteles, I have seen, and likewise
those in the front of the Capitol, with the statues of Castor and
Pollux; but what pleased me infinitely more than all of them
together, is the equestrian statue of Corinthian brass, standing
in the middle of this Piazza (I mean at the Capitol) said to
represent the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Others suppose it was
intended for Lucius Verus; a third set of antiquaries contend for
Lucius Septimius Severus; and a fourth, for Constantine, because
it stood in the Piazza of the Lateran palace, built by that
emperor, from whence pope Paul III. caused it to be removed to
the Capitol. I considered the trophy of Marius as a very curious
piece of sculpture, and admired the two sphinxes at the bottom of
the stairs leading to this Piazza, as the only good specimens of
design I have ever seen from Aegypt:
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