The Bronze That Formerly Ornamented This Temple Was Made Use Of
To Fabricate The Baldachin Of St Peter's. Of Late
Years it has been the
fashion to erect monuments affixed to the walls of the interior of the
Pantheon to
The memory of the great men and heroes of poetry, painting,
sculpture and music who were natives of Italy, or for foreigners,
celebrated for their excellence in those arts, who have died in Rome. Here
are for instance, tablets to the memory of Metastasio, Rafael Mengs,
Sacchini, Poussin, Winckelmann; the Phidias of modern days, the illustrious
Canova, has recommended the placing in the Pantheon of the busts in marble
of all the great men who have flourished in Italy, as the most appropriate
ornament to this temple. He himself with a princely liberality has made a
present to it of the busts of Dante, Petrarca, Ariosto, Tasso, Guarini,
Alfieri, Michel Angelo, Rafaello, Metastasio and various other worthies.
These busts are all the production either of Canova himself, or made by his
pupils under his direction; they are not the least remarkable ornament of
the place. In the centre of the Piazza della Rotonda stands an obelisk
brought from Egypt, which belonged to a temple sacred to Isis in that
country.
I next repaired to the Piazza di Navona, a large and spacious square,
where there is a superb fountain representing a vast rock with four
colossal figures, one of which reclines at the foot of the rock, at each
angle of the pedestal that supports it, and it is surmounted by an Obelisk
which was brought from Egypt and was found in the gardens of Sallust.
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