calm, or interrupt the recreations, of the passing moment. SPENCE'S CHARACTER OF THE VENUS DE MEDICI. (From his Polymetis.) VENUS, in all attitudes, is graceful, but in no one more than in that of the Venus of Medici; where, if she is not really modest, she, at least counterfeits modesty extremely well. This attitude might be described in two verses of Ovid. Art. Am. ii. v. 614, 615. This statue, as to the shape, will ever be the standard of all female beauty and softness. Her breasts are small, distinct, and delicate, to the highest degree; her waist is not represented as stinted by art, but as exactly proportioned by nature to all the other parts of her body. Her legs are neat and slender, the small of them is finely rounded, and her very feet are little, pretty, and white. The general tenderness, elegance, and fine proportions of her whole make, seem to take a great deal from the beauty of her face, or the head is really (as has been suspected) not of the same artist who made the body. Some have fancied that there are three different passions expressed in the air of the head, in which the face is a little turned away from you. At your first approaching her, aversion appears in her look; move one step or two, and she has a compliance in it; and one step more to the right turns it into a little insulting smile, as having made sure of you: but Spence could not find out this malicious smile, though he often viewed the statue on purpose. PIETRO DA CORTONA'S VISIT TO FLORENCE. PIETRO DA CORTONA came to Florence in 1640, by the special invitation of the Grand Duke Ferdinand II. While working in the apartment called "The Mercury," he took some disgust to the Florentine Court, and returning hastily to Rome, sent his excuses to the Grand Duke. His paintings were finished by his pupil, Ciro Ferri. But before he departed, he had formed a new school at Florence, which was applauded by the most highly considered professors. In conjunction with the Padre Ottonelli, a Jesuit, he wrote a book on painting and sculpture, now become extremely scarce: it was published in Florence, 1652. RIVAL MADONNAS. BEFORE the reformation, the Virgin Mary had (as she has now in Italy) in every town, village, church and chapel, statues with different names and representations, according to the place she was in, and the character she bore. Though there was but one Virgin Mary, yet one figure of her was deemed more venerable than another. Many devout people, for example, gave large presents to the Virgin of Winchester, who would have grudged the smallest offering to the Virgin of Walsingham. They thought themselves indebted to her figure at Winchester, and not at all to that at Walsingham. Thus the inhabitants of Rome at present go every year to pay their devotions to the statue of the Virgin at Loretto, though they have other statues of her near their own doors. MEDUSA'S HEAD. THE head of Medusa is represented by the ancients as sometimes most beautiful, and at others most horrible. In the Strozzi Medusa at Rome, her look is dead, but with a beauty that death itself cannot extinguish. The poets speak of the beauties and horrors of Medusa's face, and also of her serpents, particularly two with their tails twined together under her chin, and their heads reared over her forehead. She is thus represented, with eyes convulsed, on a jasper at Florence. PICTORIAL CHALLENGE. CLOSTERMAN being jealous of the fame of Sir Godfrey Kneller, to whom, though a good painter, he was inferior, sent him a challenge to paint a picture with him for a wager. Sir Godfrey wisely declined the contest, and sent him word he allowed him to be his superior. CORREGGIO'S GRAND CUPOLA OF THE CHURCH OF ST JOHN. THE admiration which the works of Correggio. excited, induced the monks of St. John to engage him in ornamenting the grand cupola, and other parts of their church. The original agreement has not been discovered, but various entries have been found in the books of the convent, between 1519 and 1536, which prove, that for adorning the cupola he received as Tiraboschi asserts, 272 gold ducats, and 200 more for other parts of the fabric. The last payment of 27 gold ducats was made on the 23rd of January, 1524, and the acknowledgment of the painter, under his own signature, is still extant. The subject is the Ascension of Christ in glory, surrounded by the twelve Apostles, seated on the clouds; and in the lunettes the four Evangelists and four Doctors of the Church. The situation of the painter presented difficulties which none but so great an artist could have overcome; for the cupola has neither sky-light nor windows, and consequently the whole effect of the piece must depend on the light reflected from below. The figures of the Apostles are chiefly naked, gigantic, and in a style of peculiar grandeur. Besides the cupola, various parts of the same church were adorned by his hand. He decorated the tribune, which was afterwards demolished to enlarge the choir, and was so highly esteemed, that Cesare Aretusi was employed by the monks to copy it for the new tribune. He painted also in fresco, |