160 The Picture Gallery of the Vatican. 



of art, we will just give him a hint, if he be a stranger in Rome, not 

 to put off entering the gallery till the latter part of the afternoon. 

 The Vatican is opened at one o'clock precisely ; at three the Picture 

 Gallery is shut, and visitors are turned out, because it communicates 

 with the Pope's private apartments, and is his favourite promenade 

 after his early dinner. Indeed, for some little time before that hour 

 no new faces are allowed to enter, although those who are already 

 there are still permitted to linger till the clock strikes. The Picture 

 Gallery, moreover, is not arrived at till you have passed through 

 every other apartment which is thrown open to the public ; and in a 

 palace, the rooms of which are calculated by one traveller at 12,000, 

 by another at 10,000, while a more moderate tourist reduces them to 

 4000, the mere distance to be traversed is no trifle. Add to this that 

 you^have to pass the arabesque corridors of Raffaelle, the gallery of 

 inscriptions relating to the primitive Christians and others, the busts, 

 the statutes, the fragments, the ancient mosaic floors, the Apollo Bel- 

 vedere, the Laocoon, and a thousand other temptations, each of which 

 invites the stranger to tarry and admire it, and we shall not be sup- 

 posed to be offering a superfluous piece of advice when we admonish 

 you to post yourself at the gates at one o'clock, and immediately that 

 they are opened to rush forward without looking to the right or to 

 the left, until you find yourself safe in the Picture Gallery. Other ob- 

 jects you may examine at your leisure ; here you must make the best 

 use of your time and for want of adopting this plan, hundreds, nay 

 thousands, leave Rome after a residence of several weeks, without 

 having seen, or without having had any thing more than a hurried 

 peep at, the Madonna di Foligno, and the Last Communion of St. 

 Girolamo. 



With this short preface we shall proceed at once to the pictures, 

 making successively upon each such remarks as they may naturally 

 suggest. 



No. 1. Lombard School. The Pieta of Andrea Mantegna of Padua, 

 the reputed inventor of line engraving. The same honour, however, 

 is claimed for Finiguerra, and the Germans deny that any Italian is 

 entitled to it. 



This picture, which consists of half-lengths the size of life, repre- 

 sents a Dead Christ, and Mary Magdalen in the act of anointing. his 

 wounds. In Italy, the subject of a Dead Christ, whether accompa- 

 nied by the Virgin, or by any other Scripture characters, is always 

 called a Pieta. From a comparison with other better authenticated 

 paintings in the same style, there seems to remain scarcely a doubt 

 that it really is the work of the master to whom it is ascribed. This 

 picture, which is known by the name of the Pieta di Mantegna, has 

 considerable merit in the hard and dry manner of those times, and in 

 the delicacy with which the'Jiair, particularly that of the Magdalen, 

 is touched. 



No. 2. Roman School. St. Gregory the Great, by Andrea Sacchi, 

 who was born at Rome in the year 1599, and who was the most dis- 

 tinguished disciple of Francesco Albani. 



The subject of this picture, of which there is a mosaic copy in St. 

 Peter's, is a miracle said to have been performed by St. Gregory the 



