550 SCULPTURE AND AnCUITF.CTUKE OF ATHENS. 



of them which could be traced through several other parts of 

 Greece, have be< n measured and delineated, with the most scru- 

 pulous fxartne.-.s, by the second architect, Ittar. 



And picturesque views of Athens, of Constantinople, of various 

 parts of Greece, and of the Islands of the Archipelago, have been 

 executed by Don Tila Lusieri. 



Jn the prosecution of this undertaking, the artists had the 

 mortification of witnessing the very wilful devastation, to which all 

 the sculpture, and even the architecture, were daily exposed, on 

 the part of the Turks and travellers. The Ionic Temple, on the 

 Hyssus, which, in Stuart's time, (about the year 1759, ) was in 

 tolerable preservation, had so completely disappeared, that its foun- 

 dation can no Ion er be ascertained. Another temple, near Olyin- 

 pia, had shared a similar fate, within the recollection of man. The 

 Temple of Minerva had been converted into a powder magazine, 

 and been completely destroyed, from a shell failing upon it, dur- 

 ing the bombardment of Athens by the Venetians towards the end 

 of the seventeenth century; and even this accident had not deterred 

 the Turks from applying the beautiful Temple of Neptune and 

 Erectheus to th same use, whereby it is constantly exposed to a 

 similar fate. Many of the statues on the poslicum of the temple 

 of Minerva, (Parthenon,) which had been thrown down by the 

 e.xplosion, had been absolutely pounded for mortar, because they 

 furnished the whitest marble within reach ; and the parts of the 

 modern fortification, and the miserable houses where this mortar 

 was so applied, were dis overed. Besides, it is well known that 

 the Turks will frequently climb up the ruined walls, and amuse 

 themselves in defacing any sculpture they can reach ; or in break- 

 ing columns, statues, or other remains of antiquity, in the fond 

 expectation of finding within them some hidden treasures. 



Under these circumstances, lord Elgin felt himself impelled, 

 by a 'tronger motive than personal gratification, to endeavour to 

 preserve any specimens of sculpture he could, without injury, 

 rescue from such impending ruin. He had, besides, another in- 

 ducement, and an example before him, in the conduct of the last 

 French en-bassy sent to Turkey before the revolution. French 

 artists did then remove several of the sculptured ornaments from 

 several edifices in the Acropolis, and particularly from the Paithe. 

 non. In lowering one of the metopes, the tackle failed, and it was 

 dashed to pieces ; but other objects from the same temple were 



