xvu 



discovery of the group in the vineyard of Felice de Fr^dis was the 

 year 1506, in the papacy of Julian II, when it was disin- 

 terred in a state of partial mutilation. It was remarkable that 

 within a period so lately after as twenty years, a very admirably 

 executed gem, or intaglio, representing that group should be found 

 in the hands of a monk at a small and obscure religious establish- 

 ment on the shore of St. Austell Bay. — This document, when ex- 

 amined by him about sixteen years ago, was in a collection of very 

 curious and early muniments of that Priory, in the possession 

 of Lord Arundel, of Wardour, by whose father it had been lent 

 to the late Dr. Oliver, when engaged in compiling his Exeter 

 Monasticon. It was shown by him (Mr. Smirke) to many friends, 

 both sculptors and antiquaries, and was exhibited by him at 

 Truro, at the meeting of the Cambrian Archseological Association 

 in 1862 ; but it attracted little notice until it was shown by his 

 friend Mr. Albert Way to Mr. King, a very learned amateur of 

 glyptic antiquities, and the author of several important works on 

 the subject of ancient gems.^'' The group, as represented on the 

 seal now exhibited, varied in material points from the present 

 statues in the Vatican. By comparing it with a photographic 

 copy of the Vatican group, the right arm of the principal figure 

 in the seal was found to be bent back towards the head or neck of 

 the figure, and to grasp the serpent at a part close to that side of 

 the head ; whereas the same arm, in the Vatican group, is stretched 

 far off the head, where it seems to be pulling the serpent's tail away 

 from the head. Now it was well known that this right arm was 

 found broken off and wholly wanting in the original when it was 

 first disinterred. The restored arm, at Eome, has been attributed 

 to Michael Angelo ; but there was little or no ground for this cur- 

 rent opinion ; and it was now believed that the " restoration " was 

 effected by a contemporary artist of less celebrity. Certain it is 

 that the arm-, as restored in the 1 6th century, has long been con- 

 sidered a mistaken attempt to reproduce the original and authentic 

 design ■ and the more intelligent critics of the present day are 

 strongly inclined to regard the attitude of the elder figure on the 

 seal of old Prior Collins as more natural and probable than the one 

 displayed for centuries at Eome, with Avhich they were all familiar. 

 Whether this be the more probable conjecture is a matter 

 which must be considered still " suh jvdice." Mr. King was dis- 

 posed to think that the gem used by the old Prior represented an 



* A Paper on the Seal was contributed to the Journal of the ArchcBO- 

 logical Institute, Vol. 24 (1867), by Mr. C. W. King, M.A., Trinity Coll., 

 Cambridge. 



B 



