638 
most exclusively, by Greek sculptors, Julius 
Caesar, who., while in a private station, had 
made au extensive collection of intaglios, and 
small figures in ivory and bronze; and who, 
when dictator, dedicated them as a public 
benefaction in the temple of Venus Geuitrix ; 
may be said to have left the love of the arts 
as an inheritance to the Romans. 
Augustus, after he assumed the imperial 
government, dispatched Memmius ReguliiS 
to collect from every city of Greece the sta- 
tues yet remaining in them. His orders were 
so well observed, that the finest pieces of 
sculpture were brought to Rome, with a 
profusion by which his palaces were crowd- 
ed; and many were distributed in his nu- 
merous villas. The Olympian Jupiter, of 
Phidias, composed of gold and ivory, was al- 
most the only statue that escaped; the artists 
of Greece asserting, that from the state of its 
materials, it would not bear removal. 
Augustus encouraged also the prevailing 
mode of representing in statuary the most 
distinguished characters of the age, and 
•placed many of their statues in public situa- 
tions of eminence. 
Succeeding emperors followed the ex- 
ample of Augustus. We are informed by 
Pausanias, that from the temple of Delphos 
only, live statues were transported to Rome 
by Nero, who also empiyed Zenodorus to 
cast a colossal statue of him in bronze 110 feet 
high. 
Kero, however, indulged the perverseness 
-of his taste in gilding, and otherwise disfigur- 
ing, many of these exquisite works. 
The triumphal arch built by Titus, and the 
frieze in the temple of Minerva, built by Do- 
milian, give a very favourable idea of the 
arts under those emperors. 
In the sculpture of triumphal bas-reliefs 
ami trophies, the artists were particularly 
-eminent. The architectural plans adopted 
by Trajan were of such magnitude, that men 
ot every kind of talents were invited to signa- 
lize themselves under his munificent patro- 
nage. His bridge over the Danube, his tri- 
umphal arch at Ancona, his forum including 
the column which now bears his name, appear 
to have given employment to all the powers 
©f human skill. 
Under the auspices of Hadrian, the suc- 
cessor of Trajan, the arts maintained a pro- 
gressive degree of excellence, lie was emi- 
nently accomplished, not only. as an admirer, 
but was himself an artist. Every province 
in Greece enjoyed his munificence; and the 
-temple of Jupiter at Athens, which he re- 
stored, and that of Cyzicum, on the shores 
of Propontis, which he built, were stupen- 
dous monuments of imperial splendour. Hav- 
ing for eighteen years been engaged in vi- 
siting the most distant parts of the Roman 
empire, lie resolved to construct his villa at 
Tivoli; in w hich, not only exact models of 
(he most celebrated buildings he had seen, 
should be erected, but that they should be 
furnished with originals, or the finest copies, 
of the most admirable statues. Iiis correct 
judgment in all works of art contributed more 
to the absolute superiority of this collection, 
than the mere power of expending unlimited 
treasures to procure it. 
jt w as by Hadrian that the fashion of hav- 
ing portraits in statuary was so generally ex- 
tended amongst the noble and opulent citizens 
SCULPTURE. 
of Rome. In his own villa at Tivoli were 
placed, by his command, the statues and 
busts not only of all his living, but of his de- 
ceased, friends. Of. his favourite Antinous, 
in various characters, there are infinite repe- 
titions. That most valued was found on the 
Esquiline hill, and was placed by Leo X. in 
tiie Vatican : but it has lately been described 
as Mercury, by the abate Visconti. Another 
was found about 1770, in the Thermae Mari- 
time of Hadrian, near Ostia. It represents 
Antinous in the mythological character of 
Abundance, and is now in the collection of 
the Lion. J. Smith Barry, at Beaumont, in 
Cheshire. 
Some curiosity will be excited to enquire 
the names of those artists who were so con- 
stantly employed, and so amply patronised, 
by Hadrian. Those only of Aristseus, Papias, 
and Zeno, occur on the plinths of fragments 
discovered amongst the Tiburtine ruins. 
We are now advancing rapidly to the de- 
cline of sculpture among the Romans. Of 
the two Antonines, M. Aurelius appears to 
have been the greater friend of the arts. His 
equestrian statue in bronze in the area of 
the capitol, still defies the competition of 
the modern artists. 'Phis last epoch in- 
cludes tiie reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, and the 
Antonines, and terminates within that of 
Commodus. It was most remarkable for tiie 
character and high-finishing of heads intended 
as portraits, particularly of the imperial 
busts, as of M. Aurelius, Commodus when 
young, and of Lucius Verus. 
A statue, said to be of that degenerate 
monster Commodus, in the character of a 
young Hercules, is in the Belvedere ; but the 
superior style of the hair is a decisive proof, 
according to the j udicious Winckelmann, that 
it is a genuine Hercules of much higher an- 
tiquity. 
But a far inferior state of sculpture, in 
which none of its pristine elegance could be 
traced, is apparent in the bas-reliefs of two 
triumphal arches, erected at Rome in tiie 
reign of Septimius Severus. The arts, how- 
ever, cannot he supposed to have declined 
so suddenly from a scarcity of those persons 
who professed them ; for many portraits in 
marble, both of this emperor and his favour- 
ite minister Plautianus, afford a convincing 
proof, that the sculptors were many, vet 
that the art was in decay. 
The several authors who have pursued 
this inquiry with the most ample and critical 
investigation, are undecided in fixing the ex- 
act period of the extinction of the arts at 
Rome. Some ailow no proofs of their ex- 
istence later than the Gordians ; and by 
others they are extended to the reign of Li- 
cinius Gallienus, in the 268th year of Christi- 
anity. Why tiie profession of the arts should, I 
in a great measure, cease, several causes 
have been given; but tiie principal and most 
obvious one is, that when Constantine deter- 
mined to establish at Byzantium another ca- 
pital of the Roman world, he pillaged the old 
metropolis of its most valuable statuary, to 
embellish a rival city. Those cities of Greece 
also which were contiguous, supplied, of 
course, ail easy prey. Implicit credit per- 
haps is not to be given to an author of such 
questionable veracity as Cedrenus; but from 
him we learn, that Constantine had collected 
the Olympic Jupiter of Phidias, the Gnidian 
Venus of Praxiteles, and a colossal Juno, in 
bronze, from her temple at Samos ; not t« 
detail more of his catalogue. These, accord- 
ing to Nicaetas, were broken in pieces, or 
melted down, at the surrender of the Eastern 
empire, and its metropolis, in 1204, to the 
French and Venetians. The four bronze 
horses in the Duomo of St. Mark at Venice, 
were preserved from destruction, and trans- 
ported in triumph. 
From tiie reigns of tiie first Byzantine em- 
perors, to the immediate successors of Theo- 
dosius, we may perceive a ray of their former 
geniu-, still animating the Greek artists. The 
historical column of Arc tdius rose in no 
very unequal emulation o; those ot Trajan 
and Aiilonine at dome. But from many 
epigrams ot the Anlhologia, it is evident that 
able artists were to be found; audit maybe 
candid to suppose, that such praise was not, 
in every instance, extravagant o unmerited. 
At the same time that Rome was laid waste 
bv the Goths, the works in bronze by tiie 
artists at Constantinople were held in consi- 
derable estimation. 
In the conclusion of his History of the De- 
cline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the 
erudite Gibbon has given a perspicuous ac- 
count of the causes to which the ruins of 
Rome may be ascribed. 
During the fifteenth century, Petrarch and 
Poggius, tiie celebrated Florentine rhetori- 
cian and lawyer, very eloquently describe 
tiie dilapidation by which they were sur- 
rounded in their view of the imperial city, 
after many centuries of injury sustained from 
the G oths, the zeal of the primitive Christians, 
tiie civil w'ars of her own nobility, and the 
waste of materials, or the gradual decay of 
time. 
Poggius asserts, that six perfect statues 
only remained, of all the former splendour 
of the mistress of tiie world. Pour were ex- 
tant in the baths of Constantine ; tiie others 
were that now on tiie Monte-cavollo, and 
the equestrian statue of M. Aurelius. Of 
these, five were of marble; the sixth and last 
is of bronze. 
Poggius was the first collector of antique 
statues ; and from him the great Cosmo de 
Medici acquired a love of the arts, and 
learned to enrich his cabinet with their pro- 
ductions. His successors, with hereditary 
emulation, exerted every power of wealtfi 
and influence, to render that cabinet the 
envy of Europe. 
An investigation of the remains of Roman 
grandeur, so iong and sedulously pursued, 
was rewarded by frequent discoveries of the 
finest antique sculptures; and the artists of 
the modern schools established at tiie Flo- 
rence, gave the first proofs of their ingenuity 
in restoring and adapting those precious frag- 
ments. 
Many curious particulars relative to fhe 
discovery of antique statues in the sixteenth 
century, may be found in Ficoroni, in an ac- 
count by Flaminius Vacca, printed at the 
end ofNardini’s Roma Antica, and in Mont- 
faucon. Several of these are also to be found 
in Dallavvay’s Anecdotes, from which many 
parts of this account of tiie arts have been 
selected. 
Modern art of sculpture. 
Of the sculptors of the modern school, the 
first who are deserving of notice are Niceolo 
Pjlani, and his son Giovanni, whose works 
