THE GARDENS OF PAPAL ROME 
spends the whole day walking about these delicious 
gardens and groves of pines and orange trees, which 
afford him the greatest possible pleasure.” 1 
The Pope’s collection of antiques, which daily received 
new additions, was another source of continual delight, 
and Federico filled his letters to his mother with glow¬ 
ing descriptions of the Laocoon, which had lately been 
dug up in the Sette Sale, near the Baths of Titus, and 
which he longed to send home to Mantua. Only a 
year after the discovery of the Laocoon, a Roman who 
was digging in his garden in the Campo de’ Fiori, 
found a life-size image of Hercules wearing the lion’s 
skin, with a club in one arm and the boy Telephus on 
the other. This statue was taken to the Belvedere 
the same day, and the lucky finder was rewarded by 
the Pope with a benefice worth 130 ducats a year. 
At this time there was a perfect passion for antiques 
in Rome, and the keenest competition prevailed among 
cardinals and princes for the marbles that were 
brought to light. Great excitement was caused when, 
one day in January 1512, some masons who were 
building a house near the Dominican Church of S. 
Maria sopra Minerva discovered a large recumbent 
statue of the river-god Tiber, with the wolf suckling 
Romulus and Remus at his side. This group was 
also secured for the Pope and brought to the Bel- 
1 A. Luzio, Federico Ostaggio, p. 9. 
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