The fourth is filled with small statues, busts and pictures.
But the room called La Tribuna is the boast of the whole Gallery. It contains the Venus of Medicis, the Wrestlers, the Listener, and the Fawn, which surpass what I thought it possible for marble to express. Nobody that has heard of Florence, but must have read a particular description of these admirable statues: but, in obedience to your desire, I have set down the following measurements of the Venus of Medicis, taken by myself:
| Feet. | In. | 10ths. | |
| From the top of her forehead, in a right line, to the ground | 4 | 9 | 7 |
| But, as she leans considerably forward, her real height, as well as I could measure, is | 5 | 2 | 0 |
| Circumference of the largest part of her below her hips | 2 | 11 | 5 |
| Round her shoulders and her arms | 3 | 1 | 3 |
| Circumference of the smallest part of her leg | 0 | 8 | 0 |
| Of the largest | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Of her ankle | 0 | 8 | 6 |
| Length of her foot | 0 | 9 | 0 |
| Her arms are modern, and by no means equal to the rest of the statue. Their length is | 2 | 5 | 5 |
The paintings in the Tribuna are equal to the statues. The most famous is Titian's celebrated Venus, which justly merits the high encomiums universally conferred upon her. She is lying on a bed, with all her beauties displayed. The painter, with great judgment, has given her a passive countenance, and introduced a softness in her air, full of languishing desire, but free from lascivious wantonness. One might compare her to a most beautiful married woman, deprived for the first time of the presence of a beloved husband. In a word, nothing can be more perfect, or more delightful.
St. Catherine also by Titian, is another excellent painting, and the Virgin Mary, with the infant Jesus on her knees, like all Carlo Dolce's pictures, is divine and beautiful.
Had I found the visitation of St. Elizabeth and St. John, fondling the little Jesus on the Virgin's lap, and several others, in any place but where there is so much to admire, I should have thought each of them worthy a particular description.
The next four chambers contain the Venus Anadyomene, and a few more statues in marble; together with a variety of beautiful vases, plates, cups, and tables, richly inlaid with lapis lazuli and other rich stone; near four hundred paintings in the Flemish manner; a collection of original designs, or rough sketches, of the best masters, and another of prints; but these are very inferior to those of the moderns, and are only meant to show the progress of the art.
The cabinet of jewels and precious stones, cameos, intaglios, &c. closes the Eastern range.
It is with great pain that I find myself inadequate to an entertaining description of these invaluable treasures. The picture of St. Lawrence conducted to the tyrant; Hercules after he had killed the Giants, by Alexander Allori; Helena Forman, by Paul Rubens; the pearl fishery, in lapis lazuli, by Anthony Tempesta; the Rape of Dejanira, by Giordano; the copy of Correggio's Mary Magdalen, and many others I could gaze upon for ever. But the objects of admiration I here meet with, are too numerous to permit me to send you even a list of them.--I have already transgressed the bounds I had proposed to myself; but having gone thus far, I will proceed in the same style through the apartments on the west side.
The first then is called the Cabinet of Medals, and contains a well arranged collection, amounting to the astonishing number of upwards of fourteen thousand. Many false antiques have been admitted, that amateurs may have an opportunity of studying the difference between them and real ones. Over the seven bureaux, in which the medals are preserved, the Labours of Hercules are represented in as many silver groupes, copied from John Bologna.