[49]. The ‘Apollo’ at Naples, in basalt, no. 6262. See Note, postea, p. 104.
[50]. The porphyry ‘Apollo’ at Naples, no. 6281. See Note, as above.
[51]. The five eastern window openings of S. Miniato are filled with slabs of antique pavonazzetto with red-purple markings, nearly two inches thick and measuring in surface about 9 ft. by 3 ft. The windows are square headed. The slabs transmit the light unequally according to the darker or lighter patches in their markings, but the effect is pleasing. Similar window fillings are to be seen at Orvieto. ‘Almost any marble,’ it has been said, ‘with crystalline statuary ground, an inch thick, placed on the sunny side of a church in Italy would admit sufficient light for worship, but it would not do in our variable climate.’ The so-called Onyx marbles of Algeria and Mexico, as well as Oriental alabasters, are specially suitable for the purpose here in view. The ‘white and yellowish’ eastern marbles that Vasari writes of were probably of this kind.
[52]. By ‘the same quarries’ Vasari means, no doubt, those of Egypt and Greece, of Carrara, of Prato, etc., mentioned in § 7 in connection with ‘paragon.’ On the subject see the Note on ‘Tuscan Marble Quarries,’ postea, p. 119f.
[53]. The reference is to the two so-called ‘Horse-Tamers’ opposite the Quirinal Palace at Rome, that probably once stood in front of the Thermae of Constantine, which occupied the slope of the Quirinal. The figures of the youths, perhaps representing the Dioscuri, are eighteen feet high, and the material was long ago pronounced Thasian marble (see Matz-Duhn, Antike Bildwerke in Rom, Leipzig, 1881, I, 268). The works are Roman copies of Greek originals. They have recently been overhauled, with very good result as regards their appearance. The sculptor, Professor Ettore Ferrari, who superintended this work, reports that the material is ‘marmo greco,’ which may be held to settle the question in favour of Greek as against Luna marble.
[54]. The ‘Nile’ is now in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican, the fellow-statue, the ‘Tiber,’ see ante, p. [36], in the Louvre at Paris. They are said to have been discovered at Rome early in the sixteenth century, near S. Maria Sopra Minerva where was the Temple of Isis and Serapis, and Pope Leo X had them placed in the Cortile di Belvedere of the Vatican. They were removed to Paris in ‘the year X’ by Napoleon, and in 1815 the ‘Nile’ was sent back to Rome, the ‘Tiber’ remaining in the Louvre. The ‘Nile’ is much the better work of art and is a copy or a study from an Alexandrian original, perhaps the ‘Nilus’ in basalt, which, according to Pliny, Hist. Nat., XXXVI, 7, Augustus dedicated in the Temple of Peace. Amelung, in his Sculpturen des Vaticanischen Museums, only states that the ‘Nile’ is in ‘großkörnigem Marmor.’ The material of the statue certainly differs from that of the restored parts, and we should guess it as Pentelic marble repaired with Carrara. About the ‘Tiber,’ Froener, in the Louvre Catalogue, states that it is of Pentelic marble, and it is so labelled. Our measurements show that both statues required blocks of the dimensions 10 ft. by 5 ft. by 5 ft. in height. It may be noted that the finest statuary marble known, that of the island of Paros, is not to be obtained in very large blocks. That out of which the Hermes of Praxiteles has been carved must have measured about 8 ft. by 5 ft. by 3 ft. 6 in. and is considered an exceptionally fine block. Pentelic and Carrara marble can be obtained in much larger pieces. We saw not long ago in the modern quarries behind Mount Pentelicus a block nearly 20 ft. in cube. One seventeen feet long has recently been cut in the Monte Altissimo quarries in the Carrara mountains for a copy of the ‘David’ of Michelangelo. A piece of Monte Altissimo marble of the best quality is shown as J on the Frontispiece.
[55]. This remark shows a just observation on the part of Vasari. The Greek nose is markedly different from the Florentine. The latter, as may be seen in the ‘St. George’ of Donatello, or the ‘David’ of Michelangelo, has more shape than the classical nose. There is more difference marked between the nasal bone and the cartilaginous prolongation towards the tip, and there is more modelling about the nostril, which the Italian sculptors make thinner and more sensitive.
[56]. The Carfagnana, or more properly Garfagnana, is the name applied to the upper part of the valley of the Serchio, between the Apennines and the Apuan Alps, on the western slopes of which the marble quarries are situated. See Note on ‘Tuscan Marble Quarries,’ postea, p. 119 f., for the different marbles and their provenance.
[57]. Benvenuto Cellini, Scultura, ch. iv, mentions this black marble from Carrara, which he says is very hard and brittle and difficult to work. Black marble is still quarried in the Carrara district, but only to a small extent.
[58]. The grey marble is that known now as ‘Bardiglio’; the grey-veined ‘Marmo-’ or ‘Bardiglio-’ ‘fiorito’; the red, ‘Breccia.’