viz, Hippolytus and Aristides. The General Councils are painted on the side walls. As to the ranging of the books, they are all shut up in presses of wainscot, and not exposed on shelves to the open air, nor are the most precious mixed among the more ordinary, which are showed to the curious only; such are those two Virgils written on parchment, of more than a thousand years old; the like, a Terence; the "Acts of the Apostles" in golden capital letters; Petrarch's "Epigrams," written with his own hand; also a Hebrew parchment, made up in the ancient manner, from whence they were first called "Volumina", with the Cornua; but what we English do much inquire after, the book which our Henry VIII. writ against Luther.[25]
The largest room is 100 paces long; at the end is the gallery of printed books; then the gallery of the Duke of Urban's library, in which are MSS. of remarkable miniature, and divers Chinese, Mexican, Samaritan, Abyssinian, and other oriental books.
In another wing of the edifice, 200 paces long, were all the books taken from Heidelberg, of which the learned Gruter, and other great scholars, had been keepers. These walls and volte are painted with representations of the machines invented by Domenico Fontana for erection of the obelisks; and the true design of Mahomet's sepulchre at Mecca.
Out of this we went to see the Conclave, where, during a vacancy, the Cardinals are shut up till they are agreed upon a new election; the whole manner whereof was described to us.
Hence we went into the Pope's Armory, under the library. Over the door is this inscription:
"URBANUS VIII. LITTERIS ARMA, ARMA LITTERIS."
I hardly believe any prince in Europe is able to show a more completely furnished library of Mars, for the quality and quantity, which is 40,000 complete for horse and foot, and neatly kept. Out of this we passed again by the long gallery, and at the lower end of it down a very large pair of stairs, round, without any steps as usually, but descending with an evenness so ample and easy, that a horse-litter, or coach, may with ease be drawn up; the sides of the vacuity are set with columns: those at Amboise, on the Loire, in France, are something of this invention, but nothing so spruce. By these, we descended into the Vatican gardens, called Belvedere, where entering first into a kind of court, we were showed those incomparable statues (so famed by Pliny and others) of Laocoon with his three sons embraced by a huge serpent, all of one entire Parian stone, very white and perfect, somewhat bigger than the life, the work of those three celebrated sculptors, Agesandrus, Polydorus, and Artemidorus, Rhodians; it was found among the ruins of Titus's baths, and placed here. Pliny says this statue is to be esteemed before all pictures and statues in the world; and I am of his opinion, for I never beheld anything of art approach it. Here are also those two famous images of Nilus with the children playing about him, and that of Tiber; Romulus and Remus with the Wolf; the dying Cleopatra; the Venus and Cupid, rare pieces; the Mercury;
Cybel; Hercules; Apollo; Antinous: most of which are, for defense against the weather, shut up in niches with wainscot doors. We were likewise showed the relics of the Hadrian Moles, viz, the Pine, a vast piece of metal which stood on the summit of that mausoleum; also a peacock of copper, supposed to have been part of
Scipio's monument.
In the garden without this (which contains a vast circuit of ground) are many stately fountains, especially two casting water into antique lavers, brought from Titus's baths; some fair grots and water-works, that noble cascade where the ship dances, with divers other pleasant inventions, walks, terraces, meanders, fruit trees, and a most goodly prospect over the greatest part of the city. One fountain under the gate I must not omit, consisting of three jettos of water gushing out of the mouths or proboscides of bees (the arms of the late Pope), because of the inscription: