Over the entrance of the Legate’s palace, is a bronze statue of a Pope. The tiara, and other parts of the Papal uniform, are not so favourable to the sculptor’s genius, as the naked simplicity in which Neptune appears. A female traveller, however, not extravagantly fond of the fine arts, would rather be observed admiring the sculptor’s skill in imitating the folds of the Sacerdotal robes, than his anatomical accuracy in forming the majestic proportions of the Sea Divinity.
LETTER XXVIII.
Bologna.
The university of Bologna is one of the most ancient and most celebrated seats of literature in Europe; and the academy for the arts and sciences, founded by the Count Marsigli at the beginning of the present century, is sufficient, of itself, to engage strangers to visit this city, if there was nothing else worthy of their curiosity. Over the gate of this magnificent edifice is the following liberal inscription:
BONONIENSE SCIENTIARUM ATQUE ARTIUM
INSTITUTUM AD PUBLICUM TOTIUS
ORBIS USUM.
Here is a most valuable library, in three spacious rooms, where any person may study, and have the use of the books, four hours every day; also apartments for the students of sculpture, painting, architecture, chemistry, anatomy, astronomy, and every branch of natural philosophy. They are all ornamented with designs, models, instruments, and every kind of apparatus requisite for illustrating those sciences. There are also Professors, who regularly read lectures, and instruct the students in those various parts of knowledge. There is a hall, full of models in architecture and fortification, a valuable collection of medals, and another of natural curiosities, as animals, earths, ores, minerals, and a complete collection of specimens, to assist the study of the Materia Medica, and every part of Natural History. A gallery of statues, consisting of a few originals, and very fine casts of the best statues in Italy. I went one evening to the academy of painting and sculpture; two men stood in different attitudes on a table, in the middle of the room; about fifty students sat in the amphitheatre around them, some drawing their figures in chalks, others modelling them in wax, or clay. As each student viewed the two men from different points, the variety of manner in the different students, together with the alteration in the Chiaro Scuro under each point of view, gave every drawing the appearance of being done from a different figure. Nothing can be so advantageous to the young student as this kind of exercise, which is sometimes practised by daylight, and sometimes by the light of lamps, and must give a fuller idea of the effect of light and shade than any other method.
Honorary premiums are distributed every year among the artists, for the best designs in painting, sculpture, and architecture.
The Anatomical Theatre is adorned with statues of celebrated physicians; and in the Museum, which belongs to it, there are abundance of anatomical preparations; also a complete suite of anatomical figures in wax. A man and woman in the natural state; the same with the skin and cellular membrane removed, the external muscles of the whole body and limbs appearing. In the subsequent figures the more external muscles are gradually removed, till nothing but the simple skeleton remains. These figures are very well rendered, preserving the natural appearance and situation of the muscles and blood-vessels, with as much exactness as could be expected in a work of this nature. There are also models in wax, of particular parts, and of several of the viscera of the human body separately; yet those waxen models could not stand in comparison with the preparations of the real parts in Dr. Hunter’s museum. If brought to that test, the Bologna waxworks, though admirable in their kind, would appear as their best casts of the Vatican Apollo and Laocoon would, if placed beside the originals. Indeed, the real preparations to be seen here, are far inferior to those of that great anatomist; who is now possessed of the most complete, and most accurate collection of anatomical preparations, that ever was made by human skill and industry. We have faithfully performed our duty in visiting all the churches and palaces of this city, which contain some of the highest specimens of art; yet, as the recital might be less amusing than the tour itself, I shall exercise your patience with great moderation on that subject.