"Augustus removed the statue of Pompey from the senate house, in which Julius Cæsar had been killed, and placed it under a marble arch, fronting the curia attached to Pompey's theatre" (Suetonius, "Aug." xxxi.).
The statue is eleven feet high, and was found in 1553 in the Vicolo di Lentari; it was under two houses, and the proprietors could not agree as to whom it should belong, when Pope Julius II. gave them five hundred gold dollars for it, and presented it to Cardinal Capodifero. In 1798–99 the French carried this statue to the Colosseum, where they performed Voltaire's "Tragedy of Brutus" to the original statue. To facilitate moving it, they cut off the extended arm; hence the join.
THE SPADA PALACE GALLERY.
Open every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday; fee, half lira each to Museum and Gallery.
N.B.—The vestibule where the statue of Pompey stands is public, and is open all day. Resist the demands of the porter, who is generally very rude.
The Museum on the ground-floor contains a good seated statue of Aristotle, and nine reliefs formerly used, reversed, as the pavement of S. Agnese outside the walls. 1. Paris on Mount Ida; 2. Bellerophon watering Pegasus; 3. Amphion and Zethus; 4. Ulysses and Diomedes robbing the Temple of Minerva; 5. Paris and Œnone; 6. Perseus and Andromeda; 7. Adonis; 8. Adrastus and Hypsipyla finding the body of Archemorus; 9. Pasiphæ and Dædalus.
The Gallery upstairs contains few good pictures. Catalogues in each room.
First Room.—32. Lanfranco's Cain and Abel; 45. Guercino's David.
Second Room.—9. Guido's Judith; 19. Poussin's Joseph and Brethren; 17. Leonardo da Vinci's Dispute with the Doctors; 32. S. John; 33. S. Lucia, by Guercino.
Third Room.—20. Rape of Helen, by Guido; 33. Vandyck; 48. Death of Dido, by Guercino.