Part 30

The queer object just beyond is an armadillo with stone scales scarcely harder than real ones; while every one will recognize at first glance the jolly little rabbit beside him, and the two hares nibbling at a bunch of grapes. The next animal is a historic one--the famous white sow of Alba. She reclines among part, not all of her thirty pigs, for the artist seems to have given out in exhaustion after carving the first dozen.

In the neighborhood of Commodus are several panthers and lions; a leopard, whose black spots have been inserted, like mosaic; a stag, whose dappled skin is represented by the natural venation of the alabaster from which it is carved; an eagle with her young; a craw-fish and a porphyry frog.

There are also a number of dogs, in every way admirable, and probably the exact portraits of some fair Roman lady’s pets. Nothing could be more natural or charming than the two greyhound puppies frolicking with each other; nothing more graceful or aristocratic than the full-grown greyhound which sits upon its haunches, and offers a paw. They are patrician to their very toes and tail-tips, just as the honest mastiff hard by, growlingly protecting her puppies, is plebeian.

The shaggy dog who looks up at you in friendly fashion, and whose portrait appears above, is also decidedly a patrician, if the conjecture is right that he represents the famous Molossian breed.

Such, in barest outline, is the Vatican menagerie--the work of the Baryes, Bonheurs and Landseers of days past. It has overflowed its bounds to some extent, and a number of fine specimens must be sought in other collections. In the Capitol, for instance, are “Pliny’s Doves,” whose gurgling coo we quite expect to hear, until closer inspection proves them--a mosaic! They are called the doves of Pliny, not because they belonged to that delightful letter-writer, but because he described them in terms so accurate that we cannot help knowing the mosaic of the Capitol is the same he looked at almost nineteen hundred years ago. “There is a dove,” he says, “which is greatly admired, in the act of drinking, and throwing the shadow of his head upon the water, while other doves are present, sunning and pluming themselves on the margin of a drinking-bowl.”

Pliny was an excellent judge of art matters, and certainly these doves are no less admired to-day than in his time.

But more famous than any bird or beast in Italy, is the bronze wolf of the Capitol. Its age is great, as the Etruscan workmanship alone would prove; and many believe it to be the identical statue struck by lightning during the consulship of Cæsar and Bibulus. In confirmation, they point to the jagged rent in one of its hind legs, which may have been caused by such an accident. This, if true, would make it the most notable sculpture in existence. However, whether Cæsar saw it or not, it is still venerable enough to command attention, and few tourists fail to pay it their respects.

The nurse of Romulus and Remus is also commemorated by a living wolf which resides in the triangular patch of garden between the steps to the Capitol, and those which lead up to Ara Cœli. The present incumbent is a sleek gray fellow from Monte Maietta in the Abruzzi. A live eagle separated by a netting bears him company, but these caged emblems are but shabby reminders of the glory of old Rome.

Ancient as the brazen she-wolf, and like it of Etruscan make, is the Chimera of the Bargello at Florence. It is a comically terrific creature, whose three heads are all busily engaged--one biting its neighbor head, and the third roaring at the injury. In the Bargello also is a superb turkey-gobbler of bronze, credited to Gian da Bologna, and some capital turtles in marble. Admirable as they are, however, they are forgotten when, on entering a small room in the Uffizi, the famous Florentine boar and Molossian hound meet our gaze. Every line of their softly yellowed marble reveals the patient, loving touch of sculptors whose work alone survives--whose names and stories are unknown. They aimed at perfection, and were doubtless content to be forgotten, if only their works might live.

They, indeed, are the sole, the true enchanters, whose touch petrified for posterity this menagerie in stone.