Note 427 — CANTO THE FOURTH[375]

[The statue of Venus de' Medici, which stands in the Tribune of the Uffizzi Gallery at Florence, is said to be a late Greek (first or second century B.C.) copy of an early reproduction, of the Cnidian Aphrodite, the work, perhaps, of one of his sons, Kephisodotos or Timarchos. (See Histoire de la Sculpture Grecque, par Maxime Collignon, Paris, 1897, ii. 641.) In a Catalogue Raissonné of La Galerie de Florence, 1804, in the editor's possession, which opens with an eloquent tribute to the enlightenment of the Medici, la fameuse Vénus is conspicuous by her absence. She had been deported to Paris by Napoleon, but when Lord Byron spent a day in Florence in April, 1817, and returned "drunk with Beauty" from the two galleries, the lovely lady, thanks to the much-abused "Powers," was once more in her proper shrine.]