Note 54 — Chapter I

The ‘Nile’ is now in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican, the fellow-statue, the ‘Tiber,’ see ante, p. 36, in the Louvre at Paris. They are said to have been discovered at Rome early in the sixteenth century, near S. Maria Sopra Minerva where was the Temple of Isis and Serapis, and Pope Leo X had them placed in the Cortile di Belvedere of the Vatican. They were removed to Paris in ‘the year X’ by Napoleon, and in 1815 the ‘Nile’ was sent back to Rome, the ‘Tiber’ remaining in the Louvre. The ‘Nile’ is much the better work of art and is a copy or a study from an Alexandrian original, perhaps the ‘Nilus’ in basalt, which, according to Pliny, Hist. Nat., XXXVI, 7, Augustus dedicated in the Temple of Peace. Amelung, in his Sculpturen des Vaticanischen Museums, only states that the ‘Nile’ is in ‘großkörnigem Marmor.’ The material of the statue certainly differs from that of the restored parts, and we should guess it as Pentelic marble repaired with Carrara. About the ‘Tiber,’ Froener, in the Louvre Catalogue, states that it is of Pentelic marble, and it is so labelled. Our measurements show that both statues required blocks of the dimensions 10 ft. by 5 ft. by 5 ft. in height. It may be noted that the finest statuary marble known, that of the island of Paros, is not to be obtained in very large blocks. That out of which the Hermes of Praxiteles has been carved must have measured about 8 ft. by 5 ft. by 3 ft. 6 in. and is considered an exceptionally fine block. Pentelic and Carrara marble can be obtained in much larger pieces. We saw not long ago in the modern quarries behind Mount Pentelicus a block nearly 20 ft. in cube. One seventeen feet long has recently been cut in the Monte Altissimo quarries in the Carrara mountains for a copy of the ‘David’ of Michelangelo. A piece of Monte Altissimo marble of the best quality is shown as J on the Frontispiece.