CURRENT LITERAT Crit E.
THE MUSEUMS AND RUINS OF ROME.
The Museums and Ruins of Rome. By Walter Amelung and Heinrich Holtzinger. English Edition, Revised by the Authors and Mrs. S. Arthur Strong, LL.D. 2 vols. (Duckworth and Co. 10s. net.)—Yet another two volumes are here added to the rapidly growing library of the traveller whose path lies towards the in- exhaustible city. They form, however, no ordinary guide-book, for they furnish no catalogue of "sights," or précis of technical information. Each volume, as Mrs. Strong points out in her preface, gives a "synthetic and comprehensive view" of the subject with which it deals. Dr. Amelung—whose reputation has recently been entanced by the appearance of his catalogue of the Vatican sculptures, which is a model of all that a museum catalogue should be—although, as a cicerone, he leads his reader from gallery to gallery, yet never loses sight of the historical unity of ancient sculpture, and contrives, by selecting the salient examples of that art and displaying their relations as terms in its development, to convey such a connected impression of the whole subject as no mere guide-book can give. To this end he has em- ployed with conspicuous success a device which, if we remember rightly, he was the first to use in his small catalogue of the ancient sculptures at Florence,—namely, that of illustrating, not the monu- ment immediately under discussion, which the reader has before his eyes, but works in other collections, generally replicas, which serve to complete or to correct the rendering of, a common original. In the second volume Dr. Holtzinger treats the topography and architecture of Rome in the like synthetic spirit, introducing his subject by a sketch of the development of the city, which is just what the traveller needs and fails to find in his guide-book. Amongst the illustrations are many reconstructions of ancient buildings, in plan, section, and elevation, which will be found helpful by the reader who looks in bewilderment on an apparently unintelligible heap of ruined walls, columns, and entablatures, often belonging to restorations of different dates. Dr. Holtzinger's aim is to make the monuments reveal the great. principles which Roman architects applied to the solution of problems in con- struction, and not merely to treat them as documents ilustrative of Roman history ; and in a brief concluding chapter on the Christian basilica—in which he adopts the conservative view of its development from the pagan basilica as modified in the palaces of the Empire—he carries us beyond the limits of ancient art. Thus the idea embodied in these volumes is an excellent one, and it is, upon the whole, carried out with a large measure of success. Some points, however, invite criticism. Dr. Amelung's verdicts on ancient sculptures .are not free from that dog- matism which is the besetting sin of German archaeologists. We are told (p. 176) that a female head in the Capitoline Museum is the work of Damophon of Messene. It certainly wears a decided resemblance to the well-known sculptures from Lyoosura now in the National Museum at Athens; but that is scarcely sufficient reason for attributing it to the hand of the master. Again, there is no more burning question in the field of archaeology than tho value of extant statues for determining the styles of Scopes and Lysippus ; for the discovery at Delphi of a copy of a portrait-statue by Lysippus, which has many points of strong resemblance to the Heracles in Lansdowne House, has cast grave doubts on the commonly accepted view that the Apoxyomenos of the Vatican represents Lysippus's style. Dr. Amelung is unmoved• by these considerations. For him the Apoxyomenos, the Silenus and infant Dionysus also in the Braccio Nuevo, and the Farnese Heracles are Lysippic, while the Lansdowne Heracles represents an original by Scopes (pp. 10, 15, 16, 204). It would have been well to warn the reader that what are here set down are no certainties, but individual opinions. Again, the Apollo of the Belvedere was pronounced by Dr. Winter a few years ago to be copied from a work of the fourth century B.C., and this judgment is repeated without hesitation by Dr. Amelung, who, moreover, attributes to the same artist other works of which illustrations are given. But all this is mere conjecture ; indeed, it still- seems far more probable that the original of the Apollo belonged to the third century B.C. Dr. Amelung is more interested in Greek than in Roman art ; in dealing with the latter he repeats the current formulae. It has been shown that the panels in the Villa Borghese, mentioned on p. 293, cannot have belonged to the Arch of Claudius which once stood in the Piazza Marra. Dr. Holtzinger is less dogmatic in discussing doubtful points. ints He holds to the view that the Septizonium (as he calls it) of Septimus Severna was a "water-citadel" (this is the translator's curious rendering of Wassercastell, a fairly familiar German word); it is more likely that the word " Septizodium," as inscriptions have it, meant something quite different. Ho also applies the term " Tepidarium " to the large central hail in the Great Thermae '(p. 167) ; but as Professor Mau has shown, it is more than doubt- ful whether the name properly belongs to such a room.' Oa p. 92 we are told that Victory is represented on the keystone of the Arch of Titus ; the two keystones were in reality adorned with figures of the military divinities, Honos and Virtus. The accuracy of the translation, tec., is commendable. In Vol. I., p. 207, "Uraus " should appear in English as " Uraeus." By a curious blunder, thrice repeated, Maximinus appears as Maximinius (pp. 181, 182, 316). "Sala degli Fasti" (p. 201) is incorrect. " Jonah " is English, "Jonas" German (p. 299). • In Vol. II., p. 91, "ce.ssettirt " should be translated "coffered." On p. 95 " piles " should be "piers."
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