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For this purpose the Museum in the Collegio della Sapienza or University of Rome will afford invaluable aid. In this institution, conveniently arranged in glass cases, are no less than 607 specimens of various marbles and alabasters used by the ancient Romans in the building or decoration of their houses and public monuments.
By reversing one of two thin plates successively taken from the stone, and placing their corresponding edges in contact, a perfectly symmetrical figure may be obtained, which will enable the eye to comprehend more thoroughly the position of the veins. And this is actually the method in which, for the most part, the alabasters of St.
Darvid, in company with a surveyor, an engineer, and an architect, walked through the garden, but the object of his walk was in no way the contemplation of nature bound up under marbles, and alabasters sprinkled with brilliants.
Gabriel, who was acquainted with its interior magnificence, thought of the deceptive oriental houses, outwardly squalid and miserable, but inwardly rich in alabasters and traceries.
Alabasters, of which there are numerous varieties, from pure diaphanous white to the deepest black, were favourite decorative materials with the ancient Romans. The different kinds were used for the walls of baths, vases, busts, pillars, and sepulchral lamps, in which the light shining through the transparent sides had an agreeable softness.
"Great God!" exclaimed Darvid, "marbles, alabasters, laces, diamonds, pearls! But there was nothing of all this in fact! There was nothing but dry trunks, branches, snow, and hoar-frost. That is exaltation! And you see how destructive it may be! It brought you acute inflammation of the lungs, the traces of which are not gone yet."
So I opened them still giddy for the excess of her embracing and pressing, and saw that the whole saloon was built of the finest marbles and alabasters, and all its furniture was of silk and brocade even to the cushions and mattresses. Therein also were two benches of yellow brass and a couch of red gold, set with pearls and precious stones, befitting none save Kings like thyself.
They are very soft and perishable, and consequently are very rarely found among the ruins of ancient Rome. The Oriental alabasters, on the other hand, which are distinguished from the European by their superior hardness and durability, are in reality not sulphates, but carbonates of lime. Their hardness is quite equal to that of the best statuary marbles.
Marbles of various classes and colors, as well as alabasters and jaspers, are found in Opasura, Hermosillo, Uores, La Campana, and other points; but we do not know as yet the place from which the Aztecs obtained the beautiful reddish marble which they used in the construction of their divinity of Chapultepec, which is preserved in the National Museum, and which, according to all conjectures and probabilities, proceeded from the quarries of marble of that state.
Paul's is supported by four splendid columns of Oriental alabaster presented to Gregory XVI. by Mehemet Ali, the viceroy of Egypt. An interesting collection of beautiful and valuable varieties of alabasters may be made in connection with the building operations still carried on in the unfinished façade of the basilica fronting the Tiber.
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