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There are three collections of brick-stamps in Rome; one, of little value, in the Kircherian museum; the second in the last room of the Vatican library, past the "Nozze aldobrandine;" the third and best in the Museo Municipale al Celio. This last contains over a thousand specimens, and a unique set of the products of Roman kilns.
In fact, the first hall of the Museo is set apart exclusively for the study of ancient building and decorative materials. Roman bricks were square, oblong, triangular, or round, the latter being used only to build columns in the Pompeiian style. The largest bricks that have been discovered in my time measure 1.05 meters in length.
In its splendid art collection of the Museo, the city has a treasure only equalled by the Louvre at Paris and the galleries of Florence. To artists it is the one attraction of Madrid, and is principally composed of works by Spanish masters, though also containing many other fine works of art.
Our horses were tired, and one lean donkey, who, after much trouble, was produced from a farmhouse and yoked in front of them, rendered but little assistance. Next day we duly saw the Muse and Lamp in the Museo, the Fra Angelicos, and all the Signorellis.
Some one whispered to him the news that was filling the Museo with excitement and the copyist, shrugging his shoulders disdainfully, raised his moribund glance from his work. And so Renovales was there, the famous Renovales! At last he was going to see the prodigy! The master saw those grotesque eyes like those of a sea-monster, fixed on him, with an ironical gleam behind the heavy lenses.
During two whole days Don Rafael and I worked together over these matters in the Museo; and it was not until our investigations were ended so far, at least, as investigations could be said to be ended while yet no definite conclusions were reached that my thoughts reverted to Fray Antonio, and to the requirement of courtesy that I should report to him the result of my course of study in the Indian tongues.
Drive swiftly thence, if you are in the mood, as you should be, for something at the other pole of feeling, to view that wonder, the kneeling boy at the Museo delle Terme.
Those who have looked upon that wonderful equestrian picture of Titian's in the Museo at Madrid, with its weird, weary, far-off expression, are irresistibly led to think of Don Quixote; but the converse is by no means so clear that on looking at Don Quixote we are tempted to think of that most unromantic of monarchs, Carlos Quinto. His son is still more unlike his supposed portrait.
All along I have been shirking what any right-minded traveler would feel almost his duty, but I now own that there is a museum in Seville, the Museo Provincial, which was of course once a convent and is now a gallery, with the best, but not the very best, Murillos in it, not to speak of the best Zurburans.
In a word, there was no place in all Mexico where my studies and my investigations could be pursued to such advantage as they could be pursued here. From a fellow-archæologist in the City of Mexico I brought a letter of introduction to the director of the Museo, the learned Dr.
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