On my return, I turned aside from the Via delle Quattro Fontane into the
Via Quirinalis, and was led by it into the Piazza di Monte Cavallo. The
street through which I passed was broader, cleanlier, and statelier than
most streets in Rome, and bordered by palaces; and the piazza had noble
edifices around it, and a fountain, an obelisk, and two nude statues in
the centre. The obelisk was, as the inscription indicated, a relic of
Egypt; the basin of the fountain was an immense bowl of Oriental granite,
into which poured a copious flood of water, discolored by the rain; the
statues were colossal,--two beautiful young men, each holding a fiery
steed. On the pedestal of one was the inscription, OPUS PHIDIAE; on the
other, OPUS PRAXITELIS. What a city is this, when one may stumble, by
mere chance,--at a street corner, as it were,--on the works of two such
sculptors! I do not know the authority on which these statues (Castor
and Pollux, I presume) are attributed to Phidias and Praxiteles; but they
impressed me as noble and godlike, and I feel inclined to take them for
what they purport to be.
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