LETTER

LXXVIII.

Milan.

ILAN, the ancient capital of Lombardy, is the largest city in Italy, except Rome; but though it is thought rather to exceed Naples in fize, it does not contain above one-half the number of inhabitants.

The cathedral stands in the centre of the city, and, after St. Peter's, is the most confiderable building in Italy. It ought by this time to be the largest in the world, if what they tell us be true, that it is near four hundred years fince it was begun, and that there has been a confiderable number of men daily employed in completing it ever fince; but as the injuries which time does to the ancient parts of the fabric keep them in conftant employment, without the poffibility of their work being ever com

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pleted,

pleted, Martial's epigram, on the barber Eutrapelus, has been applied to them with great propriety. That poor man, it seems; performed his operations fo very flowly, that the beards of his patients required fhaving again on the fide where he had begun, by the time he had finished the other.

EUTRAPELUS TONSOR DUM CIRCUIT ORA LUPERCI, EXPUNGITQUE GENAS, ALTERÁ BARBA SUBIT.

No church in Chriftendom is so much loaded, I had almost said disfigured, with ornaments. The number of ftatues, withinfide and without, is prodigious; they are all of marble, and many of them finely wrought. The greater part cannot be diftinely feen from below, and therefore certainly have nothing to do above. Besides those which are of a fize, and in a fituation to be diftinguished from the ftreet, there are great numbers of fmaller ftatues, like fairies peeping from every cornice, and hid among the grotefque ornaments, which are here in vaft profufion. They must have coft much labour to the artifts who formed

them,

them, and are ftill a fource of toil to ftrangers, who, in compliment to the perfon who harangues on the beauties of this church, which he fays is the eighth wonder of the world, are obliged to afcend to the roof to have a nearer view of them.

This vaft fabric is not fimply encrufted, which is not uncommon in Italy, but intirely built of folid white marble, and fupported by fifty columns, faid to be eightyfour feet high. The four pillars under the cupola, are twenty-eight feet in circumference. By much the finest statue belonging to it is that of St. Bartholomew. He appears flayed, with his fkin flung around his middle like a fafh, and in the easiest and most degagé manner imaginable. The muscles are well expreffed; and the figure might be placed with great propriety in the hall of an anatomift; but, exposed as it is to the view of people of all profeffions, and of both fexes, it excites more disgust and horror than admiration. Like thofe beggars who uncover their fores in the VOL. II. ftreet,

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ftreet, the artist has destroyed the

very effect he meant to produce. This would have fufficiently evinced, that the ftatue was not the work of Praxitiles, without the infcription on the pedestal:

NON ME PRAXITILES, SED MARCUS FINXIT AGRATI *.

The infide of the choir is ornamented by fome highly efteemed fculpture in wood. From the roof hangs a cafe of crystal, furrounded by rays of gilt metal, and inclosing a nail, faid to be one of those by which our Saviour was nailed to the crofs. The treafury belonging to this church is reckoned the richeft in Italy, after that of Loretto. It is compofed of jewels, relics, and curiofities of various kinds; but what is efteemed above all the reft, is a fmall® portion of Aaron's rod, which is carefully preferved there.

The Ambrofian Library is faid to be one of the most valuable collections of books,

* I am the workmanship of Marcus Agratus, not of Praxitiles.

and manuscripts in Europe. It is open a certain number of hours every day; and there are accommodations for those who come to read or make extracts.

In the Museum, adjoining to the Library, are a confiderable number of pictures, and many natural curiofities. Among these they shew a human skeleton. This does not excite a great deal of attention, till you are informed that it confifts of the bones of a Milanese lady, of distinguished beauty, who, by her laft will, ordained that her body should be diffected, and the fkeleton placed in this Museum, for the contemplation of pofterity. If this lady only meant to give a proof of the tranfient nature of external charms, and that a beautiful woman is not more defirable after death than a homely one, fhe might have allowed her body to be configned to duft in the usual way. In spite of all the cofmetics and other auxiliaries which vanity employs to varnish and fupport decaying: beauty

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