e mine of art for modern
museums, and whose bibliography would fill a library. Then in 1572 his
munificent patron died, and the work suddenly came to an end.

For two centuries the Villa of Hadrian lay neglected until new
discoveries revived popular interest, and a young German scholar was
called to superintend the building and installation of the last of the
great villas erected in Rome by a member of its hierarchical
aristocracy.

There exists such striking parallelism in the history of the Villa
d'Este and the Villa Albani, and on such identical lines was the work
carried on that it would almost seem that, the duration of human life
not being sufficient to complete it, Cardinal Ippolito and Pirro Ligorio
were granted reincarnation for another fifty years in Cardinal Albani
and his friend Winckelmann.

[Illustration: Eros Bending the Bow

Capitoline Museum]

[Illustration: Faun of Praxiteles

Capitoline Museum]

Notwithstanding the many masterpieces secured by Cardinal d'Este it was
known from ancient records that the greatest treasures of the Villa
Hadriana had escaped his eager search, having been so securely hidden on
the invasion of the Goths, that they evaded as well all other
plunderers. But early in the eighteenth century Gavin Hamilton,
commissioned to secure antiques for the British Museum, drained an
extensive marsh called the Pantello and found it to be the depository in
which Belisarius had secreted the missing statues on the approach of
Totila.[10] From this hiding-place there emerged between 1730 and 1780,
the _Antinous_ of the museum of the Capitol and the relief of the Villa
Albani together with the _Resting Faun_ of Praxiteles which so
captivated the imagination of Hawthorne, and many another famous work of
art now the glory of some far distant museum.

Fortunately for Italy, England found a contesting bidder in Cardinal
Albani, and the majority of the statues found in the Pantello were
purchased by him. At the same time the magnificent collection of
Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, was offered at public sale by the degenerate
spendthrift who inherited it, and sixty of the finest statues were
secured for Villa Albani and rejoined their old companions.

Winckelmann gloated over their beauty, for he united the artist's
appreciation to the connoisseurship of the archaeologist. What solicitude
for its appropriate setting, only surpassed by that of Hadrian himself,
did he bestow on the placing of each