Returning to the Gallery I was quite bewildered at the immense number of statues, pictures, sarcophagi, busts, altars, etc.  Among the pieces of sculpture those that most caught my attention were:  the Venus genetrix (which I had seen before at Paris); the Venus victrix; the Venus Anadyomene; Hercules and Nessus, a superb groupe; a young Bacchus; and an exquisitely chiselled group representing Pan teaching Olympus to play the syrinx, tho’ the attitude of the former is rather indecorous from not being in a very quiescent state; a fine statue of Leda with the swan; a Mercury, both worthy of great attention.  I remarked also in particular a statue of Marsyas attached to a tree and flayed.  It is of a pale reddish marble, and tho’ I perfectly agree with Forsyth, that colored marble is not at all adapted to statuary, yet in this instance it gives a wonderful effect and is strikingly suitable, as the slight reddish colour gives a full idea of the flesh after the skin is torn off.  It makes one shudder to look at it.  In one of the halls are the statues of Niobe and her daughters, a beautiful group.  Then there is the celebrated copy of the group of the Laocoon by Bandinelli, which none but the most perfect and skilful connoisseur could distinguish from the original.  But it is totally impossible for me to describe the immense variety of paintings, historical, portrait and landscape; the statues single or in groups; the sarcophagi, altars, bas-reliefs, inscriptions, bronzes, medals, vases, baths, candelabra, cameos, Etruscan and Egyptian idols with which this admirable Museum is filled.  In a line on each side of the Gallery near the ceiling is a succession of portraits in chronological order of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, the Germanic Emperors, the Kings of France, of England, of Spain, of Portugal, of the Popes and of the Ottoman Emperors.  Among the antiquities I particularly noticed a large steel mirror and a Roman Eagle in bronze of the 24th Legion.

Having passed full four hours in this Museum, I descended the steps, crossed the Arno and repaired to the building in which is preserved the Cabinet d’Histoire Naturelle.  In this Museum what is most remarkable are the imitations in wax of the whole anatomy of the human body.  It is the first collection of its kind; indeed it is unique in Europe.  These imitations are kept in glass cases and are so true and so perfectly correct as to leave nothing to desire to the student in anatomy.  These imitations in wax not only include all the details of anatomy, but also the progress of generation, gestation, and of almost every malady to which the human body is liable.  They are of a frightful exactitude.  There are likewise in this Museum imitations in wax of various plants and shrubs exotic as well as indigenous and the collection of stuffed birds, beasts and fishes and that of insects, mineralogy and conchology scarcely yields to the collection at the Jardin des Plantes at Paris.  Neither here nor at the Florentine gallery are fees allowed to be taken; on the contrary a strict prohibition of them is posted up in the French, Italian, German and English languages.