MUSEUM

Pars I.

Cap. I. Distribution of the vault. You may admire the mind of the most wise author, who wished to have the image of the whole heaven and earth, both material and intellectual, expressed by a learned brush upon the vaults and dome of the Museum, which extends lengthwise and curves broadly into a hemicycle. He also ordered that the material part, where the entire ceiling is spread out, be divided into five oval spaces. He desired the figures of the four elements to be depicted in the first four, and in the fifth, the collection of the celestial spheres and their Lord to be shown. He elegantly distributed the sayings of the ancient sages in hieroglyphic figures in the intellectual part, using foreign characters and images. From the interval of each oval, where the lines of the arches of the vault intersect, he desired a celestial genius to be constructed with such artifice that it appears to move and fly of its own accord by continuous motion and an artificial principle. From these, you will learn, stranger, that just as all things derive from GOD in all things, as from the Author of nature, so you may see it expressed by a beautiful comparison that all things are conversely referred back to Him.

After the Author expressed the multitude of images to God, the giver of sciences, as the supreme craftsman, he—taught by both divine and natural law and intending to satisfy human law as well—praises the beneficent patrons and kind supporters and protectors of the sciences for the gifts they have provided. Hence, the author venerates the vestibules of the Museum all around, the Austrian house, the clear lights of our memory and the present age restored to life, with a sincere homage to the Most August Leopold in the living trunk, and with the tribute of due dedication; he sets before himself their excellent munificence and the liberal support for fostering and cherishing virtue, impressed upon his high mind, present through their effigy.

The apses of the arched vault, numbering 370, contain a collection of ancient masks made of white marble, sculpted with learned art, and a vast quantity of shells and earthen vessels, partly estimable through the study of Raphael of Urbino, and partly precious through the work of other students of superior painting, preserved on their own ledges. All these were donated by the munificent and testamentary liberality of Alponfus Donninus, Secretary of the Capitoline Senate, and they show the furnishings of this Museum to be precious among others for their antiquity and rarity.

Following these, here and there, are various effigies of Kings and Princes, benefactors of the Author, as well as students, paintings as rare as they are estimable at any price.

A series of thirty-four columns, upon which rare statues are seen resting, remarkable for the diversity of their marble, their value, and their sculpture. Four larger and two smaller obelisks rise from the middle of the Museum's walkway and shine, conspicuous with Egyptian signs.

1. Two spiral helices measuring the coils of snakes in twisting volumes with great skill. An organ animated by an automatic drum, playing a concert of all kinds of birds and sustaining a spherical globe in the middle of the air, wavering by the continuous impulse of the wind.

2. A hydrostatic-magnetic machine representing the hours, the zodiac, the planets, and the entire fabric of the heaven, describing the spaces of the hours with a very simple motion by the images of the Sun and Moon ascending and descending vertically, and by the sympathetic motion of a little bird flying through the air.

3. A magnetic-hydraulic machine showing the hours in the entire world, as well as the Astronomical, Italian, Babylonian, and ancient hours.

4. A small fountain pushing a sphere resting on the head of Atlas into a circle by hidden motions.

5. A fountain...