and it was owing to the loss of his right eye and the fracture of his noble old nose that he is seen here in such a determined profile against the lovely light over the Umbrian hills.  The symbolical chariots in the landscape at the back represent respectively the Triumph of Fame (the Duke’s) and the Triumph of Chastity (that of the Duchess).  The Duke’s companions are Victory, Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, and Temperance; the little Duchess’s are Love, Hope, Faith, Charity, and Innocence; and if these are not exquisite pictures I never saw any.

The statues in the room should not be missed, particularly the little Genius of Love, the Bacchus and Ampelos, and the spoilt little comely boy supposed to represent—­and quite conceivably—­the infant Nero.

Crossing the large Tuscan room again, we come to a little narrow room filled with what are now called cabinet pictures:  far too many to study properly, but comprising a benignant old man’s head, No. 1167, which is sometimes called a Filippino Lippi and sometimes a Masaccio, a fragment of a fresco; a boy from the serene perfect hand of Perugino, No. 1217; two little panels by Fra Bartolommeo—­No. 1161—­painted for a tabernacle to hold a Donatello relief and representing the Circumcision and Nativity, in colours, and at the back a pretty Annunciation in monochrome; No. 1235, on the opposite wall, a very sweet Mother and Child by the same artist; a Perseus liberating Andromeda, by Piero di Cosimo, No. 1312; two or three Lorenzo di Credis; two or three Alloris; a portrait of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, by Antonio Pollaiuolo; and three charming little scenes from the lives of S. John the Baptist and the Virgin, by Fra Angelico, which belong properly to the predella of an altar-piece that we saw in the first room we entered—­No. 1290, “The Coronation of the Virgin”.  No. 1162 has the gayest green dress in it imaginable.

And here we enter the Tribuna, which is to the Uffizi what the Salon Carre is to the Louvre:  the special treasure-room of the gallery, holding its most valuable pictures.  But to-day there are as good works outside it as in; for the Michelangelo has been moved to another room, and Botticelli (to name no other) is not represented here at all.  Probably the statue famous as the Venus de’ Medici would be considered the Tribuna’s chief possession; but not by me.  Nor should I vote either for Titian’s Venus.  In sculpture I should choose rather the “Knife-sharpener,” and among the pictures Raphael’s “Madonna del Cardellino,” No. 1129.  But this is not to suggest that everything is not a masterpiece, for it is.  Beginning at the door leading from the room of the little pictures, we find, on our left, Raphael’s “Ignota,” No. 1120, so rich and unfeeling, and then Francia’s portrait of Evangelista Scappi, so rich and real and a picture that one never forgets.  Raphael’s Julius II comes next, not so powerful as the version in the Pitti, and above that Titian’s famous Venus.  In Perugino’s portrait of Francesco delle Opere, No. 287, we find an evening sky and landscape still more lovely than Francia’s.  This Francesco was brother of Giovanni delle Corniole, a protege of Lorenzo de’ Medici, famous as a carver of intaglios, whose portrait of Savonarola in this medium, now preserved in the Uffizi, in the Gem Room, was said by Michelangelo to carry art to its farthest possible point.