In the gallery of Flora, a statue of the same goddess, called the Farnese, is also the principal attraction.

A statue of Apollo playing on the lyre, of porphyry, is the greatest masterpiece in the hall of coloured marbles; while in the gallery of the Muses a basin of Athenian porphyry occupies the first place.

In the Adonis room the beautiful Venus Anadyomene engrossed my chief attention; and in the cabinet of Venus the Venus Callipygos forms an exquisite sidepiece to the Venus de Medicis.

The upper regions of this splendid building contain an extensive library and a picture-gallery.

I also paid a visit to the catacombs of St. Januarius, which extend three stories high on a mountain, and are full of little niches, five or six of which are often found one above the other.

In the chapel Santa Maria della Pieta, in the palace St. Severino, I admired three of the finest and most valuable marble statues that can be found any where; I mean, “Veiled Innocence,” “Malice in a Net,” and a veiled recumbent figure of Christ.  All three are by the sculptor Bernini.

The largest church in the town is the cathedral dedicated to St. Januarius.  This structure rests on a hundred and ten columns of Egyptian and African granite, standing three by three, embedded in the walls.  The church has not a very imposing appearance.  The chief altar, beneath which the body of St. Januarius is deposited, is ornamented with many kinds of valuable marble.  Here I saw a great number of pictures, most of them of considerable merit.  The chapel of St. Januarius, also called the “chapel of the treasure,” is one of the most gorgeous shrines that can be conceived.  The Neapolitans built it as a thank-offering at the cessation of a plague.  The cost was above a million of ducats, and the wealth of this chapel is greater than that of any church in Christendom.  It is built in a circular form, and all the resources of art have been lavished on the decoration of the chief altar.  Every spot is covered with treasures and works of art, and the roof is supported by forty-two Corinthian pillars of dark-red stone.  All the decorations of the high altar, the immense candelabra and massive flower-vases, are of silver.  At a grand festival, when every thing is richly illuminated, the appearance of this chapel must be gorgeous in the extreme.  The head and two bottles of the blood of St. Januarius are preserved here; the people assert that this blood liquefies every year.  The frescoes on the ceiling are splendidly painted; and on the square before the church is to be seen an obelisk surmounted by a statue of St. Januarius.

St. Jeronimo has an imposing appearance when one first enters.  The whole roof of this church as far downwards as the pillars is covered with beautiful arabesques and figures.  It also contains some fine paintings, and is, besides, renowned for its architecture.

St. Paula Maggiore, another spacious church, is well worth seeing on account of its magnificent arabesques and fresco-paintings; besides these it also contains some handsome monuments and statues of marble.  Two very ancient pillars stand in front of this church.