“Venus de Medici: A statue thought to date from the 4th century BC. It was dug up in the 17th century in the villa of Hadrian at Tivoli, near Rome, in eleven pieces. It was kept in the Medici Palace at Rome until its removal to Florence by Cosimo III de’Medici (1642-1723). Since 1860 it has been in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Byron described his reaction to the statue in Childe Harold:
‘We gaze and turn away, and know not where,
Dazzled and drunk with Beauty, till the heart
Reels with its fullness…’
Lord Byron: Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, IV (1818)
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.
Mark's Text Terminal 