Venus de Medicis

supposed to be the production of Cleomʹenēs of Athens, who lived in the second century before the Christian era. In the seventeenth century it was dug up in the villa of Hadrian, near Tivoli, in eleven pieces; but it is all ancient except the right arm. It was removed in 1680, by Cosmo III., to the Imperial Gallery at Florence, from the Medici Palace at Rome.

“So stands the statue that enchants the world,

So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,

The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.”

Thomson: Summer.

· ·

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.