DOI chapter:
Chapter II: Naples - The Museum - Capo di Monte
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.59000#0088
Naples
surrounded by jesting peasants. Redolent of keen
animal life are their broadly smiling faces : a marvellous
picture, this.
Grouped in front of all the pictures of interest are
seated copyists in the midst of their paraphernalia of
easels, high stools, and ladders. Sometimes there are so
many that it is very difficult to approach the pictures at all.
On the arrival of any visitor they endeavour to attract
attention to their copies, any of which they are only too
thankful to sell for the smallest sum. The faces of some
of these artists, who seem to spend their whole day in
the cold galleries, are thin and pathetic. All uncon-
sciously they give us a glimpse into the painful poverty
of artist life in Naples. They are wonderfully courteous
to strangers, and will often help in searching for pictures.
During last year the entire Museum was laboriously
cleared out and renovated, and certainly it needed it
badly. The management of the place has of late years
given rise to many an angry discussion as to the care-
lessness of the directors and the economising of funds
needed for its proper maintenance. Some years ago the
Museum of Berlin acquired an object of great value
which should certainly have found its way into the Naples
Museum. An Etruscan inscription, found in the
Campagna, was first offered for purchase here ; but it
was judged false, because two specimens offered by the
same vendor were found to be spurious, and the third
was not even examined.
Adjoining the Museum is a splendid National Library,
large, airy, and carefully catalogued. In it is the largest
surrounded by jesting peasants. Redolent of keen
animal life are their broadly smiling faces : a marvellous
picture, this.
Grouped in front of all the pictures of interest are
seated copyists in the midst of their paraphernalia of
easels, high stools, and ladders. Sometimes there are so
many that it is very difficult to approach the pictures at all.
On the arrival of any visitor they endeavour to attract
attention to their copies, any of which they are only too
thankful to sell for the smallest sum. The faces of some
of these artists, who seem to spend their whole day in
the cold galleries, are thin and pathetic. All uncon-
sciously they give us a glimpse into the painful poverty
of artist life in Naples. They are wonderfully courteous
to strangers, and will often help in searching for pictures.
During last year the entire Museum was laboriously
cleared out and renovated, and certainly it needed it
badly. The management of the place has of late years
given rise to many an angry discussion as to the care-
lessness of the directors and the economising of funds
needed for its proper maintenance. Some years ago the
Museum of Berlin acquired an object of great value
which should certainly have found its way into the Naples
Museum. An Etruscan inscription, found in the
Campagna, was first offered for purchase here ; but it
was judged false, because two specimens offered by the
same vendor were found to be spurious, and the third
was not even examined.
Adjoining the Museum is a splendid National Library,
large, airy, and carefully catalogued. In it is the largest