FORGOTTEN TREASURES.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 514, 22 May 1909, Page 9

FORGOTTEN TREASURES.

VATICAN'S NEW PICTURE GALLERY. 'Pius X., surrounded by the' Pontifical Court; to-day, in the presence of the matic.Body accredited to the Vatican, of the Roman aristocracy, and of a few distinguished guests, recently inaugurated the new picture gallery containing one of the most valuable collections of- nearly 300 paintings in Europe. The Pops visited eabhhall, admiring and praising the placing and distribution of the pictures, and also the few precious marble rases and treasures transported to the gallery fromVtho Museum of Sculpture, where they were almost lost in a bowildering variety of other marbles. Each masterpiece, such as the Transfiguration, the last Communion of St. Jeroino, and the Melozzo fresoo, ia given, ml most eases, the entire end of a room, and where this has not been found possible-so much space is allowed as to secure practical isolation, the frame thus obtained of the dark olivo silk ,oa the walls being an admirable sotting; : In -several cases when .a search was made through tho less known apartments of the Vatican to chooso what should be added to tlie old gallery, valuable forgotten canvases were discovered, notablo among them a Holy Family, by Baroccio, which was painted for a gentleman of Ferugin, and bad long been considered irrevocably lost. . Lawronce's magnificent portrait of George IV, sent by that monarch .to Pius VIII, may also bo called a' "discovery," -as although it 'was known by a fow, it was hidden away in the deserted Lateran Palaco, and was thus seldom seen. Tho work- of collection and' hanging has taken over t-hreo years,, and has involved a largo expenditure of money.— Router. .