TO anyone acquainted with fourteenth-century Tuscan sculpture, the previously unknown statuette of an apostle with a book as attribute, bequeathed some years ago by Commendatore Mario Magrini to the Pinacoteca Nazionale at Ferrara, is directly reminiscent of Florentine sculpture of the late trecento. I owe sincere thanks to Wolfgang Wolters for drawing my attention to this statuette, which, for the present, is not open to public inspection, and for kindly advising me to examine the figure and present it in some detail.'

WHEN histories of Greek and Roman art are written, the sculpture studied most often comes mainly from Greece, Italy, and Asia Minor. Occasional pieces of quality, statues or reliefs, from southern France, North Africa, Egypt, Syria, and Thrace have been included, especially when sculpture alone forms the subject of the monograph. In recent years, with more excavation and new nationalistic pride, attention has focused on areas not surveyed heretofore as geographical units. Romania, the Black Sea region of Russia, the various ancient provinces of North Africa, and the Iberian come to mind. It seems worthwhile, here, to consider the Greek and Roman sculpture from the Holy Land. 

THESE lines are dedicated to the memory of the author of the Corpus of Italian Medals before Cellini(London, 1930) for three reasons. First, in gratitude for his impeccable publication which is the daily guide in our studies; then, in recollection of his kindness and towards a helpfulness young man, which have never been forgotten; and finally, because the discovery here published could never have been made but for the help of an ingenious theory of his.

IN an article published in THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE in August 1977 I suggested a new identification for Michelangelo's lost statue of Hercules. My argument hinged on a close resemblance between the statue shown at the centre of the Jardin de l'Etang at Fontainebleau in Israel Silvestre's etching of 1649 and a figure known from a number of early sixteenth-century Italian drawings, and as a bronze statuette existing in several versions. Whether or not this hypothesis is correct remains to be seen. But in the meantime I would like to add five subsequent observations which have some interest in themselves and may contribute to an eventual solution.

UNTIL recent times, casts of famous sculptures formed an important part of any major museum or private collection. Although it has never been the subject of detailed study, the history of casts has some bearing upon changes in taste and in collecting habits from the sixteenth century onwards.' Casting, particularly in plaster, had been revived in Italy during the fifteenth century, but it was the sixteenth century which saw the popularisation of casts after the antique.  They became a major factor in artists' collections and acquired for many patrons the status of works of art in their own right. The most celebrated accumulation of plaster casts of ancient sculpture, one which set a pattern for later collectors, was that supervised by Primaticcio for the French king Francis I.

WHEN,  in 1970, I published a paper on the bronze reliquary formerly in the Oratory of the Cathedral at La Valletta (now in the Cathedral Museum), I paid no attention to the tomb of its patron, the Grand Master Fra Gregorio Carafa to the this tomb in (1680-90). According inscription, the Chapel of Italy had already been installed in 1688, during the lifetime of the Grand Master. The arrival of the Reliquary in Malta is documented one year later (1689). Beyond the misleading attribution of the bronze bust of Carafa to Algardi, no attempt at determining the authorship of the tomb has been made.

GIOVACCHINO Fortini (1671-1736) is best known for his marble portrait busts and bronze medals. He was the pupil of Carlo Marcellini and Giuseppe Piamontini and he first came to prominence as a member of Giovanni Battista Foggini's workshop, where between 1691 and 1693 he worked with the master on the Feroni Chapel in SS. Annunziata. It was his work in the Feroni Chapel that must have drawn him to the attention of the Servite friars and during the next three decades Fortini was to complete a number of commissions for them. In 1705 he carved life-size, marble statues of S. Filippo Benizi and B. Giuliana Falconieri to go above the choir doors. The following year he made a base for the ciborium on the high altar. He restucued the Bandinelli Chapel in 1713-14 and the chapter house in 1722. He also prepared lavish designs for the funeral service of Francesco Maria dei Medici which took place in the church on 14th February 1711.

OF seventeenth-century French sculptors whose works were displayed by the French Revolution, Francois Girardon must be considered among the fortunate. While it is true that none of his large-scale public monuments was spared, a number of his tomb sculptures have come down to us more or less complete. These include fragments of seven of his nine Parisian funeral monuments, which were initially preserved at the convent of the Petits-Augustins and were later exhibited at the Musee des Monuments Francais. Those lost were the epitaph of the Berbier du Metz family, of which there is no trace, and the memorial to Pierre Perrault and his wife from Saint-Eitenne-du-Mont.