specimens remain to attract the attention of the visitor. The
cabinet at Naples, numbering between three and four hundred
intagli, and two and three hundred carnei, ranks second in
Italy, the one at Florence being the first. It comprises the
famous Farnese Vase, cut from one piece of sardonyx, and cost
one thousand ducats.
Among the private collections are the Strozzi at Rome,
which contains a Hercules, a Medusa, an ^Esculapius, and
a Germanicus, all works of merit as engraved gems, but
many of the best productions of this cabinet have been transferred to the Blacas. The Ludovisi collection, belonging to
Prince di Piombino, numbers many specimens of great value
both antique and of the Cinque-cento period ; its chef-d'oeuvre
is the Demosthenes of Dioscorides.
The collection of antiques exhibited by Sig. Alessandro
Castellani, of Rome, at the Philadelphia Exposition, comprised
various kinds of jewels both for personal ornaments and funeral
rites, including engraved ring-stones used by the early Christians,
all found among ancient remains, mostly in Italy. Among these
relics were two amulets made of amber in the form of rams'
heads, bearing date B. C. 700 ; a necklace of eleven amber
cylinders set in gold, with six pendants in the shape of anchors ;
a necklace of the Roman imperial epoch, composed of sapphires,
amethysts, and plasmas combined with' blue glass cylinders and
groups of leaves, Assyrian cylinders, Phoenician, Etruscan, and
Greek scarabs, and amulets and rings of different kinds of
engraved precious stones. Two jewels in this collection
possess an historical interest, one of the number being a large
ring made of gold, set with a garnet mounted on a pivot, and
engraved with the portrait of Assander, King of Bosporus,
which is considered one of the most remarkable of the kind
known, and a second ring with red rock-crystal bearing an
