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Show TOURISTS ON BEATEN TRACK Some cf the Many Beautiful Things That They Miss in Italy. London. An interesting test of the relative popularity of the various galleries, gal-leries, museums and ancient monuments monu-ments of Italy is afforded by the official offi-cial statistics of the admission fees levied during the financial year, 1912-13, 1912-13, published in the Bolletino d'Arte for 1913 for the first time. The first place is taken neither by Rome nor by Naples, but by the doges' palace at Venice, which had nearly one hundred and sixty thousand paying visitors at one lira each (the statistics of free Temple of ine Sibyl at Tivoii. admissions are'not'given), the picture galleries of the same city having 50,-000 50,-000 visitors, and the archaeological museum only 13,000. One may doubtless doubt-less explain the popularity of Venice by its neighborhood to the northern frontier and its consequent accessibility accessi-bility to Germany and Austria. That the Venetians themselves visit the Palazzo Ducale in large numbers is as improbable as the supposition that the bulk of the visitors to the National gallery are Londoners. We find, too, that" at Milan Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" had over forty-five thousand visitors, the Brera picture gallery nearly thirty-seven thousand, and the Certosa di Pavia 21,000. Milan, nowever, must ta-ke the fourth place, or even the fifth, the second sec-ond belonging to Florence, where the gallery of the Uffizi claims nearly seventy-seven thousand visitors and the Pitti nearly sixty thousand, the Medici chapels 38,000, the Bargello 32,000, the academy (or gallery of ancient and modern art) 30,000, the Museum of St. Mark nearly twenty-six thousand, but the archaeological museum only five thousand-odd. Pompeii had some seventy-six thousand one hundred visitors at two and one-half lira a head, while the National museum at Naples attracted at-tracted over sixty-seven thousand five hundred. The comparative lack of interest in archaeologica.1 museums leaves it uncertain un-certain whether Rome should really take only the fourth place, for hefe the most attractive and famous galleries gal-leries of pictures and sculpture, and the rooms which contain Raphael's masterpieces in fresc, belong, not to the state, but to the papal authorities. But it Is a little surprising that the Forum should be rble to total only just over forty thousand visitors and the Palatine only 31,000; the baths at Caracalla, on the other hand, which are somewhat more remote, did well to have nearly twenty thousand, while Hadrian's villa had over fourteen thousand. Much is, no doubt, due to the fact that neicher the Uffizi in Florence Flor-ence nor the Museu Nazionale in Naples Na-ples can be seen in one visit without a severe attack of mental indigestion; but it is a little difficult to explain that Rome should fall behind both Naples and Florence, especially after the interest the recent discoveries in the Forum and on the Palatine have excited. |