NEW EXHIBITIONS.
A 'toner. on a grand scale of .See Peter'R at Rome, executed by CI:LES- TINo Val, of Brescia, principal mechanician of the Theatre San Carlos at Naples, is now exhibiting at the gallery in Maddox Street ; and will well repay an attentive inspection. It conveys an idea of the magnittele, preportions, and details of this stupendous edifice, more complete and palpable than a pictorial representation can possibly do. The model is constructed of wood, from actual measurements, on a scale of I to lust, its dimensions being 15 feet lone and 71; wide ; and the walls tff the room are covered with a panoramic sketch of the scenery and buildings in its vicinity. The ornamental features, such as statue, capitals, ;ire faithfully given. The extreme labour of these details, as \veil as the magnificence of the building., may be inferred from the fact, that there are upwards of live hundred and sixty statues on the outside, and two hundred and eighty-eight columns, exclusive of pit stcrs ; and will account far the task having occupied the whole time of the ingenious artist during eleven years. The model is painted in intitaticm of the local colour of the building.
A visit to this exhibition accounted at once for the disappointment so frequently experienced by travellers in the size of St. Peter's, and con- firms the censures connoisseurs have passed on the design as it now Wears. The facade advances so thr before the nave of the church, that the dome is it seen in its full proportions, the drum or cylinder being hidden by the attic of the front ; so tint both the large and small cupolas appear to have sunk into the roof : moreover, the vast extent and lofty height of the colonnade in front lessen the effect of the eleva- tion ; and it is only by calculation of the enormous size of the pile in comparison with the Minot stature, that an idea can be formed com- mensurate with the grandeur of the edifice. Ilere we have another in- stance of the pernicious folly ot' tampering with an architectural design, and the fruitlessness of attempting to aggrandize a structure by :teen- mabition of masses : mere bigness is the gross:2,t clement of the sub- lime, and. unless controlled by art, is destruetk s not only of beauty but of prandear. llad IlmutANTeis design for St. Peter's and WHEN'S ,first design ibr S. Paul's been carried into eb.cets these two chefs- Lumen, of areltiteetural genius would have eXh:Itzszed the language of panegyric, instead of taxing ingenuity to explain the cause of their cemparalive failure.
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