Page:The Diary of Dr John William Polidori.djvu/90

78 shown virgins' skulls of ninety years old, male and female, all jumbled into a mass of 11,000 virgins' bones arranged all in order—some gilt, etc. A whole room bedecked with them. All round, indeed, whatever we saw were relics, skulls; some in the heads of silver-faced busts, some arranged in little cells with velvet cases, wherein was worked the name of each. Paintings of St. Ursula, etc. Asked for a piece out of the masses: only got a smile, and a point of a finger to an interdiction in Latin, which I did not read.

We went to see a picture of Rubens, The Nailing of St. Peter to a Cross; the best design, though not very good, I yet have seen of his. A German artist copying it spoke English to us.

Returned home. Sent my name to Professor Wallraf: got admission. Found a venerable old man who has spent his life in making a collection of paintings and other objects of vertu belonging to his country, Cologne, which he intends leaving to his native town.

[This is no doubt the Wallraf who was joint founder of the celebrated Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne. The statement which ensues as to an early oil-painter named Kaft is noticeable; whether correct I am unable to say. The Wallraf-Richartz Museum does not contain any painting by Tintoretto to which the name