Philosophical transactions, Vol. L. Part I. For the year 1757. · Various
IV.
A small _bolla d’oro_, which (after that in the late Dr. Middleton’s collection, and another preserved at Rome) is the third known to be extant in Europe. As this ornament was worn by so great a number of young persons at Rome, and made of gold, which is so capable of resisting the injuries of the weather, moisture, _&c._ one cannot but wonder at the extreme scarcity of these monuments in the cabinets of the curious. The most probable way of accounting for this (according to [44]Dr. Middleton) is, that the value of the materials, of which these _bullæ_ were made, induced the poor labourers, as soon as they had found one, to sell it to the first goldsmith they met with for its real value (however small it might be), by weight. A little figure like a Faunus, excepting that about the head it had something of the character of the minotaur, _viz._ large curls upon the forehead, and several muscular protuberances, or _tori_, under the throat.
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