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9 THE CAPITOL DOME of decorative motifs, as on the Pompeian wall, Brumidi also surrounds his panels of floating figures with vegetal borders, topping them at their outer corners with ani- mals (though Brumidi replaces the fantastical beasts visi- ble in Zahn's plate with swans). Finally, Brumidi similarly punctuates these panels at the bottom outer corners with floral motifs (though Brumidi uses cornucopia filled with flowers). Further study of Zahn's Volume 1 shows that, in addition to adopting his decorative scheme for the walls of S-127 from Zahn's plate 13, Brumidi adopted and adapted numerous motifs from this famous publication. For example, Brumidi's columns in S-127 are adaptations of the columns depicted in plate 13 and drawn in further detail by Zahn in plate 16 (fig. 10): the segment drawn by Zahn on the left become the bottom portion of Brumidi's columns, while the portion drawn by Zahn on the right is used by Brumidi as the segment second-from-the-top. Brumidi also modeled other floating figures on drawings by Zahn. For instance, Brumidi's floating maiden holding a pennant is adapted from Zahn's plate 88, which depicts a victory holding a trophy that Zahn saw in the Real Museo Borbonico (though he did not record her findspot; fig. 11). Though Brumidi removed the figure's wings, clothed her, replaced the trophy with a pennant, and altered the tilt of her head and position of her hands slightly, overall he maintains the Roman Victory's posture and gesture. Bru- midi is also faithful to Zahn's description of her color by clothing the American floating maiden in green drapery and applying the red of the trophy described by Zahn to the mantle that floats around her. Brumidi's borrowings extend beyond the floating figures on the walls: he even modeled some of his figures on the ceiling after drawings by Zahn. One example is the Nereid riding a sea panther at Aeolus' left side (visible at the right in fig. 7), which is based directly on Zahn's plate 64, depicting a painting that Zahn saw in the Real Museo Borbonico, which we know today is from the Villa Arianna at Stabiae (fig. 12). While this art historical connection between Bru- midi and Zahn's first volume of Die schönsten Ornamente is convincing, further support comes from an important archival source. Montgomery Meigs, in his journal entry of 22 June 1858, notes his admiration of Brumidi's com- pleted murals in S-127, and he even compares Brumidi's paintings to those of a specific book on Pompeian wall painting, citing the artist/author's last name: "The Pom- peian rooms are better than the examples from Pompeii in the book of ." Until recently, however, this last name was unknown, because Meigs kept his jour- nals in Pitman shorthand, which was a new invention at the time. Though portions of Meigs's journals related to Fig. 11. Comparison of (above) Zahn, Die schönsten Orna- mente, Vol. 1, pl. 88, Victory seen by Zahn in the Real Museo Borbonico in Naples, and (below) Constantino Brumidi, floating maiden holding pennant, c. 1857, S-127, U.S. Capitol