to the amount of eighty-five thousand,? the increase of citizens was in some degree pernicious to the ancient city. IV. The domes the Romans. IV. I have reserved for the last, the most potent and forcible cause of de- tie quarrels of struction, the domestic hostilities of the Romans themselves. Under the dominion of the Greek and French emperors, the peace of the city was disturbed by accidental, though frequent, seditions: it is from the decline of the latter, from the beginning of the tenth century, that we may date the licentiousness of private war, which violated with impunity the laws of the code and the gospel, without respecting the majesty of the absent sovereign, or the presence and person of the vicar of Christ. In a dark period of five hundred years, Rome was perpetually afflicted by the sanguinary quarrels of the nobles and the people, the Guelphs and Ghibelines, the Colonna and Ursini; and if much has escaped the knowledge, and much is unworthy of the notice, of history, I have exposed in the two preceding chapters the causes and effects of the public disorders. At such a time, when every quarrel was decided by the sword, and none could trust their lives or properties to the impotence of law; the powerful citizens were armed for safety, or offence, against the domestic enemies whom they feared or hated. Except Venice alone, the same dangers and designs were common to all the free republics of Italy; and the nobles usurped the prerogative of fortifying their houses, and erecting strong towers that were capable of resisting a sudden attack. The cities were filled with these hostile edifices; and the example of Lucca, which contained three hundred towers; her law, which confined their height to the measure of fourscore feet, may be extended with suitable latitude to the more opulent and populous states. The first step of the senator Brancaleone in the establishment of peace and justice, was to demolish (as we have already seen) one hundred and forty of the towers of Rome; and, in the last days of anarchy and discord, as late as the reign of Martin the fifth, forty-four still stood in one of the thirteen or fourteen regions of the city. To this mischievous purpose, the remains of anti the seven hills into the Campus Martius; and some of the noblest monuments which had braved the injuries of time were left in a desert, far remote from the habitations of mankind. The palaces of the senators were no longer adapted to the manners or fortunes of their indigent successors; the use of baths and porticoes was forgotten; in the sixth century, the games of the theatre, amphitheatre, and circus, had been interrupted: some temples were devoted to the prevailing worship; but the christian churches preferred the holy figure of the cross; and fashion, or reason, had distributed after a peculiar model the cells and offices of the cloister. Under the ccclesiastical reign, the number of these pious foundations was enormously multiplied; and the city was crowded with forty monasteries of men, twenty of women, and sixty chapters and colleges of canons and priests, who aggravated, instead of relieving, the depopulation of the tenth century. But if the forms of ancient architecture were disregarded by a people insensible of their use and beauty, the plentiful materials were applied to every call of necessity or superstition; till the fairest columns of the Ionic and Corinthian orders, the richest marbles of Paros and Numidia, were degraded, perhaps to the support of a convent or stable. The daily havoc which is perpetrated by the Turks in the cities of Greece and Asia, may afford a melancholy example; and in the gradual destruction of the monuments of Rome, Sixtus the fifth may alone be excused for employing the stones of the Septizonium in the glorious edifice of St. Peter's.' A fragment, a ruin, howsoever mangled or profaned, may be viewed with pleasure and regret; but the greater part of the marble was deprived of substance as well as of place and proportion; it was burnt to lime for the purpose of cement. Since the arrival of Poggius, the temple of Concord," and many capital structures, had vanished from his eyes; and an epigram of the same age expresses a just and pious fear, that the continuance of this practice would finally annihilate all the monuments of antiquity. The smallness of their numbers was the sole check on the demands and depredations of the Romans. The imagination of Petrarch might create the presence of a mighty people; and I hesi-quity were most readily adapted: the temples and tate to believe, that, even in the fourteenth century, they could be reduced to a contemptible list of thirty-three thousand inhabitants. From that period to the reign of Leo the tenth, if they multiplied i Yet Charlemagne washed and swam at Aix la Chapelle with a hundred of his courtiers, (Eginhart, c. 22. p. 108, 109.) and Muratori describes, as late as the year 814, the public baths which were built at Spoleto in Italy. (Annali, tom. vi. p. 416.) k See the Annals of Italy, A. D. 988. For this and the preceding fact, Muratori himself is indebted to the Benedictine history of Père Mabillon. 1 Vita di Sisto Quinto, da Gregorio Leti, tom. iii. p. 50. m Porticus ædis Concordiæ, quam cum primum ad urbem accessi vidi fere integram opere marmoreo admodum specioso; Romani postmodum ad calcem ædem totam et porticus partem disjectis columnis sunt demoliti, (p. 12.) The temple of Concord was therefore not destroyed by a sedition in the thirteenth century, as I have read in a MS. treatise del' Governo civile di Rome, leut me formerly at Rome, and ascribed (I believe falsely) to the celebrated Gravina. Poggius likewise affirms, that the sepulchre of Cæcilia Metalla was burnt for lime, (p. 19, 20.) n Composed by Eneas Sylvius, afterwards pope Pius II. and pub. arches afforded a broad and solid basis for the new e Vagabamur pariter in illâ urbe tam magna; quæ, cum propter spatium vacua videretur, populum habet immensum. (Opp. p. 605. Epist. Familiares, ii. 14.) P These states of the population of Rome at different periods, are de rived from an ingenious treatise of the physician Lancisi, de Romani Cæli Qualitatibus, (p. 122.) All the facts that relate to the towers at Rome, and in other free cities of Italy, may be found in the laborious and entertaining compila tion of Muratori, Antiquitates Italiæ medii Evi, dissertat. xxvi. (tom. ii. p. 493-496. of the Latin, tom. i. p. 446. of the Italian work.) nines. With some slight alterations, a theatre, an amphitheatre, a mausoleum, was transformed into a strong and spacious citadel. I need not repeat, that the mole of Adrian has assumed the title and form of the castle of St. Angelo; the Septizonium: of Severus was capable of standing against a royal army; the sepulchre of Metella has sunk under its outworks; the theatres of Pompey and Marcellus were occupied by the Savelli and Ursini families; and the rough fortress has been gradually softened to the splendour and elegance of an Italian palace. Even the churches were encompassed with arms and bulwarks, and the military engines on the roof of St. Peter's were the terror of the Vatican and the scandal of the christian world. Whatever is fortified will be attacked: and whatever is attacked may be destroyed. Could the Romans have wrested from the popes the castle of St. Angelo, they had resolved by a public decree to annihilate that monument of servitude. Every building of defence was exposed to a siege; and in every siege the arts and engines of destruction were laboriously employed. After the death of Nicholas the fourth, Rome, without a sovereign or a senate, was abandoned six months to the fury of civil war. "The houses," says a cardinal and poet of the times, 64 were crushed by the weight and velocity of enormous stones; the walls were perforated by the strokes of the battering-ram; the towers were involved in fire and smoke; and the assailants were stimulated by rapine and revenge." The work was consummated by the tyranny of the laws; and the factions of Italy alternately exercised a blind and thoughtless vengeance on their adversaries, whose houses and castles they razed to the ground.a In comparing the days of foreign, with the ages of domestic, hostility, we must pronounce, that the latter have been far more ruinous to the city; and our opinion is confirmed by the evidence of Petrarch. "Behold," says the laureat, "the relics of Rome, the image of her pristine greatness! neither time, As for instance, Templum Jani nunc dicitur, turris Centii Frangi. panis; et sane Jano impositæ turris lateritiæ conspicua hodieque vestigia supersunt. (Montfaucon Diarium Italicum, p. 186.) The anony. mous writer (p. 285.) enumerates, arcus Titi, turres Cartularia; arcus Julii Cæsaris et Senatorum, turres de Bratis; arcus Antonini, turris de Cosectis, &c. s Hadriani molem . . . . . magna ex parte Romanorum injuria disturbavit; quod certe funditus evertissent, si eorum manibus pervia, absumptis grandibus saxis, reliqua moles exstitisset. (Poggius de Va rietate Fortunæ, p. 12) Against the emperor Henry IV. (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. ix. p. 147.) I must copy an important passage of Montfauçon: Turris ingens rotunda.... Caciliæ Metellæ.... sepulchrum erat, cujus muri tam solidi, ut spatium perquam minimum intus vacuum supersit; et Torre di Bove dicitur, a boum capitibus muro inscriptis. Huic sequiori avo, tempore intestinorum bellorum, ceu urbecula adjuncta fuit, cujus monia et turres etiamnum visuntur; ita ut sepulchrum Metellæ quasi arx oppiduli fuerit. Ferventibus in urbe partibus, cum Ursini atque Columnenses mutuis cladibus perniciem inferrent civitati, in utriusve partis ditionem cederet magni momenti erat, (p. 142.) * See the testimonies of Donatus, Nardini, and Montfauçon. In the Savelli palace, the remains of the theatre of Marcellus are still great and conspicuous. y James, cardinal of St. George, ad velum aureum, in his metrical life of pope Celestin V. (Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. i. P. iii. p. 621. 1. i. c. 1. ver. 132, &c.) Hoc dixisse sat est, Romam caruisse Senatů Mensibus exactis heu sex; belloque vocatum (vocatos) Tormentis jecisse viros immania saxa; Perfodisse domus trabibus, fecisse ruinas Ignibus; incensas turres, obscurataque fumo Lumina vicino, quo sit spoliata supellex. nor the barbarian, can boast the merit of this stupendous destruction: it was perpetrated by her own citizens, by the most illustrious of her sons, and your ancestors (he writes to a noble Annibaldi) have done with the battering-ram, what the Punic hero could not accomplish with the sword." The influence of the two last principles of decay must in some degree be multiplied by each other; since the houses and towers, which were subverted by civil war, required a new and perpetual supply from the monuments of antiquity. Titus. These general observations may be The Coliseum or separately applied to the amphitheatre amphitheatre of of Titus, which has obtained the name of the COLISEUM, either from its magnitude, or from Nero's colossal statue; an edifice, had it been left to time and nature, which might perhaps have claimed an eternal duration. The curious antiquaries, who have computed the numbers and seats, are disposed to believe, that above the upper row of stone steps, the amphitheatre was encircled and elevated with several stages of wooden galleries, which were repeatedly consumed by fire, and restored by the emperors. Whatever was precious, or portable, or profane, the statues of gods and heroes, and the costly ornaments of sculpture, which were cast in brass, or overspread with leaves of silver and gold, became the first prey of conquest or fanaticism, of the avarice of the barbarians or the christians. In the massy stones of the Coliseum, many holes are discerned; and the two most probable conjectures represent the various accidents of its decay. These stones were connected by solid links of brass or iron, nor had the eye of rapine overlooked the value of the baser metals; the vacant space was converted into a fair or market; the artisans of the Coliseum are mentioned in an ancient survey; and the chasms were perforated or enlarged to receive the poles that supported the shops or tents of the mechanic trades. Reduced to its naked majesty, the Flavian amphitheatre was contemplated with awe and admiration z Muratori (Dissertazione sopra le Antiquita Italiane, tom. i. p. 427 -431.) finds, that stone bullets of two or three hundred pounds' weight were not uncommon; and they are sometimes computed at twelve or eighteen cantari of Genoa, each cantara weighing 150 pounds. a The sixth law of the Visconti prohibits this common and mischievous practice; and strictly enjoins, that the houses of banished citizens should be preserved pro communi utilitate. (Gualvaneus de la Flanima, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xii. p. 1041.) b Petrarch thus addresses his friend, who, with shame and tears, had shown him the mania, laceræ specimen miserabile Romæ, and declared his own intention of restoring them. (Carmina Latina, 1. ii. epist. Paulo Annibalensi, xii. p. 97, 98.) Nec te parva manet servatis fama ruinis. Perficit hic aries. The fourth part of the Verona Illustrata of the marquis Maffei, pro. fessedly treats of amphitheatres, particularly those of Rome and Verona, of their dimensions, wooden galleries, &c. It is from magnitude that he derives the name of Colosseum, or Coliseum: since the same appellation was applied to the amphitheatre of Capua, without the aid of a colossal statue; since that of Nero was erected in the court (in atrio) of his palace, and not in the Coliseum, (p. iv. p. 15–19. l. i. c. 4.) d Joseph Maria Suarés, a learned bishop, and the author of a history of Præneste, has composed a separate dissertation on the seven or eight probable causes of these holes, which has been since reprinted in the Roman Thesaurus of Sallengre. Montfaucon (Diarium, p. 233.) pronounces the rapine of the barbarians to be the unam germanamque causam foraminum. e Donatus, Roma Vetus et Nova, p. 285. by the pilgrims of the north; and the rude enthusiasm broke forth in a sublime proverbial expression, which is recorded in the eighth century, in the fragments of the venerable Bede: "As long as the Coliseum stands, Rome shall stand; when the Coliseum falls, Rome will fall; when Rome falls, the world will fall." f In the modern system of war, a situation commanded by three hills would not be chosen for a fortress; but the strength of the walls and arches could resist the engines of assault; a numerous garrison might be lodged in the enclosure; and while one faction occupied the Vatican and the capitol, the other was entrenched in the Lateran and the Coliseum.g Games of Rome. the Coliseum, A. D. 1332. Sept. 3. k into the arena, or pit, to encounter the wild bulls, on foot as it should seem, with a single spear. Amidst the crowd, our annalist has selected the names, colours, and devices, of twenty of the most conspicuous knights. Several of the names are the most illustrious of Rome and the ecclesiastical state; Malatesta, Polenta, della Valle, Cafarello, Savelli, Capoccio, Conti, Annabaldi, Altieri, Corsi; the colours were adapted to their taste and situation; the devices are expressive of hope or despair, and breathe the spirit of gallantry and arms. "I am alone, like the youngest of the Horatii," the confidence of an intrepid stranger: "I live disconsolate," a weeping widower: I burn under the ashes," a discreet lover: "I adore Lavinia or Lucretia," the ambiguous declaration of a modern passion: "My faith is as pure," the motto of a white livery: "Who is stronger than myself?" of a lion's hide: "If I am drowned in blood, what a pleasant death,” the wish of ferocious courage. The pride or prudence of the Ursini restrained them from the field, which was occupied by three of their hereditary rivals, whose inscriptions denoted the lofty greatness of the Colonna name: "Though sad I am strong:""Strong as I am great :" "If I fall," addressing himself to the spectators," you fall with me:"--intimating (says the contemporary writer) that while the other families were the subjects of the Vatican, they alone were the supporters of the capitol. The combats of the amphitheatre were dangerous and bloody. Every champion succes The abolition at Rome of the ancient games must be understood with some latitude; and the carnival sports, of the Testacean mount and the Circus Agonalis," were regulated by the law or custom of the city. The senator presided with dignity and pomp to adjudge and distri- | bute the prizes, the gold ring, or the pallium, as it was styled, of cloth or silk. A tribute on the Jews supplied the annual expense; and the races, on foot, on horseback, or in chariots, were ennobled by a tilt and tournament of seventy-two of the Roman A bull-feast in youth. In the year one thousand three hundred and thirty-two, a bull-feast, after the fashion of the Moors and Spaniards, was celebrated in the Coliseum itself; and the living manners are painted in a diary of the times." A convenient order of benches was restored; and a general proclamation, as far as Ri-sively encountered a wild bull; and the victory may mini and Ravenna, invited the nobles to exercise their skill and courage in this perilous adventure. The Roman ladies were marshalled in three squad rons, and seated in three balconies, which on this day, the third of September, were lined with scarlet cloth. The fair Jacova di Rovere led the matrons from beyond the Tiber, a pure and native race, who still represent the features and character of antiquity. The remainder of the city was divided as usual between the Colonna and Ursini: the two factions were proud of the number and beauty of their female bands: the charms of Savella Ursini are mentioned with praise; and the Colonna regretted the absence of the youngest of their house, who had sprained her ancle in the garden of Nero's tower. The lots of the champions were drawn by an old and respectable citizen: and they descended f Quamdiu stabit Colyseus, stabit et Roma; quando cadet Colyseus, cadet Roma; quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus. (Beda in Excerptis seu Collectaneis apud Ducange Glossar. med. et infimæ Latinitatis, tom. ii. p. 407. edit. Basil.) This saying must be ascribed to the AngloSaxon pilgrims who visited Rome before the year 735, the æra of Bede's death; for I do not believe that our venerable monk ever passed the sea. g I cannot recover, in Muratori's original Lives of the Popes, (Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. p. i.) the passage that attests this hostile partition, which must be applied to the end of the eleventh or the be. ginning of the twelfth century. h Although the structure of the Circus Agonalis be destroyed, it still retains its form and name (Agona, Nagona, Navana); and the interior space affords a sufficient level for the purpose of racing. But the Monte Testaceo, that strange pile of broken pottery, seems only adapted for the annual practice of hurling from top to bottom some waggon loads of live hogs for the diversion of the populace. (Statuta Urbis Romæ, p. 186.) i See the Statuta Urbis Romæ, 1. iii. c. 87, 88, 89. p. 185, 186. I have already given an idea of this municipal code. The races of Nagona be ascribed to the quadrupeds, since no more than eleven were left on the field, with the loss of nine wounded and eighteen killed on the side of their adversaries. Some of the noblest families might mourn, but the pomp of the funerals, in the churches of St. John Lateran and St. Maria Maggiore, afforded a second holiday to the people. Doubtless it was not in such conflicts that the blood of the Romans should have been shed; yet, in blaming their rashness we are compelled to applaud their gallantry; and the noble volunteers, who display their magnificence, and risk their lives, under the balconies of the fair, excite a more generous sympathy than the thousands of captives and malefactors who were reluctantly dragged to the scene of slaughter." This use of the amphitheatre was a rare, perhaps a singular, festival: the Injuries and Monte Testaceo are likewise mentioned in the Diary of Peter Antonins from 1404 to 1417. (Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xxiv. p. 1124.) k The Pallium, which Menage so foolishly derives from Palmarium, is an easy extension of the idea and the words, from the robe or cloak, to the materials, and from thence to their application as a prize. (Muratori, dissert, xxxiii.) 1 For these expenses, the Jews of Rome paid each year 1130 florins, of which the odd thirty represented the pieces of silver for which Judas had betrayed his Master to their ancestors. There was a foot-race of Jewish as well as of christian youths. (Statuta Urbis, ibidem.) m This extraordinary bull-feast in the Coliseum is described, from tradition rather than memory, by Ludovico Buonconte Monaldesco, in the most ancient fragments of Romau annals: (Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xii. p. 535, 536.) and however fanciful they may seem, they are deeply marked with the colours of truth and nature. n Muratori has given a separate dissertation (the twenty-ninth) to the games of the Italians in the middle ages. To demand for the materials was a daily and continual want, which the citizens could gratify without restraint or remorse. In the fourteenth century, a scandalous act of concord secured to both factions the privilege of extracting stones from the free and common quarry of the Coliseum; and Poggius laments, that the greater part of these stones had been burnt to lime by the folly of the Romans. check this abuse, and to prevent the nocturnal crimes that might be perpetrated in the vast and gloomy recess, Eugenius the fourth surrounded it with a wall; and, by a charter long extant, granted both the ground and edifice to the monks of an adjacent convent. After his death, the wall was overthrown in a tumult of the people; and had they themselves respected the noblest monument of their fathers, they might have justified the resolve that it should never be degraded to private property. The inside was damaged; but in the middle of the sixteenth century, an æra of taste and learning, the exterior circumference of one thousand six hundred and twelve feet was still entire and inviolate; a triple elevation of fourscore arches, which rose to the height of one hundred and eight feet. Of the present ruin, the nephews of Paul the third are the guilty agents; and every traveller who views the Farnese palace may curse the sacrilege and luxury of these upstart princes. A similar reproach is applied to the Barberini; and the repetition of injury might be dreaded from every reign, till the and consecration Coliseum was placed under the safeof the Coliseum. guard of religion by the most liberal of the pontiffs, Benedict the fourteenth, who consecrated a spot which persecution and fable had stained with the blood of so many christian martyrs. o In a concise but instructive memoir, the abbé Barthelemy (Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 585) has mentioned this agreement of the factions of the fourteenth century, de Tiburtino faciendo in the Coliseum, from an original act in the archives of Rome. p Coliseum.... ob stultitiam Romanorum majori ex parte ad calcem deletum, says the indignant Poggius: (p. 17.) but his expres. sion, too strong for the present age, must be very tenderly applied to the fifteenth century. Of the Olivetan monks. Montfaucon (p. 142.) affirms this fact from the memorials of Flaminius Vacca. (No. 72.) They still hoped, on some future occasion, to revive and vindicate their grant. r After measuring the priscus amphitheatri gyrus, Montfaucon (p. 142) only adds, that it was entire under Paul III. tacendo clamat. Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. xiv. p. 371) more freely reports the guilt of the Farnese pope, and the indignation of the Roman people. Against the nephews of Urban VIII. I have no other evidence than the vulgar saying, "Quod non fecerunt barbari, fecere Barberini," which was perhaps suggested by the resemblance of the words. As an antiquarian and a priest, Montfaucon thus deprecates the ruin of the Coliseum: Quod si non suopte merito atque pulchritudine dignum fuisset quod improbas arceret manus, indigna res utique in locum tot martyrum cruore sacrum tantopere sævitum esse. Yet the statutes of Rome (1. iii. c. 81. p. 182.) impose a fine of 500 aurei on whosoever shall demolish any ancient edifice, ne ruinis civitas deformetur, et ut antiqua ædificia decorem urbis perpetuo representent. u la his first visit to Rome (A. D. 1337. See Memoires sur Petrarque, tom. i. p. 322, &c.) Petrarch is struck mute miraculo rerum tantarum, more conversant with these antiquities than the nobles and natives of the metropolis.* The ignorance and credulity of the Romans are elaborately displayed in the old survey of the city, which was composed about the beginning of the thirteenth century; and, without dwelling on the manifold errors of name and place, the legend of the capitoly may provoke a smile of contempt and indignation. The capitol," says the anonymous writer," is so named as being the head of the world: where the consuls and senators formerly resided for the government of the city and the globe. The strong and lofty walls were covered with glass and gold, and crowned with a roof of the richest and most curious carving. Below the citadel stood a palace, of gold for the greatest part, decorated with precious stones, and whose value might be esteemed at one-third of the world itself. The statues of all the provinces were arranged in order, each with a small bell suspended from its neck; and such was the contrivance of art magic,' that if the province rebelled against Rome, the statue turned round to that quarter of the heavens, the bell rang, the prophet of the capitol reported the prodigy, and the senate was admonished of the impending danger." A second example of less importance, though of equal absurdity, may be drawn from the two marble horses, led by two naked youths, which have since been transported from the baths of Constantine to the Quirinal hill. The groundless application of the names of Phidias and Praxiteles may perhaps be excused; but these Grecian sculptors should not have been removed above four hundred years from the age of Pericles to that of Tiberius; they should not have been transformed into two philosophers or magicians, whose nakedness was the symbol of truth or knowledge, who revealed to the emperor his most secret actions; and, after refusing all pecuniary recompence, solicited the honour of leaving this eternal monument of themselves. Thus awake to the power of magic, the Romans were insensible to the beauties of art: no more than five statues were visible to the eyes of Poggius: and of the multitudes which chance or design had buried under the ruins, the resurrection et stuporis mole obrutus. . . . Præsentia vero, mirum dictů, nihil imminuit: vere major fuit Roma majoresque sunt reliquiæ quam rebar. Jam non orbem ab hac urbe domitum, sed tam sero domitum, miror. (Opp. p. 605. Familiares, ii. 14. Joanni Columnæ.) He excepts and praises the rare knowledge of John Colonna. Qui enim hodie magis ignari rerum Romanorum, quam Romani cives? Invitus dico nusquam minus Roma cognoscitur quam Romæ. y After the description of the capitol, he adds, statuæ erant quot sunt mundi provinciæ; et habebat quælibet tintinnabulum ad collum. Et erant ita per magicam artem dispositæ, ut quando aliqua regio Romano Imperio rebellis erat, statim imago illius provincia vertebat se contra illam; unde tintinnabulum resonabat quod pendebat ad collum; tuncque vates Capitolii qui erant custodes senatui, &c. He mentions an example of the Saxons and Suevi, who, after they had been subdued by Agrippa, again rebelled tintinnabulum sonuit; sacerdos qui erat in speculo in hebdomada senatoribus nuntiavit: Agrippa marched back and reduced the Persians. (Anonym. in Montfaucon. p. 297, 298.) z The same writer affirms, that Virgil captus a Romanis invisibiliter exiit, ivitque Neapolim. A Roman magician, in the eleventh century, is introduced by William of Malmsbury; (de Vestis Regum Anglorum, 1. ii. p. 86.) and in the time of Flaminius Vacca (No. 81. 103.) it was the vulgar belief that the strangers (the Goths) invoked the dæmons for the discovery of hidden treasures. a Anonym. p. 289. Montfaucon (p. 191.) justly observes, that if Alexander be represented, these statues cannot be the work of Phidias (Olympiad xxxiii.) or Praxiteles, (Olympiad civ.) who lived before that conqueror. (Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiv. 19.) was fortunately delayed till a safer and more enlightened age. The Nile, which now adorns the Vatican, had been explored by some labourers, in digging a vineyard near the temple, or convent, of the Minerva; but the impatient proprietor, who | was tormented by some visits of curiosity, restored the unprofitable marble to its former grave. The discovery of a statue of Pompey, ten feet in length, was the occasion of a law-suit. It had been found under a partition-wall: the equitable judge had pronounced, that the head should be separated from the body to satisfy the claims of the contiguous owners; and the sentence would have been executed, if the intercession of a cardinal, and the liberality of a pope, had not rescued the Roman hero from the hands of his barbarous countrymen.d Restoration and city, But the clouds of barbarism were ornaments of the gradually dispelled; and the peaceful A. D. 1420, &c. authority of Martin the fifth and his successors restored the ornaments of the city as well as the order of the ecclesiastical state. The improvements of Rome, since the fifteenth century, have not been the spontaneous produce of freedom and industry. The first and most natural root of a great city, is the labour and populousness of the adjacent country, which supplies the materials of subsistence, of manufactures, and of foreign trade. But the greater part of the Campagna of Rome is reduced to a dreary and desolate wilderness: the overgrown estates of the princes and the clergy are cultivated by the lazy hands of indigent and hopeless vassals; and the scanty harvests are confined or exported for the benefit of a monopoly. A second and more artificial cause of the growth of a metropolis, is the residence of a monarch, the expense of a luxurious court, and the tributes of dependent provinces. Those provinces and tributes had been lost in the fall of the empire: and if some streams of the silver of Peru and the gold of Brasil have been attracted by the Vatican; the revenues of the cardinals, the fees of office, the oblations of pilgrims and clients, and the remnant of ecclesiastical taxes, afford a poor and precarious supply, which maintains however the idleness of the court and city: The population of Rome, far below the measure of the great capitals of Europe, does not exceed one hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants; and within the spacious enclosure of the walls, the largest b William of Malmsbury (1. ii. p. 86, 87.) relates a marvellous discovery (A. D. 1046.) of Pallas, the son of Evander, who had been slain by Turnus; the perpetual light in his sepulchre, a Latin epitaph, the corpse, yet entire, of a young giant, the enormous wound in his breast, (pectus perforat ingens,) &c. If this fable rests on the slightest foundation, we may pity the bodies, as well as the statues, that were exposed to the air in a barbarous age. e Prope porticum Minervæ, statua est recubantis, cujus caput integrâ effigie tantæ magnitudinis, ut signa omnia excedat. Quidam ad plan. tandos arbores scrobes faciens detexit. Ad hoc visendum cum plures indies magis concurrerent, strepitum adeuntium fastidiumque pertæsus, horti patronus congestâ humo texit. (Poggius de Varietate Fortunæ, p. 12.) d See the Memorials of Flaminia Vacca, No. 57. p. 11, 12. at the end of the Roma Antica of Nardini, (1704, in quarto.) e In the year 1709, the inhabitants of Rome (without including eight or ten thousand Jews) amounted to 138,568 souls. (Labat, Voyages en Espagne et in Italie, tom. iii. p. 217, 218.) In 1740, they had increased to 146,080; and in 1765, I left them, without the Jews, 161,899. portion of the seven hills is overspread with vineyards and ruins. The beauty and splendour of the modern city may be ascribed to the abuses of the government, to the influence of superstition. Each reign (the exceptions are rare) has been marked by the rapid elevation of a new family, enriched by the childish pontiff at the expense of the church and country. The palaces of these fortunate nephews are the most costly monuments of elegance and servitude; the perfect arts of architecture, painting, and sculpture, have been prostituted in their service, and their galleries and gardens are decorated with the most precious works of antiquity, which taste or vanity has prompted them to collect. The ecclesiastical revenues were more decently employed by the popes themselves in the pomp of the catholic worship; but it is superfluous to enumerate their pious foundations of altars, chapels, and churches, since these lesser stars are eclipsed by the sun of the Vatican, by the dome of St. Peter, the most glorious structure that ever has been applied to the use of religion. The fame of Julius the second, Leo the tenth, and Sixtus the fifth, is accompanied by the superior merit of Bramante and Fontana, of Raphael and Michael Angelo: and the same munificence which had been displayed in palaces and temples, was directed with equal zeal to revive and emulate the labours of antiquity. Prostrate obelisks were raised from the ground, and erected in the most conspicuous places; of the eleven aqueducts of the Cæsars and consuls, three were restored; the artificial rivers were conducted over a long series of old, or of new, arches, to discharge into marble basins a flood of salubrious and refreshing waters and the spectator, impatient to ascend the steps of St. Peter's, is detained by a column of Egyptian granite, which rises between two lofty and perpetual fountains, to the height of one hundred and twenty feet. The map, the description, the monuments of ancient Rome, have been elucidated by the diligence of the antiquarian and the student: and the footsteps of heroes, the relics, not of superstition, but of empire, are devoutly visited by a new race of pilgrims from the remote, and once savage, countries of the north. I am ignorant whether they have since continued in a progressive state. f The Père Montfaucon distributes his own observations into twenty days, he should have styled them weeks, or months, of his visits to the different parts of the city. (Diarium Italicum, c. 8-20, p. 104-301 That learned Benedictine reviews the topographers of Ancient Rome; the first efforts of Blondus, Fulvius, Martianus, and Faunus, the supe rior labours of Pyrrhus Ligorius, had his learning been equal to his labours: the writings of Onuphrius Panvinius, qui omnes obscuravit, and the recent but imperfect books of Donatus and Nardini. Ye Montfaucon still sighs for a more complete plan and description of the old city, which must be attained by the three following methods. The measurement of the space and intervals of the ruins. 2. The study of inscriptions, and the places where they were found. 3. The investi gation of all the acts, charters, diaries of the middle ages, which name any spot or building of Rome. The laborious work, such as Mont faucon desired, must be promoted by princely or public munificence: but the great modern plan of Nolli (A. D. 1748) would furnish a solid and accurate basis for the ancient topography of Rome. |