CHAPTER LXXI.

Prospect of the ruins of Rome in the fifteenth century-Four causes of decay and destruction.Example of the Coliseum.-Renovation of the city. Conclusion of the whole work.

In the last days of pope Eugenius the fourth, two of his servants, the learned Poggius* and a friend,

1. Monaldeschi (Ludovici Boncomitis) Fragmenta Annalium Roman. A. D. 1328, in the Scriptores Rerum Italicarum of Muratori, tom. xii. p. 525. N. B. The credit of this fragment is somewhat hurt by a singular interpolation, in which the author relates his own death at the age of 115 years.

2. Fragmenta Historiæ Romanæ (vulgo Thomas Fortifiocca), in Romana Dialecto Vulgari (A. D. 1327-1454), in Muratori, Antiquitat. Medii Evi Italiæ, tom. iii. p. 247-548: the authentic ground-work of the history of Rienzi.

3. Delphini (Gentilis) Diarium Romanum (A. D. 1370-1410), in the Rerum Italicarum tom. iii. p. ii. p. 846.

4. Antonii (Petri) Diarium Rom. (A. D. 1404–1417), tom. xxiv. p. 969.

5. Petroni (Pauli) Miscellanea Historica Romana (A. D. 1433— 1446), tom. xxiv. p. 1101.

6. Voleterrani (Jacob) Diarium Rom. (A. D. 1472-1484), tom. xxiii. p. 81.

7. Anonymi Diarium Urbis Romæ (A. D. 1481–1492), tom. iii. p. ii. p. 1069.

8. Infessuræ (Stephani) Diarium Romanum (A. D. 1294, or 1378 1494), tom. iii. p. ii. p. 1109.

9. Historia Arcana Alexandri VI., sive Excerpta ex Diario Joh. Burcardi (A. D. 1492-1503), edita a Godefr. Gulielm. Leibnizic, Hanover, 1697, in 4to. The large and valuable Journal of Buscard might be completed from the MSS. in different libraries of Italy and France (M. de Foncemugne, in the Memoires de l'Acad. des Inscript. tom. xvii. p. 597–606).

I have already (see page 28, note) mentioned the age, character, and writings of Poggius; and particularly noticed the date of this elegant moral lecture on the varieties of fortune.

ascended the Capitoline hill: reposed themselves among the ruins of columns and temples and viewed from that commanding spot the wide and various prospect of desolation*. The place and the object gave ample scope for moralising on the vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave; and it was agreed, that in proportion to her former greatness, the fall of Rome was the more awful and deplorable. "Her primæval state, such as she might appear in a remote age, when Evander entertained the stranger of

Except the last, all these fragments and diaries are inserted in the Collections of Muratori, my guide and master in the history of Italy. His country, and the public, are indebted to him for the following works on that subject: 1. Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (A. D. 500-1500), quorum potissima pars nunc primum in lucem prodit, &c. 28 vols. in folio, Milan, 1723–1738, 1751. A volume of chronological and alphabetical tables is still wanting as a key to this great work, which is yet in a disorderly and defective state. 2. Antiquitates Italia Medii Ævi, 6 vols. in folio, Milan, 1738-1743, in 75 curious dissertations on the manners, government, religion, &c. of the Italians of the darker ages, with a large supplement of charters, chronicles, &c. 3. Dissertationi sopra le Antiquita Italiane, 3 vols. in 4to. Milano, 1751, a free version by the author, which may be quoted with the same confidence as the Latin text of the Antiquities. 4. Annali d' Italia, 18 vols. in octavo, Milan, 1753-1756, a dry though accurate and useful abridgment of the history of Italy from the birth of Christ to the middle of the eighteenth century. 5. Dell' Antichita Estense et Italiane, 2 vols. in folio, Modena, 1717. 1740. In the history of this illustrious race, the parent of our Brunswick kings, the critic is not seduced by the loyalty or gratitude of the subject. In all his works, Muratori approves himself a diligent and laborious writer, who aspires above the prejudices of a Catholic priest. He was born in the year 1672, and died in the year 1750, after passing near sixty years in the libraries of Milan and Modena (Vita del Proposto Ludovico Antonio Muratori, by his nephew and successor Gian. Francesco Soli Muratori, Venezia, 1756, in 4to.

* Consedimus in ipsis Tarpeia arcis ruinis, pone in gens portæ cujusdam, ut puto, teinpli, marmoreum limen, plurimasque passim confractas columnas, unde magnâ ex parte prospectus urbis patet (p. 5).

Troy*, has been delineated by the fancy of Virgil. This Tarpeian rock was then a savage and solitary thicket: in the time of the poet, it was crowned with the golden roofs of a temple; the temple is overthrown, the gold has been pillaged, the wheel of fortune has accomplished her revolution, and the sacred ground is again disfigured with thorns and brambles. The hill of the capitol, on which we sit, was formerly the head of the Roman empire, the citadel of the earth, the terror of kings; illustrated by the footsteps of so many triumphs, enriched with the spoils and tributes of so many nations. This spectacle of the world, how is it fallen! how changed! how defaced! the path of victory is obliterated by vines, and the benches of the senators are concealed by a dunghill. Cast your eyes on the Palatine hill, and seek among the shapeless and enormous fragments, the marble theatre, the obelisks, the colossal statues, the porticoes of Nero's palace: survey the other hills of the city, the vacant space is interrupted only by ruins and gardens. The forum of the Roman people, where they assembled to enact their laws and elect their magistrates, is now enclosed for the cultivation of potherbs, or thrown open for the reception of swine and buffaloes. The public and private edifices, that were founded for eternity, lie prostrate, naked, and broken, like the limbs of a mighty giant, and the ruin is the more visible, from the stupendous relics that have survived the injuries of time and fortune t."

* Æneid. viii. 97-369. This ancient picture, so artfully introduced, and so exquisitely finished, must have been highly interesting to an inhabitant of Rome; and our early studies allow us to sympathise in the feelings of a Roman.

+ Capitolium adeo ...- immutatum ut vinæ in senatorum subsellia successerint, stercorum ac purgamentorum receptaculum factum. Respice ad Palatinum montem....vasta rudera.. teros colles perlustra omnia`vacua ædificiis, ruinis vinesque oppleta conspicies. (Poggius de Varietat. Fortunæ, p. 21).

....

These relics are minutely described by Poggius, one of the first who raised his eyes from the monuments of legendary, to those of classic, superstition *. I. Besides a bridge, an arch, a sepulchre, and the pyramid of Cestius, he could discern, of the age of the republic, a double row of vaults, in the salt-office of the capitol, which were inscribed with the name and munificence of Catulus. II. Eleven temples were visible in some degree, from the perfect form of the Pantheon, to the three arches and a marble column of the temple of peace, which Vespasian erected after the civil wars and the Jewish triumph. III. Of the number, which he rashly defines, of seven therma or public baths, none were sufficiently entire to represent the use and distribution of the several parts: but those of Diocletian and Antoninus Caracalla still retained the titles of the founders, and astonished the curious spectator, who, in observing their solidity and extent, the variety of marbles, the size and multitude of the columns, compared the labour and expense with the use and importance. Of the baths of Constantine, of Alexander, of Domitian, or rather of Titus, some vestige might yet be found. IV. The triumphal arches of Titus, Severus, and Constantine, were entire, both the structure and the inscriptions; a falling fragment was honoured with the name of Trajan; and two arches, then extant, in the Flaminian way, have been ascribed to the baser memory of Faustina and Gallienus. V. After the wonder of the Coliseum, Poggius might have overlooked a small amphitheatre of brick, most probably for the use of the prætorian camp: the theatres of Marcellus and Pompey were occupied in a great measure by public and private buildings; and in the circus, Agonalis and Maximus, little more than the situation and the form

*See Poggius, p. 2-22.

could be investigated. VI. The columns of Trajan and Antonine were still erect; but the Egyptian obelisks were broken or buried. A people of gods and heroes, the workmanship of art, was reduced to one equestrian figure of gilt brass, and to five marble statues, of which the most conspicuous were the two horses of Phidias and Praxiteles. VII. The two mausoleums or sepulchres of Augustus and Hadrian could not totally be lost; but the former was only visible as a mound of earth; and the latter, the castle of St. Angelo, had acquired the name and appearance of a modern fortress. With the addition of some separate and nameless columns, such were the remains of the ancient city; for the marks of a more recent structure might be detected in the walls, which formed a circumference of ten miles, included three hundred and seventy-nine turrets, and opened into the country by thirteen gates.

This melancholy picture was drawn above nine hundred years after the fall of the Western empire, and even of the Gothic kingdom of Italy. A long period of distress and anarchy, in which empire, and arts, and riches, had migrated from the banks of the Tyber, was incapable of restoring or adorning the city; and as all that is human must retrograde if it do not advance, every successive age must have hastened the ruin of the works of antiquity. To measure the progress of decay, and to ascertain, at each era, the state of each edifice, would be an endless and useless labour; and I shall content myself with two observations, which will introduce a short inquiry into the general causes and effects. 1. Two hundred years before the eloquent complaint of Poggius, an anonymous writer composed a description of Rome*. His ignorance may repeat the same

* Liber de Mirabilibus Romæ, ex Registro Nicolai Cardinalis de Arragonià in Bibliothecâ St. Isidori Armario IV. No. 69. This treatise, with some short but pertinent notes, has been published by