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LXXI.

CHAP. mans *. To 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

* Coliseum . . . . ob stultitiam Romanorum majori ex parte ad calcem deletum, says the indignant Poggius, (p. 17): but his expression, too strong for the present age, must be very tenderly applied to the xvth 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.

After measuring the priscus an phitheatri 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 Barbarini," which was perhaps suggested by the resemblance of the words.

LXXI.

proach is applied to the Barbarini; and the repe CHAP. tition of injury might be dreaded from every reign, till the Coliseum was placed under the safeguard and conseof religion, by the most liberal of the pontiffs, the Coli

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cration of

Benedict the Fourteenth, who consecrated a spot seum. which persecution and fable had stained with the blood of so many Christian martyrs *.

and bar.

mans.

When Petrarch first gratified his eyes with a Ignorance view of those monuments, whose scattered frag- barism of ments so far surpass the most eloquent descriptions, the Rohe was astonished at the supine indifference † of the Romans themselves; he was humbled rather than elated by the discovery, that, except his friend Rienzi, and one of the Colonna, a stranger of the Rhône was 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

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As an antiquarian and a priest, Montfaucon thus depre cates the ruin of the Coliseum; Quod si non suopte merito atque pulchritudine dignum fuisset quod improbas arcetet 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.

In his first visit to Rome, (A. D. 1337. See Memoires sur Petrarque, tom. i. p. 322. &c.), Petrarch is struck mute miraculo rerum tantarum, et stuporis mole brutus. . . . Præsentia vero, mirum dictu, nihil imminuit: vere major fuit Roma majoresque sunt reliquiæ quam rebar. Jam non orbem ab hâc urbe domitum, sed tam sero domitum, miror, (Opp. p. 605. Familiares, ii. 14. Joanni Columna).

He excepts and praises the rare knowledge of John CoIonna. Qui enim hodie magis ignari rerum Romanarum, quam Romani cives? Invitus dico nusquam minus Roma cognoscitur quam Romæ.

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LXXI.

CHAP. beginning of the thirteenth century; and, with out dwelling on the manifold errors of name and place, the legend of the Capitol * 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.

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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

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part decorated with precious stones, and whose "value might be estimated 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

66 to

*After the description of the Capitol, he adds, statuæ erant quot sunt mundi provinciæ; et habebat quælibit tintinnabulam ad collum. Et erant ita per magicam artem dispositæ, ut quando aliqua regio Romano Imperio. rebellis erat, statim imago illius provinciæ vertebat se contra illam ; unde tintinnabulum resonabat quod pendebat ad collum; tuncque vates Ca pitolii 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 hebdomadâ senatoribus nuntiavit; Agrippa marched back and reduced the Persians (Anonym. in Montfaucon, p. 297, 298.).

The same writer affirms, that Virgil captus a Romanis invisibiliter exiit, ivitque Neapolim. A Roman magician, in the xith century, is introduced by William of Malmsbury (de Gestis 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.

LXXI.

"to that quarter of the heavens, the bell rang, CHA P. "the prophet of the Capitol reported the prodigy, "and the senate was admonished of the impend"ing 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 and 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 was fortunately delayed till a safer and more enlightened age t. The Nile, which now adorns

the

*Anonym. p. 289. Montfaucon (p. 191.) justly observes, that if Alexander be represented, these statues cannot be the work of Phidias (Olympiad lxxxiii.), or Praxiteles (Olympiad civ.), who lived before that conqueror (Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiv. 19.)..

+ 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,

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LXXI.

CHAP. 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 †.

Restora

ornaments

of the

city,

A.D.

1420, &a

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But the clouds of barbarism were gradually distion and pelled; and the peaceful 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

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.

Prope porticum Minervæ, statua est recubantis, cujus caput integrâ effigie tantæ magnitudines, ut signa omnia excedat. Quidam ad plantandos arbores scrobes faciens detexit. Ad hoc visendum cum plures in dies magis concurrerent, strepitum adeuntium fastidiumque pertæsus, horti patronus congesta humo texit, (Poggius de Varietate Fortunæ, p. 12.).

See the Memorials of Flaminia Vacca, No. 57. p. 15, 12. at the end of the Roma Antica of Nardini (1704, in 4to.)

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