h time the magistrates of the Senate,
being attended according to their quality, with a respective number of
the ballotins, doorkeepers, and messengers, and having the ensigns of
their magistracies borne before them, as the sword before the
strategus, the mace before the orator, a mace with the seal before
the commissioners of the chancery, the like with the purse before the
commissioners of the treasury, and a silver wand, like those in use with
the universities, before each of the censors, being chancellors of the
same. These, with the knights, in all 300, assemble in the house or hall
of the Senate.

The house or hall of the Senate being situated in the Pantheon or palace
of justice, is a room consisting of a square and a half. In the middle
of the lower end is the door, at the upper end hangs a rich state
overshadowing the greater part of a large throne, or half-pace of two
stages; the first ascended by two steps from the floor, and the second
about the middle rising two steps higher. Upon this stand two chairs,
in that on the right hand sits the strategus, in the other the orator
adorned with scarlet robes, after the fashion that was used by the dukes
in the aristocracy. At the right end of the upper stage stand three
chairs, in which the three commissioners of the seal are placed; and at
the other end sit the three commissioners of the treasury, every one
in a robe or habit like that of the earls. Of these magistrates of
this upper stage consists the signory. At either end of the lower stage
stands a little table, to which the secretaries of the Senate are set
with their tufted sleeves in the habit of civil lawyers. To the four
steps, whereby the two stages of the throne are ascended, answer four
long benches, which successively deriving from every one of the steps,
continue their respective height, and extend themselves by the side
walls toward the lower end of the house, every bench being divided by
numeral characters into the thirty-seven parts or places. Upon the upper
benches sit the censors in the robes of barons; the first in the middle
of the right hand bench, and the second directly opposite to him on the
other side. Upon the rest of the benches sit the knights, who, if they
be called to the urns, distributing themselves by the figures, come in
equal files, either by the first seat, which consists of the two upper
benches on either side; or by the second seat, consisting of the two
lower benches on either