corner
of the meanest court in Rome which is not of marble, granite, or
porphyry from some ancient building. Almost all the houses, as Raphael
said, have been built with lime made of the costly old marbles. The
very streets in the newly-formed parts of the city are macadamised
with the fragments of costly baths and pillars. I took up one day, out
of curiosity, some of the road-metal near the Church of Santa Maria
Maggiore, and I identified in the handful no less than a dozen
varieties of the most beautiful marbles and porphyries from Greece,
Africa, and Asia. And when we remember that all these foreign stones
were brought into Rome during the interval between the end of the
Republic and the time of Constantine--a period of between three
hundred and four hundred years--we can form some idea of the
extraordinary wealth and luxury of the Imperial City when it was in
its prime.

CHAPTER XI

THE VATICAN CODEX

Among the numberless objects of interest to be seen in Rome, a very
high place must be assigned to the Codex Vaticanus, probably the
oldest vellum manuscript in existence, and the richest treasure of the
great Vatican Library. This famous manuscript, which Biblical scholars
designate by the letter B, contains the oldest copy of the Septuagint,
and the first Greek version of the New Testament. In addition to the
profound interest which its own intrinsic value has inspired, it has
been invested with a halo of romance seldom associated with dry
palaeographical studies--on account of the unreasonable jealousy and
capricious conduct of its guardians. For a long time it was altogether
inaccessible for study to Biblical scholars, and few were allowed even
to see it. These restrictions, however, have now happily to a
considerable extent been removed; and provided with an order, easily
obtained from the Vatican librarian, or from the Prefect of the sacred
palaces, in reply to a polite note, any respectable person is
permitted to inspect it.

The first feeling which one has in the Vatican Library is that of
surprise. You might walk through the Great Hall and adjoining
galleries without suspecting the place to be a library at all; for the
bookcases that line the lower portion of the walls are closed with
panelled doors, painted in arabesque on a ground of white and slate
colour, and surrounded by gilded mouldings, and not a single book is
visible. The vaulted ceiling of the rooms is glowing with gold and
ultramari