ircumference 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 traveler 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 Coliseum was placed under the safeguard 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.

When Petrarch first gratified his eyes with a view of those monuments,
whose scattered fragments so far surpass the most eloquent descriptions,
he 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 Rhone 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 of the thirteenth century; and without 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. 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 ba