I arrived at Rome, as I have already said, on the last day of the year, 1816, after a morning of continued eager expectation. In spite of all that may have been seen elsewhere of magnificent buildings, and of all the views and drawings which have been published of the eternal city, Rome is still a new world to an architect. You may know in detail the appearance of every building here, but you can feel nothing, you can imagine nothing, of the effect produced, on seeing, on finding yourself thus amongst them. To walk over the ancient Forum, and with a mind already raised by the indistinct and crowded associations of all the great and wonderful events which have originated on this spot, and of the great men who have ennobled it; to contemplate on one side the Capitol, with its temples and triumphal arches, testimonials of former splendour; and on the other the Curia hostilia, the temple of Jupiter Stator, and the arched terraces which once supported the proud palace of the Cæsars, is an intellectual treat, to be enjoyed, to be imagined, nowhere but at Rome. A vague feeling of admiration mixes itself with every perception, and every recollection; and the mind forcibly rejects all inharmonious ideas. It is not any one thing that you see, any more than one point of history that you have to remember; multitudes of fragments are included in one view, not very perfect and distinct in their forms, yet sufficient to excite the imagination. They crowd on the eye, as the scenes of history on the memory. The strong emotion and the high tone of feeling excited, leave no power of criticising. There seems to be a magic in the mere names. Proceeding in your walk in the direction of the Via Sacra, you leave on the left, the temple of Antoninus and Faustina, that of Romulus and Remus, and other fragments without a name. Afterwards, also on the left, is the temple of Peace, and you pass through the arch of Titus, both monuments of the destruction of Jerusalem: beyond are the temples of Venus and Rome, and at the distance of a few steps, the vast extent of the Coliseum. Nor have you to hunt out these objects with difficulty one after the other; they burst upon the eye almost at one view, and demand, or rather extort, your attention; and that view is usually almost the first upon which a stranger fixes his mind. Whether this building was a temple, or that a curia, may be questioned; but you cannot doubt for a moment, that each is a Roman work; and the ruin of some magnificent edifice. Afterwards you may ascend the Palatine, and pace over the extensive remains of the palace of the Cæsars. The long vaults, where a partial destruction admits a gleam of daylight to their deep recesses; the terraces, which seem to bid defiance to time; the half domes, and solid piers, attesting the grandeur of their ancient construction; the walls fringed with shrubs, principally evergreen; the very intricacy of the plan, and the mixture of kitchen gardens and vineyards, where once the voice of harmony resounded through lofty halls decorated with the finest productions of art; all impress the mind with the recollection of past glory. But the feeling here is very different from that excited in the Forum. There, the recollection of the lofty virtues of these magnanimous republicans, exalts every feeling into admiration; here, the shapeless masses of ruin, half concealed by vegetation, accord better with the melancholy felt in contemplating the decay of Rome, and the wasteful and destructive luxury which followed, or accompanied the erection of these palaces. But the views from the Palatine are no less striking than those within its walls. Below is the temple of Romulus; farther on to the left, that of Vesta; between these is the arch of Janus; the temple of Castor and Pollux was in the immediate neighbourhood; and in another place that of Apollo. All these names, and almost every inch of ground is disputed by the Roman antiquaries; but about such dissensions the imagination does not trouble herself. The form of the ground is still seen in the Circus maximus, but the buildings are gone. The Aventine rises above all the other objects, crowned with convents and churches, composed of the spoils of the temples which once adorned it. To the left of the Aventine is an enormous mass of building, which once contained the baths of Caracalla. The lower story is supposed to be filled up; the upper is uncovered, but the vast piers, and solid piles of masonry, which are sufficient to explain very intelligibly the whole plan of the central building, impress forcibly the imagination. Nearer, but still more to the left, are the arch of Constantine, and the Coliseum; of which you here trace the form, and see the whole extent. Beyond are numerous fragments of great buildings, one knows not of what. Turning again to the north, and retracing the Via Sacra, by which you came to the Palatine; you fix your eye on the bold elevation of the Capitol, and figure to yourself what it must have appeared, unincumbered with the rubbish of modern buildings, when all its temples were entire, each surrounded by stately colonnades, and the whole crowned with the splendid fane of Jupiter Capitolinus. There were probably many inconsiderable temples in Rome, but here was a collection of fine ones; many might have been in bad taste, but individual defects were lost in the splendour of the whole display. Besides, the simple form of the ancient temple precluded such extravagances as are found in modern architecture; and the form of the ground gave to such a collection its full effect. This is the case not only on the Capitol, but in the other parts of Rome; and nothing has astonished me more, than the numerous fine points of view which the ancient city must have afforded. The hills were insignificant in themselves, but they seem made to display the buildings to the greatest advantage; and one grand object rising behind another, and varying in combination at every new point of view, must have exhibited a scene of splendour and magnificence, unparalleled not only in fact, but in the descriptions of the most luxuriant fancy. The hills and country about Rome are well disposed for architecture, and for uniting its objects with those of the landscape. They are not high, and therefore the dreary waste of the Campagna is not obtrusive; while the broken foreground is richly adorned with evergreen and deciduous trees, and especially with the picturesque stone pine. The flowing line of Monte Albano, and the bolder and more irregular forms of the Apennines, unite to form an inexhaustible fund of variety and interest.

But all this is too vague and general to give you any distinct ideas, and I must endeavour, by a greater degree of precision, to carry you with me through this immense museum.

The Guide-books profess to conduct you regularly and systematically through Rome in eight days; and some of our countrymen boast that they have beaten the antiquaries, and done it in six. For my part, the first eight days I spent in Rome were all hurry and confusion. I could attend to nothing systematically, nor even examine any thing with accuracy; a sort of restless eagerness to see every thing, and know something about every thing, gave me no power of fixing my attention on any one particular. I have just given you a sketch of the chaos of objects which occupied my mind, but before I descend to individuals, let me tell you, what indeed is of more importance to me than to you, that I have taken a pleasant lodging of two good sized rooms, for which I am to pay nine scudi a month, on the Trinità de’ Monti. On my first arrival I lodged at Franz’s, a large inn kept by a German of that name, at the upper end of the Via de’ Condotti, almost close to the Piazza di Spagna. From this Piazza a most magnificent flight of a hundred and twenty-two steps, leads you to the church of Trinità de’ Monti. I had heard of the steps up to the Capitol, but never of these, which by the bye are much more showy, and I did not doubt on my arrival that I was at the foot of the ancient Capitol. All these steps I have to ascend to my lodging, and about sixty more within the house; but to reward my labours, when I am at home, I command a fine prospect over the greatest part of Rome, and perhaps the very best distant view of the Vatican. Mr. Sharp, my old companion in the south of France, assisted me in my search for lodgings; he had changed his, and I had no small difficulty to find him out. In this inquiry I received however, the clearest directions possible, though to streets which appear to have no existence. I am persuaded, that if you were to Italianize the name of a London street, and ask for Via Peccadilla, you would receive a very distinct and particular direction.

I have at length gained some degree of composure, and have examined a few things more at leisure, but still without any order. That of place seems to have no interest; that of antiquity, is too abstruse and difficult. I cannot therefore, pretend to give you any regular and connected view of Rome; nor can I take you with me from day to day, as I often run from one thing to another, and return again repeatedly to the principal objects. I shall therefore pursue a plan which may have regularity enough to unite the principal objects into groups, whose individuals may reflect some light upon each other; without attempting any more general arrangement: and leave something both of the composition of the groups, and of the order in which I speak of them, to that in which I have seen them.

There are so many objects of high interest in Rome, that a stranger hardly knows to which first to turn himself; but no one will long postpone a visit to the Forum, now called the Campo Vaccino, i. e. the Cattle Field; not the market, but the place where the long horned oxen, which have drawn the carts of the country people to Rome, wait till their masters are ready to go back again. This piece of ground does not precisely correspond with that of the old Forum Romanum, but it contains nearly the whole of it, and might without any impropriety be called by the same name. To reach this I crossed the Capitoline hill, whose modern buildings I shall leave for a future opportunity, and passing under the porticos of Michael Angelo, came out above the Temple of Concord. On the left are the foundations, and great fragments of the ancient buildings of the Capitol. The latter are principally seen within the prisons, at the back of the present senate-house; the former consist of great blocks of peperino, and seem to form the face of the hill. Above this was anciently the Tabularium, or record-office, the front of which consisted of a range of piers and arches, with a sort of Doric pilaster, and a capital more singular than beautiful. The material, and the style of the work, seem to announce its erection during the time of the republic; but the place having been used as a salt magazine under Nicolas the Fifth, about the middle of the fifteenth century, this substance is said to have destroyed the piers, and rendered it necessary to take them down, and replace them by the continued wall, which now exists; some capitals, and nearly the whole line of the architrave, are all that remain; above these nothing is exhibited externally of the ancient edifice. Within are masses of masonry, and portions of vaults mixed with the modern constructions.

Just at the foot of the hill is the Temple of Jupiter Tonans, three columns of which only remain. Formerly, this was buried by the rubbish forming the slope of the hill, to two thirds of the height of the columns, the pavement of this temple having been about 36 feet below that of the tabularium. The French have cleared away the ground, and various buildings, and in this operation have exposed the above described basement of the Capitol, of which only a very small fragment could previously have been visible. The French conferred, says my friend Mr. Sharp, a great many benefits on the Italians, but the greatest of all was in going away. An antiquary might be disposed to wish, that this had been deferred two or three years more, as far at least as relates to Rome. The excavations are not however, entirely discontinued, but they are not carried on with the same spirit as formerly. Palladio has made of this building a magnificent octastyle, dipteral temple, with nine columns on the sides, and with the side intercolumniations equal to those of the front. One is inclined to hope at least, that these early Italian architects had better grounds to go upon for their restorations than the imperfect fragments which remain to the present day; but here unfortunately his testimony is contradicted by the existing remains, for there is not space for his building between the remaining portion of the front, and the foundations of the Capitol. Uggeri, with more probability, and assisted by an ancient medal, has restored it as a hexastyle, peripteral temple, with smaller intercolumniations on the sides than in the front, as is the fact, with respect to the two columns of the flank, which are still erect. These columns afford a curious testimony of the luxury of magnificence, if I may use the expression, of the Roman architecture: the spaces between the dentils are very deeply cut upwards and backwards, to produce, I suppose, a depth of shade; the ovoli are laid on leaves, and hollowed out behind, so as to touch only at two points; and on the face of these ovoli, there is a minute carving of flowers. The frieze is ornamented with the insignia of sacrifice, and the patera, the vase, and the helmet, of the high priest, are all ornamented with minute carving, which is undistinguishable from below. That on the helmet of the priest represents a winged thunderbolt, and serves to identify the temple. In the front, the architrave and frieze are united in one large tablet, to receive the inscription; but this was probably an alteration on occasion of some repairs. An ancient ascent to the Capitol, the pavement of which is now exposed, passed close by this temple, but several feet below its pavement, and did not leave room for a regular flight of steps in the front; some steps therefore are put in between the columns of the portico, and the others ascended laterally on the side of the building, ending in a platform extending along the front, at the foot of the first mentioned steps. There are some remains of the construction which supported these steps, and of the basement mouldings, yet their arrangement is not perfectly clear.

Almost as near to the eye as the temple of Jupiter Tonans, stands that which used to have the name of Concord, but which now is rather attributed to Fortune. That it was not the temple of Concord, is however much more certain than what it was. The inscription Senatus populusque Romanus incendio consumptum restituit, has been thought to indicate a republican æra, since there is no mention of any emperor; but the architecture contradicts any such idea, and the present remains are now, with more probability, assigned to the fourth century. They consist of eight granite columns on an elevated basement, which is nearly hid by the accumulation of rubbish. One of these columns appears to be inverted; the other materials are very various, and among them are fragments of some edifice of a better period, and some very rude attempts at imitating them. Even these imitations seem not necessary to the edifice, and perhaps are fragments themselves, not much preceding the destruction of the temple by fire. The capitals are singular; they have been called Ionic, but that epithet can hardly be applied to them with justice. Some of them have belonged to a prior building, and are pretty well executed; others are ill-made imitations to complete the number wanted.

At a very little distance is the Arch of Septimius Severus, famous among other things for the erasure of the name of Geta, which is traced in the inscription. These triumphal arches are not in a very pure style of architecture, but they are rich and handsome objects; four projecting columns adorn each face, and the entablature breaks round each of them. Above these columns are supposed to have been statues, and in the arch of Constantine such still exist, but here they must have had a singular effect, as the tablet and inscription extend the whole length of the building, and the statues would have interrupted, and in part even concealed it. The top is supposed to have been surmounted by a triumphal car. The shafts of these columns are of cipollino, and in some of them large pieces of the marble have scaled off, and they have been repaired with brick, which has given occasion to some of my countrymen to discover that the marble columns of Rome were merely brick, coated with marble; the whole face of the work between the columns is covered with bas-reliefs, now much decayed, and probably always very bad, both in design and execution, yet contributing to the magnificence of the edifice.

At a very little distance from this arch, but not coming into any general view, are the Mamertine prisons, supposed to have been built originally by Ancus Martius, but an inscription assigns the present edifice to C. Vibius Rufus, and M. Cocceius Nerva, in the year of Rome 775. They consist of two dungeons, one below the other, in the lowest of which is a small spring, said to have arisen miraculously at the command of St. Peter, in order to baptize the keepers, Saints Processus and Martinianus, whom he had converted. These dungeons are covered with a vault, which as well as the walls, is of peperino, and if the tradition which assigns their erection to Ancus Martius be very uncertain, the style and materials of the work announce the early origin at least of all the lower part.

On the other side of the arch of Septimius, is the column dedicated to the emperor Phocas, as has been recently determined from an inscription exposed by the excavations made there, at the expense of the Duchess of Devonshire. The column itself has been taken from some more ancient building, and is placed on a pedestal, with steps up to it on all sides. Fragments of two other honorary columns, and the pedestals supporting them, and appearing to have been arranged symmetrically with this, have also been discovered, and numerous fragments, some of them of good architecture, have been dug up here, but these are entirely unconnected with the column, or with one another. Marble fragments of beautiful architecture, on the slope of the hill above the arch of Septimius, are thought to announce the situation of the true temple of Concord, but fragments alone remain.

These are the nearer objects of this most interesting view; at a greater distance are the temple of Saturn, that of Antoninus and Faustina, of Romulus and Remus. I give you the names by which they are usually known, without attending to their correctness. Then appear some fragments, of nobody knows what. The temple of Peace, the Coliseum, the arch of Titus, the Palatine hill, half covered with shapeless masses of ruin, the Curia Hostilia, and the three beautiful columns which remain of the temple of Jupiter Stator. You seem to burst at once upon the glories of the ancient city, but prostrate in the dust we admire the mighty limbs and giant bulk. I shall not confine myself to the appearance of these as seen from one spot, but carry you to each.

The Temple of Saturn, or the Ærarium, or the Basilica of Paulus Æmilius, or the Church of St. Adrian, which is certainly an old name, presents nothing ancient but a lofty front of brickwork, exemplifying the Roman passion for introducing blind arches, even when useless, or injurious. I shall say more of these hereafter, but the construction is of imperial Rome, and has no pretension to a republican date. The erection or transformation into a church, is attributed to Pope Onorius the First.

The Temple of Antoninus is a much more interesting monument; the portico of six columns in front, and two on each flank still exists, not indeed entire, but so as to exhibit almost every part. These columns are of cipollino, and are very beautiful, but have been terribly maltreated by those who at one period made them part of their habitations. Parts of the sides also remain, exhibiting the construction of the wall of great blocks of peperino, apparently once covered with marble. The frieze is beautiful, but I need not tell you about a thing which has been so often figured and described. The cornice is, I believe, the only good ancient example of the Corinthian order, which has neither dentils nor modillions, indeed, in all the parts, we find a breadth and simplicity of character which was hardly to be expected in the age of the Antonines.

On the same side of the way is the Church of the Saints Cosmo and Damiano, said to have been anciently the temple of Romulus and Remus. The entrance is by a plain, but handsome, ancient bronze door. It is however, doubtful, whether this belonged originally to the building. By this, you pass into the vestibule, a circular room covered with a dome, the width and height of which in the present state, are about equal, but the pavement has been considerably raised. This is, I think, all that can pretend to any relation with the ancient temple, and whether it was really a temple dedicated to Romulus and Remus, must remain doubtful. Here were discovered the fragments of the marble plan of Rome, now deposited in the Capitol. Beyond this is a nave of the seventeenth century, erected by Urban the Eighth; at least what we see internally is of that period. Externally, we may discover some ancient walls of great blocks of peperino, but not sufficient, or not sufficiently exposed, to enable us to understand their distribution. Beyond the nave is the ancient tribune, covered with mosaics. The Roman antiquaries consider the dedication of this church to two brothers, a proof that the original building was a temple of two brothers, and consequently of Romulus and Remus. Unfortunately, the ancient church had no connexion with the vestibule, which is the only remaining part of Roman times, and the union was not effected till the restorations by Urban the Eighth. The argument therefore makes against their proposition. The old walls of peperino may indeed have belonged to such a temple, but neither do these appear to have had any connexion with the circular building in front.

Nearly opposite to this, (but we have already passed a little too far) are three columns of Jupiter Stator, or of Castor and Pollux, or of the Comitia, for all these names have been assigned to them. The Roman antiquaries are much more successful in oppugning the opinions of others, than in establishing their own. However, the plan which has been pretty completely discovered by the excavations lately made, determines it, although deficient in the usual number of columns at the sides, to have been a temple; and the opinions of the wise seem to lean to Castor and Pollux, as rebuilt by Tiberius, though I believe some other notions are still floating among them. The vulgar call it by the name of Jupiter Stator, and we will if you please follow the vulgar, as this is the name by which it is most generally known. Whatever it was, we may fairly pronounce it to have been the most perfect building of which any remains now exist in Rome. I do not mean the most beautiful, for in that, tastes may differ; but that in which science, skill, and attention, have been most carefully and invariably employed in the design, in the drawing, and in the execution. In the capitals of Mars Ultor, the arrangement of the division of the leaves is differently managed, even in parts of the same capital, apparently from mere inattention; in the fragment of Jupiter Tonans, though the execution was laboured to excess, yet some parts of the drawing are faulty; and in the portico of the Pantheon, the execution was so much neglected, that no two intercolumniations are exactly alike; there are considerable differences in the capitals, and in the pediment there is one modillion more on one side than on the other. There is no appearance of any of these faults in Jupiter Stator, and there are no other buildings we can put into comparison with it, unless it be the Forum of Trajan, of which we have not sufficient remains to enable us fairly to institute a parallel. Of the general design indeed, we have hardly in any case materials for judging, but the plan and disposition of this temple, bear at least evidence of a careful consideration. The building is of white marble, so that the substance, as well as the workmanship, contributed to the effect of magnificence. The entablature is finely proportioned. It is decidedly Roman in taste, which some persons perhaps may think a defect, and others consider a beauty. The frieze is plain, while one band of the architrave is ornamented; this deviation from the usual practice does not seem to me well judged. In the Erectheum at Athens, we find a plain frieze accompanied with a great deal of ornament, not on, but below the architrave; but in that case the frieze was of black marble, and though now unadorned, the holes in it prove it to have been once enriched with figures of metal, probably of gilt bronze. There is no appearance of any thing of this sort in the temple of Jupiter Stator. The foliage of the capital is extremely different from that of the Pantheon, or indeed of any other example in Rome, presenting much broader and flatter surfaces to the light; whether this is better or worse, I will not pretend to determine, but I may assert that the present is very beautiful. The upper tooth of each division of the leaves hardly crosses the lower side of the division above; the second touches without crossing. Mons. Caristie of the French Academy, is at present engaged in making a restoration of this building, and for that purpose following out the minutest details with the greatest care and accuracy; it was he who pointed out to me many of the particulars I am going to mention.

You know that the shaft of a column usually enlarges a little at the bottom, and terminates in a fillet above the base. This enlargement, with the fillet, is called the apophysis, and may usually be described in the section, by a quarter of a circle, of an inch or two radius, but in this example, the curve seems to be that of an extremely eccentric ellipsis, extending some feet up the shaft, and influencing its general form, so as to reduce it to a continued flowing serpentine line, from top to bottom. This curvature is so gentle, as not to be perceptible without the most careful examination, but nevertheless, has its effect in giving grace and elegance to the columns. It is quite a mistake to suppose that a variation of form, not immediately cognizable by the eye, must therefore be useless; every artist has felt, that these slight changes influence the beauty of the composition, without being themselves obvious, even to a skilful observer. These columns have stood upon a continued pedestal, and under that, is another, or sub-pedestal, containing an arched opening under each intercolumniation. Each pedestal has had its own cornice. In front a flight of twenty-eight steps led from the Via sacra up to a portico of eight columns. This flight of steps was singularly divided into three parts, by two masses of masonry, or pedestals, as perhaps we may call them, of the height of the sub-pedestal. The middle, and by much the largest portion, continued in a straight line from top to bottom; the two side ones were turned laterally.

The solid construction of this temple was as remarkable as the disposition of its basement. Under all the columns and walls, the masonry was formed with great blocks of travertine, and similar blocks formed the external circuit of the building. The greater part of the intermediate spaces was filled up with rubble work. The travertine has been an object of plunder, and the walls are now traced by the vacancies between the masses of rubble, which was not worth the removing. Even the blocks under the intervals of the three remaining columns, have been taken away, and they stand now entirely detached from each other, (except by some iron ties inserted for their preservation) from the foundation to the architrave, twenty feet more than the proper height of the column.

From the temple of Jupiter, let me take you to that of Peace, a building of very different style in every respect. The remains consist of three great arches of brick and rubble, nearly of equal size, and of some foundations of piers, which exhibit themselves above ground. The plan, which you may see in almost any book of Roman architecture, has been a room, about 248 feet long, and 195 wide, composed of a nave, or central part, which is vaulted with three groined arches, and which has on each side three large recesses, rising about as high as the springing of the principal arches, and occupying nearly their whole width. These groined vaults have had the appearance of resting on eight Corinthian columns, or rather on detached entablatures over such columns. It was probably intended, by throwing the weight on such slender, and apparently inefficient props, to give to the whole an exaggerated appearance of lightness; the attempt seems injudicious; yet the same sort of arrangement in the existing hall of the baths of Dioclesian is generally admired. The Romans, this is my present theory, had a sort of architecture borrowed from the Etruscans, before they had much intercourse with Greece. The ornamental parts have presented arches, and niches, and Tuscan columns, which were little more than the wooden props from which the idea of a column has been derived. To this they afterwards added the triglyphs, characteristic of the Doric order; and thus made what is now called the Roman Doric, but which till lately used to be considered as the genuine order; and imported also the other orders. From these materials, about the time of Augustus, they formed an architecture of their own; combining with the severe, and as they probably felt it, somewhat monotonous simplicity of the Greek forms, the arches and niches of the Etruscan mode of building; and executing their works on a large scale, and with a magnificence and fulness of ornament peculiar to themselves. The power of vaulting their apartments, enabled them to combine magnitude and solidity, both real and apparent; and they no sooner felt the effect thus produced, than they began to abuse their powers in sacrificing every thing else to this union. The great hall in the baths of Caracalla, was perhaps, the first remarkably successful effort of the sort; at least we know of nothing earlier, for it is not clear that there was any thing of the kind in the baths of Titus. The novelty was admired, extolled, and imitated; and this great room, called the Temple of Peace, and the great hall in the baths of Dioclesian, were built upon the same model. Palladio inserts a similar apartment in the baths of Nero and Titus, as well as in those of later date; but we know not his authority, and the progress would be the same though we should assign an earlier date to the commencement of the practice. It is impossible to deny the impressive effect produced by these ample spaces, and bold construction, whatever was the edifice in which they were first introduced, or not to regret, that it should have occasioned the entire disregard of all chaster, and less ostentatious beauty, both in the masses and in the details. Whatever was the motive of this disposition, its effect in the Temple of Peace is now entirely lost, as the great vault is gone. The stucco panelling of the side-vaults is in a fine free style, but the details are bad, and the execution poor; a circumstance which we have the opportunity of determining by a large mass of vault lying on the ground, with a considerable portion of these ornaments remaining. The backs of the two side recesses, each with two ranges of comparatively small arches, never could have had a pleasing appearance by any mode of finishing, and the circular recess is still worse in design; but the latter was a posterior addition, made to convert the edifice into a Christian church. Of the great order, the whole entablature is clearly exhibited at one corner, being not continued from one column to another, but returning in itself upon each. Considerable fragments of a smaller order are lying about, presenting continued straight lines, and not contemptible either in design, or workmanship, although not very correct. A third order ornamented the circular recess, and we have also several fragments of the entablature of this part, overloaded with ornaments which are ill drawn, and ill executed. One end wall of the nave seems to have been finished in a manner similar to those of the ends of the two side recesses; the other has a large niche. We may perhaps trace in this arrangement the first idea of the distribution of the Roman churches. Recent excavations have proved that the plan has hitherto been imperfectly understood. The original entrance was at the end, and the building formed a great hall, terminating in a large niche, and having three tribunes, square on the plan, on each side, each of which terminated in two rows, each of three arched recesses, some, or all of which, were windows. The middle tribune on one side was opened at some period later than the conversion of Constantine, and a flight of steps made up to it, while a semicircular extremity was added to the opposite tribune; so that what had been the nave, or leading division of the hall, became the transept of the church, although larger than the part which thus had the effect of a nave, as is the case at present in the church of the baths of Dioclesian. Many of the paving bricks are marked with the name of Domitian, but this does not amount to a proof of the date of the edifice, and the execution of the parts shows decisively, that it is not, in its present state, of the age of Vespasian, as has been supposed. It is possible that the mass of the building might be of the time of that emperor, yet I doubt if the introduction of these immense groined vaults can be placed so early. There are indeed some very fine fragments, and in particular, a beautiful piece of cornice with dentils, but without modillions, which now lies in the adjoining church of Santa Francesca Romana. These were plundered from other buildings; and the artists of that we are now examining, have shown their degeneracy by their clumsy imitations. The stucco work, which must have been made for the building, is still worse than the marble. The circular recess on one side has long been acknowledged to be an addition, but the present opinion does not assign to the whole edifice an antiquity much higher than the reign of Dioclesian, or perhaps of Constantine, but the apparent change of its destination, from some profane purpose, probably into that of a Christian church, make me suppose that it must have been, in its original form, prior to the latter emperor.

From the temple of Peace we have but to cross the way to the Arch of Titus. This is the oldest triumphal arch existing in Rome, and it has perhaps been the most beautiful. It contained only a single opening, by which means the side intercolumniations are rather smaller than where there are also two smaller arches; and I think this improves the general composition. You know that this building was erected in commemoration of the defeat of the Jews, or rather of the destruction of the Jewish nation by Titus; and part of its interest is derived from the sacred utensils sculptured in its bas-reliefs.

At the distance of a few steps from the arch of Titus, we find two temples, placed back to back, sometimes called the temples of the Sun and Moon, but I am better satisfied to believe them the temples of Venus and Rome, designed by Hadrian, and criticised by Apollodorus. The criticism was too just to be forgiven, and it cost the unfortunate artist his life. Ruins have more claim on our attention, when we know, or fancy that we know, something of their history, and here the probability is much in favour of their connexion with the story. Palladio restored these temples with a portico, or rather loggia to each, of six columns, and four pilasters, not the height of the building. It seems more probable that each had a lofty decastyle portico and pediment, as is usual in temples. Uggeri, who has given a plan on this supposition, says that he has made them peripteral, instead of amphiprostyle, but in fact, both his design and that of Palladio are amphiprostyle. In order to effect this, he has crowded his columns too much, and if there were ten of them, the building was in all probability peripteral. It was inclosed in a peribolus, surrounded by a peristyle of granite columns of considerable size, many fragments of which still remain.

Underneath the wall of this building, we see a slab of white marble, apparently the remains of a pavement of that material: this is thought to have belonged to Nero’s golden house. Some other foundations have been found by digging, which are attributed to the same source. We will now pass to the Coliseum, without stopping to examine the shapeless fragment of a fountain, or aqueduct, called the Meta sudans. What an immense mass! You walk round it, and within it. You pace its long corridors, or stand on the top of its half ruined vaults, and everywhere, and in every part, and from every point of view, the same impression occurs of enormous magnitude. You may visit it again and again, and you will still feel this one character eternally repeated. To the painter, in its present state of ruin, it offers many picturesque combinations and admirable studies. The antiquary may delight in tracing the various parts, and imagining their uses; but to the architect it does not say much. As a whole it is a mere mass, with little merit of design or execution. None of the orders are good, and the mouldings are indifferently drawn and worse executed, as might be expected from the manner in which it was raised. Yet on the whole, the details of the architecture are better than I expected from the engravings. It is curious, that although the arches are semicircular, and of small span, the arch-stones are joggled;^[43] this would seem to indicate no great confidence in the form of the arch, and consequently not much habit of using it, at that time. Travertine, brickwork, and rubble are intermixed in the construction, and the ancient pavement in some of the passages so exactly resembles Dutch clinkers, that I should have had no doubt of their being such, had I met with them in England. This building has suffered tremendously, as every one knows, by furnishing materials for the Roman palaces. Lately, a part which threatened to fall, has been supported by a vast brick wall of no inconsiderable expense.^[44] During the residence of the French it was cleared out both internally and externally, and some curious construction, partly of blocks of travertine, partly of brick, and small, rough masonry, was discovered in the arena: the use and date of these have been much disputed. Some of the slighter walls have been supposed to have been erected by the Frangipani family, which had here established a dyeing-house; but they are all now filled up, not however to the former level, for the present arena is said to be eight feet lower than it was.

Almost close to the Coliseum, is the Arch of Constantine, shining like a jay, says Milizia, in borrowed feathers. Much of the sculpture represents the exploits of Trajan, and was doubtless taken from an arch dedicated to that emperor, but it has been disputed whether Constantine transferred them from the arch in the forum of Trajan, or whether he altered and restored an arch upon the spot. The latter supposition is inadmissible, since the bases of the pilasters are of Constantine’s time, judging, as we may fairly do in this case, by the workmanship; while those of the columns, which are so much more exposed to destruction and to change, are antique; and of the sixteen internal angles made by the cornice, points also very much protected by their situation, not one is entirely of the more ancient execution. The parts of architecture not made for this arch, are very beautiful, but rather perhaps in a more delicate style than that of the fragments remaining of the forum and basilica of Trajan. The general form and proportion of the edifice are also good.

On the opposite side of the Coliseum, on the slope of the Esquiline, are the subterraneous chambers, commonly called the Baths of Titus, whence the arabesque paintings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are said to have been derived. These ornaments however have, properly speaking, nothing to do with the baths, but belonged to a magnificent palace of an earlier date, whose walls were left by Titus to serve as part of the supports to the apartments fabricated above them. A vast number of chambers thus become subterraneous, still remain, and numerous additional vaulted rooms occupy the courts of the ancient mansion, and advance in front of them to complete the substructions required for the arrangements above. These additional parts may be distinguished by the quality of the work, and still more readily by the want of stucco, and of every sort of ornament. The Roman antiquaries pretend to determine that this palace had been abandoned some time before it was thus buried, and that parts of it had been divided into small habitations for the poorer class. Many of these vaults, as well of the ancient building, as of the additions under Titus, were cleared out during the authority of the French in Rome, but a still larger number remains more or less filled with rubbish, purposely thrown in from above, and this circumstance, together with the change of destination in the edifice, produces an intricacy, or rather confusion in the plan, which the spectator does not easily unravel, and it is with astonishment that we contemplate these lofty and spacious apartments, covered with the richest ornaments, and a profusion of painting and gilding, where it seems as if the light of day could never have entered; but when the circumstances of the building are once well understood, these particularities, and some irregularities in the plan, which at first sight appear incomprehensible, are fully explained. While all these were considered as parts of the baths of Titus, all strangers used to be told, that the Laocoon was found in them, and the very pedestal on which it stood was pointed out; but now, when it is established that these chambers never constituted any portion of the baths, this notion is given up; since in fact all we know on the subject is, that the Laocoon was found in or near the baths of Titus. I do not know whether a magnificent bathing vessel of rosso antico, now in the Vatican, is in the same predicament, but it was said one time to have been found here. In a long corridor which formed one side of the internal court of the palace, the painting on the vaults remains tolerably perfect. We see it by means of a candle fixed at the end of a long reed, and consequently the examination cannot be very exact, but it is enough to shew to us the grace and spirit of the figures, and the delicacy of the ornament. In another part of the ruins we scramble over heaps of rubbish, in chambers nearly filled up, sometimes walking nearly upright, oftener half doubled, or crawling on all-fours, to a part where there are similar paintings, which may be examined close at hand. The execution is slight but firm, suited to the position in which they were to be seen. The arrangement of the ornaments, architecturally speaking, is bad, but in themselves they are generally beautiful, and the figures both of men and animals are drawn not only with spirit and truth, but with a grace of attitude and elegance of form, which we certainly do not find in works of this nature in modern times. One conceives that a very superior artist must have made the drawings, and that they were copied on the walls by skilful workmen. There are some apartments, and lofty vaults above ground, but at a greater distance from the Coliseum; and a large reservoir, called the sette sale, or seven halls, out of the general circuit of the building. It consists of nine vaults, with the doors so disposed that you may see seven of them on a diagonal line at one view. The deposit on the sides proves sufficiently that they were reservoirs for water, and they are supposed to have supplied the baths of Titus and Trajan. The present circumstances of these ruins scattered over a great extent of ground, some in one vineyard, and some in another, accessible by different ways, and where in going from one to another, one loses altogether the traces of antiquity, perhaps fill the imagination more, than if they were in one inclosure; for the apparent distance is increased by this want of union, by the crooked paths, through which one reaches them, and by the number of objects intervening; but there is nothing in any one of the superior buildings to detain the spectator for long. More pains perhaps have been taken about the plan of this edifice, than of any other of the ancient baths, but none of the obscurer ruins of Rome have been well made out, and even the less obvious parts of the most interesting buildings, have till lately excited little attention. At every step we have to complain that the Roman antiquities, in spite of all which has been written upon them, have never been published.

These remains, as I have said, are on the Esquiline; on the opposite slope of the Cœlian, are some buildings, consisting of piers, vaults, and arcades; with a sort of Doric pilaster and entablature, much in the style of the Coliseum, and supposed to have been erected at the same time, or shortly after, for the reception of wild beasts for the use of the amphitheatre. Returning again towards the Capitol, we find the Palatine, half covered with ruins, mixed with modern convents; and the buildings of the Farnese gardens, designed by M. A. Buonarotti, and by Vignola. Amongst these is a subterranean apartment, without any opening for the external light, known by the name of the baths of Livia, which have been very highly ornamented with painting and gilding, and with little bas-reliefs in stucco; and considerable remains of these decorations still exist. I shall not attempt to lead you to all the different masses of ruin, the long vaults, and immense solid piers, crowded together on this hill; but I cannot omit to mention a noble terrace supported on vaults, which commands the Circus maximus, and a number of interesting objects finely combined. After all, supposing the whole summit of the Palatine to have been occupied by the palace, which was probably the case, it would not have been much larger than that designed by Inigo Jones for Charles I., and of which the Banquetting-house was built as a specimen. The Roman palace must have been very irregular, the natural effect of having been erected at different times, and by men whose views were very different. Amongst its ruins we are shown a Hippodrome, a Temple of Apollo, and more things than I can undertake to name; and in the villa Spada, the casino of which boasts some nearly invisible productions of the pencil of Giulio Romano, is a considerable subterraneum, called the Baths of Nero. As in the baths of Titus, you have to hunt out these fragments in different gardens and vineyards, the entrances to which are frequently very wide apart, nor is it always easy to obtain admission.