THE BEAR,
widely known and greatly in vogue ever since the reign of Sixtus IV. Its peculiar octagon pillars fix the period of its construction. Strange to relate, this patriarch of hotels, which has seen four centuries and twenty generations of travellers pass over its head and through its halls, has continued in existence, and is still open as a tavern in Rome to this day. True, its guests are now no longer, as they were in the sixteenth century, such personages of distinction as foreign prelates, noted scholars, philosophers like Montaigne, and, soon afterward, the earliest known tourists. Its inmates and frequenters of the nineteenth century are now country traders, cattle dealers, and wagoners.
Others of our travellers who intend to make a longer stay in Rome seek out the houses in the neighborhood of the Pantheon or the Minerva, nearly all of which are let out to strangers in rooms or suites. These apartments are luxuriously fitted up and ornamented with the then famous Cordova leather hangings, and richly sculptured and gilded furniture. Everything is brilliant to the eye, but the nineteenth century tourist would have found fault with the lack of cleanliness and the stinted supply of fresh linen.
With yet others of these travellers, let us enter