In buildings belonging to this palace, Pannartz and Schweinheim established the first printing-office in Rome in 1455. The rare editions of this time bear in addition to the name of the printers, the inscription, "In ædibus Petri de Maximis."
"Conrad Sweynheim et Arnold Pannartz s'établirent près de Subiaco, au monastère de Sainte-Scholastique, qui était occupé par les Bénédictins de leur nation, et publièrent successivement, avec le concours des moines, les [Oe]uvres de Lactance, la Cité de Dieu de saint Augustin, et le traité de Oratore de Cicéron. En 1467, ils se transportèrent à Rome, au palais Massimi, où ils s'associèrent Jean André de Bussi, évêque d'Aleria, qui avait étudié sous Victorin de Feltre, et dont la science leur fut d'une haute utilité pour la correction de leurs textes. Le savant évêque leur donnait son temps, ses veilles:—'Malheureux métier,' disait-il, 'qui consiste non pas à chercher des perles dans le fumier, mais du fumier parmi les perles!'—Et cependant il s'y adonnait avec passion, sans même y trouver l'aisance. Les livres, en effet, se vendirent d'abord si mal que Jean-André de Bussi n'avait pas toujours de quoi se faire faire la barbe. Les premiers livres qu'il publia chez Conrad et Arnold furent la Grammaire de Donatus, à trois cents exemplaires, et les Épitres familières de Cicéron, à cinq cent cinquante."—Gournerie, Rome Chrétienne, ii. 79, 1.
Further, on the right, is the modernized Church of S. Pantaleone, built originally in 1216 by Honorius III., and given by Gregory XV., in 1641, to S. Giuseppe Calasanza, founder of the Order of the Scolopians, and of the institution of the Scuola Pia. He died in 1648, and is buried here in a porphyry sarcophagus.
Adjoining this, is the very handsome Palazzo Braschi, the last result of papal nepotism in Rome,—built at the end of the last century by Morelli, for the Duke Braschi, nephew of Pius VI. The staircase, which is, perhaps, the finest in Rome, is adorned with sixteen columns of red oriental granite. Annual subscription balls for charities are held in this palace.
At the further corner of the Braschi palace stands the mutilated but famous statue called Pasquino, from a witty tailor, who once kept a shop opposite, and who used to entertain his customers with all the clever scandal of the day. After the tailor's death his name was transferred to the statue, on whose pedestal were appended witty criticisms on passing events, sometimes in the form of dialogues which Pasquino was supposed to hold with his friend Marforio, another statue at the foot of the Capitol. From the repartees appended to this statue the term Pasquinade is derived.
Pasquin has naturally been regarded as a mortal enemy by the popes, who, on several occasions, have made vain attempts to silence him. The bigoted Adrian VI. wished to have the statue burnt and then thrown into the Tiber, but it was saved by the suggestion of Ludovico Suessano, that his ashes would turn into frogs, who would croak louder than he had done. When Marforio, in the hope of stopping the dialogues, was shut up in the Capitoline museum, the pope attempted to incarcerate Pasquino also, but he was defended by his proprietor, Duke Braschi. Among offensive Pasquinades which have been placed here are:
"Venditur hic Christus, venduntur dogmata Petri,
Descendam infernum ne quoque vendar ego."
Among the earliest Pasquinades were those against the venality and evil life of Alexander VI. (Rodrigo Borgia, 1492—1503):
"Vendit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum:
Emerat ille prius, vendere jure potest."
and,