[116] It delights me to contemplate thy ruins, Rome, the witness amid desolation to thy pristine grandeur. But thy people burn thy marbles for lime, and three centuries of this sacrilege will destroy all sign of thy nobleness.' Compare a letter from Alberto degli Alberti to Giovanni de' Medici, quoted by Fabroni, Cosmi Vita, Adnot. 86. The real pride of Rome was still her ruins. Nicolo and Ugo da Este journeyed in 1396 to Rome, 'per vedere quelle magnificenze antiche che al presente si possono vedere in Roma.' Murat. xxiv. 845.
[117] My references are made to the Paris edition of 1723. The first book is sometimes cited under the title of Urbis Romæ Descriptio.
[118] 'Juxta viam Appiam, ad secundum lapidem, integrum vidi sepulchrum L. Cæciliæ Metellæ, opus egregium, et id ipsum tot sæculis intactum, ad calcem postea majori ex parte exterminatum' (p. 19). 'Capitolio contigua forum versus superest porticus ædis Concordiæ, quam, cum primum ad urbem accessi, vidi fere integram, opere marmoreo admodum specioso; Romani postmodum, ad calcem ædem totam et porticûs partem, disjectis columnis, sunt demoliti.' Ibid.
[119] Pp. 8, 9.
[120] De Pacificandâ Italiâ, Ad Carolum Quartum, p. 531.
[121] In the Dittamondo, about 1360.
[122] Such, for example, as Boccaccio's description of the ruins of Baiæ in the Fiammetta, Sannazzaro's lines on the ruins of Cumæ, Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini's notes on ancient sites in Italy.
[123] Filippo Maria Visconti is said to have denounced him as an impostor. Ambrogio Traversari mentions his coins and gems with mistrust. Poggio describes him as a conceited fellow with no claim to erudition. On the other hand, he gained the confidence of Eugenius IV., and received the panegyrics of Filelfo, Barbaro, Bruni, and others. See Tiraboschi, vol. vi. lib. i. cap. 5.
[124] In the place just cited. The temptation, at this epoch of discovery, when criticism was at a low ebb, and curiosity was frantic, to pass off forgeries upon the learned world must have been very great. The most curious example of this literary deception is afforded by Annius of Viterbo, who, in 1498, published seventeen books of spurious histories, pretending to be the lost works of Manetho, Berosus, Fabius Pictor, Archilochus, Cato, &c. Whether he was himself an impostor or a dupe is doubtful. A few of his contemporaries denounced the histories as patent fabrications. The majority accepted them as genuine. Their worthlessness has long been undisputed. See Tiraboschi, vol. vi. lib. iii. cap. 1.
[125] Vespasiano, p. 272.