In the fifteenth century, the great palace of S. Mark of Venice, built by Paul II., 1464-1471, at the south end of the Corso, the Farnese in 1534, the Cancelleria in 1495, the Borghese in 1590, and many other edifices[148], were built out of this quarry.
In the sixteenth century it was used for miracle plays; this practice began under Paul III. in 1540[149], a purpose to which it had previously been applied on Good Friday in each year by the “Confraternity of the Gonfalone;” this is mentioned as early as 1263.
We have one vestige of this remaining, a view of Jerusalem with the Crucifixion, painted on the wall over the principal entrance then in use at the north end over the arch, and seen in going out as we look up. It shews to what a height the earth had then been raised to make this a convenient place for such a picture.
Sixtus V. proposed to turn it into a cloth manufactory, and drawings for that purpose were actually prepared by his architect, Fontana[150], in 1590; but the design was abandoned at the death of the Pope.
In 1703 it was again damaged by an earthquake, and soon afterwards Clement XI. destroyed the lower arches of the western side of the corridor, and used some of the stone to build the steps at the Port of Ripetta, on the Tiber. He employed other parts as a warehouse for saltpetre for the neighbouring manufactory of gunpowder, on the hill adjoining, near the church of S. Pietro in Vincoli, still indicated by the name of the street, and this manufactory continued in use until 1811.
In 1728, Benedict XIII. consecrated the whole area, at the instigation of a Carmelite friar, Angelo Paoli. A small chapel was made under one of the archways, and dedicated to S. Maria della Pietà. In 1741, a hermit was appointed to reside here, but in the following year he was stabbed by an assassin, and although the wound did not prove fatal, the Pope ordered the closing of every ingress by gates locked and barred. About the same period, Leonardo da Porto Maurizio, a Minorite friar, drew immense congregations to his sermons in the Colosseum.
In 1749, Benedict XIV. ordered the erection at his private expense of the central cross, and the fourteen stations of the Via Crucis, which remained until 1874, when they were removed for the ground to be excavated.
In 1756, a grand mass was celebrated here by the Cardinal Vicar of Rome under Benedict, in the presence of a very numerous assembly. The same ceremony was repeated a few years afterwards under Clement XIII.
The outer arcade on the south-western side of this colossal building was entirely destroyed in the middle ages by the Pontifical families, who used it as a stone-quarry for building their great palaces. This enables us to see more clearly the construction of the walls of the corridors and front of the three periods:—