To this mischievous purpose the remains of antiquity were most readily adapted: the temples and arches afforded a broad and solid basis for the new structures of brick and stone; and we can name the modern turrets that were raised on the triumphal monuments of Julius Cæsar, Titus, and the Antonines. With some slight alterations, a theater, an amphitheater, a mausoleum, was transformed into a strong and spacious citadel. I need not repeat that the mole of Adrian has assumed the title and form of the castle of St. Angelo; the Septizonium of Severus was capable of standing against a royal army; the sepulcher of Metella has sunk under its outworks; the theaters of Pompey and Marcellus were occupied by the Savelli and Orsini families; and the rough fortress has been gradually softened to the splendor and elegance of an Italian palace.
The fame of Julius the Second, Leo the Tenth, and Sixtus the Fifth is accompanied by the superior merit of Bramante and Fontana, of Raphael and Michael Angelo; and the same munificence which had been displayed in palaces and temples was directed with equal zeal to revive and emulate the labors of antiquity. Prostrate obelisks were raised from the ground and erected in the most conspicuous places; of the eleven aqueducts of the Cæsars and consuls, three were restored; the artificial rivers were conducted over a long series of old, or of new arches, to discharge into marble basins a flood of salubrious and refreshing waters: and the spectator, impatient to ascend the steps of St. Peter's, is detained by a column of Egyptian granite, which rises between two lofty and perpetual fountains to the height of one hundred and twenty feet. The map, the description, the monuments of ancient Rome have been elucidated by the diligence of the antiquarian and the student; and the footsteps of heroes, the relics, not of superstition but of empire, are devoutly visited by a new race of pilgrims from the remote and once savage countries of the North.
FOOTNOTES:
[64] From the "Memoirs."
[65] She has now an even greater title to remembrance, as the mother of Madame de Stäel.
[66] From the "Memoirs."
[67] From "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."
[68] Palmyra, of which only imposing ruins of the Roman period now remain, was situated on an oasis in a desert east of Syria. Its foundation is ascribed to Solomon. Palmyra had commercial importance as a center of the caravan trade of the East.
[69] A city of Mesopotamia, on the Tigris, twenty miles south-east of Babylon.
[70] The Greek philosopher, author of the famous essay "On Sublimity," who was Zenobia's counselor and the instructor of her children.