ous opponent of
Gonzalvo da Cordova, then high admiral of the Empire under Charles the
Fifth, a destroyer of pirates, by turns the idol, the enemy and the
despot of his own city, Genoa, and altogether such a type of a
soldier-sailor of fortune as the world has not seen before or since. And
there were others after him, notably Gian Andrea Doria, remembered by
the great victory over the Turks at Lepanto, whence he brought home
those gorgeous Eastern spoils of tapestry and embroideries which hang in
the Doria palace today.

[Illustration: PALAZZO DORIA PAMFILI]

The history of the palace itself is not without interest, for it shows
how property, which was not in the possession of the original Barons,
sometimes passed from hand to hand, changing names with each new owner,
in the rise and fall of fortunes in those times. The first building
seems to have belonged to the Chapter of Santa Maria Maggiore, which
somehow ceded it to Cardinal Santorio, who spent an immense sum in
rebuilding, extending and beautifying it. When it was almost finished,
Julius the Second came to see it, and after expressing the highest
admiration for the work, observed that such a habitation was less
fitting for a prince of the church than for a secular duke--meaning, by
the latter, his own nephew, Francesco della Rovere, then Duke of Urbino;
and the unfortunate Santorio, who had succeeded in preserving his
possessions under the domination of the Borgia, was forced to offer the
most splendid palace in Rome as a gift to the person designated by his
master. He died of a broken heart within the year. A hundred years
later, the Florentine Aldobrandini, nephew of Clement the Eighth, bought
it from the Dukes of Urbino for twelve thousand measures of grain,
furnished them for the purpose by their uncle, and finally, when it had
fallen in inheritance to Donna Olimpia Aldobrandini, Innocent the Tenth
married her to his nephew, Camillo Pamfili, from whom, by the fusion of
the two families, it at last came into the hands of the Doria-Pamfili.

The Doria palace is almost two-thirds of the size of Saint Peter's, and
within the ground plan of Saint Peter's the Colosseum could stand. It
used to be said that a thousand persons lived under the roof outside of
the gallery and the private apartments, which alone surpass in extent
the majority of royal residences. Without some such comparison mere
words can convey nothing to a mind unaccustomed to such size and space,