dwelling of the Orsini, is built in the midst of the city like a great
fortification, with escarpments and buttresses and loop-holes; and at
the main gate there is still a portcullis which sinks into the ground by
a system of chains and balance weights and is kept in working order even
now.

In the Middle Age, each town palace had one or more towers, tall, square
and solid, which were used as lookouts and as a refuge in case the rest
of the palace should be taken by an enemy. The general principle of all
mediaeval towers was that they were entered through a small window at a
great height above the ground, by means of a jointed wooden ladder. Once
inside, the people drew the ladder up after them and took it in with
them, in separate pieces. When that was done, they were comparatively
safe, before the age of gunpowder. There were no windows to break, it
was impossible to get in, and the besieged party could easily keep
anyone from scaling the tower, by pouring boiling oil or melted lead
from above, or with stones and missiles, so that as long as provisions
and water held out, the besiegers could do nothing. As for water, the
great rainwater cistern was always in the foundations of the tower
itself, immediately under the prison, which got neither light nor air
excepting from a hole in the floor above. Walls from fifteen to twenty
feet thick could not be battered down with any engines then in
existence. Altogether, the tower was a safe place in times of danger. It
is said that at one time there were over four hundred of these in Rome,
belonging to the nobles, great and small.

The small class of well-to-do commoners, the merchants and goldsmiths,
such as they were, who stood between the nobles and the poor people,
imitated the nobles as much as they could, and strengthened their houses
by every means. For their dwellings were their warehouses, and in times
of disturbance the first instinct of the people was to rob the
merchants, unless they chanced to be strong enough to rob the nobles, as
sometimes happened. But in Rome the merchants were few, and were very
generally retainers or dependants of the great houses. It is frequent in
the chronicles to find a man mentioned as the 'merchant' of the Colonna
family, or of the Orsini, or of one of the independent Italian princes,
like the Duke of Urbino. Such a man acted as agent to sell the produce
of a great estate; part of his business was to lend money to the owner,
and he also