e marbles, consecrating
(rather than consecrated by) the names of Venus, of Jupiter, of Minerva.
The palace of the Prince of the Orsini, duke of Gravina, is yet reared
above the graceful arches (still visible) of the theatre of Marcellus;
then a fortress of the Savelli.

As Adrian passed the court, a heavy waggon blocked up the way, laden
with huge marbles, dug from the unexhausted mine of the Golden House
of Nero: they were intended for an additional tower, by which Stephen
Colonna proposed yet more to strengthen the tasteless and barbarous
edifice in which the old noble maintained the dignity of outraging the
law.

The friend of Petrarch and the pupil of Rienzi sighed deeply as he
passed this vehicle of new spoliations, and as a pillar of fluted
alabaster, rolling carelessly from the waggon, fell with a loud crash
upon the pavement. At the foot of the stairs grouped some dozen of the
bandits whom the old Colonna entertained: they were playing at dice upon
an ancient tomb, the clear and deep inscription on which (so different
from the slovenly character of the later empire) bespoke it a memorial
of the most powerful age of Rome, and which, now empty even of ashes,
and upset, served for a table to these foreign savages, and was strewn,
even at that early hour, with fragments of meat and flasks of wine. They
scarcely stirred, they scarcely looked up, as the young noble passed
them; and their fierce oaths and loud ejaculations, uttered in a
northern patois, grated harsh upon his ear, as he mounted, with a slow
step, the lofty and unclean stairs. He came into a vast ante-chamber,
which was half-filled with the higher class of the patrician's
retainers: some five or six pages, chosen from the inferior noblesse,
congregated by a narrow and deep-sunk casement, were discussing the
grave matters of gallantry and intrigue; three petty chieftains of the
band below, with their corselets donned, and their swords and casques
beside them, were sitting, stolid and silent, at a table, in the middle
of the room, and might have been taken for automatons, save for
the solemn regularity with which they ever and anon lifted to their
moustachioed lips their several goblets, and then, with a complacent
grunt, re-settled to their contemplations. Striking was the contrast
which their northern phlegm presented to a crowd of Italian clients, and
petitioners, and parasites, who walked restlessly to and fro, talking
loudly to each other, with all