erally is gloomy and dark. Massive
steps of cement led to the dwelling proper, which consisted of a
principal salon and adjoining rooms with bare flagstone floors, and
ceilings of beams and painted wooden paneling. The walls of the rooms
were whitewashed, and only in the wealthiest houses were they covered
with tapestries, and in these only on festal occasions. In the fifteenth
century the walls of few houses were adorned with pictures, and these
usually consisted of only a few family portraits. If Vannozza decorated
her salon with any likenesses, that of Cardinal Rodrigo certainly must
have been among the number. There was likewise a shrine with relics and
pictures of the saints and one of the Madonna, the lamp constantly
burning before it.

Heavy furniture,--great wide beds with canopies; high, brown wooden
chairs, elaborately carved, upon which cushions were placed; and massive
tables, with tops made of marble or bits of colored wood,--was ranged
around the walls. Among the great chests there was one which stood out
conspicuously in the salon, and which contained the dowry of linen. It
was in such a chest--the chest of his sister--that the unfortunate
Stefano Porcaro concealed himself when he endeavored to escape after his
unsuccessful attempt to excite an uprising on the fifth of January,
1453. His sister and another woman sat on the chest, better to protect
him, but the officers pulled him out.

Although we can only state what was then the fashion, if Vannozza had
any taste for antiquities her salon must have been adorned with them. At
that time they were being collected with the greatest eagerness. It was
the period of the first excavations; the soil of Rome was daily giving
up its treasures, and from Ostia, Tivoli, and Hadrian's Villa, from
Porto d'Anzio and Palestrina, quantities of antiquities were being
brought to the city. If Vannozza and her husband did not share this
passion with the other Romans, one would certainly not have looked in
vain in her house for the cherished productions of modern art--cups and
vases of marble and porphyry, and the gold ornaments of the jewelers.
The most essential thing in every well ordered Roman house was above all
else the _credenza_, a great chest containing gold and silver table
and drinking vessels and beautiful majolica; and care was taken always
to display these articles at banquets and on other ceremonious
occasions.

[Illustration: TRAJAN'S FORUM, ROME.]

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