Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/766

 746 KOMA. of the Romans, and to the use which they made of the ancient monumeats to serve their own selfish and mercenary purposes. The factions of the Guelphs and GhibeUnes, of the Colonna and Ursini, which began in the tenth centnry and lasted several hundred years, must have been very destructive to the city. In these sanguinary quarrels tlie ancient edifices were converted into castles; and the mul- titude of the latter may be estimated from the fact that the senator Brancaleone during his government (1252 — 1258) caused 140 towers, or fortresses, the strongholds of the nobility, to be demolished in Rome and its neighbourhood ; yet subsequently, under ^lartin V., we still hear of forty-four existing in one quarter of the city alone. (Matthew Paris, Hist. Maj. p. 741, seq.) Some of these were erected on the most celebrated buildings, as the triumphal monu- ments of Caesar, Titus, and the Antonines. (Mont- faucon, Diar. Ital. p. 186; Anonymus, ib. p. 285.) But still more destructive were the ravages com- mitted on the ancient buildings during times of peace. The beautiful sculptures and architectural members, which could no longer be imitated, were seized upon and appropriated to the adoimment of new structures. We have seen that this barbarous kind of spoliation was exercised as early as the reign of Coustantine, who ajiplied the sculptures of some monument of Trajan's to adorn his own triumphal arch. In after ages Charlemagne carried off the columns of Rome to decorate his palace at Aix-la- Chapelle (Sigebert, Chron. in Bouquet, Ilistoriens de France, v. p. 378); and several centuries later Petrarch laments that his friend and patron, Robert, king of Sicily, was following the same pernicious example. ("Itaque nunc, heu dolor! heu scelus in- dignum ! de vestris marmoreis columnis, de liminibus templorum (ad quae nuper ex orbe toto concursus devotissimus fiebat), de imaginibus sepulcrorum sub quibus patrum vestrorum venerabilis cinis erat, ut reliquas sileam, desidiosa Napolis adomatur," Petrar. 0pp. p. 536, seq.) It would be endless to recount the depredations committed by the popes and nobles in order to build their churches and palaces. The abbe' Barthe'lemi {Mem. de TAcad. des Inscr. xxviii. p. 585) mentions that he had seen at Rome a manu- script letter relating to a treaty between the chiefs of the factions which desolated Rome in the 14th century, in which, among other articles, it is agreed that the Colosseum shall be common to all parties, who shall be at liberty to take stones from it. (De Sade; Vie de Petrarqite, i. 328, note.) Sixtus V. employed the stones of the Septizonium in building St. Peter's. (Greg. Leti, Vita di Sisto V. iii. p. 50.) The nephews of Paul III. were the principal de- stroyers of the Colosseum, in order to build the Farnese palace (Muratori, Ann. d! Italia, xiv. p. 371); and a similar reproach was proverbially ap- plied to those of Urban VIII. (" Quod non fecerunt Barbari, fecere Barberini," Gibbon, viii. p. 284, note.) But even a worse species of desecration than this was the destruction of the most beautiful marble columns, by converting them into lime. Poggio complains (a. d. 1430) that the temple of Concord, which was almost perfect when he first came to Rome, had almost disappeared in this manner. (" Ca- pitolio contigua forum versus superest porticus aedis Concordiae, quam cum primum ad urbem accessi, vidi fere integram, opere marmoreo admodum spe- cioso; Romani postmodum, ad calcem, aedem totam et porticus partem, disjectis columnis, sunt demo- liti," de Var. Fort, p. 12.) And the same practice is reprobated in the verses of Aeneas Sylvius, after- wards Pope Pius II.: — " Sed tuns hie populus, muris defossa vetustis, Calcis in obsequium marmora dura coijuit. Impia tercentum si sic gens egerit annos KuUum hie indicium nobilitatis erit." (In Slabillon, Mtis. Ital. i. 97.) The melancholy progress of the desolation of Rome might be roughly traced from some imperfect memorials. The account of the writer called the Anonymus Einsiedlensis, who visited Rome early in the 9th century, which has been pubhshed by Mabillon {Anal. iv. p. 502), and by Hanel {Archiu. f. Philol. u. Pddag. i. p. 11 5), exhibits a much more copious list of monuments than that of another anonymous writer, who compiled a book De Mira- bilibus Romae, the 12th or 13th century. (Mont- faucon, iJiar. Ital. p. 283, seq. ; Nibby, Effem. Lett, di Roma, 1820, Fasc. i. — iv.) Several pas- sages in the works of Petrarch exhibit the neglected and desolate state of Rome in the 14th century, — the consequence of the removal of the holy see to Avig- non. Thus, in a letter to Urban V., he says: " Jacent domus, labant maenia, templa ruunt, sacra pereunt, calcantur leges." And a little after: " Lateranum humi jacet et Ecclesiarum mater om- nium tecto carens ventis patet ac pluviis," &c. (Cf. lib. is. ep. 1.) Yet the remains of ancient Roman splendour were still considerable enough to excite the wonder and admiration ot Manuel Chrysoloras at the commencement of the 15lh century, as may be seen in his epistle to the emperor John Palaeologus. (subjoined to Codinus, de Antiq. C. P. p. 107, seq.) Much destruction must have been perpetrated from this period to the time, and even during the life, of Poggio. But the progress of desolation seems to have been arrested subsequently to that writer, whose catalogue of the ruins does not exhibit a great many more remains than may yet be seen. Care is now taken to arrest as far as possible even the inevitable influence of time; and the antiquarian has at present nothing to regret except that more active means are not applied to the disinterment of the ancient city. The funds devoted to the re- erection of a magnificent basilica far witliout the walls, and on so unwholesome a site that the very monks are forced to desert it during the heats of summer, might, in the eye at least of transmontane taste, have been more worthily devoted to such an object. VII. Population of Rome. Before we close this part of the subject it will be expected that we should say something respecting the probable amount of the population of Rome. The inquiry is unfortunately involved in much ob- scurity, and the vagueness of the data upon which any calculation can be founded is such that it 's impossible to arrive at any wholly satisfactory co elusion. The latitude hence allowed may be judged from the fact that the estimates of some of the best modern scholars are about four times as great as those of others ; and whilst Bureau de la ]Ialle, in his Economie politique des Romains (i. p. 340, seq.), sets down the population at 562,000 souls, Hijck, in his Romische Geschichte (vol. i. pt. ii. p. 383, seq.), estimates it at 2,265,000; nay Lipsius, in his work De Magnitudine Romana (iii. 3), even carried it up to the astounding number of 8,000,000. But this is an absurd exaggeration; whilst, on the