stances, containing the ointment used in painting the eyelids; others were destined to preserve balsam or perfume.

Such is the valuable collection of monuments bearing testimony to the knowledge of the Egyptians-of that knowledge which Moses, having imbibed, became powerful in acts and words. Such are the resources laid open to the learned in this museum by order of the late pontiff, Gregory XVI., and due to his incessant zeal to promote the interests of religion. Here the theologian will find the vestiges of the primitive traditions which preceded the revelation written by Moses and the prophets; here sacred philology derives information for the explanation of oriental biblical texts. How many points of contact exist between the customs of the two nationsthe people of God and that of Egypt-whose history is so closely connected! What a new light is shed on a multitude of Hebrew idioms and forms of language arising from the similarity of a great number of scriptural phrases with the forms of the ancient Egyptian language preserved in the hieroglyphic inscriptions!

To the student of Sacred Writ, it will be gratifying to see the portrait of Ptolemy Philadelphus, under whose auspices (and doubtless providentially) was undertaken the version of the Scriptures from Hebrew into Greek, called the Septuagint. The civilized nations of that time were thus enabled to read the sacred code, and prepared to receive the first glimmerings of the doctrines of the unity of God and of the redemption which was approaching. The statues of Ptolemy and Arsinoe are placed near that part of the library which contains the celebrated manuscript of this inestimable version. In the Egyptian monuments collected in this museum a distinct history is traced of sculpture and architecture.

CHAPTER XIII.-ITALY.

ALTHOUGH We have devoted considerable space to the magnificent church of St. Peter's, at Rome, still we can not proceed without briefly noticing a few of the othe churches which contribute so much to the splendor of the world-renowned city.

The church of St. John Lateran is the first of Rome and of the catholic world. From Constantine, it is called the Constantinian; from the spot on which it is built, the Lateran; and, having been dedicated in the seventh century to St. John Baptist and to the Evangelist, it is also called the basilic of St. John.

The primitive temple lasted ten centuries, and, together with the palace, was destroyed by fire, but was rebuilt under Clement V., Pius IV., and Sixtus V., who added the portico. Clement XII. raised the grand front, and decorated it with four large columns and six pilasters, to support the entablature, over which is a balustrade with ten colossal statues of saints and that of our Savior in the middle. Five doors lead into the church: the one walled up is called Santa, being opened only in the year of the jubilee.

The interior is divided into five naves; in the middle one are the statues of the twelve apostles. The Corsini chapel, built by Clement XII., in honor of St. Andrew Corsini, one of his ancestors, is one of the most magnificent in Rome. Over the altar between two columns of verde antico, is a mosaic, representing that saint, copied from Guido: on the pediment are the figures of Innocence and Patience; in the bas relief, St. Andrew is seen defending the Florentine army at the battle of Anghieri. In the large niche, decorated with two porphyry columns, is the mausoleum of Clement XII. It is adorned with the superb antique urn of porphyry taken from the portico of the Pantheon, and the bronze statue of this pontiff by Maini, who also executed the statue of Cardinal Neri-Corsini opposite, and those of a genius and religion. Around the high-altar are four granite columns supporting a Gothic tabernacle, where, among other relics, the heads of St. Peter and St. Paul are preserved in silver reliquaries.

The altar of the holy sacrament has a tabernacle ornamented with precious stones, placed between two angels of gilt bronze and four verde-antico columns. Those in bronze, supporting the entablature, are eight feet seven inches in circumference, and are supposed to be those formed by Augustus of the spars of the Egyptian vessels captured at the battle of Actium.

In the tribune is the altar of our Savior, with mosaics. One of the precious objects preserved in this basilic is the table used at the last supper of Christ. Annexed to the church is a cloister of the twelfth century in which Urban VIII. collected several monuments of the middle ages.

St. Maria Maggiore. This church is situated on the summit of the Esquiline, called Cispius, uear the ancient temple of Juno Lucina; it was built in 552, in consequence of a vision of St. Liberius and John the Patrician, which was confirmed on the following day by a fall of snow on the 5th of August, a miracle which gave rise to the festival still celebrated on that day by the church. The snow covered the space which the building was destined to occupy, and for this reason it was then called "St. Maria ad Nives," but now St. Maria Maggiore, as it is the principal church dedicated to the Madonna. It is one of the seven basilics of Rome, and of the four which gave a holy gate for the jubilee.

In 432, Pope St. Sixtus III. enlarged this church, which was restored and enriched by several popes, and particularly by Benedict XIV. The front has two rows of col umns, one Doric, the other Corinthian; on the lower portico, supported by eight granite columns, are bas-reliefs and a statue of Philip V., king of Spain. From the central balcony of the upper portico the sovereign pontiff gives his blessing to the people. The mosaics are by Gaddo Gaddi, a contemporary of Cimabue. The interior is composed of three naves, separated by thirty-six Ionic marble columns taken from the temple of Juno.

The chapel of the Holy Sacrament, built by Sixtus V., on the designs of Fontana, is covered with marble, and decorated with paintings and Corintbian pilasters. On

the right is the tomb of Sixtus V., adorned with his statue, four verde-antico columns, bas-reliefs, and the statues of St. Francis and St. Anthony of Padua; on the left is that of St. Pius V., whose body is preserved in a verde-antico urn, adorned with gilt bronze. In the middle of the chapel is the altar of the holy sacrament, with a magnificent tabernacle, supported by four angels of gilt bronze.

The high-altar is isolated: it consists of a grand porphyry urn covered, and a marble slab with four bronze gilt angels at the corners; above it is a rich baldacchino, supported by four porphyry columns, and surmounted by six marble figures of angels. The mosaics of the grand arcade allude to subjects of the Old Testament and of the life of the Blessed Virgin.

The sumptuous chapel of the Borghese family, erected by Paul V., on the designs of Flaminius Ponzio, contains several paintings and various species of marble. On the left is the tomb of that pontiff, on the right that of Clement VIII., both decorated with statues, bas-reliefs, and columns. The statues of St. Basil, of David, of Aaron, and St. Bernard, are works of Cordieri. The altar of the Blessed Virgin is adorned with four fluted columns of oriental jasper; the base and capitals are of gilt bronze; the frieze and the pedestals of the columns are of agate. The image of the Madonna, said to have been painted by St. Luke, is enriched with lapis-lazuli, and encircled with precious stones. The bas-relief of the entablature represents the miraculous fall of snow. The frescoes over the altar are by the cavalier d'Arpino, and those of the cupola by Civoli; the paintings near the windows and arcades over the tombs are among the best compositions of Guido.

The Mamertine Prison.-This was built under Ancus Martius, and described by Varro. The chamber, still existing, is covered with rectangular slabs of volcanic stone called reddish tuffo; its form is that of a trapezium twenty-four feet long, eighteen wide, and thirteen high. Toward the northwest are traces of a window which shed here its feeble light. No trace of an ancient door being visible, it is conjectured that criminals were lowered into the prison through the aperture covered with an iron grating. The eastern front is well preserved, and on blocks of travertine are the names of the consuls Rufinus and Neva, who restored it. From the steps leading to the prison, named "Scale Gemoniæ," the bodies of those put to death in the prison were dragged through the Forum and thrown into the Tiber from the Sublician bridge.

These executions took place in the inferior or Tullian prison, thus named from Servius Tullius. It was cut in the rock, about twelve feet under the level of ancient Rome. We learn from history that many celebrated personages of antiquity died in this prison: Jugurtha, of starvation; Lentulus, Cethegus, Statilius, Gabinius, and other accomplices of Catiline, by strangulation; Sejanus, by order of Tiberius: and Simon, son of Jonas, chief of the Jews, by that of Titus. It is supposed that, after having adorned the triumphal pomp, the captive chiefs were confined in the Tullian prison till sent to the places assigned as their residence. Syphax finished his days at Tivoli; Perseus, king of Macedon, at Alba Fucensis.

The celebrity of this prison is increased by the pious tradition that the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul were confined in it under Nero; and a spring of water, said to have been used at the baptism of Processus and Martinian (the keepers of the prison, who afterward suffered martyrdom), is still visible.

FOUNTAINS.-Modern Rome is well supplied with that greatest of all luxuries, water, which, although not very good, is brought to the city partly by ancient and partly by modern structures.

The abundance of the fountains at Rome strongly attracts the notice of the stranger. They diffuse a refreshing sense of coolness throughout the city, and impart to it one of the most agreeable forms of life and motion. Yet, as Martyn intimates, it would be a great mistake to conclude, as many have done, that Rome has an ample supply of good water, for the reverse is really the truth. The author of "Rome in the Nineteenth Century" has devoted an entire letter to the fountains of that city. Speaking of them generally, he says:

"Nothing strikes a stranger with more just admiration, on his arrival at the cap ital of the world, than the immense number of fountains which pour forth their unceasing flow of waters on every side. It is a luxury, the full enjoyment of which can not be felt but in such a climate as this; and those only who have known that delicious moment, when the blaze of the summer day fades at last in the golden clouds of evening, can understand the voluptuous delight with which, in its hushed hour of

stillness and repose, you listen to the music of their dashing murmur, and rest beneath their freshness."

We are afterward informed, however, that the fountains of Rome are generally deficient in that greatest of beauties, the beauty of simplicity; and in conclusion, the writer thus sums up his opinions concerning them :

"On the whole, I admire with fond admiration the fountains of Rome, not that as fountains I think them beautiful, but that falling water in an ample quantity must be beautiful in a climate like this, where its sound, even in winter, is 'so sweet to the senses. I love to repose my fancy upon the three noble cascades that are poured forth at the Fontana Paolina, the copious streams which burst from the rocks of the fountain of Trevi, and those silver fountains that throw high in air their glittering showers within the grand colonnade of St. Peter's. These are beautiful; but for all the ugly statues of monsters and men, seahorses and dragons, prophets and lions, and fishes and gods, I hold them in utter abhorrence, as well as the clumsy and hideous buildings erected above them."

The principal fountains ornament the several piazzas of the city. We shall only here specify those of Bernini. The most admired, although not the most considerable of these, is in the Piazza Barberini, and is represented in our engraving, p. 341. It exhibits a Triton seated upon four dolphins, and throwing up water from a large shell. Another of his fountains, called the Barcaccia, or boat, is in the Piazza di Spagna. It has been both praised and dispraised more than it deserves; but it is certainly an inferior performance to that already mentioned, which is an interesting work, although it exhibits sufficient exemplification of that corruption which the taste of the artist had already undergone at the time it was executed. But the principal fountain of Bernini is that in the Strada Navona, the model of which won him the favor of Innocent X. Opinions concerning it are quite in the extreme. Martyn roundly declares that it is "the most magnificent fountain in the world." Coxe, who, with many others, seems disposed to consider the fountain of Trevi as the principal of those in Rome, yet explains that, although Bernini's fountain has not so copious a supply of water as the other, it is "much more nobly decorated." It consists of a rock, having at each angle a colossal figure, representing a principal river in each quarter of the world, namely, the Danube, the Nile, the Ganges, and the La Plata. From four caverns in the rock issue an equal number of cascades, with a copious flow of water, and the summit is crowned by an Egytian obelisk about fifty-five feet high, exclusive of the basement.

The piazza in which this fountain is situated was anciently the Circus Agonalis, the form of which is still preserved, in consequence of the houses being built on the old foundations. It is one of the largest and finest squares in Rome. It was in ancient times used for chariot-racing, boxing, and wrestling; one of the principal markets of the city is now held in it, particularly on Wednesdays. Every Saturday and Sunday in August this square is inundated with water from the fountain, that the people may refresh themselves by riding or walking about in it, which they do in great numbers. Formerly this diversion of paddling in the water used to be protracted throughout the night, accompanied by music and refreshments; but, in consequence of the disorders which sometimes arose, the water has now for many years been regularly drawn off at dusk.

Bernini, from whose designs these fountains were executed, has been called by some the modern Michael Angelo, because he united the knowledge and practice of painting, statuary, and architecture. His skill in each of these branches was very considerable; but it was in the last branch that he excelled, and to which he is chiefly indebted for his reputation. He was born at Naples, in 1598, and from his earliest years manifested a great capacity for the fine arts, having at the age of eight years executed a head in marble, which, under such circumstances, was considered a most extraordinary performance. His Apollo and Daphne, executed at the age of eighteen, raised just expectation that he would rival the best productions of ancient Greece. This expectation was not fulfilled. At this time his style was in its purest state, and had less of the peculiar manner which it afterward acquired. It is said that, when the artist surveyed this group in his old age, he allowed that he had really made very little progress since the period at which it was executed. Late in life, he confessed that, in endeavoring to remove from his mind the restraint of rules, and all imitation of the antique and of nature, he fell into a faulty manner; that he mistook facility of execution for the inspiration of genius; and that, in endeavoring