ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST ARTS. 243 



only spot that has remained unchanged through all the mutations 

 of Roman fortune. And I have there endeavored to transport 

 myself five hundred years into the past, to see before me only 

 the wide and mournful scene of desolation which was there un- 

 folded in the gloomiest hour of the night of ages. On all the 

 seven hills, that once sustained the seat of an empire that 

 seemed as eternal as their foundations, there could then be seen 

 only the specters of ruin, grim and unrelieved. Half buried in 

 wild and brambly commons, were the massive piles of the Baths 

 of Diocletian, of Titus, and of Caricalla, the dismantled Colis- 

 seum, the triumphal arches, the dilapidated columns of some 

 heathen temples, and innumerable mounds and monuments that 

 had long ceased to commemorate anything. Over the Palatine 

 Hill, where were buried one under the other, the remains of 

 three periods of national architecture, were then only vineyards 

 and gardens. On the valley within the amphitheater of the 

 hills, enclosures for swine and buffaloes occupied the ground 

 beneath which, deeply buried, were the pavements of the Yia 

 Sacra and the floors of the Comitium of the Roman people, where 

 their Scipios had brought the trophies and received the appella- 

 tions of conquered continents. Such was the desolate grave from 

 which the new culture was soon to arise such the mournful 

 spectacle which preceded the Renaissance of Art. 



