THE GARDENS OF PAPAL ROME 



doors to all citizens of the Republic. Another 

 member of the Sacred College, Marco Cornaro, took 

 them out hunting in the Campagna and himself led 

 the chase clad in a scarlet coat and mounted on a 

 white horse perfect in its shape and paces. The 

 ambassadors visited all the chief sights in Rome, paid 

 their vows at the altars of the Seven Churches, and 

 saw Raphael of Urbino's new-made tomb in the great 

 Rotonda, where he had willed to lie. They were 

 profoundly impressed by the vast dimensions of the 

 Coliseum and the Thermae and the immense size of 

 the new fabric of St. Peter's, while the splendours of 

 the Vatican surpassed their highest expectation. The 

 frescoes in the Stanze of the Papal Chapel, the silken 

 tapestries and profusion of gold and silver plate, the 

 splendid-looking Swiss Guards in their white, green 

 and yellow liveries, filled them with breathless admira- 

 tion. " Surely," they exclaimed, " no other monarch 

 in the world has so glorious a palace ! " The Holy 

 Father himself, it must be confessed, disappointed 

 them. A devout and learned man he was, beyond 

 all doubt, and well disposed towards the Signory of 

 Venice, but he struck them as timid and irresolute, 

 and, for a Pope, very miserly in his habits and 

 expenditure. The change from the days of Leo was 

 great. The Cardinals who made their home in the 

 Vatican had been sent back to their own dioceses, the 



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