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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