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Destruction of Pagan Relics.

worshipped them. In a few years afterwards entire Rome, and even the distant provinces had renounced the creed of their forefathers; and Christianity had daily the professions of numberless proselytes. In order to further its universality, besides the havoc in Italy, the classic world lament the destruction of the beautiful temples of Jupiter at Apamea in Syria; and of Serapis in Alexandria; but, worse than all, with the latter, the destruction of the invaluable Alexandrian library.

After the cession of Rome to the Popes by Charlemagne about the year 800, every effort was made to repair the shattered wrecks of ages; and though, on one hand, the Pontiffs by the erection of the Cross in the Basilicæ, or Halls, and the Circi, &c. preserved them by the sanctity due to such consecration, yet they too often effaced, and removed, the ancient relics for the appropriation of the new Christian erections.

But Rome was fated to yet further disasters.

In the tenth century arose those civil factions, and contests, which produced endless wars, and consequent destructions. About the eleventh, and twelfth centuries the contending barons usurped as they could, and turned the venerable monuments of antiquity into fortresses, erecting innumerable towers of defence to the total disfigurement of architectural beauty. The Savelli, as before stated, were at the Tomb of Metella; the Frangipani at

Destruction to Rome from Civil Feuds. 379

the Coliseum; the Colonna at the Mausoleum of Augustus; the Orsini at the Mole of Hadrian; the Corsi at the Capitol and at the Church of St. Paul (without the walls); while the Pantheon was fortified for the Pope. Add the fatal fires kindled by the Normans and Saracens of Robert Guiscard in 1084, which laid waste from the Lateran to the Coliseum; add also the deplorable effects of the six months civil war which prevailed at the death of Nicholas IV in 1291: and all the lamentations and reproaches of Petrarch are confirmed.* Armies were encamped within the very circuit of the city, and spared nought of antiquity that stood in the way of their contest, whether on the side of the Pope, or the Emperor. Henry VII was crowned in the Lateran at the time when his rival was in possession of fortresses in the very heart of Rome; and in the midst of battling. Even St. Peter's, at one time, was fortified.

The residence of the Popes at Avignon for seventy years from 1306 to 1376, to the total abandonment of Rome has been so eloquently described by Petrarch as a period as fatal to Rome as any other of barbaric plunder.

To other causes of destruction we may add the fatal inundation of the Tyber in 1345 which o'erspread all but the hills for eight long days,

* Crowned at Rome, April 8, 1341.

380 Destruction to Rome from Civil Feuds.

and the tremendous earthquake which followed four years afterwards.

In 1526 the powerful Roman family of Colonna, always an adherent of the Ghibelline, or Imperial faction during the long and fearful contests between the Popes and the Emperors, and between them and the Guelph party, or Papal, which was also defended by the Ursini family; and the former at this period burning with jealousy, and hatred towards Clement VII then on the throne; they accordingly openly rebelled, and having obtained one of the gates of the city, aided by a force of 3000 men, they soon became absolute masters of Rome, while for three hours their followers were indulged in the sack of the Vatican, with St. Peter's, and the houses of the papal ministers. Clement, who had vainly fled to the Castle of St. Angelo, was only released by acceding to the terms proposed by the conqueror.

In 1527 was that memorable siege, capture, and plunder of Rome by the troops of Charles V, led on by the illustrious rebel, Charles, Duke of Bourbon, who had revolted from his royal master, Francis I, four years previously.

In this attack, on 6th May, 1527, the Constable, too gallantly urging his men to scale the wall, and himself the first to plant the ladder, was struck in the groin by a fatal ball, and quickly expired, while Benvenuto Cellini, the famed Florentine artist,

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381

has laid claim to the distinction of having been the fatal marksman. Revenge infuriated his troops, and Rome was, in an instant, inundated by the Imperial forces, at the moment that Clement was praying at St. Peter's. For nine months Germans, Spaniards, and Italians, vied each with the other in committing the greater excesses; the extent of their devastations is unknown; their plunder in money alone amounted to a million of ducats, besides other exactions; while the halls of the Vatican, with the inimitable paintings of Raphael upon them, show to this hour mournfully the irreparable injuries caused by these drinking, smoking, insensate Goths. Clement and his garrison, shut up in the Castle of St. Angelo, was reduced to feed upon the flesh of asses; and two of the terms of his liberation were the payment of 400,000 ducats, with his own custody, and retention as a prisoner by Don Ferdinand Alarcon till all other terms were fulfilled.

Yet later, we know that Paul II and Paul III considered the Coliseum but as a marble quarry; and I have somewhere read, that a nephew of Paul III, Cardinal Farnese, having at length obtained permission from the Holy Father for such marbles, stones, &c. as he could carry away from the Coliseum, though only for twelve hours, cleverly outwitted his uncle, with his limited leave,

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Destruction of Roman Relics.

by dispatching as many as 4000 labourers for the

purpose.

We also remember that Sixtus IV destroyed an ancient bridge, that of Horatius Cocles, to make marble cannon balls; that Urban VIII took away the bronze from the Pantheon for the tomb of St. Peter; and we find that even when opinion changed, and Roman Pagan relics became the pride, and the research of her citizens, that some of the present most illustrious families of Rome took almost at will what they could snatch from the public treasures, and highway monuments, to enrich their private galleries, and collections.

Now it is the glory, and the boast, of the Pontiffs to preserve all that still remains; and, in pursuance of the example first set by the French in their late invasion, they continue to repair, and to excavate. Let us trust that Rome for the future has no other enemy to dread than the inevitable, silent, sappings of mouldering time.