These three frescoes were brought hither from the Casino of Raphael, in the Villa Borghese (destroyed in the siege of Rome in 1849), and are supposed to have been painted by some of Raphael's pupils from his designs. The other frescoes in this room are by _Giulio Romano_, and were removed from the Villa Lante, when it was turned into a convent.

_10th Room._--

2. Cupid blindfolded by Venus: _Titian_.

4. Judith: _School of Titian_.

9. Portrait: _Pordenone_.

13. David with the head of Goliath: _Giorgione_.*

14. St. John the Baptist preaching (unfinished): _Paul Veronese_.

16. St. Domenic: _Titian_.

19. Portrait: _Giac. Bassano_.

21. 'Sacred and Profane Love': _Titian_.*

"Out of Venice there is nothing of Titian's to compare to his Sacred and Profane Love. It represents two figures: one, a heavenly and youthful form, unclothed, except with a light drapery; the other, a lovely female, dressed in the most splendid attire; both are sitting on the brink of a well, into which a little winged Love is groping, apparently to find his lost dart.... Description can give no idea of the consummate beauty of this composition. It has all Titian's matchless warmth of colouring, with a correctness of design no other painter of the Venetian school ever attained. It is nature, but not individual nature: it is ideal beauty in all its perfection, and breathing life in all its truth, that we behold."--_Eaton's Rome._

"Two female forms are seated on the edge of a sarcophagus-shaped fountain, the one in a rich Venetian costume, with gloves, flowers in her hands, and a plucked rose beside her, is in deep meditation, as if solving some difficult question. The other is unclothed; a red drapery is falling behind her, while she exhibits a form of the utmost beauty and delicacy; she is turning towards the other figure with the sweetest persuasiveness of expression. A Cupid is playing in the fountain; in the distance is a rich, glowing landscape."--_Kugler._

30. Madonna: _Giov. Bellini_.

34. St. Cosmo and Damian: _Venetian School_.

_11th Room._--Veronese school.

1. Madonna with Adam (?) and St. Augustine: _Lorenzo Lotto_, MDVIII.

2. St. Anthony preaching to the Fishes: _P. Veronese?_ 3. Madonna: _Titian?_ 11. Venus and Cupid on Dolphins: _Luc. Cambiaso_.

14. Last Supper: _And. Schiavone_.

15. Christ and the Mother of Zebedee's Children: _Bonifazio_.*

16. Return of the Prodigal Son: _Bonifazio_.*

17. Samson: _Titian_.

18. Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery: _Bonifazio_.

19. Madonna and Saints: _Palma Vecchio_.

In this picture the donors are introduced--the head of the man is grandly devout and beautiful.

25. Portrait of Himself: _Titian?_ 27. Portrait: _Giov. Bellini_.

31. Madonna and St. Peter: _Giov. Bellini_.

32. Holy Family: _Palma Vecchio_.

33. Portrait of the Family of Licini da Pordenone: _Bart.

Licini da Pordenone_.

_12th Room._--Dutch and German school.

1. Crucifixion: _Vandyke_.

7. Entombment: _Vandyke_.

8. Tavern Scene: _Teniers_.

9. Interior: _Brouerer_.

19. Louis VI. of Bavaria: _Albert Durer?_ 21. Portrait: _Holbein_.

21. Landscape and Horses: _Wouvermann_.

22. Cattle-piece: _Paul Potter_.

24. Portrait: _Holbein_.

26. Skating (in brown): _Berghem_.

27. Portrait: _Vandyke_.

35. Portrait: _Lucas von Leyden?_ 44. Venus and Cupid: _Lucas Cranach_.

The _Palazzetto Borghese_ on the opposite side of the piazza, originally intended as a dower-house for the family, is now let in apartments. It is this house which is described as the "Palazzo Clementi," in _Mademoiselle Mori_.

At the corner of the Via Fontanella and the Corso is the handsome _Palazzo Ruspoli_, built by Ammanati in 1586. It has a grand white marble staircase erected by Lunghi in 1750. Beyond this are the palaces _Fiano_, _Verospi_, and _Teodoli_.

"Les palais de Rome, bien que n'ayant pas un caractere original comme ceux de Florence ou de Venise n'en sont pas moins cependant un des traits de la ville des papes. Ils n'appartiennent ni au moyen age, ni a la renaissance (la Palais de Venise seul rappelle les constructions massives de Florence); ils sont des modeles d'architecture civile moderne. Les Bramante, les Sangallo, les Balthazar Peruzzi, qui les ont batis, sont des maitres qu'on ne se lasse pas d'etudier. La magnificence de ces palais reside principalement dans leur architecture et dans les collections artistiques que quelques-uns contiennent. Un certain nombre sont malheureusement dans un triste etat d'abandon. De plus, a l'exception d'un tres petit nombre, ils sont restes inacheves. Cela se concoit; presque tous sont le produit du luxe celibataire des papes ou des cardinaux; tres-peu de ces personages ont pu voir la fin de ce qu'ils avaient commence. Leurs heritiers, pour le plupart, se souciaient fort peu de jeter les richesses qu'ils venaient d'acquerir dans les edifices de luxe et de vanite. A l'interieur, le plus souvent, est un mobilier rare, suranne, et mesquin."--_A. Du Pays._[7]

The _Palazzo Bernini_ (151 Corso), on the left, has, inside its entrance, a curious statue of "Calumny" by _Bernini_, with an inscription relative to his own sufferings from slander.

On the right, the small piazza of S. Lorenzo opens out of the Corso.

Here is the _Church of S. Lorenzo in Lucina_, founded in the fifth century, but rebuilt in its present form by Paul V. in 1606. The campanile is of an older date, and so are the lions in the portico.

"When the lion, or other wild beast, appears in the act of preying on a smaller animal or on a man, is implied the severity of the Church towards the impenitent or heretical; but when in the act of sporting with another creature, her benignity towards the neophyte and the docile. At the portal of St Lorenzo in Lucina, this idea is carried out in the figure of a mannikin affectionately stroking the head of the terrible creature who protects, instead of devouring him."--_Hemans' Christian Art._

No one should omit seeing the grand picture of _Guido Reni_, over the high altar of this church,--the Crucifixion, seen against a wild, stormy sky. Niccolas Poussin, ob. 1660, is buried here, and one of his best known Arcadian landscapes is reproduced in a bas-relief upon his tomb, which was erected by Chateaubriand, with the epitaph,--

"Parce piis lacrymis, vivit Pussinus in urna, Vivus qui dederat, nescius ipse mori.

Hic tamen ipse silet; si vis audire loquentem, Mirum est, in tabulis vivit, et eloquitur."

In "The Ring and the Book" of Browning, this church is the scene of Pompilia's baptism and marriage. She is made to say:--

--"This St. Lorenzo seems My own particular place, I always say.

I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high As the bed here, what the marble lion meant, Eating the figure of a prostrate man."

Here the bodies of her parents are represented as being exposed after the murder:

--"beneath the piece Of Master Guido Reni, Christ on Cross, Second to nought observable in Rome."

On the left, where the Via della Vite turns out of the Corso, an inscription in the wall records the destruction, in 1665, of the triumphal arch of Marcus Aurelius, which existed here till that time.

The magnificence of this arch is attested by the bas-reliefs representing the history of the emperor, which were removed from it, and are preserved on the staircase of the palace of the Conservators.

"Les Barbares n'en savaient pas assez et n'avaient pas assez de patience pour demolir les monuments romains; mais, avec les ressources de la science moderne et a la suite d'une administration reguliere, on est venu a bout de presque tout ce que le temps avait epargne. Il y'avait, par exemple, au commencement du XVIe.

siecle, quatre arcs de triomphe qui n'existent plus; le dernier, celui de Marc Aurele, a ete enleve par le pape Alexandre VII. On lit encore dans le Corso l'inconcevable inscription dans laquelle le pape se vante d'avoir debarrasse la promenade publique de ce monument, qui, vu sa date, devait etre d'un beau style."--_Ampere, Voyage Dantesque._

A little further down the Corso, on the left, the Via delle Convertite leads to _S. Sylvestro in Capite_, one of three churches in Rome dedicated to the sainted pope of the time of Constantine. This, like S.

Lorenzo, has a fine mediaeval campanile. The day of St. Sylvester's death, December 31 (A.D. 335), is kept here with great solemnity, and is celebrated by magnificent musical services. This pope was buried in the cemetery of Priscilla, whence his remains were removed to S. Martino al Monte. The title "In Capite" is given to this church on account of the head of St John Baptist, which it professes to possess, as is narrated by an inscription engrafted into its walls.

The convent attached to this church was founded in 1318, especially for noble sisters of the house of Colonna who dedicated themselves to God.

Here it was that the celebrated Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa di Pescara, came to reside in 1525, when widowed in her thirty-sixth year, and here she began to write her sonnets, a kind of "In Memoriam," to her husband.

It is a curious proof of the value placed upon her remaining in the world, that Pope Clement VII. was persuaded to send a brief to the abbess and nuns, desiring them to offer her "all spiritual and temporal consolations," but forbidding them, under pain of the greater excommunication, to permit her to take the veil in her affliction.[8]

At the end of this street, continued under the name of Via de Mercede (No. 11 was the residence of Bernini), and behind the Propaganda, is the _Church of S. Andrea delle Fratte_, whose brick cupola by Borromini is so picturesque a feature. The bell-tower beside it swings when the bells are rung. In the second chapel on the right is the beautiful modern tomb of Mademoiselle Julie Falconnet, by Miss Hosmer. The opposite chapel is remarkable for a modern miracle (?) annually commemorated here.

"M. Ratisbonne, un juif, appartenant a une tres-riche famille d'Alsace, qui se trouvait accidentellement a Rome, se promenant dans l'eglise de S. Andrea delle Fratte pendant qu'on y faisait les preparatifs pour les obseques de M. de la Ferronays, s'y est converti subitement. Il se trouvait debout en face d'une chapelle dediee a l'ange gardien, a quelques pas, lorsque tout-a-coup il a eu une apparition lumineuse de la Sainte Vierge qui lui a fait signe d'aller vers cette chapelle. Une force irresistible l'y a entraine, il y est tombe a genoux, et il a ete a l'instant chretien. Sa premiere parole a celui qui l'avait accompagne a ete, en relevant son visage inonde de larmes: 'Il faut que ce monsieur ait beaucoup prie pour moi.'"--_Recit d'une Sur._