Napoleonic invasion represent this second "locus justitiae as a court enclosed by a low wall, at an equal distance between the entrance to the bridge and the Torre di Nona.

The northern slope of the Capitoline hill and part of the plain below, beyond the limits of the present Piazza dell' Aracoeli, were occupied by the public market. The first mention of the place occurs in a diploma of the antipope Anacletus II, dated 1130, in which the property of the district is assigned to the monks of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. On the boundary lines of the market there were marble tables for the exhibition of wares and stuffs,' and in the centre of the square another stone, which was put to a strange use. A debtor who had failed to fulfil his engagements was stripped of his garments in the presence of the moneylender, and thumped thrice on that stone, and made to repeat each time the formula: "Pagatevi creditori!" And again the city officer who had disobeyed orders or taken unfair advantage of his position was condemned to sit astride of the marble lion at the foot of the steps, with a paper mitre on his head, on which the words "mandati transgressor" were written. He had to endure the punishment, with face besmeared with honey and hands tied behind his back, as long as the market lasted.

This stone lion played an important part in the mediaval history of Rome. There were two lions, in fact, one carved in marble, the other painted on the wall supporting the balustrade. The first, represented in the act of tearing to pieces a fallen horse, was thought to symbolize the punishment of crimes, or the stern justice exacted by society from its offenders; the second, represented in the act of patting with his paw a starving cur, was considered to represent the clemency and equanimity characteristic of the

1 Like those appearing in the illustration on p. 11.

true and just judge. The stone group, largely restored in the time of Paul III, is still in existence, but it has lately been subjected to unworthy treatment. This group, against which Cola di Rienzo was probably leaning for support, while listening to his own sentence of death on the morning of October 8, 1354, and before which Martino Stefaneschi in 1347 and Fra Monreale in 1354 were handed over to the executioner, this group, in short, in which three centuries of the medieval history of the capital are reflected, was removed from the court of the Conservatori in 1903 and located in the centre of a vulgar fountain in the upper garden of the same palace.

Let me conclude these remarks by stating that the habit of keeping live symbolic animals on this sacred hill dates from the earliest times of Roman history. At first there were only geese and dogs, in commemoration, probably, of the unsuccessful attempt of the Gauls to storm the citadel. In the middle ages it was a live lion, whose keeper, called "custos leonis," received his salary from the thirty florins which the Jews of the Ghetto were compelled to pay on Good Fridays, in memory of the thirty pieces of silver with which their ancestors had remunerated the treason of Judas. On a Sunday morning in the year 1414 the lion escaped from his cage, and, after killing or maiming several children, hid himself among the ruins of the Palatine. It was only in the later part of the day that some men from the Rione di Ripa traced him to his lair, and brought him thence in triumph to the City Hall. These old traditions are not forgotten by us, and we still keep and feed, at the expense of the city, a wolf and an eagle, as symbols of the mythical birth of Rome and of the fortunes of the Roman Empire.

On February 15, 1353, the market-place was the scene of one of those popular outbreaks so common in that unruly

age. It seems that Stefanello della Colonna and Bertoldo Orsini, both senators, had exported a large quantity of wheat while a terrible famine was pressing the city; and when on the market-day the crowd found no breadstuff to purchase, they stormed the Senatorial palace, from which Stefanello, being young and alert, made a successful escape,

while his colleague Orsini, a heavier and older man, was stoned to death by the infuriated mob.

The market boasted of heroes of local- and dubiousfame, a kind of forts de la halle. Such was the illustrious Tribuntio Squazzetti, to whom the following tablet was erected in the church of Sant' Onofrio on the Janiculum "To Tribuntio Squazzetti, a commissioner from his early youth, later promoted to the rank of porter, second to none

in carrying heavy weights, in decanting wine, and in playing the game of the morra (in dimicatione digitorum). . . Stop, wayfarer, and offer a draught of wine to the worthy man forever thirsty." Were it not for the authority of the learned Cancellieri, who vouches for the authenticity of the text, we should hardly have thought it possible that such a profane memorial could be exhibited in a Christian church.

The market was removed from the foot of the Capitol to the Piazza Navona by Cardinal Guillaume d'Estouteville in the year 1477, another step taken by that illustrious prelate towards the reform of the municipal administration in Rome. The cardinal's institution lasted to my own days; and I well remember the sight of that vast piazza teeming with life on Wednesday mornings, with its thousand stalls and booths, in which all kinds of marketable goods were exhibited, a sight far more interesting and picturesque than that of the present rag fair at the Campo de' Fiori.1

The old Capitoline institution was revived once only in the course of the last four centuries, in the year 1810, on the name-day of the Emperor Napoleon, of whose dominions Rome then formed a part. The description of this fair is to be found in nos. 107-114 of the official Gazette of that time, the "Gazetta del Campodoglio."

Let us now descend from our post of observation and follow the two principal thoroughfares of the city of that day, -the Via Lata, corresponding to the classic Flaminia and to the modern Corso, the main line of communication from north to south, and the Via Papae, running westward from the Corso, in the direction of St. Peter's.

The Corso had been a fashionable street since the time of Paul II, the builder of the Palazzo di Venezia, who in

1 The market was transferred from the Piazza Navona to the Campo de' Fiori in the last years of Pius IX.

1465 introduced for the first time in the capital of the Pontifical States the celebration of the Carnival. A Venetian of noble family, fond of luxury and magnificence, Paul II thought that the more amusement the people were allowed to enjoy, the readier they would be to forget their aspirations to municipal liberties. At the same time he, a patrician by birth and by feelings, could certainly not approve of the bloody and brutal sports so dear to medieval Romans, such as bull-fights, tournaments, and chariot-races, which never ended without loss of life. When we think that the most popular amusement was the so-called "Giuoco di Testaccio," in which bull-carts laden with live pigs were hurled down the slopes of Monte Testaccio, with evident risk of life to the daring youths who tried to seize the pigs in their wild descent; and that stands were erected on these occasions for the patrician matrons and maidens to witness the revolting spectacle, we do not wonder at the attempt made by the Venetian pope to bring about a less brutal spirit of amusement. He selected the Corso, the whole extent of which he could command from the corner balcony of his palace, for the racing competitions, which he organized on a grand scale. The events for the Carnival of 1465 included races of horses, donkeys, oxen, and buffaloes, which, however, brought about the same results, and were the cause of many accidents among the crowd which lined the Corso, on account of the narrowness of the street. Then followed competitions of speed between children, youths, and old men, the prize, a pallio, being a piece of Venetian red cloth of the value of thirty-six scudi.

The principal attraction — le clou de la fête — was undoubtedly the racing of the Jews. It was the first time that they were obliged to take a share in the Carnival, more personally than they desired. Disguised in fantastic cos