test, because, while the Orsini succeeded in preventing the emperor from being crowned in St. Peter's, the Colonna opened to him the way to St. John the Lateran, where the ceremony of the coronation took place on June 29 of the same year. Count Pandolfo's grandson, Everso the Second, is described by his contemporaries, especially by Cardinal Giacomo Ammanati, the chronicler of the reign of Paul II, as a perfect "flagellum Dei," as the worst and wickedest among the barons of his age. He had selected as the scene of his exploits the highroad from Viterbo to Rome, waylaying pilgrims and travellers, not so much for the sake of a ransom as for the pleasure of wrenching the wives from the arms of their husbands. In contempt of God and his saints Everso compelled his vassals to work on Sundays and feast days, and when after the extirpation of his race the gates of the strongholds of Cere, Cervetri, Caprarola, Ronciglione, Monticelli, etc., were thrown open, the dungeons were found crowded with wretches who had been starving in chains and darkness for a number of years. It is also said that in the cellars of the castle of Calcata the tools for coining false money were discovered, with a number of spurious pieces of Nicholas V, Calixtus III, and Pius II; yet this same man spent a large amount of money in rebuilding the hospital of Sancta Sanctorum, endowing it with a sum of eight hundred gold ducats, in memory of which event two marble reliefs were placed in the front wall of the hospital, with the coat of arms of the Anguillara family in the middle, and the name EVERSVS SECVNDVS on either side of it. This coat of arms, of which I give a reproduction, is beautifully modelled in white stucco above the fireplace in the main hall of the house in the Trastevere. Everso's career of violence and crime came to an end on September 3, 1464, and he was buried in Santa Maria Maggiore, at the foot of the chapel of Nostra Donna, where his father, Count Dolce, had already been laid to rest. His grave was covered with a slab, the bas-relief on which represented him clad in armor, with the senatorial toque instead of a helmet. This interesting monument was removed and destroyed at the time of Benedict XIV, and we should probably have been ignorant of its very existence had not a learned man of the age, Francesco Gualdi da Rimini, copied the inscription and made a sketch of the tomb. The house of the Anguillara continued in great favor with the Trastevere people until lately, on account of the extraordinary representation of the presepio or crèche of our Lord, which the last owner of the tower, Signor Giuseppe Forti, used to prepare on the top of it during the Advent weeks. I myself remember this truly remarkable sight, the grotto of Bethlehem being constructed so cleverly as to give through its various openings exquisite vistas over Tivoli, Frascati, Albano, Monte Mario, and other points of interest of the Roman Campagna. CHAPTER II LIFE IN THE CITY In the fifth year of his rule Pope Leo X ordered a census to be taken of the inhabitants of Rome, and entrusted the task to the rectors of the one hundred and thirty-one parishes into which the city was ecclesiastically divided. The census was taken some time between the months of July, 1517, and November of the following year, as proved by two entries, one relating to Lorenzo Campeggi, who was promoted to the cardinalship on July 1, 1517; the other to Madonna Vannozza, mother of Cæsar Borgia, who is mentioned as the living owner of a house in the parish of Santo Stefano in Piscinula, and who died an octogenarian on the 26th day of November, 1518. The results of the census were registered in a deed, the original of which has been discovered by Mariano Armellini in codex M. 193 (125) of the Vatican archives; but, unfortunately, of the one hundred and fifty-six sheets that composed it, eighty-eight have been torn to pieces; yet, in spite of its fragmentary state, the document reveals some important facts. First, that the census was taken from a purely fiscal point of view, and therefore it does not indicate how many persons dwelt in a single house, or palace, or monastery, but only mentions the name, mother country, profession, and social condition of the owner of the property, and of the head of the family. Secondly, that the people in those days, as at present, objected to being registered in the government's books, and refused to answer the questions of the official messengers. Thus, mention is made in the Rione di Ponte of a "donna superbia (sic)," a scornful woman who declines to give the name of the landowner; and in the Rione di Campomarzio of a "giardino d' Ascanio," which, the statistician says, "no si sa de chi sia ne chi ve habita." Thirdly, that the parish priests of the time of Leo X were not educated persons, nor skilled in the mysteries of spelling their own vernacular. The word "bottega" (shop), for instance, is written in five various ways and all misspelled. Fourthly, that the "Romani di Roma," the children of the soil, formed but a minority of the cosmopolitan population. Lastly, that the "cortigiane" outnumbered the honest women. These last two points, concerning the prevalence of strangers and courtesans in Rome, need a few words of explanation. After Martin V in 1420 and Eugenius IV in 1443 had put an end to the wanderings of the heads of the Church, and given the papal government a firm and permanent basis in Rome, strangers from every province of Italy and from every state beyond the Alps, and beyond the seas, flocked to the city of the seven hills in quest of occupation, of pleasure, of fortune, of adventure, and of a career in one of the thousand branches of the pontifical administration. This cosmopolitan assembly was subject to periodical changes in the constitution of its elements, according to the chance of the day. The Venetians prevailed at the time of Eugenius IV and Paul II; the Ligurians under Sixtus IV, Innocent VIII, and Julius II; the Tuscans under the Medici popes; the Spaniards under Calixtus III and Alexander VI; the northerners under Adrian VI. "We cannot deny," wrote Marcello Alberini on the eve of the sack of 1527, “that we Romans form but a minority in this international ren 1 That is, single women and widows. |