have made himself dictator; Ludovico Migliorati could not have murdered the eleven captains of Regions in his house and thrown their bodies to the people from the windows, for which Giovanni Colonna drove out the Pope and the cardinals, and sacked the Vatican; in a word, the strangest, wildest, bloodiest scenes of mediæval Rome could not have found a place in history. It is no wonder that to men born and bred in the city the Regions seem even now to be an integral factor in its existence. There were two other elements of power, namely, the Pope and the Barons. The three are almost perpetually at war, two on a side, against the third. Philippe de Commines, ambassador of Lewis the Eleventh in Rome, said that without the Orsini and the Colonna, the States of the Church would be the happiest country in the world. He forgot the People, and was doubtless too politic to speak of the Popes to his extremely devout sovereign. Take away the three elements of discord, and there would certainly have been peace in Rome, for there would have been no one to disturb the bats and the owls, when everybody was gone. The excellent advice of Ampère, already quoted, is by no means easy to follow, since there are not many who have the time and the inclination to acquire a 'superficial knowledge' of Rome by a ten years' visit. If, therefore, we merely presuppose an average knowledge of history and a guide-book acquaintance with the chief points in the city, the simplest and most direct way of learning more about it is to take the Regions in their ancient order, as the learned Baracconi has done in his invaluable little work, and to try as far as possible to make past deeds live again where they were done, with such description of the places themselves as may serve the main purpose best. To follow any other plan would be either to attempt a new history of the city of Rome, or to piece together a new archæological manual. In either case, even supposing that one could be successful where so much has already been done by the most learned, the end aimed at would be defeated, for romance would be stiffened to a record, and beauty would be dissected to an anatomical preparation. [Illustration: BRASS OF TITUS, SHOWING THE COLOSSEUM] [Illustration] REGION I MONTI