I arrived at Rome on the evening of the 2d of February. The coach stopped as usual at the Porta Cavalleggeri, under the lofty walls of the Inquisition.[102] I raised my eyes to survey the massive boundary that was erected to shut out the Holy Office from the profane gaze of the passer-by. Alas, what horrors have been enacted within its circuit! What direful prisons exist around the grand hall of the tribunal! Some immediately under the roof of the building, exposed to the suffocating heat of summer, which renders them almost as close and unendurable as a furnace; others, which are excessively cold in the winter, on the basement, and into them the water filters from the adjacent grounds, and occasions a perpetual humidity. The dungeons are deep underground, like burial vaults, and in the middle of them is a cemetery, for the bodies of such as have been put to death within the walls. These wretched places have only been discovered recently, and were laid open to the inspection of the people during the time of the Republic. In the midst of the court-yard rises the vast edifice where the cardinals meet at stated periods, (besides their weekly sittings at the Minerva,) and the councillors every Monday prepare the decisions. In the same building are the grand Archive Chamber, over the door of which is written "_Scommunicato è chi entra_," the Chancery the Secretary's Office, and the secret Printing Office: the various apartments for the different offices attached to the establishment, as well as for the servants, the officials, and the gaolers: the places of punishment also, where in former times the unfortunates under accusation were tortured in various ways, by the cord, by fire, by boiling water, and other atrocious inventions, which it would be too painful to describe. These places now present a different aspect, and appear to be appropriated to other purposes; so that it might hardly be discovered that they had originally served for chambers of torture, were it not that here and there an iron ring affixed to the wall, and other indications of that sort, afford too sure evidence as to their former uses. This little description has arisen in my mind on having occasion to speak of the locality: as I have before said, all was concealed at that time behind lofty walls, but I was well acquainted with the precincts. I remembered my own imprisonment, when, more than for myself, I grieved for so many other victims sacrificed in that abode by superstition, by fanaticism, and not unfrequently by private vengeance.