Rome was at this period the finest marble quarry in the world. It was still a century before the time of Sixtus V and Domenico Fontana; the Farnese had not yet built their great palace from the spoils of the Baths of Caracalla and other noble ruins; the last sack of Rome was still thirty years in the future; and very little building of any importance had been carried on through the long period of the popes’ absence in Avignon. Bramante found the richest marbles ready to his hand, and he built the façade of the Palazzo Giraud-Torlonia out of materials taken from the Basilica Giulia and the Temple of Janus. However, already in Sixtus IV’s time the rage had begun for the destruction of old monuments, and in order to build the Via Alessandrina, the Pope had demolished a Pagan tomb which had once been a landmark in the Borgo. During the Middle Ages it was called the Tomb of Romulus, and Raphael has painted it in his “Vision of Constantine.” It was of pyramidal form, like the tomb called the Pyramid of Cestius, which is still standing near the Protestant Cemetery on the road to St. Paul’s Beyond the Walls. Doubtless, its massive blocks went into the construction of the new palaces surrounding the little square, which now took the place of the old tomb as the central point in that quarter of the city. In this square the two chief palaces are connected with two of the greatest of the Pope’s cardinals, each of whom had found it to his advantage to hold a post in foreign lands. The fiery and forceful Giulio della Rovere, who gave his name to the palace built by his brother Domenico and now known as the Penitenzieri, had been the chief rival of Rodrigo Borgia in the papal election of 1492, and, thereafter, the open enemy of Alexander VI. It is possible he might never have become that Pope’s successor had he not put himself under the protection of Charles VIII of France. On the other hand, Cardinal Adriano Corneto, who built the palace now the Giraud-Torlonia, stood high in the Pope’s good graces. Alexander made him collector of the papal revenues in England, where he was already known as the papal peacemaker between Henry VII and the ill-starred James IV of Scotland. There he made a valuable friend in no less a personage than King Henry VII himself. The Tudor King was not lavish of his money, but, for some reason, he gave large sums to Cardinal Corneto as a personal gift.