Colossal statues of Peter and Paul, erected by Pius IX., guard the approach at the foot of the steps on either side. Eustace says: "Entering the piazza, the visitor views four rows of lofty pillars, 70 feet high, sweeping off to the right and left in a bold semicircle. ('A tabernacle for a shadow in the day-time from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain,' Isa. iv. 6.) In the centre of the area formed by this immense colonnade, an Egyptian obelisk, of one solid piece of granite, ascends to the height of 130 feet; two perpetual fountains, one on each side, play in the air, and fall in sheets round the basins of porphyry that receive them. Raised on three successive flights of marble steps, extending 379 feet in length, and towering to the elevation of 148, you see the majestic front of the basilica itself. This front is supported by a single row of Corinthian pillars and pilasters, and adorned with an attic, a balustrade, and thirteen colossal statues. Far behind and above it rises the matchless dome. Two smaller cupolas, one on each side, add not a little to the majesty of the principal dome." Five lofty portals open into the vestibule; it is 468 feet in length, 66 in height, and 50 in breadth, paved with variegated marble, covered with a gilt vault, adorned with pillars, pilasters, mosaic, and bas-reliefs, and terminated at both ends by equestrian statues, one of Constantine, the other of Charlemagne. THE OBELISK is the only one near its original site, the _Spina_ of Nero's Circus, which was near the Sacristy, on the left of S. Peter's. An inscription in the pavement marks the place. Pliny (xxxvi. 14), says: "The third obelisk at Rome is in the Vatican Circus, which was constructed by the emperors Caius [Caligula] and Nero; this being the only one of them all that has been broken in the carriage. Nuncorcus, the son of Sesoses, made it [_the original, this is probably a copy_], and there remains [in Egypt] another by him, 100 cubits in height, which, by order of an oracle, he consecrated to the sun, after having lost his sight and recovered it." Herodotus says: "It was dedicated by Phero, son of Sesostris, in gratitude for his recovery from blindness." It has no hieroglyphics, so if this was the original how could they know who erected it? but it bears this inscription of Caligula-- DIVO. CAES. DIVI. JULII. F. AUGUSTO.--TI. CAESARI. DIVI. AUG. F.--AUGUSTO. SACRUM. [To the divine Augustus, son of the divine Julius, and to the divine Tiberius, son of the divine Augustus.] [Illustration: S. PETER'S AND THE VATICAN.] The Nuncorcus of Pliny is supposed to stand for Menophtheus, the king Meneph-Pthah. Pliny (xvi. 76) gives the following particulars of how it was brought over:--