We have to regret that Poggio's description was subservient and introductory to a rhetorical dissertation. Had he applied himself to the task of tabulating more minutely what he had observed, his work would have been infinitely precious to the archæologist. No one knew more about the Roman buildings than he did. No one felt the impression of their majesty in desolation more profoundly. The mighty city appeared to him, he said, like the corpse of a giant, like a queen in slavery. The sight of her magnificence, despoiled and shorn of ornaments as she had been, moved him daily to deeper admiration. It was his custom to lead strangers from point to point among the ruins, in order to enjoy the effect produced upon fresh minds by their stupendous evidence of strength and greatness in decay. The pathos of this former empress of the world exposed to insult and indignity had not been first felt by Poggio. Petrarch described her as an aged matron with grey hair and pale cheeks, whose torn and sordid raiment ill accorded with the nobleness of her demeanour.[120] Fazio degli Uberti personified her as a majestic woman, wrapped around with rags, who pointed out to him the ruins of her city, 'to the end that he might understand how fair she was in years of old.'[121] [Footnote 120: _De Pacificandâ Italiâ, Ad Carolum Quartum_, p. 531.] [Footnote 121: In the _Dittamondo_, about 1360.] In this way a sentimental feeling for the relics of the past grew up and flourished side by side with the archæological interest they excited. The literature of the Renaissance abounds in matter that might be used in illustration of this remark,[122] while nothing was commoner in art than to paint for backgrounds broken arches and decayed buildings, 'whose ruins are even pitied.' The double impulse of romantic sentiment and antiquarian curiosity, set going in this age of the Revival, contributed no little to the development of architecture, sculpture, and painting. In the section of my work which deals with the fine arts in Italy will be found the proper sequel to this subject. Meanwhile the history of antiquarian research in Rome itself will be resumed in another chapter of this volume. [Footnote 122: Such, for example, as Boccaccio's description of the ruins of Baiæ in the _Fiammetta_, Sannazzaro's lines on the ruins of Cumæ, Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini's notes on ancient sites in Italy.]