There is no doubt that, shortly before the date of Petrarch's visits to Rome, the city had suffered grievously in its monuments. We know, for instance, that the best preserved of the theatres, baths, and tombs formed the residences and fortresses of nobles in the Middle Ages; and when we read that in 1258 the senator Brancaleone found it necessary to destroy one hundred and forty of these fortified dwellings, we obtain a standard for measuring the injury that must have ensued to precious works of classic architecture. The ruins, moreover, as Petrarch hinted, had been used as quarries. What was worse, the burghers burned the marbles, rich, perhaps, with inscriptions and carved bas-reliefs, for lime. We shall shortly see what Poggio relates upon this topic. For the present it will suffice to quote an epigram of Pius II., written some time after the revival of enthusiasm for antiquity:-- Oblectat me, Roma, tuas spectare ruinas, Ex cujus lapsu gloria prisca patet. Sed tuus hic populus muris defossa vetustis Calcis in obsequium marmora dura coquit. Impia ter centum si sic gens egerit annos, Nullum hic indicium nobilitatis erit.[116] [Footnote 116: It delights me to contemplate thy ruins, Rome, the witness amid desolation to thy pristine grandeur. But thy people burn thy marbles for lime, and three centuries of this sacrilege will destroy all sign of thy nobleness.' Compare a letter from Alberto degli Alberti to Giovanni de' Medici, quoted by Fabroni, _Cosmi Vita_, Adnot. 86. The real pride of Rome was still her ruins. Nicolo and Ugo da Este journeyed in 1396 to Rome, 'per vedere quelle magnificenze antiche che al presente si possono vedere in Roma.' Murat. xxiv. 845.]