The classical Roman had no taste: we wonder to-day that the Roman, dazzled with rich marbles, should adopt the expedient of painted columns in a scheme of decoration; but he did the same in the house of Germanicus on the Palatine. That there is a distinction between taste and artistic sensibility there can be no doubt whatever, and it is equally true that the former is often mistaken for the latter. The subject is an interesting one; but here we can only record the two facts--that the Roman all through the centuries has been a sensitive to artistic impressions, and a fine judge of the arts, and that he has never possessed that gift of a certain refinement of sentiment--taste. After all that has been said of the Romans, it is sad to have to record that it will soon be difficult to find genuine Roman families. The old "_Romano de Roma_"--the man whose ancestors, like himself, were born _all' ombra del Cupolone_, under the shadow of the great cupola--is disappearing, giving place to more successful, more industrious, and 'cuter men--preserving up to the last moment of his life those habits and customs which cause him and his house to suggest Noah and his ark to the more modern Italian; but also learning up to the last hour of his life new ideas, such as must also have importuned the patriarch and his family when the waters receded leaving him and the ark high and dry on Ararat, and the daughters of men began to weave their toils round the sons of God. [Illustration: PORTA SAN PAOLO Gate in the Aurelian wall rebuilt by Belisarius. This is the gate of the Ostian Way leading to the basilica of S. Paul's--one of the seven great pilgrimage churches--of which the Kings of England were Protectors.] CHAPTER VIII ROMAN PRINCELY FAMILIES To be a patrician of Rome is to possess one of the proudest of titles, and from the senator of the ancient city to the prince of to-day the aristocracy of Rome has been one of its most vital and characteristic institutions. Though the Roman cardinal as a prince of the Church has always been admitted, whatever his origin, within the pale, the Roman nobility with the rarest exceptions has never swelled its ranks with newcomers owing their tides to acquired wealth or successful public life, but, conservative and exclusive, preserves the traditions of the past and forms a society unlike any other in Europe. The greater number of the princely families whose names are familiar to every sojourner in Rome date their connection with the city from the fifteenth century and onwards, when the popes ceased to be chosen from among the Romans, and a new aristocracy grew up, the creation of successive pontiffs, who, themselves reigning but not hereditary sovereigns, wished to raise their relatives to a rank second only to their own.