Here, then, in the midst of the river which determined the site of the cosmopolitan city, is a spot to whose history Egypt, Greece, Etruria, Palestine have contributed--Aesculapius, "one of the Twelve," the Christian Slavs, the Saxon Otho, Francis of Assisi. In Paulinus of Nola we are reminded of the earliest Western monasteries, and the Franciscan friars represent for us the thirteenth-century revival of the religious spirit in Italy. What more? In the red-gowned confraternity of the island we are put in touch with an institution which seems to be as old as human history, with those burial guilds, sanctioned by Roman law, under shelter of which the first Christians obtained a legal footing for themselves and their cemeteries long before their religion was tolerated. [Illustration: THE FORUM, LOOKING TOWARDS THE CAPITOL The Palatine is to the left. See pages 4, 5, 61.] The vicissitudes of the city have made certain features of its life as eternal as itself. Through the middle ages it was the sanctuary and since the renascence of classical learning it has been the museum of Europe. Long before there were any kind of facilities for travelling every one came to Rome. A procession of people from every race under heaven, in every variety--every excess and defect--of costume, has passed along the streets under the observant but unastonished eyes of the _blase_ Roman; and when a lay pilgrim in a brown tunic, hung with rosaries, and carrying a crucifix taller than himself, walked last year out of Saint Peter's among the Easter crowd, no one noticed him. The modern city in becoming the hostess of the other provinces of Italy is approximating in size to the Rome of the early empire; but the Rome of the popes made no sort of provision for the influx of Europe. The Inn of the Bear, in the street of that name leading to Ponte Sant' Angelo, provided the best accommodation; and here, it is said, Dante himself had lodged. It is but a hundred years ago that a pavement was placed for pedestrians, and then only one side of the Corso boasted a narrow footpath. The streets were encumbered with hucksters' stalls, with refuse, dirt, and stones; the nights were dark as pitch, and hygiene was only hinted at in the marble _affiches_ which may still be seen at certain old street corners announcing that _monsignore_ the way warden would visit with a fine of 25 _scudi_ and divers bodily pains the practice of emptying every kind of refuse into the side streets.