Directly above the Piazza di Spagna and opposite to the Via di Condotti, rise the double towers of the Trinità de' Monti. The ascent to them is over one hundred and thirty-five steps, planned with considerable skill, so as to mask the steepness of the Pincian, and forming the chief feature of the Piazza. Various landings and dividing walls break up their monotony; and a red granite obelisk, found in the gardens of Sallust, crowns the upper terrace in front of the church. All day long, these steps are flooded with sunshine, in which, stretched at length, or gathered in picturesque groups, models of every age and both sexes bask away the hours when they are free from employment in the studios. Here, in a rusty old coat and long white beard and hair, is the _Padre Eterno_, so called from his constantly standing as model for the First Person of the Trinity in religious pictures. Here is the ferocious bandit, with his thick black beard and conical hat, now off duty, and sitting with his legs wide apart, munching in alternate bites an onion, which he holds in one hand, and a lump of bread, which he holds in the other. Here is the _contadina_, who is always praying at a shrine with upcast eyes, or lifting to the Virgin the little child, among whose dark curls, now lying tangled in her lap, she is on a vigorous hunt for the animal whose name denotes love. Here is the invariable pilgrim, with his scallop-shell, who has been journeying to St. Peter's and reposing by the way near aqueducts or broken columns so long that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, and who is now fast asleep on his back, with his hat pulled over his eyes. When the _forestieri_ come along, the little ones run up and thrust out their hands for _baiocchi_; and so pretty are they, with their large, black, lustrous eyes, and their quaint, gay dresses, that new comers always find something in their pockets for them. Sometimes a group of artists, passing by, will pause and steadily examine one of these models, turn him about, pose him, point out his defects and excellences, give him a _baiocco_, and pass on. It is, in fact, the model's exchange. [Footnote: During this last winter, the government have prohibited the models, for I know not what reason, from gathering upon these steps; and they now congregate at the corner of the Via Sistina and Capo le Case, near the Pizzicheria, from which they supply themselves with groceries.]