"The Italian climate, moreover, robs age of its reverence, and makes it look nearer than it is. Not the Coliseum, nor the tombs of the Appian Way, nor the oldest pillar in the Forum, nor any other Roman ruin, be it as dilapidated as it may, ever give the impression of venerable antiquity which we gather, along with the ivy, from the grey walls of an English abbey or castle. And yet every brick and stone, which we pick up among the former, had fallen, ages before the foundation of the latter was begun."--_Hawthorne, Transformation._ "A Rome, vous marchez sur les pierres qui ont été les dieux de César et de Pompée: vous considérez la ruine de ces grands ouvrages, dont la vieillesse est encore belle, et vous vous promènerez tous les jours parmi les histoires et les fables.... Il n'y à que Rome où la vie soit agréable, où le corps trouve ses plaisirs et l'esprit les siens, où l'on est à la source des belles choses. Rome est cause que vous n'êtes plus barbares, elle vous a appris la civilité et la religion.... Il est certain que je ne monte jamais au Palatin ni au Capitole que je n'y change d'esprit, et qu'il ne me vienne d'autres pensées que les miennes ordinaires. Cet air m'inspire quelque chose de grand et de généreux que je n'avais point auparavant: si je rêve deux heures au bord du Tibre, je suis aussi savant que si j'avais étudié huit jours."--_Balzac._ * * * * * Before leaving the Forum we must turn from its classical to its mediæval remains, and examine the very interesting group of churches which have sprung up amid its ruins. Almost opposite the Mamertine Prisons, surmounted by a handsome dome, is the _Church of Sta. Martina_, which contains the original model, bequeathed by the sculptor Thorwaldsen, of his Copenhagen statue of Christ in the act of benediction. The opposite transept contains a very inferior statue of Religion by _Canova_. The figure of Sta. Martina by _Guerini_ reposes beneath the high altar. The subterranean church is well worth visiting. An ante-chapel adorned with statues of four virgin martyrs leads to a chapel erected at the cost and from the designs of Pietro da Cortona, whose tomb stands near its entrance, with a fine bust by _Bernini_. In the centre of the inner chapel lamps are burning round the magnificent bronze altar which covers the shrine of Sta. Martina, and beneath it, you can discover the martyr's tomb by the light of a torch which a monk lets down through a hole. In the tribune is an ancient throne. A side chapel contains the grave in which the body of the virgin saint, with three other martyrs, her companions, was found in 1634: it is adorned with a fine bas-relief by _Algardi_.