In the middle ages this theatre was the fortress of the great family of Pierleoni, the rivals of the Frangipani, who occupied the Coliseum; their name is commemorated by the neighbouring street, Via Porta Leone. The constant warfare in which they were engaged with their neighbours did much to destroy the building, whose interior became reduced to a mass of ruins, forming a hill, upon which Baldassare Peruzzi (1526) built the _Palazzo Savelli_, of which the entrance, flanked by the two armorial bears of the family, may be seen in the street (Via Savelli) which leads to the Ponte Quattro Capi. "Au dix-septième siècle, les Savelli exerçaient encore une jurisdiction féodale. Leur tribunal, aussi régulièrement constitué que pas un, s'appellait Corte Savella.[90] Ils avaient le droit d'arracher tous les ans un criminel à la peine de mort: droit de grâce, droit régalien reconnu par la monarchie absolue des papes. Les femmes de cette illustre famille ne sortaient point de leurs palais sinon dans un carosse bien fermé. Les Orsini et les Colonna se vantaient que pendant les siècles, aucun traité de paix n'avait été conclu entre les princes chrétiens, dans lequel ils n'eussent été nominativement compris."--_About._ The palace has now passed to the family of Orsini-Gravina, who descended from a senator of A.D. 1200. The princes of Orsini and Colonna, in their quality as attendants on the throne (_principi assistenti al soglio_), take precedence of all other Roman nobles.