Retracing our steps to the Piazza della Giudecca and turning left down a narrow alley, which is always busy with Jewish traffic, we reach the _Piazza delle Tartarughe_, so called from the tortoises which form part of the adornments of its lovely little fountain,--designed by Giacomo della Porta, the four figures of boys being by Taddeo Landini. At this point we leave the Ghetto. * * * * * Forming one side of the Piazza delle Tartarughe is the _Palazzo Costaguti_, celebrated for its six splendid ceilings by great artists, viz.:-- 1. _Albani_: Hercules wounding the Centaur Nessus. 2. _Domenichino_: Apollo in his car, Time discovering truth, &c., much injured. 3. _Guercino_: _Rinaldo_ and _Armida_ in a chariot drawn by dragons. 4. _Cav. d'Arpino_: Juno nursing Hercules, Venus and Cupids. 5. _Lanfranco_: Justice and Peace. 6. _Romanelli_: Arion saved by the dolphin. In a corner of the piazza, is a well-known _Lace-Shop_, much frequented by English ladies, but great powers of bargaining are called for. Almost immediately behind this is one of the most picturesque mediæval courtyards in the city. On the same line, at the end of the street, is the _Palazzo Mattei_, built by Carlo Maderno (1615) for Duke Asdrubal Mattei, on the site of the Circus of Flaminius. The small courtyard of this palace is well worth examining, and is one of the handsomest in Rome, being quite encrusted, as well as the staircase, with ancient bas-reliefs, busts, and other sculptures. It contained a gallery of pictures, the greater part of which have been dispersed. The rooms have frescoes by _Pomerancio_, _Lanfranco_, _Pietro da Cortona_, _Domenichino_, and _Albani_. Behind this, facing the Via delle Botteghe Oscure, is the vast _Palazzo Caëtani_, now inhabited by the learned Don Michael-Angelo Caëtani (Duke of Sermoneta and Prince of Teano), whose family is one of the most distinguished in the mediæval history of Rome, and which gave Boniface VIII. to the church: "Lo principe de' nuovi farisei." _Dante, Inferno,_ xxvii. It claims descent from Anatolius, created Count of Gaieta by Pope Gregory II. in 730. Close to the Palazzo Mattei is the _Church of Sta. Caterina de' Funari_, built by Giacomo della Porta, in 1563, adjoining a convent of Augustinian nuns. The streets in this quarter are interesting as bearing witness in their names to the existence of the Circus Flaminius, the especial circus of the plebs, which once occupied all the ground near this. The _Via delle Botteghe Oscure_, commemorates the dark shops which in mediæval times occupied the lower part of the circus, as they do now that of the Theatre of Marcellus. The Via dei Funari, the ropemakers who took advantage for their work of the light and open space which the interior of the deserted circus afforded. The remains of the circus existed to the sixteenth century.