"The Via Margutta is a street of studios and stables, crossed at the upper end by a little roofed gallery with a single window, like a shabby Bridge of Sighs. Horses are continually being washed and currycombed outside their stable doors; frequent heaps of _immondeazzajo_ make the air unfragrant; and the perspective is frequently damaged by rows of linen suspended across the road from window to window. Unsightly as they are, however, these obstacles in no wise affect the popularity of the Via Margutta, either as a residence for the artist, or a lounge for the amateur. Fashionable patrons leave their carriages at the corner, and pick their way daintily among the gutters and dust-heaps. A boar-hunt by Vallatti compensates for an unlucky splash; and a campagna sunset of Desoulavey glows all the richer for the squalor through which it is approached."--_Barbara's History._ In this street also is situated the _Costume Academy_. "Imagine a great barn of a room, with dingy walls half covered with chalk studies of the figure in all possible attitudes. Opposite the door is a low platform with revolving top, and beside it an _écorché_, or plaster figure bereft of skin, so as to exhibit the muscles. Ranges of benches, raised one above the other, occupy the remainder of the room; and if you were to look in at about eight o'clock on a winter's evening, you would find them tenanted by a multitude of young artists, mostly in their shirt sleeves, with perhaps three or four ladies, all disposed around the model, who stands upon the platform in one of the picturesque costumes of Southern Italy, with a cluster of eight lamps, intensified by a powerful reflector, immediately above his or her unlucky head. The costumes are regulated by Church times and seasons. During Lent the models were mediæval dresses; during the winter and carnival, Italian costumes of the present day; and with Easter begin mere draperies, _pieghe_, or folds, as they are technically called. Every evening the subject for the next night is chalked up on a black board beside the platform; for the next _two_ nights rather; for each model poses for two evenings; the position of his feet being chalked upon the platform, so as to secure the same attitude on the second evening. Consequently, four hours are allowed for each drawing.... The _pieghe_ are only for a single time, as it would be impossible to secure the same folds twice over.... The expense of attending the Academy, including attendance, each person's share in the model, and his own especial lamp, amounts to 2½_d._ an evening, or a scudo and a half (about 6_s._ 6_d._) a month; marvellously cheap, it most be confessed."--_H. M. B._, in _Once a Week_.