DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61894#0030
20
CLASSICAL TOUR
Ch.l.
itself. It takes its present name Castel S.
Angelo from its destination (it is the citadel of
Rome) and from a bronze statue of an angel
standing with extended wings on its summit.
While speaking of these monuments of an-
cient magnificence, it is impossible not to men-
tion the Septizonium of Severus, and not to
regret its destruction ; as it had survived the dis-
asters of Rome, and suffered less during the
barbarous ages than most other public edifices.
It stood at the foot of the Palatine Mount near
the Clivus Scauri, that is opposite Mount Celius,
and the spot where now stands the convent of St.
Gregory. It was built in the form of a pyra-
mid, and consisted of seven porticos or temples
supported by pillars of the finest marbles, rising
above one another and towering to a prodigious
elevation. Three stories remained entire at so
late period as the reign of Sixtus Quintus,
who ordered the pillars to be conveyed to St.
Peter’s, which he was then building, and the
remaining part of the structure to be demolished.
It would be unjust and ungrateful to accuse a
Pope, to whom the world owes the dome of St.
Peter’s, of want of taste; or to suspect a sove-
reign, to whom modern Rome is indebted for
half her beauty, of indifference to her antiqui-
ties •, yet we cannot but lament the loss of the
CLASSICAL TOUR
Ch.l.
itself. It takes its present name Castel S.
Angelo from its destination (it is the citadel of
Rome) and from a bronze statue of an angel
standing with extended wings on its summit.
While speaking of these monuments of an-
cient magnificence, it is impossible not to men-
tion the Septizonium of Severus, and not to
regret its destruction ; as it had survived the dis-
asters of Rome, and suffered less during the
barbarous ages than most other public edifices.
It stood at the foot of the Palatine Mount near
the Clivus Scauri, that is opposite Mount Celius,
and the spot where now stands the convent of St.
Gregory. It was built in the form of a pyra-
mid, and consisted of seven porticos or temples
supported by pillars of the finest marbles, rising
above one another and towering to a prodigious
elevation. Three stories remained entire at so
late period as the reign of Sixtus Quintus,
who ordered the pillars to be conveyed to St.
Peter’s, which he was then building, and the
remaining part of the structure to be demolished.
It would be unjust and ungrateful to accuse a
Pope, to whom the world owes the dome of St.
Peter’s, of want of taste; or to suspect a sove-
reign, to whom modern Rome is indebted for
half her beauty, of indifference to her antiqui-
ties •, yet we cannot but lament the loss of the