Parker, John Henry: The archaeology of Rome (1,text): I. The primitive fortifications (Oxford [u.a.], 1874)

SECT. III.] Historical Notices of the Walls.

129

In the beginning of the fifteenth century Leonardus Aretinusx
mentions that the wall near the Janiculum had fallen down in several
places j it is now a picturesque ruin by the side of the road up to
a villa, this road is in the old foss, the earth on the other side of the
wall being many feet above it.
In a document of this period we find the Porta del Popolo first
mentioned ?:—
“In the year 1404. The King Ladislaus, after high mass, retired from the
palace which was at the top of S. Peter’s steps (the Vatican), and went out
through the Porta Viridaria (the garden-gate), and entered [Rome] over the Ponte
Molle, and through the gate of S. Maria del Popolo, and also entered through
the arch near the church of L Lorenzo in Lucina, and went through the Piazza
della Colonna (Antoniana), and made Galeot of Normandy a Knight in front of
his own house. And the said King rode through the Via di Torre de’ Conti
towards the church of the Lateran, where he abode for one night.”
In 1407 a part of the wall near the Monte Testaccio was de-
stroyed by the vassals of the Savelli coming from Albano, and in the
same year the Colonnas destroyed a part of the wall between the
Porta Maggiore and the Porta S. Lorenzoz. These and other parts
of the wall were repaired by Ladislaus, King of Naples, in 1408, but
the same king took down another part of the wall in 1413, near the
monastery of S. Croce, to effect his own entrance, and stationed his
forces in the Laterana.
In 1431, after the death of Martin V., (a Colonna,) Poggio Brac-
ciolini, a Florentine, wrote his treatise De Varietate Fortuna, in
which he says that he had measured the walls of the city, and found
them only ten miles without the Leonine city in the Trastevere.

x “ Adversus Janiculum mcenia erant
nonnullis locis vetustate collapsa, liasc
quoque loca armatis complebantur. ”
(Leonardi Aretini rer. suo temp, in
Ital. Gest. Comment, ap. Murat. Rer.
Ital. Script., t. xix. col. 923, D.)
y “Anno 1404. . . recessit dictus do-
minus rex Ladislaus de Palatio in capite
scalarum Sancti Petri post missam ma-
jorern, et exivit per Portam Viridariam,
et intravit per pontem Moli, ac etiam
per Portam Sane tee Marise dello Popolo,
et intravit etiam per arcum juxta eccle-
siam Sancti Laurentii in Lucina, et
ivit per regionem Columnse, et fecit
Militem Galeottum de Normannis ante
domum dicti Galeotti; et equitavit dic-
tus dominus Rex per viam Torre dello
Conte versus ecclesiam Lateranensem, et
ibi fecit residentiam per unam noctem. ”
(Diarium Romanum, ap. Murator. Rer.

Ital. Script., vol. xxiv. col. 974, B.)
z “A di 6. di Giugno i Colonnesi,
co gli altri cacciati da Roma, ruppero il
muro di Roma tra la porta di Santa
Maria Maggiore, e la porta di San Lo-
renzo, ed entrarono in Roma.” (Cron,
di Boiogna, ap. Murat. Rer. Ital. Script.,
t. xviii. col. 593, B.)
“ Inter alia mala per eum perpetrata
fuit confessus, quocl de Anno Domini
1407, de mense Februarii, fuit unus de
principalibus ad frangendum murum in
loco videlicet qui dicitur Testacia. Mul-
tum esset scribendum mala per eum
perpetrata.” (Diarium Romanum ab
anno MCCCCIV. usque ad MCCCCXVII.
auct. Ant. Petri; ap. Murat. Rer. Ital.
Script., t. xxiv. col. 988, C.)
a Diario della citta di Roma Scritto
da Stefano Infessura, ibid., vol. iii,
part 2, col. 1120, B.

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