Humanly Speaking by Samuel McChord Crothers
page 31 of 158 (19%)
page 31 of 158 (19%)
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you follow the spiral which celebrates his victories, till you come to
the top of the column; and there stands St. Peter as if it were _his_ monument. You meditate on the column of Marcus Aurelius, and look up and see St. Paul in the place of honor. "I must confess that I have had difficulty about the ruins. Brick, particularly in this climate, doesn't show its age. I find it hard to distinguish between a ruin and a building in the course of construction. When I got out of the station I saw a huge brick building across the street, which had been left unfinished as if the workmen had gone on strike. I learned that it was the remains of the Baths of Diocletian. Opening a door I found myself in a huge church, which had a long history I ought to have known something about, but didn't. "Now read this, and try to take it in: 'Returning to the Cancelleria, we proceed to the Piazza Campo de' Fiori, where the vegetable market is held in the morning, and where criminals were formerly executed. The bronze statue of the philosopher Giordano Bruno, who was burned here as a heretic in 1600, was erected in 1889. To the east once lay the Theatre of Pompey. Behind it lay the Porticus of Pompey where Cæsar was murdered, B.C. 44.' "It economizes space to have the vegetable market and the martyrdom of Giordano Bruno and the assassination of Julius Cæsar all close together. But they are too close. The imagination hasn't room to turn round. Especially as the market-women are very much alive and cannot conceive that any one would come into the Piazza unless he intended to buy vegetables. Somehow the great events you have read about don't seem to have impressed themselves on the neighborhood. At any rate, you are conscious that you are the only person in the Piazza Campo de' Fiori who |
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