Hadrian. In 1474 it underwent some further reparations by Sixtus IV., to whom it owes its present name*. The two bridges which connect the island in the Tiber with the city-the one called Quattro Capi, from the four heads of Janus formerly placed upon it; the other, Ponte di S. Bartolommeo, from the neighbouring church—were built during the republic. The former was built in the year of Rome 692 by L. Fabricius, and thence styled Pons Fabricius. It is mentioned by Horace : Atque a Fabricio non tristem ponte reverti.—SAT. L. ii. 3, 36. The latter, originally called Pons Cestius, was erected by a person of the name of Cestius, of whom, however, nothing further is known. The Pons Palatinus or Senatorius-the first stone bridge ever built in Rome is also a work of the republic. It derives its modern name of Ponte Rotto from the destruction of two of its arches by a great flood in the year 1598. It is still used by foot passengers; a continuation having been made of wood. Some remains of the Pons Triumphalis and of the Pons Sublicius may still be seen occasionally when the Tiber is low. 305 WORKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. Raphaël a dit que Rome moderne étoit presqu'en entier bâtie avec les débris de Rome ancienne; et il est certain qu'on n'y peut faire un pas sans être frappé de quelques restes de l'antiquité.-CORINNE. THE oblong churches, called basilicas, so numerous in Italy, appear to be constructed on the model of those old Roman basilica, where causes were heard, ambassadors received, and various kinds of public business transacted. Their form was oblong; and in the middle was an open space called testudo. This inner space was surrounded by colonnades, consisting of one or more rows of pillars, forming a sort of side aisles, termed porticus. The testudo ended in a curve, to which, as causes were heard there, the name tribunal, was applied. Hence the term tribune, still applied to that end of the Roman churches which is behind the grand altar, and which in the oldest structures still retains the curved form. sort of transepts, were sometimes added*. 66 Chalcidica, a * These transepts, however, seem not to have produced the form of the Latin cross, but to have been added at the extremity of the building; for Baptista Albertus says, they joined these two (the Testudo and the Chalcidicum) so as to form a resemblance to the letter T." The old Basilica of St. Peter was exactly of this form. It is not improbable, that in the Christian Basilica the transepts were moved lower down in the building, in order to assimilate it to the form of the cross. The Italians always call the transept Crociata, and by those who write in Latin its designation is Crux. A specimen of the old basilica may still be seen at Pompeii in an almost perfect state. "Its length," says Blunt," is about two hundred and eight feet; its breadth eighty-three. It is divided into a nave and two side aisles (of which the nave is the widest) by two rows of columns, twelve in each row, running longitudinally. The great entrance corresponds with the western door in modern churches, in addition to which are two smaller side-doors. At the further extremity is an elevated tribunal (anciently called ẞnua), from which the magistrates dispensed justice, and which has been succeeded in the present places of worship by the altar; a circumstance proved not simply by the identity of their situations, but by the fact that the very same word ẞnua was long used by Christian writers to express the chancel in general, and in particular the bishop's chair, placed near the altar. (Vide Bingham, Vol. iii. 186). It is needless to observe how exactly this description accords with the modern oblong church." The plan of these basilicas is less complex than that of most other churches, whether Gothic or modern. The aisles are divided by single columns; the side altars are not closeted off; and both the design and the dimensions may be comprehended at the first glance. The objection, however, justly urged against them is, that their plan is too large for the elevation, that it is too wide for the thickness of their walls and columns, as well ás too economical in the supports. "Had the height of the columns," observes Forsyth, "determined that of the pile, the whole would have been disproportionately low and dark. To obviate this fault, the entablature due to a colonnade was suppressed, arches rose above the shafts, and high walls and windows above the arches. But where columns stand so close, the arch must be pitifully small; the walls piled above this slender support make the nave too lofty for the aisles; the front also suffers from this disproportion, and looks in some basilicas like an old church set upon a modern house." ST. JOHN LATERAN is said to have been originally built by Constantine in the precincts of his own palace, and to have formed part of the rich endowment of which Dante so much laments the consequences: Ahi Constantin! di quanto mal fu madre Constantine's work, however, having been destroyed by fire in the beginning of the fourteenth century, Clement V. began a new church on the site of the old one, and various popes contributed to its embellishment down to Sixtus V., who added the great portico where stands the colossal statue of Constantine, found in his baths. This portico, like the one at St. Peter's, does not project from the building; and the whole façade of the Lateran, like that of the Vatican basilica, betrays, though in a still greater degree, that love of ornament, and that tendency to run into a multiplicity of details, which form the besetting sin of the Italian architects. "Every niche holds a prophet; and a new band of white saints and apostles besieges the front of this unfortunate pile:” Egregias Lateranorum obsidet ædes Tota cohors.-Juv. Sat. 10. The interior is divided into a nave and four aisles by rows of pilasters, in which are said to be concealed the columns of the old basilica, now become too weak to support the load of additions. The two bronze columns at the altar of the Holy Sacrament in the north transept, are supposed to be the very same that were formed out of the rostra of the gallies taken at the battle of Actium; and to which Virgil is thought to allude in his third Georgic: Navali surgentes ære columnæ.—ver. 29. A chapel in this basilica, known by the name of the Corsini chapel, is one of the richest in Rome, and is admired both for its architecture and its sculptured decorations. The adjoining Baptistery-an octangular edifice, decorated with a number of ancient columns-is also attributed to Constantine. Palladio, however, thought it a building of much more recent date, made up of the spoils of antiquity. They who refer it to the age of Constantine adduce the font-which is sunk below the pavement, and large enough for the total immersion of adults as a proof that it must have been built when converts went down in crowds to be baptized. The church of S. STEFANO ROTONDO, said by |