ascribes the ruin of the arcades towards the Cælian mount to Robert Guiscard: who, if he destroyed the structures between that mount and the Capitol', must necessarily have fallen upon the Coliseum. What is certain is, that for more than two centuries and a half the buildings dedicated to the amusement contributed to the distresses of Rome. Donatus, and after him Mr. Gibbon, have made a mistake in supposing that a manufactory of silk weavers was established there in the twelfth century. The Bandonarii or Banderarii of the Coliseum in 1192, noticed by a cotemporary writer2, were the officers who carried the standards of their

"Et majorem urbis partem Cœlium inter et Capitolium sitam evertit." These words of Leo Ostiensis (Ap. Baron. ad an. 1084) are quoted by Marangoni, but the Abate Fea, Dissert. p. 395. finding no certain memorial, hesitates.

See-Ordo Romanus xii. auct. Cencio Camerario. ap. Mabill. Museum Italic. tom. ii. p. 195. num. 52. "Bandonarii Colosæi et Cacabarii, quando dominus Papa coronatur, in eundo et redeundo ipsum cum vexillis præcedunt, quasi etenim una schola est, et eadem die debent comedere cum eodem domino Papa." They were certain trained bands of the different quarters, as we see by this expression in Villani, cap. xiv. lib. vii. Itiner. Greg. X. "Currebant Banderarii Romani velut dementes tubis clangentibus." See also Ducange verb. Banderarii.-Marangoni. p. 49. The mistake of Donatus is at lib. iii. cap. vi., that of Gibbon at cap. lxxi. p. 419. oct. vol. xii,

school, and preceded the pope in his coronation. No such employment was exercised in the Coliseum, which was now become a regular fortress. Innocent II. took refuge there in 1130; and the Frangipani were shortly after expelled, but made themselves masters of it a second time. Alexander III. retreated thither from the Ghibeline faction in 1165.

In 1244 Henry and John Frangipane were obliged to cede the half of their intrenchment to the Annibaldi; but by the authority of Innocent IV. recovered entire possession in the course of the same year. The Annibaldi, however, succeeded in driving out their rivals; and held the Coliseum up to the year 1312, when they were compelled to yield it to the emperor Henry VII. In the year 1332 it was the property of the Senate and Roman people. This is the date of the bull-feast of which Ludovico Monaldesco has left an account' transcribed

"Annali di Ludovico Monaldesco. ap. Script. Rer. Ital. tom. xii. p. 529, 542. A modester memorialist was never met with. This is all he says of himself: "I, Lewis of Bonconte Monaldesco, was born in Orvietto, and was brought up in the city of Rome where I lived. I was born in the year 1327 in the month of June, at the coming of the emperor Lewis; and now I will relate all the story of my times, for I lived in the world a hundred and fifteen years without any sickness except at my birth and death, and I died of old

into the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The contrivance of such an exhibition has given rise to a persuasion that the amphitheatre was then entire; but the adaptation of a range of benches round the area would not be difficult even now; and indeed it will be observed, it was resolved to renew the bull-fights even at the end of the seventeenth century.

It is generally agreed that the porticoes on the south side were the first to give way: and those who assign the earliest date to the destruction of the exterior range of arcades in this quarter and towards the Arch of Constantine, do not descend lower than the famous earthquake in 1349. It is certain that in the year 1381 a third part of the building and a jurisdiction over the whole was granted by the Senate and Roman people to the religious society of Sancta Sanctorum, who probably formed their hospital in the higher arches blocked up by the Frangipani, of whose walls traces are yet apparent towards the Lateran. Their privileges continued until the year 1510, and their property was recognized in the beginning of the sevenage, having been bed-ridden a twelvemonth. Sometimes I went to Orvietto to see my relations." The narration of his own death is found in all the MSS. and judiciously inserted by Muratori, who bears testimony to the authenticity of this posthumous writer,

teenth century'. The arms of the S. P. Q. R. and of the above company, namely, our Saviour on an altar between two candlesticks, are still seen on the outside of the arcades towards the church of St. Gregory and the Arch of Constantine, which must, therefore, have been, as they are now, the external range; but which, before the outer circles had fallen down, were, in fact, the internal arches of the first corridore. This proof seems decisive, that as early at least as the middle of the fourteenth century, the exterior circumference had ceased to be "entire and inviolate," so that Mr. Gibbon, by following, or rather by divining the mysterious Montfaucon, has made a mistake of two hundred years in assigning that state of preservation even as low down as the middle of the sixteenth century.

'Marangoni, ibid. p. 55. et seq. They seem to have made a claim so late as 1714, which was not attended to. Ibid. p. 72.

2 "The inside was damaged; but in the middle of the sixteenth century, an era of taste and learning, the exterior circumference of 1612 feet was still entire and inviolate, a triple elevation of fourscore arches which rose to the height of 108. feet. Of the present ruin, the nephews of Paul III. are the guilty agents:" Decline and Fall, cap. lxxi. p. 424. and note 63. After measuring the priscus amphitheatri gyrus, Montfaucon, p. 142, only adds that it was entire under Paul III. Tacendo clamat. Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xiv. p. 371, more freely reports the guilt of the Farnese pope and the indignation of the Roman people. Look into Mu

A letter in the Vatican library from the bishop of Orvietto, legate to Pope Urban V. about the year 1362, is said to inform that pontiff that the stones of the Coliseum had been offered for sale, but had found no other purchaser, than the Frangipane family, who wished to buy them for the construction of a palace. The editor of Winkelmann was, however', unable to find this letter and it is somewhat singular that no search has as yet been able to discover the document which Barthelemy saw in the archives of the Vatican, and which contained a common privilege granted to the factions of Rome of

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digging out" stones from the Coliseum'. The author of Anacharsis, however, can hardly be suspected of an imposture; and the exaggeration of Poggio, who says that in his time the greater part of the amphitheatre had been

ratori, you find these words: "Per fabbricare il Palazzo Farnese gran guasto diede all anfiteatro di Tito. Fece gridare il clero e i Popoli suoi per le gravezze loro accresciute." Annali. ad an. 1549. tom. x. p. 335. The indignation of the people was for the taxes, not the destruction of the Coliseum.

1 Dissertazione, &c. p. 399.

"Et præterea, si omnes concordarent de faciendo Tiburtino quod esset commune id quod foderetur." Mémoires de l'academie des inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 585 also published separately.

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