The grand gallery which leads to the library termi nates in the museum Pio-Clementinum, begun by Cle ment XIV. and completed by Pius VI. It consists of several apartments, galleries, halls, and temples, some lined with marble, others with mosaic pavement, and all of them full of statues, altars, tombs, candelabra, and vases. Three anti-chambers, called 11 vestibolo Qadrato, Il vestibolo Rotondo, and La Camera di Baccho, lead to a court more than 100 feet square, with a portico supported by granite pillars, and deco rated by antiquities of all kinds; with the Apollo Bel videre, the Laocoon, the cartoons and the Torso. Next to the court is the hall of animals; furnished with the ancient statues of animals. At one end this hall opens into the gallery of Statues, containing on each side exquisite statues of Greek and Roman sculpture, and terminated by three apartments called the Stanze Belle Bustc. The busts rest on tables or stands of ancient workmanship, and commonly of the most curious and beautiful marble. At the opposite end of the gallery is an apartment called // Gabinetto, adorned by the united arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Its roof is supported by eight columns of alabaster. The place shines with ancient mirrors, and its roof is adorned with the events of history and mythology. This cabinet communicates by an open gallery with the Stanze delle Buste on one side, and the hall of animals on the other. Through a noble pillared vestibule we now enter the temple of the Muses, an octagon supported by sixteen pillars of Carrara marble with ancient capitols, and paved with ancient mosaics. Next to the temple of the Muses is the Sala Rotonda, a lofty dome, supported by ten co lumns of Carrara marble, paved with the largest mo saics yet found. In the middle is a vase of porphyry, fifty feet in circumference, or forty-two, according to a later author. This hall is appropriated to colossal statues, among which are Ceres, Juno, Lanuvina, Ha drian, Antinous, Jupiter, Jupiter Serapis, and Ocean. From the Rotonda, which is reckoned the finest hall in the museum, a rich portal leads to the Sala a Croce Greca, supported by columns, and paved with an an cient mosaic brought from Cicero's villa. Here is a vast sarcophagus, formed with its lid of one block of red porphyry, adorned in basso relievo with little cu pids. This once contained the ashes of Constantia, the daughter of Constantine.
This last hall opens on a double staircase raised on pillars of red and white granite, with mar ble steps and a bronze ballustrade. The middle flight leads to the Vatican library, the other two to the gal lery of Candelabra, a long gallery of six compart ments, separated by columns of rich marble. This gallery contains various candelabra with vases and other objects of antiquity. At the end of this long suite of apartments a door opens into the Galleria de Quadri, containing a collection of pictures by the Ita lian masters. On the left, before descending the above-mentioned staircase, there is a beautiful little circular temple of marble, called the Stanze della Bi ga, from the biga or triumphal car of richly sculp tured marble which stands in the centre, drawn by two fiery steeds of bronze. It is adorned by four bas reliefs, a statue of Auriga, and a fine discobolus. Be sides these galleries, there is the long geographical gallery, with maps of the Italian mountains and ri vers on its walls, and the tapestry chambers hung with tapestry woven in Flanders, and copied from the cartoons of Raphael.
Among the other objects of public interest at Rome, is the museum of the Capitol, consisting of splendid halls and galleries, filled with the treasures of ancient sculpture, which it is impossible here to enumerate, far less to describe. The museum of paintings in the Capitol is contained in the opposite Palazzo di Con servatori, in which there are likewise many objects of antiquity. The paintings are coarse, and inferior in interest to the sculptures in the other museum.
The limits of this article, already overstepped, will not permit.us to give any account of the palaces or family residences of the nobility in Rome. In many of the palaces the lower stories have grated windows, and no glass. In others they are used as shops, while the middle story is let out as lodgings, and the noble families who own them, inhabit the upper story. The nano palace, for example, has shops below. The upper stories are occupied by twenty different fami lies, and the duke and duchess live in a corner of it.
The great families, however, of Doria, Borghese, and Colonna, are sufficiently wealthy to support their hereditary dignity ; and their palaces are filled with their own families or dependants. We are told, how ever, that butter is sold regularly at the Doria palace every week. All the ancient palaces have in the en trance hall a state crimson canopy, where the prince sits on a throne, to hear the complaints and redress the grievances of his vassals.
The Doria palace has three vast fronts; the stair case, supported by pillars of oriental granite, conducts to a magnificent gallery, occupying the four sides of a square court, and containing one of the largest and the best collection of paintings in Italy.
The Colonna palace has the finest gallery, and the best collection of pictures in Rome. The exterior of the building is of indifferent architecture. The li brary is spacious and well filled, and its great gallery, more than 220 feet long, and 40 broad, is supported by Corinthian pillars and pilasters of beautiful yellow marble, and adorned on the sides and vaulted ceilings with paintings and gildings intermingled.
A part of the paintings and curiosities of the Palaz zo Barberini have been sold, from the poverty of the family. Another part of them at the Lucanni palace form a very select collection.
The Palazzo Borghese, one of the largest and hand somest in Rome, is now inhabited by Paolina, the sis ter of Bonaparte and the wife of the prince Borghese, who lives constantly at Florence. The edifice is su perb, and remarkable for its extent, its porticos, its granite columns, and its paintings and statues.
The other leading palaces in Rome are the P. Rus poli, remarkable for its staircase; the P. Orsini, found ed on the theatre of Marcellus; the P. Giustiniani, standing near Nero's baths, and adorned with the sta tues and columns extracted from them; the I'. Alfieri, adorned with the pictures of Claude Lorraine; the P. Corsini, once the residence of Christina, queen of Sweden, .remarkable for its fine library and collection of prints; the P. Farnese, of immense size and eleva tion, and considered by some as the finest in Rome; the P. Falconieri, the residence of Cardinal Fesch; the P. Spada, containing the celebrated statue of Pompey, at the foot of which Cxsar fell.