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Updated: June 26, 2025
Then, quite abruptly, like a man suddenly remembering the most interesting thing of all, he exclaimed: "Ah! to wind up we'll just go to see the subterranean gallery where Caligula was murdered." Thereupon they descended into a long crypto-porticus, through the breaches of which the sun now casts bright rays. Some ornaments of stucco and fragments of mosaic-work are yet to be seen.
Ah! but in some low and obscure nook, some narrow closet on the ground-floor, shut, locked and bolted, and the key flung away, or beneath the marble pavement, in a stagnant water-puddle, with the richest pattern of mosaic-work above, may lie a corpse, half decayed, and still decaying, and diffusing its death-scent all through the palace!
But his most devoted worshipers thought that the god's noble, benevolent, grave countenance had a wrathful look; for, though nothing had been altered in this, the finest pillared hall in the world; though the beautiful pictures in relief on the walls and ceiling, the statues and altars of marble, bronze, and precious metals between the columns, and the costly mosaic-work of many colors which decked the floor in regular patterns, were the same as of yore, this splendid pavement was trodden to-day by thousands of feet which had no concern with the service of the god.
The whole inside of the dome is set with mosaic-work, the separate pieces being, so far as I could see, about half an inch square. Emerging on the roof, we had a fine view of all the surrounding Rome, including the Mediterranean Sea in the remote distance.
The ice formed by the freezing of water collecting in such holes and in the fissures of the surface is a pure crystallized ice, very different in color from the ice of the great mass of the glacier produced by snow; and sometimes, after a rain and frost, the surface of a glacier looks like a mosaic-work, in consequence of such veins and cylinders or spots of clear ice with which it is inlaid.
The mighty dome and the whole vast ceiling are mosaic-work in which tiny squares of blue, green, and gold crystal are made to work out patterns.
And the proud pomp, the dazzling, crushing splendour of everything, also astonished him: he marvelled at the cupola, looking like a planet, resplendent with the gold and bright colours of its mosaic-work, at the sumptuous /baldacchino/ of bronze, crowning the high altar raised above the very tomb of St.
The other furniture of the apartment was made up of sofas, arm-chairs, and chairs, with a marvellous Louis Quatorze table of gilded wood, having a top of mosaic-work representing the rape of Europa. But at first Pierre only saw Cardinal Boccanera standing by the table which he used for writing.
Not the least of the attractions are two monster wax candles, which, notwithstanding their lighting up at innumerable fasts and feasts, for the guide does not know how many years past, are still eight feet long by four in circumference; but more wonderful than the monster wax candles, the brass tomb of Constantine's daughter, set in the wall over one of the massive doors, the Sultan's hand-mark, the figure of the Virgin Mary, and the green columns brought from Baalbec; above everything else is the wonderful mosaic-work.
Then, quite abruptly, like a man suddenly remembering the most interesting thing of all, he exclaimed: "Ah! to wind up we'll just go to see the subterranean gallery where Caligula was murdered." Thereupon they descended into a long crypto-porticus, through the breaches of which the sun now casts bright rays. Some ornaments of stucco and fragments of mosaic-work are yet to be seen.
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