building.  Almost all the houses, as Raphael said, have been built with lime made of the costly old marbles.  The very streets in the newly-formed parts of the city are macadamised with the fragments of costly baths and pillars.  I took up one day, out of curiosity, some of the road-metal near the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, and I identified in the handful no less than a dozen varieties of the most beautiful marbles and porphyries from Greece, Africa, and Asia.  And when we remember that all these foreign stones were brought into Rome during the interval between the end of the Republic and the time of Constantine—­a period of between three hundred and four hundred years—­we can form some idea of the extraordinary wealth and luxury of the Imperial City when it was in its prime.

CHAPTER XI

THE VATICAN CODEX

Among the numberless objects of interest to be seen in Rome, a very high place must be assigned to the Codex Vaticanus, probably the oldest vellum manuscript in existence, and the richest treasure of the great Vatican Library.  This famous manuscript, which Biblical scholars designate by the letter B, contains the oldest copy of the Septuagint, and the first Greek version of the New Testament.  In addition to the profound interest which its own intrinsic value has inspired, it has been invested with a halo of romance seldom associated with dry palaeographical studies—­on account of the unreasonable jealousy and capricious conduct of its guardians.  For a long time it was altogether inaccessible for study to Biblical scholars, and few were allowed even to see it.  These restrictions, however, have now happily to a considerable extent been removed; and provided with an order, easily obtained from the Vatican librarian, or from the Prefect of the sacred palaces, in reply to a polite note, any respectable person is permitted to inspect it.

The first feeling which one has in the Vatican Library is that of surprise.  You might walk through the Great Hall and adjoining galleries without suspecting the place to be a library at all; for the bookcases that line the lower portion of the walls are closed with panelled doors, painted in arabesque on a ground of white and slate colour, and surrounded by gilded mouldings, and not a single book is visible.  The vaulted ceiling of the rooms is glowing with gold and ultramarine; the walls are adorned with beautiful frescoes representing the different Councils of the Church; and magnificent tables of polished Oriental granite, and of various precious marbles, vases of porphyry, malachite, and alabaster, and priceless candelabra of Sevres china—­the gifts of kings and emperors—­occupy the spaces between the pillars and pilasters, and cast their rich shadows on the gleaming marble pavement.  A vast variety of objects of rare beauty, artistic value, and antique interest arrest the attention, and would amply reward the study of weeks.