Phidias of modern days, the illustrious Canova, has recommended the placing in the Pantheon of the busts in marble of all the great men who have flourished in Italy, as the most appropriate ornament to this temple.  He himself with a princely liberality has made a present to it of the busts of Dante, Petrarca, Ariosto, Tasso, Guarini, Alfieri, Michel Angelo, Rafaello, Metastasio and various other worthies.  These busts are all the production either of Canova himself, or made by his pupils under his direction; they are not the least remarkable ornament of the place.  In the centre of the Piazza della Rotonda stands an obelisk brought from Egypt, which belonged to a temple sacred to Isis in that country.

I next repaired to the Piazza di Navona, a large and spacious square, where there is a superb fountain representing a vast rock with four colossal figures, one of which reclines at the foot of the rock, at each angle of the pedestal that supports it, and it is surmounted by an Obelisk which was brought from Egypt and was found in the gardens of Sallust.  The four colossal figures represent the four river Gods of the four great rivers in Europe, Asia, Africa and America, viz., the Danube, the Ganges, the Nile, and the Plata.  The statue of the Nile has his head half-concealed by a cloak, emblematical of the source of that river not being discovered.  In the Piazza are frequently held fairs, shews of wild beasts, theatrical exhibitions and sometimes combats of wild beasts.

I crossed the Tiber on my way to St Peter’s at the Ponte di Sant’ Angelo; directly on the other side of the river stands the castle of that name, an immense edifice formerly the Moles Adriana or Mausoleum of the Emperor Adrian.  It is of a circular form and is a remarkably striking object.  From here there is a spacious street as broad as Portland place, which leads to the magnificent Piazza, where stands the Metropolitan Church of the Christian world, the pride of Christendom, the triumph of modern architecture, flanked on each side by a semi-circular colonnaded portico, which constitutes one of its greatest beauties and distinguishes it from all the other temples in the world.  On the Piazza, considerably in front of this wonderful edifice and nearly in the centre, stands an immense Egyptian Obelisk, and at a short distance on each side of the Obelisk two magnificent fountains which spout water to a great height and which contribute greatly to the ornament of the Piazza.

Now you must not expect me to give you a description of this glorious temple.  I never in my life possessed descriptive powers, even for objects of no great importance:  how then could I attempt to delineate the innumerable beauties of this edifice?  Yet, vast as it is, the proportions of the facade are so correct, that they, together with the semi-circular colonnaded portico, serve to diminish its apparent size and to render its