l88o.]
shelter noble Romans fair and proud
whom Fate confined to economical
" flats," and whose wounded pride could
best be poulticed by the word palazzo.
Hans Christian Andersen knew this
palace well, and has described it as the
early home of his Inyflroz/z'satore. In those
days two fountains tinkled, one within,
the other just outside,
the dusky iron -barred
basement. One foun
tain,
however,
13
multitude of undraped windows opened like doors upon stone balconies, whither the inhabitants flew like a startled covey of birds every time the king and queen drove by in the street below, and upon which they passed always from room to room. The outer balcony looks down upon the Piazza Barberini and its fa
has
ceased to flow, and now if a passer-by peeps in at the grated window, whence issue hot strong vapors and bursts of merry laughter, he will see a huge stone basin into whose foaming con tents one fountain drips,
and over which a doz en washerwomen bend and pound with all their might and main in a bit of chiaroscuro that re minds one of Correggio. Over this Correggio glimpse wide stone stairs lead past dungeon-like doors up five flights to the skylighted roof. Each of these doors has a tiny opening through which gleams a watch ful eye and comes the sound of the inevitable "C/zz' 2?" whenever the doorbell rings, as if each comer were an armed marauder strayed down from the Middle Ages,
who must be well recon noitred before the fort THE COURT OF THE LEATIIERSTONEPAUGX-IS' PALACE. ress-gates are unbarred. It was in the ultimo piano that the mous Spouting Triton, with an horizon Leatherstonepaughs pitched their lodge line over the roofs broken by gloomy in a vast wilderness of colorful tiled roofs, stone-pines and cypresses that seem to moss-grown and lichen-laden, amid a for have grown from the buried griefs of est of quaintly-shaped and smokeless Rome's dead centuries. The inner bal chimneys. Their floors, guiltless of rugs cony overlooks the court, where through or carpets, were of earthen tiles and worn the wide windows of every story, amid into hollows where the feet of the palace the potted plants and climbing vines dwellers passed oftenest to and fro. A that never take on a shade of pallor in
