Architectural Museum Of The Roman Tabularium.

and size , now m the Capiioline Museum ; also several skulls , which were allowed a last resting-place in sacred ground , at the S . Lorenzo cemetery . Another chamber , contiguous and larger , is entered by a breach in these enduring walls , and communicates with the upper flight of the same staircase , of which remains

but a trace in a groove that crosses the masonry slanting on one side , aud terminates at a doorway , now only traceable in the outlines filled up with stonework . The construction of this larger chamber is an immense quadrate mass of reddish lithoid tuf ' o , without cementdivided at intervals by half-columns

, in the same stone , now covered with brick for better support ; and above these runs a plain cornice of similarly massive character . The vault here is so little elevated above the slope of the . stairs , as evidently to have been made after the latter had been cut off , or at least become unserviceable . Plainer

and Urlicks ( " Beschreibung Eoms" ) describe as seen about twenty years ago , the ruins of small , low chambers , almost filled by fallen material , above the first story of corridors : the origin of these , whether antique or Mediawal , these writers eousider doubtful ; and the actual site where the Fasti and public

treasure were deposited in the Tabularium , they believe cannot be decided . Within late years has been found the epigraph of the consul Catulus , lost since the seventeenth century . One more attraction of the Tabularium is the view from the archway spread above the Forum ,

in which all the ruin-groups of that region and the Palatine , with a noble background of mountains , are presented so strikingly thai , familiar as one may be with these antiquities severally , their aggregate here impresses as quite new , and formed into a picture of surpassing beauty . This is , rather than any other , the point for a photographic . view of the celebrated centre .

Another Architectural Museum of recent origin in Rome , is far more richly supplied than that on the Capitol , though not alike interesting for the site it occupies , the one filling a considerable compartment of the Sculpture Gallery in the Lateran Palace , founded by Gregory XVI . The specimens of decorative detailomaloin that collectionfrom various

, , , classic ruins , are of singular beauty , some most delicately elaborated , others remarkable for boldness not less than grace of design . Neither of these museums is yet provided with a catalogue . The superb temple of Jupiter Capitolinus has left not one fragment of ruin on the high terrace where

the Aracoeli church has taken its place ; but a curtain of brickwork , clothing the steep sides of the Capitol beneath , is a visible remnant of its substructures ; and recently some chambers , here opening within the mount from that surface of ancient wall , have been brought more agreeably within reach of inspection , the slope between the northern approach to thd Capitol , and the great staircase leading to that church's front ( hitherto in the same vile condition to

which such waste ground is commonly abandoned in Rome ) , being now transformed into a pleasant garden , where cactuses and aloes grow , and a fountain gushes in the midst . Four small vaulted chambers of brick masonry , well preserved , are thus more easily visited , opening from this new garden , and only fenced by iron railings ; another similar , converted into a . woi'k-

Architectural Museum Of The Roman Tabularium.

men s lumber-room , being reached from the Capitoline piazza , and sometimes accessible when a door chances to be left open .

The Temporary Decoration Of Public Buildings.

THE TEMPORARY DECORATION OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS .

Much money is often lavished upon tbe festal decorations of public buildings with so little success , that a few words on tbo most evident causes of failure , according to tho views of tbe writer , may not bo out of place . Elaborate attempts at external decorations for daylight effect , combining ; the profuse employment of evergreens , mottoes , and allegorical paintings in imitation of

sculpture , though seeming to promise good results in the hands of a master of the art of holiday ornament , have been made before now to produce almost positive ugliness . They have certainly not been the means of imparting additional beauty to the buildings they were intended to adorn . The same may be said of ' onr attempts at architectural illuminatiori . The niht effects have

g been almost as unsuccessful as tho day ones ; the attempts to light up the exterior of our public buildings in accordance with their architectural forms liaving often proved failures in very opposite fashions ; in some instances being tawdry , and in others altogether ineffec tive , and certainly wanting in that brilliancy which should always be the aim in public illuminations .

But ib is not intended in the present remarks to discuss in detail the causes of failure in external decorations , either by daylight or night effect : it is to internal decorations that these observations are addressed . It would seem to be only by accident that such efforts at temporary decoration are occasionally successful , as the occasions of even partial success very rarely occur . One

of the most common mistakes is the overloading the architectural features of a suite of apartments with unmeaning draperies . This is the almost only method adopted in Catholic countries on the great festivals of the Romish Church , and thc result is all the more fatal

to the internal architecture of the churches « from an awkward attempt to make these dressings accord ivith the architectural structure of the building . What , for in stance , can be more wretched than the effect of the in terior of St . Peters at Rome , when arrayed in all the faded trumpery of scarlet and gold hangings during the performance of some of its more important services ? It

is easy to imagine what the noble pilasters of that wonderful building , with their brilliant inlays of the richest marbles , must lose by being covered up with long strips of scarlet cloth , rendered tawdry by imitation pannelliugs of tarnished gold lace . Such dressings as these , fitted to each architectural feature , so as to bo tied on for festive occasions , and folded up and put away for another

time when each festival is over , make up a sort of costume in which it is thought to render the magnificent edifice more beautiful on the different great / esfas of the church of Rome . All attempts to produce elaborate decorative effects by such means , especially when iu a set form , to be repeated , time after time , are even more objectionable than the pink and white calico festoonings of our own

attempts at giving additional effect to our great halls , or othor public buildings , on high days and holidays . It is , however , with a more solid and ambitious class of temporary ornament that I would deal with . Iu the first place , a strong veto ought to be put upon the use of rough and careless gilding . When surfaces have not been properlpreparedthe effect produced b ilding

y , y g is precisely of the gingerbread character , the gold leaf adhering imperfectly , and consequently having that rough but vulgarly gaudy effect which characterises the gilding of pastry or sweatmeats . Nothing is so effective as gold when soberly employed , aud when its artistic application has been carefully and