cenaries and adventurers of the purest water, were the dread of all classes-of the Cardinals, who could not dipense with their services, and had to buy their good humour; —of the townspeople, who were at the mercy of their recklessness. The natural consequence was that during an interregnum Rome wore the look of a city armed for civil war. Every noble in self-defence assumed the privilege of arming his retainers and of drawing chains across the street in the neighbourhood of his palace, which was garrisoned by his followers, and converted into an asylum. He usurped the right of keeping his own quarter of the city free from all police but his own. Some of the great families succeeded in obtaining a recognition of this claim, like the Mattei, who had the right to hold the bridges of San Sisto and Quattro Capi, together with the intervening region of the Ghetto, with retainers wearing the badges of their house.[1] But in most cases the authority exercised by the various magnates was only the out-flow of an all-pervading spirit of license and
- ↑ At the corner of the streets running along the Mattei Palace there can still be seen the stone posts and rings for drawing chains during Conclave times.
