eBooks Base 2000

There are many
more absurd aquatic devices in Rome, however, and few better.
We turned into the Piazza de' Termini, the entrance of which is at this
fountain; and after some inquiry of the French soldiers, a numerous
detachment of whom appear to be quartered in the vicinity, we found our
way to the portal of Santa Maria degl' Angeli. The exterior of this
church has no pretensions to beauty or majesty, or, indeed, to
architectural merit of any kind, or to any architecture whatever; for it
looks like a confused pile of ruined brickwork, with a facade resembling
half the inner curve of a large oven. No one would imagine that there
was a church under that enormous heap of ancient rubbish. But the door
admits you into a circular vestibule, once an apartment of Diocletian's
Baths, but now a portion of the nave of the church, and surrounded with
monumental busts; and thence you pass into what was the central hall;
now, with little change, except of detail and ornament, transformed into
the body of the church.


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