By the death of Dr. Steele of Florence on the sixteenth day of July 1917, in the eighty-second year of his age, the British School of Archaeology in Rome has lost one of its earliest and most generous benefactors. It is therefore fitting that a grateful tribute to his memory should find a place among the Papers of the School.

James Peddie Steele was born at Dalkeith on 4 May, 1836. He was the son of the Rev. Peter Steele, for some time Rector of Dalkeith Grammar School. As a boy of fourteen he won a prize for an English poem on the Laocoon. At the University of Edinburgh, where he took the degree of B.A. in 1859, his earliest distinctions were won in the field of the Greek and Latin Classics, in which he found a never failing source of inspiration and recreation during a large part of his long life. He attended the lectures of John Stuart Blackie, who, on his election to the Chair of Greek in 1853, was permitted to appoint an assistant lecturer to relieve him in some of the duties of his professorship. About 1860 the appointment was held for a short time by Steele, who was also associated with the ‘Hellenic Society’ founded among the younger men by Blackie, who ‘held weekly meetings in the evening for reading through the Greek classics…for pure delight, and not for minute critical exercise.’ I am informed that Professor J. A. Stewart, of Oxford, who knew Dr. Steele, had as a boy heard William Veitch, one of the most accurate Greek scholars of Scotland, express a high opinion of his scholarship. Most of his energies were, however, devoted to preparation for his future profession, and, with this aim in view, he became an M.D. and an L.R.C.S. of Edinburgh in 1861.

There was not, properly speaking, a Roman School of Medallists before the middle of the sixteenth century, and when at last something like a school could be said to have been established at Rome, the art had fallen to so low a level, in every respect except that of technique, that it had become nearly devoid of interest. The medallists who worked there from the time of Nicholas V. were almost, if not quite, without exception immigrants from other cities such as Florence or Mantua. The work of this artistic colluvies gentium, however, received a certain definite impress from the surroundings in which they lived. There may not be a Roman style, but there is a Roman atmosphere, and the relations of the artists with the Papal court give a certain continuity of interest which it is worth while to try and trace.

The history of the palace of the Colonna family which stood on the site which was afterwards occupied by the Palazzo Odescalchi is by no means completely known : but the researches which Sig. Francesco Tomassetti has been good enough to make in the Boncompagni Ludovisi archives, with the kind permission of the Prince of Piombino, have thrown a considerable amount of light on it : and I therefore give the results of his investigations; which have brought to light some very interesting facts.

We saw that Bufalini's plan of Rome (1551) showed a palace of the Colonna family existing on a part of the site. This palace belonged to Pierfrancesco Colonna, lord of Zagarolo and Colonna, and passed with these estates to his heiress Vittoria, who married Camilla Colonna. The latter died in 1558, and his widow gave it on July 10, 1562, with the rest of her property (Zagarolo and Colonna) to her sons Cardinal Marcantonio and Prospero Colonna and her grandson Marzio, son of Pompeo Colonna, in equal portions, on condition that in case of the death of one, the others should succeed in the order given.

The Via Claudia Valeria was the prolongation of the Via Valeria to its natural termination upon the shores of the Adriatic. During the Republican period the principal lines of communication between Rome and almost every part of Italy were fixed and settled, even if they had not become viae munitae; and so it remained for the Emperors to develop this system and bring it to its logical conclusion. The old Via Valeria linked Rome with Alba Fucens, and, by natural extensions, with the country of the Marsi and the Paeligni. The Emperor Claudius went a step further, and, by connecting the Via Valeria at Cerfennia (Collarmele) with the Mare Superum at the Ostia Aterni (Pescara), not only brought the Paeligni and the Marrucini into direct connection with the capital, but opened up a most important route between the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. With the Paeligni and the Marrucini, through whose territory the Via Claudia Valeria passed, the Romans never had any serious trouble. We first hear of relations between Rome and these people in the middle of the fourth century. No serious hostilities are mentioned and Roman armies appear to have been able to march through their territory without opposition.; In 304 B.C. Rome granted, a treaty to the Marrucini, Marsi, Paeligni and Frentani, all of whom remained generally loyal in aftertimes. The Via Salaria, which, in its mature form, connected Rome with Ausculum and Castrum Truentinum, a point on the Adriatic coast somewhat to the north of the mouth of the Aternus, was of very early origin. To the late Republican period (117 B.C.) belongs the Via Caecilia, which branched off from the Via Salaria in the valley of the Farfa (at the 36th mile) and, after passing through Amiternum, the chief town of the northern Sabini, reached Hadria and the coast.

The history of the monuments and works of art of the classical period, which were in existence in Rome during the Renaissance, is of importance to us for many reasons. We may learn what were the materials which were at the disposal of the great masters in architecture, painting, and sculpture, and see in their drawings and sketches, as well as in the works which they actually executed, what use they made of the models which they had before their eyes, and what interested them in a greater or less degree. We may trace the growth of that antiquarianism out of which the science of archaeology was in process of time to develop. We may also obtain valuable information concerning much that has been destroyed or lost, or has, at least, come down to us in a very different state to that in which it was in their day.

Of late years it would appear that the subject of Papal Iconography has been singularly neglected; nor as far as we are aware has the subject been at all exhaustively treated in any monograph. Yet if its claim to importance calls for justification, it should suffice to quote the following passage in which J. A. Symonds records the impression made upon him by the busts of the Popes (Fig. I) which adorn the walls of the Duomo of Siena:

The relief of a priest of Bellona, reproduced on Plate XXVI., is to be seen on the top landing of the staircase of the Biblioteca Vallicelliana— the ancient library of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, which is now the seat of the Società Romana di Storia Patria. During the summer of 1917 when working almost daily in this library I repeatedly studied the interesting slab, and by the courtesy of the Assistant Librarian, Signor Cordella, was able to have it photographed, with a view to publication in the present volume of our Papers.

The relief was discovered in the year 1729 in the Vigna Mellini on Monte Mario which belonged at the time to the Fathers of the Roman Oratory. It is of a sepulchral character, and adorned a tomb situated between the second and third milestone of the ancient Via Triumphalis.

The bronze plaque with bust portrait of Aristotle reproduced on Plate XXV. by kind permission of its present owner, Mr. Maurice Rosenheim, was once the property of the English College in Rome—the venerable institution whose history has recently been made the subject of an important and exhaustive monograph by His Eminence Cardinal Gasquet. An illustration of the plaque taken from the same photograph as the present plate, together with brief notes contributed by Dr. Ashby and myself, has already been given in His Eminence's book. Dr. Ashby's note appears in the earlier part of the book, which was already printed off when my own note, written after the re-discovery of the plaque, was sent in. The later account, therefore, could only be hurriedly inserted on the eve of publication, without time for a proof, and I gladly take this opportunity of amplifying and correcting it.

Another memorial of Cardinal Allen and of his friends in Rome has lately been brought to my notice by Lord Gerald Wellesley, to whom it belongs, and may fitly be placed in record here in connection with the plaquette of Aristotle. This is a copy of the second edition (Rome, Zannetti, 1593) of the celebrated replies (Responsiones) issued seriatim to each clause of Queen Elizabeth's edict against Catholics in the year 1591: Elizabethae Angliae Reginae Haeresim Calvinianam propugnantis saevissimum in Catholicos sui … Regni edictum … cum responsione ad singula capita … per D. Andream Philopatrum Presbyterum, etc. It is common knowledge that the pseudonym of Philopater conceals the name of the famous English Jesuit, Fr. Robert Parsons, so that the authorship of the book alone takes us back into the circle of the English College at Rome, which Dr. William—afterwards Cardinal—Allen had helped to found in 1575, and of which Parsons had been appointed Rector in 1585. But this particular copy, as the various inscriptions and stamps it bears testify, had sundry bibliographical adventures which it is not without interest to retrace.

This study forms part of my work as Rome Scholar in Architecture, 1913, and was undertaken in accordance with the Memorandum of the Faculty of Architecture of the British School at Rome.

In collecting and arranging material and in writing these notes I have been helped by my wife who, as holder of the Mary Ewart Travelling Studentship from Newnham College, Cambridge, has collaborated with me throughout. To her I owe many ideas and suggestions of archaeological importance in my scheme for restoration.

Further, I am greatly indebted to Mr. Ernest Prestwich, M.A., A.R.I.B.A. In 1911 Mr. Prestwich made a survey of the existing antiquities of Palestrina with a view to making a restoration. As he was unable to carry out this plan he very kindly put the material he had collected at my disposal. This has been very valuable to me throughout.