"In spite [...] of all the defects of its streets and its position, Rome was such a city that it had no equal, and it produced a great impression for the immense crowd that continuously came in turns, coming from all parts of the world; for the motion, for the life that continually stirred there; for the quantity and splendor of its public establishments and , and finally for the endless extension of the city. The gaze of anyone who had then climbed to the top of the Capitoline Hill would have been almost lost in a forest of monumental buildings, palaces, monuments of every kind, which stretched out beneath his feet, occupying, several miles away, hills and valleys. Where at present a deserted region extends towards the Alban mountains, populated by ruins, ravaged by the Maremma fever , there was at that time a plain that was not at all unhealthy, entirely cultivated, crossed by roads which teemed with people. The city continually expanded in the fields, in the surrounding towns, and its suburbs gave way to new and stupendous villas, to temples, to monuments, whose roofs and marble domes shone in the sun, among the luxuriant greenery of the woods and of the gardens."