138. ‘Fontana di dolore, albergo d’ira,’

Fountain of sorrows, house of anger,

school of errors, and temple of heresy,

once Rome, now a Babylon of deceit,

from which come so many tears and sighs:

O smithy of deceptions, O prison,

where good dies, and evil is nourished,

a living hell, a miracle indeed if Christ

is not wrathful against you in the end.

Founded in chaste and humble poverty,

impudent whore, you raise your horns

against your founders: where is your hope?

In your adulterers? Or in the evil born

from such riches? Constantine will not return:

but take them to the sad world that creates them.

Note: The Emperor Constantine the Great (d. 337AD) was wrongly thought in the Middle Ages to have granted the Papacy temporal power in the West, by the document called the Donation of Constantine.

‘Constantine Burning Memorials’ - Pietro da Cortona (Italian, 1596 - 1669), The Getty Open Content Program">The Getty Open Content Program