At that time they were being collected with the greatest eagerness.

It was the period of the first excavations; the soil of Rome was daily giving up its treasures, and from Ostia, Tivoli, and Hadrian's Villa, from Porto d'Anzio and Palestrina, quantities of antiquities were being brought to the city.

If Vannozza and her husband did not share this passion with the other Romans, one would certainly not have looked in vain in her house for the cherished productions of modern art--cups and vases of marble and porphyry, and the gold ornaments of the jewelers.
The most essential thing in every well ordered Roman house was above all else the _credenza_, a great chest containing gold and silver table and drinking vessels and beautiful majolica; and care was taken always to display these articles at banquets and on other ceremonious occasions.
[Illustration: TRAJAN'S FORUM, ROME.] It is not likely that Rodrigo's mistress possessed a library, for private collections of books were at that time exceedingly rare in bourgeois houses.

A short time after this they were first made possible in Rome by the invention of printing, which was there carried on by Germans.
Vannozza's household doubtless was rich but not magnificent.

She must occasionally have entertained the cardinal, as well as the friends of the family, and especially the confidants of the Borgias: the Spaniards, Juan Lopez, Caranza, and Marades; and among the Romans, the Orsini, Porcari, Cesarini, and Barberini.