There is a palace outside Rome (said to be of Titus).  The Consul and his 300 Senators treated him with disfavour, because he failed to take Jerusalem till after three years, though they had bidden him to capture it within two[24].

In Rome is also the palace of Vespasianus, a great and very strong building; also the Colosseum[25], in which edifice there are 365 sections, according to the days of the solar year; and the circumference of these palaces is three miles.  There were battles fought here in olden times, and in the palace more than 100,000 men were slain, and there their bones remain piled up to the present day.

[p.10]

The king caused to be engraved a representation of the battle and of the forces on either side facing one another, both warriors and horses, all in marble, to exhibit to the world the war of the days of old.

In Rome there is a cave which runs underground, and catacombs of King Tarmal Galsin and his royal consort who are to be found there, seated upon their thrones, and with them about a hundred royal personages.  They are all embalmed and preserved to this day.  In the church of St. John in the Lateran there are two bronze columns taken from the Temple, the handiwork of King Solomon, each column being engraved “Solomon the son of David.”  The Jews of Rome told me that every year upon the 9th of Ab they found the columns exuding moisture like water.  There also is the cave where Titus the son of Vespasianus stored the Temple vessels which he brought from Jerusalem.  There is also a cave in a hill on one bank of the River Tiber where are the graves of the ten martyrs[26].

[p.11]

In front of St. John in the Lateran there are statues of Samson in marble, with a spear in his hand, and of Absalom the son of King David, and another of Constantinus the Great, who built Constantinople and after whom it was called.  The last-named statue is of bronze, the horse being overlaid with gold[27].  Many other edifices are there, and remarkable sights beyond enumeration.

From Rome it is four days to Capua, the large town which King Capys built.  It is a fine city, but its water is bad, and the country is fever-stricken[28].  About 300 Jews live there, among them great scholars and esteemed persons, at their heads being R. Conso, his brother R. Israel, R. Zaken and the chief rabbi R. David, since deceased.  They call this district the Principality.

From there one goes to Pozzuoli which is called Sorrento the Great, built by Zur, son of Hadadezer, when he fled in fear of David the king.  The sea has risen and covered the city from its two sides, and at the present day one can still see the markets and towers which stood in the midst of the city[29].

[p.12]

A spring issues forth from beneath the ground containing the oil which is called petroleum.  People collect it from the surface of the water and use it medicinally.  There are also hot-water springs to the number of about twenty, which issue from the ground and are situated near the sea, and every man who has any disease can go and bathe in them and get cured.  All the afflicted of Lombardy visit it in the summer-time for that purpose.