At night, with electricity economised, the place is entirely dark, and at first, among the many entrances that open on all sides of the courtyard, I would always become confused and have to summon the portiere. You need matches to achieve the ascent of the shallow and wide and deep interminable marble stairs, made for unimaginable grandeur, that the proportionately lofty arched windows illuminate only faintly; and by the glimmer, beneath the stone vaults and among the great funeral vases and the flower-carved entablatures, one has glimpses of Roman relics that appear, on their heroic scale, in a completely Surrealist key; the conventionally statuesque pose of a white naked hero with a sword would be followed by a similar figure in an unexpected half-squatting posture; a single finger from an ancient colossus, standing upright on a pedestal, loomed as tall as an ordinary statue; and a bearded man, seated … and leaning forward intent on a book, had the appearance of reading in the toilet. As the staircase goes on so long that you finally lose count of the landings, you are likely to try wrong apartments and get the rooms of some lurking nobleman whose old butler peers out through the crack of a door apprehensively secured by a chain.

From ‘Rome in Midsummer’ in Europe without Baedeker by