In The Myddest Of The Citie Is
A Temple, In Fashyon Lyke Vnto The Colossus Of Rome, The Amphitheatrum,
I
Meane, lyke vnto a stage, yet not of marbled or hewed stones, but of
burnt bryckes; for this temple, like
Vnto an amphitheatre, hath
fourscore and ten, or an hundred gates,[FN#33] and is vaulted. The
entrance is by a discent of twelve stayers or degrees on euery
part[FN#34]: in the church porche, are sold only jewels and precious
stones. In the entry the gylted walles shyne on euery syde with
incomparable splendour. In the lower part of the temple (that is vnder
the vaulted places) is seene a maruelous multitude of men; for there
are fyue or sixe thousande men that sell none other thyng then sweete
oyntmentes, and especially a certayne odoriferous and most sweete
pouder wherewith dead bodyes are embalmed.[FN#35] And hence, all maner
of sweete sauours are carried in maner into the countreys of all the
Mahumetans. It passeth all beleefe to thynke of the exceedyng
sweetnesse of these sauours, farre surmounting the shoppes of the
apothecaries. The 23 daye of Maye the pardones began to be graunted in
the temple, and in what maner we wyll nowe declare. The temple in the
myddest is open without any inclosyng, and in the myddest also thereof
is a turrett of the largnesse of sixe passes in cercuitie,[FN#36] and
inuolued or hanged with cloth or
[p.349] tapestry of sylke[,][FN#37]and passeth not the heyght of a man.
They enter into the turret by a gate of syluer, and is on euery syde
besette with vesselles full of balme.
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