A small _bolla d’oro_, which (after that in the late Dr. Middleton’s
collection, and another preserved at Rome) is the third known to be
extant in Europe. As this ornament was worn by so great a number
of young persons at Rome, and made of gold, which is so capable of
resisting the injuries of the weather, moisture, _&c._ one cannot but
wonder at the extreme scarcity of these monuments in the cabinets of
the curious. The most probable way of accounting for this (according to
[44]Dr. Middleton) is, that the value of the materials, of which these
_bullæ_ were made, induced the poor labourers, as soon as they had
found one, to sell it to the first goldsmith they met with for its real
value (however small it might be), by weight.