The one who answered

A few hundred metres away stands Marforio, and the two statues once held a conversation together.

Marforio is a reclining river god nearly two metres tall, probably from the first century, found near the Forum of Mars, which seems to be where his name comes from. He became the city's second talking statue and settled into a fixed role: Marforio posed the question, Pasquino gave the answer.

It worked as a dialogue that spread across the whole city. Marforio might ask, for instance, why all the Romans wanted to leave town, and Pasquino would reply that they were chasing after the pope who had already carried it off. The joke always sat in the second half.

That is exactly why the statue was taken off the street in the late seventeenth century and set up indoors, in the courtyard of the Capitoline Museums. It still lies there, and that put an end to any long distance conversation.

You can see him with a museum ticket, or you settle for the thought that this is the only one of the group the authorities genuinely managed to silence.

We walk down from the Capitoline Hill toward the north and keep going until we reach the square in front of the great white monument, where the statue stands against the side wall of the palazzo.