Pyramid of Cestius an essential sight for many who undertook the Grand Tour in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was much admired by architects, becoming the primary model for pyramids built in the West during this period. Percy Bysshe Shelley described it as "one keen pyramid with wedge sublime" in "Adonaïs", his 1821 elegy for John Keats. In turn the English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy saw the pyramid during a visit to the nearby Protestant Cemetery in 1887 and was inspired to write a poem, "Rome: At the Pyramid of Cestius near the Graves of Shelley and Keats", in which he
Monuments to an Elegy more guitars; but more so on the epic side of things than say, grossly metallic." On May 7, it was announced that Tommy Lee, founding member of Mötley Crüe, would be playing drums on all nine of the album's tracks. According to Corgan, Jeff Schroeder is currently the only person apart from himself officially in the Smashing Pumpkins, and that Mike Byrne and Nicole Fiorentino are no longer working with the group in any capacity. On July 21, Billy Corgan indicated that recording on "Monuments to an Elegy" had finished. Mixing for the album commenced on August 18. The album's