DG 805 .G47 Copy 1 H MM Us in : J V 8 ' .4 -7-. - X ^ ^ £ f 'K W V- ' V K " A^ k 0o \} > hi 4 \ ■ X- r. V > o %: /. ,o- \ v ROME I! ^ A \ I \ NEW- YORK & LONB W ILEV AN I) P T N A .M MDC< CXLV. a^iDiEimi isii. s$>& Entered according to Act of Congress, in the Year 1845, by W. M. GILLESPIE, In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York. S *5 R. Craighead, Printer, 112 Fulton Street, New York. ** PREFACE No two persons ever see the same thing, or receive identical impressions from even the same object in the same situation; and every visitor to Rome thus sees a different Rome from that of his companion. The Author may therefore, without presump- tion, hope to be able to present a picture of what he has seen, which shall be at the same time faithful to its original, and different in many points from its predecessors. He has selected from his Notes such objects, scenes, and incidents, as have seemed to him best adapted to convey to an American the most vivid and correct notions of Rome ; and he has endeavored to present them to the mental vision of the Reader, in the precise order, and with the characteristic peculiarities, which would strike his bodily eyes, if the realities were substituted for their descriptions, and were seen by the Reader, as by the Writer, with the ideas, prepossessions, and prejudices of an American and a New-Yorker. CONTENTS. PAGE I. SAINT PETER'S 9 Approach to Rome — Walk to St. Peter's — Bridge and Castle of St. Angelo— The Grand Piazza— St. Peter's— First Im- pressions — Details — Dome — Statue of the Apostle — His Chair — Monuments — Mosaic Pictures — Numerical Mea- surements — New York comparisons — Why its apparent size is disappointing — Ascent of the Dome into the Ball. II. THE FORUM AND COLISEUM 25 Rome — The Forum and Coliseum by moonlight — Day-light visit — Arch ofSeptimius Severus — Temple of Concord — Temple of Saturn — Temple of Vespasian — Column of Phocas — Temple of Minerva Chalcidica — Temple of An- toninus and Faustina — Basilica of Constantine — Via Sacra — Arch of Titus — Temple of Venus and Rome- Coliseum. III. THE CAPITOL 36 The Capitoline hill — Ancient grandeur — Palace of the Con- servatori — The Bronze Wolf — Gallery of pictures — Museum of Sculpture — The Dying Gladiator. IV. CHURCHES, IMAGES, RELIQUES, AND MIRACLES. 45 Catholic Churches — The Madonna of San Agostino — Votive image on chimney — S. Maria in Via Lata — St. John Late- ran — Heads of St Peter and St. Paul ; Table of Last Supper, Column of Temple of Jerusalem, Well of Woman of Samaria, &c, — La Scala Santa — Santa Croce in Gerusa- lemme — List of reliques — Santa Maria d'Ara Coeli — Adventure with II Santissimo Bambino. VI CONTENTS. PAGE V. A DAY AMONG THE TOMBS OF ROME 57 Sepulchre ot Scipio — A Columbarium — Tomb of Cecilia Metella — The Catacombs of St. Sebastian — Mausoleum of Augustus — Mausoleum of Hadrian — Tomb of the Baker Eurysaces — Mediaeval Monument in Santa Maria del Popolo — Cemetery of the Capuchin Monks — Protestant Burial Ground — Hydriotaphia. V!. THE VATICAN 67 A Torch-light visit — The Colonnade — The Pauline Chapel — Galleria Lapidaria — Museo Chiaramonti — Nuovo Brac- cio — Library — Cortile del Belvedere — Laocoon, Apollo, &c. — Hall of Animals — The sleeping Ariadne — The crouching Venus — The Hall of the Muses, &c. — The Biga — The Etruscan Museum — Hall of the Candelabra — Tapestries of Raphael — Gallery of Pictures — Chambers of Raphael — His Loggie. VII. CHRISTMAS AT ROME 88 The Pifferarii — High Mass before the Pope in the Sistine Palace — Music in the Church of San Luigi de' Francesi — Procession of the cradle of Christ in Santa Maria Mag- giore — II santissimo Bambino at Ara Coeli — High Mass by the Pope at St. Peter's. VHI. THE PALACES OF ROME 101 Their peculiarities — Palazzo Doria-Pamfili — Sciarra — Barberini, with the Fornarina and Beatrice Cenci — Cenci — Spada — Borghese — Colonna — Rospigliosi,withGuido's Aurora — Quirinal Gardens — Villa Ludovisi, with the Aurora of Guercino — The Pope's golden key. IX. ANCIENT BATHS AND MODERN FOUNTAINS. ... 115 Roman Baths — Baths of Caracalla — Baths of Titus — Sette Sale — Baths of Diocletian — Santa Maria degli Angeli — The Pantheon — The Aqueducts — Fountains of St. Peter's, Piazza Navona, Paolina, Aqua Felice, &c. — The Fountain of Trevi — A Washington Memorial. X. A ROMAN DINING-HOUSE AND CAFE 126 Dinner in Rome — Trattoria del Lepre — Bill of fare — Wines — National dishes— Cafe Greco — An Artists' PonteMolle. CONTENTS. Vll PAGE XI. THE VELABRUM, GHETTO, AND TRASTEVERE. . . 137 The Velabrum — Temple of Vesta — Mouth of Truth — Arch of Janus — Cloaca Maxima — House of Rienzi — The Roman daughter—The Ghetto — Condition of the Jews in Rome — The Mission and the Misericordia — The Trastevere — Ponte Rotto — Santa Cecilia — Corsini palace — Villa Far- nesina — San Pietro in Montorio — Villa Pamfili-Duria. XII. CARDINALS, MONKS, BEGGARS, AND ROBBERS. .150 The Cardinals of Rome — A Cardinal's funeral — Cardinal Mezzofanti — Monks and Friars — Beggars; Roman, Eng- lish and American — Robberies, and an execution. XIII. A PROMENADE ON THE PINCIAN HILL 163 The Pincian Hill— Trinita de' Monti— Villa Medici— Villa Borghese — Casino — Pauline's Statue — Villa Torlonia — A neighbor's funeral. XIV. SCULPTORS AND PAINTERS 175 Foreign artists resident in Rome — Thorwaldsen — English sculptors — Overbeck, &c. — American Painters ; Leutze, Huntington, Freeman, Brown, Terry, &c. — American sculptors — Crawford; his Orpheus, Genius of Mirth, Hebe and Ganymede, Adam and Eve, Ideal busts, Bassi- relievi, &c. — Classical and Ideal Art — The Washington Monument. XV. THE MODERN ROMANS. 192 Their struggles for liberty — The Government a Missionary society — Knowledge discouraged — Ignorance of America — Activity and acuteness of the Roman intellect — Super- stition — Inquisition — Industry — Benevolence — Society — C onclusion . Appendix. How to see Rome 207 The Duomo of Milan 214 ROME AS SEEN BY A NEW YORKER. I. SAINT PETER'S. "Roma!" shouted the postilion with his stereotyped emphasis and a melodramatic wave of his whip over the desolate Campagna, as a turn in the road disclosed in the distant horizon an irregular mass of churches, towers and palaces, above which rose supreme a huge dome at once recognized as that of Saint Peter's. A traveller becomes callous to the excitement of famous names and historical associations, for he daily eats and sleeps in their shadow ; but Rome has a spell to arouse the most phleg- matic, and the attainment of this goal of every voyager seemed like a dream, which at the very next moment might vanish into thin air. But as we advanced, infinitely too slowly for our eager excitement, through the Campag- na, so silent and barren that it seemed impossible that so great a city could be so near, its battlemented walls sud- denly came into view, and the Tiber itself was crossed 2 10 ROME. by the Ponte Molle, the same on which Cicero arrested the ambassadors of the Allobroges, and whence Constan- tine had his vision of the cross. Passing on between the high walls of villas and gardens, and getting occa- sional glimpses of the luxuriant beauty which they en- closed, we at length reached the gates, passed through the Porta del Popolo, and entered a grand Piazza, in the centre of which stood an Egyptian obelisk, while on the left rose the terraced gardens of the Pincian hill, and in front were two churches with symmetrical porticoes, cupolas and bell -towers. On each side of them two broad streets spread out to the right and to the left, and between them the Corso led through the palaces of mod- ern Rome to the ruins of the Capitol and Forum. The Coup oVozil was almost worthy of even tins Empress of cities. Rome is in its single self a whole world of wonders, ancient and modern, and the newly-arrived traveller finds himself bewildered in the " embarrassment of riches.'' St. Peter's calls him on one side, the Coliseum on another ; a living Pope rivals a dead Emperor ; the Apollo Belvidere is a mile from the Dying Gladiator; the Forum, the Pantheon, the Tarpeian rock, the Tem- ple of Vesta, the Catacombs, and the thousand other objects of deep interest are scattered over an immense ST. PETERS. 11 area, and attract you in every direction, so that if their magnetic powers were all equal, they would keep you balanced immoveably in their centre, like Mahomet's coffin at Mecca, and you would see nothing because there was so much to see. But a trifle will turn the scale of an even balance, and the accident of the day after my arrival being Sunday, directed my first steps to the church of St. Peter's. Accompany me in fancy, and imagine yourself turning westward from the Corso, and following a narrow and crooked street between high houses, occupied by petty shops and interspersed with a few palaces, till you reach the yellow Tiber. We will silently indulge in our medi- tations on the banks of this famous river, stopping on the bridge of St. Angelo, by which we cross it, to consider how typical this structure is of Rome itself, for while its massive arches remain unmoved since they were founded by the ancient Romans, they "are now surmounted by twelve of the saints and angels who characterize the modern city. Beyond it is the Castle of St. Angelo, el massive circular tower, erected by the Emperor Hadrian for his own Mausoleum, but now converted into the strongest fortress of Papal Rome. You continue to advance, and soon after passing the palace of Prince Torlonia, you emerge from the narrow street into a mag- nificent amphitheatre enclosed by a grand colonnade and terminated by St. Peter's itself. In the middle of this spacious piazza rises an Egyptian obelisk ; on each side 12 ROME. of it play high and graceful fountains, and the two serai- circles of the embracing colonnade are formed by three hundred columns, forty feet high, sweeping around the piazza in quadruple rows, and crowned by colossal statues of saints. At the end of the curves, straight wings lead up the rising ground, on the top of which stands St. Peter's. The great dome first catches your eye, which is met in its descent by the smaller ones on either side, and then falls on the vast front, which forms a pyramidal mass with the domes, but by itself would seem too broad for its height, and more like a palace than a church. Its solidity is lightened by three tiers of windows, enriched with pediments and balconies, and combined by columns and entablatures into a striking, if not a perfect whole. Advancing towards the mighty edifice, which, like Mont Blanc, seemed to you close at hand, when you caught your first glimpse of it, but which now appears to recede as you cross the colonnaded piazza, and ascend the broad steps and platform, you at length stand in the grand Vestibule. A heavy curtain closes the door of the church — you raise it — a peal of sacred music salutes you — -and you enter " the most glorious structure that has ever been applied to the uses of religion." Your first impression is of magnificent vastness. You see nothing distinctly ; you are dazzled by the splendor lavished on everything which surrounds you ; you are confused by the gorgeous waste of columns, statues, pictures, precious metals, gildings, and mosaics — st. peter's. 13 the lavish tribute of Mammon to Heaven. Gradually the rich confusion clears up, as if a veil of mist had been raised, and your eye and mind pierce through the elabo- rate magnificence of the details to the simple grandeur of the design. You look down the far perspective of the broad and long-drawn aisle, and see in the distance the high altar, surmounted by a tabernacle a hundred feet high, resting on columns of bronze wreathed with golden foliage, before which a hundred lamps burn night and day. Parti-colored marbles tesselate the pavement unincumbered by pews, and the arched roof is gorgeous with golden panels and rosettes. The sides of the great aisle are enclosed by alternating open arches and massive piers. Over each arch are recumbent statues of the Virtues, and each pier is faced with two white mar- ble pilasters, between which are niches enclosing statues of saints ; and, when you find that they are giants, sixteen feet high, instead of the ordinary size, which they first appeared to be, and that each of the infant cherubs, who support the vases of holy water near the doors with such inviting looks, is a young Hercules, you then first begin to appreciate the colossal scale of everything around you. On each side of the great aisle run narrower ones, and from them branch off many chapels, each of which is of itself a large church with organs and altars.. Pro- ceeding up the main aisle, and feeling more and more your own insignificance in the greatness around you, you 2* • 14 at length stand under the great Dome. Its stupendous vault spreads above you like a glittering firmament, and is supported by four piers, of the size of which you may form some idea, when you learn that there is in the city another church (that of San Carlino, opposite the Ameri- can Consulate) which contains three altars with their usual accessaries, and yet is only precisely the size of one of these piers ! From them the cupola rises with such airy grandeur, as fully to justify Michael Angelo's boast that he had hung the Pantheon in the air. From the windows in its sides the light streams down on the high altar, and the concave vault above them is covered with mosaics of Christ, the Madonna and hovering angels. It is in effect a Christianized temple of ancient Rome, raised upon a modern Cathedral ; emblematic, perhaps, of the compound nature of the religion in whose honor it was erected. The Transepts, or cross aisles, stretch out to the right and to the left, and in them are arranged the Confessional boxes for different languages, not merely for the great ones, as English, French, Italian, &c, but for even the dialects of Illyria, Hungary, Poland, and the like, so that penitents from all parts of the world may here congre- gate and confess their sins in their mother tongue to a priest of their own people. Whatever your own belief may be, you cannot avoid admiring the grandeur of the idea which thus brings together the faithful from all parts st. peter's. 15 of the world, to unburthen their souls in the bosom of the all-embracing Mother Church. Beneath the High Altar is the grave of St. Peter, and near it is the bronze statue of the Apostle, sitting with uplifted arm and extended foot. Antiquarians assert that the statue originally represented Jupiter Capitolinus, and that it is only changed in name ; but however this may be, it does not affect the reverence paid to it. Before it are always kneeling in prayer, men, women, and children, who after due preparation rise from their knees, approach the statue, press their foreheads to the well-worn toe j and then kiss it most devoutly. They are chiefly peas- ants, and often way-worn travellers who come hither to render thanks for their safe arrival ; but one day I saw a portly priest with a showy footman behind him, stop as he passed the statue, and glance at the people kneeling around ; and then, as if to set a good example in high places, he wiped the toe with his handkerchief, and applied it to his forehead and lips. Remembering the philosophical maxim, " When you are in Rome, do as Rome does," I gravely imitated his doings with hand- kerchief, forehead and lips, but could not discover that I was any better or worse the rest of the day — probably owing to my want of faith. At the extreme end of the church four colossal statues, representing the principal doctors of the Greek and Latin churches, support a lofty throne and canopy of bronze, within which is preserved the patriarchal 16 ROME. chair of St. Peter himself. It is shown to the people only for a moment, on great festivals, and is venerated by them as a true relic of the Prince of the Apostles ; but unbelievers whisper that when the heretical French had possession of the city, they found on the chair the Arabic inscription, " There is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet!" This makes it probable that the chair was brought from Palestine by some of the early Crusaders. In whatever direction you turn your eyes, they meet statues, pictures, and monuments. The tombs of the Popes are ranged against the walls and piers, and are magnificent commemorations of their riches and power. Most of them bear a kneeling statue of the Holy Father, supported by allegorical figures of religion, charity, wisdom, prudence, and the like. But more interesting than these is the monument of the Stuarts, the last descendants of the former kings of Great Britain — the self-styled James III., Charles III., and Henry IX., of England — who here repose beneath a mausoleum erected by the generosity of their Hanoverian successor, George IV. Beside it, Sir Walter Scott, when in Rome, passed hours in abstracted contemplation, medi- tating on the sad fate of that royal race to whom his heart, if not his head, was so devotedly attached. All the tombs are surmounted by groups of statuary, but many isolated and colossal statues of saints — a reverend st. peter's. 17 assemblage of Christian heroes — look down upon you from niches in the walls. Their deeds of charity and power, and those of their Master, are recorded in the pictures which enrich the pillars, and which are executed, not in fading oil-colors, on perishable canvass, but in unchanging and lasting mosaics, whose brilliant hues are fused in stone itself, and will be as beautiful after a thousand years, as they are at the present moment, in which they imitate, so perfectly, those masterpieces of painting, of which they are copies, that you can scarcely credit that they are formed by many thousands of little colored tessera. The impression of durability and permanence which their material conveys, harmonizes with the whole tendency of the cathedral, and exalts your admiration of the far-sighted, greatness of mind of its builders. Numerical measurements convey only indistinct notions of greatness, and seem too mechanical for an object of sublimity, but a few such may give more precision to our ideas. All the writers on St. Peter's differ on its dimen- sions, but the following are among the best authenticated. The internal length of the church is 613 feet ; the height to the top of its cross, 430 ; the length of its transepts, 445 ; and the height of its main aisle, 150 feet. The building covers nearly six acres of ground ; more than twice as much as the London St. Paul's, all the three aisles of which are no wider than the single main aisle of St. Peter's, while its height is sixty feet less. Or, to 18 ROME. employ comparisons more familiar to New Yorkers, St. Peter's would cover two-thirds of our whole Park, from its lower end to Chambers-street, and ten of our City- Halls could be placed, side by side, on its pavement, while a dozen of our three-story houses might be piled, one above the other, and then would scarcely reach its top. Three centuries have passed in its completion, and it has cost sixty millions of dollars ; enough to have built a hundred and twenty New York City Halls.* The wonderful Temple of Jerusalem with its blocks of stone sixty feet long and its hundred and sixty-two columns, each a single shaft of white marble — the Tem- ple of Diana, at Ephesus, with its hundred and twenty- seven pillars sixty feet high — the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, looking down on the Forum of ancient Rome with a triple row of pillars in front, and a double row on the sides — none of these greatest of the monuments of ancient religions equalled the modern church of St. * The following tabular statement shows the dimensions in feet of St. Peter's, and of the churches most frequently compared with it. JLength '.Inside.) Breadth (Inside.) Height. Cross length ofTransepts. Height of Nave. St. Peter's : Rome 613 131 430 445 150 Duomo ; Milan ■177 185 345 283 151 St. Paul's ; London 500 107 370 248 88 Trinity ; JSTewYork 170 72 264 72 67§ st. peter's. 19 Peter. Why then is it that this most magnificent of all human" structures never fails to disappoint the visitor, and appears so inferior to its real greatness ? Byron " Enter : its grandeur overwhelms thee not ; And why ? it is not lessened, but thy mind, Expanded by the genius of the spot, Has grown colossal." This explanation is, however, more poetical than philo- sophical, and more flattering to one's self-love than satis- factory to one's reason. The common cant of criticism asserts that the building appears so much smaller than it really is in consequence of its proportions being so per- fect. The absurdity of this dogma will be shown by inter- preting it. An object is most perfect whenit best fulfils the end of its creation. A temple devoted to religion is intended to impress the mind with feelings of sublimity, awe and reverence. Apparent magnitude is a most im- portant element in producing these impressions, for, though Mont Blanc is sublime, an exact miniature model of it would be only a curious white molehill. If, then, a gigantic temple is so proportioned by its archi- tect as to lessen the effect of its size, it is so far a failure, and its proportions are imperfectly adjusted to attain their proper end. Such is the case with St. Peter's. The Roman Pantheon, on the contrary, appears larger than it really is ; so that the grandest of Christian temples is less perfect than the original model of its mere dome ; 20 ROME. so inferior is modern to ancient genius. Two causes unite to lessen the apparent magnitude of the church. One is the profusion of ornament on all its parts, which fritters away the effect of the great whole ; but the chief cause is the colossal size of the statues with which it is studded. They are our natural standards of comparison, and artists place figures of men in their landscape paint- ings, that we may compare them with the temples, pala- ces, and precipices, and judge from them how large these objects are. So in St. Peter's, looking at the colossal statues, and instinctively supposing them to be of ordinary size, we measure by their scale the length, breadth, and height of the church, and we find that, thus estimated, it is not so many times larger than the height of a man, as we had expected. Such has seemed to me, after careful consideration, to be the chief cause of the disappointing and disparaging impression, so hard to analyze, but so easy to perceive. But you cannot fully appreciate the magnitude of the edifice, till you have ascended to its top. To do this, a formal permission from the Cardinal Secretary of State is necessary, but it is easily obtained by a trifling fee to a sexton. It must be countersigned by one of the party, who thereby guarantees that none of his companions will break their necks on the way. This permit we pre- sented at a door in the left aisle under the monument of the wife of the English Pretender, James III., and then began to ascend a wide and easy flight of steps, so st. peter's. 21 broad and gentle that a carriage might drive up it, and that horses do indeed mount it with their loads. Slabs of marble are inlaid in the walls commemorating the various great personages who have made the ascent. No Yankee had been thought worthy of any of the twenty- one tablets. Two Princesses of Saxony had entered the Ball ; an exploit not very feminine, and particularly awkward for the wearers of frocks. The Due d'Aumale, a month before, had ascended to the ball, but not into it, being beaten by the ladies. Of the Due de Bordeaux, the French Pretender, the tablet said that " His Royal Highness honored the cupola with his visit." — " S. A. R. Enrico Due di Bordeaux onoro di sua visita la cupola Vaticana." The word "honored" is not used in any other case, and its employment in this one shows that the sympathies of the Court of Rome are with the young Pretender rather than with the reigning King of the French. Winding up the sloping road, we at length reached the roof, which is like a village built on a rock, for the marble covering of the six acres slopes in every direction and sustains houses in which live the workmen employed in repairs. Various smaller cupolas shot up, looking larger than the great one itself appeared from below, a fountain was playing, dogs and cats seemed quite at home, and we could scarcely credit that we were a hundred and fifty feet in the air. Next ascending a smaller winding stair-case, we stepped out into the gallery at the bottom of the drum or cylin-, 3 22 ROME. drical part of the cupola, and looked down into the church, being then nearly two hundred feet above the pavement. The aisles looked even longer than when we stood upon their floor, being less foreshortened, but the priests seemed like dolls, and the tabernacle over the altar, immediately under us, though known to be ninety- three feet high, dwindled down into a trifling projection. The mosaic paintings of the Evangelists, when viewed from below, had seemed well finished, but were here seen to be composed of roughly fitting and coarsely colored cubes of stone, and the pen in the hand of St. Mark proved to be six feet long. Just below us were four niches adorned with spiral columns, believed to have been brought by the Emperor Titus from the Tem- ple of Jerusalem. They were said to contain four pre- cious relics, to wit, a piece of the true cross ; a handker- chief, with the miraculous impression of the features of Christ ; the lance which pierced his side ; and the head of St. Andrew. Thence we mounted to the gallery at the top of the drum, and then climbed a zig-zagging series of steps within the thickness of the dome, and between its inner and outer shells, bending our bodies as we advanced, to conform to its curvature. Both these shells are here true domes of stone, while in the London St. Paul's the inner one is a brick cone, and the outer one is of wood covered with copper. In this way we attained the foot of the lantern, and could thence admire the fine mosaic st. peter's. 23 on its ceiling, depicting the Father surrounded by che- rubs and enveloped in clouds. We were now three hun- dred and sixty-four feet above the pavement, and from the outer gallery had a widely extended view, but the elevation was too great to make it satisfactory, all the objects being flattened down into one plane. All over the cupola are seen the triple hills, which were the arms of Pope Alessandro VII., of the Ghigi family, who re- paired it in 1655. On the ribs and corners remained the projecting iron points on which are stuck the candles for the great illuminations of the Holy Week. Six thousand lights are then kindled almost instantaneously, and, looking down from the dizzy height, we could fully realize the dangerous nature of the duty, which is so ex- treme that the eighty men who perform the task, always take the sacrament before commencing it. Again we had to ascend by another staircase, which wound around the lantern, and finally brought us to its top, and to the foot of the stem which supports the ball and the cross. This stem is hollow, and contains a perpendicular iron ladder, which we climbed, and squeezed ourselves through the narrow aperture into the Ball. It is eight feet in diameter, and the guide says that it can hold six- teen people. A prudent man would rather not be one of the sixteen, for with only two friends and myself, it seemed to sway back and forth, and to yield to every gust of wind, and we could readily fancy that the thin sheet copper of which it is made might easily give way, 24 or that our weight might topple it down from its proud eminence, and make it bound from lantern to dome, and from dome to roof, till it should at last strike the ground, with its precious contents, four hundred and thirty feet below its starting point. We did not, therefore, remain in it long ; but before descending, we shook hands most heartily, demanding, "Where shall we three meet again ?" Certainly not in the Ball of St. Peter's.* * A Note, descriptive of the rival of St. Peter's, the Duomo of Milan, may be found in the Appendix. 25 II. THE FORUM AND COLISEUM. The chief ruins of ancient Rome lie in the southern extremity of the city, as far as possible from the inhabited district, as if the degenerate modern Romans shrank from the sight of these solemn tokens of what their ances- tors had been, and dared not contrast their present degra- dation with their former glory. The annual swarms of strangers — those hordes of modern Goths who now rush down from the tramontane regions, not to destroy, but to admire and to sustain — all crowd together under the northern walls. A mile to the south are the Capitol, the Forum and the Coliseum. On a summer-like evening in the beginning of December, I strolled alone down the Corso, passing churches and palaces, till this narrow " Broadway" of Rome divided at the foot of the Capito- line hill. Taking the left hand branch, and leaving the Capitol on my right, I followed the narrow and dark Via di Marforio, till suddenly I emerged from its sha- dows, and a blaze of moonlight lit up for me the Roman Forum, which spread out before my dazzled eyes in a wide waste of ruins, entered by a triumphal arch, termi- nated by the Coliseum,, and dotted with columns, stand.-* 26 ROME. ing singly and in groups, crowned with moss-grown frag- ments of their cornices, and looking like tall mourners over the fallen greatness of their companions, or like the sole survivors of the field of battle on which the great works of man had contended in vain with the destroying angel of Time. A thrill of neither pleasure nor pain, but of intense quivering excitement, ran through every nerve, till my very fingers' ends tingled with enthusiasm. Such a unique and never-to-be-repeated sensation is alone enough to repay a dozen voyages across the Atlantic. Behind me a broad and lofty flight of marble steps led up the hill of the Capitol ; before me rose the triumphal arch erected in honor of the Emperor Septimus Severus ; on the right stood three columns of a ruined temple ; beside them were eight pillars of another edifice ; and a little farther rose the lonely column of Phocas. I walked on in solitude through the fields which were once the Forum in which the people met to decide upon the fate of empires, and in which the eloquence of Cicero had re-echoed from the temples and palaces which then studded every eminence and filled every valley, but which have now left only these scattered fragments for their memorials. There " a thousand years of silenced fac- tions sleep," and the deep hush was unbroken, except by my own footsteps, till I was challenged by the sentinel before the Coliseum. The colossal amphitheatre rose like a mountain of stone, with stupendous arches above arches, half hid in deep shade and half bathed in the THE FORUM AND COLISEUM. 27 splendor of a day-bright moon. In the oval area within, in which so many gladiators had slain each other, and so many Christians had been torn to pieces by wild beasts, now rose a tall cross in emblem of the new religion which had changed the destinies of the place. On the arches which sloped up and back all around, and which once bore the seats of the ninety thousand spectators who there exulted in the butchery of the arena, trees were now growing high in air, and the long grass threw its veil over the yawning chasms. In the interior galleries, arcades and passages which form an immense labyrinth, I wandered for hours, climbing to the topmost arches to avoid an English party, whose ladies were giggling and babbling below in profane desecration of the influences of the spot. In such scenes, one's mind becomes fused and incorporated with the genius of the place, and I could almost fancy myself an old Roman, and forget the cruel- ties of the conquerors of the world in admiration of their greatness of conception and execution, until the place 1 " Became religion, and the heart ran o'er With silent worship of the great of old, The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule Our spirits from their urns." On my way out, I stopped to t- itinel at the entrance, stationed there to protect visitors from the robberip- f aem at that lonely spot. He ntier of the Papal States, and --eu because he had no work. The Holy 28 Father paid him only four cents a day, besides his rations of a half pound of meat, two pounds of bread, a pint of soup, and a pint of wine, which is here indispensable to the poorest. No wonder that the needy creatures are reputed to be none too honest. Leaving this degenerate " Roman warrior" on his post, I returned home without molestation, though it was now near midnight ; but the next day I heard that two persons had been that night robbed and stabbed in the Via di Marforio, at just about the time that I was passing through it. " Che sard sard.'' 1 The next two days were fully occupied in a minute study of the antiquities spread over this district. The surface of the ancient Forum (now, alas ! degraded to a cattle-market!) has been raised fifteen or twenty feet by the gradual accumulation of ruins and rubbish. Exca- vations have therefore been made around the columns and arches, down to their bases and to the ancient pave- ment, and are now walled around. You enter the exca- vated portion by an arched passage, and stand upon the old Roman pavement. The Arch of Septimius Severus was erected over the road by which returning conquerors ascended to the Capitol, and you may now follow in their teps and tread on the original broad polygonal stones, v n thus smooth by the pas sag e of so many triump! \,. is. Beside the Arch stood the Temple of Co?icoru, ] "^served only its pavement of variegated maiole r :ich carvings which once adorned it. Evei j .. THE FORUM. 29 ^f columns, capitals, and entablatures are Scatt mderful profusion. Near it are three deeply fluted columns ining part of their origi- nal purple dye), wlii md to be the remains of the temple which Augi Tonans, or the Thundering Jove, in his grati-tud escape from lightning, in Spain, but which are proved by recent discoveries to belong to the Temple of Saturn, as Niebuhr, with wonderful acuteness, had previously conjectured. They were formerly buried nearly to the top in a mass of rubbish, which was removed by the French during their occupation of the Imperial City, and the traveller is indebted to them for many similar favors, which he might never have obtained from the far-niente of the Papal government. Opposite to these stand eight granite columns, crowned with an entablature and a fragmentary pediment. Early antiquaries thought that they had been consecrated to Concord ; later ones to Fortune ; and now they are decided to belong to the Temple of Vespasian. This constant changing of names is almost universal among the Roman antiquities, and is most annoying to the traveller and most dangerous to his classical faith, but he had better believe implicitly all he is told, if he would not weaken or destroy the depth of his impressions. The single column standing a little beyond these was long a subject of mysterious specula- tion. Byron exclaims, " Tully was not so eloquent as thou — Thou nameless column with a buried base" 30 ROME. but it is no longer nameless, for the excavations lil made by the Duchess of Devonshire 7 an inscription on the pedest- 1 ..dvebeen erected to the En • • - L iier on in the midst of the F - beautiful Corinthian columns, most perfect models of that order, and e lormerly supposed to belong to the temple erected to Jupiter Stator, in gratitude for his stopping the flight of the Romans from before their enemies ; but their names have also been changed, and they are now con- sidered the remains of the Temple of Minerva Chalcidica. Opposite to them is the unaltered front of the temple dedicated by the Senate to Antoninus and Faustina, but behind the noble portico a modern church rears its con- torted head. A little farther on are the gigantic arches and niches of the Basilica of Constantine, under which lie huge fragments of masonry, which have fallen from its top. In front of it passed the Via Sacra, along which Horace used to walk, as he tells us, " Ibam forte Via Sacra, sicut meus est ?nos," and you may now tread in his steps. Beside it Galen had his Apothecary's shop, which, he informs us, was burnt down in the " Great Fire" of the Basilica behind it. Across the road was the shop in which Yirginius bought the knife with which he stabbed his daughter, to save her from Appius Claudius. Not far distant is the spot where yawned the great gulf into which the self- THE FORUM. 31 devoted Curtius leaped to preserve the Roman people. Such are the recollections which here hallow the ground about you, and so dream-like is the sensation of standing in the midst of such scenes, that you almost fear to close your eyes for even a moment, lest, when you re-opened them, you should find that everything had passed away like "the baseless fabric of a vision." Proceeding along the Via Sacra you pass under the Arch of Titus, erected by the Senate and People in commemoration of the destruction of Jerusalem. On one of its sides are sculptured the captive Jews bearing the spoils of the Temple, among which are distinctly visible the golden table, the seven-branched candlestick and the silver trumpets. They are the only authentic representations of these sacred objects in existence, and correspond perfectly with the descriptions of Josephus. The Jews of Rome even to this day avoid passing under the arch which records their enslavement, and a path is shown by which they pass around it, to the honor of their faithful veneration for their despised faith and fallen nation. Leaving on your left the great niches of the Temples of Venus and Rome, you find yourself again before the Coliseum, with leisure to examine it more carefully by the light of day. To form to yourself a definite idea of it, suppose the oval " Bowling Green" of New York made twice as large as it now is. This would represent the central area in which the sports and slaughters took 32 place. Next, fancy a row of our ordinary-sized houses built around this, another row behind them, and so on, till the arena is surrounded by the thickness of four houses, or a hundred and seventy feet. Pile upon these three more quadruple tiers of houses till they reach the height of a hundred and sixty feet ; slope down the inside of this huge mass of masonry towards the arena, like the crater of a volcano, and arrange on it ascending rows of seats ; pierce its interior with galleries, arcades, vaulted passages, and wide flights of stairs, in which a stranger might easily be lost ; convert each tier of houses into one gigantic story, each entered and lighted by eighty arched openings, divided by columns and pilasters ; change the whole material into immense blocks of travertine, and you will then have some faint notion of the size and appearance of this wonder of the world. For centuries it was the quarry from which Popes, Nobles, and Plebeians took and stole materials for their palaces and houses. The Farnese, the Barbe- rini, and the Cancelleria palaces, three of the finest in Rome were thus constructed. The siege of Robert Guiscard destroyed other portions, and two-thirds of the whole original building are thought to have thus disap- peared ; what then must it have been in its perfection, since such are its ruins ! Even in the eighth century, so perfect was it that the Anglo-Saxon pilgrims, identi- fying it with the seven-hilled Queen of the world, uttered the famous prophecy recorded by the venerable Bede : THE COLISEUM. 33 " While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand ; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall ; And when Rome falls, the world !" The later Popes seem to have felt that their own fate was intimately connected with the edifice, and they have carefully and judiciously preserved and repaired its tottering walls, and sanctified it from future robbe- ries by consecrating it to the memory of the crowds of Christian martyrs who have perished in the arena. Every kiss of the cross in its centre ensures the peni- tent faithful an Indulgence from the pains of purgatory of a year and two hundred days ; and around the circuit are erected fourteen little chapels, containing pictures of the " stations" of the progress of Christ from his prison to Calvary, before each of which a prayer is to be said. The Pontiffs did not consider that this tasteless obtrusion, on such a scene, of the symbols of the present religion of the city, might sometimes lead the spectator to con- trast the modern Romans with their ancestors, and perhaps to attribute part of their present degradation to the influence of the superstitions which are here so palpably thrust upon him. Although the crimes and cruelties of the ancient Romans made their fall merited, yet their grandeur half excuses their enormity. Even now, standing on the topmost arch of the amphitheatre, I could almost fancy the circles of marble seats once more rising in rows above rows, and crowded by ninety thousand of the " fierce democracy" of Rome (who were 4 34 ROME. always equally clamorous for " bread" and for " games"), shielded from sun arid rain by the awnings, of which the supports yet remain ; while in the front seats were the proud Patricians, arrayed in the glories of conquered kingdoms, and before them sat the Emperor, the Sena- tors and the Vestal Virgins — all intently gazing on the fierce struggles of the wild beasts, brought from the farthest extremities of the earth, to delight the even wilder passions of this haughty people, who had five thousand such slain at the dedication of the edifice — or gloating on the murderous contests of the gladiators, who, when at last overcome, might look in vain over the vast assemblage for a single pitying glance, but see only the upturned thumbs, which silently ordered them to be put to death — or exulting in the ferocity with which their pet lions tore limb from limb the Christian martyrs, men and maidens, sacrificed to the Roman thirst for blood. But a thousand years have purified the arena, and look- ing with the eyes of reality in the place of those of fancy, I saw only a procession of veiled nuns, with slow steps, pass unmolested through the arena, each in turn stopping at the cross in the centre, to say a prayer for the souls of the martyred, and to give the kiss which secured the promised " Indulgence." The warmest ad- mirer of antiquity must confess that the change is much for the better, and he may even be reconciled to see painted on the outer wall the unromantic characters, " R. X. 1208," which indicate that the great Coliseum is THE COLISEUM. 35 known in the registers of modern Rome only as " House No. 1208 of the 10th Ward." If it were in America, it might receive even a worse desecration, for when a New Yorker, now in Rome, a gentleman of high dis- tinction as a statesman and a scholar, first entered its arena, he exclaimed in ecstacy, as a flood of political recollections rushed over his mind, " Good heavens ! What a glorious place for a Mass Meeting !" 36 III. THE CAPITOL. At the eastern extremity of the Corso, and overlooking the Forum, rises the Capitoline Hill. You ascend it by a noble flight of steps, which nothing less than a triumphal procession ought ever to mount. On each side of their top Castor and Pollux stand on guard beside their marble horses. In front you see the Piazza* of the modern Capitol, enclosed on three sides by as many palaces, designed by Michael Angelo, and displaying in its centre the famous equestrian statue, in bronze, of Marcus Aurelius, unequalled even yet by any modern work. Michael Angelo thought the horse so life-like that he once exclaimed to it " Go !" It is under the charge of an especial officer, and when Rienzi was made Tribune, wine ran from one nostril and water from the other. The " Palace of the Senator," at the fariher end of the square, is surmounted by a tower, whence you get the * The word Piazza, which properly means a Place or Square, we strangely misapply to a Portico, or Colonnade. THE CAPITOL. 37 best view, and most distinct idea of Rome. In olden times the stranger would thence have seen a fruitful plain, " Divided by a river, of whose banks On each side an imperial city stood, With towers and temples proudly elevate On seven small hills, with palaces adorn'd, Porches and theatres, baths, aqueducts, Statues and trophies, and triumphal arcs, Gardens and groves, presented to his eyes." But now you see only the desolate Campagna stripped of the towns and villas which once studded it, and given up to a few wandering herdsmen, while the seven hills under your feet sustain only the degenerate city of the Popes, and present only the tottering ruins of the city of the Caesars. The Capitol is the dividing point ; north of it are the compact masses of the modern habitations, and south of it little but fields and vineyards, thinly besprink- led with fragments of ancient walls, arches, and temples. The palace, from whose tower you now look, is based on the massive foundations of the ancient Capitol, but how different is its superstructure from that centre of the old world, the Temple of the tutelar Gods of the Empire city ! It is still the nominal seat of the power of the Roman people, but looking down on the Piazza, which once was filled " By conflux issuing forth or entering in ; Praetors ; Proconsuls to their provinces 4* 38 ROME. Hasting or on return, in robes of state ; Lictors, and rods, the ensigns of their power ; Legions and cohorts; turms of horse and wings; Or embassies from regions far remote ;" in their place you now see only a few curious travellers like yourself. Descending from the Tower (in which half a day may be well spent, with map and guide-book, in close study of the localities in sight) you should next enter the " Palace of the Conservatori," which forms the west side of the square. On its ground-floor eight rooms are filled with a series of busts of the most illustrious poets, painters, sculptors, architects, engineers, and musicians of modern Italy, and a native's breast must swell with pride when he looks at the long and honorable array. In the first room are six busts of eminent foreigners, whose genius was considered naturalized by their long residence in Rome ; and among them, if his future progress be com- mensurate with the rank which he has already attained, may hereafter be found the bust of our own sculptor, Crawford. In the halls above, the walls of which are painted in fresco, with subjects from the history of Rome, are various ancient and modern statues, but incomparably the most interesting is the famous Bronze Wolf, large as life, suckling the infants Romulus and Remus ; faint traces of gilding remain upon its sides, and its legs are fractured and half-fused, as if by lightning, so that there is little doubt that it is the very image commemorated by THE CAPITOL. 39 Cicero, in his third oration against Catiline, as. having been struck by a thunderbolt in the ancient Capitol! Such coincidences as these are most powerful in trans- porting you back to ancient times, almost in body as well as in fancy. The " Gallery of Pictures" is in the same building, and contains four times as many as the Vatican collec- tion, but not one-fourth as many good ones. Tintoretto's Magdalen has a face like an ugly boy with a pug nose ; Albani's " Magdalen" is a bad imitation of the inimitable Titian in the Barberigo palace at Venice ; Rubens' " Romulus and Remus" is in his coarsest style ; and Guido's " Abbozzi" or Sketches for his fine Florentine Lucretia and Cleopatra, might well be Englished into " Botches." But his " Blessed soul" floating up to Hea- ven is the ideal of spiritual beauty ; his " St. Sebastian" is more richly colored than the famous one at Dulwich, though perhaps less delicately ; and his portrait of him- self has a face of holy thought beyond its years, coming out from the deep warm shadows in the style of Gior- gone. Guer dud's masterpiece has been brought here from St. Peter's, where it was replaced by a mosaic copy. It nearly covers one end of the room with its representation of " Saint Petronilla disentombed and shown to Flaccus, a noble Roman, to whom she had been espoused." The light of a torch shows her raised by two men from her grave, and displays the bridal garland still upon her head. Her intended husband stands by 40 ROME. her side in intense grief, and does not seem to see her ascending soul received into Heaven by choirs of angels who fill the upper part of the picture. The painter has committed a pardonable anachronism in making Flaccus dry his eyes with a pocket-handkerchief, forgetting that the ancient Romans never used such an article. But the gem of the collection is Corregio's miniature " Espousal of Saint Catherine." The infant Christ is sitting on the lap of the Virgin Mary, who instructs him to put the betrothal ring on the finger of Saint Catherine. She kneels at the feet of the Madonna, and receives the ring with a countenance of intense humility and gratitude, while the infant playfully turns to look up into his moth- er's face with a smile of the most bewitching archness. Many of the pictures are specimens of the early schools of Art, hard and formal, yet possessing much simple sweetness. Most of this class were taken from old churches, in which they served as altar-pieces, or as decorations, preserving there the semblances of the saints, and telling on the walls the stories of sacred history for the benefit of the pious unlearned, who could read them only when thus narrated in this universal language. Others were detached from various articles of ecclesias- tical and civil furniture, of which they formed essential parts. It is not generally known that it is only within the last two or three centuries, that pictures have been painted or used as mere ornaments, to be hung on walls, and be moved indifferently from place to place, " Cabi- THE CAPITOL. 41 net" pictures, such as now adorn the house of every person of taste, are quite modern luxuries. In the Palace, on the other side of the square, is the " Museum of the Capitol." Its halls are filled, like those of the Vatican, with ancient statuary. In the court lies the colossal river-god, whom the people made the vehi- cle, under the name of Marforio, for their witty replies to the satires of Pasquin. In one of the halls on the ground floor is a curious funeral altar to " Titus Statilius Aper, measurer of the public buildings." On one side he is sculptured with a roll of paper in his hand, and a child by his side ; and on another are represented his implements of trade, his compasses, plummet, and foot rule. This is divided into sixteen parts, and by means of it we can ascertain the precise length of the Roman foot, which was not quite half an inch shorter than the English foot, or, more exactly measured, equalled 11.59 inches. Near it is the tomb of a mason, also with basso- relievos of his plumb, rule, square, and level, which last is precisely the same as a mason's level of the present day. Into the wall of the staircase are inlaid the valuable white marble fragments of the plan of Rome, found in the Temple of Remus in the Forum. At the end of the Great Hall is a hollow cylinder of white marble, adorned with basso-relievos of the twelve divinities, but showing on its sides marks of cords, which prove, in spite of its classic decorations, that it was once only the mouth of an ancient well ; for the tasteful spirit of antiquity left 42 ROME. nothing without embellishment, and enabled even the " drawer of water" to cultivate his taste and refine his mind in the midst of his daily labor. How few such provisions does our system of life make for the laborer, even when his day's work is over ! Near this idealized well-mouth is the Mosaic of Pliny's doves, copied in miniature on half the breast-pins that you see. The original is about two feet long; the colors are very sober and harmonious, and it is surrounded by a fanciful mosaic border. It is beyond doubt the iden- tical work described by Pliny, as representing " a won- derful dove, drinking and darkening the water with the shadow of its head, while others are pluming themselves and basking on the edge of the vase." An adjoining circular temple contains only the grace- fully caressing group of " Cupid and Psyche ;" the "Leda;" and the " Venus of the Capitol," which is nearly in the same position as the Venus de' Medici, and almost as beautiful, but larger, and farther distin- guished by being supported by an urn covered with dra- pery, instead of by a dolphin. It was found very singu- larly buried within an old stone wall, on the Via Suburra, where it was probably hidden for safety during some invasion, in which its owner perished, leaving this marble treasure hidden from all the world, till revealed by some lucky chance. Five grand saloons lie on the other side of the Great Hall, and the first of them contains the busts of seventy- THE CAPITOL. 43 six Emperors and Empresses, arranged in chronological order, from Julius Caesar to Julian the Apostate, and pre- senting a most valuable series of authentic portraits of these remarkable personages of history. In the next rooms are an equal number of ancient philosophers, orators, and poets, and among them are three of Socrates, all agreeing in making him the ugliest man ever lived ; except, perhaps, Lord Brougham, whom he somewhat resembles in physiognomy. Next comes the central saloon, one statue in which wears the toga in such a manner as to show that the modern Romans have inhe- rited from antiquity their graceful way of throwing their inseparable cloaks over their shoulders. To this suc- ceeds the " Hall of the Faun," so named from a figure in " rosso anticoP In it is the " Tablet of Bronze," from which Rienzi expounded to his followers the powers of the Roman people. Near by is the Antinous, insipidly beautiful ; and a graceful girl sheltering in her arms a dove which she seems to have just saved from a serpent which rears up its head at her feet ; a group probably copied by the sculptor from an actual incident. In the last room is the " Dying Gladiator," the most powerfully impressive of all sculpture, ancient or modern. The other great statues of antiquity, such as the Apollo Bel- videre,the Venus, and the Antinous,have little or no feeling or expression to call forth our sympathy ; they are entirely objective, and seem, like the poetry of Homer, completely absorbed in outward action, and incapable of introspection. 44 ROME. But the Gladiator appeals to the kindliest feelings of our heart as a man and a brother, and as his life-blood oozes out, he demands our sympathy for his " young barbarians all at play" by the far Danube, and "their Dacian mother," while he is " butchered to make a Roman holi- day." But we must confess that we might never have fancied half of this, if Byron had not so vividly embo- died our dim gropings of thought. His description, how- ever, of the mere reality before us, apart from the mov- ing association with which he invests it, has the graphic fidelity of a Daguerreotype. " I see before me the Gladiator lie : He leans upon his hand — his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony, And his droop'd head sinks gradually low, And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, Like the first of a thunder shower ; and now The arena swims around him — he is gone, Ere ceas'd the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won." 45 IV. CHURCHES, IMAGES, RELIQUES AND MIRACLES. The readers of travels in Italy become heartily tired of the Churches, which are so often commended to their admiration, but they should charitably call to mind that these edifices constitute a very large proportion of the intellectual food of the traveller. Little would need be said of them, if they were such bare and tasteless barns as are too many of the houses of worship in America, but in Italy the highest genius of the best architects, sculptors and painters, has lavished on them centuries of its poetic labors. Kings have left their own palaces unfinished, and devoted their revenues to adorn the abode of the King of kings. The finest minds of the nation have left their impress on these shrines of magnificence ; the noblest conceptions of the architect — that poet in stone — have been here embodied ; the painter has summoned his highest skill when called upon to represent some touching event in sacred history for the instruction and improvement of the unlearned devout ; the sculptor has here left his master-pieces in the statues of the great men 46 ROME. — heroes, divines, and poets — who lie beneath the mar- ble pavement ; and every Church thus becomes an inter- esting volume in the history of the past, recording the great deeds of mind as well as of body. The Churches of all Catholic countries are generally in the form of a cross. At the extreme end is the high altar, and along the sides are ranged smaller ones (dedicated to various Saints), over each of which hangs a sacred picture, oftentimes a master-piece of art. No pews or benches encumber the marble pavement, but a few chairs are clustered before the altars. The Churches are never closed against worshippers, and enter them at what hour you may, you will always find some devotees kneeling before their favorite altars, and seemingly absorbed in their prayers. They are generally old women of the poorer class — for those who find little enjoyment in this world naturally seek for it in another — but at high mass ladies of the highest wealth and birth kneel on the pavement beside the beggar ; and at other times a fierce-looking man is often seen prostrating him- self on the altar steps, and apparently repenting most sincerely of some great crime. Most of the Churches of Rome are also famous for some wonder-working images or reliques, though they are now retained, rather by the sufferance than with the approval of the higher orders of the clergy, as visible incentives to the devotion of the common people, who could not appreciate more spiritual appeals. One of the CHURCHES. 47 most favorite images is a miraculous wooden figure of the Madonna with the Child, which is preserved in the Church of San Agostino. Prints of it are hung up in most houses in Rome, and before leaving the city I found that the pious care of my landlady had placed one of them under my bed, to preserve me from evil spirits and all other dangers, and she firmly believed that I was indebted to it for my escape from malaria and assassination. The original image stands in a niche beside the high altar, and crowds of men, women and children, are always kneeling before it, and eagerly kissing its toe, as they do that of the bronze Saint Peter. Not only its shrine, but also the adjoining pillars and walls, are covered with votive offerings, presented by the pious, who believe that they have been saved from disease and death by the Madonna's interposition. Hundreds have hung up wax hearts, arms, legs, &c, in gratitude for wonderful cures. Rude pictures are added, in one of which a carriage is seen overturned, while the Yirgin peeps out from the clouds and rescues the passengers ; in another is repre- sented a storm at sea ; and in a third, the lightning strikes a tree, under which is seen he who now thus returns thanks for escaping unhurt. Crutches are there, which the cripple has deposited in proof of his miracu- lous cure. In one corner stands an old gun given up by a reformed bandit. Many precious stones glitter on the walls, presented to the Virgin to secure her intercession. A nobleman, who had been robbed of some rich family 48 ROME. jewels, lately recognized some of them among those offer- ed at this shrine, where the thief had hung them up, to compound with his conscience by giving part of his plun- der to the Madonna, and thus making her go shares. The nobleman obtained an order from the Pope, that the jew- els should be restored to him ; but the priest, under whose charge they were, refused to touch them, saying, " You are at liberty to take them yourself, for I cannot oppose the order of the Holy Father, but I will have nothing to do with it, and I warn you that I will not ensure you against the wrath of the Madonna." This menace so terrified the nobleman, that he did not dare to take his own property from the holy walls, and there his jewels still remain. Another curious illustration of superstition is found in the adjoining street, della Scrofa. An Italian friend pointed out to me there an image of the Virgin, with a lighted lamp before it, attached to the topmost chimney of a high house. Many years ago a pet monkey had carried a new-born infant up to that dizzy height, and begun to toss it up and play with it, at the imminent risk of dropping it from his arms to the pavement of the street. He could not be enticed down, and no one dared to ap- proach him lest they should precipitate the catastrophe. At last the frantic mother vowed this image to the Vir- gin, and immediately the monkey, moved by the special interposition of the Madonna (or sated with his sport), brought down the child unhurt, and gave it up to its 49 mother, who punctually fulfilled her vow, and still nightly lights the lamp before the image. In the Corso you find the Church of Santa Maria in Via Lata, which is said to occupy the spot where St. Paul lodged with the Centurion, and in a vault beneath, you are shown a spring which miraculously leaped up to supply the Apostle with water to baptize his converts. Some curious reliques are preserved in the Church of St. John Lateran, founded by the Emperor Constantine himself, and styled in an inscription over its door, " Mother and head of all the churches of the city and the world." Its noble interior is divided by four rows of piers into five aisles, and on each side of the central one are arranged, with most imposing effect, colossal statues of the twelve Apostles. In a tabernacle over the high altar are the unquestioned heads of St. Peter and St. Paul. In a side room I was shown a piece of the table on which the " Last Supper " was eaten. It seems to be a piece of red cedar, about a yard square, and was formerly covered with plates of silver ; but the barbari- ans stripped off the precious metal, and have left only a few fragments of it adhering to the nails. The cloisters are surrounded by a series of small Lombard arches, supported by double columns of all shapes, twisted, carved and inlaid with mosaics. Among the treasures there preserved is " A column of the Temple of Jeru- salem," split in two by the same earthquake which " rent the veil of the Temple in twain." It is a small 5* 50 ROME. round column of white marble, covered with carvings, and split longitudinally into two equal parts with a pre- cision which it is really difficult to explain. Near it is a square slab of red porphyry, said to be the stone on which the soldiers cast lots for the garments of Christ. It bears the inscription, " Et super vestem meam miserunt sortem." Beside it are two columns of Pilate's house. A little farther on you see a marble slab supported on four pillars at precisely the height of the stature of Christ, which, according to this standard, was exactly six feet. In another place is the Altar which was the scene of the Miracle of Bolsena, commemorated by Raphael on the walls of the Vatican. The legend states that a scepti- cal priest, while celebrating mass, dared to doubt the miracle of transubstantiation. Instantaneously the holy wafer leaped from his hands, passed through the marble top of this altar, making a hole which is still there, and struck against its side, leaving a stain of blood which is yet visible and is protected by an iron grating. What could be more convincing ? The monk who showed me this relique was perfectly well assured of the miracle, though he was too conscientious to vouch for the truth of the tradition which stated a marble well-mouth, standing in the centre of the cloisters, to be " The well of the woman of Samaria." Opposite to St. John Later an is La Scala Santa, the Holy Staircase, consisting of twenty-eight marble steps, RELIQUES. 51 believed to have belonged to the house of Pilate, and to be the very ones which Christ descended when he left the judgment-seat. So sacred is it esteemed that none are allowed to ascend it, except penitents on their knees, and an inscription promises to whomsoever thus mounts to its top, devoutly meditating on the Passion, &c, " an Indul- gence of nine years for each step ;" so that all the steps will procure for the penitent a respite of 252 years from the pains of purgatory. I always found a greater or less number of men and women painfully climbing it on their knees, and many seemed utterly exhausted with fatigue when they had reached the top. So great is the concourse that the steps would be worn out by penitent knees, if they were not covered with planks, which have been three times renewed. On each side of these steps are two other flights, which the penitents descend after accomplishing their penance, and which heretics, like myself, are allowed to mount. A young English clergy- man, with whom I first visited the place, had the bad taste, in his Protestant bigotry, to attempt to walk up the " Scala Santa," but the outcries of the insulted people stopped him on the first step, and he was lucky in not being torn to pieces. The chapel at the summit con- tains a portrait by St. Luke, of Jesus at the age of twelve years, and an inscription says, " There is no more holy place in all the world." Not far distant is the Church of Santa Croce in Geru- salemme. It is so named from the earth of Jerusalem 52 scattered on its foundation, and from a piece of the true cross which it contains ; though it is said that enough of this latter relique is extant, in various depositaries, to build a ship of the line. There are two subterraneous chapels. In that of St. Gregory, on the left, " every mass celebrated frees a soul from purgatory." If this be indeed so, they ought, in Christian charity, to keep busy day and night in the good work. The chapel, on the right, is dedicated to St. Helena, but is inscribed, " Women cannot enter this holy chapel under the penalty of excommunication. '' And this exclusion exists in a place sacred to a woman ! It must be a remnant of that old Pagan doctrine of the infe- riority of the female sex, which is not yet shaken off by the Mahommedans, nor, as it here appears, by the Roman Catholics. In the upper church is a list of the Reliques, from which I translate literally the following : " Three pieces of the wood of the Cross." " The inscription over the Cross in Hebrew, Greek and Latin." " One of the nails of the Cross." " A thorn from the Crown of Thorns." " The finger with which St. Thomas touched Christ." " The cross-piece of the Cross of the good thief" " One of the pieces of money paid to Judas" In the chapel of St. Helena are, " The veil and the hair of the Virgin Mary." " The cord which bound Christ." RELIQUES. 53 " The sponge filled with gall and vinegar." " The ashes of S. Lorenzo Martyr, made into a cake with his blood." " Some earth from Calvary, wet with the blood of Christ." " A piece of the stone on which God wrote the laws of Moses " Beside these specialties, an immense quantity of skulls, bones, teeth, &c, of various saints and martyrs, are preserved on sloping shelves, in glass cases, and carefully labelled, like specimens of minerals in a Museum. Democritus would laugh at all these things, but Hera- clitus would weep, and we travel to very little purpose if we do not learn charity to every sincere belief, however absurd it may seem to us ; remembering that our own may seem equally so to a more enlightened order of beings. The Church of Santa Maria d'Ara Cadi is perched on the eastern peak of the Capitoline hill. My guide-book (the invaluable Murray's, to which I desire to record my constant obligations) informed me that it was venerated as the depositary of a miraculous wooden image of the Saviour — II sanlissimo Bambino — " carved by a Fran- ciscan pilgrim, out of a tree which grew on the Mount of Olives, and painted by St. Luke while the pilgrim was sleeping over his work." It is famous for its wonderful power in healing the sick of all diseases. I mounted to the Church by its hundred and twenty -four steps of Gre- cian marble (stolen from the Temple of Venus and Rome), but did not find the Bambino in any of the chapels. On inquiring for it of a priest who was passing 54 ROME. by, he took me through the sacristy into a private chapel, at the end of which was a wooden closet like a ward- robe. He knelt before it, muttering a brief prayer, and then rose and began to don his priestly vestments, his cope edged with lace, his purple sash and the rest. I found that my sight-hunting curiosity had entangled me in somewhat of a scene, but I resolved to see it out. When the priest was robed, he opened the closet doors and discovered a velvet-covered coffer, on each side of which stood figures of Joseph and the Virgin Mary. Two or three men who had followed me in, now dropped on their knees, and I went down upon one. The priest set two lighted candles on each side of the coffer, and then unrolled from it covering after covering, till at last he came down to the Bambino itself, enveloped in swad- dling-clothes of white satin, which were almost covered with jewels, — diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and the like, — perfectly dazzling as they flashed in the light. All of them had been presented to the Bambino by his grateful votaries, who attributed their recovery from sickness to his miraculous powers. The Royal jewels of Great Britain do not equal the splendor here displayed. The face of the Bambino was coarsely carved and colored in the style of a ship's figure-head, and did not do much credit to St. Luke's skill as an artist. A dozen strings of large pearls hung around the neck, and the gems were attached to the white satin which covered every other part except the feet. The priest knelt before it, and re- MIRACLES. 55 peated several prayers in which all joined, and then, carefully taking the image on the ends of his ringers, he suddenly, to my startling surprise, pressed its toes to my forehead, and then to my lips ! I bore the unexpected honor as meekly as possible, and he afterwards presented the image to the other visitors, who kissed it most eagerly and reverentially. He then returned it to its place, care- fully wrapped it up, blew out the candles, and waited to receive " something for charity." On returning home and telling my landlady that I had kissed the toe of II santissimo Bambino, she exclaimed that I was most fortunate, and that now I was sure to enjoy perfect health and prosperity as long as I remained in Rome. When I laughed at this assurance, to over- come my incredulity, she told me a story of a miracle performed by it in the time of her grandmother. " The Holy Bambino had been carried to the house of a lady who was very ill, and was left with her a day to restore her to health. The lady was, however, secretly an un- believer, and she hid away the Bambino, and made an exact imitation of it, which she gave to the priests when they came for it. They carried this false image to the church without any suspicion of the fraud. But the Holy Bambino would not stay with the wicked lady. In the night it got up, walked to the church and knocked at the door — pit-pat — with its little feet. « Chi e V ' Who is there V called the priest. It knocked again with its 56 ROME. little feet — pit-pat — and when the priest opened the door, there he found II santissimo Bambino /" So ran the story told me, and such are the supersti- tions of the vulgar ; but I ought to add, in justice to Roman Catholics of education, that an intelligent Jesuit, with whom I afterwards became acquainted, and to whom I repeated the story, laughed at it most heartily, and when I asked him with surprise if he did not believe in the miracle, he replied, " Certainly not, no more than you do." He added, in answer to my inquiries, that any person might sincerely disbelieve even a received mira- cle (such as the liquefaction of the blood of Saint Janua- rius at Naples), and still be a good Catholic, for he might think that the effect was produced by natural and physi- cal causes ; but, if he went about saying that it was an imposture of the priests, he would bring religion itself into contempt, and therein he would sin deeply. The subtlety of this distinction is worthy of a Jesuit. 57 A DAY AMONG THE TOMBS OF ROME. " Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pom- pous in the grave," and most splendid and pompous of all mankind were the ancient Romans. Their Emperors raised gigantic Mausolea, which two thousand years have not been able to destroy ; a wealthy Roman's wife has for her sepulchre " a stern round tower, firm as a for- tress ;" and even an humble baker's tomb still remains, sculptured with the emblems of his trade. Few persons were allowed the honor of being buried within the city, but their tombs lined the sides of the great roads beyond the gates, and made them " streets of sepulchres," where his ancestors saluted the Roman as he left or entered the city. The most celebrated were beside the Appian way, and there we still find the Sepulchre of Scipio. It is a labyrinth of winding passages, cut in the soft tufa rock, and branching to right and left, with recesses here and there, where once lay the bodies of the dead for whom it was excavated. But " The Scipios' tombs contain no ashes now ; The very sepulchres lie tenantless Of their heroic dwellers." 6 58 ROME. All have been dug up to gratify our Gothic curiosity, and at the end of the subterraneous labyrinth, which you thread with taper in hand, following close on the heels of a beldame guide, shrivelled and haggard as one of the Parcce, you now find only the empty chamber which con- tained the well-known Sarcophagus of Scipio before it was removed to the Vatican. Emerging to day-light from this sacrilegious ransacking of the kingdom of the dead, you cross a vineyard to a Columbarium, or family-vault. It is a stone chamber, twenty-five feet square, and as many high, into which you descend by steep stone steps. In all the four inner walls are rows of semi-circular openings, like so many small oven-mouths or pigeon-holes; from their resemblance to which last comes the name. They look somewhat like the above-ground graves in the New Orleans ceme- tery, except that the latter are much larger to receive entire bodies, while in the niches of the Columbarium are inserted only small urns containing the ashes and burnt bones of the deceased. Above each is a marble slab, with a brief inscription to the memory of its occu- pant. Nine tiers of these run around the walls, and in the centre of the chamber is erected a square mass of masonry, which is also pierced with niches, so that the remains, which were once five hundred Romans, are accommodated with " ample room and verge enough " within half the space of an ordinary modern house. Many minor tombs, now mere nameless masses of THE TOMBS OF ROME. 59 brick-work, line the sides of the Appian way ; but you hurry by them to reach that of Cecilia Metella. It is a massive circular tower, which seems built for eternity, with its walls twenty-five feet thick, formed of huge blocks of travertine, and enclosing within its narrow chamber only " a woman's grave !" You enter through a breach in the walls, and look down into the circular cavity, now despoiled of the treasure which its builder fondly hoped would remain for ever in its safe keeping. The sarcophagus, which was its sole tenant, now stands in a corner of the court-yard of the Farnese Palace, and the rain is permitted to beat upon its fluted sides of white Parian marble, which were once so carefully shielded from even the winds of heaven visiting them too roughly, while, through a hole broken in it, the lowest reptile may crawl over the sacred ashes ! We know nothing of Cecilia Metella, except from this gigantic proof of her husband's " love or pride ;" but a little more regard might have been paid to the common feelings of humanity, and to the golden maxim of doing as one would be done by, though much could not be expected from this utilitarian age, in which " Mizraim cureth wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsam." The entrance to the ancient Christian Catacombs is from the church of St. Sebastian, also on the Appian way. Guided by an old monk, and each of us carrying a tall wax candle, we descended a long flight of steps, and entered a series of winding passages, roughly cut in 60 ROME. the soft rock, just high and wide enough for a man to pass through. Their extent is almost incredible ; one passage is shown which extends to Ostia, sixteen miles distant, and they are said to be sixty miles in circuit. When, or for what purpose, these immense galleries were first excavated, is uncertain (though probably to obtain pozzolana), but their gloomy and lonely caverns were used by the early Christians in the times of their perse- cutions, to secretly hold forbidden meetings, to celebrate their holy mysteries at the peril of their lives, and to deposit the remains of their martyred brethren. In some recesses are shown their altars, with the roof above yet blackened with the smoke of their lamps ; and along the walls of the passages are hewn out hollows, just large enough for the bodies which they contained. In one spot are two large recesses and five smaller ones, in which, according to an inscription above, were contained an entire family of father, mother, and five children. There are said to have been here found the bodies of one hundred and seventy-four thousand martyrs, and forty- six Popes, most of whom have been removed to separate shrines. The passages which contained them are so countless and winding, that visitors have sometimes entered alone, and never again found their way out ; and to guard against a recurrence of these disasters, most of the galleries are now stopped up ; but still some of our party had some misgivings, as they blindly followed the monk in his windings and branchings from passage to THE TOMBS OF ROME. 61 passage, and they were much relieved when we at length ascended to the church by another entrance, the original one trodden by the early Christians. In this sanctuary is the highly-prized relique of a stone, on which are two foot-shaped hollows, which are believed to be the miraculous impressions made by the feet of Christ, when he was met by St. Peter at the spot now occupied by the little church of Domine-quo-vadis, which was built to commemorate the event, and named from the words uttered by St. Peter. The stone has been long devoutly venerated, but a lynx-eyed sculptor lately visited it, and discovered that the marks are those of two right feet ! Re-entering the city, at its farther end we find the Mausoleum of Augustus, which was a circular building of white marble, constructed by the Emperor himself, two hundred feet in diameter, covered with hanging gar- dens, and containing in its inner circumference sepulchral chambers for the remains of his family and friends, the first among whom was the young Marcellus, " miserande puer." There is something grand in the spectacle of the master of the world, who could command all the enjoyments and triumphs of life, not fearing to prepare his own sepulchre. But at the present day this Mauso- leum of the Emperor who gave his name to the most glorious era in the history of the world, is degraded into a Circus, and a marble tablet in its corridor commemo- rates, not Augustus, but a rope dancer and elephant 6* 62 ROME. keeper, whose marvellous abilities " drew unheard-of concourse and applause !" " The Mole which Hadrian reared on high " we saw, on our way to Saint Peter's, converted into the Castle of St. Angelo. The Archangel Michael, whose image crowns it and gives it its name, was seen by Pope Gre- gory the Great, in the sixth century, hovering over it. It supplied a happy answer to a French officer who commanded the fortress in the war of the revolution, and who replied to the Neapolitan troops who besieged him in it, that he would surrender when the bronze angel above had sheathed his sword. From the sublime mausolea of Emperors let us step to the ridiculous tomb of the Baker Eurysaces and his wife, which has been lately discovered just outside of the Porta Maggiore. It is a building of three stories, the second of which is composed of an upright row of the stone mortars in which bakers used to knead their bread, and in the third of which similar mortars lie on their sides, with their mouths facing you, and holding a stone ball to represent the dough. Around the top runs a row of round loaves. On the frieze are sculptured the dif- ferent stages of making bread, and in front is a basso- relievo representing the baker and his wife, with a sarcophagus and an inscription, " Atistia, my wife, was a most excellent woman, and all that is left of her body is in this bread-basket" The whole monument, to our notion, seems a curious jesting with the grave, but it THE TOMBS OF ROME. 63 shows that the bakers of those days were not above their business. In a corner of the church " Santa Maria del Popolo," I discovered a very curious monument of more modern times. At its bottom the upper half of a skeleton, with its hands crossed on its breast, is sculptured out of bone- colored marble, and half covered with a white marble shroud ; at its top is a portrait of the man there buried, with the motto, " This is not alive," and under the skele- ton is another motto, " Nor is this dead." The inscrip- tion states that both were executed by their subject, " Joannes Baptista Gislenus, of Rome, architect to two kings of Poland," in 1670, when he was 70 years old, and two years before he died. Below the inscription are two medallions, one of a Phoenix on its funeral pile, with the motto, " I will die in my nest," and the other of a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, with the motto, " Like the Phcenix will I multiply my days." The epitaph concludes with saying, " I ask from thee neither applause nor compassion, but only a salutation when you enter, and a farewell when you depart." The whole monument is a very singular memento of the taste of the seventeenth century. The Cemetery of the Capuchin Monks is one of the most striking sights in Rome. You first enter their church (which contains Guido's magnificent picture of the archangel Michael, " severe in youthful beauty," trampling Satan under his feet), and there find a monk to 64 ROME. conduct you. You descend in the rear of the church, and enter a narrow hall, from which open out five low vaulted chambers, filled with the bones of all the monks who have died there since the foundation of the church. The roofs and walls of the chambers are covered with skulls, ribs, legs, arms, and fingers, arranged in the most fantastic forms, like the weapons in the Tower of London. You see them formed into pyramids, arches, stars, suns, crowns, festoons, and even chandeliers, all made of bones. Among these ornaments stand some perfect skeletons, with sandals on their fleshless feet, rosaries in their bony hands, and the brown cloak of the order thrown over all, while from under its hood their skulls grin horribly a ghastly smile. On the floor of these chambers are two rows of graves, with the names of their occupants inscribed on the wooden crosses which are stuck in them. Each new occupant displaces a previous one, whose skeleton is then placed erect against the side. The last date was only two months old, and I asked the monk who was my guide, how he would like such treatment when his turn came 1 " Oh, that will be some time yet," he replied. " But the last one was as young as you." " Yes, but he was always sickly." Females are not allowed to enter the monastery, except on a certain day in the year, when all who come and pray in the chapel before sunrise obtain plenary indulgence for all their sins. " Once there was a side door by which females could look in, but it was stopped up," said the THE TOMBS OF ROME. 65 monk, "because the women used to start and scream, and make a noise, for they are not like men, who come and look, and then go away and reflect." He enlighten- ed me on the difference between Capuchin and Francis- can monks ; the former must go barefoot, wear no shirt, and sleep on a board ; the latter enjoy sandals, shirts, and mattresses. The monks here were originally Capu- chins, but begged one indulgence after another, till now they have become Franciscans. " But even yet," con- tinued my cunning monk, " we are kept very strictly ; so, if you, Signore, were to offer me a handkerchief, or a piece of money, T could not take it, without a permission from the Superior, which permission I have received." I took the hint, gave him his fee, and bade him adieu. The Protestant burial-ground is particularly interesting to the stranger in Rome, for he does not know how soon he himself may enjoy a corner of it, and, in the words of Shelley, " it might make one in love with death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place." It lies under the mouldering walls and towers of ancient Rome, in the shadow of the pyramid which is the tomb of Caius Cestius, " And like an infant's smile, over the dead, A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread." Beneath its cypresses is buried the poet Keats, upon whose tomb is engraved, according to his last wish — " Here lies one whose name was writ in water." On the 66 ROME. summit of the rising ground, with Imperial Rome at his feet, are the remains of Shelley, beneath a broad slab, overhung with roses m mid-winter, and inscribed, " Percy Bysshe Shelley, Cor Cordium" — " heart of hearts," in every sense, but so commemorated here from the strange fact, that when his body was burnt on the coast of the gulf of Spezzia, where the waves had cast it ashore, his noble heart remained unconsumed. In such a ramble as we have taken to-day among the sepulchres of two thousand years, the mind is naturally led to contrast the ancient and modern modes of disposing of their dead ; and the more frequently that we find the foul churchyards of our own days brought into compari- son with the funeral piles and the urn-burial of antiquity, the more inclined do we feel to exclaim, in despite of the shackles of custom — Entomb me not, when life shall pass away, In the dark earth j though leaf, and flower, and tree Might blossom o'er my grave, let me not be Of adder, toad, and worm the helpless prey : Nor vainly strive to save me from decay In spicy cerements, hideous mockery Of former life, which once-fond friends would see, And shrinking, half-suppressed disgust betray : But give my corse to purifying fire, And let the quivering blaze in air ascend, Fit emblem of th' ethereal soul, which, higher And nobler yet, to heaven will eager tend , And to celestial happiness aspire, When thus in flame its earthly course shall end. 67 VI. THE VATICAN. By the side of Saint Peter's stands the Vatican Palace ; and it is a worthy companion to the great Cathe- dral, not so much for its architecture, or its extent, (though it contains more than four thousand rooms, and two hundred staircases, and covers more than twenty acres of ground), as for its unparalleled collections of sculpture and painting. The statues from Greece and ancient Rome — the antique sarcophagi, vases, candelabra, altars and inscriptions — the paintings of " the divine Ra- phael," and the like — here fill galleries, saloons, halls and temples, worthy of the priceless treasures, and have all been collected into this focus of splendor by the liberality and taste of successive Popes, who have thus made the Vatican even more famous as a metropolis of art, than it was in former days as the spiritual forge from which were fulminated the terrible bulls against heresies and insubordination, which " with fear of change perplexed monarchs." My first visit to the Vatican was made by torch-light, and those who desire striking first impressions should not 68 ROME. fail to do likewise, though the present Pope has so great fears of fire, that he throws every difficulty in the way of such visits, harassing them by many precise restric- tions ; and when they do take place, he sits by his window watching the galleries till every light is extinguished. On the appointed evening, an hour after sunset, we met, to the required number of fifteen (neither more nor less being allowed), at the foot of the great staircase of the Palace. Here the Swiss guards of the Pope were in attendance, and the Major-Domo counted us carefully, and then marshalled the way. We followed him up the broad flights of marble steps, the grandest in the world, and through various saloons, dusky from their half-lighted vastness, till we reached the great, hall. Here a number of wax candles were placed in a shade, which hid the light from our eyes, and threw it on the objects in advance. The guide carried this light at the end of a long staff, and walked ahead, stopping before the most remarkable statues, while we followed at a little distance, guarded by the soldiers, and awed into silence by the grandeur around us. Criticism was forgotten in admira- tion. The first gallery is over a thousand feet long, and is lined on both sides with marble statues of gods, heroes, emperors, philosophers, and the other imagina- tions or realities of antiquity. As the torch advanced up the long perspective with its marble population, the effect was indescribably magnificent. The statues seemed to step forward to meet us as the light fell xvpon one after THE VATICAN. 69 the other. In the distance all was dim obscurity, but the advancing torch peopled every corner, flashing on statue after statue, as if they were just rising from the floor, or leaping from the walls. Their combinations might sup- ply even a Dante with new ideas. The changing shadows gave life and expression to the marble features ; Jupiter frowned ; Venus smiled ; Demosthenes and Cicero became silently eloquent ; the Apollo Belvedere exulted over his sped arrow ; and Laocoon seemed to be really writhing in the coils of the serpent. Many of these sculptures were originally designed for baths and other subterranean chambers, where they could be seen only by artificial illumination, and the light of day is too harsh for the contours, which, by torch-light, receive a warmth and softness which change the marble into flesh. For two hours we walked on through halls, saloons, and courts, filled with statuary, almost realizing the Arabian fable of the city, whose inhabitants had all been changed to stone ; and when we finished the circuit, the guard counted us over again, as if he suspected that some of us would have liked to hide in a corner, and pass the night in studying the statues by the light of the moon, which was gushing in through the windows, and struggling with our torch. Many successive days were passed in minute examina- tion of the collections, but though our admiration of many single objects was greatly increased by their more careful study, yet the general impression by daylight was far 70 ROME. inferior to the striking one of that night, which ought to be the only visit, if the stranger were content to admire without discriminating. The Vatican is open to the pub- lic on Mondays and Thursdays from twenty to twenty- three o'clock, as the Romans begin to reckon from the Ave Maria, or half an hour after sunset, and count on for twenty -four successive hours. In December, therefore, the hours of opening are from one to four, and the transient visitor to Rome should give all these afternoons to the Vatican. The long colonnade and staircases by which it is en- tered, are ingeniously contrived by the architect, Bernini, to appear even longer than they really are (though the great reality needed no such exaggerations), for he has made the farther end gradually contract in width, and the spectator naturally attributes the diminution of size to the effect of the perspective, and is surprised at the great length which he thinks could alone have produced so remarkable an effect. At the top of the long flight of steps, decorated with Ionic columns, you turn to the right, and ascend another, which leads you into the Royal Saloon, from which open on one side the far- famed Sistine Chapel (to which we will return another day), and on the other, the Pauline Chapel, which on the day of my first visit was open for the " Exposition of the Holy Sacrament." The altar was in a blaze of light, from hundreds of wax tapers in golden candlesticks, arranged in crosses, festoons, and other figures, and the THE VATICAN. 71 floor was crowded with devotees, kneeling and praying most earnestly, and always, before leaving, bowing three times to the sacred emblems. There were no officiating priests, and not a sound was heard but the rustle of the clothes of those entering and retiring, and the faint mur- murs of the penitents. Leaving the chapel and passing through the Ducal Sa- loon, you walk along an open portico, by the side of a court, and enter the first hall of sculpture, the Galleria Lapidaria, nearly a quarter of a mile in length. Its first division is occupied chiefly with sepulchral monuments. On the sides are stone coffins (covered with sculptures, usually of gay and festive subjects in the true spirit of the ancient pbilosophy), funeral altars, and tomb-stones, one of which represents a cutler's shop and forge, in token of the trade of Lucius Atemetus, who was buried beneath it. Upon the walls are displayed ancient se- pulchral inscriptions in Greek and Latin. The Pagan are on the right hand, and on the left are the early Chris- tian ones found in the Catacombs, where they secretly celebrated their rites and buried their dead ; and it is remarked how " the influence of a purer creed is appa- rent in the constant reference to the state beyond the grave, which contrasts in a striking manner with the hopeless grief expressed in the Roman monuments." The next division, the Museo Chiaramonti, forming part of the same gallery, was formed by Pope Pius VII. and arranged by Canova. Of the seven hundred pieces 72 of sculpture which it alone contains, all of more or less interest, only a very few can be here even alluded to. A bust of the Emperor Augustus at the age of about six- teen, is exquisitely beautiful, and is farther remarkable for bearing so striking a likeness to Napoleon in his best days, as to impress every one who sees it. The coin- cidence must have been gratifying to the modern Em- peror, when he entered these halls as a conqueror. The celebrated sitting statue of Tiberius alone cost twelve thousand dollars. The sleeping fisher boy, a Venus coming out of the bath, the Cupid of Praxiteles, the vestal Tutia, who disproved the slanders against her by carrying water in a sieve from the Tiber to the Temple of Vesta, and the recumbent Hercules found at Hadrian's Villa, are some of the more remarkable objects in this part of the Gallery. The interest and impressiveness of all these objects are exceedingly enhanced by the recollections and as- sociations with which the imagination invests them. A poet, of a highly refined classical taste,* has very hap- ily alluded to these attributes ; saying, in behalf of these degraded antiquities, — " What we, and where we have been, oh ! remember, and give us your pity. Once this rare old Vase was the pride of the gardens of Egypt, And Cleopatra herself bade her courtiers fill it with myrtle : — * R. M. Milnes — " Memorials of Many Scenes." THE VATICAN. 73 This so daintily carved — this duplicate layer of Onyx — On thy finger, Antinous, rested, a jewel unvalued — I, God Hermes, stood in the hall of Caesar Augustus — &c." A door on the left, near the middle of the quarter of a mile, leads into a noble hall (Nuovo Braccio), supported by twelve Corinthian columns (two of them taken from the tomb of Cecilia Metella), and paved with rich marble and ancient mosaics. Among the statuary with which it also is filled, one of the most curious is a colos- sal group of the Nile, displaying its river-god reclining at full length, accompanied by the ibis, the hippopota- mus, and the alligator, and surrounded by sixteen children playing about him, in allegorical allusion to the sixteen cubits which the river must rise to fertilize the land of Egypt. You are strongly reminded of Gulliver bound down and scrambled over by the Lilliputians, as recorded in his veracious narrative. The Vatican Library is entered by an adjoining door. Its treasures of learning are famous the world over, but you may walk through it without seeing a single book. They are all preserved in closets about eight feet high, built against the walls of the room, with Etruscan vases standing on them, and the walls above decorated with fresco paintings of scenes in the lives of the Popes, views of their palaces, and similar subjects. Among them are Michael Angelo's original design for Saint Peter's, so much more effective than the one now exe- cuted ; and a view of Fontana's great exploit of raising 7* 74 ROME. the obelisk in front of the church. In some side rooms are the fresco painting of the Nozze Aldobrandini (one of the finest things in Rome, for conception, feeling, expression and execution), and a museum of Christian antiquities, and other curiosities, from which the attend- ant, when he found that I was an American, eagerly- selected for my especial attention some idols from my own country, and seemed to wonder that I did not fall down and worship them. The printed books of the col- lection are valuable less from their number than their rarity, many being the only copies in existence. Among the manuscripts are the Greek Bible of the sixth century; the Acts of the Apostles, written in gold and presented to a Pope by the Queen of Cyprus ; a richly illuminated Hebrew Bible for which the Jews of Venice offered its weight in gold ; the celebrated palimpsest of Cicero de Republicd, discovered by Cadinal Mai, written over St. Augustine's commentary on the Psalms ; Tasso's auto- graph of his " Jerusalem ;" seventeen letters of Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn, (fee. (fee. The principal portion of the library is contained in the great gallery, five hun- dred paces in length, divided into eighteen rooms, the long perspective of which you view through the door openings, as they recede and diminish behind one another. Returning to the Museo Chiaramonti, at its extremity you ascend to a square vestibule, in whose centre is the Torso Belvedere ; a mere trunk of a body, supposed to THE VATICAN. 75 have been Hercules reposing, and now without head, arms, or legs, but with all its muscles and contours so perfectly developed and proportioned, that Michael An- gelo declared that he was indebted to it for all his power in representing the human form. Beside it stands the Sarcophagus of Scipio, the simple beauty of which has caused it to be copied in most of the cemeteries of the world, including Mount Auburn, where it covers the remains of Spurzheim. From this vestibule runs off to the left the " Egyptian Gallery," contained in a suite of rooms with architecture and ornaments very appropriately in the Egyptian style, and embracing a very extensive collection of mummies, idols, domestic utensils, and other reliques from the land of the Nile, among which the most remarkable are ten sitting statues in black basalt, of Isis, large as life. But these things seem out of place among the tokens of a purer taste in beauty, and you soon return to the vestibule of the Torso. Through two other well-filled chambers, you pass to the Cor tile del Belvedere, or octagonal court-yard, with a fountain in the centre, and surrounded by porticoes and pavilions which enshrine some of the master-pieces of ancient art. In one cabinet is the Laocoon ; the father with his two sons enveloped in the crushing folds of the serpents — " A father's love and mortal's agony, with an immortal's patience blending," unaltered since Pliny de- scribed it two thousand years ago.* In a neighboring * It is curious that a second head of Laocoon, believed by many 76 ROME. pavilion is the Antinous ; and in an opposite one the Apollo, " the lord of the unerring bow," of whom it would be absurd profanation to say a word to any one who can read its poetical copy by " Childe Harold," which fully equals, if it does not surpass the original. A fourth cabinet contains Canova's " Boxers," and the porticoes connecting the pavilions are filled with other statues, busts, and sarcophagi, which elsewhere would singly be the pride of museums, but are scarcely noticed here in this profusion of art. The adjoining Hall of Animals would be, perhaps, the most interesting of all to a person of unidealized taste, for the most uncultivated eye can appreciate the perfect nature and exquisite beauty of this wonderful marble menagerie. Every animal is here perfectly copied in its most characteristic attitude. A lion is tearing a horse; a most graceful greyhound is playfully biting the ear of its fellow ; a fox, caught by its tail in a bush, is trying to raise its head to gnaw itself loose ; two bulls are fighting with locked horns ; a crab, of black porphyry, lies on a cushion of white marble ; a monkey holds up a cocoa-nut ; and alligators, lizards, peacocks, pelicans, lambs, stags, to be the original one, is now preserved in the land of the Goths, in the palace of the Due (TAreniberg, at Brussels. The story runs that an ancestor of the present Duke set out for Italy to pass several years, but returned in one month, having spent all his money, but bringing back with him this head, the cost of which he would never disclose. THE VATICAN. 77 and the whole animated world, are here seen faithfully copied by the artists of ancient Greece. At the head of the next gallery is the sleeping Ariadne, with her limbs composed in the most profound repose, and sheltered by drapery falling in marble folds, which seem to have arranged themselves ; though colossal, the statue is light and airy, and its entire disposition is the very perfection of grace ; she is a true sleeping beauty. A bracelet formed like a serpent (in the antique and lately revived fashion), and therefore imagined to be an asp, gave to the statue, at its first discovery, the name of Cleopatra. The " Genius of the Vatican" is in the same gallery, and the three chambers of the next hall are filled with busts of gods and Emperors. In the adjoining " Cabinet of the Masks" is the " Crouching Venus"' (La Venere accovacciatd) just from the bath, and shrinking from sight like the chaste Susannah. The surface of the marble is weather-worn and honeycombed by time, till it is rough as sandstone ; but its exquisite beauty, in despite of this, gives a good lesson to those amateurs of sculpture who think the merit of a statue at all dependent on its smooth finish and high polish. You next enter " The Hall of the Muses," supported by sixteen Corinthian columns of Carrara marble, from the ruins of Hadrian's villa at Tivoli, paved with brilliant ancient mosaic, and painted with classic divinities. On the floor stand Apollo and the Muses, the seven wise men of Greece, and her most celebrated sages, orators, 78 and poets, among whom Aspasia is worthily placed by the side of Pericles. Adjoining this is the " Round Saloon," in the centre of which, beneath its dome, stands the grand porphyry vase, forty -two feet in circum- ference, found in the baths of Titus, where its original place is still shown surrounded by a circular flower-bed. In the succeeding " Hall of the Greek Cross" are two magnificent sarcophagi, of gigantic size, and each formed of a single block of porphyry. One contained the body of Constantia, the daughter of the Emperor Con stan tine, and the other that of the Empress Helena. Now they are degraded into curiosities for travellers ! They are covered with sculptures, wrought with great delicacy and finish in this most untractable material. On the former, little Cupids are busy in the vintage, gathering and press- ing the grapes, which, with the tendrils of the vine, are festooned along its sides ; on the other is represented a battle, and on its cover figures of Victory. You now ascend a marble staircase with bronze balus- trades to the " Hall of the Biga," named from its chief ornament, an antique white marble chariot of two wheels with two horses yoked before it. All travellers admire it greatly, and one American visitor to Rome confessed to me that he passed in this single room nearly all the time which he spent in the Vatican ; but they are not generally aware that the greater part of its beauty is due to modern restorations, though made in the spirit of the original, as the seat of the car, and the body of one of the THE VATICAN. 79 horses, are the only ancient parts. The unpractised eye is often thus deceived, and you sometimes find yourself admiring most that part of a statue which is an addition of its modern repairer. The Etruscan, or Gregorian Museum, fills a suite of rooms to the left, over the Egyptian gallery. The present Pope has there collected, at his own expense, a host of interesting memorials of the Etruscans, that wonderful people, who conquered nearly all Italy ; who excelled in the arts, while the Greeks were yet barbarians, and before Rome was founded ; whose massive structures have withstood the ages which have destroyed their builders ; and whose origin is lost in antiquity, so that we can only guess that they may have been aborigines, or Pelasgi, or Phenicians, or Philistines from the land of Canaan. One of the rooms of this Museum is fitted up as an exact copy of an Etruscan tomb. You enter by a door widen- ing at the bottom in the Egyptian style, and find the walls hung with vases and cups of various forms, which are also strewn over the earth which covers a skeleton enclosed in a sarcophagus at the end of the tomb. On the walls are paintings of some scenes in the life of the deceased, and on the roof is a board chequered with blue, red and yellow squares. In tombs like this, most of the Etruscan antiquities have been found. Among them are many statues of baked clay ; sarcophagi with recumbent figures ; bronze statues, covered with the rich blue rust, so dear to antiquaries ; stamped pieces of clay, supposed to 80 ROME. have been Etruscan money ; ornaments of gold, neckla- ces, bracelets, rings and brooches, of the most beautiful patterns, and most delicate workmanship, and a war- chariot of bronze and leather. The vases are very numerous, of every variety of size and shape, and all covered with painted groups in illustration of the legends of mythology, or of passages in the poets, or events of actual life. The colors are generally only black and red, and in most of them the vases seem to have been origin- ally red, then covered with black varnish, and this finally scraped away in parts so as to leave in red the figures desired. On a vase called " Sicilian," one of the war- riors bears on his shield three human legs, spreading from a common centre, precisely as on the coins of the Isle of Man, where it is accompanied by the motto, " Quocunque jeceris, stabit." The coincidence, if it be no more, is very remarkable, and merits investigation. The Etruscan Museum, unlike the other galleries, cannot be seen without a special permit, and you are not allowed to take any notes while in it, not even to write the names of the remarkable objects. In the other galle- ries you may write, but not sketch and the guard requested me to desist from even making a rough plan of the way in which the saloons in this labyrinth branched out from each other. Returning from the Etruscan Museum, you pass through the " Gallery of the Candelabra," which is over the Vatican Library, and is of equal length. Some mag- THE VATICAN. 81 nificent antique Candelabra give name to this hall, and among them are interspersed in six divisions other ancient sculptures, such as the mysterious Diana of Ephesus ; a satyr, with Pan extracting a thorn from his foot ; and the graceful boy struggling with a goose. Next comes the " Gallery of Maps," painted in 1581, by the Archbishop of Alatri, half in plan, half in perspective, and very curious, as showing the geographical knowledge, or rather igno- rance, of that period. To them succeed the " Tapestries of Raphael," worked at Arras in Flanders, from his cartoons, seven of which are now preserved in Hampton Court. They depict scenes in the life of Christ, and in the History of St. Peter and Paul, with all the richness of painting, in spite of the injuries which they have sus- tained from time, and from their ignorant possessors, one of whom burnt one piece for the sake of the gold and silver threads interwoven with it ! But much as they merit long study, you hasten on to the neighboring " Gallery of paintings." Though it contains less than forty pictures, one of them is Raphael's Transfiguration, called by common consent the first in the world. In the glory which fills the upper part of the picture floats the figure of Christ, attended by Moses and Elijah. On the mountain beneath them are prostrated the three Apostles, shielding their eyes from the dazzling light of divinity. At the foot of the mountain the sufferings of humanity are emblemed by the boy writhing in demoniac convulsions, and brought 8 82 by his mother to the remaining nine Apostles, who point up to the only power by which he can be cured. When Raphael died at the untimely age of thirty-seven, this master-piece, yet unfinished, was suspended over his corpse ; as if the public grief needed any such excite- ment ! Opposite to it now hangs his " Madonna di Foligno" in which the face of the Virgin is of the most exquisite beauty conceivable ; and near it are two repre- sentations of her " Coronation." In the same room is Domenichino's " Communion of St. Jerome," generally considered as second only to the " Transfiguration." It represents the dying St. Jerome receiving the sacrament, and is a most natural and intensely life-like painting of such a circumstance ; but though it equals reality, it there stops short, and does not rise to the regions of imagination. The other pictures are all admirable, but have too formidable neighbors to be very impressive. In America we have many very good paintings, but no great ones. We know nothing of what the brush can effect. We do not dream of the new sense which is developed by the sight of a masterpiece. It is as if we had always lived in a world where our eyes, though open, saw but a blank, and were then brought into another, where they were saluted by all objects and sights of grace and beauty. Such a new universe is revealed to us by our first visit to a great gallery of paintings. We learn that the art, which we had perhaps liked and ad- mired, as presenting the likeness of a friend or of a THE VATICAN. 83 favorite landscape, or as supplying pleasant ornaments to our rooms, is to be reverenced as the most perfect organ for the expression of the highest thoughts of the soul, and the most potent instrument for exciting the inmost depths of our sympathies. But most famous pictures will disappoint the visitor who expects that the beauties of a great painting will strike him vividly and suddenly, like a flash of lightning. The only pictures which at all approach to this effect are Rubens' Crucifixion at Antwerp, Correggio's Saint Jerome at Parma, and Titian's Magdalen at Venice. All the rest require frequent and de ep study before a tithe of their excellences appear. We need a special education to be enabled to appreciate or even to understand their merits ; and this becomes self-evident when we call to mind that Painting is only a peculiar mode of expressing certain ideas, and is there- fore a veritable language, which we must learn letter by letter, before we can attain a comprehension of its whole import. As well might we expect that a foreigner, who had learnt just enough English to order his dinner, should be able to comprehend the delicate shades of beauty in Paradise Lost, as hope, that when we have made some such progress in the alphabet of the Fine Arts, we shall find ourselves capable of appreciating their masterpieces. The "Stanze (or Chambers) of Raphael" come next to the Picture Gallery. They are four rooms, the walls of which were painted in fresco by Raphael during the last two years of his life. I may here confess that, until I 84 ROME. saw them, I did not fully realize the title of Raphael to be the " Prince of Painters," even after having seen his " Transfiguration ;" but these stanze first made me appre- ciate the unequalled fertility, power, feeling, and inven- tion of his genius. In the first is the " Incendio del Borgo," or the great fire which consumed the suburb of St. Peter's. All is in excited action ; one group of men are striving to extinguish the flames ; others are saving the women and children over the walls ; one young man, .(Eneas-like, is carrying off his old father on his shoulders ; and a group of distracted women kneeling before the church, on the balcony of which stands the Pope, are eagerly stretching out their arms to him, and imploring his succor. The legend states that the fire was finally arrested as it approached the Vatican, by the Pope's making the sign of the cross. On the three other walls are depicted the " Justification of Leo III.," " The Coro- nation of Charlemagne," and " The Victory of Leo IV. over the Saracens at Ostia." In the second stanza are allegorically represented- Theology, Poetry, Jurispru- dence, and Philosophy. The last is famous as " The School of Athens." Upon the steps of an imposing Gre- cian temple stand the greatest philosophers of antiquity. In the middle Plato and Aristotle dispute on philosophy, the former pointing towards heaven, and the latter towards earth. On the left Socrates is instructing Alcibiades and other disciples. Archimedes traces a geometrical dia- gram on the ground ; Pythagoras writes on his knees, THE VATICAN. 85 and between them is Diogenes with his tub. This pic- ture is perhaps the most perfect of Raphael's conceptions, and its fifty-two figures are only so many variations of dignity and grace. In the third Stanza is the " Expul- sion of Heliodorus from the Temple," the most spirited and animated of the whole series. Heliodorus is impi- ously bearing off the treasures of the temple, but has fallen before the horse of the avenging angel, which rears to crush him, with a human expression of fierce eagerness in its attitude, and behind it two angels with scourges in their hands seem to glide over the pavement. Opposite to this painting is " Attila," with his Goths, de- terred from entering Rome by the apparition in the Heavens of St. Peter and St. Paul, with drawn swords. On a third wall is " The Miracle of Bolsena," and on a fourth " The Deliverance of St. Peter from Prison," in three divisions. In the centre one the angel is awakening St. Peter, while the prison is illumined by the rays from his body. On the right they are hastening away, while the guards sleep on the steps ; and on the left the aroused soldiers are rushing out in pursuit by the light of a torch and of the moon. The most wonderful effects of light and shade are here displayed, and must convince the greatest unbeliever in the genius of Raphael, that the simple and chaste style in which he especially de- lighted was adapted not from weakness but from choice. The fourth and last stanza commemorates the life of " Constantine," the first Christian Emperor, in four 8* 86 ROME. paintings, the most striking of which is his " Battle at the Ponte Molle," which we crossed just before entering Rome. Constantine on his white horse, has just driven Maxentius into the Tiber ; the two armies are fighting singly, hand to hand ; one man falls from his rearing horse, but holds to its mane, and makes ineffectual thrusts at his adversary, not seeing that another is about to stab him from behind ; others are fighting under the very hoofs of a horse which is about to trample them under foot ; others again are in a sinking boat, but fight on ; all are imbued with the intensest spirit of war, but in their midst is the touching episode, so characteristic of the gentle feeling of the artist, of an old soldier raising the dead body of a youthful standard-bearer. From the Stanze, you emerge into the Loggie of Ra- phael, an arcade or colonnade, by the side of a courtyard, which has its roof and wall painted by the same wonder- ful being. In the groinings of the coved roof are a series of paintings representing scenes from the Old Testament, beginning with the creation of the world, and ending with the building of the Temple of Solomon. The walls and pilasters are also covered with arabesque paintings of unapproachable grace, delicacy, and variety. Figures, flowers, animals, landscapes, temples, masks, trophies, and every conceivable freak of the imagination, are connected by wreaths, festoons, scrolls, &c, into a perfect dream of fairy land, and while revelling in the beauty of each, you wonder most at the inexhaustible THE VATICAN. 87 invention which could alone have created them. They are now much faded from exposure to the weather, but you can readily believe that " they who saw the Loggie, after they were finished, when the lustre of the gilding, the snowy whiteness of the stuccoes, the brilliancy of the colors, and the freshness of the marble, made them resplendent with beauty on every side, must have been struck with amazement as at a vision of Paradise." Your pleasant task is now over ; you have gone through all the galleries of the Vatican, and, after de- scending two flights of stairs, and crossing a court, you will find yourself again at the end of the grand colonnade. If you have attempted even to glance at everything in one visit, you will feel perfectly stupified and bewildered, such is the immensity of things to be admired, and you will find that all the statues, pictures, and antiquities which I have mentioned in this long letter, are only a few stars amid the countless firmament of the Vatican. 88 VII. CHRISTMAS AT ROME. In every country of Christendom, and by every sect, the festival of Christmas is commemorated with more or less pomp and ceremony, but the Romans above all others make its observance their especial pride and pleasure, and they celebrate it in their churches with all the majestic processions, rich vestments, and stately ceremonies, which they have inherited from the ancient Romans, through the medium of the early Christian church, and which are so well adapted to impress the multitude with veneration for the holy mysteries which they are intended to emblem. For a month before Christmas the theatres are rigidly closed, and the streets are promenaded by wandering pipers, or Pifferarii, who come from the mountains of Calabria, and represent the shepherds " who watched their flocks by night," before the birth of Christ. They are very picturesque, bandit-looking characters, with their high, sugar-loaf hats decorated with feathers and flutter- ing ribbons, their shaggy sheepskin coats, their legs wound CHRISTMAS AT ROME. 89 around with strips of gay-colored cloth, their long hair, and their tremendous beards. They would create a great sensation in Broadway, particularly with their bag- pipes, which are made of the entire skin of a goat, with the legs tied up, and which they press under their arms to produce their excruciating music. Two or three boys, in the same dress, accompany the bagpiper on shrill fifes, and play a lively tune, which is always the same, before the images of the Madonna hung up on the corners of many streets. One of them being just opposite to my window, my ears were tortured by a nearly constant succession of the Pifferarii piping before it, for which every good Christian who passed, gave them a trifle. At noon they take their nap on the platforms of the steps above the Piazza d'Espagna, and amuse their leisure with catching and killing the active little population of their persons. On Christmas Eve, the Cafes were rigidly shut at "Three hours of the night" (or eight o'clock" French" as our way of counting is termed), and the strangers, who usually passed their evenings there, were driven to devotion to escape ennui. The ceremonies were to begin at ten, P. M., with high Mass before the Pope, in the Sistine Chapel, in the Vatican palace, and I accordingly proceeded thither with some English friends. We ascended the great staircase already described, and found it brilliantly illuminated, and the doors of the chapel guarded by the Swiss soldiers of the Pope, in their striking 90 costume, designed by Michael Angelo, and composed of red, yellow, and black stripes, with a broad plaited ruff about the neck, and a drooping red feather in the side of the hat. To enter the chapel, or any place where the Pope is present, you must be in full dress, as before a temporal prince, and the ladies must wear, instead of hats, black veils on their heads. Several gentlemen were turned back in consequence of wearing frock-coats. Having entered without difficulty, we found the Sistine Chapel a lofty oblong apartment, divided by a grating, behind which the ladies were kept, and allowed to see the Pope only through the lattice-work. Beyond the grating were seats for strangers ; at the farther end were the high altar and throne of the Pope, and between them the places of the cardinals. The wall behind the altar is covered by the great fresco of " The last judgment," by Michael Angelo, who also painted the roof of the chapel. It is seen only dimly, and is injured by the damps, smoke and incense of two and a half centuries, but it still im- presses the spectator with the wonderful power of the genius of its painter. In the upper part of the picture, Christ sits as the stern Judge of the world, with the Vir- gin Mary on his right hand, the saints and patriarchs on one side, and the host of martyrs on the other. Below him, on the left, the Damned are falling headlong into the clutches of the demons, and on the right, the Blessed, assisted by angels, are rising to heaven. The picture displays, in the highest degree, the extraordinary skill CHRISTMAS AT ROME. 91 and strength of the painter, but, at the same time, his exaggeration and extravagance, so that every one admires it, but none likes it. We could study its details at our leisure while the Cardinals entered at intervals. Each was preceded by a gentleman usher, who was accoutred in small clothes, with a glittering, steel-hilted sword by his side, and a black silk cloak thrown over his back. The Cardinals wore a scarlet silk robe, with a hood lined with white ermine, and a very long train, which was carried by a valet dressed in a violet-colored gown. One after another entered, and bowed to those already assembled, who rose from their embroidered cushions, and gravely greeted the new comers. The valets then twisted up their trains and sat down at their feet, holding their square hats, while the Cardinals retained a small red scull- cap on their heads to cover the tonsure. Two only were not in scarlet ; one wearing white, and the other ash color, in token of their being at the head of some reli- gious brotherhood. There are seventy cardinals, most of whom were present, and displayed a venerable array of grave, intellectual heads, framed, as it were, in their gorgeous vestments. One among them, however, looked to be not more than thirty years old, and joined in the ceremonies with a sort of contemptuous indifference, which seemed to presage, that some reforms might be expected if he ever attained the Pontifical chair. When the cardinals had all assembled, the " Offices" were read 92 ROME. in sonorous voices by relays of priests, and at the farther end of the chapel appeared finally the Pope himself. His Holiness, Gregory XVI., is an old man of seventy- eight, with very white hair, and a rubicund face, from which projects a long and red truly Roman nose. His benevolence, learning, and honesty of purpose have secured to him the love and respect of the people in an unusual degree, but he is too feeble and infirm to hope to enjoy it much longer. As he entered he blessed us all, making the sign of the cross in the air with his finger, kneeled a moment before the altar, and was then assisted to mount his Episcopal throne. His robe was of silver cloth, and on his head he wore a cloven yellow mitre. Each of the cardinals in turn, with their trains unfolded by their valets, slowly walked up to the Pope, kissed his hand (not his toe), and returned to their seats. Then followed the music of the famous Sistine choir, unparalleled in any other part of the world. The chants are the same Phrygian and Lydian tunes by which St. Augustine represents himself as being melted into tears, and are to this day strangely powerful with their peculiar inflections and wailing modulations, executed in all the parts of the harmony by this unique choir, without instru- ments, and without female voices. High mass was then performed by the archbishop. At certain points the car- dinals all came forward and knelt in a circle, and their valets spread out their trains, like so many scarlet pea- cocks' tails. When they sat down, the valets twisted up CHRISTMAS AT ROME. 93 the trains, as if they were going to wring them out, and this ceremony was repeated every few minutes, with a great deal of unnecessary trouble. The Pope was several times assisted to descend his throne and kneel before the altar ; he was perfumed with swinging censers, till the smoke of the incense almost hid him from sight ; and when he had occasion for a handkerchief, a scarlet one was held up to his nose by his Holiness's handkerchief- holder. At length mass ended, and he pronounced the benediction in a surprisingly clear and strong voice. By the side of the altar stood the hat and sword which he blesses on this occasion, and afterwards sends to some Catholic Prince, as a most valuable and honorable present. The cardinals now put on a third sort of hat ; broad- brimmed, like that of the priests, but scarlet instead of black, with a rich golden tassel, and drove off in their gorgeous carriages, all scarlet and gold, with the coach- men and footmen in richly embroidered liveries. The soldiers at every station presented arms as the carriages passed, as in other countries they do to princes alone. The fishermen of Galilee would stare to see their suc- cessors of Rome. It was now midnight, and we next hurried to the church of San Luigi de? Francesi, to hear its fine music. It was brilliantly illuminated, and before the altar the flames of candles of different lengths composed various figures. The music was very spirited, and some might have called it even too operatic. It was executed with the most 94 ROME. finished skill, and had attracted a great crowd, whom a company of soldiers kept in their places. It seemed to be a regular saturnalia for lovemaking, and I found one beautiful girl (whom the crowd had parted from her parents, and who bore the sweet name of Felicetta, which may be Englished into " Pretty little happy crea- ture"), disposed to be very talkative and friendly. She flattered my progress in Italian by guessing me to be a Flo- rentine, but expanded her immense black eyes to an incon- ceivable size, when she heard that I was from America, and exclaimed, " Holy Virgin ! you arc as white as I am .'" In truth, I was rather whiter ; but we are here generally supposed to be negroes ; and the " Cafe Americano" in the Piazza oVEspagna, has an emblem of our country painted on its sign, in the head of a blackamoor, with woolly hair, flat nose, and Ethiopian lips. We left the church at one in the morning of Christ- mas day, cold and hungry. A fire of reeds was soon kindled at the hotel of one of the party, and we made ourselves comfortable for an hour by the side of the Pantheon. Thence we crossed the city over the Quiri- nal, Viminal and Esquiline hills, to the Basilican church of Santa Maria Maggiore, which we found crowded with people, and brilliantly illuminated to its very top. A Yankee would feel inclined to calculate how much money they burn up every year at Rome in church candles. The interior of the Basilica consists of an immense nave, divided from the aisles by seventy Ionic CHRISTMAS AT ROME. 95 columns of white marble. Above the entablature are rows of old mosaics, and above them again are alter- nating windows and paintings. The flat roof is carved into five rows of pannels, and gilded with gold, which was the first ever brought from Peru, and was presented by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Presently a troop of a hundred soldiers entered the church, marched down to the farther end, and then returned up the nave in two parallel files, driving the people to the sides, and making a clear space, from the High Altar to the front of the church, on each side of which they kept guard. The choir then commenced singing, and continued their chants for two hours, while we wearily stood, awaiting the procession, which was to have taken place at 3 A. M., at which time we liad reached the church. At last, about 5 A. M., the whole body of priests, who had clustered around the altar, marched down through the open space to the sacristy at the farther end, to get their sacred relic, the cradle of Christ. Presently they reap- peared, and returned to the high altar, with banners flying, music sounding, and candles burning, in a grand procession, at the end of which, under a canopy with floating streamers of gold cloth, was carried a silver vase, containing the holy cradle. As it passed, every one dropped on their knees, and the soldiers and the priests, the two great nuisances of Rome, were strangely intermixed in picturesque confusion. Mass now began, and we came away, having already heard it twice. 9t3 ROME. From Santa Maria Maggiore, we descended to the foot of the Capitoline hill, and mounted the one hundred and twenty-four marble steps to the church of Ara Cwli, to pay a visit to " II santissimo Bambino" — " The most holy child" — whom I have already described. On entering the church, we saw a rocky cavern, pierced in its sides, and running far back into the adjoining convent. It was moreover painted in such skilful perspective, as to appear to end in the open country at some miles dis- tance. Along its sides were placed figures of shepherds and peasants, all turned adoringly to the middle of the grotto, where lay the miraculous image of " the most holy child," blazing with precious stones, while Joseph and Mary were fondly bowing over it. A hidden light stream- ed down upon it from a transparency above, on which were depicted hosts of angels, while the other parts of the scene were only dimly illuminated. The effect was very striking ; Correggio might have borrowed the idea of his '' Notte" from some such a show, and I saw a young French painter making a sly sketch of it in his hat. To complete the theatrical aspect of the scene, two little girls, of five or six years, stood on a table beside the holy-water font, and recited a poetical dialogue between the Madonna and a gipsy, who met her in the Flight to Egypt, and told her fortune. The little creatures were not at all embarrassed by the crowd around them, but spoke their parts with perfect fluency, correct emphasis, spirited gesticulation, and most vehement rolling of CHRISTMAS AT ROME. 97 the Rs ; and when they had finished, their hearers cried " Bravo !" as at an opera. The night had now ended, and we had been standing the whole time, and had walked many miles, but our task of sight-seeing was not yet ended, and, after a cup of coffee, we hurried to St. Peter's, at the other end of the town, two miles distant. The last week had been employed in fitting up the building for the grand occa- sion. In the Tribune of the church, at its extreme end, behind the high altar, and under the chair of St. Peter, a magnificent Pontifical throne had been erected. It was covered with cloth of silver, embroidered with gold, and over it was hung a gorgeous canopy of scarlet, bound with golden cords. Two gilt cherubim, holding a mitre, seemed to be hovering immediately above the throne. On its right was the Episcopal Chair, and on its left two rows of boxes with red hangings, fitted up for dis- tinguished strangers. Below them, and nearer to the altar, was the Ambassadors' box, and beyond it was that of the noble Roman ladies. Behind them was the choir. Between the throne and the Chair was the station of the Cardinals, and other portions were en- closed for the reception of those who had tickets of admission. All these places were crowded with gen- tlemen and ladies in full dress, many foreign officers in their uniforms, and the diplomatic corps, covered with stars and ribbons of the various orders of knighthood. 9* 98 Two files of soldiers extended up the centre of the vast building, and behind the altar were drawn up the Pope's " Guards of honor," who are composed entirely of Ro- man nobles, and who glittered in scarlet uniforms, faced with blue, and half covered with gold. At seventeen hours of the day (10 A. M.) the trumpets burst out with a stirring blast, and the procession entered from the Vatican, and advanced up the nave between the files of soldiers. The great Cross came first, followed by a hundred priests in purple and white, bearing lighted torches, and chaunting solemnly the " Psalm of en- trance." After them came some officers carrying three glittering mitres, and a cap of crimson velvet and ermine- Then followed the heads of the various branches of the Catholic Church, most conspicuous among whom was the Greek Patriarch, a tall, venerable old man, with a fine countenance and a flowing white beard, and wear- ing a crown of scarlet and gold. Other prelates of high rank followed in dazzling dresses of silver and golden tissues ; then came the Cardinals, attired as in the Sistine chapel, and lastly the Pope himself, sitting in a chair of state, borne on the shoulders of eight men, while others held over his head a white silken tent-like canopy, and two attendants beside him waved the flabella, or large white feather fans, every one drop- ping on their knees as he passed. His Holiness wore a robe of white silk and gold, and was crowned with a CHRISTMAS AT ROME. 99 tiara glittering with precious stones. As he was borne up the church, he kept his eyes closed (the motion making him sea-sick !), but occasionally waved his hand to bless the people. At the foot of the altar he de- scended, knelt a moment in prayer, and then mounted the Episcopal Chair. The Cardinals then in turn kissed his hand, and the higher priests kissed the cross upon his slipper. He was next clothed in his Pontifical robes, ascended his throne, and read the Collect, after which some hallelujahs were sung by the numerous choir. He then mounted the steps of the High Altar, and proceeded to perform the office of High Mass, which is the consecration and administration of the Holy Sacrament, with all the traditional ceremonies judged by the Church most proper to impress the spectators with religious veneration. The Pontiff received and offered up the usual oblations, incensed the altar with the fumes of a golden censer, and washed his hands, in emblem of a purification of mind and body. He turned to the people and begged for their prayers, and then recited the beginning of the liturgy in a solemn chaunt, sup- posed to be derived from the declamations of ancient tragedy. A profound silence followed, till, at the raising of the host, every one fell on their knees, and the trumpets sounded a slow and solemn dirge, in wailing notes which pierced to every corner of the vast cathe- dral, and to the bottom of every heart. His Holiness 100 ROME. then returned to his throne, and two deacons brought to him the consecrated wafer and wine, which he de- voutly received after first kneeling to them in veneration. A grand anthem was then sung, and the procession retired in the order in which it had entered. So passed fifteen hours of a Roman Christmas, and I benevolently hope that they may not be half as tiresome to the reader in their description, as they were to me in their reality. 101 VIII. THE PALACES OF ROME. The greatness and splendor of modern Rome are chiefly concentrated in her hundred palaces, the poorest of which display vast halls, lofty pillared saloons, decorated ceilings, antique statues, and master-pieces of painting. At least twenty of them possess sufficient interest to demand a visit from the traveller, but I will here notice only a few of the more remarkable. Most of them are built around a large courtyard, and their inner faces, which look into this space, are often surrounded with galleries or colonnades. The lower story is always on a level with the street, and its windows are therefore secured by iron gratings, often highly ornamented. A large arched gateway opens into the court, and beside it a staircase, usually with marble steps, and supported by columns of granite or porphyry, leads up to the state apartments ; the lower floor being used as the servants' offices. The palace front is decorated on the only true principle of architecture — that of ornamenting and making prominent the essential parts. The windows are, therefore, sur- 102 ROME. rounded with pediments, water-tables, and columns, so that each of them becomes a miniature temple, most unlike the bare holes in our Astor house ; the floors of the different stories are indicated by rich bands of mar- ble ; the chimneys are changed from eyesores to orna- ments, and a massive cornice, with far projecting eaves sustained by carved brackets, crowns the edifice. The whole building, if not of stone, is coated with stucco, in perfect imitation of it. One of the most extensive and magnificent is the Doria Pamfili palace, which possesses three grand fronts, the principal of which is on the Cor so. Its picture gallery runs around the court, and is very copious and valuable. In it are some famous Claudes, Salvator Rosas, &c. A portrait of Bartolo, by Raphael, bears a striking likeness to Daniel Webster. The favorite sub- ject of the daughter of Herodias, with the head of John the Baptist, is here treated by Pordenone with more pro- priety of feeling than has been generally evinced by painters of greater note. She is receiving the head from the executioner, not with exultation, as commonly repre- sented, but with a downcast expression of troubled doubt, as if the impulses of compassion, natural to her sex and age, strove with her filial duty and reverence. The exe- cutioner looks reproachfully at her, as he hands her the prophet's head, and her servant-maid, on the other side, gazes inquiringly in her face. The Sciarra palace is also in the Corso, nearly oppo- THE PALACES OF ROME. 103 site the Doria. Its pictures are few but choice. Among them are Raphael's " Violin Player," with a face like his own, full of sweetly-sad thought; Titian's "Arnica" whose beautiful countenance is evidently from the same original as his Florentine " Flora ;" Da Vinci's " Vanity and Modesty," with soft and warm Giorgione-like shadows ; and Guido's Magdalen " delle radici," all the sentiment of which is destroyed by two radishes, which lie by her side, and give title to the picture. One room is filled with fifty landscapes, by various masters. Breughel has made the " Forge of Vulcan" the most poetical of blacksmiths' shops. At the end of the long perspective of massive arches, a huge waterwheel is dimly seen ; the Cyclops are at work in the dark recesses, lit up by their glowing forges ; on the floor are piled glittering suits of armor, pyramids of golden vases, and the like ; while in front Vulcan himself is fitting a helmet to Mars, while Venus coquettishly looks on. Near it hangs an excellent copy, by Giulio Romano, of Raphael's " Fornarina." While I was examining it, the English Earl and Countess of K came up to it, and began disputing very violently as to where the original of it was to be found. The Earl insisted that it was in the Doria palace, and the Countess, that it was in the Barberini. After a hot dispute in their native lan- guage, during which I continued to study the picture, the lady addressed me in Italian, and inquired if I knew where was the original " Fornarina." " In the Barberini 104 ROME. palace, Signora," I replied, also in Italian. " There, now," exclaimed she, in English, to her husband, who had a very hen-pecked manner, " I told you so, but you are always so positive, and always in the wrong ;" and so she went on, for some time, abusing his stupidity, while I endeavored to preserve the decorous gravity befitting my supposed character of an Italian, who did not understand English. The original portrait of the beautiful " Fornarina," in the Barberini Palace, was evidently painted by Raphael, as a true "labor of love." Her lar^e swimming black eyes express capabilities of the most intense passion, and her lips swell with exuberance of life. The sunny brown glow of her cheeks is like " The dusky bloom upon the peach, which tells How rich within the soul of sweetness dwells," but it melts into a creamy whiteness as it descends to the delicate regions less exposed to the sun, and over which her right hand is drawing a semi-transparent dra- pery. Her other hand has a ring on the middle joint of its wedding finger, and her armlet is inscribed with the name of her lover and immortalizer, " Raphaelus Urbi- 71HS." The vast reception saloon of this palace contains two lofty canopies, emblazoned with the Bees, the armorial bearings of the family, which are repeated all over the palace. One is for the Prince to administer justice THE PALACES OF ROME. 105 therefrom in feudal state, and the other for the Cardinal Barberini. The steward sat in one corner arranging his papers, and on the wall hung a list of the servants on duty that day, with the titles of the rooms to which they were assigned. Everything expressed the importance of the family, on which an old dependent, with whom I talked, expatiated with eloquent pride. But their wealth is much reduced ; their museum, once the richest in Rome, is now scattered among the various collections of Europe, and their Gallery has lost more than half its pictures. But it still retains its chief treasure in Guido's portrait of Beatrice Cenci, taken, according to the family tradition, on the night before her execution. Shelley's tragedy has made her sad story familiar to English readers, and his description of this picture leaves nothing to be added ; though no words, nor even copies, can give any idea of her touching loveliness, her expression of patient suffering, but gentle fortitude, her quivering, half- parted lips, and tender hazel eyes of a beauty unattained on any other canvass in the world ; but her half-turned head, with its golden locks escaping from the folds of its white drapery, haunts your memory, as if you, too, like Guido, had caught a last glimpse of her as she mounted the scaffold. The old Cenci palace, the ancient residence of the family, is in the most gloomy and obscure quarter of Rome. Its massive and sullen architecture, and its neglected and deserted appearance, accord perfectly with 10 106 ROME. the tragical associations connected with it. One win- dow, which is fronted with an open-work balcony, may- have belonged to the very chamber of Beatrice, and a dark and lofty archway, built of immense stones, may have been that through which she went out to the prison which she left only for the scaffold. In the Spada palace is preserved a portrait of Beatrice when a child, painted by Paolo Veronese. The hair is drawn back a la Chinoise, and not the least resemblance can be traced between it and the later one of Guido. But the pride of the Spada palace is the statue of Pompey, supposed to have been the very one familiar to us from our school days as a witness, and almost an actor, in that scene when " In his mantle muffling up his face, E'en at the base of Pompey's statue, Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell." The colossal figure is without drapery, except a cloak thrown over one shoulder ; under one arm is his sword, and in his hand he bears a globe, in token of the extent which his conquests gave to the Roman Empire. Near the right knee is a stain, which may be the very blood of Caesar. The identity of the statue has been a subject of learned discussion, but seems pretty well established ; and no relique in Rome appeals more powerfully to our earliest and strongest associations with classic antiquity. THE PALACES OF ROME. 107 The Borghese family have long been one of the noblest and richest among the modern Roman Princes, and their palace is one of the most magnificent and well arranged in the city. Its gallery is the richest private collection in Rome, and contains seven hundred paintings, many of them by the greatest masters. Among the most noted are Domenichino's " Chase of Diana," in which the god- dess is less beautiful than any of her nymphs ; his " Sybil," and that of Guido ; Raphael's " Entombment ;" Titian's " Sacred and Profane Love," the latter of which he has unintentionally made much the most attractive ; and Correggio's " Danae," in which Love sits by her side and catches the gold as it falls, while an arch little cupid is testing it on a touchstone, and another is sharpening up his arrows ; but beautiful as it is, it wants the golden suffusion of the same artist's " St. Jerome," at Parma. In the Colonna palace is the most noble hall in Rome, and therefore in the world. It is two hundred feet long, forty wide, and as many high, with a vestibule at each end, divided from it by columns and pilasters of yellow alabaster. Its walls are lined with mirrors and pictures, and above its rich gilt cornices rises an arched ceiling, painted in fresco with the battle of Lepanto, for which one of this noble family was decreed the honor of a modern triumph in the Capitol. The old custode, who had passed his whole life in the service of the family, pointed out among the pictures the portraits of many Co- lonna princes, painted by Vandyke, Rubens, and the 108 like, who were the painters of the Kings of those times Some had been famous for their victories, and others, like Vittoria Colonna, the poetess, and friend of Michael Angelo, for their genius ; and the custode continued the noble list, till at last I exclaimed, " Truly, this is a great family." " Ah, signore /" replied the old man, with a mournful shake of the head, " E stata ! It has been !" — precisely the same idiomatic phrase with which Virgil said of Troy, " Ilium fait.'''' The coincidence was very impressive. The same feeling, and even the same idiom, has here survived for two thousand years, and fallen greatness is lamented by a faithful old servant in our day, as it was by the great poet of antiquity. The wealth of the family has been greatly scattered of late years, and the present prince has married a lady of Naples, where he now resides, and part of the palace is hired out to the French Ambassador. When I after- wards spoke of the magnificent effect which lighting up the hall must produce, the custode said that it did indeed, but that he had not seen it so illuminated since 1817, on the occasion of a great festival. The next year the Prince died, leaving two sons, whose history he went on to detail. Farther divisions took place, and lately the last princess of this noble house, young, beautiful, and high-born, has been taken from a convent to be married to the new-made Prince T , immensely rich, in- deed, but old enough to be her father, and the son of a man who began life as a pedlar in the " Piazza Colonna !" THE PALACES OF ROME. 109 Such is the levelling and democratic power of wealth even in Italy, where its magic can bring about such a match for even the descendant of that heroic Prince, of whom Petrarch wrote — " Gloriosa Colojvna, in cui s'appoggia Nostra speranza, e'l gran nome Latino ; Ch'ancor non torte dal vero camino L'ira di Giove per ventosa pioggia." The Colonna Gardens run up the slope of the Quirinal hill behind the palace, and are connected with it by a bridge thrown from its second story across the street, which separates them. They are laid out in the usual elaborate style, and a brook which tumbles down the hill is conducted through various cascades, steps, and richly decorated grottoes. A pine tree in these gardens, long famous for its size and grandeur, was planted there on the day of Rienzi's execution, five hundred years ago ; but after so long an existence it was blown down in 1842, by the same tempest which destroyed Tasso's oak, which stood in the gardens of St. Onofrio, and was said to have been the poet's favorite place of study. But the Colonna gardens are most famous for their fragments of an entablature which once crowned the " Temple of the Sun," on the brow of the hill. One of the white marble fragments must weigh alone near two hundred tons ; how dazzling then must have been the temple of proportionate size, which once looked down from this commanding site !. 10* 110 ROME. Opposite the gardens is the Rospigliosi palace, whose treasure is the " Aurora" of Guido, painted in fresco on the ceiling of a Casino in its garden. Aurora is floating before the chariot of the sun, and scattering flowers under the feet of the horses, around which hover seven beautiful nymphs, typical of the Hours. Its brilliant colors and graceful composition make it the masterpiece of its painter ; and the whole picture is suffused with an appropriate sunny hue, from which peep out the lovely faces of the Hours. The rival " Aurora" of Guercino is in the Villa Ludo- visi. On the way thither are the gardens attached to the Pope's Quirinal Palace on Monte Cavallo ; so named because in the Piazza in front stand the colossal groups of Castor and Pollux, holding their horses — the reputed productions of Phidias and Praxiteles. The Pope usu- ally resides in this palace during the summer months, as the situation is considered to be the most healthy, and the most free from malaria, of any part of Rome. The palace contains little worth seeing, but the gardens are very extensive and well kept. Wishing to enter them one day, I knocked at the gate, which was opened by a most gentlemanly looking porter, in full dress, who asked me for my " Permit." " Permit ?" said I, surprised at this requisition, of the necessity of which I was not before aware. " Yes," said he, " permission from his Holiness to visit the gardens. Have you not got one ?" " Oh yes," said I, at last ; " Here it is ;" and I slipped THE PALACES OF ROME. Ill into his hand a morsel of silver, here called a Paul, and worth about a dime. " Ah, yes," said the fellow, bowing low ; " walk in, Signore." So easily and so cheaply may you bribe even the Pope's porter ! St. Paul is the most efficient friend of all strangers in Rome, and will obtain for them anything that they may desire, if they will only call sufficiently often upon him — or his silver representative. The gardens are a mile in circuit, and their walks are lined with magnificent hedges of laurel, clipped and trim- med into impenetrable masses, twenty feet high, and almost as solid as the front of a house. These living walls line long straight avenues, but often the opposite hedges meet, and create verdant arches, vaults, and cathedral-like aisles ; and sometimes they enclose cir- cular recesses left in the wildness of nature, but showing statues here and there, which peep through the leaves, like fairies, satyrs, and wood-nymphs, once more at play as in the olden time. Milton's " Retired leisure, Who in trim gardens takes his pleasure," would here be supremely happy among the formal but luxuriant hedges, and the embowering foliage, which gives a cool shade in the hottest noon. There are abun- dant fountains, and the water is tortured into all possible forms in the style of Louis XIV. It gushes out of one richly-ornamented niche, and makes an organ play; the 112 ROME. sound seems to wake up two cherubs beside it, who begin to blow their trumpets ; at that signal water shoots up from all the urns which line the parapet ; you are then warned by the guide to step aside, and instantly the place where you had been standing is deluged by water spouting up from a hundred invisible holes in the pave- ment ; and in the next moment you are surrounded with a circle of jets, which enclose you within a magic round, like that of Der Freischutz ; and though safe within it, you cannot move till the Cicerone waves his wand and dries up the fountains. The Villa Ludovisi is near the Porta Pinciana, on the site of the former gardens of Sallust, and is bounded on one side by the city walls. From the great gate runs an avenue lined with cypresses, set close together and cropped into spheres, till they look in the sun-light like strings of gigantic green pearls. One of the casinos, to the right, contains a very valuable collection of ancient sculpture, but in the one at the end of the avenue is the great " Aurora" of Guercino. The ceiling is arched on all sides, and the deceptive painted columns on the walls seem to be supporting the sky. At one end lies Tithonus asleep ; Aurora has just left his couch in her gorgeous car of day, which is drawn by two horses, who seem to be fiercely rushing out of the ceiling, or to be already half in the room. She is scattering flowers over the world, while the beautiful Hours fly before her, and with their delicate hands eagerly put out the stars twinkling THE PALACES OF ROME. 113 in the Night, which is fleeing from the goddess of Day, who is surrounded with the most glowing hues of the morning. Whether Guercino's or Guido's Aurora is to be pre- ferred, has been much debated, and will depend on indi- vidual taste. Guido's is the sweeter, and Guercino's the stronger ; the former has more beauty, and the latter more spirit. Guercino's has an adventitious charm, in the great difficulty with which permission to see it can be obtained. St. Paul is here useless ; the single ex- ception which proves the rule. No visitor is admitted without a permit, signed by the Prince of Piombino, who owns the villa, and who will give it very rarely, and then only to his Italian friends. He is said to do this in -revenge for the churlishness which he himself experi- enced on a visit to England. Many strangers pass a season in Rome without seeing the Villa Ludovisi, and' those who are more fortunate (as I happened to be, through the kindness of an American artist and a Roman nobleman), naturally extol to the utmost the beauties which are so generally inaccessible. A good story is told in illustration of the inflexibility of the rules of the Villa. The Pope happened to drive past it one day, and seeing over the gate the name " Villa Ludovisi," he ordered his coachman to stop. The porter appeared, and told him that he could not come in. " What ! Do you not know me ?" exclaimed the Pope in surprise. " Yes, your "Holiness," answered the porter ; " but if 114 ROME. you were St. Peter himself, I could not let you in with- out an order from my master." The Pope was forced to drive off ungratified, and the porter ran to the Palace and told his master what he had done. The Prince praised his fidelity, and the next day sent him to the Pope with a golden key of the Villa, and a message to the effect, that though his Holiness held the keys of Heaven and Hell, he had never before received the key of the Villa Ludovisi. 115 IX. ANCIENT BATHS AND MODERN FOUNTAINS. The grandeur of the ancient Romans is nowhere more impressive than in their Baths. The name suggests to us moderns only a common house, divided into little closets, each containing a tin tub ; but the Roman Baths covered sometimes sixty acres of ground, with their marble structures. Vestibules, like great temples, led into halls containing cold, tepid, warm, and steam baths ; an immense square in the centre was arched over for exercise in bad weather ; in another court was a large swimming-basin; in the corners were libraries and music-saloons ; and in other halls philosophers lectured and poets recited. All the edifices were adorned with statues and paintings, for the Romans loved to unite all the pomp of art and the pleasures of imagination with the luxury of water, so particularly grateful in their warm climate. We may imagine what treasures of art they contained, from the value of those which have been rescued from jthe ruins. In the Baths of Caracalla alone were found the Farnese Hercules, the colossal 116 ROME. Flora, the Toro Farnese, the Torso Belvedere, and the Venus Callipyge ; the Laocoon came from the Baths of Titus ; and the Apollo Belvedere from the Baths of Nero, near Ostia. The ruins of the Baths of Caracalla are more striking, from their vastness, than those of even the Coliseum. Their massive walls and arches seem strong enough to bear the pyramids, and rise like mountains of brick, upon which grow young forests of shrubs and flowers. Here was Shelley's favorite resort, and on these dizzy arches he composed his great " Prometheus Unbound." Where the vaulted roofs remain, they are covered with mosaic figures ; and brightly colored mosaic pavements, bent and contorted by the weight of the fallen fragments, are found wherever excavations have been made. You see recesses and niches for statues, conduits for the water, and other mementos of the former condition of things ; but you find the bare brick walls stripped of their facings of fine marbles, and in the immense chambers are no remains of their original sixteen hundred marble seats for bathers. Serpents are now the only inhabitants of the vast pile, except the keeper, who lives in a modernized corner, and who, the year before, had killed a snake six feet long, with a head " as large as your two fists," on the very top of the highest arch, a hundred feet in the air. Perhaps its body had been tenanted by the spirit of some transmigrated Roman, possibly the Emperor Cara- calla himself, still haunting the spot of his former enjoy- ANCIENT BATHS. 117 ments, and meditating on the change, like Marius on the ruins of Carthage. The Baths of Titus are better preserved, though less imposing. They were built over Nero's famous " Golden House," which, in its turn, was raised upon the founda- tions of the Villa of Maecenas, and fragments of the mosaic pavement, on which once trod the patron of Horace and Virgil, still peep out from under the later walls. The chambers and corridors retain their an- cient arabesque paintings in fresco, which cover them with fanciful figures of women, birds, animals, flowers, and the like, enclosed in medallions, and connected by rich.borders and varied ornaments. From them Raphael took the idea of his famous arabesques in the Vatican. After being first opened in his time, they were filled up by the government to prevent their becoming a shelter for banditti, but were re-opened by the French army in 1812, and my guide, who was present at the time, says, that the colors were as yivid and brilliant as if painted the day before. They have now greatly faded, but it is still highly interesting to trace out these paintings of the old Romans, which have never met the light of day, and were seen by them, as now by us, only by the light of torches. In one saloon is shown the place where stood the great porphyry vase, now in the Vatican ; a jet of water fell into it, and was surrounded by a wall, grooved to receive an encircling bed of flowers. How different from the down-trodden sod around our Park fountain ! 11 118 ROME. In a neighboring niche originally stood the Laocoon. These things which are now the objects of our highest wonder and admiration, were the every-day furniture of the ancients. Has the world really made so much pro- gress since then as we, in our self-love, are apt to assume 1 Near these Baths is a reservoir called the Sette Sale, divided into parallel compartments by eight walls, each pierced with four arched openings so arranged that each is opposite to a solid wall. The object of this is stated by Murray, with most remarkable ignorance of the first principles of hydrostatics, to be " the prevention of the pressure of the water on the lateral walls." He does not often err so egregiously, and many other travellers might profit by a little more scientific knowledge, for I have had occasion to retort this same blunder of his country- man upon an Englishman, who was laughing at a distin- guished American traveller on our own continent for his ludicrous attempt to make Plaster of Paris by burning oyster-shells, in innocent ignorance that one was a sul- phate of lime, and the other a carbonate ! Leaving the Esquiline hill, we find on the Viminal the remains of the Baths of Diocletian. Forty thousand Christians were employed upon the works, according to the histories of the martyrs, and now, by a retribution of Nemesis, the great central hall of the structure has been converted into a Christian church, " Santa Maria degli Angeli." Michael Angelo altered it into the shape of a THE PANTHEON. 119 Greek cross by adding a wing, retaining the original granite columns (forty-five feet high and sixteen in cir- cumference), which supported the roof of Diocletian's baths. The modern church is one of the most imposing and beautifully proportioned of all in Rome. Its altar- pieces were originally painted for St. Peter's, but super- seded there by mosaic copies, and transferred hither for the enrichment of its beauty. The astronomerjs interest- ed by a brass band which crosses the church diagonally, and marks the Meridian line traced by Bianchini in 1701. The other portions of the original site of the baths are covered by a convent with a fine cloister, sur- rounding, with its hundred columns, a square, which is filled with orange trees. In its centre is a fountain over- shadowed by four immense cypresses, planted by Mi- chael Angelo, and in one corner a small enclosure marks the humble cemetery where are buried the monks who have passed their lives in meditations in the cloisters, within which it is embraced. We receive the highest idea of the grandeur of the Roman baths when we learn that the " Pantheon, pride of Rome," was most probably only a Caldarium, or " Hot water saloon," of the Baths of Agrippa ! In those days Utility and Beauty went hand in hand ; we mod- erns think the two ideas inconsistent, and timidly shrink from making works, which are useful, ornamental as well. Not so the ancient Romans. The Portico which fronts the Rotunda of the Pantheon (a mere hot 120 water saloon !) is declared by a most competent judge to be not merely faultless, but " positively the most sublime result that was ever produced by so little architecture." I first came upon it unwittingly, as I was passing through the dirty Herb-market on which it fronts ; and its perfect proportions, independently of any associations, at once caught my eye, and arrested my steps by their contrast with the squalid filth amid which the graceful columns seemed so out of place. So uninjured is it by time that no idea of its antiquity crossed my mind, till I read on its frieze the still perfect inscription, " M. Agrippa. C. F. Cos. tertium fecit." But, then, it must be confessed, its real beauty seemed of a sudden immensely enhanced by its classic associations. Between its sixteen granite columns, which are so arranged as to seem twice as many, you pass to the original bronze doors, twenty feet wide and forty high, and enter the Rotunda itself. You find it a circular hall of great size (one hundred and forty- three feet in diameter and as many in height.) and sur- mounted by a hemispherical dome, in the centre of which is an opening, through which streams down all the light which enters. The proportions are so perfect that you feel their harmony as you would that of a strain of Mo- zart's music. Around the circle are alternate niches and altars, and their columns and pilasters support a richly sculptured cornice, over which is an attic, from above which springs the dome. The building is paved and lined with rich marble, but the bronze lining of its AQUEDUCTS. 121 roof has been stripped off by Goths and Popes ; Urban VIII. alone having removed 450,000 pounds, to make the spiral columns of the canopy over the high altar in St. Peter's, and to cast cannon for the castle of St. Angelo. But, after all these devastations, the Pantheon still remains, " Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime, Despoiled, yet perfect." In the year 608, it was consecrated as a church, and thus was saved from the fate of most other Pagan tem- ples. It is now doubly sacred as the burial-place of Raphael. A very tolerable notion of the shape of the Pantheon may be obtained from the rotunda of the New York Custom House, supposing it to be doubled in all its dimensions. Such is the building which Michael Angelo has " hung in the air" over the church of St. Peter's ! All these Baths, as well as the Fountains of ancient Rome, were supplied with water by nine Aqueducts from twelve to sixty-two miles in length. Their gigantic arches still stride across the Campagna, in desolate majesty, and are among the most impressive testimonials of ancient magnificence. Standing in the south-eastern outskirts of the city, beside one of their massive piers, you may see the arches, sometimes perfect, and some- times in ruins, stepping along from pier to pier, high in air, and seeming to diminish as they recede, till they 11* 122 ROME. fade out in the far perspective. What a deluge they must have poured into the city, since three of the nine give a most copious supply for all the wants of modern Rome, including her numerous and always flowing FOUNTAINS ! Every square in Rome — every public edifice — almost every private garden — is made cheerful and picturesque by the gush of water from Fountains decorated with sculpture and statuary. None are more graceful than the two in front of St. Peter's (in which the jet falls into a vase, from the sides of which it streams in a cir- cular sheet into a second vase, and from it again into a marble basin), but the others are so ingeniously varied in form and ornaments, that no two are alike, although I find forty-four engraved in " a selection of the principal fountains of the renowned city of Rome, 1 ' published there in 1773. In one, a broad sheet of water pours down from a high aperture ; in another a nymph empties the stream from her pitcher ; in a third, dolphins pour it from their mouths ; and in one of those which are always running from the walls for common use (the "free hydrants" of Rome), the water flows from the bunghole of a marble cask, which a marble porter is holding in his arms. In one Piazza the fountain is shaped like a boat, of which the main jet represents the mast ; in another, four graceful youths support the basin on their heads ; and in a third, a Triton sits on a shell supported by four dolphins, and holds over his head a MODERN* FOUNTAINS. 123 conch, from which spouts up the water. The Piazza Navona contains three fountains, and in the principal one an Egyptian obelisk stands on a mass of rock, pierced with caverns on every side, and having chained to it four river gods, representing the Danube, the Ganges, the Nile, and the Rio de la Plata ; so that the four quarters of the globe are thus made tributary to the Impe- rial city. The Fontana Paolina rises like the front of a church on the Janiculum hill, overlooking all Rome, and three torrents rush through its central arches, and fall into a large basin, from which they roll down the hill, turning mills and supplying reservoirs. Over the Fon- tana delV Acqua Felice rises an Ionic arcade, in the cen- tral niche of which stands Moses striking the rock at his feet, from which the water gushes out, and Aaron and Gideon figure in the basso-relievos on the other side. At the Quattro Fontane (known to our countrymen in Rome as the location of the American Consulate), two broad streets cross each other at right angles, and when you stand at their intersection, your view is terminated in three directions by Egyptian obelisks, one on Monte Cavallo, a second at the Trinita cW Monti, and a third before Santa Maria Maggiore. At each of the four corners of the streets the angles of the houses are cut away, and fountains are there constructed, with figures recumbent under sculptured trees, and other emblematic decorations. But the Fountain of Trevi is the finest in all Rome, 124 ROME. and therefore in all the world. In front of a palace adorned with Corinthian columns and pilasters, huge masses of rocks are piled up, so natural in shape and arrangement, that they seem to have been first broken by an earthquake, and then worn by the rush of water into their present forms. From every niche and crevice, to the right and to the left, upward and downward, gush out torrents of water, in the most copious variety, and, finally, fall into a capacious white marble basin. In the midst of the rocks, and under a niche in the palace, a colossal statue of Neptune stands on a car, to which are harnessed two sea-horses, held by Tritons. The god of the Ocean majestically extends his right arm, as if about to rebuke the boiling waves with his famous "Quos ego — ." On each side of the niche which he occupies are statues of Salubrity and Abundance, with appropriate basso-relievos. All the accessaries thus combine to heighten the admiration of the visitor to the Fountain of Trevi. But should we be satisfied to admire when we can emulate 1 The rear of our New York City Hall offers an excellent site for a similar work. It is now an eye- sore ; but we may make it an ornament to the city by arranging artistically before it rough masses of rock (pleasant reminders, in the crowded city, of rural scenes), and pouring over them our Croton river, which should gush naturally from irregular openings, as if it were just bursting up from its source. We may then MODERN FOUNTAINS. 125 employ our American sculptors to decorate the building in a style worthy of our future destinies, and in a grand central niche erect a statue, not of the false god, Neptune, but of the true man, Washington ; and thus make this one of his long-desired Monuments. 126 A ROMAN DINING-HOUSE AND CAFE. Some travellers are most interested in Antiquities ; others in Painting and Statuary ; others again in Palaces or Churches ; but all agree in having one taste in com- mon, and in appreciating the importance of one matter which comes home every day to the bosom of all, in the shape of Dinner. The European mode of living is much more independent than our own punctual gregari- ousness. If you take apartments at a hotel, you are not expected to breakfast or dine there, unless you announce your intention each day in advance ; and you usually find it more pleasant to breakfast at a Cafe, and dine at a restaurant, at any hour that may best suit you, and on such viands as you may choose ; instead of sitting down, as with us, at a crowded table, at such time, and to such dishes as may please your landlord, not yourself. The Roman trattorie, or eating-houses, are inferior to those of most continental cities, but still the experienced traveller will find them quite competent to satisfy his daily needs. The most showy one is Bertini's, in the Corso ; the best national cookery is found at the Falcone, near the Pan- A ROMAN DINING-HOUSE. 127 theon ; and Englishmen find the best steaks at the Gab- bione, a dark den, near the fountain of Trevi ; but the English artists dine at the Scalinata ; and the younger artists of all nations, English, French, German, and American (who of themselves can fill quite a table), may be found towards sunset, calling for Macaroni, Mauzo, and Cignale, at the Lepre, in the Via Condotti. The Lepre is the most extensive trattoria in Rome, and each of its numerous rooms is usually occupied, almost exclusively, by visitors of some one nation, and is named accordingly. The old waiter in the English room, Origlia byname, is somewhat of a character. He followed Napoleon to Moscow, where he suffered greatly, and even yet cannot bear to hear any jocose sounds like groans, as they remind him so painfully of the real ones which he there heard. All the rest of his life he has passed here, and has accumulated a little fortune out of the two cents, which is his regular fee from each guest. He is a great favorite with the young artists, to whom he often gives credit, on his own responsibility, for many weeks in succession, when, as will sometimes happen, their funds have temporarily run out. He hands you the bill of fare, on which five hundred dishes are put down, though but a hundred of them are prepared on any one day. Their names are " confusion worse confounded" to a foreigner, even if he knows something of the lan- guage ; for very many of them are not set down in any dictionary, and they are not classified as " fish, flesh, or 128 fowl," but as "boiled, roasted, fried," &c, so that a frog may be the next thing to a wild-boar. But on looking over the long catalogue, you will recognize some old friends somewhat disguised, in " RosbifF," " Bifstek," " Plom-buden," and " Patate," and, with them to fall back upon, you may try at a venture one unknown name every day, and so learn them all by degrees. There is, however, much uncertainty in this practical course of study, for in my self-instructing experiments I once ordered " CucuzzoU repiene" and it proved to be a stuffed o-ourd ! Another day I had been looking at some ancient columns of Cipollino marble, and afterwards finding the same name in the dinner list, I called for it from curiosity, remembering that Franklin had made saw-dust pudding, and thinking that the Romans might, perhaps, make marble-dust pie, but the Cipollino appeared in the form of fried onions ! It was thus that I initiated myself in the mysteries of the Italian kitchen, and you may now profit by my experience. But before you enter on the discussion of the solids, the waiter will ask you — not whether you wish Wine, but what wine you wish. Though the Romans have the most abundant supply of good water in the world (not excepting even the Croton), they never drink it at dinner. Its place is supplied by some of the numerous varieties of wines, as Velletri, Marino, Grotto Ferrato, Orvieto, &c, which figure on the list. They cost only a few cents the flask, which makes its appearance bound A ROMAN DINING-HOUSE. 129 around with straw to protect it from fracture, and with a few drops of oil in its neck to preserve the contents from the air. This oil is extracted by cotton before the wine is poured out, but new comers, not aware of this iittle secret, unwittingly mix the two together, and then won- der at their oily glasses. The mild and grateful wines of Rome are most utterly unlike the fiery compounds of Madeira, Xeres, and Port, which we call wine, but which an Italian would call Alcohol ; they resemble rather new cider, with its fruity nature perfumed by the delicate flavor of the grape, which varies on every hill to suit every taste. They are very slightly fermented (not enough so to bear a sea-voyage), and realize most nearly the Biblical notion of the pure juice of the grape. The great cause of Temperance among us would re- ceive extensive and permanent benefit from the cheap manufacture from our native grapes of similar beverages, as harmless, if not beneficial, in their effects, as they are agreeable in their flavor. Your selection being made (and I recommend Grotto Ferrato), you will then look at the list of Soups, which contains fifty names, including the many varieties of Paste, of which only two, Macaroni and Vermicelli, are usually found in America, though I have counted fifteen species in one shop- window, all based on the original flour and water. Among them are, Capellini, finer than Vermicelli ; Semolino, looking like melon-seeds ; Capel- 12 130 ROME. letti, twisted and spiced ; Amandoletti, shaped like small almonds ; Agnellolti, Lasagni, and a host beside. Soup is followed in Florence by green figs and Bologna sausages ; a strange conjunction and time for these articles, but not more so, perhaps, than the capers and anchovies which precede it in Naples, or the coppery- oysters with which the gourmand of Paris commences his repast. These gastronomic peculiarities of different cities (which once a day force themselves on the travel- ler's attention) have not been adopted at random, but are doubtless founded on some mysterious harmonies be- tween the articles which are thus married to each other. You are now prepared to choose something substantial from the long and puzzling list before you. Besides the English names already given, you will recognize Metro- doihel, Matalotta, and Ammesseduen, as perversions of the French Maitre oV Hotel, Matelotte, and Macedoine. The rest will be darkness to you, for even if you under- stood each separate word, what would you expect from a " Mosaic of Mutton" or from " Gilded Brains ;" or how could you guess that this poetic language called Toma- toes " Apples of Gold" and Cream " Flower of Milk ;" or that " English Soup" meant a piece of sponge-cake swimming in wine-sauce with a cherry at its top ? You must, therefore, trust to chance, if you have no expe- rienced companions, and you will at last learn that the favorite Roman dishes are Cignale, or Wild Boar (the hunting of which is a favorite sport) ; Porcospino, or A ROMAN DINING-HOUSE. 131 Hedgehog ; Lepre, or Hare ; and Testicciuola, or Lamb's Brain. Of Birds, you have Quails, Larks, Plovers, Thrush, Woodcock, and the delicate Beccafica, or Fig- pecker ; but of Fish, you find a scarcity, excepting Ran- occhie, which, being interpreted, signifies Frogs. Cardone in Stufa, or stewed Thistles, is a favorite dish, and you may safely eat it without ' ; writing yourself down an ass." Many articles receive names of temporary noto- riety ; and when the dancing of Cerito was setting the Romans as frantic as Ellsler's did some of our people (though with much more reason), the genius of some excited cook invented a new dish, looking like an ostrich's egg, with the head of a bird just emerging from it (in anticipation of the Eccaleobion), but proving on trial to be a ball of rice, surrounding the body of a thrush ; and he named it " Bomba alia Cerito." You will be agree- ably surprised not to find yourself annoyed by the oil and garlic, for the excess of which Italian cookery is so falsely abused. Lemons are used as a universal sauce to relieve the grossness of meat. Funghi, or mushrooms, are added to most dishes, in spite of their dangerous character, several Roman Emperors being recorded to have died from their effects. The warmth of the climate must naturally develope their poisonous qualities, as well as their high flavor, but they seem now to have lost their evil potency. A friend of Forsyth, however, on digging up one of enormous size, found a nest of vipers at its root ; a curious coincidence with Pliny's statement 132 ROME. that mushrooms are poisonous, " si serpentis caverna juxta fuerit." The ordinary dessert of figs, grapes, and nuts, is called Giardinetto, or " Little Garden ;" a much better name than the corresponding " Four Beggars" of the French. If you order grapes separately, you must be careful to pronounce Uva so that it cannot be confounded with Uova, or, like an unlucky friend of mine, instead of grapes, you will be served with eggs. The grapes display great varieties of shape, color, and flavor ; and the fresh fig possesses a delicate sweetness, of which we have no example in our country. There are two species, green and purple ; the latter the more luscious, but the former the more delicate. At first a stranger devours them with avidity, but, when the novelty is over, they soon cloy on his appetite. When you call for your account, the waiter repeats everything that you have had, with wonderful precision and rapidity, appending to each its price (which is ridiculously small, usually from three to six cents per dish), and carrying along the sum total with uninterrupted fluency. He then sets before you the stuzzicadente, or tooth-picks, made of slender splinters of boxwood, whittled to a point. It is curious to see how etiquette varies with latitude and longitude, since here it is perfectly proper to end your dinner with articles which a little farther westward are so emphatically tabooed. Here they are brought in such abundance that there is one for every tooth in your head, and they are THE CAFE GRECO. 133 often made ornamental by being stuck around a porcelain hedgehog pierced with holes, like a miniature of those in which crocuses and the like are sometimes planted. From the Trattoria, everybody adjourns to a Cafe ; and directly opposite to the Lepre is the Cafe Greco, the general rendezvous of the artists of all nations. It has existed two hundred years on the same spot and with the same name. When you enter, you find the smoke so dense that you can scarcely see across the room, but through it dimly appear the long beards, fierce moustaches, slouched hats, slashed velvet jackets, frogged coats, and wild, but intellectual, countenances, which characterize most of the young artists of Rome. All are smoking, or taking their after-dinner coffee, or talking in a confu- sion of languages, compared to which Babel was a deaf- and-dumb asylum. Those who wish for the waiter, call out " Botteca /" (meaning " Shop") or produce a sharp sound between a hiss and a whistle ; to which he replies, " Eccome /" (here I am) or " Momentino" (in a little mo- ment), or" Subito" (suddenly), which last practically means " Some time in the course of the evening." You seat yourself where you can find room, and may join in the conversation without any offence, for this is far from being a formal region ; but you must beware of any national allusions, for your neighbor who talks to you in French, may be a Russian or a Hottentot. As a proof of this, a moustached gentleman by my side accosted me one eve- ning in Italian ; after some indifferent; conversation, an 12* 134 ROME. interesting subject was started, and as my Italian vocabu- lary was not then very well stored, after floundering on some time with the aid of the kindred Latin and Spanish, I asked my new friend if he spoke French. He replied in that language, " I speak it very badly. Monsieur is French ?" " Not at all," I answered, " I am American." Whereupon, to my utter surprise, he exclaimed in the strongest brogue of the Emerald Isle, " Och, then I sup- pose you can spake English !" And thus we unexpect- edly found ourselves in possession of a common language, while we had been for some time struggling to make our- selves understood in a tongue foreign to us both. Though visitors of all degrees are attracted to the Cafe Greco by the excellence of its coffee, (which the propri- etor imports directly from Mocha), the majority of its habitual guests are artists, and in the company of some of them I adjourned thence one evening to a Ponte Molle, or Artists' Festival. One of my companions was that night to be initiated into the general Association of Artists in Rome, the majority of whom are Germans, and who unite for mutual assistance and social enjoyment. The Ponte Molle is the bridge by which Northerners enter the city, and its name is therefore given to the fete, which is the tax of the initiated. It was held in the trattoria Monte Citorio, behind the post-office; and about two hun- dred artists of all nations were there assembled in their most extravagantly picturesque costumes, most of them looking like Cavaliers of Charles I., and all busily eating, an artists' ponte molle. 135 drinking, and smoking. At the farther end of the chief room, the President was selling at auction a collection of drawings, paintings, &c, contributed by the more pros- perous members of the society, that the proceeds of the sale might be applied to the relief of their poorer brethren in art. All currencies were named in the biddings, and when an Austrian offered a zwanziger, an American par- alleled it precisely with " A Yankee shilling." The sale went off gaily and successfully. Some fine glees were then sung, all joining in the chorus and beating time with clashing glasses. The initiation then took place. The doors of an adjoining room were thrown open, and displayed the tableau vivant of the candidate, wrapped in a scarlet mantle, standing on a table, and assuming suc- cessively the postures of the Apollo Belvedere, the flying Mercury, and the like, as proofs of his artistic taste. The assembly was then asked, if they thought him worthy of being elected " Knight of the Baiocco." The response was a chorus of " Yes" " Oui" " Si" " Ya" and other affirmations, and he was immediately invested with the ribbon and medal of the order, to wit, a new baiocco, or Roman cent ; a democratic burlesque on the orders of knighthood, in token that artists, should acknowledge the aristocracy of genius alone. The new knight then received a horn of terra cotta, holding about a quart, as his Scandinavian drinking cup. He went the rounds of the room, touching the glasses of every one, and a Ger- man ode, composed in honor of him and the society, was 136 ROME. then sung. The election of officers nsxt took place, and finally the crowd dispersed in perfect harmony, having renewed and strengthened, by their friendly festivities, the fraternal ties which here unite into one brotherhood the thousands of every nation who congregate in Rome for the common pursuit of Art. 137 XL THE VELABRUM, THE GHETTO, AND THE TRASTEVERE. A remarkable number of interesting antiquities are contained within the narrow circuit of the Velabrum, a low piece of ground which lies between Mount Palatine and the Tiber Most conspicuous among them is the Temple of Vesta, an elegant little structure of Parian marble in the purest Greek style, circular in shape, and surrounded by twenty Corinthian columns. The bronze models of it, manufactured by the Roman tradesmen as classical inkstands, have scattered its graceful form over the world. It is now converted into a church, as is too the neighboring temple of Fortuna Virilis, dedicated to Saint Mary of Egypt, but retaining on its frieze the heathen ornaments of oxen's heads, little Genii, and can- delabra supporting festoons. Another temple is built into the Church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, and in its portico is the famous "Mouth of Truth." This is a round slab of marble, five feet across, in the middle of which is roughly sculptured out a large face with open mouth. The witness, instead of " kissing the book," as in modern times, put his hand into this mouth when he 138 ROME. made his affirmation, fully believing that, if he testified falsely, the marble lips would shut upon his hand, and crush it in punishment for his perjury. The mouth still gapes open, as of old, but it seems now to have lost its miraculous powers. Turning your back on the river, and passing through the Arch of Janus (a huge square mass of masonry, pierced by two arches at right angles to each other, so as to form a shelter in stormy weather), you descend a road which slopes downward between two high walls, till it ends in front of a perpendicular pile of stone-work over- hung with ivy, under which passes the Cloaca Maxima. This was the main sewer of ancient Rome, and, undig- nified as it may seem, it is one of the greatest wonders which remain to us. It is a subterraneous arched pas- sage, large enough for a load of hay to pass through, and covered with a triple arch of immense blocks put together without cement, but so indestructibly, that they have lasted from five hundred years before Christ, down to the present time, and still bid fair to outlive all the other antiquities of the world. Beside its mouth boils up a remarkably bright and clear spring, to which the people attribute potent qualities in some diseases, and which is supposed to be the precise spot at which Castor and Pollux were once seen watering their horses. Retracing your steps, you come upon the house of Rienzi, " the last of the Roman Tribunes." Its walls display a most singular and incongruous collection of antique ornaments. Frag- THE VELABRUM. 139 ments of columns and capitals, carved cornices, broken sta- tues, and the like, are built into the walls as if they were common stones, and are laid on their sides or their tops, just as the mason found most convenient. Among them are large patches of bare brick wall, so that the general effect is like that of richly carved old furniture in the garret of a log-cabin. A little farther is the Church of San Niccolo in carcere, built on the site of three temples, whose columns are incorporated in its walls, and one of which stands over the dungeon, which was the scene of the story of the " Roman daughter." You descend into a dark cell, and may then say with Childe Harold — " There is a dungeon in whose dim drear light What do I gaze on ? Nothing : look again ! Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight — An old man and a female young and fair," &c. Passing by the Theatre of Marcellus (which is like a piece of the Coliseum), and the Portico of Octavia (whose tall columns supported arches to shelter the peo- ple from rain and sun), you enter the Ghetto, or Jews' quarter. Within its narrow limits all the Jews in Rome , are compelled to reside, and in it they are locked up every night by iron gates which are placed at the head of each of the streets leading from it. This illiberality seems scarcely credible to Americans, who are born and bred in the axiomatic belief that all men and creeds have equal rights, but the same restriction existed at the free city of Frankfort on the Maine, till a bombardment 140 knocked down the gates in 1796 ; and in the same city, until 1834, the number of marriages among the Hebrews was not allowed to exceed thfrteen yearly. Their con- dition is becoming gradually ameliorated even in Rome, for formerly they were obliged to race on foot in the Corso during the Carnival, for the amusement of the people, but now horses run, and the Jews only supply the prizes, which are usually pieces of rich velvet. An old Italian one day told me an anecdote, which illustrates the popular feeling towards them. We were walking past the Tor de' Conti at the foot of the Quirinal, and he said that this tower was formerly inhabited by a Prince who had an especial antipathy to the Jews, and used to keep a supply of big stones beside an upper window with which he would pelt the poor creatures as they passed by, and would often wound them severely. The Pope heard of this, and recommended the Prince to show his detestation by pelting them with oranges, or nuts, or some sort of fruit, which would express his enmity as well, and be less serious in their effects. The Prince promised to obey, but took for his fruit the cones of the pine trees, which here contain eatable kernels, but grow to a great size, and are almost as heavy and hard as stones, and with these he continued to pelt the unfortunate Hebrews. The Ghetto is very dirty, and its streets are lined with little shops, some of which (according to the ladies) con- tain the best assortment of dry-goods in Rome ; while others are filled with old clothes, which seem the pecu- THE GHETTO. 141 liar property of a portion of the tribe all the world over. The people preserve their unchangeable national physi- ognomy, though here it is less remarkable from its simi- larity to the Roman, in its aquiline nose and dark eyes. But this personal resemblance does not lessen the popu- lar prejudice against them, and I saw an example of it on my first visit to the Ghetto. A wretched-looking coun- trywoman, with her feet wrapped in rags instead of shoes, but with a cross on her breast, which showed her to be a Christian, was standing on the narrow side-walk, when a well dressed and portly Hebrew came behind her and told her to make room. She turned, and seeing who it was, she exclaimed with flashing eyes, and with a look of the most intense contempt, " Room for you, a Jew dog ?" She kept her place, and the rich Hebrew turned out for her into the gutter ! On leaving the Ghetto I stepped in at a cafe just outside of its limits, and while refreshing myself, I asked the waiter how he liked his neighbors. " Oh, they are very nice people," said he, laughing ; " I can hit them a good rap on the head and they never say a word back." Truly may they still ex- claim with Shylock, " sufferance is the badge of all our tribe." A church beside one of the gates bears, in Hebrew characters, an inscription from Isaiah, " I have stretched out my hands all day long to a rebellious people." This is indeed " adding insult to injury." Passing by it on new-year's day, I met a procession of monks, which 13 142 ROME. seemed like a nightmare-vision of ghosts. Behind two sentinels, who marched at a hundred feet apart, came a double file of beings, moving like men, but so covered from head to foot, face and all, in shroud-like garments with only two little holes for the eyes (as if they were being smothered in bags), that you could scarcely imagine that they called themselves human beings. First came twenty dressed in such shrouds, all white, excepting blue capes, and carrying a crucifix ; then as many more in blue shrouds with red capes, and bearing a picture of the Madonna ; some priests, dressed in black, with uncovered faces, followed, and they looked positively beautiful by contrast with the other horrible phantoms ; then came more of the hideous ghosts, and the procession was closed by a dense mass of men, women, and children. The priests chaunted a prayer, and at certain points, all the crowd burst out into a yell, worse than any Indian war-whoop, and then united in the chorus. The effect of the whole was most horrible, and more likely to frighten children into fits than to entice the Jews into conversion. I inquired the nature of the procession from one of the crowd, who told me, with a look of surprise at my igno- rance, that it was called " The Mission," and took place three times a year.* * A somewhat similar procession of men enveloped in black shrouds is sometimes met with in Florence, but there its object is not idle superstition, but practical benevolence. Its wearers are members of the " Congregazione delta Misericordia" or THE ISLAND. 143 From the Ghetto an ancient bridge crosses one branch of the Tiber to the island of San Bartolomeo, which was formerly dedicated to iEsculapius, and faced with traver- tine into the form of a ship, an obelisk being its mast. Another old bridge crosses the other branch into the " Brotherhood of Mercy." Follow their rapid steps, and you will see them enter some poor house, the master of which has been suddenly stricken with violent disease, or has met with some dangerous accident, demanding immediate succor. They place him in a covered litter, as tenderly as if he were their brother by nearer ties than those of Adam, and raising the litter to their shoulders, six of them bear it carefully to the hospital, while others follow behind, to take their turn in the service of charity. Their gloomy costume is assumed that their good deeds may not be known, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany himself is enrolled in their number, and often secretly assists in the pious duty. A single stroke of the bell summons them to an ordinary accident ; two strokes to a more serious case ; and three to bear a corpse to the church. At the sound they leave the business or the theatre, or the society in which they may be engaged, and hasten to their place of meeting, rich and poor, side by side, feeling that " a touch of nature makes the whole world kin." When they have quitted the house of the unfortunate whom they have borne away, his suffering family will find that some one of their unknown benefactors has left behind a liberal alms. Such are some of the good deeds of the people, who are so often slandered, as being treacherous, revengeful and unprincipled, inasmuch as they are Italians, and as being superstitious, bigoted and immoral, inas- much as they are Catholics. When we add this to the thousand other examples of practical piety towards the " widow and the fatherless" and of unsparing and unselfish charity toward all men, which irradiate the gloom of this lovely but fallen country, we Protestants might better imitate their practice than assail their principles, and the best among us might profitably "Go and do likewise." 144 Trastevere, or " Beyond the Tiber" portion of the city. The inhabitants of the Trastevere claim to be the only direct descendants of the ancient Romans, and are, in many respects, in language, customs, and physical cha- racteristics, a distinct and superior race. They refuse to intermarry out of their own district, even with the other Romans, whom they call barbarians ; and I was told that a poor barber of the Trastevere had refused his daughter's hand to a German Baron. Rather than submit to such a misalliance with the Goths he would have reacted Virgi- nius with his razor. The ancient Palatine Bridge (now Ponte Rotto) retains two of its arches on this side of the river. The entrance to it is blocked up by a currier's shop, on passing through which, I found this bridge, the very first one built of stone in ancient Rome, now used as a place for drying sheep-skins ! While I was musing on this degradation, a man came on the bridge, and hastily approached me, without saying a word, but flourishing a long sharp knife in his right hand. The place was a capital one for an assassination, the parapets of the bridge being higher than a man's head, so as to hide the doings upon it, and the river flowing so conveniently beneath. When he got within a foot of me, and his knife within striking distance of my throat, he then first spoke, and began to beg very humbly for a few cents, as he owned the shop through which I had passed. He received his fee with many thanks, and then, taking a firmer grasp of his knife, he — - THE TRASTEVERE. < 145 began to scrape a sheep-skin. My promising adventure proved to be only an inkling of one. A little lower down the river are the slight remains of the Sublician bridge, which Horatius Codes defended against the whole army of Porsenna, till his countrymen had broken it down behind him, and whence he then leaped into the river with his arms, and swam to the shore. The sight of such scenes of the classic stories which we read in childhood seems to possess a magic power of transforming words into realities, and fables into facts. The Church of Saint Cecilia (the interior decorations of which, in white and gold, are in unusually chastened taste) contains, in a shrine before its high altar, the exqui- sitely graceful statue of Saint Cecilia, in the precise attitude and drapery in which her body was found many years after her martyrdom. The statue is of white mar- ble, and represents a small and delicate female reclining on her side with face turned downwards, and hands com- posed as if in sleep. The posture is as easy and natural as life itself, and so skilfully is the drapery worked, and so plainly do the limbs seem to show through it, that you think, at the first glance, that it is indeed only a real semi- transparent cloth thrown over the statue. Leaving this church, and passing by a cemetery, the walls of which are faced with skulls, you reach the magnificent Corsini Palace. It is one of the largest and handsomest in Rome, and was the residence of Christina, 13* 146 ROME. Queen of Sweden. It is now famous for its gallery, which contains nearly six hundred pictures. The majority are necessarily commonplace, but it also pos- sesses many valuable Panninis ; two Canalettis, which are vivid fac-similes of scenes in Venice ; many fine portraits by Titian, Van Dyke, Giorgione, Rubens, &c. ; Guercind's Annunciation (in which the Virgin, with hands clasped on breast, and upturned face, is depicted with exactly the proper expression of gratefulness, humility, doubt, and adoration) ; and his famous " Ecce- homo." Carlo Dolce's hangs opposite to it, and seems to me a finer conception, looking less like a suffering man, and more like a patient divinity. Carlo has also here painted, under various characters, several of his lovely daughters. He had five, all beautiful ; he always took them for his models— for he could have found none better — and being very religious withal, he has repeated their faces again and again, under the names and with the attributes of all the saints in the calendar. " Saint Apollonia," in the gallery, is said to be a portrait of his eldest daughter ; for tradition has remembered the original of each, though they lived two hundred years ago, so affectionate and personal is the attachment to the arts in this their earthly Paradise ; and when I exclaimed to the old cicerone (who showed me a dozen of these portraits, all resem- bling and yet all differently charming), " What a beau- tiful family Carlo Dolce must have had,'' he replied, as if they were his own intimate friends, " Ah, yes, signore ; THE TRASTEVERE. 147 beautiful and good !" Saint Apollonia was martyred by having all her teeth pulled out, and she is, therefore, always represented holding a tooth in a forceps. This distinctive symbol is well-known to all good Catholics, and the custode was quite shocked by my not thus at once recognizing the Dentist-tortured saint. But the gem of the gallery is Murillos Madonna and Child ; less brilliant than the Dulwich one, but very beautiful, as she looks you full in the face with sad presages in her eyes. The nine rooms which contain these pictures are mag- nificent of themselves, with their Venetian floors, which look like one immense slab of variegated marble, their chairs of crimson velvet and gold, and their fine pros- pects over all Rome. Opposite to the palace is the Villa Farnesina, on the walls of which the favorite story of the loves of Cupid and Psyche is well told in the frescoes of Raphael. The scenes of their history, from the time when Psyche is first shown to Cupid by Yenus, till her ascent to Olympus after her various trials, are depicted in the lunettes of the ceiling on a blue ground which emblems the heavens. Wreaths of flowers separate the subjects, and the corners are filled up by sporting Genii. In the next room Gala- tea appears, riding on a sea-shell car, drawn by dolphins, and surrounded by nymphs and tritons, while over her are hovering cupids with stretched bows and arrows about to be let fly. In one corner is Michael Angelo's visiting card— a colossal head sketched in charcoal by 148 ROME. that artist, who, on calling here one day, and rinding his fellow painter absent, " made his mark" thus characteristi- cally.. It is honorable to the taste of those concerned, that it has never been effaced during the three centuries since it was executed. An upper room contains the Marriage of Roxana and Alexander, and in another, over the fire-place, is appropriately painted the Forge of Vul- can. What captivating substitutes are such decorations for the bare white walls, or tasteless papers, of most mod- ern houses ! Mounting the Janiculum hill, we find near its summit the church of San Pietro in Montorio, for which Raphael painted his Transfiguration, and which now receives a pension as a compensation for the picture being trans- ferred to the Vatican. In its cloister stands the beauti- ful little Temple of Bramante, erected at the expense of Ferdinand of Spain on the precise spot where Saint Peter is believed to have been crucified head down- wards. In the centre of the pavement of the temple is a hole in which the cross is said to have stood, and out of it a monk scraped up some of the consecrated earth, which he gave me, as a precious relic, in an envelope, stamped with the seal of the church, and inscribed, " Earth collected in the Temple of Bramante ; the place in which was crucified the Prince of the Apostles, Saint Peter, and in which, for every mass that is performed, a soul is liberated from Purgatory." While on this side of the river, it is convenient to visit THE TRASTEVERE. 149 the Villa Pamjili-Doria, a mile beyond the Gate of San Pancrazio. Its casino contains much ancient sculpture, and its picturesque grounds are four miles in circuit, sha- ded by noble stone pines and divided by hedges of laurel and cypress. In one place fifty fountains gush from as many urns, and run into a stream, which is led down sev- eral cascades (under one of which is a subterraneous and subaqueous passage), and then allowed to spread into an irregular lake. When I visited the Villa in the middle of January, icicles hung from the urns, and the wind blew almost as bleakly as in New York, though on New Year's day I had been writing beside an open window ; but, according to the Priests, " the cold was a mortification peculiar to the holy season of Lent, and would continue till Easter, because it was cold when Peter sat by the fire in the house of the High Priest before the cock crew !" 150 XII. CARDINALS, MONKS, BEGGARS AND ROBBERS. The Cardinals of Rome monopolize all the offices and power of the Government. They choose the Pope out of their own body by a majority of two-thirds, in secret conclave, though Austria, France and Spain, have each the right to put a veto on one candidate. From the re- mainder of the " Sacred college" are taken the Gover- nors of provinces, the Cardinal Chamberlain, the Cardi- nal Secretary of State, the Cardinal Chancellor, the Cardinal Prefect, and so on. Not content with this, one of them is also Clerk of the Weather, and, like a new Joshua, prescribes the hours at which the sun shall daily set ; on the first of December, for example, he pub- lished an order fixing the time of sunset for the next forty days at half-past four, " French time." The Ro- man day was therefore to begin at five P.M., and noon to be " nineteen hours of the day," for those forty days ; the sun being supposed to stand still during that interval. One of the Cardinals — Prince Spada — died in De- cember, and his funeral was therefore an extra boon to foreign sight-seers. He was over ninety years old, and CARDINALS. 151 was the last of the Cardinals who had accompanied Pope Pius VII. to Avignon. His trials had taught him benevolence (though it is innate in almost every Italian), and in his will he left ten thousand dollars to the Brother- hood of Mercy, of which he was a member, so as to give it the means of defending before the tribunals the honest poor who could not afford to fee lawyers. His body was taken in the evening to the magnificent Church of San ta Maria in Vallicella, after lying in state at his palace for two days . A troop of cavalry cleared the way, and behind them came the deceased Cardinal's gilded carriage, in which was placed his coffin, on each side of which sat a priest holding a torch and chaunting funeral prayers. The coffin was carried up the steps of the church, a passage through the immense crowd being opened by soldiers. I followed close behind it, and as the mob closed in, a pickpocket, on the very steps of the church, pulled out my handkerchief so clumsily that I felt the tug distinctly, though I could not seize the thief in the darkness and confusion. With this small loss I reached the church-door, but found it guarded by two soldiers, who refused admission to every one, even to priests. I slipped a paul in the hand of one of the soldiers, and the door opened for me as if by magic, while the priests, who had not invoked the potent St. Paul, were kept outside. The coffin was surrounded with candles, but, after a prayer was chaunted, the re- 152 ROME. maining ceremonies were deferred to the next morning, at seventeen o'clock. At the appointed hour I returned to the church, and found it hung with festoons of black velvet edged with gold, suspended between the pilasters, which were also covered with black velvet, on which stripes of gold represented the flutings. At all the altars around the building priests were saying mass, being paid half a dollar for each service. The coffin had been raised on a lofty pedestal, and covered with a gilt canopy. The Cardinal's hat hung on its front, and beside it waved his banner as Prince ; the insignia of his spiritual and tem- poral dignities being placed side by side. Tall candles stood around it, giving almost the only light to the vast church, and a flock of priests, in their many-colored robes, watched beside it. The Swiss body-guard of the Pope were also present, in honor to the rank of the de- ceased. One by one the Cardinals entered, each pre- ceded by his usher, and followed by his deacon bearing his train, as on Christmas Eve. They tottered up to the coffin, and read aloud a prayer from an illuminated missal held before them by an attendant, while the little bells were tinkling at all the altars. Each next sprinkled the suspended hat with holy water, and seemed to look with much interest on the body of his late associate, as if speculating when his turn would come. They then retired to black covered seats, ranged around the high CARDINALS. 153 altar, and when all had arrived, one of their number chaunted high mass, and the choir of the Sistine Chapel sang a dirge. At one point in the service four priests, bearing tapers, came up to the coffin, knelt before it, and after a short interval rose and retired, blowing out their tapers, doubtless with some allegorical allusion. When mass was ended, the Cardinals walked around the coffin, swinging smoking censers, and then bade adieu for ever to their late brother. The length of the ceremonies afforded an excellent opportunity of studying the physiognomy of the Cardi- nals, as they succeeded one another in the performance of the funeral rites. Most of them are of highly dig- nified and noble presence, but among them was a small, quick-moving personage, with a face full of queer knobs and angles, who was pointed out to me as Cardinal Mez- zofanti, the most accomplished linguist in the world. He is said to be master of an incredible number of lan- guages, and he speaks English, the most difficult of all, with wonderful correctness. His words are each uttered separately with the most perfect precision, though he says that his only teacher has been Sheridan's Pro- nouncing Dictionary, and it is by the cadence of his sentences alone, that he can be detected as a foreigner. A marvellous story is told of his facility in acquiring a new language. A criminal had been condemned to death, but could not be confessed, as he spoke only an unknown tongue, of which none of the priests could 14 154 understand a word. Cardinal Mezzofanti was sent for, and after various trials, he recognized one word of the criminal's language as belonging to one of the oriental dialects, with which, however, he had no farther acquaint- ance. As the man was to be executed the next day, no time was to be lost, and accordingly the Cardinal hurried home, collected his grammars and dictionaries, and, by studying intensely all night, learnt enough of the lan- guage to convert and confess the criminal the next morning ! As the Cardinals left the church, some friars, waiting outside of the door, fell on their knees before them and kissed their hands most fervently, as if they were a superior order of beings. These Friars, " Black, white and grey ; and all their trumpery," form a distinct class from the Monks, though often con- founded with them. Both orders are bound in common by the three vows of Poverty, of Chastity, and of Obe- dience, but differ in all their other regulations. The Monks follow mostly the rule of their founder, St. Bene- dict, and are supported by a regular income, derived from landed property, and public or private endowments. They are therefore comparatively independent and respect- able, and their monasteries were the asylums of learning in the dark ages. Nothing has been made in vain — not even Monks — and few bodies of laymen have left behind them more titles to the gratitude of posterity than the MONKS AND FRIARS. 155 much-abused wearers of the monastic robe and cowl. The Friars, on the other hand, founded by St. Francis, subsist entirely on alms and donations. They set out every morning on a pilgrimage among the faithful to collect their pious offerings, for which they repay them with their prayers. They are usually as ignorant as poor, and an aristocratic Jesuit priest, of whom I made some inquiries concerning them, with a most contempt- uous shrug disclaimed all knowledge of them. You meet them in every street, and their brown cloaks, cowls and sandals, have at least the merit of contrasting with the long black coats and broad-brimmed hats of the regular clergy. The priests, monks and nuns, in the city of Rome alone, amount to six thousand in a popula- tion of one hundred and fifty thousand, or one to twenty- five, and in the whole Papal territory, there are fifty- three thousand, most (though not all) of whom are use- less drones and burdens on the labor of the industrious population. The people, therefore, unite in abusing them, but they conduct themselves with extreme outward propriety, and are seldom seen in the streets after dark, or in any place of public amusement. Though much is said of their immorality, nothing is proven.* * They are not so prudent in Florence. While T was in that most fascinating of all cities, a trial was going on, which was said to have developed the following facts. A gentleman had long been jealous of the too frequent visits to his house of a certain priest. Returning home one day he saw the priest enter his door 156 ROME. Many of the regular clergy, who have no special duties, are very poor ; and I was one day solicited, by a priest in very rusty black, to take a ticket in a Lottery for a curious clock which he had made entirely with his own hands, and valued at $90. I inquired of him, as a spiritual guide, if lotteries were not gambling, and there- fore wrong. " Oh no," said he, apparently surprised at such an idea, " they are licensed by the Government." This seemed to me a curious standard of morality for a priest, but I let it pass, and next objected that as there were nine hundred tickets, my chance of drawing the a little in advance of him. He immediately followed him in, but passed successively th/ough his whole suite of rooms (the last of which was the chamber of his wife, and in which he found her), without seeing anything of the priest. He made no inquiry, but told his wife to prepare immediately to accompany him to their country seat. She did so, and, as they were leaving the room, the husband quietly turned the key of a large chest in which he kept his valuables. They locked up the house, being as usual accom- panied to the country by their servants. Soon afterwards the priest was missed. Inquiry was made by his friends in all direc- tions, and, after a fortnight had elapsed, it appeared that he had been last seen entering this gentleman's house. It was forcibly entered and searched, but in vain, till some one bethought himself of breaking open the large chest. It was done, and there lay the priest. He had died of combined suffocation and starvation, after having gnawed one of his arms to the bone. The gentleman was arrested, but denied all knowledge of the priest. He said that he always locked the chest when he left the city, and that if the priest was then inside, he ought to have called out. The affair was finally hushed up as quietly as possible. This little " ro- mance of real life," is almost a parallel to Balzac's powerful sketch of The walled-un lover. BEGGARS. 157 clock would be only one against eight hundred and ninety -nine. " But God may send you luck," said he, and seemed to think that this hope should at once induce me to comply with his pressing solicitations. The Beggars of Rome are a great drawback to the enjoyment of strangers. They cast a gloom over the whole city, and pain the visitor at every step by the sight of the misery which he cannot remove ; as it is so general, and is continually renewed by the short-sighted policy of the government, which crushes industry and commerce by its narrow-minded oppressions and restric- tions. This alone is enough to make Florence, which is the centre of a prosperous people, by far the most desira- ble residence. Here you are continually supplicated for the love of all the Saints to scatter your alms on every side. Sometimes it is a man worn down to a living skeleton by hunger ; sometimes it is a half-naked woman with a starving child ; but generally the beggars are sturdy fellows, who make it their profession, and who wear a badge in proof of their being regularly licensed. However benevolently disposed you may be at first, you soon become hardened to the appeals of this class, but find them very annoying by their pertinacity, till you learn the secret by which the Romans free themselves from their attacks. Words are useless ; you may repeat in vain that you have no change, but if you silently raise your open hand and wave it before them, they instantly cease their appeals. This is a final answer, and has a 14* 158 ROME. magical effect, as I proved every day after being instruct- ed in the secret.* Some of these beggars penetrate into the houses, and one presented to me a parchment docu- ment, duly signed and sealed, certifying that he had been converted to the Roman Catholic faith ; and was there- fore a worthy object of charity. When I gave him a trifle, telling him that it was for his poverty and not at all for his religion, he replied very coolly, " Just as your Excellency pleases." Many of them have regular stations, and the grand flight of steps leading up to the Trinita ale' Monti is occupied by a jolly old fellow, who runs about the landing-places upon his hands and knees, to which are strapped pieces of wood. He bids a cheerful good morning to every one who comes down or up the Scala, and clatters up to them on his wooden-shod extremities, expressing his pleasure that they are going to have such a fine day to see " the beautiful city," and finishing his gossip with the laughing inquiry, " And how much is your gen- erous Excellency going to give me this morning V Half a cent makes him very contented, and he will readily change a whole one, returning a half cent with profuse thanks. He is said to have become quite rich at this business, and to have lately given his daughter a * This open hand is very expressive in Rome ; the Post office clerk holds up his open hand to express that there are no letters for you ; and when you knock at a door, the servant looks out of an upper window, and holds up her open hand to say, " My mis- tress is at home, and, if you will wait a moment, I will come down and let you in." BEGGARS. 159 wedding portion of five hundred dollars. Nearly every- body in Rome begs in some form or other ; a clerk in a shop asks for something for himself, when you have paid the regular price for the article ; and a coachman demands a buona-mano after it has been expressly includ- ed in the price.* The servant, who brings you an invi- tation from a Prince, asks for his Mancia, or present ; and gentlemen, by way of penance, go about in masks, with devotional money-boxes, which they carry into cafes and shake in your ears. Foreigners also take up the trade. A few days after my arrival in Rome, I received a note, correctly addressed, and begging in very well-turned phrases for some assistance to a young Englishwoman with a large family, whose husband was " unable to pursue his profession." It closed with hinting at the example set by Lord Powerscourt, who has since died at Rome, and who " gave a generous dona- tion of five pounds." It was brought to me by its writer, a pretty and lady-like young Englishwoman, and I afterwards learned that most of my English friends had received a * The regular system of Buona-mano, which is universal in Italv, is very unreasonably abused by most travellers After any service done for you has been paid for according to agreement, an additional present, or buona-mano (lirerallv good-hand), is always expected and given, its amount being proportioned to the way in which you have been served. The cost to you is no more, for it is taken into account in the first- demand, and the expectation of this reward stimulates your servant or tradesman to greater zeal to please. It resembles the English system of fees, but is superior to it in leaving the amount more at the will of the traveller. 160 ROME. similar circular, and that the husband was " unable to pursue his profession," because he was in prison for stealing. A person, who called himself an American, was also said to be prowling about the streets, and levy- ing contributions on those whom he supposed to be his countrymen. That there should be occasional Robberies in Rome, where the starving and desperate poor are tantalized and tempted by the wealth displayed by the crowds of rich strangers, is not to be wondered at. It is only surprising that there are no more, particularly of foreigners, though they are rather shunned by the robbers, as being sup- posed always to go armed, for which a special permit is necessary. But no arms would be any defence against the insidious mode of attack, in which a man muffled in a cloak suddenly leaps from a dark door-way, and applies a knife to the victim's throat, letting the point tickle the jugular vein, and saying only " Money !" If any resistance be made, or if the robber be recognized, the fatal blow is at once given. At Naples they apply the knife to the stomach instead of the throat, but the sufferer by either system would probably think this " a distinction without a difference." At night every one walks in the middle of the street, to avoid the robber's tiger-leap from some lurking-place, and when two per- sons meet in a lonely spot, each shuns contact with the other, as in the times of the plague. I had frequently observed this mutual avoidance before I learnt the cause, ROBBERS. 161 but did not fully credit the frequent reports of robberies and assassinations which used to be narrated every morning in the cafes, till one day I saw posted on the walls a " Notification of Sentence," announcing that two robbers would be executed at eight o'clock the next day, and that five more had been condemned to the galleys. The two under sentence of death had stabbed and robbed sixteen persons in one night ; but, in spite of these atrocities, their pardon had been warmly, though vainly, solicited from the Governor of the city. He is distinguished for his unrelenting firmness and vigilance in punishing crime, and, if his administration were to be long continued, he would produce a great reform in Rome ; but it is said that the Pope will soon reward him with a Cardinal's hat, and thus he will be removed from the sphere where he is so useful . That evening I met him at a ball, and the festivities seemed to be damped by the presence of one by whose orders two human beings, however guilty, were in a few hours to be put to death. They were guillotined the succeeding morning in the Via de* Cerchi, and a person who was present told me it was most horrible to see the second one lay down his head in the fatal groove, still wet with the warm blood of his companion. A week afterwards I passed the spot, and the scaffold had then been removed, but a little girl, who was picking up the chips which it had left, ran up to beg a baiocco, for pointing out a spot where the ground was still deeply stained with blood. The execution did not 162 ROME. seem to produce any better effect than capital punish- ments usually do, for there were said to have been more robberies and stabbings on the following night than for a long time before ; and only three days afterwards a man was attacked by two others, just outside of one of the city gates, and killed with thirty wounds, though six other persons were in sight at the time. But every one runs away at a cry of murder, lest the police should treat them as criminals instead of witnesses ; or lest the ac- complices of the assassin should murder them too for bearing testimony against him. This is certainly not a pleasant state of society, but the fault is in the general remissness of the government, which allows a few ruf- fians to run riot in crimes which are heartily detested by the great body of the people. 163 XIII. A PROMENADE ON THE PINCIAN. The Pincian hill is the fashionable promenade of Rome. It is the Regent street and Hyde Park of the Englishman, the Boulevards and Champs Elysees of the Parisians, and the Broadway and Third Avenue of the New Yorkers. Upon it every fine afternoon are found all the fashionable dwellers in Rome ; citizens and stran- gers ; on foot, or horseback, and in carriages ; walking, riding, and driving. From the Piazza di Spagna, the head-quarters of strangers in Rome, you may ascend the westerly side of the Pincian by a magnificent stone stair- case a hundred and fifty feet wide, and composed of a hundred and thirty-five broad steps. It is relieved by spacious landing-places ; separates into two branches when half way up ; a little higher unites again into one ; and then turns anew to the right and to the left, to land you on the terraced promenade in front of the church Trinita de* Monti. Immediately before you rises one of those Egyptian Obelisks of polished granite, covered with hieroglyphics, which the ancient Roman Emperors brought from the land of the Nile as trophies of the extent 164 ROME. of their empire, and which the modern Pontiffs have applied to the decoration of the public places of the city. A dozen of them occupy conspicuous sites and are among the most striking characteristics of modern Rome, so that an American artist, who had spent many years here, on visiting Paris, thought the finest object in the whole of that metropolis, was the obelisk of Luxor, in the Place de la Concorde, inasmuch as it reminded him so vividly of his well-loved Rome. Beyond the Obelisk stands the church of Trinita de' Monti, famous for the fresco of Daniele da Volterra, which represents the " Descent from the Cross," and was called by Poussin, the third greatest picture in the world. It is very powerful and life-like, but greatly injured by time, and more like Michael Angelo than Raphael. It was probably the model for Rubens' great picture of the same subject in the Cathedral of Antwerp. The church of late years has been kept generally closed to prevent the intrusion of ill-bred strangers, who used to lounge in it as in a cafe. After many vain attempts, I found it open on the festival of the epifania, the English twelfth night. The church belongs to a sisterhood of nuns, who inhabit an adjoining convent, and devote themselves to the educa- tion of the female children of the higher classes. On this occasion a cardinal was present, and Vespers were sung by the Nuns, hidden behind a grated gallery over the door. Their musical devotions were performed with exquisite taste and feeling, and some passages seemed THE PINCIAN HILL. 165 to me sweeter and more touching than those of even the famed choir of the Sistine chapel. I was the only visitor, and, to avoid shocking their ideas of propriety, I knelt before the grated gates which separated the high altar from the rest of the church. Inside of them were likewise kneel- ing all the pupils of the convent, from eight to eighteen years old, the youngest in front and the rest in rows regu- larly increasing in height. They all wore long and thick white veils, but when vespers were ended, and they rose to go out by a side door, one of them, as she passed me, slily raised her veil, revealing a face of most brilliant beauty, and then dropped it again with a smile of triumph when she saw my look of eager admiration. Coquetry seems as inseparable from woman behind the iron grates of a convent, as in the saloons of society. Leaving the church, you see on your left hand the house of Claude Lorraine, quite picturesque in itself, as well as in its situation. His studio looks down on all Rome, and from it he saw many of those magical effects of light and atmosphere, which he has fixed on his can- vass. Opposite to it is the house of Poussin, and not far distant is that of Salvator Rosa. The natural beauties, which attracted these great landscape painters to the Pincian hill, still remain, to make it the resort of all strangers of taste, who daily climb it, to enjoy thence those delicious Italian sunsets, which bathe the western sky in a rosy glow, passing, by imperceptible gradations, through a transparent orange color into the deep an<^ 15 166 ROME. pure azure of the zenith. Strolling in the other direc- tion you find a green wall of laurel crossing the road, and through arched openings cut in it you enter the gar- dens of the Villa Medici, where you may ramble at will in the hedged walks, adorned with a profusion of statues and antique marbles. The back of the Villa itself is said to have been designed by Michael Angelo ; it is decorat- ed with medallions and basso-relievos, and was such a favorite with Claude that he has introduced it into many of his landscapes, particularly the great sea-view in the Pitti Palace. The Villa Borghese covers with its grounds the brow of the Pincian hill, a little beyond the Porta del Popolo. Its noble park and gardens are three miles in circuit, and are most liberally thrown open to citizens and strangers at all seasons, with a practical democracy which enables the poorest plebeian to enjoy scenes of taste and luxury which only many successive generations of aristocracy could have created. You may ride at will, beside nobles of all countries, in broad avenues, lined with statues, sprinkled by fountains, and terminated by temples ; or you may watch the peasants in their holiday costumes, making merry in the hollow of the Hippodrome ; or, if inclined to solitary meditation, you may turn into secluded wildernesses, where everything grows " at its own sweet will," and where you can scarcely realize that you are so near a great city. Near the entrance of the gardens is a lake, supplied by cas- VILLA BORGHESE. 167 cades, overshadowed by weeping willows, and populated by statues. A little farther you pass two lodges, in the Egyptian style, guarded by obelisks. A neighboring arcade contains many antique fragments found in the grounds. A wall to your left is crowned with a row of aloes, planted in graceful vases. You pass under an aqueduct carried over a Doric portico, with the motto, " Ne quern mitissimus amnis impediat." A richly wooded park, in the English style, is intersected by avenues lined with elms and oaks, through which you get glimpses of fountains, temples, and artificial ruins. It is bordered with statues, on the pedestal of one of which is written, " If the gardens of Alcinous were offered to me, I could say that I preferred my own ;" and well he might, for those gardens of Homer could scarcely surpass these of Prince Borghese. Another Latin inscription invites and cautions the public to this purport : " The guardian of the Villa Borghese makes this proclamation. Whoever thou art, if free, do not fear here the shackles of laws. Go where thou wilt, seek what thou wishest, depart when thou pleasest. These things are prepared for strangers rather than for the master. He forbids me to impose severe restrictions on a well-mannered guest. Let good intents be here the only laws for a friend. But if any one, wilfully, knowingly, maliciously, should break the golden laws of urbanity, let him beware lest the pro- voked keeper should in turn break his tessera of friend- ship." Profiting by this liberality the painters of Rome 168 ROME. transfer to their canvass many of the fine stone-pines, oaks, and cypresses, which have so long flourished there undisturbed, and some of which may be recognized by the American traveller as old friends, whose acquaintance he had previously made in pictures which had reached this country. The noble stone-pines are very characteristic of Rome, and especially of the Villa Borghese. They shoot up a straight and slender stem, a hundred feet high, and as bare of leaves as a ship's mast, till at its very top its branches spread out into the semblance of a gigantic umbrella, or an overgrown mushroom. They radiate on all sides from its centre, and are covered with a luxuriant thatching of foliage, which looks almost black on its under side, but whose top, gilded by the sunbeams, glitters with the brightest green. In the midst of the Park stands the Casino, or Palace. The marble balustrade before it is topped with statues and vases, and its outer front is covered with busts and basso-relievos inserted in the walls. You enter a spa- cious portico, filled with antiques, and thence pass into a grand " Saloon." Its arched ceiling is forty feet high, and is brilliantly painted in fresco, with a representation of the gods descending to the aid of the Romans be- sieged in the Capitol by Brennus. The pavement is formed of five large mosaic pictures of gladiators fight- ing with tigers, hunters stabbing deer, and the like. The walls are covered with arabesques and medallion basso- VILLA BORGHESE. 169 relievos, and all around are ancient statues. Such is one room of one house of a Roman nobleman. On the same floor are eight more, distinguished as " Chamber of Juno," " Chamber of Hercules," &c, all richly deco- rated, and all filled with statues, busts, and other antique sculptures. The " Galleria" is of equal size with the " Saloon," but is even more richly adorned. The walls are divided by pilasters of Giallo antico, and oriental ala- baster, with gilded capitals and cornices. Between them are white relievos on blue grounds, like cameos, and in niches are porphyry busts of the Emperors, in alabaster drapery. The pavement is composed of variously colored marbles, and the ceiling is covered with arabesque paintings. In the upper story are several chambers filled with pictures, which are probably only the refuse of the collection in the city palace of the Prince, but which would set up a dozen galleries with us. In the large saloon is the famous statue of Pauline Buonaparte, in the character of Venere Vincitrice, executed by Ca- nova, after she had married Prince Borghese. She is half sitting, half reclining, on a cushion of white marble, supported by a gilded couch ; her head rests most grace- fully on her right arm ; in her left hand she holds the apple which she has just received from Paris as the prize of beauty, and she has not yet found time to resume the garments which she threw aside to captivate him with her charms. It is one of the finest works of Canova, but, knowing that its beauty is a portraiture from 15* 170 ROME. life, you are continually reminded of the naivete with which Pauline answered an English lady who was shocked at the nudity of the statue, and asked the Princess if she did not feel " uncomfortable" while she was sit- ting for it ? " Oh no," replied Pauline, totally misunder- standing the drift of the question — " not at all ; there was a good fire in the room." The family of late have become more fastidious, the present prince having married an English lady (since dead, however), the Lady Gwendolin Talbot, daughter of the Catholic Earl of Shrewsbury. You must therefore now inquire for the statue only by the name of " Venere Vincitrice ;" and when I asked the custode if it was not Pan line, he looked fearfully around the room for eaves-droppers before he dared to whisper, " Si, signore." In the Villa Borghese we have admired the magnificent results of the union of wealth and taste ; let us prolong our promenade a mile beyond the Porta Pia, and we will find a striking specimen of wealth without taste in the Villa Torlonia. On each side of the entrance are some very fresh-looking artificial ruins, consisting of half a temple, which never had its other half ; broken columns, which never were whole ; and tottering walls, carefully built so as not to fall. The Villa itself can be seen only with a permit, and on Saturdays, " when it does not rain ;" the owner having a just fear of the effect of mud on his splendors. The interior is of the most unsurpas- sable richness ; one room is painted and furnished in the VILLA TORLONIA. 171 Egyptian style ; another is all Chinese ; a third is formed into a tent with silken hangings ; statues of Venus and Diana preside over the Bath-room ; all the walls, ceil- ings and furniture, are covered with painting and gilding ; the interior decorations of one small room alone cost $16,000 ; and the gorgeous gilded balustrades of the staircase, which are carefully wrapped up, except one which is left uncovered to astonish visitors, cost $12,000. One book-case in the library has its curtains drawn to display some shelves of English books, such as Shakes- peare, Scott, Byron, Irving, &c, all splendidly bound, but evidently never used. The Mosaics of the floor are so finely executed, that you are glad to find strips of carpet laid from door to door to walk upon. Everything is well done, but over done ; decoration is carried to excess ; you are dazzled by the gilding, and instead of ad- miring the beauty of the works of art, you only wonder at their cost, particularly as you are constantly reminded of it by the servants. The grounds around the Villa have been most elaborately tortured into piled-up hills, and scooped-out hollows ; the rocks are all artificial, and at last you can scarcely believe that even the water in the ponds is natural. An enormous grotto has been con- structed, and you wander in its caverns under huge sta- lactites ; but, all are too evidently made to order, and one of the party had his hat knocked off by a trailing branch of green ivy, which was found on examination to be made of painted sheet iron ! Above this grotto is, erected 172 ROME. a Turkish mosque ; beside it is a conservatory built in imitation of a hall of the Alhambra, and covered with Arabic inscriptions ; near by is a large theatre, half com- pleted, but already covered with gilding. It seems as if Prince Torlonia, its wealthy proprietor, wished to have his gold always before his eyes. The Villa is inhabited only two months in the year, but has already cost two millions of dollars ; and yet, though the separate artists have each done their parts well, the effect of the whole is most incongruous and petty ; the want of one compe- tent controlling mind is everywhere visible, and you leave the Villa Torlonia, wondering equally at its prodigality of wealth and its parsimony of taste. On returning from such a promenade one day, at the Ave-Maria, or twilight, I saw a procession of monks, masked in their shroud-like garments, and bearing torches and crucifix, collected in the street in which I lodged. As I approached them I saw that they were clustered around my house, and on reaching my door I found it blocked up by a bier covered with a black pall, on which were worked in silver embroidery a scull and cross-bones, surmounted by a cross. This was rather startling, and I asked one of the brotherhood, whose eyes were gleam- ing through the little holes in his mask, what the matter was. " We are only going to carry away a dead man," said he. " Where from 1 Who is it ?" I eagerly inquired. " From this house," he replied, " a young foreigner on the first floor." This came quite home to a neighbor's funeral. 173 me, for I answered to the description in every point, and in my surprise I thought that they might, by mistake, have come for me. At that moment, however, a coffin was brought down the stairs, and behind it came two gentlemen whom I recognized as the attentive friends of a young Belgian, who also lodged in the house, and who had been ill of Malaria during the two months that I had been his neighbor. He had died two days before (as I after- wards learned), but his death had been carefully conceal- ed from me, though our bed-chambers communicated by a badly fitting door, through which his dying groans had disturbed my sleep two nights before. The following day I had been told that he was better, and the succeeding night I had found that he was perfectly quiet ; but I had then no idea that it was the silence of death. Had 1 not chanced to come home at the precise hour of the funeral, my landlady would, probably, have continued every day to report him as better ; but here I now found him, and therefore, postponing for the time my indignation at her falsehoods, I bared my head and joined the two friends as a mourner behind the coffin of my late neighbor. Six of the shrouded monks put it on their shoulders, and the rest gathered around us, singing a solemn dirge ; and in this way we slowly walked to a neighboring church. Here the coffin was set down before the altar ; the monks stood around it with lighted tapers, one of which they put into my hand, and chaunted a wailing funeral 174 ROME. prayer. When the service was finished, they took the coffin into the sacristy to be buried the next day, without farther ceremony ; and the two friends, with myself, went to dinner. Such are the contrasts of life and death in Rome. 175 XIV. SCULPTORS AND PAINTERS. Rome is the home of all Art, and therefore the coun- try of Artists of all nations. Wherever their bodies may have chanced to have been born, their souls are citizens of Rome. It is scarcely a metaphor to say that one inhales the spirit of Art in every breath that one draws in the atmosphere of the Eternal city. The great works of antiquity salute the stranger on every side. The inhabitants are gifted by nature with an intuitive sense of the beautiful ; and they welcome with enthu- siasm every species of artistical excellence. It is no wonder, then, that thousands of foreign artists have made it their temporary abode, and that many have adopted it as their permanent home. Here of old came Michael Angelo, Raphael, Annibale Caracci, Claude, Poussin, Salvator Rosa, and their compeers, as to the Metropolis of all art. They felt it a glory and an honor to live in Rome, and for this they forsook the place of their birth ; not loving it less, but on the contrary, with the most far- sighted patriotism, abandoning its domestic enjoyments, 176 ROME. because they felt that here they were qualifying them- selves to honor it most worthily ; and their hopes have been most amply realized, for the works which they here achieved, have now made the humble hamlets where they were born, the shrines of throngs of enthusiastic pilgrims. In later times, Flaxman here executed his illustrations of Homer, and Canova produced all his great works. Among our own countrymen, Benjamin West and Washington Allston owe to Rome the development and cultivation of their genius. At the present moment, the city is thronged with Sculptors and Painters from the four quarters of the globe. Their studios may almost be termed continuations of the Vatican, and offer to the cultivated tourist rich stores of instruction and enjoy- ment. The greatest among them is Thorwaldsen — the son of an Iceland wood-carver. He came to Rome at the age of twenty-seven, and in his residence of fifty years, he raised himself to a parallel with the best sculptors of the more genial clime of Greece. His studio on the Pincian hill contains casts of all his greatest works. In its lofty halls we see " Human and life-like, with no sense of pain, Gods and crown'd heroes of the early age ; Chieftain and soldier ; senator and sage ; Benignant, wise, and brave again."* * Poems on Man ; by Cornelius Mathews. SCULPTORS AND PAINTERS. 177 Chief among these are his twelve Apostles ; colossal in size, and designed to surround the altar of the Cathedral at Copenhagen. In their centre stands the Christ, and in the Vestibule are the four Prophets. They are a noble assemblage, almost supernatural in their grandeur ; and, while they all harmonize in general effect, each has a strongly marked expression and character of his own. Energetic enunciation is indeed peculiarly the attribute of Thorwaldsen. His Poniatowski monument is an equestrian composition, erected in the great square of Warsaw, surmounting a fountain ; from the water of which the noble horse, by a fine allusion, is made to seem to shrink back, as if from the current of the river Elster. The basso-relievo of " The Triumph of Alexander," has been called the great work of modern times, and com- pared to the friezes of the Parthenon. A volume could scarcely do justice to all the works which fill the spacious chambers of Thorwaldsen's studio ; but his basso-relievo of " Night" has been, like Pliny's doves, too universally popularized by cameos and mosaics to be overlooked. Night, as the Mother of Humanity, is represented by a winged female figure, sweeping grace- fully through the air ; her children nestle in her bosom, and are lulled to sleep by the poppies which crown her brow. Over her hovers the owl, her emblematic bird. Thorwaldsen lately returned to Copenhagen, and in March, 1844, he died in the fullness of years and of honors. Never had subject such a funeral. The King, 16 178 ROME. in deep mourning, attended by all trie royal Princes, and Ministers of State, received the body at the entrance of the church ; the streets were lined with troops ; orations were pronounced, and anthems sung over the body ; and a subscription for a monument was headed by the King himself, with twenty-five thousand dollars. Such are the honors paid to Art in monarchies ; should republics be outdone by them 1* Several English sculptors — Gibson, Wyatt, and Mac- donald, — have been many years settled in Rome. The first was so unsuccessful in his early career, that he was seriously advised to alter his name to Gibsoni, as the English (like too many Americans) patronized only Italian artists, and overlooked the claims of their own countrymen. He chose, however, to "bide his time," and now he is overrun with commissions, and at a recent visit to England he was received almost with ovations. Among the most graceful works in his studio, are " Cupid disguised as a Shepherd-boy," " Hylas carried off by the Nymphs," " Hero and Leander," &c. His statue of Huskisson lacks individuality and nationality ; for it is draped so classically that if, after a thousand years, it should be dug up from the ruins of Liverpool, it would * Those travellers who have visited the studio of Thorwaldsen, may congratulate themselves on their good fortune ; for, since his death, its halls have been stripped of all their contents, which have been taken to Copenhagen, in the same royal frigate which had so often been honored by bearing thither the original works, fresh from the master-hand. SCULPTORS AND PAINTERS. 179 be taken for a Greek rather than an Englishman. WyatCs statues possess a Raphaelesque sweetness. The head of a nymph, entering the bath, is exquisitely lovely ; and the group of a shepherd-girl, sheltering her- self from the storm under the plaid of her young lover, is very natural and graceful. Macdonald is particularly celebrated for the truth and beauty of his busts. The chief Italian sculptors are Tenerani, Finelli, Tadolini, and Bienaime, who represents his favorite Psyche in every conceivable situation and position. First among the painters is Overbeck, the German Raphael, or rather Perugino ; for he condemns the later manner of the Prince of Painters, and says, " When Raphael forsook Perugino, God forsook Raphael." Another apothegm attributed to him is that " No one can be a good painter who is not also a good man." His own practice realizes his theory. He is a most devout Catholic, and consecrates all his genius to religious sub- jects, which he treats with the utmost purity and eleva- tion of style, and with a simplicity and freshness which appeal directly to the heart. His studio (in the old Cenci palace) is open to visitors on Sundays for an hour after noon, and each of his pictures preaches an elo- quent sermon. He receives you with extreme courtesy, but you feel hushed into reverence by his gracious, intro- spective, and saint-like countenance. " Himself the great original he draws," he " looks into his heart and" paints. Upon his easel, at my first visit, stood a pencil 180 ROME. cartoon of " Christ Reproving the Pharisees," and the ideal propriety of expression was faultlessly perfect. As I examined the picture, O^erbeck stood beside me, gazing earnestly on it, with clasped hands and parted lips, as if he was wholly absorbed in the subject. Near it was another cartoon of " The Massacre of the Inno- cents." One mother was kneeling in the foreground, and lifting up her hands in the last agony of despair ; another lay prostrate with face on ground ; a third clasped her murdered child to her breast, as if she could not believe that it was dead ; and others in the distance were fleeing from the soldiers. If this picture were well colored it would surpass even that of Guido, at Bologna. Many other sketches were in the studio, and all were marked by striking conceptions and masterly drawing, combined with a mystic grace and quaint for- mality. All indicated the most perfect piety and integ- rity of heart, and had a charm of expression found nowhere else but in Raphael. Baron Camuccini is at the head of the historical paint- ers.* Dessoulavy is an English landscape painter, who never tires himself or his patrons in his idealizations of the picturesque scenes about Rome. Meyer is a Danish painter, who possesses great cleverness in depicting the Italian character in its various phases, particularly comic. Reinhart is the Nestor of the German artists, and has * Camuccini has since died, in September, 1844. SCULPTORS AND PAINTERS. 181 inhabited Rome since 1789. But it is useless to attempt to enumerate even the distinguished painters resident in Rome. Our American Artists, without exception, are doing honor to themselves and to their country. Leutze has already a European reputation. The recent exhibition in New York of his " Return of Columbus in Chains," is a better eulogium upon him than any words could be. The achievements of Mr. Huntington, in the imaginative department of art, would perfectly satisfy the aspirations of most American painters, who have never seen higher models of excellence than are to be found in our own country ; but Mr. Huntington has learned from his own past experience what increased power native genius may derive from foreign cultivation ; and he has therefore returned to Rome, to pursue his studies with the aid of all the advantages which that city offers in such profu- sion, and thus to make himself worthy of yet higher hon- ors than those which he has already so justly received. Mr. /. E. Freeman rivals the Venetian school in the brilliancy and richness of his coloring. His picture of Psyche sleeping, with Cupid watching for her awakening, exhibits flesh tints and texture worthy of Titian. His beggar boy, a la Murillo, extending his hand for charity, while his. little sister sleeps in the sun at his feet, tells its story most expressively, and almost persuades you to drop a baiocco into the supplicant's out-stretched palm. Mr. L . Terry has nearly completed a grand composition of 16* 182 ROME. "Jesus among the Doctors in the Temple." The numerous figures, their attitudes and expressions, and all the acces- sories, are in the highest walk of art. Mr. G. L. Brown is the best copyist of Claude in existence, reproducing all his glowing atmosphere and translucent water in the true spirit of the original. His own landscapes are also full of poetical and Claude-like effects. Mr. Rossiter, Mr. Lang, Mr. Hoyt, &c, are other American painters, whose productions show the advantages of a residence in Rome. Sculpture, however, seems to be the most genial form of the development of American Art-genius. Powers and Greenough are in Florence, but in Rome is the studio of Crawford, whose poetic conception, graceful fancy, and classic feeling, have already placed him in the very foremost rank of art. He is a native of the city of New York, but has past the last ten years in Rome, in absorbed devotion to his art, and in unwearied study of those great exemplars of Phidias and his compeers, which fill that city with a marble population. The seed thus sown has already produced a bountiful harvest, and promises yet richer fruit. The countrymen of Crawford seem to be little aware of how much he has already achieved, and how lofty a rank is assigned him by the Roman critics, the most accomplished and fastidious in the world. His studio is filled with groups, figures, busts, and bassi-relievi — the undying children of his imagination — among all which the only one generally known in America is his SCULPTORS AND PAINTERS. 183 Orpheus, which was modelled in 1839, and was the surprise and delight of all the artists of Rome, till the discriminating taste of some public-spirited citizens of Boston transferred the statue to their Athenaeum. The subject of Orpheus is conceived and developed in the genuine spirit of classical antiquity, but the figure is executed with the life-like reality of nature ; the final model of modern as well as of ancient art. The daring lover has lulled to sleep by his magic strains the triple- headed Cerberus, who crouches at his feet ; he passes this barrier, and presses forward, with his impatient head and heart in advance of his more sluggish feet ; one hand holds the potent lyre, and the other shields his eyes from the bright day which he is quitting, and aids him in striving to penetrate into the mysteries of Hades, which he is about to brave in pursuit of his Eurydice. The suppressed energy of the moment produces a happy union of motion and repose, and the action and attributes tell their own story. But this is only one of the artist's creations. It was followed immediately by a small statue of "Autumn," represented in the symbolical form of a winged child, running forward, with a sickle in one hand, and in the other a cluster of wheat-ears and fruit, appropriate to the season. It is now in New York, as is also " The Genius of Mirth ;"* which is embodied in a merry boy, who is * The former is owned by Mr. John Paine, and the latter by- Mr. H. W. Hicks. 184 ROME. dancing in great glee to the music which he is striking from a pair of cymbals. He reminds us of that happy shepherd-boy whom Sir Philip Sidney describes in his " Arcadia," as " Piping as though he should ne'er grow old." The mirth of the sculptor has the advantage of being unchangeable as marble can make it. " Cupid in Contemplation''' 1 was modelled soon after the Orpheus, and has been twice executed in marble. The God of Love is pensively contemplating a butterfly, which emblems Psyche, or the soul ; whose mysterious mar- riage to Cupid is the theme of the most beautiful of all the Grecian myths. At his feet spring up thistles and roses ; in emblem of the nature of that passion, which, as Spenser tells us, contains " a dram of honey to a pound of gall." " The Shepherdess " is a beautiful youthful figure, carrying on her shoulder a lamb, which she has just rescued from a wolf, whose body, pierced by her arrow, she drags along in triumph. It was designed and executed for an American lady. A sixth work is a small group of " Mercury bearing Psyche to Heaven." A seventh is " A Boy playing at Marbles." He is on one knee, and is reaching forward with a grace, ease, and freedom from constraint, which display that perfection of art which conceals art. It is the best of all the youthful figures executed by this sculptor, but is not yet sold. An exquisite group of " Hebe and Ganymede" life-size, has just been commissioned by Mr. Charles C. Perkins, of Boston. Hebe, having SCULPTORS AND PAINTERS. 185 spilled the nectar at a feast of the gods, has been deposed from her office of cup-bearer, and supplanted by Ganymede. With saddened face, downcast look, and finger poutingly to mouth, she is resigning the vase and goblet, which are the insignia of her lost station, to the young Ganymede. He receives them with kind reluc- tance, and soothingly looks up at her with a sympathetic and apologetic expression, wnich seems to say, " I am very sorry for you, my dear Hebe, but you know it isn't my fault." The group is, indeed, a little drama, the action of which has been arrested precisely at the point of greatest interest. Its winning sentiment will delight many, who do not appreciate the higher and sterner feeling of the Orpheus. Portraiture, in sculpture as in painting, is the lowest department of the art, requiring only powers of imita- tion, and dispensing with those of conception ; and Crawford has, accordingly, made but few busts, though those which he has executed, possess fidelity, simplicity, and elegance. One of his Ideal Busts, " The Bride of Abydos" has been exhibited in New York. It afforded me an excellent illustration of the effect of idealization, as I chanced to see in Rome the living model from which the mouth was moulded ; and, beautiful as was the flesh- and-blood original, the far more exquisite beauty of the expressive, sensitive, and impassioned lips of the Bust, showed most forcibly how the poetical conception of the true artist can improve on even nature. The heads of 186 ROME. " A Vestal" and " Sappho" are classical and charac- teristic. The pedestal of the former is carved into the form of an antique lamp, and that of the latter into a harp ; a very happy use of those accessories which are the sculptor's language. More than thirty bassi-relievi, representative of reli- gious, classical and fanciful subjects, have been composed by Crawford. They evince, more than any other of his works, the fertility of his imagination, and his skill in artistical composition. Some of them have been executed in marble, and all have been engraved in outline. Among his Sketches in clay, is a Statue of Washington, which has been lithographed ; and a group of five figures repre- senting the Landing of Columbus. A colossal group of Adam and Eve is the last of these sketches, and for depth of feeling and power of expres- sion, it is unsurpassed by anything in modern art. The guilty pair have just been expelled from Paradise. Adam clasps his hands in almost hopeless supplication, and looks up to Heaven with a despairing, yet imploring glance of intense agony ; but he still struggles to bear his terrible sentence with the fortitude becoming to a man. He is resting on his right foot, while the other advances, and crushes the head of the serpent. Eve clings to him with feminine dependence, and buries her face in his bosom, but her whole person speaks of the most utter, abandonment of wo, which her weaker nature does not even attempt to resist. Her left arm is clasped SCULPTORS AND PAINTERS. 187 around him, but her right hand is convulsively pressed against her eyes, so as to shut out the sight of the fatal apple, which lies at her feet. The group is supported by the trunk of a tree, blighted and lightning-blasted. The whole is as yet only roughly modelled in clay, but is already imbued in every part with the most perfect pro- priety and deepest intensity of feeling. It embraces the grandest subject in the whole range of sculpture, and promises to be the master-piece of the artist ; but it can- not be put into marble without an order. Should not the native city of the sculptor secure from him at least one great work ? The peculiar merit of Crawford's style (considered apart from his highest attribute, that of poetic imagina- tion) is its happy union of a classical spirit with a natural, though idealized, execution. The impugners of a classic taste in sculpture would have each generation begin again for itself, and work out its own experience, rejecting all the aids of antiquity. The same principle should make the geometer burn his Euclid and try to discover each theorem anew for himself, instead of starting from that platform, and in his turn advancing the science a little farther. The ancients were giants, and we may be pig- mies ; yet if we stand on their shoulders we shall be able to see even farther than they. The Greeks experi- mented in art, and finally attained, and have handed down to us, certain principles, laws, aad exemplars, approved by their most perfect taste and most delicate organiza- 188 ROME. tion, the equal of which the world has never since seen. If we wander from these we go astray. Those theorists who decry a classical style, ringing the changes on the word American (which, in art, may mean anything — or rather nothing), and whose grand recipe is an Indian figure, mistake the province of the highest art ; which is not the preservation of portraits of either individuals or races, Indian or Greek, but the embodiment of the purest and highest ideal of beauty, physical, mental, and moral. This is identical in all ages and countries. Sculpture realizes it in the purest and most abstract man- ner, rejecting color and confining itself to mere form. If the poetical ideas, to which it seeks to give a local habi- tation, have been most happily conceived by the Greeks, those ideas should be embodied in the present age as well as in the past ; and if Nature then formed herself in more perfect moulds than now, her perfection should be adopted without regard to chronology.* The true artists of all ages must, therefore, be imbued with the same spirit, though its practical development will vary with circumstances. The great sculptors of modern times make the nature of their own day their first model, but they idealize it in a classical spirit. Those who are content with only copying what they * " Thou didst not slight with vain and partial scorn, The inspirations ot our nature's youih ; Knowing that Beauty, wheresoever 'tis born, Must ever be the footer-child of Truth." R. M. Milnes — Sonnet to Giovanni Bellini. SCULPTORS AND PAINTERS. 189 see, are mere stone-cutters. Their admirers will be of that class, who were especially delighted with the " So natural !" ribbed-stockings and corduroys of the group of " Tam O'Shanter and Souter Johnny," which is far be- yond the Apollo Belvedere, as a copy of actuality. An ideal artist rejects such petty clap-traps of applause, and instead of trying to render permanent the vulgar and the trivial, he selects the highest attributes of the human form and improves even upon them. He is not content with blindly imitating even the finest living model which he finds, but he analyses the secret of its beauty, and seeks to discern what peculiarity constitutes its supe- riority. Having discovered this, he then seeks to carry it a little farther. Thus the ancients, finding that Nature proportioned the angle of the human forehead to each individual's degree of intellectuality, gave to their Jupiter, or Supreme Intellect, a front projecting even beyond the perpendicular plane. So, too, if an artist finds that one element of beauty consists in a certain line being greatly rounded, and that the beauty increases in proportion as the line is removed from straightness, he sees to what Nature is tending and striving to attain, and he, therefore, takes a step in advance of her, by making this line a little more rounded than it is in any model which he has yet seen ; for he has no right to assume that this model is nature's most perfect development. Such seems to be the tacit theory of the practice of the ancient sculptors, and of their pupil, Crawford. 17 190 ROME. Since the above was written, Mr. Crawford has returned to his native country, after an absence of ten well-employed years. The friends of Henry Clay have exercised sound taste and discrimination in profiting by the opportunity of the artist's presence to engage him as the sculptor of the statue which they propose to erect to the veteran statesman. But a yet greater design is now in agitation — that of a monument to Him who was " First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." The subject has for a long while occu- pied the mind of our New York sculptor, and the visitor, who was admitted to the inner room of his studio in Rome, saw there various models of such monuments as would be worthy of the subject. One is a grouping of military and civic trophies, surmounted by an equestrian figure. Another is a colossal statue, the height of which is intended to surpass that of any other in the world, and to be at least ninety feet ; the famous figure of San Carlo Borromeo, on Lago Maggiore, being but sixty- six. The Committee, to whom the grand project of a Monument to Washington has been entrusted, should invite Mr. Crawford, and other competent artists, to pro- duce their designs, so that they might be enabled to select the most impressive plan offered by the best quali- fied artist. When this important point is settled, and the public are assured that the result will be an honor to the taste as well as the patriotism of the country, then, and not before, will flow in the necessary contributions, the sinews of art as well as of war. SCULPTORS AND PAINTERS. 191 It is only by such great works of public ornament and patriotic commemoration that Art can be enabled to deve- lope its full powers in aiding the moral and intellectual progress of society. Private liberality seldom has a higher object than the decoration of a drawing-room. The public patronage, which enables the artist to depict great actions, and to perpetuate noble examples, is the most splendid, permanent, and honorable to a great and enlightened nation. It was this, especially, which con- tributed to raise the arts to excellence in Greece, and to revive them in Italy ; and from this alone can we hope to obtain similar results in our own land. If we desire to create an American school of Art, we should extend to all worthy American Artists that liberal and enlightened patronage of the Government, which a Roman Journal (at the conclusion of a eulogistic notice of the Orpheus) has invoked for Crawford, in the following joint compli- ment to the sculptor, and to the nation : " We hope very soon to learn that the country of this valorous sculptor, which raises so many monuments wor- thy of her power, has made use of the chisel of this young man to honor some of his fellow-citizens, and at the same time herself; and that she has thus shown her- self successful above every other nation, while it is given to her, to exalt with honors and rewards the living who render her glorious, and at the same time to procure by the Arts immortality for the dead."* * II Tiberino ; Giornale JLrtistico. 17 Febrajo, 1840. 192 XV. THE MODERN ROMANS. It has long been the fashion for travellers to stigma- tize the modern inhabitants of Italy, and particularly those of Rome, as spiritless and cowardly, superstitious and ignorant, effeminate and cruel. These voyagers seem to have feared that the unvaried praise which truth compelled them to bestow on the beauties of nature and art, would pall on their readers' taste, if it was not seasoned with some gall and vinegar, and they have therefore most liberally poured these condiments on the character of the people. But the unprejudiced observer will find that the natives of Rome have not become utterly unworthy of their illustrious ancestors. It is true that they are now enslaved by a narrow-minded hierar- chy, but they have ever made vigorous efforts to throw off the yoke. Their history, since the restoration of the Western empire, chronicles a constant series of contests with the German Emperors, the Popes, and the Nobles, till they were lulled to rest by the arts of the Medicean Pontiffs, and led to substitute literary for military glory. Of later years they have made frequent, though abortive, THE MODERN ROMANS. 193 struggles for liberty, and at the present moment the Government is busily imprisoning and shooting the leaders of a new conspiracy. Their spies are in every house, and give information of the first whisper of dis- affection. The people are well aware of this, and therefore dare not openly utter their sentiments. A Roman, with whom I was walking on the lonely Cam- pagna, when the bad state of the road led me to speak of the indolence of the Government, stopped short — looked around him, as if he feared that the ditches had ears — and then, in a low whisper, though no one else was even in sight, he replied, " You are a foreigner, and you may say what you please ; but, for us Romans, our mouths " — and here he emphatically covered his with his hand — " our mouths are given us to eat and to drink with, but not to talk of the Government." On any appre- hension of a general rising, Austria marches down her troops, in overwhelming numbers, to the frontier of the Roman States, and thus crushes any hope of successful resistance. Even England has not disdained to become subservient to Austrian tyranny, by opening the letters of those Italian political exiles, who, like Mazzini, have fled to her as a land of comparative freedom But despite these false friends and active foes, the Repub- licans of Italy are undismayed and active in the cause of freedom ; and I have heard a Roman gentleman denounce the Government, and plead for liberty, with an enthusiastic vehemence which gave his. noble language 17* 194 ROME. such strength, power, and magnificence, as showed that soft effeminacy had been as unjustly imputed to it as to the people. The faults of the nation are mostly due to their Govern- ment ; their good qualities to themselves. The Govern- ment is so busy in regulating the affairs of the Church, that it cannot find time to attend to the temporal good of its subjects. The Cardinals, who administer it, are a century behind the rest of the world in political enlight- enment. They discourage the foreign intercourse, which alone supports the people, from the fear that their faith may be shaken. On these grounds they have just rejected the proposal of a company to construct a rail- road between Rome and Civita Vecchia, its Mediterra- nean port ; and when, a few years ago, the American Consul for Ancona applied for a reduction of the twenty- four days' quarantine imposed on account of the cholera on vessels arriving at that port from New York, he was told by the Cardinal-Secretary, " The Holy City does not care at all for commerce." They content themselves with the more important functions of regulating the size of the sugar-plums to be thrown during the carnival, and decreeing, on bills posted about the streets, that none must be larger or harder than the patterns deposited in the office of the police ! The Roman Government is, in effect, only one great Missionary Society for propagating the Roman Catholic faith over the whole world, and everything else is con- THE MODERN ROMANS. 195 sidered subordinate to this grand object. In reference to it, the number of the Cardinals is fixed at seventy, as representative of the seventy disciples commissioned to spread the gospel throughout the world. All Rome is organized into a practical College of Theology, besides the various special institutions for religious education with which it abounds. Chief among these is the Pro- paganda, founded to qualify young foreigners from heretical countries to return to their native lands as missionaries of the Roman Catholic faith. All nations are here brought together, and at its exhibition in Janu- ary, forty-nine languages were spoken by the students. Among them was a Canzone, in Italian, by " Signore Commings di Washington.''' 1 Converts are eagerly wel- comed. An American, named St. Ives, is among the latest. A Scotchman, who united himself to the Church, has been ennobled under the title of Count Hawks le Grice, and receives an allowance from the funds of the Propaganda. Every other species of knowledge is not merely neg- lected, but positively discouraged. A man who distin- guishes himself in liberal investigations, is marked as a dangerous citizen and an object of the jealous and dis- trustful surveillance of the police, for the Government feels that ignorance is their strength. Instruction in the mere elements of knowledge — reading, writing, arithme- tic — and in religion, is indeed bestowed on the people with great copiousness, since in Rome, with a population 196 ROME. of one hundred and fifty thousand, there are three hun- dred and eighty primary schools, which employ four hun- dred and eighty teachers, and receive fourteen thousand scholars. But these schools are under the direction of the priesthood, who make use of them as powerful engines for instilling into the minds of the rising genera- tion their own prejudices, and the doctrines best adapted to discourage investigation, and to impress the duty of unreasoning submission to the powers that be. The people are taught that their own country and government are the best in the world. Of America they have a con- fused notion, which can scarcely be called an idea. Its inhabitants are generally supposed to be black, and I was once asked by a Roman lady how many wives we were allowed to have. When I answered her " Four," she inquired (interpreting me seriously) if we were Turks in our religion too ? A young Roman, employed in the iron-manufactory at Tivoli, left it a year ago to emigrate to America, and went to Ancona to embark. But he there heard that they had slaves in America, and "I was afraid," said he, "that when I got there they would make me a slave, and never let me see my friends again, and so I turned about and came home !" But cramped and hedged in as is the mind of the Ro- man people, it displays unsurpassed acuteness, activity and power, in the few subjects in which it is allowed fair play. In theology, their depth of learning and subtlety of reasoning are admitted to be wonderful, even by those i THE MODERN ROMANS. 197 who dissent from all their conclusions. Their antiqua- ries bring the whole range of classical literature to bear upon the ruins and relics of their city ; and Liceti would devote fifty folio pages of the closest print to an old lamp, while Martorelli wrote two large quarto volumes in eluci- dation of an antique inkstand. The most common people have a remarkably graceful turn of thought, and a happi- ness of expression in their every-day language, which constantly reminds you that they are an old people, the heirs of many generations of cultivated taste. Their wit needs no eulogy, for the rest of Europe has paid it the highest possible compliment, by adopting the word Pasquinade, as the most forcible title for a satirical epigram, such as those which are secretly attached by the daring wits of Rome to the mutilated statue of Pasquin* Their deli- cate organization is shown by their extreme sensibility to perfumes, and to the slightest impression on their nervous system. A (ew grains of calomel, which a north- erner would scarcely feel, would nearly kill a Roman ; and this superior sensitiveness is a peculiarity of their minds as well as bodies, and renders them such enthusi- * One of the most perfect epigrams in existence is that exhibited by Pasquin . during the French invasion of Napoleon : " / Francesi son tutti ladri." " JYon tutti, ma Buona-parte." On another occasion, when a young Roman, named Ccesar, married a girl called Roma, Pasquin addressed the husband with " Cave, Ccesar, ne tua Roma Respublica fiat.''' The next day the man replied, " Ccesar imperat ;" to which Pasquin promptly responded, " Ergo coronabitur." 198 astic admirers and critical appreciators of all the achievements of the Fine Arts. The government gladly encourages their devotion to these pursuits in the hope of thus turning their minds away from politics. Here, then, their enthusiasm finds its only vent, and instead of shout- ing for Hickory poles, or Ash saplings, they idolize a favorite painter, or deify a prima donna. Indeed, I was forcibly reminded of an American " Mass meeting," by the deafening hurricane of frenzied applause which greeted the farewell appearance of Cerito at the principal theatre of Rome. It cannot be denied that Rome furnishes many remark- able examples of Superstition, but the city can scarcely be called its head-quarters, which rather exist in seclud- ed villages, while in the metropolis the great concourse of strangers wears off many prejudices. Thus my land- lady would not admit that I was a heretic, although a Protestant ; " For," said she, " heretics do not believe in any God ;" and when I remarked that the priest of Ara Cceli would not have shown me the miraculous Bambino, if he had known that I was an unbeliever in it, she replied with a truly Catholic charity, " Why not ? God embraces all!" Such liberality is, however, rare among the lower classes, who are superstitious from ignorance, while the nobles are kept so by their confes- sors from interest ; but in the middling classes scepti- cism is very common, though prudence generally keeps them silent, for the Inquisition still exists here, though THE MODERN ROMANS. 199 greatly modified and deprived of its claws and teeth by the liberal spirit of the age. A witty physician had long been in the habit of ridiculing the Madonna and other holy subjects, though often warned that he was in dan- ger. At last one night a carriage stopped for him, and he was taken to the Inquisition. He was then examined — but without anything like torture — and asked, " Did you on such a day, three years ago, say so and so ?" All his offensive remarks had been secretly noted down by spies, and he could not deny any of the charges. He was sentenced to be imprisoned in a Dominican convent for three months, and to attend all the penitential prayers at all hours of the night. When these irksome duties were ended, he was dismissed, but told that, if he ever offended again, he should be banished. He came home effectually tamed, and never again said a word againstthe Madonna. After all, this is not much worse than our own Inquisition of Public Opinion. Indolence is most unjustly charged on the people. The laborious tillage, the canals for irrigation, the com- bined corn, olive and wine, all prove the industry of the agricultural population, and though they repose during the sultry hours, they make amends by their early rising. The inhabitants of the city find but few outlets for their industry, but are persevering and ingenious in their labors, ill-rewarded as they are. Almost the only busi- ness of Rome is the manufacture of Cameos, Mosaics, and Picture-copies, and the streets are lined with shops 200 ROME. for their sale to foreigners, by whose money the whole city is supported. " If strangers did not come here, we should all starve," said a hotel-keeper, and it is too true. The people live entirely upon their winter visitors, and subsist during the summer upon the remnants of their superfluous expenditures during the previous season. Their former glory is their present livelihood ! Even the Princes do not disdain to receive the money of the Northern barbarians ; for the Prince Pamfili-Doria sells the best butter in Rome at his grand Palazzo in the Corso ; and a scientific book, by the Cardinal Prince Massimi, descriptive of a great engineering work at Tivoli, is to be bought only of himself, at his palace, instead of at a book- store. But even admitting the faults of the Roman people to be as great and as numerous as their worst detractors charge, they would be made pardonable by their warm- hearted charity, " which covereth a multitude of sins." Their practical benevolence surpasses that of any other nation. The many poor among them share their mite with the poorer ; the very beggar, who has been fortu- nate in his alms-seeking, divides his gains with his less lucky comrade ; the rich bestow bounteous and systematic charity ; and the number and magnificence of charitable establishments for the relief of suffering humanity are unapproached in any other country of Europe. Hos- pitals for every form of disease, and for all classes of the wretched, abound in every city, and their inmates are THE MODERN ROMANS. 201 zealously and kindly tended by self-sacrificing Sisters of charity, who devote themselves to these painful duties, in the just belief that they are thus rendering the most ac- ceptable religious service. Other charitable offices are per- formed by various confraternities, similar to the Miseri- cordia of Florence. Of these, one secretly sends relief to needy but respectable families ; another pays off op- pressive debts, contracted by the honest poor in times of sickness and accident ; another relieves friendless pris- oners ; another seeks out the sick poor ; and another still, when all other benevolent exertions have proved fruitless, carries the dead with decent ceremony to the grave. When we find the feelings which prompt these manifold acts of kindness, extending through every class, we can pardon them their transgressions of some other points of the moral law. The society of Rome is highly prized by those who are fortunate enough to be admitted into its private circles. The graceful wit, poetic enthusiasm, and warm-hearted frankness, which characterize the people, are set off to the best advantage by their social freedom, and their un- constrained manners, divested of the usual shackles of prudish formality. Many grand balls are also given during the fashionable season, and a description of one will answer for all. Your invitation, sent a fortnight in advance, tells you that " The Prince and Princess beg the Signore - to do them the honor of coming to pass the evening in their palace, at eight o'clock." On 18 « 202 ROME. the appointed evening you enter yonr carriage at ten o'clock, and half a mile before reaching the palace, you find a file of carriages extending from it that distance. After a long trial of patience, you are driven into the palace court, and set down at the foot of the grand mar- ble staircase, covered for the occasion with scarlet cloth. The first ante-chamber is crowded with the servants of the guests, holding their masters' cloaks. Beyond these are other rooms, through which your name is echoed by the announcing servants (generally undergoing many strange transformations), and at last you enter the grand saloon, where you are received by your host and hostess. A numerous suite of magnificent rooms is now open to you, some lined with paintings, others devoted to chess and cards, and one even supplied with newspapers (among which is usually Galignani's omnipresent " Messenger," for the benefit of the English guests) ; but the music will soon attract you to the ball-room, which is the focus of the crowd. Here a full orchestra perform the finest airs from the last opera, and you may either dance to their inspiring strains, or listen to the notes " by distance made more sweet," in a quiet corner of the spacious and numerous apartments, in some of which you may find yourself almost alone, though a thousand guests are present. These grand re-unions are too thickly sprinkled with English to be national, but nearly all the Romans present are covered with the stars and ribbons of various orders of knighthood, and the ladies are dazzling in dia- THE MODERN ROMANS. 203 monds. The noble ladies of Rome need not, however, any such decorations, for they are the most beautiful race of women in the world. Their complexions have a cloudless purity like the inner petal of the magnolia ; their dreamy eyes reveal dizzying wells of passion in the depths of their intense darkness ; and their magnifi- cently developed forms unite the charms of Venus with the dignity of Juno. If you are stoical enough for cool criticism, you may fear that the progress of years will convert their rounded outlines into ungraceful obesity ; but, contenting yourself with the present moment, you must admit them to be noble specimens of humanity ; and if you are familiar enough with their delicious lan- guage to enjoy their spirituel and enthusiastic conversa- tion, you will return home, in the small hours of the morning, delighted, beyond all your anticipations, with the Modern Romans. 204 CONCLUSION. We have now concluded our survey of the leading objects of interest in the Eternal city; and superficial as it has necessarily been, we may yet readily conceive how each day, which an American passes in Rome, adds a year to his intellectual life. He comes, from a world discovered only three and a half centuries ago, to a city, the history of which goes back twenty-six hundred years, and which has impressed its characteristics in each epoch of that long period upon still existing reliques, scattered over the vast area once covered by its monuments. Everywhere he is met by thrilling memo- rials of great events, which he had read of in childhood, as of things of another world. Each day is crowded with incidents ; and the differences of customs, and the pojver of associations, lend a charm to even the most common-place occurrences. He finds the flood of new ideas so copious and rushing as to be actually oppres- sive. His mind is stimulated and heated almost to the excitement of fever. Even in the churches, he cannot find relaxation, for the striking ceremonies of the ritual are inconceivably powerful in impressing the soul through the eye and the ear. If he enter even when the altars are deserted by their officiating ministers, his eye will be caught and his admiration aroused by some master-piece of painting. The Fine Arts, whose trophies meet him everywhere, indeed create in him a new sense ; and, far from palling on his appetite, their beauty grows more and more upon him as his acquaint- CONCLUSION. 205 ance with them increases, till they become at last so indispensable to his enjoyment, that their want leaves an aching void in his daily life. The noble language, too, is no small item among his minor pleasures, and he learns to love its very sound as with a personal affection. The attributes of the people harmonize with it, and he receives constant and exquisite gratification from the general development of beauty and grace ; which is an almost universal result of that innate sensitiveness to their elements and their effects, which pervades all ranks. " With slow, reluctant, amorous delay," he leaves this paradise of taste ; and, although he has learned to prize more highly than ever the political and religious privileges of his own free land, still, when he calls to mind the proud Memories which have been inherited by the Romans — the bounties lavished by nature upon their lovely country — the genius and beauty which seem their birthright — what they have been, and what they may again be, and, beyond all doubt, event ually will be — he is tempted to exclaim, in imitation of Alexander to Diogenes, " If I were not an American, I would be a Roman." FINIS. 207 APPENDIX. HOW TO SEE ROME. The objects in Rome which the stranger is bound to visit, if only for a moment, and to assure himself that they are not worth seeing, are so numerous, and scattered over so wide a space (the circuit of the walls being fifteen miles, and many excursions be- yond them being necessary), that without a systematic arrange- ment, he will waste much time and labor in unprofitably retracing his steps, and, after all, find at last that he has left much unseen. To lessen this evil to those of his readers who may hereafter visit Rome, the writer has prepared on the spot, from his hard- earned experience, the following arrangement of the Lions of Rome, in the precise order (much more convenient and symme- trical than that of Vasi) in which they should succeed each other, so as to secure the greatest economy of time and fatigue. They are arranged in Groups, each referred to some of the " Seven Hills," or other leading objects. The Antiquities are printed in Macft ILetUr; the Churches in Italics; the collections of Pictures and Statuary in small capitals ; and the miscella- neous objects in ordinary Roman letters. Their description should be studied in Murray's invaluable " Hand-book for Central Italy," and each day's intended route examined on the map, the previous evening. 208 t APPENDIX. 1. GROUP OF THE CAPITOLINE AND PALATINE HILLS. Capitoline Hill. Piazza. Capitol Museum. View from Tower of Capitol. Sarpcian flock. &• Maria d'Ara Ccdi. Jilamerrine prisons- ftabularium- Koman iFornm. olbsntitf)0. S. Giorgio. Cloaca itta^ima. S. Maria in Cosmedin. JJorca oi berita. temple of besta. Staple of iForlmta bi~ rilis. House of Rienzi. Cloaca ittajeima. $1x1- rijrum Cittus. 10. GROUP OF THE C^ELIAN HILL. Cselian hill. S. Gregorio. S. Giovanni e Paolo. bitmrium axib Spoliarhxnt. &rcf) of UDolabdla. S. Maria della Navicella. Villa Mattei. S. Stefano Ro. tunda. S. Clemente. 212 APPENDIX. 11. GROUP OF THE ESQUILINE HILL. J3att)0 0f ®ittt0. £i£tf£ Bah- S. Pietro in Vincoli. S. Martino ai Monti. S. Prassede. S. Pudenziana. Obelisk. S. Maria Mag giore. Colonna della Yergine. S. Antonio Abate. Qxtl) of OteUienttS. QLtO^UQ of Matins. 12. GROUP OF PORTA S. LORENZO, PORTA MAGGIORE, AND PORTA S. GIOVANNI. Porta S. Lorenzo. Basilica S. Lorenzo. Porta S. Lorenzo. S. Bibiana. Sample of Jilittenm iftebira. Cohttttbarium. Porta Maggiore. QqntamtB. ©amb of th»e Baker ^urgsaces. ©0tnb of i\)t impress fleUtta. Porta Maggiore. f&empU of tkttttS ClttO (lupib- S. Croce in Gerusalemme. &tttpl)itl)eattmn (QLaBlXZXlBZ- Porta S. Giovanni. S. Giovanni Laterano. Baptistery. Later an Palace. Scala Santa. Villa Massimi. 13. group of aventine hill, and porta s. paolo. Monte Aventino. $. Maria Aventina. S. Alessio. S. Sabina. S. Prisca. S. Saba. English burying-ground. JJgramib of Cains Ces- titl0- Monte Testaccio. Porta S. Paolo. Basilica of S. Paolo, fuori le mure. S. Paolo alle tre fontane. HOW TO SEE ROME. 213 14. GROUP OF THE APPIAN WAY. I3at!]0 Of CaracaUa. S. S. Nereo ed Achilleo. ftotnb of 0cipio. Colmnbarmttt of figias. &rcl) Of UlrttSttS- Porta S. Sebastiano. ftotttb* of J)ri0- cilia, #c Domine quo vadis. QToimttbarimtt Of tl)£ 0iat)£0 of &tt0tt0ttt0- Basilica of S. Sebastiano. (&ata>~ combs. Circus of Hontttltts. ffrentple of Eonwto. &omb of Cecilia Jttctdia. &otnb of tije Smniii. temple of $$acrt)U0. fountain of ^jgma. temple of tlje TOtw© Eeoicttitt0. 19 214 NOTE TO PAGE 24. THE DUOMO OF MILAN. The only Rival of St. Peter's is the Duomo of Milan ; and wonderful as is the former, I am so heretical as to find the latter far more beautiful and impressive. Imagine a white marble pyramid miraculously sprouting, and shooting up" from every part of its surface, spires, pinnacles and statues, and you will have a better idea of this most glorious Duomo, than by comparing it with any other Church. " None but itself can be its parallel." " Facile Princeps." The Cathedral of Cologne is indeedinspired by the same feeling, and is akin in some of its details, but it is only the bare single rose, while here in the more luxuriant soil and more balmy sky of Italy, the flower puts forth so many new leaves, and so doubles and re-duplicates its petals, that the luxu- riant double rose of Milan can scarcely recognize its prototype in the single wild flower of Cologne. This mountain of marble sends out on each side clustered but- tresses connected with the main structure by flying arches, which spring through mid air, and form noble bridges, which are half in- visible from below, and on which angels might not disdain to tread. From the front also, six buttresses project and rise above the sloping summit of the body of the Church. All these are filled with statues, each in a niche of its own, and from each buttress rise pinnacles on pinnacles, and spire branching from spire, each crowned with statues, so that the whole church is covered with a marble population of Saints and Angels. The whole front is also embossed with sculptures in high relief, wherever the statues have left room ; and these pictures carved in stone record the various scenes and events of sacred history with more distinctness and expression than could any words. Between them are fantastic faces, smiling and frowning on you like mischievous sprites ; and among other whims of the sculptor is a female head, NOTE. 215 covered with a marble veil, through which you seem to see features, which in reality have never been chiselled out, but only artfully suggested to the fancy. Days might be given to the study of all these devices, and at every visit much would be found both new and beautiful. The whole building is indeed a poem written in stone. But great as is your admiration while you are below, you find when you mount to the roof, that you had not yet seen the tithe of its splendors. A winding staircase conducts you up, and you see that the same lavish and tasteful labor is given to the most secluded and seldom seen portions, as to the most conspicuous. The artists seem to have been deeply impressed with the feeling that nothing was too good for the service of the Divinity, to whom their labors were consecrated. The slabs which cover the roof, and on which you walk, are of fine marble. The backs of the statues, which can be seen only with particular pains, are found to be as highly finished as the fronts. The rich ornaments are in the most out-of-the-way corners, and everything shows that the workmen felt themselves engaged in a true labor of love. Every part of the roof seems perfectly alive with statues. Each of the spires and pinnacles, and each of their branches, bears a colossal statue. Among the rest is placed one by Canova, and the fact that it passes unnoticed among the rest, is a sufficient proof of the great merit of all. The inhabitants of this city of marble Saints are now nearly seven thousand in number, and when the designs are fully carried out, ten thousand marble statues, each different, and each of itself a model, will people this noblest of Cathedrals. The readers of Wordsworth will remember his fine allusion, in his poem on " The Eclipse of the Sun on Lake Lugano," to the darkness shading, as with sorrow, the faces of these Saints and Cherubs. Like every other beautiful object which excites the imagination, the Duomo of Milan is finest by moonlight. While viewing it thus illuminated, with its buttresses and pinnacles of white marble half shadowed, half shining, like stalactites, half ice and half rocks, and with all the details subdued in the general effect, the idea flashed across me that the Duomo was an imitation of an aiguille (or " needle-rock"), of the Alps. The Aiguille de Dru at the side of Mont Blanc, as seen by the spectator looking 216 APPENDIX. up at it from the source of the Arveiron, is almost a perfect model of the front of the Duomo. It has the same general shape and outline ; the needles of rock which shoot up from every part of it are fac-similes of the pinnacles of the church, and the snow on these peaks may well represent the crowning statues. If this theory have any plausibility (and it is none the less true because never before suggested), our admiration of the Duomo is fully justified, for its beauty is an imitation of Nature. All analogy is in favor of the probability of the suggestion. Gothic arches are generally supposed to have been at first imitations of avenues of trees, and the similarity is very striking in Rosamond's Bower, at Hampton Court, and Voltaire's Grove, at Ferney. Church spires were doubtless first suggested by the tall and tapering cypress tree. The Eddystone Light House was con- structed by Smeaton, in exact imitation of the trunk of an old oak tree, spreading at the bottom and swelling out at the top, and it has stood while all previous ones have disappeared. Sea-walls, for resisting the waves of violent storms, are now shaped according to the form given to sea-shores by the waters. It is thus that all the most perfect and most beautiful works of art have been exact imitations of natural objects ; and why then may not the glorious Duomo of Milan be a copy of an Aiguille of Mont Blanc ? 240 5 : ° flf * v* ^ - ^ ^ % : / ■^ *> - I 4 „** - V Ill ■Hi HI WSBBm HH Kffi Mm-- if 1 1 I ;-: ; i 1 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS