^/^^^M'k m^ f^^ w/v/'mvaKmiKWimmvuvivjiv!ewvmim»i»^^ iLfl*!^! n CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY DG Boe-wsT'iegr""" ^"""^ Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026956437 ROME Arch of Titus. ROME FRANCIS WEY NEW EDITION REVISED AND COMPARED WITH THE LATEST AUTHORITIES BY MARIA HORNOR LANSDALE ILLUSTRATED PHILADELPHIA HENRY T. COATES & CO. Copyright, 1897, by heney t. coates & co. CONTENTS CHAPTEE I. PAGE First Impressions — Habits of the People — Trevi Fountain — Column of M. Aurelius — Vatican and S. Peter's — Pan- theon — Temple of Neptune — Forum — S. Pietro in Mon- torio — View from the Janiculum 1 CHAPTEE II. Forum Eomanum — Eoman Basilicas — S. Paolo extra Muros — S. Paolo AUe Tre Fontane — Pyramid of Cestius — Monte Testaccio — Pons Sublicius — The Coliseum, . . .21 CHAPTEE III. Street Scenes — Eospigliosi Palace — Barberini Palace — Sciarra Gallery — Doria Palace — Cenci Palace— The Eipetta — The Borgo — Castle of S. Angelo — Story of the Cenci — Interior of Hadrian's Mole, ...... 43 CHAPTEE IV. Treatment of the Dying — Polidorio da Caravaggio — S. Cath- erine of Siena — The Venetian Palace — Church of S. ■ Marco — S. Maria di Loreto — S. Francesca Eomana — Temple of Antoninus and Faustina — Basilica of Constan- tine — Forums— Arches, 79 CHAPTEE V. The Baths of Caracalla — The Basilica of S. Clemente, . 91 CHAPTEE VI. The Pauline Fountain — The Church of S. Cecilia— S. Maria in Trastevere — S. Onofrio — Theatre of Marcellus — Portico of Octavia — Pescheria Vecchia- — Ghetto — Eione della Eegola — Eotunda of the Sun— S. Maria in Cosmedin — Eienzi's House, 120 (v) VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. PAGE S. Agnese— Porta Pia— Basilica of S. Agnese— S. Costanza — The Catacombs 137 CHAPTER VIII. The Cffilian — S. Maria della Navicella — Mora — S. Stefano Kotondo — Academy of S. Luke— The Maraertine Prisons — Piazza del Campidoglio — Statue of M. Aurelius — Museo Capitolino — Palace of the Conservators — Roman Hospi- tals, . .159 CHAPTER IX. Tarpeian Rock — Temple of Jupiter — The Bambino— The Church of Ara Coeli — Bridges — S. Bartholomew — A Pre- sepio— Festival of the Epiphany — The University of Rome — The Farnesina— The Pamphili Gardens, . . . 181 CHAPTER X. S. Maria Sopra Minerva— Church of il Gesu— S. Andrew of the Valley — Convent of the Philippines — The Kircheriau Museum — Porta Maggiore — Minerva Medica — S. Martino ai Monti, 1 97 CHAPTER XI. The Colonnade of Bernini — The Basilica of S. Peter— Obe- lisk of Sixtus V.— Ceremonies in S. Peter's, . . . 213 CHAPTER XII. Piazza and Cliurch of S. Pietro in Vincoli— The Suburra — Arch of Drusus— Domine quo Vadia — Tomb of Cfecilia ' Metella— The Appian Way — So-called Grotto of Egeria — Circus of Maxentius, ....... 251 CHAPTER XIII. Villa Madama— S. Agostino— S. Maria della Pace — Raphael and Michael Angelo - SS. Lorenzo e Damaso —Assassina- tion of Count Rossi — Farnese Palace — Colossal Hercules — Statue of Pompey— Tartarughe Fountain — Mattei Palace — Quadrifrons Arch— Arch of Septiraius Severus-S. Giorgio in Velabro — The Aventine — The Wall of Ancus — Marcella, 261 CONTENTS. vii CHAPTER XIV. PAGE The Palatine — The Circus Maximus, 285 CHAPTER XV. Alhano — Lake of Nemi — Rocca di Papa — Marino — Grotta Ferrata — Tusculum — Prascati, 310 CHAPTER XVI. Trajan's Forum and Column — Constantine — Basilica of S. John Lateran — S. Croce — Piazza del Laterano — The Lat- erau Museum — Ancient Obelisks, 321 CHAPTER XVII. The Colonna Palace — The Quirinal — S. Maria degli Angeli — Trinita de Monti — The Spanish Stairs — The Barcaccia — Piazza di Spagna, ........ 345 CHAPTER XVIII. Castellani's Establishment — Villa Medici— The French Acad- emy, 359 CHAPTER XIX. The Legend of S. Laurentius — S. Laurentius extra Muros — S. Prudentiana — TuUia — SS. Cosma and Damiano— S. Prassede— S. Maria Maggiore, 367 CHAPTER XX. The Carnival— The Artists' Festival— Villa Albani— Villa Ludovesi, 384 CHAPTER XXI. Palazzo Borghese — S. Maria del Popolo — The Villa Bor- ghese, 393 CHAPTER XXIL TivoU— Hadrian's Villa, • . .404 CHAPTER XXIIL The Vatican— Library — Picture Gallery— Egyptian Museum — Hall of the Greek Cross— Etruscan Museum, . . 410 vm CONTENTS. CHAPTEE XXIV. PAGE The Vatican {continued) — The Lapidary Museum — The Chi- aramonti Museum — The Braccio Nuovo — The Belvedere — The Hall of the Animals— The Pio-Clementine Museum — The Hall of Busts 423 CHAPTEK XXV. The Vatican {continued) — The Pope's Garden — The Casino — Gallery of Maps— Gallery of Tapestries — Gallery of the Candelabra— Hall of the Biga— The Circular Hall-Hall of the Muses— Pius VI., 446 CHAPTER XXVI. The Vatican {continued) — Raphael and Michael Angelo — The Sixtine Chapel, 464 CHAPTER XXVII. The Vatican (continued) — Cappella S. Lorenzo — The Stanze di Eaffaello — Camera della Segnatura, .... 482 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Aech op Tittts, Frontispiece Fobttml Eomanum, 14 The Basilica of S. Paolo extra Muros, ... 32 The Violin Player, Raphael, 52 The Castle or S. Angelo, 74 The Basilica of S. Clemente, 92 Finding the Body of S. Cecilia, 120 Tasso's Room at S. Onofrio, 128 Piazza Bocca della Verita, 136 Porta S. Sebastiano, 148 Portrait or Mme. Le Brun, by herself, .... 164 The Tarpeian Eock, 182 Church of S. Maria Sopra Minerva, .... 198 Basilica of S. Peter, 214 Fresco in Sacristy of S. Peter's, Melozzo da Forli, . 232 Tomb of Cjecilia Metella, 256 Church of S. Giorgio in Velabro, .... 278 Wall of Eomdltjs, 284 The Palace of the Cssass, 292 (ix) X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE The House of Li via, 300 The Campagna, 310 Basilica of S. John Latekan, 324 Portrait of Maria Mancim, (?. Netscher, . . . 346 Avenue of the Villa Medici, 360 Basilica of S. Lorenzo Fuori lb Muea, . . . 370 Grounds op the Villa Borghese, 392 Marriage of S. Catherine in Vatican Gallery, Murillo, 414 Statue op Augustus, Beaccio Nuovo, .... 430 CuMiEAN Sibyl, Ceiling of Sixtine Chapel, Michael Angelo, 474 Supposed Portrait of Eaphael, by Himself. Now Designated "Ritratto di un Ignoto," Bodolfo del Ohirlafidain, .... ..... 482 ROME CHAPTER I. My first night in Rome was spent under a roof in the street of the Quattro Fontane, which, taking also the names of FeHce and Sistina, leads to the Pincian, the Tuileries garden of the city of Romulus. On the following morning I stole away from the house to venture alone into the labyrinth of the city. On my right the straight and hilly street made with its high walls a distant frame for a conical belfry sketched against a grey and rainy sky. I did not know the situation of Santa Maria Maggiore. I was still further from suspecting that in those blurred sweUings I saw the renowned Quirinal and Viminal hiUs. The road continued on the left in absolute monotony : before me in false square, in an iU-kept court, arose a vast building with a tolerably new look about it, and with a portico crowded with soldiers. The edifice struck me as handsome enough for a bar- rack ; but recognizing it as the famous palace of the Barberini, I thought it too much of a barrack for a palace. 1 (1) 2 EOME. On the Piazza Barberini, as you turn towards the street, you come upon a fountain of sombre color, but in good proportion. Four dolphins, whose gaping throats just touch the water, are firmly bound together, forming by their raised tails a base for the arms of the Barberini, and on this is placed a large shell, from which the overflow falls away in a shower of pearls. From the midst of this there rises a vigor- ous Triton, who blows to the sky in a horn of shell form, from which spirts a thread of water. This original and robust conception, which reminded me of Pierre Puget, is the work of Bernini. I did not know it then, and in giving this piece of information I am anticipating : I beg the reader to allow me often to do this, and to complete these first impressions by the further results of my studies, so as to avoid re- turning to the same subject. Turning my back to the piazza, I took a cross street, the Via del Tritone, lined with shops for the sale of smoked and greasy meat, trattorie that the Germans must frequent, for you see in them a vast quantity of sausages and schoppes of beer ; the com- mon people, squatting or leaning against the wall and about the door, proud, idle, sober. In this coimtry, where fever is endemic, I do not ■ know if temperance be an instinct of self-preservation or no ; but at any rate, it is exemplary in all classes, and in truth the quality of the articles of food de- cidedly encourages this estimable trait. Veal killed FIEST IMPRESSIONS. 3 too young is bad and scarce ; mutton is stale and hard ; beef has little taste ; fowl is skinny and tough as leather. Game only is of superior quality, and, except partridge, it is common. Close and insuffi- ciently kneaded, the bread is heavy ; the wine, usually tolerable, is carelessly made : it should be ex- cellent. Pastry, made with a mixture of oil and dripping, is repugnant enough to bring one's heart up. For that matter, the humbler folk care Httle about these culinary elements. This is how they sustain life : Twice a day throughout the winter large cal- drons of those long, greenish cauliflowers, called broccoli, are prepared for the public at the street- comers ; these are carried home on drainers or from shop to shop. They also eat a great many large lupins, round and yellow, cooked in water, without butter or dripping. On the broccoli they put salt and oil with vinegar. Add some ohves, some dry figs, cervelas, parched and often rancid, and stalks of fennel ; and for dessert, nuts, pinocchi, the seeds of the pine ; in summer, fruits, especially watermelon and the green gourd with purple pulp, of such a poor flavor, and you have pretty nearly the substance of the diet of the people of Rome, if you add a few com- mon pastries. Some muddy streets, without footways ; some mean, arched shops, with narrow doors, such as you see at La Chatre and Dinan ; walls whose peeling plaster has received a daubing of mud from the 4 ROME. splashings of the gutter ; now and then a church with shabby fa9ade in modem taste, set in among the houses ; much animation and babbling among the people ; all the women ragged, and with hair elabo- rately dressed, even those who have none, terrible to behold — this is what greets you at every corner. I there received, for the first time, the distinct impres- sion of the odors or, more poetically speaking, the perfume of Rome ; a local exhalation of cabbage or broccoh broth mixed with the raw smell of roots. Gradually, as I advanced along a narrow street with the air of a kitchen-garden, in which the crowd was thickening, I perceived a sort of indistinct mur- mur like that of the waves, which first accompanied and then overwhelmed the noises of the throng, and all at once, at the corner of the street, I was dazzled by sheets of water, which, from a confused mass of rocks, dominated by a building covered with statues, tumbled foaming and sparkling on every side, to be engulfed in cavernous holes. I was in front of the fountain of Trevi. It is a showy example of ostenta- tious decoration as understood by the school of Ber- nini. In the midst of rock-work and shell, Neptune emerges with his steed from the basement of a palace to which this enormous construction is affixed. The pretty and graceful bas-reliefs represent the discovery of the Acqua Vergine by a youthfid maiden in the neighborhood of Tusculum. From the upper basins, from the hollow of rocks in which intertwine climbing FOUNTAIN OF TREVI. 5 plants carved on rough stone, streams, of whose size one has no idea, spout forth on every side ; cataracts or rivers .... in the guise of the stage ! The waters are most limpid and pure ; their salutary vir- tues being reputed to cure twelve disorders. The torrent breaks forth with the tumult of a mountain cascade. On the brink of the lower basin, on an evening when the moon makes this agitated sheet sparkle like the steel links in a hauberk, you sometimes see a young maiden bend over the water, while a lover eyes her pensively. She has drawn, in a new glass which she will break as soon as used, some water to offer with a smile of hope to the friend, about leaving her to go on a journey. It is a popular tradition, that if you have drunk from this spring, you cannot remain absent from Rome for ever ; destiny will bring you back. For some this ceremony is a simple form of vow ; praised be they who have full faith in the pres- age of the fountain ! The Germans expect to make it favorable by bribery ; when they have quaffed the philter of return, they throw a half-penny into the basin.* * A very common custom, and one by no means confined to the Germans. English-speaking travellers are familiar with the lines : "Cast your obolus in Trevi's Fountain, Drink, and returning home, Pray that by stream and desert, vale and mountain, All roads may lead alike to Bome." When the basin is drained in order to clean it the beggars and 6 EOME. Must we judge the Trevi fountain by the severe principles of art ? No. It is what one might call rococo triumphant, endowed with a size and exuber- ance, which are at once its apology and its vindication. If we could perceive this tower of water with its majestic scaffolding from a distance, the impression would be a complete victory. But it is easy to under- stand that the dry and poverty-stricken imitation of such a style, as it is to be seen in France, and espe- cially in Prussia, is the most objectionable of aU the forms of artistic decline. By accident I came out on the Corso. Another dream dispelled : this famous road, which serves as a race-course during the carnival, is narrow and fuU of shops, like our Rue Neuve des Petits Champs, which it recalls still further by its mean sidewalks. A number of small shops where wares of no great value are retailed ; a palace here and there to relieve the rows of houses. In passing by the side of the great Colonna piazza I measured with my eyes the tail Doric shaft of white marble which adorns the centre, vaguely provoked that the column of Trajan should make so slight an impression. Far from home as I was, a man becomes thoughtless ; it was the so-caUed Antonine pillar, and I never even remembered its existence. It was under Sixtus V., that, in restoring the half- gamins of the neighborhood reap quite a rich harvest from the accumulated offerings of tourists. COLUMN OF ANTONINUS. 7 buried pedestal of this monument, raised in honor of Marcus Aurelius after his victories over the Grermans, they mistook its real purpose, and attributed to An - toninus Pius an erection that only dates from his suc- cessor. The old pedestal with its bas-reUefs* was placed by Gregory XVI. in the middle of the Giar- dino della Pigna, so called because in the great semi- circular niche of Bramante there figures, between two iron peacocks, a large bronze pineapple — funeral emblems taken from the Pantheon of Agrippa, and not, as has been said, from Hadrian's Mole.f The vast square where the column of Marcus Aurelius rises is monumental, surrounded as it is by the Ferrajuoli and Chigi palaces, — the last raised by the nephews of Alexander VII., — as well as the Piombino palace, which on the Corso faces the building of the Grand' Garde, supported on a long peristyle whose piQars came from the excavations of the ancient city of Veii. As I left the Corso I met an old friend, an * This pedestal belonged to the real column of Antoninus Pius, which was broken up to mend the obelisk in the Piazza di Monte Citorio. t The Pine-cone has always been the central ornament of a large fountain or basin or pond. . . . Pope Symmachus ... re- moved the Pine cone from its ancient place, most probably from Agrippa's artificial lake in the Campus Martius, and used it for adorning the magnificent fountain which he had built in the centre of the so-called Paradise of St. Peter's. . . . The two lovely bronze peacocks are supposed to have come from the same fountain. — I^anciani, Ancient Home in the Light of Recent Discover- ies, p. 286. 8 ROME. abbe, who took me by the arm, saying, " Come, ray good friend, I shall take you straight to St. Peter's." So to St. Peter's we went. From the Piazza Borghese to the bridge of St. Angelo you follow an interminable row of wretched- looking streets, which reach downright repulsiveness as you approach the Via di Tordinone. This ugli- ness at last amuses you. Besides, as I look about, I listen to the abbe with all my ears ; thanks to him this polypus of streets becomes full of life. At a point where two lanes divide, he shows me the Albergo dell' Orso, where Montaigne once lodged. Nothing has been changed there ; nothing does change in Eome : wagoners and market people still put up their carts under this gateway, which was ancient when the Bordelais gentleman dismounted with his suite. Presently with the satisfaction of a vision realized, I recognized the bridge of St. Angelo and Hadrian's Mole. My companion laid himself out to distract my attention ; he named a hundred objects, and flashed before my eyes a hundred spots teeming with asso- ciations. I was surprised by the breadth of the Tiber and the extent of the buildings of the Santo Spirito Hospital. At last, at the end of the Borgo Nuovo, from the bottom of the Piazza Rusticucci, we discerned the facade of St. Peter, colossal collet of the ring described by the colonnades of Bernini. FIRST SIGHT OF ST. PETER'S. 9 This was the great disappointment of the day. The vain majesty which renders this gigantic work empty and dumb struck me with a sense of dismay that was almost choking. From the end of the Piazza the columns of Ber- nini connect themselves easily with the fa9ade, on each side of which they seem to mark nearly a right angle. But when, as I went forward, I saw them fold in a circle behind me, and thus form, with the portal, a sort of scorpion with a double tail, it all seemed to me an abuse of a privilege, to pile stone on stone for the mere amusement of the eye. The vastness of the work should have made a great im- pression : nothing of the kind ; the immensity of the proportions escaped me, and the commonplace style extinguished whatever interest the whole ought to have inspired. Looking at the ground, I found the open space well paved ; the obelisk of Sixtus V. interested me, especially on account of Fontana;* the three-story arcades of the Loggia, glazed as they are at the present day, affected me like an enormous cage, and nothing, in truth — ^I confess it to my shame — noth- ing within me would have stirred, had not the abbe pointed out behind the other buildings a small, low roof on a comer of bare wall, saying, "'Tis the roof of the Sistine Chapel." * Domenico Fontana superintended the erection of the obelisk in its present position. 10 EOME. To enter that sanctuary was not to be thought of in my present state of mind. I even refused to enter the church. In the open space I had noticed a carriage pass by, which pulled up at the foot of the great steps. I thought the vehicle and its horses ridiculously small. There got down from it two or three ants. . . . When we came in front of the portico, the abbe said to me gently, "Place yourself quite close — closer; there, measure with your arms the diameter of these columns and their flutings." Their size was indeed formidable ; statues might have been niched in the flutings ! " Come away," I cried overwhelmed. My guide was a trifle discour- aged, and I was no less so at responding so iU to his kindness. " I have no longer," I said, " any occa- sion to seek the origin of our decUne of the last two centuries ; from Louis XIII. to Thermidor, all is there, down to the endive wreaths of our Pantheon Ste. Genevieve." " The basilica of St. Peter's," said my friend, "has one peculiarity : as you approach all its faults stare you in the face, and its aspect surprises nobody ; but the more you visit it, the more do unexpected revelations crop up I until there comes a moment when surprise, gradually developed, becomes prodigious — amazement and marvelling admiration springing up by degrees. As soon as you can appreciate St. Peter's, you will have taken a great step." PANTHEON OF AGEIPPA. 11 But in what direction ? thought I, with inward dis- quiet. I had time to reflect on it ; for the abbe left me for half an hour, to execute in passing a commission at the house of an Eminent Excellency who received that day. We mounted as high as the third story of a Paris house, and I waited for my companion in the ante- chamber, where loitered, in an indolence quite in harmony with my own discouraged state, groups of valets, very important and in very poor feather. A few poor wretches crouched on benches : the valets of the cardinals affect a diplomatic style, being ex- tremely ceremonious under antiquated and rich liv- eries, too large, too narrow, or too long for them. Pretentious disclosures of domestic distress, each of these cast-off garments must have passed into the possession of half a score of dignitaries, and held as many lackeys as a sentry-box shelters sentinels. My mentor next brought me by a meshwork of alleys to the Pantheon of Agrippa, which he made me enter without any preparation. I was more struck by the Roman character — at once bold and massive — of the portico, added later, than impressed by it, having visited the Greek temples at Paestum. Still I regarded with interest a monument raised at the dawn of the age of Augustus. I went out, I walked around it, looked at it from the bottom of the piazza, and returned again, never wearied of examining so 12 ROME. precious an example of the art of building at the end of the Eepublic. From a height of forty-four metres or more, the light pours down with the sun or rain, by an opening of twenty-eight feet in diameter, on the marbles and porphyry roses with which the middle of the temple is floored. I have seen, while vespers were being sung, the azure of the air reflected in a pool of water, as well as the vault on which the sun describes his progress by tracing on it luminous ellipses. Erected B.C. 27 by M. Agrippa, and originally dedicated (Pliny tells us) to Jupiter the Avenger, the Pantheon whose dome offers a very model of build- ing is, as has been said, fronted by a portico or peri- style or sort of Jiors d^ceuvre, which rests on sixteen enormous monolithic columns of oriental granite, crowned by the finest capitals that Rome has be- queathed to us. These columns, eight in front, are doubled by a second row ; engaged pilasters form a third against the building itself. Here, mark a peculiarity, which produces an illusion as to the depth of the portico. Instead of being arranged in parallel lines forming right angles with the steps, these columns radiate graduaUy, in such a way that from the middle of the piazza, where those of the first row that support the pediment ought to conceal those of the second and the third row, we see them on the contrary in echelons, be- cause their slightly oblique position produces an PANTHEON OF AGRIPPA. 13 imaginaiy perspective, whose result is to throw the distances back. This piazza of the Pantheon, cleared by Eugenius IV. of the ruins, which included basalt lions, a bronze head of M. Agrippa, a chariot, and a porphyry sar- cophagus in which Clement XII. made his bed, this little piazza, inherited by the hucksters with their petty trade, was once a wild and mysterious spot, the valley of the She-Goat ; swamps bristling with reeds, surrounded with imderwood, in the midst of which the second prodigy of the genesis of Eome was ac- complished — the disappearance of Romulus. It was at the end of the seventeenth century that the Dogana di Terra was installed in the remains of a temple of the second century, dedicated to Neptune. The old building was vaulted, and, seen from the inside, the back part of the architrave and the base of the vault seem like a rock raised in the air, and resting on a wall. We must know that Borromini, who restored two centuries ago the frieze and the entablature, con- nected the whole with a coating of stucco, which produces the illusion. The ancient Corinthian en- gaged columns in the modern building have branches of oHve among the acanthus of their capitals, but the delicacy of these capitals is far from equalling the purity of those of the Pantheon. Fires have cracked the shafts, torn like the trunks of trees that the light- ning has blasted. In the court, among bales, boxes, and carts, a whole population of clerks and draymen 14 EOME. is busy. Incongruous spectacle, that dead ruin, which encloses and displays in its bosom a house fuU of Ufe.* What one observes of the habits of these people con- tributes also "to obUterate the present age ; as in the time of king Anarchus, folks go and buy at a stall at the corner their victuals ready cooked, and their sauce elsewhere. The vessels of brown earthenware, the vases shaped like amphorae ; the display in front of the shops of a quantity of wares that for a century have never been used anywhere else ; the revelation of a careless indolence so unusual in these days, and the visible absence of any attempt to procure cus- tomers, — all this makes it seem like a congregation of gay and sympathetic shadows, and one soon for- gets what point of chronology has been arrived at. I do not know either how we reached a certain point, where the abbe suddenly bade me raise my eyes and look around. We were crossing trans- versely on a sort of raised road a long irregidar space of unequal levels, from which rose right and left columns with their architraves supported in the air, spectres of temples raised on a confusion of marble skeletons, plans of basilicas sketched by their floor- ing; while, as at Pompeii, ancient ways with their footpaths displayed the squares of their Pelasgic pave- ment, and lost themselves under the ruins. A tri- * This building is now the Exchange. VISION OF THE ANCIENT WOELD. 15 umphal arch on which a shadow fell like a veil reared up in front of me, from a deep trench, its attica and entablature, where I might have read the name of Septimius : on the top of a neighboring liill, cypresses bristled on wall-fronts and open vaults ; finally, in the distance, shutting in the little valley, beyond a white portal on a background of purple mountain, there spread out the vast mass of the Coliseum, which seemed to find only an accompanying accessory in the fa9ade of a church flanked by a convent and sur- mounted by a sombre Byzantine tower The Coliseum had blue shadows, like the reverse of some Alpine peak ; the circumference shone with the bur- nished gold of the sun and the ages. Meanwhile, without letting me pause, the abbe, leaning on my shoulder and pointing with his finger, named Cicero and the tribune, Pompey and Csesar, Virginius and Nero, intermingled with the gods who saw the greatness of Rome. I had divined that it was the Forum, and there resounded in my agitated breast the salvo of great names and great deeds, sud- denly fired by all the cannons of history ! I reckon here one of the three most overwhelming sensations that a spectacle ever gave me. The two others were : the first sight of the Alpine glaciers, four thousand feet above the Lake of Geneva ; and my arrival one evening, by the arcades at the bot- tom, on the Piazza of St. Mark at Venice. It seems that I passed next through the Trast^vere 16 ROME. without understanding either why or where I was being carried along so swiftly. I noticed three streets by reason of the monotony of their names : the Lun- gara, the Lungarina, the Lungaretta. In the midst of this rapid flight one impression struck me, and re- mained with me. Close to the Borgo, by the ancient Septimian gate, at the corner of the Via Santa Dor- otea, in the old rag-stone wall of a dirty building, is the outline of the bricked-up arch of the arcade of a shop. It is flanked by a granite column, over which rises an Ionic pilaster, the whole framed in the wall. " An old bakery," said the abbe, " before which Ra- phael paused many a time : it was there that the Fornarina lived." As we began to ascend, the grass became more abundant in the streets and the houses grew less fre- quent, I asked whither we were going, and was told that we were climbing the Janiculum, the Monte d'Oro where Janus had his town of Antipolis in front of that of Saturn ; where, according to Titus Livius, the tomb of Numa was found ; where the citadel of Ancus Martius rose ; and where, according to the Christian legend, the Apostle Peter was crucified. Along the street I had already remarked that snuff- boxes were in hospitable and universal use among the clergy, and that in this respect they stiU lingered in the habits of the age of Fontenelle, when both sexes carried about a snuff-box and a walking-stick. The Romans have dropped the stick ; it requires some ST. PETER IN MONTOEIO. 17 effort to carry one ; but the monks of the Montorio take and offer about two pinches a minute ; it is the base of conversation. A veteran snuff-taker, Pius IX. habitually used a genuine Capucin's handkerchief, a bit of cretonne of red and blue check, such as we hardly ever see at home except among the Lorraine farmers. This homely rag jars with the gold and purple of the heir of the emperors of Rome : don't you think that such a sample from the wardrobe of a sovereign pontiff reveals the conventual simplicity of the monk framed in the splendors of the church 1 As we were about to cross the threshold of a church, the abbe, plucking me by the arm, resumed : "Let me tell you, before going in, that Baccio Pintelli of Florence, who died in 1480, rebuilt, at the expense of Ferdinand IV. of Spain, the church of St. Peter in Montorio for the monks of the Order of St. Francis, to whom it had been ceded." We cannot but admire there one of the good works of Sebastian del Piombo, the Flagellation of Christ. The work is supposed to have been executed after a cartoon of Michael Angelo's ; its style is lofty without being either violent or harsh ; the painting, of a very deep quality, would be more easily appreciated if the small chapel which gives it shelter were less sombre. It was over the main altar of St. Peter in Montorio that, before our Ital- ian campaigns, Raphael's Transfiguration was to be found — that celebrated example of the third manner of the master. This famous canvas -was sent to the 2 18 ROME. Louvre, whence it was restored in 1854. Since then it has remained in the Vatican. In the sepulchral chapel of the Del Monte family, Ammanato has carved some fine figures, among others that of Justice, taken from the same model as the renowned statue of Gr. della Porta on the tomb of Paul III. in the Vatican basilica. In the cloisters is a small round temple, surrounded by sixteen grey marble columns, and surmounted by a cupola. Ferdinand and Isabella had it erected by Bramante on the very spot where St. Peter is said to have been crucified. A gift of alms will procure you a pinch or even a packet of the dust of the place. I scandalized my companion by considering this little buUding merely in the light of a fine example of those correct styles that the Joseph Prud'hommes of art have consecrated. Nothing could be worse adapted for a great memorial, or so ill become a spot where Nero set up the cross of the first of the popes, as this prototype of the belvederes which, in our English gardens under Lewis XVI., served as resting-places at the top of grassy slopes for the Aspasias of the Di- rectory. To describe all that meets the eye on this terrace, from which Montaigne three centuries ago surveyed a noble winter prospect (26th January), one would have to introduce into the description a summary of Eoman history. Eome however is only a foreground of the picture ; for the view extends towards the SUNSET FROM THE JANICULUM. 19 over the plains, reaching as far as the Apen- , whence once rushed down Equi, Sabini, Hernici. irds the south-east at the foot of the Alban itains, it embraces those plains of the old Latium 1 open out by the country of the Eutuli on the ips of the Volsci. The sun ready to set behind the Tyrrhene Sea, inflamed with its crepuscular le the domes, towers, and pinnacles, the fa9ades daces and ruins, as well as the volcanic mounds ered at the foot of the chains and over the pla- E ; a few peaks silvered with early snow crowned riolet Apennines with a pyramid of rose-color, ■e brighter lines marked here and there a hamlet ied on high. Between these two extreme points ae-tinged mountains the city, glo-nang and ruddy e midst of the bronze zone of its Byzantine walls, stretched before us, a mixture of verdure and )t outlines ; and the country crossed by aque- 3, covered with ancient viUas, and pierced by roads of old renown, marked out and lined with )s. The yellow Tiber, flavus as Horace called it, is at our feet like a track of sand ; approaching lorizon, it melts, on one side in the azure of the on the other in the fires of the setting sun. Tiile the abbe continued to point out each monu- t, each site, from Mount Soracte to Tivoli, from nole of Hadrian to the tomb of Csecilia Metella, nind pictured each object in turn. To the right cially, beyond St. Paul and the Ostian road, to 20 EOME. the culminating point of the hill of Jupiter, from Alba Longa and the distant stretches of the Appian Way to the old Latin gate, memorable spots occur in such numbers, on a theatre so noble, that one gazes down dreamily as though traversing the air on wings, sur- veying the scenes of the legends of the ages ; above all, that sanctuary — the Forum Romanum, whose ruins, rising to the left of the Coliseum, at this mo- ment glittered in a burning light. Framing panoplies of ruins and little domes and terraced gardens — the famous hiUs, the Ccehan, the Palatine, the Capitoline, marked the confines of the dale of Romulus and the swamps of the Velabrum. How many mighty names, how many mighty things in this little space ! How many kingdoms in miniature destroyed by wars of giants ! FOEUM ROMANUM. 21 CHAPTER II. When we remember what this bit of narrow val- ley was, how the interests of the world have centered there, the voices that have resounded there, the dramas that have been there enacted ; when we think that from the almost fabulous time of the alliance of the Sabines with the hordes of Eomulus down to the last Augustuli, this spot was the very brain of the immense Roman Empire, we hardly dare to tread its soil, so profoundly are we impressed with a sense of its sanctity. The entire history of a people, of the most renowned of all peoples, worked itself out on this spot, soul and sanctuary of Rome. At the beginning of the seventh century the Roman Forum still preserved its ancient form and appearance more or less intact, but from that time each suc- cessive war and invasion, earthquake and inundation contributed towards its ruin, until it was finally com- pletely buried beneath upwards of thirty feet of debris. From the middle of the sixteenth century on, intermittent attempts were made at excavations, but these, conducted without system or perseverance, only resulted in leading archseologists astray, and giving rise to innumerable controversies. 22 EOME. People seem to forget that in so narrow a space, each period from Romulus and Tatius to the Emperor Julian must have pulled down to build up ; that the Forum in the time of Scipio was no longer like the Forum of Tarquin ; that the first Csesars laid low the buildings of the Repubhc ; then that they in turn yielded their temples and basilicas to the ambitious enterprises of the Flavii, the Antonines, and their heirs. How many monuments must have succeeded one another on the Via Sacra, changed names and destinations and disappeared ; from the Temple of Venus-et-Roma to the TuUian prisons, and from the ruins of Caligula's palace to the foundations of the fallen Temple of Concord ! Between the church of San Lorenzo in Miranda encorbelled in the Temple of Faustina, and Sta. Maria Liberatrice close by the old domain of the Vestals, the arch of Titus, and the Tabularium of SuUa which supports on the Doric columns engaged in its walls the palace of the Capitol, there is a long half-hoUowed trapezium,* the most splendid of historical sepultures, on which one might expatiate for ever. The Temple of Saturn is separated from that of Vespasian by a branch of the Via Sacra, which was called the Clivus Capitolinus, or slope of the Capitol. Leaving this to follow a sort of alley encumbered * The foram is represented ia every existing plan as a trape- zium, whereas it is a perfect parallelogram. See AncUnt Bmne in the Light of Recent Discoveries. R. Lauciani. P. 76 note. FORUM BOMANUM. 23 with broken marbles, you reach the Schola Xantha. Here are the lodges {tabernw), to the number of six, which served as bureaux for the scribes, the archi- vists, the prcecones of the curule aediles. These vaulted chambers still have their thresholds ; they contmue below and in front of the portico of the Twelve Gods as far as the foot of the Tabularium. Pius IX. had them cleared out and restored in 1857. Let us now cross, parallel to the Tabularium, the base of the Capitoline intermontium, by directing our steps along the side of the Tullian prison and the Gremonise, which have given way to the slope of the Ara CceU. We shall come across, between the arch of Septimius Severus and the foundations of the portico erected in 676 of Rome by Lutatius Catulus, in front of the building where they kept the tables of bronze (the archives of the Republic), the remains of the renowned Temple of Concord, used as a military treasury, and restored, it is said, by Tiberius. Votive inscriptions confirm the allusions of Plutarch, Dion Cassias, and Festus regarding the site and aspect of this edifice. The building was enormous and nearly square, its vast portico being reached by steps of marble, of which numerous fragments still remain. Facing the Forum, between it and the portico of the Temple of Concord, stood the rostra. The tribune was long confounded with the Grseco- stasis, where from the time of Pyrrhus foreign ambas- sadors were quartered, between the comitium, of 24 ROME. which the steps are still to be recognized, and the foot of the Temple of Concord, almost in the angle of Severus's arch. There stiU remain its massive sub- structions of peperino or volcanic rock ten metres long. I have measured them. Close by is the office of the scribes who preserved the speeches, officials who, from Tullius Tyro, Cicero's freedman, downwards, may be compared to our short-hand writers. It was at the entry of the Forum that that Piso lived whom Agrippina accused of having poisoned Germanicus, and it was there that he was mysteri- ously assassinated ; Tacitus insinuates at the instiga- tion of Tiberius, who might have been compromised by his complicity. What wondrous events have been enacted on this stage, as narrow as that of a play- house, from the days when Brutus displayed there the dagger of Lucretia, and Virginius bought in the shops to the north of the Forum, whose site is still marked, the knife which, to reach the decemvirs, was to pass through his daughter's heart, down to the memorable occasion when the curia was burnt, together with the body of Clodius (700 A.u.c). To animate it all, and to bring to life again some of the mightiest shades of the past, one has only to seat himself on a column and fit reminiscences to that fallen ornament. At the foot of the Palatine, on the Vicus Tuscus and even along the Via Sacra itself stood rows of shops, whose signs engraved on squares of marble have been found. I have seen one, belongmg to one FOBUM EOMANUM. 25 of the jewellers who succeeded each other there, from the time when Papirius Cursor distributed the buck- lers of chased gold and the magnificent arms of the Samnites, so that — being displayed in front of the shops — those trophies might furnish a magnificent decoration to the Forum. The custom was afterwards observed by the sediles. In whatever direction you turn you come upon some fresh memorial of the past. Wherever the eye rests it is upon some new historical monument. Be- tween the Temple of Castor and the Basilica Julia is the site of the Curtian pool where Curtius sacrificed himself. It waz just here that Galba was massacred by his furious legionaries, who carried off the bald head of the emperor, supporting it through the mouth. Raising your eyes beyond the Forum, with your back to the Palatine, the remains of the iEmilian basilica are seen stretching away to the west of S. Adriano. Near the gaol of TuUius is the church of St. Luke and St. Martin ; between it and St. Cosmo is San Lo- renzo in Miranda, which grasps in its arms the tem- ple of Antoninus and Faustina. As -we cross the open space transversely going towards the arch of Septimius Severus, we follow the road along which Vitelljus was dragged, down to the narrow staircase of the Gemonise by which criminals passed out from the Mamertine prison. The Forum with its frame of buildings, from the heights of the Capitol to the basilica of Constantino, 26 BOME. was assuredly within small compass the most imposing spot in the universe : no wonder that the restoration of this city of monuments, perched one above another under the sides of the three hills, has been the chosen historic romance of all architects. It is certain that this multitude of temples, basilicas, and porticos, stretching against the blue sky their white and rose- colored profiles, that these forests of columns of all shades, standing in rows from the Julian basilica to the Temple of Jupiter Capitohnus, and letting the oblique sun-rays play between their ruddy shafts, that these deep vaults, this network of aisles and shining architraves outlined against the chiaroscuro of the galleries, must indeed have dazzled barbarian and Gaul alike as they drew near the Olympus of the conquering divinities. As it was in the days of its glory so, I repeat, is it even now — the greatest spot on earth : overpowering thought that engulfs all sense of time and space until at last arousing to find that it is nightfall, you turn away with a blue veronica pressed between the pages of your note-book and a tiny bit of marble in your pocket. The abbe insisted on a visit to St. Paul extra Muros. It is one of the seven Major Basilicas. Our friend seemed to attach to this journey a sort of conventional propriety, in which it would be unbe- coming to fail. One day as he returned to the sub- ject before a number of persons, I took it into my head to show some surprise that in the state into BASILICAS. 27 which the pontifical finances had come even under Leo Xn., they shoidd have sacrificed such large sums to re- build, far from any inhabited quarter, a church that was of no use for worship and very burdensome to keep up. No one answered ; there was on all sides a silence full of reproach and shame, and I felt that I had placed myself in quarantine as infected by the utili- tarian murrain. What is, precisely, a Roman basilica ? One of the Athenian archons, who bore the name of Baadshq or king, administered justice under a por- tico, named for this reason basilica, a term that in other parts of Greece and Asia was given to the royal palaces. Cato the Censor, who declaimed much against the arts and customs of the Greeks, yet bor- rowed from them their hall of justice, and it was he who about a hundred and ninety years before our era erected in Eome the first basilica. After that they multipUed. Thus in its origin the basilica is a civil edifice ; under the emperors, when the magistrates sat by ap- pointment from the sovereign, this description of their tribunals corresponded exactly to a monarchic institu- tion. But the Greek language was then in favor, the residences themselves of sovereigns are equally de- scribed as basihcas ; this was the case with the Eegia or basilica of the Lateran, which bequeathed its name to the first church that, in this imperial residence, Constantino had had built. 28 EOME. Let us not forget that the edifices so called were before aU else prsetoria, where they decided commer- cial cases, and disputes among dealers, and that mer- chants also had the right to assemble there to discuss their common interests. The inscription Exchange and Tribunal of Commerce furnishes among ourselves the exact definition of these basilicas. There was to be found there a large hall with sometimes two or three aisles. Separated from the body of the building by a septum or barrier, the judges ranged themselves on three circular sets of benches, in the hemicycle of the principal bay, round the president who occupied the centre marked by a stall or chair of honor with a high back, cathedra. It is to this source that we trace our name for the seat of the bishop ; the word tribunal also signified the seat belonging to a magis- trate or tribune. A portico and galleries with columns stood in front of and around the basilica, like a private forum attached to some judicial establishment. A building of this kind may serve many purposes. As there was nothing sacred about it, it was utilized for a place of assembly, to harangue the people, and even for public discourses. It was thus that the Apostles and their disciples after them, expounded the doctrines of Christ in the basilicas or tribunals, and it often happened that they were brought there to confess at the judges' bar the truths delivered by them to the people. Hence the name of Confession, which is still preserved in the old churches for the BASILICAS. 29 spot where in the corresponding basilicas the accused appeared to declare his faith. It was there that the custom continued of placing the high altar, pains be- ing taken to make its base the exact burying-place of a martyr, so that his relics might still continue to bear witness. The civil basilicas were numerous ; they reckoned more than forty of them when Dio- cletian forbade the erection of more. His edict is important ; for it helps us to understand how under the successors of Constantino so many churches could take the name of basiHca and really fill their office. It was Theodosius who expanded Christianity into a judiciary institution, and constituted it a state re- ligion ; in his reign the bishops acquired rights of jurisdiction that were speedily extended from eccle- siastics to the whole body of, the faithful. In 408, under Honorius, a law excludes from the army as well as from public office all pagans and heretics ; in the same year, after the assassination of Stihcho, another law extends the jurisdiction of the bishops ; six days after, a third law enjoins the demolition of the tem- ples, and orders the substitution of ecclesiastical action for that of the magistrates ; finally, the episcopal ju- risdiction is applied to nearly all civil affairs, and freed from all liability to an appeal ; the bishops had be- come prsetorian prefects. After the completion of these arrangements, which have been transmitted to us in the Codes of Theodosius and Justinian, the bishops, and under them the clerks who administered 30 EOME. quarters or districts, passed their days in deciding suits, to the detriment of the religious instruction of the faithful. Far from being flattered at this aug- mentation of power, St. Augustin deplores a pom- pous drudgery " which, devouring hours claimed by holy thiugs, constrains him to live amid the hateful tumult of sophistry." These sacerdotal magistrates then occupied most of the old basilicas ; the clergy appropriated some, of which they made churches, while many of them must have continued to serve for tribunals. Hence the large number of temples which have claimed as a mark of honor and precedence the title of basilicas, hmited ia our days — as well as the privileges, indul- gences, and pontifical favors by which their pre-emi- nence is supported — to. thirteen churches which answer to the number of the Apostles, reckoning among them St. Matthias who was substituted for Judas, and St. Paul who was admitted into the apostolic coUege after his conversion. But among these thirteen edifices we must distin- guish at first seven primitive or Constantinian basil- icas, which are or rather were — St. John Lateran, St. Peter of the Vatican, St. Paul extra Muros, St. Cross in Jerusalem, St. Lawrence extra Muros, St. Agnes beyond the Nomentane Gate, and Saints Mar- ceUinus and Peter on the Via Labicana. St. Agnes and Saints Marcellinus and Peter hav- ing been replaced by Sta. Maria Maggiore and St. BASILICAS. 31 Sebastian, these two churches with the five others compose the seven Major Basilicas of Rome. "They are seven in number," says a historian, " to corres- pond to the seven hills, their altars being the seven fortified mounts of the church." Possibly : but I prefer the explanation of Panvinio, who, if I am not mistaken, supposes the seven basilicas to have been instituted to represent the seven churches of the Apocalypse, namely, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea. The Minor Basilicas — Santa Maria in Trastevere, San Lorenzo in Damaso, Sta. Maria in Cosmedin, Santi Apostoli, San Pietro in Vincoli and Sta. Maria in Monte Santo, are only basilicas by assimilation j they have been ennobled. That is not all : among the seven major basilicas there are, classed apart and occupying a distinct rank. Five Patriarchal Basilicas, whose significance is more striking. Onofrio Panvinio will assist us to discover it : " It is the peculiar prerogative of the chief of the universal church to have, beside the pontifical see, four other churches where he is accustomed to offi- ciate as if he were cardinal bishop of each of them. He there exercises full pontifical jurisdiction on the titular festivals of these churches, as in cathedrals which are peculiarly his own." But why these five cathedrals ? To establish the sovereignty of the Pontifex Maximus of Rome over all the bishoprics in the world, represented by the 32 EOME. great patriarchates which once formed distinct churches. St. Lawrence extra Muros is the church of the patriarchate of Jerusalem, Sta. Maria Mag- giore represents the church of Antioch, St. Paul that of Alexandria, St. Peter of the Vatican, that of Con- stantinople. The last three have moreover the prerogative of possessing the Holy Door. This is an entry to the church which is always walled up except during jubi- lees, at the inauguration of which it is opened by the Sovereign-Pontiff, who strikes it with a golden ham- mer. This privilege of the Porta Santa, the three churches I have named have the distinction of shar- ing with St. John Lateran, keystone of the ecclesias- tical edifice, first Christian basilica of imperial foun- dation, queen of Eoman cathedrals, seat of the patri- archate of the west and of the world. The history of this venerable title of nobility ex- plains how becoming it was to go to salute the basilica of St. Tanl fuori le mura. Still, a son of the north, something of an archaeologist and always an arguer, will have some trouble in preventing himself from regretting, as he makes his way into St. Paul's, that the piety of the faithful for sacred traditions should have led them to restore what a catastrophe had laid in ruins. The new church is splendid ; the most ex- pensive materials are piled one upon the other ; it costs Christendom millions ; and yet all this expense and effort only succeeds in mournfully recalling the The Basilica of S. Paolo extra Mores. S. PAOLO EXTRA MUROS. 33 basilica founded by Constantine on the tomb of St. Paul, rebuilt with great splendor from 386 to 392 by the Emperors Valentinian, Theodosius, Arcadius, and Honorius, preserved for fifteen centuries, and burnt in 1823, by some clumsy plumbers. It was restored on the same plan and in the same spot, at the angle of the hill that was cut away in order to free the monument of the Apostle Paul from its catacomb. As we pace these five aisles, with their superb colonnades, reflected as in a glass in the pol- ished paving of marble laid out in arabesques, can we ever succeed in forgetting the mosaics of Nicholas III., the bronze gates that the consul Castelli had brought from Byzantium, the eighty giant columns of Paros, of violet breccia, and pentelica, spoils of the ^milian basilica, which supported the edifice on a forest of gems ; and those paintings of the year 1000, and the pavement of Alexandrian mosaic and antique inscriptions, and the panels fitted to the frieze where from age to age they represented the reigning popes, from St. Sylvester to Pius VII., and the pillars of granite and cipolino which divided the transept into two aisles, and so many other splendors of which it is best to be silent, since they will never be seen more ! This chief among Catholic basilicas measured nearly four hundred feet long, and the first Christian ages told their story in it. When the Ostian basilica was destroyed, Pius VII. was dying ; they contrived to hide the disaster from 3 34 EOME. his knowledge. Leo XII. ordered the reconstruction of St. Paul's on the same scale, copying the lost basilica from memory. The whole world joined in the work. Schismatical Russia offered the gift of an altar of malachite ; Mahomet brought as a tribute to the sanctuary of Christ four columns of oriental ala- baster, presented by the Sultan ; gold, silver, and jewels flowed in from every side. Hence the por- ticos of veined Grreek marble, the pilasters taken from the quartz of the Simplon, the walls of Carrara, framed with gems of varied hues ; the entablature of Paros with its violet frieze ; the enormous capitals, so lavish in size, so delicate in execution. Wondrous spectacle, at first sight especially, that vast monu- ment so ancient and so new, unique in our bourgeois age, a colossal reliquary executed as if it were a miniature, and revealed in aU its dazzling freshness. But you do not lose yourself there, as in the old edifices of Ravenna, in a dream of wondering and confiding admiration. The moment you pass to an- alysis, the poverty of modern art is disclosed to such a degree, that to restore to this noble shrine some- thing of its soul and the veneration that it ought to inspire, you apply yourself to the search for any smallest vestiges of the primitive basilica that may have escaped from the disaster of 1823. This exami- nation results in a few consoling discoveries. The mosaics of the apse, or tribune, work of the thirteenth century representing Christ with the Apos- S. PAOLO EXTRA MUEOS. 35 ties, have been restored but too much retouched ; the hands are mannered, and the Christ has been en- dowed with a feminine adolescence that is a httle ri- diculous. On the arch of Galla Placidia, which divides the nave from the transept and which has retained the name of the daughter of Theodosius, a mosaic of the sixth century, Jesus and the Four-and-twenty Elders of the Apocalypse, might have been preserved more in its integrity. It belongs to a rather savage state of art, and is ruder than the paintings of the same period that are to be seen at Ravenna. Rome then became provincial, and ceased to attract good artists; the capital was elsewhere. An object per- fectly preserved is the paschal candelabrum of white marble, twelve feet high. This column, on which, among garlands of fruit and symbohcal animals, move a legion of tiny figures representing scenes from the Passion, is a marvellous work of the ninth century. The Christ upon the Cross is there represented clothed, which is not a little uncommon. They have also preserved the old altar executed in the thirteenth century by Arnolfo di Cambio, the most illustrious of the pupils of Nicholas of Pisa. Under the dome of its canopy flutter pretty seraphim, and on fine mosaics sport diminutive monks of felicitous design, accompanying exquisite little figures of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. Unfortunately, in order to make use of four shafts of oriental alabaster, the whole is overweighted with a heavy baldacchino. 36 KOME. which swallows up the pinnacles of the canopy and intercepts the great mosaic. At the end of the tribune the pontifical seat is in deplorable style and of a preposterous richness ; a large and stupid picture surmounts it — the Apothe- osis of St. Paul, by Camaccini. They were bent on restoring the medalhons of the various popes all along the friezeS; but most of the heads are purely imagin- ary — an unpardonable piece of folly. The directors of the work did not take the trouble to make the necessary inquiries so as to procure the real Hkenesses of the sovereign-pontiffs ; you only find those which everybody knows ; the others imply in their invent- ors very little understanding of physiognomy as con- sidered in relation to character. At St. Paul extra Muros is preserved the famous crucifix which spoke to St. Bridget ; it is by that most mystic of Giotto's pupils, the Roman Cavallini, a holy character whose works used to impress people's feel- ings. On one of the walls of the transept they have hung a copy of one of Raphael's great compositions : it is frightful. I once happened to encounter there King Ludwig of Bavaria, whom I had previously honored as a serious amateur on account of the art institutions he founded at Munich. This illusion however was destroyed by his asking in my presence if this feeble and rose-colored imitation were not an original Raphael. Notwithstanding all these imperfections, St. Paul's S. PAOLO ALLE TEE FONTANE. 37 will continue to be reckoned among the important monuments of Rome ; its richness and splendor, and certain details which have survived, making the build- ing still interesting. But even if the church no longer existed, it would still be necessary to go there to visit the cloister, one of the two finest works of the kind that the thirteenth century has bequeathed to us. The other is the cloister of St. John Lateran, which this recalls very closely. We must not neglect, in passing through the ves- tibule of the cloister, some frescoes of the twelfth cen- tury, representing the Saviour surrounded by martyrs spaced off by palm trees. It is certainly somewhat rude, but paintings of this date are not numerous. In this the artist, drawing his inspiration from an- cient mosaics, has avoided the routine immobility of the Byzantine workers. Tolerably near, on the scene of the slaughter of the soldier martyrs of the tribune Zeno who shared their doom, stands the church of Sta. Maria Scala Cceh, where St. Bernard celebrated mass, and where in sacrificing he had the vision of a ladder by which legions of seraphim ascended to heaven. A little further off is St. Paul of the Three Fountains, on the very spot where the Apostle's head was cut off. His head made three bounds, the legend says, and from the points that it touched there gushed up three living jets ; they are inclosed by the oratory, and pilgrims quench their thirst there. Another chapel in the plain marks the spot where St. Paul 38 EOME. and St. Peter embraced at the crossing of the ways as they separated to go to their respective martyr- doms, the one on this hill, the other on the edge of the Tiber. Farther on, before passing the double- crenellated gates of the road to Ostia attached to the old walls of Rome, you skirt on your left the pyramid of that Caius Cestius, the contemporary of Agrippa, who presided with six other septemvirs over the sacred banquets of the lectisternmm. His tomb is just one-fourth the height of the great pyramid ; but the triangular cone of Cestius is faced with plaques of white marble a foot thick. This pyramid, flanked by two fluted columns, shaded by some cypresses that connect it with the battlements of the postern, the whole inclosed in a recess of the walls, makes a pict- ure charming in style and full of warm color. It was here that they found the gigantic foot of bronze to be seen in the Capital ; it belonged, they say, to a colossal statue of the septemvir. Farther on you leave to the left the artificial mound of Monte-Testaccio, formed in the course of years by piles of those earthenware vessels, in which the peasants brought most of their wares to the great market of Rome, and whose fragments they threw away in this common place of deposit estab- Hshed behind the Emporium, from which they have recently cleared away the debris. Almost everything unloaded there, even dried vegetables, was trans- ported in clay vessels, and not as in our time in tilted PONS SUBLICIUS. 39 carts, baskets, sacks, or chests. These worthless crocks once emptied were tossed away, and this explains, what was for long so enigmatical, the existence of the enormous cumulus. We then come to the Marmo- rata, a store of the marbles of Greece and Italy ; they have now exhumed, for the purpose of making use of them, blocks that have been lying there these fifteen centuries, and whose existence has been known ever since the time of Sixtus V. Hence we pass to the foot of the convent of Sta. Sabina, whose bells sound on the Aventine, and which is associated with St. Dominic and Father Lacordaire ; famous names that open and close the annals of the order of preaching Mars. In front, beyond the Tiber, is the hospital of St. Michael, where they have a school of arts and trades for orphans. Finally, at the extremity of this escarped face of the Aventiae covered with shrubs and brambles, you gradually see the city encircle the stream, behind the remains of the Pons Sublicius which Ancus Marcius placed on wooden joists, as its name indicates, and which was rebuilt by the censor ^milius Lepidus in the reign of the second of the Csesars. This was the bridge that Horatius Codes defended ; it is from this primitive monument, whose construction, preservation, and maintenance was con- fided to the coUege of priests, that our word pontiff comes.* The Flavian Amphitheatre has been so highly * PorUifex—jHme, pontis, a bridge ; facere, to make. " There are 40 EOME. appreciated that the Popes, proud of the solicitude with which all Rome regards it, have been at great pains and expense to restore it. We may conceive then of the effect produced some years ago by one of our French bishops, who, when preaching in the pulpit of the Coliseum, ventured to exclaim, " What, ruins of abomination, relics of impurity, you still stand ! shame, that Christians should endure the sight of these infamous walls ! That they should not scatter the stones of this Babel, heaped up by the impious pride of the enemies of the faith !...." Here were eloquent emotions to convince a Genseric or an AttUa ; but the prelates of Rome have a less primitive zeal. Whence it follows that in condemning, by this appeal for the destruction of the Coliseum, so many pontiffs who had been the religious preservers of its antique splendors, Monseigneur just a little compromised his country. " At the bottom of your hearts," an official remarked to me on this subject, " you are the descendants of the Gaids who devast- ated Italy." The quantity of shrubs, of pellitory, of but two accounts of the name Pontifices and both very uncertain ; either from poiis and facere, because they first built the Sublician bridge in Eome and had the care of its repair, or from posse and facere, where facere must be interpreted to signify the same as offerre and sacrijkare." — Kennett's Antiquities of Rome. Plutarch in his " Kuma " says that most writers assign the first of these two derivations to Pontifex, and calls it a "ridiculous reason," pointing out that while the office existed in the time of Numa it is very doubtful if the bridge did. THE COLISEUM. 41 saxifrage, that the Coliseum nurtures is even less surprising than the rarity of the species. Whether it is that this vast mass raised high in the air intercepts wandering germs in their flight, or that the nature of the artificial soil or the composition of the cements that bind the stones has been favorable to exotic growths, it is certain that the botanists have collected a considerable herbarium of specimens found in no other place under the Roman sky. This mountain of the Flavii has its own flora, like Hymet- tus or Hybla.* Just at first, however, you pay no attention to these details so close at hand. With that instinctive reach- ing after the infinite, the eye darts first of aU to the farthest point of the horizon that the soul would fain pass. It is not a landscape, a city, or simple bird's- eye view that is seen from the summit of the precipi- tous walls of this crater, but the unnumbered illus- trations of the greatest book of history, a spectacle that you regard with the sensations of one who dreams a dream peopled by apparitions. Silence, which often makes an impression without the spirit being conscious of it, perhaps increased this iUusion, and so when a sudden noise aroused us it was with the sensation of being roughly awakened from sleep. From the bottom of this crucible for * As many as four hundred and twenty species of plants were formerly found in the Coliseuni, but the walls were scraped clean in 1871, forftar that their growth might injure the building. 42 BOME. fusing stars in, issued confused strains of church music ; our eyes attracted to the bottom of the abyss distinguished a microscopic procession of penitents enveloped in their sheets, taper in hand and banner at the head, who, followed by peasants and shepherds, chanted the office of Via Crucis before the fourteen chapels stationed round the arena.* From these depths up to the purple of the west where the solar ball was sinking, we measured strange distances, marvellous gradations of light and color. Speechless, awe-struck, we gazed and gazed ; and as the night fell still we gazed. * Eemoved in 1874 to facilitate further excavations. STKEET SCENES. 43 CHAPTER III. At Rome the multiplicity of things to see keeps you on the trot more than half the time. But you take this duty patiently, because the streets change in physiognomy according to the quarter, and because across the pavement there flows a tide of common people, simple in their manners, and bringing with them into the full hght of day, besides their porrin- gers and chafing-dishes, their household habits, and sometimes the practice of their trade as well, all im- disturbed by prohibitive regulations. Along those monastic streets where the grass grows, as, for instance, that leading from Santa Maria Mag- giore to the Lateran, amusing processions move noise- lessly, together with the few and discreet passers-by. The scholars of seminaries and colleges, hailing from the five parts of the globe, dressed up like little abbes in colors varying according to their nationality, with voluminous shovel hats, thin bodies, and childish faces, furnish a diverting sight. The Germans wear red cassocks, the English violet ; while the white frock of the little Americans contrasts with the brown faces of young negroes, and red skins brightened by the West Indian sun. 44 EOME. On the Pincian every morning appointments are made for talking politics between heterogeneous and circumspect-looking individuals whom you would take for retired clerks or merchants, were it not for their clerical dress, which savors of the ancient regime and suggests old-fashioned comedy rather than the church. With a yellowish umbrella under the arm and a snuff- box in the hand, these prelates have the air of honest shopkeepers of a former day. In consequence of some maternal vow one used to see Carmehtes, Franciscans, Carthusians, from eight to ten months old at their nurse's breasts, a custom that was long kept up in the Kingdom of Naples. Down to Leo XII. and Gregory XVI., who put an end to another abuse, the clerks of solicitors and notaries, as well as a host of officials belonging to the administration, arrogated to themselves the privilege of wearing the cassock, while stiU holding to the mode of life, and the behavior of the young men of the day. Hence foreigners were frequently scandalized, attrib- uting to the clergy the follies and misdeeds of the lawyers' clerks. The cassock was with them what with us the administrative frock and military uniform are — the dress of those who hold some position in the state. Many monks and nuns and a certain quantity of soldiers contribute to give A^ariety to the look of the streets, setting off somewhat the raggedness of the Trastevere or of the Suburra. Popular costumes no GUIDO'S AUEORA. 45 longer exist at Rome, but a few still come from the country. Sometimes when the head of a house has to come to the great city on business the whole family will • accompany him, decked out in their gay costumes and provided, perhaps, Avith some gewgaws to sell, some couplets to sing, or a curiosity to ex- hibit. The principal business concluded or the market closed, these good folk stay just where they have alighted, at the piazza Montanara, in the quarter of the Regola, in the environs of the Farnese Palace, towards the Ponte Sisto, or at the corner of the Quat- tro Capi bridge, waiting for the hour of return to the mountains, and munching morsels of bread. Seated on a curb-stone, or gathered in a close group, a whole rural household will be seen installed as if in their own quarters, the youngsters sporting round the maternal skirts, and the contadina suckling the youngest while she awaits her lord. These are the sights of the street ; they aflford much entertainment as one hur- ries from church to church, or from one gallery to another. Warned against the classic seductions of Guide no less than against those of Domenico Zampieri, I stiU felt as I looked at the original of the Aurora — too chilled by the engraver Morghen — the sensation that is produced by a work poetically treated and indebted for a happy effect to its free and gorgeous coloring. Preceded by a Genius who bears in the air a torch, ApoUo on his car advances in flame through the sky 46 KOME. to commence his day. He is accompanied by Aurora, and surrounded by the Hours, who dance about him. These have been nourished without any thought of economy, and are perhaps a little too plump. At the bottom of the picture lies the distant earth, the sea and its shores, still unwarmed by the freshness of the dawn. The composition is harmonious, the painting bright and tranquil, the draperies studied, and the poses gracefid. It is the attractive masterpiece of an artist usually cold, of whom we shall find in the Bar- berini collection the best or at any rate the most agreeable portrait. As to the Fall, by Domenichino, it is a sketch of Breughel de Velours enlarged by a Roman from Bologna ; the graces of the subject humanize the magisterial cleverness of the painter. Eve pluck- ing the apple, Adam who receives it stooping, are at- tractive figures ; the menagerie distributed about in an Eden inspired from the Roman Campagna gives animation to a scene of rich fancy. Built for Scipio Borghese, the Rospigliosi Palace was at one time the property of Mazarin. After the death of the cardinal minister it became the residence of the French Em- bassy, and in 1704 passed into the hands of the Ros- pigliosi family. Let us now return to the street of the Quattro Fontane. The vast Barberini Palace, at which three genera- tions of architects worked, Charles Maderno, Borro- mini, and Bernini, rises above those hUly gardens THE BABBERINI PALACE. 47 whose lofty trees have seen pass beneath them the entire generation of the nephews of Urban VIII. The present masters of the Barberini Palace at one time gave up the ground-floor to our troops. Singular effect of the courteous wars of our time, a Roman prince has his dwelling over the quarters of some French cavalry ; they sound the morning drum under his windows, he might suppose himself a colonel of horse. For the rest, as soon as you mount the stair- case on the right, by Borromini, copied from Bra- mante, who took his model from Nicolo of Pisa ; or the staircase on the left, by Bernini, you have crossed the frontier. Rome declares herself in the peculiar characteristics of her patrician dwellings. The great hall which you approach by two staircases of honor, has on its ceiling an immense production by Peter of Cortona, the Triumph of Glory, capo d'' opera as far as knowledge and skill go, a swarming conception which escapes from aU the conditions of verisimilitude that had hitherto been respected in ceilings. On the walls an ancient picture of a Roman Masquerade, in- finitely curious ; in the neighboring rooms family por- traits and ancient busts. In the form of a sort of console a Madame Barberini of old days, travestied as Diana in repose, sleeps her last sleep over an enor- mous and ancient sarcophagus. Restored mausoleums in this way become here furniture for an antechamber or a dining-room. As for the gallery, which is situated in a low en- 48 EOME. tresol, one of its attractions is that it contains the original and indisputable portrait of a woman beloved by Raphael, whom tradition has made a female baker. Rome possesses five or six copies of it, all inferior to the authenticated example in the Palazzo Barberini. They show that the adorable brunette of the Tribuna of the Uffizi at Florence is not that friend of the painter whose real name was Margaret, and who is called La Fornarina, and I regret it for his sake, for the lady of the Uffizi is handsomer than the lady at Rome. The latter, as she is represented by the por- trait in the Barberini, is the reaction of an artist weary of the ideal, and of ethereal creations. She is a substantial, hearty woman in fuU bloom, whose nose drinks the wind with full respiration, she has little greedy eyes, and a mouth softened by laughter. The jet-black locks are harmonized with the skin by brown tones of burning warmth ; she has about her the sketch of a diaphanous robe. The signature of the master (or of the slave) is on a narrow circlet at- tached in the shape of a bracelet round the biceps of the left arm. One perceives that she was finely made, and the hands are pretty, but the model has less delicacy than frankness. The piece in its smoky tone is cleverly restored, but the hands and arms show vexatious indications of having been repainted. For anybody who knows the two portraits, that of Rome and that of Florence, two women who have not the most distant likeness, the once-celebrated LA FOKNAEINA. 49 ■work of Quatremere de Quincy on the works of Raphael loses much of its value. He expatiates gravely on the question as to whether it is the For- narina of the Pitti Palace, or its reproduction in the Barberini Palace, which is the true original. He can only have seen one of the two pictures, for it is very much as if one should ask which is the original of a portrait. Mademoiselle de la Valliere or Madame de Montespan. Aroimd this picture there are others of which one ought to speak if only in order to warn good souls against the pretensions of the catalogue. A Holy Family of Andrea del Sarto, that one of his pupils would have painted with a less awkward servility of imitation ; apocryphal Madonnas of Bellini, of Fran- cia, of that Antonio Razzi who is calumniated in more ways than one ; a Jesus among the Doctors, a bit of Teutonic barbarism, impudently attributed to Albert Diirer ; a cardinal's portrait which might compromise the name of Titian if the draperies were less dull ; a so-called portrait of Masaccio, in which they have only copied his cap : equivocal works which go to prove the oblivion of tradition even in a country so rich in subjects of study. A curious picture in this gallery is the Death of Grermanicus, by Poussin ; a canvas of fine color, dramatic sentiment, and great simplicity ; and with this master candor is hardly common. Probably, when he executed it, the artist had not yet become 4 50 EOME. so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of antiquity. A reminiscence of the etiquette of courts governs the arrangement of the Death of Germanicus: as we gaze at these Romans we are reminded of the warriors of Lebrun ; and invokmtarily look for Lauzun and the Marshal de la Feuillade by the pillow of the son of Drusus. Robbed of his mannerisms, and separated from his system, Poussin becomes less professorial and more pleasing. It is here also that we find the original of an ex- tremely sweet portrait of a young girl, reproduced in engravings of all sizes — the Beatrice de' Cenci of Gruido, a fascinating, suffering face, with a head- dress of white draperies heavily arranged — a melan- choly interesting figure, though a little too set. Michelangelo da Caravaggio, painted, in an effect of shadow after the manner of Rembrandt, with a head- dress still more massive, the mother of this heroine ; finally, a third picture, the best and the least re- marked, the portrait of a ripe beauty with an elegant sweep of outhne and a physiognomy expressive of calm cruelty, transmits to us, they say, the features of the step-mother of Beatrice, Lucrezia Petroni : this work is by Scipio of Gaeta. Not here, but a little later, we shall attempt to retrace that horrible tale. These fine portraits, especially the first, are suspected of being apocryphal ; in fact, although at the death of Beatrice, Reni was already four-and- twenty, it is doubtful whether he arrived at Rome THE SCIABEA GALLERY. 51 before the death of Clement VIII. Moreover, the portrait of the Cenci has less the air of a study ex- ecuted from nature, than of a head composed with the help of an earlier portrait. Guido may have executed afterwards an idealized likeness of the famous heroine. However this may be, to personify so romantic a victim no face could have been chosen more touching in expression or more sure to arouse pity. From the street of the Quattro Fontane to the Corso the distance is not great ; it is stiU less from the Barberini Gallery to the Sciarra Gallery, a col- lection which may be considered the tribuna or sanc- tuary of the other. This casket possesses in fact among some pebbles of the Rhine certain precious stones of fine water.* The two figures called Vanity and Modesty justify by their perfection the mistake of those who have so often attributed to Leonardo the works of Bernardino Luini, that affectionate ar- tist so loyal to the glorification of his master, like all who knew and loved that famous man. Between the Circe of Garofalo, a landscape where the companions of Ulysses are in the very act of being transformed into beasts, and the St. Sebastian of Perugino, Albert Diirer in the Death of the Virgin makes us pardon the country of his birth by force of his skill and simplicity. He rarely gains this triumph. Poussin has in this palace some curious canvases : * Most of the pictures of this collection have been sold, and the gallery can only be visited by special permission. 52 ROME. the St. Erasmus, whose bowels executioners are tear- ing out, a ghastly subject handled with vigor so as to be executed in mosaic, a picture with more energy and truth than his representation of St. Peter ; the St. Matthew writing, a very fine composition which has not become too dark ; the views of the banks of the Tiber, and of the Acqua Acetosa, rendered by a master who loved the sites and the district. But among smaller marvels are certain tiny land- scapes of Claude Lorraine ; one in particular, which, from the sides of the green crater into which heaven has poured the lake of Albano, represents on the horizon the crest of Castel Gandolfo. Another of these compositions, of a more elaborate finish, was painted on a plate of silver, a piece of far-fetched luxury to little purpose, which nobody can perceive, and that I should not know of but that the Princess Barberini since then revealed it to me in a Paris salon. The weight of a sUver mounting scarcely in- creases the value of the jewels of the master, Claude. Rome Triumphant, and the Death of St. John the Baptist, are the two most important pieces of Valen- tino ; the last especially being a painting of great power. From this picture to that of Michelangelo da Caravaggio — realist at a time when people did not yet possess words so ill compoimded — it is but a step. This picture will strike a simple spectator vividly, and may possibly arrest the passing connoisseur, and even the moralist, who usually only understands the vicious The Violin Player. Ra.pha.el. THE SCIARKA GALLERY. 53 sides of the arts. Two sharpers agree to pluck a pigeon; one posted behind the stripling marks on his fingers for his accomplice the number of points. The first is an old rascal, seamed, stamped, and branded by vice and infamy in every line of his face; the other, the accomplice who plays, pale, stooping, prematurely degraded, confronts with his debased adolescence the candid youth of his victim. From his doublet he withdraws a card, assuring him- self by an oblique and false glance of the success of his knavery. I have reserved to the last the Young Man with the Bow, or Viohnist of Raphael. It is here that we find this so justly renowned picture, dated 1518 and signed. Everybody recalls that delicate and femi- nine face, with its black cap so gracefully adjusted and posed above a broad collar of fur. Many artists have copied this masterpiece. Nobody in my opinion has seized it so well, nor drawn it with so much in- telligence, as Clement Chaplain, medallion-engraver, sculptor, and laureate of our school. These two palaces gave me a fancy for collections formed by families of the country, the intelligent luxuries of the Roman princes. Some disappointments, however, awaited me on the Corso, in the Doria Palace, whose salons, richly decorated in the time of Innocent X. with those daubings that our architects of the great reign imitated, exhibit among several masterpieces, mediocre copies and apocryphal pieces in great nam- 54 EOME. ber. The catalogues not being printed, it may be useful to point out the best pictures, and to mark among the golden ears parasitic blights, such as some MuriUos, several Andrea del Sartos and Francias that those masters never saw. Poussin, Van Dyck, Titian especially, are frequently compromised by cold imi- tators ; they give for an original of the last painter a weak enough copy of his Magdalen of the Pitti Palace. Wandering here and there, you come upon a fine Descent from the Cross in the style of the early painters of the north, attributed presumptuously to Hemling ; and a good portrait of a man, attributed to Giorgione. On the right of the great gallery let us notice a pretty little reader, by Lucas of Leyden, and let us unmask a copy of the Aldobrandine Nuptials, attributed very gratuitously to Poussin. In the centre of the bay you wiU be scandalized by portraits usurp- ing the names of Raphael, Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck. Those who have named these paltry things have not even paid any attention to the chronological indications furnished by the dress, for the way in which the pictures are assigned involves the most amusing blunders. Thus a rather viUanous copy of a picture of three faces in the Pitti Palace, which represents three Italians without beards, is thus de- scribed, " Calvin, Luther, and Catherine, by Gior- gione." Griorgio Barbarelli, who died in 151 1, can- not have painted the portrait of the wife of Luther, still less that of Calvin, who was born in 1509. THE DOEIA PALACE. 55 They attribute to Leonardo da Vinci a copy of the Joanna II. of Arragon that the catalogues of the Louvre properly assign to Raphael. The copy in the Doria Palace offers some variations, especially in the background, where a bright green curtain recalls Andrea di Solaria. This charming head of the granddaughter of Ferdinand I., who married the Constable Colonna, is known at Rome under the pseudonym of Queen Joanna of Naples. What more common than such blunders ! At Paris did they not take the Lucrezia CriveUi for La Belle Ferronniere ? This good and old copy of Madame Colonna has a false air of the school of Leonardo ; but the original, that we have had in our possession since the reign of Francis I., not having any very marked character- istics of a portrait by Raphael, recourse has been had to the usual expedient of throwing on to Giulio Ro- mano the execution of the body and the accessories. The painting by Claude, called " The Mill," con- tains all the poetry of the Roman Campagna. A river of some breadth, its basin cut off by a sluice, descends facing the spectator from the Alban hills which bound plains strewn with the ruins of aque- ducts ; at the back to the right is a small town in- spired by that picturesque Etruria of which the old painter dreamed before the ruins of the Latin towns ; on the other bank turns — at a comer of a rustic manufactory — a water-mill whose wheel shines like silver ; it contrasts with the small Temple of Vesta 56 ROME. seen at the foot of a hill ; the whole tones into a wide foreground of verdure plunged, by enormous trees, into thick translucent shadow, in which idyllic figures glance to and fro engaged in dancing and rustic games. The vigor, the intensity, the movement of this fore- ground, prolonged into a distant perspective, produce a dehcate and variegated light which fascinates our eyes and attracts them to the sky, to the Monte Gen- naro, the snows of the Apennines, and the remote hiUs which bound the Campagna. Before a diversity of detail like this we have difficulty in understanding such limpid tranquillity of effect and impression. There is nothing staring ; as in nature, you have to get accustomed and recognize the whole site little by little. After crossing several halls, in which nothing stops one but a spurious Filippo Lippi, you come to a very light boudoir, which of itself would justify this visit. You are received there by the great admiral, Andrea Doria, dressed in black, and having on his head a crumpled cap, which, like his capacious and worn garments, suggests the activity of a leader who cares but little for his person. The sailor has an unkempt and matted beard, a bronzed complexion, a piercing eye. The authority and gravity of a person of mark, the duplicity of the Genoese and the audacity of the corsair, complicate this strange physiognomy, ren- dered more pronounced by the bold forcible style of Sebastian del Piombo. Opposite the illustrious chief THE DOKIA PALACE. 57 of the Dorias is the great glory of the Pamphili, Pope Innocent X., by Velasquez. Between the two paint- ings the contrast is not less vivid than it was between the careers of the originals, the pontiff and the pirate. Innocent X., his high complexion and ruddy skin seeming to shine with moisture, blazes forth from a hood of red satin with a purple-colored background ; the figure is seated in a chair of orange-red velvet. The surprising harmony of all these staring tones, the life, that of actual flesh and blood, which circu- lates under the features with an exuberance that might have made Rubens despair, give to this por- ti'ait a superior rank among the works of Velasquez. The hands only, though drawn with feeling, are a little feeble. What shall I quote besides ? Some pretty repro- ductions of the Paradise of Breughel, and a Village Festival by Teniers ; a Holy Family by Bellini, wholly repainted ; a greenish monk, entitled the Confessor of Rubens, which would give prolonged amusement to the Antwerpers ; lastly, a Madonna col Bambino surrounded by two saints, attributed to Francesco Francia, which is an enchanting picture. Reduce this collection by three-fourths and you would have a charming gallery, in which everything would possess real worth. The surplus might serve to illustrate the art of manufacturing paintings after the manner of the different masters ; workshops of dishonesty which abounded in Rome in the last century. After 58 EOME. my visit to the Barberini Palace the features of the Beatrice de' Cenci remained in my memory, and I had vague dreams of seeking out the palace once in- habited by the actors in one of the most sombre tragedies of the past. I was stiU ignorant of the situ- ation of the house, when one day wandering about the city I took it into my head that chance had brought me to the quarter of the Cenci. At the entrance to the Trastevere by the Ponte Rotto, at the back of the chapel of San Crispino, which is kept by a sacristan who does his cooking in a cassock in the middle of the street, I had gone down to view the old arches of the bridge, and the charm- ing spot which takes life from the round Temple of the Sun, the cypresses and the ruins of the Palatine, when I found myself in a small piazza of a very sin- gular kind. It is irregular, steep, fringed with de- cayed houses, or rather with nests constructed in old feudal walls, the whole attaching itself to the chevet of the chapel, and in a state of dilapidation truly sin- ister. By means of flights of mouldering steps erect- ed against the party-walls of this cut-throat spot, windows turned into doors furnish an approach to dens of filthiness ; on cords stretched from one wall to another swing in the wind tattered things washed in the mud of the Tiber ; old broken pots adorn windows without frames or glass ; horrible hags in mud-colored rags and half-dressed men appear about the door- ways. But in the midst of these peeling walls, which THE CENCI PALACE. 59 have been perhaps patched ever since the days of an- tiquity, there shines a great armorial escutcheon from which stand out the forked antlers of a heraldic stag. How comes it that the half-worn device carved on this stone is that of the Cenci of Bologna ? This can only be explained by the great numbers of domains that the house possessed ; still as I deciphered this un- expected record, I was all the more persuaded that I had discovered the ruins of the palace of Beatrice, as I knew it to be situated in a poor quarter in the neighborhood of the river. To put away all doubt I proceeded to ask some half-dressed girls who were chattering in front of a door under a pretence of sew- ing. They referred me to a matron who was selling with an air of great importance three bundles of vege- tables, and who, having convoked the whole quarter to make out my meaning, pointed out to me on the other bank beyond the Quattro Capi, towards the rione of the tanners, the situation of the Cenci Bolog- netti Palace. So I looked once more at the unknown cloaca of the chevet of San Crispino, into which per- haps no painter has ever ventured, and then went in search of the palace that I thought I had found. The aspect of the house is scarcely less appropriate to the melodrama which has made the name of the Cenci so familiar. It is in the corner of a small choked and uneven piazza that the old entry to the palace hides itself under a truncated tower, the palace on this side presenting a square outline. Iron cross- 60 EOME. bars impress on the fa9ade a character of mystery and duress ; one of the gates, arched and carved, is surmounted by an antique mask of a Medusa of a dreary and tearful expression. In the other corner of the piazza, shut in and lugubrious as the court of an old dungeon, Francesco Cenci — he who was assas- sinated — had raised towards 1575, to the honor of St. Thomas, a small oratory, an inscription on the wall recording the fact. There are also fitted into the ad- joining walls two small cippi or funeral altars, bear- ing the name of one Marcus Cintius. These were the Cenci stone charters, for their boast was that they had descended from this Cintius, as the Muti descended from Mutius Scajvola. They would have been more happily inspired had they claimed kinship with Lucius Cincius Alimentus, who, 153 before our era, being prsetor in Sicily, was made prisoner by Hannibal, of whom he wrote a history, quoted by Macrobius and praised by Livy. But the ignorance of the feudal barons was as great as their vanity, as is frequently proclaimed by pretensions of this sort. The Santa Croce boasted of being of the line of Valerius Publi- cola : hence the name of Santa Maria de Publicolis given to the church where they have their burying- places, among which, besides fine monumental stones of the fourteenth century, one ought to mention a magnificent Florentine mausoleum. The continuation of the Cenci Palace, in the inside of which there is nothing to recall any longer the THE EIPETTA. 61 contemporaries of Clement VIII., extends to another larger and lower square in front of the synagogue. The principal existing entry is surmounted by the in- scription, Cenci BoLOGNETTi; but the heirs of the name do not live in the palace. It was in the Castle of St. Angelo — Hadrian's mole — that Roman version of the Tower of Nesle, that the terrible tragedy of their ancestors came to its end. You can by making some turns approach this strange- outKned monument by alleys that isolate and set oS the massive and imposing prison-house. Before going down so far as this, the Tiber de- scribes a semicircle which, encroaching on the most populous streets in Rome, seems to throttle the hand- some quarters lying between the Pincian and the river. It is at the angle of the elbow formed by the Tiber that Clement XI. constructed the little port of Ripetta, with wide steps that make the approach easy for the people, who in this busy street unload firewood, wine, oil, grain, and the other produce which comes down from the Sabine country and from Um- bria. The port of Ripetta, opening a few paces from the Corso on the much-frequented street which leads from the Piazza del Popolo to the vicinity of the Piazza Navone, fronts a deserted plot which has never been built upon, and whose verdure serves as a ped- estal for the Monte Mario situated in the background.* * This tract has now been laid out in new streets and rows of modem houses. 62 EOME. To reach the other side, the castle of St. Angelo, and the suburbs of the Borgo, through the fields, thej established perhaps twenty centuries since a ferry which, leaving the most lively centre of the city, ended in a sandy solitude. In less than five minutes, the time required to go from one bank to the other, you were transported from the greasy, muddy, much- betrodden pavement of the Via di Repetta, to a track bordered as the winter came to an end with green elders, with blackthorns already in blossom and eglan- tine in bud. The narrow beaten path had for its set- ting clumps of lotus and violet. By turning to the right, you came to the fields where Cincinnatus, forty minutes away from the Campus Martins, lived so far from Rome ; he would be scarcely separated from it in our day. If you went straight forward instead of turning to the north, you reached pastures, miniature gardens, cottages which the people of Marseilles call hastides and the Romans vignes. There were some country houses among the farms, whose courtyards, all encumbered with rustic implements, served as a close for chickens, geese, and sheep. The city, cut off by a strip of water, was but fifty metres off; the noise of public vehicles mingled with the song of the lark. The stretch of the Tiber, St. Peter, and in the background the side of the Castle of St. Angelo, vast and sombre, bound in this little nook of solitude. It is very surprising that having absorbed, on one bank as well as on the other, three-quarters of that THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO. 63 circumference of which the stream describes a half, the city should not have invaded for so long the ground which under the Caesars woidd have connect- ed the Flaminian Way with the habitations across the Tiber, and which ever since the time of Constan- tino would have placed the rich quarter of the town in direct communication with the strong Castle of the Popes and the Vatican. But no one, and here is a trait which illustrates Roman sedileship, no one ever bethought him of throw- ing a bridge across the port of Ripetta, that desert strip that bounds the city at this point. Until com- paratively lately one boat sufficed for the traffic, and the pathway that had been beaten for two thousand years has never grown larger, so scanty was the number of town-folk who thought themselves rich enough to shorten their road by making use of a boat- man in whose palm you had to leave a halfpenny.* In spite of the original head-dress with which the popes from the time of Boniface IX. have crowned it, the tower-shaped burying-place of the Antonines, which is not less than six hundred feet in circumfer- ence, still preserves an equivocal and sinister ex- pression, especially when viewed from the river, or from the poor districts of which I have spoken. Transformed in the middle ages into a prison and a fortress ; disguised afterwards as the residence of a * The Ponte Eipetta or Cavour now spans the river at this point. 64 EOME. prince, then used as a barrack, the mole of Hadrian, of which the Orsini in the fourteenth century made a lair for themselves, has never been able to rid itself of the look of that for which it was originally in- tended ; before the postern one stiU expects to see a coffin go in and an executioner come out. These sepulchral dungeons were then the fashion. Without mentioning those on the Appian Way, let us remember that on the other bank, near the Ripetta there rose, and stiU stands in part, the model of the Castle of St. Angelo, the mole built by Augustus for the Caesars of his family. We may as well say a few words about it, if only to show the uselessness of troubling oneself to go there. It is a thick, large circular erection encumbered by surrounding buildings. Its walls of opus reticulatum. The Colonna fortified it and quartered themselves there in the middle ages. But now, irony of fate, that vast columbarium, where, with the exception of Nero, most of the Csesars down to Hadrian reposed, has been converted into a second-rate theatre and circus, where daily performances are given. What a monstrous melodrama is the history of the Castle of St. Angelo ! It only wore a comparatively smiling look in the days when it received the dead. Procopious paints it for us during that first epoch ; the immense three-storied rotunda, surmounted by a pyra- midal roof, crowned by a huge bronze fir-cone, had its sides covered with Parian marble, intersected with THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO. 65 columns and surmounted with a ring of G-reek statues ; the first story was a quadrangular basement decorated with festoons, and tablets with funeral inscriptions, and colossal equestrian groups in gilt bronze at the four corners. Round the monument was an iron grating surmounted by peacocks, also in gilt. In 537 this fine structure was still intact ; but Vitiges having attacked it, the defenders broke up the statues, in order to hurl the pieces on the assailants. During the three centuries which followed, the mole of Hadrian, connected from the time of Honorius per- haps, with the defences of the city, served as a for- tress. It was to entrench himself there that the patrician Crescentius, who wished (974) to restore the Roman republic, made himself master of it. He even held it tolerably long, as the building took from him the name of Castel Crescenzio. But, aided by Grregory V., the Emperor Otto invaded Rome and massacred Crescentius with his principal partisans at a banquet, and the tomb of Hadrian once more changed hands. Half a century before, this spot had been the theatre of a tragedy which followed a period of strange saturnalia. An incongruous relic of antique profli- gacy and of the monstrosities of the lower empire, drawing a mischievous power from feudal institutions, Theodora, a Roman lady, illustrious for her rank and her beauty, quartered herself in the year 908 in the Castle of St. Angelo, from whence she exercised over 66 EOME. Rome a complete tyranny, sustained against German influence by an Italian party, which counted among its chiefs Adalbert II., Count of Tuscany, the father of this Messalina. Theodora caused several pontiffs to be deposed, and nominated eight popes success- ively. She had a daughter as beautiful and as powerful as herself, and still more depraved. Ma- rozia, so she was called, reigned likewise in the Castle of St. Angelo, and caused the election of Sergius III., Anastasius III., and John X., a creature of Theodora, who had had him nominated to the bishopric of Ra- venna. Early left a widow by the death of a Mar- quis of Tusculum, and married to Gruido, Prince of Tuscany, Marozia speedily had John X. suffocated in the Castle of St. Angelo ; then united by a third mar- riage to Hugo of Provence, brother of her second husband, after having successively placed on the pon- tifical throne Leo VI. and Stephen VIII., she gave the tiara to John XI., one of her younger sons. She had only too many children, for one of them im- prisoned in this same dungeon both his mother and his brother, the Pope, and there destroyed them. Such at that time, under the brutal pressure of feudal anarchy, had the chair of St. Peter come to. The Castle of St. Angelo, from the seventh to the ninth century, is found connected with all the out- rages and all the factions that desolated Rome ; and, down to the end of the fourteenth, its history is not very different. It was then that Boniface IX., a THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO. 67 Neapolitan by birth, began the alterations which brought it to its present form. Alexander VI. con- tinued the restorations, and completed the covered passageway begun by John XXIII., which connects the Castle with the Vatican. This idea proved profitable (1527) to Clement VII., when he was obliged, in order to escape from the hordes of the Constable de Bourbon, to seek an inviolable asylum in the thick walls of the Castle of St. Angelo. Before entering, let us recall the manner in which it acquired the name that time has consecrated. In the year 590, as St. Gregory the Great, recently called to the pontificate by the people and the bishops, was bewailing the pestilence that was decimating his flock, he ordered a general procession to the tomb of St. Peter to implore the removal of this scourge. The procession was headed by Pope Gregory himself, who walked with naked feet. As it crossed the Tiber on the jElian Bridge, buUt by Hadrian, a bridge which stiU stands and confronts his mausoleum, suddenly above the mole Gregory saw, emerging from the clouds and appearing to him as a symbol of hope, the radiant Archangel St. Michael. Thus it was not by any means, as the guide-books have it, on account of the bronze statue placed on the top by Benedict XIV. that the mole became the Castel Sant' Angelo. Any book on the subject would show that it has been called so for a thousand years. Every country possesses among its judicial annals some never-to-be-forgotten 68 EOME. drama of which legend takes possession. The mid- dle ages had among ourselves the adventures of G-abrielle de Vergy and of Aubri de Montdidier; later, the assassination of the Marquise de Ganges and the poisonings of Madame Brinvilliers supplied stories for an evening. In Italy, and at Rome espe- cially, these atrocities have never been rare ; the great school is there. But nothing equals the inter- est, and nothing has counterbalanced the renown, of Beatrice de' Cenci. The family was extremely rich, and in possession of a sombre kind of celebrity of remote date ; for it boasted of counting in its ancestral stock Crescentius, that consul of whom we have just spoken, and who took up his quarters in the Castle of St. Angelo, where we see the prison of his descendants. It was one of the Cenci who, being stationed on Christmas night in the same dungeon, by Henry IV., while Gregory VII. was celebrating mass seized him at the altar and dragged him by the hair out of the sanctuary to throw him into a cell. These examples had per- haps contributed to maintain a violent spirit in the family, of which the most odious shoot was, towards the end of the sixteenth century, that Francesco Cenci who had inflicted on three of his sons the most abominable and unspeakable outrages ; who had the second and the third assassinated ; who over- whelmed his daughter and his second wife with ill-usage ; and who, twice convicted of the most in- THE STOEY OF THE CENCI. 69 famous crimes, escaped the penalties by bribing his judges. Taking pity on the eldest among the children, as well as on the eldest of the two sisters, the Pope had rescued the sons from a degrading yoke and married off the daughter, at the same time compelling Fran- cesco to give her a dower. Afterwards, the young children of the monster, Beatrice and Bernardino, as well as Lucrezia Petroni, their step-mother, losing the necessary courage to go on bearing the ill-treat- ment that lay so heavy on them, addressed to Clem- ent Vm. a most touching memorial, imploring his pity and protection. Their supplication miscarried and remained unanswered, to the despair of Lucrezia and of Beatrice, who abhorred in her father the dis- honorer of the family and the murderer of her two brothers. At last, one night when Francesco Cenci was at the quarters of the Colonna, in the castle of Rocca di Petrella in the kingdom of Naples, he was assassi- nated by unknown hands and in the most singular manner. During his sleep, two enormous nails were driven into his eyes with a hammer, a feat which im- plied the co-operation of two accomplices at least. This took place the 15th of September, 1598. Lu- crezia was at once suspected. On the first inquiries, Guerra, a very handsome monsignore who passed for the chosen friend of the young Beatrice, took to flight, after procuring the murder of one of the two 70 EOME. assassins whose tracks had been discovered and who was called Olimpio. The other, named Marzio, ar- rested and put to the torture, declared that he as well as his slain comrade had been hired by Jacopo, Lu- crezia, and Beatrice de' Cenci, seconded by Gruerra, who, having put their victim to sleep with a narcotic draught, then introduced the two bravi into his room, where Lucrezia had placed in their hands the nails that were to be the instruments of vengeance. After that they had given them a thousand crowns of gold. At the first rumor of these inquiries, the female De' Cenci returned tranquilly with the two sons to their palace at Rome where the Pope placed sentinels to hold them under arrest. Marzio was transferred to the pontifical prisons, where he repeated his dec- larations ; but, on being confronted with Beatrice, he was so crushed by her reproaches, her denials, and the ascendancy of that marvellous beauty, that he re- tracted all, and persisted thenceforth in his denial even in the midst of the tortures which at last killed him. It was at this stage of this extraordinary trial that a strange turn of events was brought about by an un- expected circumstance. The whole of Rome absorbed in the affair was ofi'ering vows for two beautiful, young, oppressed women. The recantation of Mar- zio was then all the better received by the judges, as Beatrice had endured the torture with superhuman courage, while she protested her innocence. THE STOKY OF THE CENCI. 71 But while the issue hung in the balance, the police arrested for some offence a ruffian, who was recog- nized as the assassin of Olimpio, the second murderer of the count. The witness thus suddenly raised up confirmed the first deposition of Marzio. This story- charged the two women, as well as Jacopo and Guerra. The whole family of the Cenci was thrown into the Castle of St. Angelo, where the proceedings were re- sumed and slowly persevered in. Beatrice de' Cenci confronted for nearly a year the most acute tortures without a word of confession. Such was the interest excited by her courage that even the judges were subjugated by the attractions of her youth and eloquence. It became necessary to take the case from them and to entrust it to more callous persons. Her elder brother and her mother- in-law, their constancy worn out, then confessed ; the young Bernardino, a stranger to the whole affair and knowing nothing of it, confessed all that they wished, in order to escape from that gehenna. Later on his innocence was demonstrated. Why should one not regard as acquitted all the wretches condemned on their own testimony thus extracted by torment f But it was in vain that they opposed to the young heiress of the Cenci the crushing evidence of her family ; she persisted in the enthusiastic declaration of her inno- cence. No threat, no torment vanquished her ; and her tenacity suspended the doom of the accused. The winter passed in this way ; Beatrice was com- 72 BOME. pared to Lucretia, to Virginia, to Clelia, Roman women of the heroic time, whose firmness she recalled while she surpassed their charms. At length one day, in order to apply some new torture, they pre- pared to cut off her hair ; they were fair locks, the most silken, the longest, the most marvellous in color ever seen. Beatrice grew pale ; she was vehemently stirred, and, repelling the executioner, cried out, " Touch not my head; let me die without mutilation!" Sad wage for so much bravery ! She destroyed herself to save her tresses; and by a full confession confirmed all the deposition. They were all four condemned to die, a decree against which Beatrice protested by a fierce access of indignation that found an echo in every soul. In the city, in the palaces, even in the cloisters they talked of nothing else. If the valor of this noble soul had won for her so much sympathy, judge of the effect wrought on a population of artists and poets by the unforeseen weakness, childlike and truly touch- ing, by which the young maiden and the woman had betrayed the heroine ! It was a delirium of adoration; and Clement VIII. was inclined to yield to the cur- rent of feeling, when, by a second stroke of fate, one Massini poisoned his father. Other crimes of this kind already weighed heavily on the nobles ; the Pope, resolved on making an example, confirmed the judg- ment on the four prisoners. Such a sentence, un- doubtedly unjust so far as it touched the young Ber- THE STORY OF THE CENCI. 73 nardino, and of doubtful equity, as we must confess, with reference to the others, revolted the whole city. Cardinals and religious corporations, magistrates and citizens, threw themselves at the knees of the Pontiff, urgently seeking a revision of judgment. Clement VIII., yielding to this request, supplied the Cenci with skilful champions, Nicolo de' Angeli and Fari- nacci, and ordered the case to be argued in his pres- ence. Officially appointed to plead before the Holy Father, the two advocates displayed irresistible elo- quence ; recalling the abominations of Francesco Cenci twice snatched from justice, and the probable murder of his sons, Farinacci argued that such a monster must have created a host of foes and stirred up against him more than one avenger. He had the art of convincing and softening to such a degree, that the Pope left the hearing profoundly moved. Every- body then was in expectation of mercy when, third fatal incident ! while the case was yet pending, a young Marquis of Santa Croce assassinated his mother. Did the Pope believe himself warned by heaven and exhorted to harshness ? In any case, from this moment he remained inflexible ; and having pardoned Bernardino, whose innocence was notorious, he gave the order for hastening the execution, forc- ing the youthful son of the Cenci to look on at the butchery of his family. The judicial agony of these unhappy souls had lasted a year. 74 HOME. They were to be slain on the 8th of September, 1599, but it was the festival of the Holy Virgin. It was Beatrice who thought of this, and who, that the day of the Madonna might not be stained with blood, implored the respite of a few hours — an act of piety which rendered her fate still more touching. On the morning of the 9th, the Pope Aldobrandini, in order to be absent from the scene of punishment, quitted Rome ; he passed before the Castle of St. An- gelo, over the bridge that was soon to be trodden by the condemned. A pontiff of erudition, the son of an illustrious man of letters, Clement VIII. was not in- accessible to pity ; he only went as far as a convent that was near the walls, so that being warned by three discharges of cannon of the fatal moment, he might absolve the poor creatures about to die. When the booming resoimded through the air, the Pope raised himself; went through the form of plenary ab- solution and then fell back almost swooning. Had he seen what was passing at the same hour in that section of the piazza of the bridge of St. Angelo, lying between the quay and the opening of the streets Paolo and del Banco di San Spirito, what would he then have done, what thought then of his justice ! For the punishment of these three victims, there had been organized there, under the name of man- naja, a sort of machine with a knife whose clumsy action perhaps retarded for two centuries the great political machine of 1793. The heat was suffocating; The Castle of S. Angfclo. THE STOEY OF THE CENCI. 75 the sun poured down on the crowd held in by horse- Men ; the carriages were crowded together up to the very edge of the scaffold ; the three open spaces were densely thronged ; from the streets, from the piazza, from windows, from roofs, everybody could see ad- vancing across the bridge in front of the huge and massive dungeon of the Antonines, the sinister pro- cession. The condemned ascended the scaffold, which was placed on the open space before the stat- ues of St. Peter and St. Paul. Soon this crowd, which had been already stirred to the heart by the youth and beauty of Beatrice de' Cenci, saw with hor- ror Lucrezia, who was large and corpulent, struggling for shame, held down and uncovered under the hands of the executioner, while the knife hacked her throat. The shrieks of the wretched woman were answered by cries of horror from the depths of the crowd. Whilst the rage of the people directs itself to the scaffold, and the horses of the soldiers rear against the carriages, which are thrown in their turn on the women and children crushed in the shock, the execu- tioners, dripping with blood and stricken with con- fasion, hasten to cut off the head of Beatrice ; and as Giacomo de' Cenci mastering with his voice the tu- mult that surrounded him, denounces the sentence which makes their young brother a witness of the ap- palling scene, bitter shrieks answer him — the shrieks of Bernardino, torn by convulsions, and who was hur- 76 KOME. ried away at the moment when he saw one of the executioners raise a mass of iron over Giacomo and strike him down like an ox. His body was cut into four quarters in the pres- ence of the crowd ; those of the women remained ex- posed until nightfall on the bridge of St. Angelo, and after that, Beatrice de' Cenci, being claimed by a re- ligious company, was buried behind the altar of St. Peter in Montorio, at the foot of the Transfiguration of Raphael. By her will, the reading of which raised to its height the feeling of compassion that already surrounded this heroine, she disposed of a part of her property in dowering and marrying fifty young girls. But nearly all the property of the Cenci was confiscated, an in- cident of condemnations which never helped to make them less frequent ; by means of this acquisition a few years after, by the wish of Paul X., the domains of the Cenci were given to his nephews. In this way one estate of the condemned became the Villa Bor- ghese, a spoliation which rendered this terrible tragedy yet more unpopular. A report of the execution found in the Vatican, and researches made a few years ago among the ar- chives of the family by a Cenci Bolognetti, threw light on an event that had been travestied in ro- mances and on the stage. Guerrazzi alone is trust- worthy as to facts, but not for the induction which he draws from them; his book is declamatory and INTEEIOE OF HADEIAN'S MOLE. 77 common.* It was under the influence of this tragic history that I entered the Castle of San Angelo. Down the circular passage, which slopes spirally by a gentle inclination to the foundations of the tower, roll a cannon-ball ; it will disappear in the shadow, and then continuing to roll on the arena awaken a multitude of echoes, conveying to the ear with the prolonged sound of thunder an impression of great distance. In the heart of the dungeon a lofty vault with niches hollowed out to receive Colossi, marks the old Columbarium of the Antonines. The solid structure of this Roman catacomb, smoky from the torches which with their tongues of resinous fire half- reveal its lines, gives it a character all the more mys- terious and solemn, inasmuch as sounds are swallowed up there just as light is. The useless splendor of mosaics and facings of Parian marble was lavished on this densely black chamber; while in the corridors was preserved by means of a few pyramidal loop- holes a memory of the light. The modem prisons, that is to say those of the last three centuries, have been arranged in the upper stories; they consist of cells, small dingy rooms sur- rounding an oblong court, where for the grandiose ferocity of absolute rule and arbitrary power is sub- stituted the mean ughness of a wretched social insti- * The above account differs in many particulars from that which appears in Beatrice Cenci Romana, Storia dd Secolo, xvi., Baccontata dd D. A. A. Firenze, quoted by A. J. C. Hare. 78 KOME. tution. You will have shown to you the dungeons of the Cenci and many others ; you will be invited to shudder over prisons .... which are the repository of the archives. It is among some pleasant rooms decorated by the school of Raphael that you must seek the chamber in which, by order of Pius IV., was strangled Cardinal Caratfa, nephew of the previous Pope, on the same day on which his brother Prince Paliano had his head cut off; this room in which an old rancor was gratified against the nephew of Paul IV. is designated quite naturally Chamber of Justice. Zuccheri, who has there depicted the Virtues in fresco, has endowed that of Justice with graces that are perhaps slightly deceptive, while on the doors and walls of these apartments, decorated by order of Car- dinal Crispo and recently occupied by a French com- mandant, pupils of Giovanni d'Udine or Perino del Vaga have traced elegant arabesques by way of frames for divers pieces of local history. PECULIAK CUSTOMS. 79 CHAPTER IV. When a prince or princess of Rome dies, the body is clothed in robes of ceremony and laid out on a state-bed, beneath a canopy, where it remains ex- posed in the midst of a constellation of tapers for the benefit of the populace. You will not be edified, as in our country, by the tender assiduity of the relatives nor by their affectionate regard for the dying. At Rome, and throughout nearly all Italy, when a sick person is in extremis, the family flee from the house : a husband, a beloved wife, a father, a grandfather, dies abandoned; the last gaze meets only hired faces. This custom, which speaks clearly as to the real re- ligion of the people of Rome, has for its origin the rather pagan dread of being bewitched ; they im- agine that the dying have the evil-eye. No train of friends and relatives goes to the cemetery ; the pro- cession — a procession of state (more decent at Rome, however, than in Tuscany, where at night-time, and lighted by torches, the dead are borne along so swiftly) — is only recruited from among the religious orders. It is joined by the servants, the carriages of the defunct, his horses if he has any, and his dogs, very likely, if their inclination carries them thither. Nothing is lighter than the temperament of a de- 80 ROME. monstrative and violent people. When the Romans suffer affliction, they hasten to apply alteratives and drench the stomach. One day I accompanied a friend to a trattoria, where the host and hostess with two marriageable daughters were sitting together. My companion inquired the reason why the house had been closed on the preceding evening. " Alas !" re- plied the father, " they were carrying our son to the grave ; we are deeply afflicted !" Whilst my friend brings forward the usual for- mulas of condolence, there comes up an apothecary with four bottles, which he places in a row upon the table, and as the father, the mother, and the two daughters each seize one, the landlady says to us, in a pathetic tone, " One may well take rimedio for such deep grief!" They shake them off, these deep griefs, with a good deal of courage. I remember that on the eve of the funeral of the father of a family, I saw the widow and the two daughters all dressed up to go out. " Poor things !" said the mother ; " they have wept so much that they need some distraction. For me, I only do it on their account. . . ." She was taking them to the play ! After wandering about for a long time without see- ing anything of note in the labyrinth of alleys that separates the Roman College from the bridge of St. Angelo ; near the Via Sant' ApoUinare, in the alley of the Maschera d'Oro, and opposite, if I am not POLIDORO DA CARAVAGGIO. 81 much mistaken, the Camuccini Palace, chance made me lift my eyes to a suiSciently sombre house and disclosed to me a work of art but little known, which I think it my duty to point out. The fa9ade of this house is covered with paintings ; those filling the spaces between the windows are large figures, very much effaced ; but below, a high and long frieze rep- resents the fable of Niobe, executed in chiaroscuro by Polidoro da Caravaggio, classed among the pupils of Raphael, but who must have worked more with Giovanni d'Udine and Giulio Romano. In love with the ancient sculptures, this master delighted in deco- rations done in white and black, which when handled with vigor are like bas-reliefs. His friezes, with their brown and neutral tints, are like finely shaded cameos. The artist has substituted movement for color effects. One rarely sees ancient figures grouped in a succession of actions so violent, or subjects of such animation presented with more classic regular- ity. This is assuredly one of the best works of Poli- doro, and that which gives the most just idea of his talents. Unhappily this frieze has not been engraved; it is lost in a corner where nobody passes, and time daily effaces more and more of a nearly forgotten masterpiece. The chances of this walk brought me, as I fol- lowed the Via di Tor- Argentina, behind the Pantheon, to a souvenir of a very different nature, which did not fail to interest me, for I suddenly came upon the 6 82 ROME. house of one of the most famous saints of the Church, St. Catherine of Siena, situated in the Via de Santa Chiara. Having finally seen the object of years of fasting and prayer accomplished — the Papal throne established at Rome — and having herself accompanied Gregory XI. thither, she died at the early age of two- and-thirty, worn out by a life of privation and toil ; and was buried in the neighboring Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The Venetian Palace, near S. Marco, is a purely Florentine building and of a fine epoch. The church, belonging to the same period, has been made young again after the Roman manner. Both were built in 1468, not by Giuliano da Majano, as Vasari says, but, as is proved from a contemporary chronicle quoted by Muratori, by one Francesco di Borgo San Sepol- cro. Mino da Fiesole executed, they say, nearly all the sculptures : but we may be permitted to doubt that. Pope Paul II., who was Pietro Barbo, a Venetian, reconstructed the church that Gregory IV. had already restored in 833, and that had been founded in 336 by the Pope St. Mark in honor of the Evangelist his patron. Paul II. could not be content without hav- ing a fine church freshly decorated in the neighbor- hood of a palace in which he lived, and where after him nineteen pontiffs dwelt more or less ; it was to this natural desire that the oratory of Gregory IV. was sacrificed, of which, however, they respected the tribuna on account of its ninth-century mosaic which THE BAKBO PALACE. 83 has for predella the symbohcal lamb with its twelve sheep, but which is otherwise extremely rude. The portico of this temple is graceful, and its doorway exquisite. A sermon had attracted a number of women to the church ; it was charming to see them leaning against some piUar, their heads enveloped in a sort of hood, their eyes uplifted and attentive, like the holy women in an old painting. As it is forbidden to the sex to enter a church bareheaded, at Rome, where women of every age go out without a head-dress even in winter, they attend a mass or a fumione wearing hoods made out of their shawls or use their handker- chiefs for head-dresses. This rule dates from the primitive church ; I believe even St. Paul says some- thing on the subject. The Barbo Palace cost the friends of antiquity dear ; for its walls were built of materials plundered from the Cohseum, which was turned into a quarry. Charles VIII. took up his abode there in 1494, when he was on his expedition against the kingdom of Naples. It was Pius IV., and not Clement VIII. (Aldobrandini), who ceded this residence to the Venetian Republic, as a reward for having been the first to acknowledge the Council of Trent. The Republic installed her ambassadors there. Then when the Austrians took possession of the Lombardo- Venetian provinces, they annexed the palace of Venice by right of conquest, and estab- lished their legation there. As they had acquired it 84 ROME. with the territory of Venice, so, if I mistake not, they ought to have restored it when they surrendered the province, for it was to the diocese and state of Venice that the popes gave it.* Finding it necessary to take a Httle rest, on reach- ing Trajan's forum, 1 entered S. Maria di Loreto, the little octangular church, the cupola of which Antonio of San Gallo ornamented with such a beautiful lan- tern, and paid a visit to the St. Susannah of Francis Duquesnoy, one of the most exquisite statues pro- duced by the seventeenth century. The masterpiece of the estimable Duquesnoy re- called to me that the little church of St. Francesca Romana, at the left of the Sacred Way, contains the work of another French artist. So I went there. It is not to vaunt the carvings designed by Bernini on the tomb of Francesca, a Roman lady of the fif- teenth century who, under the title of Oblates, founded an order of Beguines in Rome, that I shall mention this little church ; nor to point out the tomb of our compatriot Gregory XI., who re-established the pontifical see at Rome after seventy-two years of exile. I shall content myself with mentioning some interesting objects that people sometimes fail to see, and of which the guides say nothing. There is, to begin with, beliind the high altar a mosaic of the * The palace . . . is still the residence of the Austrian ambas- sador, to whom it was specially reserved on the cession of Venice to Italy. — Augustus Hare's Walks in Rome, p. 85. S. LORENZO IN MIEANDA. 85 tenth century, which represents the Virgin sur- rounded by four saints, separated from one another by arches and columns.* In a transept on the left are two pictures attributed to Perugino ; one is of the school of Francia, and the other might very well be the work of a rare master — Grerino da Pistoja.f Let us also make honorable mention of a good piece of work of our countryman Peter Subleyras, native of Uzes. It decorates the altar of one of the chapels, and represents St. Placida restoring life to a child ; a very religious conception, of lofty aspect and striking effect ; Lesueur might well have put his name to it. The Louvre possesses a reduced repro- duction of this picture, but the idea of the master has become very cold in it. I also recall the beautiful equestrian figure in bas-relief of a Paduan Condot- tiere of the fifteenth century, whose tomb was deco- rated by a Florentine. The church of S. Lorenzo in Miranda is built upon a part of the pagan temple of Antoninus and Faus- tina, with its travertine cella, crowned with a frieze on which grifiins sport, separated by candelabra and vases, and whose columns, the greatest monoliths of cipollino known, have for diadem an entablature of enormous blocks of Carrara. The columns of the hexastyle are not less than forty-three feet high ; under the emperors you ascended twenty-one steps * Kugler attributes these mosaics to the ninth century, t This picture lias been removed. 86 EOME. to reach the temple ; these steps were removed to St. Peter's in 1540. A Httle farther on we come to three high and broad apses in which the eye seeks, as if on the threshold of three caverns, to pierce the darkness, and which the ignorant call the Arches of Peace. The remains of this building, whose plan is not at the first glance intelligible, are so massive and thick, that we should be mistaken as to their height if the people of the neighborhood, who have worn a short cut under these naves, did not give us so many opportunities of comparing with the size of the blocks, as well as with the scattered foundations of the fallen parts, the lili- putian proportions of a passer-by. The arches are more than sixty feet in span ; and the weight of the immense marble cornices must be tremendous. For many years these ruins and the mystery about them filled the popular imagination. Some authors since the fifteenth century have fancied that they recognized in them the Temple of Peace erected by Vespasian : an inscription from the Capitol found in the neighborhood gave rise to this supposition, which, however, is no longer tenable. The character of the architecture, the plan, which is that of a basilica, the testimony of the annalists, the marks stamped on the bricks employed in the construction — everything de- notes that it is later, and must be attributed to Maxen- tius, the rival of Gonstantine. BUILDINGS OF IMPEBIAL EOME. 87 In this neighborhood the ancient city seems to pro- long itself indefinitely. At the bottom of a street not far from the basilica you see in a row the columns of the Temple of Mars Ultor, which stood in the centre of the forum of Augustus ; the adjoining wall is pierced by an enormous arch, which goes by the name of Arco dei Pantani. Turning to the right we reach the site of a Forum, sometimes called Transitorium, from the thoroughfare leading through it, and some- times Forum of Nerva, because though begun by Domitian it was completed by that Emperor. At the corner of the Via deUa Croce Bianca is the ruin called the Colonnacce, the remains, according to some, of a temple to Minerva erected there by Domitian. The fiieze has bas-reliefs of charming execution, but much damaged. Below these marbles, these rehefs, this foliage of acanthus and laurel, a baker has his stall and his oven. Near this are the triumphal arches which have served as models for so many votive buildings. Like the custom of triumphs, these vaulted arches are of Roman origin ; the oldest was raised in the year 634, two years after the death of Caius Gracchus, in honor of Fabius Maximus AUobrogicus, who had conquered Savoy. The three most splendid types of this form of structiire are found not very far from one another, and on the road along which the triumphs passed. What a marvel is the smallest of the three ! It is that of Septimius Severus, which marks the old level »» EOME. of the Forum at the foot of the steps of the Temple of Concord. It was surmounted by a car with six horses, in which the emperor was seen seated between his two sons. The dedicatory inscription is pecuHarly interesting from the fact that one may plainly discern the place where Caracalla substituted the words OPTI- Mis FOETISSIMISQUE PEINCIPIBUS for the name of his brother Geta, after he had caused the latter to be put to death. The marble, hacked, rough, ill-polished, the new characters cut in afterwards — aU this seems of yesterday. I had previously explored, with impatient curiosity, the Arch of Titus, entirely bared of the castrum with which in the middle ages the Frangipani had over- loaded it. What a glorious effect is produced from three or four different points of view by this noble arch, with a single gateway, imposing in its ensemble, exquisite in detail, and which, seen from afar, has for its principal decoration the fine letters of its inscrip- tion ! We decipher it without any trouble from the end of the Via Sacra, from the summit of which against the blue sky this splendid pile rears its enor- mous cubes of Pentelic marble which glowing red in the fires of the sun, the shadows chill with a blue grey. SENATVS POPVLVSQVEEOMANVS DIVOTITODIVIVESPASIANIF VESPASIANOAVGVSTO. AKCHE8 OF TITUS AND CONSTANTINE. 89 On the other face is represented the capture of Jerusalem and the submission of Judaea. Eighteen hundred years and more have gone by since Domitian dedicated this triumphal arch to his brother and to their father Vespasian. Divo Tito proves that the work was completed after the death of Titus. In the bas-reliefs of the inside the spoils of the sub- jugated nations are represented, borne by legionaries wreathed with laurel. We recognize the table of the shewbread, which was of solid gold, the trumpets of silver, and the golden candlestick with seven branches from Solomon's Temple, whose form this monument alone has transmitted to us. After the tables of the law marches barefooted in a black robe the chief of the Israelites, Limon, son of Grioras. In point of exe- cution, in point of delicacy, and in point of design, these bas-reliefs, alas, sadly damaged, are to be classed among the most perfect that antiquity has left in Italy. They demonstrate the veracity of Josephus, and Josephus attests the fidelity of the sculptors.* The arch of Constantino produces the livehest im- pression ; we admire without analyzing it. Perhaps it wants solidity, but it fascinates by its grandeur, and by the harmony of its proportions. It is the finest of the three, exclaim nearly all travellers ; yet * " . . . . the candlestick, concerning which Gregorovius re- marks that the fantastic figures carved upon it prove that it was not an exact likeness of that which came from Jerusalem." — Hare's Walks in Borne, p. 167. 90 BOME. scarcely any of them have examined its details suffi- ciently to remember them. Perhaps its chief defect is the abuse of richness. It would be impossible to enumerate here its statues, medallions, bas-reliefs, and inscriptions, all of which, comparatively well pre- served, go to make it one of the most interesting structures in Rome. THE BATHS OF CARACALLA. 91 CHAPTER V. One of the largest buildings in the world is the Baths of Antoninus Caracalla, situated beyond the Circus Maximus, between the back of the Aventine and that of the Ccelian, in one of those suburbs where fields and gardens flourish over the graves of an an- cient quarter. Confined in a narrow valley, measur- ing their height with the elevation of the hills, these Baths are the finest ruins in Rome. We should have a false idea of these establishments if we were to take them literally, and think of them as having been only luxurious and very perfect baths. The heating apparatus undoubtedly occupied a promi- nent place in them, since, according to Olympiodorus, the baths of Caracalla could supply warm baths for sixteen hundred persons at a time. But besides all the baths of different temperatures, the chambers heated by steam, and the basins and fountains, the thermae contained scent-shops, stalls for articles of fashion, bufi'ets for refreshments, kitchens and refec- tories, peristyles for conversation and exercise in wet weather, libraries and reading-rooms, a stage for the performance of comedy, gymnasia for athletes, and an arena for running and wrestling. There were gath- 92 EOME. ered and administered by a numerous staff of virtuosi, artists, and slaves, all the appurtenances for diverting an indolent people and making them forget the seri- ous aspects of life. There were even picture gal- leries and museums of statues : it was pleasure or- ganized and raised to the rank of an institution. For sovereigns who had to maintain a power, as absolute as it was fragile, over a corrupt populace in whose breasts not even faith in their country had survived, the administration of public amusements on an enor- mous scale was a political necessity of the first con- sequence. Thus the more a nation abases itself and grovels, the more important do its pleasures become. The despots could only maintain themselves by be- coming proxenetse. Continued by Heliogabalus, the Baths of Caracalla were the most magnificent of all : several thousand citizens were there able every day to exhaust the varied cycle of the delights of mind and sense. The exterior buildings form a perimeter of 4200 feet. In the court formed by these buildings there rose on Babylonian vaults another edifice in several stories, which was nearly 700 feet long by 450 broad. The Calidarium, a rotunda lighted from above, can only be compared to the Pantheon of Agrippa, which is purer in its ornamentation, but not so bold in con- struction. What one cannot describe is the imposing sight, morning or evening, of these gigantic walls rising above foundations already plunged in shadow, The Basilica of S. Clemente. THE BATHS OF CAEACALLA. 93 their lofty summits sharing only with the mountain peaks the rays of the sun. A stair built in one of the piers gives access to the upper part of the edifice ; here you can move along a narrow path on the edge of an abyss within which sings the rushing wind. The projection to an immense distance of the shadow reveals stiU further to you the colossal size of ruins that time has converted into empty husks. Some of the arches stiU remain intact — semicircular bands, airy bridges over which you venture after repressing certain inclinations towards dizziness. Below in the courts and half-destroyed chambers we stiU perceive vestiges of admirable mosaic pavements. Those of the exhedra of the gymnasiarchs are celebrated, rep- resenting the portraits of victorious athletes ; we shall see them later in a chamber of the Lateran Palace. On the highest platforms you walk over other mosaics: these crests perched in the clouds were the pavement of an upper tier of galleries, porticos, and terraces. Before 1857, when people wished to get an idea of a Constantinian church as it appeared in primitive times, they chose St. Clement. It was known from St. Jerome that a church existed in Rome which, from an early date, perpetuated the recollection of the predecessor of St. Anaclete, and that in 417 it had acquired the rank of a basilica when St. Zosimus pronounced judgment in it against Celestius, who had fallen into the Pelagian heresy. St. Leo speaks of this temple in a letter to St. Flavian ; it is mentioned 94 BOME. in 499, on the occasion of the council which Symma- chus presided over ; St. Gregory the Great, who had delivered two homilies in it, described the last mo- ments, under the Clementine porch, of St. Servulus the paralytic. Adrian I. and Leo III., in the eighth century, Leo IV. and John VIIL, in the ninth, did, as we know from Anastasius, the first of them restore the roof, the second and third enrich the church with sacred ornaments, with marbles, and above all with paintings, whose loss was long de- plored. The last of the four rebuilt the choir, as is shown by his monogram which is repeatedly carved on the plutei or balustrades. To support these traditions the interior of the build- ing displayed, like so many witnesses, the grey gran- ite columns of its portico and its pillars of cipoUino and of red granite which separate the aisles and nave, and which come from the ruins of pagan temples. Ancient friezes annexed to the entablatures, and inscriptions of the era of the martyrs set in the walls, added fresh proofs to this document in stone, and when finally, convinced by such striking evidence, the visitor yielded to the impression produced by so venerable a sanctuary, a more attentive examination confirmed his convictions. He saw indications of the adaptation of a primitive basilica to the ceremonial of the ancient liturgy. There were the court, the first inclosure, in which the sub-deacons, the minor clerks, and the chanters remained ; the ambones, with porphyry slabs CHURCH OF ST. CLEMElSfT. 95 contemporary with John VIII., in the loftier of which, on the left, the deacons read the Gospel, proclaimed edicts, and denounced the excommunicated, while the other was only used for the Epistle, which was chanted by a sub-deacon ; before the passage to the right, the desk, from which the ledores expounded the sacred writings, and where the chanters said the Gradual ; finally, the twisted pillar, destined for the Easter taper, a ribbon of mosaic under a Corinthian capital, bearing an ancient vase, decorated under Innocent IV. The sanctuarium is equally convincing and curious, separated as it is from the naves, a usage still preserved in the oriental churches. Cut oiF by the ancient railing from the transept, the altar or con- fession is covered by a ciborium, supported on slender columns of violet marble ; in the circle of the apse is the presbyterium, in the centre of which the chief seat is raised by three steps — ^multiplied proofs of very great antiquity. Things were thus settled from time immemorial, when some years ago in raising a part of the pave- ment for the purpose of digging a well, the prior of the Irish Dominicans, to whom the convent was given by Urban VIII., discovered, buried under the present church of St. Clement, the real Constantinian basilica that had passed into a subterranean state. How could one suspect that, far from depreciating the building which had been the object of so extraordinary a mis- conception, this discovery would soon give it a triple 96 EOME. value. As they removed the earth with which the crypts were filled, they perceived by the light of their torches, the walls gradually peopling themselves with strange forms resuscitated from the darkness. The church above was a cabinet of curiosities, while the church underground is an art gallery, and the only one which can by authentic pictures fill up a gap of nearly four centuries in the history of painting. Before enumerating the riches of either sanctuary, let us briefly relate how this consecrated building came to be for so long buried and forgotten. During the struggle between the Church and the Empire, the Emperor Henry IV., whom Gregory VII. had excommunicated, having made himself mas- ter of Rome, where he had installed an antipope in the Lateran Palace, the legitimate pontiff, who was quartered in the Castle of St. Angelo, saw himself forced to appeal for assistance to the Duke of Cala- bria, who was then in Greece. This Duke, Robert Guiscard, who founded the school of Salerno, and who is described to us as a lettered prince, proved to be the same sort of friend to Pope Hildebrand as a cer- tain bear in a fable ; for, under pretence of aveng- ing the pontiff, Guiscard nearly demolished the capital of the Pontifical States. It was particularly in the quarters of the CoeHan and the Esquiline, which had given shelter to the emperor, and the Archbishop of Ravenna thus intruded into the papacy, that the de- structive rage of the Norman hordes expended itself. CHURCH OF ST. CLEMENT. 97 When Gregory VII. returned to the Lateran Palace, his eye wandered over a mass of ruins. The edifice was then probably burned in 1084, and, as the level of the surrounding soil had been greatly raised by the quantity of ruins, when, four-and-twenty years after, they wished to rebuild the church, instead of constructing other foundations, they completed the filling up of the half-buried basilica, after taking the pains to withdraw from it the ciborium, the panels of marble and porphyry which separate the presbytery and choir, most of the columns, and whatever else could, without destroying the edifice underground, contribute to the adornment of the new temple, while perpetuating the memory of the old. The idea does honor to that Pope Pascal who was a Cluniac monk, and whose character was so amiable that Gregory Vn., to whom he had been sent by his monastery, not wishing to allow him to return to Burgundy, made him Abbot of St. Paul's and then titular cardinal of St. Clement's. These authenticated dates limit the pre- sumable age of the subterranean paintings of which we are going to speak, while the exhumation of the primitive temple proves the antiquity of many objects in the upper church. Let us examine in turn these two sanctuaries so entirely unique that both England and Prussia, though Protestant countries, have con- tributed towards the resurrection of the ancient edi- fice, — a consoling sign of the spirit of our epoch. The church of St. Clement is situated between the 7 98 ROME. Coliseum and the church of St. John Lateran. You enter on the left from a narrow street of monastic quiet, a heavy porch, rude of aspect though with fine columns that do not match, and of such primitive sim- plicity that we wonder if it may not have seen Pope Liberius pass. The atrium is connected with a quad- riporticus, the arches of which rest on ancient col- umns with Ionic capitals. A side door gives access to the monastery, and here you must ring if the church is not already open. The homely exterior does little to prepare one's mind for a rich church with naves and aisles, and whose various parts and their arrangement according to primitive rites carry the mind back to the morrow of the catacombs. Even certain marks of barbarism contribute to this result. At what time, to level the unmatched columns of the atrium, could they have taken it into their heads, in- stead of shortening the shafts, to saw off the capitals in the middle ? Robert Guiscard, who destroyed so well, built better, for he made the cathedral of Salerno. Although this church was restored under Innocent III. and Innocent IV., under Eugenius IV., under Sixtus v., and more dangerous still under Clement XI., still the works of the early period have such a preponderance that these partial discords are lost in the general harmony. The marble walls of the an- cient choir, with their Byzantine crosses, their plaited crowns, their untwined serpents, and their frames of glittering mosaic ; the ambones of so ancient a form, MOSAICS OF ST. CLEMENT'S. 99 the ciborium, the inscriptions, the funereal symbols of antiquity mixed with the bas-reUefs of the pagan era, that profusion of marbles of every age and every color, would suiEce of themselves to lend extraordi- nary interest to this edifice. But it possesses other and greater riches than these. In the tribune above the presbytery, which was completed in the beginning of the twelfth century by Cardinal Anastasius, mystic figures issue from the darkness of legend and of the ages, — the whole of this portion of the church being one immense piece of mosaic, executed in the time of Jacopo da Turrita, that is, in the revival which crowned the thirteenth century. Time has mellowed the fresh crudities of the marbles, and cooled the too glowing warmth of the gold of the mosaic ; and these elements of what would have been an incongruous splendor have gained an intensity which wraps them in charm and mystery. Below the decorations of the apse, where the cross rises from a vine which forms a sort of frieze, are arranged in two processions on each side of the Lamb, who has a golden nimbus and is placed in the centre, the Twelve Sheep whom he bade follow him, and who eye him with an interrogatory expression.* Under the entablature are frescoes of Christ with his mother, surrounded by the twelve disciples, separated from one another by as many palms. This decoration, due * Usually called the thirteen lambs. 100 EOME. to Celano, belongs to the fourteenth century. On the rood-arch are certain apocalyptic figures in mosaics of the twelfth century, with floating draperies spread forth like clouds. We recognize, over Bethle- hem and Jerusalem, Isaiah, Jeremiah, St. Laurence, St. Paul, St. Clement, and St. Peter ; Urban VIII. introduced St. Dominic. To the right of the altar, beneath a pilaster, is a ravishing tabernacle of mosaic and sculpture in the Gothic style of the Pisans, a gem that Cardinal Tomasio of the Minor Brothers had exe- cuted in 1299, "to please the city of Eome and his uncle, Boniface VIII." In one of the chapels of St. Clement is the marble statue of St. John the Baptist, one of those living representations of asceticism and penance that no one dared approach but the stipple and vigorous Dona- tello, with all his contempt for the traditions of an- tiquity. This figure is, however, attributed to Simon, brother of that distant forerunner of Michael Angelo. The upper church also contains two Florentine tombs of the fifteenth century, of admirable workman- ship, especially that of Cardinal Reverella. Votive inscriptions exhumed from the catacombs speak from the walls and recall to one's mind ancient and romantic names that seem to have been gleaned from the poets. Few heroes of legend are better vouched for by history than St. Clement the Roman. He figures as the third on the list of pontiffs ; we know that he travelled with St. Paul, who, in his Epistle to the LEGENDS OF ST. CLEMENT. 101 Philippians, designates him as one of his fellow- laborers, whose names are written in the book of life ; his namesake of Alexandria compares him to the apostles, and Rufinus speaks of him in the same terms ; the Christian annals commemorate his re- straining influence from the time of the first troubles which disturbed the church of Corinth, and we have on this point decisive testimony, namely, two epistles in Greek and Latin from Clement to the faithful of Corinth, the first of which is perhaps the most ancient example (after the Acts of the Apostles) of Christian letters in the first century. The Fathers of the third and fourth centuries inform us that St. Clement was the first to despatch missionaries to the Gauls ; our Lorraine annalists even pretend that he visited them, and St. Clement possesses, his local legend in the dio- cese of Metz ; in fine, it is believed that he was mar- tyred at the time of the third persecution under the Emperor Trajan. But, in spite of these elements of publicity, the origin of the blessed Clement has re- mained doubtful, and, on a point which is of high im- portance in clearing up the history of the foundation of our basilica, three versions have been current, the most accredited of which, although accepted by his- tory, is the only one that can be damaged with real evidence. According to Allen Butler, the orthodox theologian of Northampton, all the biographies at- tribute to Clement the Roman a Jewish origin, rest- ing on the fact that in the first of his letters to the 102 EOME. Corinthians he declares himself son of Jacob. Now twice have I read, not only the famous epistle, but all of St. Clement that is left to us, without finding in it any trace of siich a statement, which indeed could not fail to be very perplexing. According to the same biographer, this son of Jacob must have had the name Faustinus, which is not a very Semitic designation. The second tradition, which has always been widely believed in Kome, is that St. Clement belonged to the Flavian race, and that he had at the foot of the Coelian, among other family possessions in the neigh- borhood of the Vespasian amphitheatre a palace in which after his conversion he built an oratory. Let us observe, for this is an essential point, that many churches and the majority of the early Christian com- munities were actually instituted in this way. Quite recent excavations, to which discoveries made at St. Clement's gave an impulse, disclose under each of the ancient churches the substruction of an oratory or chapel, made usually with indifferent material and fixed in the solid walls of the palace. The new con- vert, if he was a proprietor or great lord, received his clients or neophytes in the chapel of the house, where they met for grave discussions, and where Levites found shelter ; then on his death the master bequeathed to his brethren this embryo of a church and community. All the churches of the first cen- tury which were not built over the burying-place of GENEALOGY OF ST. CLEMENT. 103 a martyr were, I would venture to affirm, established in this way. Now some remains of a palace adjoin the old sub- terranean basilica of St. Clement, and communicate with it. Even below the crypt two deeper chambers have been found, and in one of them they believe they recognize the primitive oratory. The masonry of the building beneath indicates a construction an- terior to the second century ; in some places it is mixed with large bricks, materials that were era- ployed even before Romulus, as is shown by the ramparts of Arezzo, referred to by Vitruvius. These buildings have settled over heavy stonework of Etrus- can construction, as to which one cannot be mistaken. Such circumstances show that the founder was a per- sonage of mark, possessing a palace in which he al- lowed himself the luxury of a chapel ; and what com- pletes the proof is that Clement I., not having died at Rome, whither his remains did not come until the liinth century, the church cannot have had his tomb for its origin. However, as there is no justification for believing that Clement the Roman sprang from the Flavian house, we may suppose that his first biogra- phers confounded our hero with Clement of Alexan- dria, who was called Titus Flavins Clemens. The third version of this genealogy, and the only one that is supported by writings of proved antiquity, attributes to the third of the popes a Roman and patrician origin. It is compatible with the preceding 104 BOME. statements, as well as with the enormous popularity of the saint ; for it would, in fact, be nearly without example, and it is a melancholy remark to make, as it applies to all time — it would be most improbable for so much popular renown to attach itself to a poor man and a plebeian name. It is not without an emotion above ordinary curi- osity that you prepare in one of the low aisles, while the guides are lighting their torches, to descend from the church where so many historical objects have en- tranced you, to a building of a yet more venerable antiquity, in which time has displaced nothing on the evil pretence of restoring or beautifying. We are sure that these torches will illumine corridors in which St. Augustin, St. Sylvester, and St. Gregory the Great, made their voices heard ; we know that for eight hundred years no eye beheld this sanctuary, in which Gregory VII. was the last to officiate. When Pascal II. rebuilt San Clemente, he only left in the lower church some marble pilasters and a few columns, which stiU mark the separation of the aisles. The rough casting of the walls has peeled off in many places so that we see the irregular layers of a building formed for the most part of inferior materials, mixed with others of much greater an- tiquity. As soon as the torches cease to wave in front of you, the svirroundings disclose themselves. We perceive that time and damp have wrought much destruction, causing the pozzuolana to fall away from WALL PAINTINGS OF ST. CLEMENT'S. 105 the facings ; but whole pages have remained all but untouched ; whatever is not destroyed has preserved the freshness of its coloring. The general appear- ance from this point of view suggests the mosaics of Ravenna, I would even say the early frescoes of the Campo Santo at Pisa, if the use of cruder colors, of ochres especially, which make deep reds and yel- lows, did not give to these pictures a more truly an- tique simpHcity of aspect. As for the design, it has in general more suppleness of movement ; in the less ancient portions the composition is more freely pict- uresque than we find it under the hand of the con- temporaries of Ducci and Griotto. Let us now proceed to a rapid inspection of these most interesting relics. First come two life-size heads, one on a kind of island of plaster of consider- able thickness, the other on a piece of very light rough-cast, which permits the stones to be seen through it. The first represents a woman, true type of the Roman matron, with black eyes, and eyebrows deeply arched under a low brow. This face, framed in a nimbus, seems to belong to the end of the fourth century, and it recalls, though the execution is more advanced, the processes used in the frescoes of the catacombs. The oth^r' resembles them stiU more closely ; it is the portrait of a man, with the bust draped in the Roman fashion ; short hair frames the brow, which is low, the nose is extremely aquihne, the chin salient and broad, the eyes finely drawn, the 106 EOME. mouth accentuated, and the head joined to the shoul- ders by a well-set neck. This fresco is made by a succession of tones laid one over the other and form- ing flat tints, a process which characterizes also the likenesses in the catacombs. The woman is, perhaps, one of those whom St. Paul speaks of as having labored with him in the Grospel, as well as Clement, or DomitUla, whom he converted. As for the man, it would be difficult to hazard any theory. Still, it may be said that in the opinion of those most com- petent to judge, this head, which is of a style and sweep purely Roman, can scarcely have been painted later than the year 310. The vir togatus permits us, therefore, to attribute to this portion of the church an origin anterior to Constantine. The most ancient fragments, though sadly mutil- ated, that we next find in the northern aisle date from the eighth century, and represent Christ in the act of blessing, and, on one of the piers, Christ liberating Adam from hell. On the walls of the left aisle are some frescoes representing scenes from the life of the holy monk Libertinus, recounted by S. Gregory in his dialogues. He tells how the monk charged a ser- pent to watch the vegetables of the monastery of Fondi, which a robber used to come and carry off every night by scahng the walls. The serpent seized with his coils the foot of the offender, and hissed loudly by way of summoning Libertinus, who un- boxmd the captive, and authorized him in order to LEGENDS OF ST. LIBERTINUS. 107 avoid sin to come henceforth to the house for the fruit of which he had need. This Libertinus was of such humility that, after being beaten by his superior, he presented himself before him with as much sweet- ness as if nothing had happened, and the abbot was so moved that he prostrated himself before the simple brother, and besought his forgiveness. One day as Libertinus was entering Ravenna, a woman took his horse by the bridle, and forced the monk to come and bring to Ufe again the child that she had just lost. These legends, preserved in the writings of St. Greg- ory, while evidently painted subsequently to his death in 604, may have been executed less than a century after, under Gregory II., who was a SaveUi and, I be- lieve, titular cardinal of this church, for the popes gladly commemorated anything connected with the canon- ized predecessor whose name they bore. These fres- coes, in great part destroyed, may have been ex- ecuted between 715 and 730, for they recall pretty closely the Vatican manuscripts of the same epoch. I think that I can still detect the traces of an art peculiar to the West in two paintings placed side by side, which seem, if not of different periods, to have been executed at any rate by two artists of very un- equal talent. On a part of the wall are represented Christ on the Cross, and some points in the life of Jesus referring to the resurrection, the redemption, and the eucharist, symbolized by the Holy Women at the Tomb, by Adam taken from Limbo, and by 108 EOME. the Miracle of Cana. These paintings are weak, and without much action, while the drawing of the Christ on the Cross is barbarous. The neighboring compartment, evidently executed as an exposition of doctrine, is more remarkable : it is the oldest known representation of the Assumption of the Virgin.* Round the tomb the apostles express their stupefaction by their faces and their varied and energetic attitudes. Covered with an ample cloak, slightly lifted by her extended arms, with eyes raised to the sky, where she beholds her son seated in the midst of four angels and surrounded by an ellipsoid nimbus, the Madonna rises from the earth. The scene is full of life and movement, and in strong con- trast to the spirit of Byzantine immobility. These compositions pronounce against the heresies of the Pelagians and their errors touching grace, the holy sacrament, original sin and the divinity of Christ. Close by they have introduced, armed with his Chron- icle and his Poems against the deniers of grace, St. Prosper, who came from Marseilles at the invitation of St. Leo the Great to fight by the side of Augustin against the Pelagians. In order the better to show the intention, at one of the extremities of the picture * The Ascension, sometimes called by Bomanists (in prep- aration for their dogma of 1870) "the Assumption of the Vir- gin," because the figure of the Virgin is elevated above the other apostles, though she is evidently intent on watching the retreat- ing figure of her divine son." — Hare, Walks in Home, p. 281. THE LOWEE CHURCH OF ST. CLEMENT. 109 of the Assumption they place St. Vitus, Archbishop of Vienne, who had destroyed certain analogous errors. He forms a pendant to the illustrious Pope Leo IV., a Roman of old time, who resisted the Saracens, who fortified Rome, constructed the walls around the Leonine city, and made great restorations in the church of St. Clement. The square green nimbus surrounding his head is supposed to be a sign that, at the time it was painted, he was still living. Leo IV., who was canonized, had this fresco executed ; the stiff and curious inscription that informs us on this point shows us Latin prosody in decay ; it also serves to prove the age of the paintings : QUOD H^C PE^ CUNCTIS SPLENDET PICTUEA DECOEE, COMPONEEE HANG STUDUIT PE^SBYTER ECCE LEO. One can have no hesitation in connecting with the same period a large fresco, of which aU is obliterated save two groups of heads symmetrically arranged. Among the thirty-two figures of the left group are several women, some of them almost beautiful ; above that on the right are represented scales with two equally balanced dishes, and the words, Stateram auget modium justum, taken from an epistle of St. Clement. This is a very old instance of a weight and scales ; but the baptistery of Constantia, the daughter of St. Helen, furnishes another example much older, engraved at the head of an inscription. 110 EOME. In a niche in the right aisle is a Madonna with a diadem loaded with stones or drachms ; she is painted in full face, her eyes fixed in front of her, her son below also in full face, and with that sphinx-like im- mobihty to which the artists of this period invariably condemned their figures. To right and left are two saints, of whom we only see that the heads are equally mummified ; above, in a medallion, the Christ, beard- less and draped as in primitive times, belongs to another probably earlier hand. Below the lateral figures, two subjects from the Sacrifice of Abraham form pendants to one another. St. CyrU, the Philosopher, brother of St. Methodius, discovered the remains of St. Clement, and they were transported to Rome by Nicholas I., that is, between 858 and 869 — this retu.rn of a patrician martyr to his home after seven centuries of exile gave a new impulse to the worship of the saint, some episodes of whose life are represented in the interesting frescoes of the eleventh century, to be found on one of the pilasters of the nave. The central division shows us a church lighted by seven lamps, answering to the seven gifts of the Spirit ; the lamp which surmounts the altar on which the missal and the chalice are placed itself consists of seven flames arranged in a circtdar lustre. The artist has chosen the moment when St. Clement, who is officiating, with the pallium on his shoulders and wearing a. chasuble falling to a point, turns round with extended arms to chant the CONVERSION OF SISINIUS. Ill pax domini sit semper vohiscum, and when the pagan Sisinius, the friend of Domitian, drawn to the tem- ple by a malignant curiosity, becomes blind and deaf; his steps are uncertain, and a young attendant much marvelling, leads him forth. The pious wife of the courtier, Theodora, beholds what has happened with a surprise that has nothing painful in it. The dea- cons and bishops, placed on the other side of the altar, present the givers of the fresco, who, in elegant ap- parel and bearing crowns, are less than half the size of the chief personages of the drama ; an inscription below gives us their names : EGO BENO DE KAPIZA CUM MARIA UXORE MEA PRO AMORE DEI ET BEATI CLEMENTIS. The space being too short to continue, the follow- ing characters have been placed vertically over one another under the last letter of Clementis: P. G. R. F. C. They offer by far the most singular method of abbreviation that I think I ever met with, the initials of each syllable being included, PinGeBeFeCi. Elsewhere the same formula in all letters, beginning with ego Bern, etc., ends with fecit — Ego . . . fecit. This is Latin in extreme decay. But the subject treated beneath presents philolog- ical curiosities of a different sort. Sisinius having commanded his attendants to strangle Clement, they bind and drag along the shaft of a column which, 112 ROME. thanks to a miracle, they mistake for the saint. The latter having escaped, is only represented by his part- ing words, pronounced as he crosses the portico on which the painter has written : " dtiritiam CORDIS VESTEIS (sic) . . . SAXA TEAERE MERUISTI." The twO attendants of Sisinius, who struggle to draw the column, are named Cosmaris and Albertel. The first pulls the cord over his shoulder, the other has it under his arm ; " Albeetel teai," says the legend, written over his head, " Albertel draws." Trai is no longer Latin, but belongs to vulgar idiom. On the side whence the saint has fled, a person, probably of his suite, and named Colopalo, shakes the base of the shaft with a stick, he looks at the attendant, who stands at the other end, and flings some words at him that are written thus : " falitedeeeto." To dis- cover the sense of this queer group of syllables, I think we must divide it into four words, Fali te de reto ! and translate it by this ironical phrase, " Cheat thyself by this delusion !" It is Italian, badly adapted from Latin forms ; de reto, instead of di rete, is ex- plicable, by a propensity of the decline to assimilate the forms of the second declension to most substan- tives. That the inscription is in Italian is shown by the one placed as a pendant, and as to which there can be no uncertainty, but it is too rude to repro- duce. In the central composition the costumes are Greek ; a certain unity presides over the whole, and the heads are far from being inexpressive. The EARLY FRESCOES AT ST. CLEMENT'S. 113 figure of Theodora in especial is graceful, well draped, supple, and of a handsome cast. We see again, in the continuance of this legend, all the family of Bene de Rapiza, at the bottom of the representation of the miracle which took place before the submarine grave of St. Clement, when a widow finds there her child, who had been forgotten at the festivities of the previous year. Below the fresco, in a great medallion, is the pontiff, to whom Beno, his son Clement, his daughter Atila, his wife Maria, and the grandmother of the children, bring each a taper and crowns. These are priceless studies of costume. In another medallion is this prayer in barbarous Latin, arranged in the shape of a cross : ME PRECE FERENTES ESTOTE NOCIVA CAVENTES. The upper subject, destroyed as on the previous panel, represented the construction of the tomb by an angel, as the half-preserved inscription shows. As for the principal picture, the arrival of the clergy of Khersofa, with the bishop at their head, to witness the miracle of the child found safe and sound, the work is very remarkable, as much on account of the architecture of the little temple in which the altar ap- pears, — the curtains of the Tabernacle having been symmetrically looped up, — as by the drawing of the figures, which are reproduced in a double action. The stooping mother first raises the child extending its arms to her ; then, standing upright, presses it to her 8 114 EOME. breast, and leans her head tenderly against that of her son. In the latter group the movement is so faithful, and the draperies are of such a style, that this charming figure recalls the sculptures of Chartres and those of Erwin of Steinbach at Strasburg. It shows to an equal extent the thought and intelligence of the West applied to the art of Byzantium, and the artists who here reach this restdt are two centuries before Giotto. The miraculous shrine in which the scene transpires is covered with large tiles, like the churches of Ravenna ; without regard to symmetry, three only of the four arches have lamps, because these lights symbolize the three divine virtues. The anchor that they hung about the neck of the pontiff, when he was drowned by order of Trajan, is fastened to a ring in the wall; while the waves of the sea peopled by swimming fish envelop the miraculous chapel. From the right aisle a stair leads down into the darkness of still earlier times — the apartments of the Imperial age resting on Etruscan substruc- tions. Near by a fresco, of which few traces re- main, depicts scenes from the life of St. Cyril ; or Constantino the Philosopher, receiving from the Em- peror Michael III., called the Drunkard, the mission to go and convert the Slavs and Bulgarians. Behind the saint is, or rather was, for but little is left, his brother Methodius. Close by we perceive the King Bogoris, being baptized naked in a piscina in which he is plunged up to the waist. Let us further remark two EAKLY FRESCOES AT ST. CLEMENT'S. 115 extremely curious pilasters, which might very well date from the time of Leo IV. On one are repre- sented St. Giles and St. Blasius, one above the other; the Armenian bishop, at the prayers of a weeping mother, is drawing from the throat of her child a thorn which choked it. It is for this reason that, in order to be cured of qidnsy, people go to touch at the church of Santa Maria in Via Lata the relic of the throat of St. Blasius. Below is a kind of devour- ing wolf, which is carrying off a creature and scratch- ing it with its whiskers. The two subjects are sepa- rated by a design taken from the acanthus, and inspired by the ancient arabesques. On the other pilaster, St. Antoninus the Martyr, of the time of Diocletian, has beneath him Daniel, whose feet two Uons of a heraldic make are licking, twisting them- selves into strange postures. The prophet, who was minister to the kings of Babylon, wears the gay and half-warlike costume of the young Byzantine lords of the ninth century. A broad belt is over the surcoat ; the breastplate is trimmed with ornaments ; the long tight sleeves are fastened at the wrist by an em- broidered decoration ; the buskins are elegant. In the lower compartment struggle five monsters that might be called man-lions, three of them erect on their hind feet try to devour Daniel, opening formidable jaws. The ornamentation below is in exquisite taste, consisting of curves which meet, enclosing rosettes between denticulated cinctures. What would lead 116 EOME. one to suppose that these pilasters are earlier than the second half of the ninth century is that there is no question of St. Clement, and that St. Giles of Nismes acqtiired renown in Rome at the end of the seventh. Let us not omit a composition entirely Greek and of later date, Cyril and Methodius pre- sented to Christ ; the one by St. Clement, whose relics he has brought back ; the other by St. Andrew, the predecessor of Methodius in the apostleship to the Scythians. The Saviour, draped in a toga, is too short by more than a third considering the size of the head ; he is blessing in the Greek manner, that is, the ring-finger bent under the thumb and the three others extended, a unique example of the oriental rite in the monuments of Rome, but not in other parts of the West, where we meet it from time to time up to the twelfth century. At the bottom of the church is a painting that can only be attributed to the author of the miracles of St. Clement, already described. It represents the re- moval from the Vatican to S. Clemente of the remains of St. Cyril. The saint reposes with face uncovered on a cataletto, covered by rich drapery. The clerks in long robes have torches in their hands ; the in- cense-bearers swing their spherical censers. In front of the altar of St. Peter is the Pope, who pronounces the Pax Domini. This pontiff, who is Nicholas I., is also drawn at the head of the procession, with a mitre or pointed tiara, with a single circle, on his head, and THE LEGEND OF ST. ALEXIUS. 117 wearing a white pallium sprinkled with black crosses. At his right walks Methodius, the brother of the de- ceased, in deep sorrow. The two saints and the Eastern clergy wear the beard, while the Roman ecclesiastics are shaven. Behind the cross-bearer of the Pope rise banners of stuff sprinkled with gold, surmounted by the Greek cross. Under the frieze, which is framed by two inscriptions, we learn that " Maria the butcher's wife (Marcellaria) for the rever- ence of God and the healing of her soul has had this drawn." Here, then, in religious buildings, long be- fore the development of the monasteries and the im- pulse given by Franciscans and Dominicans, here we find works of art due to the munificence of the Roman citizens. We may conclude from this that through- out the middle ages the commune preserved a certain strength, and that the middle classes had gathered up the spoils of the fallen patriciate. Nothing is truer ; it was not until the end of the tenth century that civil discords brought Rome to ruin, sacked and destroyed property, and extinguished for two hundred years and more the intellectual lights which had begun again to shine forth. On a pier in the nave are represented the princi- pal points in the legend of St. Alexius. They occupy the space between a ravishing ornamentation of rosettes and compartments decked with flowers among which birds move, and a half-destroyed cornice on which Christ figures flanked by the two archangels. 118 ROME. Michael and Gabriel, who swing censers and are ac- companied by St. Clement and Nicholas I. The three acts of this edifying little drama transpire in front of the house of the senator Eufimianus, father of the pilgrim who in his early youth quitted the paternal roof to exile himself in Palestine ; the build- ings of the palace occupy three-quarters of the back- ground. Under a window, from which, without recognizing him, his betrothed, whom he abandoned on the day of their nuptials, is regarding him, Alexius, having returned to Rome, with the staff and wallet of the pilgrim, goes to meet the patrician, who arrives on horseback followed by an escort. Without being recognized he offers his services to his father, who receives him into the number of his attendants. This figure is full of life ; we can see that the young man solicits humbly and entreats warmly. The next group represents another scene enacted many years later : The Pope, followed by his clergy, is coming, warned by a voice from heaven, to release the body of a saint in the house of Eufimianus. They find at the door, resting on a mat, Alexius, the poor servant who for seventeen years has dwelt under a staircase in his father's palace. In his hands is folded a writ- ing, Avhich the pontiff unrolls and reads before the company and the sorrow-stricken kinsfolk : this forms the third subject. The figures balance one another, and the scene is so skilfully grouped that we seem at first to be looking at only one subject cleverly dis- THE LEGEND OF ST. ALEXIUS. 119 posed. The blessed one is placed on a couch, covered by a counterpane with alternate medallions of Greek crosses and doves ; his betrothed hastening up, presses him in her arms, vrhUe the father and mother have rent their garments and are tearing their hair. This picture fixes the date of St. Alexius ; he must have flourished under Boniface I., vs^ho held the Roman bishopric from the year 418 to 422. The name of the pontiff is written thus : BonipJiatius. This curious painting offers a very singular example of the pro- sodical decomposition of Latin verse, and of the tran- sition from scanned rhythm to syllabic and rhymed rhythm. The events traced by the painter are summed up in these two hexameters : NON PATEE AGNOSCIT, MISEEEKIQUE SIBI pOSCIT; PAPA TENET CARTAM, VITAMQUE NUNTIAT ARTAM. Thus the church of St. Clement, a museum of archaeology in its upper story, a gallery of paintings unique over the whole world in its crypt, furnishes, besides examples of certain little known schools, pre- cious specimens of Latin, or Italian, as it existed towards the end of the age of Charles the Great. And it also throws a vivid light on the origin of the first basilicas, on the rites, usages, and costumes of the obscurest epochs, and on the antiquity of certain legends. 120 HOME. CHAPTER VI. As you enter the city by the gate of St. Pancras the sound of falling water announces the vicinity of the Pauline Fountain ; that huge erection whose or- namentation seems designed solely to form a setting for the inscriptive tablet, which is perhaps the most gigantic in the world. As the fountain stands nearly on the top of the Janiculum, you can discern this page of writing from a great distance, framed in marble vignettes, below which are six columns of red granite taken from the Forum of Nerva ; the osten- tatious style of the seventeenth century triumphs here by its size. Paul V., restoring life to the aqueducts of Trajan, and injecting Lake Bracciano into their arteries, did not mean it to enter Rome in poor guise; below the arms of the Borghese there rush forth brawling from three open gateways three currents, and from two neighboring niches, pretty streams. Dragons spout forth other streams. These masses of water, so unexpected on the bare summit of a hill, and pure as the crystal streams of the Alps, pour down into a vast marble basin. There was once here a Temple of Minerva. This Nympheum, a monu- ment to the liberal foresight of the popes, connects Finding of the Body of S. Cecilia. THE CHURCH OF ST. CECILIA. 121 their power nobly enough with the secular history of the emperors, by making the memory of Trajan flower again among the younger buds of the Bor- ghese. The construction does honor to Fontana as well as to the sculptor-architect, Stephen Maderno. We find this last artist again at the foot of the Janiculum in a very different and perhaps more orig- inal work. After skirting the base of the hill towards the south, leaving to the right the Franciscan con- vent in which dwelt St. Francis of Assisi, and fol- lowing the suburban street in which the great St. Benedict stayed in the sixth century, we finally enter the church of St. Cecilia. The authenticity of the legend of the virgin martyr has been called in question, owing to her execution having been placed mider Alexander Severus who did not persecute the Christians, and attributed to one Almacus, a pretorian prefect unknown to history. Signer de Rossi has, however, shown the error of the BoUandists on this point, and confirmed the statement of Fortunatus, who places the martyrdom of St. Cecilia under Marcus Aurelius. The place of her burial shows the family from which she sprang ; but these are points to which we shall return when we reach the catacombs. The church of Cecilia, which gives his title to a cardinal, is thought to have been buUt by Urban I. towards the year 230, on the site of the saint's dwell- ing. They show you in one of the chapels to the 122 EOME. right the remains of the baths of her house, and on a lower story some fragments of the original pavement. Pascal I. who rebuilt the temple respected, as they had done in the third century, the remains of the furnace, where we recognize pipes for heat and water. Clement VII. presented St. Cecilia to the Benedictine Sisters ; Clement VIII., in 1579, had opened the sarcophagus of their patron, the body of whom, intact and masked by the folds of a long robe, was disclosed in an expressive and singular attitude, and this exhumation occasioned one of the finest statues that was executed in the beginning of the seventeenth century. The Pope was desirous that the saint should be represented in the vestments and the position in which they had surprised her, and the task was confided to Stephen Maderno. This curious little temple rises in front of an apse of the ninth century, in which a mosaic has preserved to us, be- sides a portait of Pascal I., the figures of St. Cecilia and her husband Valerianus, in the costume of the patricians and Roman ladies ten years after the death of Charles the Great. The saint wears a white mantle over a tunic of green, with a golden border ; the robe and the peplum are of golden stuffs, and richly overwrought. Flowers are scattered on their way ; by their side palm-trees laden with fruit sym- bolize the merits of martyrdom, while over one branch is the haloed phoenix, the emblem of resurrection. At some distance from the church St. Cecilia, and SANTA MARIA IN TEASTEVEEE. 123 at the end of the Lungaretta, rises the principal chureh on the right bank of the Tiber, Santa Maria in Trastevere. It is said that on this spot there was erected under the first emperors a Taherna meritoria, a sort of army hospital ; and that this institution, having been abandoned at the time of Caracalla and Heliogabalus, no doubt because the number of crip- ples became too great, the building was ceded to the Christians by Alexander Severus, with permission to found an oratory there, a project that was realized about the year 221 by the pope, St. Callistus. An- terior by nearly a century to the era of Constantino, Santa Maria in Trastevere ought to be the oldest church in Rome, and perhaps in the West. What is certain is that Pope Julius I. rebuilt this temple at an epoch when assuredly there was no other to re- construct (349), and that before 1140 Innocent II. substituted for the monument of Pope Julius the present church, which is one of the prettiest in Rome, and one of the most interesting from the point of view of art and archaeology. The fa9ade is decorated with a mosaic of the twelfth century, an epoch not often represented at Rome. There is a Madonna in the Byzantine style, and around her in a line are the Wise Virgins, lamp in hand, with crowns and haloes. The Foolish Vir- gins, dressed in the oriental manner, and whose varied attire is very rich, also carry lamps : but, instead of holding them reversed, they keep them upright, a 124 EOME. departure from traditional usage due to the restora- tions of the seventeenth century, which were ex- ecuted by an ignorant worker in mosaic.* Below these mosaics is a portico whose walls are covered with ancient inscriptions. Entering we find the nave divided from the aisles by two avenues of granite columns, with capitals of various orders, on some of which are carved the heads of Harpocrates and Jupiter Serapis. It is probable that these magnificent shafts formed part of the reconstruction of Pope Julius, for they would scarcely have left such splen- did materials unused down to the time of Innocent II. One might deliver an admirable lecture in this spot on mosaics ; fagade and apse, high altar and holy- water vessels, representing among them the periods from the twelfth century to the fifteenth ; while those in the choir, depicting scenes from the Life of the Virgin, by Pietro Cavallini, seem to me to occupy the very first rank. There are even two ancient mosaics, let into a pier, of birds and some fishermen. The paintings, too, cover an equally extended cycle, from some Griottesque frescoes to the Assumption of Domenichino, which glows among the gold of the * " On each side are advancing ten female saints, eight of whom are distinguished as raartyi-s by their basins with streaks of blood. ' ' These are generally taken for the wise and foolish virgins because their basins or bowls have somewhat the form of lamps. — Kug- ler, Hand-book of Fainting, p. 95, and note by Sir Charles East- lake. SANTA MAEIA IN TRASTEVERE. 125 ceiling. Passing over many charming details which one might naturally expect to find in a church re- modelled by Bernardo Rossellini in the time of the good Nicholas V., the friend of Fra Angelico, we will mention the chapel at the end of the left aisle con- taing a fresco by Zucchero, representing the Council of Trent, closed by Pius IV. — an official painting, in which likenesses and ceremony have been reproduced with all conscientiousness, but in which conscience has added nothing ; curiosities do not always arouse admiration. In the centre of the tribune is placed — as in basilicas — a massive cathedra of white marble. Finally I must mention a tomb of the fourteenth cen- tury by Paolo Romano ; which tomb, though nearly ignored, contains the remains of a prince of the house of France, the Cardinal d'Alengon, brother of Philip the Fair. This is one of those churches from which every- body can glean something of interest ; the pavement of Alexandrine work contributes to its air of opulence. They have just finished doing it over, but I rejoice at having seen it before it became so magnificent. I remember that trying to go out, and having mistaken the entrance to the sacristy for a door, I observed in a passage some small tabernacles, on one of which some very charming, but little-known, bas-reliefs are signed Opus Mini ; for those who have studied Flor- ence — a very necessary preparation for a journey to Rome — the name of Mino da Fiesole is enrolled upon 126 EOME. the banner of Ghiberti, between those of Fra An- gelico and the della Robbia. One of the most interesting pilgrimages from the Trastevere is up that slope of the Janiculum whose gardens overlook the city, and where stands the monastery of Sant' Onofrio, the scene of the agony of Tasso. As soon as one sets foot in the little church of Sant' Onofrio, the comic element puts all sentimental yearn- ings to rout. The monument to Torquato Tasso, erected by subscription under Pius IX. in 1857, does more honor to the sentiments of the Holy Father than to the talent of Giuseppe De Fabris, to whom, for want of somebody better, no doubt, they had to con- fide its execution. His bas-reliefs and his figure of Tasso are of a smooth, scraped, and pomaded style, and a taste quite extraordinarily laughable. Close to the door is the ancient burying-place, where under a modest stone had slept for nearly three centuries the author of Jerusalem Delivered, at the foot of a portrait of the time, which is bad enough, but which may be a likeness. In the passage of the monastery, where one loves to wander in the footsteps of the poet, there is a little fresco representing the Virgin and Child, blessing a donor at prayer. The picture is arched, and is sur- rounded by a frame of flowers and fruit on an enamelled ground, a rude imitation of Andrea della Robbia. The donor's portrait in proiile, the infant SANT' ONOFEIO. 127 Jesus softly modelled with a charming gesture, the delicate sweep, and lofty brow of the smiling Madonna, all reveal and proclaim Leonardo da Vinci, to whom this precious jewel is justly attributed. Leaving it we ascend to the room in which Tasso ended his sad and glorious life. The chamber is well placed. What Tasso looked upon in his last dreams, we see to-day just as he left it. Leaning on the window where the lover of Leo- nore d'Este leaned, we behold with rapture that scene that he beheld with such gloom. The chamber is to- day almost as it was when he exchanged it for the vault of Sant' Onofrio, only an occasional pale mark on the walls shows where some object once hung that has now disappeared. But in the main the aspect is the same ; there is the poet's table, with an inkstand of wood, his great chair covered with Cordovan leather, very worn, a small Grerman cabinet, a mirror, an autograph letter, a large bowl, a crucifix. There may also be seen the original of a mask in wax, moulded from nature, the copies of which known abroad have become much effaced. The monks have placed this mask on a clothed bust, producing thereby a most fantastic effect. The head is delicate, of a peculiarly spiritual beauty, and of a fascinating ex- pression ; the purity of the profile and the firmness of the mouth heighten the distinction of the poet's face. As in the church, however, so here the bad taste of our contemporaries grates upon our feehngs. 128 EOME. A Neapolitan, who surmounted the new tomb of Tor- quato with shocking frescoes, took it into his head m 1864 to pay scant reverence to his chamber, and to play havoc with its hallowed associations by painting on the plastered wall a life-size figure of Tasso, done in a deceptive way so as to cause surprise to Boeotians; this piece of caricature is not even copied from the authentic head. We could not restrain ourselves from protesting against such fatuity, and the good brother who accompanied us thought he was well out of it by assuring us that the artist had painted the thing for nothing. How is it that this piece of in- decency has not been scraped out already ?* Between the southern slope of the Capitoline Hill and the Fabrician bridge, near the Piazza Montanara, you come upon one of the finest specimens of the best period of architecture, the theatre dedicated by Augustus to the young Marcellus, his nephew. Such is the perfection of this monument that the Doric and Ionic columns of the two lower tiers have been adopted by later architects as models of propor- tion. An enormous fragment of this building is still standing, the Pierleoni and the Savelli having used it as a fortress in the middle ages. Skirting the wall of the theatre of Marcellus, you * In the course of some recent repairs this figure which in however questionable taste it may have been was certainly most striking, has been whitewashed over. It is shown in the accom- panying illustration. Tasso's Room at S. Onofrio. PORTICO OF OCTAVIA. 129 proceed to lose yourself in the region of the Pescheria Vecchia, only to come suddenly upon a fresh memento of Augustus in the shape of a once splendid colonnade. Octavius, who had dedicated to the son of his sister the neighboring theatre begun by Julius Caesar, placed under the patronage of Octavia this new portico, which embraced the older temples of Jupiter and Juno. Within the portico is the little church of St. Angelo in Pescheria, crowned by a covered belfry. It was from here that Cola de Eienzi, on the 20th of May, 1347, after hearing mass, came forth escorted by his adherents and the Vicar Apostolic, to ascend to the Capitol, where the populace whom he had con- voked conferred upon him the lordship of the Roman Republic. Situated in a poor quarter and surrounded by every kind of incongruous building these ruins of antiquity are connected on all sides with buildings dating from the seventh to the thirteenth century. At the south angle a brick arch replaces two of the columns, a repair probably dating from the early part of our era ; of the neighboring columns two are stand- ing, one of them half-buried in masonry, the other a fine piece crowned with acanthus ; beyond is a pilaster stripped of its marble facings. The principal effect of these ruins is made by the contrast between the grandeur and magnificence of the antique style, and the picturesque, sordid, and hopeless squalor of a neighborhood that since the middle ages has been oc- cupied by the Jews and the Fish Market. 9 130 EOME. Turning the corner of the portico and passing under a low arch, you suddenly come out at the head of a deep, narrow street, the houses of which, dark and of unequal height, are made yet more obscure by pent roofs and clothes-hnes stretched, as at Smyrna, across the road, from which swing garments of varied hue. These abodes exhibit a complete harlequinade of epochs and purposes. The majority of them have been in turn palaces, convents, oratories, and houses of every sort of business, until at last they are become garrets and dens for sheltering wretchedness. Every- body has tinkered at the walls according to his own ideas, and such is the quality of the cement that a square of wall pierced, stopped, mined, torn away ten times in twelve centuries, remains solid as a rock, without there being any need to prop it. Hence, be- fore each of these fa9ades made up of pieces and bits, one recognizes, as on an ill-scraped parchment on which various texts have followed one another, the plan and purpose of previous dwellings. The small Koman block, the remains of some saeellum of the lower empire, will form a kind of figured pattern with the narrow bricks of the thirteenth century and the large courses of travertine of the fifteenth. You can see from story to story spacious round windows filled up and replaced by tiny lattices, which are to- day in their turn condemned. Vast arches outlined in walls pierced by windows recall ancient porticoes. A console perched high among battered bas-reliefs, a THE PESCHERIA VECCHIA. 131 shaft of syenite or of African granite issuing from these mosaics of masonry, will suggest a whole history of vanished greatness. Marbles fouled with soot mingle here and there with the stucco of the build- ings. Casting furtive glances down some alley, you will discover among the filth of a blind court, captive colonnades and the crumbling fragments of a palace, such as those of the Governo Vecchio, whose porti- coes are half-concealed amid the hovels of the Pes- cheria. At Rome to rebuild they never completely pulled down, and thus additions have been made from age to age like the cells of a hive. It follows then that in the old quarters abandoned to the people you can trace the rank and read the history of the life of the various castes which from century to century have been quartered there. Even the doors have been re- cut or re-hung ; marvellous are the lock-fastenings ; antiqiie and complicated gratings will close sinks ; a sarcophagus wiU serve for a trough, a gravestone for a doorstep, while dirty water will have for gutters tombs that were contemporary with Gregory VII. In this way the smallest bit of building may become an historical treatise, but you must inspect it close, for too often by dint of passing from hand to hand the letters have become effaced.* On each side of this curious street lie large flag- stones of white marble, slightly inclined like tomb- * This quarter was demolished in 1887. 132 BOME. stones, which, placed along the foot of the houses, assume towards nightfall when the street is deserted, a most lugubrious look ; it is as though the inhabitants kept the graves of their ancestors before their doors. These blocks of Carrara or cipoUino, taken from the temples of the gods or the inferior palaces, serve as stalls for the vendors of fish. When on these tables they cut up the bronze-colored sword-fish, sea-eels, or doradoes with bluish gills, their blood mingling in violet and rose-colored webs with threads of carmine over the delicate whiteness of the marble, forms bouquets of color which would have given delight to a rival of Van Ostade. It was in digging at the end of this street that in the seventeenth century they ex- humed the Venus de Medici at the entrance of the rione of the Jews, who with an amazing want of thrift never seem to have thought of scratching the fruitful earth whose treasures they trample under foot. Rome allows the Israelites to keep open shop on Sunday, and does not forbid Christians to make their purchases in the Ghetto on that day, nor even to go and buy cigar-ends by the pound, or be shaved in those open-air barber shops, where people await their turn with so much patience, at the same time gather- ing from the lips of the inexhaustible Figaro the news of the quarter and of the two hemispheres. To have one's beard shaved is the only toilette luxury over which the Roman's taste for dirt has not triumphed. Beyond the Ghetto and the Cenci Palace, between THE EIGNE BELLA EEGOLA. 133 this piazza and the Via de' Pettinari, and bordering on the Tiber with its deserted quays is a labyrinth of streets, still more curious than those of the tribe of the Hebrews. From the bank you see retreating in perspective, a mass of habitations, toppling over one another as though driven by a blast of wind. The sight continues as far as the Ponte Sisto, under which you may possibly discern a fisherman on the watch before his girella stretched at the foot of an arch. Penetrating to the principal street, which runs parallel to the stream, but is sinuous with a breach here and there in its line, we find this ragged quarter alive and noisy and filled with the most incongruous objects. There are deep lanes, their entrances blocked by palaces without names, whose fifteen centuries of architecture are heaped one upon the other ; the lemon-tree and the laurel push out from clefts in the stone in the midst of all manner of fUth. This quar- ter is called the Rione della Regola, and is inhabited by tanners ; the pungent odor of the tan and the hides mixing with the accustomed perfume of the cabbage. Not far from this, on the bank of the river and facing the piazza of S. Maria in Cosmedin, is the graceful Rotunda of the Sun {Mater Matuta f Her- cules Victor ?), dedicated by S(jme modern archseolo- gists to Vesta, a charming monument of the age of Trajan, very inferior to the more ancient marvel of Tivoli, but still attractive in spite of having lost its 134 EOME. original roof and entablature. To save this pagan altar, instituted, they say, as far back as the time of Numa, it was placed by the popes under the protec- tion, first of S. Stefano delle Carrozze, and later of St. Mary of the Sun. In the centre of the piazza is a fountain, in the midst of which by order of Clement XI. Carlo Bizzaccheri placed high and dry upon a rock two sirens by Moratti, not of a very dangerous beauty. The southern side of the piazza is occupied by the porch of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. It is often said that Pope Adrian I., in reconstructing this church, which was of Constantinian origin, enriched it with an ornamentation so splendid that it retained the sur- name, in Cosmedin, from xdafux;^ decoration or orna- ment ; but this designation is older than the year 780. Santa Maria, standing between the Aventine and the Palatine, and at the end of the street Bocca della Verita, occupies the site of an ancient temple of Ceres and Proserpine rebuilt by Tiberius. We can still distinguish a portion of the Cella in some large blocks of travertine, as well as in twelve white mar- ble columns, some of which are built into the walls of the choir. The pavement is Alexandrine work of the richest and oldest sort ; the ambones of the eleventh century were adorned in the thirteenth by some rows of mosaic ; behind the high altar is placed the cathedra, possibly dating from the eighth century ; it was here that Pope Gelasius II. and the anti-Pope S. MARIA IN COSMEDIN. 135 Gregory VIII. were proclaimed : the high altar is surmounted by a ciboi'ium, supported on four columns of granite. This church, on which primitive times have left their mark, is but a hundred feet from the school where St. Augustine taught rhetoric, and the adjoining street perpetuates this circumstance, for it is stUl called the Via deUa Greca, though the Bishop of Hippo taught in Latin the lessons of Homer, whose own tongue he had not studied.* In the portico is the splendid twelfth-centuiy tomb of Cardinal Al- fanus, and against the wall the colossal mask in veined marble, from four to five feet in diameter, so well known under the name of the Bocca della Verity. It is a flat or shghtly concave face, with a mouth open- ing in a circle in the middle, as if to serve for the fun- nel of some pipe. At Rome they consider the Bocca della Verita to have been used as the motith of a drain. The children of the neighborhood amuse them- selves by clambering up to the great lunar face and burying their fists in its round mouth. The grand- mothers have believed and repeated for centuries to the youngsters that if they put their hands into the hocca after telling a lie, they will never be able to draw them out again. The little folk believe, and to escape the terrible punishment make up their minds to honorable confession. Close by the Temple of Fortune stands the singu- * Via della Greca is so-called from the Greek colony that once inhabited this quarter. 136 ROME. lar edifice erected by Nicolaus Crescentius, usually called the house of Coih. di Rienzi. It is built princi- pally out of fragments of ancient sculptures and build- ings in order, as an inscription states, to preserve them for the admiration of posterity. Before establishing himself at the Capitol and tak- ing shelter in the Castle of St. Angelo, could the friend of Petrarch, Cola di Rienzi, when he was notary apostolic, have lived in this house? The thing does not seem improbable. Towards the year 1347 Rienzi, his imagination inflamed by the tradi- tions of ancient Rome, and by the orators of the queen of the universe, whose equal he claimed to be, striving hard to restore republican manners with a view to arousing public spirit and suppressing feudal brigandage, Cola di Rienzi, who in preaching his crusade recalled to mind the Gracchi, the Fabricii, the Brutuses, the Scipios, — this Roman of old time who appealed on behalf of freedom to inscriptions, monu- ments, and ruins, may well have made his home in this house, built out of fragments of Roman grandeur, at the bottom of the Velabrum, in front of the camp of Porsenna, close to the Fabrician bridge, not far from the Tarpeian rock, facing the rotunda of the Sun, and at the side of the Republican temple of For- tuna ViriUs. Piazza Bocca della Verita. ■..**■ s J' : i m • % ^ j; !4* ^;-^ J i. THE PORTA PIA. 137 CHAPTER VII. Rebuilt in 1642 by Borromini and Rainaldi, the church of S. Agnese confronts you as you enter the Circo Agonale (Piazza Navona) from the east. It stands upon the spot where the Virgin Martyr was publicly exposed after the flames had failed to con- sume her; two subterranean chapels with vaulted roofs being said to be a part of the original Circus of Domitian where the persecution took place. S. Agnese was finally killed by being stabbed in the throat ; and her parents interred her in the catacombs situated on the Via Nomentana. To follow her to her tomb, it will be necessary for us to ascend the Qiurinal and leave Rome. You win. never forget the day on which for the first time you tread the Roman campagna, especially if, directing your steps towards the Mens Sacer, you have gone out by the Porta Pia which replaces the old Nomentane gate through which the Emperor Nero, in fuU flight from his soldiers who had at last revolted, made his escape from Rome followed by a slave. A military camp still occupies the spot where the praetorian camp then stood, under whose walls the fugitive Caesar was obliged to pass so close that 138 ROME. he could hear the soldiers shouting "Long life to Galba." It was there that in later times these same troops sold the empire by auction : and it was there, in the midst of this same prsetorian camp, that Cara- calla slew his brother Geta in the arms of their mother, Julia, who was covered with blood and wounded in the hand in attempting to defend one son from the other.* To penetrate into the uncultivated regions of this great historic and pastoral desert, you had not for- merly to traverse that suburb of small houses and taverns which ends in the absurdities of the ViUa Torlonia, whose owner has constructed imitation ruins. To set up a counterfeit in the midst of the richest necropolis of antiquity — what clumsy competition ! On the summit of a slight eminence about a mile from the gate stands the church of S. Agnese fuori le Mura, adjoining the church of S. Costanza and the ruins of an early Christian cemetery. Constantino, at the request of his sister Constantia, erected this basilica over the tomb of the saint. It was rebuilt by Honorius in the seventh century and altered by Innocent VIII. in the fifteenth. In order to reach it we descend a flight of marble steps be- * Pius IV. closed the Porta Nomentana and built the Porta Pia, the designs being made by Michael Angelo. It in turn was rebuilt after the capture of Eome by the troops under Victor Emanuel, who entered the city through a breach in the walls close by, on September 20, 1870. S. AGNESE. 139 tween walls covered with ancient inscriptions. The basilica has side aisles separated from the nave by two tiers of ancient columns of portasanta and sevion vezza breccia. The seventh century mosaics repre- sent Popes Honorius and Symmachus on either side of kS. Agnese, crowned and wearing a gold, bejewelled laticlave with white borders, and a violet tunic ; the subdued light, the poetic associations, and the ancient character of this venerable edifice all contribute to make a deep religious impression upon the beholder. It would be deeper still if Pius IX. had not had the decorations of the interior restored. It is to S. Agnese that on the 21st of January the abbot of the regular chapter of St. Saviour comes after mass to bless two lambs placed on the altar ; after which ceremony they are restored to a dignitary of St. John Lateran, who in turn sees that they get the papal benediction, and are then placed in some convent of nuns appointed by the holy father, to be taken care of. At Easter one of these lambs is served on the pontifical table, and from their wool are woven the pallia. The pallium was before the fourth cen- tury an exclusive privilege of the popes ; it recalls the obligation of bearing on the neck like the Good Shepherd the sick and strayed sheep. As this mis- sion proceeds from the apostle Peter, it is from his tomb, where they have been placed on the eve of the festival, that the pope takes the pallia for the purpose of distributing them. 140 EOME. Hard by S. Agnese (and adjoining the ruins of what was probably the first Christian cemetery) is a building of the same date, but whose original appear- ance has been much better preserved. It was as a tomb for his daughter and his sister that the son of St. Helen erected this building, as Ammianus Mar- cellinus attests. Though it is sometimes thought to have been originally intended for a baptistery. The great porphyry sarcophagus of St. Constantia was re- moved and placed in the Vatican by order of Pius VI. When, in 1256, he converted the tomb into a church, Alexander IV. deposited under the altar in the middle, the body of St. Constantia, where it still remains. Among aU the edifices of the Roman decline we find here the most ancient examples of coupled col- umns. They are of antique origin, and reach the number of four-and-twenty ; their granite shafts sup- port over varied capitals very curious protuberant friezes, above which rises a cupola. The vaults of the Ambulatorium are decorated with mosaics on a white ground, belonging to the fourth century — speci- mens that would be unique if those of St. Pudentiana had not been preserved as well, for the frieze of Santa Maria Maggiore can only belong to the end of the same century.* These precious mosaics have for their subjects flowing designs formed by vine-shoots * Kugler attributes the Santa Maria Maggiore mosaics to the first half of tlie fifth century. See Hand-book of Painting, p. 27. S. COSTANZA. 141 turned in various directions and laden with bunches of ripe grapes. Pagan genii gather the fruit from branch to branch ; occasionally the interspaces are furnished with grotesque heads ; some coffer-work frames rosettes connected by interlacings which form crosses. Nothing could be more interesting than this specimen of the decorative art of antiquity before its final decline. As the work was executed by an artist who lacked the too recent inspiration of Christian feeHng, these charming mosaics are only connected by their intention with the new faith, and accordingly the tomb of St. Constantia long passed for a temple of Bacchus. Such mistakes are no longer permissible, since so many sarcophagi of the first centuries have shown us this subject of the vintage, the mystic sense of which is clearly set forth by the Fathers, as well as by the following passage from the Acts of St. Eugenia : " Now is the time of the vintage, when the rich grapes shall be severed to be pressed, after their separation from the slender vine-branches, into the heavenly cups." The form, style, and delicate de- sign of these compositions have for set-off some rude mosaics of a very much later period, representing Christ and two apostles, and Christ seated on a globe. They are much too late, and yet too early. These two or three acres of ground along a country road-side contain evidences of a complete history of the heroic ages of religion. Martyrs, places of sub- terranean worship, two stories of catacombs, symboh- 142 ROME. cal inscriptions, sacred paintings of the earliest cen- turies, all await you in the depths of the earth. Outside ancient Eome, along the fifteen Consular roads which radiated from the Capitol as a centre, there existed in the third century, besides a score of underground cemeteries consecrated to families, twenty-six great catacombs, which answered to the number of the parishes of that time. It has been calculated that these labyrinths must measure three hundred and fifty miles of gallery, and must contain six millions of dead. The average width of the cor- ridors is about thirty inches ; placed one over another, so as sometimes to form five stories, they are never dug more than about seventy feet deep, a depth at which the volcanic crust ends to make way for humid clays. Nothing can be more interesting than these cradles of religion, these asylums of the martyrs of imperial tyranny, ancestors whom all Christian com- munions venerate. As one cannot visit many cata- combs, people are often content with taking a few steps in the public ones of St. Sebastian which are entirely broken down, and then return fully persuaded that all the others are the same ; hence perhaps the idea that all these cemeteries were estabhshed in old sand-quarries — arenaria. At St. Agnes these travel- lers would find, — but above crypts, — genuine arenaria with more spacious vaults and wide passages practi- cable for carriages. In these quarries are sometimes cut narrow stairs or traps by which to descend mys- THE CATACOMBS OF S. AGNESE. 143 teriously into real catacombs, the early Christians having as a matter of fact utilized a number of abandoned sand-quarries in this manner. The cemetery where St. Agnes had her tomb, which now serves as the altar of the church built above it, this dormitory, for such is the Kteral and spiritualistic meaning of the word, is situated about two miles from Rome ; you enter it from the midst of a wild garden by a flight of some thirty steps. At the bottom you penetrate a series of narrow corridors following one another, cut at right angles, intricate like a network of lanes, and whose complexities could certainly never have permitted any kind of working. What could they have extracted from these under- ground caverns ? Their divisions are not made either of stone suitable for building nor of pozzalana for the preparation of cement ; on the other hand, for hollowing out places of sepulture the sand of the arenaria would have offered too little resistance, while the rock of the quarries would have been too hard to cut. The Christians must then have chosen in the intermediate section of the volcanic stratum that porous marl which was of a sufficiently hard consist- ency, while it was tolerably easy to chip away ; a Ught substance readily worked, which does not split, and which would not block up the passages with bulky, heavy pieces difficult to remove. Such is the geological constitution of the catacombs. The debris from the newly-formed galleries was usu- 144 EOME. ally dumped in the old galleries, which had become full, or else raised by means of ropes and baskets, and mixed either with the sand of the quarries of the upper range or with the uncultivated ground of the surface. At any rate, it is certain that the catacombs could only have been intended to serve as cemeteries, and were expressly set apart for that purpose. Their use, for that matter, long preceded the Christian era; Pliny informs us that the practice of incineration was not very ancient, and that many great families had preserved the custom of burying their dead. Sallust had under his garden catacombs provided with locidi; while the dictator Sulla was the first of the Cornelian family whose body was burned. The walls of these sepulchral galleries were con- verted into a sort of chests, where they ranged the dead in superimposed rows hollowed in the tufa close to one another, so that you seem to walk between rows of cupboards from which the drawers have been taken. The cavity dug out to receive the corpse was closed, either with large bricks or with thin pieces of marble. As we observe how they econo- mized space, leaving no more than the necessary room between the compartments, and taking advan- tage of the very smallest nooks for the burial-places of children — of which the number is prodigious — we learn more than any books could teach us of the rapid propagation of the faith during the first cen- turies. The complexity of the place explains how. THE CATACOMBS. 145 without going beyond the third milestone they could have made three hundred and fifty miles of winding- ways. The country around pagan Rome was simply undermined by the catacombs. If I add that before the year 316 these cities of the departed, where the holy mysteries were cele- brated, and where catechumens were instructed, some- times hid as many of the living as they contained of the dead, we can understand how at the moment when Christianity was officially proclaimed, it had already rallied aU the lower and middle classes under its ban- ner, only leaving to pagan worship the support of the old Roman aristocracy, the natural enemies of a dogma which, by proclaiming equality and the fraternal pos- session of earthly goods, annihilated at a blow both large properties and the institution of slavery, the sole means of keeping up such extensive appanages. Thus Tacitus, as the mouthpiece of the most oppres- sive tyranny that ever existed, describes the Chris- tians as " infamous and pestilent men, execrated for their crimes." Constantino yielded to necessity when he gained the support of the Nazarenes and placed the cross upon his standard : in hoc signo vinces. The safety of the empire was at stake. We may readily imagine how imperious this necessity must have been, when we recall that more than a century before, under Septimius Severus, TertuUian affirmed that if the Christians were forced to emigrate, the Roman empire would become a desert. 10 146 EOME. Some visitors are so painfully impressed by the aspect of the catacombs, and so suffocated by the atmosphere of their narrow, low, and interminable passages, where the air is made still heavier by the smoke of the torches, that they beg to be allowed to make their way back. In truth, it seems likely enough that had the torches gone out or the old and bowed guide, who preceded us, been struck by apo- plexy, we would have been condemned to await death in this tomb of some millions of souls, since the S. Agnese catacombs were not then open to the general public, and we had come alone by appointment ; and even supposing that a week after another guide should have brought another party, they would most likely have directed their steps towards a different quarter. These are reflections, however, to which people do not stoop until after an event. The tombs of mar- tyrs and heroes, often nameless, attract one's atten- tion especially ; they are easy to distinguish, for when the gravemakers closed them, they fastened in the cement by the side of the head an ampulla of glass in which the blood of the confessor had been collected. You still see on all hands the marks and often the fragments of these vessels. When the martyrs had been drownod, burned, or put to death without spilling of blood, then in sealing up the burial- place the workman with the point of his trowel drew in the fresh mortar rude sketches of palm-trees, numbers of which are to be seen. Occasionally we CATACOMBS OF S. AGNESE. 147 recognize the calcined bones of a martyr burnt alive, and it sometimes happens that the bones are crystal- lized to such a degree as to shine. Inscriptions give the names of the dead ; those in Greek are usually the oldest, Greek having been the official tongue of the primitive Church. Many of the tombs are still closed fast and untouched. During the persecutions, the rigor of which was not unbroken, the mysteries of worship took place in narrow oratories stiU existing in their entirety, as well as in baptisteries of which the underground springs are still flowing. The sacred celebration took place on the tomb of some illustrious martyr ; hence the origin, the form, and even the name of our altars, which we still consecrate by the introduction of relics. You find also the seat {cathedra) of the bishops cut in the tufa with tiers of benches around it ; there sat several successors of St. Peter in the first three centuries. In certain chapels two chairs, placed as far as possible apart from one another and placed diagonally, represent confessionals. Ordi- narily these churches are divided into two parts, one for men and the other for women, the latter recog- nizable by the seats on either side of the door ; dur- ing the giving of instruction to female catechumens, a second assistant deacon was appointed to supervise. In the tympana of the vault of a tomb-altar there are visible, not sculptures, for the substance did not lend itself to them, and they would have been poorly ap- 148 KOME. preciated by lamplight, but paintings, the first that Christianity produced — curious documents of the primitive rehgion. Sometimes in walking along this sub-Roman world, so complete and so populous, we see a patch of blue above the russet walls, one of those openings hidden among the brushwood above, which served to bring a little air into these unknown caves and so permit the Christian world to breathe. If you wish to penetrate further into the study of the catacombs and their symbols, we must return to Rome, cross the whole of the city, and pass out the gate of St. Sebastian. Forgotten for hundreds of years, confounded even as late as the middle of the present century with the cemetery of St. Sebastian or with that of Pretextatus, the catacombs of Cahxtus were definitely discovered in 1852, by the most eminent of Roman archaeologists, Signer De Rossi. St. Calixtus is one of the ceme- teries which help us best to understand what, after the reign of Constantine, was the fate of the cata- combs. Pope Damasus and his successors decorate and embellish them ; light-holes {lucernaria) are made above the tombs of the more illvistrious saints ; they wall up corridors that had no interest, and which only added to the complications of the labyrinth ; and they allow new loculi to be hoUowed out for the burial of pious families under the protection of the blessed patrons of the ages of trial. It was then that the faithful of the fourth century described this place as Porta S. Sebastian©. .v^-- CATACOMBS OF ST. CALIXTUS. 149 the Jerusalem of the martyrs of the Lord. Behevers came, thither from all the extremities of the world. This catacomb was constructed long before the epoch at which Pope Calixtus I. — sprung, they say, from the Domitian family, but who had directed a bank in the Forum — bequeathed his name to the cemetery on the Appian Way ; some loculi are closed with bricks, the stamping on which dates from Mar- cus Aurelius ; and everything shows that this ceme- tery of pagan origin was created by the Ceecilii on their vast territories, and afterwards ceded by them to the Christians.* As at S. Agnese, it is from the midst of an uncul- tivated garden that you descend into that historic spot where the most modern additions date from the ninth century. Half-way down the stair, whose walls are lined with vegetation, as soon as you have lost sight of the city and its hills, the lights are kindled and each visitor, taper in hand, penetrates into this labyrinth of sanctuaries very much as the subter- ranean processions used to go. Armed with torches, the guides who precede you plunge deeper and deeper into the sombre corridors, where the black smoke of the resin seems to throw them into strange and fune- * It is the opinion of Signor De Rossi that Calixtus was orig- inally a slave, and that his predecessor in the Papal See — St. Zephyrinus — placed him in charge of the cemetery on the Ap- pian Way, from which circumstance it came to be called by his name. 150 ROME. real perspective. For very nervous persons the sen- sation of fright is not less overpowering here than it IS at S. Agnese, and we frequently see women and old men so overcome that they stop and pray to be taken back to the light of the sun. You are among not less than three rows of sepulchres one above the other : skeletons are under your feet as over your head ; they elbow you right and left. Men by hun- dreds of thousands have prayed and sung in these galleries, and now they sleep in them the sleep of death. The tombs of Anterus and Fabian, and of Euty- chianus, have been found, as well as inscriptions show- ing that that of Sixtus II. was close by ; and from ancient authorities we know that many others of the Popes of the third century were buried here as well. During the second and third centuries this under- ground chapel of the Popes was used as a place of worship, and more than one of the spiritual masters of the Christian world suffered martyrdom in the adjoining galleries. They had as guardians, as sol- diers, and as legates, mendicants posted from place to place who kept watch along the Appian Way. When St. Csecilia wanted to send her husband Vale- rianus to be baptized, to Pope St. Urban, who was concealed in the cemetery of S. Pretextatus, "Go," she said, " as far as the third mile on the Appian Way ; there you will find some poor people who beg alms of the passers-by. I have always helped them. CATACOMBS OF ST. CALIXTUS. 151 and they possess the secret ; you will salute them, saying to them, ' Caecilia has sent me to you that you may lead me to the holy old man, Urban, because she has charged me with a secret mission for him.' " The site of the tomb of St. Cajcilia is still marked at St. Calixtus. As we approach her cuhiculum, tombs, and a multitude of inscriptions placed on the walls by enthusiastic pilgrims, announce the vicinity of that famous personage, before, in a crypt adjoin- ing the papal room, we have recognized the likeness of the saint and that of Urban who buried her. In a recess I observed a Christian sarcophagus, made in imitation of a pagan urn, and of very rude art ; it is only of the fourth century, and Christianity had not then produced sculptors. In two other sarcophagi we saw bodies whole, and preserved under glass, one still being dressed in its shroud. Further off under a common inscription are imited with two other con- fessors St. Dionysius and St. Zoe, St. Heliodora and St. Procopius. Birds and flowers, as well as the peacock, emblems of the joys of paradise and immor- tal life, are painted in the Arcosolium above one of the tombs. As at S. Agnese, it sometimes happens that a lucernaria piercing from story to story allows us to discern from the very deepest crypt, as if one were at the bottom of a well, a circle of blue sky framed in transparent foliage with the stars shining in it and forming in the darkness an illusive appear- ance of night. Sometimes, too, a circumstance of 162 KOME. which certain critics have made use, you stumble against the remains of pagan sculpture and inscrip- tions, hut always near these lucernaria through which such fragments rolled with masses of sand and ruin. At what epoch did they cease to frequent, and at last even to know the situation of, these underground abodes ? I am scarcely less ignorant than the authors by whom I might have allowed myself to be edified on this point. Indications that pilgrimages continued to be made to them after the ninth century are clear to me from the examination of a little Byzantine Madonna that I saw above a tomb. It is known that in the twelfth century the pilgrims of Einsiedeln visited them, and I lately acquired proof of this when I went to establish, in the celebrated convent of the canton of Schweitz, the real age of the Regionarium ; but what is more surprising is, that in the fifteenth century an archbishop of Bourges placed in the ceme- tery of St. Calixtus two inscriptions, which I recog- nized. This subterranean Vatican of the primitive church abounds in interesting epitaphs ; I contented myself with translating the following as we passed hastily along by the flickering light of the torches, for you must keep close to the guide who holds the thread of your days : THE FIFTH OF THE KALENDS OF NOVEMBER. HERE WAS LAID TO SLEEP (JORGONIUS, WHOM ALL LOVED AND WHO HATED NONE. INSCKIPTIONS IN TliE CATACOMBS. 153 This inscription, like many others, is in Greek ; the following is in Latin, but without any date, which is a sign of great antiquity : TOO SOON HAST THOU FALLEN GONSTANTIA 1 ADMIRABLE FOR BEAUTY AND FOR HER CHARMS, SHE LIVED XVIII YEARS, VI MONTHS, XVI DAYS. GONSTANTIA, IN PEACE. There are some which recall memories of the per- secutions ; such is that of one Marius, a young officer under Hadrian, " who lived long enough, for he spent his life and his blood for Christ." His friends laid him there with much wailing and many fears. This one, which comes from S. Agnese, and is composed in Latin with Greek letters, is very significant: HERE GORDIANUS MESSENGER FROM GAUL, SLAIN FOR THE FAITH, WITH ALL HIS FAMILY. THEY REST IN PEACE. THEOPHILA, THEIR SERVANT, HAD THIS DONE. The poor envoy from Gaul, put to death on foreign soil with all his family ; the servant, left alone and far from her land, raising a monument to her master and adorning it with a palm — here is a touching epi- sode in the inner life of our forefathers. The work- 154 KOME. men of the catacombs, or grave-makers, formed not a corporation but a minor order of the clergy. An inscription has been found at St. Calixtus with these words : DIOGENES THE GRAVEDIGGEK, IN PEACE, LAID HEKE THE EIGHTH BEFORE THE KAL. OF OCTOBER. This is placed above the delineation of the de- ceased. His tunic comes down to his knees, and he is shod with sandals. On his left shoulder is a piece of fur or stuff; on his right shoulder as well as above the knees are traced small crosses ; in one hand he holds a mattock, and in the other a lamp hung by a small chain ; around him are the tools of his business. The characteristic of most of the inscriptions is ten- der and consolatory thought ; affection sighs its re- grets, and faith breathes in hope. There is nothing pompous, nothing to recall the dignities of this world; much cheerfulness, much simplicity, much sweetness. TO ADEODATA, MERITORIOUS VIRGIN, WHO RESTS HERE IN PEACE, HER CHRIST HAVING WILLED IT SO. The virtues praised among the deceased are always amiable virtues ; friend of the poor, tender and blame- less soul, lamb of the Lord. A widower recalls fifteen INSCRIPTIONS IN THE CATACOMBS. 155 years of union sine lesione anitni; he was father of seven children, but Ms wife has four of them with her with the Lord. MAY THY SOUL BE EEFEESHED IN SUPREME BLISS, O KALEMIEA I Certain names show how recent the conversions were. Two sons address this prayer over the tomb of their mother : LOED, MAY THE SOUL OF OUE MOTHEE, VENUS, NOT BE LEFT IN DAEKNESS. People frequently commend themselves to the prayers of the dead, and place their dear ones de- parted under the protection of some saint who hap- pens to be their neighbor : LADY BASILIA, I COMMEND TO THEE THE INNOCENCE OF MY VEEY DEAE SON GEMELLUS. FAEEWELL, SWEETEST CHILD ; WHEN THOU SHALT IN BLISS ENTEE THE KING- DOM OF CHEIST, FOEGET NOT THY MOTHEE, AND FEOM SON BECOME GUAEDIAN. A husband has added with his hand to the inscrip- 156 EOME. tion of his wife : Pray for thy husband, Celsianus. Some widows are described as viduce Dei, matrons who had consecrated their widowhood to the Lord. On the pavement of one of the chapels we read the words : PAULUS EXORCISTA DEPOSITUS MAETYBIES. It seemed to me that at St. Calixtus the paintings were more numerous as well as more important than at S. Agnese. You come upon the Anchor, which symbolizes hope ; the Dove flying away with the olive-branch in his mouth, emblem of the Christian soul that quits this world in peace ; the Ship at the foot of a beacon ; the Fish, fX9YI, whose Greek name recalls that of Christ and furnishes the initials of the formula, Iijanix; Xptozd^ Benu Ylo^ StuTi^p ; Bread, symbol of the Eucharist ; the Eabbit gnawing, sym- bol of the destruction of the body. The Tortoise and the Dormouse signify that the sleep of Death will be followed by an awakening ; the Children in the Furnace remind the confessor that he must brave torment ; Daniel given to the Lions is the patron of martyrs ; Jonas is the emblem of regeneration by faith. In a group these signs become the elements of a hieroglyphic tongue, of which only the initiated can penetrate the meaning. Thus the Anchor and Fish, hope in Christ ; a Fish carrying Bread is Jesus giving himself in the Eucharist ; a Tree covered with Birds pecking its fruit, is the phalanx of the chosen CHBISTIAN AKT IN THE CATACOMBS. 157 on the tree of life in the heavenly garden. The parables and the Bible supply a number of trans- parent allegories, such as the Sower, the Fisherman making a draught of Souls, the Good Shepherd bring- ing back the lost sheep, the Reaper, the Vine-dresser, the Raising of Lazarus, and so forth. Noah in the Ark meant the Christian saved and received into alliance ; Moses striking the Rock symbolizes bap- tism, as well the doctrine which Christ has made to flow out into the world, to bring back life to it. Above Moses we sometimes read the name of St. Peter, the Moses of the new law. On a ceiling divided into compartments, a number of these subjects make a frame to Orpheus, who draws a crowd of ani- mals and even turtles to himself. This curious roof, which Bosio first sketched, dates back, according to D'Agincourt, to the end of the first century. In another painting, Jesus dispatches his disciples to preach to the nations, who are represented by sheep. Observe how they receive the divine word. One of them feels itself drawn towards the apostle ; another moves away ; this listens attentively, but with misgivings ; the last, who would fain conciliate both God and the world, lowers its head while listen- ing to browse at the same time. In the first cen- turies we see Christ under the form of the Good Shepherd and sometimes seated in the midst of the Twelve ; but this face, so young, Apollo-like, beard- less, and smiling, is destitute of all iconographic 158 KOME. character, while Peter and Paul belong to a confirmed type and spring from a traditional portrait. The representation of the Virgin with her Son is frequent.* The Christ is sometimes symbolized in Orpheus. Still, if we except Psyche (the soul elevated to mys- tic love), the images drawn from paganism are rare. Besides the ever-green ivy which accompanies many epitaphs, we notice the pineapple, which, a tradition that comes down from the ages of paganism, makes incorruptible. The cemetery of Calixtus reveals to us the works of embellishment executed in the catacombs, from the time of St. Damasus, described as the Virgin Doctor of the virgin church by St. Jerome, who was his sec- retary, and who remembered wandering in the cata- combs in his childhood, down to Pascal. It was Damasus who prevented the raising in the senate of a pagan altar to Victory, and who obtained from Valentinian in 370 a decree forbidding members of the clergy from receiving donations or testamentary bequests. He regretted the purity of the old days of persecution, and wished to be buried, not in the cemetery of Csecilia and of Calixtus, for which his humility disinclined him, but in a small outside chapel near by. Some of the walls of this chapel are still standing. * An orante or female figure praying in allusion to the church is sometimes pointed out as the Virgin, but there is no represen- tation of the Virgin with her Son. THE COELIAN. I59 CHAPTER VIII. The Cselian being a melancholy spot, it is best to go there alone, so as to gain an impression in har- mony with the look of the place. To ascend this slope, you leave on the right a monastery of rich and substantial aspect close by the site of the house of the Anician family, where Gregory the Great was born. The street, which is shaded by trees, is commanded on the left by the lofty apse of the conventual church of St. John and St. Paul, which has belonged ever since Clement XIV. to the Passionist fathers. The tower-shaped chevet is crowned with a rounded dia- dem of arches cut in festoons and supported on little columns. Sometimes along the line of this road por- tions of the ancient pavement vary the chessboard pattern of the modern ; the wall on the right, which separates various gardens from the street, is contem- porary with Nero. This wall, mixed with opus re- ticularium of brick and peperino, shows against its massive sides the traces of a row of small habitations. To uphold the embankment and support the Re- demptorist convent, which is on the edge of the street, they have thrown from one side to the other a series of flying arches which form a perspective at the back 160 ROME. of which, set fast among the buildings and in ruins, rises the arch of Dolabella. A Httle further on you reach the piazza where Leo X. placed a small marble boat, which has given its surname to the church, Sta. Maria della NaviceUa, more commonly described as in Domenica, and which replaced the house of a noble lady, St. Cyriaca. This temple, supported on ancient columns of granite and porphyry, was restored by Leo X. from plans made by Raphael. The frieze above the architraves of the nave, although it is to be attributed to P. deUa Vaga and GriuHo Romano, might well have been de- signed and even partially executed by Giovanni d'Udine. The mosaics of the choir, dating from the year 817 to 824, are all the more interesting, from the fact that paintings of the ninth century are not very common in Rome. It was the feast of St. Stephen, and to find his church I had only to follow the crowd along a battered street which many feet had already made slippery ; a veritable mountain pilgrimage intra muros. As this strange temple is not often opened except on the day of the fun;sione, taverns and stalls for the sale of small tapers are improvised along the approaches to the building. Holiday-makers of the Rione Toscano, coachmen, pUgrims from the country, all stop to watch the stream of people returning, and to gather a few baiocchi from them upon occasion. You would sometimes imagine that these good folk were quar- SAN STEFANO ROTONDO. 161 relling, and about to cut one another's throats ; but they are only playing at mora, a word which, while expressing the idea of delay or check, is the name of a game that keeps the adversaries constantly on the alert and excites them to excess. It consists in presenting very suddenly to your partner your right hand, keeping one or two fingers shut, and crying out at the same moment the number of fingers ex- tended. Your adversary is obliged to seize your idea with magical rapidity, and to pronounce the same number as rapidly as you. The left hand serves to mark the points gained. The tensity of mind re- quired, and the rapidity of the turns, make both players cry out the numbers in jerks ; their faces at the same time become glowing and contracted, while their voices, breathless and hoarse, accent with a gut- tural dryness the words uttered monosyllabically — Bu' l^Quattr' ! — C/w' .' — Tre' .' — Cinq^ ! Animated by this trifling, which not seldom degenerates into a downright quarrel, so easy and so doubtful is a mis- take, the Romans unconsciously assume postures and expressions of ferocious beauty. At the street cor- ners I was never weary of watching them. It is said that their ancestors played at mora while besieging Syracuse, and they even talk of a Greek bas-relief where the petulant Ajax is beaten at it by the sage Ulysses in presence of the aged Nestor. The church of San Stefano Rotondo is extremely spacious, its conical roof sloping on to an architrave 11 162 KOME. covers fifty-six marble and granite columns, with Ionic and Corinthian capitals. The unequal dimen- sions of the shafts, certain disproportiojis between their diameters and those of the capitals, the rude design of some of the ornaments, a number of in- cised crosses in the heart of the acanthuses — all de- note a Christian temple constructed of odds and ends on a circular ground-plan at the end of the fifth cen- tury. It is said, in fact, that it was founded towards 465 by Pope Simplicius, who as a native of Tivoli, might, from the Sibylline temple, have acquired a fancy for monuments of a round form. This is sur- rounded by a perfect necklace of altars ; over one of them is preserved a mosaic of the seventh century. Let us also not forget to mention a very fine statue of a Bishop lying on a sarcophagus by Lorenzetto, the tomb of Bernardino Capella, who died in the first half of the sixteenth century. But these are not the principal curiosities of San Stefano Rotondo, nor what make it so popular. In old times, when spectacular representations were rare, the spiritual and temporal pastors of a people that was degenerate in its passion for theatres, in order to attract the populace, whose mind it was necessary to stir, had invested most of the churches with ceremonies and displays of a pecu- liar character. At St. Peter's, the regal pomps of the sovereign church ; at the Ara Coeli, the pastoral of the Nativity ; at St. Stephen the Round, they repre- sented with all its terrors the melodrama of martyr- ACADEMY OF ST. LUKE. 163 dom, and this is quite naturally the spectacle which the populace prefer. Let us come to the objects of this keen curiosity. In 1452 Nicholas V. filled in the spaces between the outer circuit of columns surrounding this build- ing, so as to form the present wall. In the compart- ments thus made Pomerancio and Tempesta, in the second half of the sixteenth century, painted frescoes of the Tortures of the Martyrs under the Jews, under the emperors, and under the Vandal kings. The horrors of the charnel-house or the amphitheatre, the most hideous inventions of cannibalism, the ferocities of human butchery interpreted in a nightmare — that is what the good people come here to see, and that is what is depicted with all that imagination can do to add to the horrors of reality. To enter the gallery of St. Luke, you have to ring at a modest door on the left of the Via Bonella ; once entered you find yourself facing some cows that Ber- ghem has brought to graze among the ruins. A fine shipwreck by Tempesta, a landscape by Salvator Rosa, a few pastorals of Blomen, instantly give you the keynote of the modern and natural school. I wish to give a sketch of this museum, of the im- pression it makes, of the entertainment or benefit that one may derive from it, without feeling myself obliged to mention this or that, under penalty of ap- pearing incomplete. As for the details, there is the catalogue. The principal attraction of the collection 164 EOME. comes from its diversity; it possesses something of every school, and the most complete, rather than the largest, examples of each school — a rare circumstance in a gallery created with a view to teaching. The sanctuary of the place is dedicated to Raphael on account of two important paintings ; one which represents a robust and beautiful child, naked, in the style of the Farnesini, is a piece of fresco detached from one of the rooms of the Vatican, and which once belonged to Wicar, the benefactor of the museum at Lille ; the other has been made common by engrav- ings, and the painters have placed a copy of it in their church. It is the St. Luke painting the Madonna, who descends from heaven to pose for him ; behind the evangelist a pupil, probably Raphael, watches and draws in inspiration ; a charming head, painted with much suppleness.* One of the gems of the Gallery is the portrait of the handsome Madame Vigee-Lebrun, whom I knew when she was nearly a hundred years old, at Louve- ciennes, where she died. A grey dress, and a cloud of white muslin, serving at once for kerchief round the neck and coiffure for the head, constitute her negUge. This celebrated artist, who exhausted all the triumphs that fame and beauty can confer, had cut on her gravestone the simple words, "At last I rest." In short, you may amuse yourself by lounging * This picture is not thought to be the work of Raphael. Portrait of Mme. Le Brun. By Herself. THE MAMEETINE PRISONS. 165 among the cosmopolites of the galleries of St. Luke, as one does in the cabinet of a capricious amateur. It is a good refuge when some sudden shower drives you from the Coliseum, the Palatine, or the Forum. Turning west to begin the ascent of the Capitol, at the corner of the Via del Marforio, under the small church of San Giuseppe, a monument of an entirely different sort will arrest you on the way. I mean those two dungeons, one above the other, whose names recall their founders, the Mamertine prison, in memory of King Ancus Martius (issue of Mars, whom the Oscans called Mamercus), and the Tullian prison, because King Servius Tullius, they say, had it dug out under the first.* These dun- geons, the oldest in the world, are seen to-day in all the severe nakedness of their original construction, their appearance being in perfect keeping with their great antiquity. The Mamertine prison, properly so called, into which you now descend from the church of St. Joseph belonging to the corporation of carpenters, is in the shape of a trapezium twenty feet long by about sixteen broad ; the masonry consists of enormous blocks of volcanic stone or reddish peperino, cubed and arranged in the Etruscan way ; the roof, which is semi-cylindrical (though irregular, the sides of the square being unequal), is formed of immense blocks * More probably from the spring of water which has existed there from the earliest times — tullius meaning a spring. 166 EOME. of stone. In it is a hole, formerly the only means of entrance, through which the prisoners, tightly bound, were lowered by ropes, the lictors or execu- tioners descending by ladders, either to chain the prisoners to the walls or to slay them in the Tul- lianum. Thus those who were in the upper prison, after being for a moment lighted up by the torches, would hear cries from below, and presently behold the bleeding and mutilated corpses being slowly drawn up. These, after dangling before their eyes for a few moments, would disappear to be thrown from the top of the stairs of the Gemonise, whence they were pubUcly dragged by hooks through the Forum Vela- brum, as far as the Sublician bridge, where the Tiber became their grave. The lower prison, that cavern of slaughter which in the time of Hannibal was already eighteen palms below the level of the Forum — the TuUianum, is of smaller dimensions than the Mamertine. This cave, nearly circular in form, is of volcanic peperino and deeply smoke-stained ; the layers of stone are rather disjointed ; the lateral walls are only about five and a half feet high, as the vault- ing is extremely low. As in the other chamber, there are no traces of a door to be discovered ; and one of the sides is formed of solid rock. At the present day, the Tullianum contains for its furniture a modest altar, the shaft of a column, and a tin cup fastened by a chain to the side of the fountain, which flows clear and without reflection over the blackish earth where THE MAMERTINE PEISONS. 167 there has been much blood to drink. An inscription traced upon the wall of the Maraertine prison informs us that in the year 22 of our era Ruffinus and Coc- ceius Nerva, the consuls, made some repairs. This, dating back nearly nineteen hundred years, is, I be- lieve, the only modern restoration of the building. The Lucumos of Tarquinise were sprung of the Etruscan stock which permitted human sacrifices, and the crypt of the temple dedicated to their gods must have been a slaughter-house. Josephus demon- strates the duration of these customs. '' It is a pious usage," writes the Jewish historian, " to put to death in the Mamertine prisons the chiefs of the conquered nations, while the triumphant conqueror sacrifices on the Capitol to Jupiter." Pliny the Elder saw buried alive in the Forum Boarium, with the design of win- ning the favor of the gods, a man and a young woman born in Gaul, with which country they were then at war ; and this pious atrocity seems quite natural to him. We see this prison to-day just as it appeared four or five centuries before the Csesars, in the time of the Decemvirs, when Appius Claudius slew himself there. Who is not reminded of the lot of Manlius Capito- linus, reduced to appeal for his defence against the envious CamiUus, to thirty enemies slain with his own hand, to his eight civic crowns, to his thirty-two mili- tary awards, and to the scars that adorned his breast I But all in vain, he is thrust into the frightful Tul- 168 EOME. lianum. Then arrives in this hostelry of slaughter Jugurtha, who carried on for so long a campaign against the Romans, and whom Marius and Sulla to- gether would never have conquered, if the treason of the king of Mauritania had not delivered him into the hands of the latter. As he came down from the Capitol, where he had figured in the triumph of Marius, Jugurtha, like an actor whose part is over, was stripped and cast into the Tullianum. " By the gods !" he exclaimed, as they entered his name on the jailer's scroll, " how cold your bath is !" It took six days of starvation for death to release him. It was to the Tullianum that Cicero conducted Lentulus, Cethegus, and the other accomplices of Catiline, to their swift doom, little foreseeing that to punish him for thinking that he had thus saved his country, a law would be enacted confiscating his property and driving him into exile. Aristobulus and Tigranes, after the triumph of Pompey, were incarcerated according to custom in the Mamertine prisons. After all, these Romans were a cruel people, and their great men had small souls. The valiant fair- haired warrior of the Gauls, Vercingetorix, who con- fronted Julius Caesar with an enemy worthy of him, was transported to the Mamertine cage to await the ceremony of the triumph. It was put off for six years ; Vercingetorix figured in it, and then Csesar had him slain in the Tullianum. It has devoured THE MAMERTINE PRISONS. 169 people of every sort, this famous jail, from crowned heads to common criminals. Sejanus was put to death in it, as well as his daughters. Six years before the remnant of Israel had entered there, another Simon, Simon the Fisher, and Saul the con- verted philosopher of Damascus, had borne into these dungeons their last fetters ; the chapel of San Pietro in Carcere being so called in memory of this fact. It is said that St. Peter was bound to the pillar at the side of the altar. The tin cup placed near the sub- terranean spring is for the use of those of the faith- ful who care to drink water from a source which quenched the thirst of the Apostle and baptized his jailers. Processus and Martinianus. As you reflect that as far back as the dawn of the Republic these prisons represented a stiU earlier regime, and that for five-and-twenty centuries illus- trious victims have wept, raged, prayed, groaned in this cave with its blood-soaked soil, you are pro- foundly moved by the contemplation of what has been looked upon by kings of Asia, by consuls, by enemies of Rome, by saints ; by seeing everything exactly as these men left it, by breathing in the at- mosphere in which they lived, and by saying to your- self as you touch the walls, that there perhaps where your hand lies, the first of the popes rested his head, which had in its turn been touched by the hand of Christ. On the Capitoline hfll, the Senatorial Palace planted 170 BOME. on that ancient base the Tabularium, fronts on the Intermontium. Shutting off the northwestern end of the Forum on one side, it skirts on the other an open space, the Piazza del Campidogho. Standing in the centre of this you will have on your right the Protomotheca, founded by Pius VII., and the palace of the Conservators or civil magistrates ; and on your left the museum of the Capitol. A little behind rises the church of the Ara Coeli, where the Temple of Jupiter used to be, a pendant to the Tarpeian rock, which was crowned of old by the Acropolis. The piazza is bounded by a flight of stairs and balustrades, above which rise the colossal figures of Castor and Pollux, adjoining those celebrated trophies which have retained the name of Marius, but which belong to the age of Trajan. Between the steps and the principal palace rises the single bronze equestrian statue bequeathed to us by Roman antiquity. Yet this only owed its preserva- tion during the middle ages to its being mistaken for a statue of Constantine. In the fifth century, when it was still gilded, Totila is said to have carried it off, and to have been about to put it on shipboard when Belisarius recovered it. In the time of Sylvester II. the supposed Constantine edified the faithful in the Forum Boarium ; Pope Scolari (Clement III.) trans- ported it to the front of the Lateran Palace, the old abode of Constantine. Here it remained untU 1538, when Paul III. directed Michael Angelo to place it in STATUE OF MARCUS AUEELIUS. IVl its present position, the very spot where Arnold of Brescia was burnt in 1155 ; and near the steps at whose foot two centuries before, Rienzi, flying from the Capitol, came to his death by the knife of an artisan. When Andrea Verocchio, the best gold- smith in Florence, came to Rome, the Marcus Aure- lius made so vivid an impression upon him that he was emboldened by that revelation of equestrian sculpture to undertake the Bartolommeo CoUeone of the Piazetta Zanipolo at Venice, a truly incompar- able masterpiece. The illustrious pupil of Ghirlan- dajo and Verocchio, Leonardo da Vinci, had likewise drawn his inspiration from the Marcus Aurelius, as well as — according to Paolo Jove — from the horses of the Dioscuri, when he offered for the admiration of the people of Milan his model of the equestrian figure of Francis Sforza, which, when exposed to view in 1493, seemed superior to the DonateUo of Padua {Gattamelata) and even to the Verocchio of Venice. The revolution of 1499 hindered the exe- cution of this masterpiece : nothing is left of the sculptures of the great Leonardo, and it is only from the testimony of Ludovico Dolce that we know to what a point this artist, the only one of the three greatest contemporary painters whose school was maintained without growing degenerate, was " stu- pendissimo in far cavaUi." The buildings on the Capitoline hill belong to an epoch of complete decadence, though they have been 172 EOME. much praised because they were believed to be the work of Michael Angelo. They were really only erected under Innocent X. and Alexander VII., by an architect who made his patrons believe that he was executing the designs of the late master. Thus, without feeling the slightest obligation to halt before all these pilasters, we wiU at once enter the Museo Capito- lino, and make our bow to Marforio, the colossal statue of a river god, found at the end of the Via di Mar- forio, which, according to some, gets its name from the Forum Martis, an etymology, however, which is hardly satisfactory. This court is filled with inscrip- tions, sarcophagi, and ancient statues. No amateur will fail to look with interest at the fine sarcophagus, in an adjoining room, from which the Portland vase was taken. In the court I also noticed some carved fragments from the Temple of Concord, of exquisite workmanship. The staircase is lined with marble slabs found beneath the Temple of Romulus, on which are engraved the ground-plans of Rome as it was in the days of Septimus Severus. A mistake has given its name to the hall of the Dying Gladiator. The warrior mortally wounded, that for so many years has been admired in the Capitol under that designa- tion, does not in truth represent a gladiator at all, but a Gaulish chieftain. The collar or torque leaves no doubt on this subject, as may be proved by compar- ing this type with the bas-reliefs on the sarcophagus preserved in Room V. on the ground floor, which CAPITOLENE MUSEUM. 173 represent a combat between Romans and Gauls 355 years before our era, in the time of the Consul Atilius Regulus, the figures of this curious sarcoph- agus recaUing, with their curling hair and torques, this dying warrior, in whom we see one of the ancient heroes of the French race. In the gallery is an old reproduction of the Faun of Praxiteles ; while some Etruscan fragments, and a quantity of works from Greece, including even archaic pasticci, afford an op- portunity for studying a variety of schools and meth- ods. It is in a chamber of this museum that the Antinoiis is to be found, that ideal of sensual beauty ; and the bust of the murderer of Csesar, Marcus Bru- tus, a fine, intelligent, marked, and sombre head, strangely recalling the features of Armand Carrel ; also that statue of a Roman lady, so naturally posed and so well draped, in which without valid reason some people have pretended to recognize Agrippina, others Domitia. We will only cite, in addition, the figures of Flora, the Amazon, the infant Hercules, the boy holding a comic mask, which gave Raphael his inspiration on more than one occasion, and the bust of Ariadne, a dream of fascinating beauty. The inhabitants of Olympus are merely the lares of this palace ; as fast as the great personages of an- tiquity are resuscitated by the excavations they are sent to recruit the lofty society of the Capitol. How, in the midst of so noble a population, can we help believing with the contemporaries of Apuleius, nay 174 EOME. with St. Augustin himself, that the spectres of mar- ble are tenanted by souls? Etiquette has formed two distinct salons : in one of them the writers and philosophers of Rome offer hospitality to those of Greece ; and in this areopagus more than eighty celebrities shine. There you visit Socrates, Seneca, Agrippa, Diogenes, Theophrastus, Apuleius, the ar- chitect Posidonius, Demosthenes,' Sophocles, Cato, Thucydides, Antisthenes, Terence, Apollonius of Tyana, Aspasia and Pericles, Archytas, Sappho, Periander .... we cannot cite ail of them. In the middle sits Marcellus, the victor of Syracuse ; while on the walls are bas-reliefs : among them a Sacrifice to Hygeia, signed by CaUimachus. The other salon is occupied by royalty. In this chamber the various imperial famiUes are gathered together, from Marius to Decentius Magnu^s. Marius is the mortal to whom flattery has decreed most statues ; the sediles set up one of him in each street of the city, and his ugliness apparently disarmed envy. For aU that, SuUa threw them down. Nero's eyes are treated in a way that enables us to under- stand that blinking described by Pliny ; his visual organ was in fact so excessively weak that he con- ceived the idea of having a flat emerald cut and polished, through which during the games of the circus he used to watch the contests of the gladiators. There are in this hall some unique portraits ; women, girls, brothers of emperors, that are only PALACE OF THE CONSERVATOES. 175 found here. It is a collection of inestimable value, which, by familiarizing us with these faces, brings antiquity as close to us as the era of the House of Valois. Yet by the side of authentic portraits, such as those of the first Csesars, and of princesses like Messalina — -who belies by the beauty of her physiog- nomy the ugliness of her reputation — or the first Agrippina, widow of Germanicus, with her hair so strangely dressed, there has slipped into this chosen assembly, by virtue of a hypothetical name, more than one unknown. Crossing the Piazza we enter on the west side the Palace of the Conservators, where I was struck by the spirited modelling of a lion devouring a horse. The group has been much injured by damp, and was restored, it is said, by Michael Angelo, a bust of whom attracted my attention, by the way, on the upper floor ; it was made from one in marble taken from life by one of his pupils ; surely the most ex- traordinarily shaped head, the most gnarled and rugged features that were ever seen. Nor can I pass over in silence the effigy of a personage whose exterior is hardly in keeping with the ideas of renas- cent beauty and artistic elegance that his name stands for. The colossal seated statue of Leo X., executed in his own time and from life, we cannot doubt, would be regarded in our time as the work of an intrepid realist ; the expression, the attitude, the puffy obesity of the pontiff give him the look of a great infant, 176 EOME. sixty years of age, who has not yet been weaned. Looking at the profile of this singular head, the nose, the projecting lower lip, and the four-fold chin look like the mouldings of a frame encircling a moon ; the eyes stare out of their orbits like those of batrachians ; the thick lips make us divine a thick tongue ; it seems as though the blood could not possibly circulate in such a mountain of flesh — that such a mass could have neither thought nor acted.* A staircase on the right of the corridor leads to the G-allery of Pictures ; a very mediocre collection of paintings. The guide-book catalogues are fiUed with high-sounding names, but when you come face to face with the originals you find numberless errors. It is as though you had gotten into a gathering of valets of great houses, who were lavishing their master's titles upon one another. In the Camera dei Bronzi is the famous she-wolf of the Capitol, with the modern figures of Romulus and Remus ; and the noble bronze vase with its Greek inscription, that Mithridates gave to the gymnasium of the Eupatorists. Close by we see, near the charming group of Diana Triformis, an ancient tripod, a bronze candelabrum from the im- perial palace, adorned with portraits of the family of Septimius, and some weights and measures of ancient Rome. I must also mention the remarkable bust of Junius Brutus, founder of the Republic. The short, * Kemoved to the church of the Ara Cceli in 1876. HOSPITAL OF LA CONSOLAZIONE. 177 close hair, the square brow, the frowning eyebrows, from under which there shines the tawny glow of bronze eyeballs set in an enamelled crystal ; the straight, aquiline nose, the broad chin, the iron lips, the firm, set lines of the jaw, seen through a short, bristling beard — -all impress upon this physiognomy, which has a stern beauty of its own, a really terrible character. It does not take very long to descend from a moun- tain whose summit is not much more than a hundred and sixty feet above the level of the sea. Near the foot of the Capitol is the hospital of La Consolazione, where a dormitory opening on to a piazza is a direct continuation of a long street ; the doors are as wide as those of a church. It was fine weather, and they had thrown them entirely open, so that from their beds the patients seemed to be taking part in what was going on outside. Thus the sick continue their out-of-door life with the advantage of having a roof over their heads — a very happily devised arrange- ment for driving nostalgia away from gossips accus- tomed from age to age to live on the public highway. It is to the duration of these habits that we must at- tribute the miserable, unfurnished, squalid look, and the more than neglected housekeeping, in the homes of the common people ; they are mere niches to sleep in, where nobody is ever received, and where they never settle down, all the relations of life being car- ried on outside, as in the old days they used to be carried on in the Forum. For a foreigner coming 12 178 EOME. from the cloistered regions of the North, nothing is more curious than thus to brush in the street against the inmates of a hospital ; and to see the line of the houses continued right and left by a perspective of truckle-beds ; nurses and dying attending to their business without a thought of the passer-by. A horse and cart left to themselves by an absent driver could have wandered into this dormitory without let or hindrance, Rome was the first to organize and develop special hospitals for different diseases. As you enter the city by the Porta Portese, situ- ated at the southern extremity of the Janicukim, you have on your right the Tiber and the vast hospital of St. Michael, situated on the Ripa Grande, a port con- structed by Innocent XII., on a part of the site of the Prata Mutia. It is here that legend places the camp of Porsenna and the royal tent where Mutius Scsevola thrust his hand into the flames. Besides being a hos- pital St. Michael's is a school of industrial art for poor children, and an asylum for the aged and infirm of both sexes. Four hundred indigent children are re- ceived there, educated by the most skilful masters, and kept until the age of twenty-one, when the lads, provided with positions, go away with full purses, and the girls receive a dower of three hundred francs. The largest hospital in Rome is that of Santo Spirito, which also includes a refuge for foundlings. It was in 1198 that, as he was walking on the HOSPITAL OF SANTO SPIRITO. 179 banks of the Tiber, Innocent III. came upon a fish- erman who had just brought up in his net three dead infants. Deeply moved, the Holy Father imme- diately caused a barge to be fitted out contiguous to the hospital of Santo Spirito, which he had just insti- tuted, provided with a movable turning box lined with a mattress, in which at any hour abandoned children might be deposited, at the same time forbidding, under severe penalties, all inquiry as to who placed them there. The children are kept at Santo Spirito tiU they are old enough to be sent to the asylum at Viterbo, where they are taught a trade. At seven- teen the boys receive enough to live upon for a year, while the girls are the object of a still more paternal solicitude. We cannot too warmly express our praise and admiration at the manner in which Rome has constantly led the Christian world in the path of charity. Santo Spirito is situated on the banks of the Tiber not far from the Vatican, on the spot where the Gauls and Germans who were brought to Rome by Vitel- lius perished of fever, having sought according to Tacitus in the waters of the stream a disastrous re- lief from the summer heats. The vast establishment occupies that triangular space as large as a small town just where the Vatican hill joins the northern extremity of the Janiculum. Marchione of Arezzo, Baccio Pintelli, San Gallo, perhaps even Palladio, worked successively on this charitable institution. 180 HOME. When he established it, Innocent III. chose a site already consecrated by a Saxon king, who in 717 set up there a hospitium for his countrymen, and hence the name of Santo Spirito in Sassia, which the house still bears. The bull of foundation is dated 1198. THE TAEPEIAN EOCK. 181 CHAPTER IX. Although the Capitoline promontory, overlooking the Forum and the Palatine, is scaled nearly to its top by houses of tolerable height, the Tarpeian rock has not disappeared ; to see it quite close you have to pass down the street of Torre de' Specchi, in front of a religious house, founded by S. Francesca Romana. There, beneath the escarped terraces of the hill, is an irregular court, encumbered with old buildings, sheds, arid pent-houses, which seem to bear on their roofs the little gardens covering this spot of lugubrious memory. The rock, of which the citadel followed the outlines, is of dark, porous tufa like the Tul- lianum. It forms an abrupt termination to the court- yard of the old CafFarelh Palace, whence the eye can measure, above plenty of other ruins, the remains of the precipice still so deep that by jumping down one would be perfectly sure to break one's bones. It was there that in old times ingratitude and envy used to launch into eternity the great men who had done too much for their country, and genius that was too em- barrassing for the ruling mediocrity. The heights of this aerial cemetery of glory are scented with yellow violets and rose-colored gillyflowers. 182 ROME. Seen from a slight distance tlie rock is too encum- bered by the surrounding buildings to show its real size, but by passing behind the Hospital della Con- solazione, down a lane which comes out upon the Via Bocca della Verita, you measare better its real height. One of the houses perched upon the summit was in- habited at one time by the lamented Ampere, whence he used to contemplate the historic horizons of ancient Rome. Although the level of the Velabrum and sur- rounding neighborhood has since the time of Sulla been raised forty-two feet, the Tarpeian rock is less changed in appearance than might be supposed. In his description of the siege of the citadel by the par- tisans of Vitellius, who were trying to recover it from the soldiers of Sabinus, and who set it on fire, Tacitus represents the besiegers as climbing " the hundred steps which separate the sacred wood of refuge from the Tarpeian rock," and adds that the soldiers mounted to the fortress " by the roofs of houses, which, owing to a long peace, had been built close to the walls, so high that they reached the level of the Capitol." If this description dated from yesterday we should think it exaggerated. The other summit of the Capitol is loftier — in glory — than the Himalaya. The kings of gods and men have occupied it one after another, ever since the days of the mythical Saturn, who dwelt on it and planted a colony there. It was there that Romulus established a refuge for fugitive slaves ; while Tar- The Tarpcian Rock. THE BAMBINO. 183 peia, the daughter of his lieutenant, gave her name to the rock. Under the Tarquins the head was dug up that gave its name to the Capitoline Hill, and the superb temple was erected dedicated to Jupiter. Camillus, after the retreat of the Gaids, restored the citadel, and surrounded it with walls flanked by square dungeons ; Sulla rebuilt in Parian marble the temple of the sacred hill ; Vespasian did over again on a larger scale the work of Sulla ; Domitian enriched his father's building, and had a statue of the god modelled in massive gold. It was here that the pon- tiffs sacrificed, and here that the triumphant generals used to ascend. The era of polytheism coming to an end, the temple gave way to a church dedicated to the Virgin mother, for its embellishment they took, even from imperial palaces, granite columns from Egypt, precious capitals, bas-reliefs from Greece, and heaped mosaics and gold work upon one another untn was finally consummated the task of three cen- turies. Michael Angelo erected the grand staircase of white marble, by which 1;he Piazza is reached, from blocks taken from the palaces, the baths, and the ba- silicas of ancient Rome. The celebrated Bambino is the most feted saint of the Ara Coeli Church. When he goes out a proces- sion of pifferari accompany his coach, a grand affair which was acquired by the Franciscans in a some- what curious manner. In 1848, the people having set to work to burn the pope's carriages, one of the 184 KOME. triumvirs bethought him, in order to save the finest, of making a present of it to the Bambino. And on his return Pius IX. had some scruples about taking back what had been offered to God.* The image, cut from a block of cedar by a monk of the sixteenth century, is transported in his royal equipage to the bed of the sick, who send for him when medicine has no power. During the Fresepio, however, he is never moved, and on the first day of the year the sick come themselves to do him homage. The church of Ara Cceli is said to date as far back as 595. The mass of antique fragments and remains which went into its construction give it a very hybrid and curious appearance. Differing in module, the columns do not present three capitals that are alike : one of them, above the third column to the left as you enter by the great nave, bears on the abacus this singular inscription, though the characters seem an- cient enough : E CVBICVLO avg. Gilded with gold taken from the Turks at the battle of Lepanto, the church is richly paved, but the borderings, in opus Alexandrinum, are reduced to patches by the pro- fusion of sculptured tombstones ; those of the four- teenth century, which abound in reliefs, are so numer- ous, that as you walk through the church you trip at every step. These reclining figures seem to take the places of the living who once frequented the * These scruples were overcome later, and the Bambino went back to his own modest carriage. S. MARIA IN AKA CCELI. 185 building, and to render it more animated. The Tem- ple of the Ara Cceli is a veritable museum. It would take too long to enumerate everything ; but we can- not pass over the tombs of the Savelli from 1260 to 1306, in a chapel in the right transept. That of Pope Honorius IV. and the monument raised to his father are like small models of the facade of a Pisan church, in the style of San Miniato ; adorned with rosettes and bands of mosaic, the Gothic canopy was designed by Giotto. This Pope Honorius, who re- poses among his kinsfolk, is a fine figure, that the trumpet of the last day will not awaken without trouble, in such deep slumber is he plunged. The tiara of 1283, by its primitive shape, adds still fur- ther to the verisimilitude of this repose, for it is like a cotton nightcap. There sleeps, too, another pope of the house of Savelli, Honorius III., who, in 1216, succeeded Innocent IH. ; this chapel belonged to the family. Let us not forget near the ambones, which are of the twelfth century, and remarkably beautiful, a tomb- stone set up against the wall, which must oblige Queen Catherine of Bosnia, widow of that King Stephen whom Mahomet II. had flayed alive, to sleep standing ; nor, in a chapel to the left, the mausoleum of Philip of Valla, a Florentine monument of rare delicacy. The two weeping genii who bear the scutcheons, the reclining statue, the arabesques of the lower part, are treated in a masterly manner. 186 EOME. At the bottom of the nave close to the door, the chapel of the Bufalini, dedicated to St. Bernardino of Siena, was decorated by Pinturicchio with fres- coes which rank among his very finest works : the death of the saint, who has had himself laid on a bier, where he expires in the midst of his religious breth- ren, is a most skilful composition. This master suc- ceeded in attaining style without sacrificing senti- ment : we can readily recognize his work by merely raising our eyes to the vaulted ceiling, where he has painted the four evangelists. Camuccini has restored with both talent and discretion these precious paint- ings, on which one of the most illustrious artists of a great epoch worked with love and humility, though he knew quite well that they would be iU lighted. On a bright morning, however, one can manage to make them out fairly well, and I used often to stop on my way to the hospitable library of the minor brothers of St. Francis, installed in the convent, which seems to balance itself at the back of the Capi- toline slope. You enter it by a charming doorway, which admits to the church as well. I recall wide corridors with ogival vaults tinted with pale gleams of light, along which one might summon the shade of a St. Bruno ; as well as a cloister in two tiers, austere, of fine style, which had the air of a Thebaid, three paces away from the Capitol and its museums. This convent, at the time of the jubilee of 1450, when St. Bernardino of Siena was canonized, received in THE ANCIENT BRIDGES. 187 general chapter three thousand brethren from the houses founded by their blessed patron.* The Tiber, which is rapid, wide, and deep, sepa- rates into two channels in the middle of Rome, leav- ing an island between, which is tolerably populous ; you reach it by a bridge of stone, built by Fabricius, under the Republic ; and leaving it by the Ponte Cestio, restored by Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian, come out upon the right bank, in that Trasteverine quarter which Ancus Martius fortified against the Etruscans. At the present time the bridge of Fabri- cius is called Quattro Capi, because they have pre- served at the extremity of its parapet a couple of Hermes with four faces, which in old days supported the bronze balusters. As for the bridge of Gratian, it is now the bridge of St. Bartholomew, a title borrowed from the adjoining church, of which we shall say a few words, after observing that Rome possesses four ancient bridges, the oldest of which, the Ponte Rotto, was finished under the censorship of Scipio Africanus, and that this city furnished the model for all the stone bridges constructed in the ancient world. St. Bartholomew replaces, at what may be called the stem of the island, a temple to jEsculapius, erected in the year 401 of Rome, an age already respectable; but the isle itself is an historical monument of a stiU more remote century. * Pulled down in 1886 to make room for the monument of Victor Emanuel II. 188 KOME. It has been asked whether the granite columns which separate the aisles from the nave in St. Bar- tholomew of the Island are not a part of the original Temple of -S^sculapius. They are small, which di- minishes the improbabihty ; but their too cylindrical proportions seem to point to a more recent date. Two of these pillars are of the marble called onion- peel ; cippolino, and even granite, under the repub- lic before the dictatorship of Sulla, were not in fre- quent use. The church was founded about the year 1000. Its great treasure, and probably its very raison d Mre, is a large and fine urn of porphyry, under the high altar, in which are collected the relics of the four martyrs, Bartholomew, Paulinus, Exuper- antius, and Marcel, which the Emperor Otto III. is supposed to have brought to Rome. The preachers in this church during the last week in December are children scarcely out of their nurse's arms ; a representation of the Nativity being given at the same time. But its Fresepio and even that of the Ara Cceli are nothing compared with the one which chance revealed to me on the top of a dun- geon. Of aU these representations this is the most original, the most popular, and the least known by strangers, for it has never been described by any one. The Sunday after Christmas, as I was wandering in the Trastevere, I espied down a narrow alley near the corner of the street which leads to San Gris- PKESEPIO OF THE TOBRE ANGUILLAKA. 189 ogono, a large, dilapidated, gateway set in a block of extremely black houses. Under a paved inclined plain leading to the first story of an old tower, a glass-blower had set up with his furnace a complete apparatus for moulding bot- tles, and had spread a fine gauze of soot over the entire pile of wall and roof. The flying skirts of the Trasteverine women who were cUmbing up the steep incline, the white robes of the monks, the tunics of the soldiers, the many-colored aprons and bright sleeves of the stout matrons of Albano, with their hair dressed with silver filigree, came out all the better for these smoky tints : one after another they disappeared in the mysterious tower like a procession in some legend of enchantment, and I followed. In the interior was a narrow dilapidated stair, on which the people going up pushed hilariously against those wanting to come down. After many effbrts I finally succeeded in reaching the top, fully expecting to come out on a terrace or balcony, but to my surprise I found myself at the entrance to a sort of cave or grotto, in whose dim light I could faintly discern the outlines of a fairy landscape. Valleys and lakes, on whose bosoms were reflected green banks and min- iature viUages, cattle of the size of mice, and huts built for inmates seven inches high ; raising my eyes suddenly to one of the narrow loop-holes in the wall the Palatine, the Aventine, the Coelian, the Janicu- lum, the buildings and mountains of the real Roman 190 EOME. Campagna assumed gigantic proportions. Seen be- yond a meadow of green cloth, where tiny shepherds adored the miraculous star, the Coliseum justified its name in a quite overpowering manner. Under a light in the centre of the grotto, softened by rose- colored transparencies, slumbered the infant Jesus in rose-colored wax, surrounded by his kinsfolk and his ordinary court, composed of kings and shepherds. The spectators were moved with fervor and dumb with admiration. Happily there were only present young monks, fine country' lasses, old soldiers, chil- dren, and myself. Transported with delight, and with the utmost simplicity, we passed from one rustic house to another ; and from the peaks to the plain, we followed little boats on the rivers of glass ; we saw before their door artisans at work putting hoops round little barrels that a tear of St. Peter would have filled, or drawing threads through tiny sandals that Queen Mab might have put on. It is said, and I should not be much surprised if it were true, that the blameless Francis of Assisi was the originator of these representations. At any rate the Presepio siiW antica torre degli AnguiUara is one of the oldest ; the poets of the people have dedicated sonnets and odes to it. It is before the not very interesting church of St. Eustace that the end of the Christmas festival takes place, concluding with the rejoicings of the Epiphany, or the day of the kings. The labyrinth of irregular FESTIVAL OF THE EPIPHANY. 191 winding streets that extends from the Pantheon to the Piazza Navona, is on the 5th of January the scene of this popular carousal. The mise-en-scdne is of a gothic simplicity. Around the piazza booths are set up in the open air, where they sell an immense number of dancing-jacks, punchineUos from Naples, and grotesque figures of every sort ; earthenware bells with a very sweet tone, little drums, steel trum- pets, Bambini of colored plaster, and so on ; they have, too, pinocchi and confetti, and things fried in oU, the equivocal incense-offering of the festival. At the third hour after the ventiquattro, the crowd begins to coUect at the approaches to St. Eustace ; everybody is provided with noisy instruments, and until after midnight this assembly, which includes every class as well as every age, moves and tosses about with immense tumult in the narrow space ; each tries, along the illuminated street where they are trampling and elbowing one another, who shall produce the most formidable uproar. They whistle, they howl, they imitate the cries of savage beasts, they stamp and bellow, they push and are pushed ; the tumult is diabolical, the image of violence is on every side, but there is no ill temper ; brawls are uncommon, and it would be to fail in the etiquette of this feast of unreason to get up a quarrel. At the end of two hours, deafened, giddy, and fairly intoxi- cated by the noise, you are seized with convulsive laughter ; you cry and shout without knowing why, 192 ROME. and sometimes even without being conscious of it. All this goes on before that famous university which Leo X. installed in a palace begun by Michael An- gelo ; and while the Eomans deliver themselves up to this debauch of riot, to this delirium without a name, the gleaming torches bring out this versicle from the psalmist inscribed over the great gate of the palace : Initium sapientiw timor Domini. It is this old in- scription which gives the university of Eome its grave and noble name — II Collegio Delia Sapienza.* I had been present at so many church ceremonies, and at so many civic festivals, that I was impatient to see at the villa of the Farnese those divinities of Olympus — finished models of the perfect human form so prodigal of attractions — which initiate mortals into the science of the beautiful. It was then with a cer- tain satisfaction that, remaining in the tranquil re- gion of the Trastevere, I walked down the Via Lun- gara, and passed under the choked archway and dove- tail battlements with which in the middle ages they travestied the Porta Setimiana, which got its name from the father of Geta, and was restored by Alex- ander VI. In the Farnesina Palace, built by Peruzzi for Eaphael's friend, the banker Agostino Chigi who survived him only a few days, we come upon that pagan Renaissance which so dazzled the Valois. * This festival is now celebrated in the Piazza Navona. THE FAENESINA VILLA. 193 Described as a villa, because it has a garden, al- though it is in the city nearly opposite the Corsini Palace, the Farnesina has not a very charming ex- terior. While the purity of the lines impresses an eternal youth on the edifice, the neglected aspect of the uncultivated grounds gives it a somewhat dreary aspect. As soon as you pass the threshold you are confronted by twelve great subjects designed and begun by Raphael, and then executed by the eagles of his school, covering the vaulting of the vast hall which serves for vestibule. Two great compositions divide the flat part of the ceiling — the Marriage of Psyche, the piece which has suffered most from re- touching, and the Assembly of the Gods, where the figure of Mercury, that of Cupid, and the head of Venus, are exquisitely drawn. This vigorous and free piece of work reminds one of certain freaks of that audacious naturalism which delighted Michael Angelo. These decorations are in the taste of our time, yet Greece would have admired them. The simple and rich disposition of the enormous painting forms a feast for the eyes which is helped out by a series of little Cupids, charged with showing how their patron- ess mocks at all those gods whom men have com- pounded of their own weakness. Sprightly, insolent with life and beauty, they make, across the em- pyrean, playthings of the immortals as well as of their attributes, teasing with impunity the most 13 194 EOME. ferocious beasts. One of these sprites covers him- self in playful naughtiness with the buckler of Minerva ; another, the prettiest of them, bestrides Cerberus, brandishing the trident of Pluto. For is not love stronger than death itself? Other treasures are to be found in the neighboring salon. It is there that Galatea sails in a shell drawn by dolphins ; that famous fresco of Raphael which has been so often copied, and which Richomme, an unfaithful interpreter, has made popular with us in an engraving where, like a grammarian, he has cor- rected the master. The Farnese, when they pos- sessed this villa, understood well the worth of such a gem ; to throw it into relief they left the panels on the right and left empty, confining them to the office of bounding the gulf in which Galatea sports. These vacant spaces contribute further to concentrate in- terest on the work of Raphael ; they tranquillize the eye without distracting the attention, and the giant Cyclops who contemplates his rebel from a distance, hardly disturbs the quiet more than a rock would do. Sebastian del Piombo, to whom they attribute the Polyphemus, does himself more credit in the small fresco of the slumbering Admetus from whom his daughter is plucking the golden tress that makes him invincible, and in the Fall of Icarus. The merit of this painter, whose tone is generally too violent, is that he harmonizes here by a certain softness with the note of Raphael. His Juno on a car drawn by THE PAMPHILI GARDENS. 195 two peacocks, which is placed above the Galatea, is not entirely ecUpsed even by so formidable a prox- imity. The painting is supple and blonde ; the move- ment of the figure, the beauty of the head and neck, the Une of the shoulder and the arm, have an ele- gance that is particularly rare in this master, whose passion for Michael Angelo made hard and sombre. After days spent in exploring a city from one end to another the temptation to escape, for a short time at least, to green fields and fresh waters is not to be resisted, especially if one has just been dreaming mythological dreams in company with Raphael, and reahzes that the Farnesina and Corsini Palaces are not far from one of those charming retreats where the mind instinctively conjures up visions of wood nymphs and sylvan divinities. You know, reader, that in the Roman Campagna the small properties described elsewhere as orchards, meadows, and lodges, are called vineyards ; hence so many bas-rehefs and statues found among the vines. A garden is a very different thing. This term often means enormous spaces, comprising groves, meadows, hiQs, ponds, and rivers, with ruins and scattered monuments ; such are the PamphUi gardens on the site of those of Gralba. Under the very ramparts of Rome, and but a few yards from the gate of St. Pancras, of warlike memory, they have all the features of gen- uiaely rural solitude. As the approach to the domain is at the back of the plateau which bounds Rome on 196 KOME. this side, you no sooner enter the gates than the city disappears from view, except towards the north, where at the extremity of a valley shut in between the hills rises solitary, the enormous mass of St. Peter's, flanked by the Vatican, and framed on every side by meadows, fields, and gentle slopes, like a colossal Chartreuse lost in the midst of a Thebaid. The grand entrance, built like a triumphal arch, was constructed from the ruins of an older villa; through it we reach groves of oaks, of plane trees, of great spreading pines, long avenues, above which the branches of the trees are so thickly interlaced as to almost exclude the dayhght, beyond which the plain extends far out of sight, a kind of solid ocean which the other ocean made level in old times. From this shady labyrinth of hill and dale we catch occasional glimpses of the snows of the Apennines ; to perspectives of verdure succeed perspectives of water, beside whose cool freshness and under the shadow of the lofty trees the grass gets a fineness and brightness which recalls the Alps ; in the dawn of spring anemones, violets, periwinkles, primroses, and cyclamen display their mosaics on the turf be- neath stately terraces crowned with camellias. Assuredly the gardens of Rome were like this in the time of Virgil and the poets of the Empire. S. MAEIA SOPKA MINERVA. 197 CHAPTER X. There are in Italy a dozen churches which, like Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella of Florence, like the dome of Siena, like S. Clemente and Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, combine examples of ar- chitecture, painting, and sculpture, which make them rank as veritable museums by whose aid one might unfold all the annals of modern art. Such is the church of the Dominicans, Santa Maria sopra Mi- nerva, so called because it replaces a temple erected by Pompey to the Virgin of paganism. Nothing could be more unexpected than the first aspect of its vaulted roof supported on pillars without either cap- itals or bases, like huge trunks reflected in the pol- ished marble pavement. The roof and walls lighted dimly from above are of a bluish green, and shine like the moist sides of a marine grotto covered with lotus, seaweed, and scolopendra. The monks in 1855 had the interior covered with a kind of stucco, imitat- ing with the most brilliant coloring the tint andvein- ing of green porphyry. The date of the building is about the end of the fourteenth century ; the nave is wide and fairly high ; the choir, more modern and recently harmonized with the ogival style of the other parts, is of fine proportions ; a series of chapels very 198 EOME. highly decorated open out of the rather narrow side- aisles. But, as you enter, you are so struck with the green and lustrous color of a nave that duplicates itself under your feet in a mirror of poKshed marble, that the rest of the church under its skylight seems dark and empty. As often happens to people who pry, the first monument that I proceeded to discover was one of those most hidden. On a tombstone set upright in a deep chapel in the left transept, is rep- resented in relief a monk, an ascetic with hollow cheeks, delicate angular features, and a wide arched brow which accentuates the pensive expression, while the slender and knotted fingers indicate at once manual activity and the sentiment of the ideal. It is the only known portrait of the angel of Florentine paint- ing, the blessed John of Fiesole, painter of souls and of the heavens, of which he had had glimpses. Who does not now admire this holy artist 1 Presi- dent de Brosses, Dupaty, Beyle, have never even pronounced his name. I could not refrain from copy- ing the epitaph of this patron of religious artists, composed by his venerable friend Nicholas V., who died the same year : HIC JACET VENER. PICTO. FR. JO. DE FLO. ORDIS PDICATO? Non mihi sit laudi quod eram velut alter Apelles, Sed quod lucra tuis omnia, Christe, dabam : Altera nam terris opera extant, altera coelo. Urbs me Johannem Flos tulit Etrurias. mcccclv. Church of S. Maria Sopra Minerva. S. MABIA SOPEA MINEKVA. 199 Not far away, under the high altar, repose the remains of St. Catherine of Siena. Crossing the nave, and passing down the other aisle by the side of some Florentine monuments, I reached two tombs of the finest of all epochs, which leave the spectator in doubt between the manner of Maiano and that of Rossellini. Here also is a modern bust worthy of mention — the portrait by Tenerani of the late Mar- chesina Spada, the sister of M. Komar, whom we used to meet in Parisian society. Not only is this marble treated by a skilful hand, but the expression of the face is at once living and of a singular softness. Let us also pause before the charming work of Cosmati's, which crowns the mausoleum of a French bishop, whom his patron is presenting to the Madonna. The bishop is William Durand, Episcopus Mimatensis, says the inscription. The sepulchre of Cardinal Orsini also goes back to the end of the fourteenth century. The monuments of that age are superior to those of the following cen- tury in their serious calm ; with them the last slum- ber is profound ; later on death becomes a triumph, first for its victim, and next for the artist charged with commemorating him ; the hero continues to act, to live, to command. We may associate with this school the mausoleums of those two of the Medici who are not at Florence — Leo X. and Clement VII. Of the two statues in sitting posture and confronting one another, attended in the air by figures of saints 200 EOME. singularly twisted and tormented, tlie best is that of Pope Leo, which seems to have inspired Frangois Bonivard, the prisoner of Chillon, with that other portraitrecently published at Geneva: ". . . . savant en lettres grecqiies et latines et davantage bon musi- cien .... a la reste, bel personnage de corps, mais de visaige fort laid et difforme ; car il I'avoit gros plutot en enflure que par chair ni graisse ; et d'un ceil ne voyoit goutte, de I'autre bien peu, sinon par le benefice d'une lunette de beryl appelee en italien un ochial; mais, avec iceluy, il y voyoit pins loin que homme de sa cour." The author of the AcMs et Devis might, when he was prior of St. Victor, have seen Pope Leo X. close. Very different from his uncle, Clement VII. was slender, with large regular features, and a certain ex- pression of fine impassibility which lent itself to sculp- ture. Yet his statue by Bacio Biggio is inferior to that of Leo X. by Raphael of Montelupo. The bas- reliefs with which these tombs are surmounted seem to belong to the end of the sixteenth century. One rep- resents the reception by Leo X. of King Francis of Valois, and the other shows Charles V. received in the same way by Clement VII. Nothing can be more unlike these bas-reliefs than the four great tormented saints of Bacio Bandinelli, who received from his master in this very temple, at the entrance to the choir, one of those lessons in action which he did not often lavish, and which were S. MARIA SOPEA MINEEVA. 201 still more rarely followed. The Christ bearing the Cross is one of the rare figures of Michael Angelo where grace dissembles force, and where that her- culean gift, which the master abused, disappears under the finish of a rich and soft execution ; but we must know that he began this work in his youth, continuing it in 1520, while Federigo Frizzi, en- trusted with its completion, introduced at the ex- pense of vigor the suppleness of a high polish. Ligorio designed the superb statue of thesevere Paul IV., in the chapel of Thomas Aquinas, where Florentine art is so nobly represented. It was there that Filippino Lippi painted above the altar that charming picture in compartments of the Virgin, St. Thomas and Cardinal OHviero Caraffa ; it was here that he distributed the groups of that Assumption, in which the apostles are so finely treated. On the right side, an Auto da Fe, which represents the burn- ing of the books condemned by St. Dominic, is de- picted as taking place before buildings of an ex- quisitely ordered architecture, while in the distance we descry the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, which stands in the piazza of the Capitol. There is also, in the foreground, a marvellous portrait of the general of the Dominicans. The sibyls and angels of the vault are the only frescoes which remain to us of RafFaellino del Garbo, the single pupil of Filippino. Alas, how these specimens make us regret what time has destroyed ! 202 EOME. At the time when Buonarotti, grown old, was op- posing to the teachings of his youth the sad exam- ples of his decline, the adepts of the grand manner still succeeded from time to time, if they happened to forget themselves, in dreaming some glorious dreams, without borrowing from the exaggerations of the school. Such are two adorable and too little appre- ciated figures, by an artist whose renown is mediocre, only because his works are so scarce — the St. Agatha and the St. Lucy, of Sermonetta, a pupil of Perino del Vaga. Going back as far as the most brilliant master of the ecstatic school, we find in the chapel of the An- nunciation,Benozzo Gozzoli, the smiling and animated disciple of Fra Angelico. His picture of the Annun- ciation, on a golden ground, is one of those works in which he has revealed with most grace the secret of producing a peculiar kind of penetrative emotion, which is the great beauty of these early paintings. A cardinal presents orphans to the Madonna; an angel is near her ; the Eternal Father appears in the heavens. The head of the seraph and the expres- sion and attitude of the Virgin are visions truly celestial. To measure the progress made by this respectful and timid art, it is enough to turn one's eyes to the great crucifix, covered with Giottesque paintings, placed in one of the chapels of the right transept. We have there the three epochs of Flor- entine art ; and it is hardly further from the almost S. MABIA SOPEA MINERVA. 203 Byzantine attempts of the fourteenth century to the soft brilliance of the artists whose faith Savonarola had tempered, than it is from the principles of these last to the theories of Michael Angelo and Raphael. But with what swiftness did this revolution proceed ! When Benozzo Gozzoli finished, Sanzio was just about to be born, and Michael Angelo was beginning to grow taU. In the neighboring chapel, belonging to the Aldo- brandini, is a statue of Clement VIII., surrounded by the tombs of his father and his mother, adorned with allegorical figures. These, with the exception of the statue of the Pope, are all the work of a com- patriot who hved in Rome at the end of the sixteenth century. From the tomb of Francesco Torna, to- wards the door of the church, to the feeble monu- ment of Clement VIII. we may measure how much sculpture had lost in a single century ; it was a pupil of DonateUo, Andrea Verrocchio, who carved that fine figure which sleeps the slumber of this life, and whose pensive and happily conceived cast of features dimly suggest the awakening in some other sphere. The urn and its ornamentation betray the old jeweller, a true masterpiece. Here for fear of falling into mere list-making we must stop, omitting a quantity of works of the six-, teenth and eighteenth centuries. All styles are rep- resented in this assemblage : close to the entrance is an exquisite Florentine tomb of the end of the 204 HOME. fifteenth century ; in the vestibule of the sacristy that of an architect who died in the early years of the fol- lowing century. It is interesting to compare these with the graceful monument which, in a cloister of rare richness, is to be seen at the side of the tomb of Cardinal Agnense, and of that of Cardinal Ferrici, who died in 1478 ; the exquisite and well-preserved bas-reUef of the Virgin between two angels is prob- ably due to Benedetto da Maiano. Do not forget in the chapel where slumbers standing the ever-blessed brother Angelico, to look at five remarkable tomb- stones of the end of the fourteenth century, which they ought to re-erect, and over two of which they have been guilty of the barbarism of placing confes- sionals. It would be well too, in a survey embracing five centuries, not to disdain in the Altieri chapel, so rich in African marbles, the pictures by Baciccio and Carlo Maratti, and, a little further off, those of Venusti. The church of il Gresu, erected by Giacomo della Porta in 1575, after the designs of Vignola, with a magnificence worthy of the wealth of the order, fur- nished the model for that sumptuous style which de- claims the glories of God in the taste of the fine world, and which, having been imported among us by the Society, is called the architecture of the Jesuits. It is at the tomb of St. Ignatius that the Order has displayed its most dazzling magnificence. To form this shrine they depended only upon themselves, con- S. ANDEEW OF THE VALLEY. 205 fiding its execution to one of their own number, that Father Andrea Pozzi, who at the end of the seven- teenth century practised with talent the professions of architect and painter. The chapel is richly adorned with lapis-lazuli and verde-antico. The group of the Holy Trinity has some tolerably fine Angels by Bernardino Ludovisi, supporting in the air a globe, about four feet in diameter, of lapis-lazuli ; it is the largest block of this precious stone that has ever been wrought. The high altar and the tribune, the pilasters, the friezes, the fa9ade, a rich and classic model of that decline in science which with us has lost its license and its Latin, — are all worth looking at. S. Andrew of the Valley, with its somewhat florid fa9ade, is a large and very rich church where Zam- pieri painted the Evangelists on the pendentives of the cupola. These figures almost make one think that the imitator of the Caracci ventured this time to raise his eyes to Michael Angelo ; for the rest, we find here that serenely bright coloring which goes so well with the architecture. These qualities are stiU more marked in the frescoes of the tribune, where the same artist has portrayed the Glorification of S. An- drew and scenes from his life. Whatever the merits of the figures may be — and that they are full of dra- matic force is hardly to be questioned — it happened to me to forget the actors for the scene, and this is not infrequently the case with Domenichino. In the sub- ject which represents S. John pointing out the Saviour 206 EOME. to Simon and Andrew, the landscape has a charm and invention that are admirable ; while the Crucifixion of S. Andrew takes place in a splendid architectural setting. The Florentines of the famous epoch had not so much style ; nor the Veronese so much purity. But what we ought to see, and what cannot be looked at without amazement, is the enormous cupola of the dome, which is fifty metres round, and which Lanfranc, the malignant rival of Domenichino, has painted with a spirit that may be called practical dexterity exercised with fury. People ought to come here to study the scientific means by which a swarm of figures are thrown into vertical perspective, and made to fly across the clouds of a boundless and con- cave sky, with the foreshortened effect of a bird's- eye view from the earth. Let us not leave S. Andrea deUa VaUe without seeing the Florentine tombs of Pius II. and Pius III., interesting remains of the primitive basilica of S. Peter, banished from the new one in consequence of that reckless passion for sym- metry which has in recent times invaded art. These admirable monuments are on either side of the nave, with their pure and graceful statuettes. A bas-relief crowns the mausoleum of the more illustrious of the two Sienese, ^neas Sylvius, in which the Madonna is seen presenting the departed pontiff to her son. I have only to mention in the Strozzi chapel two won- derful flambeatxx in wrought bronze of the sixteenth century : you must look them out though, for the THE CONVENT OP THE PHILIPPINES. 207 place is so dark that they are easily missed. In the middle of the nave, a stone covers the remains of a celebrated contemporary, Father Ventura, who sleeps at the foot of that pulpit from which his voice thun- dered for eleven consecutive years. He died at Ver- sailles in 1861. The general of the Theatins reposes in his own land, for the church belongs to the Order. On his stone they have cut the simple epitaph : — - DEFUNCTUS ADHUC LOQUITUE. The Convent of the Philippines possesses a very fine library, in which are preserved some unpublished works of Baronius. I only entered this establishment once, accompanying one of our artists who was anx- ious to buy an old tapestry, which the society was willing to part with for a very moderate price, so it was said. But as soon as we came into the presence of the father manager, whose ascetic leanness I have still before my eyes, he began raising his price, so that in spite of the efforts of a young frater who pleaded for us, it finally became necessary to give up an acquisition that we had betrayed too plainly our desire for. As we parted in mutual dissatisfac- tion, I lost an opportunity of seeing the famous Bible of Alcuin which is there ; the young artist recom- pensed me with an expressive sketch of our little scene.* The Roman College is an imposing and vast erec- * This library may now be visited through the Roman Society of Patriotic History. 208 ROME. tion of Ammanati, which contains many wonders, without counting its treasures of erudition. It was founded in 1582 by Gregory XIII., and possesses what is without dispute the most remarkable and in- structive historical museum in existence. The nu- cleus of it was collected in the seventeenth century by one of the most learned fathers of the order, the Reverend Athanasius Kircher. As space would fail me to give a description of the bronzes, marbles, terra cottas, in a word, of all the curiosities collected by Father Kircher, let me at- tempt to make up for this by recalling the enormous knowledge and strange character of the collector. Independent and original as he was, and guided by science, he never failed to abandon commonplace re- searches to foUow up clews that others, especially at that time, would no doubt have disdained, and of which he alone could appreciate the meaning and the value. After his death the Jesuits continued the collection ; which affords the means to take a unique course of archaeology applied to manners and customs; but it is difficult to examine it in detail and to study it fruitfully, as the museum is not classed nor regu- larly divided : catalogues are also wanted, and it is forbidden to take the slightest sketch, or even to jot down the smallest memorandum in one's note-book.* A large framework of wall, in which are two wide ■* The Kircherian Museum is now the property of the Gov- ernment, and has been much enlarged and classified. THE POETA MAQGIORE. 209 arches, and three piers, — there in all its simplicity is the Porta Maggiore, its austere and solid character according well with its rough finish. The fa5ade is adorned with what may be called a speaking orna- mentation ; three inscriptions placed one over another, cut in handsome capitals on their white pages, tell of the building of the aqueduct, of which the gate forms a part, by Claudius, the son of Drusus, and its resto- rations under Vespasian and Titus. On the exterior is the tomb of Marcius Virgilius Eurysaces, baker and provision dealer ; some freed- man of Greek origin, whose history dates back to the last years of the Roman republic. The second story of the tomb is made of stone mortars standing one against the other, like sacks of corn in a row ; the bas-reliefs of the frieze represent the processes of baking in the time of Marius or of Csesar. Beyond the Porta Maggiore, and almost parallel with the aqueducts, of which Aurelian and Honorius made a rampart, runs the old Preenestine road with its ancient paving. Five or six aqueducts cross one another in this plateau, their great arches rising against the sky, and continued in the background by other ruins. In the middle of a neglected garden, on the north- ern slope of the Esquiline garden, I perceived a ruin many a time used by Poussin and Claude of Lor- raine. It is a polygon of ten sides, lined with niches for statues rather like chapels, and is known by the 14 210 EOME. name of Minerva Medica. The Minerva called Med- ica has nothing in common with ^sculapius nor with Minerva ; so little so, that this charming pavilion was once a gay boudoir in the gardens of Valerian and Gallienus, and there were found in it the divinities usually honored in such rustic retreats — Pomona, Adonis, Venus, Hercules, a Faun, and even the beautiful Antinoiis. I have reserved to close this chapter with, and serve as an introduction to the next, the church of S. Martino ai Monti, situated on the Viminal, on the site of the baths of Trajan. This church was erected in the beginning of the sixth century by S. Symmachus on the site of one still older, founded by S. Sylvester, who here pre- sided over the council of 424. Below the church of Symmachus there is an ancient crypt paved with black and white mosaics, which was formerly a part of the baths of Trajan. S. Martino has no ceiling ; the wood-work of the roof being supported on twenty- four ancient Corinthian columns of precious marble. Here is buried Pope Martin, whom Constant II. sent to end his days in exile in the depth of the Cher- sonese, because he had condemned the heresy of the Monothelites. Let us also note a small mosaic of the seventh century, which is very curious though dam- aged. As at S. Agnes and Santa Maria in the Tras- tevere, I remarked that the Pope always wore a slip- per with a cross embroidered on it, and that, as in all S. MAETINO AI MONTI. 211 the other figures of the sovereign pontiff, the metro- politan of Rome has no crosier. A cross is drawn upon the slipper, so that when people kiss the foot of the father of the faithful, the homage is addressed to the symbol and not to the man. There have been refinements in humility resorted to, ever since S. Gregory the Great adopted and transmitted the for- mula, Servus servorum Dei; but this is more laudable in intention than in fact, for the cross might be more suitably placed than on a slipper. The absence of the crosier among the insignia of the papacy is ex- plained by a legend that Innocent III. wiU tell us in a very few words. " The Roman pontiff has no pas- toral staflf, because the blessed apostle Peter gave his to Eucherius, first bishop of Trier, to use to awaken Maturnus from the dead, whom he had sent with Valerius to preach the gospel to the Teutonic nation, and Maturnus succeeded Eucherius. This staff is stiU preserved at Trier with the greatest veneration." {De Sacrif. Miss., c. vi.) S. Thomas Aquinas com- pletes the story as follows : " The Roman pontiff does not use a staff, because S. Peter sent his to resus- citate one of his disciples, who was made bishop of Trier. This is why the popes only carry the pastoral staff in the diocese of Trier, and not in other dioceses." What especially attracted me to the church was the desire to see a series of frescoes that a Carmelite prior had painted on the walls of the aisles. They are composed in a bright, luminous tone, and are by 212 ROME. the brother-in-law and best disciple of Poussin. I meant also to examine two older paintings, which are documents of great price. One represents St. John Lateran before the restorations which have modern- ized it ; the other, the interior of the ancient basilica of S. Peter of the Vatican, just as it was under Nicholas V., and consequently as it was when erected by Constantine in 326. Violet le Due copied this fresco with his usual photographic precision, and had the kindness to place the drawing at my disposal. In it we recognize the spot that was formerly occupied by the ancient bronze statue of the apostle ; we see that, even at that time, they descended at the end of the great nave to the Confession of S. Peter; and that the aisles, to the number of five, were separated by Corinthian columns, raised by six steps above the central nave, a unique arrangement, I believe. Some engravings of G. Battista Falda, that have become rare, show us the exterior ; we see the cloister with its monumental cone in the middle under a small shrine ; then the portico and the fa9ado of the church, which were adorned with mosaics ; the belfries, one of the eleventh century, massive and thick, the other more meagre and less ancient, which rose above the Loggia, close by the side of the modest and classical entry to the Vatican residence. These reminiscences lead us, by a chronological path, from the Esquiline to the Vatican, and from San Martino ai Monti to the basilica of S. Peter. THE COLONNADE OF BERNINI. 213 CHAPTER XI. Issuing from the Piazza Rusticucci, you enter the circle of Doric columns which mark the ellipsoid out- line of an immense space, and are at once struck with the apparent unity of these vast constructions, com- menced in 1450 and carried on for over two centuries and a half. The more we look at these erections, the more astonished we are, as we recall the names of Bramante, of the two San Galli, of Raphael, of Peruzzi, of Michael Angelo, and of Vignola, the principal masters of the first century of the building. The circular colonnade of Bernini, nearly three hun- dred columns set in four rows and leaving between them a central passage for carriages — this enormous phantasy is the manifesto of a style which subor- dinates utility to symmetry, and rules, to decorative effect : these two hundred and eighty-four columns, which are strong enough to support the palaces of Semiramis, support nothing at all ; they are placed there for show ; they are the feet of two banqueting tables set for a congress of giants, on which are drawn up in a row ninety-six statues from three to four yards in height which from a distance cannot be dis- tinguished, and which you do not see any better when 214 ROME. you are near. For that matter, no one looks at them; such is the fate of works of art that are lavished out of place. We cannot deny that this colonnade, connecting itself with the piazza by those two sweeping curves, is an imposing conception. It is still more so on paper ; it would have its effect if one could take a bird's- eye survey of the whole ; but it would be only too easy to show that this plan is a theoretic expression, and that there is no point of view from which the whole spectacle is to be obtained. Too large for its circular shape, the vast, useless, and unoccupied space makes one regret that they did not erect above this sublime colonnade, or in its place, the irregular palaces of the Vatican court, which, by encumbering one side, throw out of line the noblest symmetry that the schools have ever dreamed of. One other thing gave me a constant shock : the basilica of S. Peter, for the glorification of which this immense device has been contrived, rises to the skies by means of a great hemispheric dome, flanked by two other smaller ones; these domes, particularly that in the centre, whose curve, attributed to Michael Angelo, was rectified by Giacomo della Porta, would have gained by rising above a rectilinear construction. The conflict of the horizontal and vertical arcs of a circle is not happy, as is proved by the fact that from those points of view where the dome of S. Peter's has not the circle of Bernini for a foreground, it rises with a much Basilica of S. Peter; THE FACADE OF S. PETER'S. 215 superior effect. Those who paved the piazza seem to have understood this: for from the foot of the obelisk, that rises in the centre, they have made a series of radii in white stone diverge, which lead the eye by direct lines to the four-and-twenty steps of the church. Two sparkling fountains adorn the semi- circles of this vast arena, flanking the obelisk and that is why the obelisk of the Place de la Concorde at Paris is supported by a couple of fountains. The fa5ade is not a success, as everybody has re- marked ; it conceals the dome, its pediment is abor- tive, its attica ill accented by a row of small, low, and misshapen windows ; its top is ridiculously equipped by the thirteen colossal figures of Christ and the apos- tles gesticulating on the balustrade. Under the frieze, with the inscription of the Borghese Pope (Paul V.), is placed the central balcony, whence the sovereign pontiff blesses the city and the universe. This win- dow, its four neighbors, as weU as the five doors whose entablature is supported on columns of pre- cious marble, form so many details of an elegant regularity. I like also the interior gallery running the length of the fa9ade and ending in two vestibules, in which appear a couple of weak and characterless equestrian statues. One of them, the work of Ber- nini, represents Constantino ; and the other, Charles the Great. Above the great door they have placed the NaviceUa of S. Peter, a mosaic executed in 1298 by Giotto for the old basilica ; the work has been so 216 EOME. re-handled as to have lost its character. The last door on the right is walled up, with a bronze cross in the centre ; it is that of the Jubilees ; and is only opened in the holy year, four times a century. The middle entrance, adorned with imperial profiles in medallions, and which comes from the first basilica, is the work of Simon, brother of DonateUo, assisted by Antonio Filarete ; it represents the martyrdom of S. Peter and S. Paul; and Eugenius IV. giving audi- ence to the deputations from the East, and crowning the Emperor Sigismund. In Italy they do not close the churches with small doors, soon made greasy by the hands of the popu- lace. Giving a literal interpretation to Christ's say- ing, " My Father's house is always open," they are content with a curtain : but in order to prevent it from flying about in the wind this curtain, especially for doorways of great size like that of S. Peter's, is made of canvas with lead at the foot, and lined with leather. This plan is dirtier than ours, for, as it falls back on you, the leather, which is plastered over with filth from centuries of hands, often gives you a brush in the face. However, there is no noise ; you enter as if through a miraculous hole in the wall that in- stantly closes up again. This sensation is particu- larly striking at S. Peter's, where you are dazzled with a mass of splendor, and it would be still more so if the longest of known naves, and one of the high- est, since the vault is forty-eight metres from the INTEKIOE OF S. PETEK'S. 217 pavement, disclosed instantaneously its astonishing dimensions. As the eye roams through those vast spaces the sense of immensity seems to grow, but the instant it pauses to study the details the edifice becomes smaller and shrinks into a mere jewel casket. The mind re- fuses to accept at once the idea of the enormous size of each separate object, it is only by degrees that it can be prevailed upon to believe in the reality of that vast cavern of polished marbles, of mosaics, of golden foliage freshly come from the lapidary's workshop. We wonder, too, at the general freedom of light, and the freshness of particular tints ; the walls faced with stucco, the pilasters, the architraves, the pedestals, all seem shot with fine shades from white to opal and from grey to rose. The lustrous pavement turns, as we recede, into mirrors reflecting as on the surface of a lake all the arches and vaults. Finally, what adds to the mundane splendor of this official basilica is that on the counter-pUasters, playing with the in- signia of the priesthood, circle those charming angels which, first emancipated by the child of Cythera, have for three centuries sported in the palaces of kings on the pages of every allegory. Is it true that you have no suspicion of the im- mensity of the church, before you have measured yourself with Liberoni's yeUow marble angels, six feet high, which support the sheU-shaped holy-water vessels'? Not altogether; the thickness of the air 218 HOME. which makes the other end of the nave cloudy, the microscopic size of distant passers-by, have already given you warning. The Angels in question cause a peculiar illusion | the mere prettiness of these naked children, recalling a number of analogous subjects smaller than nature, hinders you at the first glance from conceiving that their proportions could have been exaggerated to such a point. To understand what must have taken place, and to explain their dis- proportions, which are real in spite of the theories which have been strained for their justification, it is indispensable to describe the various phases which the structure has passed through. Rossellini and Alberti, the first interpreters of the intentions of Nicholas V., confined themselves to rais- ing from the ground the walls of an enlarged apse, next, in response to the vast designs of Julius II., and to efface the renown of BruneUeschi, who had constructed the cupola of Florence, Donato Lazzari, called Bramante, proposed to raise in the middle of a Greek cross formed by four long naves, a cupola on the model of that of Agrippa, but enlarged to untold proportions. Such was his ardor, stimulated by the bold and ambitious character of Julius II., that in 1513, after seven years of work, the dome launched its arches into the sky ; but erected too quickly, and on unsur(i foundations, the Babel threatened ruin, and had to be demolished. Raphael, the successor of Bramante, who in taking his flight " dreaded," he PLANS OF S. PETER'S. 219 wrote, "the doom of Icarus," Raphael, assisted by Giuliano da San Gallo and by Fra Giocondo, strength- ened the pillars ; curtailing the chevet and the tran- septs, and adopting the design of a Latin cross. Balthazzar Peruzzi erected the apse, and returned to the idea of a Greek cross less developed ; conse- quently Antonio da San Gallo, when he replaced him, preferred the Latin cross. They still show his plan in relief, rich in belfries and pyramidal outlines, a scheme that Michael Angelo depreciated by accusing it of savoring of Gothic. San GaUo showed himself more penetrating than his predecessors : divining the rock on which they had split, he supported the build- ings on massive foundations, and excavating the mys- terious soil of the Neronian Circus, which was fur- rowed by the graves of martyrs, he strengthened the whole of the circumference down to an extreme depth. After that they could build on substantial foundations. This was paving the way for the glory of Michael Angelo, who promptly returned to the Greek cross, and completed the drum of the cupola, to which the rest was subordinate. It has been maintained that he meant to erect a portico with columns, in the style of that of the Pantheon ; but the elevation of his plan, executed in color under Sixtus V. on one of the cartouches of the Vatican Library, contradicts this assertion. It shows us four small bays in a cross ter- minated by semicircular apses, and the great cupola surrounded by a circle of statues at the base and ac- 220 EOME. companied by four small domes. All these rounded masses were to be isolated in a quadrangular space of a calm and severe style of architecture. Vignola and Pirro Ligorio who came next, in accordance with the wishes of Pius V., conformed to the plans of Michael Angelo ; but as soon as Giacomo della Porta had finished the dome, Carlo Maderno, given too much freedom by Paul V., made haste in order to show his genius by a novelty — a novelty four times tried — to return to the Latin cross by elongating the great nave. He ended it with that frightful fagade to which Bernini joined a bracelet of columns. It was not without good reason that the greatest experts, Peruzzi, Michael Angelo, Vignola, Delia Porta, were bent on avoiding a conflict between so enormous a dome and the longest nave that had ever been seen. As it was necessary after the death of Bramante, in order to support a cupola nearly as high as the Great Pyramid, to more than double the thickness of the pillars of the choir and make them enormously mas- sive, these great men understood that it was neces- sary to bring the supports of the nave into propor- tion, or that it would be overwhelmed by them. Such is the peril that Maderno braved, being obliged, in order to bring himself into harmony with the end por- tion, to give to the pillars of his nave a circumference so monstrous, that only three could be placed on each side, and it is these enormous supports which do more than anything else to make the gigantic church look S. PETER'S, THE NAVE 221 small. In fact, who would dream of suspecting that a nave whose length is divided into only three arches, is the longest in the world ! I was bent on measuring these blocks of masonry which give it so short a perspective ; each pilaster measures thirty of my steps, and the pillars of the cupola are two hun- dred and six feet in circumference. The ornamenta- tion with which, to disguise their ugliness, they over- laid these huge surfaces, is necessarily of exorbitant dimensions. Maderno hollowed within them two tiers of niches, peopled with figures eighteen feet high ; on right and left of these niches he reared fluted pilasters nearly three metres broad ; the entablature, seventy-seven feet from the pavement, is not less than six metres thick. These masses glow with the splendor of marble ; capitals, architraves, golden arabesques, stucco miniatures of the great arches, rosettes on the vault, attain one after another such exaggerated size that to the spectator the accustomed scales of proportion become reversed. Nothing makes the unfortunate effect of this want of symmetry more marked than the canopy which surmounts the altar — set backwards, that is towards the west, because when the Pope ofiiciates he faces his people. This canopy is not less than eighty- seven feet high, yet you would never suspect it. Hence, perhaps, certain warnings, certain landmarks contrived by Maderno, — a man of superior talent at a time when they accomplished great ends with small 222 EOME. means, — to inform the public that the heaviness of the construction has its enormous size for excuse. The height of the pedestals and bases cannot escape you, for your own height serves as a scale. Along the nave you next meet the copper lines which mark on the pavement the lengths of the largest cathedrals known. By reflecting you gradually come to under- stand that our ogival metropolitan churches of the thirteenth century could be stood in pairs in S. Peter's ; but in spite of this, memory persists in picturing them as larger and especially as higher — an illusion due to the prolongation and multipHcity of their vertical lines, and the bold and aspiring form of their vaultings. As for the traditionally professed opinion that the dwarfed impression made by St. Peter's is the valu- able result of an ideal harmony of the proportions, that is a piece of nonsense that we should not trouble ourselves about, if it were less widely spread. Surely there would be a ruinous inconsistency in laying out money to erect the largest religious edifice in the world, and yet to do so in such a way that it should appear small. We should rather strive after a con- trary result : to build the edifice as vast as possible, and try by a skilful combination of lines to make it seem even larger than it is. How can we help trac- ing, in the course of this long undertaking, the suc- cessive influences of personal vanities ? Bramante and Maderno claim to surpass, the one aU the cupolas. S. PETER'S, THE SALE OF INDULGENCES. 223 the other all the naves, and their ambitions come to nothing ; the cupola of S. Peter's is higher, but it is neither so deep nor by any means so wide in diame- ter as that of Florence, the work of the great and simple Brunelleschi ; the nave of the basilica ex- ceeds all others in length, but we only notice this advantage to mark an effect that has completely miscarried. In the accomplishment of this work, in which pride was ever uppermost, the error of the popes lay in putting into a position of emulation with one another a series of men of genius, each one too illustrious to consent to carry out a rival's design. Each of them on coming forward claimed to be the bearer of new and wonderful ideas ; the people were full of joy, and the pontiffs radiant, but it cost them dear ; for to- wards the end of the seventeenth century, Carlo Fon- tana calculated that the expenses up to that time had mounted to nearly 152,000,000 francs. To meet this demand it was necessary, from the reign of Leo X. on, to coin money by every possible means, and hence the traffic in indulgences, which furnished such a dangerous weapon to Luther. Rome thought she was raising on the tomb of the apostle the monument of triumphant unity ; in reality she was working for the Reformation : the breach between modem art and religious sentiment, of which the last champion per- ished on the scaffold of Savonarola, was to be con- summated forever by the pompous style of the edifice 224 EOME. that was consecrated to the temporal glory of the popes. When you visit S. Peter's, you might imagine that you had gone to pay court to some one. So many prelates and pontiffs in their dresses of cere- mony seem to be gathered there, that the great ones of this earth drive away the memory of saints and of martyrs, just as the decorations of the building cause the idea of the palace to master that of the temple ; the whole atmosphere of the place inviting less to prayer than to conversation ; the basilica is the vast- est reception-room on the globe.* This impression is heightened in winter time by the fact that you are caressed by a soft tepid temperature, an inexplicable phenomenon to all except the scientific men, who, if it were bitterly cold there, would also explain why yovi freeze in it. The mildness of the air will allow us, however, to seek out some pearls from among much trumpery, while the reader will understand the necessity for self-restraint in dealing with a church where we count forty-four altars, seven hundred and forty- eight columns, and an assemblage of three hun- dred and eighty-nine statues. On this account T will omit whatever leaves no trace in the memory, that is, with perhaps a score of exceptions, all the decora- tions of the transept, of the apse, and of the aisles. * Pius IX. is said to have observed in speaking of the Cathe- dral of Florence, "In S. Peter's man thinks, in S. Maria del Fiore he prays." STATUE OF S. PETER. 225 The old basilica, situated on the sfime spot, lasted for eleven hundred years, and then Pope Nicholas v., though with pious designs, committed the ar- chaeological impiety of presuming to substitute for it a temple superior to that of Solomon. By good for- tune the Constantinian basilica was only pulled down proportionally as the other rose, and fifty years after the death of Thomas of Sarzano one half of the old church stiU served for worship ; thanks to these de- lays the present edifice contains various monuments which it was well to preserve. The statue which people generally visit first, by way of paying dutiful respect to the patron of the place, is the seated one of S. Peter, a bronze of the fifth century, which, to- wards the year 445, Pope Leo placed in the basilica. I do not know who advanced the idea that it was the ancient statue of Jupiter Capitolinus, but it must have been a jest, for no one can mistake for the statue of massive gold, which Domitian set up in the first cen- tury, this bronze of the very middle of the decadence, stiff, poor in design, and with the right hand, which blesses, and the left, which holds the keys, cast along with the rest of the body. This statue is the object of such veneration, that the kisses of the faithful have polished and worn its foot. It is doubtful whether any life-size bronze figure consecrated to a Christian hero can be earlier than this. The S. Peter interested me for another reason ; among the gems preserved under the glasses of the Vatican 15 226 EOME. Library, I happened to notice an oval medallion, be- longing, according to the opinions of experts, to an epoch between the first and second centuries ; this object, which is little known, has on it the profiles of S. Peter and S. Paul, modelled after nature at an epoch when art still joined simplicity of style to sup- pleness of execution. Now the statue of S. Peter, in spite of cold and awkward workmanship, presents a marked likeness to one of the profiles of the Vati- can Library. Conformably to primitive traditions, the apostle has abundant and crisp hair, the beard curled, rather blunt features leaning to mobility of expression ; something of the look of an Arabian ; the air of a child of the people, with the healthy leanness of a man of action. This prototype of Chris- tian numismatics shows Saul, or Paul, to us as Nice- phorus has described him — quite bald, with long features, aquiline nose, the meditative, argumenta- tive, and half-wearied air of a philosopher of the porch, worn by the struggles of life and the spirit. With the aid of this comparison we are rather brought to think that the bronze statue of S. Peter was made after types traditionally handed down, a practice quite in accordance with those of ancient Rome. At the bottom of the nave the eye is attracted to the front of the high altar, at the foot of which are the eighty-seven lamps, perpetually burning on the circular balustrade of the crypt or Confession ; you would take them for a mass of yellow roses. Their S. PETER'S, THE HIGH ALTAR. 227 stems are gilded cornucopias. At the foot of the steps is Pius VI. kneeling in prayer, his eyes fixed on the tomb of the apostles : his last desire, as he lay dying in exile, was that he might he in this burial- place. Canova has impressed on the martyr's feat- ures a sublime aspect of devout meditation and fer- vor. Adjoining the Confession is a part of the oratory raised by Anacletus on the grave of his pre- decessor, the tomb of Peter and Paul serving for an altar to that chapel of the Grottoes, above which they have placed the high altar of the new patriarchal church, on the very spot where the successors of S. Sylvester officiated. It was in all ages a venerable spot, and so surroimded with an atmosphere of awe that Alaric had brought back to it in solemn proces- sion the sacred vessels of which a soldier had taken possession. Urban VIII. caused Bernini to construct the Baldacchino of gilded bronze, with its twisted columns loaded with an entablature which, fiUed at the corners by four standing angels, supports a globe surmounted by the cross. Nothing has been so often imitated as these twisted columns : from 1630 to 1680 all altars had glories like that of the Tribune, and twisted pillars like those of this Baldacchino. We ought to know, in order to explain this, that the form of the columns of Bernini was determined by that of four small marble pillars of the old Ciborium, brought, it is said, from Jerusalem, and supposed to have come from the Temple : they may still be seen 228 EOME. on the four balconies constructed in the pillars of the transept. It is from the one of these balconies, above the statue of St. Veronica, that on three holy days they display the great relics — the holy face, the wood of the true cross, and the lance of Longinus. I have mentioned the dimensions of the canopy ; taking that as a standard, you realize almost with terror the height of the roof, beneath which this toy of twenty-nine metres is lost. The apse is one hun- dred and sixty-four feet long. At the back is the presbyterium, where on days of pontifical solem- nity the sacred college is ranged around the pope. There is in it a sumptuous altar, and, in the middle of a glory, the Chair of St. Peter, sustained by four colossal figures of bronze and gold, which represent two fathers of the Latin and two of the Greek Church. The Chair, by Bernini, is only an outside case, con- taining the curule seat of Egyptian wood faced with ivory, which is supposed to have been given by the senator Pudens to his guest, the apostle Peter. They show in the sacristy a model of this precious object, which is rarely exhibited, as well as some of the small ivory facings that have been detached from it ; they represent the Labors of Hercules, and are of indis- putable antiquity. We know that in Pliny's time the workers in ivory already veneered wood, and that they executed mar- queterie, either with shell or with bits of ivory cut very small and attached with glue. This is at any THE CHAIK OF S. PETEE. 229 rate a sort of sedan-chair, such as the senators em- ployed under the first Caesars, and such as Horace describes in the words curule ebur. This Pudens, the first patrician to receive the faith of Christ, and his family, whose history we trace for three generations in the funeral inscriptions on the loculi in the cata- combs, may out of veneration for the memory of the first bishop of Rome have piously kept and trans- mitted to the Christians the seat from which Peter had spoken, a relic of which there is mention in the acts of the primitive church. Tertullian and Euse- bius prove the practice which prevailed, of preserving with respect the seats of apostles and bishops. On the sides of the Tribune are two mausoleums which deserve mention. At the foot of that of Paul m., on the left, Guglielmo della Porta sculptured in marble a naked and half-reclining figure of Justice, beautiful enough to excite the love of Knavery itself; no Venus has a more charming head. As for the body, we can no longer form any opinion about it ; it having been considered more decorous to have Jus- tice clad in a tunic of zinc by Bernini. The same artist made the tomb on the right, where Urban VIII. is represented in bronze, seated, with the right arm raised in the act of benediction. Bernini is not a man whom we can condemn wholesale ; his statue of Urban VIII. is calm, yet life-like and majestic. I note on this subject that while the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries multiplied in the churches of 230 EOME. Rome and even in S. Peter's pontifical statues seated and giving the benediction ; that of Urban VIII. is the oldest, and the becomingness of the attitude, as well as the grace with which the sculptor endowed it, gave the first impulse to all the numerous imitations. But it is curious to observe that none of the succes- sors of Bernini has succeeded in making the gesture at once paternal and noble. Innocent X. at S. Agnes', Clement XIV. at the Santi ApostoU, are, the one affectedly grave, and the other clumsy ; Gregory XVI. looks like a man performing some operation ; Alexander VIII. has the air of a warrior threatening; Clement X., of a man calling out in amazement ; in a word, they have all more or less failed, so difficult is it to seize the expression of a gesture. Bernini had sought it in nature, while the others thought they could make it their own by studied interpretation ; the secret of every era of decline is there. At the entrance to the left transept is erected on Holy Thursday the seat of the Grand Penitentiary, who on that day after public confession gives absolu- tion to some great sinner disguised as a pilgrim. We will pass by the altar of S. Leo without allowing our- selves to be dazzled by the queer cleverness of Al- gardi ; his bas-relief of Attila is a virtuoso's trick, and nothing more. At the foot of this altar is, not the tombstone, but the commemorative monument, of Leo XII., bearing the following inscription which he wrote a few days before his death : — MONUMENT OF LEO XII. 231 LEONI MAGNO PATEONO CELESTI ME SUPPLEX COMMENDANS HIC APUD SACEOS EJUS CINEEES LOCUM SEPULTUEiE ELEGI LEO XII HUMILIS CLIENS HEEEDUM TANTI NOMINIS MINIMUS.* How much more touching is this humility than the funeral paraphernalia with which Bernini surrounded Alexander VII. ! However, Cherubini maintained that it is good now and then to see and hear some- thing bad, so as not to fall into it from ignorance. In a niche near the Tribune stands the statue of a sacristan of the eighteenth century with the face of a cherub, decked out in ermine and laces ; this is the way in which they have appreciated the austere and great S. Norbert. On one of the great piers of the dome, near the Clementine Chapel, is the finest speci- men of those Roman mosaics of which the Vatican is the workshop ; it is a copy of Raphael's Transfigura- tion, and has such accuracy of coloring as to produce a genuine illusion. This is a picture which will never fade ; there it is fixed in its freshness, until the next invasion of the barbarians ; a precious art that ought to have been imported into our climates, where as damp destroys paintings and frescoes, the buildings * "To Leo the great heavenly patron commending myself, I Leo XII. a humble client, a suppliant, the least of the heirs of so great a name, have chosen a place of sepulture near his holy ashes." 232 EOME. are of a frosty monotony. Near the chapel of Clement VII. we pause before the tomb of Pius VII., a curious monument in the northern taste. I will not comment upon the figures of Force and Wisdom, descending from a clock that has long stopped ; but we cannot help admiring how, under the hand of Thorwaldsen, the good Pope Chiaramonti, while remaining himself, has been able to Germanize his expression. They have seated him on a Greek throne perched over an Egyptian sepulchre. Before the chapel of the choir where occasionally, in order to hear the practice of singing, strangers go and seat themselves in white ties and dress coats, we at last, beneath an arch, come upon a work of a pure style, and belonging to a good period of art, the tomb of Innocent VIII. Antonio PoUajuolo at the end of the fifteenth century made it in bronze for the old basilica. What grandeur, after so many vulgarities, has this Florentine jewel ! Compare these four Virtues in bas-relief with the great Bellonas of the Barberini, and mark the nobleness, the personality, of these two statues of the pontiff, the one representing him full of life, the other extinguished in death. Opposite is a door, and above it a coffer of stucco, which contains the corpse of the last Pope deceased, until the demise of his successor. Before reaching the Baptistery, remarkable for its porphyry font, which is the upturned lid of the sar- cophagus of Hadrian, used later for the tomb of Otho Fresco in Sacristy of S. Peter's. Melozzo da. Forli. THE PIETA OF MICHAEL ANGELO. 233 II., you will pass the pillar on which are the tablets of the last of the exiled Stuarts. People were in the full fervor of monarchical restorations, when Canova, having to portray these three princes, bravely gave to the children of James II. the titles of Charles III. and Henry IX. Above these two Augustuli, an Angel and Religion exhibit in a Lewis XIV. frame a fine medallion in mosaic of Maria Casimir, the incon- stant and adventurous granddaughter of John Sobieski. We now cross to the chapel of the Pieta, a word that should be translated Pity, if you prefer the real sense to an absurdity of custom. It is so called be- cause on the altar is a marble group representing the Mater Dolorosa -with the dead Christ. When he thus ventured to cast this corpse across the knees of a divine mother, Michael Angelo was not four-and-twenty ; hardy, already original, and ingenuous ; stirred by ancient beauty, but imbued with Christian sentiment. If I note in passing the triumph of the Cross that Lanfranc painted on the vaulting, it is only to rectify the widely spread error that all the pictures at S. Peter's are in mosaics. Here is preserved the sar- cophagus of Probus Anicius, which in the old basilica served for a baptismal font. It was Fontana who designed the tomb of Christina of Sweden, and adorned it with a colossal medallion of gilded bronze, a fine portrait executed by a master hand. The mosaic copy of the Martyrdom of S. Sebastian by Domen- ichino, the original of which is at S. Maria degli 234 KOME. Angeli, has given its name to the next chapel ; this mosaic is dull, coldly modelled, and very inferior to the painting, where the color is tender and lively. Nearly opposite, on the reverse of a pillar is the mausoleum by Bernini of the famous Matilda of Tuscany, who dying in 1115 bequeathed her lands to the church ; she had been originally deposited in a sarcophagus on which the history of Phsedra and Hip- polytus was sculptured, and which John of Pisa studied ; Urban VIII. in 1635 transferred to S. Peter's the remains of a benefactress, who made her vain munificence cost so much blood. This figure is a purely ideal composition : the head grave and ani- mated, with a sweep comparable to the fine things of antiquity, is admirably posed ; the vigorous and fem- inine arm carrying the sceptre expresses resolution ; the left with a more timid gesture hestitatingly sus- taining the tiara and the keys ; the majesty and the pose are enhanced by the arrangement of the draperies. The finest and one of the most spacious of the chapels is that of the Holy Sacrament, where before an altar surmounted by a mosaic copy of Caravag- gio's Descent from the Cross, is a monument in bronze, very lowly since it lies upon the ground, and very simple since you can take it in at a glance, but which is in my eyes the marvel of the basilica : the true amateur has already divined that I refer to the tomb of Sixtus IV. executed by Antonio PoUajuolo. The wide pedestal rests on large feet attached to the cor- THE TOMB OF SIXTUS IV. 235 ners by foliage ; in the middle the pontiff slumbers on a simple couch, surrounded by figures of the Virtues and, these not sufficing to illustrate the life of a sov- ereign, — the arts and sciences ; the little figure repre- senting Music is one of the gems of the Renaissance. This composition is rich without being confused, noble, simple, delicate. The portrait of Sixtus IV. in which the intelligent clear-cut features express the spirit of a doctor and saint of the church, as well as the high birth of a man of old stock, is among those which serve as guides to biography. The warlike Julius 11., who without taking death into account had re- solved to raise at leisure the vastest tomb in the uni- verse to contain his ashes, sought and found a shelter here, where the two popes of the contested house of Delia Rovere are intertwined like two oaks ; the second happy to find in the funereal hospitality of his great-uncle Sixtus a substitute for what he had dreamed of with more ambition than taste. In the chapel of the Virgin we notice in the in- scription on the tomb of Benedict XIV. the first ap- pearance of a practice brought about by the impov- erishment of the pontifical families, who were no longer rich enough to erect royal mausoleums to their celebrities. Those who acquitted this debt to Bene- dict XIV. were his natural clients, Cardinales ah eo creati. Such is the custom at the present day, whence it follows that long reigns create many con- tributors to the perpetuation of their memories. 236 EOME. In the right transept is the mosaic copy of one of the works of Nicholas Poussin, a subject little in har- mony with his tranquil, epic, and in some sort Racine- like talent: S. Erasmus having his belly opened, that his bowels may be wound upon a wheel. In a niche near the altar people greatly admire the large figure of S. Bruno by Michael Slodtz of Paris, latest born of those Slodtz of Antwerp who worked so hard at sculpture in the gardens of Versailles under Lewis XIV. and Lewis XV. This figure is well worth look- ing at ; it is the apogee of anecdotic and amusing statuary : that is its merit, and perhaps its slight defect also. S. Bruno refused to be pope, and so Slodtz represents him as tempted by an angel who offers him the tiara and keys. The saint, whose posture is somewhat mannered, turns aside and re- fuses with an undecided gesture, all the more expres- sive from not being free from a certain clumsiness. To be ashamed of the triple crown in the face of so many pontiffs who have worn it, and in their own basil- ica, would, without certain modifications, be to teach a lesson to the spiritual sovereigns ; so Bruno refuses with hesitation, feebly, at the same time letting fall a tender smiling glance on the pontifical insignia, from which he has difficulty in taking regretful eyes. But then, where would be the merit if Bruno was not tempted 1 Let us finish with a work of very varying degrees of excellence, in which what is defective is more TOMB OF CLEMENT XIII. 237 widely renowned than what is subHme. Canova was in his early maturity when he designed the monu- ment of Clement XIII. ; the great sculptor then under the influence of the Maecenas of the north and acad- emic theorists was, I fear, bent on surpassing himself. Whatever the cause, this construction is too big, too empty, too rectilinear, its virago who is too short, and her skirts as well, personifies Religion ; there are a couple of smooth and intelhgent lions, one of which watches while the other slumbers with one eye open; the Genius of Death weeps as he turns down the torch of life, — and the whole affair has a coldness, and an insipid attempt at poetry, belonging to a past taste which will never return. But above the sar- cophagus the kneehng statue of Pope Clement is avowedly the finest representation ever executed of a priest at prayer, the whole attitude exactly harmo- nizing with the radiant spirit of the countenance. Such are, so far as I remember, not all the im- portant works contained in S. Peter's, but at least those which it is essential to study, to preserve the memory of it. My involuntary omissions will give pilgrims a better chance of making discoveries ; my notes, by the elimination of a mass of secondary works, will help people to find with less trouble those that are really superior. I beg indulgence for my criticisms, and a good mark for my omissions. Pope Pius VI. completed the buildings by making Marchionni erect sacristies, which are of a purer taste 238 ROME. than the earUer portions. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, architecture, making a supreme effort, seized more closely the spirit of antiquity. Here we find the colossi of S. Peter and S. Paul that Pius II., a Piccolomini of Sienna, had carved, not by Mino da Fiesole, as is vulgarly repeated, but by Paolo, who copied the S. Paul after the fine head of Demetrius, tyrant of the Morea ; they stood in front of the Vatican until Pius IX. replaced them. You visit these disgraced statues in a vestibule rich with colored marble ; they are without style or char- acter, but as the statues which succeeded them are no better, Pius IX. would have done well to have sent the new ones off too, to the basihca of S. Paul which was awaiting them. The clerks and canons are lodged in these vast buildings, which contain a small world ; besides the common sacristy, which is octagonal in form, are three others used for special purposes. You reach them by galleries adorned with antique inscriptions in the spaces between the columns. The capitals of the pilasters bear the complicated arms of Pius VI. : palms rolled in volutes, a star for the eye, and the branch of lily in the centre. In the sacristy of the canons there is opposite the altar, which is decorated with a picture by Fattore, a painting by Griulio Ro- mano, the Virgin with the infant Jesus and S. John, which deserves a special place among the works of a master whose too ostentatious art is not always thus THE SACRISTIES OP S. PETER'S. 239 tempered by sentiment and charm. In the chapter- hall is the reproduction of the ancient Seat of the Apostle, with a host of precious objects which it would take too long to enumerate. Thes'e Italian sacristies are at once cabinets of curiosities and pri- vate apartments; there the priests dress and undress; write, hum, run through the 'breviary ; and, if your discretion detains you on the threshold, bid you enter. I could never succeed in Italy, in spite of conscien- tious efforts, in rendering my coming inopportune. In the Stanza Capitolare you will be charmed with a painting by Giotto, and still more so by some rav- ishing little frescoes by Melozzo da Forli, seraphim charming in design, and with a sweetness of effect particularly surprising so far back as 1471, two-and- twenty years before the birth of Correggio. En- larged in mosaics, these figures, taken from the Santi Apostoli, have been executed on the sky of the cupola, where they contrast happily with the surroundings. There are also to be seen here some small predellas that may be attributed to Giotto, and a Virgin of the end of the fourteenth century, that is rather remark- able. Fully to appreciate the extravagant immensity of the basilica it is not enough to saunter there for long hours ; you must wander all round it, and contem- plate from the gardens the dome and one of the apses, rising majestically above the branches of the great green oaks, which are made to look like mere shrubs; 240 HOME. you must pass under the portico which leads to the sacristy from the outside, and from the basement of the church look at the distant houses at the end of the piazza, which seem like German toys ; you must in descending laterally from the portico count the twenty steps of a staircase, wliich does not reach up to the stylobate of the neighboring pilaster ; you must estimate the little space occupied by the pedestal and the equestrian figure of Constantino, entirely absorbed as it is in the thickness of a pillar. But above all do not shrink from the ascent of the dome with which we will now conclude. A gentle interior slope, formed by such very low steps that sheep might ascend it, leads to the plat- form between the summit of the fagade and the drum of the dome ; it is the first plateau of this artificial mountain. Advancing immediately towards the pi- azza, to throw a glance from this height upon the pavement, I leaned against an upright rock, posted there like a Druidical altar ; and as other similar masses disclosed their outlines at my side, I recog- nized the twelve statues of the apostles which crown Maderno's fa9ade. Turning round, I faced a sort of plain, ending in the monstrous tower of which the cupola is the roof. To the right and left, like hiUs, the small octagonal domes, now become considerable, bound the valley, which is the flat roof of the nave and aisles. This country is inhabited ; there has been formed in it a smaU hamlet, with workshops, huts. S. PETEE'S, ASCENT OF THE DOME. 241 sheds for domestic beasts, a forge, a carpenter's shop, wash-houses, ovens ; some little carts are stabled ; a fountain sparkles in a rivulet which conducts it to a large basin or small lake in which the dome mirrors itself; you feel that there is up here an organized existence. For several families in fact, it is a na- tive land; the workmen of S. Peter, called San Pietrini, succeed one another from father to son, and form a tribe. The natives of the terrace have laws and customs of their own. From this spot, whence you discern the entire height of the build- ing, there are still two hundred and eighty-five feet to climb. Another point of view of the interior of the church is contrived in the entablature which describes the circumference of the cupola. This border is more than two metres high, although from the pavement you would take it for a simple moulding. From this height the church seems like the bottom of an abyss ; the canopy of the altar sinks into earth, the pillars attenuated at their base by a retreating perspec- tive form a reversed pyramid, and the faithful are dots; a bluish haze increases the enormousness of the space. And as your eyes ascend the walls of the dome, the frieze discloses in capital letters seven feet high the famous inscription, Tu ES Peteus, which from below does not seem more than six inches high. On the pendentives I had remarked a St. Luke of a reasonable stature ; seen from here it stretches under 16 242 ROME. the cupola like a cloud; the pen with which he writes is seven feet in length. At last the real ascent begins between the two shells of the cupola, and this strange journey, in which as you climb you lean over curved and inclined planes, at last by a curious sensation robs you of aU the effect of horizontal lines, and consequently of a perpendic- ular. You are then in a state of considerable amaze- ment, when you come suddenly upon two remark- able sights : in the inside, from a circular balustrade devised in the lantern, the pavement of the church as if seen at the small end of a telescope ; outside, from a narrow gallery round the lantern, a view that is almost unbounded ; it embraces all the old Latin world from the Sabine hills to the sea, and from the heights of Alba to Etruria. Only when you issue from the inner arches into the fuU and dazzUng sun of this eagle's nest, you are not only dazzled, but almost lifted up in the air by hurricanes of wind which come from the Mediterranean to dash them- selves against this height. You have now only to climb to the bronze ball, which from below has the effect of a melon, and which is capable of holding sixteen persons. You reach it by an iron ladder ab- solutely perpendicular. The concussion of the wind makes this iron globe constantly musical ,• it is pierced with loop-holes in- visible from below, and through which, seated on an iron ledge, you prolong your gaze far over the moun- S. PETEB'S, VIEW FEOM THE DOME. 243 tains. Seen thus from the blue tract of the skies, the Roman Campagna loses its russet glow in a green mirage ; the flattened slopes no longer justify the many windings of the Tiber, and the seven hills of Rome — which are in truth ten — ^are no longer dis- tinguishable. These perspectives are still more mag- ical from the Giro dei Candelabri, where, from a lower height, you measure the extent of the Borgo and the Vatican palaces, which with their square buildings and labyrinthine gardens produce the effect of a heavenly Jerusalem in the illuminations of some old missal. The dome, which makes the cross sparkle over the horizon of Rome higher than the eagles of Jupiter ever flew, is the true mountain of this spiritual em- pire, and the hiUs make a circle of homage around it. For the basilica of S. Peter is even more than a prodigy of human will ; it is the sensible translation of a thought ; it is the history of Christianity sung in a poem of stone and marble, and attested by the wit- ness of proofs on the spot where the occurrences actually took place. For aU sects, for aU believers of whatever faith, S. Peter's is one of the sacred enclosures of the universe. Let the work be more or less perfectly achieved as to detail, it will still re- main mightier for its ideal and mystical value than for the accumulation of gold and marble. The most ancient monument of the Vatican that is still standing, is an obelisk to which the writers of the 244 KOME. first century called the attention of posterity ; Pliny tells us how, to bring it from Egypt, Caligula sent to sea the greatest ship that ever existed. The obelisk disembarked, they set it up at the Spina of the circus which Caligula had established in his gardens on the Vatican, and this circus took the name of Nero when the successor of Claudius received through his mother Agrippina the younger the inheritance of CaKgula. But before, as after Nero, the hill was always desert and of evil name. Under the republic people heard voices there ; vaticinia were given there, and hence, according to some, the origin of the word Vatican. Spectres and wild beasts persisted under the Caesars in haunting these retreats ; serpents multiplied, and Pliny tells how in the reign of Claudius they killed one of these monsters, who had inside him the re- mains of a human child. We know from Tacitus that after the burning of Eome Nero, to appease the gods and turn aside from himself the suspicions of men, " subdidit reos et qusesitissimis pcenis affecit quos per flagitia invisos, vulgus Christianos appel- labat Et pereuntibus addita ludibria, ut fer- arum tergis contecti, laniatu canum interirent, aut crucibus affixi, aut flammandi, atque ubi defecisset dies, in usumnoctur ni luminis urerentur. Hortos suos ei spectaculo Nero obtulerat, et circense ludic- rum edebat, habitu aurigae permixtus plebi, vel cur- riculo insistens." Among the ruins of the Vatican, which was aban- THE TOMB OF S. PETER. 245 doned at the end of Nero's reign, the witness that had been sent from Egypt never fell. Sixtus V. found it in its place, close to the present sacristy, in a court where it continued to mark the Spina of the circus which had been the theatre of the first mar- tyrdoms. It was here that the Christians dug graves for their brethren, under the very ground on which they had confessed to their belief. The spot was henceforth consecrated; when its abandonment by the emperors had left it desert, the faithful brought hither the head of S. Paul, which had been buried near the Salvian springs on the Ostian Road ; it was the same with S. Peter, whom his disciples hid for some time, before burying him on the Vatican with the other victims of the first persecution. Evidence shows, so far as testimony of that sort is evidence, the authen- ticity of this burial-place : four-and-twenty years after the execution of Peter, Anacletus marked the spot by a small oratory, of which a portion remains, for this monument was preserved by Pope S. Sylvester when he had the Vatican catacombs excavated, in order to lay the foundation of the basilica erected by command of Constantine on the ruins of the oratory of Ana- cletus. Eleven centuries later they overturned the ground still further to build the substruction of a larger basilica, but on the same spot, still continuing to respect the tomb of the apostle, round which there still remains portions of the pavement of the Con- stantinian church : finally, three centuries ago the 246 ROME. grave was opened, and the presence of the bones established. This is the basilica of S. Peter, and this is what that obelisk of Caligula has watched going on at its base, and over a tomb once dug in a garden, it will soon be two thousand years ago, by timid and dis- quieted shadows. When a long residence at Rome has familiarized you with the basilica of St. Peter, the building ac- quires an extreme importance in your mind ,• from the banks of the Tiber, from the green solitudes of the ViUa Pamphili, from the distant slopes of the Sabine country, the eye seeks that peak which gives their character to the horizons of the district. Amid the confused outlines of the city and the Campagna, the cupola is a culminating point which rallies all eyes ; it is the Mont Blanc of the pontifical states. Under the naves where one loves to wander and think, all concurs, as soon as you rise above the minutiae of analysis, to suggest the idea of a truly universal conception, uniting all peoples in a common fraternity. Certain practices contribute to this im- pression : beneath the shadow of the cross, here as at S. John Lateran, priests of ten nations, almost in permanence, hear penitents submissive to the same dogma, and coming to profess it in all tongues ; the various languages are marked by a sign on the front of each chapel. Before the door of each confessional is fixed a long pole like a fishing-rod, and often, as a ORIGIN OF AN ANCIENT CUSTOM. 247 priest listens to his penitent, you see a believer ap- proach with clasped hands and sink on his knees three or foiu* paces off ; then without interrupting his exhortations, the priest raises the curtain, stretches out his arm, and places the end of the rod on the head of this passing penitent. The custom of exalting on a sella gestatoria the fathers of the Roman country, the sovereign pontiffs, the patricians, and the emperors, had its origin imder the Republic, in the time when Sulla was dictator : was not the first seat of the Popes, lent to. S. Peter by Pudens, a curule chair ? On a Pontifex maximus, a title perpetuated to our own day, in the year 511 of Rome, was conferred for the first time the privilege of being carried in a chair to the senate ; at the time of a conflagration in the temple of Vesta, Csecilius had at the peril of his life saved the sacred objects. Since then the dignitaries of state have claimed a privilege first enjoyed by a supreme pontiff, and which only the sovereign pontiff has retained. On either side of the " sella " huge fans of feathers are carried, and the rich and picturesque uniforms of the Guardia NobUo and the Pope's Swiss Guard add much to the effect of the show, when the Pope is carried in pro- cession. Witnessing the celebration of some great festival in a Roman basilica, one wonders whether the col- umns of the nave, refugees from pagan temples, have not seen something analogous to the display of the 248 ROME. Catholic ceremonial. Take for instance the Luper- calia, the feast of the shepherd and tillers of the soil, older than Rome, celebrated since its foundation on the Palatine by the Quinctian clan in honor of Ceres or Fauniis, and of Pan, the destroyer of wolves. This is how in our own day it was celebrated at S. Peter's on Candlemas Day. The cardinals are attired in violet chasubles, richly embroidered in gold, and mitres like the bishops, who wear copes to match. When the holy father is in- stalled on the pontifical throne, the ceremony com- mences with the benediction of a multitude of torches; at the Introit, the priests and the deacons of the choir fall on their knees in turn before the Pope, who sup- ports in his two hands a taper placed horizontally, to which they have fastened crosses and Madonnas at each of the ends. It is offered to the prelate to kiss, after which, as the postulant kneels before him, the Pope raising his arms places the taper above his head ; then one of the officials takes it and hands it to the recipient. The cardinals and bishops, the chamberlain, the heads of orders, the senators, the prince assistant, all come for a taper ; after them de- file in the train of the mace-bearers, the conserva- tors, ambassadors, and generals ; each in turn goes through the same ceremonial. During the formali- ties of this homage to the pontifical throne, tapers are distributed to personages of lower rank ; the cross- bearers then resume their march, and a new proces- EELIGIOUS CEREMONIES. 249 sion of torches, starting from the right of the baldac- chino, completes the circle of the church, returning by the left. Cardinals, mitred bishops, to the num- ber of some fifty, in their chasubles and copes all glittering with gold, surrounding the curule chair of the sovereign, this time wearing a mitre of gold; foreign princes, ambassadors, officers, men-at-arms in full uniform, — all combine to form a most striking spectacle. On the return of the procession, all the ecclesiasti- cal ornaments, the chair of the holy father, and the back of the papal dais, suddenly change color ; white has replaced scarlet. Eetuming to the choir the holy father is robed afresh in a long silver cope, while the cardinals, quitting the chasuble, resume the long purple cloak with ermine hood ; the mitre is replaced by a biretta which they hold folded up, and which looks like a fan. This public change of toilettes pro- duces a half-comic kind of animation. The high mass of Candlemas is celebrated by a cardinal wear- ing a mitre of gold on which in relief stand out ears of com and flowers ; he is assisted by four deacons and as many sub-deacons. The Pope gives the bene- diction, after intoning the accustomed Te Deum in commemoration of the earthquake of 1703. At the Confiteor, the Credo, and the Domme non sum dignus, the cardinals leaving their seats descend rapidly in a circle to the middle of the choir, where, half turning, as if to call one another mutually to witness, they re- 250 EOME. cite with loud voice the sacramental prayers ; the Pope does the same with his assistants ; and the sound of the words crossing one another in this way is very singular. Raised on several steps, the high altar at S. Peter's has an inevitable bareness, because in the patriarchal basilicas they celebrate so as to face the faithful as- sembled in the nave. Tiaras and precious mitres taken from the treasury are placed in dishes at the angles of the altar— a most curious custom. On these occasions a great variety of sacerdotal as well as military costume was to be seen. At those times when the "Grand ReHcs" were to be displayed, the whole show was grouped below and in front of the statue of S. Veronica, under the cupola. MICHAEL ANGELO'S MOSES. 251 CHAPTER XII. One would be more eager to enter the little church of San Pietro in Vincoli but for the temptation to seat one's self on the steps outside, facing a vista contrived at the bottom of a rather steep space, half- shut in by old buildings at the foot of which grass springs up in the pavement. This piazetta is a sort of embankment over an uneven street, and above it rise the outlines of the Capitol, some houses perched on the Tarpeian Rock, and the distant monastic grounds of the Janiculum. In the foreground are grouped the irregular roofs and square clock-tower of a monastery, beyond which there rises a fine palm- tree ; here and there certain enclosures are marked with orange-trees, cypresses, and laurels ; the pict- ure is bounded to the right by the patched and an- cient walls of the palace of Lucrezia Borgia. Cross the threshold of the church and go up the nave : before you is the Moses of Michael Angelo. The monument, which occupies the right side of a well-lighted choir, is placed well in front of a marble recess ; seated before you on the same plane of the horizon, the figure is colossal and animated by a superhuman power of execution : thus, as we are un- accustomed to see ourselves face to face and so close 252 ROME. to giants, the first impression is one of stupor. To the amazing grandeur of the style, which charac- terizes a conception as singular as it is naturally worked out, is added a most wonderful finish ; no lapidary ever caressed with such aff'ection the model of a cameo. The Moses is a miniature eleven feet high ; the polish of the marble makes it shine like an onyx. Everybody knows the work, or thinks he knows it ; in truth the soul of the creation resides nowhere but in the original. There the brow of the Moses is Olympian and its eyes of formidable power, the straight nose surmounts dense moustaches and a prominent mouth, so thick, so brutal, that the face becomes that of a person who is not merely vigly but repulsive from the point of view of ordinary beauty. Hence the disappointment of people who are not sufficiently gifted to be seized at once by the sov- ereign grace, which here unites itself to sovereign vigor ; the attitude at once so singular and so unre- strained ; the half-antique and half-oriental arrange- ment ; the sculptural beauty of the arm and the hand, which, resting on the book of the Law, lifts the tresses of the beard ; the ample beard itself distrib- uted in noble masses ; the model of the legs, bent back in their Asiatic gear by a movement which fixes and accentuates the person ; the drapery whose ample folds enframe a knee that, if it had been found by itself in the course of some excavation, would betray one of the greatest masters of the world. S. PIETRO IN VINCOLI. 253 The building celebrated for the possession of this masterpiece is not without interest. An execrable woman founded the church of S. Peter in Vinculis, to be the reliquary of the chains by which the first apostle had been bound. It was, I suppose, Athenais-Eudoxia, wife of Theo- dosius II., who, having withdrawn into the Holy Land, whither she went to seek a refuge and a tomb, sent her daughter Eudoxia the chains which S. Peter had borne at Jerusalem. Here is buried the jeweller, sculptor, bronze- worker, and painter, Antonio Pollajuolo {PuUariiis), by the side of his brother Peter, who initiated him into the mystery of oil colors, recently revealed to his master Andrea del Castagno by Domenico Vene- ziano, whom Andrea assassinated, that he might re- main the solitary possessor of the secret. The in- scription of Antonio, which recalls the tombs of Sixtus IV. and Innocent VIII., tells how he wished to repose by the side of his brother. The two died within a few months of one another in 1498 ; and this epitaph shows contrary to all the accounts that Peter preceded Antonio. The latter was seventy- two years old. In front of the monument, in small oval niches, are placed the busts of the two brothers, still young and endowed with a happy simplicity of expression. Above is a fresco of the fifteenth cen- tury, representing the Plague of Rome, after the legend of S. Sebastian ; you see the angel of dark- 254 EOME. ness knocking with a spear at the doors of houses, but at the intercession of a cardinal a cherub arrests the spirit of evil. We now return to Moses. The structure of which it occupies the centre was meant to form one of the sides of the four-fronted tomb which Julius II. pro- posed to raise for himself in the middle of the nave of S. Peter's : the scattered materials of this vast design contribute to the adornment of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence, of San Lorenzo, and even of the Louvre. Paul III. reduced the work to a fourth, and sent this fragment to San Pietro in Vincoli. Lying uneasily over the empty tomb, the bust almost upright, Pope Julius sleeps leaning on his elbow above the exiled Moses. The plan of the mausoleum was ambitious enough, but heavy and inelegant : the Virgin and the four allegorical figures that seem to keep guard over Moses, are poor and soulless by the side of the masterpiece ; two of them are the work of Raphael of Montelupo ; those emblematic of active and contemplative life of Michael Angelo himself, and the Madonna of Scherano da Settignano. As you leave this church and its little-visited cloister, in the middle of which is a well with a re- markable brim, you are pleased to see the little piazza again, before plunging into the black tunnel, bounded by Etruscan substructions, which brings j ou into the still plebeian quarter of the Suburra, whither flocked in old days the companions of the seven guilds already THE PORTA APPIA. 255 constituted under the Tarquins, namely, the flute- players, the jewellers, the carpenters, the cordwainers, the copper-workers, the potters, and the dyers. As these moved nearer to the Forum, their place was taken by the barbers, and the makers of scourges for the castigation of slaves — a flourishing branch of trade ; finally to the Phrynes, who gave in their ac- counts to their masters, the patricians. From S. Pietro in Vincoli I wandered to the Porta Appia, rebuilt by Narses, and the triumphal arch de- creed by the senate to Drusus the father of Claudius, and Germanicus, after his victories over the Germans and the Alpine tribes. This son of Livia, adopted by Augustus, was the first Roman leader to sail the North Sea. His arch beyond which the Appian Way retreats in perspective, is topped by an appendage bristling with brambles — an addition of unhappy ef- fect due to Caracalla, who made it serve as a support for the aqueduct of his baths. Outside of the Aurelian walls, other pictures come to variegate this mosaic of memories : amid such con- flicting reminiscences, how difficult it is to preserve any chronological order ! Here is S. Sebastian's, a basilica of Constantinian origin, its nave disfigured by Cardinal Borghese ; then a chapel into which it is useless to enter, but that one cannot hear named without wondering as to its origin. It has for title — Domine quo vadis f S. Ambrose tells how, at the beginning of the persecution of Nero, S. Peter fled 256 EOME. from Eome at the prayer of his disciples, who con- jured him to preserve a hfe so precious for the grow- ing church. He -went forth by the Porta Capena. Having passed the walls, Simon Peter at sunrise was measuring with his steps the shadows of the tombs by which the Appian Way is bordered, when, on the broad pavement, which still remains in places, he saw approaching, with face set towards the city, his an- cient master, Jesus Christ. "Lord, where goest thou ?" cried the amazed apostle : — Doniine quo vadis f And Jesus answered him, " I go to Rome, to be crucified a second time." The fugitive understood, and bowed his head. Peter returned to Rome, where martyrdom awaited him, and on his tomb the church was founded. The teaching of the legend is plain. To pontiffs tempted at the first threat to abandon the tomb of the apostles, the Appian Way would offer good counsel, and the echo of this foundation would awake, crying to them, Doniine quo vadis f As far as S. Sebastian the aspect of this never- ending suburb is that of a poor and half-abandoned faubourg. You follow the road which the censor Appius Claudius, after digging the first aqu.educt to conduct the waters of Prseneste to Rome, opened and paved three hundred and ten years before our era. It has kept the name of its founder, though Caisar prolonged it far beyond the country of the Volsci, Toiiib of Caecilia Metella. -1 '-A %i^i^^ THE TOMB OP CECILIA METELLA. 257 while Augustus, that is to say Agrippa, who had the honor of finishing it, carried it as far as Cum?e. The road is broad and very straight, with traces of paths and open spaces in Visigothic pavement ; the grass is green on the way, but the direction is definitely marked, with a melancholy grandeur, by two avenues of ruined mausoleums of every shape and size, which, from the gate of S. Sebastian to the foot of Albano, are numbered by thousands. In the middle ages, some feudal bandits having transformed several of these tombs into fortresses where travellers were de- tained for ransoms, the latter deserted an approach thus bristhng with dangers and gradually wore to the left the present road to Albano, until at last the very track of the Appian Way came to be effaced by grass and brushwood. We owe its restoration to Pius IX., who had it cleared, and the tombs re- paired for a space of five or six miles, thus giving back to the civilized world the most splendid of his- torical promenades, where as many as thirty thousand mausoleums are to be counted. At the top of an ascent the outline of the mole of Csecilia Metella is seen. This turriform mausoleum is about seventy feet in diameter, and it must be a third more in height ; the walls, which are thirty- five feet in thickness, are thought to have contained until the reign of Paul V. the fine sarcophagus that is to-day to be seen in the court of the Farnese Pal- ace. Csecilia, daughter of Metellus Creticus and wife 17 258 ROME. of the triumvir Crassus, lived in the last period of the Republic ; her monument, faced with travertine, is crowned with a frieze and a cornice of marble, orna- mented with festoons ; the inscription, which was sur- mounted by a bas-relief of which only some vestiges are left, faces the road. This tower is the oldest Roman building of an assured date, where the use of marble is shown. In the thirteenth century the tower of Csecilia was decorated with a keep and dovetailed battlements, by the Caetani, who had imprisoned in their castrum both sides of the Appian Way, by throwing an arch over it, under which was a postern gate. No one could pass without paying ransom ; that was what the Ghibellines called making war on the despotism of the popes. The ruins of the fortress still remain, portions of the wall, and the chapel, with the escut- cheon of the Caetani in marble. Near the sixth milestone travellers used to fall into the clutches of another lord of the highway, the Orsini having en- trenched themselves in the tomb of Messalinus Cotta, a quadrangular tumulus one hundred and twenty feet long. It is to Valerius Corvus the dictator that they attribute the lower portion of a monument that was completed and decorated under the Csesars. The tower, one of the largest in existence, is encumbered on one side nearly up to the summit with a mass of ruins of marble and stone from Albano ; Corinthian capitals, scattered portions of archways, pieces of THE APPIAN WAY. 259 cornice, that crowned a decoration in which pilasters separated candelabra and scenic masks. You scale the ediiice over those avalanches of carved stone. Beyond the sixth milestone, although the works conducted since 1850 by Canina extend much fur- ther, the monuments are less numerous and of in- ferior importance. Returning, on the right of the Via Appia are a mass of ruins that the Romans of late times called Roma Vecchia. These are the re- mains of the viUa of the Quintilii, two brothers who became so rich that Domitian, or as some say, Com- modus, had them put to death that he might possess their domains. Prince Torlonia, another financier, has excavated these ruins, and extracted thence statues, bas-reliefs, columns, and entablatures of mar- ble of high value. An aqueduct rising from the val- ley conveyed to the Quintilii the waters of Claudius and Agrippa in leaden conduits which still exist, and on which are stamped the names of the opulent pro- consuls. After a nympheum on the side of the road you recognize the thermse, the site of the theatre and the portico, and even the perspectives of the gardens; these nabobs chose for their site one of the finest points of view in the neighborhood. A pathway leads down to a fountain where ignor- ance made a niche for the nymph Egeria in a grotto at the foot of a grove of sibylline aspect. According to some antiquaries, the pretended nympheum of Egeria made part of a villa of Herodes-Atticus, the 260 ROME. Greek rhetorician who had Marcus Aurelius and Verus for disciples, and who, when consul in 143 of our era, caused superb edifices to be erected, among which was a theatre and a stadium of white marble. Near this spot there is a temple of Bacchus, dedicated in the ninth century to S. Urban. The aisle is covered with frescoes representing incidents from the life of Jesus Christ, passages from the legend of S. Csecilia and S. Urban, with the name of one Bonizzo, a monk (possibly the artist), and the date M.XI. My walk having made me thirsty, I wished for a drink, and as there was nothing save the water of the neigh- boring nympheum, it was brought to us by a tall bronzed maiden, who might have served for a model of Isis in the time of Hadrian. The temple of Romulus is close to the circus which bears his father's name. They made some noise in 1825 about the discovery of these curious ruins, but what was really found were the inscriptions which enable archaeologists to settle its date. This circus of Maxentius, where vast populations used to throng, is now only the haunt of birds and adders. THE VILLA MADAMA. 261 CHAPTER XIII. Immediately after exploring the funereal erections on the Appian Way, and while the impression is still fresh, it is a good plan to visit the decorative paint- ings of the school of Sanzio, either in the Vatican galleries, or at the Villa Madama where they were executed for Giulio de' Medici by the pleiad of Ra- phael. The latter is one of the most interesting ex- cursions in the environs, and wiU take us out of Rome in an entirely opposite direction ; by the Porta del Popolo that is, or else the Porta Angelica. At the time when Cardinal Griulio, who became Pope under the name of Clement VII., leagued him- self with Charles V. against Florence, to seal that honorable pact, he married Alessandro de' Medici to a natural daughter of the Emperor, and presented her with the viUa, which still belonged to her when, having become a widow, she married Ottavio Far- nese, and in 1586 ended her chequered life at Rome. The title of Madame was preserved by this daughter of the Emperor ; hence the designation of a residence that recalls unhappy times and sinister figures. This rusted gem, that one would suppose to be without an owner, now belongs to the last King of Naples. 262 BOME. To gain the Monte Mario, on the slope of which the Villa Madama is situated, we went towards the Ponte MoUe, that Milvian bridge of which Livy speaks in his account of the second Punic war, which leads to the Flaminian Way. Our first pause after leaving the Porta del Popolo was in front of the Villa of Julius III., a casino built by Vignola, who set in an archi- tectural medallion a bubbling fountain, where the peasants refresh their beasts before entering the city. You have to knock long before the rustic guar- dians of the Villa Madama, dispersed in the fields, are warned of your presence by the barking of their dogs. When the gate is at last opened we enter a high vaulted apartment, where the plaster is dropping from the walls from damp, while brambles have thrust their way through the cracks. Vegetables, farm tools, supplies of fodder, as well as a few house- hold utensils, lie heaped about on the floor, dimly seen in the duU light. For all that, this damp and reeking cavern, with its bricked-up windows, is a splendid state-chamber. In the darkness, a door, the bottom of which was broken into a fringe like a beggar's skirts, suddenly opened and we came out with dazzled eyes in the full light of day, onto a spacious Loggia in three divisions, painted and carved like the porch of a palace of fairies, and whose arches, grouped in deep shadows on the pavement, threw a pure outline against the THE VILLA MADAMA. 263 ethereal depth of the blue sky. This masterpiece of ornamentation was designed by Giovanni da Udine and Giulio Romano ; we should be tempted to assign it to the artists of the first century who executed the chambers lately discovered on the Latin Way, with such success did Raphael and his group, impregnated as they were with the ancient arts, proceed from the kno\vn to the unknown. These three chambers appeared to us, partly no doubt by reason of their admirable dimensions, supe- rior to the Loggie of the Vatican, exception being made, I need hardly say, of the illustrations of the Bible which Raphael composed for the ceilings. At the Villa Madama the great subjects are less serious; the three cupolas are decorated with loves sporting over our heads ; some dance in a ring, others clamber up a high mast, others bestride the silvery backs of swans. The frieze represents a cavalcade of tiny cupids on hippogriffs and dolphins, executed with most striking freedom. Alarmed by our presence, bats with noiseless flight threw their shadows across this radiant vision, while under our feet and between our legs geese and chickens fluttered about with many cries. Returning through the Borgo and the Porta An- gelica the way is so short, that the day was not far advanced when, after skirting the colonnade of Ber- nini, we passed S. Peter and S. Paul, mounting guard on the bridge of S. Angelo. At the end of 204 EOME. the Via de' Coronari, we chose for our halting-place S. Agostino. The pilgrims of the north come to pay homage in this temple to the body of S. Monica, which, having been conveyed from the estuary of the Tiber in 1430, was taken from its lignea area by order of Calixtus III., and placed in a round vessel of antique green with Florentine supports, its sides marked with un- dulating flutings. Here they also come to kneel be- fore a crucifix, at the foot of which S. Philip Neri passed hours of ecstasy. What the superstitious race of the south, however, seeks at S. Agostino's is a Madonna in such high credit in these parts, as to have become extremely rich in consequence. The good people find in a mo- ment the person they have come to seek ; the statue receives them at the door, and they venture no fur- ther. J. Tatti, detto il Sansovino, carved this Virgin- Mother out of an immense block of marble ; " a respectable work for the period," say the Italian guide-books absurdly : for the period happens to be that of Julius II. and Leo X. The Madonna wears on her head a heavy diadem, ending in a nimbus of stars of precious stones ; the child is buried beneath annfuls of jewels ; his mother wears ear-rings ; bril- liants sparkle like live fire in her hair, plaited like the tresses of the Asiatic queens who allured the con- querors of the world. To preserve the foot of the Madonna from the devouring caresses of a piety that S. AGOSTINO. 265 wears out marble, it was necessary to protect it with a golden buskin, incessantly warmed by ardent lips. If I had not been assured that this image cures dis- eases of children and makes women fruitful, I should never have guessed why, among so many chaster Madonnas, that of S. Agostino had succeeded in real- izing such an enormous fortune. While superstition heaps up treasures at the feet of the statue, this church possesses attractions of a very different sort. Before the wide stairs which serve for base to the fa5ade, architects note the ele- gance with which, under Sixtus IV., a great master hke Baccio Pintelli endowed a style reduced to Hve abstinently. The classic front of travertine is simple and light ; the builders aimed at that refinement which is the eulogy of Cardinal d'EstoutevUle, ambas- sador of Lewis XI. at Rome, the prelate who built S. Agostino. But what all the world goes there to see is that ab- juration of his own principles and sentiment which Raphael expressed in the famous fresco of the Prophet Isaiah ; an inexpKcable production, unless it was meant to prove that that style, which consists in twisting the body and loading it with sculptural draperies, only to produce the travesty of a prophet, is not difficult to acquire. Let us hope that such was the intention of the painter-poet son of Giovanni Santi, whose patronymic Pietro Bembo insisted upon modifying into Sanzio, for mere love of enphony, so 266 ROME. delicate was the ear of the Ciceronian prelate, author of Gli Asolani, who was so hostile to bad Latin that he never read his breviary, and described the Epis- tles of St. Paul as Epistolacce. If Raphael meant to strive with Buonarotti on his own ground, he was venturing into perilous games, for the figure has neither the nobleness nor the bib- lical majesty of those of his rival, and his glory will never be rid of the slur of a semi-abdication before Michael Angelo. To estimate the pretensions of Raphael, in the presence of his terrible rival, we have only to go as far as the church of Santa Maria della Pace, the foun- dation of Sixtus IV. There we find one of the most important of his frescoes. The Four Sibyls, painted because Michael Angelo had painted Sibyls. Only this time he seems to have been inspired in a manner more worthy of his genius. At S. Maria the impres- sionable young man shows himself a proselyte of the idea that it is necessary, even in religious paintings, to rival the statuary of the ancients in beauty of form; and the pagan subject of the Sibyls, in which what is {esthetic in the two religions is united, seemed to him a happy occasion for affirming these doctrines ; with- out, however, renouncing his own delicate sentiment, or even those laws of composition which he had in- herited from painters impregnated with the teachings of Savonarola. Thus the fresco, which surmounts the large arch of a not very deep chapel, recalls, but S. MAEIA BELLA PACE. 267 With an interval, the grouping of Perugino. The Cumsean Sibyl, the Persic, the Phrygian, the Tibur- tine, are pensive figures and not viragoes after the antique ; wholly free from violence, their strength is veiled in grace. There is much life — spiritual life — in their tranquillity ; they are the prophetesses of a deity who was to be born in a stable. But how completely do the accessory figures show Raphael's resolution to carry on the contest in a manner and with an interpretation all his own. A cherub, even more exquisite than those of the Vati- can, is placed on the keystone of the arch, between two Seraphim, who turn right and left to display on scrolls the predictions with which the Holy Spirit is to inspire his priestesses. At either extremity other divine messengers hover over the Sibyls, as if to breathe — unconsciously upon the first three, and upon the fourth against her will, — the mystery which they are to announce to the pagan world. The second Sibyl to the right is a reminiscence of the fine Im- peria that we shall meet again in the Parnassus. We must not forget that Raphael's assistant in the execu- tion of the work was the pure and candid Timoteo Viti, whom the deposition of the dukes of Urbino exiled from Rome, and who had been the favorite disciple of Francia. What is difficult to understand is how Sanzio, after sustaining the competition with so much brilliancy, should have repudiated his natural gifts in the Isaiah, 268 ROME. with the object of surpassing Michael Angelo. How- ever it may be, the game went against him ; in the extravagant passion of the time for anatomical study, Buonarotti had the wind in his sails, and his word was law : he came one day with a large train to S. Agostino's, and standing in front of that unseasonable brother of the Prophets of the Sixtine, proclaimed aloud the sublimity of the fresco, congratulating the artist on the enormous stride which he had taken in it ; he could thus award a palm to himself with honor, and relegate to the second rank, by eulogizing a work so different from Eaphael's earlier labors,, the whole handiwork of this sublime artist. At a little distance from the church of S. Luigi dei Francesi, and in the neighborhood of Pompey's theatre, — a swarming quarter of which the Campo di Fiori is the centre, — we come across some French associations in the Riario Palace, which in our own day witnessed the end of a tragedy. In the church of S.S. Lorenzo e Damaso entered from the court-yard of the Palace, are to be seen a fine Florentine tomb, the exquisite bust of a princess Massimi, the tombs of Sadolet, the diplomatic cardinal and poet, and of Annibale Caro, who translated Vir- gil ; finally, the mausoleum of a scholar, a juriscon- sult, an economist, an Italian statesman, who made himself famous in three countries — in Geneva, in France, and at Rome, where he died from the blow of an assassin. Tenerani has carved- an admirable THE ASSASSINATION OF EOSSI. 269 bust on the tomb which Pius IX. erected to his min- ister, Count Pellegkino Rossi. The memory of this tragedy lends a certain sombre- ness to the church, and the palace where the crime was perpetrated. Like the first of the Caesars, Rossi was warned five times in the same day of the lot that awaited him ; the public possessed the secret of a plot against which no obstacle was interposed. De- voted to the task of obtaining for Italy by means of negotiation those liberal conquests, which he doubted her power to win through the chances of war, of or- ganizing at Rome a parliamentary system, of moderat- ing the excesses of revolutionists ; hostile like every lover of freedom to the tyranny of the plebs, and the victim of a demagogic party spurred on, they say, by the aristocratic faction, he was immolated exactly as he would have been in the time of the Gracchi or of Marias. It was the 15th of November, 1848 : Rossi was ex- pected at the Assembly, where he was to develop his plan of an Italian confederation under the segis of the sovereign pontiff. At daybreak an anonymous note put this minister of the first constitutional pope on his guard : Caveat consul. A moment after, a diplomat- ist, informed of the conspiracy by his valet, came to warn him ; the wife of one of his colleagues wrote to the same effect. At the Vatican, whither he had gone to receive the final counsels of the Holy Father, a chamberlain exposed the plot to him. Finally, as 270 ROME. he was coming down after his audience into the court of S. Damasus, a priest who awaited him announced the plans of the murderers. " I have no time," re- phed the first minister ; " they are waiting for me at the Chancellery." Then the ecclesiastic seized him by the arm, and clinging to him cried, "If you go there, you are a dead man !" Rossi seemed troubled; but, after a short silence, he went on as far as the staircase, where he said to the priest who still followed him, " Causani optimam assumpsi ; miserehitur Deiis." He then went straight to the Riario Palace, where a great crowd had assembled, the anticipation of a sight which was vaguely hoped for having attracted throngs of bravoes and idlers to the portico, the steps, and as far as the landing of the first story, under the very eyes of the civic guard, drawn up in the court, which, without clearing the peristyle or protecting the minister, saw the preparations for the murder going on without an attempt to hinder it. Count Rossi entered by the great door ; he was immediately greeted by loud shouts and some thirty Bersaglieri cut off his retreat, while the other con- spirators threw themselves in his path. He passed the portico with deliberate step, and with his head upright, and was proceeding to mount the second flight when the Bersaglieri rushed upon him and thrust him against the wall in which was a small doorway. At this instant one of the bravoes, slip- ping between Rossi and the door, struck him rudely THE ASSASSINATION OF KOSSI. 271 on the left shoulder. By a natural movement the minister turned his head, thus exposing his neck, when one Jergo took advantage of the expected motion ■ to plunge a poniard of great length into his throat. This monster and his accomplices remained on the spot without any risk of arrest. Instantly informed of what had happened, the Assembly of Deputies took no measures, and the president passed to the order of the day. At Rome in a case of murder, the disgrace falls on the victim. " Era uno forestiere e wnl eretico,^' said the Traste- verini ; while the great men of another class only half-concealed their satisfaction. When Martinez de la Rosa showed his stupefaction at the sitting not even being interrupted, " Basta !" a high personage answered him, "was this Genevese, then, the king of Rome f " Cries of joy and a sort of delii'ium fol- lowed the deed ; the wife and children of Rossi, so lately saluted with smiles, were obliged to witness this ferocious exultation going on beneath their very windows, and to have their grief insulted. In the absence of all hindrance, a duty which the chief of police declined, the murderers fraternized with the troops, and in the evening the horde shouted the patriotic hymn Bandiera Sacra in front of Galetti's dwelling, substituting for those two words, Sacro Fug- nale (holy dagger). The next day the threatened rising broke out ; and on the 24th of the month the sovereign of Rome fled to Gaeta. 272 EOME. Count Pellegrino Rossi, the Italian from Modena, who had held high posts in the administration of the Gauls, was stabbed about a hundred paces from the curia where, under the steel of the accomplices of Brutus, Julius Caesar fell at the feet of the statue of Pompey. Let us seek this statue that beheld the murder of Caesar. To find it, we must go to the Spada Palace ; but even if the display of popular manners and customs in the piazza Canipo di Fiori does not make us for- get our object in amusement on the way, the Far- nese Palace, which we must pass on the Via del Mascherone, solicits a visit that we can hardly refuse. The last king of Naples lived there until 1870, his family inheriting it from the Farnese. On the upper floor is the Gallery of Vignola, and the celebrated fres- coes of Annibale Caracci, the Triumph of Bacchus ; but we must not fail to make a long halt below in the splendid court, a cloister with two rows of arches, surmounted by a third order with Corinthian pilasters. I would beg every traveller interested in art to study this building well : the vast edifice, the plans for which Alexander Farnese, before becoming pope, that is before 1534, confided to Antonio di San Gallo, is one of those classics which it is well worth while to read over again. When Quatremere de Quincy wrote, the Farnese was considered the finest palace of modern architecture. THE FARNESE PALACE. 273 Giacomo della Porta, towards the end of the six- teenth century, added the fagade at the back, sepa- rated from the Via Giulia by a small garden. The framework of the florid architecture of this loggia is a feast for the eyes, especially when, from the arches of the Ponte Sisto, we see its richly colored walls brightening the horizon. The color of the Farnese Palace is indeed one of its great charms : brick mixed with stone forms the ground of the facades ; the entablature, the bands, bossages, win- dows, and columns are of travertine taken from the theatre of Marcellus, and even from the Coliseum, which still seems all but untouched, and from which centuries have drawn supplies as if from a quarry. There is now nothing to be seen in the court but two sarcophagi : the one with perpendicular flutings is a Christian tomb of the third century ; the other, in the form of a gondola, loaded with sculptures and ornaments, has acquired a great celebrity, being sometimes supposed to have held the remains of Csecilia Metella. It cannot really be older than the time of Hadrian. In this quarter, where we wander in search of a statue made immortal by the murder of Csesar, every- thing takes us back to the time of Pompey and to undeniable witnesses of the tragedy. For a popu- lous neighborhood the streets are most inconven- iently laid out in curves and awkward angles very unfavorable to circulation. If we were to remove 18 274 ROME. from the massive apse of S. Andrew of the Valley some of the surrounding houses, as well as the Pic Palace, rebuilt by the family of the Ursini in 1440, and owned in our time by the Chevalier Righetti, we should find at a certain depth the pavement that was trodden nineteen centuries since by senators on their way to the curia of Pompey, and exhume the founda- tions of his portico and theatre, the first in which, in spite of sumptuary edicts, stone and marble were em- ployed. The Righetti Palace has deep two-storied cellars beneath the court. I saw these caves, remains of the portico and the theatre, beyond the Palazzo Pio. Some workmen who were digging in this spot struck upon what seemed to be a block of gold ; under the gilding they recognized bronze. At length they made out a Hercules, fourteen feet high, whose face, hands, find arms were intact, one of the feet alone being gone. The head with a circular hole behind denoted that the statue once delivered oracles ; on one arm the son of Alcrnena carried the skin of the Nemean lion. This enormous bronze, cast in a single piece, it was proposed to christen Mastai, in honor of Pius IX., to whose generosity solely Rome is indebted for its preservation. Some Russian agents, favored by a connivance which we cannot understand, had in fact concluded their bargain with the owner. As no work of art can be carried out of Rome without permis- THE STATUE OF POMPEY. 275 sion, they must have had the Hercules secretly con- veyed to a piece of ground acquired by the czar for excavation, and there had it publicly unburied ; this comedy is well known. Notice, however, was given to Pius IX., who insisted on seeing the statue, and declared that he would not let such a masterpiece be carried away. In crossing the piazza Capo di Ferro I had already noticed the Spada Palace. The Colossus of the de- feated of Pharsalia was exhumed in 1552, near the Palazzo Riario, and nearer stiU to the theatre of Pom- pey, among the substructions of its portico and of the chamber, where was perpetrated the classic model of all those assassinations called political. When they found this figure of the man whom the influence of SuUa, and not the suffrage of the people, proclaimed the great Pompey, the statue had on its neck the first layer of a party-wall ; whence it followed that by a decree of consular justice, the marble was to be cut in two and divided between the rival proprietors. Cardinal Capo di Ferro interfered, however, and by way of recompense was presented with the statue by Julius III., who had purchased it. The attitude of the figure is majestic without being forced ; the feat- ures have a striking individuality, at once expressive and severe. The triumvir bears the object of his cheated ambition — -the globe, an attribute that he may, however, have appropriated to himself by hav- ing his head placed on the decapitated trunk of some 276 ROME. god ; for the head is fitted on, and Pompey was not too modest. Such substitutions were frequent enough under the emperors. So far as the identity of this figure with that which saw Csesar expire under the blows of Cassius and Brutus is concerned, the presumption may be reason- ably upheld. It was excavated near the spot where the murder was committed ; Suetonius informing us that he saw it " in a palace adjoining the theatre of Pompeius, whither Augustus had had it transported." As it is not very probable that the hero, at a time when they did not multiply statues, would be repre- sented twice under the same portico, we have good grounds for admitting, in spite of a school that is ready to deny everything, that the colossal Pompey of the Palazzo Spada probably saw the fall of Csesar. The statue is not very well known, the Spada princes never having allowed it to be either modelled or copied. The attraction which led me out of my way across the intricacies of the old quarter, was a stall near the Piazza Montanara, where, under awnings erected at a street corner, amateurs and clericals were disputing over some smoked and trashy pictures, antiquities of modern date, and old books iU-used by time. Much theology, which was not my affair, but which inter- ested the seminarists, a Dominican, and some Philip- pines, who, for cheapness, read the books on the spot instead of buying them ; one, however, pressing three PALAZZO MATTEL 277 small coins to his heart, was driving his bargain with much fury and gesticulation. The group formed so good a subject that a painter posted ten paces off maliciously took out his pencil. As I followed the labyrinth of streets that end at the back of the Capitol, a wrong turn brought me to the Fountain of the Tortoises, that a little while be- fore I had been vainly seeking. Imagine two basins, the upper of which is supported by four young Tri- tons, whose feet rest on the heads of four dolphins ; these aquatic divinities are thrusting tortoises into the upper vase, from which the water overflows. The complexity of the design in no way interferes with the clearness and graceful movement of the figures ; all is animated, unusual, and charming. Giacomo della Porta designed the Fontana delle Tar- tarughe, but the bronze figures are the work of Tad- deo Landini, of Florence. Close at hand rises the lofty and sombre gate of one of those palaces which have fallen from their high estate — proud homes of extinct families on which time and misery imprint their marks ; it is the ancient Palace of the Mattel. In the court, which is sm- rounded by a peristyle contemporary with Pius V., may still be seen some statues, and a few busts. Staunch at their posts, the Emperors exposed to wind and rain mount guard in this solitude over the re- mains of their thermae and villas. The four walls are a museum which nobody thinks any more about. 278 EOME. And that is all that is left of the famous Mattel col- lection, the wonders of which have been reproduced by engravings, and which have been admired on this very spot by the greatest personages in Europe. At the bottom of the court a hooper was fastening staves round a tub, and a dyer was washing out some skeins of red wool. A few steps from the house two Cia- battini had erected their stall between a couple of ancient columns, and were patching their shoes under the entablature of a palace. Ruminating on this decay and a thousand other things suggested by the neighborhood, I came sud- denly upon the western slope of the Palatine, only realizing where I was when I found myself leaning against the Four-faced Arch (Quadrifrons) assigned by the vulgar to Janus, who however was only two- faced. The second of the Antonines had this build- ing constructed at the end of the Forum Boarium, which has preserved its character so well that if you were asked to make a guess as to its purpose, you would at once think of a cattle-market. Many people used to imagine that it was the Campo Vaccino, which up to our time inherited this function. What per- petuated the mistake was that the Forum Romanum, which adjoins some immense storehouses for fodder, occasionally served to give stabling for a few hours to the carts and cattle that had brought the stores of hay to the neighboring streets. More than once I have seen this noble space thus rustically blocked up ; Church of S. Giorgio in Velabro. i- AECH OF SEPTIMIUS SEVEKUS. 279 the confusion of carts and wagons and long-horned oxen gathered at the foot of the ancient temples blended with the majesty of the spot a touch of rural homeliness not without poetry. In a country where all the business of life is con- ducted in the open air, the use of porticoes is very ancient j the Quadrifrons arch was a Loggia in which cattle-dealers transacted their business ; Janus had nothing to do with it. In the thirteenth century, the Frangipani erected a little fortress here. Nearly ia front, opposite the small and graceful basilica of S. Giorgio in Velabro, you notice a charming miniature of a triumphal arch built, or one might almost say chiselled, by the jewellers and cattle-dealers in honor of Septimius Severus, from whom they received various favors. This cube loaded with ornaments is pierced by a single opening. As on the other monu- ments of this reign, Caracalla on coming to the throne erased the name of his brother Geta in the dedicatory inscriptions in which Septimius Severus, the Empress Julia, and their children figure. One of the pilasters represents the emperor and his wife offering a sacri- fice ; on the other were Antoninus Caracalla and his brother ; but the figure of the latter was erased by the fratricide. We know that he poniarded Geta in the arms of their mother, being impelled to this haste by the fear of being anticipated in the match of fra- ternal emulation. To get into the church of S. George you must go 280 ROME. to a neighboring house for a Portinaio, who seems surprised at your visit. Then, under a charming portico of the thirteenth century erected by the prior Stefano, you enter a temple whose aisles are marked by twelve columns of granite and four of fluted violet marble, the shafts of which, without" sty lobates, bury themselves in the mosaics of the pavement, like tree- trunks in a flowery sward. Heavy arches trust them- selves to these rather slight piUars ; the ancient ceil- ing matches the dilapidation of a pavement patched with inscriptions, and green with mould, while the whole place is impregnated with that curious damp smell old marbles have, the chiUy incense of the buildings of a thousand years ago. Although Pope Zacharias, at the period when the Merovingians were coming to their end, reconstructed the church where S. Gregory had pronounced one of his homilies, and though after that a nephew of Boni- face VIII. had it partially decorated, still it has pre- served its antique character. In Italy, and at Rome especially, the most effectual preserver of ancient buildings is poverty ; the great city has never been rich enough to make blunders everywhere. The charming altar, with its mosaics and its ciborium,-^- an open campanile formed of several ranges of small columns, — is only of the thirteenth century, but it is intact. The aisles, which by a singular arrange- ment narrow from the porch to the presbyterium, end in a Campo-santo of inscriptions contemporary S. GIOKGIO IN VELABRO. 281 with the catacombs, and which no doubt Pope Zach- arias must have had removed from some cemetery. The tribune was once covered with mosaics, re- placed later by frescoes sometimes attributed to Giotto. The presbyterium is shut off by antique barriers, some of them very curious. Those in the chapel to the right are of exactly the same design and the same marble as some found in the Coliseum, which date from Vespasian, and were themselves an imitation ; for the excavations of Chevalier Rosa on the Palatitie proved to me that the parapets of the Flavian amphitheatre were reproductions of a railing in the palace of Caligula. Let us pause near the arch of the Cloaca Maxima to look at the waters of the Acqua Argentina, said to have their source in the Lake of Juturna, and which remain as pure and crystal to-day as when the Ves- tals used to draw there ; next let us cross the street of the Greeks, and the Marrana stream which Csesar banked-in, and, turning from the shores of the Tiber, having caught a glimpse of the Aventine, let us there bring to a close this journey with all its miscellaneous associations." If chance had turned us to right or left, the harvest would have been just as rich ; when you have explored the streets of Rome, house by house, you know too well that to undertake to describe everything can only end in skimming over a subject whose real extent is boundless. The Aventine, where three convents stand out on 282 ROME. a deserted plateau, was once the quarter of the plebs. It was there that, 630 years before our era, King Ancus is said to have quartered the inhabitants of four conquered or destroyed Latin cities. Rome thus became for the vanquished first a place of exile, then a colony, and finally a country. Historians assert that in order to protect this suburb from foreign in- cursions, this king surrounded the Aventine with a strong wall, and Dionysius of HaHcarnassus even traced its outline. But statements regarding a nearly fabulous epoch cannot be accepted uncondi- tionally, especially when they are supported by no palpable proof. Some years ago the Jesuits owned at the back of this hill, between the Dominicans and the plain of the Circus Maximus, a vineyard from which an anti- quarian in his saunterings saw one day two carts come out, containing stones magnificently cut. He penetrated into the enclosure and perceived that the gardener of the fathers was working a quarry of blocks of peperino perfectly squared ; then, follow- ing the tracks already made, our archaeologist assured himself of the exhumation of a long thick wall which traversed the sinuosities of the hill. The construc- tion, of Titanic solidity, was Etruscan ; houses in ruins placed long ago over this buried wall, and buUt in a reticular style that was in use between the reigns of Augustus and Vespasian, proved that from the first century of the empire they no longer took any THE AVENTINE. 283 account of this enclosure, which perhaps even then had ceased to be known : here were signs of great antiquity. Finally, a comparison of the ancient writers and an examination of the ground justified its identification with the old enclosure which King Ancus is supposed to have built upon the Aventine, for the purpose of isolating the Latin community which he established there. In our time it is the most deserted of all the Roman hiUs ; the old streets have lost their raison d'Mre along with the buildings which used to line them. The Priorato of S. Maria replaces the Bona Dea, a temple celebrated by Cicero's epistles : S. Sabina rises between the Temple of Juno and the remains of the fortress of Honorius III., as the church which replaces the house where S. Peter baptized S. Prisca, rises between the sites of those of Minerva and Diana. Here once stood a convent of imperishable mem- ory. On the 24th of August, 410, the hordes of Alaric invaded the cloistered palace of MarceUa, who was left alone with Principia, her daughter by adop- tion : they treated these noble women so frightfully, in order to extort from them treasures which had long since been lavished on the poor, that Marcella, after she had been carried to the basilica of S. Paul, a place of refuge, almost instantly expired. This was a mortal grief to Jerome; it mingled with his anguish at the capture of Rome, which drew tears from S. Augustin as well. When the very universe seemed 284 HOME. overthrown with the loss of its behef in the eternity of the city of the Caesars, Jerome, forsaking his labor in the depths of Judaea, only uttered one brief plaint — " The light of the world is gone out ; the empire has beeh deprived of its head ; the world expires in a single city, the mother and tomb of its people Who shall be safe if Rome has perished ?" In the midst of the calamities which filled this lofty soul with consternation, Jerome thought of his beloved convent on the Aventine, and of that spirit- ual family with whom he had passed divinest hours, watering with his tears memories which now flower again for us. "Wall of Romulus. TV THE WALL OF BOMULUS. 285 CHAPTEE XIV. Half-locked within the modern city, the Palatine, round which the seven hills group themselves, is, as we know, the primitive site of Rome. It was there, according to the legend, that the twin sons of Mars and Sylvia were suckled by a she-wolf, and reared by the shepherd Faustulus ; and it was there that, after their recognition by Numitor, they founded the new city under the guidance of favorable auguries. The site determined on, Romulus proceeded to trace the pomoeriuni or sacred enclosure of the future capi- tal ; harnessing to a plough a heifer and a buU without blemish, he raised his wall on the furrow traced be- tween the rising and the going down of the sun. Although, according to all appearance, the line de- scribes an elongated trapezium with a break towards the east, the city of Romulus owes to "this enclosure its designation of Roma quadrata. Among the legends invented to occupy our minds, the most seductive are those which project historic proofs into the domain of fable. To allow that Romu- lus ever existed even is a condescension now quite out of fashion. Livy, Dionysius, Plutarch, Tacitus even, raise a smile by their credulity. Does not the 286 • EOME. last of them, outdoing his predecessors, take it into his head in the twelfth book of the Annals to describe complacently the outline of Roma quadrata : " Igitur aforo hoario (towards the west) uhi cereum tauri simu- lacrum aspicimus, quia id genus animaliunt aratro sub- ditur, sidcus designandi oppidi cceptus, ut magnam Herculis aram amplecteretur : inde certis spatiis inter- jecti lapides perima montis Palatini ad aram Consi, mox ad Curias veteres, tum ad sacellum Larium, forum- que Bomanum." We know from other writers that to the east the wall opened at the Porta Mugionis, built by Romulus, and that there it made an angle in the groves of the Temple of Apollo. Fifteen more or less sceptical centuries have dis- dained these indications ; but our era, which is as prompt in denial as it is ardent in research, has caused the knowing ones some embarrassment, by excavat- ing at the very points described by Tacitus, portions of the massive wall of Roma quadrata. This curious construction consists of enormous blocks of masonry placed four or six thick, according to the Etruscan system ; the nature of the materials showing that it cannot be later than some tribal chief, reduced by the want of any territory beyond the Palatine, to use the tufa which porous, fragile, and difficult to work, forms the rocky base of the hill and is not found elsewhere. The buildings of the later kings, who have been as boldly charged with never having ex- isted as their founder, are of fine stone extracted THE PALATINE. 287 from the surrounding quarries, and even from the Capitol, which Romulus did not possess when he had to content himself with the volcanic scorise for his wall. As you sit facing the Aventine, the residence of Remus and the Fabii, on the remains of the pomoerium of Romulus, you may fairly imagine that on this very spot, for having contemptuously leaped over his grow- ing wall, the first king of Rome struck down his twin brother, crying, " Thus perish whosoever shall cross this wall !" It was above the cavern of Cacus, where was celebrated the victory of Hercules, and not far from the Jlcus ruminalis, that tradition placed the hut of the shepherd Faustulus, covered with reeds, accord- ing to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in whose lifetime both the fig-tree and the hut were still piously pre- served. To the west of the Porta Mugionis, at the very spot indicated by Livy, they have excavated the peribolus of the temple dedicated to Jupiter Stator by the founder of Rome, when the god made the flee- ing Romans resume the offensive. In the time of Pliny the equestrian statue of Clcelia rose opposite to the temple reconstructed by Regulus after the war of the Samnites. Further west and near the Via Sacra, to the right of the Temple of Vesta, the ruins of the Temple of Castor mark the spot where the Dioscuri appeared for the first time. If they went on digging indefinitely in the tufa of this hill, which has given a name to all the palaces of 288 EOME. the world, I am sure that they would finish by the discovery of Pallanteum, the Arcadian colony of King Evander ! Before letting our feet stray at will in this renowned spot, to which the excavations of recent years have lent a double interest, let us briefly sketch the pres- ent aspect of this Palatine which, less spacious than the garden of the Tuileries, has embraced all the grandeurs of Rome. An embankment separates the Palatine from the Via Sacra. At the entrance you ascend by a flight of broad steps to where the Farnese placed their Casino, when they transformed the Palatine desert into a historical garden. Verdure had long en- veloped the enclosure of Romulus, modern generations falling back in dismay from the terrible shadows which its ruins evoked. It seems that even our religion, the faith of slaves and the poor, shrank away from this sanctuary of monarchical unity and Roman pride ; the pomcerium is the only consecrated ground of which Christianity did not take possession. No pope touched the Palatine before Paul III., who in an age that had become reconciled to the gods of Olympus, built a villa there. But it was the destiny of the hill to re- main a royal appanage ; the last heiress of the pon- tiff and the Farnese, Elizabeth, brought the Palatine to the King of Spain, Philip V., then through Don Carlos it entered into the possession of the kings of Naples ; and finally \>y a singular play of fortune, the EXCAVATIONS ON THE PALATINE. 289 cradle of the Csesars passed from the house of Bour- bon into the hands of Napoleon III.* The good, learned, and ingenious Pietro Rosa, epigraphist, geographer, consummate Latinist, expert geologist, the descendant of Salvator Rosa, had been exploring Rome and its campagna for twenty years, when Napoleon III. chose him to direct the excava- tions which he proposed to undertake in the Palatine, and installed him in the midst of the Farnese gardens, which in the space of eight years through his labors were made to disclose another Pompeii. His house opened to the south on a little garden after the French manner, beyond which rose a large, irregular, and dismantled Loggia. As the veil of verdure was re- moved there were gradually revealed treasures of sculpture and archaeological indications of rare value. Let us mention among the most remarkable of the former a draped Venus of a fine Grecian epoch, an Apollo, a Milo of Crotona without a head ; a hercu- lean-seated Torso, life size, and worthy of rivalling that of the Belvedere, and a terra-cotta bas-relief of naked, running boys armed with slings, the only known i-epresentation of the Lupercalia. Discovered in 1869, the last two pieces remained at Rome, as well as several smaU figures in bronze, bits of rare *".... after the occurrences of 1870 Italy bought the Pala- tine from the Emperor Napoleon III., while he was still con- fined in Germany." — Prmnemides Archeologiques par Gaston Boissier. 19 290 ROME. marble, trinkets, and a child in a colossal hand. Four other pieces were sent to Paris and given by the Em- peror to the Louvre, where three of them were placed on exhibition: a head of Julia, the daughter of Augus- tus ; a head of Flavia DomitiUa, the only portrait that we possess of the mother of Titus ; and a Cupid which, though Greek, was banished, without any mark to indicate its origin, to the entrance to the Assyrian antiquities, where nobody would ever think of seeking it. As for the fourth fragment, the most precious of all, inasmuch as the experts of Rome and Paris did not hesitate to recognize in it the original of the Fauns derived from that of Praxiteles, the adminis- tration mislaid it for four years, even affirming in writing that they had never received it, when I had the good fortune to find it myself among the plaster rubbish of a workshop, all covered with dust. Only the torso is left of this admirable work, but the free- dom of movement, the broad, soft, and full style of an adolescent frame, reveal the work of a master who, the type being established, can be none other than Praxiteles. As we saunter about through these wonderful ruins we will find over and over again that the excavations first conducted with such intelligence and care by Cav. Rosa reveal the existence of certain buildings just where the annalists or poets of antiquity would lead us to expect them. Romulus is said to have in- THE PALATINE IN THE KINGLY PERIOD. 291 habited the summit of the plateau between the peri- bolus of Jupiter Propugnator and the spot where Tiberius afterwards built his palace ; Numa, the cor- ner of the Via Sacra, towards the Temple of Vesta : Hicfuit antiqui regia parva Numce, said Ovid. The Temple of the Penates, says Solinus, under Helio- gabalus, replaced on the Velia (eastern slope) the dwelling of TuUus Hostilius. It is lower down than the Porta Mugionis, above the Summa via Sacra, near the altar of the Lares, that Varro fixes the dwelling of Ancus. Tarquinius Priscus installed him- self more at the back, at the Summa via Nova. It was there that the children of Ancus had him slain by shepherds ; you may mark the spot, "from a high window looking on to the Via Nova, for the king was quartered close to Jupiter Stator." Tanaqml ad- dressed the Quirites and caused Servius to be pro- claimed king. The site of the temple was restored by Eosa, as well as that of the Porta Mugionis indi- cated by Solinus. When the Republic had fastened upon the nation the yoke of a rapacious aristocracy, persons of mark who were rich enough to pay for the usurpation of authority sought a residence on the Palatine. There dwelt, besides the chief dictators, the Gracchi, Catid- lus, Flaccus, Hortensius, Sulla, and even Catiline, in the neighborhood of Marcus Tullius. This last built facing the Via Sacra, below the house of Scaurus, bought, as Asconius tells us, by the tribune Clodius, 292 EOME. against whom Cicero pleaded. " I will raise my roof higher," wrote the great orator, " Bot from contempt for thee, but to veil from thee the view of the city which thou wouldst fain have destroyed." Violets grow there under the rose-trees, and the substruc- tions mark the compartments of a parterre. Below the roof of Cicero, more to the right, " to the east of the sacred wood of Vesta," Julius Caesar established himself as soon as he became pontifex Maximus. Before, adds Suetonius, "he had lived in a modest habitation among the plebeians of the Sub- urra." Marcus Antonius resided on the Palatine; Claudius Nero, the father of Tiberius,^and Octavius, father of Augustus, built on the eastern and southern slopes of Roma quadrata. It was before the house of Octavius that a palm-tree, springing up between two stones, was carefully tended by his son. The Caesars having resumed on the Palatine the thread of royal tradition, Augustus rebuilt his palace, which had been destroyed by fire, on the summit of the hill, and with the aid of a public subscription, includ- ing within it a temple of Apollo, containing a statue of the god fifty feet high. He extended his build- ings as far as the slope facing the Circus Maximus ; and to prolong them on the east to the intermontium, he displaced a street, the Via Nova, without suspect- ing the cruel mistakes to which he would expose the archaeologists of the future. In truth, if we suppose that before him this Via Nova passed between the The Palace of the Caesars. PALACE OF DOMITIAN. 293 Velabrum and the Palatine, the indications furnished by historians as to the situation of the differeat build- ings become unintelligible. CavaUer Rosa has shown that previous to Augustus the Via Nova began, nearly at right angles from the Summa via Sacra, to ascend the Palatine, and came down again opposite the Aventine, to which it led. This is why Ovid, mentioning the Via Nova, and making it turn the Palatine to reach the Tiber by the Velabrum, ob- serves that it is situated there nunc, which clearly implies that it had not always been so. This once recognized, everything becomes clear, and scholars are no longer reduced to the necessity of accusing contemporaries of being mistaken. After having de- duced from observation and from ancient authors the position of this expropriated street, Rosa proceeded to find it in the depths of the earth. Domitian's magnificent public palace occupied a vast space to the northwest of the house of Augus- tus ; below the Flavian ruins are found galleries which have been consolidated by filling them up from top to bottom with masses of mortar. The walls were so thick, the pillars so robust, the pozzuolana so tena- cious, that before building they did not take the trouble to pull down. Each generation settled over the quarters of predecessors. In the early days of the Empire the hiU of Romulus shakes off the patri- cian residences. Tiberius, who built between the Auguratorium and the old house of Clodius, and who 294 ROME. surrounded his edifices to east and south with a half- subterranean portico, left standing at the southeast comer a private habitation, discovered in 1869 by Signor Rosa, and which is one of the most curious and interesting buildings of the whole Palatine. In the course of excavating it, Rosa observed, first that it was contiguous to the buildings of Tiberius, second that it was approached by the same portico, and finally that, as it was placed on a lower level, they must have set up some steps in order to go down into it. These circumstances showed that it belonged to the successor of Augustus, and was older than the palace ; for they would not have erected it lower down. Other indications pointed to its having been the resi- dence of Claudius Nero, the first husband of Livia. At the beginning of 1870, however, a subterranean passage was brought to light, round which, in the direction of the ancient palace of Augustus, were the leaden pipes that used to bring water to the so-called Domus Tiberiana. On these pipes we read at regular intervals the words ivliae AVG. As the name of the owner was frequently inscribed on pipes of this kind, this inscription, as M. Leon Renier observes, is a genuine proof of ownership, and " informs us that the house in question belonged to the Empress Livia, Julia Augusta ; means, in fact, Livia, widow of Augustus." Augustus having prescribed that she should take his name when he instituted her heiress to a third of his property. LIVIA'S HOUSE. 295 Livia wished to be the first priestess of her hus- band after he was raised to the rank of the gods. This explains the subterranean passage which led from her house to that of Augustus ; she probably had it constructed so as to be free to go back and forth, without passing through the public street, to fulfil the ministrations of her office. This passage is now interrupted at its junction with the cedes publicce, erected in the reign of Domitian. But shortly before arriving at these cedes, we observe that it branches off to the right, an arrangement probably made in order to get around them. The exhumation of a Roman dwelling-house of the time of Augustus, the date of which is known, is of itself of the utmost interest. And when we add that the residence of Livia contains the finest and most ancient pictures bequeathed to us from such distant ages, the reader will hardly reproach us for having devoted so much space to its identification before pro- ceeding to describe it.* Approaching by the south side of the Cryptoporticus of Tiberius, and descend- ing four steps, we reach a vestibule opening on to the Atrium in which are the altars of the Lares covered over with minium, as well as their foundations. Before us is the Tablinum (chambers of honor), in which the master of the house kept his family ar- chives and received his guests ; and on our right the * Lanoiani, however, identifies it with tlie house of German- icus, to which the murderers of Caligula escaped. 296 EOME. Triclinium. These porticoes form four apartments, the only ones decorated ; which we shall return to presently. At the back of the Tablinum, which ad- joins chambers belonging to the private living-place (Cubicula), is situated the Peristylum, in the middle of which two flights of stairs led up to the stories where guests never entered. Of these quarters there remain thirteen chambers without any ornament, faced with a brown pigment. They had outlets both on the peristyle and on a long corridor {Fauces) which, con- structed between the Tablinum and the Triclinium, and traversing the whole extent of the buildings, fur- nished an approach both right and left to the apart- ments on the ground-floor. These comprise two bath- chambers, narrow and dark as they are described by Seneca, until Maecenas had, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, set up the first Caldarium that the Romans ever saw. The walls of these baths are of opus reticulariiim, a system in use iinder Augustus ; and to make up for the absence of the Caldarium, they constructed in one of the cabinets a sort of stove {Hypocaustum). Beyond the Balnea, and open- ing on a street of which they have exhumed the pavement and the causeways — a road contrived be- tween the house and the offices of the Temple of Jupiter Victor — two shops, let to merchants, had been thriftily contrived at the corner of Livia's casa ; they have no communication with the interior of the house. Let us now proceed to the most interesting part, the PAINTINGS IN LIVIA'S HOUSE. 297 painted chambers opening on to the Atrium. They are not very large ; are greater in depth than in breadth, and the height of the walls does not exceed four metres. The decorations are distributed in panels separated by figured columns of which the entablatures bear cornices and rest on stylobates, also painted. In the Triclinium we observe large transparent Paterae, fiUed with fruit piled up pyramidally — copies of the vessels in which fruits were presented at their banquets. One of the panels contains a fanciful landscape in which trees, terraces adorned with statues, bridges thrown out into space, rockeries, and flowing waters make up a site that would delight a Chinese : in the foreground three ducks are coming out of an aquatic grotto, leaving long furrows in tlie water. Animals run along the cornice. The bottom of the room is enlivened by another landscape, in the midst of which a pillar supporting a Greek vessel rises out of the verdure, while to right and left winged griffins foUow one another on a wainscoting. The Tablinum and its two Alse are treated pretty nearly in the same way, but with more ingenuity. At the bottom and on the sides of the left wing, at the entrance to which are some fragments of a mosaic pavement that Livia once trod, the panels are sur- mounted by a series of cartouches, on which are Genii in pairs with wings of blue, green, and rose- color, recalling some of the small figures of Raphael ; 298 ROME. they sport too among the arabesques; mouldings, griffins, lotus flowers, and garlands of leaves com- plete the decoration, which is rich, bold and har- monious. In the right wing the panels are enriched with thick garlands of flowers and fruits succeeding one another in festoons and bound with ribands. On a band above these compartments, and under a frieze of dark yellow, defiles a curious procession of tiny figures, such as are to be seen in the Egyptian hy- pogea; they represent scenes borrowed from the daily life of the streets. A consul, escorted by lictors without arms and preceded by an accensus, is attend- ing to his private business ; matrons go to the neigh- boring temple ; others along tlie Appian Way visit the tombs and carry offerings to the altars ; women of the people go by with their baskets to market ; lawyers make their way to the Forum the outlines of which are seen in the distance ; merchants lead their camels laden with wares ; the freedmen go about their aff'airs, hunters are seen returning to town, a fisherman spreads his nets. Nothing could be more lively than these revelations of popular habits at the end of the Republic. But it is in the central compartment of the Tab- linum that we find the principal subjects. In an elaborate architectural frame-work is a succession of well-preserved paintings. The finest in point of style represents, seated at the foot of a column, and watched 10 AND HERMES. 299 by Argus, lo, the daughter of Inachus, whom Hermes is about to deliver. The Hermes and Argus are naked and of superb design ; the first has his name inscribed at his feet. The identity of Argus has been demonstrated by two paintings at Pompeii, nearly resembling one another and described by M. Helbig, as well as by an intaglio representing that personage in the same attitude ; Argus wears on his bent knee a violet chlamys covered by the skin of some beast. "It refers," says M. Perrot, "to a characteristic point in the legend of the hero, for, ac- cording to ApoUodorus, Argus slew a wild bull who was laying Arcadia waste, and threw the spoils of it over his shoulder." This is again a convincing sign. The figure has been copied from Greek cameos, and, a singular thing, one of these cameos was studied nineteen centuries after by Ingres, who from this Ar- gus on the watch drew his (Edipus. The identity is complete. On the walls of the same chamber two cartouches represent, one the sacrifice of a lamb, the other an in- cantation. In the first the people, the draperies, the attitude of the priestess, as she pours water from an amphora, mark the work of a Greek artist ; the head and Roman coiffure of the matron, seated and hold- ing a fan, denote by contrast that this figure is a por- trait. A more free and less hieratic composition represents a lady and her attendant ; the latter stands upright, while the other, who is seated, holds & pyxis 300 ROME. on her knee. Before a tripod on which flames sparkle, rises, solemn and draped from head to foot, the sorcer- ess, whom the mistress of the house watches with at- tentive gaze. The philtre box in the hands of the latter, her striking attitude, her diadem, the girdle or baldric which the sorceress presents, marks which an- swer to a passage of the Hippolytus of Euripides, have led Cavalier Rosa to suppose that Phsedra is the principal figure of this charming and expressive composition. At the back of the apartment is a picture of Gala- tea on the waves, in which two other Nereids swim. Elegant and supple, the nymph turns disdainfully round, from the back of the snorting sea-horse who bears her swiftly across the waters : behind a rock rises the colossal bust of Polyphemus, with an Eros perched upon his shoulder. Between this painting and that of lo, is a subject that is the only representation we have of the exter- nal aspect of bourgeois dwellings of the seventh cen- tury of Eome. Two houses open on the street by small square doors ; the upper stories, pierced with small windows, recede, leaving projecting terraces, one of which forms a covered gallery supported on two piUars ; a cordon divides the first floor from the second. From one of the windows and on the bal- conies five persons watch a becomingly draped lady, who, fanning herself with a flabellum, has just gone out, followed by a little girl. The House of Livia. :^^^' 1? t7 "^iM^ *S^ftiM PAINTINGS IN LIVIA'S HOUSE. 301 These paintings are of rare delicacy, and have preserved their freshness wonderfully. Phny (xxxv. 10) describing the fantastic subjects represented by an artist named Tadio or Ludio — who must have been the first before the time of Augustus to do this kind of decoration — might have been writing of the house of Livia. He describes, after Vitruvius, the manner in which the wall was prepared and polished, as well as the varnish with which the work was covered, to bring out the colors and assure their per- manence. Both add that these processes, which were devised by Apelles, fell into disuse in the time of Augustus. Now these walls have been prepared just in this way ; the paintings are on waxed surfaces, and the encaustic described by Vitruvius still covers the best-preserved portions. Moreover, Cavalier Rosa, having manufactured the varnish in question after the old recipe, applied it to these rooms with the result that the paintings ceasing to peel off re- covered all their brightness. Such, then, are these nearly unique examples of an early school of art imported from Grreece, and de- scribed by authors of the first century. If I add that these works, existing in the only ancient house of which we know both the exact date and the owner, are superior to all that Pompeii has bequeathed to us, I shall be pardoned for having described them in such detail. Returning to the ruins of the palace of Tiberius, 302 EOME. continued on a vaster scale by his successor as far as the extremity of the Palatine, we find some guard- houses, where to pass the time the soldiers used to scribble mottoes and jests on the walls, sometimes with their signatures, and whole sentences that are easily deciphered. Among them was found a carica- ture of Nero ; a small narrow brow with a garland, and a chin tufted with a growing beard ; this profile is very lifelike. The excavations around the modest house of Livia have brought to light a marble bust of the same emperor, the only one which may be as- signed with certainty to the time when he lived. Caligula built his gigantic palaces over the Clivus Victorije and the Porta Romana, which Romulus had opened at the western corner of his wall towards the Forum. In order to unite the Palatine with the Capitol, the successor of Tiberius threw across the Velabrum that immense bridge whose abutment has been brought to light, and which was demolished by Claudius. It was in clearing out the accumulations of this mountain erected by the hand of man, that Rosa, sustaining galleries and vaultings with as much art as economy, succeeded in extricating from a mass of debris the most ancient portions of the imperial residence ; bas-reliefs, a few cartouches of stucco rep- resenting wanton scenes, corridors terminating in small chambers, enable us to recognize the haunts, out of which, according to Suetonius, the emperor raised a revenue and where the senators made it a CALIGULA'S PALACE. 303 duty to degrade themselves in order to please Csesar. As to the Argiletum, Suetonius states that Caligula prolonged his palaces towards the Forum as far as the Temple of Castor, to which he made a vestibule, where he exhibited himself as an object of public adoration, under the title of Jupiter Latinus. On the Palatine itself, an altar to his personal divinity was served by Flamens, and before his golden statue, which was every day decked in garments like those which he wore himself on that day, his priests immo- lated flamingoes, peacocks, black geese, and pheas- ants. Round the long galleries of Tiberius, which Cavalier Rosa restored to us, and whose ruins our ey es measure with amazement, Caligula during his long fits of sleeplessness used to roam alone, in close com- panionship with the immortals. He was heard scold- ing Jupiter and threatening to send him back to Greece, and on the nights when the star of Diana shone in a clear sky, he invited the goddess to descend and give herself to him. After the great fire of the year 64, described by Tacitus, had cleared the vaUey separating the Pala- tine from the Esquiline, Nero built there on plans of such immensity, that his palace reached nearly as far as the ancient residence of Maecenas. Otho installed himself in a section of the palaces of Tiberius, that Messalina and Claudius had once inhabited. Vespa- sian, Titus, Domitian, and their successors, must have enlarged their dwellings on the side of the Augurato- 304 ROME. rium, and continued the porticoes, which had then be- come subterranean, and from which another gallery branches out. Covered with a low vaulted roof and lighted from above, it allowed the emperors to pro- ceed, without being seen, from their private dwelling to the throne-room, by penetrating, at the back of the Tribuna of the basilica, into the palace appropri- ated by Domitian for audiences and receptions. If, as you descend from the southern slope, you continue towards the left by a series of ruined edifices, you reach some chambers prepared under Septimius for the instruction of the young patricians ; a sort of school for pages. Inscriptions in cursive Latin and Greek, caricatures, quotations, signatures drawn with the point of the stylus or knife, here confirm the asser- tions of antiquaries. One of these pieces of facetious- ness, which has been placed in the Kircher Museum, proves in a bizarre way the invasion by Christianity in the second century of the very palace of the Csesars. Some small youth, by way of teasing one of his com- rades, sketches in the plaster a crucified ass, and writes beneath in Greek, " Alexamenos adores his god." Up to the time of Constantino the emperors resided for the most part on the royal hill. Genseric en- camped there in 455, and carried away from it the spoils of the Temple of Jerusalem. After him they only kept up in these palaces a few apartments to giv e shelter at long intervals to the diminished heads THE EEGIA. 305 of the empire. Heraclius sojourned there in the seventh century ; Charles the Great took possession of it when he was proclaimed Emperor of the West. He closed the series of the crowned guests of the Palatine, a series that in the stories of the chroniclers opens with Romulus, and dates back in the songs of the poets as far as King Evander. In the public palace the lower parts of most of the rooms have been brought to light : the bases of the columns still mark the galleries, the levelled soil is the rough cast in which the mosaics were laid, a few scattered bits of which are still left. Thanks to these indications, the internal arrangements are quite plain : after the Portico comes the Tablinum, a vast chamber, with an apse at the back of it for the throne. Statues formerly adorned this reception hall, situated between the basilica dedicated to Jupiter and the chapel of the Lares. At the lower end of the Regia two doors opened out on a Peristylum, a spacious square court surrounded with porticoes, from ' the sides of which were the approaches to some small apartments. Next we come to the Triclinium {Jovis ccenatio), with a nymphseum opening from it on the right. The seats used to describe an elongated oval ; above them a sheet of water fell into small basins, surmounted by rockwork and flowers. In the Tribune of the Tri- chnium, which was surrounded by columns projecting from broad pilasters, a pavement of mosaic marks the spot where the masters of the world used to feast. 20 306 EOME. Beyond is a second portico buUt on foundations of the date of the Republic, and further on the Library, reconstructed on the site of the two founded by Augustus — one for Greek books, the other for Latin. Contiguous to it was the Academia, a room for readings and dissertations upon the poets and philosophy ; it was separated from the Libreria, so that the noise might not disturb the readers; and placed next to it so as to have the documents close at hand. Beyond this hall we overlook the narrow valley of the Circus Maximus. Close by on the right is the peribolus, with three steps of the Temple of Jupiter Victor, erected by Q. Fabius Maximus ; the Csesars respected it. On the platform are still to be seen some pillars of this Etruscan building, which was found by Cavalier Rosa on the ides of April, the anniver- sary of the day on which Ovid informs us that it was dedicated. From the Triclinium, surrounded on every hand by the ruins of ancient Rome, beyond which rise the buildings of the modern city, the view is such as could only be furnished by a capital two thousand six hundred years old. At the extremity of the Triclinium some steps, penetrating through two series of crypts, lead to an underground Tab- linum. Windows and doors have been walled up in these now-subterranean chambers, in one of which is preserved an archivolt as well as an arch, decorated with paintings finely touched on clear grounds ; a THE CIECUS MAXIMUS. 307 number of figures of divinities, a Sacrifice to the Lares, and, in the neighboring room, two personages in fresco, of a particularly fine style. Beneath the ruins of this profound cavern may be discerned other crypts profounder still. In our modern language we have come to confound circuses with amphitheatres. Among the Romans the circus was not a round building, but a very elon- gated enclosure, containing a course for chariots, men, and horses between terraces covered with seats, and nearly parallel to one another. A low wall, the spina, ran down the centre, at one end of which were the Carceres, the stalls from which the horses and chariots shot forth ; thirteen in number, the central one covered with an arch only being used for the entry of festal processions. At each end of the Car- ceres rose towers, on which they stationed fifes, drums, and trumpets, to animate the horses by their fanfares. Under a small portico the charioteers made ready for the race, divided by their colors into four factions, Albata, Russata, Prasina, Veneta (white, red, green, and azure). Above the Carceres, and between the towers, on the terrace of the Oppidum, gathered the privileged amateurs, betting-men, and o^miers. At a given signal the barriers were lowered, and the twelve cars came forth, one of each color in each of the four rows, and filed before the Podium, which supported the tiers separated by their Prsecinctiones. 308 KOME. First the competing rivals passed in front of the lower Pulvinar, a projecting box appropriated to the sediles, censors, and praetors, — in other words, to the civic authorities. It was under the censors Flaccus and Posthumius Albinus, one hundred and seventy-three years before our era, that boxes were for the first time placed at the disposal of these magistrates. As for the senators, up to the time of Scipio Africanus they remained mixed up with the crowd ; for by separating them from the plebs at the scenic repre- sentations of the Megalesia, Scipio raised a great clamor. The senatorial box and its neighbor, which divided the right side into two equal portions, almost faced another and loftier Pulvinar, where, as the word shows, the seats were covered with cushions : this, communicating with the Regia of the Palatine, was reserved for the emperor and the court. Fovir doors gave access to the arena — two at the sides of the towers of the Oppidum, a third in front of the first goal, the fourth at the extremity of the circus. The goals were conical, and were surmounted by eggs, in honor of the Dioscuri, whom Leda hatched like swans. On the pedestals were bas-reHefs rep- resenting the games. Seven movable eggs of gilded wood were also arranged conspicuously, between the goals ; they served to mark the progress of the race, seven indicating that the whole course had been run. The circuses were not used merely for chariot and horse races ; wrestling, boxing, foot races, and wild THE CIBCUS MAXIMUS. 309 animal hunts varied the spectacles. It was here that the two obelisks were found that stand, one in the Piazza Del Popolo and the other in front of S. John Lateran. 310 KOME. CHAPTER XV. After spending some months in Rome, incessantly occupied with ruins, basilicas, galleries, libraries, and buildings of every description, one is suddenly seized with a desire to be among fields and woods ; one morning accordingly we withdrew to Albano and the forests and lakes of the Alban Hills. Our first walk was along the charming road called La Galhria, to Castel Gandolfo. As in and about Rome, this district and its hamlets are fuU of historic memories, of monuments, of mys- teries unfathomable, solitudes, where the sovereign aristocracy of the world concealed its innermost life. These country scenes, that nature has clothed in supreme beauty, have not been disfigured by the hand of modern times ; as we go through them, we involuntarily smile at their striking resemblance to the pictures that the Latin poets have drawn of them. In the early morning we again saw from another point, and in the light of a different hour, the pro- found hoUow of the Lake of Albano. From the ter- race of the Capuchins, the view is wider and the solitude more complete, and you can observe geologi- The Campagna. ALBANO. 311 cally the bizarre configuration of a region that vol- canoes have overrun twice or thrice. Through umbrageous avenues, through forests that nymphs might long for, through the towns of Gen- zano and Ariccia, expressly planned for painters, we reached the ViUa Cesarini, at the other extremity of a woody plateau which on one side envelops the Lake of Albano and on the other the Lake of Nemi. Like the former, the Lake of Nemi hes in an extinct crater; on its banks are pasture lands, and a village of quaint aspect. A diadem of forest crowns the neighboring heights ; its bare branches sketching a dark fringe against the hoar-frost of Monte Cavo, on the summit of which Virgil makes Juno descend, to watch the contests of ^neas v/ith Turnus. To the right is the peak of Monte Jove, ivith its tufted grove, which re- places a destroyed temple ; below us, at a formidable depth, slumbers the lake. We make our way down by charming paths, where one has the curious sensa- tion of leaning, without danger, over an abyss. All along this erase down to the very water's edge it is nothing but turf sprinkled with rocks, tufts of laurus- tinus, and the flowering wild cherry ; the ground is crowded with blue and violet hyacinths, camomile, and crocuses of many hues. Olive, cactus, aloe, date, — green trees made dark in the distance by contrast with the snows, — winter married to spring, Switzer- land to Magna Grsecia. The way back is shortened by crossing three via- 312 EOME. ducts, erected by the popes. We had reached Gen- zano by following the old Via Appia, which further on crosses the country of the Volsci to Anxur ; here is the bridge of Grregory XVI. Pius IX. threw via- ducts over two abysses, that of Ariccia being so deep, that it required three superimposed ranges of arches, and is worthy to be compared with the achievements of the ancients. The splendor of the site enhances the lofty style of the erection. Near the entrance to Albano is a pyramid, flanked at the corners by cones ; for the erudite of the village it is the tomb of Aruns. " At any rate it is the tomb of some one," as Brid'oi- son would say. On the new Via Appia, Pius IX. marked his sixteenth and seventeenth mile. He in- scribed them on metce of antique shape, with an anti- quarian ambition that one is glad to honor. On the morrow we wished to employ the day in going romid the lake through the woods, in identify- ing the ancient via triumphalis of the Alban Mount, and in ascending the deserted heights of Monte Cavo, as far as Rocca di Papa, a lofty hamlet to which the landscape-painter enticed us. At the Madonna del TufFo (a votive chapel com- memorating the miraculous escape of two cavaliers from a falling rock) there is a fine view ; a small con- vent of Passionists replaces the Temple of Jupiter Latialis, where in old times the Ferise Latinse were celebrated. The sun having partially cleared away the mist we perceived the enormous dome of S. Peter's BOCCA DI PAPA. 313 rising up with its Vatican pedestals : of the whole eternal city, at that distance this was the only building we could distinguish ; the rest was dissolved in the soft undulations of the Etruscan HiUs. We still kept mounting, and the snow, which had begun by tracing tiny embroideries in the grass of the underwood, gradually spread until when we reached the cause- way, that forms the lower approach to the town, it lay about us in a white sheet. From this point, the lake is a vessel only half full ; beyond its highest brink is seen the sheet of the Pontine marshes ex- tending to the sea, which spreads white sails to the sky. Rocca di Papa looks like a pyramid faced with brown houses, and terminated on the summit by a ruined fort ; you climb up through a labyrinth of alleys by forty steps. While the goats crowd round the hovels, the men play at mora ; the sound of sing- ing comes out of the houses ; girls, in holiday attire, move back and forth to the fountain, and from house to house, in sportive bands, many of them so hand- some as to provoke an exclamation of surprise ; some of them carry the water on their heads in handsome copper amphora, which we recognize from the Etrus- can bas-reliefs and the paintings of Pompeii. In the midst of all this noise, and the trampling feet which churn the snow to a dark brown color, the children ask for baiocchi ; the men bid you good even in rough tones ; the women turn upon you a serious 314 EOME. eye, and as soon as you have passed a group, the joyous clamor is resumed behind you. We offered the guide refreshments, but he declined; he even dissuaded us from stopping because it was late, and it were better not to be overtaken by night too far from Albano. This prudence struck me as sensible enough ; we had met in the forest some wood- cutters, whose guns had made me a little suspicious, because after all one does not usually fell trees with a gun. We made therefore a hasty survey of Rocca di Papa, an Alpine village from which, standing in the snow, eighty kilometres of olive-trees can be seen. But with its striking style, its concentric alleys, its old and low gateways, and its roofs pointed as in the north, it left on me a very vivid impression. From Albano to Frascati across the mountains, the journey even in winter is varied and interesting. On the slope of Palazzuolo we saw the exact position of Alba Longa, built by the son of ^neas, and which long after its destruction by Tullus Hostilius, be- queathed its name to the hamlet formed round an en- trenched camp, established to protect the Appian Way at the time of the second Carthaginian invasion. These recollections brought us to the entrance to Marino, by the valley in which still runs the spring of the goddess Ferentiua, the Venus Grenitrix of the old Latins ; it was there, before the foundation of Rome, that assembled, under the presidency of Alba, the representatives of the thirty cities of which the MAUINO. 315 Latin confederation was composed. Tarquin caused Herdonius to be drowned in those waters to which we saw two she-goats going to drink, pensively tended by a girl between thirteen and fourteen. She did not raise her pretty head at our approach, bent over the spindle which her fingers were twisting ; you might have taken her for a little princess playing at being shepherdess. Pius IX. erected a viaduct which shortens the as- cent to the feudal hamlet of the Colonna. Below a chapel, the lower side of which borders on a wide, steep street, rises a large palace, which the Colonna had built by Turkish prisoners after the bat- tle of Lepanto. From the terrace in front of the church we gazed upon a sweet spring landscape. If you choose to linger at Marino, you will find there other palaces, with paintings and bas-relieis, and ruins with inscriptions to decipher. After leaving Marino we ascended one of the slopes of the valley, which is cut into tiers by the successive currents of lava. Shortly beyond an elevation clad with olives, Grotta Ferrata revealed itself, some for- tified buildings from whose midst arose the pyramidal fa9ade of a church masked in theatrical Gothic, and its large belfry of rose-colored brick. These objects bathed in cold sunlight stood out brightly against the sombre and threatening sky. Grotta Ferrata is only an abbey with its dependencies — a crenellated abbey of most feudal and most cenobitic appearance. 316 EOME. A postern introduces you into the surviving por- tion of a Florentine cloister. In the church a charm- ing place to rest is before four frescoes executed by Domenichino in his youth. Cardinal Farnese ordered them just when the artist was at the age when an ar- dent soul dreams rather of expressing what it has felt, than of exhibiting the skill of a cunning craftsman. These works reproduce the life of the founders of the monastery, the monks S. Nilus and S. Bartholomew, who towards the year 1000, fleeing from the Sara- cens, came and hid themselves in this solitude. In the subject representing S. Nilus received by Otto III., the prince as well as the monks are expressive figures with a fine mystic sentiment. It is here that the artist has placed the portraits of the four leaders of the second Bolognese school — Guercino, Guido Reni, Annibal Caracci, and the artist himself. No- body has handled frescoes with a brush at once so supple and so rich as Zampieri. S. Nilus praying to avert the storm — the Exorcism of a child — the Monk Bartholomew at prayer — are executed moreover with true religious sentiment, that is to say, with sim- plicity. As you begin to climb the mountain again, you face Rocca di Papa, from which you are separated by two deep glens. The straight, sloping sides of Monte Cavo seen from here recall Vesuvius, only the plume of smoke is replaced by a tuft of trees. As we climbed higher up the mountain the air TUSCULUM. 317 became so keen that the riders were freezing on their donkeys, while the vegetation on the somewhat steep ascent before us was sprinkled with a slippery pow- dering of snow. On the height, a columbarium gave notice of the vicinity of a Roman road, and in fact we came out on the Via Tusculana, which preserves, besides a part of its Pelasgic pavement, the remains of its footways. The further we advanced, the deeper grew the snow ; nothing could exceed the oddity of this Alpine-like travel so near to spots filled with warm and balmy associations, while you tell yourself with chattering teeth that you are on your way to Tusculum, No spot has been more extolled for the mildness of its temperature, sheltered as it is from the cold winds of the east and north, than this little town, which was incorporated in the Roman State 381 B.C., and which at that epoch retained its walls and its municipal independence. The flowers and trees of Tusculum were the delight of Cicero ; Hortensius had a house there, to which he added a chamber for Cydias's picture of the Argonauts ; thither withdrew both pleasure-seekers and sages — and the two were often only one in the times of Augustus. So to sym- bolize this happy devotion of a town to pleasure, people assigned its foundation to a son of Circe, the sorceress, by Ulysses the eloquent — to that Telegonus who, when pressed by hunger, slew his father by mis- take in his search for a meal. 318 EOME. It is a rare circumstance when visiting the ruins of Tusculum to wade through snow a foot deep ; never in my life have I seen anything so lugubrious or so desperately deserted } it produced the impres- sion of a village at the pole, abandoned after the country was frozen up. The palace ruins, discovered almost at the summit of the mountain, where the wind moves noiselessly over the bare ground, may date back to Cicero as well as to Tiberius, that sombre and skilful administrator who had three great work- shops for landscape-painters — Rhodes, Tusculum, Caprese. The opus reticularium is everywhere ; the Schola has left circular traces : some mutilated stat- ues have been found, with which they have decked and supported the four corners of a custodian's house, whom the winter had put to flight — a build- ing crammed full of pieces of old marbles. The only shelter we could find from the wind laden with snow- flakes was the side of a wall. To the left of the theatre, at the end of a pathway hidden by brush- wood, is a peperino fountain. The interior vaulting of this nympheum, more ancient according to some audacious scholars than the invention of the arch, is made of superposed blocks, which lean as they ascend, and which terminate in a culmen of upright stones, supported upon one another to close the pyramid. It is difficult to admit that the work is earlier than the Etriiscans and goes back to the Pelasgi, and that in the time of the Tusculans they preserved it as a TUSCULUM. 819 curiosity ; is it not more probable that between Tiberius and Hadrian they amused themselves by making a rustic fountain in imitation of the nymphea of primitive times 1 Copies always please ages of refinement. The theatre of Tusculum remains nearly intact ; the tiers of seats were softly indicated beneath the snow, whence rose on the proscenium the shafts of some Doric columns, fluted, massive, and without stylobates ; the art of Magna Grsecia, brought into fashion by the villegiature of Pompeii, of Baise, and Psestum, must have smiled at a HeUenized aristocracy. Here and there rows of pillars, sunk partially under- ground and surmounted by their capitals, rose from a dark pavement like huge mushrooms. By clamber- ing across the ruined walls we obtained one of those views that startle the eye and launch the mind into the infinite. The firmament was sombre, save in the west, where a luminous girdle extended from Monte Gennaro to the mouth of the Tiber ; the land there- fore lay in very deep shadow, but was clearly de- fined. As far as the last hills that divide Rome from the sea, the outlines were sharply cut in two or three tones of violet melting into carmine. Under an emer- ald opening, through which the broken clouds en- gulfed a sheaf of rays, the snows of the Sabine coun- try stood out with metallic brightness. But what was most singular in these vast horizons was the contrast of the Siberia of the moimtains with the spring-like S20 HOME. Canaan of the plains : Rome, where you could dis- tinguish S. Peter's and the Coliseum, seemed aflame ; we were shivering in snow. Half an hour after, revived by a breath of warm wind, we descended to Frascati ; passing the vflla Rufinella, which belonged to Victor Emmanuel ; then the villa Mondragone, so vain of its three hundred and seventy-four windows ; the viUa Taverna, and I know not how many others ; for as you enter Frascati, the vUla of the Belvedere, designed by Giacomo della Porta for Cardinal Aldobrandini, drives all the rest from your mind. TEAJAN'S FOEUM. 321 CHAPTER XVI. In the midst of the busy quarters lying at the base of the Quirinal, you come out upon a great piazza which you name at once without ever having seen it before : Trajan's Column serves as ensign for a forum, of which ApoUodorus of Damascus erected the por- ticoes. The lines described by the bases of a plan- tation of pillars will help you to identify the perim- eter of the temple which Hadrian consecrated, and the site of the Ulpian Library which was divided into two chambers — one for Greek books, and the other for Latin ; and finally the situation of the basilica, opening on to the forum and with its apse in the north-northwest direction. Divided into five aisles, it was paved with giallo antico and violet breccia; the facings were in marble of Luna ; the ceiling of gilded bronze rested on granite columns. You even find the remains of five massive steps oi porta santa, upon which stood the rich pedestal of the monument : Dion Cassius has described all these wonders. The basilica survived the invasions of the barbarians and even the Vandals of Genseric ; but the contests of the middle ages and the pious brutalities of the stupid and valorous Normans buried in ruins a monument^ 2L 322 ROME. which, for Christians especially, should have been an object of veneration. It was in the Ulpian Basilica that, in 312, Con- stantino, having assembled the notables of the empire, seated himself in the presbyterium, to proclaim his abjuration of polytheism in favor of the religion of Christ ; on that day and spot the prince closed the cycle of antiquity, opened the catacombs, and inaugu- rated the modern world. The Acts of S. Sylvester describe many passages of the discourse in which, "invoking truth against mischievous divisions," and declaring that he "put away superstitions born of ignorance and reared on unreason," the emperor or- dains that " churches be opened to Christians, and that the priests of the temples and those of Christ en- joy the same privileges." He himself undertakes to build a church in his Lateran palace. The senators listened to the harangue in dull silence, for the patrician houses remained attached to the old worship. But along the aisles of the basilica pressed the Christian populace, now for the first time expanding in the sunshine. When the emperor ceased speaking, "there was as it were along breath;" then the popular joy burst forth, and the cries of the multitude broke out '' for the space of nearly two hours." They exalted the power of Christ and his glory, and then, the enthusiasm reaching almost to delirium, they declared to be foes of the emperor all who should not honor the God who had vanquished TRAJAN'S COLUMN. 323 Maxentius ; at last the populace, exasperated by the attitude of the senators, demanded the expulsion of the old priests and the proscription of all who con- tinued to oifer sacrifice. A massacre was imminent, when Constantino, again speaking, began to set forth the difference between the service of God and that of men, that the second is forced while the first is free. " To be a Christian," he said, " it is needful to desire to become one. To refuse admission to one who seeks it would be blameworthy ; to impose it would be against equity ; this is the rule of truth. Those who do not imitate us shall not lose our good graces ; those who become Christians with us shall be our friends." Truly great on that day, Constantino had the tolerance of a sage, a rare virtue among neophytes; at one stroke he proclaimed the faith of Christ and freedom of conscience. To regain what he gave, not less than fifteen centuries were needed. It was without doubt in commemoration of these events, that Sixtus V. raised the statue of S. Peter on the summit of the column of Trajan, to replace that of the emperor, which was carried off in 663 by that Constans 11. who pillaged Eome, and who sold to a Jew broker the debris of the Colossus of Rhodes, a bronze work of Chares, who was a pupil of Lysippus. I do not think there exists any monument in the world more precious or more exquisite in irs propor- tions than Trajan's Column, nor one that has rendered more capital service. This has been set forth with 324 EOME. more authority than I can pretend to, by VioUet-le- Duc, the architect who has written best on his own art ; his description sums up the subject and makes everything clear. A set of pictures of the campaigns of Trajan against the Dacians, — the bas-reliefs repro- duce the arms, the accoutrements, the engines of war, the dwellings of the barbarians ; we discern the breed of the warriors and their horses ; we look upon the ships of the time, canoes and quinqueremes ; women of all ranks, priests of all theogonies, sieges, and as- saults. Such are the merits of this sculptured host, that Polidoro da Caravaggio, Giulio Romano, Michael Angelo, and all the artists of the Renaissance have drawn thence models of style and picturesque group- ing. Trajan's Column is of pure Carrara marble. The shaft measures about ninety-four English feet, by twelve in diameter at the base, and ten below the cap- ital, which is Doric and carved out of a single block ; the column is composed of thirty -four blocks, hollowed out internally and cut into a winding stair. A series of bas-reliefs, divided from one another by a narrow band, run spirally around the shaft parallel to the in- ner staircase of a hundred and eighty-two steps, and describes twenty-three circuits to reach the platform on which the statue is placed. The foot and the pedestal are seventeen feet high ; the torus, of enor- mous diameter, is a monolith ; the whole construction rises a hundred and thirty-five feet from the ground. Basilica of S. John Lateran. S. JOHN LATEKAN. 325 These thirty-four blocks, measuring eleven metres in circumference by one in height, had — a task of con- siderable precision — to have holes drilled in them for the screws of the staircase, it being necessary to de- termine from the inside precisely where these borings must be made in order not to break the continuity of the bas-reliefs, executed by several different hands, and which are more deeply worked in proportion as they gain in height, so as to appear of an equal pro- jection. From the Ulpian Basilica, where he has just made the church free, let us follow Constantine to his Lateran house, where he founded the first cathedral. Built by Constantine in the enclosure of his palace, S. John Lateran is the metropolis of the Roman bishop- ric, as officially recognized by the emperors. The son of S. Helena, as he had announced at the foot of Trajan's Column, set apart for the cathedral and habi- tation of the bishops a portion of his own residence to the east of the Ccelian, the old confiscated domain of that Plautius Lateranus who was driven from the Sen- ate and exiled for having been one of Messalina's lovers ; afterwards recalled, he was put to death by Nero for having taken part in the conspiracy of Piso and Epicharis. It was he who, when stabbed by the tribune Statins, died without pronouncing a word or uttering a complaint, "plenus constantis sikntii," says Tacitus, " nee trihuno objiciens eamdem conscientiam." The name of Lateranus, who perished in the year 326 ROME. of the martyrdom of S. Peter, was destined to an un- foreseen but lasting renown ; for after Constantino had finished his primitive church, adorned with such splendor that it was called the Golden Basilica, after also S. Sylvester had consecrated it to the Saviour, and eight years later, after Lucius II. had dedicated it to the two saints John, the foundation of Constan- tino continued to bear the name of Lateranus, of that victim whose memory the people had perpetuated in the designation of an imperial palace basely acquired. The poet Prudentius Clemens, who wrote in the fourth century, spoke of the Basilica of Lateran : " Who does not now despise the polluted altar of Jupiter, to run with the multitude to the abode of Lateranus in search of the royal unction of the Chris- tian !" Elected in the church in Lucinis, a designation de- rived, according to Pliny, from lucus, S. Damasus was consecrated in the Lateran Basilica ; it is there that ever since the time of Sylvester I. the popes have taken forrnal possession of their see. At S. Peter of the Vatican the pope is the spiritual sover- eign of the world ; at S. John Lateran he is bishop of Rome ; the basilica of S. John is the cathedral of Rome. Hence the church has been described as Mater et caput ecclesiarum urbis et orbis. S. John Lateran preserves its pre-eminence ; in the procession which starts from the nave of S. Peter's the clergy of the Vatican Basilica only take the sec- S. JOHN LATERAN. 327 ond place. From all time this mother church has kept its liturgic rites. " The church of Lateran," wrote Abelard to S. Bernard, "this mother church of all the others, retains the ancient office, which none of her daughters do, not even the church of the Roman palace." It allowed no other prayer than the Pater. " It is seemly," wrote Deacon John in the thirteenth century, " that the supreme church should use only the supreme prayer." He adds that at the third versicle of the Agnus Dei they left out the dona nobis pacem, the Lateran being the symbol of the eternal temple in which Christ shall be the peace of the just, and in which there will be no more need of craving it. S. John Lateran had no doors, only cur- tains, in order that people might be able to find refuge there at any hour ; it was through this metropohs that the right of asylum was handed down from the pagan temples to our churches. Until the reign of Pius VII. the newly-elected pope, after leaving the Quirinal, used to come and take possession of the cathedral of Lateran ; riding thither on a white mule richly caparisoned, preceded by the religious orders, the cardinals, the bishops, and patriarchs, escorted by the Swiss and the Guardia NobUo. An old en- graving, the accession of Clement X., is the only thing that can now represent to us this suppressed procession. Of aU these grandeurs no other witness is left save a Baptistery, separated from the church by a court. 328 EOME. and disfigured by various restorations ; the eight col- umns of porphyry, surmounted by eight columns of marble, supporting the octagonal cupola, are, how- ever, in Constantinian style, as well as the pillars and the ancient entablature, which, though now set in the wall, still mark the centre of the ancient porch. There, according to a Roman legend, Constantino was baptized ; but this is a mistake, for he did not receive baptism until at Nicomedia he felt the ap- proach of death. In those days they gladly put off baptism as long as possible, as it was a purification from all stains. Its Baptistery apart, San Giovanni in Laterano is now little more than a spot consecrated by great memories. The basilica of Constantine had lasted ten centuries, when, towards 1308, a fire destroyed the temple and palace. Clement V., who lived at Avignon, commenced the reconstruction, and carried it on to an advanced stage ; then Urban V. and Alex- ander VI. continued and decorated it ; Pius IV. bur- dened the nave with its heavy gilded ceiling, and erected on the piazza the lateral fa9ade with its two bell-towers, too far apart ; Sixtus V. commissioned Fontana to add the portico, and Salimbeni to paint it. It was there that Nicholas Cordier placed the bronze statue of Henry IV., canon, like all the sovereigns of France, of S. John Lateran. Giacomo della Porta, under Clement VIII., rebuilt the transept; Borromini rebuilt the rest under Innocent X.; Clement XII. S. JOHN LATEEAN. 329 had the principal facade erected by Galilei, a mean imitation of that of S. Peter, and, like that, sur- mounted by a regiment of statues. The style of the forerunners of Bernini pervades the work ; as at the Vatican, there is a vast portico with the Porta Santa at the extremity, and five other entrances, of which the central one, in bronze, is said to come from the ^milian basilica : at the end of the gallery rises a colossal statue of Constantine, the only authentic likeness of that emperor. Under the aisles you find the enormous pilasters of S. Peter, square piers in which Borromini imprisoned fine columns of granite : and in these pilasters, niches, whence project twelve distorted and dull colossi of the Apostles, imitations of the attitudinizing giants of S. Peter's. Bas-rehefs, statues, pictures, facings of grey marble, — all is pale and cold, all has a savor of artifice and the theatre. Highly extoUed, as a masterpiece of the exuberance of the decline, is the Corsini chapel, containing the tombs of Clement XII. and his uncle, the cardinal Neri ; but the first is bad, and the second a burlesque. To realize how far art has fallen, you must examine the chapel of the Torlonia, where, however, Tenerani has executed in very high relief a Descent from the Cross in a pure and delicate style, though it is too sentimental for religious inspiration. Near the door, at the back of a pillar, a small fresco attributed to Giotto hands down to us the likeness of Boniface VIII., who, placed between two cardinals. 330 KOME. proclaims the jubilee of 1300.* The pontifical high altar, where the Pope celebrates facing the people, occupies the centre of the arm of the cross, and is surmounted by a tabernacle or ciborium of the four- teenth century, adorned with Sienese frescoes of ex- qxiisite composition. In the small subjects of the Coronation and the Annunciation, the heads possess that delicate and dreamy beauty which delights us in the works of Guido and Duccio ; but by the care of Pius IX. these works have been restored so " con- scientiously," that at first I took them for contempo- rary pasticci. However, the holy father had a fine staircase constructed to lead to the Confession of S. John, which is guarded by one of the Colonna, Pope Martin V,, worthily entombed by Simone, brother of Donatello. Although S. John Lateran has been re- built at least three times, we are led to suppose that the fire of 1308, which destroyed the building of the fourth century, still spared the apse, or else that this chevet had been re-erected before the end of the thirteenth ; for the vault of the tribune is decorated with mosaics signed by Jacopo da Turrita, and Fra Jacopo da Camerino, and executed in 1291 for Pope Nicholas IV. ; Gaddo Gaddi is said to have finished them. In sentiment and style they are not very re- -X- " Pope Boniface VIII. , between two priests announcing the Jubilee, exhibits in the features of the Pope a remarkable union of cunning and hilarity, combined with a certain dignity of form." — Kugler, Hand-book of Painting. S. JOHN LATERAN. 331 mote from art as it was practiced in the He de France between 1200 and 1250 ; but here the design has more suppleness, and the color has a sweet and tender brightness, which the mosaic workers of Venice two centuries later seldom surpassed. Pious and trustful souls will have shown to them the table on which our Lord partook of supper with his disciples the night before his death ;* in any case the wood is very old. Let me call attention to the pavement, rosettes and festoons of costly marble, embroidered with mosaics separated by plaques of porphyry ; we owe this carpet of precious stones to Martin V., who died in 1431. I might also point out for their value alone, some remarkable columns of red oriental granite which define the nave, and the fluted pillars of giallo antico which support the organ ; the first are thirty-four feet high ; the second, also monoliths and the largest known of this rare material, are nine metres high. But the great mar- vels are the four fluted columns in gilded bronze of the altar of the Holy Sacrament ; they are not leSs than eight and a half feet in circumference. On their enormous composite capitals reposes an entablature of bronze ; the purity of the lines, the precision of the flutings, the curve of the volutes, the relief of the acanthus, the sparkling play of light on these bouquets of golden leafage — everything about this gigantic * Or on which S. Peter celebrated mass ? 332 KOME. gold-work produces a feeling of astonishment and entire satisfaction. Then, what theories there are as to their origin ! It was Octavianus, say some, who, out of the bronze prows of the vessels taken at Actium, had these votive columns made to be placed in the Capitol. They took them, say others, from the basilica of the great Julius, or from the palace of Titus. There are those, again, who think they belonged to the Golden Basilica, at the time when Constantino made of it one of the marvels of Rome. If you are bent on finding some remains of the Lateran buildings dating back to a respectable age, you must seek them in the cloister. This monument of the thirteenth century, the arches of which sur- mounted by mosaics rest on small columns diversified by an ingenious fancy, this cloister is one of the most delicious erections in Rome or in the world. It can only be compared to that of S. Paul, belonging to the same epoch ; they both have that variety character- istic of the architecture of the middle ages. Under the arcades you see the massive throne of the old basilica ; how many pontiffs have sat on this since the eighth century ! Here also are preserved a num- ber of bas-reliefs earlier than the fourteenth century, and notably, among other fragments of the old altar, a graceful carving, in which some small clerks blow with pipes on the pan of a censer. Let us also notice a marble statue of Boniface VIII. In the middle of S. CEOCE. 333 this coui-t, with some neglected plants growing around it, is a fine well of the sixth century. From S. John Lateran to Santa Croce, the fourth basilica of Rome, the distance is short. S. Helen, when she brought back from Jerusalem the Saviour's cross, built a church for it, which, being rebuilt by Benedict XIV. in 1743, with the exception of the apse, still betrays the inclination to imitate S. Peter's. But the bolder fa5ade does not want grace ; a pretty open campanile of the thirteenth century, a rustic chapel close by, masses of trees grouped among the buildings, make of the little church of Domenico Gregorini a series of landscapes. One would not feel bound to visit it, however, were it not for some frescoes which, although a little too much retouched, leave no doubt as to the name of their author, Pinturicchio.* They represent the finding of the holy cross ; the discovery of the three pieces of wood, the trials to which they were sub- jected, and the procession of S. Helen on her return to Jerusalem, Christ hovers above the semicircle. These compositions are dramatic, still simple and already skilful : it is the apogee of the inspired school which immediately precedes Michael Angelo and Raphael. Near the high altar you descend to the chapel of S. Helen, where the light is too poor to get a very satisfactory view of the mosaics, mistakenly * Attributed by Crowe and Cavalcaselle to Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. 334 KOME. attributed to Balthazar Peruzzi. This chapel is di- vided in two by a gi'ating, which women cannot pass without incurring excommunication, the reserved space containing a chest in which they keep a very large fragment of the true cross, the only one whose authenticity can be guaranteed. Let us return to the Piazza del Laterano. Soli- tude and silence reign on this deserted grass-grown plateau; the obehsk of Thothmes, the greatest of known monoliths, casts a shadow which from morn- ing to night travels around the piazza without meet- ing a creature. The street which, since the time of the Flavians, has led from the Coliseum to the palace of Lateranus, grows more and more deserted as you approach the square ; and when from a rather ele- vated point you view the few surrounding houses, those nearest to the church lower than the others, it seems as though they were prostrating themselves before their mother. Two hospitals, some cloistered buildings which connect the baptistery with the chevet of the church, the principal front of the palace, with its peculiarly cold aspect — there you have the Piazza del Laterano. On whichever side you turn, however, sight and mind are well repaid. From the ancient Porta Asinaria, by which Totila invaded Rome, to the Preenestine gate marked by the triumphal arch of Agrippa, the glacis descending in a gentle slope is bounded by the crenelated walls of Aurelian, in which the Amphitheatrum Castrense is incrusted, a ring THE LATERAN PIAZZA. 335 whose collet is the basilica of S. Croce. On the other horizon, vague outlying spaces are surrounded by the Neronian and Claudian aqueducts connecting them- selves with the walls, beyond which you discover the theatre of the earliest wars of the republic, spreading plains across which lie the old roads, recognizable by their tombs. The horizon is terminated by hills, and the ancient cities of Latium which decorate the ped- estals of the kSabine Hills. To mark these successive distances are curtains of dark trees, and nearer, in front of the Scala Santa where pilgrims climb on their knees the eight-and-twenty steps of the staircase of Pontius Pilate, the TricHnium, a fragment of the ancient refectory of the popes of the eighth century : Benedict XIV. added to it an apse with copies of three mosaics of Leo III. on a golden ground. That in the middle represents the apostles girding them- selves to go forth and preach to the nations ; the two others, S. Sylvester and Constantino receiving from Christ's hands the Labarum and the keys ; then S. Peter giving the pallium to Leo III. and the standard to Charles the Great ; two portraits of the time, which are unique, and which survive in the open air. Around you in this deserted extremity of the city, all is monumental, but without symmetry ; all is cele- brated and neglected. At long intervals you meet a few sick people, who have come in from the fields to climb the Scala Santa. No spot seems so well exposed to the purifying breezes 336 EOME. from the mountains, none less swampy nor farther away from unwholesome quarters ; yet fever reigns on this plateau, and has reigned there from all time, to such an extent as to depopulate it. But what is stiU more singular, this fever-stricken spot has been selected as a site for two hospitals for fever patients. The palace is only inhabited by custodians. Six- tus V. had it rebuilt by Fontana on the foundations of the old edifice, which was burnt in the sixteenth century. The interior, a cloister with two stories, is damp, austere, and cold. As men could not live there, Gregory XVI. installed statues in it, and Pius IX. an historical museum which is curious in a very different way. Let us begin with a brief notice of the Gregorian collections, which occupy no less than fourteen apart- ments. First there is a bas-relief of Trajan with three other figures, a fragment from the old arch of that emperor, which has been taken from his Forum. No other likeness of Trajan has such delicacy or such truth of expression — the intellectual and benevolent physiognomy of a man who, understanding all, can pardon all. A pretty bas-relief of Medea with Jason made young again was found in a tomb of the Ap- pian Way — a symbolical eulogy of a young woman by some happy greybeard. The boast of this col- lection is the Antinoiis, the drapery of which has been re-handled, but whose execution is marked by a wonderful polish. It represents a stout young man, STATUE OF SOPHOCLES. 337 sleek, with a touch of sensuaUty, and in my opinion savors of the inferiority of its aim ; the body, so per- fect in its finish, is treated in a heavy manner. The Braschi found this masterpiece near Palestrina, and Pope Gregory paid seventy thousand francs for it. After giving some attention to a collection of cippi from the Appian Way, I stopped in front of two Hermes with fauns' heads ; they have that goatish character, fuU of wantomiess and irony, that forked beard and those V-shaped eyebrows over round eyes, which constitute the type of the devil, especially since the Germans, under the inspiration of Goethe, have given him the traits of the satyr. The Gregorian museum possesses the finest draped statue I have ever seen ; it represents a man of noble carriage, eloquent, sure of himself, accustomed to dazzle, practised in making his talents avail by a seductive authority of mien. Outlined from head to foot beneath the clever negligence of the drapery, this figure is a triumphant success, and the great Sophocles, — for it is he as Jahn and Welcker have proved, — falls with ease into the studied attitude which has become natural to him, and which com- pletes the representation. Under the folds of the robe, half-tightened around him, the lines of the body are seen in a harmonious curve, the head harmoniz- ing perfectly with the attitude. It was near the old Anxur that they dug up this masterpiece in the time of Gregory XVI., and the family of the counts An- 22 338 ROME. tonelli offered it to the sovereign : it is even main- tained that it was in order to lodge it worthily that Pope Capellari transformed the palace into a museum. Let us also mention among a host of objects of the high- est interest to the antiquary, a tombstone of a master mason with a wheel for raising stones on it. Another sarcophagus shows us the arch consecrated to Isis, replaced on the highest point of the Via Sacra by the Arch of Titus. But the Lateran Palace has objects of a more curious kind in the galleries and in some chambers of the upper story, where are preserved the boxers and gladiators in mosaic that were taken from the Thermse of Caracalla. These naked figures, stronger than nature, are likenesses to which are attached the models' names ; realistic works, if ever there were any, of vigor in all its ugliness, animal vigor stripped of all conventional treatment. Let us proceed to that portion of the museum which was an idea of Pius IX. The pontiff wished the house of Constantino and the first cloister of S. Sylvester to become a museum of Christian epigraphy and iconography. So, adding to the inscriptions, the tombstones, and sarcophagi dug up every day in the course of the excavations, fac-similes of paintings that it was neither possible nor proper to remove from the catacombs, Pius IX. formed so rich a col- lection, that all along the broad state staircase, on the landings, in the chambers and galleries of the first THE LATERAN MUSEUM. 339 story, the walls are entirely covered. The pope had all these objects classified by the man most learned in such matters, the Cavalier de' Rossi. This museum is a unique source of information as to the forms, the rites, the spirit, and the tendencies of dogma in those almost unknown ages. At the first steps of the staircase you are stopped by a series of sarcophagi, on which bas-reliefs bring together the correlative symbols of the Old Testa- ment and the New. One of the most complete is a large Constantinian vessel, the carvings of which placed over one another in pairs, and grouping several subjects in four divisions, reproduce the symbolism of our spiritual history. Man and his companion are represented as created not by the Father, but by the Trinity ; Jesus draws from the side of Adam the first woman, the Father touches her brow, the Holy Spirit breathes a soul into her. The Son and the Holy Spirit are always beardless ; the Father, after Olym- pian precedents, is also young, as Diespiter was. Then comes the Fall, so represented as to banish every painful or humiliating idea : Christ gives to Adam and Eve the emblems of labor ; to him some ears of wheat, to her a sheep whose wool she is to spin. The second canto opens with the Incarnation of the Son ; the magi come to adore ; the Virgin is attended by two youths, the Holy Spirit and S. Jo- seph : the latter is usually represented as young in the primitive monuments. In the next bas-relief 340 KOME. Christ gives sight to the man born blind — symbol of the redemption. Then S. Peter denies his master : at his feet the cock crows ; this second fall is a pen- dant to the first. Then the apostle repentant, and confessing the faith, is dragged along by pagans. Finally he becomes Moses, and explains the sense of the figures ; it is he, Peter, who strikes the rock and makes the water gush forth, in which we see a troop of the faithful borne along ; Moses and Peter play alternately the same part. Then we come to the Eucharist figured in two ways, by the Marriage of Cana, and the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes. The fish, (;f/Jy?, incomplete anagram of Xpcazo^j was a mysterious sign for the adepts of evan- gelical law I it often appears on a mausoleum among pagan divinities ; only the Christians knew the sig- nificance of the hieroglyph. These signs were indis- pensable for the neophytes who, mingling in the pagan world, concealed the dangerous mystery of their faith ; it was said or written of a friend, in giv- ing news of him : " He eats the fish — he lives on fish." The meaning escaped the profane. In Augustine's Civitas Dei I find this passage : " Fish is the myste- rious name of Christ, who, plunged into our mortality, could keep himself living in it, that is, without sin." In the centre of the sarcophagus are two blank medal- lions : these tombs were prepared and carved before- hand, room being reserved for the portraits of the future purchasers. EAELY CHRISTIAN ART. 341 The study of symbols teaches us to determine the Christian myths of those early times : we see religion completely formed at the end of the first century, in which paintings and sculptures are taken by choice either from the Gospel of S. John, a tardy and vic- torious reply to the scholars who thought it later than Eutychian ; or from the allegorical picture of the reign of Nero, written by the same apostle at Patmos, and called the Apocalypse. Recent researches have shown equally plainly, contrary to the assertion of Mgr. Gerbet, that the first Christians did by no means abstain from personifying God the Father. For a long time they dissembled the mystery of the sacra- ments under emblems : the passage of the Red Sea meant baptism ; the bHnd restored to sight, penitence ; Jonas interprets the idea of resurrection. Adam, the first sinner, is always beautiful ; Eve is often seated by the side of Mary, and in the hand of the first woman they place not one apple, but seven — the deadly sins. I noticed on frescoes of the first century, the Magian kings reduced to two, or raised to four ; they wear Phrygian caps, and in these paintings the Virgin is always pretty and elaborately draped. Cer- tain subjects are represented by symbolical animals, on account of their crudity : thus, a sheep between two foxes on the edge of a fountain represents the chaste Susannah. So far as concerns usages and costumes, these drawings are invaluable. Besides the facsimiles, they have placed in the collection the 342 ROME. remains of frescoes, from the era of the Csesars down to the fifteenth century, fixed on canvas with much skill. Of the greatest interest is the seated statue of S. Hippolytus, bishop of Porto, a work of the third century discovered in the catacombs of S. Lawrence. The head is a restoration, but engraved against the episcopal seat is the Paschal calendar, which the prelate composed to refute the Quartodecimani, who obstinately persisted in celebrating Easter on the same day as the Jews. The obehsk on the Piazza of S. John Lateran is, as I have said, the loftiest of the monoliths, and is covered with curious hieroglyphics. Constantino placed it on ship board ; had it dragged to Rome, and set it up in the Circus Maximus. Overthrown by the barbarians, it broke into three pieces, and was buried in the earth ; Sixtus V., who dug it up, had the pieces joined together, and then erected it before his palace of Lateran.* Gifted with most energetic activity, this pontiff had a passion for astonishing colossi. It led him to ex- hume the needle of Rhamses III., which Octavianus brought back from Heliopolis after Actium, and which Pliny attributes to one of the Pharaohs named Sem- sertes ; Sixtus V. had it set up in the Piazza del * One of its inscriptions states that "The King has erected to (Amen) these immense obelisks at the upper door of the temple of Apet over against the city of Thebes." Tehut-mes III. (1600 B. C. cir. ) was the Alexander the Great of Egyptian History. ANCIENT OBELISKS. 343 Popolo. It is the second of the three obelisks which are earlier than Cambyses ; the third is that of which Augustus made a gnomon in the middle of the Cam- pus Martius ; it marked the time by the projection of its shadow on a dial-plate engraved in the marble. Pius VI. disinterred this solar obelisk in 1789, placed a globe on the top of it, and made it an ornament of the Piazza of Monte Citorio, an eminence formed from the substructions of an amphitheatre erected by Statilius Scaurus. Clement XI. placed in front of the Pantheon the ancient needle of the temples of Isis and Serapis ; Alexander VII. re-erected that of the Minerva, found in 1665 in the gardens of the Do- minicans ; Pius VI. dug up from the gardens of Sal- lust that of the Trinity, and from the tomb of Augus- tus that of the Quirinal. It was there also that Sixtus V. found the obehsk in red granite of S. Maria Mag- giore, about the time when he placed in front of the Vatican basilica the obelisk of Caligula, which is of less archseological value, since it is free from inscrip- tions and of modern origin, for Caius Caligula had it cut. Yet of all these various obelisks, the last is per- haps the most renowned, because to its erection be- longs the weU-known anecdote of the man who, in the midst of the silence imposed under penalty of death by the first of the absolute pontiffs, saved the day, when the ropes were breaking, by calling to Fontana, " Acqua aUefuni .'" — water on the ropes. This spec- tator was a coaster of the Grenoese Riviera, named 344 KOME. Bresca. He obtained for his reward authority to fly the pontifical flag at his mast, and the hereditary privilege of supplying the apostolic palace with palm- leaves on Pahn-Sunday, THE COLONNA PALACE. 345 CHAPTER XVI I. The Colonna Palace is situated between the Corso and the Quiriaal, on whose slopes its gardens extend. It, together with the church of the Santi Apostoli, oc- cupies one of the great sides of a long piazza, bounded on the north by the narrow Saporelli Palace, where died the last Stuart, nominally James III. It was at the Saporelli Palace that a young maiden was brought up, whose romantic reminiscences and correspondence have been skilfully treated by Edmund About in the romance of ToUa. This heroine came to die near here in the convent of S. Antonio, which touches on the Piazza S. Maria Maggiore. On account of certain analogies of style, the Colonna Palace presents a curious appearance to persons who have studied the decorations of our royal residences of the great period. It is not that the galleries are filled with paintings, but that the selections are happy, the portraits of the family are of the highest value, and the Colonna Palace preserves pictures that are not to be found elsewhere. Such, for instance, is the portrait in profile of a young man, by that Giovanni Santi, Raphael's father, of whom our biographers have not failed to make a mediocre painter, in order 346 EOME. to enhance the genius of the son. Unluckily, the works of Santi are very rare, but they are generally of a warm and vigorous coloring for pictures of such exquisite finish : the Giovinetto of the Colonna Palace unites to the delicate drawing of a Francia the deep coloring of a Venetian. Among those pictures which are sure to attract all eyes, one cannot help naming the Madonna and Child of Botticelli, and the same subject with S. John, by Giulio Eomano, two works of rare value ; the latter of them has the charm of a Raphael of the second period. Near a small portrait of Maria Mancini, of a beauty that explains the youth- ful ardor of Lewis XIV., is a Last Judgment executed by Pietro of Cortona expressly for the Colonna family; a most comical idea is presented in it with the great- est gravity. You see emerging from their tombs all the heroes of the race down to Philip Colonna, who was twice married : Lucrezia, his first wife, seems outraged on her return to the light to see rising by her side another and a younger wife ; but an angel intervenes to explain the matter to her, while Philip Colonna, triumphant yet embarrassed, casts an oblique glance to see how it will end. A lively portrait of this same Isabel Colonna by Pietro Novelli, who has represented her on foot with her rosy-colored child rosily dressed, does still more to justify the posthumous jealousies of Lucrezia, whom Van Dyck in another picture has armed in warlike guise, to contest her charms before posterity. Clad Portrait of Maria Mancini. G. Netscher. THE COLONNA GALLEEY. 347 in black like her rival, and with an expressive head framed in a heavy friU, the lady as here represented is one of the most living triumphs of the Flemish master. These masterpieces are at the end of the great gallery of the Colonna ; discerned from a distance, they made us pass more quickly than we should otherwise have done by a Paris Bordone and a Boni- fazio, both of which are worth remembering ; also by the S. Jerome of Lo Spagna, the finest work of this faithful disciple of Perugino that is to be found in Rome. We were constrained, however, to salute in passing a fine Palma {rara avis) ; then two pre-emi- nent portraits, one by Paul Veronese and the other by Titian. The latter represents Onofrio Panvinio, the historian of Roman antiquities, a pensive face whence the life radiates from under a pale and trans- parent flesh-tint. As we were going away, we were arrested by Lorenzo Colonna, brother of Martin V., who held us fixed beneath his glance : it is Master Holbein who placed this gentleman in our way. His tawny beard mingles with the furs of a robe, and from his features life shines tranquilly out. Contrary to custom, the search for the real does not in this por- trait end in dryness ; the painting is rich and power- ful, and as the proportions are correct, the color as- sumes a deep brilliance. I have never seen one of Holbein's portraits comparable to this of Lorenzo Colonna. 348 EOME. Established in 1572, after the battle of Lepanto, to celebrate the glory of Marco Antonio Colonna, who commanded the Christian galleys against the Turks, the great gallery of this palace reminds one of that of S. Cloud, and still more of the gallery of mirrors at Versailles. The structure rests on pilasters in giallo antico ; medallions and bas-reliefs are displayed under each of the ten great windows, the spaces be- tween them being occupied by panoplies of oriental arms ; the frescoes along the arches of the ceiling tell the story of the Battle of Lepanto. On a series of mirrors arranged down the hall, Mario de' Fiori has painted Cupids among the finest garlands that his pencil ever drew. Add to all this elegance and wealth a pavement of ancient marbles; multiply in symmetri- cal proportions the furniture with itS' sweeping lines, the giant consoles whose slabs of oriental breccia are supported by Turks stooping and in fetters; the Asiatic cabinets in ivory and lapis and ebony ; count up the statues, the groups, the portraits, the car- touches ; and you will have an idea of this vast gal- lery where, as at S. Cloud, the paintings like the portraits form a part of the ornamentation. The more you look, the more convinced you are that Man- sart drew his inspiration for the decoration of Ver- sailles from the great hall of the Colonna Palace, and what increases the probability of this imitation is the timidity of the copy. Enter the sanctuary : the Colonna await you there THE COLONNA PORTRAITS. 349 in the full-dress of immortality, thanks to Van Dyck, who has painted a superb equestrian portrait of Carlo Colonna ; to Scipione Gaetano, who presents to us the victorious Constable ; to Agostino Caracci, who stands godfather to the Cardinal Pompeo Colonna; to Sustermans, who has treated Federigo with a mas- ter-hand ; to Giorgione who, on a background of feudal country with strong castle and glacis, has created the mighty armed figure of Giacomo Sciarra Colonna. Other pieces, subjects taken from history and saintship, give variety to the scene, and leave space and air between all these personages, whose company you wiU hardly quit without making your bow before the poetic Vittoria Colonna, that muse of delicate and penetrative loveliness. To reach the second vestibule you ascend a few marble steps; one of these, it is hard to realize, was broken during the last siege by a cannon-ball which, having been dis- charged from the Janiculum, must, to reach here, have passed straight through the four windows of two houses divided by a court, then entered the end of the gallery and flown down its entire length without encountering an obstacle. Justly promoted to the rank of a curiosity, the projectile has been fixed in the block of marble which it indented. Quite close to these steps you find, between a false Poussin and a suspicious Ghirlandajo, the S. John the Baptist of Salvator Rosa, very curious on account of its striking personality ; it is the portrait of the artist, who took 350 EOME. this original pretext for representing himself naked in a wilderness. Two or three bridges thrown across the deep and narrow Via deUa Pilotta connect the palace and its escarped gardens, whose trees cast festoons of shad- ows on the paving below. The palace, the ruins two thousand years old, the basins of green water, and the steep walls buried beneath a cascade of flowers — all are in the very heart of the town, and of a very populous quarter. Every one knows that the popes enclosed the most notable portion of the Quirinal between the walls of the vast palace, in which they established a residence, if not for summer, at least for the semi-season, and also one for winter. But this erection ol Gregory XIII., designed by the Lombard, Flaminio Ponzio, finished under Sixtus V. and Clement VIII. by Fon- tana, enlarged by Carlo Maderno, completed by Fuga and Bernini, and restored under Pius VII. — the work of ten pontiffs, the Quirinal Palace, did not until quite lately give its name to the piazza which its prin- cipal fa9ade decorates. In the middle of the piazza a jet of water plays in a basin of oriental granite ; Pius VII. brought it thither from the Forum ; above the basin stand clearly outlined against the sky two athletic statues and two marble horses, placed there by Sixtus V.; afterwards, Pius VI. subordinated the two groups, reducing them to serve as accessories to an obelisk of red granite, once posted as sentinel be- PIAZZA QUIEINALE. 351 fore the Mausoleum of Augustus. These fine figures, and still finer coursers — groups in wl)ich the Quirites amused themselves by recognizing their old patrons, Castor and Pollux — these masterpieces attributed to Praxiteles and Phidias, chose the hiU for their pedes- tal, and re-named it. Unfortunately, they are cut out of a porous marble which the damp blackens, and are placed too high to be efi^ctive ; the obelisk planted between the two also disperses their interest, and this conflict of precious works adorning the Piazza Monte Cavallo produces a discordant effect. The group is almost opposite the window where, at the close of the papal conclaves, they used to proclaim the result. Seen from the outside, the building is a fairly handsome barrack, of sober aspect, and little archi- tectural elegance. Ample staircases, an enormous court of cloistered appearance, peculiarly arranged gardens — such is the aspect of the Quirinal. When the popes inhabited it each room had its special purpose ; one saw in all this multitude of minute arrangements, a pitiless etiquette, which only made a slave and a victim of the prince who was bound to submit to it, and to keep it up. There was not a cabinet, nor a private corridor, nor a secret staircase ; the palace was transparent ; only the patience of a monk and the innocence of a dove could have acclimatized themselves in this great cage, whose bars were hidden under all manner of representations 352 EOME. of free life and power portrayed in tapestries, pre- sented by various princes. Our Gobelins, under Lewis XIV. and Lewis XV. furnished the best pieces; all Jean Jouvenet went there ; Napoleon III. only figured in the copy of a Ribera. In front of these hangings shone great imperial vases from China; but the seats were of wood, waxed and poUshed as in the parlor of a hospital. As they chose the subjects of the decorative paintings from the Holy Scriptures, you seemed to be going through a suite of Florentine or Sienese sacristies, too freely and tawdrily deco- rated. The severity of the cloister shrunk from the use of mirrors and glasses, but the chimney-pieces had panels of porphyry and rosso antico, as well as bronze bas-reliefs. There were also a few good pictures, two very fine figures of Fra Bartolommeo, S. Peter and S. Paul, produced in 1514 under the influence of Michael An- gelo, at a time when our monk came to make the pil- grimage to the Sixtine chapel. The S. Paul, which is the better of the two, has some analogy with the Isaiah of Sanzio, that young friend of a too impres- sionable artist. Delia Porta left the S. Peter un- finished, and Raphael completed it: the contemptu- ousness of Leo X. had repulsed Fra Bartolommeo. I remember also a chamber where Overbeck decorated a ceiling, but which has associations of far more in- terest ; this is the room in which Pius IX. received the envoys of the Revolution, and in which nearly S. MARIA DEGLI ANGELI. 353 half a century before Pius VII. had been arrested — two painful reminiscences. The gardens of this great convent turned into a residence for the sovereign pontiffs, was furnished with terraces, statues, fountains, clipped avenues, parterres cut into arabesques, architectural arbors, and a flaunting kiosk which Fuga erected to serve as a buffet, in which the holy father in the midst of the landscapes of Battoni and Orizonte offered sherbet and coffee to the grandees of this world. There came certain days when the sleepy, grass- grown Quirinal saw the carriages and rich Uveries of the prelates rolling up one after another in front of its walls. Then the palace transformed into an hotel for cardinals, was surrounded each evening by a motley populace of twenty nationalities, who with eyes fixed on a large balcony, awaited the name of the master whom the conclave had chosen for themselves, to launch it on the echoes of the whole world.* The Via di Porta Pia,t a continuation of that of the Quirinal, wiU take us to the church of S. Maria degli Angeli. Buonarotti was over eighty when he took it into his head to plant in the rotunda of the Thermse of Diocletian a church, the buUding of which * The Quirinal Palace, now the Palazzo Regie, was taken pos- session of by the Italian Government after the 20th of September, 1870, and is now the residence of the king. Pius IX. never oc- cupied it after his flight to Caeta in 1848. Victor Emmanuel II. died there in 1878. The conclave now meets in the Vatican. t Now Via Venti Settembre. 23 354 EOME. he had been intrusted with by Pius IV. He accord- ingly raised the floor of the temple twelve feet, at the same time preserving the eight enormous monolithic columns of Egyptian granite which supported the en- tablature, and facing the bases with marble. It was to S. Maria degli Angeli that they brought, after adroitly carrying it off from S. Peter's and sub- stituting for it a mosaic copy, Zampieri's Martyrdom of S. Sebastian ; the saint, the angels, and the Christ appearing in the heavens, are most magisterial fig- ures ; in the foreground is a group of women and of common people trampled on by the cavalry, while they strangle the martyr ; a veritable masterpiece of movement and execution. You pass this in order to reach the famous cloister, one of the largest that exists. In the centre of the porticus, with its hundred pil- lars of travertine, four enormous, time-tossed cy- presses, which Michael Angelo planted, hide the edge of the tomb-like well : the distant hnes of the low gal- leries against a blue sky give to these sombre giants colossal dimensions. The square of the court is a kitchen garden, in which smile some Bengal roses, but nothing interferes with the grave and silent poetry of an enclosure consecrated to meditation. Let us now follow the street of the Quattro Fon- tane, as far as our church of the Trinita de' Monti, buUt on the Pincian in 1494 by Charles VIII. for the brethren of S. Francesco de Paolo. It is a mediocre THE SPANISH STAIES. 355 building, but with a somewhat imposing appearance ; to preserve a favorable idea of it, confine yourself as long as possible to looking at the outside, especially from the Piazza di Spagna, where it crowns a mag- nificent staircase. As you issue from that cosmopoli- tan street baptized by the subterranean conduits (condotti) of the Acqua Vergine, you are dazzled by the cascade of steps, surmounted by two encorbelled terraces, which in turn are crowned by an obelisk and the church. These stairs, designed by A. Spec- chi and completed by De' Sanctis, are not due, as is so constantly said, to a M. Gouffier, our ambassador; France never sent to the popes any ambassador of that name. It was Cardinal Melchior de Polignac who, when French minister at the court of Benedict Xm., utihzed and augmented by two-thirds a sum that had been left in 1632 for this purpose by one of his predecessors, Guefiier — a sum that had remained unemployed up to this time, because it was insuffi- cient : the princely structure was not completed until 1725. The foot of the steps is marked by a grotesque fountain, the Barcaccia, which is erroneously attrib- uted by some of our writers to Bernini, whereas it is really the work of his father, Pietro Bernini, whose adventurous spirit led him to seek his fortune in the region of Naples. The fountain consists of a small boat, foundered in a basin on a level with the ground; in the middle of the barque is a vase from which a 366 EOME. jet of water shoots up. The design lacks common sense, only the defect is so obvious as not to be worth demonstrating. The object of the Barcaccia is to re- call a memorable circumstance : towards 1624 the waters of the Tiber, passing through the whole city and invading the Corso and the adjoining streets, mounted to the foot of the Pincian, and a barcLue was moored at the bottom of the Piazza di Spagna.* On the Piazza di Spagna, in front of the College of the Propaganda, the nursery of missionaries for barbarous countries, rises the column of the Immaco- lata, erected in honor of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception tirst promulgated in 1854. They used for this purpose a shaft of Carystian marble, exhumed in 1778 from the Piazza Campo Marzio. Everybody has ascended a hundred times the slope leading from the piazza to which the palace of the Spanish ambassadors has given its name, to the Villa Medici and the Pincian Gardens. In proportion as you rise, you see the fa9ade of the Trinita de' Monti lessen ; it is cut in two by a little obelisk planted in front of the portico, where it tries to make itself big by the aid of a pedestal which is too long. Close by the steps of the church, two popes have displayed their arms ; first is an enormous capital * Hare says that the design of this fountain commemorates the ''Naumachia of Domitian, naval battles which took place in .... a kind of theatre which once occupied the site of this piazza." — Walks in Home, p. 46. TRINITA DE' MONTI. 357 taken from some temple of the third century ; and on this capital is fastened a tombstone, as the same thing has been done on the other side, this bit of bric-a- brac is an agreeable ornament to the space from which the Via Gregoriana and the Via Sistina branch out, separated by the house where Claude Lorraine lived, ten steps from that inhabited by Salvator Rosa, and near that of Nicholas Poussin. These three sanctu- aries guard the approach to the terrace, which ends in our academy of painting and the Pincian Gardens. This park extends to the end of the hill, and descends to the Piazza del Popolo, which used to flaunt so gaily on the festival of the Madonna, when, entering the city in gorgeous procession by the bridge of S. Angelo, the carriage of the sovereign pontiff, pre- ceded by the cross-bearer on a caparisoned mule, issued out of the Via di Ripetta on its way to S. Maria del Popolo. The Trinita de' Monti and the old convent of the Minimes are occupied by the nuns of the Sacre Cceur; a fine establishment, with most extensive grounds. The pupils wander innocently among gardens where MessaUna once took her pleasure ; and chatter where Galileo used to dream, when, after being condemned by the holy office, this great man was honorably in- stalled by the ambassador of Tuscany in the palace of the Grand Dukes. Nearly every morning I passed in front of the Trinita, on my way either to the Pincian for a view 358 EOME. of the hills lighted up by the rising sun, or to the Villa Medici, at the approaches to which the artists always find some damsels from the fields clad in rustic attire awaiting them, samples of local color for the use of the studios. There used often to plant herself, a ravishing creature, whom our students did their best to see with the eyes of Leonardo — the Pascuccia, whose wide black eyes and waving hair I have sub- sequently beheld on many a canvas. CASTELLANI'S ESTABLISHMENT. 359 CHAPTER XVII I. Close to the Fontana Trevi we may take the op- portunity of visiting a really unique industrial estab- lishment. Art is its object, and archaeological studies were the foundation of a business which offers to the public objects in the taste and fashion of the remotest ages of antiquity. From the jewels of Assyria, Egypt, and Greece, that he exhumed and studied, the goldsmith Castellani deduced a kind of work which was so vastly old as to seem quite new, and which promptly produced its own school ; his shops contain a rare collection, formed by a man of techni- cal skill both as amateur and dealer. From the very entrance he overpowers you ; his staircase is a mu- seum of odds and ends set in the walls. Pieces of inscriptions, mutilated bas-reliefs, lions and panthers from cabinets, heraldic wolves without head or tail, detritus of the sarcophagi ; he has utilized everything, and all serve to prepare ingenuous nabobs for the splendors of transcendent art-work. Besides, Cas- tellani has furnished credentials as to his knowledge of his art ; and his little books on the Jewellery of the Ancients and on Primitive Civilization have been placed by the papal government in the Index. 360 ROME. This collection of antique jewels, both from the east and the peoples of old Latium, is really of ines- timable value. Tombs have given up entire parures ; necklaces, bracelets, rings, ear-rings, brooches ; there are some Tuscan gems, marvels going back possibly to the Pelasgians. There are Etruscan mirrors on which engravings of fairy delicacy contain figured scenes from the Iliad and the Odyssey : there is a Torques, of most skilful workmanship ; a vase of Tyrrhenian silver, stamped with ornaments mixed with chimerical animals, and with a handle of miracu- lous finish. Among these masterpieces, the jewellery of Greece is inferior to that of Egypt ; Babylon is superior to Memphis, and the aborigines of Latium to the jewellers of Athens ; it is the half-fabulous nations from whom you must ask the secret of per- fection. Castellani had travelled through Europe and Asia trying to discover the method of soldering employed by the jewellers of old, and which enabled them to incorporate the most microscopic ornaments by an in- visible junction in an enamelled surface. One day during the carnival he fell in with a peasant girl on the Corso, who had in her ears barqiiettes like those of the Etruscan tombs He questioned her as to their origin, and found that they had been made by a vil- lage artificer in the heart of the Sabine Hills. It was in the workshop of this obscure craftsman that he found the lost art of Etruscan soldering, thus per- Avenue of the Villa Medici. VILLA MEDICI. 361 petuated by tradition for between twenty-five and thirty-five centuries. The copies due to Castellani's perseverance, and for the production of which he has had to invent a special set of instruments, are scarcely less miraculous than the Sabellian originals. From Castellani's let us ascend the Pincian, and visit the Villa Medici. Elevated on the hiU whence it dominates city and fields, the VUla Medici, which you see from all sides, is crowned by two pavilions rising above a broad and clear fagade. From the side which faces towards Rome, the building has a cold look ; large windows of tolerable simplicity, a very high doorway crowned by a balcony — such is the unostentatious arrange- ment adopted in 1540 by Annibale Lippi, when he erected the palace for Cardinal Montepulciano. This soberness was well conceived, especially if at the time they intended making the opposite side a gem of architecture enriched by a collection of bas- reliefs, the precious fragments of antique sculpture. This fafade, with its portico sustained on splendid columns and guarded by lions, contrasts vividly with the other, of which the design has, without the slight- est proof, been attributed to Michael Angelo. It is probable, moreover, that the plan was modified when Cardinal Alessandro de Medici acquired pos- session of it, and gave it his name. He amused him- self by decorating it in the few periods of leisure which he was allowed under Clement VIII. from the 362 EOME. negotiations with which he was charged at the courts of various sovereigns, among others that of the Bear- nais, Henry IV. On the death of Aldobrandini, the cardinal having been chosen pope on the 1st of April, 1605, he took the name of Leo XI., and died only twenty-seven days after, leaving as many regrets as he had inspired hopes. The Cardinal de' Medici commenced collections which under the Florentine sovereigns continued to enrich the villa on the Pin- cian : on the vase placed in front of the steps was once seen the Mercury of John of Bologna ; a docu- ment recently published informs us that in 1671 the young Marquis of Seignelay admired in these gardens Cleopatra, Ganymede, and Marsyas, as well as Niobe with her fourteen children. It was Cosmo III. who, towards the end of his interminable reign, despoiled the Roman viUa for the benefit of his gallery of the Uffizi at Florence ; the deserted husband of Margaret of Orleans died an octogenarian in 1723. At this period our school of painting was installed in the Corso in the palace of Nevers, so called after Philip Julian Mancini. Mazarin's nephew inherited the duchy of Nevers, which his uncle had bought in 1660 ; he was the brother of the cardinal's pretty nieces. When the twelve scholars of Charles Errard, the first director of the Academy which had been founded at the suggestion of Colbert, had been safely sheltered in the Corso, their chief lost no time in re- turning to Paris, Coypel having replaced him in 1672. THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 363 Two years before that, the same Errard, painter and architect, completed the construction of our church of the Assumption and its unsuccessful cupola. They had chosen this artist to inaugurate the new institu- tion, on the ground that he knew Rome, whither Richelieu, resuming by the advice of Poussin a pro- ject of Francis I., had sent him to collect works of art for France, and have copies and casts made in the interests of our national studies. Charles Errard was from Nantes ; he returned to die at Rome in 1689, at the age of eighty-three. De Troy (1738), Natoire (1751), and Vien (1774) each in turn brought his ability to bear on the direc- torial duties, which at the outset of the Revolution were exercised by the allegorical and graceful Mena- geot ; a bond of union between the school of Boucher and the reforms of Vien his second master. In 1722 Lewis XVI. appointed Joseph Benedict Suvee, born at Bruges in 1743, and who had gained the chief prize in 1771, to the directorship, but this estimable artist had not time to start before the 10th of August; he was cast into the prisons of the Terror, while the Academy of France at Rome was suppressed. Suvee did not arrive at his post until 1801, when our schools were re-organized by the First Consul ; it was then, by negotiations of which he was the soul, that this adopted son of France endowed her with the most magnificent domain she possesses abroad : he died in 1807 in the establishment whose 364 ROME. royal aspect adds marked lustre to our school. To obtain the transference to the Academy of the Fine Arts in 1803 of this inheritance of the Medici, Suvee had many obstacles to surmount ; but after making sure that the purpose of the building could not be changed, he did not hesitate to add to the insufficient resources of the state, his personal fortune, which being nearly entirely sunk there, determines the use of the Villa Medici, if not for ever, at least so long as our country shall preserve any respect for engagements contracted in her name. The principal directors at the VUla Medici since the beginning of the century have been Guerin, who was more remarkable as professor than as painter, and Horace Vernet, who had more prestige than in- fluence, and who poured some of his own popularity over the Academy. He was administrator from 1828 to 1834, and was replaced by Ingres, who for six years had extreme influence over our laureates The most remarkable of the domestic apartments is the dining-room, adjoining a kitchen whence issues that disturbing and too-familiar odor we meet with in lyceums and boarding-houses. This fine refectory is vaulted, and the arch has been divided into compart- ments, in which since 1811 the portraits of our laureates have been placed by their comrades : a brotherly idea, but which too often suggests melancholy reflections, for how many are unknown among these laurelled heads ! Independently of the bad taste that THE FEENCH ACADEMY. 365 belongs to every period of fashion, two things struck me — how uncommon are even passable portraits, and how rare on these young brows is the luminous halo of youth. One of the most extraordinary is Hector Berlioz, with high tufts of hair over the head of a cock, strangled in a cravat half a foot high. In the features of F. Halevy, nearly a child in appearance, we have some trouble in recognizing the amiable and saddened man, who bore with visible resignation the burden of his Ufe. Ambrose Thomas (by Flandrin) and Francis Bazin are the models whom years did least to alter ; one of the masterpieces of the gaUery is the profile of a musician painted by M. Henner. Among these likenesses, the epic laureates of 1812 and the romanticists of 1827 have, the one a sombre mien a la Curtius, the others Byronic expressions, which look ridiculous to the more citizen-hke realists of our own day. I may add that the establishment possesses a library, which is treated by the majority of these gentlemen with a respectful consideration. If it had no other advantages than that of isolating in a spot where horizons expand and even silence is eloquent, a number of young men who at home would be weighted by the triple burden of outside interests, bad examples, and dangerous pleasures, the Academy of France would still be an advantage. There is something which must be ineffaceable, gained by merely living for five years away from the commands of fashion and breathing the same air with 366 BOME. the marbles of Greece and the creations of Raphael and Michael Angelo ; in having contemplated for that space of time the beautiful under the horizons of Rome, and having absorbed the aroma of her majesty; in having passed through the decisive phases of youth in the shade of the gardens where Armida is replaced by study, and where, as in the Elysium of the poets, you have daUy intercourse with the great masters of the world, and can almost hear them speak on their own hearth-stones. THE LEGEND OP S. LAUEENTIUS. 367 CHAPTER XIX. In the days when - the Emperor Valerian was chastising the Christians at Rome, the pontifical see was filled by an old man who was a native of Athens, honored under the name of S. Sixtus : he was put to death in 259, as his predecessor Stephen had been two years before. As he went to his execution, a young deacon followed close behind, and cried to him with many tears, " Will you go without your son? Shall I not help you once more in this last sacrifice 1" " My son," rephed the old man, " thou shalt rejoin me in three days." The deacon who thus invited martyrdom was called Laurentixxs. Sixtus II. had intrusted to him the treasures of the church, but when he found himself being dragged to the prsetorium, he bade him sell the sacred vessels and divide the price of them among the poor. The bishop having been slain, the prefect enjoined on the deacon to surrender aU the riches of the church to the ^rarium. Laurentius begged for some hours in which to collect them, and finally re- appeared with a crowd of mendicants in his train. " Behold," he said, " the treasures of the children of Christ!" 368 EOME. Taking for mockery these words which he could not rightly understand, the prefect commanded that the young Laurentius should be beaten with rods ; then he had him stretched all bleeding over a grid- iron heated red-hot by live coals. His courage and gentleness appeared so superhuman, that many people were converted to the Christian faith by seeing this execution, which took place on the 10th of August, the fourth day after the death of S. Sixtus, as he had foretold. In the sixth century S. Laurentius extra Muros, one of the patriarchal basilicas, was half-buried; Pope Pelagius had it disinterred and enlarged, leaving the apse, at the foot of which rest the remains of the deacon, in the centre of the church. Towards 1216 Honorius III. raised the presbyterium, the founda- tions of which were to a large extent fiUed up. Pius IX. disengaged the eight fluted columns with Corin- thian capitals of the Constantinian basilica, to which Pelagius had added two pillars crowned with trophies and figures, and resting on bases adorned with rosettes and crosses. It is to Pope Honorius that we owe the fine mosaic which, on the arch of the vault, repre- sents on one side S. Laurentius and Pope Pelagius II. led before the Saviour by S. Peter, and on the other S. Paul between S. Stephen and S. Hippolytus, draped in white. The Christ is seated on the globe; Bethlehem and Jerusalem, his cradle and his tomb, are drawn at each end of this important work. The effect S. LAURENTIUS EXTRA MUEOS. 369 of the pulpits, which Innocent III. decorated with panels of red porphyry and green serpentine, is heightened by settings of small mosaic. Rome possesses noth- ing of this sort which combines so much charm with so much simplicity. The choir having been freed by Pius IX. from the rubbish which encumbered it, they had to support it on a colonnade, which upholds a ceUmg of modern taste and out of harmony with the style of the church ; this space isolates the tomb of S. Laurentius, which you discern in shadow through a gilded grating. At the corners of the basilica they found walled-up doors, which continued the aisles through the Catacombs. It happened that the illustrious author of Roma Sotterranea, M. de' Rossi (who did me the honor to explain S. Laurentius extra Muros to me) having one day gone down to the bottom of an unexplored ceme- tery at a considerable distance out in the plain, and lost himself, began to walk on, trusting to accident to find an outlet, when finally he heard with amazement the sound of religious singing accompanied by an organ. He pushed on, thrust himself against a door which was rotten and blocked up, and having suc- ceeded in forcing a way, found himself to his own stupefaction in the basilica of S. Laurentius. These labyrinths fill the imagination with the most terrify- ing ideas: they tell the story of one archaeologist who, having lost himself three miles from Rome in a maze of the cemetery of S. Agnese, wandered in despair 24 370 ROME. all through a night of forty hours between two hedges of tombs, and finaUy returned to the light of day under the Trinita de' Monti, in front of an air-hole in the Piazza di Spagna. Everybody remembers the adventure of Hubert Robert, which has been versi- fied by the Abbe Delille. The Laurentian basilica has been planted so deep in the Catacombs, that niches and pieces of wall painted in the third century still exist in the church ; even under the burial-place of S. Laurentius there is a third tier of LocuH. This basilica, one of the five cathedrals of the pontifical Roman bishopric, possesses in the centre of its presbyterium an antique and massive episcopal chair, which was decorated in 1254 with two grace- ful torse columns, was edged with fine mosaics, and was set in a facing of marble, with porphyry coffer- work framed with gems. We cannot omit to men- tion the ornamentation of a monument, on which so many centuries have left their traces. The sculp- tured debris of palaces and temples, entablatures pre- served from the primitive basilica, are supported on twelve antique columns of violet marble with Corin- thian capitals. The upper gallery forms a square enclosure, resting on twelve other small columns with Ionic capitals, also fluted, and composed of a green- ish granite from Egypt, the rarest in the world. To close the sketch of this church, let us not for- get under its vast porch forty frescoes of the thir- teenth century, setting forth the legends of S. Laur- Basilica of S. Lorenzo Fuori le Mora. S. LAURENTIUS EXTEA MDEOS. 371 entius, S. Hippoly tus, and that other saint who perished nine months after the Saviour — S. Stephen, the first martyr, and the second to pray for his executioners. When in the year 415, the remains of Stephen were dug out from the field of GramaHel, the Roman deacon Laurentius, and Stephen the archdeacon of Jerusalem — S. Irenseus gives him this title — were laid together mider the altar of S. Laurentius without the walls. The frescoes are extremely curious in the action and costumes of the figures and as reproducing forgotten customs; but they have been repainted with a heavi- ness which lessens their value. After seeing the heraldic lions at the foot of the two pilasters of the doorways, gazing up at the waUs with their deep open cornice, of a building which, though so little striking without, is a magnificent temple within ; after looking at the buildings of the Franciscans with their low cloister and sombre campanile, at S. Laurentius on his pillar, at the cypresses of the cemetery — even then the interest of the place is not exhausted. On the polite pretence of seeking our opinion upon some inscription, Signor de' Rossi introduced us into a cloister that is very rarely visited. Its galleries have arches fully vaulted, narrow and low ; their pillars, which are unlike one another, and are some- times pieces joined together, adapt the gorge or cavetto which surmounts them to bevelled entabla- tures ; three-lobed niches ornament the upper story, resting on a frieze of pronounced romantic taste. 372 EOME. Earlier than the wonderful cloisters of S. Paul and S. John Lateran, this, which shows the same princi- ples of art in its beginnings, belongs to the eleventh century. Returning to the city by a long straight street, when you have crossed the piazza and passed the church of S. Maria Maggiore, you wiR observe at the corner of the Via Urbana a small church placed on a lower level of the earth. S. Pudentiana is announced by a square brick bell- towei-, composed of a triple row of three-lobed arches, supported by two columns. Each of these stories, adorned with small medallions of black marble, is finished by a cornice of round tiles ; a low roof sur- mounted by an iron cross crowns the whole, while tiny bits of vegetation mingle green veins with the warm tones of the brick. Such bell-towers are numerous at Rome ; their antique style ennobling in them a certain indefinable look of poverty and dilap- idation. This church is associated with the first patricians of Rome who professed Christianity ; you can still distinguish under the crypt, the foundations of a palace of which Pius I. made an oratory in the year 154 : this palace belonged to a senatorial family, who are supposed, under that pontiff, to have given hospitality to S. Justin, as its ancestors had to S. Peter. Thus the Catholic fasti must have begun there, with the earliest preachings. S. PUDENTIANA. 373 Let us not be afraid of citing as authorities the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of S. Paul, the Acts of S. Justin, the chronicles of Eusebius, the works of Anastasius and of S. Jerome, the Annals even of Baronius, and the BoUandists. These writers trace for more than a century the history of the family of the senator Punicus Pudens, who, with his mother Priscilla, had welcomed and protected S. Peter ; the Acta have transmitted the memory of the children of this patrician, Pudentius and Sabinella; whUe the third generation was represented by two brothers, Timothy and Novatus, and two girls, Pras- seda or Praxedes and Pudentiana. Inscriptions con- firm the testimony of the sacred historians : the ceme- tery, underground, where, close to the Viminal, be- yond the Salarian gate, Punicus Pudens and his wife were buried, has retained the name of Priscilla ; S. Peter was represented there in the third century between the two daughters of Sabinella. In the eighth, Pascal I. discovered and brought to Rome the bodies of S. Praxedes and S. Pudentiana, the two hostesses of S. Justin : we still read in the catacombs of Priscilla the inscription of a Cornelia Pudentianeta, which attests the immense duration of this family burying-place. This house, where S. Peter is supposed to have lived, and to have sat in the curule chair of the sen- ator, which has probably been preserved, — this house was so noted that after an interval of something less 374 KOME. than a hundred years a pope consecrated it, and under Constantine the modest chapel was replaced by a church dedicated to Sancta Pudentiana. This em- peror divided the aisles by twelve ancient columns of grey marble, which in 1598 it was necessary to sur- round by pilasters ; he placed in a chapel to the right an altar, on which S. Peter was said to have sacri- ficed ; he left open under the pavement the Puteolus of a domestic catacomb where Pudentiana had gath- ered together the bodies of a legion of martyrs, whose remains are stiE to be seen. In the cemetery of PriscUla they have recovered several portraits of this family, a fact that adds to the interest of the important work of which I now have to speak. The Constantinian mosaic, of great size, executed in the tribune of the choir at the back of the high altar, and composed in honor of the family of Punicus Pudens, is something more than a work of art or a curiosity ; it is a masterpiece of Christian antiquity. GiuHo Romano must have loved this rare piece, which Poussin could never weary of contemplating and ex- tolling. The composition is simple and symmetrically arranged. In the centre is seated Christ, draped in a toga of gold ; to his right and left are placed S. Peter and S. Paul crowned, the one by S. Pudentiana, the other by her sister Praxedes ; around these prin- cipal figures are grouped Pudens and his descendants, Pudentius, Novatus, Timothy, and SabineUa. The draperies of the Saviour are well distributed ; the THE MOSAICS OF S. PUDENTIANA. 375 calm tone of the picture, the character and arrange- ment of the figures, are all alike remarkable. It is the most ancient Christian picture that can be studied at Rome as a work of art ; those of the catacombs are rather curious documents, the mosaics of S. Cos- tanza and of S. Agnese hardly represent more than ornament and decoration, those of S. Maria Maggiore are poorly lighted, and so small that from below you cannot examine them ; finally, those of Ravenna are later. Some ItaUan critics have attributed this mosaic to the reign of Pope Adrian I. ; but one must have had little experience, to attribute a work of this kind to the very depth of the decline, towards the end of the ninth century. If we study the revo- lutions in art between the second and the twelfth cen- turies, we shall understand that the purer a work ap- pears in form and style, the nearer it comes to antiquity ; just as the more dramatic sentiment or tender and mystic expression you discover in it, the closer will it be to the thirteenth century. If you foUow the Via Urbana which Urban VIII. laid out, but which under the kings, as Livy tells us, was already called clivus Urbius, you will reach the quarter of the Suburra which figures so often in the Roman annals. The Via di S. Pietro in Vincoli lead- ing to the church of that name is thought to be iden- tical with one that legend has made very famous. " Tullia regained her house," says Livy, " and when come to the top of the Cyprian Way, where the altar 376 KOME. of Diana had been, she turned to the right to go down the Urbian slope, so to go up again on to the slope of the Esquilise, when suddenly the driver of her car stopped in terror, and, holding the reins, showed to his mistress Servius lying slain. There, as tradition says, was wrought a hideous deed, and this spot is the commemoration of it, for ever since the name of Vicus Sceleratus has been given to that, in which TuUia, delirious and tormented by the furies, urged her car over the corpse of her father, and being splashed with the blood from the wheels, carried with her to her own home her share of the gore and slaughter : this is why the gods, angry at that bad be- ginning of the reign, made ready an evil end for it." As curiosity has brought us down into the Suburra, let us turn this digression to advantage by going to see some other mosaics, nearly as important as those of S. Pudentiana which we will find in the church of SS. Cosma and Damiano at the entrance to the Forum. Like S. Lorenzo in Miranda, its neighbor, the church of S. Cosmus is enclosed within the colonnades and sanctuary of an ancient temple. You will read everywhere that this temple was consecrated to Romulus, son of Maxentius ; the truth is, that nobody knows to whom it was dedicated, and that probably from 526 to 530, when FeHx IV. erected this Httle church, and gave it the pagan cella for a vestibule, contemporaries knew no more than we do. This SS. COSMA E DAMTANO. 377 rotunda possesses an antique door of bronze, corre- sponding in character to the ancient marbles of the temple, a circumstance that in my opinion throws a good deal of doubt upon the tradition which brings from Perugia, at some indeterminate date, a door whose curious ornamentation, like the temple itself, probably belongs to the end of the third century. It was Felix IV. who had the mosaics of SS. Cosma and Damiano executed ; in style and nature of design they still preserve some connection with the expiring schools of antiquity. To help me to appreciate them, a young monk informed me that the noun mosaic comes from Miisimim, and means ivorthy of the Muses. What a glorious etymology ! It would be worth dis- cussing, if it could be proved that the mosaics of the Temple of Fortune, erected at Prseneste by SuUa — the first, says Pliny, that were seen at Rome — rep- resented Muses. He adds that the Greeks got the process of mosaic work from the Persians, and that in his time they began to make them in colored glass. Elevated in the centre of the apsis, between S. Damiano and S. Cosma, who are presented by S. Peter and S. Paul, the figure of the Saviour, blessing with his right hand, and with his left holding the Gros- pels, and clothed in an ample white mantle, and pur- ple dalmatic, — this figure with its nimbus possesses an incontestable majesty. S. Cosma bears one of those crowns of flowers which covered the bread of 378 EOME. oblation, offered by the faithful — a usage perpetuated down to our own time. Disposed with great dignity, the draperies are well suited to the attitudes and figures ; it is still somewhat antique art, but under the guidance of a new law. To the left is represented the fourth of the popes canonized under the name of Felix, a valuable portrait, though the head unfortu- nately, over-restored by a mosaic-worker of the six- teenth century, seems very weak beside the others. On the right S. Damianus is followed by S. Theodore. Below this large subject, at once monumental and simple, the Twelve Sheep standing on either side of the crowned Lamb are flanked by the two holy cities, Bethlehem and Jerusalem, the birthplace and the tomb. On the frieze flit cherubs, beside the Book with the Seven Seals and the Golden Candlestick. Let us not omit the Phoenix — winged prototype of the resurrection, having a star for nimbus. These mosaics can only be compared to those of S. Puden- tiana, and to those others which we shall soon see at S. Maria Maggiore. It is interesting to recall that nine centuries afterwards, when Eaphael was prepar- ing the designs for the tapestries of Leo X. (seven of the original cartoons of which are at South Kensing- ton), he did not disdain to copy, or almost copy, for the figure of the Saviour, the Christ of SS. Cosma e Damiano. Let us return to the Esquiline and salute, before entering the basflica of Our Lady of Snows, the S. PEASSEDE. 379 granddaughter of the senator Pudens— the younger sister of S. Pudentiana. Above the old theatre of Florus, and the piazza where the house of Propertius stood, which Ovid and TibuUus used to visit, a few steps from the house of the Pudentii, and probably in their grounds, were the Thermae of Novatus, brother of Prassedes. Pius I. founded an oratory there, which Pascal I., in the eighth century, enlarged into a church, ceded by In- nocent III. to the monks of VaUombrosa. It is stiU very interesting, though it was embellished by S. Charles Borromeo, titular cardinal of S. Prassede. So far as restoration goes, saints are undoubtedly not quite so reckless as other princes ; for S. Prassede has preserved a venerable and attractive air. Aisles divided by sixteen columns of granite, an altar-canopy supported on pillars of porphyry ; a choir with two flights of steps of enormous blocks of rosso antico, the most valuable of marbles, since it is no longer to be found — such are the materials which throw back into antiquity a Carolingian temple decked out with fragments of the pagan era. On the great arch and the Tribune are mosaics of the ninth century, curious from various points of view. While at S. Pudentiana the two sisters are crowning the apostles, here they are presented to Christ by the guests of the family, S. Peter and S. Paul. In memory of their high birth, the artist has clad them like great ladies of the time of Stephen V., in their very finest apparel. At the 380 ROME. angles of the semicircle appear Pius I. and Pascal I. — the last being a likeness. Above the great arch the Four and Twenty Elders of the Apocalypse, draped in white, cast down their crowns. The rude taste and execution of these mosaics prove that centuries elapsed between their composi- tion and the almost classic work of S. Pudentiana. The Twelve Sheep and the Lamb were substituted more and more under the successors of Theodosius for the real representations of Christ and the apostles, and threatened to annihilate Christian art at the out- set. A council in 707 had to be appealed to, to pass a decree on this question, and a prohibition was issued against transforming Jesus and his dis- ciples into sheep ; a prohibition which cannot, how- ever, have been very absolute, for more than one hundred years later, from 817 to 824, the mosaics of S. Prassede reproduce these emblems. They only fell into desuetnde along with other subjects taken from the Apocalypse ; that is, after the year 1000, when the vision of S. John, who was thought to have assigned this date for the end of the world, w^as for the moment discredited by the undisturbed continua- tion of the century. Other mosaics, inferior to those of S. Pudentiana, that is, more recent, decorate the closed chapel where is preserved the shaft of a column of oriental breccia brought from Jerusalem in 1223 with credulous piety by John Colonna, in the persua- sion that Christ had been bound to it at the Flagellation. THE CHAPEL OF THE COLUMN. 381 Enriched with mosaics, for the most part on a golden ground, curious in arrangement, adorned with exquisite splendor, this chapel is a perfect jewel- casket ; the thirteenth century, completing it, en- dowed it with a certain fineness and delicacy which enhances the oriental character of the whole. On three sides the base of the wall is faced with marbles of an amber shade ; at the corners are raised on an- tique stylobates four granite pillars with gilded Corin- thian capitals, supporting a vault covered with mosaics. There are several figures of the blessed, singularly ap- parelled ; above the door are represented Sabinella, and SS. Prassedes, Pudentiana, and Bridget ; on the altar, between two columns of oriental alabaster, they have executed in mosaic a very incongruous Madonna. Nothing could be more unexpected than the sparkling richness of this little sanctuary, seen in the dim light, where we find the love of the beautiful expressed with originality in a barbarous age, and executed with the most precious materials. If we do not speak of the Flagellation which hangs in the vestry, it is because Giulio Romano has treated it with an elabo- rate reaching after archaism, that has resulted in a most frosty look. "With its flattened domes, its seventeenth and eigh- teenth century fagades, its double porticos — vaguely degenerate imitations of S. Peter's, — the patriarchal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore would have only the appearance of a modern building, if our countryman, 382 ROME. Gregory XI., had not presented it with a great bell- tower of four stories, with a conical roof, which is the highest in Eome : though that is not saying much. You can see this tower from the two ends of the very long street which the church interrupts and divides, — a street which borders on the Esquiline, Viminal, Quirinal, and Pincian, passing through populous re- gions and through deserts. Santa Maria Maggiore is a great name : Peter the Venerable says that the basilica of Lateran apart, that of Liberius is the first {major dignitate) of the churches of Rome and of the world. Legend being the poetry of churches, the nearer you approach the legendary ages, the less meaningless and commonplace does the ornamentation become : in this respect, S. Maria Maggiore is greatly indebted to Nicholas IV., that very enHghtened and slightly ro- mantic pontiff, who favored the Ghibellines, who dreamt of new crusades, and who founded our univer- sity of MontpeUier. He enlarged and consolidated the apse of the basilica ; and covered the tribune with mosaics by Jacopo da Torrita (1288-1292). To about the same period belong the mosaics of Philip Rossuti, pupil of Torrita (he signed Eussuti), which ornament the fa5ade fronting the piazza, and set forth for the instruction of the populace the legend of the Festival of Snows and the Liberian foundation; these Benedict XIV. concealed under the portico of a vulgar fa9ade, designed by Ferdinando Fuga. S. MAEIA MAGGIOEE. 383 Torrita's mosaics on the vault of the tribune have that suavity peculiar to a disciple of the Sienese school at the dawn of the most prosperous period of the republic. In a great medallion whose blue ground is covered with stars Christ is seated with the Virgin, the former a figure of triumphant beauty. On either side are saints on a gold ground, separated from the Virgin by two groups of angels, above which is a de- sign of intertwined branches, enamelled with flowers and animated by birds : nothing could be richer nor more charming than the fair harmony of this deco- ration. Between the windows, Gaddo Gaddi has executed other mosaics of most happy effect, though perhaps a little too near a formidable rival, among which we would call especial attention to the Death of the Vir- gin. In Gaddi we seem to trace more Byzantine stiffness. Cardinal Colonna, and it does honor to this noble house, helped Nicholas IV. with his private fortune to endow Our Lady with these masterpieces. So Torrita has placed at one corner the likeness of the prelate kneehng ; himself he has represented in modest proportions, on his knees, in his monk's dress. 384 EOME. CHAPTER XX. On Shrove Tuesday the Carnival gaieties used to reach the very height of their frenzy. It was quite worth while to make your way, an hour before the Ave Maria, from the Piazza del Popolo to the Piom- bino Palace, at the risk of being torn to pieces by Maenads. I do not know how the women with bou- quets for sale ever succeeded in moving along be- tween the close lines of carriages, or the dealers in confetti bringing fresh supplies, in reaching the sides of the cars. The preparations for the closing ceremony of each day Avere as curious as the performance itself. To- wards half-past five, the soldiers having made the carriages pass round by the adjacent streets, there only remained foot-passengers on the Corso — a mov- ing mosaic of hats and bonnets. Then the carabi- niers, in files two broad, invading the middle of the street, divided the compact crowd in two ; heaving it aside, so to speak, on to the sidewalks, as snow is swept back on mountain roads. The centre was thus left nearly empty, but unequally so ; the edge straggling over its border ; so, hardly was this first operation completed, before a squadron of cavalry THE CARNIVAL. 385 rushed forward at full gallop to finish the clearing of the street. After this double expedition the road was made, and the field swept clean. Almost immediately, from the Piazza del Popolo, where they were held back by cables that they not unfrequently broke through, were let loose on the Corso six Barbary steeds, wild, without any gear, without riders, or bits, or bridles, free as in the desert. With plaited mane, with glowing eye, and foaming mouth, they flew down this long narrow avenue, in which even the houses seemed full of life and passion ; finishing the straight course in the twinkling of an eye, terrified at the loud cries and shouts of the crowd along the road, as well as at the great quantity of people up at the windows. The swiftest were applauded and goaded on by an uproar that made them rear, while the last were escorted by hissings and hootings. The cavalcade cleared the space like some dark flash ; be- hind it the throng resumed possession of the street, which once more became choked up. At the outlet of the Piazza di Venezia the harberi came rushing to the foot of the balcony where a senator handed to the winner the prize, as well as a great standard of pre- cious stuff from ten to twelve metres long. This was of woven silk and gold thread of extreme magnifi- cence, because the Israelites of Rome, bound ever since the Middle Ages to furnish this standard as a mark of feudal service, made it a point of honor to be generous. 25 386 ROME. As soon as the horses had vanished, madness re- sumed its sway until the hour when authority, with a monosyllable uttered by the cannon of S. Angelo, suddenly restored the delirious city to its right mind. The confetti ceased to rain down ; the cries all stopped; and no one was to be seen on the Corso but citizens tranquihy making their way home. It is the last evening of the carnival, the harheri are gone and the night has closed in, the carriages now return to the Corso where the masquerading pedes- trians throng thicker than ever. Small candles have been distributed, and around cars illuminated with torches, tapers, fireworks, every one holds up in the air his Hghted moccoUno. In the stands, balconies, windows, up to the very roofs, the moccoli are spark- ling everywhere. To the prolonged shouts of the crowd have succeeded short, stifled laughter, little panting breathless cries — slight, chirping noises of a most singular effect : a struggle has begun, which produces an indescribable animation, everybody is trying to blow out his neighbor's candle, and to keep his own alight ; and this, not only in the street where nothing is seen but people jumping and blowing, but also in all the houses as well. If a man is too tall, or if he has stuck his moccoletto on the end of a long pole, they mount on his shoul- ders, or hang on his arms, or pursue him with other poles, furnished with extinguishers. On the cars, whose sides are scaled, the lights flicker and vacillate, THE ARTISTS' FESTIVAL. 387 twenty times extinguished and twenty times re- kindled. From the street through the open windows of palaces, lights are seen moving rapidly about, and madmen jumping up and down, continuing indoors the exhilarating drama of the Corso ; universal move- ment, contagious and fascinating ! I have seen princes, ambassadors, even prelates, batthng in real delirium, and the noble beauties of Eome, carried away by ex- citement, sacrifice, in order to extinguish tapers and resinous torches, their embroidered handkerchiefs, India shawls, and muffs of the finest furs.* Rome has another festival like the carnival, but of Grerman importation, and celebrated on the 1st of May, a day of joy across the Rhine, where they stiU solemnize the opening of the new season. It was created by the artists of the Grerman club, organized at the beginning of this century, when the Tedeschi borrowed from us the custom of going forth to receive at the Ponte MoUe new recruits on their arrival at Rome. The character of the fetes recalls the Middle Ages : hke every burlesque exhibition of pagan rites, it has its dignitaries, its militia, its corporations of musicians, of high priests, of cooks, of scullions, of poets, of mas- ters of ceremonies, and of Vetturini, who must aU ac- * Although the carnival has been celebrated every year with- out any intermission, it has lost most of its old spirit and mag- nificence. Quite lately, however, there has been an effort to re- vive its ancient character. 388 BOME. cept the office to which they are appointed, and dress themselves up in grotesque costumes. At daybreak the whole band goes out by the Porta Maggiore, and proceeds as far as the Torre dei Schiavi, a general meeting-place, whence the procession makes its way for the grottoes of Cervara, seven miles from Eome, near Teverone. At the moment of departure, on a car festooned with garlands and drawn by four great oxen whose ample horns have been gilded, appears the President in the midst of his court of chamber- lains, of madmen, and poets : he passes his country- men in review, makes them a solemn and grotesque discourse, and distributes to the worthiest the knightly order of the Baiocco ; then the procession proceeds on its way, escorted by its fourgon of wines, its cook- ing battery, and its cup-bearers, towards the grottoes, chosen for a monster festival on account of their fresh- ness and their darkness, which is favorable to effects of illumination. As at the Feast of Unreason, asses furnish a heroic mount to the heroes of the masquer- ade ; they are harnessed with toys from Nuremberg, and their riders clad in garments which make them look like Eobin Hood's men. Soon commence, under the title of Olympic games, parades which used to attract to Cervara the elegant population of Eome, and even the official representa- tives of different nationalities : donkey races, foot races, sack races, and other diversions, in which the victors have decreed to them burlesque diadems and THE VILLA ALBANL 389 Campanian vases, decorated for the occasion. At the bottom of the grotto a high priest calls up the Sibyl who, appearing in the midst of Bengal fires, recites in comic verses the exploits of the school, and prophe- sies the destinies of its artists for the following year. A Homeric supper prepared and served on stone tables in the heart of the cavern, which is lighted by torches and festooned by garlands, precedes the re- turn, which is animated by torches and noisy trumpet- blasts. I do not think a foreign colony ever organ- ized abroad a national festival with a spirit of originality to compare with this ; its farcical charac- ter represents the old German gaiety, while the pict- uresque display of the spectacle could only have been imagined by artists. The era of the Festival of the Germans is reckoned by Olympiads ; interrupted by the Revolution of 1848, it was resumed in 1853, in which the procession took Castel GiubUeo for its theatre ; in 1855 they met in the dell, misnamed from the Nymph Egeria ; and later (Werner Olym- piad) returned to Cervara. All this tumult arouses a desire for silence and re- pose. The carnival prepares you by striking contrast for the spectacle of the Villa Albani Castelbarco. The porticoes and their statues, the grassy terraces, the masses of tropical trees rising in clumps from a fore- ground of flowered beds, stand out harmoniously against the rosy distance and the azure of the Sabine hiQs. The silvery shades in the sky make a wonder- 390 ROME. fill frame for the lemon-trees, the pine, the laurel of the poets, the cypress, and the palms of the desert, bringing to the city of the apostles a reminiscence of Jordan. The villa, constructed in the Greek manner of the last century, was designed for a museum of antiqui- ties, "worthy of a family originally from Epirus, which after the wars of Skanderbeg exchanged the glades of Pindus for Italy. Winckelmann, a skilful inter- preter of the ideas of the learned Cardinal Alexander Albani, studied here under his patronage ; the illus- trious archseologist carried out theories, which with us have only produced the school of David and the antiquities of Thermidor. Among the marbles of the Villa Albani you will notice a number of mutilated copies of statues of re- nown, and many others of later date ; not only is the study of these profitable in itself, but you are more than compensated for coming by the astonishing pro- fusion of pieces of the rarest quality, and of objects which you do not find anywhere else. It was in these galleries, the richest of all private collections, that Winckelmann found most of the material for his writ- ings on the art of the ancients. In general, at the Villa Albani the bas-reliefs are superior to the statues : if you go there several times, the former is the more important department to which you wiU do well to devote yourself. A grove adjoins the palace — a sacred wood, where the trunks of THE VILLA LUDOVISI. 391 mighty oaks stand side by side with columns of gran- ite and marble, supporting a leafy vaulting, through which the grains of light are filtered as through a sieve upon the heads of the gods disposed about in the woods beneath. At an opening to this Elysian grove, just recogni- tion and gratitude have erected a colossal bust of Winckelmann ; nothing could be more singular than the effect of that twice-Germanic head (for Wolf was the sculptor) among all those dwellers of the land of Alcibiades and Aspasia.* We were too near the Villa Ludovisi not to avail ourselves of the permission to visit it, obtained with considerable trouble. The park is limited on one side by the wall and towers of Honorius, and on the other by the Via Salaria.f The principal casino was built by Domenichino Zampieri ; it offers no very curious feature. The second is a museum of statues; the third leaves only one moderately agreeable recol- lection, that of a fresco representing Aurora on her car, banishing Night, and casting flowers before her. Duller than the famous pictures of a decayed school sometimes are, the Aurora of Guercino is far from being comparable to the Aurora of Guido Reni in the Rospigliosi Palace. * The Villa Albani is now the property of the Torlonia family. t This park has now been laid out in new streets and building lots. The works of art are to be removed from the casinos to new buildings erected for them. 392 KOME. Among the sculptures is the colossal head of the Ludovisi Juno, a masterpiece inspired by Greek art, when purity of form was free from hardness. Every- thing contributes to the belief that, in contemplating this marvel, we are in the presence of a very old and very faithful copy of the celebrated Juno of Argos, by Polycletes : it was before this divinity that Goethe is reported to have said his prayers every morning. Among other works worthy of attention are the Mars at rest ; a bronze head of Csesar taken when old, a realistic likeness, with a very strange expres- sion, which should be compared with the Csesar as Pontifex Maximus of the Vatican ; a thrilling group of Orestes recognized by Electra, two likenesses probably, and of an indescribable sweetness ; the Gaul, who, after poniarding his wife, kills himself to escape the conqueror (another masterpiece of expres- sion and feeling) ; finally, a charming little Faun. Such are the most striking pieces among many ad- mirable works. Grounds of the Villa Borghese. THE PALAZZO BOKGHESE. 393 CHAPTER XXI. The galleries constitute the principal attraction of the Palazzo Borghese, where artists are allowed to copy, and the public is admitted, as freely as in our own museums; twelve salons (the whole ground-floor) are filled with panels and canvases. One of the prin- cipal merits of this collection is that it makes us bet- ter acquainted than any other with the school of Fer- rara, not the earlier masters like Galassi or Cosimo Tura, but the disciples and grand-disciples of Francia and Lorenzo Costa, that pleiad where round Dosso- Dossi and Garofalo, gravitate artists like Mazzolino, Francis and Jerome Cotignola, Ercole Grandi, Scar- cellino, Ricci, Girolamo da Scarpi, down to Bonona, who was such an imitator of the Caracci. It may also be remarked that the chiefs of the school figure more extensively here than their satellites : Ben- venuto Tisi, called Garofalo, is represented by a Holy Family, and by a Marriage at Cana, a small but pre- cious reproduction of a great picture that is lost ; by a Resurrection of Lazarus, painted for the church of S. Francis at Ferrara; by a Madonna between S. Joseph and S. Michael; by that Descent from the Cross, so justly famous, which, the work of a pupil 394 EOME. of genius who drew his inspiration from Raphael's third manner, can he contrasted with the master's own treatment of the same subject in his youth. Both pictures are in the Borghese gallery. Let us also mention the Adoration of the Magi, by Mazzoline of Ferrara, the rival of Tisi ; and the Circe of Dosso- Dossi, one of the rarest of the Ferrara masters ; the coloring is almost Venetian. The Csesar Borgia, counted among the Raphaels, and about which there has been much talk, is a very remarkable figure, strangely posed; but there is noth- ing to prove that it represents the nephew of Alex- ander VI., while everything goes to show that it is not by Raphael ; the absence of a certain suppleness and the uniformity of tone would make one presume rather that this portrait was painted by a skilful artist after an old engraving. The neighboring portrait of a Cardinal is really a Raphael, but you are forced rather to divine this, imder the retouchings with which they have plastered it over. There is no ob- ligation to accept as masterpieces of Leonardo or Francia all the works of the old schools of Milan and Ferrara, in these galleries. The Borghese Palace does, however, possess one pearl of Francesco Fran- cia, which may serve as a touchstone ; that is the small, kneeling, ecstatic figure of S. Stephen, a clear painting of a supreme fineness, and a feeling that is almost beyond this world ; round this picture every- thing else grows pale and heavy and seems efiiaced. THE PALAZZO BOEGHESE. 395 If, reader, we were to visit this gallery together, we should go straight to the Danae of Correggio, and look at it long in every possible light. Then come the Caracci, Guido Reni, Carlo Dolci, and the Paduan with his Venus at her Toilette, and Albano with his Seasons. Here too we find the only profane picture of Federigo Barocci — ^neas carrying away his Father. The attitudes and heads are graceful ; but what a singular notion for an ascetic, to imitate the sensual and redundant manner of Correggio. A pict- ure to rejoice Jordaens or Goya is the Holy Family of that Caravaggio who compromised with such adroit cynicism the name of Michael Angelo. What a hec- torer of a painter ! Yet a leonine tread, after all, throwing onto the canvas a splendid reHef and a flesh- liness of scandalous opulence. The Nuptials of Alexander and Roxana form two groups in which allegory and emblems of gallantry unite as in the time of Gessner. What an absence of primness and affectation in this heroic pastoral, and yet how the artist has dissembled his vigor under a grace in which there is nothing enervating ! The Borghese Palace possesses, besides many other works of merit, two gems which neither the amateur nor the historian can afford to overlook. One is the portrait of Maria de' Medici, by Van Dyck, very deli- cate in physiognomy, very expressive, and remark- able for the differences which it offers in point of expression and character, to the more common inter- 396 EOME. pretation of Rubens. The other is one of the finest and the best preserved Holbeins that I have seen ; it represents, in full light and facing you, a person clothed in furs and with a bonnet on his head. The catalogue tells us that the original is unknown ; in reality it is the portrait of the Emperor Maximilian, while still only archduke, and before he wore a beard.* As we have gone through the Borghese galleries, let us finish the afternoon at their villa, so as to ap- preciate the collections of the family as a whole. The important church of S. Maria del Popolo will be passed on the way. The uncle of Julius II. had it rebuilt in the fifteenth century by the Florentine Bacio Pintelli, who invited the great artists of his own country to contribute to its embellishment at the very time when they were at the height of their genius. At the threshold you are attracted by the first chapel on the right, which once belonged to the family of Sixtu^s IV., as is proved by the Rovere * " Prince Paolo Borghese, who has been brought to the verge of ruin by speculative building projects, is involved in a network of difficulties from which there is apparently no escape. His long-cherished treasures are in process of dispersion, and that magnificent collection of paintings, which, after the small but choice Vatican gallery first attracted the attention of almost every visitor to Rome, has, with the exception of a few ancestral portraits, been sold : these now look disconsolately down from the bare walls of the palace upon the scanty relics of departed grandeur." — From a letter dated Berlin, June 25, 1892. a MARIA DEL POPOLO. 397 arms, that rooted oak which was so good a symbol for Pope Julius. Pinturicchio lighted up the lunettes of the ceiling and the tympana, with some charming frescoes, anecdotes from the life of S. Jerome, who reappears in the altar-piece of the Nativity, where the Madonna kneels with other saints, to adore the child-god whom she has brought forth. The subject lends itself to subtle interpretations of physiognomy, for it is necessary to express at once the protecting look of the Mother and the respect commanded by divinity. Around it is depicted one of those land- scapes, which every one has dreamed of, and which the mystic painters discovered in the horizons of the future life. Below these splendors rises the tomb of Cardinal Chi-istopher della Rovere, by a Florentine of the best period, Rossellini perhaps ; the beauty of this work reminds one of the famous mausoleum of San Miniato. You will find Pinturicchio again in the third chapel, which he decorated for Sixtus IV. ; here he has surpassed himself in the picture of the As- sumption, near a bronze statue of a sleeping bishop, which Pollajuolo would not disavow. In the follow- ing chapel Pinturicchio has given for guardians to two fine Florentine monuments, the Fathers of the Latin Church. Finally, he painted in the vault of the choir at the back of the high altar, the Coronation of the Virgin, surrounded by lunettes, containing the four Evangelists and four Fathers, as well as stoop- ing Sibyls. Pinturicchio here shows himself the im- 398 ROME. mediate forerunner of Raphael ; the charm of his figures, and their grouping making one think of the Vatican. This church is important then if only for the works of a great master nearly unknown in France ; we shall find him again, though less brilliant and less pure, at the Sixtine and in the apartments of Alexander VI. It is in the choir of S. Maria del Popolo that rise to right and left, up to the very vaulting, the two finest Florentine tombs that Rome possesses ; Julius II. had them executed by Andrea Contucci for the Cardinals Basso and Ascanio Sforza. In the second, the statues of the Virtues, and especially of Force, are splendid productions. We must not forget the windows of Peter and Claude of Marsillac, and not of Marseilles, as so many critics have written it. They were Do- minicans from Limoges, whom Leo X. summoned to paint the glass of the Vatican, an art in which our country was without a rival in the Middle Ages. Of all the works that these masters executed at Rome, where they acquired such a reputation, there only re- main these — a Life of the Virgin ; John della Rovere had them designed by Pinturicchio. Carlo Maratti, the Caracci, and Contucci, who restored with tact a portion of the frescoes of the Perugian master, also made their mark at S. Maria del Popolo. We will, however, pass them by, to make our way into the chapel of the Chigi, who unluckily re-handled and modernized this church. S. MAEIA DEL POPOLO. 399 The Chigi were the bankers of Julius II. As is usual with financiers when they reach the summit of their fortunes, these, in the decoration of their chapel strove to eclipse the powers that had made them ; they had Raphael design them a statue, which Loren- zetto executed : it is Jonas, gracefully seated on his whale. Lorenzetto made an Isaiah for a pendant, but Jonas depreciates it by comparison. The painter of Urbino designed the whole chapel ; its cupola, its mosaics, the cartoons for the frieze, as weR as for the altar-piece (the Birth of the Virgin, intrusted to Sebastian del Piombo, and poorly completed by Sal- viati). In the last chapel are two Florentine monu- ments, one of which was erected between 1501 and 1507 for a Cardinal Pallavicini, who, as he was to have so fine a shrine prepared for himself, wished to enjoy it before being shut up in it. Among the flags of the pavement are set some figures from tombs of the fourteenth century, weU-preserved remains of the earlier church — a frequent and always praiseworthy usage. In the sacristy are three other Florentine tombs of the fifteenth century, very admirable works ; one of them, that of William Rocca, Archbishop of Palermo, may be attributed to Benedetto da Maiano : they were remounted here, when the ancient cloister was cut away to consolidate the terraces of the Pincian. Finally, in the corridor leading to this sacristy, you will find in an ex voto over a door three statues of 400 ROME. 1497, in bas-relief belonging to a school that is rarely- represented at Rome. It is a sculpture of the Pisans — the Coronation of the Virgin, a remarkable piece of work in which you already feel the approach of Giotto. The enormous number of statues assembled in the Palace of the Villa Borghese occasions a lively aston- ishment, when we reflect upon the origin of so rich a gallery. When, after his marriage with Pauline Bonaparte, Prince Camillo Borghese, invited by his brother-in-law to sell his collection, had seen it de- part for the Louvre, where it constitutes our museum of antiquities, he was seized in presence of his de- populated galleries with a very natural regret : he accordingly had all his estates thoroughly explored, with the residt that they yielded him, like the sow- ing of Cadmus, a second crop of men in marble, yet more abundant than the first ; such is the source of the present collection. What treasures must be hid- den in a soil out of which, without leaving your own property, you extract a quarry of statues ! In the salon of Hercules, the statue of the hero in female draperies is remarkable enough, but the great sarcophagus representing his labors is still more so. Winckelmann has described its lid, on which are figured the Amazons going to the succor of Troy. The small triangular altar is more ancient ; it goes back to the school of iEgina. Nor must we forget the Daphne, whom the laurel already wraps in its THE VILLA BORGHESE. 401 bark, and whose fingers are growing out into branches ; it is the only antique statue that represents her dur- ing her transformation. In the gallery is a line of clever modern busts of the emperors, of red por- phyry, with draperies of alabaster, placed on pedes- tals of African granite. Let us also note a splendid urn of porphyry, and an exquisite bronze represent- ing Nero as a child. On the upper story are grouped three interesting works of Bernini's youth, ^neas carrying away his Father is rather cold, but the legs are very fine and the execution consummately skilful ; the artist was but fifteen when he could work in this masterly man- ner. David with his sling is a portrait of himself at twenty ; his Daphne, pursued by Apollo, strug- gHng in the arms of the god, and crying out while undergoing transformation, is a work of just renown — a vivid piece, executed with great force and knowl- edge in its minutest parts, and which must have shed the halo of genius round a brow of only eighteen springs. Before becoming Urban VIII., Cardinal Barberini improvised at the foot of the group the following moral : Quisquis amans sequitur fugitivse gaudia formae Fronde manus implet, baccas seu oarpit amaras. Bernini is very well represented in this palace, for he also executed the magnificent bust of Cardinal Scipio Borghese, who built the house. Among many 26 402 ROME. other marvels, in the number of which the Borghese Gladiator figures, purely modern art is represented by Canova, and well represented, thanks to the beauty of his most celebrated model, the Princess Pauline having lent her shapely limbs — made to be repre- sented in marble — to Venus, who thus becomes young again. Among the remarkable works of Bernini must also be reckoned the fountain in the Borghese gardens. Let us remark too a mosaic of the second century, representing a Sacrifice of the Fetiales : three peas- ants conclude a bargain or ratify a pact on a goat- skin before a statue of Mars. Nothing could be more curious in point of costume and type, and as a docu- ment, than this ceremony of the ordinary and domes- tic rites of the last pagan ages. Thanks to the variety which enlivens this collection, you will also make acquaintance there with a Dutch landscapist, very little known in France — Van Blomen, who died in 1740, after passing part of his life in Italy, where he is known under the name of Orizzonte. This mas- ter has decorated a salon of the ViUa Borghese with fifty-two pieces, and the grateful princes have placed in it a portrait of the guest to whom they gave such long shelter. The gardens of this villa — the ordinary termina- tion of a walk for the quality of the Pincian — have lost their splendor. Since the nephew of Paul V. had them laid out, this noble family placed them at THE VILLA BORGHESE. 403 the disposal of the Roman populace. So when, in 1848, demagogism replaced the pontifical regime, the grateful mob, by way of repaying the hospitality which they had received for ten generations, made haste to fell the great trees, to destroy the statues, to sack the palace, and to burn the pavilions which had for so long given them shelter. Prince Borghese has replanted, but the trees are still young : let us hope that the good people to whom he has opened his domain will let them grow.* *".... Prince Borghese might be relieved of his most pressing difficulties if he were only able to accept the price which eager purchasers stand ready to give for the extensive pleasure- grounds just outside the Porta del Popolo so well known as the 'Villa Borghese ;' but the sale of this property has been en- joined on the ground that the people have acquired a prescrip- tive right to its use as a park. On learning of this measure the indignant proprietor at once closed his gates." — Letter from Ber- lin, June 25, 1892. " . . . . the destruction of the Villa Borghese has been stopped for the moment by a more or less just decree of Court." — Lan- ciani, Ancient Home in the Light of Recent Discoveries. Edition of 1895. 404 EOME. CHAPTER XXII. The road to Tivoli leaves Rome by a gate con- structed by Sixtus V. in the aqueduct of the Mar- cian, Tepulan, and Julian waters, at the time when this pontiff supported his Felice aqueduct on walls successively restored by Octavianus, Titus, and Cara- calla. Under this arch could once be seen in charm- ing perspective the trees of an avenue all radiant with fresh verdure, half-veiling the battlements of the city and of the Tiburtine gate. At Tivoli the Sabine Hills open out in a horse- shoe : the old town, founded, they say, more than four centuries before Rome by refugees from Argos, occupies the southern extremity of the semicircle, and faces the north, a circumstance which contributes to the freshness of the air. A number of old houses, and hilly streets, shops with nothing for sale ; substructures on every side ; ancient postern-gates where the aloe blossoms in the crevices of the wall ; a chattering populace ; long alleys, low rooms whence in the evening issues the sound of rhythmic singing accompanied by the tabor; cascades on every sides, even under the caves of the crest of a hill on which the houses, piled one over the TIVOLI. 405 other, seem about to be launched into the abyss ; bplow terraces, the sheer rock ; finally on the side of a cavernous arch, a stream shooting forth in three leaps with frightful uproar — such is Tivoli. On the rocks above the falls is the circular Greek Temple of Hercules,* as well as the little square Tem- ple of the Sibyl, both standing on the edge of the precipice. Nothing could be more charming on these denuded rocks than the rotunda, which is earlier than Tiberius, with its Corinthian fluted columns support- ing an entablature, adorned with festoons and buc- rania. Its execution is of extreme delicacy, while its situation enables us to contrast the rugged aspects of nature with the refinements of art. It was under the foundations of this temple that, until 1826, the great cascade of the Anio still poured its waters ; an inundation, however, which occurred in that year carried away the upper sluice and unchained such a deluge over the town, thus perched on the brim of an abyss, that the swollen torrent swept away a whole clusterof houses. In order to save the ancient buildings, it was necessary to turn this terrible scourge aside, which was done by digging a covered channel for the Anio in the heart of Monte Catillo. But only the main sheet of water flows there : the town is placed as it were over a sieve, from all sides of the hill the waters seek an escape ; like columns from a besieged * Or of the Sibvl, or of Vesta. 406 EOME. town making a furious sortie. Falling in little cas- cades through a carpet of thick verdure, it is only at the opening of the valley that the scattered waters proceed to reunite compactly in the channel of the Teverone. To heighten the splendor of this spec- tacle, each elevated point is crowned with a monu- ment of the Renaissance or of antiquity : there is the convent which has replaced the house of Catullus ; there is the so-called villa of Maecenas, a vast mass of ruins which were once the great Temple of Hercules Vic- tor ; there are the green campaniles of the house of Ferrara, the highest cypresses in the world ; farther on are the much-contested villa of Horace, and the incontestable fortress of the Varus who let his legions be massacred. As soon as you arrive you are impatient to see everything ; and hardly has your eye taken in the view from the little hotel of the Sibyl, where so many travellers have perched themselves, than you pass through the house to plunge immediately, with or without a guide, into a sort of perpendicular laby- rinth. The descent to the cascade by a winding path- way is most entertaining, so much has time cut and slashed the rocks and complicated the vegetation. Galleries, niches, grottoes, porches, have been worked in the tufa, which is all honeycombed with pigeon- holes, in and out of which fly black pigeons. Help- ing the work of men, the waters have fashioned aqueducts ; they have excavated, and then petrified, TIVOLI. 407 tree-trunks in which rivulets make their way. Al- pine plants wed with those of Greece ; the acanthus with the erodium, the myrtle with the cyclamen. The inspirations of antiquity and of the palace of Armida erected by Tasso lend a strange charm to the viUa of the Cardinal Hippolytus d'Este, uncle of that Eleonora whose beauty was so fatal to poor Tor- quato. With its grottoes of mosaic where the water falls in echoing drops, its pieces of green water where the lotus languishes, and its theatrical magnificence, this fairyland produces the impression of a palace of romance and- adventure. Between Tivoli and Hadrian's Villa, at the head of the plain in the last recess of the mountain, you discover a host of subjects worked by Claude and Van Blomen, and nearly all the backgrounds of Poussin ; the younger schools, beginning with Joseph Vemet, have all illustrated this district. We made our way down to it the next day, by the slope opposite the cas- catelle which you see on your left, as, from the wind- ing glades through which you pass, you watch the many changes in the outlines of Tivoli, crowned by stiU loftier crests. When Hadrian on his return from Syria which he had governed, from Athens where he had been archon, from the wild regions of Britain and Armorica which he had explored as a traveller, from Juda3a which he had held subject, from Asia Minor and Egypt which he had studied as an archaeologist — when this crowned 408 KOME. patron of all tourists, wearied with the toils of em- pire and travel, wanted to arrange his collections, he laid out in gardens some leagues of a country that was varied with many dells and slopes. To find, as in an album of souvenirs, what had charmed him in his journeys over the face of the world, he bade his architects reproduce the Academy, the Lyceum, the Prytaneiuni, the PcEcile of Athens ; the Temple of Serapis at Canopus, a theatre at Corinth, and the Pyramids of Giseh. He even had Tartarus executed just as Homer had described it, "etiam Inferos finxit" says Spartianus ; and the Elysian fields as Virgil dreamed of them. Thanks to the topography of the district and its richness, he succeeded, by excavating green basins and transplanting mountains, in creating a second time that wonder of Thessaly — the Vale of Tempe, where the river Peneus under its mighty trees hid from Olympus the pranks of Pan, unveiled by Ovid. It was from Hadrian's Villa that the collection of philosophers assembled in the Vatican came ; hence came also the Antinoiis, a set of Egyptian statues, a menagerie of animals in marble, the four pillars in porphyry of the Ciborium of S. Maria Maggiore and its thirty-eight Ionic columns of cipollino poHshed like ivory; even the Medicean Venus is said by some authorities to have been found here, and not, as is usually stated, in the Pescheria Vecchia. The Faun in rosso antico of the Capitol, and the Adonis HADBIAN'S VILLA. 409 of the Villa Albani, have slumbered too amid these thickets. By Caracalla's time this sublime madness of Hadrian had become a mere store-room ; while after Totila, who besieged Tivoli, it became a quarry. Its gardens, in turn abandoned and restored to cultiva- tion, owe to these changes of fortune an aspect of wHdness which rises to the majesty of real nature : its trees are enormous ; but under the meadow-lands you divine substructures, and vaulted abysses rise from the turf. 410 KOME. CHAPTER XXIII. No one, that I know of, has ever verified the state- ment that the Vatican contains eleven thousand rooms, and if it is true, no pontiff has ever visited them all : what is certain is that among this assem- blage of palaces belonging to all ages, and where Bramante, Raphael, Pirro Ligorio, Fontana, Maderno, Bernini, and so many others have worked, can be counted twenty courts, and that to circulate among them they have had to construct two hundred and eight staircases. The Vatican museums form so vast a labyrinth that, before getting ourselves involved in them, it would be better to take as a prelude the Libeeria Vaticana. a broad nave, ending in the middle of a long transverse gallery, leading out of the Borgian apartments, where since 1840 have been deposited in addition to the MSS. a considerable portion of the printed books, now reaching the number of 100,500. It was Sixtus V. who caused Domenico Fontana to construct this gorgeous casket for those precious jewels which form the glory and pride of the Vatican Library, and give it a value above all other libraries of the world, — the collection of MSS. numbering up- THE VATICAN LIBRARY. 411 wards of 25,000 and dating back as far as the fifth century. All ages and all peoples of Europe and Asia have furnished their contingent to this treasure. It is to be regretted that, to furnish us with striking points of comparison, Pliny did not transmit the numerical inventory of the first library of Rome, founded for his contemporaries by Asinius PoUio, who placed in it the statue of Varro, while that writer was still living. The apartment is of ideal magnificence ; all is ar- ranged so as to give a feast to the eyes. While in places Kke the Bodleian at Oxford, and still more that typographical cemetery in the Rue Richelieu, the people who write, as well as those who read, are overwhelmed by the sight of a great mass of books piled up over their heads, which they will never be able to know, and which prove the vanity of compos- ing more ; at the Vatican you do not see a single volimie. It is within a multitude of gilded and illu- minated presses, a really magical decoration, that are concealed the nine thousand manuscripts of Nicholas v., and the collection of the learned Fulvio Orsini, who in his childhood begged alms ; that of the Bene- dictines of Bobbio, so rich in palimpsests ; that of the Castle of Heidelberg, stripped by Maximihan of Ba- varia, chief of the Catholic league ; the substance of the Libreria of the Dukes of Urbino, collected by Gruid' Ubaldo of Montefeltro, and increased by the Delia Rovere ; the fine books of Christina of Sweden; 412 HOME. the library of the Ottobuoni, commenced by that Pope Alexander VIII., who, having in his old age enriched his kinsmen, gave as his reason, "Son' gia le venti-tre e meszo ;" the Capponi collection, bequeathed in 1746 by the Marquis Alexander, who, in his quality of Foriere maggiore, was charged with organizing the Capitoline Museum for Clement XII., and who en- riched the Kircher collection with so fine a bequest ; the complex cabinet of the Cardinal Zelada, another librarian ; finally, the Greek manuscripts of the con- vent of Grotta Ferrata, and those of Cardinal Mai, acquired by Pius IX. There are eighteen Slav manuscripts, ten from China, twenty-two from India, thirteen from Armenia ; two from the old land of the Ilberians ; eighty in Coptic, and one from Samaria ; seventy-one from ^Ethiopia ; five hundred and ninety of Hebrew origin, and four hundred and fifty-nine of Syrian ; sixty-four from Turkey, seven hundred and eighty-seven from Arabia, and sixty-five from Persia, illustrated with fine miniatures. After crossing the office of the copyists, the vaulted ceiling of which is decorated in imitation of antique paintings found in subterranean constructions (grotte), and casting a glance at the Sibyls of Marco da Faenza, enlivened by some landscapes of Paul Brill, you enter the great chamber constructed by Sixtus V. ; and as the modest entrance (a small iron door to the left in the gallery of Inscriptions) has not at all prepared you for such splendor, you stop for a moment on the THE VATICAN LIBRARY. 413 threshold, dazzled. Decorated, illuminated, painted, gilded, furnished like a boudoir, a reliquary, this hall which extends in luminous perspective before your eyes is scarcely less than fifty feet wide by two himdred and twenty feet long. Seven large pillars, covered with frescoes, and panels filled with minia- tures, divide it into two aisles ; on the buffet is ex- posed a collection of Etruscan vases. Viviani, Sal- viati of Florence, Cesare di Nebbia, Sahmbeni of Sienna, covered these walls, friezes, and vaults with instructive, animated, and graceful frescoes (those of Ventura Salimbeni especially). This is all the idea I can give you of the Vatican Library. Except a few papyri and two inscriptions or legends in among the paintings, I had not seen a line of writing nor discovered the back of a single book. It would be well could the diplomatic efforts of the various nations procure a more liberal set of regulations ; but if they ever do undertake to handle this matter, it will be for France to interfere with some deference, for in 1799 our countrymen pUlaged the medal case of Queen Christina ; and had we not a few years after decreed the robbery of the manu- scripts of Rome by the power of might, it is probable that the pontifical court would have less repugnance to reveal its riches. The Gallery of Pictures, transferred in 1857 from the Borgian apartments to the top of the Vatican Loggie, ranks as a wonder, because it is composed of 414 ROME. about forty works, each signed with a great name. Pius VII. who instituted it, placed there, in 1816, the pictures restored to Italy by France after the rob- beries of the first empire ; since then the pontiffs have enriched the collection from time to time with gems, more than one of which is due to the munifi- cence of Pius IX. One of the most remarkable pictures is the Corona- tion of the Virgin, which Raphael executed in 1502 for the Benedictines of Perugia. It is a Perugino free from leanness, in which Raphael discloses him- self with unconscious originality ; and where you can recognize higher aspirations than in the work of Perugino. StiR the Virgin on the Throne, by the latter, surrounded by four Saints at prayer, is dis- tinctly a masterpiece : we have a conviction that the artist has here given complete expression to his idea. It is the apogee of the art which preceded the Dios- curi of the Renaissance, and perhaps Perugino's mas- terpiece ; containing exquisite figures, powerful color- ing, and a fine background of cleverly sketched buildings. He painted it for the Palazzo Comunale of his native town ; France, who carried it off, did not care to keep it : it was one of those unappreciated gems, with which the Thermidorian school reproached Bonaparte for loading his baggage-wagons. Out of the forty-two pictures of this gallery, the Louvre received and then gave back one-and-twenty. But the works were not restored by the popes to the Marriage of S. Catherine in Vatican Gallery. Murillo. THE VATICAN PICTUKE GALLEBY. 415 cities and establishments which had lost them : the convents and basilicas of Rome, the cities of Perugia, Pesaro, Foligno, even the sanctuary of Loretto, re- mained stripped for the benefit of the Vatican : is not this abuse of sovereignty rather like the excesses of victory ? Let us also observe that the paintings which in 1797 were the objects of these spoliations of ours were by preference academic works of Gruer- cino, Valentin, Nicholas Poussin, Guido Reni, or An- drew Sacchi. The Virgin and S. Thomas of Reni is one of the most mediocre productions you could well find ; yet they dragged it from Pesaro to Paris, and the Italians brought it back with honor from Paris to the Vatican, instead of restoring it to Pesaro, so much did the name of Guido dazzle people ! It may be in- teresting to make out a list of our compulsory resti- tutions after 1815. Out of twenty-one pictures that were sent back, Fra Angelico, Poussin, Valentin, Guercino, Michael Angelo da Caravaggio, and Giulio Romano, associated with Penni called II Fattore, were each responsible for one ; Baroccio, Andrew Sacchi, and Guido, for two ; Perugino three ; Raphael five, among them that famous Transfiguration which occu- pies a room apart, facing the Communion of S. Jerome by Domenichino, a cardinal piece which we had also to restore, and which, owing to a traditional admira- tion, caused amateurs more bitter regrets fifty years since than the sacrifice of all the rest of the gallery ; in the background at the bottom of the room is a pict- 416 EOME. ure which the fine world looks at far less — the Ma- donna da Foligno. Raphael's Transfiguration is assuredly a fine pict- ure, although the author has emancipated himself in it from that unity of action, which is cried up as a general thesis by the classic admirers of this master ; they have had to admit that it is a double vision of a poem in the clouds, and a drama with its peripeteia on the earth. Jesus, transformed in the sky between Moses and Elias, the mystic figures of the apostles, the kneeling bodies of S. Laurence and S. Julian, the patrons of Cardinal Griulio de Medici who was des- tined to become Clement VII. — the whole of this scene on Tabor goes back further even than the youth of Raphael, to the primitive Florentine tradi- tions ; only the prestige of an extremely noble style and design has prevented the aflSliation from being more striking. For this evangelical legend of the Transfiguration Raphael took his theme from the first door of Ghiberti, and Ghiberti himself fomid the arrangement in Giotto. There is a shocking contrast when we see in the same frame two episodes, one flowing from Gothic traditions, while the other repre- sents the absolutely opposed doctrines which were cried up by Vasari under the influence of Michael Angelo, and accepted by Giulio Romano, who assisted in the execution of the Drama of the One Possessed, connected by an effort with the Transfiguration. In this lower part, where the coloring is harder, — where THE VATICAN PICTUBE GALLEKY. 417 the theatrically posed figures are thinking of the spectator, where feeling and nature are replaced by impression and ejffect, — ^before this composition where Raphael may contend with the masters of succeeding ages, you acknowledge his skill, but you no longer enjoy his genius. It is with some curiosity that you watch the coldly arranged convulsions of the little possessed one, to whom his father sets an example in surprising attitudes ; around them, everybody plays his part as in a tableau vivant, and this method is to become a law, for ever, it may be ! From the time when Raphael Mengs ranked this above aU other works of Sanzio, even to the day when Quatremere de Quincey proclaimed it the finest pict- ure in the world, public taste came more and more under the influence of such doctrines and this ex- plains the general infatuation for the Communion of S. Jerome. It was, as has been often enough re- peated, the only picture fit to be compared with the Transfiguration. What a lesson for Raphael, if only it had not been posthumous ! Nicholas Poussin ranked Raphael and Domenichino together and placed them above all other painters. He considered the S. Jerome to be one of the finest pictures in Rome. If we are able to muster sufiicient independence and candor to shake ofi^ old prejudices, we will be ready to admit that the composition of the S. Jerome, too evidently inspired by Augustin Caracci, is cold. Its principal charm is derived from the admirable land- 27 418 EOME. scape, in the background above which hover some tolerably stiff angels. But how fuU of defects is the principal figure ! The greenish body of the dying man, ill-studied in design and showing the ravages of conventional senility ; the sinking head without a halo, which shows no consciousness of the great eucharistic act, nor any traces of what S. Jerome was; the familiarly benign expression of S. Ephraim, bear- ing the viaticum as a nurse would present a draught; and the figure of the Arab, who has nothing to do with the scene, and who, they say, represents the east ; finally, the utter absence in the whole composi- tion of emotion, of poetical faith in the mysteries which are being unveiled, in the mysteries which it is desired to summon before us .... It is a painting executed with much splendor, but inferior in signifi- cance, and having a good deal of theatrical flashiness. It will keep the rank it has usurped, Panurge and his sheep assure me. It is now time to penetrate into the numerous gal- leries consecrated to the masterpieces of antique art. We will start on this long journey by beginning with the primitive ages ; chronology will help us to recall facts of history. It is to Gregory XVI. that the Vatican owes two collections, which take us back even beyond historic times to the origin of the arts in the farthest east and old Latium. Pope CapeUari was a Venetian ; the establishment of the Egyptian museum, and the erection of an Etruscan museum. THE EGYPTIAN MUSEUM. 419 express the ideas of an artist and a scholar. Let us first make our way through the Egyptian galleries. After getting together the elements of this colossal collection, the judicious Gregory XVI. undertook the task of separating, — so as to make them instructive for purposes of study, — the Egyptian pasticci that fashion or caprice produced under the emperors, and particularly under Hadrian. The colossal marble An- tinoiis, that last-born of the demigods of sculpture, is the most important piece of this section of the museum ; it was found in Hadrian's Villa. Like all the Antinoiises, this is executed with a feminine ex- quisiteness of rounded and velvety outlines. It is a figure carved by a Greek, with the hieratic character of the sacred royalties of Egypt, and in the attitude of a Roman : this threefold character is clearly indi- cated. The Nile, an enormous recumbent figure, is equally allied to Greek art. After having seen among the Egyptians the re- mains of an art earlier than our written traditions, it is well to go and compare it on the spot with that of the Etruscans, of whose history we are ignorant. In passing from one to the other, however, it is almost impossible to help stopping in a certain hall which forms a vestibule, and which, being open on several sides, with a splendid staircase in three flights leading to the galleries, forms a centre in a very labyrinth of wonders of which you have vague glimpses. This is called the Hall of the Greek Cross ; and is 420 BOME. an architectural gem. The mosaic in the middle, the red granites, the columns of coralline breccia and green porphyry which support the arched vaulting and lateral entablatures of the marble steps ; those bas-reliefs set to right and left of the central archway ; the green granite vase of the architrave ; the sim- plicity of a frieze in which lilies, stars, and eagles mingle, — detached pieces of the new arms of the good Pope Braschi ; the Sphinxes which guard the stairs ; the animation, the modest richness, the de- light of visiting in an abode especially prepared for them, the gods and heroes of Attica — all this seduc- tive harmony and peaceful movement affect one with a fulness of content so rare, that a lively conviction of the superiority of classic works when brought to such a point of perfection is the result. This sanctu- ary where you are surprised at not meeting Alci- biades and Phryne, forms part of the charming con- structions which Pius VI. intrusted to Camporese and Simonetti, two artists of high Avorth, and yet whom no Biography has thought it worth while to name. The great doorway of the hall is set up in Sienese granite ; its two shafts, supporting Egyptian colossi, which serve as caryatides, are surmounted by an en- tablature above which are vases of red granite ; an en- trance of severe beauty, brightened by a bas-relief which occupies the centre. You see those glorious profiles in endless su.ccession, as slowly and with eyes drawn in every direction at once, you ascend the THE ETRUSCAN MUSEUM. 421 steps leading to the Etruscan museum, the second creation of Pope Grregory XVI. This collection being newer to me struck me as more curious than the other. Owing to the large number of small objects which have been found belonging to everyday life, this gal- lery throws light on the history of the Etruscans, and Sabellians as well perhaps, just as the Pompeian mu- seum at Naples does on that of the Romans. I ob- served that in the domestic carvings, such as bas- reliefs, small bronzes, terra cottas, and funeral monu- ments, the sentiment of the ideally or conventionally beautiful is, just as among the peoples of the west during the Middle Ages, made subordinate to anima- tion of expression ; while in the decoration of ce- ramic works there appears a certain suggestion of heroic form, made slighter, it is true, by an effort to put the subjects on the stage in a clear and definite action. To bring out these characteristics by means of contrast, they have placed Greek vases by the side of the Etruscan ones with white grounds, which are the most ancient — two distinct sources that were for long confounded together. The potiche of the Edu- cation of Bacchus, the great tazze or paterse of the Argonautic series, are like our paintings and statues of the Roman period, but endowed with more ele- gance ; a superiority of taste that seems to be in- herent in the Ausonian soil. It is the physiognomy, especially of most of the 422 ROME. Busts, that attracts you. There are two in terra cotta, which you would suppose to have been moulded after blonde Englishwomen by some pupil of Law- rence. In a bronze statue found at Todi, which rep- resents a warrior with a winged helmet on his head, and a doublet under his cuirass — a superb head, a true attitude, legs firmly designed, you seem to see an -^ginetan equipped like one of our crusading barons. The genii, and the winged and grotesque divinities, have an aspect so fundamentally eastern, that they carry the mind back to the distant ages of India. There is also to be seen here a complete Roman Biga, or two-wheeled car, in wood covered with copper. THE LAPIDAKY MUSEUM. 423 CHAPTER XXIV. In paying homage to the persevering liberality which has endowed the universe with its most mag- nificent museum, we cannot help pointing out to the recognition and gratitude of the nations four Pontiffs of our own age, who in order to accomplish so great a work were obHged to surmount many obstacles. These missionaries of art are Pius VI., Pius VII., Gregory XVI., and Pius IX. We should add Clem- ent XIV., had he by beginning the Clementine col- lection done more than simply yield to the impulse of his treasurer-general. Cardinal Braschi, who was shortly to become Pius VI. A long vaulted hall, which Bramante built, con- tains the lapidary museum of Pius VII. At the bottom a grating cuts the wide corridor in two ; it is the barrier which limits this suburb. Tombstones and sarcophagi are drawn up in a double row on either side ; the walls are a veritable mosaic of in- scriptions, succeeding one another over a length of nearly six hundred feet ; all are classed into kinds, centuries, creeds, purposes. On one side extend, in rows one above the other, family epitaphs ; then those of friends, consular personages, patricians of 424 ROME. imperial lineage ; finally people belonging to the different trades. Between the windows are arranged the sarcophagi as Avell as the inscriptions of new-born Christianity, pages taken from the Catacombs and written in Latin or Greek ; sometimes in a hybrid tongue and illustrated by symbolical designs. These inscriptions are usually short but expressive ; as we read them we still feel the throb of anguish of beings, turned to air these eighteen centuries past. Nothing could be more instructive than the bas- reliefs devoted to the craftsmen of a time when every dealer was an artisan. We see them in the work- shop in the midst of their tools ; the cutler forges, tempers, beats the iron ; hatchets, pincers, scissors, are hung up in the shop, where we see knives in rows, and, lower down, the counter with its draw- ers. The architect has the compass in his hand ; the potter or the locksmith handles the wheel or the file. In the middle of the gallery, on the pagan side, where the inscriptions bear the impress of the same man- ners, you pause instinctively before the enormous lions' heads wliich decorate a sarcophagus contem- porary with Titus, on which dance in escort upon Dionysius draped Bacchantes, of a charming style. Scenic masks fiU up the spaces. The first gallery of the Chiaramonti museum, founded by Pius VII., contains nearly eight hundred works of art ; the heroic figures, the tombs with their masks, the portraits, the gods accommodated to Latin THE CHIARAMONTI MUSEUM. 425 rites, all tell you the ideal history of Eome, but writ- , ten in Greek ; not one work is a product of the soil ; these objects of elegance and beauty are the tribute paid to the conquering race by the vanquished of Athens and Argos ; the sons of Homer might teach poetry, but never sculpture, to the soldiers who had to subdue a world. The Romans were masters only in architecture ; it was a part of the duties of the legislators of property to teach nations the art of construction. To comment on all the marbles in these galleries would be like paraphrasing a catalogue, so I shall only mention those that remain in my memory. First comes a bust of Julius Csesar, the head draped, on the point of sacrificing as Pontifex Maximus. Csesar is here represented in the last years of his life ; his face, seamed and furrowed, betrays a supreme lassitude; the dry expression of a man who has exhausted everything. No words could convey the contemptuous majesty which, in this luminous and ruined head, unites with a mixture of nobility, pedantry, and moral desolation. How is it that they have not made a copy of a masterpiece, which transmits to us so profound a revelation 1 Far- ther on, the fine sarcophagus of Junius Evhodus and his wife, found in the excavations at Ostia, rep- resents the legend of Alcestis, copied from older bas- reliefs. This romance of conjugal love traced on the marble is a homage of Evhodus " to his very dear 426 KOME. and very blessed wife, Metilia Acte." These people, ■who had little dread of death, prepared tombs most • tastefully adorned, and gallantly offered them like madrigals to the beloved object. Close by is a mag- nificent Urn, where you see the grapes being tram- pled in a vat, and above, Bacchus seated with Ariadne — a work of the time of the Antonines. The colos- sal bust of Pallas taker ifeom old Laurentum deserves a full description. The Athlete in Repose, which the waves of the sea rolled to the port of Antium, where it was found, is a figure of peculiar elegance ; the bas-relief of Azzia Agela shows us, as though sur- prised in the midst of the habits of domestic life, the deceased seated in a triclinium before her work-table. Near a colossal head of Octavianus, represented young, is a statue of his successor at the opening of his reign ; Tiberius is seated, clothed in the chlamys, knotted over the shoulder, and crowned with oak-leaves ; he holds in one hand a long sceptre, while the other rests on the Parazonium. This statue, found at Veil, is splendid ; the aristocratic beauty of the features, and the kindly animation of the expression, give to the head a fascination that throws suspicion on the vera- city of Tacitus. The unique bust of JuHa, the daugh- ter of Augustus, was exhumed, under Pius IX., at Ostia, in the same place as the youthful Augustus in Parian marble, the most delicate hkeness of the first of the emperors. Let us be on our guard against incarnating the THE CHIAEAMONTI MUSEUM. 427 supple spirit of Cicero in that big, good-natured face, which we see in plaster in our French museums and provincial schools. The real Marcus Tullius, agree- ing with the authentic Greek medal published by Father S. Clement, is that lean head with meagre cheeks, and penetrating, caustic expression ; a strangely living face, whose expressive lines The- mis and Apollo seem to have hollowed together. The great man has not on his nose the traditional mole I for he was called Cicero like his father and like his brother Quintus, and not because he had a wart like a vetch on his face. The true likeness in the Chiaramonti museum is numbered 422 ; and we have no cast of it. A curious statue, the unique portrait of a Csesar whose medals are most rare, is that of Diadumen- ianus, the son of Macrinus, whom HeUogabalus's soldiers massacred at the age of sixteen, ^lius Lampridius describes the degree to which the army was dazzled, when for the first time this youth ap- peared in the imperial vestments, "siderius et ccehstis." The colors of life play in his cheeks ; the sculptor having warmed the marble by investing it with cer- tain effects of painting. Here, close by his side, is another Tiberius, of Pentelican marble, still very young, half-naked, with drapery treated by a very skilful hand ; more real, this one has an air of aston- ishment, almost of brutishness ; the man of Caprese seems to show himself The head of Antoninus Pius 428 ROME. (505) is of a fine character. The Cato (510), an empty face with hanging lower lip, is apocryphal. The colossal bust of Isis, " queen of the elements," as Apuleius says, is a complete testimony as to the introduction of this worship among the Greeks in the time of the Ptolemies ; it is of Pentelican marble. Near the draped bust of Annius Verus in his infancy (559), there is another, the free execution of which, stripped of the mere process of the schools, deserves a glance ; they suppose it to be Domitius jEnobarbus, the happ3^ sire of Nero. Let us observe also a grand statue of an emperor, whose decapitation forces him to be anonymous, and between whose shoulders, in accordance with a too frequent practice, they have planted the head of Claudius. Although without arms or head, another statue has forms of such un- usual beauty, that we recognize in it the fragment of a rare piece of workmanship ; the set of the drapery assigns it to a fine epoch of Grecian art. Treated fancifully and with great purity, the Ganymede car- ried away by an Eagle is of irresistible effect ; the wings of the metamorphosed Jupiter form a little pavilion over the head of the tearful giovinetto : " They often asked the sculptor Leucares," Pliny tells us, "for a reproduction of this most successful statue." It was near the mole of Csecilia Metella that they dis- covered the bust 698, bearing the name of Cicero : it is only mentioned here to prevent its being confused with the real likeness spoken of above. Against the THE BEACCIO NUOVO. 429 preceding panel the important sarcophagus of Nonius, in marble from Luna, deserves mention, though it is mediocre from an artistic point of view, and contem- porary with Caracalla. These Nonii were a family of freedmen, grown rich in the oil trade, and having on the road to Ostia their villa and sepulchral mole. Between the pilasters of the sarcophagus they have cut a mola asinaria ; only here the ass is replaced by a mare. The bas-relief shows the implements used in squeezing the olives ; the hollow vessel for collecting the liquid, the quartarius and sextarius for measuring it, the pierced trowel for keeping back the kernels and the pulp, panniers and baskets — everything in fact connected with the business. When you have once passed through this fine but rather cold Chiaramonti gallery, you are perfectly ready for the rich arrangement of the second haU, opening at right angles from the other by a door- way flanked by two granite columns surmounted by imperial busts in basalt and alabaster. The Braccio Nuovo was built for a museum. The architect was aware that he would have forty-three very important statues to display in it. So he divided the length of his gallery into twenty-eight niches, and the apse into fifteen, and was thus enabled to set the statues in a series of arches; then before the pilasters which separate them he placed a row of as many busts on pillars of red granite. At the inter- sections of the arches are other busts supported on 430 KOME. consoles ; between the frieze and the keys of the arches are bas-reUefs ; an entablature with very pro- jecting modUlions serves as base for the vaultings, ornamented with cofFer-work cut hollow into the stone, and supported by twelve Corinthian columns of the finest cipoUino. The pediment of each door rests on precious columns ; the light falls, amply dis- tributed, upon charming mosaic pavements ; in the middle of the gallery rises a Greek vase of black basalt on a pedestal of red granite. Thus the gallery is constructed expressly for its contents, and the statues only form a natural decoration. One of the most important statues is that of Augus- tus, found at the villa Livia, in consequence of the munificence of Pius IX., it replaces the Antinoiis with the attributes of Vertumnus, which had been restored by the pupils of Canova. The Augustus is one of the good statues of the Vatican. In another niche people admire the statue of Modesty, a large figure with a diadem on its head, whence a long veil falls back over the peplum, and that in turn over a robe of heavier stufi" with majestic folds. These three different draperies arranged over one another are admirably wrought ; but the hand is heavy, and the head is only tolerably noble in its pose : both are modern ; the head having been taken from medals, with a superior appreciation for antique art. Two very singular statues facing one another, the one of Titus, the other of his daughter Julia, often Statue of Augustus, Braccio Nuovo. THE BEACCIO NUOVO. 431 stopped me by their pitiless reality. The son of Vespasian is short, squat, thickset, with a good- humored, sensual face ; he wears big winter shoes ; his figure and shape are particularly individual ; you would recognize him from among a thousand, if you saw nothing but his back or side, as if you had lived in intimacy with him. A hive of honey is carved at his feet, a panegyric of deUcate symbolism. Fleshy, short, stout, like her father, Julia is of a masculine ugliness, cynically portrayed. The Faun of the gar- dens of LucuEus belongs to a pure type of art, and would be a gem if it had not been so much restored ; the Euripides is an authentic likeness, a simple work, old, and therefore of the best style ; Demosthenes, in a natural pose, with rather thin arms, a well devel- oped neck, a deep eye, a laborious brow, a lip on which eloquence is stamped, is the figure of a thinker and a master of expression. Here, here truly, is the orator of the Olynthiacs, and not that athletic and shorn visage, the portrait of some good liver, which for so many years has been passed off in our schools of design for a famous Greek. What a contrast with that expressionless and morose Athlete, in whose sup- ple and vigorous frame we recognize the reproduction of a statue of Lysippus, that which the murmurs of the people forced Tiberius to restore to the Thermse of Agrippa ! There is plenty of character and spirit in the face of Antonius ; the man here seems above his part ; 432 EOME. the mouth especially has a slightly mocking delicacy expressive of a versatile intelligence, he seems almost of our own time ; while most unexpectedly the mad- man who lost the empire of the world to foUow Cleo- patra, has a look which is rather profoundly vicious than sensual. What a contrast with the face of Lep- idus, — the head of a bird, with a toneless eye, a soft brow, a retreating chin which throws out an inert mouth ; he is too like the part he played. A fine and curious statue is the Nile, half-recumbent and sur- rounded by sixteen nurslings at play about his big body, and trying to climb up on to it ; they represent the ascending degrees of the fertilizing overflow of the stream, which to give a prosperous year has to mount sixteen cubits. The sixteenth seems to be coming to life out of a basket of fruits. The base represents ichneumons, plants, oxen, ibises, and even hippopotamuses. It was under Leo X. that near the Minerva, where Serapis had her temple, they ex- humed this splendid work. Let us also mention on account of their rarity the statues of Lucius Verus, of very studied finish ; of Domitian, who recalls so closely the fraternal persons of Titus and Julia ; and a superb bust of Luna marble representing Philip the Father, the predecessor of Decius — a very fine Hke- ness for the period. We also pass a statue of Clau- dius, in which they have only had an arm to remake, and on the features of which is plainly stamped the credulity of the husband of Messalina. THE PIO-CLEMENTINE MUSEUM. 433 This is, as everybody will understand, only a feeble sketch of the hundred and thirtv-six works of art in the Braccio Nuovo ; in addition we may note among the bas-reliefs, a Marriage Scene, the Triumph of Marcus Aurelius, and that of Titus, in which you see better than on the arch of the Via Sacra, the ordering of the procession, the spoils of the Temple, those of the conquered, and the retinue of Israelitish prisoners. The very mosaics of the pavement are important, es- pecially that representing the Travels of Ulysses, whose vessel, having just doubled the rock of Scylla, breasts the waves at the point where they hear the song of the Sirens. As on your way to the Pio-Clementine Museum you pass a second time down the long Chiaramonti gallery, the statues with their rather bare surround- ings seem after the splendors of the Braccio Nuovo to be merely the plebs of the Vatican city ; but this avenue is an admirable preparation for the series of surprises that await you. One flight of stairs leads to the great museum, where by a singular contrast you come at first to a labyrinth of small chambers, each a sanctuary for its patron divinity. Clement XIII. and Clement XIV. began to unite the collections formed by their predecessors from Julius n. downwards ; but Pius VI. is the true founder of the Pio-Clementine museum j he con- structed seven large cabinets and galleries and en- riched them with nearly fifteen hundred statues. 28 434 EOME. We now approach the Belvedere through a square vestibule. In the middle of it is the Torso of the Belvedere, a colossal fragment of Herculean stature in Greek mar- ble. In the time of Alexander VI., when it was found near the theatre of Pompey, works contempo- rary with Pericles were rarer than they are now. This possesses great value ; for its author, Apollonius, son of Nestor of Athens, affixed his name to it, and it made a revolution in art ; Michael Angelo studied it to such a degree, that he was wont to call himself a pupil of the Torso. In the round vestibule which comes next, is a fragment of a statue with some re- markable drapery, carefully analyzed by Raphael, and a fine statue of a seated woman. The next cabinet, containing the inscription of L. Mummius, the conqueror of Corinth, and a colossal bust of Trajan, is dedicated to Meleager, the ideal of beauty in the time of Canova. This celebrated fig- ure, in which the hero rests on his lance between his dog and the head of the Calydonian boar, unites in a rare degree the qualities of elegance and distinction. We now reach the Octagonal Court, which it would be more correct to describe as square with portions cut out. Under the arches are placed separately, in a series of cabinets, so as to bo seen without any dis- tractions, some masterpieces that are known to the whole world. Here is the great sarcophagus found at S. Peter's, in digging the foundations of the sac- THE APOLLO BELVEDEBE. 435 risty ; it has an exquisite design of a Dance of Bac- chantes. Turning to the right, you come to a Sacel- lum dedicated to Canova, in the persons of the Perseus and the Pugilists. If Canova sometimes gives us his inspiration a little chiUed, we cannot deny its power. The Perseus reveals rare gifts ; but besides that the pose recalls — though less accentuated — the bronze of Cellini under the loggia of Orcagna at Florence ; al- though the limbs have not the same bounding sup- pleness, they are free, exquisite, one might almost say, tender. Before the great marble figure, lustrous as an onyx, of the Apollo Belvedere, unexpected sensa- tions awaited me. As it appears in aU its luminous- ness, against the greenish grey walls of the cabinet which it occupies alone, you are dazzled at the real incarnation of the god — Deus ecce Deus ! And suddenly an idea arises — the copies are not faith- ful ; people do not know it. Seized in a moment of happiest inspiration, the pose has something more determinate, the expression of the face is a more complete justification than in any of the multiplied plaster reproductions. The head has nothing col- lected nor cold ; it agrees in every muscle with the power of the eye, of the lips, of the swelling nostrils; the glitter of the polish rendering it moist and quiver- ing. Whether the Apollo Belvedere is a Greek mar- ble or marble of Luna, whether it has been copied from a bronze or not, these are but secondary ques- 436 EOME. tions ; the criticisms of the restorations of Montorsoli seem to me mere puerihties. Found near the sea at Antium, and acquired by the Cardinal della Rovere, who first of all placed it in his palace adjoining the SS. Apostoli, the ApoUo with which Julius II. crowned the Vatican is one of its most ancient conquests. It would have exercised prompter influence on art but for Michael Angelo, who, under the charm of the Torso and some other fragments (for he did not see the Parthenon), made the aberrations of the second Grecian epoch prevail over those of the third, which though less widespread, were more seductive in Canova's time. Three Rhodian sculptors, Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, have left a no less renowned work; occupying a separate cabinet, it was found in 1506 in the ruins of the palace of Titiis, on the spot where Pliny had described it ; this is the Laocoon. The effect of the original marble is so superior to that of the copies that we are fain to believe them all actual copies, and not casts. In replacing a missing arm, Giovan Angelo Montorsoli extended it, although from certain marks left in the hair, we may conclude that it was originally folded convtdsively behind the head in an attitude of desperate grief. Others attribute this arm to Bacio BandineUi ; it would be difficult for me to explain without being diffuse why I think it more modern. Pliny, who supposed the group to be cut in a single block (the sutures not then being visible)? THE BELVEDERE. 437 describes the Laocoon as opus omnibus staturice ariis prceponendum, and Michael Angelo called it a miracle of art. Around the five chapels, to whose patrons we have now done homage, are arranged many objects which ought to be examined at leisure, such as the bas-re- liefs and sarcophagi, in which the habits of life and rites of prae- Christian faiths are described. Some historical figures diversify the curiosities of which the court is the centre ; I remember a Venus-mater, with her Bambino, a likeness of the wife of Alexander Severus, at the foot of which is written that " this statue is oiFered to their ancient mistress by her two freedmen, Sallustia and Elpidia." In the cabinet of Mercury, a bas-relief of an Egyp- tian procession struck me as remarkable for simplicity and ingenuous grace. Let me also mention the panel of an ancient tomb on which, between likenesses and genii, you discover through a half-open door the in- terior perspective of a temple ; and the bas-relief of the Sacrifice to Mithra, on the cornice of which we read. Soli invieto deo ; and the Roman lady as Bac- chante, lying with graceful abandonment on the sepulchre in which she sleeps so profoundly ; and the large bas-relief representing a Sacred Procession, with lictors, and likenesses of consuls and pontifices ; and the Ossuary, in the form of a house, which held the remains of Quintus Vitellius ; and the elegant sarcophagus of the Nereids To be just one 438 EOME. ought either to mention everything or nothing ; but when the memory is full, that is not easy. The Hall of the Animals was begun b}' Pius VI., and continued by his successor. The collection was cleverly arranged by Francesco Franzoni, whose numerous restorations are generally supple and well conceived : Franzoni is one of the celebrities of modern sculpture, but his name, well known in Rome, appears in none of our biographies miscalled univer- sal, which likewise ignore a good half of the masters of the Florentine school. In the Attack on a Young Stag we find a peculiar species of hound, whose spring and muscular power are excellently rendered, and with rare beauty ; the type is less flat-nosed than ours ; the ears are cropped as we crop them now. Near by is the Combat between a Bear and a Bull. The two Greyhounds, of which one playfully bites the ear of the other, are the Apollo and Venus among greyhounds : you would say as much of the Hunting- Dogs, of the Whelp putting out its paw, of the Set- ter of violet breccia, of a Bull of the same marble, of the Cows, of the Running Greyhound, and many other works. Horses are rare, but in this marble menagerie an important place is given to grotesques and to animals used for food ; the pleasures of the table flourished at the beginning of the empire. There are ducks, cocks and hens, quails, a goose whose pose is a masterpiece of observation ; a lobster in green Carrara marble, which cheats you into think- * THE HALL OF THE ANIMALS. 439 ing it real ; water-fowl, a hare, a bustard ; a turkey, the merits of which can only be fully appreciated by people who have had to contend with this capricious beauty and its gobbling anger. Among the bur- lesques one must not leave out a toad in rosso an- tico ; nor the rats and crabs of green porphyry, nor the scorpions ; nor the lynx, nor some curious storks quaintly represented. In the Group of Mithras, where a bleeding buU has his blood licked up by a dog stretching to reach the wound, the extent to which the Style agrees with reality is surprising. In designing the Eape of Europa, the artist has skilfully made the divinity of Zeus radiant on the head of the bull. Hercules drags away the Nemean lion, which is dead enough, and whose slackened limbs possess a surprising reality. I should omit the Conimodus on horseback in hunting-dress, if it had not inspired Bernini with his equestrian figure of Constantino under the portico of S. Peter's : this landmark will help us to find the group of the eagle close by, with its brood of eaglets, huddled together like the vora- cious dynasty of the pelican. It is a work of aston- ishing vigor. The panther of veined alabaster, with its stripes rendered by the marble, is a gem ; but the recumbent Tiger in Egyptian granite, coarsely modelled in that stubborn material, is still more re- markable. The Lion in grey marble, larger than life, with a calf's head between its claws, is curious in point of execution ; the body, of superlative polish, 440 ROME. has a fleshy solidity that is exaggerated, to give light- ness and crispness to the mane, which is very abun- dant, and is still left shaggy and heavy. There are the head of a cow and the head of an ass crowned with ivy, which are models ; the second, in grey mar- ble, seems a despository of the soul common to the whole race of nags. And what charming groups ! The small Goat bitten by an asp, the Stork defend- ing a frightened she-goat and kid from two serpents; the Sow with her litter, a superb group, with much character ; the PeHcan holding her young in her open sides, the Chained Cerberus carried away by Her- cules, .... one ought really to omit nothing. One word more for a rural scene represented in a curious bas-relief; its subject is a Lustration, a re- ligious practice which the Etruscans perhaps taught the Romans, and which is not without an analogy with certain Semitic rites. Our bas-relief shows the lustration of a heifer, who suckles her calf ; an antique work, as perfect as it is rare. We recognize the tem- ple and its enclosure, the sacred fountain under a tree, the lustral bowl and the brush, an olive branch ; the shepherd carries strung on his crook two geese, which he is about to sacrifice. While all is thus being pre- pared, the cow, as she lets her young one suck, dips her muzzle into the cup and drinks the consecrated water. Two personages seated at the end of the Pio- Clementine gallery attracted me so much that, in THE PIO-CLEMENTINE MUSEUM. 441 order to rejoin them the more rapidly, I neglected any number of other wonders on the way. The one to the right is Posidippus, and the other Menander. The statue of Posidippus, simply wrought, in har- mony with the familiar ease of the attitude, is clad in a tunic, with the pallium thrown over the left shoul- der. The poet, a true academic head, wrinkled with age, but subtle and pensive, holds a roll between his fingers, which have rings on them. Menander is robust and younger ; we know, in fact, that he scarcely lived beyond fifty. It was by his resemblance to the likeness in the famous bas-relief of the Farnesina, that Quirinio Visconti recognized this prince of Greek comic authors, who most likely lived before Posidip- pus. The attitude has more life ; the poet in repose, with his left arm resting on the rounded back of his seat, his head inclined as if to study what is passing before him, has the conformation of a man of alert- ness, with the caustic expression of an observer wearied by the scenes of the world. Turning back after thus saluting the master of Plautus, we come upon an ApoUo Citharsedus, in whom connoisseurs claim to recognize Nero — a more than doubtful assertion. Then follow the Woimded Adonis, as beautiful and as stupid as he ought to be ; the Bacchus lying down, much renowned, because in the process of becoming defaced, it has gotten a false air of the grand epoch ; the Opelius Macrinus, unique statue of an emperor whose medals are rare, and in- 442 ROME. teresting as representing the art of the third century, when the science of interpretation was yielding to the mechanical imitation of nature. From that point of view, it is a powerful figure ; and brings out all the better the brutal form and foul shape of the Nu- midian upstart, said to have sprung from slavery, to have been reared in domestic service, to have risen by assassination, and who died like a coward. Treas- ures are buried everywhere in Rome : the enormous Bath of oriental alabaster was found in the middle of the Piazza SS. Apostoli, in repairing a water-conduit. Nearly opposite, beside JEsculapius, is Hygeia, the goddess of health ; a friend whom you find passing fair the moment she leaves you ; the sculptor had lost her perhaps, for he has made her adorable. This figure, which must belong to about the same time as the Danaid of Prseneste, is far from equalling the Faun leaning on the trunk of a tree, which was dis- covered in the Marsh of Ancona, and is a copy from Praxiteles : the original, mutilated and reduced to a torso, was found in the excavations on the Palatine. Finally, under an arch between columns of giallo an- tico flanked by candelabra of marble with figures worth describing, is lying that celebrated figure of Ariadne deserted, which an ophidian bracelet caused people to take for Cleopatra, when Julius II. had this masterpiece placed in the Belvedere. The tunic half undone, the sorrowful features, the veil falling from the head, the tumbled folds of the drapery — all indi- THE HALL OF BUSTS. 443 cate the prostration which follows violent anguish. A sarcophagus of struggling Giants whom we see chang- ing into hydras — the pedestal of this noble work — is of an inferior and later school. The identity of the Ariadne is confirmed by a neighboring bas-relief, not less important as a piece of evidence than as a work of art, in it we see the same figure inversely arranged, between Theseus who climbs the side of his ship, and a Faun who pre- cedes Bacchus : a goat in it symbolizes Naxos, an islet of the rocky herd in the ^gean. Nothwith- standing several restorations which date for the most part from the fifteenth century, this bas-rehef, ex- humed under the auspices of Cardinal d'Este, at Ha- drian's Villa, is one of the most interesting sculptures in the museum. At the entrance to the Hall of Busts is Julius Caesar, draped in a toga ; a poor head and of doubt- ful authenticity ; then we pass an Augustus crowned with wheat-ears, and a pseudo-Cicero which can no longer impose on us. There is Marcus Aurelius, and Mamsea, with her son Alexander Severus ; farther on, a veiled matron, whose robes are curiously draped. The helmeted head of Menelaus is so well known, that it has taken its place among real personages. You think you recognize Ptolemy, king of Maurita- nia, by his crisp hair and energetically indicated signs of race. Does it not seem as if this stupid hyaena who is Caracalla is going to scream, as you re- 444 ROME. ceive the sombre flash from his eyes, and detect the expression of the skilfully executed mouth ? A fine head of an assassin and a restless tyrant ; he carried it slightly bent, to imitate Alexander of Macedon, and gained by this piece of folly the look of an angry cat. Augustus reappears, so aged, with a mouth at once so scornful and so dejected ; the majesty of the old mechanism expires in such exhaustion of disen- chantment, that it seems like the summing up of life's experience in an absolute contempt for men. This likeness is larger than nature, as well as those of An- tonius, of Septimius Severus, of Otho, a bust draped in that orange-colored oriental alabaster which the Italians call cotognino, and finally, of Nero with the harp — a virtuoso with weak blinking eyes, repre- sented so as to confirm the confidential testimony of Pliny as to the cat-like glance of this emperor. After saluting the cold effigy of Jupiter, we pass the colossal head of a Barbarian King, said to come from the arch of Constantine. A work of the de- cadence, this poor chance king produces here the effect of a sheep-dog among the pure greyhounds of the pack. Commodus figures among the best like- nesses, as well as Sabina with her husband Hadrian, close to a fine Aristophanes who comes from their viUa. Near a draped bust of oriental alabaster, which is assuredly not a Julius Caesar, you will remark the energetic and common head of a Plebeian, which was found near the tomb of the Scipios, and which some- THE HALL OF BUSTS. 445 what recalls Cardinal Antonelli : then, Livia Drusilla, fourth wife of Augustus ; Philip the Younger, in red porphyry ; a Scipio Africanus completely apocry- phal ; Saloninus son of Grallienus, and Julia daughter of Titus. These galleries are so rich in likenesses, that they possess images of royal children hardly mentioned in history, such as Annius Verus, a son of Marcus Aurelius, who was proclaimed Csesar at the age of three, and who died three years afterwards. When you have visited the Capitol and the Vatican, you know the great people of the Roman empire more intimately than our own kings and heroes ante- rior to Lewis XIV. 446 KOMB. CHAPTER XXV. By going through the great Italian gardens of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries we get an idea of those paradises planned by the proconsuls, and re- discovered by the ascetics of a later age in their mystic dreams. The Eden of the successors of S. Peter and Julius II. is a poetic solitude. On three sides the view extends over distant country, while the foreground composed of marbles and clipped foliage presents a series of happy contrasts with the thickets, the bram- bles, the russet hills, the violet undulations, and some- times with the snows that lie beyond. The valley is divided into compartments, bounded by terraces, squares planted in stiff figures, and framed by walls or orange-trees cut into hedges, M^hose golden fruits and perfumed alabaster blossoms gleam among the foliage. Shut in by partitions of box and laurel, high as groves of oak, the avenues cross and recross one another, half-veiled by shades which recall the night and suggest the idea of mystery. Here and there antique tombs arouse vague dreams, and statues suddenly confronting you from some leafy thicket cause a start of surprise. Advancing thus, amazed, delighted, uncertain which THE GALLERY OF MAPS. 447 direction to take, as at each turn some fresh beauty beckons you away, you come at last to the Casino, a miniature villa constructed by that lucky namesake of the Medici, who owed their patronage to his name, and who, to justify so ambitious a relationship, insti- tuted seminaries, founded the Vatican school of paint- ing, and directed Pirro Ligorio, his architect, accord- ing to the traditions of the reigns of Leo X. and Clement VII. This building, the most irregular of works in point of taste and style, gives a happy idea of the caprices and jovial humor of Pius IV. In truth, never have the architectural debauches con- ceived by our painters, of gay scenes of merry-mak- ing, exceeded the amusing simplicity of this chinois- erie, which was inspired by Giovanni da Udine. Terraces, open galleries, cabinets of painting, mar- bles and rock-work, bas-reliefs and festoons of ver- dure, baths and boudoirs, basins and fountains, are all mixed in premeditated confusion ; unforeseen effects follow one another at every step ; the mosaics, and the quaint delicacies of the statuary are further enlivened by the pencil of Baroccio, Zucchari, and Santi di Tito. I proceeded to the very end of the Gallery of Maps, the last hall on the second story. Between the thirty windows which light it on either side, Gregory XIII., the reformer of the calendar, had painted in colors enormous maps of the provinces of Italy. By his order, the gallery was furnished with marble benches 448 ROME. and a double row of Hermes, antique busts resting on high pedestals. Simply paved, this chamber has for ceiling a many-colored paradise of medallions, of coffer-work, or trophies of stucco, framing paintings, where projecting pedipients are peopled with statu- ettes flitting under the arches, and representing Loves or Angels, according to the disposition of the specta- tor. I traversed rapidly the Gallery of Maps, as well as that of Tapestries. You are astonished to find even under the roofs, above the Chiaramonti museum, new corridors as high and as rich in columns, arch- ways, precious marbles, and splendidly decorated vaults. Paved with polished marble, in which the pedestals of four porphyry columns are reflected, the Galeria degli Arazzi is of more sober ornamentation ; it was only finished under Pius VIII. : aU interest is centred in the famous tapestries which Leo X. had executed for the Sixtine chapel, from designs fur- nished by Eaphael. They are fourteen in number, but only eleven are attributed to the master himself, the same number as the cartoons. I had seen the seven which are at the S. Kensington Museum. The Tapes- tries are more finished and of richer coloring ; they do honor to the Flemish workmen, for they are ex- ecuted without heaviness, from simple hints ; but then in these hints what freedom, what brightness ! Below the principal subjects, which are scenes taken from the Gospels, are arranged between the borders, almost as a sort of predella, other subjects, borrowed THE GALLERY OF THE CANDELABRA. 449 from the history of the Medici : — the Return to Flor- ence of the cardinal of that name ; Giovanni de' Medici being taken prisoner at the battle of Ravenna; Giovanni (afterwards Leo X.) fleeing from Florence in the dress of a capuchin, and his Entry into Rome to attend the conclave. Among the tapestries, the designs of which are not attributed to Raphael, let us remark, the Allegory of the Papacy, the Massacre of the Innocents, and Jesus appearing to Mary Magda- lene. With these hangings are hung others of the same period, but not by Raphael, which although they have been copied more than once, are stiU uncommon. As we have a long way to go, I can only mention in passing the most remarkable' pieces, in the Gallery of the Candelabra, such as the Great Bowl on which SUenus and the Fauns make the vintage, — a work of fine style ; the wounded Phrygian Soldier, belong- ing to a later age, but of extreme vigor ; the small Vase of brown Egyptian granite ; the Ceres with fine draperies in Parian marble ; the Bowl on which horses and dolphins carry Neptune ; the Cup of red oriental granite streaked like Spanish beans ; and that other one that has such pretty handles, composed of adders twisted into masks (it is of superfine porphyry, dark green on a lighter shade). These gems are dis- played on altars of marble and jasper, covered with inscriptions. On another vase, in the shape of a mortar, are sketched emblems mixed with animals ; you would not believe the extent to which, among so 29 450 EOME. many objects of classic execution, the different pro- cesses are represented. The statue of a Victorious Virgin (222) reveals a fashion which seeks to imitate the Etruscan, just as we make pasticci of the style of our own middle ages. The Mortar (210), round which Bacchantes dance in a ring, as weU as its cylindrical base, on which cities and provinces figure, is a model of grace and lightness. If we allow our- selves to be too much fascinated by the splendor of certain gems, such as a Vase in semi-transparent alabaster, streaked with concentric zones, and two other Vases of rose-colored alabaster, veined with the tenderest shades, we run the risk of overlooking the splendid Sarcophagus which serves as a support for them, the bas-reliefs of which are very remarkable. They represent Apollo and Diana exterminating with arrows the too fair family of Niobe. This massacre represented with much animation, between the im- passive figures of the gods shooting their arrows, unites to the nobleness of Greek art the science of composition and a knowledge of dramatic emotion : despair, the agony of death, the supplication of ter- ror, — all is expressed with spirit. On the lid is an original frieze, composed of a group of dead bodies. Not far off a niche shelters a singular statue ; Jupiter dressed as a woman, with the attributes of Diana the huntress. He is disguised thus to cheat Calisto, one of the nymphs of the goddess. Three children, one of which beats a swan that another is dragging by THE HALL OF THE CANDELABRA. 451 the wing and the neck, whilst the third carries off fruit in a nebris, seem to me small masterpieces ; they form part of a group which once decorated a fountain at Roma Vecchia, between the Latin Way and the Appian Way. Near the great Candelabrum repre- senting Hercules and Apollo disputing for the tripod of Delphi, there are three vases which, besides their ele- gance, are curious specimens of rare and precious mar- ble. One of an amazing size is of Orta alabaster, broadly veined with interior lines ; the second, abso- lutely unique, is of jasper radicellato, with a purple ground streaked with grey rays, bluish and white ; the third, in black African antique, has for handles two rooks, which, with tails fixed in the body of the vase, bend back to sharpen their beaks on the brim of the bowl. The Ariadne discovered by Bacchus is one of the four principal sarcophagi of the Vatican. Like its neighbor, the sarcophagus of Niobe, it is easily iden- tified from a distance by pillars surmounted by vases ; one of these is of fluted violet marble, the other is palombino. As far as the composition is concerned, the Ariadne is a masterpiece of bas-reliefs ; the scene is full but free from confusion, and the interest con- centrates on the principal subject. The attitude of Ariadne is exactly that of the great Ariadne of the Gallery of Statues, which was mistaken for Cleopatra. In the Satyr there is a hint, in the head only, of the Moses of Michael Angelo, who never saw this bas- 452 BOME. relief. The last figure to the left, a woman and the small Bacchanals of the frieze or lid, with a cartouche supported by Loves, are exquisite pieces of sculpture. Examples of the art of making bas-reliefs effective, and at the same time free from weakness or harsh- ness, there are in these two masterpieces, the Ariadne and the Niobe, materials for a school. I saw again with pleasure the fine statue of a Roman lady as Polyhymnia ; it is thus, though with a less noble severity, that they used to transform our fine ladies of the ancient regime into Muses. Leaving the Hall of the Candelabra, and passing Simonetti's magnificent staircase, we now enter the circular hall of the Biga, so called from the chariot placed in the centre by Pius VI., which long served in the church of S. Mark for a cathedra. Entrusted with the restoration of this Greek car, the pole of which ending in a ram's head had been preserved, Franzoni fitted somewhat heavy wheels to it, made a new head for the fine galloping courser, which Prince Borghese had presented to the holy father, created a second horse, and the thing was done. To plant a head in the antique style on an admirable equestrian torso is no mean achievement, and this restoration is a masterpiece of its kind ; the ornamentation of the car, composed of foliage twisting in and out among rosettes, and mingled with wheat-ears, is of inimitable workmanship. The whole seemed so wonderful to Pius VI. that, to install the Biga suitably, he had this THE HALL OP THE BIGA. 453 rotunda constructed by Camporese, with a cupola imitated from the Pantheon, resting on a marble cor- nice, supported by eight fluted columns with Corin- thian capitals. Besides the famous chariot, this hall contains other objects of value : an Indian Bacchus of the second century, a bearded figure with long plaited hair, clad in a sleeved tunic, with sandals ; — the small sarcophagi with circus-races drawn on them : interesting pieces, for the one comes from the cata- comb of S. Sebastian, while the other, which was found in the same vineyard as the tomb of the Scipios, is of rare delicacy. Let us also remark the Apollo Citharsedus, and the Discobolos of Pentelican marble, found on the Appian Way, a celebrated statue, so correct as to have acquired a didactic value. StiU, notwithstanding its irreproachable proportions, how inferior it seems to the reproduction of the Discobolos of Myron, placed close by ! That admirably posed figure of a young athlete hurling the discus shows a physique at once fuU of spring and strength ; the arms and chest modelled broadly and with a simplicity, the secret of which was too soon forgotten, recall the great epoch symbolized by the name of Phidias. The artist who drew his inspiration from the bronze of Myron, has written on the base, at the foot of which is a strigil : MYPQN EnOIEI. The huntress Diana, with a quiver on her shoulder and a dog by her side, has a face which reminds us of the gallant figures of the youth of Louis XIV. ; but what a model of grace and 454 EOME. execution ! What could be more interesting than the victorious chariot-driver who holds in one hand the palm and in the other the reins 1 He has a hook for a weapon ; and his body seems to be encircled by- iron bands placed over the tunic. In order to reach the Circular Hall we must again pass through the Hall of the Greek Cross, this latter indeed serves so constantly for a passageway either to reach the gar- dens or to ascend to the Etruscan and Egyptian Museum, or to descend to the library, that there is risk of neglecting certain objects there. The veiled statue of Augustus as Pontifex Maximus ; the half- draped Octavius, whose head curiously enough has never been detached from the trunk ; — the Lucius Verus, so well posed, though the head is a little too strong J — an esteemed, though in my opinion weak, copy of the Venus of Gnidus ; — the Sphinxes in Egyptian granite on each side of the staircase ; — the colossal heads of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius ; — the Marciana ; — the unknown Empress draped as Ceres or Modesty, to whom the sculptor has given the eyes of a vampire ; — these are some of the more notable pieces. There are two others which, reduced to their money value and to the industrial merits of the work, so attract the attention that they help to prevent one from seeing the rest ; these are two gigantic sar- cophagi, of that red porphyry which is so hard to cut ; monoliths, whose mass is truly imposing, and which stand in the upper part of this great vestibule. Of THE CIBCULAK HALL. 455 these colossal gems, one, taken from the tomb close by S. Agnes beyond the walls, held the remains of the daughter of Constantine ; Genii, Vintagers, figures that the Romans take for grotesques, so incorrect is the execution, stand out in extreme relief from this crimson block, polished like a cornelian. Pius VI. brought these renowned sarcophagi to the Vatican ; splendid as decorations, they are still more precious as historical documents. The second one also of porphyry, is larger even than the other, and is furnished with a sculptured pyramidal lid. S. Helena slept easily at Tor Pignattara, in this Titan's toy, transferred after- wards to S. John Lateran, and from thence brought here. On its sides run and gallop the soldiers in the Battle against Maxentius. These bas-reliefs, which project so much that they are around engaged em- bossings, extend their triumphant defiles over the four faces. But their success is merely one of exe- cution, for the art of bas-reliefs had been lost when they were made. The Circular Hall is a splendid and striking resto- ration of an antique salon. You would suppose your- self to be in the galleries of Maecenas, of Verres, of Cicero, or of Titus, and the cause of this illusion is not far to seek. That great and venerable friend of the arts whom we call Pius VI. proceeded in the same manner as the contemporaries of Augustus ; he had the casket designed for gems already collected, in- stead of building a case like us, without thinking be- 456 KOME. forehand of the contents. The pontiff Braschi pos- sessed eight fine colossal figures, ten busts, an enormous vase of red porphyry, and the mosaic pave- ment of an ancient rotunda. So he placed a cupola upon ten fluted pilasters of Carrara marble, between each of which an arched niche was left for the great statues on their pedestals of Greek marble ; before the pilasters were placed the busts on red porphyry brackets ; the mosaic of Otricoli, where Medusa is encircled by the Combat and the Lapithse and Cen- taurs, and where Tritons move with Nymphs and Chimajras, was again made the pavement of an an- tique hall ; finally,, the basin of red porphyry, forty- one feet in circumference, found in the Thermse of Diocletian, was installed in the middle. In this rich arrangement all contributes to a certain harmony, all is homogeneous and seems to belong to one and the same age. Since we are thus carried back to the old world, it is proper first of all to bow before Jupiter Optimus Maximus, — Maximus particularly, for an unspeakable majesty characterizes this prototype of the Olympian head. The projecting brows of a monumental fore- head, the pitiless impassibility of this ideal and virile beauty ; the parted lips, superior to every emotion, and through which only oracles can pass : all con- tribute to convey the idea of a superhuman being, all powerful, with no vindictiveness and no pity, and in whose eye mortals are but as insects. Near the mas- THE CIBCULAR HALL. 457 ter of the gods is a colossal Bacchus, the torso of which recalls by its modelling the fine bronze Her- cules found in the Righetti palace. In this hall gods and emperors are assembled, as they were in the ideal Olympus of the Romans. Near the drunken Bacchus leaning on a faun, a charming head, is the great Ligurian head of Pertinax, broadly sketched and full of a crafty geniality ; near these are Plautinus and Julia Pia, second wife of Septimius Severus, separated from a colossal bust of Claudius (his finest known likeness) by the great Juno of Lanuvium, surrounded by curious attributes. She is less handsome, how- ever, than the famous Barberini Juno, placed near Jupiter Serapis, in which the King of Olympus, personified according to doctrines of the Alexan- drian school, appears with the tresses of Pluto and in the centre of the rays of Phoebus. The Juno's head is superb, her draperies are elegant and supple, the hair is skilfully dealt with, and the bosom revealed with grace under the transparency of the peplum ; it was discovered on the Viminal, and is a work of marked style. The enormous and bizarre Hermes of Parian marble, which represents, not the Ocean, as is said, but a grotesque Triton in a pool in the gar- den of Pozzoli, separates Antoninus from Nerva, two fine statues, especially the first, which is clad in a cuirass and holds the parazonium in the left hand ; Marcus Aurelius set it up in Hadrian's villa. A singular feet is connected with the seated figure of 458 EOME. Nerva : they found the upper half between the ba- silicas of Santa Croce and the Lateran and gave it to the sculptor Cavaceppi to restore, whereupon he discovered that he had the lower half, which had been dug up at some indefinite period, in his own posses- sion. On the pedestal is a comic bas-relief, witty and graceful, representing a household scene taken from the first book of the Iliad, Vulcan indoctrinating Juno so as to make her less intractable with Jupiter. Comedy and Tragedy are represented by two Hermes, curious specimens of Greek art in the time of Hadrian, who had them carved as supports for the door of his antique theatre at Tivoli. Comedy, with a chaplet of vine-leaves, is full of laughter ; the head of Tragedy might be called bourgeois : these beauties seem modern ; the old heroic world was vanishing. If Ceres, another colossus, affects so rigid a mien, it is because she is without doubt indignant that they should have placed a fairly reputable goddess between Antinoiis and Hadrian. As for the colossal Hadrian exhumed from the fosses of S. Angelo, this head in Pentelican marble, of which the execution is trans- cendent, must have belonged to a statue posted as guardian in the vestibule of the tomb. We have now, after more than one omission per- haps, to make our obeisance at the feet of Mnemosyne, described /iNHOMCINH in the inscription in old Greek letters on her statue, which is only about half life size : Clement XIV. purchased this masterpiece THE HALL OF THE MUSES. 459 from the Barberini. Her arms are concealed beneath the draperies, Mnemosyne wrapped within herself seems, so vague is her glance, to be watching some inner horizons : it is thought that gives life to this in- active figure. The sanctuary of the Nine Sisters, presided over by Apollo Musagetes, clad in a long tunic and playing the flute, is enriched by spoils from the villa of Tivoli and the palaces of the Esquiline, to which are added sixteen columns of Carrara marble. The softened hght in this octagonal chamber helps to make the circle of the Muses more imposing ; and is additionally valuable as it plunges into a half obscurity the frescoes of the Cavalier Conca, while allowing the eye to rest on the arabesque mosaic^ with which the hall is paved. Let us choose out some familiars of the coUege of the Muses to whom it seems mannerly to present our- selves on entering. To begin with, there is Demos- thenes ; the first glance enables you to recognize that head so full of life, and so spiritually characteristic in its expression. Antisthenes, the pupU of Socrates and the master of Diogenes, with his lips parted under an expressive beard, Hkewise has a marked individu- ality, but his disciple and he have an air of not know- ing one another : this grave and calm Diogenes looks to me as though he had been christened by an after- thought, unless he be some namesake. The Sopho- cles, small and dry, with an official kind of face, is in 460 EOME. my eyes an unknown, who having preserved only the second half of his name — . . . . OKAHI — is profiting too much out of a gallantry of Time. Epicurus is authentic ; he had so many friends that he was often portrayed. Zeno the Stoic is very good, as well as Machines, Metrodorus, Socrates, and the sleepy Epi- menides. Meanly executed, the Alcibiades has the mannered and almost modern expression of a genius skilled in exploiting a fashionable infatuation ; it is a curious face, and one that I hardly expected to meet in that world. What a difference between this spoiled darling and the valiant and admirably interpreted fig- ure of Themistocles ! Lycurgus, Periander, Bias, Euripides, ought not to be passed over in silence. As I was looking at a Grra3co-Roman bas-relief of a mar- riage ceremony, my eyes fell on a grave and comely woman, with modestly veiled head ; it was the friend of Plato and Socrates, a hetaira who presided over the intellectual movement of an epoch summed up in the mighty name of Pericles. Near Aspasia is placed the royal dictator of the Athenian democracy, Peri- cles, the son of Xanthippus. Intelligent, subtle, deli- cate, and shapely under the helmet which so adds to its size, this head has the rather mocking expression of great leaders who know men, and play at pulling the wires of the puppets. Found in the time of Pius VI., these authentic portraits (the names are en- graved upon them) have made the modern world ac- quainted with two illustrious figures of antiquity. THE HALL OF THE MUSES. 461 Between the pair is seated the Tenth of the Muses, Sappho of Mitylene, a statue broad in style and pure in sentiment. To conclude this summary review, we have only to halt before the Pierides. This collection of statues of the nine Muses is really unique, especially if you consider that it is completed by the Mnemosyne and the Apollo Citharsedus ; yet all these figures are by no means of equal beauty. Melpomene is one of the best ; her dishevelled hair, intermixed with grapes, her young and serious glance, the action in her atti- tude, the heaviness of the tunic, the noble grace with which the syrma is flung — all give the goddess, armed with the poniard, a passionate expression. Thalia is more laughing ; she has for attributes the pedum which answers to pastoral poetry, the comic mask, and the tympanum ; she is seated, the lower part of the body enclosed in a large mantle, whence sandal- shod feet escape, every one knows that childish and frolicsome face, the brow framed in ivy leaves, which cast projecting shadows. These two Muses, as well as Polyhymnia, Clio, Erato, Calliope, Terpsichore, and Apollo Musagetes, were discovered in 1774 at TivoH, in an ancient rustic house of Cassius. Pius VI. in- stantly acquired these precious works ; he next strove to complete the procession, and finally constructed for the divinities the octagonal chapel of the Muses. As one enumerates the creations of that lofty, liberal, poetic spirit, and beholds the marvels left by him, it 462 KOME. is hard in view of the persecutions which slew the noble old man, to keep from asking on which side were true greatness and civilization. While I was wandering through these halls, in the garden the light had changed ; the already purpling rays of evening were falling athwart the western slopes of the Vatican, and the shadows of the trees had en- gulfed the flower-beds. As far as I could see, not a soul was visible ; the statues stood like spectres ; the air was stifling and close ; the nests were silent. Nothing broke the stillness but the distant ringing of a convent beU. However, as I would surely never more return to these sacred groves I stUl Hngered. A few glimpses and openings aUowed me to foUow the obhque course of the Tiber through the Campagna ; sarcophagi bequeathed by the earliest Christian ages disclosed themselves among the brambles, I could decipher Csesarean inscriptions under the ivy ; Diana, the nymphs, Sylvanus, the god Pan, shone out from the masses of foliage ; they were at home, and had no look of shivering in exile, as in our northern regions. RAPHAEL AND MICHAEL ANGELO. 463 CHAPTER XXVI. In the year of grace 1509, on AU Saints' Day, Julius II. offered to the admiration of his court the first three frescoes of Raphael in the chamber of the Segnatura, as well as the still-unfinished paintings with which Michael Angelo, since May 8, 1508, had been decorating the vaults of the Sixtine Chapel. Nothing had been seen hitherto comparable to these masterpieces, which have never been surpassed in subsequent times ; so their appearance assigns a pre- cise date to the culminating point of the Renaissance. Causes, which had nothing ambitious about them, paved the way for these wonderful results. On being elevated to the Holy See, Pope Julius felt a re- pugnance to inhabiting apartments that had been de- filed by the Borgia family, and consequently had others made ready on the upper story ; then he wished, in memory of his uncle, Sixtus IV., to deco- rate the ceiUng of the chapel which this pontiff had buUt. With the clear-sightedness of a man of taste and judgment, he entrusted the apartments to Ra- phael of Urbino, who had been presented to him by Braniante, and, while fully appreciating Sanzio's gifts, entrusted the vast spaces of the Sixtine vaults 464 ROME. to Buonarotti, who would fuin have dechned the com- mission, being ignorant of the methods of fresco painting, and obliged to take lessons like a beginner before executing as a first attempt the finest master- piece of the kind. For this enormous work Bramante had recom- mended Michael Angelo ; and Michael Angelo recom- mended Raphael. Julius 11. held to his point however, and fell into such fury, that Buonarotti had to yield. A novice as a painter, though covered with gloiy as a sculptor, he was at this time thirty-four years old ; Raphael was only five-and-twenty. Both had drunk of the Dantean spring, both had been subjected to those influences exercised by Savonarola over the culminating inspirations of the school of Umbria; finally, the eldest and most energetic had not yet ex- ercised any ascendancy over the other. The first time I ever crossed the threshold of the Sixtine Chapel, the lower part of the church, — the only part accessible to the public, was crowded with people, because the sovereign pontiff was about to celebrate mass ; cardinals, secular and regular, robed in grey or red, furred in ermine, occupied the benches of the sacred college, divided from the faithful by a high balustrade. I was struck with the simplicity of the building ; a high long hall reduced to its four walls, without architectural ornaments, and with rec- tangular windows pierced over the frieze. To the right, a tribune half-grated, with trellis-work for the THE SIXTINE CHAPEL. 465 choristers ; at the bottom a very simple altar with three steps in front, covered with a carpet ; beside this altar, which has only six tapers, and above which rises the great piece of the Last Judgment, a raised seat for the pope ; — such is the Sixtine Chapel. It has no decoration but the paintings with which it is entirely covered, to within some fifteen feet above the ground. It was to furnish the lower part, that Leo X. commissioned Raphael to execute the series of compositions taken from Holy Scripture, of which the artist painted between 1515 and 1518 eleven cartoons, to be executed in tapestry at Arras. During the service, distracted by my neighbors, and not very free in my movements, I had only a dim suspicion of the magnificence of the Sixtine Chapel ; it was the first time I had witnessed the ceremonial of this clergy of princes ; and I stood waiting for the entrance of Pius IX., whom I had not then seen. The heraldic livery of the Swiss guards, the costumes of the chiefs of the orders, the magnificent ornaments of the officiating cardinal, from which stood out in all its pale and intelligent leanness the ascetic head of the learned Dom Pitra, child of S. Benedict and coimtryman of S. Bernard ; all was striking and novel to me. When the pope, in the midst of a royal, military, and episcopal escort, made his entrance into his chapel, vibrating with har- monious cries that seemed to pour down from heaven those strange words, which we may well find angelic, 30 466 EOME. for they are not human ; while the wave of sacer- dotal pomp swept before the Last Judgment, — I em- braced all that surrounded me, with an eye that was dazzled because the soul was stirred. The frescoes of Sixtus IV., with which the walls are peopled, the dimly discerned ceiling, which appalled me by its im- mensity, the drama of the end of time ; 'all seized upon me at once. Then returning to the pontiff with the triple crown, transformed by the prolongation of an enormous cope into a giant ; to the king who is only a monk ; to the aged man who continues the dynasty of S. Peter, of S. Sylvester, and of Julius II. ; transported into the very presence of the mighty past, between the papacy and Michael Angelo, I felt that I was standing in the noblest sanctuary that the world possesses. While the mass lasted, every one present being arrayed in that ceremonial toilette, which only allows for both sexes black with white linen, and in which women must have their heads covered with a veil, I had to content myself, so far as the paintings went, with a general view, except for the Last Judgment, which I was in a position to examine without any trouble. The work was loaded with retouchings by Daniele da Volterra, either to dissemble certain perilous allu- sions, or to clothe nudities and even to efface like- nesses, for the successors of Paul Farnese were in this respect less scrupulous than he. Importuned as THE LAST JUDGMENT. 467 we know by Biagio da Cesena, his master of cere- monies, who was represented in hell as a punishment for his criticisms, with an ass's ears and a serpent of luxury round his body, Paul III. answered him : " If they had placed thee in purgatory, our prayers might have rescued thee ; but the power of the Church ex- pires on the threshold of hell, and the damned are there for ever." Michael Angelo spent eight years in the accom- plishment of this mighty and terrible undertaking : he was nearly sixty when he began it, as the first half of the programme traced by Clement VII., who wished to furnish, as a pendant to the Last Judgment, the Fall of the Rebel Angels, a subject in which the artist might have given once more the full measure of his style and skUl. He drew his inspiration from two poems ; the Inferno of Dante (illustrated in the lower part of the picture, where, like the poet, he has introduced Charon with his boat) and the Apocalypse of S. John, whence proceeds the aerial and heavenly portion of that drama in two tiers, all the figures of which are in the foreground. Such had been the im- pulse given by Michael Angelo to academic studies, to researches in the science of anatomy and to the surmounting of difficulties inherent in forced attitudes and compHcated foreshortenings, that this new work, a sort of synoptical picture of all imaginable feats of strength, filled his contemporaries with transports of admiration. It exercised, however, a decisive and 468 EOME. disastrous influence, by substituting means for the real end of art. The painter had announced that he should surpass himself; he wrote it to Aretino in 1537 ; so he made a prodigious effort. To this work, which lacks feeling and in which the abuse of the mastery of execution as well as the extravagance of the intention, only arouse a stupefied approval, we must oppose Michael Angelo himself, young, still mindful of the examples of Ghirlandajo, of the celes- tial visions of the Umbrian School, and of the teach- ings of Savonarola; Michael Angelo making over again after Moses the semi-pastoral poem of Genesis, and uniting on the vaults of this same Sixtine Chapel the old feeling for the beautiful, with an added faith in the mystery of the Scriptures. In his old age he wished to do better and more ; he dared much more, but he overshot his mark. Antonio da San Gallo constructed the PauUne Chapel for Pope Paul III., who had it decorated with large frescoes : Buonarotti, become undistinguishable, falls into entire accord with Zuccari and with Lorenzo Sabbatini of Bologna. Let us hasten to remark as an extenuating circumstance, that the two frescoes by the author of the Pensieroso, have been ill preserved and copiously restored ; but there are clear traces of the original composition, the idea, and the general design. The one representing the Conversion of S. Paul on the road to Damascus is coldly academic ; the Saint's forced attitude is merely the pose inflicted on a THE SIXTINE CHAPEL. 469 model ; Vasari would have been less slack, and he could not have been harsher. In the Crucifixion of S. Peter, placed opposite, the apostle, executed with his head downwards, raises it, already injected with blood, by a convulsive effort which contributes to the anatomic sonata, and gives it a skUful and most horri- ble grimace for its theme. We would have attributed to a pupil of Bronzino the no less morbid representa- tion of S. Paul, in the first picture, thrown over on his side, blind and stupefied, while his horse takes to flight, and his companions stand round him in terror. Postures, muscles, torsos, all are instructive details, forms sanctioned by convention, yes ; but soul, senti- ment, inspiration, — seek for these ! You discover in the sky a Choir of Angels, in front of whom the Christ launches against his crushed foe. God plung- ing from the clouds head foremost, like a sunbeam or a rock ; this has been borrowed by Tintoretto in his Miracle of S. Mark. Between the not very frequent services, the para- phernaha of worship do not encumber the wide Pres- byterium of the Sixtine chapel; the vast oblong hall, with painters at work in it, puts on the appear- ance of a studio. The steps by which you mount to the altar, and the lateral steps leading to the choir stalls, are covered with a green carpet. On Sundays this brings out most effectively the long, trailing pur- ple mantles, and on week days affords reUef to eyes fatigued by the mass of paintings. Let us not forget 470 EOME. that besides the frescoes of the ceiling, the friezes, and the Last Judgment, the nave is covered with twelve large ones, divided from one another by settings that simulate pilasters, and enhanced by arabesques match- ing the golden chandeliers. The neighborhood of Michael Angelo does cruel wrong to these works, which are really interesting and important ; for they were executed between 1475 and 1500, under Sixtus IV., Innocent VIII., and Alexander VI., and are due to the coryphsei of the most brilliant epoch of the Precursors. The six frescoes on the left illustrate passages from Exodus and Deuteronomy ; those on the right are taken from the narratives of the Gospel. Near the altar is a picture by Perugino, the Bap- tism of Christ on the banks of the Jordan, a work executed in conjunction with Andrea of Assisi, and in which the picturesque landscape detracts from the interest of the figures, the pendant represents the Journey of Moses and Zipporah to strive against Pharaoh. It is the moment when the prophet sees himself menaced on his road by an angel who is turned aside by the daughter of Jethro, symbolical of the Virgin interceding. The emblem has been seized with a rare sentiment by Luca Signorelli, the favorite pupil of Piero della Francesca, that conquest made by Perugino, which Michael Angelo, who loved the artist, could not entirely get over. This work has a charm; it is superior to Perugino's picture : the Angel seen FEESCOES IN THE SIXTINE. 471 from behind, the placid Moses, Zipporah, the land- scape, all has been nourished on Florentine ambrosia. The most eminent of the pupils of Filippo Lippi, San- dro Botticelli, whom Sixtus IV. employed to superin- tend these decorations, has grouped in one frame, Moses slaying the Egyptian, — Watering the Flocks of Jethro,^-Putting to Flight the Midianite Herds- men, — and Coming to the Burning Bush. Opposite, the same painter has placed Christ tempted by Satan ; a subject admirably arranged, peopled with graceful figures, and faces of life-like serenity. Farther ofi^, Jesus calls to him Peter and Andrew, as Moses had called Aaron and the chiefs of the tribes who followed him out of Egypt through the waters of the Red Sea ; a parallel set forth in two splendid frescoes. Cosimo Rosselli executed one, which is too rich in details ; the other is by the first master of Michael Angelo, Domenico Grhirlandajo, who, in the apse of S. Maria Novella, reproduced so curiously, in his Life of the Virgin, the usages and fine society of the fifteenth century. The scene transpires on the banks of a river which winds off in the distance between buildings and grassy slopes ; a poetical set- ting, in the foreground of which are the truly religious figures of Christ and the two Apostles who are to fol- low him. Opposite the Adoration of the Golden Calf, an episode in the representation of the tables of the law, Rosselli has painted the Sermon on the Mount, the charming landscape of which is supposed to be by 472 KOME. Piero di Cosimo. Graceful figures and well rendered action are the salient merits of this picture, some truthful groups of attentive women being especially good. Peter Perugino is superior to Botticelli repre- senting Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, where the last mystic of the Umbrian school seems to add size to its other qualities. Never has the Perugian master shown himself so simjjle and so noble as in the Christ handing the keys to St. Peter : in the background are two fine triumphal arches, between which we recognize the polygonal temple that Raphael could not have copied in his Spozalizzio, as is said ; for at the time when he painted it, he had not yet come to Rome. Both of them, Perugino first, then Sanzio, borrowed this detail from a charming bas-relief by Orcagna on the tabernacle of Or' San-Michele, where is represented the Marriage of the Virgin, exactly as Raphael reproduced it a hundred and twelve years after Orcagna's death. I do not know whether I ought to claim priority for this observation which at all events I have never seen anywhere. To the Promulgation of the Ancient Law, followed by the Death of Moses, by Signorelli, answer in the evangelical chronicles the Institution of the Eucharist and the Passion of Christ. To put himself in har- mony with the sequence to the Mosaic history, Cosimo Rosselli was careful to show us, beyond an open loggia behind the Coena, the distant drama of the garden of Olives, and the lines of the cross on the horizon. The CEILING OF THE SIXTINE. 473 principal subject is admirable for its gravity and re- strained emotion ; Judas has all the air of some usurer. In spite of the Flemish retouchings of the sixteenth century, described by Taja, this fresco is extremely fine : Luca Signorelli and Sandro Botticelli seem to me to occupy the first rank in this interesting exhibi- tion, for the rest, Michael Angelo, while extinguish- ing the torch of the first, even here pays him homage by numerous borrowings from the Last Judgment at Orvieto. These two precursors ended their days in obscurity, especially Botticelli, who, after having shone with a livelier brilliance, was reduced in old age to get his bread by a subterfuge. Having de- posited large chests of great weight and well sealed in the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova of Florence, and promised to make this house of refuge his legatee, he was the object of devoted attentions up to the time of his death. But when this occurred, in 1515, they opened the chests, and found in them only stones. And now let us stretch ourselves out on the green carpet of the cardinals ; let us make a pillow of a footstool, and, like Jacob, let us gaze upon the heavens opening. In order to reduce to a certain system the figures which he designed to create, to vary their proportions, to multiply their number without introducing confu- sion, to diversify the surface, and to graduate the in- terest, Michael Angelo gave to his enormous work an architectural background which imites the various 474 KOME. groups in one mighty symmetry. He simulated on the border vertical pilasters, adorned with bas-reliefs, as well as an entablature on which appears to rest a vaulting, divided into arches ; these produce a series of central medallions, forming nine deep openings. In consequence of this design, and by the help of a linear decoration, clear in tone, and thrown out by projections of shadow, the artist has transformed into a storied vault what is really only a ceiling. Thus he could place figures as large as possible in front, forming a near foreground with less formidable groups, introduced in a series of subjects in which the interest was to centre. These subjects are taken from Genesis and other books of the Bible. The ceiling being very lofty, the figures in the medallions are not less than between seven and eight feet in height, a size calculated with such skill that the spec- tator embraces the details with the whole, and without effort, in one limpid and radiant vision. On the sides between the windows are the Prophets and the Sibyls, strange impersonations, truly ancient types of a theogony and an art that are new ; they seem to bear the vault on their heads, and raise it still higher. There have never been called to the service of an illusion such magnificent creations as these figures, so full of life, so solemn, so tormented in spirit, even as the holy books describe them, and redeeming their incoherence by simplicity, by the suppression of every trivial ornament, by the truth Comaean Sibyl, Ceiling- of Sixtine Chapel. Michael Angela. THE PROPHETS AND SIBYLS. 475 of the draperies in all their magnificent amplitude. Genii and dainty emblematical figures accompany and harmonize these colossi of beauty- — yes, beauty ; of a kind which is accessible even to the vulgar, and which subsequently Michael Angelo disdained for the exaggerations of force. The Erythraean Sibyl, whose head is poised with admirable skill, has a profile of exquisite purity ; in an attitude gracefully contrived to bring out exquisite arms, the Delphic Sibyl is not only very fine, but extremely attractive and charm- ing with her vague and dreamy expression. These legendary Pythonesses have an absent, half-uncon- scious air ; they listen with amazement to what the divine Spirit forces them to announce, without being able to understand it. I am particularly struck by the extraordinary as- pect of the Prophets ; one seems to have always dreamt of them like this. Their images disclose beings of another faith, of another race, than those of Greece ; as robust, but driven by the spirit within them and consumed by study. Their powerful heads, whose beauty is wholly intellectual, a source of expression unknown among the Greeks, have the air of discover- ing the decrees of the future, or of succumbing to the fatigues of inner toils ; it seems as if the breath of God had burnt them ! The dogmatic epopee of the Bible, fixed in the youthful memories of Michael An- gelo by the paraphrases of Savonarola, is illustrated here with the impetuosity of a Dantesque poet, and 476 KOME. the sincerity of a Christian who believes the sacred books. When the last paintings of Michael Angelo in the Sixtine Chapel were revealed to a waiting world, con- temporaries lavished upon them all the panegyrics which had been really deserved by the first. Bene- detto Varchi, Ascanio Condivi, Vasari, beholding the Last Judgment, cry out in chorus : '' Grod gave such mighty gifts to this chosen one to show that he be- longs to heaven Blessed are they who are born in these days and can look upon prodigies that they would never have dreamed of!" Finally they declare that " God has sent this masterpiece here be- low to teach men the power of the heavenly intelli- gence, when, with the divinity of skill and grace poured down, it descends for a moment upon the earth." These are rather vivid words, but if you apply them to some of the principal biblical scenes of the Sixtine vault, I do not see anything to modify in them. Sovereign authority is so inherent in the giant of the Renaissance, that he seems unconsciously to breathe something of himself into aU his impersonations of supreme power. It has been said that he has de- picted himself in the likeness of Julius II. ; people think they come upon him also in the stricken and inspired heads of the Prophets ; in his Moses we hear him breathe ; and the Father of the creation is more than ever Michael Angelo. He too has created, with- THE CEEATION OF MAN. 477 out a reminiscence of pagan antiquity, and created in perfection, the Man and the Woman, prototypes un- known until then. As for the Father, "principium etfons/' it is Michael Angelo who has conceived the least commonplace image of the Being who repro- duced himself in Us, and launched it, either across the chaos which the resistless will is dispersing, or on the waters over which it moves like the breath of a spirit, or in the clouds where it kindles the stars : three frescoes as strange as they are sublime. God in fact draws forth from the soil, as a reflec- tion of himself, the First Man, whom we see on an inclined plane, as on the edge of a planet, starting into life, placid, wondering, naked on the naked earth. Force, elegance, and subtle harmony of form have produced nothing in painting to be compared to this ; the innocent, expressive head, in which thought has just dawned, in which instinctive gratitude is the prelude to adoration, is a touching inspiration, and so it is modern and Christian. The admirable pose of Adam half-recumbent, resting on one elbow with the other arm stretched out towards God, this attitude which from the right shoulder to the foot gives a nobly balanced outline, — had, marvellous to say, been drawn by a second-rate painter, fifty years before, in the frescoes of the green cloister of S. Maria No- vella: only Paolino Ucello, one of the first to study the theories of perspective, did not get beyond a happy sketch. Wrapped in a dark flying drapery, 478 KOME. upheld by a group of angels who crowd into it as into a nest, God the Father, Olympian and serene, hovers in the air ; approaching our planet, he reaches out to- wards the extended arm of his creature, and with the index-finger touching that of the first man, imparts to him the vital fluid, and brings to life within him that spark of light which is the soul. There is here an entirely new idea, which seems as if it had been inspired by modern science — the transmission of Kfe by the electric contact of two fingers which meet. The group of seraphim surrounding the Father of the universe, while it adds to the charming effect of the composition, enhances the majesty of God and the gravity of his presence. This animated group, also, brings out more perfectly Adam's isolation on that bold and barren slope which in no way distracts our attention from the first movements, the first glance, the first thoughts, of the earliest son of the earth. The Gothic painters, and Dutch masters, would have loaded the scene with the cages and forcing-houses of the Jardin des Plantes. I do not hesitate to pro- nounce this fresco to be the loftiest in idea, in style, and in powerful poetic effect, of all the paintings to which the world has given its admiration. For this reason I have felt justified in speaking about it at some length ; but in truth the eight other subjects, if the very lessons of such a school did not teach us the value of being concise, would bear discussion quite as well. The Creation of the Woman who, born of the THE FALL. 479 side of the slumbering Adam, throws herself forward towards her Creator, — sooner awake, readier to pre- sent herself, than the Man, also reveals to us beauties that have no rivals. God eyes her pensively, severely, without illusion ; nothing could be more imposing than the'sibyUine majesty of that draped figure, who reads the future and foresees the annals of the world down to Calvary. It is for the next subject, the Fall of Man and his expulsion from Eden, that the artist has reserved, so far as the woman goes, all the philtres ol the foun- tain of beauty. Once engaged in the perilous work of her sex. Eve becomes wholly resistless j stooping in a posture which shows her charms at the best, at the foot of the tree to which her companion already stretches out his hand, she turns towards the serpent, whose androgynous body is coiled around the trunk, eyes which try their power, while the treasures of her bosom are directed on the side of Adam. Thus the representation of the first woman has a sort of double significance ; God created the mother of human creatures, splendid for fecundity ; the Serpent trans- forms her, and produces the Siren. Michael Angelo has made her so lovely that Raphael came and copied her with his own hand ; Lawrence acquired this draw- ing, which I have seen at Oxford. Many of these compositions have drawn their in- spiration from a master little known among us, but great, since he possessed in embryo the style of 480 EOME. Michael Angelo, though preceding him by nearly a century. There is some analogy between the two careers : Jacopo della Querela (of Siena), for whose works people contended, was harassed and oppressed by two towns which tore him from one another, just as Buonarotti was by Pope Julius and the Medici. It was in 1506 and 1507, fifteen months before under- taking the roof of the Sixtine, that Michael Angelo saw the bas-reliefs which frame the portal of S. Petronio of Bologna. This shows the empire of tradition, and in no way lessens the glory of Buonarotti ; it would be otherwise if his work had remained inferior, as is the case with the Eve of the Barberini Palace, which inspired by the first fresco of the Sixtine, adds noth- ing to the renown of Domenichino. The Sacrifice of Noah, the Deluge, and the Drunk- enness of Noah, complete this incomparable series ; the last subject is striking from its mixture of grace and gravity which, considering the scope, is very re- markable. On the pendentives of these painted vaultings, one would be quite as much struck by a dozen other subjects, if they were larger; among them we will content ourselves by pointing out the scene of the Brazen Serpent, in which we cannot behold without emotion a dying woman stretching forth her arms ; then Judith, after her expedition, dexterously arranging, in a basket balanced on the head of an attendant, the head of Holofernes. The heroic crim- inal is seen from behind ; you expect her to turn THE CEILING OP THE SIXTINE. 481 round, such skill has the painter shown in making you divine that she must be of a triumphant beauty. But why indulge in dissertation, when homage is so much more becoming ! Let us conclude by not- ing an impression that every one has felt. On the days when you have visited the Sixtine, it is impos- sible to take any interest in other works of art ; even statuary seems gloomy and stiff. No other painter sub- jugates you with such absolute tyranny, nor could there be any better proof than this of the sovereignty of that baptized Phidias who was called Michael Angelo. 31 482 EOME. CHAPTER XXVII. The upper story of the southern portion of the Vatican is devoted to Raphael and his auxiliaries. The Rooms or Stanze are the poorly distributed and uninhabitable apartments, which Julius 11. constructed above the Borgia quarters ; the Loggie, commenced by Bramante, are surmounted by galleries erected, from 1515 onwards, by Raphael, and decorated by that artist, assisted by his school. Before halting in the Loggie, let us enter a sort of antechamber, justly called Hah of the Chiaroscuri, and bend our steps towards a narrow door always kept shut, but which an attendant will open for us : it leads to a small chapel which many strangers miss, and in which we shall find the oldest Florentine frescoes that the Vat- ican has preserved. How this oratory, which was finished by Nicholas V., escaped the demolitions of Julius II., who swept away from these apartments all the paintings of Luca Signorelli and Perugino, save one for which Sanzio interceded, — how Leo X., Clement VII., and after them the partisans of the decline, failed to substitute for the work of the Beato Angelico some pompous mediocrities of Lauretti, — we will never know. Supposed Portrait of Raphael, by Himself. Now Designated " Ritratto di on Igfnoto." Rodolfo del Ghirtanda.io. FKA ANGELICO'S FRESCOES. 483 The chapel was begun by Fra Angelico under Eugenius IV. Another pontiff, Nicholas V., the true founder of the Vatican magnificence, passed long hours in this boudoir for prayer, by the side of Fra Angelico, his old companion of the Dominicans of Florence. While the monk plied his brushes, they discussed projects for rebuilding S. Peter's, for organ- izing the Vatican library, for concentrating in Rome the intellectual forces of the West. Six of the frescoes are devoted to the life of S. Stephen, the five others to that of S. Laurence. In these Fra Angelico has represented Sixtus II. and S. Peter under the likeness of his friend and benefactor, Thomas of Sarzana (Nicholas V.). The Consecration of the two deacons bequeathes to us true likenesses of the pope who celebrated the great jubilee of 1450. A dreamy, delicate, and mystic head, with mild, pene- trating eyes, and a small, rather sarcastic mouth, under a big nose, so long as to end by becoming pointed — ^there we have the strangest of sympathetic faces. If we consider ideas and not processes, this chapel is on the straight road which starts from Gentile da Fabriano and Masaccio, and ends with Raphael. We will now return to the Loggie. It was a perilous task to undertake after Michael Angelo to illustrate the Bible, and especially to repro- duce the creation of the world. Raphael had the art of being great in scanty dimensions ; his compo- 484 EOME. sitions, while lofty in style, yet preserve the familiar poetry of the legendary narratives. The first acts of the creation, those in which Jehovah overpowers matter, bear comparison with the Sixtine. It is not possible to assign the exact part of these mighty works, performed by each artist in a phalanx containing such names as Giulio Eomano, Timoteo Viti and his brother Pietro, Buonaccorsi, Griovanni da Udine, Vincenzio of San Geminiano, Perino deUaVaga, Luca Penni, Maturino of Florence, Schizzone, Poly- dorio da Caravaggio, Puppini, PeUegrino of Modena, Crocchia, Jacomone of Faenza, RaffaelHno del CoUe, Ramenghi of Bologna (Bagnacavallo), Pistoia, Ber- nardo Catelani, Sacco, L. B. Catelani, Garofalo, Gaudenzio Ferrari, Pagani, Pietro Campana, Pietro de Bagnaja, Mosca, Michel Cockier or Coxie, of MaJines ; Bernard Van Orley, Marco Antonio (Rai- mondi), Andrea of Salerno, etc. . . I leave out half. The Stanze commenced by Julius II. are still more important : the two earliest as being the supreme ex- pression of Raphael's genius ; the two others as works of art and as historical documents. In the Heliodorus driven from the Temple by angels with rods, on the prayer of the high priest Onias, the artist followed an inspiration of Julius H., whose dream was to expel the French once and for ever from Italy. On his death-bed he was heard to call out — " Away from Italy, all barbarians !" Thus the high priest is Julius II. ; Heliodorus, prefect of THE STANZE. 485 Seleucus, king of Syria, is, if not the king of France, at any rate a representation of his beaten generals : Pope Julius comes upon the scene, royally borne on the sella gestatoria. Giulio Pippi worked much less than Peter of Cremona at this composition, in which the last, with his more supple modelling, sometimes gets the credit for a very fine group of Jewish women, so fine indeed that many judges attribute it, not with- out probability, to Raphael himself, who certainly has had a hand in the picture. Who but he would have given, in two of the Seggettieri of the sovereign pontiff, the portraits of Bramante and Griulio Ro- mano ? The Mass of Bolsena, where the artist has availed himself of the irregular shape of the walls caused by the hollowing out of a window in the centre, depicts the miracle which came to pass on one occasion when a prelate, saying mass at S. Christina, was seized with a doubt as to the real presence at the very moment of consecration ; whereupon the Host in his hands began to bleed. Admirable in movement, in compo- sition, and in expression, this fresco of deep and re- splendent color is one of those in which Raphael's hand is most easily recognized. Another evidence — in the same room — of vehe- ment anti-French policy, is the deliverance of S. Peter, freed from his prison by an angel. This mas- terpiece symbolizes with a hyperbolical majesty the escape of Leo X. in the frock of a monk, when, as 486 ROME. legate of the holy see in 1512, he was left a prisoner in the hands of the French after the battle of Ra- venna. Raphael must have superintended closely the execution of this powerful work, into which he intro- duced effects entirely new ; the blue rays of the moon and the red glare of the torches contend with the white light, which, forming a zone around the angel, projects such a blaze that the corselets of the gaolers seem, according to the expression of Vasari, " rather polished than painted." *JFrom these opposi- tions result, not discordances, butVsomplex harmonies introduced with a power of coloring that in a fresco of that date amazes us. In our Paris copy, these subtleties have not been understood ; the effects struggle crudely, resulting in a conception that Rem- brandt would have admired, glassy and spotted. The apostle suddenly aroused, flying with the confident serenity of a faith that nothing can ever surprise, and the graceful and radiant angel conducting him, form a group in which we have what may be called reality in the ideal. On the compartments of the vault have been painted, above Heliodorus, — Moses before the burn- ing bush ; above the Mass of Bolsena, — the Sacrifice of Abraham, a lesson to those whose faith wavers ; above the Attila, — Noah coming forth from the ark, a commentary no less expressive ; finally, above the Deliverance of S. Peter (symbolizing Leo X.), — the Vision of Jacob ; a flattering allusion to the promises THE STANZE. 487 of the reign and the future of the house of Medici. Although damaged, and harshly cut off by a sky which has been repainted in a violent blue, these fig- ures are exquisite : people hardly ever look at them, but they make a mistake, since for the most part they are the work of Raphael himself. Still less attention is paid to the lower portion of this chamber of Helio- dorus, where in a series of small grisailles, monumen- tal and cahn, Polydorio da Caravaggio has painted antique and rustic scenes with very considerable grace. It is true that time speedily damaged them, and that we do not always find the original idea pre- served in the work of Carlo Maratti who restored them, minutely assisted in his researches by the ar- chseological zeal of Clement XI. These chiaroscuri represent the Blessings of Peace (in that golden age 1513) ; Tillage, Harvest, Vintage ; Commerce giving animation to the shores of the sea, and Warriors em- ploying their leisure to study antiquities : they are observing the statue of Marforio. Some of these subjects have been destroyed, because, in the seven- teenth century, they placed underneath the Heliodo- rus a chimney-piece, on the sides of which the artists perpetuated the custom of inscribing their names. Let us call the attention of the curious to this multi- tude of autographs, which opens with the signature of Poussin, dated 1627. The chamber was completed towards the end of 1514. Without stopping now in the sanctuary of the Seg- 488 EOME. natura, we will cross it to the following Stanza, called of Charlemagne, where we find a complete tack in the pontifical policy. Leo X. is now for extolling to the clouds what he had formerly attempted to crush by his anathemas : the Incendio del Borgo marks the transition. This pontiff, by the success of the inter- view at Bologna after the Battle of Marignan, thought that he had performed a truly diplomatic miracle and extinguished the conflagration that then threatened Europe. But how to represent such a pretension ? They remembered that in 847 Leo IV. had by mak- ing the sign of the cross, extinguished a fire that was ravaging the Borgo Santo Spirito ! At the risk of seeming irreverent, I must confess my want of inter- est in this fresco, in which more than anywhere else the principal defect of the Stanze comes out, namely, the excessive size of the figures for the limited space of the rooms. In the Incendio this disproportion is most disagreeable ; while clumsy repaintings have not lightened the ruddy execution of Giulio Romano : posed so as to bring out all their muscles, the atti- tudes of these giants hardly tend to invest them with much interest, disposed about a court where they seem nearly as big as the houses. The fresco does not in any way recall the manner of Michael Angelo, only it has been arranged in such a way as to fulfil the theories which he patronized. But behold ! the king of France, instead of being Attila king of Huns and Ogres, has now become the THE STANZE. 489 benevolent Charlemagne — with the features of Fran- cis I. ; this in a picture of the justification of Leo III. before the son of Pepin — a solemn scene, in which the pontiff, freed from all imputation in the presence of the two courts, has only in the following chapter to crown as emperor' the rival of Charles V., and to stipulate for the wages. The sceptre is surmounted by a fleur-de-lis ; behind the emperor, — a striking portrait of Francis I. before he wore a beard, — a page, holding on his knees the crown of the Lombard kings, is a likeness of Hippolito de' Medici, the holy father's nephew. At this period, when art is used merely as the instrument of politics, Raphael seems to have become indifferent even to the modifications which his designs undergo ; he yields the trust to Francesco Penni and to Vicenzio of San Geminiano. In the spirited representation of a Defeat of the Sara- cens at Ostia by the troops of Leo IV., however, the master reappears : this was intended to encourage the crusade against the Turks who had menaced Italy ; Raphael perpetuated the patriotism of the ages of Sixtus IV. and Nicholas V. This canvas was inspired by a singular event : after the death of his brother Julian in 1515, Leo X. went to bury his grief at Citta Lavinia, near Ostia, and was very near being carried off in broad daylight by some Barbary pirates, so ill were the coasts guarded. Unhappily, this has been in great part repainted. To estimate the difference between the true works 490 ROME. of a master, and the efforts of the most conscientious disciples, we have only to contemplate on the ceiling of this chamber, which was completed in the spring of 1515, four large medallions by Perugino, which Raphael respected, and which represent — the Trinity surrounded by the Apostles ; God in the midst of the Angels ; Christ between Justice and Faith ; and Jesus between Moses and S. John, surrounded by seraphim. In these subjects, where the idea of the artist is rendered faithful and complete by unity of execution, the swan of the Umbrian school discloses all his softened grace. From this standpoint we can measure the distance that divides the first works of Raphael from the series of vast undertakings made to order into which the Stanze degenerated. If Raphael had a share, as he most probably did, in the design of the Appearance of the Cross to the rival of Maxentius while he was in the act of harangu- ing his troops, at any rate it is certain that Giulio Pippi overloaded the composition with episodes, such as the introduction of the Dwarf Gradasso Berettai, whose buffooneries amused the court, and who, to please Hippolito de' Medici, is planted there, his brow surmounted by a giant's helmet. Raphael pur- posed to treat tlie Battle with Maxentius on the Mil- vian bridge Avith his own hand, and commenced the work : after his death, Giulio Romano executed the cartoons in fresco, at the same time respecting two figures. Justice and Courtliness {Comitas), which his CAMERA DELLA SEGNATUKA. 491 master had already painted, in oil, this has caused them to turn brown, and adds to their suppleness a solidity that rather jars. Let us not forget that the Defeat of Maxentius has served as a model for all the great battle-pieces, and especially for those enormous canvases in which Lebrun immortalized Lewis XIV. under the name of Alexander the Great. It may be as well to mention for the benefit of those who have not been to Rome, that the Camera deUa Segnatura — so called because a pontifical tribu- nal once held its sittings there — has on its walls the Dispute on the Holy Sacrament, placed opposite the School of Athens, as well as Jurisprudence facing the Parnassus, and that the four medalHons so often engraved, Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, and Justice, adorn in this same room a vault on which the artist has placed subjects from Scripture by way of pen- dentives. Thus this Tribune consecrated to Raphael contains the most august wonders of his imagination and his pencil. The plan of the work is easily described : to per- sonify in the persons of the principal men of genius in the world's history, those doctrines, arts, and sciences which have contributed most to the glory of humanity ; then to bring these researches after sov- ereign truth and sovereign beauty to an issue in the faith symbolized by the Eucharist. But in propor- tion as the scheme is simple, so are the accessory de- ductions, the arguments of the work, complex and 492 EOME. manifold. In these days we are inclined to criticize the conditions of an art which could not reach its fullest development without recourse to theology: but in the time of Raphael, such teachings were more widely diffused by the universities than they are now, and the subtle imaginations of the great artists, penetrated with figures taken from the Bible, or the fathers and doctors of the Church, were not exposed to the dangers of that modern ignorance which has killed religious painting. From a material point of view these frescoes are less damaged than is usually said ; they are stiU per- fectly legihle; and have even preserved, especially the medallions and the Dispute, a delicacy of tints and shading, such as only those colorists, who are likewise skilful draughtsmen, can succeed in repro- ducing in their copies. A singular attraction in these great pieces is the diversity of local coloring ; thus is each object endowed with a peculiar character, and monotony avoided, but it implies an extraordinary skill in handling colors. Such is the perfection of the forms, such the tranquil harmony of these composi- tions, that in their presence you forget the almost dis- maying share accorded to metaphysical ideas, and are charmed by a pure melody sung in a strange tongue. The subject is the poem of the soul. To its over- tures correspond conceptions of divine things, and then of natural {causariim cognitio) — the part of CAMERA BELLA SEGNATUEA. 493 philosophy, which knows better whence they come than where they go. Hence arises the sentiment of right, and next in the ideal order, the sentiment of beauty, the correlative of virtue, — art and poetry. These are the four summaries that Raphael has in- scribed in emblematic figures on the vault. Phi- losophy looks far away ; she holds two volumes — one concerning morality, the other the study of external phenomena. Calm, with closed eyes. Justice has a diadem of iron, the metal of force and not of cupidity. Poetry or Inspiration {niimine afflatur) is only spirit and light : the eye is keen, the lips are parted to speak, the face is radiant. Laurels are intertwined in the hair ; a lyre to the left and a book to the right symbohze inspiration and study. Indifferent to ter- restrial objects, austere and chaste. Theology points with her finger to the Trinity below ; she holds only a thick black volume — the Gospels. The other pictures in the Segnatura are more easily understood ; so it will be enough to point out the wonderful homogeneousness of the whole, and the remarkable variety to which the comparatively simple scheme has lent itself. It is the universal religion derived from its poets — Hesiod, Homer, Virgil, and Dante. Among the epics of these masters suppress the Divine Comedy, and Christian art would have remained without a formula, there would have been no Eenaissance. Opposite the dogma which sums up the whole, 494 KOME. Eaphael has depicted the intellectual labors of the ancient world in search of truth. But the Word had not descended ; and man being far from the heavens, the light is not so bright. Thus the School of Athens has a certain depth, due quite as much to the inten- tion of the master, as to the tendencies of this or that feUow-worker. It is a just and philosophic idea, bor- rowed perhaps from our mediseval glass and the By- zantine frescoes, that of classing among the precur- sors Aristotle, by whom logic has come down to us, and who, with authoritative hand, points to the earth which his doctrine has subjugated ; then Plato, with inspired gesture indicates the heavens, whose problem he has dimly discerned. They are surrounded by the different schools, but the pagan world is grouped around them. The procession of Aristotle is numer- ous ; the spiritualistic Plato has fewer followers. In the camp of Aristotle they are more speculative : Euclid, and Archimedes with the features of Bra- mante, and compass in his hand, are surrounded by their disciples, and are at work at geometry. One of these scholars, seated to the right of Archimedes, is Frederick II., Duke of Mantua, brother-in-law of a nephew of Julius II. Zoroaster unravels the sys- tem of the world ; Ptolemy marks out its geography ; every one is either at work or else engaged in a dis- cussion ; but the pagan prototype of the ascetics, Diogenes, who has just thrown away his cup, turns his back on the schools, and by his indifference THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS. 495 demonstrates the vanity of systems. Close by there ieclare themselves — vague Negation, personified by Arcesilas (the symbol of uncertainty is turned in one direction and looks in another) ; then Doubt, under the impassive and contemptuous figure of Pyrrho ; he watches a disciple repeating, with the ardor of con- viction the doctrines of Aristotle. Among the precursors and the faithful of the Platonist company, are Empedocles, Epicharmus, and Pythagoras, with Theologus and Theano, Anaxagoras and Archytas near them; then the sombre Heraclitus near ^schiaes, and Socrates, who discerned unity ; he is standing, instructing his pupils. Close on their track, follow, after Alcibiades and Xenophon, the young Duke of Urbino, della Rovere, and Raphael himself, just opposite Perugino ; Vasari placed them behind Zoroaster. Finally, a goodly number of those dreamers who, touching the divine intuition, by a species of inspiration deceive themselves like Hip- pias, placed quite at the bottom ; or who, though un- wearied seekers, have found nothing but void and melancholy. A tall young man in a white mantle fringed with gold represents Francis Maria deUa Rovere, Duke of Urbino having been adopted by Guid' Ubaldo. The classic Aristotle has beside him, in a niche of the facade, Minerva, the wise goddess of constituted bodies : behind Plato is Apollo the in- spirer. In one of the grisailles of the lower portion is represented the Siege of Syracuse, in reference to 496 EOME. Archimedes, and in honor of the martyrs of the scien- tific ideal. The blameless enforcement of right, the sentiment of perfect equity, seemed to Raphael so far above human passions, that Jurisprudence is portrayed alone, and unaccompanied by any historic personage. A head with two faces, Jurisprudence, serene, mild in expression like clemency, looks with her young pro- file into a mirror. On her breast is fixed in a medal- lion the winged head of a Gorgon. Moderation offers her a bridle, and Penetration his torch. The past instructs her : she looks behind her with the profile of an old man. Protecting Force, armed with a green branch, which would be an olive if la Bovere did not mean it for an oak, and seated on a lion, com- pletes this exquisite and noble group, which, for a wonder, Audran has not made too dull : people may form a tolerably just idea of it at our School of Fine Arts, from an excellent copy by Paul Baudry. The neighboring compartment is shared between the civil and the common law : on one side Justinian hands the Digest to Tribonian ; on the other, Gregory IX. receives the Decretals, with the features of Julius II., who is attended — priceless likenesses — by two car- dinals destined to be his successors, Giovanni de' Medici, still young, who is to be Leo X., and Alex- ander Farncse, who will become Paul III. Near them, a third prelate represents the Cardinal del Monte. It is in the background of this fresco that MOUNT PARNASSUS. 49Y chance has executed by Raphael's hand a striking likeness of Napoleon I. The authenticity of these pictures has been questioned : they are the master's ; only, having been more damaged than the others by the Tedeschi of the Constable, they have been more restored. In the grisailles of the plinth, which carry out the idea in its development, and which were ex- ecuted by Polydorio da Caravaggio, aided by Maturino the Florentine, Moses and Solon promulgate their laws. What shaU we say, finaUy, of that glorification of poetry, which assembles on one Parnassus, to honor the Italy of Petrarch and Dante, all the great poets, under the patronage of the Muses and the presidency of Apollo ! Dedicated to the revival of ancient literature, this work breathes all the enthusiasm of the sublime years which opened the sixteenth century. Placed opposite to a picture of blonde and tender color- ing, the Parnassus has a firm tone, whose amber lights throw out the adorable figures with which Raphael e-ndowed the ten Muses, including Sappho. Under this name, the master immortalized the profile of one of the most brilliant figures of his day, the courtesan Imperia, to whom the casuists pardoned much because she loved the beautiful much. Dying young and be- wept by all the greatest men, the idol of Augustm Chigi, Imperia, worthy of the time of Pencles, made herself the muse of that friendship which encourages and sustains. Of a purer celebrity, Vittona Colonna, 32 498 ROME. — sprung through her mother from the Montefeltro family, who had made another Parnassus of their palace at Urbino, — is drawn seated, sceptre in hand, at the feet of Apollo. This profile, which when por- trayed in medals rivals antique cameos, is easily rec- ognizable ; in immortalizing this heavenly creature, Raphael rewarded her beforehand for the devotion with which she was soon to surround Michael Angelo ; a holy flame, which was the consolation and stay and last joy of the noble old man. Homer and Pindar, Virgil and Dante, Alcseus, Horace, Ovid, Propertius, old Ennius, Plautus, Terence, Boccaccio, with Petrarch and Sannazarius who sang of the Virgin, form on the holy mountain a procession attendant on the goddesses. Not very pitiful towards bad poets, Raphael still, in response to the wish of Julius H., admitted to this company Francesco Berni, further protected by his relationship to Cardinal Bibbiena ; but he traced be- hind the author Mime burlesche, which Corinna and Sappho eye with astonishment. By way of moral he painted, as a pendentive, the Contest of Phcebus with Marsyas, in which the winner contents himself with flaying alive the proxime accessit of the competition. The Apollo Musagetes playing a violin on the peak of Parnassus is a fine figure of an inspired performer. They relate in this connection, that one evening a very handsome virtuoso came to play before Julius II. at the Vatican ; as he was leaving the pope said to Sanzio — " Now we have found our Apollo !" POETEY AND PHILOSOPHY. 499 To show Raphael's power as a colorist, it is only- necessary to isolate one of the corner panels, — that, for instance, in which the figures of Poetry and Phi- losophy surmount the masterpiece of the Fall. In the latter the gilded field of the sky, colored by a delicate chequer imitating mosaic, plays with the verdure of the foreground, whence stands out with rosy freshness the young and supple body of the first woman : the arabesques of the frame, in which pearl-grey and blue are harmonized by golds accentuated by flame-color, isolate and bring out this wonderful gem. The finest of the four medaUions as a piece of color is Philosophy. The ceiling of the Sixtine chapel, and the Caniera deUa Segnatura, present a synthesis of modern art raised to the rank of ancient art ; this is my reason for closing our pilgrimage through Rome with a study of those two masterpieces. INDEX. Abflard, on S. John Lateran, 327. Academy, the French, 862-366. of S. Luke, 163-165. Acqua Argentina, 281. Adalbert II. of Tuscany, 66. jEdiles, the, 23, 25. jEmilius Lepidus, the Censor, 39. ./Eneas Sylvius, see Pope Pius II. Agnese, S.,137. Basilica of, see Basilicas. Catacombs of, 143, 146-148. Agrippa, M., bronze head of, 13. Pantheon of, 11-12. Agrippina, 24. Alba liOnga, 314. Albano, 310-312. Albergo dell' Oreo, 8. Alenoon, tomb of Cardinal d', 125. Alexius, S., legend of, 117-119. Alimenius, Lucius Cincius, 60. AUobrogicus, F. M., 87. Ambrose, S., recounts legend of Domme quo Vadis, 255-2o6. Ammanato, statues at S. P. in Mon- torio, 18. AmpSre, house of, 182. Anarchus, King, 14. Aneus Martius, 39, 282, 283. citadel of, 16. Angelico, Fra, 198, 204. Capella S. Lorenzo, 482^83. Angelo Castle, 61, 63-67, 77-78. Michael, bust of, 175, ceiling of Sixtine Chapel, 473- 481. Last Judgment, 466-468. S. Maria degli Angeli, 353-354. Moses, 251-254. Pauline Chapel, 468-469. Piet4 233. Sixtine Chapel. 463-464. statue of Christ, 201. Aiitipolis, 16. Antoninus Pius, pedestal of Column of, 7, and note. Appian Way, the, 256-260. Christian scouts on the, 150. Appius Claudius, aqueduct of the Censor, 256. Aquinus, S. Thomas, tells legend of tne Crosier, 211. Arch of Constantino, 89. ofDolabella, 160. of Drusus, 255. Quadrifrons, called of Janus, 278-279. Arch of Septimius Severus, 87-88, 279. ofTitus, 88, 89. Arcodei Pantani, 87. Arnold of Brescia, 171. Augustine, S., 30. of Hippo, 136. Aurora of Guercino, 391. ofGuidoEeni, 45-46. Aventine, the, 39, 281-284. Bambino, the, 183-184. Baptistery, S. John Lateran, 327-328. Barberini Palace, see Palace. Bartolommeo, Fra, in Home, 352. S.,316. Basilica, .ffimllian, 25, 33. S. Agnese fuori le Mura, 138-139. S. Oemente, 93-119. Constantine, 25, 26. S. Giorgio in Velabro, 279, 280- 281. S. John Lateran, 32, 325-333. Julia, 25, 26. S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura, 368- 372. S. Maria Maggiore, 381-383. S. Paolo extra Muros, 26, 32-37. S. Peter, 215-260. Baldacchino, 221-222, 227- 228. Baptistery, 232-233. Ceremonials, 247-250. chair of S. Peter, 228-229. Columns from the Temple, 227-228. Confession, 226-227. Construction, 218-220, 222- 224. dome, 219-220. dome (ascent of the), 210- 243. domes, 214. fapade, 215. Grand Relies, 228, 250. Holy-water vessels, 217-218. Jubilee door, 216. nave, 220, 221. navicella, 215-216. Sacristies, 237-239. tombs, statues, etc., 229-237. view of the interior, 216-218. worldly character, 224. S. Peter (original building), 225. S. Sebastian, 255. Ulpian, 321-323. Basilicas, 27-32. 501 502 INDEX. Baths of Oaracalla, 91-93. of Trajan, 210. Bembo, Cardinal and Raphael, 265- 266. Benedict, S., street in which he stayed, 121. Bernard; S., vision of, 37. Bernardino, S., of Siena, 186. Bernini, colonnades of S. Peter's, 8, 9,10. fountain on Piazza Barberini, 2. tomb of Urban VIII., 229-230. Bible, the Alcuin, 207. Blasius, S., legends of, 115. Bocca della verity, 135. Bonivard, description of Leo X., by Francis, 200. Borghese Palace, see Palace. Scipio, 46. Villa, see Villas. Borgo, suburb of the, 62. Borromini, 13, 47. Botticelli, Sandro, Sixtine Chapel, 471, 473. Bourbon, Constable de, 67. Bramante, 18, 47. Bridges, ancient, 187. Bridget, S., crucifix of, 36. Broccoli, 3. Bruno, S., statue of, 236. Brutus, J., 24. bust of, 176-177. Burial of the dead, the custom, 144. Butler, Allen, on S. Clement, 101. Cfecilia Metella, sarcophagus of, 273. tomb of, 257-258. S., 121-122, 150-151. tomb of, 151. Cjelian, the, 159. Cjecilii, catacombs of the, 149. CEecilius, 247. Csetani, fortress of the, 258. Caius Cestius, pyramid of, 38. Caligula, circus of, 244. Palace of, see Palaces. Calixtus, S., catacombs of, 148-158. church of, see Church. Camaccini, 36. Campagna. the, 137-138. Campidoglio, Piazza del, 170-172. Candelabrum, the Paschal, 35. Candlemas Day, 248-250. Candlestick, seven-branched, 89, and note. Canova, tomb of Clement XIII., 237. of Pius VI., 227. Capella, tomb of Bernardino, 162. Capitoline, the, 182-183. Museum, 172-175. Caracalla, 88, 138,279. baths of, 91-93. Carracci, A., frescoes in Farnese Palace, 272. Carafifa, death of Cardinal, 78. Caravaggio, M. A. da, 50, 52-63. Polidoroda, 81,487, 497. Carnival, the, 384-387. Oasimir, portrait of Maria, 2.33. Cassock, worn by the laity, 44. Castagno, A. del, and Veneziano, 253 Castellani'a establishment, 359-361. Castle, S. Angelo, 61, 63-67, 77-78. Castor and Pollux, statues of, 170. Catacombs, the, 142-158. of S. Lorenzo, 369-370. Cathedra, 28, 147. Catherine of Bosnia, tomb of, 185. of Siena, S., house, 82. tomb, 199. Catiline Conspirators, the, 168. Cato, the Censor, 27. Cavallini, Pietro, .36, 124. Cavo, Monte, 312, 316. Ceuci, oratory erected hy Francesco, 60. Palace, see Palace. portraits of the, 50-51. story of the, 68-77. Ceremonies in S. Peter's, 247-250. Ceres and Proserpine, see Temple. Cervara Grottoes, the, 388. Chaplain, Clement, 53. Charlemagne, portrait of, 335. Charles V., the daughter of, 261. Charles VIII., 83. Chigi, Agostino, 192. the, 398-399. Christian symbolism, 338-342. Christianity, Constantine adopts, 145, 322, 323. growth of, 145. Tacitus on, 145. Christina of Sweden, tomb of, 233. Churches of, S. Agnese, 137. S. Agostino, 264-266. S. Andrew of the Valley, 205-207. S. Angelo in Pescheria, 129. S. Bartholomew, 187-188. S. Cecilia, 121-122. SS. Cosma and Damiano, 376- 378. S. Costanza, 138, 140-141. S. Crispino, 58, 59. S. Croce, 333-334. Domine Quo Vadis, 255-266. S. Eustace, 190. S. Francesca Romana, 84-85. il Gesil, 204-205. .S. John and S. Paul, 159. SS. Lorenzo e Damaso, 268-269. S. Lorenzo in Miranda, 22, 86-86. Madonna del TufFo, 312. S. Marco, 82-83. S. Maria degli Angeli, 353-354. in Ara Cceli, 183-187. in Cosmedin, 134-135. INDEX. 503 Churclies of, S. Maria in Domenica, 160. di Loreto, 84. della Navicella, 160. della Pace, 266-267. del Popolo, 396-400. de PublicoUs, 60. Soala Coeli, 37. Sopra Minerva, 197-204. in Trastevere, 123-126. S. Martino, ai Monti, 210-212. S. Onofrio, 126. S. Paul of tlie Three Fountains, 37. S. Pietro in Montorio, 17-18, 76. Vincoli. 251-254. S. Prassede, 378-381. S. Pudentiana, 372-375. S. Stefano Rotondo, 161-163. Trinita, de' Monti, 354-357. S. Urban, 260. Cicero, and the Catiline Conspira- tors, 168. freedman of, 24. house of, 292. Circo Agonale. 137. Circus of Doraitian, 137. Maxentius, 260. Maximus, 306-309. a Roman, 307-309. Claudius, Appius, 167. Clement of Alexandria, 1.35. S., see Pope Clement I. Clivus Capitolinus, 22. Cloaca Maxima, 281. Clodius, 24. and Cicero, 291-292. Cloisters, of S. John Lateran, 332-333. S. Paolo extra Muros, 37. S. Pietro in Vincoli, 254. S. Lorenzo, 371-372. S. Maria degli Angeli, 354. Codes of Theodosius and Justinian, 29. Coliseum, 15, 39^2. CoUegio, di Roma, 207-208. della Sapienza. 192. Colleone, statue of B., 171. Colonna, the, 64. Palace, see Palaces, portraits, 346-349. Vittoria, portraits of, 349, 497^98. Colonnace, the, 87. Colonnades of Bernini, the, 8, 9, 10, 213-214. Colossus of Rhodes, 323. Columns of, Antoninus Pius, 7. the Immaculate Conception, 356. Marcus Aurelius. 7 and note. Trajan, 321, 323-325. Columns, coupled, at S. Costanza, 140. Comitium, the, 23. Conclave, the Papal, 351, 353 and note. Confession, origin of the name, 28-29. Constantia, tomb of, 109, 140-141. Constantine, 138. adopts Christianity, 145, 322, 323. authentic likeness of, 329. baptism of, 328. Contucci, Andrea, tombs of the Sforza, 398. Convents of, the Ara Coeli, 186-187 and note. of S. Francesca Romana, 181. of Philippines. 207. of Redemptorists, 159. of S. Sabina, 39. of Sacre Coeur, 357. Corso, the, 6. Cortona, Peter of, 47. Costumes, abandoned, 44. Council of, 707, 380. Trent, 83, 125. Crescentios, 65, 68, 136. Crescenzio, Castle, see Angelo. Crosier, the Pope's, 210-211. Crucifix of S. Bridget, 36. Curia, burning of the, 24. Curtian Pool, 25. Curtius, 25. Cyriaca, S., 160. Cyril, S., 110, 116. scenes from the life of, 114. Diocletian, decree concerning basil- icas, 29. Dolce, Ludovico on Leonardo da Vinci, 171. Domenichino (Zampieri), the com- munion of S. Jerome, 417-418. S. Sebastian, 233-234, 354. frescoes at, S, Andrew of the Valley, 205-206. Grotta Ferrata, 316. at S. Maria in Trastevere, 124. at the Rospigliosi, 46. Dominic, S., 39. Domitian, the circus of, 137. palace of, 293. Donatello, Simone, statue of S. John, 100. Door, the holy, 32. Doria, portrait of Admiral, 56. Palace, see Palaces. Duquesnoy, statue by Francis, 84. Diirer, Albert, 51. Dying, treatment of the, 79. Egeria, so-called grotto of, 259. Epiphany, festival of the, 190-192. Epitaphs in catacombs of Calixtus, 152-156. Etruscan, remains on the Aventine, 282-283. Eudoxia, founds S. Pietro in Vin- coli, 253. 504 INDEX. Farnese Palace, see Palaces. Farneslna, Villa, 192-195. Faun, Praxiteles, in the Capitol, 173, of the Palatine, 290. 442. Paustulus, the Shepherd, 285, 287. Ferdinand IV., of Spain, 17. and Isabella, 18. Festival, the artists', 387-389. Flaminian Way, the, 262. Flora, of the Coliseum, 41 and note. Fontana, D., 9. 121, 343. tomb of Christina of Sweden, 233. Food, of the Romans, 2-3. Foot, colossal bronze, 38. Fornarina, the, 47^9. bakery of the, 16. Fortresses, on the Via Appia, 257-258. Forum, Boarium, 278. of Nerva (or Transitorium), 87. Eomanum, 14-16, 21-26, 278-279. Trajan's, 321-325. Foundling hospital, 178-180. Fountains, the Barcaccia, 355-356. Piazza. Barberini, 2 Bocca della VeritA, 134. S. Pietro,215. the Pauline, 120-121. della Tarterughe, 277. Trevi, 4-6. at Tusculum, 318-319. Francesca Eomana, S., church of, 84-85. convent of, 181. Francis d'Assisi, S,, 121. and the Presepio, 190. Francis I., portrait of, 489. Frascati, 320. Funerals, 79. Galba, death of, 25. Galileo, 357. Gal la Placidla, arch of, 35. Galleria, La, 310. Galleries, Barberini, 46-51. Borghese (Palace), 393-396. (Villa), 400^03. Capitoline, 172-177. Colonna, 345-350. Doria, 53-57. Lateran, 336-342. S. Luke, 163-165. Eospigliosi, 45-46. Sciarra, 51-53. Vatican, 410-499. Villa Albani, 389-391. Villa Ludovesi, 391-392. Gallo. A. diSan,84. Garbo, Eaffaellino del, 201. Garofalo, 51. Gattamelata, statue of, 171. Gemoniae, the, 23, 26. Germanicus, 24. house of, 295 note. Geta, 138, 279. Ghetto, the, 132. Ghirlandajo, Dom., 471. Giles, S., 115. 116. Giotto, fresco atS. John Lateran, 329. the Navicella, 215-216. paintings at S. Peter's, 239. Gladiator, the Dying, 172. Glass, stained, 398. Goat, Valley of the, 13. Goethe, 392. Gozzoli, Benozzo, 202. Grsecostasis, the, 23. Grafhti, found on the Palatine, 304. Greek, language of the early church, 147. Gregory the Great, see Pope Greg- ory I. Grotta Ferrata, 315-316. Guercino, 391 . Guerra, friend of Beatrice Cenci, 69, 70, 71. Guerrazzi, on the history of the Cenci, 76, 77. Guide, Eeni, Aurora, 45-46. portrait of Beatrice Cenci, 50-51. of Tuscany, 66. GuifiBer, French Ambassador, 355. Guiscard, Duke Robert, and Greg- ory VII., 96-97. Heliogabalus, 92. Henry IV. and Gregory VII., 96. Hercules, colossal statue of, 274-275. Herodes, Alticus, villa of, 259-260. Hildebrand, see Pope Gregory VII. Holbein, portrait of Lorenzo Colon- na, 347. Honorius, laws relating to Chris- tians, 29. Horatius Codes, 39. Hospitals of, La Consolazione, 177- 178. S. Michael, 39, 178. S.Spiri to, 178-180. Hugo ot Provence, 66. Hut of Faustulus, 287. Incineration, custom of, 144. Ignatius, tomb of S., 204-206. Iraperia, portrait of, 497. Ina, the Saxon king, 180. Indulgences, the sale of, 223. Intermontium, the, 23. .lanieulum, the, 16. Janus, 16. so-called arch of, 278-279. Jerome, S., 158, 283-284. Jews, the carnival standard, 385. quarter of the, 132. Joanna II., portrait of, 56. John, Deacon, quoted, 327. Josephus, 89. on execution of captives, 167. INDEX. 505 JUBfurtha, 168. Julia, 138. Julius Caesar, house of, 292. Juno, temple of, 129. Jupiter, temples of, 26, 129, 183, 287. Justice, statue by G. della Porta, 18, 229. Kireher, Father Athanaslus, 208. Lacordaire, Father, 39. Lambs, the blessing of the, 139. Lanfraneo, 206. Lateran, see Basilica of S. John. Lateranus, Plautius, 325-326. Laurence, S., story of, 367-368. Lebrun, Mme. Vig^e, portrait, 164. Lectistemium, the, 38. Libertinus, S., scenes from the life of, 106. Lippi, Filippino, 201. Livia, house of, 294-300. Livy, account of Tullia, 375-376. Loggie, of Raphael, 9, 483-484. Lorenzetto, 162, 399. Lorraine, Claude, 52, 55. house of, 357. Lucas of Leydon, 54. Ludwig of Bavaria, 36. Lulni, Bernardino, 51. Luke, Academy of S., 163-165. Lupercalia, the, 248. bas-relief of, 289. Lustration, representation of the, 440. Madama, Villa, 261-263. Maderno, Stephen, 121. Madonna, statue at S. Agostino's, 264-265. Maiana, B. da, 204, 399. Mamertine prisons, the, 25, 165-169. Manlius, Capitolinus, 167-168. Marino, 314-315. Marble, its use by ancient Romans, 258. Marcella, death of, 283. Marcus Aurelius, column of, 6-7. equestrian statue of, 170-171. persecution under, 121. Mariforio, 172. Mario, Monte, 61, 262. Marius, trophies of, 170. Marmorata, the, 39. Marozia,66. Marsillac, Peter and Claude of, 398. Martyrs, graves of the, 146-147. Masslni, poisons his father, 72. Matilda, tomb of Countess, 234. Maxentius, circus of, 260. Mazarin, Card., 46. Medici, Alexander de', 261. Cardinal de', see Pope Leo XI. Cosimo III. de', 362. Bippolito de'. portrait of, 489. Melozzo da Forli, 239. Methodius^lU, 116, 117. Michael HI., 114. S., appears toGregorytheGreat,67. hospital of, 39, 178. Minerva Medica, so-called temple of, 209-210. Mino da Fiesole, 125. Moccoli, me of the, 386-387. Mole, of Augustus, 64. Hadrian s, see Castle S. Angelo. Monica, tomb of S., 264. Mons Sacer, 137. Montaigne, 8, 18. Monte d'Oro, 16. Monte, sepulchral chapel of the del', 18. Montelupo, Raphael of, 254. Mora, the game of, 161. Mosaics of, S. Agnese, 139. Baths of Caracalla, 93. S. Clemente, 99-100. SS. Cosmaand Damiano, 377-378. S.Costanza, 140-141. S. Francesca Bomana, 84-85 and note. S. Giorgio in Velabro, 280, 281. S. John Lateran. 330-331. Lateran Palace, 335. S. Lorenzo, 368. S. Maria Maggiore, 140 and note, 382-383. S. Maria della Navicella, 100. S. Maria in Trastevere, 123-124, and note. S. Martino ai Monti. 210-211. the Naviceila, 215-216. S. Paolo extra Muros, 34^36. S. Peter's, 231, 233-234. S. Prassede, 379-381. S. Pudentiana, 140, 374-375. S. Stefano Rotondo. 162. Villa Borghese, 402. Museums, Capitoline, 172-175. Kircherian, 208. Lateran, 336-342. Vatican, 418-462. Mutius Scsevola, 178. Nemi, the Lake of, 311. Neptune, temple of, 13-14, and note. Nero, burning of Rome, 244, 303. caricature of, 302. circus of, 244. flight from Rome, 137. Palace of, 303. Nerva, forum of, 87. Nllus, S., 316. Nimbus, signification of the square, 109. Norbert, statue of S., 231. Numa, tomb of, 16. Obelisks, ancient, 342-344. 506 INDEX. Obelisks of, S. John Lateran, 309, 342, and note. S. Peter's, 9, 215, 243, 244, 245, 246, 343-344. the Piazza del Popolo, 309. the Triniti de' Monti, 35(j. the Quirinal, 350. Octavia, Portico of, 129. Opus Mini, 125. Orcagna, Andrea, Tabernacle at Or S. Michele by, 472. Orsini, the, 64. fortress, 258-259. Ostian Gate, the, 38. Otto, invasion of Emperor, 65. Paintings, early Christian, 148, 156- 168. found on the Palatine, 295, 297- 301,306,307. Palaces, of Augustus, 292-293. Barberini, 1 , 46-51. Barbo, 82-84. Borghese, 393-396. of the Caesars, see Palatine Hill, the. Caligula, 302-303. Cenci, 58-61. Chigi, 7. Colonna, 345-350. of the Conservators, 175-177. of Domitian, 293. Doria, 53-57. Farnese, 272-273. Ferrajuoli, 7. of the Governo Vecchio, 131. Lateran (ancient), 3,S5. (modern), 336. of Lucrezia Borgia, 251. ■Mattei, 277-278. of Nero, 803. Piombino, 7. Quirinal, 350-353. Eiario, 268-271. Ringhetti, 274. Rospigliosi, 45-46. Sciarra, 51-53, and note. Senatorial, 169-170. Spada, 272, 275, 276. of Tiberius, 293-294, 301. Venetian, 82-84. Palatine Hill, the, 285-307. Pallia, 189, Pamphili Gardens, the, 195-196. Pantheon, of Agrippa, 11-12. Panvinio, Onofrio, on Basilicas, 31. portrait of, 347. Papirius Cursor, 25. Paul, S., 169. Basilica of. 26-27, 32-37. head of, 245. martyrdom of, 37-88. medallion likeness of, 226. tomb of, 83. Panline Chapel, the, 468-469. Peacocks, bronze, 7, and note. Pelagian heresy, 108. Penitentiary, seat of the Grand, 230. Persecution under M. Aurelius, 121. under Trajan, 101. Perugino, 51, 470, 472, 490. Pescheria Vecchia, 130-182. Peter, R., 169. Basilica (ancient), 212. (present), 8, 10, 215-246. burial-place, 245-246. chains of, 253. chair of, 228-229. legend of Domine quo Vadis, 255- 2,56. medallion likeness of, 226. spot where he was crucified, 16. staff of, 211. statues of, 225-226, 238, 323. Philip Neri, S., 264. della Valla, tomb of, 185. Piazza, Barberini, 2. Bocca della Verita, 133-134. del Campidoglio, 170-172. Campo di Fiori, 272. Colonna, 6-7. del Laterano, 334-336. S. Maria in Cosmedin, 133-134. Monte Cavallo, 350, 351. Navona, 187. of the Pantheon, 13, ofS. Peter's, 214-215. of S. Pietro in Vincoli, 251. di Spagna, 355-356. Pietrini, the San, 241. Pigna, Giardino della, 7. Pilgrimages to the Catacombs, 152. Pincian, the, 44, 857. Pine-Cone (apple), 7, and note, 64. Pintelli.BafCio, 17. Pinturicchio, frescoes at the Ara Coeli, 186. S. Croce, 333, and note. S. Maria del Popolo, 397-398. Piombo, Sebastian del, 17, 194-195. Piso, 24. Pitra Dom, 466. Pliny, burial of live prisoners, 167. Caligula's obelisk, 244. incineration, 144. PoUajuolo, tomb of Antonio and Pietro, 258-254. Antonio, tomb of. Innocent VIII., 232. Sixtus IV., 234-235. Pomerancio, 163. Pompey , statue of, 272, 275-276. Pons Sublicius, 39. Ponte, MoUe, 262. Ripetta (or Cavour), 63, note. Sisto, 138. Pontifex Maximus, title of, 247. INDEX. 507 Pontiff, origin of the word, 39, and note. Pope, Adrian I., 134. Alexander VI., 67. apartments in the Vatican, 463. Alexander VII., 7. Alexander VIII., anecdote of, 412. tomb of, 230. Anacletus (S.), 245. Anasta.sius III., 66. Benedict XIV., tomb of, 235. Boniface I., 119. Boniface VIII., likeness of, 329- 330 and note. Boniface IX., 66. Calixtus I., 123, 149, and note. Clement I. (S.), Basilica of, 93- 119. Epistle of, 101. history of, 100-104. legends from the life of, 110- U4. Clement VII., 67, 122, 261. tomb of, 200. Clement VIII., 122. and the Cenei, 69-74. statue of, 203. Clement X., tomb of, 230. Clement XI., 61, 134. Clement XII., 13. Clement XIII., tomb of, 237. Clement XIV., tomb of, 230. Damasus (S.), 158, 826. Eutychianus (S.), 150. Eugenius IV., 13. Fabian (S.). 150. Felix IV. (S.), portrait of, 378. Gelasius II., 134. Gregory I. (the Great), 67, 211. Dirthplace of, 159. Gregory v., 65. Gregory VII., 68, 104. and Robert Guiscard, 96-97. (Anti) Gregory VIII., 135. Gregory XI., 82. lomb of, 84. Gregory XIII., Gallery of Maps, 447. Gregory XVI., 7, 44. tomb of, 230. Vatican collections, 418-419, 421. Honorius I., 138. Honorius III., tomb of, 185. Honorius IV., tomb of, 185. Innocent II., 123. Innocentlll., 179, 180. legend of S. Peter's staff, 211. Innocent VIII., 138. tomb of, 232. Innocent X., 57. tomb of, 230. Pope, John X., 66. John XI., 66. John XXIII., 67. Jnlius I., 123. Julius II., anecdote of, 498. anti-French policy of, 484- 485. apartments in the Vatican, 482. decorations of the Vatican, 463-464. mausoleum of, 254. tomb of, 235. Julius III., Villa of, 262. Leo III., portrait of, 335. Leo IV., 109. Leo X., escape of, 485-486. and pirates, 489. policv of, 488-489. portrait of, 496. statue of, 175-176. tomb of, 199-200. Leo XL, 361-362. Leo XII., 44. monument to, 230-231. and S- Paolo extra Muros, 34. Martini. (S.), 210. Martin V., tomb of, 330. Nicholas!., 116-117. Nicholas III., mosaics at S. Paolo, 33. Nicholas IV., 382. Nicholas V., 125, 198. and Fra Angelico, 483. Pascal I., 122, 158. Pascal II., 97, 104. Paul II., 82. Paul III., 272. portrait of, 496. tomb of, 18, 229. villa of, 288. Paul IV., statue of, 201. Paul v., 120. Paul X., 76. Pius II.. tomb of, 206. Pius III., tomb of, 206. Pius IV., 78, 125. the Casino del Papa, 447. Pius VI., Hall of the Animals, 438. Biga, 452-453. Circular Hall, 465-456. Hall of the Greek Cross, 420. Obelisk of Monte Citorio, 313. Pio-Clementine Museum, 433. tomb of, 227. Vatican collections, 461-462. Pius VII., arrest of, 353. Chiaramonte Museum, 424. Hall of the Animals, 438. Lapidary Museum, 423. 508 INDEX. Pope, Pius VII., and S. Paolo extra Muros, 33-34. tomb of, 232. Vatican Picture Gallery, 414. Pius IX., 17, 23, 139, 184, 238, 267, 269, 274-275. flight of, 271. mile-stones and viaducts of, 312, 315. S. John Lateran, 330. Lateran Museum, 338-339. onS. Peter's, 224. In the Quirinal, 852-353 and note, in the Sixtine Chapel, 465- 466. SergiusIII., 66. Simplicius (S.), 162. Sixtus II., 150, 367-368. Sixtus IV., tomb of, 234-235. Sixtus v., 6, 9, 245. obelisks erected by, 342-343. Vatican library! 410. Stephen VIII., 66. SylvesterI.(B.), 210, 245. Acts of, 322, 323. Symmachus (S.), 7 note, 210. Urban I. (S.), 121, 150. Urban VIII., tomb of, 229-230. Zacharias, 280. Zephyrinus (S.), 149 note. Popes, chapel of the, 150. celebrate facing the people, 221, 250, 330. medallions of the, 36. slipper of the, 210-211. temporary coffin of the, 232. tombs in the catacombs, 150, 151, 152. Porsenna, the camp of, 178. Porta Angelica, 261. Appia, 255. Maggiore, 209. Mugionis, 286. Nomentaua, 137, 138 and note. Pancrazio, 120, 195. Pia, 137, 138 and note, del Popolo, 261. S. .Sebastiano, 148. Setimiana ,192. Tiburtina (or S. Lorenzo), 404. Porta, G. della, statue of Justice, 18, 229. Portico, of Octavia, 129. Poussln, Nicholas, 49-60, 61-52, 230. house of, 357. Prfficones, 23. Prcenestine Road, 209. Presepio of Ara Cceli, 184, 188. of Torre Anguillara, 188-190. Pretextatus, S., cemetery of, 150. Prisons, in Castle S. Angelo, 77. the Mamertine, 25, 166-169. TuUian, 165-169. Procopius, 64. Prudentius Clemens, the poet, 326. Pudens, Punicus, the Senator, 228, 229, 373, 374. Pyramid of Calus Cestius, 38. Quarries, abandoned sand-, 142. QuatremSre de Quincy, 48-49, 272. Quintilii, Villa of the, 269. Raphael, 164. cartoons, 378, 448, 466. Chigi chapel at S. Maria del Popolo, 399. Farnesina frescoes, 193-194. Isaiah at S. Agostino, 265-266, 268. and Michael Angelo, 266-268. the Spozalizzio, 472. the Stanze, 463-464, 484-491. statue of Jonas. 399. Sibyls at S. Maria della Pace, 266-267. Transfiguration, 17-18, 416-417. Villa Madama frescoes, 261-263. Violinist, 53. Regia, of the Lateran, 27. of the Palatine, 305-306. Regionarium, in Schwertz Convent, 152. Regola, Rione della, 133. Rienzi, Cola di, 129,171. house of, 136. Ripa Grande, 178. Ripetta, 61. Rocca di Papa, 312-314. Roma, Quadrata, 285-287. Veeehia, 2,59. Romano, Giulio, 238. Romans, food, 2-3. habits, 14. Romulus, city of, 286-287. disappearance of, 13. Rosa, Martinez della, 271. Cav. Pietro, 289, 290, 291, 293, 294, 300, 301, 303, 306. Salvator, house of, ,357. Rospigliosi, see Palaces. Roselli. Cosimo, 471^72. Rosellini, Bernardo, 125. Rossi, Comm.G.B.de,121, 148, 369, 371. Count Pellegrino, assassination of, 269-272. tomb of, 268-269. Rostra, the, 23. Sabina, S., convent of, 39. Sallust, private catacombs of, 144. Samnite, trophies displayed in the Forum, 25. Sansovino (I Tatti), statue of the Madonna, 264-265. Santa Croce, family, the, 60. Marquis of, kills liis mother, 73 Santi, Giovanni, 346-346. INDEX. 509 Sarcophagus of, Caecilia Metella, 257. of Constantia, 140, 454-465. of Hadrian, Ud of the, 232. of S. Helen, 455. of porphyry, found near the Pantheon, 13. of the Portland vase, 172. of Probus Anicius, 233. Sarcophagi in the Farnese Palace, 273. Scala Santa, the, 335. Scherano da Settignano, 264. Schola Xantha, 23. Sciarra Palace, see Palaces. Scipio da Gaeta, portrait of Lucrezia Petroni Cenci, 50. Sebastian del Piombo, 17, 66. Segnatura, Camera deUa, 491-499. Sejanus, 169. Seminaries, scholars of the, 43, Septimius Severus, arch of, 87-88, 279. Sermonetta, 202. Servius, the death of, 376. Severus, Alexander, 123. Sforza, equestrian statue of Fran- cesco, 171. tombs at S. Maria del Popolo, 398. Signorelli, Luca, 470-471, 472-473. Sixtine Chapel, the, 9, 464-481. Slipper, cross on the Pope's, 210-211. Slodtz, Michael, 236. SnuflF, use of by Koman clergy, 16-17, Spanish stairs,' the, 355. Stephen, S., church of, 161. feast of, 160-163. tomb of, 371. StUicho, the a-ssassination of, 29. Stuart, James III., 345. Stuarts, tomb of the, 233. Subleyras, Peter. 85. Suburra, the, 254-255, 375-376. Suetonius, on Pompey's statue, 276. Sulla, his body burned, 144. Tabularium of, 22, 23. Suvte, J. B., director of the French Academy, 363-364. Sylvester, S., acts of, 322, 323. Tabemse, 23. Tabularium, the, 22, 23, 170. Tacitus, on burning of Rome, 244. on Christianity, 145. on Vitellius's siege, 182. on wall of Romulus, 286-286. Tanners' quarter, the, 133. Tapestries, the Qulrinal, 352. the Vatican, 378, 448, 465. Tarpeian Rock, the, 181-182. Temple of jEsculapius, 187. of Antoninus and Faustina, 85- 86. of Bacchus, 260. of Castor, 25, 287. Temple of Ceres and Proserpine, 134. of Concord, 22, 23. of Faustina, 22. of Fortune, 135. Hercules (or of the Sibyl, or of Vesta), 406, 406. of Juno, 129. of Jupiter, 129. of Jupiter Camillus, 183. of Jupiter Capltolinus, 26. of Jupiter Stator, 287. of Mars Dltor, 87. of Neptune, 13-14 and note. of Peace (so called), 86. of Romulus, 260, 376-377. of Saturn, 22. of the Sibyl, 405. of the Sun, 133. of the Twelve Gods, 23. of Venus et Roma, 22. of Vespasian, 22. of Vesta (so called), 133. Temperance, of the Roman people, 2. Tempesta, 163. TertuUian, on Christianity, 146. Testaccio, Monte, 38-39. Theatres, Pompey's, 274, 276. atTusculum, 319. Theodora, 66-66. Theodosius, and Christianity, 29. Thorwaldsen, tomb of Pius VII., 232. Tiberius, and Piso, 24. Titus, arch of, 88-89. Tivoli, 404-409. ToUa, romance by Edmund About, 345. Tombs of, Constantia, 109, 140-141. of Messalinus Gotta, 258-259. of M. V. Eurysaces, the baker, 209. on the Appian Way, 267-269. Torrita, Jacopa da, 330, 382-383. Torlonia, excavations by Prince, 259. Torre, Anguillara, 188-190. dei Schiavi, 388. Tradition, of the Trevi Fountain, 6 and note. Transfiguration, Raphael's, 17-18, 416-117. Trastevere, the, 15-16. Trent, Council of, 83. painting of the, 125. Tribunal, 28. Trier, S. Peter's staff at, 211. TuUia, Livy's account of, 375-376. Tusculum, 317-320. Marquis of, 66. Tyro, Tullius, 24. Ulpian, Basilica, 321-323. Library, 321. University of Rome 192. 510 INDEX. Valentinian, 158. Valentino, 62. Valerius, Corvus, 258. Valley of tlie She-Goat, 13. Valerianus, husband of S. Cecilia, 122,150-151. Vatican, Hill, 244-245. the Belvedere, 434-438. Camera dellaSegnatura, 491-499. Cappella di S. Lorenzo, 482-483. the Circular Hall, 455-459. Hall of the Animals, 438^40. Biga, 452-454. Candelabra, 449-452. Greek Cross, 419-420, 454-455. Maps, 447-448. Muses, 459-461. Pictures, 413-418. Tapestries, 448-449. gardens, 446H147, 462. library, 410-413. Loggie, 482, 483-484. museums, Braccio Nuovo, 429- 433. Chiaramonte, 424^429. Egyptian, 418-419. Etruscan, 421-422. Lapidary, 423-424. Pio-Clementine, 433-445. the Stanze, 484-491. Velasquez, 57. Veneziano, Domenieo, 253. Ventura, tomb of Father, 207. Venus de' Medici, 132,408. Vercingetorix, 168. Verrocchio, Andrea, 171, 203. Vesta, so-called temple of, 133. Viaducts, 312. Via Sacra, 24. Vicus Tuscus, 24. View, from S. Pietro in Montorio. 18-20. Villas, Albani, 389-391. Borghese, 400-403. Ccsarini, 311. d'Este, 407. Hadrian's, 407-409. Ludovesi, 391-392. MEecenas (the so-called), 406. Medici, 361-366. Torlonia, 138. Vinci, Leonardo da, 171, 126-127. Virginius. 24. Viti, Timoteo, 267. Vitiges, attacks Castle S. Angelo, 65. Vitellius, 25. Winckelmann, 390, 391. Zampieri, see Domeinichino. Zeno, the tribune, 37. Zucchero, 78, 125.