XVII. THE ISLAND AND THE TRASTEVERE
Ponte Quattro Capi--Gaetani Tower--S. Bartolomeo in Isola--Temple of Æsculapius--Hospital of the Benfratelli--Mills on the Tiber--Ponte Cestio--Fornarina's House--S. Benedetto a Piscinuola--Castle of the Alberteschi--S. Crispino--Palazzo Ponziani--Sta. Maria in Cappella--Sta. Cecilia--Hospital of S. Michele--Porta Portese--Sta. Maria del Orto--S. Francesco a Ripa--Castle of the Anquillara--S. Chrisogono--Hospital of S. Gallicane--Sta. Maria in Trastevere--S. Calisto--Convent of Sta. Anna--S. Cosimato--Porta Settimiana--Sta. Dorotea--Ponte Sisto.
Following the road which leads to the Temple of Vesta, &c., as far as the Via Savelli, and then turning down past the gateway of the Orsini palace, with its two bears,--we reach the Ponte Quattro Capi.
This was the ancient Pons Fabricius, built of stone in the place of a wooden bridge, A.U.C. 733, by Fabricius, the Curator Viarum. It has two arches, with a small ornamental one in the central pier. In the twelfth century the greater part was faced with brickwork. An inscription, only partly legible, remains. L. FABRICIUS. C. T. CUR. VIAR. FACIUNDUM. CURAVIT. EIDEMQ. PROBAVIT.--Q. LEPIDUS. M. F. M. LOLLIUS. M. F. COS. EX. S. C. PROBAVERUNT. From this inscription the inference has been drawn that the senate always allowed forty years to elapse between the completion of a public work, and the grant to it of their public approval. This bridge, according to Horace, was a favourite spot with those who wished to drown themselves; hence Damasippus would have leaped into the Tiber, if it were not for the precepts of the stoic Stertinius:
"Unde ego mira Descripsi docilis præcepta hæc, tempore quo me Solatus jussit sapientem pascere barbam, Atque a Fabricio non tristem ponte reverti."
Horace, Sat. ii. 3.
The name of the bridge changed with time to "Pons Tarpeius" and "Pons Judæorum," from the neighbouring Ghetto. It is now called Ponte Quattro Capi, from two busts of the four-headed Janus, which adorn its parapet, and are supposed to have come from the temple of "Janus Geminus," which stood in this neighbourhood.
On crossing this bridge, we are on the Island in the Tiber, the formation of which is ascribed by tradition to the produce of the corn-fields of the Tarquins (cast contemptuously upon the waters after their expulsion), which accumulated here, till soil gathered around them, and a solid piece of land was formed. Of this, Ampère says:
"L'effet du courant rapide du fleuve est plutôt de détruire les îles que d'en former. C'est ainsi qu'une petite île a été entraînée par la violence des eaux en 1718."--Histoire Romaine à Rome.
On this island, anciently known as the Isola Tiberina, were three temples,--those, namely, of Æsculapius:
"Unde Coroniden circumflua Tibridis alveo Insula Romuleæ sacris adsciverit urbis."
Ovid, Metam. xv. 624.
"Accepit Phœbo Nymphaque Coronide natum Insula, dividua quam premit amnis aqua."
Ovid, Fast. i. 291.
of Jupiter:
"Jupiter in parte est, cepit locus unus utrumque: Junctaque sunt magno templa nepotis avo."
Ovid, Fast. i. 293.
and of Faunus:
"Idibus agrestis fumant altaria Fauni, Hic ubi discretas insula rumpit aquas."
Ovid, Fast. ii. 193.
Here also was an altar to the Sabine god Semo-Sancus, whose inscription, legible in the early centuries of Christianity, led various ecclesiastical authors into the error that the words "Semoni Sanco" referred to Simon Magus.[357]
In imperial times the island was used as a prison: among remarkable prisoners immured here was Arvandus, Prefect of Gaul, A.D. 468. In the reign of Claudius sick slaves were exposed and left to die here,--that emperor--by a strange contradiction in one who caused fallen gladiators to be butchered "for the pleasure of seeing them die"--making a law that any slave so exposed should receive his liberty if he recovered. In the middle ages the island was under the jurisdiction of the Cardinal Bishop of Porto, who lived in the Franciscan convent. Under Leo X. a fête was held here in which Camillo Querno, the papal poet, was crowned with ivy, laurel, and cabbage (!). In 1656 the whole island was appropriated as a hospital for those stricken with the plague,--a singular coincidence for the site of the temple of Æsculapius.
The first building on the left, after passing the bridge, is a fine brick tower, of great historic interest, as the only relic of a castle, built by the family of the Anicii, of which St. Gregory the Great was a member, and two of whom were consuls together under Honorius:
"Est in Romuleo procumbens insula Tibri, Qua medius geminas interfluit alveus urbes, Discretas subeunte freto, pariterque minantes Ardua turrigeræ surgunt in culmina ripæ. Hic stetit et subitum prospexit ab aggere votum. Unanimes fratres junctos stipante senatu Ire forum, strictasque procul radiare secures, Atque uno bijuges tolli de limine fasces."
Claudius, Paneg. in Prob. et Olyb. Cons. 226.
From the Anicii the castle passed to the Gaetani. It was occupied as a fortress by the Countess Matilda, after she had driven the faction of the anti-pope Guibert out of the island, and was the refuge where two successive popes, Victor III. and Urban II., lived under her protection.[358]
The centre of the island is now occupied by the Church and Convent of S. Bartolomeo, which gives it its present name.
The piazza in front of the church is occupied by a pillar, erected at the private expense of Pius IX., to commemorate the opening of the Vatican Council of 1869--70,--adorned with statues of St. Bartholomew, St. Paulinus of Nola, St. Francis, and S. Giovanni di Dio. Here formerly stood an ancient obelisk (the only one of unknown origin). A fragment of it was long preserved at the Villa Albani, whence it is said to have been removed to Urbino. The church, a basilica, was founded by Otho III. c. 1000; its campanile dates from 1118. The nave and aisles are divided by red granite columns, said to be relics of the ancient temple,--as is a marble well-head under the stairs leading to the tribune. This was restored in 1798, and dedicated to St. Adalbert of Gnesen, who bestowed upon the church its great relic, the body of St. Bartholomew, which he asserted to have brought from Beneventum, though the inhabitants of that town profess that they still possess the real body of the apostle, and sent that of St. Paulinus of Nola to Rome instead. The dispute about the possession of this relic ran so high as to lead to a siege of Beneventum in the middle ages. The convent belongs to the Franciscans (Frati-Minori), who will admit male visitors into their pretty little garden at the end of the island, to see the remains of
The Temple of Æsculapius, built after the great plague in Rome, in B.C. 291, when, in accordance with the advice of the Sibylline books, ambassadors were sent to Epidaurus to bring Æsculapius to Rome;--they returned with a statue of the god, but as their vessel sailed up the Tiber, a serpent, which had lain concealed during the voyage, glided from it, and landed on this spot, hailed by the people under the belief that Æsculapius himself had thus come to them. In consequence of this story the form of a ship was given to this end of the island, and its bow may still be seen at the end of the convent garden, with the famous serpent of Æsculapius sculptured upon it in high relief.[359] The curious remains still existing are not of sufficient size to bear out the assertion often made that the whole island was enclosed in the travertine form of a ship, of which the temple of Jupiter at the other end afterwards formed the prow, and the obelisk the mast.
"Pendant les guerres Samnites, Rome fut de nouveau frappée par une de ces maladies auxquelles elle était souvent en proie; celle-ci dura trois années. On eut recours aux livres Sibyllins. En cas pareil ils avaient prescrit de consacrer un temple à Apollon; cette fois ils prescrivirent d'aller à Epidaure chercher le fils d'Apollon, Esculape, et de l'amener à Rome. Esculape, sous la forme d'un serpent, fut transporté d'Epidaure dans l'île Tibérine, où on lui éleva un temple, et où ont été trouvés des ex-voto, représentant des bras, des jambes, diverses autres parties du corps humain, ex-votos qu'on eût pu croire provenir d'une église de Rome, car le catholicisme romain a adopté cet usage païen sans y rien changer.
"Pourquoi place-t-on le temple d'Esculape en cet endroit? On a vu que l'île Tibérine avait été très-anciennement consacrée au culte d'un dieu des Latins primitifs, Faunus; or ce dieu rendait ses oracles près des sources thermales; its devaient avoir souvent pour l'objet la guérison des malades qui venaient demander la santé à ces sources. De plus, les malades consultaient Esculape dans les songes par incubation, comme dans l'Ovide, Numa va consulter Faunus sur l'Aventin. Il n'est donc pas surprenant qu'on ait institué le culte du dieu grec de la santé, là où le dieu latin Faunus rendait ses oracles dans des songes, et où étaient probablement des sources d'eau chaude qui ont disparu comme les lautulæ près du Forum romain.
"On donna à l'île la forme d'un vaisseau, plus tard un obélisque figura le mât; en la regardant du Ponte Rotto, on reconnaît encore très bien cette forme, de ce côté, on voit sculpté sur le mur qui figure le vaisseau d'Esculape une image du dieu avec un serpent entortillé autour de son sceptre. La belle statue d'Esculape, venue des jardins Farnèse, passe pour avoir été celle de l'île Tibérine. Un temple de Jupiter touchait à ce temple d'Esculape.
"Un jour que je visitais ce lieu, le sacristain de l'église de St. Barthélemy me dit, 'Al tempo d'Esculapio quando Giove regnava.' Phrase singulière, et qui montre encore vivante une sorte de foi au paganisme chez les Romains."--Ampère, iii. 42.
Opposite S. Bartolomeo, on the site of the temple of Faunus, is the Hospital of S. Giovanni Calabita, also called Benfratelli, entirely under the care of the brethren of S. Giovanni di Dio, who cook, nurse, wash, and otherwise do all the work of those who pass under their care, often to the number of 1200 in the course of the year, though the hospital is very small.
"C'est à Pie V. que les frères de l'ordre de la Charité, institué par saint Jean de Dieu, durent leur premier établissement à Rome.
"Au milieu du cortége triomphal qui accompagnait don Juan d'Autriche (1571), lors de son retour de Lépante, on remarquait un pauvre homme misérablement vêtu et à l'attitude modeste. Il se nommait Sébastien Arias des frères de Jean de Dieu. Jean de Dieu était mort sans laisser d'autre règle à ses disciples que ces touchantes paroles qu'il répétait sans cesse, faites le bien, mes frères; et Sébastien d'Arias venait à Rome pour demander au pape l'autorisation de former des couvents et d'avoir des hospices où ils pussent suivre les exemples de dévouement que leur avait laissés Jean de Dieu. Or, Sébastien rencontra don Juan à Naples, et le vainqueur de Lépante le prit avec lui. Il se chargea même d'appuyer sa requête, et Pie V. s'empressa d'accorder aux frères non-seulement la bulle qu'ils désiraient, mais encore un monastère dans l'île du Tibre."--Gournerie, Rome Chrétienne, ii. 206.
A narrow lane near this leads to the other end of the island, where the temple of Jupiter stood. It is worth while to go thither for the sake of the view of the river and its bridges, which is to be obtained from a little quay leading to one of the numerous water-mills which exist near this. These floating Mills (which bear sacred monograms upon their gables) are interesting as having been invented by Belisarius in order to supply the people and garrison with bread, during the siege of Rome by Vitiges, when the Goths had cut the aqueducts, and thus rendered the mills on the Janiculan useless.
The bridge, of one large and two smaller arches, which connects the island with the Trastevere, is now called the Ponte S. Bartolomeo, but was anciently the Pons Cestius, or Gratianus, built A.U.C. 708, by the Prætor Lucius Cestius, who was probably father to the Caius Cestius buried near the Porta S. Paolo. It was restored A.D. 370 by the emperors Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian, as is seen from the fragments of a red letter inscription on the inside of the parapet, in which the title "Pontifex Maximus" is ascribed to each--"a tide accepted without hesitation," says Gibbon, "by seven Christian emperors, who were invested with more absolute authority over the religion they had deserted, than over that which they professed."
We now enter the Trastevere, the city "across the Tiber,"--the portion of Rome which is most unaltered from mediæval times, and whose narrow streets are still overlooked by many ancient towers, gothic windows, and curious fragments of sculpture. The inhabitants on this side differ in many respects from those on the other side of the Tiber. They pride themselves upon being born "Trasteverini," profess to be the direct descendants of the ancient Romans, seldom intermarry with their neighbours, and speak a dialect peculiarly their own. It is said that in their dispositions also they differ from the other Romans, that they are a far more hasty, passionate, and revengeful, as they are a stronger and more vigorous race. The proportion of murders (a crime far less common in Rome than in England) is larger in this than in any other part of the city. This, it is believed, is partly due to the extreme excitement which the Trasteverini display in the pursuit of their national games, especially that of Morrà:--
"Morrà is played by the men, and merely consists in holding up, in rapid succession, any number of fingers they please, calling out at the same time the number their antagonist shows. Nothing, seemingly, can be more simple or less interesting. Yet, to see them play, so violent are their gestures, that you would imagine them possessed by some diabolical passion. The eagerness and rapidity with which they carry it on render it very liable to mistake and altercation; then frenzy fires them, and too often furious disputes arise at this trivial play that end in murder. Morrà seems to differ in no respect from the Micare Digitis of the ancient Romans."--Eaton's Rome.
A house with gothic windows on the right, soon after passing the bridge, is pointed out as that once inhabited by the Fornarina, beloved of Raphael, and so well known to us from his portrait of her in the Tribune at Florence.
Crossing the Via Longarina, we find ourselves in the little piazza of S. Benedetto a Piscinuola, where there is a tiny church, with a good brick campanile intersected by terra-cotta mouldings, which occupies the site of the house inhabited by St. Benedict before his retreat to Subiaco. The exterior is uninviting, but the interior very curious; an atrium with antique columns opens to a vaulted chapel (of the same design as the Orto del Paradiso at Sta. Prassede), in which is a picture of the Virgin and Child, revered as that before which St. Benedict was wont to pray. Hence is entered the cell of the saint, of rough-hewn stones. His stone pillow is shown.
The church has ancient pillars, and a rich opus-alexandrinum pavement.
"Over the high altar is a picture--full-length--of St. Benedict, which Mabillon ('Iter Italicum') considers a genuine contemporary portrait--though Nibby and other critics suppose it less ancient. The figure on gold background is seated in a chair with gothic carvings, such as were in mediæval use; the black cowl is drawn over the head, the hair and beard are white; the aspect is serious and thoughtful, in one hand a crozier, in the other the book of rules drawn up by the Saint, displaying the words with which they begin: 'Ausculta fili precepta magistri."--Hemans' Ancient Sacred Art.
Turning down the Via Longarina towards the river, we pass, on the left, considerable remains of the old mediæval Castle of the Alberteschi Family, consisting of a block of palatial buildings of handsome masonry, with numerous antique fragments built into them, and a very rich porch sculptured with egg and billet mouldings of c. A.D. 1150, and beyond these, separated from them by a modern street, a high brick tower of c. A.D. 1100. Above one of the windows of this tower, a head of Jupiter is engrafted in the wall.
We now reach the entrance of the Ponte Rotto (described Chap. V.). Close to this bridge is the Church of S. Crispino al Ponte (the saint is buried at S. Lorenzo Pane e Perna). The front is modernized, but the east end displays rich terra-cotta cornices, and is very picturesque. On the river bank below this are the colossal lions' heads mentioned in Chap. V.
Turning up the Via dei Vascellari, we pass on the right, the ancient Palace of the Ponziani Family, once magnificent, but now of humble and rude exterior, and scarcely to be distinguished, except in March, during the festa of Sta. Francesca Romana, when old tapestries are hung out upon its white-washed walls, and the street in front is thickly strewn with box-leaves.
"The modern building that has been raised on the foundation of the old palace is the Casa dei Esercizii Pii, for the young men of the city. There the repentant sinner who longs to break the chain of sin, the youth beset by some strong temptation, one who has heard the inward voice summoning him to higher paths of virtue, another who is in doubt as to the particular line of life to which he is called, may come, and leave behind him for three, or five, or ten days, as it may be, the busy world, with all its distractions and its agitations, and, free for the time being from temporal cares, the wants of the body being provided for, and the mind at rest, may commune with God and their own souls.
"Over the Casa dei Esercizii Pii the sweet spirit of Francesca seems still to preside. On the day of her festival its rooms are thrown open, every memorial of the gentle saint is exhibited, lights burn on numerous altars, flowers deck the passages, leaves are strewn in the chapel, on the stairs, in the entrance-court; gay carpets, figured tapestry, and crimson silks hang over the door, and crowds of people go in and out, and kneel before the relics or the pictures of the dear saint of Rome. It is a touching festival, which carries back the mind to the day when the young bride of Lorenzo Ponziano entered these walls for the first time, in all the sacred beauty of holiness and youth."--Lady G. Fullerton.
In this house, also, Sta. Francesca Romana died, having come hither from her convent to nurse her son who was ill, and having been then seized with mortal illness herself.
"Touching were the last words of the dying mother to her spiritual children: 'Love, love,' was the burden of her teaching, as it had been that of the beloved disciple. 'Love one another,' she said, 'and be faithful unto death. Satan will assault you, as he has assaulted me, but be not afraid. You will overcome him through patience and obedience; and no trial will be too grievous, if you are united to Jesus; if you walk in His ways, He will be with you.' On the seventh day of her illness, as she had herself announced, her life came to a close. A sublime expression animated her face, a more ethereal beauty clothed her earthly form. Her confessor for the last time inquired what it was her enraptured eyes beheld, and she answered, 'The heavens open! the angels descend! the angel has finished his task. He stands before me. He beckons me to follow him.' These were the last words Francesca uttered."--Lady G. Fullerton's Life of Sta. F. Romana.
Almost opposite the Ponziani Palace, an alley leads to the small chapel of Sta. Maria in Cappella, which has a good brick campanile, dating from 1090. This building is attached to a hospital for poor women ill of incurable diseases, attended by sisters of charity, and entirely under the patronage of the Doria family.
We now reach the front of the Convent and Church of Sta. Cecilia (facing which is a picturesque mediæval house), in many ways one of the most interesting buildings in the city.
Cecilia was a noble and rich Roman lady, who lived in the reign of Alexander Severus. She was married at sixteen to Valerian, a heathen, with whom she lived in perpetual virginity, telling him that her guardian angel watched over her by day and night.
"I have an angel which thus loveth me-- That with great love, whether I wake or sleep, Is ready aye my body for to keep."
Chaucer.
At length Valerian and his brother Tiburtius were converted to Christianity by her prayers, and the exhortations of Pope Urban I. The husband and brother were beheaded for refusing to sacrifice to idols, and Cecilia was shortly afterwards condemned by Almachius, prefect of Rome, who was covetous of the great wealth she had inherited by their deaths. She was first shut up in the Sudatorium of her own baths, and a blazing fire was lighted, that she might be destroyed by the hot vapours. But when the bath was opened, she was found still living, "for God," says the legend, "had sent a cooling shower, which had tempered the heat of the fire, and preserved the life of the saint." Almachius, then, who dreaded the consequences of bringing so noble and courageous a victim to public execution, sent a lictor to behead her in her own palace, but he executed his office so ill, that she still lived after the third blow of his axe, after which the Roman law forbade that a victim should be stricken again. "The Christians found her bathed in her blood, and during three days she still preached and taught, like a doctor of the Church, with such sweetness and eloquence, that four hundred pagans were converted. On the third day she was visited by Pope Urban, to whose care she tenderly committed the poor whom she nourished, and to him she bequeathed the palace in which she had lived, that it might be consecrated as a temple to the Saviour. Then, "thanking God that he considered her, a humble woman, worthy to share the glory of his heroes, and with her eyes apparently fixed upon the heavens opening before her, she departed to her heavenly bridegroom, upon the 22nd November, A.D. 280."
The foundation of the church dates from its consecration by Pope Urban I., after the death of St. Cecilia, but it was rebuilt by Paschal I. in 821, and miserably modernized by Cardinal Doria in 1725. The exterior retains its ancient campanile of 1120, and its atrium of marble pillars, evidently collected from pagan edifices and surmounted by a frieze of mosaic, in which medallion heads of Cecilia, Valerian, Tiburtius, Urban I., and others are introduced. In the courtyard of the convent, which belongs to Benedictine nuns, is a fine specimen of the Roman vase called Cantharus, perhaps coeval with St. Cecilia's own residence here.
Right of the door, on entering, is the tomb of Adam of Hertford, Bishop of London, who died 1398, the only one spared from a cruel death, of the cardinals who conspired against Urban VI., and were taken prisoners at Lucera--from fear of King John who was his friend. His sarcophagus is adorned with the arms of England, then three leopards and fleurs-de-lis quartered. On the opposite side of the entrance is the tomb of Cardinal Fortiguerra, conspicuous in the contests of Pius II. and Paul II. with the Malatestas and Savellis in the fifteenth century. The drapery is a beautiful specimen of the delicate carving of detail during that period.
The altar canopy, which bears the name of its artist, Arnolphus, and the date 1286, is a fine specimen of gothic work, and has statuettes of Cecilia, Valerian, Tiburtius, and Urban. Beneath the altar is the famous statue of St. Cecilia.
In the archives of the Vatican remains an account written by Pope Paschal I. (A.D. 817--24) himself, describing how, "yielding to the infirmity of the flesh," he fell asleep in his chair during the early morning service at St. Peter's, with his mind pre-occupied with a longing to find the burial-place of Cecilia, and discover her relics. Then in a glorified vision the virgin-saint appeared before him, and revealed the spot where she lay, with her husband and brother-in-law, in the catacomb of Calixtus, and there they were found, and transported to her church on the following day.
In the sixteenth century, Sfondrato, titular cardinal of the church, opened the tomb of the martyr, when the embalmed body of Cecilia was found, as it had been previously found by Paschal, robed in gold tissue, with linen clothes steeped in blood at her feet, "not lying upon the back, like a body in a tomb, but upon its right side, like a virgin in her bed, with her knees modestly drawn together, and offering the appearance of sleep." Pope Clement VIII. and all the people of Rome rushed to look upon the saint, who was afterwards enclosed as she was found, in a shrine of cypress wood cased in silver. But before she was again hidden from sight, the greatest artist of the day, Stefano Maderno, was called in by Sfondrato, to sculpture the marble portrait which we now see lying upon her grave. Sfondrato (whose tomb is in this church) also enriched her shrine with the ninety-six silver lamps which burn constantly before it. In regarding this statue it will be remembered that Cecilia was not beheaded, but wounded in the throat,--a gold circlet conceals the wound.
In the statue "the body lies on its side, the limbs a little drawn up; the hands are delicate and fine,--they are not locked, but crossed at the wrists: the arms are stretched out. The drapery is beautifully modelled, and modestly covers the limbs.... It is the statue of a lady, perfect in form, and affecting from the resemblance to reality in the drapery of white marble, and the unspotted appearance of the statue altogether. It lies as no living body could lie, and yet correctly, as the dead when left to expire,--I mean in the gravitation of the limbs."--Sir C. Bell.
The inscription says: "Behold the body of the most holy virgin Cecilia, whom I myself saw lying incorrupt in her tomb. I have in this marble expressed for thee the same saint in the very same posture of body."
The tribune is adorned with mosaics of the ninth century, erected in the lifetime of Paschal I. (see his square nimbus). The Saviour is seen in the act of benediction, robed in gold: at his side are SS. Peter and Paul, St. Cecilia and St. Valerian, St. Paschal I. carrying the model of his church, and St. Agatha, whom he joined with Cecilia in its dedication. The mystic palm-trees and the phœnix, the emblem of eternity, are also represented, and, beneath, the four rivers, and the twelve sheep, emblematical of the apostles, issuing from the gates of Bethlehem and Jerusalem, to the adoration of the spotless Lamb. The picture of St. Cecilia behind the altar is attributed to Guido.
At the end of the right aisle is an ancient fresco representing the dream of Pope Paschal,--the (mitred) pope asleep upon his throne, and the saint appearing before him in a rich robe adorned with gems. This is the last of a series of frescoes which once existed in the portico of the church. The rest were destroyed in the seventeenth century. There are copies of them in the Barberini Library, viz.
1. The marriage feast of Valerian and Cecilia. 2. Cecilia persuades Valerian to seek for St. Urban. 3. Valerian rides forth to seek for Urban. 4. Valerian is baptized. 5. An Angel crowns Cecilia and Valerian. 6. Cecilia converts her executioners. 7. Cecilia suffers in the bath. 8. The Martyrdom of Cecilia. 9. The Burial of Cecilia. 10. The dream of Paschal.
Opening out of the same aisle are two chambers in the house of St. Cecilia, one the sudatorium of her baths, in which she was immured, actually retaining the pipes and calorifers of an ancient Roman bath.
The Festa of St. Cecilia is observed in this church on November 22nd, when--
--"rapt Cecilia, seraph-haunted queen of harmony"--[360]
is honoured in beautiful music from the papal choir assembled here. Visitors to Bologna will recollect the glorious figure of St. Cecilia by Raphael, rapt in ecstasy, and surrounded by instruments of music. This association with Cecilia probably arises from the tradition of the church, which tells how Valerian, returning from baptism by Pope Urban, found her singing hymns of triumph for his conversion, of which he had supposed her to be ignorant, and that when the bath was opened after her three days' imprisonment, she was again found singing the praises of her Saviour.
It is said that "she sang with such ravishing sweetness, that even the angels descended from heaven to listen to her, or to join their voices with hers."
The antiphons sung upon her festival are:
"And Cecilia, thy servant, serves thee, O Lord, even as the bee that is never idle.
"I bless thee, O Father of my Lord Jesus Christ, for through thy Son the fire hath been quenched round about me.
"I asked of the Lord a respite of three days, that I might consecrate my house as a church.
"O Valerian, I have a secret to tell thee; I have for my lover an angel of God, who, with great jealousy, watches over my body.
"The glorious virgin ever bore the Gospel of Christ in her bosom, and neither by day nor night ceased from conversing with God in prayer."
And the anthem:
"While the instruments of music were playing, Cecilia sang unto the Lord, and said, Let my heart be undefiled, that I may never be confounded.
"And Valerianus found Cecilia praying in her chamber with an angel."
It will be remembered that Cecilia is one of the chosen saints daily commemorated in the canon of the mass.
"Nobis quoque peccatoribus famulis tuis, de multitudine miserationum tuarum sperantibus, partem aliquam et societatem donare digneris cum tuis sanctis Apostolis et Martyribus: cum Joanne, Stephano, Matthia, Barnaba, Ignatio, Alexandro, Marcellino, Petro, Felicitate, Perpetua, Agata, Lucia, Agnete, Cæcilia, Anastasia, et omnibus sanctis."
Just beyond St. Cecilia is the immense Hospital of S. Michele, founded by Cardinal Odescalchi, nephew of Innocent XI., in 1693, as a refuge for vagabond children, where they might be properly brought up and taught a trade. Innocent XII. (Pignatelli) added to this foundation a hospital for sick persons of both sexes, and each succeeding pope has increased the buildings and their endowment. The establishment is now divided into an asylum for old men and women, a school with ateliers for boys and girls, and a penitentiary ("Casa delle Donne cattive"). A large church was attached to the hospital by Leo XII. No old men are admitted who have not inhabited Rome for five years; if they are still able to work a small daily task is given to them. The old women, as long as they can work, are obliged to mend and wash the linen of the establishment. The boys, for the most part orphans, are received at the age of eleven. The girls receive a dowry of 300 francs if they marry, but double that sum if they consent to enter a convent. A printing press is attached to the hospital.
S. Michele occupies the site of the sacred grove of the goddess Furina (not of the Furies), where Caius Gracchus was killed, B.C. 123. Protected by his friends, he escaped from the Aventine, where he had first taken refuge, and crossed the Pons Sublicius. A single slave reached the grove of Furina with him, who having in vain sought for a horse to continue their flight, first slew his master and then himself. One Septimuleius then cut off the head of Gracchus, and--a proclamation having been issued that any one who brought the head of Caius Gracchus should receive its weight in gold--first filled it with lead, and then carried it on a spear to the consul Opimius, who paid him his blood-money.
At the end of this street is the Porta Portese, built by Urban VIII., through which runs the road to Porto and Fiumicino.
Outside this gate was the site of the camp of Tarquin,--afterwards given by the senate to Mutius-Scævola, for his bravery in the camp of Lars Porsenna. The vineyards here have an interest to Roman Catholics as the scene of one of the miracles attributed to Sta. Francesca Romana.
"One fine sunny January day, Francesca and her companions had worked since dawn in the vineyards of the Porta Portese. They had worked hard for several hours, and then suddenly remembered that they had brought no provisions with them. They soon became faint and hungry, and, above all, very thirsty. Perna, the youngest of all the oblates, was particularly heated and tired, and asked permission of the Mother Superior to go to drink water at a fountain some way off on the public road.
"'Be patient, my child,' Francesca answered, and they went on with their work; but Francesca withdrawing aside, knelt down, and said, 'Lord Jesus, I have been thoughtless in forgetting to provide food for my sisters,--help us in our need.'
"Perna, who had kept near the Mother Superior, said to herself, with some impatience, 'It would be more to the purpose to take us home at once.' Then Francesca, turning to her, said, 'My child, you do not trust in God; look up and see.' And Perna saw a vine entwined around a tree, whose dead and leafless branches were loaded with grapes. In speechless astonishment the oblates assembled around the tree, for they had all seen its bare and withered branches. Twenty times at least they had passed before it, and the season for grapes was gone by. There were exactly as many bunches as persons present.'--See Lady G. Fullerton's Life of Sta. F. Romana.
From the back of S. Michele a cross street leads to the Church of Sta. Maria dell' Orto, designed by Giulio Romano, c. 1530, except the façade, which is by Martino Lunghi. The high altar is by Giacomo della Porta. The church contains an Annunciation by Taddeo Zucchero.
"Cette église appartient à plusieurs corporations; chacune a sa tombe devant sa propre chapelle, et sur le couvercle sont gravées ses armes particulières; un coq sur la tombe des marchands de volaille, une pantoufle sur celle des savetiers, des artichauts sur celle des jardiniers, &c."--Robello.
Close to this, at the end of the street which runs parallel with S. Michele, is the Church of S. Francesco a Ripa, the noviciate of the Franciscans--"Frati Minori." The convent contains the room (approached through the church) in which St. Francis lived, during his visits at Rome, with many relics of him. His stone pillow and his crucifix are shown, and a picture of him by G. de' Lettesoli. An altar in his chamber supports a reliquary in which 18,000 relics are displayed!
The church was rebuilt soon after the death of St. Francis by the knight Pandolfo d'Anquillara (his castle is in the Via Lungaretta), whose tomb is in the church, with his figure, in the dress of a Franciscan monk, which he assumed in the latter part of his life. It was again rebuilt by Cardinal Pallavicini, from designs of Matteo Rossi. Among its pictures are the Virgin and St. Anne by Baciccio, the Nativity by Simon Vouet, and a dead Christ by Annibale Caracci. On the left of the altar is the Altieri chapel, in which is a recumbent statue of the blessed Luigi Albertoni, by Bernini. In the third chapel on the right is a mummy, said to be that of the virgin martyr Sta. Semplicia. The convent garden has some beautiful palm-trees.
Following the Via Morticelli we regain the Via Lungaretta near S. Benedetto. This street, more than any other in Rome, retains remnants of mediæval architecture. On the right (opposite the opening to the west end of S. Chrisogono) is the entrance to the old Castle of the Anguillara Family, of whom were Count Pandolfo d'Anguillara already mentioned, and Everso, his grandson, celebrated for his highway robberies between Rome and Viterbo in the fifteenth century; also Orso d'Anguillara, senator of Rome, who crowned Petrarch at the Capitol on Easter Day, 1341. "The family device, two crossed eels, surmounted by a helmet, and a wild boar holding a serpent in his mouth, is believed to refer to the story of the founder of their house, Malagrotta, a second St. George, who slew a terrible serpent, which had devastated the district round his abode, and received in recompense from the pope the gift of as much land as he could walk round in one day."[361]
The existing remains consist of an arch, called "L'Arco dell' Annunziata," and a brick tower, which is now in the possession of a Signor Forti, who exhibits here, during Epiphany, a remarkably pretty Presepio, in which the Holy Family and the Shepherds are seen backed by the real landscape. For those who witness this sight it will be interesting to turn to the origin of a Presepio.
"St. Francis asked [of Pope Honorius III. 1223], with his usual simplicity, to be allowed to celebrate Christmas with certain unusual ceremonies which had suggested themselves to him--ceremonies which he must have thought likely to seize upon the popular imagination and impress the unlearned folk. He would not do it on his own authority, we are told, lest he should be accused of levity. When he made this petition, he was bound for the village of Grecia, a little place not far from Assisi, where he was to remain during that sacred season. In this village, when the eve of the nativity approached, Francis instructed a certain grave and worthy man, called Giovanni, to prepare an ox and an ass, along with a manger and all the common fittings of a stable, for his use, in the church. When the solemn night arrived, Francis and his brethren arranged all these things into a visible representation of the occurrences of the night at Bethlehem. The manger was filled with hay, the animals were led into their places; the scene was prepared as we see it now through all the churches of Southern Italy--a reproduction, so far as the people know how, in startling realistic detail of the surroundings of the first Christmas.... We are told that Francis stood by this, his simple theatrical (for such, indeed, it was--no shame to him) representation, all the night long, sighing for joy, and filled with an unspeakable sweetness."--Mrs. Oliphant, St. Francis.
On the left, is the fine Church of S. Chrisogono, founded by Pope Sylvester, but rebuilt in 731, and again by Cardinal Scipio Borghese (who modernized so many of the old churches), in 1623. The tower is mediæval (rebuilt?), but spoilt by whitewash; the portico has four ancient granite columns. The interior is a basilica, the nave being separated from the aisles by twenty-two granite columns, and the tribune from the nave by two magnificent columns of porphyry. The baldacchino, of graceful proportions, rests on pillars of yellow alabaster. Over the tabernacle is a picture of the Virgin and Child by the Cav. d'Arpino. The mosaic in the tribune, probably only the fragment of a larger design, represents the Madonna and Child enthroned, between St. James the Great and St. Chrisogonus. The stalls are good specimens of modern wood-carving. Near the end of the right aisle is the modern tomb of Anna Maria Taigi, lately beatified and likely to be canonized, though readers of her life will find it difficult to imagine why,--the great point of her character being that she was a good wife to her husband, though he was "ruvido di maniere, e grossolano." Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, was titular cardinal of this church.
S. Chrisogono, represented in the mosaic as a young knight, stood by Sta. Anastasia during her martyrdom, exhorting her to patient endurance. He was afterwards himself beheaded under Diocletian, and his body thrown into the sea.
In 1866 an Excubitorium of the VIIth cohort of Vigiles (a station of Roman firemen) was discovered near this church. Several chambers were tolerably perfect.
On the left, we pass the Hospital of S. Gallicano, founded by Benedict XIII. (Orsini), in 1725, as is told by the inscription over the entrance, for the "neglectis rejectisque ab omnibus." The interior contains two long halls opening into one another, the first containing 120 beds for men, the second 88 for women. Patients affected with maladies of the skin are received here to the number of 100. The principal treatment is by means of baths, which gives the negative, within these walls, to the Italian saying that "an ancient Roman took as many baths in a week as a modern Roman in all his life." The establishment is at present under the management of the Benfratelli ("Fate bene fratelli"). S. Gallicano, to whom the hospital is dedicated, was a Benfratello of the time of Constantine, who devoted his time and his fortune to the poor.
At the upper end of the Via Lungaretta is a piazza with a very handsome fountain, on one side of which is the Church of Sta. Maria in Trastevere, supposed to be the first church in Rome dedicated to the Virgin. It was founded by St. Calixtus in A.D. 224, on the site of the Taberna-Meritoria, an asylum for old soldiers; where, according to Don Cassius, a fountain of pure oil sprang up at the time of our Saviour's birth, and flowed away in one day to the Tiber, a story which gave the name of "Fons Olei" to the church in early times. It is said that wine-sellers and tavern-keepers (popinarii) disputed with the early Christian inhabitants for this site, upon which the latter had raised some kind of humble oratory, and that they carried their complaint before Alexander Severus, when the emperor awarded the site to the Christians, saying, "I prefer that it should belong to those who honour God, whatever be their form of worship."
"Ce souvenir augmente encore l'intérêt qui s'attache à l'église de Santa Maria in Trastevere. Les colonnes antiques de granit égyptien de cette basilique et les belles mosaïques qui la décorent me touchent moins que la tradition d'après laquelle elle fut élevée là où de pauvres chrétiens se rassemblaient dans un cabaret purifié par leur piété, pour y célébrer le culte qui devait un jour étaler ses magnificences sous le dôme resplendissant de Saint-Pierre."--Ampère, Emp. ii. 318.
The church was rebuilt in 340 by Julius I., and after a series of alterations was again almost entirely reconstructed in 1139 by Innocent II., as a thanksgiving offering for the submission of the anti-pope. Eugenius III. (1145--50) finished what was left uncompleted, but the new basilica was not consecrated till the time of Innocent III. (1198--1216). The tower, apse, tribune, and mosaics belong to the early restoration; the rest is due to alterations made by Bernardino Rossellini for Nicholas V.
The west façade is covered with mosaics; the upper part--representing the Saviour throned between angels--and the lower--of palms, the twelve sheep, and the mystic cities--are additions by Pius IX. in 1869. The central frieze was begun in the twelfth century under Eugenius III., and completed in the fourteenth by Pietro Cavallini. It represents the Virgin and Child enthroned in the midst, and ten female figures, generally described as the Ten Virgins,--but Hemans remarks:
"It is evident that such subject cannot have been in the artist's thoughts, as each stately figure advances towards the throne with the same devout aspect and graceful serenity, the same faith and confidence; the sole observable distinctions being that the two with unlit lamps are somewhat more matronly, their costumes simpler, than is the case with the rest; and that instead of being crowned, as are the others, these two wear veils. Explanation of such attributes may be found in the mystic meaning--the light being appropriate to virgin saints, the oil taken to signify benevolence or almsgiving; and we may conclude that those without light represent wives or widows, the others virgin saints, in this group. Two other diminutive figures (the scale indicating humility), who kneel at the feet of Mary, are Innocent II. and Eugenius III., both vested in the pontifical mantle, but bareheaded. Originally the Mother and Child alone had the nimbus around the head, as we see in a water-colour drawing from this original (now in the Barberini Library) dated 1640, made before a renovation by which that halo has been given alike to all the female figures. Another much faded mosaic, the Madonna and Child, under an arched canopy, high up on the campanile, may perhaps be as ancient as those on the façade."--Mediæval Christian Art.
The portico contains two frescoes of the Annunciation, one of them ascribed to Cavallini. Its walls are occupied by early Christian and pagan inscriptions. One, of the time of Trajan, is regarded with peculiar interest: "MARCUS COCCEUS LIB. AUG. AMBROSIUS PRÆPOSITUS, VESTIS ALBÆ, TRIUMPHALIS, FECIT, NICE CONJUGI SUÆ CUM QUA VIXIT ANNOS XXXXV., DIEBUS XI., SINE ULLA QUERELA." Between the doors is preserved a curious relic--the stone said to have been attached to St. Calixtus when he was thrown into the well. The interior is that of a basilica. The nave, paved with opus-alexandrinum, is divided from the aisles by twenty-two ancient granite columns, whose Ionic capitals are in several instances decorated with heads of pagan gods. They support a richly-decorated architrave. The roof, in the centre of which is a picture of the Assumption of the Virgin, is painted by Domenichino. On the right of the entrance is a ciborium by Mino da Fiesole. The high altar covers a confessional, beneath which are the remains of five early popes, removed from the catacombs. Among the tombs are those of the painters, Lanfranco and Ciro Ferri, and of Bastari, librarian of the Vatican, editor of the dictionary of the Della Cruscan Academy, and canon of this church, ob. 1775.
Pope Innocent II. is buried here without a tomb.
In the left transept is a beautiful gothic tabernacle over an altar, erected by Cardinal d'Alençon, nephew of Charles de Valois, and brother of Philippe le Bel. On one side is the tomb of that cardinal (the fresco represents the martyrdom of his patron St. Philip, who is pourtrayed as crucified with his head downwards like St. Peter); on the other is the monument of Cardinal Stefaneschi, by Paolo, one of the first sculptors of the fourteenth century. Opening from hence is a chapel, which has a curious picture of the Council of Trent by Taddeo Zucchero. At the end of the right aisle are several more fine tombs of the sixteenth century, and the chapel of the Madonna di Strada Cupa, designed by Domenichino, from whose hand is the figure of a child scattering flowers, sketched out in one corner of the vaulting.
The upper part of the tribune is adorned with magnificent mosaics, (restored in modern times by Camuccini,) of the time of Innocent II.
"In the centre of the principal group on the vault is the Saviour, seated, with his Mother, crowned and robed like an Eastern Queen, beside him, both sharing the same gorgeous throne and footstool; while a hand extends from a fan-like glory with a jewelled crown held over his head; she (a singular detail here) giving benediction with the usual action; He embracing her with the left arm, and in the right hand holding a tablet that displays the words 'Veni, electa mea, et ponam in thronum meum;' to which corresponds the text, from the song of Solomon, on a tablet in her left hand, 'Læva ejus sub capite meo et dextera illius amplexabitur me.' Below the heavenly throne stand, each with name inscribed in gold letters, Innocent II., holding a model of this church; St. Laurence, in deacon's vestments, with the Gospels and the jewelled cross; the sainted popes, Calixtus I., Cornelius, and Julius I.; St. Peter (in classic white vestments), and Calepodius, a martyr of the third century, here introduced because his body, together with those of the other saints in the same group, was brought from the catacombs to this church.
"As to ecclesiastical costume, this work affords decisive evidence of its ancient splendour and varieties. We do not see the keys in the hands of St. Peter, but the large tonsure on his head; that ecclesiastical badge which he is said to have invented, and which is sometimes the sole peculiarity (besides the ever-recognisable type) given to this Apostle in art.
"Above the archivolt we see a cross between the Alpha and Omega, and the winged emblems of the Evangelists; laterally, Jeremiah and Isaiah, each with a prophetic text on a scroll; along a frieze below, twelve sheep advancing from the holy cities, Jerusalem and Bethlehem, towards the Divine Lamb, who stands on a mount whence issue the four rivers of Paradise--or, according to perhaps juster interpretation, the four streams of gospel truth. Palms and a phœnix are seen beside the two prophets; also a less common symbol--caged birds, that signify the righteous soul incarcerated in the body, or (with highest reference) the Saviour in his assumed humanity; such accessory reminding of the ancient usage, in some countries, of releasing birds at funerals, and of that still kept up amidst the magnificent canonization-rites, of offering various kinds of birds, in cages, at the papal throne.
"Remembering the date of the composition before us, about a century and a half before the time of Cimabue and Giotto, we may hail in it, if not an actual Renaissance, the dawn, at least, that heralds a brighter day for art, compared with the deep gloom previous."--Hemans' Mediæval Christian Art.
Below these are another series of mosaics representing six scenes in the life of the Virgin, the work of Pietro Cavallini, of the thirteenth century, when they were ordered by Bertoldo Stefaneschi, who is himself introduced in one of the subjects. In the centre of the tribune is an ancient marble episcopal throne, raised by a flight of steps.
In the Sacristy is a picture of the Virgin with S. Rocco and S. Sebastiano, by Perugino. Here are preserved some beautiful fragments of mosaics of birds, &c., from the catacombs.
Outside the right transept of Sta. Maria is a picturesque shrine, and there are many points about this ancient church which are interesting to the artist. The palace, which forms one side of the piazza at the west end of the church, formerly Palazzo Moroni, is now used as the summer residence of the Benedictine monks of S. Paolo, who are driven from their convent by the malaria during the hot months. During the revolutionary government of 1848--49, a number of priests suffered death here, which has led to the monastery being regarded as "the Carmes of Rome." The modern Church of S. Calisto contains the well in which he suffered martyrdom, A.D. 222. This well, now seen through a door near the altar, was then in the open air, and the pope was thrown into it from the window of a house in which he had been imprisoned and scourged, and where he had converted the soldier who was appointed to guard him. His festival is celebrated here with great splendour by the monks.
Opposite S. Calisto is the Monastery of St. Anna, in which were passed the last days of the beautiful and learned Vittoria Colonna. As her death approached she was removed to the neighbouring house of her kinsman Giuliano Cesarini, and there she expired (February, 1547) in the presence of her devoted friend, Michael Angelo, who always regretted that he had not in that solemn moment ventured to press his lips for the first and last time to her beautiful countenance. She was buried, by her own desire, in the convent chapel, without any monument.
Hence a lane leads to the Church of S. Cosimato, in an open space facing the hill of S. Rietro in Montorio (where stands of seats are placed during the Girandola). A courtyard is entered through a low arch supported by two ancient columns, having a high roof with rich terra-cotta mouldings,--beautiful in colour. The court contains an antique fountain, and is exceedingly picturesque. The church has carefully sculptured details of cornice and moulding; the door is a good specimen of mediæval wood-carving. The wall on the left of the altar is occupied by a most beautiful fresco of Pinturicchio, representing St. Francis and St. Clare standing on either side of the Virgin and Child. Opening from the end of the left aisle is a very interesting chapel, decorated with frescoes, and containing a most beautiful altar of the fifteenth century, in honour of the saints Severa and Fortunata, with statuettes of Faith, Justice, Charity, and Hope. Attached to the church is a very large convent of Poor Clares, which produced two saints, Theodora and Seraphina, in the fifteenth century.
Following the Via della Scala, on the south side of Sta. Maria in Trastevere, we reach the Porta Settimiana, built by Alexander VI. on the site of a gateway raised by Honorius, which marked the position of an arch of Septimius Severus. This is the entrance of the Via Lungara, containing the Corsini and Farnesina Palaces (see Chapter XX.). The gateway has forked battlements, but is much spoilt by recent plasterings. Near this is Sta. Dorotea, an ugly church, but important in church history from its connection with the foundation of the Order of the Theatins, which arose out of a revulsion from the sensuous age of Leo X.; and as containing the tomb of their founder, Don Gaëtano di Teatino, the friend of Paul IV.
"Dès le règne de Léon X., quelques symptômes d'une réaction religieuse se manifestèrent dans les hautes classes de la société romaine. On vit un certain nombre d'hommes éminents s'affilier les uns aux autres, afin de trouver dans de saintes pratiques assez de force pour résister à l'atmosphère énervante qui les entourait. Ils prirent pour leur association le titre et les emblèmes de l'amour divin, et ils s'assemblèrent, à des jours déterminés, dans l'église de Sainte-Dorothée, près de la porte Settimiana. Parmi ces hommes de foi et d'avenir, on citait un archevêque, Caraffa; un protonotaire apostolique, Gaëtan de Thiène; un noble Vénitien aussi distingué par son caractére que par ses talents, Contarini; et cinquante autres dont les noms rappellaient tons, ou une illustration ou une haute position sociale, tels que Lippomano, Sadolet, Ghiberti.
"Mais bientôt ces premiers essais de rupture avec la tendance générale des esprits enflammèrent le zèle de plusieurs des membres de la Congrégation de l'Amour divin. Caraffa surtout, dont l'âme ardente n'avait trouvé qu'anxiétés et fatigue dans les grandeurs, aspirait à une vie d'action qui lui permit de s'employer, de tous ses moyens, à la réforme du monde. Il trouva dans Gaëtan de Thiène des dispositions conformes à ce qu'il désirait. Gaëtan avait cependant un caractère très-différent du sien; doué d'une angélique douceur, craignant de se faire entendre, recherchant la méditation et la retraite, il eût voulu, lui aussi, réformer le monde, mais il n'eût pas voulu en être connu. Les qualités diverses de ces deux hommes rares se combinèrent heureusement dans l'exécution du projet qu'ils avaient conçu, c'était de former des ecclésiastiques voués, tout ensemble à la contemplation et à une vie austère, à la prédication et au soin des malades; des ecclésiastiques qui donnassent partout au clergé l'exemple de l'accomplissement des devoirs de sa sainte mission."--Gournerie, Rome Chrétienne, ii. 157.
"When Dorothea, the maiden of Cæsarea, was condemned to death by Sapritius, she replied, 'Be it so, then I shall the sooner stand in the presence of Christ, my spouse, in whose garden are the fruits of paradise, and roses that never fade.' As she was being led to execution, the young Theophilus mocking said, 'O maiden, goest thou to join thy bridegroom? send me then, I pray thee, of the fruits and flowers which grow in his garden.' And the maiden bowed her head and smiled, saying, 'Thy request is granted, O Theophilus,' whereat he laughed, and she went forward to death.
"And behold, at the place of execution, a beautiful child, with hair like the sunbeam, stood beside her, and in his hand was a basket containing three fresh roses and three apples. And she said, 'Take these to Theophilus, and tell him that Dorothea waits for him in the garden from whence they came.'
"And the child sought Theophilus, and gave him the flowers and the fruits, saying, 'Dorothea sends thee these,' and vanished. And the heart of Theophilus melted, and he ate of the fruit from heaven, and was converted and professed himself one of Christ's servants, so that he also was martyred, and was translated into the heavenly garden."--Legend.
This story is told in nearly all the pictures of Sta. Dorotea.
Hence we reach the Ponte Sisto, built 1473--75 by Sixtus IV. in the place of the Pons Janiculensis, (or, according to Ampère, the Pons Antoninus,) which Caracalla had erected to reach the garden in the Trastevere, formerly belonging to his brother Geta,--but which was known as the Pons Fractus after a flood had destroyed part of it in 792. The Acts of Eusebius describe the many Christian martyrdoms which took place from this bridge. S. Symphorosa under Hadrian, S. Sabas under Aurelian, S. Calepodius under Alexander, and S. Anthimius under Diocletian, were thrown into the Tiber from hence, with many others, whose bodies, usually drifting to the island then called Lycaonia, were recovered there by their faithful disciples.[362] An inscription upon the bridge begs the prayers of the passengers for its papal founder.
Beautiful views may be obtained from this bridge,--on the one side, of the island, of the temple of Vesta, and the Alban hills; on the other, of St. Peter's, rising behind the Farnesina Gardens, and the grand mass of the Farnese Palace, towering above the less important buildings.
"They had reached the bridge and stopped to look at the view, perhaps the most beautiful of all those seen from the Roman bridges. Looking towards the hills, the Tiber was spanned by Ponte Rotto, under which the old black mills were turning ceaselessly, almost level with the tawny water; the sunshine fell full on the ruins of the Palatine, about the base of which had gathered a crowd of modern buildings; a brick campanile, of the middle ages, rose high above them against the blue sky, which was seen through its open arches; beyond were the Latin Hills; on the other hand, St. Peter's stood pre-eminent in the distance; nearer, a stack of picturesque old houses were half hidden by orange-trees, where golden fruit clustered thickly; women leant from the windows, long lines of flapping clothes hung out to dry; below, the ferry-boat was crossing the river, impelled by the current. Modern and ancient Rome all mingled together--everywhere were thrilling names connected with all that was most glorious in the past. The moderns are richer than their ancestors, the past is theirs as well as the present."--Mademoiselle Mori.
Close to the further entrance of the bridge, opposite the Via Giulia, is the Fountain of the Ponte Sisto, built by Paul V. from a design of Fontana. The water, which falls in one body from a niche in the wall of a palace, is discharged a second time from the mouths of two monsters below.
XVIII. THE TRE FONTANE AND S. PAOLO
The Marmorata--Arco di S. Lazzaro--Protestant Cemetery--Pyramid of Caius Cestius--Monte-Testaccio--Porta S. Paolo--Chapel of the Farewell--The Tre Fontane (SS. Vincenzo ed Anastasio--Sta. Maria Scala Cœli--S. Paolo alle Tre Fontane)--Basilica and Monastery of S. Paolo.
Beyond the Piazza Bocca della Verità, the Via della Marmorata is spanned by an arch which nearly marks the site of the Porta Trigemina, by which Marius fled to Ostia before Sylla in B.C. 88. Near this stood the statue erected by public subscription to Minucius, whose jealousy brought about the execution of the patriot Mælius, B.C. 440. Here also was the temple of Jupiter Inventor, whose dedication was attributed to the gratitude of Hercules for the restoration of his cattle, carried off by Cacus to his cave on the neighbouring Aventine.
It was at the Porta Trigemina that Camillus (B.C. 391), sent into exile to Ardea by the accusations of the plebs, stayed, and, stretching forth his hands to the Capitol, prayed to the gods who reigned there that if he was unjustly expelled, Rome might "one day have need of Camillus."
Passing the arch, the road skirts the wooded escarpment of the Aventine, crowned by its three churches--Sta. Sabina, S. Alessio, and the Priorato.
"De ce côté, entre l'Aventin et le Tibre, hors de la porte Trigemina, étaient divers marchés, notamment le marché aux bois, le marché à la farine et au pain, les horrea, magasins de blés. Le voisinage de ces marchés, de ces magasins et de l'emporium, produisait un grand mouvement de transport et fournissait de l'occupation à beaucoup de portefaix. Plaute[363] fait allusion à ces porteurs de sacs de la porte Trigemina. On peut en voir encore tous les jours remplir le même office au même lieu."--Ampère, Hist. Rom. iv. 75.
From the landing-place for modern Carrara marble, a new road on the right, planted with trees, leads along the river to the ancient Marmorata, discovered 1867--68, when many magnificent blocks of ancient marble were found buried in the mud of the Tiber. Recent excavations have laid bare the inclined planes by which the marbles were landed, and the projecting bars of stone with rings for mooring the marble vessels.
In the neighbouring vineyard are the massive ruins of the Emporium, or magazine for merchandise, founded by M. Æmilius Lepidus and L. Æmilius Paulus, the ædiles in B.C. 186. Upon the ancient walls of this time is engrafted a small and picturesque winepress of the fifteenth century. The neighbouring vineyard is much frequented by marble collectors.
A short distance beyond the turn to the Marmorata the main road is crossed by an ancient brick arch, called Arco di S. Lazzaro, or Arco della Salara, by the side of which is a hermitage.
About half a mile beyond this we reach the Porta S. Paolo, built by Belisarius on the site of the Ancient Porta Ostiensis.
It was here, just within the Ostian Gate, that the Emperor Claudius, returning from Ostia to take vengeance upon Messalina, was met by their two children, Octavia and Britannicus, accompanied by a vestal, who insisted upon the rights of her Order, and imperiously demanded that the empress should not be condemned undefended.
"Totila entra par la porte Asinaria et une autre fois par la porte Ostiensis, aujourd'hui porte Saint-Paul; par la même porte, Genséric, que la mer apportait, et qui, en s'embarquant, avait dit à son pilote: 'Conduis-moi vers le rivage que menace la colère divine.'"--Ampère, Emp. ii. 325.
Close to this, is the famous Pyramid of Caius Cestius. It is built of brick, coated with marble, and is 125 feet high, and 100 feet wide at its square basement. In the midst is a small sepulchral chamber, painted with arabesques. Two inscriptions on the exterior show that the Caius Cestius buried here was a prætor, a tribune of the people, and one of the "Epulones" appointed to provide the sacrificial feasts of the gods. He died about 30 B.C., leaving Agrippa as his executor, and desiring by his will that his body might be buried, wrapped up in precious stuffs. Agrippa, however, applied to him the law which forbade luxurious burial, and spent the money, partly upon the pyramid and partly upon erecting two colossal statues in honour of the deceased, of which the pedestals have been found near the tomb. In the middle ages this was supposed to be the sepulchre of Remus.
"Cette pyramide, sauf les dimensions, est absolument semblable aux pyramides d'Égypte. Si l'on pouvait encore douter que celles-ci étaient des tombeaux, l'imitation des pyramides égyptiennes dans un tombeau romain serait un argument de plus pour prouver qu'elles avaient une destination funéraire. La chambre qu'on a trouvée dans le monument de Cestius était décorée de peintures dont quelques unes ne sont pas encore effacées. C'était la coutume des peuples anciens, notamment des Egyptiens et des Etrusques, de peindre l'intérieur des tombeaux, que l'on fermait ensuite soigneusement. Ces peintures, souvent très-considérables, n'étaient que pour le mort, et ne devaient jamais être vues par l'œil d'un vivant. Il en était certainement ainsi de celles qui décoraient la chambre sépulchrale de la pyramide de Cestius, car cette chambre n'avait aucune entrée. L'ouverture par laquelle on y pénètre aujourd'hui est moderne. On avait déposé le corps ou les cendres avant de terminer le monument, on acheva ensuite de la bâtir jusqu'au sommet."--Ampère, Emp. i. 347.
"St. Paul was led to execution beyond the city walls, upon the road to Ostia. As he issued forth from the gate, his eyes must have rested for a moment on that sepulchral pyramid which stood beside the road, and still stands unshattered, amid the wreck of so many centuries, upon the same spot. That spot was then only the burial-place of a single Roman; it is now the burial-place of many Britons. The mausoleum of Caius Cestius rises conspicuously amongst humbler graves, and marks the site where Papal Rome suffers her Protestant sojourners to bury their dead. In England and in Germany, in Scandinavia and in America, there are hearts which turn to that lofty cenotaph as the sacred point of their whole horizon; even as the English villager turns to the grey church tower, which overlooks the grave-stones of his kindred. Among the works of man, that pyramid is the only surviving witness of the martyrdom of St. Paul; and we may thus regard it with yet deeper interest, as a monument unconsciously erected by a pagan to the memory of a martyr. Nor let us think they who lie beneath its shadow are indeed resting (as degenerate Italians fancy) in unconsecrated ground. Rather let us say, that a spot where the disciples of Paul's faith now sleep in Christ, so near the soil once watered by his blood, is doubly hallowed; and that their resting-place is most fitly identified with the last earthly journey, and the dying glance of their own patron saint, the apostle of the Gentiles."--Conybeare and Howson.
At the foot of the Pyramid is the Old Protestant Cemetery, a lovely spot, now closed. Here is the grave of Keats, with the inscription:
"This grave contains all that was mortal of a young English poet, who, on his death-bed, in the bitterness of his heart at the malicious power of his enemies, desired these words to be engraven on his tombstone: 'Here lies one whose name was writ in water.' February 24, 1821."
"Go thou to Rome--at once the paradise, The grave, the city, and the wilderness; And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise, And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress The bones of desolation's nakedness, Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead Thy footsteps to a slope of green access, Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead, A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread,
"And grey walls moulder round, on which dull Time Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand; And one keen pyramid, with wedge sublime, Pavilioning the dust of him who planned This refuge for his memory, doth stand Like flame transformed to marble; and beneath A field is spread, on which a newer band Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death, Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath."
Shelley's Adonais.
Very near the grave of Keats is that of Augustus William Hare, the elder of the two brothers who wrote the "Guesses at Truth," ob. 1834.
"When I am inclined to be serious, I love to wander up and down before the tomb of Caius Cestius. The Protestant burial-ground is there, and most of the little monuments are erected to the young--young men of promise, cut off when on their travels full of enthusiasm, full of enjoyment; brides, in the bloom of their beauty, on their first journey; or children borne from home in search of health. This stone was placed by his fellow-travellers, young as himself, who will return to the house of his parents without him; that, by a husband or a father, now in his native country. His heart is buried in that grave.
"It is a quiet and sheltered nook, covered in the winter with violets; and the pyramid, that overshadows it, gives it a classic and singularly solemn air. You feel an interest there, a sympathy you were not prepared for. You are yourself in a foreign land; and they are for the most part your countrymen. They call upon you in your mother tongue--in English--in words unknown to a native, known only to yourself: and the tomb of Cestius, that old majestic pile, has this also in common with them. It is itself a stranger among strangers. It has stood there till the language spoken round about it has changed; and the shepherd, born at the foot, can read the inscription no longer."--Rogers.
The New Burial Ground was opened in 1825. It extends for some distance along the slope of the hill under the old Aurelian Wall, and is beautifully shaded by cypresses, and carpeted with violets. Amid the forest of tombs we may notice that which contains the heart of Shelley (his body having been burnt upon the shore at Lerici, where it was thrown up by the sea), inscribed:
"Percy Bysshe Shelley, Cor Cordium. Natus IV. Aug. MDCCXCII. Obiit VIII. Jul. MDCCCXXII.
'Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea change Into something rich and strange.'"
Another noticeable tomb is that of Gibson the sculptor, who died 1868.
From the fields in front of the cemetery (Prati del Popolo Romano) rises the Monte Testaccio, only 160 feet in height, but worth ascending for the sake of the splendid view it affords. The extraordinary formation of this hill, which is entirely composed of broken pieces of pottery, has long been an unexplained bewilderment.
"Le Monte-Testaccio est pour moi des nombreux problèmes qu'offrent les antiquités romaines le plus difficile à résoudre. On ne peut s'arrêter à discuter sérieusement la tradition d'après laquelle il aurait été formé avec les débris des vases contenant les tributs qu'apportaient à Rome les peuples soumis par elle. C'est là évidemment une légende du moyen âge née du souvenir de la grandeur romaine et imaginée pour exprimer la haute idée qu'on s'en faisait, comme on avait imaginé ces statues de provinces placées au Capitole, et dont chacune portait au cou une cloche qui sonnait tout-à-coup d'elle-même, quand une province se soulevait, comme on a prétendu que le lit du Tibre était pavé en airain par les tributs apportés aux empereurs romains. Il faut donc chercher une autre explication."--Ampère, Emp. ii. 386.
Just outside the Porta S. Paolo is (on the right) a vineyard which belonged to Sta. Francesca Romana (born 1384, canonized 1608 by Paul V.).
"Instead of entering into the pleasures to which her birth and riches entitled her, Sta. Francesca went every day, disguised in a coarse woollen garment, to her vineyard, and collected faggots, which she brought into the city on her head, and distributed to the poor. If the weight exceeded her womanly strength, she loaded therewith an ass, following after on foot in great humility."--Mrs. Jameson's Monastic Orders.
A straight road a mile and a half long leads from the gate to the basilica. Half way (on the left) is the humble chapel which commemorates the farewell of St. Peter and St. Paul on their way to martyrdom, inscribed:
"In this place SS. Peter and Paul separated on their way to martyrdom.
"And Paul said to Peter, 'Peace be with thee, Foundation of the Church, Shepherd of the flock of Christ.'
"And Peter said to Paul, 'Go in peace, Preacher of good tidings, and Guide of the salvation of the just.'"[364]
Passing the basilica, which looks outside like a very ugly railway station, let us visit the scene of the martyrdom, before entering the grand church which arose in consequence.
The road we now traverse is the scene of the legend of Plautilla.
"St. Paul was beheaded by the sword outside the Ostian gate, about two miles from Rome, at a place called the Aqua Salvias, now the 'Tre Fontane.' The legend of his death relates that a certain Roman matron named Plautilla, one of the converts of St. Peter, placed herself on the road by which St. Paul passed to his martyrdom, to behold him for the last time; and when she saw him she wept greatly, and besought his blessing. The apostle then, seeing her faith, turned to her, and begged that she would give him her veil to blind his eyes when he should be beheaded, promising to return it to her after his death. The attendants mocked at such a promise, but Plautilla, with a woman's faith and charity, taking off her veil, presented it to him. After his martyrdom, St. Paul appeared to her, and restored the veil stained with his blood.
"In the ancient representations of the martyrdom of St. Paul, the legend of Plautilla is seldom omitted. In the picture by Giotto in the sacristy of St. Peter's, Plautilla is seen on an eminence in the background, receiving the veil from the hands of St. Paul, who appears in the clouds above; the same representation, but little varied, is executed in bas-relief on the bronze doors of St. Peter's."--Jameson's Sacred Art.
The lane which leads to the Tre Fontane turns off to the left a little beyond S. Paolo.
"In all the melancholy vicinity of Rome, there is not a more melancholy spot than the Tre Fontane. A splendid monastery, rich with all the offerings of Christendom, once existed there: the ravages of that mysterious scourge of the Campagna, the malaria, have rendered it a desert; three ancient churches and some ruins still exist, and a few pale monks wander about the swampy dismal confines of the hollow in which they stand. In winter you approach them through a quagmire; in summer, you dare not breathe in their pestilential vicinity; and yet there is a sort of dead beauty about the place, something hallowed as well as sad, which seizes on the fancy."--Jameson's Sacred Art.
The convent was bestowed in 1867 by Pius IX. upon the French Trappists, and twelve brethren of the Order went to reside there. Entering the little enclosure, the first church on the right is Sta. Maria Scala Cœli, supposed to occupy the site of the cemetery of S. Zeno, in which the 12,000 Christians employed in building the Baths of Diocletian were buried. The present edifice was the work of Vignola and Giacomo della Porta in 1582. The name is derived from the legend that here St. Bernard had a vision of a ladder which led to heaven, its foot resting on this church, and of angels on the ladder leading upwards the souls whom his prayers had redeemed from purgatory. The mosaics in the apse were the work of F. Zucchero, in the sixteenth century, and are perhaps the best of modern mosaics. They represent the saints Zeno, Bernard, Vincenzo, and Anastasio, adored by Pope Clement VIII. and Cardinal Aldobrandini, under whom the remodelling of the church took place.
The second church is the basilica of SS. Vincenzo ed Anastasio, founded by Honorius I. (625), and restored by Honorius III. (1221), when it was consecrated afresh. It is approached by an atrium with a penthouse roof, supported by low columns, and adorned with decaying frescoes, among which the figure of Honorius III. may be made out. The interior, which reeks with damp, is almost entirely of the twelfth century. The pillars are adorned with coarse frescoes of the apostles.
"S. Vincenzo alle Tre Fontane so far deviates from the usual basilican arrangement as almost to deserve the appellation of gothic. It has the same defect as all the rest--its pier arches being too low, for which there is no excuse here; but both internally and externally it shows a uniformity of design, and a desire to make every part ornamental, that produces a very pleasing effect, although the whole is merely of brick, and ornament is so sparingly applied as only just to prevent the building sinking to the class of mere utilitarian erections."--Fergusson's Handbook of Architecture, vol. ii.
The two saints whose relics are said to repose here were in no wise connected in their lifetime. S. Vincenzo, who suffered A.D. 304, was a native of Saragossa, cruelly tortured to death at Valencia, under Dacian, by being racked on a slow fire over a gridiron, "of which the bars were framed like scythes." His story is told with horrible detail by Prudentius. Anastasius, who died A.D. 628, was a native of Persia, who had become a Christian and taken the monastic habit at a convent near Jerusalem. He was tortured and finally strangled, under Chosroes, at Barsaloe, in Assyria. He is not known to be represented anywhere in art, save in the almost obliterated frescoes in the atrium of this church.
The third church, S. Paolo alle Tre Fontane, was built by Giacomo della Porta for Cardinal Aldobrandini in 1590. It contains the pillars to which St. Paul is said to have been bound, the block of marble upon which he is supposed to have been beheaded, and the three fountains which sprang forth, wherever the severed head struck the earth during three bounds which it made after decapitation. In proof of this story, it is asserted that the water of the first of these fountains is still warm, of the second tepid, of the third cold. Three modern altars above the fountains are each decorated with a head of the apostle in bas-relief.
"A la première, l'âme vient à l'instant même de s'échapper du corps. Ce chef glorieux est plein de vie! A la seconde, les ombres de la mort couvrent déjà ses admirables traits; à la troisième, le sommeil éternel les a envahis, et, quoique demeurés tout rayonnants de beauté, ils disent, sans parler, que dans ce monde ces lèvres ne s'entr'ouvriront plus, et que ce regard d'aigle s'est voilé pour toujours."--Une Chrétienne à Rome.[365]
The pavement is an ancient mosaic representing the Four Seasons, brought from the excavations at Ostia. The interior of this church has been beautified at the expense of a French nobleman, and the whole enclosure of the Tre Fontane has been improved by Mgr. de Merode.
"As the martyr and his executioners passed on (from the Ostian gate), their way was crowded with a motley multitude of goers and comers between the metropolis and its harbour--merchants hastening to superintend the unlading of their cargoes--sailors eager to squander the profits of their last voyage in the dissipations of the capital--officials of the government charged with the administration of the provinces, or the command of the legions on the Euphrates or the Rhine--Chaldean astrologers--Phrygian eunuchs--dancing-girls from Syria, with their painted turbans--mendicant priests from Egypt, howling for Osiris--Greek adventurers, eager to coin their national cunning into Roman gold--representatives of the avarice and ambition, the fraud and lust, the superstition and intelligence, of the Imperial world. Through the dust and tumult of that busy throng, the small troop of soldiers threaded their way silently, under the bright sky of an Italian midsummer. They were marching, though they knew it not, in a procession more really triumphal than any they had ever followed, in the train of general or emperor, along the Sacred Way. Their prisoner, now at last and for ever delivered from captivity, rejoiced to follow his Lord 'without the gate.' The place of execution was not far distant, and there the sword of the headsman ended his long course of sufferings, and released that heroic soul from that feeble body. Weeping friends took up his corpse, and carried it for burial to those subterranean labyrinths, where, through many ages of oppression, the persecuted Church found refuge for the living, and sepulchres for the dead.
"Thus died the apostle, the prophet, and the martyr, bequeathing to the Church, in her government, and her discipline, the legacy of his apostolic labours; leaving his prophetic words to be her living oracles; pouring forth his blood to be the seed of a thousand martyrdoms. Thenceforth, among the glorious company of the apostles, among the goodly fellowship of the prophets, among the noble army of martyrs, his name has stood pre-eminent. And wheresoever the holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge God, there Paul of Tarsus is revered, as the great teacher of a universal redemption and a catholic religion--the herald of glad tidings to all mankind."--Conybeare and Howson.
Let us now return to the grand Basilica which arose to commemorate the martyrdom on this desolate site, and which is now itself standing alone on the edge of the Campagna, entirely deserted except by a few monks who linger in its monastery through the winter months, but take flight to St. Calisto before the pestilential malaria of the summer,--though in the middle ages it was not so, when S. Paolo was surrounded by the flourishing fortified suburb of Joanopolis (so called from its founder, John VIII.), whose possession was sharply contested in the wars between the popes and anti-popes.[366]
The first church on this site was built in the time of Constantine, on the site of the vineyard of the Roman matron Lucina, where she first gave a burial-place to the apostle. This primal oratory was enlarged into a basilica in 386 by the emperors Valentinian II. and Theodosius. The church was restored by Leo III. (795--816), and every succeeding century increased its beauty and magnificence. The sovereigns of England, before the Reformation, were protectors of this basilica--as those of France are of St. John Lateran, and of Spain of Sta. Maria Maggiore--and the emblem of the Order of the Garter may still be seen amongst its decorations.
"The very abandonment of this huge pile, standing in solitary grandeur on the banks of the Tiber, was one source of its value. While it had been kept in perfect repair, little or nothing had been done to modernize it, and alter its primitive form and ornaments, excepting the later addition of some modern chapels above the transept; it stood naked and almost rude, but unencumbered with the lumpish and tasteless plaster encasement of the old basilica in a modern Berninesque church, which had disfigured the Lateran cathedral under pretence of supporting it. It remained genuine, though bare, as S. Apollinare in Classe, at Ravenna, the city eminently of unspoiled basilicas. No chapels, altars, or mural monuments softened the severity of its out-*lines; only the series of papal portraits, running round the upper line of the walls, redeemed this sternness. But the unbroken files of columns along each side, carried the eye forward to the great central object, the altar and its 'Confession;' while the secondary row of pillars, running behind the principal ones, gave depth and shadow, mass and solidity, to back up the noble avenue along which one glanced."--Cardinal Wiseman.
On the 15th of July, 1823, this magnificent basilica was almost totally destroyed by fire, on the night which preceded the death of Pope Pius VII.
"Quelque-chose de mystérieux s'est lié dans l'esprit des Romains à l'incendie de St. Paul, et les gens à l'imagination de ce peuple parlent avec ce sombre plaisir qui tient à la mélancolie, ce sentiment si rare en Italie, et si fréquent en Allemagne. Dans le grand nef, sur le mur, au dessus des colonnes, se trouvait la longue suite des portraits de tous les papes, et le peuple de Rome voyait avec inquiétude qu'il n'y avait plus de place pour le portrait du successeur de Pie VII. De là les fruits de la suppression du saint-siège. Le vénérable pontife, qui était presqu' un martyre aux yeux de ses sujets, touchait à ses derniers moments lorsqu'arriva l'incendie de Saint-Paul. Il eut lieu dans la nuit du 15 au 16 Juillet, 1823; cette même nuit, le pape, presque mourant, fut agité par un songe, qui lui présentait sans cesse un grand malheur arrivé à l'église de Rome. Il s'éveilla en sursaut plusieurs fois, et demanda s'il n'était rien arrivé de nouveau. Le lendemain, pour ne pas aggraver son état, on lui cacha l'incendie, et il est mort après sans l'avoir jamais su."--Stendhal, ii. 94.
"Not a word was said to the dying Pius VII. of the destruction of St. Paul. For at St. Paul's he had lived as a quiet monk, engaged in study and in teaching, and he loved the place with the force of an early attachment. It would have added a mental pang to his bodily sufferings to learn the total destruction of that venerable sanctuary, in which he had drawn down by prayer the blessings of heaven on his youthful labour."--Wiseman, Life of Pius VII.
The restoration of the basilica was immediately begun, and a large contribution levied for the purpose from all Roman Catholic countries. In 1854 it was re-opened in its present form by Pius IX. Its exterior is below contempt; its interior, supported by eighty granite columns, is most striking and magnificent, but it is cold and uninteresting when compared with the ancient structure, "rich with inestimable remains of ancient art, and venerable from a thousand associations."[367]
If we approach the basilica by the door on the side of the monastery, we enter, first, a portico, containing a fine statue of Gregory XVI., and many fragments of the ancient mosaics, collected after the fire;--then, a series of small chapels which were not burnt, from the last of which ladies can look into the beautiful cloister of the twelfth century, which they are not permitted to enter, but which men may visit (through the sacristy), and inspect its various architectural remains, and a fine sarcophagus, adorned with reliefs of the story of Apollo and Marsyas.
The church is entered by the south end of the transept. Hence we look down upon the nave (306 feet long and 222 wide) with its four ranges of granite columns (quarried near the Lago Maggiore), surmounted by a mosaic series of portraits of the popes, each five feet in diameter,--most of them of course being imaginary. The grand triumphal arch which separates the transept from the nave is a relic of the old basilica, and was built by Galla-Placidia, sister of Honorius, in 440. On the side towards the nave it is adorned with a mosaic of Christ adored by the twenty-four elders, and the four beasts of the Revelation;--on that towards the transept by the figure of the Saviour, between St Peter and St. Paul.
It bears two inscriptions, the first:
"Theodosius cœpit,--perfecit Honorius aulam Doctoris mundi sacratam corpore Pauli."
The other, especially interesting as the only inscription commemorating the great pope who defended Rome against Attila:
"Placidiæ pia mens operis decus homne (sic) paterni Gaudet pontificis studio splendere Leonis."
The mosaics of the tribune, also preserved from the fire, were designed by Cavallini, a pupil of Giotto, in the thirteenth century, and were erected by Honorius III. They represent the Saviour with St. Peter and St Andrew on the right, and St Paul and St Luke on the left,--and beneath these twelve apostles and two angels. The Holy Innocents (supposed to be buried in this church!) are represented lying at the feet of our Saviour.
"In the mosaics of the old basilica of S. Paolo the Holy Innocents were represented by a group of small figures holding palms, and placed immediately beneath the altar or throne, sustaining the gospel, the cross, and the instruments of the passion of our Lord. Over these figures was the inscription, H. I. S. INNOCENTES."--Jameson's Sacred Art.
Beneath the triumphal arch stands the ugly modern baldacchino, which encloses the ancient altar canopy, erected, as its inscription tells us, by Arnolphus and his pupil Petrus, in 1285. In front is the "Confession," where the Apostle of the Gentiles is believed to repose. The baldacchino is inscribed:
"Tu es vas electionis, Sancte Paule Apostole, Prædicator veritatis In universo mundo."
It is supported by four pillars of Oriental alabaster, presented by Mehemet Ali, pasha of Egypt. The altars of malachite, at the ends of the transepts, were given by the Emperor Nicholas of Russia.
"Les schismatiques et les mussulmans eux-mêmes sont venus rendre hommage à ce souverain de la parole, qui entraînait les peuples au martyre et subjuguait toutes les nations."--Une Chrétienne à Rome.
In a building so entirely modern, there are naturally few individual objects of interest. Among those saved[368] from the old basilica, is the magnificent paschal candlestick, covered with sculpture in high-relief. The altar at the south end of the transept has an altar-piece representing the Assumption, by Agricola, and statues of St. Benedict, Baini, and Sta. Scholastica, by Tenerani. Of the two chapels between this and the tribune, the first has a statue of St. Benedict by Tenerani; the second, the Cappella del Coro, was saved from the fire, and is by Carlo Maderno.
The altar at the north end of the transept is dedicated to St. Paul, and has a picture of his conversion, by Camuccini. At the sides are statues of St. Gregory by Laboureur and of S. Romualdo by Stocchi. Of the chapels between this and the tribune, the first, dedicated to St. Stephen, has a statue of the saint, by Rinaldi; the second is dedicated to St. Bridget (Brigitta Brahe), and contains the famous crucifix of Pietro Cavallini, which is said to have spoken to her in 1370.
"Not far from the chancel is a beautiful chapel, dedicated to St. Bridget, and ornamented with her statue in marble. During her residence in Rome, she frequently came to pray in this church; and here is preserved, as a holy relic, the cross from which, during her ecstatic devotion, she seemed to hear a voice proceeding."--Frederika Bremer.
The upper walls of the nave are decorated with frescoes by Galiardi, Podesti, and other modern artists.
The two great festivals of St. Paul are solemnly observed in this basilica upon January 25 and June 30, and that of the Holy Innocents upon December 28.
Very near S. Paolo, the main branch of the little river Almo, the "cursuque brevissimus Almo" of Ovid, falls into the Tiber. This is the spot where the priests of Cybele used to wash her statue and the sacred vessels of her temple, and to raise their loud annual lamentation for the death of her lover, the shepherd Atys:
"Est locus, in Tiberim quo lubricus influit Almo, Et nomen magno perdit ab amne minor, Illic purpurea canus cum veste sacerdos, Almonis dominam sacraque lavit aquis."
Ovid, Fast. iv. 337.
"Phrygiæque matris Almo quà levat ferrum."
Martial, Ep. iii. 472.
"Un vieux prêtre de Cybèle, vêtu de pourpre, y lavait chaque année la pierre sacrée de Pessinunte, tandis que d'autres prêtres poussaient des hurlements, frappaient sur le tambour de basque qu'on place aux mains de Cybèle, soufflaient avec fureur dans les flûtes phrygiennes, et que l'on se donnait la discipline,--ni plus ni moins qu'on le fait encore dans l'église des Caravite,--avec des fouets garnis de petits cailloux ou d'osselets."--Ampère, Hist. Rom. iii. 145.
The Campagna on this side of Rome is perhaps more stricken by malaria than any other part, and is in consequence more utterly deserted. That this terrible scourge has followed upon the destruction of the villas and gardens which once filled the suburbs of Rome, and that it did not always exist here, is evident from the account of Pliny, who says:
"Such is the happy and beautiful amenity of the Campagna that it seems to be the work of a rejoicing nature. For truly so it appears in the vital and perennial salubrity of its atmosphere (vitalis ac perennis salubritatis cœli temperies), in its fertile plains, sunny hills, healthy woods, thick groves, rich varieties of trees, breezy mountains, fertility in fruits, vines, and olives, its noble flocks of sheep, abundant herds of cattle, numerous lakes, and wealth of rivers and streams pouring in upon its many seaports, in whose lap the commerce of the world lies, and which run largely into the sea as it were to help mortals."
Under the emperors, the town of Ostia (founded by Ancus Martius) reached such a degree of prosperity, that its suburbs are described as joining those of Rome, so that one magnificent street almost united the two. There is now, beyond S. Paolo, a road through a desert, only one human habitation breaking the utter solitude.
XIX. THE VILLAS BORGHESE, MADAMA, AND MELLINI
Protestant Churches--Villa Borghese--Raphael's Villa--Casino and Villa of Papa Giulio--(Claude's Villa--Arco-Oscuro--Acqua-Acetosa)--Chapel of St. Andrew--Ponte-Molle (Castle of Crescenza--Prima Porta--The Crimera--The Allia)--(The Via Cassia)--Villa Madama--Monte Mario--Villa Mellini--Porta Angelica.
Immediately outside the Porta del Popolo, on the left, are the English and American churches.
"As to the position selected for these buildings, it is to be observed that, although restricted by the regulations of the Roman Catholic hierarchy to a locality outside the walls, the greatest possible attention has been paid to the convenience of the English, the great majority of whose dwelling-houses are in this immediate quarter. The English church in Rome, therefore, though nominally outside the walls, is really, as regards centrality, in the very heart of the city. The greatest possible facilities are afforded by the authorities to our countrymen in all matters relating to the establishment; and though the general behaviour of the Roman inhabitants is such as to render the precaution almost unnecessary, the protection of the police and military is invariably afforded during the hours of divine service.... Whatever be the disagreements on points of religious faith between Protestant and Catholic, there is at least one point of feeling in common between both in this respect; for the streets are tranquil, the shops are shut, the demeanour of the people is decent and orderly, and, notwithstanding the distance from England, Sunday feels more like a Sunday at Rome than in any other town in Europe."--Sir G. Head's "Tour in Rome."
The papal government of Rome had more tolerance for a religion which was not its own than that of the early emperors. Augustus refused to allow the performance of Egyptian rites within a mile of the city walls.
On the right of the Gate is the handsome entrance of the beautiful Villa Borghese, most liberally thrown open to the public on every day except Monday, when the Villa Doria is open.
"The entrance to the Villa Borghese is just outside the Porta del Popolo. Passing beneath that not very impressive specimen of Michael Angelo's architecture, a minute's walk will transport the visitor from the small uneasy lava stones of the Roman pavement, into broad, gravelled carriage drives, whence a little further stroll brings him to the soft turf of a beautiful seclusion. A seclusion, but seldom a solitude; for priest, noble, and populace, stranger and native, all who breathe the Roman air, find free admission, and come hither to taste the languid enjoyment of the day-dream which they call life.
"The scenery is such as arrays itself to the imagination when we read the beautiful old myths, and fancy a brighter sky, a softer turf, a more picturesque arrangement of venerable trees, than we find in the rude and untrained landscapes of the western world. The ilex-trees, so ancient and time-honoured are they, seem to have lived for ages undisturbed, and to feel no dread of profanation by the axe anymore than overthrow by the thunder-stroke. It has already passed out of their dreamy old memories that only a few years ago they were grievously imperilled by the Gauls' last assault upon the walls of Rome. As if confident in the long peace of their lifetime, they assume attitudes of evident repose. They lean over the green turf in ponderous grace, throwing abroad their great branches without danger of interfering with other trees, though other majestic trees grow near enough for dignified society, but too distant for constraint. Never was there a more venerable quietude than that which sleeps among their sheltering boughs; never a sweeter sunshine than that which gladdens the gentle bloom which these leafy patriarchs strive to diffuse over the swelling and subsiding lawns.
"In other portions of the grounds the stone pines lift their dense clumps of branches upon a slender length of stem, so high that they look like green islands in the air, flinging down a shadow upon the turf so far off that you scarcely know which tree has made it.
"Again, there are avenues of cypress, resembling dark flames of huge funeral candles, which spread dusk and twilight round about them instead of cheerful radiance. The more open spots are all a-bloom, early in the season, with anemones of wondrous size, both white and rose-coloured, and violets that betray themselves by their rich fragrance, even if their blue eyes fail to meet your own. Daisies, too, are abundant, but larger than the modest little English flower, and therefore of small account.
"These wooded and flowery lawns are more beautiful than the finest English park scenery, more touching, more impressive, through the neglect that leaves nature so much to her own ways and methods. Since man seldom interferes with her, she sets to work in her quiet way and makes herself at home. There is enough of human care, it is true, bestowed long ago, and still bestowed, to prevent wildness from growing into deformity; and the result is an ideal landscape, a woodland scene that seems to have been projected out of the poet's mind. If the ancient Faun were other than a mere creation of old poetry, and could reappear anywhere, it must be in such a scene as this.
"In the openings of the wood there are fountains plashing into marble basons, the depths of which are shaggy with water-weeds; or they tumble like natural cascades from rock to rock, sending their murmur afar, to make the quiet and silence more appreciable. Scattered here and there with careless artifice, stand old altars, bearing Roman inscriptions. Statues, grey with the long corrosion of even that soft atmosphere, half hide and half reveal themselves, high on pedestals, or perhaps fallen and broken on the turf. Terminal figures, columns of marble or granite porticoes and arches, are seen in the vistas of the wood-paths, either veritable relics of antiquity, or with so exquisite a touch of artful ruin on them that they are better than if really antique. At all events, grass grows on the tops of the shattered pillars, and weeds and flowers root themselves in the chinks of the massive arches and fronts of temples, as if this were the thousandth summer since their winged seeds alighted there.
"What a strange idea--what a needless labour--to construct artificial ruins in Rome, the native soil of ruin! But even these sportive imitations, wrought by man in emulation of what time has done to temples and palaces, are perhaps centuries old, and, beginning as illusions, have grown to be venerable in sober earnest. The result of all is a scene, such as is to be found nowhere save in these princely villa-residences in the neighbourhood of Rome; a scene that must have required generations and ages, during which growth, decay, and man's intelligence wrought kindly together, to render it so gently wild as we behold it now.
"The final charm is bestowed by the malaria. There is a piercing, thrilling, delicious kind of regret in the idea of so much beauty being thrown away, or only enjoyable at its half-development, in winter and early spring, and never to be dwelt amongst, as the home scenery of any human being. For if you come hither in summer, and stray through these glades in the golden sunset, fever walks arm-in-arm with you, and death awaits you at the end of the dim vista. Thus the scene is like Eden in its loveliness; like Eden, too, in the fatal spell that removes it beyond the scope of man's actual possessions."--Transformation.
"Oswald et Corinne terminèrent leur voyage de Rome par la Villa-Borghèse, celui de tous les jardins et de tous les palais romains où les splendeurs de la nature et des arts sont rassemblées avec le plus de goût et d'éclat. On y voit des arbres de toutes les espèces et des eaux magnifiques. Une réunion incroyable de statues, de vases, de sarcophages antiques, se mêlent avec la fraîcheur de la jeune nature du sud. La mythologie des anciens y semble ranimée. Les naïades sont placées sur le bord des ondes, les nymphes dans les bois dignes d'elles, les tombeaux sous les ombrages élyséens; la statue d'Esculape est au milieu d'une île; celle de Vénus semble sortir des ondes; Ovide et Virgile pourraient se promener dans ce beau lieu; et se croire encore au siècle d'Auguste. Les chefs-d'œuvre de sculpture que renferme le palais, lui donnent une magnificence à jamais nouvelle. On aperçoit de loin à travers les arbres, la ville de Rome et Saint-Pierre, et la campagne, et les longues arcades, débris des aqueducs qui transportaient les sources des montagnes dans l'ancienne Rome. Tout est là pour la pensée, pour l'imagination, pour la rêverie.
"Les sensations les plus pures se confondent avec les plaisirs de l'âme, et donnent l'idée d'un bonheur parfait; mais quand on demande, pourquoi ce séjour ravissant n'est-il pas habité? l'on vous répond que le mauvais air (la cattiva aria) ne permet pas d'y vivre pendant l'été."--Madame de Staël.
The Casino, at the further end of the villa, built by Cardinal Scipio Borghese, the favourite nephew of Paul V., contains a collection of sculpture. The first room entered is a great hall, with a ceiling painted by Mario Rossi, and a floor paved with an ancient mosaic discovered at the Torre Nuova (one of the principal Borghese farms) in 1835.
"Cette mosaïque fort curieuse nous offre et les combats des gladiateurs entre eux et leurs luttes avec les animaux féroces. Cette mosaïque est d'un dessin aussi barbare que les scènes représentées; tout est en harmonie, le sujet et le tableau. Le sentiment de répulsion qu'inspire la cruauté romaine n'en est que plus complet; celle-ci n'est point adoucie par l'art et paraît dans toute sa laideur.
"On voit les gladiateurs poursuivre, s'attaquer, se massacrer, couverts d'armures qui ressemblent à celle des chevaliers: vous diriez une odieuse parodie du moyen âge. Dans le corps de l'un des combattants un glaive est enfoncé. Des cadavres sont gisant parmi les flaques de sang; à côté d'eux est le Θ fatal, initiale du mot grec Θἁνατος--à laquelle leur juge impitoyable, le peuple, les a condamnés; du grec partout. Le maître excite ses élèves on leur montrant le fouet et la palme; les vainqueurs élèvent leurs épées, et sans doute la foule applaudit. Ils ont un air de triomphe. Ce sont des acteurs renommés. Auprès de chacun son nom est écrit; ces noms barbares ou étranges: l'un s'appelle Buccibus, un autre Cupidor, un autre Licentiosus, avis effronté aux dames romaines."--Ampère, iv. 31.
The collection in this villa contains no exceedingly important statues. In the vestibule are some reliefs from the arch of Claudius in the Corso, destroyed in 1527. Leaving the great hall to the left we may notice:
1st Room.--
IN THE CENTRE:
Juno Pronuba, from Monte Calvi.
2nd Room.--
IN THE CENTRE:
A Fighting Amazon, on horseback.
3rd Room.--
4. Daphne changed into a Laurel.
13. Anacreon, seated.
"La statue d'Anacréon est très-remarquable, elle ressemble à la figure du poëte sur une médaille de Téos. Le style est simple et grandiose, l'expression énergique plutôt que gracieuse, la draperie est rude, la statue respire l'enthousiasme; ce n'est pas le faux Anacréon que nous connaissons et dont les poésies sont postérieures au moins en grande partie à la date du véritable; c'est le vieil et primitif Anacréon; cet Anacréon-là ne vit plus que dans cet énergique portrait, seule image de son inspiration véritable, dont les produits authentiques ont presque entièrement disparu."--Ampère, Hist. Rom. iii. 567.
4th Room.--
A handsome gallery with paintings by Marchetti and De Angelis, adorned with porphyry busts of the twelve Cæsars.
32. Bronze statue of a boy.
6th Room.--
IN THE CENTRE:
A Greek poet, probably Alcæus.
7. The Hermaphrodite; found near Sta. Maria Vittoria.
7th Room.--
IN THE CENTRE:
Boy on a Dolphin.
"D'autres statues peuvent dériver de la grande composition maritime de Scopas. Tel est la Palémon, assis sur un dauphin, de la villa Borghese, d'après lequel a été évidemment conçu le Jonas de l'église de Sainte-Marie du Peuple, qu'on attribue à Raphaël."--Ampère, Hist. Rom. iii. 284.
8th Room.--
1. Dancing Satyr.
The Upper Story, reached by a winding staircase from the Galleria, contains:
1st Room.--Three fine works by Bernini.
David with the sling: executed in his 18th year.
Apollo and Daphne.
Æneas carrying off Anchises: executed when the sculptor was only 15 years old.
2nd Room.--
Filled with a collection of portraits, for the most part unknown.
Worthy of attention are the portraits of Paul V. by Caravaggio, and of his father Marc-Antonio Borghese, attributed to Guido; also the busts of Paul V. and of Cardinal Scipio Borghese, who built the villa, by Bernini.
5th Room.--
Statue of Princess Pauline Borghese, sister of Napoleon I., by Canova, as Venus Victrix.
"Canova esteemed his statue of the Princess Borghese as one of his best works. No one else could have an opportunity of judging of it, for the prince, who certainly was not jealous of his wife's person, was so jealous of her statue, that he kept it locked up in a room in the Borghese Palace, of which he kept the key, and not a human being, not even Canova himself, could get access to it."--Eaton's Rome.
Canova took Chantrey to see this statue by night, wishing, as was his wont, to show it by the light of a single taper. Chantrey, wishing to do honour to the artist, insisted upon holding the taper for the best light himself, which gave rise to Moore's lines:
"When he, thy peer in art and fame, Hung o'er the marble with delight; And while his ling'ring hand would steal O'er every grace the taper's rays, Gave thee, with all the generous zeal Such master-spirits only feel, The best of fame--a rival's praise!"
In the upper part of the grounds, not far from the walls of Rome, stood the Villa Olgiati, once the Villa of Raphael. It contained three rooms ornamented with frescoes from the hand of the great master. The best of these are now preserved in a room at the end of the gallery in the Borghese Palace. The villa was destroyed during the siege of Rome in 1849, when many of the fine old trees were cut down on this side of the grounds.
"The Casino of Raphael was unfurnished, except with casks of wine, and uninhabited, except by a contadina. The chamber which was the bedroom of Raphael was entirely adorned with the work of his own hands. It was a small pleasant apartment, looking out on a little green lawn, fenced in with trees irregularly planted. The walls were covered with arabesques, in various whimsical and beautiful designs--such as the sports of children; Loves balancing themselves on poles, or mounted on horseback, full of glee and mirth; Fauns and Satyrs; Mercury and Minerva; flowers and curling tendrils, and every beautiful composition that could suggest itself to a classic imagination in its most sportive mood. The cornice was supported by painted Caryatides. The coved roof was adorned with four medallions, containing portraits of his mistress, the Fornarina--it seemed as if he took pleasure in multiplying that beloved object, so that wherever his eyes turned her image might meet them. There were three other paintings, one representing a Terminus with a target before it, and a troop of men shooting at it with bows and arrows which they had stolen from unsuspecting Cupid, lying asleep on the ground. The second represented a figure, apparently a god, seated at the foot of a couch, with an altar before him, in a temple or rotunda, and from the gardens which appeared in perspective through its open intercolumniations, were seen advancing a troop of gay young nymphs, bearing vases full of roses upon their heads.[369] ... The last and best of these paintings represented the nuptials of Alexander the Great and Roxana."--Eaton's Rome.
Just outside the Porta del Popolo, a small gate on the left of the Villa Borghese leads to the Villa Esmeade,--the property of an Englishman,--of considerable extent, and possessing beautiful views of Rome and the Sabine mountains from its heights, which are adorned with a few ancient statues and vases.
Unpleasantly situated near the gate of the Villa Borghese is the Pig-market. Fortunately the manner of pig-killing at Rome is not so noisy as that in northern countries. The throats of the animals are not cut, but they are pierced under the left shoulder with a long pointed bodkin, which kills them almost instantly--no blood flowing. In a very few minutes a whole pen-full of pigs can be stilettoed in this manner--indeed, for any one interested in farming matters, the slaughter of the Roman pigs is a sight worth seeing.
We now enter upon the ugly dusty road which leads in a straight line to the Milvian Bridge. By this road the last triumphal procession entered Rome--that of the Emperor Honorius and Stilicho (described by the poet Claudian) in A.D. 403--a whole century having then elapsed since the Romans had beheld their last triumph--that of Diocletian.
Under the line of hills (Monte Parioli) on the right of the road are the Catacombs of St. Valentine. On the other side, the same hills are undermined by the Catacombs of SS. Gianutus and Basilla.
Half a mile from the gate, rises conspicuously on the right of the road the Casino of Papa Giulio, with picturesque overhanging cornices and sculptured fountain. The courtyard has a quaint cloister. This is the "Villino," and, far behind, but formerly connected with it by a long corridor, is the Villa of Papa Giulio, containing several rooms with very richly decorated ceilings, painted by Taddeo Zucchero. Michael Angelo was consulted by the pope as to the building of this villa, and Vasari made drawings for it, but "the actual architect was Vignola, a modest genius, who had to suffer severely, together with all his fellow-workmen, from the tracasseries of the pope's favourite, the bishop Aliotti, whom the less-enduring Michael Angelo was wont to nickname Monsignor Tante Cose."
"The villa of Papa Giulio is still visited by the stranger. Restored to the presence of those times, he ascends the spacious steps to the gallery, whence he overlooks the whole extent of Rome, from Monte Mario, with all the windings of the Tiber. The building of this palace, the laying out of its gardens, were the daily occupation of Pope Julius III. The place was designed by himself, but was never completed: every day brought with it some new suggestion or caprice, which the architects must at once set themselves to realize. This pontiff desired to forward the interests of his family; but he was not inclined to involve himself in dangerous perplexities on their account. The pleasant blameless life of his villa was that which was best suited to him. He gave entertainments, which he enlivened with proverbial and other modes of expression, that sometimes mingled blushes with the smiles of his guests. In the important affairs of the Church and State, he took no other share than was absolutely inevitable. This Pope Julius died March 23, 1555."--Ranke's Hist. of the Popes.
"C'est uniquement comme protecteur des arts et comme prince magnifique que nous pouvons envisager Jules III. Sa mauvaise santé lui faisait rechercher le repos et les douceurs d'une vie grande et libre. Aussi avait-il fait édifier avec une sorte de tendresse paternelle cette belle villa, qui est célèbre, dans l'histoire de l'art, sous le nom de Vigne de pape Jules. Michel-Ange, Vasari, Vignole en avaient dessiné les profils; les nymphées et les fontaines étaient d'Ammanati; les peintures de Taddeo Zuccari. Du haut d'une galerie élégante on découvrait les sept collines, et d'ombreuses allées, tracées par Jules III., égaraient les pas du vieillard dans ce dédale de tertres et de vallées qui sépare le pont où périt Maxence de la ville éternelle."--Gournerie, Rome Chrétienne, ii. 172.
Pope Julius used to come hither, with all his court, from the Vatican by water. The richly-decorated barge, filled with venerable ecclesiastics, gliding between the osier-fringed banks of the yellow Tiber, with its distant line of churches and palaces, would make a fine subject for a picture.
Nearly opposite the Casino Papa Giulio, on the further bank of the Tiber, is the picturesque classic Villa of Claude Lorraine, whither he was wont to retire during the summer months, residing in the winter in the Tempietto at the head of the Trinità steps. This villa is best seen from the walk by the river-side, which is reached by turning at once to the left on coming out of the Porta del Popolo. Hence it makes a good foreground to the view of the city and distant heights of the Janiculan.
"This road is called 'Poussin's Walk,' because the great painter used to go along it from Rome to his villa near Ponte Molle. One sees here an horizon such as one often finds in Poussin's pictures."--Frederika Bremer.
Close to the Villa Papa Giulio is the tunnel called Arco Oscuro, passing which, a steep lane with a beautiful view towards St. Peter's, ascends between the hillsides of the Monte Parione, and descends on the other side (following the turn to the right) to the Tiber bank, about two miles from Rome, where is situated the Acqua Acetosa, a refreshing mineral spring like seltzer water, enclosed in a fountain erected by Bernini for Alexander VII. There is a lovely view from hence across the Campagna in the direction of Fidenæ (Castel Giubeleo) and the Tor di Quinto.
"A green hill, one of those bare table-lands so common in the Campagna, rises on the right. Ascend it to where a broad furrow in the slope seems to mark the site of an ancient road. You are on a plateau, almost quadrangular in form, rising steeply to the height of nearly two hundred feet above the Tiber, and isolated, save at one angle, where it is united to other high ground by a narrow isthmus. Not a tree--not a shrub on its turf-grown surface--not a house--not a ruin--not one stone upon another, to tell you that the site had been inhabited. Yet here once stood Antemnæ, the city of many towers,[370] one of the most ancient of Italy![371] Not a trace remains above ground. Even the broken pottery, that infallible indicator of bygone civilisation, which marks the site and determines the limits of habitation on many a now desolate spot of classic ground, is here so overgrown with herbage that the eye of an antiquary would alone detect it. It is a site strong by nature, and well adapted for a city, as cities then were; for it is scarcely larger than the Palatine Hill, which, though at first it embraced the whole of Rome, was afterwards too small for a single palace. It has a peculiar interest as one of the three cities of Sabina,[372] whose daughters, ravished by the followers of Romulus, became the mothers of the Roman race. Antemnæ was the nearest city to Rome--only three miles distant--and therefore must have suffered most from the inhospitable violence of the Romans."--Dennis' Cities of Etruria, ch. iii.
There is a walk--rather dangerous for carriages--by the river, from hence, to the Ponte Molle. Here Miss Bathurst was drowned by being thrown from her horse into the Tiber.
The river bank presents a series of picturesque views, though the yellow Tiber in no way reminds us of Virgil's description:
"Cæruleus Tybris cœlo gratissimus amnis."
Æn. viii. 64.
Continuing to follow the main road, on the left is the round Church of St. Andrew, with a Doric portico, built by Vignola, in 1527, to commemorate the deliverance of Clement VII. from the Germans.
Further, on the right, is another Chapel in honour of St. Andrew's Head.
"One of the most curious instances of relique worship occurred here in the reign of Æneas Sylvius, Pope Pius II. The head of St. Andrew was brought in stately procession from the fortress of Narni, whither, as the Turks invaded the Morea, it had been brought for safety from Patras. It was intended that the most glorious heads of St. Peter and St. Paul should go forth to meet that of their brother apostle. But the mass of gold which enshrined, the cumbrous iron which protected these reliques, was too heavy to be moved; so, without them, the pope, the cardinals, the whole population of Rome, thronged forth to the meadows near the Milvian Bridge. The pope made an eloquent address to the head, a hymn was sung entreating the saint's aid in the discomfiture of the Turks. It rested that day on the altar of Santa Maria del Popolo, and was then conveyed through the city, decorated with all splendour, to St. Peter's. Cardinal Bessarion preached a sermon, and the head was deposited with those of his brother apostles under the high-altar_."--Milman's Latin Christianity._
A mile and a half from the gate, the Tiber is crossed by the Ponte Molle, built by Pius VII. in 1815, on the site and foundations of the Pons Milvius, which was erected B.C. 109 by the Censor M. Æmilius Scaurus. It was here that, on the night of December 3, B.C. 63, Cicero captured the emissaries of the Allobrogi, who were engaged in the conspiracy of Catiline. Hence, on October 27, A.D. 312, Maxentius was thrown into the river and drowned after his defeat by Constantine at the Saxa Rubra. It was on this occasion that the seven-branched candlestick of Jerusalem was dropped into the river, where it has probably ever since been embedded. The statues of Our Saviour and John the Baptist, at the further entrance of the bridge, are by Mochi.
Here are a number of taverns and Trattorie, much frequented by the lower ranks of the Roman people, and for which especial open omnibuses run from the Porta del Popolo. Similar places of public amusement seem to have existed here from imperial times. Ovid describes the people coming out hither in troops by the Via Flaminia to celebrate the fête of Anna Perenna, an old woman who supplied the plebs with cakes during the retreat to the Mons Sacer, but who afterwards, from a similitude of names, was confounded with Anna, sister of Dido.
"Idibus est Annæ festum geniale Perennæ, Haud procul a ripis, advena Tibri, tuis. Plebs venit, ac virides passim disjecta per herbas Potat; et accumbit cum pare quisque sua. Sub Jove pars durat; pauci tentoria ponunt; Sunt, quibus e ramo frondea facta casa est: Pars, ubi pro rigidis calamos statuere columnis, Desuper extentas imposuere togas. Sole tamen vinoque calent; annosque precantur, Quot sumant cyathos, ad numerumque bibunt. Inventes illic, qui Nestoris ebibat annos: Quæ sit per calices facta Sibylla suos. Illic et cantant, quidquid didicere theatris, Et jactant faciles ad sua verba manus: Et ducunt posito duras cratere choreas, Multaque diffusis saltat amica comis. Quum redeunt, titubant, et sunt spectacula vulgo, Et fortunatos obvia turba vocat. Occurri nuper. Visa est mihi digna relatu Pompa: senem potum pota trahebat anus."
Fast. iii. 523.
Here three roads meet. That on the right is the old Via Flaminia, begun B.C. 220 by C. Flaminius the censor. This was the great northern road of Italy, which, issuing from the city by the Porta Ratumena, which was close to the tomb of Bibulus, followed a line a little east of the modern Corso, and passed the Aurelian wall by the Porta Flaminia, near the present Porta del Popolo. It extended to Ariminum (Rimini), a distance of 210 miles.[373]
(Following this road for about 1½ mile, on the left are the ruins called Tor di Quinto. A little further on the right of the road are some tufa-rocks, with an injured tomb of the Nasones. Following the valley under these rocks to the left we reach (1½ mile) the fine Castle of Crescenza, now a farm-*house, picturesquely situated on a rocky knoll,--once inhabited by Poussin, and reproduced in the background of many of his pictures. In the interior are some remains of ancient frescoes.
On this road, seven miles from Rome, is Prima Porta, where are the ruins of the Villa of Livia, wife of Augustus, and mother of Tiberius. When first opened, several small rooms in the villa, supposed to be baths, were covered with frescoes and arabesques in a state of the most marvellous beauty and preservation, but they are now greatly injured by damp and exposure. From the character of the paintings, a trellis-*work of fruit and flowers, amid which birds and insects are sporting, it is supposed that they are the work of Ludius, described in Pliny, who "divi Augusti ætate primus instituit amœnissimam parietum picturam, villas et porticus ac topiaria opera, lucos, nemora ... blandissimo aspectu minimoque impendio." It was here that the magnificent statue of Augustus, now in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican, was discovered in 1863.
"What Augustus's affection for Livia was, is well known. 'Preserve the remembrance of a husband who has loved you very tenderly,' were the last words of the emperor, as he lay on his death-bed. And when asked how she contrived to retain his affection, Dion Cassius tells us that she replied, 'My secret is very simple: I have made it the study of my life to please him, and I have never manifested any indiscreet curiosity with regard to his public or private affairs.'"--Weld.
Just beyond this, the Tiber receives the little river Valca, considered to be identical with the Crimera. Hither the devoted clan of the Fabii, 4000 in number, retired from Rome, having offered to sustain, at their own cost and risk, the war which Rome was then carrying on against Veii. Here, because they felt a position within the city untenable on account of the animosity of their fellow-patricians, which had been excited by their advocacy of the agrarian law, and their popularity with the plebeians, they established themselves on a hillock overhanging the river, which they fortified, and where they dwelt for three years. At the end of that time the Veiientines, by letting loose herds of cattle like the Vaccine, which one still sees wandering in that part of the Campagna, drew them into an ambuscade, and they were all cut off to a man. According to Dionysius, a portion of the little army remained to guard the fort, and the rest fled to another hill, perhaps that now known as Vaccareccia. These were the last to be exterminated.
"They fought from dawn to sunset. The enemy slain by their hand formed heaps of corpses which barred their passage."--They were summoned to surrender, but they preferred to die.--"The people of Veii showered arrows and stones upon them from a distance, not daring to approach them again. The arrows fell like thick snow. The Fabii, with swords blunted by force of striking, with bucklers broken, continued to fight, snatching fresh swords from the hands of the enemy, and rushing upon them with the ferocity of wild beasts."--Dionysius, ix. 21.
A little beyond this, ten miles from Rome, is the stream Scannabecchi, which descends from the Crustuminian Hills, and is identical with the Allia, "infaustum Allia nomen," where the Romans were (B.C. 390) entirely defeated with great slaughter by the Gauls, before the capture of the city, in which the aged senators were massacred at the doors of their houses.
It was in the lands lying between the villa of Livia and the Tiber that Saxa Rubra[374] was situated, where Constantine (A.D. 312) gained his decisive victory over Maxentius, who, while attempting to escape over the Milvian Bridge, was pushed by the throng of fugitives into the Tiber, and perished, engulfed in the mud. The scene is depicted in the famous fresco of Giulio Romano, in the stanze of the Vatican.
On the opposite side of the river, Castel Giubeleo, on the site of the Etruscan Fidenæ, is a conspicuous object.)
(The direct road from the Ponte Molle is the ancient Via Cassia, which must be followed for some distance by those who make the interesting excursions to Veii, Galera, and Bracciano, each easily within the compass of a day's expedition. On the left of this road, three miles from Rome, is the fine sarcophagus of Publius Vibius Maximus and his wife Regina Maxima, popularly known as "Nero's Tomb.")
Following the road to the left of the Ponte Molle, we turn up a steep incline to the deserted Villa Madama, built by Giulio Romano, from designs of Raphael for Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, afterwards Clement VII. It derives its name from Margaret of Austria, daughter of Charles V., and wife, first of Alessandro de' Medici, and then of Ottavio Farnese, duke of Parma; from this second marriage, it descended through Elisabetta Farnese, to the Bourbon kings of Naples. The neglected halls contain some fresco decorations by Giulio Romano and Giovanni da Udine.
"They consist of a series of beautiful little pictures, representing the sports of Satyrs and Loves; Juno, attended by her peacocks; Jupiter and Ganymede; and various subjects of mythology and fable. The paintings in the portico have been of first-rate excellence; and I cannot but regret, that designs so beautiful should not be engraved before their last traces disappear for ever. A deep fringe on one of the deserted chambers, representing angels, flowers, Caryatides, &c., by Giulio Romano; and also a fine fresco on a ceiling, by Giovanni da Udine, of Phœbus driving his heavenly steeds, are in somewhat better preservation.
"It was in the groves that surrounded Villa Madama, that the Pastor Fido of Guarini was represented for the first time before a brilliant circle of princes and nobles, such as these scenes will see no more, and Italy itself could not now produce."--Eaton's Rome.
The frescoes and arabesques executed here by Giovanni da Udine were considered at the time as among the most successful of his works. Vasari says that in these he "wished to be supreme, and to excel himself." Cardinal de' Medici was so delighted with them that he not only heaped benefits on all the relations of the painter, but rewarded him with a rich canonry, which he was allowed to transfer to his brother.
One can scarcely doubt from the description of Martial that this villa occupies the site of that in which the poet came to visit his friend and namesake.
"Juli jugera pauca Martialis, Hortis Hesperidum beatiora, Longo Janiculi jugo recumbunt. Lati collibus imminent recessus; Et planus modico tumore vertex Cœlo perfruitur sereniore: Et, curvas nebula tegente valles, Solus luce nitet peculiari: Puris leniter admoventur astris Celsæ culmina delicata villæ. Hinc septem dominos videre montes, Et totam licet sestimare Romam."
The Villa Madama is situated on one of the slopes of Monte Mario, which is ascended by a winding carriage-road from near the Porta Angelica. This hill, in ancient times called Clivus Cinnæ, was in the middle ages Monte Malo, and is thus spoken of by Dante (Paradiso, xv. 109). Its name changed to Mario, through Mario Mellini, its possessor in the time of Sixtus V. Passing the two churches of Sta. Maria del Rosario and Sta. Croce di Monte Mario,[375] we reach a gate with an old pine-tree. This is the Villa Mellini (for which an order is supposed to be necessary, though a franc will usually cause the gates to fly open), which possesses a magnificent view over Rome, from its terraces, lined with ilexes and cypresses.
"The Monte Mario, like Cooper's Hill, is the highest, boldest, and most prominent part of the line; it is about the height and steepness too of Cooper's Hill, and has the Tiber at the foot of it, like the Thames at Anchorwick. To keep up the resemblance, there is a sort of terrace at the top of the Monte Mario, planted with cypresses, and a villa, though dilapidated, crowns the summit, as well as at our old friend above Egham. Here we stood, on a most delicious evening, the ilex and the gum-cistus in great profusion about us, the slope below full of vines and olives, the cypresses above our heads, and before our eyes all that one has read of in Roman History--the course of the Tiber between the hills that bound it, coming down from Fidenæ and receiving the Allia and the Anio; beyond, the Apennines, the distant and higher summits still quite white with snow; in front, the Alban Hills; on the right, the Campagna to the sea; and just beneath us the whole length of Rome, ancient and modern--St. Peter's and the Coliseum, rising as the representatives of each--the Pantheon, the Aventine, the Quirinal, all the well-known objects distinctly laid before us. One may safely say that the world cannot contain many views of such mingled beauty and interest as this."--Dr. Arnold.
"Les maisons de campagne des grands seigneurs donnent l'idée de cette solitude, de cette indifférence des possesseurs au milieu des plus admirables séjours du monde. On se promène dans ces immenses jardins, sans se douter qu'ils aient un maître. L'herbe croît au milieu des allées; et, dans ces mêmes allées abandonnées, les arbres sont taillés artistement, selon l'ancien goût qui régnait en France; singulière bizarrerie que cette négligence du nécessaire, et cette affectation de l'inutile!"--Mad. de Staël.
(Behind the Monte Mario, about four miles from Rome, is the church of S. Onofrio in Campagna, with a curious ossuary.)
Just outside the Porta Angelica was the vineyard in which Alexander VI. died.
"This is the manner in which Pope Alexander VI. came to his death.
"The cardinal datary, Arian de Corneto, having received a gracious intimation that the pontiff, together with the Duke Valentinos, designed to come and sup with him at his vineyard, and that his Holiness would bring the supper with him, the cardinal suspected that this determination had been taken for the purpose of destroying his life by poison, to the end that the duke might have his riches and appointments, the rather as he knew that the pope had resolved to put him to death by some means, with a view to seizing his property as I have said,--which was very great. Considering of the means by which he might save himself, he could see but one hope of safety--he sent in good time to the pope's carver, with whom he had a certain intimacy, desiring that he would come to speak with him; who, when he had come to the said cardinal, was taken by him into a secret place, where, they two being retired, the cardinal showed the carver a sum, prepared beforehand, of 10,000 ducats, in gold, which the said cardinal persuaded the carver to accept as a gift and to keep for love of him, and after many words, they were at length accepted, the cardinal offering, moreover, all the rest of his wealth at his command--for he was a very rich cardinal, for he said that he could not keep the said riches by any other means than through the said carver's aid, and declared to him, 'You know of a certainty what the nature of the pope is, and I know that he has resolved, with the Duke Valentinos, to procure my life by poison, through your hand,'--wherefore he besought the carver to take pity on him, and to give him his life. And having said this, the carver declared to him the manner in which it was ordered that the poison should be given to him at the supper, but being moved to compassion he promised to preserve his life. Now the orders were that the carver should present three boxes of sweetmeats, in tablets or lozenges, after the supper, one to the pope, one to the said cardinal, and another to the duke, and in that for the cardinal there was poison: and thus being told, the said cardinal gave directions to the aforesaid carver in what manner he should serve them, so as to cause that the box of poisoned confect which was to be for the cardinal, should be placed before the pope, so that he might eat thereof, and so poison himself, and die. And the pope being come accordingly with the duke to supper on the day appointed, the cardinal threw himself at his feet, kissing them and embracing them closely; then he entreated his Holiness with most affectionate words, saying, he would never rise from those feet until his Holiness had granted him a favour. Being questioned by the pontiff what this favour was, and requested to rise up, he would first have the grace he demanded, and the promise of his Holiness to grant it. Now after much persuasion, the pope remained sufficiently astonished, seeing the perseverance of the cardinal, and that he would not rise, and promised to grant the favour. Then the cardinal rose up and said, 'Holy Father, it is not fitting that when the master comes to the house of his servant, the servant should eat with his master like an equal (confrezer parimente),' and therefore the grace he demanded was the just and honest one, that he, the servant, should wait at the table of his master; and this favour the pope granted him. Then having come to supper, and the time for serving the confectionery having arrived, the carver put the poisoned sweetmeats into the box, according to the first order given to him by the pope, and the cardinal being well informed as to which box had no poison, tasted of that one, and put the poisoned confect before the pope. Then his Holiness, trusting to his carver, and seeing the cardinal tasting, judged that no poison was there, and ate of it heartily; while of the other, which the pope thought was poisoned, but which was not, the cardinal ate. Now at the hour accustomed, according to the quality of that poison, his Holiness began to feel its effect, and so died thereof; but the cardinal, who was yet much afraid, having physicked himself and vomited, took no harm and escaped, though not without difficulty."--Sanuto, iv., Translation in Ranke's Hist. of the Popes.
The wine of the Vatican hill has had a bad reputation even from classical times. "If you like vinegar," wrote Martial, "drink the wine of the Vatican!"[376] and again, "To drink the wine of the Vatican is to drink poison."[377]
(Here, also, is the entrance of the Val d' Inferno, a pleasant winter walk, where, near the beginning of the Cork Woods, are some picturesque remains of an ancient nymphæum.)
The Porta Angelica, built by Pius IV. (1559--1566), leads into the Borgo, beneath the walls of the Vatican.
Those who return from hence to the English quarter in the evening, will realize the vividness of Miss Thackeray's description:--
"They passed groups standing round their doorways; a blacksmith hammering with great straight blows at a copper pot, shouting to a friend, a young baker, naked almost, except for a great sheet flung over his shoulders, and leaning against the door of his shop. The horses tramp on. Listen to the flow of fountains gleaming white against the dark marbles,--to the murmur of voices. An old lady, who has apparently hung all her wardrobe out of window, in petticoats and silk hankerchiefs, is looking out from beneath these banners at the passers in the streets. Little babies, tied up tight in swaddling-clothes, are being poised against their mother's hips; a child is trying to raise the great knocker of some feudal-looking arch, hidden in the corner of the street. Then they cross the bridge, and see the last sun's rays flaming from the angel's sacred sword. Driving on through the tranquil streets, populous and thronged with citizens, they see brown-faced, bronze-headed Torsos in balconies and window-frames; citizens sitting tranquilly, resting on the kerb-*stones, with their feet in the gutters; grand-looking women resting against their doorways. Sibyls out of the Sistine were sitting on the steps of the churches. In one stone archway sat the Fates spinning their web. There was a holy family by a lemonade-shop, and a whole heaven of little Coreggio angels perching dark-eyed along the road. Then comes a fountain falling into a marble basin, at either end of which two little girls are clinging and climbing. Here is a little lighted May-altar to the Virgin, which the children have put up under the shrine by the street-corner. They don't beg clamorously, but stand leaning against the wall, waiting for a chance miraculous baioch?"--Bluebeard's Keys.