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[Illustration: Courtesy International Mercantile Marine Co.
THE COLISEUM AND ARCH OF TITUS]
SEEING EUROPE
WITH FAMOUS
AUTHORS
SELECTED AND EDITED
WITH
INTRODUCTIONS, ETC.
BY
FRANCIS W. HALSEY
_Editor of "Great Epochs in American History"
Associate Editor of "The Worlds Famous Orations"
and of "The Best of the World's Classics," etc._
IN TEN
VOLUMES
ILLUSTRATED
Vol. VII
ITALY, SICILY, AND GREECE
Part One
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
NEW YORK AND LONDON
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
[_Printed in the United States of America_]
INTRODUCTION TO VOLUMES VII AND VIII
Italy, Sicily and Greece
Tourists in great numbers now go to Italy by steamers that have Naples
and Genoa for ports. By the fast Channel steamers, however, touching at
Cherbourg and Havre, one may make the trip in less time (rail journey
included). In going to Rome, four days could thus be saved; but the
expense will be greater--perhaps forty per cent.
... "and now, fair Italy!
Thou art the garden of the world, the home
Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree;
Even in thy desert, what is like to thee?
Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste
More rich than other climes' fertility;
Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced
With an immaculate charm which can not be defaced."
At least four civilizations, and probably five, have dominated Italy;
together they cover a period of more than 3,000 years--Pelasgian,
Etruscan, Greek, Roman, Italian. Of these the Pelasgian is, in the main,
legendary. Next came the Etruscan. How old that civilization is no man
knows, but its beginnings date from at least 1000 B.C.--that is, earlier
than Homer's writings, and earlier by nearly three centuries than the
wall built by Romulus around Rome. The Etruscan state was a federation
of twelve cities, embracing a large part of central and northern
Italy--from near Naples as far north perhaps as Milan and the great
Lombard plain. Etruscans thus dominated the largest, and certainly the
fairest, parts of Italy. Before Rome was founded, the Etruscan cities
were populous and opulent commonwealths. Together they formed one of the
great naval powers of the Mediterranean. Of their civilization, we have
abundant knowledge from architectural remains, and, from thousands of
inscriptions still extant. Cortona was one of their oldest towns. "Ere
Troy itself arose, Cortona was."
After the Etruscans, came Greeks, who made flourishing settlements in
southern Italy, the chief of which was Paestum, founded not later than
600 B.C. Stupendous ruins survive at Paestum; few more interesting ones
have come down to us from the world of ancient Hellas. The oldest dates
from about 570 B.C. Here was once the most fertile and beautiful part
of Italy, celebrated for its flowers so that Virgil praised them. It is
now a lonely and forsaken land, forbidding and malarious. Once thickly
populated, it has become scarcely more than a haunt of buffalos and
peasants, who wander indifferent among these colossal remains of a
vanished race. These, however, are not the civilizations that do most
attract tourists to Italy, but the remains found there of ancient Rome.
Of that empire all modern men are heirs--heirs of her marvelous
political structure, of her social and industrial laws.
Last of these five civilizations is the Italian, the beginnings of which
date from Theodoric the Goth, who in the fifth century set up a kingdom
independent of Rome; but Gothic rule was of short life, and then came
the Lombards, who for two hundred years were dominant in northern and
central parts, or until Charlemagne grasped their tottering kingdom and
put on their famous Iron Crown. In the south Charlemagne's empire never
flourished. That part of Italy was for centuries the prey of Saracens,
Magyars and Scandinavians. From these events emerged modern Italy--the
rise of her vigorous republics, Pisa, Genoa, Florence, Venice; the
dawn, meridian splendor and decline of her great schools of sculpture,
painting and architecture, the power and beauty of which have held the
world in subjection; her literature, to which also the world has become
a willing captive; her splendid municipal spirit; a Church, whose
influence has circled the globe, and in which historians, in a spiritual
sense, have seen a survival of Imperial Rome. But here are tales that
every schoolboy hears.
Sicily is reached in a night by steamer from Naples to Palermo, or the
tourist may go by train from Naples to Reggio, and thence by ferry
across the strait to Messina. Its earliest people were contemporaries of
the Etruscans. Phoenicians also made settlements there, as they did in
many parts of the Mediterranean, but these were purely commercial
enterprises. Real civilization in Sicily dates from neither of those
races, but from Dorian and Ionic Greeks, who came perhaps as early as
the founding of Rome--that is, in the seventh or eighth century B.C. The
great cities of the Sicilian Greeks were Syracuse, Segesta and Girgenti,
where still survive colossal remains of their genius. In military and
political senses, the island for 3,000 years has been overrun,
plundered and torn asunder by every race known to Mediterranean waters.
Beside those already named, are Carthaginians under Hannibal, Vandals
under Genseric, Goths under Theodoric, Byzantines under Belisarius,
Saracens from Asia Minor, Normans under Robert Guiscard, German emperors
of the thirteenth century, French Angevine princes (in whose time came
the Sicilian Vespers), Spaniards of the house of Aragon, French under
Napoleon, Austrians of the nineteenth century, and then--that glorious
day when Garibaldi transferred it to the victorious Sardinian king.
The tourist who seeks Greece from northern Europe may go from Trieste by
steamer along the Dalmatian coast (in itself a trip of fine surprizes),
to Cattaro and Corfu, transferring to another steamer for the Piræus,
the port of Athens; or from Italy by steamer direct from Brindisi, the
ancient Brundusium, whence sailed all Roman expeditions to the East, and
where in retirement once dwelt Cicero. No writer has known where to date
the beginnings of civilization in Greece, but with Mycenæ, Tiryns, and
the Minoan palace of Crete laid bare, antiquarians have pointed the way
to dates far older than anything before recorded. The palace of Minos
is ancient enough to make the Homeric age seem modern. With the Dorian
invasion of Greece about 1000 B.C., begins that Greek civilization of
which we have so much authentic knowledge. Dorian influence was confined
largely to Sparta, but it spread to many Greek colonies in the central
Mediterranean and in the Levant. It became a powerful influence, alike
in art, in domestic life, and in political supremacy. One of its noblest
achievements was its help in keeping out the Persian, and another in
supplanting in the Mediterranean the commercial rule of Phoenicians.
Attica and Sparta became world-famous cities, with stupendous
achievements in every domain of human art and human efficiency. The
colossal debt all Europe and all America owe them, is known to everyone
who has ever been to school.
F. W. H.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME VII
Italy, Sicily, and Greece--Part One
INTRODUCTION TO VOLS. VII AND VIII--By the Editor.
I--ROME
PAGE
FIRST DAYS IN THE ETERNAL CITY--By Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe 1
THE ANTIQUITIES--By Joseph Addison 10
THE PALACE OF THE CÆSARS--By Rodolfo
Lanciani 17
THE COLISEUM--By George S. Hillard 24
THE PANTHEON--By George S. Hillard 29
HADRIAN'S TOMB--By Rodolfo Lanciani 32
TRAJAN'S FORUM--By Francis Wey 35
THE BATHS OF CARACALLA--By Hippolyte
Adolphe Taine 37
THE AQUEDUCT BUILDERS--By Rodolfo Lanciani 41
THE QUARRIES AND BRICKS OF THE ANCIENT
CITY--By Rodolfo Lanciani 45
PALM SUNDAY IN ST. PETER--By Grace
Greenwood (Mrs. Lippincott) 53
THE ELECTION OF A POPE--By Cardinal Wiseman 55
AN AUDIENCE WITH PIUS X.--By Mary Emogene
Hazeltine 59
THE ASCENT OF THE DOME OF ST. PETER'S--By
George S. Hillard 64
SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE--By Hippolyte
Adolphe Taine 67
CATACOMBS AND CRYPTS--By Charles Dickens 69
THE CEMETERY OF THE CAPUCHINS--By Nathaniel
Hawthorne 73
THE BURIAL PLACE OF KEATS AND SHELLEY--By
Nathaniel Parker Willis 75
EXCURSIONS NEAR ROME--By Charles Dickens 78
II--FLORENCE
THE APPROACH BY CARRIAGE ROAD--By Nathaniel
Hawthorne 83
THE OLD PALACE AND THE LOGGIA--By Theophile
Gautier 86
THE ORIGINS OF THE CITY--By Grant Allen 92
THE CATHEDRAL--By Hippolyte Adolphe
Taine 96
THE ASCENT OF THE DOME OF BRUNELLESCHI--By
Mr. and Mrs. Edwin H. Blashfield 102
ARNOLFO, GIOTTO AND BRUNELLESCHI--By
Mrs. Oliphant 106
GHIBERTI'S GATES--By Charles Yriarte 116
THE PONTE VECCHIO--By Charles Yriarte 119
SANTA CROCE--By Charles Yriarte 121
THE UFFIZI GALLERY--By Hippolyte Adolphe
Taine 125
FLORENCE EIGHTY YEARS AGO--By William
Cullen Bryant 131
III--VENICE
THE APPROACH FROM THE SEA--By Charles
Yriarte 138
THE APPROACH BY TRAIN--By the Editor 140
A TOUR OF THE GRAND CANAL--By Theophile
Gautier 143
ST. MARK'S CHURCH--By John Ruskin 148
HOW THE OLD CAMPANILE WAS BUILT--By
Horatio F. Brown 155
HOW THE CAMPANILE FELL--By Horatio F.
Brown 161
THE PALACE OF THE DOGES--By John Ruskin 163
THE LAGOONS--By Horatio F. Brown 174
THE DECLINE AMID SPLENDOR--By Hippolyte
Adolphe Taine 177
THE DOVES OF ST. MARK'S--By Horatio F.
Brown 183
TORCELLO, THE MOTHER CITY--By John Ruskin 186
CADORE, TITIAN'S BIRTHPLACE--By Amelia B.
Edwards 189
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME VII
FRONTISPIECE
THE COLISEUM AND THE ARCH OF TITUS
PRECEDING PAGE 1
THE PANTHEON, ROME
ROME: THE TIBER, CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO, AND DOME OF ST. PETER'S
ROME: RUINS OF THE PALACE OF THE CÆSARS
ROME: THE SAN SEBASTIAN GATE
THE TOMB OF METELLA ON THE APPIAN WAY
THE TARPIAN ROCK IN ROME
INTERIOR OF THE COLISEUM
THE COLISEUM, ROME
ST. PETER'S, ROME
ROME: INTERIOR OF ST. PETER'S
ROME: INTERIOR OF SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE
THE CATHEDRAL, FLORENCE
FOLLOWING PAGE 96
FLORENCE: BRIDGE ACROSS THE ARNO
FLORENCE: THE OLD PALACE
FLORENCE: THE LOGGIA DI LANZI
FLORENCE: CLOISTER OF SANTA MARIA NOVELLA
FLORENCE: CLOISTER OF SAN MARCO
FLORENCE: THE PITTI PALACE
FLORENCE: HOUSE OF DANTE
FRONT OF ST. MARK'S, VENICE
INTERIOR OF ST. MARK'S, VENICE
THE DUCAL PALACE, VENICE
VENICE: PIAZZA OF ST. MARK'S, DUCAL PALACE ON THE LEFT
VIEW OF VENICE FROM THE CAMPANILE
[Illustration: THE PANTHEON OF ROME
Courtesy John C. Winston Co.]
[Illustration: THE TIBER, CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO, AND DOME OF ST. PETER'S
RUINS OF THE PALACE OF THE CÆSARS]
[Illustration: THE SAN SEBASTIAN GATE OF ROME]
[Illustration: THE TOMB OF METELLA ON THE APPIAN WAY
Courtesy John C. Winston Co.]
[Illustration: THE TARPEIAN ROCK IN ROME]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE COLISEUM]
[Illustration: THE COLISEUM]
[ST. PETER'S, ROME
Courtesy John C. Winston Co.]
[Illustration: ROME: INTERIOR OF ST. PETER'S]
[Illustration: ROME: INTERIOR OF SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE]
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL OF FLORENCE]
I
ROME
FIRST DAYS IN THE ETERNAL CITY[1]
BY JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
At last I am arrived in this great capital of the world. If fifteen
years ago I could have seen it in good company, with a well-informed
guide, I should have thought myself very fortunate. But as it was to be
that I should thus see it alone, and with my own eyes, it is well that
this joy has fallen to my lot so late in life.
Over the mountains of the Tyrol I have as good as flown. Verona,
Vicenza, Padua, and Venice I have carefully looked at; hastily glanced
at Ferrara, Cento, Bologna, and scarcely seen Florence at all. My
anxiety to reach Rome was so great, and it so grew with me every moment,
that to think of stopping anywhere was quite out of the question; even
in Florence, I only stayed three hours. Now I am here at my ease, and as
it would seem, shall be tranquilized for my whole life; for we may
almost say that a new life begins when a man once sees with his own eyes
all that before he has but partially heard or read of.
All the dreams of my youth I now behold realized before me; the subjects
of the first engravings I ever remembered seeing (several views of Rome
were hung up in an anteroom of my father's house) stand bodily before my
sight, and all that I had long been acquainted with, through paintings
or drawings, engravings, or wood-cuts, plaster-casts, and cork models
are here collectively presented to my eye. Wherever I go I find some old
acquaintance in this new world; it is all just as I had thought it, and
yet all is new; and just the same might I remark of my own observations
and my own ideas. I have not gained any new thoughts, but the older ones
have become so defined, so vivid, and so coherent, that they may almost
pass for new ones....
I have now been here seven days, and by degrees have formed in my mind a
general idea of the city. We go diligently backward and forward. While I
am thus making myself acquainted with the plan of old and new Rome,
viewing the ruins and the buildings, visiting this and that villa, the
grandest and most remarkable objects are slowly and leisurely
contemplated. I do but keep my eyes open and see, and then go and come
again, for it is only in Rome one can duly prepare oneself for Rome. It
must, in truth, be confessed, that it is a sad and melancholy business
to prick and track out ancient Rome in new Rome; however, it must be
done, and we may hope at least for an incalculable gratification. We
meet with traces both of majesty and of ruin, which alike surpass all
conception; what the barbarians spared, the builders of new Rome made
havoc of....
When one thus beholds an object two thousand years old and more, but so
manifoldly and thoroughly altered by the changes of time, but, sees
nevertheless, the same soil, the same mountains, and often indeed the
same walls and columns, one becomes, as it were, a contemporary of the
great counsels of Fortune, and thus it becomes difficult for the
observer to trace from the beginning Rome following Rome, and not only
new Rome succeeding to the old, but also the several epochs of both old
and new in succession. I endeavor, first of all, to grope my way alone
through the obscurer parts, for this is the only plan by which one can
hope fully and completely to perfect by the excellent introductory works
which have been written from the fifteenth century to the present day.
The first artists and scholars have occupied their whole lives with
these objects.
And this vastness has a strangely tranquilizing effect upon you in Rome,
while you pass from place to place, in order to visit the most
remarkable objects. In other places one has to search for what is
important; here one is opprest, and borne down with numberless
phenomena. Wherever one goes and casts a look around, the eye is at once
struck with some landscape--forms of every kind and style; palaces and
ruins, gardens and statuary, distant views of villas, cottages and
stables, triumphal arches and columns, often crowding so close together,
that they might all be sketched on a single sheet of paper. He ought to
have a hundred hands to write, for what can a single pen do here; and,
besides, by the evening one is quite weary and exhausted with the day's
seeing and admiring.
My strange, and perhaps whimsical, incognito proves useful to me in many
ways that I never should have thought of. As every one thinks himself in
duty bound to ignore who I am, and consequently never ventures to speak
to me of myself and my works,[2] they have no alternative left them but
to speak of themselves, or of the matters in which they are most
interested, and in this way I become circumstantially informed of the
occupations of each, and of everything remarkable that is either taken
in hand or produced. Hofrath Reiffenstein good-naturedly humors this
whim of mine; as, however, for special reasons, he could not bear the
name which I had assumed, he immediately made a Baron of me, and I am
now called the "Baron gegen Rondanini über" (the Baron who lives
opposite to the Palace Rondanini). This designation is sufficiently
precise, especially as the Italians are accustomed to speak of people
either by their Christian names, or else by some nickname. Enough; I
have gained my object; and I escape the dreadful annoyance of having to
give to everybody an account of myself and my works....
In Rome, the Rotunda,[3] both by its exterior and interior, has moved me
to offer a willing homage to its magnificence. In St. Peter's I learned
to understand how art, no less than nature, annihilates the artificial
measures and dimensions of man. And in the same way the Apollo Belvidere
also has again drawn me out of reality. For as even the most correct
engravings furnish no adequate idea of these buildings, so the case is
the same with respect to the marble original of this statue, as compared
with the plaster models of it, which, however, I formerly used to look
upon as beautiful.
Here I am now living with a calmness and tranquility to which I have for
a long while been a stranger. My practise to see and take all things as
they are, my fidelity in letting the eye be my light, my perfect
renunciation of all pretension, have again come to my aid, and make me
calmly, but most intensely, happy. Every day has its fresh remarkable
object--every day its new grand unequaled paintings, and a whole which a
man may long think of, and dream of, but which with all his power of
imagination he can never reach.
Yesterday I was at the Pyramid of Cestius, and in the evening on the
Palatine, on the top of which are the ruins of the palace of the Cæsars,
which stand there like walls of rock. Of all this, however, no idea can
be conveyed! In truth, there is nothing little here; altho, indeed,
occasionally something to find fault with--something more or less absurd
in taste, and yet even this partakes of the universal grandeur of all
around....
Yesterday I visited the nymph Egeria, and then the Hippodrome of
Caracalla, the ruined tombs along the Via Appia, and the tomb of
Metella, which is the first to give one a true idea of what solid
masonry really is. These men worked for eternity--all causes of decay
were calculated, except the rage of the spoiler, which nothing can
resist. The remains of the principal aqueduct are highly venerable. How
beautiful and grand a design, to supply a whole people with water by so
vast a structure! In the evening we came upon the Coliseum, when it was
already twilight. When one looks at it, all else seems little; the
edifice is so vast, that one can not hold the image of it in one's
soul--in memory we think it smaller, and then return to it again to find
it every time greater than before.
We entered the Sistine Chapel, which we found bright and cheerful, and
with a good light for the pictures. "The Last Judgment" divided our
admiration with the paintings on the roof by Michael Angelo. I could
only see and wonder. The mental confidence and boldness of the master,
and his grandeur of conception, are beyond all expression. After we had
looked at all of them over and over again, we left this sacred building,
and went to St. Peter's, which received from the bright heavens the
loveliest light possible, and every part of it was clearly lit up. As
men willing to be pleased, we were delighted with its vastness and
splendor, and did not allow an over-nice or hypercritical taste to mar
our pleasure. We supprest every harsher judgment; we enjoyed the
enjoyable.
Lastly we ascended the roof of the church, where one finds in little the
plan, of a well-built city. Houses and magazines, springs (in appearance
at least), churches, and a great temple all in the air, and beautiful
walks between. We mounted the dome, and saw glistening before us the
regions of the Apennines, Soracte, and toward Tivoli the volcanic hills.
Frascati, Castelgandolfo, and the plains, and beyond all the sea. Close
at our feet lay the whole city of Rome in its length and breadth, with
its mountain palaces, domes, etc. Not a breath of air was moving, and in
the upper dome it was (as they say) like being in a hot-house. When we
had looked enough at these things, we went down, and they opened for us
the doors in the cornices of the dome, the tympanum, and the nave. There
is a passage all round, and from above you can take a view of the whole
church, and of its several parts. As we stood on the cornices of the
tympanum, we saw beneath us the pope passing to his mid-day devotions.
Nothing, therefore, was wanting to make our view of St. Peter's perfect.
We at last descended to the piazza, and took in a neighboring hotel a
cheerful but frugal meal, and then set off for St. Cecilia's.
It would take many words to describe the decorations of this church,
which was crammed full of people; not a stone of the edifice was to be
seen. The pillars were covered with red velvet wound round with gold
lace; the capitals were overlaid with embroidered velvet, so as to
retain somewhat of the appearance of capitals, and all the cornices and
pillars were in like manner covered with hangings. All the entablatures
of the walls were also covered with life-like paintings, so that the
whole church seemed to be laid out in mosaic. Around the church, and on
the high altar more than two hundred wax tapers were burning. It looked
like a wall of lights, and the whole nave was perfectly lit up. The
aisles and side altars were equally adorned and illuminated. Right
opposite the high altar, and under the organ, two scaffolds were
erected, which also were covered with velvet, on one of which were
placed the singers, and on the other the instruments, which kept up one
unbroken strain of music....
And yet these glorious objects are even still like new acquaintances to
me. One has not yet lived with them, nor got familiar with their
peculiarities. Some of them attract us with irresistible power, so that
for a time one feels indifferent, if not unjust, toward all others.
Thus, for instance, the Pantheon, the Apollo Belvedere, some colossal
heads, and very recently the Sistine Chapel, have by turns so won my
whole heart, that I scarcely saw any thing besides them. But, in truth,
can man, little as man always is, and accustomed to littleness, ever
make himself equal to all that here surrounds him of the noble, the
vast, and the refined? Even tho he should in any degree adapt himself to
it, then how vast is the multitude of objects that immediately press
upon him from all sides, and meet him at every turn, of which each
demands for itself the tribute of his whole attention. How is one to get
out of the difficulty? No other way assuredly than by patiently allowing
it to work, becoming industrious, and attending the while to all that
others have accomplished for our benefit.
Of the beauty of a walk through Rome by moonlight it is impossible to
form a conception, without having witnessed it. All single objects are
swallowed up by the great masses of light and shade, and nothing but
grand and general outlines present themselves to the eye. For three
several days we have enjoyed to the full the brightest and most glorious
of nights. Peculiarly beautiful at such a time is the Coliseum. At night
it is always closed; a hermit dwells in a little shrine within its
range, and beggars of all kinds nestle beneath its crumbling arches; the
latter had lit a fire on the arena, and a gentle wind bore down the
smoke to the ground, so that the lower portion of the ruins was quite
hid by it, while above the vast walls stood out in deeper darkness
before the eye. As we stopt at the gate to contemplate the scene through
the iron gratings, the moon shone brightly in the heavens above.
Presently the smoke found its way up the sides, and through every chink
and opening, while the moon lit it up like a cloud. The sight was
exceedingly glorious. In such a light one ought also to see the
Pantheon, the Capitol, the Portico of St. Peter's, and the other grand
streets and squares--and thus sun and moon, like the human mind, have
quite a different work to do here from elsewhere, where the vastest and
yet the most elegant of masses present themselves to their rays.
THE ANTIQUITIES OF THE CITY[4]
BY JOSEPH ADDISON
There are in Rome two sets of antiquities, the Christian, and the
heathen. The former, tho of a fresher date, are so embroiled with fable
and legend, that one receives but little satisfaction from searching
into them. The other give a great deal of pleasure to such as have met
with them before in ancient authors; for a man who is in Rome can scarce
see an object that does not call to mind a piece of a Latin poet or
historian. Among the remains of old Rome, the grandeur of the
commonwealth shows itself chiefly in works that were either necessary or
convenient, such as temples, highways, aqueducts, walls, and bridges of
the city. On the contrary, the magnificence of Rome under the emperors
is seen principally in such works as were rather for ostentation or
luxury, than any real usefulness or necessity, as in baths,
amphitheaters, circuses, obelisks, triumphal pillars, arches, and
mausoleums; for what they added to the aqueducts was rather to supply
their baths and naumachias, and to embellish the city with fountains,
than out of any real necessity there was for them....
No part of the antiquities of Rome pleased me so much as the ancient
statues, of which there is still an incredible variety. The workmanship
is often the most exquisite of anything in its kind. A man would wonder
how it were possible for so much life to enter into marble, as may be
discovered in some of the best of them; and even in the meanest, one has
the satisfaction of seeing the faces, postures, airs, and dress of those
that have lived so many ages before us. There is a strange resemblance
between the figures of the several heathen deities, and the descriptions
that the Latin poets have given us of them; but as the first may be
looked upon as the ancienter of the two, I question not but the Roman
poets were the copiers of the Greek statuaries. Tho on other occasions
we often find the statuaries took their subjects from the poets. The
Laocöon is too known an instance among many others that are to be met
with at Rome.
I could not forbear taking particular notice of the several musical
instruments that are to be seen in the hands of the Apollos, muses,
fauns, satyrs, bacchanals, and shepherds, which might certainly give a
great light to the dispute for preference between the ancient and modern
music. It would, perhaps, be no impertinent design to take off all their
models in wood, which might not only give us some notion of the ancient
music, but help us to pleasanter instruments than are now in use. By the
appearance they make in marble, there is not one string-instrument that
seems comparable to our violins, for they are all played on either by
the bare fingers, or the plectrum, so that they were incapable of adding
any length to their notes, or of varying them by those insensible
swellings, and wearings away of sound upon the same string, which give
so wonderful a sweetness to our modern music. Besides that, the
string-instruments must have had very low and feeble voices, as may be
guessed from the small proportion of wood about them, which could not
contain air enough to render the strokes, in any considerable measure,
full and sonorous. There is a great deal of difference in the make, not
only of the several kinds of instruments, but even among those of the
same name. The syringa, for example, has sometimes four, and sometimes
more pipes, as high as the twelve. The same variety of strings may be
observed on their harps, and of stops on their tibiæ, which shows the
little foundation that such writers have gone upon, who, from a verse
perhaps in Virgil's Eclogues, or a short passage in a classic author,
have been so very nice in determining the precise shape of the ancient
musical instruments, with the exact number of their pipes, strings, and
stops....
Tho the statues that have been found among the ruins of old Rome are
already very numerous, there is no question but posterity will have the
pleasure of seeing many noble pieces of sculpture which are still
undiscovered; for, doubtless, there are greater treasures of this nature
under ground, than what are yet brought to light.[5] They have often dug
into lands that are described in old authors, as the places where such
particular statues or obelisks stood, and have seldom failed of success
in their pursuits. There are still many such promising spots of ground
that have never been searched into. A great part of the Palatine
mountain, for example, lies untouched, which was formerly the seat of
the imperial palace, and may be presumed to abound with more treasures
of this nature than any other part of Rome.
But whether it be that the richest of these discoveries fall into the
Pope's hands, or for some other reason, it is said that the Prince
Farnese, who is the present owner of this seat, will keep his own family
in the chair. There are undertakers in Rome who often purchase the
digging of fields, gardens, or vineyards, where they find any likelihood
of succeeding, and some have been known to arrive at great estates by
it. They pay according to the dimensions of the surface they are to
break up; and after having made essays into it, as they do for coal in
England, they rake into the most promising parts of it, tho they often
find, to their disappointment, that others have been beforehand with
them. However, they generally gain enough by the rubbish and bricks,
which the present architects value much beyond those of a modern make,
to defray the charges of their search.
I was shown two spaces of ground, where part of Nero's golden house
stood, for which the owner has been offered an extraordinary sum of
money. What encouraged the undertakers, are several very ancient trees,
which grow upon the spot, from whence they conclude that these
particular tracts of ground must have lain untouched for some ages. It
is pity there is not something like a public register, to preserve the
memory of such statues as have been found from time to time, and to mark
the particular places where they have been taken up, which would not
only prevent many fruitless searches for the future, but might often
give a considerable light into the quality of the place, or the design
of the statue.
But the great magazine for all kinds of treasure, is supposed to be the
bed of the Tiber. We may be sure, when the Romans lay under the
apprehensions of seeing their city sacked by a barbarous enemy, as they
have done more than once, that they would take care to bestow such of
their riches this way as could best bear the water, besides what the
insolence of a brutish conqueror may be supposed to have contributed,
who had an ambition to waste and destroy all the beauties of so
celebrated a city. I need not mention the old common-shore of Rome,
which ran from all parts of the town with the current and violence of an
ordinary river, nor the frequent inundations of the Tiber, which may
have swept away many of the ornaments of its banks, nor the several
statues that the Romans themselves flung into it, when they would
revenge themselves on the memory of an ill citizen, a dead tyrant, or a
discarded favorite.
At Rome they have so general an opinion of the riches of this river,
that the Jews have formerly proffered the Pope to cleanse it, so they
might have for their pains what they found in the bosom of it. I have
seen the valley near Ponte Molle, which they proposed to fashion into a
new channel for it, until they had cleared the old for its reception.
The Pope, however, would not comply with the proposal, as fearing the
heats might advance too far before they had finished their work, and
produce a pestilence among his people; tho I do not see why such a
design might not be executed now with as little danger as in Augustus's
time, were there as many hands employed upon it. The city of Rome would
receive a great advantage from the undertaking, as it would raise the
banks and deepen the bed of the Tiber, and by consequence free them from
those frequent inundations to which they are so subject at present; for
the channel of the river is observed to be narrower within the walls
than either below or above them.
Next to the statues, there is nothing in Rome more surprizing than that
amazing variety of ancient pillars of so many kinds of marble. As most
of the old statues may be well supposed to have been cheaper to their
first owners than they are to a modern purchaser, several of the pillars
are certainly rated at a much lower price at present than they were of
old. For not to mention what a huge column of granite, serpentine, or
porphyry must have cost in the quarry, or in its carriage from Egypt to
Rome, we may only consider the great difficulty of hewing it into any
form, and of giving it the due turn, proportion, and polish. The most
valuable pillars about Rome, for the marble of which they are made, are
the four columns of oriental jasper in St. Paulina's chapel at St.
Maria Maggiore; two of oriental granite in St. Pudenziana; one of
transparent oriental jasper in the Vatican library; four of Nero-Bianco,
in St. Cecilia Transtevere; two of Brocatello, and two of oriental agate
in Don Livio's palace; two of Giallo Antico in St. John Lateran, and two
of Verdi Antique in the Villa Pamphilia. These are all entire and solid
pillars, and made of such kinds of marble as are nowhere to be found but
among antiquities, whether it be that the veins of it are undiscovered,
or that they were quite exhausted upon the ancient buildings. Among
these old pillars, I can not forbear reckoning a great part of an
alabaster column, which was found in the ruins of Livia's portico. It is
of the color of fire, and may be seen over the high altar of St. Maria
in Campitello; for they have cut it into two pieces, and fixt it in the
shape of a cross in a hole of the wall that was made on purpose to
receive it; so that the light passing through it from without, makes it
look, to those who are in the church, like a huge transparent cross of
amber.
THE PALACE OF THE CÆSARS[6]
BY RODOLFO LANCIANI
The Palatine hill became the residence of the Roman emperors, and the
center of the Roman Empire, not on account of its historical and
traditional associations with the foundation and first growth of the
city, nor because of its central and commanding position, but by a mere
accident. At daybreak on September 21st, of the year 63 B.C., Augustus
was born in this region, in a modest house, opening on the lane called
"ad capita bubula," which led from the valley, where now the Coliseum
stands, up the slopes of the hill toward the modern church and convent
of St. Bonaventura.
This man, sent by God to change the condition of mankind and the state
of the world, this founder of an empire which is still practically in
existence,[7] never deserted the Palatine hill all through his eventful
career. From the lane "ad capita bubula" he moved to the house of
Calvus, the orator, at the northeast corner of the hill overlooking the
forum; and in process of time, having become absolute master of the
Roman Commonwealth, he settled finally on the top of the hill, having
purchased for his residence the house of Hortensius, a simple and
modest house, indeed, with columns of the commonest kind of stone,
pavements of rubble-work, and simple whitewashed walls.
Whether this selection of a site was made because the Palatine had long
before been the Faubourg St. Honoré, the Belgravia of ancient Rome, is
difficult to determine. We know that the house of Hortensius, chosen by
Augustus, was surrounded by those of Clodius, Scaurus, Crassus, Caecina,
Sisenna, Flaccus, Catiline, and other members of the aristocracy. I am
persuaded, however, that the secret of the selection is to be found in
the simplicity, I will even say in the poverty, of the dwelling; in
fact, such extreme modesty is worthy of the good sense and the spirit of
moderation shown by Augustus throughout his career. He could very well
sacrifice appearances to the reality of an unbounded power. It is just,
at any rate, to recognize that even in his remotest resorts for
temporary rest and retirement from the cares of government, he led the
same kind of plain, modest life, spending all his leisure hours in
arranging his collections of natural history, more especially the
palaeo-ethnological or prehistoric, for which the ossiferous caverns of
the Island of Capri supplied him with abundant materials.
It was only after the victory of Actium that, finding himself master of
the world, he thought it expedient to give up, in a certain measure, his
former habits, and live in better style. Having bought through his
agents some of the aristocratic palaces adjoining the old house of
Hortensius, among them the historical palace of Catiline, he built a
new and very handsome residence, but declared at the same time that he
considered it as public property, not as his own. The solemn dedication
of the palace took place on January 14th, of the year 26 before Christ.
Here he lived, sleeping always in the same small cubiculum, for
twenty-eight years; that is to say, until the third year after Christ,
when the palace was almost destroyed by fire.
As soon as the news of the disaster spread throughout the empire, an
almost incredible amount of money was subscribed at once, by all orders
of citizens, to provide him with a new residence; and altho, with his
usual moderation, he would consent to accept only one denarius from each
individual subscribed, it is easy to imagine how many millions he must
have realized in spite of his modesty. A new, magnificent palace rose
from the ruins of the old one, but it does not appear that the plan and
arrangement were changed; otherwise Augustus could not have continued to
sleep in the same room during the last ten years of his life, as we are
told positively that he did.
The work of Augustus was continued by his successor and kinsman,
Tiberius, who built a new wing near the northwest corner of the hill,
overlooking the Velabrum. Caligula filled with new structures the whole
space between the "domus Tiberiana" and the Roman forum. Nero, likewise,
occupied with a new palace the south-east corner of the hill,
overlooking the valley, where the Coliseum was afterward built. Domitian
rebuilt the "domus Augustana," injured by fire, adding to its
accommodations a stadium for gymnastic sports. The same emperor raised
an altogether new palace, in the space between the house of Augustus, on
one side, and those of Caligula and Tiberius on the other. Septimius
Severus and his son restored the whole group of imperial buildings,
adding a new wing at the southwest corner, known under the name of
Septizonium. The latest additions, of no special importance, took place
under Julia Mamaea and Heliogabalus.
Every emperor, to a certain extent, enlarged, altered, destroyed, and
reconstructed the work of his predecessors; cutting new openings,
walling up old ones, subdividing large rooms into smaller apartments,
and changing their destination. One section alone of the imperial
Palatine buildings remained unaltered, and kept the former simplicity of
its plans down to the fall of the Empire--the section built by Augustus
across the center of the hill, which comprised the main entrance, the
portico surrounding the temple of Apollo, the temple itself, the Greek
and Latin libraries, the shrine of Vesta, and the imperial residence.
The architectural group raised by Augustus on the Palatine, formed, as
it were, the vestibule to his own imperial residence. We know with
absolute certainty that it contained at least one hundred and twenty
columns of the rarest kinds of marbles and breccias, fifty-two of which
were of Numidian marble, with capitals of gilt bronze; a group of
Lysias, comprising one chariot, four horses and two drivers, all cut in
a single block of marble; the Hercules of Lysippus; the Apollo of
Scopas; the Latona of Cephisodotos, the Diana of Timotheos; the
bas-reliefs of the pediment by Bupalos and Anthermos; the quadriga of
the sun in gilt bronze; exquisite ivory carvings; a bronze colossus
fifty feet high; hundreds of medallions in gold, silver, and bronze;
gold and silver plate; a collection of gems and cameos; and, lastly,
candelabras which had been the property of Alexander the Great, and the
admiration of the East.
Has the world ever seen a collection of greater artistic and material
value exhibited in a single building? And we must recollect that the
group built by Augustus comprises only a very modest section of the
Palatine; that to his palace we must join the palaces of Tiberius,
Caligula, Nero, Vespasian, Domitian, Septimius Serverus, Julia Mamaea,
and Heliogabalus; that each one of these imperial residences equalled
the residence of Augustus, if not in pure taste, certainly in wealth, in
luxury, in magnificence, in the number and value of works of art
collected and stolen from Greece and the East, from Egypt and Persia. By
multiplying eight or ten times the list I have given above, the reader
will get an approximate idea of the "home" of the Roman emperors in its
full pride and glory. I have deliberately excluded from my description
the residence or private house of Augustus, because he himself had
deliberately excluded from it any trace of that grandeur he had so
lavishly bestowed on the buildings which constituted the approach to
it....
During the rule of Claudius, the successor of Caligula, little or
nothing was done toward the enlargement or the embellishment of the
palace of the Cæsars. Nero, however, the successor of Claudius,
conceived the gigantic plan of renewing and of rebuilding from the very
foundations, not only the imperial residence, but the whole metropolis.
In the rebuilding of the city the emperor secured for himself the lion's
share; and his Golden House, of which we possess such beautiful remains,
occupied the whole extent from the Palatine to the Quirinal, where now
the central railway station has been erected. Its area amounted to
nearly a square mile, and this enormous district was appropriated, or
rather usurped, by the emperor, right in the center of a city numbering
about two million inhabitants.
Of the wonders of the Golden House it is enough to say that there were
comprised within the precincts of the enchanting residence waterfalls
supplied by an aqueduct fifty miles long, lakes and rivers shaded by
dense masses of foliage, with harbors and docks for the imperial
galleys; a vestibule containing a bronze colossus one hundred and twenty
feet high; porticos three thousand feet long; farms and vineyards,
pasture grounds and woods teeming with the rarest and costliest kind of
game, zoological and botanical gardens; sulfur baths supplied from
springs twelve miles distant; sea baths supplied from the waters of the
Mediterranean, sixteen miles distant at the nearest point; thousands of
columns crowned with capitals of Corinthian gilt metal; thousands of
statues stolen from Greece and Asia Minor; walls encrusted with gems and
mother-of-pearl; banqueting-halls with ivory ceilings, from which rare
flowers and precious perfumes could fall gently on the recumbent
guests.
More marvelous still was the ceiling of the state dining-room. It was
spherical in shape, and cut in ivory, to represent the constellated
skies, and kept in constant motion by machinery in imitation of the
movements of the stars and planets. All these details sound like
fairy-tales, like the dream of a fertile imagination; still they are
described minutely by contemporary and serious writers, by Suetonius, by
Martial and by Tacitus. Suetonius adds that the day Nero took possession
of his Golden House, he was heard to exclaim, "At last I am lodged like
a man."
The wonders created by him, however, did not last very long. Otho, his
successor, on the very day of his election to the throne, signed an
order of fifty millions of sesterces (two million dollars) to bring the
Golden House to perfection; but after his murder Vespasian and Titus
gave back to the people the greater portion of the ground usurped by
Nero. They built the Coliseum on the very site of Nero's artificial
lake, and the thermæ of Titus on the foundation of his private palace;
they respected only that portion of Nero's insane construction which was
comprised within the boundaries of the Palatine hill.
THE COLISEUM[8]
BY GEORGE STILLMAN HILLARD
The Venerable Bede, who lived in the eighth century, is the first person
who is known to have given to the Flavian amphitheater its comparatively
modern and now universal designation of the Coliseum; tho the name,
derived from a colossal statue of the emperor Nero which stood near it,
was probably then familiar to men's ears, as we may infer from his so
calling it without explanation or remark.
When in its perfect state, the exterior, with its costly ornaments in
marble, and its forest of columns, lost the merit of simplicity without
gaining that of grandeur. The eye was teased with a multitude of
details, not in themselves good; the same defects were repeated in each
story, and the real height was diminished by the projecting and
ungraceful cornices. The interior arrangements were admirable; and
modern architects can not sufficiently commend the skill with which
eighty thousand spectators were accommodated with seats; or the
ingenious contrivances, by which, through the help of spacious
corridors, multiplied passages, and staircases, every person went
directly to his place, and immense audiences were dispersed in less time
than is required for a thousand persons to squeeze through the entries
of a modern concert-room. We know that this interior of the Coliseum was
decorated with great splendor. The principal seats were of marble, and
covered with cushions. Gilded gratings, ornaments of gold, ivory, and
amber, and mosaics of precious stones, displayed the generosity of the
emperors, and gratified the taste of the people.
How, or at what period, the work of ruin first began does not distinctly
appear. An earthquake may have first shattered its ponderous arches, and
thus made an opening for the destroying hand of time. There can be no
doubt that it suffered violence from the hands of civil and foreign war.
But more destructive agencies than those of earthquake, conflagration or
war, were let loose upon it. Its massive stones, fitted to each other
with such nice adaptation, presented a strong temptation to the cupidity
of wealthy nobles and cardinals, with whom building was a ruling
passion; and for many ages the Coliseum became a quarry. The Palazzo
della Cancelleria, the Palazzo Barberini, the Palazzo Farnese, and the
Palazzo Veneziano were all built mainly from the plunder of the
Coliseum; and meaner robbers emulated the rapacity of their betters, by
burning into lime the fragments not available for architectural
purposes.