none the less dear to the heart of the antiquarian. For near the river
Anio and the Tuzia, both of which we crossed, our guide told us that
Hannibal had encamped; a little way beyond was the hallowed grove of
the Muses; and to the ruined baths of the Aquæ Albulæ the captive queen
of Palmyra came from her villa near by, to bathe in the milk-white
water. The steam tram stopped for us most accommodatingly at the
sulphur springs, and allowed us time to walk around and see all that
is left of this ancient resort. Here the emperors and tribunes of Rome
came to wash away their sins, just as our politicians go to Saratoga
and the Southern springs for the same purpose. The water, which is
always spoken of as milk-white, seemed to us to have a decidedly blue
shade, an exquisite light blue. The deposit left by the sulphur or
sulphuretted hydrogen has hardened in the beds of the streams and
pools into the most curious and grotesque shapes. These deposits
we afterwards found used at the Villa d'Este and elsewhere for the
decorations of the fountains.
At Tivoli hacks were awaiting us, in which we drove to the Villa
d'Este. This stately and imposing palace, with its spacious garden, was
worthy to be the residence of one of the oldest and most distinguished
princely houses of Italy. We entered the palace enclosure through the
cloister of the Church of St. Francis, and saw in the long corridors
and spacious apartments many beautiful frescoes by Zuccaro and Muziano.
Some of these are considerably damaged by the dampness, but many still
exhibit rare grace of design and richness of color. Beneath the villa
is a broad terrace ending in a noble archway, through which one may
look forth upon hillsides glorified by the blossoming almond, peach and
Judas trees. From this terrace winding stairways lead to other terraces
below, upon each one of which fountains send up jets of feathery
spray that display their iridescent colors against the background
of huge cypresses. It is all a dream of loveliness, and full of the
indescribable atmosphere of old-world charm. We could imagine the poet
Tasso, who was attached to the court of one of the Dukes of Ferrara,
drawing inspiration from these classic groves, in whose leafy quiet
the nightingale must surely sing. Here the beautiful young daughters of
the house played in the sunshine of the too brief girlhood granted to
old-time princesses.
We afterwards drove through the old town, and from a lower road had
a good view of the temples and churches, and of the heights of Monte
Catillo, its picturesque hillsides, and the cascades which seemed
to bubble forth from every fissure and crevice in the rocks--so many
waterfalls that one could not count them all.
[Illustration: Cypress Walk, Hadrian's Villa]
The hotel where we stopped for luncheon is built upon a shelving rock
on whose garden terrace we sat overlooking the valley. Above us, on
another projection, was the little Temple of Vesta, the Sibyl, or
what you will--it seems to make little difference what one calls this
exquisite circular temple, as antiquarians do not agree about its name.
It is, however, so graceful in form and so rich in coloring that,
like the rose, it is equally lovely by whatever name it is called,
especially as we saw it to-day, draped with clematis and ivy, crowning
"The green steep whence Anio leaps,
In floods of snow-white foam."
After luncheon we made our excursion to Hadrian's Villa, or Villa
Adriana, as they now call it, which is the chief object of interest at
Tivoli and is worthy of something more than a superficial inspection.
As you doubtless know, it is not a villa, or even a palace, like the
Villa d'Este, but a military or university town. Here are quarters for
the soldiers, dining-rooms for the officers and their men, temples,
libraries, hospitals, baths, theatres, race-courses, gardens, and
fountains. Most of the sculptures have been carried away from the
beautiful Golden Court and the Hall of Philosophy, but exquisite bits
of stone carving are still to be seen in the courts and baths, and
mosaic pavements looking as bright and fresh as when trodden by the
feet of Hadrian in A.D. 138.
As we passed through room after room, with their more or less
fragmentary decorations, Angela reminded us of the story of the Western
girl who, on her way to Tivoli, hoped that when she called at the
villa the Hadrians would not be at home, as she had not put on her
best hat. Zelphine and I thought that this "innocent abroad" must have
been surprised to find that when the Hadrians left their villa they had
taken away most of their furniture and ornaments with them. What queer
specimens of our own countrymen we do meet _en voyage_! The question
that we ask ourselves most frequently is, why did they come?
March 21st.
I have been wondering why I have not heard from Ludovico Baldini. We
went to the bank on the Piazza di Spagna this morning, and found my
Naples letter lying unopened. To-day I had decided to go to French,
Lemon & Co., thinking I had made a mistake about the bank, when as
we were walking along the Via Nazionale on our way to the Rospigliosi
Palace, I saw a young man on the other side of the way take off his hat
and wave it as he dashed across the street. Of course it was Ludovico,
just returned from Florence, as bright and cordial as ever, but very
indignant over not having had my letter forwarded to him.
I think you must have met young Mr. Baldini, of whom I speak so
unceremoniously as Ludovico, as he was often at our common friends',
the W.'s, last year. I met him first at Jamestown, in the summer, and
he gave me so many valuable suggestions about Italian travel that I
feel greatly indebted to him. He is young, not much over twenty-one,
but in some respects seems older, and, being American on one side,
he combines considerable practical ability with the Italian charm
of manner which we all realize, even if we are not always happy in
describing it.
We had intended to go somewhere this afternoon with Mrs. Robins and
Bertha Linn, and when Ludovico suggested our driving out to the meet
near the Tomb of Cæcilia Metella, we concluded that this was the
thing of all others that we wished to do, more especially as this
was the last meet of the season. We arrayed ourselves in our best, as
all the smart people go to the meets here. Ludovico secured the most
presentable hacks that he could find, and we set forth, following a gay
procession of carriages along the street of tombs to a sporting scene;
but for such incongruities as this, commend me to the sympathetic
Italian!
The meet was worth seeing--fine horses, good riding, life, motion, and
color. There were many handsome, well-dressed women in the carriages
and walking about; all this gayety brought out in strong relief by the
sombre background of the old aqueduct and the great circular tomb of
the beloved wife of Crassus.
As the carriages were crowded together, we left ours, and attempted to
walk over the field, as many persons were doing. The horses and dogs
turned suddenly in our direction, and Mrs. Robins, in trying to get
out of their way, slipped, fell, and would have been trampled by one
of the horses had not his rider been a most expert horseman. Ludovico
was in a rage such as these hot-blooded Latins alone are capable of,
and was ready to call out the young horseman, who had done all that
man could do to prevent an accident, dismounting at once and most
courteously apologizing. "It is entirely our fault for being on foot
where horses and dogs had the right of way," I said to the _cavaliere_,
who bowed with the gravity of a Don Quixote, evidently quite agreeing
with me. Ludovico, somewhat appeased, asked me to allow him to present
the gentleman, who was an acquaintance of his, and this ceremony being
accomplished satisfactorily they both handed us to our carriages in
fine style. As Mrs. Robins fortunately was not hurt, we were all able
to enjoy the spirited scene from our coign of vantage. The dogs broke
covert over on the Campagna, and then the rush and scamper of the gay
cavalcade across the plain was most exciting, horsemen and hounds in
full cry.
As it was still early in the afternoon, we decided to drive to the
Janiculum Hill to see the fine equestrian statue of Garibaldi and the
magnificent view from what seems here quite a height, because it rises
abruptly from the plain, but is really less than three hundred feet.
The air was perfectly clear, and we could literally behold all Rome,
old and new, spread out before us. Between the hill and the Tiber lies
that large quarter known as Trastevere, where are some of the most
interesting churches, as Santa Maria and Santa Cecilia. Here beautiful
villas once stood, but Trastevere is now almost exclusively inhabited
by the working classes. A fine and handsome race, differing in dialect
from the citizens of other quarters of Rome, the Trasteverians seem to
have some right to the distinction which they claim of being the direct
descendants of the ancient Romans.
On our return from the Janiculum we stopped at St. Peter's in Montorio,
which is on one of the slopes of the Janiculum. Although the crowning
glory of this church, Raphael's Transfiguration, has been taken from
the high altar and carried to the Vatican, a few good pictures still
remain. What we desired to see the most, though, was the little temple
in the court said to mark the spot where the cross of St. Peter stood.
The chapel contains a statue of the saint, and below, down some steps,
is a grewsome place where he is said to have been crucified in a manner
so horrible that I really cannot undertake to describe it to you. The
impression made upon one by this spot is somewhat the less thrilling
because several other places are shown as the scene of the martyrdom of
this great apostle. The woman who opened the temple for us scratched
up some of the earth and gave it to us with great solemnity. Angela's
face was a study as she received her portion. She is not, as you may
believe, much of a relic-hunter.
VI
A POET'S CORNER
VIA SISTINA, ROME, March 22d.
Your letter in answer to mine written from San Remo reached me to-day.
It really seems a year since I wrote you that letter, instead of one
month. So many impressions have come crowding one upon another since
then that I cannot quite recall what I said of a personal nature.
The meeting with Genevra brought back the old familiar associations
so vividly that we sometimes forgot all that had happened since we
had parted, and lived over our early, happy days. If you read into my
letter more than was meant, it is because some of the glamour of that
time caused will-o'-the-wisps to mislead you. No, "gang your ain gait,
Allan," as your mother's old Scotch maid used to say. You have a great
future before you in your profession, and I--it seems to me sometimes
that I have only a past, and a present which I live day by day, with no
plans for the years to come. It is so difficult to readjust one's life
to new standards, and those who stake much lose heavily. We both loved
Headley too well to say one harsh word about him. I could not talk to
you thus freely were it not so; indeed, I never could _speak_ to you
at all about Headley--writing is easier, across the great expanse of
waters. Now that I have broken the silence, let me say to you, best of
friends, that I have in this sunny land and among these changing scenes
found content, which may in time reach the measure of happiness. Do not
disturb this peace, I beg of you, but be satisfied with our good old
friendship, which is so safe and sane.
I shall really be afraid to tell you of any of our contretemps, you
take them so seriously, and yet you wish to know of all our wanderings
and of just how certain things impress us. I had forgotten about that
absurd homesickness in Genoa, until you spoke of it. It was an acute
attack, I assure you, and, like the proverbial grief of the widower,
violent while it lasted, but soon well over and done with. Now we
wonder how any one could possibly be homesick in this Italy which we
love so much, above all in Rome, which seems each day more and more the
mother of us all. Zelphine and Angela will tell you that Margaret is
the gayest of the party. You know that I never would be a kill-joy, and
here there is so much to interest one on all sides.
So you are glad that there is one good English name in the party, and
are pleased to like the sound of my homespun baptismal? Angela is of
the same mind; she says that my sensible "Margaret" strikes a happy
balance between Zelphine's romantic name, which she feels it her duty
to live up to, and her own, equally fanciful, which she takes pleasure
in defying. By way of adapting herself gracefully to the situation,
Angela has fallen into the habit of calling Zelphine "Z." This is all
very well, but I am thankful that she does not insist upon being called
"A.," as the constant turning from A. to Z. would be unpleasantly
suggestive of algebraic formulæ, which were the bane of my school-days.
We laugh at Zelphine and chaff her continually about her flights of
fancy; but no person could travel with her without realizing what a
pleasure it is to be with a woman whose mind is so stored with the
poetry and history of these old cities, one who enters so heart and
soul into every interesting association. I said something of this to
Angela one morning as we turned from the Via Condotti into the Corso,
feeling that she might not appreciate all her privileges.
"Zelphine is," I said, "steeped in the lore of the past."
"Yes, up to the neck!" replied Angela, with emphasis. "I feel that I
am now enjoying that liberal education that I have heard about all my
life."
"The education is not liberal in including your expressions," I said,
with an attempt at severity.
"Don't you understand, Margaret? Must I always explain?" said Angela,
lifting her innocent blue eyes to mine. "I mean that Z. swims in
learning, and one must be in up to one's neck to swim comfortably!"
Angela is quite hopeless, and by way of punishing her I stopped to buy
her some of the delicious red roses that make me think of June days
at home, especially of the roses in your mother's garden, which were
always the reddest. Zelphine having stepped on in advance of us to
attend to a commission at the cleaner's, where they "gar auld claes
look amaist as weel's the new," we sauntered on along what one of your
favorite writers describes so enthusiastically as "that world-famous
avenue, the Corso."
"Do look at her!" exclaimed Angela, as we passed the Via Convertite
and saw Zelphine standing at the corner of the Via San Claudio,
gazing spellbound at the windows of a house on the other side of the
street. "She's quite happy; time and place are nothing to her--she
has discovered the Shelley tablet on that house. I saw it several days
ago, but I thought I'd let Z. find it for herself. She'll never rest
content till she sees the room in which Shelley wrote 'The Cenci' and
'Prometheus Unbound.' It is probably not worth seeing when you get into
it, and may not be the room at all; but see it Z. will, or die in the
attempt. I don't believe in all these wonderful tales that we hear. You
only half believe in them yourself, Margaret, so I dare to talk to you;
Z. swallows them whole, and so does Ludovico, and that is what makes
them such good friends."
"And is it your incredulity, my dear, that makes you and Ludovico such
bitter enemies?"
Angela laughed her light, musical laugh.
"We do quarrel, you know; we had quite a battle last evening over
the Catacombs. Ludovico says that I must see them; that it would
be positively disgraceful for me to leave Rome without seeing the
Catacombs of Calixtus, at least. You know that I don't care for such
dismal places. Rome is so gay and bright on top, why should we burrow
underneath after tombs and Christian martyrs, while the sun is shining
upon the Pincio and there are no end of things to be seen above ground?
There she goes, after the concierge!"
There was nothing for us to do but to follow Zelphine into the somewhat
shabby house and upstairs into the poet's room. It was worth much to
stand in the room where Shelley had once written, and to look from
the windows from which he could see the varied, moving panorama of the
busy Corso and the ancient Church of San Silvestro in Capite, in whose
adjoining convent the beautiful Vittoria Colonna took refuge in her
widowhood, and wrote her sonnets in memory of a beloved husband.
A curious commentary upon the power of the world over the Church is
to be found in the fact that Pope Clement VII. forbade the abbess and
nuns, "under pain of the greater excommunication," to permit this noble
lady the usual solace of afflicted womanhood, the cloister and the
veil. This picturesque old convent with its lovely cloisters is now
used as a post office.
From Shelley's house we retraced our steps along the Corso and turned
into the Piazza San Lorenzo, where is the little Church of San Lorenzo
in Lucina, in which Browning's Pompilia was baptized and married, her
"own particular place," where she wondered, as we did,
"what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man."
Standing before the wonderful altar-piece of Guido Reni's Crucifixion,
painted against a wild and stormy sky, we realized how the suffering
face of the compassionate Christ must have risen again and again before
the despairing eyes of the persecuted child-wife:
"the piece
Of Master Guido Reni, Christ on Cross,
Second to nought observable in Rome."
Other and more impressive associations with Shelley's life in Rome than
the little room on the Corso we found this afternoon when we drove
out to the Baths of Caracalla, which even now cover so large a space
that they have been well named a city of pleasure. We climbed over the
mountainous ruin and up the winding stairs, trying to find just such a
perch as Shelley described in the preface to his "Prometheus Unbound."
Bald and naked are these walls to-day, but not unsightly, as they
stand out against the blue of the Roman sky and the fresh green of the
Campagna. They are denuded of the vines and flowers that adorned them
when, as Shelley says, he wrote his poem "among the flowery glades
and thickets of odoriferous blossoming trees which are extended, in
ever-winding labyrinths, upon its immense platforms and dizzy arches
suspended in the air."
Now as then Rome lies on one side, with her many domes and towers; on
the other are the mountains, blue in the distance, and white beyond
the blue, where the snow lingers late upon their peaks. Like another
mountain stands out the dome of St. Peter's, which Ampère says is "the
only one of the works of man that possesses something of the grandeur
of the works of God."
Being in the mood for poetic associations, we drove around by the
Porta San Paolo, just outside of which, enclosed by high walls and
overshadowed by the great pyramidal Tomb of Caius Cestius, is the old
Protestant Cemetery. An ideal Campo Santo is this lovely spot, of which
Shelley wrote that "it might make one in love with death to think that
one should be buried in so sweet a place." We wandered over the grass
and looked up at the sky through the trees, while Zelphine quoted the
lines that fit the scene so well:
"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 so passing from grave to grave we came to the one we sought, and
standing before a simple stone slab, read those sad words which poor
Keats, in bitterness of spirit, wished to have written above his grave:
"Here lies one whose name was writ in water." It was comforting to turn
from this to a marble tablet on the wall near by, where there is a head
of Keats in low relief, and under it a beautiful inscription saying
that he is among the immortals. The young poet's devoted friend Joseph
Severn lies near him.
Across the road is the newer cemetery, whose gate was opened for us
by a girl with a huge key fastened to her girdle, whom Zelphine and
I likened to "the damsel named Discretion." Angela, being a modern
girl and unfamiliar with "Pilgrim's Progress," did not understand the
allusion, and said:
"Small thanks to her if she is discreet, when she is not able to say a
word to us, good or bad!"
Zelphine always looks at me hopelessly on such occasions, lamenting
over what she calls the lack of background in the outlook of the girl
of to-day, whom I always defend loyally although I believe Zelphine is
more than half right.
We found the grave of Shelley, who so soon followed his Adonais. It
seemed as if that lonely "Cor Cordium" should have been buried near
the friendly shades of Keats and Severn. Yet Mrs. Shelley, in writing
of the burial of the ashes of her husband, makes no mention of their
being placed within the newer cemetery. She simply says he selected the
hallowed place himself, where is the
"sepulchre,
O, not of him, but of our joy!"
VII
ANTIQUITIES AND ORANGE-BLOSSOMS
VIA SISTINA, ROME, March 23d.
It is so delightful to have some one with us who knows and loves Rome
as Ludovico does. He shows us about _con amore_ and with the greatest
enthusiasm, not in the perfunctory guide-book fashion. He and Angela
are already good friends, and chatter away like two magpies about
everything upon the earth and beneath it as well, which is quite
natural, as many of our proposed excursions are subterranean, and we
never know what wonder of the world may be sprung upon us at the next
corner.
Ludovico was much pleased to learn that we had not yet found our way
to the Capitol, as he wished to personally conduct us thither, advising
us to drive to the Piazza del Campidoglio in order to save the climb up
the long flight of steps leading to it from the street. We thus missed
the first view from below of the noble statue of Marcus Aurelius, which
was once gilded over, like some of our modern statues, and stood near
the Lateran. Those old sculptors knew how a ruler should look! You must
see this statue of your grand old heathen emperor some day; there is
majesty and dominance in every line.
In the museum we passed beautiful bas-reliefs representing classic
scenes, the colossal statue of the Emperor Hadrian in armor, and
sarcophagi strangely decorated with bacchanalian representations, until
we suddenly found ourselves in the Room of the Dying Gladiator, with
that wonderful marble figure before us of which Byron wrote:
"He recked not of the life he lost, nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother--he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday."
We lingered long beside this impressive marble, and then turned to the
Resting Satyr of Praxiteles, made familiar to us all by Hawthorne's
description. You remember that Donatello so strongly resembled the
statue that Miriam begged him to shake aside his thick curls and allow
her to see whether he had the Faun's leaf-shaped pointed ears. This he
declined to do, saying, as he danced around the statue of the Dying
Gladiator, "I shall be like a wolf of the Apennines if you touch my
ears ever so softly. None of my race could endure it."
If, as Hawthorne says, "only a sculptor of the finest imagination,
the most delicate taste, the sweetest feeling, and the rarest artistic
skill--in a word, a sculptor and a poet too--could have first dreamed
of a faun in this guise, and then have succeeded in imprisoning the
sportive and frisky thing in marble," surely none but a novelist and a
poet too could have presented on the page of romance this creature of
the woods and hills, half man, half animal, the sensitive, emotional,
whimsical, and altogether fascinating Donatello.
The statues of the Faun, the Dying Gladiator, and the beautiful youth
Antinous are all among the treasures of which Hadrian's Villa was
despoiled, as was also the exquisite mosaic of doves on a fountain
basin, called Pliny's Doves, because, in speaking of the perfection to
which the mosaic art had attained, Pliny described a wonderful mosaic
in which one dove is drinking and casting her shadow in the water while
others are pluming themselves on the edge of the vase. While in the
room of the Doves we paid our respects to the Capitoline Venus, which,
although considered a perfect type of feminine grace, failed to appeal
to us as did the Venus della Coscia in the Naples Museum, and is, of
course, not to be mentioned in the same breath with the lovely armless
lady of the Louvre.