"IF A MAN WALKETH IN THE NIGHT, HE STUMBLETH BUT IF HE WALKETH IN THE
DAY HE SEETH THE LIGHT OF THIS WORLD"
My morning walks take me the length of the Janiculum. In the early light
of these autumn days Rome and its settings take on an expression of
seductive resignation due largely to the clouds which rob it of that
glare which is the most trying feature of summer in Rome. The clouds
permit streams of light to filter through, as if from a monstrous
search-light, especially over the Castelli Romani and the Alban Hills.
Ordinarily Monte Cavo is on the horizon line, but to-day, after the sun
had been nearly an hour on its diurnal way, hundreds of parallel bundles
of light were directed perpendicularly upon it, so that another chain of
mountains came into view beyond, and the decaying villa surmounting it
seemed to be in a valley atop of a mountain peak backed by other peaks.
The way from my _villino_ to St. Peter's is past the Garibaldi monument,
and I am well acquainted with the countenances of his generals and his
guard, whose life-size busts in marble flank the monument in long,
parallel rows, constituting an alley leading up to it. If their effigies
do them justice, they were fine-looking, intelligent, and resolute.
It takes me also past the hideous lighthouse which Argentina thrust upon
the Italians, and which has been erected upon a spot from which one has
perhaps the most commanding view of Rome, its near and distant
environment.
This morning I determined that I would spend a half-hour in the Church
of S. Onofrio and refresh my recollections of the frescoes of Baldassare
Peruzzi and of Pinturicchio, and pay a tribute to the memory of the
greatest poet of the late Renaissance, Torquato Tasso. On the side of
the steps that lead down to the shoulder of the hill surmounting St.
Peter's is an oak-tree, long since dead, but securely banded and spliced
and propped by indestructible metal. Here, it is said, Tasso sat and
contemplated, too forlorn and ill further to poetize, during those
months of 1594 while he was awaiting his call to the capitol to be
crowned poet laureate. When the illness to which he succumbed increased
to such extent as to incapacitate him he repaired to S. Onofrio "to
begin my conversation in heaven in this elevated place, and in the
society of these holy fathers." It is strange enough that Tasso is a
very real and living force in Italy to-day. Not only are many of his
poems, and selections from them, read in the schools, but "Jerusalem
Delivered" on the screen has recently had a remarkable success in Rome
and in other cities of Italy.
The Convent of S. Onofrio is now scarcely more than a reminder of what
it was in its golden days. Long before the Italian Government had
abolished the right of monasteries to hold property, and therefore
delivered the death-blow to the parasitical grasp which they had upon
this country, the Ospedale Bambini Gesu had taken possession of a large
part of it and converted it into a work of mercy and of salvation which
finds, I fancy, more favor in the eyes of people to-day than does
conventual life. The church, rather impressive from without and
particularly when approached from below, is small and dainty and has
distinctly a spiritual atmosphere. It is what the Italians call _molto
carina_. When I entered the church there was one solitary female
prostrate before an image. I fancied that she had had a troubled night
and had repaired to this sacrosanct environment early in the morning to
purge herself of her sins and to ask forgiveness. For a long time she
remained in an attitude of profound contrition, and I was curious to see
if, on arising, she displayed in feature or in form any evidences or
manifestations of indulgence in those transgressions which we are taught
are so offensive to the Lord. My vigil was rewarded by the sight of age,
deprivation, and poverty. Had pulchritude or passion ever been a part of
her, all sign of them had passed; had sins of commission ever brought to
her riches or the semblance of riches, she had long since forfeited
them; had her transgressions been translated into fugitive pleasures, no
signs of them remained. Like Tasso, she had repaired there to begin the
conversation she hoped to continue in heaven. It is much more likely,
however, that she had gone to church without definite antecedent thought
or determination. It seems to be as much an act of nature for women in
Italy when they reach a certain age to haunt the churches as it is for
their hair to turn gray. They do it quite as mechanically as they do
their housework. I often doubt that there is any spiritual or emotional
feeling accompanying it whatsoever. I am certain that the recitation of
prayers which were learned in infancy, and which have been repeated
thousands of times without the smallest attention to the significance of
the words, as children recite them, is not associated with any spiritual
alteration, neither humility nor exaltation. It is part of the meagre,
barren daily life of these old women, and they get from it something
which for them constitutes pleasure and satisfaction.
As I sat in contemplation of the frescoes surrounding the high altar,
and which set forth the coronation of the Virgin, the Nativity, the
Flight into Egypt, a middle-aged monk or priest came forward and
volunteered to draw the curtain that more light might fall upon them. He
was incredibly dirty and dishevelled, and he had lost an eye, but he was
gentle and simple and friendly. He told me what he knew about the
frescoes; he bemoaned the evil days upon which the world had fallen, and
he expressed the hope that peace and tranquillity would soon again be
ours; but when I attempted to talk to him about the significance of the
war and the universal awakement to man's rights that would flow from it,
I found that his comments were ejaculatory and that his reflections had
no root in thought or reason. It is incredible that a person so naïve
and so lacking in every display of intelligence, culture, and
perspicacity can be a spiritual teacher or guide. Perhaps it is that
faith alone is necessary that one shall satisfactorily fulfil his duties
as priest.
He called my attention to an oil graphite on the side walls of the
chapel which had been uncovered in recent times. In early days its
artistic merit or value was not appreciated and it had been covered over
with other pastels or paintings thought to be more appropriate or more
fitting. The composition is a figure standing in what seems to be a
square box and on either side a number of closely massed masculine
figures, each one having a different facial expression, one of
astonishment, another of incredulity, another of humility and
satisfaction. It depicted the Resurrection of Christ, my little friend
thought, but when he saw a figure outside the box that resembled Christ,
he thought it must be the resurrection of Lazarus, and then in the most
childlike way he remarked that the figure in the box seemed to be a
female one, and as that didn't seem to fit in with the resurrection of
Lazarus he gave it up. I fancy that he had never read that when Martha
and Mary made their successful appeal Lazarus had been dead four days,
and that after Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, "Father, I thank thee
that thou hast heard me," Lazarus came forth bound hand and foot with
grave-clothes and his face was bound about with a napkin. These
accoutrements of the grave would successfully conceal sex, even from the
eyes of a sacerdotal Sherlock Holmes.
I persuaded him to take me into the convent that I might see Leonardo's
lovely fresco of the Virgin and the Child, and standing before it he
spoke of the sweetness of the mother's expression and of the dignity and
nobility of her pose and carriage in a way that made me forget his
ignorance and his unattractive exterior.
In the northwest chapel of the little church is the grave and monument
of Tasso. There is nothing particularly meritorious about the monument,
and there is nothing even suggestive of poetry. The effigy represents
the poet in the costume of a Spanish cavalier as he appeared at the age
of his greatest activity. The chapel opposite is a jungle of frescoes
depicting scenes in the life of S. Onofrio, who lived like an animal in
the desert for more than half a century, and who, for thus outraging
nature's laws, was brought to Rome to teach others how to live
acceptably in God's eyes. After he had gone to his final reward, which
we trust was the opposite of a desert, the church in its wisdom made him
a saint.
I did not attempt to visualize the desert-dweller or his activities as I
descended the steps that lead from this lovely hill to the Tiber, for I
was soon lost in contemplation of a view with which I was very familiar
but which now presents itself at a different angle, for I had never been
down this well-worn stone staircase. The little street led first past
the fine old Salviati Palace, a vast, massive structure built apparently
to provide a sumptuous _piano nobile_ and a great impressive court. It
has, I suppose, a definite architectural beauty, but to me it looks
merely massive, cumbersome, and overgrown. It reminds of nothing so much
as of a lady whose figure, once worthy of admiration, had become altered
by the adipose that is fatal to beauty. From here it is but a few steps
to the Villa Farnesina, with its priceless possessions from Raphael's
hand, but my way leads me across the rickety iron suspension bridge
immediately in front of the Salviati Palace, to cross which one must pay
a penny. From the middle of this bridge one gets a stunning view of the
Castle of S. Angelo and the Holy Ghost Hospital. The latter, an enormous
Renaissance structure, accommodates upward of five thousand patients. It
looks to-day much as illustrations of it show that it looked five
hundred years ago. In those days it was the last cry in hospitals, but
it is far from that to-day. In fact, as a hospital it leaves much to be
desired. I go there sometimes to visit the library, which has one of the
largest collections of incunabuli in the world. As you look over it from
the end of the Ponte Ferro, the dome of St. Peter's seems as if it were
suspended from the heaven and its marvellous symmetry is most
impressive. When you look at the dome of St. Peter's and the church
together, there is something a little incongruous. I do not attempt to
define it, but it is the same thing that you get when you look at a man
whose hat doesn't fit.
After crossing the Tiber I strike into the heart of the densely
populated city through a succession of narrow streets without sidewalks,
and flanked on either side with never-ending little shops, now and then
crossing a piazza which gives space and light to some massive mediæval
palace. But none of them solicits me to stop until the Palazzo Braschi
comes into view. I have seen its wondrous staircase, with its many
columns of Oriental granite, so often that I would pass it by without a
thought were it not for the brutally hideous figure of Pasquino, who
greets me from his pedestal like an old acquaintance. I realize quite
well that he has been called one of the most beautiful remains of
antique sculpture, and that the expert eye, guided by a knowledge of
Hellenic art supremity, may see charm and wondrousness in it, but I have
bid him good-morning and good-day many times, and, like some old
acquaintances, he does not get nearer my heart as I learn to know him
better. There have been innumerable conjectures as to what the figure
represents. The one most generally accepted is that it represents
Menelaus supporting the dead body of Patroclus after the vile Trojan had
stabbed him in the back while Hector was engaging his attention. You
have such a feeling of pride in Patroclus and the wonderful things that
he did with his Myrmidons that your heart goes out to him. When the
Trojan War was going badly, he was persuaded to take up the direction of
the forces against the enemy, and one cannot help feeling grateful to
Menelaus for having played the good Samaritan to him at the end. But if
this old King of Sparta had made Helen behave better when Paris came to
visit them, she might never have eloped with that hazardous youth after
he had made the memorable decision on Mount Ida, spurning power promised
by Juno, and glory and renown tendered by Minerva, in order that he
might have the fairest woman in the world for wife. But one should not
be too hard on the old king. There is no telling just how far Helen
acted on her own initiative and how far Venus was responsible for the
flight. Still, were it not for this little irregularity in the conduct
of the royal household, we would have been denied a knowledge of the
greatness of Greece and a record of its accomplishments in one of the
greatest poems, which has been a solace and a stimulation to countless
lovers of literature the past two thousand years.
Though I bring no trained eye or accurate information to the discussion
of Pasquino's identity, I am convinced, since seeing the bronze statue
of a boxer which Lanciani unearthed in excavating the Baths of
Constantine in 1885, that this statue is no other than an early marble
setting forth the same subject. To me it is the effigy of a fighting
brute. Whatever his name or his profession may have been, he has become
known the world over as Pasquino, and satires and sarcasms similar to
those which he is supposed to have uttered to the amusement and
edification of the Romans in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries have
become known as pasquinades all over the world.
Italians like to write stories concerning historic incidents and to
embellish them with a veneer of verisimilitude. They like particularly
to give them a personal note, deprecatory or laudatory. When the
Egyptian obelisk was being forced to a perpendicular position in the
Piazza of St. Peter's, the crowd had been admonished under penalty of
death to be silent. The stillness of the piazza, broken only by the
creaking of the ropes, was suddenly torn asunder by a shout of "Wet the
ropes." Thus the famous obelisk was preserved intact, and the man whose
discernment had accomplished it, instead of having his head cut off, was
allowed to furnish the palms for St. Peter's every Palm Sunday.
Incidentally he was ennobled, and since that time his reward has been
the family's chief asset. In the same way, one of the river gods of the
fountain set up in the middle of the Piazza Navona seems to be drawing a
mantle up over his head while the others, those of the Danube, the
Ganges, and the Rio della Plata, are looking straight ahead. Bernini,
who built the fountain, says that Nile was so shocked by the façade
which Borromini, a contemporary architect, added to the Church of St.
Agnes, which is immediately in front of it, that he had to veil his
face.
The story of Pasquino is that he asked questions concerning the conduct
of the reigning power, which, of course, in those days was the pope, and
made reflections which Marforio, the river god which stood between the
horse-tamers in the Piazza della Quirinale, answered. Pasquino, in
short, became the organ of public opinion, and it was not subject to the
censor, for the authors prudently kept out of sight. His most poisonous
venom and destructive wrath were directed against popes and cardinals.
If he said the things that he is alleged to have said about Alexander VI
and Innocent XI (the holy man who started the Inquisition), it is easy
to understand that one of their successors wished to throw him into the
bottom of the Tiber, the resting-place of countless priceless objects of
art for many centuries. As a matter of fact, however, the stories about
Pasquino to be found in every guide-book are, like many other stories
when run to earth, largely fiction.
Thirty years ago there was published in the _Nuova Antologia_ an article
by Domenico Gnoli which sets forth the real history of Pasquino. When
Cardinal Carraffa went to live in the Braschi Palace he had the statue
set up at one of the corners, and there it has since remained. In those
days religious processions were as common as automobiles and bicycles
are to-day. The priests in them often rested at this corner, and it
became the custom to make up the statue to represent different
personages, and the man who was intrusted with this task happened to be
a professor in the adjacent university. He encouraged his boys to write
epilogues, elegies, and epigrams which they pasted or stuck on the
statue. At first these were purely literary efforts, juvenile flights to
Parnassus, but later they took on a political and social flavor, while
still later they became concerned with the doings of the Curia. These
pasquinades have been collected in book form, and some of the volumes
exist at the present time. The majority, however, have been
lost--perished in flames, destroyed as having no value, or disappeared
in other ways. Thus the statue was initiated as a news-bearer or organ
of public opinion.
Immediately across the road from the statue there was a tailor or barber
shop, and the name of the chief operator was Pasquino. It was in this
shop that the messages stuck on the statue were collected, deciphered,
and discussed, and when the witty tailor died they gave his name to the
statue and thus immortality was thrust upon him. In reality, after the
cessation of the publications, "Carmina quæ ad Pasquillum fuerunt posita
in anno," and the murder of the professor who had encouraged his
students to put forth their youthful efforts, men groaning under the
oppression of their rulers, men big with ideas of what we now call
liberty, men in whom the germs of freedom and equality had been
implanted, saw a fairly safe way of getting their sentiments before the
public, and they utilized Pasquino as a forum from which they could
radiate their ideas and their sentiments. During the entire sixteenth
century these men conveyed to the Borgias and to Julius II and Paul III
and Innocent X and Innocent XI and Pius VI an expression of their
feeling and conviction concerning their conduct, individually and
collectively. Whether these contributions had anything to do with
shaping public opinion and leading up to the great Reformation, it is
impossible to say.
Whatever Pasquino accomplished or didn't accomplish seems not to concern
him, for there he sits tranquilly upon six blocks of volcanic stone,
indifferent to the passing show and to the transpirations of the world.
A few paces beyond the Palazzo Braschi I suddenly come upon one of the
most attractive and alluring piazzas in Rome, the Piazza Navona, or, as
it is sometimes called, the Circo Agonale. By its oblong form, its
seductive symmetry, its elaborate decorations--three beautiful
fountains, the central one surmounted by an Egyptian obelisk which once
stood in the Circus of Maxentius; by its boundaries, which include the
Palazzo Pamfili, the Church of S. Agnese, and the Church of S. Giacomo
of the Spaniards, and innumerable small and large houses--it succeeds in
conveying to the observer, who is susceptible to æsthetic impressions,
sensations which are as purely pleasurable as anything can possibly be.
Were it not for the distinctively Italian architecture one might easily
imagine that he was in the centre of some provincial large city of
France. It has, more than any other public square that I have ever been
in, that quality which we speak of as foreign. No two buildings are
alike, and, mean though many of them are, and especially toward the
northern end, they blend in such a way as to produce a perfect harmony
of color and architectural effect. In olden times they held races here,
and I can imagine how marvellous a sight it must have been with the
palaces and houses gayly decked with flags and drapery, rich rugs
hanging from the window-sills, on which leaned beautiful ladies, frail
and strong, attended solicitously, perhaps watchfully, by cavaliers and
admirers, and the square below filled with the pleasure-loving crowd
whose conduct betrayed nothing else save a desire to be amused and
diverted. During the summer I often sat for a half-hour on my way home
in this square, and, while watching the countless children from the
surrounding tenements in those simple indulgences which they call play,
tried to fancy some of the events that had taken place in the square and
in the palaces and churches bordering it.
It was in the Pamfili Palace, built by Innocent X in 1650 for his
predatory and dissolute sister-in-law, Olympia Malacchimi, that the
fortunes of the Pamfili family began. Here she sold bishoprics and
beneficences, and here she externalized that conduct which brought
infamy on her name. What a story an account of the intimate doings of
that family would make! Their palace in the Corso is one of the most
beautiful Renaissance residences in the world, and their villa on the
Janiculum is an approximation to a rural paradise. All that is left of
the family is a faded, sad, suggestible, middle-aged princess, whose
English appearance and manner betray a lifelong habit of emotional
suppression, and one son who is eking out his miserable days in the
mountains of Switzerland.
Immediately adjacent to the palace is the Church of St. Agnes, built
about the same time and on the spot where the girl whose name it
commemorates was supposed to have had miraculous delivery from
humiliations and outrages similar to those to which the Belgian nuns
were subjected by the Germans. I say "Germans" advisedly, for I am
unable to understand why any one should think for a moment that the term
"Hun," so widely applied to them, carries with it any such obloquy or
opprobrium as the simple name "German." I venture to say that in years
to come, when any one wishes to describe abominations, cruelties,
savageries for which no name is adequate, he will use the term
"Germanic." Then even the most inexperienced in crime and sin will get a
glimmering of what is meant.
It is related that when Agnes was about fourteen years old she was taken
to a lupanalia and there, bereft of all her clothing, became the target
of the word and the conduct of a group of lubricitous monsters.
Overwhelmed with shame, her head fell upon her chest and she prayed.
Immediately her hair took on such miraculous growth that it concealed
her nakedness. But there were other more startling experiences in store
for her. For her rebelliousness and general contumacy she was condemned
to be burned alive. When the flames were about to devour her they
suddenly became possessed of a dual quality, one radiating refreshment
upon her, the other destruction upon her executioners. The lady had many
other experiences which have long since been denied her sex, but it is
popularly believed that she devotes much attention in her heavenly home
to seeing that maidens who request her in a proper frame of mind and
body, which for the latter is twenty-four hours' abstinence from
everything but pure spring water, are provided with husbands. It would
be trivial of me to add that she probably is overworked these days when
so many prospective husbands are at the front, but I have no real
information on the matter, and I sincerely hope that the nubile Italians
have no serious difficulty in finding spouses.
From here my route is to the Corso, which at this early hour is nearly
deserted. There are many streets that I may take: one that leads to the
Pantheon; another that goes past the Palazzo Madama and other
interesting public and private buildings. As a rule I take the latter,
for it leads me to the Via Condotti, which ends in the Piazza di Spagna.
Before the war this piazza was the rendezvous of American tourists. The
vendors of objects of art and of Roman pearls, the antiquarian who had
his wares fabricated around the corner or in the Trastevere, the dealer
in genuine Raphaels and Tintorettos, the rapacious dealers in old books
are all there, but most of them are on their knees in their shops with
half-closed shutters, praying for the war to end so that the gullible
rich Americans may come again. Their prayers are heard and their
supplications will soon be answered. Meanwhile I cast a glance at the
wretched monument erected a half-century ago to commemorate the
promulgation of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, look lovingly
at the semi-sunken boat-shaped fountain just in front of the steps, and
begin slowly to mount the most impressive steps in Rome, which seem to
lead up like heavenly stairs to the massive, double-belfried Church of
Trinità dei Monti, with the graceful Egyptian obelisk in front of it.
Nowadays the steps are not so picturesque as I have often seen them in
peace time, when lovely artists' models, picturesque loafers and the
exponents of the _dolce far niente_ collected on the steps and made, in
conjunction with the flowers and plants that were exhibited there for
sale, an almost unique picture. It is now deserted save for some
hazardous Greek or Italian who attempts to eke out a living by disposing
of flowers that have been camouflaged to look fresh. Nevertheless the
staircase and its environment make an appeal which repeated visits serve
only to increase. From the top of it, in the little square in front of
the church, one gets an attractive, though limited, view of the city and
of Monte Mario, but it is a view that convinces him that he is in a city
quite unlike any other in the world.
A picturesque old woman who sells papers at the bottom of the stairs has
made a regular customer out of me, and I scan the morning news as I
ascend the steps, and by the time I have reached the top I find thoughts
of beauty and of the good old days are being replaced by thoughts of
work and of the war. As I walk across the Pincian Hill I am conscious
that I am big with joy at what the past twenty-four hours have
accomplished at the battle-front, and throbbing with anticipation of
what the following day will bring forth. That it will soon bring
victory, complete and absolute, even the professional warrior is now
forced to admit, and soon we shall bask again in the light of a livable
world.