NICE, February 28, 1765.
DEAR SIR,--Nothing can be more agreeable to the eyes of a stranger,
especially in the heats of summer, than the great number of public
fountains that appear in every part of Rome, embellished with all the
ornaments of sculpture, and pouring forth prodigious quantities of
cool, delicious water, brought in aqueducts from different lakes,
rivers, and sources, at a considerable distance from the city. These
works are the remains of the munificence and industry of the antient
Romans, who were extremely delicate in the article of water: but,
however, great applause is also due to those beneficent popes who have
been at the expence of restoring and repairing those noble channels of
health, pleasure, and convenience. This great plenty of water,
nevertheless, has not induced the Romans to be cleanly. Their streets,
and even their palaces, are disgraced with filth. The noble Piazza
Navona, is adorned with three or four fountains, one of which is
perhaps the most magnificent in Europe, and all of them discharge vast
streams of water: but, notwithstanding this provision, the piazza is
almost as dirty, as West Smithfield, where the cattle are sold in
London. The corridores, arcades, and even staircases of their most
elegant palaces, are depositories of nastiness, and indeed in summer
smell as strong as spirit of hartshorn. I have a great notion that
their ancestors were not much more cleanly. If we consider that the
city and suburbs of Rome, in the reign of Claudius, contained about
seven millions of inhabitants, a number equal at least to the sum total
of all the souls in England; that great part of antient Rome was
allotted to temples, porticos, basilicae, theatres, thermae, circi,
public and private walks and gardens, where very few, if any, of this
great number lodged; that by far the greater part of those inhabitants
were slaves and poor people, who did not enjoy the conveniencies of
life; and that the use of linen was scarce known; we must naturally
conclude they were strangely crouded together, and that in general they
were a very frowzy generation. That they were crouded together appears
from the height of their houses, which the poet Rutilius compared to
towers made for scaling heaven. In order to remedy this inconvenience,
Augustus Caesar published a decree, that for the future no houses
should be built above seventy feet high, which, at a moderate
computation, might make six stories. But what seems to prove, beyond
all dispute, that the antient Romans were dirty creatures, are these
two particulars. Vespasian laid a tax upon urine and ordure, on
pretence of being at a great expence in clearing the streets from such
nuisances; an imposition which amounted to about fourteen pence a year
for every individual; and when Heliogabalus ordered all the cobwebs of
the city and suburbs to be collected, they were found to weigh ten
thousand pounds. This was intended as a demonstration of the great
number of inhabitants; but it was a proof of their dirt, rather than of
their populosity. I might likewise add, the delicate custom of taking
vomits at each other's houses, when they were invited to dinner, or
supper, that they might prepare their stomachs for gormandizing; a
beastly proof of their nastiness as well as gluttony. Horace, in his
description of the banquet of Nasiedenus, says, when the canopy, under
which they sat, fell down, it brought along with it as much dirt as is
raised by a hard gale of wind in dry weather.
--trahentia pulveris atri,
Quantum non aquilo Campanis excitat agris.
Such clouds of dust revolving in its train
As Boreas whirls along the level plain.
I might observe, that the streets were often encumbered with the
putrefying carcasses of criminals, who had been dragged through them by
the heels, and precipitated from the Scalae Gemoniae, or Tarpeian rock,
before they were thrown into the Tyber, which was the general
receptacle of the cloaca maxima and all the filth of Rome: besides, the
bodies of all those who made away with themselves, without sufficient
cause; of such as were condemned for sacrilege, or killed by thunder,
were left unburned and unburied, to rot above ground.
I believe the moderns retain more of the customs of antient Romans,
than is generally imagined. When I first saw the infants at the enfans
trouves in Paris, so swathed with bandages, that the very sight of them
made my eyes water, I little dreamed, that the prescription of the
antients could be pleaded for this custom, equally shocking and absurd:
but in the Capitol at Rome, I met with the antique statue of a child
swaddled exactly in the same manner; rolled up like an Aegyptian mummy
from the feet. The circulation of the blood, in such a case, must be
obstructed on the whole surface of the body; and nothing be at liberty
but the head, which is the only part of the child that ought to be
confined. Is it not surprising that common sense should not point out,
even to the most ignorant, that those accursed bandages must heat the
tender infant into a fever; must hinder the action of the muscles, and
the play of the joints, so necessary to health and nutrition; and that
while the refluent blood is obstructed in the veins, which run on the
surface of the body, the arteries, which lie deep, without the reach of
compression, are continually pouring their contents into the head,
where the blood meets with no resistance? The vessels of the brain are
naturally lax, and the very sutures of the skull are yet unclosed. What
are the consequences of this cruel swaddling? the limbs are wasted; the
joints grow rickety; the brain is compressed, and a hydrocephalus, with
a great head and sore eyes, ensues. I take this abominable practice to
be one great cause of the bandy legs, diminutive bodies, and large
heads, so frequent in the south of France, and in Italy.
I was no less surprised to find the modern fashion of curling the hair,
borrowed in a great measure from the coxcombs and coquettes of
antiquity. I saw a bust of Nero in the gallery at Florence, the hair
represented in rows of buckles, like that of a French petit-maitre,
conformable to the picture drawn of him by Suetonius. Circa cultum adeo
pudendum, ut coman semper in gradus formatam peregrinatione achaica,
etiam pene verticem sumpserit, So very finical in his dress, that he
wore his hair in the Greek fashion, curled in rows almost to the crown
of his head. I was very sorry however to find that this foppery came
from Greece. As for Otho, he wore a galericulum, or tour, on account of
thin hair, propter raritatem capillorum. He had no right to imitate the
example of Julius Caesar, who concealed his bald head with a wreath of
laurel. But there is a bust in the Capitol of Julia Pia, the second
wife of Septimius Severus, with a moveable peruke, dressed exactly in
the fashionable mode, with this difference, that there is no part of it
frizzled; nor is there any appearance of pomatum and powder. These
improvements the beau-monde have borrowed from the natives of the Cape
of Good Hope.
Modern Rome does not cover more than one-third of the space within the
walls; and those parts that were most frequented of old are now
intirely abandoned. From the Capitol to the Coliseo, including the
Forum Romanum and Boarium, there is nothing intire but one or two
churches, built with the fragments of ancient edifices. You descend
from the Capitol between the remaining pillars of two temples, the
pedestals and part of the shafts sunk in the rubbish: then passing
through the triumphal arch of Septimius Severus, you proceed along the
foot of Mons Palatinus, which stands on your right hand, quite covered
with the ruins of the antient palace belonging to the Roman emperors,
and at the foot of it, there are some beautiful detached pillars still
standing. On the left you see the remains of the Templum Pacis, which
seems to have been the largest and most magnificent of all the temples
in Rome. It was built and dedicated by the emperor Vespasian, who
brought into it all the treasure and precious vessels which he found in
the temple of Jerusalem. The columns of the portico he removed from
Nero's golden house, which he levelled with the ground. This temple was
likewise famous for its library, mentioned by Aulus Gellius, Further
on, is the arch of Constantine on the right, a most noble piece of
architecture, almost entire; with the remains of the Meta Sudans before
it; and fronting you, the noble ruins of that vast amphitheatre, called
the Colossaeum, now Coliseo, which has been dismantled and dilapidated
by the Gothic popes and princes of modern Rome, to build and adorn
their paultry palaces. Behind the amphitheatre were the thermae of the
same emperor Titus Vespasian. In the same quarter was the Circus
Maximus; and the whole space from hence on both sides, to the walls of
Rome, comprehending above twice as much ground as the modern city, is
almost covered with the monuments of antiquity. I suppose there is more
concealed below ground than appears above. The miserable houses, and
even garden-walls of the peasants in this district, are built with
these precious materials. I mean shafts and capitals of marble columns,
heads, arms, legs, and mutilated trunks of statues. What pity it is
that among all the remains of antiquity, at Rome, there is not one
lodging-house remaining. I should be glad to know how the senators of
Rome were lodged. I want to be better informed touching the cava
aedium, the focus, the ara deorum penatum, the conclavia, triclinia,
and caenationes; the atria where the women resided, and employed
themselves in the woolen manufacture; the praetoria, which were so
spacious as to become a nuisance in the reign of Augustus; and the
Xysta, which were shady walks between two porticos, where the men
exercised themselves in the winter. I am disgusted by the modern taste
of architecture, though I am no judge of the art. The churches and
palaces of these days are crowded with pretty ornaments, which distract
the eye, and by breaking the design into a variety of little parts,
destroy the effect of the whole. Every door and window has its separate
ornaments, its moulding, frize, cornice, and tympanum; then there is
such an assemblage of useless festoons, pillars, pilasters, with their
architraves, entablatures, and I know not what, that nothing great or
uniform remains to fill the view; and we in vain look for that
simplicity of grandeur, those large masses of light and shadow, and the
inexpressible EUSUINOPTON, which characterise the edifices of the
antients. A great edifice, to have its full effect, ought to be isole,
or detached from all others, with a large space around it: but the
palaces of Rome, and indeed of all the other cities of Italy, which I
have seen, are so engaged among other mean houses, that their beauty
and magnificence are in a great measure concealed. Even those which
face open streets and piazzas are only clear in front. The other
apartments are darkened by the vicinity of ordinary houses; and their
views are confined by dirty and disagreeable objects. Within the court
there is generally a noble colonnade all round, and an open corridore
above, but the stairs are usually narrow, steep, and high, the want of
sash-windows, the dullness of their small glass lozenges, the dusty
brick floors, and the crimson hangings laced with gold, contribute to
give a gloomy air to their apartments; I might add to these causes, a
number of Pictures executed on melancholy subjects, antique mutilated
statues, busts, basso relieves, urns, and sepulchral stones, with which
their rooms are adorned. It must be owned, however, there are some
exceptions to this general rule. The villa of cardinal Alexander Albani
is light, gay, and airy; yet the rooms are too small, and too much
decorated with carving and gilding, which is a kind of gingerbread
work. The apartments of one of the princes Borghese are furnished in
the English taste; and in the palazzo di colonna connestabile, there is
a saloon, or gallery, which, for the proportions, lights, furniture,
and ornaments, is the most noble, elegant, and agreeable apartment I
ever saw.
It is diverting to hear all Italian expatiate upon the greatness of
modern Rome. He will tell you there are above three hundred palaces in
the city; that there is scarce a Roman prince, whose revenue does not
exceed two hundred thousand crowns; and that Rome produces not only the
most learned men, but also the most refined politicians in the
universe. To one of them talking in this strain, I replied, that
instead of three hundred palaces, the number did not exceed fourscore;
that I had been informed, on good authority, there were not six
individuals in Rome who had so much as forty thousand crowns a year,
about ten thousand pounds sterling; and that to say their princes were
so rich, and their politicians so refined, was, in effect, a severe
satire upon them, for not employing their wealth and their talents for
the advantage of their country. I asked why their cardinals and princes
did not invite and encourage industrious people to settle and cultivate
the Campania of Rome, which is a desert? why they did not raise a
subscription to drain the marshes in the neighbourhood of the city, and
thus meliorate the air, which is rendered extremely unwholsome in the
summer, by putrid exhalations from those morasses? I demanded of him,
why they did not contribute their wealth, and exert their political
refinements, in augmenting their forces by sea and land, for the
defence of their country, introducing commerce and manufactures, and in
giving some consequence to their state, which was no more than a mite
in the political scale of Europe? I expressed a desire to know what
became of all those sums of money, inasmuch as there was hardly any
circulation of gold and silver in Rome, and the very bankers, on whom
strangers have their credit, make interest to pay their tradesmen's
bills with paper notes of the bank of Spirito Santo? And now I am upon
this subject, it may not be amiss to observe that I was strangely
misled by all the books consulted about the current coin of Italy. In
Tuscany, and the Ecclesiastical State, one sees nothing but zequines in
gold, and pieces of two paoli, one paolo, and half a paolo, in silver.
Besides these, there is a copper coin at Rome, called bajocco and mezzo
bajocco. Ten bajocchi make a paolo: ten paoli make a scudo, which is an
imaginary piece: two scudi make a zequine; and a French loui'dore is
worth two zequines and two paoli.
Rome has nothing to fear from the catholic powers, who respect it with
a superstitious veneration as the metropolitan seat of their religion:
but the popes will do well to avoid misunderstandings with the maritime
protestant states, especially the English, who being masters of the
Mediterranean, and in possession of Minorca, have it in their power at
all times, to land a body of troops within four leagues of Rome, and to
take the city, without opposition. Rome is surrounded with an old wall,
but altogether incapable of defence. Or if it was, the circuit of the
walls is so extensive, that it would require a garrison of twenty
thousand men. The only appearance of a fortification in this city, is
the castle of St. Angelo, situated on the further bank of the Tyber, to
which there is access by a handsome bridge: but this castle, which was
formerly the moles Adriani, could not hold out half a day against a
battery of ten pieces of cannon properly directed. It was an expedient
left to the invention of the modern Romans, to convert an ancient tomb
into a citadel. It could only serve as a temporary retreat for the pope
in times of popular commotion, and on other sudden emergencies; as it
happened in the case of pope Clement VII. when the troops of the
emperor took the city by assault; and this only, while he resided at
the Vatican, from whence there is a covered gallery continued to the
castle: it can never serve this purpose again, while the pontiff lives
on Monte Cavallo, which is at the other end of the city. The castle of
St. Angelo, howsoever ridiculous as a fortress, appears respectable as
a noble monument of antiquity, and though standing in a low situation,
is one of the first objects that strike the eye of a stranger
approaching Rome. On the opposite side of the river, are the wretched
remains of the Mausoleum Augusti, which was still more magnificent.
Part of the walls is standing, and the terraces are converted into
garden-ground. In viewing these ruins, I remembered Virgil's pathetic
description of Marcellus, who was here intombed.
Quantos ille virum, magnum mavortis ad urbem.
Campus aget gemitus, vel que Tyberine, videbis
Funera, cum tumulum, preter labere recentem.
Along his Banks what Groans shall Tyber hear,
When the fresh tomb and funeral pomp appear!
The beautiful poem of Ovid de Consolatione ad Liviam, written after the
ashes of Augustus and his nephew Marcellus, of Germanicus, Agrippa, and
Drusus, were deposited in this mausoleum, concludes with these lines,
which are extremely tender:
Claudite jam Parcae nimium reserata sepulchra;
Claudite, plus justo, jam domus ista patet!
Ah! shut these yawning Tombs, ye sister Fates!
Too long unclos'd have stood those dreary Gates!
What the author said of the monument, you will be tempted to say of
this letter, which I shall therefore close in the old stile, assuring
you that I ever am,--Yours most affectionately.