DEAR SIR,--In my last I gave you my opinion freely of the modern
palaces of Italy. I shall now hazard my thoughts upon the gardens of
this country, which the inhabitants extol with all the hyperboles of
admiration and applause. I must acknowledge however, I have not seen
the famous villas at Frascati and Tivoli, which are celebrated for
their gardens and waterworks. I intended to visit these places; but was
prevented by an unexpected change of weather, which deterred me from
going to the country. On the last day of September the mountains of
Palestrina were covered with snow; and the air became so cold at Rome,
that I was forced to put on my winter cloaths. This objection
continued, till I found it necessary to set out on my return to
Florence. But I have seen the gardens of the Poggio Imperiale, and the
Palazzo de Pitti at Florence, and those of the Vatican, of the pope's
palace on Monte Cavallo, of the Villa Ludovisia, Medicea, and Pinciana,
at Rome; so that I think I have some right to judge of the Italian
taste in gardening. Among those I have mentioned, that of the Villa
Pinciana, is the most remarkable, and the most extensive, including a
space of three miles in circuit, hard by the walls of Rome, containing
a variety of situations high and low, which favour all the natural
embellishments one would expect to meet with in a garden, and exhibit a
diversity of noble views of the city and adjacent country.
In a fine extensive garden or park, an Englishman expects to see a
number of groves and glades, intermixed with an agreeable negligence,
which seems to be the effect of nature and accident. He looks for shady
walks encrusted with gravel; for open lawns covered with verdure as
smooth as velvet, but much more lively and agreeable; for ponds,
canals, basins, cascades, and running streams of water; for clumps of
trees, woods, and wildernesses, cut into delightful alleys, perfumed
with honeysuckle and sweet-briar, and resounding with the mingled
melody of all the singing birds of heaven: he looks for plats of
flowers in different parts to refresh the sense, and please the fancy;
for arbours, grottos, hermitages, temples, and alcoves, to shelter him
from the sun, and afford him means of contemplation and repose; and he
expects to find the hedges, groves, and walks, and lawns kept with the
utmost order and propriety. He who loves the beauties of simple nature,
and the charms of neatness will seek for them in vain amidst the groves
of Italy. In the garden of the Villa Pinciana, there is a plantation of
four hundred pines, which the Italians view with rapture and
admiration: there is likewise a long walk, of trees extending from the
garden-gate to the palace; and plenty of shade, with alleys and hedges
in different parts of the ground: but the groves are neglected; the
walks are laid with nothing but common mould or sand, black and dusty;
the hedges are tall, thin and shabby; the trees stunted; the open
ground, brown and parched, has scarce any appearance of verdure. The
flat, regular alleys of evergreens are cut into fantastic figures; the
flower gardens embellished with thin cyphers and flourished figures in
box, while the flowers grow in rows of earthen-pots, and the ground
appears as dusky as if it was covered with the cinders of a
blacksmith's forge. The water, of which there is great plenty, instead
of being collected in large pieces, or conveyed in little rivulets and
streams to refresh the thirsty soil, or managed so as to form agreeable
cascades, is squirted from fountains in different parts of the garden,
through tubes little bigger than common glyster-pipes. It must be owned
indeed that the fountains have their merit in the way of sculpture and
architecture; and that here is a great number of statues which merit
attention: but they serve only to encumber the ground, and destroy that
effect of rural simplicity, which our gardens are designed to produce.
In a word, here we see a variety of walks and groves and fountains, a
wood of four hundred pines, a paddock with a few meagre deer, a
flower-garden, an aviary, a grotto, and a fish-pond; and in spite of
all these particulars, it is, in my opinion, a very contemptible
garden, when compared to that of Stowe in Buckinghamshire, or even to
those of Kensington and Richmond. The Italians understand, because they
study, the excellencies of art; but they have no idea of the beauties
of nature. This Villa Pinciana, which belongs to the Borghese family,
would make a complete academy for painting and sculpture, especially
for the study of antient marbles; for, exclusive of the statues and
busts in the garden, and the vast collection in the different
apartments, almost the whole outside of the house is covered with
curious pieces in basso and alto relievo. The most masterly is that of
Curtius on horseback, leaping into the gulph or opening of the earth,
which is said to have closed on receiving this sacrifice. Among the
exhibitions of art within the house, I was much struck with a Bacchus,
and the death of Meleager, represented on an antient sepulchre. There
is also an admirable statue of Silenus, with the infant Bacchus in his
arms; a most beautiful gladiator; a curious Moor of black marble, with
a shirt of white alabaster; a finely proportioned bull of black marble
also, standing upon a table of alabaster; a black gipsey with a head,
hands, and feet of brass; and the famous hermaphrodite, which vies with
that of Florence: though the most curious circumstance of this article,
is the mattrass executed and placed by Bernini, with such art and
dexterity, that to the view, it rivals the softness of wool, and seems
to retain the marks of pressure, according to the figure of the
superincumbent statue. Let us likewise own, for the honour of the
moderns, that the same artist has produced two fine statues, which we
find among the ornaments of this villa, namely, a David with his sling
in the attitude of throwing the stone at the giant Goliah; and a Daphne
changing into laurel at the approach of Apollo. On the base of this
figure, are the two following elegant lines, written by pope Urban
VIII. in his younger years.
Quisquis amans sequitur fugitivae gaudia formae,
Fronde manus implet, baccas vel carpit amaras.
Who pants for fleeting Beauty, vain pursuit!
Shall barren Leaves obtain, or bitter fruit.
I ought not to forget two exquisite antique statues of Venus, the
weeping slave, and the youth pulling a thorn out of his foot.
I do not pretend to give a methodical detail of the curiosities of
Rome: they have been already described by different authors, who were
much better qualified than I am for the talk: but you shall have what
observations I made on the most remarkable objects, without method,
just as they occur to my remembrance; and I protest the remarks are all
my own: so that if they deserve any commendation, I claim all the
merit; and if they are impertinent, I must be contented to bear all the
blame.
The piazza of St. Peter's church is altogether sublime. The double
colonnade on each side extending in a semi-circular sweep, the
stupendous Aegyptian obelisk, the two fountains, the portico, and the
admirable facade of the church, form such an assemblage of magnificent
objects, as cannot fail to impress the mind with awe and admiration:
but the church would have produced a still greater effect, had it been
detached entirely from the buildings of the Vatican, It would then have
been a master-piece of architecture, complete in all its parts, intire
and perfect: whereas, at present, it is no more than a beautiful member
attached to a vast undigested and irregular pile of building. As to the
architecture of this famous temple, I shall say nothing; neither do I
pretend to describe the internal ornaments. The great picture of Mosaic
work, and that of St. Peter's bark tossed by the tempest, which appear
over the gate of the church, though rude in comparison with modern
pieces, are nevertheless great curiosities, when considered as the work
of Giotto, who flourished in the beginning of the fourteenth century.
His master was Cimabue, who learned painting and architecture of the
Grecian artists, who came from Constantinople, and first revived these
arts in Italy. But, to return to St. Peter's, I was not at all pleased
with the famous statue of the dead Christ in his mother's lap, by
Michael Angelo. The figure of Christ is as much emaciated, as if he had
died of a consumption: besides, there is something indelicate, not to
say indecent, in the attitude and design of a man's body, stark naked,
lying upon the knees of a woman. Here are some good pictures, I should
rather say copies of good pictures, done in Mosaic to great perfection;
particularly a St. Sebastian by Domenichino, and Michael the Archangel,
from a painting of Guido Rheni. I am extremely fond of all this
artist's pieces. There is a tenderness and delicacy in his manner; and
his figures are all exquisitely beautiful, though his expression is
often erroneous, and his attitudes are always affected and unnatural.
In this very piece the archangel has all the air of a French
dancing-master; and I have seen a Madonna by the same hand, I think it
is in the Palazzo di Barberini, in which, though the figures are
enchanting, the Virgin is represented holding up the drapery of the
infant, with the ridiculous affectation of a singer on the stage of our
Italian opera. The Mosaic work, though brought to a wonderful degree of
improvement, and admirably calculated for churches, the dampness of
which is pernicious to the colours of the pallet, I will not yet
compare to the productions of the pencil. The glassyness (if I may be
allowed the expression) of the surface, throws, in my opinion, a false
light on some parts of the picture; and when you approach it, the
joinings of the pieces look like so many cracks on painted canvas.
Besides, this method is extremely tedious and expensive. I went to see
the artists at work, in a house that stands near the church, where I
was much pleased with the ingenuity of the process; and not a little
surprized at the great number of different colours and tints, which are
kept in separate drawers, marked with numbers as far as seventeen
thousand. For a single head done in Mosaic, they asked me fifty
zequines. But to return to the church. The altar of St. Peter's choir,
notwithstanding all the ornaments which have been lavished upon it, is
no more than a heap of puerile finery, better adapted to an Indian
pagod, than to a temple built upon the principles of the Greek
architecture. The four colossal figures that support the chair, are
both clumsy and disproportioned. The drapery of statues, whether in
brass or stone, when thrown into large masses, appears hard and
unpleasant to the eye and for that reason the antients always imitated
wet linen, which exhibiting the shape of the limbs underneath, and
hanging in a multiplicity of wet folds, gives an air of lightness,
softness, and ductility to the whole.
These two statues weigh 116,257 pounds, and as they sustain nothing but
a chair, are out of all proportion, inasmuch as the supporters ought to
be suitable to the things supported. Here are four giants holding up
the old wooden chair of the apostle Peter, if we may believe the book
De Identitate Cathedrae Romanae, Of the Identity of the Roman Chair.
The implements of popish superstition; such as relicks of pretended
saints, ill-proportioned spires and bellfreys, and the nauseous
repetition of the figure of the cross, which is in itself a very mean
and disagreeable object, only fit for the prisons of condemned
criminals, have contributed to introduce a vitious taste into the
external architecture, as well as in the internal ornaments of our
temples. All churches are built in the figure of a cross, which
effectually prevents the eye from taking in the scope of the building,
either without side or within; consequently robs the edifice of its
proper effect. The palace of the Escurial in Spain is laid out in the
shape of a gridiron, because the convent was built in consequence of a
vow to St. Laurence, who was broiled like a barbecued pig. What pity it
is, that the labours of painting should have been so much employed on
the shocking subjects of the martyrology. Besides numberless pictures
of the flagellation, crucifixion, and descent from the cross, we have
Judith with the head of Holofernes, Herodias with the head of John the
Baptist, Jael assassinating Sisera in his sleep, Peter writhing on the
cross, Stephen battered with stones, Sebastian stuck full of arrows,
Laurence frying upon the coals, Bartholomew flaed alive, and a hundred
other pictures equally frightful, which can only serve to fill the mind
with gloomy ideas, and encourage a spirit of religious fanaticism,
which has always been attended with mischievous consequences to the
community where it reigned.
The tribune of the great altar, consisting of four wreathed brass
pillars, gilt, supporting a canopy, is doubtless very magnificent, if
not over-charged with sculpture, fluting, foliage, festoons, and
figures of boys and angels, which, with the hundred and twenty-two
lamps of silver, continually burning below, serve rather to dazzle the
eyes, and kindle the devotion of the ignorant vulgar, than to excite
the admiration of a judicious observer.
There is nothing, I believe, in this famous structure, so worthy of
applause, as the admirable symmetry and proportion of its parts.
Notwithstanding all the carving, gilding, basso relievos, medallions,
urns, statues, columns, and pictures with which it abounds, it does
not, on the whole, appear over-crouded with ornaments. When you first
enter, your eye is filled so equally and regularly, that nothing
appears stupendous; and the church seems considerably smaller than it
really is. The statues of children, that support the founts of holy
water when observed from the door, seem to be of the natural size; but
as you draw near, you perceive they are gigantic. In the same manner,
the figures of the doves, with olive branches in their beaks, which are
represented on the wall, appear to be within your reach; but as you
approach them, they recede to a considerable height, as if they had
flown upwards to avoid being taken.
I was much disappointed at sight of the Pantheon, which, after all that
has been said of it, looks like a huge cockpit, open at top. The
portico which Agrippa added to the building, is undoubtedly very noble,
though, in my opinion, it corresponds but ill with the simplicity of
the edifice. With all my veneration for the antients, I cannot see in
what the beauty of the rotunda consists. It is no more than a plain
unpierced cylinder, or circular wall, with two fillets and a cornice,
having a vaulted roof or cupola, open in the centre. I mean the
original building, without considering the vestibule of Agrippa. Within
side it has much the air of a mausoleum. It was this appearance which,
in all probability, suggested the thought to Boniface IV. to transport
hither eight and twenty cart-loads of old rotten bones, dug from
different burying-places, and then dedicate it as a church to the
blessed Virgin and all the holy martyrs. I am not one of those who
think it is well lighted by the hole at the top, which is about nine
and twenty feet in diameter, although the author of the Grand Tour
calls it but nine. The same author says, there is a descent of eleven
steps to go into it; that it is a hundred and forty-four feet in
heighth, and as many in breadth; that it was covered with copper,
which, with the brass nails of the portico, pope Urban VIII. took away,
and converted into the four wreathed pillars that support the canopy of
the high altar in the church of St. Peter, &c. The truth is, before the
time of pope Alexander VII. the earth was so raised as to cover part of
the temple, and there was a descent of some steps into the porch: but
that pontiff ordered the ground to be pared away to the very pedestal
or base of the portico, which is now even with the street, so that
there is no descent whatsoever. The height is two hundred palmi, and
the breadth two hundred and eighteen; which, reckoning fife palmi at
nine inches, will bring the height to one hundred and fifty, and the
breadth to one hundred and sixty-three feet six inches. It was not any
covering of copper which pope Urban VIII. removed, but large brass
beams, which supported the roof of the portico. They weighed 186,392
pounds; and afforded metal enough not only for the pillars in St.
Peter's church, but also for several pieces of artillery that are now
in the castle of St. Angelo. What is more extraordinary, the gilding of
those columns is said to have cost forty thousand golden crowns: sure
money was never worse laid out. Urban VIII. likewise added two bellfrey
towers to the rotunda; and I wonder he did not cover the central hole
with glass, as it must be very inconvenient and disagreeable to those
who go to church below, to be exposed to the rain in wet weather, which
must also render it very damp and unwholesome. I visited it several
times, and each time it looked more and more gloomy and sepulchral.
The magnificence of the Romans was not so conspicuous in their temples,
as in their theatres, amphitheatres, circusses, naumachia, aqueducts,
triumphal arches, porticoes, basilicae, but especially their thermae,
or bathing-places. A great number of their temples were small and
inconsiderable; not one of them was comparable either for size or
magnificence, to the modern church of St. Peter of the Vatican. The
famous temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was neither half so long, nor half
so broad: it was but two hundred feet in length, and one hundred and
eighty-five in breadth; whereas the length of St. Peter's extends to
six hundred and thirty-eight feet, and the breadth to above five
hundred. It is very near twice as large as the temple of Jupiter
Olympius in Greece, which was counted one of the seven wonders of the
world. But I shall take another opportunity to explain myself further
on the antiquities of this city; a subject, upon which I am disposed to
be (perhaps impertinently) circumstantial. When I begin to run riot,
you should cheek me with the freedom of a friend. The most distant hint
will be sufficient to,--Dear Sir, Yours assuredly.