by the Pope, this morning, in the church built over the ancient temple
of Minerva. His Holiness arrived, in state, from the Vatican, at ten,
followed by his red troop of cardinals, and preceded by a clerical
courier, on a palfrey, and the body-guard of nobles. He blessed the
crowd, right and left, with his three fingers (precisely as a Parisian
dandy salutes his friend across the street), and, descending from his
carriage (which is like a good-sized glass boudoir upon wheels), he
was received in the papal sedan, and carried into the church by his
Swiss bearers. My legation button carried me through the guard, and I
found an excellent place under a cardinal's wing, in the penetralia
within the railing of the altar. Mass commenced presently, with a
chant from the celebrated choir of St. Peter's. Room was then made
through the crowd, the cardinals put on their red caps, and the small
procession of twelve young girls entered from a side chapel, bearing
each a taper in her hand, and robed to the eyes in white, with a
chaplet of flowers round the forehead. I could form no judgment of
anything but their eyes and feet. A Roman eye could not be otherwise
than fine, and a Roman woman's foot could scarce be other than ugly,
and, consequently, there was but one satin slipper in the group that a
man might not have worn, and every eye I could see from my position,
might have graced an improvisatrice. They stopped in front of the
throne, and, giving their long tapers to the servitors, mounted in
couples, hand in hand, and kissed the foot of his Holiness, who, at
the same time, leaned over and blessed them, and then turning about,
walked off again behind the altar in the same order in which they had
entered.
The choir now struck up their half-unearthly chant (a music so
strangely shrill and clear, that I scarce know whether the sensation
is pleasure or pain), the Pope was led from his throne to his sedan,
and his mitre changed for a richly jewelled crown, the bearers lifted
their burden, the guard presented arms, the cardinals summoned their
officious servants to unrobe, and the crowd poured out as it came.
This ceremony, I found upon inquiry, is performed every year, _on the
day of the annunciation_--just nine months before Christmas, and is
intended to commemorate the incarnation of our Saviour.
* * * * *
As I was returning from a twilight stroll upon the Pincian hill this
evening, the bells of the convent of Santa Trinita rung to vespers. I
had heard of the singing of the nuns in the service at the convent
chapel, but the misbehavior of a party of English had excluded
foreigners, of late, and it was thought impossible to get admittance.
I mounted the steps, however, and rung at the door. It was opened by a
pale nun, of thirty, who hesitated a moment, and let me pass. In a
small, plain chapel within, the service of the altar was just
commencing, and, before I reached a seat, a low plaintive chant
commenced, in female voices from the choir. It went on with occasional
interruptions from the prayers, for perhaps an hour. I can not
describe the excessive mournfulness of the music. One or two familiar
hymns occurred in the course of it, like airs in a recitative, the
same sung in our churches, but the effect was totally different. The
neat, white caps of the nuns were just visible over the railing before
the organ, and, as I looked up at them and listened to their
melancholy notes, they seemed, to me, mourning over their exclusion
from the world. The small white cloud from the censer mounted to the
ceiling, and creeping away through the arches, hung over the organ
till it was lost to the eye in the dimness of the twilight. It was
easy, under the influence of their delightful music, to imagine within
it the wings of that tranquilizing resignation, one would think so
necessary to keep down the heart in these lonely cloisters.
* * * * *
The most considerable ruins of ancient Rome are those of the _Baths_.
The Emperors Titus, Caracalla, Nero, and Agrippa, constructed these
immense places of luxury, and the remains of them are among the most
interesting and beautiful relics to be found in the world. It is
possible that my readers have as imperfect an idea of the extent of a
Roman bath as I have had, and I may as well quote from the information
given by writers on antiquities. "They were open every day, to both
sexes. In each of the great baths, there were sixteen hundred seats of
marble, for the convenience of the bathers, and three thousand two
hundred persons could bathe at the same time. There were splendid
porticoes in front for promenade, arcades with shops, in which was
found every kind of luxury for the bath, and halls for corporeal
exercises, and for the discussion of philosophy; and here the poets
read their productions and rhetoricians harangued, and sculptors and
painters exhibited their works to the public. The baths were
distributed into grand halls, with ceilings enormously high and
painted with admirable frescoes, supported on columns of the rarest
marble, and the basins were of oriental alabaster, porphyry, and
jasper. There were in the centre vast reservoirs, for the swimmers,
and crowds of slaves to attend gratuitously upon all who should come."
The baths of Diocletian (which I visited to-day), covered an enormous
space. They occupied seven years in building, and were the work of
_forty thousand Christian slaves, two thirds of whom died of fatigue
and misery_! Mounting one of the seven hills of Rome, we come to some
half-ruined arches, of enormous size, extending a long distance, in
the sides of which were built two modern churches. One was the work of
Michael Angelo, and one of his happiest efforts. He has turned two of
the ancient halls into a magnificent church, in the shape of a Greek
cross, leaving in their places eight gigantic columns of granite.
After St. Peter's it is the most imposing church in Rome.
We drove thence to the baths of Titus, passing the site of the
ancient gardens of Mecaenas, in which still stands the tower from which
Nero beheld the conflagration of Rome. The houses of Horace and Virgil
communicated with this garden, but they are now undistinguishable. We
turned up from the Coliseum to the left, and entered a gate leading to
the baths of Titus. Five or six immense arches presented their front
to us, in a state of picturesque ruin. We took a guide, and a long
pole, with a lamp at the extremity, and descended to the subterranean
halls, to see the still inimitable frescoes upon the ceilings. Passing
through vast apartments, to the ruined walls of which still clung,
here and there, pieces of the finely-colored stucco of the ancients,
we entered a suite of long galleries, some forty feet high, the arched
roofs of which were painted with the most exquisite art, in a kind of
fanciful border-work, enclosing figures and landscapes, in as bright
colors as if done yesterday. Farther on was the niche in which was
found the famous group of Laocoon, in a room belonging to a
subterranean palace of the emperor, communicating with the baths. The
Belvedere Meleager was also found here. The imagination loses itself
in attempting to conceive the splendor of these under-ground palaces,
blazing with artificial light, ornamented with works of art, never
equalled, and furnished with all the luxury which an emperor of Rome,
in the days when the wealth of the world flowed into her treasury,
could command for his pleasure. How short life must have seemed to
them, and what a tenfold curse became death and the common ills of
existence, interrupting or taking away pleasures so varied and
inexhaustible.
These baths were built in the last great days of Rome, and one reads
the last stages of national corruption and, perhaps, the secret of her
fall, in the character of these ornamented walls. They breathe the
very spirit of voluptuousness. Naked female figures fill every
plafond, and fauns and satyrs, with the most licentious passions in
their faces, support the festoons and hold together the intricate
ornament of the frescoes. The statues, the pictures, the object of the
place itself, inspired the wish for indulgence, and the history of the
private lives of the emperors and wealthier Romans shows the effect in
its deepest colors.
We went on to the baths of Caracalla, the largest ruins of Rome. They
are just below the palaces of the Cesars, and ten minutes' walk from
the Coliseum. It is one labyrinth of gigantic arches and ruined halls,
the ivy growing and clinging wherever it can fasten its root, and the
whole as fine a picture of decay as imagination could create. This was
the favorite haunt of Shelley, and here he wrote his fine tragedy of
Prometheus. He could not have selected a more fitting spot for
solitary thought. A herd of goats were climbing over one of the walls,
and the idle boy who tended them lay asleep in the sun, and every
footstep echoed loud through the place. We passed two or three hours
rambling about, and regained the populous streets of Rome in the last
light of the sunset.
LETTER LVII.
SUMMER WEATHER IN MARCH--BATHS OF CARACALLA--BEGINNING OF THE
APPIAN WAY--TOMB OF THE SCIPIOS--CATACOMBS--CHURCH OF SAN
SEBASTIANO--YOUNG CAPUCHIN FRIAR--TOMBS OF THE EARLY CHRISTIAN
MARTYRS--CHAMBER WHERE THE APOSTLES WORSHIPPED--TOMB OF
CECILIA METELLA--THE CAMPAGNA--CIRCUS OF CARACALLA OR
ROMULUS--TEMPLE DEDICATED TO RIDICULE--KEATS'S GRAVE--FOUNTAIN
OF EGERIA--THE WOOD WHERE NUMA MET THE NYMPH--HOLY WEEK.
The last days of March have come, clothed in sunshine and summer. The
grass is tall in the Campagna, the fruit-trees are in blossom, the
roses and myrtles are in full flower, the shrubs are in full leaf, the
whole country about breathes of June. We left Rome this morning on an
excursion to the "Fountain of Egeria." A more heavenly day never
broke. The gigantic baths of Caracalla turned us aside once more, and
we stopped for an hour in the shade of their romantic arches, admiring
the works, while we execrated the character of their ferocious
builder.
This is the beginning of the ancient Appian Way, and, a little
farther on, sunk in the side of a hill near the road, is the beautiful
doric tomb of the Scipios. We alighted at the antique gate, a kind of
portico, with seats of stone beneath, and reading the inscription,
"_Sepulchro degli Scipioni_" mounted by ruined steps to the tomb. A
boy came out from the house, in the vineyard above, with candles, to
show us the interior, but, having no curiosity to see the damp cave
from which the sarcophagi have been removed (to the museum), we sat
down upon a bank of grass opposite the chaste facade, and recalled to
memory the early-learnt history of the family once entombed within.
The edifice (for it is more like a temple to a river-nymph or a dryad
than a tomb) was built by an ancestor of the great Scipio Africanus,
and here was deposited the noble dust of his children. One feels, in
these places, as if the improvisatore's inspiration was about him--the
fancy draws, in such vivid colors, the scenes that have passed where
he is standing. The bringing of the dead body of the conqueror of
Africa from Rome, the passing of the funeral train beneath the
portico, the noble mourners, the crowd of people, the eulogy of
perhaps some poet or orator, whose name has descended to us--the air
seems to speak, and the gray stones of the monument against which the
mourners of the Scipios have leaned, seem to have had life and
thought, like the ashes they have sheltered.
We drove on to the _Catacombs_. Here, the legend says, St. Sebastian
was martyred and the modern church of St. Sebastiano stands over the
spot. We entered the church, where we found a very handsome young
capuchin friar, with his brown cowl and the white cord about his
waist, who offered to conduct us to the catacombs. He took three
wax-lights from the sacristy, and we entered a side door, behind the
tomb of the saint, and commenced a descent of a long flight of stone
steps. We reached the bottom and found ourselves upon damp ground,
following a narrow passage, so low that I was compelled constantly to
stoop, in the sides of which were numerous small niches of the size of
a human body. These were the tombs of the early Christian martyrs. We
saw near a hundred of them. They were brought from Rome, the scene of
their sufferings, and buried in these secret catacombs by the small
church of, perhaps, the immediate converts of St. Paul and the
apostles. What food for thought is here, for one who finds more
interest in the humble traces of the personal followers of Christ, who
knew his face and had heard his voice, to all the splendid ruins of
the works of the persecuting emperors of his time! Most of the bones
have been taken from their places, and are preserved at the museum, or
enclosed in the rich sarcophagi raised to the memory of the martyrs in
the Catholic churches. Of those that are left we saw one. The niche
was closed by a thin slab of marble, through a crack of which the monk
put his slender candle. We saw the skeleton as it had fallen from the
flesh in decay, untouched, perhaps, since the time of Christ.
We crossed through several cross-passages, and came to a small
chamber, excavated simply in the earth, with an earthern altar, and an
antique marble cross above. This was the scene of the forbidden
worship of the early Christians, and before this very cross, which
was, perhaps, then newly selected as the emblem of their faith, met
the few dismayed followers of Christ, hidden from their persecutors,
while they breathed their forbidden prayers to their lately crucified
Master.
We reascended to the light of day by the rough stone steps, worn deep
by the feet of those who, for ages, for so many different reasons,
have passed up and down; and, taking leave of our capuchin conductor,
drove on to the next object upon the road--the _tomb of Cecilia
Metella_. It stands upon a slight elevation, in the Appian Way, a
"stern round tower," with the ivy dropping over its turrets and waving
from the embrasures, looking more like a castle than a tomb. Here was
buried "the wealthiest Roman's wife," or, according to Corinne, his
unmarried daughter. It was turned into a fortress by the marauding
nobles of the thirteenth century, who sallied from this and the tomb
of Adrian, plundering the ill-defended subjects of Pope Innocent IV.
till they were taken and hanged from the walls by Brancaleone, the
Roman senator. It is built with prodigious strength. We stooped in
passing under the low archway, and emerged into the round chamber
within, a lofty room, open to the sky, in the circular wall of which
there is a niche for a single body. Nothing could exceed the delicacy
and fancy with which Childe Harold muses on this spot.
The lofty turrets command a wide view of the Campagna, the long
aqueducts stretching past at a short distance, and forming a chain of
noble arches from Rome to the mountains of Albano. Cole's picture of
the Roman Campagna, as seen from one of these elevations, is, I think,
one of the finest landscapes ever painted.
Just below the tomb of Metella, in a flat valley, lie the extensive
ruins of what is called the "circus of Caracalla" by some, and the
"circus of Romulus" by others--a scarcely distinguishable heap of
walls and marble, half buried in the earth and moss; and not far off
stands a beautiful ruin of a small temple dedicated (as some say) to
_Ridicule_. One smiles to look at it. If the embodying of that which
is powerful, however, should make a deity, the dedication of a temple
to _ridicule_ is far from amiss. In our age particularly, one would
think, the lamp should be relit, and the reviewers should repair the
temple. Poor Keats sleeps in his grave scarce a mile from the spot, a
human victim sacrificed, not long ago, upon its highest altar.
In the same valley almost hidden with the luxuriant ivy waving before
the entrance, flows the lovely _Fountain of Egeria_, trickling as
clear and musical into its pebbly bed as when visited by the enamored
successor of Romulus twenty-five centuries ago! The hill above leans
upon the single arch of the small temple which embosoms it, and the
green soft meadow spreads away from the floor, with the brightest
verdure conceivable. We wound around by a half-worn path in descending
the hill, and, putting aside the long branches of ivy, entered an
antique chamber, sprinkled with quivering spots of sunshine, at the
extremity of which, upon a kind of altar, lay the broken and defaced
statue of the nymph. The fountain poured from beneath in two streams
as clear as crystal. In the sides of the temple were six empty niches,
through one of which stole, from a cleft in the wall, a little stream,
which wandered from its way. Flowers, pale with growing in the shade,
sprang from the edges of the rivulet as it found its way out, the
small creepers, dripping with moisture, hung out from between the
diamond-shaped stones of the roof, the air was refreshingly cool, and
the leafy door at the entrance, seen against the sky, looked of a
transparent green, as vivid as emerald. No fancy could create a
sweeter spot. The fountain and the inspiration it breathed into Childe
Harold are worthy of each other.
Just above the fountain, on the crest of a hill, stands a thick grove,
supposed to occupy the place of the consecrated wood, in which Numa
met the nymph. It is dark with shadow, and full of birds, and might
afford a fitting retreat for meditation to another king and lawgiver.
The fields about it are so thickly studded with flowers, that you
cannot step without crushing them, and the whole neighborhood seems a
favorite of nature. The rich banker, Torlonia, has bought this and
several other classic spots about Rome--possessions for which he is
more to be envied than for his purchased dukedom.
All the travelling world assembles at Rome for the ceremonies of the
holy week. Naples, Florence, and Pisa, send their hundreds of annual
visitors, and the hotels and palaces are crowded with strangers of
every nation and rank. It would be difficult to imagine a gayer or
busier place than this usually sombre city has become within a few
days.
LETTER LVIII.
PALM SUNDAY--SISTINE CHAPEL--ENTRANCE OF THE POPE--THE
CHOIR--THE POPE ON HIS THRONE--PRESENTING THE
PALMS--PROCESSION--BISHOP ENGLAND'S LECTURE--HOLY TUESDAY--THE
MISERERE--ACCIDENTS IN THE CROWD--TENEBRAE--THE EMBLEMATIC
CANDLES--HOLY THURSDAY--FRESCOES OF MICHAEL ANGELO--"CREATION
OF EVE"--"LOT INTOXICATED"--DELPHIC SYBIL--POPE WASHING
PILGRIMS' FEET--STRIKING RESEMBLANCE OF ONE TO JUDAS--POPE AND
CARDINALS WAITING UPON PILGRIMS AT DINNER.
Palm Sunday opens the ceremonies. We drove to the Vatican this
morning, at nine, and, after waiting a half hour in the crush, kept
back, at the point of the spear, by the Pope's Swiss guard, I
succeeded in getting an entrance into the Sistine chapel. Leaving the
ladies of the party behind the grate, I passed two more guards, and
obtained a seat among the cowled and bearded dignitaries of the church
and state within, where I could observe the ceremony with ease.
The Pope entered, borne in his gilded chair by twelve men, and, at the
same moment, the chanting from the Sistine choir commenced with one
long, piercing note, by a single voice, producing the most impressive
effect. He mounted his throne as high as the altar opposite him, and
the cardinals went through their obeisances, one by one, their trains
supported by their servants, who knelt on the lower steps behind them.
The palms stood in a tall heap beside the altar. They were beautifully
woven in wands of perhaps six feet in length, with a cross at the top.
The cardinal nearest the papal chair mounted first, and a palm was
handed him. He laid it across the knees of the Pope, and, as his
holiness signed the cross upon it, he stooped, and kissed the
embroidered cross upon his foot, then kissed the palm, and taking it
in his two hands, descended with it to his seat. The other forty or
fifty cardinals did the same, until each was provided with a palm.
Some twenty other persons, monks of apparent clerical rank of every
order, military men, and members of the Catholic embassies, followed
and took palms. A procession was then formed, the cardinals going
first with their palms held before them, and the Pope following, in
his chair, with a small frame of palmwork in his hands, in which was
woven the initial of the Virgin. They passed out of the Sistine
chapel, the choir chanting most delightfully, and, having made a tour
around the vestibule, returned in the same order.
The ceremony is intended to represent the entrance of the Saviour into
Jerusalem. Bishop England, of Charleston, South Carolina, delivered a
lecture at the house of the English cardinal Weld, a day or two ago,
explanatory of the ceremonies of the Holy week. It was principally an
apology for them. He confessed that, to the educated, they appeared
empty, and even absurd rites, but they were intended not for the
refined, but the vulgar, whom it was necessary to instruct and impress
through their outward senses. As nearly all these rites, however,
take place in the Sistine chapel, which no person is permitted to
enter who is not furnished with a ticket, and in full dress, his
argument rather fell to the ground.
With all the vast crowd of strangers in Rome, I went to the Sistine
chapel on _Holy Tuesday_, to hear the far-famed _Miserere_. It is sung
several times during the holy week, by the Pope's choir, and has been
described by travellers, of all nations, in the most rapturous terms.
The vestibule was a scene of shocking confusion, for an hour, a
constant struggle going on between the crowd and the Swiss guard,
amounting occasionally to a fight, in which ladies fainted, children
screamed, men swore, and, unless by force of contrast, the minds of
the audience seemed likely to be little in tune for the music. The
chamberlains at last arrived, and two thousand people attempted to get
into a small chapel which scarce holds four hundred. Coat-skirts, torn
cassocks, hats, gloves, and fragments of ladies' dresses, were thrown
up by the suffocating throng, and, in the midst of a confusion beyond
description, the mournful notes of the _tenebrae_ (or lamentations of
Jeremiah) poured in full volume from the choir. Thirteen candles
burned in a small pyramid within the paling of the altar, and twelve
of these, representing the apostles, were extinguished, one by one (to
signify their desertion at the cross), during the singing of the
_tenebrae_. The last, which was left burning, represented the mother of
Christ. As the last before this was extinguished, the music ceased.
The crowd had, by this time, become quiet. The twilight had deepened
through the dimly-lit chapel, and the one solitary lamp looked lost at
the distance of the altar. Suddenly the _miserere_ commenced with one
high prolonged note, that sounded like a wail; another joined it, and
another and another, and all the different parts came in, with a
gradual swell of plaintive and most thrilling harmony, to the full
power of the choir. It continued for perhaps half an hour. The music
was simple, running upon a few notes, like a dirge, but there were
voices in the choir that seemed of a really supernatural sweetness. No
instrument could be so clear. The crowd, even in their uncomfortable
positions, were breathless with attention, and the effect was
universal. It is really extraordinary music, and if but half the rites
of the Catholic church had its power over the mind, a visit to Rome
would have quite another influence.
The candles were lit, and the motley troop of cardinals and red-legged
servitors passed out. The harlequin-looking Swiss guard stood to their
tall halberds, the chamberlains and mace-bearers, in their cassock and
frills, took care that the males and females should not mix until they
reached the door, the Pope disappeared in the sacristy, and the gay
world, kept an hour beyond their time, went home to cold dinners.
* * * * *
The ceremonies of _Holy Thursday_ commenced with the mass in the
Sistine chapel. Tired of seeing genuflections, and listening to a
mumbling of which I could not catch a syllable, I took advantage of my
privileged seat, in the Ambassador's box, to lean back and study the
celebrated frescoes of Michael Angelo upon the ceiling. A little
drapery would do no harm to any of them. They illustrate, mainly,
passages of scripture history, but the "creation of Eve," in the
centre, is an astonishingly fine representation of a naked man and
woman, as large as life; and "Lot intoxicated and exposed before his
two daughters," is about as immodest a picture, from its admirable
expression as well as its nudity, as could easily be drawn. In one
corner there is a most beautiful draped figure of the _Delphic
Sybil_--and I think this bit of heathenism is almost the only very
decent part of the Pope's most consecrated chapel.
After the mass, the host was carried, with a showy procession, to be
deposited among the thousand lamps in the Capella Paolina, and, as
soon as it had passed, there was a general rush for the room in which
the Pope was to _wash the feet of the pilgrims_.