any fixed purpose of exchanging his profession of the law for art. He
loved literature, and his grace and ease in expression had already
manifested his literary talent; he had an inclination toward
modelling--it could hardly, at this time, have been called by a stronger
name--and curiously enough with him the usual conditions were reversed
and he received a commission for a statue of his father, Judge Story,
before he had made any definite turning toward the art of sculpture. A
young man of versatile gifts and accomplished scholarship, sculpture was
to him one among the many attractive forms of art rather than the
supreme attraction; and it was the stimulus of the given work that
determined him as a sculptor, rather than his determination to be a
sculptor that determined the work. Among the goddesses of life Destiny
must, perhaps, be allowed a place. At all events, after Mr. Story's
initial glance at Italy, he sought Rome again a year later, and this
time it was his choice for life, however unrevealed to his eye were the
resplendent years that lay before him. He had fallen under the spell of
the Magic Land. In a letter to Lowell, Mr. Story had questioned how he
should ever endure again "the restraint and bondage of Boston." It was
the picturesque Rome of the Popes that he first knew. The years of
1848-49 were those of revolutionary activities in Italy. Pio Nono, one
of the most saintly and beloved of the Popes,--whose mortal form now
rests in that richly decorated chapel in old San Lorenzo, _fuori le
mura_, on the site of the church that Constantine founded on the burial
place of St. Lawrence,--made his flight to Gaeta and the Roman republic
was established. It was a dramatic scene when Pio Nono returned (April
12, 1850), entering Rome by the Porta San Giovanni. The scene from this
gate was then, as now, one of the most impressive in the Eternal City.
It was in this vast Basilica of San Giovanni Laterano that Pio Nono
entered that April day, leaving his carriage and walking alone to the
altar, where he knelt in devotion. A splendid procession awaited without
to accompany the Holy Father to the Papal Palace. The superb state
carriages conveyed princes and foreign ambassadors and great nobles.
From the Piazza San Giovanni to St. Peter's every house was illuminated,
and the populace cheered and waved until the very air vibrated with
sound and color. These were the days when the methods of government were
a visible spectacle, a drama, making the life in Rome a daily
illuminated missal.
The Storys, on their return to Italy, located themselves for a time in
Florence, where they met the Brownings, and that lifelong friendship
between the poet and the sculptor was initiated. In these happy
Florentine days Mr. Story worked in his studio while his wife read to
him the life of Keats, then just issued, written by Monckton Milnes,
later Lord Houghton. But the "flowing conditions" soon bore them onward
to Rome, where they settled themselves in the Via Porta Pinciana, and
met the Crawfords, who were domiciled in the Villa Negroni. In these
Roman days, too, appeared Mr. Cropsey, of poetic landscape fame, and
here, too, was Margaret Fuller. Mazzini was then a leading figure in the
Chamber of Deputies,--"the prophet not only of modern Italy, but of the
modern world." He found Italy "utilitarian and materialistic, permeated
by French ideas, and weakened by her reliance on French initiative. He
was filled with hope that Italy might not only achieve her own unity,
but might once more accomplish, as she had in the Rome of the Caesars and
the Rome of the Church, the unity of the Western world. 'On my side I
believe,' he says, 'that the great problem of the day was a religious
problem, to which all other questions were but secondary.'" He was
asserting that "we cannot relate ourselves to the Divine, but through
collective humanity. It is not by isolated duty (which indeed the
conditions of modern life render more and more impossible), nor by
contemplation of mere Power as displayed in the material world, that we
can develop our nature. It is rather by mingling with the universal
life, and by carrying on the evolution of the never-ending work."
The studios of Mr. Crawford in those days were in the Piazza delle
Terme, near the Baths of Diocletian. William Page, the painter, was
domiciled on the slope of the Quirinal where he painted a portrait of
Charlotte Cushman which Mrs. Browning described as "a miracle"; one of
Mrs. Crawford; the head of Mrs. Story, which he insisted upon presenting
to her husband; and a magnificent portrait of Browning which the artist
presented to Mrs. Browning. "Both of us," wrote Robert Browning of this
gift, "would have fain escaped being the subjects of such princely
generosity; but there was no withstanding his delicacy and
noble-mindedness." Mrs. Jameson was much in Rome in the early years of
the 1850-60 decade, living in the old port by the Tiber nearly opposite
to the new and splendid building of the law courts. Near the Tarpeian
Rock Frederika Bremer had perched, in a tiny room of which she took all
the frugal care, even to washing the blue cups and plates when she
invited the Hawthornes to a tea of a simplicity that suggested, indeed,
the utmost degree of "light" housekeeping. Thomas Buchanan Read was one
of the hosts and guests of this social group, and it was at a dinner he
gave that Hawthorne met Gibson, whose conversational talents were
evidently (upon that occasion) chiefly employed in contemning the
pre-Raphaelite school of painters and emphasizing the need of sculptors
to discover and to follow the principles of the Greeks,--"a fair
doctrine, but one which Mr. Gibson fails to practise," observes
Hawthorne. The Brownings were variously bestowed in Rome through
succeeding winters,--in the Bocca di Leone, in the Via del Tritone and
elsewhere. Mrs. Browning, as her "Casa Guida Windows" and many other
poems attest, took always the deepest interest in Italian politics.
American and English friends come and go, but the little group of
residents and the more permanent sojourners, as the Hawthornes and the
Brownings, continue their daily variations on life in the social dinners
and teas, the excursions and the sight-seeing of the wonderful city.
Only the magician could "call up the vanished past again" and summon
into an undeniable materialization those charming figures to come forth
out of the shadowy air of the rich, historic past, and stand before us
in the full light of contemporary attention. Not alone this group of
choice persons, but the environment of their time, the very atmosphere,
are demanded of this necromancy. The figure of Adelaide Kemble (Mrs.
Sartoris) is one of these, and the tradition still survives of a concert
given in the splendid, spacious hall of the Palazzo Colonna where she
was the prima donna of the occasion. There were also musicals at the
house of Mrs. Sartoris, where the guests met her famous sister, Fanny
Kemble. Mrs. Browning was fond of both the sisters, and said of them
that their social brilliancy was their least distinction. She found
them both "noble and sympathetic," and her "dear Mr. Page" and "Hatty"
(Miss Hosmer) "an immense favorite with us both," she said of her
husband and herself; these and the Storys made up the special circle for
the Brownings in Rome. "The Sartoris house has the best society in
Rome," writes Mrs. Browning to Miss Mitford, "and exquisite music, of
course. We met Lockhart there and my husband sees a good deal of him....
A little society," she says, "is good for soul and body, and on the
Continent it is easy to get a handful of society without paying too dear
for it. This is an advantage of Continental life."
Mrs. Browning greatly admired the work of Mr. Page, whose portraits she
found "like Titian's." But the tinted statues of Gibson seemed to her
inartistic. His famous painted Venus she called "pretty," but only as a
wax doll might be, not as a work of genuine art. Then Thackeray and his
two daughters came; Miss Anne (now known to the world of literature as
Anne Thackeray Ritchie) was a special favorite with Mrs. Browning.
Coming to Rome at one time from Florence in midwinter, the Brownings
found that the Storys had taken an apartment for them (in the Via Bocca
di Leone), and they arrived to find lighted fires and lamps. Their
journey had included a week's visit at Assisi, studying the rich art of
Cimabue and Giotto in the church of the great Franciscan monastery. Mrs.
Browning visited studios in Rome and found that of Mr. Crawford more
interesting to her than Mr. Gibson's, but no artist is "as near" to her,
as she herself says, as Mr. Page. The Storys left the Porta Pinciana to
live at No. 93 in the Piazza di Spagna, and in the same house with the
Brownings, in the Bocca di Leone, Mr. Page had his apartment. To Lowell,
Mr. Story wrote of the Brownings:--
"The Brownings and we became great friends in Florence, and, of
course, we could not become friends without liking each other. He,
Emelyn says, is like you. He is of my size, but slighter, with
straight black hair, small eyes, a smooth face, and manner nervous
and rapid. He has great vivacity, but not the least humor; some
sarcasm, considerable critical faculty, and very great frankness
and friendliness of manner and mind. Mrs. Browning will sit buried
up in a large easy-chair listening and talking very quietly and
pleasantly. Very unaffected is she.... I have hundreds of statues
in my head, but they are in the future tense. Powers I knew very
well in Florence. He is a man of great mechanical talent and
natural strength of perception, but with no poetry in his
composition, and I think no creative power.... I have been to hear
Allegri's 'Miserere' in the Sistine Chapel, with the awful and
mighty figures of Michael Angelo looking down from the ceiling; to
hear Guglielmi's 'Miserere' in St. Peter's, while the gloom of
evening was gathering in the lofty aisles and shrouding the
frescoed domes, was a deeply affecting and solemnly beautiful
experience. Never can one forget the plaintive wailing of the
voices that seemed to implore pity and pardon."
It was in 1856 that the Storys located themselves in Palazzo Barberini,
which Bernini designed and which was built "out of the quarry of the
Coliseum" by Urban VIII. It is one of the wonderful old palaces of
Rome,--this mass of Barberini courts, gardens, terraces, and vast
apartments, with the interminable winding stairs, where on one landing
Thorwaldsen's lion lies before the great doors decorated with the arms
of Popes and princes. Here the old Cardinal Barberini lived his stormy
life; here are the gallery and the library,--the latter stored with
infinite treasures of ancient documents, old maps whose portrayal of the
earth bears little resemblance to the present, and famous manuscripts
and volumes in old vellum, some fifty thousand in all. In the Barberini
gallery are a few noted works,--Raphael's "Fornarina," Guido's "Beatrice
Cenci," a "Holy Family" by Andrea del Sarto, and others.
[Illustration: SPANISH STEPS, PIAZZA TRINITA DEI MONTI, ROME
_Page 72_]
The Via delle Quattro Fontane, on which the Palazzo Barberini stands,
might well be known as the street of the wonderful vista. One strolls
down it to the Via Sistina and to Piazza Trinita de' Monti at the head
of the Spanish steps (the Scala di Spagna), pausing for the loveliness
of the view. Across the city rises the opposite height of Monte Mario,
and to the left the Janiculum, now crowned with the magnificent
equestrian statue of Garibaldi, which is in evidence from almost every
part of Rome. As far as the eye can see the Campagna stretches away,
infinite as the sea--a very Campagna Mystica. The luminous air, the
faint, misty blue of the distance, the deep purple shadows on the hills,
make up a landscape of color. At the foot of the Spanish steps the
flower venders spread out their wares,--great bunches of the
flame-colored roses peculiar to Italy, the fragrant white hyacinths,
golden jonquils, baskets of violets, and masses of lilies of the valley.
On many a night of brilliant moonlit glory the artistic sojourners in
Rome lingered on the parapet of the Pincian Hill watching the moonlight
flood the Eternal City until churches and palaces seemed to swim in a
sea of silver. Or in the morning, when the rose-red of dawn was aglow,
there seemed to hover over the city that wraith of mist whose secret
Claude Lorraine surprises in his landscapes. These dawn visions of
mysterious, incredible beauty are a part of the very identity of Rome.
There were mornings when the Hawthornes with Mrs. Jameson or some other
friend would drive out to the old San Lorenzo (_fuori le mura_), the
church founded by Constantine in 330 on the site where the body of St.
Lawrence was buried. At various periods the church was enlarged and
finally, as recently as in 1864, Pio Nono had great improvements made
under the architect Vespignani. In the piazza in front was placed an
immense column of red granite, some sixty feet high, with the statue of
St. Lawrence, a standing figure, at the top. It is most impressive. The
colonnade at the entrance of the church is decorated with frescoes and
contains two immense sarcophagi, whose sides are beautifully sculptured
with reliefs. The roof is supported by six Ionic columns. Entering the
church one finds an interior of three aisles divided by colossal columns
of Oriental granite. In the middle aisle, on both sides the galleries,
are fresco paintings illustrating the martyrdom of St. Lawrence and of
St. Stephen, one series on the right and the other on the left. One of
these paintings, especially, of the life of St. Lawrence, is strangely
haunting to the imagination. It represents the youthful, slender figure,
nude, save for slight drapery, laid on the gridiron while the fire is
being kindled under it and the fagots shovelled in. The physical
shrinking of the flesh--of every nerve--from the torture, the spiritual
strength and invincible energy of the countenance, are wonderfully
depicted. The great aisle was painted by order of Pius IX by Cesare
Fracassini; in it are two pulpits of marble. A double staircase of
marble conducts to that part of the Basilica of Constantine which by
Honorius III was converted into the presbytery. It is decorated at the
upper end by twelve columns of violet marble which rise from the level
of the primitive basilica beneath. At the end is the ancient pontifical
seat, adorned with mosaic and precious marbles. The papal altar is under
a canopy in the Byzantine style. The pavement of this presbytery is
worthy of particular attention. Descending to the confessional which is
under the high altar the tomb of the martyred saints, Lawrence, Stephen,
and Justin, is found.
[Illustration: TOMB OF PIO NONO, SAN LORENZO (FUORI LE MURA), ROME
_Page 75_]
It was the request of Pio Nono that his mortal body should rest here,
where it is placed in a simple tomb, according to his own instructions;
but the chapel is very rich in decoration which was paid for by money
sent from all parts of the world.
The chapel walls are entirely encrusted in mother-of-pearl, gilt bronze,
and beautiful marbles. The mosaic paintings are formed of gold and
precious stones of fabulous value. This interior is perhaps the richest
in the world in its decoration. San Lorenzo is a patriarchal church, and
one of the seven pilgrimage churches of Rome. Near San Lorenzo is the
Campo Verano, a cemetery containing many beautiful memorial sculptures.
In those days, half a century ago, the entrance most often used by
visitors to Rome was through the Via Flaminia and the Porta del Popolo,
opening on the Piazza del Popolo, rather the most picturesque and
impressive place in all Rome. On the left is the Pincian Hill (Monte
Pincio), with its rich terraces, balustrades, its beautiful porticos
filled with statuary, its groves of cypress and ilex trees; a classic
vision rising on the sight and enchanting the imagination. On the side
opposite the Porta three roads diverge in fan shape--the Via Babuino,
the Corso, and the Ripetta, with the "twin churches" side by side; one
between the Babuino and the Corso, the other between the Corso and the
Ripetta.
The Corso (which was the ancient Flaminian Way) runs straight to the
Piazza Venezia at the foot of the Capitoline Hill. This Piazza del
Popolo was widened and decorated by Pius VII. It is formed by two
semicircles, adorned with fountains and statues, and terminated by four
symmetrical edifices. In the semicircles are colossal groups in marble,
and a road opposite the Pincio leads to the Ponte Margherita and the
Prati di Castello.
The obelisk in the centre of the piazza was brought to Rome from
Heliopolis by Caesar Augustus and originally stood in the Circus Maximus.
It was erected here by Pope Sixtus V, and it is nearly a hundred feet in
height. It is formed of red granite, and while it has been broken in
three places, the hieroglyphics are still legible. This obelisk was
first erected in Egypt as a part of the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis,
in a period preceding that of Rameses II. After the battle of Actium,
Augustus transported it to Rome, and it was first placed in the Circus
Maximus, but during the reign of Valentinian it fell from its pedestal
and lay buried in the earth, until in the sixteenth century Pope Sixtus
V had it placed in the centre of the Piazza del Popolo, and consecrated
it to the cross. The two inscriptions are on opposite sides. One thus
reads:--
"The Emperor Caesar, son of the divine Caesar Augustus, Sovereign
Pontiff, twelve times Emperor, eleven times Consul, fourteen times
Tribune, having conquered Egypt, consecrated this gift to the Sun."
The other inscription is as follows:--
"Sixtus V, Sovereign Pontiff, excavated, transported, and restored
this obelisk, sacrilegiously consecrated to the Sun by the great
Augustus, in the great Circus, where it lay in ruins, and dedicated
it to the cross triumphant in the fourth year of his pontificate."
The Church of Santa Maria del Popolo is built into the very wall of
Monte Pincio on the site of Nero's tomb. It dates back to 1099, and
consists of three naves and several chapels. In the first chapel is a
"Nativity" by Pinturicchio, who also painted the lunettes. Another
chapel belongs to the Cibo family, and is rich in marbles and adorned
with sixteen columns of Sicilian jasper. The "Conception" is by Maratta,
the "Martyrdom of St. Lawrence" by Morandi, and the "St. Catherine" by
Volterra. The "Visitation" was sculptured by Bernini in 1679. The third
chapel is painted by Pinturicchio (1513), and the fourth has an
interesting bas-relief of the fifteenth century. The picture of the
Virgin, on the high altar, is one of those attributed to St. Luke; the
paintings on the vault of the choir are by Pinturicchio. The two marble
monuments are, from their perfection of design and execution, reckoned
among the best modern works. They are by Cantucci da S. Savino. In the
chapel following is an "Assumption" by Annibale Carracci; the side
pictures are by Caravaggio. The last chapel but one in the small nave is
the Chigi chapel, and is one of the most celebrated in Rome.
Raphael gave the designs for the dome, the paintings of the frieze, and
the altar picture. This latter was begun by Del Piombo and finished by
Salviati. The statue of Daniel is by Bernini. The front of the altar and
the statues of Jonah and Elijah were done by Lorenzetto (1541), from
designs by Raphael. Outside this chapel is the monument of Princess
Odescalchi Chigi (1771), by Paolo Posi. The stained windows of the choir
belong to the fourteenth century, and in the sacristy and the vestibule
are monuments also of the fourteenth century and of the fifteenth.
Luther resided in the convent attached to this church when he was in
Rome.
There is a legend that a large walnut tree grew on the site of Nero's
tomb in whose branches innumerable crows had their home, and that they
devastated all that part of Rome. An appeal was made to the Virgin, who
declared that the crows were demons who kept watch over the ashes of
Nero, and ordered the tree to be cut down and burned, the ashes being
scattered to the air, and that, on the spot, a church should be built to
her honor. This was accomplished, and the crows no more troubled the
Eternal City.
The gardens of Lucullus were on the Monte Pincio. The view of the
terraced hillside from the Piazza del Popolo is one of the most
impressive in Rome.
The Hawthornes left Rome in 1859; and the death of Mrs. Browning in June
of 1861 left the little circle of the Roman winters irreparably broken.
"Returning to Rome," wrote Story to Charles Eliot Norton, "I have not
one single intimate ... no one with whom I can walk any of the higher
ranges of art and philosophy." Mr. Story had modelled the busts of both
Mr. and Mrs. Browning during their sojourns in Rome; in 1853 Harriet
Hosmer had made the cast of the "clasped hands" of the poets, the model
having since been cast in bronze; Mr. Page had, as already noted,
painted a portrait of Robert Browning; and Mr. Leighton (afterward Sir
Frederick) had made a beautiful portrait sketch of Mrs. Browning. In
later years all these memorials, with other paintings or plastic
sketches of the wedded poets, were grouped in Mr. Barrett Browning's
palace in Venice.
At this time Mr. Story had completed his "Cleopatra," which Hawthorne
had embalmed in literary mention in "The Marble Faun;" and beside his
"Judith," "Sappho," and other lesser works, he had achieved one of his
finest successes in the "Libyan Sibyl." Both the "Cleopatra" and the
"Sibyl" became famous. Whether they would produce so strong an effect at
the present stage of twentieth-century life is a problem, but one that
need not press for solution. Mr. Story was singularly fortunate in
certain conditions that grouped themselves about his life and combined
to establish his fame. These conditions, of course, were largely the
outer reflection of inner qualities, as our conditions are apt to be;
still, the "lack of favoring gales" not infrequently foredooms some
gallant bark to a disastrous course.
"Man is his own star....
* * * * *
Our acts, our angels, are, for good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still,"
it is true; yet has not Edith Thomas embodied something of that
overruling destiny that every thoughtful observer must discern in life
in these lines?--
"You may blame the wind or no,
But it ever hath been so--
Something bravest of its kind
Leads a frustrate life and blind,
For the lack of favoring gales
Blowing blithe on other sails."
Only occasionally have we
"... the time, and the place,
And the loved one all together."