ceremonials of balls at the court of the Quirinale, in ducal palaces, or
at the embassies; of dinners whose every detail suggests stage pictures
in their magnificence, to the simple afternoon tea, where conversation
and music enchant the hours; the morning call _en tete-a-tete_, and the
morning stroll, or the late afternoon drive,--a season in Rome
prefigures itself, by the necromancy of retrospective vision, as a
resplendent panorama of pictorial scenes. There rise before one those
mornings, all gold and azure, of loitering over the stone parapet on
Monte Pincio, gazing down on the city in her most alluring mood. The
new bridge that is to connect the Pincio with the Villa Borghese is a
picturesque feature in its unfinished state; but the vision traverses
the deep ravine and revels in the scene of the Borghese grounds carpeted
with flowers. Its picturesque slopes under the great trees, with a view
of Michael Angelo's dome in the near distance, are the resort of morning
strollers, who find that lovely picture of Charles Walter Stetson's--a
stretch of landscape under the ilex trees, the scarlet gowns of the
divinity students giving vivid accents of color here and there--fairly
reproduced in nature before their vision. One should never be in haste
as the bewildering beauty of the Roman spring weaves its emerald
fantasies on grass and trees, and touches into magical bloom the scarlet
poppies that flame over all the meadows, and caress roses and hyacinths
and lilies of the valley into delicate bloom and floating fragrance
until the Eternal City is no more Rome, but Arcady, instead--one should
never be in haste to toss his penny into the _Fontane de Trevi_. Yet in
another way it may work for him an immediate spell that defies all other
necromancy. Judiciously thrown in, on the very eve of departure, it is
the conjurer that insures his return; but at any time prior to this it
may even weave the irresistible enchantment that falls upon him and may
prevent his leaving at all. Nor can he summon up the moral courage to
regret even the missing of all other engagements, and the failure to
keep faith with his plans. For in the May days Rome falls upon him anew,
like a revelation, and he is ready to confess that he has never seen her
who sees her not in her springtime loveliness. The Italian winter by no
means lives up to its reputation. It is not the chill of any one special
day that discourages one from any further effort to continue in this
vale of tears, but the cold that has, apparently, the chill and dampness
and cold of all those two thousand and two hundred and sixty winters
that have gone before which concentrate themselves in the atmosphere.
One could presumably endure with some degree of courage, if not
equanimity, the chill in the air of any _one_ winter; but when all the
chill and cold that has ever existed in more than the two thousand
winters of the past concentrates itself in the winter, say, of 1906-7,
why, patience ceases to be a virtue although one that the sojourner in
Rome is particularly called upon to practise if he fares forth to visit
churches and galleries in the winter.
Torrents of rain pour down, rivalling the cloud-bursts of Arizona.
Virgil's cave of the winds apparently lets loose its sharpest blasts.
Tramontana and sirocco alternate, and each is more unendurable than the
other.
The encircling mountains are white with snow. The streets are a sea of
mud, for they are paved with small stones, and except in the new Villa
Ludovisi quarter and along the Via Nazionale and a few other of the
newer thoroughfares there are no sidewalks, the foot passengers (in all
old Rome) pressing close to the wall to avoid the dangerously near
proximity of carts and cabs. This rough pavement makes all driving hard
and walking difficult. The Roman lady, indeed, does not walk; and the
visitors who cannot forego the joy of daily promenades enter into the
feelings of that nation which is said to take its pleasures sadly. But
spring works a transformation scene. The air is filled with the most
transparent shining haze; the sky lacks little of that intense, melting
blue that characterizes the ineffable beauty of the skies in Arizona;
and ruins and fragments and strange relics--ghosts of the historic
past--are all enshrined in trailing green and riotous blossoms. To drive
on the terraced roads of Monte Mario with all Rome and the emerald-green
Campagna before one; through the romantic "Lovers' Lane," walled in by
roses and myrtle; to enjoy the local life, full of gayety and
brilliancy, is to know Rome in her most gracious aspects. One goes for
strolls in the old Colonna Gardens, where still remain the ruins of the
Temple of the Sun and of the Baths of Constantine. The terraces offer
lovely views over the city. The old palace is occupied by the present
Prince Colonna, and it is not unfrequently the scene of most elaborate
and gorgeous receptions where the traditional Roman splendor is to be
found. A series of arched bridges over the narrow street of the Via
della Pilotta connect the Gardens with the Colonna Palace in the Piazza
San Apostoli. Very fine old sarcophagi are half buried in trailing vines
on the slope of the hill, dark with magnificent cypress trees. The
Colonna Gardens are a very dream of the past, in their ruins of old
temples, their shattered statues, their strange old tablets and
inscriptions, and their grand view of the Capitol.
In one's retrospective vision of a Roman season all the inconveniences
and discomforts of the winter disappear, leaving only the beauty and the
enjoyment to be "developed," as the photographer would say, on the
sensitive plate of memory.
No one really knows Rome until he has watched the transcendent
loveliness of spring investing every nook and corner of the Eternal
City. The picturesque Spanish steps are a very garden of fragrance, the
lower steps of the terraced flight being taken possession of by the
flower venders who display their wares,--masses of white lilac,
flame-colored roses, rose and purple hyacinths and baskets of violets
and carnations. Did all this fragrance and beauty send up its incense to
Keats as he lay in the house adjoining, with the musical plash of
Bernini's fountain under his window? It is pleasant to know that by the
appreciation of American and English authors, the movement effectively
directed by Robert Underwood Johnson, this house consecrated to a poet's
memory has been purchased to be a permanent memorial to Keats and to
Shelley. A library of their works will be arranged in it; and portraits,
busts, and all mementos that can be collected of these poets will render
this memorial one of the beautiful features of Rome.
From the flower venders and the circulating libraries in the Piazza di
Spagna that allure one in the morning, from the fascinating glitter of
the little Via Condotti which is, in its way, the rue de la Paix of
Rome, one leisurely climbs the steps to where the great obelisk looms up
in front of the Convent Church of the Trinita di Monti and on, across
the Piazza di Trinita, toward the Pincian, one wanders along the brow of
the hill surmounted by the low stone parapet. The view is a dream of
beauty. Over the valley lies Monte Mario, crowned with the Villa Madama,
silhouetted against the blue Roman sky; and the commanding dome of St.
Peter's, the splendid new white marble buildings of the Law Courts, the
domes of other churches, all make up a picturesque panorama, while on
the Janiculum the great equestrian statue of Garibaldi can be descried.
Strolling on, one turns into the gardens of the Villa Medici, the
French Academy of Art, in which the present director, the great Carolus
Duran, is domiciled and in which twenty-four students--of painting,
sculpture, music, and architecture--are maintained at the expense of the
French government for several years, the twenty four being chosen from
those who have given signal proof of their ability. The Villa Medici
has, perhaps, a more beautiful site than any other building in Rome.
Facing the west, with the Janiculum and Monte Mario forever before it,
while below lies the Piazza di Spagna and the Piazza del Popolo, and all
the changing splendors of the sunset sky as a perpetual picture gallery,
the situation is, indeed, magnificent. It is still conceivable, however,
that Monsieur Carolus Duran must have many quarters of an hour when he
longs for the brilliancy and the movement and the stimulus of his Paris.
The gardens of the Villa Medici are large, but they are laid out with
narrow paths bordered with box, forming a wall as impervious as if of
stone, and dark and damp by the shade of foliage. These walks are paved
with gravel, and are always damp. These formal rectangles and alleys are
utterly shut in, so that in any one part one can see only the two
dense green walls of box that inclose him and the glimpse of sky
overhead,--not precisely a cheering promenade. This is the Italian idea
of a garden. Much broken sculpture, weather-stained and defective, is
placed all along the way, and the perpetual Roman fountain is always
gushing somewhere.
[Illustration: VILLA MEDICI, ROME
_Page 134_]
Another phase of the Roman season may rise before one in the stately
beauty of any old historic palace, where the hostess, all grace and
sweetness, receives her guests in the apartment in which Galileo had
been confined when imprisoned in Rome. The approach to this _piano
nobile_ was up a flight of easily graded marble stairs, where in
frequent niches stood old statues. The large windows in the corridor on
the landing were curtained with pale yellow, thus creating a golden
light to fall on the old sculptured marbles. One salon was decorated
with Flaxman's drawings on the wall, in their classical outlines. From a
steep, dark stone stairway, down which one descended (at the imminent
risk of a broken neck in the darkness and from the irregular stairs
rudely carved in the stone), one emerged on a landing, where a little
door opened into the balcony of the chapel, a curious, gloomy place,
with tombs and altar and shrine, and some very poor old paintings. One's
progress to it recalled the lines from Poe's "Ulalume":--
"By a route, obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only."
Then, sitting in one of the richly decorated salons at afternoon tea in
this same old palace one day, while an accomplished harpist was
discoursing delicate music from its vibrating chords, flights of birds
kept passing a window, making a scene like that of a Wagner opera. The
groups present, largely of the Roman nobility, the titled aristocracy,
resembling so closely some of the old portraits in the palazzo that it
was easy to recognize that they were all one people, descendants of the
same race.
Many of the guests looked, indeed, as if they had stepped from out the
sumptuously carved frames on the wall. At these pretty festas one meets
much of the resident Roman world. The guests assembled seem to be
speaking in all the romance languages. There are Russian and Spanish as
well as Italian, French, German, and English at these alluring teas.
All the salons of the spacious apartments are thrown open, and the men
in their picturesque court dress or military costume, and the women and
girls in dainty gowns, make up an alluring scene. The salons are richly
furnished and abound in works of art, old pictures, inlaid cabinets,
carvings, rich vases, busts, and statuettes. The library, with its
wealth of books; the music room; the salon for dancing; the supper room,
and the quiet rooms where groups gather before the blazing open fires,
grateful in these lofty rooms whose temperature suggests the frozen
circles of Dante,--all make up a delightful picture. One meets the most
varying individualities. A Russian lady of title may confide her
conviction that her country is ruined, and that she never desires to
return to it. Italy is the country that attracts not only political
refugees from other European countries, but many who are out of sympathy
with conditions elsewhere and who find the cosmopolitan society and the
varied interests of this land of sunshine their most enjoyable
environment.
One pleasant feature of a Roman winter is that of the usual course of
lectures given by Professor Lanciani. The celebrated archaeologist is a
man of special personal charm, and his conversation, as well as his
public lectures, is full of interest and value. The lectures are given
under the auspices of the Societa Archeologica, and a special subject
recently discussed was the celebration to be held in 1911 in Rome. One
project for this celebration includes the plan to lay out a carriage
road around the Forum and the Palatine, and also around the Baths of
Titus and of Caracalla, extending the drive to all those places included
between the Appian and the Latin Way, the Villa Celimontana and the
Circus Maximus.
Professor Lanciani discussed the artistic history of Rome and the
different appearances the city took on in different periods; the
regulation plan drawn up by Julius Caesar and accepted and carried out by
Augustus, by which one-fifth of the total area of the city was reserved
for public parks. In the third century of the empire the city was
inclosed by parks and crossed from end to end by delightful portico
gardens, where valuable works of art were collected. During the period
of the Renaissance there were the famous villas and the Cesarini Park
on the slopes of the Esquiline, and after regretting the many
unnecessary acts of vandalism committed since 1870 in Rome, Professor
Lanciani suggested that a complete reconstruction of the Baths of
Caracalla should be made, to serve in 1911 as the Exhibition Building.
He believed no artistic difficulties would present themselves, as in the
fifteenth century different architects took plaster casts of the
decorations of the statues and of every detail of the Baths. The
archaeological exhibition would be arranged in the two large halls,
another hall would be for concerts, another for lectures, the others for
different congresses to be held.
In this way Rome would inaugurate for 1911 the Mediaeval Museum in Castel
Sant'Angelo, the mediaeval collections in the Torre degli Anguillara, and
the grand archaeological exhibition in the reconstructed Baths of
Caracalla.
Italian women are by no means behind the age in their organizations to
aid in social progress. The most important one in Italy is that of the
leading women of the nobility and aristocracy, called "The Society for
Women's Work," which holds annual meetings, over which Lady Aberdeen,
the president of the International Council, and the Contessa Spalletti,
the president of the National Council of Italy, preside. Many of the
prominent women of the Italian nobility are taking active part in the
larger outlook for women; and in this movement Margherita, _la Regina
Madre_, leads the way, supported by a large following of the titled
nobility.
"Margherita holds the hearts of the people," remarked Cora, Contessa di
Brazza Savorgnan, at a brilliant little dinner one night, and no
expression could more admirably represent the feeling of the nation
toward the Queen Mother.
Queen Elena as the reigning sovereign has, of course, her exclusive
royal prerogatives, and she has youth and initiative and precedence; but
Margherita is a most attractive woman, with learning and accomplishments
galore, and she has an art of conversation that allures and fascinates
visiting foreigners of learning and wit, as well as of rank. Roman
society is not large numerically, and the same people are constantly
meeting and consolidating their many points of contact and interest.
Social life in these Italian cities is the supreme occupation of the
residents, and one must concede that in proportion as one meets the same
people constantly does society gain in dramatic interest. With each
person who is in any sense an individual the play of life begins. It
gains in dramatic sequence as it proceeds. The Eternal City is a
wonderful scenic setting for the human drama.
Local gossip suggests perceptible rivalry between the stately palace of
the King and the pink palace on the hill, in which Margherita holds her
state with not less ceremony than that observed at the Court of the
Quirinale. It is a beautiful thing for a country to have in it a woman
of high position, of leisure and of culture, who is so admirably fitted
to be the friend of the people as is Margherita. She is a connoisseur in
art; she has a most intelligent interest in science; she is a critical
lover of literature; she is a wise and judicious and deeply sympathetic
leader in all philanthropic work and purposes. One can hardly visit
painter or poet or artist in any line, or school, institute, or
association, but that he hears of the personal sympathy and
encouragement bestowed by this noble and beautiful Italian Queen,--the
_Regina Madre_.
Practically there are, indeed, two courts in Rome; that of the Palazzo
Margherita seeming to quite rival that held at the Palazzo Quirinale.
The palace of the Queen Mother is an imposing three-story structure of
pink-hued marble, with beautiful gardens and terraces, and adjoining it,
in the palace grounds, is a marble villa, used for the entertainment of
royal guests. This palace has been the residence of Margherita when in
Rome since the tragic death of King Umberto, in 1900. It is in the
Ludovisi quarter, and stands on the very site of the Gardens of Sallust.
The Queen Mother receives noted visitors constantly, and entertains
visiting royalties and members of the aristocracy. No great man of
science, literature, and art visits Rome without seeking a presentation
to the liberal-minded and accomplished _Regina Madre_, who is one of the
most winning and attractive of all the royal women of Europe.
It has become quite a feature in introducing young girls to present them
first in private audience to Margherita, and then later to Queen Elena
at the Court of the Quirinale. Surely no girl could be given a lovelier
idea of womanhood than that embodied in the Dowager Queen. When the poet
Carducci died in the early months of 1907, Margherita sent beautiful
messages of consolation to his family, and, later, to his home city of
Bologna she sent the following letter:--
"I announce that I make a free gift to the city of Bologna of the
house where Giosue Carducci passed the last years of his life, and
the library he collected there.
"Bologna, that showed such affectionate hospitality for Giosue
Carducci for so many years, and surrounded him with so much
devotion, will know, I feel sure, how to carefully preserve this
remembrance of the greatest poet of modern Italy.
MARGHERITA."
The Syndic replied in a letter hardly less fine in its expression of
Bologna's appreciation, and with assurances that the name of the first
Queen of Italy will in future be forever associated with Italy's
greatest modern poet.
The Regio Palazzo del Quirinale is near the Capitol, in the older part
of the city, and only a small part of this is shown to visitors when
the King and Queen are in residence. The Sala Regia may be seen, the
chapel in which are preserved a large number of the wreaths and the
addresses sent from all parts of the civilized world on the occasion of
the death of Victor Emmanuel II, and a suite of reception rooms, the
throne room with many historic portraits, the Sala des Ambassadeurs, and
the audience chamber, containing Thorwaldsen's "Triumphal Procession of
Alexander the Great," a gift from Napoleon I. In the small chapel of the
Annunciation is an altar piece by Guido Reni.
To artists the Queen Mother is most generously kind. One of the younger
Italian sculptors, Turillo Sindoni, Cavaliere of the Crown of Italy,
whose latest creation is a very beautiful statue of St. Agnes, has his
studios in the Via del Babuino, and to especially favored visitors he
sometimes exhibits a beautiful letter that he received from Margherita,
who purchased two of his statues. With the letter expressing her warm
appreciation of his art was an exquisite gift of jewelled sleeve-links.
Notwithstanding the fascinating lectures of Professor Lanciani and the
valuable and interesting work in the Forum that is being accomplished
under the efficient directorship of Commendatore Boni, yet all the roads
that traditionally lead to Rome do not converge to the palace on the
Palatine. Modern Rome is only mildly archaeological, and while it takes
occasional recognition of the ancient monuments, and drives to the crypt
of old St. Agnes, to the tomb of Cecilia Metella, and may manage a
descent into the catacomb of St. Calixtus, it is far more actively
interested in its dancing and dining and driving. As a scenic background
for festivities Rome is a success, and as one comes into social touch
with the titled nobility, and the resident life, by birth or adoption,
one finds a city of infinite human interest and picturesque
possibilities.
Between the "Whites" (the loyal followers of the Palazzo Quirinale and
the King) and the "Blacks" (the devoted followers of the Palazzo
Vaticano and the Pope) a great gulf is fixed over which no one may
cross.
Pope Pius X is wonderfully accessible, considering the great
responsibilities and duties he has on him, and his generous goodness,
his gracious tact and the beauty of his spirit endear him to all,
Catholic or Protestant alike, for every one recognizes in him the
Christian gentleman, whose ideals of gentleness and inspiring
helpfulness impress themselves on all who are so fortunate as to meet
him.
The most impressive ceremonial receptions of the "Blacks" are those
given at the Spanish Embassy in the Piazza di Spagna. At the Embassy or
in the private palace of any Roman noble which a Cardinal honors by
accepting an invitation, he is received according to a most picturesque
old Roman custom. At the foot of the stairs two servants bearing lighted
torches meet his Eminence, and, making a profound obeisance, escort him
to the portals of the grand reception salon and await, in the corridor,
his return. On his departure they escort him in the same way down the
staircase.
In the College of Cardinals and among the many interesting
individualities of the Vatican, the most marked figure is that of the
Cardinal Secretary of State, Merry del Val. He occupies the Borgia
apartments, which are hung with tapestry and ornamented with the most
unique and valuable articles _de vertu_,--wonderful vases, inlaid
cabinets, old tapestries, paintings, statues, busts, and ivories. These
Borgia apartments are one of the most interesting features of the
Palazzo Vaticano, and may be seen now and then by special permission
when the Cardinal secretary is out, or when he may be pleased to retire
into his more private salons in the apartment while the others are
shown. Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val is an impressive personality, whose
life seems strangely determined by destiny. His father was an _attache_
of the Spanish embassy to the Court of St. James when the future
Cardinal was born in 1865. In 1904, at the early age of thirty-nine, he
was advanced from the soutane violet of the bishop to the mantelletta
scarlet of the cardinal, and after the accession of the present Pope,
Pius X, he was appointed to the highest office in the Vatican, that of
Secretary of State, the Pope paying him the high tribute because of his
"devotion to work, his capability and absolute self-negation."
Cardinal Merry del Val has had a wonderful training of experience and
circumstances. At the early age of twenty-two he was a member of the
papal embassy commissioned to the jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887. He
was also appointed a member of the embassy from the Vatican to attend
the funeral of Emperor William I; and at the jubilee of Francis Joseph,
Emperor of Austria, Cardinal (then Bishop) Merry del Val was the sole
and accredited representative of the Holy See, as he was also at the
coronation of King Edward. The Spanish Cardinal is the special trusted
counsellor of the royal family of Spain.