attended by his _gentiluomo_, who is gorgeously arrayed in knee
breeches, military hat and sword. This gentleman in waiting walks behind
him on a promenade, sits in his carriage and stands near him in all
religious ceremonies. His equipage is well known in the Eternal City,--a
stately black carriage drawn by two massive black horses with luxurious
flowing manes.
It is freely prophesied in Rome that the Cardinal secretary is destined
to yet exchange the mantelletta scarlet for the zucchetta white, when
Pius X shall have gone the way of all his predecessors in the papal
chair. He is the Cardinal especially favored by Austria and Spain.
Although the conflict with France was at first ascribed to Cardinal
Merry del Val, he has of late been completely exonerated from blame,
even by the French prelates and clergy.
Cardinal Merry del Val represents the most advanced and progressive
thought of the day. He is an enthusiastic admirer of Marconi and the
marvels of wireless telegraphy; he is an advocate of telephonic service,
electric motors, electric lights, and of phonographs and typewriters for
the Vatican service. He is a great linguist, speaking English, French,
and German as well as Spanish, which is his native tongue, and Italian,
which has become second nature. He is a good Greek scholar and a
profound Latin scholar, and he speaks the ancient Latin with the fluency
and the force of the modern languages. He is, indeed, a remarkable
twentieth-century personality and one who has apparently a very
interesting life yet to come in his future.
At the Villa Pamphilia Doria, built by a former Prince Doria, the
largest villa in the Roman environs and the finest now remaining, the
Cardinal enjoys his game of golf, of which he is very fond. The Doria
family rendered the villa magnificent in every respect. Besides the
spacious avenues, woods, fountains, a lake, and cascades, are various
edifices, among which is one in the form of a triumphal arch, decorated
with ancient statues; the casino of the villa in which are preserved
some ancient marbles and several pictures; the beautiful circular
chapel, adorned with eight columns of marble and other stately
ornaments. There is a monument erected by the present Prince Doria to
the memory of the French soldiers who were killed there during the siege
of 1849. From the terrace of the palace there is a magnificent view of
the environs of Rome, as far as the sea. In consequence of excavations,
some columbaria, sepulchres, inscriptions, and other relics have been
found, which have attracted much attention from archaeologists.
It is near these grounds that the "Arcadians" still hold their _al
fresco_ meetings. The society dates back to 1690, and the first _custos_
(whose duty was to open and close the meetings) was Crescimbeni. The
"Arcadians" organized themselves to protest against the degeneracy of
Italian poetry that marked the seventeenth century. To keep their
meetings a secret from the populace the "Arcadians" held their meetings
in an open garden on the slope below San Pietro in Montorio,--a terrace
still known as "Bosco Parrasio degli Arcadi."
One of the enchanting views in Rome is from the Piazza San Giovanni. One
looks far away past the Coliseum in its ruined grandeur and the _casa_
where Lucrezia Borgia lived, and in the near distance is the colossal
pile of San Giovanni di Laterano, its beautiful and impressive facade
crowned with the statues of the apostles silhouetted against the western
sky. In the piazza formed by the church, the museums, and the Baptistery
of San Giovanni and the Scala Santa is one of the most remarkable
obelisks in Rome, ninety-nine feet in height, formed of red granite and
carved with hieroglyphics. This shaft is placed on a pedestal which
makes it in all some 115 feet in height. It was placed in 1568 by Sixtus
V. The museums of the San Giovanni are the "Museo Sacro" and the "Museo
Profano,"--the latter founded by Pope Gregory XVI, and very rich in
sculptures and mosaics. The "Museo Sacro" was founded by Pio Nono, and
is rich in the antiquities of the Christian era. Within San Giovanni
the visitor finds himself in a vast interior divided by columns of
verd-antique into three aisles, each of which is as wide as, and far
longer than, the interior of an ordinary church. Statues fill the
niches, and the chapels and confessionals are all beautifully decorated.
The Corsini Chapel is the richest and was executed by order of Clement
XII, in honor of St. Andrew Corsini, who is represented in a rich mosaic
painting copied from Guido. Two sculptured figures, "Innocence" and
"Penitence," stand before the altar, and above is a relief depicting St.
Andrew protecting the Florentine army at the battle of Anghiari.
The tomb of Pope Clement XII (who himself belonged to the Corsini family
and who was an uncle of Cardinal Corsini) is in a niche between two
columns of porphyry, and there is a bronze statue of the Pope. On the
opposite side is a statue of Cardinal Corsini, and in the crypt below
are tombs of the Corsini family. On the altar--always lighted--is a
"Pieta" by Bernini, of which the face of the Christ is very beautiful.
Near the centre of the Basilica is a rich tabernacle of precious stones,
defined by four columns of _verde antico_, and it is said that the
heads of St. Peter and St. Paul are preserved here. The table upon which
Christ celebrated the Last Supper is placed here, above the altar of the
Holy Sacrament, a sacred relic that thrills the visitors. In one chapel
is a curious and grotesque group of sculpture,--a skeleton holding up a
medallion portrait, while an angel with outstretched wings hovers over
it.
San Giovanni has the reputation of being absolutely the coldest church
in all Rome, which--it is needless to remark--means a great deal, for
they all in winter have the temperature of the arctic regions. In all
these great churches there is never any heat; no apparatus for heating
has ever been introduced, and the twentieth century finds them just as
cold as they were in the centuries of a thousand years ago. This
colossal Basilica is considered the most important church in the world,
as it is the cathedral of the Pontiff. It was founded in the third
century by Constantine, destroyed by fire in 1308, and rebuilt by Pope
Clement V, and every succeeding Pope has added to it. The facade is of
travertine, with four gigantic columns and six pilasters, and the
cornice is decorated with colossal figures of Jesus and a number of the
saints. There are five balconies, the middle one being always used for
papal benedictions. In the portico is the colossal statue of Constantine
the Great. Within the columns are of _verde antico_; the ceiling was
designed by Michael Angelo; the interior is very rich in sculpture, and
there are some fine paintings and the chapels are most beautiful, one of
them containing a tabernacle comprised wholly of precious stones. Above
the altar of the Holy Sacrament the table upon which Christ celebrated
the Last Supper with the disciples is preserved. It is wonderful to look
upon this most sacred and significant relic.
It is in this church that the tomb of Leo XIII has been constructed by
the eminent Italian sculptor, Tadolini, opposite the tomb of Innocent
III. The work was completed in the spring of 1907, the design being a
life-size portrait statue of the Pope with two figures, one on either
side, representing the church and the workman-pilgrim, forming part of
the group. This is one of the most memorable monuments of all Rome, and
the tomb of the great Leo XIII will form a new shrine for Christian
pilgrimage.
Included in the group of structures that form the great Basilica of San
Giovanni is the Scala Santa, which offers a strange picture whenever one
approaches it. These twenty-eight marble steps that belonged to Pilate's
house in Jerusalem are said to have been once trodden by Jesus and may
be ascended only on one's knees. At no hour of the day can one visit the
Scala Santa without finding the most motley and incongruous throng thus
ascending, pausing on each step for meditation and prayer. These stairs
were transported from Jerusalem to Rome under the auspices of St.
Helena, the Empress, about 326 A.D., and in 1589 they were placed by
Pope Sixtus V in this portico built for them with a chapel at the top of
the stairs called the "Sancta Sanctorum," formerly the private chapel of
the Popes. In this sanctuary is preserved a wonderful portrait of the
Saviour, painted on wood, which is said to have been partly the work of
St. Luke but finished by unseen hands. The legend runs that St. Luke
prepared to undertake the work by three days' fasting and prayer, and
that, having drawn it in outline, the painting was done by angelic
ministry, the colors being filled in by invisible hands. In ancient
times--the custom being abolished by Pius V in 1566--this picture was
borne through Rome on the Feast of the Assumption and the bearer halted
with it in the Forum, when the "Kyrie Eleison" would be chanted by
hundreds of voices.
Myth and legend invest every turn and footfall of the Eternal City, and
there are few that are not founded on what the church has always called
supernatural manifestations, but which the new age is learning to
recognize as occurrences under natural law.
The story of Luther's ascent of the Scala Santa is thus told:--
"Brother Martin Luther went to accomplish the ascent of the Scala
Santa--the Holy Staircase--which once, they say, formed part of
Pilate's house. He slowly mounted step after step of the hard
stone, worn into hollows by the knees of penitents and pilgrims.
Patiently he crept halfway up the staircase, when he suddenly stood
erect, lifted his face heavenward, and in another moment turned
and walked slowly down again.
"He said that as he was toiling up a voice as if from heaven spoke
to him and said, 'The just shall live by faith.' He awoke as if
from a nightmare, restored to himself. He dared not creep up
another step; but rising from his knees he stood upright like a man
suddenly loosed from bonds and fetters, and with the firm step of a
free man he descended the staircase and walked from the place."
The entire legendary as well as sacred history is almost made up of
instances of the interpenetration of the two worlds; the response of
those in the spiritual world to the needs of those in the natural world.
Pope Paschal recorded that he fell asleep in his chair at St. Peter's
(somewhere about 8.20 A.M.) with a prayer on his lips that he might find
the burial place of St. Cecilia, and in his dream she appeared to him
and showed him the spot where her body lay, in the catacombs of
Calixtus. The next day he went to the spot and found all as had been
revealed to him. The miraculous preservation of St. Agnes is familiar to
all students of legendary art. Throughout all Rome, shrine and niche
and sculpture, picture, monument, arch and column, speak perpetually of
some interposition of unseen forces with events and circumstances in
this part of life. The Eternal City in its rich and poetic symbolism is
one great object lesson of the interblending of the two worlds, the
natural and the spiritual. The first stage regarding all this marvellous
panorama was entire and unquestioning acceptance; the succeeding stage
was doubt, disbelief; the third, into which we are now entering, is that
of an enlightened understanding and a growing knowledge and grasp of the
laws under which these special interpositions and interventions occur.
For that "according to thy faith be it unto thee," is as true now in the
twentieth century as it was in the first. The one central truth that is
the very foundation of all religious philosophy is the continuity of
life and the persistence of intercourse and communion, spirit to spirit,
across the gulf we call death. The evidences of this truth have been
always in the world. The earliest records of the Bible are replete with
them. The gospels of the New Testament record an unbroken succession
of occurrences and of testimony to this interpenetration of life in the
Unseen with that in the Seen. Secular history is full of its narrations
of instances of clairvoyance, clairaudience, and of communications in a
variety of ways; and the sacred and legendary art of Rome, largely
founded on story and myth and legend, when seen in the light of
latter-day science is judged anew, and the literal truth of much that
has before been considered purely legendary is revealed and realized.
One reads new meanings into Rome when testing it by this consciousness.
It is a city of spiritual symbolism. It is a great object lesson
extending over all the centuries. Making due allowance for the
distortion and exaggeration of ages of testimony, there yet remains a
residuum indisputable. The Past and the Present both teem with record
and incident and experience proving that life is twofold, even now and
here; that all the motives and acts of the life which we see are
variously incited, modified, strengthened, or annulled by those in the
realm of the Unseen.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO VILLA PAMPHILIA-DORIA, ROME
_Page 159_]
The intelligent recognition of this truth changes the entire conduct of
life. It entirely alters the point of view. It extends the horizon line
infinitely. Instead of conceiving of life as a whole, as comprised
between the cradle and the grave, it will be regarded in its larger and
truer scope as a series of experiences and achievements, infinite in
length and in their possibilities and unbroken by the change we call
death. This will impart to humanity a new motor spring in that greater
hope which puts man in a working mood, which makes him believe in the
value of that which he undertakes, which encourages him to press on amid
all difficulties and against all obstacles. Increasing hope, all
activity is proportionately increased. It was an event of incalculable
importance to the progress of humanity when the swift communication by
cable was established between America and Europe. It is one of
infinitely greater importance to establish the truth and enlarge the
possibility of direct communication with the world of higher forces and
larger attainment and scope than our own. This communication exists and
has always existed, but it has been regarded as myth and legend and
phenomenon rather than as a fact of nature whose laws were to be
ascertained and understood. It must be made clear as an absolute
scientific demonstration that the change of form by the process we call
death does not put an end to intelligent and rational intercourse, but
that, indeed, instead of setting up a barrier, it removes barriers and
renders mutual comprehension far clearer and more direct than before.
This realization alters the entire perspective of life, and is the new
Glad Tidings of great joy.
It is something of all this that the Eternal City suggests to one as he
makes his pilgrimages to shrine and cloister and chapel and Basilica.
The mighty Past is eloquent with a thousand voices, and they blend into
a choral harmony of promise and prophecy for the nobler future of
humanity.
At the foot of the Scala Santa, on either side, are statues of Christ
and Judas, and of Christ and Pilate, very interesting groups by
Jacometti, and there is also a kneeling statue of Pio Nono.
The statue of Judas is considered one of the most notable of the late
modern Italian sculpture.
The Rome of to-day is in strange contrast even to the city that Page and
Hawthorne knew, in the comparatively recent past; and the Rome of the
ancients is traced only in the churches and the ruins. It is a _mot_
that one hears every language spoken in Rome, except the Italian! So
largely has the Seven-hilled City become the pleasure ground of foreign
residents. The contrast between the ordinary breakfast-table talk in
Rome and in--Boston, for instance, or Washington, is amusing. In the
Puritan capital it usually includes the topic of weather predictions and
the news in the morning paper, with whatever other of local or personal
matters of interest. In Washington, where the very actors and the events
that make the nation's history are fairly before one's eyes, the
breakfast-table conversation is apt to turn on matters that have not yet
got into the papers,--the evening session of the previous night,
perhaps, when too long prolonged under the vast dome to admit of its
having been noted in the morning press. But in Rome the breakfast-table
talk is apt to be of the new excavations just taken from the bed of the
Tiber; the question as to whether the head of St. Paul could have
touched (at the tragic scene of his execution) at three places so far
apart as the tri-fontanes; or a discussion of the marvellous freshness
of the mosaics in the interior of the Palace of the Caesars; or, again,
of the last night's balls or dinners, and matters most frankly
_mondaine_, and of contemporary life.
The American Embassy, whose location depends on the individual choice of
the Ambassador of the time, is now in the old Palazzo del Drago on the
corner of the Via Venti Settembre and the Via delle Quattro Fontane. The
street floor, like all the old palaces, is not used for living purposes.
The portiere, the guards, the corridors, and approaches to the
staircases monopolize this space. The piano nobile is the residence of
the beautiful and lovely Principessa d'Antuni, the youthful widow of the
Principe who was himself a grandson of Marie Christine, the Queen of
Spain. The young Princess who was married to him at the age of
seventeen, ten years ago, is left with three little children, of whom
the only daughter bears the name of her great-grandmother, the Spanish
Queen. Perfectly at home in all the romance languages, an accomplished
musician, a thinker, a scholar, a student, a lovely figure in life, a
beautiful and sympathetic friend is the Princess d'Antuni. She is "of a
simplicity," as they say in Italy, investing the dignity of her rank
with indescribable grace and sweetness. The two long flights of stairs
that lead up to the secundo piano in the Palazzo del Drago--the floor
occupied by the American Embassy--have at least a hundred steps to each
staircase, yet so broad and easy of ascent as hardly to fatigue one.
These flights are carpeted in glowing red, while along the wall are
niches in each of which stands an old statue, making the ascent of the
guest seem a classic progress.
The Palazzo del Drago has an elevator, but elevator service in Rome is a
thing apart, something considered quite too good for human nature's
daily food, and the slight power is far too little to permit any number
of people to be accommodated, so on any ceremonial occasion the elevator
is closed and the guests walk up the two long flights. The total lack of
any mastery of mechanical conditions in Italy is very curious.
The grand ball given at the American Embassy just before Ash Wednesday
in the winter of 1907 was a very pretty affair. Up the rose-red carpeted
stairs the guests walked, the statues looking silently on, but
apparently there was no Galatea to step down from her niche and join the
happy throng. In the antechamber each guest was asked to write his name
in the large autograph books kept for that purpose, and then, passing
on, was received by the Ambassador and Ambassadress in the first of the
splendid series of salons thrown open for the occasion. At this time it
was Mr. and Mrs. Henry White who represented the United States, and won
the hearts of all Rome as well, and assisted by their charming daughter,
Miss Muriel White, they made this ball an affair to leave its lovely
pictures in memory. The scenic setting of an old Roman palace captivates
the stranger. It may not impress him as especially comfortable, but it
is certainly picturesque, and who would not prefer--at least for the
"one night only" of the traditional _prima donna_ announcements--the
pictorially picturesque and magnificent to the merely comfortable? The
lofty ceilings, painted by artists who have long since vanished from
mortal sight, make it impossible to attain the temperature that the
American regards as essential to his terrestrial well-being, and as the
only sources of heat were the open fireplaces the guests hovered around
these and their radii of comfortable warmth were limited. In one salon
there was one especially beautiful effect of a great jar of white lilacs
placed before a vast mirror at sufficient distance to give the mirror
reflection an individuality as a thing apart, and the effect was that of
a very garden of paradise. The music was fascinating, the decorations
all in good taste, and the occasion was most brilliant,--_tres
charmante_ indeed. The American ambassadress was ablaze with her famous
diamonds, her corsage being literally covered with them, and her
coiffure adorned with a coronet, but the temperature soon forced the
ambassadress to partially eclipse her splendor with the little ermine
shoulder cape that is an indispensable article for evening dress in
Rome. The temperature does not admit the possibility of _decollete_
gowns without some protection, when these resplendent glittering robes
that seem woven of the stars are worn. Among the more distinguished
guests, aside from the _corps diplomatique_ and the titled nobility of
Rome and visiting foreigners, were M. Carolus Duran, the celebrated
portrait artist of Paris, and among other interesting people were Miss
Elise Emmons of Leamington, England, a grand-niece of Charlotte Cushman.
M. Carolus Duran was very magnificent, his breast covered with jewelled
orders and decorations from the various societies, academies, and
governments that have honored him. He is a short man and has grown quite
stout, but he carries himself with inimitable grace and dignity, and in
his luminous eyes one still surprises that far-away look which Sargent
so wonderfully caught in his portrait of the great French artist,
painted in his earlier life.
The number of spacious salons with their easy-chairs and sofas enabled
all guests who desired to ensconce themselves luxuriously to do so, and
watch the glittering scene. The supper room and the salon for dancing
were not more alluring than the salons wherein one could study this
brilliant throng of diplomates, titled nobility, distinguished artists,
social celebrities, and those who were, in various ways, each _persona
grata_ in Rome. Among those at this particular festivity were the
American novelist, Frank Hamilton Spearman, with Mrs. Spearman. In late
American fiction Mr. Spearman has made for himself a distinctive place
as the novelist whose artistic eye has discerned the romance in the new
phases of life created by the extensive systems of mountain railroading,
and the great irrigation schemes of the far West, which have not only
opened up new territory, but have called into evidence new combinations
of the qualities most potent in human life,--love, sacrifice, heroism,
devotion to duty, and tragedy and comedy as well. In his novels, "The
Daughter of a Magnate" and "Whispering Smith," in such vivid and
delightful short stories as "The Ghost at Point of Rocks," which
appeared in _Scribner's Magazine_ for August of 1907, Mr. Spearman has
dramatized the pathos, the wit, the vast and marvellous spirit of
enterprise, the desolation of isolated regions, the all-pervading
potency and one may almost say intimacy of modern life made possible by
the Arabian Nights' dream of wireless telegraphy, "soaring" cars,
long-distance telephoning, and lightning express train service in cars
that climb the mountains beyond the clouds, or dash through tunnels with
ten thousand feet of mountains above them. Mr. Spearman is the novelist
_par excellence_ of this intense _vie modernite_.
On Washington's Birthday, again, the stately salons of the American
Embassy in the old Palazzo del Drago were well filled from four to six
with an assemblage which expressed its patriotism and devotion to
Washington by appearing in its most faultless raiment and in an apparent
appreciation of the refreshment tables, from which cake and ices, tea
and various other delicacies, were served.