have become negligible; but it was announced on April 21 of 1907 that
the date was a special anniversary, and she took on aspects of
festivity. The municipal palaces and museums were hung with tapestries,
flags were flying from the Capitol, the municipal guards were all in
full dress uniform and the municipal orchestra played in the Piazza
Colonna. The historic bell began ringing at eight in the morning in
peals that were well calculated to call the Caesars from their tombs and
which might, indeed, have been mistaken for the final trumpet calls of
Gabriel. But the Romans take their pleasures rather sadly and
sternly,--not like the light-hearted Florentines in song and laughter,
or with the joyous abandon of the Neapolitans,--so there was no special
manifestation on the part of the populace, and the day, cold, gloomy,
and cheerless, did not inspire gayety.
When the Republic of Rome was established (on Feb. 9, 1849) a
provisional government was appointed. In March of that year Mazzini
proposed that the assembly should appoint a Committee of War, and it was
decided to send troops to Piedmont. Later a triumvirate, consisting of
Mazzini, Saffi, and Armellini, was formed, but disaster was near. In
April the French troops landed at Civita Vecchia, and the Italians
prepared to defend their country from the control of Louis Napoleon.
Mazzini is said to have been "the life and the soul" of this defence.
But the Republic was doomed, and when it had fallen the Pope returned,
only under the protection of the French. But the French Empire, too, was
doomed to fall; and when Garibaldi transferred his successes to Victor
Emmanuel, the monarchy was consolidated by the union of Rome with Italy,
and the present "Via Venti Settembre" in Rome--the street named to
commemorate that 20th of September, 1870, on which the Italian troops
entered the city and the Papal reign ended--perpetuates the story of
those eventful days. "Victor Emmanuel, Cavour, and Garibaldi have been
designated, along with Mazzini, as the founders of the modern Italy,"
said Dr. William Clarke, "but a broad line divides Mazzini from the
others." Dr. Clarke sees between Cavour and Mazzini "the everlasting
conflict between the idealist and the man of the world. The former," he
continues, "stands by the intellect and the conscience; the latter by
the limitations of actual fact and the practical difficulties of the
case," and Dr. Clarke notes further:--
"It was pre-eminently Mazzini who gave to Italy the breath of a new
life, who taught her people constancy in devotion to an ideal
good. Prophets are rarely successful in their own day, and so it
has been with the prophet of modern Italy. The making of Italy has
not proceeded in the way he hoped it would; for the Italians, who
are an eminently subtle and diplomatic people, have apparently
thought it best to bend to the hard facts by which they have been
surrounded. But if, as Emerson teaches, facts are fluid to thought,
we may believe that the ideas of Mazzini will yet prevail in the
nation of his birth, and that he may yet be regarded as the
spiritual father of the future Italian commonwealth. For of him, if
of any modern man, we may say that he
'Saw distant gates of Eden gleam,
And did not dream it was a dream.'"
[Illustration: STATUE OF CHRIST, ANCIENT CHURCH OF SAN MARTINA, ROME
_From the Artist's Original Cast_
Albert Bertel Thorwaldsen
_Page 193_]
Between the period of the establishment of the Roman Republic in 1849
and the consummation of United Italy in 1870 the years were rich to the
artist, whatever they may have been to philosopher and patriot. The way
for the painter and the sculptor seems to have been a flowery and a
pictorial one,--a very _via buona fortuna_, through a golden,
artistic atmosphere. The perpetual excursions may lead the serious
spectator to wonder where working hours come in, but, at all events,
those days are rich in color. Friends grouped together by the unerring
law of elective affinities loitered in galleries and churches. San
Martina, near the Mamertine prisons, was a point of interest because of
Thorwaldsen's bequest to it of the original cast of his beautiful statue
of "Christ" which is in Copenhagen. This is, perhaps, the finest work
ever conceived by the Danish sculptor, and is one that no visitor of
to-day can behold unmoved. Both Canova and Bernini are also represented
in this church,--the former by a statue of "Religion" and the latter by
a bust of Pietro da Cortona. Beneath the present Church of San Martina
is the ancient one containing the shrine of the martyr, under a superb
bronze altar. Of this church, Mrs. Jameson says in her "Sacred and
Legendary Art":--
"At the foot of the Capitoline Hill, on the left hand as we descend
from the Ara Coeli into the Forum, there stood in very ancient
times a small chapel, dedicated to St. Martina, a Roman virgin. The
veneration paid to her was of very early date, and the Roman people
were accustomed to assemble there on the first day of the year.
This observance was, however, confined to the people, and was not
very general till 1634, an era which connects her in rather an
interesting manner with the history of art. In this year, as they
were about to repair her chapel, they discovered, walled into the
foundations, a sarcophagus of terra cotta, in which was the body of
a young female, whose severed head reposed in a separate casket.
These remains were very naturally supposed to be those of the saint
who had been so long venerated on that spot. The discovery was
hailed with the utmost exultation, not by the people only, but by
those who led the minds and consciences of the people. The Pope
himself, Urban VIII, composed hymns in her praise; and Cardinal
Francesco Barberini undertook to rebuild her church."
The painter, Pietro da Cortona, entered into this feeling and at his own
expense built the chapel and painted for its altar piece the picture
representing the saint in triumph, while the temple in which she has
gone to sacrifice falls in ruins from a raging tempest.
In any stray ramble in Rome the sojourner might chance, at any moment,
upon obelisk, a pedestal or inscription linked with the great names of
the historic past. Hawthorne has recorded how, by mere chance, he turned
from the Via delle Quattro Fontane into the Via Quirinale and was thus
lured on to an obelisk and a fountain on the pedestal of which on one
side was the inscription, "Opus Phidias," and on the other, "Opus
Praxiteles," and he exclaims:--
"What a city is this, when one may stumble, by mere chance--at a
street corner as it were--on the works of two such sculptors! I do
not know the authority," he continues, "on which these statues
(Castor and Pollux I presume) are attributed to Phidias and
Praxiteles; but they impressed me as noble and godlike, and I feel
inclined to take them for what they purport to be."
While the Papal ceremonies are neither so frequent nor so magnificent as
in former days, still any hotel guest in Rome is liable, any morning,
on coming down to the _salle-a-manger_ for coffee, to find every woman
(who is taking her Rome seriously) arrayed in a black robe with a black
lace veil on her head. One would fancy they were all a procession of
nuns, about to retire from the world into the strict seclusion of the
cloister. But it is nothing so momentous. It is only that every lady,
with the devotion to spectacles which every visitor in Rome feels, as a
matter of course, has secured the pink ticket entitling her to admission
to the Vatican Palace to see the "passage" of the Pope, as he makes his
way, attended by the Cardinals of the Sacred College, to the Sistine
Chapel where his Holiness "creates" new Cardinals. Although rumored that
the spectacle will be a gorgeous one, that the Pope will be carried
aloft preceded by the silver trumpeters and attended by the Cardinals
and the ambassadors and other dignitaries in the full dress of their
ceremonial costumes and their orders, the reality is less impressive.
Some feminine enthusiasts fare forth at the heroic hour of eight,
although the procession is not announced to pass until a quarter after
ten (which in Italy should be translated as a quarter after eleven, at
the earliest, if not after twelve, which would be the more probable), in
order to secure good standing room. For everybody is to stand--of
course, comfort being a thing conspicuous only by its absence in Italy!
Those of us too well aware by the experiences of previous visits to
Italy that no Italian function was ever on time, from the starting of a
railway train to the crowning of a king, only betake ourselves to the
glories of the Palazzo Vaticano at the hour named, and we have then--as
one's prophetic soul or his commonplace memory warned him--to wait more
than an hour wedged into a dense crowd of all nationalities, none of
whom seem at this particular juncture, at least, to be at all
overburdened with good manners. And what went they out for to seek?
Instead of an impressive spectacle--a thing to remember for a
lifetime--one merely sees Pius X walking, surrounded by his Cardinals in
a group,--not a procession,--he alone in the centre with his mitre on
his head,--the whole scene hardly lasting over a minute, and as his
Holiness is not as tall as most of his Cardinals, he is almost hidden
from view. It had been rumored that the Pope was to be borne aloft in
the Papal chair, preceded by the traditional white fan and the silver
trumpets; but the present Pope is temperamentally inclined to minimize
all the ceremonials investing his sacred office.
Yet there is always a thrill in entering the Vatican. To ascend that
splendid _Scala Regia_ designed by Bernini, with one of the most
ingeniously treated perspective effects to be found, it may be, in the
entire world; to cross this _Scala_ with its interesting frescoes by
Salviati and others; to see at near range the picturesque Swiss
Guard,--surely any pretext to enjoy such a morning is easily accepted of
whatever occurrence one may grasp in order to obtain the hour.
One curious feature of the past is to-day equally in evidence in Rome.
Strolling at any time into the Church of San Agostino one beholds a
curious spectacle. It is in this church that is placed the beautiful
bronze statue of the Virgin and Child by Sansovino. It is approached by
a platform on which is placed a stool that enables one to mount and thus
reach the foot of the statue, which is kissed and the wish of the
devotee is offered. This Madonna is believed to have the power to grant
each wish and prayer; to heal the sick; restore the blind, the deaf, and
the lame; to grant immunity from loss or illness; to grant success and
prosperity. The poor Madonna must have her hands full with these
avalanches of petitions, but she sits calmly in state and, if the
striking testimony of votive offerings can be credited, she is most
amiable in granting the prayers of her devotees. For she is hung with
priceless jewels; necklaces, brooches, bracelets, diamond and ruby and
sapphire rings on her fingers, she is a blaze of splendor. Around this
statue there is a perpetual crowd, whatever hour of day one chances to
wander in, and from prince to beggar the bronze foot is kissed, as each
waits his turn to mount the stool and prefer his secret wish. The walls
of the church are covered with the votive offerings to the Madonna for
her aid,--rich jewels, orders, tablets,--offerings of all kinds. In this
church is entombed the body of Santa Monica, the mother of St.
Augustine, placed in an urn of verd-antique, in a special chapel
beautifully decorated. After preferring one's secret wish to the Virgin
one must wander on to the Fontane de Trevi and throw his penny into the
water to insure his return to Rome, and then he may rest, _mens conscia
recti_!
Although Holy Week in Rome has less ceremonial observance in these
latter days than those of the impressive scenes so vividly portrayed by
Mme. de Stael in "Corinne," it still attracts a multitude of visitors
and offers much to touch and thrill the life of the spirit, quite
irrespective as to whether the visitor be of the Catholic or Protestant
faith. In the great essentials of Christianity, all followers of Christ
unite. The Pope does not now take part in public services on Easter, and
that scene of the Pontifical blessing from the balcony of St. Peter's
given to the multitude below who throng the piazza remains only in
memory and in record. But the stately and solemn services of Good Friday
in the vast and grand interior of St. Peter's are an experience to
linger forever in memory. The three hours' service--the chanting of the
Miserere--was a scene to impress the imagination. This service is held
in the late afternoon of Good Friday, in the tribune of St. Peter's, the
extreme end of the church where the vast window of yellow glass gives a
perpetually golden light. The chair believed to have been that of St.
Peter's is here placed, enclosed in ivory and supported by statues of
four Fathers of the church, St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom,
and St. Athanasius, from a design of Bernini.
In the tribune is the tomb of Urban VIII (who was Matteo Barberini), of
which the redundant decoration tells the story that it is also Bernini's
work. Opposite this tomb is that of Paul III, by della Porta, under the
supervision of Michael Angelo, it is said, and the beauty and dignity of
the bronze figure of the aged Pope, in the act of giving the
benediction, quite confirm this tradition. On a tablet in the wall of
the tribune are engraved the names of all the bishops and prelates who,
in 1854, accepted the belief of the Immaculate Conception,--this tablet
being placed by the order of Pio Nono.
In this tribune on the late afternoon of the Good Friday of 1907 the
seats were filled with worshippers to listen to the three hours' chant
of the Miserere. Princes and peasants sat side by side, and an immense
throng who could not find seats stood, often wandering away in the dim
distances of the cathedral and ever and again returning. The high altar,
where Canova's beautiful figure of the kneeling Pope always enchains the
visitor, was, as usual, surrounded. The lights burned--these perpetual
lamps--and the moving throng went and came. The scene grew mystic,
dream-like, as the solemn music floated on the air.
The Chapel of the Holy Sacrament, on the left of the cathedral, was made
into the sepulchre that day, and anything more beautiful than the myriad
altar lights and the flowers could not be imagined. At the altar
black-robed nuns were kneeling, and all over the chapel, kneeling on the
floor, were people of all grades and ranks of life, from the duchess and
princess to the beggar woman with a ragged shawl on her shoulders and
her baby in her arms. St. Peter's was nearly filled all that day with
people, not crowded, but apparently thronged in almost every part.
The altar in the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament was one mass of deep red
roses. The chapel was completely darkened, but the blaze of myriads of
tall candles illuminated the roses and the black-robed nuns and the
black-robed devotees. It was a scene never to be forgotten.
Even in the latter-day Rome, historic names are not wanting. One of
these, the Princess Christina Bonaparte, _nee_ Ruspoli, died in 1907 in
her Roman villa in Via Venti Settembre. She was the widow of Prince
Napoleon Charles Bonaparte and a cousin of the Empress Eugenie. With her
husband in Paris until 1870, she fled (whilst her husband was fighting
at Metz) as soon as the Commune was proclaimed. The princess was
considered a beautiful woman and her portrait had been painted by Ernest
Hebert, but it was lost when the Palace of the Tuileries was destroyed
in 1870.
With this princess dies the name of the Bonaparte family. Her daughters,
Donna Maria Gotti-Bonaparte and Princess Maria della Moskowa, were often
with her in Rome.
The Palazzo Bonaparte is very near Porta Pia. Although called a palace,
it is simply a plain house of some five stories, with narrow halls and
stone staircases, no elevator, no electric lights. The princess occupied
the first floor, while the apartments above were let to various
families.
With the exception of the royal palaces there are few in which suites
are not obtainable for residence by any one who desires them.
[Illustration: CASTEL SAN ANGELO AND ST. PETER'S, ROME
_Page 204_]
It was at a pleasant _dejeuner_ one spring day in Rome that the project
was launched, that we should go motoring that afternoon to Frascati,
Albano, Castel Gandolfo, Lago di Nemi, and all that wonderful region. We
were lunching with a friend who had a charming apartment in one of the
sumptuous old palaces of Rome, where, in a niche on the marble
staircase, the statue of Caesar Augustus stood,--a copy of the famous
statue in the Capitoline,--where lofty, decorated ceilings, old
paintings and sculptures adorned the rooms, and where from the windows
we looked out on the tragedy-haunted Castel San Angelo, with the dome of
San Pietro in the background. Our friend who invited us to fly in his
motor had brought his touring car over from America. The one note of new
luxury now is for travellers to journey with their touring cars. In a
year or two more it will be airships or soaring machines. On this
wonderful May afternoon, all azure and gold, we started off in the
great, luxurious touring car which was arranged even to carry two
trunks, with a safe in it for the deposit of valuables, a hamper for
refreshments, and, indeed, almost every conceivable convenience. On we
flew through Rome, past the great Basilica of San Maria Maggiore; past
the wonderful pile of San Giovanni Laterano, with the colossal statues
of the apostles surmounting the facade; through the Porta San Giovanni
into the narrow, walled lane leading out on the Campagna; on, on, to the
Alban hills. We flew past olive orchards and vineyards, and the vast
green pasture lands of the Campagna whose vivid green was ablaze with
scarlet poppies. Far away to the west there was a white shining
line--the line of the sea.
At Frascati we stopped at the Villa Torlonia, the country place of the
ducal family, whose grand Roman palazzo is in the Bocca di Leone in the
old part of Rome. The Torlonia have an only daughter, Donna Teresa,
whose _debutante_ ball a year ago is said to have been the most
magnificent entertainment in Rome for fifty years. A writer, in a recent
article on the nobility of Rome, said of this family:--
"The Torlonia figure repeatedly in the novels of Thackeray, who
was never tired of portraying them. They have been most useful
citizens, and since the days of the old army contractor, who
founded the house, have augmented the family wealth by judicious
investments, especially in connection with the draining and
reclaiming of the marsh lands that abound in the former Papal
States. They have contracted matrimonial alliances with the
Colonna, with the Borghese, the Belmonte, the Doria, and the
Sforza."
The Villa Torlonia at Frascati is a very large estate with extensive
gardens, terraces, and a cascade of three falls on the hillside, which
is turned on (the water) at pleasure. The house, however, is a
shabby-looking affair, a two or three story, rambling, yellow structure,
which, at Newport, would not be considered too good for the gardener.
After the usual fashion of the Italians who seldom travel, the Torlonia,
wealthy as they are, simply remove from their palace in Rome to their
villa at Frascati instead of travelling to Switzerland, Germany, or
elsewhere in the summer.
The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland were the guests of the Torlonia that
day, the entire party enjoying themselves _al fresco_, and the beautiful
cascade pouring down within the near distance.
These outlying towns, Frascati, Albano, Castel Gandolfo, and Lago di
Nemi, the picturesque group in the Alban Mountains, are some sixteen to
eighteen miles from Rome. These Alban hills rise like an island from the
vast plain of the Campagna, the highest point being some three thousand
feet above sea level. They are covered with villages and castles and
villas, and have in all a population of some fifty thousand. The region
is volcanic, and the beautiful Lago di Nemi and Lago di Albano were the
craters of extinct volcanoes. All this region was the haunt of Cicero,
Virgil, and Livy. At Tusculum, near Frascati, are the remains of
Cicero's villa, and also of an ancient theatre hewn out of solid rock.
The view to the west toward Rome is most beautiful. The dome of St.
Peter's crowns the Eternal City; and the Campagna--a sea of green--is as
infinite in sight as is the Mediterranean. There are splendid villas and
estates in these Alban hills that belong to the Roman nobility, and
here the Pope has his summer palace. "The Alban Mount is also full of
historical and legendary interest," says a writer on the country around
Rome. "The Latin tribe, one of the constituent elements of the Roman
people, had here its seat. Upon the highest peak of the range was the
temple of Jupiter Latiaris, where all the tribes of Latin blood, the
Romans included, met every year to worship; and where the victorious
generals of the Republic repaired to offer praises and acknowledgments.
In these mountain glens undoubtedly most of that ballad literature of
Rome, the loss of which Macaulay so eloquently laments and so
successfully restores, had its origin. Nor need the scholar be reminded
that this is the scene of the most original and vigorous portions of the
AEneid of Virgil; nor how the genius of the poet, which rather languidly
recounts the traditions borrowed from Greece, wakes to new life, when he
feels his feet upon his own soil and deals with Latin names and Latin
legends."
The Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati is celebrated for its fantastic
waterworks in elaborate fountains and cascades. In the gardens a statue
of Pan with a pipe of reeds and one of a satyr with a trumpet are made
to play (both the pipe and the trumpet) by water. The hydraulic engineer
must have found in Frascati his earthly paradise, for he commanded the
water to leap into foam and spray in the air, to rush down marble
terraces, and to form itself into obelisks of liquid silver.
At Grotto Ferrata is a vast monastery of monks of the Order of Basilio
(Greek), a monastery so colossal as to be mistaken for a fortress. The
chapel has frescoes by Domenichino. At Castel Gandolfo is the summer
Papal palace, that has not been occupied by a Pope since the
overthrowing of the temporal power in 1870. It has a beautiful and
commanding view toward Rome. It was built by Urban VIII.
All the magic of Italy is in this picturesque excursion. In the vast
grounds of the Villa Barberini are the ruins of the ancient palace and
gardens of Domitian. On one hillside is a broken wall; a long avenue of
ilex trees reveals here and there fragments of mosaic pavement.
Crumbling niches hold fragments of statues. The hill itself is still
pierced with the long tunnels driven through it by Domitian that he
might pass unseen,--presumably safe from his enemies,--from the palace
to the gardens. From the parapet, Rome is seen across the shining
Campagna and the dome of Michael Angelo gleams against the blue Italian
sky.
"The wreck is beautiful," writes Mrs. Humphry Ward, in "Eleanor," of
this romantic spot; "for it is masked in the gloom of the overhanging
trees; or hidden behind dropping veils of ivy; or lit up by straggling
patches of broom and cytisus that thrust themselves through the gaps in
the Roman brickwork and shine golden in the dark. At the foot of the
wall, along its whole length, runs a low marble conduit that held the
sweetest, liveliest water. Lilies of the valley grow beside it,
breathing scent into the shadowed air; while on the outer or garden side
of the path the grass is purple with long-stalked violets, or pink with
the sharp heads of the cyclamen. And a little farther, from the same
grass, there shoots up, in happy neglect, tall camellia trees, ragged
and laden, strewing the ground red and white beneath them. And above the
camellias again the famous stone-pines of the villa climb into the high
air, overlooking the plain and the sea, peering at Rome and Soracte."
One could wander all day in the strange ruins of the old Barberini
grounds, and in the vast spaces of the gardens and through the Villa
Doria.
The beauty of the avenue of ilex trees through which we flew from Castel
Gandolfo to Lago di Nemi surpasses description. This lake, some four
miles in circumference, lies in a crater hollow, with precipitous hills
surrounding it, the water so clear that the ancients called it the
"Mirror of Diana." In it was constructed an artificial island in the
design of a Roman state barge.