THE TOMBOLA--MAUSOLEUM OF AUGUSTUS--THE MONTGOLFIER--CURIOUS
FINALE--THE BIGLIARDO--POOL--SIR T. B.--AN AMUSING ACQUAINTANCE--THE
BEWILDERED BARBER--THE DOG “PINCIO”--PREPARATIONS FOR
CARNIVAL--BOMBARDING IN THE CORSO--CHARACTERS--CHARLATANS--THE FESTINI.
Shortly after my arrival in Rome, I had an opportunity of witnessing
the drawing of a lottery, or _Tombola_, as it is there called, an
interesting and exciting scene. These are got up ostensibly for
purposes of charity, and are so ordered, that many parties may be
winners at one and the same time. No sooner is a tombola decided on,
than a vast number of tickets are struck off, and distributed for
sale at various authorized offices throughout the city. These are
simply pieces of paper, containing fifteen spaces, which the applicant
fills up with any fifteen numbers he may choose to fix upon, paying a
moderate sum for the ticket and its registration. On the day appointed
for the drawing of the lottery, I repaired with my friend R---- to the
Corea, or Mausoleum of Augustus, an amphitheatre, now used as a circus
for travelling showmen, and exhibitions _à la Franconi_. On the present
occasion, its benches, and raised platforms were crowded with people
of all degrees and classes, of whom there were perhaps scarcely fifty,
who did not take a personal interest in the drawing of the numbers. The
wheel of fortune was hung in front of a box on the highest tier, in a
conspicuous situation, and we had scarcely taken our seats, ere a dead
silence announced that the first number was about to be drawn. After a
suitable whirling of the cylinder, a little boy drew forth the paper,
and the number was immediately proclaimed by a herald to the expectant
crowd, whilst at the same time, one of ninety squares, upon a large
black board, turned suddenly upon its axis, and revealed the number to
such as were too distant to hear it. All eyes were now bent upon the
tickets; pencils and pins went to work wherever the number was held,
and then an interval of talking and shouting succeeded, until another
number was drawn and proclaimed. Three consecutive numbers constitute
a _terno_, and command a small prize, while a _quaterno_ of four in
succession, and a _cinquina_ of five, are still more advantageous. It
was not long before a commotion at one particular spot in the crowd
announced the holding of one of these, and the fortunate possessor
then elbowed his way to the wheel, through the dense mass of people,
to receive his prize. About an hour elapsed before “Tombola” was
declared in two places. This only occurs when the declaration of the
numbers drawn has enabled the possessor of a ticket to score off his
whole fifteen, and this done, he became entitled, as in the present
instance, to a prize of three hundred scudi, or a little more than
£60. This concluded the lottery, but some additional amusement was
promised to the crowd, in the shape of a montgolfier balloon, with a
lot of fireworks attached to its hoop, which was inflated after the
tombola was disposed of. Such a machine was probably new to many of
the country-people assembled in the amphitheatre, who gazed at it, as
it slowly filled, with extreme astonishment. Whether intentionally,
or by accident, I know not, but no sooner had the retaining cord been
severed, than the balloon rose a few feet above the heads of the gaping
spectators, and then toppling over, first caught fire itself, and next
ignited the combustibles which were tied to it. Squibs, crackers, and
Roman candles, now burst forth in a fiery shower, which caused a dire
confusion in the arena, whilst the miserable remnant of a balloon,
ascending to the upper boxes, scattered burning fragments of thin
paper amongst the silks and satins of the ladies. The women screamed,
and the men yelled and hooted, and the uproar was at its height, when
suddenly the sponge, which had been plentifully saturated with spirits,
detached itself from the wires, and fell into the middle of a group
of contadini, who had been staring upwards in awe-struck amazement.
A bursting bomb-shell would have been nearly as welcome. The people
cleared a space immediately, whilst one young fellow, more disposed for
fun than the rest, hurled the flaming affair into a distant part of
the arena, where its arrival, being equally unexpected, caused quite
as great a sensation. Many persons had their clothes injured, whilst
others were more or less burned, and it is probable that the fun would
have ended in something less innocent, had not the soldiery put a
sudden stop to it, by clearing the place.
In one of the rooms of the Fiano palace, was a Roman “_bigliardo_,”
where I could always be pretty sure of meeting some of my countrymen,
when dinner was over. On rainy days especially, it was satisfactory
to know, that one might get a few hours’ exercise under cover, and
we occasionally mustered a strong _pool_. In the Italian game, only
two balls are made use of, and any number of persons can play, the
marker giving out a lot of little figured counters, which are shuffled
in a bag, and decide the particular number of each player. The cues
are generally without leathers, the Italians having but little notion
of the _side_ stroke, and the handling of them is so noisy and
disagreeable, that I prevailed upon the marker, as an especial favour,
to point one or two for us, but his innocence proved so great, that he
nailed on a few round pieces of shoe-leather, with a common tack, and
fancied he had succeeded to admiration. After one or two more attempts,
he acquired the right method of fixing the leather, and we could then
enjoy our game. The pool was never higher than two bajocchi ahead, and
each life of one bajocco, a moderation on our part, which astonished
such stray English visitors, as dropped in occasionally upon us.
As we played purely for recreation, any thing like an innovation would
have been regarded by the old frequenters of the room as an insult. Sir
T---- B---- would have thrown down his cue in disgust, and his common
exclamation of _mi sento meglio_ would have given way to a groan of
despair. Dedly would have greeted any such proposition with a stare of
wonder at its extraordinary boldness, whilst Warmey would incontinently
have “pitched into” the intruder. Such being the order of our game,
the _bigliardo_ became a general rendezvous, one of its two tables
being vacated the instant that Sir T.’s well-known shuffle was heard at
the glass doors. The other was always left to the Italians, who played
neither for amusement nor exercise, inasmuch as they used to _sit_
round the table, and watch by the hour together a game played by three
or four of their party, with a number of minute balls set in motion by
the hand. This was evidently a _parti_ requiring considerable skill,
heavy bets being laid upon the event. What this might be, I never could
clearly ascertain, but the excitement produced by the game was so
intense, that Sir T.’s exclamation from our table of “_Bigliardiere,
tacco qui_” which he repeated on an average once every ten minutes,
calling the attention of the marker from the other game, was received
by the Italians with muttered imprecations upon the fat old _Inglese_,
whose short legs rendered the butt or bridge, necessary at every second
stroke. Sir T---- however, was proof against any insult, whether in
English or Italian, _sotto_ or _viva voce_, a good-natured indifference
on his part, which often made _him_ the butt of his brother-players.
Another game much in vogue in Italy, is that of the _Pirole_, where
five little pins are set up in the centre of the table, through which
a _pallino_, or small red ball, is doubled. The number of _pirole_
knocked over by it are counted as so many points, as well as certain
odd cannons and winning hazards, but as the pockets in an Italian
table are preposterously large, and the great art seems to consist in
avoiding them rather than otherwise, the _pirole_ is a game not often
played by foreigners.
In the _bigliardo_ of the Fiano, I made the acquaintance among others
of D----, a young Highlander, whose vagaries afterwards made him the
terror of all the coffee-house and tavern-waiters in Rome. He was
_not_ an artist, but appeared to be travelling solely for his pleasure
and amusement, lodging on the first floor of a house in the Condotti,
and devoting himself entirely to the prosecution of practical jokes,
and the study of German particles. His apartment looked like the
den of some embryo Anderson, or Phillipe, so filled was it at all
times with conjuring apparatus and machines for jerking obnoxious
missiles. For many days the shopkeepers, and others in his immediate
neighbourhood, but more especially those on the opposite side of the
street, were astonished by continued showers of peas, which sometimes
rattled in torrents against their windows, or popped per single pea,
at ominous and regular intervals against one particular pane. In vain
did the bewildered barber at the corner of the Via Belsiana, full ten
houses off, wait in ambush at his shop-door to rush out against some
wrongly-suspected _bambinaccio_.[35] No sooner did he expose his own
block and wig outside the door-post than a stinging volley caused him
to beat a hasty retreat. Every priest that passed along the Condotti
was saluted with one or more peas, which rebounding with a sharp
crack from off his stiff three-decker glanced away to a distance,
leaving the unfortunate _padre_ lost in a stare of amazement. These
persecutions continued without intermission for a fortnight, and the
Cock Lane ghost could scarcely have produced a more feverish excitement
in its immediate locality, than did the twopenny pea-shooter of the
waggish D----, from behind the _jalousies_ of his bed-room window. It
is difficult to say what might have been the end of these vagaries,
had they not been suddenly put a stop to by the interference of D.’s
landlord, who had acquired some clue to their author from the tinman
on the ground-floor, who had made the pea-shooter, a weapon hitherto
unknown in Roman warfare, and consequently regarded with curiosity.
This was one only in the catalogue of jokes perpetrated by our new
friend. Hot bajocchi were thrown from his window, to be picked up and
dropped again by the lad at whose feet they fell. His neighbours were
kept awake half the night by the discordant notes of a badly-blown
cornet-à-piston, whose melodies alternated between “_Jolly nose_” and
“_Ti voglio ben’ assai_,” a canzonetta which D. had picked up at
Naples. An old German Countess, who occupied the adjoining chamber
in the next house, was compelled to quit her rooms and forfeit half
a-year’s rent, from a firm conviction that the place was haunted.
Little did she imagine that her next-door neighbour never retired to
rest without indulging in the royal game of tennis, playing a match
between his right and left hands against the party wall.
Though not himself an artist, D---- made some pretensions that way.
An unfortunate dog, which appeared to exist alternately at the Lepri,
and Caffé Greco, and seemed more particularly to attach itself to the
English, was enticed in an evil hour to D----’s apartment. Our artist
had provided himself with one or two bladders of oil-paint and some
brushes, and having coaxed poor _Pincio_ into a suitable position,
converted him in about twenty minutes into a species of nondescript
hyæna, and then let him loose into the Condotti, where he created
considerable consternation. Such as first saw him, fled in terror to
the open shop-doors, while the more courageous set off in pursuit,
chasing the poor animal through a funeral procession, whose solemnities
he utterly confounded, to the Greco, which he entered at full speed,
and upsetting Antonio with two _mezzi-caldi_ and a _caffé nero_,
forced his way into the omnibus room amid the _huèes_ of a tribe of
raggamuffins of the Populusque Romanus, who imagined that some wild
animal had escaped from the menagerie of Guillaume in the Corea. Here
poor Pincio shuffled in and out among the legs of some ten or more of
us, transferring broad streaks of burnt-umber and ivory-black from
_his_ coat to _our_ trowsers, whilst the author of all the mischief had
unconcernedly seated himself in a shaded corner, and was enjoying the
success of his first essay in oils.
The period of Carnival was now at hand, and most of my friends were
busy in making preparations for the coming festivities. In touching
upon those incidental to this particular season, I shall jot down
such occurrences as came under my own notice, relating chiefly to the
operations of brother artists, who are, like all the rest, subject
to the epidemics of fun and frolic. Transmogrified in dress and
feature, their very mothers would fail to recognize their offspring;
and immolating their last _scudo_ at the shrine of the Swiss vendor
of confetti and bon-bons, or sinking it at once in the shortlived
incognito of mask and domino, they take their part in the triumph of
Momus. “Who enters there, leaves hope behind,” as far as the financial
arrangements of the future are concerned, and many a poor artist
laments with empty stomach, the forced “farewell to flesh,” which his
reckless expenditure, during the Carnival, obliges him to practise for
weeks after the fun is over. But to proceed--I have already hinted that
I shall not enter upon a lengthy description of the Carnival, and I
will, therefore, note down only such little episodes of the few days
of amusement as come most readily to hand. If the weather be fine,
there is an unusual degree of excitement in the streets, before the
anxiously expected hour of two, when the Governor of Rome, officers
of state, dragoons, soldiers, and civic guard, march in stately pomp
along the narrow Corso, and “opening the ball,” as it were, give the
signal for a commencement of the festivities. The street has been
newly gravelled for the occasion, whilst throughout its whole length,
the balconies are decorated with crimson cloths, damasks, antique
brocades and hearth-rugs, giving it an appearance which may be compared
to a perspective view of a tailor’s pattern card, until the mingled
colours are lost in the distance. The lower windows are fitted up like
stage-boxes at a theatre, and the pavements exhibit long files of
chairs, placed close together, for the accommodation of such of the
fair sex as cannot resist a participation in the gaiety, though their
timidity restrains them from mixing with the crowd.
It is difficult to say in what the peculiar delight of the Carnival
consists--the avowed business of each successive day, is to carry
about one, as great a quantity as possible of plaster of Paris
_confetti_, for the purpose of indiscriminate pelting, wholesale or
retail as the case may be. Some reserve their stores for general use,
dealing the contents of their pockets and pouches right and left,
with a recklessness quite exhilarating, and by no means dangerous;
while those more up to the game, wreak private vengeance upon any
unfortunate object they may single out as peculiarly adapted for a
volley, especially if the individual be unmasked. These onslaughts
do not always go unavenged, the assailant, when he least expects it,
receiving in his face a half-pound of white canister, or may-be, a
bonce compounded of chalk and sugar, which produces some new and very
palpable phrenologic development. Everything, however, is supposed to
be fair at the time of Carnival, and few are the insults offered which
cannot be expiated by a hearty laugh, or a friendly interchange of
missiles.
The most dignified-looking people in the Corso, are the Roman dandies,
who seldom condescend to mingle in any of the active sport, but stand
condensed in a mass at the doors of the various caffes, smoking their
cigars, and turning to the right and left with a mingled expression of
imbecility and good-natured contempt. The higher classes may be seen
in the procession which threads its way, unending and at dreary pace,
from end to end of the long street. These, and the lower orders, or
_basso ceto_, are by far the most facetious, and keep up between them,
the true spirit of the Carnival. But our grave and matter-of-fact
country-people, seem of all others to enjoy themselves to the full
extent, exaggerating to a ludicrous degree the authorized liberties of
the occasion. For every handful of _confetti_ cast by a Roman, the
young Englishman from his first-floor balcony, returns a shovel-full,
systematically raining upon the passing crowd, a continuous shower of
lime, until the street below is whitened by his unromantic ammunition.
But let us adjourn to a neighbouring studio in the Via Felice, where we
may see the preparations making by some of our friends for their first
appearance on the Corso. I arrived just as lunch was going on, and
found a number of my acquaintance in various stages of their toilet,
whilst others were busily rehearsing. R----s, as Figaro, was running
through the “Bravo, bravissimo,” of the _Barbiere_, whilst T----, in
“jacket blue, and tarry, tarry trousers,” was regaling himself with raw
ham and a hornpipe in a corner of the room, whistling the air between
each mouthful. Our refection was interrupted at intervals by the
entrance of other brothers of the brush, each bedizened according to
his own ideas of originality, in monstrous nose or mask of preposterous
shape. Then came the sound of a guitar, and with his peculiar laugh
and satyr-like figure, enters Alesandro, the model and shoemaker,
for he serves by turns St. Luke and St. Crispin, and among other
eccentricities, is given to music, ready for a consideration, either
with a _pose plastique_, or a Neapolitan ditty. Our toilet finished, we
passed through the small streets contiguous to the Corso and Piazza di
Spagna, now all deserted and lonely. Every one seems attracted towards
the grand scene of action, a few perhaps, stopping by the way to
inquire of themselves, how they can reconcile it to their sound reason
to join in such excessive buffoonery. Our companion R----d was not of
this number; he revelled in the Carnival, anticipating each day’s fun
with peculiar gusto, and grave and decided in his preparations. His
arrangements were of the most perfect kind, and his success, as far as
incognito went, undeniable. To this day, all but his friends remain
ignorant of the identity of the merry sprite, now white, now red, with
Mephistopheles-looking face, and like Porson’s devil, “backwards and
forwards, switching his long tail.” To the Romans, he appeared a kind
of myth, a being whose mysterious properties it were unsafe to pry
into. I had heard of his pranks both here and at Florence, and I saw
sufficient of them at this carnival, to convince me he was a very king
of maskers.
But to return to the Corso. Elbowing through the crowd, and stoically
submitting to the burst of mimic artillery, which is sure to assail
every new comer, one glances timidly around, and upwards. It would
fill a larger volume than this, were I to attempt even a cursory
description of the scene which is there presented. The myriads of
closely grouped heads, and faces of all expressions, bending over
the moving mass below, all intent and animated, as if life and death
depended upon some mighty issue, about to take place: the odd mixture
of character and colour, every possible impersonation mingled up and
confused with the Roman, οι πολλοι, formed a perfect tide of human
beings, of whom each endeavoured to outstrip his neighbour in an excess
of absurdity. Among these are conspicuous, the lawyer-like individuals,
half-quack, half-notary, who amuse the passers by with extemporaneous
advertisements, upon some fictitious nostrum, which their doggrel verse
attempts to justify. Their effusions are satirical, and often unsuited
to ears polite, but around them will always be seen a gaping crowd, who
drink in with avidity their political allusions, and gaze on them with
looks of veneration, far beyond their merits to inspire. Over-head, the
air is almost darkened with the unceasing showers of confetti, flowers,
and sweet-meats, while the face, if unprotected by a mask, becomes a
butt for all sorts of missiles. The stream of carriages is continuous,
one file passing each way, and the order of these is so well maintained
by the mounted Carabinieri, who guard all the streets leading out of
the Corso, that in a crowded Carnival, it is rarely that the same
carriages meet each other twice in one day. At the hour of five, a
single gun booms from the Castle of St. Angelo, and a troop of mounted
dragoons rapidly clear the streets, the giddy masquers, and more sober
observers, retreating to the protection of the curb-stone. Then follows
the well-known race of the riderless Barberi, and subsequently the
dispersion of the crowd.
During the Carnival, a _Festino_ is held at either the Argentina or
Aliberti theatre. These are pretty much the same as our masquerade,
excepting for the variety of tongues, and the greater facility and
cleverness displayed at Rome in dressing for and sustaining the
characters assumed, whilst at the _festino_, the stranger will not
remark any of the very equivocal morality which distinguishes our own
_bals masqués_. The common-people, as usual, have the best of it,
taking possession of the centre portion of the floor, and dancing
indefatigably under the droppings of wax lights, and amid a suffocating
cloud of dust, until literally pushed off the boards by an advancing
platoon of gens-d’armes, who move slowly along, in close file, until
they have entirely cleared away the nocturnal revellers.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] The Italian terminations,--_accio_ and _uccio_ are particularly
expressive, one letter establishing a very wide difference in
their signification. _Bambino_ for example, means _a little boy_;
_Bambinaccio_, with a powerful emphasis on the _a_, means a naughty,
dirty little raggamuffin; whereas _Bambinuccio_ is a sweet little duck
of a boy!