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diff --git a/75707-0.txt b/75707-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..000a02a --- /dev/null +++ b/75707-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5813 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75707 *** + + + + + +Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional +notes will be found near the end of this ebook. + + + + +FOUNTAINS OF PAPAL ROME + + + + + FOUNTAINS + OF PAPAL ROME + + + BY + MRS. CHARLES MAC VEAGH + + + ILLUSTRATIONS DRAWN + AND ENGRAVED ON WOOD BY + RUDOLPH RUZICKA + + + NEW YORK + CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS + 1915 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY + CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS + + Published October, 1915 + +[Illustration] + + + + + TO THE MEMORY OF + A FATHER AND DAUGHTER + + + + +CONTENTS + + + ST. PETER’S 1 + + SCOSSA CAVALLI 19 + + PIAZZA PIA 33 + + CAMPIDOGLIO 41 + + FARNESE 61 + + VILLA GIULIA 81 + + COLONNA 105 + + QUATTRO FONTANE 117 + + TARTARUGHE 133 + + FONTANA DEL MOSÈ 143 + + THE LATERAN 153 + + TRINITÀ DE’ MONTI 167 + + VILLA BORGHESE, NOW VILLA UMBERTO PRIMO 179 + + LA BARCACCIA 195 + + TRITON 205 + + NAVONA 213 + + TREVI 227 + + PIAZZA DEL POPOLO 239 + + PINCIAN 257 + + FONTANA PAOLA 267 + + MONTE CAVALLO 285 + + APPENDIX 303 + + CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX OF AQUEDUCTS MENTIONED, ANCIENT AND MODERN 307 + + CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX OF POPES MENTIONED 308 + + ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF ARCHITECTS, SCULPTORS, PAINTERS, AND + ENGRAVERS MENTIONED 310 + + + + +LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS + + + View of Fountains and Obelisk of St. Peter’s from beneath + Bernini’s Colonnade 9 + + Upper Basin of the Fountain in the Piazza Scossa Cavalli 25 + + View of the Piazza del Campidoglio from the Left Side of the + Cordonata 47 + + One of the Fountains in the Piazza Farnese 71 + + Fountain of the Virgins 91 + + Fountain of the Tartarughe 137 + + The Fountain of the Sea-Horses 183 + + The Fountain of the Amorini 191 + + The Fountain of the Triton 209 + + The Fountain of the Four Rivers 217 + + Figure of “Neptune” in the Fountain of Trevi 233 + + Piazza del Popolo from the West 247 + + Mostra of the “Fontanone” 279 + + The Fountain of Monte Cavallo 291 + + + + +ERRATA + + +Page 170, line 18, for London read Westminster. + +Page 221, line 25, for Leo X read Innocent X. + +Page 232, line 22, for Tre-vii read Trevie. + + + + +[Illustration] + +INTRODUCTION + + +Rome has been called the most religious city in the world because of +the number of her churches. With equal propriety, and perhaps with +greater justice, she might be called the cleanest city in the world +because of the number of her fountains. Pagan emperors and Christian +popes alike have found both profit and pleasure in adding another +fountain or in making or repairing one more aqueduct to give a still +greater supply of water to the Roman populace. No other people, with +the possible exception of the Spanish Moors, have so appreciated the +value and the beauty of abundant water. + +There are few squares, even in the Rome of to-day, where, at least +in the silence of the night, the sound of splashing water may not be +heard. The tiny fountain, often fern-fringed, with its ceaseless, +slender stream of water, is the one priceless possession in hundreds of +old courtyards, where it fills a damp and lonely silence with charm, +or redeems by its indestructible quality of beauty the meanness of +the squalid life about it. It is impossible to think of Rome without +her fountains. Yet, after a few weeks, the eye is hardly aware of +their presence. It is as if by their very beauty and omnipresence +they had acquired the divine attributes of sunlight; and it requires +the silence, as with the sunlight it requires the cloud, to rouse our +consciousness to their existence. They take their place among the +elemental causes of happiness, since the pain we feel at their loss is +the only adequate measure of the pleasure they give us. + +It is difficult for the man of to-day to picture to himself the +abundance and splendor of the fountains in imperial Rome. Some idea +of their character may be obtained from the description gathered from +various sources of Nero’s fountain on the Cælian. The mingled waters +of the Claudian and the Anio Novus aqueducts were brought thither over +the Neronian arches. A wall fifty feet in height, faced with rare +marbles and decorated by hemicycles and statues, formed the background +of the first cascade. At the foot of this wall a huge basin received +the stream, which then fell into another basin ten feet below the +first, and thence flowed into the great artificial lake, described by +Suetonius as like unto a sea, which filled all that space now occupied +by the Coliseum. Of great magnificence also was the fountain of +Severus Alexander on the Esquiline which served to introduce the Acqua +Alexandrina, the eleventh and last water-supply of imperial Rome. A +coin of the period gives a representation of this fountain, and in it +can be traced a certain resemblance to the Fontana Paola which stands +at the present day on the Janiculum, and which in its size and quantity +of water reproduces faintly the fountains of the past. + +That fine phrase, “la nostalgie de la civilisation,” nowhere finds a +more perfect illustration than in the attitude of the Western world +toward Rome. Some homing instinct of the human heart has for centuries +carried thither men of every nation and of every sort of belief or +unbelief; and the conviction that it will bring them thither in the +future as in the past is implied in that other name by which we know +her. She is the Eternal City. Every one can feel but no one can explain +the charm which she has over the spirits of men. Here the psychic +forces of the world’s great past are stored in imperishable memories. +Here each individual finds spiritual influences which seem to have +been waiting through the ages for his own peculiar appropriation. +King Theodoric, in the sixth century, spoke not only for himself but +for all succeeding generations of Northmen when he said that Rome +was indifferent to none because foreign to none. It seems as if the +feeling for Rome were an instinct congenital with our appetites and our +passions. It requires no justification and it admits of no substitute. +It is dateless and universal. The Gothic king of the past finds a +spiritual brother in the schoolboy of to-day who caught his mother’s +arm on the Terrace at Frascati to say, with an uncontrollable tremor +in his voice: “See there; that little spot over there! That is Rome, +and she was once the whole world!” King and schoolboy might have met +familiarly in some sunny portico of the classic city. Both were members +of the great freemasonry of the lovers of Rome, which stretches its +network far and wide over our civilization. + +In this company there are not a few who find themselves in Rome, yet +not able to see Rome--to see it, that is, as the historians, artists, +archæologists, and their own minds call upon them to see it. Their +right to tread the Roman streets depends upon their obedience to +some law compelling an existence lived entirely in the open air and +in the broad sunshine. To such the gates of Paradise seem closed. To +be forbidden the galleries and churches and catacombs and the hidden +recesses of the old ruins appears an intolerable fate. Yet even to +these, who have made the great acceptance and are living upon the +half-loaf of life--even to these, Rome is kind. Little by little, in +easy periods, they can get back into the days of the Renaissance, +of the Counter-Reformation, of the Napoleonic Era, and of the great +Risorgimento. This can be done under the conditions of open air and +sunshine; for it is in such surroundings that we find the fountains, +and the fountains of Rome are in themselves title-pages to Roman +history. + + + + +ST. PETER’S + + +[Illustration] + + +ST. PETER’S + +“Fountains are among the most successful monuments of the late +Renaissance,” and those which stand on either side of the great Square +of St. Peter’s show that Symonds’s statement should be enlarged so as +to include the century which followed that period. Mr. John Evelyn, +the accomplished English traveller of the seventeenth century, saw the +fountain of Paul V soon after its completion and describes it in his +diary as the “goodliest I ever saw”. Since his day the twin fountains +both of Trafalgar Square and of the Place de la Concorde have been +erected, but Evelyn could still give the superlative praise to the +great Roman model. Although the two fountains in the Square of St. +Peter’s are exactly alike they are not of precisely the same date. The +conception of the design belongs to Carlo Maderno, who executed the +fountain on the right of the approach to the basilica for Pope Paul V +(Borghese, 1605–1621), while the fountain to the left was copied from +this for Pope Clement X (Altieri, 1670–1676), some sixty years later. +Clement’s courtiers had observed that whenever His Holiness walked in +the direction of Paul V’s great fountain his eyes continually turned +toward it. At length Clement ordered his architect, Carlo Fontana, +nephew of Carlo Maderno, to make an exact copy of Maderno’s work and +to erect it on the south side of the obelisk. The double fountain not +only enhances the magnificence of the entire scene, but so changes it +by introducing the additional element of balance that Clement X’s order +for the second fountain was in reality an order for a new composition. +The coat of arms cut upon the octagonal support of the upper basins and +half hidden and obliterated by the falling water is, on the right-hand +fountain, that of the Borghese family (the crowned eagle above the +dragon); and on the left-hand fountain, that of the Altieri family, +an inverted pyramid of six stars. The latter fountain looks as if it +were the older, for, as it is situated in the southeast corner of the +wide piazza, it is exposed to the full sweep of the Tramontana, or +north wind, which has fretted and worn in no small degree the surface +of the travertine. It may have been the more sheltered position of the +northeast corner which determined the location of Paul V’s fountain, +the earlier of the two. In the spring the Altieri fountain is the more +beautiful because at that time that portion of the Colonnade which +forms its background reveals vistas of foliage, while the moss web +woven about the crown of the shaft is of a more brilliant green and the +lower basin is full of the same aquatic growth swaying with the motion +of the water. + +The Acqua Paola, which feeds these fountains, comes, in the last +instance, from the summit of the Janiculum, and therefore their central +jets are flung upward to a height of sixty-four feet, far above +the balustrade crowning Bernini’s lofty colonnades, which form the +background of the piazza. This height exceeds by from twenty-four to +thirty-four feet the height of the English and French fountains; and +whereas in the fountains of London and Paris the supply and force of +the water varies with the season of the year and the time of day (the +Trafalgar Square fountains in summer play thirteen hours out of the +twenty-four and in winter only seven), the abundance and power of the +water in these great Roman fountains is unfailing and unchanging. At +midnight, at high noon, in summer, in winter, they are always flowing, +and the splash and wash of the water makes them akin to the cascades of +Nature. + +This perpetual flow has been a characteristic of the Roman fountains +since the days of the Emperors. Frontinus, writing in the reign of +Trajan, says that all the great fountains were constructed with two +receiving-tanks, each from a separate aqueduct, so that no accident +or emergency should diminish or stop the supply of water. The later +popes were also careful to preserve this uninterrupted flow, and since +the close of the Cinque Cento their fountains have played unceasingly. +The lowest basins of both fountains (twenty-six feet in diameter) are +of travertine with a rim of Carrara marble. The middle basins (fifteen +feet in diameter) are of granite. That in the right-hand fountain is +of red Oriental granite, and that in the left-hand fountain of gray +granite. The inverted basins at the summit, on which the water falls, +are of travertine, as are also the massive shafts, which, however, +Maderno adorned with a slight moulding of Carrara marble just above the +water-line in the lowest basins. The entire structures have been so +transformed in color by three hundred years’ deposit of the Acqua Paola +that they have the appearance of bronze. The water in each fountain +rises in a crowded mass of separate jets from the summit of the central +and single shaft, and falls at first on an inverted basin covered by +deep carving, the richness of which gains in beauty from the green web +woven about its curves and angles by the fall of the water. This upper +carving seems to be a part of the fantastic action of the wind-tossed +spray. The lower basins which receive the water are severely plain, +the design following Nature’s scheme of development, from a fretted +and turbulent source to the broad surfaces of the full stream. But +the architectural values of these fountains are incalculably affected +by the wonderful play of the water. It leaps upward as if to meet the +sun; it falls back in tumult and foam; it drenches all about with +its far-flung spray and wasteful overflow. It is the very triumph of +vitality and joy. + +The fountains of St. Peter’s might be said to bear toward the vast +piazza of which they are a part the same relation as that of the eye to +the human countenance: without them the noble spaces would seem cold +and inanimate. This gleaming, tossing water endlessly at play with +the wind and the sun, instinct with a power and a beauty not of man’s +making--this it is which gives to the world-famous scene the touch of +life. + +Pope Paul V has not only the honor of having erected the first of +these two modern fountains, but he has also that of having himself +discovered the original manuscript of a poem in which mention is made +of the first fountain connected with the Church of St. Peter. This +poem dates from the fourth century and was written by Pope Damasus +(366–384). This pontiff was, like the Emperor Hadrian, a Spaniard; and, +like Hadrian, he was not only a ruler of men, but gifted with many and +varied talents. He was an archæologist, a civil engineer, theologian, +and poet. He presided over that Ecumenical Council by which the second +great heresy threatening the church was condemned, as the first had +been at the Council of Nicæa. + +St. Jerome, after years of friendship, became secretary to the then +care-worn and ailing pontiff, among whose many labors had been the +restoration of the Catacomb of St. Calixtus, and other tombs of the +early Christians and martyrs, some of which he marked with metrical +inscriptions of his own composition. It must have been while engaged +upon this pious work of reconstruction in the Vatican Hill that he came +upon those springs that, for lack of a proper channel, had damaged +the tombs upon the hillside and were threatening to undermine his +great basilica (the first Church of St. Peter) within less than fifty +years of its erection by Constantine. He drained the ground in the +vicinity, building a small aqueduct, “neatly in the old Roman style +of masonry,” to lead these unshepherded waters to definite localities +where they could be a benefit and not a danger to their surroundings. +The water thus collected is called the Acqua Damasiana, and to this +day the private apartments of the Pope are supplied from this source. +The feeding springs of this water are located at Sant’ Antonio, to the +west of the church, and the aqueduct of Pope Damasus lies at a depth +of ninety-eight feet. Pope Damasus himself describes this in the poem +which was discovered in 1607, more than twelve hundred years later, by +Pope Paul V. + +Pope Damasus says: “The Hill” (Vatican Hill) “was abundant in springs, +and the water found its way to the very graves of the saints. Pope +Damasus determined to check the evil. He caused a large portion of the +Vatican Hill to be cut away, and by excavating channels and boring +_cuniculi_ he drained the springs so as to make the basilica dry and +also to provide it with a steady fountain of excellent water.” Of this +steady fountain there is no description, and therefore the fountain of +Pope Symmachus (498–514) becomes the first fountain recorded in the +history of St. Peter’s. + +[Illustration: View of fountains and obelisk of St. Peter’s from +beneath Bernini’s Colonnade.] + +Pope Symmachus was a Corsican. He evidently had a passion for building +every kind of structure connected with water as a cleanser and as a +beautifier of man’s civic life. His fountain, built at a time when +civilization and art in Rome were at a low ebb, was a quaint and +exquisite structure, composed of a square tabernacle supported by eight +columns of red porphyry with a dome of gilt bronze. Peacocks, dolphins, +and flowers, also of gilt bronze, were placed on the four architraves, +from which jets of water flowed into the basin below. The border of the +basin was made of ancient marble bas-reliefs, representing panoplies, +griffins, and other graceful devices. On the top of the structure were +semicircular bronze ornaments worked “à jour,” that is, in open relief, +without background, and crowned by the monogram of Christ. In the +centre of the tabernacle and under the dome stood a bronze pine-cone. +This fountain stood, not in the Piazza of St. Peter’s, but in the +atrium, or the square portico, which stood in front and on the right +hand of the old basilica. + +The history of the construction and destruction of this beautiful +fountain of the dark ages is an excellent example of the artistic and +architectural methods of those times. Arts and crafts had already sunk +to so low a depth that there were no longer any men in Rome capable +of casting or carving statues like those of former days, and marble +had ceased to be imported into the city. Consequently all monuments or +other artistic structures were made up of figures in marble or bronze, +panels, columns, friezes, and similar decorations, stolen from the +productions of the great days of the Empire. The Arch of Constantine, +erected in 315, is composed to such an extent of columns and sculpture +from a Triumphal Arch of Trajan that it was surnamed “Æsop’s Crow”; and +the Column of Phocas (608), the last triumphal monument to be erected +in imperial Rome, consists of a shaft and capital surmounted by a +bronze figure, all taken from earlier as well as different structures. +Pope Symmachus was only following the established methods when, to +ornament his porphyry columns (themselves probably part of some classic +temple), he took four of the golden peacocks which had been originally +cast for a decoration to the railing of the walk surrounding the +Tomb of Hadrian, and, furthermore, placed as the centrepiece a great +pine-cone taken from the Baths of Agrippa. These pine-cones were a +customary feature of the classic fountain, as the scales of the cone +present natural and graceful outlets for the falling water. Symmachus’s +fountain was one of the beauties of Rome in the days when the great +Gothic King Theodoric ruled and loved the city. Three hundred years +later it captivated the fancy of Charlemagne, crowned Emperor in St. +Peter’s on Christmas Day, 800; and the fountain afterward erected +before his great cathedral at Aix is ornamented with a huge pine-cone +like the one which he and his Franks had seen in the exquisite fountain +of St. Peter’s. + +Three other fountains were placed before the church as the years went +by. They are described by Pope Celestinus II (1143–1144), while he +was Canon of St. Peter’s, and are set down in his “Ordo Romanus,” or +Itinerary, or Guide. They were situated, not in the atrium, where +stood the fountain of Symmachus, but below, in that small square or +_cortile_ at the foot of the steps of St. Peter’s. One fountain was of +porphyry and two of white marble. They would seem to have disappeared +quite early. The fountain of Symmachus was described in 1190 by Censius +Camerarius, afterward Pope Honorius III, and it stood through more than +eleven centuries of the confused and turbulent history of the city. +It survived the siege and capture of Rome by Vitiges in 537. It came +unscathed through the sack of the city by the Saracens in 886, and +that of the Normans in 1084; and stranger still, it was not wrecked +by the terrible Lanzknechts of the Constable de Bourbon in 1527. Only +when the ages of violence and pillage were passed, did this historic +fountain of the early church succumb to a fate similar to that of the +Pagan monuments, out of which it had itself been formed. When in 1607 +the work on the new Church of St. Peter, which was begun in 1506 at +the rear of the old sanctuary and brought forward through the century, +had reached the atrium, this “gem of the art of the dark ages” was +deliberately demolished by Pope Paul V, who melted the gilded bronze +to make the figure of the Virgin now surmounting the Column of Santa +Maria Maggiore. Perhaps the metal thus obtained was more than he +needed; possibly some artistic or antiquarian compunction visited the +pontiff--for two of the peacocks and the great bronze cone were spared. +They found their way to the Vatican Gardens, and now they stand in the +Giardino della Pigna waiting for the next turn of Fortune’s wheel. + +Yet another fountain was once associated with the basilica of St. +Peter. It was erected in the old square while the fountain of Symmachus +still stood in the atrium to the right of the main entrance to the +church. About the year 1492, Innocent VIII (Giovanni Battista Cibo) +gathered the waters from springs on the Vatican Hill and from the +practically ruined Aqueduct of Trajan into this fountain, which was +finished by his successor, Alexander VI (Borgia). The design was +greatly admired in its day. It consisted of golden bulls, from whose +mouths the water fell into a granite basin, and the bull was the emblem +of the Borgia family. During the crowded years of the famous Cinque +Cento, or until the pontificate of Gregory XIII, this fountain of +Innocent VIII, and the old fountain of Trevi (restored by Sixtus IV) +supplied Rome with what the present day would call its pure drinking +water. They contained the only water brought into the city from distant +springs, for mediæval Rome had lost all but two of her great aqueducts, +and these were constantly falling into disuse; and all the pontiffs, +painters, poets, and architects, as well as the populace of that +dramatic period drank the doubtful water of wells and of the Tiber. + +This fountain of Innocent VIII was destroyed when the modern Piazza +of St. Peter’s replaced the very much smaller one of earlier days. +Probably the golden bulls were melted down into other shapes, and the +great red granite basin was used by Carlo Maderno for the upper basin +of the magnificent new fountain which he designed and executed at that +period for Paul V, and which is the northern one of the two fountains +of the present day in the Piazza of St. Peter’s. + +Standing between the fountains of St. Peter’s is an obelisk, the +surpassing interest of whose history adds not a little to the +importance of the fountains themselves, and indeed of the entire +square. It is, according to Lanciani, undoubtedly the obelisk at the +foot of which St. Peter was crucified. Formerly the place of his +martyrdom was located on the Janiculum Hill, on the spot where San +Pietro in Montorio was built by Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of +Castile to commemorate the event. Lately this location of the site of +St. Peter’s crucifixion has been discredited, but it is easy to see how +that mistake occurred. + +Caligula had brought the obelisk from Heliopolis some time during the +four short years of his reign and placed it in the circus he began to +build in those gardens of his mother, the noble Agrippina the elder, +which lay along the northern side of the plain between the Janiculum +and Mons Vaticanus. There it stood on the centre of the _spina_, the +long, straight line stretching down the middle of the arena from the +two opposite goals at either end. Caligula was assassinated before he +could finish the circus and it was completed some thirteen years later +by Nero, under whom it became the scene of those atrocities against +the Christians which have rendered his reign infamous. St. Peter was +crucified one year before the death of Nero. His cross was raised +on the _spina_ of the circus at an exact distance between the two +goals--_metas_--built at either end of the amphitheatre, and therefore, +at the foot of the obelisk which stood on that spot. + +Christian tradition handed down the description of the place “between +the two goals” (inter duas metas). Now _meta_ was a name afterward +given to tombs of pyramidal shape, two of which existed in mediæval +Rome--one, that of Caius Cestius, still standing next to the present +Protestant Cemetery, and the other in the Borgo Vecchio, destroyed +later by Alexander VI. A straight line drawn from one of these +tombs to the other has its centre in a point on the Janiculum, and +therefore this spot was thought to be the exact location of St. Peter’s +martyrdom. Even to-day visitors to the exquisite Tempietto of Bramante, +erected in the cloister of the Church of San Pietro in Montorio, are +shown below its pavement the very stone in which the cross of St. Peter +was fixed. The legend of this location for the crucifixion of St. Peter +grew up during the Middle Ages, a period in which all knowledge of +the authentic site was entirely lost. Modern archæology has recently +succeeded in locating this position and its topography can now be +easily understood. + +When the Emperor Constantine, after his conversion to Christianity, +determined to build a basilica in honor of St. Peter, he planned to +erect the edifice so that its centre should rise directly over the +tomb of St. Peter, who, according to historical documents, was buried +not far from the scene of his martyrdom. To do this, he found himself +obliged to build so near the Circus of Caligula and Nero that the +southern wall of his edifice corresponded exactly to the northern +wall of the Circus. He therefore used this wall of the Circus as the +southern foundation wall of his church. This naturally brought the +southern side of the old St. Peter’s within a very short distance of +the _spina_ of the Circus, on which stood the obelisk, with a chapel +before it called the Chapel of the Crucifixion. The Chapel disappeared +seven or eight centuries ago, but not before its true significance +had been quite forgotten, and men supposed the name to refer not to +the crucifixion of St. Peter but to the Crucifixion of Our Lord. An +old engraving by Bonanni, antedating the reign of Sixtus V, shows +the old Church of St. Peter on its southern side, with the obelisk, +still tipped by its Pagan ball, standing in close proximity. When the +plan for the new Church of St. Peter was accepted it was seen that +the southern side of the great edifice would extend so far beyond the +limits of the original church that it must entirely cover the spot on +which the obelisk was standing; and as the connection of the obelisk +with the martyrdom of St. Peter had long since been forgotten, Pope +Sixtus V conceived the idea of moving the obelisk to a more conspicuous +and important position. + +Thus it came about that the obelisk now forms the central feature in +the piazza before the Cathedral of Christendom; while the place of +St. Peter’s crucifixion, that site of transcendent interest to all +Christians, remains unidentified, buried beneath the masses of masonry +composing the Baptistery on the southern side of the vast structure +which bears St. Peter’s name. + + + + +SCOSSA CAVALLI + + +[Illustration] + + +SCOSSA CAVALLI + +This work of Carlo Maderno belongs to that group of fountains which +owe their origin to the introduction into Rome of the Acqua Paola. The +lower basin stands about three feet above the level of the pavement. It +is oblong in shape, the oval broken at both ends by graceful variations +in the curve. The secondary basin is much smaller, round and quite +shallow. From its centre rises a richly carved cup much resembling +a Corinthian capital, this cup being the apex of the central shaft, +upon which rests the second basin, and the main stream of water spouts +upward from its leaflike convolutions. The proportions of the fountain +are excellent. It is neither too low nor too high, and the lower basin +is large enough to catch and retain the water which pours over the rim +of the upper basin, so that it does not wash over as does the water +in Maderno’s much more magnificent fountain in the Square of St. +Peter’s. The central shaft of the Scossa Cavalli fountain has a Doric +massiveness which gives a background of strength to the whole design +and makes all the more delicate the play of the four slender jets of +water, about five feet in height, which, rising at equal intervals +from the lower basin, form an arch around the upper basin into whose +shallow water they fling their spray. The crowned eagle and griffin of +the Borghese are still to be discerned on the half-obliterated carving +of the central shaft. The kind of travertine out of which this fountain +is made is so susceptible to erosion, and has become so blackened by +the deposit of the water, that the whole structure appears far older +than it is. In reality it has stood here little more than three hundred +years, as the Acqua Paola was not brought to Rome until the time of +Pope Paul V. This splendor-loving pontiff determined, on his accession +in 1605, to emulate and, if possible, surpass Pope Sixtus V, whose +brilliant pontificate antedated his own by less than a score of years. +Sixtus V had built the first great aqueduct of modern Rome. Paul V +determined to build the second. Sixtus V had christened after himself +the water which he had brought to Rome, and Paul V gave his name to the +stream which, partly by using the all but ruined Aqueduct of Trajan, +he had brought from Bracciano and its hills. Domenico Fontana had +built for Sixtus V, as the chief outlet for the Acqua Felice, the fine +Fountain of the Moses on the Viminal Hill. Giovanni Fontana, brother +of Domenico, should design for the Acqua Paola on the opposite slope +of the Janiculum a yet more glorious fountain which should dispense +five times the amount of water given out by the fountain of Sixtus V. +All this was done, and from the heights of the Janiculum the great +stream descended in various channels, and was widely spread over the +Trastevere or that portion of the city lying on the western side of +the Tiber. One channel found another fine outlet in the fountain which +Carlo Maderno, nephew of Fontana, also built for Paul V on the northern +side of the Square of St. Peter’s. From thence the water was conducted +down the Via Alessandrina (now the Borgo Nuovo) to this small piazza +of the Scossa Cavalli where Maderno constructed for it this second and +very properly less splendid fountain. Thus it will be seen that the +water as well as the architectural part of this fountain belongs to +the beginning of the seventeenth century; but the interest attaching +to the buildings surrounding the square in which it stands dates back +farther than that, dates back in fact to the crowded days of the High +Renaissance, when this prosaic little piazza was a centre of ardent and +vivid life. + +The long, plain, yet dignified building to the south, now called the +Ora Penitenzieri, was built by Cardinal Domenico della Rovere, who +was one of the nephews of Pope Sixtus IV and brother to Pope Julius +II, the friend and patron of Michelangelo. To the west, and on the +corner made by the square and the street of the Borgo Nuovo, stands +the house built by Bramante, and purchased by Raphael. The atelier of +the “divine painter” is the corner room on the second floor. Against +the wall behind those gloomy windows stood his last picture, “The +Transfiguration,” unfinished; and on a bed placed at the foot of that +picture, Raphael died. + +Another death agony is connected with the history of the square, for +in the gardens behind the palace to the north, now called Palazzo +Giraud-Torlonia, was held that fatal supper where the Borgias, father +and son, fell victims to the poison which they had prepared for the +cardinal who was their host and the owner of the palace. Even the +legends of classic Rome seem somewhat colorless compared with the +memories which haunt this dull little square. Nothing could be more +prosaic than its present-day appearance. It is truly “empty, swept, +and garnished,” but the devils which have gone out of it have seldom +had their equal; its memories belong to a more splendid and to a more +shameful past than is the heritage of any other city of our modern +world. + +In 1492, when Columbus had discovered the Western Hemisphere and +Copernicus was revolutionizing the mediæval view of the universe, Rome +was still emerging from the shadow under which she had lain while +the popes resided at Avignon. In 1471 Sixtus IV began to restore +and embellish the city, and with him the Holy See entered upon that +long period of secularization which reached its acme of infamy, +of magnificence, and of territorial possessions in the respective +pontificates of the Borgia, Medici, and Barberini popes. Each of these +pontiffs left his mark on some particular quarter of the city; and +although in the years following the times of Alexander VI efforts were +made to obliterate the memory of the Borgias, the Borgo Nuovo remains +forever bound up with their history. + +[Illustration: Upper basin of the fountain in the Piazza Scossa +Cavalli.] + +Throughout the Middle Ages the only thoroughfare from the Bridge of +St. Angelo to the Square of St. Peter’s was the Borgo Vecchio. It was +a narrow and tortuous street and quite inadequate to the traffic and +processions and pilgrimages which continually passed between its rows +of crowded old houses. + +Alexander VI formed the new Borgo by cutting a street through the +orchards, gardens, and slums of this quarter, and by granting special +privileges to the property owners who, within a specified time would +build on it houses not less than forty feet high. The Pope was greatly +interested in his new street and christened it for himself, the Via +Alessandrina. He was fortunate in having in Rome at that time Bramante +of Urbino, who was just launched on that career of popular favor which +was only to be surpassed in length of days or in exaggerated estimation +by the career of Bernini a century later. + +A sure way to please the Pope was to employ some great architect and +to erect a noble house upon the new thoroughfare. Raphael, who was +amusing himself with architecture, is said to have worked with Bramante +in the construction of the palace afterward owned by him, next door to +the palace owned by the Queen of Cyprus,[A] and the great room on the +_piano nobile_, the beautiful wooden ceiling of which had been designed +by Bramante, was a stately studio. The room is now divided into two +apartments; but it is easy in imagination to sweep away the modern +alterations and to see this most beautiful, gracious, and best-loved of +all Italian artists at work here among his pupils, or receiving with an +exquisite sweetness and modesty the greatest princes of the Church and +State. + +Rome was at this period the finest marble quarry in the world. It was +still a century before the time of Sixtus V and Domenico Fontana; +the Farnese had not yet built their great palace from the spoils of +the Baths of Caracalla and other noble ruins; the last sack of Rome +was still thirty years in the future; and very little building of +any importance had been carried on through the long period of the +popes’ absence in Avignon. Bramante found the richest marbles ready +to his hand, and he built the façade of the Palazzo Giraud-Torlonia +out of materials taken from the Basilica Giulia and the Temple of +Janus. However, already in Sixtus IV’s time the rage had begun for +the destruction of old monuments, and in order to build the Via +Alessandrina, the Pope had demolished a Pagan tomb which had once been +a landmark in the Borgo. During the Middle Ages it was called the Tomb +of Romulus, and Raphael has painted it in his “Vision of Constantine.” +It was of pyramidal form, like the tomb called the Pyramid of Cestius, +which is still standing near the Protestant Cemetery on the road to +St. Paul’s Beyond the Walls. Doubtless, its massive blocks went into +the construction of the new palaces surrounding the little square, +which now took the place of the old tomb as the central point in that +quarter of the city. In this square the two chief palaces are connected +with two of the greatest of the Pope’s cardinals, each of whom had +found it to his advantage to hold a post in foreign lands. + +The fiery and forceful Giulio della Rovere, who gave his name to the +palace built by his brother Domenico and now known as the Penitenzieri, +had been the chief rival of Rodrigo Borgia in the papal election of +1492, and, thereafter, the open enemy of Alexander VI. It is possible +he might never have become that Pope’s successor had he not put himself +under the protection of Charles VIII of France. On the other hand, +Cardinal Adriano Corneto, who built the palace now the Giraud-Torlonia, +stood high in the Pope’s good graces. Alexander made him collector of +the papal revenues in England, where he was already known as the papal +peacemaker between Henry VII and the ill-starred James IV of Scotland. +There he made a valuable friend in no less a personage than King Henry +VII himself. The Tudor King was not lavish of his money, but, for some +reason, he gave large sums to Cardinal Corneto as a personal gift. + +England proved a safe and agreeable asylum for the accomplished +cardinal, and when he was finally recalled he must have returned to +Rome with some misgivings. He found the Curia, as well as the city, +living under that spell of terror which the Borgias, father and +son, had woven about them. Strange stories, horrible suspicions, +and mysterious crimes were the order of the day; and the cardinal, +returning from his bishopric of Bath and Wells and the frankness and +simplicity of the English court, must have found the change little to +his liking. Very probably it was to secure the Pope’s friendship that +he engaged the services of Bramante and began to build a magnificent +palace on the Pope’s new thoroughfare. But while Alexander VI loved +splendor, he also coveted money. The new palace was slow in building, +and before it was completed, the Pope could see that all the gold which +the cardinal had collected in England had not gone into the papal +coffers. In short, he comprehended the fact that his Cardinal Adriano +Corneto was a very rich man; and in the summer of 1503 he sent him a +message that His Holiness and the Duke of Valentino (Cesare Borgia) +would honor him by taking supper with him on the night of August 12. +It is easy to understand the consternation with which the message +was received, the look of frozen horror on the cardinal’s face as +he already saw himself dying in sudden convulsions or fading slowly +away with a fatal and mysterious malady. No time was to be lost, and +a large share of the cardinal’s English gold bought over the Pope’s +majordomo to his side. Possibly some of the deadly work had already +begun before the bargain was struck. Possibly the majordomo thought it +best to appear to have obeyed the Pope’s orders, even at the risk of a +little torture to the cardinal, for although Cardinal Corneto survived +that fatal supper, it was said that the skin fell from him in strips. +The Pope died within ten days, the monstrous appearance of the corpse +terrifying all who beheld it. Only Cesare Borgia’s almost superhuman +vitality saved him from a like fate. + +Years after, when he had been shut out forever from Rome, Cesare told +his friend and admirer Machiavelli that the results of this supper in +the gardens of the cardinal’s palace had frustrated all his plans. +Cesare had fully determined that his father’s successor should not +humiliate and despoil him as his father had despoiled and humiliated +the nephews of his predecessor, Pope Sixtus IV. He had made every +arrangement to make himself master of Rome as soon as his father should +die. He had, so he told the author of “Il Principe,” foreseen and +provided for every possible difficulty. The one thing he had not been +able to foresee was that he himself should be too ill to leave his bed. + +The Borgias passed away from Rome. Cardinal della Rovere was made Pope, +and men set about to obliterate all memories of that brood whose crimes +had made Rome a stench in the nostrils of Christendom. Gradually, but +effectively, the work was accomplished. Alexander VI’s tomb was built +without any monument. The Fountain of the Gilded Bulls, the emblem +of the Borgias, which stood before St. Peter’s was destroyed. The +Borgia apartments in the Vatican were walled up, and remained so for +centuries. The nude figure of the beautiful Giulia Farnese on the tomb +of her brother Pope Paul III in St. Peter’s was covered with painted +metal draperies. Even the Via Alessandrina became the Borgo Nuovo. + +Cardinal Adriano Corneto lived through the pontificate of Pope Julius +II and into that of Pope Leo X; but the fame of his riches did at +last work his undoing. Leo X, who needed money as much as Alexander +VI, insisted that the cardinal was privy to a conspiracy against his +life. Corneto was deprived of his cardinalate, even degraded from the +priesthood, and was obliged to make his escape from Rome. He died in +obscurity, leaving his beautiful palace, still unfinished, to his +benefactor King Henry VII, who made it the residence of the English +ambassador. + +A century later, when Maderno built the fountain of the Scossa Cavalli +for Pope Paul V, Cardinal Corneto’s palace had again passed into the +hands of the Romans, where it has remained. The Reformation had swept +over England, and there was no longer an English ambassador to the +Papal See. + + + + +PIAZZA PIA + + +[Illustration] + + +PIAZZA PIA + +No one can walk the Roman streets without perceiving, and almost at +once, that here time is of no importance. It is, in fact, an absolutely +negligible quantity. Buildings and monuments dating from widely diverse +periods stand side by side, and it is in no wise incongruous from the +Roman standpoint to find at the head of the Borgo (the ancient Leonine +city) one of the very latest fountains of papal Rome. It is a charming +little creation, quite consciously harking back to the great days of +the papacy and rebuking by its sober, yet imaginative sculpture those +geometrical designs or extravagant ebullitions of fancy--the fountains +of the present régime. It stands in the Piazza Pia, against that +narrow façade which blunts the point of the long angle or wedge-shaped +block of buildings lying between the Borgo Vecchio and the Borgo Nuovo. +Its Fontanesque mostra is composed of two beautiful white Carrara +columns with Corinthian capitals supporting a pediment and entablature +on which is an inscription to the effect that the fountain was erected +by Pius IX in the sixteenth year of his pontificate, which would make +it the year 1862. The sculptural part of the fountain bears a certain +resemblance to the work of Luigi Amici and Bitta Zappalà, the artists +who not many years later executed the modern figures in the side +fountains of the Piazza Navona. + +The Piazza Pia fountain might also be ascribed to Tenerani, a +distinguished sculptor of Pius IX’s pontificate, who, in his devotion +to the Pope, did not disdain to design some of the triumphal devices +with which Rome welcomed back Pio Nono after Gaeta. But Tenerani’s bust +is among the “Silent Company of the Pincio,” and if the little fountain +were indeed his work, the fact would be known. As it is, the sculptor’s +name seems, for the present, at least, to have been forgotten in the +confusion attendant upon the transformation of papal into Italian Rome. + +The fountain originally held Paola water, and the charming little vase +and dolphins composed of white Carrara have become through the deposits +of this water so black that the beauty of the fountain is distinctly +marred. This fountain takes the place of an earlier one executed by +Carlo Maderno and called the Mask of the Borgo. The design was a large +mask from which water flowed into a pilgrim shell over which perched +the Borghese eagle, while two lions’ heads on either side spouted +additional streams. As this first fountain was in travertine it had in +all probability succumbed to the disastrous effects of the Paola water, +which seems to disintegrate as well as to discolor some varieties of +that stone. + +There is in the Piazza Mastai another fountain erected by Pius IX. And +he also instituted several washing troughs in the Trastevere among the +poor, for whom he had always a sincere and profound sympathy. Those +who would render justice to this last “Papa Re” should drive up the +magnificent approach to the Quirinal Palace. This modern driveway and +masonry were erected, as can be seen from the tablet on the sustaining +wall of the terrace, for Pius IX by his great architect and engineer +Virginio Vespignani. They give the finishing touch of magnificence to +the Piazza of the Quirinal, originally laid out on its present grade +and in its fine proportions by Domenico Fontana for Sixtus V (some +two hundred and eighty years earlier). This approach to the Quirinal +and the great buttress walls of the Coliseum might easily be enough +to prove Pius IX’s care for the city; but, as with those of his +predecessors who had the welfare of their people most at heart, his +chief claim upon the memory of the Romans lies in the interest which +he took in the city’s water supply. Pius IX gave his permission to +an English company to introduce into Rome the rediscovered springs +of the Marcian water. These springs had been first brought to Rome +by the Marcian aqueduct in the years 144–140 B. C. This aqueduct was +the first of the true high-level aqueducts, and covered its path of +fifty-eight miles on great arches which brought it to Rome at the Porta +Maggiore one hundred and ninety-five feet above sea-level. The two +aqueducts which antedated it--the Appian and the Anio Vetus--ran most +of the distance underground, the Anio Vetus appearing above ground +for only eleven hundred feet, while the Appian (the first of all the +Roman aqueducts) was carried overground on low arches for three hundred +feet, and actually entered the city fifty feet below the surface of the +earth. The springs of the Marcia are now called the Second and Third +Serena and are situated in the Valley of the Anio above Tivoli, on the +north side of the stream, near Agosta. The original Marcian aqueduct +had been destroyed by Fontana when he was collecting material to build +the Acquedotto Felice. A portion, however, of the ancient masonry +remains, and although to-day the Marcian water comes to Rome chiefly +through modern iron pipes, some parts of its passage lead through the +old stone channels. The water now enters Rome through the Porta Pia +at an altitude of two hundred feet; thus it ranks next to the Paola, +which is two hundred and three feet above the sea-level. The Marcia +ranks next to the Virgo in abundance, and at present supplies most of +the dwelling houses in Rome. Its history is embodied in its full name, +Acqua Marcia Pia. + +Pius IX made his last public appearance as sovereign pontiff when this +water was introduced into Rome. This occurred on September 18, 1870, +just two days before the famous “Venti Settembre,” when the Italian +troops entered Rome through a breach in the Porta Pia. The fountain +which was destined to be the last fountain of papal Rome stood in the +Piazza delle Terme,--not where the present one stands, but off to one +side, for the city was still papal Rome and the great Villa Negroni +(formerly Montalto) of Pope Sixtus V then covered the site now occupied +by the present railway station. Within the gardens of that villa many +of the original Acqua Felice fountains were still flowing, and one +latter-day inhabitant of the villa tells how, as a child, she often +looked down at night from her nursery windows upon an old fountain +about which stood a circle of little Campagna foxes drinking from its +cypress-guarded waters. The Pope drove to the inauguration of his +Marcia Pia amid a vast concourse of people who strewed flowers and +shouted: “King, King!” There were, however, few distinguished people +at the ceremony. He drank a cup of the water, praised its purity and +freshness and thanked the magistrates for giving it his name. It was +the last public act of his sovereign pontificate, and derives both +significance and dignity from that long list of popes who, since the +time of Hadrian I had constituted themselves guardians and builders of +Roman aqueducts. + +The fountain which Pius IX thus inaugurated has been swept away to make +room for the present bronze affair. But the Acqua Marcia Pia now flows +in the Pope’s pretty fountain of Piazza Pia, so that here in the Borgo, +the ancient “Porch of St. Peter’s,” we find the last water and, with +the exception of the fountain in the Piazza Mastai, the last fountain, +of papal Rome. + + + + +CAMPIDOGLIO + + +[Illustration] + + +CAMPIDOGLIO + +The three fountains of the Campidoglio have one fundamental +characteristic in common--that of being a part of Rome from a period of +great antiquity. Like those families who “were there when the Conqueror +came,” the sculptures which adorn these fountains have been in Rome +since Christian Rome began. All the statues have occupied their present +positions a comparatively short time, and have passed through many +vicissitudes before reaching the places they now hold. In fact, each +fountain of the Campidoglio is a fountain with a past. The sculptural +part of each is a survival of some artistic design or idea antedating +to a remote period the time of its conversion into the fountain of +to-day. + +The general view of the Campidoglio comprises the stairway called “La +Cordonata,” the piazza at its summit crowned by the Palace of the +Senators, with the Museum of the Capitol to the left and the Palace +of the Conservatori on the right; and it is so impressive in its +architectural majesty that the fountain which is a part of it all keeps +its true place in the great composition, and is recognized only as a +note in the general harmony of proportion, design, and decoration. +This is, of course, as it should be--as Michelangelo meant it to be +when, some three hundred and seventy-five years ago, the vision of +the Campidoglio as it now stands unfolded itself in his brain. Not +that every detail of the magnificent reality is as he planned it. +The fatality which followed him, spoiling or changing nearly all his +great designs, has been at work here; and it is the fountain which has +suffered. + +This fountain, which is a part of the approach to the Senate House, was +to have as its central statue a figure of Jove. Vasari, who is quite +carried away with Master Michelangelo’s beautiful design, describes +the fountain as if it were already done,--Jove in the centre and the +two river-gods on either side. But Michelangelo and the enthusiastic +Vasari had been dead for years when Sixtus V brought the Acqua Felice +to the Campidoglio and finally erected the fountain. He placed in the +noble niche where a colossal and majestic Jupiter should have stood, +the antique statue of a Minerva done over to represent Rome. The +white marble head and arms of this statue are modern restorations, +but the porphyry torso was found at Cori, and its air of undeniable +antiquity is all that saves this curiously inadequate figure from utter +insignificance. It is too small for the niche it occupies, and is so +out of proportion to its surroundings and on so different a plane +of artistic treatment that it would quite spoil any creation less +triumphantly dominant than is this whole staircase and façade. + +The two river-gods which also adorn this fountain are very old. +Together with Marforio, now to be found in the Museum of the Capitol, +they have the distinction of never having been buried since the +downfall of Rome. Once they stood before “that most magnificent of all +Roman temples”--Aurelian’s Temple of the Sun. Later they belonged to +the Mediæval Museum of Statues, a collection kept in or near the old +papal palace of the Lateran, where they had been called Bacchus and +Saturn. The Nile, who should have been unmistakable because of his +emblem of the Sphinx, has now his proper designation; but the other +statue has a curious history. It was originally the River Tigris, a +river familiar to the Romans since the wars with Mithradates. When, +under Paul III, Michelangelo placed these statues in their present +position, some influential person suggested that the Tigris, no longer +of any interest to the Romans, should be changed into the Tiber. The +emblem of the Tigris--a tiger--was then altered to represent the Roman +Wolf, and the Twins were added. Pirro Ligorio tells the story, and goes +on to say that the fingers of one of the Twins were originally a part +of the Tiger’s fur. + +The erection of the bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius in +the centre of the piazza was the first step in the design of the +Campidoglio of to-day, for Michelangelo’s admiration of the statue +had been shared by Paul III, and the Pope brought it hither in 1538 +when the embellishment of Rome, originally begun in honor of the +visit in 1534 of Charles V, had become with both Pope and citizens +a great and permanent interest. This statue also had been a part of +that Mediæval Museum in the Lateran which was probably one of the +places to visit when Charlemagne came to Rome to be crowned in old +St. Peter’s on Christmas Day, 800. The façade of the Senate House, +which forms the background to the piazza and its statues, is built in +great part of travertine, so the structural part of the fountain is +of the same material. This consists of a huge niche, sixteen and a +half feet in height, sunk into the foundation of the terrace before +the main entrance to the Senate House. On either side of the niche is +a pair of Doric pilasters, which support the floor of the terrace and +its beautiful balustrade. A great stairway, down which the balustrade +continues, connects this entrance of the Senate House with the piazza +below; and the foundation of these steps, forming triangular wings to +the niche, serves as a background to the river-gods. These figures lie +one on either side of the semicircular basins containing the water. The +simplicity of the design partakes of the inevitable. Considering it +from any point of view, it is not only impossible to think of anything +better, it is impossible to think of anything else. If it is not the +work of Michelangelo, there must have been two Michelangelos in 1538! + +[Illustration: View of the Piazza del Campidoglio from the left side of +the Cordonata.] + +In Piranesi’s engraving of the Campidoglio a fine balustrade like the +one on the stairway surrounds the fountain. It follows the contour of +the lower basin and stands at some three or four feet distant from +it. This balustrade, which has disappeared, enhanced distinctly the +beauty of the fountain, bringing it more into harmony with the entire +composition. + +The river-god is one of the earliest sculptural personifications of +natural phenomena. In these days comparatively little heed is paid +to the smaller water-ways, so the modern spirit fails to see the +significance of these conventionalized figures. To the ancients, +however, the statues personified that physical object upon which all +civilized life depended--a great stream of unfailing water. The rivers +of Greece were small, while the Roman Empire contained some of the +largest in the world; but the ideas they represented were the same. The +river, small or great, made the city. The river gave food and drink +to the inhabitants, connected them with the outside world, brought +trade, turned the mills, defended the city from invasion, carried away +pestilence, cleansed, purified, and supported all the works of men; and +therefore Father Tiber and his brothers were to be worshipped and to +be honored, and statues were to be set up to them in public places, so +that men should remember what they owed to their river. The river is +always personified as a benign and majestic figure in the full strength +of mature manhood, with long and abundant hair and beard. The lower +limbs are draped, so that the mystery of partial concealment hangs +about him. On one arm he bears a horn of plenty; while with the other +he reclines upon some support, which is usually the characteristic +emblem of the particular stream which he represents. + +Power, abundance, and calm strength are the qualities of a great river; +and these qualities the ancients most adequately expressed in their own +peculiar medium, which was sculpture. Men of to-day put their ideas +into music, or more explicitly into prose or verse, and there are still +those who appreciate the significance of the river. Washington Irving’s +epithet of the “lordly Hudson” proves the hold that great river had +over his perception and imagination; and not any statue of a river-god +can give the conception of a river which is to be found in Arnold’s +“Sohrab and Rustum”: + + “But the majestic river floated on, + Out of the mist and hum of that low land, + Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, + Rejoicing, through the hush’d Chorasmian waste, + Under the solitary moon;--he flow’d + Right for the polar star, past Orgunjè, + Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin + To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, + And split his currents; that for many a league + The shorn and parcell’d Oxus strains along + Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles-- + Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had + In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere, + A foil’d circuitous wanderer--till at last + The long’d-for dash of waves is heard, and wide + His luminous home of waters opens, bright + And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars + Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.” + +[Illustration] + + +MARFORIO + +The nearest approach which the Romans have left us to such grandeur as +this is to be found in their statue called Marforio. The north wing +of the Campidoglio group is known as the Museum of the Capitol, and +it is in the entrance court of this edifice that Marforio is now to +be seen. If this most majestic of all river-gods ever represented any +particular river, the name of that river was forgotten centuries ago. +His title of Marforio was given him long since, because he once poured +the water into a fountain which stood in a small square to the left of +the Senate House, where Augustus had erected the Martis Forum. There he +seems to have remained throughout the darkest days of Rome’s decadence, +surviving every vicissitude, and always respected by the half-barbarous +Romans of that time. Gregory XIII (Boncompagni, 1572–1585) is +responsible for removing Marforio from this classic position and for +separating him at that time from the huge granite basin into which +flowed the water from the urn on which he is leaning. Thenceforth the +basin has a history of its own, while Marforio’s odyssey (he wandered +for some time after leaving his old home) finally brought him to +the Campidoglio. Sixtus V then placed him on the left side of the +piazza, facing the south wing. This south wing, known as the Palazzo +dei Conservatori, was the first of the present group of buildings +to be erected, Tommaso de’ Cavalieri--a Roman gentleman and one of +Michelangelo’s few intimates--having had charge of its construction in +Michelangelo’s lifetime. The north wing, or the Museum of the Capitol, +was not done until the architect Rainaldi erected it for Innocent X +(Pamphili), twelve pontificates after the reign of Paul III. During a +period of one hundred and sixty years Marforio remained where Sixtus +had placed him, and then Clement XII (Corsini) installed him in the +court of the Capitoline Museum, and again he was given a fountain to +feed and protect. + +Marforio’s career after he had been parted from his basin was a +curious one. Bored, perhaps, by the lonely magnificence of his new +surroundings, he fell into evil ways. He became the partner of +Pasquino! Pasquino, the mutilated torso from an old Greek group of +statuary, stands at the farthest corner of the Braschi Palace (now +the Ministero dell’ Interno). He had first been set up there in the +reign of Alexander VI; and from that time he had become the medium for +the popular and anonymous criticisms of the government. His name of +Pasquino was taken from a witty tailor or barber who lived near the +Palazzo Orsini and whose sallies against those in authority greatly +delighted the Roman people. It became the custom to affix anonymous +couplets or epigrams to the old torso, which thus obtained the name of +Pasquino, and the epigrams came to be known as pasquinades; and from +the days of the Borgias to the time of Napoleon, and even later, most +of the current witticisms or scathing reflections upon public events +or notable personages were ascribed to Pasquino. When Marforio took up +his abode in the Piazza of the Campidoglio, he became to the Romans +the partner of Pasquino. According to a modern authority, Marforio +never originated the sally. His function was to put the question +which elicited the witty retort, or to reply in kind to Pasquino’s +interrogatories. With Marforio’s incarceration in the court of the +Museum the long dialogue came to an end; and a century later the +passing of papal Rome brought Pasquino’s career to its final close. +Modern freedom of the press leaves no place for Pasquino; and it may be +said of him that, Marforio being gone, + + “... of sheer regret + He died soon after.” + +This is not strictly true, for, although the statues themselves no +longer have a part in the game, it still goes on. One of the most +popular of the Roman newspapers still publishes questions and repartee +by Marforio and Pasquino. + +It is only necessary to study for a short time the various river-gods +in Rome, such as those of the Tiber and the Nile, here at the Capitol, +or Fontana’s statue in the Quattro Fontane, or the modern work in +the western fountain of the Piazza del Popolo, and then to return to +Marforio, to appreciate the immense artistic superiority of the latter. +Marforio is truly a river-god, a personification of all or any of the +earth’s rivers. The ancient and forgotten sculptor has given to the +ponderous stone a fluid quality which is really wonderful. To make +the hair and beard merge into the god’s breast and shoulders would +have been simple both in conception and execution, but only a genius +could have secured to the massive and supine figure that appearance of +being outstretched in powerful yet melting length along the surface of +things. Artists of the Renaissance from Rome and from beyond the Alps +always speak of the _gran simulacro a giacere_, an expression difficult +to anglicize, but which is an attempt to describe this singular +quality of a static position instinct with continuous and onward +flowing movement. Finally, the god’s face is full of genuine power and +benignity and is the adequate consummation of the sculptor’s ideal. It +is no wonder that Marforio has become a type. Vasari, for instance, +speaks of young Baccio Bandinelli making “a Marforio” out of snow, as +not long before the youthful Michelangelo had made a faun from the same +perishable material. + +For a thousand years--and we do not know for how much longer--Marforio +has been a part of the city’s life. He has survived the Norman pillage +in 1084, as well as the great sack of Rome in 1527. As a kindly god, +dispensing water to rich and poor, he has had his part in all the +triumphs and disasters, and has shared the ups and downs of life +not only with the city but with her children. Roman and barbarian, +patrician and plebeian, slave and citizen, Pagan and Christian--all +have drunk from his fountain. What has he not seen, and not heard! +It was an unerring instinct for the fitness of things which made him +Pasquino’s gossip, and his present honorable but unnatural seclusion +from the city’s busy streets and squares is commonly attributed not to +Pope Clement XII’s lack of imagination but, on the contrary, to his +recognition of Marforio’s malicious influence over the popular mind. A +tablet has been set up in the house which is built over the site where +history finds him, Number 49, Via Marforio. In short, Marforio belongs +to that curious class of inanimate things which have developed a +personality; injury to him would arouse fierce popular resentment; and +were he to be destroyed, the Romans would feel that they had lost not a +work of art but a personal friend. + + +THE LION + +The third fountain in the trio of the Campidoglio is to be found in +the upper garden of the Palazzo dei Conservatori--the building to the +right hand in the ascent of the Cordonata. It can hardly be called +a fountain, since it is merely a large basin of water surrounding +some rockwork on which stands an old bit of sculpture of a character +manifestly inappropriate to the sentiment of a fountain. It represents +a lion tearing out the vitals of a horse which it has sprung upon +and borne to the ground. This much-restored fragment is of real +importance from an artistic standpoint, while as a Roman antiquity it +has extraordinary interest. The marble bears distinct traces of having +been subjected to the action of water, and, as a matter of fact, it +was found more than a thousand years ago in the bed of the River Almo. +Nothing is known of its history previous to that discovery. + +[Illustration] + +The Almo is a little brook in the Campagna not far from Rome, rising +in the hills between the Via Appia and Via Latina and emptying into +the Tiber. Its modern name is Acquataccio. The Almo was connected +with the ancient worship of the goddess Cybele, whose sacred image +was ceremonially washed in it each year on the 27th of March by the +priests. This religious ceremony, doubtless, preserved the channel +of the stream so that it would have been quite possible to hide +successfully a great piece of statuary in its depths or in some reedy +pool along its banks. River-beds were not uncommon hiding-places for +treasures during the Dark Ages which followed the breaking-up of the +Roman Empire, and it is quite possible that this group may have been so +hidden by its owner whose great villa, situated near the stream, was +threatened with pillage or destruction by some barbarian incursion. The +high value evidently placed upon it by its original possessor was also +given to it by its discoverers. It belonged to that remote museum of +antiquities kept in or near the Lateran Palace during the Middle Ages +and dating back at least to the days when Charlemagne first visited +Rome, in 781, bringing with him his little son Pepin, aged four, to be +anointed King of Italy by Pope Hadrian I. This museum contained also +the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, now standing in the centre of +the piazza of the Campidoglio, together with the two river-gods, placed +later on by Michelangelo where they now lie--one on either side of the +central fountain of the Campidoglio; and other marbles and bronzes of +great value. Most of these art treasures were removed from the Lateran +to the Capitol when Pope Sixtus IV (Riario, 1471–1484) founded the +Capitoline Museum; but long before that time the Lion, as it was always +called (the original portion of the horse being merely the body), had +been taken from its academic seclusion and set in the midst of things. +During three centuries of the turbulent life of mediæval Rome, it +stood to the left hand and at the foot of the long flight of steps +which, previous to Michelangelo’s time, led up from the Piazza of the +Ara Cœli to the Capitol. All about it was held the public market; the +city officials, found guilty of misdemeanors, were made to do penance +sitting astride the Lion’s back with their hands tied behind them and +their faces smeared with honey--the Roman version of the pillory! The +ferocity of the Lion was thought to typify the punishment of crime, +and the public executions were held before this old fragment. Here, +on August 31, 1354, the famous soldier of fortune, Fra Monreale, was +beheaded by order of Cola di Rienzi. On October 8 of the same year, +Rienzi himself was caught as he was escaping in disguise from the +burning palace of the Capitol, and here he stood, during the last hour +of his life, leaning against the Lion, turning his head this way and +that in vain quest of succor, while the mob which was so soon to tear +him to pieces held back in a strange awe, and a silence reigned over +everything! That was the greatest of all the tragedies--though there +were so many of them--connected with the Lion. + +The old bit of sculpture continued to hold its sinister place in Roman +life, until the pontificate of Paul III (Farnese, 1534–1549). At that +time Master Michelangelo (to use Vasari’s phraseology), working for the +Pope, remodelled the Capitol and decorated it with many old statues. +The group of the horse and lion was then completely, though poorly, +restored, and placed in the court of the Palazzo dei Conservatori--this +being the first of the three buildings of the Capitol to be built +after Michelangelo’s designs. At the same time the place for the public +executions was transferred from the piazza of the Ara Cœli to the +Piazza di Ponte Sant’ Angelo. + +The Lion was placed in its present position in 1903, and Rome of the +twentieth century is responsible for the extraordinary taste which +converted into a fountain this old fragment, highly interesting as an +antiquity but repulsive in itself, and associated chiefly with the +bloodiest and least attractive pages in Roman annals. + +It is impossible to leave the Campidoglio without a heightened +appreciation of the might of the constructive imagination. Only that +faculty, developed to its highest power as in Michelangelo, could +have produced this magnificent harmony out of the incongruous mass of +classic and mediæval survivals with which he had to deal. + + + + +FARNESE + + +[Illustration] + + +FARNESE + +“At the entrance to this palace stand two rare and vast fountains made +of granite stone and brought from the Baths of Titus.” Thus wrote John +Evelyn in November, 1644. The description holds to this day, although +the modern sight-seer will substitute Caracalla for Titus. + +The fountains were erected by the Farnese family to add the final +touch of distinction to their new palace. They owe their unique +combination of original classic features and seventeenth-century taste +to the genius and opportunities of Paul III and his grandson, Cardinal +Alessandro Farnese II, and to a still later descendant Cardinal Odoardo +Farnese. The Pope and the earlier cardinal, men of wide culture and +enormous wealth, were the first to excavate and exploit the Baths of +Caracalla. The treasures they there found might well have been the +loot of some fabulous city, and yet the pearls and gold and rubies +brought some twenty years later by Francis Drake to his royal mistress +were of small significance compared to the works of art found in those +great baths--baths which had been the most sumptuous pleasure-house of +imperial Rome. It is the glory of Italy that she knew this at the time. +Her great churchmen reverently exhumed those masterpieces of Greek +and Roman art and made of them the Farnese Collection--according to a +well-known authority the rarest collection ever got together by private +individuals, and forming to-day the chief interest in the Museum at +Naples. + +When the Pope, Paul III (Farnese), began the erection of the great +new palace which was to bear his name and fitly domicile the princely +family he was founding, he, and his descendants after him, used for +its decoration the rare marbles and minor artistic trophies from the +baths. No doubt, it seemed to them a happy inspiration to turn these +gigantic granite tubs into a pair of fountains; for these notable +fountains are, in the last analysis, simply huge bathtubs, rendered +imposing by their size, and magnificent by the material out of which +they are made. They are seventeen feet long and about three feet deep, +and are absolutely devoid of decoration except for the lion’s head +carved in relief, low down in the middle of each side--and this is +merely an ornamental outlet for the water, quite as necessary to the +original purpose for which these tubs were made as are the handles +carved high up on either side under the curved rim, simulating metal +rings through which the bronze staves had been inserted whenever it was +found necessary to move the tubs. Carlo and Girolamo Rainaldi, who, in +1612, adapted for Cardinal Odoardo Farnese this furniture of the past +to seventeenth-century decorative purposes, could think of no more +original design than that of the well-known Italian fountain of their +own day. They placed each of the tubs in a large, elegantly curved +basin similar to those in the Piazza Navona standing some two feet +above the pavement. In the middle of each tub they erected a sumptuous +Italian vase, its large, swelling stem, richly carved, upholding an +elaborate shallow bowl, oblong in shape, out of which rises as the +fountain’s final consummation a highly conventional fleur-de-lis, the +emblem of the Farnese family. This is overwrought with fine stone +traceries, and sends upward from its centre convolution a single +slender stream of water. Additional jets, of no artistic value, rise +one on either side in each of the lower basins. This modern work is all +in travertine. + +The combination of the severely classic lines of the baths with the +Gothic carving and mediæval emblem of the fleur-de-lis is not good. It +is disastrous to the design as a composition and makes these fountains +archæological curiosities rather than artistic creations. Still, the +Farnese fountains impose by their qualities of size and strength, and +once seen can never be forgotten. + +The pleasure derived from the sight of a pair of fountains is not +merely double the pleasure that is felt at the sight of one. The two +objects, though exactly similar, create by their mutual relation an +entirely new set of æsthetic emotions. The feeling for balance and +composition is aroused, and this particular pleasure is produced +in no small degree by these two fountains. Twin fountains are an +unusual feature. There are few of them in the world; and in Rome, +whose fountains are perhaps still unnumbered, there are but five--the +fountains of St. Peter’s, the side fountains of the Piazza del Popolo, +the two end fountains of the Piazza Navona, Vansantio’s fountains in +the Villa Borghese, and these of the Piazza Farnese. + +Mr. John Evelyn also describes in his journal the custom of his day for +the Roman gentry to take their airing in the Piazza Farnese, driving +or walking before the palace and about the fountains, whose water gave +to all the architectural magnificence that touch of freshness and +charm essential to the Roman idea of a pleasure-ground. That Evelyn +was taken to the Farnese Palace the very first day of his sojourn +in Rome is significant. The Roman of 1644 evidently considered this +palace and its precincts to be Rome’s chief attraction; and this +proves that in spite of the efforts of Paul V (Borghese), who had died +some twenty years previously (1621), and of Urban VIII (Barberini), +then just passing away, the Farnese pontiff, Paul III, dead for a +century past, had succeeded in giving and preserving to his family an +importance and magnificence hardly to be emulated and impossible to +surpass. The bronze and marble tomb of Paul III is in St. Peter’s, to +the left of the tribune. It contains the dust of as worldly a person, +to quote Ranke, as ever Pope had been. Yet if his actions cannot be +said to “smell sweet and blossom in the dust,” his memory survives in +the annals of Rome, fragrant with the love and pride of his people. He +was an old, old man when he died in 1549. He had been fifteen years +Pope and forty years a cardinal. The date of his birth carries the +mind back to the years before Columbus. His education, conducted by +Pomponeus Lætus, had begun in the full tide of the High Renaissance. In +his early twenties he became a member of the household of Lorenzo the +Magnificent, at whose table and in whose gardens he had met the most +brilliant men of his time and had heard talk that embraced all that +was then known or surmised of art and learning. For Constantinople had +fallen to the Turk only a generation before that time, and what had +survived of Greek culture, fleeing across the seas to Italy, had found +its chief shelter and patronage in the household of the great Medici. +While in Florence, young Farnese must have heard Savonarola preach; but +no trace of the great Dominican’s influence is to be found throughout +his long life. The classic spirit enthralled his intellect, and the +splendor of the Medici prince captured his imagination. In later years +his careful Latinity, his splendid and liberal manner, and his gay and +witty conversation, together with his patronage of artists and his +passion for the antique, proved how profoundly he had been influenced +by the experiences of his early youth. Placed thus in the very heart of +a movement which freed the individual from all limitations save those +of his own personality and opened the world before him, he early made +up his mind to become Pope and to raise his own family, as the Medici +had done, to the rank of princes. The ambition was perhaps common, but +the ability with which he pursued these aims for upward of sixty years +was not common, and their complete achievement was little short of the +marvellous. It took him forty years to reach St. Peter’s chair, and +he occupied it only fifteen; but before he died one of his grandsons +had married a daughter of Charles V, the Emperor of Austria; another +was betrothed to the daughter of the King of France; and two more were +cardinals and multimillionaires. Later on, his descendants married +into the royal houses of Portugal and Spain, and the Farnese family +passed out of existence only by being merged by marriage into the royal +house of the Neapolitan Bourbons. One grandson, Cardinal Alessandro +Farnese II, was the chief art patron of his time, and this in an age +when there were many such men; and one great-grandson was that Duke +of Parma whose fame as a great captain is written in what were, until +the second decade of the twentieth century, the bloodiest annals of +the Netherlands. To provide a suitable setting for this princely +family, the Pope, some five years before his death, began this Farnese +Palace. Antonio da San Gallo, the younger, Giacomo della Porta, and +Michelangelo designed its façades and cornice. The great structure was +completed long after the Pope’s death by Alessandro Farnese II. It +was recognized at once to be the most sumptuous of the Roman palaces. +It stands upon the site of the old Palazzo Ferriz, which was at one +time the residence of the Spanish ambassador, and had passed into the +possession of the Augustine monks of the Piazza del Popolo. The old +Ferriz Palace had been on the Tiber bank, for it was not until Julius +II’s time that the _Strada_, or Via Giulia, was cut through, thus +separating the palace from the river. Where these fountains now stand +as the ornaments of a spacious piazza, there was at that time nothing +but a collection of hovels extending as far as the Campo de’ Fiori. The +far-sighted young cardinal--the Farnese were thrifty, for all their +magnificence--bought the old palace from the monks, and lived there in +ever-increasing splendor under the successive pontificates of Julius +II, Leo X, and Adrian VI. + +Finally, under Clement VII, the great sack of the city caused him to +fly to the Castle of St. Angelo. As in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, +forty-seven years later, only those Huguenot gentlemen survived who +were kept in the King’s closet, so during the horrors of the sack only +those cardinals escaped outrage who were sheltered with the Pope in +the Castle of St. Angelo. Farnese by this time ranked next to the Pope +in importance, and he was, of course, among these. From the Castle he +witnessed, with the terrified Clement, the devastation inflicted upon +the latter’s exquisite pleasure-house on Monte Mario, an act of wanton +vandalism committed by the Colonna to spite the Pope. Some ten years +later Cardinal Farnese bought this wrecked palace, restored it, and +presented it to his daughter-in-law, Margaret of Austria, who rested +there on her triumphal wedding procession into Rome. It is called after +her to this day the Villa Madama. + +In 1540, when the old Palazzo Ferriz was destroyed to make room for +the Palazzo Farnese, the workmen came as usual upon traces of earlier +times. Modern archæologists have discovered that the mosaic pavement +under the right wing of the palace was a part of the flooring of the +Barracks of the “Red Squadron of Charioteers.” It has been generally +supposed that the new palace was built of stone from the Coliseum, +but its materials came from numerous and varied sources. The great +travertine blocks were quarried at Tivoli; and Paul III obtained +permission to demolish and use for his building the partly ruined +battlemented monastery of St. Lorenzo Outside the Walls. After this +quarry was exhausted, his nephews obtained the ruins of Porto, the +Baths of Caracalla, and what was still more important the remains of +the greatest temple of imperial Rome--Aurelian’s Temple of the Sun, +which, at that date still towered one hundred feet above the Colonna +gardens. + +[Illustration: One of the fountains in the Piazza Farnese.] + +Contemporary artists sketched these various structures as the masons +destroyed them, so that students of the present day can form some +idea of their classic grandeur, and can judge for themselves the value +of the Farnese Palace on the one hand and on the other that of the +imperial baths and temple, and the mediæval monastery, out of which it +is built. + +The great new palace made necessary the great new square in front of +it; but years before this the Pope had begun that regeneration of Rome +for which he is so gratefully remembered. + +The entry into Rome of Charles V, on the 5th of April, 1534, first +aroused the Romans to the deplorable condition of their city, and, +under the Pope’s enlightened guidance, the preparations for the +imperial visitor took the form of permanent and far-reaching municipal +improvements, which improvements were carried on throughout the +entire period of Paul III’s pontificate. The enlarging of such great +thoroughfares as the Babuino and Condotti date from this time, as +does also the modern Corso, this last finally superseding the Via +Giulia as the fashionable resort. Paul III preferred the old Palazzo +di Venezia at its foot to any other residence, and he connected it +with the Campidoglio by the great viaduct, lately destroyed; while for +him Michelangelo designed the Campanile of the Senate House. A great +Roman of the present day asserts that the fifteen years of Paul III’s +pontificate comprise one of the happiest periods in the city’s life. + +When Margaret of Austria rode through the Porta del Popolo, “two hours +before sunset, dressed in white satin embroidered in pearls and gold,” +it was not merely a curious crowd who met and welcomed her. That +concourse of citizens represented the self-respect of the Romans, risen +from the abasement of a decade, and eager to prove to the daughter of +the world’s greatest sovereign their worthiness to be her subjects. +They could not know that Margaret felt contempt for her youthful +husband, nor that in the long duel between Paul III and the Emperor of +Austria she stood not for Rome but for Austria, saying once when her +assistance was sought that she had rather cut off her children’s heads +than ask her father to do anything that displeased him! These were +matters for the Farnese to deal with. So far as Rome was concerned, +with the entry of the Emperor’s daughter, its place among the cities of +the world became once more important and imposing. + +Charles V might despise the upstart Farnese as Francis I had +laughed at Cesare Borgia, but the self-made Italians of the +Renaissance--churchmen, merchants, and condottieri, were forces which +hereditary monarchy could not do without. Spain had the riches of the +New World; France and England were breeding the manhood of Europe; but +Italy held the keys to the past--to the culture for which men’s souls +longed. The time was not yet--in 1540--although it was close at hand, +when Italy’s deliberate choice of evil rather than good finally made +her, by weakening and corrupting her, a captive to Spain. Time was not +yet; and in that last lingering glow of her greatness and freedom the +old Pope, Paul III, moves as her incarnate spirit. To a figure slight +and stately, though with stooping shoulders, was united a shrewd and +kindly countenance, with a massive nose and flowing beard, mobile lips +and piercing eyes. His voice was modulated, and his manner gracious and +noble. This outer man held guard over a mind so crafty and tenacious, +so secretive and resourceful, that to the Venetian ambassador--ever the +most astute observer--he remained a fascinating and baffling enigma; +while for Cardinal Mendoza and the Emperor he was an antagonist whom, +for all their secret Austrian contempt and bitter hatred, they could +not afford to ignore. + +It was remarked that the Pope never wished to hear or to speak of +his predecessor. He felt that the election of Clement VII had robbed +him of fourteen years of the papacy. Posterity may well share his +prejudice, for it seems safe to assume that, had Paul III been Pope +in 1527, Bourbon’s soldiers would never have got within sight of the +city walls; there would have been, in fact, no sack of Rome. The Pope +felt with all the force of his Italian nature the danger to Italy from +the side of Spain. Better patriot than priest, he had made secret +treaties with the Protestants as a weapon against the Spaniard; and +while no one realized more keenly than he the necessity of reforms in +the Church, yet he dreaded them lest they might in any way weaken the +strength of the papacy. His singular ability to unite the fortunes of +his family with profitable political undertakings runs throughout his +long life; but this nepotism, which no pope ever carried further, and +for which he has been unsparingly censured by historians, represents +the kindliest strain in his nature. It was the human side; and it was +the direct cause of his death. In a dispute over retaining the Duchy +of Parma in his family, the Pope’s grandson, Octavius, opposed the old +pontiff. Paul felt this ingratitude deeply, and spoke openly about it +to the Venetian ambassador. The day after All Saints’ Day, 1549, the +old man repaired to his villa on Monte Cavallo “to ease his mind,” and +from there he sent for Alessandro Farnese II. He came, this magnificent +young cardinal, handsome, courtly, the great art patron, the lover of +scholars and poets, the finest flower of the Farnese, a grandson and +namesake of whom Paul III was justly proud. The cardinal was the Pope’s +darling, and from him Paul felt he could expect support and sympathy. +The interview, however, soon became stormy. High words passed. The +Pope flew into a rage and snatched the biretta from the cardinal’s +head. He had discovered that Alessandro also was carrying on a secret +counterplot against him, and the discovery broke the old man’s heart. +Such a violent attack of anger at the age of eighty-three brought on +an illness from which he had neither the strength nor the wish to +recover, and in a week’s time Paul III was dead. Even after his death +the Romans loved him--a rare tribute to any pope--and all Rome went to +kiss his feet. He had been the first Roman to occupy St. Peter’s chair +in over one hundred years, and the Romans felt his virtues and his +failings to be their own. Fifteen years before, they had carried him +on their shoulders into old St. Peter’s for his coronation, and now +they buried him there. His tomb cost twenty-four thousand Roman crowns, +and is the masterpiece of Guglielmo della Porta. The two recumbent +statues upon it are said to be after a sketch by Michelangelo. The +connection of Michelangelo’s name with the tomb is interesting, but +of greater interest is the romantic legend which surrounds the statue +of the younger woman. This figure, once called Truth and now known +to be Justice, is said to be the portrait of Paul III’s sister, and +this recalls the fact that the fortunes of the princely family of the +Farnese rest upon no more honorable basis than the passion of Alexander +VI (Borgia) for this sister, the beautiful Giulia Farnese. No one can +study the statue on the tomb without understanding how it was that this +magnificent creature seemed to the men of her time the flesh-and-blood +presentment of those Pagan goddesses whom they all, secretly or openly, +worshipped. The superb body is now concealed by Bernini’s hideous +leaden draperies, but the carelessly waving hair and tiny ear have +witchery even in the marble, while the face possesses that solemnity +of perfect beauty found only in the masterpieces of the Greeks. Never +before or since was such a price paid for the Red Hat! Alexander +VI made the young brother, Alessandro Farnese, aged twenty-five, a +cardinal, and Giulia Farnese went to reign in those Borgia apartments, +decorated by all the genius of Pinturicchio, and at once the pride and +disgrace of the Vatican. The young cardinal was nicknamed the Petticoat +Cardinal; but he seems to have felt no compunction at the transaction. +With the Romans, as with the Parisians, ridicule is the most powerful +engine of destruction; and the fact that Alessandro Farnese lived this +sobriquet down, proves, as nothing else can prove, the hold he had upon +the Roman people. + +Any account of Paul III would be incomplete without some reference to +his extraordinary belief in astrology. It was quite a recognized fact +that he never even considered any scheme, public or private, before +consulting the planets. If the heavenly bodies were not in favorable +conjunction, the enterprise was given up, or as nearly given up as +was possible to so obstinate and tenacious a mind. In his own time +this singular characteristic was felt to be incongruous and rather +disgraceful; but it is easy for the modern spirit to understand, and +even condone, the weakness. Surely, it was not strange that such a man, +with such a life, should feel that “the stars in their courses fought” +for him. + +The impression made upon the mind by the Farnese fountains is not +pleasing. They are certainly “rare and vast,” but as fountains they +are not a success. The form overshadows the substance; for the single +jet of water thrown upward over the structural part of the fountain +is not adequate, and is lost in the effect produced upon the eye +by the huge tubs turned black by the deposits of the Acqua Paola; +while the water falling back into these receptacles is caught as in +a prison, the overflow from the upper to the lower basins being not +sufficient to give an idea of a copious stream. The monster granite +baths have a sepulchral effect. They seem more like coffins made to +hold the bones of departed heroes than like basins for receiving +and distributing living water. During more than two centuries these +fountains bore witness to the magnificence of the Farnese family; but +as that magnificence had been sought and held for reasons as purely +personal and selfish as men have ever known, it had no real value or +significance for the world. No memories of patriotism or ghost of +romance hangs over these fountains, or over the palace which they +guard. The family and the splendor once were, and now are not; and all +the sunshine which daily floods the spacious piazza fails to reanimate +the majestic vacancy of the façade, or to lift the gloom from the +dejected and sombre fountains. + + + + +VILLA GIULIA + + +[Illustration] + + +VILLA GIULIA + +I. FONTANA PUBBLICA DI GIULIO III + + “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree, + + * * * * * + + So twice five miles of fertile ground with walls and towers were + girdled round. + And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, where blossomed + many an incense-bearing tree, + + * * * * * + + It was a miracle of rare device, + A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice....” + +The Villa Giulia is the Italian version of “Kubla Khan,” not built +by “lofty rhyme,” but constructed of actual stone and marble for a +pleasure-loving pontiff of the Cinque Cento. The desire to realize +the poet’s vision is often felt by absolute monarchs. Versailles, +San Souci, and the Hermitage show what unlimited power, wealth, and +caprice have accomplished in that direction; but none of the northern +sovereigns possessed either the climate, soil, historical, poetic, +and pictorial setting or the artists, architects, and marvellous art +treasures which were at the command of Pope Julius III. + +When this pontiff, whose election dates from 1550, decided to build +a pleasure-house upon the vineyard in the Via Flaminia, which he had +inherited from his uncle, the elder Cardinal Monte, he bought up +adjoining property from various landowners, so that his domain finally +extended from the Tiber eastward up the Valle Giulia and adjoining +slopes of Monte Parioli. The southern boundaries have not yet been +fully determined, but those to the north extended as far as the Chapel +of St. Andrea, a beautiful little building erected by Vignola to +commemorate Pope Julius’s (then Cardinal Monte) deliverance from the +soldiery at the time of the sack of Rome in 1527. The Via Flaminia was +at that time the fashionable drive. It was lined by fine villas and +palaces, and Amannati alludes to it as the “beautiful Via Flaminia.” +The approach to it was from the Piazza del Popolo, then a place of +gardens, through the fine Porta del Popolo which, begun so long before +under Pope Sixtus IV, had just been finished by Michelangelo and +Vignola. The fine avenue extended as far as the Ponte Molle, where it +crossed the Tiber, and, after skirting the western slopes of Monte +Soracte, began its long march to the north. A little road (called +the Via del Arco Oscuro) leading up from the Tiber crossed the Via +Flaminia at right angles and climbed up the Valle Giulia, turning +abruptly toward the northern spur of Monte Parioli. The original Monte +property lay along this little road; and it was at the head of this +thoroughfare, where it turned sharply to the north and therefore at +some distance from the Via Flaminia and on much higher ground, that +Pope Julius decided to build his villa. Its creation quickly became +the absorbing passion of his life. The greatest architects of the time +were employed upon it and no expense was spared. After Pope Julius’s +death, the entire place was confiscated by the Camera Apostolica for +thirty-seven thousand scudi, the estimated amount of Pope Julius’s +debts. + +The Monte Pope (Julius III belonged to the Roman family of Monte) would +leave the Vatican by the passage leading to the Castle of St. Angelo, +take there a magnificent barge and be rowed up the great sweep of the +Tiber to the landing-place at the foot of the Arco Oscuro. Here a +fine flight of steps was constructed leading up to a vaulted pergola +which traversed the fields between the Tiber and the Via Flaminia. +The pergola was a bower of verdure and terminated in a fine building +and gateway bordering the Tiber side of the Via Flaminia. Here it was +necessary to cross the great highway in order to begin the ascent of +the Arco Oscuro, which led directly to his new villa. The highway was +dusty, and the _salita_ or ascent long and steep, and the Pope decided +to create a resting-place at this point. He had begun digging for water +very early, while cultivating his vineyard, “without ever having had +the slightest indication that water could be found there.” Eventually +he accomplished his purpose, for he succeeded in bringing to his +vineyard the leakage waters of the Virgo Aqueduct. The “leakage” was +very much in the nature of a tap, and the proceeding was high-handed +and reprehensible to a degree. In imperial days such tampering with the +aqueducts was visited by punishment which Frontinus considered not too +severe for so great a crime against the public welfare. + +Julius III’s pontificate lasted only five years; but in the year +following his death the Virgo Aqueduct had already ceased to supply +the city, and his successors, Pius IV, Pius V, and Gregory XIII, were +obliged to begin and carry on a systematic and thorough restoration +and enlargement of the aqueduct. For Julius III the wonderful water +was only a perquisite belonging to the “good gift of the papacy,” and +he devoted his short pontificate to its exploitation and adornment, +possibly silencing his scruples by the thought that the construction +of a public fountain on this highway justified his manner of obtaining +the water. At the two opposite angles of the Via Flaminia and the +Arco Oscuro, where the ascent toward his villa began, he erected two +fountains, blunting the acute end of each angle by a mostra or high +façade from the base of which issued the water. The fountain on the +right-hand side was a drinking-trough for horses, while that on the +left was one of the most beautiful and interesting fountains in all +Rome. It was the work of Bartolomeo Amannati, possibly assisted +by Vignola; and very often must the youthful Domenico Fontana have +studied it, for the famous “Fontana Fountain” is only a modification of +this truly beautiful work of the dying Renaissance. It is noticeable +that Amannati’s fountain is not a screen nor a gateway; its mostra +stands against a solid background with severely plain wings of the +same height flanking it at an angle on either side. This mostra is of +peperino in the Corinthian order, the columns supporting a fine classic +entablature and pediment. The apex of the pediment was surmounted by +a colossal statue of Neptune, and the corners of it terminated in two +pedestals carrying, the one a Minerva, and the other a Rome. Between +these two figures and the Neptune were two minor pedestals marking +the architectural termination of the great central division of the +fountain, and on these stood two small obelisks, a feature borrowed by +Fontana for his fountain of the Moses. The arch of the central division +held between its Corinthian pillars the huge square slab with the +inscription: + + JULIUS III PONT. MAX. PUBLICÆ + COMMODITATI ANNO III + +The niches on either side of this slab once contained statues, one of +Happiness and the other of Abundance, a design embodied two hundred +years later in the background of the Fountain of Trevi. The basin +for receiving the water did not extend across the full width of the +mostra, but was, and is (for this still remains), a noble white +granite conca standing at the foot of the central division under the +inscription. It originally received the water from a beautiful antique +head of Apollo. All this is described in a letter written by the +architect himself, Amannati, from Rome in 1555, and there follows a +description of the arcade behind the fountain. This consists of three +loggias with Corinthian columns, making a semihexagonal design and +carrying a vaulted roof ornamented by pictures and exquisite stucco +work. This was where “his Holiness got repose without incommoding +the public,” which, on the other side of the wall, refreshed itself +and its beasts of burden from the public fountain. The columns were +joined together by a balustrade, and the three-sided colonnade held +in its embrace a large fish-pond with various _jets d’eau_. Beyond +this architectural loveliness stretched long walks bordered with +fruit-trees and espaliers, and up these paths the Pope walked when, +refreshed after his long journey from the Vatican, and eager to see +what his workmen had concluded over night, he finally decided to go on +to the villa on the hill. This beautiful fountain and its loggias have +suffered more than customary outrage from time, neglect, and stupidity. +There would seem to be no vile use to which the loggias have not been +put; and the superimposition of the Casino of Pope Pius IV, which is +now recognized to be the work of Piero Ligorio, has entirely altered +the proportions and beauty of the public fountain. The fate of Pope +Julius’s creation, from the time of his death until 1900, is poorly +outlined in the various half-obliterated escutcheons and inscriptions +which now ornament the fountain and its superstructural Casino. As the +villa and all the land about it had been immediately sequestered by +the Apostolic Chamber in spite of the protests of Julius III’s legal +heirs before a tardy compensation was awarded them, this portion of the +Monte property was divided by Pope Pius IV between a son of the Duke +of Tuscany “who was to have the usufruct for his lifetime” and his own +two nephews, Carlo and Federigo Borromeo. A sister of these Borromeo +brothers married a Colonna, and the property was bestowed upon her as +dowry. It remained in that family until 1900, when it was purchased by +the present owner, Cavaliere Giuseppe Balestra, who already owned the +adjoining villa on the high ground, which might have been a part of the +original Villa Giulia, since it corresponds to that land which Julius +III had acquired from Cardinal Poggio and Cardinal San Vitelleschi. +The Medici escutcheon may have been placed there either by the Duke +of Tuscany or by Pius IV. The Pope was of very humble Milanese origin +and had no connection whatever with the great family whose name he +happened to have; but after he became Pope, the Duke Cosimo I, who +found it to his interest to have the Pope on his side, permitted him +to use the escutcheon. Contrary to the decent Roman custom,[B] the +original inscription of Julius III was removed in the first quarter of +the seventeenth century, by that one of the Colonna who inherited the +property after the death of the last descendant of the earlier branch. +He placed his own, the present, inscription in place of it, sparing the +inscription to Carlo Borromeo, either because of Borroraeo’s connection +with the Colonna family or because of the great veneration felt by +everyone for the memory of the sainted young cardinal. It was also at +this time that the beautiful antique head of Apollo was replaced by the +Colonna escutcheon and the sculptured trophies. The inscription on the +small tablet under the spring of the arch relates that in 1750 Pope +Benedict XIV gave to the Colonna family the right to draw “two ounces” +of water daily from the receiving-tank of the Trevi Fountain for use in +their Roman palace as a recompense to them for their gift to the public +of the Trevi Water in this old fountain.[C] + +Those who visit the Villa Giulia in the morning hours may see the +Campagna carts on their way back from Rome drawn up before the public +fountain of Pope Julius III, and the sleepy drivers, tired horses, and +responsible little dogs refreshing themselves with the water. + +[Illustration: Fountain of the Virgins.] + +So far the picture created more than three hundred and fifty years +ago remains the same; fundamental customs do not change in Rome. But +on the other side of the wall, where once sat and talked the joyous +Pope and his company, what ruin and desolation! Some day the Italian +Government will sweep the crumbling loggias free from dust and rubbish +and tear away the protecting foliage, not redeeming but unmasking the +desecration of the centuries. To-day the dark water in the rough garden +tanks, the unpruned trees and wild flowers, the old mule stabled under +the ruined loggias where hay is stored, the mysterious gloom of the +vaulted roof above the Corinthian capitals and everywhere black shadows +of impenetrable depth make up a scene whose like can in all probability +be found only among the engravings of Piranesi. + +[Illustration] + + +II. THE NYMPHÆUM OR “SECRET FOUNTAIN” + +The Villa Giulia proper is designated in the old Italian books as +l’Invenzione nella Vigna Giulia, and the literal English translation +of invention not inappropriately describes this truly marvellous +creation. Amannati, Vasari, Vignola,[D] and even the aged Michelangelo +spent themselves upon the architectural devices by which this +pleasure-house became a place of almost fabulous beauty. Consummate +knowledge of perspective was employed in making the building, which is +not at all large, seem so, and the only defect in the entire design +is, as might have been expected, the Pope’s fault, for Julius insisted +upon working into the loggias in the rear of the upper court of the +fountain a gift of columns, beautiful in themselves but too small for +the surrounding proportions, thus making that part of the construction +appear insignificant and inferior to the rest. The Pope’s changing +caprice wearied even the good-natured Vasari, who has left the record +that “there was no getting the villa done”; and it was not long before +Vignola, a man of genuine and independent genius, wearied utterly of +serving such a master and went off with the great Cardinal Farnese to +build the latter’s villa of Caprarola, where he could work at peace and +for an appreciative and sympathetic patron. + +The last remains of Aurelian’s Temple of the Sun were presented by +Prince Colonna to the Pope and went into the fabric of the villa, and +a great collection of portrait busts of the Emperors, found in the +villa of Hadrian, helped to adorn the loggias and niches. The villa was +filled with rare marbles, tables, statues, and vases, and the marble +columns of the central loggia were so lustrous that Amannati says they +mirrored every one who entered there. As the villa is constructed on +the hillside, various levels are the natural result, and this feature +has been used with diverse and happy effects. The various courts are +all on different planes while, with the one exception of the grand +double stairway in the central court, all the stairs are cunningly +concealed so that there is no suggestion of physical effort as the +eye passes from one plane to another. The vaulted roofs of the long +semicircular galleries and various rooms were decorated with paintings +or with stucco work of the most exquisite perfection. Traces of this +last are still to be seen above the niches containing the colossal +river-gods, the Tiber and the Arno (Amannati was a Florentine). The +place was truly a Palace of Art. Nothing but beauty was permitted +to enter it. Stables, offices, and kitchens were placed outside the +villa, and the one house which stood within the villa grounds--that +of the keeper or custodian--was designed and decorated with great +care, so that, according to Amannati, the entire invention was of +such beauty that it was in itself “good enough for any great prince.” +Nothing remains of this splendor but the bare shell, and this has been +so tampered with that it is only from old plans or from outlines of +restoration by Letarouilly and Stern that a true conception can be +obtained of the villa of Pope Julius III. It is necessary to know, +for instance, that the front court, now a commonplace garden, was +originally a great paved cortile filled with statuary now in the +Vatican or scattered far and wide over Italy. The loggia leading up +and out of this court was originally closed and entered by doors. The +shallow, broad stairway leading down from the right-hand garden under +the terraces was put in for the benefit of the cavalry quartered there +during a petty war of the eighteenth century, when the horses were +taken down to drink at the Nymphæum! The present gardens in no wise +represent the beautiful formal gardens which stretched there on either +side of the various courts, and the present walls cannot possibly +enclose that space which was once filled with orange groves and every +sort of device for fastidious delight. Somewhere in those grounds, +probably on the right hand, there was a monticello or little hill +from which could be seen the Tiber, the Seven Hills, the “beautiful +Strada Flaminia,” the Vatican, and the vast erection of new St. +Peter’s overtopping and gradually engulfing the old basilica, the view +extending even to the sea. Under the high ground still held in place +by a great retaining wall were grottos beautifully decorated by stucco +and painting and icy cold even in summer. In the woods, where the +Italian pastime of snaring birds was carefully provided for, there were +accommodations for every kind of animal, and everywhere there were +fountains, marble seats, and antique garden statuary. + +Louis XIV, for whom careful plans of the villa were drawn, wisely +made no attempt to copy the enchanted palace of Italy. Versailles +makes up in size for the beauty of color, architecture, vegetation, +and art treasures here formed into one beautiful whole by Pope Julius +III. The shape of the Villa Giulia is significant. It is a series of +gardens, loggias, and courts, one enclosing the other, each richer in +ornamentation, more ravishing in beauty than the last, until finally +the heart of the creation is reached, and the “secret fountain” of +the Acqua Vergine is discovered flowing out of the shadow and from +a hidden source into a sunlit Nymphæum of marvellous beauty and +again mysteriously disappearing into the shadow. The Fountain of the +Virgins, as it came to be called, was felt by its creator, Amannati, +to be beyond the power of description. Writing to a friend in Padua, +soon after Pope Julius’s death, he describes the entire villa in +extraordinary detail, noting the attitude even of many of the statues; +but when, after pages of description, he has brought his reader to the +lowest court of all, his pen fails him and he says that unless he can +paint a picture of this court and fountain he will never be able to +give his friend “any conception of this, the loveliest, richest, and +most marvellous place in the entire creation.” Amannati saw it in its +first splendor. The caryatides were perfect, white, and gleaming, and +perhaps beautiful. The niches round about were filled with marble boys +carrying urns upon their shoulders from which the water was poured +into the semicircular stream at their feet. It is impossible to tell +from the description of the old pictures what, if any, statue filled +the central niche behind the virgins. At present the niche holds a +great white marble swan, now almost hidden by fern, from whose bill +the water trickles into the black pool beneath. The pavement, made of +every conceivable kind of marble, glowed like a jewel. The balustrade +above held graceful statues and on either side of the court just above +stood a great plane-tree, giving delicious verdure and shade. Then, +as now, the water came from large reservoirs hidden beneath the upper +terrace to the east of the fountain; then, as now, it was carried off +over gentle, rough-paved inclines; then, as now, it fell steeply into +a subterranean cavern--the entire construction producing waves of cool +air and a ripple and murmur of water exquisitely refreshing to both eye +and ear. It is almost necessary to forgive Pope Julius his attack upon +the aqueduct. Never before or since has the Acqua Vergine received such +poetic treatment. + +Nothing remains of this beauty but the water and the masonry. Pope +Julius was hardly buried before the spoliation of his villa began. +Like the Pope’s beautiful resting-place behind the public fountain, +the Nymphæum has endured three centuries of vile usage and neglect. +Nowhere in Rome is it more necessary to use imagination than in the +Villa Giulia. The visitor should descend into the lowest court on a +day of brilliant sunshine and, standing before the Fountain of the +Virgins, replace for himself the lost lustre of the columns, the +whiteness of the balustrades, the rich coloring of mural paintings and +stucco, and the gleam of antique statuary. He should see the flickering +shadows cast by the great plane-trees across the marble pavement, and +hear the birds twittering or calling from the aviaries which were in +the loggia wall above the river-gods. He must fancy the fitful music +of stringed instruments, the perfume from the orange groves drifting +over the garden walls where sat the monkeys and brilliant tropical +birds. He must feel the languid stir or deep repose of long, indolent, +luxurious summer days, and through it all, he must be conscious of the +water. Only so will he be able to form some adequate conception of what +the “secret fountain” must have been in the days of Pope Julius III. +The highest charm of the beautiful creation lay in its presentation +of contrast translated into a medium suitable to every sense. It was +an age of contrast, sharp and constant. No feature in the crowded +Italian life of those two centuries is so striking as this. Fame and +obloquy; triumphant health and the lazar-house; honor and exile; the +luxury of an Agostino Chigi and the squalor of the beggar at his doors; +compassion and fiendish cruelty, young Cardinal Borromeo’s sanctity on +the one hand, and on the other unblushing licentiousness; beauty to +which all but divine honors were paid, and hideous deformity; these +lay open to the eye on every side. There seemed to be no transition. +The “secret fountain,” with its light and shade, its rest and motion, +sound and silence, its art and nature, was the poetic expression of +life as it was known by the men for whom it was created. + +The records of those days are never free from blood, and at least one +assassination is connected with the building of this house of mirth. +Baronino, an associate of Vignola and Amannati, leaving the villa +with a friend on a certain evening, was set upon as he turned into +the Via Flaminia and stabbed to death. The angle in the walls made +by the public fountain and the fact that it was a natural place for +loiterers probably suggested the choice of the spot. The assassin’s +identity was either never discovered or never revealed and the crime +went unpunished, for Cellini was not the only lucky rascal. Artists +especially carried their lives in their hands, and genius was as open +to violence as it was to fame. + +Historians and moralists accord scant justice and no mercy to Julius +III. He is represented by them as spending his life in senseless and +indolent pleasures. Yet he had begun his pontificate with some show of +earnestness. He had reopened the Council of Trent, and had attempted to +play a part in the diplomacy of Europe. That after two years he wearied +of these arduous labors might have been because he had sufficient wit +to perceive that, for his time at least, the Papal See would have to +be a tool in the hands of Austria. His devotion to the creation of +his villa was perhaps the only outlet for the activities of a nature +too slight to cope with the stern and sinister century on which his +lot had fallen. Long days spent with Vignola, Amannati, and Vasari, +and above all, with the aged but undaunted Michelangelo himself, for +whom this Pope felt a loving veneration, must have had a zest and +stimulating quality sufficient to make the Pope’s life in this villa +something more than the sybaritic enjoyment of mere sensuous beauty. + +Beyond a doubt, the construction of his villa became an obsession with +the Pope. He gradually abandoned all other avocations and duties. It +was at the villa that he held his audiences, received ambassadors, and +gave his suppers, at which last his wit was said to be of less fine +quality than were his vintages. He even had a medal struck, with his +own head on one side and on the other the front elevation of the Villa +Giulia, with the inscription, “Fons Virginibus.” + +One fatal day a pet monkey savagely attacked the Pope. He was rescued +by a lad of sixteen whom he soon after made a cardinal. The scandal was +very great. Prelates and laymen alike felt this to be going too far. +The Pope might lay himself open to censure but not to ridicule. Here +in the midst of the beauty created by Pope Julius, men’s eyes began to +turn toward the slightly grim, ascetic figure of Cardinal della Croce, +great Roman patrician and true saint, who, as if to give the final note +to this life of vivid contrast, moved about in the gay papal court, +reserved, austere, devoted to a life of such sanctity that the Pope +himself felt uncomfortable in his presence. + +The villa was still far from finished when Julius III’s short +pontificate came to an end. The Conclave almost unanimously chose as +his successor their saintly brother, Cardinal della Croce.[E] The world +had entered upon a new phase. Northern Europe had brought the spirit +of the Reformation to the gates of Rome, and men were ashamed of Pope +Julius III, whose misfortune it had been to live half a century too +late. + +The Villa Giulia passed into the ownership of the popes and remained +there until it was taken over by the state in the present government. +It was eventually finished by Popes Pius IV and Pius V, but the art +treasures were scattered far and wide. During many pontificates it was +used for the stopping place of ambassadors and other great personages +who spent the night there before making their ceremonial entrance into +Rome. Perhaps the presence of so much water and luxurious vegetation +made the place peculiarly sensitive to mould and decay. Even as early +as 1585 it was not considered healthful. Sixtus V, with the restless +caprice of the poor sleeper, wished to spend a night there, but was +forbidden to do so by his physician. As it was papal property, no +private individual ever had the chance to take over the beautiful old +building and gardens and keep them in repair; and those popes whose +tastes might have led them to restore it built pleasure-houses or +palaces for themselves. Gregory XIII began the Quirinal Palace, and +not infrequently for his villegiatura visited the magnificent villa +of Mondragone at Frascati which Cardinal Altemps had already begun +to build. Sixtus V built his Villa Montalto, the new Lateran Palace, +and finished the Quirinal Palace. Clement VIII contented himself with +the Quirinal; but his great cardinal nephew, Peter Aldobrandini, +founded the magnificent Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati. The Medici +Leo XI devoted himself to the Villa Medici. Paul V did indeed make a +restoration, using much stucco, which can easily be distinguished from +the beautiful work of the original period, but that Pope’s interest was +really given to the great villa which his nephew, Cardinal Scipione +Borghese, was creating out of the old Villa Cenci. + +Finally, late in the eighteenth century, the papal chair was occupied +by a man of culture who felt the charm of the old Cinque Cento villa in +the Valle Giulia, and tried to rescue it from total ruin. This was the +Ganganelli Pope, Clement XIV, the founder of the Clementine sculpture +gallery in the Vatican. Clement XIV’s investigation of Pope Julius +III’s villa showed that the aqueducts were ruined, the walls crumbled +by water, the pavements cracked by fire, while all the wood and iron +work was broken or rusted, and the exquisite paintings, stucco, and +gilding spoiled by smoke and damp.[F] The papal architect, Raphael +Stern, made careful and elaborate drawings from old plans, with a view +to a genuine restoration, as Pius VI (who, in 1774, succeeded Clement +XIV) carried on the work. This Pope also felt the fascination of the +marvellous, all but ruined pleasure-house, and decided to make it his +autumn residence, but it was too late! Pope Pius VI was carried off +by the French Revolutionary forces in 1798 and died a prisoner in the +French fortress of Valence. From that time forward, the villa fell +more and more into decay. Its pitiful condition might have furnished +material for endless sermons on the vanity of life, and the ruin of its +exquisite decorations fills all artists and lovers of the beautiful +with indignant regret. It has been a veterinary hospital, a cavalry +barracks, a storehouse for hay--no desecration has been spared it. At +last the present government rescued what was left of it and converted +it into a museum of antiquities, giving the last ironic touch to its +fate by filling the rooms built to minister to the joy and pride of +life, with ancient coffins and relics of the dead. + + + + +COLONNA + + +[Illustration] + + +COLONNA + +The fountain of the Piazza Colonna might be the “Fountain of Youth,” +for the freshness of its marbles makes it seem to date from yesterday, +whereas it is in reality one of the oldest fountains of modern Rome. +It was constructed three hundred and twenty-five years ago, and +belongs to that period when the Acqua Vergine (Trevi Water) was the +only water with which to feed a fountain. As the Acqua Vergine has +not sufficient head to rise to any great height, and as its supply is +in continuous and wide-spread use for domestic purposes, the designs +for the fountains which it furnishes have to be low, and the sculptor +or architect must rely for his effect not upon any lavish supply of +water but upon the beauty of his materials and his own imagination. The +fountains of Giacomo della Porta show the practical difficulties with +which he had to contend, and the felicity of his genius in overcoming +the limitation. His fountain of the “Tartarughe” is a work of art, +and as such can be admired without the aid of the water. The two side +fountains in the Piazza Navona, also his creations, were quite lovely +before Bernini decorated one and artists of the nineteenth century the +other with fantastic sculpture. His fountain of the Piazza Colonna has +been less tampered with and, standing in full sunlight or darkened +by the vast shadow of the Antonine Column, it remains, in its quiet +beauty, a masterpiece among the Roman fountains. It is a graceful, +hectagonal receptacle, half basin, half drinking-trough, composed of +different kinds of Porta Santa marble. These are joined together with +straps of Carrara ornamented by lions’ heads.[G] Its waters come to it +from a vase of antique shape standing in the centre. From the shallow +bowl of this central vase the water gushes upward to fall over the rim +in a soft, unbroken, silvery stream, and through this vestal’s veil the +Carrara, to which the waters have given a wonderful surface, gleams in +unsullied freshness and beauty. Two tiny jets, set midway on either +side between the ends of the fountain and the vase in the centre, +bring an additional volume and add to the animation of the pool. The +vase in the centre is represented in an old engraving by Falda as +being much lower than the present one and carved in crowded leaflike +convolutions, like the vase of the Scossa Cavalli fountain. + +By 1829 this bit of old travertine sculpture had become so misshapen +that the artist Stocchi, by order of Leo XII, replaced it by the +present Carrara vase, adding at that time to either end of the trough +the small groups of shells and dolphins. These are such dainty bits of +fancy, and so frankly an afterthought, that in their first freshness at +least they could not have marred the beauty of the original conception. +Rather must they have enhanced it, as the white doves which are perched +upon its rim make the charm of the “Pliny’s Vase.” Giacomo della Porta +is the first fountain builder of modern Rome, and the fountains which +he did for Gregory XIII--all constructed for Trevi Water--are still +among the loveliest the city holds. The passion for fountain building +began in the second half of the Cinque Cento. Julius III rediscovered +the immense æsthetic value of water, the Nymphæum in his Villa Giulia +being, in fact, the apotheosis of the Acqua Vergine. Pius V’s enlarged +fountain of Trevi was a recognition of the importance of water to the +city’s welfare. This Pope and his predecessor, Pius IV, as well as his +successor, Gregory XIII, all occupied themselves seriously with the +restoration, improvement, and upkeep of the Virgo Aqueduct. The return +to the water question is the one healthy and hopeful sign in the city’s +life during those years which lay between the death of old Paul III and +the accession of Sixtus V. Michelangelo died within this period and his +great spirit was not more surely departed than was the age of art and +learning in which he had moved as king. That outrage to civilization +known as the “last sack of Rome” had occurred in 1527, under Clement +VII, and Rome, in the person of her pontiff and in that of every +citizen, had suffered insult, spoliation, and dishonor. + +The devotion of the Romans to Clement’s successor (the Farnese pontiff, +Paul III) was in great part due to their recognition of the fact that +his pontificate represented a sustained and gallant attempt to restore +to his people their lost prestige--that _figura_ so dear to the Roman +heart. With the death of the old patrician the deplorable condition of +the city once more asserted itself and men realized more keenly than +ever the permanent devastation wrought by the sack. Posterity gains +some faint idea of its horrors from the autobiography of Benvenuto +Cellini. It is indebted to him for the dramatic description of the +death of the Constable de Bourbon, killed by a chance shot from the +ramparts when, in the dense fog which enveloped the beleaguered +city, he was planting the scaling ladders against the walls. Four +days earlier, and during the march on Rome, the other commander of +the besieging army, the veteran George Freundsberg, had died of a +stroke of apoplexy brought on by the mutinous conduct of his troops; +so that, without leaders, forty thousand of the worst soldiery of +Europe were turned loose within the city walls--turned loose to recoup +themselves for their long arrears of wages out of everything which +the taste, learning, and moral sense of civilized man has always +held most precious. History records that the Spanish were the most +cold-blooded, the Germans the most bestial, and the Italians the most +inventive in forms of villainy. The week of unspeakable atrocities, +wanton destruction, and wholesale pillage came to an end; but when +it did, that marvellous treasure-house of civilization--Rome of the +Renaissance--had perished, and the place thereof was to know her +no more. It was no wonder that, during the decade which followed, +Rome--what was left of her--seemed hardly to breathe. When, during the +pontificate of Paul III she began to revive, it was plain to all men +that she was not, and could never be, the same. Life came back to her +at last, not through æsthetic but through ethical channels. + +Thenceforward the popes, whether they wished it or not, were to be +serious men. As the Reformation spread through England, the Low +Countries, France and Germany, the papacy set its house in order and +prepared to fight, not for its temporal supremacy, as in the mediæval +struggle with the Emperors, but for its spiritual authority. It was +at this point that there came to its aid a new force, a force whose +influence has never yet been accurately measured. In 1539, just before +the close of Luther’s life, Ignatius Loyola founded the Society of +Jesus. This was in the time of Paul III. Four pontificates later, under +Pius IV, the Jesuits, as Calvin was the first to call them, furnished +the sensational element in the second sitting of the Council of Trent; +and in 1572, when Ugo Boncompagni became Pope, under the title of +Gregory XIII, the order made its appearance on the world’s stage as +the recognized director of the church militant. The Jesuits were the +keepers of this Pope’s conscience, and the history of his pontificate +is the first chapter in the history of Jesuit rule. For them the +Pope erected the present building of the Collegio Romano, founded in +Loyola’s time; for them he founded the German and English colleges at +Rome, and, according to Ranke, “probably there was not a single Jesuit +school in the world which had not to boast in one way or another of his +bounty.” The chief architects of the time were put at their disposal. +Vignola designed and built for them the vast Church of “the Gesù”; and +as he died while the work was in progress, his distinguished pupil, +Giacomo della Porta, turned from the making of beautiful fountains and +completed the cupola and façade. The latter also built the high altar +in that church, and in its construction showed once more that love of +rare marbles which is so distinctive a feature in the Colonna and other +fountains of his creation. + +Gregory XIII had begun life as a Bolognese lawyer. He had been called +to Rome by Paul III the very year Loyola founded the Society of Jesus. +He had gone to Spain as Papal legate under Paul IV, had been created +cardinal by Pius IV, and at the age of seventy was made Pope. His life +had peculiarly fitted him to appreciate Jesuit ideals. His belief +in educational institutions, his keen interest in geography and the +remote corners of the earth, the correctness of his private life after +his elevation, his previous worldliness, and his secular training, all +combined to make him the Jesuit Pope. The Roman Church remembers him as +the builder of the Gregorian Chapel in St. Peter’s, the reformer of the +calendar, the reorganizer of a great body of ecclesiastical law, and +the patron of the Order of the Jesuits. To Protestants he remains the +Pope who sang “Te Deums” for “the St. Bartholomew.” + +The pontificate of Gregory XIII was a deplorable one for the Holy +See and for the Romans. Conditions of living sank to a very low +level. Banditti terrorized the States of the Church and could not be +controlled even in Rome. The great families whose estates Gregory +had confiscated to pay for his architectural and ecclesiastical +extravagances were in open revolt, and the treasury was empty. Venice +had been estranged, and England and the Netherlands were forever lost. +Gregory XIII’s successor, Sixtus V, fell heir to this condition of +misrule and disaster. No one can be surprised at the grim irony of the +new pontiff in ordering masses to be said for the soul of Gregory XIII! + +Looking at the tranquil loveliness of the Colonna fountain--so white +and shining in the sunlight--it is difficult to picture it as a part +of the turbulent life of the period in which it was erected. Yet many +a time its waters must have restored consciousness, stanched wounds, +stifled cries for mercy or succor, and washed away the stains of blood. +It has always been a Pilgrims’ Fountain. Long before Sixtus V with his +passion for converting the “high places” of Paganism into Christian +monuments had restored the Antonine column and placed upon it the +statue of St. Paul--long before that time the ascent of the column +had been a part of the Roman pilgrims’ itinerary. In the Middle Ages +the column had become the property of the monks of San Silvestro, who +leased it to the highest bidder. As Rome numbered her pilgrims by the +thousands in any year, and by the tens of thousands during the years +of the Papal Jubilee, a goodly profit was derived from the fees paid +by the pilgrims to the custodian of the column, and the monks could +therefore always count upon making an advantageous lease. Gregory XIII, +in erecting this fountain, must have thought primarily of the comfort +and interest of the pilgrims. As the traveller of to-day remembers the +fountain of Trevi, so the pilgrim of the sixteenth century remembered +the fountain by the side of the Column of St. Paul--the fountain of +the Piazza Colonna. Its beauty delighted the eyes of footsore men from +far-off and still barbarous countries; while the crystalline waters +which quenched their thirst and washed away the stains of travel would +have had for these Christians from the North a symbolic significance +undreamed of by the Romans. The vision of this shining fountain has +been carried back to many distant monasteries and remote firesides +throughout the Christian world. Its situation in the Piazza Colonna, +which is but a widening of the Corso, has kept it in the main current +of Roman life. The people use it and cherish it; Falda has engraved +it; and, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, Pope Leo XII +embellished it with its dainty shells and dolphins, as a father might +twine flowers in the hair of some beautiful child. + + + + +QUATTRO FONTANE + + +[Illustration] + + +QUATTRO FONTANE + +These quaint old fountains, now fast fading away, were erected during +the pontificate of Sixtus V to decorate the famous “Crossing” created +by himself and his architect Domenico Fontana when these two began +to make over Rome of the Renaissance into modern Rome. The Crossing +occurs where the Via Venti Settembre traverses at right angles the +Via Sistina. The former leads from the Porta Pia to the Piazza of the +Quirinal, and the latter runs all the way from the Trinità de’ Monti +to Santa Maria Maggiore, changing its name just above the Crossing to +Via Quattro Fontane, and after passing the Via Nazionale becoming Via +Agostino Depretis. The Via Venti Settembre becomes, after leaving the +Crossing on the Quirinal side, the Via Quirinale. Sixtus V laid out the +Via Sistina, and called it for himself the Via Felice. The Via Venti +Settembre was called in his time the Via Pia, as it led to the Porta +Pia, which was erected by Pope Pius IV. + +The four fountains are of travertine and represent two rivers and two +virtues. They are all by Fontana except that one which is placed across +the grille in the wall of the Barberini Gardens. This is the work of +Pietro da Cortona. The choice both of the rivers and of the virtues +is significant. Pope Sixtus V’s early life shows what need he had of +fortitude, while fidelity marks his attitude toward his two (and only) +friends, Pope Pius V and Domenico Fontana. + +The Tiber, represented by a river-god behind whom the reeds are +growing, was of course to be expected. The Anio, also a river-god but +with the emblem of the oak-tree, may have been chosen because of Sixtus +V’s intention to bring its waters to Rome, not by an aqueduct but in +a canal, for the transportation of the travertine and wood needed in +his great enterprises. For the Tiber also he had plans. He wished to +enlarge its bed so that he might bring up his galleys from the sea to +Rome; and he had a scheme for its separation at the Ponte Molle and +for bringing one arm of it behind the Vatican, so as to make an island +of that part of Rome containing the papal palace, St. Peter’s and the +Castle of St. Angelo. These were among the projects which he had not +the time to carry out, for Sixtus V’s pontificate lasted but five +years. Seeing what he actually accomplished during that short period +and reading what he still intended to do, it seems as if this Pope +were not a link in the long chain of St. Peter’s successors but one +of those “explosions of energy” which occur from time to time in the +history of men. + +[Illustration] + +Sixtus V was not a Roman nor even by descent an Italian. His origin +was from the humblest condition in life. The family name of Peretti (a +little pear) might have been taken by his father, an Illyrian immigrant +of Slavonic origin, to denote his occupation, which was that of a fruit +gardener. At twelve years of age this man’s son, Felix Peretti, became +a Franciscan novice; and from that time the enthusiasm, ideals, and +limitations of the great Order of St. Francis moulded and inspired a +character formed by nature for leadership in any position to which it +might attain. To an ardent temperament, an imperious will, and a strong +intellect was added a constructive, even fantastic, imagination of a +high order; but his lack of early culture and his exclusively monastic +training had kept him in ignorance of all education not immediately +connected with religion and had bred in him a hostility toward classic +art almost amounting to fanaticism. Such was the great Franciscan +friar, Felix Peretti who, after first becoming Cardinal Montalto, was +elected Pope in 1585 and took the title of Sixtus V. It may be said +that, although as head of the Roman See his abilities obtained a far +wider scope than his order could have given him, yet from the point +of view of character and ideals he remained the Franciscan friar all +his life. His brief and splendid pontificate closed suddenly amid +the last great political and religious struggle between France and +Spain. To neither opponent had Sixtus, who could see both sides of the +conflict, given his final support; and his suspension of judgment in +a cause where the forces of Protestantism were still represented in +the person of Henry of Navarre gave rise to suspicions, most unjust, +of his orthodoxy. The Roman people forgot the benefits and glories of +his reign and remembered only its severity, the destruction of their +antiquities, the drain of his taxation, and his temperate policy toward +a Protestant king. The marvel of his extraordinary rise to power had +produced in the public mind fantastic theories, and when a great storm +burst over the Palace of the Quirinal, where the Pope lay dying, it was +commonly believed that “Friar Felix” had at last been called upon to +fulfil his part of the compact which he had made with the devil for +power and place. + +When this Pope ascended the chair of St. Peter he found an exhausted +treasury, a starving people, a cramped and crowded city suffering from +lack of water and from every means of hygienic living; and added to +this there was such a condition of lawlessness in the States of the +Church as made them a byword throughout Christendom. Within a year +after his election the last great chieftain of the banditti had been +destroyed, and the foreign ambassadors journeyed in safety to take up +their abode in the Holy City. Within three years he had deposited in +the Castle of St. Angelo great sums of money, which were to be used, +however, only for the defense of the city, the purchase of lost papal +territory, and wars against the Turks, with which last contingency +his imagination was constantly at play. During these years he had +also reconciled the feud of the Colonna and Orsini, had restored the +disputed privileges of the nobility in the great cities, and had +brought Venice once more into harmony with the papacy. It was by +command of this Pope, Sixtus V, that the gardens, hills, wolds, and +valleys of the States of the Church were planted with mulberry-trees, +so that “where no corn grew the silk industry might flourish.” It was +Sixtus V who encouraged woollen manufacture so that--to quote his own +words--“the poor might have something.” In connection with this, it +is interesting to see that he had fully intended to turn the Coliseum +into an immense woollen factory. The streets of Rome resounded with +the cheerful din of his architects and masons; and though the nobility +and populace had reason enough to fear the entire destruction of their +ancient monuments at the hands of this Franciscan, yet they could but +admire the great triumphs of architecture and engineering which day by +day raised the city to her lost pre-eminence and restored the pride +of the Roman people. His first great public enterprise marked him at +once as a born administrator. This was the introduction into Rome of +a new supply of water. The work which the Pope determined should be +worthy of imperial Rome was accomplished in spite of every obstacle +and at a cost of two hundred and fifty-five thousand three hundred +and forty-one scudi. By it he all but doubled the population of his +city and reclaimed that great tract of land comprising the Viminal, +Quirinal, and Esquiline Hills. This quarter had been a desert during +eleven centuries; and yet, in the days of the Empire, it was the garden +of Rome. + +Piranesi’s engravings give some idea of the savage wildness of the +uninhabited parts of Rome; and the ragged and uncouth figures with +which he peoples his ruins are, no doubt, a faithful representation +of the squalor of the wretched tribe of outlaws who dwelt among them. +This state of things had resulted from one cause--lack of water. The +aqueducts which supplied these hills had been the first to perish at +the hands of the barbarians, and desolation had followed inevitably +upon their destruction. Pius IV had dreamed of restoring this great +portion of the city; but Pius IV, like his immediate predecessors, +had lacked the means of doing this. Sixtus V brought to the task the +required money, public tranquillity, and imagination. He found in the +erstwhile mason’s apprentice from Como, Domenico Fontana, the engineer +and architect for such undertakings. The old Marcian Aqueduct furnished +the materials for the Acquedotto Felice, and the water was brought all +the way from Zagarolla in the Agra Colonna, near Frascati, twenty miles +distant from Rome, to the Pope’s vineyard outside the Porta Maggiore, +and thence to the Church of Santa Susanna. The splendid stream carried +over these arches was thus distributed throughout the desolation and +sterility of the Viminal, Esquiline, and Quirinal Hills. With this +water at his command, Sixtus V began laying out what might be called +to-day Sixtine Rome--the Rome which lies between the terraces of the +Trinità de’ Monti and that portion of the Aurelian wall pierced by the +six gates--Porta Pinciana, Porta Salaria, Porta Pia, Porta San Lorenzo, +Porta Maggiore, and Porta San Giovanni. It was an enormous space to +cover, and the frescoes in the Vatican Library show how desolate and +how wild it was. The two great basilicas of the Lateran and Santa Maria +Maggiore, the Coliseum, and the Septizonium (for very good reasons +not included in the picture), the Baths of Diocletian, the Neronian +arches, the Villa Montalto with its rows of famous cypresses, and in +one panel the Moses fountain and the Porta Pia--these constitute the +main features of the wild landscape with its hilly background and +its foreground of rough, bare earth and shaggy vegetation. The Pope +offered special privileges to all who would build on these hills, and +he himself began the work by levelling the ground about the Church of +the Trinità de’ Monti and building the fine flights of steps which +lead up on both sides to the church. Half-way between this church and +the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore he created the Crossing; and for +rest and refreshment, as well as for beauty, he placed here these four +fountains. This half-way point in the long ascent from the Trinità +de’ Monti to the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore was well known to +Sixtus V. Many a time had he, as Friar Felix Peretti, climbed that +lonely hillside and felt for himself the solitude and thirst of the +desolate vicinity. Later on, when he had become Cardinal Montalto, he +had passed that way in such state as a poor cardinal could command. +Here Fontana had first built him a modest dwelling, and here he began +to construct the Villa Montalto, which, as Fontana labored over it, +became at length so beautiful that it, together with the chapel he was +also building in Santa Maria Maggiore, cost Montalto the allowance +given by the Camera Apostolica to poor cardinals, since the Pope judged +no man to be poor who could build so magnificently. Gregory XIII’s +inference and consequent action may have been natural, but was not on +that account just. The enduring antipathy between Ugo Boncompagni and +Felix Peretti dated from that Spanish mission on which they had been +sent together by Pius V; and when Boncompagni had become Pope and had, +therefore, Cardinal Montalto in his power, it befitted him to make a +thorough investigation of any matter concerning his old antagonist +before taking action. As a matter of fact, the villa, though costing +in the end thirty thousand scudi, could not have been so extravagant +in the beginning. The characters of Cardinal Montalto and Fontana, as +well as their accounts, prove how certainly the owner and architect +could get the best possible returns for their money. These two men +formed at that time one of the notable friendships of history. Fontana +supplied out of his savings the funds for continuing the chapel; and +Montalto, as Sixtus V, proved his gratitude and appreciation. Their +confidence in each other was as complete as was their recognition of +each other’s ability. Sixtus gave Fontana the work of taking down and +re-erecting the obelisk of the Vatican--and this, in spite of Fontana’s +youth (he was forty-two years old and judged by his contemporaries +to be too young for such responsibility) as well as the reputation +of Amannati and other competitors. Furthermore, when the obelisk was +finally lowered to its present position amid the prayers of the vast +concourse of people, Sixtus was not even present. The French ambassador +was to have his audience at that hour, and the state of Europe was the +Pope’s chief concern. As Sixtus passed along the street to the Vatican, +revolving the affairs of Philip II and Elizabeth of England, of Mary +Stuart and Henry of Navarre, and the “Unspeakable Turk,” the guns of +St. Angelo apprised him that the obelisk was in place. That had been +Fontana’s business and he had trusted it to him. Nevertheless, the old +pontiff shed tears of satisfaction. + +The Villa Montalto was eventually finished by the Pope’s nephew, +Cardinal Montalto II, and later on it was known as the Villa Negroni. +Engravings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries show that it +contained an endless variety of fountains; among them Fontana’s great +fish-pond was truly magnificent. All of these had been made possible +by the Acqua Felice. Sixtus V preferred the Quirinal to any other +residence. Perhaps the Villa Montalto may have become distasteful to +him by reason of the crime which was immortalized by Webster’s tragedy +of “Vittoria Accoramboni or the White Devil.” Cinque Cento Italy was +the Italy of the Elizabethan dramatists, and in this tragedy, the +blackest of their Italian productions, many of the chief characters +were drawn from actual life. The Cardinal Monticelso of the written +tragedy had been the actual Cardinal Montalto, and Vittoria Accoramboni +and her husband had been his nephew and his nephew’s wife. Francesco +Peretti was the cardinal’s favorite nephew, and the ever-perplexing +question of the formation of a cardinal’s household had been solved +for Montalto by domiciling Francesco and Vittoria in the Villa +Montalto. Vittoria had great beauty, and her ambition and audacity +were boundless. She aspired to something higher than the handsome +nephew of a parsimonious and conspicuously infirm old cardinal. She +captivated the head of the Orsini, the Duke of Bracciano, and gave +him to understand that she would marry him after he had made away with +his wife and her husband. The Duchess of Bracciano was the sister of +the powerful Grand Duke of Tuscany. Nevertheless, Bracciano strangled +her with his own hands while pretending to kiss her. Young Peretti +was then called away from the Villa Montalto one night on the pretext +that his dearest friend had need of him, decoyed into the desolate +spaces on Monte Cavallo, and stabbed to death. The cardinal, his +uncle, buried him without a cry either for justice or vengeance. He +waited. But Gregory XIII forbade forever the union of Vittoria and +the duke. More the Pope could hardly dare do against the greatest of +his subjects. Vittoria and Bracciano went through a mock ceremony and +retired to the duke’s great fortress castle of Bracciano, not far from +Rome, where they waited for the Pope’s death. When this occurred, they +returned to the city in order to have the marriage performed during +that interim which must elapse between the death of one pope and the +election of another. Vittoria became the legal Duchess of Bracciano; +but her former husband’s uncle, the feeble old Cardinal Montalto, was +elected Pope, and the two great criminals fled from a certain and +terrible retribution. Venice at that time was the refuge for all the +terror-stricken, and the duke’s kinsman, Ludovico Orsini, lived there +as a successful general. Bracciano died there seven months later; and +six weeks afterward Ludovico Orsini murdered both Vittoria and her +young brother Flaminio in Padua, whither they had gone to live on the +duke’s great legacy. Vittoria’s possession of Bracciano’s fortune, and +the outraged pride of the Orsini occasioned by her marriage, for she +was of humble origin, prompted Ludovico’s crime. But all three of these +actors in the tragedy were guests of Venice, and Ludovico Orsini had +in very truth reckoned without his host. There was one pride greater +than that of a Roman noble, and that was the pride of Venice. Padua +was Venetian territory, and the republic suffered no such acts of +lawless vengeance within her jurisdiction, no matter by whom they were +committed nor on what provocation. The Venetian reprisals were summary +and fearful. Ludovico Orsini was strangled by the Bargello with the +red silk cord which, as a nobleman, he had a right to demand; and his +accomplices died by torture in the public square. It was an age of +crime, flagrant and atrocious; but the story of Vittoria Accoramboni, +involving, as it did, the temporary ruin of the Orsini family, lives on +when others equally horrible have been happily buried and forgotten in +the archives of the families in which they occurred. + +Sixty years after the death of Sixtus V this region about the Quattro +Fontane had become both fashionable and beautiful. The fountains were +then known as the four fountains of Lepidus, and Evelyn described +them as the “abutments of four stately ways.” Sixtus V had made it +illegal for any house along his great thoroughfare of the Felice to be +torn down against the will of the owner, even after a decree of the +Tribunal. + +In an age of uncertainty created by the Pope’s own high-handed +measures, this security alone must have gone a long way toward +encouraging building. + +In 1587 Sixtus himself bought the beautiful Piazza of Monte Cavallo +from the heirs of the Caraffa family, and the Quirinal Palace, already +begun by Gregory XIII, was finished by him with great magnificence. +Fontana also built in one corner of the Quattro Fontane the Palazzo +Mattei, now the Palazzo Albani. The invaluable stimulant of the +“master’s eye” was always to be felt about the neighborhood, for Sixtus +V often took his Sunday walk after mass along these streets, examining, +criticising, and commanding everything. He was “always in a hurry.” It +was as if he felt the time was short. No modern methods surpass the +rush of his undertakings; but unlike the modern building, that which +he built remained, and remains until this day. The feeble body which +so successfully deceived the Conclave at his election and yet survived +for those five titanic years of his pontificate lies in Santa Maria +Maggiore, in the great chapel built for him by his Fontana. There, as +Stendhal truly says: “Amid all the marble magnificence, what one really +cares to see is the sculptured physiognomy of the Pope himself.” + +One other statue of this Sixtus which formerly adorned Rome would +now be of surpassing interest. It was erected at the Capitol in the +Pope’s lifetime, and was the work of that gifted young Florentine +artist, Taddeo Landini, who modelled the bronze boys in the Tartarughe +fountain. The night the Pope died this statue was covered by boards +for fear of the violence of the mob, and soon after it was removed; +but it is probably still in existence, and the increasing interest in +Sixtine Rome may some day bring it to light. + +In this mortuary chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore there is also the tomb +of Pope Pius V, erected by Sixtus V, and one of the panels in the +Vatican Library depicts the solemn removal of the old saint’s body to +this splendid resting-place. Sixtus V saw this accomplished in his +lifetime, for his devotion to the Pope, who, like himself, had begun +life as a friar, and who had made him cardinal and stood his friend in +trouble, never wavered nor grew cold. Historians have dwelt much upon +Sixtus V’s parsimony. Economy was said to be his favorite virtue. But +the best of the Quattro Fontane is that which represents the virtue of +fidelity; and this is the only one of them which is decorated with the +emblems of Sixtus V. + + + + +TARTARUGHE + + +[Illustration] + + +TARTARUGHE + +Giacomo della Porta, Domenico and Giovanni Fontana, Carlo Maderno, and +Bernini are the Roman masters in the gentle art of fountain-making. +Giacomo della Porta stands first chronologically, and he has also +created the loveliest of the lovely. This is the Tartarughe fountain +for which the Senate and people of Rome paid over twelve hundred scudi, +evidently a large sum at that time for a fountain, as Baglioni mentions +it particularly. Giacomo della Porta delighted in rare marbles and for +his fountain of the Tartarughe he carved the broad shallow bowl of the +classic drinking cup in the centre in _bigio morrato fasciato_, or +veined gray marble, while he made the stem of a mottled yellow marble +called Saravezza. The cup stands upon a Carrara base, moulded and +carved with decorative shields or escutcheons, from the four corners +of which project huge shells of rare beauty and distinction of form +carved in different varieties of African marble. It rises from a +shallow travertine basin, gracefully shaped and slightly sunk below the +level of the present pavement. So far there is nothing to distinguish +this fountain from others of its kind except the richness of its +marbles and the shape of the shells, but its four bronze figures so +harmoniously composed give this design the dignity of a work of art, +and make it the most exquisite of Roman fountains. They are by Taddeo +Landini, whose early death was a distinct loss to the world of art. + +These figures are of boys in the most beautiful period of adolescence, +their sinuous bodies lean against the swelling stem of the cup, one +slender leg of each figure pushed backward so that the foot rests on +the toes, preserving the balance, while the other leg, lifted high and +bent at the knee, presses its foot upon the head of a bronze dolphin. +The torsos lean toward each other in couples, each supporting itself on +its elbow so that the right shoulder of the one and the left shoulder +of the other come rather close together. The hands of these supporting +arms grasp the tails of the dolphins, while the other arms, raised high +above the head, push upward with open palms and outspread fingers four +bronze tortoises which clamber over the rim of the cup in haste to +plunge into the water. Projecting from the under surface of the rim are +carved in marble heads of cherubs, so placed that the water which they +spout falls in a steady stream between the figures of the boys and is +received into the lowest basin. + +The composition of these figures of boys and water-creatures is quite +lovely; and the water, rising in a central jet from the drinking-cup, +gushing from the mouths of the dolphins and slipping in slender runnels +from the cunningly curved lips of the huge shells enhances, as it +should, the joyous naturalness of the entire conception. + +[Illustration: Fountain of the Tartarughe.] + +The popular appreciation of the beauty of the Tartarughe is shown by +the wide-spread impression that it was designed by Raphael. It is +painful to give up that belief, and in the face of facts which prove +the hopelessness of such a contention the enthusiastic admirer can only +assert that had Raphael designed a fountain this is the fountain he +would have designed. + +There is assuredly some excuse for this assertion. Raphael depicted +often, and with peculiar tenderness, the gracious figures of youths. +There is, also, a whimsicality in this conceit, a certain sympathy +seems to unite the boys with the water-creatures; it is as if they +were all joining in the sport of their own free will, and might at any +moment break away from each other only to reunite in some fresh prank +in splashing water under happy skies. All this is highly reminiscent +of the art of Raphael. By virtue of it the Tartarughe belongs not +to the end of the sixteenth century but to that great period of the +High Renaissance when “for Leo X Raphael filled rooms, galleries, and +chapels with the ideal forms of human beauty and the pure expression of +existence.” + +This fountain was erected in the last year of the pontificate of +Gregory XIII and the first year of the pontificate of Sixtus V, which +would explain why its erection is attributed sometimes to the reign +of one pope and sometimes to that of the other. It is difficult to +understand how Sixtus V could have permitted the erection of any +fountain so entirely devoid of scriptural suggestion, so purely +pagan in its expression of joyous and irresponsible life, as is the +Tartarughe. Possibly the play of the boys in the splashing water +reminded the old man, who was in spite of his fierce enthusiasms so +kindly and so human, of the far-off days of his childhood. As Cardinal +Montalto he had done much for his native village, and many acts of his +pontificate prove he had the poor always with him. He never forgot +their sufferings or their simple pleasures, and in that old heart +there lingered memories of his father’s fruit garden at Formi, of +the pear-trees which he placed in his coat of arms, and of the great +cistern in which he dabbled with such happy recklessness that one day +he fell in and had to be fished out like any other urchin destined or +not for the papal chair. + +Rome would, undoubtedly, be the richer for a fountain by Raphael, +but it is probably fortunate for the Tartarughe that it was not of +Raphael’s creation. It is not likely that this bit of fancy in bronze +and rare marbles could have escaped destruction at the time of the +sack of Rome in 1527, only six years after Raphael’s death. Perhaps, +also, this last blossom from the golden Summer of Italian Art owes its +perfect preservation to its position in an obscure corner close to +what was once the Ghetto. But as a setting for this gem no situation +could be more inadequate. A mean square of dingy, uniformly ugly +houses surrounds it, and there is not one redeeming feature in all +this dreariness except the patch of blue sky overhead. A fountain fit +to be the crowning beauty of some prince’s garden or to be celebrated +in a canto of “The Faerie Queene” plays on in this commonplace part of +Rome unheeded, and seemingly uncared for. However, when in 1898, one +of the tortoises was stolen the indignation felt at the theft was so +wide-spread and so fierce that the thief was only too glad to abandon +the precious tortoise in a place where it could be easily discovered. + +Trevi water supplies this fountain at present. Until quite recently it +was the Acqua Paola, but its deposits had so discolored the bronze and +marbles that the water in the shells was changed back to the Trevi, for +which water it was originally constructed. However, the highest jet in +the fountain was not changed, as Paola water can rise to a much higher +level than Trevi. + + + + +FONTANA DEL MOSÈ + + +[Illustration] + + +FONTANA DEL MOSÈ + +This is the first of the great Fontana fountains, and if Domenico +Fontana got his inspiration for it from the beautiful public fountain +made by Amannati for Julius III on the Via Flaminia, with which he was +familiar before the Casino was placed above it, his fountain in its +turn became the prototype for the great fountains erected in the next +century by his brother for Pope Paul V. + +This Fountain of the Moses is a great portal consisting of three arches +equal in size, from the base of which the water issues in double +cascades. The water falls into three large basins guarded by couchant +lions, and each lion spouts an additional stream of water. In the +centre archway stands a colossal figure of Moses in the act of striking +the rock, and the niches on either side of him are filled by high +reliefs of scenes from the Old Testament relative to the importance +and significance of water. The relief to the right represents Gideon +testing his soldiers and is the work of Flaminio Vacca, and in the +left Giovanni Battista della Porta has carved the scene in the desert +after Moses has brought the water from the rock. Four beautiful marble +columns with Ionic capitals stand one on either side of these arches, +and in the small triangular spaces between the capitals and the +keystones are the emblems of Sixtus V--the star, the three mounts, the +pear branch and the lion. These arches and columns support a massive +entablature of which the inscription, in the noble Sixtine caligraphy, +forms the most important feature, and is, in fact, the most impressive +part of the entire structure. Above the inscription rises the florid +pediment, flanked by two obelisks (an idea distinctly borrowed from +Amannati’s fountain) and bearing on its apex the three mounts of Sixtus +V which carry the huge iron cross. Underneath this and occupying the +greater part of the pediment are the armorial bearings of Sixtus V. The +huge shield is supported by two angels, a conceit borrowed, perhaps, +from Pius IV’s escutcheon over the Porta Pia, and repeated again for +Paul V in his fountain on the Janiculum. The armorial sculpture is by +Flaminio Vacca. Such is the great Fontana fountain, grandiose rather +than magnificent, but still distinctly imposing and adequately filling +by its size and importance the honorable position which it occupies +among the fountains of Rome. It is the main delivery tank of the Acqua +Felice; and the Acqua Felice was the first new supply of water which +Rome had received since the aqueducts had been cut off from the city by +Vitiges in 537. + +The statue of Moses is a colossal blunder. Prospero Bresciano had +modelled the curious Sixtine lions which served to support the Vatican +obelisk, and the Pope gave him the commission for the principal +figure in his great fountain. Contrary to the advice of his friends, +Bresciano carved this statue, which was to be his masterpiece, directly +from the travertine without any previous modelling--the block lying +horizontally on the ground. When the figure was raised it was found +to be not only out of proportion but also out of conformity with the +laws of perspective. Its unveiling was greeted by the critical Roman +populace with a shout of derisive laughter, so Homeric in its volume +and duration that it utterly condemned the artist, who, as a result, +fell into a melancholia and died. + +The present lions, which are of bigio marble, are modern, dating from +the days of Gregory XVI (1846). This Pope created the Egyptian Museum +in the Vatican and removed thither the original lions, which were of +Egyptian origin and had been appropriated for his fountain by Sixtus +V--two from the Piazza of the Pantheon and two from the gate of St. +John Lateran. + +The two great points of difference between the Fontana fountains +and the Amannati fountain on the Flaminian Way are interesting and +significant. They are, first, the place of the inscription, and +secondly the volume of water. The first point of difference is due +to the fact that the Fontana fountains, here and on the Janiculum, +proclaim the appearance in the city of a new supply of water. Sixtus V +and Paul V had each built a new aqueduct and could announce the fact +conspicuously by magnificent inscriptions; whereas Julius III, using +a stream of water from an aqueduct already in existence, could only +claim the honor of having erected the fountain for the convenience of +the public. His inscription, therefore, is not borne aloft on triumphal +arches but occupies a place in the central niche, filled in Sixtus +V’s fountain by the figure of Moses, and in Paul V’s fountain left +absolutely vacant. The stream which Julius III dared appropriate from +the Virgo Aqueduct was only large enough to fill a single basin placed +before the central niche of Amannati’s fountain; whereas in the Fontana +fountains the water fills the entire space below the mostra, as it was +naturally the intention to show the magnitude and force of the new +supply. + +Pope Sixtus V’s great fountain demands for its effect, like Paul V’s, +wide and spacious surroundings. The high modern buildings crowding +upon it and dwarfing it have done much toward diminishing its artistic +values. One of the panels in the Vatican Library shows what the +fountain was like in the years immediately following its erection. +Gardens and vineyards lay all about it, and it easily dominated the +walls and gateways which were its only architectural neighbors. The +Porta Pia to the left merely enhanced its dignity, and in the far +distance the hills, aqueducts, and the open sky lent themselves for a +magnificent background. + +The Acqua Felice, which was the first water of papal Rome, had been the +last water brought to the ancient city. In 226 the Emperor Alexander +Severus built the eleventh and last aqueduct of the classic city. +Its remains are still to be seen on the Via Prænestina. Over this +aqueduct he brought the Acqua Alexandrina, which was from practically +the same sources as those which now supply the Acqua Felice. The Acqua +Alexandrina was brought by the Emperor down the Via Labicana as far as +the Esquiline, where he erected for it a magnificent fountain. A coin +of his period shows the design to have somewhat resembled the present +“Fontanone” on the Janiculum. + +Sixtus V selected as the site for his fountain an open space on the +Viminal Hill near the Church of Santa Susanna. He faced it southwest, +at right angles to the Via Pia, which terminated at some distance to +the northeast in the Porta Pia. The Acqua Felice enters Rome at the +Porta Maggiore at the altitude of 59 metres and supplies 21,632.8 +cubic metres of water daily. In order to bring the water to Fontana’s +fountain it was necessary to cut a wide street, the Via Ceruaia, and +to tunnel through the Baths of Diocletian. Although the Acqua Felice +served the Pope’s purposes and literally made the desert blossom like +the rose, Sixtus V had no sentiment about it. When the water actually +reached the city, his sister and nephew, thinking to please him, +hastened to bring him a cupful. The Pope, who hated a scene of any +kind, refused to drink it, declaring that it had no taste, which is +quite true. It is to this day the least valued of the Roman waters, and +the overflow or “lapsed water” of Fontana’s great fountain is used for +laundry purposes. + +The Pope bought the land containing the feeding-springs of the Acqua +Felice from Cardinal Colonna, and brought it to the city underground +for thirteen miles and for the remaining seven over arches. Its channel +is known as the “ugly aqueduct.” + +The worst of the crimes committed by Sixtus V and Domenico Fontana +against the antiquities of the city was the destruction of the +Septizonium. Artists of the period have left invaluable sketches of +this last fine example of classic architecture. It had been built by +Septimius Severus against the Palatine, probably as an architectural +screen to the mass of confused buildings in its rear. It faced south +down the road by which travellers from Africa entered the city. It +had survived the sieges, the earthquakes, and the fires of more than +thirteen centuries; yet Sixtus V, without a qualm, demolished it for +the sake of the blocks of travertine and peperino and its beautiful +marble columns, which he wished to use in his own architectural +enterprises. It is impossible not to wonder what were Fontana’s +feelings as he superintended the destruction of this masterpiece of +his own profession. He does little more than mention the fact in his +memoirs, and this may be in itself significant. Some of the material +went into the fabric of the Moses fountain; but the Romans never +forgave either Sixtus V or Fontana. + +Considering the dearth of water in Rome in the sixteenth century and +the character of Sixtus V, the conception of the central idea of this +fountain--that of Moses striking the rock--was not only happy but +almost inevitable. Although the Pope was an ardent churchman, it was +easier for him to believe in the conversion to Catholicism of the +conqueror of Ivry than to understand that the Roman ruins had any other +than a commercial value. Leo X had believed in art “for art’s sake.” +He had believed in nothing else. To Sixtus V, on the other hand, all +the efforts of painting, sculpture, and architecture were to be for +the glory of God, more particularly as that glory was understood and +expounded by himself. The Neptunes and Tritons of later pontificates +would have seemed to him creations of the devil. The Old Testament +was to him, as it was to the English Puritan of the next century, the +source of artistic inspiration; and for his great fountain the Hebrew +lawgiver, bringing the water out of the rock at the Divine command, was +alone adequate. It was not unnatural for him to think of himself as +standing in the place of Moses. + + SIXTVS · V · PONT · MAX · PICENVS + AQVAM · EX · AGRO · COLVMNAE + VIA · PRAENEST · SINISTRORSVM + MVLTAR · COLLECTIONE · VENARVM + DVCTV · SINVOSO · A · RECEPTACVLO + MIL · XX · A · CAPITE · XXII · ADDVXIT + FELICEMQ · DE · NOMINE · ANTE · PONT · DIXIT + + COEPIT · AN · I · ABSOLVIT · III · MDLXXXVII + +_Pope Sixtus V, of the Marches, conducted this water from a junction +of several streams in the neighborhood of Colonna, at the left of the +Prænestine road, by a winding route, twenty miles from its reservoir +and twenty-two from its source, and called it Felix, after the name he +himself bore before his pontificate. He commenced the work in the first +year of his pontificate, and finished it in the third, 1587._ + + + + +THE LATERAN + + +[Illustration] + + +THE LATERAN + +Modern photographs can still be found of the original fountain of the +Lateran. It was the work of Fontana and was placed in this spot after +he had erected the obelisk for Sixtus V. The present fountain is quite +new and most inadequately replaces the old one which had stood there +for over three hundred years. By the close of the nineteenth century +the upper basin of Fontana’s fountain was badly broken, while the +lower one had been held together for some time by iron clamps. The +carving was so worn and defaced that the dolphins and eagle were quite +shapeless, and the figure of St. John writing in a scroll upon his +knee and looking to Heaven for inspiration had long since disappeared. +Maggi’s engraving of this fountain made in 1618 shows it to have +been one of the richest ever designed by Fontana. A curious feature +in this old fountain was the blending of the insignia of three popes. +The pears of Sixtus V were carved in heavy festoons under the huge +supporting scrolls of the mostra (which was a screen made low so as to +bring the figure of St. John in simple and high relief against one of +the square sides of the pedestal), the Borghese eagle poured the water +into the shell-shaped upper basin; and finally the Aldobrandini bar of +continuous Maltese crosses was used as frieze. + +The obelisk of the Lateran was set in its present place by Fontana +only two years before the death of Sixtus V, and it is quite probable +the fountain was not erected until some years later. Sixtus V rushed +the work on the Lateran at top speed; and this obelisk was no sooner +in place than Fontana was commissioned to transport its companion +to the Piazza del Popolo. The Lateran obelisk was erected in 1588. +In August, 1590, Sixtus V died. Four popes followed him in rapid +succession--Urban VII, Gregory XIV, and Innocent IX, all dying so +soon that by January 20, 1592, Clement VIII (Aldobrandini) had become +Pope; and Fontana may have finished this fountain during the first +years of Clement’s pontificate, before he fell under that pontiff’s +displeasure. The frieze on the fountain must have been originally the +Montalto or Peretti frieze, which forms so beautiful a finish to the +Lateran Palace; but Fontana, while keeping the star of Montalto (one of +Sixtus V’s emblems) in the corners under the cornice of the screen, +changed the design of the intervening space into the Aldobrandini bar. +It was a small detail, and the change was a mere matter of custom +and policy and involved no disloyalty to the great past in Fontana’s +life. This would account for the Aldobrandini frieze. The eagle seems +at first more difficult to explain. From the accession of Paul V the +eagle denotes the Borghese family; but Paul V did not become Pope until +1605, and Fontana left Rome for Naples in 1596. Therefore, the eagle +of this fountain cannot have any connection with the Borghese family. +Why did Fontana use it instead of the lion’s head, which was another of +Sixtus V’s emblems and would have made a better architectural outlet +for the water? It must have been because the eagle is the emblem of +St. John. In Michelangelo’s fresco of the Fourth Evangelist in the +Sixtine Chapel the eagle stands with bent head and folded wings close +against the figure of the saint who, seated upon the ground, is writing +in the scroll supported by his knee. Fontana, or the sculptor who +carved for him the figure on the top of the mostra of this fountain, +was undoubtedly inspired by Michelangelo’s creation. The St. John of +the fountain was, according to the old engravings, a beautiful and +youthful figure looking to Heaven for inspiration and writing in the +scroll held upon his knee. The eagle was wanting, but Fontana placed +him just below the cornice between the curving tails of the dolphins, +and adapted him to the purposes of a fountain. The design was original +and extremely interesting, as it shows both Sixtus V and Fontana in a +new and unusual light. They were dominated by the place. The great new +Lateran Palace which they had built, the ancient obelisk which they +had set up, the fountain which supplied the invaluable Acqua Felice, +were all subservient to the venerable basilica of St. John. The piazza +and all that it contained were dedicated to St. John, and had been so +for seven hundred years. Pope and architect may have felt that in this +fountain the insignia of any pontiff were more fittingly kept in a +purely subordinate position. + +The mostra of the old fountain rested, as the present one does, on the +base of the obelisk; and the fine Piranesi engraving of the Piazza of +the Lateran shows its position and proportions as well as the admirable +balance which it gives to the entire scene. + +This obelisk is still the highest in the world, although the lower end +was so badly broken and damaged (by fire) that Fontana had to shorten +it by three feet. It was also broken in three pieces and Fontana’s +device for mending it, which so pleased the Pope, can be traced in +various places among the hieroglyphics. When the obelisk was at last +erected, Fontana carved his name with his title of knight in Latin on +the base, and the three mounts and the star of Sixtus V were fastened +to the apex. Above everything was placed the huge bronze cross, for +Sixtus V considered the obelisk to be the supreme symbol of divinity +in a great Pagan theology; and by placing the cross on all those which +he re-erected, the Pope felt that he was exhibiting in the most +picturesque and conspicuous manner the triumph of Christianity. + +This obelisk, which is of red granite, was found by accident lying +prone and buried in the marshy ground of the Circus Maximus. Near +by was another, the one which now stands in the Piazza del Popolo. +Fontana employed five hundred men in raising and removing the obelisk +of the Lateran. Of these men, three hundred were employed day and night +keeping out the water which poured in on all sides. This stream is now +thought to have been the brook Crabra, the “goat brook” of Tusculum, +described by Frontinus, which, in the general decay of mediæval +times, had become one of the “lost waters” of Rome. The difficulties +encountered in transporting the obelisk up the rough sides and through +the old streets of the Quirinal Hill were numerous. The obelisk of the +Piazza del Popolo was removed from the same place and set up on its +present site for the sum of ten thousand three hundred and thirty-one +scudi; whereas this obelisk of the Lateran cost the papal treasury +twenty-four thousand six hundred and eleven scudi. + +It was originally brought to Rome in the early days of the Christian +era. Twenty-seven years after Constantine had transferred the seat +of government to his own new capital of Byzantium, his successor, +Constantine II, visited Rome. He visited Rome like any foreign prince +and was profoundly impressed by the magnificence and majesty of his +discarded capital. A not unnatural instinct prompted him to leave some +memorial of himself among the monuments and trophies of his heroic +predecessors; and for this purpose he sent for the obelisk which +Thotmes III had originally placed before the great temple of Thebes. It +was brought to Rome and placed in the Circus Maximus. Its subsequent +history and the causes of the fall of this last of the imperial +obelisks are still lost in the mystery which hangs over so much of +mediæval Rome.[H] + +The original pedestal had been too damaged by fire to admit of using +it again; so Sixtus V gave permission to Domenico Fontana to make the +new pedestal out of the materials of an old arch which Domenico was +to destroy for this purpose. The permission was given in writing, +for Domenico Fontana had found that it was necessary to be armed +with written instructions from the Pope whenever he began one of +his devastating raids upon the antiquities of the city. The city +government had endured such pillage and destruction at the hands of the +great Pope’s great architect that all the past vandalism of private +individuals seemed slight in comparison. They protested in vain against +most of the destruction upon which Sixtus V had set his heart, and +neither princes nor magistrates could save the old pontifical residence +of the Lateran which had stood since the seventh century on this very +piazza. It was a marvellous rambling pile of buildings--churches, +monasteries, shrines, loggias, colonnades, oratories, banqueting +rooms and halls filled with mosaics, pictures, and frescoes--and, +according to a great authority, the most wonderful museum of mediæval +art that ever existed. This priceless record of the past was ruthlessly +demolished and razed to the ground in a few months’ time by order of +Pope Sixtus V. It is difficult to understand his motives for this +particular action, since it was not the history of Paganism but of his +own predecessors that he was destroying. The populace never forgot, +or forgave him this destruction, involving as it did the loss of the +Oratory of the Holy Cross. An exquisite example of early Christian +architecture, built in the shape of a Greek cross, this oratory was +held in peculiar veneration by all classes; and the Roman people might +not unnaturally conclude that the wanton destruction of anything at +once so beautiful and so sacred as this oratory could only be ascribed +to the promptings of the devil himself. Posterity can hardly accept +Pope Sixtus V’s fountain, even with its obelisk, as an adequate +substitute for the three fountains of rare marble in the atrium of this +oratory which perished by order of the Pope. + +The Church of St. John Lateran was under the protection of the Kings +of France, as the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore was under the +protection of the Kings of Spain, St. Peter’s under that of the Emperor +of Austria, and St. Paul’s Beyond the Walls under the protection of +the English sovereign. In the pontificate of Clement VIII, when the +papacy began to turn toward France in its foreign policy, the work +of embellishing the Lateran cost Rome--and indeed large portions of +the surrounding country--untold treasures in costly marbles and gilt +bronzes. The first were sawed into slabs for the transept of the +Church; and the Altar of the Sacrament owes its magnificence to the +many hundred bronzes which, together with portions of the bronze beams +of the Pantheon, went to the smelting furnaces. In Sixtus V’s time, +however, the old church was still comparatively simple; and it was +in this old Church of the Lateran, probably during his pontificate, +that Stradella’s prayer (“Pity, oh, Saviour!”) was sung, while hired +assassins waited in the outside darkness to take the composer’s life. +As the service was long, the bravos stepped inside the church to enjoy +the music before committing the murder. There, in the wavering light +of the altar candles and under the subtle influence of the incense, +they became so impressed by the pathetic beauty of that marvellous +_Aria di Chiesa_ that they felt it impossible to put out of existence +the man who could write such music; and in the darkness and silence +that followed the close of the divine melody they themselves warned +Stradella of the plot against his life and abetted his escape. + +Of late years this legend has been discredited; but in such a case +as this it is well to remember the attitude taken by the writer of +“The Renaissance in Italy,” “I would rather accept,” says Symonds, +“sixteenth-century tradition with Vasari than reject it with German +or English speculators of to-day. I regard the present tendency to +mistrust tradition, only because it is tradition, as in the highest +sense uncritical.” + +Over the door of the Vatican Library is a fresco map of Sixtine Rome. +It portrays not what Sixtus V actually left, but what he at one time +intended to leave. In this fresco a great thoroughfare runs from the +Piazza del Popolo to the Piazza Laterano, and at each end of the +magnificent vista stands an obelisk erected by the Pope. Such a street +laid out to-day would lead along the Via Babuino, the Piazza di Spagna +and the Via Due Macelli, and, passing through the tunnel, come out on +the Via Merulana, and reach the Piazza Laterano after traversing the +eastern slope of the Esquiline and the new streets between it and the +basilica. Sixtus V abandoned the idea as the great thoroughfare would +have cut its way directly through the precincts of the Quirinal, and +he had determined to make that spot his own abode, not only because +he loved it but because he recognized the sovereign quality of the +situation of Monte Cavallo in the Rome which he was reconstructing. + +The Fontana fountain of the Lateran is not included by Baglioni in +his list of Fontana’s works; but that list which is embodied in his +account of Fontana’s life is manifestly incomplete. The fountain was +engraved in full detail as early as 1618 by Maggi; and later engravings +were made of it by Cruyl, Millotte, and Falda. These designs were so +comprehensive that it would have been an extremely simple matter to +entirely reconstruct the old fountain, more especially as the mostra +and old basins were still in place, and there could have been no +difficulty in ascertaining the proportions. Had this been done, the +pictorial effect and, above all, the historical interest of the Piazza +of St. John Lateran would have been greatly enhanced. The old fountain +disappeared in the general submersion of papal Rome. Its modern +substitute is a mere paraphrase, and the eagle seems intentionally to +represent the eagle of imperial Rome rather than the emblem of St. +John. + + + + +TRINITÀ DE’ MONTI + + +[Illustration] + + +TRINITÀ DE’ MONTI + +The fountain on the terrace in front of the Villa Medici has been +called by a lover of Rome “The Fountain of the Brimming Bowl.” It is a +happy surname, for the marble vase beneath the formally clipped ilex +trees is nothing more or less than a huge bowl filled to overflowing +with the Acqua Felice. The stream gushes upward in a slender column +until it reaches the spreading branches overhead. There it returns upon +itself in clouds of glistening spray, filling the bowl with circles of +gleaming water, ever widening until they brim over the edge and veil +the marble in a continuous overflow. The octagonal basin which receives +this copious stream is sunk into the ground and its shadowed waters +have all the unobtrusive beauty of a quiet and sequestered pool. There +is no sculpture, no decoration. With unerring taste, the artist has +made his appeal to the eye through fundamental and universal elements +of beauty. Grace of line and of proportion, contrast of solid rock and +flowing water, the impression of abundance and perpetuity, symmetry, +contrast, suggestion--these are the simple qualities out of which he +composed his Fountain of the Brimming Bowl. + +Sunlight flickering through the ilex branches overhead and the +crumbling shadows of their dense foliage add a poetic charm, while +the Italian trinity--Art, Time, and Nature--have given to this modest +fountain a background of unsurpassed interest and dignity. The view +from the terrace of the Villa Medici might be described almost exactly +by Wordsworth’s sonnet on Westminster Bridge, and truly + + “Dull would he be of soul who could pass by + A sight so touching in its majesty.” + +Here in Rome “... towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie,” massed +together in that famous quarter of the city known in classic times +as the Campus Martius; and through this architectural maze, spanned +by bridges old and new, the Tiber “floweth at its own sweet will.” +On its farther shore the modern Palace of Justice and a network of +thoroughfares with names relating to the Risorgimento and to Italy of +to-day crowd against the venerable Castle of St. Angelo. Beyond that +lies the densely packed Borgo or Leonine city, surrounded by walls, +while the heights of the Janiculum to the left and those of the Vatican +Hill and Monte Mario to the right give a background of green to all +this masonry. In the very centre of the distance, on the ground once +covered by the Circus of Nero, dominating everything and seeming to +float against the western sky, rises the dome of St. Peter’s. + +The terrace leads on the one hand to the gardens of the Pincio and on +the other to the Church of the Trinità de’ Monti. From 1544 to 1560, +when Annibale Lippi was working on the Villa Medici, that portion of +the Pincian Hill covered to-day by the Pincian Gardens belonged to the +Augustinian monks of the Piazza del Popolo. The villa stood on the +ground between them and the gardens and convent of the Trinità de’ +Monti. The terrace with the fountain was the approach to the cardinal’s +villa and to the precincts of the convent. The old engravings show +the fountain standing quite free from trees, which, however, are +growing along the edge of the hill and down its slope. The fountain +is generally ascribed to Annibale Lippi, but there seems to be no +positive proof that it is his work. It resembles in general outline the +fontanella on the balcony inside the villa, which is by Lippi; and the +fact that the basin is made of bigio marble might put its date as early +as Lippi’s time. The fountains in the first half of the Cinque Cento +were generally made of marble or granite, whereas after Fontana and in +Bernini’s period travertine was used almost exclusively. + +The villa was the property of Cardinal Monte Pulciano, but it was +barely finished when Cardinal Ferdinand de’ Medici began negotiations +for its purchase. Medici, whose childhood had been passed in the +Boboli Gardens, which were created by his father, spent eleven years +in laying out and beautifying the gardens of this villa, where he had +a small zoological collection, and also in making the gallery of Greek +and Roman sculpture which rivalled that already belonging to his old +friend Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. He returned to Florence in 1587, +and some time after the villa passed into the hands of another Medici, +Cardinal Alessandro, who became Pope Leo XI in 1605. This Cardinal +Alessandro de’ Medici also spent much time and money in the decoration +of the villa, and it seems probable that the fountain was constructed +during his tenure of the property, since the introduction of the Acqua +Felice in 1587 had at last made it possible to have fountains on this +hillside. Evelyn, describing this fountain in the last days of Pope +Urban VIII’s pontificate, speaks of the magnificent jet of water +spouting fifty feet into the air. The earliest engravings of it date +from the middle of the Sei Cento and show the water springing from a +large ball of travertine which has long since lost its size and shape +from the constant action of the water. The pedestal and base of this +fountain are also of travertine. + +The present Church of the Trinità de’ Monti was erected by Louis XVIII, +of France, to replace the original building which had been destroyed +during the excesses of the French Revolutionary period. But in 1544 +the old Gothic church of the Valois King stood looking westward over +the French quarter of the city. This church dated from the year 1495, +when Charles VIII, of France, on his way to reconquer his Neapolitan +territory, entered Rome and paid a visit--half threatening, half +ceremonious--to Alexander VI. He left as a memorial of his stay in Rome +this Church of the Trinità de’ Monti. The church became the nucleus of +French influence in Rome. The French convent of the Sacred Heart grew +up beside its walls, and many famous Frenchmen lived within its shadow. + +Cardinal Ferdinand de’ Medici, who gave his family name to this villa, +as well as to the Venus which, upon its discovery in Hadrian’s Villa, +he immediately bought and placed here, was one of the commanding +figures of his time. Fourth son of Cosimo, first Grand Duke of Tuscany, +he had been made a cardinal at fourteen, in the room of his elder +brother Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, who had died at nineteen. The +second Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand’s eldest brother, died in 1587, +leaving no son, and so, after twenty-four years of ecclesiastical +life, Cardinal Ferdinand, who had never taken holy orders, laid by the +red hat to become third Grand Duke of Tuscany. He married Christine +de Lorraine, a granddaughter of Catherine de’ Medici, and therefore a +distant cousin of his own, and had, like his great-grandfather Lorenzo +the Magnificent, and his own grandfather Cosimo I, eight children, +his eldest son succeeding to the grand duchy. It is difficult to +trace in the wise and beneficent grand duke the intractable young +cardinal who had been a handful for even Sixtus V. The old pontiff +had found in him an obstinacy and a craft equal to his own, and he +must have “thanked God fasting” when Medici was no longer a member of +his curia! The Pope was an old man, and the cardinal had the physical +advantage of youth; nevertheless it was a battle royal when this true +chip of the Medicean block interceded with the Peretti Pope for the +life of his old friend, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. Sixtus, who was +not to be shaken in his determination, kept track of the time, and +held firmly to his resolution until he was sure that the appointed +hour for Farnese’s death had come and gone; then, knowing that it was +too late, he graciously consented to spare Farnese’s life, to please +his Cardinal de’ Medici. But the cardinal knew his Sixtus V, and had, +before his audience, taken the precaution to set every clock in the +Vatican, outside the Pope’s private apartments, back one hour![I] +The fire still lives in the ashes of this Ferdinand, for, in 1906, +a deputation from Leghorn visited his tomb in the Medici mausoleum +in Florence and laid upon it a bronze wreath as a testimony of their +undying gratitude and affection. Leghorn, a mere fishing village of the +Cinque Cento, had been raised to her position of the second seaport in +Italy by this ex-cardinal, and that chiefly through the operation of +an edict of toleration almost incredible at the period in which it was +promulgated. When the Spanish Armada, the struggle in the Netherlands, +and the religious wars in France kept all Europe in a ferment, Leghorn +rose suddenly and swiftly like an exhalation of the sea through the +peaceful labors of the French, Flemish, and Jewish refugees who, within +her walls and under the powerful protection of her Grand Duke, the +ex-cardinal, found absolute liberty of conscience and security of life +and property. It was this Ferdinand who furnished from his own rich +coffers the sinews of war to Henry of Navarre; it was he who mediated +between Henry and the Pope; and it was his niece, Maria de’ Medici, who +became Queen of France as wife of Henry IV, bringing with her, as Sully +said, such a marriage portion as had never before been brought into the +kingdom. + +Five years after this event Cardinal Alessandro de’ Medici became Pope; +so the Villa Medici, as well as the Church of the Trinità de’ Monti, +had, in spite of their Italian names, many affiliations with far-off +Paris; and partly on account of these associations, partly for the sake +of the marvellous view, their terraces became the favorite haunt of +those artists who, in the early days of the Sei Cento, began to find +their way to Rome. + +In the continuity of the development of art there are few events more +interesting than the appearance of the French art student in Rome. +Gaul had been the first of the northern nations to assimilate Roman +culture, and France was the first to come under the influence of the +Renaissance. Just at the time when the Catholic reaction against +the license of the Cinque Cento had begun to force Italy under the +stultifying influence of Spanish domination, France awoke to the full +consciousness of her æsthetic nature and to her need of those things +which Italy alone could give. The army of Charles VIII had carried back +across the Alps imperishable memories of beauty, and soon afterward +Francis I had enticed to Paris some of the greatest Italian artists +of the time. Even the fierce religious wars of the sixteenth century +could not stamp out the seed sown by the soldiers’ stories and by the +works of art left by homesick Italian masters in Fontainebleau. One +by one the eager French artists crossed the Alps, and they came in +ever-increasing numbers when the genius of Richelieu brought order and +amenity into French life, and when Richelieu’s contemporary, Maffeo +Barberini, for many years papal legate to France, had become Pope Urban +VIII. To reach Rome all of these voyagers had to endure severe physical +hardships, and some of them never returned to France. The greatest +of them--Le Poussin and Claude--died in Rome. Painters, engravers, +sculptors, and architects came to these terraces to worship and to +work, and to this day the galleries and palaces of northern Europe +cherish the pictures planned or sketched about the Fountain of the +Brimming Bowl. + +Pope Urban VIII, who died in 1644, was himself half French, not only +by virtue of his temperament and genius, but also by the trend of his +sympathies and his foreign policy. Under his enlightened patronage, +the artists of France found a congenial home in the Eternal City. +This was the beginning of the French Academy of Painting in Rome, +which was formally founded in 1666 by Colbert, the great minister of +Louis XIV. For the first seven years of its existence this institution +had no permanent abode; but in 1673 the Capronica Palace was placed +at its disposal, and later on--in Louis XV’s time--it moved to the +Mancini Palace near the Corso. The slope leading from the Piazza of +the Trinità de’ Monti (now the Piazza di Spagna) to the terraces above +had all this time been a natural hillside, whereon grew trees, grass, +and wild flowers familiar to Rome. The footpaths leading upward must +have been a rather steep climb; but five years before the founding +of the Academy an event occurred which was to make the ascent of the +hillside not only easy but delightful. In 1661 Rome came into the +possession of a large sum of money left to the city by the learned +French gentleman, Etienne de Guéffier, for the express purpose of +constructing a magnificent stone stairway which should cover this slope +of the Pincian Hill, and unite for all time the Campus Martius with +the terraces above. The stairway was long in building, and during its +construction the connection between the Academy in the Mancini Palace +and the old terraces of the Trinità de’ Monti may have been slender; +but in 1725 the Scalinata was opened with great pomp, and once again +French artists could spend long hours on their beloved terraces. +Seventy-six years later Napoleon, with his supreme instinct for effect +(a possession he shared with Julius Cæsar),[J] and not unmindful of +the French association with this quarter of the city, removed the +French Academy from the old Mancini Palace and lodged it permanently +and most impressively where it now is, in the Villa Medici, the villa +built by that family which had given two queens to France. So the +fountain of the Trinità de’ Monti is still a feature in the life of the +French artists at Rome; and it is perhaps a pardonable fancy that, in +this particular fountain, the Acqua Felice plays in French! + + + + +VILLA BORGHESE + +NOW + +VILLA UMBERTO PRIMO + + +[Illustration] + + +VILLA BORGHESE + +NOW + +VILLA UMBERTO PRIMO + + A garden where the centuries + Of men have come and none did care + Save for the green grass and the breeze + And shelter from the noontide glare. + But that which makes the garden fair-- + The sense of life’s futility, + Is deathless beauty. Born of Death, + It blossoms under cloudless skies-- + One’s very dream of Italy. + + --_From an unpublished MS._ + + +Such a garden was the Villa Borghese; and such a garden it still is, +in spite of constant desecration. This is the home of the most poetic +of Bernini’s fountains. It stands on the summit of a rising avenue, +yet it does not terminate a vista, it makes itself a part of one, for +the avenue continues after the fountain has been reached. It stands +in full but tempered sunlight, girt about by a circle of box hedges +and ilex trees, with here and there a tall stone pine. The lower basin +lies in the turf, like a natural pool, and the water fills it to the +brim. It reflects the trees and clouds in its quiet depths, or as the +little breeze ruffles the surface, it gives back the sunshine like a +broken mirror. Single shafts of water, spouting upward from between +the forefeet of the sea-horses, fall back into the same basin from +which they rose, curving like the arches of a pergola; yet so steady +is their flow that the tranquillity of the pool is hardly troubled. +Four foam-flecked circles, only, show where the falling water mingles +with the water at rest. Greater peacefulness could not well be given +to any artificial bit of water. Then from the centre of this dreaming +pool there rises a fountain so rich in carving, so beautiful in design +that it seems rather a great and splendid efflorescence than the work +of men’s hands. From its leaf-fringed lower basin there rises a second +and much smaller one, not like another basin but like a corolla within +a corolla, and the flower-like composition terminates in a beautifully +wrought cup resembling the blossom of the campanula. The water gushes +upward from this cup, but not to any height. It falls back at once +over the scalloped edges of the marble, and slipping in and over the +carved foliage of the lower basins finally reaches, in a gentle, +pensive manner, the quiet pool beneath. Sea-horses with tossed +manes and backward curving wings plunge outward from the shelter of +the lower basin. Their tails twine about its stem, and the basin is +close above their heads, but it does not rest upon them; they are free. +It is evident that in one more spring they will be out and away. Yet +they do not take it, and they never will. For once Bernini’s genius +masters his fancy. His fountain is not a fanciful conceit but a rich +and peaceful artistic creation. An enchanter’s wand has checked the +horses in mid-career, and here they remain, motionless, for all their +movement, under the shadow of the leafy basin, part of a beautiful +whole that must never be broken. This is one of those rare compositions +in which the artist has most happily achieved the second essential in a +fountain, that it should be a thing of beauty, a source of delight to +the eye and ear. It is admirably suited to its surroundings, for rich +carving and imaginative sculpture held in subservience to the natural +charm of quiet water, conform exquisitely with a garden where stately +formality enhances the loveliness of wild and simple beauty. The +fountain is of travertine, the natural mellow tone of which has been +rendered even more lovely by centuries of soft Italian weather. It does +not stand out conspicuously in the vista; it detaches itself from the +surrounding trees gently, as if it had grown there among them. + +[Illustration: The Fountain of the Sea-Horses.] + +On either side of this fountain the ground falls away sharply into +groves of ilex, traversed by natural footpaths. In the gloom of these +wooded spaces there are two other fountains. Great basins catching the +water from tiers of smaller ones in the centre and each surrounded by +a broken circle of curved stone benches. They are the work of Antonio +Vansantio; and, according to drawings by Letarouilly, the back of each +semicircular bench was originally decorated at regular intervals with +statues. Behind these stood a formally clipped box hedge rising some +three feet above the benches, while the larger trees growing behind +the hedge made by their branches a green canopy to this truly charming +bit of garden architecture. Vansantio’s basins and benches are now +in a half-ruined condition, but they are still extremely lovely and +suggest pictures of eighteenth-century garden-parties, where groups +of Watteau’s figures idle away the hours. The fountains are hardly +visible, even at close range. They betray themselves by the sound +of their falling water, which gives to the scene, like the song of +the hermit-thrush, a poignant sense of remoteness and solitude. The +deep shadows and half-hidden waters of Vansantio’s fountains form a +well-conceived contrast to Bernini’s sunlit basins on the slope above. + +There are many other fountains in this villa. A large round pool +decorated with a central figure of a nymph, and set about with huge +cactus-filled vases of a shape peculiar to the Villa Borghese, stands +behind the Casino, while at the other end of the gardens the so-called +Fountain of Esculapius fills a shady place with the sound and beauty +of abundant water. This is a beautiful fountain, not because of any +special charm or originality of design in the fountain itself, but +because of its splendid jet of water and the composition of it and +its surroundings. The arch containing the statue of Esculapius stands +on a slight eminence surrounded with tall trees and shadowy foliage. +Beneath and before it, the ground slopes in masses of broken rock and +bowlders, and the fountain, a single round and shallow vase of finished +travertine, stands in the midst of them. The jet of water almost tops +the Arch above the statue, and it falls in great abundance upon the +rocks at its base. + +There is also the Fountain of the Amorini--so daintily lovely that the +fact that it is incomplete is hardly noticed. The little Loves still +firmly grasp their frogs and dolphins, but the vase they once carried +on their heads is gone. The moss-grown stone-work of the basin, and +the light and shade of the great ilex trees about it give this little +fountain a peculiar charm. It seems to belong quite consciously to +other days than ours. + +There are fountains everywhere in the gardens. They are as common as +the trees and the marbles and the violets. The water seems to play at +will among the lights and shadows, for during three centuries this has +been a Roman pleasure-ground; and to the Roman no pleasure-ground is +worthy the name without the sound and sight of water. + +[Illustration] + +The Villa Borghese was created by Cardinal Scipione Borghese during +the sixteen years that his uncle held the keys of St. Peter, under +the title of Paul V. The Pope assisted him in every way, for Paul V’s +chief pleasure consisted in advancing and aggrandizing his family. +Marc Antonio Borghese, a second nephew of his, became the founder +of the family in Rome, and Cardinal Scipione had as commanding an +influence over the Pope as had ever been known. Paul V found his model +in Paul III, and so well did he emulate the founder of the Farnese +fortunes that by the close of his pontificate the Borghese had become +the wealthiest and most powerful family that had ever arisen in Rome. +Cardinal Scipione’s annual income alone was one hundred and fifty +thousand scudi--about one hundred and sixty thousand dollars--and Paul +V destroyed the ruins of the Baths of Constantine so as to build for +him what is now called the Rospigliosi Palace. Their habits, charities, +possessions were all but regal. The cardinal endeavored to lessen +the envy which such opulence naturally aroused by a complaisant and +courtly behavior, as well as by benevolence; and he earned for himself +the sobriquet of “the delight of Rome.” This villa he laid out for the +benefit of the people, and it has really existed for them for over +three hundred years. Paul V’s pontificate came to an end in 1621, and +in 1645 Mr. John Evelyn writes in his “Diary” a long account of the +Villa Borghese. The groves and avenues had by that time a generation’s +growth, but the Casino and little temples and the multifarious delights +which enriched them were still in pristine freshness. The taste of the +present day may prefer the gardens as they now are to those of 1645; +they have more of natural beauty and fewer artificial devices, and the +simple fountains are more effective than the spouts of water made to +resemble the shapes of vessels and fruits and the conceit of artificial +rain. Much of the architecture and statuary Evelyn describes has +vanished, but enough remains for the present traveller to recognize the +picture and to feel that he is walking in groves and meadows trodden +by many feet through many years. Since Evelyn’s time eight generations +have also found these pleasure-grounds delightful. As full of memories +as of fragrance, these gardens convey a sense of human life once lived +among them and now forever gone, which is as poignant as the smell of +the boxwood hedges in the hot sunshine. + +The Villa Borghese has pre-eminently this subtle quality, and therefore +it has become the loveliest as well as the best beloved of all Roman +villas; and it is precisely because it is a Roman garden that its +memories are so compelling. The men and women who have walked in +these long avenues and lingered about these fountains have been the +aristocracy of mankind. England, France, and Germany come here to +gather memories of their great men. Statues to Goethe and Victor Hugo +are not needed. Hugo and Goethe and many more of these noble ghosts +come back, together with a long line of splendid popes and brilliant +cardinals, to haunt the sun-warmed yet shadowy places, never jostling +or disturbing the living but felt by the living in some strange and +undefinable way. + +[Illustration: The Fountain of the Amorini.] + +These groves and fountains have been the setting for many scenes in +Life’s dramas. There has been a Napoleonic interlude with dancing, +masquerading, and somewhat boisterous merrymaking; and here, amid the +loveliness of an alien civilization, began the last act in the tragedy +of the Stuart Kings. The son of the exiled James II of England lived +and died in Rome, and his children--Prince Charlie and the little Duke +of York--played beneath these trees, as scores of other brothers of +less fateful history have played before and since.[K] Here they came +every morning with their fowling-pieces. High-spirited English lads, +they made of the Italian groves a Sherwood Forest of their own. It was +a far cry at that time to Culloden, and a long way to the cathedral of +Frascati, where the younger brother was to read the funeral service +over the elder. Time means so little in Rome that here in the villa +where the Stuart Princes played, the “adventure of the ’45” seems to +have happened only yesterday. + +The villa is at its loveliest in May and October. On every Thursday and +Sunday of this latter month it used to be the custom for the Prince +Borghese to receive all Rome within his gates. Forty to fifty thousand +people would sometimes come to these garden-parties, all classes +mingling yet preserving their identity with the admirable dignity and +self-respect of the Romans. The young Princess Gwendolin Borghese was +seen for the last time at one of these great fêtes. Her saintly young +spirit adds a breath as of incense to the Borghese gardens, and it +is more easy to think of her presence here than among the ponderous +marbles of the Borghese Chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore where she lies +buried. + +Yet another Princess Borghese has left her memory within these +gates. Canova has portrayed her as Venus Victrix, and she takes her +place among the antique marbles by the right of flawless beauty. The +flesh-and-blood original of Canova’s masterpiece, Pauline Bonaparte, +Princess Borghese, cared but little for her beautiful villa. The ilex +groves were gloomy and the fountains were insignificant compared with +those of Versailles. She wearied of palace, prince, and villa, and +spent as much time as possible with her own kin. It is recorded that +the prince, her husband, was far more jealous of Canova’s statue of his +wife than of his wife’s person. The Princess Pauline Borghese passed +away like a summer cloud, but the Venus Borghese remains. + +The personality of Cardinal Scipione Borghese is preserved in the two +magnificent busts still standing in the picture-gallery of the Casino. +It is difficult to believe that such vitality as Bernini has here +portrayed could ever have quite faded from the earth, and surely his +ghost must at times return to these gardens of his creation. + + + + +LA BARCACCIA + + +[Illustration] + + +LA BARCACCIA + +At the foot of the great stone stairway, known in Italian as _La +Scalinata_ and in English as the Spanish Steps, which leads down from +the Church of the Trinità de’ Monti to the Piazza di Spagna lies the +singular fountain called La Barcaccia. The design of this fountain +is that of a quaintly conventionalized boat, fast sinking under the +water which is pouring into it. To this effect it owes its name; for +“barca,” being the Italian for boat, and “accia” a termination of +opprobrium, Barcaccia means a worthless boat. The boat is supposed +to commemorate an event which occurred during the great flood of +1598. On Christmas Day of that year the Tiber rose to its highest +recorded level. All this part of the city was submerged to a depth of +from seventeen to twenty-five feet; and here in the Piazza di Spagna +a boat drifted ashore, grounding on that slope of the Pincian Hill, +which is now covered by the Spanish Steps. For a long time the design +of this fountain was supposed to commemorate this event, and it is +quite possible that this may have been the case. Still there are other +fountains of this design, the work of Carlo Maderno, and as one is in +the Villa d’Este at Tivoli and the other in the Villa Aldobrandini, +it is also quite possible that Carlo Maderno and the creator of the +Barcaccia may have had yet another idea when they constructed their +stone boats with a fountain amidships and lying in basins not much +larger than the boats themselves. For the Romans of this time knew much +and surmised still more about the mysterious boats lying at the bottom +of Lake Nemi, in the Alban Hills, not more than seventeen miles distant +from Rome. These boats had been discovered first during the pontificate +of Pope Eugenius IV, and had been rediscovered in Paul III’s time, +in 1535, or about a hundred years before Carlo Maderno employed this +design for a fountain. At each date an attempt had been made to raise +the boats, but these efforts as well as all subsequent attempts proved +unsuccessful. However, in 1535 measurements had been computed and many +objects belonging to the vessels had been brought to the surface to +excite the wonder and admiration of the Roman world. It was discovered +that the boats when once raised and floated would all but fill the tiny +lake. The decks had been made of concrete and marble, and amidships +there had been fountains whose falling waters mingled with those of the +lake. The mystery surrounding the purpose and construction of those +huge vessels is yet unsolved, but in the seventeenth century it still +stirred men’s imaginations with all the force of fresh discovery. Both +Maderno and Pietro Bernini could not have been ignorant of it, and they +must have seen the exquisite bronzes and lead pipes bearing the stamp +of the Emperor Tiberius which had been detached and brought up from the +sunken vessels. + +The Barcaccia fountain is the last work of Pietro Bernini, the father +of Lorenzo. He had been employed to bring a branch of the Trevi Water +from its reservoir at the head of the Vicolo del Bottino as far as +the foot of the Pincian Hill in front of the Trinità de’ Monti, and +the fountain done by order of Pope Urban VIII (1623–1644) was the +adequate consummation of that work. From whatever cause he derived +his inspiration, his design of the Barcaccia fountain is so admirably +suited to its position that it explains and almost excuses the popular +idea that the fountain was made low in order not to obscure the view +of the Spanish Steps. A reference to dates at once shows the absurdity +of this last suggestion. In the Keats Memorial House hard by there can +be seen an engraving by Falda (born in 1640) showing Pietro Bernini’s +completed fountain against the background of the tree-planted slope of +the Pincian Hill. The fountain was finished before the death of Pope +Urban VIII, which occurred in 1644, and the steps were not begun until +1721, nine pontificates after that of Urban VIII. + +On the prow and stern of the boat is carved the coat of arras of the +Barberini family, for Urban VIII was the Barberini Pope and the founder +of that family in Rome. This pontiff, whose character was a formidable +compound of priest, statesman, warrior, and man of letters, delighted +in the design of the fountain. Pietro Bernini had placed cannon at +either end, thus making his boat into a war-vessel, whereupon Urban +VIII composed a Latin distich in its praise: + + “Bellica pontificum non fundit machina flammas, + Sed dulcem, belli qua perit ignis, aquam.” + + “_The war-ship of the priest, instead of flames, + Pours water, and the fire of battle tames._” + +At both ends of the large basin in which the boat stands are long, +flat pieces of travertine. These are the stepping-stones on which any +one using the fountain stands while dipping up the water. The Marcia +Pia now supplies the houses in this part of the city, but the Romans +still prefer to drink Trevi, and the stepping-stones are as much in use +as they were in the days when Falda and other artists of that period +engraved this fountain, placing in the lower basin figures of men or +women in the act of dipping up the water. This quarter of Rome, once a +part of the Campus Martius of classical days, has been for a long time +given over to the interests of the American and English colonies; but +for more than three centuries its foreign associations were chiefly +French. Urban VIII was in many ways a French Pope, although he came of +a Florentine family. As papal nuncio he had spent many years and made +many powerful friends at the courts of Henry IV and Louis XIII. In the +conclave which elected him Pope, France openly and ardently supported +his claims. During his residence in France he had known Armand du +Plessis, who was to become Cardinal Richelieu. The two great churchmen +went up the ladder of preferment side by side. They became, as pope and +cardinal minister, respectively, lifelong allies in their tireless and +successful efforts to humble the dual power of Austria and Spain, while +promoting on the one hand the prestige of France and on the other the +stability of the Papal See. + +At the accession of Urban VIII, Spain and Austria held the passes of +the Alps, thus dominating Europe and threatening the existence of the +Papal States. At the close of his pontificate, France was rapidly +becoming the first Continental power, and the Papal States had reached +their utmost limit of territorial expansion. With his death the +French influence in papal politics rapidly declined, but its artistic +ascendency still lingered on. Thirteen years later a certain French +gentleman, attached to the French embassy at Rome, and named Etienne +de Guéffier, left in his will a sum of money for the construction of +a great stone stairway which should connect the Piazza of the Trinità +de’ Monti, in the centre of which lay the Barcaccia fountain, with +the Church of the Trinità de’ Monti, standing far above, on the slope +of the Pincian Hill. This gentleman, of whom little is known, must +have been the friend of more than one of the great French artists +who were living in Rome contemporaneously with himself. Possibly the +splendid project of the Scalinata was the result of long hours of +comradeship, when he, with his fellow countrymen, watched the sunset +from the terrace which Sixtus V had placed before the Church on the +Hill, or scrambled down the tree-planted slope before it in order to +reach the fountain at its base. Certain it is that Rome owes this most +distinctive architectural feature of papal times to the imagination and +generosity of a Frenchman. The two Latin inscriptions upon the steps +are worthy of attention.[L] + +The building of the steps, begun by Alessandro Specchi and completed +by Francesco de Sanctis, was not undertaken, as appears from the +inscription, till sixty years after the death of De Guéffier and six +pontificates later than that of Alexander VII (Chigi), in which De +Guéffier died. By that time the Spanish influence had reasserted itself +to a marked degree, and as the Spanish embassy had been established in +a palace on the western side of the square, the old name of the Piazza +della Trinità de’ Monti gradually gave way to the present name, Piazza +di Spagna. And so finally the great stone stairway, the gift of a +Frenchman in the heyday of French influence at Rome, came to be known +as the Spanish Steps. + +Yet, after all, the paramount association with the fountain of the +Barcaccia is neither French nor Spanish, but belongs pre-eminently +to the English-speaking race. This fantastic fountain, with its +commonplace background and its limited view of the Scalinata, forms +the only outlook from the windows of the house in which the poet Keats +spent the last three months of his life; so that from the position of +this house the fountain of the Barcaccia is connected for all time with +the fate of the “young English poet” who lies buried now these many +years in the Protestant cemetery outside the walls. From the windows of +his narrow death-chamber he watched the plashing waters in the fountain +below him, while above his head the bells in the church, which he could +not see, remorselessly rang out the quarter-hours or tolled for some +fellow creature the “agonia,” or “passing bell.” During his hours of +listlessness or fits of sombre rage, this passing of time and of life +was always in his ears, as the futile play of the water was always +before his eyes. + +It is not difficult to connect the bells and the fountain with the +bitter epitaph written, by his own wish, above his grave: + + “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” + + + + +TRITON + + +[Illustration] + + +TRITON + + “Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, + And hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.” + + +The exquisite lines rise involuntarily to the lips as one comes +suddenly upon Bernini’s old fountain in the Piazza Tritone, which, +standing in the centre of one of the busiest and most prosaic +thoroughfares of modern Rome, still keeps its own quality of beauty +and seems to weave about itself the enchantment of the world of +fable. Roman art has created many Tritons, notably the joyous group +surrounding Galatea in the Farnesina Palace, but there is about this +water-worn old figure such distinction and such emphasis of life that +he becomes the prototype of all his race. He is _Il Tritone_. + +Triton blows his conch-shell with all his might as he kneels across the +hinge of a wide-open scallop-shell, which is supported on the upturned +tails of three dolphins massed together in the middle of a large, +low-lying basin. The dolphins’ tails are twisted and folded about large +papal keys--a Bernini conceit which, suggesting St. Peter both as +fisherman and pontiff, must have delighted the Pope. The composition of +dolphins, keys, and shell is extraordinarily rich and harmonious. + +Triton, kneeling upon this noble support is, from the waist upward, +a severely simple figure, almost uncouth and somewhat out of keeping +with the rest of the design. This effect is entirely accidental. It +has been brought about by the ceaseless flow of the water, which for +two and a half centuries has been thrown upward in a slender jet of +great height, returning upon itself with such precision that Triton’s +face and shoulders have been worn and blurred into shapeless surfaces +of travertine. Triton has suffered from a sculptor’s point of view, +but as a work of imaginative art it is, perhaps, all the better for +Nature’s modelling. The shapeless head and shoulders have in them +something of the formlessness and blurred masses of the elements, and +the water-creature becomes more real to the imagination in proportion +as he suggests--but does not entirely resemble--a man. The entire +design is on a colossal scale and has a dignity and harmony rarely to +be found in Bernini’s creations. This is because the central idea is +the only idea, and no subsidiary and fantastic inventions are presented +to bewilder the eye and brain. + +[Illustration: The Fountain of the Triton.] + +This fountain was done by Lorenzo Bernini for Pope Urban VIII. It +stands near the Barberini Church of the Capuchins, and was intended to +adorn the approach to the Palazzo Barberini. This third of the trio +of the great palaces of the nepotizing Popes--Farnese, Borghese, and +Barberini--was built by Urban VIII in order to invest his house with +an importance equal to that enjoyed by the families of Paul III and +Paul V. As the fountain was an adjunct of the palace, it had to bear +upon it in some way the emblem of the Barberini--the colossal bee--and +this explains why Bernini united the curving bodies of his dolphins by +escutcheons carrying three bees and the papal arms. + +Another fountain, contemporaneous with the Triton, once stood in this +same piazza, at the corner of the Via Sistina; and this fountain, +also made for Urban VIII by Bernini, was in itself the emblem of the +Barberini, for it represented merely a great shell into which the bees +spouted water. In some way this second fountain has disappeared, but +the piazza still remains the Barberini quarter of the city; and the +Triton, as well as the magnificent palace, recalls the days when the +power and rapacity of that family brought upon it the unforgettable +pasquinade: + + “What the Barbarians spared, + The Barberini took.” + + + + +NAVONA + + +[Illustration] + + +NAVONA + +Before the genius of Valadier moulded the isolated buildings and waste +spaces of the Piazza del Popolo into a noble symmetry, the Navona was +considered the finest and most important piazza in Rome. In length +and breadth it is a reproduction of the stadium of Domitian, for the +houses, churches, and palaces which line the Piazza Navona are based +squarely upon the seats and corridors of that old Roman playground. +This part of the city, not far from the Pantheon or old Baths of +Agrippa, is low, and it has always been easy to flood it with water. +The ancient Romans were so keen for shows of every kind that when the +great Flavian amphitheatre (the Coliseum) was closed for repairs, +Domitian found it necessary to provide a second place of amusement +where the gladiatorial combats and the _naumachiæ_ or sea fights could +go on without interruption. + +It was a rule strictly enforced under the empire that no one could +open new baths in the city without providing a fresh supply of water. +Something more than a century after Domitian, Alexander Severus--having +brought the Acqua Alessandrina to Rome--was able to repair Domitian’s +old stadium and to use it once more for the _naumachiæ_. In modern +times there does not appear to have been any fountain here until +the pontificate of Gregory XIII, and at that time the passion for +fountain-building in modern Rome really began. + +Pius IV, the Pope last but one preceding Gregory XIII, had repaired +the old aqueduct of the Acqua Virgo, originally brought to the city +by Marcus Agrippa, the son-in-law of Augustus, so that that water, +which for a long time had been running only intermittently in the +fountain of Trevi, could now be obtained in a continuous stream. It is +impossible to throw Virgo Water to any great height, and the fountains +of the Piazza Navona have had to be constructed with reference to this +limitation. + +[Illustration: The Fountain of the Four Rivers.] + +The two end fountains, designed for Gregory XIII by Giacomo della +Porta, are simply great basins of Porta Santa marble standing in still +larger Carrara basins of exactly the same shape and sunk into the +ground. The beauty of these fountains consists in their elegant shape, +the fineness of the marble, and in their air of simple distinction. The +great basins hold the limpid Trevi Water as a Venetian goblet holds +wine: the receptacle and that which it contains enhance each other’s +beauty, and any further decoration seems superfluous and unfortunate. +This, however, was not the taste of the seventeenth century, at which +time there were added the various figures now crowding the upper basin +of the south fountain. On one side of the piazza stands the fine +palace built for Innocent X (Pamphili, 1644–1655) by Rainaldi. It was +occupied during the Pope’s lifetime by his sister-in-law, Donna Olympia +Maidalchini, who, for that period, became the most important person of +the papal court. She filled the palace with art treasures and, in order +to make its exterior still more imposing, Bernini was commissioned to +decorate della Porta’s fountain, which stood directly in front of the +palace. The central figure, called the Moor, was modelled by Bernini +himself, and it was sculptured for him by Gianantonio Mari. It is in +travertine. The Carrara masques and marine creatures are by various +pupils of Bernini. Toward the close of the last century the originals +of these side groups, which had become badly disfigured, were removed +and replaced by those of the present day, which were sculptured by +Amici after the old models. This fountain since Bernini’s time has been +called the fountain of the Moor. The fountain at the other end went +from the earliest times by the name of the Fountain of the Scaldino, +probably because of the shape of the small vase in the centre which +resembled a classic scaldino or brazier. It can be seen in an engraving +by Piranesi, for the fountain was left undisturbed until the close of +the last century when the Scaldino was removed and replaced by the +figure of Neptune. This figure was carved by Bitta Zappalà from a model +of Bernini’s found in the Villa Montalto. The figures around the edge +are Zappalà’s own, and they as well as the Neptune are of Carrara. +All this wedding-cake decoration has spoiled the original effect of +della Porta’s work, and the best that can now be said for the side +fountains is that they are in harmony with the fountain in the centre. +In justice, however, to the genius of della Porta and to the taste of +an earlier day, an attempt should be made to think of these fountains +without their more modern excrescences. It is a pity that the Roman +municipality has found it necessary to surround them with a high iron +fence. If these fountains could be left free like the side fountains +in the Piazza del Popolo their charm could be and would be much better +appreciated. + +In the centre of the piazza, immediately opposite the church, Bernini +erected for Innocent X the Fountain of the Four Rivers. The obelisk of +red Oriental granite which surmounts it was brought from the Circus of +Maxentius, and tipped with the bronze dove and olive-branch, the emblem +of the Pamphili family, to which Innocent X belonged. Bernini placed +the obelisk on four flying buttresses of white granite, crossing each +other at right angles. The obelisk rests upon the arch thus formed, +and the space beneath it is left as a grotto with four openings. This +gives the obelisk the appearance of resting upon nothing, an effect +which was greatly admired by the artist’s contemporaries. The bases of +these flying buttresses are broadened and flattened so as to receive +the recumbent figures of four river-gods carved in Carrara. They +represent respectively the Ganges, the Nile, the Danube, and the Rio de +la Plata. The obelisk and its base stand in the centre of a basin some +seventy-eight feet in circumference, which is sunk into the pavement, +and which receives the water flowing from the four rocky projections +where the river-gods lie. Beneath the grotto additional jets of +water spout upward, while a river-horse dashes furiously through one +archway as if in terror of a lion which is coming out of another to +drink of the water under the shade of a palm-tree cut in high relief +against the rocks. On top of one of the rocks crawls a serpent, and +a mass of cactus grows upward from behind one of the rivers. In the +lower basin two monstrous travertine fish are disporting themselves +in characteristic Bernini contortions. Escutcheons bearing the arms +of Innocent X (three fleur-de-lis and a dove with an olive-branch) of +course are not wanting. All this sculpture is in travertine. + +This fountain has been called Bernini’s masterpiece, and it deserves +that title as an example of the utmost length to which the Bernini idea +of artistic invention can be carried. From an æsthetic standpoint +it shows both in execution and design the faults and excesses into +which he was led by his popularity, and the boundless fertility of his +genius. The extravagances and absurdities of this fountain and its +debased execution arouse curiosity both as to the artist and to the +taste and character of the seventeenth-century Romans for whom it was +erected and by whom it was so greatly admired. Bernini came in with the +seventeenth century and lived through eighty years of it. The pompous +epitaph under his bust, which is let into the wall in the Palazzo +Mercede, speaks no more than the truth. Princes and popes did bend +before him, from Paul V, who recognized his precocious genius, to Louis +XIV, who enticed him to Paris. Charles I sent his Van Dyck portraits +to Rome, that Bernini might use them as guides in making his portrait +bust of the Stuart King, and Urban VIII thanked a gracious Providence +that Bernini lived during his pontificate. His journey to Paris was a +triumphal progress. The few clouds which marred his long and prosperous +day were due not to any waning of popular appreciation but to the +inevitable jealousy of less fortunate men. Yet his best work was done +in his youth under the enlightened patronage of Paul V and Urban VIII. +By the time Innocent X (a mediocre man) could command his services +his faults had obscured his genius, and the great days of Rome were +definitely over. With the death of Urban VIII, the Pope immediately +preceding Innocent X, the last trace of vigorous artistic life had +disappeared; for as the French influence in the papal court declined +and the Hapsburg ideas regained and held the ascendancy spontaneous and +free expression of thought and feeling were rigorously repressed. Men +were made to live on the surface of things, and in proportion as they +became formal and superficial in themselves they demanded excitement +and extravagance in their art. This was the secret of Bernini’s immense +success. He was exactly fitted to his time. Men wanted “Sound and fury, +signifying nothing,” and he gave it to them in full measure. + +In this fountain he strove to produce the effect of a wild concourse +of waters. He wished to reproduce in stone the tumult of the falls of +Tivoli. Confusion, rapidity of movement, and noise are the qualities +which he attempted to embody in his sculpture. That the effect should +be bathos and not grandeur was inevitable. The ideas which Bernini +strove to express cannot be portrayed. Music is the only artistic +medium by which they can be rendered, and in looking at the Bernini +sculpture as well as architecture it is impossible not to wish that +this artist of such undeniable genius and immense facility had been +a musician. As the composer and interpreter of great _brio_ music +Bernini might have given no less pleasure to the men of his time +and have secured from posterity a kindlier appreciation.[M] But in +the seventeenth century secular music as an art was still in its +infancy, and it was inevitable that Bernini should express himself +in sculpture, or in the “frozen music” of architecture. As the Borgo +holds its memories of the Borgias, and the Via Sistina and its vicinity +recall the power of Sixtus V, and the Piazza di Spagna the versatility +of Urban VIII, so the Piazza Navona brings back the times of Innocent +X. The greatest gift which the Pamphili family has left to Rome is the +Villa Pamphili, which was built by the Pope’s nephew, but here in the +Piazza Navona stand the Pamphili Palace, the Collegio Innocentium and +the Church of St. Agnes, whose new façade dates from his pontificate. + +It was during his lifetime that the festas of the “Lago of the Piazza +Navona” were inaugurated. Every Sunday in July and August the outlets +of the great central fountain were stopped and the water was permitted +to flood the entire piazza, which was at that time much lower than it +is at present. Then the carriages of the nobility and gentry drove +around the piazza, the water reaching up as far as the middle of the +smaller wheels. The owners of the houses and palaces invited friends +to witness the spectacle from their windows, refreshments were served, +and bands of music played on stands erected at various parts of the +piazza. The fact that only people owning carriages could drive in the +procession and that only the inhabitants of the houses and palaces +could invite their guests, limited the number and regulated the quality +of the participants in these curious pageants. In the earlier days +much license was permitted, and the entertainments lasted through the +night, but in Clement XIII’s time, or about 1760, the number of hours +was curtailed. With the ringing of the Ave Maria the piazza was drained +and the waters once more confined to the basin of Bernini’s Fountain of +the Four Rivers. + +These harmless midsummer carnivals which came to an end during the +pontificate of Pope Pius IX were as much relished by the Romans as were +the _naumachiæ_ held fourteen hundred years earlier in the same place. + + + + +TREVI + + +[Illustration] + + +TREVI + +One hundred and fifteen years after Agrippa brought the Acqua +Virgo into Rome the Emperor Nerva appointed as commissioner of the +water-works of the city a man of extraordinary integrity and energy +who was possessed of many accomplishments and had had a long training +in the practical experience of government and war. Fortunately for +posterity, he was able to write as well as govern, and in his book, +“The Water Supply of the City of Rome,” a copy of which has been +preserved in the monastery of Monte Cassino for more than thirteen +centuries, there is an account, true beyond the shadow of doubt, of the +earliest history of the Trevi Water. Frontinus says that the water was +shown to some Roman soldiers by a young maiden who guided them to the +springs near her father’s home, that a small temple was erected near +the springs containing a picture of the incident, and that the name of +Virgo, or maiden, which still endures, commemorates the event. Agrippa +at once brought the water to Rome and its delightful purity as well +as its abundance must have given it immediate popularity. Suetonius +relates that about this time the Romans complained to Augustus of the +expense and scarcity of wine, whereupon the Emperor sent word to them +that his son-in-law, Agrippa, had sufficiently provided for their +thirst by the ample supply of water which he had brought to Rome. The +springs of the Virgo rise in the valley of the Anio and are not more +than eighty feet above sea-level. They are on land which once belonged +to Lucullus. The veteran adversary of Mithradates, who had suffered all +the privations of far-eastern warfare, knew from personal experience +the immense value of pure and abundant water. It is not improbable that +he was aware of his priceless possession and that he kept it for his +own private use during those years of his peaceful old age passed in +his gardens on the Pincian Hill. When, a generation after Lucullus’s +death, Agrippa constructed the Virgo Aqueduct he brought it underground +through the old gardens of Lucullus to a reservoir beneath the hill, +and from there the water was carried to the Campus Martius, and thence +distributed throughout the city, whose gardens and fountains it still +supplies. Cassiodorus, prime minister to that Gothic King, Theodoric, +who, from 493 to 526, governed the Romans with such extraordinary +sympathy and intelligence, felt for the Virgo Water the admiration and +love of a veritable Roman. The true origin of the name had already +been forgotten, and Cassiodorus supposes that “Virgo’s stream is so +pure that the name, according to common opinion, is derived from the +fact that those waters are never sullied, since, while all the others +give evidence of the violence of rain-storms by the turgidity of their +waters, Virgo alone ever maintains her purity.” It was quite a natural +supposition, for the Virgo Water has never had a filtering or settling +reservoir. Those who have the good fortune to drink it receive it from +its Roman fountains exactly as it comes from its springs on the Via +Collatina. This aqueduct was cut off from the city in 537 by the Goths +and Burgundians, and, though in the same year Belisarius restored the +aqueducts of Claudius and Trajan, the Virgo seems to have remained +entirely unused for the next two hundred years. During that period the +popes were not sufficiently powerful to undertake any great public +works, but when Charlemagne visited Rome in 778 he gave the needed +support to the head of the church, and thereafter the popes began the +restoration and the maintenance of the Roman aqueducts. The Virgo was +restored in 1447 by Nicholas V, in whose pontificate Constantinople was +taken by the Turks and the Wars of the Roses began in England. He was +a great Pope and repaired the aqueduct so thoroughly that it remained +in use for thirty years. There must always have been a main fountain +for the Virgo Water, but the records of the modern “Fountain of Trevi” +begins with the fountain which Vasari says was rebuilt by Nicholas V’s +architect, Leon Batista Alberti. After a short period the aqueduct was +again restored and the fountain enlarged by “The Great Builder,” Sixtus +IV. Then occurs a period of various vicissitudes, and finally, in 1570, +Pius V restored the Virgo Aqueduct effectively and rebuilt Sixtus IV’s +fountain, making what is now known as the “old Trevi fountain.” This +fountain stood not where the present one stands, but to the west of +it, in the little Piazza Santa Crocifere. The old engravings show it +to have been a huge semicircular pool into which the water poured from +three great apertures made in massive stone piers. + +[Illustration: Figure of “Neptune” in the Fountain of Trevi.] + +The name of Trevi is supposed by some writers to be derived from these +three streams of water--three ways, Trevie; but there is more reason +to believe that the fountain took its name from the mediæval name of +that quarter of the city--Regione Trevi, from trevium, because of +three roads which converge near the present Piazza of Trevi. Sixtus IV +had constructed near the fountain a large public washing-trough, and +the whole composition was extremely simple and practical. The Rome of +Sixtus V and Paul V became too sumptuous for the old fountain, and as +early as 1625 plans were made for its reconstruction. The Barberini +Pope, Urban VIII, had his own ideas of magnificence; he proposed to +change the fountain from its old site to its present position against +the southern façade of the great Poli Palace; and Bernini made for him +some beautiful sketches for the new masterpiece. Urban VIII stripped +the portico of the Pantheon of its bronze and also carried off a part +of the base of the tomb of Cecilia Metella, proposing to construct +his fountain out of these materials. The Roman people, whose love for +their own antiquities was constantly growing, showed such indignation +when the Pope’s project became known that Urban was actually obliged +to abandon his scheme, and it was not until eleven pontificates after +his time that the work on the new fountain was really begun. Then it +was intrusted to the architect Niccolo Salvi by Clement XII (Corsini, +1730–1740), and after the death of this pontiff and his successor, +Benedict XIV, and eleven years after the death of Salvi himself, the +fountain was at last finished. This was in 1762, under Clement XIII +(Rezzonico, 1758–1769). Niccolo Salvi had succumbed prematurely to the +hardships of his task. The construction of the fountain necessitated +spending much time in the subterranean chambers of the Virgo Aqueduct, +and this had proved fatal to Salvi’s health. The tomb of Cecilia +Metella was never again attacked, and there is no bronze in the present +fountain; in other respects the great scheme of Urban VIII was revived. +The fountain was placed against the Poli Palace, and Salvi used for the +sculptural part of the fountain Bernini’s beautiful designs. + +So severe a critic as Francesco Milizia declares that this fountain +is justly considered to be the best work produced in Rome during the +eighteenth century. It has elicited extravagant praise from other +authorities, and in later times some adverse criticism. It has been +woven into many of the romances connected with Rome, and until quite +recently there were few American and English visitors to the Eternal +City who left her without paying a moonlight visit to Trevi, there +to toss a coin into the water while they drank to their certain +return. Romans of the eighteenth century often saw Alfieri, the tragic +dramatist, crouched beside the fountain, lost in a day-dream evoked +by the tumult and beauty of the water; and it is recorded that the +day after Michelangelo’s death there was found in his house no wine +whatever, but five jars of water, presumably the Trevi, as it was the +only pure drinkable water in Rome. The Trevi fountain has become a +feature in the city’s life. It is the chief fountain of the one water +which modern Rome inherits directly from her great past. + +The fountain consists of a vast semicircular basin, sunk so far below +the level of the pavement that it is necessary to descend a flight of +steps in order to stand beside it. This device, which was rendered +necessary by the low head of the water, is excellent from an æsthetic +view-point, as the spectator, being on a different grade from the +piazza and its surroundings, feels that he is in another world and is +able to forget the city and give his entire attention to the scene +before him. Looking up, he sees a great ledge of broken rock, over +which the water pours in many streams and waterfalls, disappearing +and reappearing among the rocks like a veritable mountain torrent. +The main stream descends in a series of three quite lovely cascades, +their semicircular-shaped basins being prototypes of the great lower +basin, into which all eventually flow. Their edges are smooth, as if +they had been water-worn, and the force of the water feeding them is +so great that it boils and roars among masses of broken rock as it +does in a natural waterfall. Above all this finely simulated wildness +rises the ornate group of Neptune riding in a chariot made of an +enormous sea-shell and drawn by two sea-horses. The horses are placed +well to each side of the central cascades, and the group is terminated +by Tritons who are restraining the onward dash of the horses and +are blowing conches. The background or frame-work to this scene of +commotion and tumult is the highly finished conventional façade of a +Roman palace; Neptune issues forth not from a rocky cavern but from a +Renaissance tribune constructed with four Ionic pillars and a richly +carved roof, on the frieze of which runs the following inscription: + + CLEMENS · XII · PONT · MAX + AQVAM · VERGINEM · COPIA · ET · SALVBRITATE + COMMENDATAM · CVLTV · MAGNIFICO · ORNAVIT + ANNO · DOMINO · MDCCXXXV · PONTIF: VI + +_Pope Clement XII decked out with magnificent ornament the aqueduct of +the Maiden, which is recommended for its plenteous flow and for the +healthful qualities of its water. In the year of the Lord 1735, and of +Clement’s pontificate the sixth._ + +On either side of this tribune the palace wall breaks into niches +containing statues, one of Abundance, the other of Health; and +separated from each other by tall columns are panels depicting in high +relief the discovery of the water and the construction of the aqueduct. +Beyond these sculptures the windows and balconies of the palace frankly +make their appearance. + +Nothing could be more incongruous and artificial. The design is one +which demands a background as an integral part of the composition, but +this background has absolutely no connection with the fountain, except +the purely physical connection of juxtaposition. Neptune should be +appearing from some sea cave, worn in straight, steep cliffs like the +cliffs at Sorrento. The architect who could so skilfully mass these +rocky ledges and dispose these streams and cascades could have designed +quite as well stone palisades and grottos; but the fountain belongs to +an age which played “Macbeth” in periwig and ruffles, and it remains a +magnificent example of the taste of that period. + + + + +PIAZZA DEL POPOLO + + +[Illustration] + + +PIAZZA DEL POPOLO + +The fountains in the Piazza del Popolo should not be considered +as individual creations; they must be regarded as parts of an +architectural composition which includes the piazza as a whole--its +shape, dimensions, and location, and the buildings which surround it. +This composition is the work of the distinguished Roman architect +Giuseppe Valadier, whose life lay within the last thirty-eight years of +the eighteenth century and the first three decades of the nineteenth. +His bust stands in the place of honor on the Pincian; that is, it +stands at the end of and facing the long, broad drive called the +Passeggiata, which begins on the terrace before the Villa Medici and +runs northward along the western crest of the Pincian Hill. Valadier +had been papal architect under Pius VI and Pius VII, and he had laid +out for Napoleon the public gardens of the Pincian. Up to that time +most of that land had belonged to the Augustinian monks whose convent +stands below the hill, close to the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo. +It has been their vineyard, and the story goes that it was while he was +walking in this vineyard that Valadier got his first conception of what +he might make out of the Piazza del Popolo. + +[Illustration] + +Standing on the brow of the hill, from which is obtained the +incomparable view of St. Peter’s at sunset, Valadier looked down +upon the Piazza del Popolo as Piranesi had engraved it in his time +(1720–1778). A somewhat shapeless area of flat ground stretching in an +indeterminate way westward from the base of the Pincian Hill, it seemed +to be only the debouchment of the three great thoroughfares running +into it from the heart of the city. The twin churches standing one +on either side of the Corso, the centre thoroughfare, were the chief +architectural features on the south side, while on the north side ran +the city wall and the Church of St. Mary of the People. In the centre +of this area stood the obelisk as it stands to-day, placed there by +Sixtus V in 1589, and with a single fountain at its foot--a huge basin +carved by Domenico Fontana out of one solid block of marble taken from +the ruins of Aurelian’s Temple of the Sun. The water supplying this +fountain was the Acqua Trevi, the same which fills the fountains of the +present day. Such was the Piazza del Popolo as Valadier’s eyes beheld +it, but at that point where the Aurelian wall is pierced by the Porta +del Popolo (the old Flaminian Gate) he saw something else: He saw the +end of the Flaminian Way--the great highroad leading directly from +the north. And at that point the actual faded away, and to Valadier +there came a vision. He saw the Piazza del Popolo as the magnificent +and adequate antechamber to Rome. He saw it approached by this great +highroad which, first skirting the shore of the Adriatic, then +traversing the breadth of Italy and the watershed of the Appenines, +descends thence to the western slopes of Mount Soracte and, crossing +the Ponte Molle, comes all the way to Rome from far-off Ariminum, or +Rimini, the Roman fortress and frontier town on the Adriatic--two +hundred and twenty miles distant--and the key to Cisalpine Gaul. Down +this road, which is but a continuation of the still greater Via Emilia, +have come all the northern friends and all the northern foes of Rome. +Other eyes than Valadier’s can see that procession. Barbarian invaders +and imperial armies have covered all the countryside like swarms of +locusts--the progress of most of them marked by burning farms and +plundered villages. In quieter times there have come pilgrim hosts and +companies of merchants; and travelling scholars, and artists “with +hearts on fire” for Rome; also ambassadors and foreign prelates, exiles +and penitents, great bridal processions like Margaret of Austria’s +in 1537, funeral pageants, bandit troops, fugitives of every type, +bare-legged friars (among them a Luther), soldiers of fortune, and +English noblemen in travelling carriages with postilions; every sort +and condition of man whom the north has sent forth to the Eternal +City. Down this Flaminian Road they came, passed through the Flaminian +Gate, and received their first impression of Rome here in the Campus +Martius--the modern Piazza del Popolo. Valadier lived in the period of +the First Empire, when the shock of change and of contrast quickened +even the most formal imagination. He came down from his “mount of +vision” and designed the noble and finely proportioned piazza of the +present day. He formed the vast and slovenly-shaped piece of ground +into a stately ellipse, whose broadly curving ends, made of Roman brick +and travertine, ornamented by sphinxes and allegorical figures, become +the retaining walls of the terraced gardens at their rear, so that +these long retaining walls seem coped by a line of glistening green +foliage. On the side of the Pincian Hill the grass and trees of the +Pincian Gardens rise in four tiers of terraces, high against the sky. +Behind the retaining wall, opposite the Pincian, the tall cypresses +screen the new city which stretches off toward the Tiber. A beautiful +small semicircular basin, with a shell-like upper basin, stands in the +centre of each of these curving ends. They might be called decorative +keystones to recumbent arches. The water gushes through the retaining +walls which form their background and falls between the convolutions of +the shell in a fringe of steady, slender streams. + +It has been truly said that the eighteenth century did not die with +the close of the year 1799. It lingered on through the first, and +more than the first, decade of the century which followed. Valadier +remained an eighteenth-century architect to the end of his life. +This is most apparent in the Piazza del Popolo, his work of widest +scope and freest fancy and the product of his most mature talent. +Elegance, proportion, and formality are the qualities on which Valadier +relies. His composition is simple, polished, and formal, and the note +of affectation ingrained in the art of that period is given in the +Egyptian character of some of the ornaments and accessories. This +character was undoubtedly suggested by the obelisk, but it is a curious +coincidence that many archæological remains of Egyptian origin have +been discovered in this part of Rome. + +The allegorical groups placed behind the fountains represent on the +side of the Pincian the god Mars in full armor, supported by the +river-gods Anio and Tiber, each with his respective emblem, one +of the emblems belonging to the Tiber being the figure of Mercury, +the god of trade. On the side toward the river the group represents +Neptune between two Tritons. These groups are by Valadier, and their +mass of elaborate detail proves an admirable foil to the fountains +beneath, which in their great simplicity are among the very loveliest +in Rome. Small white marble sphinxes, said to be made out of blocks of +Greek marble, found under the sea at the time that the bronze vase of +Mithradates in the Palazzo dei Conservatori was discovered, mark the +descending grades along the curving wall, and, as might be expected, +statues of the four seasons adorn its four terminal piers. + +These conventional figures are the work of various and now little +known artists of Valadier’s time or later. The effect of Valadier’s +creation has been somewhat marred by the huge monument to King Victor +Emmanuel I of Italy. This ponderous and tasteless masonry rises in a +series of three tiers, placed one above the other, against the Pincian +Hill, and makes a hard and artificial background to the fountains in +the square. Besides being far less attractive than the green turf and +living foliage, this monument is quite out of proportion to all its +surroundings. It occupies the place where Valadier had intended in +the first instance to construct a vast fountain, which was to rise in +various jets on the summit of the hill now bordered by the esplanade +and balustrade, and descend in cascades from terrace to terrace until +it gained the level of the piazza. The scheme was abandoned for lack +of water. Only the aqueducts of imperial Rome could have furnished the +amount required for such a fountain. The design was most imposing, +but it is possible that Valadier himself may have relinquished it +willingly. He was keenly alive to the beauty of proportion, and the +monument to “Il Re Galantuomo” shows how incongruous a Niagara would +have been amid such circumscribed and highly finished surroundings. + +[Illustration: Piazza del Popolo from the West.] + +When the time came to carry out Valadier’s design for the fountains +about the obelisk, Domenico Fontana’s massive old basin was removed +from its position on the south side of that monument and placed in +the gardens of San Pietro in Montorio, now the public gardens on the +Janiculum. Then the low stone terrace with its five steps was built +around the base of the obelisk, and the four corners of this terrace +were marked by miniature pyramids of seven steps, the top of each +pyramid supporting an Egyptian lioness couchant carved of Carrara. +The water gushes in a copious fan-shaped stream from the mouths of +these beasts and falls into four massive travertine basins, each basin +set so close against the base of its pyramid that the lower steps of +the pyramid project well over a portion of the basin’s rim. The task +of providing a modern architectural setting to an Egyptian obelisk +is probably an impossible one. It must be conceded, however, that +Valadier, while not achieving the impossible, did succeed in producing +a design which enhances the dignity and importance of the obelisk, +considered as the central architectural feature in a Roman square. +More than this could not be expected, and as much as this has not been +achieved by any other architect. The obelisk on Monte Cavallo is in no +way affected by the objects grouped about it. It is as utterly detached +from the Roman fountain and the Greek statues at its base as though +it stood by itself at Alexandria. Bernini’s extravaganzas, in which +the Egyptian symbol of the mystery of life becomes the meaningless +centrepiece for a banal fountain, have long ceased to give pleasure. It +is doubtful whether the obelisk was altogether pleasing to the ancient +Romans. They could not fail to admire its austere dignity and strength, +and they regarded it as the insignia of supreme power, human or divine. +Roman Emperors from Augustus onward constantly imported them to Rome to +celebrate a victory, to adorn a circus, or to place in pairs, one on +either side of the entrance to a tomb. But when the Romans re-erected +an obelisk, whether in Rome, in Egypt, or in Constantinople, they +frequently, if not always, raised the monolith a perceptible distance +above the plinth of the base. On the four corners of this plinth +they placed a bronze crab--one of the emblems of Apollo--or, as in +Constantinople, a square of metal, and the obelisk itself rested upon +these, daylight being distinctly visible between the obelisk and its +base. The crabs were fixed into the plinth of the base by huge bronze +dowels, and other dowels ran up into the four corners of the obelisk, +holding it in place. The obelisk in New York, its mate in London, +the larger Constantinople obelisk, and the Vatican obelisk were +all re-erected by the Romans in that way. Opinions differ as to the +reason for this departure from the original Egyptian method, but the +decorative effect of this bold but simple device is at once apparent. +It is obvious that an obelisk mounted in this way lends itself more +easily to alien architectural surroundings. + +This obelisk of the Piazza del Popolo was brought to Rome by young +Octavius, afterward the Emperor Augustus, to honor his victory over +Mark Antony at the battle of Actium, B. C. 31. Octavius believed that +he owed his triumph to Apollo; and this obelisk erected by an Egyptian +monarch of the XIXth dynasty before the great temple in Heliopolis, +the city of the sun, seemed an altogether appropriate trophy. Octavius +erected it in the Circus Maximus, where it stood throughout the +greatest days of the Roman Empire. But the fate of the Roman obelisks +had overtaken it at some time, for when Domenico Fontana suggested to +Sixtus V to remove it to its present position it was lying broken in +three pieces under masses of rubbish on the site of the old Circus. + +There is no inscription upon the four fountains of the lionesses. They +are to be regarded solely as adjuncts architecturally suitable to the +obelisk, the interest of which must transcend all minor annals. + +In developing his design for the Piazza del Popolo. Valadier had to +consider and amalgamate the architectural features of many previous +generations; for here in the Piazza del Popolo are grouped the works of +a great number of Roman architects--men of the very first distinction +in their own time and who have left the imprint of their industry or +genius upon a large part of modern Rome. Baccio Pintelli, Michelangelo, +Vignola, Carlo Fontana, Rainaldi, and Bernini were at work here in the +centuries preceding Valadier, but to this last was given an opportunity +of combining the past with the works of his own creation, such as had +not fallen to the lot of any other Roman architect since the days when +Michelangelo remodelled the Capitol. + +Throughout the Middle Ages, all that part of Rome which lies between +the Flaminian Gate and the Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina on the +Corso was almost devoid of human habitation and given over entirely +to orchards and gardens. This condition still prevailed when Sixtus +IV (1471–1484) demolished the old Flaminian Gate, through which, some +five hundred years before, the Saracens had captured Rome. He did this +in order to build the modern Porta del Popolo. It was by way of this +Porta del Popolo that Charles VIII of France entered the city on New +Year’s Day, 1495, with the most imposing and brilliant force of arms +which modern Rome had ever beheld. At three o’clock on the winter’s +afternoon, the great gates opened to receive them, and it was nine +at night before they could close. For six hours the great procession +marched down the Corso, and when darkness fell torches and flambeaus +were lighted and held aloft by the marching troops. The advance-guard +of Swiss and Germans was followed by five thousand Gascons, small of +stature and very agile, like the bersaglieri of the present day. Then +came the cavalry, twenty-five hundred cuirassiers from the French +nobility, all arrayed in silk mantles and golden collars, and each +knight followed by his squire and grooms leading three additional +horses. Then more cavalry, and finally four hundred archers, of whom +one hundred were Scotch. These last formed the body-guard of the King, +who rode surrounded by two hundred of the greatest of his nobles; +and among these came Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, afterward Pope +Julius II, at that time papal legate to France and the most implacable +enemy of the Pope whose territory they were invading. “The King,” +wrote Brantôme, “was in full armor; lance on thigh as though pricking +toward a foe. Riding thus in full and furious order of battle, trumpet +sounding, drums a-beating,” the rattle and rumble of the artillery +bringing up the rear, Charles made his way to the Palazzo di Venezia, +whence he issued his edicts and gave his orders, while his army, with +all its network of sentries and pickets, occupied the city as though it +were Paris. + +Pope Alexander VI fled to the Vatican and, later, to the Castle of +St. Angelo. Very little came--or, for the time, very little seemed to +come--of all this glitter and commotion. “Charles VIII and his lusty +company of young men, among them the youthful Bayard, all of good +family,” says the old chronicler, “but little under control,” were +making a holiday war. They could not have comprehended the great forces +that were at work beneath the noisy agitation of their enterprise. +Yet King and nobles fell at once under the spell of Italy. Charles +VIII, bred in the fortress castles of Louis XI, wrote home to his +sister, Anne de Beaujeu, describing the loveliness of his Neapolitan +gardens and the genius of the Italian painters who were to do wonderful +ceilings for him when he had carried them back to France. Before he +quitted Rome, the army got one day of pillage and the King founded +the Church of the Trinità de’ Monti. Then after six months more of +picturesque soldiering Charles went back to France, planning his return +already in his heart, and taking with him over the Alpine passes an +army which spread the legend of Italy far and wide through the northern +countries. In the fifteenth century there were but two ways for a man +to see the world. Either he went on pilgrimage to some far-distant +shrine or he had to join an army of invasion! Charles VIII did not +return, but he had shown his subjects the way to Rome, having been the +first French King to cross the Alps since Charlemagne. Even before the +Porta del Popolo was finished and long after the orchards and gardens +of this district had been converted into the spacious Piazza del +Popolo, Rome and France felt the influence for evil and for good set in +motion by this unjustifiable and light-hearted incursion of (as the old +Huguenot historian calls him) a “madly adventurous young King.” + +Modern methods of travel have deprived men of one of life’s greatest +sensations. Lovers of Rome know this. One of them, a schoolboy, spoke +for all when he came out of the railway station, exclaiming in bitter +disappointment: “So this is ancient Rome! It might as well be modern +Chicago!” The Piazza del Popolo is no longer the entrance hall to +the Eternal City. It must be sought for, with guide-book or map; but +when it is found there is no better way to revive the ghost of that +thrill which came spontaneously to those who entered Rome by the Porta +del Popolo than to seat oneself upon the edge of one of Valadier’s +fountains, preferably the western one, and then--to try to think! + + + + +PINCIAN + + +[Illustration] + + +PINCIAN + +Until quite recently the Acqua Felice fed all the fountains on the +Pincian Hill, and the altitude of its source is so nearly the same +as the top of the hill, where the public gardens are situated, that +the only kind of fountain possible there was a sheet of water; so the +sculptor of the chief fountain in the Pincian Gardens, Count Brazza, +the elder, made a virtue out of necessity and created a fountain +in which any kind of _jet d’eau_ would be distinctly out of place. +Brazza’s white marble group of the infant Moses and his mother stands, +set about with tall aquatic plants, in the centre of a large white +marble basin, which is filled with placid yet ever-changing water, and +it is so happily suited, both in subject and treatment, to its purpose +that the absence of action in the water is never felt. On the contrary, +plashing water would be a false note in the quiet and legendary harmony +of this composition, and the higher jet produced by the recent change +of water is no improvement. The biblical story is portrayed with great +naturalness and dignity. The mother of Moses has placed the basket +containing her sleeping infant among the rushes, which are represented +by the living plants. As she rises to move away, she pauses, on one +knee, to implore divine protection for the child whom she must abandon +to his fate. The heroic size of the figure enhances the strength and +dignity of the artist’s conception. The design is little in sympathy +with the gay and crowded life of the Pincian Gardens, during the +afternoon, but all through the morning hours this fountain becomes the +centre of one of the world’s most tender settings for the comedy of +childhood and early youth. The civilization which man has made and kept +can show nothing fairer than the Pincian Gardens at that time. The soft +Roman sunshine then filters through the ilex branches only upon groups +of little children and their nurses, solitary old men who have become +as little children, and bands of seminarists or theological students +wearing black or scarlet gowns and speaking divers tongues. The little +company occupy the benches, or walk demurely in small groups beneath +the trees, or play the endless plays of babyhood, in and out of the +warm shadows; all of them living in a dreamland as old as life itself, +and finding in this quiet garden of the Eternal City a background full +of sympathy and significance. Up and down the shaded alleys, linking +the present to the great past, stretch the long rows of portrait busts +placed there by order of Mazzini during the short-lived Mazzinian +Republic of 1849. This is what has been called “The Silent Company +of the Pincio.” No happier fate can befall an imaginative child from +northern lands than to wander at will through this Roman playground. +All unconsciously the classic beauty is woven into his spiritual fibre, +and with that strange sensation of coming into his own--peculiar to +such children--he finds, in these seemingly endless rows of white +marble heads, faces which stimulate his fancy or fit the names of +heroes already known to him. + +In the centre of the garden stands an obelisk the history of which +brings back the memory of a beautiful pagan youth who lived more +than eighteen hundred years ago, and of another story of Old Nile, +more pitiful, if less important, than the story of Moses. This is +the obelisk which the Emperor Hadrian and his Empress Sabina raised +to the memory of their beloved Antinous--the most beautiful youth +the world has record of--who drowned himself in the Egyptian river, +under the impression that his voluntary death would avert calamity +from his benefactor the Emperor. After all these eighteen hundred +years it is still possible to feel the passion of Hadrian’s grief. +His biographer calls it “feminine”! But the gifted Emperor, lover +of all things beautiful in art and nature, and a student of men and +character, understood the value of his treasure and knew full well +the irreparableness of his loss. He brought back to Rome all that +was left of that beauty--an urnful of ashes--and placed it in the +Emperor’s own tomb, now called the Castle of St. Angelo; and on the +_spina_ of the circus by the tomb, Hadrian and Sabina erected this +obelisk whose hieroglyphics, only quite recently deciphered, relate the +deification of their favorite and give the information concerning his +place of burial. The obelisk must have been removed by a later Emperor, +probably Heliogabalus, for it was found in 1570, near Santa Croce in +Gerusalemme, in the gardens of the Varian family, to which family that +Emperor belonged. Bernini, in the century following its discovery, +moved it to the Barberini Palace, which he was erecting and beautifying +for the Barberini Pope, Urban VIII. Later on, a Princess Barberini +presented it to Pope Pius VI, who set it up in the Giardino della Pigna +in the Vatican, that temporary resting-place for so many treasures, and +finally, in 1822, Pius VII and Valadier erected it where it now stands +in full view of Hadrian’s Tomb, they being quite unconscious, however, +that there was any connection between it and that great mausoleum. + +Not far from the fountain of Moses stand two umbrella-pines, their +great boles shooting high up through all the foliage about. A hundred +years ago they marked the exit into a side lane from the vineyard where +they had been planted, for until that time these Gardens of the Pincio +had been for centuries the vineyard belonging to the Augustinian monks +of Santa Maria del Popolo, the same order from which, about 1494, young +Cardinal Farnese bought the property by the Tiber, on which he built +the Farnese Palace. + +The Church of Santa Maria del Popolo had been built by the Roman +people in the twelfth century, and from that time on it and the +Augustinian convent beside it became the first hospice and sanctuary +to the pilgrims from beyond the Alps. This was because the church +and convent stand close to the Porta del Popolo, the gateway to the +Flaminian Road, which is the great highway leading to the north. + +With these Augustinian monks stayed young Martin Luther when business +connected with that order had brought him to Rome. The German +seminarist who threads his way to-day among the Pincian alleys must +often cross those vanished paths in the vineyard once trodden by the +sandalled feet of his great fellow countryman, since Luther’s northern +feeling for nature would surely have carried him at dawn or sunset +to the convent’s vineyard. There the voices of the birds and the +well-trained vines could soothe a spirit dazed and disquieted by the +splendors and vices of Rome. The history of the German Reformation may +well have had its earliest beginnings in the thoughts which thronged +the mind of that young monk, as he leaned upon the vineyard wall and +gazed with eyes that saw and saw not at the papal city, where old +St. Peter’s--the church in which Charlemagne had been crowned--was +being made over by Bramante into its present form; and beside it the +huge pile of the Vatican housed the fighting Pope, Julius II, and a +hierarchy of utter worldliness. + +The monks retained possession of their Pincian vineyard during the +three following centuries, or until 1809, at which time Napoleon +annexed the Papal States to his Empire, banished the recalcitrant Pope, +Pius VII, and set about making Rome over to suit himself. He found +the architect who had worked for Pius VI and Pius VII equally ready +to serve him, and it was to this architect, Giuseppe Valadier, that +Napoleon intrusted the conversion of the old convent vineyard into the +Pincian Gardens of the present day. The work was not begun until 1812, +and before it was finished Pius VII was back in Rome, and Napoleon was +eating out his heart in St. Helena. In that long dying, when this last +of the world’s great conquerors had time to remember even all that he +himself had done, Napoleon must have often thought of Rome. The old +mother who had always believed in him, yet never looked up to him, +still lived there in her sombre palace under the shadow of the Austrian +Legation and the Austrian hate. His favorite sister, Pauline, was a +princess of one of the greatest of the Roman families; and the little +son, who was to grow up as the Austrian Duke of Reichstadt, was still, +to his father, the King of Rome. Did he ever think of the instructions +he had given to Valadier about a public garden for the Romans? There +was time to think of everything as the seasons came and went and the +remote seas washed the crags beneath his feet, while his English +jailers watched him from a distance with hard, uncomprehending eyes. + +It is something of a shock to find Napoleon’s bust in that company of +great Italians which Mazzini placed here. In these Pincian Gardens, +as elsewhere in the world, he surely belongs in a niche by himself! +However, the Roman episode was of small importance in his life, and +he would not have grudged the honorable position to Valadier, whose +bust stands alone facing the principal promenade of the Pincian. That +architect lived to welcome back the exiled Pius VII and to finish for +him the gardens begun by order of Napoleon. + +One explanation of Rome’s charm may be found in her power of +suggestion. Although the things to be seen in the Eternal City are of +transcendent interest, the things which are only apprehended have a +still stronger hold upon the imagination. The actual loveliness of the +Pincian Gardens is forgotten as the archæologists build up from buried +marbles and scattered inscriptions the life lived here in centuries +gone by. Where now is Valadier’s casino there stood in the second +century of our era a great Roman dwelling, the home of a patrician +family, Christian in faith, its members holding from generation to +generation high offices of state and called by historians “the noblest +of the noble.” The grounds about this house of the Acilii included not +only the present public gardens but also the precincts of the Villa +Medici, the garden and convent of the Sacred Heart, and a part of the +Villa Borghese. It would be impossible to find nowadays in any land +the exact counterpart of this Roman dwelling. Its comfort, splendor +and universal perfection of detail could not be surpassed, perhaps not +equalled. Its artificially heated bathrooms, the cool, dark recesses +of the wine-cellars, the courts and offices and state apartments, the +devices for garden and foundation building, everything which made +up this perfect specimen of the highest domestic civilization the +world has known, has been discovered on the Pincian Hill. The great +buttresses which this private family built to sustain the northwestern +boundaries of their terraced garden still support the public gardens +of to-day, and were incorporated by the Emperor Aurelian into the +great wall with which he surrounded the city. Surely no stories of +the Pincian can ever give so good an idea of the power, solidity, and +grandeur of Rome as do these archæological discoveries, which show +in fullest detail the domestic life of the Roman patrician under the +Antonines. Of all this the northwestern buttresses of the Pincian Hill +and the immortality of Nature alone remain. + +Napoleon was only following in the footsteps of another Emperor, +when he created these gardens; for the Emperor Aurelian made the +grounds--which had been the estate of the Acilii--into a public park. +So whether owned by private individuals or by Emperor, church, or +municipality, the Pincian has always been known as the Hill of Gardens; +and the water which now feeds its public fountains is once more the +Acqua Marcia--the same water which supplied the fountains, baths, and +fish-ponds of the great Antonine villa. + + + + +FONTANA PAOLA + + +[Illustration] + + +FONTANA PAOLA + +Throughout Roman history the Janiculum has suffered many alternations +of peace idyllic and of sanguinary strife, for it is a natural garden, +and it is also the key to Rome. Whoever can hold the terraces of San +Pietro in Montorio and the heights to the north and south has the +city at his mercy. At the present day the Villa Pamphili-Doria and +the Villa Garibaldi crown its summit, and stretch downward toward +the west, and its southeastern slope, leading toward the Tiber, once +contained the gardens of Julius Cæsar--those gardens where he received +Cleopatra and which he left by his will to the Roman people. One of the +earliest chapters in Roman history tells how Lars Porsena came over +the Janiculum to reinstate the Tarquins, and one of the latest recounts +the struggle carried on across its heights and terraces in Garibaldi’s +defense of the Mazzinian Roman Republic. Like the gardens of Ischia and +the vineyards on Vesuvius, which are forever threatened by earthquake +or eruption, the Janiculum villas will have, so long as war lasts, a +precarious existence; but with villas, gardens, and vineyards, so great +is the fertility of the soil and so enchanting the prospect, while the +world endures men will take the risk. + +The water for this part of the city was brought to Rome by the Emperors +Augustus and Trajan. Trajan built the aqueduct bearing his name; +and this aqueduct, like that of the Virgo, has, in spite of many +vicissitudes continued to supply Rome with a varying quantity of water +from that time until the present day. The Emperor brought the water +thirty-five miles from Lake Bracciano to the Janiculum. It was almost +the last water brought to Rome and entered the city at the level of +two hundred and three feet above the sea. The first water (the Appian) +had entered Rome fifty feet under ground. Trajan used the water from +the springs about Lake Bracciano, not from the lake itself, because +the spring-water was much purer and the ancient Romans were fastidious +in the water they used. Alsietina water, for instance, brought to Rome +by Augustus, was considered fit only for baths and the _naumachiæ_; +and Frontinus says that, as a matter of fact, the water was intended +for that purpose only and for the irrigation of the gardens across +the Tiber. Christian Rome was far from being so particular, and its +inhabitants drank Tiber water as late as Michelangelo’s time. During +the “Golden days of the Renaissance in Rome” Virgo water, which was to +be had intermittently from the Trevi fountain, and a remnant of this +Acqua Traiana still flowing in the fountain of Innocent VIII were the +only pure waters. Meantime many Romans of that period preferred the +Tiber water; and Petrarch coming to Rome gave special instructions +to a friend to have a quantity of Tiber water which had stood for a +day or two, to settle, ready for his use. Paul III took with him, on +his journey to Nice to meet the Emperor Charles V and King Francis +I of France, a supply of Tiber water, so that he might not miss his +customary beverage! When, therefore, Pope Paul V bethought him of +reconstructing the Trajan Aqueduct he had nothing to hinder him from +collecting the water from every available source. He used Trajan water +from the springs, water from Lake Bracciano, and water from Lake +Alsietina as well. By this means the united water now called the Acqua +Paola, although not so pure as the former Acqua Traiana, is yet good +enough, and it forms a supply of magnificent quantity and force. Paul +V’s intention was to surpass the Acqua Felice, brought to Rome some +twenty years previously by Sixtus V. No one could forget Sixtus V and +the Acqua Felice. Was not the water always before men’s eyes as it +gushed out of the great fountain of Moses on the side of the Viminal +Hill; and did not every Roman know that Cavaliere Domenico Fontana had +brought it there by order of Sixtus V? The Borghese pontiff determined +to erect another fountain, across the Tiber, on the Janiculum, which +was a still more commanding position, and to build another aqueduct +for Rome, so that there should be an Acqua Paola as well as an Acqua +Felice, and men should remember Paul V even as they remembered Sixtus V. + +Domenico Fontana had just died in Naples, rich and honored by the +Neapolitans, but there were others at hand of that renowned family of +architects. Fontana’s elder brother Giovanni was still alive, and had +great skill in hydraulics; and Carlo Maderno, his nephew, was also +to be had. So in 1611 Paul V employed these two to build his great +fountain on the Janiculum. This fountain is made of travertine, adorned +with six Ionic columns of red granite taken from the Temple of Minerva +in the Forum Transitorium. Other portions of the same beautiful ruin +were sawed into slabs and used in the decoration of the fountain. +The design is that of a church façade in the style of the florid and +debased Renaissance. It consists of five arches, three colossal ones in +the middle, directly under the great inscription which they support, +and on each side smaller arches. The three centre cascades fall into +a huge semicircular basin, which is sunk into the ground, while the +arches on the side have small individual basins in which to receive the +water. The inscription, which is a magnificent example of Renaissance +caligraphy, gives the history of the Paola Aqueduct and the pontifical +dates. A smaller inscription describes the final completion of the +fountain under Alexander VIII. + + PAVLVS · QVINTVS · PONTIFEX · MAXIMVS + AQVAM · IN · AGRO · BRACCIANENSI + SALVBERRIMIS · E · FONTIBVS · COLLECTAM + VETERIBVS · AQVAE · ALSIETINAE · DVCTIBVS · RESTITVTIS + NOVISQVE · ADDITIS + XXXV · AB · MILLIARIO · DVXIT + + ANNO · DOMINI · MDCXII · PONTIFICATVS · SVI · SEPTIMO + + ALEXANDER · VIII · OTTHOBONVS · VENETVS · P · M + PAVLI · V · P · PROVIDENTISSIMI · PONT · BENEFICIVM + TVTATVS + REPVRGATO · SPECV · NOVISQVE · FONTIBVS · INDVCTIS + RIVOS · SVIS · QVEMQVE · LABRIS · OLIM · ANGVSTE + CONTENTOS + VNICO · EODEMQVE · PERAMPIO · LACV · EXCITATO · RECEPIT + AREAM · ADVERSVS · LABEM · MONTIS · SVBSTRVXIT + ET · LAPIDEO · MARGINE · TERMINAVIT · ORNAVITQVE + ANNO · SALVTIS · MDCLXXXX · PONTIFICATVS · SVI + SECVND... + +_This water, drawn from the purest of springs, in the neighborhood of +Bracciano, was conducted by Pope Paul the fifth, thirty-five miles from +its source, over ancient channels of the Alsietine aqueduct, which he +restored, and new ones, which he added._ + +_In the year of the Lord 1612, and of Paul’s Pontificate the seventh._ + +_Pope Alexander the eighth, Ottoboni, of Venice, in protection of +the beneficent work of that most far-sighted pontiff, Paul the +fifth, recleaned the channel, admitted water from new sources, and +constructed a single capacious reservoir for the common reception of +the several streams which had formerly been strictly confined each to +its own channel. To prevent the wearing away of the hill, he paved the +surrounding area, surrounding and beautifying it with a marble coping. +In the year of Salvation 1690, and of Alexander’s pontificate the +second._ + + * * * * * + +The Borghese griffins and eagles compose the decoration of the mostra, +and the whole structure is surmounted by the papal insignia and the +arms of Paul V, the escutcheon being guarded by two angels. + +In Maggi’s book on the fountains of Rome, printed in 1618, there +is an engraving of this fountain. It is represented as having four +griffins and two eagles spouting water into the basins as do the lions +in Sixtus V’s Fountain of the Moses. This device is not shown in +Falda’s engraving a generation later, nor does Piranesi show it. It +is probable that this feature existed only on paper in the original +design for the fountain. Under the two side niches of the actual +fountain the water spouts from lions’ mouths. From the three centre +niches it simply pours in three cascades, equal in size, and of really +magnificent force and volume. The effect of this water in full sunshine +is dazzling in the extreme, and both in sight and sound the fountain +must have been as conspicuous as Paul V could have wished it to be. +Paul V never saw it completed, for he died in 1621, ten years after +the fountain was begun. It was finished by Alexander VIII in 1690, +eight pontificates later. It was, therefore, seventy-eight years in +building, whereas Domenico Fontana built and unveiled the Fountain +of the Moses for Sixtus V within that Pope’s own pontificate, which +lasted only five years! The Fontana Paola is--to translate sight into +sound--an echo of the Fountain of the Moses. It has the characteristics +of an echo--it is magnified and meaningless. Giovanni Fontana and +Maderno could not free themselves from the taste and traditions of the +greater and more forceful Domenico. They did not mar the effect of +their great fountain by an absurd colossus, like the Moses, but they +made a mistake of another kind; they left the central niche above the +cascade absolutely empty, yet failed to secure an adequate background +for the eye to rest upon, so that the structure, for all its size and +magnificence, gives a disagreeable sense of vacancy and incompleteness. +However, as one studies the Fontanone, as this fountain is commonly +called, it becomes apparent that its mostra must be regarded not as a +façade, nor as a screen, but as a great water-gate. It is a triumphal +arch through which the water of the Pauline Aqueduct makes its formal +entry on the Janiculum in the sight of all Rome. It is also built to +hold before the eyes of all Rome the inscription which sets forth +the history of Pope Paul V and the construction of the aqueduct. The +inscription is certainly the most successful part of the mostra. It is +adequately supported, its dimensions are noble, and the lettering is +remarkably beautiful. The entrance of the water, on the other hand, +is not sufficiently imposing. The three streams are not great enough +in themselves to justify their right to so pretentious a setting, and +they require a background which would augment their importance. Through +the huge arches, which were certainly never intended to hold statuary, +the eye should see the approach of the water either in a series of +cascades or in one broad flood like the serried ranks of a great army. +But to produce this effect it would be necessary for the channel of +the aqueduct to approach the fountain directly from the rear and to +have the castellum or receiving tank immediately behind the mostra. +It is noticeable that neither in this fountain nor in the other two +great fountains of Rome--the Moses and the Trevi--is this done. In all +three the castellum is at the side of the mostra, and the water falls +into the basins at a right angle to the direction in which it enters +the fountain from the castellum. This position of the castellum was +obligatory in the case of Trevi, as that fountain backs against the +Poli Palace, but when the Moses and Paola fountains were constructed +they stood free from all other buildings on open hillsides, and the +castellum in either instance could be located at will. In the Paola +fountain the castellum lies to the left of the mostra, as it faces the +city, and the aqueduct comes underground down the hill forming the +boundary between the gardens now belonging to the Villa Chiaraviglio, +which is a part of the American Academy, and a small villa owned by +the Torlonia family, so that the stream approaches the fountain +obliquely. The ground directly back of the Paola fountain is occupied +by a modern villa with a small garden, and the entrance to the house as +well as the trees in the garden are clearly seen through the arches of +the mostra, which thus has more or less the appearance from the front +of a huge screen before a shrine of no signification, while the view +of it in profile is too thin. The entire fountain seems to require +a solid background such as Giovanni Fontana gave to his truly noble +and beautiful fountain of the Ponte Sisto. There the immense niche is +placed against a massive wall, and the gloom of the vaulted space is +lighted by a gleaming cascade which issues not at the base of the niche +but high up in the very spring of the arch. This cascade falls into +a projecting vase, also near the roof, and thence descends in heavy +spray to the black pool beneath. On either side this pool jets of water +spouting from the Borghese griffins cross like flashing rapiers--a +natural enough fancy to an artist living in an age when the thrust and +parry of the rapier were known to all men. This most artistic of all +the Fontana fountains was also erected for Paul V. It used to stand on +the other side of the Tiber, opposite the Strada Giulia, but in recent +years, when the Tiber embankment was constructed, the fountain was +taken down and set up in its present position at the head of the Ponte +Sisto. If the waters of the Fontanone had received some such treatment +as this, Paul V’s greatest fountain might have indeed rivalled those of +ancient Rome. + +Paul V (Borghese), surnamed by the friends of the Aldobrandini “the +Grand Ingrate,” succeeded to the papacy in 1605. His immediate +predecessor had been the Medici pontiff, Leo XI, but Leo died +twenty-six days after his election, so that Paul V’s real forerunner +was Clement VIII (Aldobrandini). + +[Illustration: Mostra of the “Fontanone.”] + +The Borghese family came originally from Siena. When the Spaniard took +that heroic and beautiful city, Philip II handed her over to the Grand +Duke of Tuscany, and many Sienese families emigrated, rather than +submit to the rule of the Medici. Camillo Borghese, the father of Paul +V, emigrated to Rome, where his son Camillo, the future pontiff, was +born. This was in 1552, Julius III being then Pope. Camillo’s career +began in the law, as has been the case with so many of those who have +risen to the See of St. Peter. He studied in Perugia and Padua; was +sent on a mission to Spain, and, proving successful there, was given +the Red Hat in 1596 by Clement VIII, he being at that time forty-four +years of age. Living as cardinal, quietly and unobtrusively among his +books and documents, he had seemed to Peter Aldobrandini, who was the +all-powerful nephew of Clement VIII, the very man to carry on Clement’s +steady policy of restoring the French influence at Rome and of keeping +his own family in power. The Aldobrandini had left Florence from hatred +of the Medici, as the Borghese had left Siena, and Peter felt that in +the case of Camillo Borghese he could rely upon feelings similar to his +own to back up the coalition of himself and France against Spain. With +the premature death of Leo XI all the complicated machinery of the +conclave had had to be put in motion once again, and in this second +conclave the nephew of Clement VIII was the most powerful of the forces +at work. He threw his influence for Cardinal Borghese, and Paul V +undoubtedly owed his election to that fact. Peter Aldobrandini had been +a very great papal nephew, indeed, and he expected from the Borghese +pontiff a proper recognition of his services. Even with the keenest +sense of humor in the world, Cardinal Aldobrandini would have found it +hard not to feel resentment when he learned that Cardinal Borghese, +now Paul V, considered his unsought-for election to the papal chair +entirely due to the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit, and that +in consequence he owed nothing whatever to earthly aid. It was because +Paul V carried this idea so far on the one hand, and on the other +poured such lavish favors upon his own kin, that he won for himself the +name of “the Grand Ingrate.” Looking upon himself as divinely appointed +in a marked and special degree, the quiet, unassuming cardinal became +the opinionated and inflexible pontiff. He administered the papal +power, temporal and spiritual, with the arrogance of a despot, the +intolerance of an inquisitor, and the formality of the jurist. During +the sixteen years of his pontificate he succeeded in rousing bitter +hostility on all sides. The aged Grand Duke of Tuscany, who had lived +through nine pontificates and had known both Sixtus V and Clement VIII, +complained that this Pope judged of the world as he would of one of +the towns belonging to the papal territory where everything was done +according to the letter of the law, and went on to say that in this +respect there would soon have to be a change. The year before his +election the gunpowder plot had fanned England into a white heat of +patriotism, and a new oath of allegiance was required by Parliament. +Paul V was the Pope who forbade the English Catholics to take it. He +also was the Pope who so mishandled the Gallican Church that he forced +the States General of 1614 to declare that the King of France held +his power from God alone; and, finally, it was Paul V who spent the +first two years of his pontificate in such a quarrel with Venice as +threatened to involve all Christendom. The Republic so unflinchingly +endured excommunication and interdict that the Pope even thought of +subduing her by arms. He was brought to his senses only by the fear +that Venice in her extremity might call Protestant powers to her aid +and thus bring confusion and disaster not only upon Italy but upon all +Catholic countries. In this grave crisis France took it upon herself to +mediate, and the dispute was finally settled, but with little honor to +the papacy. It was a Venetian ambassador who has recorded of Clement +VIII that when he found he could not reform Florence without great +trouble he reformed his own mind. But Paul V did not, like the wise +Clement VIII, “look to his predecessors” when in difficulties. Paul +V had certainly no cause to love the Venetians, and it is one of the +quaint tricks of history that his magnificent fountain on the Janiculum +was at last finished by a Venetian Pope. + +Although the Fontanone was built in the seventeenth century, its +most interesting associations are connected with modern Rome. It is +pre-eminently the fountain of the Risorgimento, for the last stand in +Garibaldi’s three months’ defense of the Roman Republic was made upon +the terraces surrounding this water, and it was just above here that +the worst fighting occurred. + +The second stage of the siege consisted of the nine days’ defense of +the Aurelian wall, behind which Garibaldi was intrenched. + +This bit of wall runs northwest and southeast on the eastern slope of +the hill, and within the walls of Pope Urban VIII. At its northern +end it is at about an equal distance from the Fontanone and the +Porta San Pancrazio. When this defense broke down, the French troops +entered the city through a breach in the Urban walls to the southwest +of the fountain. The narrow lane leading from this point to Porta +San Pancrazio was soon choked with the dead and dying. The Italians +and French fought hand to hand in the darkness, along the road in +front of the Villa Aurelia, that road which is to-day so quiet and so +clean! During the previous eight days bursting shells from the French +batteries erected on the walls and near the Villa Corsini and the +Convent of San Pancrazio had wrought far-reaching havoc. + +The Church of San Pietro in Montorio was used by Garibaldi as a +hospital, but its roof had collapsed, and on the slopes above it all +the great villas were in ruins. To the northwest of the fountain, +just above the Porta San Pancrazio, the Villa Savorelli (now the +Villa Aurelia and the present home of the American Academy) stood up +against the sky, a mere shell of blackened walls. Outside the porta, +the Vascello lay in masses of crumbled masonry, although Medici still +held it for Garibaldi. Farther up the hill, over the spot now occupied +by the triumphal arch, towered the remains of the magnificent Villa +Corsini; before it the body of Masina, still lying where the young +lancer had fallen after his last wild charge up the villa steps. Amid +the general devastation the Fontanone stood unscathed. Its splendid +stream of water flowed unpolluted, and it fulfilled the noblest +functions of a fountain during the heat and carnage of that Roman June. + +To those who are familiar with the story of the heroic “Defense” a +visit to Paul V’s great fountain on the Janiculum is not a bit of +sight-seeing--it has become a pilgrimage. + + + + +MONTE CAVALLO + + +[Illustration] + + +MONTE CAVALLO + +The fountain of the Monte Cavallo is overshadowed both literally and +figuratively by the size and importance of the objects which surround +it. Without it the obelisk, which forms its background, and the great +groups of the Dioscuri, which flank it on either side, would be +sufficiently imposing and significant, either separately or together, +to form the central decoration of the Piazza of Monte Cavallo, or of +any piazza in any city; but the fountain is not entirely superfluous. +Its magnificent jet of water, thrown upward between the heads of the +rearing horses and swept hither and thither at the will of the wind, +binds together the otherwise disjointed and inharmonious group. + +This fountain is not the first one to be erected on Monte Cavallo, +but the first fountain was as subservient as the present one to the +colossal groups which have given the name “Cavallo” to this entire +district. The Dioscuri were once a part of a kind of open-air museum +which, during the earliest days of the papacy, existed on the slope +of the Quirinal Hill. Gregory XIII had them removed to the Capitol, +but when Sixtus V had purchased from the heirs of Cardinal Caraffa the +site and the partly erected buildings of the Quirinal, he brought them +back again and subjected them to a thorough restoration, using for this +purpose the material from the base of one of them. + +There has existed a villa on this spot antedating Pope Sixtus V’s time +by many years. It had been called the Villa d’Este, but it should not +be confused with the Villa d’Este, at Tivoli, although it was built by +the same Cardinal Ippolito of that family. + +Sixtus V was extremely fond of this portion of the city and with +Fontana’s assistance he created the magnificent palace and surroundings +which ever since his day have been associated with sovereign power in +Rome. Fontana enlarged the piazza before the palace in order to make it +“commodious for consistories,” and he also lowered the grade in order +to bring hither the Acqua Felice. + +There must have been many discussions between Pope Sixtus V and his +architect with regard to the fountain on the Quirinal. Everything +that Sixtus V did he did thoroughly and magnificently, and it was +quite natural that he should desire a splendid fountain before his own +palace, considering that it was he himself who had made it possible, +by the introduction of the Acqua Felice, to have a fountain in that +place at all. A rare old engraving shows that the fountain, as at first +planned, resembled the Fountain of the Moses. In it the Dioscuri occupy +the niches as does the Moses in the fountain on the Viminal. This plan +was happily abandoned. The great classic figures were erected as they +stand to-day in front of the palace, and Fontana placed between the two +groups, in the same position as the fountain of the present day, the +conventional large basin and central vase which is to be seen in the +old engravings of the seventeenth century. It was certainly neither a +very original nor a very interesting design and it must have relied +for its effect entirely upon the copious supply of water which was +described by Evelyn in 1644 as “two great rivers.” + +It is difficult to say when this old fountain of Fontana’s disappeared. +It was probably removed either at the time when Antinori erected the +obelisk for Pius VI or in the following pontificate when the same +architect suggested to Pius VII the idea of replacing it by the present +granite basin. This basin had stood since 1594 in the Campo Vaccino, +the mediæval name for the ruins of the Roman Forum. It had been placed +there during the pontificate of Clement VIII (Aldobrandini) by the city +magistrates on a piece of ground given to them by Cardinal Farnese, +near the three columns of Castor and Pollux and the Church of S. +Maria Liberatrice. They had provided a high travertine base for it, +and it was fed from three jets of the Acqua Felice, which, some eight +or nine years previously, had been brought to Rome by Sixtus V. The +basin was used as a watering-trough for cattle, and by the time Pius +VII rescued it the travertine base had entirely disappeared under the +gradually rising level of the Campo Vaccino--that strange composite +mass of rubbish, earth, and ruins which, up to the second half of the +nineteenth century, covered the old Forum floor to a depth of more than +twenty feet. The basin measures twenty-three metres in circumference, +and when it was thus sunk in the ground it became a pleasant pool +through which the carters walked their horses to refresh them on a warm +and dusty day. The removal of this basin was actually accomplished in +1818, when the architect Raphael Stern (who built for Pius VII the +Bracchio Nuovo) designed the present fountain of Monte Cavallo. He sank +the basin in the pavement between the horse-tamers and erected in the +middle of it a second basin which rests upon a travertine base. The +water of the fountain rises in a copious jet from the centre of the +second basin to a height somewhat below the heads of the horses and, +returning on itself, falls in a generous overflow into the lower basin. + +[Illustration: The Fountain of Monte Cavallo.] + +To some, the chief interest of this composite group of obelisk, +statuary, and fountain centres in this lower basin, for it is none +other than the granite tazza into which Marforio once poured the water +from his urn, far, far back in the days of Charlemagne, and no one +knows for how many years before that. + +The obelisk which forms the centre of this group of antiquities now +clustered together in the Monte Cavallo is one of a pair which flanked +the entrance to the Mausoleum of Augustus. Its mate was erected by +Sixtus V and Domenico Fontana near the Church of S. Maria Maggiore. + +Pius VI and Pius VII were the two Popes whose pontificates coincide +with the era of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic conquests. +Their unhappy stories are bound up with the history of the Quirinal +Palace, which fronts upon the Monte Cavallo; and they form a pitiful +contrast to the life of that masterful old Pontiff Sixtus V, in +whose reign the history of the palace and the modern piazza begins. +Sixtus, having destroyed, for no reason now known, the old mediæval +papal palace of the Lateran, decided to rebuild it to suit himself, +but found, as the new building progressed, that it was too cold and +uncomfortable for a residence. So the Lateran, which had been the +papal palace since the seventh century, holding its own against the +magnificence and enormous size of the Vatican, was gradually abandoned +as a residence, and Sixtus established himself in the Quirinal. + +Sixtus V, for all his detestation of classic statuary, must have shared +with his people the profound respect and admiration always aroused by +the Dioscuri. These colossal groups were among the few rare works of +antiquity which were cherished by the semi-barbarous Romans of the +Middle Ages, and the web of fable spun about them during those dark +years proves the hold they had over the superstitious imagination of +the times. “Nothing is beyond question” about them, says Lanciani, +except that they once adorned the temple which the Emperor Aurelian +built to the sun on his return from the conquest of Palmyra in 272. +This most magnificent of all Roman temples, to quote the same great +modern authority, became a quarry for building materials, even as early +as the sixth century. The Emperor Justinian is said to have taken some +porphyry columns from it to adorn the Church of St. Sophia in his new +capital of Constantinople. The Dioscuri must have been discovered later +in the Baths of Constantine. The relative positions of the horses and +their tamers were ascertained from antique coins. Modern authorities +are of the opinion that they are Roman copies of Greek originals, and +they are counted among the great inheritances from imperial Rome. + +It is curious to trace the working of the mediæval intelligence, +groping its way through mysticism and allegory to find some +explanation for the undeniable impression made by these heroic figures +upon the minds of all who behold them. The attempt to read into them +some abstruse ethical meaning was abandoned long ago, and the world of +to-day accepts the Dioscuri frankly for what they are, admiring, with +a wonder not unmixed with despair, the unreclaimable art of ancient +Greece. + + “Ye too marvellous Twain, that erect on the Monte Cavallo + Stand by your rearing steeds in the grace of your motionless movement, + Stand with upstretched arms and tranquil, regardant faces, + Stand as instinct with life, in the might of immutable manhood-- + Oh, ye mighty and strange--ye ancient divine ones of Hellas!” + +Whatever may have been the lot of the Dioscuri in the unaccounted-for +days of the past, since Sixtus V placed them here they have been in +the very thick of Roman political life. Around and about them have +surged some of the worst mobs of modern Roman history; and under their +“tranquil, regardant faces” crowds of peaceful, expectant citizens +have gathered from time to time during the last two centuries of papal +government. Here they have waited during papal elections to watch for +the smoke from the chimney of the Quirinal which should indicate to the +outside world that no choice had yet been made by the Conclave, since +the cardinals were burning the ballots. Here they have received the +blessing of the newly elected Pope, which was given from the balcony of +the window over the entrance. + +Sixtus V died in the Quirinal Palace. His pontificate had lasted but +five years, and it remains to this day one of the most memorable +periods in the development and power of Rome. Never had Pope done +more for his people; yet, when he came to die, the Romans had +already forgotten the benefits of his pontificate and remembered +only the severities. They recalled the fact that this Sixtus who was +dying as the head of Christendom had been born a poor gardener’s +son. Such dramatic contrasts exercise great sway over the Roman +mind--superstition and fancy played with the story, and strange rumors +drifted about concerning an unholy bargain which Sixtus was said to +have made for power. Here, before the palace which he had built, the +silent crowds gathered to await his end; and when, as the old pontiff +drew his last breath, that terrific thunderstorm broke over the +Quirinal, men shuddered and fled, saying and believing that the Prince +of Darkness had come in person for the soul of the monk whom he had +made Pope. Kindly old Sixtus! It was well that he could not know how +the poor whom he had always remembered would remember him! + +Across the Monte Cavallo, to pause before the balcony of the Quirinal, +came in 1840 that extraordinary funeral cortège which carried the body +of Lady Gwendolin Talbot, Princess Borghese, to be laid in the Borghese +chapel in S. Maria Maggiore. At seven in the evening of October 30, +by torchlight, amid a silence so profound that the low prayers of the +priests were distinctly audible, the procession moved slowly along the +three-quarters of a league from the Borghese Palace to the church of S. +Maria Maggiore. Soldiers with reversed arms, mounted dragoons, mourning +carriages, religious societies, priests, prelates, and all the Roman +poor, comprised the train. The funeral car was drawn, not by horses +but by forty Romans dressed in deep mourning. Flowers were thrown upon +the bier from the palaces along the Corso, and when the procession +reached Monte Cavallo and paused before the Quirinal, from the balcony +over the entrance Pope Gregory XVI gave his final blessing to the +beautiful young princess, dead at twenty-two, and saint if ever there +has been one. All the poor of Rome felt that they had lost a friend and +benefactress, the like of whom would not come again. Later, when Prince +Borghese wished to know the names of those who had drawn the funeral +car, he was only told that they were Romans! + +Up the slopes of Monte Cavallo in February, 1798, came with their +tricolored cockades the soldiers of the French Revolutionary Army. +They entered the Quirinal and called upon Pope Pius VI to renounce the +temporal power. The eighteenth-century pontiff calmly refused to comply +with this preposterous demand. That refusal lost him the tiara and +brought about his death eighteen months later in a French fortress. + +Rome was metamorphosed into a republic, but this obscuration of the +papal power was only temporary. When Pius VI died, at Valence, in +August, 1799, the cardinals held their Conclave at Venice, and on March +14, 1804, elected Pius VII (Chiaramonti, 1804–1823), who returned to +Rome the following July. This was the Pope who, after many misgivings, +consented to crown Napoleon. Five years later, when the Emperor +proceeded to annex the Papal States to his empire, this was the Pope +who excommunicated him. + +Few of St. Peter’s successors have been called upon to suffer and +to dare more than the good and gentle Pius VII. His Italian nature +comprehended to an unusual degree the strange character of Napoleon, +enduring with perfect composure the Emperor’s outbursts of histrionic +rage, and daring to bring him back to business by the single word, +“comedian.” He braved no less calmly Napoleon’s genuine anger at the +bull of excommunication, and refused to cancel it. Consequently, on the +night of July 5, 1809, the Emperor’s soldiers broke into the Quirinal +and took the Pope prisoner. For a moment, standing under the stars +which looked down upon Monte Cavallo, Pius VII blessed his sleeping +city, and then was hurried away from Rome to that wandering exile, +depicted in the frescoes of the Vatican Library, which was only brought +to an end by Napoleon’s fall. Then the States of the Church were +restored to the papacy, and the Quirinal Palace once more received the +aged pontiff. + +In the quiet sunset of his days, which outlasted by two years the +life of the great conqueror, the Pope had time to erect the fountain +of Monte Cavallo, and to begin or continue the architectural and +archæological projects connected with his name. + +In that brief halcyon period immediately following Pius IX’s election +to the Holy See, in 1846, the Quirinal Palace and the Monte Cavallo +were in a state of unwonted and constant activity. Pius played with +all his heart the rôle of the liberal Pope, both he and the Romans +mistaking his amiable disposition for liberal political convictions. +Day after day the Romans thronged the space before the palace, waiting +for their idol, who was sure to appear some time on the balcony over +the entrance. Standing there in his white robe, his dark eyes glowing +with sympathetic emotion, he would bless the people with uplifted hand +and in the most moving and beautiful of voices. If the hour was late, +he might add the injunction to go home to bed! The attitude of the Pope +and people at this time is epitomized in the story of the ragged little +boy who one day found himself in the Quirinal Gardens face to face with +the Holy Father. Dazed and enraptured, he poured forth the pitiful +tale of his hardships to the handsome and compassionate countenance +bending over him, and the wonderful voice comforted him with promises +of redress--promises which both pontiff and child believed in +passionately. + +There is about this period of Pius IX’s life, with its visits to the +prisons, its charities and public appearances, a strange atmosphere of +unreality. A factitious glamour blinded the popular mind, and the Pope +lived upon pious and ideal illusions--as Marie Antoinette had played at +simplicity and a return to Nature on the eve of the Revolution. + +When the golden charm was broken by the outbreak of the Revolution in +Palermo and the murder of Pellegrino Rossi in Rome, the frightened +pontiff, turning from an angry people, whom in the nature of things +he could not possibly satisfy, appealed to the most reactionary of +all the Italian powers, the King of Naples, or “Bomba.” Then the +Quirinal witnessed the last act which the papacy was to play within +its precincts. The Pope and one attendant escaped from the palace by +a small side door in the garden wall and fled across the frontier to +Gaeta, on Neapolitan territory. He carried with him the pyx which +Pius VII had carried when he also had quitted the Quirinal in haste +thirty-nine years before; but, unlike Pius VII, Pius IX never returned +thither. When he came back to Rome the Vatican received him. + +The Quirinal, the third one of the papal palaces, has become a symbol +of the actual sovereignty of Rome, and, in 1871, it passed with the +temporal power from Pope Pius IX to Victor Emmanuel II, King of Italy. + +The cardinals’ coaches no longer drive about the fountain of Pius VII. +The consistories are held in the Vatican; and on the Monte Cavallo the +Bersaglieri have superseded the papal Zouaves. Over the Quirinal the +pontifical yellow and white has given way to the green and white and +red of United Italy. “Old things are passed away. Behold, all things +have become new”--once again in the city of eternal change. + +[Illustration] + + + + +APPENDIX + +INSCRIPTIONS IN PIAZZA DI SPAGNA ON THE SPANISH STEPS + + +I + + D. O. M. + MAGNIFICAM HANC SPECTATOR QVAM MIRARIS SCALAM + VT COMMODAM AC ORNAMENTVM NON EXIGVVM + REGIO COENOBIO IPSIQ. VRBI ALLATVRAM + ANIMO CONCEPIT LEGATAQ. SVPREMIS IN TABVLIS PECVNIA + VNDE SVMPTVS SVPPEDITARENTVR CONSTRVI MANDAVIT + NOBILIS GALLVS STEPHANVS GVEFFIER + QVI REGIO IN MINISTERIO DIV PLVRES APVD PONTIFICES + ALIOSQVE SVBLIMES PRINCIPES EGREGIE VERSATVS + ROMAE VIVERE DESIIT XXX. IVNII MDCLXI. + OPVS AVTEM VARIO RERVM INTERVENTV + PRIMVM SVB CLEMENTE XI + CVM MVLTI PROPONERENTVR MODVLI ET FORMAE + IN DELIBERATIONE POSITVM + DEINDE SVB INNOCENTIO XIII. STABILITVM + ET R. P. BERTRANDI MONSINAT TOLOSATIS + ORD. MINIMORVM S. FRANCISCI DE PAVLA CORRECTORIS GENLIS + FIDEI CVRAEQ. COMMISSVM AC INCHOATVM + TANDEM BENEDICTO XIII FELICITER SEDENTE + CONFECTVM ABSOLVTVMQVE EST + ANNO JVBILEI MDCCXXV + + +II + + D. O. M. + SEDENTE BENEDICTO XIII + PONT. MAX. + LUDOVICO XV + IN GALLIIS REGNANTE + EIVSQ. APVD SANCTAM SEDEM + NEGOTIIS PRÆPOSITO + MELCHIORE S. R. ECCLESIÆ + CARDINALI DE POLIGNAC + ARCHIEPISCOPO AVSCITANO + AD SACRÆ ÆDIS ALMÆQVE VRBIS + ORNAMENTVM + AC CIVIVM COMMODVM + MARMOREA SCALA + DIGNO TANTIS AVSPICIIS OPERE + ABSOLVTA + ANNO DOMINI MDCCXXV + + +TRANSLATION OF ABOVE + +I + +O spectator, this magnificent stairway which you gaze at in wonder, +that it might afford convenience and no small ornament to the city, +the noble Frenchman Etienne Guéffier conceived in his mind, and, money +having been left in his will whence to defray expenses, ordered it to +be built. He conducted himself with distinction in the service of the +King at the courts of several pontiffs and other sublime princes, and +died in Rome the thirtieth of June, 1661. + +The work, however, was interrupted by a variety of things, and first +in the reign of Clement XI there were placed before a council many +plans and designs. It was decided upon under Clement XI, and, being +intrusted to the faithful care of the Reverend Father Bertrand Monsinat +of Toulouse, corrector generalis of the lesser order of St. Francis de +Paul, was begun, and finally, Benedict XIII blessedly seated upon the +papal chair, was brought to an end in the year of jubilee, 1725. + + +II + +Benedict XIII sitting in the papal chair as Pontifex Maximus; Louis XV +reigning in France; Melchior de Polignac, Cardinal of the Holy Roman +Church, and Archbishop of Aquitaine, being his minister at the sacred +see; these marble steps, in a manner worthy of such auspices, for the +ornamentation of the sacred temple (the church above) and the beloved +city, and for the convenience of the citizens, were completed in the +year of our Lord, 1725. + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +[A] The Queen’s palace was in the rear of Raphael’s house and faced the +Borgo Vecchio. Opposite to it was the palace of Cesare Borgia. + +[B] Sixtus V was severely criticised for substituting his own arms +for those of his predecessor, Gregory XIII, in the Quirinal Palace, +and after Sixtus’s death the Boncompagni arms were restored to their +original place. + +[C] “Ounce” was a mediæval measurement of running water, of which there +were once as many varieties in Italy as there were provinces. Some of +these are still in use. The Roman _oncia d’acqua_, or ounce of water, +was practically equivalent to four times the quantity of water known as +the California “miner’s inch.” This “miner’s inch” amounts to something +like sixteen thousand gallons in twenty-four hours, and therefore the +grant of two Roman “ounces” gave the Colonna the right to draw from +the Fountain of Trevi eight times that amount, or one hundred and +twenty-eight thousand gallons every twenty-four hours. + +[D] One of Vignola’s early plans for the Villa Giulia has lately +come to light. It shows the main structure much as it is, but with a +large wing to left and right, and a long garden running down either +side of the central court behind each wing. There are also other +differentiations, and it is evident the plan must have entailed a +larger and more expensive building than that which was finally erected. +The plan measures four by five feet and is beautifully prepared. It is +now in the possession of Mr. Lawrence Grant White, of New York. + +[E] This cardinal became Pope Marcellus, for whom Palestrina is said to +have written the Mass of Pope Marcellus. + +[F] A curious story related by Wraxall (“Memoirs,” vol. I, p. 183) +shows that the Villa Giulia in its eighteenth century period of +isolation and decay proved a convenient shelter for secret crimes +committed by persons of exalted rank. + +[G] The ornamental detail of the “Sixtine lion” looks as if this +fountain, like the Tartarughe, had been finished in the pontificate +following Gregory XIII’s--that is, in the pontificate of Sixtus V. + +[H] The fate of the Roman obelisks presents one of the most baffling +and fascinating problems of archæology. As no satisfactory explanation +of their overthrow and mutilation has ever been given, possibly the +theory that they were destroyed by the Romans of the Dark Ages, in +search of bronze, is as good a working hypothesis as any other. The +idea that they were wrecked by barbarians, and the assumption that they +were thrown down by earthquakes are equally untenable. Much curious +evidence goes to show that some of the principal obelisks were standing +in the sixth and seventh centuries. One stood erect on its pedestal in +Charlemagne’s time, while the fall of another can be placed as late as +the tenth or eleventh century. Three of the principal obelisks show +holes drilled in the shaft for the insertion of levers or crowbars, and +have unmistakable marks of fire about the pedestal. Now, the Romans +generally re-erected the obelisk, not directly upon its pedestal, but +upon bronze crabs (as in the obelisk of the Vatican) or upon brass +“dice” (as in the larger of the two obelisks in Constantinople). The +Egyptians sheathed the pyramidion of the obelisk with “bright metal” +to reflect the rays of the sun, and the Romans crowned the apex, +sometimes if not always, with metal ornaments, like the ball upon the +Vatican obelisk, which, until it was removed by Sixtus V, was supposed +to contain the ashes of Julius Cæsar. The obelisk now in Central Park +had been re-erected by the Romans at Alexandria, in this fashion, and +one of the bronze crabs was brought to New York with the obelisk, and +is now in the Metropolitan Museum. These bronze supports were firmly +attached to the obelisk by heavy bronze dowels, one dowel running +upward into each corner of the shaft, the other going down into each +corner of the pedestal. Between the shaft and the pedestal there was +therefore a space, perhaps some four inches in height, through which +light was visible. This was seen in the Vatican obelisk, which was +still _in situ_ when Fontana drew his plans for changing its location, +and in the Central Park obelisk, as described by an eye-witness of +its removal. Three historians of Rome’s destruction--Fea, Dyer, and +Gibbon--describe the almost incredible ingenuity, labor, and patience +exerted by the Romans of the Dark Ages in their search for bronze +and other metals. Wherever bronze could be obtained, it was stolen, +stripped, or melted, on account of its value and the ease with which +it could be transported. During the same historic period, all pagan +monuments were deprived of whatever protection they had had as objects +of religious veneration. The obelisks standing in spacious and lonely +surroundings would have proved an easy prey to bands of clandestine +or open marauders. The Roman method of blasting consisted in building +a fire against the rock and pouring vinegar, or even water, upon the +red-hot stone which then disintegrated. It would have been an easy +matter to kindle great fires at every corner of the pedestal which, +by the time this kind of destruction became popular, had already lost +much of their original height through the gradual rise of the ground +level. This method of blasting by fire would account for the all but +universal gnawing away, or rough rounding off of the lower corners of +the shaft, in which the bronze dowels were so firmly embedded. After +the disintegration of the granite the partially melted bronze could +be extracted from both shaft and pedestal, but not before the shaft +had been thrown over, and this was evidently helped along by the use +of levers. When the shaft was prone, it became possible to remove any +bronze which had been attached to its summit. With perhaps only one +exception, the fallen shafts were always found broken in three pieces, +but there seems to be no record of any bronze found in Rome, near the +original sites of the obelisks. What bronze there is was on the one +Roman obelisk that had not been thrown down (the Vatican obelisk). +The original site of this obelisk, in the centre of the old circus of +Caligula and Nero, was close to the old Church of St. Peter, and it +was furthermore protected, according to Lanciani, by the chapel at its +base, called the Chapel of the Crucifixion. When, in 1586, Fontana +removed this obelisk to its present position in the centre of the +modern Piazza of modern St. Peter’s, he re-erected it upon its original +classic Roman crabs, hiding them by the purely decorative Sixtine lions +of Prospero Bresciano, as they had been hidden in earlier times by the +bronze lions mentioned by Plutarch, and gone since the sack of Rome +in 1527. The obelisk in Constantinople, referred to above, is still +standing on its four brass “dice.” + +[I] This story is told in another form. In it Cardinal Farnese employs +the same ruse to save the life of the young Duke of Parma. + +[J] Suetonius, Bk. I. “And he (Cæsar) mounted the Capitol by torchlight +with forty elephants bearing lamps on his right and on his left.” + +[K] The “Memoirs of Madame d’Arblay” relate a touching incident in the +life of this exiled Stuart. + +Daddy Crump, Fanny Burney’s old gossip, while sojourning in Rome +attended a carnival ball at a certain palace, where he saw many +notables, among them King James III, as he was always called in +Rome, and his two young sons--Prince Charles Edward and Henry, +Duke of York. There were numbers of English among the guests, and, +characteristically, they did not mingle with the other nationalities, +but grouped themselves together in a solid mass at one end of the +ballroom. Suddenly, while all were watching the dancers, King James, +taking advantage of his mask and official incognito, crossed the room +and placed himself in the front rank of his fellow countrymen. The +moment was psychic, but the “loyal subjects of the House of Hanover” +“took not the slightest notice of him” while he stood as his forebears +had stood--an English king among his own people. Daddy Crump relates +with smug satisfaction that the “English never moved an eyelid” +during those few minutes when their hereditary sovereign assuaged the +passionate homesickness of his exile heart with a brief and tragic +make-believe. + +[L] See Appendix. + +[M] Compare the sensations produced by this fountain and those given by +the “Rhapsodie Hongroise.” + + + + +CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX OF AQUEDUCTS MENTIONED, ANCIENT AND MODERN + + +ANCIENT + + DATE OF + AQUEDUCT CONSTRUCTION PAGE + Appia 312 B. C. 38, 270. + Anio Vetus 272–269 B. C. 38. + Marcia 144–140 B. C. 38, 125, 266. + Alsietina (Under the 270, 273. + Emperor Augustus) + Virgo 19 B. C. 38, 86, 109, 148, 216, 229–232, + 235, 237, 270, 271. + Claudia 38–52 A. D. x, 231. + Anio Novus 38–52 A. D. x. + Traiana 109 A. D. 14, 22, 231, 270, 271. + Alexandrina 226 A. D. 149, 216. + + +MODERN + + Acqua Damasiana (Under Pope + Damasus) 8. + Acqua Vergine di + Trevi 1570 A. D. 14, 38, 90, 97, 98, 107, 109, + 128, 141, 199, 200, 216, 219, + 230, 232, 236, 242, 276. + Acqua Felice 1587 A. D. 22, 38, 39, 44, 124, 125, 128, + 147, 149, 152, 158, 169, 172, + 178, 259, 271, 272, 289, 290. + Acqua Paola 1611 A. D. 5, 6, 21, 22, 36, 37, 38, 78, 141, + 271, 272, 276. + Acqua Marcia Pia 1870 A. D. 38–40, 200, 266. + + +CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX OF POPES MENTIONED + + POPE DATE PAGE + Damasus 366–384 7, 8. + Symmachus 498–514 11–14. + Hadrian I 772–795 39, 57. + Celestine II 1143–1144 13. + Honorius III 1216–1227 13. + Eugenius IV 1431–1447 198. + Nicholas V 1447–1455 231, 232. + Sixtus IV 1471–1484 14, 23, 24, 28, 31, 57, 84, 232, + 252. + Innocent VIII 1484–1492 14, 15, 271. + Alexander VI 1492–1503 14, 16, 24, 27, 29–32, 53, 77, + 173, 253. + Julius II 1503–1513 23, 29, 32, 69, 253, 263. + Leo X 1513–1522 24, 32, 69, 139, 151. + Adrian VI 1522–1523 69. + Clement VII 1523–1534 69, 70, 75, 110. + Paul III 1534–1550 32, 45, 46, 52, 58, 63–79, + 109–112, 188, 198, 211, 271. + Julius III 1550–1555 83–104, 109, 145, 148, 278. + Marcellus II 1555 102. + Paul IV 1555–1559 112. + Pius IV 1559–1566 86, 88, 89, 102, 109, 111, 112, + 120, 124, 146, 216. + Pius V 1566–1572 86, 102, 109, 120, 126, 132, 232. + Gregory XIII 1572–1585 14, 52, 86, 89, 102, 108, 109, + 112–114, 126, 129, 131, 139, + 216, 288. + Sixtus V 1585–1590 17, 22, 23, 28, 37, 39, 44, 52, + 89, 102, 103, 108, 109, 113, + 119–132, 139, 146–152, 155–165, + 174, 224, 232, 242, 251, 271, + 272, 274, 275, 281, 288–296. + Urban VII 1590 156. + Gregory XIV 1590–1591 156. + Innocent IX 1591–1592 156. + Clement VIII 1592–1605 103, 156, 163, 278, 281, 282, + 290. + Leo XI 1605 103, 172, 278, 281. + Paul V 1605–1621 3–18, 22–32, 66, 103, 145, 146, + 148, 157, 187–189, 211, 222, + 232, 270–284. + Urban VIII 1623–1644 24, 66, 172, 176, 199–201, 211, + 222, 224, 235, 262, 283. + Innocent X 1644–1655 52, 219–222, 224. + Alexander VII 1655–1667 202. + Clement X 1670–1676 4. + Alexander VIII 1689–1691 273–275. + Clement XII 1730–1740 52, 55, 235, 237. + Benedict XIV 1740–1758 90, 235. + Clement XIII 1758–1769 225, 235. + Clement XIV 1769–1775 103, 104. + Pius VI 1775–1800 103, 104, 241, 262, 264, 289, + 293, 297, 298. + Pius VII 1800–1823 241, 262, 264, 265, 289, 290, + 293, 298–300. + Leo XII 1823–1829 109, 115. + Gregory XVI 1831–1846 147, 297. + Pius IX 1846–1878 35–40, 225, 299, 300. + + +ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF ARCHITECTS, SCULPTORS, PAINTERS, AND ENGRAVERS +MENTIONED + + NAME DATE PAGE + Alberti, Leon Battista 1404–1472 232. + Amannati, Bartolommeo 1511–1586 84, 87, 88, 94, 95, + 97, 100, 101, 127, + 145–148. + Amici, Luigi 1813–1897 36, 219. + Antinori fl. ca. 1800 289. + Bandinelli, Baccio 1487–1559 54. + Baronino fl. ca. 1550 100. + Barozzi, Giacomo, da Vignola 1507–1573 84, 87, 94, 100, + 101, 112, 252. + Berettina, Pietro da Cortona 1596–1669 120. + Bernini, Giovanni Lorenzo 1598–1680 5, 27, 77, 108, 135, + 171, 181, 185, + 186, 194, 199, + 207, 208, 211, + 219–225, 235, 250, + 252. + Bernini, Pietro 1562–1629 199, 200. + Betti, Bernardino di Pinturicchio 1454–1513 77. + Bitta, della Zappalà 1807– 36, 220. + Bonanni fl. ca. 1570 17. + Brazza, Count (the elder) fl. ca. 1830 259. + Bresciano, Prospero fl. ca. 1585 147, 162. + Buonarroti, Michelangelo 1474–1564 23, 44–46, 49, 52, + 54, 57–59, 69, 73, + 77, 84, 94, 101, + 109, 157, 236, + 252, 271. + Canova, Antonio 1757–1822 194. + Cavalieri, Tommaso de fl. ca. 1500 52. + Cellini, Benvenuto 1500–1570 100, 110. + Cruyl 1640 (?) 165. + Falda, Giovanni Battista 1648–1691 108, 114, 165, 199, + 200, 274. + Fontana, Carlo 1634–1714 4, 252. + Fontana, Domenico 1543–1607 22, 23, 28, 37, 38, + 54, 87, 119, 120, + 125–128, 131, 135, + 145–150, 155–165, + 171, 242, 249, + 251, 272, 275, + 288, 289, 293. + Fontana, Giovanni 1540–1641 22, 135, 272, 275, + 277. + Gelée, Claude Lorraine 1600–1682 176. + Landini, Taddeo –1594 131, 136. + Lazzari Donato, Bramante da + Urbino 1444–1514 16, 23, 27, 28, 30, + 263. + Letarouilly 1795–1865 96, 186. + Ligorio, Pirro 1493–1573 45, 88. + Lippi, Annibale fl. ca. 1550 171. + Maderno, Carlo 1556–1629 4, 6, 15, 21, 23, + 32, 37, 135, 198, + 199, 252, 272, 275. + Maggi 1566–1620(?) 155, 165, 274. + Millotti 165. + Mari, Gianantonio fl. ca. 1648 219. + Picconi, Antonio da Sangallo 1482–1546 69. + Pintelli, Baccio 1420–1480 252. + Piranesi, Giovanni Battista 1707–1778 49, 93, 124, 146, + 158, 220, 242, 274. + Porta, Giacomo della 1541–1604 69, 107, 109, 112, + 138, 216, 219, 220. + Porta, Giovanni Battista della 1539–1594 146. + Porta, Guglielmo della –1577 77, 135. + Poussin, Nicholas 1574–1665 176. + Rainaldi, Carlo 1611–1691 52, 65, 219, 252. + Rainaldi, Girolamo 1570–1655 52, 65. + Salvi, Niccolo 1699–1751 235. + Sanctis, Francesco de fl. ca. 1725 202. + Sanzio, Raphael da Urbino 1483–1520 23, 24, 27, 28, 139, + 140. + Specchi, Alessandro 1665–1706 202. + Stern, Raphael 1790–1821 96, 103, 290. + Stocchi fl. ca. 1825 109. + Tenerani, Pietro 1789–1869 36. + Vacca, Flaminio 1530–1596 146. + Valadier, Giuseppe 1762–1839 215, 241–255, 262, + 264, 265. + Vansantio, Antonio –1710(?) 66, 186. + Vasari, Giorgio 1493–1573 44, 54, 58, 94, 101, + 164, 232. + Vespignani, Virginio 1808–1882 37. + Watteau, Antoine 1684–1721 186. + + + + +Transcriber’s Notes + + +Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a +predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they +were not changed. + +Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation +marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left +unbalanced. + +Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs +and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support +hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to +the corresponding illustrations. + +Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of the pages that referenced them, +have been collected, sequentially renumbered, and placed near the end +of the book, just before the index. + +The indices were not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page +references. + +The Errata listed at the beginning of the book have been corrected in +this eBook. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75707 *** |