Part 12

The birds which act with these different troupes have been comparatively unimportant, except in connection with their feline companions. Nevertheless, birds, too, can be trained, and are. There is a charming pathetic story of a little Sardinian, Francesco Micheli, who turned his liking for birds to account in earning money for his family. He trained sparrows, thrushes, linnets, canaries--whatever feathered creature came within his reach. Some he taught to pipe simple tunes, others to play hide-and-seek with his white Angora cat; a nest of young partridges, under his teaching, embraced the military profession, learned to drill, hold little swords, fire off little cannon, pretend to be killed, and then come to life again. One of these intelligent partridges, Rosolotta, grieved with a human grief when her dear master died, and is said--like “Greyfriars’ Bobby”--to have watched over his grave so long as she lived.

I was reminded of this little Sardinian and his pets by a scene I witnessed one morning in Rome. A crowd of people had gathered near the broad base of the Antonine column, watching the performance of four pigeons and three canaries. The little maid with the pigeons was charming--and so were they--as she bid them tell her their secrets, and in response they fluttered up her shoulders, and cooed into her ear. But the true interest of the entertainment--its dramatic part--began with the canaries. The little actors were sitting in a row on top of their cage, demurely waiting for orders. Their mistress talked to them meanwhile, now praising their talents, now admiring their beauty, they following each motion of her lips with keen, inquisitive glances.

“Thou, Beppo, art a bird of great character, _un gran carattere_! Really, thou art wonderful! Zirlo, my fine fellow” (to the second), “what a bird art thou! Who like thee can climb the _scaletta_ (little ladder)! No one, in truth, and they are base _ladroni_ that deny thy merits; eh Pippa?” (to the third). “Dost thou hear? _Bellissima!_ One, two, three, come then, my Pippa, kiss me.” She extended a finger. Pippa transferred herself to it from the perch, and climbing the arm to her face, gave a fluttering little salute first to one cheek, then to the other. After which, hopping back to the finger, she made a droll little bow, and returned to the perch.

Then it was Zirlo’s turn; and this enterprising bird not only climbed the _scaletta_, but finding a gun at the top, shouldered it, pulled the trigger with an infinitesimal claw, and--bang!--who should tumble from his perch but poor Beppo, and lie perfectly rigid on the ground. Zirlo’s fit of anger was quenched at this piteous sight; carefully he examined the stiff figure and at last, picking up an inch-square pocket-handkerchief with one foot, applied it to his eyes, and wept bitterly. Then up jumped Beppo, who had only been feigning, and the two touched bills in token of reconciliation, and waltzed--wing in wing--fraternally off the stage.

It was a pretty scene--the sunshine, the people, the tiny performers below, and the mighty column towering high above them--the grandeur of old Rome looking down upon the present thus lightly amusing itself.

_XI._

_A MENAGERIE IN STONE._

XI.

A MENAGERIE IN STONE.

In Rome there is always something to stir the fancy and quicken the pulse--always something to recall to the Present the magnificent Past. Now it is a column or statue, now a ruined palace, and now the vast fabric of an amphitheater. But the ruins are weighted with such tragic memories of by-gone Cæsars--their wars, their triumphs, their funeral pomp--as to be almost oppressively solemn. Let us then leave them for once, and go where the Past will suggest itself in some simpler, happier fashion--let us visit a Roman “Zoo.”

No day could be better for the purpose than this sunny one; for the Zoo has its home in the Vatican, and we need all the sunshine we can get to counteract its chill. Besides, no matter with how definite a purpose we set out, once within that marble world we are sure to linger--so many are the objects that claim the eye. It is only after a lingering stroll that we at last reach the _Sala degli Animali_, or Hall of the Animals.

An odd world it is, suggesting the pictures of Paradise before the dispersion of species; a world that includes creatures wild and tame, familiar and suppositious--birds, harpies, dragons, reptiles, quadrupeds, Minotaur, insects and fish. Three patrons of the chase preside, Diana and Hercules at one end of the hall, the imperial hunter Commodus at the other.

The longer we gaze the stronger grows our feeling that it is in truth a menagerie, surviving somehow from early days. Only, how very silent! The last party of tourists has passed on, we are quite alone, save for these many shapes all around us--and it is hardly in nature that no faintest sound or movement should be heard. Those graceful greyhound puppies play with each other in perfect silence; not a footfall nor crackling twig betrays the flight of yonder deer.

And so, gradually, it dawns on us that although this is life, it is life long turned to stone. Some Arabian Nights’ enchantment has been at work, arresting these varied forms in their prime of activity; and, doubtless, on some future day, at the true wizard’s touch, they will turn back again from marble into breathing flesh. But that will not happen to-day, nor yet to-morrow, so we may as well take advantage of the stillness to see what the menagerie contains.

A dun cow, not far from Diana, stands snuffing the fresh air with upraised head; and a horse which once was roan--at least the marble still bears traces of reddish paint--looks inquiringly toward her. Near these peacefully-inclined animals crouches a lion, in readiness to leap upon his prey. In the next group the victim is secured; it represents a horse pulled down by a lion. Note the relentless grasp of the one, the helpless agony of the other. Wonderful as a work of art, it is nevertheless too painful to linger before; we are glad to turn away. Similar in character are two groups of deer seized by hounds, and another of a panther devouring its prey.

Here is a wild boar, here the ugly phiz of a camel; here an alligator, to whose neutral character an existence in marble seems peculiarly well adapted; and here, at a respectful distance from his jaws, are a cock, a goose, a pelican, several peacocks and an eagle. The dignity of the latter is worth noting--its calm, imperial reserve, so indicative of the Rome whose emblem it was.

Of the monkey hard by it can only be said that he is as perfect as monkeyish a monkey as ever breathed. He has been stealing fruit, probably from some old Roman garden, and has made off to this corner to eat it on the sly, glancing over his shoulder every now and then to make sure that no one will interrupt.

A goat, a rhinoceros and a hyena come next, and then we approach a most remarkable bust of the Minotaur, that bull-headed, human-bodied terror which demanded a yearly tribute of youths and maidens, and was finally slain by Theseus, to the great relief of the Athenian world. What brutal, pitiless life, what fierce joy in the anticipated victims, looks out from his eyes and dilates his nostrils! It is a relief to turn away from the brute and examine instead his near neighbors, a crab and a green-gray dolphin rising from waves of white marble.

The queer object just beyond is an armadillo with stone scales scarcely harder than real ones; while every one will recognize at first glance the jolly little rabbit beside him, and the two hares nibbling at a bunch of grapes. The next animal is a historic one--the famous white sow of Alba. She reclines among part, not all of her thirty pigs, for the artist seems to have given out in exhaustion after carving the first dozen.

In the neighborhood of Commodus are several panthers and lions; a leopard, whose black spots have been inserted, like mosaic; a stag, whose dappled skin is represented by the natural venation of the alabaster from which it is carved; an eagle with her young; a craw-fish and a porphyry frog.

There are also a number of dogs, in every way admirable, and probably the exact portraits of some fair Roman lady’s pets. Nothing could be more natural or charming than the two greyhound puppies frolicking with each other; nothing more graceful or aristocratic than the full-grown greyhound which sits upon its haunches, and offers a paw. They are patrician to their very toes and tail-tips, just as the honest mastiff hard by, growlingly protecting her puppies, is plebeian.

The shaggy dog who looks up at you in friendly fashion, and whose portrait appears above, is also decidedly a patrician, if the conjecture is right that he represents the famous Molossian breed.

Such, in barest outline, is the Vatican menagerie--the work of the Baryes, Bonheurs and Landseers of days past. It has overflowed its bounds to some extent, and a number of fine specimens must be sought in other collections. In the Capitol, for instance, are “Pliny’s Doves,” whose gurgling coo we quite expect to hear, until closer inspection proves them--a mosaic! They are called the doves of Pliny, not because they belonged to that delightful letter-writer, but because he described them in terms so accurate that we cannot help knowing the mosaic of the Capitol is the same he looked at almost nineteen hundred years ago. “There is a dove,” he says, “which is greatly admired, in the act of drinking, and throwing the shadow of his head upon the water, while other doves are present, sunning and pluming themselves on the margin of a drinking-bowl.”

Pliny was an excellent judge of art matters, and certainly these doves are no less admired to-day than in his time.

But more famous than any bird or beast in Italy, is the bronze wolf of the Capitol. Its age is great, as the Etruscan workmanship alone would prove; and many believe it to be the identical statue struck by lightning during the consulship of Cæsar and Bibulus. In confirmation, they point to the jagged rent in one of its hind legs, which may have been caused by such an accident. This, if true, would make it the most notable sculpture in existence. However, whether Cæsar saw it or not, it is still venerable enough to command attention, and few tourists fail to pay it their respects.

The nurse of Romulus and Remus is also commemorated by a living wolf which resides in the triangular patch of garden between the steps to the Capitol, and those which lead up to Ara Cœli. The present incumbent is a sleek gray fellow from Monte Maietta in the Abruzzi. A live eagle separated by a netting bears him company, but these caged emblems are but shabby reminders of the glory of old Rome.

Ancient as the brazen she-wolf, and like it of Etruscan make, is the Chimera of the Bargello at Florence. It is a comically terrific creature, whose three heads are all busily engaged--one biting its neighbor head, and the third roaring at the injury. In the Bargello also is a superb turkey-gobbler of bronze, credited to Gian da Bologna, and some capital turtles in marble. Admirable as they are, however, they are forgotten when, on entering a small room in the Uffizi, the famous Florentine boar and Molossian hound meet our gaze. Every line of their softly yellowed marble reveals the patient, loving touch of sculptors whose work alone survives--whose names and stories are unknown. They aimed at perfection, and were doubtless content to be forgotten, if only their works might live.

They, indeed, are the sole, the true enchanters, whose touch petrified for posterity this menagerie in stone.