Chapter 8
The dying Gladiator is the chief boast of the Capitol. The antiquarian Nibby insists that this statue represents a Gaul, that the sculpture is Grecian, that it formed part of a group on a pediment, representing the vengeance which Apollo took on the Gauls, when, under their king Brennus, they attacked the temple of Delphi: that the cord round the neck is a twisted chain, an ornament peculiar to the Gauls; and that the form of the shield, the bugles, the style of the hair, and the mustachios, all prove it to be a Gaul. I asked, "why should such faultless, such exquisite sculpture be thrown away upon a high pediment? the affecting expression of the countenance, the head 'bowed low and full of death,' the gradual failure of the strength and sinking of the form, the blood slowly trickling from his side--how could any spectator, contemplating it at a vast height, be sensible of these minute traits--the distinguishing perfections of this matchless statue?" It was replied, that many of the ancient buildings were so constructed, that it was possible to ascend and examine the sculpture above the cornice, and though some statues so placed were unfinished at the back, (for instance, some of the figures which belonged to the group of Niobe,) others (and he mentioned the Ægina marbles as an example) were as highly finished behind as before. I owned myself unwilling to consider the Gladiator a Gaul, but the reasoning struck me, and I am too unlearned to weigh the arguments he used, much less confute them. That the statue being of Grecian marble and Grecian sculpture must therefore have come from Greece, does not appear a conclusive argument, since the Romans commonly employed Greek artists: and as to the rest of the argument,--suppose that in a dozen centuries hence, the charming statue of Lady Louisa Russell should be discovered under the ruins of Woburn Abbey, and that by a parity of reasoning, the production of Chantrey's chisel should be attributed to Italy and Canova, merely because it is cut from a block of Carrara marble? we might smile at such a conclusion.
Among the pictures in the gallery of the Capitol, the one most highly valued pleases me least of all--the Europa of Paul Veronese. The splendid colouring and copious fancy of this master can never reconcile me to his strange anomalies in composition, and his sins against good taste and propriety. One wishes that he had allayed the heat of his fancy with some cooling drops of discretion. Even his colouring so admired in general, has something florid and meretricious to my eye and taste.
One of the finest pictures here is Domenichino's Cumean Sibyl, which, like all other masterpieces, defies the copyist and engraver. The Sibilla Persica of Guercino hangs a little to the left; and with her contemplative air, and the pen in her hand, she looks as if she were recording the effusions of her more inspired sister. The former is a chaste and beautiful picture, full of feeling and sweetly coloured; but the vicinity of Domenichino's magnificent creation throws it rather into shade. Two unfinished pictures upon which Guido was employed at the time of his death are preserved in the Capitol: one is the Bacchus and Ariadne, so often engraved and copied; the other, a single figure, the size of life, represents the Soul of the righteous man ascending to heaven. Had Guido lived to finish this divine picture, it would have been one of his most splendid productions; but he was snatched away to realize, I trust, in his own person, his sublime conception. The head alone is finished, or nearly so; and has a most extatic expression. The globe of the earth seems to sink from beneath the floating figure, which is just sketched upon the canvass, and has a shadowy indistinctness which to my fancy added to its effect. Guercino's chef-d'oeuvre, the Resurrection of Saint Petronilla, (a saint, I believe, of very hypothetical fame,) is also here; and has been copied in mosaic for St. Peters. A magnificent Rubens, the She Wolf nursing Romulus and Remus; a fine copy of Raffaelle's Triumph of Galatea by Giulo Romano; Domenichino's Saint Barbara, with the same lovely inspired eyes he always gives his female saints, and a long et cetera.
From the Capitol we immediately drove to the Borghese palace, where I spent half an hour looking at the picture _called_ the Cumean Sibyl of Domenichino, and am more and more convinced that it is a Saint Cecilia and not a Sibyl.
We have now visited the Borghese palace four times; and à-propos to pictures, I may as well make a few memoranda of its contents. It is not the most numerous, but it is by far the most valuable and select private gallery in Rome.
Domenichino's Chase of Diana, with the two beautiful nymphs in the foreground, is a splendid picture. Titian's Sacred and Profane Love puzzles me completely: I neither understand the name nor the intention of the picture. It is evidently allegorical: but an allegory very clumsily expressed. The aspect of Sacred Love would answer just as well for Profane Love. What is that little cupid about, who is groping in the cistern behind? why does Profane Love wear gloves? The picture, though so provokingly obscure in its subject, is most divinely painted. The three Graces by the same master is also here; two heads by Giorgione, distinguished by all his peculiar depth of character and sentiment, some exquisite Albanos; one of Raffaelle's finest portraits--and in short, an endless variety of excellence. I feel my taste become more and more fastidious every day.
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This morning we heard mass at the Pope's Chapel; the service was read by Cardinal Fesche, and the venerable old pope himself, robed and mitred _en grand costume_, was present. No females are allowed to enter without veils, and we were very ungallantly shut up behind a sort of grating, where, though we had a tolerable view of the ceremonial going forward, it was scarcely possible for us to be seen. Cardinal Gonsalvi sat so near us, that I had leisure and opportunity to contemplate the fine intellectual head and acute features of this remarkable man. I thought his countenance had something of the Wellesley cast.
The Pope's Chapel is decorated in the most exquisite taste; splendid at once and chaste. There are no colours--the whole interior being white and gold.
At an unfortunate moment, Lady Morgan's ludicrous description of the twisting and untwisting of the Cardinal's tails came across me, and made me smile very _mal à-propos_: it is certainly from the life. Whenever this lively and clever woman describes what she has actually seen with her own eyes, she is as accurately true as she is witty and entertaining. Her sketches after nature are admirable; but her observations and inferences are coloured by her peculiar and rather unfeminine habits of thinking. I never read her "_Italy_" till the other day, when L., whose valet had contrived to smuggle it into Rome, offered to lend it to me. It is one of the books most rigorously proscribed here; and if the Padre Anfossi or any of his satellites had discovered it in my hands, I should assuredly have been fined in a sum beyond what I should have liked to pay.
We concluded the morning at St. Peter's, where we arrived in time for the anthem.
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23.--Our visit to the Barberini palace to-day was solely to view the famous portrait of Beatrice Cenci. Her appalling story is still as fresh in remembrance here, and her name and fate as familiar in the mouths of every class, as if instead of two centuries, she had lived two days ago. In spite of the innumerable copies and prints I have seen, I was more struck than I can express by the dying beauty of the Cenci. In the face the expression of heart-sinking anguish and terror is just not _too_ strong, leaving the loveliness of the countenance unimpaired; and there is a woe-begone negligence in the streaming hair and loose drapery which adds to its deep pathos. It is consistent too with the circumstances under which the picture is traditionally said to have been painted--that is, in the interval between her torture and her execution.
A little daughter of the Princess Barberini was seated in the same room, knitting. She was a beautiful little creature; and as my eye glanced from her to the picture and back again, I fancied I could trace a strong family resemblance; particularly about the eyes, and the very peculiar mouth. I turned back to ask her whether she had ever been told that she was like _that_ picture? pointing to Cenci. She shook back her long curls, and answered with a blush and a smile, "Yes, often."[H]
The Barberini Palace contains other treasures beside the Cenci. Poussin's celebrated picture of the Death of Germanicus, Raffaelle's Fornarina, inferior I thought to the one at Florence, and a St. Andrew by Guido, in his very best style of heads, "mild, pale, and penetrating;" besides others which I cannot at this moment recall.
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24.--Yesterday, after chapel, I walked through part of the Vatican; and then, about vesper-time, entered St. Peter's, expecting to hear the anthem: but I was disappointed. I found the church as usual crowded with English, who every Sunday convert St. Peter's into a kind of Hyde Park, where they promenade arm in arm, show off their finery, laugh, and talk aloud: as if the size and splendour of the edifice detracted in any degree from its sacred character. I was struck with a feeling of disgust; and shocked to see this most glorious temple of the Deity metamorphosed into a mere theatre. Mr. W. told me this morning, that in consequence of the shameful conduct of the English, in pressing in and out of the chapel, occupying all the seats, irreverently interrupting the service, and almost excluding the natives, the anthem will not be sung in future.
This is not the first time that the behaviour of the English has created offence, in spite of the friendly feeling which exists towards us, and the allowances which are made for our national character. Last year the pope objected to the indecent custom of making St. Peter's a place of fashionable rendezvous, and notified to Cardinal Gonsalvi his desire that English ladies and gentlemen should not be seen arm in arm walking up and down the aisles, during and after divine service. The cardinal, as the best means of proceeding, spoke to the Duchess of Devonshire, who signified the wishes of the Papal Court to a large party, assembled at her house. The hint so judiciously and so delicately given, was at the time attended to, and during a short interval the offence complained of ceased. New comers have since recommenced the same course of conduct: and in fact, nothing _could_ be worse than the exhibition of gaiety and frivolity, gallantry and coquetterie at St. Peter's yesterday. I almost wish the pope may interfere, and with rigour; though, individually, I should lose a high gratification, if our visits to St. Peter's were interdicted. It is surely most ill-judged and unfeeling (to say nothing of the _profanation_, for such it is), to show such open contempt for the Roman Catholic religion in its holiest, grandest temple, and under the very eyes of the head of that church. I blushed for my countrywomen.
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On Christmas Eve we went in a large party to visit some of the principal churches, and witness the celebration of the Nativity; one of the most splendid ceremonies of the Romish Church. We arrived at the chapel of Monte Cavallo about half-past nine; but the pope being ill and absent, nothing particular was going forward; and we left it to proceed to the San Luigi dei Francesi, where we found the church hung from the floor to the ceiling with garlands of flowers, blazing with light, and resounding with heavenly music: but the crowd was intolerable, the people dirty, and there was such an effluence of strong perfumes, in which garlic predominated, that our physical sensations overcame our curiosity: and we were glad to make our escape. We then proceeded to the church of the Ara Celi, built on the site of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and partly from its ruins. The scene here from the gloomy grandeur and situation of the church, was exceedingly fine: but we did not stay long enough to see the concluding procession, as we were told it would be much finer at the Santa Maria Maggiore; for there the _real_ manger which had received our Saviour at his birth was deposited: and this inestimable relic was to be displayed to the eyes of the devout; and with a waxen figure laid within (called here Il Bambino), was to be carried in procession round the church, "with pomp, with music, and with triumphing."
The _real_ cradle was a temptation not to be withstood: and to witness this signal prostration of the human intellect before ignorant and crafty superstition, we adjourned to the Santa Maria Maggiore. For processions and shows I care very little, but not for any thing, not for all I suffered at the moment, would I have missed the scene which the interior of the church exhibited; for it is impossible that any description could have given me the faintest idea of it. This most noble edifice, with its perfect proportions, its elegant Ionic columns, and its majestic simplicity, appeared transformed, for the time being, into the temple of some Pagan divinity. Lights and flowers, incense and music, were all around: and the spacious aisles were crowded with the lowest classes of the people, the inhabitants of the neighbouring hills, and the peasantry of the Campagna, who with their wild ruffianlike figures and picturesque costumes, were lounging about, or seated at the bases of pillars, or praying before the altars. How I wished to paint some of the groups I saw! but only Rembrandt could have done them justice.
We remained at the Santa Maria Maggiore till four o'clock, and no procession appearing, our patience was exhausted. I nearly fainted on my chair from excessive fatigue; and some of our party had absolutely laid themselves down on the steps of an altar, and were fast asleep; we therefore returned home completely knocked up by the night's dissipation.
27.--"Come," said L. just now, as he drew his chair to the fire, and rubbed his hands with great complacency, "I think we've worked pretty hard to-day; three palaces, four churches--besides odds and ends of ruins we dispatched in the way: to say nothing of old Nibby's lectures in the morning about the Volces, the Saturnines, the Albanians, and the other old Romans--by Jove! I almost fancied myself at school again----
'Armis vitrumque canter,'
as old Virgil or somebody else says. So now let's have a little écarté to put it all out of our heads:--for my brains have turned round like a windmill, by Jove! ever since I was on the top of that cursed steeple on the capitol," etc., etc.
I make a resolution to myself every morning before breakfast, that I will be prepared with a decent stock of good-nature and forbearance, and not laugh at my friend L.'s absurdities; but in vain are my amiable intentions: his blunders and his follies surpass all anticipation, as they defy all powers of gravity. I console myself with the conviction that such is his slowness of perception, he does not see that he is the _butt_ of every party; and such his obtuseness of feeling, that if he did see it, he would not mind it; but he is the heir to twenty-five thousand a year, and therefore, as R. said, he can afford to be laughed at.
We "dispatched," as L. says, a good deal to-day, though I did not "work quite so hard" as the rest of the party: in fact, I was obliged to return home from fatigue, after having visited the Doria and Sciarra Palaces (the last for the second time), and the church of San Pietro in Vincoli.
The Doria Palace contains the largest collection of pictures in Rome: but they are in a dirty and neglected condition, and many of the best are hung in the worst possible light: added to this there is such a number of bad and indifferent pictures, that one ought to visit the Doria Gallery half a dozen times merely to select those on which a cultivated taste would dwell with pleasure. Leonardo da Vinci's portrait of Joanna of Naples, is considered one of the most valuable pictures in the collection. It exhibits the same cast of countenance which prevails through all his female heads, a sort of sentimental simpering affectation which is very disagreeable, and not at all consistent with the character of Joanna. I was much more delighted by some magnificent portraits by Titian and Rubens; and by a copy of the famous antique picture, the Nozze Aldobrandini, executed in a kindred spirit by the classic pencil of Poussin.
The collection at the Sciarra Palace is small but very select. The pictures are hung with judgment, and well taken care of. The Magdalen, which is considered one of Guido's masterpieces, charmed me most: the countenance is heavenly; though full of ecstatic and devout contemplation, there is in it a touch of melancholy, "all sorrow's softness charmed from its despair," which is quite exquisite: and the attitude, and particularly the turn of the arm, are perfectly graceful: but why those odious turnips and carrots in the foreground? They certainly do not add to the sentiment and beauty of the picture.--Leonardo da Vinci's Vanity and Modesty, and Caravaggio's Gamblers, both celebrated pictures in very different styles, are in this collection. I ought not to forget Raffaelle's beautiful portrait of a young musician who was his intimate friend. The Doria and Sciarra palaces contain the only Claudes I have seen in Rome. Since the acquisition of the Altieri Claudes, we may boast of possessing the finest productions of this master in England. I remember but one solitary Claude in the Florentine gallery; and I see none here equal to those at Lord Grosvenor's and Angerstein's. We visited the church of San Pietro in Viscoli, to see Michel Angelo's famous statue of Moses,--of which, who has not heard? I must confess I never was so disappointed by any work of art as I was by this statue, which is easily accounted for. In the first place, I had not seen any model or copy of the original; and, secondly, I _had_ read Zappi's sublime sonnet, which I humbly conceive does rather more than justice to its subject. The fine opening--
"Chi e costui che in dura pietra scolto Siede _Gigante_"--
gave me the impression of a colossal and elevated figure: my surprise, therefore, was great to see a sitting statue, not much larger than life, and placed nearly on the level of the pavement; so that, instead of looking up at it, I almost looked down upon it. The "Doppio raggio in fronte," I found in the shape of a pair of horns, which, at the first glance, gave something quite Satanic to the head, which disgusted me. When I began to recover from this first disappointment--although my eyes were opened gradually to the sublimity of the attitude, the grand forms of the drapery, and the lips, which unclose as if about to speak--I still think that Zappi's sonnet (his acknowledged chef-d'oeuvre) is a more sublime production than the chef-d'oeuvre it celebrates.
The mention of Zappi reminds me of his wife, the daughter of Carlo Maratti, the painter. She was so beautiful that she was her father's favourite model for his Nymphs, Madonnas, and Vestal Virgins; and to her charms she added virtue, and to her virtue uncommon musical and literary talents. Among her poems, there is a sonnet addressed to a lady, once beloved by her husband, beginning
"Donna! che tanto al mio sol piacesti,"
which is one of the most graceful, most feeling, most delicate compositions I ever read. Zappi celebrates his beautiful wife under the name of Clori, and his first mistress under that of Filli: to the latter he has addressed a sonnet, which turns on the same thought as Cowley's well known song, "Love in thine eyes." As they both lived about the same time, it would be difficult to tell which of the two borrowed from the other; probably they were both borrowers from some elder poet.
The characteristics of Zappi's style, are tenderness and elegance; he occasionally rises to sublimity; as in the sonnet on the Statue of Moses, and that on Good Friday. He never emulates the flights of Guido or Filicaja, but he is more uniformly graceful and flowing than either; his happy thoughts are not spun out too far,--and his _points_ are seldom mere _concetti_.
SONETTO.
DI GIAMBATTISTA ZAPPI.
Amor s'asside alia mia Filli accanto, Amor la segue ovunque i passi gira: In lei parla, in lei tace, in lei sospira, Anzi in lei vive, ond'ella ed ei può tanto.
Amore i vezzi, amor le insegna il canto; E se mai duolsi, o se pur mai s'adira, Da lei non parte amor, anzi se mira Amor ne le belle ire, amor nel pianto.
Se avvien che danzi in regolato errore, Darle il moto al bel piede, amor riveggio, Come l'auretto quando muove un fiore.
Le veggio in fronte amor come in suo seggio, Sul crin, negli occhi, su le labbra amore, Sol d'intorno al suo cuore, amor non veggio.[I]