CHAPTER II.

THE CORSO AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD.

The Piazza del Popolo--Obelisk--Sta. Maria del Popolo--(The Pincio--Villa Medici--Trinità de' Monti) (Via Babuino--Via Margutta--Piazza di Spagna--Propaganda) (Via Ripetta--SS. Rocco e Martino--S. Girolamo degli Schiavoni)--S. Giacomo degli Incurabili--Via Vittoria--Mausoleum of Augustus--S. Carlo in Corso--Via Condotti--Palazzo Borghese--Palazzo Ruspoli--S. Lorenzo in Lucina--S. Sylvestro in Capite--S. Andrea delle Fratte--Palazzo Chigi--Piazza Colonna--Palace and Obelisk of Monte-Citorio--Temple of Neptune--Fountain of Trevi--Palazzo Poli--Palazzo Sciarra--The Caravita--S. Ignazio--S. Marcello--Sta. Maria in Via Lata--Palazzo Doria Pamfili--Palazzo Salviati--Palazzo Odescalchi--Palazzo Colonna--Church of SS. Apostoli--Palazzo Savorelli--Palazzo Buonaparte--Palazzo di Venezia--Palazzo Torlonia--Ripresa dei Barberi--S. Marco--Church of Il Gesu--Palazzo Altieri.

The first object of every traveller will naturally be to reach the Capitol, and look down thence upon ancient Rome; but as he will go down to the Corso to do this, and must daily pass most of its surrounding buildings, we will first speak of those objects which will, ere long, become the most familiar.

A stranger's first lesson in Roman geography should be learnt standing in the _Piazza del Popolo_, whence three streets branch off--the Corso, in the centre, leading towards the Capitol, beyond which lies ancient Rome; the Babuino, on the left, leading to the Piazza di Spagna and the English quarter; the Ripetta, on the right, leading to the Castle of St. Angelo and St. Peter's. The scene is one well known from pictures and engravings. The space between the streets is occupied by twin churches, erected by Cardinal Gastaldi.

"Les deux églises élevées au Place du Peuple par le Cardinal Gastaldi à l'entrée du Corso, sont d'un effet médiocre. Comment un cardinal n'a-t-il pas senti qu'il ne faut pas élever une église pour _faire pendant_ à quelque chose? C'est ravaler la majesté divine." _Stendhal_, i. 172.

It is in the church on the left that sermons are preached every winter on Sunday afternoons by some of the best Roman Catholic controversialists, just at the right moment for catching the Protestant congregations as they emerge from their chapels outside the Porta del Popolo.

These churches are believed to occupy the site of the magnificent tomb of Sylla, who died at Puteoli B.C. 82, but was honoured at Rome with a public funeral, at which the patrician ladies burnt masses of incense and perfumes on his funeral pyre.

The _Obelisk_ of the Piazza del Popolo was placed on this site by Sixtus V. in 1589, but was originally brought to Rome and erected in honour of Apollo by the Emperor Augustus.

"Apollo was the patron of the spot which had given a name to the great victory of Actium; Apollo himself, it was proclaimed, had fought for Rome and for Octavius on that auspicious day; the same Apollo, the Sun-god, had shuddered in his bright career at the murder of the Dictator, and terrified the nations by the eclipse of his divine countenance." ... Therefore, "besides building a temple to Apollo on the Palatine hill, the Emperor Augustus sought to honour him by transplanting to the Circus Maximus, the sports of which were under his special protection, an obelisk from Heliopolis, in Egypt. This flame-shaped column was a symbol of the sun, and originally bore a blazing orb upon its summit. It is interesting to trace an intelligible motive for the first introduction into Europe of these grotesque and unsightly monuments of eastern superstition."--_Merivale, Hist. of the Romans._

"This red granite obelisk, oldest of things, even in Rome, rises in the centre of the piazza, with a four-fold fountain at its base. All Roman works and ruins (whether of the empire, the far-off republic, or the still more distant kings) assume a transient, visionary, and impalpable character, when we think that this indestructible monument supplied one of the recollections which Moses and the Israelites bore from Egypt into the desert. Perchance, on beholding the cloudy pillar and fiery column, they whispered awe-stricken to one another, 'In its shape it is like that old obelisk which we and our fathers have so often seen on the borders of the Nile.' And now that very obelisk, with hardly a trace of decay upon it, is the first thing that the modern traveller sees after entering the Flaminian Gate."--_Hawthorne's Transformation._

It was on the left of the Piazza, at the foot of what was even then called "the Hill of Gardens," that Nero was buried (A.D. 68).

"When Nero was dead, his nurse Eclaga, with Alexandra, and Acte the famous concubine, having wrapped his remains in rich white stuff, embroidered with gold, deposited them in the Domitian monument, which is seen in the Campus-Martius under the Hill of Gardens. The tomb was of porphyry, having an altar of Luna marble, surrounded by a balustrade of Thasos marble."--_Suetonius._

Church tradition tells that from the tomb of Nero afterwards grew a gigantic walnut-tree, which became the resort of innumerable crows,--so numerous as to become quite a pest to the neighbourhood. In the eleventh century, Pope Paschal II. dreamt that these crows were demons, and that the Blessed Virgin commanded him to cut down and burn the tree ("albero malnato"), and build a sanctuary to her honour in its place. A church was then built by means of a collection amongst the common people; hence the name which it still retains of "St. Mary of the People."

_Sta. Maria del Popolo_ was rebuilt by Bacio Pintelli for Sixtus IV. in 1480, and very richly adorned. It was modernized by Bernini for Alexander VII. (Fabio Chigi, 1655-67), of whom it was the family burial-place, but it still retains many fragments of beautiful fifteenth century work (the principal door of the nave is a fine example of this); and its interior is a perfect museum of sculpture and art.

Entering the church by the west door, and following the right aisle, the first chapel (Venuti, formerly Della Rovere[3]) is adorned with exquisite paintings by _Pinturicchio_. Over the altar is the Nativity--one of the most beautiful frescoes in the city; in the lunettes are scenes from the life of St. Jerome. Cardinal Christoforo della Rovere, who built this chapel and dedicated it to "the Virgin and St. Jerome," is buried on the left, in a grand fifteenth century tomb; on the right is the monument of Cardinal di Castro. Both of these tombs and many others in this church have interesting and greatly varied lunettes of the Virgin and Child.

The second chapel, of the Cibo family, rich in pillars of nero-antico and jasper, has an altarpiece representing the Assumption of the Virgin, by _Carlo Maratta_. In the cupola is the Almighty, surrounded by the heavenly host.[4]

The third chapel is also painted by _Pinturicchio_. Over the altar, the Madonna and four saints; above, God the Father, surrounded by angels. In the other lunettes, scenes in the life of the Virgin;--that of the Virgin studying in the Temple, a very rare subject, is especially beautiful. In a frieze round the lower part of the wall, a series of martyrdoms in grisaille. On the right is the tomb of Giovanni della Rovere, ob. 1483. On the left is a fine sleeping bronze figure of a bishop, unknown.

The fourth chapel has a fine fifteenth century altar-relief of St. Catherine between St. Anthony of Padua and St. Vincent. On the right is the tomb of Marc-Antonio Albertoni, ob. 1485; on the left, that of Cardinal Costa, of Lisbon, ob. 1508, erected in his lifetime. In this tomb is an especially beautiful lunette of the Virgin adored by Angels.

Entering the right transept, on the right is the tomb of Cardinal Podocanthorus of Cyprus, a very fine specimen of fifteenth century work. A door near this leads into a cloister, where is preserved, over a door, the Gothic altar-piece of the church of Sixtus IV, representing the Coronation of the Virgin, and two fine tombs--Archbishop Rocca, ob. 1482, and Bishop Gomiel.

The choir (shown when there is no service) has a ceiling by _Pinturicchio_. In the centre, the Virgin and Saviour, surrounded by the Evangelists and Sibyls; in the corners, the Fathers of the Church--Gregory, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. Beneath are the tombs of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, and Cardinal Girolamo Basso, nephews of Sixtus IV. (Francesco della Rovere), beautiful works of _Andrea di Sansovino_. These tombs were erected at the expense of Julius II., himself a Della Rovere, who also gave the windows, painted by _Claude and Guillaume de Marseilles_, the only good specimens of stained glass in Rome.

The high-altar is surmounted by a miraculous image of the Virgin, inscribed, "In honorificentia populi nostri," which was placed in this church by Gregory IX., and which, having been "successfully invoked" by Gregory XIII., in the great plague of 1578, has ever since been annually adored by the pope of the period, who prostrates himself before it upon the 8th of September. The chapel on the left of this has an Assumption, by _Annibale Caracci_.

In the left transept is the tomb of Cardinal Bernardino Lonati, with a fine fifteenth century relief of the Resurrection.

Returning by the left aisle, the last chapel but one is that of the Chigi family, in which the famous banker, Agostino Chigi (who built the Farnesina) is buried, and in which _Raphael_ is represented at once as a painter, a sculptor, and an architect. He planned the chapel itself; he drew the strange design of the Mosaic on the ceiling (carried out by _Aloisio della Pace_), which represents an extraordinary mixture of Paganism and Christianity, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn (as the planets), conducted by angels, being represented with and surrounding Jehovah; and he modelled the beautiful statue of Jonah seated on the whale, which was sculptured in the marble by _Lorenzetto_. The same artist sculptured the figure of Elijah,--those of Daniel and Habakkuk being by _Bernini_. The altarpiece, representing the Nativity of the Virgin, is a fine work of _Sebastian del Piombo_. On the pier adjoining this chapel is the strange monument by _Posi_ (1771) of a Princess Odescalchi Chigi, who died in childbirth, at the age of twenty, erected by her husband, who describes himself, "In solitudine et luctu superstes."

The last chapel contains two fine fifteenth century ciboria, and the tomb of Cardinal Antonio Pallavicini, 1507.

On the left of the principal entrance is the remarkable monument of Gio. Batt. Gislenus, the companion and friend of Casimir I. of Poland (ob. 1670). At the top is his portrait while living, inscribed, "Neque hic vivus"; then a medallion of a chrysalis, "In nidulo meo moriar"; opposite to which is a medallion of a butterfly emerging, "Ut Phœnix multiplicabo dies": below is a hideous skeleton of giallo antico in a white marble winding-sheet, "Neque hic mortuus."

Martin Luther "often spoke of death as the Christian's true birth, and this life as but a growing into the chrysalis-shell in which the spirit lives till its being is developed, and it bursts the shell, casts off the web, struggles into life, spreads its wings, and soars up to God."

The Augustine Convent adjoining this church was the residence of Luther while he was in Rome. Here he celebrated mass immediately on his arrival, after he had prostrated himself upon the earth, saying, "Hail sacred Rome! thrice sacred for the blood of the martyrs shed here!" Here, also, he celebrated mass for the last time before he departed from Rome to become the most terrible of her enemies.

"Lui pauvre écolier, élevé si durement, qui souvent, pendant son enfance, n'avait pour oreiller qu'une dalle froide, il passe devant des temples tout de marbre, devant des colonnes d'albâtre, des gigantesques obélisques de granite, des fontaines jaillissantes, des _villas_ fraîches et embellies de jardins, de fleurs, de cascades et de grottes. Veut-il prier? il entre dans une église qui lui semble un monde véritable, où les diamants scintillent sur l'autel, l'or aux soffites, le marbre aux colonnes, la mosaïque aux chapelles, au lieu d'un de ces temples rustiques qui n'ont dans sa patrie pour tout ornement que quelques roses qu'une main pieuse va déposer sur l'autel le jour du dimanche. Est-il fatigué de la route? il trouve sur son chemin, non plus un modeste banc de bois, mais un siège d'albâtre antique récemment déterré. Cherche-t-il une sainte image? il n'aperçoit que des fantaisies païennes, des divinités olympiques, Apollon, Vénus, Mars, Jupiter, auxquelles travaillent mille mains de sculpteurs. De toutes ces merveilles, il ne comprit rien, il ne vit rien. Aucun rayon de la couronne de Raphaël, de Michel-Ange, n'éblouit ses regards; il resta froid et muet devant tous les trésors de peinture et de sculpture rassemblés dans les églises; son oreille fut fermée aux chants du Dante, que le peuple répétait autour de lui. Il était entré à Rome en pèlerin, il en sort comme Coriolan, et s'écrie avec Bembo: 'Adieu, Rome, que doit fuir quiconque veut vivre saintement! Adieu, ville où tout est permis, excepté d'être homme de bien.'"--_Audin, Histoire de Luther_, c. ii.

It was in front of this church that the cardinals and magnates of Rome met to receive the apostate Christina of Sweden upon her entrance into the city.

* * * * *

On the left side of the piazza rise the terraces of the Pincio, adorned with rostral-columns, statues, and marble bas-reliefs, interspersed with cypresses and pines. A winding road, lined with mimosas and other flowering shrubs, leads to the upper platform, now laid out in public drives and gardens, but, till twenty years ago, a deserted waste, where the ghost of Nero was believed to wander in the middle ages.

Hence the Eternal City is seen spread at our feet, and beyond it the wide-spreading Campagna, till a silver line marks the sea melting into the horizon beyond Ostia. All these churches and tall palace roofs become more than mere names in the course of the winter, but at first all is bewilderment Two great buildings alone arrest the attention:

"Westward, beyond the Tiber, is the Castle of St. Angelo, the immense tomb of a pagan emperor with the archangel on its summit.... Still further off, a mighty pile of buildings, surmounted by a vast dome, which all of us have shaped and swelled outward, like a huge bubble, to the utmost scope of our imaginations, long before we see it floating over the worship of the city. At any nearer view the grandeur of St. Peter's hides itself behind the immensity of its separate parts, so that we only see the front, only the sides, only the pillared length and loftiness of the portico, and not the mighty whole. But at this distance the entire outline of the world's cathedral, as well as that of the palace of the world's chief priest, is taken in at once. In such remoteness, moreover, the imagination is not debarred from rendering its assistance, even while we have the reality before our eyes, and helping the weakness of human sense to do justice to so grand an object. It requires both faith and fancy to enable us to feel, what is nevertheless so true, that yonder, in front of the purple outline of the hills, is the grandest edifice ever built by man, painted against God's loveliest sky."--_Hawthorne._

Here the band plays under the great palm-tree every afternoon except Friday. On Sunday afternoons the Pincio is in what Miss Thackeray describes as "a fashionable halo of sunset and pink parasols"--when immense crowds collect, showing every phase of Roman life; and disperse again as the Ave-Maria bell rings from the churches, either to descend into the city, or to hear benediction sung by the nuns in the Trinità de' Monti.

"When the fashionable hour of rendezvous arrives, the same spot, which a few minutes before was immersed in silence and solitude, changes as it were with the rapidity of a scene in a pantomime to an animated panorama. The scene is rendered not a little ludicrous by the miniature representation of the Ring in Hyde Park in a small compass. An entire revolution of the carriage-drive is performed in the short period of three minutes as near as may be, and the perpetual occurrence of the same physiognomies and the same carriages trotting round and round for two successive hours, necessarily reminds one of the proceedings of a country fair, and children whirling in a roundabout."--_Sir G. Head's 'Tour in Rome.'_

"The Pincian Hill is the favourite promenade of the Roman aristocracy. At the present day, however, like most other Roman possessions, it belongs less to the native inhabitants than to the barbarians from Gaul, Great Britain, and beyond the sea, who have established a peaceful usurpation over all that is enjoyable or memorable in the Eternal City. These foreign guests are indeed ungrateful, if they do not breathe a prayer for Pope Clement, or whatever Holy Father it may have been, who levelled the summit of the mount so skilfully, and bounded it with the parapet of the city wall; who laid out those broad walks and drives, and overhung them with the shade of many kinds of tree; who scattered the flowers of all seasons, and of every clime, abundantly over those smooth, central lawns; who scooped out hollows in fit places, and setting great basons of marble in them, caused ever-gushing fountains to fill them to the brim; who reared up the immemorial obelisk out of the soil that had long hidden it; who placed pedestals along the borders of the avenues, and covered them with busts of that multitude of worthies,--statesmen, heroes, artists, men of letters and of song,--whom the whole world claims as its chief ornaments, though Italy has produced them all. In a word, the Pincian garden is one of the things that reconcile the stranger (since he fully appreciates the enjoyment, and feels nothing of the cost,) to the rule of an irresponsible dynasty of Holy Fathers, who seem to have arrived at making life as agreeable an affair as it can well be.

"In this pleasant spot the red-trousered French soldiers are always to be seen; bearded and grizzled veterans, perhaps, with medals of Algiers or the Crimea on their breasts. To them is assigned the peaceful duty of seeing that children do not trample on the flower-beds, nor any youthful lover rifle them of their fragrant blossoms to stick in his beloved one's hair. Here sits (drooping upon some marble bench, in the treacherous sunshine,) the consumptive girl, whose friends have brought her, for a cure, into a climate that instils poison into its very purest breath. Here, all day, come nursery maids, burdened with rosy English babies, or guiding the footsteps of little travellers from the far western world. Here, in the sunny afternoon, roll and rumble all kinds of carriages, from the Cardinal's old-fashioned and gorgeous purple carriage to the gay barouche of modern date. Here horsemen gallop on thorough-bred steeds. Here, in short, all the transitory population of Rome, the world's great watering-place, rides, drives, or promenades! Here are beautiful sunsets; and here, whichever way you turn your eyes, are scenes as well worth gazing at, both in themselves and for their historical interest, as any that the sun ever rose and set upon. Here, too, on certain afternoons in the week, a French military band flings out rich music over the poor old city, floating her with strains as loud as those of her own echoless triumphs."--_Hawthorne._

The garden of the Pincio is very small, but beautifully laid out. At a crossroads is placed an _Obelisk_, brought from Egypt, and which the late discoveries in hieroglyphics show to have been erected there, in the joint names of Hadrian and his empress Sabina, to their beloved Antinous, who was drowned in the Nile A.D. 131.

From the furthest angle of the garden we look down upon the strange fragment of wall known as the _Muro-Torto_.

"Le Muro-Torto offre un souvenir curieux. On nomme ainsi un pan de muraille qui, avant de faire partie du rempart d'Honorius, avait servi à soutenir la terrasse du jardin du Domitius, et qui, du temps de Bélisaire, était déjà incliné comme il l'est aujourd'hui. Procope racconte que Bélisaire voulait le rebâtir, mais que les Romains l'en empêchèrent, affirmant que ce point n'était pas exposé, parce que Saint Pierre avait promis de le défendre. Procope ajoute: 'Personne n'a osé réparer ce mur, et il reste encore dans le même état.' Nous pouvons en dire autant que Procope, et le mur, détaché de la colline à laquelle il s'appuyait, reste encore incliné et semble près de tomber. Ce détail du siége de Rome est confirmé par l'aspect singulier du Muro-Torto, qui _semble toujours près de tomber_, et subsiste dans le même état depuis quatorze siècles, comme s'il était soutenu miraculeusement par la main de Saint Pierre. On ne saurait guère trouver pour l'autorité temporel des papes, un meilleur symbole."--_Ampère, Emp._ ii. 397.

"At the furthest point of the Pincio, you look down from the parapet upon the Muro-Torto, a massive fragment of the oldest Roman wall, which juts over, as if ready to tumble down by its own weight, yet seems still the most indestructible piece of work that men's hands ever piled together. In the blue distance rise Soracte, and other heights, which have gleamed afar, to our imagination, but look scarcely real to our bodily eyes, because, being dreamed about so much, they have taken the aerial tints which belong only to a dream. These, nevertheless, are the solid framework of hills that shut in Rome, and its broad surrounding Campagna; no land of dreams, but the broadest page of history, crowded so full with memorable events, that one obliterates another, as if Time had crossed and recrossed his own records till they grew illegible."--_Hawthorne._

In early imperial times the site of the Pincio garden was occupied by the famous villa of Lucullus, who had gained his enormous wealth as general of the Roman armies in Asia.

"The life of Lucullus was like an ancient comedy, where first we see great actions, both political and military, and afterwards feasts, debauches, races by torchlight, and every kind of frivolous amusement. For among frivolous amusements, I cannot but reckon his sumptuous villas, walks, and baths; and still more so the paintings, statues, and other works of art which he collected at immense expense, idly squandering away upon them the vast fortune he amassed in the wars. Insomuch that now, when luxury is so much advanced, the gardens of Lucullus rank with those of the kings, and are esteemed the most magnificent even of these."--_Plutarch._

Here, in his Pincian villa, Lucullus gave his celebrated feast to Cicero and Pompey, merely mentioning to a slave beforehand that he should sup in the hall of Apollo, which was understood as a command to prepare all that was most sumptuous.

After Lucullus--the beautiful Pincian villa belonged to Valerius Asiaticus, and in the reign of Claudius was coveted by his fifth wife, Messalina. She suborned Silius, her son's tutor, to accuse him of a licentious life, and of corrupting the army. Being condemned to death, "Asiaticus declined the counsel of his friends to starve himself, a course which might leave an interval for the chance of pardon; and after the lofty fashion of the ancient Romans, bathed, perfumed, and supped magnificently, and then opened his veins, and let himself bleed to death. Before dying he inspected the pyre prepared for him in his own gardens, and ordered it to be removed to another spot, that an umbrageous plantation which overhung it might not be injured by the flames."

As soon as she heard of his death, Messalina took possession of the villa, and held high revel there with her numerous lovers, with the most favoured of whom, Silius, she had actually gone through the religious rites of marriage in the lifetime of the emperor, who was absent at Ostia. But a conspiracy among the freedmen of the royal household informed the emperor of what was taking place, and at last even Claudius was aroused to a sense of her enormities.

"In her suburban palace, Messalina was abandoning herself to voluptuous transports. The season was mid-autumn, the vintage was in full progress; the wine-press was groaning; the ruddy juice was streaming; women girt with scanty fawnskins danced as drunken Bacchanals around her: while she herself, with her hair loose and disordered, brandished the thyrsus in the midst, and Silius by her side, buskined and crowned with ivy, tossed his head to the flaunting strains of Silenus and the Satyrs. Vettius, one, it seems, of the wanton's less fortunate paramours, attended the ceremony, and climbed in merriment a lofty tree in the garden. When asked what he saw, he replied, 'an awful storm from Ostia'; and whether there was actually such an appearance, or whether the words were spoken at random, they were accepted afterwards as an omen of the catastrophe which quickly followed.

"For now in the midst of these wanton orgies the rumour quickly spread, and swiftly messengers arrived to confirm it, that Claudius knew it all, that Claudius was on his way to Rome, and was coming in anger and vengeance. The lovers part: Silius for the forum and the tribunals; Messalina for the shade of her gardens on the Pincio, the price of the blood of the murdered Asiaticus." Once the empress attempted to go forth to meet Claudius, taking her children with her, and accompanied by Vibidia, the eldest of the vestal virgins, whom she persuaded to intercede for her, but her enemies prevented her gaining access to her husband; Vibidia was satisfied for the moment by vague promises of a later hearing; and upon the arrival of Claudius in Rome, Silius and the other principal lovers of the empress were put to death. "Still Messalina hoped. She had withdrawn again to the gardens of Lucullus, and was there engaged in composing addresses of supplication to her husband, in which her pride and long-accustomed insolence still faintly struggled into her fears. The emperor still paltered with the treason. He had retired to his palace; he had bathed, anointed, and lain down to supper; and, warmed with wine and generous cheer, he had actually despatched a message to the _poor creature_, as he called her, bidding her come the next day, and plead her cause before him. But her enemy Narcissus, knowing how easy might be the passage from compassion to love, glided from the chamber, and boldly ordered a tribune and some centurions to go and slay his victim. 'Such,' he said, 'was the emperor's command'; and his word was obeyed without hesitation. Under the direction of the freedman Euodus, the armed men sought the outcast in her gardens, where she lay prostrate on the ground, by the side of her mother Lepida. While their fortunes flourished, dissensions had existed between the two; but now, in her last distress, the mother had refused to desert her child, and only strove to nerve her resolution to a voluntary death. 'Life,' she urged, 'is over; nought remains but to look for a decent exit from it.' But the soul of the reprobate was corrupted by her vices; she retained no sense of honour; she continued to weep and groan as if hope still existed; when suddenly the doors were burst open, the tribune and his swordsmen appeared before her, and Euodus assailed her, dumb-stricken as she lay, with contumelious and brutal reproaches. Roused at last to the consciousness of her desperate condition, she took a weapon from one of the men's hands and pressed it trembling against her throat and bosom. Still she wanted resolution to give the thrust, and it was by a blow of the tribune's falchion that the horrid deed was finally accomplished. The death of Asiaticus was avenged on the very spot; the hot blood of the wanton smoked on the pavement of his gardens, and stained with a deeper hue the variegated marbles of Lucullus."--_Merivale, Hist. of the Romans under the Empire._

From the garden of the Pincio a terraced road (beneath which are the long-closed catacombs of St. Felix) leads to the _Villa Medici_, built for Cardinal Ricci da Montepulciano by Annibale Lippi in 1540. Shortly afterwards it passed into the hands of the Medici family, and was greatly enlarged by Cardinal Alessandro de Medici, afterwards Leo XI. In 1801 the Academy for French Art-Students, founded by Louis XIV., was established here. The villa contains a fine collection of casts, open every day except Sunday.

Behind the villa is a beautiful _Garden_ (which can be visited on application to the porter). The terrace, which looks down upon the Villa Borghese, is bordered by ancient sarcophagi, and has a colossal statue of Rome. The garden side of the villa has sometimes been ascribed to Michael Angelo.

"La plus grande coquetterie de la maison, c'est la façade postérieure. Elle tient son rang parmi les chefs-d'œuvre de la Renaissance. On dirait que l'architecte a épuisé une mine de bas-reliefs grecs et romains pour en tapisser son palais. Le jardin est de la même époque: il date du temps où l'aristocratie romaine professait le plus profond dédain pour les fleurs. On n'y voit que des massifs de verdure, alignés avec un soin scrupuleux. Six pelouses, entourées de haies à hauteur d'appui, s'étendent devant la villa et laissent courir la vue jusqu'au mont Soracte, qui ferme l'horizon. A gauche, quatre fois quatre carrés de gazon s'encadrent dans de hautes murailles de lauriers, de buis gigantesques et de chênes verts. Les murailles se rejoignent au-dessus des allées et les enveloppent d'une ombre fraîche et mystérieuse. A droite, une terrasse d'une style noble encadre un bois de chênes verts, tordus et eventrés par le temps. J'y vais quelquefois travailler à l'ombre; et le merle rivalise avec le rossignol au-dessus de ma tête, comme un beau chantre de village peut rivaliser avec Mario ou Roger. Un peu plus loin, une vigne toute rustique s'étend jusqu'à la porte Pinciana, où Belisaire a mendié, dit-on. Les jardins petits et grands sont semés de statues, d'Hermes, et de marbres de toute sorte. L'eau coule dans des sarcophages antiques ou jaillit dans des vasques de marbre: le marbre et l'eau sont les deux luxes de Rome."--_About, Rome Contemporaine._

"The grounds of the Villa Medici are laid out in the old fashion of straight paths, with borders of box, which form hedges of great height and density, and are shorn and trimmed to the evenness of a wall of stone, at the top and sides. There are green alleys, with long vistas, overshadowed by ilex-trees; and at each intersection of the paths the visitor finds seats of lichen-covered stone to repose upon, and marble statues that look forlornly at him, regretful of their lost noses. In the more open portions of the garden, before the sculptured front of the villa, you see fountains and flower-beds; and, in their season, a profusion of roses, from which the genial sun of Italy distils a fragrance, to be scattered abroad by the no less genial breeze."--_Hawthorne._

A second door will admit to the higher terrace of _the Boschetto_; a tiny wood of ancient ilexes, from which a steep flight of steps leads to the "Belvidere," whence there is a beautiful view.

"They asked the porter for the key of the Bosco, which was given, and they entered a grove of ilexes, whose gloomy shade effectually shut out the radiant sunshine that still illuminated the western sky. They then ascended a long and exceedingly steep flight of steps, leading up to a high mound covered with ilexes.

"Here both stood still, side by side, gazing silently on the city, where dome and bell-tower stood out against a sky of gold; the desolate Monte Mario and its stone pines rising dark to the right. Behind, close at hand, were sombre ilex woods, amid which rose here and there the spire of a cypress or a ruined arch, and on the highest point, the white Villa Ludovisi; beyond, stretched the Campagna, girdled by hills melting into light under the evening sky."--_Mademoiselle Mori._

From the door of the Villa Medici is the scene familiar to artists, of a fountain shaded by ilexes, which frame a distant view of St Peter's.

"Je vois (de la Villa Medici) les quatre cinquièmes de la ville; je compte les sept collines, je parcours les rues régulières qui s'étendent entre le cours et la place d'Espagne, je fais le d'enombrement des palais, des églises, des dômes, et des clochers; je m'égare dans le Ghetto et dans la Trastévère. Je ne vois pas des ruines autant que j'en voudrais: elles sont ramassées là-bas, sur ma gauche, aux environs du Forum. Cependant nous avons tout près de nous la colonne Antonine et la mausolée d'Adrien. La vue est fermée agréablement par les pins de la villa Pamphili, qui reunissent leurs larges parasols et font comme une table à mille pieds pour un repas de géants. L'horizon fuit à gauche à des distances infinies; la plaine est nue, onduleuse et bleue comme la mer. Mais si je vous mettais en présence d'un spectacle si étendu et si divers, en seul objet attirerait vos regards, un seul frapperait votre attention: vous n'auriez des yeux que pour Saint Pierre. Son dôme est moitié dans la ville, moitié dans la ciel. Quand j'ouvre ma fenêtre, vers cinq heures du matin, je vois Rome noyée dans les brouillards de la fièvre: seul, le dôme de Saint-Pierre est coloré par la lumière rose du soleil levant."--_About._

The terrace ("La Passeggiata") ends at the _Obelisk of the Trinità de' Monti_, erected here in 1822 by Pius VII., who found it near the Church of Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme.

"When the Ave Maria sounds, it is time to go to the church of Trinità de' Monti, where French nuns sing; and it is charming to hear them. I declare to heaven that I am become quite tolerant, and listen to bad music with edification; but what can I do? The composition is perfectly ridiculous, the organ-playing even more absurd: but it is twilight, and the whole of the small bright church is filled with persons kneeling, lit up by the sinking sun each time that the door is opened; both the singing nuns have the sweetest voices in the world, quite tender and touching, more especially when one of them sings the responses in her melodious voice, which we are accustomed to hear chaunted by priests in a loud, harsh, monotonous tone. The impression is very singular; moreover, it is well known that no one is permitted to see the fair singers, so this caused me to form a strange resolution. I have composed something to suit their voices, which I have observed very minutely, and I mean to send it to them. It will be pleasant to hear my chaunt performed by persons I never saw, especially as they must in turn sing it to the 'barbaro Tedescho,' whom they also never beheld."--_Mendelssohn's Letters._

"In the evenings people go to the Trinità to hear the nuns sing from the organ-gallery. It sounds like the singing of angels. One sees in the choir troops of young scholars, moving with slow and measured steps, with their long white veils, like a flock of spirits."--_Frederika Bremer._

_The Church of the Trinità de' Monti_ was built in 1495 by Charles VIII. of France, at the request of S. Francesco di Paola. At the time of the French revolution it was plundered, but was restored by Louis XVIII. in 1817. It contains several interesting paintings.

In the second chapel on the left is the Descent from the Cross, the masterpiece of _Daniele da Volterra_, declared by Nicholas Poussin to be the third picture in the world, but terribly injured by the French in their attempts to remove it.

"We might almost fancy ourselves spectators of the mournful scene,--the Redeemer, while being removed from the cross, gradually sinking down with all that relaxation of limb and utter helplessness which belongs to a dead body; the assistants engaged in their various duties, and thrown into different and contrasted attitudes, intently occupied with the sacred remains which they so reverently gaze upon; the mother of the Lord in a swoon amidst her afflicted companions; the disciple whom he loved standing with outstretched arms, absorbed in contemplating the mysterious spectacle. The truth in the representation of the exposed parts of the body appears to be nature itself. The colouring of the heads and of the whole picture accords precisely with the subject, displaying strength rather than delicacy, a harmony, and in short a degree of skill, of which M. Angelo himself might have been proud, if the picture had been inscribed with his name. And to this I believe the author alluded, when he painted his friend with a looking-glass near it, as if to intimate that he might recognize in the picture a reflection of himself."--_Lanzi._

"Daniele da Volterra's Descent from the Cross is one of the celebrated pictures of the world, and has very grand features. The body is not skilfully sustained; nevertheless the number of strong men employed about it makes up in sheer muscle for the absence of skill. Here are four ladders against the cross, stalwart figures standing, ascending, and descending upon each, so that the space between the cross and the ground is absolutely alive with magnificent lines. The Virgin lies on one side, and is like a grand creature struck down by a sudden death-blow. She has fallen, like Ananias in Raphael's cartoon, with her head bent backwards, and her arm under her. The crown of thorns has been taken from the dead brow, and rests on the end of one of the ladders."--_Lady Eastlake._

The third chapel on the right contains an Assumption of the Virgin, another work of _Daniele da Volterra_. The fifth chapel is adorned with frescoes of his school. The sixth has frescoes of the school of _Perugino_. The frescoes in the right transept are by _F. Zuccaro_ and _Pierino del Vaga_; in that of the Procession of St. Gregory the mausoleum of Hadrian is represented as it appeared in the time of Leo X.

The adjoining _Convent of the Sacré Cœur_ is much frequented as a place of education. The nuns are all persons of rank. When a lady takes the veil, her nearest relations inherit her property, except about 1000_l._, which goes to the convent. The nuns are allowed to retain no personal property, but if they wish still to have the use of their books, they give them to the convent library. They receive visitors every afternoon, and quantities of people go to them from curiosity, on the plea of seeking advice.

From the Trinità the two popular streets--Sistina and Gregoriana--branch off; the former leading in a direct line (though the name changes) to Sta. Maria Maggiore, and thence to St. John Lateran and Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme. The house adjoining the Trinità was that of Nicholas Poussin; that at the angle of the two streets, called the _Tempietto_, was once inhabited by Claude Lorraine. The adjoining house (64 Sistina)--formerly known as Palazzo della Regina di Polonia, from Maria Casimira, Queen of Poland, who resided there for some years--was inhabited by the Zuccari family, and has paintings on the ground-floor by _Federigo Zuccaro_. One of the rooms on the first-floor was adorned with frescoes by modern German artists at the expense of the Prussian consul Bartholdy, viz.:--

The Selling of Joseph: _Overbeck._ Joseph and Potiphar's Wife: _Veit._ Meeting of Joseph and his Brethren: _Cornelius._ The Seven Lean Years: _Overbeck._ Joseph interprets the Dreams in Prison: _Schadow._ The Brethren bring Joseph's Coat to Jacob: _Schadow._ Joseph interprets the Dreams of Pharaoh: _Cornelius._ The Seven Plentiful Years: _Veit._

* * * * *

On the left of the Piazza del Popolo, the _Via Babuino_ branches off, deriving its name from the mutilated figure on a fountain halfway down. On the right is the Greek _Church of S. Atanasio_, attached to a college founded by Gregory XIII. in 1580.

"To-day, the feast of the Epiphany, I have witnessed mass according to the Greek rite. The ceremonies appear to be more stately, more severe, more significant, and at the same time more popular, than those of the Latin rite."--_Goethe, Romische Briefe._

Behind this street is the _Via Margutta_, almost entirely inhabited by artists and sculptors.

"The Via Margutta is a street of studios and stables, crossed at the upper end by a little roofed gallery with a single window, like a shabby Bridge of Sighs. Horses are continually being washed and currycombed outside their stable doors; frequent heaps of _immondeazzajo_ make the air unfragrant; and the perspective is frequently damaged by rows of linen suspended across the road from window to window. Unsightly as they are, however, these obstacles in no wise affect the popularity of the Via Margutta, either as a residence for the artist, or a lounge for the amateur. Fashionable patrons leave their carriages at the corner, and pick their way daintily among the gutters and dust-heaps. A boar-hunt by Vallatti compensates for an unlucky splash; and a campagna sunset of Desoulavey glows all the richer for the squalor through which it is approached."--_Barbara's History._

In this street also is situated the _Costume Academy_.

"Imagine a great barn of a room, with dingy walls half covered with chalk studies of the figure in all possible attitudes. Opposite the door is a low platform with revolving top, and beside it an _écorché_, or plaster figure bereft of skin, so as to exhibit the muscles. Ranges of benches, raised one above the other, occupy the remainder of the room; and if you were to look in at about eight o'clock on a winter's evening, you would find them tenanted by a multitude of young artists, mostly in their shirt sleeves, with perhaps three or four ladies, all disposed around the model, who stands upon the platform in one of the picturesque costumes of Southern Italy, with a cluster of eight lamps, intensified by a powerful reflector, immediately above his or her unlucky head.

The costumes are regulated by Church times and seasons. During Lent the models were mediæval dresses; during the winter and carnival, Italian costumes of the present day; and with Easter begin mere draperies, _pieghe_, or folds, as they are technically called.

Every evening the subject for the next night is chalked up on a black board beside the platform; for the next _two_ nights rather; for each model poses for two evenings; the position of his feet being chalked upon the platform, so as to secure the same attitude on the second evening. Consequently, four hours are allowed for each drawing.... The _pieghe_ are only for a single time, as it would be impossible to secure the same folds twice over.... The expense of attending the Academy, including attendance, each person's share in the model, and his own especial lamp, amounts to 2½_d._ an evening, or a scudo and a half (about 6_s._ 6_d._) a month; marvellously cheap, it most be confessed."--_H. M. B._, in _Once a Week_.

The Babuino ends in the ugly but central square of the _Piazza di Spagna_, where many of the best hotels and shops are situated. Hence the Trinità is reached by a magnificent flight of steps (disgracefully ill kept), which was built by Alessandro Specchi at the expense of a private individual, M. Gueffier, secretary to the French embassy at Rome, under Innocent XIII.

"No art-loving visitor to Rome can ever have passed the noble flight of steps which leads from the Piazza di Spagna to the Church of the Trinità de' Monti without longing to transfer to his sketch-book the picturesque groups of models who there spend their day, basking in the beams of the wintry sun, and eating those little boiled beans whose yellow husks bestrew every place where the lower class Romans congregate--practising, in short, the 'dolce far niente.' Beppo, the celebrated lame beggar, is no longer to be seen there, having been banished to the steps of the Church of St. Agostino; but there is old Felice, with conical hat, brown cloak, and bagpipes, father of half the models on the steps. He has been seen in an artist's studio in Paris, and is reported to have performed on foot the double journey between Rome and that capital. There are two or three younger men in blue jackets and goat-skin breeches; as many women in folded linen head-dresses, and red or blue skirts; and a sprinkling of children of both sexes, in costumes the miniature fac-similes of their elders. All these speedily learn to recognise a visitor who is interested in that especial branch of art which is embodied in models, and at every turn in the street such a one is met by the flash of white teeth, and the gracious sweetness of an Italian smile."--_H. M. B._

"Among what may be called the cubs or minor lions of Rome, there was one that amused me mightily. It is always to be found there; and its den is on the great flight of steps that lead from the Piazza di Spagna to the Church of the Trinità de' Monti. In plainer words, these steps are the great place of resort for the artists' 'Models,' and there they are constantly waiting to be hired. The first time I went up there, I could not conceive why the faces seemed so familiar to me; why they appeared to have beset me, for years, in every possible variety of action and costume; and how it came to pass that they started up before me, in Rome, in the broad day, like so many saddled and bridled nightmares. I soon found that we had made acquaintance, and improved it, for several years, on the walls of various Exhibition Galleries. There is one old gentleman with long white hair, and an immense beard, who, to my knowledge, has gone half-through the catalogues of the Royal Academy. This is the venerable or patriarchal model. He carries a long staff; and every knob and twist in that staff I have seen, faithfully delineated, innumerable times. There is another man in a blue cloak, who always pretends to be asleep in the sun (when there is any), and who, I need not say, is always very wide awake, and very attentive to the disposition of his legs. This is the _dolce far niente_ model. There is another man in a brown cloak, who leans against a wall, with his arms folded in his mantle, and look out of the corners of his eyes, which are just visible beneath his broad slouched hat. This is the assassin model. There is another man, who constantly looks over his own shoulder, and is always going away, but never goes. This is the haughty or scornful model. As to Domestic Happiness, and Holy Families, they should come very cheap, for there are heaps of them, all up the steps; and the cream of the thing is, that they are all the falsest vagabonds in the world, especially made up for the purpose, and having no counterparts in Rome or any other part of the habitable globe."--_Dickens._

"Climb these steps when the sun is setting. From a hundred belfries the bells ring for Ave Maria, and there, across the town, and in a blaze of golden glory, stands the great dome of St. Peter's: and from the terrace of the Villa Medici you can see the whole wonderful view, faintly pencilled Soracte far to your right, and below you and around you the City and the Seven Hills."--_Vera._

The _Barcaccia_, the fountain at the foot of the steps, executed by _Bernini_, is a stone boat commemorating the naumachia of Domitian,--naval battles which took place in an artificial lake surrounded by a kind of theatre, which once occupied the site of this piazza. In front of the _Palazzo di Spagna_ (the residence of the Spanish ambassador), which gives its name to the square, stands a _Column_ of cipollino, supporting a statue of the Virgin, erected by Pius IX. in 1854, in honour of his new dogma of the Immaculate Conception. At the base are figures of Moses, David, Isaiah, and Ezekiel.

The Piazza di Spagna may be considered as the centre of the English quarter, of which the Corso forms the boundary.

"Every winter there is a gay and pleasant English colony in Rome, of course more or less remarkable for rank, fashion, or agreeability, with every varying year. Thrown together every day and night after night, flocking to the same picture-galleries, statue-galleries, Pincian drives, and church functions, the English colonists at Rome perforce become intimate, and in many cases friendly. They have an English library where the various meets for the week are placarded: on such a day the Vatican galleries are open; the next is the feast of Saint so-and-so; on Wednesday there will be music and vespers at the Sistine Chapel; on Thursday the pope will bless the animals--sheep, horses, and what-not; and flocks of English accordingly rush to witness the benediction of droves of donkeys. In a word, the ancient city of the Cæsars, the august fanes of the popes, with their splendour and ceremony, are all mapped out and arranged for English diversion."--Thackeray, _The Newcomes._

The Piazza is closed by the _Collegio di Propaganda Fede_, founded in 1622 by Gregory XV., but enlarged by Urban VIII., who built the present edifice from plans of Bernini. Like all the buildings erected by this pope, its chief decorations are the bees of the Barberini. The object of the college is the education of youths of all nations as missionaries.

"The origin of the Propaganda is properly to be sought in an edict of Gregory XIII., by which the direction of eastern missions was confided to a certain number of cardinals, who were commanded to promote the printing of catechisms in the less known tongues. But the institution was not firmly established; it was unprovided with the requisite means, and was by no means comprehensive in its views. It was at the suggestion of the great preacher Girolamo da Narni that the idea was first conceived of extending the above-named institution. At his suggestion, a congregation was established in all due form, and by this body regular meetings were to be held for the guidance and conduct of missions in every part of the world. The first funds were advanced by Gregory; his nephew contributed from his private property; and since this institution was in fact adapted to a want, the pressure of which was then felt, it increased in prosperity and splendour. Who does not know the services performed by the Propaganda for the diffusion of philosophical studies? and not this only;--the institution has generally laboured (in its earliest years most successfully, perhaps) to fulfil its vocation in a liberal and noble spirit."--_Ranke, Hist. of the Popes._

"On y reçoit des jeunes gens nés dans les pays ultramontains et orientaux, où sont les infidéles et les hérétiques; ils y font leur education religieuse et civile, et retournent dans leur pays comme missionnaires pour propager la loi."--_A. Du Pays._

"Le collége du Propaganda Fede, ou l'on engraisse des missionnaires pour donner à manger aux cannibales. C'est, ma foi, un excellent ragout pour eux, que deux pères franciscains à la sauce rousse. Le capucin en daube, se mange aussi comme le renard, quand il a été gelé. Il y a à la Propagande une bibliothèque, une imprimerie fournie de toutes sortes de caractères des langues orientales, et de petits Chinois qu'on y élève ainsi que des alouettes chanterelles, pour en attraper d'autres."--_De Brosses._

In January a festival is held here, when speeches are recited by the pupils in all their different languages. The public is admitted by tickets.

* * * * *

The _Via Ripetta_ leaves the Piazza del Popolo on the right. Passing, on the right, a large building belonging to the Academy of St. Luke, we reach, on the right, the Quay of the Ripetta, a pretty architectural construction of Clement XI. in 1707.

Hence, a clumsy ferry-boat gives access to a walk which leads to St. Peter's (by Porta Angelica) through the fields at the back of S. Angelo. These fields are of historic interest, being the _Prata Quinctia_ of Cincinnatus.

"L. Quinctius Cincinnatus, the only hope of the Roman people, lived beyond the Tiber, opposite the place where the Navalia are, where he cultivated the four acres of ground which are now called the Quinctian meadows. There the messengers of the senate found him leaning on his spade, either digging a trench or ploughing, but certainly occupied in some field labour. The salutation, 'May it be well with you and the republic,' was given and returned in the usual form, and he was requested to put on his toga to receive a message from the senate. Amazed, and asking if anything was wrong, he desired his wife Racilia to fetch his toga from the cottage, and having wiped off the sweat and dust with which he was covered, he came forward dressed in his toga to the messengers, who saluted him as dictator, and congratulated him."--_Livy_, iii. 26.

The churches on the left of the Ripetta are, first, _SS. Rocco e Martino_, built 1657, by Antonio de Rossi, with a hospital adjoining it.

"The lying-in hospital adjoins the Church of San Rocco. It contains seventy beds, furnished with curtains and screens, so as to separate them effectually. Females are admitted without giving their name, their country, or their condition in life; and such is the delicacy observed in their regard, that they are at liberty to wear a veil, so as to remain unknown even to their attendants, in order to save the honour of their families, and prevent abortion, suicide, or infanticide. Even should death ensue, the deceased remains unknown. The children are conveyed to Santo Spirito; and the mother who wishes to retain her offspring, affixes a distinctive mark, by which it may be recognised and recovered. To remove all disquietude from the minds of those who may enter, the establishment is exempt from all civil, criminal, and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and its threshold is never crossed except by persons connected with the establishment."--_Dr. Donovan._

Then, opposite the quay, _S. Girolamo degli Schiavoni_, built for Sixtus V. by Fontana. It contains, near the altar, a striking figure of St. Jerome, seated, with a book upon his knees.

* * * * *

We will now follow the Corso, which, in spite of its narrowness and bad side-pavements, is the finest street in Rome. It is greatly to be regretted that this street, which is nearly a mile long, should lead to nothing, instead of ending at the steps of the Capitol, which would have produced a striking effect. It follows the line of the ancient Via Flaminia, and in consequence was once spanned by four triumphal arches--of Marcus Aurelius, Domitian, Claudius, and Gordian--but all these have disappeared. The Corso is perfectly lined with balconies, which, during the carnival, are filled with gay groups of maskers flinging confetti. These balconies are a relic of imperial times, having been invented at Rome, where they were originally called "Mœniana," from the tribune Mœnius, who designed them to accommodate spectators of processions in the streets below.

"The Corso is a street a mile long; a street of shops, and palaces, and private houses, sometimes opening into a broad piazza. There are verandahs and balconies, of all shapes and sizes, to almost every house--not on one story alone, but often to one room or another on every story--put there in general with so little order or regularity, that if, year after year, and season after season, it had rained balconies, hailed balconies, snowed balconies, blown balconies, they could scarcely have come into existence in a more disorderly manner."--_Dickens._

On the left of the Corso is the Augustine Church of _Gesù e Maria_, with a façade by _Rinaldi_. Almost opposite, is the Church of _S. Giacomo degli Incurabili_, by _Carlo Maderno_. It is attached to a surgical hospital for 350 patients. In the adjoining Strada S. Giacomo was the studio of Canova, recognizable by fragments of bas-reliefs engrafted in its walls.

Three streets beyond this (on right) is the _Via de' Pontefici_ (so called from a series of papal portraits, now destroyed, which formerly existed on the walls of one of its houses), where (No. 57R) is the entrance to the remains of the _Mausoleum of Augustus_.

"Hard by the banks of the Tiber, in the grassy meadows where the Roman youths met in athletic and martial exercises, there rose a lofty marble tower with three retiring stages, each of which had its terrace covered with earth and planted with cypresses. These stages were pierced with numerous chambers, destined to receive, row within row, and story upon story, the remains of every member of the imperial family, with many thousands of their slaves and freedmen. In the centre of that massive mound the great founder of the empire was to sleep his last sleep, while his statue was ordained to rise conspicuous on its summit, and satiate its everlasting gaze with the view of his beloved city."--_Merivale._

The first funeral here was that of Marcellus, son of Octavia, the sister of Augustus, and first husband of his daughter Julia, who died of malaria at Baiæ, B.C. 23.

"Quantos ille virûm magnam Mavortis ad urbem Campus aget gemitus! vel quæ, Tiberine, videbis Funera, cum tumulum præterlabere recentem! Nec puer Iliacâ quisquam de gente Latinos In tantum spe tollet avos; nec Romula quondam Ullo se tantum tellus jactabit alumno. Heu pietas, heu prisca fides, invictaque bello Dextera! non illi se quisquam impune tulisset Obvius armato, seu quum pedes iret in hostem, Seu spumantis equi foderet calcaribus armos. Heu, miserande puer! si qua fata aspera rumpas, Tu Marcellus eris."

_Æneid_, vi. 873.

The next member of the family buried here was Agrippa, the second husband of Julia, ob. 12 B.C. Then came Octavia, sister of the emperor and widow of Antony, honoured by a public funeral, at which orations were delivered by Augustus himself, and Drusus, son of the empress Livia. Her body was carried to the tomb by Tiberius (afterwards emperor) and Drusus, the two sons of the empress. Drusus (B.C. 9) died in a German campaign by a fall from his horse, and was brought back hither for interment. In A.D. 14 the great Augustus died at Nola, and his body was burnt here on a funeral pile so gigantic, that the widowed Livia, dishevelled and ungirt, with bare feet, attended by the principal Roman senators, had to watch it for five days and nights, before it cooled sufficiently for them to collect the ashes of the emperor. At the moment of its being lighted an eagle was let loose from the summit of the pyre, under which form a senator, named Numerius Atticus, was induced, by a gift from Livia equivalent to 250,000 francs, to swear that he saw the spirit of Augustus fly away to heaven. Then came Germanicus, son of the first Drusus, and nephew of Tiberius, ob. A.D. 19, at Antioch, where he was believed to have been poisoned by Piso and his wife Plancina. Then, in A.D. 23, Drusus, son of Tiberius, poisoned by his wife, Livilla, and her lover, Sejanus: then the empress, Livia, who died A.D. 29, at the age of 86. Agrippina, widow of Germanicus (ob. A.D. 33), starved to death, and her two sons, Nero and Drusus, also murdered by Tiberius, were long excluded from the family sepulchre, but were eventually brought hither by the youngest brother Caius, afterwards the emperor Caligula. Tiberius, who died A.D. 37, at the villa of Lucullus at Misenum, was brought here for burial. The ashes of Caligula, murdered A.D. 41, and first buried in the Horti Lamiani on the Esquiline, were transferred here by his sisters. In his reign, Antonia, the widow of Drusus, and mother of Germanicus, had died, and her ashes were laid up here. The Emperor Claudius, A.D. 54, murdered by Agrippina; his son, Britannicus, A.D. 55, murdered by Nero; and the Emperor Nerva, A.D. 98, were the latest inmates of the mausoleum.

The last cremation which occurred here was long after the mausoleum had fallen into ruin, when the body of the tribune Rienzi, after having hung for two days at S. Marcello, was ordered to be burnt here by Jugurta and Sciaretta, and was consumed by a vast multitude of Jews (out of flattery to the Colonna, their neighbours at the Ghetto), "in a fire of dry thistles, till it was reduced to ashes, and no fibre of it remained."

There is nothing now remaining to testify to the former magnificence of this building. The area is used in summer as an open-air theatre, where very amusing little plays are very well acted. Among its massive cells a poor washerwoman, known as "Sister Rose," established, some ten years ago, a kind of hospital for aged women (several of them centagenarians), whom she supported entirely by her own exertions, having originally begun by taking care of one old woman, and gradually adding another and another. The English church service was first performed in Rome in the Palazzo Correa, adjoining this building.

Opposite the Via de' Pontefici, the _Via Vittoria_ leaves the Corso. To the Ursuline convent in this street (founded by Camilla Borghese in the seventeenth century) Madame Victoire and Madame Adelaide ("tantes du Roi") fled in the beginning of the great French revolution, and here they died.

_The Church of S. Carlo in Corso_ (on right) is the national church of the Lombards. It is a handsome building with a fine dome. The interior was commenced by _Lunghi_ in 1614, and finished by _Pietro da Cortona_. It contains no objects of interest, unless a picture of the Apotheosis of S. Carlo Borromeo (the patron of the church), over the high altar, by _Carlo Maratta_, can be called so. The heart of the saint is preserved under the altar.

Just beyond this on the left, the _Via Condotti_--almost lined with jewellers'-shops--branches off to the Piazza di Spagna. The Trinità de' Monti is seen beyond it. The opposite street, Via Fontanella, leads to St. Peter's, and in five minutes to the magnificent--

_Palazzo Borghese_, begun in 1590 by Cardinal Deza, from designs of Martino Lunghi, and finished by Paul V. (Camillo Borghese, 1605-21), from those of Flaminio Ponzio. The apartments inhabited by the family are handsome, but contain few objects of interest.

"In the reign of Paul V. the Borghese became the wealthiest and most powerful family in Rome. In the year 1612, the church benefices already conferred upon Cardinal Scipione Borghese were computed to secure him an income of 150,000 scudi. The temporal offices were bestowed on Marc-Antonio Borghese, on whom the pope also conferred the principality of Sulmona in Naples, besides giving him rich palaces in Rome and the most beautiful villas in the neighbourhood. He loaded his nephews with presents; we have a list of them through his whole reign down to the year 1620. They are sometimes jewels or vessels of silver, or magnificent furniture, which was taken directly from the stores of the palace and sent to the nephews; at other times carriages, rich arms, as muskets and falconets, were presented to them; but the principal thing was the round sums of hard money. These accounts make it appear that to the year 1620, they had received in ready money 689,627 scudi, 31 baj; in luoghi di monte, 24,600 scudi, according to their nominal value; in places, computing them at the sum their sale would have brought to the treasury, 268,176 scudi; all which amounted, as in the case of the Aldobrandini, to nearly a million.

"Nor did the Borghese neglect to invest their wealth in real property. They acquired eighty estates in the Campagna of Rome; the Roman nobles suffering themselves to be tempted into the sale of their ancient hereditary domain by the large prices paid them, and by the high rate of interest borne by the luoghi di monte, which they purchased with the money thus acquired. In many other parts of the ecclesiastical states, the Borghese also seated themselves, the pope facilitating their doing so by the grant of peculiar privileges. In some places, for example, they received the right of restoring exiles; in others, that of holding a market, or certain exemptions were granted to those who became their vassals. They were freed from various imposts, and even obtained a bull, by virtue of which their possessions were never to be confiscated."--_Ranke, Hist. of the Popes._

"Si l'on peut reprocher à Paul, avec Muratori, ses libéralités envers ses neveux, envers le cardinal Scipion, envers le duc de Sulmone, il est juste d'ajouter que la plupart des membres de cette noble famille rivalisèrent avec le pape de magnificence et de générosité. Or, chaque année, Paul V. distribuait un million d'écus d'or aux pélerins pauvres et un million et demi aux autres nécessiteux. C'est à lui que remonte la fondation de la banque du Saint-Esprit, dont les riches immeubles servirent d'hypothèques aux dépôts qui lui furent confiés. Mais ce fut surtout dans les constructions qu'il entreprit, que Paul V. déploya une royale magnificence."--_Gournerie._

"The Palazzo Borghese is an immense edifice standing round the four sides of a quadrangle; and though the suite of rooms, comprising the picture-gallery, forms an almost interminable vista, they occupy only a part of the ground-floor of one side. We enter from the street into a large court surrounded with a corridor, the arches of which support a second series of arches above. The picture-rooms open from one into another, and have many points of magnificence, being large and lofty, with vaulted ceilings and beautiful frescoes, generally of mythological subjects, in the flat central parts of the vault. The cornices are gilded; the deep embrasures of the windows are panelled with wood-work; the doorways are of polished and variegated marble, or covered with a composition as hard, and seemingly as durable. The whole has a kind of splendid shabbiness thrown over it, like a slight coating of rust; the furniture, at least the damask chairs, being a good deal worn; though there are marble and mosaic tables which may serve to adorn another palace, when this has crumbled away with age."--_Hawthorne._

The Borghese Picture Gallery is the best private collection in Rome, and is open to the public daily from 9 to 2, except on Saturdays and Sundays. The gallery is entered from the side of the palace towards the Piazza Borghese. It contains several gems, which are here marked with an asterisk; noticeable pictures are:--

_1st Room._--Schools of Milan and Perugia.

1. Holy Family: _Sandro Botticelli_. 2. Holy Family: _Lorenzo di Credi_. 3. Holy Family: _Paris Alfani Perugino_. 4. Portrait: _Lorenzo di Credi_. 5. Vanity: _School of Leonardo da Vinci_. 27, 28. Petrarch and Laura. 32. St. Agatha: _School of Leonardo_. 33. The Young Christ: _School of Leonardo_. 34. Madonna: _School of Perugino_. 35. Raphael as a boy: _Raphael?_ 43. Madonna: _Francesco Francia?_ 44. Calvario: _C. Crivelli_. 48. St. Sebastian: _Perugino_. 49, 57. History of Joseph: _Pinturicchio_. 59. Presepio: _Sketch attributed to Raphael when young_. 61. St. Antonio: _Francesco Francia_. 66. Presepio: _Mazzolino_. 67. Adoration of the Child Jesus: _Ortolano_. 68. Christ and St. Thomas: _Mazzolino?_ 69. Holy Family: _Pollajuolo_.

_2nd Room._--Chiefly of the school of Garofalo.

6. Madonna with St. Joseph and St. Michael: _Garofalo_. 9. The mourners over the dead Christ: _Garofalo_.* 18. Portrait of Julius II.: _Giulio Romano, after Raphael_. 22. Portrait of a Cardinal: _Bronzino? called Raphael_.* 23. 'Madonna col divin' amore': _School of Raphael_.* 26. Portrait of Cæsar Borgia: _Bronzino, attributed to Raphael_.*[5] 28. Portrait of a (naked) woman: _Bronzino_. 36. Holy Family: _Andrea del Sarto_. 38. Entombment: _Raphael_.*

This picture was the last work of Raphael before he went to Rome. It was ordered by Atalanta Baglioni for a chapel in S. Francesco de' Conventuali at Perugia. Paul V. bought it for the Borghese. The 'Faith, Hope, and Charity' at the Vatican, formed a predella for this picture.

"Raphael's picture of 'Bearing the Body of Christ to the Sepulchre,' though meriting all its fame in respect of drawing, expression, and knowledge, has lost all signs of reverential feeling in the persons of the bearers. The reduced size of the winding-sheet is to blame for this, by bringing them rudely in contact with their precious burden. Nothing can be finer than their figures, or more satisfactory than their labour, if we forget what it is they are carrying; but it is the weight of the burden only, and not the character of it, which the painter has kept in view, and we feel that the result would have been the same had these figures been carrying a sack of sand. Here, from the youth of the figure, the bearer at the feet appears to be St. John."--_Lady Eastlake._

40. Holy Family: _Fra Bartolomeo_. 43. Madonna: _Fr. Francia_. 44. Madonna: _Sodoma_. 51. St. Stephen: _Francesco Francia_.* 59. Adoration of the Magi: _Mazzolino_. 60. Presepio: _Garofalo_. 65. The Fornarina: _Copy of Raphael, Giulio Romano?_ 69. St. John Baptist in the Wilderness: _Giulio Romano_.

_3rd Room._--Chiefly of the school of Andrea del Sarto. (The works of this painter are often confounded with those of his disciple, Domenico Puligo.)

1. Christ bearing the Cross: _Andrea Solario_. 2. Portrait: _Parmigianino._ 5. 'Noli me tangere': _Bronzino?_ 11. The Sorceress Circe: _Dosso Dossi_. 13. Mater Dolorosa: _Solario?_ 22. Holy Family: _School of Raphael_. 24. Madonna and Child with three children: _A. del Sarto_. 28. Madonna, Child, and St. John: _A. del Sarto_. 29. Madonna, Child, St. John, and St. Elizabeth: _Pierino del Vaga_. 33. Holy Family: _Pierino del Vaga_. 35. Venus and Cupids: _A. del Sarto_. 40. Danae: _Correggio_.*

In the corner of this picture are the celebrated Cupids sharpening an arrow.

42. Cosmo de' Medici: _Bronzino_. 46. The Reading Magdalene: _School of Correggio_. 47. Holy Family: _Pomarancio_. 48. The Flagellation: _Sebastian del Piombo_.* 49. St. M. Magdalene: _A. del Sarto_.

_4th Room._--Bolognese school.

1. Entombment: _Ann. Carracci_. 2. Cumæan Sibyl: _Domenichino_.* 18. St. Francis: _Cigoli_. 20. St. Joseph: _Guido Reni_. 23. St. Francis: _Ann. Carracci_. 29. St. Domenic: _Ann. Carracci_. 36. Madonna: _Carlo Dolce_. 37. Mater Dolorosa: _Carlo Dolce_. 38, 41. Two heads for an Annunciation: _Furino_. 42. Head of Christ: _Carlo Dolce_. 43. Madonna: _Sassoferrato_.

_5th Room._--

11, 12, 13, 14. The Four Seasons: _Fr. Albani_.

"The Seasons, by Francesco Albani, were, beyond all others, my favourite pieces; the beautiful, joyous, angel-children--the Loves, were as if creations of my own dreams. How deliciously they were staggering about in the picture of Spring! A crowd of them were sharpening arrows, whilst one of them turned round the great grindstone, and two others, floating above, poured water upon it. In Summer, they flew about among the tree-branches, which were loaded with fruit, which they plucked; they swam in the fresh water, and played with it. Autumn brought the pleasures of the chase. Cupid sits, with a torch in his hand, in his little chariot, which two of his companions draw; while Love beckons to the brisk hunter, and shows him the place where they can rest themselves side by side. Winter has lulled all the little ones to sleep; soundly and fast they lie slumbering around. The Nymphs steal their quivers and arrows, which they throw on the fire, that there may be an end of the dangerous weapons."--_Andersen, in The Improvisatore._

15. La Caccia di Diana: _Domenichino_. 25. The Deposition, with Angels: _F. Zuccari_.

_6th Room._--

5. Return of the Prodigal Son: _Guercino_. 7. Portrait of G. Ghislieri: _Pietro da Cortona_. 10. St Stanislaus with the Child Jesus: _Ribera_.* 12. Joseph Interpreting the Dreams in Prison: _Valentin_. 13. The Three Ages of Man. _Copy from Titian by Sassoferrato_.[6] 18. Madonna: _Sassoferrato_. 22. Flight of Æneas from Troy: _Baroccio_.

_7th Room._--Richly decorated with mirrors, painted with Cupids by _Girofiri_, and wreaths of flowers by _Mario di Fiori_.

_8th Room._--Contains nothing of importance, except a mosaic portrait of Paul V. by _Marcello Provenzali_.

_9th Room._--Containing several interesting frescoes.

1. The Nuptials of Alexander and Roxana. 2. The Nuptials of Vertumnus and Pomona. 3. 'Il Bersaglio dei Dei.'

These three frescoes were brought hither from the Casino of Raphael, in the Villa Borghese (destroyed in the siege of Rome in 1849), and are supposed to have been painted by some of Raphael's pupils from his designs. The other frescoes in this room are by _Giulio Romano_, and were removed from the Villa Lante, when it was turned into a convent.

_10th Room._--

2. Cupid blindfolded by Venus: _Titian_. 4. Judith: _School of Titian_. 9. Portrait: _Pordenone_. 13. David with the head of Goliath: _Giorgione_.* 14. St. John the Baptist preaching (unfinished): _Paul Veronese_. 16. St. Domenic: _Titian_. 19. Portrait: _Giac. Bassano_. 21. 'Sacred and Profane Love': _Titian_.*

"Out of Venice there is nothing of Titian's to compare to his Sacred and Profane Love. It represents two figures: one, a heavenly and youthful form, unclothed, except with a light drapery; the other, a lovely female, dressed in the most splendid attire; both are sitting on the brink of a well, into which a little winged Love is groping, apparently to find his lost dart.... Description can give no idea of the consummate beauty of this composition. It has all Titian's matchless warmth of colouring, with a correctness of design no other painter of the Venetian school ever attained. It is nature, but not individual nature: it is ideal beauty in all its perfection, and breathing life in all its truth, that we behold."--_Eaton's Rome._

"Two female forms are seated on the edge of a sarcophagus-shaped fountain, the one in a rich Venetian costume, with gloves, flowers in her hands, and a plucked rose beside her, is in deep meditation, as if solving some difficult question. The other is unclothed; a red drapery is falling behind her, while she exhibits a form of the utmost beauty and delicacy; she is turning towards the other figure with the sweetest persuasiveness of expression. A Cupid is playing in the fountain; in the distance is a rich, glowing landscape."--_Kugler._

30. Madonna: _Giov. Bellini_. 34. St. Cosmo and Damian: _Venetian School_.

_11th Room._--Veronese school.

1. Madonna with Adam (?) and St. Augustine: _Lorenzo Lotto_, MDVIII. 2. St. Anthony preaching to the Fishes: _P. Veronese?_ 3. Madonna: _Titian?_ 11. Venus and Cupid on Dolphins: _Luc. Cambiaso_. 14. Last Supper: _And. Schiavone_. 15. Christ and the Mother of Zebedee's Children: _Bonifazio_.* 16. Return of the Prodigal Son: _Bonifazio_.* 17. Samson: _Titian_. 18. Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery: _Bonifazio_. 19. Madonna and Saints: _Palma Vecchio_.

In this picture the donors are introduced--the head of the man is grandly devout and beautiful.

25. Portrait of Himself: _Titian?_ 27. Portrait: _Giov. Bellini_. 31. Madonna and St. Peter: _Giov. Bellini_. 32. Holy Family: _Palma Vecchio_. 33. Portrait of the Family of Licini da Pordenone: _Bart. Licini da Pordenone_.

_12th Room._--Dutch and German school.

1. Crucifixion: _Vandyke_. 7. Entombment: _Vandyke_. 8. Tavern Scene: _Teniers_. 9. Interior: _Brouerer_. 19. Louis VI. of Bavaria: _Albert Dürer?_ 21. Portrait: _Holbein_. 21. Landscape and Horses: _Wouvermann_. 22. Cattle-piece: _Paul Potter_. 24. Portrait: _Holbein_. 26. Skating (in brown): _Berghem_. 27. Portrait: _Vandyke_. 35. Portrait: _Lucas von Leyden?_ 44. Venus and Cupid: _Lucas Cranach_.

The _Palazzetto Borghese_ on the opposite side of the piazza, originally intended as a dower-house for the family, is now let in apartments. It is this house which is described as the "Palazzo Clementi," in _Mademoiselle Mori_.

At the corner of the Via Fontanella and the Corso is the handsome _Palazzo Ruspoli_, built by Ammanati in 1586. It has a grand white marble staircase erected by Lunghi in 1750. Beyond this are the palaces _Fiano_, _Verospi_, and _Teodoli_.

"Les palais de Rome, bien que n'ayant pas un caractère original comme ceux de Florence ou de Venise n'en sont pas moins cependant un des traits de la ville des papes. Ils n'appartiennent ni au moyen age, ni à la renaissance (la Palais de Venise seul rappelle les constructions massives de Florence); ils sont des modèles d'architecture civile moderne. Les Bramante, les Sangallo, les Balthazar Peruzzi, qui les ont batis, sont des maîtres qu'on ne se lasse pas d'étudier. La magnificence de ces palais reside principalement dans leur architecture et dans les collections artistiques que quelques-uns contiennent. Un certain nombre sont malheureusement dans un triste état d'abandon. De plus, à l'exception d'un très petit nombre, ils sont restés inachevés. Cela se conçoit; presque tous sont le produit du luxe célibataire des papes ou des cardinaux; très-peu de ces personages ont pu voir la fin de ce qu'ils avaient commencé. Leurs heritiers, pour le plupart, se souciaient fort peu de jeter les richesses qu'ils venaient d'acquerir dans les édifices de luxe et de vanité. A l'intérieur, le plus souvent, est un mobilier rare, suranné, et mesquin."--_A. Du Pays._[7]

The _Palazzo Bernini_ (151 Corso), on the left, has, inside its entrance, a curious statue of "Calumny" by _Bernini_, with an inscription relative to his own sufferings from slander.

On the right, the small piazza of S. Lorenzo opens out of the Corso. Here is the _Church of S. Lorenzo in Lucina_, founded in the fifth century, but rebuilt in its present form by Paul V. in 1606. The campanile is of an older date, and so are the lions in the portico.

"When the lion, or other wild beast, appears in the act of preying on a smaller animal or on a man, is implied the severity of the Church towards the impenitent or heretical; but when in the act of sporting with another creature, her benignity towards the neophyte and the docile. At the portal of St Lorenzo in Lucina, this idea is carried out in the figure of a mannikin affectionately stroking the head of the terrible creature who protects, instead of devouring him."--_Hemans' Christian Art._

No one should omit seeing the grand picture of _Guido Reni_, over the high altar of this church,--the Crucifixion, seen against a wild, stormy sky. Niccolas Poussin, ob. 1660, is buried here, and one of his best known Arcadian landscapes is reproduced in a bas-relief upon his tomb, which was erected by Chateaubriand, with the epitaph,--

"Parce piis lacrymis, vivit Pussinus in urnâ, Vivus qui dederat, nescius ipse mori. Hîc tamen ipse silet; si vis audire loquentem, Mirum est, in tabulis vivit, et eloquitur."

In "The Ring and the Book" of Browning, this church is the scene of Pompilia's baptism and marriage. She is made to say:--

--"This St. Lorenzo seems My own particular place, I always say. I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high As the bed here, what the marble lion meant, Eating the figure of a prostrate man."

Here the bodies of her parents are represented as being exposed after the murder:

--"beneath the piece Of Master Guido Reni, Christ on Cross, Second to nought observable in Rome."

On the left, where the Via della Vite turns out of the Corso, an inscription in the wall records the destruction, in 1665, of the triumphal arch of Marcus Aurelius, which existed here till that time. The magnificence of this arch is attested by the bas-reliefs representing the history of the emperor, which were removed from it, and are preserved on the staircase of the palace of the Conservators.

"Les Barbares n'en savaient pas assez et n'avaient pas assez de patience pour démolir les monuments romains; mais, avec les ressources de la science moderne et à la suite d'une administration régulière, on est venu à bout de presque tout ce que le temps avait épargné. Il y'avait, par exemple, au commencement du XVIe. siècle, quatre arcs de triomphe qui n'existent plus; le dernier, celui de Marc Aurele, a été enlevé par le pape Alexandre VII. On lit encore dans le Corso l'inconcevable inscription dans laquelle le pape se vante d'avoir debarrassé la promenade publique de ce monument, qui, vu sa date, devait être d'un beau style."--_Ampère, Voyage Dantesque._

A little further down the Corso, on the left, the Via delle Convertite leads to _S. Sylvestro in Capite_, one of three churches in Rome dedicated to the sainted pope of the time of Constantine. This, like S. Lorenzo, has a fine mediæval campanile. The day of St. Sylvester's death, December 31 (A.D. 335), is kept here with great solemnity, and is celebrated by magnificent musical services. This pope was buried in the cemetery of Priscilla, whence his remains were removed to S. Martino al Monte. The title "In Capite" is given to this church on account of the head of St John Baptist, which it professes to possess, as is narrated by an inscription engrafted into its walls.

The convent attached to this church was founded in 1318, especially for noble sisters of the house of Colonna who dedicated themselves to God. Here it was that the celebrated Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa di Pescara, came to reside in 1525, when widowed in her thirty-sixth year, and here she began to write her sonnets, a kind of "In Memoriam," to her husband. It is a curious proof of the value placed upon her remaining in the world, that Pope Clement VII. was persuaded to send a brief to the abbess and nuns, desiring them to offer her "all spiritual and temporal consolations," but forbidding them, under pain of the greater excommunication, to permit her to take the veil in her affliction.[8]

At the end of this street, continued under the name of Via de Mercede (No. 11 was the residence of Bernini), and behind the Propaganda, is the _Church of S. Andrea delle Fratte_, whose brick cupola by Borromini is so picturesque a feature. The bell-tower beside it swings when the bells are rung. In the second chapel on the right is the beautiful modern tomb of Mademoiselle Julie Falconnet, by Miss Hosmer. The opposite chapel is remarkable for a modern miracle (?) annually commemorated here.

"M. Ratisbonne, un juif, appartenant à une très-riche famille d'Alsace, qui se trouvait accidentellement à Rome, se promenant dans l'église de S. Andrea delle Fratte pendant qu'on y faisait les préparatifs pour les obsèques de M. de la Ferronays, s'y est converti subitement. Il se trouvait debout en face d'une chapelle dédiée à l'ange gardien, à quelques pas, lorsque tout-à-coup il a eu une apparition lumineuse de la Sainte Vierge qui lui a fait signe d'aller vers cette chapelle. Une force irrésistible l'y a entraíné, il y est tombé à genoux, et il a été à l'instant chrétien. Sa première parole à celui qui l'avait accompagné a été, en relevant son visage inondé de larmes: 'Il faut que ce monsieur ait beaucoup prié pour moi.'"--_Récit d'une Sœur._

"Era un istante ch'io mi stava in chiesa allora che di colpo mi sentii preso da inesprimibile conturbamento. Alzai gli occhi; tutto l'edifizio s'era dileguato a' miei sguardi; sola una cappella aveva come in se raccolta tutta la luce, e di mezzo di raggianti splendori s' è mostrata diritta sull'altare, grande, sfolgoreggiante, piena di maestà, e di dolcezza, la Vergine Maria. Una forza irresistibile m'ha sospinto verso di lei. La Vergine m'ha fatto della mano segno d'inginocchiarmi; pareva volermi dire, 'Bene!' Ella non mi ha parlato ma io ho inteso tutto."--_Recital of Alfonse Ratisbonne._[9]

M. de la Ferronays, whose character is now so well known from the beautiful family memoirs of Mrs. Augustus Craven, is buried beneath the altar where this vision occurred. In the third chapel on the left is the tomb of Angelica Kauffmann; in the right aisle that of the Prussian artist, Schadow. The two angels in front of the choir are by _Bernini_, who intended them for the bridge of S. Angelo.

Returning to the Corso, the Via S. Claudio (left) leads to the pretty little church of that name, adjoining the Palazzo Parisani. Behind, is the Church of Sta. Maria in Via.

At the corner of the Piazza Colonna is the _Palazzo Chigi_, begun in 1526 by Giacomo della Porta, and finished by Carlo Maderno. It contains several good pictures and a fine library, but is seldom shown.[10]

The most remarkable members of the great family of Chigi have been the famous banker Agostino Chigi, who lived so sumptuously at the Farnesina (see chap. 20), and Fabio Chigi, who mounted the papal throne as Alexander VII., and who long refused to have anything to do with the aggrandisement of his family, saying that the poor were the only relations he would acknowledge, and, like Christ, he did not wish for any nearer ones. To keep himself in mind of the shortness of earthly grandeur, this pope always kept a coffin in his room, and drank out of a cup shaped like a skull.

The side of the _Piazza Colonna_, which faces the Corso, is occupied by the Post-Office. On its other sides are the Piombino and Ferrajuoli palaces, of no interest. In the centre is placed the fine _Column_, which was found on the Monte Citorio in 1709, having been originally erected by the senate and people A.D. 174, to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (adopted son of the Emperor Hadrian,--husband of his niece, Annia Faustina,--father of the Emperor Commodus). It is surrounded by bas-reliefs, representing the conquest of the Marcomanni. One of these has long been an especial object of interest, from being supposed to represent a divinity (Jupiter?) sending rain to the troops, in answer to the prayers of a Christian legion from Mitylene. Eusebius gives the story, stating that the piety of these Christians induced the emperor to ask their prayers in his necessity, and a letter in Justin Martyr (of which the authenticity is much doubted), in which Aurelius allows the fact, is produced in proof. The statue of St. Paul on the top of the column was erected by Sixtus V.; the pedestal also is modern.

Behind the Piazza Colonna is the _Piazza Monte Citorio_, containing an _Obelisk_ which was discovered in broken fragments near the Church of S. Lorenzo in Lucina. It was repaired with pieces of the column of Antoninus Pius, the pedestal of which may still be seen in the Vatican garden. Its hieroglyphics are very perfect and valuable, and show that it was erected more than 600 years before Christ, in honour of Psammeticus I. It was brought from Heliopolis by Augustus, and erected by him in the Campus Martius, where it received the name of Obeliscus Solaris, from being made to act as a sun-dial.

"Ei, qui est in campo, divus Augustus addidit mirabilem usum ad deprehendendas solis umbras, dierumque ac noctium ita magnitudines, strato lapide ad magnitudinem obelisci, cui par fieret umbra, brumæ confectæ die, sexta hora; paulatimque per regulas (quæ sunt ex die exclusæ) singulis diebus decresceret ac rursus augesceret: digna cognitu res et ingenio fœcundo. Manilius mathematicus apici auratam pilam addidit, cujus umbra vertice colligeretur in se ipsa alias enormiter jaculante apice ratione (ut ferunt) a capite hominis intellecta. Hæc observatio triginta jam ferè annos non congruit, sive solis ipsius dissono cursu, et cœli aliqua ratione mutato, sive universa tellure a centra suo aliquid emota ut deprehendi et in aliis locis accipio: sive urbis tremoribus ibi tantum gnomone intorto, sive inundationibus Tiberis sedimento molis facto: quanquam ad altitudinem impositi oneris in terram quoque dicantur acta fundamenta."--_Plin. Nat. Hist._ lib. xxxiv. 14.

_The Palace of the Monte Citorio_ (designed by Bernini) contains public offices connected with police, passports, &c. On the opposite side of the piazza are the Railway and Telegraph Offices.

Proceeding up the Corso, the Via di Pietra (right) leads into the small Piazza di Pietra, one side of which is occupied by the eleven remaining columns of the _Temple of Neptune_, built up by Innocent XII. into the walls of the modern Custom-house. It is worth while to enter the courtyard in order to look back and observe the immense masses of stone above the entrance, part of the ancient temple,--which are here uncovered.

Close to this, behind the Palazzo Cini, in the Piazza Orfanelli, is the _Teatro Capranica_, occupying part of a palace of _c._ 1350, with gothic windows. The opposite church, _Sta. Maria in Aquiro_, recalls by its name the column of the Equiria, celebrated in ancient annals as the place where certain games and horse-races, instituted by Romulus, were celebrated. Ovid describes them in his Fasti. The church was founded _c._ 400, but was re-built under Francesco da Volterra in 1590.

A small increase of width in the Corso is now dignified by the name of the _Piazza Sciarra_. The street which turns off hence, under an arch (Via de Muratte, on the left), leads to the _Fountain of Trevi_, erected in 1735 by Niccolo Salvi for Clement XII. The statue of Neptune is by Pietro Bracci.

"The fountain of Trevi draws its precious water from a source far beyond the walls, whence it flows hitherward through old subterranean aqueducts, and sparkles forth as pure as the virgin who first led Agrippa to its well-springs by her father's door. In the design of the fountain, some sculptor of Bernini's school has gone absolutely mad, in marble. It is a great palace-front, with niches and many bas-reliefs, out of which looks Agrippa's legendary virgin, and several of the allegoric sisterhood; while at the base appears Neptune with his floundering steeds and tritons blowing their horns about him, and twenty other artificial fantasies, which the calm moonlight soothes into better taste than is native to them. And, after all, it is as magnificent a piece of work as ever human skill contrived. At the foot of the palatial façade, is strown, with careful art and ordered regularity, a broad and broken heap of massive rock, looking as if it may have lain there since the deluge. Over a central precipice falls the water, in a semicircular cascade; and from a hundred crevices, on all sides, snowy jets gush up, and streams spout out of the mouths and nostrils of stone monsters, and fall in glistening drops; while other rivulets, that have run wild, come leaping from one rude step to another, over stones that are mossy, shining and green with sedge, because, in a century of their wild play, nature has adopted the fountain of Trevi, with all its elaborate devices, for her own. Finally the water, tumbling, sparkling, and dashing with joyous haste and never ceasing murmur, pours itself into a great marble basin and reservoir, and fills it with a quivering tide; on which is seen, continually, a snowy semi-circle of momentary foam from the principal cascade, as well as a multitude of snow-points from smaller jets. The basin, occupies the whole breadth of the piazza, whence flights of steps descend to its border. A boat might float, and make mimic voyages, on this artificial lake.

"In the daytime there is hardly a livelier scene in Rome than the neighbourhood of the fountain of Trevi; for the piazza is then filled with stalls of vegetable and fruit dealers, chestnut-roasters, cigar-vendors, and other people whose petty and wandering traffic is transacted in the open air. It is likewise thronged with idlers, lounging over the iron railing, and with _forestieri_, who come hither to see the famous fountain. Here, also, are men with buckets, urchins with cans, and maidens (a picture as old as the patriarchal times) bearing their pitchers upon their heads. For the water of Trevi is in request, far and wide, as the most refreshing draught for feverish lips, the pleasantest to mingle with wine, and the wholesomest to drink in its native purity, that can anywhere be found. But, at midnight, the piazza is a solitude; and it is a delight to behold this untameable water, sporting by itself in the moonshine, and compelling all the elaborate trivialities of art to assume a natural aspect, in accordance with its own powerful simplicity. Tradition goes, that a parting draught at the fountain of Trevi ensures a traveller's return to Rome, whatever obstacles and improbabilities may seem to beset him."--_Hawthorne's Transformation_.

"Le bas-relief, placé au-dessus de cette fontaine, représente la jeune fille indiquant la source précieuse, comme dans l'antiquité une peinture représentait le même évènement dans une chapelle construite au lieu où il s'était passé."--_Ampère, Emp._ i. 264.

In this piazza is the rather handsome front of _Sta. Maria in Trivia_, formerly Sta. Maria in Fornica, erected by Cardinal Mazarin, on the site of an older church built by Belisarius--as is told by an inscription:--

"Hanc vir patricius Belisarius urbis amicus Ob culpæ veniam condidit ecclesiam. Hanc, idcirco, pedem qui sacram ponis in ædem Ut miseretur eum sæpe precare Deum."

The fault which Belisarius wished to expiate, was the exile of Pope Sylverius (A.D. 536), who was starved to death in the island of Ponza. The crypt of the present building, being the parish church of the Quirinal, contains the entrails of twenty popes (removed for embalmment)--from Sixtus V. to Pius VIII.--who died in the Quirinal Palace!

The little church near the opposite corner of the piazza is that of _The Crociferi_, and is still (1870) served by the Venerable Don Giovanni Merlini, Father General of the Order of the Precious Blood, and the personal friend of its founder, Gaspare del Buffalo.

The Fountain of Trevi occupies one end of the gigantic _Palazzo Poli_, which contains the English consulate. At the other end is the shop of the famous jeweller, Castellani, well worth visiting, for the sake of its beautiful collection of Etruscan designs, both in jewellery and in larger works of art.

"Castellani est l'homme qui a ressuscité la bijouterie romaine. Son escalier, tapissé d'inscriptions et de bas-reliefs antiques, fait croire que nous entrons dans un musée. Un jeune marchand aussi érudit que les archéologues fait voir une collection de bijoux anciens de toutes les époques, depuis les origines de l'Etrurie jusqu'au siècle de Constantin. C'est la source où Castellani puise les éléments d'un art nouveau qui détrônera avant dix ans la pacotille du Palais-Royal."--_About_, _Rome Contemporaine_.

"C'est en s'inspirant des parures retrouvées dans les tombes de l'Etrurie, des bracelets et des colliers dont se paraient les femmes étrusques et sabines, que M. Castellani, guidé par le goût savant et ingénieux d'un homme qui porte dignement l'ancien nom de Caetani, a introduit dans la bijouterie un style à la fois classique et nouveau. Parmi les artistes les plus originaux de Rome sont certainement les orfèvres Castellani et D. Miguele Caetani, duc de Sermoneta."--_Ampère_, _Hist. Rom._ i. 388.

The _Palazzo Sciarra_ (on left of the Corso), built in 1603 by Labacco, contains a gallery of pictures. Its six celebrated gems are marked with an asterisk. We may notice:--

_1st Room._--

5. Death of St. John Baptist: _Valentin_. 13. Holy Family: _Innocenza da Imola_. 15. Rome Triumphant: _Valentin_. 20. Madonna: _Titian_. 23. Sta. Francesca Romana: _Carlo Veneziano_.

_2nd Room._--

17. Flight into Egypt: _Claude Lorrain_. 18. Sunset: _Claude Lorrain_.

_3rd Room._--

6. Holy Family: _Francia_. 9. Boar Hunt: _Garofalo_. 11. Holy Family: _Andrea del Sarto_. 17. A Monk led by an Angel to the Heavenly Spheres: _Gaudenzio Ferrari_. 26. The Vestal Claudia drawing a boat with the statue of Ceres up the Tiber: _Garofalo_. 29. Tavern Scene: _Teniers_. 33. The Fornarina: _Copy of Raphael by Giulio Romano_. 36. Holy Family with Angels: _Lucas Cranach_, 1504.

_4th Room._--

1. Holy Family: _Fra Bartolomeo_.*

"The glow and freshness of colouring in this admirable painting, the softness of the skin, the beauty and sweetness of the expression, the look with which the mother's eyes are bent upon the baby she holds in her arms, and the innocent fondness with which the other child gazes up in her face, are worthy of the painter whose works Raphael delighted to study, and from which, in a great measure, he formed his principles of colouring."--_Eaton's Rome_.

5. St. John the Evangelist: _Guercino_. 6. The Violin Player (Andrea Marone?): _Raphael_.*

"The Violin Player is a youth holding the bow of a violin and a laurel wreath in his hand, and looking at the spectators over his shoulder. The expression of his countenance is sensible and decided, and betokens a character alive to the impressions of sense, yet severe. The execution is excellent,--inscribed with the date 1518."--_Kugler._

7. St. Mark: _Guercino_. 8. Daughter of Herodias: _Guercino_. 12. Conjugal Love: _Agostino Caracci_. 16. The Gamblers: _Caravaggio_.*

"This is a masterpiece of the painter. A sharper is playing at cards with a youth of family and fortune, whom his confederate, while pretending to be looking on, is assisting to cheat. The subject will remind you of the Flemish School, but this painting bears no resemblance to it. Here is no farce, no caricature. Character was never more strongly marked, nor a tale more inimitably told. It is life itself, and you almost forget it is a picture, and expect to see the game go on. The colouring is beyond all praise."--_Eaton's Rome._

17. Modesty and Vanity: _Leonardo da Vinci_.*

"One of Leonardo's most beautiful pictures is in Rome, in the Sciarra Palace--two female half-figures of Modesty and Vanity. The former, with a veil over her head, is a particularly pleasing, noble profile, with a clear, open expression; she beckons to her sister, who stands fronting the spectator, beautifully arrayed, and with a sweet seducing smile. This picture is remarkably powerful in colouring, and wonderfully finished, but unfortunately has become rather dark in the shadows."--_Kugler._

19. Magdalen: _Guido Reni_. 24. Family Portrait: _Titian_. 25. Portrait: _Bronzino_. 26. St. Sebastian: _Perugino_. 29. Bella Donna: _Titian_.*

Sometimes supposed to represent Donna Laura Eustachio, the peasant Duchess of Alphonso I. of Ferrara.

"When Titian or Tintoret look at a human being, they see at a glance the whole of its nature, outside and in; all that it has of form, of colour, of passion, or of thought; saintliness and loveliness; fleshly power, and spiritual power; grace, or strength, or softness, or whatsoever other quality, those men will see to the full, and so paint, that, when narrower people come to look at what they have done, every one may, if he chooses, find his own special pleasure in the work. The sensualist will find sensuality in Titian; the thinker will find thought; the saint, sanctity; the colourist, colour; the anatomist, form; and yet the picture will never be a popular one in the full sense, for none of these narrower people will find their special taste so alone consulted, as that the qualities which would ensure their gratification shall be sifted or separated from others; they are checked by the presence of the other qualities, which ensure the gratification of other men.... Only there is a strange undercurrent of everlasting murmur about the name of Titian, which means the deep consent of all great men that he is greater than they."--_Ruskin's Two Paths, Lect. 2._

31. Death of the Virgin: _Albert Durer_. 32. Maddalena della Radice: _Guido Reni_.*

"The two Magdalens by Guido are almost duplicates, and yet one is incomparably superior to the other. She is reclining on a rock, and her tearful and uplifted eyes, the whole of her countenance and attitude, speak the overwhelming sorrow that penetrates her soul. Her face might charm the heart of a stoic; and the contrast of her youth and enchanting loveliness, with the abandonment of grief, the resignation of all earthly hope, and the entire devotion of herself to penitence and heaven, is most affecting."--_Eaton's Rome._[11]

Near the Piazza Sciarra, the Corso (as Via Flaminia) was formerly spanned by the Arch of Claudius, removed in 1527. Some reliefs from this arch are preserved in the portico of the Villa Borghese, and though much mutilated are of fine workmanship. The inscription, which commemorated the erection of the arch in honour of the conquest of Britain, is preserved in the courtyard of the Barberini Palace.

On the right of the Piazza Sciarra is the Via della Caravita, containing the small but popular _Church of the Caravita_,[12] used for the peculiar religious exercises of the Jesuits, especially for their terrible Lenten "flagellation" services, which are one of the most extraordinary sights afforded by Catholic Rome.

"The ceremony of pious whippings, one of the penances of the convents, still takes place at the time of vespers in the oratory of the Padre Caravita and in another church in Rome. It is preceded by a short exhortation, during which a bell rings, and whips, that is, strings of knotted whipcord, are distributed quietly amongst such of the audience as are on their knees in the nave. On a second bell, the candles are extinguished--a loud voice issues from the altar, which pours forth an exhortation to think of unconfessed, or unrepented, or unforgiven crimes. This continues a sufficient time to allow the kneelers to strip off their upper garments; the tone of the preacher is raised more loudly at each word, and he vehemently exhorts his hearers to recollect that Christ and the martyrs suffered much more than whipping. 'Show, then, your penitence--show your sense of Christ's sacrifice--show it with the whip.' The flagellation begins. The darkness, the tumultuous sound of blows in every direction--'Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us!' bursting out at intervals,--the persuasion that you are surrounded by atrocious culprits and maniacs, who know of an absolution for every crime--so far from exciting a smile, fixes you to the spot in a trance of restless horror, prolonged beyond bearing. The scourging continues ten or fifteen minutes."--_Lord Broughton._

"Each man on entering the church was supplied with a scourge. After a short interval the doors were barred, the lights extinguished; and from praying, the congregation proceeded to groaning, crying, and finally, being worked up into a kind of ecstatic fury, applied the scourge to their uncovered shoulders without mercy."--_Whiteside's Italy in the Nineteenth Century._

Beyond the Caravita is the _Church of S. Ignazio_, built by Cardinal Ludovisi. The façade, of 1685, is by Algardi. It contains the tomb of Gregory XIV. (Nicolo Sfondrati, 1590--91), and that of S. Ludovico Gonzaga, both sculptured by _Le Gros_.

"In S. Ignazio is the chapel of San Luigi Gonzaga, on whom not a few of the young Roman damsels look with something of the same kind of admiration as did Clytie on Apollo, whom he and St. Sebastian, those two young, beautiful, graceful saints, very fairly represent in Christian mythology. His festa falls in June, and then his altar is embosomed in flowers, arranged with exquisite taste; and a pile of letters may be seen at its foot, written to the saint by young men and maidens, and directed to Paradiso. They are supposed to be burnt unread, except by San Luigi, who must find singular petitions in these pretty little missives, tied up now with a green ribbon, expressive of hope, now with a red one, emblematic of love, or whatever other significant colour the writer may prefer."--_Mademoiselle Mori._

The frescoes on the roof and tribune are by the Padre Pozzi.

"Amid the many distinguished men whom the Jesuits sent forth to every region of the world, I cannot recollect the name of a single artist unless it be the Father Pozzi, renowned for his skill in perspective, and who used his skill less as an artist than a conjuror, to produce such illusions as make the vulgar stare; to make the impalpable to the grasp appear as palpable to the vision; the near seem distant, the distant near; the unreal, real; to cheat the eye; to dazzle the sense;--all this has Father Pozzi most cunningly achieved in the Gesù and the Sant' Ignazio at Rome; but nothing more, and nothing better than this. I wearied of his altar-pieces and of his wonderful roofs which pretend to be no roofs at all. Scheme, tricks, and deceptions in art should all be kept for the theatre. It appeared to me nothing less than profane to introduce _shams_ into the temples of God."--_Mrs. Jameson._

On the left of the Corso--opposite the handsome Palazzo Simonetti--is the _Church of S. Marcello_ (Pope, 308--10), containing some interesting modern monuments. Among them are those of Pierre Gilles, the traveller (ob. 1555), and of the English Cardinal Weld. Here, also, Cardinal Gonsalvi, the famous and liberal minister of Pius VII., is buried in the same tomb with his beloved younger brother, the Marchese Andrea Gonsalvi. Their monument, by Rinaldi, tells that here repose the bodies of two brothers--

"Qui cum singulari amore dum vivebant Se mutuo dilexissent Corpora etiam sua Una eademque urna condi voluere."

Here are the masterpieces which made the reputation of Pierino del Vaga (1501--1547). In the chapel of the Virgin are the cherubs, whose graceful movements and exquisite flesh-tints Vasari declares to have been unsurpassed by any artist in fresco. In the chapel of the Crucifix is the Creation of Eve, which is even more beautiful.

"The perfectly beautiful figure of the naked Adam is seen lying, overpowered by sleep, while Eve, filled with life, and with folded hands, rises to receive the blessing of her Maker,--a most grand and solemn figure standing erect in heavy drapery."--_Vasari_, iv.

This church is said to occupy the site of a house of the Christian matron Lucina, in which Marcellus died of wounds incurred in attempting to settle a quarrel among his Christian followers. It was in front of it that the body of the tribune Rienzi, after his murder on the Capitol steps, was hung up by the feet for two days as a mark for the rabble to throw stones at.

The next street to the right leads to the _Collegio Romano_, founded by St. Francis Borgia, Duke of Gandia (a descendant of Pope Alexander VI.), who, after a youth spent amid the splendours of the court of Madrid, retired to Rome in 1550, in the time of Julius III., and became the successor of Ignatius Loyola as general of the Jesuits. The buildings were erected, as we now see them, by Ammanati, in 1582, for Gregory XIII. The college is entirely under the superintendence of the Jesuits. The library is large and valuable. The _Kircherian Museum_ (shown to gentlemen from ten to eleven on Sundays) is worth visiting. It contains a number of antiquities, illustrative of Roman and Etruscan customs, and many beautiful ancient bronzes and vases. The most important object is the "Cista Mistica," a bronze vase and cover, which was given as a prize to successful gladiators, and which was originally fitted up with everything useful for their profession.

The _Observatory_ of the Collegio Romano has obtained a European reputation from the important astronomical researches of its director, the Padre Secchi.

The Collegio Romano has produced eight popes--Urban VIII., Innocent X., Clement IX., Clement X., Innocent XII., Clement XI., Innocent XIII., and Clement XII. Among its other pupils have been S. Camillo de Lellis, the Blessed Leonardo di Porto-Maurizio, the Venerable Pietro Berna, and others.

"Ignace, François Borgia, ont passé par ici. Leur souvenir plane, comme un encouragement et une bénédiction, sur ces salles où ils présidèrent aux études, sur ces chaires où peut-être retentit leur parole, sur ces modestes cellules qu'ils ont habitées. A la fin du seizième siècle, les élèves du collége Romain perdirent un de leurs condisciples que sa douce aménité et ses vertus angéliques avaient rendu l'objet d'un affectueux respect. Ce jeune homme avait été page de Philippe II.; il était allié aux maisons royales d'Autriche, de Bourbon et de Lorraine. Mais au milieu de ces illusions d'une grande vie, sous ce brillant costume de cour qui semblait lui promettre honneurs et fortune, il ne voyait jamais que la pieuse figure de sa mère agenouillée au pied des autels, et priant pour lui. A peine âgé de seize ans, il s'échappe de Madrid, il vient frapper à la porte du collége Romain, et demande place, au dortoir et à l'étude, pour Louis Gonzague, fils du comte de Castiglione. Pendant sept ans, Louis donna dans cette maison le touchant exemple d'une vie céleste; puis ses jours _déclinèrent_, comme parle l'Ecriture; il avait assez vécu."--_Gournerie_, _Rome Chrétienne_, ii. 211.

We now reach (on right) the _Church of Sta. Maria in Via Lata_, which was founded by Sergius I., in the eighth century, but twice rebuilt, the second time under Alexander VII., in 1662, when the façade was added by Pietro da Cortona.

In this church "they still show a little chapel in which, as hath been handed down from the first ages, St. Luke the Evangelist wrote, and painted the effigy of the Virgin Mother of God."--_See Jameson's Sacred Art_, p. 155.

The subterranean church is shown as the actual house in which St. Paul lodged when he was in Rome.

"And when we came to Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard: but Paul was suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him."

"And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging; to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening." ...

"And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him."--_Acts_ xxviii. 16, 23, 30, 31.

"St. Paul after his arrival at Rome, having made his usual effort, in the first place, for the salvation of his own countrymen, and as usual, having found it vain, turned to the Gentiles, and during two whole years, in which he was a prisoner, received all that came to him, preaching the kingdom of God. It was thus that God overruled his imprisonment for the furtherance of the gospel, so that his bonds in Christ were manifest in the palace, and in all other places, and many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by his bonds, were much more bold to speak the word without fear. Even in the palace of Nero, the most noxious atmosphere, as we should have concluded, for the growth of divine truth, his bonds were manifest, the Lord Jesus was preached, and, more than this, was received to the saving of many souls; for we find the Apostle writing to his Philippian converts: 'All the saints salute you, chiefly they which are of Cæsar's household.' The whole Church of Christ has abundant reason to bless God for the dispensation which, during the most matured period of St. Paul's Christian life, detained him a close prisoner in the imperial city. Had he, to the end of his course, been at large, occupied, as he had long been, 'in labours most abundant,' he would, humanly speaking, never have found time to pen those epistles which are among the most blessed portion of the Church's inheritance. It was from within the walls of a prison, probably chained hand to hand to the soldier who kept him, that St. Paul indited the Epistles to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Hebrews."--_Blunt's Lectures on St. Paul._

"In writing to Philemon, Paul chooses to speak of himself as the captive of Jesus Christ. Yet he went whither he would, and was free to receive those who came to him. It is interesting to remember amid these solemn vaults, the different events of St. Paul's apostolate, during the two years that he lived here. It was here that he converted Onesimus, that he received the presents of the Philippians, brought by Epaphroditus; it was hence that he wrote to Philemon, to Titus, to the inhabitants of Philippi and of Colosse; it was here that he preached devotion to the cross with that glowing eagerness, with that startling eloquence, which gained fresh power from contest and which inspiration rendered sublime.

"Peter addressed himself to the Circumcised; Paul to the Gentiles,[13]--to their silence that he might confound it, to their reason that he might humble it. Had he not already converted the proconsul Sergius Paulus and Dionysius the Areopagite? At Rome his word is equally powerful, and among the courtiers of Nero, perhaps even amongst his relations, are those who yield to the power of God, who reveals himself in each of the teachings of his servant.[14] Around the Apostle his eager disciples group themselves--Onesiphorus of Ephesus, who was not ashamed of his chain;[15] Epaphras of Colosse, who was captive with him, _concaptivus meus_;[16] Timothy, who was one with his master in a holy union of every thought, and who was attached to him like a son, _sicut patri filius_;[17] Hermas, Aristarchus, Marcus, Demas--and Luke the physician, the faithful companion of the Apostle, his well-beloved disciple--'Lucas medicus carissimus.'"--_From Gournerie, Rome Chrétienne._

"I honour Rome for this reason; for though I could celebrate her praises on many other accounts--for her greatness, for her beauty, for her power, for her wealth, and for her warlike exploits,--yet, passing over all these things, I glorify her on this account, that Paul in his lifetime wrote to the Romans, and loved them, and was present with and conversed with them, and ended his life amongst them. Wherefore the city is on this account renowned more than on all others--on this account I admire her, not on account of her gold, her columns, or her other splendid decorations."--_St. John Chrysostom, Homily on the Ep. to the Romans._

"The Roman Jews expressed a wish to hear from St. Paul himself a statement of his religious sentiments, adding that the Christian sect was everywhere spoken against.... A day was fixed for the meeting at his private lodging.

"The Jews came in great numbers at the appointed time. Then followed an impressive scene, like that at Troas (Acts xxi.)--the Apostle pleading long and earnestly,--bearing testimony concerning the kingdom of God,--and endeavouring to persuade them by arguments drawn from their own Scriptures,--'from morning till evening.' The result was a division among the auditors--'not peace, but a sword,'--the division which has resulted ever since, when the Truth of God has encountered, side by side, earnest conviction with worldly indifference, honest investigation with bigoted prejudice, trustful faith with the pride of scepticism. After a long and stormy discussion, the unbelieving portion departed; but not until St. Paul had warned them, in one last address, that they were bringing upon themselves that awful doom of judicial blindness, which was denounced in their own Scriptures against obstinate unbelievers; that the salvation which they rejected would be withdrawn from them, and the inheritance they renounced would be given to the Gentiles. The sentence with which he gave emphasis to this solemn warning was that passage in Isaiah, which recurring thus with solemn force at the very close of the Apostolic history, seems to bring very strikingly together the Old Dispensation and the New, and to connect the ministry of Our Lord with that of His Apostles:--'Go unto this people and say: Hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand, and seeing ye shall see and shall not perceive: for the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.'

" ... During the long delay of his trial St. Paul was not reduced, as he had been at Cæsarea, to a forced inactivity. On the contrary, he was permitted the freest intercourse with his friends, and was allowed to reside in a house of sufficient size to accommodate the congregation which flocked together to listen to his teaching. The freest scope was given to his labours, consistent with the military custody under which he was placed. We are told, in language peculiarly emphatic, that his preaching was subjected to no restraint whatever. And that which seemed at first to impede, must really have deepened the impression of his eloquence; for who could see without emotion that venerable form subjected by iron links to the coarse control of the soldier who stood beside him? how often must the tears of the assembly have been called forth by the upraising of that fettered hand, and the clanking of the chain which checked its energetic action.

"We shall see hereafter that these labours of the imprisoned Confessor were not fruitless; in his own words, he 'begot many children in his chains.' Meanwhile, he had a wider sphere of action than even the metropolis of the world. Not only 'the crowd which pressed upon him daily,' but also 'the care of all the churches' demanded his constant vigilance and exertion.... To enable him to maintain this superintendence, he manifestly needed many faithful messengers; men who (as he says of one of them) 'rendered him profitable service'; and by some of whom he seems to have been constantly accompanied, wheresoever he went. Accordingly we find him, during this Roman imprisonment, surrounded by many of his oldest and most valued attendants. Luke, his fellow-traveller, remained with him during his bondage; Timotheus, his beloved son in the faith, ministered to him at Rome, as he had done in Asia, in Macedonia, and in Achaia. Tychicus, who had formerly borne him company from Corinth to Ephesus, is now at hand to carry his letters to the shores which they had visited together. But there are two names amongst his Roman companions which excite a peculiar interest, though from opposite reasons,--the names of Demas and of Mark. The latter, when last we heard of him, was the unhappy cause of the separation of Barnabas and Paul. He was rejected by Paul, as unworthy to attend him, because he had previously abandoned the work of the Gospel out of timidity or indolence. It is delightful to find him now ministering obediently to the very Apostle who had then repudiated his services; still more to know that he persevered in this fidelity even to the end, and was sent for by St. Paul to cheer his dying hours. Demas, on the other hand, is now a faithful 'fellow-labourer' of the Apostle but in a few years we shall find that he had 'forsaken' him, having 'loved this present world.'

"Amongst the rest of St. Paul's companions at this time, there were two whom he distinguishes by the honourable title of his 'fellow-prisoners.' One of these is Aristarchus, the other Epaphras. With regard to the former, we know that he was a Macedonian of Thessalonica, one of 'Paul's companions in travel,' whose life was endangered by the mob at Ephesus, and who embarked with St. Paul at Cæsarea when he set sail for Rome. The other, Epaphras, was a Colossian, who must not be identified with the Philippian Epaphroditus, another of St. Paul's fellow-labourers during this time. It is not easy to say in what exact sense these two disciples were peculiarly _fellow-prisoners_ of St. Paul. Perhaps it only implies that they dwelt in his house, which was also his prison.

"But of all the disciples now ministering to St. Paul at Rome, none has a greater interest than the fugitive Asiatic slave Onesimus. He belonged to a Christian named Philemon, a member of the Colossian Church. But he had robbed his master, and fled from Colosse, and at last found his way to Rome. Here he was converted to the faith of Christ, and had confessed to St. Paul his sins against his master."--_Conybeare and Howson, Life of St. Paul._

A fountain in the crypt is shown, as having miraculously sprung up in answer to the prayers of St. Paul, that he might have wherewithal to baptize his disciples. At the end of the crypt are some large blocks of peperino, said to be remains of the arch erected by the senate in honour of the Emperor Gordian III., and destroyed by Innocent VIII.

Far along the right side of the Corso now extends the façade of the immense _Palazzo Doria_, built by Valvasori (the front towards the Collegio Romano being by Pietro da Cortona, and that towards the Piazza Venezia by Amati). Entering the courtyard, one must turn left to reach the _Picture Gallery_ (which is open on Tuesdays and Fridays, from ten till two)--a vast collection, which contains some grand portraits and a few other fine paintings.

The _1st Room_ entered is a great hall--to which pictures are removed for copying. It contains four fine sarcophagi, with reliefs of the Hunt of Meleager, the Story of Marsyas, Endymion and Diana, and a Bacchic procession. Of two ancient circular altars, one serves as the pedestal of a bearded Dionysus. The pictures are chiefly landscapes, of the school of Poussin and Salvator Rosa,--that of the Deluge is by _Ippolito Scarsellino_.

_2nd Room._--In the centre a Centaur (restored), of basalt and rosso-antico. On either side groups of boys playing.

_Pictures:_--

4. Caritas Romana: _Valentin_.

5. Circumcision: _Giov. Bellini?_

7. Madonna and Saints: _Basaiti_.

15. Temptations of St. Anthony: _Scuola di Mantegna_.

19. St. John in the Desert: _Guercino?_

35. Birth of St. John: _Vittore Pisanello_.

21. Spozalizio: _V. Pisanello_.

23. St. Sylvester before Maximin II.: _Pesellino_.

24. Madonna and Child: _F. Francia?_

28. Annunciation: _Fil. Lippi_.

29. St. Sylvester and the Dragon: _Pesellino_ (see the account of Sta. Maria Liberatrice).

33. St. Agnes on the burning pile: _Guercino_.

37. Magdalen: _Copy of the Titian in the Pitti Palace_.

_4th Room._--

A bust of Innocent X. (with whose ill-acquired wealth this palace was built) in rosso-antico, with a bronze head: _Bernini_.

_5th Room._--

17. The Money-changers: _Quentin Matsys_.

25. St. Joseph: _Guercino_. In the centre, a group of Jacob wrestling with the Angel: _School of Bernini_.

_6th Room._--

8. Portrait of Olympia Maldacchini, the sister-in-law of Innocent X., who ruled Rome in his time.

13. Madonna: _Carlo Maratta_.

30. Sketch of a Boy: _Incognito_.

From this room we enter a small cabinet, hung with pictures of _Breughel_ and _Fiammingo_, and containing a bust by _Algardi_, of Olympia Maldacchini-Pamfili, who built the Villa Doria Pamfili for her son.

_7th Room._--

8. Belisarius in the desert: _Salvator Rosa_.

19. Slaughter of the Innocents: _Mazzolino_.

We now enter the Galleries--which begin towards the left--

_1st Gallery._--

2. Holy Family in glory, and two Franciscan Saints adoring: _Garofalo_.

3. Magdalen: _Annibale Caracci_.

8. Two Heads: _Quentin Matsys_.

9. Holy Family: _Sassoferrato_.

10. Story of the conversion of S. Eustachio (see the description of his church): _School of Albert Durer_.

14. A Portrait: _Titian_.

15. Holy Family: _Andrea del Sarto_.

20. The Three Ages of Man: _Titian_.*

21. Return of the Prodigal Son: _Guercino_.

25. Landscape with the Flight into Egypt: _Claude Lorraine_.

26. The meeting of Mary and Elizabeth: _Garofalo_.

38. Copy of the "Nozze Aldobrandini:" _Poussin_.

45. Madonna: _Guido Reni_.

50. Holy Family: _Giulio Romano, from Raphael_.

_2nd Gallery._--

6. Madonna: _Fran. Francia_.

14. "Bartolo and Baldo:" _Raphael_.*

17. Portrait: _Titian_.

21. Portrait of a Widow: _Vandyke_.

24. Three Heads, called Calvin, Luther, and Catherine: _Giorgione_.

26. Sacrifice of Isaac: _Titian_.

33. Portrait of a Pamfili: _Vandyke_.

40. Herodias with the Head of John the Baptist: _Pordenone_. A grand bust of Andrew Doria.

50. "The Confessor:" _Rubens_.

53. Joanna of Arragon: _School of Leonardo da Vinci_.*

56. Magdalene: _School of Titian_.

61. Adoration of the Infant Jesus: _Gio. Batt. Benvenuti_ ('_l'Ortolano_').

66. Holy Family: _Garofalo_.

69. Glory crowning Virtue (a sketch): _Correggio_.

80. Portrait of Titian and his Wife: _Titian_. Also a number of pictures of the Creation: _Breughel_.

_3rd Gallery._--

1, 6, 28, 34. Landscapes (with figures introduced): _Ann. Caracci_.

5. Landscape, with Mercury stealing cattle: _Claude Lorraine_.

10. Titian's Wife: _Titian_.

11. "Niccolaus Macchiavellus Historiar. Scriptor:" _Bronzino_.

12. "The Mill:" _Claude Lorraine_.*

"The foreground of the picture of 'the Mill' is a piece of very lovely and perfect forest scenery, with a dance of peasants by a brook-side; quite enough subject to form, in the hands of a master, an impressive and complete picture. On the other side of the brook, however, we have a piece of pastoral life; a man with some bulls and goats tumbling head foremost into the water, owing to some sudden paralytic affection of all their legs. Even this group is one too many; the shepherd had no business to drive his flock so near the dancers, and the dancers will certainly frighten the cattle. But when we look farther into the picture, our feelings receive a sudden and violent shock, by the unexpected appearance, amidst things pastoral and musical, of the military; a number of Roman soldiers riding in on hobby-horses, with a leader on foot, apparently encouraging them to make an immediate and decisive charge on the musicians. Beyond the soldiers is a circular temple, in exceedingly bad repair; and close beside it, built against its very walls, a neat water-mill in full work; by the mill flows a large river with a weir across it.... At an inconvenient distance from the water-side stands a city, composed of twenty-five round towers and a pyramid. Beyond the city is a handsome bridge; beyond the bridge, part of the Campagna, with fragments of aqueducts; beyond the Campagna the chain of the Alps; on the left, the cascades of Tivoli.

"This is a fair example of what is commonly called an 'ideal' landscape; _i.e._ a group of the artist's studies from nature, individually spoiled, selected with such opposition of character as may insure their neutralizing each other's effect, and united with sufficient unnaturalness and violence of association to insure their producing a general sensation of the impossible."--_Ruskin's Modern Painters._

"Many painters take a particular spot, and sketch it to perfection; but Claude was convinced that taking nature as he found it, seldom produced beauty. Neither did he like exhibiting in his pictures accidents of nature. He professed to pourtray the style of general nature, and so his pictures were a composition of the various draughts which he had previously made from beautiful scenes and prospects."--_Sir J. Reynolds._

18. Pietà: _Ann. Caracci_.

23. Landscape, with the Temple of Apollo: _Claude Lorraine_.

26. Portrait: _Mazzolino_.

27. Portrait: _Giorgione_.

33. Landscape, with Diana hunting: _Claude Lorraine_.

At the end of this gallery is a small cabinet, containing the gems of the collection:--

1. Portrait of a "Letterato:" _Lucas V. Leyden?_*

2. Portrait of Andrea Doria: _Sebastian del Piombo_.*

3. Portrait of Giannetto Doria: _Bronzino_.*

4. Portrait of S. Filippo Neri, as a boy: _Barocci_.

5. Portrait of Innocent X.; Gio. Battista Pamfili (1644--55): _Velasquez_.*

6. Entombment: _John Emelingk_.*

Here, also, is the bust of the late beloved Princess Doria (Lady Mary Talbot), which has always been veiled in crape since her death.

The _4th Gallery_ is decorated with mirrors, and with statues of no especial merit.

"In the whole immense range of rooms of the Palazzo Doria, I saw but a single fire-place, and that so deep in the wall that no amount of blaze would raise the atmosphere of the room ten degrees. If the builder of the palace, or any of his successors, have committed crimes worthy of Tophet, it would be a still worse punishment to him to wander perpetually through this suite of rooms, on the cold floors of polished brick tiles, or marble, or mosaic, growing a little chiller and chiller through every moment of eternity--or at least, till the palace crumbles down upon him."--_Hawthorne, Notes on Italy._

Opposite the Palazzo Doria is the _Palazzo Salviati_. The next two streets on the left lead into the long narrow square called _Piazza Santi Apostoli_, containing several handsome palaces. That on the right is the _Palazzo Odescalchi_, built by Bernini, in 1660, for Cardinal Fabio Chigi, to whose family it formerly belonged. It has some fine painted and carved wooden ceilings. This palace is supposed to be the scene of the latest miracle of the Roman Catholic Church. The present Princess Odescalchi had long been bedridden, and was apparently dying of a hopeless disease, when, while her family were watching what they considered her last moments, the pope (Pius IX.) sent, by the hands of a nun, a little loaf (panetello), which he desired her to swallow. With terrible effort, the sick woman obeyed, and was immediately healed, and on the following day the astonished Romans saw her go in person to the pope, at the Vatican, to return thanks for her restoration!

The building at the end of the square is the _Palazzo Valentini_, which once contained a collection of antiquities.

Near this, on the left, but separated from the piazza by a courtyard, is the vast _Palazzo Colonna_, begun, in the fifteenth century, by Martin V., and continued at various later periods. Julius II. at one time made it his residence, and also Cardinal (afterwards San Carlo) Borromeo. Part of it is now the residence of the French ambassadors. The palace is built very near the site of the ancient fortress of the Colonna family--so celebrated in times of mediæval warfare with the Orsini--of which one lofty tower still remains, in a street leading up to the Quirinal.

The _Gallery_ is shown every day, except Sundays and holidays, from 11 to 3. It is entered by the left wing. The first room is a fine, gloomy old hall, containing the family dais, and hung with decaying Colonna portraits. Then come three rooms covered with tapestries, the last containing a pretty statue of a girl, sometimes called Niobe. Hence we reach the pictures. The _1st Room_ has an interesting collection of the early schools, including Madonnas of _Filippo Lippi_; _Luca Longhi_; _Botticelli_; _Gentile da Fabriano_; _Innocenza da Imola_; a curious Crucifixion, by _Jacopo d'Avanzo_; and a portrait by _Giovanni Sanzio_, father of Raphael.

The ceiling of the _3rd Room_ has a fresco, by _Battoni_ and _Luti_, of the apotheosis of Martin V. (Oddone Colonna, 1417--24). Among its pictures, are St. Bernard, _Giovanni Bellini_; Onuphrius Pavinius, _Titian_; Holy Family, _Bronzino_; Peasant dining, _Annibale Caracci_; St. Jerome, _Spagna_; Portrait, _Paul Veronese_; Holy Family, _Bonifazio_.

Hence we enter the _Great Hall_, a truly grand room, hung with mirrors and painted with flowers by _Mario de' Fiori_, and with genii by _Maratta_. The statues here are unimportant. The ceiling is adorned with paintings, by _Coli_ and _Gherardi_, of the battle of Lepanto, Oct. 8, 1571, which Marc-Antonio Colonna assisted in gaining. The best pictures are the family portraits:--Federigo Colonna, _Sustermanns_; Don Carlo Colonna, _Vandyke_; Card. Pompeio Colonna, _Lorenzo Lotto_; Vittoria Colonna, _Muziano_; Lucrezia Colonna, _Vandyke_; Pompeio Colonna, _Agostino Caracci_; Giacomo Sciarra Colonna, _Giorgione_. We may also notice an extraordinary picture of the Madonna rescuing a child from a demon, by _Niccolo d'Alunno_, with a double portrait, by _Tintoret_, on the right wall, and a Holy Family of _Palma Vecchio_ at the end of the gallery. Near the entrance are some glorious old cabinets, inlaid with ivory and lapis-lazuli. On the steps leading to the upper end of the hall is a bomb left on the spot where it fell during the siege of Rome in 1848.

(Through the palace access may be obtained to the beautiful Colonna Gardens; but as they are generally visited from the Quirinal, they will be noticed in the description of that hill.)

"On parle d'un Pierre Colonna, dépouillé de tous ses biens en 1100 par le pape Pascal II. Il fallait que la famille fût déjà passablement ancienne, car les grandes fortunes ne s'élèvent pas en un jour."--_About._

"Si n'etoit le différent des Ursins et des Colonnois (Orsini and Colonna) la terre de l'Eglise seroit la plus heureuse habitation pour les subjects, qui soit en tout le monde."--_Philippe de Comines._ 1500.

"Gloriosa Colonna, in cui s' appoggia Nostra speranza, e'l gran nome Latino, Ch'ancor non torte del vero cammino L'ira di Giove per ventosa pioggia."

_Petrarca, Sonnetto_ X.

Adjoining the Palazzo Colonna is the fine _Church of the Santi Apostoli_, founded in the sixth century, rebuilt by Martin V., in 1420, and modernized, _c._ 1602, by Fontana. The portico contains a magnificent bas-relief of an eagle and an oak-wreath (frequently copied and introduced in architectural designs).

"Entrez sous la portique de l'église des Saints-Apôtres, et vous trouverez là, encadré par hasard dans le mur, un aigle qu'entoure une couronne d'un magnifique travail. Vous reconnaîtrez facilement dans cet aigle et cette couronne la représentation d'une ensigne romaine, telle que les bas-reliefs de la colonne Trajane vous en ont montré plusieurs; seulement ce qui était là en petit est ici en grand."--_Ampère, Emp._ ii. 168.

Also in the portico, is a monument, by _Canova_, to Volpato, the engraver. Over the sacristy door is the tomb of Pope Clement XIV. (Giov. Antonio Ganganelli, 1769-74), also by Canova, executed in his twenty-fifth year.

"La mort de Clément XIV. est du 22 Septembre, 1774. A cette époque, Alphonse de Liguori était évêque de Sainte-Agathe des Goths, au royaume de Naples. Le 22 Septembre, au matin, l'évêque tomba dans une espèce de sommeil léthargique après avoir dit la messe, et, pendant vingt-quatre heures, il demeura sans mouvement dans son fauteuil. Ses serviteurs s'étonnant de cet état, le lendemain, avec lui:--'Vous ne savez pas, leur dit-il, que j'ai assisté le pape qui vient de mourir.' Peu après, la nouvelle du décès de Clément arriva à Sainte Agathe."--_Gournerie, Rome Chrétienne_, ii. 362.

In 1873 the traditional grave of St. Philip and St. James, the "Apostoli" to whom this church is dedicated, was opened during its restoration. Two bodies were found, enclosed in a sarcophagus of beautiful transparent marble, and have been duly enshrined. In the choir are monuments of the fifteenth century, to two relations of Pope Sixtus IV., Pietro Riario, and Cardinal Raffaelo Riario. To the right is the tomb of the Chevalier Girard, brother-in-law of Pope Julius II., and maître d'hôtel to Charles VIII. and Louis XII. of France. The tomb of Cardinal Bessarion was removed from the church, in 1702, to the cloisters of the adjoining Convent, which is the residence of the General of the Order of "Minori Conventuali" (Black Friars). The altar-piece represents the martyrdom of SS. Philip and James, by _Muratori_.

The heart of Maria Clementina Sobieski (buried in St. Peter's), wife of James III., called the First Pretender, is also preserved here, as is shown by a Latin inscription.

"Le roi d'Angleterre est devot a l'excès; sa matinée se passe en prières aux Saints-Apôtres, près du tombeau de sa femme."--_De Brosses_, 1739.

In 1552 this church was remarkable for the sermons of the monk Felix Peretti, afterwards Sixtus V.

"Suivant un manuscrit de la bibliothèque Alfieri, un jour, pendant qu'il était dans la chaire des Saints-Apôtres, un billet cacheté lui fut remis; Frère Félix l'ouvre et y lit, en face d'un certain nombre de propositions que l'on disait être extraites de ses discours, ce mot écrit en gros caractères: MENTIRIS (tu mens). Le fougueux orateur eut peine à contenir son émotion; il termina son sermon en quelques paroles, et courut au palais de l'Inquisition présenter le billet mystérieux, et demander qu'on examinât scrupuleusement sa doctrine. Cet examen lui fut favorable, et il lui valut l'amitié du grand inquisiteur, Michael Ghislieri, qui comprit aussitôt tout le parti qu'on pouvait tirer d'un homme dont les moindres actions étaient empreintes d'une inébranlable force de caractère."--_Gournerie._

In this church is buried the young Countess Savorelli, the story of whose love, misfortunes, and death, has been celebrated by About, under the name of _Tolla_ (the Lello of the story having been one of the Doria-Pamfili family).

"The convent which Tolla had sanctified by her death sent three embassies in turn to beg to preserve her relics: already the people spoke of her as a saint. But Count Feraldi (Savorelli) considered that it was due to his honour and to his vengeance to bear her remains with pomp to the tomb of his family. He had sufficient influence to obtain that for which permission is not granted once in ten years: the right of transporting her uncovered, upon a bed of white velvet, and of sparing her the horrors of a coffin. The beloved remains were wrapped in the white muslin robe which she wore in the garden on the day when she exchanged her sweet vows with Lello. The Marchesa Trasimeni, ill and wasted as she was, came herself to arrange her hair in the manner she loved. Every garden in Rome despoiled itself to send her its flowers; it was only necessary to choose. The funeral procession quitted the church of S. Antonio Abbate on Thursday evening at 7.30 for the Santi Apostoli, where the Feraldis are buried. The body was preceded by a long file of the black and white confraternities, each bearing its banner. The red light of the torches played upon the countenance of the beautiful dead, and seemed to animate her afresh. The piazza was filled with a dense and closely packed but dumb crowd; no discordant sound troubled the grief of the relations and friends of Tolla, who wept together at the Palazzo Feraldi....

"The Church of the Apostoli and the tomb of the poor loving girl, became at certain days of the year an object of pilgrimage, and more than one young Roman maiden adds to her evening litany the words, 'St. Tolla, virgin and martyr, pray for us.'"--_About._

Just beyond the church is the _Palazzo Muto-Savorelli_ (the home of Tolla, "Palazzo Feraldi") long the residence of Prince Charles Edward ("the last Pretender"), who died here in 1788. Hence the _Via delle Vergini_, with its dismal lines of latticed convent-windows, leads to the Fountain of Trevi.

Returning to the Corso, we pass (right) _Palazzo Buonaparte_, built by Giovanni dei Rossi in 1660. Here Lætitia Buonaparte--"Madame Mère"--the mother of Napoleon I., died February 2nd, 1836. The present head of the family is Cardinal Lucien-Louis Buonaparte, son of Prince Charles (son of Lucien) and of Princess Zénaïde, daughter of King Joseph of Spain. His only surviving brother is Prince Napoleon Buonaparte.

This palace forms one corner of the _Piazza di Venezia_, which contains the ancient castellated _Palace_ of the Republic of Venice, built in 1468 by Giuliano da Majano (with materials plundered from the Coliseum) for Paul II., who was of Venetian birth. On the ruin of the republic the palace fell into the hands of Austria, and is still the residence of the Austrian ambassador, to whom it was specially reserved on the cession of Venice to Italy.

Opposite this, on a line with the Corso, is the _Palazzo Torlonia_, built by Fontana in 1650, for the Bolognetti family.

"Nobility is certainly more the fruit of wealth in Italy than in England. Here, where a title and estate are sold together, a man who can buy the one secures the other. From the station of a lacquey, an Italian who can amass riches, may rise to that of duke. Thus Torlonia, the Roman banker, purchased the title and estate of the Duca di Bracciano, fitted up the 'Palazzo Nuovo di Torlonia' with all the magnificence that wealth commands; and a marble gallery, with its polished floors, modern statues, painted ceilings, and gilded furniture, far outshines the faded splendour of the halls of the old Roman nobility."--_Eaton's Rome._

"Un ancien domestique de place, devenu spéculateur et banquier, achète un marquisat, puis une principauté. Il crée un majorat pour son fils aîné et une seconde géniture en faveur de l'autre. L'un épouse une Sforza-Cesarini et marie ses deux fils à une Chigi et une Ruspoli; l'autre obtient pour femme une Colonna-Doria. C'est ainsi que la famille Torlonia, par la puissance de l'argent et la faveur du saint-père, s'est élevée presque subitement à la hauteur des plus grands maisons népotiques et féodales."--_About._

The most interesting of the antiquities preserved in this palace is a bas-relief, representing a combat between men and animals, brought hither from the Palazzo Orsini, and probably pourtraying the famous dedication of the theatre of Marcellus on that site, celebrated by the slaughter of six hundred animals.

The end of the Corso--narrowed by a projecting wing of the Venetian Palace--is known as the _Ripresa dei Barberi_, because there the horses, which run in the races during the Carnival, are caught in large folds of drapery let down across the street to prevent their dashing themselves to pieces against the opposite wall.

Close to the end of this street, built into the wall of a house in the Via di Marforio, is one of the few relics of republican times in the city,--a Doric _Tomb_, bearing an inscription which states that it was erected by order of the people on land granted by the Senate to Caius Publicius Bibulus, the plebeian ædile, and his posterity. Petrarch mentions in one of his letters that he wrote one of his sonnets leaning against the tomb of Bibulus.

This tomb has a secondary interest as marking the commencement of the Via Flaminia, as it stood just outside the Porta Ratumena from whence that road issued. There are some obscure remains of another tomb on the other side of the street. The Via Flaminia, like the Via Appia, was once fringed with tombs.

From the Ripresa dei Barberi, a street passing under an arch on the right, leads to the back of the Venetian Palace, where is the _Church of S. Marco_, originally founded in the time of Constantine, but rebuilt in 833, and modernized by Cardinal Quirini in 1744. Its portico, which is lined with early Christian inscriptions, contains a fine fifteenth century doorway, surmounted by a figure of St. Mark. The interior is in the form of a basilica, its naves and aisles separated by twenty columns, and ending in an apse. The best pictures are S. Marco, "a pope enthroned, by _Carlo Crivelli_, resembling in sharpness of finish and individuality the works of Bartolomeo Viviani,"[18] and a Resurrection by _Palma Giovane_.

"The mosaics of S. Marco, executed under Pope Gregory IV. (A.D. 827--844), with all their splendour, exhibit the utmost poverty of expression. Above the tribune, in circular compartments, is the portrait of Christ between the symbols of the Evangelists, and further below SS. Peter and Paul (or two prophets) with scrolls; within the tribune, beneath a hand extended with a wreath, is the standing figure of Christ with an open book, and on either side, S. Angelo and Pope Gregory IV. Further on, but still belonging to the dome, are the thirteen lambs, forming a second and quite uneven circle round the figures. The execution is here especially rude, and of true Byzantine rigidity, while, as if the artist knew that his long lean figures were anything but secure upon their feet, he has given them each a separate little pedestal. The lines of the drapery are chiefly straight and parallel, while, with all this rudeness, a certain play of colour has been contrived by the introduction of high lights of another colour."--_Kugler._

This church is said to have been originally founded in honour of the Evangelist in 337 by Pope Marco, but this pope, being himself canonized, is also honoured here, and is buried under the high altar. On April 25th, St. Mark's Day, a grand procession of clergy starts from this church. It was for the most part rebuilt under Gregory IV. in 838.

Behind the Palazzo Venezia is the vast _Church of Il Gesù_, begun in 1568 by the celebrated Vignola, but the cupola and façade completed in 1575 by his scholar Giacomo della Porta. In the interior is the monument of Cardinal Bellarmin, and various pictures representing events in the lives or deaths of the Jesuit saints,--that of the death of St. Francis Xavier is by _Carlo Maratta_. The high altar, by Giacomo della Porta, has fine columns of giallo-antico. The altar of St. Ignatius at the end of the left transept is of gaudy magnificence. It was designed by Padre Pozzi, the group of the Trinity being by Bernardino Ludovisi; the globe in the hand of the Almighty is said to be the largest piece of lapis-lazuli in existence. Beneath this altar, and his silver statue, lies the body of St. Ignatius Loyola, in an urn of gilt bronze, adorned with precious stones. A great ceremony takes place in this church on July 31st, the feast of St. Ignatius, and on December 31st a Te Deum is sung here for the mercies of the past year, in the presence of the pope, cardinals, and the people of Rome,--a really solemn and impressive service.

The _Convent of the Gesù_ is the residence of the General of the Jesuits ("His Paternity"), and the centre of religious life in their Order. The rooms in which St. Ignatius lived and died are of the deepest historic interest. They consist of four chambers. The first, now a chapel, is that in which he wrote his "Constitutions." The second, also a chapel, is that in which he died. It contains the altar at which he daily celebrated mass, and the autograph engagement to live under the same laws of obedience, poverty, and chastity, signed by Laynez, Francis Xavier, and Ignatius Loyola. On its walls are two portraits of Ignatius Loyola, one as a young knight, the other as a Jesuit father, and portraits of S. Carlo Borromeo and S. Filippo Neri. It was in this chamber also that St. Francis Borgia died. The third room was that of the attendant monk of St. Ignatius; the fourth is now a kind of museum of relics containing portions of his robes and small articles which belonged to him and to other saints of the Order.

Facing the Church of the Gesù is the _Palazzo Altieri_, built by Cardinal Altieri in 1670, from designs of Giov. Antonio Rossi.

"Quand le palais Altieri fut achevé, les Altieri, neveux de Clément X., invitèrent leur oncle à le venir voir. Il s'y fit porter, et d'aussi loin qu'il aperçut la magnificence et l'étendue de cette superbe fabrique, il reboussa chemin le cœur serré, sans dire un seul mot, et mourut peu après."--_De Brosses._

"On the staircase of the Palazzo Altieri, is an ancient colossal marble _finger_, of such extraordinary size, that it is really worth a visit."--_Eaton's Rome._

This palace was the residence of the late noble-hearted vicar-general, Cardinal Altieri, who died a martyr to his devotion to his flock (as Bishop of Albano) during the terrible visitation of cholera at Albano in 1867.

The _Piazza del Gesù_ is considered to be the most draughty place in Rome. The legend runs that the devil and the wind were one day taking a walk together. When they came to this square, the devil, who seemed to be very devout, said to the wind, "Just wait a minute, mio caro, while I go into this church." So the wind promised, and the devil went into the Gesù, and has never come out again--and the wind is blowing about in the Piazza del Gesù to this day.