fidei, an observation applicable to several other primitive traits of his history, and a proof that he was not so credulous as modern critics suppose. The Pons Sublicius has been swept away more than once by the Tiber, under Augustus, and in the pontificate of Adrian I. In 1454, its ruins were demolished down to the water to serve as cannon-balls, several of which may still be seen at the castle of Saint Angelo. Loaded with fishermen's huts, it is now once more of wood as under the king of Rome Ancus Martius, when it derived its name of Sublicius from the beams of which it was composed. The Aventine mount, the least elevated of the seven hills, famous for the wise retreat of the Roman people, formerly ornamented with temples and palaces, is now deserted, and has only a few religious edifices. The Aventine was successfully planted with cotton under the French administration. The five roads by which it is approached are in the same direction, and perhaps the very same as those of old. Its poor and scattered population, with the hermit so admirably painted by M. Schnetz, are singularly picturesque. antique temples and churches, the Madonna del sole, which title it retains, as well as the other odd designation of Saint Stephen of the Coaches. This celebrated little temple, so elegantly girt with twenty Corinthian columns of Parian marble, the most exquisite in Rome, seems to have been rebuilt about the end of the second century under the Antonini, The temple of Fortuna Virilis, one of the most ancient in Rome, was consecrated to the fickle goddess by Servius Tullius, whom she had delivered from the bonds of slavery for the chains of royalty. It was repaired under the republic, and dedicated to the Madonna about the end of the ninth century. The Ionic order which decorates it, is the best of the two only specimens of that order existing at Rome. The house said to have been Pilate's and Rienzi's very probably harboured neither of those famous guests. It has the appearance of a little fort, and is covered externally with a confused coating of inscriptions and antique fragments for which Rienzi had a peculiar liking, and they seem not unsuited to the eloquence and eccentric character of that personage. The following verse is ascribed to his friend Petrarch: Adsum Romanis grandis honor populls. On the slope of the Aventine towards the Tiber, was the cavern of Cacus, the first and most illustrious ancestor of the Roman banditti. The gusts of flame and smoke vomited forth by the son of The tribuneship of Rienzi was contemVulcan indicate the existence of very porary with the democratical conspiracy active volcanos, to which no epoch can of the Venetian doge Marino Faliero and be assigned, though their traces are still the massacres of the Jacquerie in France. distinctly seen: fable is better informed The same fourteenth century had seen on this point than history. Virgil re- the great riot of the Ciompi at Florence, lates that according to the belief of old the insurrection of William Tell, the ages, the founder of Præneste had a fire-revolt of Artevelle in Flanders, and of place for his cradle, which caused him to be supposed the son of Vulcan : Volcano genitum. Inventumque focis omnis quem credidit ætas. It is astonishing that the ancients were not smitten with the aspect of the soil, which seems in a state of ebullition: dull observers, these powerful Romans, not to have suspected that force of nature, older and more terrible than their own passions. The temple of Vesta, a model of elegance and taste, so Greek-like in workmanship and arrangement, became, by one of those analogies frequent among Wat Tyler and Jack Cade in England. It was one of those epochs of popular eruptions caused by inequality and oppression. The Pons Palatinus, now Ponte Rotto, was the first stone bridge built in Rome. It was finished in the censorship of Scipio Africanus and L. Mummius. Rebuilt by the popes Honorius III., Julius III., and Gregory XIII., it fell a third time, and has not been repaired. The aspect of this quarter and its poor inhabitants, the view of the Aventine, the Janiculum, and the Tiber, especially from the bridge, are very picturesque, and seem a real apparition of primitive Rome. BOOK THE SIXTEENTH. ENVIRONS OF ROME. CHAPTER I. Villas.-Pamall villa.-Pines.-Stuccos.-Mount Ma rio.- Madama villa.-Loggia.-Casino of Pope Julius.-Borghese villa.-New museum.-Casino of Raphael.-Albani villa.-Antinous. The villas, those abodes of splendour, are the link that unites, if one may say so, the ancient Romans and the modern. The present palaces of Rome differ from those of antiquity; the villas of our days are a close approximation to the antique, and in their principal parts they almost resemble their majestic disposition. The national taste for the same magnificence is perpetuated notwithstanding the contrast between the two states of society. These houses of pleasure are generally turned towards Rome, a superb horizon, in harmony with the pomp of their architecture, and the marble, statues, columns, vases, and fountains that embellish them. The gardens, planted with a noble regularity, so far superior to the zigzags of the English style, do not display the capricious pretention to create sites which are found without already made by nature, but they are destined for the promenade of powerful friends of art who seek, in their repose, to contemplate its chefs-d'œuvre. Though too frequently deserted and suffered to decay, the Roman villas have not lost their original character, and their gloom even seems to increase their grandeur. The Pamfili-Doria villa, or Belrespiro (one of those poetical Italian surnames, like that of the numerous belvederes), with its wood of umbrella-shaped pines, charming trees, that harmonise so well with the sky of the country, as they afford a shade and leave the light; its view extending to the sea, its verdant turf enamelled with anemonies, its 1 See ante, book xrv. ch. xvl. Le Nôtre was little known before 1650, when he lald out the gardens of Vaux for Fouquet; he did not go to Rome till 1678, and Algardi had begun the Pamuli villa about 1644. See the excellent and grottos, basins, cascades, and antique fragments, is the most diversified, extensive, and delightful of Roman villas. The plan is not by Le Nôtre, as supposed, but by Algardi; ■ nature seems to have compelled the elaborate talent of this author to be simple, grand, and true. Several ceilings of the casino are ornamented with stuccos executed by Algardi's own hand, of extreme elegance, and still in all their freshness. He also made the bust of the too celebrated Olimpia Maidalchini Pamfili, whose illgotten wealth contributed to the creation of this wondrous place.3 For some years since, successful excavations have been made at the Pamfili villa; they have produced the discovery of several well preserved columbaria, à great number of curious inscriptions, which are interesting for the history of the funeral usages and monuments of the ancients, and form a little antique cemetery very picturesquely disposed in the middle of a wood. Mount Mario, at the extremity of the Janiculum, planted with a pretty grove of cypress, is one of the most pleasing spots in the environs of Rome, which is seen thence in its most imposing aspect. The antique name of Mount Mario is unknown, its present appellation being derived from a Mario Mellini who built a fine villa on its summit. The vast quantities of marine shells, a proof of the long inundation, at some very remote period, of this point at an elevation of four hundred and forty feet above the level of the sea, are a geological fact of some interest. On the declivity of the hill is the Madama villa, so called from having been the residence of Margaret of Austria, natural daughter of Charles V., widow of Alessandro de' Medici, and afterwards married to Ot beautiful work of MM. Percier and Fontaine, Choix des plus célèbres maisons de plaisance de Rome et de ses environs, second edition, 1824, follo, p. 13. 3 See ante, book xv. ch. XXXV, and book XVI. ch. fil. tavio Farnese, duke of Parma. This celebrated casino, begun for Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, on Raphael's designs, and completed by Giulio Romano, has become, in its actual dilapidated condition, a kind of modern antiquity unceasingly studied and admired by artists. The superb Loggia, the wainscot of one room and a ceiling, are the work of Giulio Romano and Giovanni d'Udina, small. graceful, and exquisite paintings placed beside the Loggia of the Vatican, and of the same school. The villa or casino of Pope Julius III., of excellent architecture and most conveniently disposed, but now in bad condition, of which Vasari boasts having given the first designs, seems principally due to Michael Angelo. Vignola, on his return from France, was charged with several embellishments, and we recognise this great architect in the elegance of the disposition, and purity of the profiles in the Palazzino. The fine Nymphea, ornamented with the most costly marbles; and the fountains, are by Ammanato, and Taddeo Zuccari has painted the frescos of the circular gallery. A maestro of the sacred palace at that time, Pietrantonio Aliatti, the pope's favorite, had been the torment of the clever men who worked successively at the villa, by his intermeddling, pretended science, and caprice, which procured him from the irreverent Michael Angelo the ironical nickname of Monsignore tante cose. This delightful villa, with which the pope who created it was so charmed, that he went thither from the Vatican, going up the Tiber in a brilliant vessel; where the cardinals who came for the first time to Rome staid as well as the ambassadors before making their entry, and whence the cortege set forth; this monument of art and pontifical magnificence became a good veterinary school under Leo XII., which was suppressed by his successor, and somewhat strangely transferred to the university of the Sapienza. The Borghese villa, one of the places dear to the Roman people, attests the bereditary magnificence of that family. First founded at the beginning of the seventeenth century, by Cardinal Scipione, on the designs of Giovanni Vansanzio, called Il Fiammingo, it was considerably enlarged towards the end of last century by Prince Marcantonio, and has been very much embellished by the last prince Camillo. Its lake, temple, hippodrome, a fine model of a modern hippodrome, and its laurel bowers, are known and admired. The celebrated Museum purchased under the empire for our Museum, at the price of thirteen millions and not fourteen as Napoleon told Canova,' has since been almost replaced in three years, so inexhaustible is Italy in chefs-d'œuvre. Under the portico, a half-colossal torso of Apollo bending a bow is exquisite, and another torso of an emperor's statue seated, very natural. The basso-relievo of Romulus and Remus suckled by the wolf, found near the Tiber by Faustulus and Laurentia, an elegant work and among the best Roman productions, is curious as a monument of the origin of Rome. The important basso-relievo of Orvius or Corvius Nasica preceded by lictors and accompanied by a divinity that appears to be public Faith, belongs to the latter times of the republic. The immense and magnificent saloon has a good head of Vespasian, in the style of his own time; the colossal, excellent head of Isis, with the lotus-flower, the pendant of which is a colossal head of Diana exquisitely wrought; the celebrated basso-relievo of a Horseman precipitating himself, restored for a Curtius, despite the vulgarity of both horse and rider; a Priestess, well-draped, over a sepulchral altar, which bears a singular Greek epitaph transmitting us the name of the Roman singer Musa; two superb colossal heads of Adrian and Antoninus, perfectly preserved; a statue of Diana. In the hall of Ceres are: a statue of that goddess, of natural size, the finest, noblest, and best draped of all known statues of Ceres; a hermes of Apollo; another of Mercury, Greek, which appears new; a portrait of Alcibiades, larger than nature; a statue of Læda; the famous basso-relievo of the education of Telephus, a work of Adrian's time, which for delicacy of execution seems a large cameo; a torso of a young man naked holding a vase, perhaps a Ganymedes, remarkable for the choiceness of the marble and the morbidezza of the flesh. The fine statue of Hercules, in the hall of that name, is adjusted like the Farnese Hercules: over a sarcophagus * Missirini's Della Vita di A. Canova, p. 245. ornamented with Tritons and Nereids, | hall, the richest after the gallery, are: is an admirable fragment of architecture. The hall of Apollo and Daphne, which has two living pictures of animals by the clever Peters, is composed of modern works. The group by Bernini in his eighteenth year, astonishing both for mechanism of art and elaborateness, is full of charm in the ensemble and the details the Apollo seems rather the jeune dieu, toujours beau, toujours frais, of Fontenelle, than the learned Apollo of the Metamorphoses. On one side of the pedestal are Ovid's verses, and on the other this singular moral distich of Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, afterwards Urban VIII: Quisquis amans sequitur fugitivæ gaudla formæ The group of Æneas and Anchises was executed by Bernini at the age of fifteen years, unless it be his father's, Pietro Bernini; it is altogether ignoble in composition, form, and expression. The David killing Goliath, another work of Bernini's youth, represents him in the person of the hero, whom he resembled in shortness of stature; this David, which is not in truth particularly noble, has not the exaggeration of his manner, and may be regarded as one of his most natural productions. The rich gallery decorated with basso-relievos of living sculptors and an unique collection of works in porphyry, leads to the cabinet of the Hermaphrodite; the statue is not so well preserved as ours, but superior in the quality of the material, which is Parian marble; it has no less grace and truth, and has been restored more judiciously and without the ridiculous quilted mattress that Bernini put to the other in his youth. A fearful head of Tiberius, a draped bust of the Genius of the Roman people, of a remarkable nicety of execution and lifelike, a fine female head said to be Sappho's, are other antique chefs-d'œuvre of this cabinet. The hall of Apollo has the statue of the god, Greek, important for the history of the art, noble, graceful, but cold in expression and rather stiffly draped. In the Egyptian 'This green rock, very much sought after by the ancients, is so called from being speckled like a serpent (GPS). It has been generally believed till now that this marble was procured from the mountains that border the Red Sea in Egypt, but an Isis, which has the stateliness and elegance that the Greeks and Romans attributed to the goddess of Egypt when they admitted her worship; a group of a Faun astride on a dolphin, which probably gave Bernini the idea of his Triton in the Piazza Navona, called the moor by the common people; a superb hermes of Bacchus crowned with ivy, and an unique vase of ophite marble. The ball of Bacchus is so called from the Greek group of that god and Proserpine, a precious monument of antique theogony. The great and curious coloured mosaic, called the Borghese, found near Torre Nuova in 1834, and entrusted to the clever D. Ruspi for restoration, represents a combat of gladiators against wild beasts; from certain Greek letters, it is attributed to Greek artists, and was executed probably about the middle of the empire; it is in the first rank of mo saics for size. The little and very plain Nelli villa, near the Borghese villa, was possessed by Raphael. Some frescos of exquisite taste, but much impaired by time, compose its decorations: the Marriage of Alexander and Roxana, the best preserved, was executed by the ancient master of the house, from the graceful description of the picture of the Greek artist Etion, crowned at the Olympic games and given by Lucian, the text of which may still help to explain the charming fresco of Raphael.' The Albani villa, a magnificent creation of Cardinal Alessandro, a passionate lover of the fine arts and antiquity, somewhat pompously styled the Adrian of his time, was laid out by himself and his architects in the manner of antique babitations, The decorations of the fronts and the details are not however very pure. Winckelmann, a friend of the cardinal, and the cleverest interpreters of figured antiquity have successively illustrated this true museum, the third of Rome, only surpassed by the Vatican and the Capitol. A pretended Brutus, for some time supposed a Harmodius and afterwards an actor, seems now to be only a slave. The first chefs-d'œuvre are: the the labours of our scientific commission in the Morea have proved that it was obtained in Pelopo nesus: the Taygete is in great part composed of it. See Lucian. Herodotus sive Elion. Sons of Niobe shot with arrows; Apollo | Sauroctonos (killer of lizards), in bronze, one of the three remaining repetitions of the work of Praxiteles; the basso-relievo of the Repose of Hercules, with Greek inscriptions in very small character; the delicious basso-relievo of Antinous crowned with a light garland (the crown be holds is modern), the most admirable of the sculptures at the villa, and the only one that escaped the sale made by Prince Albani of the objects retaken from France in 1815; the statue of Pallas; the curious hermes of Mercury, with inscriptions in Greek and Latin; the Faustina seated; the sarcophagus of the Marriage of Thetis and Peleus; the basso-relievo of Diogenes in his pretended tub before Alexander; the other basso-relievo in antique red, of Dedalus making his wings; the fine Caryatides or Canephorus of the Athenian sculptors Crito and Nicholaus; a Cupid, copied from Praxiteles; the basso-relievo of the Combat of Achilles and Memnon; the Candelabrum, which has some dancinggirls on the base that are among the most exquisite remains of Greek sculpture; the basso-relievo of Berenice offering her hair for the return of her husband Ptolemous Evergetes; the Bacchus, so remarkable for the workmanship of the head. The Parnassus of the gallery ceiling, by Raphael Mengs, formerly boasted as superior to the Parnassus of Raphael, is now, like the other works of Mengs, put in its proper rank: there are some muses in graceful attitudes and a good style of adjustment; but the Apollo, a kind of statue, is badly postured, illdrawn, and the execution, though stiff and painstaking, is deficient in power. CHAPTER II. stepping-stones with which it was bordered. At the fourth mile we pass the Anio, commonly called the Teverone, by the Ponte Mammolo, perhaps the oldest bridge in the environs of Rome, apparently taking its name from Julia Mammea, mother of Alexander Severus: having been destroyed by Totila, Narses rebuilt it with the same materials. The green foliage of the beaches on the bank forms an agreeable coup-d'œil. The waters of the little lake de' Tartari, impregnated with calcareous matter, cover the branches and roots they touch with brilliant crystals. The canal and lake of the Solfatara exhale a strong odour of sulphur : the foam of the latter lake, mixed with dust, leaves, and branches, forms a surface of light agglomerations which have procured it the too poetical name of the lake of the Floating isles. Near there are the ruins of the magnificent baths of Agrippa, which had benefitted Augustus. Nothing remains of the antique bridge of Lucano, destroyed by Totila, but the foundations in the bed of the river. This point of view is the original of one of Guaspre Poussin's finest landscapes. * The noble mausoleum of the Plautia family, which has two antique inscriptions, is remarkable for its brilliant cornice and its solidity. In the middle ages, it was used as a fortress, like the sepulchral tower of Cecilia Metella, which it resembles in elegance and grandeur. Notwithstanding the general admiration, perhaps the emperor Adrian's idea of filling his villa with copies of the monuments of art or wonders of nature that he had seen in his travels, was not particularly happy. All these different repetitions, which nevertheless retain an exterior appearance of Roman taste, must have injured each other and made the villa a kind of antique English garden, unworthy of the artistic genius of Adrian, who had moreover the failing of misap Road to Tivoli.-Ponte Mammolo.-Lake de Tartari. Quarter of the Pretorians.-Thermæ. - Canope.Tivoli -Girls-Temple of Vesta,-of the Sibyl.Cascatelle Grotto of Neptune;-of the SyrensBouse of Horace.- Villa of Mecenas. - Temple della Tosse.-Villa d'Este.--Fontana dell' Ovato. said to have been despoiled of its principal masterpieces by Caracalla, who took them to embellish his Therma; probably it was sacked by Totila. The duke of Braschi is the present proprietor, The road to Tivoli in some parts follows and it is now only a species of unhealthy the ancient Via Tiburtina. After the but productive marsh, ravaged by cultitenth mile, we again find the large poly-vation; while a strong vegetation of gonal stones of volcanic basalt, and the cypresses, fig-trees, holm-oaks, ivy, and See ante, book xv. ch. xxxvI. See ante, book xv. ch. xxxi. |
