Part 8

You know that the Forum was originally established, in the time of Romulus and Tatius, when a hill was almost a country, as a market place between the hostile people. Here the two _nations_ met to traffic. Forums afterwards became common, and the remains and sites of several in the city are known; but this was _the_ Forum, _par excellence_. This Forum remained in a state of preservation as lately as the seventh century, sufficient to receive monuments; but since that time down to a period about the commencement of the present century, it was falling gradually into a worse and worse condition; though its severest blow is attributed to Robert Guiscard, about the year 1000. He burned and laid waste all this part of Rome, much to the damage of modern travelling.

For several hundred years the Romans were in the practice of throwing rubbish in this spot, to which circumstance is ascribed the present elevation of its surface. To this cause, however, must be added the regular accumulation of materials from the crumbling ruins; for other parts of Rome prove that it is not the Forum alone which has been thus buried. You will be surprised to hear that, in disinterring many of the monuments that still remain, the pavement of the ancient Forum, and the bases of the works themselves, have been found at a depth varying from twenty to twenty-five feet below the actual surface.

The Forum is said to have been surrounded by a colonnade of two stories, which gave to the whole a form and arrangement something like those of the Palais Royal at Paris. The Curia, or senate chamber, was under the Palatine; and the Comitium, or the place for the popular meetings, was near it. As the emperors lived above, here was a shadowing forth of that sublime mystification which has so long blinded and amused the world, in the way of a political device, which it is the fashion to term the “three estates.” I wonder if Nero said who should be his ministers, and the senate said who should not!

The Arch of Septimius Severus still remains, one may say, perfect. It stands at the foot of the Capitoline, and its base is cleared away, and the vacancy is protected, as usual, by a wall. The digging around it is not very deep. It dates from the commencement of the second century.

Not far from this arch, there stood, previously, to the year 1813, a solitary column, with nearly half its shaft buried in the earth, the capitol being perfect. This column, it was then believed, belonged to a temple, or, if not to a temple, at least to the bridge of Caligula; but, in 1813, the earth was removed from its base, and it was then found to stand on a pedestal, on which there is an inscription that proves the column was erected in honour of Phocas, and as lately as the year 608. I believe it is one of the last things of the sort ever placed in the Forum. The column itself, however, is supposed to be much older, and to have been taken from some ancient and ruined temple. It may have been truly one of those that supported the bridge. The name of Phocas, it would seem, had been partially erased, after his fall: a circumstance which shows that men have the same envious stone-defacing propensities under all circumstances.

There are many other remains in and about the Forum, some of which are of more interest than those mentioned; but I have taken these, as my object is to offer you a picture of Rome as it is, rather than to pretend to any great antiquarian knowledge. You know I am no antiquary. I do not think many of these constructions equal expectation, with the exception of the Coliseum, and perhaps I ought to add, the remains that give us notions of the vastness of the palaces.

By following a road up a sharp acclivity, we reach the summit of the Capitol Hill, or rather its square, for the land is higher on both sides of it than in the area itself. The surface has undergone a good deal of change; though it is thought still easy to trace the sites of the ancient constructions. The Capitol of Rome and the Capitol of Washington were as different as the two countries to which they belonged. The former, originally, was a town; then a fortress, or a citadel; and, in the end, it became a collection of different objects of high interest, principally devoted to religious rites. If any particular _building_ was called the Capitol, it was the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, which is described as not being very large, though very magnificent; not large as a _building_, though large as a _temple_; for few of the Roman temples appear to have been of any great size. The senate assembled in the Curia, which was on the Forum, as you know, and not in the Capitol at all.

The buildings that are now called the Capitol stand on the centre of the mount, facing the north. They consist of three detached edifices, that occupy as many sides of a square, with a noble flight of steps in their front. The central edifice contains prisons and offices, and the others are filled with works of art. The celebrated statue of Marcus Aurelius, the only equestrian bronze statue of ancient Rome in existence, stands in the centre of the area, and, although the horse is heavy and even clumsy, according to American notions, a noble thing it is. The ease and the motion of this statue are beyond description. It may, at once, be set down as the model of all we possess of merit in these two respects. The artist may have had a model for this in some other work of art; but, certain I am, this has been a model for all we now possess. The senatorial palace, or the centre building of the modern Capitol, from which we obtain the name and uses of _our_ Capitols, is not very old, and it stands on the foundations of the ancient Tabularium, a structure that contained the table of the Roman laws, treaties, &c. The building was originally a sort of fortress, and probably obtained its name of the Capitol from its situation.

We call our legislative structures Capitols, under some mistaken notion, I think, about the uses of the Roman Capitol. Let this be as it may, the Romans gave this name to _their_ hill from the circumstance of finding a head buried in it; and it might have been well had we waited until some signs of a head had appeared on our own, before we christened the edifices so ambitiously. But taste in names is not the strong point of American invention. After all, too, the American Capitol has proved the grave of divers sounding heads.

I cannot stop to speak of all the objects of interest that crowd Rome, for descriptions of which you will search the more regular books; but we will descend from the Capitol Hill by the winding carriage road near the great stairs, and, riding round its base by narrow streets, for here the modern town commences in earnest, and crossing the end of the Corso, we find ourselves in a large open space, surrounded by houses, with a street around an area in the centre; which area lies several feet below the level of the streets, is paved, has a great many broken columns and other fragments scattered about it, and a noble column entire, standing at one end:—this is the Forum of Trajan.

Until the year 1812, this place was covered with houses. A beautiful column rose among them, half concealed by the buildings, and partly buried. The column is 132 feet high, was surmounted by a statue of the emperor, which has disappeared, and has been replaced by one of St. Peter. It is covered with _bas reliefs_, wrought in the marble, representing scenes from the Dacian wars. This column was the model of that of the Place Vendôme, at Paris. There is staircase within, and, until the time named, those who chose to mount by the outside to examine it, descended as in a well.

The celebrity of this column is well established. The _bas reliefs_ have a high reputation, and must have cost an immensity of labour, as there are more than two thousand figures, besides military insignia. The Forum was the richest of Rome; and its length is supposed to have been near 2000 Roman feet, and its breadth more than 600. This is more, however, than has been uncovered, and probably more than is certainly known to have ever existed. In 1812 the column was laid bare to the base, where a door affords entrance; and a good deal of the Forum has also been excavated, and walled, as usual. The diggings, however, are not so deep as those of the great Forum, the pavement of the place lying only about eight or ten feet below that of the town.

Returning to the Corso, we will next ride along that street, the principal avenue of Rome. It is probable, the Flaminian Way faced the Temple of Jupiter, or the Capitol; but the modern termination of this street is altogether unworthy of the street itself. Like the Rhine at Leyden, it is lost in a maze of narrow, crowded, and crooked passages.

Following this street between lines of palaces, we come to the Piazza Colonna, where we find the column that is usually called the column of Antonnius. It is higher and larger, and a century later than that of Trajan, but by no means its equal in beauty. This column _appears_ to stand, as it was erected, on a level with the surrounding earth: but we are told this is an error, as the pedestal now seen is a substitute in part, and the old one is still buried to the depth of eleven feet. Even the inscriptions, which are only about two centuries and a half old, (or about as old as ourselves, as a nation!) are thought to be incorrect; for it ascribes the column to Marcus Antonnius, in honour of his father-in-law, Antonnius Pius, when, in fact, it was erected by the senate, in honour of Marcus Aurelius Antonnius, to commemorate his victories in Germany.

The palaces around this square belong to the great families of Piombino, Chigi, &c., and have thirteen or fifteen windows in a row, besides being built around courts. The square near, with an unequal little eminence and an obelisk, is called Citorio. The eminence is caused by the ruins of an amphitheatre. The obelisk, which Pliny attributes to Sesostris(!) was brought from Egypt by Augustus. It was placed in the Campus Martius, and found there as lately as in 1748.

We will now wend our way through narrow and crowded streets, for a short distance, until we come out in another square of a very different character. We find it filled with market people, dirty, and far from attractive; although there is an obelisk in its centre. On the side opposite to that by which we enter it, however, is an edifice, that, as a second look shows, possesses a strange mixture of beauty and deformity. Its form is round: though the adjoining buildings prevent this circumstance from being immediately seen. It has a noble portico, with a fine row of columns, but a tympanum which is altogether too heavy. Two little belfries peep out, like asses’ ears, at each side of the portico, in a way to make a spectator laugh, while he wonders at the man who devised them did not stick them on his own head. An inscription on the cornice causes us to start; for we see in large letters, M. AGRIPPA, L. F. COS. TERTIVM. FECIT. This, then, is the Pantheon!

You will be disappointed with the _coup d’œil_ of this celebrated structure, as well as I was myself. You will probably find the building too low, the appliances of the square unseemly, the manner in which the building is surrounded by houses oppressive, the _ears_ too long, and, above all, the Roman heaviness of the pediment but a poor substitute for the grace and lightness of the Grecian architecture of the same form. It is thought that the body of the building and the portico are not of the same period. The inscription speaks for itself; and the last, at least, it is fair to infer, was erected about the year 727 of Rome, or a short time previously to the birth of Christ.

On entering the building, it is impossible not to be struck by its simple and beautiful grandeur. A vast vaulted rotunda, of solid stone, without a basement, and lighted by a graceful opening that permits a view of the firmament, are things so novel, so beautiful, not to say sublime, that one forgets the defects of the exterior. This idea is one of the most magnificent of its kind that exists in architecture. The opening, a circular hole in the top, admits sufficient light, and the eye, after scanning the noble vault, seeks this outlet, and penetrates the blue void of infinite space. Here is, at once, a suitable physical accompaniment to the mind, and the aid of one of the most far-reaching of our senses is enlisted on the side of omnipotence, infinite majesty and perfect beauty. Illimitable space is the best prototype of eternity.

I believe the vulgar notion that the Pantheon was dedicated to _all_ the gods is erroneous. It is a better opinion, it would seem, to suppose that it was dedicated to a few gods, in whom _all_ or many of the divine _attributes_ are assembled. This, after all, is begging the question, as the gods themselves, it is fair to presume, represented merely so many different attributes of infinite power and excellence. The niches are not sufficient to hold many statues, and there probably never were statues in the building to one half the deities of Rome.

One of the principal external faults of this edifice, as it is now seen, must not be ascribed to its architecture. Its majesty is impaired by its want of height; but it has been ascertained that eight steps anciently existed in front of the portico, in place of the two which are now seen. The diameter of the rotunda is 132 Roman feet; and this is the edifice, as you know, that Michael Angelo boasted he would raise into the air, as a cupola for St. Peter’s. He has raised there something very like it.

Since the year 608 the Pantheon has virtually been a Christian church. There is a long period during which it is not mentioned; but it is fair to presume, it has always preserved its present character since the year just mentioned. At one time the palace of the popes adjoined this temple, and then it served as their private chapel.

We will not return to the Corso, but, winding our way out of this maze of streets, return home by the Via Ripetta. The huge palace we pass near the river, in the shape of a harpsichord, is that of the Borghese family, and it is at present occupied by the Prince Aldobrandini, the brother of Don Camillo, who married the sister of Napoleon. It is a huge edifice, with courts, and is worthy to be a royal abode. Still, it is by no means the best house in Rome; but he who has not seen this town, or rather Italy, can form no just idea of magnificence in this part of life.

LETTER XXIV.

Mode of living, and uncleanliness of houses, unjustly censured.—Palazzo Borghese.—State of Society.—Cecisbeism.—Females of Rome.—Higher and lower classes of Italians.—The English disliked.—Hopes of advancing Romanism in America.—Religious bigotry diminished.—Disrespect of Protestants in attending the Singing at St. Peter’s.—Buffoonery of Servants of a Cardinal at devotion.—Magnificence of Church Architecture.—Roof of St. Peter’s.—The Lateran.—The Vatican.—Frescoes of Raphael.—Celebrated Pictures.—Statuary.—The Apollo, and the Laocoon.—Fresco by Michael Angelo.

The close of the last letter reminds me of the propriety of saying something of the mode of living in Rome. Nothing has surprised me more than the accounts given in English books of the filth, nastiness, and other pretended abominations of the princely abodes here, as well as of the mode of life within them. The English, as a people, have been singularly unjust commentators on all foreign usages and foreign people; though they are fast losing their prejudices, and beginning to discriminate between customs. Neither the Italians, nor any other Continental nation, deem the English snuggeries indispensable to happiness. They admire a rich _parquet_, or a floor of imitation mosaic, more than a pine or an oaken floor carpeted. Their staircases are broad architectural flights, on which a stair-carpet and brass rods would be singularly misplaced; and the great size of their houses renders the minutiæ of our pigmy residences not only unnecessary, but would render them excessively troublesome and expensive. Certainly the English and the Americans are neater in their houses than the French or the Italians; but a large portion of what has been said against the higher classes of the two latter countries may, I think, be fairly explained in this way. As between the labouring classes of England and America on the one side, and those of the Continent of Europe in general on the other, there is no comparison, on the score of civilization and its comforts; the advantage being altogether with the former. The mass of no nation can have domestic comforts, or domestic cleanliness, when the women are subjected to field labour. Exactly in the proportion as the females can turn their attention within doors, does the home become comfortable and neat, other things being equal. But, beyond this, false notions exist. The Englishman of rank, through the perfection of the manufactures and the commerce of his country, has a detail of comforts of a certain class, and perhaps of a wider class than the Continental nobility; but, on the other hand, there are other essential points in which he falls far behind them. What, for instance, are the chamber comforts and elegancies of an English townhouse, compared to those of an Italian townhouse? Compare the baths, dressing-rooms, and ante-chambers of a French hotel, or an Italian palazzo, with the same things in a London residence! The baths, dressing-rooms, cabinets, and ante-chambers of our lodgings in Florence were as spacious, and much more elegant than our entire lodgings in London; and I think all our rooms in the latter town had not more space than one of the principal rooms in the former. I paid thirty-five dollars a week for the London house, and forty-two dollars a month for the Florence lodgings!

Travellers are too much in the practice of describing under the influence of their early and home-bred impressions. As a man sees the world, his prejudices diminish, his diffidence of his own decisions increases, and with both, his indisposition to write. Many a man has commenced travelling with a firm intention of faithfully describing all he saw, and of commenting, as he conceived, impartially, but who has gradually suffered this intention to escape him, until he gets to be too critical in his distinctions to satisfy even himself. Thus, the English cockney, who has never seen a house with more than two drawing-rooms, fancies it extraordinary that an Italian with a palace larger than St. James’s, should not always occupy its state apartments, although his own king is guilty of the same act of neglect. Instead of saying that the Princes Doria, Chigi, Borghese, Colonna, Corsini, &c., have vast palaces like George IV., and that their state apartments are liberally thrown open to the public, while, like King George and all other kings, they occupy, in every-day life, rooms of less pretension and of more comfort, they say, that these Roman nobles have huge palaces,—a fact that cannot be denied,—while they live in corners of them. This false account of the real state of the case arises simply from the circumstance that an English nobleman occupies _his_ best rooms. The question whether the second-rate rooms of an Italian palace are not equal to the best apartments of an ordinary English dwelling, never suggests itself.

I visit in the Palazzo Borghese, which stands in our neighbourhood. The prince himself resides altogether at Florence, where he has another noble house, and in which he receives magnificently; but, here, a large part of the building is filled with pictures, in order to be exhibited to strangers. It is true the _appartamente nobile_, or first floor, is not now opened, for the family of the Prince Aldobrandini is here merely on a visit: he is a younger brother, and his proper residence may be called Paris, the princess being a French lady of the family de la Rochefoucauld. Accordingly, when admitted, I certainly do not enter the state apartments, but am shown into what we call the third story, where I find the family. A pretty picture might be made of this, but it would mislead you. Here is a princely family, with an enormous house, it might be said, that lives in a corner of it, even on the second floor, leaving all the principal rooms unoccupied. This is the ordinary English version of the custom, and, of necessity, the ordinary American. In point of fact, however, the ascent to this third story is far more imposing, and quite as easy, as the ascent to a common London drawing-room; and, with but very few exceptions, I have never seen an English nobleman so well lodged in London, in his best rooms, as the present occupants of the Palazzo Borghese are _in their corner_. The misconception has arisen from the difference in the habits of the two countries, and we have adopted the error, as we adopt all English mistakes that do not impair our good opinion of ourselves: in other words, we swallow them whole.

There are Italian nobles, out of doubt, who are not rich enough to keep up their vast palaces; and there are English nobles in the same predicament. In such cases, the Englishman retires to the Continent in order to live cheap; and the Italian retires to his attic, or _mezzinino_, which is frequently better than the first floor of an English townhouse. The latter can live cheapest at home.

As to the filth on the staircases, which the English accounts had led me to expect, I have seen none of it, in any palace I have entered. It is possible that some deserted staircase, or that the corridor of one of these huge piles, may occasionally be defiled in that way, for it has happened in London to the best houses; but, as a distinctive usage, the accounts are altogether false, so far as eighteen months’ experience of Italy can authorize me to decide. There are certain disadvantages belonging to magnificence, which is never so comfortable and so minutely nice as snugger modes of living; but if one cannot have snugness with magnificence and taste, neither can one have magnificence and taste with snugness. Homilies might be written on the moral part of the question; but to understand the physical merits, it is necessary to enter into all these distinctions.