"The Barberini were the last papal nephews who aspired to independent principalities. Urban VIII., though he enriched them enormously, appears to have been but little satisfied with them. He used to complain that he had four relations who were fit for nothing, the first, Cardinal Francesco, was a saint, and worked no miracles: the second, Cardinal Antonio, was a monk, and had no patience: the third, Cardinal Antonio the younger, was an orator (i.e. an ambassador), and did not know how to speak: and the fourth was a general, who could not draw a sword."—Goethe, Romische Briefe.
On the right, on entering the palace, is the small Collection of Pictures (open when the custode chooses to be there), indifferently lodged for a building so magnificent. We may notice:—
2nd Room.—
34. Urban VIII.: Andrea Sacchi.
35. A Cardinal: Titian.
48. Madonna and Child, St. John, and St Jerome: Francia.
54. Madonna and Child: Sodoma.
58. Madonna and Child: Giovanni Bellini.
63. Daughter of Raphael Mengs: Mengs.
67. Portrait of himself: Masaccio.
74. Adam and Eve: Domenichino.
3rd Room.—
73. The "Schiava:" Palma Vecchio.
"The so-called Slave (a totally unmeaning name) is probably a mere school picture, of grand beauty, but with too clumsy a style of drapery, too cold an expression, and too brown a carnation for Titian—to whom it is attributed."—Kugler.
76. Castel Gandolfo: Claude Lorraine.
78. Portrait: Bronzino.
79. Christ among the Doctors—painted in five days, in 1506: Albert Durer.
81. "The mother of Beatrice Cenci"? Caravaggio.
82. The Fornarina (with the painter's name on the armlet): Raphael.
"The history of this person, to whom Raphael was attached even to his death, is obscure, nor are we very clear with regard to her likenesses. In the tribune at Florence there is a portrait, inscribed with the date 1512, of a very beautiful woman holding the fur trimming of her mantle with her right hand, which is said to represent her. The picture is decidedly by Raphael, but can hardly represent the Fornarina; at least it has no resemblance to this portrait, which has the name of Raphael on the armlet, and of the authenticity of which (particularly with respect to the subject) there can hardly be a doubt. In this the figure is seated, and is uncovered to the waist; she draws a light drapery around her; a shawl is twisted round her head. The execution is beautiful and delicate, although the lines are sufficiently defined; the forms are fine and not without beauty, but at the same time not free from an expression of coarseness and common life. The eyes are large, dark, and full of fire, and seem to speak of brighter days. There are repetitions of this picture, from the school of Raphael, in Roman galleries."—Kugler.
86. Death of Germanicus: Poussin.
88. Seaport: Claude Lorraine.
90. Holy Family: Andrea del Sarto.
93. Annunciation: Botticelli.
But the interest of this collection centres entirely around two portraits—that (81) of Lucrezia, the unhappy wife of Francesco Cenci, by Scipione Gaetani, and that (85) of Beatrice Cenci, by Guido Reni.
"The portrait of Beatrice Cenci is most interesting as a just representation of one of the loveliest specimens of the workmanship of nature. There is a fixed and pale composure upon the features; she seems sad and stricken down in spirit, yet the despair thus expressed is lightened by the patience of gentleness. Her head is bound with folds of white drapery, from which the yellow strings of her golden hair escape, and fall about her neck. The moulding of her face is exquisitely delicate; the eyebrows are distinct and arched; the lips have that permanent meaning of imagination and sensibility which suffering has not repressed, and which it seems as if death scarcely could extinguish. Her forehead is large and clear; her eyes, which we are told were remarkable for their vivacity, are swollen with weeping, and lustreless, but beautifully tender and serene. In the whole mien there is a simplicity and dignity, which, united with her exquisite loveliness and deep sorrow, is inexpressibly pathetic. Beatrice Cenci appears to have been one of those persons in whom energy and gentleness dwell together without destroying one another; her nature simple and profound. The crimes and miseries in which she was an actor and sufferer, are as the mask and the mantle in which circumstances clothed her for her impersonation on the scene of the world."—Shelley's Preface to the Cenci.
"The picture of Beatrice Cenci represents simply a female head; a very youthful, girlish, perfectly beautiful face, enveloped in white drapery, from beneath which strays a lock or two of what seems a rich, though hidden luxuriance of auburn hair. The eyes are large and brown, and meet those of the spectator, evidently with a strange, ineffectual effort to escape. There is a little redness about the eyes, very slightly indicated, so that you would question whether or no the girl had been weeping. The whole face is very quiet; there is no distortion or disturbance of any single feature; nor is it easy to see why the expression is not cheerful, or why a single touch of the artist's pencil should not brighten it into joyousness. But, in fact, it is the very saddest picture ever painted or conceived; it involves an unfathomable depth of sorrow, the sense of which comes to the observer by a sort of intuition. It is a sorrow that removes this beautiful girl out of the sphere of humanity, and sets her in a far-off region, the remoteness of which, while yet her face is so close before us,—makes us shiver as at a spectre. You feel all the time you look at Beatrice, as if she were trying to escape from your gaze. She knows that her sorrow is so strange and immense, that she ought to be solitary for ever both for the world's sake and her own; and this is the reason we feel such a distance between Beatrice and ourselves, even when our eyes meet hers. It is infinitely heart-breaking to meet her glance, and to know that nothing can be done to help or comfort her, neither does she ask help or comfort, knowing the hopelessness of her case better than we do. She is a fallen angel—fallen and yet sinless: and it is only this depth of sorrow with its weight and darkness, that keeps her down to earth, and brings her within our view even while it sets her beyond our reach."—Hawthorne, Transformation.
"The portrait of Beatrice Cenci is a picture almost impossible to be forgotten. Through the transcendent sweetness and beauty of the face, there is a something shining out that haunts me. I see it now, as I see this paper, or my pen. The head is loosely draped in white; the light hair falling down below the linen folds. She has turned suddenly towards you; and there is an expression in the eyes—although they are very tender and gentle—as if the wildness of a momentary terror, or distraction, had been struggled with and overcome, that instant; and nothing but a celestial hope, and a beautiful sorrow, and a desolate earthly helplessness remained. Some stories say that Guido painted it the night before her execution; some other stories, that he painted it from memory, after having seen her on her way to the scaffold. I am willing to believe that, as you see her on his canvas, so she turned towards him, in the crowd, from the first sight of the axe, and stamped upon his mind a look which he has stamped on mine as though I had stood beside him in the concourse. The guilty palace of the Cenci: blighting a whole quarter of the town, as it stands withering away by grains: had that face, to my fancy, in its dismal porch, and at its black blind windows, and flitting up and down its dreary stairs, and growing out of the darkness of its ghostly galleries. The history is written in the painting; written, in the dying girl's face, by Nature's own hand. And oh! how in that one touch she puts to flight (instead of making kin) the puny world that claims to be related to her, in right of poor conventional forgeries!"—Dickens.
"Five days had been passed by Beatrice in the secret prisons of the Torre Savella, when, at an early hour in the morning, her advocate, Farinacci, entered her sad abode. With him appeared a young man of about twenty-five years of age, dressed in the fashion of a writer in the courts of justice of that day. Unheeded by Beatrice, he sat regarding her at a little distance with fixed attention. She had risen from her miserable pallet, but, unlike the wretched inmate of a dungeon, she seemed a being from a brighter sphere. Her eyes were of liquid softness, her forehead large and clear, her countenance of angelic purity, mysteriously beautiful. Around her head a fold of white muslin had been carelessly wrapped, from whence in rich luxuriance fell her fair and waving hair. Profound sorrow imparted an air of touching sensibility to her lovely features. With all the eagerness of hope, she begged Farinacci to tell her frankly if his visit foreboded good, and assured him of her gratitude for the anxiety he evinced, to save her life and that of her family.
"Farinacci conversed with her for some time, while at a distance sat his companion, sketching the features of Beatrice. Turning round, she observed this with displeasure and surprise; Farinacci explained that this seeming writer was the celebrated painter, Guido Reni, who, earnestly desiring her picture, had entreated to be introduced into the prison for the purpose of obtaining so rich an acquisition. At first unwilling, but afterwards consenting, she turned and said, 'Signor Guido, your renown might make me desirous of knowing you, but how will you undervalue me in my present situation. From the fatality that surrounds me, you will judge me guilty. Perhaps my face will tell you I am not wicked; it will show you, too, that I now languish in this prison, which I may quit, only to ascend the scaffold. Your great name, and my sad story, may make my portrait interesting, and,' she added, with touching simplicity, 'the picture will awaken compassion if you write on one of its angles the word, innocente.' The great artist set himself to work, and produced the picture now in the Palazzo Barberini, a picture that rivets the attention of every beholder, which, once seen, ever after hovers over the memory with an interest the most harrowing and mysterious."—From "Beatrice Cenci, Storia del Secolo XVI., Raccontata dal D.A.A., Firenze." Whiteside's Translation.
There is a pretty old-fashioned garden belonging to this palace, at one corner of which—overhanging an old statue—was the celebrated Barberini Pine, often drawn by artists from the Via Sterrata at the back of the garden, where statue and pine combined well with the Church of S. Caio; but, alas, this magnificent tree was cut down in 1872.
At the back of the palace-court, behind the arched bridge leading to the garden, is—let into the wall—an inscription which formed part of the dedication of an arch erected to Claudius by the senate and people, in honour of the conquest of Britain. The letters were inlaid with bronze. It was found near the Palazzo Sciarra, where the arch is supposed to have stood.
Ascending to the summit of the hill, we find four ugly statues of river-gods, lying over the Quattro Fontane, from which the street takes its name.
On the left is the Palazzo Albani, recently restored by Queen Christina of Spain.
"In one of its rooms is a very ancient painting of Jupiter and Ganymede, in a very uncommon style, uniting considerable grandeur of conception, great force and decision, and a deep tone and colour which produce great effect. It is said to be Grecian."—Eaton's Rome.
The opposite church, S. Carlo a Quattro Fontane, is worth observing from the fact that the whole building, church and convent, corresponds with one of the four piers supporting the cupola of St. Peter's. Here was formed the point of attack against the Quirinal Palace, November 16, 1848, which caused the flight of Pius IX., and the downfall of his government. From a window of this convent the shot was fired which killed Monsignor Palma, one of the pontifical secretaries, and a writer on ecclesiastical history—who had unfortunately exposed himself at one of the windows opposite. The church contains two pictures by Mignard relating to the history of S. Carlo.
Turning down Via del Quirinale, on the left is S. Andrea a Monte Cavallo (on the supposed site of the temple of Quirinus), erected, as it is told by an inscription inside, by Camillo Pamphili, nephew of Innocent X., from designs of Bernini. It has a Corinthian façade and a projecting semicircular portico with Ionic columns. The interior is oval. It is exceedingly rich, being almost entirely lined with red marble streaked with white (Sicilian jasper), divided by white marble pillars supporting a gilt cupola. The high altar—supposed to cover the body of St. Zeno—between really magnificent pillars, is surmounted by a fine picture, by Borgognone, of the crucifixion of St. Andrew. Near this is the tomb, by Festa, of Emmanuel IV., king of Sardinia, who abdicated his throne in 1802, to become a Jesuit monk in the adjoining convent, where he died in 1818. On the right is the chapel of Santa Croce, with three pictures of the passion and death of Christ by Brandini; and that of St. Francis Xavier, with three pictures by Baciccio, representing the saint preaching,—baptizing an Indian queen,—and lying dead in the island of Sancian in China. On the left is the chapel of the Virgin, with pictures, by David, of the three great Jesuit saints—St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Francis Borgia, and St. Luigi Gonzaga—adoring the Virgin, and, by Gerard de la Nuit, of the Adoration of the Shepherds and of the Magi; and lastly the chapel of S. Stanislas Kostka, containing his shrine of gold and lapis-lazuli, under an exceedingly rich altar, which is adorned with a beautiful picture by Carlo Maratta, representing the saint receiving the Infant Jesus from the arms of his mother. At the sides of the chapel are two other pictures by Maratta, one of which represents S. Stanislas "bathing with water his breast inflamed with divine love," the other his receiving the host from the hands of an angel. These are the three principal incidents in the story of the young S. Stanislas, who belonged to a noble Polish family and abandoned the world to shut himself up here, saying, "I am not born for the good things of this world; that which my heart desires is the good things of eternity."
"I have long ago exhausted all my capacity of admiration for splendid interiors of churches; but methinks this little, little temple (it is not more than fifty or sixty feet across) has a more perfect and gem-like beauty than any other. Its shape is oval, with an oval dome, and above that another little dome, both of which are magnificently frescoed. Around the base of the larger dome is wreathed a flight of angels, and the smaller and upper one is encircled by a garland of cherubs—cherub and angel all of pure white marble. The oval centre of the church is walled round with precious and lustrous marble, of a red-veined variety, interspersed with columns and pilasters of white; and there are arches, opening through this rich wall, forming chapels, which the architect seems to have striven hard to make even more gorgeous than the main body of the church. The pavement is one star of various tinted marble."—Hawthorne, Notes on Italy.
The adjoining Convent of the Noviciate of the Order of Jesus contains the room in which S. Stanislas Kostka died, at the age of eighteen, with his reclining statue by Le Gros, the body in white, his dress (that of a novice) in black, and the couch upon which he lies in yellow marble. Behind his statue is a picture of a celestial vision which consoled him in his last moments. On the day of his death, November 13, the convent is thrown open, and mass is said without ceasing in this chamber, which is visited by thousands.
"La petite chambre de S. Stanislas Kostka, est un de ces lieux où la prière naît spontanément dans le cœur, et s'en échappe comme par un cours naturel."—Veuillot, Parfum de Rome.[233]
In the convent garden is shown the fountain where "the angels used to bathe the breast of S. Stanislas burning with the love of Christ."
Passing the Benedictine convent, with a courtyard containing an old sarcophagus as a fountain, and a humble church decorated with rude frescoes of St. Benedict and Sta. Scholastica, we reach a small and popular church, rich in marbles, belonging to the Perpetua Adoratrice del Divin Sacramento del Altare, founded by sister Maddalena of the Incarnation, who died 1829, and is buried on the right of the entrance. Here the low monotonous chant of the perpetual adoration may be constantly heard.
The Piazza of the Monte Cavallo has in its centre the red granite obelisk (ninety-five feet high with its base) erected here by Antinori in 1781, for Pius VI. It was originally brought from Egypt by Claudius, A.D. 57, together with the obelisk now in front of Sta. Maria Maggiore, and they were both first placed at the entrance of the mausoleum of Augustus. At its base are the colossal statues found in the baths of Constantine, of the Dioscuri Castor and Pollux reining in their horses. These statues give a name to the district. Their bases bear the names of Phidias and Praxiteles, and though their claim to be the work of such distinguished sculptors is doubtful, they are certainly of Greek origin. Copies of these statues at Berlin have received the nicknames of Gehemmter Fortschritt, and Beförderter Rückschritt,—Progress checked and Retrogression encouraged.
"At the time when the Mirabilia Romæ were published, that is, about the thirteenth century, these statues were believed to represent the young philosophers, Praxiteles and Phidias, who came to Rome during the reign of Tiberius, and promised to tell him his most secret words and actions provided he would honour them with a monument. Having performed their promise, they obtained these statues, which represent them naked, because all human science was naked and open to their eyes. From this fable, wild and absurd as it is, we may nevertheless draw the inference that the statues had been handed down from time immemorial as the works of Phidias and Praxiteles, though those artists had in the lapse of ages been metamorphosed into philosophers. May we not also assume the existence of a tradition that the statues were brought to Rome in the reign of Tiberius? In the middle ages the group appears to have been accompanied by a statue of Medusa, sitting at their feet, and having before her a shell. According to the text of the Mirabilia, as given by Montfaucon in his Diarium Italicum, this figure represented the Church. The snakes which surrounded her typified the volumes of Scripture, which nobody could approach unless he had first been washed—that is, baptized—in the water of the shell. But the Prague MS. of the Mirabilia interprets the female figure to represent Science, and the serpents to typify the disputed questions with which she is concerned."—Dyer's Hist. of the City of Rome.
"L'imitation du grand style de Phidias est visible dans plusieurs sculptures qu'il a inspirées, et surtout dans les colosses de Castor et Pollux, domptant des chevaux, qui ont fait donner à une partie du mont Quirinal le nom de Monte Cavallo.
"Il ne faut faire aucune attention aux inscriptions qui attribuent un des deux colosses à Phidias et l'autre à Praxitèle, Praxitèle dont le style n'a rien à faire ici; son nom a été inscrit sur la base de l'une des deux statues, comme Phèdre le reprochait déjà à des faussaires du temps d'Auguste, qui croyaient augmenter le mérite d'un nouvel ouvrage en y mettant le nom de Praxitèle. Quelle que soit l'époque où les colosses de Monte Cavallo ont été exécutés, malgré quelques différences, on doit affirmer que les deux originaux étaient de la même école, de l'école de Phidias."—Ampère, Hist. Romaine, iii. 252.
"Chacun des deux héros dompte d'une seule main un cheval fougueux qui se cabre. Ces formes colossales, cette lutte de l'homme avec les animaux, donnent, comme tous les ouvrages des anciens, une admirable idée de la puissance physique de la nature humaine."—Mad. de Staël.
"Before me were the two Monte Cavallo statues, towering gigantically above the pygmies of the present day, and looking like Titans in the act of threatening heaven. Over my head the stars were just beginning to look out, and might have been taken for guardian angels keeping watch over the temples below. Behind, and on my left, were palaces; on my right, gardens, and hills beyond, with the orange tints of sunset over them still glowing in the distance. Within a stone's throw of me, in the midst of objects thus glorious in themselves, and thus in harmony with each other, was stuck an unplaned post, on which glimmered a paper lantern. Such is Rome."—Guesses at Truth.
Close by is a fountain playing into a fine bason of Egyptian granite, brought hither by Pius VII. from the Forum, where it had long been used for watering cattle.
On the left, is the Palace of the Consulta, built in 1730 by Clement XII. (Corsini), from designs of Fuga. Before its gates, under the old regime, some of the Papal Guardia Nobile were always to be seen sunning themselves in a uniform so resplendent that it could scarcely be believed that the pay of this "noble guard" of the Pope amounted only to £5 6s. 3d. a month!
On the right, is the immense Palace of the Quirinal, which also extends along one whole side of the street we have been pursuing.
"That palace-building, ruin-destroying pope, Paul IV., began to erect the enormous palace on the Quirinal Hill; and the prolongation of his labours, by a long series of successive pontiffs, has made it one of the largest and ugliest buildings extant."—Eaton's Rome.
The chief, indeed almost the only, interest of this palace arises from its having been the favourite residence of Pius VII. (Chiaramonte). It was here that he was taken prisoner by the French. General Radet forced his way into the pope's room on the night of June 6, 1809, and, while excusing himself for being the messenger, hastily intimated to the pontiff, in the name of the emperor, that he must at once abdicate his temporal sovereignty. Pius absolutely refused, upon which he was forced to descend the staircase, and found a coach waiting at the entrance of the palace. Here the pope paused, his face streaming with tears, and, standing in the starlit piazza, solemnly extended his arms in benediction over his sleeping people. Then he entered the carriage, followed by Cardinal Pacca, and was hurried away to exile.... "Whirled away through the heat and dust of an Italian summer's day, without an attendant, without linen, without his spectacles—fevered and wearied, he never for a moment lost his serenity. Cardinal Pacca tells us, that when they had just started on this most dismal of journeys, the pope asked him if he had any money. The secretary of state replied that he had had no opportunity of providing himself. 'We then drew forth our purses,' continues the cardinal, 'and notwithstanding the state of affliction we were in at being thus torn away from Rome, and all that was dear to us, we could hardly compose our countenances, on finding the contents of each purse to consist—of the pope's, of a papetto (10d.), and of mine, of three grossi (7½d.). We had precisely thirty-five baiocchi between us. The pope, extending his hand, showed his papetto to General Radet, saying, at the same time, 'Look here—this is all I possess.'"[234].... Six years after, Napoleon was sent to St. Helena, and Pius VII. returned in triumph to Rome!
It was from this same palace that Pius IX.—who has never inhabited it since—made his escape to Gaeta during the revolution of 1848, when the siege of the Quirinal by the insurgents had succeeded in extorting the appointment of a democratic ministry.
"On the afternoon of the 24th of November, the Duc d'Harcourt had arrived at the Quirinal in his coach as ambassador of France, and craved an audience of the sovereign. The guards wondered that he stayed so long; but they knew not that he sat reading the newspapers in the papal study, while the pope had retired to his bed-room to change his dress. Here his major-domo, Filippani, had laid out the black cassock and dress of an ordinary priest. The pontiff took off his purple stole and white pontifical robe, and came forth in the simple garb he had worn in his quiet youth. The Duc d'Harcourt threw himself on his knees exclaiming, 'Go forth, holy Father; divine wisdom inspires this counsel, divine power will lead it to a happy end.' By secret passages and narrow staircases, Pius IX. and his trusty servant passed unseen to a little door, used only occasionally for the Swiss guards, and by which they were to leave the palace. They reached it, and bethought them that the key had been forgotten! Filippani hastened back to the papal apartment to fetch it; and returning unquestioned to the wicket, found the pontiff on his knees, and quite absorbed in prayer. The wards were rusty, and the key turned with difficulty; but the door was opened at last, and the holy fugitive and his servant quickly entered a poor hackney coach that was waiting for them outside. Here, again, they ran risk of being discovered through the thoughtless adherence to old etiquette of the other servant, who stood by the coach, and who, having let down the steps, knelt, as usual, before he shut the door.
"The pope wore a dark great coat over his priest's cassock, a low-crowned round hat, and a broad brown woollen neckcloth outside his straight Roman collar. Filippani had on his usual loose cloak; but under this he carried the three-cornered hat of the pope, a bundle of the most private and secret papers, the papal seals, the breviary, the cross-embroidered slippers, a small quantity of linen, and a little box full of gold medals stamped with the likeness of his Holiness. From the inside of the carriage, he directed the coachman to follow many winding and diverging streets, in the hope of misleading the spies, who were known to swarm at every corner. Beside the Church of SS. Pietro e Marcellino, in the deserted quarter beyond the Coliseum, they found the Bavarian minister, Count Spaur, waiting in his own private carriage, and imagining every danger which could have detained them so long. The sovereign pressed the hand of his faithful Filippani, and entered the Count's carriage. Silently they drove on through the old gate of Rome,—Count Spaur having there shown the passport of the Bavarian minister going to Naples on affairs of state.
"Meanwhile the Duc d'Harcourt grew tired of reading the newspapers in the pope's study; and when he thought that his Holiness must be far beyond the walls of Rome, he left the palace, and taking post-horses, hastened with all speed to overtake the fugitive on the road to Civita Vecchia, whither he believed him to be flying. As he left the study in the Quirinal, a prelate entered with a large bundle of ecclesiastical papers, on which, he said, he had to confer with the pope; then his chamberlain went in to read to him his breviary, and the office of the day. The rooms were lighted up, and the supper taken in as usual; and at length it was stated that his Holiness, feeling somewhat unwell, had retired to rest; and his attendants, and the guard of honour, were dismissed for the night. It is true that a certain prelate, who chanced to see the little door by which the fugitive had escaped into the street left open, began to cry out, 'The pope has escaped! the pope has escaped!' But Prince Gabrielli was beside him; and, clapping his hand upon the mouth of the alarmist, silenced him in time, by whispering, 'Be quiet, Monsignore; be quiet, or we shall be cut to pieces!'
"Near La Riccia, the fugitives found Countess Spaur (who had arranged the whole plan of the escape) waiting with a coach and six horses—in which they pursued their journey to Gaeta, reaching the Neapolitan frontier between five and six in the morning. The pope throughout carried with him the sacrament in the pyx which Pius the Seventh carried when he was taken prisoner to France, and which, as if with prescience of what would happen, had been lately sent to him as a memorial by the Bishop of Avignon."—Beste.
It is in the Quirinal Palace that the later conclaves have always met for the election of the popes.
"In the afternoon of the last day of the novendiali, as they are called, after the death of a pope, the cardinals assemble (at S. Sylvestro a Monte Cavallo), and walk in procession, accompanied by their conclavisti, a secretary, a chaplain, and a servant or two, to the great gate of the royal residence, in which one will remain as master and supreme lord. Of course the hill is crowded by persons, lining the avenue kept open for the procession. Cardinals never before seen by them, or not for many years, pass before them; eager eyes scan and measure them, and try to conjecture, from fancied omens in eye, in figure, or in expression, who will be shortly the sovereign of their fair city; and, what is much more, the head of the Catholic Church, from the rising to the setting sun. They all enter equal over the threshold of that gate: they share together the supreme rule, spiritual and temporal: there is still embosomed in them all, the voice yet silent, that will soon sound from one tongue over all the world, and the dormant germ of that authority which will soon again be concentrated in one man alone. To-day they are all equal; perhaps to-morrow one will sit enthroned, and all the rest will kiss his feet; one will be sovereign, and others his subjects; one the shepherd, and the others his flock.
* * * * * * * *
"From the Quirinal Palace stretches out, the length of a whole street, an immense wing, divided in its two upper floors into a great number of small but complete suites of apartments, occupied permanently, or occasionally, by persons attached to the Court. During conclave these are allotted, literally so, to the cardinals, each of whom lives apart with his own attendants. His food is brought daily from his own house, and is overhauled, and delivered to him in the shape of 'broken victuals,' by the watchful guardians of the turns and lattices, through which alone anything, even conversation, can penetrate into the seclusion of that sacred retreat. For a few hours, the first evening, the doors are left open, and the nobility, the diplomatic body, and, in fact, all presentable persons, may roam from cell to cell, paying a brief compliment to its occupant, perhaps speaking the same good wishes to fifty, which they know can only be accomplished in one. After that, all is closed; a wicket is left accessible for any cardinal to enter, who is not yet arrived; but every aperture is jealously guarded by faithful janitors, judges and prelates of various tribunals, who relieve one another. Every letter even is opened and read, that no communications may be held with the outer world. The very street on which the wing of the conclave looks is barricaded and guarded by a picquet at each end; and as, fortunately, opposite there are no private residences, and all the buildings have access from the back, no inconvenience is thereby created.... In the mean time, within, and unseen from without, fervet opus.
"Twice a day the cardinals meet in the chapel belonging to the palace, included in the enclosure, and there, on tickets so arranged that the voter's name cannot be seen, write the name of him for whom they give their suffrage. These papers are examined in their presence, and if the number of votes given to any one do not constitute the majority, they are burnt in such a manner that the smoke, issuing through a flue, is visible to the crowd usually assembled in the square outside. Some day, instead of this usual signal to disperse, the sound of pick and hammer is heard, a small opening is seen in the wall which had temporarily blocked up the great window over the palace gateway. At last the masons of the conclave have opened a rude door, through which steps out on the balcony the first Cardinal Deacon, and proclaims to the many, or to the few, who may happen to be in waiting, that they again possess a sovereign and a pontiff."—Cardinal Wiseman.
"Sais-tu ce que c'est qu'un conclave? Une réunion de vieillards, moins occupés du ciel que de la terre, et dont quelques-uns se font plus maladifs, plus goutteux, et plus cacochymes qu'ils ne le sont encore, dans l'espérance d'inspirer un vif interêt à leurs partisans. Grand nombre d'éminences ne renonçant jamais à la possibilité d'une élection, le rival le plus près de la tombe excite toujours le moins de répugnance. Un rhumatisme est ici un titre à la confiance; l'hydropisie a ses partisans: car l'ambition et la mort comptent sur les mêmes chances. Le cercueil sert comme de marchepied au trône; et il y a tel pieux candidat qui négocierait avec son concurrent, si la durée du nouveau règne pouvait avoir son terme obligatoire comme celui d'un effet de commerce. Eh! ne sais-tu pas toi-même que le pâtre d'Ancône brûla gaiement ses béquilles dès qu'il eut ceint la tiare; et que Léon X., élu à trente-huit ans, avait eu grand soin de ne guérir d'un mal mortel que le lendemain de son couronnement?"—Lorenzo Ganganelli (Clement XIV.) à Carlo Bertinazzi, Avril 16, 1769.
Under the rule of the Popes the palace was shown from 12 A.M. to 4 P.M. on presentation of a ticket, which could easily be obtained through a banker. It was stripped of all historical memorials and contained very few fine pictures, so was little worth visiting. Since the winter of 1870—71 the palace has been appropriated as the residence of the Sardinian Royal Family.
On the landing of the principal staircase, in a bad light, is a very important fresco by Melozzo da Forli, a rare master of the Paduan school.[235]
"On the vaulted ceiling of a chapel in the Church of the SS. Apostoli at Rome, Melozzo executed a work (1472) which, in those times, can have admitted of comparison with few. When the chapel was rebuilt in the eighteenth century some fragments were saved. That comprehending the Creator between angels was removed to a staircase in the Quirinal palace, while single figures of angels were placed in the sacristy of St. Peter's. These detached portions suffice to show a beauty and fulness of form, and a combination of earthly and spiritual grandeur, comparable in their way to the noblest productions of Titian, although in mode of execution rather recalling Coreggio. Here, as in the cupola frescoes of Coreggio himself, half a century later, we trace that constant effort at true perspective of the figure, hardly in character, perhaps, with high ecclesiastical art; the drapery, also, is of a somewhat formless description; but the grandeur of the principal figure, the grace and freshness of the little adoring cherubs, and the elevated beauty of the angels are expressed with an easy naïveté, to which only the best works of Mantegna and Signorelli can compare."—Kugler.
Passing through a great hall, one hundred and ninety feet long, we are shown a number of rooms fitted up by Pius VII. and Gregory XVI. for the papal summer residence. They contain few objects of interest. In one chamber is a Last Supper by Baroccio;—in the next a fine tapestry representing the marriage of Louis XIV. The following rooms contain some good Gobelin tapestries.
Several apartments have mosaic pavements, brought hither from pagan edifices. The chamber is shown in which Pius VII. died,—the bed has been changed. In the next room—an audience chamber—he was taken prisoner. Here is a curious ancient pietra-dura of the Annunciation,—the ceiling is painted by Overbeck. In one of the following rooms are some pictures, including—
S. Giorgio: Pordenone.
"One picture especially attracted me at the Quirinal; a St. George, the conqueror of the dragon, and deliverer of the maiden. No one could tell me the name of the master, till a modest little man stepped forward, and told me the picture was by Pordenone the Venetian, one of his best works, showing all his merits. This quite explained my liking for it; the picture had struck me, because being best acquainted with the Venetian school, I could best appreciate the merits of one of its masters."—Goethe, Romische Briefe.
Marriage of S. Catherine: Battoni.
St. Peter and St. Paul: Fra Bartolomeo.
"The two standing figures of St. Peter and St. Paul, as large as life, were executed during a short residence in Rome. The first was completed by Raphael after Fra Bartolomeo's departure."—Kugler.
The room which is decorated with a fine modern tapestry of the martyrdom of St. Stephen, has a plaster frieze, being the original cast of the Triumph of Alexander the Great, modelled for Napoleon by Thorwaldsen. One of the last rooms shown is a kind of picture gallery. Among the best works here are:—
Saul and David: Guercino.
Ecce Homo: Domenichino.
St. Jerome: Spagnoletto.
The Flight into Egypt: Baroccio.
Here also is a worthless picture of the Battle of Mentana, presented to Pius IX. by the English Catholic ladies.
The Private Chapel of the Pope, opening from this gallery, contains a magnificent picture of the Annunciation by Guido, and frescoes of the life of the Virgin by Albani. The great hall of the Consistory, a bare room with benches, has a fresco of the Virgin and Child by Carlo Maratta, over an altar.
The Gardens of the Quirinal can be visited with an order from 8 to 12 A.M. They are in the stiff style of box hedges and clipped avenues, which seems to belong especially to Rome, and which we know to have been popular here even in imperial times. Pliny, in his account of his Tusculan villa, describes his gardens decorated with "figures of different animals, cut in box: evergreens clipped into a thousand different shapes; sometimes into letters forming different names; walls and hedges of cut box, and trees twisted into a variety of forms." But the Quirinal gardens are also worth visiting, on account of the many pretty glimpses they afford of St. Peter's and other distant buildings, and the oddity of some of the devices—an organ played by water, &c. The Casino, built by Fuga, has frescoes by Orizonti, Pompeo Battoni, and Pannini.
If we turn to the left on issuing from the palace, we reach—on the left—the entrance to the courtyard of the vast Palazzo Rospigliosi, built by Flaminio Ponzio, in 1603, for Cardinal Scipio Borghese, on a portion of the site of the Baths of Constantine. It was inhabited by Cardinal Bentivoglio, and sold by him to Cardinal Mazarin, who enlarged it from designs of Carlo Maderno. From his time to 1704 it was inhabited by French ambassadors, and it then passed to the Rospigliosi family. The present Prince Rospigliosi inhabits the second floor, his brother, Prince Pallavicini, the first.
The palace itself (well known from its hospitalities) is not shown, but the Casino is open on Wednesdays and Saturdays. It is situated at the end of a very small but pretty garden planted with magnolias, and consists of three chambers. On the roof of the central room is the famous Aurora of Guido.
"Guido's Aurora is the very type of haste and impetus; for surely no man ever imagined such hurry and tumult, such sounding and clashing. Painters maintain that it is lighted from two sides,—they have my full permission to light theirs from three if it will improve them, but the difference lies elsewhere."—Mendelssohn's Letters, p. 91.
"This is the noblest work of Guido. It is embodied poetry. The Hours, that hand in hand encircle the car of Phœbus, advance with rapid pace. The paler, milder forms of those gentle sisters who rule over declining day, and the glowing glance of those who bask in the meridian blaze, resplendent in the hues of heaven,—are of no mortal grace and beauty; but they are eclipsed by Aurora herself, who sails on the golden clouds before them, shedding 'showers of shadowing roses' on the rejoicing earth; her celestial presence diffusing gladness, and light, and beauty around. Above the heads of the heavenly coursers, hovers the morning star, in the form of a youthful cherub, bearing his flaming torch. Nothing is more admirable in this beautiful composition than the motion given to the whole. The smooth and rapid step of the circling Hours as they tread on the fleecy clouds; the fiery steeds; the whirling wheels of the car; the torch of Lucifer, blown back by the velocity of his advance; and the form of Aurora, borne through the ambient air, till you almost fear she should float from your sight."—Eaton's Rome.
"The work of Guido is more poetic than that of Guercino, and luminous, and soft, and harmonious. Cupid, Aurora, Phœbus, form a climax of beauty, and the Hours seem as light as the clouds on which they dance."—Forsyth.
Lanzi points out that Guido always took the Venus de Medici and the Niobe as his favourite models, and that there is scarcely one of his large pictures in which the Niobe or one of her sons is not introduced, yet with such dexterity, that the theft is scarcely perceptible.
The frescoes of the frieze are by Tempesta; the landscapes by Paul Brill. In the hall are busts, statues, and a bronze horse found in the ruins of the Baths.
There is a small collection of pictures—the only work of real importance being the beautiful Daniele di Volterra of our Saviour bearing his cross, in the room on the left. In the same room are two large pictures, David triumphing with the head of Goliath, Domenichino; and Perseus rescuing Andromeda, Guido. In the room on the right are, Adam gathering fig-leaves for Eve, in a Paradise which is crowded with animals like a menagerie, Domenichino; and Samson pulling down the pillars upon the Philistines, Ludovico Caracci.
A second small garden belonging to this palace is well worth seeing in May from the wealth of camellias, azaleas, and roses, with which it is filled.
Opposite the Rospigliosi Palace, by ringing at a gate in the wall, we gain admission to the Colonna Gardens (connected with the palace in the Piazza SS. Apostoli, by a series of bridges across the intervening street). Here, on a lofty terrace which has a fine view towards the Capitol, and overshadowed by grand cypresses, are the colossal remains of the Temple of the Sun (huge fragments of cornice) built by Aurelian (A.D. 270—75). At the other end of the terrace, looking down through two barns into a kind of pit, we can see some remains of the Baths of Constantine—built A.D. 326—and of the great staircase which led up to them from the valley below. The portico of these baths remained erect till the time of Clement XII. (1730—40), and was adorned with four marble statues, of which two—those of the two Constantines—may now be seen on the terrace of the Capitol.
Beneath the magnificent cypress-trees on the slope of the hill are several fine sarcophagi. Only the stem is preserved of the grand historical pine-tree, which was planted on the day on which Cola di Rienzi died, and which was one of the great ornaments of the city till 1848, when it was broken in a storm.
Just beyond the end of the garden, are the great Convent and Church of S. Silvestro a Monte Cavallo—belonging to the Missionaries of St. Vincent de Paul—in which the Cardinals meet before going in procession to the Conclave. It contains a few rather good pictures. The cupola of the second chapel has frescoes by Domenichino, of David dancing before the Ark,—the Queen of Sheba and Solomon,—Judith with the head of Holofernes,—and Esther fainting before Ahasueras. These are considered by Lanzi as some of the finest frescoes of the master. In the left transept is a chapel containing a picture of the Assumption, painted on slate, considered the masterpiece of Scipione Gaetani. The last chapel but one on the left has a ceiling by Cav. d'Arpino, and frescoes on the walls by Polidoro da Caravaggio. The picture over the altar, representing St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena, is by Mariotto Albertinelli. Cardinal Bentivoglio—who wrote the history of the wars in Flanders, and lived in the Rospigliosi Palace—is buried here.
We now reach the height of Maganaopoli, from which the isthmus which joined the Quirinal to the Capitoline was cut away by Trajan. Here is a cross-ways. On the right is a descent to the Forum of Trajan, at the side of which is the villa of Cardinal Antonelli, and beyond it, the handsome modern palace of Count Trapani, cousin to the King of Naples.
Opposite, is the Church of Sta. Caterina di Siena, possessing some frescoes attributed, on doubtful grounds, to the rare master Timoteo della Vite. Adjoining, is a large convent, enclosed within the precincts of which is the tall brick mediæval tower, sometimes called the Tower of Nero, but generally known as the Torre delle Milizie, i.e. the Roman Militia. It was erected by the sons of Peter Alexius, a baron attached to the party of the Senator Pandolfo de Suburra. The lower part is said to have been built in 1210, the upper in 1294 and 1330.