THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID Italian Pictures, Iratott toitlj f m mh §mtxl KY THE LAl'E REV. SAMUEL MANNING, LL.D. A NECn: GDITIOD, REVISED AND PARTLY REWRITTEN BY THE REV. S. G. GREEN, D.D., IF/T/i MANY ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS. ^^^ILflii, '^'^^ Struck by order "/ C/ THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY, 56, Paternoster Row; 65, St. Paul's Churchyard; AND 164, Piccadilly. " A LAND Which was the mightiest in its old command, And is the loveliest, and must ever be The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand ; Wherein were cast the heroic and the free, The beautiful, the brave, the lords of earth and sea. The commonwealth of kings, the men of Rome ! And even since, and now, fair Italy ! Thou art the garden of the world, the home Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree; Even in thy desert, what is like to thee? Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste More rich than other climes' fertility ; Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced." Childe Harold. "Sed neque Medorum silv^, ditissima terra, Nec pulcher Ganges, atque auro turbidus Hermu Laudibus Itali/e cebtent ; non Bactra, neque Ind . hic ver adsiduum atque alienis mensibus ^stas, Bis gravida pecudes, bis pomis utilis arbor." Georgics, ii. i IMBfMSlQM..) f(OME AND THE 1^0M/,f^3. The Coliseum by Moonlight . . . frontispiece Italia, from the Medal of Napoleon I. . . tith On the Pincian, whh St. Pptei's in the distance pogi 6 The Lighthouse at Leghorn . . . • • 8 St. Pettr's and the Vatican, from the Tiber banks . lo Oil the Pincian . . . . . . . . n The Mont Cenis Tunnel, from the Italian side . 12 Over the Comba Oscura, on the Mont Cenis Route . 13 Shaving al fresco ...,.-. 14 The Noon-day Repast 15 Roman Peasants : the Ideal and the Real . . 17 The Campagna near Ostia ...... 19 Shepherd of the Campagna 20 Ruined Fountain on the Campagna . . . .21 The Island in the Tiber, and Bridge of Quattro Capi 23 On the Campagna 26 Peasant Children of the Campagna .... 27 A Bird's-eye View of Rome 28 Portion of the Claudian Aijueduct .... 29 The Capitol 29 The Temple of Minerva 32 Arch of Constantine 33 In the Temple of Augustus 34 Column of Trajan 35 The English Cemetery, and Pyramid of Caius Cestius 35 The Vatican, from Monte Pincio . • . .36 The Mamertine Prison 37 On the Appian Way 39 In the Forum, showing the depth now Excavated . 40 Approach to the Forum from the Coelian The Coliseum before the Recent Excavations . . 44 Frieze from the Arch of Titus . . . . .46 Arch of Septimius Severus, in the Roman Forum 47 The Palatine from the Aventine . . . .49 Porta Romana, on the Palatine .... 52 Baths of Caracalla 53 Graffito in the CoUcgio Romano • • • • 55 Temple of Vesta 56 Interior of the Pantheon 58 A Roman Columbarium ....... 60 Section of Calixtus' Catacombs, showing the disposi- tion of passages and cubicula . . . page 61 Entrance to Catacombs 61 A Cubiculum with Tombs 62 Fragment of Slab, and Lachrymatory . . . .62 Arcosolium 62 An Orante, or woman engaged in prayer . . -67 The Good Shepherd 67 Terra-cotta Lamps found in the Catacombs . . 68 Child's Doll 68 Instruments of Torture found in the Catacombs . . 69 Church of St. Clemente 71 Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo ■ . . . -72 St. Peter's, with the Bridge and Castle of St. Angelo 73 General view of St. Peter's and the Vatican . . -74 Interior of St. Peter's 75 The Statue of St. Peter 77 Fountain in front of the Vatican 78 The Scala Regia of the Vatican 79 Illumination of St. Peter's and Fireworks at the Castle of St. Angelo 83 The Sisline Chapel 87 Stairs of the Ara Coeli 89 The Bambino 9' The Tiber and the Convent of Santa Sabina upchi the Aventine 93 Cloisters of the Suppressed Convent of Santa Maria degli Angeli Under the Portico of the Academy of France . In the Gardens of the Villa Pamfili Doria . In the Borghese Gardens, Rome Ruins of the Portico of Octavia, in the Ghetto Entrance to the Ghetto by the Pescheria Vecchia Ruins on the Roman Campagna . Genzano, in the Alban Mountains Olive Trees, near Tivoli Subiaco, the " Sacred Grot" (San Benedetto) . Ancient Walls, Palestrina .... Rccca San Stefano ; a Sabine Village Near Tivoli 95 97 100 TGI 104 105 107 108 109 109 no T12 112 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 144 146 147 Naples page 114 Virgil's Tomb and the Grotto of Posilipo, near Naples 118 Island of Ischia 119 Sorrento 120 Pozzuoli the Ancient Puteoli 121 Castellamare ........ 123 At a Window In Naples 124 Costumes of Naples and the Neighbourhood . . 127 Neapolitan Funeral 129 Cooking Utensils from Pompeii . . . . 130 Mendicant Friars near Naples 131 Necklace, Ring, Bracelet, and Ear-ring fiom Pompeii 133 Bronze and Terra-cotta Lamps from Pompeii . . 133 Frescoes from the House of Siricus, at Pompeii . 134 Castle of San Elmo 135 Environs of Naples 137 Vesuvius 138 Observatory, Vesuvius . . . . . 139 Crater, Vesuvius 140 Eruption of Mount Vesuvius, in 1872 . . . 141 General View of Pompeii pf-ge The Temple of Isis, Pompeii . . The Forum, Pompeii ...... The Amphitheatre, Pompeii House of the Large Fountain, Pompeii . . . 148 Street in Pompeii 149 Peristyle of the House of the Questor . . . 149 Clearing a Street 150 Searching for Remains 151 Carting away the Rubbish 151 Baker's Oven, Bread, and Flour Mills . . • 152 Tepidarium of Public Bath 153 154 157 158 159 161 163 Garden and Fountains of the House of Lucretius . Casts of Dead Bodies of Two Women Temple of Vesta, at Paestum ..... Temple of Neptune, Psestum Amalfi, from the Terrace of the Suppressed Convent Palermo The Gate of Herculaneum, and Street of Tombs, Pompeii 164 ?LORE]MCE, 'P13A, AjMD 'QeNOA. Florence, from the Terrace of San Miniato . . page 166 Avenue in Boboli Gardens ..... 168 Florence, from the Boboli Gardens . . . .170 Florence, from above the Porta San Nicolo . . 172 SavonArola, after the Portrait in San Marco . . 173 Torre del Gallo (Galileo's Observatory), near Florence 175 The Palazzo Vecchio 177 Portrait of Dante 178 Tomb of Dante at Ravenna 179 Michael Angelo iBo Fiesole 181 The Duoroo and Campanile 183 Door of the Baptistery of Florence . . .185 Court of the Palazzo Vecchio .... page 187 The Uffizi, the Palazzo Vecchio, and Statuary in the Piazza 188 Casa Guidi, Florence 190 Vallombrosa , 191 Falls of Terni 192 The Leaning Tower, Pisa 193 The Cathedral and Campanile, Pisa . . . 196 The Baptistery, Pisa 197 Genoa, from the Heights 198 The Arsenal, Genoa . 199 Island of Palmaria, opposite La Spezia . . 200 j^oRTHERiM Italy. Statue of Bartolomeo CoUeoni, Venice . . page 202 Street in Venice . 203 On the Grand Canal, Venice 204 The Gondola 205 The Piazzetta, Venice 207 Cathedral of St. Mark 208 The Bronze Horses of St. Mark .... 209 Staircase of the Fifteenth Century : Contarini Palace . 210 Ca' d'Oro Palace on the Grand Canal . . . .211 Palace of the Doges 211 Campanile of St. Mark's, and Palace of the Doges page 212 The Rialto Bridge and Fish Market . . .213 Tomb of the Scaligers 214 The Amphitheatre at Verona .... 215 Milan Cathedral 218 Pinnacles of Milan Cathedral 220 Monte Viso from the Head of the Val Pellice 221 Turin 222 The Waldensian Church and College of La Tour . 224 THE LIGHTHOUSE AT LEGHORN. ROME AND THE ROMANS. In //A H'p^^ 5AJ^5 Tl^-i; H'P'lvi)^]^^. R- EVisiTiNG Italy after an absence of some years, one is constantly struck by the fact that if modern travel has gained immensely in speed, comfort, and punctuality, it has lost a good deal in picturesqueness and variety. Turin may be easily reached from London in thirty-six hours. It is not long since the distance from London to York occupied the same time, and the traveller arrived at his destina- tion more weary and travel-stained from his journey of a couple of hun- dred miles than he does now after traversing half a continent. If steam has not annihilated the horrors of " the middle passage," it has at least abridged them ; and it is possible to anticipate an attack of sea-sickness with equanimity, when its duration is restricted to ninety minutes. But the change is not all gain. Travelling now-a-days is apt to become tedious in its monotony. Its mechanical regularity leaves little room for adventure. Railways are alike all over Europe, and the ItaVmn /errome differ from those of other countries only in their intolerable slowness. The stazione at Capua or at Pompeii might be a station at Wapping, but for its greater dirt and dis- comfort. The carriage which takes us to Florence or Rome is the exact counterpart of that which brought us to Dover or Folkestone. There is little to remind ON THE PINCIAN. TR A VE L L ING IN ITAL Y. the traveller that he is in Italy, not in England ; and he has to stimulate his imagination into activity by saying to himself, " It is not Margate or Brighton that I am approaching, but Naples or Rome." And when he has reached his destina- tion, the station, the railway porters and the omnibuses are fatal to his rising enthusiasm. How different was it in the old ante-railway days ! Gliding into Venice by gondola was felt to be a fitting introduction to the dream-like life of that silent city of the sea. It was a day of intense and ceaseless excitement when we crossed the Campagna from Bolsena or Civita Vecchia, drove along the Appian Way, or dashed through the Porta del Popolo, and rattled along the Corso. However imposing the scenery through which a railway runs, there is no time or opportunity for its enjoyment. One is whisked away before the eye has been able to drink in its beauty. In former days we could halt on the top of the Splligen and gaze at the great Lombard plain, stretching far away into the blue haze on the horizon ; could loiter amidst the wondrous combination of snowy peaks, and tro- pical valleys, and jutting headlands, and blue sea on the Riviera ; could pause and look back, mile after mile, as the glo- ries of the Val d'Aosta, or the beauties of the Italian lakes, re- ceded into the distance. But, even in Italy, railway travel- ling is too rapid to admit of this. There are, how- ever, exceptions to this rule. Even the railway that sweeps round the head of the Gulf of Genoa, and tempts most travellers away from the Riviera road, affords some enchanting views over sea and land. The grand outlines of the mountains are seen to great advantage from the Mont Cenis or St. Gotthard line, the traveller being comfortably seated in the train. And as one climbs a steep ascent, shoots across some perilous gorge, or plunges into the tunnel, the sense of man's power and his victory over Nature adds to the impressiveness of the scenery. THE MONT CENIS TINXEL, FROM THE ITALIAN SIDE. THE MO XT CEX/S ROUTE. '^rlvS'*'^'^ OVER THE COMBA OSCURA, ON THE MONT CENIS ROUTE. Then, too, the old roads led through many a picturesque town and village, affording bits of characteristic colour or incident which are missed altogether on a railway journey. Except Spain, no country in Europe is so rich in scenes of this kind. The barber, with his gossips around him, plies his trade in TRAVELLING IN ITALY. the open air. The cobbler has pitched his stall under the portico of some Etruscan temple or Roman basilica — old before modern history began — and hammers away, ignorant and careless of the antique grandeur around him. A group of girls chatter at the well, where the legions may have halted, and listen, half afraid, to the Capuchin friar who lingers in the shade on his way home to his convent on the hill-side. To the traveller by the high road the whole domestic life of the people is exposed ; for the Italian peasant lives in the open air. The dirty hovel he calls his home offers no inducement to stay in it one moment longer than is necessary. The bright sunshine, and balmy air, and pleasant shade, offer an attractive contrast J;o the gloom and squalor within. Domestic privacy is unknown and undesired. An insight into the life of the people was thus afforded even to the passing traveller, which added immensely to the interest of a tour. Rushing through the country by train, time is economized, SHAVING AL FRESCO. comfort is secured, the destination is reached speedily and without fatigue ; but the journey itself is comparatively wanting in interest. The lover of the picturesque, however, will not fail to observe with regret that what was peculiar and characteristic in the habits of the people is passing away. Dress is rapidly becoming the same all over Europe. Except onfesias, a group of Italian peasants would attract no attention in Connemara. Indeed, one is constantly struck by the resemblance between a crowd of Irish and Italian labourers. Watch the country people pouring into Florence in the early morning ; not more than half-a-dozen will wear the national hat of Tuscan straw. In Naples, the Phrygian cap is now rarely worn even by fishermen and lazzaroni. One may walk for hours in Rome without seeing a single specimen of the picturesque THE NOON-DAY REPAST. ITALIAN COSTUME. costume which figures so largely on the walls of our Royal Academy. In the Fia.zz2L cli Spagna, indeed, and on the steps of Trinita de' Monti, it is common enough. Here are venerable patriarchs, clad in their sheepskin cloaks, with long white beards resting upon their aged breasts, and looking like Belisarius beg- ging for an obolus. Bloodthirsty brigands scowl at passers-by with a ferocity which might strike terror into the boldest heart. Young girls, in faultless Roman costume, dance to the music of bagpipe and tam- bourine, or seat themselves in attitudes of careless grace around the fountain in the piazza. But their faces seem familiar PgCg!Q dS^jA>V\ :i. ROMAN PEASANTS PLAYING AT MORA : THE REAL. TRAVELLING IN ITALY. to you. Where can you have seen them before ? The truth flashes upon you. They are models, who have been painted again and again by English, French, and American artists, and who come here to be hired. There can scarcely be a stronger contrast than that between the Roman peasant of poetry and art, and the actual prosaic fact. At Carnival time, indeed, or at the great festivals, such as Easter and Christmas, large numbers oi contadini and pifferari, in their picturesque costumes, may be seen in Rome and the other Italian cities. But the increase of travelling, the breaking down of old barriers, the spread of a cosmopolitan spirit, are rapidly sweeping away local customs and national costumes. But if it be true, as I think it is, that a tour through Italy is less interesting and exciting now than it was years ago, yet it is no less true that of all countries in the world Italy is that which best repays the traveller. Deeper feelings may be awakened in Palestine — " Those holy fields, Over whose acres walked those blessed feet, Which, eighteen hundred years ago, were nailed. For our advantage, on the bitter cross ; " but scarcely a trace or vestige remains to connect the Palestine of to-day with that of our Lord and His apostles. Of the city of David and the temple of Solomon, the sentence has been fulfilled: "Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left one stone upon another." There is nothing to mark the site of Calvary. Only a doubtful tradition bids us " Come, see the place where the Lord lay." The traveller is perplexed and his enthusiasm chilled by endless controversies and contradictory assertions as to the holy places. But in Rome the history of two thousand five hundred years is recorded in contemporary monuments. Stand upon the Capitol. Before you is the Palatine, where Romiulus stood : beneath you are cyclopean walls and the rock-hewn dungeon of one of the villages out of which the empire sprang. On yonder hills Hannibal encamped. Through those gates marched the legions which conquered the world. There runs the Via Sacra, along which the victorious generals passed in triumph. The Forum, in which crowds hung upon the eloquence of Cicero, and the spot where Csesar fell pierced with wounds, are before us. There stretches the Appian Way, trodden by the feet of a prisoner from- Jerusalem who was to win for his Master a nobler victory, and for himself a more imperishable crown, than Romans ever knew. That vast pile is the Coliseum, where Christians were flung to the lions, and gave their blood to be the seed of the Church. The Campagna around us is hollowed into catacombs, in which they laid down their dead to rest in peace. There stands the arch where Titus passed bearing the spoils of the Temple. Baths, temples, palaces, basilicas attest the splendour of the empire, and mark its decline and ruin. The records of mediaeval anarchy may be read in battlemented ruins. And each step in the history of the Papacy has left its mark in the ecclesiastical edifices around us^ through its culminating splendours in the Basilica of St. Peter down to the column THE ROMAN C AM PAG N A. which celebrates the dogma of the imma- culate conception, and the tablet which announces the infallibility of the pope. Anything more lonely and desolate than the Campagna round Rome it would be difficult to imagine. A waste of moorland stretches far and wide, covered withgreyish-brown moss and coarse grass. Its surface is broken up by a succession of hillocks, many, perhaps most, of which cover the remains of ancient grandeur and prosperity. Out of not a few of them rise crumblingwallsand towers of various dates — the strongholds of turbulent barons, the villas and palaces of Roman senators and knio-hts, or old Etrurian towns which had passed their prime before Rome rose to empire. Buffaloes and dove- coloured oxen wander over the waste or plunge into the morasses which liebetween the mounds, to escape the stings of innumerable swarms offlies. Goats and goat-like sheep straggle here and there, guarded by wolf-like dogs, and tended by herdsmen clad in sheep- skin jackets, their feet and legs swathed in filthy rags. The few human beings one encounters are livid in complexion, with sunken eyes and fever-stricken faces — for the malaria exhaled from the soil is laden with the seeds of disease and death. Here and there a string of country carts may be seen — a few boards rudely nailed together and drawn by oxen or miserable horses — each one has a canopy of basket-work covered with hide, beneath which the driver crouches to escape the wind, or rain, or sun. Across this dreary waste travellers hasten to reach the city before sunset, for to breathe the air of the Cam- pagna after nightfall might be fatal. The graphic description written by Beckford, on his journey from Radicofani, a century ago, is still true : THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA. " On the left, afar off, rises the rugged chain of the Apennines, and on the other side a shining expanse of ocean terminates the view. It was upon this surface so SIIEPHEKD OF THE CAMrAGNA. many illustrious actions were performed: and I know not where a mighty people could have chosen a grander theatre. Here was space for the march of mighty THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA. armies, and verge enough for encampments ; levels for martial games, and room for that variety of roads and causeways that led from the capital to Ostia. How many triumphant legions have trodden these pavements ! how many captive kings ! What throngs of cars and chariots once glittered on their surfaces ; savage animals dragged from Africa; and the ambassadors of Indian princes, followed by their exotic trains, hastening to implore the favour of the Senate " During many ages, this eminence commanded almost every day such illus- trious scenes ; but all are vanished ; the splendid tumult is passed away : silence and desolation remain. Dreary flats thinly scattered over with ilex, and barren hillocks crowned by solitary towers, were the only objects we perceived for several miles. Now and then we passed a few black ill-favoured sheep straggling by the wayside, near a ruined sepulchre, just such animals as an ancient would have sacrificed to the Manes. ^^^ Sometimes we crossed a brook, whose ripplings were the only sound which broke the general stillness, and ob- served the shepherds' huts on its banks, propped up with broken pedestals and marble friezes. . . . Heath and a greyish kind of moss are the sole vegetation which covers thisendlesswilderness. Every slope is strewed with the re- lics of ahappierperiod; trunks of trees, shattered columns, cedar beams, helmets of bronze, skulls, and coins are frequently dug up together." ^ There is, however, a cer- tain fitness in this region of loneliness and desolation around the fallen city. It is thus cut off from the busy world outside. Shrunken within its ancient walls, " a world too wide " for its diminished size, it is isolated in the midst of the waste. It stands alone in solitary state, its ruined fortunes sympathized with, as it were, by surrounding Nature. The mighty aqueducts which stretch for leagues across the plain, and the masses of ruin which encumber it, speak most afifectingly of ancient magnificence and present decay. The question is often asked as to the causes of the malaria which now depopulates the Campagna, and which in summer turns parts even of the city into a pest-house. The answer is difficult. It is certain that it did not prevail in former times. Forsyth points out that under the empire the public ways ^Italy, with Sketches of Spam and Portugal. By the Author of Vathek. RUINED FOUNTAIN ON THP: CAMPACNA. THE ROMAN CAMTAGNA. were lined with houses to Aricia, to Otriculum, to Tibur, to the sea. Nero projected a third circuit of walls which should enclose half the Campagna — a district now reeking with poison. Malaria prevailed, indeed, in a small district between Antium and Lanuvium, but that it was not serious even here seems proved by the fact that Antium grew magnificent under the emperors and Lanuvium was surrounded by splendid villas. Pliny says that even the Pontine Marshes were at one time populous and contained twenty-three (some manuscripts read thirty-three) cities. Though this statement is discredited by Niebiihr and other authorities, and is doubtless exaggerated, yet there must have been some ground for it. The origin of the evil is probably to be found in a variety of causes. The swampy character of the soil, and the want of any natural drainage, would make It unhealthy. The dense population of this part of Italy under the Romans producing a high state of cultivation, and a complete system of irrigation, prevented serious mischief. But the open country became depopulated during the barbarian inroads. Under a thousand years of papa] misgovernment the depopulation continued. All attempts at drainage had ceased. The soil, saturated with animal and vegetable refuse, accumulating age after age, became a hot-bed reeking with corruption, and pouring forth pestilence into the air- Macaulay, in a well-known passage, traces a striking contrast between the Lothians of Scotland and the Roman Campagna. The former, with all the dis- advantages of a barren soil, ungenlal climate, and sullen skies, have been raised to a condition of the highest fertility and prosperity. The latter, which once bloomed like a garden, has sunk into a pestilential morass, or a dreary, barren, unpeopled waste. In the one, evangelical piety has trained up a population at once manly and godly, developing in them those qualities which are " profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now Is, and of that which is to come." The other, beneath the withering blight of papal tyranny and superstition, has become and remained a plague-spot in one of the fairest regions In the world. We may extend into universal application the threatening and the promise pronounced by Old Testament prophets upon the land of Israel. In Its apostasy " the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it ; the owl also and the raven shall dwell In it : and He shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion and the stones of emptiness. They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing. And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof ; and It shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls." But where true religion prevails "the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing ; the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon ; they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God." ^ ' Isaiah xxxiv. 11-13; xxxv. 12. Wiiililfili^^ A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF ROME. Rome itself to a great extent deepens the impression of loneliness pro- duced by the Campagna. Within the walls are vast spaces, void and desolate, grass-grown mounds and mouldering ruins. The Aventine and Ccelian hills, which under the Empire were the abode of a crowded and busy population, are now bare and desolate. The number of convents now empty of their former inmates, and of churches closed, except, perhaps, for a single day in the year, adds to the general sense of gloom. The famous Tiber, too, is solitary; although the works now in progress for widening, clearing and deepening the river may restore to its wharves something of their olden prosperity. In other parts of the city reconstruction and extension are busy. Around the railway station, on the Esquiline, Viminal and Ouirinal hills, a district of wide straight streets and lofty buildings is springing up which reminds the traveller of Paris. In fact, on arrival in the city, after sweeping round the old grey walls for a dreary time, as it seems, after first catching sight of the cypresses and pyramids that mark the English cemetery, one is ready to exclaim, Is this Rome? It is not until we plunge into the narrow picturesque streets, and catch sight of some ancient fountain or fragment of ruin built into the walls, that we seem to have found the city of our dreams. Mr. Howard Hopley gives the following vivid description of the impression formerly made on the visitor by a first view of the city : — *' Eccola, signor, eccola ! Roma! " It was long ago, before railways bestrode the Campagna. I had travelled all night, getting into a sound sleep, as people usually do just before dawn, and now, when the early sun of a glorious summer morning shot and glinted through the blooming vineyards and silver olives of the hill-side, down which by zigzag ways our dusty vehicle was lumbering, our driver roused me to take my first view of the city. The whole scene lay spread out, reaching to Tivoli and to the far snow-crested Apennines. A semi-transparent sea of mist lay in the hollows and brooded over the broad Campagna. The cupolas and domes of the city uprose through it like a cluster of shining islands in a summer sea. Presendy the mist rolled off. The landscape cleared. Was that Rome in very deed — that city solitary amid broad miles of undulating moor-like waste ? For a moment there swam before me a vision of Rome the Great, with its million-voiced life, diademed with temples and towers, all quivering in the sun. " With alabaster domes and silver spires, And blazing terrace upon terrace high Uplifted : here serene pavilions bright In avenues disposed ; there towers bedight With battlements that on their restless front Bore stars.'"' And I contrasted that visionary Babylon of the brain with the city I now saw for the first time. How shrunken and dishonoured, was my first impression, yet how splendid in dishonour and decay ! The circuit of the ancient walls was there. A BIKD'S-EYE VIEW OF ROME. I could trace it. But then I remembered that old Rome overshot its walls far into the Campagna. Whereas it was now the Campagna that came inside the walls. The roundness of youth and beauty had shrunken in, and the girdling line hung loosely about the city. The point on the hill-side to which our vehicle had come was a capital one for a general survey, but too far off to particularise. We stopped at a rustic O.N THE CAMPAGNA. osteria to get breakfast. Lush creepers ran flowering and festooning over the door trellis. In the gloom within was a tumult of coffee-cups and clamour for hot smoking supplies. Across the dusty road stood an old sarcophagus turned into a horse-trough, where two little dark-eyed peasant girls in scarlet petticoats stood dabbling. Water trickled into it from a green mossy runnel down the hill-side amid tufts of starry cyclamen. Nature was prodigal with fresh young life in decking this stony relic of the dead. 1 climbed up and looked abroad. PEASANT CHILDREN OF THE CAMPAGNA. v»* . a •2?: .2 ^ j> 4) C b rt o iJ o O 5! U-.5 ' ■J ''^ 4) 3 4i 43 J3 -C HUH U fe &H J! . -a ^•n = 3 ■- 3 S Ji ° ^ . -S X -=i i g s w ^ 5 ^ "5 — "p "o "« rt r3 .^ U (In « "- 1^ pi; < rt it! _u o H ll( CJ H pS £ VO \0 VO vo £ H H xi < » < H ^ rt o -C inerva to the rigl n University. St. Agnese in th« oleum of Augustu petta, or little Po P, .2 6 c 3 a •c'S 1 S CO -a c" o I.I c .3 1 d a > o "H. 'a, 6 o rt U.2 p2 d O r. ■?? =^ 3 0) 4) 9 u 3 « ti "5 .c B 2 j= j: -q •" j: j= js o XI " H H H y U O O b^Ub^^ O S "' m ro ■ s> c 1) a - ^ 1 c V 2 So Ph .-H d 3 o -a iH 2 - o .:^ .ii c o 3« S J3 ■^S H o rt r! 3 .3 'C as 6 o 11 ^ 1 1 a U . a j2 o ■>< i^ fo 3 a OT 5 CD V f^ ^'M^ Ol s J= 3 C O O i_ o c Pi V c o O "a F "o O 3 O o 3 <^ CO O l„ t/1 o .5 iJ 2 •? 3 J3 3 J3 « 01 -^ (Sot^H^ddf^Of^Gd u , Pi .a :3 "n •3 Wh l„ Ang e and a dell H ^ "5 "3 o c H u .a H Pi rt i a.i > O t^ Pi Pi Pi o, u p, Pi Ui •< a • • . . . 2p: pj g • a w c v. o o ta I? c « S s ° b Pi .- <^ c [2 .- tH X -I r3 I- ° 2 3 [S o o J= o > U Pi O fa 0) C5 ■<*• lO VO C^ A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF ROME. PORTION OF THE CLAUDIAN AQUEDUCT. There was Rome, as I said, islanded in an expanse of waste. The Campagna seemed like some immense arena circled by hills, peopled with funereal hollows, a vision that fell dead on the heart. It was an amphitheatre, but an amphitheatre on the morrow of a festival — mute and sepulchral. Marbles gone, palaces in ruins, aqueducts gapped in their long stride across the plain, like teeth in the jaw of a skull. The multitudes who had striven were now silent. The gladiators were gone. The dead had been dragged off. The seats were empty. The innumer- =--.^ -^;>l£i^: i-^--. able crowd lay mingling with the clods, forgotten, confounded. You felt that a whole world had perished off that spot — that those scant vestiges were mere suggestions of what had been. Let us fancy ourselves sitting to- gether on the brow of the Janiculum, whence our sketch is drawn. We are in the o-ardens above the Corsini Palace" on the transpontine side of the Tiber. Behind us are traces of the Aurelian wall, also of the gate whence, along the Via Aurelia, old Rome poured out of the city seawards. First and foremost in point of interest we touch upon the Palatine Hill.^^ This was the nucleus of all Rome. From this she extended her circumference till she took in the whole world. On the summit of the Palatine, Romulus, a simple shepherd boy, stood and watched his flight of birds of good augury, while Remus, from the adjacent Aventine," surveyed his own unsuccessful flight. The C^sars' imperial seat was on the Palatine. Augustus thought to build for all time. But now the halls of the Caesars are a mass of stupendous ruins, cropping up amid the fresh bloom of terraced gardens and vineyards. The seven-hilled city. Where are the seven hills ? We have enumerated two, the Palatine and the Aventine. The Capitoline^^ was the high place where Rome embraced her heroes. It led up by a steep ascent from the Forum. On the highest spot was the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, where you now see the towers of Ara-coeli flaming in the sun, approached by a long flight of marble steps. Titus, in the splendours of a long-drawn processional THE CAPITOL. A BIKD'S-EYE VIEW OF ROME. triumph, brought up the spoils of Jerusalem to the Capitol, and received there, all Rome making holiday, the solemn thanks of the S.P.O.R. The hill is about one hundred feet high. It towered above some of the temples in the Forum. The Tarpeian Rock is hard at hand, from whose steep traitors were hurled. That was the famous leap that "cured all ambition." There is a garden there now, and on the fatal edge wild flowers blossom, and speedwell and forget-me- nots peep out in tufts from crannies halfway down the cliff. It looks as smiling and innocent as if blood had never been spilt there. The church of St. John Lateran'' marks the slope of the Coelian Hill, and the swell of the Esquiline may be roughly guessed from the spot marked, ^^ where St. Maria Maggiore stands. The Ouirinal is indicated by the palace lately of the Pope, now of the King.^^ And, lastly, the Viminal, a difficult position to make out, lies between the Ouirinal and Esquiline. These, then, are the famous seven hills included in the walls of Servius Tullius, from which Rome took the name of the seven-hilled city. In later times, of course, other hills were included, Monte Mario, Vaticano, Pincio, etc. The summits of the seven hills belonged to patricians, and were in those days covered with gardens and temples. Among the stifling lanes, choked-up alleys, and lofty houses of old Rome — for there were no streets then, in our sense of the word — these hill-tops must have been as pleasant oases, where the citizen might inhale the fresh sunset air, and look down on the fevered city. About the Forum the chiefest of Rome's recollections gather. From the Rostra, a kind of open-air Westminster Hall, near the Temple of Ves- pasian, ^3 the great causes were pleaded ; a crowd spell-bound beneath, and groups on the marble steps of porticoes within hearing. " Yes, and in yon field below, A thousand years of silenced factions sleep. The Forum, where the immortal accents flow, And still the eloquent air breathes — burns with Cicero." Perhaps a more startling remembrance is, that the holy things from the Temple at Jerusalem passed captive over those very flags. Titus's Arch^^ on the Summa Sacra Via, the highest spot of the road, records that fact on its frieze. The sculptures on this, one of the most interesting of Roman monu- ments, are nearly perfect. Near the Arch of Titus stands that of Constantine.^' The imposing size and fine proportions of this triumphal arch make it one of the finest in the world. But the work of destruction and reconstruction out of former edifices had begun so far back as the reign of the first Christian emperor ; and it is thought by many archaeologists that this ought rather to be called the Arch of Trajan. It is certain that a large part of the decorations belong to the earlier period ; and it is doubtful whether the conqueror of Maxentius simply plundered the arch of his predecessor, or appropriated it en masse. THE TEMPLE OF MINERVA. A BIRD'S-EYE VIE IV OF ROME. AKCII OF CONSTANTINE. From Titus's Arch the Sacra Via runs in a eentle descent on to the Coliseum.^" We are still on ground teeming with recollections. Let us go back a few years. St. Paul was in Rome. Christianity was already recognised as a thing to be persecuted. Nero, from his housetop, had fiddled to the burning _ ---^"^^k^^^— of Rome, in some drunken dream that he beheld Troy in flames. From out of the chaos he cleared a space, and built himself a lordly pleasure-house within a sling's cast from this spot. The Golden House of Nero, it was called. His colossal statue of bronze, 1 20 feet high, stood in the vestibule. Gardens ran down to the hollow where now is the Coliseum. In that dip he madje him an artificial lake, on whose banks clusters of houses were set to represent small cities. The slopes of the Coelian and Esquiline adjacent were converted into vineyards, that the illusion of a country view might be complete. In this abode of magnificent wickedness was all that art could devise to produce pleasure ; and on the terrace walks, on some nights of revel, Christians wrapped in pitch were burnt as beacons to light up the scene. He died. By-and-by the artificial lake was drained. Titus began building the Coliseum in its bed. Many thousand captive Jews are said to have been employed on it. It seated eighty thousand people. One hundred days did the dedication festival last. There were combats of storks, of elephants, of bulls, and of men. Five thousand wild beasts fought with gladiators, and with one another. Finally a volume of water was let into the arena by sluices, and a combat of ships of war took place. The Coliseum, however, must have been a baby to the Circus Maximus, vestiges of which still are manifest in the valley between the Palatine ^^ and Aventine hills," the scene of the rape of the Sabines. The Circus Maximus existed in the time of the Republic. Julius Caesar rebuilt it, and the emperors till Constantine kept it in splendour. So vast was it that one can hardly picture it in the mind. An oval, nearly half a mile long by 900 feet broad, with seats for half a million of people, who, looking up, saw Caesar's halls towering above them on one side, on the other those on the Aventine. It was chiefly for chariot races and foot races — the kind of circus which the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews had in mind (ch. xii. i), whose cloud of witnesses spurred on contending racers to the goal. Down the centre ran what was called a spina, or back-bone of narrow gardens, of fountains, and statuary ; and the racers circled round it. Two Egyptian obelisks were planted at the A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW' OF ROME. ends of the spina. One of them is now in the Piazza del Popolo/^ the other stands in front of the Lateran.^^ This last Constantine brought from Egypt, in a vessel of three hundred oars. It is a monolith of granite, 150 feet high (including the pedestal), weighing about 600 tons. The Broken Bridge/^ on the site of the ancient Pons Emilius, finished by Scipio AfricanusB.c. 142, from which Heliogabalus was cast into the Tiber, is now used — that is, the broken arches of it_to support a modern suspension bridge near the temple of Fortuna Virilis.'^ The piers of the famous bridge Sublicius, familiar to us in Macaulay's lay, which was kept by Horatius Codes and his two brethren single-handed against the army of Porsenna, may still be seen when the Tiber is at low ebb near the spot marked. '3 Next turn to'^ the mouth of the old sewer which drained Rome 600 years before Christ. It is built of such splendid masonry that even now it stands firm as when its foundations were laid. Near it stands the temple of Vesta/^ one of the most inte- resting ruins in Rome. The island in the Tiber'^ was sacred to Esculapius. The story is that about B.C. 300, in obedience to a Sibylline oracle, the Romans sent for Esculapius to Rome. The ambassadors returned in a vessel with the statue of the god. A serpent was found hidden among the cordage. They took it for the serpent of Esculapius, and thought that the god had himself accompanied them in the ship they had travelled in. When they got up the Tiber the serpent escaped and hid him- self among the rushes of this island. There they built a temple, and cut the island itself into the form of a ship, coating its sides with strong masonry, adding prow, stern, and all, so that it looked like a giant vessel in mid-stream. Trajan's Column, ^^ erected a.d. i i 7, a noble work of art, on whose spiral bas-reliefs of marble are carved no less than two thousand five hundred human figures, is now surmounted by the bronze figure of St. Peter. The Pantheon of Agrippa,'^° built b c. 27, is a circular temple elegantly IN THE TEMPLE OF AUGUSTUS. ROME, REGAL AND REPUBLICAN. COLUMN OF TKAJAX. proportioned, surmounted by perhaps the most magnificent dome in the world, and wonderfully lighted by a single orifice at the summit. Time seems to be at peace with the Pantheon. Spite of its age, it is as perfect as Westminster Abbey. By the gate of St. Paul, near the pyramid of Caius Cestius,^^ who about the time of Christ mimicked the Pharaohs in this his sepulchre, is the English burying-place. It is a kind of grassy upland beneath the old Aurelian wall, where flowers and English cemetery creepers luxuriate in southern wantonness over the memorials of English dead.' We now proceed to give more detailed descriptions of the principal edifices glanced at in this brief sketch. The remains of the Regal and Republican periods are few and unimportant. The destruc- tion of the city by the Gauls (b.c. 388) may partly account for this. But it is probable that there was little of architectural magnifi- cence before the time of Augustus, who "found Rome of brick and left it of marble." the means, the genius, nor the inclination to erect stately edifices. Engaged in wars either of conquest or of self- defence, they had no leisure for architectural display. For many gene- rations after the date of its mythical founder, Rome was but a cluster of villages on the sum- mits of the neighbouring hills which rose, side by side, from the level plains of the Campagna. Sani- tary and military con- siderations combined to THE ENGLISH CEMETERY, AND PYRAMID OF CAIUS CESIIUS. dictate the selection of an elevated site easily to be defended against attack, and raised above the malaria ^ Revised and abridged from A BinVs-Eye View of Rome, in the Leisure Hour, 1870, p. 47 1- The early Romans had neither THE CLOACA MAXIMA AND THE MAMERTINE PRISON. of the lowlands. Many such villages and small towns may still be seen in the old Etrurian territory, each — " Like an eagle's nest, Perched on a crest Of purple Apennine." The language of Montesquieu was probably not exaggerated. " Rome, at first, was not a city, but it rather resembled one of those villages which we still find in the Crimea : a collection of huts and enclosures for storing grain and folding cattle. Streets there were none, unless we give that name to the THE MAMERTIxNE PRISON. roadways which ran between dwellings placed without order and regularity. The inhabitants, always occupied in their daily tasks, or in the public places, were scarcely ever at home.'" Some of the structures of Regal Rome, however, yet remain. One of these is the Cloaca Maxima, just mentioned, a sewer so solidly constructed that it is used for its original purpose at the present day, and it may continue to be so for ages. The massive stones employed in the old Etruscan walls may be seen at the foot of the Palatine and the Capitoline hills. One of the most ^ Considerations sur les causes de la grandeur et de la decadence des Roinains. Cap. i. 37 THE A PPIA N IV A V. Interesting relics of this period is the old Mamertine Prison, constructed by Ancus Martius, and described by Livy and Sallust. Walls built of enormous blocks of stone form a cell, cold, and dark, and damp. But in the floor is a small opening leading down into a yet more horrible dungeon. Sallust speaks of it as "a place about ten feet deep, surrounded by vaults, with a vaulted roof of stone above it. The filth, and darkness, and stench make it indeed terrible." Here Jugurtha was starved to death, the accomplices of Catiline were strangled, and Sejanus was executed." Tradition affirms that yet more illustrious sufferers were confined here. In this State prison it is said that the apostles Peter and Paul were immured. And the papal legends, which so often invest even a probable tradition with incredible marvels, are not wanting here. An indentation in the wall is pointed out as having been made by the head of St. Peter when forcibly struck against it by the inhuman gaoler ; and a spring of M^ter which rises from the floor is declared to have burst miraculously from the rock for the baptism of his two guards Processus and Martinianus. Whilst Scripture is silent upon the subject of St. Peter's residence in Rome, and there is no historical evidence in its favour, we know that St. Paul was twice a prisoner in the city. During his first imprisonment he was kept in his own hired house ; but the second may have been, and probably was, more severe. It is therefore possible that the tradition which connects him with this horrible dungeon may have some foundation in truth. If so, it was amidst the chilly damp of this subterranean vault that " Paul, the aged," wrote to Timothy : " The cloak which I left at Troas, with Carpus, bring with thee." Here, too, the joyful words were written: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith : henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day." If we cannot with certainty connect the great apostle of the Gentiles with the Mamertine Prison, we need not hesitate to associate his memory with one of the noblest remains of Republican Rome — the Appian Way. This magnificent road, constructed by Appius Claudius (a.u.c. 442), led southwards, first to Capua, and was afterwards continued to Brundusium, the modern Brindisi. But it was joined at Capua by another road from Puteoli, the modern Pozzuoli, near Naples.^ It was formed of immense blocks of stone, so admirably fitted together, that after the lapse of eight hundred years the roadway seemed as perfect as when first formed. The classical scholar, as he traverses the time- worn pavement, will recall the journey of Horace to Brundusium. But a far deeper interest attaches to that described by the inspired historian : '' And so ^ Recent excavations by Mr. Parker show that this dungeon was far more extensive than had previously been supposed. ^ One of the most interesting chapters in Conybeare and Howson's Li/e and Epistles of St. Paul is that which illustrates the journey of the apostle along this road from Puteoli to Rome. 33 THE A PPIA N WA Y. we went toward Rome. And when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii Forum and the Three Taverns ; whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage. 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."' Many a victorious general had marched in triumph at the head of his troops along the Appian Way. But that prisoner, with his little band of friends, was advancing to a nobler victory, and could confidently exclaim, " Now thanks be unto God, who always causeth us to triumph in Christ."^ It was an interesting illustration of the permanence of the apostle's influence that, when recently entering Rome by the Appian Way, I found the Italian soldier on guard intently reading Paul's Epistle to the Romans. It is the remains of Imperial Rome which, by their grandeur and extent, fill ON THE Al-l'lAN WAY. the visitor with wonder ; and the most important of these gather round the Forum as their centre. The extensive excavations carried on here for some years past, whilst they almost daily lay bare some new object of interest, have so changed its aspect that visitors, returning after a long absence, scarcely recognise old familiar spots. The Coliseum, the Arches of Titus, of Septimius Severus, and of Constantine, and the modern edifice on the summit of the Capitol, of course remain the same. But the immense mass of ddbris beneath which the Forum itself lay buried has been to a great extent removed, and we can now tread I Acts xxviii. 14-16. 2 Cor. ii. 14. THE FORUM. IN THE FORUM, SHOWING THE nEI'TH NOW EXCAVATED. the very pavement trodden by the feet off Cicero, or walk on the Via Sacra along which the triumph passed to the Capitol. Standing near the foot of the Coelian, at the end of the Sacra Via farthest from the modern city, we have on our right the Coliseum, on our left the Arch of Constantine ; in front of us is the Arch of Titus : the Temple of THE FORUM AND COL/SEUM. Venus, and the Basilica of Constantine, with the church of St. Francesca Romana, built out of their ruins, are seen between the Capitol and the Coliseum. Beyond the Arch of Titus, between it and the Capitol, is the Forum Romanum. It is crowded with the relics of temples, basilicas, arches, and columns. For three centuries it has been the battle-field of antiquaries, who have contended hotly for their various theories as to the original design of the ruins which cover the narrow space. Recent excavations have gone far to settle many of these questions, but much yet remains doubtful. Looking towards the Capitol from a point at the foot of the Palatine Hill, above three hundred yards in front of the Arch of Titus, we see the Arch of Septimius Severus in front, to the right. The three fluted columns in the centre front are believed to have formed part of the Temple of Vespasian. The eight Ionic granite columns on the left belonged to that of Saturn. The tall solitary pillar is that of Phocas, to the left of which the foundations of a double rectangular colonnade mark the site of the vast Basilica Julia, in front of which are the ruins of the beautiful Temple to Castor and Pollux. To the right of this, again, and a little nearer to where we stand, are the remains of Caesar's Temple, with the stones of the platform from which Antony delivered the funeral oration of the great Junius. The ancient rostra are a little further back. The tower in the back- ground rises over the Palace of the Senator on the summit of the Capitol. Amon^rst the edifices in and around the Forum the Coliseum is the most impressive, both by its imposing mass and its historic interest. Though for centuries it served as a quarry out of which materials were dug for palaces and churches, it yet stands vast and imperishable, apparently justifying the proud boast, " While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand. When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall ; And when Rome falls — the World." The building marks a period in the history of the city. After a time of civil war and confusion in the Empire, Vespasian came to the throne, and began the Flavian dynasty. He, with his son Titus, used the vacant spaces, which were made partly by the fire and partly by Nero's demolitions, for raising structures, a considerable part of which still remain, the most conspicuous being that which is called the Coliseum. The place chosen wa^a hollow between two of the hills on which Rome stood, and where Nero had caused a lake to be made near his Golden House. Augustus had intended to build an amphitheatre in the middle of the city ; and Vespasian accomplished the work on a scale which was probably far beyond what was contemplated by Augustus. The building covered nearly six acres. In form it is an oval, 620 feet in length externally by 513 in breadth; and the vertical height is 157 feet. The splendour of the THE COLISEUM. THE COLISEUM BEFORE THE RECENT EXCAVATIONS. interior of this vast edifice may be gathered from a description quoted by Mr. Hemans from the Seventh Eclogue of Calpurnius. The podium was encrusted MARTYRDOMS IN THE COLISEUM. with costly marbles ; network of gilt bronze supported by stakes and wheels of ivory guarded the spectators from the wild beasts ; the spaces between the seats glittered with gold and gems ; a portico carried round the entire building was resplendent with gilded columns ; marble statues thronged the arcades ; the awnings were of silk ; marble tripods for burning perfumes were placed throughout the edifice ; and fountains of fragrant water sprinkled the spectators, diffusing delicious odours through the air. Primitive Christianity is associated, in a peculiar and impressive manner, with Vespasian's great building ; for the Flavian Amphitheatre was often the scene of early martyrdoms, from that of Ignatius onwards, and is now become their great standing memorial. In memory of these martyrdoms the arena was formerly consecrated as a church. In the centre stood a plain cross, and round the walls were fourteen shrines, before which kneeling worshippers might often be seen. In the worship thus offered there was much of superstition — for when, in the year 1750, Pope Benedict xiv. dedicated the ruins to the memory of the Christian martyrs, he proclaimed an indulgence of two hundred days for every act of devotion performed there. But whilst lamenting the apostasy of Rome from the faith of the primitive Church, we might, nevertheless, rejoice to see a visible sign of the victory of the cross over that paganism which had here erected its most imposing and characteristic monument. It is not easy now to recall these old associations. Since 1872 the cross and shrines have been removed, and the excavations, laying bare the arrangement of arcades and cells underneath the arena, have added to the visitor's information at the expense of all picturesqueness. The shrubs and flowers, and even trees, which long garnished the interior, and beautified the rugged walls with life and bloom, have also been ruthlessly torn away. The pretext has been that this growth tended to loosen the stones of the fabric ; but, as Mr. Hare well remarks, in the eradication of these plants and shrubs "more of the stones have given way than would have fallen in five hundred years." ' The bare vastness of the building is more than ever felt, but the touches of loveliness that enriched it are all gone. Little inferior in interest to the Coliseum, though far less impressive architecturally, is the Arch of Titus, commemorating his triumph over the Jews. It was erected, or at least completed, after the death of Titus, as is shown by the epithet Divo ascribed to him. It consists of a single arch of Grecian marble of exquisite proportions, with fluted columns on |^ch side. The frieze which gives it its special interest and value, is on the rignt-hand side of the spectator looking through the arch towards the Coliseum. It represents the triumphal procession with captive Jews, the silver trumpets, the table of shewbread, and the golden candlestick with its seven branches. Amongst the indignities inflicted upon the Jews in Rome was the fact that on the accession of each new Pope ' Walks in Rome. By Augustus J. C. Hare, vol. i., p. 228. THE ARC II OF TITUS. they were compelled to await him at the Arch of Titus, on his way to be installed at the Lateran, present to him a copy of the Pentateuch, and swear allegiance to his government. This ceremony was dispensed with at the installation of Pius ix. and of Leo xiii., and will not of course be now repeated. FRIEZE FROM JHE ARCH OF TITUS. It is the common belief in Rome that no Jew will ever pass under the arch which celebrates the destruction of his nation. There are two arches in honour of Septimius Severus. The one in the Forum at the foot of the Capitol has been already referred to. It was erected to the emperor and his sons Caracalla and Geta, a.d. 203, in commemoration of the 46 ARCHES OF SEPTIMIUS SEVER US. victory over the Parthians, Persians, and Adiabeni. Originally it was surmounted by a chariot of bronze, drawn by six horses, in which stood a figure of Septimius Severus, crowned by Victory. The bas-reliefs with which it is richly decorated represent various incidents in the campaign. The other arch in honour of the Emperor Severus was in the Forum ARCH OF SEI'TI.MIUS SEVERUS IN THE ROMAN' I'OKUiM. Boarium, or Cattle Market, near the Tiber. An inscription upon it shows that it was erected by the silversmiths and traders of the Forum to the emperor, his wife Julia Pia, and their two sons. Though elaborately ornamented, the sculptures are of little value, and show the rapid decline of art from the Augustan age. From the Forum Boarium, we may pass down the Via de' Cerchi (Circus THE PALATINE. Maximus) to the entrance to the Palatine Hill — a spot unsurpassed even in Rome for its marvellous combination of historic interest and picturesque beauty. Tradition connects it with the fabled colony of Trojans who setded in Italy under Pius Aineas, It is said that Evander and the Arcadians established themselves here. Even the destructive criticism of modern historians, which has swept away so many poetical legends, admits the probability of a Pelasgic village on the summit of the hill which served as the birthplace and cradle of the city of Romulus. Here the half-mythical founder of Rome saw the flight of vultures which determined the augury in his favour ; and round the base of this hill he marked out xh.Q poina^rium of his city. It was on the Palatine that he died, probably at the hands of the jealous nobles who resented his ambition ; and for generations his straw-built hut was preserved with superstitious reverence down to the reign of Nero. Here in after ages stood the stately mansions of patricians and senators — Crassus, Cicero, Hortensius, Clodius, Milo, and Catiline. Here the emperors built for themselves edifices of such splendour, that the Palatine has given its name to palaces in every language of Europe. Two neighbouring hills, besides the Palatine itself, were, in the days of Nero, absorbed by the imperial house and gardens, which were embraced in a circuit of three miles and a half. The quarries of the world were ransacked for costly marbles — purely white, or veined with purple and gold. Now all is ruin. The marbles have been stripped off, leaving enormous masses of brickwork, which in their vastness and extent look like a city of the giants. The whole hill is scarped with arches, which formed the substructures upon which the palace was reared. It is with strange emotions that we pace broad platforms open to the sky, among bases of pillars and marble fragments, or pass through broken arcades, or stand before vast crumbling silent walls, and vainly endeavour to recall in imagination the proud mag- nificent heathen life of which these are now the chief memorials. Only too plainly do we see that the cost was unstinted, that imperial pride wrought its utmost for self-indulgence and the overwhelming display of power. But we cannot identify the particular scenes. Antiquaries have done their best to help us, but they differ among themselves, and in the almost entire lack of ancient inscriptions only a few locahties can be indisputably made out. In the early stages of excavation, boards were placed all over the hill inscribed with the supposed names of the respective buildings ; but these way-marks have now mostly disappeared. Still there cannot but be maq^ points of certainty as well as of interest. The massive fragments of the ancient city wall, with the grotto of the Lupercal, the Temple of Jupiter Stator built by Romulus, and that of Jupiter Victor vowed by Fabius Maximus, the Palace of Tiberius, the Basilica or Court of Justice, and the Stadium, not to mention other ruins, are tolerably indubitable remains. One of the most remarkable of all, and, to the passing visitor, perhaps the most interesting, is the suite 48 THE PALATINE. of rooms supposed to have been the abode of Tiberius Claudius Nero, the father of the Emperor Claudius. The apartments with their vestibule are still complete; and the frescoes, especially those of garlanded flowers, may compare with the best of those at Pompeii. Nor must we omit to notice the view commanded from different points of this noble hill. On one side was outspread beneath the view of the masters of the empire the Forum with its busy life, and on another, between the Palatine and the Aventine, lay the Circus Maximus, upon the games and contests of which the occupants of the palace could look down. This valley is now occupied by the Jewish cemetery, and by the gas-works of the city. Still beyond extends the Campagna, with a lovely view of the Alban Hills. One of the most remarkable discoveries made in the course of ex- cavation has been that of the House of the Vestal Virgins, brought to light in 1884. For a long time this was supposed to have been entirely destroyed, the only indication of its existence being the ruins of the little Temple of Vesta in the Forum. Now the lower ridge of the Palatine beyond this temple has been opened, and the whole noble Atrium, or Hall of the Virgins, has been brought to light, with the chambers where these maidens lived, and, what is more interesting still, a series of marble statues, some of them in good preservation, of fair robed damsels, no doubt representing those who were specially distinguished in the service of the goddess. The statues have been allowed to remain in situ, instead of being carried off to museums; and antiquaries are busy in estimating the importance of this great discovery.' There is one historical association connected with the Palace of the Csesars as yet unnoticed, which is the most interesting of all. When the great apostle of the Gentiles, claiming his right as a Roman citizen, appealed unto Csesar, Festus replied, " Hast thou appealed unto Caesar ? unto Caesar shalt thou go." And the Book of Acts enables us to trace his course hither by way of Puteoli, Appii Forum, and the Three Taverns ; and when the historian breaks off his narrative he had lived two whole years in charge of a soldier that kept him. That during this or a subsequent imprisonment he pleaded his cause before the emperor, we know from his own words in which the loftiest heroism and the most touching pathos are blended : "At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me ; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto His heavenly kingdom."' ^ See Edinburgh Review, January 1885, "Recent Discoveries in the Roman Forum." ' 2 Timothy iv. 16-18. THE PALATINE. It was somewhere in these ruined halls that the apostle stood, strong in the faith of an invisible presence, confronting the power of Imperial Rome. That his words were not without effect upon his hearers we learn from his Epistle to the Philippians, where he says : " I would have you know, brethren, that the things which hap- pened unto me have fallen out rather unto the pro- gress of the gospel ; so that my bonds became manifest in Christ throughout the whole Praetorian guard."' And again he says, in the same epistle, " All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar's household." A very remarkable illus- tration of these words has recently been discovered, and has been removed for better preservation to the Kircher Museum. In the chambers which were occu- pied as guard-rooms by the Praetorian troops on duty in the palace, a number of rude caricatures are found roughly scratched upon the walls, just such as may be seen upon barrack walls in every part of the world. Amongst these is one of a human figure nailed upon a cross. To add to the " offence of the cross," the crucified one is repre- sented with the head of an animal, probably that of an ass. Before it stands the figure of a Roman legionary with one hand upraised in the customary attitude of worship. Underneath is the rude, misspelt, ungrammatical inscription A /exame7ios worships his god. It can scarcely be doubted that we PORTA ROMANA, ON THE PALATINE. Philippians i. 13, Revised Version. ^^ n#^^ *'^* E^^ •r: ^''^^ BATHS OF CARACALLA. THE BATHS OF CARACALLA. fepc have here a contemporary caricature executed by one of the Praetorian guard ridiculing the faith of a Christian comrade. Not far from the Palatine stand the remains of another monument of imperial splendour — the Baths of Cara- calla. They were commenced by the emperor whose name they bear, were continued by Heliogabalus, and com- pleted by Alexander Severus. Almost equally with the Coliseum they attest the magnificence and extent of the public edifices reared by the emperors. A mile in circumference, they could accommo- date 1600 bathers at once. The floors and ceilings were of mosaic, the walls were of costly marbles or were decorated with frescoes. Innumerable statues, amongst them some of the finest now in the Roman galleries, have been dug up from the mounds of ruin which cover the ground far and wide. The baths were supplied with water by an aqueduct constructed for that purpose, the arches of which may still be seen crossing the Campagna for a distance of fourteen miles from the city. The grandeur and former beauty of these ruins have excited the enthusiastic admiration of innumerable visitors. Shelley, in the preface of his Prometheus Unbound, says, " This poem was chiefly written upon the mountainous ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, among the flowery glades and thickets of odoriferous blossoming trees, which are extended in ever- widening labyrinths upon its immense platforms and dizzy arches suspended in the air. The bright blue sky of Rome, and the effect of the vigorous awakening spring in that delicious climate, and the new life with which it drenches the spirits, even to intoxication, were the inspiration of the drama." As in the Coliseum and on the Palatine, so here, the extensive excavations carried on amongst the ruins have marred the general effect; the shrubs and flowers have disappeared, and only the colossal ruddy- coloured walls and arches remain. Excepting for their stupendous size, and the illustration that they afford of the vast resources which Imperial Rome lavished upon this favourite form of luxury, the Baths are now scarcely worth visiting. Whilst many of the churches of modern Rome have been constructed out of the ruins of its ancient basilicas and temples, two are specially noteworthy as GRAFFITO IN THE COLLEGIO ROMANO. 55 THE TEMPLE OF VESTA. remaining unchanged in form, the dedication being simply transferred from a pagan deity to a Christian saint. One of these, the Temple of Vesta, stands at the foot of the Palatine, between it and the Tiber. Doubts have been entertained as to its original dedication, and it certainly was not the Temple of Vesta described by Horace as exposed to the inundations of the Tiber.' It is now known as the Church of S. Maria del Sole. It is only opened for public service on certain days in the year. Its exquisite proportions are injured by the modern roof of coarse tiles, which have replaced the original entablature and covering ; but TEMPLE OF VESTA. it well deserves to be, as it is, one of the most favourite objects in Rome for reproduction in models and mosaics. Better known by engravings even than the Temple of Vesta is the Pantheon, which retains its ancient name, though it was dedicated so early as a.d. 608 to S. Maria ad Martyres. It is the one edifice of old Rome that remains entire, " spared, and blessed by time," — Carm. i. 2. 56 THE PA N THE N. " Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime, Shrine of all saints, and temple of all gods." Twenty-seven years before the birth of Christ, Agrippa dedicated this temple " to all the gods." But it is probable that the body of the building was of far older date, and that only the portico was added by Agrippa. The marble of the interior is Pentelican from Attica, while that of the portico, of the pavement, and of other additions to the ancient rotunda, is from Carrara or some Grecian island, which was not quarried till a later period. The modern tourist walks on the same pavement which was trodden by Augustus and Agrippa, and the eye looks up through the open circle at the top to the same Italian sky at which the Roman sediles and consuls gazed. The clouds of incense from popish altars creep through this aperture, through which ascended the smoke and incense of old heathen sacrifices. No other existing edifice thus links together the paganism and the popery of Rome. The symmetry and beauty of the dome have been universally admired, and to it are owing the dome of Santa Sophia at Constantinople, and that of St. Peter's. It is an exact hemisphere, and was originally covered with plates of silver, for which bronze was afterwards substituted. These bronze plates were removed by Urban viii., to form the pillars of the apostle's tomb in the Vatican, and to be cast into cannon. From the rough appearance of the brick exterior of the lower part, it seems to have been covered with marble, or hidden by contiguous buildings. The opening at the top of the dome is about twenty-eight feet in diameter, for the purpose of lighting the interior, which has been effected with extraordinary skill. It not only lights the whole of the interior perfectly, but in the most charming and magical manner. There is an ascent by about two hundred steps in the interior to this opening. The tasteless belfries, called in derision '' the asses' ears of Bernini," were added at the command of Urban viii. Hawthorne, in his Note Book, has recorded his impressions of the interior of the Pantheon as seen on a spring day, when clouds and sunshine chased one another across the sky. All who have stood beneath the swelling dome, and watched the play of light and shade through its central aperture, will sympathize with his feelings : "In the Pantheon to-day it was pleasant, looking up to the circular opening, to see the clouds flitting across it, sometimes covering it quite over, then permitting a glimpse of sky, then showing all the circle of sunny blue. Then would come the ragged edge of a cloud, brightened throughout with sunshine, passing and changing quickly — not that the Divine smile was not always the same, but continually variable through the medium of earthly influences. The great slanting beam of sunshine was visible all the way down to the pavement, falling THE PANTHEON. Upon motes of dust, or a thin smoke of incense imperceptible in the shadow. Insects were playing to and fro in the beam, high up toward the opening. There is a wonderful charm in the naturalness of all this, and one might fancy a swarm of cherubs coming down through the opening and sporting in the broad ray to gladden the faith of worshippers on the pavement beneath ; or angels bearing prayers upwards, or bringing down responses to them, visible with dim brightness as they pass through the pathway of heaven's radiance, even the many hues of their wings discernible by a trusting eye ; though, as they pass into the shadow. INTERIOR OF THE PANTHEOX. they vanish like the motes. So the sunbeam would represent those rays of Divine Intelligence which enable us to see wonders, and to know that they are natural things." In seeking for traces of the primitive Church In Rome, we turn at once to those In the Catacombs, as being not only of the highest interest and Importance, but also of unquestioned authenticity. Elsewhere we are perplexed by super- 58 THE CAT ACQ MB S. stitious legends and conflicting traditions, in which it is difficult to extract the few grains of truth from the mass of error in which they are embedded. But in the Catacombs we cannot doubt that here the martyred dead were laid down to rest " in peace," and that the living sought refuge from persecution in these "dens and caves of the earth."' Concerning the construction and early history of these crypts nothing is known with certainty. Some of the classical writers allude to subterranean caverns which appear to have existed and been inhabited from remote antiquity. Many writers on the subject consider this underground city to be the result of quarryings carried on for the sake of stone to be used in building. Others regard them as pits dug out for the sake of pozzolana, a sandy volcanic material used for mortar or cement.'' Lastly, there are those who believe them to have been excavated for purposes of interment, and either in part or altogether to have been the work of the early Christians. It had long been customary to place the ashes of the dead in columbaria^ literally " dove cotes, from their size and shape. These were sometimes private possessions, as in the well-known "Tomb of Virgil" at Naples. But the greater number were public, as in the representation on the next page, of a columbarium on the Appian Way. The early Christians, however, repudiated the funeral urn, and sought a quiet spot where to lay their dead, " in sure and certain hope of the resurrection." It is only, then, with the condition of the Catacombs from the commence- ment of our era, and principally with the story of them during the few first centuries, that we have now to do. That they were occasionally taken advantage of prior to those days for the purposes of burial, is evident from the pagan inscriptions found here and there in them ; but probably the Roman world knew little of their existence, and less as to their extent. The outlaws of society, vagabonds and thieves, hid in them, and kept the secret of their labyrinthine windings. The entrances were principally in gardens, where the thin crust of earth having fallen through, trees and rank underwood growing up had so far concealed the opening with a wild luxuriance, that few knew of its existence, and fewer still cared to descend and penetrate into the gloom. The Catacombs spread in almost every direction outside the walls of Rome. The passages or galleries in them crowd together in some places like the alleys and streets of a city, intersecting one another in a network of endless entanglement and confusion, so that attempting to explore without a clue, you are soon effectually lost. At times so densely are they crowded together Mn the following pages, much use has been made of a series of papers, in the Sunday at Home, 1865, on "Early Christian Haunts in the Catacombs." ^ Until recently the theory that the excavations were originally made for building material was that commonly adopted. More accurate observation, however, seems to show that the galleries are carried through soil which could not be used for that purpose. THE CATACOMBS that you wonder the impending crust does not break through and bury acres of them. Again from this congested labyrinth passages outstrip the rest, and run off singly for a mile or more to join some distant branch. Here and there ranks of galleries are found existing one beneath another, and care must be taken, in walking through the topmost, lest, on account of the sundry holes met with A ROMAN COLUMBARIUM. where the intervening tufa has given way, the visitors do not Inadvertently fall through into the regions below. The sides of all the galleries are thickly perforated with tombs, oblong horizontal niches — two, three, or even six ranks 60 THE CATACOMBS. SECTION OF CALIXTUS CATACOMBS ) SHOWING THE DISPOSITION OF PASSAGES AND CUBICUI.A. of them, one above another, from the floor to the roof, where the dead have been placed and sealed in ; and they present to the eye an appearance some- thing similar to the sleeping-berths in a ship ; or, to use the words of Abbe Gerbet, you may look upon them as the "shelves of a vast library, where Death has arranged his works." " Vast " indeed the abbe may well term it ; for the most experienced of archaeologists calcu- late the combined length of these passages at upwards of nine hundred miles, and assert that above six millions of dead were buried in them ! Perhaps the most interesting are those known as the Catacombs of St. Calixtus. The entrance is in some gardens adjoining the Appian Way, about two miles from Rome. Having lit the torches handed to us, we follow our guide, bending low through an arch in the tufa, into an oblong chamber, where a gleam of daylight struggles in through a distant opening in the top. The impressionable visitor will not enter without a feeling that he treads on hallowed ground ; for there, cut in the dark grey stone, four graves confront him, severally inscribed : ANTEROS. EPI. FABIANVS. MAR. EVTICHIANVS EPIS ET MAR- LVCIVS. EPIS. Four bishops and martyrs of Rome — of the dates a.d. 235, a.d. 236, a.d. 256, A.D. 275 — are entombed in this small chapel. The other graves around lack superscriptions. On in the black darkness, in single file, through close and devious passages where the torches of the foremost of the party are soon lost to sight, we arrive at a cubiculum ; in fact, we are come to a region where they abound, for we pass many of them to the right and the left. But a visit to this one must suffice ; it is about as capacious as the apse of a small church, only the vaulted roof is very low. We crowd in and bring our lights to bear on two glass cases, which the guide points ENTRANCE TO CATACOMBS. THE C ATA CO MBS. A CUBICULUM WITH TOMBS. out to us, wherein are laid bodies that have been taken from their graves — one a skeleton, the other an almost indistinguishable mummy. And these were martyrs ! so at least says our guide. Looking upwards away from this sad spectacle, we recognise, overhead, the gentle figure of the Good Shepherd painted in colours that have stood bravely under the corrosive touch of Time, and, what Is more destruc- tive in these cases, the smoke of visitors' lamps. In the great majority of instances the graves consist of deep, oblong, shelf-like incisions in the tufa, wherein, after the lower surface had been hollowed out a little for its reception, the body was placed ; and then, when the offices had terminated, and friends had looked their last, the aperture was sealed up. In the case of a martyr a palm branch, symbol of conquest, was painted or carved outside. A little vase, probably a lachrymatory, for holding tears of grief, was often stuck on by means of plaster to the edge. There is, however, another kind of tomb, called arcosolitwi, in the construction of which a deeper incision was made into the wall ; and in this, instead of the mere niche or shelf, you have a capacious sarcophagus hollowed into the lower surface of the cutting", while over it is an ^ , . , . FRAGMENT OF SLAB, AND LACHRYMATORY. arch fashioned in the stone. The remains of Christians held in high repute were usually deposited here ; though sometimes an arcosolium was appropriated for the burial of a family, in which case two or three shelves were ex- cavated in the tufa beyond the sarcophagus, under the arch. Figs, a and d will give some idea of one ordinary manner of sealing a grave. Three Roman tiles are fixed into the tufa roughly by means of plaster, or strong cement, and in this way the opening is hermetically closed ; the Httle bottle of treasured tears or blood is seen on the right. The ARCOSOLIUM. THE C ATA CO MB S. Fig. a. impression on the left-hand tile is the mark of the Roman brickmaker. In fig. d is shown a cell partly unclosed, wherein the remains of the sleeper are brought to light, two of the tiles being torn away. A painted palm-branch, roughly sketched, is all that tells the tale of her death ; while the inscription (see fig. a), prefixed with a cross, refers the passer-by to the " well-deserving Achyonia in peace in the eternal house of God. ' Often a strip of marble or fragment of stone was substituted for the ordinary Roman tile in sealing the tombs ; for the latter fabric, though cheap and easily procurable, was not so well adapted to take inscriptions ; and it soon became the custom to write the name of the dead, his age, and other particulars, on the outer covering to his grave. The following is one of the earliest inscriptions whose date is indicated ; a translation alone is given, for brevity's sake : IN THE TIME OF HADRIAN, EMPEROR, MARIUS, YOUTHFUL MILITARY COMMANDER: WHO LIVED ENOUGH, SINCE HE SPENT HIS LIFE AND BLOOD FOR CHRIST, IN PEACE. Hadrian became emperor a.d. 117, about twenty years after the death of the Apostle John. Very little later is the following, in the reign of Antoninus Pius (a.d. 138) — X ^^XYONlAlNPXcEBENCMCRtTI IM D0MOB^ERN^ DEI Fig. /'. the commencement of the inscription only is given Alex.\nder mortuus non est sed vivit super astra et corpus in hoc tumulo quiescit. (Alexander is not dead, but lives beyond the stars, and his body rests in this tomb.) This following has an affecting significance, and suggests much meaning in a few words : — HERE GORDIANUS, AMBASSADOR, FROM GAUL, CONSUMED WITH ALL HIS FAMILY FOR THE FAITH, REPOSES IN PEACF, THEOPHILA, SERVANT, MADE (tHIS TABLET.) What an unaffected yet powerful showing forth of faith and charity is here ! A Christian family far from home, strangers in a strange land ; the father, 63 THE CATACOMBS. ambassador perhaps to plead the cause of fellow Christians in trouble, meets not with mercy in Rome, but persecution and death for himself and his dear ones, and then the Church in the Catacombs obtains their dust. Who will not love the good servant, Theophila, that, being no longer able to wait on her master and his family, raises up this stone to their memory, and so remits to posterity their good name ? " The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance." The original is curious, the Latin being written in part in bad Greek characters : eilC TwPJ HANYC TAAAHE NYNCHYC nYPV ATYC II Pw $H5E CYM *AMSAHA TwTA QYHKCCYNT HN HAKE YG»'"yAK ma i later date. They were painted in this /(M[llklJlli/i!\ ^^ ^^^^^^^ V i^ rough outline over the grave of a child, immediately above a simple epitaph which told merely of his name and age. These few inscriptions may serve as an example of the rest. If space allowed, longer ones might be intro- duced and multiplied to any extent. Although dissimilar in the wording, all agree in their simplicity and lack of ostentation, and at the same time each one seems to breathe of a spirit of charity and love. Here sleeps Gorgonius, friend to all, and enemy to no man. Abrinus to the memory of Palladius, his dearest cousin and fellow-disciple. In startling contrast with the wild despair of heathen lamentations is the sentiment breathed in the following, a mother's epitaph on her lost boy : Magus, innocent child, thou hast begun Already to live among the innocent. How barren is this life to thee ! How WILL THE Mother Church receive the joyous, Returning from this world. Let the sighs of our breasts be hushed. The weeping of our eyes be stopt. Again, we meet with several which record how long the separated (hus- band or wife) lived happily with the mourner in wedlock, without so much as one quarrel! In many instances the age of the dead is specified even to days : Thou hast fallen too soon, Constantia! admirable (pattern) of beauty and grace! who lived XVIII. years, VI. MONTH^ XVI. DAYS. In PEACE. It is rather amusing to detect here and there, in the wording of inscriptions, traces of a defective aspirate in use among the early Christians of Rome ; a prototype, in fact, of the cockney difificulty with the letter H ; on the one hand to observe 'ic written for Hie, 'ora for Hora, 'onorius for Honorius ; on the other //ossa for ossa, //octobris, //eterna, and so on. The early tenants of the Catacombs were principally converted pagans, the lesser number being Jews ; the one but lately come from taking part in the solemnities and festivals of idol-worship, the other retaining remembrances of K 65 THE CATACOMBS. pride of race, exclusive in character, and familiar with the lore of sacred story ; and traces of their previous tendencies are to be found portrayed on the walls ; Christian paintings, tinctured with pagan ideas on the one hand, and Jewish customs on the other. In a cubiculum near the Appian Way is imaged forth a funeral supper, after the manner of the Greeks ; and not far off appears a graphic representation of an ao^ape, or love-feast. Illustrations of Jewish history are very frequent. The centre place in the vault of one cubiculum is given up to a painting of the seven-branched candle- stick, which, being among the spoils of Jerusalem brought in triumph to Rome, it is possible the painter may himself have seen ; while the offering of Isaac, the three children in the furnace, Daniel in the den of lions, Jonah with the fish, Jonah reclining under his gourd, Moses striking the rock, and one or two others, are repeated in different places. A very favourite symbol or figure with the early Christians was the fish ; and this, it would seem, was of use in more ways than one ; for the sign was a kind of freemasonry, by means of which one Christian could distinguish another, in a manner unintelligible to the enemies of the faith. It seems certain that little bone or wooden fishes were made and set aside for that purpose by the early Church. The signification of this emblem is not at first apparent, save, indeed, that Jonah's fish shadowed forth the resurrection; but it is found that the letters composing the Greek L^dvs, a fish, are the initials to the words /estis Christ, Sou of God, Saviotcr. Thus the sign of the fish was sacred to Christ, and was even used at times in place of the universal monogram at the beginning and ending of inscriptions. Here is an instance from the Catacombs. The painter seems to have written on it the Greek word ^(oaais (mayest Thou save). The monogram of Christ is made up of the first two letters in the name of Christ, X and P ; and sometimes alpha and omega are conjoined with it. It was in familiar use among the early Christians of all lands, and appears in the Catacombs (as some think) as soon as the days of Hadrian (a.d. i i 7), or perhaps before. Inscriptions were frequently begun or ended with this sign. The palm-branch, emblem of victory, always a favourite symbol among the early disciples of Christ, was a sign allotted exclusively — so it appears — to those who had suffered as martyrs for the faith ; a custom taking it's rise probably from the vision of St. John in the Apocalypse : "I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands." "These," said the elder, "are they who came out of great tribulation." The dove on the cross is a very expressive token, and bears with it a touching significance to weary, wayworn man, that where the cross (or suffering) 66 THE C ATA CO MB S. AN ORANTE, OR WOMAN ENGAGED IN PRAYER. is set up, and holds a place, there will the dove, indicative of the great Com- forter, come with its healing wings. Or, on the contrary, it may be held to show forth that where the Holy Spirit deigns to fix His seat and make known His influence, there surely will be found the cross, tribulation, and suffering. Wander- ing, wayward man might wish it otherwise ; but so it is, and ever must be, until this transitory season of trial gives way to the clear shining of God's face. Our next illustration — one of many in the Calixtine catacombs — represents a woman en- gaged in prayer, in an attitude which, from its constant repetition on the walls, may be taken to indicate the posture usually assumed in that act of devotion, the eyes looking to heaven and the hands outstretched. But most graceful, among the many pictures which decorate the walls, are the various repre- sentations of the Good Shepherd. The early Christians evidently loved the subject ; they seem never to have tired of dwelling on or illustrating it in their own simple way ; it held a central place in their hearts, as does the painting of it on the vaulted roofs of their cubicula. The illustration below is copied from a vault in the Calixtine cemetery. The shepherd is bearing one of the flock on his shoulders, which he has either brought back from wandering or taken up to rest in the fatigue of a long journey. On the compartment adjoining it the reaper is at work with the yellow corn, and by his side stands one gathering roses from the tree. Sometimes the shepherd and the .sheep are seen peacefully reposing, suggesting the text, " He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me beside the still waters." Here is the shepherd again, but his loins are girt for travel, and his staff is in his hand. A few sheep linger near watching, while he plucks back a refractory member of the flock, or lays hold on one who has strayed. In one place the shepherd is represented as carrying his charge across the stream, bearing it carefully on his shoulders as he wades through, lest it should take harm. There was a custom, common enough with the ancients, of placing in the 67 THE GOOD SUEiniERD. THE CA TA COMBS. TERRA-COTTA LAMPS FOUND IN THE CATACOMBS. tomb with the departed such objects as had been in familiar use with him during h'fe. The early Christians in the Catacombs adopted this usage to some extent, burying with their dead divers articles, which may now be seen in the Vatican and other collections. Among them are brooches, pins for the hair, coins, rings ; articles of domestic use, such as lamps, candlesticks, and so on ; most of these bear in their fabric some indication of their Christian origin — space only admits of one or two examples. Here are two small lamps in terra-cotta. On the one, it will be seen, is a raised figure of the Good Shepherd bearing a lamb on his shoulder, while a circlet of grapes is moulded on the outer rim. The other lamp carries on it a representation of the seven branched candlestick. Seals are likewise found in the Catacombs. Of the following, one bears the legend In eo spes — " In Him is hope," encircling the monogram of Christ : on the second, Spes dei is ntermingled with the same sign. A little child in its last long sleep had been put V ^^-^*^J to rest with its doll placed by its side ; the little grave was sealed up, some ages of repose supervened, and all was forgotten ; but in these latter times the workmen employed in the crypts broke into the tomb, and taking away the outer stone, revealed the plaything lying in company with the dust of the little maiden. In some of the graves implements have been found which are conjectured, though without sufficient authority, to have been the instruments of torture buried with the martyrs who had suffered from them. Roman archaeologists have classified them as follows ; pincers {a) to crush a limb, or simply to hold it, cutting into the flesh ; scourges of knotted cords (^), or bronze chains terminating in balls of iron, under the agonies inflicted by which a great number of martyrs died ; {c) claws or ungulcE for tearing the sides or members of martyrs while stretched on the bed of torture ; {d) a kind of comb, a terrible instru- ment for producing pain, yet not deadly. That such tortures were inflicted upon the early Christians we know from the writings of con- temporary martyrologists. But there is no evidence to show that the instruments by which they were inflicted ever passed from the hands of the executioners into those of the sufferers, or were buried in the graves of the martyrs. A more probable conjecture is that which identifies the relics with the CHILD S DOLL. LESSOJVS FROM THE CATACOMBS. «]Eu3ai5JJ3E tools used by the dead man during his Hfe, and they are, with the exception of the knotted cords, just what would be required for carding and dressing wool. A visit to the museums in the Lateran and Vatican, where the most important inscriptions from the Cata- combs are collected and arranged, for- cibly suggests a double contrast — with the mortuary remains of pagan Rome on one hand, and with the creed and ritual of papal Rome on the other. The inscriptions on pagan sarco- phagi and cinerary urns express only hopeless grief and dismay. The dead have been snatched away from light and life into darkness and annihilation. The survivors " sorrow as those that have no hope." A proud, hard stoicism under bereavement is the highest at- tainment of Roman virtue. Not unfre- quently we find the language of bitter complaint against the unjust gods who have snatched away the innocent child from loving parents with no prospect of union/ But with the introduction of Christianity we have the dawn of a new- hope. The very name cemetery, a sleeping-place., suggests the thought of a happy awakening when the morning shall come. The word depositits implies the same idea : the body is laid in the grave as a temporary deposit, to be reclaimed at the appointed time. One inscription, already quoted, is typical of the sentiment of all : " Marius had lived long enough when, with his blood, he gave up his life for Christ." " Petronia, a deacon's wife," says, "Weep not, dear husband and daughters ; believe that it is wrong to weep for one who lives in God, buried in peace." Plancus, having inscribed upon the tomb of his wife the figure of a dove bearing an olive branch, and the word Peace, goes on to say, " This grief will always weigh upon me ; but may it be granted me in sleep to behold thy revered countenance. My wife, Albana, always chaste and modest, I grieve over the loss of thy support, for the Divine Author gave thee to me as a sacred gift. Thou, well-deserving one, having left us, liest in peace, in sleep ; but thou wilt arise ; it is a temporary rest which is granted thee." It is only since our Lord " abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light," that such words as these have been possible. No less striking is the contrast which the remains of the primitive Church in the Catacombs offer to the teachings of modern Rome. The name of the Virgin I Maiiland quotes from Mabillon an inscription which begins — /, Procope, lift up my hands against God, who snatched me away, innocent, 69 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PAPACY. Mary never occurs. The assertion of Roman controversialists that a female figure in the attitude of prayer is a representation of the mother of our Lord is so utterly groundless, that it is tantamount to a confession of failure. The worship of saints and martyrs has no place amongst these authentic records. The dead are not gone to purgatorial fires ; they rest " in peace " and " in Christ." The celibacy of the clergy is discountenanced by the fact that the bishops of Rome are buried with their wives. Everything speaks of a faith, a love, and a hope far removed from the arrogant pretensions of the later Roman Church. The descent from the pure apostolical Christianity of the Catacombs into the abyss of papal error was at first very slow. The " mystery of iniquity " began to work, indeed, at an early age. But for some centuries it only began. Its full development was reserved for after ages. In the oldest churches of Rome there is little which can offend the most earnest Protestant. The mosaics of SS. Cosmo e Damiano, or those of the older parts of St. Clemente, for instance, are objectionable chiefly because we may trace there the first step downward. In the former we have the tv/elve apostles represented as sheep, with the crowned Lamb in the centre standing upon a mound, intended probably for Mount Zion, from which flow the four rivers of paradise. Above is the River Jordan, apparently symbolical of death, and over this a magnificent figure of Christ in glory, holding a scroll in one hand, the other raised in benediction. The apostles Peter and Paul are on either side, introducing the two martyrs, Cosmo and Damian, together with Felix iv., the founder of the church, and St. Teodoro. In the church of St. Clemente we have a mosaic of the ascension of our Lord. The apostles stand gazing up into heaven ; watching with them, and but raised slightly above them, is Mary. Were it not for the later developments of the Papacy, which painfully illustrate the danger of such representations, these compositions might pass without severe censure. The ecclesiastical organization of the city of Rome embraces seven basilicas and upwards of three hundred churches. Many of the latter, however, are either entirely closed or are only open for worship on certain days in the year. The number of ecclesiastics is of course very fluctuating, and has been so especially during the political and religious movements of the last few years. The census of 1863 gave the statistics as follows : cardinals, 34; bishops, 36 ; priests, 1457 seminarists, 367; monks, 2569; nuns, 2031; making a total of 6494. This, for a city about the size of Edinburgh, was an ecclesiastical staff out of all proportion to its ecclesiastical requirements.^ Since that time the number of monks and nuns has considerably diminished ; that of the seminarists has un- doubtedly increased. The processions of youths, in their black or scarlet cloaks, is quite a noticeable feature in the city ; the friars, on the other hand, appear to be much fewer. ^ The census referred to gave the total population as 201,161. It has greatly increased since the removal of the capital from Florence, and at the census of 1881 amounted to 300,467. ROMAN CHURCHES AND BASILICAS. The basilicas of Rome are those of St. Peter, St. John Lateran, Santa Maria Maggiore, and Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, within the walls, and St. Paul, St. Lorenzo, and St. Sebastian outside. Of these, St. John Lateran is first in CHURCH OK ST. CLEMENTK. dignity, being the metropolitan church of Rome. The Popes resided in its palace for one thousand years, and five general councils have been held within its walls. In "size, splendour, and present importance it yields, however, to St. Peter's. Of this, 'as the most famous church of Christendom, we give a more detailed account. CHURCHES IN ROME. It Stands upon the traditional site of the tomb of St. Peter, over which, it is said, an oratory existed from the end of the last century. Of this, however, CHURCH OF SS. GIOVANNI K PAOLO. there is no historical proof; the long residence and episcopa:te of St. Peter in Rome are a figment contradicted by the clearest evidence, and it is quite uncertain whether the imperial city was the scene of his martyrdom. In 306 ST. PETER'S. Constantine commenced the construction of a great basilica on the spot, working with his own hands at the task, and carrying twelve baskets of earth in honour of the tvv'elve apostles. The Basilica of Constantine suffered greatly in the stormy times which followed. Still it stood for a thousand years, when it was determined to erect an edifice which should eclipse all others in size and splendour. It was on the i8th of April, 1506, that Pope Julius 11. laid the foundation of the new church. The stone was deposited at the base of one of the four pillars ST. 1'ET[:k"s, with the bridge and castle of ST. ANGEI.O. which now support the cupola ; but only these pillars and their superincumbent arches were completed when Bramante, the first architect, died ; Julius had expired in the preceding year. His successor, Leo x., however, carried forward the work with great energy ; these two Popes surpassing all their predecessors in the sale of indulgences, In order to obtain the vast sums required for the erection of the edifice. It is a memorable circumstance that the indignation caused by the shameless manner in which these indulgences were sold gave the first impulse to the Reformation under Luther. Sr. r£ TEA'S. The building was now committed to the charge of Raphael, with two other architects ; but little was done in his time beyond the strengthening of the four pillars already reared. After the deaths of several architects and Popes, Paul iii. committed the superintendence of the edifice to Michael Angelo ; but he did not live to complete it, though he carried the dome, according to his own design, to its present height. The building was undertaken after his decease by Giacomo della Porta, during the pontificate of Gregory xiii., who was so anxious to see it finished that six hundred workmen were employed at it night and day^ and INTEKiOR OF ST. PETER S. -■^''. ST. PETER'S. THE STATUE OF ST. PETKR. one hundred thousand golden crowns were annually voted for its completion. Carlo Maderno, another architect, returned to the form of the Latin cross, which had been repeatedly changed and re-changed for the Greek, and completed the body of the edifice. One hundred and seventy years elapsed before this was done, and three centuries were required to bring the edifice to its present form, its progress extending over the reigns of no fewer than forty-three popes. S7\ PETER'S. In the middle of the sixteenth century, Carlo Fontana drew up a statement of the sums of money that had been expended on it ; the total, exclusive of 405,453 FOUNTAIN IN FRONT OF THE VATICAN. pounds of bronze used in constructing the chair of St. Peter and the confessional, amounted to 47,151,450,000,000 scudi, or about ^11,625,000 of our money. 78 ST. PETER'S. The main front of St. Peter's is one hundred and sixty feet high, and three hundred and ninety-six feet wide ; and the remark is common, that it is more like the front of a palace than a church. It consists of two stories and an attic, with nine windows to each, and nine heavy balconies, awkwardly intersecting the Corinthian columns and pilasters. On the floor, which is composed of large blocks of marble of singular beauty, disposed in various figures, are marked the lengths of some of the principal churches of Europe as well as the dimensions of St. Peter's. They are thus given : Feet. St. Peter's 609 St. Paul's, London . . 521 Milan Cathedral . . . 439 St. Paul's, Rome . . . 415 St. Sophia, Constantinople 356 The lateral aisles and the numerous chapels have been sub- jected to much hostile criticism, as being inconsistent with the general design, but the central nave is universally regarded as surpassingly grand. Eighty-nine feet in breadth and one hundred and fifty-two feet high, it is flanked on either side by a noble arcade, the piers of which are decorated with niches and fluted Corinthian pilasters. A semicircular vault, highly enriched with sunken panels, sculptures, and various gilded ornaments, is thrown across from one side to the other, producing the most splendid effect. The illumination of St. Peter's in Easter week during the papal regime is described by those who have witnessed it as one of the most imposing spectacles in the world. The sudden burst of radiance from the ball, the instantaneous meteor-like flash over the whole cupola, the long lines of lamps bringing out into vivid relief its gigantic mass and exquisite proportions, the reflections in the spray of the great fountains, and the strange effects of light and shadow, were without a parallel among the great shows of the world, while the burst of fireworks from the Castle of St. Angelo completed the blaze of splendour. The A. Oratory of St. Peter. B. Bronze Statue of St. Peter. c. Door of Jubilee. D. Scala Regia. E. High Altar. F. Confessional of St. Peter. G. Sacristy. ILLUM [NATION OF ST. PETER'S. lighting of the lamps was effected by a gang of three hundred workmen, who, having previously received the sacrament, entered upon the perilous enterprise. They ascended by ladders, by a temporary scaffolding, or were drawn up by ropes and pulleys. They performed their work with such marvellous quickness that the illumination of the v/hole fa9ade and dome was often completed in from fifteen to twenty seconds. All this is now at an end. The voluntary "captivity" of the Pope in his palace of the Vatican separates him effectually from the life of the Roman people, and the great festival days of the city are no longer ecclesiastical. ''What impression did St. Peter's make upon you.'*" is a question asked, perhaps, more often than any other from visitors to Rome ; and few questions are more difficult to answer. Seen from a distance — say from the Pincian, when lit up by the morning sun, or from the Campagna in the golden light of evening — the dome rises in matchless beauty. Its height above surrounding buildings and the exquisite harmony of its proportions are then clearly perceived. It seems to detach itself from the city at its feet, and to stand out against the sky in solitary grandeur. But the view close at hand is undoubtedly disappointing. The dome is dwarfed, almost hidden, by the monstrous fa9ade in front of it ; and the fayade is ineffective, partly from faults of construction, partly from the immense extent of the piazza and the colossal proportions of the colonnade enclosing it. This defect is accounted for by the fact that a succession of popes and architects were engaged upon it, each of whom endeavoured to make that part upon which he was engaged the most imposing feature of the whole. The tout ensemble has thus been sacrificed to the vanity and ambition of its builders. A very curious collection might be made of conflicting judgments upon the interior of St. Peter's. Here are a few : *' The first view of the interior of St. Peter's makes the eye fill with tears, and oppresses the heart with a sense of suffocation. It is not simply admiration, or awe, or wonder — it is full satisfaction, of what nature you neither understand nor inquire. If you may only walk aside and be silent, you ask nothing more. . . . It was the work of an age when religion was a subject for the intellect rather than the heart. It is the expression of the ambitious rather than the devotional element in man's nature. A saint could scarcely have imagined it, and probably nothing less than the fiery energy of Julius the Second and the determined selfishness of Leo the Tenth's artistic tastes could have collected the treasures of richness and beauty which have been lavished upon it."' " Perhaps the picturesque has been too much studied in the interior. The bronze canopy and wreathed columns of the high altar, though admirably pro- portioned and rich beyond description, form but a stately toy, which embarrasses the cross. The proud chair of St. Peter, supported by the figures of four scribbling doctors, is in every sense a trick. The statues recumbent on the great arches are beauties which break into the architrave of the nave. The very pillars are too fine. Their gaudy and contrasted marbles resemble the pretty I Impressiojts of Rome. By the Author of Amy Herbert. 82 ILLUMINATION OF ST. PETER'S AND FIREWORKS AT THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO. Frcm a Sketch by E. F. Payne, in " Kome and its Scenery. GENERAL EFFECT OF ST. PETER'S. assortments of a cabinet, and are beneath the dignity of a fabric Hke this, where the stupendous dimensions accord only with simplicity, and seem to prohibit the beautiful. Vaults and cupolas so ponderous as these could be trusted only to massive pillars. Hence flat surfaces which demand decoration. Hence idle pilasters and columns, which never give beauty unless they give also support : yet remove every column, every pilaster that you find within this church, and nothing essential to its design will fall."' " The building of St. Peter's surpasses all powers of description. It appears to me like some great work of nature, a forest, a mass of rocks, or something similar ; for I never can realise the idea that it is the work of man. You strive to distinguish the ceiling as little as the canopy of heaven. You lose your way in St. Peter's ; you take a walk in it, and ramble till you are quite tired. When Divine service is performed and chanted there, you are not aware of it till you come quite close. The angels in the baptistery are enormous giants ; the doves colossal birds of prey. You lose all sense of measurement with the eye, or proportion ; and yet who does not feel his heart expand when standing under the dome and gazing up at it ? "^ " The interior burst upon our astonished gaze, resplendent in light, mag- nificence, and beauty, beyond all that imagination can conceive. Its apparent smallness of size, however, mingled some degree of surprise and even disappoint- ment with my admiration ; but as I walked slowly up its long nave, empanelled with the richest marbles, and adorned with every art of sculpture and taste, and caught through the lofty arches opening views of chapels and tombs, and altars of surpassing splendour, I felt that it was indeed unparalleled in beauty, in magnitude, and magnificence, and one of the noblest and most wonderful of the works of man."3 " St. Peter's, that glorious temple, the largest and most beautiful, it is said, in the world, produced upon me the impression rather of a Christian Pantheon than of a Christian Church. The aesthetic intellect is edified more than the God- loving or God-seeking soul. The exterior and interior of the building appear to me more like an apotheosis of the popedom than a glorification of Christianity and its doctrine. Monuments to the Popes occupy too much space. One sees all round the walls angels flying upwards with papal portraits, sometimes merely with papal tiaras. "'^ On the whole, we may say that the impression is that of enormous size and surpassing splendour ; but the feeling is unmixed with awe. The mind is quite at liberty to dwell upon details of measurement and proportion. There is no involuntary hush of admiration and reverence, such as one has often felt in some grand cathedral. Even to the devotee — to the heart in sympathy with the doctrines here symbolized — one can hardly imagine any whisper, " O come let us worship,'' as coming from these magnificent arches and gilded shrines. ^ The Antiquities, Arts, ajid Letters of Italy. By J. Forsyth. - MendelssoJui s Letters. ^ Rome in the Nitieteenth Century. By C. Eaton. * Two Years in Italy. By Frederika Bremer. 8s THE SIS TINE CHAPEL. The Sistine Chapel forms part of the Vatican. Entering from the right of the Piazza of St. Peter's, we pass up the magnificent Scala Regia, perhaps the grandest staircase in the world, and certainly the masterpiece of its architect Bernini. At its great bronze doors are stationed the Swiss Guard, in the quaint, picturesque uniform designed for them by Michael Angelo. Crossing the Scala Regia, and turning to the left, we find ourselves in the world-famous Capella Sistina. The chapel takes its name from Sixtus iv., in whose pontificate it was erected. Being only one hundred and thirty-five feet in length by forty-five in breadth, and divided into two parts by a massive screen, the visitor is commonly disappointed at its smallness, especially if, as frequently happens, he has just left the enormous area of St. Peter's. The architecture, too, is justly open to criticism. Its height is excessive, the cornices are mean and ill-placed ; its ugly windows mar the general effect, and the high screen thrown across makes it look smaller than it really is. The fame of this chapel is due to the magnificent series of frescoes which cover its walls and ceiling. Here are found the finest works of Michael Angelo, which, though they have suffered much from time, neglect, the smoke of innumerable lamps, and the retouching of inferior artists, yet retain enough of their original grandeur to excite the wonder and admiration of every student of art. The ceiling, painted by the great Florentine in twenty-two months, represents The Creation, The Fall of Man, and The Deluge. Below this are the prophets, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Zechariah, Isaiah, Daniel, and Jonah, selected for representation as having specially foretold the coming of our Lord. Alternating with the prophets are the Sibyls, who, in the hagiology of the Romish Church, are regarded as having announced to the heathen world the future advent of the Messiah, as the Hebrew prophets did to their own nation. The end wall is occupied by a representation of the Last Judgment. Upon this work Michael Angelo spent seven years of almost incessant labour and study. To animate him in the task. Pope Paul iii., attended by ten cardinals, waited upon the artist at his house. "An honour," says Lanzi, who records the fact, " unparalleled in the history of art." The composition of the picture is wonderful in its display of force, and its mastery of every anatomical detail ; but the admiration extorted from the beholder is unmingled with either pleasure or sympathy. The ascent of the saints to heaven is rather like a battle of Titans to scale the celestial heights, angels and devils being engaged in the mighty warfare. On the left hand of the Judge there is a similar conflict, but with a different issue, while the Saviour, with sternly-pointed hand, directs His forces. Below is the boat of Charon waiting to ferry the condemned to hell ! Mary sits at the Redeemer's side with averted head, as though unable to endure the spectacle of woe. The side walls give the history of Moses on one side, the history of Christ on the other. Considerable ingenuity has been displayed in indicating a parallelism between incidents in the lives of the Lawgiver and the Saviour. Thus, Moses and the Israelites on the shores of the Red Sea, and our Lord and His apostles by 86 THE SISTINE CHAPEL. ''THE MOST HOLY BAMBINOr the Sea of Galilee ; the giving of the Law on Sinai, and the Sermon on the Mount ; the punishment of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram for aspiring to the priesthood, and the call of the apostles into it, confront one another from opposite walls. One of the most curious and popular Church festivals in Rome is that of " The Most Holy Bambino." The word bambino is simply the Italian for " child," and is specially applied to this image of "the holy child Jesus." It is a small wooden doll, about two feet in length. On its head is a crown of gold, gemmed with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. From its neck to its feet it is wrapped in swaddling-clothes. The dress is covered with jewels worth several thousand pounds — so that the Bambino is a blaze of splendour. It is said to be distinguished above all other images of the same kind by its supernatural origin, history, and the miraculous cures it effects. Ara Cceli, the name of the church and convent where it is kept, signifies the altar of heaven. The legend is, that it was carved in Jerusalem by a monk, from olive-wood, near the Mount of Olives. Whilst he wrought at the image, various marvellous things came to pass. Being in want of colours for painting the figure, he betook himself to prayers, fastings, and other mortifications. He then fell asleep, and when he awoke, lo ! the image was, by a prodigy, become the colour of flesh. He bowed down before it in adoration, and then set off with his treasure to Rome. The vessel in which he sailed was wrecked, but the image did not sink with the ship. By a miracle it was transported to Leghorn. The news of this being soon spread abroad, devout people sought it out, and brought it to Rome. On its being exhibited, the people wept, prayed, and sought favour from it. It is stated, that on one occasion a noble lady took away this little image, and brought it to her house ; but, after some days, it miraculously returned to the Ara Coeli, ringing all the bells of the church and convent without any THE BAMBINO. A' MA N M NA S 7 E R lES. person touching them. The monks ran together at this prodigy ; and, to their astonishment, they beheld the image of the holy Bambino upon the altar. But the most wonderful property of the Bambino, is its pretended power to heal the sick. It is a common saying among the people of Rome, that "the Little Doctor," as they term it, receives more and better fees from the sick than all the medical men put together. It is brought to visit its patients in grander style ; for a state-carriage is kept for it which seems a meagre imitation of some worn-out state coach of a Lord Mayor of London. In this coach the Bambino is placed, accompanied by priests in full dress. As it passes, every head is uncovered, every knee is bent, and all the lower classes, let the streets be never so wet and dirty, are prostrated in worship before it. Before the suppression of the monastic orders by the Italian Government, the monks and nuns in Rome numbered nearly five thousand persons. This will account for what might otherwise seem incredible — that there were no fewer than one hundred and eighty-six conventual establishments in the city and suburbs. It would be difficult to imagine more objectionable specimens of humanity than the monks. With few exceptions, they appear to be drawn from the lowest class of Italian peasants, and the life of indolence they lead has served only to increase their demoralization. But the monasteries themselves are, many of them, of the deepest interest. Amongst these may be mentioned that of Santa Sabina on the Aventine. The gardens which surround it command magnificent views of the city, the Campagna, and the distant hills. It was granted by Pope Honorius III. to Dominic In the year 1216 for the monks who enrolled themselves in the order which he founded, and it has been ever since regarded as the most hallowed home of the Dominicans. An edifice going back to the date of our Magna Charta would, in any other part of Europe, be regarded as possessing a very respectable antiquity. But in Rome this is only a first step into the past. Prior to its concession to the Dominicans It had been for generations a stronghold of the great Savelli family, to which the Pope himself belonged ; and many parts of the building remain exactly as they left it. But it was not built by the Savelli. It had previously been a palace of the imperial period, the splendour of which is attested by the frescoes, mosaics, delicate carvings, and choice marbles in which it abounds. But we have not even yet reached the period of its first erection. The palace had been a mansion when Rome was yet a republic. The subterranean chambers had been used as prisons. In a rudely scratched inscription yet remaining upon the wall a prisoner invokes curses upon his enemies ; another vows a sacrifice to Bacchus if he recovers his liberty. A skeleton found in one of the chambers darkly shadows forth the fate of one victim of Roman cruelty ; and skulls and bones seem to show that this was no uncommon termination of incarceration in these dungeons. Farther back still, we find massive walls of peperino, forming part of the fortifications which were commenced by Tarquinius Priscus and completed by Servius Tullius. CONVENIS IN ROME. CLOISTERS OF THE SUPPRESSED CONVENT OF SANTA MARJA DEGLI ANOELI. The Carthusian monastery attached to the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, though not of equal historic and antiquarian interest, has far, greater architectural beauty. It was built by Michael Angelo out of the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian, in the midst of which it stands. The cloisters, adorned with a hundred columns, enclose a vast square ; in the centre is a fountain, round RECENT INNOVATIONS IN ROME. which the great architect planted with his own hand four cypresses. These have grown up into solemn monumental trees, harmonising well with the silence of the now deserted convent. It is with a strange sense of unexpectedness that the visitor to Rome finds omnibuses and cabs in the streets, tramcars well appointed, and furnishing convenient access to distant parts of the city, and to Tivoli ; with gas in the houses, telegraphs, cheap and abundant newspapers, and other appliances of modern civilisation. He has been so accustomed to think of the Eternal City only in its historical associations that these things seem out of keeping in such a spot. They are indeed innovations of a recent date, and were resisted almost to the last by the Papal Government.' But the tendencies of the age were too strong even for the intense conservatism of the pontificate, and the annexation of Rome to Italy only accelerated changes which had become inevitable. The rapid increase of population under the new regime is calling into existence the new city to which we have already referred, on the Esquiline and Viminal hills. The Via Nazionale, now in course of rapid construction, will when completed pass through the city from the railway station to the Piazza of St. Peter's, by a new bridge across the Tiber, and will probably be among the noblest streets in Europe. The river itself, widened and deepened, will again become a highway to the sea, and will be crossed by additional bridges at each extremity of the city. Still old Rome remains. No modern improvements will be suffered to disturb the great antique remains. Rather will new excavations, as in the case of the Atrium of the Vestals, bring to light additional memorials of the past. Ecclesiastically, Rome may become less interesting, but to the antiquary and the historical student, the Eternal City will have only a stronger attraction and a greater charm as the years pass on. Nor less, of course, are the charms of the city to the artist. We have not spoken of its treasures in painting and sculpture. To glance even at these would be an almost endless task. Every visitor will learn where to find them and what to see ; while memory will always recall a few, to have seen which is an era in one's life ; in the Capitol Museum, the " Dying Gladiator ; " in the Barberini Palace, Guide's "Beatrice Cenci ;" and in the Vatican, Raphael's match- less " Transfiguration." All visitors will have their own preferences ; in general perhaps they will be conscious of the temptation to see and do too much, hurrying from gallery to gallery and museum to museum, until the impression even of ^ At the death of Gregory xvi., 1846, Pasquin gave a humorous description of the Pope complaining" of the length and tedium of the journey, and expressing his extreme surprise at the great distance of Paradise from the Vatican. He is told by his guide that, if he had permitted the construction of railroads, the journey might have been easier. On his arrival, he is indignant that no preparations- have been made to admit him, and that even his predecessors are not there to welcome him. The reply is that there are very few popes in Paradise, and that from want of a telegraph to Rome no» communication had been possible. Arriving thus unexpectedly, he is invited to use his own. key to open the gate, but finds that by mistake he had brought the key of his wine-cellar instead of the key of Paradise, which had been lost some time before, but not been missed till now. 96 ON THE PI NCI AN. masterpieces becomes indistinct. There is no weariness like that of sight- seeing ! Much must necessarily be omitted. But the visitor interested in the early annals of our faith, whatever else may be included or omitted in his rambles through Rome, should not fail to visit the "Christian Museum" of the Lateran, where the immense mass of inscriptions from the Catacombs and elsewhere enables one to apprehend with a vividness perhaps not otherwise to be attained, how mighty a force was the religion of Jesus, in its earlier and simpler days, to move the world. There is much in later Christian art to awaken very different reflections. The Vatican galleries have some truly extraordinary illustrations of what the faith became in the progress of the ages : but perhaps the latest of these is the most marvellous of all. A special chamber has been set apart in honour of the " Immaculate Conception" of the Mother of our Lord ; and its walls are occupied by large frescoes executed with great skill and brilliancy. In one of them the Pope (Pius ix.) is seen proclaiming the dogma to the Council ; and in the upper part of the picture flying messengers are depicted, one bearing the document, others with trumpets, carrying the intelligence to heaven, where Mary is portrayed, standing between the Father and the Son to receive the news, with angels kneeling at her feet and Old and New Testament saints grouped around. That a picture so utterly mythological should thus be placed as it were to challenge the attention and the criticism of all Christendom, is truly a sign of the times. The visitor to Rome will have, it is to be hoped, some time and leisure to spare for the gardens which are among the chief glories of the city. The place of fashionable resort is the Pincian. Here, every afternoon before the pope and cardinals had doomed themselves to their "imprisonment" within the walls of the Vatican, might be seen dignitaries of the Church, with their old-fashioned carriages and shabby-genteel attendants, jostled by Roman nobles, Russian princes, American millionaires, and innumerable visitors from our own island home. From the small extent of the drive, the number of equipages looks much greater than it really is. At first they seem to be nearly as numerous as in Hyde Park or the Bois de Boulogne ; but gradually one perceives how short a period elapses before the return of a carriage to any given point, and a more correct estimate is formed of the numbers present. A more lovely spot for a drive or lounge scarcely exists in Europe. On the one side St. Peter's rises in solemn, stately beauty from the city lying at the feet of the Pincian Hill, the Tiber winds along its sinuous course far out into the Campagna, and the Campagna stretches away to the hills, blue in the distance. On the other side are lovely gardens bright with flowers, verdant lawns, fountains falling into marble basins, and avenues of ilex and acacia lined by innumerable statues. Sloping from the Pincian are the Borghese gardens at one end, and those of the Villa Medici at the other. The readers of Hawthorne's Transfo^nnation will ON THE PI NCI AN. remember the enthusiastic admiration which he lavishes upon these and the other gardens attached to the villas round Rome. It is difficult to say which of them is the most beautiful. Each has its special and characteristic charm. Ampere, no mean judge, gives the palm to those of the Pamfili Doria on the Janiculum, styling it la plus channante promenade de Ro7ne. Those of the Villa Medici (now the academy for French art-students) have much of the stiffness and formality of the Renaissance, with clipped hedges and straight walks ; it has, however, a beauty of its own, partly caused by the profusion of works of art which adorn IN THE GARDENS OF THE VILLA PAMFILI DORIA. it. Most visitors will agree in the preference which Hawthorne accords to the Borghese gardens, whose " scenery is such as arrays itself to the imagination when we read the beautiful old myths, and fancy a brighter sky, a softer turf, a more picturesque arrangement of venerable trees than we find in the rude and untrained landscape of the Western world. In the opening of the woods there are fountains plashing into marble basins, the depths of which are shaggy with water-weeds, THE GHETTO. or they tumble like natural cascades from rock to rock, sending their murmur afar, to make the quiet and silence more appreciable. In other portions of the grounds the stone-pines lift their dense clumps of branches upon a slender length of stem so high that they look like green islands in the air, flinging a shadow down upon the turf so far off that you scarcely discern which tree has made it. The result of all is a scene such as is to be found nowhere save in these princely villa residences in the neighbourhood of Rome." If the Pincian is the Hyde Park of Rome, the Ghetto is its Seven Dials. Its narrow streets, reeking with all evil odours, are filthy beyond description. Even the foulest back-slums of St. Giles's seem decent in comparison. Within this narrow space, which only affords sufficient room for less than a thousand persons, upwards of four thousand Jews are huddled together.' For many centuries they were treated with frightful cruelty, and every possible indignity was heaped upon them. They were forbidden to reside out of this loathsome quarter, and might not pass beyond its limits except with the distinctive badge of their nation — a yellow hat for the men, a yellow veil for the women. They were compelled to run races in the Corso at the Carnival, stripped to the skin, with only a narrow bandage round the loins, amidst the jeerings and execrations of the mob. Every Sunday they were driven into the church of St. Angelo, to hear a sermon on the crimes of their forefathers and their own depravity and hardness of heart. All trade was forbidden to them except in old clothes, rags, and what we know as marine stores. They were ground into the dust by taxes and confiscations of every kind, and to procure the slightest alleviation of their sufferings were compelled to pay large sums to their oppressors. It was only under the reign of Pius ix. that they were relieved from some of the most degrading of these indignities. Notwithstanding the filth and overcrowding of the Ghetto, and though it is inundated almost every year by the overflowing of the Tiber, yet it is the least unhealthy quarter of Rome. It suffers far less from the malaria than the neighbourhood of the Pincian, and in the outbreak of cholera in 1837, fewer persons died in the Ghetto than in any other part of the city. It does not, however, follow from this that the Ghetto is a healthy residence. The general death-rate of Rome is, as nearly as possible, double that of London. It is a curious coincidence, or something more, that the Ghetto occupies the site of the magnificent portico of Octavia where Vespasian and Titus celebrated their triumph after the downfall of Jerusalem. " Over this very ground," says Mr. Story, " where the sons and daughters of Zion drive their miserable trade in clothes, and where the Pescheria breathes its unsavoury smells, were carried in pomp the silver trumpets of the Jubilee, the massive golden table of shewbread, the seven-branched candlestick of gold, the tables of the law, the veil itself, from behind which sacrilegious hands had stolen the ' A recent census gives the number of Jews resident in Rome as 4,490. THE GHETTO. sacred utensils of the altar ; and in their rear, sad, dejected, and doomed, followed Simon, son of Gorias, loaded with clanking chains, and marching in the triumphal train of his victors to an ignominious death." Here, too, among RUINS OF THE PORTICO OF OCTAVIA, IN THE GHETTO. the spectators, stood Josephus, the Jewish historian parasite, and flatterer, to whose pen we owe an account of the triumph. THE A LB AN AND SABINE MOUNTAINS. Few enjoyments connected with a visit to Rome are greater than an excursion to the neighbouring hills. We find in them not only much natural beauty and a pleasant refreshment from the heat of the city, but classic ground as well. Tusculum reminds us of Cicero, Tibur of Horace and Maecenas ; and thus, although the names are changed, " Frascati " and "Tivoli" seem very familiar ground. They are now also very accessible. A railroad runs to Frascati among the Alban Hills, and the remains of Cicero's villa are not far off. The hills are volcanic : the Alban Lake, lying in an extinct crater, is about two miles away. A little further lies the lovely Lake Nemi, also in a crater-basin, now RUINS ON THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA. clothed with vineyards, and close by the pretty village of Genzano. Throughout this Alban district the slopes are richly wooded, and from several of the easily scaled eminences the views are very fine. Even more interesting is a visit to the Sabine Mountains, by way of Tivoli. The steam tramcars are waiting for us at the Gate of San Lorenzo, and we traverse the Campagna, by-and-by reaching the river Anio or Teverone, and ascending by a road which grows more and more beautiful among undulating hills and olive groves, until the little town is reached. We walk a short distance through narrow stony streets, and soon reach the round pillared "Temple of the THE SABINE MOUNTAINS. Sibyl," which photo- graphs and drawings have made so familiar, and which stands high above a craggy ravine, with dashing waters all around. The scene is charming and unique. TivoH is situated in a bend of the river, where it flows from a higher to a much lower level. The descent is partly natural, partly artificial, short cuts, so to speak, having been made for the waters across the great curve. Indeed, one part of the Falls was formed as lately as about fifty years ago, after a disastrous flood, by diverting part of the river through a tunnel. From some points of view the effect is as if the waters gushed at intervals from beneath the foundations of the town, from gardens, arches, battlements, and towers, for the length of a mile or more, to rejoin their parent stream. Along the face of the cliff, festooned with vegetation, the paths are almost endless, and the rush of waters fill the air. Some smaller cascades below "the House of Maecenas" are worth a visit, as we gain from them a good view of the old city and of the hill beyond. But the chief attraction of Tivoli is in the park, now strewn with ruins, which occupies the site of "Hadrian's Villa." That Emperor, on returning from his travels, endeavoured to make his Tiburtine Villa a reproduction of what had most charmed him in many lands. "It embraced," says Mr. Merivale in his History of the Romans under the Empire^ "besides the residence and quarters for the guard, buildings modelled on the Lyceum, the Academy, the colonnade called Poecile, the Prytaneum at Athens ; a Canopus which may have represented some GF.NZANO, IN THE ALBAN MOUNTAINS. THE SABINE HILLS. .-^j^vC^ VV OLIVE TREES NEAR TIVOLI. edifice at Alexan- dria. In its gar- dens was a space 4^^ laid out after the fashion of the Vale of Tempe, at Tartarus, and perhaps on the other hand Ely- sian fields."' The grounds were eight miles in cir- cuit ; the works of art accumulated V\ formed, perhaps, the most magnifi- cent collection the world has ever seen. Many of the chief treasures of the Capitol, the Vatican, and of many another museum were discovered here — the portrait-busts of philosophers, the Antinous, the Medicean Venus, the Fawn in "antique red," and a multitude of other statues, with columns and mosaics innumerable. The grounds are now a noble park of cypress and olive, with immense substructures, where the ground has been broken, and a sufficient disclosure of the details of the various buildings to show how lordly a pleasure-house the great Emperor had planned and built. It seemed to have been ruined at the time of the Gothic invasion, and was lost until the Renaissance first brought its treasures to light. On the roads that run among the Sabine Hills, many of which are traversed by dilig- ences, the leisurely tourist may wander happily for days. The hills, which are of limestone — a terminal range of the great Apennine chain — dif- fer greatly in contour from the neighbour- ing Alban Mountains, and rise to consider- ably loftier heights. SUBIACO, the "sacred GROT"(sAN BENEDETTO). ^ Vol. iii., p. 248 note. The authority is Hadrian's biographer Spartian. RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF ROME. High up the Anio, among wild, rocky gorges, is Subiaco, once the site of a villa of Nero, in after ages selected by Benedict for a hermitage. The building called The Sacred Grot still preserves his memory. A pretty legend is told of the roses which, in rare luxuriance, embellish the garden. Benedict, it is said, planted them in order to raise a crop of thorns for self-mortification ; and so they grew until Francis, in a later generation, passed that way, and changed the briar to the rose. There is an allegory here not difficult to understand ! In another direction is Palestrina, the ancient Prseneste, with the remains of its Cyclopean walls. It will be remembered that, for health and recreation, Horace celebrates the charms of Prseneste along with those of Tibur and of Baiai. Many charming villages have fixed themselves in the glens that lead down to the Anio. '' Sabine farms " are still fertile and attractive, and there is many a fountain that might well be the poet's " Bandusian Spring." We must be content with but vague conjectures as to exact localities : we cannot wander, though ever so rapidly, among these lovely hills and valleys with- out understanding the fascination w^hich drew the citizens of old Rome to these rural retreats. The popu- lation seem for the most part simple, and not unprosperous in their peasant fashion. Probably they have changed less, in the course of ages, than the Romans themselves. ANCIENT WALLS, PALESTRINA. The question may be asked, how far the change of Government has hitherto affected the religious condition of Rome. As yet, the answer would not be easy to give. The churches that remain open still attract their crowds of worshippers. In Lent of this year (1885) we have seen vast congregations hanging upon the lips of celebrated Roman preachers, and have witnessed the apparent reverence with which multitudes, amid breathless silence, have fallen upon their knees before the uplifted host. Outside, it is true, there is a vast, busy, and perhaps increasing crowed, who seem to care for none of these things. Still, the signs of a growing and defiant scepticism appear, to say the least, less painfully obvious than in some other countries. The windows of the bookshops, with the kiosquesand stalls, do not show much that is infidel in tone or glaringly irreverent. PROTEST A A'TISiM IN ROME. K'JCCA SAN STEKANO ; A SABINE VILLAGE Nor is this the result of dii) censorship, ex- cept that suppHed by the good taste and right feehng of the population. The Sunday, no doubt, is still a day of holiday excitement. But the shops are mainly closed, and there is full liberty to all classes to attend public worship, according to the faith they hold. Protestantism has its sanctuaries in every part of the city. Within recent memory the English church was compelled to be without the walls, where many readers will re- member It, a little beyond the Porto del Popolo. It is still there; but a noble building to replace it is now in course of erection within the city. A second church for English residents and visitors stands near the Post Office, and an American Episcopal Church, with a beautiful campanile, occupies a commanding position in the Via Nazionale. By the Porto del PROTESTANTISM IN ROME. Popolo there is also a Presbyterian church. Nor does this exhaust the Hst. Several Italian religious services are held, and Sunday schools conducted, by the Waldenses, by the Scottish Free church (which two bodies are now entering into close union, amounting, it is hoped, to actual amalgamation, for Italian work), also by the Wesleyans, and by different bodies of Baptists, English and American ; while there is a successful mission among the soldiers. There are also Bible and Tract depositories in the city, with every facility for the circulation of evangelical literature. Those who remember the past cannot fail to note a wonderful advance, and to look forward with corresponding hope. One thing still greatly needed is the union of workers and the consolidation of efforts. The boast of the Papal Church is its urifity ; nor is it enough that Protestants can demonstrate the falsity of the claim : for them remains the higher task, as yet only partially accomplished, of making it plain that the Church of Christ is one, not by virtue of an outward organization, but by the manifold power of a common life. ~' \^ H rt -& cu id X^ ?^ -75 "C U ^ 3 '^ *' w. c o c ^ •s C4 •- ^ *J o - a. ci CAS'lLE OF SAN ELMO. •^ SCENERY OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF NAPLES. trade, the tools of the artisan, the weights and measures of the shopkeeper, the cooking utensils, the surgical instruments, exactly as they fell from the hands of those who were using them when they fled in wild fright from their homes. The frescoes which adorned the walls of the houses have been removed without injury, and may be studied with advantage by the house decorators of our own day. Statues, lamps, coins, jewellery, amulets, armour, weapons, are found in endless variety. It will, however, be convenient to postpone any lengthened mention of these interesting relics till we come to speak of Pompeii itself. There is the more reason for this, because the beauty of the scenery around Naples is such as to make the visitor comparatively indifferent to all else. The idler in Naples may enjoy much of this beauty simply by strolling along the Villa Reale — a lovely promenade, said to be the most beautiful in the world, which runs along the shores of the bay. It has long avenues of trees, gardens, groves of orange and oleander, fountains, and statues. The purity of the air, the brilliant blue of sea and sky, the distant mountains, Capri, Ischia, and their sister-islands out to seaward, and Vesuvius, with its column of white sulphurous smoke borne by the light breeze across the face of the heavens, and floating like a stupendous cloud-banner against the blue sky, form a combination of beauty which justifies the enthusiasm of all who have attempted to describe it. Even more striking is the view from the bay when Naples itself comes in to form part of the picture. The city is in the form of an amphitheatre, curving round the shore and rising up the slopes which culminate in the precipitous rock on which the Castle of San Elmo stands. A complete panorama is thus formed, on every point of which the eye may rest with delight. One evening I well remember, in which the scenery appeared too beautiful to belong to earth. We were re- turning from Sorrento late in the afternoon. The landscape was bathed in a flood of golden light as the sun went down into the sea behind Ischia. The stars began to peep out one by one till ''the floor of heaven was thick inlaid with patines of bright gold," all lustrous with a brilliancy of which we in these northern latitudes can form little conception. As it grew darker, the column of smoke on Vesuvius became lurid, and little tongues of flame could be seen leaping up as though from the throat of a furnace. The whole line of coast from *37 ASCENT OF VESUVIUS. VESUVIUS. Baiae round to Sorrento could be traced by the lights of innumerable towns and villages and hamlets, glittering like glow-worms or like the lamps of some vast illumination. And every dip of the oars, and every stroke of the paddles of the vessels amongst which we were moving, threw up a shower of diamonds from the phosphorescent sea. As we approached Naples, strains of music — for it was 2ife.sta — and the roar of the great city, softened by distance, fell soothingly upon the ear. It was impossible not to remember old Izaak Walton's sentiment, and ask oneself — If God gives such beauty for us sinful creatures here on earth, what must He not have prepared for His saints in heaven ! To ascend Vesuvius is a main object with most visitors to Naples ; and the task is not now difficult. The most wearisome part of it, indeed, is the drive from the city to the foot of the mountain, along a dusty road. When once the horses begin to ascend the long zig-zags on the slope, the journey becomes interesting ASCENT OF VESUVIUS. enough. The Observatory is passed, generally un visited, as from Naples the ascent itself is a long day's work. Yet there is nothing connected with the mysterious terrible mountain of greater interest. Here for more than thirty years regular observations have been made, during the greater part of that time by the late Signor Palmieri and his assistants, and the pulsations of the hidden fires by which earthquakes and eruptions are caused have been noted and registered. The "seismograph," or apparatus for recording the phenomena of earthquakes, has yielded some very interesting and curious results, although, as Ischia too sadly proved in 1883, science has as yet found no way of warning those in peril OBbEKVATOKY, VESUVIUS. of the shock. Above the Observatory the road still ascends, with more long zig-zags, commanding magnificent views. Then a little station is reached, with curious carriages, so constructed that the passengers have the least possible sense of the greatness of the incline. The railway is " funicular," the carriages being drawn up the mountain at an angle apparently of about forty degrees. By this means we ascend a height of 1,300 feet, measured perpendicularly, and the worst part of the climb is over. There is still, however, a rather exhausting walk over crashing slipping cinders, until the crater is reached. The form of it changes continually : our illustration is from a recent sketch. A short additional walk is necessary to see the hot sluggish lava stream as it crawls a little way down the POMPEII. mountain side, then hardefts into rock. But we see enough to form some conjecture as to what the power and awfulness of the scene must be when the hidden fires, as in the year 1872, are aroused to their full activity. At Pozzuoli, it may be added, there is a crater of an extinct volcano where from a cavity in the side of a rock hot sulphurous steam still pours forth. Avernus, now a quiet lovely lake, occupies another crater. It is hardly any wonder that the ancients imagined the very gate of the infernal regions lay somewhere on these hollow-sounding hill-sides. The "Cave of the Cumsean Sibyl" is still shown : we looked for the mystic grove described by the poet, but it has gone, and the descensus Averni opens from the bare hill-side ! CRATER, VESUVIUS. From Vesuvius, the thoughts naturally turn to Pompeii, which also is easily reached from Naples. It is with a strange feeling that one goes to the railway station and asks for a return ticket to a city which was in its glory when our Lord was upon earth, which passed out of existence when the Apostle John was yet living, and which is now being disentombed after an interment of eighteen hundred years. Stranger still is it to step out of the train into Pompeii itself, and in a few seconds find oneself in the silent streets of the long-buried city. Jfc. POM TBI I. The railway from Naples to Pompeii curves round the head of the bay, and following the line of coast, runs through the towns of Portici, Resina, Torre del Greco, and Torre dell' Annunziata. Vesuvius rises on the left, and all around are traces of its destructive agency. Resina stands upon the bed of lava which covers From a Pliotograph. GENERAL VIEW OF POMPEII, the site of Herculaneum. Torre del Greco and Torre dell' Annunziata have been repeatedly rent and riven by earthquakes, and well-nigh destroyed by the fiery flood pouring down from the craterx The railway runs for considerable distances through deep cuttings in the old lava streams, and the side of the mountain is seamed by lines of black rock, which mark the course of former eruptions. But 143 HISTORY OF POMPEII. such is the fertility of the soil, that along the shores of the bay and even far up the mountain side there is a dense population who, heedless of the perils which environ them, raise large quantities of fruit, vegetables, tobacco, rice, and cotton. THE TEMPLE OF ISIS, POMPEII, Pompeii was in its glory at the commencement of the Christian era. Its history goes back to a much earlier date; its traditions, indeed, reach to the mythical period, its name being derived from the splendid ceremonials ^p077ipce) with which Hercules is said to have celebrated his victories here. Under Titus it was a city of about thirty thousand inhabitants. " The situation of Pompeii," says DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII. Dr. Dyer, ** appears to have possessed all local advantages that the most refined taste could desire. Upon the verge of the sea, at the entrance of a fertile plain on the banks of a navigable river, it united the conveniences of a commercial town with the security of a military station, and the romantic beauty of a spot celebrated in all ages for its pre-eminent loveliness. Its environs, even to the heights of Vesuvius, were covered with villas, and the coast all the way to Naples was so ornamented with gardens and villages that the shores of the gulf appeared as one city ; whilst the prodigious concourse of strangers who came here in search of health and recreation added new charms and life to the scene." ^ THE AMPHITHEATRE, I'OMPEU. But indications were not wanting of the peril with which the city was threatened. The whole district is volcanic, and a few years before the final catastrophe an earthquake had shaken Pompeii to its foundations. The Forum, many of the temples and other edifices, public and private, were overthrown. On August 24, A.D. 79, the inhabitants were busily engaged in repairing the damage thus wrought, when " suddenly, and without any previous warning, a vast column of black smoke burst from the overhanging mountain. Rising to a prodigious height in the cloudless summer sky, it then gradually spread itself out like the head of some mighty Italian pine, hiding the sun, and overshadowing the earth for many a league. The darkness grew into profound night, only broken by the blue and sulphurous flashes which darted from the pitchy cloud. Soon the thick ' Pompeii: its History, Buildings, and Antiquities. By T. H. Dyer, ll.d. DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII. rain of thin, light ashes, almost imperceptible to the touch, fell upon the land. Then quickly succeeded showers of small hot stones, mingled with heavier masses, and emitting stifling mephitic fumes. After a time the sound as of approaching torrents was heard, and soon steaming rivers of dense black mud poured slowly HOUSE OF THE LARGE FOUNTAIN, POMPEII. but irresistibly down the mountain sides, and curled through the streets, insidiously creeping into such recesses as even the subtle ashes had failed to penetrate. There was now no place of shelter left. No man could defend himself against this double enemy. It was too late for flight for such as had remained behind. Those who 148 STREET AND HOUSE IN POMPEII. STREET IN POMPEII. had taken refuge in the innermost parts of the houses, or in the subterranean passages, were closed up for ever. Those who sought to flee through the streets PERISTYLE OF THE HOUSE OF THE QUESTOR. were clogged by the small, loose pumice-stones which lay many feet deep, or were entangled and overwhelmed in the mud streams, or were struck down by the rocks which fell from the heavens. If they escaped these dangers, blinded by the drifting 149 EX PLORATIONS IN POMPEII. ashes, and groping in the dark, not knowing which way to go, they were overcome by the sulphurous vapours, and, sinking on the highways, were soon buried be- neath the volcanic matter. Even many who had gained the open country at the beginning of the eruption were overtaken by the darkness and falling cinders, and perished miserably in the fields or on the seashore, where they had vainly sought the means of flight. In three days the doomed town had disappeared. It lay buried beneath a vast mass of ashes, pumice-stones, and hardened mud." Years, generations, centuries went by. The rich volcanic soil became covered with a profusion of vegetation. Vineyards flourished, and houses were built on the site of the buried town, the very existence of which was for- gotten, though it still bore the name of Civita, or the City. Occasionally remains were disin- terred by labourers, especially in the year 1592, when a canal was cut to bring the waters of the Sarno to the village of Annun- ziata. At length, in 1 748, exca- vations upon an extended scale were commenced. But still no suspicion seems to have been en- tertained that the once famous city of Pompeii had been discovered, till, in 1763, an inscription was found which established the fact bevond doubt. It is often, though erroneously, supposed that Pompeii, like Her- culaneum, was overwhelmed by a flood of lava. Had this been the case, the work of excavation would have been immensely more difficult, and the results would have been far less important. The marbles must have been calcined, the bronzes melted, the frescoes effaced, and smaller arti- cles destroyed by the fiery flood. The ruin was effected by showers of dust and scoriae, and by torrents of liquid mud, which formed a mould, encasing the objects, thus preserving them from injury or decay. The explorations are now carried on, under the able superintendence of CLEARING A STREET. EXPLORATIONS IN POMPEII. SEARCHING FOR REMAINS. Signor Fiorelli, in the following manner. Gangs of men and women are employed to excavate the huge mounds of scoriae and hardened mud. The ddbris is carted ^j;,AkfJr CARTING AWAY THE RUBIilSH. away to a distance from the town, so as not to impede future operations. So soon as the quick eye of the superintendent detects the indication of any objects of interest being reached, the task proceeds more slowly. Experienced workmen DOMESTIC LIFE IN POMPEIL remove with their hands the stones, ashes, and earth, crumbling each portion carefully, so as to discover any articles of value it may contain. These are catalogued and laid aside to be deposited in the museum. The frescoes and graffiti are either detached from the walls or guarded against injury. The walls, where necessary, are propped up, and the wood-work is, in certain cases, restored. We thus gain a perfect picture of what a Roman city was eighteen hundred years ago. More than half of it has been already exposed to view, embracing probably the most important portions of the city. Few valuable relics, in fact, have been brought to light in recent years ; the later excavations being in the poorer quarters of Pompeii. Signor Fiorelli expresses the hope that, in about twenty years more, he may have succeeded in laying bare the whole. kaker's oven, bread, and flour-mills. It gives a very impressive sense of the splendour of Italian cities under the Empire to find a provincial town, of thirty thousand inhabitants, so abundantly furnished with works of art and all the appliances for luxurious enjoyment. The houses were for the most part small, and the streets narrow, but theatres, public baths, triumphal arches, fountains, and statues were very numerous. The walls of the houses were decorated with frescoes, the floors were commonly laid with mosaics, in the atrium was a fountain, and in the rear a garden which, though small, appears to have been laid out with exquisite taste. The shops and taverns are very interesting, as illustrating distinctly and vividly the domestic life of the people. Here is a baker's shop. Eighteen centuries ago the baker, having placed his loaves in the oven, had closed the iron door, when /' O MPE I A N GRAFFI Tl. he had to fly for his Hfe. A few years ago the batch was drawn by Signor FiorelH. The loaves are In shape very Hke those sold at the present day in the neighbouring villages and in the streets of Naples. In an eating-house were found raisins, olives, onions, fish cooked in oil, and figs split in two and then skewered together : turning into a roadside osteria at the entrance of Annunziata, I lunched on bread and fruits prepared in precisely the same fashion. In this eating-house is a dresser of brickwork, in which are large metal and earthenware vessels for soup, with furnaces to keep it warm and ladles to distribute it : in a London cook-shop a precisely similar arrange- ment may be seen. Amphorae of wine are marked with the year of the vintage, the characteristic quality, and the name of the wine-merchant from whom TEl'IDARIUM OF PUBLIC BATH. they were purchased, just as an English vintner advertises his Duff Gordons dry sherry, or his '47 fruity port. Taverns were indicated by chequers on the door-post, or by a sign painted on the wall. At the sign of the Elephant, Sittius informs his customers that he has " fitted it up afresh " i^restituit), atid that he has "a triclinium, three beds, and every convenience." It has been said that "our first thought in visiting a gallery of antiquities is, How ancient !- — our second, How modern!" Nowhere is this more true than in Pompeii. Amongst the most interesting remains discovered in the buried city are the graffiti or inscriptions. At the time of the eruption, the Pompeians were busily engaged in their municipal elections, and the partisans of the various candidates scratched or painted their electioneering appeals upon the walls in a curiously P MPE I A N GKA FFI TI. modern fashion. We read, Philippus beseeches you to create M. Holconius Priscus Duumvir of justice. Another Inscription requests votes for Capella as one of the duumvirs. A third declares Cneius Helvius to be worthy of the honour. Pansa seems to have been the popular candidate, and his enthusiastic supporters go into superlatives in his praise, affirming him ioh^most worthy. Popidius had likewise many friends, who commend him to the voters on the ground that he is a modest and illustrious youth. Alas, for municipal ambition ! the eruption came, and voters and candidates either fled or perished before the election was made. In addition to these electioneering inscriptions there are many of a more personal and domestic character. A schoolboy has scratched his Greek alphabet on the walls of a house. Another has inscribed a reminiscence of the first line GARDEN AND FOUNTAINS OF THE HOUSE OF LUCRETIUS. of the y^neid, which had been published not very long before. The spelling is curious, as illustrating the local pronunciation of Latin, Alma vilumque cano Tlo. . . . On the walls of shops and kitchens we may read how many pounds of lard, bunches of garlic, or flasks of wine had been bought ; how many tunics had been sent to the wash ; how much wool had been given out to be spun by the slaves of the household ; with many another domestic and personal detail. We discover without surprise that a large proportion of the graffiti are of an indecent character. Indeed, a general tone of inipurity pervades the whole of the Pompeian remains. Some of the paintings are perfectly horrible in their licentiousness, justifying the strong language of an eloquent American divine : "Scholars and artists have mourned for ages over the almost universal DISCOVERIES OF SKELETONS. destruction of the works of ancient genius. I suppose that many a second-rate city, at the time of Christ, possessed a collection of works of surpassing beauty, which could not be equalled by all the specimens now existing that have yet been discovered. The Alexandrian library is believed to have contained a greater treasure of intellectual riches than has ever since been hoarded in a single city. These, we know, have all vanished from the earth. The Apollo Belvedere and the Venus de' Medici stand in almost solitary grandeur, to remind us of the perfection to which the plastic art of the ancients had attained. The Alexandrian library furnished fuel for years for the baths of illiterate Moslems. I used myself frequently to wonder why it had pleased God to blot out of existence these magnificent productions of ancient genius. It seemed to me strange that the pall of oblivion should thus be throvvn over all to which man, in the flower of his age, had given birth. But the solution of this mystery is found, I think, in the remains of Herculaneum and Pompeii. We there discover that every work of man was so penetrated by corruption, every production of genius was so defiled with uncleanness, that God, in introducing a better dispensation, determined to cleanse the world from the pollution of preceding ages. As when all flesh had corrupted his way, He purified the world by the waters of a flood, so, when genius had covered the earth with images of sin. He overv/helmed the works of ancient civilisation with a deluge of barbarism, and consigned the most splendid monuments of literature and art to almost universal oblivion. It was too bad to exist; and He swept it all away with the besom of destruction." Of the inhabitants of Pompeii, probably two thousand perished. Many hand in hand groped their way through the streets, and so escaped to the open country. At the chief gate there stood a sentinel, who sternly kept his post through the thunders of that dreadful day. He died in harness. Planted in his sentry-box, he covered his mouth with his tunic, and held on against the choking and sulphurous shower. But the ashes fell and fell, and finally filled the box, and buried the soldier alive, still grasping his weapon in one hand and veiling his mouth with the other. There, after ages of rest, he was found — a grisly skeleton clutching a rusty sword. Sad discoveries M^ere made in the street leading to that gate. There were two skeletons locked in close embrace, the teeth perfect, indicating youth in its prime : skeletons of a young man and maid. They had fallen together in their flight, and death had wedded them. There was a mother with her three children hand in hand, who tried vainly to outrun death. Perhaps the mother singly might have done it, but she could not leave her children. Another poor woman was found holding her child above her head, as if in the vain hope to keep the little one out of the way of the fatal shower. But both together perished ! Food for sad thought is furnished in remembering that six hundred skeletons have been already exhumed ! — many in such positions and circumstances as to suggest very touching episodes accompanying the final catastrophe. Of the family of Diomed, seventeen persons were stifled in a wine cellar well stocked with amphorae of wine, some of DISCOVERIES OF SKELETONS. which bore the date of the vintage. The fugitives, in their agony of fear, stood all huddled in a corner. One swooning girl fell forwards on to the bed of ashes that had drifted in. She left the impress of her bosom in the drift, like a seal in softened wax. An interesting little circumstance is connected with one of these houses. The skeleton of a dove was found in a niche overlooking the garden. Like the sentinel, she had kept to her post, sat on her nest through all the storm, and from beneath her was taken the kt^g she would not leave. Jewels were found in the atrium of Proculus's house, but no money was discovered. Those bearing it had escaped. Perhaps not far ; for a woman was unearthed in the street hard by, who had fallen clutching a bag of gold. It was in connection with this woman that one of the most interesting of M. Fiorelli's discoveries came about. He had often noticed in crumbling off the hardened ashes from the outworks of a skeleton, that the mass still bore a cast of the body and limbs of the victim while in the flesh. It will be remembered that at the eruption ashes fell like a snowdrift upon everything, succeeded by sulphurous showers and torrents of mud. Those persons, therefore, who succumbed in the street or other open places were completely enveloped. The drift shrouded them with a clinging garment of scoriae and sulphurous rain intermingled, which took the exact mould and impress of their forms in the attitude and terrors of the last supreme moment. Evaporation hardened and petrified this mass and kept it in shape. The fleshly body w*ithin the mould crumbled away with lapse of time, but the tell-tale cavity remained intact. And it is perfect to this day. Now M. Fiorelli's object was to get access to one of these hollows without injuring the crust. This he did in the case of the woman just mentioned. Having cut away the scoriae as near as could safely be done, a small aperture was made, into which liquid plaster-of- Paris was poured till the whole cavity was filled up. When it had thoroughl)' hardened, he and his assistants carefully removed the last crust of ashes, and lo ! the perfect cast and model of a woman came out. After eighteen centuries the dead form lay manifest — the exact counterpart of the poor victim, moulded by herself, as she fell struggling with the grim destroyer. She gripped a bag of money and other valuables in her hand. Hurrying along the street, she had tripped and fallen on her left side. Her arm is raised and twisted. The hand, beautifully formed, is clutched as if in despair ; you would say the nails were entering the skin. As for the body, it is drawn together ; but the legs, which are perfectly moulded, seem to be thrust out as if battling with the encroaching death. Her head-dress is clearly distinguishable. The very tissue of her garments is seen, and indeed in parts the linen threads have stuck to the mould. She had two silver rings on her finger, and to judge from appearances must have been a lady of some rank. Succeeding in this, M. Fiorelli made. casts of others of the slain. There was one of a mother and daughter who had apparently fallen together in the street. The bodies lay close, the legs crossing. The plaster has united them in one cast. The signs of suffering are not so manifest here as in the other case. They were 156 LESSONS FROM POMPEII. apparently poor people. The mother (if it were the mother) has on her finger an iron ring. Her left leg is drawn up as if with a spasm of pain. As for the young girl, her form perfectly modelled without any rigidness, in the flush and bloom of hearty youth — fifteen, perhaps little more than a child — impresses the beholder with mournful interest. She seems, poor thing, not to have struggled much for life. One of her hands is half open, as if holding something, perhaps the veil that she had torn off. The texture of her dress is exactly reproduced, the stitches even, and the sleeves that reach to her wrist. Several rents and holes here aed there show the flesh beneath. The needlework on her sandals is there, and in fact you have in plaster the very counterpart of the girl just as she lay in the last swoon CASTS OF DEAD BODIES OF TWO WOMEN. seventy years after Christ. You have taken Death in the very act. She had covered her face with her tunic to keep out the choking ashes, and she fell in running, face to the ground. No strength was left to get up again. But in the effort to save her young life she put out her arm, and her head drooped upon it, and then she died. The engraving is from a photograph of these two women. It is affecting to remember that the great Apostle of the Gentiles had landed only a few miles away about twelve years before the destruction of Pompeii, Whether from his lips, or by other means, any among tbem had heard the words of eternal life, we cannot tell. Into the dark and mysterious future which awaited them beyond the grave we cannot look. But we may apply to ourselves the warning which our Lord deduced from a yet more terrible cata- strophe. He teaches us that responsibility is proportioned to privilege, that to whomsoever much has been given, from them much shall be required. Reminding IS7 RU/NS OF PA^,STU^^. those who saw His mighty works and heard His gracious words of the terrible judgment of fire which had overwhelmed the cities of the plain, He warned them that a doom even more fearful awaited those who continued impenitent under the ministry of the gospel. About forty miles beyond Pompeii are the ruins of PEestum. The route by railroad is one of much interest and beauty. As far as Vietri, the line winds along a valley from which the mountains rise in grand and massive forms. Picturesque towns and villages — La Cava, Nocera, and others — are TEMPLE OF VESTA AT P^sTUM. passed. A rapid stream, turning innumerable waterwheels, gives diversity to the scene. A rich semi-tropical vegetation extends far up the mountain sides. The inhabitants, as yet little affected by the tide of tourists which the railway brings, retain their old usages and old costumes almost unchanged. Here, as throughout the Maremma, labourers from the Abruzzi may be seen celebrating the ingathering of the harvest with songs and dances which have come down from a remote antiquity, and bear unmistakable traces of the pagan festivities in honour of Bacchus and Ceres. 158 AMALFI. At Vietri the Gulf of Salerno is reached, and the broad blue Mediterranean opens before us. From this point a charming road winds along the coast to the ^; /^: AMALKI, FROM THE TERRACE OF THE SUPPRESSED CONVENT. right, leading to Amalfi. It resembles in its general features the finest parts of the Riviera, between Nice and Genoa; but even the famous Corniche Road falls far AMALFI AND P^STUM. short of it in grandeur. Even in this district of Elysian beauty I know of nothing so beautiful. He who has seen the sun rise or set from the terrace of the old Capuchin convent on the heights above Amalfi will never forget the glory of the scene. Mountains on one side, the Mediterranean on the other, between them a zone of rocky headlands and silver sands, groves of orange and citron, with "A few white villages Scattered above, below, some in the clouds, Some on the margin of the dark blue sea, And glittering in the lemon-groves, announce The region of Amalfi." For travellers who have time, the digression to Amalfi is to be recom- mended, rather than a few hours' stay in Salerno. This city, in fact, apart from the transcendent beauty of its situation, has little to attract. The historical student will, of course, visit the tomb of Gregory the Seventh, the famous Hildebrand, who died here in 1085, and was interred in the cathedral. The records of the long struggle between the Papal and the Imperial power has no more stirring pages than those which recount the conflicts of Gregory with Henry the Fourth : and Canossa was avenged at Salerno when the deposed and dying Pope exclaimed, " I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore I die in exile." But our destination is Psestum, whither the newly-opened railway conveys the traveller, freed from the fears of brigandage, which once imparted to this town a touch of romantic terror. The journey is now easy and pleasant, although not so expeditious as might be wished. At Battipiglia we change carriages for the Paestum branch, the main line continuing as far as Re.ggio, the ancient Rhegium. The gate of the ancient city is close by the little station. But there the temples stand in solitary, solemn grandeur. The city itself has disappeared. A few poor houses inhabited by peasants are all the dwellings that occupy the site of Poseidonia, the once powerful and wealthy city of Neptune. Massive walls built of huge blocks of travertine, with their towers and gateways almost entire, enclose a vast empty space, which at the dawn of modern history was thronged with busy life. The marshy soil now reeks with malaria. The port is choked up with mud and sand. Herds of buffaloes wander to and fro across the waste, and add to the desolation of the scene. Three stately temples — the most perfect relics of Greek architecture, except those of Athens — are all that remain to attest the magnificence which existed here when Rome was but an unwalled village. George Eliot writes of these ruins ' : — *' On approaching Psestum, the first thing one catches sight of is the Temple of Vesta, which is not beautiful either for form or colour, so that we began to tremble lest disappointment were to be the harvest of our dusty journey. But the fear was soon dispelled by almost rapturous * George Eliot's Life, vol. ii., pp. 209, 210. 162 NAPLES TO ROME. admiration at the sight of the great Temple of Neptune — the finest thing, I verily believe, that we had yet seen in Italy. It has all the requisites to make a building impressive. First form. What perfect satisfaction and repose for the eye in the calm repetition of those columns — in the proportions of height and length, of front and sides ; the right thing is found — it is not being sought after in uneasy labour of detail or exaggeration. Next colour. It is built of travertine, like the other two temples ; but while they have remained, for the most part, a cold grey, this Temple of Neptune has a rich, warm, pinkish brown, that seems to glow and deepen under one's eyes. Lastly, position. It stands on the rich plain, covered with long grass and flowers, in sight of the sea on one hand, and the sublime mountains on the other. " Many plants caress the ruins; the acanthus is there, and I saw it in green leaf for the first time ; but the majority of the plants on the floor, or bossing the architrave, are familiar to me as home flowers — purple mallows, snapdragons, pink hawkweeds, etc." The origin of Poseidonia is lost in a remote antiquity. In the wars with Pyrrhus it fell under the power of the Romans. But so fondly did its inhabitants cherish the memory of their departed greatness that an annual fast was kept to bewail their fallen state. Sacked by the Saracens in the ninth century, and its ruins plundered by the Normans, two centuries later, to build the cathedral of Salerno, it has gradually crumbled into dust and disappeared. Happy is the traveller if, with time at command and not yet sated with beauty, he is able to pursue his course to Reggio and cross to Sicily, at least to Messina and Palermo. i6j NAPLES TO ROME. Returning from Naples to Rome, the traveller passes through a district of the deepest interest. Almost every town and village has been the scene of some memorable event, or is associated with some illustrious name. The railway runs through or near Capua, Monte Cassino, with its famous monastery, Alatri, Aquino, Arpino, Velletri, and other towns, familiar as "household words" to classical students. The post-road crosses the Pontine Marshes, following the line of the old Appian Way, and passes through Foro Appio, which has retained its name alniost unchanged from apostolic times. The coast-line is studded with the remains of Roman villas. Those about Gaeta are especially interesting. Virgil, Horace, and Cicero have described the scenery and celebrated the pleasures of residence here. Local antiquaries, with great plausibility, have identified it with one of the most familiar incidents in the Odyssey — that in which Ulysses meets the daughter of the King of the Laestrygonians ; and Virgil makes it the scene of the death and burial of the nurse of ^neas. In modern times the Castle of Gaeta has been the strongest fortress of the Bourbon kings of Naples; and here, in 1850, Pius ix. found refuge on his flight from Rome. 4 c THE GATE OF HERCUI.ANEUM, AND STREET OK TOMKS, POMPEII. FLORENCE, PISA, AND GENOA ]^t'gH^:H^'?- n^^. ^^p 'Ci^i^n- ^<ojn the Pictute by Giotto.) "Adam, submitting not that God should place A salutary curb upon his will. Condemned himself, and with him all his race ; Who thence, infirm and weak, e'en from their birth, For ages lay in error grovelling, till The Word of God descended upon earth. Then was the nature, that rebellious strove Against its Maker, to His person joined By the sole act of His eternal Love." There was no way of ransom and restoration save by the exercise of Divine mercy and Divine justice. The exercise of mercy alone would have left just 178 ILLUSTRIOUS FLO REN TINE S. punishment unfulfilled ; while justice alone would have involved all mankind in merciless misery. " Giving Himself a ransom for mankind, His bounty God more evidently showed Than if He merely had a pardon signed. And every other mode had wholly failed, As short of Justice, if the Son of God Had not in flesh His Godhead humbly veiled." S . V ^ F -^ I VR A/7DNAM:1 I lAE SVPEROSPH LEGETO\lTy\L \CV5Qj IN'iTRANDOCECINIVOLVERV NT TATA QVOSQ.V E SEDaVIAPARSCES51TMELlORIBVSHOSPITACASTRI« ACTDREMQVESWMPETIITFELICIOR AS I Rl S HICCLAVDOIDANTESPATRIISEXTORKISABOKIS Q\ f: M CE Nl V I T PARVT FUDR. ENT I A MAT ER M'OR I S TOMB OF dantp: at kavf.nna. Amongst the most illustrious of Florentines was Michael Angelo. Painter, sculptor, architect, civil and military engineer, and poet, he was one of the most variously accomplished men who ever lived ; and in every one of these depart- ments he was great. Nothing that came forth from his hands was mean or poor. His faults were those of superabundant strength and force. St. Peter's at Rome is one amongst the many buildings which display his power as an architect. The paintings in the Sistine Chapel have already been referred to as illustrations of his genius as a painter. As a sculptor he is perhaps un- rivalled since the palmy days of Greece and Rome. In the great engineering works of his time his advice and co-operation were eagerly sought, both in peace and war. That he is less known as a poet is mainly due to the fact that his MICHAEL ANGELO. MICHAEL ANGELO. {From his tomb, Santa Croce, Florence') sonnets are often mystical in thought and obscure in expression. The following, however, translated by Wordsworth, will show how pure and devout was the spirit which pervaded his writings and was exemplified in his life : "to the supreme being. "The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed, If Thou the spirit give by which I pray : My unassisted heart is barren clay, Which of its native self can nothing feed : Of good and pious works Thou art the seed. Which quickens only where Thou say'st it may. Unless Thou show to us Thine own true way, No man can find it : Father ! Thou must lead. Do Thou, then, breathe those thoughts into my mind By which such virtue may in me be bred That in Thy holy footsteps I may tread ; The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind, That I may have the power to sing of Thee, And sound Thy praises everlastingly." But the briefest possible summary of the lives of the illustrious men who were Florentine by birth or adoption would demand a volume. We hasten to i8o «* THE CAMPANILE OF GIOTTO. mention some of the buildings which adorn the Athens of Italy. Chief among its ecclesiastical edifices is the magnificent group composed of the Duomo, the Campanile of Giotto, and the Baptistery. The exterior of the cathedral is imposing, and when the faQade, rapidly approaching completion, is unveiled, the grand outline, as well as the richness of effect produced by the employment of variously coloured marbles, will render the group of buildings perhaps unequalled in Europe. But the interior of the cathedral is at first view disappointing. The sombre, colourless walls, the dim light, and the almost entire absence of en- richment or decoration, have a meagre effect. But by degrees the simple purity THE DUOMO AND CAMl'ANILE. of the lines, and the grand sweep of the dome impress the spectator. The richly jewelled windows, which are overlooked at first from their smallness, soon attract the eye and add to the general effect. The dome, which is the largest in the world, suggested that of St. Peter's. As Michael Angelo passed it on his way to undertake the erection of the great basilica at Rome, he is reported to have looked up to it and said, " Like you I will not be ; better I cannot be." At one corner of the cathedral stands the Campanile of Giotto — the pride of Florence. Mr. Ruskin has described it so admirably, that we cannot do better than quote his words: CAMPANILE AND BAPTISTERY AT FLORENCE. "■ The characteristics of Power and Beauty occur more or less in different buildings, some in one and some in another. But altogether, and all in their highest possible relative degrees, they exist, as far as I know, only in one building in the world — the Campanile of Giotto, at Florence. ... I remember well how, when a boy, I used to despise that Campanile, and think it meanly smooth and finished. But I have since lived beside it many a day, and looked out upon it from my windows by sunlight and moonlight, and I shall not soon forget how profound and gloomy appeared to me the savageness of the Northern Gothic, when I afterwards stood, for the first time, beneath the front of Salisbury. The contrast is indeed strange, if it could be quickly felt, between the rising of those grey walls out of their quiet swarded space, like dark and barren rocks out of a green lake, with their rude, mouldering, rough-grained shafts, and triple lights, without tracery or other ornament than the martins' nests in the height of them, and that bright, smooth, sunny surface of glowing jasper, those spiral shafts and fairy traceries, so white, so faint, so crystalline, that their slight shapes are hardly traced in darkness on the pallor of the Eastern sky, that serene height of mountain alabaster, coloured like a morning cloud, and chased like a sea-shell. And if this be, as I believe it, the model and mirror of perfect architecture, is there not something to be learned by looking back to the early life of him who raised it ? I said that the Power of human mind had its growth in the Wilderness ; much more must the love and the conception of that beauty, whose every line and hue we have seen to be, at the best, a faded image of God's daily work, and an arrested ray of some star of creation, be given chiefly in the places which He has gladdened by planting there the fir-tree and the pine. Not within the walls of Florence, but among the far-away fields of her lilies, was the child trained who was to raise that headstone of Beauty above her towers of watch and war. Remember all that he became ; count the sacred thoughts with which he filled the heart of Italy ; ask those who followed him what they learned at his feet ; and when you have numbered his labours, and received their testimony, if it seem to you that God had verily poured out upon this His servant no common nor restrained portion of His Spirit, and that he was indeed a king among the children of men, remember also that the legend upon his crown was that of David's : ' I took thee from the sheepcote, and from following the sheep.' " Across the square in front of the Cathedral and Campanile, is the Baptistery of St. John. The Florentines aftirm that it was originally a temple dedicated of Mars, but admit that little remains of the pagan edifice beyond the general design. It is, however, not older than the seventh century, though some of the columns may be of an earlier date. The mosaics of the floor and ceiling, and the frescoes round the walls, have a very striking effect. But the glory of this edifice are its great bronze doors, one of which, engraved on the opposite page. ¥. ■ml SANTA CROCK, FLORENCE. was SO admired by Michael Angelo, that he declared it worthy to be the Gate of Paradise. Of the other churches of Florence, only a few can be mentioned here. COURT OF THE PALAZZO VECCaiO. Santa Croce is the Westminster Abbey of the Florentines. Here are monu- ments to Michael Angelo, Aretino, Galileo, Dante, Filicaja, Raphael Morghen, Macchiavelli, Alfieri, Melloni, and many others. The church of San Lorenzo is chiefly famous for its Medicean Chapel, lined with the richest marbles, jasper, 187 CHURCHES OF FLORENCE. agate, lapis-lazuli, and other precious stones ; and for the Sacristy, containing the monuments erected to the Medici by Mlchatl Angelo. The colossal figures of Morning and Evening, and Day and Night, with the life-size statues of THE UFFIZI, THE PALAZZO VECCHIO, AND STATUARY IN THE PIAZZA. Giullano, and Lorenzo de' Medici, deserve all the praise which has been lavished upon them, and are alone sufficient to establish the reputation of Michael Angelo as one of the very greatest sculptors the world has seen. Santa Maria Novella, ■I HE riTTl AND UFFIZI GALLERIES. in addition to the treasures of art which it contains, is interesting from its connection with the Decameron of Boccaccio. The Annunziata is a blaze of colour from its paintings, marbles, precious stones, and its altars covered with gold and silver. These are but a few of the ecclesiastical edifices in Florence, each of which is noteworthy from its historical associations, its architectural merits, or the works of art it contains. The secular edifices of Florence are interesting, more from their historical associations than their architectural merits. The Palazzo Vecchio was erected in 1298 for the Gonfaloniere and Magistracy of the Republic. For many ages it formed the centre of the political life of the Florentines. A magnificent staircase leads from the court up to the vast hall in which Savonarola convened the citizens in his futile attempts to restore their ancient liberties. This hall, much mutilated, was used for the meeting of the Italian deputies until the removal of the capital to Rome. In front of the Palazzo Vecchio, in the Piazza della Signoria, and in the Loggia dei Lanzi, stand some of the finest statues in Florence. Here are the Perseus of Benvenuto Cellini, the Rape of the Sabines by John of Bologna, and other works of art of world-wide reputation. The David of Michael Angelo has been removed from its former place in the Loggia to the Academy of Fine Arts, and a bronze copy of the statue now stands on the Terrace of San Miniato. It is thought by some to be Michael Angelo's masterpiece. The youth has just confronted the Philistine, His nostrils and throat seem to swell with indignation at the blasphemies he hears. His whole attitude expresses confidence in the victory he is about to gain, and yet a shade of anxiety is passing across his face as he advances to the unequal conflict. It is with a sense of surprise that visitors to Florence find works of genius such as these standing in the open air, amidst the busy life of the people. To describe the treasures of art in the Pitti and Uffizi galleries would require a volume. They contain some thousands of statues, paintings, and mosaics. Of course in so vast a collection there are many of inferior merit, but the proportion of these is less than in almost any other great gallery, and the works of art which are recognised as masterpieces are very numerous. The Venus de' Medici and the Madonna della Seggiola would alone suffice to make the reputation of the galleries which contained them. The house in which Mrs. Barrett Browning spent her last days is, as every reader of her poems will recollect, the Casa Guidi, from whose "Windows" she was wont to study the ways of the people with whom she cherished so intense a sympathy in the days of reviving Italian independence. A sketch of the house is subjoined : the windows themselves, which give the title to her poem, are in a side street, opening on a balcony. Over the entrance to the house, as shown in our cut, the municipality of Florence have placed a tablet, bearing the inscription — " Here wrote and died Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who, in the heart of a woman, combined the learning of a scholar and the genius of a poet. By her MRS. BARRETT BROWNING'S TOMB. verse she wrought a golden ring, joining Italy and England in one. Grateful Florence erected this memorial, 1861." We went to see her grave in the Protestant Cemetery. Over it is a sarcophagus on six low pillars, with a medallion profile, and emblems of music and poetry — the lyre and the star — the simple inscription being, " E. B. B., ob. 1861." The cemetery is filled with marble monuments, some with very touching records. Near Mrs. Browning's tomb is one to the memory of Mr. Holman Hunt's young wife : "in the first year of her marriage, i860." The form of the tomb is modified, by the great artist's direc- tion, into that of an ark upon sculptured waves, bearing the inscriptions, — " Love is strong as death ; many waters cannot quench it : neither can the flood drown CASA GUIDI, FLORENCE. it." " When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee." " It is I : be not afraid." An hour may well be spent, by visitors to Florence, in this bright and beautiful resting-place. For years Florence has been the centre of evangelical activity in Italy. After a period of bitter persecution under the Grand Ducal government, liberty of worship is now enjoyed, and several Protestant congregations meet every Lord's day. The Waldensian church has here its college for the training of pastors. From the Claudian press, supported by funds contributed by the Religious Tract Society and other friends in England and America, numbers of publications are spread throughout the peninsula. These include books, tracts, 193 VALLOMBROSA. periodicals — the Italia Evangelica and Amico dei Fancmlli — and an almanack the Amico di Casa, containing a large amount of Scriptural truth. Amongst the many charming spots in the neighbourhood of Florence, none repays a visit more fully than Vallombrosa. The monastery, now suppressed, is approached through forests of beech, chestnut, oak, and pine, with open spaces of turf deliciously green, and steep walls of rock, which enclose the VALLOMBROSA, Every English shady valley {Val Omdrosa), from which it takes its name, visitor will remember the lines in Paradise Lost : " Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks In Vallombrosa, where Etrurian shades High over arched embower." The accuracy of these lines is confirmed by Beckford, who speaks of " the showers of leaves which blew full in our faces as we approached the convent." Indeed, Milton was intimately acquainted with Florence and its neighbourhood, having resided here for some time, when he paid his memorable visit to Galileo. Most travellers pass between Florence and Rome by the shorter route, by PISA. Empoli, Siena, and Orvieto. For those who have time to linger on their journey there is one far more interesting, as among the stations at which a halt may be made are Arezzo (Arretium), the birthplace of Maecenas and Petrarch ; the lovely lake Thrasymene is also passed, with the quaint and ancient city of Perugia, also Terni, with its beautiful waterfalls, the finest in Italy. FALLS OF TERNI. Pisa, the ancient rival of Florence, has dwindled down into a small pro- vincial town, less than a fifth of its former size. Grass-grown streets,^ and vacant spaces within the walls, tell of past prosperity and present decay. The city which equipped one hundred and twenty ships for the first crusade, which reduced the Emperor Alexius to submission, which sent out an expedition THE LEANING TOWER, PISA. 2 C PISA. of three hundred vessels, thirty-five thousand men, and nine hundred horses, for the conquest of the Balearic Islands, and which maintained mercantile colonies throughout Greece, the Levant, and Asia Minor, has now a population little exceeding twenty thousand persons. When we remember the wealth, the power, and the glory of the Italian cities, an inquiry into the causes of their decay becomes deeply interesting. It was due in part to the incessant hostilities which raged among them. The energy and genius which ought to have been employed for mutual advantage were wasted in frantic efforts for mutual destruction. Neighbouring cities waged war upon each other with insane fury, and each city was split up into hostile camps. Guelphs and Ghibelines, Bianchi and Neri, deluged the streets with each others' blood. The great families held their palaces as strongholds, fitted either for attack or defence. Every man's house was his castle, in a sense very different from that in which we understand the words. In Rome the Coliseum, the Arch of Titus, the tombs of Hadrian and of Cecilia Metella, and the temples of the gods, were turned into fortresses by the Frangipani, the Annibaldi, the Orsini, and the Colonnas. Blood feuds, as causeless and as purposeless as an Irish faction-fight, were handed down from father to son throiigh successive generations. Upon the languor caused by centuries of anarchy, there supervened the benumbing influences of despotism. The cities and the factions which emerged victorious from the strife crushed their rivals into the dust, whilst they themselves yielded to the domination of some great family, to which they surrendered their liberties as the price of revenge upon their enemies. It was at this period of exhaustion that the discovery of the route to India by the Cape deprived the Italian cities of the advantages of position which they had hitherto enjoyed. The tide of commerce ebbed away from their shores and flowed into other channels. Spain, Portugal, and England gained what Italy had lost. It is a noteworthy coincidence, that at the very time when the unification of Italy, under the present government, has terminated the intestine feuds of ages, the opening of the Suez Canal should again restore to the peninsula her former advantages of position, and carry past her shores the commerce of the East. The remains of the ancient glories of Pisa are grouped together in one "sacred corner." The Cathedral, the Baptistery, the Leaning Tower, the Campo Santo, form a combination of buildings scarcely surpassed in interest and beauty by any in the world. The Cathedral was erected to commemorate the victory of the Pisans over the Saracens in Sicily, in 1063. Having forced an entrance into the harbour of Palermo, they carried off six large treasure- ships, and devoted a large portion of the spoils to the construction of an edifice which, " in the ecclesiastical architecture of Italy, remained for long not only unrivalled, but alone in its superiority." The Campanile of the cathedral, better known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa, was commenced about a century after the cathedral. It consists of eight FISA. tiers of columns with semicircular arches, each tier forming a sort of arcade or open gallery. The lower story is thirty-five feet high, the upper stories are each about twenty feet, making together one hundred and seventy-nine feet. From the summit a magnificent view is gained, extending to the Lucchese Hills on the one side, and on the other far over the Mediterranean to Gorgona, or even Corsica. The Pisans pretend that the deviation of the tower from the perpendicular is a part of the original design, but it is manifestly due to the -sinking of the ground, from which the cathedral has also greatly suffered. THE CATHEDRAL AND CAMPANILE, PISA. The Baptistery was commenced a few years before the Campanile, but it remained unfinished for many generations, and seems not to have been completed before the fourteenth century. This accounts for the mixture of architectural styles and a want of harmony in its ornamentation. A somewhat unsightly cone rises from the dome and mars the general effect. But most visitors will concur in the verdict of so competent a judge as Mr. Fergusson, who says : " Even as it is, the beauty of its details and the exuberance of its ornaments render it externally a most captivating design, though internally it possesses neither elegance of form nor beauty of any sort." 196 PISA AND LEGHORN. The Campo Santo lies between the Baptistery, the Duomo, and the Campanile on one side, and the old city walls on the other. It was formed by the Archbishop Ubaldo Lanfranchi, who on his expulsion from Palestine by Saladin brought back with him fifty-three vessels laden with soil from the traditional site of Calvary. A century and a half later the sacred earth was THE BAPTISTERY, PISA. enclosed by John of Pisa. Giotto and other eminent artists were employed to decorate the w^alls with frescoes, which although faded and in places obliterated by the peeling of the plaster, are still most fascinating in their rude simplicity. Mr. Raskin places the Campo Santo among the three " most precious buildings in Italy : buildings, I mean, consistently decorated with a series of paintings 197 GENOA. at the time of their erection, and still exhibiting that series in its original order." The other two are the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and the Scuola di San Rocco at Venice. The Campo Santo contains a large number of Roman and mediaeval sarcophagi, as well as some modern monuments of great merit. Leghorn has inherited a great measure of the mercantile prosperity once enjoyed by Pisa. Under the wise commercial policy of the Tuscan government, it rose from a small fishing village to a city containing 100,000 . persons. Its harbour is visited by the vessels of all nations, and in 1868 its merchant navy was returned as 656 vessels, with a capacity of 38,028 tons. To the artist or GENOA, FROM THE HEIGHTS. antiquary it contains few objects of interest. It is, however, a lively and prosperous city, contrasting very strikingly, in this respect, with the decayed and poverty-stricken magnificence of the older capitals of Italy. A stroll along the busy quays, with the blue waters of the Mediterranean rolling in upon the beach, and the islands of Elba, Gorgona, Capraja, and Corsica faintly visible on the horizon, forms a most agreeable change after a tour amongst the inland cities of the peninsula. Genoa, which was the rival and deadly enemy of Pisa in her prosperous days, has continued to retain a large amount of commercial activity. In the GENOA. year 1868, nearly half the mercantile navy of Italy was Genoese.' Even this, however, is a considerable falling off from the time when the merchant princes of Genova la Superba held the first place in the commerce of the world. THE ARSENAL, GENOA. ^ The exact figures were as follows : Genoa — Sailing Vessels, 1,832; tons, 351,157. Steamers, 59; tons, 13,378; horse power, 7,439. All Italy— „ 17,690; „ 792,430- » » 23,091; „ 12,259. 199 GENOA. The situation of the city is magnificent. Seen from the heights which rise above it, or from the extremity of the Molo Nuova, it may bear comparison with the view of Naples from the Castle of San Elmo or the Castel del Ovo. The streets in the older parts of Genoa are very narrow and steep, being seldom wide enough to admit a wheel-carriage, and the houses are so high as only to show a slender strip of blue sky. This mode of building has advantages in a hot climate, securing constant shade and comparative coolness, but it has a mean appearance ; and the visitor who has been impressed by the distant view of the city is disappointed when he finds himself entangled in a labyrinth of narrow lanes. There is, however, one line of streets — the Strade Balbi, Nuovissima, and Nuova— which is unsurpassed in Europe. The marble palaces of the old Genoese nobles rise in stately magnificence on either hand. They ISLAND OF PALMARIA, OrPOSITE LA STEZLV. are built with a central quadrangle, bright with fountains, flowers, and orange- groves, and open to the public view through a wide and lofty gateway. Of late years, however, much of the effect has been lost from the fact that the lower stories have been turned into shops and places of business. The animosities which prevailed amongst the Italian cities, the result of long ages of internecine war, have been nowhere more bitter than in the case of Genoa. To call a man a Genoese is still an opprobrious epithet throughout Northern Italy. And a Tuscan proverb declares that Genoa has "a sea without fish, mountains without trees, men without honour, and women without modesty." These animosities are slowly but surely dying out under a unit-ed national government. "Italy" was once a "geographical expression." The word now denotes the home of a great, a noble, and a progressive people. NORTHERN ITALY. 2 D STATUK OF BARTOLOMEO COLLEONI, VENICE. J^'PHTJi^n.T^ imY- THE history of Venice is legibly written in its build- ings. As we leave the main- land, and see the city rise before us from the sea, we are reminded of its foundation, in the fifth century, by a band of fugitives who sought safety from the fury of barbarous in- vaders amongst the islands of this remote corner of the Adriatic. The most heedless tourist who glides in his gon- dola through the intricate laby- rinth of its canals, or stands entranced before the splendours of its cathedral, is conscious of its unlikeness to any European city he has ever seen before. He may be unable to define STREET IN VENICE. VENICE. to himself the nature of its dissimilarity, still less may he be able to account for it, but he feels it nevertheless. He has only to study its history to discover, as Mr. Freeman points out, that " Venice is for our purpose no part of Italy, no part of the dominions of the Western Emperor. It is a fragment of the Empire of the East, which gradually became independent of the East, but never admitted the supremacy of the West." The Oriental feeling which every- where predominates reminds us that "once she did hold the glorious East in fee." The marble lions which guard the entrance to the Arsenal were brought from ON THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE. the Piraeus when Venice held the keys of the Levant. The long succession of palaces which line the canals were built by Doges famous in history, whose names they bear and whose achievements they commemorate. The entrance to Venice by railway is often and justly spoken of as poor and commonplace as compared with the old approach by boat across the lagoon. It has, however, the compensating advantagd'of sharp and sudden contrast. Before the completion of the great bridge the visitor saw the city slowly and gradually emerge into view. We became familiarized with it before we reached it. Now, however, we step out from the station, with its busde and confusion, the THE PIAZZETTA. shrieking of its engines, and the clamour of its porters, into a city where cabs and omnibuses, horses and carriages, are unknown ; where hearse-Hke gondolas pass to and fro without a sound, where a sense of strangeness and mystery broods over everything. In other commercial cities there is a roar of traffic in the streets, a clatter of hoofs and ratde of wheels on the pavements. Here the gondola glides along the waterways without a sound save the splash of the oar or the sharp cry of the gondolier as he rounds a corner. Even in the streets the same mysterious silence prevails, for they are so narrow that no TlIK I'lA/.ZEl'I'A, VENICE. carriage can pass along them, and no quadruped bigger than a dog is to be seen. The small steamboats now plying on the Grand Canal hardly break the spell. There is no trail of smoke, no swell of waves. True, they are open to the objection that they are " penny steamers," and very ugly, but they are a real convenience, to inhabitants and visitors alike, and are largely patronized; while still, for the innumerable smaller channels, the gondola is a necessity. Let us not, however, be content with the waterway, fascinating as it is. Venice cannot be understood without traversing the streets and crossing the Rialto. THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. MARK. ll!lipillinill|lll|IIIU|l|lllllllllMIIIIII|lll|H ii!iil;li!ili;ifiiillilll!iliiliilli The first place to be visited, the last to be revisited, and which once seen will live for ever in the memory like some gorgeous vision, is the Cathedral of St, Mark. Leaving behind us the narrow streets, with their piles of houses huddled confusedly together, and rising so high that they show but a riband of sky THE CATHEDRAL OE ST. MARK. overhead, we find ourselves in a magnificent piazza, which looks even larger than it is from its contrast with the rest of the city. " On each side countless arches prolong themselves into ranged symmetry, as if the rugged and irregular houses that pressed together above us in the dark alleys had been struck back into sudden obedience and order, and all their rude casements and broken walls had been transformed into arches, charged with goodly sculptures and fluted shafts of delicate stone." In front of us rises a wonderful, fairy-like structure. At first it seems a confused pile of domes, and minarets, and recessed arches, columns of marble and alabaster, glowing mosaics and grotesque carvings, heaped THE KKONZE HORSES OF ST. MARK. together in more than Oriental profusion and disorder. Gradually, the exquisite symmetry of the whole is realized — a symmetry, however, like that of the work of Nature, which admits of infinite variety of detail, no part being a mere repro- duction of any other part. The impression produced by the exterior is renewed and confirmed by the interior. For this I must again quote Mr. Ruskin : — " The church is lost in a deep twilight, to which the eye must be accus- tomed for some moments before the form of the building can be traced ; and then there opens before us a vast cave, hewn out into the form of a cross, and divided into shadowy aisles by many pillars. Round the domes of its roof the VENICE. light enters only through narrow apertures like large stars ; and here and there a ray or two from some far-away casement wanders into che darkness, and casts a narrow phosphoric stream upon the waves of marble that heave and fall in a thousand colours along the floor. What else there is of light is from torches, or silver lamps, burning ceaselessly in the re- cesses of the chapels ; the roof sheeted with gold, and the polished walls covered with ala- baster.give back at every curve and angle some feeble gleaming to the flames ; and the glories round the heads of the sculptured saints flash out upon us as we pass them, and sink again into the gloom. Under foot and overhead, a continual succession of crowded imagery, one picture passing into another, as in a dream ; forms beautiful and ter- rible mixed together ; dragons and serpents, and ravening beasts of prey, and graceful birds that in the midst of them drink from run- ning fountains and feed from vases of crystal ; the passions and the pleasures of human life symbolised together, and the mystery of its STAIRCASE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY: CONTARINI I'ALACE, VENICE. ^^^~. -^'-liU'i?.;^-- r! L.A\ 1 '• I "^-^y^' redemption ; for the mazes of interwoven lines and ^^ changeful pictures lead always at last to the Cross, lifted and carved in every place and upon every stone ; sometimes with the serpent of eternity wrapt round it, sometimes with doves beneath its arms and sweet herbage growing forth from .^ its feet ; but conspicuous most of all on the great rood that crosses T^. the church before the altar, raised in bright blazonry against the shadow of the apse. And although in the recesses of the aisles and chapels, when the mist of the incense hangs heavily, we may see continually a figure traced in faint lines upon their marble, a woman standing with her eyes raised to heaven, and the in- scription above her, * Mother of God,' she is not here the presiding deity. It is the Cross that first is seen, and always burning in the centre of the Temple ; and every dome and hollow of its roof has the figure of Christ in the utmost height of it, raised in power, or re- turning in judg- ment." The history and the architec- ture of Venice furnished for a ^^^- •?' have — ^v' materials CA' I/ORO PALACE ON THE GRAND CANAL. PALACE OF THE DOGEi VENICE. literature which would form a library of itself. With the brief space at our disposal, it is impossible to do more than glance at a few points of interest. Towering above the cathedral is the Campanile, like a huge giant guarding the fairy creation at its foot. Close by is the Doges' Palace, with its noble courtyard and its stately Scala, its wealth of architectural beauty, and its vast halls filled with relics of bygone magnificence. From these we cross the " Bridge of Sighs" and descend to the State prisons, dismal and horrible, although not, as often described, dug out below the bed of the canal. Their walls are wet with ooze and slime, and into their gloomy recesses no ray of light can penetrate. In front of the Doges' Palace is the Piazzetta, at the end of which, facing the Giudecca, are the two famous columns brought from Palestine when Venice was in its glory ; the one surmounted by the Lion of St. Mark, the other by St. Theodore CAMPANILE OF ST. MARK's, AND PALACE OF THE DOGES. standing on a crocodile. At the steps of the Piazzetta we may take a gondola, and winding our way through the intricate labyrinth of canals beneath a long succession of bridges, beginning with the Bridge of Sighs, and passing what seem endless churches and palaces, we reach the open space in front of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, where stands the equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni, of which Mr. Ruskin says, with slight and pardonable exaggeration, " I do not believe that there is a more glorious work of sculpture existing in the world." A short distance further brings us to the Arsenal, now desolate and silent, but once the centre and source of the naval supremacy of the republic, when she claimed to be — " A ruler of the waters and their powers ; '' And such she was: — her daughters had their dowers From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. In purple was she robed, and of her feast Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased." VENICE TO VERONA In another direction we reach the Academy, with its incomparable illus- trations of Venetian Art, and, further in the city, the Scuola di San Rocco, containing the masterpieces of Tintoretto. Mr. Ruskin says: "Whatever the traveller may miss in Venice, he should give unembarrassed attention and unbroken time to the Scuola di San Rocco." The railway journey from Venice to Turin is through a district which suggests a combination of Lincolnshire and Switzerland. The great plain of Venetia and Lombardy, flat as a bowling-green, and intersected by irrigation ditches, reminds the traveller of the fen country. But through the sultry quivering atmosphere of the plains we see the northern horizon bounded by ranges of mountains with their glittering ice peaks and domes clothed with eternal snows. Lest lovers of Italian scenery should think the comparison with THE RIALTO BRIDGE AND FISH MARKET. Lincolnshire too disparaging, it should be added that there is everywhere a fulness of light, a glow of colour, and a frequent beauty and picturesqueness of detail to which the dull grey monotone of the English landscape can lay no claim. The historical student, too, will find interest in every stage of the journey. Northern Italy may with even more justice than Belgium claim the title of having been "the cockpit of Europe." From the time when Gothic and Cimbric hordes, emerging from their mountain fastnesses, poured forth upon the fertile plains at their feet to be confronted by the swords of the Roman legionaries, down to the campaigns of Solferino and Custozza, few generations have escaped the scourge of war. Amongst the numerous cities between Venice and Milan which tempt the passing traveller to halt for a while, Verona stands prominent. The beauty of TOMB OF THE SCALIGERS, its situation, its historical associations, the interest and importance of its buildings, both secular and sacred, are unsurpassed even in Italy. Mr. Freeman sums up in a few impressive lines the memories of the past which linger around this grand TOMJ! OF THE SCALIGF:RS. old city : " There is the classic Verona, the Verona of Catullus and Pliny ; there is the Verona of the Nibelungen, the Bern of Theodoric ; there is the mediaeval Verona, the Verona of commonwealths and tvrants ; the Verona of Eccelino and MILAN. Can Grande ; and there is the Verona of later times, under Venetian, French, and Austrian bondage, the Verona of congresses and fortifications." Foremost amongst its architectural remains is the grand Roman Amphitheatre, constructed to accommodate 28,000 spectators, which is so perfect that it might readily be restored for its original purpose, and is still used as an open air theatre. We enter through the arched doorways, and walk along the corridors, where walked eighteen centuries ago Roman knights and senators ; we may take our places in numbered seats reserved for the authorities, may trace the passages and gateways from which rushed the wild beasts when the cry went up, ''The Christians to lions," and stand upon the very spot where gladiators were "butchered to make a Roman holiday." The traditions of the churches go back to Charlemagne and Pepin, and the most critical of antiquaries admit that por- tions of the existing structures are really of that early date. The tomb of the Scaligers suggested the design for the Albert Memorial at Kensington. Those who "speak the tongue which Shakespeare spake" will look with special interest on a tablet over the arch of a gateway leading into a gloomy courtyard on which is carved a hat — the well-known badge of the Capulets, — and under it the inscription, " From this house went forth that Juliet sung by so many poets and bewailed by so many hearts." Milan, architecturally, is more of a French than an Italian city. It lacks the picturesqueness and variety and colour of Lombard and Venetian towns. Its resemblance to Paris, which was remarked even by Montaigne, has greatly increased in the few last years by Ihe erection of brilliant, but stiff and formal boulevards and arcades quite in Parisian style. Few ecclesiastical edifices in Italy or in Europe awaken more general admiration than its cathedral. The architectural purist complains of its irregularity of style and its bizarre orna- mentation. Even to the untrained and uncritical eye it wants unity of effect. The general impression is frittered away amid innumerable points of detail, with no central mass to arrest and concentrate attention ; and yet there are not many cathedrals in the world on which the ordinary tourist looks with more pleasure. Its bewildering maze of pinnacles, each surmounted by a marble statue lifted up against the bright transparent blue of an Italian sky, cannot be easily forgotten. Far more impressive is it to pass from the blinding glare without into the solemn gloom and " the dim religious light " of the interior. Lofty massive columns, with richly sculptured capitals, majestic arches, " storied windows richly dight," the broad sweep of the central nave leading up to the richly decorated altar, produce a temporary feeling of solemnity even in the most frivolous. The view from the roof is superb. The eye sweeps over the great Lombard plain, and rests on the magnificent ranges of mountains which form its northern boundary, from the Pennine Alps on the west to those of Tyrol on the east. Conspicuous amongst these is Monte Rosa, whose vast dome of snow, flushing into a delicious pink at sunrise or sunset, is an object of surpassing beauty. On a perfectly clear day the Ortler Spitz is distinctly visible. ''THE LAST supper;' BY DA VINCI. Milan holds an important place in the early history of Christendom. Here, in March, 312, Constantine issued his famous edict, proclaiming the victory of Christianity over the paganism of preceding centuries. The Edict of Milan giving sanction to the profession and practice of the Christian religion, was only a public recognition of the victory already gained by the pure spiritual verities of the gospel over the gross delusions of heathenism, which, indeed, was already PINNACLES OF MILAN CATHEDRAL. dying out by a process of natural and inevitable decay. A few years later, Ambrose, then Bishop of Milan, enriched the Christian Church for all time by the gift of his hymns and the example of his heroic fidelity. Every reader of the "Confessions" of Augustine will remember that it was here, and under the teachings of Ambrose, that the prayers of Monica on her son's behalf were answered, that he was led to abjure his errors, and find peace in Christ, 7 URIN. Amongst the religious associations of Milan, the Last Supper, painted by Leonardo da Vinci, must not be forgotten. Defaced though it has been by ignorant and incompetent restorers, and fading from the walls as it now is, it yet holds its place in the front rank of the world's great masterpieces. And, so far MONTE VISO, FROM THE HEAD OF THE VAL PELLICE. as religious impressiveness goes, it has always seemed to me to surpass them all. Many years ago, when I first saw it, the convent for whose refectory it was painted was occupied by a regiment of Croat cavalry in the Austrian service. Passing through the courtyard, which was a scene of reckless revelry and riot, TURIN. an aged curator opened a small door, giving entrance to the deserted hall, at the end of which is the picture. The effect of the sudden transition from the uproar outside to the solemn silence within was almost magical. One could not but remember the incident related by Beckford, when he was admitted to the same spot by an aged monk, the last survivor of the confraternity who had inhabited the convent. "I have seen,'' said the old man, "generation after generation of brethren take their places at the table here, and then pass away, but amid all those changes, the figures upon the wall there have looked down THE WALDE NS I A N VALLEY S. upon US unchanged ; so I have come to feel that that is the reality, and that we are but shadows." There is not much in Turin to attract or detain the tourist. It has few historical associations, and little beauty or picturesqueness. Its streets, stiff, heavy, and formal, run in straight lines, intersecting each other at right angles, and enclosing huge square blocks of houses, which seldom offer any architectural features. But the mountain scenery of the neighbourhood is seen to great advantage from the city. A most striking effect is produced by looking down a long line of streets to the snowy Alps beyond. The Waldensian valleys are now easily accessible from Turin by a railway to Pignerol, whence a road, traversed by a diligence daily, takes the traveller to La Tour, the capital of the district. It is situated at the entrance of the valley of Lucerna or Val Pellice to the left, and of Angrogna to the right. Beyond Angrogna, and parallel with it, but separated by a range of heights, is the valley of Perouse, from which opens the valley of St. Martin. Beyond are the French valleys, the scene of the self-denying labours of Felix Neff. The present extent of the Waldensian valleys is about twenty-two miles in the greatest length, by eighteen miles in breadth. Even apart from the stirring historical associations which make every spot memorable, the home of the Vaudois well deserves and repays a visit. Nowhere in the Alps is there to be found a more glorious combination of richness and beauty in the lower valleys, and wild magnificence and sublimity in the higher peaks and passes. Except at its upper extremity, the mountains of the Val Angrogna are covered with wood up to their very summits, with bold masses of rock rising from out the foliage into splintered peaks. The lower portion has considerable patches of cultivated ground. The meadows are enamelled with the white sweet-scented narcissus, gleaming like pearls on green velvet. Above are vineyards and little fields of rye or maize, intersected by groves of mulberry trees for the silkworms ; while the dwellings of the peasant proprietors, wdth their overhanging roofs and rude verandahs, rise amid the few acres they cultivate. One cannot imagine a more delightful combination of wooded mountain, and nestling hamlets, and craggy peaks, and, far beyond, those dazzling snows which rise over all into the deep blue sky. But it is the connexion of these valleys with the history of Christianity that gives to this region its most enduring interest. Often has the story of the Waldensian confessors and martyrs been told : and the annals of the Church have no exhibition of a more devoted piety or a more heroic courage. As a happy issue of past trials, the Christians of the valleys have long been engaged in speaking the words of everlasting life to the descendants of their old persecutors. Every city, almost every village, in Italy is being visited by Waldensian evangelists, who, carrying out the Divine command, " Love your enemies," THE WALDENSIAN VALLEYS. are conferring unspeakable blessings upon the land. The fields are white unto the harvest. Already the firstfruits are being gathered in. " Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest." THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH AND COLLEGE OF LA TOUR WILLIAM RIDER AND SON, PRINTERS, LONDON. ILLUSTRATED BOOKS OF TRAVEL f^^^:^^^^=:_ "^;ii!l 3 O I C/) W D H U ^ z, o 01. t^ +: "^ P &0 Q S < 00 5 ^ E ^ .>- -5 SCOTTISH PICTURES. DRAWN WITH PEN AND PENCIL. 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