February 22nd. [1851]
For the last two or three days there has been a warm, soaking, south-easterly rain, with a spongy moisture diffused through the atmosphere. The snow has disappeared, except in spots which are the ruins of high drifts, and patches far up on the hillsides. The mists rest all day long on the brows of the hills that shut in our valley. The road over which I walk every day to and from the village is in the worst state of mud and mire, soft, slippery, nasty to tread upon; while the grass beside it is scarcely better, being so oozy and so overflowed with little streams, and sometimes an absolute bog. The rivulets race along the road, adown the hills; and wherever there is a permanent brooklet, however generally insignificant, it is now swollen into import ance, and the rumble and tumble of its waterfalls may be heard a long way off. The general effect of the day and scenery is black, black, black. The streams are all as turbid as mud-puddles.
Imitators of original authors might be compared to plaster casts of marble statues, or the imitative book to a cast of the original marble.
21 February
Everybody seemed so devout
February 21st. [1858]
This morning I took my way through the Porta del Popolo, intending to spend the forenoon in the Campagna; but getting weary of the straight, uninteresting street that runs out of the gate, I turned aside from it, and soon found myself on the shores of the Tiber. It looked, as usual, like a saturated solution of yellow mud, and eddied hastily along between deep banks of clay, and over a clay bed, in which doubtless are hidden many a richer treasure than we now possess. The French once proposed to draw off the river, for the purpose of recovering all the sunken statues and relics; but the Romans made strenuous objection, on account of the increased virulence of malaria which would probably result. I saw a man on the immediate shore of the river, fifty feet or so beneath the bank on which I stood, sitting patiently, with an angling rod; and I waited to see what he might catch. Two other per sons likewise sat down to watch him; but he caught nothing so long as I stayed, and at last seemed to give it up. The banks and vicinity of the river are very bare and uninviting, as I then saw them; no shade, no verdure a rough, neglected aspect, and a peculiar shabbiness about the few houses that were visible. Farther down the stream, the dome of St. Peter's showed itself on the other side, seeming to stand on the outskirts of the city. I walked along the banks, with some expectation of finding a ferry, by which I might cross the river; but my course was soon interrupted by the wall, and I turned up a lane that led me straight back again to the Porta del Popolo. I stopped a moment, however, to see some young men pitching quoits, which they appeared to do with a good deal of skill.
I went along the Via di Ripetta, and through other streets, stepping into two or three churches, one of which was the Pantheon. . .
There are, I think, seven deep, pillared recesses around the circumference of it, each of which becomes a sufficiently capacious chapel; and alternately with these chapels there is a marble structure, like the architecture of a doorway, beneath which is the shrine of a saint; so that the whole circle of the Pantheon is filled up with the seven chapels and seven shrines. A number of persons were sitting or kneeling around; others came in while I was there, dipping their fingers in the holy water, and bending the knee, as they passed the shrines and chapels, until they reached the one which, apparently, they had selected as the particular altar for their devotions. Everybody seemed so devout, and in a frame of mind so suited to the day and place, that it really made me feel a little awkward not to be able to kneel down along with them. Unlike the worshippers in our own churches, each individual here seems to do his own individual acts of devotion, and I cannot but think it better so than to make an effort for united prayer as we do. It is my opinion that a great deal of devout and reverential feeling is kept alive in people's hearts by the Catholic mode of worship.
Soon leaving the Pantheon, a few minutes' walk towards the Corso brought me to the church of St. Ignazio, which belongs to the College of the Jesuits. It is spacious and of beautiful architecture, but not strikingly distinguished, in the latter particular, from many others; a wide and lofty nave, supported upon marble columns, between which arches open into the side aisles, and, at the junction of the nave and transept, a dome, resting on four great arches. The church seemed to be purposely somewhat darkened, so that I could not well see the details of the ornamentation, except the frescoes on the ceiling of the nave, which were very brilliant, and done in so effectual a style, that I really could not satisfy myself that some of the figures did not actually protrude from the ceiling; in short, that they were not coloured bas-reliefs, instead of frescoes. No words can express the beautiful effect, in an upholstery point of view, of this kind of decoration. Here, as at the Pantheon, there were many persons sitting silent, kneeling, or passing from shrine to shrine.
I reached home at about twelve, and, at one, set out again, with my wife, towards St. Peter's, where we meant to stay till after vespers. We walked across the city, and through the Piazza de Navona, where we stopped to look at one of Bernini's absurd fountains, of which the water makes but the smallest part a little squirt or two amid a prodigious fuss of gods and monsters. Thence we passed by the poor, battered down torso of Pasquin, and came, by devious ways, to the bridge of St. Angelo; the streets bearing pretty much their week-day aspect, many of the shops open, the market-stalls doing their usual business, and the people brisk and gay, though not indecorously so. I suppose there was hardly a man or woman who had not heard mass, confessed, and said their prayers; a thing which the prayers, I mean it would be absurd to predicate of London, New York, or any Protestant city. In however adulterated a guise, the Catholics do get a draught of devotion to slake the thirst of their souls, and methinks it must needs do them good, even if not quite so pure as if it came from better cisterns, or from the original fountain-head.
Arriving at St. Peter's shortly after two, we walked round the whole church, looking at all the pictures and most of the monuments, . . . and paused longest before Guido's "Archangel Michael overcoming Lucifer." This is surely one of the most beautiful things in the world, one of the human conceptions that are imbued most deeply with the celestial. . .
We then sat down in one of the aisles and awaited the beginning of vespers, which we supposed would take place at half-past three. Four o'clock came, however, and no vespers; and as our dinner hour is five, . . . we at last came away without hearing the vesper hymn.
This morning I took my way through the Porta del Popolo, intending to spend the forenoon in the Campagna; but getting weary of the straight, uninteresting street that runs out of the gate, I turned aside from it, and soon found myself on the shores of the Tiber. It looked, as usual, like a saturated solution of yellow mud, and eddied hastily along between deep banks of clay, and over a clay bed, in which doubtless are hidden many a richer treasure than we now possess. The French once proposed to draw off the river, for the purpose of recovering all the sunken statues and relics; but the Romans made strenuous objection, on account of the increased virulence of malaria which would probably result. I saw a man on the immediate shore of the river, fifty feet or so beneath the bank on which I stood, sitting patiently, with an angling rod; and I waited to see what he might catch. Two other per sons likewise sat down to watch him; but he caught nothing so long as I stayed, and at last seemed to give it up. The banks and vicinity of the river are very bare and uninviting, as I then saw them; no shade, no verdure a rough, neglected aspect, and a peculiar shabbiness about the few houses that were visible. Farther down the stream, the dome of St. Peter's showed itself on the other side, seeming to stand on the outskirts of the city. I walked along the banks, with some expectation of finding a ferry, by which I might cross the river; but my course was soon interrupted by the wall, and I turned up a lane that led me straight back again to the Porta del Popolo. I stopped a moment, however, to see some young men pitching quoits, which they appeared to do with a good deal of skill.
I went along the Via di Ripetta, and through other streets, stepping into two or three churches, one of which was the Pantheon. . .
There are, I think, seven deep, pillared recesses around the circumference of it, each of which becomes a sufficiently capacious chapel; and alternately with these chapels there is a marble structure, like the architecture of a doorway, beneath which is the shrine of a saint; so that the whole circle of the Pantheon is filled up with the seven chapels and seven shrines. A number of persons were sitting or kneeling around; others came in while I was there, dipping their fingers in the holy water, and bending the knee, as they passed the shrines and chapels, until they reached the one which, apparently, they had selected as the particular altar for their devotions. Everybody seemed so devout, and in a frame of mind so suited to the day and place, that it really made me feel a little awkward not to be able to kneel down along with them. Unlike the worshippers in our own churches, each individual here seems to do his own individual acts of devotion, and I cannot but think it better so than to make an effort for united prayer as we do. It is my opinion that a great deal of devout and reverential feeling is kept alive in people's hearts by the Catholic mode of worship.
Soon leaving the Pantheon, a few minutes' walk towards the Corso brought me to the church of St. Ignazio, which belongs to the College of the Jesuits. It is spacious and of beautiful architecture, but not strikingly distinguished, in the latter particular, from many others; a wide and lofty nave, supported upon marble columns, between which arches open into the side aisles, and, at the junction of the nave and transept, a dome, resting on four great arches. The church seemed to be purposely somewhat darkened, so that I could not well see the details of the ornamentation, except the frescoes on the ceiling of the nave, which were very brilliant, and done in so effectual a style, that I really could not satisfy myself that some of the figures did not actually protrude from the ceiling; in short, that they were not coloured bas-reliefs, instead of frescoes. No words can express the beautiful effect, in an upholstery point of view, of this kind of decoration. Here, as at the Pantheon, there were many persons sitting silent, kneeling, or passing from shrine to shrine.
I reached home at about twelve, and, at one, set out again, with my wife, towards St. Peter's, where we meant to stay till after vespers. We walked across the city, and through the Piazza de Navona, where we stopped to look at one of Bernini's absurd fountains, of which the water makes but the smallest part a little squirt or two amid a prodigious fuss of gods and monsters. Thence we passed by the poor, battered down torso of Pasquin, and came, by devious ways, to the bridge of St. Angelo; the streets bearing pretty much their week-day aspect, many of the shops open, the market-stalls doing their usual business, and the people brisk and gay, though not indecorously so. I suppose there was hardly a man or woman who had not heard mass, confessed, and said their prayers; a thing which the prayers, I mean it would be absurd to predicate of London, New York, or any Protestant city. In however adulterated a guise, the Catholics do get a draught of devotion to slake the thirst of their souls, and methinks it must needs do them good, even if not quite so pure as if it came from better cisterns, or from the original fountain-head.
Arriving at St. Peter's shortly after two, we walked round the whole church, looking at all the pictures and most of the monuments, . . . and paused longest before Guido's "Archangel Michael overcoming Lucifer." This is surely one of the most beautiful things in the world, one of the human conceptions that are imbued most deeply with the celestial. . .
We then sat down in one of the aisles and awaited the beginning of vespers, which we supposed would take place at half-past three. Four o'clock came, however, and no vespers; and as our dinner hour is five, . . . we at last came away without hearing the vesper hymn.
20 February
Christ disputing with the Doctors
February 20th. [1858]
This morning, after breakfast, I walked across the city, making a pretty straight course to the Pantheon, and thence to the bridge of St. Angelo, and to St. Peter's. It had been my purpose to go to the Fontana Paolina; but finding that the distance was too great, and being weighed down with a Roman lassitude, I concluded to go into St. Peter's. Here I looked at Michael Angelo's Pieta, a representation of the dead Christ in his mother's lap. Then I strolled round the great church, and find that it continues to grow upon me both in magnitude and beauty, by comparison with the many interiors of sacred edifices which I have lately seen. At times, a single, casual, momentary glimpse of its magnificence gleams upon my soul, as it were, when I happen to glance at arch opening beyond arch, and I am surprised into admiration. I have experienced that a landscape and the sky unfold the deepest beauty in a similar way; not when they are gazed at of set purpose, but when the spectator looks suddenly through a vista, among a crowd of other thoughts. Passing near the confessional for foreigners to day, I saw a Spaniard, who had just come out of the one devoted to his native tongue, taking leave of his confessor, with an affectionate reverence which as well as the benign dignity of the good father it was good to behold. . .
I returned home early, in order to go with my wife to the Barberini Palace at two o'clock. We entered through the gateway, through the Via delle Quattro Fontane, passing one or two sentinels; for there is apparently a regiment of dragoons quartered on the ground floor of the palace; and I stumbled upon a room containing their saddles, the other day, when seeking for Mr. Story's staircase. The entrance to the picture gallery is by a door on the right hand, affording us a sight of a beautiful spiral staircase, which goes circling upward from the very basement to the very summit of the palace, with a perfectly easy ascent, yet confining its sweep within a mode rate compass. We looked up through the interior of the spiral, as through a tube, from the bottom to the top. The pictures are contained in three contiguous rooms of the lower piano, and are few in number, comprising barely half a dozen which I should care to see again, though doubtless all have value in their way. One that attracted our attention was a picture of "Christ disputing with the Doctors," by Albert Diirer, in which was represented the ugliest, most evil-minded, stubborn, pragmatical, and contentious old Jew that ever lived under the law of Moses; and he and the child Jesus were arguing, not only with their tongues, but making hieroglyphics, as it were, by the motion of their hands and fingers. It is a very queer, as well as a very remarkable picture. But we passed hastily by this, and almost all others, being eager to see the two which chiefly make the collection famous Raphael's Fornarina, and Guide's portrait of Beatrice Cenci. These were found in the last of the three rooms, and as regards Beatrice Cenci, I might as well not try to say anything; for its spell' is indefinable, and the painter has wrought it in a way more like magic than anything else. . .
It is the most profoundly wrought picture in the world; no artist did it, nor could do it again. Guido may have held the brush, but he painted better than he knew. I wish, however, it were possible for some spectator, of deep sensibility, to see the picture with out knowing anything of its subject or history; for, no doubt, we bring all our knowledge of the Cenci tragedy to the interpretation of it.
Close beside Beatrice Cenci hangs the Fornarina. . .
While we were looking at these works Miss M---- unexpectedly joined us, and we went, all three together, to the Rospigliosi Palace, in the Piazza di Monte Cavallo. A porter, in cocked hat, and with a staff of office, admitted us into a spacious court before the palace, and directed us to a garden on one side, raised as much as twenty feet above the level on which we stood. The gardener opened the gate for us, and we ascended a beautiful stone staircase, with a carved balustrade, bearing many marks of time and weather. Reaching the garden-level, we found it laid out in walks, bordered with box and ornamental shrubbery, amid which were lemon trees, and one large old exotic from some distant clime. In the centre of the garden, surrounded by a stone balus trade, like that of the staircase, was a fish-pond, into which several jets of water were continually spouting; and on pedestals, that made part of the balusters, stood eight marble statues of Apollo, Cupid, nymphs, and other such sunny and beautiful people of classic mythology. There had been many more of these statues, but the rest had disappeared, and those which remained had suffered grievous damage here to a nose, there to a hand or foot, and often a fracture of the body, very imperfectly mended. There was a pleasant sunshine in the garden, and a spring-like, or rather a genial, autumnal atmosphere, though elsewhere it was a day of poisonous Roman chill.
At the end of the garden, which was of no great extent, was an edifice, bordering on the piazza, called the Casino, which, I presume, means a garden-house. The front is richly ornamented with bas - reliefs and statues in niches, as if it were a place for pleasure and enjoyment, and therefore ought to be beautiful. As we approached it, the door swung open, and we went into a large room on the ground floor, and looking up to the ceiling, beheld Guide's Aurora. The picture is as fresh and brilliant as if he had painted it with the morning sunshine which it represents. It could not be more lustrous in its hues, if he had given it the last touch an hour ago. Three or four artists were copying it at that instant, and positively their colours did not look brighter, though a great deal newer than his. The alacrity and movement, briskness and morning stir and glow of the picture are wonderful. It seems impossible to catch its glory in a copy. Several artists, as I said, were making the attempt, and we saw two other attempted copies leaning against the wall; but it was easy to detect failure in just the essential points. My memory, I believe, will be somewhat enlivened by this picture hereafter: not that I remember it very distinctly even now; but bright things leave a sheen and glimmer in the mind, like Christian's tremulous glimpse of the celestial city.
In two other rooms of the Casino, we saw pictures by Domenichino, Rubens, and other famous painters, which I do not mean to speak of, because I cared really little or nothing about them. Returning into the garden, the sunny warmth of which was most grateful after the chill air and cold pavement of the Casino, we walked round the laguna, examining the statues, and looking down at some little fishes that swarmed at the stone margin of the pool. There were two infants of the Rospigliosi family: one, a young child playing with a maid and head-servant; another, the very chubbiest and rosiest boy in the world, sleeping on its nurse's bosom. The nurse was a comely woman enough, dressed in bright colours, which fitly set off the deep hues of her Italian face. An old painter very likely would have beautified and refined the pair into a Madonna, with the child Jesus; for an artist need not go far in Italy to find a picture ready composed and tinted, needing little more than to be literally copied.
Miss M---- had gone away before us; but my wife and I, after leaving the Palazzo Rospigliosi, and on our way home, went into the church of St. Andrea, which belongs to a convent of Jesuits. I have long ago exhausted all my capacity of admiration for splendid interiors of churches, but methinks this little, little temple (it is not more than fifty or sixty feet across) has a more perfect and gem-like beauty than any other. Its shape is oval, with an oval dome, and, above that, another little dome, both of which are magnificently frescoed. Around the base of the larger dome is wreathed a flight of angels, and the smaller and upper one is encircled by a garland of cherubs cherub and angel all of pure white marble. The oval centre of the church is walled round with precious and lustrous marble of a red-veined variety, interspersed with columns and pilasters of white; and there are arches opening through this rich wall, forming chapels, which the architect seems to have striven hard to make even more gorgeous than the main body of the church. They contain beautiful pictures, not dark and faded, but glowing, as if just from the painter's hands; and the shrines are adorned with whatever is most rare, and in one of them was the great carbuncle at any rate, a bright, fiery gem as big as a turkey's egg. The pavement of the church was one star of various-coloured marble, and in the centre was a mosaic, covering, I believe, the tomb of the founder. I have not seen, nor expect to see, anything else so entirely and satisfactorily finished as this small oval church; and I only wish I could pack it in a large box, and send it home.
I must not forget, that on our way from the Barberini Palace we stopped an instant to look at the house, at the corner of the street of the four fountains, where Milton was a guest while in Rome. He seems quite a man of our own day, seen so nearly at the hither extremity of the vista through which we look back, from the epoch of railways to that of the oldest Egyptian obelisk. The house (it was then occupied by the Cardinal Barbarini) looks as if it might have been built within the present century; for mediaeval houses in Rome do not assume the aspect of antiquity; perhaps because the Italian style of architecture, or something similar, is the one more generally in vogue in most cities.
This morning, after breakfast, I walked across the city, making a pretty straight course to the Pantheon, and thence to the bridge of St. Angelo, and to St. Peter's. It had been my purpose to go to the Fontana Paolina; but finding that the distance was too great, and being weighed down with a Roman lassitude, I concluded to go into St. Peter's. Here I looked at Michael Angelo's Pieta, a representation of the dead Christ in his mother's lap. Then I strolled round the great church, and find that it continues to grow upon me both in magnitude and beauty, by comparison with the many interiors of sacred edifices which I have lately seen. At times, a single, casual, momentary glimpse of its magnificence gleams upon my soul, as it were, when I happen to glance at arch opening beyond arch, and I am surprised into admiration. I have experienced that a landscape and the sky unfold the deepest beauty in a similar way; not when they are gazed at of set purpose, but when the spectator looks suddenly through a vista, among a crowd of other thoughts. Passing near the confessional for foreigners to day, I saw a Spaniard, who had just come out of the one devoted to his native tongue, taking leave of his confessor, with an affectionate reverence which as well as the benign dignity of the good father it was good to behold. . .
I returned home early, in order to go with my wife to the Barberini Palace at two o'clock. We entered through the gateway, through the Via delle Quattro Fontane, passing one or two sentinels; for there is apparently a regiment of dragoons quartered on the ground floor of the palace; and I stumbled upon a room containing their saddles, the other day, when seeking for Mr. Story's staircase. The entrance to the picture gallery is by a door on the right hand, affording us a sight of a beautiful spiral staircase, which goes circling upward from the very basement to the very summit of the palace, with a perfectly easy ascent, yet confining its sweep within a mode rate compass. We looked up through the interior of the spiral, as through a tube, from the bottom to the top. The pictures are contained in three contiguous rooms of the lower piano, and are few in number, comprising barely half a dozen which I should care to see again, though doubtless all have value in their way. One that attracted our attention was a picture of "Christ disputing with the Doctors," by Albert Diirer, in which was represented the ugliest, most evil-minded, stubborn, pragmatical, and contentious old Jew that ever lived under the law of Moses; and he and the child Jesus were arguing, not only with their tongues, but making hieroglyphics, as it were, by the motion of their hands and fingers. It is a very queer, as well as a very remarkable picture. But we passed hastily by this, and almost all others, being eager to see the two which chiefly make the collection famous Raphael's Fornarina, and Guide's portrait of Beatrice Cenci. These were found in the last of the three rooms, and as regards Beatrice Cenci, I might as well not try to say anything; for its spell' is indefinable, and the painter has wrought it in a way more like magic than anything else. . .
It is the most profoundly wrought picture in the world; no artist did it, nor could do it again. Guido may have held the brush, but he painted better than he knew. I wish, however, it were possible for some spectator, of deep sensibility, to see the picture with out knowing anything of its subject or history; for, no doubt, we bring all our knowledge of the Cenci tragedy to the interpretation of it.
Close beside Beatrice Cenci hangs the Fornarina. . .
While we were looking at these works Miss M---- unexpectedly joined us, and we went, all three together, to the Rospigliosi Palace, in the Piazza di Monte Cavallo. A porter, in cocked hat, and with a staff of office, admitted us into a spacious court before the palace, and directed us to a garden on one side, raised as much as twenty feet above the level on which we stood. The gardener opened the gate for us, and we ascended a beautiful stone staircase, with a carved balustrade, bearing many marks of time and weather. Reaching the garden-level, we found it laid out in walks, bordered with box and ornamental shrubbery, amid which were lemon trees, and one large old exotic from some distant clime. In the centre of the garden, surrounded by a stone balus trade, like that of the staircase, was a fish-pond, into which several jets of water were continually spouting; and on pedestals, that made part of the balusters, stood eight marble statues of Apollo, Cupid, nymphs, and other such sunny and beautiful people of classic mythology. There had been many more of these statues, but the rest had disappeared, and those which remained had suffered grievous damage here to a nose, there to a hand or foot, and often a fracture of the body, very imperfectly mended. There was a pleasant sunshine in the garden, and a spring-like, or rather a genial, autumnal atmosphere, though elsewhere it was a day of poisonous Roman chill.
At the end of the garden, which was of no great extent, was an edifice, bordering on the piazza, called the Casino, which, I presume, means a garden-house. The front is richly ornamented with bas - reliefs and statues in niches, as if it were a place for pleasure and enjoyment, and therefore ought to be beautiful. As we approached it, the door swung open, and we went into a large room on the ground floor, and looking up to the ceiling, beheld Guide's Aurora. The picture is as fresh and brilliant as if he had painted it with the morning sunshine which it represents. It could not be more lustrous in its hues, if he had given it the last touch an hour ago. Three or four artists were copying it at that instant, and positively their colours did not look brighter, though a great deal newer than his. The alacrity and movement, briskness and morning stir and glow of the picture are wonderful. It seems impossible to catch its glory in a copy. Several artists, as I said, were making the attempt, and we saw two other attempted copies leaning against the wall; but it was easy to detect failure in just the essential points. My memory, I believe, will be somewhat enlivened by this picture hereafter: not that I remember it very distinctly even now; but bright things leave a sheen and glimmer in the mind, like Christian's tremulous glimpse of the celestial city.
In two other rooms of the Casino, we saw pictures by Domenichino, Rubens, and other famous painters, which I do not mean to speak of, because I cared really little or nothing about them. Returning into the garden, the sunny warmth of which was most grateful after the chill air and cold pavement of the Casino, we walked round the laguna, examining the statues, and looking down at some little fishes that swarmed at the stone margin of the pool. There were two infants of the Rospigliosi family: one, a young child playing with a maid and head-servant; another, the very chubbiest and rosiest boy in the world, sleeping on its nurse's bosom. The nurse was a comely woman enough, dressed in bright colours, which fitly set off the deep hues of her Italian face. An old painter very likely would have beautified and refined the pair into a Madonna, with the child Jesus; for an artist need not go far in Italy to find a picture ready composed and tinted, needing little more than to be literally copied.
Miss M---- had gone away before us; but my wife and I, after leaving the Palazzo Rospigliosi, and on our way home, went into the church of St. Andrea, which belongs to a convent of Jesuits. I have long ago exhausted all my capacity of admiration for splendid interiors of churches, but methinks this little, little temple (it is not more than fifty or sixty feet across) has a more perfect and gem-like beauty than any other. Its shape is oval, with an oval dome, and, above that, another little dome, both of which are magnificently frescoed. Around the base of the larger dome is wreathed a flight of angels, and the smaller and upper one is encircled by a garland of cherubs cherub and angel all of pure white marble. The oval centre of the church is walled round with precious and lustrous marble of a red-veined variety, interspersed with columns and pilasters of white; and there are arches opening through this rich wall, forming chapels, which the architect seems to have striven hard to make even more gorgeous than the main body of the church. They contain beautiful pictures, not dark and faded, but glowing, as if just from the painter's hands; and the shrines are adorned with whatever is most rare, and in one of them was the great carbuncle at any rate, a bright, fiery gem as big as a turkey's egg. The pavement of the church was one star of various-coloured marble, and in the centre was a mosaic, covering, I believe, the tomb of the founder. I have not seen, nor expect to see, anything else so entirely and satisfactorily finished as this small oval church; and I only wish I could pack it in a large box, and send it home.
I must not forget, that on our way from the Barberini Palace we stopped an instant to look at the house, at the corner of the street of the four fountains, where Milton was a guest while in Rome. He seems quite a man of our own day, seen so nearly at the hither extremity of the vista through which we look back, from the epoch of railways to that of the oldest Egyptian obelisk. The house (it was then occupied by the Cardinal Barbarini) looks as if it might have been built within the present century; for mediaeval houses in Rome do not assume the aspect of antiquity; perhaps because the Italian style of architecture, or something similar, is the one more generally in vogue in most cities.
19 February
Ash Wednesday
February 19th. [1858]
Day before yesterday, pretty early, we went to St. Peter's, expecting to see the Pope cast ashes on the heads of the cardinals, it being Ash Wednesday. On arriving, however, we found no more than the usual number of visitants and devotional people scattered through the broad interior of St. Peter's; and thence concluded that the ceremonies were to be performed in the Sistine Chapel. Accordingly, we went out of the cathedral, through the door in the left transept, and passed round the exterior, and through the vast courts of the Vatican, seeking for the chapel. We had blundered into the carriageentrance of the palace: there is an entrance from some point near the front of the church, but this we did not find. The papal guards, in the strangest antique and antic costume that was ever seen, a parti-coloured dress, striped with blue, red, and yellow, white and black, with a doublet and ruff, and trunk-breeches, and armed with halberds were on duty at the gateways, but suffered us to pass without question. Finally, we reached a large court, where some cardinals' red equipages and other carriages were drawn up, but were still at a loss as to the whereabouts of the chapel. At last an attendant kindly showed us the proper door, and led us up flights of stairs, along passages and galleries, and through halls, till at last we came to a spacious and lofty apartment adorned with frescoes: this was the Sala Regia, and the ante-chamber to the Sistine Chapel.
The attendant, meanwhile, had informed us that my wife could not be admitted to the chapel in her bonnet, and that I myself could not enter at all, for lack of a dress-coat ; so my wife took off her bonnet, and, covering her head with her black lace veil, was readily let in, while I remained in the Sala Regia, with several other gentlemen, who found themselves in the same predicament as I was. There was a wonderful variety of costume to be seen and studied among the persons around me, comprising garbs that have been elsewhere laid aside for at least three centuries the broad, plaited, double ruff, and black velvet cloak, doublet, trunk-breeches, and sword of Queen Elizabeth's time the papal guard, in their striped and parti-coloured dress as before described, looking not a little like harlequins; other soldiers in helmets and jackboots; French officers of various uniform; monks and priests ; attendants, in oldfashioned and gorgeous livery; gentlemen, some in black dress-coats and pantaloons, others in wide awake hats and tweed overcoats; and a few ladies in the prescribed cdstume of black; so that, in any other country, the, scene might have been taken for a fancy ball. By-and-by, the cardinals began to arrive, and added their splendid purple robes and red hats to make the picture still more brilliant. They were old men one or two very aged and in firm and generally men of bulk and substance, with heavy faces, fleshy about the chin. Their red hats, rimmed with gold lace, are a beautiful piece of finery, and are identical in shape with the black, looselycocked beavers worn by the Catholic ecclesiastics generally. Wolsey's hat, which I saw at the Manchester Exhibition, might have been made on the same block, but apparently was never cocked, as the fashion now is. The attendants changed the upper portions of their masters' attire, and put a little cap of scarlet cloth on each of their heads, after which the cardinals, one by one, or two by two, as they happened to arrive, went into the chapel, with a page behind each holding up his purple train. In the meanwhile, within the chapel, we heard singing and chanting; and whenever the voluminous curtains that hung before the entrance were slightly drawn apart, we outsiders glanced through, but could see only a mass of people, and beyond them still another chapel, divided from the hither one by a screen. When almost everybody had gone in, there was a stir among the guards and attendants, and a door opened, apparently communicating with the inner apartments of the Vatican. Through this door came not the Pope, as I had partly expected, but a bulky old lady in black,, with a red face, who bowed towards the spectators with an aspect of dignified complaisance as she passed towards the entrance of the chapel. I took off my hat, unlike certain English gentlemen who stood nearer, and found that I had not done amiss, for it was the Queen of Spain.
There was nothing else to be seen; so I went back through the ante-chambers (which are noble halls, richly frescoed on the walls and ceilings), endeavouring to get out through the same passages that had let me in. I had already tried to descend what I now suppose to be the Scala Santa, but had been turned back by a sentinel. After wandering to and fro a good while, I at last found myself in a long, long gallery, on each side of which were innumerable inscriptions, in Greek and Latin, on slabs of marble, built into the walls; and classic altars and tablets were ranged along, from end to end. At the extremity was a closed iron grating, from which I was retreating; but a French gentle man accosted me, with the information that the custode would admit me, if I chose, and would accompany me through the sculpture department of the Vatican. I acceded, and thus took my first view of those innumerable art-treasures, passing from one object to another, at an easy pace, pausing hardly a moment anywhere, and dismissing even the Apollo, and the Laocoon, and the Torso of Hercules, in the space of half a dozen breaths. I was well enough content to do so, in order to get a general idea of the contents of the galleries, before settling down upon individual objects. Most of the world-famous sculptures presented themselves to my eye with a kind of familiarity, through the copies and casts which I had seen; but I found the originals more different than I anticipated. The Apollo, for instance, has a face which I have never seen in any cast or copy. I must confess, however, taking such transient glimpses as I did, I was more impressed with the extent of the Vatican, and the beautiful order in which it is kept, and its great, sunny, open courts, with fountains, grass and shrubs, and the views of Rome and the Campagna from its windows more impressed with these, and with certain vastly capacious vases, and two great sarcophagi than with the statuary. Thus I went round the whole, and was dismissed through the grated barrier into the gallery of inscriptions again; and after a little more wandering, I made my way out of the palace. . .
Yesterday, I went out betimes, and strayed through some portion of ancient Rome, to the column of Trajan, to the Forum, thence along the Tarpeian Way; after which I lost myself among the intricacies of the streets, and finally came out at the bridge of St. Angelo. The first observation which a stranger is led to make, in the neighbourhood of Roman ruins, is that the inhabitants seem to be strangely addicted to the washing of clothes; for all the precincts of Trajan's Forum, and of the Roman Forum, and wherever else an iron railing affords opportunity to hang them, were whitened with sheets, and other linen and cotton, drying in the sun. It must be that washerwomen burrow among the old temples. The second observation is not quite so favourable to the cleanly character of the modern Romans; indeed, it is so very unfavourable, that I hardly know how to express it. But the fact is, that, through the forum, . . . and any where out of the commonest foot-track and road-way, you must look well to your steps If you tread beneath the triumphal arch of Titus or Constantine, you had better look downward than upward, whatever be the merit of the sculptures aloft. . .
After awhile, the visitant finds himself getting accustomed to this horrible state of things; and the associations of moral sublimity and beauty seem to throw a veil over the physical meannesses to which I allude. Perhaps there is something in the mind of the people of these countries that enables them quite to dissever small ugliness from great sublimity and beauty. They spit upon the glorious pavement of St. Peter's, and wherever else they like; they place paltry - looking, wooden confessionals beneath its sublime arches, and ornament them with cheap little coloured prints of the crucifixion; they hang tin hearts and other tinsel and trumpery at the gorgeous shrines of the saints, in chapels that are encrusted with gems, or marbles almost as precious; they put pasteboard statues of saints beneath the dome of the Pantheon; in short, they let the sublime and the ridiculous come close together, and are not in the least troubled by the proximity. It must be that their sense of the beautiful is stronger than in the Anglo-Saxon mind, and that it observes only what is fit to gratify it.
To-day, which was bright and cool, my wife and I set forth immediately after breakfast, in search of the Baths of Diocletian, and the Church of Santa Maria degl' Angeli. We went too far along the Via di Porta Pia, and after passing by two or three convents, and their high garden walls, and the villa Bonaparte on one side, and the villa Torlonia on the other, at last issued through the city gate. Before us, far away, were the Alban hills, the loftiest of which was absolutely silvered with snow and sunshine, and set in the bluest and brightest of skies. We now retraced our steps, to the Fountain of the Termini, where is a ponderous heap of stone, representing Moses striking the rock a colossal figure, not without a certain enormous might and dignity, though rather too evidently looking his awfullest. This statue was the death of its sculptor, whose heart was broken, on account of the ridicule it excited. There are many more absurd aquatic devices in Rome, how ever, and few better. We turned into the Piazza di Termini, the entrance of which is at this fountain; and after some inquiry of the French soldiers, a numerous detachment of whom appear to be quartered in the vicinity, we found our way to the portal of Santa Maria degl' Angeli. The exterior of this church has no pretensions to beauty or majesty, or, indeed, to architectural merit of any kind, or to any architecture whatever; for it looks like a confused pile of ruined brickwork, with a fa9ade resembling half the inner curve of a large oven. No one would imagine that there was a church under that enormous heap of ancient rubbish. But the door admits you into a circular vestibule, once an apartment of Diocletian's Baths, but now a portion of the nave of the church, and surrounded with monumental busts; and thence you pass into what was the central hall; now, with little change, except of detail and ornament, transformed into the body of the church. This space is so lofty, broad, and airy, that the soul forthwith swells out and magnifies itself, for the sake of filling it. It was Michel Angelo who contrived this miracle; and I feel even more grateful to him for rescuing such a noble interior from destruction, than if he had originally built it himself. In the ceiling above, you see the metal fixtures, whereon the old Romans hung their lamps; and there are eight gigantic pillars of Egyptian granite, standing as they stood of yore. There is a grand simplicity about the church, more satisfactory than elaborate ornament; but the present Pope has paved and adorned one of the large chapels of the transept in very beautiful style; and the pavement of the central part is likewise laid in rich marbles. In the choir there are several pictures, one of which was veiled, as celebrated pictures frequently are, in churches. A person, who seemed to be at his devotions, withdrew the veil for us, and we saw a martyrdom of St. Sebastian, by Domenichino, originally, I believe, painted in fresco in St. Peter's, but since transferred to canvas, and removed hither. Its place at St. Peter's is supplied by a mosaic copy. I was a good deal impressed by this picture the dying saint, amid the sorrow of those who loved him, and the fury of his enemies, looking upward, where a company of angels, and Jesus with them, are waiting to welcome him and crown him; and I felt what an influence pictures might have upon the devotional part of our nature. The nail-marks in the hands and feet of Jesus, ineffaceable, even after he had passed into bliss and glory, touched my heart with a sense of his love for us. I think this really a great picture. We walked round the church, looking at other paintings and frescoes, but saw no others that greatly interested us. In the vestibule there are monuments to Carlo Maratti and Salvator Rosa, and there is a statue of St. Bruno, by Houdon, which is pronounced to be very fine. I thought it good, but scarcely worthy of vast admiration. Houdon was the sculptor of the first statue of Washington, and of the bust whence, I suppose, all subsequent statues have been, and will be, mainly modelled.
After emerging from the church, I looked back with wonder at the stack of shapeless old brick work that hid the splendid interior. I must go there again, and breathe freely in that noble space.
Day before yesterday, pretty early, we went to St. Peter's, expecting to see the Pope cast ashes on the heads of the cardinals, it being Ash Wednesday. On arriving, however, we found no more than the usual number of visitants and devotional people scattered through the broad interior of St. Peter's; and thence concluded that the ceremonies were to be performed in the Sistine Chapel. Accordingly, we went out of the cathedral, through the door in the left transept, and passed round the exterior, and through the vast courts of the Vatican, seeking for the chapel. We had blundered into the carriageentrance of the palace: there is an entrance from some point near the front of the church, but this we did not find. The papal guards, in the strangest antique and antic costume that was ever seen, a parti-coloured dress, striped with blue, red, and yellow, white and black, with a doublet and ruff, and trunk-breeches, and armed with halberds were on duty at the gateways, but suffered us to pass without question. Finally, we reached a large court, where some cardinals' red equipages and other carriages were drawn up, but were still at a loss as to the whereabouts of the chapel. At last an attendant kindly showed us the proper door, and led us up flights of stairs, along passages and galleries, and through halls, till at last we came to a spacious and lofty apartment adorned with frescoes: this was the Sala Regia, and the ante-chamber to the Sistine Chapel.
The attendant, meanwhile, had informed us that my wife could not be admitted to the chapel in her bonnet, and that I myself could not enter at all, for lack of a dress-coat ; so my wife took off her bonnet, and, covering her head with her black lace veil, was readily let in, while I remained in the Sala Regia, with several other gentlemen, who found themselves in the same predicament as I was. There was a wonderful variety of costume to be seen and studied among the persons around me, comprising garbs that have been elsewhere laid aside for at least three centuries the broad, plaited, double ruff, and black velvet cloak, doublet, trunk-breeches, and sword of Queen Elizabeth's time the papal guard, in their striped and parti-coloured dress as before described, looking not a little like harlequins; other soldiers in helmets and jackboots; French officers of various uniform; monks and priests ; attendants, in oldfashioned and gorgeous livery; gentlemen, some in black dress-coats and pantaloons, others in wide awake hats and tweed overcoats; and a few ladies in the prescribed cdstume of black; so that, in any other country, the, scene might have been taken for a fancy ball. By-and-by, the cardinals began to arrive, and added their splendid purple robes and red hats to make the picture still more brilliant. They were old men one or two very aged and in firm and generally men of bulk and substance, with heavy faces, fleshy about the chin. Their red hats, rimmed with gold lace, are a beautiful piece of finery, and are identical in shape with the black, looselycocked beavers worn by the Catholic ecclesiastics generally. Wolsey's hat, which I saw at the Manchester Exhibition, might have been made on the same block, but apparently was never cocked, as the fashion now is. The attendants changed the upper portions of their masters' attire, and put a little cap of scarlet cloth on each of their heads, after which the cardinals, one by one, or two by two, as they happened to arrive, went into the chapel, with a page behind each holding up his purple train. In the meanwhile, within the chapel, we heard singing and chanting; and whenever the voluminous curtains that hung before the entrance were slightly drawn apart, we outsiders glanced through, but could see only a mass of people, and beyond them still another chapel, divided from the hither one by a screen. When almost everybody had gone in, there was a stir among the guards and attendants, and a door opened, apparently communicating with the inner apartments of the Vatican. Through this door came not the Pope, as I had partly expected, but a bulky old lady in black,, with a red face, who bowed towards the spectators with an aspect of dignified complaisance as she passed towards the entrance of the chapel. I took off my hat, unlike certain English gentlemen who stood nearer, and found that I had not done amiss, for it was the Queen of Spain.
There was nothing else to be seen; so I went back through the ante-chambers (which are noble halls, richly frescoed on the walls and ceilings), endeavouring to get out through the same passages that had let me in. I had already tried to descend what I now suppose to be the Scala Santa, but had been turned back by a sentinel. After wandering to and fro a good while, I at last found myself in a long, long gallery, on each side of which were innumerable inscriptions, in Greek and Latin, on slabs of marble, built into the walls; and classic altars and tablets were ranged along, from end to end. At the extremity was a closed iron grating, from which I was retreating; but a French gentle man accosted me, with the information that the custode would admit me, if I chose, and would accompany me through the sculpture department of the Vatican. I acceded, and thus took my first view of those innumerable art-treasures, passing from one object to another, at an easy pace, pausing hardly a moment anywhere, and dismissing even the Apollo, and the Laocoon, and the Torso of Hercules, in the space of half a dozen breaths. I was well enough content to do so, in order to get a general idea of the contents of the galleries, before settling down upon individual objects. Most of the world-famous sculptures presented themselves to my eye with a kind of familiarity, through the copies and casts which I had seen; but I found the originals more different than I anticipated. The Apollo, for instance, has a face which I have never seen in any cast or copy. I must confess, however, taking such transient glimpses as I did, I was more impressed with the extent of the Vatican, and the beautiful order in which it is kept, and its great, sunny, open courts, with fountains, grass and shrubs, and the views of Rome and the Campagna from its windows more impressed with these, and with certain vastly capacious vases, and two great sarcophagi than with the statuary. Thus I went round the whole, and was dismissed through the grated barrier into the gallery of inscriptions again; and after a little more wandering, I made my way out of the palace. . .
Yesterday, I went out betimes, and strayed through some portion of ancient Rome, to the column of Trajan, to the Forum, thence along the Tarpeian Way; after which I lost myself among the intricacies of the streets, and finally came out at the bridge of St. Angelo. The first observation which a stranger is led to make, in the neighbourhood of Roman ruins, is that the inhabitants seem to be strangely addicted to the washing of clothes; for all the precincts of Trajan's Forum, and of the Roman Forum, and wherever else an iron railing affords opportunity to hang them, were whitened with sheets, and other linen and cotton, drying in the sun. It must be that washerwomen burrow among the old temples. The second observation is not quite so favourable to the cleanly character of the modern Romans; indeed, it is so very unfavourable, that I hardly know how to express it. But the fact is, that, through the forum, . . . and any where out of the commonest foot-track and road-way, you must look well to your steps If you tread beneath the triumphal arch of Titus or Constantine, you had better look downward than upward, whatever be the merit of the sculptures aloft. . .
After awhile, the visitant finds himself getting accustomed to this horrible state of things; and the associations of moral sublimity and beauty seem to throw a veil over the physical meannesses to which I allude. Perhaps there is something in the mind of the people of these countries that enables them quite to dissever small ugliness from great sublimity and beauty. They spit upon the glorious pavement of St. Peter's, and wherever else they like; they place paltry - looking, wooden confessionals beneath its sublime arches, and ornament them with cheap little coloured prints of the crucifixion; they hang tin hearts and other tinsel and trumpery at the gorgeous shrines of the saints, in chapels that are encrusted with gems, or marbles almost as precious; they put pasteboard statues of saints beneath the dome of the Pantheon; in short, they let the sublime and the ridiculous come close together, and are not in the least troubled by the proximity. It must be that their sense of the beautiful is stronger than in the Anglo-Saxon mind, and that it observes only what is fit to gratify it.
To-day, which was bright and cool, my wife and I set forth immediately after breakfast, in search of the Baths of Diocletian, and the Church of Santa Maria degl' Angeli. We went too far along the Via di Porta Pia, and after passing by two or three convents, and their high garden walls, and the villa Bonaparte on one side, and the villa Torlonia on the other, at last issued through the city gate. Before us, far away, were the Alban hills, the loftiest of which was absolutely silvered with snow and sunshine, and set in the bluest and brightest of skies. We now retraced our steps, to the Fountain of the Termini, where is a ponderous heap of stone, representing Moses striking the rock a colossal figure, not without a certain enormous might and dignity, though rather too evidently looking his awfullest. This statue was the death of its sculptor, whose heart was broken, on account of the ridicule it excited. There are many more absurd aquatic devices in Rome, how ever, and few better. We turned into the Piazza di Termini, the entrance of which is at this fountain; and after some inquiry of the French soldiers, a numerous detachment of whom appear to be quartered in the vicinity, we found our way to the portal of Santa Maria degl' Angeli. The exterior of this church has no pretensions to beauty or majesty, or, indeed, to architectural merit of any kind, or to any architecture whatever; for it looks like a confused pile of ruined brickwork, with a fa9ade resembling half the inner curve of a large oven. No one would imagine that there was a church under that enormous heap of ancient rubbish. But the door admits you into a circular vestibule, once an apartment of Diocletian's Baths, but now a portion of the nave of the church, and surrounded with monumental busts; and thence you pass into what was the central hall; now, with little change, except of detail and ornament, transformed into the body of the church. This space is so lofty, broad, and airy, that the soul forthwith swells out and magnifies itself, for the sake of filling it. It was Michel Angelo who contrived this miracle; and I feel even more grateful to him for rescuing such a noble interior from destruction, than if he had originally built it himself. In the ceiling above, you see the metal fixtures, whereon the old Romans hung their lamps; and there are eight gigantic pillars of Egyptian granite, standing as they stood of yore. There is a grand simplicity about the church, more satisfactory than elaborate ornament; but the present Pope has paved and adorned one of the large chapels of the transept in very beautiful style; and the pavement of the central part is likewise laid in rich marbles. In the choir there are several pictures, one of which was veiled, as celebrated pictures frequently are, in churches. A person, who seemed to be at his devotions, withdrew the veil for us, and we saw a martyrdom of St. Sebastian, by Domenichino, originally, I believe, painted in fresco in St. Peter's, but since transferred to canvas, and removed hither. Its place at St. Peter's is supplied by a mosaic copy. I was a good deal impressed by this picture the dying saint, amid the sorrow of those who loved him, and the fury of his enemies, looking upward, where a company of angels, and Jesus with them, are waiting to welcome him and crown him; and I felt what an influence pictures might have upon the devotional part of our nature. The nail-marks in the hands and feet of Jesus, ineffaceable, even after he had passed into bliss and glory, touched my heart with a sense of his love for us. I think this really a great picture. We walked round the church, looking at other paintings and frescoes, but saw no others that greatly interested us. In the vestibule there are monuments to Carlo Maratti and Salvator Rosa, and there is a statue of St. Bruno, by Houdon, which is pronounced to be very fine. I thought it good, but scarcely worthy of vast admiration. Houdon was the sculptor of the first statue of Washington, and of the bust whence, I suppose, all subsequent statues have been, and will be, mainly modelled.
After emerging from the church, I looked back with wonder at the stack of shapeless old brick work that hid the splendid interior. I must go there again, and breathe freely in that noble space.
18 February
but in America a mossy tree-trunk is not a pleasant object
February 18th. [1860] ....
This present month has been somewhat less dismal than the preceding ones; there have been some sunny and breezy days when there was life in the air, affording something like enjoyment in a walk, especially when the ground was frozen. It is agreeable to see the fields still green through a partial covering of snow; the trunks and branches of the leafless trees, moreover, have a verdant aspect, very unlike that of American trees in winter, for they are covered with a delicate green moss, which is not so observable in summer. Often, too, there is a twine of green ivy up and down the trunk. The other day, as J---- and I were walking to Whitnash, an elm was felled right across our path, and I was much struck by this verdant coating of moss over all its surface the moss plants too minute to be seen individually, but making the whole tree green. It has a pleasant effect here, where it is the natural aspect of trees in general; but in America a mossy tree-trunk is not a pleasant object, because it is associated with damp, low, unwholesome situations. The lack of foliage gives many new peeps and vistas, hereabouts, which I never saw in summer.
This present month has been somewhat less dismal than the preceding ones; there have been some sunny and breezy days when there was life in the air, affording something like enjoyment in a walk, especially when the ground was frozen. It is agreeable to see the fields still green through a partial covering of snow; the trunks and branches of the leafless trees, moreover, have a verdant aspect, very unlike that of American trees in winter, for they are covered with a delicate green moss, which is not so observable in summer. Often, too, there is a twine of green ivy up and down the trunk. The other day, as J---- and I were walking to Whitnash, an elm was felled right across our path, and I was much struck by this verdant coating of moss over all its surface the moss plants too minute to be seen individually, but making the whole tree green. It has a pleasant effect here, where it is the natural aspect of trees in general; but in America a mossy tree-trunk is not a pleasant object, because it is associated with damp, low, unwholesome situations. The lack of foliage gives many new peeps and vistas, hereabouts, which I never saw in summer.
The little streams are the most interesting objects at this time
February 18th. [1851]
A walk, yesterday afternoon, with the children; a bright, and rather cold day, breezy from the north and westward. There has been a good deal of soaking rain lately, and it has, in great measure, cleared hills and plains of snow, only it may be seen lying in spots, and on each side of stone walls, in a pretty broad streak. The grass is brown and withered, and yet, scattered all amongst it, on close inspection, one finds a greenness, little shrubs that have kept green under all the severity of winter, and seem to need no change to fit them for midsummer. In the woods we see stones covered with moss that retains likewise a most lively green. Where the trees are dense, the snow still lies under them. On the sides of the mountains, some miles off, the black pines and the white snow among them together produce a gray effect. The little streams are the most interesting objects at this time; some that have an existence only at this season, Mississippis of the moment, yet glide and tumble along as if they were perennial. The familiar ones seem strange by their breadth and volume; their little waterfalls set off by glaciers on a small scale. The sun has by this time force enough to make sheltered nooks in the angles of woods, or on banks, warm and comfortable. The lake is still of adamantine substance, but all round the borders there is a watery margin, altogether strewed or covered with thin and broken ice, so that I could not venture on it with the children. A chickadee was calling in the woods yesterday, the only small bird I have taken note of yet; but crows have been cawing in the woods for a week past, though not in very great numbers.
A walk, yesterday afternoon, with the children; a bright, and rather cold day, breezy from the north and westward. There has been a good deal of soaking rain lately, and it has, in great measure, cleared hills and plains of snow, only it may be seen lying in spots, and on each side of stone walls, in a pretty broad streak. The grass is brown and withered, and yet, scattered all amongst it, on close inspection, one finds a greenness, little shrubs that have kept green under all the severity of winter, and seem to need no change to fit them for midsummer. In the woods we see stones covered with moss that retains likewise a most lively green. Where the trees are dense, the snow still lies under them. On the sides of the mountains, some miles off, the black pines and the white snow among them together produce a gray effect. The little streams are the most interesting objects at this time; some that have an existence only at this season, Mississippis of the moment, yet glide and tumble along as if they were perennial. The familiar ones seem strange by their breadth and volume; their little waterfalls set off by glaciers on a small scale. The sun has by this time force enough to make sheltered nooks in the angles of woods, or on banks, warm and comfortable. The lake is still of adamantine substance, but all round the borders there is a watery margin, altogether strewed or covered with thin and broken ice, so that I could not venture on it with the children. A chickadee was calling in the woods yesterday, the only small bird I have taken note of yet; but crows have been cawing in the woods for a week past, though not in very great numbers.
17 February
I think I could make quite a brilliant sketch of it
February 17th. [1858]
Yesterday morning was perfectly sunny, and we went out betimes to see churches; going first to the Capuchins', close by the Piazza Barberini.
We next went to the Trinita di Monti, which stands at the head of the steps, leading, in several flights, from the Piazza, di Spagna. It is now connected with a convent of French nuns, and when we rang at a side door, one of the sisterhood answered the summons, and admitted us into the Church. This, like that of the Capuchins, had a vaulted roof over the nave, and no side aisles, but rows of chapels instead. Unlike the Capuchins', which was filthy, and really disgraceful to behold, this church was most exquisitely neat, as women alone would have thought it worth while to keep it. It is not a very splendid church not rich in gorgeous marbles but pleasant to be in, if it were only for the sake of its godly purity. There was only one person in the nave a young girl, who sat perfectly still, with her face towards the altar, as long as we stayed. Between the nave and the rest of the church there is a high iron railing, and on the other side of it were two kneeling figures in black so motionless, that I at first thought them statues; but they proved to be two nuns at their devotions ; and others of the sisterhood came by-and-by, and joined them. Nuns at least these nuns, who are French, and probably ladies of refinement, having the education of young girls in charge are far pleasanter objects to see and think about than monks; the odour of sanctity, in the latter, not being an agreeable fragrance. But these holy sisters, with their black crape and white muslin, looked really pure and unspotted from the world.
On the iron railing above mentioned was the representation of a golden heart, pierced with arrows; for these are nuns of the Sacred Heart. In the various chapels there are several paintings in fresco, some by Daniele da Volterra; and one of them the " Descent from the Cross" has been pronounced the third greatest picture in the world. I never should have had the slighest suspicion that it was a great picture at all so worn and faded it looks, and so hard; so difficult to be seen, and so undelightful when one does see it.
From the Trinita we went to the Santa Maria del Popolo, a church built on a spot where Nero is said to have been buried, and which was afterwards made horrible by devilish phantoms. It now being past twelve, and all the churches closing from twelve till two, we had not time to pay much attention to the frescoes, oil-pictures, and statues, by Raphael and other famous men, which are to be seen here. I remember dimly the magnificent chapel of the Chigi family, and little else, for we stayed but a short time; and went next to the sculptor's studio, where I had another sitting for my bust. After I had been moulded for about an hour, we turned homeward; but my wife concluded to hire a balcony for this last afternoon and evening of the Carnival, and she took possession of it, while I went home to send to her Miss S---- and the two elder children. For my part, I took R---- , and walked, by way of the Pincian, to the Piazza del Popolo, and thence along the Corso, where, by this time, the warfare of bouquets and confetti raged pretty fiercely. The sky being blue and the sun bright, the scene looked much gayer and brisker than I had before found it; and I can conceive of its being rather agreeable than other wise, up to the age of twenty. We got several volleys of confetti. R---- received a bouquet and a sugar plum, and I a resounding hit from something that looked more like a cabbage than a flower. Little as I have enjoyed the Carnival, I think I could make quite a brilliant sketch of it, without very widely departing from truth.
Yesterday morning was perfectly sunny, and we went out betimes to see churches; going first to the Capuchins', close by the Piazza Barberini.
We next went to the Trinita di Monti, which stands at the head of the steps, leading, in several flights, from the Piazza, di Spagna. It is now connected with a convent of French nuns, and when we rang at a side door, one of the sisterhood answered the summons, and admitted us into the Church. This, like that of the Capuchins, had a vaulted roof over the nave, and no side aisles, but rows of chapels instead. Unlike the Capuchins', which was filthy, and really disgraceful to behold, this church was most exquisitely neat, as women alone would have thought it worth while to keep it. It is not a very splendid church not rich in gorgeous marbles but pleasant to be in, if it were only for the sake of its godly purity. There was only one person in the nave a young girl, who sat perfectly still, with her face towards the altar, as long as we stayed. Between the nave and the rest of the church there is a high iron railing, and on the other side of it were two kneeling figures in black so motionless, that I at first thought them statues; but they proved to be two nuns at their devotions ; and others of the sisterhood came by-and-by, and joined them. Nuns at least these nuns, who are French, and probably ladies of refinement, having the education of young girls in charge are far pleasanter objects to see and think about than monks; the odour of sanctity, in the latter, not being an agreeable fragrance. But these holy sisters, with their black crape and white muslin, looked really pure and unspotted from the world.
On the iron railing above mentioned was the representation of a golden heart, pierced with arrows; for these are nuns of the Sacred Heart. In the various chapels there are several paintings in fresco, some by Daniele da Volterra; and one of them the " Descent from the Cross" has been pronounced the third greatest picture in the world. I never should have had the slighest suspicion that it was a great picture at all so worn and faded it looks, and so hard; so difficult to be seen, and so undelightful when one does see it.
From the Trinita we went to the Santa Maria del Popolo, a church built on a spot where Nero is said to have been buried, and which was afterwards made horrible by devilish phantoms. It now being past twelve, and all the churches closing from twelve till two, we had not time to pay much attention to the frescoes, oil-pictures, and statues, by Raphael and other famous men, which are to be seen here. I remember dimly the magnificent chapel of the Chigi family, and little else, for we stayed but a short time; and went next to the sculptor's studio, where I had another sitting for my bust. After I had been moulded for about an hour, we turned homeward; but my wife concluded to hire a balcony for this last afternoon and evening of the Carnival, and she took possession of it, while I went home to send to her Miss S---- and the two elder children. For my part, I took R---- , and walked, by way of the Pincian, to the Piazza del Popolo, and thence along the Corso, where, by this time, the warfare of bouquets and confetti raged pretty fiercely. The sky being blue and the sun bright, the scene looked much gayer and brisker than I had before found it; and I can conceive of its being rather agreeable than other wise, up to the age of twenty. We got several volleys of confetti. R---- received a bouquet and a sugar plum, and I a resounding hit from something that looked more like a cabbage than a flower. Little as I have enjoyed the Carnival, I think I could make quite a brilliant sketch of it, without very widely departing from truth.
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