Italian Days and Ways

by Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

There was their Dacian mother—he, their sire,

Butchered to make a Roman holiday."

We lingered long beside this impressive marble, and then turned to the Resting Satyr of Praxiteles, made familiar to us all by Hawthorne's description. You remember that Donatello so strongly resembled the statue that Miriam begged him to shake aside his thick curls and allow her to see whether he had the Faun's leaf-shaped pointed ears. This he declined to do, saying, as he danced around the statue of the Dying Gladiator, "I shall be like a wolf of the Apennines if you touch my ears ever so softly. None of my race could endure it."

If, as Hawthorne says, "only a sculptor of the finest imagination, the most delicate taste, the sweetest feeling, and the rarest artistic skill—in a word, a sculptor and a poet too—could have first dreamed of a faun in this guise, and then have succeeded in imprisoning the sportive and frisky thing in marble," surely none but a novelist and a poet too could have presented on the page of romance this creature of the woods and hills, half man, half animal, the sensitive, emotional, whimsical, and altogether fascinating Donatello.

The statues of the Faun, the Dying Gladiator, and the beautiful youth Antinous are all among the treasures of which Hadrian's Villa was despoiled, as was also the exquisite mosaic of doves on a fountain basin, called Pliny's Doves, because, in speaking of the perfection to which the mosaic art had attained, Pliny described a wonderful mosaic in which one dove is drinking and casting her shadow in the water while others are pluming themselves on the edge of the vase. While in the room of the Doves we paid our respects to the Capitoline Venus, which, although considered a perfect type of feminine grace, failed to appeal to us as did the Venus della Coscia in the Naples Museum, and is, of course, not to be mentioned in the same breath with the lovely armless lady of the Louvre.

After spending two hours in the museum, Zelphine said that she had seen enough for one day, and that her mind refused to grasp anything more. We usually find that this is quite time enough to spend in any picture-gallery or museum, and I am inclined to think that people who stay longer wear themselves out to no purpose.

Angela suggested that as we were so near the Church of Ara Cœli, it would be well to go to see the wonderful Bambino. Ludovico prepared us for some disappointment by telling us that the most interesting time to visit this church is during the Epiphany, when the Bambino lies in a manger and little children come here and recite poems in its honor. But as a Christmas visit was only a remote possibility, we concluded to climb up to this church, hung like an eagle's nest upon the precipitous rock, and well named the "Altar of Heaven." Zelphine quite forgot her fatigue when she read in her guide-book that it was in this church that Edward Gibbon first conceived the idea of writing his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," while Ludovico, by way of giving us something cheerful to think of, told us that at the foot of the steps Tiberius Gracchus and Cola di Rienzi were both slain by their nobles. There is a statue of Rienzi in the piazza below, and above is that wonderful group of the horse-taming Dioscuri, your copies of which have always interested me so much. A curious and most unromantic association with these steps is that here the monks of the Ara Cœli, who were famous dentists, used to perform their hideous but useful operations, out in the open, before the eyes of the passer-by. It appears that the Romans of this time were denied the alleviating circumstance of enduring their miseries in private. Zelphine, who has a pleasant habit of counting her blessings, finds just here another reason for offering up thanks that she lives in this year of grace 1904 rather than in that ancient and less comfortable period.

As the steps are many and the sun was hot we were warm and out of breath when we reached the top, and were glad of the coolness and peace that we found inside. I gave Angela an admonitory look before the Bambino was displayed, fearing that she might do or say something to hurt Ludovico's feelings. As it happened, however, he seemed to care even less about it than we did, although he told us, with his usual simplicity and directness, that "il Santissimo Bambino," as he calls it, is carefully guarded, not on account of its rich clothing and jewels, but because a woman once formed the design of appropriating to herself the baby image and its benefits. "She had another bambino prepared, of the same size and general appearance as this," said Ludovico, looking at the fresh-colored, richly dressed doll. "She pretended to be ill, and so got possession of the Santissimo. She dressed the false image in the garments of the true Bambino, and sent it back to Ara Cœli. That night the most remarkable thing happened: the monks were awakened by a wild ringing of bells at the west door of the church, and what should they find there but the little, shivering, naked figure of the Santissimo Bambino, in the wind and rain! Of course, the false bambino was sent back to its owner, and now the Santissimo is never taken away from the church unattended. This is easy enough, as the Bambino has its own carriage, coachman, and footman, and makes its visits to the sick in great state."

I glanced at Angela. Amusement and incredulity were all too plainly visible on that fair young face, so I hastened to suggest that we look at some of the beautiful tombs. There are several by Donatello and the Cosmati so exquisitely sculptured that they alone repay a visit to the church. From the terrace outside we looked down on the Forum below us, where to-day a great mass of blue iris flowers were waving and dancing in the breeze under the very shadow of the three columns of the Temple of Castor and Pollux.

Ludovico suggested our going to the Tarpeian Rock, which is part of this precipitous hill, if we were not too tired. No, we were not too tired; the many steps of the Ara Cœli seemed to have brought positive refreshment to Zelphine, who announced herself ready for a new start, and so, through delightful winding ways known only to the initiated, Ludovico led us to the garden from which we looked down upon the Tarpeian Rock.