The cloister of the convent, from which ladies are excluded, blooms with orange and lemon trees. There are only six Hieronymite brethren here now. The convent was at one time purchased by the ex-king Ferdinand of Spain, who intended turning it into a villa for himself.
A short distance beyond S. Alessio is a sort of little square, adorned with trophied memorials of the knights of Malta, and occupying the site of the laurel grove (Armilustrum) which contained the tomb of Tatius. Here is the entrance of the Priorato garden, where is the famous View of St. Peter's through the Keyhole, admired by crowds of people on Ash-Wednesday, when the "stazione" is held at the neighbouring churches. Entering the garden (which can always be visited) we find ourselves in a beautiful avenue of old bay-trees framing the distant St. Peter's. A terrace overhanging the Tiber has an enchanting view over the river and town. In the garden is an old pepper-tree, and in a little court a picturesque palm-tree and well. From hence we can enter the church, sometimes called S. Basilio, sometimes Sta. Maria Aventina, an ancient building modernized by Cardinal Rezzonico in 1765, from the very indifferent designs of Piranesi. It contains an interesting collection of tombs, most of them belonging to the Knights of Malta; that of Bishop Spinelli is an ancient marble sarcophagus, with a relief of Minerva and the Muses. A richly sculptured ancient altar contains relics of saints found beneath the pavement of the church.
The Priorato garden, so beautiful and attractive in itself, has an additional interest as that in which the famous Hildebrand (Gregory VII., 1073—80) was brought up as a boy, under the care of his uncle, who was abbot of the adjoining monastery. A massive cornice in these grounds is one of the few architectural fragments of ancient Rome existing on the Aventine. It may perhaps have belonged to the smaller temple of Diana in which Caius Gracchus took refuge, and in escaping from which, down the steep hillside, he sprained his ankle, and so was taken by his pursuers. Some buried houses were discovered and some precious vases brought to light, when Urban VIII. built the stately buttress walls which now support the hillside beyond the Priorato.
The cliff below these convents is the supposed site of the cave of the giant Cacus, described by Virgil.
"At specus et Caci detecta apparuit ingens
Regia, et umbrosæ penitus patuere cavernæ;
Non secus, ac si quâ penitus vi terra dehiscens
Infernas reseret sedes, et regna recludat
Pallida, dîs invisa; superque immane barathrum
Cernatur, trepidentque immisso lumine manes."
Æneid, lib. viii.
Hercules brought the oxen of Geryon to pasture in the valley between the Aventine and Palatine. Cacus issuing from his cave while their owner was asleep, carried off four of the bulls, dragging them up the steep side of the hill by their tails, that Hercules might be deceived by their foot-prints being reversed. Then he concealed them in his cavern, and barred the entrance with a rock. Hercules sought the stolen oxen everywhere, and when he could not find them, he was going away with the remainder. But as he drove them along the valley near the Tiber one of his oxen lowed, and when the stolen oxen in the cave heard that, they answered; and Hercules, after rushing three times round the Aventine boiling with fury, shattered the stone which guarded the entrance of the cave with a mass of rock, and, though the giant vomited forth smoke and flames against him, he strangled him in his arms. Thus runs the legend, which is explained by Ampère.
"Cacus habite une caverne de l'Aventin, montagne en tout temps mal famée, montagne anciennement hérissée de rochers et couverte de forêts, dont la forêt Nœvia, longtemps elle-même un repaire de bandits, était une dépendance et fut un reste qui subsista dans les temps historiques. Ce Cacus était sans doute un brigand célèbre, dangereux pour les pâtres du voisinage dont il volait les troupeaux quand ils allaient paître dans les prés situés au bord du Tibre et boire l'eau du fleuve. Les hauts faits de Cacus lui avaient donné cette célébrité qui, parmi les paysans romains, s'attache encore à ses pareils, et surtout le stratagème employé par lui probablement plus d'une fois pour dérouter les bouviers des environs, en emmenant les animaux qu'il dérobait, à manière de cacher la direction de leurs pas. La caverne du bandit avait été découverte et forcée par quelque pâtre courageux, qui y avait pénétré vaillamment, malgré la terreur que ce lieu souterrain et formidable inspirait, y avait surpris le voleur et l'avait étranglé.
"Tel était, je crois, le récit primitif où il n'était pas plus question d'Hercule que de Vulcain, et dans lequel Cacus n'était pas mis à mort par un demi-dieu, mais par un certain Recaranus, pâtre vigoureux et de grande taille. A ces récits de bergers, qui allaient toujours exagérant les horreurs de l'antre de Cacus et la résistance désespérée de celui-ci, vinrent se mêler peu à peu des circonstances merveilleuses."—Hist. Rom. i. 170.
We must retrace our steps, as far as the summit of the hill towards the Palatine, and then turn to the right in order to reach the ugly obscure-looking Church of Sta. Prisca, founded by Pope Eutychianus in A.D. 280, but entirely modernised by Cardinal Giustiniani from designs of Carlo Lombardi, who encased its fine granite columns in miserable stucco pilasters. Over the high altar is a picture by Passignano of the baptism of the saint, which is said to have taken place in the ancient crypt beneath the church, where an inverted Corinthian capital,—a relic of the temple of Diana which once occupied this site,—is shown as the font in which Sta. Prisca was baptized by St. Peter.
Opening from the right aisle is a kind of terraced loggia with a peculiar and beautiful view. In the adjoining vineyard are three arches of an aqueduct.