Walks in Rome

by Augustus J. C. Hare

"According to the old tradition, this church stands on the site of the house of Aquila and Priscilla, where St. Peter lodged when at Rome, and who are the same mentioned by St. Paul as tent-makers; and here is shown the font, from which, according to the same tradition, St. Peter baptized the first Roman converts to Christianity. The altar-piece represents the baptism of Sta. Prisca, whose remains being afterwards placed in the church, it has since borne her name. According to the legend, she was a Roman virgin of illustrious birth, who, at the age of thirteen, was exposed in the amphitheatre. A fierce lion was let loose upon her, but her youth and innocence disarmed the fury of the savage beast, which, instead of tearing her to pieces, humbly licked her feet;—to the great consolation of Christians, and the confusion of idolaters. Being led back to prison, she was there beheaded. Sometimes she is represented with a lion, sometimes with an eagle, because it is related that an eagle watched by her body till it was laid in the grave; for thus, says the story, was virgin innocence honoured by kingly bird as well as by kingly beast."—Mrs. Jameson.

Opposite the door of this church is the entrance of the Vigna dei Gesuiti, a wild and beautiful vineyard occupying the greater part of this deserted hill, and extending as far as the Porta S. Paolo and the pyramid of Caius Cestius. Several farm-houses are scattered amongst the vines and fruit trees. There are beautiful views towards the Alban mountains, and to the Pseudo-Aventine with its fortress-like convents. The ground is littered with fragments of marbles and alabaster, which lie unheeded among the vegetables, relics of unknown edifices which once existed here. Just where the path in the vineyard descends a slight declivity towards S. Paolo, are the finest existing remains of the Walls of Servius Tullius,[190] formed of large quadrilateral blocks of tufa, laid alternately long and cross-ways, as in the Etruscan buildings. The spot is beautiful, and overgrown by a luxuriance of wild mignonette and other flowers in the late spring.

Descending to the valley beneath Sta. Prisca, and crossing the lane which leads from the Via Appia to the Porta S. Paolo, we reach, on the side of the Pseudo-Aventine, the Church of S. Sabba, which is supposed to mark the site of the Porta Randusculana of the walls of Servius Tullius. Its position is very striking, and its portico, built in A.D. 1200, is picturesque and curious.

This church is of unknown origin, but is known to have existed in the time of St. Gregory the Great, and to have been one of the fourteen privileged abbacies of Rome. Its patron saint was St. Sabbas, an abbot of Cappadocia, who died at Jerusalem in A.D. 532.

"The record of the artist Jacobus dei Cosmati, dated the third year of Innocent III. (1205), on the lintel of the mosaic-inlaid doorway, justifies us in classing this church among monuments of the thirteenth century. From its origin a Greek monastery, it was assigned by Lucius II., in 1141, to the Benedictines of the Cluny rule. An epigraph near the sacristy mentions a rebuilding either of the cloisters or church, in 1325, by an abbot Joannes; and in 1465 the roof was renewed in woodwork by a cardinal, the nephew of Pius II.

"In 1512 the Cistercians of Clairvaux were located here by Julius II.; and some years later these buildings were given to the Germanic-Hungarian College. Amidst gardens and vineyards, approached by a solitary lane between hedgerows, this now deserted sanctuary has a certain affecting character in its forlornness. Save on Thursdays, when the German students are brought hither by their Jesuit professors to enliven the solitude by their sports and converse, we might never succeed in finding entrance to this quiet retreat of the monks of old.

"Within the arched porch, through which we pass into an outer court, we read an inscription telling that here stood the house and oratory (called cella nova) of Sta. Sylvia, mother of St. Gregory the Great, whence the pious matron used daily to send a porridge of legumes to her son, while he inhabited his monastery on the Clivus Scauri, or northern ascent of the Cœlian. Within that court formerly stood the cloistral buildings, of which little now remains. The façade is remarkable for its atrium in two stories: the upper with a pillared arcade, probably of the fifteenth century; the lower formerly supported by six porphyry columns, removed by Pius VI. to adorn the Vatican library, where they still stand. The porphyry statuettes of two emperors embracing, supposed either an emblem of the concord between the East and West, or the intended portraits of the co-reigning Constantine II. and Constans—a curious example of sculpture in its deep decline, and probably imported by Greek monks from Constantinople—project from two of those ancient columns."—Hemans' Mediæval Art.

The interior of St. Sabba is in the basilica form. It retains some fragments of inlaid pavements, some handsome inlaid marble panels on either side of the high altar, and an ancient sarcophagus. The tribune has rude paintings of the fourteenth century—the Saviour between St. Andrew and St. Sabbas the Abbot; and below the Crucifixion, the Madonna and the twelve Apostles. Beneath the tribune is a crypt,—and over its altar a beautifully ornamented disk with a Greek cross in the centre.

Behind St. Sabbas is another delightful vineyard, but it is difficult to gain admittance. Here Flaminius Vacca describes the discovery of a mysterious chamber without door or window, whose pavement was of agate and cornelian, and whose walls were plated with gilt copper; but of this nothing remains.[191]

To reach the remaining church of the Aventine, we have to turn to the Via Appia, and then follow the lane which leads up the hillside from the Baths of Caracalla to the Church of Sta. Balbina, whose picturesque red brick tower forms so conspicuous a feature, as seen against the long soft lines of the flat Campagna, in so many Roman views. It was erected in memory of Sta. Balbina, a virgin martyr (buried in Sta. Maria in Domenica), who suffered under Hadrian, A.D. 132. It contains the remains of an altar erected by Cardinal Barbo, in the old basilica of St. Peter's, a splendid ancient throne of marble inlaid with mosaics, and a fine tomb of Stefano Sordi, supporting a recumbent figure, and adorned with mosaics by one of the Cosmati.