Walks in Rome

by Augustus J. C. Hare

"The portrait of Beatrice Cenci is a picture almost impossible to be forgotten. Through the transcendent sweetness and beauty of the face, there is a something shining out that haunts me. I see it now, as I see this paper, or my pen. The head is loosely draped in white; the light hair falling down below the linen folds. She has turned suddenly towards you; and there is an expression in the eyes—although they are very tender and gentle—as if the wildness of a momentary terror, or distraction, had been struggled with and overcome, that instant; and nothing but a celestial hope, and a beautiful sorrow, and a desolate earthly helplessness remained. Some stories say that Guido painted it the night before her execution; some other stories, that he painted it from memory, after having seen her on her way to the scaffold. I am willing to believe that, as you see her on his canvas, so she turned towards him, in the crowd, from the first sight of the axe, and stamped upon his mind a look which he has stamped on mine as though I had stood beside him in the concourse. The guilty palace of the Cenci: blighting a whole quarter of the town, as it stands withering away by grains: had that face, to my fancy, in its dismal porch, and at its black blind windows, and flitting up and down its dreary stairs, and growing out of the darkness of its ghostly galleries. The history is written in the painting; written, in the dying girl's face, by Nature's own hand. And oh! how in that one touch she puts to flight (instead of making kin) the puny world that claims to be related to her, in right of poor conventional forgeries!"—Dickens.

"Five days had been passed by Beatrice in the secret prisons of the Torre Savella, when, at an early hour in the morning, her advocate, Farinacci, entered her sad abode. With him appeared a young man of about twenty-five years of age, dressed in the fashion of a writer in the courts of justice of that day. Unheeded by Beatrice, he sat regarding her at a little distance with fixed attention. She had risen from her miserable pallet, but, unlike the wretched inmate of a dungeon, she seemed a being from a brighter sphere. Her eyes were of liquid softness, her forehead large and clear, her countenance of angelic purity, mysteriously beautiful. Around her head a fold of white muslin had been carelessly wrapped, from whence in rich luxuriance fell her fair and waving hair. Profound sorrow imparted an air of touching sensibility to her lovely features. With all the eagerness of hope, she begged Farinacci to tell her frankly if his visit foreboded good, and assured him of her gratitude for the anxiety he evinced, to save her life and that of her family.

"Farinacci conversed with her for some time, while at a distance sat his companion, sketching the features of Beatrice. Turning round, she observed this with displeasure and surprise; Farinacci explained that this seeming writer was the celebrated painter, Guido Reni, who, earnestly desiring her picture, had entreated to be introduced into the prison for the purpose of obtaining so rich an acquisition. At first unwilling, but afterwards consenting, she turned and said, 'Signor Guido, your renown might make me desirous of knowing you, but how will you undervalue me in my present situation. From the fatality that surrounds me, you will judge me guilty. Perhaps my face will tell you I am not wicked; it will show you, too, that I now languish in this prison, which I may quit, only to ascend the scaffold. Your great name, and my sad story, may make my portrait interesting, and,' she added, with touching simplicity, 'the picture will awaken compassion if you write on one of its angles the word, innocente.' The great artist set himself to work, and produced the picture now in the Palazzo Barberini, a picture that rivets the attention of every beholder, which, once seen, ever after hovers over the memory with an interest the most harrowing and mysterious."—From "Beatrice Cenci, Storia del Secolo XVI., Raccontata dal D.A.A., Firenze." Whiteside's Translation.

There is a pretty old-fashioned garden belonging to this palace, at one corner of which—overhanging an old statue—was the celebrated Barberini Pine, often drawn by artists from the Via Sterrata at the back of the garden, where statue and pine combined well with the Church of S. Caio; but, alas, this magnificent tree was cut down in 1872.

At the back of the palace-court, behind the arched bridge leading to the garden, is—let into the wall—an inscription which formed part of the dedication of an arch erected to Claudius by the senate and people, in honour of the conquest of Britain. The letters were inlaid with bronze. It was found near the Palazzo Sciarra, where the arch is supposed to have stood.

Ascending to the summit of the hill, we find four ugly statues of river-gods, lying over the Quattro Fontane, from which the street takes its name.

On the left is the Palazzo Albani, recently restored by Queen Christina of Spain.

"In one of its rooms is a very ancient painting of Jupiter and Ganymede, in a very uncommon style, uniting considerable grandeur of conception, great force and decision, and a deep tone and colour which produce great effect. It is said to be Grecian."—Eaton's Rome.

The opposite church, S. Carlo a Quattro Fontane, is worth observing from the fact that the whole building, church and convent, corresponds with one of the four piers supporting the cupola of St. Peter's. Here was formed the point of attack against the Quirinal Palace, November 16, 1848, which caused the flight of Pius IX., and the downfall of his government. From a window of this convent the shot was fired which killed Monsignor Palma, one of the pontifical secretaries, and a writer on ecclesiastical history—who had unfortunately exposed himself at one of the windows opposite. The church contains two pictures by Mignard relating to the history of S. Carlo.

Turning down Via del Quirinale, on the left is S. Andrea a Monte Cavallo (on the supposed site of the temple of Quirinus), erected, as it is told by an inscription inside, by Camillo Pamphili, nephew of Innocent X., from designs of Bernini. It has a Corinthian façade and a projecting semicircular portico with Ionic columns. The interior is oval. It is exceedingly rich, being almost entirely lined with red marble streaked with white (Sicilian jasper), divided by white marble pillars supporting a gilt cupola. The high altar—supposed to cover the body of St. Zeno—between really magnificent pillars, is surmounted by a fine picture, by Borgognone, of the crucifixion of St. Andrew. Near this is the tomb, by Festa, of Emmanuel IV., king of Sardinia, who abdicated his throne in 1802, to become a Jesuit monk in the adjoining convent, where he died in 1818. On the right is the chapel of Santa Croce, with three pictures of the passion and death of Christ by Brandini; and that of St. Francis Xavier, with three pictures by Baciccio, representing the saint preaching,—baptizing an Indian queen,—and lying dead in the island of Sancian in China. On the left is the chapel of the Virgin, with pictures, by David, of the three great Jesuit saints—St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Francis Borgia, and St. Luigi Gonzaga—adoring the Virgin, and, by Gerard de la Nuit, of the Adoration of the Shepherds and of the Magi; and lastly the chapel of S. Stanislas Kostka, containing his shrine of gold and lapis-lazuli, under an exceedingly rich altar, which is adorned with a beautiful picture by Carlo Maratta, representing the saint receiving the Infant Jesus from the arms of his mother. At the sides of the chapel are two other pictures by Maratta, one of which represents S. Stanislas "bathing with water his breast inflamed with divine love," the other his receiving the host from the hands of an angel. These are the three principal incidents in the story of the young S. Stanislas, who belonged to a noble Polish family and abandoned the world to shut himself up here, saying, "I am not born for the good things of this world; that which my heart desires is the good things of eternity."