April 3rd, 1830
SIGHTS OF ROME Went on Thursday to Lady Mary Deerhurst’s and the Duchess Torlonia’s, where all the English in Rome (or rather all the most vulgar) were assembled. Yesterday morning to the Colonna Palace, Museum of the Capitol, Baths of Diocletian, now Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, which are very remarkable because built on the baths, of which it has preserved the form; San Pietro in Vincoli, San Bernardo, all built on the site and amidst the ruins of Titus’s and Vespasian’s Baths; in various parts the old pavement is preserved, which shows how magnificent they must have been, for it is all of giallo, verd antique, porphyry, &c. To the garden of the Maronite Convent to see the Coliseum, whence there is the finest view of it in Rome. Then to the Coliseum, and walked all over the ruins while a parcel of friars with covered faces were chanting and praying at each of the altars in succession round the circle below (called the Via Crucis).
I called yesterday morning on M. de la Ferronays, the French Ambassador, who was very civil and obliging. Dined in the evening with Lord Haddington, Lovaine, Morier, Prince Gagarin the Russian Minister, Cheney, and M. Dedel. After dinner George Hamilton came in and said that Lady Northampton had died suddenly at five o’clock. I never saw her, but they say she was a very good sort of woman, and remarkably clever, which good sort of women seldom are. She had written a poem full of genius and imagination. Lord Northampton was absent at a scavo he has forty miles off.
There has been no rain here for two months, and the clouds of dust are insupportable; as it is the town in Europe best supplied with water (there are three aqueducts; the ancients had sixteen) so it is the worst watered. The excavations which are going on (though languidly) are always producing something. Two busts, said to be fine, were found the day before yesterday at the Borghese Villa at Frascati.
I saw yesterday at San Pietro in Vincoli Michael Angelo’s famous Moses. It may be very fine, but to my eye is merely a colossal statue; the two horns are meant to represent rays of light; but how can rays of light be represented in marble, any more than the breath? It is impossible to make marble imitate that which is impalpable. The beard is ropy and unnatural; it is, however, an imposing sort of figure. But I am more sensible to painting than to sculpture. I delight in almost everything of Domenichino’s, who is only inferior (if inferior) to Raphael. As to Michael Angelo, he speaks a language the unlearned do not understand; his merit, acknowledged to be transcendent as it is by all artists, cannot be questioned; but he must serve as a model to form future excellence, and not be expected to produce present delight, except to those who, by long study, have learnt to comprehend and appreciate him.
Evening.—This morning to the tomb of the Scipios, Catacombs, Cecilia Metella (from which I wonder they don’t take the battlements), the Circus of Maxentius, Temple of Bacchus, the Fountain of Egeria, San Stefano Rotondo, Temple of Pallas, Arches of Drusus and Dollabella, and the Borghese Villa and Gardens. The ruins of the Gaetani Castle are rather picturesque, but they spoil the tomb, which would be far finer without its turrets. The Circus is as curious as anything I have seen, for it looks like a fresh ruin. Old Torlonia furbished it up at his own expense, and brought to light the inscription which proved it to be Maxentius’s instead of Caracalla’s Circus. The remains are so perfect that it is easy to trace the whole arrangement of the ancient games. Forsyth says very truly that the Fountain of Egeria is a mere trough; but everybody praises the water, which is delicious, and it falls with a murmur which invites to idleness and contemplation. This fountain has been beautifully sung, but it is a miserable ruin, ill deserving of such strains.
In vallum Egeriæ descendimus et speluncas
Dissimiles veris—quanto præstantius esset
Numen aquæ, viridi si margine clauderet undas
Herba, nec ingenuum violarent marmora tophum.
Juvenal.
A little wood of firs, and pines, and ilexes about thirty or forty years old is pointed out as the grove in which Numa THE SISTINE CHAPEL used to meet the nymph. In all the views on one side Soracte is a striking object, as it
From out the plain
Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break
And on the curl hangs pausing.
I like this side of Rome, where the aqueducts stride over the Campagna, and the ruins of the mighty Claudian tower over the pigmy arches of the Pope, like the genius of ancient over that of modern Rome. The Borghese is the beau idéal of a villa; lofty, spacious apartments, adorned with statues, busts, and marbles, painting and gilding, and magnificent gardens; but deserted by its owner, who has only been there once in the last thirty years, and untenable in the summer from malaria, which is very unaccountable, for it is close to Rome, high, and full of trees; but nobody knows anything about the malaria. The Gardens are the fashionable lounge, but after June nobody can walk there. Though the Prince never comes here he has just bought a large piece of ground between the Porta del Popolo and the Gardens, and is making a handsome entrance, has already built gates and some ugly Egyptian imitations, and is making a waterfall. I dined with Lady William Russell, and set off to go to Queen Hortense in the evening, but found so few carriages in the court that we would not go in.