At night at Torlonia’s to see the girandola, which is as fine as fireworks can be, but nothing will do after the illumination of St. Peter’s. All the world was there at an assembly after the ceremony, at which I was introduced to Don Michele Gaetani, said to be the cleverest man in Rome, and I had a long conversation with Monsignore Spada, who is a young layman with ecclesiastical rank and costume, and a judge. A Monsignore holds ecclesiastical rank at Rome, as a Lady of the Bedchamber at St. Petersburg holds military rank, where she is a major-general; there is no other. He is free to marry, and I presume to do anything else, but he must preserve a certain orthodox gravity of dress and conduct; he is a curious nondescript, about an equal mixture of the cardinal and the dandy. This Monsignore is a very clever, agreeable man, and gave me some information about the administration of law in this country. There seems to be a good deal of laxity in it, for a man was condemned for stabbing another (with premeditation) a little while ago to six months’ imprisonment, or more perhaps; and having been George Hamilton’s laquais de place, his family came to him and begged him to try and get him off. He applied to Spada, and got the punishment commuted to some trifling imprisonment, and when he got out he came, with all his family, to kiss Hamilton’s hand.
April 13th, 1830
Breakfasted with Bunsen at the Capitol; Lovaine, Morier, Haddington, Hamilton, Kestner, Falck, G. Fitzclarence, Sir W. Gell, a little Italian servant, and Mr. Hall, Bunsen’s brother-in-law. Haddington told the story of Canning’s sending to Bagot a despatch in cipher, containing these lines:—
In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch
Is giving too little and asking too much;
With equal protection the French are content:
So we’ll lay on Dutch bottoms just twenty per cent.
Chorus of Officers.—We’ll lay, &c.
Chorus of Douaniers.—Nous frapperons Falck avec Twenty per cent.
He received the despatch at dinner, and sent it to be deciphered. After some hours they brought him word they did not know what to make of it, for it seemed to be in verse, when he at once saw there was a joke.
Went to see the excavations in the Via Triumphalis and the Temple of Concord, and heard Bunsen’s theory of the Forum. Bunsen gives different names to the remains of the temples in the Forum from those which have been usually given, and by which they are known, and on very plausible grounds, drawn chiefly from accounts in different Roman authors and peculiarities in the buildings themselves. The BUNSEN ON THE FORUM Temple of Fortune he thinks was the Basilica of Augustus, and the Temple of Jupiter Tonans the Temple of Saturn; but all his reasons I need not put down if I could remember them, for are they not written in the voluminous work he is going to publish in four or six volumes octavo?
Bunsen’s history is rather curious. He was a poor German student destined for the Church; came to Rome, and got employed by Niebuhr, from whom he first got a taste for antiquities. The King of Prussia came to Rome and saw him; he was struck with his knowledge and the character he heard of him, and consulted him about a new Liturgy he wished to introduce into Prussia. Bunsen gave him so much satisfaction in that matter, as well as in some others which were entrusted to him, that on Niebuhr’s return to Prussia he was appointed to succeed him, and has been at Rome ever since—thirteen years. Some say he is not a profound man, and that his speculations about the ruins are all wrong. He talks English, French, and Italian like his own language.
The part of the triumphal road was discovered by accident in digging for a drain; and an attempt is being made to procure the permission of the Government to excavate all that can be found of it, and ascertain its exact course. It was in the Temple of Concord that Cicero assembled the Senate and pronounced one of his orations against Catiline. The building must have been large and magnificent, from the remains now visible, which are of the finest marble. The pavement is in a state of considerable preservation. Then we went to the old Tabularium, standing on the Intermontium, an undoubted work of the Republic. This was the place where the records of the Senate were kept. It is very perfect. Nibby, the great authority here, differs, however, about this place; the antiquaries are at daggers drawn upon the subject of the ruins, remains, and discoveries. They have all different systems, which they support with great vehemence and obstinacy, and perhaps ingenuity, but the ignorant and curious traveller is only perplexed with their noisy and discordant assertions. They will insist upon knowing everything, whereas there are many things here which are so doubtful, that they can only conjecture about them; but when once they have published a theory they will not hear of its being erroneous, and oppose any fresh discovery likely to throw discredit upon it. After his lecture in the Forum we went to San Nicolo in Cercera, an old church built on three old temples, or two and a prison, but not much to see. The prison of San Nicolo in Cercera is said to be the scene of the story of the Roman daughter, which it probably is not. Over the Bridge of Fabricius to the Basilica of Saint Bartholomew and Temple of Esculapius; small remains, but curious; and very pretty view of the Tiber and Temple of Vesta. To the Villa Lanti, a delicious villa belonging to Prince Borghese, who never goes there, and will neither let nor lend it. One of the finest views of Rome is from the terrace, and Julio Romano’s frescoes adorn the ceilings. When Raphael was painting the Vatican, he and Julio Romano used to retire every night to the Villa Lanti, and the ceilings are covered with frescoes painted by both of them. Just below is a terrace, and on it a beautiful tree called Tasso’s Oak, because under it he used to sit and compose when he lived in the Convent of San Onofrio, which is close by, and where he died. This convent is remarkably clean, airy, and spacious. In the library is a bust of Tasso, a mask taken from his face just after he died; in the chapel his tomb.
And Tasso is their glory—
Hark to his strain and then survey his cell.
Byron.
In the cloister are some frescoes of the universal Domenichino. I like the Convent of San Onofrio. To Santa Maria in Trastevere, a very fine church; splendid ceiling with a Domenichino in the middle. Immense granite columns of various orders taken from God knows what temples, and mosaic floor rich to a degree. Large pieces of porphyry and verd antique eternally trodden by the Trasteverine mob, and never even cleaned. It is a basilica, and at the end is an SIGHTS OF ROME ancient stone chair, which, was evidently the old justice-seat, though they of the Church do not know it.