As often as I had reflected upon Rome and her seven hills, on arriving there the hills seemed to be a new revelation to me, and the rapid driving of the Italians up and down the steep and narrow streets bewildered me not a little. I found myself on the way from the depot, constantly asking, can this be Rome? Everything looks so new. The houses are light sandstone, like the buildings in Paris. I was informed that this portion of Rome was calculated to mislead me, and that I would find our hotel quite like Paris and New York houses. The next morning, instead of making a pilgrimage to the Roman forum, the Colosseum, and the palace of the Cæsars, we drove to St. Peter’s, which kept me still quite in the notion that Rome had been whitewashed, or something done to destroy her ancient classic aspect. We spent four hours in the great church wandering around and witnessing a procession of priests, monks, and gorgeous cardinals. There is no gewgaw, no tinsel in St. Peter’s as one sees in so many other Catholic churches; although gold is used in profusion, yet it is kept in subjection to the tone of the walls. The bronze altar over St. Peter’s tomb is wonderfully effective in the way of concentrating color and attention. It is almost necessary to find a niche in the base of some pillar and sit there awhile before plunging into the immensity of this great building, just as a bird gets ready before darting into space. But after all, the feeling of immensity which St. Peter’s gives is not so grateful to the religious sense as the Gothic style of architecture, with its stained window, and deep recesses,
“Its long drawn aisles and fretted vaults.”
There is little solemnity in St. Peter’s, little shade and no music, only from side chapels; but there are grand proportions, perfect simplicity, and the pure light of heaven sending a beam upon a golden dove above St. Peter’s tomb, which radiates in a thousand streams of light over the marble pavement.
Nothing impressed me so much in Rome or suggested the ancient glory so much as the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla. The magnificence of this building must have been unparalleled. It accommodated sixteen hundred bathers at once, and some of its walls are so thick one fears to estimate the depth. What would the old Romans have thought of the buildings of the present generation, which fall down or burn up without much warning. Here is solid masonry standing since the year 212.
The different arches and columns of Rome constitute one of the most attractive features to almost every traveller. Let those who enjoy them climb their steps or strain their eyes to decipher in a scorching Italian sun the dates, the seven golden candlesticks, the shew bread, and Aaron’s rod, on Titus’s arch for example. I shall wander off while they are so occupied into the old capitol—into the room where Rienzi stood and exhorted the people to recover their ancient rights and into the basement below where St. Paul was imprisoned.
The present king had just been crowned at that time. I saw the king and queen in a procession where they were driving to gratify the people, and again we saw him unattended driving with his brother through the grounds of the Borghese Villa. The carnival was forbidden that year in Rome on account of the death of the King and Pope, but there were out-croppings of it on the streets. The tinseled finery and humbug of it seem so incongruous in ancient classic Rome. I was glad to escape it.
The old Pantheon is too important in its history for any one to write of it, but I have always liked the following paragraph from James Freeman Clarke concerning it: “The Romans in this church, or temple, worshiped their own gods, while they allowed the Jews, when in Rome, to worship their Jewish god, and the Egyptians to worship the gods of Egypt, and when they admitted the people of a conquered state to become citizens of Rome their gods were admitted with them; but in both cases the new citizens occupied a subordinate position to the old settlers. The old worship of Rome was free from idolatry. Jupiter, Juno, and the others were not represented by idols. But there was an impassable gulf between the old Roman religion and modern Roman thought, and Christianity came to the Roman world not as a new theory but as a new life, and now her churches stand by the side of the ruins of the Temple of Vesta and the old empty Pantheon.”
