Rome, said a great traveler, is well known; authors of veracity assure us that for seven hundred years, she was mistress of the world, but although their writings should not affirm this, would there not be sufficient evidence in all the grand edifices now existing, in those columns of marble, those statues. Add to the quantity of relics that are there, so many things that our Lord has touched with his own fleshy fingers, such numbers of holy bodies of Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, and Virgins; in short, so many churches, where the Holy Pontiffs, have granted full Indulgences for sin.
This writer that spoke of these true merits of the city of Rome, was among these great and magnificient ruins of Rome, in the 14th century. His name was Bertrand de la Bracquiere, a Lord of Vieux Chateau, counseller and first Esquire carver, to Phillip, Duke of Burgundy, living at that age in Ghent.
One day when it was very warm, I went down to the Tiber to waste a little time reflectively, where the golden candlestick that was brought from Jerusalem fell off the bridge and never was afterwards found. Whilst I laid there on its banks, listening to its most inaudible murmur a Jew came and stretched himself close to my feet. I asked him if he recollected who it was that Plutarch says was condemned to the hideous punishment of being nailed up in a barrel with serpents and thrown in the Tiber to float on to the sea? He had never heard of such a thing. I then asked him if he was aware that the golden candlestick out of the temple of Solomon lay at the bottom of that muddy stream? he said yes, and added that the Pope had been offered millions of piastres by the Jews to let them turn the current of the Tiber twenty miles above Rome, that they might recover all the lost and hidden treasure of nearly three thousand years’ standing, but the Pope had refused because he was too superstitious to allow the Tiber’s current to be changed.
My attention was just at this time drawn to a large old building that had the bearing of royalty deeply marked on its furrowed decay. I asked its use, and was informed that it was a maccaroni manufactory. I drew nigh, and stood, in company with dozens of girls, looking through its decayed apertures. I saw hundreds of men walking about in a perfect state of nudity, and also as many more moving round at quicker step. I would discover every few moments a couple of these that seemed to be mantled with small reeds of a bending nature, step on a platform and commence turning round, like crazy men imitating the spinning of a top, but I could discover nothing of their intention until they walked off the platform, when I could plainly see that they had divested themselves of something I knew not what.
The way they make maccaroni in Rome, is thus: when it is hot or warm, the men stand by the aperture that squeezes it into a reed-like shape, and wind it round their bodies until they are totally covered or mantled, and then they walk in great haste in a circle until it is nearly cool, after which they walk on the aforesaid platform and unwind themselves from its cooling grasp, and there it stays until it becomes totally dry, after which they box it for export. That which is made for home consumption is not made on so extensive a scale, and different ideas of neatness is needed lest it affect the home consumption.
Three days it took me to pass through the “Vatican.” It is the great gallery of fine arts, and the Pope lives in one part of this Palace. The Carnival being over, I took one day to go to Tivoli to see an old temple and olive orchard and the vast ruins of the emperor Adrian’s brick palace, after which I returned to Rome, and bought some mosaiac work in breast pin jewelry, hired a viturino and four, went to St. Peters and took a last farewell glance at St. Peter, who stands in his statue dignity over an altar with his keys of Heaven, and left Rome in its decay of tyrannical monuments for Naples, its bay and Vesuvius.
NAPLES AND ITS CRAFT.
After twenty days sight-seeing in Rome, observe me seated in the front of a viturino on my way to Naples. E. G. Squires, the author of a book of discoveries, is seated in one of the back seats. He is a little man full of humor, and a man to judge him by his looks and manners would have a hard task to steer from error. He is well versed in Roman lore. We were now an hour and half out from Rome, and he said “look there ahead, those old walls we are going under is the walls of old Rome, and that high archway, with those splendid pillars of carved stone, is the gate leading into Rome via the Appian road from Naples.” We passed through these walls and Rome was forgotten, in the matters of interest to which he directed our attention. As we came up to the pretty little ruined city Albano, he said, “there, gentlemen, is the tomb of Pompey the Great.” It was a tall monumental tomb of white marble, but fallen on all sides by the wreck of the weather. We entered Albano and dined, and paid a visit to the Veil of Diana, whose temple was here at Albano. This city occupies the site of the palace of Pompey the Great and Domitian. The Veil of Diana is a lake of a few hundred yards round, and hemmed in on all sides by cliffs of fertility. Two days and a half brought me to the back part of the city of Naples. In coming to Naples by this route you are some hours going down hill, but as the lombard poplar trees are so numerous, it is impossible to get a look at Naples; occasionally I could hear the roar of Vesuvius and the hum of business, coming by the force of the breeze from the bay on the other side. All at once I came out on an open descending slope, but, a quarter of a mile ahead, the lombardy poplars intercepted our view, still over their tops, off to the left of Naples, I could see Vesuvius like a sleeping giant with his flag of wrath ascending on high. The flag of smoke was as still as a standing cloud, and it stood like God on the earth, but spreading above in the Heavens.