“The facchino of the hotel conducted us to a place little better than a cabaret, belonging, no doubt, to a chum. I wouldn’t have minded putting up there, but Mamma knew better, and, rewarding the woman of the cabaret with two francs, much against her protestations, we went off up the steep street again and made for the ‘Corona,’ a shade better, close to the market place. My bedroom was as though it had once been a dungeon, so massive were the walls and deep the vaulting of the low ceiling. We went to bed almost immediately after our dinner, which was enlivened by the conversation of men who were eating at a neighbouring table, all, except a priest, with their hats on. One was very loquacious, shouting politics. He held forth about ‘Il Mastai,’ as he called His Holiness Pope Pius the Ninth, and flourished renegade Padre Giacinto in the priest’s face, the courteous and laconic priest’s eyebrows remaining at high-water mark all the time. The shouter went on to say that English was ‘una lingua povera e meschina’ (‘Poor and mean’!)”
The next morning before leaving we saw all that time allowed us of Perugia, the bronze statue of Pope Julius III. impressing me deeply. Indeed, there is no statue more eloquent than this one. Alas! the Italians have removed it from its right place, and when I revisited the city in 1900 I found the tram terminus in place of the Pope.
“October 27th.—After the morning’s doings in sunshine the day became sad, and from Foligno, where we had a long wait, the story is but of rain and dusk and night. We became more and more apathetic and bored, though we were roused up at the frontier station, where I saw the Papal gendarmes and gave the alarm. Mamma went on her knees in the carriage and cried, ‘Viva Il Papa Rè!’ We all joined in, drinking his health in some very flat ‘red grignolino’ we had with us. I became more and more excited as we neared the centre of the earth, the capital of Christendom, the highest city in the world. In the rainy darkness we ran into the Roman station, which might have been that of Brighton for aught we could see. I strained my eyes right and left for Papal uniforms, and was rewarded by Zouaves and others, and lots of French (of the Legion) into the bargain.
Then a long wait, in the ’bus of the Anglo-American Hotel, for our luggage; and at last we rattled over the pavement, which, with its cobble stones, was a great contrast to the large flat flags of Florence, along very dark and gloomy streets. An apartment all crimson damask was ready prepared for us, which looked cheery and revived us.
“October 28th, 56, Via del Babuino.—The day began rather dismally—looking for apartments in the rain! The coming of the Œcumenical Council has greatly inflated the prices; Rome is crammed. At last we took this attractive one for six months, ‘esposto a mezzogiorno.’ Facing due south, fortunately.
“The sun came out then, and all things were bright and joyous as we rattled off in a little victoria to feast our eyes (we two for the first time) on St. Peter’s. Papa, knowing Rome already, knew what to do and how best to give us our first impressions. An epoch in my life, never to be forgotten, a moment in my existence too solemn and beyond my power of writing to allow of my describing it! I have seen St. Peter’s. No, indeed, no descriptions have ever given me an adequate idea of what I have just seen. The sensation of seeing the real thing one has gazed at in pictures and photographs with longing is one of peculiar delight.
“To find myself really on the Ponte Sant’ Angelo! No dream this. There is the huge castle and the angel with outstretched wings, and there is St. Peter’s in very truth. The sight of it made the tears rise and my throat tighten, so greatly was I overcome by that soul-moving sight. The dome is perfect; the whole, with its great piazza and colonnade, is perfect; I am utterly overpowered and, as to writing, it is too inadequate, and I do so merely because I must do my duty by this journal.
“What a state I was in, though exteriorly so quiet. And all around us other beauties—the yellow Tiber, the old houses, the great fortress-tomb—oh, Mimi, the artist, is not all the enthusiasm in you at full power? We got out of the carriage at the bottom of the piazza and walked up to the basilica on foot. The two familiar fountains—so familiar, yet seen for the first time in reality—were sending up their spray in such magnificent abundance, which the wind took and sent in cascade-like forms far out over the reflecting pavement. The interior of St. Peter’s, which impresses different people in such various ways, was a radiant revelation to me. We had but a preliminary taste to-day. We drove thence to the Piazza del Popolo, and then had an entrancing walk on Monte Pincio. We came down by the French Academy, with its row of clipped ilexes, under which you see one of the most exquisite views of silvery Rome, St. Peter’s in the middle. We dipped down by the steps of the Trinità, where the models congregate, flecking the wide grey steps with all the colours of the rainbow.
“October 29th.—Papa would not let us linger in the Colosseum too long, for to-day he wanted us to have only a general idea of things. Those bits of distance seen through triumphal arches, between old pillars, through gaps in ancient walls, how they please! As we were climbing the Palatine hill a Black Franciscan came up to us for alms, and in return offered us his snuff-box, out of which Alice and I took a pinch, and we went sneezing over the ruins. On to the Capitol, and down thence homeward through streets full of priests, monks and soldiers. All the afternoon given to being tossed about, with poor Papa, by the Dogana from the railway station to the custom-house in the Baths of Diocletian, and from there to the artist commissioned by the Government to examine incoming works of art. They would not let me have my box of studies, calling them ‘modern pictures’ on which we must pay duty.”
Rome under the Temporal Power was so unlike Rome, capital of Italy, as we see it to-day, that I think it just as well to draw largely from the Diary, which is crammed with descriptions of men and things belonging to the old order which can never be seen again. I love to recall it all. We were in Rome just in time. We left it in May and the Italians entered it in September. Though I was not a Catholic then, and found delight in Rome almost entirely as an artist, the power and vitality of the Church could not but impress me there.