Still alone, I made my way to Rome. My driver knew no French so I was reduced to reading the memoirs of the Empress Josephine, as we dawdled on our road. The country was not interesting; the inns were most uncomfortable; nothing gave me reason to reverse my decision that Italy was a horrid country and I most unlucky in being compelled to stay in it.
But one morning we reached a group of houses called La Storta and, as he poured out a glass of wine, my vetturino said casually, with a jerk of his head and thumb:
“There is Rome, signore.”
Strange revulsion of feeling! As I gazed down on the far-off city, standing in purple majesty in the midst of its vast desolate plain, my heart swelled with awe and reverence, and suddenly I realised all the grandeur, all the poetry, all the might of that heart of the world.
I was still lost in dreams of the past when the carriage stopped in front of the Academy.
The Villa Medici, the home of the students and director of the Académie de France, was built in 1557 by Annibale Lippi, one wing being added by Michael Angelo. It stands on the side of the Pincian, overlooking the city; on one side of it is the Pincian Way, on the other the magnificent gardens designed in Lenôtre’s style, and opposite, in the midst of the waste fields of the Villa Borghese, stands Raphael’s house.
Such are the royal quarters that France has munificently provided for her children. Yet the rooms of the pupils are mostly small, uncomfortable, and very badly furnished.
The studios of the painters and sculptors are scattered about the grounds as well as in the palace, and from a little balcony, looking over the Ursuline gardens, there is a glorious view of the Sabine range, Monte Cavo and Hannibal’s Camp.
There is a fair library of standard classics, but no modern books whatever; studiously-minded people may go and kill time there up to three in the afternoon, for there is really nothing to do. The sole obligation of the students is, once a year, to send a sample of their work to the Academy in Paris; for the rest of the time they do exactly as they please.
The director simply has to see that rules are kept and the whole establishment well managed; with the inmates’ work he has nothing to do whatever.