I arrived at Rome, as I have already said, on the last day of the year, 1816, after a morning of continued eager expectation. In spite of all that may have been seen elsewhere of magnificent buildings, and of all the views and drawings which have been published of the eternal city, Rome is still a new world to an architect. You may know in detail the appearance of every building here, but you can feel nothing, you can imagine nothing, of the effect produced, on seeing, on finding yourself thus amongst them. To walk over the ancient Forum, and with a mind already raised by the indistinct and crowded associations of all the great and wonderful events which have originated on this spot, and of the great men who have ennobled it; to contemplate on one side the Capitol, with its temples and triumphal arches, testimonials of former splendour; and on the other the Curia hostilia, the temple of Jupiter Stator, and the arched terraces which once supported the proud palace of the Cæsars, is an intellectual treat, to be enjoyed, to be imagined, nowhere but at Rome. A vague feeling of admiration mixes itself with every perception, and every recollection; and the mind forcibly rejects all inharmonious ideas. It is not any one thing that you see, any more than one point of history that you have to remember; multitudes of fragments are included in one view, not very perfect and distinct in their forms, yet sufficient to excite the imagination. They crowd on the eye, as the scenes of history on the memory. The strong emotion and the high tone of feeling excited, leave no power of criticising. There seems to be a magic in the mere names. Proceeding in your walk in the direction of the Via Sacra, you leave on the left, the temple of Antoninus and Faustina, that of Romulus and Remus, and other fragments without a name. Afterwards, also on the left, is the temple of Peace, and you pass through the arch of Titus, both monuments of the destruction of Jerusalem: beyond are the temples of Venus and Rome, and at the distance of a few steps, the vast extent of the Coliseum. Nor have you to hunt out these objects with difficulty one after the other; they burst upon the eye almost at one view, and demand, or rather extort, your attention; and that view is usually almost the first upon which a stranger fixes his mind. Whether this building was a temple, or that a curia, may be questioned; but you cannot doubt for a moment, that each is a Roman work; and the ruin of some magnificent edifice. Afterwards you may ascend the Palatine, and pace over the extensive remains of the palace of the Cæsars. The long vaults, where a partial destruction admits a gleam of daylight to their deep recesses; the terraces, which seem to bid defiance to time; the half domes, and solid piers, attesting the grandeur of their ancient construction; the walls fringed with shrubs, principally evergreen; the very intricacy of the plan, and the mixture of kitchen gardens and vineyards, where once the voice of harmony resounded through lofty halls decorated with the finest productions of art; all impress the mind with the recollection of past glory. But the feeling here is very different from that excited in the Forum. There, the recollection of the lofty virtues of these magnanimous republicans, exalts every feeling into admiration; here, the shapeless masses of ruin, half concealed by vegetation, accord better with the melancholy felt in contemplating the decay of Rome, and the wasteful and destructive luxury which followed, or accompanied the erection of these palaces. But the views from the Palatine are no less striking than those within its walls. Below is the temple of Romulus; farther on to the left, that of Vesta; between these is the arch of Janus; the temple of Castor and Pollux was in the immediate neighbourhood; and in another place that of Apollo. All these names, and almost every inch of ground is disputed by the Roman antiquaries; but about such dissensions the imagination does not trouble herself. The form of the ground is still seen in the Circus maximus, but the buildings are gone. The Aventine rises above all the other objects, crowned with convents and churches, composed of the spoils of the temples which once adorned it. To the left of the Aventine is an enormous mass of building, which once contained the baths of Caracalla. The lower story is supposed to be filled up; the upper is uncovered, but the vast piers, and solid piles of masonry, which are sufficient to explain very intelligibly the whole plan of the central building, impress forcibly the imagination. Nearer, but still more to the left, are the arch of Constantine, and the Coliseum; of which you here trace the form, and see the whole extent. Beyond are numerous fragments of great buildings, one knows not of what. Turning again to the north, and retracing the Via Sacra, by which you came to the Palatine; you fix your eye on the bold elevation of the Capitol, and figure to yourself what it must have appeared, unincumbered with the rubbish of modern buildings, when all its temples were entire, each surrounded by stately colonnades, and the whole crowned with the splendid fane of Jupiter Capitolinus. There were probably many inconsiderable temples in Rome, but here was a collection of fine ones; many might have been in bad taste, but individual defects were lost in the splendour of the whole display. Besides, the simple form of the ancient temple precluded such extravagances as are found in modern architecture; and the form of the ground gave to such a collection its full effect. This is the case not only on the Capitol, but in the other parts of Rome; and nothing has astonished me more, than the numerous fine points of view which the ancient city must have afforded. The hills were insignificant in themselves, but they seem made to display the buildings to the greatest advantage; and one grand object rising behind another, and varying in combination at every new point of view, must have exhibited a scene of splendour and magnificence, unparalleled not only in fact, but in the descriptions of the most luxuriant fancy. The hills and country about Rome are well disposed for architecture, and for uniting its objects with those of the landscape. They are not high, and therefore the dreary waste of the Campagna is not obtrusive; while the broken foreground is richly adorned with evergreen and deciduous trees, and especially with the picturesque stone pine. The flowing line of Monte Albano, and the bolder and more irregular forms of the Apennines, unite to form an inexhaustible fund of variety and interest.
But all this is too vague and general to give you any distinct ideas, and I must endeavour, by a greater degree of precision, to carry you with me through this immense museum.
The Guide-books profess to conduct you regularly and systematically through Rome in eight days; and some of our countrymen boast that they have beaten the antiquaries, and done it in six. For my part, the first eight days I spent in Rome were all hurry and confusion. I could attend to nothing systematically, nor even examine any thing with accuracy; a sort of restless eagerness to see every thing, and know something about every thing, gave me no power of fixing my attention on any one particular. I have just given you a sketch of the chaos of objects which occupied my mind, but before I descend to individuals, let me tell you, what indeed is of more importance to me than to you, that I have taken a pleasant lodging of two good sized rooms, for which I am to pay nine scudi a month, on the Trinità de’ Monti. On my first arrival I lodged at Franz’s, a large inn kept by a German of that name, at the upper end of the Via de’ Condotti, almost close to the Piazza di Spagna. From this Piazza a most magnificent flight of a hundred and twenty-two steps, leads you to the church of Trinità de’ Monti. I had heard of the steps up to the Capitol, but never of these, which by the bye are much more showy, and I did not doubt on my arrival that I was at the foot of the ancient Capitol. All these steps I have to ascend to my lodging, and about sixty more within the house; but to reward my labours, when I am at home, I command a fine prospect over the greatest part of Rome, and perhaps the very best distant view of the Vatican. Mr. Sharp, my old companion in the south of France, assisted me in my search for lodgings; he had changed his, and I had no small difficulty to find him out. In this inquiry I received however, the clearest directions possible, though to streets which appear to have no existence. I am persuaded, that if you were to Italianize the name of a London street, and ask for Via Peccadilla, you would receive a very distinct and particular direction.
I have at length gained some degree of composure, and have examined a few things more at leisure, but still without any order. That of place seems to have no interest; that of antiquity, is too abstruse and difficult. I cannot therefore, pretend to give you any regular and connected view of Rome; nor can I take you with me from day to day, as I often run from one thing to another, and return again repeatedly to the principal objects. I shall therefore pursue a plan which may have regularity enough to unite the principal objects into groups, whose individuals may reflect some light upon each other; without attempting any more general arrangement: and leave something both of the composition of the groups, and of the order in which I speak of them, to that in which I have seen them.
Edwards, Sculp.
A.B. Clayton del. from Sketches by J. Woods.
Temple of Jupiter Tonans.
London. Published by J&A Arch. Cornhill. March 1st. 1828.
There are so many objects of high interest in Rome, that a stranger hardly knows to which first to turn himself; but no one will long postpone a visit to the Forum, now called the Campo Vaccino, i. e. the Cattle Field; not the market, but the place where the long horned oxen, which have drawn the carts of the country people to Rome, wait till their masters are ready to go back again. This piece of ground does not precisely correspond with that of the old Forum Romanum, but it contains nearly the whole of it, and might without any impropriety be called by the same name. To reach this I crossed the Capitoline hill, whose modern buildings I shall leave for a future opportunity, and passing under the porticos of Michael Angelo, came out above the Temple of Concord. On the left are the foundations, and great fragments of the ancient buildings of the Capitol. The latter are principally seen within the prisons, at the back of the present senate-house; the former consist of great blocks of peperino, and seem to form the face of the hill. Above this was anciently the Tabularium, or record-office, the front of which consisted of a range of piers and arches, with a sort of Doric pilaster, and a capital more singular than beautiful. The material, and the style of the work, seem to announce its erection during the time of the republic; but the place having been used as a salt magazine under Nicolas the Fifth, about the middle of the fifteenth century, this substance is said to have destroyed the piers, and rendered it necessary to take them down, and replace them by the continued wall, which now exists; some capitals, and nearly the whole line of the architrave, are all that remain; above these nothing is exhibited externally of the ancient edifice. Within are masses of masonry, and portions of vaults mixed with the modern constructions.