In the portico of the Church of San Giorgio in Velabro are four small columns, one of granite, two of marble, and one of cipollino; the latter alone corresponds with the capitals, which are all alike, of the Ionic order, with larger volutes than is usual in the fragments remaining at Rome, of good general proportions, but not good in the detail. The doorway exhibits nearly the whole width of a frieze, the moulding and upper face of an architrave, and the corona and upper members of a cornice, in a bold and good style, resembling in character the remains we have in the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedim. The inside is not very easy of access, and contains little to reward us when we have procured admission, for mere antique columns, and even handsome ones, are too common in Rome to obtain much attention. The tower, which is an edifice of the eighth century, being erected under Pope Zacchary, stands very insecurely on part of the arch of the goldsmiths, and one angle seems almost to rest on the edge of a single slab of marble. I pointed out this circumstance to a lad who was preparing the church for the festa. “Well, then,” said he, “I suppose the first earthquake will throw it down.” I replied, that such a result was extremely probable. “Well, it does not signify, I dare say there will be nobody here.”
This tower, though far from beautiful, merits a more particular description, because it is of a style very common in Rome, and its date is well ascertained. The lower part is entirely plain, excepting the small moulding which terminates it, and is nearly hid by the body of the church. Above, there are four nearly equal stories, each crowned with a cornice, of which the uppermost is the largest; the lower of these has three recesses on one side only. The next has had three arches on each side, but they are now filled up; the third has likewise three arches, and these are still open. The upper has also three arches on each side, but these, instead of being separated by square piers, are divided by two columns, each of which supports a corbel immediately under the springing of the arch. The diameter of the column is very much less than the thickness of the wall, perhaps hardly above one third, so that the arches considerably overhang their supports. This fashion seems to have been widely spread, and to have lasted long, for the examples are very numerous at Rome and elsewhere. It would be difficult to determine how long, but I suspect some of them are as late as the eleventh century. When it was rare to build any thing of consequence, the desire of distinction did not require the frequent alteration of design, which takes place when more is executed; and architecture seems to have changed its type but little from the fourth or fifth, to the beginning of the eleventh century.
“But dinner waits, and we are tired;
Said Gilpin, so am I.”
LETTER XXVII.
LIVING AT ROME—MODERN CHURCHES.
Rome, March, 1817.
I am going, I flatter myself, to satisfy you to the utmost, by giving the most minute detail of my Roman life. You will find it not so different from the manner of living in London as perhaps you expect; for in fact, the Romans are very much the same sort of beings as ourselves, and eat and drink, and have the same affections and appetites as the English. I will add, that the national character in both is pride, and not vanity; that they are rather reserved, and feel more than they shew: added to which, they finish their buildings as we do, and do not leave them half done, as in France, and many parts of Italy; but then they undertake them on a much more magnificent scale; and I believe, after all that has been said of the degeneracy of the modern Romans, that if their political institutions were favourable, they would have spirit to undertake, and resolution and perseverance to carry them through the greatest enterprizes. I will not enter into this subject till I have seen more of them, but relate those things which more nearly concern myself. In the first place, my lodgings consist of two good sized rooms, the largest of which is nearly thirty feet long on one side, but is very much out of a square, and as I have already told you, overlooks half Rome. They are both paved with bricks. The landlady offered me a mat for the whole room, but I was afraid of the fleas, and contented myself with one or two small pieces to put my feet upon. A small wood fire, which costs about 1d. per hour, serves to keep me warm in the mornings and evenings. The sun would perform that office in the middle of the day, but I am then seldom at home. The bed, as usual in Italy, is large. Some boards, about six feet long, or a little more, are laid on two iron stands. On these is placed a great bag filled with the leaves of Indian corn, and over this two thin mattresses; of course there are no bed-posts, or hangings, or any thing of the sort; and this is the usual disposition of the beds in Italy, at least of those in common houses, and not intended for shew. The other furniture consists of a large press, which contains my clothes, and some books; a writing-desk, with drawers below; a square table; a smaller oval one; two side-tables against the wall; a straw couch; one large elbow-chair, and thirteen others. The chimney piece is made out of a piece of Greek marble. For fifteen hundred years the masons of Rome have been using up their old materials, and they are not yet exhausted. I apprehend, that during that period, hardly a single piece of new marble has been brought to Rome except for the use of the sculptors.
And now, having given you an exact description of my lodgings, I will proceed to as particular an account of one day’s employment, from which you may judge of the rest. I rise about seven, or according to the Roman reckoning at the present moment, at 13 o’clock, at which time my attendant Leopold comes in, and brushes my coat, and blacks my shoes, all which is done in the room, for he never thinks of going elsewhere to perform these operations; he also makes the bed. This Leopold pays six crowns per month for his board and lodging in the house, and makes what he can of serving the lodgers, and in the evening attends the lady of the house to pay visits, or go to the theatre, not as a servant, but as a companion. Afterwards he brings me my breakfast of coffee and milk, which I always drink from a tumbler, and while I am eating it, he stops to relate to me various stories and opinions. Among other things he prides himself on being a Tuscan, not a Roman, complains of the bad government of Rome, and says priests are not fit for governors. Then he tells me, that he had been a soldier for some years, but always with some authority, and never as a mere private, that he liked the employment very much, but was obliged to leave it on account of his being exceedingly short-sighted. His brother is a parson of some parish, (Parocco) and had been tutor in the family of the queen of Etruria. Leopold complains, that in his present employment his short-sightedness is very inconvenient. I asked him why he did not use spectacles; but he assured me they would make his sight worse. “Why,” said he, “a little while ago I saw a man with spectacles tumble down the steps of the Trinità. What, said I, could your spectacles help you to see no better? ‘Oh,’ replied the other, ‘the spectacles are of no use, I only wear them to be in the fashion; in England every body wears spectacles;’ but now,” adds Leopold, “I see a great many English, and it seems they do not wear spectacles.” He then proceeded to tell me, that he thought my Italian master could not be a good one, because he had spent a great part of his life in the country, and therefore could not naturally speak the language well; and that he had since been employed in various ways, none of which had succeeded, and that this must have prevented him from studying it; he would consequently neither be able to chuse the best and most elegant expressions, nor to pronounce correctly. Thus, you see my shoe-black is a man of various accomplishments, and is moreover quite a gentleman; for though he does not mind what he does within doors, he would not on any account be seen employed in any servile occupation without. Moreover, on the last day of the carnival, he would not by any means go on to the Corso on foot, because it was not genteel.
After breakfast I usually employ myself a little while at home in drawing or reading, and then walk to the Campo Vaccino; here the forzati, i. e. the criminals condemned to hard labour, are employed in making excavations to expose for examination the antiquities of the place, and in some situations they have reached the old pavement thirty feet below the present surface. I continue my walk along the Via Sacra, and a parcel of children surround me, begging for half a bayoc. A little farther, a grinning little chit, looking quite fat and saucy, comes to tell me he is dying of hunger. However, there is in other cases plenty of the appearance, and I doubt not of the reality of extreme misery. The harvests of wheat and maize, and the vintage, have been very deficient throughout Italy. I then walk into the Coliseum, and while drawing there, a soldier comes to me, a young lad of perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, and tells me that he is obliged to serve three years; that he wished to procure a substitute, but was not permitted. Afterwards, he adds, that they are badly off under the pope, as their pay is only 3½ bayocs per day, and after some farther conversation, concludes with asking me for some money to buy brandy. I reply, that he would be much better without it; he then asks for something to buy bread, and assures me, that if I would not give him any, he must go to bed supperless. Afterwards, I return to my own dinner at a trattoria; these are not very good in Rome, but a person who is not fastidious may do very well. I begin with maccaroni and powdered cheese. The Italians eat this under the name of Parmesan, with their soups, and with vegetables, as well as with maccaroni, and the Romans have a favourite dish called gnocchi, which seems to consist of pieces of batter-pudding sprinkled with Parmesan, and eaten with sugar and cinnamon. As in France, they change your plates frequently, but give you only one knife and fork for every thing. On my return, the maid, for there is an old woman in the house, though the man makes the beds and dusts the chambers, wishes me a good evening, and desires to know at what hour she will have supper; for you know the Italians use the third person, and the she stands for vos signoria, your worship: they consider it very rude to say you to a superior, but I say you to them, for if I were to answer in the same manner, they would think I was laughing at them. By supper the old dame means tea; and I tell her to bring it at two o’clock, for the evening bell now rings at six. During the tea she usually has something to say to me, as Leopold had in the morning. Sometimes I go into society, or to the theatre, but not often, and now during Lent, all the theatres are shut up: and so ends my day.
I went on twelfth day to hear a play which was acted by the children of the Orphan School. The subject was the adoration of the wise men, and the wrath of Herod. The stage was so small, that a well grown boy appeared a giant. By whom the subject was reduced to a dramatic form I do not know, but his principal effort was in the character of two servants, whose wit, or blunders, formed great part of the entertainment of the evening. In the last act we are introduced to where the Saviour lies, not in a common stable or manger, but one resplendent with clouds and glory, and God the Father in the distance. It was really a very pretty scene in itself, however absurd as applied to the subject it pretended to represent. At this point, an Italian priest called out to another who happened to have his hat on, “Capello, signore, capello, signore, signore, vi è il bambino.” This notion of finding in the theatre a place of worship, was strangely at variance with all my English notions and feelings.