In this quarter of the city stands also the Chiesa Nuova, rich and ugly. In the altar-piece, Rubens has painted one picture within another; the Madonna and Child being separated by a gilt frame from the figures which are adoring them, and which seem therefore to be adoring the picture. Adjoining it is the Oratorio of San Filippo Neri, where you will only go, if you wish to see how ill a great sum of money can be spent.
Before crossing the Tiber, we may visit the Church of San Giovanni de’ Fiorentini, begun by Michael Angelo Buonarroti, but continued either by Giacomo della Porta, or by Sansovino, for it is uncertain which was employed. I should rather attribute it to Sansovino, for Giacomo della Porta is more confused in his arrangement. A continued pedestal runs above the cornice, from which springs a waggon-headed vault with the windows groined into it; and if on this vault there were ribs of architecture, instead of its being whitewashed, as it really is, the disposition and proportions would have a good effect.
The bridge of Sant Angelo was erected by Hadrian, re-erected by Clement VII., and adorned, or disfigured, with unmeaning statues by Bernini, under Clement IX. I do not know that figures are always to be rejected on the balustrades of houses or bridges, yet in fact they seldom look well. This bridge consists of three large arches and two smaller ones on each side, the larger only giving a passage to the river at its usual level, and forming a water-way of 178 feet. The depth in the arches for the greatest part of the year is about 22 feet, according to Piranesi, from whom I have taken these dimensions. In the month of August it falls as low as to 17. In the winter floods it rises to 34, and in 1750 it rose to 43 feet. The whole width of the stream below the bridge is 248 feet in common cases, but it may spread to above 400 without overflowing its banks. I do not know its rate, but it seems a pretty rapid current.
Immediately opposite the bridge, stands the Mausoleum of Hadrian. Augustus built his sepulchre for himself and his family, including servants and dependents, and a large building, if not a sumptuous one, seems necessary for such a purpose. Hadrian is supposed to have built his, with all the selfishness of despotism, for himself alone. Hadrian shall never be my hero; he had no high and generous feeling; yet even he, in his immense villa at Tivoli, had some view towards his fellow-creatures, their wants and welfare. Enough remained of the spirit of liberty to convince him, that his glory was intimately connected with their use and advantage, while Louis XIV. at Versailles, seems to have had all his thoughts begin and end in himself. What remains of this vast burying-place consists of a basement 253 feet square, with a circular tower in the centre, about 192 feet in diameter. This circular part is now a mere mass, but it is said to have been highly adorned with marbles and statues, and surrounded with a magnificent circle of the beautiful columns which are still shown in the church of St. Paul. Notwithstanding this evidence the fact is very doubtful.
St. Gregory saw an angel on the top of this Mausoleum, in the year 593, and from that, the building has obtained the name of Castello di Sant Angelo. Perhaps it would be more correct to say, that the name is derived from the figure of an angel in bronze, commemorative of the event or of the tradition, which now majestically crowns the edifice. This statue was not erected till the time of Benedict XIV., but it was preceded by one executed in marble by Raffaello di monte Lupo.
From this castle are exhibited the famous fireworks of the 28th and 29th June, the feasts of St. Peter and St. Paul, originally designed by Michael Angelo. The first flight of rockets is 4,500, and it forms a complete canopy of fire. The exhibition is over in an hour, and does not linger through half the night. In exhibitions of this sort, and in the lengthened entertainments at theatres and balls, it seems as if there were something in the English character which impels us to drain the cup of pleasure to the dregs.
And now, instead of going up to the Vatican, we will keep to the left, along the street, and by the hospital of the Spirito Santo, where the mortality of the patients is said to be one in three, but I suspect there are circumstances which make a comparison of this sort very fallacious; and to the gate now distinguished by the same name, which divides two parts of the city. It was begun by Michael Angelo, and never was finished, and probably never will be; what is built is in good character, but follows, I know not why, a curved line, when a straight one would have been better. We do not hence pursue our way at once by the long street called the Lungara, but turn up by Sant Onofrio, a church erected about the middle of the fifteenth century, where we see some frescos of Domenichino, worthy a better subject than the legend of St. Jerome; a beautiful Madonna by Leonardo da Vinci; and the tomb of Tasso. Here was also the tomb of Barclay, the author of the Argenis; and the tomb may still exist, but the stone which marked it is gone, because as the priest told me it was roba spurca. I do not know what he meant.
We now return to the Lungara, a long street parallel with the Tiber, with some good houses, or as they are here called, palaces, amongst which are the Farnesina, which I have already described, and the Corsini, which really does deserve the name. It extends above 200 feet along the street, presenting on the principal story, a range of seventeen windows. Though large, it is not handsome. The entrance however, is truly magnificent. Passing through a spacious vestibule, we arrive at the foot of the staircase, which diverging to the right and left, returns in the centre, leaving space for a carriage-road underneath it. Here is an admirable collection of pictures, which I shall not pretend to enumerate, and a fine library, open to the public from nine to twelve, for a considerable portion of the year, but not much attended to of late, as perhaps you will conclude, when I tell you that it contains four copies of the first volume of Stuart’s Athens, and none of the second or third, and when a stranger goes, the librarians seem to perform their task grudgingly. Many things of this sort were at one time to be found in Rome, but none of them are now kept up with spirit.
Behind the palace is the Villa, for as I have already said, this term is applied in Italy to the ground, and not to the buildings. It is delightfully situated on the slope of the Janiculum, but all this part lies under a horrible imputation of mal aria.