Issuing from this palace we may descend to the Ponte Sisto, the ancient Janiculensis, but the present edifice is I believe entirely modern. On the other side is the fountain of this name. The water guggles from a hole in a wall forming the back of an arched recess, into a vase just below, over the edges of which it runs, and falls into the basin at bottom. The architecture is not bad, but the principal fall ought to have been first. A few steps farther on, is the Church of the Santissima Trinità, famous for a picture of the Trinity by Guido. If the head of the Deity had been intended for that of Moses, it would be universally acknowledged sublime, but the attempt to represent this subject, must always produce disappointment or disgust.
Near this is the Monte di Pietà, a public establishment for lending money on pledges, and resembling perhaps in some degree our savings banks.
We return again over the bridge, and ascending by the mills supplied from the Fontana Paolina, go to the botanic garden, which contains but few plants.[[3]] It occupies a situation just above the fountain, which indeed pours forth a river. There are three equal arches discharging as many equal streams of water, and two smaller ones, with only a spout in each. An enormous attic rises above these arches, to receive the inscription, and the whole is crowned with a sort of pediment ornament, much like that at the Fontana Felice, somewhat larger, and considerably worse. The whole merit of the thing consists in the great abundance of water; but it is said not to be good. I do not know precisely whether it is brought from the lake of Bracciano, or from springs in that neighbourhood. It is clear and bright, and supplies fountains and turns mills, to which purpose it is almost exclusively applied, as well as any water could do.
A short walk conducts us to the Church of San Pietro in Montorio, rising on an advancing point of the Janiculum, and commanding a glorious view, including almost all the objects of antiquity in Rome which can possibly be comprised in any general view; and nearly all the modern city, with its domes and palaces; the Tiber; the seven hills, or rather six, for the eye cannot hence distinguish the Viminal, three of which are covered with gardens and vineyards; Monte Testaccio; great part of the walls, and the country beyond them; Monte Albano; and the Apennines.
The church itself has two orders in front, each presenting a single pilaster at each angle of the building. The lower includes a large and handsome doorway, the upper a single circular window. The simplicity of this disposition renders it superior to most of the church fronts in Rome. It was built about 1500, at the expense of Isabella of Spain, wife of Ferdinand the Fourth.
Within this church was once the glory of modern art, the Transfiguration of Raphael, now in the Vatican, after its journey to Paris; and there still is a Flagellation, coloured by Sebastian del Piombo, from the design of Michael Angelo. It is an admirable painting, but like all frescos, in a state of decay.[[4]]
In the cloister of the convent annexed to this church, is the famous Tempietto of Bramante, built on the spot where St. Peter was crucified; and the hole in which the cross stood, is shewn exactly in the centre of the present building. It is a little circular structure, surrounded by a peristyle of sixteen Doric columns, and this circle of columns, with its pedestal and the steps up to it, is beautiful. Everything is well proportioned, and in its just place; but the upper part of the edifice is not good. The parts within the portico are crowded and confused, and the inside has little or no beauty.
From San Pietro we descend to the Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, and to that of San Grisogono, both of which I have described to you.
That of Santa Cecilia is in a similar style, with ancient columns, and originally a flat ceiling, but this is now replaced by a low elliptical vault, leaving space only for very low windows. The disposition is displeasing in itself, and the more so, from its want of suitableness to the lower parts; an appearance of lightness may be given to a small arch, which cannot by any means be preserved in a continued vault. A row of columns supporting such a vault, has therefore always the appearance of insufficiency. The statue of the saint is much admired.
We will now leave the Trastevere, and pass over the Bridge of Cestius, now of St. Bartholomew, into the island, which is also dedicated to that saint; considerable vestiges of the ancient bridge remain. It was built in the 788th year of Rome, but restored in 368 of the Christian era. In a convent in the island, we find a waxen bust of one of the monks, who was a friend of Canova, made by that artist. It is admirably executed, and coloured like nature, but the stillness of the open blue eyes represents death, and not life. In the garden of the same convent, and from the shore just below it, you may see the small remnants of the temple of Æsculapius, which was built in the form of a ship. Something of this shape is still distinguishable, and also a portion of the serpent. The temple of Vesta, the mouth of the Cloaca maxima, and Ponte Rotto, unite into a fine composition, as seen from the point of the island. After crossing the other branch of the Tiber, on the Ponte di Quattro Capi, which retains in its piers some fragments of the Pons Fabricius, built in 733 of Rome; we may visit the Palazzo Mattei, which I notice, not for its architecture, nor for its paintings, though it contains a fine collection, but for the great quantity of bas-reliefs, built up in the walls. They would make an interesting museum, if put together in a place where they were well seen; but here, besides being exposed to the injuries of the weather, they are almost lost as separate objects, and they take away from what beauty there is in the architecture. In the lower court are some valuable fragments of architectural ornament, built up in the same manner, and in particular, two semicircular windows, where the rich foliage which occupies great part of the opening, shews that the ancients knew how to produce an effect, somewhat similar to that of the tracery in our Gothic windows, and in some respects superior to it, without at all departing from the character of their own architecture.