LETTER XXXIV.
NEIGHBOURHOOD OF ROME.
Rome, May, 1817.
Beginning with the Porta del Popolo, and following in the direction of the sun, I have taken you in succession out of the different gates; but we will now set out by the gate of St. Sebastian, and return by that of San Giovanni, which would precede it in regular order. Before arriving at the gate, we meet with three objects deserving notice, which though within the walls, were too distantly situated to be included in our former walks. The first of these is the great ruin of the Baths of Caracalla. The general plan of the Roman thermæ seems to have been that of a large, rectangular, central building, placed in a spacious enclosure, surrounded by smaller edifices, and on one side of this court there was a large open theatre, or rather cavea. This disposition may be traced in the three which exist the most perfectly; of the others we have not sufficient materials to decide whether it was adopted or not; and only conclude it to have been so from analogy. It is very conspicuous in the Baths of Caracalla, only the cavea, instead of being semicircular, is in the form of half a stadium, or circus. The ruins of these baths are very considerable, and are impressive by their vast square mass; and internally, the immense piles of brick and rubble give it a solemnity of character with which the deep, still blue of an Italian sky is in perfect harmony, though the tints of the ruin are of rich and glowing colours. However often one may visit them, it is always with repeated pleasure that we ramble among their massive constructions. The great central chamber seems, like the great hall still remaining in the baths of Dioclesian, to have been covered with groined arches. It was probably the first instance of groined arches covering a space of any considerable extent, and as there can be no doubt that so striking a novelty would be admired and repeated, we are not surprised at finding it in all the later thermæ. It is true that Palladio introduces this disposition in his plans of all the baths, but he appears in this, as in some other instances, to have supplied the deficiencies of one, by adapting to it the parts of another, without sufficient authority. The great central building was composed internally of two large colonnaded courts, one at each end, and vast halls, and a multitude of smaller chambers between, and on each side of them; on each side of the outer circuit of buildings, there seem to have been other edifices disposed circularly, and an octagonal room, which has the appearance of a hall of entrance, occurred at each end. In one of these the celebrated Toro Farnese is said to have been found, but I believe the fact is doubtful. We find in the part which now remains horizontal lines, which probably mark the situations of the marble cornices, and many other indications of the enrichments which have been taken away: we trace also pipes in the wall in various places, some apparently intended to take off the smoke, while others were to introduce water.
1826.
The Conte di Velo has been at the expense of excavating a considerable part of these baths. Many fragments were found of sculpture and of architecture, and an immense quantity of pieces of different coloured marbles. The white marble of the architecture was Pentelic. At the depth of six or eight feet, the ancient mosaic pavement was discovered, and even below this are several curious arrangements of walls and conduits which I do not comprehend. At the exhibition in the French academy, there were some beautiful drawings of all the discoveries here made, with a complete restoration of the edifice; in some parts very happy; in others very doubtful. The artist has carefully commemorated some comparatively trifling excavations made by the French academy, and does not even mention the name of the Conte di Velo, by whose means he has been enabled to give interest to his drawings.
1817.
The ancient Romans did not permit their dead to be buried within the city, or if there are a few exceptions, they were granted with a very sparing hand, and the tombs of the Campus Martius are obliterated, except a few great ones, by the modern city. The sepulchre of the Scipios is without the ancient walls, in an opposite direction, but within those of Aurelian. An inscription was dug up here so long ago as 1616, but the antiquaries having fixed upon a building considerably farther on, as the tomb of the Scipios, were unanimous in their opinion that it must be a forgery, and it was not till 1780, that the proprietor of the Vigna, working to enlarge his cellar, dug into the ancient excavation, and found the remarkable sarcophagus now in the Vatican, and many other inscribed tablets, which put the matter out of all doubt. It appears originally to have been a quarry of pozzolana, or more probably of tufo, before it was appropriated as a tomb. The ancient entrance is formed by an arch of peperino, adorned with half columns, and this is nearly all the masonry of an early date. Some additions in brick and tufo, seem to have been made afterwards; and still later constructions, of a style of masonry corresponding with that of the circus of Caracalla, were carried through it, or along one side of it. The falling in of the earth had not only covered, but had completely obliterated all traces of the ancient entrance; and a small casino for the vine-dresser, one of those little things so often constructed on the ancient tombs, still farther tended to conceal from the observer any object of interest; a few pieces of old rubble-work are too frequent about the Campagna to excite attention.
Just before passing the walls, we find the Arch of Claudius Drusus, built by the senate in 745 A. U. C., eight years before the Christian era, and ornamented, as is said, with trophies of German victories. Over the arch, on the face towards the city, one may perceive indications of a frieze and architrave, and the bed moulding of the cornice, but none of the corona: there are also remains of a small pediment, hardly extending across the opening of the arch. All this belongs to the original edifice, and is easily distinguished from the aqueduct of Caracalla carried over it; to execute which, it appears to have been necessary to cut down the work internally, nearly as low as to the key-stone of the arch. On the external face are two marble columns of the Composite order. The architrave of these remains, but nothing above it, and all the rest of the edifice has been stripped of the marble covering with which it was once coated.