Italy, the Magic Land

by Lilian Whiting

It was at a pleasant déjeûner one spring day in Rome that the project was launched, that we should go motoring that afternoon to Frascati, Albano, Castel Gandolfo, Lago di Nemi, and all that wonderful region. We were lunching with a friend who had a charming apartment in one of the sumptuous old palaces of Rome, where, in a niche on the marble staircase, the statue of Cæsar Augustus stood,—a copy of the famous statue in the Capitoline,—where lofty, decorated ceilings, old paintings and sculptures adorned the rooms, and where from the windows we looked out on the tragedy-haunted Castel San Angelo, with the dome of San Pietro in the background. Our friend who invited us to fly in his motor had brought his touring car over from America. The one note of new luxury now is for travellers to journey with their touring cars. In a year or two more it will be airships or soaring machines. On this wonderful May afternoon, all azure and gold, we started off in the great, luxurious touring car which was arranged even to carry two trunks, with a safe in it for the deposit of valuables, a hamper for refreshments, and, indeed, almost every conceivable convenience. On we flew through Rome, past the great Basilica of San Maria Maggiore; past the wonderful pile of San Giovanni Laterano, with the colossal statues of the apostles surmounting the façade; through the Porta San Giovanni into the narrow, walled lane leading out on the Campagna; on, on, to the Alban hills. We flew past olive orchards and vineyards, and the vast green pasture lands of the Campagna whose vivid green was ablaze with scarlet poppies. Far away to the west there was a white shining line—the line of the sea.

At Frascati we stopped at the Villa Torlonia, the country place of the ducal family, whose grand Roman palazzo is in the Bocca di Leone in the old part of Rome. The Torlonia have an only daughter, Donna Teresa, whose débutante ball a year ago is said to have been the most magnificent entertainment in Rome for fifty years. A writer, in a recent article on the nobility of Rome, said of this family:—

“The Torlonia figure repeatedly in the novels of Thackeray, who was never tired of portraying them. They have been most useful citizens, and since the days of the old army contractor, who founded the house, have augmented the family wealth by judicious investments, especially in connection with the draining and reclaiming of the marsh lands that abound in the former Papal States. They have contracted matrimonial alliances with the Colonna, with the Borghese, the Belmonte, the Doria, and the Sforza.”

The Villa Torlonia at Frascati is a very large estate with extensive gardens, terraces, and a cascade of three falls on the hillside, which is turned on (the water) at pleasure. The house, however, is a shabby-looking affair, a two or three story, rambling, yellow structure, which, at Newport, would not be considered too good for the gardener.

After the usual fashion of the Italians who seldom travel, the Torlonia, wealthy as they are, simply remove from their palace in Rome to their villa at Frascati instead of travelling to Switzerland, Germany, or elsewhere in the summer.

The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland were the guests of the Torlonia that day, the entire party enjoying themselves al fresco, and the beautiful cascade pouring down within the near distance.

These outlying towns, Frascati, Albano, Castel Gandolfo, and Lago di Nemi, the picturesque group in the Alban Mountains, are some sixteen to eighteen miles from Rome. These Alban hills rise like an island from the vast plain of the Campagna, the highest point being some three thousand feet above sea level. They are covered with villages and castles and villas, and have in all a population of some fifty thousand. The region is volcanic, and the beautiful Lago di Nemi and Lago di Albano were the craters of extinct volcanoes. All this region was the haunt of Cicero, Virgil, and Livy. At Tusculum, near Frascati, are the remains of Cicero’s villa, and also of an ancient theatre hewn out of solid rock. The view to the west toward Rome is most beautiful. The dome of St. Peter’s crowns the Eternal City; and the Campagna—a sea of green—is as infinite in sight as is the Mediterranean. There are splendid villas and estates in these Alban hills that belong to the Roman nobility, and here the Pope has his summer palace. “The Alban Mount is also full of historical and legendary interest,” says a writer on the country around Rome. “The Latin tribe, one of the constituent elements of the Roman people, had here its seat. Upon the highest peak of the range was the temple of Jupiter Latiaris, where all the tribes of Latin blood, the Romans included, met every year to worship; and where the victorious generals of the Republic repaired to offer praises and acknowledgments. In these mountain glens undoubtedly most of that ballad literature of Rome, the loss of which Macaulay so eloquently laments and so successfully restores, had its origin. Nor need the scholar be reminded that this is the scene of the most original and vigorous portions of the Æneid of Virgil; nor how the genius of the poet, which rather languidly recounts the traditions borrowed from Greece, wakes to new life, when he feels his feet upon his own soil and deals with Latin names and Latin legends.”

The Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati is celebrated for its fantastic waterworks in elaborate fountains and cascades. In the gardens a statue of Pan with a pipe of reeds and one of a satyr with a trumpet are made to play (both the pipe and the trumpet) by water. The hydraulic engineer must have found in Frascati his earthly paradise, for he commanded the water to leap into foam and spray in the air, to rush down marble terraces, and to form itself into obelisks of liquid silver.

At Grotto Ferrata is a vast monastery of monks of the Order of Basilio (Greek), a monastery so colossal as to be mistaken for a fortress. The chapel has frescoes by Domenichino. At Castel Gandolfo is the summer Papal palace, that has not been occupied by a Pope since the overthrowing of the temporal power in 1870. It has a beautiful and commanding view toward Rome. It was built by Urban VIII.