All the magic of Italy is in this picturesque excursion. In the vast grounds of the Villa Barberini are the ruins of the ancient palace and gardens of Domitian. On one hillside is a broken wall; a long avenue of ilex trees reveals here and there fragments of mosaic pavement. Crumbling niches hold fragments of statues. The hill itself is still pierced with the long tunnels driven through it by Domitian that he might pass unseen,—presumably safe from his enemies,—from the palace to the gardens. From the parapet, Rome is seen across the shining Campagna and the dome of Michael Angelo gleams against the blue Italian sky.
“The wreck is beautiful,” writes Mrs. Humphry Ward, in “Eleanor,” of this romantic spot; “for it is masked in the gloom of the overhanging trees; or hidden behind dropping veils of ivy; or lit up by straggling patches of broom and cytisus that thrust themselves through the gaps in the Roman brickwork and shine golden in the dark. At the foot of the wall, along its whole length, runs a low marble conduit that held the sweetest, liveliest water. Lilies of the valley grow beside it, breathing scent into the shadowed air; while on the outer or garden side of the path the grass is purple with long-stalked violets, or pink with the sharp heads of the cyclamen. And a little farther, from the same grass, there shoots up, in happy neglect, tall camellia trees, ragged and laden, strewing the ground red and white beneath them. And above the camellias again the famous stone-pines of the villa climb into the high air, overlooking the plain and the sea, peering at Rome and Soracte.”
One could wander all day in the strange ruins of the old Barberini grounds, and in the vast spaces of the gardens and through the Villa Doria.
The beauty of the avenue of ilex trees through which we flew from Castel Gandolfo to Lago di Nemi surpasses description. This lake, some four miles in circumference, lies in a crater hollow, with precipitous hills surrounding it, the water so clear that the ancients called it the “Mirror of Diana.” In it was constructed an artificial island in the design of a Roman state barge.
Over the long viaduct at Ariccia we flew; everywhere in the little town people, donkeys—an almost indistinguishable mass—filled the narrow streets; and thus on to Genzano and the Lago di Nemi, with its fabled fleet at the bottom.
The Chigi woods, that fill the deep ravine under the great viaduct at Ariccia, were in the most brilliant emerald green. Past these forests lay the vast stretch of the Pontine Marshes; and turning toward Rome again, the splendor of the sunset flamed in the sky. One could but recall Mrs. Humphry Ward’s vivid picture of a storm seen over this part of the Campagna:—
“The sunset was rushing to its height through every possible phase of violence and splendor. From the Mediterranean, storm clouds were rising fast to the assault and conquest of the upper sky, which still above the hills shone blue and tranquil. But the northwest wind and the sea were leagued against it. They sent out threatening fingers and long spinning veils of cloud across it—skirmishers that foretold the black and serried lines, the torn and monstrous masses behind. Below these wild tempest shapes again—in long spaces resting on the sea—the heaven was at peace, shining in delicate greens and yellows, infinitely translucent and serene, above the dazzling lines of water. Over Rome itself there was a strange massing and curving of the clouds. Between their blackness and the deep purple of the Campagna rose the city—pale phantom—upholding one great dome, and one only, to view of night and the world. Round and above and behind, beneath the long flat arch of the storm, glowed a furnace of scarlet light. The buildings of the city were faint specks within its fierce intensity, dimly visible through a sea of fire. St. Peter’s alone, without visible foundation or support, had consistence, form, identity; and between the city and the hills, waves of blue and purple shade, forerunners of the night, stole over the Campagna towards the higher ground. But the hills themselves were still shining, still clad in rose and amethyst, caught in gentler repetition from the wildness of the west. Pale rose even the olive gardens; rose the rich brown fallows, the emerging farms; while drawn across the Campagna from north to south, as though some mighty brush had just laid it there for sheer lust of color, sheer joy in the mating it with the rose,—one long strip of sharpest, purest green.”
The Villa Falconieri, in Frascati, which was built by Cardinal Ruffini, with the old ilex tree preserved in the portals, has recently been purchased by the Emperor of Germany, who proposes to transform it into an Academy for the accommodation of German students in Rome. These national academies draw their corresponding numbers of students from the nations thus represented, and contribute to the cosmopolitan aspects of Rome. The American Academy in Rome is now being transferred from the Ludovisi quarter to a large and convenient building outside Porta Pia.
Perhaps the eminently social quality of Roman life may be indirectly due to the lack of library privileges which is a conspicuous defect in Rome. The Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele, under the courteous administration of Commendatore Conte Guili, has, it is true, a collection of over half a million volumes and thousands of very rare and valuable manuscripts. It has a large public reading room, and books are loaned on the signature of any embassy or consulate; yet this library, while offering peculiar advantages to theological and other special students and readers, does not afford any extended privileges to the general reader of modern English and American publications. It is located in a grim and forbidding old stone palace, approached by an obscure lane from the Corso, where, as there is no sidewalk, the pedestrian shares the narrow, dark, cold, stone-paved little street with carts, donkeys, peasants, and beggars.
The great monument to King Victor Emmanuel, of mingled architecture and sculpture, a colossal structure of white marble with arches and pillars forming beautiful colonnades, the capital of each column heavily carved, and the sculpture, which is being done by a number of artists, will be of the most artistic and beautiful order. This memorial will occupy an entire block, and it is located very near the Capitol. All the old buildings in the vicinity will be torn down to give a fine vista for this transcendently noble and sumptuous memorial.