The Roman Type
Not only Roman characteristics but the Roman type also have descended. The large round massive Roman head still contrasts with the narrow pointed head of the Tuscan. The type still admired in women is the tipo giunonico, the type of Juno and of the Roman matron—large massive and imposing. The Roman has a ruddy fresh complexion, the swarthy southern skin being comparatively rare; he has black hair, is burly and tends to obesity. His expression is tranquil and contented, and Signor Aristide Gabelli in his essay on Rome and the Romans bids us observe that the type has improved, that we no longer see the hard, bitter, threatening expression of the busts in the Capitol and Vatican, the prominent jaw and cheek bones have been softened; and the Roman of the city, at any rate, wears a more genial and humane expression than his classic ancestor. At a church function, among the Roman peasants—though I fear the type was more frequent in the "eighties"—one may see a face which might serve as the model for Jove, for a Roman poet or philosopher. It is such a face as could never be met with even among the best specimens of our peasantry. Muffled in his great fur-collared cloak, dirty and ragged, with eyes which seem to look from a soul that harbours every noble aspiration, our old peasant who can certainly neither read nor write, is probably cogitating why Checco refused to give him the wine at three sous the measure, or whether he would have done better to put the franc the forastiero gave him into shoes, instead of following Peppe's suggestion as to lottery numbers. So much for the wonders which an old civilisation can confer without any effort or any preparation.
PROCESSION WITH THE HOST AT SUBIACO
Many assert that the Trasteverini are the only lineal descendants of the Romans. The legend is that Trastevere was colonised by the Greeks brought by Aeneas, and the Greco-Roman type may frequently be seen there in absolute perfection—women of the people having the classic features and the noble bearing of empresses. They are a more robust race than the Romans on the other side of the Tiber, the black hair of the women is still more luxuriant, the character more passionate and vindictive, the language coarser, the reputation of the women not so fair.
In common with all Italians the Romans are more graceful than English men and women. The simple dignity and grace of the pose and carriage, with no stiffness or awkwardness, makes it easy to distinguish an Italian among Englishmen Germans or Americans whether he is sitting or standing. They have the small Latin bones and small hands and feet; the foot, however, is flatter than ours, and every one from the children to the soldiers drags his feet along the ground. But the walk is so unstilted that Italians form a natural procession, whereas a procession in England is achieved with much difficulty and is not really pleasing to the eye when it is achieved. Have you ever noticed the mesquin gesture—the fear to let himself go which is so closely allied to the knowledge that he cannot do it gracefully—with which one commonplace Englishman bids good-bye to another? You will see nothing like this in Italy. The ample Roman gesture—that Italian gesture of reassurance which seems to the Englishman quite sacerdotal—is the property of every one; and a woman of the people will hail an omnibus with the classic gesture that her ancestor might have used when bidding Olympian Jove stay his thunderbolt.
The Italians have the Latin eye and eyebrow; one never sees the unmodelled elementary eye, with its gaze bon enfant, of our younger civilisation. Naturally resonant, the voices of Italians are in all classes harsh and unmodulated; and there is no better evidence of the general ignorance in Rome than the uneducated speaking voices which make it impossible to distinguish a princess from a peasant at her prayers. The possession of a strong natural organ, quite untutored, is here joined to the Roman love of noise and racket; and the result is that the people scream at each other as if they were deaf, and you can only be sorry they are not also mute. It is an odd thing to hear the deep bass voice of some of the women alternating with the high thin tenor of many of the men; one may often mistake in this way the sex of unseen speakers. The deep voices of the women remind one that the contralto, and even the contro tenore, have been cultivated con amore in Italy: on the other hand a labourer in the fields or your servant-man in the kitchen region can be heard singing in high falsetto like a girl. What one will never hear in Italy are the affected speaking voices cultivated by Englishmen: the Italian does not "put on side" either in his voice or his manners, and nothing is more noticeable perhaps on one's return to England than the absurdly affected voice of the men.
There is no Roman dialect in the sense in which there is a Venetian a Piedmontese and a Neapolitan dialect—habitually spoken by all classes among themselves. The Romanesco spoken in Rome by the people is a debased Italian, not a real dialect. The purest Italian is, as we all know, spoken in Tuscany, where there is no dialect, and the best pronunciation is the Roman. Hence the proverb: "The Tuscan language in the Roman mouth," Lingua toscana in bocca romana.
The Roman's Character