Le veggio in fronte amor come in suo seggio,
Sul crin, negli occhi, su le labbra amore,
Sol d'intorno al suo cuore, amor non veggio.[I]
After being confined to the house for three days, partly by indisposition, and partly by a vile sirocco, which brought, as usual, vapours, clouds, and blue devils in its train—this most lovely day tempted me out; and I walked with V. over the Monte Cavallo to the Forum of Trajan. After admiring the view from the summit of the pillar, we went on towards the Capitol, which presented a singular scene: the square and street in front, as well as the immense flight of steps, one hundred and fifty in number, which lead to the church of the Ara Celi, were crowded with men, women, and children, all in their holiday dresses. It was with difficulty we made our way through them, though they very civilly made way for us, and we were nearly a quarter of an hour mounting the steps, so dense was the multitude ascending and descending, some on their hands and knees out of extra-devotion. At last we reached the door of the church, where we understood, from the exclamations and gesticulations of those of whom we inquired, something extraordinary was to be seen. On one side of the entrance was a puppet show, on the other a band of musicians, playing "Di tanti palpati." The interior of the church was crowded to suffocation; and all in darkness, except the upper end, where upon a stage brilliantly and very artificially lighted by unseen lamps, there was an exhibition in wax-work, as large as life, of the Adoration of the Shepherds. The Virgin was habited in the court dress of the last century, as rich as silk and satin, gold lace, and paste diamonds could make it, with a flaxen wig, and high-heeled shoes. The infant Saviour lay in her lap, his head encircled with rays of gilt wire, at least two yards long. The shepherds were very well done, but the sheep and dogs best of all; I believe they were the real animals stuffed. There was a distant landscape, seen between the pasteboard trees, which was well painted, and from the artful disposition of the light and perspective, was almost a deception—but by a blunder very consistent with the rest of the show, it represented a part of the Campagna of Rome. Above all was a profane representation of that Being, whom I dare scarcely allude to, in conjunction with such preposterous vanities, encircled with saints, angels, and clouds; the whole got up very like a scene in a pantomime, and accompanied by music from a concealed orchestra, which was intended, I believe, to be sacred music, but sounded to me like some of Rossini's airs. In front of the stage there was a narrow passage divided off, admitting one person at a time, through which a continued file of persons moved along, who threw down their contributions as they passed, bowing and crossing themselves with great devotion. It would be impossible to describe the ecstasies of the multitude, the lifting up of hands and eyes, the string of superlatives—the bellissimos, santissimos, gloriosissimos, and maravigliosissimos, with which they expressed their applause and delight. I stood in the back-ground of this strange scene, supported on one of the long-legged chairs which V—— placed for me against a pillar, at once amazed, diverted, and disgusted by this display of profaneness and superstition, till the heat and crowd overcame me, and I was obliged to leave the church. I shall never certainly forget the "Bambino" of the Ara Celi: for though the exhibition I saw afterwards at the San Luigi (where I went to look at Domenichino's fine pictures) surpassed what I have just described, it did not so much surprise me. Something in the same style is exhibited in almost every church, between Christmas day and the Epiphany.
During our examination of Trajan's Forum to-day, I learnt nothing new, except that Trajan levelled part of the Quirinal to make room for it. The ground having lately been cleared to the depth of about twelve feet, part of the ancient pavement has been discovered, and many fragments of columns set upright: pieces of frieze and broken capitals are scattered about. The pillar, which is now cleared to the base, stands in its original place, but not, as it is supposed, at its original level, for the Romans generally raised the substructure of their buildings, in order to give them a more commanding appearance. The antiquarians here are of opinion that both the pavement of the Basilica and the base of the pillar were raised above the level of the ancient street, and that there is a flight of steps, still concealed, between the pillar and the pavement in front. The famous Ulpian Library was on each side of the Basilica, and the Forum differed from other Forums in not being an open space surrounded by buildings, but a building surrounded by an open space.
Dec 31.-Jan. 1.—That hour in which we pass from one year to another, and begin a new account with ourselves, with our fellow creatures, and with God, must surely bring some solemn and serious thoughts to the bosoms of the most happy and most unreflecting among the triflers on this earth. What then must it be to me? The first hour, the first moment of the expiring year was spent in tears, in distress, in bitterness of heart—as it began so it ends. Days, and weeks, and months, and seasons, came and "passed like visions to their viewless home," and brought no change. Through the compass of the whole year I have not enjoyed one single day—I will not say of happiness—but of health and peace; and what I have endured has left me little to learn in the way of suffering. Would to heaven that as the latest minutes now ebb away while I write, memory might also pass away! Would to heaven that I could efface the last year from the series of time, hide it from myself, bury it in oblivion, stamp it into annihilation, that none of its dreary moments might ever rise up again to haunt me, like spectres of pain and dismay! But this is wrong—I feel it is—and I repent, I recall my wish. That great Being, to whom the life of a human creature is a mere point, but who has bestowed on his creatures such capacities of feeling and suffering, as extend moments to hours and days to years, inflicts nothing in vain, and if I have suffered much, I have also learned much. Now the last hour is past—another year opens; may it bring to those I love all I wish them in my heart! to me it can bring nothing. The only blessing I hope from time is forgetfulness—my only prayer to heaven is—rest, rest, rest.
Jan. 4.—We dispatched, as L** would say, a good deal to-day: we visited the Temple of Vesta, the Church of Santa Maria in Cosmadino, the Temple of Fortune, the Ponte Rotto, and the house of Nicolo Rienzi: all these lie together in a dirty, low, and disagreeable part of Rome. Thence we drove to the Pyramid of Caius Cestus.—As we know nothing of this Caius Cestus, but that he lived, died, and was buried, it is not possible to attach any fanciful or classical interest to his tomb, but it is an object of so much beauty in itself, and from its situation so striking and picturesque, that it needs no additional interest. It is close to the ancient walls of Rome, which stretch on either side as far as the eye can reach in huge and broken masses of brickwork, fragments of battlements and buttresses, overgrown in many parts with shrubs and even trees. Around the base of the Pyramid lies the burying-ground of strangers and heretics. Many of the monuments are elegant, and their frail materials and diminutive forms are in affecting contrast with the lofty and solid pile which towers above them. The tombs lie around in a small space "amicably close," like brothers in exile, and as I gazed I felt a kindred feeling with all; for I, too, am a wanderer, a stranger and a heretic; and it is probable that my place of rest may be among them. Be it so! for methinks this earth could not afford a more lovely, a more tranquil, or more sacred spot. I remarked one tomb, which is an exact model, and in the same material with the sarcophagus of Cornelius Scipio, in the Vatican. One small slab of white marble bore the name of a young girl, an only child, who died at sixteen, and "left her parents disconsolate:" another elegant and simple monument bore the name of a young painter of genius and promise, and was erected "by his companions and fellow students as a testimony of their affectionate admiration and regret." This part of old Rome is beautiful beyond description, and has a wild, desolate, and poetical grandeur, which affects the imagination like a dream.—The very air disposes one to reverie. I am not surprised that Poussin, Claude, and Salvator Rosa made this part of Rome a favourite haunt, and studied here their finest effects of colour, and their grandest combinations of landscape. I saw a young artist seated on a pile of ruins with his sketch book open on his knee, and his pencil in his hand—during the whole time we were there he never changed his attitude, nor put his pencil to the paper, but remained leaning on his elbow, like one lost in ecstasy.
Jan 5.—To-day we drove through the quarter of the Jews, called the Ghetta degli Ebrei. It is a long street enclosed at each end with a strong iron gate, which is locked by the police at a certain hour every evening (I believe at ten o'clock); and any Jew found without its precincts after that time, is liable to punishment and a heavy fine. The street is narrow and dirty, the houses wretched and ruinous, and the appearance of the inhabitants squalid, filthy, and miserable—on the whole, it was a painful scene, and one I should have avoided, had I followed my own inclinations. If this specimen of the effects of superstition and ignorance was depressing, the next was not less ridiculous. We drove to the Lateran: I had frequently visited this noble Basilica before, but on the present occasion we were to go over it in form, with the usual torments of laquais and ciceroni. I saw nothing new but the cloisters, which remain exactly as in the time of Constantine. They are in the very vilest style of architecture, and decorated with Mosaic in a very elaborate manner: but what most amused us was the collection of relics, said to have been brought by Constantine from the Holy Land, and which our cicerone exhibited with a sneering solemnity which made it very doubtful whether he believed himself in their miraculous sanctity. Here is the stone on which the cock was perched when it crowed to St. Peter, and a pillar from the Temple of Jerusalem, split asunder at the time of the crucifixion; it looks as if it had been sawed very accurately in half from top to bottom; but this of course only renders it more miraculous. Here is also the column in front of Pilate's house, to which our Saviour was bound, and the very well where he met the woman of Samaria. All these, and various other relics, supposed to be consecrated by our Saviour's Passion, are carelessly thrown into the cloisters—not so the heads of St. Peter and St. Paul, which are considered as the chief treasures in the Lateran, and are deposited in the body of the church in a rich shrine. The beautiful sarcophagus of red porphyry, which once stood in the Portico of the Pantheon, and contained the ashes of Agrippa, is now in the Corsini chapel here, and encloses the remains of some Pope Clement. The bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, which stands on the Capitol, was dug from the cloisters of the Lateran. The statue of Constantine in the portico was found in the baths of Constantine: it is in a style of sculpture worthy the architecture of the cloisters.—Constantine was the first Christian emperor, a glory which has served to cover a multitude of sins; it is indeed impossible to forget that he was the chosen instrument of a great and blessed revolution; but in other respects it is as impossible to look back to the period of Constantine without horror—an era when bloodshed and barbarism, and the general depravity of morals and taste seemed to have reached their climax.
On leaving the Lateran, we walked to the Scala Santa, said to be the very flights of steps which led to the judgment hall at Jerusalem, and transported hither by the Emperor Constantine; but while the other relics which his pious benevolence bestowed on the city of Rome have apparently lost some of their efficacy, the Scala Santa is still regarded with the most devout veneration. At the moment of our approach, an elegant barouche drove up to the portico, from which two well-dressed women alighted, and pulling out their rosaries, began to crawl up the steps on their hands and knees, repeating a Paternoster and an Ave Maria on every step. A poor diseased beggar had just gone up before them, and was a few steps in advance. This exercise, as we are assured, purchases a thousand years of indulgence. The morning was concluded by a walk on the Mont Pincio.
I did not know on that first morning after our arrival, when I ran up the Scalla della Trinità to the top of the Pincian hill, and looked around me with such transport, that I stood by mere chance on that very spot from which Claude used to study his sun sets, and his beautiful effects of evening. His house was close to me on the left, and those of Nicolo Poussin and Salvator Rosa a little beyond. Since they have been pointed out to me, I never pass from the Monte Pincio along the Via Felice without looking up at them with interest: such power has genius, "to hallow in the core of human hearts even the ruin of a wall."