It is well worth a visit there to hear mass, vespers, or one of the fathers preaching.
The wind generally blows in the piazza, which is thus accounted for. One day the wind and the devil were out for a ramble; and, on arriving at this square, the old gentleman asked the wind to stop a moment while he went into the church. The wind is still stopping for the devil, who has not yet come out.
The Via Cesarini, down the new Corso Vittorio Emanuele, leads to the Piazza of S. Nicola a Cesarini. In the court of No. 56 is
THE TEMPLE OF CASTOR.
The remains show that it was a circular building. It stood near the Flaminian Circus. (Vitruvius, iv. 7.) Four fluted tufa columns exist.
From Piazza del Gesù we proceed up Via Ara Cœli. Before us is
THE CAPITOLINE HILL.
It was originally called the Hill of Saturn (Dionysius, ii. 1), being occupied by Romulus as a defence for the Palatine Hill (Plutarch, in "Rom."), and was betrayed to the Sabines by Tarpeia, the daughter of the commandant of the fortress (Livy, i. 11). When the Palatine and Capitoline Hills were united into one city, and the two kings reigned together, the name of the hill was changed and called the Tarpeian Hill. In the 138th year after the foundation of Rome, when Tarquin the Great was making the foundations for the great Temple of Jupiter, they found a human head; and the oracle told them that the spot where the head was found should become the head of the world; and so they changed the name of the hill again, and called it the Capitoline Hill,—from caput, a head (Livy, i. 55; Pliny, xxviii. 4). The whole hill was the Arx or Citadel of Rome, just the same as at Athens, Veii, Tusculum, &c. Several ancient authors agree in this. The shape of the hill is a saddle-back,—the centre being depressed, with an eminence at each end. The one on our left is known as the Ara Cœli height, and the one on our right as the Caffarella height. On the Ara Cœli height stood the great Temple of Jupiter, facing south, and approached from the Area Capitolina (Piazza del Campidoglio) by a flight of steps. On the opposite or Caffarella height stood the Temple of Juno Moneta or the Mint, and the Temple of Concord, both built by Camillus; and the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius, founded by Romulus. Many other temples, altars, and shrines occupied the space inside the citadel, which was approached by three ascents upon its eastern side,—the Clivus Capitolinus, the Pass of the Two Groves, and the Hundred Steps. The ascents upon its western side date from 1348, when the marble stairs on our left, leading up to the Ara Cœli, were erected out of the stairs that led up to the Temple of Quirinus (Romulus) upon the Quirinal Hill. The ascent to the Square was made in 1536 for the entry of Charles V. The roadway on its right is quite recent. In forming it some remains of the tufa walls that protected the arx on this side were found, and can still be seen inside the iron gate.
On the balustrade at the bottom of the ascent to the Capitol are two Egyptian lionesses. At the top of the ascent are two colossal statues of Castor and Pollux, found in the Ghetto, and by their side are the miscalled Trophies of Marius. They belonged to the decorations of the Nymphæum of Alexander Severus, the picturesque ruins of which are on the Esquiline Hill, and which are represented on a coin. They were placed upon the balustrade of the Capitol, their present site, by Pope Sixtus V. Originally they formed part of the ornamentation of the Basilica Ulpia, and were erected in honour of Trajan by the Apollinarian and Valerian legions. Next to the trophies are two statues of Cæsar and Augustus Constantine; and in the same row, on the left, the stone that marked the seventh and, on the right, the stone that marked the first mile on the Via Appia.
In the centre of the Square is