Wintering in the Riviera / With Notes of Travel in Italy and France, and Practical Hints to Travellers

by William James Miller

We had not an opportunity of seeing the library of the Vatican.

The Sistine Chapel is what nobody omits to see. The entrance to it is from the Scala Regia, just before coming to the picture galleries. We saw it once, and I must own it fell short of expectation. The chamber is dark, the frescoes are fading, and to see some of them it is necessary to lie on one’s back and look up. The view, therefore, is indistinct and uncomfortable; but though they are from the hand of a great master, the eye experiences a want of repose, the effect of over-decoration.

It is usually recommended to people visiting Rome for the first time, to take a preliminary drive of some hours, to form a general idea of the city. This, after our first visit to St. Peter’s, we did, and found it attended with considerable advantage. Except where it is bounded by the Tiber, Rome is surrounded by walls of defence, in which are several gates. Outside of some of these gates, the town has slightly extended; but, for the most part, the walls stretch a good way beyond the inhabited portion of the town, which is very compactly built, there being no large public gardens or parks within the city, and scarcely an open square, while the streets are narrow and the houses high. The seven hills upon which Rome has always been regarded as standing, are rather hillocks than hills, and do not, seen from the Campagna, bulk much upon the eye. They vary in height from 156 feet to 218 feet above the level of the sea; so that, deducting at least 40 feet for the general level of the city, the highest is but low. From the Porto del Popolo, outside of which the Protestant churches are, with one exception, placed, and inside of which is one of the largest piazzas, or open places, in Rome, three straight-leading streets branch out, diverging at acute angles—viz., the Via Babuino, conducting into the Piazza di Spagna; a centre street, the famous Via del Corso; and a third, the Via di Ripetta, which passes by or near to the banks of the Tiber. All these streets proceed (a wonderful circumstance in Rome) in straight lines to a considerable distance, the Corso fully a mile in length, the vista of all being terminated at the one end in the Piazza del Popolo by the Flaminian Egyptian obelisk, the third in altitude in Rome. The Corso, the longest and central one, terminates at a point not far from the forum of Trajan and the Capitoline Hill, in the vicinity of which the principal ruins of Rome lie. Out of the Corso, however, except where it is crossed for a short way after leaving the Porto del Popolo by a few regular streets, the streets of Rome are so tortuous that I do not recollect any other city, at least similar in size, where it is so puzzling to find one’s way about. I did once or twice adventure on a walk, just to try and familiarize myself with the streets, but in doing so found it necessary to take the bearings very exactly, and to keep the map in hand, to prevent my getting bewildered. These tortuous streets are irregular and narrow, sometimes with scarcely room for two little cabs to pass. They are causewayed, but have no footpath. Even the three leading streets I have named are extremely narrow. The Corso is only 40 to 50 feet wide, and the footpaths which have been placed there are proportionately contracted, leaving, I may say, no room in some places for two foot-passengers to pass each other. The streets are now, however, like other Italian towns, lighted with gas, the want of proper lighting previously having been much felt. The principal shops are in the Corso, the Piazza di Spagna, and the Via Condotti, which crosses from the Corso to the Piazza. Some of the chief booksellers are in the Piazza, but the jewellers’ and photographers’ shops are the kind which are most largely patronized by strangers. None of the shops, however, are capacious, and the wares they contain are in general marvellously limited in quantity.

Beyond the inhabited part of Rome, there are many good roads, principally conducting to or from the gates, and leading to the country beyond. As one passes along the streets, the eye is continually met by churches, palaces, and other public buildings; but the great attractive interest lies in what remains of the grand buildings of ancient Rome, which for the most part are found in proximity to each other.

Of these, the one which predominates, and by its imposing mass generally claims the first examination, is the Colosseum. It stands nearly free from other buildings, in all the sublimity of age and magnitude. But not far from it are the Arches of Titus and Constantine, the ruins of the Temple of Venus, of the Basilica of Constantine, of the palace of the Cæsars on the Palatine Hill, of the Forum Romanum, and of many other ancient buildings and places, familiar to all who have read about Rome, and which one could not see for the first time without being profoundly stirred. There are gentlemen—I suppose they may be called clinical lecturers—who give descriptions on the spot of these interesting old places, and the information so afforded is useful, because the results of study are imparted by the living voice in a familiar way, and special attention is called to the historical associations, which otherwise to most people might remain unknown. One of these gentlemen, Mr. Forbes (charge, 3 fr. each), makes up two parties per day, one before and one after lunch—regularity in taking which, in Rome, is always recommended as essential to health. I had an opportunity on one occasion of accompanying him, and there was certainly an advantage in hearing his explanations. There is so much, however, to see in Rome, and that of a diversified character, that this was the only time I managed to do so. Mr. Shakespeare Wood is another who occasionally goes out in this way, but I was apprised that he would not form a party during the time we were in Rome. He is said to be remarkably well informed, and is usually engaged by Mr. Cook for his special excursions. To those who would study old Rome, great assistance might be found in a series of instructive papers, evincing great literary research, and evidently of minute exactness of statement, printed in the Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Scotland, written by the late Mr. Alexander Thomson of Banchory. It would be well if these scholarly papers could be collected and published by themselves, for, as they stand, they are not within the reach of the general public. Some of the statements I shall hereafter make on Old Rome will be on his authority.

It would not be possible, according to the plan I have adopted of a rapid survey of what is to be seen in Rome, to give any detailed description of the various ancient buildings, which, besides, are by means of photographs and engravings so familiar even to those who never have visited Italy.

The Colosseum[30] is an immense mass of building, notwithstanding not only that it was long occupied as a fortress, and subjected to the injury resulting from attack and defence, but that it was, like so many others, used for centuries as a quarry for its stones, its marble, and even its iron. Happily this species of destruction was stopped by the French, and steps have also been taken for its preservation by building strong and lofty supports. The Colosseum is at least twice as large as the arena at Nismes, and even as it now remains it is twice as high,[31] but that at Nismes is in much better preservation. The outer walls, galleries, and arches of the Colosseum are built of massive blocks of stone, bound together with iron; but brick composed what was below. Brick, evidently of a hardy quality, cemented by a very strong, durable mortar, appears, indeed, to have been very largely used by the Romans for the carcases or substantial and concealed portions of their buildings. These brick carcases, however, were either built over with substantial stone-work, or faced with slabs of marble, sometimes both; and in a building of this magnitude, even the outer deceptive covering of stone or marble would be of immense mass. By the removal of vast quantities of the large stones forming the casing, a great deal of this brick carcase or underwork has been laid bare, so that the interior of the building has a very ruinous look. Externally, also, the removal of courses of stone, in some parts combined with the ravages of time, impart to it the aspect of a huge ruin. There is free entrance to the public to the arena or central area. We seldom passed the Colosseum without going in to take a glance at it. One could hardly, however, forget what deadly scenes had been enacted there, what agonies had been endured, what cries of pain had been uttered, what savage shouts had once filled its walls, or help feeling thankful that the barbarous and brutalizing spectacles which were then found necessary ‘to make a Roman holiday,’ were now happily things of a long-past age.

I was so fortunate as to be in the city on Saturday, 21st April 1877, which was held as the birthday of Rome (the 2630th, I believe), and beheld a spectacle in the Colosseum which never had greeted the eyes of the old Romans. Nearly the whole population was, in the evening of that day, drawn to the great amphitheatre and its neighbourhood. Joining a party of ladies from our house, with considerable difficulty we drove through the crowded streets, and, dismissing the carriage, we succeeded in getting inside the Colosseum along with a large but orderly mass of people. After waiting long, we were at last rewarded. All of a sudden, the various galleries, which I suppose had been lined with soldiers, were illumined with coloured lights. On one half of the huge building red lights were burned; on the other half, green. When the powders were burned down, others were substituted, the colours being reversed. The effect was magnificent. Every figure in the place was bathed in coloured light, while the walls were one mass of a glowing hue, disclosing the colossal proportions in all their ruinous irregularity, and, where red was burned, looking as if it were a huge lump of burning lava or molten iron. This over, with some trouble we managed to edge away from the crowd to the outside, to see the further operations elsewhere. The Colosseum itself was first lighted on the exterior, which, fine as the effect was, I think could hardly be compared with the interior view. Lights were then successively burned to illuminate the Arches of Constantine and Titus and the Basilica of Constantine—the figures of the persons running about in charge appearing at a little distance, wrapped in the carmine colour, like so many incarnate demons. Last of all, the Forum, the Capitoline Hill, and the surrounding buildings and ruins, were several times similarly illuminated, while a display of fireworks from the Capitol terminated this very imposing spectacle.

The grand dimensions of the Colosseum drew us often there. It seemed at every visit more and more imposing. Leaving it, and proceeding by the Via Sacra to the Capitoline Hill, which lies about half a mile distant, one passes upon the left the Arch of Constantine, standing at the entrance to a broad wooded roadway, called the Via di Gregorio, running between the Palatine Hill (on which are the ruined palaces of the Cæsars) on the right side, and the Church of San Gregorio Magno and other buildings on the left side, and leading out towards the Appian Way. The fine sculptures upon the arch are well preserved, and give a richer appearance to it than to any other arches now standing; but have been taken from buildings of an earlier age than that of Constantine, and thought to be of the time of Trajan, whose life they illustrate.

About 200 yards farther on we pass under the Arch of Titus. The bas-relief, exhibiting the triumphal procession and captive Jews, is of itself sufficient to confer a lasting interest upon this arch. It forms a grand contemporaneous record of the siege of Jerusalem, and of the forms of some of the sacred furnishings of the temple.