CHAPTER XX.
THE TOMBOLA—MAUSOLEUM OF AUGUSTUS—THE MONTGOLFIER—CURIOUS FINALE—THE BIGLIARDO—POOL—SIR T. B.—AN AMUSING ACQUAINTANCE—THE BEWILDERED BARBER—THE DOG “PINCIO”—PREPARATIONS FOR CARNIVAL—BOMBARDING IN THE CORSO—CHARACTERS—CHARLATANS—THE FESTINI.
THE TOMBOLA—MAUSOLEUM OF AUGUSTUS—THE MONTGOLFIER—CURIOUS FINALE—THE BIGLIARDO—POOL—SIR T. B.—AN AMUSING ACQUAINTANCE—THE BEWILDERED BARBER—THE DOG “PINCIO”—PREPARATIONS FOR CARNIVAL—BOMBARDING IN THE CORSO—CHARACTERS—CHARLATANS—THE FESTINI.
Shortly after my arrival in Rome, I had an opportunity of witnessing the drawing of a lottery, orTombola, as it is there called, an interesting and exciting scene. These are got up ostensibly for purposes of charity, and are so ordered, that many parties may be winners at one and the same time. No sooner is a tombola decided on, than a vast number of tickets are struck off, and distributed for sale at various authorized offices throughout the city. These are simply pieces of paper, containing fifteen spaces, which the applicant fills up with any fifteen numbers he may choose to fix upon, paying a moderate sum for the ticket and its registration. On the day appointed for the drawing of the lottery, I repaired with my friend R—— to the Corea, or Mausoleum of Augustus, an amphitheatre, now usedas a circus for travelling showmen, and exhibitionsà la Franconi. On the present occasion, its benches, and raised platforms were crowded with people of all degrees and classes, of whom there were perhaps scarcely fifty, who did not take a personal interest in the drawing of the numbers. The wheel of fortune was hung in front of a box on the highest tier, in a conspicuous situation, and we had scarcely taken our seats, ere a dead silence announced that the first number was about to be drawn. After a suitable whirling of the cylinder, a little boy drew forth the paper, and the number was immediately proclaimed by a herald to the expectant crowd, whilst at the same time, one of ninety squares, upon a large black board, turned suddenly upon its axis, and revealed the number to such as were too distant to hear it. All eyes were now bent upon the tickets; pencils and pins went to work wherever the number was held, and then an interval of talking and shouting succeeded, until another number was drawn and proclaimed. Three consecutive numbers constitute aterno, and command a small prize, while aquaternoof four in succession, and acinquinaof five, are still more advantageous. It was not long before a commotion at one particular spot in the crowd announced the holding of one of these, and the fortunatepossessor then elbowed his way to the wheel, through the dense mass of people, to receive his prize. About an hour elapsed before “Tombola” was declared in two places. This only occurs when the declaration of the numbers drawn has enabled the possessor of a ticket to score off his whole fifteen, and this done, he became entitled, as in the present instance, to a prize of three hundred scudi, or a little more than £60. This concluded the lottery, but some additional amusement was promised to the crowd, in the shape of a montgolfier balloon, with a lot of fireworks attached to its hoop, which was inflated after the tombola was disposed of. Such a machine was probably new to many of the country-people assembled in the amphitheatre, who gazed at it, as it slowly filled, with extreme astonishment. Whether intentionally, or by accident, I know not, but no sooner had the retaining cord been severed, than the balloon rose a few feet above the heads of the gaping spectators, and then toppling over, first caught fire itself, and next ignited the combustibles which were tied to it. Squibs, crackers, and Roman candles, now burst forth in a fiery shower, which caused a dire confusion in the arena, whilst the miserable remnant of a balloon, ascending to the upper boxes, scattered burning fragments of thin paperamongst the silks and satins of the ladies. The women screamed, and the men yelled and hooted, and the uproar was at its height, when suddenly the sponge, which had been plentifully saturated with spirits, detached itself from the wires, and fell into the middle of a group of contadini, who had been staring upwards in awe-struck amazement. A bursting bomb-shell would have been nearly as welcome. The people cleared a space immediately, whilst one young fellow, more disposed for fun than the rest, hurled the flaming affair into a distant part of the arena, where its arrival, being equally unexpected, caused quite as great a sensation. Many persons had their clothes injured, whilst others were more or less burned, and it is probable that the fun would have ended in something less innocent, had not the soldiery put a sudden stop to it, by clearing the place.
In one of the rooms of the Fiano palace, was a Roman “bigliardo,” where I could always be pretty sure of meeting some of my countrymen, when dinner was over. On rainy days especially, it was satisfactory to know, that one might get a few hours’ exercise under cover, and we occasionally mustered a strongpool. In the Italian game, only two balls are made use of, and any number of persons canplay, the marker giving out a lot of little figured counters, which are shuffled in a bag, and decide the particular number of each player. The cues are generally without leathers, the Italians having but little notion of thesidestroke, and the handling of them is so noisy and disagreeable, that I prevailed upon the marker, as an especial favour, to point one or two for us, but his innocence proved so great, that he nailed on a few round pieces of shoe-leather, with a common tack, and fancied he had succeeded to admiration. After one or two more attempts, he acquired the right method of fixing the leather, and we could then enjoy our game. The pool was never higher than two bajocchi ahead, and each life of one bajocco, a moderation on our part, which astonished such stray English visitors, as dropped in occasionally upon us.
As we played purely for recreation, any thing like an innovation would have been regarded by the old frequenters of the room as an insult. Sir T—— B—— would have thrown down his cue in disgust, and his common exclamation ofmi sento megliowould have given way to a groan of despair. Dedly would have greeted any such proposition with a stare of wonder at its extraordinary boldness, whilst Warmey would incontinently have “pitched into” the intruder.Such being the order of our game, thebigliardobecame a general rendezvous, one of its two tables being vacated the instant that Sir T.’s well-known shuffle was heard at the glass doors. The other was always left to the Italians, who played neither for amusement nor exercise, inasmuch as they used tositround the table, and watch by the hour together a game played by three or four of their party, with a number of minute balls set in motion by the hand. This was evidently apartirequiring considerable skill, heavy bets being laid upon the event. What this might be, I never could clearly ascertain, but the excitement produced by the game was so intense, that Sir T.’s exclamation from our table of “Bigliardiere, tacco qui” which he repeated on an average once every ten minutes, calling the attention of the marker from the other game, was received by the Italians with muttered imprecations upon the fat oldInglese, whose short legs rendered the butt or bridge, necessary at every second stroke. Sir T—— however, was proof against any insult, whether in English or Italian,sottoorviva voce, a good-natured indifference on his part, which often madehimthe butt of his brother-players.
Another game much in vogue in Italy, is that of thePirole, where five little pins are set up in the centre of the table, through which apallino, or small red ball, is doubled. The number ofpiroleknocked over by it are counted as so many points, as well as certain odd cannons and winning hazards, but as the pockets in an Italian table are preposterously large, and the great art seems to consist in avoiding them rather than otherwise, thepiroleis a game not often played by foreigners.
In thebigliardoof the Fiano, I made the acquaintance among others of D——, a young Highlander, whose vagaries afterwards made him the terror of all the coffee-house and tavern-waiters in Rome. He wasnotan artist, but appeared to be travelling solely for his pleasure and amusement, lodging on the first floor of a house in the Condotti, and devoting himself entirely to the prosecution of practical jokes, and the study of German particles. His apartment looked like the den of some embryo Anderson, or Phillipe, so filled was it at all times with conjuring apparatus and machines for jerking obnoxious missiles. For many days the shopkeepers, and others in his immediate neighbourhood, but more especially those on the opposite side of the street, were astonished by continued showers of peas, which sometimes rattled in torrents against their windows, orpopped per single pea, at ominous and regular intervals against one particular pane. In vain did the bewildered barber at the corner of the Via Belsiana, full ten houses off, wait in ambush at his shop-door to rush out against some wrongly-suspectedbambinaccio.[35]No sooner did he expose his own block and wig outside the door-post than a stinging volley caused him to beat a hasty retreat. Every priest that passed along the Condotti was saluted with one or more peas, which rebounding with a sharp crack from off his stiff three-decker glanced away to a distance, leaving the unfortunatepadrelost in a stare of amazement. These persecutions continued without intermission for a fortnight, and the Cock Lane ghost could scarcely have produced a more feverish excitement in its immediate locality, than did the twopenny pea-shooter of the waggish D——, from behind thejalousiesof his bed-room window. It is difficult to say what might have been the end of these vagaries, had they not been suddenly put a stop to by the interference of D.’s landlord, who had acquired some clueto their author from the tinman on the ground-floor, who had made the pea-shooter, a weapon hitherto unknown in Roman warfare, and consequently regarded with curiosity.
This was one only in the catalogue of jokes perpetrated by our new friend. Hot bajocchi were thrown from his window, to be picked up and dropped again by the lad at whose feet they fell. His neighbours were kept awake half the night by the discordant notes of a badly-blown cornet-à-piston, whose melodies alternated between “Jolly nose” and “Ti voglio ben’ assai,” a canzonetta which D. had picked up at Naples. An old German Countess, who occupied the adjoining chamber in the next house, was compelled to quit her rooms and forfeit half a-year’s rent, from a firm conviction that the place was haunted. Little did she imagine that her next-door neighbour never retired to rest without indulging in the royal game of tennis, playing a match between his right and left hands against the party wall.
Though not himself an artist, D—— made some pretensions that way. An unfortunate dog, which appeared to exist alternately at the Lepri, and Caffé Greco, and seemed more particularly to attach itself to the English, was enticed in an evil hour to D——’s apartment. Ourartist had provided himself with one or two bladders of oil-paint and some brushes, and having coaxed poorPinciointo a suitable position, converted him in about twenty minutes into a species of nondescript hyæna, and then let him loose into the Condotti, where he created considerable consternation. Such as first saw him, fled in terror to the open shop-doors, while the more courageous set off in pursuit, chasing the poor animal through a funeral procession, whose solemnities he utterly confounded, to the Greco, which he entered at full speed, and upsetting Antonio with twomezzi-caldiand acaffé nero, forced his way into the omnibus room amid thehuèesof a tribe of raggamuffins of the Populusque Romanus, who imagined that some wild animal had escaped from the menagerie of Guillaume in the Corea. Here poor Pincio shuffled in and out among the legs of some ten or more of us, transferring broad streaks of burnt-umber and ivory-black fromhiscoat toourtrowsers, whilst the author of all the mischief had unconcernedly seated himself in a shaded corner, and was enjoying the success of his first essay in oils.
The period of Carnival was now at hand, and most of my friends were busy in making preparations for the comingfestivities. In touching upon those incidental to this particular season, I shall jot down such occurrences as came under my own notice, relating chiefly to the operations of brother artists, who are, like all the rest, subject to the epidemics of fun and frolic. Transmogrified in dress and feature, their very mothers would fail to recognize their offspring; and immolating their lastscudoat the shrine of the Swiss vendor of confetti and bon-bons, or sinking it at once in the shortlived incognito of mask and domino, they take their part in the triumph of Momus. “Who enters there, leaves hope behind,” as far as the financial arrangements of the future are concerned, and many a poor artist laments with empty stomach, the forced “farewell to flesh,” which his reckless expenditure, during the Carnival, obliges him to practise for weeks after the fun is over. But to proceed—I have already hinted that I shall not enter upon a lengthy description of the Carnival, and I will, therefore, note down only such little episodes of the few days of amusement as come most readily to hand. If the weather be fine, there is an unusual degree of excitement in the streets, before the anxiously expected hour of two, when the Governor of Rome, officers of state, dragoons, soldiers, and civic guard, march in stately pomp along the narrowCorso, and “opening the ball,” as it were, give the signal for a commencement of the festivities. The street has been newly gravelled for the occasion, whilst throughout its whole length, the balconies are decorated with crimson cloths, damasks, antique brocades and hearth-rugs, giving it an appearance which may be compared to a perspective view of a tailor’s pattern card, until the mingled colours are lost in the distance. The lower windows are fitted up like stage-boxes at a theatre, and the pavements exhibit long files of chairs, placed close together, for the accommodation of such of the fair sex as cannot resist a participation in the gaiety, though their timidity restrains them from mixing with the crowd.
It is difficult to say in what the peculiar delight of the Carnival consists—the avowed business of each successive day, is to carry about one, as great a quantity as possible of plaster of Parisconfetti, for the purpose of indiscriminate pelting, wholesale or retail as the case may be. Some reserve their stores for general use, dealing the contents of their pockets and pouches right and left, with a recklessness quite exhilarating, and by no means dangerous; while those more up to the game, wreak private vengeance upon any unfortunate object they may single out as peculiarly adapted fora volley, especially if the individual be unmasked. These onslaughts do not always go unavenged, the assailant, when he least expects it, receiving in his face a half-pound of white canister, or may-be, a bonce compounded of chalk and sugar, which produces some new and very palpable phrenologic development. Everything, however, is supposed to be fair at the time of Carnival, and few are the insults offered which cannot be expiated by a hearty laugh, or a friendly interchange of missiles.
The most dignified-looking people in the Corso, are the Roman dandies, who seldom condescend to mingle in any of the active sport, but stand condensed in a mass at the doors of the various caffes, smoking their cigars, and turning to the right and left with a mingled expression of imbecility and good-natured contempt. The higher classes may be seen in the procession which threads its way, unending and at dreary pace, from end to end of the long street. These, and the lower orders, orbasso ceto, are by far the most facetious, and keep up between them, the true spirit of the Carnival. But our grave and matter-of-fact country-people, seem of all others to enjoy themselves to the full extent, exaggerating to a ludicrous degree the authorized liberties of the occasion. For every handful ofconfetticast by aRoman, the young Englishman from his first-floor balcony, returns a shovel-full, systematically raining upon the passing crowd, a continuous shower of lime, until the street below is whitened by his unromantic ammunition. But let us adjourn to a neighbouring studio in the Via Felice, where we may see the preparations making by some of our friends for their first appearance on the Corso. I arrived just as lunch was going on, and found a number of my acquaintance in various stages of their toilet, whilst others were busily rehearsing. R——s, as Figaro, was running through the “Bravo, bravissimo,” of theBarbiere, whilst T——, in “jacket blue, and tarry, tarry trousers,” was regaling himself with raw ham and a hornpipe in a corner of the room, whistling the air between each mouthful. Our refection was interrupted at intervals by the entrance of other brothers of the brush, each bedizened according to his own ideas of originality, in monstrous nose or mask of preposterous shape. Then came the sound of a guitar, and with his peculiar laugh and satyr-like figure, enters Alesandro, the model and shoemaker, for he serves by turnsSt.Luke andSt.Crispin, and among other eccentricities, is given to music, ready for a consideration, either with apose plastique, or a Neapolitan ditty. Our toilet finished, we passed throughthe small streets contiguous to the Corso and Piazza di Spagna, now all deserted and lonely. Every one seems attracted towards the grand scene of action, a few perhaps, stopping by the way to inquire of themselves, how they can reconcile it to their sound reason to join in such excessive buffoonery. Our companion R——d was not of this number; he revelled in the Carnival, anticipating each day’s fun with peculiar gusto, and grave and decided in his preparations. His arrangements were of the most perfect kind, and his success, as far as incognito went, undeniable. To this day, all but his friends remain ignorant of the identity of the merry sprite, now white, now red, with Mephistopheles-looking face, and like Porson’s devil, “backwards and forwards, switching his long tail.” To the Romans, he appeared a kind of myth, a being whose mysterious properties it were unsafe to pry into. I had heard of his pranks both here and at Florence, and I saw sufficient of them at this carnival, to convince me he was a very king of maskers.
But to return to the Corso. Elbowing through the crowd, and stoically submitting to the burst of mimic artillery, which is sure to assail every new comer, one glances timidly around, and upwards. It would fill a larger volume than this, were I to attempt even a cursory description of thescene which is there presented. The myriads of closely grouped heads, and faces of all expressions, bending over the moving mass below, all intent and animated, as if life and death depended upon some mighty issue, about to take place: the odd mixture of character and colour, every possible impersonation mingled up and confused with the Roman, οι πολλοι, formed a perfect tide of human beings, of whom each endeavoured to outstrip his neighbour in an excess of absurdity. Among these are conspicuous, the lawyer-like individuals, half-quack, half-notary, who amuse the passers by with extemporaneous advertisements, upon some fictitious nostrum, which their doggrel verse attempts to justify. Their effusions are satirical, and often unsuited to ears polite, but around them will always be seen a gaping crowd, who drink in with avidity their political allusions, and gaze on them with looks of veneration, far beyond their merits to inspire. Over-head, the air is almost darkened with the unceasing showers of confetti, flowers, and sweet-meats, while the face, if unprotected by a mask, becomes a butt for all sorts of missiles. The stream of carriages is continuous, one file passing each way, and the order of these is so well maintained by the mounted Carabinieri, who guard all the streets leading out of the Corso, that in acrowded Carnival, it is rarely that the same carriages meet each other twice in one day. At the hour of five, a single gun booms from the Castle ofSt.Angelo, and a troop of mounted dragoons rapidly clear the streets, the giddy masquers, and more sober observers, retreating to the protection of the curb-stone. Then follows the well-known race of the riderless Barberi, and subsequently the dispersion of the crowd.
During the Carnival, aFestinois held at either the Argentina or Aliberti theatre. These are pretty much the same as our masquerade, excepting for the variety of tongues, and the greater facility and cleverness displayed at Rome in dressing for and sustaining the characters assumed, whilst at thefestino, the stranger will not remark any of the very equivocal morality which distinguishes our ownbals masqués. The common-people, as usual, have the best of it, taking possession of the centre portion of the floor, and dancing indefatigably under the droppings of wax lights, and amid a suffocating cloud of dust, until literally pushed off the boards by an advancing platoon of gens-d’armes, who move slowly along, in close file, until they have entirely cleared away the nocturnal revellers.
FOOTNOTES:[35]The Italian terminations,—accioanduccioare particularly expressive, one letter establishing a very wide difference in their signification.Bambinofor example, meansa little boy;Bambinaccio, with a powerful emphasis on thea, means a naughty, dirty little raggamuffin; whereasBambinucciois a sweet little duck of a boy!
[35]The Italian terminations,—accioanduccioare particularly expressive, one letter establishing a very wide difference in their signification.Bambinofor example, meansa little boy;Bambinaccio, with a powerful emphasis on thea, means a naughty, dirty little raggamuffin; whereasBambinucciois a sweet little duck of a boy!
[35]The Italian terminations,—accioanduccioare particularly expressive, one letter establishing a very wide difference in their signification.Bambinofor example, meansa little boy;Bambinaccio, with a powerful emphasis on thea, means a naughty, dirty little raggamuffin; whereasBambinucciois a sweet little duck of a boy!