The Venerable Bede, who lived in the eighth century, is the first person who is known to have given to the Flavian amphitheater its comparatively modern and now universal designation of the Coliseum; tho the name, derived from a colossal statue of the emperor Nero which stood near it, was probably then familiar to men's ears, as we may infer from his so calling it without explanation or remark.
When in its perfect state, the exterior, with its costly ornaments in marble, and its forest of columns, lost the merit of simplicity without gaining that of grandeur. The eye was teased with a multitude of details, not in themselves good; the same defects were repeated in each story, and the real height was diminished by the projecting and ungraceful cornices. The interior arrangements were admirable; and modern architects can not sufficiently commend the skill with which eighty thousand spectators were accommodated with seats; or the ingenious contrivances, by which, through the help of spacious corridors, multiplied passages, and staircases, every person went directly to his place, and immense audiences were dispersed in less time than is required for a thousand persons to squeeze through the entries of a modern concert-room. We know that this interior of the Coliseum was decorated with great splendor. Theprincipal seats were of marble, and covered with cushions. Gilded gratings, ornaments of gold, ivory, and amber, and mosaics of precious stones, displayed the generosity of the emperors, and gratified the taste of the people.
How, or at what period, the work of ruin first began does not distinctly appear. An earthquake may have first shattered its ponderous arches, and thus made an opening for the destroying hand of time. There can be no doubt that it suffered violence from the hands of civil and foreign war. But more destructive agencies than those of earthquake, conflagration or war, were let loose upon it. Its massive stones, fitted to each other with such nice adaptation, presented a strong temptation to the cupidity of wealthy nobles and cardinals, with whom building was a ruling passion; and for many ages the Coliseum became a quarry. The Palazzo della Cancelleria, the Palazzo Barberini, the Palazzo Farnese, and the Palazzo Veneziano were all built mainly from the plunder of the Coliseum; and meaner robbers emulated the rapacity of their betters, by burning into lime the fragments not available for architectural purposes.
The material of which the Coliseum was built is exactly fitted to the purposes of a great ruin. It is travertine, of a rich, dark, warm color, deepened and mellowed by time. There is nothing glaring, harsh, or abrupt in the harmony of tints. The blue sky above, and the green earth beneath, are in unison with a tone of coloring not unlike the brown of one of our own early winter landscapes. The travertine isalso of a coarse grain and porous texture, not splintering into points and edges, but gradually corroding by natural decay. Stone of such a texture everywhere opens laps and nooks for the reception and formation of soil. Every grain of dust that is borne through the air by the lazy breeze of summer, instead of sliding from a glassy surface, is held where it falls. The rocks themselves crumble and decompose, and turn into a fertile mold. Thus, the Coliseum is throughout crowned and draped with a covering of earth, in many places of considerable depth. Trailing plants clasp the stones with arms of verdure; wild flowers bloom in their seasons; and long grass nods and waves on the airy battlements. Life has everywhere sprouted from the trunk of death. Insects hum and sport in the sunshine; the burnished lizard darts like a tongue of green flame along the walls; and birds make the hollow quarry overflow with their songs. There is something beautiful and impressive in the contrast between luxuriant life and the rigid skeleton upon which it rests.
As a matter of course, everybody goes to see the Coliseum by moonlight. The great charm of the ruin under this condition is, that the imagination is substituted for sight; and the mind for the eye. The essential character of moonlight is hard rather than soft. The line between light and shadow is sharply defined, and there is no gradation of color. Blocks and walls of silver are bordered by, and spring out of, chasms of blackness. But moonlight shrouds the Coliseum in mystery. It opens deep vaults of gloom where the eye meets only an ebon wall,upon which the fancy paints innumerable pictures in solemn, splendid, and tragic colors. Shadowy forms of emperor and lictor and vestal virgin and gladiator and martyr come out of the darkness, and pass before us in long and silent procession. The breezes which blow through the broken arches are changed into voices, and recall the shouts and cries of a vast audience. By day, the Coliseum is an impressive fact; by night, it is a stately vision. By day, it is a lifeless form; by night, a vital thought.
The Coliseum should by all means be seen by a bright starlight, or under the growing sickle of a young moon. The fainter ray and deeper gloom bring out more strongly its visionary and ideal character. When the full moon has blotted out the stars, it fills the vast gulf of the building with a flood of spectral light, which falls with a chilling touch upon the spirit; for then the ruin is like a "corpse in its shroud of snow," and the moon is a pale watcher by its side. But when the walls, veiled in deep shadow, seem a part of the darkness in which they are lost—when the stars are seen through their chasms and breaks, and sparkle along the broken line of the battlements—the scene becomes another, tho the same; more indistinct, yet not so mournful; contracting the sphere of sight, but enlarging that of thought; less burdening, but more suggestive.
But under all aspects, in the blaze of noon, at sunset, by the light of the moon or stars—the Coliseum stands alone and unapproached. It is the monarch of ruins. It is a great tragedy in stone, and it softens and subdues the mind like a dramaof Aeschylus or Shakespeare. It is a colossal type of those struggles of humanity against an irresistible destiny, in which the tragic poet finds the elements of his art. The calamities which crusht the house of Atreus are symbolized in its broken arches and shattered walls. Built of the most durable materials, and seemingly for eternity—of a size, material, and form to defy the "strong hours" which conquer all, it has bowed its head to their touch, and passed into the inevitable cycle of decay. "And this too shall pass away"—which the Eastern monarch engraved upon his signet ring—is carved upon these Cyclopean blocks. The stones of the Coliseum were once water; and they are now turning into dust. Such is ever the circle of nature. The solid is changing into the fluid, and the fluid into the solid; and that which is unseen is alone indestructible. He does not see the Coliseum aright who carries away from it no other impressions than those of form, size, and hue. It speaks an intelligible language to the wiser mind. It rebukes the peevish and consoles the patient. It teaches us that there are misfortunes which are clothed with dignity, and sorrows that are crowned with grandeur. As the same blue sky smiles upon the ruin which smiled upon the perfect structure, so the same beneficent Providence bends over our shattered hopes and our answered prayers.
The best preserved monument of ancient Rome, and one of the most beautiful buildings of the modern city, is unhappily placed. The Pantheon stands in a narrow and dirty piazza, and is shouldered and elbowed by a mob of vulgar houses. There is no breathing-space around, which it might penetrate with the light of its own serene beauty. Its harmonious proportions can be seen only in front; and it has there the disadvantage of being approached from a point higher than that on which it stands. On one side is a market; and the space before the matchless portico is strewn with fish-bones, decayed vegetables, and offal.[10]
Forsyth, the sternest and most fastidious of architectural critics, has only "large draughts of unqualified praise" for the Pantheon; and, where he finds nothing to censure, who will venture to do any thing but commend? The character of the architecture, and the sense of satisfaction which it leaves upon the mind, are proofs of the enduring charm of simplicity. The portico is perfectly beautiful. It is one hundred and ten feet long and forty-four deep, and rests upon sixteen columns of the Corinthian order, the shafts being of granite and the capitals of marble. Eight of these are in front, and of these eight, there are four (including the two on the extremeright and left) which have two others behind them; the portico being thus divided into three portions, like the nave and side aisles of a cathedral; the middle space, leading to the door, being wider than the others. The granite of the shafts is partly gray and partly rose-colored, but, in the shadow in which they stand, the difference of hue is hardly perceptible. The proportions of these columns are faultless; and their massive shafts and richly-carved capitals produce the effect, at once, of beauty and sublimity. The pediment above is now a bald front of ragged stone, but it was once adorned with bas-reliefs in bronze; and the holes, made by the rivets with which they were fastened, are still to be seen.
The aisles of the portico were once vaulted with bronze, and massive beams or slabs of the same metal stretched across the whole structure; but this was removed by Urban VIII., and melted into a baldachino to deface St. Peter's, and cannon to defend the castle of St. Angelo; and, not content with this, he has added insult to injury, and commemorated his robbery in a Latin inscription, in which he claims to be commended as for a praiseworthy act. But even this is not the heaviest weight resting on the memory of that vandal pope. He shares with Bernini the reproach of having added those hideous belfries which now rise above each end of the vestibule—as wanton and unprovoked an offense against good taste as ever was committed. A cocked hat upon the statue of Demosthenes in the Vatican would not be a more discordant addition. The artist should have gone to the stake, before giving his hand to such a piece of disfigurement.
The cell, or main portion of the building to which the portico is attached, is a simple structure, circular in form, and built of brick. It was formerly encrusted with marble. The cell and the portico stand to each other in the most harmonious relation, altho it seems to be admitted that the latter was an addition, not contemplated when the cell was built. But in the combination there is nothing forced or unnatural, and they seem as necessary and as preordained complements, one to the other, as a fine face and a fine head. The cell is a type of masculine dignity, and the portico, of feminine grace; and the result is a perfect architectural union.
The interior—a rotunda, surmounted by a dome—is converted into a Christian church, a purpose to which its form and structure are not well adapted; and the altars and their accessories are not improvements in an architectural point of view. But in spite of this—in spite of all that it has suffered at the hands of rapacity and bad taste—tho the panels of the majestic dome have been stript of their bronze, and the whole has been daubed over with a glaring coat of whitewash—the interior still remains, with all its rare beauty essentially unimpaired. And the reason of this is that this charm is the result of form and proportion, and can not be lost except by entire destruction. The only light which the temple receives is from a circular opening of twenty-eight feet in diameter at the top; and falling, as it does, directly from the sky, it fills the whole space with the purity of the heavens themselves. The magical effect of this kind of illumination it is impossible to describe....
The pavement of the Pantheon, composed of porphyry, pavonazzetto, and giallo antico, tho constantly overflowed by the Tiber, and drenched by the rains which fall upon it from the roof, is the finest in Rome. There is an opening in the center, through which the water entering by the dome is carried off into a reservoir.
The Pantheon has a peculiar interest in the history of art, as the burial place of Raphael. His grave was opened in 1833, and the remains found to be lying in the spot which Vasari had pointed out.
Nerva was the last Emperor buried in the mausoleum of Augustus.[12]Trajan's ashes were laid to rest in an urn of gold under his monumental column. Hadrian determined to raise a new tomb for himself and his successors, and, like Augustus, selected a site on the green and shady banks of the Tiber, not on the city side, however, but in the gardens of Domitia, which, with those of Agrippina, formed a crown property called by Tacitus "Nero's Gardens." The mausoleum and the bridge which gave access to itwere substantially finished inA.D.136. Antoninus Pius, after completing the ornamental part in 139, transferred to it Hadrian's ashes from their temporary burial-place in the former villa of Cicero at Puteoli, and was himself afterward interred there....
Beside the passages of the "Hadrian's Life," and of Dion Cassius, two descriptions of the monument have come down to us, one by Procopius, the other by Leo I. From these we learn that it was composed of a square basement of moderate height, each side of which measured 247 feet. It was faced with blocks of Parian marble, with pilasters at the corners, crowned by a capital. Above the pilasters were groups of men and horses in bronze, of admirable workmanship. The basement was protected around by a sidewalk and a railing of gilt bronze, supported by marble pillars crowned with gilded peacocks, two of which are in the Giardino della Pigna, in the Vatican. A grand circular mole, nearly a thousand feet in circumference, and also faced with blocks of Parian marble, stood on the square basement and supported in its turn a cone of earth covered with evergreens, like the mausoleum of Augustus.
Of this magnificent decoration nothing now remains except a few blocks of the coating of marble, on the east side of the quadrangle, near the Bastione di S. Giovanni. All that is visible of the ancient work from the outside are the blocks of peperino of the mole which once supported the outer casing. The rest, both above and below, is covered by the works of fortification constructed at various periods, from the time of Honorius (393-403) to our own days. In no other monument of ancient and medieval Rome is our history written, molded, as it were, so vividly, as upon the battered remains of this castle-tomb. Within and around it took place all the fights for dominion with which popes, emperors, barons, barbarians, Romans, have distracted the city for fifteen hundred years.
Of the internal arrangement of the monument nothing was known until 1825, when the principal door was discovered in the middle of the square basement facing the bridge. It opens upon a corridor leading to a large niche, which, it is conjectured, contained a statue of Hadrian. The walls of this vestibule, by which modern visitors generally begin their inspection, are built of travertine, and bear evidence of having been paneled with Numidian marble. The pavement is of white mosaic. On the right side of this vestibule, near the niche, begins an inclined spiral way, 30 feet high and 11 feet wide, leading up to the central chamber, which is in the form of a Greek cross.
There is no doubt that the tomb was adorned with statues. Procopius distinctly says that, during the siege laid by the Goths to the castle in 537, many of them were hurled down from the battlements upon the assailants. On the strength of this passage topographers have been in the habit of attributing to the mausoleum all the works of statuary discovered in the neighborhood; like the Barberini Faun now in Munich, the exquisite statue of a River God described by Cassiano dal Pozzo, etc., as if such subjects were becoming a house of death. The mausoleum of Hadrian formed part of one of the largest and noblest cemeteries of ancient Rome, crossed by the ViaTriumphalis. The tomb next in importance to it was the so-called "Meta," or "sepulcrum Romuli," or "sepulcrum Neronis," a pyramid of great size, which stood on the site of the church of St. Maria Transpontina, and was destroyed by Alexander VI. in 1499.
In the midst of the busy quarters lying at the base of the Quirinal, you come out upon a great piazza which you name at once without ever having seen it before; Trajan's Column serves as ensign for a forum, of which Apollodorus of Damascus erected the porticoes. The lines described by the bases of a plantation of pillars will help you to identify the pesimeter of the temple which Hadrian consecrated, and the site of the Ulpian Library which was divided into two chambers—one for Greek books, and the other for Latin; and finally the situation of the basilica, opening on to the forum and with its apse in the north-northwest direction....
It was in the Ulpian Basilica that, in 312, Constantine, having assembled the notables of the empire seated himself in the presbyterium, to proclaim his abjuration of polytheism in favor of the religion of Christ; on that day and spot the prince closed the cycle of antiquity, opened thecatacombs, and inaugurated the modern world. The Acts of St. Sylvester describe many passages of the discourse in which, "invoking truth against mischievous divisions," and declaring that he "put away superstitions born of ignorance and reared on unreason," the emperor ordains that "churches be opened to Christians, and that the priests of the temples and those of Christ enjoy the same privileges." He himself undertakes to build a church in his Lateran palace.
I do not think there exists any monument in the world more precious or more exquisite in its proportions than Trajan's Column, nor one that has rendered more capital service. This has been set forth with more authority than I can pretend to, by Viollet-le-Duc, the architect who has written best on his own art; his description sums up the subject and makes everything clear. A set of pictures of the campaigns of Trajan against the Decians—the bas-reliefs—reproduces the arms, the accouterments, the engines of war, the dwellings of the barbarians; we discern the breed of the warriors and their horses; we look upon the ships of the time, canoes and quinqueremes; women of all ranks, priests of all theogonies, sieges, and assaults. Such are the merits of this sculptured host, that Polidoro da Caravaggio, Giulio Romano, Michael Angelo, and all the artists of the Renaissance have drawn thence models of style and picturesque grouping.
Trajan's Column is of pure Carrara marble. The shaft measures about ninety-four English feet, by twelve in diameter at the base, and ten below the capital, which is Doric and carved out of a single block; the column is composed ofthirty-four blocks, hollowed out internally and cut into a winding stair. A series of bas-reliefs, divided from one another by a narrow band, run spirally around the shaft parallel to the inner staircase of a hundred and eighty-two steps, and describes twenty-three circuits to reach the platform on which the statue is placed. The foot and the pedestal are seventeen feet high; the torus, of enormous diameter, is a monolith; the whole construction rises a hundred and thirty-five feet from the ground. These thirty-four blocks, measuring eleven meters in circumference by one in height, had—a task of considerable precision—to have holes drilled in them for the screws of the staircase, it being necessary to determine from the inside precisely where these borings must be made in order not to break the continuity of the bas-reliefs, executed by several different hands, and which are more deeply worked in proportion as they gain in height, so as to appear of an equal projection.
You reach the Baths of Caracalla, the most imposing object after the Coliseum that one sees in Rome. These colossal structures are so many signs of their times. Imperial Rome plundered the entire Mediterranean basin, Spain, Gaul, and two-thirds of England, for the benefit of a hundred thousand idlers. She amused them in the Coliseum with massacres of beasts and of men; in the Circus Maximus with combats of athletes and with chariot races; in the theater of Marcellus with pantomimes, plays, and the pageantry of arms and costume; she provided them with baths, to which they resorted to gossip, to contemplate statues, to listen to declaimers, to keep themselves cool in the heats of summer. All that had been invented of the convenient, agreeable, and beautiful, all that could be collected in the world that was curious and magnificent, was for them; the Cæsars fed them and diverted them, seeking only to afford them gratification, and to obtain their acclamations.
A Roman of the middle classes might well regard his emperors as so many public purveyors, administering his property, relieving him from troublesome cares, furnishing him at fair rates, or for nothing, with corn, wine, and oil, giving him sumptuous meals and well-got-up fêtes, providing him with pictures, statues, pantomimists, gladiators, and lions, resuscitating his "blasé" taste every morning with some surprising novelty, and even occasionally converting themselves into actors, charioteers, singers, and gladiators for his especial delight. In order to lodge this group of amateurs in a very suitable to its regal pretensions, architecture invented original and grand forms. Vast structures always indicate some corresponding excess, some immoderate concentration and accumulation of the labor of humanity. Look at the Gothic cathedrals, the pyramids of Egypt, Paris of the present day, and the docks of London!
On reaching the end of a long line of narrow streets, white walls, and deserted gardens, the great ruin appears. There is nothing with which to compare its form, while the line it describes on the sky is unique. No mountains, no hills, no edifices, give any idea of it. It resembles all these; it is a human structure, which time and events have so deformed and transformed, as to render a natural production. Rising upward in the air, its moss-stained embossed summit and indented crest with its wide crevices, a red, mournful, decayed mass, silently reposes in a shroud of clouds.
You enter, and it seems as if you had never seen anything in the world so grand. The Coliseum itself is no approach to it, so much do a multiplicity and irregularity of ruins add to the vastness of the vast enclosure. Before these heaps of red corroded masonry, these round vaults spanning the air like the arches of a mighty bridge before these crumbling walls, you wonder whether an entire city did not once exist there. Frequently an arch has fallen, and the monstrous mass that sustained it still stands erect, exposing remnants of staircases and fragments of arcades, like so many shapeless, deformed houses.
Sometimes it is cleft in the center, and a portion appears about to fall and roll away, like a huge rock. Sections of wall and pieces of tottering arches cling to it and dart their projections threateningly upward in the air. The courts are strewed with various fragments, and blocks of brick welded together by the action of time, like stones incrusted with the deposits of the sea. Elsewhere are arcades quite intact, piled up story upon story, the bright sky appearing behind them, and above,along the dull red brickwork is a verdant head-dress of plants, waving and rustling in the midst of the ethereal blue.
Here are mystic depths, wherein the bedewed shade prolongs itself among mysterious shadows. Into these the ivy descends, and anemones, fennel, and mallows fringe their brinks. Shafts of columns lie half-buried under climbing vines and heaps of rubbish, while luxuriant clover carpets the surrounding slopes. Small green oaks, with round tops, innumerable green shrubs, and myriads of gillyflowers cling to the various projections, nestle in the hollows, and deck its crest with their yellow clusters. All these murmur in the breeze, and the birds are singing in the midst of the imposing silence....
You ascend, I know not how many stories, and, on the summit, find the pavement of the upper chambers to consist of checkered squares of marble; owing to the shrubs and plants that have taken root among them, these are disjoined in places, a fresh bit of mosaic sometimes appearing intact on removing a layer of earth. Here were sixteen hundred seats of polished marble. In the Baths of Diocletian there were places for three thousand two hundred bathers. From this elevation, on casting your eyes around, you see, on the plain, lines of ancient aqueducts radiating in all directions and losing themselves in the distance, and, on the side of Albano, three other vast ruins, masses of red and black arcades, shattered and disintegrated brick by brick, and corroded by time.
You descend and take another glance. The hall of the "piscine" is a hundred and twenty paces long; that in which the bathers disrobed is eightyfeet in height; the whole is covered with marble, and with such beautiful marble that mantel ornaments are now made of its fragments. In the sixteenth century the Farnese Hercules was discovered here, and the Torso and Venus Callipygis, and I know not how many other masterpieces; and in the seventeenth century hundreds of statues. No people, probably, will ever again display the same luxurious conveniences, the same diversions, and especially the same order of beauty, as that which the Romans displayed in Rome.
Here only can you comprehend this assertion—a civilization other than our own, other and different, but in its kind as complete and as elegant. It is another animal, but equally perfect, like the mastodon, previous to the modern elephant.
One of the praises bestowed by Cicero on the founder of the city is that "he selected a district very rich in springs." A glance at the plan will at once prove the accuracy of the statement. Twenty-three springs have been described within the walls, several of which are still in existence; others have disappeared owing to the increase of modern soil. "For four hundred and forty-one years," says Frontinus, "the Romans contented themselveswith such water as they could get from the Tiber, from wells, and from springs. Some of these springs are still held in great veneration on account of their health-restoring qualities, like the spring of the Camoenae, that of Apollo, and that of Juturna."
The first aqueduct, that of the "Aqua Appia," is the joint work of Appius Claudius Cæcus and C. Plautius Venox, censors in 312B.C.The first built the channel, the second discovered the springs 1,153 meters northeast of the sixth and seventh milestones of the Via Collatina. They are still to be seen, much reduced in volume, at the bottom of some stone quarries near the farmhouse of La Rustica.
The second aqueduct was begun in 272B.C.by Manius Curius Dentatus, censor, and finished three years later by Fulvius Flaccus. The water was taken from the river Anio 850 meters above St. Cosimato, on the road from Tivoli to Arsoli (Valeria). The course of the channel can be traced as far as Gallicano; from Gallicano to Rome it is uncertain....
In 144B.C.the Senate, considering that the increase of the population had diminished the rate of distribution of water (from 530 to 430 liters per head), determined that the old aqueducts of the Appia and the Anio should be repaired, and a new one built, the appropriation for both works being 8,000,000 sesterces, or 1,760,000 lire.
The execution of the scheme was entrusted to Q. Marcius Rex. He selected a group of springs at the foot of the Monte della Prugna, in the territory of Arsoli, 4,437 meters to the right of the thirty-sixth milestone of the Via Valeria; and after many years of untiring efforts he succeeded in making a display of the water on the highest platform of the Capitol. Agrippa restored the aqueduct in 33B.C.; Augustus doubled the volume of the water in 5B.C.by the addition of the Aqua Augusta. In 196 Septimius Severus brought in a new supply for the use of his Thermae Severianae; in 212-213 Caracalla built a branch aqueduct, four miles long, for the use of his baths; in 305-306 Diocletian did the same thing for his great thermæ; and, finally, Arcadius and Honorius devoted to the restoration of the aqueduct the money seized from Count Gildo, the African rebel.
None of the Roman aqueducts are eulogized by Frontinus like the Claudian. He calls it "a work most magnificently done," and after demonstrating in more than one way that the volume of the springs collected by Claudius amounted to 4,607 quinariae, he says that there was a reserve of 1,600 always ready.
The works, began by Caligula inA.D.38, lasted fourteen years, the water having reached Rome only on August 1, 52 (the birthday of Claudius). The course of the aqueduct was first around the slopes of the Monte Ripoli, like that of the Marcia and of the Anio Vetus. Domitian shortened it by several miles by boring a tunnel 4,950 meters long through the Monte Affiano. Length of channel, 68,750 meters, of which 15,000 was on arches; volume per day, 209,252 cubic meters. The Claudia was used for the Imperial table; a branch aqueduct, 2,000 meters long, left the main channel at Spem Veterem (Porta Maggiore), and following the line of the Via Caelimontana (Villa Wolkonsky), of the Campus Caelimontan (Lateran), and of thestreet now called di S. Stefano Rotondo, reached the temple of Claudius by the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and the Imperial palace by the church of St. Bonaventura.
The Anio Novus, like the Vetus, was at first derived from the river of the same name at the forty-second milestone of the road to Subiaco, great precautions being taken for purifying the water. The works were begun by Caligula inA.D.38, and completed by Claudius on August 1, 52, on a most magnificent scale, some of the arches reaching the height of thirty-two meters above ground; and there were eight miles of them. Yet, in spite of the purifying reservoir, and of the clear springs of the Rivus Herculaneus (Fosso di Fioggio), which had been mixed with the water from the river, the Anio Novus was hardly ever drinkable. Whenever a shower fell on the Simbruine mountains, the water would get troubled and saturated with mud and carbonate of lime. Trajan improved its condition by carrying the head of the aqueduct higher up the valley, where Nero had created three artificial lakes for the adornment of his Villa Sublacensis. These lakes served more efficiently as "purgatories," than the artificial basin of Caligula, nine miles below. The Anio Novus reached Rome in its own channel after a course of 86,964 meters, but for the last seven miles it ran on the same arches with the Aqua Claudia. The Anio Novus was the largest of all Roman aqueducts, discharging nearly three hundred thousand cubic meters per day.
There are two places in the suburbs of Rome where these marvelous arches of the Claudia and Anio Novus can be seen to advantage; one is theTorre Fiscale, three miles outside the Porta S. Giovanni on the Albano road (to be reached also from the Tavolato station, on the upper Albano railway); the other is the Vicolo del Mandrione, which leaves the Labicana one mile outside the Porta Maggiore and falls into the Tusculana at the place called Porta Furba.
The materials used in Roman constructions are the "lapis ruber" (tufa); the "lapis Albanus" (peperino); the "lapis Gabinus" (sperone); the "lapis Tiburtinus" (travertino); the silex ("selce"); and bricks and tiles of various kinds. The cement was composed of pozzolana and lime. Imported marbles came into fashion toward the end of the republic, and became soon after the pride and glory of Rome....
The only material which the first builders of Rome found at hand was the volcanic conglomerate called tufa. The quality of the stone used in those early days was far from perfect. The walls of the Palatine hill and of the Capitoline citadel were built of material quarried on the spot—a mixture of charred pumice-stones and reddish volcanic sand. The quarries used for the fortification of the Capitol were located at the foot of the hill toward the Argiletum, and were so important as to give their name, Lautumiae, to the neighboring district. It is probable that the prison called Tullianum, from a jet of water, "tullus," which sprang from the rock, was originally a portion of this quarry. The tufa blocks employed by Servius Tullius for the building of the city walls, and of the agger, appear to be of three qualities—yellowish, reddish, and gray; the first, soft and easily broken up, seems to have been quarried from the Little Aventine, near the church of St. Saba. The galleries of this quarry, much disfigured by medieval and modern use, can be followed to a considerable distance, altho the collapsing of the vaults makes it dangerous to visit them....
The quarries of the third quality were, or rather one of them was, discovered on February 7, 1872, in the Vigna Querini, outside the Porta St. Lorenzo, near the first milestone of the Vicolo di Valle Cupa. It was a surface quarry, comprising five trenches 16 feet wide, 9 feet deep. Some of the blocks, already squared, were lying on the floor of the trenches, others were detached on two or three sides only, the size of others was simply traced on the rock by vertical or horizontal lines. This tufa, better known by the name of cappellaccio, is very bad. The only buildings in which it was used, besides the inner wall of the Servian agger, are the platform of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, in the gardens of the German Embassy, and the "puticuli" in the burial-grounds of the Esquiline. Its use must have been given up before the end of the period of the Kings, in consequence of the discovery of better quarries onthe right bank of the Tiber, at the foot of the hills now called Monte Verde....
They cover a space one mile in length and a quarter of a mile wide on each side of the valley of Pozzo Pantaléo. In fact, this valley, which runs from the Via Portuensis toward the lake of the Villa Pamphili, seems to be artificial; I mean, produced by the extraction of the rock of millions of cubic meters in the course of twenty-four centuries. If the work of the ancient quarrymen could be freed from the loose material which conceals it from view, we should possess within a few minutes' drive from the Porta Portese a reproduction of the famous mines of El Masarah, with beds of rock cut into steps and terraces, with roads and lanes, shafts, inclines, underground passages, and outlets for the discharge of rain-water. When a quarry had given out, its galleries were filled up with the refuse of the neighboring ones—chips left over after the squaring of the blocks; so that, in many cases, the color and texture of the chips do not correspond with those of the quarry in which they are found. This layer of refuse, transformed by time into humus, and worked upon by human and atmospheric forces, has given the valley a different aspect, so that it looks as if it were the work not of quarrymen, but of nature.
Tufa may be found used in many existing monuments of ancient Rome, such as the drains of the middle and southern basin of the left bank, the channels and arches of the Marcia and Anio Vetus, the Servian walls, the temples of Fortuna Virilis, of Hercules Magnus Custos, the Rostra, the embankment of the Tiber, etc. The largest and most magnificent quarries in the suburban district arethe so-called Grotte della Cervara. No words can convey an idea of their size and of the regularity of their plan. They seem to be the work of a fanciful architect who has hewn out of the rock halls and galleries, courts and vestibules, and imitated the forms of an Assyrian palace.
For the study of the peperino mines, which contain a stone special to the Alban district, formed by the action of hot water on gray volcanic cinders, the reader should follow on foot the line of the new Albano railway, from the place called Il Sassone to the town of Marino. Many of the valleys in this district, now made beautiful by vineyards and oliveyards, owe their existence to the pickax of the Roman stonecutter, like the valley of Pozzo Pantaléo. The most curious sight is a dolmen or isolated rock 10 meters high, left in the center of one of the quarries to certify the thickness of the bed of rock excavated. In fact, the whole district is very interesting both to the archeologist and to the paysagiste. The mines of Marino, still worked in the neighborhood of the railway station, would count, like the Grotte della Cervara, among the wonders of the Campagna, were they known to the student as they deserve to be.
The principal Roman buildings in which the lapis Albanus has been used are: the Claudian aqueduct, the Cloaca Maxima, the temples of Antonius and Faustina, of Cybele, of the Eventus Bonus, of Neptune, the inclosure wall of the Forum Augustum, Forum Transitorium, and Forum Pacis, the Porticus Argonautarum, Porticus Pompeii, the Ustrinum of the Appian Way, etc. The sarcophagus of Cornelius Scipio Barbatus in the Vaticanmuseum, and the tomb of the Tibicines in the Museo Municipale al Celio are also of this stone.
Travertine stone was quarried in the plains of Tivoli at places now called Le Caprine, Casal Bernini, and Il Barco. This last was reopened after an interval of many centuries by Count G. Brazza, brother of the African explorer. Lost in the wilderness and overgrown with shrubs, it had not been examined, I believe, since the visit of Brocchi. It can be reached by stopping at the station of the Aquae Albulae, on the Tivoli line, and following the ancient road which led to the works. This road, twice as wide as the Appian Way, is flanked by substructures, and is not paved, but macadamized. Parallel with it runs an aqueduct which supplied the works with motive power, derived probably from the sulfur springs. There are also remains of tombs, one of which, octagonal in shape, serves as a foundation to the farmhouse del Barco.
The most remarkable monument of the whole group is the Roman quarry from which five and a half million cubic meters of travertine have been extracted, as proved by the measurement of the hollow space between the two opposite vertical sides. That this is the most important ancient quarry of travertine, and the largest one used by the Romans, is proved, in the first place, by its immense size. The sides show a frontage of more than two and a half kilometers; the surface amounts to 500,000 square meters. The sides are quite perpendicular, and have the peculiarity of projecting buttresses, at an angle of 90 degrees. Some of these buttresses are isolated on three sides, and still preserve the grooves, by means of which they could be separated from the solid mass....
In order to keep the bottom of the works clean and free from the movement of the carts, for the action of the cranes, and for the maneuvres of the workmen, the chips, or useless product of the squaring of the blocks, were transported to a great distance, as far as the banks of the Anio, and there piled up to a great height. This is the origin of that chain of hills which runs parallel to the river, and of whose artificial formation no one, as far as I know, had the least suspicion. One of these hills, visible from every point of the neighboring district, from Hadrian's villa as well as from the Sulfur Baths, is elliptical in shape, 22 meters high, 90 meters long, and 65 meters wide. It can with reason be compared with our Testaccio. It is easy to imagine how immense must have been the number of blocks cut from the Cava del Barco during the period of the formation of this hill alone. Another proof of the antiquity of the quarry, and of its abandonment from imperial times down to our own day, is given by this fact....
There are three collections of brick-stamps in Rome; one, of little value, in the Kircherian museum; the second in the last room of the Vatican library, past the "Nozze aldobrandine;" the third and best in the Museo Municipale al Celio. This last contains over a thousand specimens, and a unique set of the products of Roman kilns. In fact, the first hall of the Museo is set apart exclusively for the study of ancient building and decorative materials.
Roman bricks were square, oblong, triangular, or round, the latter being used only to build columns in the Pompeiian style. The largest bricks thathave been discovered in my time measure 1.05 meters in length. They were set into an arch of one of the great stairs leading to the avenue or boulevard established in Imperial times on the top of the agger of Servius. Roman bricks are very often stamped with a seal, the legend of which contains the names of the owner and the manager of the kilns, of the maker of the tile, of the merchant entrusted with the sale of the products, and of the consuls under whose term of office the bricks were made. These indications are not necessarily found all in one seal.
The most important of them is the consular date, because it helps the student to determine, within certain limits, the date of the building itself. The rule, however, is far from being absolute, and before fixing the date of a Roman structure from that of its brick stamps one must take into consideration many other points of circumstantial evidence. When we examine, for instance, the grain warehouses at Ostia, or Hadrian's villa at Tivoli, and find that their walls have never undergone repairs, that their masonry is characteristic of the first quarter of the second century, that their bricks bear the dates of Hadrian's age and no others, we may rest assured that the stamps speak the truth. Their evidence is, in such a case, conclusive. But if the bricks are variously dated, or bear the names of various kilns, and not of one or two only, then their value as an evidence of the date of a building is diminished, if not lost altogether....
The bricks, again, occasionally bear curious signs, such as footmarks of chickens, dogs, or pigs, which stept over them while still fresh, impressionsof coins and medals, words or sentences scratched with a nail, etc. A bricklayer, who had perhaps seen better times in his youth, wrote on a tile the first verse of the Aeneid.
The great manufacturing center of Roman bricks was the district between the viae Triumphalis, Cornelia, and the two Aureliae, now called the Monti della Creta, which includes the southern slopes of the Vatican ridge and the northern of the Janiculum. Here also, as at Pozzo Pantaléo, the traces of the work of man are simply gigantic. The valleys del Gelsomino, delle Fornaci, del Vicolo delle Cave, della Balduina, and a section of the Val d'Inferno, are not the work of nature, but the result of excavations for "creta figulina," which began 2,300 years ago, and have never been interrupted since. A walk through the Monti della Creta will teach the student many interesting things. The best point of observation is a bluff between the Vicolo della Cave and the Vicolo del Gelsomino, marked with the word "Ruderi" and with the altitude of 75 meters, in the military map of the suburbs. The bluff rises 37 meters above the floor of the brick-kilns of the Gelsomino....
Roman bricks were exported to all the shores of the Mediterranean; they have been found in the Riviera, on the coasts of Benetia, of Narbonensis, of Spain and Africa, and in the island of Sardinia. The brick-making business must have been very remunerative, if we judge from the rank and wealth of many personages who had an interest in it. Many names of emperors appear in brick-stamps, and even more of empresses and princesses of the imperial family.
Yesterday began Holy Week with the imposing but tedious ceremonies of Palm Sunday at St. Peter's. At nine o'clock in the morning we were in our places—seats erected for the occasion near the high altar, drest in the costume prescribed by church etiquette—black throughout, with black veils on our heads. At about ten the Pope entered, and the rites, ordinary and extraordinary, the masses and processions, continued until one.
The entrance of the Pope into this his grandest basilica was, as usual, a beautiful and brilliant sight. He came splendidly vested, wearing his miter, and borne in his chair of state under a gorgeous canopy, between the flabelli—two enormous fans of white peacock feathers. He was preceded and followed by cardinals, bishops, arch-bishops, monsignori, abbots, the apostolic prothonotaries, generals of the religious orders, officers of the state, of the army, of his household, and the Guardia Nobile.
He took his seat on the throne, and received the homage of the cardinals, who, kneeling, kissed his right hand. This is a ceremony which is always gone through with in the most formal, mechanical, business-like manner possible. Some palms, not in natural branches, but cut and wreathed in various strange, fantastic forms, lay on the altar. The Pope's chief sacristan took one of these, a deacon another, a sub-deacon a third, and kneltat the foot of the throne. His Holiness read prayers over them, sprinkled them with holy water, and incensed them three times. One of these is held beside the throne by the prince assistant during the service; another is borne by the Pope when in procession.
After this, multitudes of palms were brought up for the Papal benediction. First came the cardinals, each, as he received his palm from the Pope, kissing it, the right hand and knee of His Holiness; then the bishops, who only kissed the palm and his right knee; then the abbots, who were only entitled to kiss the palm and his foot; then the governor of Rome, the prince assistant, the auditor, the treasurer, the maggiordomo, the secretaries, the chamberlains, the mace bearers, the deacons and sub-deacons, generals of the religious orders and priests in general, masters of the ceremonies, singers, clerks of the Papal chapel, students of Roman colleges, foreign ministers and their attachés, Italian, French, Spanish, Austrian, Russian, Prussian officers, noblemen and gentlemen, all came up in turn, knelt, received blest palms, and kissed the foot of the Sovereign Pontiff.
During the distribution of the palms, anthems were sung by the choir, who were caged up in a sort of trellice workbox at the right of the altar. This long but brilliantly picturesque ceremony through, the Pope, after washing his hands, again mounted into his "sedia gestatoria," and bearing his palm, preceded and followed by all those to whom he had given palms, passed slowly down the nave of the church, blessing the kneeling and bending multitude right and left. This procession ofpalms was very striking and gorgeous from the beauty and variety of military arms and uniforms, and more than royal richness of the priestly vestments, the gleam of miters and maces, and of innumerable sacred symbols and insignia.
The interval between the close of one pontificate and the commencement of another is a period of some excitement, and necessarily of much anxiety. Time is required for the electors to assemble, from distant provinces, or even foreign countries; and this is occupied in paying the last tribute of respect and affection to the departed Pontiff. His body is embalmed, clothed in the robes of his office, of the penitential color, and laid on a couch of state within one of the chapels in St. Peter's, so that the faithful may not only see it, but kiss its feet. This last act of reverence to the mortal remains of the immortal Pius VIII., the writer well recollects performing.
These preliminaries occupy three days; during which rises, as if by magic, or from the cryptsbelow, an immense catafalque, a colossal architectural structure, which fills the nave of that basilica illustrated by inscriptions, and adorned by statuary. Before this huge monument, for nine days funeral rites are performed, closed by a funeral oration. For the body of the last Pope there is a uniform resting-place in St. Peter's—a plain sarcophagus, of marbled stucco, hardly noticed by the traveler, over a door beside the choir, on which is simply painted the title of the latest Pontiff. On the death of his successor it is broken down at the top, the coffin is removed to the under-church, and that of the new claimant for repose is substituted. This change takes place late in the evening, and is considered private. I can not recollect whether it was on this or on a subsequent occasion that I witnessed it with my college companions....
In the afternoon of the last day of the novendiali, as they are called, the cardinals assemble in a church near the Quirinal palace, and walk thence in procession, accompanied by their conclavisiti, a secretary, a chaplain, and a servant or two, to the great gate of the royal residence, in which one will remain as master and supreme lord. Of course the hill is crowded by persons lining the avenue kept open for the procession. Cardinals never before seen by them, or not for many years, pass before them; eager eyes scan and measure them, and try to conjecture, from fancied omens in eye, or figure, or expression, who will shortly be the sovereign of their fair city, and, what is more, the Head of the Catholic Church from the rising to the setting sun.
Equal they pass the threshold of that gate; they share together the supreme rule, temporal and spiritual; there is still embosomed in them all the voice yet silent, that soon will sound, from one tongue, over all the world, and the dormant germ of that authority which will soon again be concentrated in one man alone. To-day they are all equal; perhaps to-morrow one will sit enthroned, and all the rest will kiss his feet; one will be sovereign, the others his subjects; one the shepherd, and the others his flock....
While we have been thus sketching, hastily and imperfectly, one of many who passed almost unnoticed in the solemn procession to conclave, on the 2d of September, 1823, we may suppose the doors to have been inexorably closed on those who composed it. The conclave, which formerly used to take place in the Vatican, was on this occasion, and has been subsequently, held in the Quirinal palace. This noble building, known equally by the name of Monte Cavallo, consists of a large quadrangle, round which run the papal apartments. From this stretches out, along a whole street, an immense wing, its two upper floors divided into a great number of small but complete suites of apartments, occupied permanently, or occasionally, by persons attached to the Court.
During conclave these are allotted, literally so, to the cardinals, each of whom lives apart, with his attendants. His food is brought daily from his own house, and is examined, and delivered to him in the shape of "broken victuals," by the watchful guardians of the turns and lattices, through which alone anything, even conversation, can penetrate into the seclusion of that sacred retreat. For a few hours, the first evening, the doors are left open, and the nobility, the diplomatic body, and in fact all presentable persons, may roam from cell to cell, paying a brief compliment to their occupants, perhaps speaking the same good wishes to fifty, which they know can be accomplished in only one.
After that all is closed; a wicket is left accessible for the entrance of any cardinal who is not yet arrived; but every aperture is jealously guarded by faithful janitors, judges and prelates of various tribunals, who relieve one another. Every letter even is opened and read, that no communications may be held with the outer world. The very street on which the wing of the conclave looks is barricaded and guarded by a picket at each end; and as, fortunately, there are no private residences opposite, and all the buildings have access from the back, no inconvenience is thereby created.
While conclave lasts, the administrative power rests in the hands of the Cardinal Chamberlain, who strikes his own coins during its continuance; and he is assisted by three cardinals, called the "Heads of Orders," because they represent the three orders in the sacred college, of bishops, priests and deacons. The ambassadors of the great powers receive fresh credentials to the conclave, and proceed in state, to present them to this delegation, at the grille. An address, carefully prepared, is delivered by the envoy, and receives a well-pondered reply from the presiding cardinal.
Twice a day the cardinals meet in the chapel contained within the palace, and there, on tickets so arranged that the voter's name can not be seen, write the name of him for whom they give their suffrage. These papers are examined in theirpresence, and if the number of votes given to any one do not constitute the majority, they are burned, in such a manner that the smoke, issuing through a flue, is visible to the crowd usually assembled in the square outside.
Some day, instead of this usual signal to disperse, the sound of pick and hammer is heard, and a small opening is seen in the wall which had temporarily blocked up the great window over the palace gateway. At last the masons of the conclave have opened a rude door, through which steps out on the balcony the first Cardinal Deacon, and proclaims to the many, or to the few, who may happen to be waiting, that they again possess a sovereign and a Pontiff.
We arrived in Rome at three in the afternoon, with letters which ensured us an audience with the Pope. A friend, long resident in Rome, who advised us to present them at once, accompanied us to the Vatican. Passing through an interesting part of the city, including the St. Angelo Bridge across the Tiber, we soon found ourselves in the world-famous Colonnade of St. Peter's. Ascending the steps leading to the Vatican, we passed the Swiss Guard in their famous uniforms designed by Michelangelo, and climbed whatseemed like endless stairs, passing guards at almost every turn, who pointed out the way indicated by the address on our credentials.
Arriving at an anteroom, a priestly secretary, speaking excellent English, read our letter with what seemed to us, from the expression of his face, great interest and evident approval. Why should this not have been? Our letter was from the Apostolic Delegate then in Washington—the Pope's own representative in America. It was in Italian, in the highest official form, and conveyed the intelligence that we were traveling in Italy for a brief vacation, mentioned all four of us by name, and said that, while we were not Catholics, we respected the faith and would carefully observe all the forms prescribed for an audience. The monseigneur whom we were to see was at that time engaged with several bishops. Because of this, we were asked to present ourselves at the same hour on Saturday, meanwhile leaving our letter.
Promptly at the hour I was again at the door of the major domo, Monseigneur Bisleti, to be received again by the priestly secretary, by whom I was taken into the palatial rooms of the monseigneur. A moment here was sufficient to explain my errand and receive from the monseigneur the long-coveted permission, which I found had already been made out in due form for four persons. Our cards entitled us to admission on the following day, which made necessary unexpected haste in arranging for the official costume of black. Fortunately we had all brought black veils and some of us either gowns or skirts. With help from others, we secured one or two necessary waists, and from our hostess obtained the rosaries I wished to have blest by the Pope. Our hostess then gave us a dress rehearsal, in order that we might fully understand what to us would be an imposing ceremony. An audience is a great function and the procedure accordingly is rigid.
On reaching the Vatican next day, we were directed by the Swiss Guard, not to the major domo's apartments as before, but through a court and thence up the grandest of staircases in three long flights, the walls lined with beautiful marbles more wonderful than many pictures, the light coming through magnificent stained-glass windows. In every sense here was a palatial, an imperial, entrance. At the head of the stairway we were met by gorgeous chamberlains, the body servants of the Pope, clad in superb magenta brocaded velvet, with knee breeches, magenta silk stockings, and great silver buckles on their shoes. Streamers hanging from their arms at the back, added to the official appearance of these men in their gorgeous uniforms.
We were shown through a magnificent antechamber, and then into a series of reception rooms, through which we were motioned on, until we came to the fourth, where were just four chairs which seemed to be waiting for us four. Swiss guards patrolled the rooms, and others—chamberlains, I suppose. We had a full half hour in which to wait here, but we could use it to advantage, in watching the gathering company, and viewing the magnificent room, hung as it was with rich red moire silk, as were all others of the suite. The ladies in black garb became very effective figures in this brilliant setting. There were many beautiful tapestries in the rooms, one room having a tapestried frieze. The furniture was massive, either of inlaid wood or heavy gilt, and the floors of beautiful inlaid marble. It is not possible to give any adequate idea of these stately rooms, nor of their exquisite appointments; nor yet of the gathering company, for many high officials of the church passed before us and through to rooms beyond, which added to the interest of the occasion and the splendor of the scene.
We learned soon that this was to be no ordinary audience, but a special one granted to alumni of the American College in Rome. A few days before we left New York, a large company of American priests, graduates of the American College, had sailed on a chartered steamer to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the college, from which they had received holy orders. This audience had been specially arranged for them. We were therefore more than favored in having an audience at the same time, a fact due probably to the credentials with which we had come provided. We now understood that the officials of the church who had entered this room were our own American bishops. With them had however come others of high rank. Over their priestly robes of black they wore rich purple silk capes, falling to the floor, and purple sashes. (There are, of course, technical terms for these garments, but I do not know them.) The special body guard of the Pope, three men chosen from the Palatine guard, and in soldier's uniform, now passed through the room with anoble guard of the Knights of Malta and Count Moroni, also in uniform, with chapeau, feathered with plumes of black and white.
At exactly half after eleven, Monseigneur Bisleti, watch in hand, bustled through, followed by bishops and priests. We were at once on our knees, for His Holiness was seen to be approaching from rooms beyond. As he advanced we could see his small figure, clad in white, surrounded by court attendants, American bishops, an archbishop, the Palatine guard, Monseigneur Bisleti, and the Knight of Malta. Between us and the doorway through which he approached, stood a girl of twelve, in white garments and veil. She had come from her first communion. Near her was a Franciscan monk, who evidently had just returned from some mission field, for he was bronzed, and haggard, and worn as to his garments. As the Pope passed he gave a special word of blessing to the monk, and a smile to the child.
The ceremony of the audience itself was simple. The Pope walked past the kneeling people, giving to each his hand. This each one took, kissing his ring. Filling the center of the room, as we were kneeling around the sides, were the priestly courtiers, the Papal delegate, in gray robes, a prominent figure among them. The Pope passed on through several rooms filled with waiting priests. We were then all bidden to follow to the throne room, for a special ceremony. An audience generally ends when the Pope leaves the room in which he receives you, giving his blessing to all as he leaves.
In the throne room now the American alumniwere to present their addresses to the Pope. As we entered, undergraduates of the college were discovered already there singing. Until the addresses were read, the singing was continued. It was all a magnificent sight, the little white father on his splendid throne, his court about him, his special body servant holding his red cape (to be used in case of drafts), and, as a background for all the colors of the court scene, several hundred black-robed priests.
Monseigneur Kennedy, rector of the college, read an address, as did Rev. Father Wall of Baltimore, president of the association. To these the Pope replied, reading from a manuscript. After this, he rose, mingled with his entourage, and chatted pleasantly with bishops and others. A picture was then taken of the court, the priests and students. These American priests and undergraduates were a fine company of men. The Pope finally gave his blessing to all who were assembled in the room, and the great function was over.