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diff --git a/36817.txt b/36817.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dc9e93c --- /dev/null +++ b/36817.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9445 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Rome, by Mildred Anna Rosalie Tuker and Hope Malleson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Rome + +Author: Mildred Anna Rosalie Tuker + Hope Malleson + +Illustrator: Alberto Pisa + +Release Date: July 23, 2011 [EBook #36817] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROME *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Melissa McDaniel and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + Transcriber's note: + + Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have + been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. + + + [Illustration: MARBLE RELIEF OF THE AMBARVALIA SACRIFICE, IN THE + FORUM + + The sacrifice of the _suovetaurilia_ took place at the confines of + Rome and Alba Longa after the perlustration of the Roman _ager_. See + pages 15, 70.] + + + + + ROME . PAINTED BY + ALBERTO PISA . TEXT + BY M. A. R. TUKER AND + HOPE MALLESON + PUBLISHED BY ADAM & + CHARLES BLACK . SOHO + SQUARE . LONDON . W. + + + + + _Published April 1905_ + + + + +The twelve chapters in this book were all written for the present +volume, but Chapters III., V., VIII., part of XI., and IX. have +already been published in the _Monthly Review_, _Broad Views_, +_Macmillan's Magazine_, and the _Hibbert Journal_. + +So much has been written about Rome and Roman subjects within the last +decade, good bad and indifferent, that the task of avoiding as far as +possible hackneyed ground is not an easy one. We have attempted to +present some aspects of Rome as we have ourselves seen it, and we have +drawn on our long acquaintance with the city and above all with its +inhabitants of the old school and the new. + +Each chapter is the work of one writer. + +ROME, 1905. + + + + + Contents + + PAGE + CHAPTER I + ROME 1 + + CHAPTER II + ROMAN BUILDING AND DECORATION 17 + + CHAPTER III + THE ROMAN CATACOMBS 41 + + CHAPTER IV + ROMAN REGIONS AND GUILDS 52 + + CHAPTER V + THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA 69 + + CHAPTER VI + THE ROMAN MENAGE 93 + + CHAPTER VII + THE ROMAN PEOPLE-- + I. The Italians 112 + II. The Romans 125 + + CHAPTER VIII + ROMAN PRINCELY FAMILIES 159 + + CHAPTER IX + ROMAN RELIGION 180 + + CHAPTER X + THE ROMAN CARDINAL 200 + + CHAPTER XI + ROME BEFORE 1870 212 + + CHAPTER XII + THE ROMAN QUESTION-- + I. Before 1870 235 + II. Since 1870 245 + + + + + List of Illustrations + + + 1. Marble relief of the Ambarvalia Sacrifice, in the + Forum _Frontispiece_ + + TO FACE PAGE + + 2. The Forum from the Arch of Septimius Severus 4 + + 3. The Forum, looking towards the Capitol 8 + + 4. Temple of Saturn from the Basilica Julia in the Forum 12 + + 5. S. Peter's and Castel Sant' Angelo from the Tiber 16 + + 6. Temple of Saturn from the Portico of the Dii Consentes 18 + + 7. A Corner of the Forum from the base of the Temple of + Saturn 20 + + 8. Temple of Mars Ultor 24 + + 9. Temple of Vespasian from the Portico of the Dii + Consentes 26 + + 10. The Colosseum on a Spring Day 30 + + 11. The Colosseum at Sunset 34 + + 12. Arch of Titus 38 + + 13. A Procession in the Catacomb of Callistus 42 + + 14. Flavian Basilica on the Palatine 44 + + 15. Library of the House of Domitian on the Palatine 50 + + 16. Forum of Nerva 54 + + 17. Fountain of Trevi 56 + + 18. Column of Marcus Aurelius, Piazza Colonna 58 + + 19. Pantheon, a flank view 62 + + 20. Silversmiths' Arch in the Velabrum 64 + + 21. Convent Garden of San Cosimato, Vicovaro 68 + + 22. A Tract of the Claudian Aqueduct outside the City 72 + + 23. Campagna Romana, from Tivoli 76 + + 24. Subiaco from the Monastery of S. Benedict 78 + + 25. Garden of the Monastery of Santa Scholastica, Subiaco 82 + + 26. Holy Stairs at the Sagro Speco 86 + + 27. Little Gleaner in the Campagna 90 + + 28. Sea-horse Fountain in the Villa Borghese 94 + + 29. Ornamental Water, Villa Borghese 98 + + 30. Village Street at Anticoli, in the Sabine Hills 100 + + 31. Villa d'Este, Tivoli 106 + + 32. In Villa Borghese 110 + + 33. The "Spanish Steps," Piazza di Spagna 114 + + 34. At the Foot of the Spanish Steps, Piazza di Spagna, on + a Wet Day 118 + + 35. Roman Peasant carrying Copper Water Pot 122 + + 36. Chapel of the Passion in the Church of San Clemente 126 + + 37. A Rustic Dwelling in the Roman Campagna 128 + + 38. Procession with the Host at Subiaco 130 + + 39. Girl selling Birds in the Via del Campidoglio 134 + + 40. Entrance to Ara Coeli from the Forum 138 + + 41. In the Church of Ara Coeli 142 + + 42. Doorway of the Monastery of S. Benedict (Sagro Speco) + at Subiaco 146 + + 43. Chapel of San Lorenzo Loricato at S. Benedict's, Subiaco 150 + + 44. Steps of the Dominican Nuns' Church of SS. Domenico + and Sisto 154 + + 45. Porta San Paolo 158 + + 46. The Colosseum in a Storm 162 + + 47. Arch of Titus from the Arch of Constantine 166 + + 48. Mediaeval House at Tivoli 170 + + 49. Ilex Avenue and Fountain (_Fontana scura_) Villa Borghese 174 + + 50. "House of Cola di Rienzo," by Ponte Rotto 178 + + 51. San Clemente, Choir and Tribune of Upper Church 182 + + 52. Santa Maria in Cosmedin 186 + + 53. Chapel of San Zeno (called _orto del paradiso_) in + S. Prassede 190 + + 54. Cloisters of S. Paul's-without-the-Walls 192 + + 55. Cloisters in Santa Scholastica, Subiaco 196 + + 56. Santa Maria sopra Minerva 198 + + 57. Saint Peter's 200 + + 58. Interior of S. Peter's, the Bronze Statue of S. Peter 204 + + 59. A Cardinal in Villa d'Este 208 + + 60. Villa d'Este--Path of the Hundred Fountains 210 + + 61. Theatre of Marcellus 212 + + 62. Island of the Tiber--the Isola Sacra 216 + + 63. The Steps of Ara Coeli 220 + + 64. Steps of the Church of SS. Domenico and Sisto 224 + + 65. Santa Maria Maggiore 230 + + 66. Arch of Constantine 234 + + 67. Castel and Ponte Sant' Angelo 238 + + 68. Bronze Statue of Marcus Aurelius on the Capitol 240 + + 69. S. Peter's from the Pincian Gardens 244 + + 70. From the Terrace of the House of Domitian 252 + + _The Illustrations in this volume have been engraved by the Hentschel + Colourtype Process._ + + + + + ROME + + + + +CHAPTER I + +ROME + + +About seven hundred and fifty years before the Christian era some +Latian settlers founded a town on the banks of the Tiber and became +the Roman people. Where did they come from? Had they come across what +was later to be known as the _ager romanus_ from the Latin stronghold +of Alba Longa, or were they a mixed people, partly composed of those +men from Etruria who were already settled in the country round? In the +confused pictures which tradition has handed down to us we see Latins +in conflict with Etruscans, and Romulus relegating the latter to a +special quarter of the city; but we also see one of the three tribes +into which he divided the people bearing an Etruscan name, an Etruscan +chief as his ally, and we know that while two at least of her six +kings belonged to this race, the religion, the art, and the political +institutions of early Rome were borrowed from that Etruscan +civilisation which was at this epoch the most advanced on Latin soil. + +However this may be, four legends cling round the mighty founders of +Rome--the Latian, the Aenean, the Arcadian, the Etruscan. The Arcadian +Evander had brought with him a colony of the indigenous people of +Greece, and founded a town at the foot of the Palatine sixty years +before the Trojan war. But at Alba Longa there also reigned kings +descended from Aeneas, who had come to Latium after the capture of +Troy bringing with him the _Palladium_, the sacred image of Pallas. +His descendant, the vestal Rhea Silvia, becomes the mother of the +twins Romulus and Remus by Mars. The babes of the guilty priestess are +cast adrift, but their cradle is carried down the Tiber to the foot of +the Palatine, where they are suckled by a wolf, and brought up by the +shepherd community already established there. + +In the dim twilight of origins we recognise that Romulus is the type +of the Roman people, whom he symbolises, who are found fighting the +Sabine, the Etruscan, even the Latin, for existence as a nation. In +the dim twilight we see all Roman things coming down the Tiber to the +foot of the Palatine--the original _Roma Quadrata_--and we see that +the nucleus of the settlement there was the cave of Lupercus, the +Italian shepherds' god, identified later with the Arcadian Pan. This +cave was just above the site of the present church of Santa Anastasia; +here grew the wild fig-tree in whose roots the cradle of Rhea Silvia's +babes became entangled, and here was the hut of Faustulus their +foster-father. + +The Grotto of Lupercus is the oldest sanctuary of kingly Rome. For +the people were shepherds. Other nations had risen under shepherd +kings who led their people to war, but no other people had become +world conquerors; no other people had been equally skilled in the arts +of war and the arts of peace, the arts of the plough and the arts of +the spear, in the self-discipline, the heroic devotion, the unity of +purpose, of the men who once carried in their breast the destinies of +the known world. + +The story is aptly figured in the person of the god Mars, who was the +reputed father of Romulus and Remus. The Roman god was at first an +agricultural divinity--the "spears of Mars" were the rods with which +the shepherd owner marked his boundaries. When, under the influence of +Greece, Mars became the god of battles, the boundary marker of the +fields became his war weapons. But if the Roman knew how to beat his +ploughshare into a sword, he also knew how to return from the sword to +the plough. The one was never far from the other--they put him in +possession of those two ways of inheriting the earth, multiplying and +subduing, producing and combating. Thus the pastoral legend never died +out from the land of Saturn, and in the proudest flush of victory, +when the relics of the _hastae martis_ were shown to the triumphant +followers of Mars, there was present to the soul of the Roman the +image of the father of Romulus covering the land with gigantic strides +to strike these same _hastae_ into the soil as a sign of possession, +the emblem of primitive law. + +Two hills in Central Italy and a swamp between them provided the +theatre of perhaps the greatest millennium in human history. On the +one hill were the Latins--or let us call them the Roman people--the +site of _Roma Quadrata_ the foster-land of Romulus, the birthplace of +Augustus, the hill which has given its name to the imperial palaces of +the earth. On the other were the Quirites and the site of the Sabine +arx, that _Capitolium_ so-called, says Montfaucon, "because it was the +head of the world, from which the consuls and senators governed the +universe." Whenever the marshy ground between them was passable, the +Latins and Sabines descended the steep declivities of their hills and +transformed it into a battlefield. But even in these early days they +felt the need of a _comitium_ where the rival chiefs could meet to +decide upon terms; and in no long space this battle-ground became the +nucleus and pledge of the political greatness of Rome. + +For the Forum symbolises all human civilisation. It is the symbol of +the common meeting ground--the common sentiments and needs--of human +beings, where rancours are laid aside for the business of life--its +common but its noblest business, civic, "civilised," pursuits. It is +the symbol of human greatness also, for the Roman never suffered the +common necessities to force upon him an ignoble peace. The +battle-ground became the centre of civic life, but only on condition +that the interests for which men should combat were never sacrificed +to the interests for which men should co-operate. Through the symbolic +_trait d'union_ of the Forum, two fortresses of barbarians became +the nucleus of the city which ruled the world, and their people the +imperial people of history. + + [Illustration: THE FORUM FROM THE ARCH OF SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS + + In the left corner is the _lapis niger_, the traditional tomb of + Romulus. Facing us is the Arch of Titus, and to the right is the + Palatine.] + +The city on the Palatine had been extended so as to include the town +of the Sabines or Quirites on the neighbouring Quirinal hill, before +the first king, who was born in the Sabine country, was called to rule +the Romans. The Capitol at this time was a spur of the Quirinal, and +so remained until Trajan dug away a part of the latter to lay the +foundations of his forum. The Etruscans lived on the Caelian and the +two horns of the Esquiline hills; the former was incorporated in the +primitive city, but the Esquiline and Viminal were not enclosed until +the time of Servius Tullius when Rome first became "the city on Seven +Hills." The Aventine where Remus had wished to build the city was +colonised by the conquered Latin towns in the reign of Ancus Martius, +and this isolated hill, overlooking the Tiber on one side and the +campagna on the other, still haunts the imagination with its +melancholy beauty, its pariah history, as though it embodied the +undying protest of Remus, an unceasing claim upon Roman justice. The +varied and interesting Christian memories here, which begin with the +_titulus_ of Priscilla and Aquila, are continued in the Priory of the +once international Order of the Knights of Malta, recording the +noblest effort of the lay world during the middle ages--the +institution of chivalry; and in the modern Benedictine house of Saint +Anselm--our English Anselm. + +The Janiculum, the site of a fortress built by Ancus Martius against +the Etruscans, was not enclosed within the city walls till the time of +Aurelian; the Vatican hill was only enclosed in the ninth century by +Leo IV. All these hills were once steep defences against enemies in +the surrounding country; now that there are no longer any enemies the +Romans appear bent on abolishing the hills, and the mania for planing +and razing is carried to an extent which must seem nothing less +than childish to the visitor. The Viminal has become almost +indistinguishable since the Villa Massimo was pulled down, and only +the name _Via Viminale_, which replaces the older Via Strozzi, +indicates the hill which lay between the Quirinal and the Esquiline. +Some idea may be gained of the original steepness of the hills when we +realise that in the memory of the Romans the road past Palazzo +Aldobrandini--on a slope of the Quirinal--used to be at the level of +the top of the high wall which now surrounds it. The Capitol was only +approachable from the Forum, and was never connected with the city on +the hither side until the construction of the historic steps of Ara +Coeli, one of the rare works undertaken by the Romans during the +absence of the popes in Avignon. + +The Tiber is now but a narrow stream in the midst of its ancient bed. +The Romans had never embanked the swift-flowing river, and the +enormous deposits of the yellow sand which give it its traditional +colour, and which threaten to completely dam the river by the island +of the Tiber, may afford the explanation. The inundations of 1900 in +fact reached the same level as those of 1872, as we may see recorded +in the neighbouring church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. Few spots in +Rome exceed in varied interest the _isola sacra_ which with its two +historic bridges the _pons Fabricius_ and the _pons Cestius_ spans the +Tiber at the heart of the city. Here was the temple to Aesculapius, +whose worship had been introduced into Rome during a time of +pestilence in obedience to the Sibylline oracles. The island itself +thereafter assumed the form of a huge stone ship, faced with +travertine, the prow with the sculptured staff and serpent of the god +being still clearly visible; and here Greece and Rome met a +civilisation and an art still older than their own, for the mast of +this great ship is formed by an Egyptian obelisk. Hard by is the +district where the Romans, who had borrowed from them their gods and +their cult, compelled the "_turba impia_" ("the impious crowd") of +Etruscans to dwell; while the walled enclosure in which, from the +eleventh century onwards, Christian Rome obliged the Jews to live, is +approached by the Fabrician bridge, as we may gather from the +inscription in Hebrew and Latin on the little church of San Giovanni +Calibita, beneath a painting of the Crucifixion, which says: "I have +spread forth my hands all the day to an unbelieving people, who walk +in a way that is not good." + +In the early twelfth century Otho III. brought, as he believed, the +body of the Hebrew apostle Saint Bartholomew to this island, as 1400 +years earlier the cult of Aesculapius had been brought there from +Greece. The city of Beneventum had, however, it is supposed, palmed +off on the emperor the body of Saint Paulinus of Nola which rests in +the church dedicated to the apostle by the side of that of Saint +Adelbert the apostle of the Slavs. The Franciscans came to the _isola +sacra_ in the sixteenth century, and one of the friars of Saint +Bartholomew's is the popular dentist of the poor from all quarters. + +Here, then, in the midst of the river which determined the site of the +cosmopolitan city, is a spot to whose history Egypt, Greece, Etruria, +Palestine have contributed--Aesculapius, "one of the Twelve," the +Christian Slavs, the Saxon Otho, Francis of Assisi. In Paulinus of +Nola we are reminded of the earliest Western monasteries, and the +Franciscan friars represent for us the thirteenth-century revival of +the religious spirit in Italy. What more? In the red-gowned +confraternity of the island we are put in touch with an institution +which seems to be as old as human history, with those burial guilds, +sanctioned by Roman law, under shelter of which the first Christians +obtained a legal footing for themselves and their cemeteries long +before their religion was tolerated. + + [Illustration: THE FORUM, LOOKING TOWARDS THE CAPITOL + + The Palatine is to the left. See pages 4, 5, 61.] + +The vicissitudes of the city have made certain features of its life as +eternal as itself. Through the middle ages it was the sanctuary and +since the renascence of classical learning it has been the museum of +Europe. Long before there were any kind of facilities for travelling +every one came to Rome. A procession of people from every race under +heaven, in every variety--every excess and defect--of costume, has +passed along the streets under the observant but unastonished eyes of +the _blase_ Roman; and when a lay pilgrim in a brown tunic, hung +with rosaries, and carrying a crucifix taller than himself, walked +last year out of Saint Peter's among the Easter crowd, no one noticed +him. The modern city in becoming the hostess of the other provinces of +Italy is approximating in size to the Rome of the early empire; but +the Rome of the popes made no sort of provision for the influx of +Europe. The Inn of the Bear, in the street of that name leading to +Ponte Sant' Angelo, provided the best accommodation; and here, it is +said, Dante himself had lodged. It is but a hundred years ago that a +pavement was placed for pedestrians, and then only one side of the +Corso boasted a narrow footpath. The streets were encumbered with +hucksters' stalls, with refuse, dirt, and stones; the nights were dark +as pitch, and hygiene was only hinted at in the marble _affiches_ +which may still be seen at certain old street corners announcing that +_monsignore_ the way warden would visit with a fine of 25 _scudi_ and +divers bodily pains the practice of emptying every kind of refuse into +the side streets. + +Now that the city is emerging from the chrysalis of the middle ages +the cry of "Vandals!" goes up on all sides. But Rome has always been +destroyed. Not even her moral vicissitudes give her a greater right to +be called "the eternal city" than her survival of the material ruin to +which she has over and over again been subjected. That Goth and Vandal +have not wrought more havoc than emperors, people, and popes is +recorded in the pasquinade on Urban VIII. (Barberini), who stripped +the bronze off the Pantheon to adorn the baldacchino of Saint +Peter's:--_Quod non fecerunt Barbari, fecerunt Barberini_. It is a +curious coincidence that the inscription commemorating the victories +of Claudius in Britain, in which our kings are irreverently spoken of +as "barbarians," should now grace the garden of the Barberini palace +in Rome. _Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis._ + +One factor only has been constant in the vicissitudes of +Rome--barbarian invaders, rescuers of popes, foreign intruders, +internecine brawlers, the flights and elections of popes, have each +brought the opportunity for wholesale pillage. To the Roman love of +destruction must be added the love of the large and superfluous: from +the time of the emperors to the present hour when sites and buildings +are doomed on all hands in order that the colossal monument of Victor +Emmanuel II. may dominate the centre of the Roman tramway +system--while the House of Augustus is unexcavated and his tomb is +dishonoured--the Romans have proved themselves to be the sons of those +who killed the prophets, by building or desecrating their sepulchres. +But when "new Rome" is condemned let us not forget that it has given +us what the learning and the riches of the most munificent popes never +compassed--an excavated Forum. + +There is no Mayfair and no Seven Dials in Rome. The poor live, and +have always lived, cheek by jowl with the rich: a palace in the Ghetto +and a hovel in the Corso have each existed without offence. This +brings us to another permanent feature of Roman life--the beggars. +Rome has always lived on the foreigner, and it has always had troops +of beggars patrolling its streets, in the time of the Antonines as in +that of Gregory the Great, or as in that of the latest of the +sovereign pontiffs, Pius IX.; and the cheerful-faced beggar who was +licensed by this pope to sit by the statue of Saint Peter lived to the +closing years of the century and gave a dowry of 200,000 francs to his +daughter on her marriage. The difficulties which met the Roman of the +era of Gregory the Great when pest and the transition to the +agricultural system of _coloni_ threw the serfs upon the streets, met +the government of Italy when after September 1870 the whole motley +crowd which had been the recipient of the Christian system of +alms-giving was in its turn suddenly thrown upon the streets of the +city. Those who remember the "seventies" or the "eighties" in Rome +remember the menacing manner in which "alms" were "asked," how near +together were blessing and cursing, and how unfrequented roads and +hills were beset by sturdy beggars, lineal descendants of the brigand +who placing his hat in the roadway levelled his gun at you as he +proffered the request: "For the love of God put something in that +hat." + +Papal charity pauperised a whole people: notices in the streets on wet +days announced the free distribution of bread in the Colosseum; doles +of bread were given by all the parish clergy to the practising members +of their congregations. The men women and children who had passed +their time doing odd jobs in churches, following viaticum and funeral +processions, and providing a church crowd on all occasions, were +suddenly called upon to make some concession to the modern +spirit--hawking a bunch of crumpled flowers, a box of matches or a +couple of bootlaces up and down the streets, in and out of the +restaurants, these latest recruits to the commercial spirit exchanged +the atmosphere of the sacristy for the busy whirl of trade without +ceasing to be what they had always been, beggars pure and simple. +Successful attempts are now being made to put down begging. The great +and real distress which exists in the city is mainly due to the +excessive rents and the terrible overcrowding--in the _San Lorenzo_ +quarter the modern poor of Rome may be found herded together with +five, six, and even seven families living _in one room_. The mania for +building in the "eighties" led to the "building crisis"; streets of +unfinished houses mock the houseless poor and the "improvements" of +the city are gradually demolishing the poorer dwellings. Amidst this +misery it is still the old Roman population which receives most help; +they are known in their parishes, and the old established subsidies +and dowries come their way. + + [Illustration: TEMPLE OF SATURN FROM THE BASILICA JULIA IN THE FORUM + + The Capitol is to the left. The temple is built at the foot of the + Capitol hill. See pages 3, 13, 30, 91.] + +The population of Rome has varied as much as its fortunes. The maximum +was reached in the time of the Flavian emperors--2 millions, but even +in the time of Augustus the inhabitants probably numbered 1,300,000. A +period of three hundred and fifty years, which brings us to the date +of the "Peace of the Church," sufficed to decrease this number by more +than a million (A.D. 335). After a thousand years of Christian +domination the population of the city had sunk to its minimum, 17,000 +(A.D. 1377). Even in the reign of the magnificent Leo X. it was not +more than 30 or 40 thousand. From the beginning of the seventeenth +century when it exceeded 100,000, it steadily increased, till in 1800 +the population numbered 153,000. But during the "empire," 1812, it +fell to 118,000. Ten years after "the Italians" entered Rome it had +increased by 79,000, to 305,000. The last census, 1900, shows a +resident population of 450,000--not a third of its classical +total--and Naples is still the most densely populated city of Italy. + + * * * * * + +The Greek tradition in Rome seems summed in the Palatine, the hill of +"Pallas"; but the Capitol, the hill of Saturn, sums Italy itself. The +one represents the Roman Empire, the other the Roman Commune--those +liberties and that self-government which began with the entry of the +_gentes_ and the formation from among them of the Roman Senate, and +which were never to be abolished. The Palatine has not been inhabited +since the officials of the Exarchate abandoned it in the eighth +century; but the life of the Capitol has never been intermitted; it +has never ceased to represent all the moments in the life of the Roman +people. This distinction is sharply drawn to-day: the Palatine is a +hill of majestic ruins visited only by the tourist, the Capitol is +still the seat of the municipality of Rome, ascended by every couple +for the celebration of their marriage, and its registers signalise +every young life born to the city. + +The municipal franchises of Italy have played a large part in her +history, and that of Rome is no exception. Moreover the Senate of +Rome, the heads of each _gens_ from among the original settlers, and +the _Populus_, who be it remembered were the _gentes_ and were never +synonymous with the _plebs_, represented two constant facts and +factors--a free Senate and free municipal government by the _Populus +Romanus_. These flourished in the middle ages as they had flourished +in the classical city, and it was thus easy for Cola di Rienzo to +restore them when the popes had abandoned the city to its fate. Papal +letters to Charlemagne's predecessors were indited in the name of the +Senate and people of Rome--a custom which influenced the early +government of the Roman Church herself, for her letters to other +Christian Churches were written in the name of "the Roman Church," +even when, as in the case of Clement's epistle, they were the actual +handiwork of the then head of the Christian community. Again, when +Pepin obliged the Lombard king to cede the exarchate of Ravenna not to +the emperor but to Rome, the words employed were: "to the Holy Church +and the Roman Republic." Even in the time of the proud Innocent III. +the city was still governed "by the Senate and people of Rome," and +when the Romans again tired of their Senate--as tradition says they +had done when they made Numa king--they created in its place a supreme +magistrate who was designated "the Senator," one of whose duties was +to maintain the pontiff in his See, and to provide conveniently for +his safe conduct and that of the Sacred College when journeying within +his jurisdiction. The extent of this jurisdiction is perhaps all that +now remains of the power once held by the Senate and Roman people. The +municipality of Rome is the largest in the world; it is conterminous +with the whole Roman _agro_, so that its history is inseparably linked +with that of the Roman boundaries as well as with the life of the +Roman people. + +The outward and visible sign of these primaeval Roman liberties is the +tetragram S.P.Q.R.--_Senatus Populus Que Romanus_ (the Roman Senate +and People), which took the place of the earlier formula _Populus +Romanus et Quirites_, and it is of the Sabines, not of the humble +conjunction, that that Q still reminds us. All down the centuries we +may recognise those four letters--surmounted in imperial times by an +eagle--crowning the standard of the Romans, carried far and wide not +only through the streets of the city and to the uttermost ends of the +earth, but in that religious perlustration of the _ager_ when the +ambarvalia rites were celebrated at the Cluilian Trench which +separated Rome from Alba Longa, the site of the combat between the +Alban Curatii and the Roman Horatii. One of the finest remains in the +Forum is the marble relief which represents the _suovetaurilia_, the +sow, sheep, and bull sacrificed on this occasion. That Roman greatness +which came to be synonymous with confines as large as the known world, +had risen with the recognition of these sacred limits, limits which +still define the Roman municipality--the symbol of Roman liberties. + +The Pragmatic Sanction and the world power of Rome! Can two things be +more disparate? Yet the version which renders S.P.Q.R. into _Si Peu +Que Rien_ must surely be laid at the door of "Gallicanism"--it points +to an ecclesiastical not a political _diminutio capitis_. The tract of +the city which we see from the terrace on the Pincian hill, looking +towards the Janiculum, has been called the most historic plot of land +in the world. Is it without reason that the furthest point of this +unequalled panorama is the dome which Michael Angelo erected over the +tomb of S. Peter? Three mighty civilisations--the Etruscan, the Roman, +the Christian--resulted in the foundation of two world empires. Rome +is now entering on a third existence, its existence as the capital of +Italy, but has it suffered thereby no _diminutio capitis_? Is it not a +fact that the classical and the ecclesiastical represented her only +world-wide destinies, the only life of Rome which penetrated as truly +beyond the city as within its classic confines? Has not the papacy, +with all its faults, been the actual link connecting ancient and +modern Rome, preserving unbroken the tradition which gave her, beyond +her ritual boundaries, the government of the world without? + + [Illustration: S. PETER'S AND CASTEL SANT' ANGELO FROM THE TIBER + + See pages 16, 32, 239, 242.] + + + + +CHAPTER II + +ROMAN BUILDING AND DECORATION + + +Shepherds' huts clustered upon a hill top whose base is washed by a +swift yellow river rushing to the sea not far distant. This is the +first faint foreshadowing of the existence of Rome which reaches us +dimly across the centuries. These shepherd settlers had chosen a site +propitious for the foundation of the great city which was to be raised +upon those grouped hills by the skilful hands of their descendants, +for the necessary building materials lay close at hand in lavish +profusion. One of the neighbouring hills, known later as the +Janiculum, and parts of another, the Pincian, yielded a fine yellow +sand. Beneath the surface soil was volcanic rock, which, in a +prehistoric age when the campagna was a sea-bed and waves lapped +against Monte Cavo, had been poured out in great liquid streams from +volcanoes amongst the Alban hills and at Bracciano. Close at hand in +the plain lay immense beds of a chocolate-brown earth with which later +builders were to manufacture cement. + +The makers of Rome therefore had only to quarry their building stone +on the very site of their city, and we can still recognise in the few +fragments that have come down to us the rectangular blocks of brown +tufa used in the first period of her history. These earliest +monuments, the walls of Servius Tullius and the vaults of the +Mamertine prisons, were the direct outcome of a period of Etruscan +dominion, and one of the first great works undertaken in the growing +city, the draining of the swamps of the Forum, Campus Martius and +Velabrum, was due to Tarquinius Priscus, the immense _cloacae_ built +for the purpose being still in use, and their masonry as strong as +when they were constructed about 603 B.C. The two Etruscan kings, +Tarquinius Priscus and Tarquinius Superbus, built the first triple +shrine on the Capitol dedicated to the three Etruscan gods, Jupiter, +Juno, and Minerva, and the primitive Roman temples, consisting of a +simple _cella_ with a peristyle, were doubtless Etruscan in character +and were decorated with terra-cotta and bronze in the Etruscan manner. + +The Romans were born builders and engineers, and in these branches +they quickly outstripped their predecessors and instructors. If they +were deficient in artistic originality, they evinced a readiness to +imitate and a power of appreciating skill and proficiency in the arts +wherever they met with them, and their practical and utilitarian +spirit taught them how to adopt and improve upon experience and guided +them in the choice of right materials. + + [Illustration: TEMPLE OF SATURN FROM THE PORTICO OF THE DII CONSENTES + + One of the earliest monuments of Rome; originally built in the reign + of the last of the Tarquins or the first years of the Republic, but + twice reconstructed during the Empire. It served as the Treasury of + Rome. The granite columns with marble capitals are of the Ionic + order. See pages 30, 181.] + +A period when the influence of Greece predominated succeeded the first +epoch in the building of Rome, and to this time must be ascribed +the adoption of the Greek models for public buildings, for circuses, +baths, and basilicas. Ionic, Corinthian, and Doric columns were +imported into Rome, the latter undergoing some modification to suit +the Romans' more florid taste. The temples became Hellenic in style. +The small _cella_ was built within an open court surrounded by arcades +from which the people assisted at the sacrifices. The altar stood in +the open court. Later, windows were introduced into the building, and +the openings were filled in with a bronze grating similar to that +still in perfect preservation over the door of the Pantheon, or with a +perforated marble screen, fragments of coloured glass being inserted +in the interstices of the pattern. By the third century there were 400 +temples in Rome, but the simple form of the early buildings was hidden +with excessive ornamentation, and frieze and cornice were loaded with +carving and figures. + +The basilica, or kingly hall of justice, was a rectangular building +divided into a central portion or nave and side aisles by rows of +columns under a horizontal architrave. The columns were in two tiers, +the upper one enclosing a gallery which was reached by a flight of +stairs springing either within or without the building. The entrances +were at the sides, and one extremity, and in some cases both were +extended to form a semicircular apse or tribune where stood the +judge's seat. A marble screen, the _cancellum_, separated this portion +from the rest of the building, and this constituted the bar to which +the accused were brought; just beyond stood the altar, where incense +burned; and here, during the persecutions, Christians were arraigned +and bidden to throw incense on the fire as a sign of recantation. + +These great buildings served as courts of justice and for the +transaction of business, and those which stood upon the _fora_ were in +some instances so large that several cases could be conducted in them +at once. Before the Empire the nave was probably unroofed or covered +only with an awning, and the upper galleries were entirely open so +that their occupants could at will attend to the proceedings within +the basilica or watch the games and events without. Similarly a single +rail or low partition only separated the open colonnades below from +the Forum. Curtains could be drawn across these to shut out +importunate onlookers and to muffle the sounds of street traffic, but +it is evident that the basilica precincts were regarded as a place of +familiar _rendezvous_ by the idlers in the Forum, as the gaming tables +scratched in the flooring of the Julian basilica testify. + + [Illustration: A CORNER OF THE FORUM FROM THE BASE OF THE TEMPLE OF + SATURN + + The column of Phocas, erected in honour of the Byzantine emperor who + was the contemporary of Gregory the Great, faces us, and to the + right are the columns of the temple to Antoninus Pius and Faustina, + now the facade of the church of San Lorenzo in Miranda. The columns + are of _cippolino_ marble. See page 32.] + +The era of _thermae_ or public baths began with Agrippa in 27 B.C., +and by the end of the third century eleven such existed in Rome +exclusive of the smaller baths or _balnae_, of which there were 850. +Nero, Titus, Trajan, Septimius Severus, Caracalla, Diocletian, were +all builders of _thermae_. These huge edifices were a great deal more +than public baths. They were a Roman form of the _gymnasia_ of the +Greeks, and the colossal ruins that remain can give but the barest +idea of what they must have been at their best. They included +immense halls and courts for athletic displays, vestibules, concert +rooms, picture galleries and libraries, pleasure grounds decorated +with statues fountains and shrubs and surrounded by open porticoes. +Feasts, concerts, and entertainments were provided, and pleasant hours +could be whiled away within their walls by the gilded youth of Rome. +The baths of Diocletian, of which the church of S. Maria degli Angeli +is a magnificent fragment, could accommodate 3600 bathers at a time, +those of Caracalla 2000. An army of slaves and attendants waited upon +the bathers and sped upon their errands along underground passages +from one end of the building to the other. Ruins of the _thermae_ of +Caracalla and of Titus are still standing. Out of the colossal vaults +and walls of Diocletian's baths have been constructed two churches, a +monastery, a large museum, and a variety of storehouses, warehouses, +stables, and cellars. + +Equally remarkable was the Roman system for supplying their city, +their _thermae_, and their 1350 street fountains with pure water. + +Appius Claudius was the first to collect the water from springs +amongst the mountains in the neighbourhood of Rome and to bring it +across the campagna. This was in 313 B.C., up to which date the +inhabitants of the city had depended for their water supply upon the +Tiber and upon sunken wells. Following in the steps of Claudius, +fourteen aqueducts whose united length measured 360 miles were built +at various times. They varied in length from 11 to 59 miles and their +course lay sometimes under ground and sometimes 100 feet above it, +while the amount of water they poured daily into Rome has been +estimated at 54,000,000 cubic feet. + +Four of these ancient aqueducts are still in use. The Virgo, built by +Agrippa in 27 B.C., and now known as the Trevi; the Alexandrina, +constructed by Alexander Severus (222-235), probably to supply his own +baths, and now known as the _acqua Felice_; the ancient Trajana, now +Paola, and the Marcian, restored by Pius IX. The Marcian was always +considered the best drinking water, and the Trevi being a softer water +was preferred for bathing purposes. + +The amphitheatre alone was, perhaps characteristically, a building of +purely Roman origin. Intended for shows and fights of gladiators and +wild beasts, these were at first temporary wooden structures. The only +stone predecessor to the great Flavian amphitheatre was a smaller +building in the Campus Martius, the work of Statilius Taurus in 30 +B.C. The Colosseum was begun by Vespasian in A.D. 72, was dedicated +eight years later by Titus, and was completed by Domitian. It stands +upon the site of Nero's artificial lake, is one-third of a mile in +circumference, covers some 6 acres of ground, and is 160 feet in +height. It could seat 87,000 spectators, and its staircases, +galleries, and entrances are so admirably planned that this crowd of +sight-seers must have found their seats and filed out when the show +was finished with little delay and difficulty. The numbers of the +entrances, cut in stone, can still be seen over each of the arches. +The Colosseum is built entirely of travertine, the blocks are fitted +together without mortar and are studded with holes from which the +greedy despoilers of the middle ages wrenched the metal clamps. In +spite of its having been used as a fortress and served as a stone +quarry for centuries, it is still one of the most magnificent of the +monuments of Rome. + +The solidity of the public buildings seems to have been in marked +contrast to the flimsy nature of the common dwellings or _insulae_. In +the time of Augustus these numbered 46,600, the _domui_, or houses of +the rich, 1790. The former were roofed with timber or thatch. As land +was dear, they were often of several stories and perilously high; many +of them were built of unbaked bricks with projecting upper floors, and +they were constructed with wooden framing filled in with rush and +plaster, so that when a fire broke out in the city whole regions were +laid waste in a few hours. As a measure of safety Augustus limited the +height of the _insulae_ to 70 feet, and Trajan reduced this again to +60 feet, while a distance of 5 feet between each house was prescribed +by the law of the Twelve Tables. + +The volcanic tufa used by the earliest Roman builders was discarded +gradually in favour of better materials. _Peperino_, a grey-green +volcanic stone from the Alban hills, began to take its place, and was +used for the construction of the Tabularium in 78 B.C. and for +Hadrian's mausoleum. It was cut in the same way in large rectangular +blocks, clamped together during the Republican and early Imperial +periods with iron. Mortar was not used till later, and at first served +only to level the surfaces of the stones; it came into use for +binding bricks together only at a later and degenerate period of +architecture. Travertine was adopted towards the first century B.C. It +is a cream-coloured stone hard and durable though easily calcined by +fire, formed by deposit in running water. It was quarried at Tivoli +and on the banks of the river Anio, where it is still plentiful. To +the present day the quarries are worked at Tivoli, and the stone is +brought to Rome on waggons drawn by immense white oxen which pace +majestically along the dusty roads beneath the goad of their +wild-looking drivers. + +The chocolate-brown earth imported from Pozzuoli or dug from beds in +the campagna, is known as _pozzolana_, and early in the history of +Rome her builders discovered that when mixed with lime it made a +remarkably strong cement. As such they used it for foundations, for +the lining of walls and ceilings. With pieces of brick and stone a +concrete was formed which was poured in a liquid state between wooden +casings, and when set proved to be one of the hardest and most durable +of the materials used. It was the strength of this concrete which +enabled the Roman builders to give the vaults of their baths and +basilicas such an enormous span; and it could be used for the flooring +of upper stories without beams or supports. When especial lightness +was required, the concrete was made with broken pumice stone. + + [Illustration: TEMPLE OF MARS ULTOR + + The temple erected by Augustus in his Forum to the God of War under + the title of Mars the Avenger. Only the upper part of the ancient + arch of the Forum, now known as _Arco de' Pantani_, is visible. This + represents the first imperial building in Rome. See pages 3, 30.] + +After the first century B.C. concrete became a favourite building +material. The walls so made were lined with stucco and faced without +in various fashions, the variety of the facing determining with +considerable accuracy the date of the fabric. The earliest facing, of +the first and second century B.C., was of irregular blocks of tufa set +in cement, and is known as the _opus incertum_. This was replaced in +the middle of the first century B.C. by tufa blocks cut in squares and +set diagonally giving the appearance of a network and hence known as +_opus reticulatum_. In or after the first century A.D. this fashion +was superseded by a facing of triangular bricks set point inwards, and +by the end of the third century bricks were mixed with the _opus +reticulatum_, a style known as _opus mixtum_. To the casual observer +the narrow brown bricks of the ruined buildings of ancient Rome seem +to play an important part, but, with few exceptions, they are merely a +brick facing upon concrete. + +Up to the first century B.C. there was little or no splendour or +decoration introduced into the buildings of Rome, and the city of +Augustus' inheritance was a city of sober-hued, volcanic rock. When +marble was first sparingly used, Livy reprobates it as too showy and +extravagant. Notwithstanding, the fashion rapidly spread, first in the +embellishment of public buildings, then for private houses as well +until in the first century of the Empire it became a common building +stone. + +For nearly three centuries it was imported into the city in a +continuous flow from the quarries of Greece and Egypt. The native Luna +marble, the modern Carrara, was not at first worked, but thousands of +slaves and convicts toiled in the quarries of the Roman provinces. The +great blocks were numbered and stamped with the name of the reigning +emperor and shipped off in the great triremes across the Mediterranean +to Ostia. Thence the trading vessels were towed by oxen up the river +to Rome, their slow progress ceasing with nightfall, when they were +drawn up and moored to the banks till next morning, bands of _vigiles_ +watching over the safety of their cargoes and restraining their +lawless crews from acts of brigandage. At their journey's end, the +cargoes were unloaded upon the marble wharf beneath the Aventine; here +unused blocks still lie upon the site of the once busy _Marmoratum_, +now a deserted quay beside a deserted river; and the harbour of Ostia, +built by King Ancus Martius at the river's mouth, is now four miles +inland. + +Occasionally a granite obelisk was brought from Thebes or Heliopolis +to adorn an imperial circus. That now in the Lateran Piazza is 108 +feet in height and weighs 400 tons. Ships had to be built on purpose +for the task, and one of these was so enormous that after safely +conveying the Vatican obelisk to Rome, it was sunk by the Emperor +Claudius to serve as a breakwater for the harbour at Porto. When the +laden ships arrived at the _Marmoratum_ the obelisks were hauled on +shore by men and horses and then dragged and pushed on rollers along +the streets by gangs of workmen. Forty-eight obelisks were once +erected in Rome, of which thirty have disappeared and left no trace. + + [Illustration: TEMPLE OF VESPASIAN FROM THE PORTICO OF THE DII + CONSENTES + + Built in honour of the first Flavian Emperor by his sons Titus and + Domitian. The three remaining Corinthian columns are of Carrara + marble. The Arch of Septimius Severus to the right was dedicated to + the emperor and his sons Caracalla and Geta in A.D. 203, to + commemorate their Parthian victories. It is of Pentelic marble. The + church of Santa Martina in the background is near the site of the + Senate House. See pages 31, 32.] + +While the fashion for marble lasted, no material was considered too +rare or too costly. Parian marble, the most beautiful of all white +marbles, from the island of Paros; Pentelic marble from Pentelicus; +Hymettan marble from the mountains of Attica; rich yellow _giallo +antico_ from Numidia; _cippolino_ with its beautiful green waves from +Carystos; purple _pavonazzo_ from Phrygia; black marble from Cape +Matapan; green and red porphyries from Egypt; alabaster from Thebes; +serpentine from Sparta; jasper and fluor-spar from Asia Minor; _lapis +lazuli_, with which Titus paved a chamber in his baths, from Persia, +besides countless varieties of the so-called _Lumachella_ marbles and +rare and beautiful _breccias_. + +There arose in Rome an army of marble workers, cutters and sawyers, +polishers and cleaners, carvers of simple mouldings and of +inscriptions, and more skilled sculptors of ornament and of statues +and busts. + +Coloured marbles were first used in small pieces for making mosaic +pavements. This art was introduced from Greece some time in the first +century B.C., and in its simplest form was an arrangement of smooth +pebbles in a rough pattern on a bed of cement. As the art developed, +cubes, lozenges, and hexagons of travertine and grey lava were cut and +fitted together in simple patterns. Then cubes of coloured marble were +used, and the designs, of figures and flowers, became more elaborate. +The floors were prepared with a bed of concrete, covered with several +layers of cement; the last layer was carefully smoothed and levelled, +and in this the cubes were fitted according to the pattern, and +finally liquid cement was poured over the whole to fill in the cracks. +When dry and hard the surface was polished with sand and water rubbed +on with little marble blocks. + +Pavements of the best building period can be recognised by the size of +the cubes, about three to the inch, and by the neatness and finish of +the work. Two varieties of mosaic can be distinguished, that in which +marbles, stones, and coloured glass are cut into cubes only and the +so-called _sectile_ mosaic in which elaborate scenes and groups of +figures are represented, the coloured pieces being sawn into shapes to +fit in with the design. The _Tablinum_ in the house of the vestals and +the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol were paved with sectile mosaic. +The most brilliant mosaic which came into use during the Empire for +the decoration of walls and vaults was made of fragments of coloured +marble and glass, the latter specially prepared with acids to make it +opaque and to give it a brilliant appearance. The art of mosaic work +has never died out entirely in Rome. The Roman mosaic pavements and +mosaic wall decoration were copied by the builders of mediaeval +churches, and even now a mosaic factory is kept up at the Vatican. + +Although first used in this way, coloured marbles were gradually +employed for the interior decoration of houses, for columns, dados, +and friezes. Lucius Crassus, the consul (176 B.C.), was the first so +to adorn his house, and Lucullus (151 B.C.) paved his hall with black +marble. Later, entire rooms were lined with thin slabs clamped to the +concrete wall with iron. Sometimes such marble walls were given a thin +coat of stucco and painted. As the passion for sumptuous interiors +grew all the decorative arts were put into requisition. Walls were +painted in fresco, as we can still see at Pompeii and in the house of +Germanicus on the Palatine. Ceilings, walls, and cornices were +ornamented in stucco in shallow relief. An extremely hard stucco was +made with lime and powdered marble--it was nearly as durable as marble +and could take almost as high a polish. It was even used for floors; +for internal decoration, plaster of Paris was mixed with it. +Mouldings, figures, arabesques, groups and scenes were worked in this +stucco and delicately coloured. Examples have been preserved in the +Diocletian museum and can be seen _in situ_ in the Latin tombs. + +The greatest plans for the building of Rome were conceived by Julius +Caesar and Nero. Of Nero's buildings nothing remains except some ruins +of his Golden House beneath the baths of Titus, while the designs of +Caesar were destined to be carried out by his great successor +Augustus. Justly could this emperor boast that he found Rome a city of +brick and left it a city of marble. The republican period succeeding +the expulsion of the Tarquins, and which his accession brought to a +close, had not been so fruitful in public buildings as the epoch +immediately following. Of the former, the Tabularium, the tombs of +Bibulus and Cecilia Metella, the temple of Fortuna Virilis, and the +ruins of the Fabrician bridge, the modern Ponte Quattro Capi, have +come down to us. The city, however, was beginning to assume a more +majestic appearance. On the accession of Augustus, the Capitol was +crowned by the Tarquins' temple to Jupiter, which was to be restored +by Domitian. The valley between the Palatine and the Aventine was +occupied by the enormous Circus Maximus, built by Tarquinius Priscus +and decorated by Julius Caesar, and which has so entirely disappeared +that we can only trace its site along the present Via dei Cerchi. The +temples of Concord and Castor and Pollux stood upon the Forum +Romanum, while the temple of Saturn bounding the steep _Clivus +Capitolinus_ which led upwards to the Capitol--the ancient _Mons +Saturninus_--recorded the golden age when Saturn reigned in Italy. + +The streets of the city were paved, and beyond the walls the immense +Appian causeway crossed the Pontine marshes and stretched onwards +towards Brindisi and the east. + +In the forty years following Rome was transformed. There arose in the +Campus Martius, the Pantheon with the baths and aqueduct of Agrippa, +the portico of Octavia dedicated by Augustus to his sister, the +theatre of Marcellus and the great mausoleum where the emperor and his +kindred were to lie, and which, almost smothered in poor houses, has +in modern times served the ignoble offices of a bull-ring and a +third-rate theatre. Temples were restored, the Basilica Julia was +completed, another Forum built with the temple of Mars Ultor in its +midst. Upon the site of Augustus' birthplace on the Palatine hill a +great palace was raised by himself and Tiberius, and this district of +Rome became henceforth the abode of the Caesars. + + [Illustration: THE COLOSSEUM ON A SPRING DAY + + The Flavian amphitheatre, called Colosseum from the _colossus_ or + colossal statue of Nero which stood on the _velia_ before it. The + picture is taken from an _orto_ belonging to the Barberini on the + Palatine, looking across the Arch of Constantine. See pages 22, 23, + 31.] + +Augustus and his immediate successors were to witness the golden age +of Roman building. After Hadrian came the period of decadence +characterised by florid ornamentation, bad taste and workmanship, +which culminated under Constantine and his sons. + +Following in the steps of Augustus, Caligula and Nero erected palaces +on the Palatine. Caligula connected the hill with the Forum, and Nero +opened up an entrance towards the Caelian. Vespasian built there the +Flavian house which his son Domitian was to dedicate as the _Aedes +Publica_, a gift to the people. Septimius Severus extended the +Palatine towards the south by the construction of his Septizonium. + +Of the buildings of Tiberius, the columns of the temple of Ceres built +into the church of S. Maria in Cosmedin remain to us; of those of +Claudius, the beautiful ruined arches of his aqueduct. The Flavian +emperors were great builders, and to this period belong the arch of +Titus, built in A.D. 70 to commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem, a +monument of Rome's best period, the ruined baths erected by this same +emperor, and the great amphitheatre and ruins of the temple of +Vespasian. + +Trajan's great buildings--his forum and triumphal arch, his basilica +and library--are represented by a very small excavated portion of the +basilica, and the column whose summit marks the height of the hill cut +away by this emperor to make a roadway between the Quirinal and +Capitol and thus relieve the congested traffic of the city. + +The only fragments left of the work of Hadrian are the ruins of a +villa near Tivoli, the mausoleum and _Pons Aelius_, now the castle and +bridge of S. Angelo; and behind the church of S. Francesca Romana in +the Forum the ruins of the _Templum Urbis_, the temple of Venus and +Rome, with its twin niches for the gods, one turned towards the +convent the other looking outwards towards the Colosseum. The gilt +bronze tiles from the roof of this temple were removed by Pope +Honorius I. to deck the Christian _Templum Urbis_ S. Peter's. + +During the following 140 years there arose in Rome, amongst other +monuments that have perished, the temple of Antoninus and Faustina +built by Antoninus Pius in memory of his wife and now transformed into +the church of S. Lorenzo in Miranda, the column of Marcus Aurelius, +the triumphal arch of Septimius Severus dedicated to his sons +Caracalla and Geta, the baths which bear this eldest son's name, +although only begun by him and completed by Heliogabalus and Alexander +Severus, the walls of Aurelian which still encompass the city and the +_thermae_ of Diocletian. The latest of the imperial buildings were the +temple built by Maxentius to his son Romulus, now the church of SS. +Cosma and Damian in the Forum, and the baths, basilica, and triumphal +arch of Constantine. + +A visitor to this city of the Caesars must have been almost bewildered +by what he saw. As he passes through the town great buildings meet his +glance on every side, their gilded tiles and white marble walls +glistening in the sun and clear atmosphere. Crowds jostle him in the +narrow paved roads. He crosses one Forum after another, six in all, +and finally reaches the Campus Martius. He pauses upon the steps of +temples and basilicas which seem on all sides to surround these busy +centres of Roman life. Open spaces are crowded with trees and shrubs, +fountains and statues. He can count thirty-six triumphal arches and +eight bridges that span the yellow Tiber. He passes theatres and +_stadia_ for races and games, columns and obelisks. Occasionally he +comes across a giant building, a colossus even in that city of +marvels, the amphitheatre of Vespasian or the _thermae_ of Diocletian, +or an immense circus where 285,000 spectators are seated waiting for +the chariot races to begin; he has noticed groups of charioteers in +their distinctive colours, and heavy betting is going on. He has +walked from one end of the city to the other sheltered from sun and +rain, along covered porticoes, their pavements rich mosaics, and their +length decorated throughout with a continuous series of statues and +pictures. He has gazed upon the stupendous palaces of the Palatine, +and has noticed the streams of people passing in and out of the city +gates on their way to the suburbs which extend to Veii Tivoli and +Ostia, or to the villas, parks and gardens, villages and farms, which +cover the outskirts of Rome to a distance of 15 miles, amongst which +great roads lined by marble tombs radiate outwards towards the hills. + +With the decay of this mighty city began the era of church building. +The origin of the Christian basilica is still a matter of +controversy, but the results of careful and recent research[1] go to +confirm the view that it was modelled not upon its Pagan namesake the +forensic basilica, but upon the private hall found in many of the +dwellings of rich Romans of consular or senatorial rank which served +for those domestic tribunals for the adjudication of family disputes +sanctioned by Roman law. This conclusion has been overlooked from a +mistaken belief that the first Christians were recruited from the +slaves and poorer classes of the population, but it is now proved that +noble Romans and even members of Imperial families early embraced +Christianity, and it was more than probable that the domestic +basilicas in their houses should be utilised as places of assembly by +members of their faith, the gathering of a large body of persons being +concealed during times of persecution, by the use of the many +entrances common to the Roman house. + + [1] _Le Basiliche Cristiane._ Mons. Pietro Crostarosa. Rome. + +The domestic basilica dedicated as a place of Christian assembly, +became with the development of the ecclesiastical system, the Roman +_titulus_, the church in the house, and as no public hall was built +until after the Peace of the church, these were multiplied as the +Christian population grew and numbered 40 by the second century. The +Christian basilica was thus in existence and perfected in all its +liturgical parts in the first three centuries, and when Constantine +built his great extramural churches, he only amplified a type familiar +to every Christian. + +S. Maria Maggiore probably existed as a domestic basilica at a time +anterior to that of its reputed founders Liberius and Sixtus, and we +know that S. Croce and the Lateran were constructed within the +Sessorian palace and the house of the Laterani of which they probably +formed the halls. + + [Illustration: THE COLOSSEUM AT SUNSET + + Taken from the _Mons Oppius_, one of the two spurs of the Esquiline + hill. See pages 5, 11.] + +Architecturally also the earliest churches resembled more nearly the +domestic hall than the public basilica. The latter were little more +than a covered portion of the Forum upon which they stood. They were +entered from either side through the open ambulatories which as we +have seen were free to all. The extremities were walled up later and +prolonged into an apse to increase the space available for legal +purposes. The domestic basilica on the other hand was a rectangular +building roofed and closed on all sides, its single apse at one +extremity facing the main entrance. The central space was surrounded +on three sides by porticoes dividing it into portions which became the +aisles for the worshippers and the narthex for the use of catechumens. +The domestic judge's seat standing in the apse was replaced by the +bishop's throne, and the _cancellum_ became the chancel rail dividing +this portion, the presbytery of the church, from the rest of the +building. + +The ruins of the Flavian basilica in Domitian's house on the Palatine +(81-96) affords us a ground plan of such a domestic hall, in this +instance placed close to the _triclinium_ of the house and not in a +direct line with the _vestibulum_ or entrance as was generally the +case. Here a fragment of the _cancellum_ can still be seen _in situ_. + +The Christian altar of the earliest churches placed in front of the +apse, faced the congregation, and a space before it, beyond the +depressed portion or _confessio_, was reserved for the choir and was +surrounded by a marble balustrade. The columns supported a horizontal +architrave, above it a flat wall pierced with windows and the plain +roof of cedar-wood beams. + +The floors were paved with a fine mosaic of marble and green +serpentine alternating with slabs of white marble or discs of red +porphyry. Tribune, arch, and vault, and sometimes other portions of +the walls, were decorated with brilliant mosaics and examples of this +work, of the fourth, sixth, ninth, and twelfth centuries, and possibly +of the second or third, have happily escaped the ravishing hand of the +restorer. In the twelfth century the art of marble working underwent a +temporary revival under the influence of a talented family of artists, +the Cosmati; and a good deal of their work and that of their school is +still to be found in Rome, the carved marble and an inlay of mosaic +upon marble being easily recognisable in the decoration of the +cloisters of the Lateran and of S. Paul's outside the walls, upon +ambones, candelabra, and tombs scattered throughout the churches. + +The straight architectural lines of the Christian basilicas and their +subdued colouring of floor and apse produce a delicate and harmonious +effect, but they were erected during a debased building period and +were not designed for strength, and only a few have weathered the +storms of the middle ages and escaped destruction beneath the +tasteless restorations of the Renaissance. + +The new building epoch born in Rome was to be nourished entirely at +the expense of the old. Columns and mouldings were transferred bodily +from the nearest basilica to furnish the Christian church, and were +there arranged haphazard. Simpler still, walls of ancient bricks were +quickly run up between the solid columns of a temple; marble casings +were torn off to be used as common building stone; statues, carved +cornices, and friezes were thrust into lime-kilns which sprang up all +over the city wherever the ancient monuments stood thickest; priceless +marbles were ground into fragments for making mosaics or were mixed +with cement and made into concrete. + +When Constantine left Rome to found his new capital the city had +already degenerated into a squalid provincial town, and fifty years +later Jerome could refer to its gilded squalor and its temples lined +with cobweb. + +Already the seal had been put upon the old order when Gratian in 383 +abolished the privileges of the pagan places of worship, and quickly +disaster followed upon the heels of destruction. Twice Alaric +despoiled the city and carried off priceless booty. Vitiges tore the +marble from the mausoleum of Hadrian and destroyed the aqueducts; +Genseric dismantled the temple of Jupiter; Robert Guiscard laid waste +the Campus Martius and other parts of the city by fire. Sieges, sacks, +earthquakes, fires, and inundations succeeded each other until the old +level of the city was in places buried 50 feet beneath accumulated +ruin and rubbish. + +The scene shifts once more; centuries have slipped by and the city of +Rome has become a desolation. Marble columns and granite obelisks lie +prone upon the ground, and many more have found graves beneath the +soil. Enormous mounds of earth and masonry, disfigured with rude +battlements, represent all that is left of the great monuments; +crumbling ruins and waste land stretch away to the walls, and without +the campagna has become a fever-stricken wilderness. + +Military fortresses, watch-towers on the walls, and bell-towers of +churches are the only buildings kept in repair. Gaunt wolves snarl and +fight over the refuse heaps under the walls of S. Peter's. A gibbet +crowns the bare summit of the Capitol, goatherds pasture their flocks +on its sides and along the green slopes of the Forum, and thus the +hill and the tract of land at its foot have returned once more to +their primitive pastoral state and their pastoral names, the "hill of +goats" and the "field of cows." Over all broods the ominous silence of +terror, bloodshed, and pestilence. + +Upon this scene of ruin the Renaissance and modern city of Rome was to +come into being, and the mediaeval buildings were in their turn to be +destroyed or overlaid with a modern garb, leaving only a few churches +and convents, a few towers and palaces, a few cloisters to mark the +passing of the centuries. + +The remains of the imperial city are described by a modern writer[2] +lying like a skeleton beneath the modern town, beneath streets, +villas, and public buildings; and from the fifteenth century, when +Rome, which had only just escaped an extinction as complete as that of +her neighbour and ancient rival Tusculum, began once more to rise from +the dust, to modern times, all the building materials have been +furnished by her ruins. The few monuments that have been preserved owe +their safety to their consecration as churches. + + [2] Gabelli, _Roma e i Romani_. + + [Illustration: ARCH OF TITUS + + Erected to commemorate this Emperor's destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. + 70. It is decorated with reliefs of the seven-branched candlestick + and other spoils of the Temple which were carried through the city + in the Emperor's triumph. See page 31.] + +Of all the despoilers to which Rome has fallen a victim, none have +been so assiduous in their destruction as her own rulers and people. +Streets have been paved with building stone, churches and palaces +built with ancient materials. Monuments of the utmost artistic and +historic value have been destroyed for the purpose, the Colosseum +alone being robbed of 2522 cart-loads of travertine in the fifteenth +century. The inadequate prohibitions issued at rare intervals proved +impotent in presence of a practice so deep rooted and time honoured. +Every villa garden and palace staircase is peopled with ancient +statues. Fragments of inscriptions, of carved mouldings and cornices, +marble pillars and antique fountains, are met with in every courtyard. +Even a humble house or shop will have a marble step or a marble lintel +to the front door. To the present day no piece of work is ever +undertaken in Rome, no house foundation dug or gas-pipe laid, but the +workmen come across some ancient masonry, an aqueduct whose +underground course is unknown and unexplored, a branch of one of the +great _cloacae_, or the immense concrete vault of a bath or temple +whose destruction gives as much trouble as if it were solid rock. + +Fortunately for the student and the archaeologist a government +official, a "custodian of excavations," now watches all such +operations, and all "finds" of importance, fragments of inscriptions +and statues, earthenware lamps, bronze or glass vessels, fragments of +mosaic, and gold ornaments, are collected and reported. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE ROMAN CATACOMBS + + +From the catacombs, the subterranean burial-places of the first Roman +Christians, to the basilica of S. Peter's, the greatest ecclesiastical +building on earth, there is no break in the drama of history. When you +come out from the cemetery of Callistus, on to the fields bordering +the Appian Way, and look across to the dome of the great church +commemorating Peter, you say to yourself "That is the interpretation +of this": this may see in its own humble features the lineaments of +that; the church which dominates the Roman country--in imperial +possession of Rome--may recognise that the silent underground +galleries of the Appia had already taken as effective a possession of +the capital of the world. + +The Roman Church is founded upon three events: the apostolic +preaching, the constancy of its martyrs, its position as the heir of +Imperial Rome--a position early figured and represented in the persons +of its bishops. All these things have their monument in the catacombs; +which bear indisputable traces of the sojourn and the preaching of +the Apostles, which are the earliest shrines of the Roman martyrs, and +which preserve for us in the crypt in the cemetery of Callistus, set +apart for the leaders of the Roman Church from Antheros to Eutychian +(A.D. 235-275),[3] the veritable nucleus of papal domination. It was +the successors of these men who were to fill the role left vacant by +Constantine's departure for Byzantium; to be forced into a position of +overlordship through the uncertainty of the emperor's government by +lieutenants--first in Rome and then in Italy; to consolidate this +power by constant accretions of Italian territory, and, finally, to +acquire by spiritual conquest a universal suzerainty as real as that +of the Roman emperor. If those who inscribed the proud words round the +dome of S. Peter's had known that hidden in the catacombs there were +frescoes representing Peter as the new Moses striking the rock from +which flow forth the saving waters of Christ--the name _Petrus_ +clearly written above him--even they must have thrilled with wonder +and awe: the upholders of Petrine primacy could not have imagined or +devised a parable of the first centuries better fitted to their hand. + + [3] The popes from the time of Zephyrinus, the predecessor of + Callistus, to Miltiades, who lived on the eve of the "Peace," rest + in this great cemetery. + +The burial-places of the first Christians in Rome were their only +certain property. The law allowed to every corporation its _religiosus +locus_, its God's acre, property seldom confiscated even in the worst +hours of the great persecutions. It was thus that the Christians, +though they never lived in the catacombs, came to regard them as +retreats, as places where it was safe to meet for prayer, for mutual +encouragement, even for the catechising of neophytes and children. +Round them were their dead, their loved ones, nay, round them were +their martyrs, the men and women who were to prove that "the blood of +the martyrs is the seed of the Church"; whose heroic deaths had been +witnessed by many; the memory of whose heroism was to prove almost as +potent as ocular witness when their burial-places became the nuclei of +the first Christian churches, and the abounding reverence felt for +them inaugurated the Christian cult of the saints. + + [Illustration: A PROCESSION IN THE CATACOMB OF CALLISTUS + + The nucleus of the great catacomb on the Via Appia was formed by the + crypts of Lucina and the _hypogaeum_ of the family of the + _Caecilii_, both pagan and Christian members of which had their + burial places on the Appian Way. S. Cecilia was buried here. See + pages 42, 45, 46, 29.] + +The catacombs lie for the most part within a three mile radius of the +wall of Aurelian. They number forty-five, and it is calculated that +the passages, galleries, and chambers of which they consist cover +several hundred miles, forming a vast underground city--"subterranean +Rome." For the first 300 years, until "the Peace of the Church," this +was the ordinary place of burial, certain catacombs being affiliated, +from the third century, to the ecclesiastical regions in the city. +Even after the "Peace" Christians were sometimes buried here, until +the fifth century, after which the catacombs were visited as places of +pilgrimage for another 400 years. + +From the ninth century they fell into complete neglect; no one visited +these sanctuaries of the sufferings, these monuments of the human +affections and religious beliefs of the first Christians. Visitors +heard that Rome was built upon terrible underground chasms, filled +with snakes, some part of which was every now and then revealed to the +terrified inhabitants. No one penetrated till the fifteenth +century--the first pioneer belongs to the sixteenth--and it was not +till the second half of the nineteenth that a new world was laid bare +to the student by the excavations of De Rossi, who rediscovered the +great cemetery of Callistus, containing the now famous "papal crypt," +and whose labours have resulted in restoring to us nearly twenty +catacombs. + +The terrible underground chasms filled with snakes were found to be +galleries of tombs, crypts of all sizes, lighted by shafts, some with +seats for catechists, some adapted as miniature basilicas, decorated +with frescoes recording biblical scenes, New Testament parables and +symbolical representations of New Testament events--(in which the +"apocrypha" is not distinguished from the "canon," and the history of +Susanna and the Elders sustained the faith and comforted the courage +of Christians by the side of the scene of Moses striking the rock or +Christ feeding His disciples); eloquent with inscriptions in the +epigraphy of the first four centuries, recorded in moments of simple +human emotion, intended only for the dead and those who survived them +sorrowing; and lastly, covered with _graffiti_, with prayers, names, +acclamations, scratched on the walls of galleries leading to some +favourite crypt by pilgrim visitors in later centuries. + + [Illustration: FLAVIAN BASILICA ON THE PALATINE + + See pages 31, 35, 45, and fly-leaf, page 252.] + +In this hidden and quiet place of the dead there is recorded a +revolution parallel to a volcanic upheaval of nature. Here we have +a permanent record of the meeting of classical Rome with Judaea and +Christianity; here the graceful art of Pompeii meets the imagery of +the Hebrew bible; here the Flavii met the Jews of the Dispersion; here +as in a Titanic workshop, Rome, taking its religion from the Jew, +moulded the faith which the Chosen People had discarded into the +greatest religious organisation on earth--Catholic Christianity. + +The two arch-cemeteries are those of Callistus on the Via Appia and +Priscilla on the Salaria. They are arch-cemeteries because their +origin and the part they played in the early years of Roman +Christianity gave them a pre-eminent importance, and having been +bestowed upon the Church by their owners they became the official +catacombs of the Christian community. Each bears in its bosom the +record of the first Roman converts; each is rich in frescoes and +inscriptions; each bears testimony to the fact that from the beginning +the Roman Christians counted among them many of patrician and +senatorial rank; we meet with the names of the _Aurelii_, _Caecilii_, +_Maximi Caecilii_, of _Praetextatus Caecilianus_ and _Pomponius +Grecinus_, and of _Cornelius_, the first bishop to belong to a Roman +_gens_, in the catacomb of Callistus; and with those of the _Prisci_, +_Ulpii_, and _Acilii Glabriones_ in that of Priscilla. Priscilla, with +her son the Senator Pudens, is the reputed hostess of Peter on his +visit to Rome, and in the catacomb which bears her name there occurs +repeatedly the Apostle's name--unknown in classical nomenclature--both +in its Greek and Latin forms, _Petros_, _Petrus_. It is a region of +this catacomb which preserves the tradition of the _Fons sancti +Petri_, "the well or font of S. Peter," "the cemetery where Peter +baptized" or "where Peter first sat," still unconsciously recorded in +the Roman feast of "the Chair of S. Peter" on January 18. Here too was +buried the philosopher Justin, martyred under Aurelius in A.D. 165, +who lived in the house of Pudens, and here, when Justin was describing +the rite itself in his Apology to the emperors, was frescoed the +earliest representation of the solemn moment of the breaking of bread +at the Eucharist. The mystical number of the guests, seven, the fish +on the table, archaic symbol of Christ, the "seven baskets full" in +allusion to the miracle of the loaves, and the fact that the _agape_ +was already dissociated from the Eucharist in the time of Justin, mark +this out as a typical example of that symbolical treatment of real +events which is characteristic of early Christian art. The celebrant +stands at one corner of the crescent-shaped table breaking the bread; +five men and women sit at the table, the only other standing figure +being that of a woman wearing the Jewish married woman's bonnet, +filling, apparently, the office of _vidua_ or woman-elder. The +catacomb of Callistus--an agglomeration of separate _hypogaea_, which +originated in the _crypts of Lucina_ and the cemetery of those +_Caecilii_ who were among the earliest Roman families to embrace +Christianity--is no less interesting. + +The unique interest of these monuments lies in the fact that they are +the incorruptible record of the sentiments, affections, and beliefs +of the first Christians. In these frescoes and inscriptions no +forgeries or interpolations could creep, no P1 and P2, no "Elohist" +or "Jahvist" could confuse the issues and mystify the interpretation. +The untouched story appeals to us in mute eloquence. + +To what side does the testimony of the Roman catacombs lean? The +critical method in history has destroyed the foundations of historical +Protestantism: has it laid bare the foundations of historical +Catholicism? The people who frequented the catacombs did not feel or +think or believe like the men who reformed Christianity in the +sixteenth century, but it is as true to say that they did not think or +believe like the men of the Catholic reaction. The catacombs record a +period when Christian life and Christian discipline still seemed more +important than Christian dogma, when this last was not yet fixed, when +it was still true that "what can be prayed is the rule of what may be +believed"--_lex orandi lex credendi_; and here in the place of the +dead "what could be prayed" became a veritable norm of what Christians +were to formulate as precious dogma later. + +In the first place then, the frescoes and inscriptions frequently +bring before us the notions of rebirth by baptism, and of eternal life +by participation in Christ through the mystical commerce of the +Eucharist--the Johannine conception; new birth and new life are the +keynote ideas in this place of the dead. Sacraments, conceived as +material channels conveying grace, already form an integral part of +the Christian consciousness; but the assumption that "the seven +sacraments" are to be found in the catacombs shows as little knowledge +of the history of the Church for the first twelve centuries as of the +habits of belief of the Christians of the first, second, and third. + +If there had ever been an age of the Church before controversy, we +might say that the catacombs recorded it. But there never was such an +age: what can be found here, however, are the spontaneous +Judaic-Gentile beliefs of Christians who learnt their faith through +terrible and comforting experiences almost as much as through the +first apostolic preaching or the later ministrations of those visitors +between Church and Church called in the New Testament "apostles and +prophets." The religion of the catacombs was partly formed in the +living; it is the faith, formulated, gauged, and tested by the +faithful. Hence there is not only spontaneousness, but boldness, +liberty of spirit, the absence of all fear of being misunderstood, +misconstrued. They did not think as we do, and centuries were to +elapse before the minimisers or the maximisers would torture what they +said and did with meanings they would not bear. + +Of these bold spontaneous doctrines none is more conspicuous than that +of the intercourse between all the members of Christ, "those who have +gone before us with the sign of faith" and those "who wait till their +change comes, till this corruptible puts on incorruption." A Christian +called upon his dead to pray for him in the realms of light, he called +upon God to give to his beloved a place of light and refreshment, he +besought the confessors gone to their reward to pray for both them and +him. So strong was this belief in a holy and indissoluble union +between the members of the one Church and the one Body of Christ, that +at every celebration of the liturgy the whole body of the faithful +were understood to be present--either really or mystically; and thus +the Commemoration of the Living in the mass speaks of those (present) +who offer and those (absent) for whom they offer the sacrifice of +praise, as all equally "standing round about." And as they offered and +prayed for those who were with them in the same town, so they offered +and prayed for those who were already with Christ--_in bono in +Christo_. The three commemorations of the Roman Canon, the _Memento +Domine ... omnium circumstantium_ of the living, the _Communicantes et +memoriam venerantes_ of the martyrs, and the _Memento ... qui nos +praecesserunt_ of the dead, may be thought of as liturgical features +crystallised in the catacombs. + +It is easy to see too how the funeral celebrations of the +liturgy--given this initial idea of intercommunion and intercession +among all Christians living and dead--extended the idea of eucharistic +sacrifice. How easily the oblation of Christ--the Christian's one +offering--became the means of intercessory prayer for all men and all +occasions, and gave rise to the requiem mass, the mass for some +special grace, the mass of thanksgiving, the mass in commemoration of +a saint. + +Bold treatment of sacred things belongs naturally to an age when the +_sentiments_ of the faith, aspiration and hope, outrun dogma--before +unfaithfulness in doctrine urged upon the early Church and its leaders +the necessity for stricter definition, or unfaithfulness in life had +made it easier to substitute a hard and fast creed for "the weightier +matters of the law." The symbolism and inscriptions of the catacombs +testify how freely such elements were at work there. Take as an +instance the fresco representing Christ on a throne giving a book to +Peter, with the legend, _Dominus legem dat_, "the Lord gives the law." +In other examples of this subject Peter is replaced by some simple but +faithful disciple--"the Lord gives the law to Alexander--to Valerius." +The allusion is to the "tradition of the Gospel" in baptism; it is not +hierarchical. + +The catacombs influenced the Roman Church in another way. There are +none but martyrs' names among the liturgic commemorations of the +confessors of the faith (whom we now call "saints"); and these names +loudly proclaimed in the _Canon_--in the solemn portion--of the +eucharistic services which were held at their graves, not only on the +day of deposition but on many other stated days besides, were the +nucleus of that long line of "_canonised_" saints which figures in the +modern calendar. When, after the "Peace," churches began to cover the +city, the very grave of the confessor became the nucleus of the +Christian edifice--that confession or sunk tomb which is the central +point of the Roman basilica. And as the liturgy had been celebrated on +the stone slab which closed the grave so when churches were built +the altar was placed over the confessor's tomb: "I saw under the altar +the souls of those that had been slain for the word of God, and for +the testimony which they held." + + [Illustration: LIBRARY OF THE HOUSE OF DOMITIAN ON THE PALATINE + + Painted on a stormy day. The sombre scene of the ruined Library in + the Palace of the Flavian Emperors suggests the ruin of classical + learning which followed on the introduction of Christianity. The + mother of Domitian's two nephews, whom he had intended to designate + as his heirs, was martyred as a Christian, and their cousin of the + same name--Flavia Domitilla--founded the catacomb of the Flavian + House.] + +Thus subterranean Rome prepared, as in the hidden working of a mine, +not only many affirmations of the faith which was to assert itself in +the light and replace the religion of classical Rome, but also the +sanctuary of those great basilicas which were to spread over the +surface of the city as soon as the Christians, in no real but +nevertheless in a highly suggestive sense, "came up from the +catacombs." The catacombs are the link between pagan Rome "drunk with +the blood of the saints" and the Christian Rome which arose in the +imperial city from the ashes of her martyrs. The pagan city on the +seven hills as truly sunk into the grave with the bodies of the Roman +martyrs as Christian Rome eventually took possession of the same _urbs +septicollis_ by carrying her dead into it. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +ROMAN REGIONS AND GUILDS + + +The regions and the guilds of Rome illustrate two contradictory +tendencies running parallel throughout the administrative history of +the city, the one towards division and separation as first principles +of organisation, the other towards union and centralisation as +measures of strength. These antagonistic elements which we find at the +very dawn of Roman history were at once utilised as factors in the new +commonwealth. + +It is the tradition that King Numa organised nine guilds of +handicrafts amongst the Roman people that they might sink their race +animosities in an identity of interests. Similarly one of the first +great works for the young community, the city wall projected by +Tarquinius Priscus and built by Servius Tullius, was intended to +produce a fusion of the tribes which inhabited the seven hills he thus +physically linked together, and which he had already united under a +common government. Another enterprise, the draining of the marshes and +pools which made impassable barriers of the valleys between the +hills, had the same aim and result--it was a levelling process, moral +as well as physical, to minimise the separation between hill and hill, +race and race. + +On the other hand, Servius' division of the city into four regions, +and these again into six parishes or _vici_, laid the seeds of an +internal disunion which lasted throughout the centuries. These four +regions (1) the Suburra or Caelian, (2) the Esquiline and its spurs, +(3) the Collina, comprising the Viminal and Quirinal, which were +called _colles_ in distinction to the other hills, the _montes_, and +(4) the Palatine, persisted until the reign of Augustus. By that time +the city had grown beyond its primitive limits, a thickly populated +region had sprung up on the Esquiline beyond the walls and Augustus +found a new division necessary. He increased the original number of +regions to fourteen, and each of these he subdivided as before into +parishes, the number in each region varying from seven to +twenty-eight, making 265 in all. A magistrate or curator with a set of +officials under him presided over each region. Each parish had its +magistrate, its officers, its chapel built upon the boundary road for +the public worship of the _lares compitales_, the protecting spirits +of the district. + +At this period the poorer quarters of the city--a network of narrow +streets with high houses built of inflammable materials--had been +again and again devastated by fire. At night the densest darkness +descended upon the city, street lighting was unknown, shop doors were +shut and barred, and it was unsafe to walk abroad; those who ventured +carried lights, or were preceded by servants with staves and torches. +The ubiquitous beggars haunted the byways, and brigands raided the +outskirts of the town. + +As a remedy against these evils Augustus created a force of 7000 men +who were to act both as police and firemen. The whole body he placed +under the command of a prefect, who acted in conjunction with the +curator of the regions in keeping order, and divided it into seven +battalions or cohorts, each under a tribune, and so disposed in the +city that one battalion watched over the safety of two regions. The +cohorts were again subdivided into seven companies under a captain or +centurion. The force was distributed over the town in seven different +barracks, with outlying detached quarters or _excubitoria_. + +The firemen's duty was to inspect public furnaces and private +kitchens, the heating apparatus and the offices where the wardrobes +were kept and warmed in the public baths. If a fire broke out in the +town it was the subject of an official inquiry, just as it is to-day, +and if arson or willful neglect were suspected, punishment was meted +out by the proper authorities. Like the modern policeman in Rome, +Augustus' _vigiles_ were not a popular force, and to make it more +palatable he gradually increased its privileges. He built large and +luxurious stations and _excubitoria_ which were beautifully decorated +with precious marbles and statues. Members of the force were granted +the coveted Roman citizenship, and the captains were permitted to +serve _ex officio_ in the Praetorian guard. + + [Illustration: FORUM OF NERVA + + The picture represents a portion of the ornamental enclosure of the + Forum built by Nerva, near Domitian's Temple of Pallas; she is + represented on the entablature. This fragment is popularly known as + _Le Colonacce_. See page 33.] + +At a later period, perhaps sometime in the third century, the regions +of Rome were reorganised on an ecclesiastical basis, and seven were +formed out of the fourteen by the amalgamation of two into one, each +being placed under one of the seven deacons of the city. It is not +known at what precise date their number was again increased to +fourteen, nor when they assumed their present names and distribution, +but probably early in the middle ages. By the thirteenth century only +thirteen regions are recorded, and it was not till the year 1586 that +the conservators and senators of Rome and the captains of the regions +consulted together and decided to include the Leonine city as a +fourteenth region, granting it at the same time a captain, a standard, +and an heraldic device of a lion upon a red field, his paw planted +upon the three mounds of the coat of Sixtus V. + +These fourteen regions do not correspond in position, name, or extent +with those of Augustus except that the present thirteenth, Trastevere, +is identical with the ancient fourteenth, Transtiburtina. The names +that they bear to-day represent either their position or some +characteristic feature within their limits. Thus the first and largest +region, the _Monti_, formed from the union of the fifth and sixth of +Augustus, the _Esquilina_ and the _Alta Semita_, is so called from the +hills, the Esquilina Viminal and Caelian, within its boundaries; the +second the _Trevi_, derives its name from the famous fountain in its +midst; the third, _Colonna_, from the column of Marcus Aurelius; the +fourth, _Campo Marzo_, covers this historic ground; the fifth, +_Ponte_, is named from the old _Pons Triumphalis_, that united Rome +with the Vatican region; the sixth or _Parione_ comprises the ground +of which the Chiesa Nuova is the centre, and the name was derived from +the ancient wall and tower which stood close to it; the seventh, +_Regola_, inhabited by some of the most wretched of the population, is +a corruption of Arenula, the drift sand of the river near which this +region lies; the eighth, _S. Eustachio_, behind the university, takes +its name from a parish church; the ninth, _Pigna_, from the bronze +pine cone now at the Vatican and which was once supposed to adorn the +Pantheon (this region corresponds to a certain extent with the ancient +Via Lata); the tenth region, _Campitelli_, includes the Capitol and +Palatine hills and the Forum; the eleventh, the _S. Angelo_ district, +a region inhabited by the very poor, by tanners, and formerly the +Jews' quarter, is named after the church of S. Angelo in Pescheria; +the twelfth is the _Ripa_ or river bank; and the thirteenth and +fourteenth, as we have seen, are _Trastevere_ beyond the river and the +Leonine city or _Borgo_. + + [Illustration: FOUNTAIN OF TREVI + + One of the numberless fountains of the city; built by Clement XII. + in 1735. The red house is the _palazzo_ of the celebrated art + jeweller Castellani. Visitors leaving Rome who throw a _sou_ into + this fountain are sure to return to the eternal city. See pages 22, + 55, 227.] + +Each region became a little civic and social centre complete in +itself. Each had its captain, its sub-officers, its religious +organisations, its separate funds for charities and dowries, its +separate police and militia recruits. And the importance that accrued +to these regions lay in the fact that they represented the _plebs_, +the democracy of Rome. With a people so incapable of co-operation for +a common end as the Roman, the spark of their civic liberties would +have been trodden out or have remained for ever dormant but for this +administrative setting which kept it alive and through which, given +the opportunity, it could become once more a living force. + +The heads of the regions, the _caporioni_, heirs to the position of +Augustus' tribunes but without their discipline, were the people's +leaders and spokesmen, their representatives and the guardians of +their liberties. They were elected by ballot and the ballot urn was +carried in procession to the Capitol, where the chosen captains +received their investiture at the hands of the Senate. In times of +difficulty they assembled for consultation in that council chamber of +the people, the church of Ara Coeli, but their counsels seldom led to +measures of conciliation which were uncongenial to their fierce +independence and to the arbitrary authority they assumed. In peace or +in war, in sanguinary insurrections or in national rejoicings, the +_caporioni_ were always to the front, their banners with the regional +device upon a coloured field fluttering in the breeze. It was to them +that Cola di Rienzo looked for assistance and support. When a royal +visitor or one of the German Emperors of Rome entered the city in +state, the _caporioni_ were amongst the officials who received them, +their banners carried by their pages on horseback, and themselves clad +in their gala tunics of crimson velvet, cloaks of cloth of gold, white +stockings and shoes, and black bonnets jewelled and feathered. When +Pope Gregory XI. returned to Rome, restoring the papacy to the land of +its birth after an exile of seventy years, the _caporioni_ rode in +procession to give him welcome, and at his death they hurried to the +cardinals assembling in conclave at the Vatican to implore them at all +costs to elect a Roman pope, and they emphasised their petition with a +fierce menace which would assuredly have been carried through to its +sanguinary end but for the intervention of the Colonna forces. + +In the carnival processions of the fifteenth century which issued from +the Capitol to perambulate the city, the _caporioni_, surrounded by +fifty mounted grooms wearing their distinctive livery, preceded the +Senators. Representatives from each region marched with them in the +order of their precedence carrying halberds, banners, and lances, and +shields emblazoned with their arms, and escorted by grooms on +horseback. In the same procession, in front of the regions, were +delegates from all the handicraft and trade guilds in the city, +shoe-makers, hatters, apothecaries, tavern keepers, and many others, +each with their banners captains and sergeants; the guild of +ironworkers alone numbered 300, in the midst of whom a team of horses +were harnessed to a cannon of their own making. The procession was +headed by municipal officers and soldiers, and as an emblem of law and +justice a wretched criminal was driven along with blows. + +After the Renaissance the _caporioni_ degenerated into mere regional +captains, retaining only a shadow of their former power and +jurisdiction, and the present government has abolished the office +altogether. The organisation and the spirit of the regions are, +however, by no means dead. + + [Illustration: COLUMN OF MARCUS AURELIUS, PIAZZA COLONNA + + The only work of the time of the emperor-philosopher which has come + down to us. The column is now crowned by a colossal bronze statue of + S. Paul. See pages 32, 55.] + +Until the racing of riderless horses down the Corso was forbidden, +each region entered a horse for the race which was decked in the +regional colour, and its success or failure aroused a perfect passion +of rivalry between region and region--an antagonism as old as the age +of Plutarch, who relates that in the month of October chariot races +were run in the Campus Martius; the victorious horse was sacrificed to +the god Mars, but its head was borne in procession to the Forum, all +the regions fighting for possession of the trophy until nothing was +left of it, and the combatants themselves were wounded and disabled. + +To this day, on occasions of popular rejoicing or in patriotic +demonstrations, representatives from each region form into procession, +the regional banner carried by _vigili_, who march surrounded by a +group of the so-called _fedeli_, inhabitants of the little town of +Viturcchino, who for good services rendered to Rome in the past have +earned special consideration at the hands of the Roman municipality. +Such processions are headed by the standard of the Commune, S.P.Q.R. +upon a red and yellow ground, and immediately behind follows the +banner of the Monti, the first region, three green hills on a white +field. + +The different devices of the regions, carved upon marble shields, were +affixed to house walls in many parts of the city to mark the +boundaries, by order of Benedict XIV., and can still be seen in +position. All those who know Rome at all are probably familiar with +the Monti escutcheon upon the wall of the Aldobrandini palace, and +with the Campo Marzo crescent on a house wall at Capo le Case. + +The passage of time has not wholly wiped out the fierce and hereditary +enmity between the inhabitants of one portion of the city and another, +which has been always fostered and encouraged, though unintentionally, +by the regional system. + +The Monticiani and the Trasteverini were the most irreconcilable of +foes. The Monti was the first region to be inhabited after the +barbarian invasions, but it was left in comparative isolation and +neglect when the Campo Marzo became the busy centre of papal Rome, and +its people have retained something of their untamed native +independence. They are proud and passionate, are the quickest with the +knife in a quarrel, and will not stoop to domestic service or to +menial trades. They choose husbands and wives amongst their own +people--they believe S. Maria Maggiore to be the most beautiful church +in the world, and will brook no dissent on the subject. Even to-day +they will not speak willingly to a Trasteverino. The enmity between +these two may have had a Guelph and Ghibelline origin. Certainly +Trastevere was a stronghold of the Ghibellines as is shown by an +episode which occurred on the day of Pope Callistus III.'s coronation +in 1445. A groom in the employ of the Orsinis came to words about a +girl with a groom of a rival house, the Anguillara. From words they +came to blows, and quickly the quarrel became general, until in a few +hours 3000 men were under arms ready to fight in an Orsini cause. The +inhabitants of Trastevere, separated from the rest of Rome by the +river and comparatively far from its centre, have retained to the +present day much of their individuality, their habits, character, and +appearance. The sight of a Monticiano arouses in them all the evil +passions. Even as late as the year 1838, it was their habit on every +holiday to meet the Monticiani for a stoning match on the green swards +of the Forum--"the field of cows" as it was then called--the historic +fragments lying about serving as missiles of war. Such matches were +not to revenge any particular wrong but merely for honour and glory, +the victorious region bearing off the palm in triumph until the next +occasion. Sometimes they met at the Navicella, sometimes in the ruined +courts of Diocletian's baths; sometimes a champion from each side came +forward for the contest, sometimes it was a general scrimmage, members +of other regions looking on and encouraging their allies. Sometimes +when the matches fell upon a market day--a market was held once a week +in the Campo Vaccino--the crockery stalls were requisitioned for +ammunition, and earthenware pans and pipkins flew across the Forum in +company with fragments of classic statues and marble friezes. Only +when heads were broken in plenty, and blood poured from wounded faces +and limbs, did these fighters desist, or when the cry "al fuoco" +warned them of the tardy arrival of the _sbirri_. Even these agents of +law and order were powerless to separate the combatants unless they +had had enough, and during Napoleon's occupation of Rome the cavalry +had to be called out to disperse them, the gendarmes having entirely +failed to do so. These stoning matches between Monticiani and +Trasteverini were so recognised an institution in Rome, that the poet +Berneri writing two centuries ago, sums up the Forum Romanum in the +words: + + Campo Vaccino + Luogo dove s'impara a fare a sassi. + + Field of cows + The place where one learns to throw stones. + +The movement towards association between members of a craft or of +persons of identical interests, seems to be, as we have seen, as old +as Rome herself. Whether or no King Numa gave it its first impulse, it +is certain that throughout the first years of the Republic trade +corporations were multiplied in the city without let or hindrance, and +only when their number and importance seemed to menace the +tranquillity of the State were measures taken for their control. + +The wave of prosperity which spread over the Roman provinces during +the early Empire gave a further impetus to trade in every branch, and +an industrial class which had been long in the making amongst the +people of Rome, awoke to its own interests and claimed if not sympathy +at least recognition from the aristocratic ruling caste which held all +_plebs_ in contempt. + + [Illustration: PANTHEON, A FLANK VIEW + + Designed as a Hall of the Baths of Agrippa the contemporary of + Augustus, but appears to have been at once dedicated as a temple. + The Black Confraternity of S. John Beheaded are seen passing the + building, their cross bearer preceding them. See pages 30, 56, 67, + 86; [see also pp. 8, 77, 143].] + +The only response given however was to prohibit the formation of trade +guilds, exception only being made in favour of a few of the most +ancient, and those devoted to purposes of religion and burial. They +continued nevertheless to multiply under cover of this latter clause +until under Marcus Aurelius and Alexander Severus they received final +encouragement and recognition. At this time they had increased +enormously in number wealth and importance throughout Rome and the +provinces. Every group of merchants and all those engaged in +handicrafts banded themselves together to form a _college_ or +_university_ as they were called in Rome, as much for the social +pleasures to be derived from such association as for the mutual +support and protection afforded against the impositions and +aggressions of outsiders. Charioteers, gladiators, disbanded soldiers, +itinerant merchants, seamen, Tiber boatmen, grain weighers at Ostia, +palace servants, carters and coachmen founded corporations equally +with the bakers and innkeepers, dyers weavers and tanners. + +Every young community sought a rich patron willing to give a plot of +land or the funds necessary for the building of a club-room, promising +in return certain anniversary banquets in his honour, or commemorative +reunions to keep his memory green after death. Each corporation placed +itself under the protection of a god whose name it adopted, and as its +wealth and importance increased, by members' testamentary bequests or +by gifts from patrons, the club premises were increased, and shrines +and chapels were built in honour of the titular deity. Some of the +corporations rose to such a position of importance that senatorial and +consular families sprang from them; they supported colleges of +doctors sculptors and painters of their own, they contributed to the +building of public monuments and made loans to the State, while on +special occasions the emperor's retinue was increased by a hundred +standards and five hundred lances contributed by the trade colleges of +Rome from amongst their own retainers. + +Although democratic in constitution, in so far as every member, +however humble, could serve as one of its officers, the college was +founded on the civic pattern, with president, curators, fiscal officer +and all the grades of rank down to its slave members. Thus each unit +represented in miniature the Roman commune and contributed to its +consolidation. Unlike some of the guilds of the North however which +became the nurseries of civic freedom, the Roman Colleges were too +ready to subject their individuality to the spirit of civil discipline +which was characteristic of Roman organisations and we find them +submitting to one Imperial decree after another, losing one after +another of their rights until they fell altogether under State +patronage and became a mere portion of State machinery, a petrifying +slavery being thus imposed upon their members whose liberties they +were founded to safeguard. + +As an integral portion of the administrative life of the State, they +proved of the greatest use, not only as adding to its stability and +prosperity but as affording a sort of scaffolding upon which to build +its complicated daily life. To them was given the collection of taxes, +the superintendence of public buildings, the development of the +military system, the clothing of the militia, the provisioning of +the citizens and the supplying of all their daily necessities. + + [Illustration: SILVERSMITHS' ARCH IN THE VELABRUM + + This arch stands against the Arch of Janus, and was erected to the + Emperor Septimius Severus, his wife Julia Pia, and his sons, by the + guilds of silversmiths and cattle merchants. When Caracalla murdered + his brother the name of the murdered prince was removed from the + inscription. The arch, as the inscription proves, is on the site of + the _Forum Boarium_.] + +In return for these services they were exempt from all other +obligations to the State. The livelihood and wellbeing of members of +colleges were thus ensured but at the cost of their liberty. Every +member was obliged to sink a portion of his estate in the funds of the +college, and to contribute another to its expenses. He was forbidden +to will away the remainder except to his sons or nephews who in their +turn were bound to enter the same trade; no member could change his +own trade for any other, the priesthood alone excepted, in which case +he must furnish a substitute. The goods of the corporations were thus +inalienable, and whole families were bound to the same occupation in +perpetuity. + +During the civil wars, barbarian invasions and general disunion +following upon the decadence of the Empire, the Roman colleges are +lost sight of, but there seems little doubt that their privileges were +left intact by the foreign conquerors of Rome and that it was their +direct descendants that we find flourishing once more as trade +corporations in the middle ages. As early as the eighth century, the +Lombards, Saxons and Franks had formed _scholae_ for members of these +nationalities resident in Rome, and a little later trade guilds, +founded for the mutual support and protection of their members against +oppression, had already grown prosperous and strong enough to take an +active part in insurrections and civil wars. + +We find history repeating herself. The guilds placed under the +protection of a Christian saint were constituted with the obligations +to bury their dead, to succour the widows and orphans of poorer +members, to lend them funds in case of need and to offer masses for +their benefactors. All members swore to the articles of enrolment, the +statutes were formally drawn up, and many of them are preserved to +this day. As funds increased, hospitals were built for sick brethren, +and schools for the children; dowries were given to the daughters, and +the guild standard-bearers and men-at-arms swelled the ranks of +mediaeval processions just as those of their pagan predecessors had +done. The colleges kept great feasts and festivals, and their +messengers paraded the streets two and two bidding householders deck +their windows with bunting for the coming festivities. They endowed +convents and hospices and built churches, many of which still bear the +name of their founders. S. Giuseppe _de' Falegnami_ was built by the +carpenters' guild; S. Caterina _de' Funari_ by the ropemakers'; S. +Lorenzo in Miranda in the Forum belonged to the apothecaries; S. Maria +dell' Orto to the fruiterers and cheesemongers; S. Barbara to the +librarians; S. Tommaso a' Cenci to the coachmen. Streets called after +the cloakmakers, the ropemakers, the watchmakers and other craftsmen +still mark the districts given over to these different industries. + +The regulations imposed within the guilds pressed heavily upon the +poorer members. The chief of each guild, the _Capo d'arte_ exacted +implicit obedience. He was the sole arbiter on all trade questions, on +the opening of every new shop, and the examination of every new +worker, and played the part of a petty tyrant. An arduous +apprenticeship of seven years from the age of thirteen was followed by +two or three years as worker, and the payment of heavy fees, before +the position of master-worker was reached. + +These powerful guilds hampered the development of trade by the +establishment of monopolies, and they were more than once suppressed, +and finally abolished in the seventeenth century. Many of them, +however, survived, taking on the form of religious confraternities. +These had coexisted with the trade guilds throughout the later middle +ages. They were founded with a purely religious object, were a more +spontaneous creation and were not under any State control. One +confraternity was founded for succouring the sick, another for feeding +pilgrims three days gratuitously, a third begged about the town for +the benefit of prisoners, and a fourth prayed with condemned +malefactors. Up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, this +confraternity had the right to liberate one prisoner each year, who +was afterwards taken in triumph round the town. Another gave dowries +to deserving girls, and to this day the chapter of S. Peter's conducts +a procession of the _zitelle_ or maidens round the basilica on the +octave of Corpus Christi. At the head of the procession the capitular +umbrella is carried; those girls who are destined to a convent life +wear a crown of flowers, and those to be married are accompanied each +by her _fiance_. + +The confraternity of blacksmiths had the privilege of blessing animals +on S. Antony's day (January 17) and the space before their church of +S. Eligio, patron of blacksmiths, used to be crowded with horses, +mules, dogs, sheep and oxen brought for the purpose. The owners paid +large sums to the confraternity, and the Pope's horses and the +equipages of Roman patricians arrived decked in flowers, the Piombino +and Doria coachmen driving eighteen pairs in hand to the admiration of +the crowds. + +Since 1870 the confraternities have lost their importance and much of +their amassed wealth, while such of the trade guilds as have not +become purely religious confraternities, have resolved themselves into +the modern trades unions and beneficent clubs. + + [Illustration: CONVENT GARDEN OF SAN COSIMATO, VICOVARO + + This convent in the Sabine hills stands on a plateau between the + river _Digentia_ (now Licenza) and the Anio. Near it is the site of + Horace's Sabine farm. See page 169.] + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA + + +Rome is set in the _campagna romana_. The strange beauty of this +"Roman country," the birth country of the Latin League, assails the +very doors of the Roman citizen, intruding its poetry, its stillness, +from point after point of vantage, causing the beholder to lead every +now and then a sort of dual existence, to lose his sense of time and +place and personality, and with his feet planted in the city which was +once the hub of the world to find himself dreaming in a cloister +garden. The atmosphere, the combination of colour and light, is +characteristically Roman, it suggests what is mystic but never fails +in perfect clearness. With its mystic blues, its blue-greens, its +silence, its vastness, the campagna presents none of the features of +the _pays riant_ of Florence where little olive-crowned hills, so +cared for, so laughing, convey a message like its history definite, +homogeneous, cultured, charming. But here a dead city has been +besieged day and night by a dead campagna, big with its speech of +silence, untilled yet a cradle of civilisation, with the complex +language suited to a more difficult message, not entering into your +humour but taking you into its secret, beautiful, austere, massive and +careless of little things, yet yielding you out of its rich secular +treasure details of beauty in abundance--here before you lies a +history, a power, heedless of your judgment, but century after century +looking back at you [Greek: meidiasais' athanato prosopo], as one of +the finest lines in Greek verse says of Aphrodite, and recreating your +universe for you. + +_Latium_ was the name of this country round about Rome, Latium--as +though it were wide and spacious, suggesting the civilisation which +was to spread from here, with its largeness, its spaciousness, its +contempt of the trivial and restricted. The campagna (between Civita +Vecchia and Terracina) embraces a tract of country some ninety miles +in extent, with a maximum breadth between mountain and sea of forty +miles, enclosing part of ancient Sabina, Etruria, and Latium, this +last lying seawards, between the Alban hills and the Tiber. The _ager +antiquus_, the Roman _ager_, however, was of much smaller extent, +bounded by a point five miles out on the Via Appia, by the shrine of +the Dea Dia towards the sea, by the _Massa Festi_ between the seventh +and eighth milestones on the Via Labicana, the farthest point +eastwards, and by the primitive mouth of the Tiber six miles from Rome +on the Ostian Way; and these always remained its confines for ritual +purposes. From here derived the original families whose chiefs became +the Roman patricians and formed the nucleus of the Roman Senate--the +so-called _gentes_. The extension of the campagna beyond the _ager +antiquus_ to form the _ager publicus_ was the result of conquest, the +territory thus acquired being let or assigned to private persons as +tenants-at-will of the State, apportioned to poorer citizens in +allotments, or colonised by Roman citizens. The hill-villages and +towns, the _castelli romani_, are so-called not as is popularly +supposed because they are near Rome, but because they too were +colonised by Romans from the _ager_ under the protection of the great +feudal barons to whose fiefs they belonged in the city. Thus +_castello_, the baronial castle, easily came to denote the village +which clustered round it. + +Something of the dualism which possesses the soul of the Roman, which +has I think always conveyed a message to his eyes, his ears, his +heart, is derived from the scene before him. Life and death, the _va +et vient_ of the world's masters, "the desolation of Tyre and +Sidon"--the Roman campagna has looked on both. Chateaubriand describes +it as a desolate land, "with roads where no one passes," with "tombs +and aqueducts for foliage" usurping the place of trees and life and +movement; the stillness is broken by no happy country sounds, the eye +sees no smoke ascend from the few ruined farmsteads. No nation it +would seem has ventured to succeed the world's masters on their native +soil, and the fields of Latium lie "as they were left by the iron +spade of Cincinnatus or the last Roman plough." Decimated by plague +and pest and deserted by man, malarial, fever-bound, the smiling +country-seats of the world's conquerors have given place to tiny +scattered colonies--as at Veii--haunted by a people emaciated by +fever, where lads of eighteen, looking like boys of twelve, are +certified by the parish priest as unable to bear arms. Along the +world-famous roads lined by the Romans on either hand with the +monuments of their dead, that they might retain a constant place in +the thoughts of the living who journeyed on these most frequented +ways, the ruined tombs are left in possession of the dead alone. The +tombs, the _hypogaea_ and _mausolea_ of the great families who dwelt +there, often remain standing when all trace of the villas to which +they belonged have disappeared, as though one further proof were +needed that this is indeed the land of the dead. + + [Illustration: A TRACT OF THE CLAUDIAN AQUEDUCT OUTSIDE THE CITY + + The Sabine hills are in the distance. See pages 21-22.] + +Nevertheless this deserted country once teemed with life--some seventy +cities, it is surmised, once covered the plain, and countless villas +and farms, the property of Roman patricians, consuls, and senators, +made it a veritable garden. Driving within the walls of Rome being +forbidden save to the Emperor and the Vestals, the tenants of these +villas met the _rheda_ outside the gates, drawn by its pair of +fast-stepping horses. These light carriages were gaily painted with +some classical subject, as the peasants' carts still are in Naples, +and a leather hood with purple hangings protected the owner from the +heat. At all the cross-roads are fountains for the use of man and +beast, near which a seat shaded by ilex or olive awaits the tired +traveller, as we may see it still awaiting him for example at the +Porta Furba on the way to Frascati. Excellent roads kept in excellent +repair honeycomb the plain, while aqueducts, temples, trees, +shrines, monuments, and statues rejoice the eye and enliven the +journey. Villa, dependents' dwellings, the mausoleum, the farms, are +seen a long way off in this flat land, and not the least curious +feature as the traveller approaches is the formal garden still known +to us as "an Italian garden," an entirely artificial creation where +each tree and shrub has not only its prescribed place in the scheme, +but its prescribed form, giving the impression of a continuous trained +English box hedge. The shrubs are tortured into the semblance of +beasts and snakes, the name of the owner being sometimes cut in the +foliage, a device which may still be seen in the modern grounds of the +Villa Pamfili-Doria. The most conspicuous features of the campagna +from classical times are the aqueducts, stretching right across the +_agro_ to the walls of Rome; gigantic remains of the Claudian aqueduct +extend for six miles, and the ancient _peperino_ arches of the +favourite _acqua Marcia_, which cross the Claudian aqueduct at Porta +Furba, still bring water to the city. As classic Rome is represented +by the aqueducts and mausolea, so feudal Rome is represented by the +towers which rose in the campagna between the eighth and the fifteenth +centuries--the early semaphores on the coast-line to give warning of +the approach of Saracen or Corsair, the vedette towers which figured +in the baronial wars, and the later fortified towers of the baron's +castle. Last but not least Christianity has strewed the campagna with +chapels and shrines, the earliest of which supplanted the cult of the +local pagan divinity in the ages when Christianity was gradually +driving the religion of imperial Rome into the villages and hill +retreats. So S. Sylvester replaced the woodland deities, Michael +supplanted the god of war, S. George became the Christian protector +against the depredations of ferocious beasts, S. Caesarius replaced +the genius of the imperial Caesars. Of the same period are the +basilicas erected over the _sepulcretum_ of a martyr at the mouth of a +catacomb. + +Several causes led to the abandonment of the _agro romano_. The +neglect of the roads and the ruin of the aqueducts, which cut off the +water supply, the poverty of the despoiled landlords, and the general +insecurity following the incursions of the barbarians in the fifth and +sixth centuries, brought about a rapid depopulation and gradually +turned the _agro_ into a pest-bound desert. It would seem that +malarial fever is virtually indigenous to the soil of the _agro_, +besetting every region as soon as man deserts it. It did not make its +appearance, we may suppose, in the inhabited towns of the classical +period, but that it existed before the middle ages, the popular date +for its appearance, is shown by the allusions of classical writers +since the time of Augustus and by the existence of several temples to +the goddess Fever. In Rome itself it is the persistent belief, which +appears to be abundantly confirmed by statistics, that the more +building is extended and the horribly noisy paved streets are +multiplied, the faster the evil diminishes; for the malarial miasma is +held to be an exhalation of the soil, and where earth is freshly +turned there is danger. As we all know, it has been quite +recently shown that the microbe of malaria is carried by mosquitoes, +mosquitoes abound where water abounds, and one of the reasons for the +unhealthiness of the _agro_, one of the greatest obstacles to its +reclamation, is that there are not less than ten thousand little +water-courses which filter down to the valleys, creating marsh and +stagnant pools. The evil may really date from the last years of the +republic, which saw the displacement of the small freeholders by the +large landowners, of the old free labour by slave labour, and the +consequent fatal depopulation of the _agro_. But during the middle +ages, from the sixth century onwards, all the causes were intensified, +and the difficulties which now beset the secular problem of the +restoration of agriculture in the Roman campagna and the expulsion of +malaria, resolve themselves "into a vicious circle"; for men cannot +live there until the malaria is exorcised, and until men live there +the malaria will remain in possession. No less than seventy-nine +measures for what is known in Italy as the _bonifica dell' agro +romano_ have from time to time been projected; and whether Italy will +succeed where the popes failed is still doubtful. The initial +necessity, the drainage of the campagna, seems in itself to be a task +too great for Hercules. For the last four years the military _Croce +Rossa_ has perambulated the campagna during the summer and autumn +months, combating the malaria with doctors and medicines. It is hoped +that this will be followed by the establishment of a larger number of +permanent sanitary stations. Since 1870 millions of eucalyptus trees +have been planted as air purifiers especially at the little railway +stations and other inhabited sites. It is not forgotten that the +agricultural colonies of the classical age were once the saving of +Rome, and within the last few years similar schemes have been devised +in the hope that the birth-land of the Roman people may become once +more the home of agriculture. Such a _colonia agricola_ for Roman +lads, outside the Flaminian gate, was founded by a visitor who has +since become the wife of an Italian well known for similar enterprise +in Italian Africa. + +The moral wants of the _agro_ have appealed to the sympathies and +occupied the attention of the excellent society of young Catholics, +the _Circolo San Pietro_, which has opened and furnished thirty-four +of the closed and neglected churches and chapels of the _agro_ for the +use of the scattered population; mass is also said in the hayfields on +Sunday for the haymakers, on a wain drawn by oxen, and a very charming +little picture of this scene has been prepared under the auspices of +the President, Prince Barberini. There are within the city many +hundreds of extra-parochial clergy--monks, friars, clerks regular, +missionaries, and members of the various ecclesiastical congregations, +with scores of churches and chapels where hundreds of masses are daily +celebrated, and where expositions of the Sacrament, novenas, and +benedictions are multiplied. But just outside the walls there are +people who never hear mass, who live and die without the consolation +of religion, "without a priest." When the _Circolo San Pietro_ set +their hand to the good work of opening the churches and chapels of the +_agro_ their difficulty consisted in finding priests to minister in +them without payment. "Your Indies are here" said the Pope of his day +when S. Philip Neri, the Apostle of Rome, wished to go abroad as a +missionary, and Pius X. has recently echoed the saying. There is only +one confraternity in the city which imposes on itself the duty of +seeking and burying the bodies of those who die from sudden illness or +from violence in the campagna. This well-known black "Confraternity of +Prayer and Death" accompanies the funerals of the poor gratuitously. +It is affiliated to the Florentine _Misericordia_. + + [Illustration: CAMPAGNA ROMANA, FROM TIVOLI + + See page 78.] + +The _agro romano_ is divided into nearly 400 farms owned by half as +many proprietors. The largest of these farms comprise between 8 and +18,000 acres, the two smallest 5 acres each. About half remains +ecclesiastical property, while a third belongs to the great Roman +families, one-sixth being still owned by peasant holders. The +proprietors allow the big estates to be farmed by the so-called +_mercanti di campagna_, who take them on a three or nine years' +tenure. These large merchants of country produce keep a _fattore_ on +the farm who is the actual manager; he is both farmer and bailiff. The +cattle of the _agro_ are, Signor Tomassetti tells us, its most +considerable inhabitants. There are 32,000 sheep, 18,000 cows, 10,000 +goats, 7000 horses and mules, 6000 oxen, and 1800 buffaloes. The oxen +were brought by Trajan from the basin of the Danube, the buffaloes +came with the Lombards and were originally natives of India. + +Beyond the _agro_ are the _castelli romani_, the hill towns of the +Alban and Sabine district. There above Frascati lies the site of +Tusculum, the mighty rival of Rome; to the right is Monte Cavo the +highest peak in the Alban range where stood the temple of the "Latian +Jupiter," sanctuary and rallying point of the Latin League. Below lies +Albano of which See the English Pope, Hadrian IV., was Cardinal +Bishop. In the Sabine range is the famous city of Tibur (Tivoli), the +villa of Hadrian, and S. Benedict's town of Subiaco. To the east is +the rock Soracte, "the pyramid of the campagna" and the meeting place +of Etruscans, Sabines, and Latins; while a score of little townships +in both ranges of hills record the feudal families of Rome, and +harbour the descendants of the Latin rural _plebs_. The life led here +is not the village life of England, but the life of small, primitive +townships, with a mayor, a commune, and the customs of the middle +ages. There are no manufactories and no crafts, and there are no +cottages, the dwellings being divided into floors as in the big towns. + + [Illustration: SUBIACO FROM THE MONASTERY OF S. BENEDICT] + +The great business of the year is the vintage, which takes place in +the Roman campagna in October; in land held under manorial rights, +however, the tenants must await the lord's pleasure. The vines are +trained round short canes set close together, and the grapes are +collected in wooden receptacles narrowing towards the base: these are +emptied into the _tino_, whence they are pressed, by the old biblical +method of treading with the feet, into an enormous cask below called +the _botte_. Here the grapes are left for several days to ferment, +the skins rising to the top. In the little yards of filthy houses one +may see the grapes being boiled in a cauldron, an illegitimate +substitute for fermentation. The wine of the _castelli romani_ is +famous; every district makes both red and white, the latter being +generally preferred in Rome itself; the white "Frascati" and white +"Genzano" are famous; Albano wine is praised by Horace, and excellent +"Marino" is still made in the vineyards of the Scotch college which +has its summer quarters there. The Sabines yield the "Velletri," a +good red wine but difficult to find pure; Genazzano and Olevano also +produce an excellent grape, but the difficulty in some of these small +towns is to find a vine grower to take sufficient pains with his wine +making. Colouring matter is usually employed for the red wines, the +least noxious resource being a plentiful admixture of elderberry. The +wine made one year is not as a rule drunk till the next; it is not +prepared for exportation, but is kept, or sent to Rome, in barrels, +from which it is decanted for retail commerce into flasks where the +wine is protected with a few drops of oil in lieu of a cork. The wine +is also sold by the _barile_ (sixty litres), _mezzo barile_, and +_quartarolo_ (fifteen litres), the usual price given in Roman +households being about seven francs the _quartarolo_. Every +_trattoria_ and restaurant, however, sells wine by the Roman +half-litre measure--the _fojetta_--and the prices 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 may be +seen chalked up outside the wine-shops. Outside vineyards and rural +_trattorie_, where wine is sold, a bough is hung out as a sign, +reminding one of the origin of the proverb "Good wine needs no bush." + +The olive harvest is in November or December. Nowhere is the olive +more appreciated than in Italy where Minerva is said to have bestowed +it, the horse, which was Vulcan's gift, coming only second in +usefulness. The picked fruit is made into the finer oil, then the +fallen olives are gathered by women and girls, and the occupation is +very popular, as what is thus earned helps to provide the winter +comforts. Fine oil has a very delicate scarcely perceptible taste and +smell, and an Italian condemns the oil by saying "_L'olio si sente_" +(One can taste it). Frying is generally done with oil and some +vegetables and all fish are cooked with it. "_Ojo e sempre ojo, ma +strutto! chi sa che struttaccio sara?_" (Oil is always oil, but who +knows what lard may be?) they say. The olive tree not only yields the +fuel to feed the oil lamps, but it provides some of the best timber +for the fire. Not only is it useful but it is one of the most +beautiful things in the Italian country--and its grey-green colour, +with the tender sheen on the leaf, is as characteristic of the Italian +landscape as the deeper green and lordly shaft of the stone pine, or +the blue of the hills. The seasons in Italy are two months ahead of +ours in England, the wheat harvest being in June. There is seldom any +cold before Christmas, and in fine years the winter may be said to be +over after the middle of February. + +The people who inhabit the Alban and Sabine country are the same +Latin _plebs_, except that they no longer serve the world's masters +and take their part, if only as spectators, in a great classical +civilisation: they have served for centuries a papacy which in habits +of thought never belied the heredity of the middle ages. In the +general outlines the same people--but more not less barbarous than of +yore, because they have been arrested, literally have been brutalised, +by a complete absence of that moral and intellectual growth which has +been the conquest of the centuries. As in pagan Italy, the people are +consulters of oracles, confiders in charms and exorcisms, slaves to +the belief in "destiny," a word which is ever on their lips ("_e il +destino_" absolves you from taking any action); they are cruel and +coarse as the cruel are coarse. The inhabitants of the _castelli +romani_ were described by a compatriot as "_pieni di superbia, debiti, +e pidocchi_" (full of pride, debts, and lice); and he who ventures to +hear mass in the parish church of one of these hill towns must have a +bath on his return and discard all the garments he wore. Among the +Sabine villages, where in our own time the public sport was the +baiting of the poor beasts who were going to the slaughter-house, +there are smiling olive-crowned towns whose evil reputation for deeds +of blood has made it necessary to change the name of the township more +than once. In one of these villages, in the "eighties," a man raised +his gun and calmly shot his brother _in the presence of their mother_. +The mother and son were punctual in their obligations to church and +convent, and the _arciprete_ of the parish journeyed to Rome to bear +witness at the trial that the murderer was "il fior del paese," (the +flower of the flock). When the man was acquitted, the priest had no +better lesson to inculcate for the community of which this was the +"pearl," than to accompany the local band which went forth to welcome +the fratricide back to the village which held the still fresh grave of +the brother he had treacherously murdered. + + [Illustration: GARDEN OF THE MONASTERY OF SANTA SCHOLASTICA, SUBIACO + + This fifth-century monastery (restored five hundred years later) was + dedicated to the sister of S. Benedict, the founder of Western + Monasticism. The first printing press in Italy was established + here.] + +It is commonly believed, even by the educated, that "things" happen in +the campagna which happen nowhere else, possession, obsession, +"overlooking," witchery. Hysterical manifestations are indeed common +at all the noted shrines, and wherever the excitement of exorcism is +at hand to feed the morbid preoccupation with self of the hysterical. +Some sixteen years ago the government determined to check this source +of hysteria, and directed the rural clergy to perform no more +exorcisms. I visited a friary in the Sabines at this time and saw the +work of the evil spirits in the shape of a packet of hairpins +(complete with its sample pin), tresses of hair, or a good fat nail +which had been swallowed by the energumen and which under the +emotional stress attending the exorcism--the dim light, the monotonous +droning of the _frati_ who are saying their office behind the high +altar--are brought up again. I enquired of the Father Guardian what +happened now that exorcism was forbidden? Well, a woman had been there +only the day before, and he had explained to her that he could only +pronounce "a simple benediction," which had resulted after a quarter +of an hour before the altar in the ejectment of the objects shown +me. Such an end to an ancient Christian ministry destined to free poor +human beings from the toils of Satan gives food for reflection. The +secular conflict between religion and science has set foot even in the +Roman campagna. If in England we have our Christian scientists, in +Italy the authorities have to cope with a people whose remedy for the +bite of a rabid animal is a mass said at the shrine of some special +madonna--both put faith before a trust in "dry powder," and there has +never yet been an age of the world in which there have not been those +who thought them right. The popular sanctuaries in Italy, indeed, help +to keep up much that is undesirable. At the April festa at Genazzano a +peasant will kneel down before the miraculous image of the Madonna +which hangs, like Mohammad's coffin, without visible support, and +having made his prayer will rise and shake his fist at the picture, +exclaiming "_Bada, Maria!_" (Beware, Mary!) Many things, thin silver +hearts, candles, and other dainties have been promised if the desired +favour be granted, but if the Madonna be not tempted by these to +accede to the wishes of her worshipper, she must look out for herself. +Wax images can be laid out to melt in the sun, there to learn how +agreeable is a continued drought, statuettes can be stood in the +corner with their faces to the wall, a rival patron saint can be +pitched into the river, by the same hand which brings gifts. "See how +you like it!" Does not the primitive man create his god by looking +into himself? and Caliban with his "So he!" inaugurates theology. + +Another Roman picture is afforded us by the lottery. It is to be +found, indeed, all over Italy, but we are only concerned with its +influence in Roman life, where it has always flourished, first under +the popes when a prelate presided to bless the opening of the lottery +and now under the State, for the Romans are born gamblers. Seventeen +millions a year are raised in this way out of the pockets of the +poorest of the poor. The excuse made is that as the people will gamble +the only safeguard against gigantic frauds on the gamblers is to make +the lottery a department of the State. Certainly it would be +absolutely impossible to trust to fair play if the choice of the +numbers depended on any private persons; even if they were honest, no +Italian would believe it. The "Book of the Art," with its rough +hideous drawings of the things represented by the lottery numbers--one +to ninety--is the only book which the unlettered Italian can read. +Every event national or domestic becomes the subject of play. You +"play" the assassination of the King or the death of the Pope, the +accident which has happened to your neighbour your master or your +mistress, and you play the death of your kinsfolk. In order to get the +money the people have recourse to the _monte di pieta_--the +pawnshop--and the women will pawn the mattress off the bed. Sometimes +the choice lies between the two chief pleasures of the Roman, eating +and the lottery, and it is the best proof of the fascination of the +latter that it is so often preferred to the joys of the table. In +every tiny village as in every great city throughout Italy there is a +_banco dell lotto_, and the winning numbers are exhibited over its +doors every Saturday. Five numbers--for example, 5, 9, 27, 36, +50--appear each week. This is called the _cinquina_. But you can win +the _ambo_ (two correct numbers), the _terno_ (the most usual of all), +or the _quaterna_. Not more than five numbers can be played, but if +you "plump" for the _cinquina_ you gain a big sum; or you can declare +your intention to play for all four possible combinations. In this +case you gain little if the _cinquina_ comes out. It is the same with +the _terno_, if you plump for it you gain much more. But the gain also +depends on the amount you put into the lottery, and any sum from six +_centimes_ can be played. When Pius IX. died a Roman jeweller won +40,000 scudi (L8000). How can one expect the gambling of the poor to +cease when even twelve _centimes_ (less than five farthings) may bring +fifty francs? + +The Roman goes to the lottery with all the paraphernalia and a good +deal of the sentiment of devotion. "Se ci aiuti Iddio e la Madonna," +they exclaim--If God and the Madonna will help us--we shall win the +_terno_. There are several "tips" for winning. One which is as awesome +as it is efficacious consists in starting the _kyrie eleison_--hardly +recognisable in its popular dress as _crielleisonne_--and then say on +your knees thirteen _ave marias_ to as many madonnas. Having invoked +Baldassare, Gasper, and _Marchionne_ (Melchoir)--though what the three +wise kings have to do in that _galere_ is not very obvious--you go out +of the house, taking care to answer nothing if any one calls you. You +go straight to the church of S. John Beheaded, where those who +suffered capital punishment used to be interred, and then whatever you +see or hear inside or out, look it up in the "Book of the Art" and you +are safe to win. Another _bella divozione_ for the same end is to go +up the steps of Ara Coeli on your knees reciting a _requiem aeternum_ +or a _de profundis_ on each step. A large number of the people praying +so devoutly to the Madonna di Sant' Agostino (whose other principal +care is the safety of childbirth) are praying for luck in the +lottery--praying or threatening, for the one is very kin to the other +in the primitive mind as it is in the magic of all primitive peoples. +Some of these may have been conducting a solitary nocturnal vigil, +having risen from their beds, kindled two candles, and proceeded to +carry through one or other of the _belle divozioni_. + + [Illustration: HOLY STAIRS AT THE SAGRO SPECO + + The ravine (above the monastery of S. Scholastica) where S. Benedict + took refuge from the corruption of Rome, became the site of the + _Sagro Speco_, the sacred cavern, with the ninth-century monastery + of _San Benedetto_. The peasants of Subiaco ascend the stairs here + represented on their knees, as the _Scala Santa_ in Rome is + ascended, and, occasionally, even the numerous stairs of _Ara + Coeli_. See page 86.] + +In the country-places the great stand-by is the Capuchin, who has a +reputation for suggesting lucky numbers. When he comes collecting alms +in village or city the poor man asks him for a likely _terno_. He is +not supposed to suggest these numbers, but he and the people +understand each other, and every word, every allusion, which falls +from his lips is thereupon eagerly noted. If he mentions a recent +assassination, you "play" number _72 morto assassinato_, then the +numbers indicating the day or some special circumstance, "a quarrel," +"the knife" with which it was done, "jealousy," "a man," or "a woman." +The element of chance, the ineradicable belief in luck, makes a man +sure to play if three numbers come unbidden into his head. No pious +person dreams of the "numbers of the Madonna"--6, 8, and 15--without +at once "playing" them. The Madonna evidently intends "to do +something" for you; indeed "if the Madonna suggests numbers" it is a +safe thing, you can put five francs on it. It is popularly said that +2, 3, 5, 6 are numbers which always come out, these and their +combinations. Fifty-eight is the number indicating the Pope, and 52, +_morta che parla_, is played by good simple women who have dreamt of +their dead mother. The industrious working middle classes and even the +better classes "play," though the latter play _sub rosa_. On Saturday +the people collect round the little lottery offices--some of them have +waited to pay their bills until they ascertained their luck. On the +appearance of the fateful numbers there is a general talk, a general +lamentation: "If I had only done so-and-so." "If I had only played +_morto_ instead of _ferito_" ("dead" instead of only "wounded.") For +the Roman the whole known world sacred or profane is absorbed in the +business of the lottery. Thus one of the popular sonnets in the Roman +dialect describes how the flight into Egypt came about. On the 27th of +December the Patriarch Joseph is snoring in bed, dreaming of lottery +numbers, when an angel appears to him and says: "See here, old man, +what a fine _festa_ there is going to be over number 28" (the 28th of +December commemorates the massacre of the Innocents). Thereupon S. +Joseph wakes like one crazy, hires a young donkey, and takes the +Madonna and her child off to Egypt. + +Many English travellers to this favoured country of the gods since the +days when Vulcan and Minerva vied with each other as to which should +bestow the best gift on Italy, must have wished that nothing more +sensitive than the olive had been placed in the hands of its +countrymen. Signor Gabelli has described the burly Roman carter +beating his horses or mules, the red cap which hangs over one ear +matching his flaming face, afire with triumphant pride in this +exercise of brute force and dominion. No one rebukes him. On the +contrary the clergy delight to dwell on the distinction between the +duties owed to men and the absence of all obligation towards the +brutes. The distinction, of course, works no better in modern than in +ancient times, and means nothing less than the systematic +brutalisation of the Italian people. The doctrine that animals (like +"the sun and moon") were "made for man" is held to justify all +mishandling of them, all domineering and callousness. This is frankly +immoral; and until priests overcome their reluctance to set forth +ethics in a way that does not involve a break with the order and march +of all human civilisation, theology will continue to accommodate +itself to racial characteristics, and specious theological +propositions will still serve as a cloak for bluntness of moral +perception. Only this year a _marchese_ told me that he "could not +admit that animals feel." The effect of such sentiments in a squire +among an illiterate tenantry may be readily imagined; the ignorant +Italian gentleman justifies theology by the astounding proposition +that all sentient creatures below man have been provided with a set of +non-sensitive nerves; the rustic finds in the pleasure which it +affords him to know that this proposition is untrue an ampler +justification of the ways of Providence. + +The police system of Italy has always been so ineffective that many of +the great Roman families have preferred to pay tribute to the brigands +in return for protection for their farms and estate to claiming +assistance against them from the government. One of the best known +Roman princes paid this tribute regularly to the archbrigand Tiburzi. +In old days the brigands came down into the villages on the great +festivals in velvet jerkin and feathered cap bearing candles and gifts +for the Madonna and the presbytery. Hardly less picturesque than the +brigands are the chief herdsmen called _butteri_, in blue jacket and +brass buttons with a feather in the soft-felt Italian hat. Their skill +as rough-riders is celebrated and the palm remained with them when +Buffalo Bill's cowboys challenged them to a trial of skill. A +primitive and classical feature of campagna labour is the singing with +which it is enlivened. Hour after hour while sowing a field a +monotonous folk-song will be kept up, verse succeeding verse at +regular intervals, a woman singing and a man whistling the +accompaniment--the phrase ending always with that long-drawn dying +cadence peculiar to primitive song, like the chant sung to-day by the +Neapolitan girls in the caves at Baiae, though it is the dirge which +their predecessors made for Adonis. One of the most familiar sights +which pass these workers in the fields are the wine-carts bound for +Rome; a folding linen or leather hood, generally purple in colour, +protects the driver, and a little dog of the common and wrathful +species known as the _lupetto romano_--the Roman wolfling--balances +himself on the cargo and constitutes himself the protector and +companion of his master. At the back of the cart there is always a +tiny barrel fixed transversely; this is the perquisite of the driver +and his friends when his errand is accomplished. Occasionally a +garlanded cross marks the spot where some carter was killed under the +wheels of his cart, just as a stone wreathed with flowers showed where +a wayfarer had died struck by lightning in the pagan campagna. These +cart accidents are not infrequent: in the long silent journeys across +the sunburnt plain of the _agro_ the men drop asleep, and it is then +easy to fall heavily and be crushed beneath the cart, while the horse +or mule pursues the accustomed route to Rome. Little wayside +sanctuaries like those which stud the campagna, and which the wayfarer +salutes as he passes, still exist in some of the untouched parts of +Rome down by the Tiber in the region of Piazza Montanara and in the +Borgo of S. Peter's. The goatherds, like the _butteri_ and the +wine-carts, may also be seen by those who never leave the walls of +Rome. Perhaps when we see them standing by the little herd of goats on +the shady side of piazzas in May, clad in such goatskin breeches as +were worn by their pagan ancestors, it is not the "Roman country" +but the beginnings of the "eternal city" of which we are chiefly +reminded, when figures like these with their pastoral divinities took +possession of the Palatine hill. + + [Illustration: LITTLE GLEANER IN THE CAMPAGNA] + +Italy has always been the land of Saturn, the nature god. Her +festivals were the festivals of the doings and events of nature, the +Lupercalia of Lupercus, the Palilia of Pales; she was and she remains +pagan, if pagan is to mean the natural as opposed to the supernatural +attitude towards life--natural and humanistic as opposed to mystic and +ideal. Under the new names lie concealed the old gods. The true Latin +goddess is Pales, the earth mother, the source of grace, the real +giver of gifts to her devotees--enshrined, dedicated to the gospel +under a hundred aspects of what Bonghi has happily called that +"gentilissimo fiore del cattolicismo," the cult of the Madonna. Some +unseemly tracts and pictures have represented Christ as turning away +from the leprosy of the sinner's sin, and it is Mary whose compassion +for the prodigal never wavers, who persuades the Christ to have pity. +That, though false enough as theology, accurately represents the +Italian mind. The nature goddess, the mother, the earth and its +fulness, will console, recreate, and speak to the soul of the Latin on +his native soil when religion has no language which reaches him. From +the heart of that soil the Latin learnt his religion, and he has never +parted with it. + +It is the hour of the god Pan, that midday hour which Pan alone can +withstand. The sun is high in the heavens, the earth exhales heat, +round about are the great silences. Nothing else stirs, nothing +moves, nothing breathes. The great repose is indeed tense with a great +activity, but a hush of nature greets this supreme hour of the sun in +its glory--the world lies dead at the feet of the giver of life. The +hour of the god Pan is the mystery which is daily renewed for the +Italian; what has remained constant amid all changes is the +nature-myth, and the secrets it is always whispering to the children +of its soil. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE ROMAN MENAGE + + +As in other European towns, the custom in Rome is to live in flats. +The houses are high, of no particular style of architecture, and in +the older portions of the city they overshadow a labyrinth of narrow +streets paved with large uneven slabs of stone. Here are no side walks +for pedestrians who with an indifference born of long practice walk +habitually in the middle of the roadway, moving leisurely to one side +in obedience to the warning cries of the drivers, or patiently waiting +and flattening themselves against the shop doors if two vehicles +desire to pass one another. Long ragged grooves scraped along the +house walls and at street corners by the hubs of heavy cart-wheels, +testify to centuries of clumsy driving. + +There have always existed in Rome, however, a certain number of villas +within the walls, and their timbered parks and terraced gardens +ornamented with fountains and statues, have been one of the +characteristic features of the city. Their wealthy owners probably +possessed a sombre palace as well along the Corso, but the villas +were pleasant in the warm weather, and two centuries ago wonderful +Arcadian entertainments were given beneath the shade of their ilex +groves. Some of these villas still exist in their original state or as +public property, many have been crowded out and demolished and their +gardens have been cut up into building plots. The taste for +villa-building is, however, not yet dead, and of late years small +dwellings in a Baroque style have been springing up like mushrooms in +the new quarters, and immense rents are asked for them. + +Roman flats or apartments as they are called, vary from magnificent +suites of thirty or forty rooms to a small domain of three or four. +They can be leased even in the most princely of palaces which are so +much too large for the requirements of modern life that their owners +are glad to let what they cannot use. + + [Illustration: SEA-HORSE FOUNTAIN IN THE VILLA BORGHESE + + The glades of Roman villas offer us some of the rare green effects, + the colouring which prevails being that in picture 27. See page 46.] + +The single entrance-gateway, which is locked at night, is under the +charge of a porter whose appearance varies according to the social +standing of his employer from an imposing figure in gold lace and a +cocked hat, to a surly fellow out at heels and elbows who ekes out a +precarious livelihood by cobbling or carpentering while he keeps a +vigilant but no friendly eye upon the incomings and outgoings of the +inhabitants of the wretched tenement under his care. Often, even in +good houses, a single room by the side of the gateway serves the +porter with his wife and family for bedroom, kitchen, living room, and +workshop, and sometimes the same number of human beings are stowed +away at night in a mere hole, windowless and doorless, under the +stairs. Yet this employment is so sought after that a cabinet +minister's portfolio is said to be easier to obtain than a position as +house-porter. + +One or more public staircases lead up from the central courtyard. +Before 1870 it was not obligatory to light these, and many a crime has +been committed on a long dark flight, the only witness the dwindling +oil-lamp before an image of the Madonna. + +Even now a front door will seldom be opened at once in answer to your +ring; a little shutter is pushed back, and you are first inspected +through a grating. Or you are greeted with a shrill _chi e_, and only +when you have given the reassuring reply, _amici_, "friends," will you +be admitted. A middle-class Italian household is not very approachable +in the morning. Although extremely early risers--no hour seems too +early in Rome for people to be up and about--the house remains _en +deshabille_ till the afternoon. The beds are unmade, the mistress +shuffles about in dressing-gown and slippers, adjuring her +maid-of-all-work in shrill tones; she even goes out to shop unwashed, +in an old skirt and jacket. At first sight all the rooms appear to be +bedrooms which are used indifferently to sit in. Nevertheless one +room, generally the smallest and least attractive, is set aside as the +"reception room." The family never sit in it, and never enter it +except to receive their visitors. It is kept carefully closed and +shuttered, and if you arrive unexpectedly the maid lets in some light +for you with pretty apologies while you wait in the doorway afraid of +falling in the dark over the innumerable objects, what-nots and small +tables, which crowd the room. A jute-covered sofa of the most +uncomfortable pattern, with a strip of carpet before it, is _de +rigueur_, and a visitor would consider herself slighted if she were +not ushered to this post of honour. There are no carpets on any of the +stone floors, and no stoves or fireplaces. If there happens to be a +chimney, it is considered unwholesome and is blocked up. There are no +comfortable sofas and no lounge chairs. If the weather is fine and +warm all is well with such a household. But Rome knows fog, frost, and +snow, and though none last for long, wintry days may succeed each +other and bitter winds blow down upon the city from the snow-capped +Sabine mountains, and then the Romans, forced to stay at home, +uncomplainingly wear their coats and jackets within doors to keep body +and soul together, and sit warming their fingers over little pans of +glowing wood-ash. + +Like cats, they have a constitutional horror of rain, and will prefer +to remain indoors than risk a wetting in search of some place of +amusement, or to keep an engagement. Every carter, every beggar, every +peasant carries an umbrella; horses and draught oxen are swathed in +flannel and mackintosh in the wet, and the drivers of the little open +cabs cower beneath leathern aprons and enormous umbrellas, under the +dripping edges of which their "fares" creep in and out as best they +can. Brigands only, so it is popularly believed, carry no umbrellas, +and by this you may know them. + +The Romans' cheerful acquiescence in what we should consider +considerable hardship is nothing less than admirable. After long +working hours spent in government offices for example, which are for +the most part despoiled monasteries and always bitterly cold, they +return to their homes where creature comforts as we understand them +are unknown, not because they cannot be afforded, but because they are +not desired or missed; and their gaiety or their enjoyment of one +another's society is in nowise diminished because they spend the +evening sitting at a dining-room table on straight-backed chairs. + +On the other hand much attention is devoted to the preparation of the +meals. Food is daintily prepared and cooked, well flavoured and +seasoned. Meat and vegetables are generally cooked in oil- or +bacon-fat, and no Roman would look at a dish of food plainly boiled or +roasted. Even the poor are skilful in concocting a savoury dish with +_polenta_ (ground Indian corn) bread and potatoes flavoured with a +dash of onion or tomatoes. All cooking and eating utensils are kept +scrupulously clean, and the dirtiest _contadino_ will wipe out his +glass carefully before he is satisfied as to its fitness for his use. +Romans break their fast with a cup of black coffee and bread without +butter, but it is quite usual for them to eat nothing at all until +twelve or one o'clock. Their midday dinner begins with either soup or +macaroni (_minestra_ or _minestra ascuitta_). If with the soup, then +the meat which has been boiled to make it is served next with +vegetable garnishings. The macaroni is served with butter, cheese, +and tomatoes and there are numberless tasty ways of preparing it. +Half a kilogram (eighteen ounces) is considered the portion for each +person. If the meal begins with macaroni, this dish would be followed +by meat _in umido_, a favourite Roman dressing of tomatoes and onions. +People who live quite simply will never touch stale bread, and it is +no unusual thing for a fresh batch to be delivered at the door three +times a day. Salad, cheese, and eggs done in a variety of ways form +the staple of the Roman's evening meal. + +It is a perpetual wonder to the foreigner what elaborate and +excellently cooked dinners can be produced in the unpromising Roman +kitchens. Larders and sculleries are almost unknown. A white marble +sink--marble fills the lowliest offices in Rome--and a tap in a corner +do duty for the latter. The kitchen is often a slip of a room, and the +"range" is little more than a table of brick and tiles fitted with +small holes for holding charcoal, and with a shaft above for carrying +away the unwholesome fumes. Upon these small holes all the cooking is +done; the charcoal is fanned into a glow with a feather fan, and if +there are many pots and saucepans they must take their turn upon the +tiny fires. Scuttles do not exist, and the stock of charcoal for use +is kept on the floor beneath the range. + + [Illustration: ORNAMENTAL WATER, VILLA BORGHESE] + +Italians of all classes are very fastidious about the cleanliness of +their beds, and in this particular their habits contrast favourably +with the antediluvian practices prevalent in England, for not only is +every article of bedding aired at the window daily, but all the +mattresses are picked to pieces and the wool pulled out and beaten +every year. This process is carried on generally on the flat +house-roofs when the weather is sunny; a mattress-maker with his +assistant, his bench and his combs, coming round to do it for you for +the modest fee of one lira and a half the mattress. + +Beyond this the Roman's standard of cleanliness fails altogether. +Floors are never washed; they serve to tramp about on in thick boots, +to spit upon, and to receive matches and cigar-ash. Doors, painted +woodwork, walls, are always soiled; if there is a terrace it becomes +at once unsightly and the receptacle for hideous refuse. There is +complete indifference to cleanliness as a first condition of hygiene, +and it is not unusual to find fowls kept in the kitchen of a good +bourgeois house, which take their walks abroad on the balcony and pick +up their living under the table. + +Even in the houses of the great, where many servants are kept, there +is often the same Spartan indifference to comfort. Great halls are +kept unwarmed except for a brazier of glowing wood-ash, and +fireplaces, if they exist, are only sparingly used in the +sitting-rooms. Bathrooms are rare, and the habit of the daily bath is +almost unknown in a city which once boasted the finest baths the world +has seen. + +If the Roman does not know how to make himself comfortable indoors, no +one knows better how to enjoy himself in the open air. The ragged +loafer suns himself in the public squares, the workman dozes away his +dinner hour at full length under the shelter of a wall; it is in the +streets that a Roman holiday is spent. Parents and children of the +working classes, the father carrying the baby, stroll about happily +for hours, or they walk out beyond the city gates to rest and refresh +themselves at one of the wayside _osterie_. Here they gather round the +rude tables under a shelter of bamboo canes and eat and drink +according to their means. The most forbidding country eating-house can +rise to the requirements of better-class customers, and at a pinch can +furnish a cleanly cooked and quite palatable dish of macaroni or eggs +and vegetable fried in oil for forty or fifty centimes the plate, +which is abundant for two. All day long on _festa_ in warm spring +weather, chairs and benches outside every wine-shop and eating-house +are crowded with a changing throng of holiday makers enjoying +themselves simply and harmlessly; and on such days, at a likely +corner, you may come across a country man or woman in charge of a huge +wild boar roasted whole, stuffed with meat and sage and garlanded with +green, from which a succulent morsel will be cut for you, then and +there should you desire it, for a trifling sum. + + [Illustration: VILLAGE STREET AT ANTICOLI, IN THE SABINE HILLS] + +Out-of-door pleasures appeal no less to the better classes. +Fashionable Rome drives daily in the afternoon along the Corso and +round the Pincio, the carriages drawing up at intervals near the +bandstand. So dear to the Roman heart is the possession of smart +clothes and a showy carriage and horses, that entire families will +live with parsimony within doors that they may afford these luxuries. +During long afternoon hours men will congregate outside the +Parliament House and along the Corso to meet and chat with their +friends, and chairs and tables with their fashionable occupants block +the pavements outside the cafes and restaurants, obliging the +passer-by to step out into the roadway. + +The Roman of the poorer class carries on as much of his domestic life +also as he can in the open air. Chairs, kitchen tables, and wash-tubs +are dragged out into the streets. Food is prepared and eaten, clothes +are washed, and the occupations of sewing, knitting, cobbling, and +carpentering are conducted in the open, subject to a lively attention +to what is going on in the street. + +Occasionally a basket attached to a string comes bobbing down from an +upper window accompanied by a shrill message: Would Sor' Annunziata +have the kindness to buy a copy of the _Messagero_ just being cried in +the street? she will find a soldo in the basket. Or would she tell +that good-for-nothing vagabond Mark Antony or Hannibal (the raggedest +urchins always rejoice in some such name), who is playing _morra_ +round the corner, to run at once and buy a ha'porth of white beans. +The errand accomplished, the basket is drawn up with its burden, and +then blissful hours of leisure slip by in desultory talk with +neighbours at their doors and windows opposite, chairs tilted back +comfortably against the house wall in the mellow Roman sunlight. In +the quiet piazzas, and in shady nooks by the city gates, humble folk +can be shaved for a small sum by barbers who ply their trade in the +open and pay no shop rent. It is even quite usual in the hot weather +for fashionable coiffeurs to move their client's chair outside the +door and continue shaving operations there without exciting any +comment. + +Before reading and writing were made obligatory, public letter-writers +were common, and they still can be met with in Via Tor de' Specchi, in +the shelter of the Salarian gate, and in other quiet places, the group +of anxious clients waiting their turn round the table testifying to +the inefficiency of a compulsory education Act. Girls used to dictate +their love-letters to these scribes, and perhaps still do so, and even +the boys did and do write to San Luigi for his _festa_ on 21st +June--the letters, tied up with blue ribbon, being subsequently +deposited on his altar. + +The fashion of open-air washing tanks, once universal, is gradually +passing away. Outside the walls, the women wash their clothes in the +streams and rivers, and inside the city, by the new Ponte Margherita, +one of the old public washing-places may still be seen, protected only +by a roof and surrounded by a crowd of women in bright-coloured cotton +bodices and skirts, washing clothes in the cold turbid water and +scrubbing them vigorously on the stone slabs in order that what is +left of them after this heroic treatment may at least be clean. + +Owing to the smallness and darkness of all Roman provision shops, most +of the inspection of wares and all the talking, bargaining, and +quarrelling is perforce done upon the pavement. Many of the Roman +shops still consist of a narrow vault, with no outlet of any sort at +the further end, the whole front being closed with a shutter at +night. In the early morning all the cooks in Rome and all the general +servants are afoot in the streets buying provisions, and they crowd +around the temporary market stalls set up in the small piazzas under +gay umbrellas, filling the air with their noisy disputes. The +curb-stones are occupied by peasant women and their baskets of country +produce, which from this central position they extol to the +passers-by. These women have walked into the city at dawn carrying +their baskets on their heads, and at the gates their poor little +merchandise has been overhauled with no gentle hand by the Customs +officers, every egg and turnip has been counted, and its _octroi_ duty +paid. + +It takes the foreign resident some time to grasp the idiosyncrasies of +Roman shops. A linen draper looks at you with kindly pity if you ask +him for ribbons or haberdashery, which can only be obtained at a +mercer's devoted to this trade. A grocer only sells dry goods, the +numerous shops entitled _pizzicherie_ deal exclusively with cheese, +lard, butter, bacon, salted fish, and preserves. Your fishmonger will +only sell fish, your butcher closes most inconveniently between twelve +and five, and will seldom sell mutton and never lamb, which must be +sought at a poulterer's. Macaroni is provided by your baker, or it can +be bought in one of the numerous small shops licensed to sell salt and +tobacco, where you may also obtain postage stamps, soap, tin tacks, +china plates, and mineral waters. + +All the transactions of daily life have to be conducted in Rome, as +every householder soon learns, at the cost of a continuous and +exasperating conflict with a class to whom it is second nature to +cheat and deceive, to falsify weights and measures, who have no +standard of honesty in small things, and who will always say what will +please you or themselves rather than what is. The visitor naturally is +their peculiar prey. To exploit him is traditional in Rome. In a town +with no resources of its own, there is the foreigner and his purse to +look to; and he falls an easy victim to people whose language he +imperfectly understands, and who are past-masters of all the deceitful +arts. The seasons are short and a plentiful harvest must be raked in +while they last. Shops in the best quarters will raise the value of +their goods a hundred per cent at the sight of a foreign face. Unless +the legend "fixed prices" appears in the window for the benefit of the +customer, the shopmen will expect you to bargain over every +purchase--to haggle for half an hour over a question of six sous or +ten is indeed the only commercial instinct they possess. They will +generally ask about twice as much as they mean ultimately to accept, +and, to their credit be it said, it is not only for the sake of the +francs more or less, but quite as much for the excitement of the +sport. "I say 200 lire, now it is for you to say something;" or, "The +price is so-and-so, what will you give?" are the preludes to some +really enjoyable quarters of an hour. The foreigner who pays +unquestioningly what he is asked is a poor-spirited creature not worth +fleecing. + +Romans still reckon up their rent or their wages in the old papal +currency of a _scudo_ (five francs), and food is cried about the +streets at so much the _paolo_ (half a franc). Half a _paolo_ (or +_giulio_) the _grosso_, two _paoli_ the _papetto_, three _paoli_ a +_testone_, and the halfpenny or _baioccho_ are still the familiar +names which come most easily to the tongue. The difference between the +old weights and the new, the papal scales and the decimal system of +united Italy, is a fruitful source of gain to the tradesman. He +clings, partly from sentiment and partly from self-interest, to the +old unit of weight, the pound of twelve ounces, and as it appears +nowhere on the official scales, he reckons it at one-third of the +kilogram (330 grams) or, if you do not watch him carefully, at 300 +grams, thus profiting from 1/100 to 1/10 on every kilo (1000 grams) +sold. Similarly the Roman measure for firewood is a tightly packed +cart-load, but the wood-seller is an adept at making a cart look full +when it is not, and your only resource is to buy wood by the weight. +Even then, if you desire to receive the quantity you order and pay +for, you must not only see it weighed but you must keep an eye upon it +on its journey to your house, or it will become beautifully less for +the benefit of the carter. The charcoal for kitchen use you buy in a +measured sack of a given weight. The first time you bestow your custom +you are delighted with quality and quantity, but with each order the +sack shrinks in size, and when you expostulate the coal-seller will +answer you unblushing that if you insist upon having the coal weighed +he cannot supply it at the price! + +There is no doubt, moreover, that the universal custom of buying each +morning the food for the day's consumption, is an extravagant system +to the householder, and a source to the tradesmen of constant +illegitimate gains, but as there are no larders where food can be kept +there is no alternative. The _donna di servizio_ or maid-of-all-work +goes out each morning to spend an enjoyable half-hour or more, meeting +her friends and making shrill bargains at the shop doors. An Italian's +servant will buy a halfpenny worth of bacon-fat or lard or preserved +tomato, and as such small quantities cannot be weighed she receives a +spoonful of lard or a dab of butter wrapped up in a leaf, and the +whole is tied up and carried home in a brilliant cotton handkerchief. +The man-cook will not condescend to one of these shopping +handkerchiefs. He will carry a few parcels, but he generally returns, +a small boy in his wake bearing a basket on his head wherein all his +purchases are displayed. The prevalent custom in Rome is for the +servant to give the least possible price for all she buys, and to +charge her mistress a higher one, the balance going into her own +pocket. Servants of unimpeachable honesty in every other respect will +succumb to this temptation. If serving foreigners, they can often +double their wages, and so well is the practice recognised that the +mistress who is too watchful to permit it is spoken of as giving only +a _mesata secca_, a dry wage. + + [Illustration: VILLA D'ESTE, TIVOLI + + Built in 1549 for Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, son of Alfonso II., Duke + of Ferrara. It passed thence to the heir of this family, the Duke of + Modena. See pages 172, 174.] + +Rome used to be one of the cheapest of European cities to live in; +rents were low and food was cheap; meat was three sous the pound, +and when it rose to four the Romans were indignant. Heavy taxation +under the Italian Government has now changed all this. Beef is +seventeen sous the pound, and rents have been almost doubled in the +past twenty years. Wages are still very moderate. A woman servant gets +from eighteen to thirty francs a month, a man thirty to sixty. If an +English mistress engages an Italian servant, even if he or she is said +to know their work, she must begin from the rudiments and even then +there comes a point beyond which instruction fails to produce any +result. The refinements of English service are looked upon as so many +curious rites without meaning, and our standard of cleanliness and our +fastidiousness are a perpetual source of wonder. + +The pride of the Roman prevents her, as a rule, from undertaking +domestic service. When she does, she makes the roughest and worst of +maids. The natural instinct of every ordinary Italian servant is to +throw all refuse out of the window, as she still does in the towns of +the campagna, or where her kitchen window gives upon an unfrequented +courtyard, and the rest of her service is in keeping with this +standard, the restrictions laid upon her by the demands of +civilisation being the very thinnest veneer. + +She will never clean a floor on her own initiative, and very seldom on +yours, and is quite capable of giving you notice should you expect it. +Nevertheless if you can bring yourself to compromise with your own +standard and put up with some of hers, you will find her on the whole +a genial creature to deal with. She is blessed with abundant leisure, +and has always time to carry on protracted conversations and even +flirtations out of the kitchen window. No event in the street or in +the courtyard beneath escapes her attention, yet she manages to do the +housework, cook the meals, wait at table, clean the boots, iron and +mend the clothes, and buy the provisions. She will, moreover, think +nothing of sleeping in a mere cupboard without air or light, only fit +to store boxes in, or in one of the passages on a sofa-bed which is +folded up in the daytime, such plans being quite usual in a Roman +household. + +The Italian man-servant is the most domestic of beings and is on the +whole the most teachable and efficient; but he also is accustomed to +lay a table by placing a knife, fork, and spoon in a bunch before each +person, adding a glass, and _voila tout_, and a higher ideal than this +is a severe tax on memory and intelligence. "He certainly knew how to +lay a cloth when he left me," an American lady said of her man-servant +who had been with her nine years, "but perhaps he has forgotten"; and +he certainly had, though he had only been out of her situation a year. +A so-called finished servant, who had been years in a prince's +establishment, thought nothing of receiving a basket of linen from the +French laundress and depositing it on our dining-room table pending +further instructions, and our disapproval only grieved without +enlightening him. And no instruction will impress upon an Italian the +impropriety of announcing English callers by a description rather +than attempting to pronounce their foreign names: "The gentleman from +the hotel," or "The young lady who married that old man!" But their +charming manners and easy grace disarm criticism and win forgiveness +for many shortcomings. + +In military households the master's orderly is often turned into a +domestic drudge. Yet such situations are eagerly sought by young +soldiers, for though they receive no extra pay they are excused +military duty after the first ten months of their enrolment, and they +compound their rations for a weekly government allowance. It is no +uncommon thing to see a young man in uniform doing the whole work of +an officer's house, cooking, cleaning, marketing, waiting at table, +taking the children to school, wheeling the perambulator, and even +doing the family washing and ironing. + +A measure of magnificence and pomp still obtains in the great Roman +households, but it is combined with a simplicity of life and an +informality of relation between employer and employed which rob it of +its stiffness. The servants of a great house are not a caste apart, +they are part of the family establishment. Their masters give them the +familiar _tu_, and they are treated with far more intimacy and +friendliness than is ever the case with us. In return the servants +identify themselves with their employers' concerns, and take the +greatest interest in all their doings, an interest no doubt fostered +by the utter indifference to privacy existing in most households, +where conversations on all subjects are carried on with widely open +doors regardless of listeners. + +Servants and others of the same class will generally abide by an +agreement clearly made, though foreigners are always advised to have +even the conditions of service in black and white, and it is never +safe to trust to precedent or to general rules in one's dealings with +them. They are quite unfettered by the existing laws and unwritten +obligations which make up their English counterpart's code of +respectability, and they will be faithful to you only so long as their +interest does not clash with yours. Instances to the contrary are +rare. An Italian servant is quite capable of giving you instant notice +for a mere whim, and departing the same day without the slightest +compunction for the inconvenience he causes. + +Woe to the foreigner who seeks redress for conduct of this kind, or +who is involved in any dispute however righteous his cause. Such cases +are brought up in the district courts before magistrates who are +appointed to act in each division of the city as conciliators (save +the mark!). No solicitor of any standing likes to appear in these +courts, they are beneath the dignity of his position, and he will only +do so as a favour. An attorney of an inferior order, who is as often +as not a layman masquerading as such, can be hired on the spot like a +porter to see you through. Your opponent will certainly engage the +services of one of these individuals, and when the case comes on to +your no small amazement he will rise and make a fluent speech in +favour of his client having little or no reference to the events as +they occurred. If considered needful, he will also call several +false witnesses who will swear entire falsehoods with perfect +_sangfroid_. When your solicitor attempts to state your case the +attorney on the other side interrupts him with indignant denials, and +the conciliator joins in with the most injudicial display of temper. +The comedy ends by all three talking at once in loud excited voices, +without listening to one another, and the conciliator announces the +close of the sitting. He then proceeds to give his verdict which is +invariably in favour of the servant, and his socialistic tendencies in +this particular are assisted by his not having paid the least +attention to the evidence before him. + + [Illustration: IN VILLA BORGHESE + + A priest and one of the Austrian Seminarists, whose red dress has + bestowed on them the popular nickname of "_boiled prawns_," are here + seen conversing in the shade of the villa; the spring sunshine + glints through the trees.] + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE ROMAN PEOPLE + + +I. _The Italians._ + +There are four great movements which moulded the political +intellectual and moral life of other European countries without +leaving their impress on Italy. Feudalism and scholasticism took less +hold there than in Germany England or France; the spirit of chivalry +never touched the Italian, and Puritanism, of course, left him +scatheless. Feudalism had little affinity with a people democratic to +the core, scholasticism had little attraction for the most open-minded +and the least didactic nation on earth, and neither the chivalry of +the Frank nor the Puritanism of the Anglo-Saxon awoke echoes in a +people whose self-interestedness and lack of the sense of personal +responsibility are only equalled by the absence of all illusions, and +whose hatred of shams is as radical as their freedom from hypocrisy. + +Compared with the non-Latin peoples the lines of Italian development +have been intellectual rather than on the side of character and +conduct. The intellect of Italy has constantly spread a banquet +before the spirit of Europe, as the beauty of the land from north to +south has offered a feast of material beauty to every generation. +Italian quickness in appropriating an idea is matched by Italian +open-mindedness; you never meet in Italy the wall of thick-headed +self-righteous prejudice--that array of pre-judgments which an Italian +has aptly called _idols_--which the Englishman never fails to brandish +when confronted by a new idea. Perhaps it is the fact that the +Italians are the least prejudiced people on the face of the earth +which makes living in their country delightful to Northerners. Some of +our countrymen have certainly reason to be pleased that this is so; +but the Italian illimitable tolerance of the foibles and +eccentricities of others does not mean that they acquit us of bad +manners and provincialism. + +Italian intellect, the familiarity with and the play of ideas in the +Italian, is not the same thing as a lofty idealism; and when a Dane +recently wrote that the Italians possess the highest humanistic +qualities and therefore are also nearer the supernatural than other +people, he made, I think, this mistake. He confused ideas with +idealism. The Italian gift _par excellence_ is _le sens tres vif des +realites_,[4] a vivid hold on the real; and this realism is the source +at once of their qualities and their defects. The Italian has only one +use for an idea, he must see it as it is. Hence he strips everything, +tears away its drapery, exposes it to the garish pitiless light of +fact. There is nothing which deserves in itself and always +reverence--for him a spade is a spade, a fiasco a fiasco, a corpse a +corpse. There is none of that prevenient idealism which in the north +draws a veil over the crudities of sense, and helps to illuminate the +half-truths they reveal. It is easy to see that such a quality as this +is intellectually valuable, but morally disastrous. The special +loveliness of the nature formed in the north is the persuasion that +there are things one is not to see, not to hear. That northern +"custody of the senses" which is not an ascetical exercise, but an +inner illumination thrown upon them. + + [4] Gebhart, _L'Italie Mystique_. + +The intellectual limitation "thus far shalt thou go and no farther," +which the Englishman willingly imposes on himself, is impossible to +the Italian, whose moral qualities have to reckon with the +intellectual liberty which is proper to his genius. The passionate +love of intellectual truth for its own sake is one of these moral +qualities, and the people who do not possess it inevitably contract +certain moral defects. These are not the defects of the Italian; he is +not a hypocrite in his moral relations, not a snob in social concerns, +not a prig in matters of intellect, and has no faculty for the +mystical self-deceptions of the Northerner. His complete democracy of +sentiment is shown in many pleasant ways. It is difficult for the +average Englishman to imagine that rank should make no difference, to +understand the dignified and simple relations which subsist between +classes in Italy. A man in a good coat is not ashamed to be seen +talking with a friend in fustian; people of entirely different walks +in life may be seen buttonholing each other; and a Roman prince arm +in arm with a man of the lower bourgeoisie is no infrequent spectacle. +"We are all people of consideration in this house," said a Roman to +me--"on the floor below there is a Senator, upstairs there is a +teacher of languages, and I am a shopkeeper." Sovereignty too, in +spite of the heavy etiquette of the House of Savoy, is democratic in +Italy. The King does not live in inaccessible _penetralia_, and the +man of the people when he comes across the man to whom he invariably +refers as _sua maesta_ will speak his mind to him. King Humbert +assisted at the inauguration of Bocconi's big shop in the Corso and +congratulated him on this new piece of commercial enterprise in the +city; which is as though King Edward VII. should pay an inaugural +visit to Whiteley's. Queen Margaret has always attended some Sunday +lectures given in Rome by the association for the higher education of +women--no Englishman could have imagined Queen Victoria attending, +say, a university extension lecture at Bedford College. The Latin +believes much more than we do in the principle of authority, and cares +infinitely less about its representatives. + + [Illustration: THE "SPANISH STEPS," PIAZZA DI SPAGNA + + Erected for the Romans at the expense of a Frenchman in the + eighteenth century. The _Piazza_ takes its name from the Spanish + Embassy to the Vatican which has its residence here. At the Sacred + Heart Convent attached to the church of the Trinita de' Monti, at + the top of the steps, generations of girls of Roman families have + been educated. The Egyptian obelisk came from the gardens of Sallust + and was placed here by Pius VI. See page 141.] + +Italian civilisation is imperialistic and social, not individualistic. +There is a greater sense of public decorum (as distinguished, however, +from private decency) than among us, and more sacrifice of the +individual to the society. One consequence of this is that there is +less of that eccentricity, which is the individualism of the poorly +endowed, less personal initiative, less enterprise, and nothing of +that spirit of adventure which is the Anglo-Saxon's romance. The +Italian would always, in spite of loud complainings to a just heaven, +rather "bear the ills he has than fly to others that he knows not of." +Just now it is the fashion in Italy to regard the "individualism" of +modern Italians as the reason for their failure to co-operate. But a +want of cohesion (mental and moral) is mistaken for individualism. It +is certain that the Englishman is an "individualist" yet he achieves +everything by co-operation; it is certain that he possesses that +sign-manual of individualism--initiative, and certain that the Italian +does not. Italy is not suffering from an orgy of individualism in her +people but from an orgy of egotism--which is quite a different matter. + +It is a fact worth noting that every nation believes its own family +life to be the purest and most solid. The truth is that family life +plays a more important part in Italy than in England, and Latin +parents everywhere sacrifice themselves more for their children than +we do. So strong is the blood tie that it has been said that there is +nothing at the back of the Italian character but the love of family. +Children make far more difference in the life of an Italian than in +the life of an Englishman; and when love and devotion and obedience +are required of them, they have already seen in their parents as in a +mirror how life and personal comfort and personal ambition can be +squandered for love. An English parent can leave all he has away from +his children, and he frequently leaves the elder provided for and the +younger not provided for at all. A Latin parent cannot do this, and it +is a signal witness to the sense of obligation towards those they +bring into the world which subsists among the Latin races. + +If the blood tie is strong in Italy, friendship is very rare. As in +the family relations so here it is the lack of marked individualism +which is the determinant. It requires little effort to come up to the +family standard; such effort, too, while it may lead to +self-repression seldom brings about self-development. To come up to +the standard of your peers outside the home requires on the contrary +an exercise of all the individual powers; and friendship belongs to +the individualistic peoples, those who prize personal rather than +tribal and family character; to a people with no moral indolence, with +the initiative and the power to become something on their own account, +and to stand by themselves. The one "provincialism" of the Italian +is--perhaps--his suspicion of all who stand without the blood tie: the +adventurous spirit of the Anglo-Saxon which has colonised three +continents has led him to a very different estimate of reliance on and +co-operation with his fellow-men, and the capacity for genuine +friendship outside the blood tie may claim to have always acted as an +anti-barbaric note in Anglo-Saxon civilisation. + +The Italians have another strongly distinctive feature. They are a +more passionate but a less sentimental people than we. I suppose the +Germans are the most sentimental people of Europe, and we come next. +But in Italy the Englishman is not credited with sentiment. According +to the Italian press, for example, he has "the patriotism of the pound +sterling." For my part I regard the Italian as the least sentimental +man in Europe; we, on the contrary, both as individuals and as crowds, +are governed by our sentimentality. The whole British middle class +would make war to-morrow to satisfy a sentimentalism which the Latin +peoples regard as exclusively their own. Those who recollect that the +reception accorded to Garibaldi put into the shade the entry into +London of the bride of our future King, ought not to accuse the +English of lack of disinterested sentiment. The Italians have the +sentiment of the beautiful the grandiose and the fit--but they are the +last people in the world to be put out of their course by a scruple or +an _elan_. On the other hand there is a real sense in which the +Englishman is devoid of a quality which is allied to the Latin +graciousness. England shows a want of pride in and sentiment towards +dependencies like the Channel Islands or Ireland which we should not +find in France or Italy. She forgets, neglects, has no grip, and takes +no hold on the imagination. Other nations have exploited their +colonies and dependencies and the British suzerain is not appealed to +in vain for protection under his flag--but something lacks, and so it +comes about that the foreigner frequently likes our justice but not +ourselves. + + [Illustration: AT THE FOOT OF THE SPANISH STEPS, PIAZZA DI SPAGNA, + ON A WET DAY] + +That sentiment which comes of a certain noble graciousness in peoples +is shown in other ways in Italy. It is a moving thing to see the sons +bear the coffin of father or mother, to see men of all classes +follow the dead _on foot_; and then there is the Latin gracious +treatment of birthdays and anniversaries, the Latin power of making a +fete, of "feteing you," surrounding you with the feeling that you are +of importance for the moment, that content is really reigning round +you; the many ways in which the sentiments of piety to the hearth and +piety to the dead are expressed; the power of handling life lightly +and of expressing feeling appropriately. + +The Italian though he is not so "intense," in the slang sense, as we, +and gives way to less emotional sentiment, is far more impressionable. +On the other hand he is not ashamed to betray emotion, or to speak of +his _agitazione_; and it will astonish the Englishman to be told that +although the Italian is so quick of feeling that one may think he is +at the death grip with a man in the street to whom he is only +narrating his unexpected meeting with a relative from the country, he +studiously avoids those sentimental "scenes" which are so dear to the +Anglo-Saxon. The hot-blooded Italian speaks of the "_furor +francese_"--that unmatched capacity for summing the intellectual +points of a case and exhausting its emotional possibilities in one +lightning moment,--and it is a fact that they judge the French people +to be far more mobile and inconstant than themselves. + +In common with other Latins, they have more vanity than we, but less +self-consciousness, more simplicity, and none of that _mauvaise honte_ +which betrays that the Englishman has not got his emotions under +control. But there is in the best Englishman an excellent sort of +simplicity which frees him from attending to the _personal point_ +which is always present to the Italian whether he is dealing with +matters public or private. On the other hand the Italians are +completely free of the French _bete noir_, _chauvinisme_. And they +have another great moral superiority: in America every one brags on +his own account; in England we plump for national brag--there is a +howling blast of the national trumpet always chilling the air round an +Englishman. But the Italians do not brag; they have, indeed, no reason +at all to act as _parvenus_. Their scepticism applies to themselves +even more than to others, and no people are so ready for +self-depreciation. According to them A, B, and C--the other nations of +the earth--can accomplish this or that, while "_un italiano non e +buono a niente_." In nothing, I believe, would Italians achieve +greater distinction than in medicine, where a distinguished tradition +of the art of healing goes hand in hand not only with the intellectual +gifts of the people, but with an unrivalled delicacy of intuition. In +no country are there better doctors, men armed at all points with the +science of their age; yet as an Italian has remarked "Among us the +physician counts as less than nothing while in France he takes rank as +a scientific authority." + +The Italian and the Irishman are the only amiable men in Europe--we +must go as far as Japan to find their equals. Both people have the +desire to please--or is it a mark of ancient breeding?--the +self-effacement, the courteous absence of self-assertion so difficult +to the Englishman. The Italian will offer you the reins of his horses, +and any and all of those privileges and advantages which the English +owner regards as inalienably his. The traditional hospitality of cold +climates is indeed nowhere greater than in England, but there is no +more entirely hospitable host than the Italian when he admits you to +his house. + +Nowhere are crowds so good-natured or so well-behaved. Yet the +Italians complain louder than any other people, and have not French +buoyancy in the troubles and tragedies of life. Who will believe it if +we add that they have an admirable patience? The Englishman makes his +holiday miserable by his indignation if the train is late, if some one +steps on his toes, if he has to wait an hour while his dinner is +cooking. The Italian takes all these things as part of the day's work +or play, and finds his amusement in them besides. That is another +great distinction--he cares for life for its own sake. The Englishman +cares for it for some end he has in view, and the end may be noble or +mean. With quicker sympathy and much quicker response than ours, they +are a less kindly people; and what is it in the Italians that allows +you to find them all at once in undress, the veneer gone, and the raw +material left? The Englishman would find it hard, too, to understand a +certain terrible outsideness, something callous and pitiless in the +uneducated Italian: self-interest looms too large, and an apparent +want of power of self-sacrifice--outside the blood tie--I take to be +the great moral weakness of the Italian character. + +We shall already have understood that the Italian does not wait to be +told these things by others--he is the first to judge himself; he has +no illusions. In England we are fond of throwing a veil over our +national defects or of calling them by some fine name, but the Italian +of all ranks has put the defects of his qualities over and over again +in the crucible of his terrible love of reality with its quick +perception of shams; and to understand the defects of Italians one has +only to read their own masterly appreciations of national character. + + [Illustration: ROMAN PEASANT CARRYING COPPER WATER POT] + +The Italian race is, I believe, prepotent in mixed marriages. In +marriages between German and Italian or English and Italian the child +shares indeed some of the mental characteristics of Angle or Teuton, +but the _personality_ is an Italian personality. This prepotence of +the Latin people I take to be the effect of what some one has called +"a great temperament"--the one quality which we may be quite sure has +belonged to every remarkable man. Of all the great races the men of +modern Germany leave least trace of themselves. It is noteworthy that +the instances of mixed marriages are nearly all instances of women of +the English German and American races intermarrying with Italian men; +but whichever way it is, it remains as true of Italy as of France that +"the _menage_ is always in the country of the Latin partner." + +The Italians say: "_inglese italianizzato diavolo incarnato_," and +this is also true of Americans and may be true of Teutons. Two Italian +girls who spent a season in London described to me their attempts to +imitate what they called "_lo stiff_," the stiff reserved manner of +the Englishman of breeding. They failed, it seems, woefully, for they +could not acquire "_lo stiff_" and they lost their own pretty manners. +So it is with the Anglo-Saxon in Italy. We have not their _finesse_, +or the mental and temperamental qualities which balance their moral +defects; the Englishman adopts these with interest and his national +virtues are shed like a garment. It is therefore perhaps fortunate +that Italian women give Englishmen small encouragement to turn +themselves into _diavoli incarnati_; for it must be recorded that the +English and American wife in Italy runs no such risk: she remains +herself, the national character does not wear off like a poor veneer, +she does not outrage native susceptibilities without acquiring native +graces, and distinguished women of our race have for the past two +hundred years brought their native virtues to Italy while adopting +Italian causes with an enthusiasm which did not yield even to that of +Italians themselves. In Rome the English wife of General La Marmora, +the two Talbots who became Gwendoline Borghese and Mary Doria, the +American wife of Garibaldi, and the Scotch wife of the triumvir +Aurelio Saffi (still alive), all played a conspicuous Italian role. + +There are more people with great temperaments among the Latin races +than among ourselves; and as it is "plenty of temperament" which is +wanted for the creations of art it is not difficult to understand why +the Italians are artistic and we are not. And the Italians are a +people of artists. In England where one man in a thousand may possess +the artistic temperament it is difficult to realise the keen +observation, the appreciation of technique for its own sake, the +intuitive way of gauging and grouping the data of the senses, the +balance and proportion implied in a race where one man in ten judges +as an artist. Wagner expresses, in a letter to Boito, his admiration +of the Italian attitude to art--the open-mindedness and delicate +feeling in artistic questions which make him "understand again," after +a visit there, "the matchlessly productive spirit to which the new +world owes all its art since the Renaissance." When Edward VII. +visited Rome the _Times_ and other English newspapers compared the +consummate yet simple scheme of decoration with the tasteless and +meaningless banner and bunting displays which London witnesses on +similar occasions. The love of beauty--the Greek horror of +deformity--is so strong with this people that its imperatives take +precedence of moral considerations--of pity, delicacy, kindliness. The +uneducated Italian shows his instinctive disgust at what is ugly or +horrible and, as we have seen, no prevenient idealism checks the +impulse. + +It is an important truth that Italians learn from the outside and that +Northern peoples get from without only what they bring from within; +that Italians have, perhaps, as little ethical awareness as they have +signal and abiding aesthetical awareness. But that uninterrupted +vision of reality which has relegated moral vision to the second place +has bestowed on Europe not what is crude and naked and bare, but +another mode of seeing, of feeling, of being--one of the great modes +of human expression--art. This people who have been called "prodigals +of themselves" have been so prodigal of their gifts that the hand +which stripped the veil from the objects of sense is also the hand +which clothed them, returning them to us with the crudity gone, +replaced with new meaning, by new vision--expressed for ever in higher +terms. The ruthless vision which saw so much, and suffered no +illusion, saw also something which we did not see; and revealing to us +what lay beyond our sight held up a mirror in which the real looks +back at us as the ideal. + +The imagination of the Kelt, said Matthew Arnold, "with its +passionate, turbulent, indomitable reaction against the despotism of +fact" has never succeeded in producing a masterpiece of art. Here we +have a clue to the truth--which the Greek had already taught us--that +_interpretation_ is not left only to the peoples whose vision is +turned inwards; that when, for such, the external seems bared of all +meaning, the realist may restore it to us with the new vision in it. + + +II. _The Romans._ + +In no European country has the secular conflict between race and race, +province and province, been keener than in Italy--Lombards, Venetians, +Tuscans, Romans, and Neapolitans have formed not only politically but +morally antagonistic communities; and Italy has yet to create that +moral unity which is no more a tradition of her past than is the civil +unity she has already achieved. + +Nowhere, during the era of the _Risorgimento_, was this antagonism +more keenly felt than in Rome and by the Romans who have always +divided the inhabitants of that "geographical expression," Italy, into +"Romans" and "Italians." To this day the difficulties of moral union +are fed by the incompatibilities and the jealousies of "north" and +"south." To the warm Southerner, Lombards and Piedmontese are a nation +of shopkeepers; to the Northerner, the Neapolitan, the Calabrese, and +the Sicilian are as brilliant impossible and mediaeval Irishmen. + +Midway between these two, neither north nor south, stands and always +has stood the Roman: by sympathy, proclivity, and geographical +position a little more south than north; but by history achievement +and tradition independent of either. Florence represents the fine +flower of the Italian spirit, the South its poetry, Venice and the +North its civil greatness. What is notable everywhere is an +incomparable productiveness in all activities of the human intellect, +all fineness of the human spirit. But Rome has not produced. After +that one act of creation, the Roman polity, Rome has been sterile; its +function has been not to create but to criticise. Like the great +Church which has developed within its borders, Rome has been the +lawgiver, the critic of other men's gifts, but has laid no +claim--when once we cede her initial gift of an infallible +_magisterium_--to _charismata_. And so the Roman possesses in its +highest terms the gift of _criterion_. Some witty person--a Frenchman +of course--said that England was an island and every Englishman was an +island; and so we may say that Rome was arbiter of the world and every +Roman possesses that keen vivid abounding gift of _arbitrament_. + + [Illustration: CHAPEL OF THE PASSION IN THE CHURCH OF SAN CLEMENTE + + The church, which is in the street leading from the Lateran to the + Colosseum, belongs to the Irish Dominicans.] + +Rome therefore is not Italy for taste, art, delicacies of sentiment, +for the great creations of the intellect the spirit and the +imagination--Rome is the ancient mistress of the world; and the role +the function and the influence of Rome must all be viewed in relation +to her gift of infallible criterion, of world dominance. + +The Roman of to-day not only lives in the city of the Roman who gave +laws to the known world, he thinks his thoughts and to a great extent +lives his life. He is the result of the grandiose memories of the past +playing upon such a temperament as his. He lives surrounded by vague +memories, understanding that it was something exceedingly great which +fell, leaving him in the midst of these ruins. And the Roman has a +supreme indifference--he looks upon every event with the same +tolerance, the same sentiment of Emerson's "fine Oxford gentleman" +that "there is nothing new and nothing true, and no matter." One +procession passes him by to honour Giordano Bruno, victim of +theological bigotry; another passes to the Vatican to render homage to +the power which crushed Bruno: the Roman looks out upon both with the +same eyes, the same indifferent dignity. "The Roman apathy," say some; +but others call it a superiority, Roman largeness of outlook, the +Roman freedom from what is petty and intolerant. + +Who are the modern Roman people? Are they the genuine survivors of the +rulers of the world? That there has been an immense influx of alien +blood since the fifth century is certain. The incredible depletion of +the Roman population in some periods was repaired by immigration from +other parts of Italy; but Roman characteristics at the present day are +too well marked to allow us to suppose that Rome has been at any time +swamped by foreign admixture, or that the persistence of these +characteristics can be accounted for merely by the continuity of Roman +civilisation and the Roman _milieu_. The Romans of to-day, therefore, +are the same people as the Romans of the great epoch--but with a +difference. They are Romans with the energy sapped out; with the power +of self-sacrifice for a public good gone, and with it the power to +impose themselves on the nations, on their fellows. Romans with no +heroes and no martyrs. + + [Illustration: A RUSTIC DWELLING IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA] + +Nowhere, in fact, can the Italian character be seen so unspoiled as in +Rome, where fewer outside influences and neither education nor social +polish have conspired to modify the characteristics of the nation who +were once the _buontemponi_ of Europe. The people of classic Rome had +always been men of a certain roughness, whose heroic qualities were +formed at the expense of delicacy of sentiment. This rudeness of +mind, of sentiment, of taste showed itself in every part of the Roman +life. While Athenians watched the tragedies of Sophocles in theatres +which could only hold a select audience, the Romans crowded into huge +amphitheatres where a hundred thousand men and women gloated over the +sufferings of sentient creatures--animals or men, it made no +difference; the same hideous "practical jokes," as Walter Pater notes, +being impartially meted out to both. Centuries after Athens met to +applaud the periods of Pericles, the Roman ladies were turning down +their thumbs that they might be sated with the spectacle of the last +agony of the vanquished in the arena. The refined symposia of Greece +became in Rome barbaric banquetings where the guests prolonged the +pleasures of the table by vomiting what they had already eaten. The +stern self-repression, the admirable power of devotion in a public +cause, the contempt of pleasure and of life, the _animus lucis +contemptor_ of the early Republic, were qualities which did not +descend to the Romans of the Empire. + + +_The Roman Type_ + +Not only Roman characteristics but the Roman type also have descended. +The large round massive Roman head still contrasts with the narrow +pointed head of the Tuscan. The type still admired in women is the +_tipo giunonico_, the type of Juno and of the Roman matron--large +massive and imposing. The Roman has a ruddy fresh complexion, the +swarthy southern skin being comparatively rare; he has black hair, is +burly and tends to obesity. His expression is tranquil and contented, +and Signor Aristide Gabelli in his essay on Rome and the Romans bids +us observe that the type has improved, that we no longer see the hard, +bitter, threatening expression of the busts in the Capitol and +Vatican, the prominent jaw and cheek bones have been softened; and the +Roman of the city, at any rate, wears a more genial and humane +expression than his classic ancestor. At a church function, among the +Roman peasants--though I fear the type was more frequent in the +"eighties"--one may see a face which might serve as the model for +Jove, for a Roman poet or philosopher. It is such a face as could +never be met with even among the best specimens of our peasantry. +Muffled in his great fur-collared cloak, dirty and ragged, with eyes +which seem to look from a soul that harbours every noble aspiration, +our old peasant who can certainly neither read nor write, is probably +cogitating why Checco refused to give him the wine at three sous the +measure, or whether he would have done better to put the franc the +_forastiero_ gave him into shoes, instead of following Peppe's +suggestion as to lottery numbers. So much for the wonders which an old +civilisation can confer without any effort or any preparation. + + [Illustration: PROCESSION WITH THE HOST AT SUBIACO] + +Many assert that the _Trasteverini_ are the only lineal descendants of +the Romans. The legend is that Trastevere was colonised by the Greeks +brought by Aeneas, and the Greco-Roman type may frequently be seen +there in absolute perfection--women of the people having the +classic features and the noble bearing of empresses. They are a more +robust race than the Romans on the other side of the Tiber, the black +hair of the women is still more luxuriant, the character more +passionate and vindictive, the language coarser, the reputation of the +women not so fair. + +In common with all Italians the Romans are more graceful than English +men and women. The simple dignity and grace of the pose and carriage, +with no stiffness or awkwardness, makes it easy to distinguish an +Italian among Englishmen Germans or Americans whether he is sitting or +standing. They have the small Latin bones and small hands and feet; +the foot, however, is flatter than ours, and every one from the +children to the soldiers drags his feet along the ground. But the walk +is so unstilted that Italians form a natural procession, whereas a +procession in England is achieved with much difficulty and is not +really pleasing to the eye when it is achieved. Have you ever noticed +the _mesquin_ gesture--the fear to let himself go which is so closely +allied to the knowledge that he cannot do it gracefully--with which +one commonplace Englishman bids good-bye to another? You will see +nothing like this in Italy. The ample Roman gesture--that Italian +gesture of reassurance which seems to the Englishman quite +sacerdotal--is the property of every one; and a woman of the people +will hail an omnibus with the classic gesture that her ancestor might +have used when bidding Olympian Jove stay his thunderbolt. + +The Italians have the Latin eye and eyebrow; one never sees the +unmodelled elementary eye, with its gaze _bon enfant_, of our younger +civilisation. Naturally resonant, the voices of Italians are in all +classes harsh and unmodulated; and there is no better evidence of the +general ignorance in Rome than the uneducated speaking voices which +make it impossible to distinguish a princess from a peasant at her +prayers. The possession of a strong natural organ, quite untutored, is +here joined to the Roman love of noise and racket; and the result is +that the people scream at each other as if they were deaf, and you can +only be sorry they are not also mute. It is an odd thing to hear the +deep bass voice of some of the women alternating with the high thin +tenor of many of the men; one may often mistake in this way the sex of +unseen speakers. The deep voices of the women remind one that the +contralto, and even the _contro tenore_, have been cultivated _con +amore_ in Italy: on the other hand a labourer in the fields or your +servant-man in the kitchen region can be heard singing in high +falsetto like a girl. What one will never hear in Italy are the +affected speaking voices cultivated by Englishmen: the Italian does +not "put on side" either in his voice or his manners, and nothing is +more noticeable perhaps on one's return to England than the absurdly +affected voice of the men. + +There is no Roman dialect in the sense in which there is a Venetian a +Piedmontese and a Neapolitan dialect--habitually spoken by all classes +among themselves. The _Romanesco_ spoken in Rome by the people is a +debased Italian, not a real dialect. The purest Italian is, as we all +know, spoken in Tuscany, where there is no dialect, and the best +pronunciation is the Roman. Hence the proverb: "The Tuscan language in +the Roman mouth," _Lingua toscana in bocca romana_. + + +_The Roman's Character_ + +The pride of the Roman is his chief characteristic; it keeps him from +some of the pettinesses of his neighbours and is occasionally the idol +to which self-interest is sacrificed. But the same people who are too +proud to work are not too proud to beg. This kind of pride, indeed, is +to be found a little everywhere in Italy, and I have known a +distinguished Italian with a starving family who would consent to give +lessons in "Italian literature" but not in "Italian grammar." In +France where there is the maximum of self-respect this kind of pride +is unknown. The Roman pride, however, is consistent with hearty ways +and with great frankness and sincerity of nature. The Roman, indeed, +is not only famous for his bad language, but for his out-spokenness in +all directions: he tells you just what he thinks of you, and will by +no means conceal his own humble origin when he becomes a great man; he +will not insist that his ancestor was a count or at least a baron as +an Italian from another province might do. But the Roman pride is a +disease; it clamours for its own license and respects no one else's +liberty; it plays into the hands of the Latin lawlessness, and the +Roman spirit of revolt has tormented the popes ever since Constantine +deserted the capital of the West. The Roman resents what he calls +_prepotenza_, but a self-disciplined law-abiding people can hardly +understand the stupid _prepotenza_ say of the cabmen in Rome--a +majority of whom are Romans. The Roman lad or the Roman man takes it +into his head to make a bee-line in your direction, to walk over that +particular piece of road or pavement, and the feeble sense of +righteous indignation he possesses is only kindled if you attempt to +thwart him. The satyr-like--half-childish, half-malignant--cult of the +_dispetto_, the miserable pleasure taken in deliberately +inconveniencing you, are so many proofs of an undisciplined +nature--and where shall we see so many undisciplined faces as in +Rome?--albeit that here it masquerades as the just _orgoglio_ of a +people descended from gods and heroes. _"Non me lo dica, perche io +sono romano"_ (Do not say it to me, for I am a Roman), is a warning +phrase repeated in perfect good faith, as who should say: "Do not +provoke this son of a god." + + [Illustration: GIRL SELLING BIRDS IN THE VIA DEL CAMPIDOGLIO + + The Forum in the background. The road marks the old _Clivus + Capitolinus_. See page 30.] + +The Roman's most pleasing characteristic is his genuineness; that, and +a certain magnanimity, a certain nobleness of mind. The Roman has no +"jesuitry," and he will not say behind your back what he dare not say +to your face. In contrast to other Italians is his roughness--a legacy +of old Rome--a rudeness of spirit which is a curious compound of pride +in the past, of age-long absence of mental cultivation--of a moral +quality, brutal sincerity, and of a mental quality, a terrific +realism. They are also, perhaps, the best hearted people in Italy; +and a dear old Roman friend used to declare that the Romans and the +English were the kindest hearted people in the world. + +Intellectually, no people in Italy have more talent: it is a key which +opens many doors to say that the Roman is talented but not cultured. +There is no real culture in any class, but there is a facility +unmatched even in this land of natural gifts. The one exception to the +general ignorance which exists by the side of an extraordinary +quickness is an interesting one: every Roman is an archaeologist; to +be unable to take your part in an archaeological discussion would be +to write yourself down as an impossible ignoramus. On this subject +every Roman is alert, and I was present when the foundations for the +first houses which now lead to Porta Salara were being dug, and a +marble relief was found which the workmen at once told me was "the +rape of Lucretia." Imagine a bricklayer in London proffering a similar +observation! With the general ignorance there is also in the upper +class a widespread intellectual apathy; many of the Roman aristocracy +have never visited the Palatine, and when it was suggested to a young +Roman that she had never seen the Capitol, she answered: "Oh yes, I +saw it the day I was married." Part of the Capitol buildings are the +registry offices of Rome where the obligatory civil marriage takes +place. The drive on the _Pincio_, which is not larger than the tract +of the park from Hyde Park corner to the Marble Arch, satisfies the +most exacting ambition; and the fussy foreigner who spends his time +in museums and galleries is regarded as a harmless and well-meaning +lunatic. + +Every human being is the product of contrasts; but the Roman is more +so than other men: to explain, not what he is, but what he is not we +have, I think, only to look at the contradictions, the inconsequence +of a character which in the expressive Italian phrase is +_sconclusionato_, it comes to no conclusion. For the Roman though he +is turbulent is easily led; he is at once obstinate and teachable; he +is not _fin_ but he throws a terrible light on all things; without +being "_finto_" (feigned) he puts self-interest first. He is both +ingenuous and suspicious; to his overweening pride he joins +considerable diffidence; and the tongue which babbles of his personal +affairs is the tongue of a man who has a profound distrust of his +neighbour. + +A fine critic with a child's simplicity, he is sceptical and +superstitious, credulous and incredulous, seeing the works of the +oracle but allowing it to deceive him. Joined to his indifference is a +faculty for staking his all on some absurd punctilio: his interest in +ideas is greater than in many parts of Italy, his ambitions and +pleasures more materialist. The changes which the Roman has witnessed +in unchanging Rome are met in himself by changeableness and fickleness +of purpose, though the conception of the majestic, the grandiose, the +eternal is always there. What are we to say of a people who can unite +the pettiest spite with a magnanimous tolerance? + +The denizen of the eternal city is proverbially _campanilista_, which +may be translated "attached to the village pump"; and while on the +other hand he has a sense of public decorum unequalled in Europe, the +_blase_ Roman fritters time and talents in petty preoccupations, in +distractions which are neither dignified nor stately, and eats and +gambles to show his distrust of human effort in general, of all human +achievement since the incomparable days when his heroes walked the +earth. + +The Roman does not merge in you, and he no longer imposes himself on +you. He is not free of obsequiousness; and such customs as the +_baciamano_ (hand-kissing) are said to derive from the fact that the +Romans have been "the hosts of Europe" and have learnt to depend on +its bounty. A readier explanation is certainly afforded in that aspect +of Catholic Christianity which has always encouraged personal +humiliations and servilism in the inferior clergy and the laity: but +perhaps the real explanation is to be found in the fact that the +present day Roman is the descendant of the Empire, not of the +Republic, and Christianity, as we know, easily adopted as its own the +servilisms of the later Empire, with those Byzantine proclivities for +despotism and adulation which at last led the independent Roman to +burn his incense before the "genius" of the most infamous of the +Caesars. + + +_The Romans and the "Italians"_ + +It is said that the Roman belittles things, that he is an easy +despiser. Perhaps the gift of _criterion_ nourished among the +grandeurs of classical and Christian Rome is a sorry preparation for +enthusiasm over the sights to be seen in other men's cities. The fact +too that his pride sometimes forbids his stooping to means which +ensure the success of his "Italian" brother who comes fortune-seeking +to Rome, joined to his sincerity and hatred of humbug are, he thinks, +the reasons why as a rule he is cordially detested by other Italians. +The "clericals" have another explanation; the Romans are hated, +according to them, because they would take no part in the doings which +led to the union of Italy and the invasion of Rome. We may give a +little weight to all these reasons and yet understand that the Roman +is disliked on other counts. His pride, so think other Italians, is +altogether too immoderate for his achievements; and when they entered +Rome they found a people devoid of the mental and moral qualities +which make fine manners--a certain amount of self-forgetting and +graciousness of mind. + + [Illustration: ENTRANCE TO ARA COELI FROM THE FORUM + + The ever-open door of the popular Franciscan Church on the Capitol + hill, which became in the middle ages the centre of the civic life + of the Roman people. See pages 6, 57.] + +After "the Italians" entered the city, these provincial animosities +waxed fast and furious. Men from the north were dubbed _buzzuri_, +Neapolitans got nicknamed _cafoni_, and to this day a residence of +twenty or thirty years does not preserve the hapless "_forestiere_" +and his family from such epithets as _buzzuri_ and _villani_ if they +presume to come to words with "a Roman of Rome." On the other hand +"the Italians" returned these compliments with interest: the Romans +were unlicked cubs, _maleaucati_, lazy, ignorant--the proud tetragram +S.P.Q.R. was rendered by the Neapolitans _Sono Porci Questi Romani_ +"these Romans are pigs"; while the Roman, finding in the Neapolitan +a man still dirtier than himself, retorted that the "Neapolitans' sky +is beautiful, and it is clean, because they can't reach it" ("Il cielo +di Napoli e bello, ed e pulito, perche non arrivano a sporcarlo"). + +At the same time it is an indubitable fact that Italians who live +among the Romans come to prefer them to their other compatriots; and I +have heard this preference expressed by people so far apart as an +educated Piedmontese and an uneducated Calabrese. Perhaps they learn +from the Romans tolerance, the smallness of small things, and the +greatness of great ones. Perhaps they realise that the Roman has +learnt with an admirable patience and teachableness the new lessons +that have been put before him. Thrown from easy circumstances into the +vortex of the struggling life of the new capital--overtaxed and +underfed--he has suffered as much as the newcomers for a political +change which he demanded less loudly than they; and it is to his fair +credit that a revolution has taken place in Rome without bloodshed, +without violence, without undue bitterness, and that the element of +crime and lawlessness has not been supplied by him. The Roman is not a +hero, and not a saint, but neither is he a _Camorrista_ and _mafioso_ +like the men of the South, nor a _teppista_[5] like the men of the +North. + + [5] The _Teppa_ and the _Camorra_ are respectively institutions of + the north and south of the peninsula. The former is recruited + exclusively from the lowest classes, and is nothing less than a + league of the ill-conditioned bent on every sort of evil deed. The + _Camorra_--like the _Mafia_--is more akin to a secret society, and + to those factionist practices which are eminently characteristic of + Italy. In this sense the _Camorra_ is a national institution, which + infects every Italian enterprise, and functions in every Italian + theatre. The _Mafia_, like the _Camorra_, is widespread in Naples + and Sicily and counts men of all ranks among its members. None of + these were ever Roman institutions; and the _teppisti_ who now + afflict Rome are an importation from the north. + + +_Roman Customs and Roman Satire_ + +The customs of the Romans have been depicted by the inimitable art of +Pinelli, their ways of thinking and feeling by Belli in his sonnets +and in the modern sonnets of Pascarella. Here the satire, the +cynicism, the rude intellect, the ignorance, the self-interest, meet +us in every picture. + +Nothing and nobody have ever escaped the Roman satire, which turns +everything into ridicule and burlesque. From the end of the fifteenth +century the torso called after the tailor Pasquino, and the statue of +Marforio kept up a running fire of wit and mockery. When Pope Sixtus +V. who was of the humblest origin made his sisters countesses, Pasquin +appeared in a dirty shirt. Asked by Marforio the reason, he replied +the next day, "_Perche la mia lavandaia e diventata contessa_," +"because my washerwoman has become a countess." Pius VI. encumbered +Rome with inscriptions recording his "munificence"; when bread became +dear Pasquin seized the occasion to exhibit a tiny loaf with the +legend _munificentia Pii Sexti_; and when Urban VIII. died the +following epitaph alluding to the bees in his coat of arms, recorded +his nepotism: + + How well he fed his bees + How ill he fed his sheep. + +All this is very unlike the ideas held by some Catholics who cry +"outrage" at the least criticism, and would consider the jests of +Pasquin and Marforio sufficient to keep the Pope a prisoner in the +Vatican. The popes thought differently; and preserved what face they +could under the stinging satire of the Romans. + +Pasquin gave place to the _capo-comico_ Cassandrino, who was +delighting every class in Rome at Palazzo Fiano in the Corso when the +Italians broke upon the scene. + +It must be remembered that the Roman would never accept servile +occupations; the industries he chose were perforce those which +required no plant and no capital, but also those which left him +independent--such were the making of Roman pearls and mosaics, +watchmaking, the favourite crafts of butcher, tanner, and carter, or +the river industries of fisherman, boatman, and wharf porter. The most +picturesque of his amusements were the dance, the mandoline, the lute, +the song and serenade, and that improvisation for which he was always +famous. One may still see the _tarantella_ danced on the "Spanish +steps" in May by the artists' models, dressed in the old Roman costume +which persisted till Napoleonic times--the half Spanish dress of the +girls and the short velvet jacket, feathered hat, and knee-breeches of +the youths. + +When the Roman railway was built, things were conducted in truly +homely fashion; the train which was timed to leave at 10.30 was still +in the station at 11. When at length it got under way, it might be +put back again to land two peasants who had got into the wrong train. +If you fumed and fretted, you were told to remember how long the +journey would have taken before the day of railways. The Roman indeed +had then and has now no sense of time--least of all has he learnt the +proverb which he supposes is ever on the lips of our countrymen +"_times_ is money." If you enquire of a Roman the hour of mass he +replies "About ten, or half-past, or eleven--thereabouts." The +shopkeeper, the waiter in a cafe, used to take no notice whatever of +you when you entered his premises; he continued tranquilly to read his +paper or finish his cigar, and only marvelled that there could in your +opinion be any reason sufficiently urgent to warrant your disturbing +these occupations. The Roman's time is as eternal as his city, and one +of the lessons he has yet to learn is its value for other things than +money-making. No one answers a letter; your lawyer or your banker +think themselves as unobliged to satisfy your curiosity as to the fate +of your cheque or your business as the butcher and the baker. The +Roman learns on his moral side, but remains so obtuse on the material +side as to be a perpetual illustration of the reputation he has for +strong-headedness, for "putting Trajan's column in his head," and +refusing to budge like a mule. The Romans indeed are haunted by the +past, and they are perhaps the people of Europe who have least grip on +the present. + + [Illustration: IN THE CHURCH OF ARA COELI + + See pages 57, 230-31, and interleaf, page 138.] + +It is in their folklore, the popular rhymes and tales, the customs and +amusements of the people, that we realise that no loyalty or +reverence can exist by the side of that passion for laying bare; and +understand the coarseness which waits on the wide-eyed gaze of the +Roman, unsparing and gross, because it is the result of what Ricasoli +has called "the real poverty of the poor"--a moral poverty. The Roman +goes to see some tight-rope dancers and describes the treat it was for +him: + + Above all there's the great pleasure of the height, + For if any one of them were to fall, + Nothing in the world could save him. + +He goes to the play. This is his impression of the tragedy: + + The last act when he kills himself and her + I can tell you was just satisfying + (_M' ha proprio soddisfatto_). + +Or take his summary of the problems life presents: + + ... _a sto paese tutto er busilli_ + _Sta ner magna allo scrocco e ddi orazione._ + + "The whole difficulty in this life is how to eat without paying + for it, and to get your prayers said." + +But the scene may change, and the same Roman is called upon to go +forth into the campagna with the beneficent _confraternita dell' +Orazione e Morte_ in search of the body of some victim of violence. He +is found _pancia all' aria_ and brought back to his family; but amidst +the keen observation of all that happens, of the situation, there is +not a pitiful or generous sentiment; the scenes suggest nothing of +interest but the faithful gross record of purely external +impressions. Yet these men have trudged along the heavy roads, up and +down, stumbling and struggling through the dark night to perform the +act of pity which teaches them, apparently, so little. + +Tragedy, comedy, a funeral, a marriage, the visit to your dead, the +game of hazard, the incidents of an assassination, all these things +come under the same clear, coarse, unintimate, unloving observation of +a people who hold, wisely enough, that "L'occhi so' fatti pe' +guarda"--the eyes are made for looking--but who care as little how +they look as they trouble to select what shall be looked upon. + +"_Che bella giornata; che peccato che non s' impicchi nessuno_" is the +traditional greeting to a fine day, repeated even now with a modern +humorous sense of its ghastliness. "What a fine day! what a pity no +one is going to be hanged!" And the Roman's liking for distraction and +noise is not sated even when he goes to bed. Before 1870 serenaders +waked, and charmed, the sleeping city; but the Roman who is supposed +to have been "killed between a policeman and official red tape," still +reminds us that he is not so very dead after all, or that the _guardia +"non s' e fatto viva,"_ for he now roars down the thoroughfares in the +small hours of the night, thus procuring for himself the pleasure of +disturbing you--a form of recreation with which even the police have +too much sympathy to interfere. For the Roman tolerates other men's +lawlessness but has no respect for their liberty. + + +_The "Coltello" and Crime_ + +As with children who cannot "play the game," his games of chance +degenerate into quarrelling and killing. The terrible habit of +carrying, stowed away in a pocket at the back of the trousers, or up +the sleeve, what the Romans call "the instrument" gives them a ready +means of converting hot blood into hot deed. The _coltello_ used to +be, and still is at times, the favourite gift of a girl to her +lover--to have used it with deadly effect is in her eyes a necessary +sign of prowess, and to feel it always ready is in his sight the +welcome earnest of power to assert his virility. Italian crime is +committed in hot blood; sudden rage or "love" supply the motive, and +there is very little of the premeditated cold-blooded crime of which +Dickens gives us an example in the details of Nancy's murder in +_Oliver Twist_. The worst crimes of violence, however, are brought +about from motives so futile as to seem incredible when they are +mirrored in some ghastly assassination. It is enough to disagree with +your comrade, to win a litre of wine from him, to refuse to withstand +the police--to find yourself on the way to _Sant' Antonio_ or the +_Consolazione_ with three inches of steel in your stomach, nay not +unfrequently in your back. Primitive, terrible, childish, barbaric, +this love of blood, this power of "seeing red" in a quarrel, has made +the Italian the bravo of Europe, and makes the total of Italian +homicides at the present day exceed those in England, Germany, +Belgium, France, and Austria put together. Ninety-five homicides for +every million of the population contrast in Italy with six for every +million in England. In the time of the Venetian pope Clement XIII., in +the middle of the eighteenth century, the proportion of homicides in +Rome was twenty-five times higher than this. + +Is the Italian more cruel, more brutal, more wanton than his fellows? +To the first two questions I should answer No, to the last, Yes. The +cruelties of the French Revolution, the coarse brutalities of England +even down to the century just passed, the horrors recently revealed in +the German army, would at no time have found their counterpart in +Italy. But the Italian--the Roman--is wanton, he is an egoist who +sates his impulses without any reference at all to the other people +and the other interests involved. He is wanton, for he lacks the sense +of personal responsibility; wanton, for he carries on life and +government with no regard to justice. The Italian is a child of +nature, a combination of his own two conceptions of "faun"-like +irresponsible grace and "satyr"-like animality; an undisciplined +creature living in the conditions of modern civilisation. But although +the Italians are a vital people, a people alert on the side of the +self-protecting instincts, and with the egoism of the vital +temperament, they are not an inhumane people: they have in abundance +the imaginative sympathy which instructs and softens, and if they lack +the sense of justice they are in some ways more merciful than we. + + [Illustration: DOORWAY OF THE MONASTERY OF S. BENEDICT (SAGRO SPECO) + AT SUBIACO + + See interleaf, pages 82 and 86.] + +No one can understand the disposition of the Italian in any part +of the peninsula who does not appreciate in it a certain +mildness--something expressed by the Italian _mitezza_ but not by +our English _meekness_--which preserves him from excesses from which +other peoples are not free. The Romans of antiquity boasted no such +sentiments; from that cruel period there has come down to us one story +of humanity--the humanity of a dog; the compassion shown by a dog for +one of a group of victims executed in the neighbouring Mamertine +prison, and callously thrown out upon the steps of the highway of +civilisation--the Roman Forum. But as a population the Romans of the +modern city are not cruel. + +If you look in upon the Roman as he watches the public torture of +prisoners in the first part of last century you will have the story in +brief of his irresponsibility, his unstrenuous attitude towards all +such matters. He shrieks with delight at the writhings of the victims, +but will shout with pleasure if one of them succeeds in making good +his escape. Little has been done to instruct the spirit of the +ignorant Roman, yet few such scenes of repulsive cruelty to animals as +Naples and Florence present are to be laid at his door; and the best +of the population need fear no competitors in human and merciful +sentiment. What the country cries out for is for these better +sentiments to have the force of a public opinion--a civilising agent +as yet completely absent in Italy. No force in the country helps the +Italian to that "self-reverence" the lack of which Mrs. Barrett +Browning discerned in him. Nowhere in Europe is callousness to human +life so great;[6] nowhere in Europe, writes an enlightened Italian +priest, is there so much cruelty to animals as here; yet +so unaccustomed are the people to that best form of moral +education--moral suasion--a gradual civilising of spirit, that they +are incapable of putting two and two together, and still urge the +ignorant argument that if you inculcate humanity to animals while +there is so much to be done for men, you are somehow wronging the +latter; they suggest, apparently, that by kicking a dog you are +somehow helping a baby. It is to be hoped that the thesis of the +priest above quoted, that the protection of animals is a real means of +education, may be accepted boldly by the better clergy now that Leo. +XIII. has called such protection _altamente umano e cristiano_. +Visitors are outraged by the disgusting cruelties which even the +children in Italy are the first to practise, and no amount of +sophistry will make them believe that such conduct is decent in the +superior animal. That secular Italy will be obliged to take up the +subject is certain, and one hopes that then the clergy will return to +the simpler spontaneous religious feeling of the country--marred by +scholastic dogmas--which gave a patron saint to the lesser creation, +and which still places in every stable and cattle-shed of Umbria the +image of "S. Antony, protector of animals." + + [6] The zone which supplies the maximum of crimes of violence is + Lazio (Latium). + + +_Law and Justice_ + +Those who know what it is to feel "righteous indignation" must suffer +in a country where justice is not understood and not appreciated by +any one. The Italians still know how to make laws, and legislation +here is ahead not only of the sentiment of the country but of the laws +of most European peoples--what they have forgotten is how to +administer them. It is no exaggeration to say that at present Italian +tribunals exist for the sake of the criminal; absurd "extenuating +circumstances," which can hardly be taken seriously, are always +forthcoming, and as a distinguished Italian declared in the Senate the +guilty man here must indeed be an unfortunate wretch (_un povero +disgraziato_) if he cannot manage to escape a condemnation. In place +of the inexorable penalty which would alone meet the case in a land +where lawlessness has prescriptive rights and where capital punishment +does not exist, there is a pleasing uncertainty about all penalties. +With a poor sense of humour as conspicuous as the poor sense of +justice, a bench of judges will gravely listen to a succession of +false witnesses, vulgar perjurers, mere play-actors, who spring up +hydra-headed in support of every villain or rascal, be the matter a +murder or an affair of two francs. + +The terrorisation exercised by the knife and the _vendetta_ has caused +the Roman for centuries to enter into a shell of reserve; if an +assassination takes place--in broad daylight or in the dark, it does +not matter--no one sees it; the _guardia_ arrives round the corner in +time to make the "legal verifications" as soon as the misdeed is +safely accomplished, and if the victim shrieked first neither he nor +any one else happened to hear it. The desire to live in peace, seeing +nothing, hearing nothing, making no enemies, has affected a whole +people--with the result that the protected person is the malefactor. +The more audacious he is, the more he affects in the city the +_allures_ of the brigand, the more successful he will be in evading +the law, in gaining the support rendered by the silence or the false +witness of all who encounter him. The people, writes Aristide Gabelli, +"seek by silence and dissimulation their own safety rather than the +public safety at their own proper peril." The consequence is, of +course, that there is not the least co-operation with the law. The +Roman, indeed, feels humiliated by the necessity for seeking its aid; +government and law are abhorrent to him, and he alludes to the former +as "_questo porco di governo_"--if you are unable to defend yourself +the alternative is not the arm of the law but to stop at home. + +The police service of Rome includes three corps--the carabineers, who +hunt in couples, in three-cornered hat and cloak and sword; the +municipal guard who wear a cocked hat, with cocks' feathers on feast +days, and a black uniform turned up with orange; the _Guardie di +Pubblica Sicurezza_, in black piped with blue, and a _capote_. These +last, called _questurini_ because they depend from the _Questura_, are +disliked by all Romans who call them "_avanzi di galera_," gaolbirds +and assassins. As a matter of fact it is difficult to find men of +civil condition to enter the corps; such work is eminently distasteful +to a Roman, and "set a thief to catch a thief" is the principle on +which he supposes the _governo_ acts. + + [Illustration: CHAPEL OF SAN LORENZO LORICATO AT S. BENEDICT'S, + SUBIACO + + See interleaf, page 86.] + +Crispi tried to form one police force for the city; at present if you +apply to a _guardia di P.S._ your business is sure to concern the +absent municipal guard, while the carabineers do nothing but support +each other in the arduous task of standing at street corners watching +the follies of men, criminals and victims.[7] To the municipal +guard--the popular force, called _pizzardoni_--is entrusted the +maintenance of decency and order in the city, and they often brave the +wrath of their fellow citizens in its accomplishment. All matters not +connected with municipal legislation pertain to the State police, who +arrest thieves and act in criminal affairs. Soldiers, too, have +certain civil duties; they are frequently called upon to act as +police, they are called out to help if a house falls down, to form the +_cordon_ in case of a fire, and may in certain circumstances arrest a +malefactor. + + [7] Very different is their role in the country districts, which + they police entirely, and with courage and devotion. + +The soldiers form the most respectable and the only disciplined part +of the male population in a city like Rome. One often sees, of course, +battalions of men from all the Italian provinces, youths of twenty +just enrolled, and among them there is seldom a vicious face. For +these are the mothers' sons, and they compare very favourably with our +"Tommies." The same cannot be said of the other youths who throng the +city. Perhaps seven-tenths of the crime is committed by lads in their +teens and early twenties; I have heard a Senator declare that there +are boys of twelve in the prisons who are already _perfetti +criminali_; and surely nowhere in Europe are boys and youths worse +trained. The most appalling phenomenon, however, is the existence of a +degraded type, of all and every age, usually belonging to the +decently-clothed classes, whose outrages on decency were described by +an Italian in a Roman newspaper as "enough to sicken the coarsest +navvy." These practices, according to some old Romans, are one of the +results of the French occupation, but such an explanation of +occurrences which are to be met with nowhere else in Europe or out of +it, must be taken with all reserve. Gaolbirds like these molest women +with impunity; and the _amor proprio_ of the vile nature awakes just +in time to heap further outrage when this molestation is resented. +Women have always been hustled in the Roman streets, and as Italian +ladies are only now beginning to walk unaccompanied, the foreign +visitors bear the brunt of the amiable practice still in vogue of not +moving on the narrow pavements, but leaving the lady to take the +gutter. Such conduct from men to women contrasts strangely with the +courtesy so often extended even to beggars; and a woman of the people, +a servant or a porteress, will invite the beggar who is interrupting +your conversation to desist, with such phrases as: "Move aside a +little; Do me this pleasure." + + +_Courtship and Marriage_ + +It will be astonishing to many, no doubt, to hear that courtship in +Italy is a prosaic affair. Of passion there is plenty and to spare, +but the tragic element does not enter every day, and then no sentiment +comes in to disturb matters. After the first _etiquette_ of the +situation is over, and the letters vowing that you have _il paradiso +nel cuor_--which are duly discounted by the peasant _fiancee_--have +been written, things run uneventfully enough. A young Abruzzese +servant--from the most saving population of Italy--became enthusiastic +when recounting the virtues of his proposed bride to his mistress, +which culminated with: "Signorina mia, _e piena di biancheria_"--"she +is full of house linen." + +There is among all Italian women more dignity in their relations with +men than there is among English women. The Italian woman has a noble +reticence, a power of self-protection, which imposes itself on lover +and husband. She is not accustomed, as we are in modern times, to +walking abroad unaccompanied, and there is no doubt that here the +Englishwoman shows a self-respecting demeanour which is everywhere +recognised as entitling her to all the respect she feels for herself. +What I speak of is the Italian woman's attitude towards the man to +whom she is engaged or married, in comparison with the Englishwoman's. +The former will not serve her husband as an English or German _frau_ +will; nor, before marriage, will she lay herself out to keep the man +at any cost as the English girl of the servant class will do. Here +Italian self-respect is greater than English. The Roman woman of the +lowest class habitually displays this personal dignity and reticence +in the streets; and nowhere in Rome will you see such scenes as are +to be witnessed on any bank holiday at a seaside place in England, on +Saturday evenings in London, or in country towns after dark, among men +and women of the lower middle class. + +The Italian woman will avoid scandal to herself and hers at whatever +cost; she will suffer any deprivation or loss to compass this, to keep +her trouble from the eyes of the curious world. There is none of that +vulgarity of soul--consummated in modern times among Anglo-Saxon +peoples--which hastens to wash dirty linen in public. This is one +reason why divorce is so distasteful in Italy, and especially to the +women, who would one and all suffer individually in order to bind the +man, to preserve the family and its honour, in preference to the +enjoyment of the personal freedom which the looser bond implies. + + [Illustration: STEPS OF THE DOMINICAN NUNS' CHURCH OF SS. DOMENICO + AND SISTO + + This and the church of Santa Caterina da Siena form a Dominican + corner of Rome on a spur of the Quirinal. The garden of Palazzo + Aldobrandini is seen in the background. See pages 6, 171.] + +A traditional characteristic of the Roman is that he has always given +a fairer share of life to women than other Italians. Since the day +when Romulus called the Roman _curiae_ after the thirty Sabine women +who had thrown themselves into the breach for the Romans, and +conferred on them special privileges, the Roman woman has played a +dignified part in the life of the city. As priestesses the vestals +possessed privileges shared by none but the emperor; and the idea of +the Roman matron, the wife not "in the hand" of her husband, was a +Roman contribution to social ethics two thousand years before the idea +occurred to Englishmen. There is nothing that antiquity has handed +down to us more dignified than the seated female figures in Roman +museums. These views of women ceased, naturally enough, when Rome +which had been the greatest political became the greatest clerical +city in the world; but the Roman tradition was handed on in the +Italian universities outside Rome, which admitted women five hundred +years before they were allowed to share in the benefits of those +colleges of Cambridge and Oxford which their money and influence had +done so much to endow. + +The women of the people still, however, enjoy in Rome "an almost +unlimited liberty." The Roman man shares his recreations with his +wife, and the wife-kicking which is such a plague spot in the life of +the common people in England, is not one of them. English fair-play to +women is indeed merely a matter of class; it has never penetrated to +the lower strata, and in the English middle as in the English lower +class the men are still "the lords of creation." This conjugal +relation in fact remains a bulwark of a certain coarseness which no +one can deny to the Englishman, and which is registered in the +Italian's firm opinion that English wives are bought and sold in open +market. In other parts of Italy, however, in Calabria and the Abruzzi +(even Piedmont is conspicuous for want of gallantry), the wife is +regarded simply as a chattel, and the brutal husband aims his blow at +his wife's face in order that the neighbours may recognise _il segno +del marito_. The sufficient explanation _e suo_ (it is his own) is the +same which will be given you if a youth maltreats a dog; and in both +cases the moral quality of the argument is as ignoble as it can be. + +Socially, the talents of the Romans are not higher than our own. The +Italian people have not the social gifts which are the _privilegium_ +of their Latin neighbour. On the society of ancient Rome was +superimposed clerical Rome--a city where the sex which makes society +was nowhere, where the _pezzo grosso_ in every drawing-room was a +Roman cardinal, not a great lady; and there can be little doubt that +this has not proved a civilising influence on the Roman. But in +natural gifts of disposition the Italian greatly excels us; and in no +English gathering can the charm be approached which Italians will +impart to an _alfresco_ party, an impromptu _festa_--often including a +great mixture of classes--when the simplicity, the unfailing good +humour, and the successful efforts to please are a lesson to the +Englishman. The Italians by gathering together make a natural _festa_, +as by walking they make a natural procession--something that is +graceful and unselfconscious, absolutely simple without missing +stateliness. + + +_The Romans and Art_ + +The art history of Rome is as distinct from that of the rest of Italy +as is its social, its religious, or its political history. We look in +vain to Rome for a first-rate picture, a first-rate poem, even--with +the exception of Palestrina--for a first-rate composer.[8] The fatal +facility which hampers all Italians, who can achieve with little +labour what less gifted peoples travail to attain, meets in the Roman +that curious inconclusiveness, that strange universal sterility, which +begins with the character itself. Nevertheless the Roman has not +failed to give us what it is his function to give--he has always been +a fine-art critic; every great thing has come before him, and of all +he has been an incorruptible judge, seldom deceived, using all the +powers of _finezza_, of ridicule, of satire, and of fine judgment at +his command, to raise or to create a standard of fine work. If there +is one art which may be said to be not only the gift of Italy but to +have remained Italian, it is singing; and here the Roman has kept in +the forefront both as critic and executant. The Italian really _loves +a voice_--the Englishman loves the sentimental rendering of a theme; +and the criterion of vocal sound which the Italian possesses, he +finds, perhaps, in his own throat. "Roman throats and chests must, in +some particular way, be differently constructed from those of other +people" wrote Walter Pater; and the resonant voices of Italians may be +due to the absence of the protruding German and English chin which +captures and muffles so many of our vocal tones. + + [8] _Clementi_, indeed, was a Roman, and a Roman buried in the + cloisters of Westminster Abbey. + +The classical Roman had no taste: we wonder to-day that the Roman, +dazzled with rich marbles, should adopt the expedient of painted +columns in a scheme of decoration; but he did the same in the house of +Germanicus on the Palatine. That there is a distinction between taste +and artistic sensibility there can be no doubt whatever, and it is +equally true that the former is often mistaken for the latter. The +subject is an interesting one; but here we can only record the two +facts--that the Roman all through the centuries has been a sensitive +to artistic impressions, and a fine judge of the arts, and that he has +never possessed that gift of a certain refinement of sentiment--taste. + +After all that has been said of the Romans, it is sad to have to +record that it will soon be difficult to find genuine Roman families. +The old "_Romano de Roma_"--the man whose ancestors, like himself, +were born _all' ombra del Cupolone_, under the shadow of the great +cupola--is disappearing, giving place to more successful, more +industrious, and 'cuter men--preserving up to the last moment of his +life those habits and customs which cause him and his house to suggest +Noah and his ark to the more modern Italian; but also learning up to +the last hour of his life new ideas, such as must also have importuned +the patriarch and his family when the waters receded leaving him and +the ark high and dry on Ararat, and the daughters of men began to +weave their toils round the sons of God. + + [Illustration: PORTA SAN PAOLO + + Gate in the Aurelian wall rebuilt by Belisarius. This is the gate of + the Ostian Way leading to the basilica of S. Paul's--one of the + seven great pilgrimage churches--of which the Kings of England were + Protectors.] + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +ROMAN PRINCELY FAMILIES + + +To be a patrician of Rome is to possess one of the proudest of titles, +and from the senator of the ancient city to the prince of to-day the +aristocracy of Rome has been one of its most vital and characteristic +institutions. + +Though the Roman cardinal as a prince of the Church has always been +admitted, whatever his origin, within the pale, the Roman nobility +with the rarest exceptions has never swelled its ranks with newcomers +owing their tides to acquired wealth or successful public life, but, +conservative and exclusive, preserves the traditions of the past and +forms a society unlike any other in Europe. + +The greater number of the princely families whose names are familiar +to every sojourner in Rome date their connection with the city from +the fifteenth century and onwards, when the popes ceased to be chosen +from among the Romans, and a new aristocracy grew up, the creation of +successive pontiffs, who, themselves reigning but not hereditary +sovereigns, wished to raise their relatives to a rank second only to +their own. + +Others trace their descent from some mediaeval chieftain, or are feudal +in origin, and these alone are indigenous to the city and its +surroundings, and their history is indissolubly woven into the records +of Rome's past. For many dark centuries, during a barbarous period of +bloodshed crime and cruelty, the history of Rome was what her great +nobles made it; and they in their turn rose to fame and power or sank +into oblivion, leaving no traces or but the scantiest records of their +fate. The great mediaeval family of Conti, Counts of Segni, whose race +gave four popes to Rome, among them the great Innocent III., have +disappeared from history, leaving as a magnificent monument to their +greatness the huge tower which bears their name. + +In the twelfth century, the Sabine Savelli and the Jewish Pierleoni +were great and prominent. Streets and piazzas called after them in the +region near the crowded little Piazza Montanara testify to their +importance. The Savelli dwelt in a castle in the Via di Monserrato. It +was afterwards turned into a prison, the _Corte Savella_, and here for +a time the unhappy Beatrice Cenci and her accomplices were confined. +Both Savelli and Pierleoni successively occupied a stronghold erected +within the ancient walls of the theatre of Marcellus, and a fortified +palace which stood against it, now Orsini property. One of the Savelli +popes, Honorius IV., built himself a castle on the Aventine, and at +one period the whole of the hill was entrenched and fortified, the +ancient temple of _Libertas_ on its summit being transformed into a +citadel. These immense buildings have crumbled away, and the sole +monuments that remain to record the past greatness of this family are +the tombs of Pope Honorius, of his father and mother, and of other +Savellis in their chapel in the church of Ara Coeli on the Capitol. + +The Pierleoni, a rich and prolific race, descendants of a learned Jew +convert of the time of Pope Leo IX., filled important posts and made +alliances with the great houses of Rome, and in 1130 a member of this +Jewish family was elected and reigned several years in the Vatican as +the antipope Anacletus--an event unparalleled in history. After the +thirteenth century this name also slips out of historical records and +is heard of no more. + +The ancient consular race of the Frangipani have left to Rome some +fine monuments in the church of San Marcello in the Corso, and the +name is still borne by a Marquess in Udine, but they are no longer +numbered amongst the princely houses. They earned their appellation of +_bread-breakers_ from having distributed bread in a great famine, but +in the middle ages their name spelt terror rather than benevolence. +They were a power not lightly to be reckoned with. Great allies of the +papal party, they more than once gave sanctuary to fugitive popes in +their strong _Turris Cartularia_, the ruins of which can still be seen +near the church of S. Gregory. In the thirteenth century this tower +fell into the hands of the Imperialists, and was utterly destroyed +with all the archives which had been stored there for safety. It +formed an outpost in a chain of fortifications with which the +Frangipani and their allies the Corsi enclosed a large portion of the +city. Their main stronghold was built amongst the ruins of the +Palatine, with flanking towers on the Colosseum and on the triumphal +arches of Constantine, Titus, and Janus. From this dominating position +they could take the field or rush upon their foes in the city at the +head of hundreds of armed retainers. Another mediaeval family, the +Anguillara, has been merged in the Orsini, leaving a solitary tower in +Trastevere to commemorate a once great and powerful race. + + [Illustration: THE COLOSSEUM IN A STORM] + +But of all the feudal princes of Rome none played so conspicuous a +part as the Orsini and Colonna, and this not alone in the history of +their own city, for their names were famous throughout Europe for many +centuries. These two great families were hereditary enemies and +belonged to rival factions. The Colonna were Ghibellines, +Imperialists, the Orsini Guelphs, supporters of the papacy, and when +they were not fighting in support of their political parties they were +engaged in private feuds on their own account. While in other cities +of Italy feudal tyranny was gradually giving way before the more +enlightened government of independent republics, Rome was too weak to +struggle against her oppressors. Deserted and neglected for nearly a +century by her lawful sovereigns the popes, at best ruled by a +vacillating and disorderly government, the city lay at the mercy of +her great barons who scorned all law and authority and asserted and +maintained their complete personal independence at the point of the +sword, while they swelled the ranks of their retainers with bandits +and cut-throats to whom they gave sanctuary in return for military +service. Great and prosperous Rome had become a small forsaken town +within a desolate waste, surrounded by a girdle of ancient walls far +too large for the city it protected. Amphitheatres, mausoleums of +Roman Emperors, temples, theatres, were converted into strongholds. +Such of the churches as were not fortified were crumbling into ruin, +and everywhere bristled loop-holed towers from which the nobles could +defy one another, and which commanded the entrances to dark filthy and +winding streets. At frequent intervals the despondent apathy of the +citizens would be rudely disturbed by a call to arms, and to the sound +of hoarse battle-cries, the clashing of weapons upon steel corslet and +helmet, and the waving of banners with the rival Ghibelline and Guelph +devices of eagle and keys, bands of Orsini and Colonna would rush +fighting through the narrow streets and across the waste spaces of the +city, would fall back and advance to fight again until, with the +darkness, they would retire behind their barred gateways, leaving +their dead as so much carrion in the streets. + +These two families divided the greater part of Rome between them. The +Orsini held the field of Mars and the Vatican district from their +fortress in the ruins of the theatre of Pompey and their castle on +Monte Giordano. This is now Palazzo Gabrielli, and it retains its +portcullis and much of its mediaeval appearance. Tor di Nona and Tor +Sanguigna were flanking towers to the Orsini stronghold. The Quirinal +hill was occupied by the Colonna, their great castle standing almost +on the same ground as their present palazzo, and they had an outlying +fortress in the mausoleum of Augustus near the river. + +Occasionally a truce was patched up between the two families that they +might unite against a common enemy, and for a period they agreed that +two senators, one from each family, should be appointed to govern Rome +in the pope's absence. But these peaceful intervals were short lived. +On the slightest provocation, barricades would be run up, new +entrenchments dug, and civil war would break out afresh. + +Again and again in their conflict with the Church the Colonna were +worsted in the struggle, their estates confiscated, and themselves, +root and branch, beggared and exiled; but there was a strength and +vitality about the race that no adversity could subdue. Pope Boniface +VIII., whose displeasure they had incurred, oppressed them for a +while. Six Colonna brothers were exiled, and their ancestral town of +Palestrina was razed to the ground by the Caetani, Boniface's +relatives and adherents, and a plough was driven over the site to +typify its permanent devastation. But a few years later the reckless +Sciarra Colonna broke into the Pope's castle at Anagni, and made him +prisoner with bitter taunts and reproaches. Later, Sciarra played a +conspicuous part in the coronation of Lewis the Bavarian, and in +gratitude for his services the Emperor allowed the single column of +the family coat of arms to be surmounted by a golden crown. + +Greatest amongst the six brothers of this period was Stephen, +Petrarch's friend, an able man and good soldier who met prosperity and +adversity, poverty banishment and danger, throughout a long troubled +life, with the same calm resolution and intrepid courage. This Stephen +survived the last of his line--his two sons Stephen and Peter with two +grandsons being massacred after an unsuccessful skirmish against +Rienzo. + +After Boniface's death, the Colonna came into their own again and +received one hundred thousand gold florins in compensation for their +losses, but Palestrina, which was later rebuilt, suffered again the +same fate and was torn down by order of Eugenius IV. within one +hundred and fifty years. + +In the reign of Sixtus IV. Rome was again distracted by faction feuds. +The Pope, aided by the ever-ready Orsini, pursued the Colonna with +relentless hatred. Protonotary Lorenzo Colonna fell through treachery +into the hands of his enemy, and his friend Savelli was captured and +murdered on the spot for refusing to rejoice with the captors. Lorenzo +was tortured and beheaded, and the Orsini sacked and burnt all the +Colonna property in the town. + +Other distinguished members of this distinguished family of a later +epoch were Vittoria Colonna, the poet-friend of Michael Angelo, and +Marc' Antonio, who commanded the papal fleet at Lepanto, and who was +given a triumphal entry into Rome after his victory. + +Nothing is known of the origin of this famous race though it is +believed to have come originally from the banks of the Rhine. It first +appears in history in 1104, when the Lords of Colonna and Zagarolo +characteristically incurred the displeasure of Pope Paschal II. They +also owned part of Tusculum and were probably related to the Counts of +that place. Later, Palestrina became their principal stronghold and +they possessed Marino, Grotta Ferrata, Genazzano, and Paliano in the +Sabines, the last giving them their princely title. The family +produced many distinguished churchmen, but only one pope, Martin V. +Many daughters of the house took the veil, and in the year 1318 as +many as twelve had entered the convent of S. Silvestro in Capite, +which had been founded by the cardinal members of the family. + +In 1490 a Colonna was appointed for the first time to be constable of +the kingdom of Naples, and it was popularly believed in Rome that the +Pope excommunicated the King of Naples every vigil of S. Peter (28th +June) because he had failed to proffer the tribute of his investiture. +The formula ran: "I curse and bless you," and as the curse was uttered +the Colonna palace trembled. This palace stands on the slopes of the +Quirinal; it is entered from the Piazza dei SS. Apostoli, but the +gardens cover the slopes of the hill as far as the Via del Quirinale, +bridges connecting palace and gardens crossing the Via della Pilotta +at frequent intervals. It was built by Martin V. for his personal use, +and contains a fine picture gallery and magnificent suite of state +rooms. After nearly eight centuries of life this family is still among +the greatest and most distinguished in Rome. One prince of the name is +now Syndic of the city, another shares the peaceful office of +Prince Assistant at the Pontifical throne with the descendant of his +ancient enemies, Filippo Orsini. + + [Illustration: ARCH OF TITUS FROM THE ARCH OF CONSTANTINE + + The arch which records the plenitude and the arch which records the + decadence of Roman power. See page 162, interleaf, pages 38, 234, + and pictures 12 and 66.] + +The career of the Orsini race has been no less eventful, but this +family has now died out in many of its branches. In a metrical account +of the coronation of Boniface VIII., written by Cardinal St. George +and quoted by Gibbon, the Orsini are said to come from Spoleto. Other +writers believe them to have been of French origin, but at an early +date they became identified with the history of Rome, and in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries two members of the family became +popes, Celestin III. in 1191, and Nicholas III. in 1277. The last +Orsini pope was the Benedictine monk Benedict XIII. (1724). + +In the sixteenth century the Orsini fell under the Pope's displeasure, +the head of the family was banished and his estates were confiscated. +This individual, Giordano Orsini Duke of Bracciano, became enamoured +of Vittoria Accoramboni, wife of Francesco Peretti, Sixtus V.'s +nephew. Vittoria was beautiful fascinating and unscrupulous, and +Giordano, no less unscrupulous, did not hesitate to rid himself of the +obstacles to his desires. His own wife he strangled in his castle at +Bracciano, and Francesco was set upon and murdered in the streets of +Rome by his orders and with the connivance of Vittoria and her +brother. Orsini and Vittoria were married, but their union was of +short duration. Sixtus V. had been meanwhile elected to the papacy, +and he lost no time in disgracing and banishing Giordano whose end in +exile is shrouded in mystery. Vittoria was shortly afterwards +surprised and brutally killed by her husband's relatives for the sake +of the Orsini inheritance. + +The Orsini estates were at Bracciano, Anguillara, and Galera, but the +Bracciano property with the ducal title that went with it now belongs +to the Odescalchi. In Rome the Orsini still own and inhabit their +great palace near the portico of Octavia. It was designed by +Baldassare Peruzzi and was built within the ruins of the theatre of +Marcellus, the high ground upon which it stands being merely a heap of +fallen debris. It is approached through a gateway flanked by stone +bears, the emblem of the Orsini race. + +Another mediaeval family, the Gaetani or Caetani, Dukes of Sermoneta +and Princes of Caserta and Teano, is of Neapolitan origin. One of its +members became pope as Gelasius II. in 1118 and the first of the name +was military prefect under Manfred, King of Sicily, but the close +union of this family with Rome only dates from the reign of the +Gaetani pope, Boniface VIII. It was at this period also that the tomb +of Cecilia Metella on the Appian Way was disguised with turrets and +battlements to serve the Gaetani as an outlying stronghold against +their enemies. + +Of all the princely names which figure in the records of mediaeval +Rome, none can claim a more venerable antiquity than the Annibaldi, +the Massimo, and the Cenci. The first, of the race of the great +Hannibal, are no longer extant. The Massimi, who derive their name +from the ancient family of Maximus, are Dukes of Rignano, Princes of +Roviano, and heirs to many other titles; they are still amongst the +greatest of Rome. The present prince lives in the family palace in the +Corso Vittorio Emanuele familiar to every tourist from its curved +facade and rows of columns, and still keeps up much of the princely +state and ceremony of a past age. The Cenci have become extinct in the +male line and the name is carried on by a distant branch as +Cenci-Bolognetti. + +This family is first heard of in the person of Marcus Cencius, Prefect +of Pisa in the year 457 of Rome; and in 914 Johannes Cencius was +elected Pope as John X. In 1692 the Cenci were created Princes of +Vicovaro, a little mountain town in the Sabines, and in 1723 they +acquired the title and estates of Bolognetti by the marriage of +Virginius with an heiress of that name. With her came into the family +the dower-house, the graceful Palazzo Bolognetti-Cenci still standing +in the Piazza Pantaleone. The Bolognetti palace in the Piazza di +Venezia was sold to Prince Torlonia, and has just been destroyed to +make way for the colossal monument to Victor Emmanuel which is to +preside over Rome from the Capitol hill. The old Cenci palace, a few +years ago empty and deserted, but now government property, stands in +what was once the Jews' quarter of Rome, a forbidding pile eloquent of +its owner's tragic history. The family chapel close to it, San Tommaso +a' Cenci, dates from 1113 and was built by a Cenci who was Bishop of +Sabina at that time. + +As these old families, "pure Romans of Rome," have died out, their +place has been taken by the aristocracy of papal origin, and though as +a rule natives of northern provinces, these newcomers have become +Roman in sympathies and have inherited the privileges and traditions +of the Roman patrician. Not only did each new pope bring his own +relatives to Rome in his train and grant them titles, but he also +gathered round him followers from his own province among whom he +distributed the great papal offices. Sometimes the period of greatness +thus bestowed was short-lived, in other cases a permanent aristocracy +was created and the papal offices became hereditary. Thus the Ruspoli +from father to son are Masters of the Sacred Hospice; the Colonna are +Assistant Princes; the Serlupi are Marshals of the Pope's Horse; the +Sforza have the hereditary right to appoint the standard-bearer of the +Roman people; the Chigi are Marshals of Conclave, replacing the +Savelli in this office who had held it for nearly five centuries. + +Some of these families were nobles in their own province. The +Boncompagni were a noble family of Bologna. Coming to Rome with +Gregory XIII. in 1572, they were created Dukes of Sora and later +Princes of Piombino and of Venosa. + + [Illustration: MEDIAEVAL HOUSE AT TIVOLI] + +The Ludovisi were nobles of Pisa, the Borghese patricians of Siena. +This great family came to Rome with Paul V. in the early seventeenth +century, and was granted princely rank with the title of Sulmona. In +the middle of the eighteenth century, Marc' Antonio Borghese +married a Salviati heiress and at that period was owner of the +beautiful Villa Borghese with its museum and priceless collection of +statues, of the great palace by the Tiber, of the villas Mondragone +and Aldobrandini at Frascati, and of thirty-six estates in the +campagna, building and endowing at the same period the rich Borghese +chapel in S. Maria Maggiore. At a later date, Camillo Borghese married +Pauline Bonaparte and was appointed governor of Piedmont by Napoleon +I. Of late years this family has been almost ruined by reckless +building speculations, and the greater portion of their magnificent +possessions has been sold and alienated. The Aldobrandini and Salviati +are both off-shoots from this family. + +The Barberini and Corsini are Florentines, and came to Rome with Urban +VIII. and Clement XII. The Barberini villa at Castel Gandolfo and the +palace in Rome are familiar to all visitors. The grounds of the +Corsini villa on the Janiculum have been recently converted into a +public drive; the Corsini palace in Trastevere on the river bank is +famous for its library and picture galleries. Opposite to it is the +Farnesina palace built in the sixteenth century by the rich banker +Agostino Chigi. Here it was that he gave a famous banquet and, +desiring to make a display of his enormous wealth, bade his lackeys +throw the silver dishes into the river at the end of each course under +the eyes of his astonished guests who did not guess that nets had been +cunningly laid to catch them as they sank. + +The Albani kinsmen of Clement XI. came from Urbino; the Rospigliosi +from Pistoja with Clement IX.; the Odescalchi from Como with Innocent +XI.; the Doria Pamphili from Genoa. + +This papal aristocracy occupied a unique position. Relatives of popes, +who were at the same time reigning princes, they assumed royal rank +and lived with a magnificence and luxury unsurpassed in Europe. In +addition to the titles of Roman nobility bestowed upon them with a +lavish hand, many of them became grandees of Spain and their names +were inscribed in the "golden book" of the Capitol. + +They bought country estates and suburban villas and built great +palaces in the town. These stately Renaissance buildings, some of them +larger than many royal dwellings, are grouped at the base of the +Capitol and along the Corso, the most important and at one period the +only great street in Rome. The Palazzo di Venezia, the home of the +Venetian Paul II., the Altieri, the Grazioli, and the Bonaparte +palaces, the latter originally the property of the Rinuccini, stand, a +stately group, on the Piazza di Venezia and the Via del Plebiscito. +The series is continued along the Piazza dei SS. Apostoli with the +Colonna, the Balestra, the Odescalchi, and the Ruffo palaces. + +Greatest among those in the Corso is the Palazzo Doria Pamphili. Here +also are the Ruspoli, Fiano, Chigi, Sciarra, Salviati, Ferraioli, and +Theodoli palaces, and before its demolition to enlarge the Piazza +Colonna, the Piombino. The Costaguti in the Piazza Tartaruga, the +Antici-Mattei, the Longhi and the Gaetani palaces, the latter in the +_Via delle Botteghe Oscure_, "the street of dark shops," are grouped +at the foot of a further slope of the Capitol. More to the west, stand +the huge Farnese palace the present seat of the French embassy and the +Cancelleria built by Cardinal Riario nephew of Sixtus IV. and still +papal property. The Simonetti and Falconieri palaces are built upon +the banks of the Tiber close by, and face Via Giulia. + +Latest of all the great papal families to settle in Rome were the +Braschi, Pius VI.'s kinsmen, and they built a palace in the Piazza +Navona. Not far off are the Patrizi and Giustiniani palaces near the +French church of San Luigi in the street of the same name. The +Giustiniani are Earls of Newburgh in the peerage of Scotland through +the marriage in 1757 of the heiress of the title and estates to the +Prince Giustiniani of that date. + +Great was the opulence and magnificence of the Roman princes. When +they issued forth into the city they were attended by mounted grooms +with staves while running footmen cleared a way before them. An army +of servants waited upon their needs, their stables were filled with +horses, and their coaches were wonderful equipages of gilding glass +and painting, costing thousands of francs. Powdered flunkeys in silk +stockings stood behind on the foot board, three on a prince's coach, +two on a cardinal's. One of these men carried an umbrella and a +cushion. For if during his drive the prince chanced to meet his +Holiness the Pope or a religious procession in which the Host was +carried, he would instantly stop his coach, and alighting would kneel +upon the ground, the cushion being placed by his servants under his +knees and the umbrella held over his bared head to protect it from the +sun. + +Many of the Roman nobles had private theatres in their houses; they +were great collectors of books, bronzes, tapestries, and mosaics, and +the Roman private galleries of pictures and statues are unsurpassed. +The Borghese alone possessed four Raphaels as well as their famous +collection of statues. At the same time they were generous to the city +of their adoption. They threw open their beautiful parks and villas to +the people, they admitted the public to their galleries museums and +libraries, and they endowed hospitals asylums and orphanages. The +Roman ladies had always patronised and promoted works of charity. +Nevertheless the later custom, which persists to this day, of +personally visiting the poor and the hospitals began with Gwendoline +Talbot, the daughter of the last Catholic Earl of Shrewsbury, who as +the wife of Prince Borghese was the first of the Roman ladies to walk +alone at all hours, intent on her errands of mercy. The wit which made +her present a gold coin to a man who on one occasion followed her, was +the talk of the city. Her name is still a household word in Roman +mouths, and her tragic death when only twenty-four years old, leaving +four little children, one only of whom, the present Princess Piombino, +survived the infection which killed their mother, moved an entire +population. + + [Illustration: ILEX AVENUE AND FOUNTAIN (_Fontana scura_), VILLA + BORGHESE] + +Many of the Roman palaces are as big as barracks. The Palazzo +Pamphili-Doria can accommodate a thousand persons; but this was none +too large for a patriarchal style of living which in a modified form +survives to the present day. Much space was taken up by the great +libraries, museums, picture galleries and reception and state +banqueting halls. A small army of officials were housed within the +walls--steward, bailiff, major-domo, secretaries, accountants, all the +underlings necessary to the management of great and distant estates. A +wing would be set entirely apart for the Prince Cardinal, a cadet of +the house; the domestic chaplain would require a set of rooms; he +would say the daily mass in the private chapel of the palace but would +not dine with the family. The sons of the house would require tutors, +the daughters governesses and companions. + +The great double gates of every Roman palace which are securely locked +and barred at night, lead into a central court. Round it are open +colonnades, sometimes in two stories, and in the centre a fountain +splashes amidst ferns and palms. A porter presides over the palace +gates, magnificent in a cocked hat knee breeches and long coat trimmed +with coloured braid into which are worked the heraldic devices of the +family. His rod of office is a long staff twisted with cord and +crowned with an immense silver knob. This personage is the descendant +of the janitor who in ancient Rome watched the house door day and +night and whose fidelity was ensured when necessary by chaining him to +his post. + +A grand staircase leads to the first floor and this, the _piano +nobile_, was and still is occupied in Roman houses by the head of the +family whose rule is more or less absolute and tyrannical. The second +floor is given up to the eldest son upon his marriage for his own use, +and similarly the second son is given the one above, while beneath the +roof accommodation is found for an immense retinue of servants and +attendants. It is still the custom for the whole family, married sons +and their families included, to dine together, and elaborate accounts +are kept of the allowances given to each son, of the quota contributed +by each to the general expenses, of the dowry of each daughter-in-law, +as to whether she is enjoying the number of dishes of meat per meal +and the number of horses and carriages stipulated for in her marriage +settlement. In the case of an English wife, a carpet used to be among +the stipulations. + +Though the state coaches, the running footmen, much of the pomp and +ceremony have disappeared, some curious relics remain of an order of +things fast passing away. Every Roman prince has the right, should he +wish it, to be received at the foot of the great staircase of any +house he honours with his presence by two lackeys bearing lighted +torches; and these should escort him to the threshold of his hostess's +reception room. This ceremony is still observed for cardinals on state +occasions. + +Again every prince has the right to, and in fact still has, a throne +room and throne in his palace. This is not for his own use, but for +that of the Pope should he elect to pay him a visit. In the hall of a +Roman palace a shield emblazoned with the family arms may be seen +affixed to the wall. In a prince's house it will be surmounted by a +canopy, beside it should stand the historic umbrella and cushion. Four +marquesses and these only the marquesses Patrizi, Theodoli, Costaguti +and Cavalieri enjoy the princes' right to the canopy above their +shield and are hence called the _marchesi di baldacchino_. + +A good deal of natural confusion exists in the mind of the foreigner +with regard to the different ranks and the distribution of titles in +the Italian peerage. These in fact follow no general rule but depend +in each case upon the patent of creation. Princely titles conferred by +the Holy Roman Empire affect every member of the family equally; +titles conferred by the Pope, on the other hand, are as a rule +restricted to the head of the family only. Thus in the Colonna family +every member is a prince or princess; amongst the Ruspoli, a papal +creation, only the head of the eldest branch is legally a prince. In +these latter cases however it is usual to give the eldest son one of +the other family titles upon his marriage, and the same with the +second son. Such an act is in the father's option, but he is obliged +to notify the assumption of the title to the civil authorities. In the +same way a certain amount of latitude is allowed him as to the title +he uses himself or grants to his sons. Prince Gaetani, for example, +prefers to be known by the older title in his family, that of Duke of +Sermoneta, bestowing that of Prince di Caserta upon his eldest son. +The titles _Don_ and _Donna_ are only correct for the sons and +daughters of princes and of the four _marchesi di baldacchino_, though +they are often used for all the children of marquesses. + +In the same way, the distribution of the other titles of Marquess, +Count or Baron amongst the various members of the family depends upon +the terms of the original patent. In some cases every member bears the +title, in others the head of the family only. Collaterals of a house +often take the style _Giovanni dei Principi N----_, or _dei Conti +N----_ as the case might be; "John of the Princes So-and-so," or "of +the Counts So-and-so." + +The distinction again between the patrician and the noble is one that +is not understood by the foreigner. A patrician belongs by ancestral +prescriptive right to the governing class of his province. The names +of the patricians are balloted annually, and one of the number is +chosen as Prior or Governor of the province. He is in fact and history +of senatorial rank. Among the districts of Italy some have and some +have not a patriciate. Spoleto possesses one, but Todi, next to it, +has never had one. + +In Rome the patrician families are called "_Coscritti_" in allusion to +the _Patres conscripti_ or senators of the city. Their number was +limited and defined by a constitution of Benedict XIV. but later popes +have added new names. There are now sixty patrician families. + + [Illustration: "HOUSE OF COLA DI RIENZO," BY PONTE ROTTO + + The architecture of this supposed dwelling of the last of the Roman + Tribunes is a _bizarre_ mixture of styles and epochs. It has been + suggested that a series of initial letters which surmount a doggerel + inscription are those of the many titles which Rienzo bestowed upon + himself. The people know the house as that "of Pontius Pilate."] + +The nobles, on the other hand, often owed their titles not only to the +Pope but to their respective Communes, which, until the one fount +of honour was defined to be the sovereign, frequently bestowed titles +on their citizens. This privilege was enjoyed by the abbots of Monte +Cassino in the thirteenth century. The popes have always conferred +titles of nobility, as did the Holy Roman Empire, whose heir in this +matter the Pope claims to be. At present an Heraldic Commission is +sitting in Rome to regulate the use of titles, many of which have been +assumed for generations without any warrant. Henceforth every one will +be called upon to prove his right to the title he bears, and it will +be illegal for the Communes to describe any one who has not done so +with "a handle to his name." Foreign titles, and among them papal +titles, will in all cases have to be ratified and allowed by the +sovereign of Italy. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +ROMAN RELIGION + + +When we think of Rome as the cradle of more than one civilisation, we +should also recollect that the Roman has matured two great religions: +the religion of ancient Rome and the religion of Western Christendom. +Not that we can think of the Roman as a religious people, in the sense +in which the Asiatic has always been and remains to this day +religious, the sense in which the Hebrew or the sense in which the +Egyptian was religious. The Roman never had either the imaginative +philosophy which produced the religion of Greece, nor the metaphysical +mysticism which made the Hindu faiths. He had in fact in common with +the Hebrew, whom he was so totally unlike, a complete absence of the +metaphysical temper, of mysticism, of asceticism; and like the Hebrew +he did not apply any richness of imagination to religion. What he had +was a genius for bringing the other world to the support of this, and +what he created was the conception of religion as _piety to the +State_; and it is in this form that it survives in the sympathies and +the sentiment of the Roman people. In the pagan world this State was +secular, in the Christian world this State is the Catholic Church; +but in both cases the spiritual came to the support of the +temporal--ancient Rome deified the State by making it the subject of +the Roman piety; Christian Rome moulded religion into a citizenship, +and the Church became a _civitas_. _Civis romanus sum_, "I am a Roman +citizen," has never ceased to be the all-embracing formula of Roman +orthodoxy. + +The original Roman theogony was Etruscan. Behind the veil were the +three great gods, the shrouded gods, answering to the Jove, Juno, and +Minerva (_Menerva_) of later times. Round them were their "Senate," +the twelve gods and goddesses known to the Romans as the _Dii +Consentes_; and everywhere was the great Latin cult of Vesta, the cult +of the hearth. But when Rome was built its first king made of these +elements the Roman religion: Numa as a matter of fact appears to have +been the Roman Moses, and to have led his people forth not to the +worship of their one tribal god who was above all gods, God and Lord, +the unique divine realisation of the Hebrew people, to become the root +of the monotheism of the Western world, but to the worship of a unit +which made of the State the family, of the commonwealth the family's +hearth. It was, perhaps, his genius which made the hearth-divinity +preside over the little polity and confuse and identify for ever the +pieties of the home with the pieties of citizenship. It is these two +elements--the theological unit of Judaea and the political unit of +Latium--which meeting in Rome in the age of Claudius created the +religion of the West. Not once but twice had the Romans come and +wrested the sceptre from Judaea; under Titus, and again in the Roman +organisation of Christianity _venerunt Romani et tulerunt eorum locum +et gentem_. + +We see then that the Roman religion was never a great imaginative +creation, but was always a great statecraft, and that Roman religion +began to be Roman statecraft when Numa identified the affections and +the piety of the hearth with the affections and the piety of the _res +publica_, and made the State the social unit. The original ingredients +of Roman religion however had nothing to do with statecraft; they were +the ingredients of nature worship, the ingredients brought by a +pastoral people. At the source was a reverence for natural things; and +old Latin paganism had the peace which belongs to the pastoral life, +and to the religion which is founded on the careful observance of +potent rites disturbed as yet by no speculative questionings. But it +was not free of the gloom of nature-worship--the obverse side of +nature-cult--fearful, suspicious, weighted with destiny, as one +imagines the religion of Etruria to have been. + + [Illustration: SAN CLEMENTE, CHOIR AND TRIBUNE OF UPPER CHURCH + + The present twelfth-century building was erected over a much more + ancient church, and the site was probably one of the earliest + meeting-places of the Christians and may have been that of the house + of Clement (the fourth pope) as tradition affirms. A temple and + altar to Mithras was found below the lower church. The ancient choir + is in very perfect preservation, and its screen, removed from the + lower church, is of the sixth century, with portions even of the + fourth. See pages 35-36, 183, 186-7.] + +It is much later in its history that Rome was captivated by Greek +religion and transferred to its crude impersonal gods the brilliant +divine personifications of an imaginative people. The Latin had never +been familiar with his gods, perhaps because they always remained +impersonal abstractions, gods who did not use human speech, but whose +language was the lightning-bolt of Jupiter and the wave-lashing triad +of Neptune. Into what had really always been impersonal, the Greek +came infusing warm human life, making the gods speak the language of +men, and inviting men to speak to them in their own tongue. Greek +religion was subtler, more individual, freer, more joyous than Latin. +The pious customs which constituted the earlier Latin religion had +begotten a sense of obligation in the worshipper, but it was +conscience as the response to an external stimulus; and the peace it +brought was a formal peace, _ex opere operato_, not a peace brought +home to the individual conscience face to face with the Divine. It is +because conscience implies more of individualism than ever entered +into Roman religion that Roman religion has always remained without +it. It was only in the jaded period of the later empire that the +Romans turned altogether from the simple, natural, large elements of +the religion of their soil to the fantastic, emotional, and complex +cults of Isis and Mithras. The simple religion of the field and the +hearth, of natural law, of orderliness and decorum, of a piety +provoking and sustaining a sense of _what was owed_ to the gods, to +the dead, to that State which incarnated the religion of the gods, +fell away on the eve of Christianity before the foreign novelties of +Greece and Egypt, better suited to the luxuriousness of mind and the +growing introspection of a people who had undergone the influence of +Greek thought as something indeed always alien to their nature, yet +necessary to their place in the world. + +When Peter's successors planted a Judaic sect on the ruins of this +paganism they had only to follow the genius of Numa's religion in the +creation of the Catholic Church--the _civitas Dei_. Here, we may feel, +an essential element of the new religion--the idea of the Kingdom of +God--came naturally to supplant the older State religion; and the +conception of the nation as a family was eminently germane to the +fraternal maxims which grouped round the idea of the _ecclesia_. But +old Rome as it had not stopped to inquire concerning small things, so +it had never penetrated to interior things, and the Kingdom of God +translated into the language of Rome lost in the process all its +interior characters. What was delicate and subtle had never entered +into Roman religion, but neither had what was petty, extravagant, or +indecorous. Religion was no delicate aroma, but a concrete duty; not +an individual choice, nor an individual necessity, nor an individual +attraction, but a public rite, a public piety, a public decorum: and +these characteristics, as we shall see, inhere in Roman religion +to-day. + +It is in its liturgy that the mind, or if one may call it so, the +temperament of the Roman Church found an ample and worthy expression; +and it is in what it lacked as much as in what it put forward that the +genius of the Roman rite is seen to differ entirely from that which +presided at the making of the mass in every other part of Christendom. +The effusion the imagery and the gracious parts added from Gaul, the +mysticism of the Oriental, the philosophy of Greece, the Northern +inwardness and intimacy, contributed nothing to it. Like Roman +religion itself it was not a creation of the imagination or the +intellect, nor the outcome of devotional sentiment; it was the +creation of the Christian polity clothing its religious data, its +religious certitudes, in a becoming garment--giving them a form, +expression, a public characterisation. If there was no effusion there +was largeness; in place of tenderness there was disengaged from the +formal stately public act a perfect liberty of spirit. All through it +was the public act itself which justified and consecrated, which was +the sanction of the reality the criterion of the fitness of worship. +Here besides, _sacramenta_ were not mere signs nor _symbola_ mere +figures--they were stately vehicles of universal realities, always and +everywhere adequate, worthy, co-ordinating, effectual. Roman ritual +was quite bare of those things which in England and France are thought +ritualistic; its only ritual consisted in the so-called "manual acts," +that is, in the things which had to be done; those very things which +the Eastern Church removed from the sight of the congregation, +creating a "ritual" as a superfluous symbolism to engage the attention +of the people. But the Roman dealt in real things, not imagery; +nakedly setting forth his _sancta_ in the dry light of a realism which +had no reticence joined to a great reticence of the emotions. This was +the temperament of all Roman religion, pagan and Christian, a +persistent rejection of all that could be described as unctuous, a +setting forth of worship as a great public piety which justified +itself. Unlike the Greek whose god must be behind a curtain, the Roman +required the divine to be recognised, always and everywhere, in the +_res publica_, in the act which had public sanction, public +significance, public utility. The deacons came to the holy table +bearing a cloth; one stood at one end and threw the roll across to the +deacon at the other end; the oblations of the people were manipulated +before the assembly; the wine collected in small phials is poured into +a large chalice, repoured into a bowl; the pontiff collects the +oblation bread, so do the priests, while acolytes stand at the side +holding cloths to receive it; and the same things, not rites but +familiar usages, are repeated at the Communion, when bishop and +deacons again pour, mix, distribute, wash and put away the holy things +and the sacred vessels in the presence and with the assistance of the +people of God. Here was nothing "common or unclean"; it was the wisdom +of Roman ritual justified of her children. + + [Illustration: SANTA MARIA IN COSMEDIN + + A very early Christian basilica, in the historic part of Rome by + Ponte Rotto and the round temple of Hercules, and on the site of the + temple of Ceres and Proserpine. In the sixth century it is + enumerated among diaconal churches. It belonged to the Greek colony + in this quarter, and its name is derived from the word _kosmos_. + Pavement, ambones, choir, and canopy are of the twelfth century. It + has been recently restored to its ancient basilica form, and its + many closed windows have been reopened. See pages 28, 31, 35-36, + 186.] + +It will be seen at once how widely different was such a conception of +worship from that elaborated in the East or which we owe to the vague +awe, the dreadful sense of mystery, of the middle age. If we compare +the Roman basilica with a Greek or Gothic church this difference is +immediately sensible. The former owed nothing to mystery, to dimness. +The celebrant faced the people, as he still faces them in all true +basilicas; he did not turn his back on them. No early building, +indeed, was flooded with light while glazing was in a crude state and +wind and weather had to be kept at bay; but the Christian basilica was +not darker than other buildings, there was no religious twilight. And +as we see it to-day, in _Santa Sabina_, _Santa Maria in Cosmedin_, +_Santa Maria in Domnica_, _SS. Nereo e Achilleo_, _Santa Maria +Maggiore_, or in the ruined basilicas of _Santa Domitilla_ and _San +Stefano_, so it was centuries ago--flooding the mysteries with what +light there was because it was the church of a people who cared for no +mysteries which could not bear the light. Nevertheless, the simple +realism of the Roman ritual by no means meant, for him who could see, +the absence of mysticity. Rather it recalled one to the suggestive and +sane mysticity which inheres in all common things, in all common uses. +Whether the somewhat rugged Roman, with his inattention to small +matters and to the unobvious, saw the mysticity of the early Christian +service and the early Christian basilica, may be doubted; but though +it is certain he had not set himself to create this mysticity it is +equally certain that he could not banish it from his churches. + +Italian religion is not the same thing as Roman religion. Rome has not +been "the most religious city in the world" because it felt religion +more than those nations and provinces whose religious character +differed so profoundly from its own, but because it was able to +institute it on a scale as universal as its own imperialism. The +Neapolitan has the superstition and poetry, the emotional +impressionism, of the genuine South; but such a repulsive scene as the +peasant, upheld by his friends, licking his way to the altar along the +filthy church floor could not be witnessed in Rome. It would be +difficult to imagine a Roman wishing to be exorcised after putting his +head into the English or American church to see the stained glass +windows. The "Roman of Rome" leaves such things together with the +swallowing of pious-text pills to the unrestrained fervour of some of +our English Catholics. The Roman has less religious passion and also +much less abandonment to the external than the Southerner or even the +Englishman. Rome has had--with one illustrious exception--no great +saints since the sixth century; she has been evangelised by saintly +visitors from Sweden, from Tuscany, from Siena, as the primitive +Church had been edified by the itinerant Gospel visitors called +"prophets." From Lombardy, Venice and Umbria, from Parma, Ancona, +Florence, Pisa, Naples and the Abruzzi, saints, seers, missioners, +mystics, reformers, have brought her their message: but the terrible +proverb _Roma veduta fede perduta_ records the impression she has +often made on visitors less elect than these. Not Rome but Venice +counts as the "devout city" of Italy, and the well-known story of the +Jew who became a Christian on the ground that no religion could have +survived Roman corruption unless it were divine, was told me in Rome +by a prelate as an encouraging episode. + +It was said by Matthew Arnold that the Latin people never cared enough +for Christianity to reform it; they never thought it worth while, it +is true, to break with the Church to find Christianity. The Italian, +moreover, had none of the things which made the Puritan--not his +fierce dogmatism, the Judaic strain of his piety, his dread of the +external, his contentment with doctrinal formulas. Joined to an +indubitable attachment to Catholicism--the magic of which inspired +the art even of men who did not believe it--the Italian had also too +keen an intuition of the real religious issues (as we understand them +to-day) to exchange ecclesiastical tradition for biblical dogmatism. +Christianity was for him much more of a self-justifying religious +tradition and much less of a dogmatism than it was for the Protestant. +The Christianity which the Italian would have liked was the +Christianity of S. Francis, familiar, meek, tolerant, a genuine +discipleship; and it did not irk him to add to this the forms of +Catholicism. Like the Reformers, the Italian of the sixteenth century +knew little of Church history, but his instinct was on the side of +reintegration rather than disintegration of the religious forces +enshrining the Christian revelation. The earlier Italian religious +movements were almost entirely, like that of the seraphic _frate_, on +the side of informing historical Christianity with the new spirit of +Christ. A great horror of the ways of Rome, never echoed by the +Romans, did, nevertheless, penetrate religious Italy, and few people +realise that it was among the Franciscans not among the Reformers that +papal Rome was first branded as the "scarlet woman," the unclean +Babylon of the Apocalypse. + +Has Protestantism the evangelic marks which the Italian, consciously +or unconsciously, lays down for Christianity, and what chance would it +have in Italy? It will bear repeating that the Puritan's definition of +Christianity would never at any time have found acceptance with the +Italian; he never could have cared for reform in doctrine and +discipline which did not necessarily, did not primarily, involve a +real evangelic reform. When one remembers how very little +Protestantism was, in its inception, on the side of dogmatic freedom, +and that it put a theological formula before all other matters of the +law, one may admit that the Italian though he did not reform may yet +have loved true Christianity. In the next place the intense +individualism of Protestant worship is distasteful to the Italian who, +as we have already realised, does not ask or require that +subordination of the society to the individual which religious +subdivisions imply, and he would always be repelled by the phenomena +of revivalism. It is instructive for us to realise that such things +are stigmatised as "buffoonery" by the Italians, whose own elaborate +ritual often appears to suggest that description to the Protestant. In +the third place, he dislikes the _reclame_ of Protestantism, its +self-advertisement, the distribution of tracts at church doors and in +the public streets. To his mind no religion worthy of the name can +have need of such support. The Sister of Charity and the _frate_, +indeed, appear familiarly among them in their strange dress, not as +they, yet part of themselves, reminding the people of the great ideals +of their religion, tracts in their own persons but making no +_reclame_. + + [Illustration: CHAPEL OF SAN ZENO (called _orto del paradiso_) IN S. + PRASSEDE + + This mosaic chapel was erected by Paschal I. in 822. Its great + beauty gave it the name of "Garden of Paradise." The church is near + the house of Pudens, and is dedicated to Praxedis his daughter. See + pages 45, 46, 240.] + +Indeed the way in which all external expression is regarded by the +Italian differs radically from the way in which it presents itself to +the Anglo-Saxon and the Teuton. Wagner declared that as soon as the +German is called on to be artistic he becomes a buffoon. We in +England, also, do not know how to express ourselves by means of +external symbols; but the Italian experiences no such difficulty. We +are not at home with them; he is. If we use them we exaggerate, he +gives them their true proportion and place. He can always be taught by +his senses, and he is not, as we are, deluded by them. We, in fine, do +not know what to do with the external, he does. His sense of humour is +active just where the Englishman's is quiescent; he is not capable, +for example, of laying store by this or that little bit of ceremony. +The evangelicalism of the Italian, therefore, which one hopes he may +some day achieve, will be unlike Anglo-Saxon Christianity--as the +catacombs are unlike a "Little Bethel"--he will always require +gracious surroundings, he will always ask for the arts to assist his +imagination, and prefer fine music, and even the perfume of incense, +to the bids for his soul made by the preacher. That is his reticence, +and as it differs from the Anglo-Saxon's the latter does not +understand it. The Italian will always best respond to a service +conceived in the spirit of the mass, with its mystical renewal enacted +before his eyes, at once exterior and interior, public and intimate; +but with no individualistic note, no dependence on the personal +element. + +The visitor to Rome must be struck with the fact that the Italians are +a more religious people than we. They take more trouble about it. +Every morning, day after day, in scores of churches people are going +in and out of the heavy leathern door hangings, up and down the steps +of the facades; such a spectacle as the visit to the sepulchres on +Holy Thursday could not be witnessed in England from one year's end to +another. At the street corners, on the stairs, in the shops and the +porters' lodges, oil lamps burn before images and shrines; and the +deepest curse in the Italian vocabulary is to say _La mala Pasqua_--"a +bad Easter to you." "In all things I perceive that ye are somewhat +superstitious," said S. Paul, taking as the pretext of his appeal to +the Athenians the trouble and care which he saw everywhere bestowed on +the unseen world and the claims of worship: and he could make the same +appeal to the Romans to-day with perhaps a greater chance of +converting them than the missionary from America. For there is no +"provincialism" in Italian religion; the Sunday joys of discussing the +anthem, the sermon, the preacher, the details of the service and the +congregation, the half mystical half sentimental joy of chewing the +cud of sacred things which is so Northern, offer no attractions to the +man of the South. He has endless time in the South but no long +twilights. In religion as elsewhere the Roman harbours no illusions. +The things--petty or precious--which are possible to a people who can +maintain illusions, and have no inconvenient quickness of mind, are +not to be expected from him. Chadbands in Rome would have no success +and no dupes; and your transcendental emotional sentiments about the +Pope are perhaps as little understood as your rejection of him. The +Roman dreads death, and he refers to the anointing oil as "_quella +cosa piu peggio del viatico_"--"that thing which is still worse +than the Viaticum." He lives familiarly with his religion and in a +sort of child-like simplicity; yet he is sceptical, and we are not, he +has no talent for meditative devotion, and we have. + + [Illustration: CLOISTERS OF S. PAUL'S-WITHOUT-THE-WALLS + + Erected between 1193 and 1208. The most beautiful cloisters in Rome. + See interleaf, page 158, and page 36.] + +Again, the "respectability" of English Church religion would be as +little tolerated as the _reclame_ of sheer Protestantism. There is +absolutely nothing answering in the Italian temperament to that pride +and pleasure in the respectability of church and chapel going which is +so potent a factor in England. The sects which proselytise in Rome are +the American Methodists, Baptists, and Wesleyans; many of the better +educated preferring to all these the native Waldensian Church. One of +the chief attractions of what I have called sheer Protestantism lies +in its familiarity as compared with the stiff and terrible +"respectability" of the English Church. But this is precisely where +Italian Catholicism has itself never failed, and the Catholic in Italy +is already accustomed to familiar and simple relations with priest +monk and friar--to a complete democracy of sentiment. I was recently +motioned to a vacant seat by a dignified French ecclesiastic who was +giving out the usual notices from the altar after the Gospel of the +mass; a Latin priest will notify the congregation by a gesture when he +is about to preach and they can sit down; even an English Catholic +priest I know of turns to the people before beginning the Christmas +midnight mass to wish them and theirs a happy and blessed festival. +These fraternal familiarities do not lack in the Nonconformist +chapels, but they would most certainly be deemed out of place and not +quite decorous in the English Church. Latin simplicity and human +interest, the brotherhood of class, oppose themselves here to English +self-consciousness, English inflexibility, the Puritan sense of +propriety; and no one can have lived in Italy without seeing instances +multiplied in all ranks of the clergy of that familiarity without loss +of dignity to which we have not the key. Another thing little +understood in England is that the Italian is not "priest-ridden"; he +does not depend upon or run after the priest, and the attitude which +the priest in Ireland and the minister in Scotland have been able to +assume towards the people would never have been possible in Italy. The +Roman, more especially, has never ceased to let his satire play upon +popes and cardinals, and has known how to do so without scorning dogma +and discipline. The _bigotte_ is not an Italian type; and is disliked +and distrusted, in either sex, when met. The Roman peasant trudging +into the city on Sunday morning halts at the big church of S. Paul in +the Via Nazionale, enters, and walks up to the top. A verger at once +points out to him his place in the house of God--for this is the +American Episcopal church--and he returns to the door: he was +uncertain about the church but he is quite certain now, this is not +Latin Christianity. But if the Italian comes to London another +surprise is in store for him; he goes to the Catholic church and finds +he must take a ticket for his footing there--and, often, he goes no +more, he has not sufficient threepences and sixpences; he does not +mind being poor but he does not think it very fitting to label you +from the start as a threepenny Catholic or a six-penny Catholic. + +These things show that certain qualities of Italian Catholicism--its +familiarity, its independence (for the Italian has greater liberty of +spirit though the Anglo-Saxon has greater liberty of conscience)--are +the outcome of the Latin spirit and can only be enjoyed where this has +sway. It has most influence in Italy and least in Germany. In the city +which inherits the sour persecuting spirit of Westphalia, for example, +Catholicism is a very different thing from what it is in the land of +its birth. There the faithful are a regiment--human automata--standing +up and kneeling down with the uniformity of clockwork; every one who +enters is suspected, every one who stands at the door creates scandal, +the priests are quaestors and their vergers are lictors. Such things +certainly have their compensations for the Teutonic and even the +Anglo-Saxon mind--but how different they are from the tolerant liberty +of the _domus Dei_ in Italy which is, by the same title, the house of +the people, with all that familiarity of spirit loved by S. Francis, +that utter freedom from self-righteousness! Twice in the course of +twelve years, in my personal knowledge, visitors to Cologne Cathedral, +in both cases women and Catholics, were assaulted by the beadle in +charge and hustled by physical force out of the building, their +innocent desire having been to enter the chapel where they supposed +the reserved Sacrament to be. The Englishman is no bully, and he does +not easily feel that desire to assault which possesses the Teutonic +official; moreover if there is one thing he understands it is +political liberty--but I may venture on a rough guess that the vergers +of some of our cathedrals--S. Paul's not excepted--have the making of +a Cologne beadle in their souls. + +The question of racial religious characteristics apparently resolves +itself into one of compensations. For those who think that Catholicism +decorated with the notes of Puritanism, with the sour Teutonic or the +dour Spanish accompaniments to religion, or with the florid +sentimentalism of the Gaul, loses its birthright, Italian Catholicism +will always retain its primacy: but they must bid good-bye in Italy to +memories of religious recollection and mysticity, to the beauties and +sedateness possible among an interior people who are not wooed by the +senses; the beauty of holiness will have to be pictured through a mist +of dirt, ignorant superstition, and slovenliness, but not athwart the +haze of bigotry, cant, and self-gratulation. + + [Illustration: CLOISTERS IN SANTA SCHOLASTICA, SUBIACO + + One of the three cloisters in this Benedictine monastery; it was + built by Abbot Lando in 1235, and is decorated on the vault with + mosaic work by the Cosmati. See page 36, and interleaf, page 82.] + +The Roman skeleton of religion has been clothed upon by other races, +who have filled in, expanded, and added those things which fitted +Christianity for reception among more complex and introspective or +more devout natures; but in the eternal city itself, from the +catacombs to a solemn mass in S. Peter's, the religion of Latium and +the religion of imperial Rome have set their indelible seal on +Christianity. The familiar pastoral figure of Christ with his crook in +catacomb frescoes, carrying a pail, the milk of the Eucharist, has its +primitive counterpart in the shepherds' god Lupercus "driver away +of wolves," whose worship was celebrated in _Roma Quadrata_ by the +original settlers, clad in their goat skins, who offered him milk as a +libation. But he who said _Ego sum pastor bonus_ is gathering the +sheep (and the goats), not driving away the wolves, and he is giving +the food which is himself to them, not seeking it of them. The Person +of Christ had introduced as much of the intimate and personal as Roman +religion was capable of assimilating; but the moral implications of +this personality--after the first brilliant epoch of the planting of +the Faith, with its consciousness of the Person of Christ and its +realisation of the moral uses of the Eucharist--were never really +appropriated by Rome. Again, the master of ceremonies at papal mass +prompts the pontiff at each stage of the function as did his +predecessors for Antoninus Pius or Marcus Aurelius when they too +officiated as _pontifex maximus_. The very chairs of the bishops in +Rome (where no bishop save the pope or a cardinal in his titular +church sits on a throne) are the _curule_ chairs of the Roman +magistrates. Nay more mysterious still are the roots of sacred things +in Latin soil, for the Roman pontiffs were to adopt that Etruscan +pontifical system in which both civil and ecclesiastical functions +were vested in the _Lucomones_. Though Greek theology twice enriched +Latin religion, pagan and Christian, nowhere is religion less Greek +and more Roman than in Rome. It may be said to be the distinctive +feature of Christianity that it is a preaching religion; in France and +in England it is more a preaching religion than in Italy, but it is +least of all a preaching religion in Rome; and so it has always been. +There is no pulpit in the Roman basilica. In the eternal city as +elsewhere Christianity in its inception was a Jewish sect, it rose +there as elsewhere among the "Jews of the dispersion," and certain +Hebrew things, lections, chants, and exposition of the Scriptures, at +once took their place in its public worship. But Rome has, here also, +preserved less of the Judaic strain of piety than any other Christian +Church. The Roman has blotted out the Hebrew element. + +At the founts of the Roman and the Hebrew story we come indeed upon +one mysterious link--the history of each people begins in a +fratricide. As Cain slays Abel so Remus is slain by Romulus, but there +the likeness ends; there is no reproach in the Roman story--"the voice +of thy brother's blood" cries out through the whole course of Hebrew +history. + +The act of Romulus founded what was most precious to the Roman, his +Kingdom of God on earth--the Roman state, the Roman polity: the act of +Cain awoke what lay at the source of Jewish theocracy, the persuasion +of sin and of righteousness, the Kingdom based on the conscience. +Neither has ever been able to enter freely into the sentiment of the +other. Romulus is a hero, Cain is outcast humanity; but the temple to +Romulus still evokes more response in Rome than the moral +considerations connected with Abel. + + [Illustration: SANTA MARIA SOPRA MINERVA + + The Dominican church near the Pantheon, called "S. Mary above + Minerva" because it was erected upon Pompey's temple of the goddess, + was built by Florentines in the fourteenth century, and is the only + instance of pointed architecture in Rome. Its unlikeness to the + Roman basilica is manifest.] + +It is the _pax romana_, the peace of the Roman empire, which was +actually established as "the Peace of the Church." The peace, +juridical or religious, of a world which acknowledged the sway of +Rome. Without were barbarians and heretics, within was the _civis +romanus_. It was a peace consistent with all war save internecine, and +Rome, whether political or religious, created in the world it +conquered the ambition to live and die united to the greatest of +earthly entities--to live and die as catacomb epitaphs to orthodox +strangers dying in Rome record--_in pace_. The Roman citizenship +becomes the Catholic citizenship through the mediation of the Apostle +who could say "But I am a Roman born," while setting forth imperially +a Palestinian sect to the Gentile world. The stranger Roman citizen +who dies in Rome for Christ links two worlds with his blood, dedicates +that new _imperium_ where Rome may claim that all homage is paid _et +mihi et Petro_, confounds those two things which the master of the +Gospel "of the Kingdom" had set apart, the things of Caesar and the +things of God. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE ROMAN CARDINAL + + +What is a cardinal? In the early days of the Church in Rome the +presbyters and deacons of the city, the council and administrators of +its bishop, were considerable personages--indeed the bench of +presbyters had always been of great importance in the government of +the Church in Rome as elsewhere, as Jerome testifies, and the seven +deacons were even more conspicuous partly perhaps, as Jerome suggests, +because they were few and the presbyters were many, and partly because +the diaconate appears very early in Roman Church annals, and may +indeed have been a relic of the evangelisation of the eternal city by +Peter, at whose instance "the seven" were first instituted (Acts vi. +3). To the presbyters and deacons must be added the rural bishops of +the Roman district who came in time to assist the Pope at the great +ecclesiastical solemnities, and are an example of those parochial +oversights, no larger than parishes, over which we find "bishops" +presiding at a time when--except in the great metropolitan +Sees--bishops were little more than rural deans. + + [Illustration: SAINT PETER'S] + +As the Church grew these presbyters of the original "titles" or parish +churches of Rome, together with the regional deacons of the city, and +the suburban bishops, took rank as the cardinal or principal Roman +clergy, and in time the privilege of forming part, even in only a +titular sense, of this body of presbyters and deacons of the great See +of Rome, was coveted by other than Romans, and the Pope would create +the metropolitan of a foreign See or some distinguished foreign +ecclesiastic cardinal priest or cardinal deacon of the Holy Roman +Church. By the eleventh century the cardinals of the Roman Church are +a recognised body, the Senate of the Pope, whose election is being +gradually confined to their hands alone. In the next century the +popular vote--the vote of the clergy and people of Rome--is altogether +abolished, and thenceforth the election of a pope is exclusively +vested in the College of Cardinals, whose privileges and dignity were +further enhanced at the close of the thirteenth century by Boniface +VIII. + +Cardinals therefore are the honorary parish clergy of Rome, nominally +holding the place of the presbyters of the Roman _titles_ and of the +deacons of the Roman regions; and though a foreign cardinal cannot of +course be also a local parish priest in Rome, he is bound to appoint a +"vicar" to represent him. The six suburban Sees are always held by six +of the senior cardinals _di curia_, that is the cardinals resident in +Rome, among whom is always the Pope's cardinal-vicar, and they are +called the cardinal bishops. Cardinal priests are usually in episcopal +orders, and cardinal deacons are usually in priest's orders. Each +cardinal priest or deacon takes his title from one of the Roman +churches, and is styled _John Cardinal Priest_ (or deacon) _of the +title of Saints John and Paul on the Caelian_. The oldest presbyteral +titles are to be found in the outlying districts--as SS. Andrea and +Gregorio, Archbishop Manning's title, S. Clemente, S. Prisca, SS. +Bonifacio and Alessio, or S. Eusebio, on the Caelian Aventine and +Esquiline, or among the old ecclesiastical foundations in Trastevere. +The diaconal titles, on the contrary, are to be found in the centre, +corresponding to the ancient regions--S. Maria in Aquiro behind Piazza +Colonna, S. Adriano on the Forum, or S. Giorgio the title of John +Henry Newman in the ancient quarter of the Velabrum. + +The Pope was chosen from among the deacons of Rome for eight hundred +years, and was consecrated bishop on his election; later on the Pope +was chosen from the bishops, but if, as has happened, a layman were +elected he proceeded at once to receive the three major orders. A man +in deacon's orders or a layman may similarly have the Hat conferred on +him, but in this case he may remain in deacon's orders, or if a layman +may take simple minor orders. The last deacon in the College of +Cardinals was created by Pius IX. He had been a member of the High +Council in the "forties," and as such formed one of the deputation +sent by the Romans after the flight to Gaeta to beg Pius IX. to return +to Rome. The deputation was not even received. Antonelli, this Pope's +Secretary of State, was another cardinal who was never in priest's +orders. + +A cardinal is called the Pope's _creatura_; at the time of Leo XIII.'s +death the only surviving cardinal of Pius IX.'s creation was the +Cardinal Chamberlain Oreglia di Santo Stefano, so that Leo could all +but declare in the words of one of his predecessors, with an allusion +to S. John xv. 16, "You have not elected me, but I have elected you." + +The full number of the Roman cardinals is seventy. About twenty-five +of these are always resident in Rome, and form the papal _Curia_, or +administrative council of the Church, with the _entree_ at all times +to the Vatican. They are the chief members of the Roman Congregations, +the Congregation of Rites, of the Inquisition, the Index, the Bishops +and Regulars, etc., through which all ecclesiastical affairs are +administered. Cardinals _di curia_ receive a sum of twenty-four +thousand francs a year, or less than one thousand pounds. A special +stipend is also added for the work done as members of the various +congregations. + +Their position before 1870 was however a very different one. Then they +enjoyed large incomes and their comings and goings were attended with +a certain measure of regal state; and in the preceding centuries when +the Hat was often conferred, like any other secular distinction, on +mere youths and on laymen, their wealth and the luxury and +magnificence of their style of living was unsurpassed in Rome, while +the power and position of some cardinal nephew or relative of the Pope +was second only to his own. + +Cardinals are created--and the process is long and elaborate--in a +special assembly of the Pope and his Council of Cardinals known as +Consistory. In a preliminary and secret meeting, the Pope proposes the +names of those he wishes to honour to his assembled councillors, and +as a relic of the ancient custom of asking the consent of the people +to the election of their bishop or deacon, the question: "quid quis +videtur?" is put as each name is announced. No opportunity of dissent +is however afforded the cardinals, and all they are expected to do is +to rise, take off their _berrettas_ or stiff caps, and bow as a sign +of assent. The Pope may, and often does, keep back "in his breast," +_in petto_, the name of some candidate if he thinks it expedient. But +this candidate comes forward nevertheless at a future consistory for +the subsequent formalities. + +At another secret consistory, the Pope first closes the mouths of the +newly created cardinals and then pronounces them open with the words: +"I open your mouth that in consistory, in congregations, and in other +ecclesiastical functions, you may be heard in the name of the Father, +the Son and the Holy Ghost." + +Most important of all these ceremonies is the public consistory held +in one of the great halls of the Vatican, and before 1870 this was a +"festa" of the first magnitude. The new _porporati_, wearers of +purple, rode in triumph through the streets upon gaily decked horses, +wearing their scarlet robes and hats; bands of ecclesiastics, grooms +on foot and on horseback, papal guards and attendants escorted them; +cannon were fired and church bells rung, and the Roman people never +so happy as when a procession is afoot, crowded into the streets. +On reaching the Vatican, the cardinals-elect take their oaths in the +Sistine chapel and then accompanied by two cardinal deacons as +sponsors, one walking on each side, they are led into the presence of +the Pope. + + [Illustration: INTERIOR OF S. PETER'S, THE BRONZE STATUE OF S. PETER + + The statue, the origin of which is uncertain, is near the shrine of + the apostle, and peasants and seminarists kiss the outstretched + foot, and then touch it with their foreheads. See page 11.] + +The Pope sits enthroned in full state, surrounded by his court, all +his cardinals in a great semicircle around him, cardinal bishops and +priests on his right, cardinal deacons on his left--the train bearers +sitting on foot-stools at their feet. Kneeling on the steps of the +throne, the new cardinals kiss the Pontiff's foot, hand, and cheek; +they then rise and embrace the whole college in the order of their +precedence, and as a final ceremony, they kneel again before the Pope, +the hoods of their cloaks are drawn over their heads by two masters of +ceremonies, and a cardinal's hat is held over them while the Pope +addresses a few words to each. The new cardinals now take their seats +according to the rank just conferred upon them, and the proceedings +close with an address of thanksgiving to the Pope made upon his return +to his apartments, and a _Te Deum_ in the Sistine chapel. In the +afternoon of the same day, couriers and messengers hurry through the +streets of Rome. The new red hat is carried to the happy recipient by +a "monsignore of the papal wardrobe," the rochet and the scarlet +_berretta_ are conveyed by less important functionaries, and all and +each have to be thanked and entertained and recompensed when possible. +The Secretary of State, all the cardinals and papal officials, as well +as personal friends and private individuals hasten to pay +congratulatory visits (_visite di calore_) upon the new cardinals; and +royal fashion, the state calls have to be immediately returned. If the +cardinal is a foreigner and out of Rome, his hat is carried to him by +a papal messenger especially appointed, and in Catholic states is +presented with considerable ceremony by his sovereign. + +The cardinal's hat, at one time an article of attire, is now only a +symbol. It is of red cloth with a wide brim and shallow crown, and on +either side hang fifteen red tassels, the number denoting the +ecclesiastical rank of the wearer. From the day of its presentation +the hat is put by until its owner's death, when it is brought out once +more to be hung up in some side chapel of his titular church, where it +remains until it falls to pieces with age. + +One of the first duties of a new cardinal is to take possession of his +titular church, and in old days this was another occasion for pomp and +display, and the Pope's guards attended in full dress uniform. Now the +cardinal drives quietly in his sombre closed carriage. At the church +door he is divested of his cloth cloak and hat, and in flowing scarlet +silk he walks up the nave bestowing benedictions on all sides. He +seats himself on his throne in the chancel and the vicar of the parish +reads to him an address in Latin to which he replies, he is then +saluted by all the clergy of the parish in the order of their +precedence ending with the acolytes, and the "taking possession" is +over. He must however present the church with his portrait painted in +oils which is hung with that of the reigning pope in the nave; and +with a large escutcheon of his heraldic coat, emblazoned in colour and +surmounted by the red hat and tassels, which is placed over the main +entrance to the building, and which side by side with the papal arms +is the outward and visible sign of a titular church. As princes of the +Church, cardinals enjoy the princely distinction of displaying their +coats of arms in the halls of their houses, affixed to the wall and +sheltered beneath a silken canopy. Further they must have a throne and +throne room, but unlike the secular princes of Rome who are entitled +to the same privilege, their thrones are turned towards the wall, and +are only reversed during a vacancy of the Holy See, when they may be +used by their owners, who, for the time, become sovereigns and rulers +of the Church. + +No great church ceremony is complete without a cardinal, who by his +very presence makes a function, but except for such occasions as these +little is seen of the Roman cardinals by the casual visitor to the +city. Their heavy carriages, painted black, drawn by black horses +their harness unrelieved by brass or plating, pass unnoticed in the +streets. Only occasionally on the Janiculum or outside the city gates +on fine afternoons, a cardinal may be seen taking a walk, his servant +at a discreet distance behind him, and his carriage following at a +foot's pace. Before 1870 the streets of Rome were enlivened by the +cardinals' brilliant equipages. A cardinal possessed two or three +coaches to be used according to the degree of state required. He +drove to the Vatican on grand occasions with all three to convey +himself and his retinue of attendants, and his gala carriage drawn by +six horses with postilions and standing footmen was of brilliant +scarlet and was so magnificently gilded and painted that it cost over +a thousand scudi. + +During the period of their greatest splendour, it was no uncommon +thing for a cardinal to have a household of several hundred persons, +and though this number was later greatly reduced, a considerable +retinue of servants, secretaries, domestic chaplains, and attendants +of all sorts was always considered necessary to his princely state. +Chief among these was his _gentiluomo_. This gentleman was indeed his +constant "guide, philosopher and friend"; he drove with him, paid +visits for him, entertained his friends, and in a wonderful +Elizabethan dress of black velvet, with silk stockings, lace ruffles +and a rapier, he was by his side at all state and church functions. +Cardinal Wiseman's _gentiluomo_ still lives in Rome where he received +the guests of the new cardinal in the palace of the Consulta opposite +the Quirinal, then occupied by Pius IX., and he remembers the cardinal +taking the official costume with him to England for his English +substitute. At the present day when the temporal role of cardinals is +shorn of its significance, nothing better illustrates the unworthy +subordination of the civil career to the clerical than the position of +a cardinal's _gentiluomo_. Dressed in his knee breeches, a sword by +his side, this attendant who belongs to the good _bourgeoisie_ and +may be an architect or engineer, is to be seen at every cardinal's +high mass, waiting with the minor clerks, and presenting himself on +one or two occasions during the ceremony with a ewer and basin which +he offers kneeling on one knee while the cardinal washes the tips of +his fingers. + + [Illustration: A CARDINAL IN VILLA D'ESTE + + Villa d'Este at Tivoli was the residence of the late Prince-Cardinal + Hohenlohe. See interleaf, page 106.] + +It is fondly believed by the tourist, who will go any distance as a +rule, and push through any crowd for a sight of the scarlet clothes, +that a cardinal habitually lives in robes of red silk, with a white +fur tippet round his shoulders. As a matter of fact his red robes are +for state occasions only--either for attendance at the papal court or +for great church functions. He wears a plain black cassock in ordinary +life with a red sash and red buttons and silk pipings, and thus cannot +be easily distinguished from other prelates whose silk trimmings vary +with every shade from crimson to purple. The state robes of scarlet +are very splendid indeed. The soutane of light scarlet cloth has a +train; over this is worn the white rochet trimmed with deep lace and +over this again the _cappa magna_ a voluminous circular cloak of red +watered silk, with a single opening for the head. It is gathered up to +the elbows in front and floats behind into an ample train which is +carried by pages or acolytes. The stockings, gloves, skull cap and +_berretta_ are of scarlet. The _cappa magna_ has a hood pointed behind +and forming a sort of shoulder cape in front, which in the winter +months is covered with white ermine. Canons of the Roman basilicas +wear a _cappa magna_ of purple cloth, but they are not permitted to +spread it out, it must be tightly coiled into a long rope and slipped +through a loop at the side. + +At social receptions a cardinal wears his black soutane and red sash, +and over it a flowing scarlet silk cloak from the shoulder. If the +occasion is an important one he is received at the palace gates by two +servants with lighted torches, and these accompany him up the stairs +to the door of the _salon_ and there await his departure, when they +escort him to his carriage again. When in this gala attire, a cardinal +wears as an out-door wrap a gorgeous cloth cloak with many capes of +purple and deep red, and a red priest's hat around which is twisted a +red and gold cord finished with minute tassels the requisite fifteen +in number. + +The most responsible and arduous duty of the College of Cardinals is +the conclave when the election of the future head of the Church +depends upon their united vote. With the death of a pope their +position changes on the instant from that of subject to ruler, and for +the time being the destinies of the Church lie in their hands. They +receive deputations and state visits seated upon their thrones, they +drive in their carriages alone upon the principal seat, no companion +being of sufficiently exalted rank to sit beside them, and the first +among them, the Cardinal Chamberlain, is attended by a detachment of +the Swiss guard and affixes his own seal to papal documents. + + [Illustration: VILLA D'ESTE--PATH OF THE HUNDRED FOUNTAINS] + +Scarcely in accordance with this regal state are the rules still in +force for conclave, which are, to say the least, antiquated. The +incarceration to which the cardinals are obliged to submit is of +the strictest, and for its maintenance the secular arm is called in in +the shape of the Marshal of Conclave, a Roman nobleman who with his +officers and subordinates assumes complete control outside the +building. Accustomed to spacious rooms and numerous domestics, the +cardinals are now forced to lodge in a tiny apartment of two rooms in +a circumscribed portion of the Vatican palace--the rules prescribe one +cell--one valet and one secretary each are allowed them, while two +barbers and one confessor are considered sufficient to shave and +shrive the whole college. From sumptuous living they are reduced to +meals brought to their cells by their servants, and the rules permit a +gradual reduction of the _menu_ to an ultimate diet of bread and +water, as a means of bringing pressure to bear upon the voters and so +precipitating their agreement. This rigorous treatment has been often +tried in the past with various results. + +When assembled for the scrutiny in the Sistine chapel each cardinal is +provided with a throne before which stands a small table with ink and +paper. Over the throne is a canopy or _baldacchino_ the emblem of +sovereignty. These are ingeniously fitted with a hinge and when the +election of the new pope is announced all the canopies fold up except +one, leaving the elected member of the college alone sitting enthroned +beneath his _baldacchino_, a sovereign amongst his subjects. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ROME BEFORE 1870 + + +A stranger who had found himself in Rome the week before September 20, +1870 would have noticed the strange expectation, and also the strange +apathy in the Romans. "The Italians" were besieging their city, and +when it pleased them to enter they would enter. The Pope would not +resist them, and no one in his city thought it his business to die a +martyr to such a cause. Some workmen who had had orders to make a +barricade had got themselves under way with much difficulty and not +without many complaints, declaring as they prepared their tools and +tramped along the hot road in the September sun: "_ci vuole molto vino +per queste cose, molto vino_." At five o'clock on the morning of the +20th the bombardment began and at ten the white flag was hoisted in +Rome. Then a great silence succeeded in the city, every one stayed +within doors, and the papal brigand corps patrolled the streets. Thus +ingloriously the "Patrimony of Peter," the historical sway of the +popes, came to an end. + + [Illustration: THEATRE OF MARCELLUS + + Begun by Julius Caesar, and completed by Augustus who dedicated it + to his sister's son. See pages 30, 160, 168, 228.] + +Did the Romans welcome or reprobate the entry of "the Italians"? To +answer this question for ourselves we must bear in mind the political +events which preceded 1870 and the various elements represented in the +city. In September 1870 when the Italians entered, Rome was already +won for Italy, the Pope could not have offered any effective +resistance to Italian arms, Italian unity was already an accepted +fact; it only remained to take possession of Rome as the centre and +capital of this political unity, Victor Emmanuel having, out of +consideration to the Pontiff, fixed his capital first at Turin and +afterwards at Florence. And the events which led up to this result had +not spelt harmony between the Pope and his subjects or been years of +peace in the papal states. When Pius mounted the throne in 1846 people +were tired of Gregory XVI.'s old world methods, and Giovanni +Mastai-Ferretti was no sooner elected than the Romans asked him for a +constitution, a parliament, the substitution of laymen for clerks in +various departments of the executive. Pius IX. accorded a constitution +and a parliament of laymen. He did more. Against the suffrages of his +cardinals he granted a general amnesty to political offenders, and the +story runs that when he saw the rows of forbidding black balls which +the cardinals had cast, he lifted his little white skull cap and +covering the balls with it, said "I will make them all white," and so +the amnesty was granted. + +It is often said that the liberal impulses of Pius IX. and his ready +response to popular clamour were repaid by outrageous ingratitude, and +that his Romans made him fly from Rome at the risk of his life to +ponder in solitude at Gaeta the futility of liberal pretences on the +part of popes. But the Romans were not simply ungrateful, they wanted +more, they thought they had a right to more--and what they wanted was +more than any pope could concede. They asked for modern civilisation +and the papacy represented ancient civilisation. The original demands +had not been demands made in _bona fides_ of a prince who has power to +give and to withhold what is asked. They were part of a political +campaign, the end of which was to be the destruction of the temporal +power. Mazzini's instructions to Young Italy to make one demonstration +after another under the windows of the Quirinal, when one liberty was +accorded to return the next day and demand another, until the Pope's +position was rendered intolerable and impossible, are not pleasant +reading; what is to be said in their favour is that the revolutionary +annals of no other people afford any better. + +The time had come when men who lived in contact with the Italy outside +the walls of Rome, in contact with the ideas which were the conquest +of the nineteenth century, could not admit that the governed had only +duties and the ruler only rights, or reconcile with the modern ideal +of civil life the notion of a prince-bishop governing a subject people +in virtue of a theocratic idea, the abstract idea that certain +temporal rights fell--_mal gre bon gre_ of all concerned--to the vicar +of Jehovah on earth. The time will come when the existence of such a +pretension, the existence of such a government one moment after it +responded to the universal sentiment, will appear the strangest fable. +Will they be better or worse times? The future alone knows what it has +in store, but we can only say that they cannot ever be worse times +than some of those which the papacy created for the Romans. This +consideration would have sufficed at any time to make the tenure of +temporal power on the part of the Roman bishops, precarious--but it +did not by any means stand alone. We have to add to it the rise of +Italian patriotism, the passionate call for a united Italy, for the +country to issue once and for all from the tyrannies, the +immoralities, the crushing canker of pettiness which clung to the +princely and ducal governments, and rise to its place among the +nations. + +Thus in September 1870 the feeling was very mixed in Rome. A large +part of the population had helped to prepare the _denouement_, knew +its advent was only a question of time; others, members of faithful +Roman houses, had used voice and influence to induce the Pope to +institute necessary reforms and had fallen into despondency when Pius +on his return from Gaeta issued his _non possumus_ and settled down to +a morose implacable reactionism. There remained the large army of +priests, of papal functionaries and retainers, the cardinals and their +numerous personnel, the religious orders and congregations of both +sexes and the hundreds upon hundreds of persons dependent on them, the +papal police and soldiery with their families. There were the great +families which owed their titles and their fortunes to the popes, +those whom common gratitude or honour kept at his side. And lastly +there was the _popolino_, the ignorant poor, untouched by modern +aspirations, by socialistic theories, living from day to day, from +hand to mouth in the strictest sense, with no ambitions, no "standard +of comfort" or of human dignity--ready to fall on their knees at any +hour of the day when the Pope "_Dio in terra_" passed, agape at the +latest royal visitor to the palace of their pontiff, content to +encounter injustice with cunning fraud, to sweeten the hard buffets of +life by the _finesse_ required for some small scheme of peculation, +some dastardly scheme of revenge. Such human passions as lay outside +the gratification of hunger and the greed for spectacles were +satisfied by the periodical uprising and savage disloyalty habitual to +the turbulent Roman people. And what applied to the populace applied +in some sense also to the small _bourgeoisie_. There are always those +who find it easier and pleasanter to keep within the pale of small +joys and small miseries, small achievements and small risks. There +were thousands of such people who stood well with the papacy, and who +could only lose by a competition with the outsider for which they +were, by training and talent, unprepared. + + [Illustration: ISLAND OF THE TIBER--THE ISOLA SACRA + + To the right is the Fabrician bridge, to the left the _pons Cestius_ + which joins the island to Trastevere. See pages 7, 229, 240.] + +These then were "for the Pope." Not because he had a divine right to +be in Rome but because they individually and collectively flourished +under his rule. They flourished because there was no hunger, because +though there were unsanitary hovels there were no haunts of starving +people who could obtain neither bread nor work--if any were in need +of bread they threw a _supplica_ into the Pope's carriage and he sent +it to them when he got home. They flourished, because "where ignorance +is bliss 'tis folly to be wise" and no wave of unrest, few of the +ignobilities and none of the nobilities of a more strenuous life had +passed over them. The papal government compared to a modern European +government was like a blunderbuss in a modern arsenal, but though it +was entirely ineffectual, though the people under its care merely +lived out their lives with enough to eat and generation succeeded +generation neither better nor worse than the men who went before +them--it was an honest government in the financial sense. The people +were not taxed, prices indeed were kept low as a means of humouring +them, and the Pope's subjects were not exploited to fill his +exchequer. In the strange medley of Roman ideas it seemed better to +accomplish this end by the methods of the Jubilee year which exploited +the soul of the foreigner. The papal government did not peculate, but +the hated _sbirri_--the papal police--were often responsible for a +missing bale of cloth or a burglary, and a child who had been left a +fortune by her aunt only learnt when she was grown up that the +_curato_ of the Pantheon who had been made _erede fiduciario_ +(trustee) and executor of the testament had not thereby been +constituted sole beneficiary. The administration in all departments +was simpler than now, and the evils of the present bureaucracy were +not known, but it was a government of privilege and patronage; "one +under which a gentleman could live" said an Irishman, but the +unprivileged person might find himself in prison for not kneeling when +the Pope passed. A resident English sculptor who remembered the days +of Gregory XVI. told me that Rome was the paradise of artists, who in +their velvet jackets and squash felt hats did what seemed good in +their own eyes, no man hindering them. The curious traveller of family +and fortune--it was before the day of Cook's tourists--enjoyed every +liberty under the hospitable papal government save only the liberty to +speak or write about politics and religion, and suffered nothing save +the occasional loss of a newspaper or book which the paternal +government stopped at the frontier as likely to imperil the peace of +mind of the Romans. They lived in a picturesque world, which recalled +the middle ages at every step, where the prosaic dead level to which +justice and civilisation had reduced the rest of Europe, did not +penetrate, and they admired in Rome and for the Romans what they would +have exposed in Parliament or the _Times_ as intolerable abuses in +their own country. From 1848 onwards political rigours unworthy of the +Holy See were resorted to, though these were relaxed before 1870. Some +art students who had prepared Bengal fireworks to celebrate the +anniversary of the victory over the French at Porta San Pancrazio, +were sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment. A similar sentence was +passed on a "non-smoker" (not to smoke was a protest against the +papacy at the expense of its tobacco trade) who came to words with a +"smoker" and this barbarous sentence was enthusiastically upheld by +such a journal as the _Civilta Cattolica_. Commendatore Silvagni who +cites these and similar instances in his _Corte e Societa romana_ +writes indeed like a man too sore at what he has seen and too near to +what he describes to present it in perspective, and he seems to the +present writer a prejudiced guide to Rome before 1870. Sedition and +conspiracy have met with scant ceremony at the hands of every nation +and every prince in turn, and the way in which Pius IX. treated "the +patriots" does not differ from that which may be read of in the +history of any other country. + +What was peculiar to the papal states was the confusion of the +spiritual and the temporal; the special scandal came from the union of +these two powers in one authority, the temporal being used to enforce +the "spiritual" and the spiritual being abused to assist the temporal. +The spectacle of priests, your "fathers in God," your spiritual +directors, ordering the public floggings, nay the public torture, of +men and women could hardly edify or civilise; Gregory XVI. had +abolished these public castigations which used to be suffered in the +_Campo de' fiori_ (under an archway which may still be seen), but +Antonelli strove to revive them in the _Piazza del Popolo_ in 1856. +Other mediaeval barbarisms ceased the day the Italians entered Rome, +among them the _Ghetto_. + +The people as we see were not taxed, but neither were they taught. +Some subjects were altogether taboo--modern history was among them. +Obscurantism reigned supreme. Girls were taught to read in order that +they might read their prayers, but they did not learn to write lest +they should indite love letters. This was typical of the papal system. +You took away the light lest the child should ever happen to burn +itself, and you pursued the same policy with the adult. No instruction +was vouchsafed, no information given, no education whatever of the +intellectual or moral man. Girls were often destined from birth to the +nunnery, and the veil was the never-failing remedy against a marriage +distasteful to the parents or even the brothers, grand-parents, or +uncles of the victim. No one denies that this compulsory enclosure was +commonly practised in Rome. "Are you not ashamed to be reading, go and +knit stockings" shouted a Jesuit to a poor lady who sat reading in her +carriage in the Corso as the worthy father, who had been preaching a +retreat to women, crossed the street. Many of the poor ladies in +convents became imbecile so void were their minds, so vacuous their +lives, and in our own day a Roman community of thirty nuns required +the services of no fewer than thirty-one confessors. The education +received by the boys of good families sent them home with the airs and +gestures of so many little _abbes_. The children's games were tarred +with the same brush, the same universal insipidity. The little boys +dressed up as priests and said sham masses or moved about pieces of +white cardboard which represented the host; explaining to their little +sisters that such solemn fooling was not for "wicked girls." +Occasionally, the natural talent, the natural wit and moral courage of +a girl might provide her with a role and allow her to dominate +instead of being the sport of circumstances. But the young men as a +rule fell victims to that weak-kneedness which makes them the prey of +the fear of derision in their school-days, intensified by a training +which made self-dependence and self-development impossible. Thus one +of the Doria, a family which had given heroes to its country, the +younger brother of that Doria whose English wife's name _Mary_ is cut +in a box hedge in the Villa Pamfili, broke the heart of the noble +Vittoria Savorelli because his uncle, of whom he was independent, +objected to their engagement. A Roman _marchese_ having been struck in +the face by another Roman in the middle of the Corso at midday rushed +off to consult his confessor as to what steps he should take, and we +are not surprised to learn that he was able to follow the advice +proffered, and "bear it patiently." There is a story of a _frate_ who +could have taught him differently. As he was crossing a bridge a man +struck him on the cheek; the good _frate_ immediately turned the +other, then he picked up his man and pitched him into the river; for, +as he explained, the Gospel bid him turn the other cheek to the +smiter, but it did not tell him what he was to do afterwards. + + [Illustration: THE STEPS OF ARA COELI + + The church which occupies the site of the Sabine arx. See pages 6, + 86, 230-31.] + +The fierce light of publicity has transformed the lives of the Roman +clergy and religious since 1870. Those Roman priests who live without +reproach themselves, confess that "the revolution" has brought about +this signal benefit. The _Accademia dei Nobili Ecclesiastici_ which +received impoverished nobles, ordained them, and sent them _at +twenty-five years old_ to rule as prefects over the papal provinces +was the fertile nursing-ground of a corrupt prelacy. The proud and +affectionate interest with which the Romans, despite many lapses, +regarded the popes, was not extended to the great papal officers who +from the _Governatore di Roma_ downwards did not cease to provide a +scandalous example to the people until the moment when "the Italians" +entered the city. + +It will be said: these people at least were taught their religion? +They were taught their religion as they were taught everything +else--that is, not at all. They knew that you must obey the pope and +obey the priest, that you would be damned if you did not go to +confession and hear mass. But they thought one Madonna would hear +their petitions better than another ("_Non andate da quella, non vale +niente_" "don't go to that one, she is no good") and that exorcism was +a surer remedy for a plague of bugs than cleanliness. They never heard +a single verse of the Gospel explained to them, and young men of the +higher _bourgeoisie_ learnt their religion if they learnt it at all, +after 1870, when they were grown up and thought and read for +themselves. Such men, many of whom belong to the _Circolo San Pietro_, +are to-day the mainstay of intelligent and faithful religion in the +city. Before 1870 there was in Rome a real ignorance of the doctrines, +the beauties, and the duties, of Christianity. The one moment chosen +for a great religious impression was of course the first Communion. +Boys and girls were then enclosed and eight days were spent in pious +exercises and instruction. The sons of the poor went to the +_Cappellette di San Luigi_ at Ponte Rotto, the well to do to the same +institution near Santa Maria Maggiore. On the other side of the +basilica the girls of well to do families were prepared at the Bambin +Gesu, the poor at San Pasquale. I am assured that at Ponte Rotto the +effect of these eight days shut up in a religious house frequently +changed the lives of boys with vicious tendencies. In other classes +the appeal to unreal emotions was not always so successful, and the +girls at the Bambin Gesu, dressed up in the stiff unaccustomed habit +of the religious, often communicated with the one dread filling their +minds that they might inadvertently commit "the sin" of touching the +host with their teeth. Not less mistaken was the custom of the "Six +Sundays," the girls and boys alike for the next six weeks +communicating "in honour of the chastity of S. Lewis Gonzaga." And +then _buon viaggio_, as the Italians say; they probably never +communicated again except as "paschal lambs" at Easter. They +communicated then of course. At the rails, the moment they had +received the host, a ticket was handed to them with the name of the +parish and some pious Latin verse inscribed on it. To this the +communicant appended his name and address, and no succour was given, +no "grazia" accorded except to those provided with this ticket. The +names of those who had not communicated were posted at the church +doors. Thus not only did all who could in conscience do so communicate +once a year, but those who could not and would not procured the +services of some woman who made it her business to communicate every +day, or several times a day, during Easter tide, selling the tickets +thus received for a franc or two francs each. + +Here was one of the inevitable degradations of a theocracy. Another +was this--people found working at their trade, in their back shop, in +their private room, on _festas_ were arrested and imprisoned sometimes +for several days. Respectable citizens who found themselves compelled +to finish a piece of work, behind closed doors, in this way, were +subjected to the ignominious and futile punishment, which was +certainly not calculated to educate their own religious sense or that +of their families and children. Spies, under such a government, were +always easy to find, and this and similar laws gave fine scope to the +purveyors of private revenge. You could not ostentatiously abstain +from going to mass, if you were poor you could not abstain at all, for +the Roman parish priests were so many civil magistrates with definite +powers, and if the answers to their numerous questions were not +satisfactory it was the worse for the householder and his prospects. +One means of finding out people's private affairs was through the +servants who acted as spies reporting everything to the _parocco_. +Pinelli the famous designer and engraver, whose bust to-day adorns the +Pincio, who had never been pious or even respectable, repaid the old +woman who reported his habitual absence from mass by ringing up the +neighbourhood between half past four and five every morning, and in +reply to the usual "_Chi e?_" calling out "_e Pinelli che va a +messa_"; nor did he desist ringing at his enemy's door till she got +out of bed to hear his announcement. The carabineers of the theocracy +also had a mixed service. A room had to be set apart for the +temerarious folk who required meat on a Friday or a fast day, and the +carabineers entered the restaurants and eating houses, sequestrating +the dish which smoked before the customer if this regulation was not +observed. Moreover, at the head of every department was a cardinal; +the Roman wife of a political exile once described to me what a _via +crucis_ it was for a young woman to run the gauntlet of these clerical +departments if she had to ask some favour for the exiled husband. + + [Illustration: STEPS OF THE CHURCH OF SS. DOMENICO AND SISTO + + Above the steps of _Magnanapoli_ which lead from the Forum of Trajan + to the Quirinal hill. Their architect was Bernini. See page 231.] + +But if they were unlettered and superstitious were the people in those +days better than now? The comparisons we sometimes hear urged are not +really fair for two reasons. There is to be found in Rome to-day among +the lower and the half educated classes all that want of moral +equilibrium which a revolution of ideas brings with it. Moral Italy +has yet to be made, as the moral unity of Italy is also as yet only in +the making. Before 1870, on the other hand, those who were faithful to +the standard then put before them, were faithful to what was never +better than a poor and low ideal of conduct, sentiment, and religious +duty. The papal standard required no refinement of feeling, no +education of the conscience: no one was scandalised that a shop should +display the barbarous notice "_Qui si castrono per la cappella +papale_," or that the popular story ran that when Guido Reni was +painting his picture of the Crucifixion before a living model attached +to a cross, he killed him at the last moment in his frenzy to see and +seize the death struggle, and fled the city; but that the holy father +had absolved him because, as you who go may see, it is a _capo +d'opera_. And the poor man killed to make a fine picture of Him who +endured death to teach us pity for each other? _Ebbene, poveretto_.... +The pope is like Nemesis, like the blind forces of nature, like an +avalanche, a falling mountain, or an earthquake--not a moral force, +but a weight of authority. As you can see for yourself if you go to +San Lorenzo in Lucina the work is a _capo d'opera_ and the pope knows +better than you. Moral judgment is silent before the weight of +authority. + +My narrator, who only wished to magnify a great picture, not to raise +a moral problem, always carried with him a paper blest by the pope, +and of extraordinary efficacy, that is it was Spanish and was covered +with writing, every corner had something pious in it, and no one who +carried it could die unabsolved. The proof was set forth in the blest +paper itself, for one man _did_ die unabsolved, they cut off his head +in fact; but the head was not to be brow-beaten, it simply went off to +the nearest town--and in these cases, as the witty Marquise du Deffand +said to Gibbon, _Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute_--and found a +priest (what priest ever shows himself the least _deroute_ in such +circumstances?) who at once confessed the head, and there the matter +ended. + +Rome before 1870 was not even externally what we see it now. An old +world city of tall palaces, the windows in the lower story grated, of +monasteries and churches, of ruins in unconscious beauty, of fountains +of waters, of cabbage gardens and _orti_, of orange and lemon gardens +which at every turn surprised and delighted the eye. The main streets +straight as Roman roads, the piazzas, in contrast to these, full of +sun, intolerable from May onwards at noonday. A city of narrow squalid +streets huddled together, in which the domesticities are carried on +unrebuked and unabashed--in the poorer quarters every third house +appeared to be a washerwoman's, the linen hung across the road on +lines stretched from window to window. And everywhere an unpromising +door, an open gate, may reveal a little picture, a cool garden and +fountain, orange and lemon trees, a bend of the river, a view of the +Janiculum or the Aventine. A Roman smell pervading everything and +sufficiently characteristic to make you sure, if you were suddenly set +down in any part of the town, that you were in Rome: and at night +another smell, the smell of the ages, unwholesome, penetrating, coming +up from the soil, or the freshly turned earth, and making one shut the +windows hastily on the loveliest of moonlit evenings. A wealth of +street cries, varying with the season, and the nocturnal serenades, +assist that atmosphere of noise for noise' sake and movement which are +essential to the Italian, the noise of the shabby two-horsed carriages +grinding along on the paved streets and driven by the bad Roman +drivers with a continual cracking of the whip and a constant +application of the squeaking break, of wine carts lazily winding their +way across the streets of the eternal city with that sense of infinite +time and space born of long colloquies with the sun by day and the +moon by night across a deserted _campagna_, a score of little brazen +bells, perhaps, clanging and jingling at the driver's ear--the +constant noise by day and night of a life-loving, loquacious, +complaining, gesticulating, rebellious and keenly observant people. A +city of priests and dependents of priests, here there are no +industries, no great machines are set in motion every day, no +factories open with daylight to give employment to hundreds of skilled +workmen. Every one who is not a priest works for priests or for the +monasteries. The little workshops may be seen in the Borgo of S. +Peter's, in Campo Marzo, in the arches of the theatre of +Marcellus--every little doorway contains a cobbler, the _piazze_ which +lead to the big churches are crowded on _festas_ with vendors of +religious pictures and rosaries. The convents of women make their own +habits, but there is a great industry for providing the thousands of +priests, the seminarists, canons, monsignori, cardinals and cardinals' +retainers, and Vatican functionaries with cassocks, robes, uniforms, +hats, berrettas, stocks and pumps. In the centre of this life, which +is ecclesiastical even for the layman, it seems right that when we +notice a stir and turn round with the rest, we should see the papal +_cortege_ and the Pope round whom all this life revolves; the centre +of this city of churches and cassocks, because he is the centre of a +far larger world. For Rome is what it is because its sovereign bishop +is the cynosure for the eyes of that Christendom which counts the +largest number of adherents on the face of the globe, and their Mecca +is his city, Rome. + +Let us follow a pedestrian who is starting on his afternoon walk, one +bright day in April, from the neighbourhood of Santa Maria dell' Orto +on the other side of the Tiber, and see Rome before 1870 with his +eyes. Like all good Italians he is curious, and he crosses the street +when he sees a man with a large oblong box covered with some black +waterproof stuff ring at what is apparently a convent door--and the +meanest door in Rome may give access to the scene of busiest monastic +life. The door is opened by the convent porteress, and when the lid is +removed our friend sees the _ostie_, the hosts for the use of the +convent, which are brought round every week or every fortnight to the +monasteries and churches, a hundred here, twenty there, according to +the need. As he passes the convent of Santa Maria in Capella he gets a +glimpse of the beautiful cool cloister garden with its lemon trees and +sees the _cornette_ of the "Daughter of France" whose application for +permission to remain and work on French soil was immediately granted +at a time when so many companies of priests monks and friars applied +in vain. While crossing the river by the island of the Tiber, he meets +a procession from the church hard by with its Franciscan friars who +walk next after the confraternity of the quarter in their well-known +red "sacks" or gowns; the priest in his short surplice and stole is +followed by the men bearing the bier, all carry lighted torches and +chant the _Miserere_ or the Gradual psalms. Leaving the Ghetto well to +the left he takes the street which passes the famous Roman house of +the Oblates of Tor de' Specchi, and crosses in front of the Capitol +and the steps of Ara Coeli. He meets many priests, monks, and friars, +but the numerous _suore_ to be seen in the modern city are conspicuous +by their absence. The nuns, of course, are never seen, the Oblates +occasionally drive in large closed landaus like those in which the +cardinals progress to-day; but new communities of women find it +difficult to obtain authorisation, and a constant supervision, no +longer feasible, checks the mushroom growth of "active" congregations. +Just beyond he hears a bell and guesses, rightly enough, that the +Viaticum is being brought from the neighbouring parish church of San +Marco to some sick or dying parishioner--in a moment he sees the +little familiar procession, the acolytes with incense and bell, the +priest carrying the host enveloped in the humeral veil under the +_ombrellino_, the women and men who were in or near the church at the +time following with lighted candles, and stopping beneath the windows +of the sick man while his Lord visits him--if it were wet a little +dark knot of people under umbrellas would be waiting, and would +accompany the host with candle and umbrella just the same. Is it for +the same sick person, he wonders, that the gala carriage of Duca +Torlonia next passes him carrying the _Bambin Gesu_, the little wooden +painted doll from Ara Coeli. If the person whom it visits is to +live the _Bambino_ will turn red, if he is to die he will turn pale. +Our pedestrian crosses the Forum of Trajan and as he mounts the steps +he encounters a man of the people who tells him as he hurries +breathless along that he is going to fetch Monsignor B., one of the +episcopal canons of Santa Maria Maggiore, to _cresimare_ his baby, +three weeks old, who is dying. He and the mother are bent on their +baby going to paradise with all the glory of the added sacrament. A +baby of three weeks old "confirmed" will sound strange in English +ears. It must be borne in mind therefore that the rite of confirmation +in the English Church is a new rite unlike that in use in any ancient +Christian Communion. In the Roman Church the rite of chrism is the +ancient sacramental rite complementary to baptism, which always +included the imposition by the bishop of the sign of the cross on the +forehead of the newly baptized, "for a type of the spiritual baptism." +As such it is not properly a separate ceremony at all from the baptism +with water. Our friend turns to the left and as he reaches the piazza +before the Quirinal palace he sees the papal _cortege_ approach. The +Pope (it is Pius IX.) is coming--not in his state carriage with the +gilt angels, which we may still see at the papal stables on the way to +the Vatican museum of sculpture or the papal garden--but in the +carriage he uses every day. Every one kneels, and a mother who holds +up her baby for the apostolic blessing secretly "makes the horns" with +her free hand, for Pius IX. is reputed to have the evil eye and to +cast the _jettatura_. + + [Illustration: SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE + + The great facade of the Liberian basilica, the first church in the + city to be dedicated to the Madonna. To the right is the Military + Hospital of Sant' Antonio. The house was until 1870 the residence of + the Camaldolese nuns, and here S. Francis of Assisi was received + when he first arrived in Rome. The site is presumed to be that of + the Temple of Diana. The column facing the basilica is one of the + eight Corinthian columns which supported the vault of the basilica + of Constantine. See pages 34, 60, 145, 231, and interleaf, page + 252.] + +But it is drawing towards the _Ave Maria_, the sunset hour, and it is +rather free and easy even in a monsignore's servant to be abroad after +that late hour. We will therefore leave our pedestrian in the Via del +Quirinale, first noticing with him a group of seminarists on their way +to pay their evening visit at the church of the _Santi Apostoli_; they +raise their hats as they pass the door of the _Sacramentate_, opposite +the palace, where the host is constantly exposed, and then hurry on to +see the Pope and receive his paternal blessing. We, however, will turn +down at the Four Fountains, and follow a priest who mounts a narrow +staircase to the apartment occupied by a canon of the basilica of +_Santa Maria in Trastevere_ in an old granary of Palazzo Barberini, +which has been converted into dwellings for faithful retainers of the +princely house. It contains all that is necessary for his wants--a +chapel where he says his daily mass, the kitchen regions and some +slips of rooms where his food is prepared and eaten in company with +the two orphan relatives who, at his invitation, arrived at his door +hand in hand one winter's evening many years ago, two little girls of +ten and fifteen, who had come alone all the way from a northern town. + +They communicate at his daily mass, but their generous guardian, who +sees to their moral training, carefully hides away his copy of the +Scriptures as a perilous work for two young souls. The sisters enjoy +an incredible distinction among their _commari_ and _compari_--their +neighbours and gossips--for in the canon's chapel there is a _corpo di +santo sano_. Besides the chapel he has a bedroom and sitting-room, +communicating--they are decorated with full length Magdalenes grasping +skulls in evident deprecation of their want of apparel, of crucifixes +painted on canvas, and of pictorial compositions consisting of a +crucifix hung with a rosary, flanked by a couple of guttering church +candles and enlivened with a book, a death's head, or an hour glass. +These are his own handiwork, and no intimacy with the works of art in +the eternal city enlighten him as to their relative merits. The priest +enters the sitting-room first, and finds six or seven men, all +priests, on their knees, in the various corners of the room. Presently +the door beyond opens, and a priest comes in and kneels down by a +vacant chair. Another rises enters the bedroom and shuts the door +carefully behind him. Our canon is a favourite confessor among his +brother clergy, and it is the general custom for priests to be +confessed at the houses of the religious or secular clergy they select +as confessors, the rule about the use of the public confessionals in +the churches applying especially to the confessions of women. The men +kneeling in the first room are preparing for their weekly confession +or making their thanksgiving after it. + +When the poor canon died, leaving his orphan kinswomen unprovided for, +the _corpo di santo sano_, which might have fetched something, was +taken away at once because it was against ecclesiastical rules for +them to keep it, but the pictures, which could fetch nothing, +continued to gaze on the struggles of the little sisters, reminding +them of the poor canon and also of the fickleness of the public taste +in _articles de virtu_--for during his lifetime these pictures had +received their full meed of respectful admiration. + +As our pedestrian enters his own house door, which is covered with +_immagini_ and texts serving as charms--among which S. Anna the mother +of the Madonna is not absent as a house-patron, and the faded rose +brought from the festa of the _Divin Amore_ figures conspicuously--he +may indeed have a vague sense that the _annus Domini_ will soon be too +strong for the life he has just been witnessing, but he will hardly be +disturbed by any speculation as to the elements which have conspired +to form the atmosphere surrounding the first Bishop of Christendom in +this his capital once the capital of the world. He will not think of +the apotheosis of the emperor in ancient Rome, of the orientalism +which crept into Western Christendom through Byzantium, imposing +things which especially here in Rome were alien to its religious +genius; he will scarcely remember that the Pope's temporal sovereignty +added a diadem to his tiara, for he has never distinguished the +temporal from the spiritual arm, or discerned the part which the +former has played in determining the manifestations of the latter. + + [Illustration: ARCH OF CONSTANTINE + + Erected by the Senate in his honour A.D. 312. Eighteen years later + he retired to Byzantium, leaving the Roman Bishops in virtual + possession of the eternal city. See pages 32, 42, 237.] + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE ROMAN QUESTION + + +I. _Before 1870_ + +The "Roman Question" represents the only "religious" question in +Italy. The problems which agitate other lands leave the Italian +unaffected, uninterested. He has no genius for reforming, and no +genius for sect-making, he is as tolerant of abuses as of diversities. +So it comes about that the one and only "religious" question in Italy +is a political question--the rights and wrongs of the situation +created for the papacy when it was despoiled of its temporalities. + +It is certainly not generally remembered that ideals for a great +future for Italy were not confined in the "forties" to the Italian +_unita_ men. Pius IX. had read Cesare Balbo's "_Speranze d'Italia_" +and had understood that it was desirable that Italy should free +herself from the stranger. But he had been most strongly moved by +Gioberti's "_Primato morale e civile degli Italiani_" in which "the +majesty of Christianity and the destinies of Italy" were set forth as +mutually interdependent, Italy gaining its pre-eminence from the +Christian primacy which had grown in its midst and was of its soil. +There he read that "Italy is the capital of Europe because Rome is the +religious metropolis of the world," and there he gained his notion of +an Italian federation under the civil headship of the Pope. That this +idea was unrealisable was not the fault of Pius IX. It was the fault +of the age in which he lived. He was not by temperament an +obscurantist, and he began by being something of a political idealist. +He had been brought up piously and carefully, and had no political +arts, and he wondered that the papal government should be found +opposing reforms which were demanded by modern progress. Yet his own +papal career ended in political obscurantism and the absurdities of +the _Syllabus_. Even had the flight to Gaeta, however, never +intervened to chill the Pope's political idealism, things could not +have had a different ending; for if on the one hand no European nation +would have consented to place itself, even nominally, under a +theocratic suzerain, on the other hand the papacy was not in the +"forties" and had not been for centuries in a position to accept the +civil headship of a great European state. Gioberti himself said enough +to show that his golden visions for Catholicism were contingent on a +complete restoration of the Church which was not undertaken then and +has not been undertaken since. + +Now that Rome is lost to the popes it is the fashion to conceive of +the temporal power as a divinely ordained instrument for the +protection and free development of the Kingdom of God on +earth--self-consistent, identical, uninterrupted. Such a conception +does not correspond to facts. We all know that the "Donation" of Rome +to the popes in the fourth century by the first Christian Emperor +Constantine, is only a pious myth, but even Charlemagne in the eighth +retained his imperial rights over Rome and over the person of the +pontiff. It was not till the age of the renascence and the rise of the +great European states with the absorption of the small principalities +and duchies, that the temporal power of the popes was ideated by them +in its modern sense; and it is then that they completed the +territorial aggressions by which they carved out for themselves an +Italian state extending north and east to Tuscany and Venetia and +southwards to Naples. The history of the papacy since then has been a +history not of war between the forces of the world and the forces of +Satan, the efforts of princes to enslave and the efforts of popes to +establish Christian freedom, but a history of the efforts of the civil +power and the civil prince to curb papal encroachments on their +rights--efforts which during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries +attained the proportions of true Magna Chartas of civil liberties. The +modern conception of the temporal power aggravated the "pre-eminent +domain" which the popes claimed in temporal affairs; the conception of +civil liberties which had smouldered in the middle ages burst into +flame in the modern world, and less than a century in fact elapsed +between the final destruction of all "home rule" in the papal states +and the loss of the temporal power. + +When we speak of the servitude of the Pope in the King of Italy's +dominions, we forget that Catholic princes have always found +themselves obliged to restrain the papal arm, and to propound from +time to time laws protecting the minor against the major clergy, the +prelates against the pretensions of the papacy, the people against the +publication of obnoxious Bulls, and the public peace by subjecting the +correspondence between the Pope and the bishops to scrutiny. Thus the +disciplinary canons of the Council of Trent were not published--and +were never accepted--in many Catholic states. Canon law has been the +constant butt of civil legislation which has denied one by one the +immunities of ecclesiastics and abolished the existence of +ecclesiastical courts for the trial of clerical offenders. The +abstract question of the popes' relation to civil rights and to +temporal power cannot be viewed apart from the sober teaching of +history. + + [Illustration: CASTEL AND PONTE SANT' ANGELO + + The castle of S. Angelo, fortified in the time of the popes, was + built by Hadrian as his mausoleum. The bridge is the ancient _pons + Aelius_ of which the parapet is modern, and the statues of SS. Peter + and Paul and of angels bearing the instruments of the Passion were + added by Clements VII. and IX. It was built by Hadrian to reach his + mausoleum. In the middle ages it was lined by a double row of + booths, and two hundred people were crushed to death here in the + Jubilee of 1450. See pages 32, 239, 242.] + +Already in the reign of Pius VI. the Romans had imbibed from the +French some of the doctrines of the Revolution, among them that of the +sovereignty of the people. From that time onwards the papal power +could never have been upheld except by foreign arms; and the spirit in +which the great Napoleon offered his services should be sufficient +evidence that the task of preserving the patrimony of Peter was not +undertaken by those whom we ought to regard as having understood +better than the Italians the things which belonged to Catholic peace. +Every one will admit that the pontifical states were not really +independent during these foreign occupations: what appears to be +less clear is that a pope-king is not necessarily more free to +exercise his high office than a pope who does not rule or who may even +be the subject of another government. There is a covered way from the +Vatican to Castel Sant' Angelo which is itself a parable of the +history of the Roman popes. It was constructed as a means of fleeing +in secrecy and safety from the Vatican when the turbulent Romans or +foreign invaders made the pope's life insecure and placed his city at +the mercy of vandals. The "Pope's own city of Rome" should never be +thought of without a mental picture of the covered passage from the +episcopal palace to the fortified castle, along which popes young and +old, bad and good, have hurried praying or cursing. Let us look upon +some of these fugitive popes, and realise from their trembling steps, +their impotent objurgations, the hunted look in their eyes, how much +of dignity and liberty the possession of Rome secured to them in the +exercise of their divine mission. There is a type of Catholic whose +favourite theme is Canossa, as his adversary's favourite theme is the +Copernican system. An emperor standing outside the Pope's castle in a +penitent's shirt through weary days and icy nights beseeching him to +withdraw the decree of excommunication strikes the imagination to the +exclusion of the sequel of the story. Four years after the experience +of Canossa, the "penitent" emperor, accompanied by his antipope, +brought an army to Rome and made Gregory fly to Castel Sant' Angelo. +The people abandoned the cause of the great Hildebrand, betrayed Rome +to the enemy at its gates and deposed their lawful pope. But imperial +vengeance for a humiliation which had been undertaken to satisfy the +superstition of the vulgar did not end there. Henry V. exacted from +Paschal II. a further penalty, and while Europe looked on in apathy, +the Pope and his cardinals were made prisoners and a number of priests +were drawn through the mud at the horses' tails as the imperial troops +rode off. Gelasius II. was seized in the conclave which elected him, +trampled underfoot and chained in a tower belonging to the Frangipani. +Rescued by the Romans of Trastevere and the Island, he is next found +hiding in the _Borgo_ from the emperor, who pursued him in his flight +to Gaeta, annulled his election and proclaimed an antipope. On the +Pope's return to Rome he was entrapped at a mass in S. Prassede, but +escaping to the meadows by S. Paul's where he was found weeping with +the women of the neighbourhood, he died an exile in a Cluniac convent +in France. + + [Illustration: BRONZE STATUE OF MARCUS AURELIUS ON THE CAPITOL + + Placed here by Michael Angelo in 1538, who removed it from the + Lateran Piazza. It owed its preservation to the belief that it + represented Constantine. To the right and left are the museums of + the Capitol. In the rear is the Palace of the Senator overlooking + the Forum. See pages 13-15, 57, 58, 241.] + +In 1144 the Romans determined to restore their free Senate and +demanded, under Arnold of Brescia's influence, the abolition of the +temporal power. Lucius II. stormed the Capitol and died defending his +rights, but his successor was forced to fly the eternal city. Our one +English Pope, who possessed the fine old English sounding name of +Nicholas Breakspear, declared on his death bed that the Pope of Rome +must find means to content the sordid soul of the Roman people or quit +his throne and his city a fugitive. Indeed nothing is more +noticeable than the strict impartiality with which the Romans meted +out violence to popes good and bad; and exactly a century before they +were deposing the great Hildebrand, they could have been seen +outraging the body of the infamous Boniface VII., surnamed "Francone," +whose bleeding corpse was kicked and rolled down the streets of Rome +to the foot of the statue of the good Marcus Aurelius. In the same +century which saw the English Hadrian IV. reigning in Rome, two German +archbishops led troops against a pope. The Romans, as usual, required +the vanquished pope to abdicate, and accepted Barbarossa as their +ruler, who gave them an antipope. Of one emperor at this time it could +be truthfully said that he had "the whole College of Cardinals in his +pay" which affords some notion of the spiritual dignity of conclaves, +while the ups and downs to which the papal rulers of Rome were subject +is illustrated in the case of Pope Alexander who in the same twelfth +century was received with open arms after ten years' exile by the +fickle people, who however duly stoned his coffin when he died. +Clement III., himself a Roman, was obliged to sanction once more the +powers of the Roman Senate, and to hand over to the people part of the +tolls. Innocent IV. fled to Genoa, this time from fear of the emperor, +who afterwards kept him a prisoner in his own Lateran palace. Even a +Boniface VIII. narrowly escaped being kidnapped by the French King and +died most miserably in the Vatican. Benedict XI., the saintly Venetian +pope, attempted to punish the perpetrators of this outrage, but had +to withdraw his Bulls, and retire himself to Perugia. The election of +his successor the French Pope Clement V. was followed by the exile of +the popes in Avignon, and since their return to Rome in 1377 the popes +have not belied their character for alternately inspiring and flying +from violence foreign and internecine. + +That mute but eloquent parable in stone is the real synthesis of the +history of the papacy--the episcopal palace by the tomb of the +Apostle, in the first Christian church, at one end, and at the other +the fortress which was once a pagan emperor's mausoleum, with its +dungeons and its history, secret and open, of crime and bloodshed; and +between these the covered way along which the popes pass and repass +from one to the other, symbol not of the separation but of the fateful +conjunction of spiritual and temporal which has haunted their history. + +It would, indeed, be strange if ages of barbarism could have secured +to the first Christian bishop the honour and safety which can now be +assured to him by that civilisation and tolerance which we have +substituted for "the ages of faith"; and United Italy must have a long +future ahead of it before it can have heaped on the popes one +hundredth part of the indignities and sufferings which they underwent +when nominally masters of Rome. But such modern conditions have not +always prevailed, and those who in all ages have waged war against the +theory of the temporal power--saints and philosophers--ought to have +recognised that at one period of European history territorial +lordship, feudal rank and power, were a necessity. The Church did not +create and did not choose the feudal system, which was indeed opposed +in principle to the spirit and teaching of Christ's Gospel, and the +days have long since gone by when "secular grandeur guaranteed to the +Church her religious integrity"--nevertheless these days once existed, +and then the Catholic Church was as a strong man armed _cap a pie_ +fighting for life, and leaving to the individual--the saintly bishop, +the saintly clerk or layman--the task of softening the rigours and +planing the roughnesses of a Christian system which was also at war +with itself. Although it is true that no form of the popes' temporal +sway has at any time secured to the papacy the benefits that have been +alleged for it by ultramontane writers since 1870, and conversely true +that the events of 1870 did not deprive the pope of those benefits, +yet it is also perfectly true that the papacy has been, through the +centuries, the means of preserving for Italy its ancient character of +a world power, and of preserving for Rome, abandoned by Constantine +and his successors to the fate of a small provincial town, cowering in +its own ruins and filth, the prestige and significance of the city +which ruled the world. It is the successors of Peter who have +perpetuated the meaning of its title "the Eternal City," and have +carried on, through fine weather and foul, the immortality of +Augustus. This surely constitutes the papacy's chief claim on Italy's +consideration. + +There is, moreover, a curious and subtile, but perfectly +comprehensible, tie between Italy and the popes, to which expression +was given by the priest-philosopher Gioberti in his book on "The +Primacy" already quoted. The Italian who never goes to church, nay the +Italian who believes in no Church--and in Italy he is not at all +necessarily the same person--contemplates the papal primacy with +pleasure and pride, and considers with approval the phenomenon which +brings the rest of Europe to kiss the foot of an Italian. He is +perfectly aware, on the one side, that the Christian primacy--which is +an Italian primacy--adds lustre and a cosmopolitan atmosphere to the +city and the land which was the cradle of modern civilisation; and in +some undefinable, yet I think definite, way he sees in it a +compensation for the glory which has departed from his land of +glories, a tangible pledge and earnest of that world-mastery whose +sceptre is now wrenched from his hands. + + [Illustration: S. PETER'S FROM THE PINCIAN GARDENS + + See pages 16, 100, 135.] + +The modern ultramontane has accustomed the modern simple faithful to +an historical picture which has had, as we see, no existence in fact: +the Vatican standing solemn and decorous, at its Bronze Gate the Swiss +Guard; the papal sovereignty and the papal troops--disbanded, these +latter, by evil men in 1870--guaranteeing to pope and cardinal the +freedom of their sacred ministry both within and without the papal +confines. It is only since 1870 that such a picture can be seen, in +miniature, and within the walls of the Vatican, under the respectful +tutelage of a united Italy which now surrounds the solemn and decorous +palace, certainly not the least turbulent centre of Europe before +1870. + + +II. _Since 1870_ + +The pretension of the popes to wield "the two swords" had ever been a +fruitful cause of friction in Europe; but in Rome the immense +spiritual claims of the papacy joined to the claim that the Pope was +_de jure divino_ monarch of monarchs, and could command the sword of +princes in carrying out his ecclesiastical behests, wore a unique +aspect, for here the Pope was in actual possession of the temporal +sword, and ruled the bodies as well as the souls of men. The civil +supremacy of the State is, indeed, a permanent conquest of the age in +which we live, and the last European stronghold of the opposing theory +was to be seen in Rome itself. + +It is interesting therefore to notice that it was for internal civil +reform that the Romans were agitating during the last years before +1870. The interference of the clergy in municipal administration was +an intolerable grievance, and municipal reforms were still being urged +on the Pope in 1857. The agitators were chiefly to be found among the +lawyers and doctors, the educated _bourgeoisie_--always a minority in +Rome--who were joined by a few heads and scions of great families. But +in the previous pontificate "demonstrations" in favour of the falling +papacy had still been engineered in Rome. Incited by a cardinal the +people would take the horses out of Gregory XVI.'s carriage, and drag +the Pope in procession; but the venal demonstrators had each his own +personal petition to present, and when, shortly afterwards, one of +the principal demonstrators assassinated his wife and aggravated the +murder by brutally locking her in a room so that she might expire +without assistance, the tender conscience of his comrades was outraged +to find that Gregory sent him to the gallows without hesitation. The +mercenary troops--the recruited refuse of all nations--described by an +eye witness as "a drunken rabble," were also a thorn in the side of +the Romans. The character of these papal supporters was in general so +infamous that _soldato del papa_ was a proverbial contumely: they were +the defenders of Rome in September 1870, under a German Swiss colonel, +appointed general for the occasion, whose opponent, Cadorna, an +officer of very different standing, wrote the history of the siege. + +In the thirty-four years that have since elapsed, the millennium has +certainly not come in Italy, nor is everything better than it was +before. But at least everything has a chance of being better. Some of +the things which the popes were asked to concede, especially as +regards penal procedure, are not bettered to-day, for the Italian laws +though in certain departments they are ideal schemes of legislation +are in practice very frequently dead letters--and some of the crimes +which made old Rome hideous have ceased owing to the very simple +expedient of lighting the streets at night. + +The _Statuto_, the constitution of united Italy, begins with a +declaration that the religion of the State is the Catholic religion. +The Pope's relation to the State was defined by "the Law of +Guarantees" in 1871. His status is not that of a subject, but of a +sovereign, though of a sovereign without territorial possessions. He +is, however, sovereign in his palaces of the Vatican, Lateran, and +Cancelleria, which with the papal country seat of Castel Gandolfo +still belong to him. Within the Vatican he can and does maintain certain +companies of soldiers and guards, and _extraterritorialisation_ +applies to the Vatican precinct, no Italian official having any right +to enter there unless invited to do so. Foreign nations can accredit +ambassadors and ministers plenipotentiary to the Pope's court, and he +can maintain ambassadors, or nunzios, at foreign courts. The +archbasilicas of S. Peter's, S. John Lateran, and S. Maria Maggiore, +also belong to the Pope, and their possession enabled Leo XIII. to +refuse any one of the great basilicas for the marriage of the present +King of Italy. The palace of Santa Maria Maggiore was confirmed to the +popes in compensation for the loss of the Quirinal, and this +territory, like all the other palaces churches and villas named, is +_papal_ territory, not Italian territory. In addition, the Law of +Guarantees provides that a sum of L130,000 (three and a quarter +million francs) should be paid annually to the popes as a compensation +for their revenue. This has never been accepted. The Law was intended +to secure the Pope's complete independence of the Italian Crown, a +matter which it was felt would be jealously watched over by other +Catholic States; it guarantees his complete personal and +administrative independence in the government of the Church, and in +his and his agents' communication with countries outside Italy. That +the popes have never been satisfied with it their continued protest +and invocation of the liberty and dignity of temporal sovereignty +amply proves. + +The relation of Church and State in Italy is like that in other +Catholic countries. The entire revenue of the papal States passed of +course into the hands of the Italian Government, which also took over +the revenues of such institutions as _Propaganda Fide_. A _Fondo +Culto_ was created, and the nation continued to administer the +ecclesiastical revenues of the country for the same objects as did the +Pope. It pays the stipends of the parish priests, and a project has +just been matured for increasing these in parishes where they are less +than 1000 francs (L40) a year. Only in May of last year (1904) the +_Camera_ had under discussion the relief of the lower and unbeneficed +clergy, and of the poorer provincial seminaries for training priests. +Bishops and canons cannot become possessed of their "temporalities" +without the royal _exequatur_, and all public religious fabrics +throughout the country belong to the State. Where the ecclesiastical +face of Italy has been changed is in the suppression and expropriation +of its monasteries and religious houses--the historical sites (with +their treasures) have been declared national monuments, the gradual +suppression of the communities which inhabited them has been provided +for by a law forbidding the profession of new members, and the +monastic revenues have been partly converted into insignificant +pensions--varying from two francs to fifty centimes a day--paid to +each individual of the suppressed communities. That the law has not +been pressed with great severity by the tolerant Italian Government is +evidenced in the fact that communities still exist who have escaped +final confiscation for thirty-eight years by silently adding to their +number so that it might never fall below the fatal six which spelt +dissolution. At the end of the century there were still 13,875 +religious who under this law were in receipt of 176,000 pounds. As to +Rome itself, the Religious Congregations have proved that it has not +been made an insupportable place of residence for them. The historic +houses are national monuments, and the ancient communities are only +recruited _sub rosa_, but new "Mother Houses" of all the great orders +are taking possession of commanding sites in Rome, the illegal +"professions" take place every day, and the number of monks, friars, +and religious of both sexes is considerably larger than it was before +1870. So true is it that no district, hardly a street, in Rome is +without its convent, that it has been wittily declared that the +"temporal power" is in fact returning in this way--and Rome is again +in roods and acres becoming ecclesiastical property. + +It is difficult to suppose that we are near a conciliation between the +Pope and Italy, or that there is still time for a satisfactory +coalition between the conservative forces of law and order in the +country and the moral forces of Catholicism against the inrush of the +subversive forces of socialism and political radicalism. Many of the +best men on the Italian side would indeed deplore any reconciliation +with the Pope at present on the ground that it would involve a check +to the civil progress of the Italian people. Meanwhile the Italians +are certainly not becoming more religious under a system which assumes +that if you are a good citizen you cannot be "a good Catholic," and it +is for the popes to determine whether the irreligion of the people is +or is not too heavy a price to pay for the upkeep of their protest +against the events of 1870. The consequent alienation of some of the +better religious elements in the country is, at least, doing serious +harm in that it makes the abler men outside doubt whether the +religious elements which remain are worthy to be regarded as in any +sense a moral force which could be invoked to co-operate with the best +modern secular forces. + +Meanwhile the opposing factions have been face to face for thirty-four +years. How have they behaved, and how have they altered since then? +The official Vatican behaviour never varied until Pius X. ascended the +Chair of Peter. Pius IX. had set the example of violent public +utterances, and had permitted the subsidised clerical newspapers to +attack Victor Emmanuel both in his private and public character. On +the other hand he would never tolerate in his presence a word against +the King, and his own letters to him were not only friendly but +affectionate. This little comedy scandalised the Italian's sense of +decorum, and as a policy has succeeded in alienating Italian sympathy. +The general tendency on the secular side has been conciliatory; the +Italians, indeed, began with a farce on the morrow of their entry into +Rome, a farce duly recorded in the name of the street which runs past +the church of the _Gesu_. The _plebiscite_ registered the will of the +"whites" but not the will of the "blacks," none of whom voted; and the +forty-six votes against the new _regime_ which appeared in the total, +had been cast by the "whites" themselves. Nevertheless the Catholics +in Rome who do not make a _politica_ of their religion, willingly +allow that they enjoy a large measure of liberty. Not long since at +the request of the visiting chaplain the authorities arranged for a +man to be brought back to the prison where his wife was still +undergoing sentence, in order that their civil marriage might be +completed with the religious rite. For some years past the present +Cardinal Vicar of Rome has administered the Easter Communion to the +inmates of the _Regina Coeli_ prison to the joy of the prison +officials and the reciprocal consolation of the cardinal and the black +sheep whom he that day bears home on his shoulder rejoicing. It is +well known that the officers encourage the men to attend to their +religious duties at Easter, and remind them of these as the seasons +come round. Every soldier may then have leave of absence for +confession and communion, and a rule is made requiring all men out on +leave in this way to bring back with them the Communion ticket which +is given at the rails to each Easter communicant. Many of the soldiers +choose to go to S. Peter's, and the carabineers in their sober black +uniforms may always be seen there during Holy Week. + +It will readily be understood that both incongruities and +accommodations are rife in such a condition of affairs as the +existence of a State Church by the side of a hostile papacy. The King +wants a regimental banner blest, or the Pope wants to have the roads +kept while fifty thousand pilgrims flock to S. Peter's. During the +latter years of Leo XIII.'s pontificate the Italian police were +invited into the basilica, and headed a procession with all the +decorum of its traditional vergers, the _Sampietrini_. These +reciprocal interests even require telephonic communication between the +Quirinal and the Vatican. In theory, the House of Savoy, the members +of the Government and every person in its pay down to the _custodi_ of +the ruins and museums of Rome with their families are excommunicated. +In practice the Pope provides a chaplain for the Royal palace, the +parish priest has of late years entered the Quirinal and penetrated to +the royal bedrooms for the customary blessing of houses on Easter eve, +Italian officials and their families receive absolution like any one +else, and the irony of history required that the "excommunicated" +Queen Margaret of Savoy was the only princely personage to fulfil the +conditions of the last Jubilee year in Rome. + + [Illustration: FROM THE TERRACE OF THE HOUSE OF DOMITIAN + + Before us is the church built on the site of the Temple of Venus and + Rome and dedicated to S. Francesca Romana, the greatest of Roman + saints. To the left the huge ruins of the basilica of the first + Christian emperor, while to the right is the Arch of Titus, + commemorating the fall of Jerusalem, and the road with its _via + crucis_ which leads to the church of S. Bonaventura, the biographer + of S. Francis, built against the Stadium of Domitian. + + The view is taken from the terrace outside that domestic basilica of + the Flavian House which still retains more of the form of a + Christian basilica than any other pagan building. Here are brought + together the old and the new, Christian and pagan, papal and + imperial--the shock of the two world empires. See interleaf, pages + 44, 50.] + +And the "blacks and the whites"? In the "eighties" the distinction +between those who clung to the old _regime_ and those who adopted the +new was still sufficiently marked, but in the last decade of the +century the "blacks" became "gray" or as they themselves liked to +express it _caffe-latte_, neither black nor white. The acceptance +of invitations to the Quirinal has, up to now, entailed the forfeiture +of those official invitations to the Vatican which are extended to the +Roman aristocracy for every great papal function. Many of its older +members still absent themselves from all official "white" receptions, +and a daughter is still presented not at the Court but to the Pope, +with her _fiance_, on her engagement. But in private society the great +"black" ladies now know and meet the "white" society with which many +of the Roman families are related by marriage; and it is not +infrequently the case that one branch of an old Roman house clings to +the Pope while another attaches itself to the King. But everywhere, +even where the parents absent themselves from official "white" +society, their children now go to the Quirinal. Thus we are very far +from the time when no member of the Roman aristocracy met the King or +Queen, when the Court was entirely composed of new men, or the +Piedmontese whom the King brought with him. The day has gone by when +even in a ball-room the "blacks" took care to label themselves by +wearing a yellow (papal) rose, and only priests and the English +converts still make a point of not saluting the sovereign. One Roman +prince, however, has kept up a picturesque protest--and the great door +of Prince Lancellotti's palace has never been opened since the day the +King of Italy entered the Pope's capital. Even when, quite recently, +invitations to a ball were issued from the great silent house, all the +guests crowded through the postern door. + +When one asks any of the old school now whether the old Government did +well or ill, the best, and the wisest, answer that they can give us is +"They were _altri tempi_, other times." And this is the reason why it +is impossible that the two parties should continue to exist after the +present generation. The cleavage has really been due to the fact that +the Vatican and Quirinal parties live in two different epochs; they +live in different worlds and speak a different language. The old +fashioned "blacks" can only think in a circle of ideas and sentiments, +political and moral, to which they were born but which has no present +point of contact with reality, with the living world around them, with +"things as they are." The old has its beauty and the new has its +uglinesses, as always; but also they frequently change these +positions. Fifteen years ago one of the most distinguished Italian +diocesans wrote a pamphlet entitled "_Roma e l'Italia, e la realta +delle cose, pensieri di un prelato italiano_"--"Rome, Italy, and +things as they are; thoughts of an Italian Prelate." As soon as his +name was discovered, he was told to withdraw the pamphlet, publicly +from his own pulpit. This was not encouraging to others who thought as +he in a country where secular public opinion still counts for so +little, the individual "courage of your opinions" counts for still +less, and where a public opinion among ecclesiastics is simply +non-existent. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, a +Cardinal Secretary of State had the courage of his opinions as the +following passages from his Memoirs will prove. He is known for his +protection of the Jesuits against the Jansenists during his sojourn in +Paris as papal Envoy Extraordinary, and by the Pacca law, which is +called after him, prohibiting private owners from disposing of great +works of art out of Italy. "Providence," he writes, "has taken away +the temporal power from the Holy See and prepared those changes in +States and Governments which shall once more render it possible for +the Pope, although a subject, to rule over and govern the whole body +of the faithful." "The popes, relieved from the burden of the temporal +power which obliged them to devote a great part of their time to +secular affairs, may now turn all their attention and all their care +to the spiritual government of the Church; and when the Roman Church +lacks the pomp and magnificence which temporal sovereignty has given +her, then there will be numbered among her clergy only those who +_bonum opus desiderant_." + +That pathetic combatant for papal rights in the twelfth century +Gelasius II., exclaimed to his cardinals "We must leave Rome, where it +is impossible to stay." That plaintive cry need, we trust, have no +further echo: the ages of which Gregorovius writes that popes "were +obliged to leave Rome to realise in foreign countries that they were +still actually reverenced as representatives of Christ" closed, we +hope, with the entry of the Italians into Rome and the consequent +creation--in lieu of the elusive "_Roma intangibile_"--of what +Bismarck happily called an "intangible Vatican." + + + + +Index + + + Abruzzi, Abruzzese, 153, 155, 188 + + Accademia dei Nobili Ecclesiastici, 221 + + Accoramboni, Vittoria, 167 + + Acilii Glabriones, 45 + + Adelbert, S., 8 + + Adonis, 90 + + _Aedes publica_, 31 + + Aeneas, 2, 130 + + Aesculapius, 7, 8 + + Agape, 46 + + Ager (agro), 1, 15, 70-1, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 90 + + Agricultural colonies, 11, 76 + + Agrippa, 20, 22, 30 + + Alabaster, 27 + + Alaric, 37 + + Alba Longa, 1, 2, 15 + + Alban hills, 17, 23, 70, 78 + + Albani, 171 + + Alexander III., 241 + + Alexander Severus, 22, 32, 63 + + _Alta Semita_, 55 + + Altar, 19, 20, 35, 186; + position of priest at, 36, 186 + + Altieri, 172 + + _Ambarvalia_, 15 + + Amphitheatre, 22, 31, 33, 163 + + Anacletus II., 161 + + Ancus Martius, 5, 26 + + Anguillara, 60, 162, 168 + + Animals, cruelty to, 81, 88, 129, 147-8, 155; + Leo XIII. and, 148 + + Anio, 24 + + Annibaldi, 168 + + Anselm, S., 5 + + Antonelli, Cardinal, 202, 219 + + Antonines, 11 + + Antoninus Pius, 32, 197 + + Antony, S., 68, 148 + + Apostles, 42, 48, 199 + + Appian Way, 30, 41, 45, 70, 168 + + Appius Claudius, 21 + + Apprentice, 67 + + Apse, 19, 35, 36 + + Aqueducts, 21, 22, 30, 31, 37, 39, 73 + + Arabesques, 29 + + Arcadians, 2 + + Arch, 36; + of Janus, 162 + + Arches, triumphal, 33; + of Constantine, 32, 162; + of Septimius Severus, 32; + of Titus, 31, 162; + of Trajan, 31 + + Architraves, 19, 36 + + Arenula, 56 + + Aristocracy, 94, 99, 109, 132, 135, 159, 160, 170, 172, 173, 174, + 178, 215, 221, 245, 253 + + Arnold of Brescia, 240 + + Augustus, 4, 10, 12, 23, 25, 29, 30, 31, 53, 54, 55, 57, 74, 164, 243; + house of, 10, 30; + mausoleum of, 30, 164, 242 + + Aurelian, Emperor, 6, 32; + wall, 32, 38, 43, 163 + + Aurelii, 45 + + Aurelius, Marcus, 32, 46, 55, 63, 197, 241 + + _Ave Maria_, 232 + + Aventine, 26, 30, 160, 202, 227 + + Avignon, exile in, 6, 14, 57, 242 + + + _Baioccho_, 105 + + Balbo, Cesare, 235 + + _Baldacchino_, 10, 177, 211 + + _Balnae_, 20 + + Bambin Gesu, image in Ara Coeli, 230; + convent of the, 223 + + Banners, regional, 55, 57, 58, 59 + + Baptism, 231 + + Barbarossa, 241 + + Barberini, 9, 10, 171 + + Barbers, street, 101 + + Baronial towers. _See_ Towers + + Bartholomew, S., 7 + + Basilica, Christian, 33, 34, 36, 50, 67, 186, 209; + domestic, 34, 35; + Flavian, 35; + forensic, 19, 20, 24, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37; + Julia, 20, 30; + Ulpian, 31 + + Baths, public, 19-21, 24, 30, 31, 39, 54, 61, 99 + + Beggars, 11-12, 54, 99 + + Belli, Gioacchino, 140 + + Bell towers. _See_ Towers + + Benedict XI., 241 + + Benedict XIII., 167 + + Benedict XIV., 59, 178 + + Benedict, S., 78 + + Beneficent clubs, 68 + + Beneventum, 7 + + _Berretta_, 204, 205, 209 + + Bibulus, 29 + + Bismarck, 255 + + "Blacks" and "Whites," 252-4 + + Boatmen's guild, 63 + + Bombardment of Rome, 212 + + Bonaparte, 171 + + Boncompagni, 170 + + Boniface VII., 241 + + Boniface VIII., 164, 165, 167, 168, 201, 241 + + "Book of the Art," 84, 86 + + Borghese, 123, 170, 171, 174 + + Borgo, 55, 90, 228, 240 + + Bracciano, 17, 168; + duke of, 167 + + Braschi, 173 + + Breakspear, Nicholas, 240 + + _Breccias_, 27 + + Bricks, 23, 25, 37 + + Brigands, 11, 54, 89, 96, 150 + + Buffalo Bill, 89 + + Building crisis, 12 + + Burial guilds, 8, 42, 63, 77 + + _Butteri_, 89, 90 + + _Buzzuri_, 138 + + Byzantium, Byzantine, 42, 137, 234 + + + Cadorna, General, 246 + + Caecilia Metella, 29, 168 + + Caecilii, 45, 46 + + Caelian hill, 5, 31, 53, 202 + + Caesar, Julius, 29, 30 + + Caesarius, S., 74 + + Caetani, 164, 168, 177 + + Cafe, 101, 142 + + _Cafoni_, 138 + + Calabria, Calabrese, 126, 139, 155 + + Caligula, 31 + + Callistus, catacomb of, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46; + Pope, 42 _n._; + Callistus III. 60 + + _Camorra_, 139, 139 _n._ + + Campagna, 17, 21, 38, 69-80, 83, 89-92, 107, 228; + cattle in, 77; + cities, ancient, of, 72; + deaths in the, 77, 90, 143; + malaria in, 74-5; + towns of, 78, 107 + + Campitelli, _rione_, 56 + + Campo de' Fiori, 219 + + Campo Marzo (Campus Martius), 18, 22, 30, 33, 37, 55, 59, 60, 163, 228 + + Campo Vaccino, 61, 62 + + _Cancellum_, 19, 35 + + Candelabra, 36 + + Canon law, 238 + + Canon, a, of S. M. in Trastevere, 232 + + Canonisation, 50 + + Canossa, 239 + + Capitol, 4, 18, 28, 30, 31, 38, 56, 57, 58, 130, 135, 161, 169, + 172, 173, 240 + + _Capo d'arte_, 66 + + _Capo rione_, 57, 58 + + _Cappa magna_, 209 + + Captains, regional, 54, 55, 56, 58 + + Carabineers, 150, 151, 151 _n._, 225 + + Caracalla, 20, 21, 32 + + Cardinal, Bishops, 201, 205; + Chamberlain, 210; + deacons, 201, 202, 205; + priests, 201, 202, 205; + vicar, 201, 251 + + Cardinal's dress, 204, 206, 209, 210; + hat, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 209; + vicar, 201 + + Cardinals, 15, 58, 159, 175, 200-211, 225, 228, 240, 241 + + Cardinals, College of, 15, 201, 202, 205, 210, 241, 252 + + Carnival, 58 + + Carrara marble, 25 + + Carters, carts, 63, 72, 88, 90, 96, 228 + + Caserta, 168, 177 + + Cassandrino, 141 + + Castel Gandolfo, 171, 247 + + Castel Sant' Angelo, 56, 239, 242 + + _Castelli Romani_, 71, 78, 79 + + Catacombs, 196; + art in 46; + number of, 43; + prayers for dead in, 48-9; + testimony of the, 47-8 + + Catholicism and the Catholic Church, 45, 47, 137, 181, 184, 195, + 199, 236, 243; + and Catholic clergy, 137, 248, 254 + + Celestine III., 167 + + _Cella_, 18, 19 + + Cement, use of, 24, 27, 37 + + Cenci, Cencius, 168, 169; + Beatrice, 160; + Bolognetti, 169; + Johannes, 169; + Marcus, 169; + Virginius, 169 + + Centurion, 54 + + Cestian bridge. _See pons_ + + Chapter of S. Peter's, 67, 209 + + Charioteers, 33, 63 + + Charities, Roman, 11, 56, 66, 174, 217, 223 + + Charlemagne, 14, 237 + + Chigi, 170; + Agostino, 171 + + Chivalry, 5, 112 + + Chrism ("confirmation"), 231 + + Christians, early, 34, 42, 47 + + Church and State, 248 + + Churches-- + S. Adriano, 202; + S. Anastasia, 2; + SS. Andrea and Gregorio, 161, 202; + S. Angelo in Pescheria, 56; + SS. Apostoli, 232; + Ara Coeli, 57, 86, 161, 230; + S. Barbara, 66; + S. Bartholomew, 8; + SS. Bonifacio and Alessio, 202; + S. Caterina de' Funari, 66; + Chiesa Nuova, 56; + S. Clemente, 202; + SS. Cosma and Damiano, 32; + S. Croce, 35; + S. Domitilla (catacomb), 187; + S. Eligio dei Ferrai, 68; + S. Eusebio, 202; + S. Eustachio, 56; + S. Francesca Romana, 32; + S. Giorgio in Velabro, 202; + S. Giovanni Calibita, 7; + S. Giuseppe degli Falegnami, 66; + S. John Beheaded, 86; + S. John Lateran, 35, 36, 247; + S. Lorenzo in Lucina, 226; + S. Lorenzo in Miranda, 32, 66; + S. Luigi, 173; + S. Marcello, 161; + S. Marco, 230; + S. Maria degli Angeli, 21; + S. Maria in Aquiro, 202; + S. Maria Aventinense (_see_ Priory of Malta); + S. Maria in Cosmedin, 7, 31, 186; + S. Maria in Capella, 229; + S. Maria in Domnica, 187; + S. Maria Maggiore, 23, 34, 60, 171, 187, 223, 231, 247; + S. Maria dell' Orto, 66, 229; + SS. Nereo and Achilleo, 187; + S. Paul's-without-the-Walls, 36, 240; + S. Peter's, 10, 16, 32, 38, 41, 42, 67, 196, 247, 251, 252; + S. Prassede, 240; + S. Prisca, 202; + S. Sabina, 186; + S. Silvestro in Capite, 166; + S. Stefano, Via Latina, 187; + S. Tommaso a' Cenci, 66, 169 + + Cippolino, 27 + + Circolo San Pietro, 76, 222 + + Circus, 19, 26, 33; + Maximus, 30 + + _Civis romanus_, 181, 199 + + Claudius, 26, 31, 181 + + Clement, Pope, 14 + + Clement III., 241 + + Clement V., 242 + + Clement IX., 172 + + Clement XI., 171 + + Clement XII., 171 + + Clement XIII., 146 + + Clementi, 156 _n._ + + _Clivus capitolinus_, 30 + + _Cloacae_, 18, 39 + + Cloisters, 36, 38 + + Cluilian Ditch, 15 + + Coaches, bambino's, 230; + pope's, 217, 231, 245; + cardinal's and prince's, 173, 207, 208, 210 + + Cohorts, 54 + + _Collegio_, 63, 64, 65, 66 + + _Colles_, 53 + + _Collina_, 53 + + Colonies, agricultural, 11, 76 + + Colonna, 55, 162, 163, 164-7, 170, 172; + Lorenzo, 165; + Marc' Antonio, 165; + Sciarra, 164; + Stephen, 165; + Vittoria, 165 + + Colosseum, 11, 22, 32, 39, 162 + + Coltello, 145 + + Columns, 33, 38; + of Marcus Aurelius, 32; + of Trajan, 31, 142 + + _Comitium_, 4 + + Commemorative banquets, 63 + + Communes, Roman, 13, 59, 64; + Italian, 14, 179 + + Communion, Easter, 223, 251; + first, 222, 223; + tickets, 223, 224, 251 + + Conciliation. _See_ Pope and Italy + + _Conciliatore_, 110-111 + + Conclave, 58, 210-11, 241 + + Concrete, use of, 24, 25, 27, 28, 37 + + _Confessio_, 36, 50 + + Confession, 222, 223, 251 + + Confraternities, 67, 68 + + Confraternity of Prayer and Death, 67, 143; + red, 8, 229 + + Congregations, Roman, 203, 249; + of women in Rome, 220, 228, 230 + + Consistory, secret, 204; + public, 204 + + Constantine, 31, 32, 34, 37, 42, 162, 237, 243 + + Consular families, 13, 34, 63 + + Conti, 160 + + Corinthian pillars, 19 + + Cornelius, pope, 45 + + Corporations, 62, 63 + + Corte Savella, 160 + + Corsi, 161 + + Corsini, 171 + + Corso, 9, 59, 93, 100, 101, 115, 141, 161, 172, 220, 221; + Vittorio Emanuele, 169 + + Cosmati, 36 + + Courtship, 152-3 + + Crime, 81, 139, 145-6, 149, 246 + + _Croce Rossa_, 75 + + Crostarosa, Mons., 34 _n._ + + Curatii and Horatii, 15 + + Curator, regional, 53, 54, 64 + + Curia, 201, 203 + + _Curiae_, 154 + + Curule chairs, 197 + + Customs officers, 64, 103 + + + Dante, 9 + + Deacons of Rome, 55, 200, 201, 202 + + Decimal system, 105 + + Decoration, 25, 28, 29 + + Deffand, Marquise du, 226 + + Democracy, 114, 115, 194 + + De Rossi, 44 + + Destruction of city. _See_ Rome + + Diaconate, the, 200 + + Diocletian, 20, 21, 32, 33, 61; + museum, 29 + + _Dio in terra_, 216 + + _Dispetto_, 134 + + District courts, 110 + + _Divin amore_ festa, 234 + + Doctors, guild of, 63 + + Dogma, 47, 50, 56, 64 + + Domitian, 30, 31; + house of, 31, 35 + + _Domui_, 23 + + Donation of Constantine, 237 + + Don, 178 + + Donna, 178 + + Door charms, 234 + + Doria Pamphili, 68, 172, 221 + + Doric columns, 19 + + Dowries, 12, 56, 66, 67 + + Dress of Romans, 141 + + Dyers, guild of, 63 + + + Easter. _See_ Communion + + Egypt, 7, 25, 180, 183 + + Esquilina, 55 + + Esquiline, 5, 53, 55, 202 + + Etruscans, 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 18, 70, 181, 182, 197 + + Eucharist, 46, 47, 49, 196, 197 + + Eugenius IV., 165 + + Evander, 2 + + Evil eye, 231 + + Exarchate, 13, 14, 42 + + _Excubitoria_, 56 + + _Exequatur_, 248 + + Exorcism, 81, 82-3, 187, 222 + + Extraterritorialisation, 247 + + Extreme unction, 192 + + + Fabrician bridge. _See pons_ + + Family life in Italy, 116-17, 155; + Rome, 97, 154, 155 + + Farms in the campagna, 33, 71, 72, 73, 77 + + Fattore, 77 + + Faustulus, 2 + + _Fedeli_, 59 + + _Festa_, 100, 102, 156, 204, 224, 228 + + Feudalism, 112, 160, 162, 243 + + Fever, goddess, 74 + + "Field of Cows," 38, 61, 62 + + Firemen, 54 + + Flavian house, 12, 31, 35, 45 + + Florence. _See_ Tuscany + + Fluor-spar, 27 + + _Fondo culto_, 248 + + Fortress, military, 23, 38 + + _Fortuna Virilis_. _See_ Temples + + Forum, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38, 56, 59, 61, 66, 147, 231 + + _Forum Romanum_, 4, 15, 18, 20, 30, 31, 147 + + Fountains, street, 21, 33, 39, 93, 175 + + Francis, S., 8, 189, 195 + + Franciscans, 8, 189, 229 + + Frangipani, 161, 240 + + Franks, 65 + + Frascati, 171 + + French kings, 14, 241; + Revolution, 146, 238 + + Fresco painting, 29, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47 + + Friezes, 19, 28, 37, 61 + + + Gaeta, 202, 214, 215, 236 + + Gaetani, 164, 168, 177 + + Galera, 168 + + Gardens, 33, 39, 93 + + Garibaldi, 118, 123 + + Gates of Rome, 100, 207 + + Gelasius II., 168, 240, 255 + + Genazzano, 79, 83, 166; + madonna of, 83 + + Genseric, 37 + + _Gentes_, 13, 14, 45, 70 + + _Gentiluomo_, 208, 209 + + Genzano, 79 + + George, S., 74 + + Germanicus, house of, 29, 157 + + Geta, 32 + + Ghetto, 7, 11, 56, 219, 230 + + Ghibellines, 60, 162, 163 + + _Giallo Antico_, 27 + + Gioberti, 235, 236, 244 + + _Giulio_, 105 + + Giustiniani, 173 + + Gladiators, 22, 63 + + Goat herd, 38 + + Goatskin breeches, 90 + + "Golden book," 172 + + Golden house of Nero, 29 + + Governor of Rome, 222 + + _Graffiti_, 44 + + Gratian, 37 + + Grazioli, 172 + + Greece, 3, 7, 8, 13, 18, 20, 25, 27, 45, 129, 130, 182, 183, + 186, 197 + + Gregory the Great, 11 + + Gregory VII., 239 + + Gregory XI., 57 + + Gregory XIII., 170 + + Gregory XVI., 213, 218, 219, 245 + + _Grosso_, 105 + + Grotta Ferrata, 166 + + Grotto of Lupercus, 2 + + _Guardia_, 144, 149, 150, 151 + + Guelphs, 60, 162, 163 + + Guilds, trade, 52, 58, 62, 64, 65, 67, 68; + conditions of membership, 64, 66; + funds, 65; + patrons, 63, 64; + religious, 63; + under State control, 64; + statutes, 66 + + Guiscard, Robert, 37 + + Gymnasia, Greek, 20 + + + Hadrian, Emperor, 23, 31, 32, 37 + + Hadrian's mausoleum, 23, 32, 37 + + Hadrian IV., pope, 78, 240, 241 + + Handicrafts, 52, 58, 63 + + Hannibal, 168 + + Heliogabalus, 32 + + Henry IV., 239 + + Henry V., 240 + + Heraldic Commission, 179 + + Hildebrand, 240, 241 + + "Hill of goats," 38 + + Hill villages, 71, 78 + + Holidays, Roman, 100 + + Holy See, the, 201, 207, 218, 255; + vacancy of, 210 + + Honorius I., 32 + + Honorius IV., 160, 161 + + Horatii and Curatii, 15 + + House of Savoy, 115, 252 + + Humbert, King, 115 + + Hymettan marble, 27 + + + Industrial classes, 62, 63, 66, 141, 228 + + Innkeepers, guild of the, 63 + + Innocent III., 160 + + Innocent IV., 241 + + Innocent XI., 172 + + Inn of the Bear, 9 + + _In petto_, 204 + + _Insulae_, 23 + + Ionic columns, 19 + + Ironworkers' guild, 58, 68 + + Isis, 183 + + Island of the Tiber, 240 + + _Isola sacra_, 240 + + Italian art, 123-5, 127, 191; + Catholicism, 81, 91, 188-196; + characteristics, 112-122; + crowds, 121; + cruelty, 81, 146-7, 155; + democracy, 114, 115, 193-5; + garden, 73; + "individualism," 115-116, 183; + women, 153-55 + + Italians and English, 112-124, 132, 145, 146, 151, 153-155, 157, + 190, 191, 194-196; + and French, 112, 119-122, 133, 145, 146; + and Germans, 112, 117, 122, 123, 131, 145, 146, 153, 157, 190, + 196; + and Irish, 120, 126 + + + Janiculum, the, 5, 16, 17, 171, 207, 227 + + Jasper, 27 + + Jerome, S., 37, 200 + + _Jettatura_, 231 + + Jews, in Rome, 5, 7, 45, 46, 160, 161, 180, 181-2, 183, 188, + 198, 199; + bonnet, 46; + of the dispersion, 45; + quarter, 7, 56, 169 + + John X., 168 + + Jubilee year, 217, 252 + + Jupiter (Jove), 18, 28, 30, 37, 78, 130, 131, 181, 182 + + Justin Martyr, 46 + + + Kitchens, Roman, 54, 94, 98, 99, 101, 108 + + Kitchen range, 98 + + + La Marmora, General, 123 + + Lancellotti, Prince, 253 + + _Lapis lazuli_, 27 + + _Lares compitales_, 53 + + Larva, 27 + + Latin league, 69, 78; + religion, 91, 92, 181, 182, 183, 193, 194, 196, 197 + + Latium, 1, 2, 70, 71, 146, 147 _n._, 181, 196 + + Law of guarantees, 247 + + Laws, Italian, 149, 246 + + Leo IV., 6 + + Leo IX., 161 + + Leo X., 13 + + Leo XIII., 148, 203, 247, 248, 252 + + Leonine city, 55, 56 + + Letter-writers, public, 102 + + Lewis Gonzaga, S., 102, 223 + + Lewis the Bavarian, 164 + + Libraries, 21, 31, 35, 174, 175 + + Lime-kilns, 37 + + Livy, 25 + + Lombardy, Lombards, 14, 65, 77, 125, 126, 188 + + Lottery, the, 84-87 + + Lucina, crypts of, 46 + + Lucius Crassus, 28 + + Lucius II., 240 + + _Lucomones_, 197 + + Lucullus, 28 + + Ludovisi, 170 + + _Lumachella_ marble, 27 + + Luna marble, 25 + + Lupercus, 2, 91, 196 + + _Lupetto Romano_, 90 + + + Macaroni, 97, 98, 100, 103 + + Madonna di S. Agostino, 86 + + Madonna, cult of the, 83, 87, 89, 91, 99 + + _Mafia_, 139, 139 _n._ + + Magistrates, 53, 110 + + Malaria, 74 + + Malta, order of, 5 + + Mamertine prisons, 18, 147 + + Manfred, 168 + + Marbles, 25, 26, 27, 29, 32, 33, 36, 54, 61, 98; + workers, 27, 36, 37, 39 + + Marcellus, theatre of, 30, 160, 168, 228 + + _Marchesi di baldacchino_, 177, 178 + + Marcia, acqua, 22, 73 + + Marcus Aurelius, 32, 46, 55, 63, 197, 241 + + Marforio, 140 + + Margherita, queen, 115, 252 + + Marino, 166 + + _Marmoratum_, 26 + + Mars, 3, 59, 74; + spears of, 3; + Ultor, 30 + + Marshall of Conclave, 170, 211; + of the Pope's Horse, 170 + + Martin V., 166 + + Martyrs, 41, 42, 43, 51 + + Mass, 3, 184, 191, 224, 232; + in the Campagna, 76; + commemorations in the, 49 + + Massimo family, 168 + + Master of Ceremonies, 205; + of Sant'Ospizio, 170; + workers, 67 + + Mausolea. _See_ Tombs + + Maxentius, 32 + + Maximi Caecilii, 45 + + Mazzini, 214 + + Meals, Roman, 97 + + Menage, Roman, 93 + + Merchants, 63 + + _Mercanti di Campagna_, 77 + + _Mesata secca_, 106 + + Michael Angelo, 165 + + Michael, S., 74 + + Middle ages, 23, 36, 55, 65, 67, 161 + + Militia, Roman, 56, 64 + + Minerva, 18, 80, 181 + + Misericordia, 77 + + Mithras, 183 + + Mixed marriages, 122 + + Monasteries, 38, 66, 67, 96; + number of, 249; + suppression of, 248-9 + + Monastic professions, 249 + + Monks and nuns, 215, 220, 228, 229, 230, 249 + + Monopolies, 67 + + Monsignore of the papal wardrobe, 205; + of roads and streets, 9 + + _Mons Saturninus_, 30 + + Monte Cassino, 179 + + Monte Cavo, 17, 78 + + Monte Giordano, 163 + + _Montes_, 53 + + Monti, 55, 59, 60 + + Monticiani, 60, 61, 62 + + _Morra_, 101 + + Mortar, 22, 23, 24 + + Mosaic, 36, 37, 39, 174; + pavement, 27, 28, 33; + sectile, 28 + + Moses, 45, 181; + and Peter, 42 + + Mother houses, 249 + + Municipalities, Italian, 14, 15 + + Municipality, Roman, 13-16, 59 + + Municipal liberties, 14-16, 56, 64, 237, 245 + + + Naples (Neapolitans), 72, 89, 126, 132, 138-9, 147, 166, 168, + 187, 188, 237 + + Napoleon, 61, 141, 171, 238 + + Navicella, 61 + + Nero, 20, 22, 29, 31 + + Nicholas III., 167 + + Nobility, Roman, 63, 159, 160, 172, 173, 174, 178, 253 + + Numa, King, 52, 62, 181 + + Numidia, 27 + + + Obelisks, 26, 28, 33, 38 + + Obsession, 82 + + _Octroi_, 103 + + Odescalchi, 168, 172 + + Olevano, 79 + + Olive, 80 + + Olive harvest, 80 + + _Ombrellino_, 230 + + Opus incertum, 25; + mixtum, 25; + reticulatum, 25 + + Orderlies, 107 + + Oreglia, Cardinal, 203 + + Orsini family, 60, 160, 162, 163, 165; + Filippo, 167-168; + Giordino, 167, 168 + + Osteria, 100 + + Ostia, 26, 33, 63 + + Ostian Way, 70 + + Ostie, 229 + + Otho III., 7, 8 + + Oxen, 24, 26, 68, 77, 96 + + + Pacca, Cardinal, 255 + + Pacca law, 255 + + Palaces of Caesars, 30, 33 + + Palaces, 38, 39, 93, 94, 172, 174, 175; + Aldobrandini, 6, 50; + Antici Mattei, 172; + Balestra, 172; + Barberini, 171, 232; + Bolognetti-Cenci, 169; + Bolognetti, 169; + Bonaparte, 172; + Borghese, 172; + Braschi, 173; + Cancelleria, 173, 247; + Cenci, 169; + Chigi, 172; + Colonna, 166, 172; + Corsini, 171; + Costaguti, 172; + Doria Pamphili, 172, 175; + Falconieri, 173; + Farnese, 173; + Farnesina, 171; + Ferraiolo, 172; + Fiano, 140, 172; + Gabrielli, 163; + Gaetani, 172; + Giustiniani, 173; + Grazioli, 173; + Lancellotti, 253; + Lateran, 36, 247; + Longhi, 172; + Massimo, 169; + Odescalchi, 172; + Orsini, 168; + Patrizi, 173; + Piombino, 172; + Quirinale, 208, 214, 231, 247, 251, 252, 253, 254; + Ruffo, 172; + Ruspoli, 172; + Rinuccini, 172; + Salviati, 172; + Sciarra, 172; + Simonetti, 173; + Theodoli, 172; + Venezia, 172 + + Palatine, 2, 4, 5, 13, 29, 30, 31, 33, 35, 53, 56, 135, 157, 162 + + Pales, 91 + + Palestrina, 164, 165, 166 + + Palestrina, Pier-Luigi, 156 + + Paliano, 166 + + _Palladium_, 2 + + Pallas, 2, 13 + + Pamphili-Doria, 172 + + Pan, 2, 91, 92 + + Pantheon, 10, 19, 30, 56 + + Paola aqueduct, 22 + + _Paolo_, 105 + + Papacy, 16, 57, 162, 167 + + Papal government and theocracy, 214, 217, 218, 219, 224, 225, + 236, 245, 254 + + Papal titles, 177, 179 + + _Papetto_, 105 + + Parian marble, 26 + + Parione, 56 + + Parishes, Roman, 53, 56, 200, 201, 206 + + Parliament House, 101 + + Paros, 27 + + Paschal II., 166, 240 + + "Paschal lambs," 223 + + Pasquale, convent of S., 223 + + Pasquinades, 140 + + _Pastor Bonus_, 197 + + _Patres conscripti_, 178 + + Patriarchal menage, 175, 176 + + Patricians, Roman, 45, 70, 159, 170, 178 + + Patrimony of Peter, 237, 238; + extent, 257 + + Patrizi, 177 + + Paul II., 172 + + Paul V., 170 + + Paul, S., 192, 199 + + Paulinus of Nola, S., 8 + + Pavements, mosaic, 27, 28, 33 + + _Pavonazzo_, 27 + + _Pax Romana_, 198 + + "Peace of the Church," the, 12, 34, 43, 198 + + Pensions of monks and nuns, 248-249 + + Pentelic marble, 27 + + _Peperino_, 23, 73 + + Pepin, 14 + + Peretti Francesco, 167 + + Peruzzi, B., 168 + + Persecutions, 20, 42, 51 + + Peter, S., 16, 42, 50, 166, 199, 200, 243; + chair of, 46; + and Moses, 42; + primacy of, 42; + statue of, 11 + + Petrarch, 164 + + Philip Neri, S., 77 + + _Piano nobile_, 175 + + Piazza SS. Apostoli, 166, 172; + Colonna, 172, 202; + Lateran, 26; + Montanara, 90, 160; + Navona, 173; + Pantaleoni, 169; + del Popolo, 219; + Tartaruga, 172; + di Venezia, 169, 172 + + Piedmont, Piedmontese, 126, 132, 139, 155, 171, 253 + + Pierleoni, 160, 161 + + Pigna, _rione_, 56 + + Pilgrims in Rome, 9, 67 + + Pincian hill, 16, 17, 100, 135, 224, 244 + + Pinelli, 140, 226 + + Piombino, 68, 170, 174 + + Pius VI., 140, 173, 238 + + Pius IX., 11, 22, 85, 202, 203, 208, 213, 215, 219, 231, 238; + and Italy, 214, 215, 219, 235, 236; + liberal impulses, 213; + and the _non possumus_, 215; + and the people, 222, 245; + and the syllabus, 236; + and Victor Emmanuel, 250 + + Pius X., 77, 250 + + Pizzardoni, 151 + + Plebiscite, the, 251 + + Plebs, the, 14, 56, 62, 78, 81 + + Police, 54, 55, 144, 149-151, 215 + + Pompeii, 29, 45 + + Pompey, theatre of, 163 + + Pomponius Grecinus, 45 + + Pons Aelius, 32; + Fabricius, 7, 29; + Cestius, 7; + Triumphalis, 55 + + Ponte Margherita, 102; + Quattro Capi, 29; + Rotto, 223; + S. Angelo, 9, 32 + + Ponte, _rione_, 55 + + _Pontifex Maximus_, 197 + + Pontine marshes, 30 + + Pope, 201, 202, 205; + court of the, 173; + presentation at, 253; + and conciliation, 249; + and the Catholic princes, 237, 238; + election of, 202; + and Italy, 246-250, 252 + + Popes, fugitive, 239; + Senate of the, 201 + + Population of Rome, 12, 34 + + _Populus_, 14 + + Porphyry, 27, 36 + + _Porporati_, 204 + + _Porta Furba_, 72, 73 + + Porter, house, 94, 95, 110, 175 + + Porticoes, 33, 35 + + Portico of Octavia, 30, 168 + + Porto, 26 + + Possession, 82 + + _Pozzolana_, 24 + + Praetextatus, 45 + + Praetorian guard, 54 + + Prelate, Italian, pamphlet by, 254 + + Prefect, 54, 169 + + _Prepotenza_, 134 + + Presbyters, 200, 201 + + Primacy, papal, 42, 235, 244 + + Princes, Roman, 108, 159, 161, 170, 172, 173, 176, 177, 207 + + Prince Assistant, 167, 170 + + Priory of the Knights of Malta, 5 + + Priscilla and Aquila, 5 + + Processions, 58, 66, 67, 205, 252 + + _Propaganda Fide_, 248 + + Prophets, 48, 188 + + Protestantism in Rome, 47, 189, 190, 193 + + Provisioning of the city, 65, 103, 105 + + Pudens, 45, 46 + + Pumice stone, 24 + + Puritanism, 112, 188, 189, 194, 196 + + + Quarries, 23, 24, 25 + + _Questura_, 150 + + _Questurini_, 150 + + Quirinal hill, 5, 6, 31, 53, 163, 166, 208 + + Quirites, 4, 5, 15 + + + Regional devices, 57, 59 + + Regions, 43, 52-61, 201-2 + + Regola, _rione_, 56 + + Religion. _See_ Roman, and Catholicism, Italian + + Religious fabrics, laws about, 248 + + Remus, 5 + + Renaissance, 36, 38, 58, 124, 172, 237 + + Republic. _See_ Rome + + _Res publica_, the Roman, 180-186 + + Rhea Silvia, 2 + + _Rheda_, 72 + + Rienzo, Cola di, 14, 57 + + Rignano, duca, 168 + + _Rioni_. _See_ Regions + + Ripa, _rione_, 56 + + _Roma Quadrata_, 2, 4, 197 + + Roman art, 18, 127, 156-8, 190, 191; + characteristics, 8, 9, 10, 11, 107, 126-8, 133-7, 146, 147, + 150, 156, 183-5, 187, 194, 229, 240, 241; + Church, 14, 41, 42, 50, 126, 184-7, 198-9, 201, 255; + customs, 82-7, 99-103, 140-144, 230, 231; + dialect, 132; + imperialism, 64, 115, 198-9; + marriage, 153-5; + realism, 113-14, 124-5, 185; + religion, 180-88, 192, 196-8; + type, 129-132; + voices, 132, 157 + + Romans, and agriculture 2-3, 17, 76, 91, 128-9, 147; + ancient, 3-4, 78, 128-9; + and English, 123, 131, 135, 174, 185, 192, 193; + and French, 152, 184, 185, 238; + and Greeks, 129, 130, 180, 182-4, 185, 197; + and Italians, 126, 137-9, 188; + and Jews, _see_ Jews; + modern, 128, 130, 134, 136-7, 138-9, 225, 252-4; + a pastoral people, 3, 17, 91, 182 + + Rome, + bombardment of, 212; + and Byzantium, _see_ Byzantium; + destruction of city, 9, 11, 37, 39; + and Greece, _see_ Greece; + origin of, 1-5; + imperial, 23, 25, 28, 41, 62, 65, 129, 137; + kingly, 1, 2, 3, 5, 18, 52, 53; + republican, 14, 23, 29, 62, 129, 137, 182, 186; + world empire of, 15, 16, 42, 127, 198-9, 236 + + Rome before 1870, + appearance of city, 9, 227 _et seq._; + artists in, 210; + clergy in, 217, 219, 221, 224, 245; + education in, 220; + government of, 213-15, 217, 219, 224-5, 246; + moral notions in, 83, 87, 220, 222, 225-6, 230; + people in, 11-12, 215-16, 217; + spies in, 224 + + Romulus, 1, 2, 3, 32, 154, 198; + and Remus, 2, 3, 198 + + Rospigliosi, 172 + + Roviano, _duca_, 168 + + Ruspoli, 169, 177 + + + Sabine hills, 70, 78, 79, 81, 82, 96, 166, 169, 170; + people, 2, 4, 5, 15, 154 + + _Sacramentate_, 232 + + Sacred College, 15 + + Sacrifices, 19 + + Sacrifice, eucharistic, 49 + + Saints, cult of, 43 + + Salaria, 45; + _porta_, 102, 135 + + Salviati, 171 + + Sanctuary of a church, 51 + + Sanctuaries. _See_ Shrines + + Saturn, 30, 91; + hill of, 13 + + Savelli, 160, 161, 165, 170 + + Savorelli, Vittoria, 221 + + Saxons, 65 + + _Sbirri_, 61, 217 + + _Schola_, 65 + + Scholasticism, 112 + + _Scudo_, 105 + + Sculptors, guild of, 64 + + Seamen, guild of, 63 + + See of Rome. _See_ Holy See + + Sees, suburban, 201 + + Senate, 13-15, 34, 45, 57, 70, 149, 159, 164, 240, 241 + + Senate and People of Rome, 13, 14, 15 + + "Senator, the," 14 + + Senators, 45, 58, 63, 159, 178; + and conservators, 55 + + September 20th, 11, 212, 213, 215 + + Septimius Severus, 20, 31, 32 + + Septizonium, 31 + + Serenade, the, 141, 144 + + Serlupi, 170 + + Sermoneta, _duca_, 168, 177 + + Serpentine, 27 + + Servants, 94, 103, 106, 107, 108, 109-111, 224 + + Servius Tullius, 5, 18, 52, 53 + + Seven hills, 5, 51, 52, 53 + + Seven sacraments, 48 + + Sforza, 170 + + Shops, Roman, 39, 53, 67, 93, 100, 102, 103, 104, 106 + + Shrines and sanctuaries, 63, 73, 83, 90 + + Sibylline oracles, 7 + + Sicily (Sicilians), 126 + + Sistine chapel, 205, 211 + + Sixtus I., 35 + + Sixtus IV., 165, 173 + + Sixtus V., 55, 140, 167 + + Slaves, 11, 21, 25, 34, 64, 75 + + Soldiers, 151; + papal, 215, 244, 246, 247 + + _Soldo_, 101, 104, 107 + + Sora, _duca_, 170 + + Spoleto, 167, 178 + + S.P.Q.R., 15, 59, 138 + + _Stadia_, 33 + + Staircases, 95, 176 + + Standard of Rome, 15 + + Standard-bearer, 55, 64, 66, 170 + + Statilius Taurus, 22 + + Statues of women, 154 + + Statutes of guilds, 66 + + _Statuto_, 246 + + Streets, Roman, 93, 105, 152; + refuse in, 9 + + Stucco, 24, 28, 29 + + Subiaco, 78 + + Subterranean Rome. _See_ Catacombs + + Suburra, _rione_, 53 + + Sulmona, _principe_, 170 + + _Suovetaurilia_, 15 + + Superstition, 81, 83, 136, 187, 196, 222, 226, 231 + + Susanna and the Elders, 45 + + Swiss guard, 210, 244 + + Sylvester, S., 74 + + Syndic, 166 + + + _Tablinum_, 28 + + _Tabularium_, 23, 29 + + Talbot, Gwendoline, 123, 174 + + Talbots in Rome, 123 + + Tanners, guild of, 63 + + _Tarantella_, 140 + + Tarquinius Priscus, 18, 30, 52; + Superbus, 18 + + Tarquins, 29, 30 + + Taste and art, 157 + + Taxes, 64, 107, 139, 217, 219 + + Teano, _principe_, 168 + + Temples, 18, 19, 30, 33, 37, 39, 163; + of Antoninus and Faustina, 32; + Castor and Pollux, 30; + Ceres, 31; + Concord, 30; + Dii Consentes (portico of), 181; + Fortuna Virilis, 29; + Libertas, 160; + Mars Ultor, 30; + Romulus, 198; + Saturn, 30; + Templum Urbis, 32; + Venus and Rome, 32; + Vespasian, 31 + + Temporal power, 42, 214, 215, 219, 235-9, 240, 242-3, 245, 255 + + _Teppa_, 139, 139 _n._ + + _Terno_, 85, 86 + + _Testone_, 105 + + Theodoli, 177 + + _Thermae_, 20, 21, 32, 33 + + Throne room, 176, 207 + + Tiber, 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 21, 33, 63, 70, 131, 171, 173 + + Tiberius, 30 + + Titles, patrician, 177 + + _Titulus_, 5, 34, 201, 202 + + Titus, 20, 21, 22, 27, 29, 31, 182 + + Tivoli, 24, 32, 33, 78 + + Tombs, 33, 36, 72; + Bibulus, 29; + Cecilia Metella, 29, 168; + Latin, 29; + of S. Peter, 16 + + Tor de' Conti, 160; + di Nona, 163 + + Tor Sanguigna, 163; + de' Specchi, 102, 230 + + Torlonia, 169, 230 + + Towers, 56, 163; + baronial, 23, 38; + bell, 38; + semaphores, 73; + vedette, 38, 73 + + Trades unions, 68 + + Tradesmen, 103, 104, 105 + + Trajan, 5, 20, 22, 31, 77, 142, 231 + + Transtiburtina, 55 + + Trastevere, 55, 56, 61, 62, 130, 162, 171, 240 + + Trasteverini, 60, 130 + + _Trattoria_, 79 + + Travertine, 22, 24, 27, 39 + + Trent, Council of, 238 + + Trevi, _rione_, 55 + + Tribune, 19, 36 + + Tribunes, 54 + + _Triclinium_, 35 + + Triumvirate, 123 + + Troy, 2 + + Tufa, 18, 23 + + _Turris Cartularia_, 161 + + Tuscans (Tuscany), 69, 125, 126, 129, 133, 188, 237 + + Tusculum, 39, 78, 166 + + Twelve Tables, 23 + + + Ulpii, 45 + + Umbria, 148, 188 + + Unction, extreme, 192 + + Universities. _See_ Guilds and women, 155 + + Urban VIII., 9, 140, 171 + + + Vandals, 9 + + Vatican, 28, 56, 58, 161, 163, 203, 205, 208, 211, 228, 230, + 239, 241, 244, 247, 252, 254 + + Veii, 33, 72 + + Velabrum, 18 + + _Vendetta_, 149 + + Venice, Venetians, 125, 126, 132, 188 + + Venosa, _principe_, 170 + + Vespasian, 22, 28, 31, 33, 72, 154 + + Vesta, 181 + + Vestals, 2, 72, 154 + + Vestibulum, 35 + + Via Botteghe Oscure, 173; + Julia, 173; + Lata, 56; + Monserrato, 160; + Nazionale, 194, 160; + dell' Orso, 9; + Pilotta, 166; + Plebiscito, 172; + Quattro Fontane, 232; + Quirinale, 166; + Strozzi, 6; + Viminale, 6 + + Viaticum, 12, 193, 230 + + _Vici_, 53 + + Vicovaro, 169 + + Victor Emmanuel II., 10, 169 + + _Vidua_, 46 + + _Vigiles_, 26, 54, 59 + + Villa Aldobrandini 171; + Borghese, 171; + Corsini, 171; + Hadrian's, 32; + Massimo, 6; + Mondragone, 171; + Pamfili-Doria, 73, 231 + + Villas, 33, 38, 39, 93, 94, 172, 174 + + Viminal hill, 5, 6, 53, 55 + + Vintage, 78 + + _Virgo, aqua_, 22 + + Vitiges, 37 + + Voices. _See_ Roman + + Volcanic rock, 17, 23, 25 + + Volcanoes, 17 + + Vulcan, 80, 88 + + + Wagner and Germans, 190; + and Italians, 124 + + Walls, 32, 38, 56, 93, 102, 163 + + Washing tubs, 102 + + Weavers, Guild of, 63 + + Windows in temples and churches, 19, 186 + + Wines, Roman, 79 + + Wiseman, Cardinal, 208 + + Wolf, the, 2 + + Women, Italian, 153, 155 + + + Young Italy, 214, 215, 235, 242, 244, 246 + + + Zagarolo, 166 + + Zitelle, 67 + + + + + THE END + + + _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rome, by +Mildred Anna Rosalie Tuker and Hope Malleson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROME *** + +***** This file should be named 36817.txt or 36817.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/8/1/36817/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Melissa McDaniel and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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