Part 18 (2/2)
With my countryman and friend, Mr. Cleveland, I stood in the Roman forum by the light of a clear half moon. The soft silver rays poured in through the ruined columns of the Temple of Fortune and threw our shadows upon the bases of the tall shafts near the capitol, the remains, I believe, of the temple erected by Augustus to Jupiter Tonans. Impressive things they are, even without their name, standing tall and alone, with their broken capitals wreathed with ivy, and neither roof nor wall to support them, where they were placed by hands that have mouldered for centuries. It is difficult to rally one's senses in such a place, and be awake coldly to the scene. We stood, as we supposed, in the Rostrum. The n.o.ble arch, still almost perfect, erected by the senate to Septimius Severus, stood up clear and lofty beside us, the three matchless and lonely columns of the supposed temple of Jupiter Stator threw their shadows across the Forum below, the great arch, built at the conquest of Jerusalem to t.i.tus, was visible in the distance, and above them all, on the gentle ascent of the Palatine, stood the ruined palace of the Cesars, the sharp edges of the demolished walls breaking up through vines and ivy, and the mellow moon of Italy softening rock and foliage into one silver-edged ma.s.s of shadow. It seems as if the very genius of the picturesque had arranged these immortal ruins. If the heaps of fresh excavation were but overgrown with gra.s.s, no poet nor painter could better image out the Rome of his dream. It surpa.s.ses fancy.
We walked on, over fragments of marble columns turned up from the mould, and leaving the majestic arches of the Temple of Peace on our left, pa.s.sed under the arch of t.i.tus (so dreaded by the Jews), to the Coliseum. This too is magnificently ruined--broken in every part, and yet showing still the brave skeleton of what it was--its gigantic and triple walls, half encircling the silent area, and its rocky seats lifting one above the other amid weeds and ivy, and darkening the dens beneath, whence issued the gladiators, beasts, and Christian martyrs, to be sacrificed for the amus.e.m.e.nt of Rome. A sentinel paced at the gigantic archway, a capuchin monk, whose duty is to attend the small chapels built around the arena, walked up and down in his russet cowl and sandals, the moon broke through the clefts in the wall, and the whole place was buried in the silence of a wilderness. I have given you the features of the scene--I leave you to people it with your own thoughts. I dare not trust mine to a colder medium than poetry.
LETTER XLIII.
TIVOLI--RUINS OF THE BATHS OF DIOCLETIAN--FALLS OF TIVOLI--CASCATELLI--SUBJECT OF ONE OF COLE'S LANDSCAPES--RUINS OF THE VILLAGE OF MECaeNAS--RUINED VILLA OF ADRIAN--THE FORUM--TEMPLE OF VESTA--THE CLOACA MAXIMA--THE RIVER JUTURNA, ETC.
I have spent a day at Tivoli with Messrs. Auchmuty and Bissell, of our navy, and one or two others, forming quite an American party. We pa.s.sed the ruins of the baths of Diocletian, with a heavy cloud over our heads; but we were scarce through the gate, when the sun broke through, the rain swept off over Soracte, and the sky was clear till sunset.
I have seen many finer falls than Tivoli; that is, more water, and falling farther; but I do not think there is so pretty a place in the world. A very dirty village, a dirtier hotel, and a cicerone all rags and ruffianism, are somewhat dampers to antic.i.p.ation. We pa.s.sed through a broken gate, and with a step, were in a glen of fairy-land; the lightest and loveliest of antique temples on a crag above, a snowy waterfall of some hundred and fifty feet below, grottoes mossed to the mouth at the river's outlet, and all up and down the cleft valley vines twisted in the crevices of rock, and shrubbery hanging on every ledge, with a felicity of taste or nature, or both, that is uncommon even in Italy. The fall itself comes rus.h.i.+ng down through a grotto to the face of the precipice, over which it leaps, and looks like a subterranean river just coming to light. Its bed is rough above, and it bursts forth from its cavern in dazzling foam, and falls in one sparry sheet to the gulf. The falls of Montmorenci are not unlike it.
We descended to the bottom, and from the little terrace, wet by the spray, and dark with overhanging rocks, looked up the ”cavern of Neptune,” a deep pa.s.sage, through which the divided river rushes to meet the fall in the gulf. Then remounting to the top, we took mules to make the three miles' circuit of the glen, and see what are called the _Cascatelli_.
No fairy-work could exceed the beauty of the little antique Sybil's temple perched on the top of the crag above the fall. As we rode round the other edge of the glen, it stood opposite us in all the beauty of its light and airy architecture; a thing that might be borne, ”like Loretto's chapel, through the air,” and seem no miracle.
A mile farther on I began to recognize the features of the scene, at a most lovely point of view. It was the subject of one of Cole's landscapes, which I had seen in Florence; and I need not say to any one who knows the works of this admirable artist, that it was done with truth and taste.[3] The little town of Tivoli hangs on a jutting lap of a mountain, on the side of the ravine opposite to your point of view. From beneath its walls, as if its foundations were laid upon a river's fountains, bursts foaming water in some thirty different falls; and it seems to you as if the long declivities were that moment for the first time overflowed, for the currents go das.h.i.+ng under trees, and overleaping vines and shrubs, appearing and disappearing continually, till they all meet in the quiet bed of the river below.
”_It was made by Bernini_,” said the guide, as we stood gazing at it; and, odd as this information sounded, while wondering at a spectacle worthy of the happiest accident of nature, it will explain the phenomena of the place to you--the artist having turned a mountain river from its course, and leading it under the town of Tivoli, threw it over the sides of the precipitous hill upon which it stands. One of the streams appears from beneath the ruins of the ”Villa of Mecaenas,”
which topples over a precipice just below the town, looking over the campagna toward Rome--a situation worthy of the patron of the poets.
We rode through the immense subterranean arches, which formed its court, in ascending the mountain again to the town.
Near Tivoli is the ruined villa of Adrian, where was found the Venus de Medicis, and some other of the wonders of antique art. The sun had set, however, and the long campagna of twenty miles lay between us and Rome. We were compelled to leave it unseen. We entered the gates at nine o'clock, _unrobbed_--rather an unusual good fortune, we were told, for travellers after dark on that lonely waste. Perhaps our number deprived us of the romance.
I left a crowded ball-room at midnight, wearied with a day at Tivoli, and oppressed with an atmosphere breathed by two hundred, dancing and card-playing, Romans and foreigners; and with a step from the portico of the n.o.ble palace of our host, came into a broad beam of moonlight, that with the stillness and coolness of the night refreshed me at once, and banished all disposition for sleep. A friend was with me, and I proposed a ramble among the ruins.
The sentinel challenged us as we entered the Forum. The frequent robberies of romantic strangers in this lonely place have made a guard necessary, and they are now stationed from the Arch of Severus to the Coliseum. We pa.s.sed an hour rambling among the ruins of the temples.
Not a footstep was to be heard, nor a sound even from the near city; and the tall columns, with their broken friezes and capitals, and the grand imperishable arches, stood up in the bright light of the moon, looking indeed like monuments of Rome. I am told they are less majestic by daylight. The rubbish and fresh earth injure the effect.
But I have as yet seen them in the garb of moonlight only, and I shall carry this impression away. It is to me, now, all that my fancy hoped to find it--its temples and columns just enough in ruin to be affecting and beautiful.
We went thence to the Temple of Vesta. It is shut up in the modern streets, ten or fifteen minutes walk from the Forum. The picture of this perfect temple, and the beautiful purpose of its consecration, have been always prominent in my imaginary Rome. It is worthy of its a.s.sociation--an exquisite round temple, with its simple circle of columns from the base to the roof, a faultless thing in proportion, and as light and floating to the eye as if the wind might lift it. It was no common place to stand beside, and recall the poetical truth and fiction of which it has been the scene--the vestal lamp cherished or neglected by its high-born votaries, their honors if pure, and their dreadful death if faithless. It needed not the heavenly moonlight that broke across its columns to make it a very shrine of fancy.
My companion proposed a visit next to the Cloaca Maxima. A _common sewer_, after the Temple of Vesta, sounds like an abrupt transition; but the arches beneath which we descended were touched by moonlight, and the vines and ivy crossed our path, and instead of a drain of filth, which the fame of its imperial builder would scarce have sweetened, a rapid stream leaped to the right, and disappeared again beneath the solid masonry, more like a wild brook plunging into a grotto than the thing one expects to find it. The clear little river _Juturna_ (on the banks of which Castor and Pollux watered their foaming horses, when bringing the news of victory to Rome), dashes now through the Cloaca Maxima; and a fresher or purer spot, or waters with a more musical murmur, it has not been my fortune to see. We stopped over a broken column for a drink, and went home, refreshed, to bed.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] On my way to Rome (near Radicofani, I think), we pa.s.sed an old man, whose picturesque figure, enveloped in his brown cloak and slouched hat, arrested the attention of all my companions. I had seen him before. From a five minutes' sketch in pa.s.sing, Mr. Cole had made one of the most spirited heads I ever saw, admirably like, and worthy of Caravaggio for force and expression.
LETTER XLIV.
Ma.s.s IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL--THE CARDINALS--THE ”LAST JUDGMENT”--THE POPE OF ROME--THE ”ADAM AND EVE” CHANTING OF THE PRIESTS--FESTA AT THE CHURCH OF SAN CARLOS--GREGORY THE SIXTEENTH, HIS EQUIPAGE, TRAIN, ETC.
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