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27 chapters
IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I
IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I
New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1899 All rights reserved Copyright, 1898, By The Macmillan Company. Set up and electrotyped October, 1898. Reprinted November, December, 1898. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. VOLUME I PAGE The Making of the City 1 The Empire 22 The City of Augustus 57 The Middle Age 78 The Fourteen Regions 100 Region I Monti 106 Region II Trevi 155 Region III Colonna 190 Regio
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LIST OF PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES
LIST OF PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES
VOLUME I Map of Rome Frontispiece FACING PAGE The Wall of Romulus 4 Palace of the Cæsars 30 The Campagna and Ruins of the Claudian Aqueduct 50 Temple of Castor and Pollux 70 Basilica Constantine 90 Basilica of Saint John Lateran 114 Baths of Diocletian 140 Fountain of Trevi 158 Piazza Barberini 188 Porta San Lorenzo 214 Villa Borghese 230 Piazza del Popolo 256 Island in the Tiber 280 Palazzo Massimo alle Colonna 306...
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NOT INCLUDING CLASSIC WRITERS NOR ENCYCLOPÆDIAS
NOT INCLUDING CLASSIC WRITERS NOR ENCYCLOPÆDIAS
1. Ampère —Histoire Romaine à Rome. Ampère —L'Empire Remain à Rome. 2. Baracconi —I Rioni di Roma. 3. Boissier —Promenades Archéologiques. 4. Bryce —The Holy Roman Empire. 5. Cellini —Memoirs. 6. Coppi —Memoire Colonnesi. 7. Fortunato —Storia delle vite delle Imperatrici Romane. 8. Gibbon —Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 9. Gnoli —Vittoria Accoramboni. 10. Gregorovius —Geschichte der Stadt Rom. 11. Hare —Walks in Rome. 12. Josephus —Life of. 13. Lanciani —Ancient Rome. 14. Leti —Vita di Si
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I
I
The story of Rome is the most splendid romance in all history. A few shepherds tend their flocks among volcanic hills, listening by day and night to the awful warnings of the subterranean voice,—born in danger, reared in peril, living their lives under perpetual menace of destruction, from generation to generation. Then, at last, the deep voice swells to thunder, roaring up from the earth's heart, the lightning shoots madly round the mountain top, the ground rocks, and the air is darkened with a
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III
III
It is impossible to conceive of the Augustan age without Horace, nor to imagine a possible Horace without Greece and Greek influence. At the same time Horace is in many ways the prototype of the old-fashioned, cultivated, gifted, idle, sarcastic, middle-class Roman official, making the most of life on a small salary and the friendship of a great personage; praising poverty, but making the most of the good things that fell in his way; extolling pristine austerity of life and yielding with a smile
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IV
IV
There was a surprising strength in those early institutions of which the fragmentary survival has made Rome what it is. Strongest of all, perhaps, was the patriarchal mode of life which the shepherds of Alba Longa brought with them when they fled from the volcano, and of which the most distinct traces remain to the present day, while its origin goes back to the original Aryan home. Upon that principle all the household life ultimately turned in Rome's greatest times. The Senators were Patres, co
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V
V
Here and there, in out-of-the-way places, overlooked in the modern rage for improvement, little marble tablets are set into the walls of old houses, bearing semi-heraldic devices such as a Crescent, a Column, a Griffin, a Stag, a Wheel and the like. Italian heraldry has always been eccentric, and has shown a tendency to display all sorts of strange things, such as comets, trees, landscapes and buildings in the escutcheon, and it would naturally occur to the stranger that the small marble shields
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REGION I MONTI
REGION I MONTI
'Monti' means 'The Hills,' and the device of the Region represents three, figuring those enclosed within the boundaries of this district; namely, the Quirinal, the Esquiline and the Coelian. The line encircling them includes the most hilly part of the mediæval city; beginning at the Porta Salaria, it runs through the new quarter, formerly Villa Ludovisi, to the Piazza Barberini, thence by the Tritone to the Corso, by the Via Marforio, skirting the eastern side of the Capitoline Hill and the east
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REGION II TREVI
REGION II TREVI
In Imperial times, the street now called the Tritone, from the Triton on the fountain in Piazza Barberini, led up from the Portico of Vipsanius Agrippa's sister in the modern Corso to the temple of Flora at the beginning of the Quattro Fontane. It was met at right angles by a long street leading straight from the Forum of Trajan, and which struck it close to the Arch of Claudius. Then, as now, this point was the meeting of two principal thoroughfares, and it was called Trivium, or the 'crossroad
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REGION III COLONNA
REGION III COLONNA
When the present Queen of Italy first came to Rome as Princess Margaret, and drove through the city to obtain a general impression of it, she reached the Piazza Colonna and asked what the column might be which is the most conspicuous landmark in that part of Rome and gives a name to the square, and to the whole Region. The answer of the elderly officer who accompanied the Princess and her ladies is historical. 'That column,' he answered, 'is the Column of Piazza Colonna'—'the Column of Column Sq
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REGION IV CAMPO MARZO
REGION IV CAMPO MARZO
It was harvest time when the Romans at last freed themselves from the very name of Tarquin. In all the great field, between the Tiber and the City, the corn stood high and ripe, waiting for the sickle, while Brutus did justice upon his two sons, and upon the sons of his sister, and upon those 'very noble youths,' still the Tarquins' friends, who laid down their lives for their mistaken loyalty and friendship, and for whose devotion no historian has ever been brave enough, or generous enough, to
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REGION V PONTE
REGION V PONTE
The Region of Ponte, 'the Bridge,' takes its name from the ancient Triumphal Bridge which led from the city to the Vatican Fields, and at low water some fragments of the original piers may be seen in the river at the bend just below Ponte Sant' Angelo, between the Church of Saint John of the Florentines on the one bank, and the Hospital of Santo Spirito on the other. In the Middle Age, according to Baracconi and others, the broken arches still extended into the stream, and upon them was built a
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REGION VI PARIONE
REGION VI PARIONE
The principal point of this Region is Piazza Navona, which exactly coincides with Domitian's race-course, and the Region consists of an irregular triangle of which the huge square is at the northern angle, the western one being the Piazza della Chiesa Nuova and the southern extremity the theatre of Pompey, so often referred to in these pages as one of the Orsini's strongholds and containing the little church in which Paolo Giordano married Vittoria Accoramboni, close to the Campo dei Fiori which
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IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II
IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II
London MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited New York: The Macmillan Company 1899 All rights reserved Copyright, 1898, By The Macmillan Company. Set up and electrotyped October, 1898. Reprinted November, December, 1898; January, 1899. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. VOLUME II PAGE Region VII Regola 1 Region VIII Sant' Eustachio 23 Region IX Pigna 44 Region X Campitelli 64 Region XI Sant' Angelo 101 Region XII Ripa 119 Region XIII
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LIST OF PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES
LIST OF PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES
VOLUME II Saint Peter's Frontispiece FACING PAGE Palazzo Farnese 18 The Pantheon 46 The Capitol 68 General View of the Roman Forum 94 Theatre of Marcellus 110 Porta San Sebastiano 130 The Roman Forum, looking west 154 The Palatine 186 Castle of Sant' Angelo 204 Pope Leo the Thirteenth 228 Raphael's "Transfiguration" 256 Michelangelo's "Last Judgment" 274 Panorama of Rome, from the Orti Farnesiani 298...
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VOLUME II
VOLUME II
PAGE Region VII Regola, Device of 1 Portico of Octavia 3 San Giorgio in Velabro 11 Region VIII Sant' Eustachio, Device of 23 Site of Excavations on the Palatine 31 Church of Sant' Eustachio 39 Region IX Pigna, Device of 44 Interior of the Pantheon 49 The Ripetta 53 Piazza Minerva 55 Region X Campitelli, Device of 64 Church of Aracœli 70 Arch of Septimius Severus 83 Column of Phocas 92 Region XI Sant' Angelo, Device of 101 Piazza Montanara and the Theatre of Marcellus 106 Site of the Ancient Ghet
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REGION VII REGOLA
REGION VII REGOLA
'Arenula'—'fine sand'—'Renula,' 'Regola'—such is the derivation of the name of the Seventh Region, which was bounded on one side by the sandy bank of the Tiber from Ponte Sisto to the island of Saint Bartholomew, and which Gibbon designates as a 'quarter of the city inhabited only by mechanics and Jews.' The mechanics were chiefly tanners, who have always been unquiet and revolutionary folk, but at least one exception to the general statement must be made, since it was here that the Cenci had bu
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REGION VIII SANT' EUSTACHIO
REGION VIII SANT' EUSTACHIO
The Eighth region is almost symmetrical in shape, extending nearly north and south with a tolerably even breadth from the haunted palace of the Santacroce, where the marble statue of the dead Cardinal comes down from its pedestal to pace the shadowy halls all night, to Santa Maria in Campo Marzo, and cutting off, as it were, the three Regions so long held by the Orsini from the rest of the city. Taking Rome as a whole, it was a very central quarter until the development of the newly inhabited po
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REGION IX PIGNA
REGION IX PIGNA
There used to be a tradition, wholly unfounded, but deeply rooted in the Roman mind, to the effect that the great bronze pine-cone, eleven feet high, which stands in one of the courts of the Vatican, giving it the name 'Garden of the Pine-cone,' was originally a sort of stopper which closed the round aperture in the roof of the Pantheon. The Pantheon stands at one corner of the Region of Pigna, and a connection between the Region, the Pantheon and the Pine-cone seems vaguely possible, though alt
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REGION X CAMPITELLI
REGION X CAMPITELLI
Rome tends to diminutives in names as in facts. The first emperor was Augustus, the last was Augustulus; with the Popes, the Roman Senate dwindled to a mere office, held by one man, and respected by none; the ascent to the Capitol, the path of triumphs that marked the subjugation of the world, became in the twelfth century 'Fabatosta,' or 'Roast Beans Lane'; and, in the vulgar tongue, 'Capitolium' was vulgarized to 'Campitelli,' and the word gave a name to a Region of the city. Within that Regio
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REGION XI SANT' ANGELO
REGION XI SANT' ANGELO
The Region of Sant' Angelo, as has been already said, takes its name from the small church famous in Rienzi's story. It encloses all of what was once the Ghetto, and includes the often-mentioned Theatre of Marcellus, now the palace of the Orsini, but successively a fortress of the Pierleoni, appropriately situated close to the Jews' quarter, and the home of the Savelli. The history of the Region is the history of the Jews in Rome, from Augustus to the destruction of their dwelling-place, about 1
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REGION XII RIPA
REGION XII RIPA
In Italian, as in Latin, Ripa means the bank of a river, and the Twelfth Region took its name from being bounded by the river bank, from just below the island all the way to the Aurelian walls, which continue the boundary of the triangle on the south of Saint Sebastian's gate; the third side runs at first irregularly from the theatre of Marcellus to the foot of the Palatine, skirts the hill to the gas works at the north corner of the Circus Maximus, takes in the latter, and thence runs straight
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REGION XIII TRASTEVERE
REGION XIII TRASTEVERE
All that part of Rome which lies on the right bank of the Tiber is divided into two Regions; namely, Trastevere and Borgo. The first of these is included between the river and the walls of Urban the Eighth from Porta Portese and the new bridge opposite the Aventine to the bastions and the gate of San Spirito; and Trastevere was the last of the thirteen Regions until the end of the sixteenth century, when the so-called Leonine City was made the fourteenth and granted a captain and a standard of i
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REGION XIV BORGO
REGION XIV BORGO
Borgo, the 'Suburb,' is the last of the fourteen Regions, and is one of the largest and most important of all, for within its limits stand Saint Peter's, the Vatican, and the Mausoleum of Hadrian—the biggest church, the biggest palace and the biggest tomb in the whole world. To those who know something of Rome's great drama, the Castle of Sant' Angelo is the most impressive of all her monuments. Like the Colosseum, it stands out in its round strength alone, sun-gilt and shadowy brown against the
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LEO THE THIRTEENTH
LEO THE THIRTEENTH
We commonly speak of the nineteenth century as an age of superior civilization. The truth of the assertion depends on what civilization means, but there is no denying that more blood has been shed by civilized nations during the last one hundred and twenty years than in any equal period of the world's history. Anyone may realize the fact by simply recalling the great wars which have devastated the world since the American Revolution. But the carnage was not uninterrupted. The record of death is
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THE VATICAN
THE VATICAN
The Mons Vaticanus is sometimes said to have received its name from 'vaticinium,' an oracle or prophecy; for tradition says that Numa chose the Vatican hill as a sacred place from which to declare to the people the messages he received from the gods. It is not, however, one of the seven hills on which ancient Rome was built, but forms a part of a ridge beginning with the Janiculum and ending with Monte Mario, all of which was outside the ancient limits of the city. In our day the name is applied
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SAINT PETER'S
SAINT PETER'S
We have an involuntary reverence for all witnesses of history, be they animate or inanimate, men, animals, or stones. The desire to leave a work behind is in every man and man-child, from the strong leader who plants his fame in a nation's marrow, and teaches unborn generations to call him glorious, to the boy who carves his initials upon his desk at school. Few women have it. Perhaps the wish to be remembered is what fills that one ounce or so of matter by which modern statisticians assert that
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