What Charles Dickens Saw
Foreword
Charles Dickens
visited Italy in 1844-45. He travelled with his family and he stayed in Rome during
the Roman Carnival and again during the Holy Week.
Italy and in particular
the State of the Church had come out of the Napoleonic wars very impoverished. Pope Gregorius
XVI, then aged 80, was afraid of novelties and considered the railway an invention of the Devil.
According to the French poet Lamartine, Italy was the "Land of the Dead" and for the Austrian Chancellor
Metternich it was "a mere geographic expression".
Dickens published in 1846 "Pictures from Italy", an account of his journey, where he focused
on the description of events and ceremonies, rather than palaces and churches.
This page contains excerpts of that book related to Rome.
Excerpts:
St. Peter's
..immediately on going out next day, we hurried off to St. Peter's. It
looked immense in the distance, but distinctly and decidedly small, by comparison, on a near approach.
The beauty of the Piazza, on which it stands, with its clusters of exquisite columns
and its gushing fountains - so fresh, so broad, and free, and beautiful - nothing can exaggerate. The first burst of the interior,
in all its expansive majesty and glory: and, most of all, the looking up into the Dome: is a sensation
never to be forgotten. But, there were preparations for a Festa; the pillars of stately marble were swathed
in some impertinent frippery of red and yellow; the altar, and entrance to the subterranean chapel: which is before it:
in the centre of the church: were like a goldsmith's shop, or one of the opening scenes in a very lavish pantomime.
And though I had as high a sense of the beauty of the building (I hope) as it is possible to entertain, I felt
no very strong emotion. I have been infinitely more affected in many English cathedrals when the organ has been
playing, and in many English country churches when the congregation have been singing. I had a much greater
sense of mystery and wonder, in the Cathedral of San Mark at Venice.
...the effect of the Cathedral on my mind, on that second visit, was exactly what it was at first, and what it remains after many visits.
It is not religiously impressive or affecting. It is an immense edifice, with no one point for the mind to rest upon; and it tires
itself with wandering round and round. The very purpose of the place, is not expressed in anything you see there, unless you examine in details - and all
examination of details is incompatible with the place itself. It might be a Pantheon, or a Senate House,
or a great architectural trophy, having no other object than an architectural triumph. There is a black statue
of St. Peter, to be sure, under a red canopy; which is larger than life, and which is constantly having its
great toe kissed by good Catholics. You cannot help seeing that: it is so very prominent and popular. But it does not
heighten the effect of the temple, as a work of art; and it is not expressive - to me at least - of its high purpose. |
Coliseum: first impression
When we came out of the church ... we said to the coachman, "Go to the Coliseum." In a quarter of an hour
or so, he stopped at the gate, and we went in.
It is no fiction, but plain, sober, honest Truth, to say: so suggestive
and distinct is it at this hour: that, for a moment - actually in passing in - they who will,
may have the whole great pile before them, as it used to be, with thousands of eager faces
staring down into the arena, and such a whirl of strife, and blood, and dust going on there, as no language
can describe. Its solitude, its awful beauty, and its utter desolation, strike upon the stranger the next moment, like a softened sorrow;
and never in his life, perhaps, will he be so moved and overcome by any sight, not immediately connected
with his own affections and afflictions.
To see it crumbling there, an inch a year; its walls and arches overgrown with green; its corridors open to the day;
the long grass growing in its porches; young trees of yesterday, springing up on its ragged parapet,
and bearing fruit: chance produce of the seeds dropped there by the birds who build their nests
within its chinks and crannies; to see its Pit of Fight filled up with earth, and the peaceful Cross planted in the centre; to
climb its upper halls and look down on ruin, ruin, ruin, all about it; the triumphal arches
of Constantine, Septimus Severus, and
Titus; the Roman Forum;
the Palace of the Caesars; the temples of the old religion, fallen down and gone; is to see the ghost of old Rome,
wicked wonderful old city, haunting the very ground on which its people trod. It is the most impressive,
the most stately, the most solemn, grand, majestic, mournful sight, conceivable. Never, in its bloodiest prime, can the sight of the
gigantic Coliseum, full and running over with the lustiest life, have moved one heart, as it must move all who look
upon it now, a ruin. God be thanked: a ruin!
As it tops the other ruins: standing there, a mountain among graves: so do its ancient influences outlive
all other remnants of the old mythology and old butchery of Rome, in the nature of the fierce and cruel Roman people.
The Italian face changes as the visitor approaches the city; its beauty becomes devilish; and there is scarcely
one countenance in a hundred, among the common people in the streets, that would not be at home and happy
in a renovated Coliseum to-morrow. |
Via Appia
Here was Rome indeed at last; and such a Rome as no one can imagine in
its full and awful grandeur. We wandered out upon the Appian Way, and then went on,
through miles of ruined tombs and broken walls, with here and there a desolate
and uninhabited house: past the Circus of Romulus, where the course of the chariots,
the station of the judges, competitors, and spectators, are yet as plainly to be seen as in old time:
past the tomb of Cecilia Metella: past all inclosure, hedge,
or stake, wall or fence: away upon the open Campagna, where on that side of Rome, nothing is to be beheld but Ruin. Except
where the distant Apennines bound the view upon the left, the whole wide prospect is one field of ruin. Broken aqueducts, left in the most
picturesque and beautiful clusters of arches; broken temples; broken tombs. A desert of decay,
sombre and desolate beyond all expressions; and with a history in every stone that strews the ground.
...one day we walked out, a little party of three, to Albano, fourteen miles distant; possessed by a great desire to go there
by the ancient Appian way, long since ruined and overgrown. We started at
half-past seven in the morning, and within an hour or so were out upon the open Campagna. For twelve miles
we went climbing on, over an unbroken succession of mounds, and heaps, and hills, of ruin. Tombs and temples,
overthrown and prostrate; small fragments of columns, friezes, pediments; great blocks of granite and marble;
mouldering arches, grass-grown and decayed; ruin enough to build a spacious city from; lay strewn about us. Sometimes,
loose walls, built up from these fragments by the shepherds, came across our path; sometimes, a ditch between two mounds of
broken stones, obstructed our progress; sometimes, the fragments themselves, rolling from beneath our feet,
made it a toilsome matter to advance; but it was always ruin. Now, we tracked a piece of the old road, above the ground;
now traced it, underneath a grassy covering, as if that were its grave; but all the way was ruin. In the distance,
ruined aqueducts went stalking on their giant course along the plain; and every breath of wind that swept
towards us, stirred early flowers and grasses, springing up, spontaneously, on miles of ruin. The unseen larks above us,
who alone disturbed the awful silence, had their nests in ruin; and the fierce herdsmen, clad in sheepskins,
who now and then scowled out upon us from their sleeping nooks, were housed in ruin. The aspect of the
desolate Campagna in one direction, where it was most level, reminded me of an American prairie; but what is
the solitude of a region where men have never dwelt, to that of a Desert, where a mighty race have left their
footprints in the earth from which they have vanished; where the resting-places of their Dead, have fallen like
their Dead; and the broken hour-glass of Time is but a heap of idle dust! Returning, by the road, at sunset! and
looking, from the distance, on the course we had taken in the morning, I almost feel (as I had felt when I first
saw it, at that hour) as if the sun would never rise again, but looked its last, that night, upon a ruined world.
|
The Roman Carnival
.. we had looked forward, with some impatience and curiosity, to the beginning of the new week: Monday
and Tuesday being the two last and best days of the Carnival.
On the Monday afternoon at one or two o'clock, there began to be
a great rattling of carriages into the court-yard of the hotel; a hurrying to and fro of all the servants
in it; and, now and then, a swift shooting across some doorway or balcony, of a straggling stranger in a fancy dress:
not yet sufficiently well used to the same, to wear it with confidence, and defy public opinion. All the
carriages were open, and had the linings carefully covered with white cotton or calico, to prevent their
proper decorations from being spoiled by the incessant pelting of sugar-plums; and people were packing
and cramming into every vehicle
as it waited for its occupants, enormous sacks and baskets full of these confetti, together with such heaps of
flowers, tied up in little nosegays, that some carriages were not only brimful of flowers, but
literally running over; scattering, at every shake and jerk of the springs, some of their
abundance on the ground.
Not to be behindhand in these essential particulars, we caused two very respectable sacks of sugar-plums
(each about three feet high) and a large clothes-basket full of flowers to be conveyed into our hired barouche, with all speed.
And from our place of observation, in one of the upper balconies of the hotel, we contemplated
these arrangements with the liveliest satisfaction. The carriages now beginning to take up their company,
and move away, we got into ours, and drove off too, armed with little wire masks for our faces; the
sugar-plums, like Falstaff's adulterated sack, having lime in their composition.
The Corso is a street a mile long; a street of shops, and palaces, and private
houses, sometimes opening into a broad piazza. There are verandahs and balconies, of all shapes and sizes,
to almost every house - not on one story alone, but often to one room or another on every story - put there
in general with so little order or regularity, that if, year after year, and season after season, it had rained balconies,
hailed balconies, snowed balconies, blown balconies, they could scarcely have come into existence in a more
disorderly manner.
This is the great fountain-head and focus of the Carnival. But all the streets in which the Carnival is held,
being vigilantly kept by dragoons, it is necessary for carriages, in the first instance, to pass, in line,
down another thoroughfare, and so come into the Corso at the end remote from the Piazza del Popolo; which is one of its
terminations. Accordingly, we fell into the string of coaches, and, for some time, jogged on quietly enough;
now crawling on a very slow walk; now trotting half-a-dozen yards; now backing fifty; and now stopping
altogether: as the pressure in front obliged us. If any impetuous carriage dashed out of the rank and clattered
forward, with the wild idea of getting on faster, it was suddenly met, or overtaken, by a trooper on horseback, who, deaf as his
own drawn sword to all remonstrances, immediately escorted it back to the very end of the row, and made
it a dim speck in the remotest perspective. Occasionally we interchanged a volley of confetti with
the carriage next in front, or the carriage next behind; but as yet, this capturing of stray and errant coaches by the military, was
the chief amusement.
Presently, we came into a narrow street, where, besides one line of carriages going, there was another line
of carriages returning. Here the sugar-plums and the nosegays began to fly about, pretty smartly; and I was
fortunate enough to observe one gentleman attired as a Greek warrior, catch a light-whiskered brigand
on the nose (he was in the very act of tossing up a bouquet to a young lady in a first-floor window)
with a precision that was much applauded by the bystanders. As this victorious Greek was exchanging
a facetious remark with a stout gentleman in a doorway - one-half black and
one-half white, as if he had been peeled up the middle - who had offered him his congratulations on
this achievement, he received an orange from a house-top, full on his left ear, and was much surprised,
not to say discomfited. Especially, as he was standing up at the time; and in consequence of the
carriage moving on suddenly, at the same moment, staggered ignominiously, and buried himself
among his flowers.
Some quarter of an hour of this sort of progress, brought us to the Corso; and anything
so gay, so bright, and lively as the whole scene there, it would be difficult to imagine. From
all the innumerable balconies: from the remotest and highest, no less than from the lowest and nearest:
hangings of bright red, bright green, bright blue, white and gold, were fluttering in the brilliant
sunlight. From windows, and from parapets, and tops of houses, streamers of the richest colours
and draperies of the gaudiest and most sparkling hues, were floating out upon the street. The buildings
seemed to have been literally turned inside out, and to have all their gaiety towards the highway.
Shop-fronts were taken down, and the windows filled with company, like boxes at a shining theatre; doors
were carried off their hinges, and long tapestried groves, hung with garlands of flowers
and evergreens, displayed within; builder's scaffoldings were gorgeous temples, radiant in silver, gold,
and crimson; and in every nook and corner, from pavement to the chimney-tops, where women's eyes could
glisten, there they danced, and laughed and sparkled, like the light in water. Every sort of bewitching madness of dress
was there. Little preposterous scarlet jackets; quaint old stomachers, more wicked than the smartest
bodices; Polish pelisses, strained and tight as ripe gooseberries; tiny Greek caps, all awry, and clinging to the
dark hair. Heaven knows how; every wild, quaint, bold, shy, pettish, madcap fancy had its illustration
in a dress; and every fancy was as dead forgotten by its owner, in the tumult of merriment, as if the three
old aqueducts that still remain entire had brought Lethe into Rome, upon their sturdy arches, that morning.
The carriages were now three abreast; in broader places four; often stationary for a long time together;
always one close mass of variegated brightness; showing, the whole streetful, through the storm of flowers,
like flowers of a larger growth themselves. In some, the horses were richly caparisoned in magnificent trappings;
in others they were decked from head to tail, with flowing ribbons. Some were driven by coachmen with enormous
double faces: one face leering at the horses: the other cocking its extraordinary eyes into the carriage: and both
rattling again, under the hail of sugar-plums. Other drivers were attired as women, wearing long ringlets and no
bonnets, and looking more ridiculous in any real difficulty with the horses (of which, in such a concourse,
there were a great many) than tongue than tell, or pen describe. Instead of sitting in the carriages, upon the seats,
the handsome Roman women, to see and to be seen the better, sit in the heads of the barouches, at this
time of general licence, with their feet upon the cushions - and oh the flowing skirts and dainty waists,
the blessed shapes and laughing faces, the free, good-humoured, gallant figures that they make! There were great vans,
too, full of handsome girls - thirty, or more together, perhaps - and the broadsides that were poured into,
and poured out of, these fairy fire-shops, splashed the air with flowers and bon-bons for ten minutes at a time.
Carriages, delayed long in one place, would begin a deliberate engagement with other carriages,
or with people at the lower windows; and the spectators at some upper balcony or window, joining in the fray,
and attacking both parties, would empty down great bags of confetti, that descended like a cloud, and in an
instant made them white as millers. Still, carriages on carriages, dresses on dresses, colours on colours,
crowds upon crowds, without end. Men and boys clinging to the wheels of coaches, and holding on behind,
and following in their wake, and diving in among the horses' feet to pick up scattered flowers to sell again;
maskers on foot (the drollest generally) in fantastic exaggerations of court-dresses, surveying the throng
through enormous eye-glasses, and always transported with an ecstasy of life, on the discovery of any
particularly old lady at a window; long strings of Policinelli (note: It. Pulcinella, Eng. Punchinello) laying about them with blown bladders at the ends
of sticks; a waggonful of madmen, screaming and tearing to the life; a coachful of grave Mamelukes, with their
horse-tail standard set up in the midst; a party of gipsy-women engaged in terrific conflict with a shipful of sailors;
a man-monkey on a pole, surrounded by strange animals with pigs' faces, and lions' tails, carried under their arms,
or worn gracefully over their shoulders; carriages on carriages, dresses on dresses, colours on colours,
crowds upon crowds, without end. Not many actual characters sustained, or represented, perhaps, considering the
number dressed, but the main pleasure of the scene consisting in its perfect good temper; in its bright, and
infinite, and flashing variety; and in its entire abandonment to the mad humour of the time - an abandonment so
perfect, so contagious, so irresistible, that the steadiest foreigner fights up to his middle in flowers and sugar-plums,
like the wildest Roman of them all, and thinks of nothing else till half-past four o'clock, when he is suddenly reminded
(to his great regret) that this is not the whole business of his existence, by hearing the trumpets sound,
and seeing the dragoons begin to clear the street.
How it ever is cleared for the race that takes place at five, or how the horses ever go through the race, without going over the people,
is more than I can say. But the carriages get out into the by-streets, or up into the Piazza del Popolo, and some people sit in
temporary galleries in the latter place, and tens of thousands line the Corso, on both sides, when the horses
are brought out into the Piazza - to the foot of that same column which, for centuries, looked down upon
the games and chariot-races in the Circus Maximus.
At a given signal they are started off. Down the live lane, the whole length of the Corso, they fly like
the wind: riderless, as all the world knows: with shining ornaments upon their backs, and twisted
in their plated manes: and with heavy little balls stuck full of spikes, dangling at their sides, to goad them on.
The jingling of these trappings, and the rattling of their hoofs upon the hard stones; the dash and fury
of their speed along the echoing street; nay, the vary cannon that are fired - these noises are nothing to the roaring
of the multitude: their shouts: the clapping of their hands. But it is soon over - almost instantaneously. More
cannon shake the town. The horses have plunged into the carpets put across the street to stop them; the goal
is reached; the prizes are won (they are given, in part, by the poor Jews, as a compromise for not running
foot-races themselves); and there is an end to that day's sport.
But if the scene be bright, and gay, and crowded, on the last day but one, it attains, on the concluding day,
to such a height of glittering colour, swarming life, and frolicsome uproar, that the bare recollection of it makes me
giddy at this moment. The same diversions, greatly heightened and intensified in the ardour with which they are
pursued, go on until the same hour. The race is repeated; the cannon are fired; the shouting and clapping of hands
are renewed; the cannon are fired again; the race is over; and the prizes are won. But the carriages: ankle-deep
with sugar-plums within, and so be-flowered and dusty without, as to be hardly recognisable for the same
vehicles that they were, three hours ago: instead of scampering off in all directions, throng into the Corso,
where they are soon wedged together in a scarcely moving mass. For the diversion of the Moccoletti,
the last gay madness of the Carnival, is now at hand; and sellers of little tapers like what are called
Christmas candles in England, are shouting lustily on every side, "Moccoli, Moccoli! Ecco Moccoli!" - a new item
in the tumult; quite abolishing that other item of "Ecco Fiori! Ecco Fior-r-r!" which has been making
itself audible over all the rest, at intervals, the whole day through.
As the bright hangings and the dresses are all fading into one dull, heavy, uniform colour in the decline of the day,
lights begin flashing, here and there: in the windows, on the house-tops, in the balconies, in the carriages,
in the hands of foot-passengers: little by little: gradually, gradually: more and more: until the whole long street is one great
glare and blaze of fire. Then everybody present has but one engrossing object; that is, to extinguish other people's
candles, and to keep his own alight; and everybody: man, woman, or child, gentleman or lady, prince or peasant, native or
foreigner: yells and screams, and roars incessantly, as a taunt to the subdued, "Senza Moccolo, Senza Moccolo!" (Without a light!
Without a light!) until nothing is heard but a gigantic chorus of those two words, mingled with peals of laughter.
The spectacle, at this time, is one of the most extraordinary that can be imagined. Carriages coming slowly by,
with everybody standing on the seat or on the box, holding up their lights at arms' length, for greater safety;
some in paper shades; some with a bunch of undefended little tapers, kindled altogether; some with blazing
torches; some with feeble little candles; men on foot, creeping along, among the wheels, watching their opportunity,
to make a spring at some particular light, and dash it out; other people climbing up into carriages, to get hold of them
by main force; others, chasing some unlucky wanderer, round and round his own coach, to blow out the light he has begged
or stolen somewhere, before he can ascend to his own company, and enable them to light their
extinguished tapers; others, with their hats off, at a carriage-door, humbly beseeching some kind-hearted
lady to oblige them with a light for a cigar, and when she is in the fullness of doubt whether to comply or no,
blowing out the candle she is guarding so tenderly with her little hand; other people at the windows, fishing for
candles with lines and hooks, or letting down long willow-wands with handkerchiefs at the end, and flapping them out,
dexterously, when the bearer is at the height of his triumph; others, biding their time in corners, with
immense extinguishers like halberds, and suddenly coming down upon glorious torches; others, gathered round
one coach, and sticking to it; others, raining oranges and nosegays at an obdurate little lantern, or regularly
storming a pyramid of men, holding up one man among them, who carries one feeble little wick above his head, with which he defies them all!
Senza Moccolo! Senza Moccolo! Beautiful women, standing up in coaches, pointing in derision at extinguished lights, and clapping
their hands, as they pass on crying, "Senza Moccolo! Senza Moccolo!" low balconies full of lovely faces and gay dresses,
struggling with assailants in the streets; some repressing them as they climb up, some bending down,
some leaning over, some shrinking back - delicate arms and bosoms - graceful figures - glowing lights,
fluttering dresses, Senza Moccolo, Senza Moccoli, Senza Moc-co-lo-o-o-o! - when in the wildest enthusiasm of the cry, and fullest ecstasy
of the sport, the Ave Maria rings from the church steeples, and the Carnival is over in an instant - put out like a taper, with a breath!
... the game of the Moccoletti (the word, in the singular, Moccoletto, is a diminutive of Moccolo, and means
a little lamp or candle-snuff) is supposed by some to be a ceremony of burlesque mourning for the death
of the Carnival: candles being indispensable to Catholic grief. But whether it be or so, or be a remnant
of the ancient Saturnalia, or an incorporation of both, or have its origin in anything else, I shall always remember it,
and the frolic, as a brilliant and most captivating sight: no less remarkable for the unbroken good-humour
of all concerned, down to the very lowest (and among those who scaled the carriages were many of the commonest men and boys),
than for its innocent vivacity. For, odd as it may seem to say so, of a sport so full of thoughtlessness and personal display,
it is as free from any taint of immodesty as any general mingling of the two sexes can possibly be; and there seems to prevail,
during its progress, a feeling of general, almost childish, simplicity and confidence, which one thinks of with a pang, when the Ave Maria has rung it away,
for a whole year. |
Mr. and Mrs. Davis
We often encountered a company of English Tourists, with whom I had an ardent, but ungratified longing,
to establish a speaking acquaintance. They were one Mr. Davis, and a small circle of friends. It was impossible not to know Mrs. Davis's
name, from her being always in great request among her party, and her party being everywhere. During the
Holy Week, they were in every part of every scene of every ceremony. For a fortnight or three weeks before it,
they were in every tomb, and every church, and every ruin, and every Picture Gallery; and I hardly ever observed
Mrs. Davis to be silent for a moment. Deep underground, high up in St. Peter's, out on the Campagna, and stifling
in the Jews' quarter, Mrs. Davis turned up, all the same. I don't think she ever saw anything, or ever looked at anything;
and she had always lost something out of a straw hand-basket, and was trying to find it, with all her
might and main, among an immense quantity of English halfpence, which lay, like sands upon the sea-shore,
at the bottom of it. There was a professional Cicerone always attached to the party (which had been brought
over from London, fifteen or twenty strong, by contract), and if he so much as looked at Mrs. Davis,
she invariably cut him short by saying, "There, God bless the man, don't worrit me! I don't understand a word you say, and shouldn't
if you was to talk till you was black in the face!" Mr. Davis always had a snuff-coloured great-coat on, and carried
a great green umbrella in his hand, and had a slow curiosity constantly devouring him, which prompted
him to do extraordinary things, such as taking the covers off the urns in tombs, and looking in at the ashes as if they were pickles -
and tracing out inscriptions with the ferrule of his umbrella, and saying, with intense thoughtfulness,
"Here's a B you see, and there's a R, and this is the way we goes on in; is it?" His antiquarian habits occasioned his being frequently
in the rear of the rest; and one of the agonies of Mrs. Davis, and the party in general, was an ever-present fear that Davis would be lost.
This caused them to scream for him, in the strangest places, and at the most improper seasons. And when he came, slowly emerging
out of some sepulchre or other, like a peaceful Ghoul, saying "Here I am!" Mrs. Davis invariably replied,
"You'll be buried alive in a foreign country, Davis, and it's no use trying to prevent you!".
|
Roman Models
Among what may be called the Cubs or minor Lions of Rome, there was one that amused me mightily. It is always
to be found there; and its den is on the great flight of steps that lead from the Piazza
di Spagna, to the church of Trinita del Monte. In plainer words, these steps are the great place of resort
for the artists' "Models," and there they are constantly waiting to be hired. The first time I went up there, I could
not conceive why the faces seemed familiar to me; why they appeared to have beset me, for years, in every possible
variety of action and costume; and how it came to pass that they started up before me, in Rome, in the
broad day, like so many saddled and bridled nightmares. I soon found that we had made acquaintance, and improved it,
for several years, on the walls of various Exhibition Galleries. There is one old gentleman, with long white hair and
an immense beard, who, to my knowledge, has gone half enough through the catalogue of the Royal Academy.
This is the venerable, or patriarchal model. He carries a long staff; and every knot and twist in that staff
I have seen faithfully delineated, innumerable times. There is another man in a blue cloak, who always pretends to
be asleep in the sun (when there is any), and who, I need but say, is always very wide awake, and very attentive
to the disposition of his legs. This is the dolce far' niente model. There is another man in a brown cloak,
who leans against a wall, with his arms folded in his mantle, and looks out of the corners of his eyes;
which are just visible beneath his broad slouched hat. This is the assassin model. There is another man,
who constantly looks over his own shoulder, and is always going away, but never does. This is the haughty,
or scornful model. As to Domestic Happiness and Holy Families, they should come very cheap, for there are
lumps of them, all up the steps; and the cream of the thing is, that they are all the falsest vagabonds in the world,
especially made up for the purpose, and having no counterparts in Rome or any other parts of the habitable globe.
|
Kissing Crosses
Some Roman altars of peculiar sanctity, bear the inscription, "Every Mass performed at this altar
frees a soul from Purgatory." I have never been able to find out the charge
for one of these services, but they should needs be expensive. There are several Crosses in Rome too,
the kissing of which, confers indulgences for varying terms. That in the centre of the Coliseum,
is worth a hundred days; and people may be seen kissing it from morning to night.
It is curious that some of these crosses seem to acquire an arbitrary popularity: this very one among them.
In another part of the Coliseum there is a cross upon a marble slab, with the inscription,
"Who kisses this cross shall be entitled to Two hundred and forty days' indulgence." But I saw no one
kiss it, though, day after day, I sat in the arena, and saw scores upon scores of peasants
pass it, on their way to kiss the other.
|
S. Stefano Rotondo
To single out details from the great dream of Roman churches, would be the wildest
occupation in the world. But S. Stefano Rotondo, a damp, mildewed
vault of an old church in the outskirts of Rome, will always struggle uppermost in my mind, by reason of the hideous
paintings with which its walls are covered. These represent the martyrdoms of saints and early Christians;
and such a panorama of horror and butchery no man could imagine in his sleep, though he were
to eat a whole pig raw, for supper. Grey-bearded men being boiled, fried, grilled, crimped, singed, eaten by wild
beasts, worried by dogs, buried alive, torn asunder by horses, chopped up small with hatchets: women having their
breasts torn with iron pinchers, their tongues cut out, their ears screwed off, their jaws broken, their
bodies stretched upon the rack, or skinned upon the stake, or crackled up and melted in the fire: these are among
the mildest subjects. So insisted on, and laboured at, besides, that every sufferer gives you the same occasion for wonder as poor
old Duncan awoke, in Lady Macbeth, when she marvelled at his having so much blood in him.
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An Execution near S. Giovanni Decollato
On one Saturday morning (the eighth of March), a man was beheaded here. Nine or ten months before,
he had waylaid a Bavarian countess, travelling as a pilgrim to Rome - alone and on foot, of course -
and performing, it is said, that act of piety for the fourth time. He saw her change a piece of gold at Viterbo,
where he lived; followed her; bore her company on her journey for some forty miles or more, on the
treacherous pretext of protecting her; attacked her, in the fulfilment of his unrelenting purpose, on the
Campagna, within a very short distance of Rome, near to what is called (but what is not)
the Tomb of Nero; robbed her; and beat her to death with her own pilgrim's
staff. He was newly married, and gave some of her apparel to his wife: saying that he had bought it at a fair.
She, however, who had seen the pilgrim-countess passing through her town, recognised some trifle
as having belonged to her. Her husband then told her what he had done. She, in confession, told a
priest; and the man was taken, within four days after the commission of the murder.
There are no fixed times for the administration of justice, or its execution, in this unaccountable country;
and he had been in prison ever since. On the Friday, as he was dining with the other prisoners, they came
and told him he was to be beheaded next morning, and took him away. It is very unusual to execute in Lent;
but his crime being a very bad one, it was deemed advisable to make an example of him at that time, when great numbers of pilgrims
were coming towards Rome, from all parts, for the Holy Week. I heard of this on the Friday evening, and saw the bills up at the churches,
calling on the people to pray for the criminal's soul. So I determined to go, and see him executed.
The beheading was appointed for fourteen and a half o' clock, Roman time: or a quarter before nine in the forenoon.
I had two friends with me; and as we did not know but that the crowd might be very great, we were on the spot by half-past seven.
The place of the execution was near the church of San Giovanni decollato
(a doubtful compliment to Saint John the Baptist) in one of the impassable back streets without any footway,
of which a great part of Rome is composed - a street of rotten houses, which do not seem to belong to anybody,
and do not seem to have ever been inhabited, and certainly were never built on any plan, or for any particular purpose,
and have no window-sashes, and are a little like deserted breweries, and might be warehouses but for having
nothing in them. Opposite to one of these, a white house, the scaffold was built. An untidy, unpainted,
uncouth, crazy-looking thing of course: some seven feet high, perhaps: with a tall, gallows-shaped frame
rising above it, in which was the knife, charged with a ponderous mass of iron, all ready to descend,
and glittering brightly in the morning sun, whenever it looked out, now and then, from behind a cloud.
There were not many people lingering about; and these were kept at a considerable distance from the scaffold,
by parties of the Pope's dragoons. Two or three hundred foot-soldiers were under arms, standing at ease
in clusters here and there; and the officers were walking up and down in twos and threes, chatting together, and smoking cigars.
At the end of the street, was an open space, where there would be a dust-heap, and piles of broken
crockery, and mounds of vegetable refuse, but for such things being thrown anywhere and everywhere
in Rome, and favouring no particular sort of locality. We got into a kind of wash-house, belonging to a
dwelling-house on this spot; and standing there in an old cart, and on a heap of cart-wheels piled
against the wall, looked, through a large grated window, at the scaffold, and straight down the street beyond it,
until, in consequence of its turning off abruptly to the left, our perspective was brought to a sudden termination ,
and had a corpulent officer, in a cocked hat, for its crowning feature.
Nine o' clock struck, and ten o'clock struck, and nothing happened. All the bells of all the churches
rang as usual. A little parliament of dogs assembled in the open space, and chased each other, in and out
among the soldiers. Fierce-looking Romans of the lowest class, in blue cloaks, russet cloaks, and rags
uncloaked, came and went, and talked together. Women and children fluttered, on the skirts of the
scanty crowd. One large muddy spot was left quite bare, like a bald place on a man's head. A cigar-merchant,
with an earthen pot of charcoal ashes in one hand, went up and down, crying his wares. A pastry-merchant
divided his attention between the scaffold and his customers. Boys tried to climb up walls, and tumbled
down again. Priests and monks elbowed a passage for themselves among the people, and stood on tiptoe for a
sight of the knife: then went away. Artists, in inconceivable hats of the middle-ages, and beards (thank Heaven!)
of no age at all, flashed picturesque scowls about them from their stations in the throng. One gentleman (connected
with the fine arts, I presume) went up and down in a pair of Hessian-boots, with a red beard hanging down on his breast,
and his long and bright red hair, plaited into two tails, one on either side of his head, which fell over his shoulders in
front of him, very nearly to his waist, and were carefully entwined and braided!
Eleven o'clock struck; and still nothing happened. A rumour got about, among the crowd, that the criminal
would not confess; in which case, the priests would keep him until the Ave Maria (sunset); for it is
their merciful custom never finally to turn the crucifix away from a man at that pass, as one refusing to be shriven,
and consequently a sinner abandoned of the Saviour, until then. People began to drop off. The officers
shrugged their shoulders and looked doubtful. The dragoons, who came riding up below our window,
every now and then, to order an unlucky hackney-coach or cart away, as soon as it had comfortably
established itself, and was covered with exulting people (but never before), became imperious, and
quick-tempered. The bald place hadn't a straggling hair upon it; and the corpulent officer, crowning the
perspective, took a world of snuff.
Suddenly, there was a noise of trumpets. "Attention!" was among the foot-soldiers instantly. They were
marched up to the scaffold and formed round it. The dragoons galloped to their nearer stations too. The
guillotine became the centre of a wood of bristling bayonets and shining sabres. The people closed round
nearer, on the flank of the soldiery. A long straggling stream of men and boys, who had accompanied
the procession from the prison, came pouring into the open space. The bald spot was scarcely distinguishable
from the rest. The cigar and pastry-merchants resigned all thoughts of business, for the moment, and abandoning
themselves wholly to pleasure, got good situations in the crowd. The perspective ended, now, in a troop of dragoons.
And the corpulent officer, sword in hand, looked hard at a church close to him, which he could see, but we,
the crowd, could not.
After a short delay, some monks were seen approaching to the scaffold from this church; and above their heads,
coming on slowly and gloomily, the effigy of Christ upon the cross, canopied with black. This was carried
round the foot of the scaffold, to the front, and turned towards the criminal, that he might see it to the last.
It was hardly in its place, when he appeared on the platform, bare-footed; his hands bound; and with the
collar and neck of his shirt cut away, almost to the shoulder. A young man - six-and-twenty - vigorously made,
and well-shaped. Face pale; small dark moustache; and dark brown hair.
He had refused to confess, it seemed, without first having his wife brought to see him; and they had sent an escort
for her, which had occasioned the delay.
He immediately kneeled down, below the knife. His neck fitting into a hole, made for the purpose, in a cross
plank, was shut down, by another plank above; exactly like the pillory. Immediately below him was a leathern
bag. And into it his head rolled instantly.
The executioner was holding it by the hair, and walking with it round the scaffold, showing it to the people,
before one quite knew that the knife had fallen heavily, and with a rattling sound.
When it had travelled round the four sides of the scaffold, it was set upon a pole in front - a little patch of
black and white, for the long street to stare at, and the flies to settle on. The eyes were turned upwards, as if he had avoided
the sight of the leathern bag, and looked to the crucifix. Every tinge and hue of life had left it in that instant. It
was dull, cold, livid, wax. The body also.
There was a great deal of blood. When we left the window, and went close up to the scaffold, it was very dirty;
one of the two men who were throwing water over it, turning to help the other lift the body into a shell, picked
his way as through mire. A strange appearance was the apparent annihilation of the neck. The head was taken off
so close, that it seemed as if the knife had narrowly escaped crushing the jaw, or shaving off the ear; and the body
looked as if there were nothing left above the shoulder.
Nobody cared, or was at all affected. There was no manifestation of disgust, or pity, or indignation, or sorrow.
My empty pockets were tried, several times, in the crowd immediately below the scaffold,
as the corpse was being put into its coffin. It was an ugly, filthy, careless, sickening spectacle; meaning nothing
but butchery beyond the momentary interest, to the one wretched actor. Yes! Such a sight has one meaning and
one warning. Let me not forget it. The speculators in the lottery, station themselves at favourable points
for counting the gouts of blood that spirt out, here or there; and buy that number. It is pretty sure to have a run
upon it.
The body was carted away in due time, the knife cleansed, the scaffold taken down, and all the hideous
apparatus removed. The executioner: an outlaw ex-officio (what a satire of the Punishment!)
who dare not for his life, cross the Bridge of St. Angelo but to do his work: retreated to his lair, and the
show was over.
.....as we lay down on the grass of the Campagna, on our way to Florence, hearing the larks sing, we saw
that a little wooden cross had been erected on the spot where the poor Pilgrim Countess was murdered.
So, we piled some loose stones about it, as the beginning of a mound to her memory, and wondered if we should
ever rest there again, and look back at Rome.
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The Pope washing the feet of Thirteen men
I think the most popular and most crowded sight (excepting those of Easter Sunday and Monday, which
are open to all classes of people) was the Pope washing the feet of Thirteen men, representing the
twelve apostles, and Judas Iscariot. The place in which this pious office is performed, is one of the chapel's
of St. Peter's, which is gaily decorated for the occasion; the thirteen
sitting, "all of a row", on a very high bench, and looking particularly uncomfortable, with the eyes
of Heaven knows how many English, French, Americans, Swiss, Germans, Russians, Swedes, Norwegians,
and other foreigners, nailed to their faces all the time. They are robed in white; and on their heads they wear a
stiff white cap like a large English porter-pot, without a handle. Each carries in his hand, a nosegay, of the size
of a fine cauliflower; and two of them, on this occasion, wore spectacles; which remembering the characters
they sustained, I thought a droll appendage to the costume. There was a great eye to character. St. John was represented
by a good-looking young man. St. Peter, by a grave-looking old gentleman, with a flowing brown beard;
and Judas Iscariot by such an enormous hypocrite (I could not make out, though, whether the expression
of his face was real or assumed) that if he had acted the part to the death and had gone away and hanged
himself, he would have left nothing to be desired.
As the two large boxes, appropriated to ladies at this sight, were full to the throat, and getting near was hopeless,
we posted off, along with a great crowd, to be in time at the Table, where the Pope, in person, waits on these Thirteen:
and after a prodigious struggle at the Vatican staircase, and several personal conflicts with the Swiss guard,
the whole crowd swept into the room. It was a long gallery hung with drapery of white and red, with another
great box for ladies (who are obliged to dress in black at these ceremonies, and to wear black veils), a royal box
for the King of Naples and his party; and the table itself, which set out like a ball supper, and ornamented
with golden figures of the real apostles, was arranged on an elevated platform on one side of the gallery.
The counterfeit apostles' knives and forks were laid out on that side of the table which was nearest to the wall,
so that they might be stared at again, without let or hindrance.
The body of the room was full of male strangers; the crowd immense; the heat very great; and the
pressure sometimes frightful. It was at its height, when the stream came pouring in, from the feet-washing;
and then there were such shrieks and outcries, that a party of Piedmontese dragoons went to the rescue
of the Swiss guard, and helped them to calm the tumult.
The ladies were particularly ferocious, in their struggle for places. One lady of my acquaintance was seized
round the waist, in the ladies' box, by a strong matron, and hoisted out of her place; and there was
another lady (in a back row in the same box) who improved her position by sticking a large pin into the
ladies before her.
The gentlemen about me were remarkably anxious to see what was on the table; and one Englishman seemed
to have embarked the whole energy of his nature in the determination to discover whether
there was any mustard. "By Jupiter there's vinegar!" I heard him say to his friend, after he had stood on tiptoe
an immense time, and had been crushed and beaten on all sides. "And there's oil! I saw them distinctly,
in cruets! Can any gentleman, in front there, see mustard on the table? Sir, will you oblige me? Do you see
a Mustard-Pot?"
The apostles and Judas appearing on the platform, after much expectation, were marshalled, in line,
in front of the table, with Peter at the top; and a good looking stare was taken at them by the company,
while twelve of them took a long smell at their nosegays, and Judas - moving his lips very obtrusively - engaged
in inward prayer. Then, the Pope, clad in a scarlet robe, and wearing on his head
a skull-cap of white satin, appeared in the midst of a crowd of Cardinals and other dignitaries,
and took in his hand a little golden ewer, from which he poured a little water over one of Peter's hands,
while one attendant held a golden basin; a second, a fine cloth; a third, Peter's nosegay, which was taken from him during
the operation. This his Holiness performed, with considerable expedition, on every man in the line (Judas, I
observed to be particularly overcome by his condescension); and then the whole Thirteen sat down to dinner. Grace said by the Pope.
Peter in the chair.
There was white wine, and red wine: and the dinner looked very good. The courses appeared in portions, one for each apostle:
and these being presented to the Pope, by Cardinals upon their knees, were by him handed to the Thirteen.
The manner in which Judas grew more white-livered over his victuals, and languished, with his head on one side,
as if he had no appetite, defies all description. Peter was a good, sound, old man, and went in, as the saying is, "to win";
eating everything that was given him (he got the best: being first in the row) and saying nothing to anybody. The dishes
appeared to be chiefly composed of fish and vegetables. The Pope helped the Thirteen to wine also; and,
during the whole dinner, somebody read something aloud, out of a large book - the Bible, I presume - which nobody
could hear, and to which nobody paid the least attention. The Cardinals, and other attendants, smiled
to each other, from time to time, as if the thing were a great farce; and if they thought so, there is little
doubt they were perfectly right. His Holiness did what he had to do, as a sensible man gets through a troublesome ceremony,
and seemed very glad when it was all over. |
Scala Santa
Of all the many spectacles of dangerous reliance on outward observances, in themselves mere
empty forms, none struck me half so much as the Scala Santa, or Holy
Staircase, which I saw several times, but to the greatest advantage, or disadvantage, on Good
Friday.
This holy staircase is composed of eight-and-twenty steps, said to have belonged
to Pontius Pilate's house, and to be the identical stairs on which Our Saviour trod, in coming
down from the judgement-seat. Pilgrims ascend it, only on their knees. It is steep;
and at the summit, is a chapel, reported to be full of relics; into which they peep through
some iron bars, and then come down again, by one or two side staircases, which are not sacred,
and may be walked on.
On Good Friday, there were, on a moderate computation, a hundred people, slowly
shuffling up these stairs, on their knees, at one time; while others, who were going up,
or had come down - and a few who had done both, and were going up again for the second time -
stood loitering in the porch below, where an old gentleman in a sort of watch-box, rattled
a tin canister, with a slit in the top, incessantly, to remind them that he took the money.
The majority were country-people, male and female. There were four or five Jesuit priests,
however, and some half-dozen well-dressed women. A whole school of boys, twenty at least,
were about half-way up - evidently enjoying it very much. They were all wedged together,
pretty closely; but the rest of the company gave the boys as wide a berth as possible,
in consequence of their betraying some recklessness in the management of their boots.
I never, in my life, saw anything at once so ridiculous, and so unpleasant, as this sight -
ridiculous in the absurd incidents inseparable from it; and unpleasant in its senseless
and unmeaning degradation. There are two steps to begin with, and then a rather broad landing.
The more rigid climbers went along this landing on their knees, as well as up the stairs;
and the figures they cut, in their shuffling progress over the level surface, no description
can paint. Then, to see them watch their opportunity from the porch, and cut in where
there was a place next the wall! And to see one man with an umbrella (brought on purpose,
for it was a fine day) hoisting himself, unlawfully, from stair to stair! And to observe
a demure lady of fifty-five or so, looking back, every now and then, to assure herself
that her legs were properly disposed!
There were such odd differences in the speed of different people, too. Some got on as
if they were doing a match against time; others stopped to say a prayer on every step.
This man touched every stair with his forehead, and kissed it; that man scratched his head all
the way. The boys got on brilliantly, and were up and down again before the old lady
had accomplished her half-dozen stairs. But most of the penitents came down, very sprightly
and fresh, as having done a real substantial deed which it would take a good deal of sin
to counterbalance; and the old gentleman in the watch-box was down upon them with his
canister while they were in this humour, I promise you.
As if such a progress were not in its nature inevitably droll enough, there lay, on
the top of the stairs, a wooden figure on a crucifix, resting on a sort of great iron saucer:
so rickety and unsteady, that whenever an enthusiastic person kissed the figure, with more
than usual devotion, or threw a coin into the saucer, with more than common readiness
(for it served in this respect as a second or supplementary canister), it gave a great leap
and rattle, and nearly shook the attendant lamp out: horribly frightening the people
further down, and throwing the guilty party into unspeakable embarrassment. |
Easter Sunday in St. Peter's square
On Easter Sunday, as well as on the preceding Thursday, the Pope bestows his benediction on the
people, from the balcony in front of St. Peter's. This Easter Sunday was a day so bright and blue:
so cloudless, balmy, wonderfully bright: that all the previous bad weather vanished from the
recollection in a moment. I had seen the Thursday's Benediction dropping damply on some hundreds
of umbrellas, but there was not a sparkle then, in all the hundred fountains of Rome - such
fountains as they are! - and on this Sunday morning they were running diamonds. The miles of
miserable streets through which we drove (compelled to a certain course by the Pope's dragoons:
the Roman police on such occasions) were so full of colour, that nothing in them was
capable of wearing a faded aspect. The common people came in their gayest dresses; the richer
people in their smartest vehicles; Cardinals rattled to the church of the Poor Fishermen in
their state carriages; shabby magnificence flaunted its thread-bare liveries and tarnished
cocked hats, in the sun; and every coach in Rome was put in requisition for the
Great Piazza of St. Peter's.
One hundred and fifty thousand people were there at least! Yet there was ample room.
How many carriages were there, I don't know; yet there was room for them too, and to spare.
The great steps of the church were densely crowded. There were many of the Contadini, from
Albano (who delight in red), in that part of the square, and the mingling of bright colours
in the crowd was beautiful. Below the steps the troops were ranged. In the magnificent
proportions of the place they looked like a bed of flowers. Sulky Romans, lively peasants
from the neighbouring country, groups of pilgrims from distant parts of Italy, sight-seeing
foreigners of all nations, made a murmur in the clear air, like so many insects; and high
above them all, plashing and bubbling, and making rainbow colours in the light, the two
delicious fountains welled and tumbled bountifully.
A kind of bright carpet was hung over the front of the balcony; and the sides of the great
window were bedecked with crimson drapery. An awning was stretched, too, over the top, to
screen the old man from the hot rays of the sun. As noon approached, all eyes were turned
up to this window. In due time, the chair was seen approaching to the front, with the gigantic
fans of peacock's feathers, close behind. The doll within it (for the balcony is very high)
then rose up, and stretched out its tiny arms, while all the male spectators in the square
uncovered, and some, but not by any means the greater part, kneeled down. The guns upon the
ramparts of the Castle of St. Angelo proclaimed, next moment, that the benediction was given;
drums beat; trumpets sounded; arms clashed; and the great mass below, suddenly breaking into
smaller heaps, and scattering here and there in rills, was stirred like parti-coloured sand.
What a bright noon it was, as we rode away! The Tiber was no longer yellow, but blue. There
was a blush on the old bridges, that made them fresh and hale again.
...but, when the night came on, without a cloud to dim the full moon, what a sight it was
to see the Great Square full once more, and the whole church, from the cross to the ground,
lighted with innumerable lanterns, tracing out the architecture, and winking and shining all
round the colonnade of the piazza! And what a sense of exultation, joy, delight, it was when
the great bell struck half-past seven - on the instant - to behold one bright red mass of fire,
soar gallantly from the top of the cupola to the extremest summit of the cross, and the
moment it leaped into its place, become the signal of a bursting out of countless lights,
as great, and red, and blazing as itself, from every part of the gigantic church; so that
every cornice, capital, and smallest ornament of stone, expressed itself in fire: and the
black solid groundwork of the enormous dome seemed to grow transparent as an egg-shell!
A train of gunpowder, an electric chain - nothing could be fired, more suddenly and swiftly,
than this second illumination; and when we had got away, and gone upon a distant height,
and looked towards it two hours afterwards, there it still stood, shining and glittering
in the calm night like a jewel! Not a line of its proportions wanting; not an angle blunted;
not an atom of its radiance lost.
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Fireworks at Castel S. Angelo
On Easter Monday there was a great display of fireworks from the Castle of St. Angelo.
We hired a room in an opposite house, and made our way, to our places, in good time,
through a dense mob of people choking up the square in front, and all the avenues leading to it;
and so loading the bridge by which the castle is approached, that it seemed ready to sink into
the rapid Tiber below. There are statues on this bridge (execrable works), and, among them,
great vessels full of burning tow were placed: glaring strangely on the faces of the crowd,
and not less strangely on the stone counterfeits above them.
The show began with a tremendous discharge of cannon; and then, for twenty minutes or half an
hour, the whole castle was one incessant sheet of fire, and labyrinth of blazing wheels of
every colour, size, and speed: while rockets streamed into the sky, not by ones or twos, or
scores, but hundreds at a time. The concluding burst - the Girandola - was like the
blowing up into the air of the whole massive castle, without smoke or dust.
In half an hour afterwards, the immense concourse had dispersed; the moon was looking calmly
down upon her wrinkled image in the river; and half - a - dozen men and boys with bits of
lighted candle in their hands: moving here and there, in search of anything worth having,
that might have been dropped in the press: had the whole scene to themselves.
|
The Coliseum by moonlight
We rode out into old ruined Rome, after all this firing and booming, to take our leave of the
Coliseum. I had seen it by moonlight before (I could never get
through a day without going back to it), but its tremendous solitude that night is past all telling.
The ghostly pillars in the Forum; the Triumphal Arches of Old Emperors; these enormous masses of
ruins which were once their palaces; the grass-grown mounds that mark the graves of ruined temples;
the stones of the Via Sacra, smooth with the tread of feet in ancient Rome; even these
were dimmed, in their transcendent melancholy, by the dark ghost of its bloody holidays,
erect and grim; haunting the old scene; despoiled by pillaging Popes and fighting Princes,
but not laid; wringing wild hands of weed, and grass, and bramble; and lamenting to the
night in every gap and broken arch - the shadow of its awful self, immovable!
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Read What Dante Saw.
Read What Goethe Saw.
Read What Lord Byron Saw.
Read What Mark Twain Saw.
Read What Henry James Saw.
Read What William Dean Howells Saw.
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