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ROME—3 P.M. TO 4 P.M. · Around the Clock in Europe : A Travel Sequence

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Section three of Around the Clock in Europe a Travel Sequence. This is a
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LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
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or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Ronald Conrad.
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Around the Clock in Europe a Travel Sequence by Charles fish Howell, Rome,
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three p m. Two four pm. Like the lizards in the Dusty Forum,
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ruins emerging from dusky retreats to warm and blink in the sun, and
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then flash back into some sheltered refuge. So visitors at Rome issue from dim
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closing museums at three o'clock in the afternoon and gaze around in a stupid,
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dazed fashion on a sky of cloudless, deep blue, and on placid streets
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and squares that seem fairly to quiver in a golden haze of strong sunshine.
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After the cool interiors, the sultry heat seems doubly oppressive, and there is
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something of the nature of a mild struggle before reality succeeds in summoning them back
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from that vague state of disassociation, that condition of all mind and no body,
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produced by an intense and protracted study of all those wonderful things that great
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museums contain. To this confused condition of mind, there is generally added a
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further disquieting element in the shape of a blank misgiving as to how the intervening
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hour can be tolerably passed before joining the four o'clock promenaders in the Pincian gardens
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to see Roman fashion at its anti prandial rites, and yet were strangers merely
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to remain receptive and allow their extraordinary surroundings to assert themselves and supply the diversion
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with which they are dynamically charged. This is an hour that might prove to
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be one of the most delightful of the whole twenty four in Rome, for
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the masterful spell of the Eternal City is still world conquering. It only asks
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the chance protract your stay as you will. There remains at last a sense
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of awe, almost of incredulity, at being in the actual flesh in the
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precincts so ultra venerated in dread historic Rome. It is only a somewhat milder
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form of the feeling that overpowered you the very first morning of your visit,
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when, after the night's sleep of forgetfulness, you read with amazed, half
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awake eyes the printed slip on the bedroom door that affirmed your hotel to be
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on no less august and eminence than one of the seven hills of Rome,
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even when you had rushed to the window for corroboration and stared out in excited
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astonishment on a vast shoulder of dusty reds addish brown ruins with pert vines greening
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in its loftiest recesses, and a guide book insisted that they were the baths
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of Diocletian. A reluctant fear remained that you might only be, after all,
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in the pleasant toils of the old recurrent dream, from which you might
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shortly and miserably awake. But if, at three o'clock of a summer afternoon,
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the particular museum whose doors are remorselessly closing upon your final lingering look,
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chances to be that fortunate one set on the Capitol Line hill that houses,
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among its array of mellow antiques, the pointed ear original of Hawthorne's Marble Fawn,
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you could not do better than make use of the remainder of the admission
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ticket and have a survey of Rome from the airy summit of the campanil in
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the rear. To effect this, one picks his way among the imposing remains
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of the ancient record house of the Tabularium, mounts the law long flight of
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iron steps in a corner of its colonnade, and soon reaches the top of
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the tower of the Capitol, with Rome as utterly at his feet as ever
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it appeared to the eyes of Alaric and his Goths. In tones of soft
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yellow, gray and dull orange, the roof masses sweep northward, eastward,
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and westward, while to the southward and at your feet lies heaped the earthy,
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dusty chaos of ruins that crown the imperial Palatine, the popular Celian,
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and the luckless Avantine. Hills, parks and villa gardens are blotches of dark
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foliage, and within its white embankment walls, the sacred Tiber, in a
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twisting yellow band, rushes swiftly down the face of the city in its mad
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rush for Ostia and the sea beyond the most distant suburbs extend the rolling plains
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of the Capanna like an all embracing sea, until they seem to wash in
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a gentle surf about the Sabine foot hill away to the north and brim southward
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to the verge of the Alban Hills, beyond the farthest glimpse of the aqueduct's
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long line of broken arches, or the dimming perspective of that taut thread the
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Appian Way. From this vantage point, the city may hide no surface secrets.
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It lies below us like an enormous fan, whose converging point is the
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round Piazza del Popolo, a good mile to the north. Like three great
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fingers. There extend from that focus, the Via Ripetta, the Via Babuino,
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and in the center, and running toward us as straight as a ruler,
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the popular Corso, carrying the old Flaminian Way right through the heart of
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modern Rome. By degrees. We come to distinguish familiar churches among the hundreds
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of spires, towers and domes, to pick out here and there a medieval
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watch tower, to locate well known squares, to name an occasional obelisk,
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to identify a column, and even to particular rise some of the scores of
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fountains that give latter day Rome a pleasant distinction among modern cities. The ribbed,
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blue gray dome of Saint Peter's looms impressively from out the deep green of
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the papal gardens. Of the Yellow Vatican, the circular bulk of the Castle
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of Saint Angelo, and the column Pantheon look as familiar as old friends to
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us, though they may not be friends to each other, with the latter
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under papal stress, forced in other days to yield its beautiful bronze tiles to
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make saints ornaments and cannon for the former. The yellow walls the Saint Onofrio
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Monastery mark where died Tasso, king of Bards, and where they still show
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his crucifix and inkstand. And yonder is the great gray Church, where Beatrice
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Chenschi lies in her nameless grave. If we turn and look southward, we
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see strange sun tricks among the bleak and shadowy corridors of the vast half demolished
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Colosseum, and crumbling arches of the emperors warm into a venerable dotage. The
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sun baked wreckage of the Forum expands at our feet in rows of column stumps,
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shattered arches, isolated shafts with clinging fragments of cornice and entablature, yawning
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earthen doorways, and dusty heaps of cluttered brick and tufa like a giant honeycomb,
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while all about it birds are singing divinely in the shade of the laurels.
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The famed Tarpeian rock just at hand has little suggestion of a short shrift
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for traders, with rookeries nestling snugly to its base, and a rose trellised
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garden on its commodious summit. Victor Emmanuel two, in the regal cool of
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bronze, gazes over his colossal charger in the the gigantic monument on the Capitol
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Line slopes below us, and beholds the hills studded with the pretty white villas
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of his grandson's prosperous subjects, and the quarter of the fields carpeted with the
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neat stucco homes of the poor that used to languish in the vile slums of
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the old Ghetto. Had he read Zola's Rome, he might even be justified
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in frowning at so defamatory a description of so pleasant a section. But apparently
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he prefers to watch the afternoon glow on the gleaming domes and towers and myrtlest
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villas of the Trastevere, where the powerful and violent descendants of the ancient Romans
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still dwell, And to take a mused note of Getibaldi over there, twisting
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around on his big bronze horse to keep a wary eye on Saint Peter's.
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It taxes the credulity of the visitor to comprehend that Yonder is the renowned Geniculum,
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down whose slopes Lars Percinna led his troops to contend with horatious cockles and
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his intrepid companions as they held the bridge only a hundred yards from where we
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are standing. And indeed, imagination is quite unequal to the tasks set it
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on all this historic ground. Even if we succeed in carrying ourselves back through
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the periods of the popes, the emperors, the Republic, the kings,
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and possibly the shepherds, what is to become of us when confronted with the
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statement of Ampere that there were really nine Romes before Rome. It is quite
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enough to undertake the reconstruction of ancient Rome to the mind's eye, such as
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authentic history describes it, considering how repeatedly its conquerors sacked it, and how
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both Nero and Robert Guiscard burned it, and that the Romans themselves, as
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Lanciani insists, have done more harm to it than all invading hosts put together.
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What the Barbarians did not do ran the famous pasquinade, the Barberini did.
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It is really asking too much of the man who is risking a touch
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of sun to see the city from the sweltering top of the capital tower.
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To expect him to be communing with himself in terms of travertine and pepperino,
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and reassembling antiquities as an agreeable pastime. He will probably content himself with a
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hasty glance around and a little irreverent levity over the task of Ascanius, son
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of the pious Anus, in building a city on the scraggy ridge of distant
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Alba Longa, or the scramble the Roman bachelors must have had when they scampered
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down the neighboring quirinal hill with their arms full of their sabine allies wives.
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As he trudges down the tower steps and catches periodic glimpses of that ancient latium
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that is now the Campagna, he ought to devote a moment to self congratulation
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that the pestilence no longer stalks there by night and noonday, Or that the
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evil campaniards of Andersen's improves a torre no more terrorize with impunity, or wild
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beasts imperil the wayfarer, But rather that these latter themselves flee, especially the
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foxes. What time the red coated gentlemen of the English hunt round on them
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among the shattered tombs of the Appian Way. And yet if the visitor is
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a sentimentalist, no Italian son is going to rob him of his reverie.
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He will be hearing the cries of the Christian martyrs at a colosseum Matinee,
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and beholding the pride and beauty of ancient Rome, loitering along the palace lined
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streets on their way to the afternoon diversions at the baths of Caracalla, and
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the Forum will bustle with the state business of the world. Cicero will mount
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the rostrum, and a train of vestal virgins passed demurely along the sacravilla.
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He will attend the mournful whales of priests at worship in the temples of Jupiter
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and Saturn, and thrill to see a detachment of the Praetorian Guard dash into
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the forum and acclaim some new military hero as emperor. But this should be
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sufficient to startle him back to the Rome of today. And as he looks
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anxiously over the northwestern walls beyond which once stood that infamous camp, he will
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doubtless rejoice devoutly that the sober and law abiding soldiery that drills there now is
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something so very different from the uncontrollable Frankenstein that the Caesars devised to their own
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undoing. It is in consequence with hearty complaisance that he will turn his back
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on even the aristocratic treasure heap of the lordly Palatine, conscious that if the
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cry were raised today, why is the forum crowded? What means this stir
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in Rome? The reply would be forthcoming tourists and picture card sellers and pedlers
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of cameo pins. Parenthetically, it may be observed served that although Pathos and
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Bathos rub elbows, and the foregoing reflections still incongruities, come very near to
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being the rule in latter day Rome. What is to be said of obelisks
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of the pharaohs with Christian crosses on their tops of the column of Trajan with
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Saint Peter at its summit and at its base. Those twentieth century cats that
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visitors feed with fish bought from stands at hand for the purpose of Saint Paul
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on the column of Marcus Aurelius and the sign of an American life insurance company
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across the street of a modern playhouse in the mausoleum of Augustus where the emperors
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were buried. Of the present use of King Tarquin's great sewer, the Clocomaxima,
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just as good as it was twenty five hundred years ago. Of electric
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lights where Cincinnatus had his cabbage farm, of a Jewish cemetery above the circus
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of Tarquin, of steam heated flats in the gardens of sallust of modern houses
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at the Tarpian Rock, and the baths of Agrippa. Of street cars with
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the name of Diocletian. Of automobiles on the Flaminian Way of Tennis courts beside
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the burial place of a Caesar. Of motorcycles around the tomb of the Scipios,
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of an annual derby down the Appian Way. Of railroad trains beside the
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old Servian wall. Of telephone booths on the banks of Father Tiber. Modernism
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is indeed with us, as his Holiness laments. The sultry, torrid hour
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that lies between three o'clock and four of a summer afternoon usually sees Rome rubbing
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her eyes fresh from her siesta, that ancient midday nap that Varro declared he
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could not live without. And you may be sure the final rub would be
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one of vast amusement if she were to see you walking on the sunny side
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of the street, where, by the terms of her immemorial observation, only
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dogs when foreigners go. The heat is intense on these lava pavements, one
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keeps religiously to the shade. But Roman society is not rubbing its eyes,
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at least not in town. For Toulmond is passing the annual villa je tore
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at its villa in the hills or by the sea, economizing for the fashionable
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expenditure of the winter, and incidentally obliging the people who stay in town with
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that much more of elbow room on the Corso and other popular promenades, all
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of which helps a little in making the stroll from the capitol Line hill to
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the Pincian Gardens rather more comfortable than moving around the hot room of a Turkish
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bath. As we pick our way down the Capitol Line slope, pass Marcus
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Aurelius on his fat bronze steed, and bend our steps, as the old
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novels used to say, toward the tramway haunted uproar of the Piazza di Vincia.
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The rabble route of the slum district on the left affords a lively conception
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of the element that goes farthest to make rome. Howel, having been told
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that this old ghetto had been swept and garnished, one is properly indignant at
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finding the air redolent of garlic, and everybody under conviction that the chief end
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of man is to a mass macaroni, and enjoy it forever you gaze a
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skance on a universal costume of filth and rags, and hurry along through it,
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protesting that while you would not invoke the President of Pope Paul the Forth's
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sixteenth century method of putting gates across the streets and locking the people in,
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and making the men wear yellow hats and women yellow veils, as he did
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with the Jews, still some expedient ought to be hit upon from making the
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district look a little less like a camp of falstaff recruits a frowsy headed laborer.
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Say you shouldering a basket of charcoal may seem attractive in mister Story's roboderoma,
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but in real life one likes to think that men can afford shirts and
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not have to wear rags over their shoulders. After the manner of a herald's
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tavern. You pause a moment to watch the disappearance of a yard of macaroni
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down some red gullet, and George Augustus Sala's description of the banquet of the
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seven wagoners rushes to mind. Upon this vast mess they fell tooth and nail.
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The simile is, perchance not strictly correct. Teeth may be de troll.
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You should never bite or chew macaroni, but swallow each pipe, whole,
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grease and all, as though it were so much flattery. But their
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nails they did use, Seeing that they ate the macaroni with their fingers.
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What wondrous twistings and turnings back of their heads, What play of the muscles
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of their throats, What straining of their eyeballs and vastly openings of their jaws
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did I study as they swallowed their food end quote, and now we begin
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to have the usual experience of Roman mendicancy. Truly, there is no beggar
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like your Roman beggar. He has raised his profession to both an art and
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a nuisance. Appeals to charity take every form and phase. Evidences of anatomical
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disaster are utilized to excite pity at so much per si. Tales of misery
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and misfortune wring all the changes of fervency and fancy. Their wines are both
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groveling and dramatic, and they moan as with woe begone faces and pathetic twists
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of their necks. They sidle up with stiff gestures of weary and hopeless expressiveness.
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Illustrisimo, excellenza peramordid d. You could not bluff them, though you
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were armored in all the callous nonchalance of the average ambulance surgeon. And your
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doom is sealed if you undertake to bandy repartee, for their invective is as
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searching as a satire of juvenile Whether you give or not, their volubility and
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frankness continue unabated. For you are savagely cursed. If you decline, and
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if you acquiesce and are blessed strictly in proportion to the gratuity indubitably. In
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the social scheme of the beggar, we be brethren all and should each aid
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the other, after the philosophy of the Italian saying, one hand washes the
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other, and both the face. The Roman, understanding them, passes coolly
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by, but the foreigner, who is their special prey, gives up in
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desperation on the principle of the local proverb. We are in the ballroom and
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we must dance parenthetically again, they say. The authorities are helpless to curb
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this universal Roman nuisance. It is an institution. These beggars come from all
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classes, from the Cappuccina and Franciscan lay brothers who go about in brown robes,
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rope girdles and sandals, and present a basket for food to the dirty
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urchins of the Appian way, who stop your carriage with their acrobatic proficiency,
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and then howl for Soldi in the name of all the saints. Many a
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beggar here is a bank depositor, and any of them who can retain the
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monopoly of the door of a popular church may confidently look forward to affluence.
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Very likely they are better businessmen in their way than many who drop coins into
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their pathetic swindling hands a chaconsel mitier, it would extend a Brooklynite to negotiate
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the crossing of the Piazza di Venezzia. It is the grand gather place of
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tramcars, buses, cabs, carts, bicycles and every other form of conveyance.
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You will certainly find a seeing Rome automobile with the lecturer pointing out the
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castellated old Palazzo di Venizia and telling his people that it was built of stone
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from the coliseum and has been the seat of the Austrian embassy to the Curia
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for over one hundred years. So far as traffic is concerned, this is
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the heart of Rome. Nothing less than a whirlpool could be expected in a
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spot that is a confluence of such full streams of life as the Corso and
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the Via Nacinale. One admires its broad, busy sweep and the dignity of
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the solid, old gray buildings that rim it. No mid afternoon heat lessens
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the bustle and activity that rages here. Even the experienced natives can be found
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in large numbers jostling their way across it, and visitors passed through in droves
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to reach the Chenchi Palace or to see the spot where Paul dwelt for two
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years quote in his own hired house end quote. If you stopped, as
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I did, at one of the hotels near the baths of Dioclesian, the
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Via Nacionale will have a friendly suggestion of the nearest way home with thoughts of
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that temporary home. The recollection often comes to me of the mildly stimulating delight
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I once found in getting lost by night in this city of superior chance encounters.
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It seemed, on the first occasion, as though I had scarcely turned
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the corner into the Via Kavor before a delicious conviction of unfamiliarity with my surroundings
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assured me I was pursuing a course that was certain, sooner or later,
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to lead to artistic discovery or adventure. Nothing was easier than getting lost,
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for I was newly arrived, and yet localities and objects of consequence were not
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without significance. For like everyone else, I had a vivid idea of the
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landmarks of the famous city, and first of all, I discovered I was
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passing the infamous spot where the impious Tulia drove her chariot across the bleeding body
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of her royal father, whence I hastened on with furtive glances. Next,
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after some speculation, I identified an enormous church to be none other than the
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famous Santa Maria Maggiore, whose ceilings I had read were crusted with the first
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gold brought from the New World, and to whose high altar the popes used
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to come by torchlight for New Year's mass. I thrilled at the incredible reflection
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that the streetcars crossing that corner would be passing a moment later the sight of
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the gardens of Messinas, where Horace and Virgil had mused and read their verses.
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A few blocks further on, I came to a halt before the house
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of Lucrezia Borgia, and I tried to fancy the circumstances of the night of
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their quiet family supper there before the children took leave of their mother with false
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words of affection, and Caesar hurried to gather his bravos and overtook Francesco and
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muffled in a cloak, sat his horse in easy and concern, while his
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brother was done to death and thrown into the Tiber. For relief, I
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turned across the street to the Church of Saint Peter in Chains, and imagined
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how Michelangelo's vigorous Moses might be appearing in the dark of the side aisle,
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and thought of the master striking the contemplated work with his mallet and crying out,
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now speak on. I rambled through a block or two of darkened shops
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and gloomy houses, and suddenly a great open space yawned before me, and
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I was staring at rows of column stumps, mellowed and batter, and among
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them a tall, ghostly shaft of marble, with a spiral band of half
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mutilated reliefs winding away up to the summit, where was the dusky outline of
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a sculptured form. It was the old school geography picture come to life.
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There was I in the heart of an unfamiliar city, alone by night,
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with this vast relic of the ancients. It was like Stanley finding livingstone in
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Africa. I felt I had honestly discovered it, and that it ought to
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be mine. It was the forum of Trajan. It will seem a violent
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transition to jump from midnight to mid afternoon, but the plunge must be taken.
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The normal state of the corso at three point thirty of a summer afternoon
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is one of leisurely activity. The crowds are lethargic, slow moving, inclined
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to curiosity. An interesting social comedy is proceeding, with foreign ladies playing sightseeing
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roles, clutching their red bedeckers and hares, walks in rome, jostling.
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Groups of them gather before the beguiling shop windows, and occasionally one enters and
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possesses herself of a Roman pearl or cameo, or perhaps a mosaic or copy
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of an antique bronze. Business People pass along in their habitually distrained manner,
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and priests beyond the number brighten the scene with habits of every hue. There
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is little enough of room in the middle of the street, and scarcely any
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on the sidewalks. Like all Roman thoroughfares, the corso is clean and distinguished.
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Long perspectives of gaily awninged shops extend toward the Piazza del Popolo, agreeably
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broken here and there by the interposition of mellow old palace fronts and richly sculptured
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Baroque facades, and there is frequent opportunity for passing glimpses into cool courtyards attractive
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with foliage and fountains. Visitors keep forsaking the corso at every turning to make
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inspiring discoveries in the tangled mesh of side streets. We are at liberty to
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suspect those who go to the west of sentimental designs on the star under the
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dome of a neighboring church that marks the spot where Julius Caesar was assassinated in
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Pompey Senate House, or perhaps of an intention to visit the somber statue of
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Giordano Bruno in the field of flowers, and reflect upon what a constant rebuke
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it must be to the church that burned him there three centuries ago, for
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persisting in his modernism, to the outrageous extremity of defending the astronomical discoveries of
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Copernicus and like heresies of the hour. Afternoon walks in Rome should be frequently
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interrupted, not only to escape the floods of sunshine, but to find out
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occasionally what is behind the mellow garden walls, over whose tops, glistening green
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foliage droops enticingly down with hints of cool and RESTful retreats. Such an opportunity
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presents itself here in the rare Colonna gardens, just around the corner of the
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Great Colonna Palace, where earlier in the day the Titians and Tintoretos ravished.
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The artistic, spacious, elegant rome. Has nothing more charming and exquisite than
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such gardens as these art and antiquity are everywhere in RESTful profusion, storied urn
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and animated bust. It is even said that sculptures are to be found almost
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anywhere underground for the mere pains of exhuming. One rests with infinite satisfaction in
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the deep shade of Eucalyptus, Cyprus Isles and Laurel, to the sweet singing
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of multitudes of birds. There are roses and oranges in bloom, and tall
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hedges of clipped box and musical little cascades tumble down from terrace to terrace and
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drip over mossy marble steps. In this particular garden come thoughts of Michelangelo and
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Vittoria Colonna, who so often strolled along these very paths and communed in their
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serene and beautiful friendship. Theirs was a faith that brought its own reward,
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And what prey without its amazing faith would this Catholic Rome be anyway a shock
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San sas Chandela. Otherwise, what would become of that marble block from the
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floor of the Appian Way, which the stubborn archaeologists will insist was really paved
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with silens, that is preserved with so much reverence in the Church of domein
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Cuivadi as showing the impressions of the feet of our Lord and Saint Peter when
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they faced each other there on the occasion of the memorable rebuke of the latter
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for his proposed flight from Rome. And how about the scalisanta, the worn
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and venerated marble steps in the shrine near the church of Saint John Lateran,
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which were brought from Jerusalem and up which we are told Christ passed on his
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way to the judgment seat of Pilot. The faithful thank God for the privilege
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of ascending them on their knees, praying and receiving the indulgence of a thousand
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years of purgatory. And they were worn thin with kisses long before the day
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when Martin Luther got half way up and suddenly quit and came tramping down with
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a voice crying in his ears, that just shall live by faith and without
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faith? Where would be the use of the miraculous Bambino, the adored and
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bejeweled little wooden image that a Franciscan pilgrim carved from a tree of the Mount
30:47
of Olives, and which is imposingly domiciled in a glass case in the church
30:51
of Aracheley. They say, there is no disease that the Bambino cannot cure,
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And when his keepers accompany him through the streets on his errands of mercy
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conveyed in his magnificent buff coach, people kneel by hundreds and beseech a blessing.
31:07
Such blessing may be secured, though possibly of a diminished efficacy, by
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buying one of his legended cards at the church and having the priest rub it
31:17
across the glass top of the case. Who would eschew faith and forfeit such
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advantages? Would we not still have life's puzzle? And without this key,
31:27
might we not even be reduced to a plane as confused and desperate as that
31:33
of the famous Sultan of Turkey, who knew so little of music that when
31:37
his new Italian band had finished tuning up, he shouted in delight to the
31:42
leader Mashalla, let the dogs play that tune again. At this languorous hour
31:49
of the afternoon. The broad, sunny piazzas, with their many fountains,
31:55
afford incomparably lovely loitering places on the way to the The one of the Quirinal
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is a near neighbor to the Kolina gardens, and there you may shelter under
32:07
eucalyptus trees and dream over the brown old obelisk and the vigorous fountain sculptures of
32:13
the horse tamers that once graced the baths of Constantine, and philosophize over the
32:20
irony of fate that converted a papal summer residence into our royal palace. Or
32:27
you can thread your way through narrow streets of the Middle Ages that are lined
32:30
by ochre colored houses with sunshades, where artists had their studios and transience their
32:37
Hotel Gartani, and down which a belated wine cart may jangle, or gaily
32:43
painted Campagna wagon creek with its oxen festive in bells and crimson tassels and its
32:49
rugged driver clad in blue. Were you to follow these typical byways of medieval
32:54
Rome until you came to the embankment of the San Angelo Bridge, you would
32:59
pass spy where Benvenuto Cellini lived among his goldsmiths, and could identify the Gothic
33:06
window of the Old Inn of the Bear, where Montaigne stopped centuries ago.
33:14
At this hour, the Trevi Fountain is doubly appealing and refreshing, rejoicing the
33:20
whole side of its roomy square with sparkling waters that dash merrily about Neptune and
33:24
his allies in the wall niches. Devoted as one may be, to the
33:29
venerable tomb of Chichilia Mattella on the Appian Way, he will fervently command Pope
33:35
Clement for having pillaged some of its stone to supply this cheery fountain, with
33:39
its dramatic setting. Were this our last day in the city, we should
33:45
certainly toss a copper coin over our left shoulder into these boiling waters to ensure
33:50
a return to Rome. Of course, one is pretty sure to come again
33:54
anyhow, but that makes it a certainty. Besides, it is much les
34:00
less trouble than going away out to Tivoli to ask the same thing of the
34:04
sibyl in the grotto. Were you to yield to the fountain habit, you
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would go bird hopping all over town. For no city has so many or
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such beautiful ones as Rome. Thanks to its huge aqueducts, it is a
34:17
never failing delight to turn a corner and come across one of these sun deluge
34:22
pleasances, with its crowds of picturesque loungers, its tritans, rivers and sea
34:29
gods disporting themselves in attitudes of aqueous grace and gayety, its flower girls banked
34:36
behind fragrant barriers of roses and violets, and the slender columns of water streaming
34:43
sideways like tattered flags in a breeze. Rome. The Piazza da Spagna mid
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afternoon is an admirable time to drop in at the most popular of all piazzas,
34:57
the Spanish Square. One wonders how the jewelers of the Via Condate manage
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to make both ends meet with such a superior attraction at hand. It is
35:07
certainly one of the most charming nooks in Rome. A heavy golden sunshine glorifies
35:13
at this hour, the broad reach of the Spanish steps themselves quite as wide
35:17
as the square that sweep between picturesque parapets, like a yellow cascade, from
35:24
the terraces of the church at Santorita de Monte to the boat shaped fountain in
35:29
the piazza below. About them, drowsy, dusty old world houses supply a
35:36
pleasant background of soft color, and the crystal clear Italian sky spreads above like
35:42
a cathedral dome. The flower market is the crowning touch, with a flood
35:46
of fragrant blooms welling over the lower steps and rimming the fountain edge in brilliant
35:52
hues of purple Roman anemones, orange wallflowers, white narcissus, golden affadil's,
36:00
Snowygerdania's violets, camillias, hyacinths, mignonettes, and every fair and odorous blossom.
36:08
A lovely, sunny, fragrant spot. This Piazza di Spanna a place
36:14
to dream whole days away, in a well beloved corner of fascinating rome,
36:19
where one may realize to its fullness the beautiful, consoling reflection of Don Quixote.
36:24
But still there's sunshine on the wall. Literature has had its chosen seat
36:31
in the Piazza di Spagna. Half the traveled world of letters has lived or
36:36
visited there. It invests the spot with a fresh and human interest to know
36:42
that it has been the musing place of such rare spirits as Byron Smollett,
36:46
Madame de Style, Cooper, Anderson, pur Waltson, Hawthorne, Gerta chateaubriand
36:53
Dickens, Scott McCauley, George Eliot Lowell, and Longfellow thinks of the Brownings
37:00
entertaining Thackeray, Lockhart and Fanny Kimball. But of course the closest memories are
37:07
of Keats and Shelley, who lived in either corner house, those radiant friends
37:12
whose ashes repose under myrtles and violets in the cypress shaded cemetery beyond the Aurelian
37:17
wall. The works of all these authors, as also of the others who
37:22
may or may not have seen the Piazza d'espanna, along with the idealism of
37:27
Fokazaro, the sensuality of Danuncio, the realism of Verga, and the grace
37:32
of Damasis, are to be had at the celebrated shops of pial or spatova
37:38
in the square, where also you may, at little expense, become a
37:43
momentary part of Rome's bohemia over toast and muffins in the adjoining tea rooms chachon
37:51
as soongou. If you are cold to tea, there may be something else
37:54
to interest in the numerous cafes of the neighborhood that begin to hum with activity
38:00
as the hour approaches four. And indeed they may be angels in disguise,
38:07
for such as have tried pension life and grown sadly familiar with puddings as mysterious
38:12
as scotch, haggis, meat that suggested travertine, and pies constructed of something
38:17
like Sile's and tufa. Besides, in the cafes you can regale yourself with
38:22
vermouth syrups or ices, and at the same time observe the Roman at his
38:29
afternoon ease, thus realizing in yourself the acuteness of the Italian proverb one blow
38:35
at the hoop and one at the cask. It is quite worth the cost
38:39
to see how quickly the chairs and little marble topped tables out on the sidewalk
38:45
are taken by leisurely habitues bent on gossip by precise old gentlemen in lavender gloves
38:52
who drop in for a tumbler of black coffee and a hand at Domino's,
38:58
or by foppish young men in duck trousers who clatter on the tables for the
39:02
camdierre to bring copies of the tribuna so they may sup on frivolities and horrors
39:07
along with coffee and tobacco. A ruder jocunddi, also at this time is
39:15
making its start for high tide in poorer sections, where in arbored osteris Tuscan
39:21
wine shops and spatchi divino straw covered fiascos of Chianti are passing, along with
39:27
glasses of local wines, whose prices will be found conspicuously chalked up on the
39:31
outsides of the taverns at so many soldi per half liter. As we follow
39:37
the corso toward the Pincian gardens, we find the congestion increasing with a decided
39:43
addition of carriages, all bound in our direction. It is now the hour
39:47
of the afternoon Passagiata, and one marvels at the ancient campus Martius should still
39:53
be the heart of Rome, and wonders how this narrow street could have held
39:58
its crowds when the brilliant scenes of carnival, riot and revelry were enacted before
40:04
these old Renaissance palaces. Every restaurant of the tumultuous Piazza Colonna is working to
40:09
capacity, and groups of gay army officers swagger about the corners and over by
40:15
the marble basin beside the column of Marcus Aurelius, where the taxi cabs have
40:20
their chief stand. No red and white street car dares venture in this favored
40:24
square, but buses and cabs supplant them to distraction. And who indeed does
40:30
not prefer an omnibus to a street car. It may want the latter's business
40:36
like directness, but what a holiday air it has, of cozy informal deliberateness.
40:42
It is coaching in town. You may not arrive so soon, but
40:45
what a lark you had. And if you mock at the faithful bus,
40:50
there are the impertinent Roman cabs. Here is speed, seclusion, and economy.
40:54
You cannot fail to be suited, both financially and esthetically, For you
40:59
may pick the between the latest varnished output of the factory and venerable decrepit ramshackles
41:05
that look to have been contemporary with the Colosseum. The Roman cabmen are an
41:09
inconsequent lot. They wear green felt hats and greasy coats, and dash at
41:15
one with a reckless scorn of human life that strengthens a suspicion that they are
41:20
really banditti of the Campagna, transparently disguised. The famous column of the philosophic
41:25
Emperor never lacks its groupings of adaptable rubbernecks who are twisting themselves into suicide graves
41:32
trying to read the spiral band of reliefs that winds away up to the statue
41:37
of Saint Paul. The Corso pastigiata is an interesting affair. Toward four o'clock,
41:44
it quite fills the street. Young girls are out with their inevitable chaperones,
41:49
kittenish and alert eyed bergamsque nurses with scarlet ribbons and extraordinary silver ornaments falling
41:55
below their snowy muslin caps. Clerks in so black dwan men in short capes
42:01
and shining hats with yellow rosettes, hatless women with light mantillas over their blue
42:07
black hair. The stolid country folk the Contadini, with the men in brown
42:13
velvet jackets and goat skin breeches, and the women in faded blue skirts and
42:17
with red stays stitched outside their bodices, the despise Forsterii with guide books.
42:25
Carabineri in pairs were splendent in braided uniforms and cocked hats, the nervous Bassigli
42:31
with shining round hats and glossy cocked feather plumes. Army officers in cloaks or
42:37
bright blue guard coats fresh from Vermouth at Aragni's, Savoyards in steel helmets and
42:44
gold crests, diplomats in silk hats and Prince Albert coats, and clericals by
42:50
the hundreds. The clericals, indeed, may always be relied upon to supply
42:53
an effective color touch anywhere in Rome. They come along in fluttering groups of
42:59
every hue, English and French, seminarist in cassocks, of black Germans and
43:04
scarlet, Scotch and purple, and Roumanians in orange and blue. It is
43:08
diverting to see them raise their black beavers to one another with the quietest and
43:14
most serious air imaginable solemn lay brethren shuffle passed in somber brown of Franciscan and
43:20
capucin or white of the cowled and tontured Dominicans. Occasionally along side street one
43:27
passes slowly absorbed in his breviary, like Don Abondio in e promessi sposi roma
43:34
bounds and shovel hats, shaven heads, sandals and hempen girdles. But you
43:38
must not expect to see them all in a corso passagiata, unless we have
43:43
yielded too much to the blandishments along the way. We should be crossing the
43:46
sunny, somnolent circle of the Piazza del Popolo and climbing the fountained and statuette
43:52
terraces of the Pincian Gardens. As the first strains of the promenade concert usher
43:59
in the hour of four, the spectacle that confronts us on the low broad
44:04
brow of the Old Hill is animated and brilliant. Hundreds of motor cars,
44:08
private carriages, and hired cabs roll in a long, gay procession around the
44:15
driveways, their occupants arrayed in the last word of Italian fashion, and a
44:19
multitude of happy loiterers stroll leisurely in the mild afternoon sunshine along sylvan paths hedged
44:27
with box, or bordered with flowers, where long lines of marble portrait busts
44:31
of Italy's dead immortals extend into the pleasant shade of groves of myrtles and fragrant
44:37
acacias. What a contrast in occupation to the scenes that in olden days were
44:43
enacted here, the luxury and splendor of the golden suppers that the war worn
44:47
luciless gave to Rome's poets and artists, or the vicious and voluptuous orgies with
44:52
which the vile Messalina indulged the depraved favorites of the Claudian court. Young Rome
44:59
safe has decked itself in its gayest raiment, and youth vies with youth in
45:04
gallant trees to the fashionable beauties who prefer the fascinating town even in summer,
45:09
to the listless diversions of the country. Visiting goes on between carriage parties,
45:15
which is said to answer the social requirements of calls at the house. Mild
45:20
refreshments are being served in a lively little cafe, to which many repair when
45:24
weary with lounging among the brilliant flowers and lovely foliaged paths and groups ramble across
45:30
the New Viaduct and stroll along the sycamore and stone pines of the neighboring via
45:36
Borghese. The Pinchean gardens seem very formal and compact and precisely ornate as compared
45:43
with our parks at home, but there is much more of sociability and comfort
45:47
than is to be found Sunday afternoons in New York's Central Park, for instance.
45:53
That is probably because New York's pedestrians are centered in the mall to hear
45:58
the band, or around the lad Lakes to watch the boating, and all
46:01
her carriage folk are by themselves in the east side drive. The Pinchean Promenade
46:07
mingles both classes into a great family party. It is a brilliant scene,
46:10
but it must have been much more so in other days, when the popes
46:15
joined the company in the great glass coach drawn by six black horses in crimson
46:20
trappings, and outriders and footmen flocked about them. One wonders whether Pious the
46:27
Tenth does not sometimes think with a sigh of regret of the liberties of his
46:30
early predecessors as he paces the flowered garden paths of his voluntary prison and lifts
46:37
his gentle, shining face toward these pleasant pinchean heights. How often will the
46:43
memory recur to me of that mild and friendly man, as once I saw
46:47
him in the Vatican's Court of the Pine, in his snowy robes and the
46:52
little caps scarce whiter than his hair. I remember his only ornaments to have
46:57
been the famous fisherman's ring, and a long gold chain about his neck,
47:01
from which a great crucifix was pendant. It was the occasion of a calistenic
47:07
drill given by a local orphan asylum for his Holiness's special benefit. Each little
47:13
athlete in gray was burning to do his very best in so notable a presence,
47:16
and was indeed succeeding, with the glaring exception of the smallest of the
47:22
band, whose eager efforts had resulted only in an uninterrupted series of comical mischances,
47:29
to the infinite chagrin of himself and associates, and the increasing amusement of
47:34
the Pope. In due time, the performance came to an end, and
47:37
the boys were drawn up facing each other in a double line, through which
47:40
attended by cardinals, chamberlain's and members of the papal guard, his holiness passed,
47:46
extending his hand to be kissed. When he reached the diminutive and blushing
47:52
blunderer, he halted his imposing train and laid his hand on the boy's head,
47:58
and smoothed his hair, and patted his cheek with affectionate tenderness, whispering
48:04
the wile and intimate message of good cheer, as though it were something strictly
48:07
confidential between himself and that fatherless little waif, whose face was shining with reverence
48:15
and awe, and whose eyes were full of happy tears. I am I
48:20
trust, as confirmed a Protestant as the next, But I confess that my
48:24
heart was bowed as well as my head as that white robed figure turned as
48:30
it disappeared through the door of the Vatican and raised a hand toward us in
48:34
the sign of the Cross. The marble parapet of the Pincio is at this
48:37
hour a prime favorite among Roman loafing places, as from an upper theater box
48:44
one looked precipitously down into the great, peaceful, siesta drugged circle of the
48:49
Piazza del Popolo, the scene in other days of so much cruelty and often
48:53
of so much happiness, the stone lions of the fountain spout patiently to the
48:59
delight an observation of scores of playing children and drowsy cabmen gnawed on the boxes
49:06
of the long rank of waiting Victoria's one may indulge to his fullest in moral
49:10
reflections over the slender obelisk from the Heliopolis Temple to the sun upon which Moses
49:16
himself may have gazed in days before Rome was thought of, and when the
49:21
celestial consorts Isis and Osiris still waved their lotus scepters and ruled the quick and
49:27
the dead. Nineteen hundred years ago, Nero, who should have begun blood
49:31
letting with himself instead of ending it there, was buried in this ground.
49:36
And you are told how the evil spirits that haunted the accursed spot were not
49:39
finally exercised until yonder Church of Santa Maria had been reared. Above his tomb,
49:46
one will find it more agreeable to look across the piazza at the portal
49:51
of the Flemian Way and recreate the scenes of the triumphant entrance of the noble
49:55
hardy Trajan, walking by the side of his fair and amiable wife. The
50:01
elm tops are rustling in the deep groves of the Villa Borghese, and the
50:06
yellow Tiber, too large to be harmless and too small to be useful,
50:09
slips swiftly between the yellow walls of its keys to the mind's eye. In
50:15
the azure distance, Monsakre is Clear, and Tivoli, and the sabine farm
50:20
of Horus. Like the archangel Michael on the castle of sant Angelo, the
50:23
sun too begins to sheathe his sword, and its glitter throws a warm mantle
50:29
over the shoulders of the marble angels on the bridge. Most conspicuously, as
50:34
is proper, it lingers on the pale dome of Saint Peter's touches into life,
50:38
the sculptured saints of the portico, and floods obelisk fountains, and all
50:44
that vast elliptical piazza, towards which are extended the sheltering arms of Bernini's colonnade.
50:51
How fair beneath that roof are the dazzling marbles, shining tombs, sculptured
50:57
effigies, and glowing mosaics. But fairer far is this prospect from the hill
51:04
of Rome, in her soft coat of many colors. The velvety ruins of
51:07
the Palatine, the stone pines and sentinel stiffness down the distant Appian Way,
51:14
the sunny piazzas, the sparkling fountains, and the verdure and bloom of the
51:19
slopes of the Geniculum, under the cloudless blue of a soft Italian sky.
51:24
A ve roma etarna. End of Section three.