dans leur architecture et dans les collections artistiques que quelques-uns contiennent. Un certain nombre sont malheureusement dans un triste état d'abandon. De plus, à l'exception d'un très petit nombre, ils sont restés inachevés. Cela se conçoit; presque tous sont le produit du luxe célibataire des papes ou des cardinaux; très-peu de ces personages ont pu voir la fin de ce qu'ils avaient commencé. Leurs heritiers, pour le plupart, se souciaient fort peu de jeter les richesses qu'ils venaient d'acquerir dans les édifices de luxe et de vanité. A l'intérieur, le plus souvent, est un mobilier rare, suranné, et mesquin."—A. Du Pays.[7]
The Palazzo Bernini (151 Corso), on the left, has, inside its entrance, a curious statue of "Calumny" by Bernini, with an inscription relative to his own sufferings from slander.
On the right, the small piazza of S. Lorenzo opens out of the Corso. Here is the Church of S. Lorenzo in Lucina, founded in the fifth century, but rebuilt in its present form by Paul V. in 1606. The campanile is of an older date, and so are the lions in the portico.
"When the lion, or other wild beast, appears in the act of preying on a smaller animal or on a man, is implied the severity of the Church towards the impenitent or heretical; but when in the act of sporting with another creature, her benignity towards the neophyte and the docile. At the portal of St. Lorenzo in Lucina, this idea is carried out in the figure of a mannikin affectionately stroking the head of the terrible creature who protects, instead of devouring him."—Hemans' Christian Art.
No one should omit seeing the grand picture of Guido Reni, over the high altar of this church—the Crucifixion, seen against a wild, stormy sky. Niccolas Poussin, ob. 1660, is buried here, and one of his best known Arcadian landscapes is reproduced in a bas-relief upon his tomb, which was erected by Chateaubriand, with the epitaph—
"Parce piis lacrymis, vivit Pussinus in urnâ,
Vivus qui dederat, nescius ipse mori.
Hîc tamen ipse silet; si vis audire loquentem,
Mirum est, in tabulis vivit, et eloquitur."
In "The Ring and the Book" of Browning, this church is the scene of Pompilia's baptism and marriage. She is made to say:—
—"This St. Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man."
Here the bodies of her parents are represented as being exposed after the murder:
—"beneath the piece
Of Master Guido Reni, Christ on Cross,
Second to nought observable in Rome."
On the left, where the Via della Vite turns out of the Corso, an inscription in the wall records the destruction, in 1665, of the triumphal arch of Marcus Aurelius, which existed here till that time. The magnificence of this arch is attested by the bas-reliefs representing the history of the emperor, which were removed from it, and are preserved on the staircase of the palace of the Conservators.
"Les Barbares n'en savaient pas assez et n'avaient pas assez de patience pour démolir les monuments romains; mais, avec les ressources de la science moderne et à la suite d'une administration régulière, on est venu à bout de presque tout ce que le temps avait épargné. Il y'avait, par exemple, au commencement du XVIe. siècle, quatre arcs de triomphe qui n'existent plus; le dernier, celui de Marc Aurele, a été enlevé par le pape Alexandre VII. On lit encore dans le Corso l'inconcevable inscription dans laquelle le pape se vante d'avoir debarrassé la promenade publique de ce monument, qui, vu sa date, devait être d'un beau style."—Ampère, Voyage Dantesque.
A little further down the Corso, on the left, the Via delle Convertite leads to S. Sylvestro in Capite, one of three churches in Rome dedicated to the sainted pope of the time of Constantine. This, like S. Lorenzo, has a fine mediæval campanile. The day of St. Sylvester's death, December 31 (A.D. 335), is kept here with great solemnity, and is celebrated by magnificent musical services. This pope was buried in the cemetery of Priscilla, whence his remains were removed to S. Martino al Monte. The title "In Capite" is given to this church on account of the head of St. John Baptist, which it professes to possess, as is narrated by an inscription engrafted into its walls.
The convent attached to this church was founded in 1318, especially for noble sisters of the house of Colonna who dedicated themselves to God. Here it was that the celebrated Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa di Pescara, came to reside in 1525, when widowed in her thirty-sixth year, and here she began to write her sonnets, a kind of "In Memoriam," to her husband. It is a curious proof of the value placed upon her remaining in the world, that Pope Clement VII. was persuaded to send a brief to the abbess and nuns, desiring them to offer her "all spiritual and temporal consolations," but forbidding them, under pain of the greater excommunication, to permit her to take the veil in her affliction.[8]
At the end of this street, continued under the name of Via de Mercede (No. 11 was the residence of Bernini), and behind the Propaganda, is the Church of S. Andrea delle Fratte, whose brick cupola by Borromini is so picturesque a feature. The bell-tower beside it swings when the bells are rung. In the second chapel on the right is the beautiful modern tomb of Mademoiselle Julie Falconnet, by Miss Hosmer. The opposite chapel is remarkable for a modern miracle (?) annually commemorated here.
"M. Ratisbonne, un juif, appartenant à une très-riche famille d'Alsace, qui se trouvait accidentellement à Rome, se promenant dans l'église de S. Andrea delle Fratte pendant qu'on y faisait les préparatifs pour les obsèques de M. de la Ferronays, s'y est converti subitement. Il se trouvait debout en face d'une chapelle dédiée à l'ange gardien, à quelques pas, lorsque tout-à-coup il a eu une apparition lumineuse de la Sainte Vierge qui lui a fait signe d'aller vers cette chapelle. Une force irrésistible l'y a entraíné, il y est tombé à genoux, et il a été à l'instant chrétien. Sa première parole à celui qui l'avait accompagné a été, en relevant son visage inondé de larmes: 'Il faut que ce monsieur ait beaucoup prié pour moi.'"—Récit d'une Sœur.
"Era un istante ch'io mi stava in chiesa allora che di colpo mi sentii preso da inesprimibile conturbamento. Alzai gli occhi; tutto l'edifizio s'era dileguato a' miei sguardi; sola una cappella aveva come in se raccolta tutta la luce, e di mezzo di raggianti splendori s' è mostrata diritta sull'altare, grande, sfolgoreggiante, piena di maestà, e di dolcezza, la Vergine Maria. Una forza irresistibile m'ha sospinto verso di lei. La Vergine m'ha fatto della mano segno d'inginocchiarmi; pareva volermi dire, 'Bene!' Ella non mi ha parlato ma io ho inteso tutto."—Recital of Alfonse Ratisbonne.[9]
M. de la Ferronays, whose character is now so well known from the beautiful family memoirs of Mrs. Augustus Craven, is buried beneath the altar where this vision occurred. In the third chapel on the left is the tomb of Angelica Kauffmann; in the right aisle that of the Prussian artist, Schadow. The two angels in front of the choir are by Bernini, who intended them for the bridge of S. Angelo.
Returning to the Corso, the Via S. Claudio (left) leads to the pretty little church of that name, adjoining the Palazzo Parisani. Behind, is the Church of Sta. Maria in Via.
At the corner of the Piazza Colonna is the Palazzo Chigi, begun in 1526 by Giacomo della Porta, and finished by Carlo Maderno. It contains several good pictures and a fine library, but is seldom shown.[10]
The most remarkable members of the great family of Chigi have been the famous banker Agostino Chigi, who lived so sumptuously at the Farnesina (see chap. 20), and Fabio Chigi, who mounted the papal throne as Alexander VII., and who long refused to have anything to do with the aggrandisement of his family, saying that the poor were the only relations he would acknowledge, and, like Christ, he did not wish for any nearer ones. To keep himself in mind of the shortness of earthly grandeur, this pope always kept a coffin in his room, and drank out of a cup shaped like a skull.
The side of the Piazza Colonna, which faces the Corso, is occupied by the Post-Office. On its other