Sta. Maria Maggiore. Afternoon: Sta. Sabina, Priorato Garden, English Cemetery, S. Paolo, and the Tre Fontane.
2d Tuesday.—Morning: Vatican Sculptures. Afternoon: S. Gregorio, S. Stefano Rotondo, S. Clemente, S. Pietro in Vincoli, Sta. Maria degli Angeli, S. Lorenzo fuori Mura, and drive out to the Torre dei Schiavi, returning by the Porta Maggiore.
2d Wednesday.—Morning: Palazzo Barberini, Palazzo Rospigliosi, (and on Saturdays) Vatican Pictures. Afternoon: Forum in detail, SS. Cosmo and Damian, and ascend the Coliseum.
The following list may be useful as a guide to some of the best subjects for artists who wish to draw at Rome, and have not much time to search for themselves:—
Morning Light: Temple of Vesta with the fountain. Arch of Constantine from the Coliseum (early). Coliseum from behind Sta. Francesca Romana (early). Temples in the Forum from the School of Xanthus. View from the Garden of the Rupe Tarpeia. In the Garden of S. Giovanni e Paolo. In the Garden of S. Buonaventura. In the Garden of the S. Bartolomeo in Isola. In the Garden of S. Onofrio. On the Tiber from Poussin's Walk. From the door of the Villa Medici. At S. Cosimato. At the back entrance of Ara Cœli. At the Portico of Octavia. Looking to the Arch of Titus up the Via Sacra. In the Cloister of the Lateran. In the Cloister of the Certosa. Near the Temple of Bacchus. On the Via Appia, beyond Cecilia Metella. Torre Mezza Strada on the Via Appia. Torre Nomentana, looking to the mountains. Ponte Nomentana, looking to the Mons Sacer. Torre dei Schiavi, looking towards Tivoli. Aqueducts at Tavolato.
Evening Light: From St. John Lateran. From the Ponte Rotto. From the Terrace of the Villa Doria (St. Peter's). Palace of the Cæsars—Roman side—looking to Sta. Balbina. Palace of the Cæsars—French side—looking to the Coliseum. Apse of S. Giovanni e Paolo. Near the Navicella. Garden of the Villa Mattei. Garden of the Villa Wolkonski. Garden of the Priorato. Porta S. Lorenzo. Torre dei Schiavi, looking towards Rome. Via Latina, looking towards the Aqueducts. Via Latina, looking towards Rome.
The months of November and December are the best for drawing. The colouring is then magnificent; it is enhanced by the tints of the decaying vegetation, and the shadows are strong and clear. January is generally cold for sitting out, and February wet; and before the end of March the vegetation is often so far advanced that the Alban Hills, which have retained glorious sapphire and amethyst tints all winter, change into commonplace green English downs; while the Campagna, from the crimson and gold of its dying thistles and fenochii, becomes a lovely green plain waving with flowers.
Foreigners are much too apt to follow the native custom of driving constantly in the Villa Borghese, the Villa Doria, and on the Pincio, and getting out to walk there during their drives. For those who do not care always to see the human world, a delightful variety of drives can be found; and it is a most agreeable plan for invalids, without carriages of their own, to take a "course to the Parco di San Gregorio," or to the sunny avenues near the Lateran, and walk there instead of on the Pincio. A carriage for the return may almost always be found in the Forum or at the Lateran.
CHAPTER II.
THE CORSO AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD.
The Piazza del Popolo—Obelisk—Sta. Maria del Popolo—(The Pincio—Villa Medici—Trinità de' Monti) (Via Babuino—Via Margutta—Piazza di Spagna—Propaganda) (Via Ripetta—SS. Rocco e Martino—S. Girolamo degli Schiavoni)—S. Giacomo degli Incurabili—Via Vittoria—Mausoleum of Augustus—S. Carlo in Corso—Via Condotti—Palazzo Borghese—Palazzo Ruspoli—S. Lorenzo in Lucina—S. Sylvestro in Capite—S. Andrea delle Fratte—Palazzo Chigi—Piazza Colonna—Palace and Obelisk of Monte-Citorio—Temple of Neptune—Fountain of Trevi—Palazzo Poli—Palazzo Sciarra—The Caravita—S. Ignazio—S. Marcello—Sta. Maria in Via Lata—Palazzo Doria Pamfili—Palazzo Salviati—Palazzo Odescalchi—Palazzo Colonna—Church of SS. Apostoli—Palazzo Savorelli—Palazzo Buonaparte—Palazzo di Venezia—Palazzo Torlonia—Ripresa dei Barberi—S. Marco—Church of Il Gesu—Palazzo Altieri.
THE first object of every traveller will naturally be to reach the Capitol, and look down thence upon ancient Rome; but as he will go down to the Corso to do this, and must daily pass most of its surrounding buildings, we will first speak of those objects which will, ere long, become the most familiar.
A stranger's first lesson in Roman geography should be learnt standing in the Piazza del Popolo, whence three streets branch off—the Corso, in the centre, leading towards the Capitol, beyond which lies ancient Rome; the Babuino, on the left, leading to the Piazza di Spagna and the English quarter; the Ripetta, on the right, leading to the Castle of St. Angelo and St. Peter's. The scene is one well known from pictures and engravings. The space between the streets is occupied by twin churches, erected by Cardinal Gastaldi.
"Les deux églises élevées au Place du Peuple par le Cardinal Gastaldi à l'entrée du Corso, sont d'un effet médiocre. Comment un cardinal n'a-t-il pas senti qu'il ne faut pas élever une église pour faire pendant à quelque chose? C'est ravaler la majesté divine." Stendhal, i. 172.
It is in the church on the left that sermons are preached every winter on Sunday afternoons by some of the best Roman Catholic controversialists, just at the right moment for catching the Protestant congregations as they emerge from their chapels outside the Porta del Popolo.
These churches are believed to occupy the site of the magnificent tomb of Sylla, who died at Puteoli B.C. 82, but was honoured at Rome with a public funeral, at which the patrician ladies burnt masses of incense and perfumes on his funeral pyre.
The Obelisk of the Piazza del Popolo was placed on this site by Sixtus V. in 1589, but was originally brought to Rome and erected in honour of Apollo by the Emperor Augustus.
"Apollo was the patron of the spot which had given a name to the great victory of Actium; Apollo himself, it was proclaimed, had fought for Rome and for Octavius on that auspicious day; the same Apollo, the Sun-god, had shuddered in his bright career at the murder of the Dictator, and terrified the nations by the eclipse of his divine countenance." … Therefore, "besides building a temple to Apollo on the Palatine hill, the Emperor Augustus sought to honour him by transplanting to the Circus Maximus, the sports of which were under his special protection, an obelisk from Heliopolis, in Egypt. This flame-shaped column was a symbol of the sun, and originally bore a blazing orb upon its summit. It is interesting to trace an intelligible motive for the first introduction into Europe of these grotesque and unsightly monuments of eastern superstition."—Merivale, Hist. of the Romans.
"This red granite obelisk, oldest of things, even in Rome, rises in the centre of the piazza, with a four-fold fountain at its base. All Roman works and ruins (whether of the empire, the far-off republic, or the still more distant kings) assume a transient, visionary, and impalpable character, when we think that this indestructible monument supplied one of the recollections which Moses and the Israelites bore from Egypt into the desert. Perchance, on beholding the cloudy pillar and fiery column, they whispered awe-stricken to one another, 'In its shape it is like that old obelisk which we and our fathers have so often seen on the borders of the Nile.' And now that very obelisk, with hardly a trace of decay upon it, is the first thing that the modern traveller sees after entering the Flaminian Gate."—Hawthorne's Transformation.
It was on the left of the Piazza, at the foot of what was even then called "the Hill of Gardens," that Nero was buried (A.D. 68).
"When Nero was dead, his nurse Eclaga, with Alexandra, and Acte the famous concubine, having wrapped his remains in rich white stuff, embroidered with gold, deposited them in the Domitian monument, which is seen in the Campus-Martius under the Hill of Gardens. The tomb was of porphyry, having an altar of Luna marble, surrounded by a balustrade of Thasos marble."—Suetonius.
Church tradition tells that from the tomb of Nero afterwards grew a gigantic walnut-tree, which became the resort of innumerable crows—so numerous