alone arrest the attention:
"Westward, beyond the Tiber, is the Castle of St. Angelo, the immense tomb of a pagan emperor with the archangel on its summit. … Still further off, a mighty pile of buildings, surmounted by a vast dome, which all of us have shaped and swelled outward, like a huge bubble, to the utmost scope of our imaginations, long before we see it floating over the worship of the city. At any nearer view the grandeur of St. Peter's hides itself behind the immensity of its separate parts, so that we only see the front, only the sides, only the pillared length and loftiness of the portico, and not the mighty whole. But at this distance the entire outline of the world's cathedral, as well as that of the palace of the world's chief priest, is taken in at once. In such remoteness, moreover, the imagination is not debarred from rendering its assistance, even while we have the reality before our eyes, and helping the weakness of human sense to do justice to so grand an object. It requires both faith and fancy to enable us to feel, what is nevertheless so true, that yonder, in front of the purple outline of the hills, is the grandest edifice ever built by man, painted against God's loveliest sky."—Hawthorne.
Here the band plays under the great palm-tree every afternoon except Friday. On Sunday afternoons the Pincio is in what Miss Thackeray describes as "a fashionable halo of sunset and pink parasols"—when immense crowds collect, showing every phase of Roman life; and disperse again as the Ave-Maria bell rings from the churches, either to descend into the city, or to hear benediction sung by the nuns in the Trinità de' Monti.
"When the fashionable hour of rendezvous arrives, the same spot, which a few minutes before was immersed in silence and solitude, changes as it were with the rapidity of a scene in a pantomime to an animated panorama. The scene is rendered not a little ludicrous by the miniature representation of the Ring in Hyde Park in a small compass. An entire revolution of the carriage-drive is performed in the short period of three minutes as near as may be, and the perpetual occurrence of the same physiognomies and the same carriages trotting round and round for two successive hours, necessarily reminds one of the proceedings of a country fair, and children whirling in a roundabout."—Sir G. Head's 'Tour in Rome.'
"The Pincian Hill is the favourite promenade of the Roman aristocracy. At the present day, however, like most other Roman possessions, it belongs less to the native inhabitants than to the barbarians from Gaul, Great Britain, and beyond the sea, who have established a peaceful usurpation over all that is enjoyable or memorable in the Eternal City. These foreign guests are indeed ungrateful, if they do not breathe a prayer for Pope Clement, or whatever Holy Father it may have been, who levelled the summit of the mount so skilfully, and bounded it with the parapet of the city wall; who laid out those broad walks and drives, and overhung them with the shade of many kinds of tree; who scattered the flowers of all seasons, and of every clime, abundantly over those smooth, central lawns; who scooped out hollows in fit places, and setting great basons of marble in them, caused ever-gushing fountains to fill them to the brim; who reared up the immemorial obelisk out of the soil that had long hidden it; who placed pedestals along the borders of the avenues, and covered them with busts of that multitude of worthies—statesmen, heroes, artists, men of letters and of song—whom the whole world claims as its chief ornaments, though Italy has produced them all. In a word, the Pincian garden is one of the things that reconcile the stranger (since he fully appreciates the enjoyment, and feels nothing of the cost,) to the rule of an irresponsible dynasty of Holy Fathers, who seem to have arrived at making life as agreeable an affair as it can well be.
"In this pleasant spot the red-trousered French soldiers are always to be seen; bearded and grizzled veterans, perhaps, with medals of Algiers or the Crimea on their breasts. To them is assigned the peaceful duty of seeing that children do not trample on the flower-beds, nor any youthful lover rifle them of their fragrant blossoms to stick in his beloved one's hair. Here sits (drooping upon some marble bench, in the treacherous sunshine,) the consumptive girl, whose friends have brought her, for a cure, into a climate that instils poison into its very purest breath. Here, all day, come nursery maids, burdened with rosy English babies, or guiding the footsteps of little travellers from the far western world. Here, in the sunny afternoon, roll and rumble all kinds of carriages, from the Cardinal's old-fashioned and gorgeous purple carriage to the gay barouche of modern date. Here horsemen gallop on thorough-bred steeds. Here, in short, all the transitory population of Rome, the world's great watering-place, rides, drives, or promenades! Here are beautiful sunsets; and here, whichever way you turn your eyes, are scenes as well worth gazing at, both in themselves and for their historical interest, as any that the sun ever rose and set upon. Here, too, on certain afternoons in the week, a French military band flings out rich music over the poor old city, floating her with strains as loud as those of her own echoless triumphs."—Hawthorne.
The garden of the Pincio is very small, but beautifully laid out. At a crossroads is placed an Obelisk, brought from Egypt, and which the late discoveries in hieroglyphics show to have been erected there, in the joint names of Hadrian and his empress Sabina, to their beloved Antinous, who was drowned in the Nile A.D. 131.
From the furthest angle of the garden we look down upon the strange fragment of wall known as the Muro-Torto.
"Le Muro-Torto offre un souvenir curieux. On nomme ainsi un pan de muraille qui, avant de faire partie du rempart d'Honorius, avait servi à soutenir la terrasse du jardin du Domitius, et qui, du temps de Bélisaire, était déjà incliné comme il l'est aujourd'hui. Procope racconte que Bélisaire voulait le rebâtir, mais que les Romains l'en empêchèrent, affirmant que ce point n'était pas exposé, parce que Saint Pierre avait promis de le défendre. Procope ajoute: 'Personne n'a osé réparer ce mur, et il reste encore dans le même état.' Nous pouvons en dire autant que Procope, et le mur, détaché de la colline à laquelle il s'appuyait, reste encore incliné et semble près de tomber. Ce détail du siége de Rome est confirmé par l'aspect singulier du Muro-Torto, qui semble toujours près de tomber, et subsiste dans le même état depuis quatorze siècles, comme s'il était soutenu miraculeusement par la main de Saint Pierre. On ne saurait guère trouver pour l'autorité temporel des papes, un meilleur symbole."—Ampère, Emp. ii. 397.
"At the furthest point of the Pincio, you look down from the parapet upon the Muro-Torto, a massive fragment of the oldest Roman wall, which juts over, as if ready to tumble down by its own weight, yet seems still the most indestructible piece of work that men's hands ever piled together. In the blue distance rise Soracte, and other heights, which have gleamed afar, to our imagination, but look scarcely real to our bodily eyes, because, being dreamed about so much, they have taken the aerial tints which belong only to a dream. These, nevertheless, are the solid framework of hills that shut in Rome, and its broad surrounding Campagna; no land of dreams, but the broadest page of history, crowded so full with memorable events, that one obliterates another, as if Time had crossed and recrossed his own records till they grew illegible."—Hawthorne.
In early imperial times the site of the Pincio garden was occupied by the famous villa of Lucullus, who had gained his enormous wealth as general of the Roman armies in Asia.
"The life of Lucullus was like an ancient comedy, where first we see great actions, both political and military, and afterwards feasts, debauches, races by torchlight, and every kind of frivolous amusement. For among frivolous amusements, I cannot but reckon his sumptuous villas, walks, and baths; and still more so the paintings, statues, and other works of art which he collected at immense expense, idly squandering away upon them the vast fortune he amassed in the wars. Insomuch that now, when luxury is so much advanced, the gardens of Lucullus rank with those of the kings, and are esteemed the most magnificent even of these."—Plutarch.
Here, in his Pincian villa, Lucullus gave his celebrated feast to Cicero and Pompey, merely mentioning to a slave beforehand that he should sup in the hall of Apollo, which was understood as a command to prepare all that was most sumptuous.
After Lucullus—the beautiful Pincian villa belonged to Valerius Asiaticus, and in the reign of Claudius was coveted by his fifth wife, Messalina. She suborned Silius, her son's tutor, to accuse him of a licentious life, and of corrupting the army. Being condemned to death, "Asiaticus declined the counsel of his friends to starve himself, a course which might leave an interval for the chance of pardon; and after