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Walks in Rome. Augustus J. C. Hare
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isbn 4057664636584
Автор произведения Augustus J. C. Hare
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Behind the Piazza Colonna is the Piazza Monte Citorio, containing an Obelisk which was discovered in broken fragments near the Church of S. Lorenzo in Lucina. It was repaired with pieces of the column of Antoninus Pius, the pedestal of which may still be seen in the Vatican garden. Its hieroglyphics are very perfect and valuable, and show that it was erected more than 600 years before Christ, in honour of Psammeticus I. It was brought from Heliopolis by Augustus, and erected by him in the Campus Martius, where it received the name of Obeliscus Solaris, from being made to act as a sun-dial.
"Ei, qui est in campo, divus Augustus addidit mirabilem usum ad deprehendendas solis umbras, dierumque ac noctium ita magnitudines, strato lapide ad magnitudinem obelisci, cui par fieret umbra, brumæ confectæ die, sexta hora; paulatimque per regulas (quæ sunt ex die exclusæ) singulis diebus decresceret ac rursus augesceret: digna cognitu res et ingenio fœcundo. Manilius mathematicus apici auratam pilam addidit, cujus umbra vertice colligeretur in se ipsa alias enormiter jaculante apice ratione (ut ferunt) a capite hominis intellecta. Hæc observatio triginta jam ferè annos non congruit, sive solis ipsius dissono cursu, et cœli aliqua ratione mutato, sive universa tellure a centra suo aliquid emota ut deprehendi et in aliis locis accipio: sive urbis tremoribus ibi tantum gnomone intorto, sive inundationibus Tiberis sedimento molis facto: quanquam ad altitudinem impositi oneris in terram quoque dicantur acta fundamenta."—Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. xxxiv. 14.
The Palace of the Monte Citorio (designed by Bernini) contains public offices connected with police, passports, &c. On the opposite side of the piazza are the Railway and Telegraph Offices.
Proceeding up the Corso, the Via di Pietra (right) leads into the small Piazza di Pietra, one side of which is occupied by the eleven remaining columns of the Temple of Neptune, built up by Innocent XII. into the walls of the modern Custom-house. It is worth while to enter the courtyard in order to look back and observe the immense masses of stone above the entrance, part of the ancient temple—which are here uncovered.
Close to this, behind the Palazzo Cini, in the Piazza Orfanelli, is the Teatro Capranica, occupying part of a palace of c. 1350, with gothic windows. The opposite church, Sta. Maria in Aquiro, recalls by its name the column of the Equiria, celebrated in ancient annals as the place where certain games and horse-races, instituted by Romulus, were celebrated. Ovid describes them in his Fasti. The church was founded c. 400, but was re-built under Francesco da Volterra in 1590.
A small increase of width in the Corso is now dignified by the name of the Piazza Sciarra. The street which turns off hence, under an arch (Via de Muratte, on the left), leads to the Fountain of Trevi, erected in 1735 by Niccolo Salvi for Clement XII. The statue of Neptune is by Pietro Bracci.
"The fountain of Trevi draws its precious water from a source far beyond the walls, whence it flows hitherward through old subterranean aqueducts, and sparkles forth as pure as the virgin who first led Agrippa to its well-springs by her father's door. In the design of the fountain, some sculptor of Bernini's school has gone absolutely mad, in marble. It is a great palace-front, with niches and many bas-reliefs, out of which looks Agrippa's legendary virgin, and several of the allegoric sisterhood; while at the base appears Neptune with his floundering steeds and tritons blowing their horns about him, and twenty other artificial fantasies, which the calm moonlight soothes into better taste than is native to them. And, after all, it is as magnificent a piece of work as ever human skill contrived. At the foot of the palatial façade, is strown, with careful art and ordered regularity, a broad and broken heap of massive rock, looking as if it may have lain there since the deluge. Over a central precipice falls the water, in a semicircular cascade; and from a hundred crevices, on all sides, snowy jets gush up, and streams spout out of the mouths and nostrils of stone monsters, and fall in glistening drops; while other rivulets, that have run wild, come leaping from one rude step to another, over stones that are mossy, shining and green with sedge, because, in a century of their wild play, nature has adopted the fountain of Trevi, with all its elaborate devices, for her own. Finally the water, tumbling, sparkling, and dashing with joyous haste and never ceasing murmur, pours itself into a great marble basin and reservoir, and fills it with a quivering tide; on which is seen, continually, a snowy semi-circle of momentary foam from the principal cascade, as well as a multitude of snow-points from smaller jets. The basin, occupies the whole breadth of the piazza, whence flights of steps descend to its border. A boat might float, and make mimic voyages, on this artificial lake.
"In the daytime there is hardly a livelier scene in Rome than the neighbourhood of the fountain of Trevi; for the piazza is then filled with stalls of vegetable and fruit dealers, chestnut-roasters, cigar-vendors, and other people whose petty and wandering traffic is transacted in the open air. It is likewise thronged with idlers, lounging over the iron railing, and with forestieri, who come hither to see the famous fountain. Here, also, are men with buckets, urchins with cans, and maidens (a picture as old as the patriarchal times) bearing their pitchers upon their heads. For the water of Trevi is in request, far and wide, as the most refreshing draught for feverish lips, the pleasantest to mingle with wine, and the wholesomest to drink in its native purity, that can anywhere be found. But, at midnight, the piazza is a solitude; and it is a delight to behold this untameable water, sporting by itself in the moonshine, and compelling all the elaborate trivialities of art to assume a natural aspect, in accordance with its own powerful simplicity. Tradition goes, that a parting draught at the fountain of Trevi ensures a traveller's return to Rome, whatever obstacles and improbabilities may seem to beset him."—Hawthorne's Transformation.
"Le bas-relief, placé au-dessus de cette fontaine, représente la jeune fille indiquant la source précieuse, comme dans l'antiquité une peinture représentait le même évènement dans une chapelle construite au lieu où il s'était passé."—Ampère, Emp. i. 264.
In this piazza is the rather handsome front of Sta. Maria in Trivia, formerly Sta. Maria in Fornica, erected by Cardinal Mazarin, on the site of an older church built by Belisarius—as is told by an inscription:—
"Hanc vir patricius Belisarius urbis amicus
Ob culpæ veniam condidit ecclesiam.
Hanc, idcirco, pedem qui sacram ponis in ædem
Ut miseretur eum sæpe precare Deum."
The fault which Belisarius wished to expiate, was the exile of Pope Sylverius (A.D. 536), who was starved to death in the island of Ponza. The crypt of the present building, being the parish church of the Quirinal, contains the entrails of twenty popes (removed for embalmment)—from Sixtus V. to Pius VIII.—who died in the Quirinal Palace!
The little church near the opposite corner of the piazza is that of The Crociferi, and is still (1870) served by the Venerable Don Giovanni Merlini, Father General of the Order of the Precious Blood, and the personal friend of its founder, Gaspare del Buffalo.
The Fountain of Trevi occupies one end of the gigantic Palazzo Poli, which contains the English consulate. At the other end is the shop of the famous jeweller, Castellani, well worth visiting, for the sake of its beautiful collection of Etruscan designs, both in jewellery and in larger works of art.
"Castellani est l'homme qui a ressuscité la bijouterie romaine. Son escalier, tapissé d'inscriptions et de bas-reliefs antiques, fait croire que nous entrons dans un musée. Un jeune