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Walks in Rome. Augustus J. C. Hare
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Автор произведения Augustus J. C. Hare
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"The greatest part of the praise due to Gregory's return to Rome belongs to St. Catherine of Siena, who, with infinite courage, travelled to Avignon, and persuaded the pope to return, and by his presence to dispel the evils which disgraced Italy, in consequence of the absence of the popes. Thus it is not to be wondered at, that those writers, who rightly understand the matter, should have said that Catherine, the virgin of Siena, brought back to God the abandoned apostolical chair upon her shoulders."—Ughelli, Ital. Sacra, vi. col. 45.
Near Pope Gregory's tomb some blackened marks in the wall are shown as holes made by the (gigantic) knees of St. Peter, when he knelt to pray that Simon Magus might be dropped by the demons he had invoked to support him in the air, which he is said to have done to show his power on this spot.
"When the error of Simon was spreading farther and farther, the illustrious pair of men, Peter and Paul, the rulers of the Church, arrested it by going thither, who suddenly exhibited as dead, Simon, the putative God, on his appearance. For when Simon declared that he would ascend aloft into heaven, the servants of God cast him headlong to the earth, and though this occurrence was wonderful in itself, it was not wonderful under the circumstances, for it was Peter who did it, he who bears with him the keys of heaven, … it was Paul who did it, he who was caught up into the third heaven."—St. Cyril of Jerusalem.
"Simon promised to fly, and thus ascend to the heavenly abodes. On the day agreed upon, he went to the Capitoline hill, and throwing himself from the rock, began his ascent. Then Peter, standing in the midst, said, 'O Lord Jesus, show him that his arts are in vain.' Hardly had the words been uttered, when the wings which Simon had made use of became entangled, and he fell. His thigh was fractured, never to be healed—and some time afterwards, the unhappy man died at Aretia, whither he had retired after his discomfiture."—St. Ambrose.[64]
"There can be no doubt that there existed in the first century a Simon, a Samaritan, a pretender to divine authority and supernatural powers; who, for a time, had many followers; who stood in a certain relation to Christianity; and who may have held some opinions more or less similar to those entertained by the most famous heretics of the early ages, the Gnostics. Irenæus calls this Simon the father of all heretics. 'All those,' he says, 'who in any way corrupt the truth, or mar the preaching of the Church, are disciples and successors of Simon, the Samaritan magician.' Simon gave himself forth as a God, and carried about with him a beautiful woman named Helena, whom he represented as the first conception of his—that is, of the divine—mind, the symbol and manifestation of that portion of spirituality which had become entangled in matter."—Jameson's Sacred Art, p. 204.
The vault of the tribune is covered with mosaics.
"The restored tribune mosaics (A.D. 858—887, during the pontificate of Nicholas I.), close the list of Roman Byzantine works. By their time it had become apparent that such figures as the art of the day was alone able to achieve, could have no possible relation to each other, and therefore no longer constitute a composition; the artists accordingly separated the Madonna on the throne, and the four saints with uplifted hands, by graceful arcades. The ground is gold, the nimbuses blue. The faces consist only of feeble lines—the cheeks are only red blotches; the folds merely dark strokes; nevertheless a certain flow and fulness in the forms, and the character of a few accessories (for instance, the exchange of a crown upon the Virgin's head for the invariable Byzantine veil), seem to indicate that we have not so much to do here with the decline of Byzantine art, as with a northern and probably Frankish influence."—Kugler.
The convent attached to this church was the abode of Tasso during his first visit to Rome.
Behind Sta. Francesca Romana, and facing the Coliseum, are the remains generally known as the Temple of Venus and Rome, also called Templum Urbis (now sometimes called by objectors the "Portico of Livia"), which, if this name is the correct one, was originally planned by the Emperor Hadrian to rival the Forum of Trajan, erected by the architect Apollodorus. It was built upon a site previously occupied by the atrium of Nero's Golden House. Little remains standing except a cella facing the Coliseum, and another in the cloisters of the adjoining convent (these, perhaps, being restorations by Maxentius, c. 307, after a fire had destroyed most of the building of Hadrian), but the surrounding grassy height is positively littered with fragments of the grey granite columns which once formed the grand portico (400 by 200 feet) of the building. A large mass of Corinthian cornice remains near the cella facing the Coliseum. This was the last pagan temple which remained in use in Rome.[65] It was only closed by Theodosius in 391, and remained entire till 625, when Pope Honorius carried off the bronze tiles of its roof to St. Peter's.
"Ac sacram resonare viam mugitibus, ante
Delubrum Romæ; colitur nam sanguine et ipsa
More deæ, nomenque loci, ceu numen, habetur.
Atque Urbis, Venerisque pari se culmine tollunt
Templa, simul geminis adolentur thura deabus."
Prudentius contr. Symm. v. 214.
"When about to construct his magnificent temple of Venus and Rome, Hadrian produced a design of his own and showed it with proud satisfaction to the architect Apollodorus. The creator of the Trajan column remarked with a sneer that the deities, if they rose from their seats, must thrust their heads through the ceiling. The emperor, we are assured, could not forgive this banter; but we can hardly take to the letter the statement that he put his critic to death for it."—Merivale, ch. lxvi.
In front of this temple stood the bronze statue of Clœlia, mentioned by Livy and Seneca, and (till the sixth century) the bronze elephants mentioned by Cassiodorus. Nearer the Coliseum may still be seen the remains of the foundation prepared by Hadrian for the Colossal Statue of Nero, executed in bronze by Zenodorus. This statue was twice moved, first by Vespasian, in A.D. 75, that it might face the chief entrance of his amphitheatre,[66] whose plan had been already laid out. At the same time—though it was a striking likeness of Nero—its head was surrounded with rays that it might represent Apollo. In its second position it is described by Martial:
"Hic ubi sidereus propius videt astra colossus
Et crescunt media pegmata celsa via,
Invidiosa feri radiabant atria regis,
Unaque jam tota stabat in urbe domus."
De Spect. ii.
It was again moved (with the aid of forty-two elephants), a few yards further north, by Hadrian, when he built his temple of Venus and Rome. Pliny describes the colossus as 110, Dion Cassius as 100 feet high.
"Hadrian employed an architect named Decrianus to remove the colossus of Nero, the face of which had been altered into a Sol. He does not seem to have accomplished the design of Apollodorus to erect a companion statue of Luna."—Merivale, ch. lxvi.
Near the Church of Sta. Francesca the Via Sacra passes under the Arch of Titus, which, even in its restored condition, is the most beautiful monument of the kind remaining in Rome. Its Christian interest is unrivalled, from its having been erected by the senate to commemorate the taking of Jerusalem, and from its bas-reliefs of the seven-branched candlestick and other treasures of the Jewish Temple. In mediæval times it was called the Arch of the Seven Candlesticks (septem lucernarum) from the bas-relief of the candlestick, concerning which Gregorovius remarks, that the fantastic figures carved upon it prove that