[Illustration: _Temple, Taormina_]

 ITALY

 THE MAGIC LAND

 BY

 LILIAN WHITING

 AUTHOR OF "THE FLORENCE OF LANDOR, " "THE LAND OF ENCHANTMENT, " "THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL, " ETC. 

 "And, under many a yellow star, We dropped into the Magic Land!"

 _Illustrated from Photographs_

 BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1907

_Copyright, 1907_, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 

_All rights reserved_

Published November, 1907

THE GRIFFITH-STILLINGS PRESS, BOSTON, U. S. A. 

 TO ELLA

 (MRS. FRANKLIN SIMMONS)

 WHOSE EARTHLY FORM REPOSES IN THE BEAUTIFUL ROMAN CEMETERY, WHERE POETIC ASSOCIATIONS WITH KEATS AND SHELLEY HAUNT THE AIR, --UNDER THE SCULPTURED "ANGEL OF THE RESURRECTION, " WITH ITS MAJESTIC SYMBOLISM OF THE TRIUMPH OF IMMORTALITY, --BUT WHOSE RADIANT PRESENCE STILL TRANSFIGURES THE LIFE THAT HELD HER IN IMMORTAL DEVOTION, -- THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED, WITH THE UNFORGETTING LOVE OF

 LILIAN WHITING. 

ROME, ITALY, May Days, 1907. 

 "_Nor Life is ever lord of Death, And Love can never lose its own. _"

PREFATORY NOTE

That Florence, the "Flower City, " receives only a passing allusion inthis record of various impressions that gleam and glow through the daysafter several visits to the Magic Land, is due to the fact that in aprevious volume by the writer--one entitled "The Florence ofLandor"--the lovely Tuscan town with its art, its ineffable beauty, andits choice social life, formed the subject matter of that volume. Anyattempt to portray Florence in the present book would savor only of therepetition of loves and enthusiasms already recorded in the previouswork in which Walter Savage Landor formed the central figure. For thatreason no mention of Florence, beyond some mere allusion, is attemptedin these pages, which only aim to present certain fragmentaryimpressions of various sojourns in Italy, refracted through the prism ofmemory. Whatever inconveniences or discomfort attend the travellerswiftly fade, and leave to him only the precious heritage of resplendentsunset skies, of poetic association, of artistic beauty. In spirit he isagain lingering through long afternoons in St. Peter's till the goldenlight through the far windows of the tribune is merged into the dusk oftwilight in which the vast monumental groups gleam wraith-like. Againhe is ascending the magnificent _Scala Regia_, and lingering in theRaphael Stanze, or in the wonderful sculpture galleries of the Vatican, or sauntering in the sunshine on the Palatine. In memory he is againspellbound by ancient and mediæval art. In the line of modern sculpturethe work of Franklin Simmons in Rome is a feature of Italy that hauntsthe imagination. No lover of beauty would willingly miss his greatstudios in the Via San Nicolo da Tolentino, with their wealth of idealcreations that contribute new interest to the most divine of all thearts. 

 "The world of art is an ideal world, -- The world I love, and that I fain would live in; So speak to me of artists and of art, Of all the painters, sculptors, and musicians That now illustrate Rome. "

The mystic charm of the pilgrimage to Assisi; the romance that reflectsitself in the violet seas and flaming splendors of the sky on the shoresof Ischia and Capri; the buried treasures of Amalfi; the magneticimpressiveness of the Eternal City, --all these enter into life as newforces to build and shape the future into undreamed-of destinies. 

 L. W. 

 THE BRUNSWICK, BOSTON, October Days, 1907. 

CONTENTS

 PAGE

 I THE PERIOD OF MODERN ART IN ROME 3

 II SOCIAL LIFE IN THE ETERNAL CITY 127

 III DAY-DREAMS IN NAPLES, AMALFI, AND CAPRI 227

 IV A PAGE DE CONTI FROM ISCHIA 281

 V VOICES OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI 341

 VI THE GLORY OF A VENETIAN JUNE 389

 VII THE MAGIC LAND 423

 INDEX 459

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

 Temple, Taormina _Frontispiece in Photogravure_

 Angel, Church of San Andrea delle Fratte, Rome _Page_ 12

 Detail from the Stuart Monument, St. Peter's, Rome " 24

 Tomb of Clement XIII, St. Peter's, Rome " 32

 "The Genius of Death, " Detail from the Tomb of Clement XIII, St. Peter's, Rome " 43

 "La Fortuna, " Accadémia di San Luca, Rome " 47

 Spanish Steps, Piazza Trinità dei Monti, Rome " 72

 Tomb of Pio Nono, San Lorenzo (Fuori le Mura) Rome " 75

 "The Dance of the Pleiades" " 92

 "Grief and History, " Detail from Naval Monument, Washington " 105

 "The Genius of Progress Leading the Nations" " 108

 "Mother of Moses" " 112

 "Valley Forge" " 116

 La Pieta, St. Peter's, Rome " 120

 Villa Medici, Rome " 134

 Entrance to Villa Pamphilia-Doria, Rome " 159

 Statue of Christ, Ancient Church of San Martina, Rome " 193

 Castel San Angelo and St. Peter's, Rome " 204

 Porta San Paola, Pyramid of Caius Cestius, Rome " 216

 Castel Sant'Elmo, Naples " 231

 Ancient Temple, Baiæ " 241

 Ischia, from the Sea " 282

 La Rocca, Ischia " 294

 Castello di Alfonso, Ischia " 306

 Detail from "Parnassus, " Raphael Stanze, Palazzo Vaticano, Rome " 311

 Vittoria Colonna, Galleria Buonarroti, Florence " 320

 San Francescan Convent-Church, Assisi " 346

 St. Francis d'Assisi, The Duomo, Assisi " 366

 Santa Chiara, The Duomo, Assisi " 375

 Baiæ and Ischia, from Camaldoli " 382

 Ruins of the Greek Theatre, Taormina, Sicily " 429

 Ponte Vecchio, Florence " 434

 Campo Santo, Genoa " 453

 "_Rest we content if whispers from the stars In wafting of the incalculable wind Come blown at midnight through our prison-bars. _"

THE MAGIC LAND

 _By woodland belt, by ocean bar, The full south breeze our forehead fanned; And, under many a yellow star, We dropped into the Magic Land. _

 * * * * *

 _We heard, far-off, the siren's song; We caught the gleam of sea-maids' hair; The glimmering isles and rocks among We moved through sparkling purple air. _

 _Then Morning rose, and smote from far Her elfin harps o'er land and sea; And woodland belt, and ocean bar To one sweet note sighed--"Italy!"_

 OWEN MEREDITH. 

ITALY, THE MAGIC LAND

I

THE PERIOD OF MODERN ART IN ROME

 But ah, that spring should vanish with the Rose! That youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close? The nightingale that in the branches sang, Oh, where and whither flown again, --who knows?

 OMAR KHAYYAM. 

ROME, as the picturesque city of the Popes in the middle years of thenineteenth century, was resplendent in local color. It was the Rome ofsunny winters; the Rome of gay excursions over that haunted sea of theCampagna to pictorial points in the Alban and Sabine hills; the Rome ofyoung artist life, which organized impromptu festas with Arcadianfreedom, and utilized the shadow or the shelter of ruined temples ortombs in which to spread its picnic lunches and bring the glow ofsimple, friendly intercourse into the romantic lights of the poetic, historic, or tragic past. There were splendid Catholic processions andceremonials that seemed organized as a part of the stage scenery thatensconced itself, also, with the nonchalance of easy possession, in thevast salons of historic palaces where tapestried walls and richlypainted ceilings, arched high overhead, with statues dimly seen inniches here and there, and the bust of some crowned Antoninus, orradiant Juno, gleaming from a shadowy corner, all made up the_mise-en-scène_ of familiar evenings. There were lingering hours in thegardens of the Villa Medici into whose shades one strolled by thatbeguiling path along the parapet on Monte Pincio, through the beautifulgrove with its walks and fountains. The old ilex bosquet, with itstangled growth and air of complete seclusion, had its spell offascination. Then, as now, the elevated temple, at the end of the mainpath, seemed the haunt of gods and muses. In all the incidental, as wellas the ceremonial social meeting and mingling, art and religion were thegeneral themes of discussion. This idyllic life--

 "Comprehending, too, the soul's And all the high necessities of art"--

has left its impress on the air as well as its record on many a page ofthe poet and the romancist. The names that made memorable thosewonderful days touch chords of association that still vibrate in thelife of the hour. For the most part the artists and their associateshave gone their way--not into a Silent Land, a land of shadows andvague, wandering ghosts--but into that realm wherein is the "life moreabundant, " of more intense energy and of nobler achievement; the realmin which every aspiration of earth enlarges its conception and everyinspiration is exalted and endowed with new purpose; the realm where, asBrowning says, --

 "Power comes in full play. "

The poet's vision recognizes the truth:--

 "I know there shall dawn a day, --Is it here on homely earth? Is it yonder, worlds away, Where the strange and new have birth, That Power comes in full play?"

The names of sculptor, painter, and poet throng back, imaged in thatretrospective mirror which reflects a vista of the past, rich in idealcreation. Beautiful forms emerge from the marble; pictorial scenes glowfrom the canvas; song and story and happy, historic days are in thevery air. To Italy, land of romance and song, all the artists cametrooping, and

 "Under many a yellow Star"

they dropped into the Magic Land. If the wraiths of the centuries longsince dead walked the streets, they were quite welcome to revisit theglimpses of the moon and contribute their mystery to the generalartistic effectiveness of the Seven-hilled City. All this group ofAmerican idealists, from Allston and Page to Crawford, Story, RandolphRogers, Vedder, Simmons, and to the latest comer of all, Charles WalterStetson, recognized something of the artist's native air in this Meccaof their pilgrimage. 

It was, indeed, quite natural, on account of the stupendous work ofMichael Angelo and the unrivalled museums of the Vatican, that Romeshould have become pre-eminently the artistic centre of the nineteenthcentury and should have attracted students and lovers of art from allparts of the world. The immortal works of the two great periods, theGreek and the Renaissance, --the art that was forever great because itwas the outgrowth of profound religious conviction, --were enshrined inthe churches and the galleries of Rome. The leading countries of Europesent here their aspiring students and established permanent academiesfor their residence. Germany, France, and England were thus represented. Thorwaldsen came as a pensioner from the Academy of Fine Arts inCopenhagen; and it was during his life, and that of the noble Canova, that Rome began to be recognized as the modern world-centre of art. Wasit not a natural sequence that the early painters and sculptors who cameto study under the stimulating influences of the great masterpieces ofthe past should linger on in the city whose very air became to them thebreath of inspiring suggestion? Where but in Rome would have come toCrawford the vision of his "Orpheus" and of his noble Beethoven? or toStory his "Libyan Sibyl, " and that exquisite group, "Into the SilentLand"? or to Vedder his marvellous creations of "The Fates Gathering inthe Stars, " the "Cumæan Sibyl, " or the "Dance of the Pleiades"? toSimmons his triumphant "Angel of the Resurrection, " and "The Genius ofProgress Leading the Nations"? or to Stetson that ineffable vision of"The Child, " and that wonderful group called "Music"? whose coloringTitian or Giorgione might well mistake for their own. 

Under the Pontifical _régime_ the general character of Rome was mediævaland religious. The perpetual festas of the church made the streetsconstantly picturesque with their processions of monks, and friars, andpriests, and these wonderful blendings of color and scenic effectstimulated the artistic sense. The expenses of living in Rome were thenonly a fraction of what the cost is at the present time; and as the citywas the resort of the wealthy and cultured few, the artists weresurrounded by the stimulus of critical appreciation and of patronage. Their work, their dreams, were the theme of literary discussion, andfocussed the attention of the polite world. Their studios were among theimportant interests to every visitor in the Eternal City. In those daysthe traveller did not land with his touring car at Naples, make "therun" to Rome in a record that distanced any possibilities of railroadtrains, pass two or three days in motoring about the city and itsenvirons, seeing the exterior of everything in a dissolving view and theinterior of nothing, --as within this time, at least, he must flash onin his touring car to Florence. On the contrary, the traveller proceededto Rome with serious deliberation, and with a more realizing sense ofundertaking a journey than Walter Wellman experiences in attempting tofly in his aero-car to the North Pole and send his observations acrossthe polar seas by wireless telegraphy. The visitor went to Rome for awinter, for a year, and gave himself up to leisurely impressions. Romewas an atmosphere, not a spectacle, and it was to be entered with thelofty and reverent appreciation of the poet's power and the artist'svision. 

In Rome, Thomas Cole painted some of his best pictures; and in Rome orFlorence wrought a long list of painters and sculptors. Whether in theEternal City or in the Flower City, their environment was alikeItaly--the environment of the Magic Land. Among the more prominent ofall these devotees of Beauty several nationalities were represented. Each might have said of his purpose, in the words of William Watson:--

 "I follow Beauty; of her train am I, Beauty, whose voice is earth and sea and air; Who serveth, and her hands for all things ply; Who reigneth, and her throne is everywhere. "

Among these artists there flash upon memory the names of Vanderlyn, Benjamin West, Allston, Rauch, Ange, Veit, Tenerani, Overbeck, Schadow, Horace Vernet, Thorwaldsen, John Gibson, Hiram Powers, Crawford, Page, Clark Mills, Randolph Rogers, William Rinehart, Launt Thompson, Horatioand Richard Greenough, Thomas Ball, Anne Whitney, Larkin G. Mead, PaulAkers, William Wetmore Story, Harriet Hosmer, J. Rollin Tilton, and, later, Elihu Vedder, Moses Ezekiel, Franklin Simmons, Augustus St. Gaudens, and Charles Walter Stetson, the name of Mr. Stetson linking thelong and interesting procession with the immediate life of to-day. Ofthese later artists Story, Miss Hosmer, Ezekiel, Vedder, Simmons, andStetson are identified with Rome as being either their permanent ortheir prolonged residence. Mr. St. Gaudens was a transient student, returning to his own country to pursue his work; and of two youngsculptors, Hendrick Christian Anderson and C. Percival Dietsch, time hasnot yet developed their powers beyond an experimental stage of brilliantpromise. 

 [Illustration: ANGEL, CHURCH OF SAN ANDREA DELLE FRATTE, ROME Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini _Page 32_]

The Rome of the artists of clay and canvas was also the Rome of thepoets and romancists, of authors in all lines of literary achievement. How the names of the procession of visitors and sojourners in theEternal City, from Milton, Goethe, and Mme. De Staël to Henry James, Marion Crawford, Richard Bagot, and Grace Ellery Channing (Mrs. CharlesWalter Stetson), gleam from that resplendent panorama of the modern pastof Rome! Like the words in electric fire that flash out of the darknessin city streets at night, there shine the names of Shelley and of Keats;of Gladstone, on whom in one memorable summer day, while strolling inItalian sunshine, there fell a vision of the sacredness and thesignificance of life and its infinite responsibility in the fulfilmentof lofty purposes. What charming associations these guests andsojourners have left behind! Hawthorne, embodying in immortal romancethe spirit of the scenic greatness of the Eternal City; Margaret Fuller, Marchesa d'Ossoli, allying herself in marriage with the country sheloved, and living in Rome those troubled, mysterious years that were toclose the earthly chapter of her life; Robert and Elizabeth Browning, the wedded poets, who sang of love and Italy; Harriet Beecher Stowe, finding on the enchanted Italian shores the material which she wovewith such irresistible attraction into the romance of "Agnes ofSorrento;" Longfellow, with his poet's vision, transmuting every vistaand impression into some exquisite lyric; Lowell, bringing hisphilosophic as well as his poetic insight to penetrate the untoldmeaning of Rome; Thomas William Parsons, making the country of Dantefairly his own; Thackeray, with his brilliant interpretation of the_comédie humaine_; Emerson, who, oblivious of all the glories of art orthe joys of nature, absorbed himself in writing transcendental lettersto his eccentric, but high-souled aunt, Mary Moody Emerson; Ruskin, translating Italian art to Italy herself; Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe andhis poet wife, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, in the first flush of their bridalhappiness, when Mrs. Howe's impassioned love for the Seven-hilled Cityinspired many a lyric that mirrors the Roman atmosphere of that day;Kate Field, with a young girl's glad enthusiasm over the marvellousloveliness of a Maytime in Rome, and her devotion to those greathistrionic artists, Ristori and Salvini; George Stillman Hillard, leaving to literature the rich legacy of his "Six Months inItaly, "--a work that to this day holds precedence as a clear andcomprehensive presentation of the scenic beauty, the notable monumentaland architectural art, and the general life and resources of this landof painter and poet. Other names, too, throng upon memory--that ofWilliam Dean Howells, painting Italian life in his "Venetian Days, " andcharming all the literary world by his choice art; and among later work, the interesting interpretations of Rome and of social life in Rome, byMarion Crawford, Henry James, and Richard Bagot, --in chronicle, inromance, or in biographical record. During the last quarter of thenineteenth century, indeed, the visitors to Rome--authors, artists, travellers of easy leisure--defy any numerical record. Mrs. LouiseChandler Moulton, poet, romancist, and delightful _raconteur_ as well, has recorded some charming impressions of her various sojourns in Romeboth in her "Random Rambles" and in "Lazy Tours. " Of the Palatine Hillwe find her saying:--

 "Sometimes we go to the Palace of the Cæsars, and look off upon the heights where the snow lingers and the warm light rests, making them shine like the Delectable Mountains. Nearer at hand are the almond trees, in flower, or the orange trees, bright at once with their white, sweet blossoms and their golden fruit. "

Mrs. Moulton writes of the "stately dwellers" in Rome whom time cannotchange; and to whom, whenever she returns, she makes her first visit;some of whom are in the mighty palace of the Vatican and some of whomdwell in state in the Capitol. 

 "The beautiful Antoninus still wears his crown of lotus in Villa Albani and the Juno whom Goethe worshipped reigns forever at the Ludovisi, " she writes; "I can never put in words the pleasure I find in these immortals. " Mrs. Moulton loved to wander in the Villa Borghese "before the place is thronged with the beauty and fashion of Rome as it is in the late afternoon. I do not wonder that Miriam and Donatello could forget their fate in these enchanted glades, " she wrote, "and dance as the sunbeams danced with the shadows. Sometimes I seem to see them where the sun sifts through the young green leaves, and her beauty--her human, deep-souled beauty--and his fantastic grace are the only things here that cannot change. 

 "The walls will crumble; the busts of kings and heroes and poets will lose their contours, the lovely Roman ladies also grow old and fade, and vanish from sight and from memory; but still these two, hopeless yet happy, will dance in these wild glades immortally beyond the reach of the effacing years. "

The visit to Rome of the Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks--later the Bishop ofMassachusetts--is immortalized in the most lifelike portrait bust of thegreat preacher ever modelled; a bust in which the genius of thesculptor, Franklin Simmons, found one of its noblest expressions, andhas perpetuated, with masterly power, the energy of thought, at onceprofound and intense, in the countenance of Bishop Brooks. These, andmany another whom the gods have loved and dowered with gifts, risebefore any retrospective glance over the comparatively recent past ofRome. Bishop Brooks passed there the Holy Week of one Lenten season, and of the Miserere in the Sistine Chapel he wrote that it was certainlythe most wonderful music to which he had ever listened; and he added:--

 "The Miserere in the Sistine, the Benediction from the balcony, the solemn moment of the elevation of the Host on Easter, and the illumination of St. Peter's, these all seem to reach very remarkably the great ideal of the central religious commemoration of Christendom. "

It was in the winter of 1828 that Mr. Longfellow first visited Rome, which "is announced, " he wrote, "by Nero's tomb, " and he quotes Dupaty'slines:--

 "Quoi! c'est là Rome? quoi! C'est le tombeau de Neron qui l'annonce. "

Mr. Longfellow expressed his love for the Eternal City, and in apersonal letter[1] he said:--

 "I have been so delighted with Rome that I have extended my residence much beyond my original intention. There is so much in the city to delay the stranger; the villages in the environs are so beautiful, and there is such a quiet and stillness about everything that, were it in my power, I should be induced to remain the whole year round. You can imagine nothing equal to the ruins of Rome. The Forum and the Coliseum are beyond all I had ever fancied them; and the ruined temples and the mouldering aqueducts which are scattered over the Campagna; I do not believe there is a finer view in the world than that from the eastern gate of the city, embracing the Campagna, with its ruined aqueducts diverging in long broken arcades, and terminated by the sweep of the Albanian hills, sprinkled with their white villages, and celebrated in song and story! But the great charm of the scene springs from association; and though everything in Italy is really picturesque, yet strip the country of its historic recollections, --think merely of what it is, and not of what it has been, --and you will find the dream to be fading away. 

 "You would be shocked at the misery of the people, especially in the Pope's dominions: but their element seems to be in rags and misery; and with the ceremonials of their religion and the holidays of the church, which average nearly three a week, they are poor--and lazy and happy. I mean, happy in their way. "

In a later visit the poet was domiciled in an hotel on the PiazzaBarberini, where the wonderful view included then the entire city "towhere St. Peter's dome darkens against the sunset. " Of this visit hisbrother, Rev. Samuel Longfellow, writes:--

 "Here Mr. Longfellow became for the season the centre of the group of American visitors and resident artists, whose well-known names need not be recounted. Here he made, also, acquaintances among the Italians, --especially the Duke of Sermoneta, the Dantean scholar, and Monsignore Nardi, of the papal court. The Pope himself he did not visit. An interesting acquaintance was that made with the Abbé Liszt, who was spending the winter in Rome, having rooms in the abandoned Convent of Santa Francesca, in the Forum. Calling there one evening, in company with Mr. Healy the artist, the inner door of the apartment was opened to them by Liszt himself, holding high in his hand a candle which illuminated his fine face. The picture was so striking that Mr. Longfellow begged his companion to put it upon canvas, --which he did; and the painting now hangs in the library of Craigie House. At a morning visit, Liszt delighted the party with a performance upon his Chickering pianoforte. 

 "To see Rome, as all travellers know, is a work for many months; and it was pursued with tolerable diligence. But Mr. Longfellow was never a good sight-seer. He was impatient of lingering in picture galleries, churches, or ruins. He saw quickly the essential points, and soon tired of any minuter examination. "

But long, indeed, before nineteenth-century artists and authors laidsiege to the Eternal City, in the far-away years of 1638, Milton visitedRome, and there still remains the tablet, on the wall of the _casa_ inthe Via delle Quattro Fontane in which he stayed, a tablet bearing aninscription giving the date of his visit; as, also, in Via Machella, there is an inscription marking the place where Scott lived during hisvisit to Rome. Goethe made his memorable tour to Italy in 1786--fourteenyears before the dawn of the nineteenth century--and wrote: "I feel thegreatest longing to read Tacitus in Rome;" and again (an observationwith which every visitor to the Eternal City will sympathize) henoted:--

 "It grows more and more difficult for me to render an account of my residence in Rome, for as we always find the sea deeper the further we go, so it is with me in observation of this city.... Wherever we go and wherever we stand, we see about us a finished picture, --forms of every kind and style; palaces and ruins; gardens and wastes; the distant and the near houses; triumphal arches and columns, --often all so close together that they might be sketched on a single sheet. One should have a thousand points of steel with which to write, and what can a single pen do? and then in the evening one is weary and exhausted with the day of seeing and admiring. Here one reads history from within outward. "

Chateaubriand, who in his earliest youth had visited America as theguest of Washington, passed the winter of 1803-4 in Rome, and hispictorial transcriptions of the city and its environs are among the mostexquisite things in literary record. As, for instance, this descriptionof a sunset from Monte Mario:--

 "I was never weary of seeing, from the Villa Borghese, the sun go down behind the cypresses of Monte Mario, and the pines of the Villa Pamphili planted by Le Notre. I have stood upon the Ponte Molle to enjoy the sublime spectacle of the close of day. The summits of the Sabine hills appeared of lapis lazuli and pale gold, while their bases and sides were bathed in vapors of violet or purple. Sometimes lovely clouds, like fairy cars, borne along by the evening wind with inimitable grace, recall the mythological tales of the descent of the deities of Olympus. Sometimes old Rome seems to have spread all over the west the purple of her consuls and her Cæsars, beneath the last steps of the god of day. This rich decoration does not vanish so quickly as in our climate. When we think the hues are about to disappear they revive on some other point of the horizon; one twilight follows another and the magic of sunset is prolonged. "

It was in the same year that Mme. De Staël visited Rome and recorded, inher glowing romance, "Corinne, " the impressions she received. In thespring of 1817 Lord Byron found in Rome the inspiration that hetransmitted into that wonderful line in "Childe Harold":--

 "The Niobe of Nations! There she stands. "

It was two years later that Shelley passed the spring in theSeven-hilled City, retiring to Leghorn later, to write his tragedy of"The Cenci. "

In Rome the visitor follows Michael Angelo and Raphael through thevarious churches and museums. The celebrated sibyls of Raphael are inthe Santa Maria della Pace; his "Isaiah" is in San Agostino and his"Entombment" in the Casino of the Villa Borghese. While the sublime workof Michael Angelo in the Sistine Chapel is always one of the firstthings in Rome to which the traveller goes to study that incomparablework portraying the Creation--the Prophets and the Sibyls, the Angelsand the Genii, that record the impassioned power of the master--yet allfootsteps turn quickly, too, to the church called San Pietro in Vincoli, near the house in which Lucrezia Borgia lived, in which is the colossalMoses of Michael Angelo. As it stands, it fails to convey the firstdesign of the great sculptor. Originally intended for the tomb of PopeJulius II, the plan included a massive block of marble (some forty bytwenty feet) surmounted by a cornice and having its niches, its columns, and its statues, of which the Moses was to have been one. It would thenhave been judged relatively to the entire group, while now it is seenalone, and thus out of the proportions that were in the mind of theartist. The entire conception, indeed, was to unite sculpture andarchitecture into one splendid combination. "Thus the statue of Moseswas meant to have been raised considerably above the eye of thespectator, " writes Mr. Hillard, "and to have been a single object in acolossal structure of architecture and sculpture, which would have had aforeground and a background, and been crowned with a mass at oncedome-like and pyramidal. Torn, as it is, from its proper place; divorcedfrom its proportionate companionship; stuck against the wall of achurch; and brought face to face with the observer, --what wonder that somany of those who see it turn away with no other impressions than thoseof caricature and exaggeration!"

Mr. Hillard adds:--

 "But who that can appreciate the sublime in art will fail to bow down before it as embodied in this wonderful statue? The majestic character of the head, the prodigious muscles of the chest and arms, and the beard that flows like a torrent to the waist, represent a being of more than mortal port and power, speaking with the authority, and frowning with the sanctions of incarnate law. The drapery of the lower part of the figure is inferior to the anatomy of the upper part. Remarkable as the execution of the statue is, the expression is yet more so; for notwithstanding its colossal proportions, its prominent characteristic is the embodiment of intellectual power. It is the great leader and lawgiver of his people that we see, whose voice was command, and whose outstretched arm sustained a nation's infant steps. He looks as if he might control the energies of nature as well as shape the mould in which the character of his people should be formed. That any one should stand before this statue in a scoffing mood is to me perfectly inexplicable. My own emotions were more nearly akin to absolute bodily fear. At an irreverent word, I should have expected the brow to contract into a darker frown, and the marble lips to unclose in rebuke. "

 [Illustration: DETAIL FROM STUART MONUMENT, ST. PETER'S, ROME Antonio Canova _Page 33_]

William Watson condenses his impressions of this majestic sculpture inthe following quatrain. --

 "The captain's might, and mystery of the seer-- Remoteness of Jehovah's colloquist, Nearness of man's heaven-advocate--are here: Alone Mount Nebo's harsh foreshadow is miss'd. "

The impressive group of sculptures and buildings on theCampidoglio--where once the shrine of Jupiter Capitolinus stood--owesits present picturesque scheme largely to Michael Angelo. Thefascination of the long flights of steps leading from the PiazzaAracöeli to the Capitoline, where the ancient bronze equestrian statueof Marcus Aurelius forever keeps guard, is indescribable. The historicstatues of Castor and Pollux mark the portals; on either hand there areseen the Muses of ancient sculpture, the Palazzo Senatoriale and thePalazzo dei Conservatori. There is in the entire world no more classicground than is found in this impressive grouping of art andarchitecture. 

The genius of Raphael has recorded itself in those brilliant andimperishable works that enthrall the student of art in the Raphaelstanze in the Vatican. He was imbued with the spirit of Greek art, andwhile Titian is a greater colorist, while Correggio, Botticelli, Perugino, and other artists that could be named equal or exceed Raphaelin certain lines, yet as the interpreter of the profoundest thought, andfor his philosophic grasp and his power to endow his conceptions withthe most brilliant animation, he stands alone. The religious exaltationof "The Transfiguration" reveals the supreme degree of the divine geniusof Raphael. That this painting was the last work of his life, that itwas placed above his body as it lay in state, and was carried in hisfuneral procession, invests it with peculiar interest. 

As a draftsman Raphael was second only to Michael Angelo, with whom hemust forever share the immortality of fame. The Academy in Venice holdssome of his choicest drawings, and in the Venetian sketch-book in theNational Gallery in London are many of his small pictures, includingthat of the "Knight's Dream. "

It was in the autumn of 1508, when Raphael was in his twenty-fifth year, that he was called to Rome in the service of the Pope. The Pontiff atthis time was Pope Julius II, whose successor was Leo X, and under theirpontificates (from 1508 to 1520) Raphael produced these masterpieceswhich stand unrivalled in the world save by the creations of MichaelAngelo in the Capella Sistina. The celebrated "Four Sibyls" of Raphaelare not, however, in the stanze of the Vatican, but in the Church of SanMaria della Pace. In the Palazzo Vaticano these four wonderful stanzeentrance the visitor; the Stanza della Signatura, the Stanza d'Eliodoro, the Stanza dell'Incendio and the Sala di Constantino. 

For the decoration of these stanze several painters from Umbria had beensummoned, --Perugino, Sodoma, Signorelli, and others; but when Raphaelhad produced the "Disputa" in the Sala della Signatura, Pope Julius IIrecognized the work as so transcendent that he ordered the other artiststo cease and even had some of their paintings obliterated that theremight be more space for the exercise of Raphael's genius. In the"Disputa" are glorified the highest expressions of the humanintellect--the domain portrayed being that of Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, and Justice. The splendor of this creation transcends allattempts of interpretation in language. Against a background of goldmosaic are portrayed these typical figures enthroned on clouds wheregenii flit to and fro bearing tablets with inscriptions. Theology holdsin the left hand a book, while the other points to the vision of angels;Poetry, laurel-crowned, is seen seated on a throne with books and lyre;Philosophy wears a diadem, and Justice, with her balance and her sword, is also crowned. The title of this marvellous work is misleading. Itsmessage is not that of disputation but of beatitude. At the altar aregrouped the congregation; the mystic spell of heavenly enthusiasmenfolds the scene as an atmosphere, as above the heavens open and theglorified Christ, surrounded by the saints who have kept the faith, isdisclosed to the devotees kneeling below, while a choir of listeningangels bend over them from the distant clouds in the background. 

Under Poetry are grouped Apollo and the Muses, and the figures of Homer, Dante and Virgil, of Petrarcha, Anacreon and Sappho, of Pindar and ofHorace are recognized. The great scholars seen in the Philosophy includePlato and Aristotle, while in the groups under Justice, Moses and Solonare seen. 

"Raphael seems to have never known despair, " remarked Franklin Simmonsof the work of this divine genius. "His paintings reveal no struggle, but seem to have been produced without effort, as if brought intoexistence by an enchanter's wand. "

No observation could more vividly interpret the wonderful effectproduced on the student by Raphael, and he cannot but recall the truthexpressed in these lines of Festus:--

 "All aspiration is a toil; But inspiration cometh from above And is no labor. "

The inspiration of Raphael was of the noblest order. His genius, hiskindling enthusiasm, his ecstasy of religious devotion, have left animperishable heritage to art. By his transcendent gifts he representsthe highest manifestation of the art of painting in the Renaissance. Forthe true note in art lies in spiritual perception. Not so brilliant acolorist as Titian, he was more the interpreter of the extension ofhuman activity into that realm of the life more abundant, and with hisextraordinary facility of execution he united exquisite refinement andunerring sense of beauty and the masterly power in composition thatfairly created for the spectator the visions that his soul beheld. "Isay to you, " said Mr. Bryce recently in a press interview, --"I say toyou, each oncoming tide of life requires and needs men of lofty thoughtwho shall dream for it, sing for it, who shall gather up its tendencies, formulate its ideals and voice its spirit. " One of those men of loftythought who thus dream for the ages was Raphael, and his power and gloryhave left an ineffaceable impress upon human life. He was the divinelyappointed messenger of beauty, and he was never disobedient to theheavenly vision. 

 "Time hath no tide but must abide The servant of Thy will; Tide hath no time, for to Thy rhyme The ranging stars stand still. "

The decline of art after Michael Angelo and Raphael was marked. The verysplendor and power of their creations, instead of inspiring those whoimmediately followed them, produced almost the inertia of despair. Inthe reverence and awe and admiration with which these transcendentmasterpieces were approached any power to originate seemed futile bycontrast. Imitation rather than creation became the method adopted, resulting in an increased poverty of design and feeble execution. Theart of the sixteenth century deteriorated rapidly till the baroco stylewas in evidence. One reason, too, for the decline was in that art was nolonger so exclusively dedicated to the high service of religion, butaimed, instead, to please and to procure patrons, and thus were allworthy standards lowered to pernicious levels. 

A sculptor who left his impress upon the sixteenth-century art wasLorenzo Bernini, a Neapolitan (born in 1598) who died in Rome in 1685. The work of Bernini has a certain fascination and airy touch that, whileit sometimes degenerates into the merely fantastic and even into tawdryand puerile affectations, has at its best a refinement and grace thatlend to his sculptures an enduring charm, as seen in his "Apollo andDaphne" (a work executed in his eighteenth year) which is now in theCasino of the Villa Borghese. Bernini's name is perpetuated in thecolossal statues on the colonnade of St. Peter's, the great bronzeangels with their draperies streaming to the winds on the Ponte SanAngelo, and in the vast fountain in the Piazza Navona. In the court ofthe Palazzo Bernini is one of the most interesting of his works--acolossal figure, allegorical in significance, illustrating "TruthBrought to Light by Time. " One of the most important works ofBernini--now placed in the Museo Nazionale--is the group of "Pluto andProserpine. "

 [Illustration: TOMB OF CLEMENT XIII, ST. PETER'S, ROME Antonio Canova _Page 42_]

The influence that was to reform and regenerate the art of sculpture inthe sixteenth century came with the great and good Canova, with whichwas united that of Flaxman and of Thorwaldsen. The heavenly messengersare always sent and appear at the time they are most needed. NeitherTruth nor Art is ever left without a witness. 

 "God sends his teachers unto every age, To every clime, and every race of men, With revelations fitted to their growth And shape of mind; nor gives the realm of truth Into the selfish rule of one sole race. "

Canova's genius and services were widely recognized. In 1719 he was madea Senator; he was ennobled with the title of Marchese of Ischia andgranted a yearly allowance of three thousand scudi; and his noble andgenerous enthusiasms, not less than his genius, have left their recordon life as well as on art. When he died (in Venice, Oct. 3, 1822) hiswork included fifty-nine statues, fourteen groups, twenty-two monuments, and fifty-four busts. The statue of Pius V and the tomb of Clement XIIIare his greatest works, and the latter is perhaps even increasinglyheld as a masterpiece of the ages. 

Canova, warned by the fatal influence of imitation in art in thesixteenth century, frequently counselled his pupils against copying hisown style and constantly urged them to study from the Greeks. He advisedthem to visit frequently the studios of other artists, "and especially, "he would add, "the studios of Thorwaldsen, who is a very great artist. "

In the early part of the nineteenth century contemporary sculpture inRome was led by the three great artists, --Canova, Thorwaldsen, andGibson. In 1829 Gibson had the honor of being elected a member of theAccadémia di San Luca in place of the sculptor Massimiliano, who hadthen just died. Cammuccini, the historical painter, proposed Gibson, andwith the ardent assistance of Thorwaldsen he was elected residentAcademician of merit. "Like Canova, Thorwaldsen was most generous toyoung artists, " says Gibson of the great Danish master, "and he freelyvisited all who required his advice. I profited greatly by the knowledgewhich this splendid sculptor had of his art. On every occasion when Iwas modelling a new work he came to me, and corrected whatever hethought amiss. I also often went to his studio and contemplated hisglorious works, always in the noblest style, full of pure and severesimplicity. His studio was a safe school for the young, and was theresort of artists and lovers of art from all nations. The old man'sperson can never be forgotten by those who saw him. Tall and strong, --henever lost a tooth in his life, --he was most venerable looking. His kindcountenance was marked with hard thinking, his eyes were gray, and hiswhite locks lay upon his broad shoulders. At great assemblies his breastwas covered with orders. "

Thorwaldsen (born in Copenhagen, Nov. 19, 1770) went to Rome in1797--sent by the government of Denmark as a pensioner. It is said that, in his enthusiasm for Rome, Thorwaldsen dated his birth from the hour heentered the Eternal City. "Before that day, " he exclaimed, "I existed; Idid not live. " For nearly fifty years--until his death in 1844--he livedand worked in Rome, occupying at one time the studio in Via Babuino thathad formerly been that of Flaxman. 

John Gibson, who went to Rome in 1817, --twenty years after Thorwaldsenfirst arrived, --had the good fortune to be for five years a pupil ofCanova, whose death in 1822 terminated this inestimable privilege. Theelevation of purpose that characterized the young English student madehis progress and development a matter of peculiar interest to themaster. Gibson, also, bears his testimony to the stimulus of the Romanenvironment. "Rome above all other cities, " he says, "has a peculiarinfluence upon and charm for the real student; he feels himself in thevery university of art, where it is the one thing talked about andthought about. Constantly did I feel the presence of this influence. Every morning I rose with the sun, my soul gladdened by a new day of ahappy and delightful pursuit; and as I walked to my breakfast at theCaffè Greco and watched with new pleasure the tops of the churches andpalaces gilt by the morning sun, I was inspired with a sense of dailyrenovated youth, and fresh enthusiasm, and returned joyfully to thecombat, to the invigorating strife with the difficulties of art. Nor didthe worm of envy creep round my heart whenever I saw a beautiful ideaskilfully executed by any of my young rivals, but constantly spurred onby the talent around me I returned to my studio with fresh resolution. "

Again to a friend Gibson writes:--

 "I renewed my visits to the Vatican, refreshing my spirits in that Pantheon of the gods, demigods, and heroes of Hellas.... In the art of sculpture the Greeks were gods.... In the Vatican we go from statue to statue, from fragment to fragment, like the bee from flower to flower. "

These five years in which Canova, Thorwaldsen, and Gibson lived andwrought together--although the youngest of this trio was still in hisstudent life--form a definite period in the history of modern art inRome. The dreams, the enthusiasm, the devotion to ideal beauty whichcharacterized their work left its impress and its vitality ofinfluence--a mystic power ready to incarnate itself again through thefacility of expression of the artists yet to come. To the young menwhose steps were turned toward Rome in these early years of the centuryjust passed, how great was the privilege of coming into close range ofthe influence of such artists as these; to study their methods; to hearthe expression of their views on art in familiar meeting andconversation! These artists were closely in touch with that "lovely andfaithful dream which came with Italian Renaissance in the works ofPisani, Mino di Fiesole, Donatello, Michael Angelo, and Giovanni daBologna--all who caught the spirit of Greek art. " Artistic truth was thekeynote of the hour, and it is this truth which is the basis of thehighest conception of life. 

 "Art's a service, --mark: A silver key is given to thy clasp And thou shalt stand unwearied night and day, And fix it in the hard, slow-turning wards To open, so that intermediate door Betwixt the different planes of sensuous form And form insensuous, that inferior men May learn to feel on still through these to those, And bless thy ministration. The world waits for help. "

In their true relation art and ethics meet in their ministry tohumanity, for only in their union can they best serve man. All thenobler culture has its responsibility in service. "Many a man has ablind notion of stewardship about his property, but very few have itabout their knowledge, " said Bishop Phillips Brooks, and he added: "Onegrows tired of seeing cultivated people with all their culture cursed byselfishness. " To the true idealist--as distinct from the mereemotionalist with æsthetic tastes--selfishness is an impossible prison. The only spiritual freedom lies in the perpetual sharing of the fullerlife. The gift shared is the gift doubled. Art is the spiritual glory oflife; the supreme manifestation, the very influence of spiritualachievement. Mr. Stillman, discussing the revival of art, hasquestioned: "Does the world want art any longer? Has it, in the presentstate of human progress, any place which will justify devotion to it?"

He questions as to whether man is still

 "Apparelled in celestial light, "

or whether he has lost "the glory and the freshness" of his dreams. 

 "No one can admit, " continues Mr. Stillman, "that the human intellect is weaker than it was five or twenty centuries ago; but it is certain that if we take the pains to study what was done five centuries ago in painting, or twenty centuries ago in sculpture, and compare it with the best work of to-day, we shall find the latter trivial and 'prentice work compared with the ordinary work of men whose names are lost in the lustre of a school. 

 "Then, little men inspired by the Zeitgeist, painted greatly; now, our great men fail to reach the technical achievement of the little men of them. There is only one living painter who can treat a portrait as a Venetian artist of 1550 A. D. Would have done it, and how differently in the mastery of his material! If we go to the work of wider range, the Campo Santo of Pisa, the Stanze, the Sistine Chapel, the distance becomes an abyss; the simplest fragment of a Greek statue of 450 B. C. Shows us that the best sculpture of this century, even the French, is only a happy child-work, not even to be put in sight of Donatello or Michael Angelo. The reason is simple, and already indicated. The early men grew up in a system in which the power of expression was taught from childhood; they acquired method as the musician does now, and the tendency of the opinion of their time was to keep them in the good method. "

Is this not too narrow and sweeping a judgment? The art of portraiturecertainly did not die with the Venetian painters of 1550, however greattheir work; and if there be but "one living painter" who can treatportrait art like the early Venetians, there are scores of artists whoachieve signal success by other methods of treatment. 

At all events, these three men, Canova, Thorwaldsen, and Gibson, workedwith the conviction that art is service. With Victor Hugo, Canova couldhave said: "Genius is not made for genius; it is made for men.... Lethim have wings for the infinite provided he has feet for the earth, andthat, after having been seen flying, he is seen walking. After he hasbeen seen an archangel, let him be still more a brother.... To be theservant of God in the march of progress--such is the law which regulatesthe growth of genius. "

They worked and taught by this creed. Thorwaldsen, on first arriving inRome, wandered for three years, it is said, among the statues of godsand heroes, like a man in a dream. The atmosphere of the earlier daywhen Titian was employed by the king of Portugal and Raphael by the Popeto create works of great public importance still lingered and exertedover Thorwaldsen, and over all artists susceptible to its subtleinfluence, a peculiar spell. Its power was revealed in his subsequentworks--the "Christ;" the sculptured groups for tombs in St. Peter's andin other churches; the poetic reliefs symbolizing "Day" and "Night;""Ganymede Watering the Eagle;" the "Three Graces, " "Hebe, " and manyothers. 

Among Canova's works his immortal masterpiece is the monumental memorialgroup for the tomb of Pope Clement XIII in St. Peter's. The Pope isrepresented as kneeling in prayer. The modelling of the entire figure isinstinct with expression. The fine and beautiful hands express reverenceand trust. The countenance is pervaded with that peace only known to thesoul that is in complete harmony with the divine power. The Holy Fatherhas taken the tiara from his head and it lies before him on thecushion on which he kneels. Although the entire portrayal of the figurereveals that devotion expressed in the solemn and searching words of thechurch service, "And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies to be a reasonable, holy, and livingsacrifice unto thee, "--although it is the very utmost rendering of thesoul to God, it is yet the deliberate, the joyful, the living acceptanceof divine love and no mere trance of ecstasy. No more wonderful figurein all the range of sculpture has been created than the Clement XIII ofCanova. 

 [Illustration: "THE GENIUS OF DEATH, " DETAIL FROM TOMB OF CLEMENT XIII, ST. PETER'S, ROME Antonio Canova _Page 43_]

The group is completed by two symbolic figures representing Religion andDeath. The former is personified as a female figure holding a cross; thelatter sits with his torch reversed. Grief, but not hopeless anddespairing sorrow, is portrayed; it is the grief companioned by faithwhich ever sees

 "The stars shine through the cypress trees. "

The base of the monument represents a chapel guarded by lions. Pistolesi, the great Italian authority on the sculpture of St. Peter'sand the Vatican galleries, notes that the lions typify the firmness andthe force and the courage, "_la fortezza dell'anima_, " that so signallycharacterized Clement XIII. There is probably no sacred monument in therealm of all modern art which can equal this creation in its delicacy, its lofty beauty, and the noble message that it conveys. 

The oldest art school, the Accadémia di San Luca, founded in 1507 bySixtus, when he called to Rome all the leading artists of Europe toassist in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel, is an organization thatmagically links the present with the days of Canova, Thorwaldsen, andGibson, as it linked them, also, with the remote and historic past. Thefather of the present custodian of the Academy knew Thorwaldsen well. The grandfather of the gifted Italian sculptor, Tadolini (who hasrecently completed the tomb for Pope Leo XIII, placed in the Basilica ofSan Giovanni Laterano), modelled the bust of Thorwaldsen, and in onegallery hangs the great Danish sculptor's portrait, painted by himself. The first director of San Luca was Federigo Zuccaro. In the early yearsof the nineteenth century this Academy was a vital centre of art life, and it is still a school that draws students, although the visitor whodoes not loiter and linger in his Rome may fail to know of this mostalluring place. The San Luca is in the Via Bonella, one of the old, dark, narrow, and gloomy streets of the oldest part of Rome, --a shortstreet of hardly more than two blocks, running between the ViaAlessandra and the Forum. Hawthorne vividly pictures all this old Romewhen he speaks of the "narrow, crooked, intricate streets, souncomfortably paved with little squares of lava that to tread over themis a penitential pilgrimage; so indescribably ugly, moreover; so cold, so alley-like, into which the sun never falls and where a chill windforces its deadly breath into our lungs; the immense seven-storied, yellow-washed hovels, or call them palaces, where all that is dreary indomestic life seems magnified and multiplied; those staircases whichascend from a ground floor of cook shops and cobblers' stalls, stablesand regiments of cavalry, to a middle region of princes, cardinals, andambassadors, and an upper tier of artists just beneath the unattainablesky: ... In which the visitor becomes sick at heart of Italiantrickery, which has uprooted whatever faith in man's integrity had tillthen endured;" the city "crushed down in spirit by the desolation of herruin and the hopelessness of her future;" one recalls these words whenpassing through the unspeakable gloom and horror and desolation andsqualor of ancient Rome. In these surroundings one's cab stops at "No. 44, " and ringing the bell the door is open, whether by super-normalagency or by some invisible terrestrial manipulation one is unable todetermine; but in the semi-darkness of the narrow hall he discernsbefore him a flight of steep stairs, and, as no other vista opens, hereasons that, by the law of exclusion, this must be the appointed way. Along the wall are seen, here and there, some antique casts fromTrajan's Column, and reliefs from Canova and Thorwaldsen. The galleriesabove hold only a small and a comparatively unimportant collection ofpictures. There are marines from Vernet and Claude Lorraine; a "VenusCrowned by the Graces" from Rubens; Giulio Romano's copy of Raphael's"Galatea, "--the original of which (in the Villa Farnesina) representsGalatea surrounded by Nymphs, Cupids, and Tritons, being carried in ashell across the sea. There is a Cupid, and also the "Fortuna" of GuidoReni, --the latter a figure of ineffable grace floating in the air. Oneof Raphael's early works representing "St. Luke Painting the Madonna" ishere. There are several works by Titian, but these have less than wouldbe expected of the glory usually associated with his name; and a Vandykerepresenting the Virgin and Child, with two angels playing, the one on alute, the other on the violin. 

 [Illustration: "LA FORTUNA, " ACCADÉMIA DI SAN LUCA, ROME Guido Reni _Page 47_]

One salon filled with portraits of artists is especially interesting, and that of Thorwaldsen is so feminine in its costume and the parting ofthe hair, that it is almost inevitably mistaken for that of a woman. Guido's graceful "Fortuna" is represented as a female figure flyingthrough the air, her long hair streaming in the wind, and the picturerecalls to one the Greek legend of Opportunity, as told by Kainos. Thelegend runs:--

 "'Of what town is thy sculptor?'

 "'Of Lukzon. '

 "'What is his name?'

 "'Lysippos. '

 "'And thine?'

 "'Opportunity, controller of all things. '

 "'But why standest thou on tiptoe?'

 "'I am always running. '

 "'Why, then, hast thou wings on both feet?'

 "'I fly like the wind. '

 "'But wherefore bearest thou a razor in thy right hand?'

 "'As a sign to men that I am sharper than any steel. '

 "'And why wearest thou thy hair long in front?'

 "'That I may be seized by him who approaches me. '

 "'By Zeus! And thou art bald behind?'

 "'Because once I have passed with my winged feet no one may seize me then. '"

From one landing, on the steep narrow staircase of San Luca, opens theBiblioteca Sarti, an art library of some fifteen thousand volumes. Thesculpture gallery is now closed and can only be entered by specialpermission. This is the more to be regretted as it contains theprincipal collections in Rome of the original casts of the works ofThorwaldsen and Canova. 

The latter-day artists who have been setting up their Lares and Penatesin Rome at various periods during the early and into the later years ofthe nineteenth century have found the Eternal City in strong contrastwith its twentieth-century aspects, however it may have differed fromthe Rome of the Popes. The earlier American artists to seek theSeven-hilled City were painters; and Allston, Copley, and Stuart hadalready distinguished themselves in pictorial art before America hadproduced any sculptor who could read his title clear to fame. It is toHiram Powers (born in Vermont in 1805) that America must look as herfirst sculptor, chronologically considered, closely followed by ThomasCrawford, who was but eight years his junior, and by Horatio Greenough, who was also born in the same year as Powers, and who preceded him inItaly, but whose work has less artistic value. Mr. Greenough has left acolossal (if not an artistic) monument to his gifts in stately shaftmarking Bunker Hill which he designed. Problematic in their claim toartistic excellence as are his "Washington"--a seated figure in thegrounds of the Capitol in Washington--and his group in relief called"The Rescue" in the portico of the Capitol, his name lives by hispersonality as a man of liberal culture and noble character, if not byhis actual rank in art. First of the American group in Italy, he wasfollowed by Powers, who sought the ineffable beauty and enchantment ofFlorence in 1837. Horatio Greenough died in comparatively early life, leaving perhaps the most interesting of his works in a relief (purchasedby Professor George Ticknor, the distinguished historian of Spain)"representing in touching beauty and expression a sculptor in anattitude of dejection and discouragement before his work, while a handfrom above pours oil into his dying lamp, an allegory illustrative ofthe struggles of genius and the relief which timely patronage may extendto it. "

Mr. Powers passed his entire life in Florence. His work attracted greatattention and inspired ardent appreciation. In portrait busts Powers wasespecially successful; and his "Greek Slave, " his "Fisher Boy, " "IlPenseroso, " and "Proserpine" impressed the art-loving public of the timeas marked by strong artistic power and as entitled to permanent rank insculpture. 

Mr. Crawford died young; but his name lives in the majestic bronzestatue of "Beethoven" which is in the beautiful white and gold interiorof Symphony Hall, in Boston; and his "Orpheus" and some other worksclaim high appreciation. Writing of Crawford, Mr. Hillard said:--

 "Crawford's career was distinguished by energy, resolution, and self-reliance. While yet a youth, he formed the determination to make himself an artist; and with this view went to Rome--alone, unfriended, and unknown--and there began a life of toil and renunciation; resisting the approaches alike of indolence and despondency. His strength of character and force of will would have earned distinction for powers inferior to his. Nothing was given to self-indulgence; nothing to vague dreams; nothing to unmanly despair. He did not wait for the work that he would have, but labored cheerfully upon that which he could have. Success came gradually, but surely; and his powers as surely proved themselves to be more than equal to the demand made upon them. "

On the death of Mr. Crawford, Thomas William Parsons wrote a memorialpoem in which this stanza occurs:--

 "O Rome! what memories awake, When Crawford's name is said, Of days and friends for whose dear sake That path of Hades unto me Will have no more of dread Than his own Orpheus felt, seeking Eurydice! O Crawford! husband, father, brother Are in that name, that little word! Let me no more my sorrow smother; Grief stirs me, and I must be stirred. "

Thomas Ball, who went in early manhood to Florence, where he remaineduntil when nearly at the age of fourscore he returned to his nativeland, still continues, at the age of eighty-five, to pursue the art heloves. He has created works, as his equestrian statue of "Washington" inthe Public Gardens and his "Lincoln Freeing the Slave" in Park Square, both in Boston; his great Washington Memorial group in Methuen, Massachusetts; his "Christ Blessing Little Children, " and many otherhistoric and ideal sculptures, that seem endowed with his beautiful andwinning spirit as well as with his rare gifts. Larkin G. Mead choseFlorence rather than Rome for his home and work. His noble "River God, "placed at the head of the Mississippi near St. Paul, as well as otherinteresting creations, link his name with that of his native land. Randolph Rogers, a man of genius; Rinehart, Paul Akers, and Thompson alldied before the full maturity of their powers; Akers at the early age ofthirty-six, leaving, as his bride of a year, the poet, Elizabeth AkersAllen, who, under the _nom de plume_ of "Florence Percy, " has endearedherself to all lovers of lyric art. In a monograph on Paul Akers, written after his death, the writer says of his studio in Rome:--

 "Linked with this studio is Hawthorne's tale of 'The Marble Faun, ' as Kenyon's studio was none other than Paul Akers's. Though Hawthorne in his romance saw fit to lay the scene in the rooms once occupied by Canova, it was in the Via del Crecie that he wove the thread of his Italian romance. 

 "Paul Akers's growing reputation and increase of work ere long made it necessary for him to seek a more commodious studio, and he took rooms once occupied by the famous Canova. Here he had made under his supervision copies in marble of many of the famous works of the Vatican and the Capitol. The largest collection of these was a commission from Mr. Edward King of Newport, and among them were busts of Ariadne, Demosthenes, and Cicero, and a facsimile of the 'Dying Gladiator' which Mr. King presented to the Redwood Library of Newport. 

 * * * * *

 "During his first winter in Rome he was permitted by the authorities to make a cast of a mutilated bust of Cicero which had long lain in the Vatican. A critic writing from Rome in 1857 says of this bust of Cicero: 'Mr. Akers obtained permission to take a cast from it; he then restored the eye, brow, and ears, and modelled a neck and bust for it in accordance with the temperament shown by the nervous and rather thin face. He has succeeded admirably. It is the very head of the Vatican, yet without the scars of envious time, and sits gracefully on human shoulders, instead of being rolled awkwardly back upon a shelf. ' This bust is unlike the portrait which so long passed for Cicero's, but has been identified by means of a medal which was struck by the Magnesians in honor of the great orator during his consulate, and is now the authorized portrait of Cicero. The finest of Paul Akers's creations executed during his stay in Rome are 'St. Elizabeth of Hungary, ' which represents the princess at the moment the roses have fallen to the ground; 'Una and the Lion, ' an illustration of the line in Spenser's 'Faerie Queene, '--

 'Still while she slept he kept both watch and ward;'

 the head of Milton and the 'Pearl Diver. ' The 'Pearl Diver, ' now owned by the city of Portland, represents a youth stretched upon a sea-worn rock and wrapped in eternal sleep. The arms are thrown above the head, and about the waist is a net containing pearl-bearing shells for which he has risked his life. There is no trace of suffering; all is subdued to beauty. It is death represented as the ancients conceived it, the act of the torch-reverting god. This youth, who has lost his life at the moment when all that for which he had dared was within his grasp, suggests Paul Akers's own untimely death on the eve of his triumph. "

It was from his Roman studio that Mr. Akers wrote to a friend:--

 "Yesterday Browning called. He looked a long time at my Milton, and said it was Milton, the man-angel. He praised the wealth of hair which I had given the head, and then said that Mrs. Browning had a lock of Milton's hair, the only one now in existence. This was given her by Leigh Hunt, just before his death, who had the records proving it to be genuine. The hair was, he said, like mine. He invited me to visit him in Florence, where he would show me the first edition of Milton's poems, marked to indicate the peculiar accent which the poet sometimes adopted, a knowledge of which makes clear somewhat that otherwise seems discordant. Milton was so great a musician that there could have been no fault in sound in his compositions. He looked over my books; said my edition of Shelley was one which he had corrected for the press, not from a knowledge of the original MS. , but from his internal evidence that so it must have been; said Poe was a wonderful man; spoke of Tennyson in the warmest terms. Took up a copy of his own poems published in the United States, and remarked that it was better than the English edition, yet had some awful blunders, and wished me to allow him to correct a copy for me. My head of the 'Drowned Girl' caught his eye and interested him. I told him that I had thought of Hood's 'Bridge of Sighs. ' He then said that Hood wrote that on his deathbed, and read it to him before any one else had seen it. Hood was doubtful whether it was worth publishing. To-morrow Mrs. Browning is to come; she has been quite ill since she came to Rome, and I have seen her but once. I derive much comfort from the friendship of Charlotte Cushman. She has just gone from here. She has frequent breakfast parties; I have attended but one. Mr. And Mrs. James T. Fields, Wild, the painter, and myself were the guests. Fields I like much. "

The first works of Mr. Akers were two portrait busts, of Longfellow andof Samuel Appleton. Of his bust of Milton, Hawthorne in the "MarbleFaun" has said:--

 "In another style, there was the grand, calm head of Milton, not copied from any one bust or picture, yet more authentic than any of them, because all known representations of the poet had been profoundly studied and solved in the artist's mind. The bust over the tomb in Greyfriar's Church, the original miniatures and pictures wherever to be found, had mingled each its special truth in this one work--wherein likewise by long perusal and deep love of 'Paradise Lost, ' the 'Comus, ' the 'Lycidas, ' and 'L'Allegro, ' the sculptor had succeeded even better than he knew in spiritualizing his marble with the poet's mighty genius. And this was a great thing to have achieved, such a length of time after the dry bones and dust of Milton were like those of any other dead man. "

Richard Greenough and the painter, Mr. Haseltine, were prominent figuresamong the early American group of the nineteenth-century artists inRome. There came Emma Stebbins, who modelled a fine portrait bust ofCharlotte Cushman; and Anne Whitney, whose statues of Samuel Adams andof Leif Ericson adorn public grounds in Boston; whose life-size statueof Harriet Martineau is the possession of Wellesley College; and whose"Chaldean Astronomer, " "Lotus-Eater, " and "Roma"--a figure personifyingthe Rome of Pio Nono--reveal her power in ideal creation. 

The name of Harriet Hosmer stands out in brilliant pre-eminence amongthose of all women who have followed the plastic art. Her infinite charmof personality seems to impart itself to her work, and she has the giftto make friends as well as to call forms out of clay--the success offriendship being one even more permanently satisfying. In her early lifeas a girl hardly more than twenty, she sought Rome, living with art asher chaperon. Her versatility, her picturesque individuality, and herimaginative power all combined to win sympathetic recognition. Gibson, whose guidance was particularly well adapted to develop her gifts, received her into his own studio and took a deep interest in her work. It was during the period of her early efforts that Hawthorne was inRome, and she is graphically depicted in his notebooks in her boyish capat work in the clay. Gibson was an artist, _con amore_, and MissHosmer's joyous abandon to her art captivated his sympathy. "In my artwhat do I find?" he questioned; "happiness; love which does not depressme; difficulties which I do not fear; resolution which never abates;flights which carry me above the ground; ambition which tramples no onedown. " Master and pupil were akin in their unwearied devotion to art. OfGibson, whose absence of mind regarding all the details of life made himalmost helpless in travel and affairs, Miss Hosmer used gleefully to saythat he "was a god in his studio, but God help him out of it!" Thisglancing sprite of a girl, frightening her friends by her daring andventurous horseback riding; gravitating by instinct to offer somegenerous, tender aid to the sick, the destitute, or the helpless; thelife and light of gay dinners and of social evenings; working from sixin the morning till night in her studio, "with an absence ofpretension, " says Mrs. Browning, "and simplicity of manners which accordrather with the childish dimples in her rosy cheeks than with her broadforehead and high aims, " had the magic gift that merged her visitors andpatrons into enthusiastic friends; and Mrs. Browning has chronicled thepretty scene when Lady Marion Alford, the daughter of the Earl ofNorthumberland, knelt before the girl artist and slipped on her fingera ring--a precious ruby set with diamonds--as a token of her devotion. Reading Miss Hosmer's life still further backward, the reader istransported, as if on some magic carpet, to St. Louis, in the UnitedStates, where a noble and lofty man, Hon. Wayman Crow, --a generousfriend, a liberal patron of the arts, a man of the most refined tastesand culture, whose great qualities were always used in highservice, --first aided Miss Hosmer to the preliminary studies in her art, and whose accomplished and lovely daughters (now Mrs. Lucien Carr ofBoston, Mrs. Edwin Cushman of Newport and Rome, and Mrs. Emmons ofLeamington, England) were as a trio of sisters to the young artist. And"the flowing conditions of life" bear on this lifelong friendship untila fair young girl, Élise (the daughter of Mrs. Emmons), catches up thissweet tie and as an accomplished and lovely young woman in Romansociety, when these "flowing conditions" had come down even into theseason of 1906-7, Miss Emmons cherished the fame of Harriet Hosmer andenjoyed the privilege of a constant correspondence with thedistinguished artist. So the past links itself again with the present;and who can tell where any story in life begins or ends in the constantevolutionary progress?

Miss Hosmer's work attracted wide attention. Her majestic statue of"Zenobia;" the winsome "Puck;" the impressive statue of "BeatriceCenci, " representing her as she lay in her cell in Castel San Angelo thenight before her execution, --these and other works of hers are of aninteresting character and will hold their permanent rank in sculpture. 

Were all the muses present at the christening of William WetmoreStory--sculptor, musician, poet and painter, jurist and man of letters, and the friend whose social relationships made life a thing of beauty--

 "To winds and waterfalls, And autumn's sunlit festivals, To music and to music's thoughts Inextricably bound"?

Mr. Story made his first visit to Italy in 1847; not at that time withany fixed purpose of exchanging his profession of the law for art. Heloved literature, and his grace and ease in expression had alreadymanifested his literary talent; he had an inclination towardmodelling--it could hardly, at this time, have been called by a strongername--and curiously enough with him the usual conditions were reversedand he received a commission for a statue of his father, Judge Story, before he had made any definite turning toward the art of sculpture. Ayoung man of versatile gifts and accomplished scholarship, sculpture wasto him one among the many attractive forms of art rather than thesupreme attraction; and it was the stimulus of the given work thatdetermined him as a sculptor, rather than his determination to be asculptor that determined the work. Among the goddesses of life Destinymust, perhaps, be allowed a place. At all events, after Mr. Story'sinitial glance at Italy, he sought Rome again a year later, and thistime it was his choice for life, however unrevealed to his eye were theresplendent years that lay before him. He had fallen under the spell ofthe Magic Land. In a letter to Lowell, Mr. Story had questioned how heshould ever endure again "the restraint and bondage of Boston. " It wasthe picturesque Rome of the Popes that he first knew. The years of1848-49 were those of revolutionary activities in Italy. Pio Nono, oneof the most saintly and beloved of the Popes, --whose mortal form nowrests in that richly decorated chapel in old San Lorenzo, _fuori lemura_, on the site of the church that Constantine founded on the burialplace of St. Lawrence, --made his flight to Gaeta and the Roman republicwas established. It was a dramatic scene when Pio Nono returned (April12, 1850), entering Rome by the Porta San Giovanni. The scene from thisgate was then, as now, one of the most impressive in the Eternal City. 

It was in this vast Basilica of San Giovanni Laterano that Pio Nonoentered that April day, leaving his carriage and walking alone to thealtar, where he knelt in devotion. A splendid procession awaited withoutto accompany the Holy Father to the Papal Palace. The superb statecarriages conveyed princes and foreign ambassadors and great nobles. From the Piazza San Giovanni to St. Peter's every house was illuminated, and the populace cheered and waved until the very air vibrated withsound and color. These were the days when the methods of government werea visible spectacle, a drama, making the life in Rome a dailyilluminated missal. 

The Storys, on their return to Italy, located themselves for a time inFlorence, where they met the Brownings, and that lifelong friendshipbetween the poet and the sculptor was initiated. In these happyFlorentine days Mr. Story worked in his studio while his wife read tohim the life of Keats, then just issued, written by Monckton Milnes, later Lord Houghton. But the "flowing conditions" soon bore them onwardto Rome, where they settled themselves in the Via Porta Pinciana, andmet the Crawfords, who were domiciled in the Villa Negroni. In theseRoman days, too, appeared Mr. Cropsey, of poetic landscape fame, andhere, too, was Margaret Fuller. Mazzini was then a leading figure in theChamber of Deputies, --"the prophet not only of modern Italy, but of themodern world. " He found Italy "utilitarian and materialistic, permeatedby French ideas, and weakened by her reliance on French initiative. Hewas filled with hope that Italy might not only achieve her own unity, but might once more accomplish, as she had in the Rome of the Cæsars andthe Rome of the Church, the unity of the Western world. 'On my side Ibelieve, ' he says, 'that the great problem of the day was a religiousproblem, to which all other questions were but secondary. '" He wasasserting that "we cannot relate ourselves to the Divine, but throughcollective humanity. It is not by isolated duty (which indeed theconditions of modern life render more and more impossible), nor bycontemplation of mere Power as displayed in the material world, that wecan develop our nature. It is rather by mingling with the universallife, and by carrying on the evolution of the never-ending work. "

The studios of Mr. Crawford in those days were in the Piazza delleTerme, near the Baths of Diocletian. William Page, the painter, wasdomiciled on the slope of the Quirinal where he painted a portrait ofCharlotte Cushman which Mrs. Browning described as "a miracle"; one ofMrs. Crawford; the head of Mrs. Story, which he insisted upon presentingto her husband; and a magnificent portrait of Browning which the artistpresented to Mrs. Browning. "Both of us, " wrote Robert Browning of thisgift, "would have fain escaped being the subjects of such princelygenerosity; but there was no withstanding his delicacy andnoble-mindedness. " Mrs. Jameson was much in Rome in the early years ofthe 1850-60 decade, living in the old port by the Tiber nearly oppositeto the new and splendid building of the law courts. Near the TarpeianRock Frederika Bremer had perched, in a tiny room of which she took allthe frugal care, even to washing the blue cups and plates when sheinvited the Hawthornes to a tea of a simplicity that suggested, indeed, the utmost degree of "light" housekeeping. Thomas Buchanan Read was oneof the hosts and guests of this social group, and it was at a dinner hegave that Hawthorne met Gibson, whose conversational talents wereevidently (upon that occasion) chiefly employed in contemning thepre-Raphaelite school of painters and emphasizing the need of sculptorsto discover and to follow the principles of the Greeks, --"a fairdoctrine, but one which Mr. Gibson fails to practise, " observesHawthorne. The Brownings were variously bestowed in Rome throughsucceeding winters, --in the Bocca di Leone, in the Via del Tritone andelsewhere. Mrs. Browning, as her "Casa Guida Windows" and many otherpoems attest, took always the deepest interest in Italian politics. American and English friends come and go, but the little group ofresidents and the more permanent sojourners, as the Hawthornes and theBrownings, continue their daily variations on life in the social dinnersand teas, the excursions and the sight-seeing of the wonderful city. 

Only the magician could "call up the vanished past again" and summoninto an undeniable materialization those charming figures to come forthout of the shadowy air of the rich, historic past, and stand before usin the full light of contemporary attention. Not alone this group ofchoice persons, but the environment of their time, the very atmosphere, are demanded of this necromancy. The figure of Adelaide Kemble (Mrs. Sartoris) is one of these, and the tradition still survives of a concertgiven in the splendid, spacious hall of the Palazzo Colonna where shewas the prima donna of the occasion. There were also musicals at thehouse of Mrs. Sartoris, where the guests met her famous sister, FannyKemble. Mrs. Browning was fond of both the sisters, and said of themthat their social brilliancy was their least distinction. She foundthem both "noble and sympathetic, " and her "dear Mr. Page" and "Hatty"(Miss Hosmer) "an immense favorite with us both, " she said of herhusband and herself; these and the Storys made up the special circle forthe Brownings in Rome. "The Sartoris house has the best society inRome, " writes Mrs. Browning to Miss Mitford, "and exquisite music, ofcourse. We met Lockhart there and my husband sees a good deal of him.... A little society, " she says, "is good for soul and body, and on theContinent it is easy to get a handful of society without paying too dearfor it. This is an advantage of Continental life. "

Mrs. Browning greatly admired the work of Mr. Page, whose portraits shefound "like Titian's. " But the tinted statues of Gibson seemed to herinartistic. His famous painted Venus she called "pretty, " but only as awax doll might be, not as a work of genuine art. Then Thackeray and histwo daughters came; Miss Anne (now known to the world of literature asAnne Thackeray Ritchie) was a special favorite with Mrs. Browning. 

Coming to Rome at one time from Florence in midwinter, the Browningsfound that the Storys had taken an apartment for them (in the Via Boccadi Leone), and they arrived to find lighted fires and lamps. Theirjourney had included a week's visit at Assisi, studying the rich art ofCimabue and Giotto in the church of the great Franciscan monastery. Mrs. Browning visited studios in Rome and found that of Mr. Crawford moreinteresting to her than Mr. Gibson's, but no artist is "as near" to her, as she herself says, as Mr. Page. The Storys left the Porta Pinciana tolive at No. 93 in the Piazza di Spagna, and in the same house with theBrownings, in the Bocca di Leone, Mr. Page had his apartment. To Lowell, Mr. Story wrote of the Brownings:--

 "The Brownings and we became great friends in Florence, and, of course, we could not become friends without liking each other. He, Emelyn says, is like you. He is of my size, but slighter, with straight black hair, small eyes, a smooth face, and manner nervous and rapid. He has great vivacity, but not the least humor; some sarcasm, considerable critical faculty, and very great frankness and friendliness of manner and mind. Mrs. Browning will sit buried up in a large easy-chair listening and talking very quietly and pleasantly. Very unaffected is she.... I have hundreds of statues in my head, but they are in the future tense. Powers I knew very well in Florence. He is a man of great mechanical talent and natural strength of perception, but with no poetry in his composition, and I think no creative power.... I have been to hear Allegri's 'Miserere' in the Sistine Chapel, with the awful and mighty figures of Michael Angelo looking down from the ceiling; to hear Guglielmi's 'Miserere' in St. Peter's, while the gloom of evening was gathering in the lofty aisles and shrouding the frescoed domes, was a deeply affecting and solemnly beautiful experience. Never can one forget the plaintive wailing of the voices that seemed to implore pity and pardon. "

It was in 1856 that the Storys located themselves in Palazzo Barberini, which Bernini designed and which was built "out of the quarry of theColiseum" by Urban VIII. It is one of the wonderful old palaces ofRome, --this mass of Barberini courts, gardens, terraces, and vastapartments, with the interminable winding stairs, where on one landingThorwaldsen's lion lies before the great doors decorated with the armsof Popes and princes. Here the old Cardinal Barberini lived his stormylife; here are the gallery and the library, --the latter stored withinfinite treasures of ancient documents, old maps whose portrayal of theearth bears little resemblance to the present, and famous manuscriptsand volumes in old vellum, some fifty thousand in all. In the Barberinigallery are a few noted works, --Raphael's "Fornarina, " Guido's "BeatriceCenci, " a "Holy Family" by Andrea del Sarto, and others. 

 [Illustration: SPANISH STEPS, PIAZZA TRINITÀ DEI MONTI, ROME _Page 72_]

The Via delle Quattro Fontane, on which the Palazzo Barberini stands, might well be known as the street of the wonderful vista. One strollsdown it to the Via Sistina and to Piazza Trinità de' Monti at the headof the Spanish steps (the Scala di Spagna), pausing for the lovelinessof the view. Across the city rises the opposite height of Monte Mario, and to the left the Janiculum, now crowned with the magnificentequestrian statue of Garibaldi, which is in evidence from almost everypart of Rome. As far as the eye can see the Campagna stretches away, infinite as the sea--a very Campagna Mystica. The luminous air, thefaint, misty blue of the distance, the deep purple shadows on the hills, make up a landscape of color. At the foot of the Spanish steps theflower venders spread out their wares, --great bunches of theflame-colored roses peculiar to Italy, the fragrant white hyacinths, golden jonquils, baskets of violets, and masses of lilies of the valley. 

On many a night of brilliant moonlit glory the artistic sojourners inRome lingered on the parapet of the Pincian Hill watching the moonlightflood the Eternal City until churches and palaces seemed to swim in asea of silver. Or in the morning, when the rose-red of dawn was aglow, there seemed to hover over the city that wraith of mist whose secretClaude Lorraine surprises in his landscapes. These dawn visions ofmysterious, incredible beauty are a part of the very identity of Rome. 

There were mornings when the Hawthornes with Mrs. Jameson or some otherfriend would drive out to the old San Lorenzo (_fuori le mura_), thechurch founded by Constantine in 330 on the site where the body of St. Lawrence was buried. At various periods the church was enlarged andfinally, as recently as in 1864, Pio Nono had great improvements madeunder the architect Vespignani. In the piazza in front was placed animmense column of red granite, some sixty feet high, with the statue ofSt. Lawrence, a standing figure, at the top. It is most impressive. Thecolonnade at the entrance of the church is decorated with frescoes andcontains two immense sarcophagi, whose sides are beautifully sculpturedwith reliefs. The roof is supported by six Ionic columns. Entering thechurch one finds an interior of three aisles divided by colossal columnsof Oriental granite. In the middle aisle, on both sides the galleries, are fresco paintings illustrating the martyrdom of St. Lawrence and ofSt. Stephen, one series on the right and the other on the left. One ofthese paintings, especially, of the life of St. Lawrence, is strangelyhaunting to the imagination. It represents the youthful, slender figure, nude, save for slight drapery, laid on the gridiron while the fire isbeing kindled under it and the fagots shovelled in. The physicalshrinking of the flesh--of every nerve--from the torture, the spiritualstrength and invincible energy of the countenance, are wonderfullydepicted. The great aisle was painted by order of Pius IX by CesareFracassini; in it are two pulpits of marble. A double staircase ofmarble conducts to that part of the Basilica of Constantine which byHonorius III was converted into the presbytery. It is decorated at theupper end by twelve columns of violet marble which rise from the levelof the primitive basilica beneath. At the end is the ancient pontificalseat, adorned with mosaic and precious marbles. The papal altar is undera canopy in the Byzantine style. The pavement of this presbytery isworthy of particular attention. Descending to the confessional which isunder the high altar the tomb of the martyred saints, Lawrence, Stephen, and Justin, is found. 

 [Illustration: TOMB OF PIO NONO, SAN LORENZO (FUORI LE MURA), ROME _Page 75_]

It was the request of Pio Nono that his mortal body should rest here, where it is placed in a simple tomb, according to his own instructions;but the chapel is very rich in decoration which was paid for by moneysent from all parts of the world. 

The chapel walls are entirely encrusted in mother-of-pearl, gilt bronze, and beautiful marbles. The mosaic paintings are formed of gold andprecious stones of fabulous value. This interior is perhaps the richestin the world in its decoration. San Lorenzo is a patriarchal church, andone of the seven pilgrimage churches of Rome. Near San Lorenzo is theCampo Verano, a cemetery containing many beautiful memorial sculptures. 

In those days, half a century ago, the entrance most often used byvisitors to Rome was through the Via Flaminia and the Porta del Popolo, opening on the Piazza del Popolo, rather the most picturesque andimpressive place in all Rome. On the left is the Pincian Hill (MontePincio), with its rich terraces, balustrades, its beautiful porticosfilled with statuary, its groves of cypress and ilex trees; a classicvision rising on the sight and enchanting the imagination. On the sideopposite the Porta three roads diverge in fan shape--the Via Babuino, the Corso, and the Ripetta, with the "twin churches" side by side; onebetween the Babuino and the Corso, the other between the Corso and theRipetta. 

The Corso (which was the ancient Flaminian Way) runs straight to thePiazza Venezia at the foot of the Capitoline Hill. This Piazza delPopolo was widened and decorated by Pius VII. It is formed by twosemicircles, adorned with fountains and statues, and terminated by foursymmetrical edifices. In the semicircles are colossal groups in marble, and a road opposite the Pincio leads to the Ponte Margherita and thePrati di Castello. 

The obelisk in the centre of the piazza was brought to Rome fromHeliopolis by Cæsar Augustus and originally stood in the Circus Maximus. It was erected here by Pope Sixtus V, and it is nearly a hundred feet inheight. It is formed of red granite, and while it has been broken inthree places, the hieroglyphics are still legible. This obelisk wasfirst erected in Egypt as a part of the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, in a period preceding that of Rameses II. After the battle of Actium, Augustus transported it to Rome, and it was first placed in the CircusMaximus, but during the reign of Valentinian it fell from its pedestaland lay buried in the earth, until in the sixteenth century Pope SixtusV had it placed in the centre of the Piazza del Popolo, and consecratedit to the cross. The two inscriptions are on opposite sides. One thusreads:--

 "The Emperor Cæsar, son of the divine Cæsar Augustus, Sovereign Pontiff, twelve times Emperor, eleven times Consul, fourteen times Tribune, having conquered Egypt, consecrated this gift to the Sun. "

The other inscription is as follows:--

 "Sixtus V, Sovereign Pontiff, excavated, transported, and restored this obelisk, sacrilegiously consecrated to the Sun by the great Augustus, in the great Circus, where it lay in ruins, and dedicated it to the cross triumphant in the fourth year of his pontificate. "

The Church of Santa Maria del Popolo is built into the very wall ofMonte Pincio on the site of Nero's tomb. It dates back to 1099, andconsists of three naves and several chapels. In the first chapel is a"Nativity" by Pinturicchio, who also painted the lunettes. Anotherchapel belongs to the Cibo family, and is rich in marbles and adornedwith sixteen columns of Sicilian jasper. The "Conception" is by Maratta, the "Martyrdom of St. Lawrence" by Morandi, and the "St. Catherine" byVolterra. The "Visitation" was sculptured by Bernini in 1679. The thirdchapel is painted by Pinturicchio (1513), and the fourth has aninteresting bas-relief of the fifteenth century. The picture of theVirgin, on the high altar, is one of those attributed to St. Luke; thepaintings on the vault of the choir are by Pinturicchio. The two marblemonuments are, from their perfection of design and execution, reckonedamong the best modern works. They are by Cantucci da S. Savino. In thechapel following is an "Assumption" by Annibale Carracci; the sidepictures are by Caravaggio. The last chapel but one in the small nave isthe Chigi chapel, and is one of the most celebrated in Rome. 

Raphael gave the designs for the dome, the paintings of the frieze, andthe altar picture. This latter was begun by Del Piombo and finished bySalviati. The statue of Daniel is by Bernini. The front of the altar andthe statues of Jonah and Elijah were done by Lorenzetto (1541), fromdesigns by Raphael. Outside this chapel is the monument of PrincessOdescalchi Chigi (1771), by Paolo Posi. The stained windows of the choirbelong to the fourteenth century, and in the sacristy and the vestibuleare monuments also of the fourteenth century and of the fifteenth. Luther resided in the convent attached to this church when he was inRome. 

There is a legend that a large walnut tree grew on the site of Nero'stomb in whose branches innumerable crows had their home, and that theydevastated all that part of Rome. An appeal was made to the Virgin, whodeclared that the crows were demons who kept watch over the ashes ofNero, and ordered the tree to be cut down and burned, the ashes beingscattered to the air, and that, on the spot, a church should be built toher honor. This was accomplished, and the crows no more troubled theEternal City. 

The gardens of Lucullus were on the Monte Pincio. The view of theterraced hillside from the Piazza del Popolo is one of the mostimpressive in Rome. 

The Hawthornes left Rome in 1859; and the death of Mrs. Browning in Juneof 1861 left the little circle of the Roman winters irreparably broken. "Returning to Rome, " wrote Story to Charles Eliot Norton, "I have notone single intimate ... No one with whom I can walk any of the higherranges of art and philosophy. " Mr. Story had modelled the busts of bothMr. And Mrs. Browning during their sojourns in Rome; in 1853 HarrietHosmer had made the cast of the "clasped hands" of the poets, the modelhaving since been cast in bronze; Mr. Page had, as already noted, painted a portrait of Robert Browning; and Mr. Leighton (afterward SirFrederick) had made a beautiful portrait sketch of Mrs. Browning. Inlater years all these memorials, with other paintings or plasticsketches of the wedded poets, were grouped in Mr. Barrett Browning'spalace in Venice. 

At this time Mr. Story had completed his "Cleopatra, " which Hawthornehad embalmed in literary mention in "The Marble Faun;" and beside his"Judith, " "Sappho, " and other lesser works, he had achieved one of hisfinest successes in the "Libyan Sibyl. " Both the "Cleopatra" and the"Sibyl" became famous. Whether they would produce so strong an effect atthe present stage of twentieth-century life is a problem, but one thatneed not press for solution. Mr. Story was singularly fortunate incertain conditions that grouped themselves about his life and combinedto establish his fame. These conditions, of course, were largely theouter reflection of inner qualities, as our conditions are apt to be;still, the "lack of favoring gales" not infrequently foredooms somegallant bark to a disastrous course. 

 "Man is his own star.... 

 * * * * *

 Our acts, our angels, are, for good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk by us still, "

it is true; yet has not Edith Thomas embodied something of thatoverruling destiny that every thoughtful observer must discern in lifein these lines?--

 "You may blame the wind or no, But it ever hath been so-- Something bravest of its kind Leads a frustrate life and blind, For the lack of favoring gales Blowing blithe on other sails. "

Only occasionally have we

 "... The time, and the place, And the loved one all together. "

Mr. Story's nature was eminently sympathetic with the other arts; he washimself almost as much a literary man as he was a sculptor; he was thefriend and companion of literary men, and to the fact that art in themiddle years of the nineteenth century was far more a literary topicthan a matter of critical scrutiny, Mr. Story owed an incalculabledegree of his fame. He was an extremely interesting figure with hissocial grace, his liberal culture, and his versatile gifts. His life wascentred in choice and refined associations. If not dowered with loftyand immortal original genius, he had a singular combination of talent, of fastidious taste, and of the intellectual appreciation that enabledhim to select interesting ideal subjects to portray in the plastic art. These appealed to the special interest of his literary friends and werewidely discussed in the press and periodicals of the day. It is a_bonmot_ of contemporary studio life that Hawthorne rather than Storycreated the "Cleopatra, " and one ingenious spirit suggests that as Mr. Story put nothing of expression or significance into his statues, thebeholder could read into them anything he pleased; finding an emptymould, so to speak, into which to pour whatever image or embodiment hemight conjure up from the infinite realm of imagination. One of thelatest of these contemporary critics declares that "Story declinedappreciably, year by year, falling away from his own standard; hauntedto the point of obsession by visions of mournful female figures, generally seated, wrapped in gloom. It seems strange, " this criticcontinues, "that so active a mind should dream of nothing but brooding, sinister souls, of bodies bowed in grief, or tense with rage. Neveronce, apparently, did there come to him a vision of buoyancy and grace;of a beauty that one could love; of good cheer and joy of very living;always these unwholesome creatures born of that belated Byronicromanticism. "

This criticism, while it has as little appreciation of Mr. Story'sexquisite culture and of the taste and refinement of his art as thegeneral rush of the motor car and telephonic conversational life of thefirst decade of the twentieth century has of the thoughtful, the poetic, the leisurely atmosphere of Mr. Story's time, is yet not without a keenflashlight of truth. Painting had its reactionary crisis from thepre-Raphaelite ideals and the _intransigeants_ have had their ownconflicts in which they survived, or disappeared, according to thedegree of artistic vitality within. Sculpture and literature must alsomeet the series of tests to which the onward progress of life persistsin subjecting them, and those who are submerged and perish can onlyencourage the survivors as did the Greeks, as sung by Theocritus:--

 "A shipwrecked sailor, buried on this coast, Bids you set sail. Full many a gallant ship, when we were lost, Weathered the gale. "

"As we refine, our checks grow finer, " said Emerson. As life becomesmore elaborate and ambitious, the critical tests increase. Contemporaryfame can be created for the artist by favorable contemporary comment;but it rests with himself, after all; it rests in the abidingsignificance of his work--or the lack of it--as to whether this fame isperpetuated. That of Mr. Story does not hold within itself all thequalities that insure the appreciation of the present day. It is, as thecritic of the hour expresses himself, "too literary, "--too largely aquestion of classic titles which appealed to the mid-nineteenth-centuryauthors whose judgment of art the twentieth century finds particularlyamusing. Henry James has somewhere held up to ridicule the early BeaconHill Boston for its impassioned devotion to the "attenuated outlines" ofFlaxman's art. But the work of Story will survive all transientvariations of opinion, even of the present realistic age; for is nottrue realism, after all, to be found in the eternal ideals of truth, grace, dignity, refinement, significance, and beauty? These qualitieshave a message to convey; and no one can study with sympatheticappreciation any sculpture of William Wetmore Story without feeling thatthe work has something to say; that it is not a mere reproduction ofsome form, but is, rather, an idea impersonated, and therefore it haslife, it has significance. The criticism of the immediate hour is notnecessarily infallible because it is contemporary. What does WilliamWatson say?

 "A deft musician does the breeze become Whenever an Æolian harp it finds; Hornpipe and hurdy-gurdy both are dumb Unto the most musicianly of winds. "

It is an irretrievable loss if, in the passion for the _vita nuova_, ageneration, or a century, shall substitute for the Æolian harp the merehornpipe and hurdy-gurdy of the hour. In another of his keenly criticalquatrains William Watson embodies this signal truth:--

 "His rhymes the poet flings at all men's feet, And whoso will may trample on his rhymes. Should Time let die a song that's pure and sweet, The singer's loss were more than matched by Time's. "

Art is progressive, and the present is always the "heir of all the ages"preceding; but it cannot be affirmed that it invariably makes the bestuse of its rich inheritance. 

There are latter-day sculptors who excel in certain excellences thatStory lacked; still, it would not be his loss, but our own, if we failin a due recognition of that in his art which may appeal to theimagination; for, whatever the enthusiasms of other cults may be, thereare qualities of beauty, strength, and profound significance in the artof Story that must insure their permanent recognition. Still, it remainstrue that Mr. Story owes his fame in an incalculable degree to thefriendly pens of Hawthorne and others of his immediate circle, --Lowell, Motley, Charles Eliot Norton, Thackeray, Browning, --friends who, according to the latest standards of art criticism, were not unqualifiednor absolute judges of art, but who were in sympathy with idealexpression and recognized this as embodied in the statues of Story. 

Browning wrote to the London _Times_ an article on Mr. Story's work, inwhich he conjured up most of the superlative phrases of commendationthat the limits of the English language allow to praise his work, noneof whose marshalled force was too poor to do him reverence. Theversatile gifts of Story's personality drew around him friends whoseinfluence was potent and, indeed, authoritative in their time. 

Still, any analysis of these conditions brings the searcher back to theprimary truth that without the gifts and grace to attract about him aneminent circle of choice spirits he could not have enjoyed this potentaid and inspiration; and thus, that

 "Man is his own star, "

is an assertion that life, as well as poetry, justifies. In the fullblaze of this fundamental truth, it is, not unfrequently, themysterious spiritual tragedy of life that many an one as fine of fibreand with lofty ideals

 "Leads a frustrate life and blind, For the lack of favoring gales Blowing blithe on other sails. "

Mr. Story was himself of too fine an order not to divine this truth. With what unrivalled power and pathos has he expressed it in hispoem--one far too little known--the "Io Victis":--

 "I sing the song of the Conquered, who fell in the Battle of Life, -- The hymn of the wounded, the beaten, who died overwhelmed in the strife; Not the jubilant song of the victors, for whom the resounding acclaim Of nations was lifted in chorus, whose brows wore the chaplet of fame, But the hymn of the low and the humble, the weary, the broken in heart, * * * * *

 Whose youth bore no flower on its branches, whose hopes burned in ashes away, From whose hands slipped the prize they had grasped at, who stood at the dying of day With the wreck of their life all around them.... "

In this poem Mr. Story touched the highest note of his life, --as poet, sculptor, painter, or writer of prose; in no other form of expressionhas he equalled the sublimity of sentiment in these lines:--

 "... I stand on the field of defeat, In the shadow, with those who are fallen, and wounded, and dying, and there

 * * * * *

 Hold the hand that is helpless, and whisper, 'They only the victory win Who have fought the good fight, and have vanquished the demon that tempts us within; Who have held to their faith unseduced by the prize that the world holds on high; Who have dared for a high cause to suffer, resist, fight, --if need be, to die. '"

Such a poem must have its own immortality in lyric literature. 

For a period of forty years the home of the Storys in Palazzo Barberiniwas a noted centre of the most charming social life. Mr. Story'sliterary work--in his contributions of essays and poems to the _AtlanticMonthly_; in his published works, the "Roba di Roma, " "Conversations ina Studio, " his collected "Poems, " and others--gave him a not transitoryrank in literature which rivals, if it does not exceed, his rank inart. 

Meantime other artists were to take up their permanent abode in theSeven-hilled City, --Elihu Vedder in 1866; Franklin Simmons two yearslater; Waldo and Julian Story, the two sons of William Wetmore Story, though claiming Rome as their home, are American by parentage andancestry; and Mr. Waldo Story succeeds his father in pursuing the art ofsculpture in the beautiful studios in the Via San Martino built by theelder Story. In 1902 Charles Walter Stetson, with his gifted wife, knownto the contemporary literary world by her maiden name, Grace ElleryChanning, set up their household gods and lighted their altar fires inthe city by the Tiber, ready, it may be, to exclaim with Ovid:--

 "Four times happy is he, and times without number is happy, Who the city of Rome uninterdicted enjoys. "

 [Illustration: "THE DANCE OF THE PLEIADES" Elihu Vedder _Page 92_]

If art is a corner of the universe seen through a temperament, thetemperament of Mr. Vedder must offer an enthralling study, for it seemsto be a lens whose power of refraction defies prophecy because it dealswith the incalculable forces. His art concerns itself little with theæsthetic, but is chiefly the art of the intellect and the imagination. All manner of symbols and analogies; the laws of the universe thatprevail beyond the stars; the celestial figures; the undreamedsignificance in prophecy or in destiny; omens, signs, and wonders; theworld forces, advancing stealthily in the shadows of a dusky twilight;the Fates, under brilliant skies, gathering in the stars; oracles andsupernatural coincidences that lurk in undreamed-of days; the Pleiadesdancing in a light that never was on sea or land; unknown Shapes thatmeet outside space and time and question each other's identity; the deadthat come forth from their graves and glide, silent and spectral, through a crowd, unseen by any one; the prayer of the celestial powerspoured forth in the utter solitude of the vast desert, --it is these thatare the realm of Vedder's art, and what has the normal world of portraitand landscape to do with such art as this? Can it only be relegated to aclass, an order, of its own, and considered as being--Vedderesque? Itseems to stand alone and unparalleled. In his work lies thetransfiguration of all mystery. Vedder never paints nature, in thesense of landscapes, and yet one often feels that he has the key to thevery creation of nature; that he has supped with gods and surprised thesecrets of the stars. Do the winds whisper to him?--

 "The Muse can knit What is past, what is done, With the web that's just begun. "

How can he find the design to phrase his thought--this painter of ideas?

 "Can blaze be done in cochineal, Or noon in mazarin?"

Whatever the Roman environment may have done for Allston, Page, andStory, there is no question but that to Vedder it has been as his soul'snative air. For him the sirens sing again on the coast; the sorceressworks her spell; the Cumæan Sibyl again flies, wraithlike, over theplain, clasping her rejected leaves of destiny which Tarquin in hisblindness has refused to buy. The Rome that lies buried under the agesrises for Vedder. His art cannot be catalogued under any known divisionof portrait, landscape, marine, or genre, but it is simply--the art ofVedder. It stands alone and absolutely unrivalled. The pictorialcreations of Vedder are as wholly without precedent or comparison as ifthey were the sole pictorial treasures of the world. The visitor maycare for them, or not care, according to his own ability to comprehendand to recognize the inscrutable genius there manifested; but in eithercase he will find nowhere else, in either ancient or contemporary art, any parallel to these works. 

One could well fancy that to any interrogation of his conceptions theartist might reply:--

 "I am seeker of the stone, Living gem of Solomon. But what is land, or what is wave, To me, who only jewels crave?

 * * * * *

 I'm all-knowing, yet unknowing; Stand not, pause not in my going. "

In the rich, weird realm of Omar Khayyam's Persian poem, the Rubaiyat, Mr. Vedder found the opportunity of his life for translating its thoughtinto strange, mystic symbolism. Never were artist and poet so blendedin one as in Vedder's wonderful illustrations for this poem. It hasnothing in common with what we ordinarily call an illustrated work. Itis a great treasure of art for all the ages. It is a very fount ofinspiration for painter and poet. An exquisite sonnet suggested by "TheAngel of the Darker Cup" is the following by Louise Chandler Moulton:--

 "She bends her lovely head to taste thy draught, O thou stern Angel of the Darker Cup! With thee to-night in the dim shades to sup, Where all they be who from that cup have quaffed. She had been glad in her own loveliness, and laughed At Life's strong enemies who lie in wait; Had kept with golden youth her queenly state, All unafraid of Sorrow's threat'ning shaft. 

 "Then human Grief found out her human heart, And she was fain to go where pain is dumb; So Thou wert welcome, Angel dread to see, And she fares onward with thee, willingly, To dwell where no man loves, no lovers part, -- Thus Grief that is, makes welcome Death to come. "

The sonnet, the stanza, and the pictorial interpretation all form onebeautiful trio in poetic and graphic art. 

Writing of Mr. Vedder, Mr. W. C. Brownell speaks of the personal forcein a picture and says that with Vedder this personal force isimagination, --"the imagination of a man whose natural expression ispictorial, but who is a man as well as a painter; who has lived as wellas painted, who has speculated, pondered, and felt much.... It is this, "he continues, "that places Vedder in the front rank of the imaginativepainters of the day. " Of Mr. Vedder's painting called "The Enemy SowingTares, " Mr. Brownell writes:--

 "... Here you note a dozen phases of significance. The theme is unconventional; the man has become the archenemy; the night is weird and awe-inspiring; the tares represent the foe of the church--money; they are sown at the foot of the cross--the symbol of the church.... Mr. Vedder has not passed his life in Rome for nothing. His attitude is in harmony with the spirit of the Sistine and the Stanze. "

One of the interesting and mystical works of Vedder is "The Soul betweenDoubt and Faith, "--three heads, that of the Soul hooded and draped, looking before her with eyes that seem to discern things not seen bymortals; the sinister face of Doubt at the left, the serene, inspiringcountenance of Faith at the right. It is a magical picture to havebefore one with its profoundly significant message. The works of Mr. Vedder will grow more priceless as the years pass by. They are picturesfor the ages. 

In Mr. Ezekiel, another American artist whose almost lifelong home hasbeen in Rome, is a sculptor whose touch and technique have wonrecognition. In a recumbent figure of Christ is seen one of the bestexamples of his art. It is pervaded by the classic influences in whichhe has lived. The studios of Mr. Ezekiel, in the ruins of the old Bathsof Caracalla, are very picturesque and his salon, with its music, itswealth of books including many rare and beautiful copies, and its oldpictures and bric-a-brac, is one of the fascinating interiors of theEternal City. 

The visitor who is privileged to see the Story studios in the Via SanMartino finds Mr. Waldo Story occupying these spacious rooms where theflash of a fountain in the court, a view of the garden, green-walled byvines, with flowers and shrubs and broken statues, make the placealluring to dreamer and poet. In these rooms may be seen many of theelder Story's finest statues in cast or marble, the "Libyan Sibyl, ""Nemesis, " "Sappho, " the "Christ, " "Into the Silent Land, " and others, with many portrait busts, among which are those of Browning, Shelley, Keats, Theodore Parker, Mrs. Browning, Marchesa Peruzzi de Medici (EdithStory), John Lothrop Motley, one of Story's nearer friends, and LordHoughton. 

In the work of Mr. Waldo Story one admirable portrait bust is of CecilRhodes. A decorative work, a fountain for the Rothschild country estatein England, is charmingly designed as a Galatea (in bronze), standing ina marble shell that is drawn by Nereids and attended by Cupids. Thehappy blending of marble and bronze gives to this work a pleasingvariety of color. Another decorative design is that of "Nymphs Drinkingat the Fountain of Love. " These studios are among the most interestingin Rome. 

It was in 1868 that Franklin Simmons, then a young artist from Maine, turned to Rome as his artistic Mecca. Since then the Eternal City hasalways been his home, but his frequent and prolonged sojourns in Americahave kept him closely in touch with its national life. Mr. Simmons isthe idealist who translates his vision into the actuality of the hourand who also exalts this actuality of the hour to the universality ofthe vision. In the creation of portrait busts and of the statues andmonumental memorials of great men he infuses into them the indefinablequality of extended relation which relegates his work to the realm ofthe universal and, therefore, to the immortality of art, rather thanrestricting it to the temporal locality. Louis Gorse observes that it isnot the absence of faults that constitutes a masterpiece, but that it isflame, it is life, it is emotion, it is sincerity. Under the touch ofMr. Simmons the personal accent speaks; to his creative power flame andlife respond, and to no sculptor is the truth so admirably stated by M. Gorse more applicable. 

Mr. Simmons has been singularly fortunate in a wide Americanrecognition, having received a liberal share of the more importantcommissions for great public works of sculpture. The splendid statue, _al fresco_, of the poet Longfellow for his native city, Portland, wasappropriately the work of Mr. Simmons as a native of the same state; theportrait statues of General Grant, Gov. William King, Roger Williams, and Francis H. Pierrepont, all in Statuary Hall in the Capitol inWashington; the portrait busts of Grant, Sheridan, Porter, Hooker, Thomas, and other heroes of the Civil War; the colossal group of theNaval Monument at the head of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, --areall among the works of Mr. Simmons. 

Like all artists who, like the poet, are born and not made, Mr. Simmonsgave evidence of his artistic bent in his early childhood. Aftergraduating from Bates College he modelled a bust of its president, and alittle later, going to Washington (in the winter of 1865-66), many ofthe noted men of the time gave him sittings, and in a series of portraitbusts his genius impressed itself by its dignity of conception and anunusual power of sympathetic interpretation. He modelled the bust ofGrant while he was the General's guest in camp, taking advantage ofwhatever spare minutes General Grant could give for sittings in themidst of his pressing responsibilities; and it is perhaps due to thisunusually intimate intercourse with the great hero, and the _rapport_, not difficult of establishment, between two men whose natures were akinin a certain noble sincerity and lofty devotion to the purest ideals, that Mr. Simmons owes the power with which he has absolutely interpretedthe essential characteristics of General Grant in that immortal portraitstatue in the Capitol. 

Washington is, indeed, the place to especially study the earlier work ofFranklin Simmons. An important one is the Logan memorial, --an equestrianstatue which is considered the finest work in sculpture in the capital, and which is the only statue in the United States in which both thegroup and the pedestal are of bronze. The visitor in Washington whoshould be ignorant of the relative rank of the great men commemorated bythe equestrian memorial monuments of the city might be justified inbelieving that General Logan was the most important man of his time, ifhe judged from the relative greatness of his statue. When Congressdecided upon this group, Mr. Simmons was requested to prepare a model. This proving eminently acceptable, Mr. Simmons found himself, quite tohis own surprise, fairly launched on this arduous work, involving yearsof intense concentration and labor. For this monumental work was to benot merely that of the brave and gallant military leader, --a single ideaembodied, as in those of Generals Scott, Sheridan, Thomas, andothers, --but it was to be a permanent interpretation of thesoldier-statesman, mounted on his battle-horse; it was to be, in thecomprehensive grasp of Mr. Simmons, the vital representation of thecomplex life and individuality of General Logan and, even more, it mustreflect and suggest the complex spirit of his age. In this martialfigure was thus embodied a manifold and mysterious relation, as one ofthe potent leaders and directive powers in an age of tumultuousactivities; an age of strife and carnage, whose goal was peace; ofadverse conditions and reactions, whose manifest outcome was yetprosperity and national greatness and splendid moral triumph. All thesemust be suggested in the atmosphere, so to speak, of the artist's work;and no sculptor who was not also an American--not merely by ancestry andactivity, but one in mind and heart only; one who was an intensepatriot and identified with national ideas--could ever have producedsuch a work as that of the Logan monument. So unrivalled does it stand, unique among all the equestrian art of this country, that it enchantsthe art student and lover with its indefinable spell. When this colossalwork was cast in bronze, in Rome, the event was considered important. The king and the Royal family visited the studio of Mr. Simmons to seethe great group, and so powerfully did its excellence appeal to KingUmberto that he knighted Mr. Simmons, making him Cavaliere of the Crownof Italy. Nor was Mr. Simmons the prophet who was not without honor savein his own country, for his _alma mater_ gave him the degree of M. A. In1867; Colby College honored him with the Master's degree in 1885, and in1888 Bowdoin bestowed upon this eminent Maine artist the same degree. In1892 Mr. Simmons married the Baroness von Jeinsen, a brilliant andbeautiful woman who, though a lady of foreign title, was an American bybirth. An accomplished musician, a critical lover of art, and the mostdelightful of hostesses and friends, Mrs. Simmons drew around her aremarkable circle of charming people and made their home in the PalazzoTamagno a notable centre of social life. No woman in the American colonyof the Seven-hilled City was ever more beloved; and it was frequentlynoted by guests at her weekly receptions that Mrs. Simmons was assolicitous for the enjoyment of the most unknown stranger as for thoseof rank and title who frequented her house. Her grace and lovelinesswere fully equalled by her graciousness and that charm of personalitypeculiarly her own. Her death in Rome, on Christmas of 1905, left avacant place, indeed, in many a home which had been gladdened by herradiant presence. One of the most beautiful works of Mr. Simmons is aportrait of his wife in bas-relief, representing her standing just atthe opening of parted curtains, as if she were about to step behind andvanish. It is a very poetic conception. A bust of Mrs. Simmons, also, inhis studio, is fairly a speaking likeness of this beautiful anddistinguished woman. It is over her grave in the Protestant cemeterythat Mr. Simmons has placed one of his noblest ideal statues, "The Angelof the Resurrection, "--a memorial monument that is one of the artfeatures of Rome to the visitor in the Eternal City. 

 [Illustration: "GRIEF AND HISTORY, " DETAIL FROM NAVAL MONUMENT, WASHINGTON Franklin Simmons _Page 105_]

The brilliant and impressive Naval Monument, or Monument of Peace, as itis known in Washington, placed at the foot of Capitol Hill onPennsylvania Avenue, is eloquent with the power of heroic suggestionthat Mr. Simmons has imparted to it. The work breathes that exaltationof final triumph that follows temporary defeat. Those who died that thenation might live, are seen in the perpetual illumination ofimmortality. Not only has Mr. Simmons here perpetuated the suffering, the sacrifices of the Civil War, but that sublime and eternal truth ofvictory after defeat, of peace and serene exaltation after conflict, andthe triumph of life after death, are all immortally embodied in thisgroup crowned with those impressive and haunting figures, "Grief" and"History, " which are considered as among the most classically beautifuland significant in the range of modern sculpture. 

In the early winter of 1907 Mr. Simmons was invited by the AmericanAmbassador to the Court of St. James, Hon. Whitelaw Reid, to sendfor Dorchester House, London, three busts of distinguishedAmericans, --those of Alexander Hamilton, Chief Justice Chase, and Hon. James G. Blaine, which Mr. Reid, in visiting the Roman studios of Mr. Simmons, had seen and greatly admired. The Ambassador observed that he"would like a few Americans, as well as so many Roman Emperors, " abouthim. 

These portrait busts all reveal an amazing force and mastery of work. The fine sculptural effect of the Hamilton and the wonderful blending ofsubtle delicacy of touch and vigor of treatment with which the nobilityof character is expressed, mark this bust as something exceptional inportrait art. It has a matchless dignity and serene poise. The bust ofChief Justice Chase is a faithful and speaking reproduction of the verypresence of its subject, instinct with vitality; and the fire and forceand brilliancy of the bust of Hon. James G. Blaine fairly sweeps thevisitor off his feet. The modelling is done with an apparentinstantaneousness of power that is the highest realization of creativeart. It is the magnetic Blaine, the impassioned and eloquent statesman, that rises before the gazer. 

Mr. Simmons has long been a commanding figure in plastic art. NoAmerican sculptor abroad has, perhaps, received so many important publiccommissions as have been given to him. He has created nearly a score ofmemorial groups; he has modelled over one hundred portrait busts andstatues. His industry has kept step with his genius. The latest successof Mr. Simmons in the line of monumental art is the statue (in bronze)of Alexander Hamilton, which was unveiled at Paterson, N. J. , in May of1907. The splendidly poised figure, the dignity, the serene strength andyet the intense energy of the expression and of the entire pose are arevelation in the art of the portrait statue. 

It is not, however, true that Mr. Simmons has ever resigned himself tothe necessity of producing portrait and memorial sculpture exclusively. In the realm of the purely ideal Mr. Simmons finds his most felicitousfield for creative work. A bas-relief entitled "The Genius of ProgressLeading the Nations, " with all its splendid fire and action, the _motif_being that of the spirits Life and Light beating down and driving outthe spirits of darkness and evil; "The Angel of the Resurrection, " withits glad, triumphant assertion of the power of the immortal life; thepoetry and sacredness of maternity as typified in the "Mother of Moses;"the statues of the "Galatea" and the "Medusa, " and other idealcreations, indicate "the vision and the faculty divine" of Mr. Simmons. To a very great degree his art is that which the French describe as thegrand manner, and to this is added a spiritual quality, a power ofradiating the intellectual purpose, the profounder thought and theaspiration of the subject represented. 

 [Illustration: "MOTHER OF MOSES" Franklin Simmons _Page 108_]

One of the most charming of these ideal works is a statue of "Penelope, "represented seated in the chair, her rich robe falling in gracefulfolds, and the little Greek fillet binding her hair. The face bears ameditative expression, into which has entered a hint of pathos andwistfulness in the dawning wonder as to whether, after all, Ulysses willreturn. The classic beauty of the pose; the exquisite modelling of thebust and arms and hands, every curve and contour so ideally lovely; thedistinction of the figure in its noble and refined patrician elegance, are combined to render this work one that well deserves immortality inart, and to rank as a masterpiece in modern sculpture. 

 [Illustration: "THE GENIUS OF PROGRESS LEADING THE NATIONS" Franklin Simmons _Page 107_]

Another of his ideal figures, "The Promised Land, " is a work of greatspiritual exaltation and beauty. An Israelite woman has just arrived atthe point when before her vision gleams the "Promised Land"; the facetells its own story of all she has passed through, --the trials, thesadness, the obstacles to be overcome; but now she sees the fulfilmentof her hopes and dreams. It is a most interesting creation, and one inwhich is portrayed the artist's spiritual insight and susceptibility topoetic exaltation. To one visitor to Mr. Simmons's studio this statuesuggested the following lines:--

 Fair on her sight it gleams, --the Promised Land! The rose of dawn sifts through the azure air, And all her weariness and toil and care Vanish, as if from her some tender hand Lifted the burden, and transformed the hour To this undreamed-of sense of joy and power! The rapture and the ecstasy divine Are deep realities that only wait Their hour to dawn, nor ever rise too late To draw the soul to its immortal shrine. 

 O Sculptor! thy great gift has shaped this clay, To image the profoundest truth, and stand As witness of the spirit power that may Achieve the vision of the Promised Land!

 [Illustration: "VALLEY FORGE" Franklin Simmons _Page 110_]

In a statuette in bronze called "Valley Forge, " Mr. Simmons has fairlyincarnated the entire spirit of the Revolutionary period in thatmysterious way recognized only in its result; all that unparalleledepoch of tragic intensity and sublime triumph lives again in this work. The fidelity to a lofty ideal which essentially characterizes Mr. Simmons is as unswerving as that of Merlin, who followed "The Gleam. "

 "Great the Master And sweet the Magic When over the valley In early summers, Over the mountain, On human faces, And all around me Moving to melody, Floated the Gleam. "

This American sculptor who, in his early youth, sought the artisticatmosphere of Rome as the environment most stimulating to his dawningpower, who accepted with unfailing courage the incidental privations ofart life in a foreign land more renowned for beauty than for comfort, who

 "... Never turned his back, but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, "

has expressed his message in many purely ideal works, --the message thatthe true artist must always give to the world and that leads humanity tothe crowning truth of life, that of the ceaseless progress of the soulin its immortality. 

For the brief and significant assertion of the apostle condenses themost profound truth of life when he says:--

 "To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. "

In these words are imaged the supreme purpose of all the experiences ofthe life on earth; and to the artist whose works bear this lofty messageof the triumph of spirituality, his reward shall appear, not in thepraise of men, but in the effect on character that his efforts haveaided to exalt; in the train of nobler influences that his work shallperpetually inspire and create. 

Mr. Simmons has always found Rome potent in fascination. One may notwant to go to St. Peter's every day, but one knows it is there, andthere is some inexplicable satisfaction in being where it is possible toeasily enter this impressive interior. One may not go near the Forumfor a month, or even a season, but the knowledge that one may find itand the wonderful Palatine Hill any hour of any day is a perpetualdelight. The Vatican galleries, with their great masterpieces; theSistine Chapel, the stately, splendid impressiveness of San GiovanniLaterano; the wanderings in Villa Borghese, and the picturesque climbingof the Spanish steps, even all the inconveniences and deprivations, become a part of the story of Rome which the artist absorbs and loves. 

The studios of Mr. Simmons in the Via San Nicolo da Tolentino are acentre of artistic resort, and his personal life is one of distinctionamid the picturesque beauty and enchantment of the Eternal City. 

For many years (until the death of Mrs. Simmons in 1905) the sculptorand his wife had their home in the beautiful Palazzo Tamagno in the ViaAgostino Depretis, where one of those spacious apartments of twenty tothirty rooms, only to be found in a Roman palace, was made by them abrilliant centre of social life. Mrs. Simmons was herself a musicalartist, with impassioned devotion to music; and her rare personal charmand distinction of presence drew around her a most interestingcircle. Her receptions were for many years a noted feature of Romansociety. The social life in Rome is very brilliant, interesting, andfascinating. The sight-seeing is a kind of attendant atmosphere, --theperpetual environment offering, but not intruding itself. People come toRome for reasons quite disconnected with the Golden House of Nero or thelatest archæological discoveries in the Forum. The present, rather thanthe past, calls to them, and the present, too, is resplendent andalluring. 

Of the foreign painters in Rome, Charles Walter Stetson, whose workrecalls the glory of the old Italian masters, is especiallydistinguished for his genius as a colorist. No visitor in Rome canafford to miss the studio of one of the most imaginative of modernartists. A wonderful picture still in process is a genre work withseveral figures, called "Music. " An idyllic scene of a festa amid theilex trees--with the Italian sky and the golden sunshine pervading aluminous atmosphere, while the joyous abandon of the dancers appeals toall who love Italy--is one of the many beautiful pictorial scenes of Mr. Stetson which enchant the eye and haunt the imagination. Anotherpicture is called "Beggars, "--a name that illy suggests its splendor. There is the façade of a church to which a long flight of steps leadsup, a procession of cardinals and friars in their rich robes, while atone side the groups of beggars shrink into the darkness. It is animpressive commentary upon life. 

For a long period, through the early and middle years of the nineteenthcentury, Rome held her place as the world centre of modern artisticactivity. Great works of poetic and ideal sculpture elevated the generalpublic taste to a high degree of appreciation. The standards were notingeniously adjusted to mere spectacular methods whose sole appeal wasto the crude fancy of possible patrons. Art held her absolute andinviolate ideals, and the spirit of her votaries might well have beeninterpreted in Mrs. Browning's words:--

 "I, who love my art, Would never wish it lower to suit my stature. "

The tone of public appreciation is raised to a high quality only whenthe artist refuses to sell his soul for a mess of pottage. He may, tobe sure, need the pottage, but the price is too great. Rather will hefind his attitude expressed in these wonderful lines:--

 "I can live At least my soul's life without alms from men. And if it be in heaven instead of earth, Let heaven look to it--I am not afraid. "

All art that has within itself true vitality must ever be the leader andthe creator of the popular taste; only when it falls into decadence doesit become the servile follower. 

It is a serious question as to the degree in which the art of to-daykeeps faith with the eternal ideals. The great expositions of the pastquarter of a century, while they have contributed immeasurably to thepopularization of art and to the familiarization of the public with thework of individual painters and sculptors, have yet, in many ways, beena demoralizing influence in their insidious temptation to producepictures or plastic art calculated to arrest immediate attention, thusputting a premium on the spectacular, the sensational, on that whichmakes the most immediate and direct appeal to the senses. The workbecomes fairly a personal document wrought with perhaps an almostamazing finesse, but utterly failing in power to inspire joyoussensibility to beauty or to impart to the gazer that glow of radiantenergy which lofty art invariably communicates to all who respond to itsinfinite exaltation. 

All great art is inspired by religious ideals. Painting and sculpturegive to these a presence. Under their creative power are these idealsmanifested. To embody them in living form becomes the absoluteresponsibility of the artist. In Greece all the fortunate conditions toproduce great art were curiously combined and pre-eminently supported bythe conjunction of events and by the prevailing sentiment of the time. The artist drew his inspiration from the most exalted conception of lifeembodied in gods rather than in men. Art, too, was an affair of thestate. It was the supreme interest and held national importance. Thetemple was erected to form an inclosure for the statue, rather than thatthe statue was created as an adornment for the temple. The greatestgifts were consecrated to the service of art, and under thesestimulating influences it is little wonder that artistic creationachieved that vital potency which has thrilled all succeedingcenturies and has communicated to them something of the divine air ofthat remote period. With the Renaissance in Italy art culminated in theimmortal work of Raphael and Michael Angelo. In the Sistine Chapel, where that sublime grouping of prophets and sibyls speaks of the verymiracle of art in their impassioned fire and glow; where the figures, the pose, the draperies are so grandly noble and infused with dignityand presence, --the very atmosphere is vocal with the language of thespirit and the expressions of religious reverence. These marvellousshapes of grandeur and sublime intimations carry the soul into aconscious communion with the divine. In these stupendous works MichaelAngelo has given to all the ages the message of the highest exaltationof art. In the technique, in the marvellous dignity of the sentiment, inthe depth of the feeling involved, in the grace and power of thecomposition, these works embody the artistic possibilities of painting. 

Are such works as those of Canova and Thorwaldsen no longer created?

Can it be that art is no longer of national importance? In our owncountry vast appropriations are made for internal improvements of allkinds, while art that kindles and re-enforces life is almost ignored. Our government--the government of the richest country in theworld--appropriated $200, 000 for a memorial monument to General Grant tobe placed in Washington, while Italy--whose resources are so slender incomparison--appropriates seven million dollars--thirty-five times theamount--for her great monument to Victor Emmanuel which is now beingerected in Rome to stand near the Capitol and the Palace of theQuirinale. Great art has always been closely associated with greatdevotion to religious ideals. The artist was the servant of the Lord, and it was his supreme purpose to embody the aspirations of the age andrender his works a full and complete symbol of those true realities oflife which have their being in the spiritual universe rather than in thechanging temporal world of the outer universe. The so-called realism ofthe day is based on a false interpretation. "The things that are seenare temporal, while the things that are not seen are eternal. " Truerealism is in spiritual qualities, not in physical attributes. Truerealism is found in such works as Canova's sublime group, where thefigures of Religion and of Death forever impress all who stand beforethis magnificent monument; it is found in Thorwaldsen's "Christ;" inFranklin Simmons's "Angel of the Resurrection, "--in such works as thosethat have a language for the soul, rather than in a "Saturnalia. "

Again, another fatal rock on which art must inevitably make shipwreck isthe theory that it is good to perpetuate ugliness, in either painting orin sculpture. The permanent reality of life is beauty. So far as anyperson or object departs from this enduring reality, so far it is theresult of distortion and deformity, and these, being the temporary, theaccidental, the deficient, should not be perpetuated in ideal creation. It is an Apollo who embodies the permanent ideal of manhood--not acripple or a hunchback. Still further: art should not only refuse toembody the defective, which is a mere negative; it should not only giveform to the utmost perfection it beholds in nature or in humanity, butbeyond this the responsibility is upon the artist to penetrate intoloftier realms, to catch the vision not revealed to mortals. The artistis, by virtue of his high calling, a co-worker with God. An English withas declared that life copies art rather than that art copies life. Inthis he expresses a truth rather than a merely clever epigram. It is theartist's business to lead, not to follow. Only as he leads does hefulfil his divinely appointed destiny. "I maintain that life is not aform of energy, " writes Sir Oliver Lodge; "that it is not included inour present physical categories; that its explanation is still to besought. And it appears to me to belong to a separate order of existence, which interacts with this material frame of things, and while hereexerts guidance and control on the energy which already here exists; foralthough they alter the quantity of energy no whit, and though theymerely utilize available energy like any other machine, live things areable to direct inorganic terrestrial energy along new and special paths, so as to achieve results without which such living agency could not haveoccurred. " Does it for an instant seem that a great scientist'stheoretical speculations of the laws of the universe and of organic lifehave no connection with the province of art? On the contrary. Truly doesBalzac exclaim: "Is not God the whole of science, the all of love, the source of poetry?" The artist is he who enters into the divinerealm; who discerns the divine creations as the true ideals of humanity, and who interprets to the world the sublime significance of the divinethought. Shall such an artist degrade his power by portrayingugliness--the mere defects of negations and distortions? Shall hedegrade life by calling these the realities?

 [Illustration: "LA PIETA, " ST. PETER'S, ROME Michael Angelo _Page 117_]

The painter or sculptor who holds that it is as truly art to representdistortion and repulsiveness as it is to represent beauty is as false tohis high calling as would be the poet who should insist that doggereland mere commonplace truisms expressed in rhyme are poetry. Compare, forexample, two statues, Cecioni's "_La Madre_, " in which a woman's utterlack of personal attraction is so complete as to make her fairlyrepulsive to the gazer, and the "Mother of Moses, " by Franklin Simmons, in which the mystic beauty, the very ideal of maternity, is embodied. Which of these statues is calculated to uplift and to exalt all who comenear? This marvellously beautiful creation of Mr. Simmons shows a womanof exquisite delicacy and loveliness sitting, slightly bending forward, holding her baby to her breast. The modelling of the draped figure withthe bare arms and neck revealing the tender curves, the yieldingdelicacy of the flesh and that inscrutable light upon the beautifulcountenance, whose expression suggests that she is looking far into thefuture of the infant whom she holds in her arms, are a wonderfulportrayal of the mystery and the sacredness of motherhood. The onestatue degrades maternity; the other ennobles and exalts. The oneembodies a pernicious and a false ideal; the other embodies the idealthat must appeal to all that is noble and divine in human life, and itthus ministers to moral progress by its contribution to the elevation ofthe social tone. For indeed, life follows art. It is art that exertsthis powerful influence upon life which it may lead to loftier heightsor drag down to the moral abyss. The artist is not merely the portrayerof existing types; he is the inspirer of those ideal types which humanlife should recognize as its pattern, its model to be followed andultimately achieved. The world needs ideal and poetic art to minister tothe attainment of the true social life and to the full and completeexpression of man himself. 

Do not the visions of Fra Angelico and Botticelli still inspire theartist of to-day with the absolute realization of all the deepsignificance of the past?

 "Is there never a retroscope mirror, In the realms and corners of space, That can give us a glimpse of the battle, And the soldiers face to face?"

Religion and art are inseparably united. In its true significancereligion takes precedence of all else in that its influence is felt inevery department and in every direction and expression of man'sactivity. It is the inexhaustible fountain of that lofty energy whichcommunicates itself to every channel that carries inspiration to lifeand to art. Religion is the influence that redeems the mere shallow, surface presentation, --the petty trick to capture popularity, and holdsart true to its real purpose. The glory of the mediæval art of Italyowed its greatness to religion. Cimabue and Giotto were directlyinspired by that spring of a diviner life given to Italy and later tothe world of that "sweet saint, " Francis of Assisi. In an age of crueltyand terror he brought the new message that man is dear to God; that thesoul is ceaselessly joyful; that man, created in the divine image, is apart of the divine life, and that only when he lives in this responseand recognition does he truly live at all. In this restatement of thetruth that Jesus came to proclaim, St. Francis opened the way for arevival of art, and opened the gates of that infinite and divine energywhich has immortally recorded itself for all ages in the "DivinaComedia" of Dante. The irresistible wave of power which resulted fromthat liberating of thought, feeling, and emotion by the work of St. Francis expressed itself in the sublimest poem of all the ages, and inthat glorious triumph of art that is still the treasure and the sourceof artistic inspiration. 

It is only when the world is lifted out of the limitations of thematerial by a period of great art that humanity is brought into closeand inspiring relation with the living Christ. 

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 

 _Men and women make the world, As head and heart make human life. _

 MRS. BROWNING. 

 * * * * *

 _Alas, our memories may retrace Each circumstance of time and place; Season and scene come back again, And outward things unchanged remain; The rest we cannot reinstate, Ourselves we cannot re-create, Nor set our souls to the same key Of the remembered harmony. _

 LONGFELLOW. 

 _And as, after the lapse of a thousand years, you stand upon that hallowed spot, the yellow Tiber flowing sluggishly beneath you, the ruins of the Eternal City all around you speaking of fallen greatness, the mighty Basilica of St. Peter rising before you like some modern tower of Babel that would monopolize the road to heaven, the eye rests upon the figure of the Archangel sheathing his glittering sword upon the summit of the Castle of St. Angelo, and the heart asks, Why should that be a legend? Why should that be a projection of a morbid and devout imagination? Why should it not have been the clairvoyance of supernatural ecstasy opening the world of spirits? It was no unreality when the angel of God, with his sword drawn in his hand, withstood the prophet Balaam. It was no morbid imagination when the angel of God smote with the edge of the sword the first-born of the land of Egypt. It was no imposture when the shining hosts of the army of the Almighty smote the Assyrians. It was no deception when Gabriel, the King's messenger from the court of heaven, was sent to comfort Daniel by the river Hiddekel; or when he announced to the maiden, whom all generations have called blessed, that she was to be the mother of the Divine Redeemer.... The written Word from first to last is full of the holy angels. It begins with angels, it ends with angels. _

 THE VENERABLE ARCHDEACON WILBERFORCE, Westminster Abbey. 

II

SOCIAL LIFE IN THE ETERNAL CITY

 And others came, --Desires and Adorations, Winged Persuasions and Veiled Destinies!

 SHELLEY. 

 In what ethereal dances! By what eternal streams!

 POE. 

Social life in Rome is no misnomer. From the most stately and beautifulceremonials of balls at the court of the Quirinale, in ducal palaces, orat the embassies; of dinners whose every detail suggests stage picturesin their magnificence, to the simple afternoon tea, where conversationand music enchant the hours; the morning call _en tête-à-tête_, and themorning stroll, or the late afternoon drive, --a season in Romeprefigures itself, by the necromancy of retrospective vision, as aresplendent panorama of pictorial scenes. There rise before one thosemornings, all gold and azure, of loitering over the stone parapet onMonte Pincio, gazing down on the city in her most alluring mood. Thenew bridge that is to connect the Pincio with the Villa Borghese is apicturesque feature in its unfinished state; but the vision traversesthe deep ravine and revels in the scene of the Borghese grounds carpetedwith flowers. Its picturesque slopes under the great trees, with a viewof Michael Angelo's dome in the near distance, are the resort of morningstrollers, who find that lovely picture of Charles Walter Stetson's--astretch of landscape under the ilex trees, the scarlet gowns of thedivinity students giving vivid accents of color here and there--fairlyreproduced in nature before their vision. One should never be in hasteas the bewildering beauty of the Roman spring weaves its emeraldfantasies on grass and trees, and touches into magical bloom the scarletpoppies that flame over all the meadows, and caress roses and hyacinthsand lilies of the valley into delicate bloom and floating fragranceuntil the Eternal City is no more Rome, but Arcady, instead--one shouldnever be in haste to toss his penny into the _Fontane de Trevi_. Yet inanother way it may work for him an immediate spell that defies all othernecromancy. Judiciously thrown in, on the very eve of departure, it isthe conjurer that insures his return; but at any time prior to this itmay even weave the irresistible enchantment that falls upon him and mayprevent his leaving at all. Nor can he summon up the moral courage toregret even the missing of all other engagements, and the failure tokeep faith with his plans. For in the May days Rome falls upon him anew, like a revelation, and he is ready to confess that he has never seen herwho sees her not in her springtime loveliness. The Italian winter by nomeans lives up to its reputation. It is not the chill of any one specialday that discourages one from any further effort to continue in thisvale of tears, but the cold that has, apparently, the chill and dampnessand cold of all those two thousand and two hundred and sixty wintersthat have gone before which concentrate themselves in the atmosphere. One could presumably endure with some degree of courage, if notequanimity, the chill in the air of any _one_ winter; but when all thechill and cold that has ever existed in more than the two thousandwinters of the past concentrates itself in the winter, say, of 1906-7, why, patience ceases to be a virtue although one that the sojourner inRome is particularly called upon to practise if he fares forth to visitchurches and galleries in the winter. 

Torrents of rain pour down, rivalling the cloud-bursts of Arizona. Virgil's cave of the winds apparently lets loose its sharpest blasts. Tramontana and sirocco alternate, and each is more unendurable than theother. 

The encircling mountains are white with snow. The streets are a sea ofmud, for they are paved with small stones, and except in the new VillaLudovisi quarter and along the Via Nazionale and a few other of thenewer thoroughfares there are no sidewalks, the foot passengers (in allold Rome) pressing close to the wall to avoid the dangerously nearproximity of carts and cabs. This rough pavement makes all driving hardand walking difficult. The Roman lady, indeed, does not walk; and thevisitors who cannot forego the joy of daily promenades enter into thefeelings of that nation which is said to take its pleasures sadly. Butspring works a transformation scene. The air is filled with the mosttransparent shining haze; the sky lacks little of that intense, meltingblue that characterizes the ineffable beauty of the skies in Arizona;and ruins and fragments and strange relics--ghosts of the historicpast--are all enshrined in trailing green and riotous blossoms. To driveon the terraced roads of Monte Mario with all Rome and the emerald-greenCampagna before one; through the romantic "Lovers' Lane, " walled in byroses and myrtle; to enjoy the local life, full of gayety andbrilliancy, is to know Rome in her most gracious aspects. One goes forstrolls in the old Colonna Gardens, where still remain the ruins of theTemple of the Sun and of the Baths of Constantine. The terraces offerlovely views over the city. The old palace is occupied by the presentPrince Colonna, and it is not unfrequently the scene of most elaborateand gorgeous receptions where the traditional Roman splendor is to befound. A series of arched bridges over the narrow street of the Viadella Pilotta connect the Gardens with the Colonna Palace in the PiazzaSan Apostoli. Very fine old sarcophagi are half buried in trailing vineson the slope of the hill, dark with magnificent cypress trees. TheColonna Gardens are a very dream of the past, in their ruins of oldtemples, their shattered statues, their strange old tablets andinscriptions, and their grand view of the Capitol. 

In one's retrospective vision of a Roman season all the inconveniencesand discomforts of the winter disappear, leaving only the beauty and theenjoyment to be "developed, " as the photographer would say, on thesensitive plate of memory. 

No one really knows Rome until he has watched the transcendentloveliness of spring investing every nook and corner of the EternalCity. The picturesque Spanish steps are a very garden of fragrance, thelower steps of the terraced flight being taken possession of by theflower venders who display their wares, --masses of white lilac, flame-colored roses, rose and purple hyacinths and baskets of violetsand carnations. Did all this fragrance and beauty send up its incense toKeats as he lay in the house adjoining, with the musical plash ofBernini's fountain under his window? It is pleasant to know that by theappreciation of American and English authors, the movement effectivelydirected by Robert Underwood Johnson, this house consecrated to a poet'smemory has been purchased to be a permanent memorial to Keats and toShelley. A library of their works will be arranged in it; and portraits, busts, and all mementos that can be collected of these poets will renderthis memorial one of the beautiful features of Rome. 

From the flower venders and the circulating libraries in the Piazza diSpagna that allure one in the morning, from the fascinating glitter ofthe little Via Condotti which is, in its way, the rue de la Paix ofRome, one leisurely climbs the steps to where the great obelisk looms upin front of the Convent Church of the Trinità di Monti and on, acrossthe Piazza di Trinità, toward the Pincian, one wanders along the brow ofthe hill surmounted by the low stone parapet. The view is a dream ofbeauty. Over the valley lies Monte Mario, crowned with the Villa Madama, silhouetted against the blue Roman sky; and the commanding dome of St. Peter's, the splendid new white marble buildings of the Law Courts, thedomes of other churches, all make up a picturesque panorama, while onthe Janiculum the great equestrian statue of Garibaldi can be descried. Strolling on, one turns into the gardens of the Villa Medici, theFrench Academy of Art, in which the present director, the great CarolusDuran, is domiciled and in which twenty-four students--of painting, sculpture, music, and architecture--are maintained at the expense of theFrench government for several years, the twenty four being chosen fromthose who have given signal proof of their ability. The Villa Medicihas, perhaps, a more beautiful site than any other building in Rome. Facing the west, with the Janiculum and Monte Mario forever before it, while below lies the Piazza di Spagna and the Piazza del Popolo, and allthe changing splendors of the sunset sky as a perpetual picture gallery, the situation is, indeed, magnificent. It is still conceivable, however, that Monsieur Carolus Duran must have many quarters of an hour when helongs for the brilliancy and the movement and the stimulus of his Paris. The gardens of the Villa Medici are large, but they are laid out withnarrow paths bordered with box, forming a wall as impervious as if ofstone, and dark and damp by the shade of foliage. These walks are pavedwith gravel, and are always damp. These formal rectangles and alleys areutterly shut in, so that in any one part one can see only the twodense green walls of box that inclose him and the glimpse of skyoverhead, --not precisely a cheering promenade. This is the Italian ideaof a garden. Much broken sculpture, weather-stained and defective, isplaced all along the way, and the perpetual Roman fountain is alwaysgushing somewhere. 

 [Illustration: VILLA MEDICI, ROME _Page 134_]

Another phase of the Roman season may rise before one in the statelybeauty of any old historic palace, where the hostess, all grace andsweetness, receives her guests in the apartment in which Galileo hadbeen confined when imprisoned in Rome. The approach to this _pianonobile_ was up a flight of easily graded marble stairs, where infrequent niches stood old statues. The large windows in the corridor onthe landing were curtained with pale yellow, thus creating a goldenlight to fall on the old sculptured marbles. One salon was decoratedwith Flaxman's drawings on the wall, in their classical outlines. From asteep, dark stone stairway, down which one descended (at the imminentrisk of a broken neck in the darkness and from the irregular stairsrudely carved in the stone), one emerged on a landing, where a littledoor opened into the balcony of the chapel, a curious, gloomy place, with tombs and altar and shrine, and some very poor old paintings. One'sprogress to it recalled the lines from Poe's "Ulalume":--

 "By a route, obscure and lonely, Haunted by ill angels only. "

Then, sitting in one of the richly decorated salons at afternoon tea inthis same old palace one day, while an accomplished harpist wasdiscoursing delicate music from its vibrating chords, flights of birdskept passing a window, making a scene like that of a Wagner opera. Thegroups present, largely of the Roman nobility, the titled aristocracy, resembling so closely some of the old portraits in the palazzo that itwas easy to recognize that they were all one people, descendants of thesame race. 

Many of the guests looked, indeed, as if they had stepped from out thesumptuously carved frames on the wall. At these pretty festas one meetsmuch of the resident Roman world. The guests assembled seem to bespeaking in all the romance languages. There are Russian and Spanish aswell as Italian, French, German, and English at these alluring teas. All the salons of the spacious apartments are thrown open, and the menin their picturesque court dress or military costume, and the women andgirls in dainty gowns, make up an alluring scene. The salons are richlyfurnished and abound in works of art, old pictures, inlaid cabinets, carvings, rich vases, busts, and statuettes. The library, with itswealth of books; the music room; the salon for dancing; the supper room, and the quiet rooms where groups gather before the blazing open fires, grateful in these lofty rooms whose temperature suggests the frozencircles of Dante, --all make up a delightful picture. One meets the mostvarying individualities. A Russian lady of title may confide herconviction that her country is ruined, and that she never desires toreturn to it. Italy is the country that attracts not only politicalrefugees from other European countries, but many who are out of sympathywith conditions elsewhere and who find the cosmopolitan society and thevaried interests of this land of sunshine their most enjoyableenvironment. 

One pleasant feature of a Roman winter is that of the usual course oflectures given by Professor Lanciani. The celebrated archæologist is aman of special personal charm, and his conversation, as well as hispublic lectures, is full of interest and value. The lectures are givenunder the auspices of the Società Archeologica, and a special subjectrecently discussed was the celebration to be held in 1911 in Rome. Oneproject for this celebration includes the plan to lay out a carriageroad around the Forum and the Palatine, and also around the Baths ofTitus and of Caracalla, extending the drive to all those places includedbetween the Appian and the Latin Way, the Villa Celimontana and theCircus Maximus. 

Professor Lanciani discussed the artistic history of Rome and thedifferent appearances the city took on in different periods; theregulation plan drawn up by Julius Cæsar and accepted and carried out byAugustus, by which one-fifth of the total area of the city was reservedfor public parks. In the third century of the empire the city wasinclosed by parks and crossed from end to end by delightful porticogardens, where valuable works of art were collected. During the periodof the Renaissance there were the famous villas and the Cesarini Parkon the slopes of the Esquiline, and after regretting the manyunnecessary acts of vandalism committed since 1870 in Rome, ProfessorLanciani suggested that a complete reconstruction of the Baths ofCaracalla should be made, to serve in 1911 as the Exhibition Building. He believed no artistic difficulties would present themselves, as in thefifteenth century different architects took plaster casts of thedecorations of the statues and of every detail of the Baths. Thearchæological exhibition would be arranged in the two large halls, another hall would be for concerts, another for lectures, the others fordifferent congresses to be held. 

In this way Rome would inaugurate for 1911 the Mediæval Museum in CastelSant'Angelo, the mediæval collections in the Torre degli Anguillara, andthe grand archæological exhibition in the reconstructed Baths ofCaracalla. 

Italian women are by no means behind the age in their organizations toaid in social progress. The most important one in Italy is that of theleading women of the nobility and aristocracy, called "The Society forWomen's Work, " which holds annual meetings, over which Lady Aberdeen, the president of the International Council, and the Contessa Spalletti, the president of the National Council of Italy, preside. Many of theprominent women of the Italian nobility are taking active part in thelarger outlook for women; and in this movement Margherita, _la ReginaMadre_, leads the way, supported by a large following of the titlednobility. 

"Margherita holds the hearts of the people, " remarked Cora, Contessa diBrazzá Savorgnan, at a brilliant little dinner one night, and noexpression could more admirably represent the feeling of the nationtoward the Queen Mother. 

Queen Elena as the reigning sovereign has, of course, her exclusiveroyal prerogatives, and she has youth and initiative and precedence; butMargherita is a most attractive woman, with learning and accomplishmentsgalore, and she has an art of conversation that allures and fascinatesvisiting foreigners of learning and wit, as well as of rank. Romansociety is not large numerically, and the same people are constantlymeeting and consolidating their many points of contact and interest. Social life in these Italian cities is the supreme occupation of theresidents, and one must concede that in proportion as one meets the samepeople constantly does society gain in dramatic interest. With eachperson who is in any sense an individual the play of life begins. Itgains in dramatic sequence as it proceeds. The Eternal City is awonderful scenic setting for the human drama. 

Local gossip suggests perceptible rivalry between the stately palace ofthe King and the pink palace on the hill, in which Margherita holds herstate with not less ceremony than that observed at the Court of theQuirinale. It is a beautiful thing for a country to have in it a womanof high position, of leisure and of culture, who is so admirably fittedto be the friend of the people as is Margherita. She is a connoisseur inart; she has a most intelligent interest in science; she is a criticallover of literature; she is a wise and judicious and deeply sympatheticleader in all philanthropic work and purposes. One can hardly visitpainter or poet or artist in any line, or school, institute, orassociation, but that he hears of the personal sympathy andencouragement bestowed by this noble and beautiful Italian Queen, --the_Regina Madre_. 

Practically there are, indeed, two courts in Rome; that of the PalazzoMargherita seeming to quite rival that held at the Palazzo Quirinale. The palace of the Queen Mother is an imposing three-story structure ofpink-hued marble, with beautiful gardens and terraces, and adjoining it, in the palace grounds, is a marble villa, used for the entertainment ofroyal guests. This palace has been the residence of Margherita when inRome since the tragic death of King Umberto, in 1900. It is in theLudovisi quarter, and stands on the very site of the Gardens of Sallust. The Queen Mother receives noted visitors constantly, and entertainsvisiting royalties and members of the aristocracy. No great man ofscience, literature, and art visits Rome without seeking a presentationto the liberal-minded and accomplished _Regina Madre_, who is one of themost winning and attractive of all the royal women of Europe. 

It has become quite a feature in introducing young girls to present themfirst in private audience to Margherita, and then later to Queen Elenaat the Court of the Quirinale. Surely no girl could be given a lovelieridea of womanhood than that embodied in the Dowager Queen. When the poetCarducci died in the early months of 1907, Margherita sent beautifulmessages of consolation to his family, and, later, to his home city ofBologna she sent the following letter:--

 "I announce that I make a free gift to the city of Bologna of the house where Giosuè Carducci passed the last years of his life, and the library he collected there. 

 "Bologna, that showed such affectionate hospitality for Giosuè Carducci for so many years, and surrounded him with so much devotion, will know, I feel sure, how to carefully preserve this remembrance of the greatest poet of modern Italy. 

 MARGHERITA. "

The Syndic replied in a letter hardly less fine in its expression ofBologna's appreciation, and with assurances that the name of the firstQueen of Italy will in future be forever associated with Italy'sgreatest modern poet. 

The Regio Palazzo del Quirinale is near the Capitol, in the older partof the city, and only a small part of this is shown to visitors whenthe King and Queen are in residence. The Sala Regia may be seen, thechapel in which are preserved a large number of the wreaths and theaddresses sent from all parts of the civilized world on the occasion ofthe death of Victor Emmanuel II, and a suite of reception rooms, thethrone room with many historic portraits, the Sala des Ambassadeurs, andthe audience chamber, containing Thorwaldsen's "Triumphal Procession ofAlexander the Great, " a gift from Napoleon I. In the small chapel of theAnnunciation is an altar piece by Guido Reni. 

To artists the Queen Mother is most generously kind. One of the youngerItalian sculptors, Turillo Sindoni, Cavaliere of the Crown of Italy, whose latest creation is a very beautiful statue of St. Agnes, has hisstudios in the Via del Babuino, and to especially favored visitors hesometimes exhibits a beautiful letter that he received from Margherita, who purchased two of his statues. With the letter expressing her warmappreciation of his art was an exquisite gift of jewelled sleeve-links. 

Notwithstanding the fascinating lectures of Professor Lanciani and thevaluable and interesting work in the Forum that is being accomplishedunder the efficient directorship of Commendatore Boni, yet all the roadsthat traditionally lead to Rome do not converge to the palace on thePalatine. Modern Rome is only mildly archæological, and while it takesoccasional recognition of the ancient monuments, and drives to the cryptof old St. Agnes, to the tomb of Cecilia Metella, and may manage adescent into the catacomb of St. Calixtus, it is far more activelyinterested in its dancing and dining and driving. As a scenic backgroundfor festivities Rome is a success, and as one comes into social touchwith the titled nobility, and the resident life, by birth or adoption, one finds a city of infinite human interest and picturesquepossibilities. 

Between the "Whites" (the loyal followers of the Palazzo Quirinale andthe King) and the "Blacks" (the devoted followers of the PalazzoVaticano and the Pope) a great gulf is fixed over which no one maycross. 

Pope Pius X is wonderfully accessible, considering the greatresponsibilities and duties he has on him, and his generous goodness, his gracious tact and the beauty of his spirit endear him to all, Catholic or Protestant alike, for every one recognizes in him theChristian gentleman, whose ideals of gentleness and inspiringhelpfulness impress themselves on all who are so fortunate as to meethim. 

The most impressive ceremonial receptions of the "Blacks" are thosegiven at the Spanish Embassy in the Piazza di Spagna. At the Embassy orin the private palace of any Roman noble which a Cardinal honors byaccepting an invitation, he is received according to a most picturesqueold Roman custom. At the foot of the stairs two servants bearing lightedtorches meet his Eminence, and, making a profound obeisance, escort himto the portals of the grand reception salon and await, in the corridor, his return. On his departure they escort him in the same way down thestaircase. 

In the College of Cardinals and among the many interestingindividualities of the Vatican, the most marked figure is that of theCardinal Secretary of State, Merry del Val. He occupies the Borgiaapartments, which are hung with tapestry and ornamented with the mostunique and valuable articles _de vertu_, --wonderful vases, inlaidcabinets, old tapestries, paintings, statues, busts, and ivories. TheseBorgia apartments are one of the most interesting features of thePalazzo Vaticano, and may be seen now and then by special permissionwhen the Cardinal secretary is out, or when he may be pleased to retireinto his more private salons in the apartment while the others areshown. Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val is an impressive personality, whoselife seems strangely determined by destiny. His father was an _attaché_of the Spanish embassy to the Court of St. James when the futureCardinal was born in 1865. In 1904, at the early age of thirty-nine, hewas advanced from the soutane violet of the bishop to the mantellettascarlet of the cardinal, and after the accession of the present Pope, Pius X, he was appointed to the highest office in the Vatican, that ofSecretary of State, the Pope paying him the high tribute because of his"devotion to work, his capability and absolute self-negation. "

Cardinal Merry del Val has had a wonderful training of experience andcircumstances. At the early age of twenty-two he was a member of thepapal embassy commissioned to the jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887. Hewas also appointed a member of the embassy from the Vatican to attendthe funeral of Emperor William I; and at the jubilee of Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria, Cardinal (then Bishop) Merry del Val was the soleand accredited representative of the Holy See, as he was also at thecoronation of King Edward. The Spanish Cardinal is the special trustedcounsellor of the royal family of Spain. 

In Rome, Cardinal Merry del Val is an impressive figure. He is alwaysattended by his _gentiluomo_, who is gorgeously arrayed in kneebreeches, military hat and sword. This gentleman in waiting walks behindhim on a promenade, sits in his carriage and stands near him in allreligious ceremonies. His equipage is well known in the Eternal City, --astately black carriage drawn by two massive black horses with luxuriousflowing manes. 

It is freely prophesied in Rome that the Cardinal secretary is destinedto yet exchange the mantelletta scarlet for the zucchetta white, whenPius X shall have gone the way of all his predecessors in the papalchair. He is the Cardinal especially favored by Austria and Spain. Although the conflict with France was at first ascribed to CardinalMerry del Val, he has of late been completely exonerated from blame, even by the French prelates and clergy. 

Cardinal Merry del Val represents the most advanced and progressivethought of the day. He is an enthusiastic admirer of Marconi and themarvels of wireless telegraphy; he is an advocate of telephonic service, electric motors, electric lights, and of phonographs and typewriters forthe Vatican service. He is a great linguist, speaking English, French, and German as well as Spanish, which is his native tongue, and Italian, which has become second nature. He is a good Greek scholar and aprofound Latin scholar, and he speaks the ancient Latin with the fluencyand the force of the modern languages. He is, indeed, a remarkabletwentieth-century personality and one who has apparently a veryinteresting life yet to come in his future. 

At the Villa Pamphilia Doria, built by a former Prince Doria, thelargest villa in the Roman environs and the finest now remaining, theCardinal enjoys his game of golf, of which he is very fond. The Doriafamily rendered the villa magnificent in every respect. Besides thespacious avenues, woods, fountains, a lake, and cascades, are variousedifices, among which is one in the form of a triumphal arch, decoratedwith ancient statues; the casino of the villa in which are preservedsome ancient marbles and several pictures; the beautiful circularchapel, adorned with eight columns of marble and other statelyornaments. There is a monument erected by the present Prince Doria tothe memory of the French soldiers who were killed there during the siegeof 1849. From the terrace of the palace there is a magnificent view ofthe environs of Rome, as far as the sea. In consequence of excavations, some columbaria, sepulchres, inscriptions, and other relics have beenfound, which have attracted much attention from archæologists. 

It is near these grounds that the "Arcadians" still hold their _alfresco_ meetings. The society dates back to 1690, and the first _custos_(whose duty was to open and close the meetings) was Crescimbeni. The"Arcadians" organized themselves to protest against the degeneracy ofItalian poetry that marked the seventeenth century. To keep theirmeetings a secret from the populace the "Arcadians" held their meetingsin an open garden on the slope below San Pietro in Montorio, --a terracestill known as "Bosco Parrasio degli Arcadi. "

One of the enchanting views in Rome is from the Piazza San Giovanni. Onelooks far away past the Coliseum in its ruined grandeur and the _casa_where Lucrezia Borgia lived, and in the near distance is the colossalpile of San Giovanni di Laterano, its beautiful and impressive façadecrowned with the statues of the apostles silhouetted against the westernsky. In the piazza formed by the church, the museums, and the Baptisteryof San Giovanni and the Scala Santa is one of the most remarkableobelisks in Rome, ninety-nine feet in height, formed of red granite andcarved with hieroglyphics. This shaft is placed on a pedestal whichmakes it in all some 115 feet in height. It was placed in 1568 by SixtusV. The museums of the San Giovanni are the "Museo Sacro" and the "MuseoProfano, "--the latter founded by Pope Gregory XVI, and very rich insculptures and mosaics. The "Museo Sacro" was founded by Pio Nono, andis rich in the antiquities of the Christian era. Within San Giovannithe visitor finds himself in a vast interior divided by columns ofverd-antique into three aisles, each of which is as wide as, and farlonger than, the interior of an ordinary church. Statues fill theniches, and the chapels and confessionals are all beautifully decorated. The Corsini Chapel is the richest and was executed by order of ClementXII, in honor of St. Andrew Corsini, who is represented in a rich mosaicpainting copied from Guido. Two sculptured figures, "Innocence" and"Penitence, " stand before the altar, and above is a relief depicting St. Andrew protecting the Florentine army at the battle of Anghiari. 

The tomb of Pope Clement XII (who himself belonged to the Corsini familyand who was an uncle of Cardinal Corsini) is in a niche between twocolumns of porphyry, and there is a bronze statue of the Pope. On theopposite side is a statue of Cardinal Corsini, and in the crypt beloware tombs of the Corsini family. On the altar--always lighted--is a"Pieta" by Bernini, of which the face of the Christ is very beautiful. 

Near the centre of the Basilica is a rich tabernacle of precious stones, defined by four columns of _verde antico_, and it is said that theheads of St. Peter and St. Paul are preserved here. The table upon whichChrist celebrated the Last Supper is placed here, above the altar of theHoly Sacrament, a sacred relic that thrills the visitors. In one chapelis a curious and grotesque group of sculpture, --a skeleton holding up amedallion portrait, while an angel with outstretched wings hovers overit. 

San Giovanni has the reputation of being absolutely the coldest churchin all Rome, which--it is needless to remark--means a great deal, forthey all in winter have the temperature of the arctic regions. In allthese great churches there is never any heat; no apparatus for heatinghas ever been introduced, and the twentieth century finds them just ascold as they were in the centuries of a thousand years ago. Thiscolossal Basilica is considered the most important church in the world, as it is the cathedral of the Pontiff. It was founded in the thirdcentury by Constantine, destroyed by fire in 1308, and rebuilt by PopeClement V, and every succeeding Pope has added to it. The façade is oftravertine, with four gigantic columns and six pilasters, and thecornice is decorated with colossal figures of Jesus and a number of thesaints. There are five balconies, the middle one being always used forpapal benedictions. In the portico is the colossal statue of Constantinethe Great. Within the columns are of _verde antico_; the ceiling wasdesigned by Michael Angelo; the interior is very rich in sculpture, andthere are some fine paintings and the chapels are most beautiful, one ofthem containing a tabernacle comprised wholly of precious stones. Abovethe altar of the Holy Sacrament the table upon which Christ celebratedthe Last Supper with the disciples is preserved. It is wonderful to lookupon this most sacred and significant relic. 

It is in this church that the tomb of Leo XIII has been constructed bythe eminent Italian sculptor, Tadolini, opposite the tomb of InnocentIII. The work was completed in the spring of 1907, the design being alife-size portrait statue of the Pope with two figures, one on eitherside, representing the church and the workman-pilgrim, forming part ofthe group. This is one of the most memorable monuments of all Rome, andthe tomb of the great Leo XIII will form a new shrine for Christianpilgrimage. 

Included in the group of structures that form the great Basilica of SanGiovanni is the Scala Santa, which offers a strange picture whenever oneapproaches it. These twenty-eight marble steps that belonged to Pilate'shouse in Jerusalem are said to have been once trodden by Jesus and maybe ascended only on one's knees. At no hour of the day can one visit theScala Santa without finding the most motley and incongruous throng thusascending, pausing on each step for meditation and prayer. These stairswere transported from Jerusalem to Rome under the auspices of St. Helena, the Empress, about 326 A. D. , and in 1589 they were placed byPope Sixtus V in this portico built for them with a chapel at the top ofthe stairs called the "Sancta Sanctorum, " formerly the private chapel ofthe Popes. In this sanctuary is preserved a wonderful portrait of theSaviour, painted on wood, which is said to have been partly the work ofSt. Luke but finished by unseen hands. The legend runs that St. Lukeprepared to undertake the work by three days' fasting and prayer, andthat, having drawn it in outline, the painting was done by angelicministry, the colors being filled in by invisible hands. In ancienttimes--the custom being abolished by Pius V in 1566--this picture wasborne through Rome on the Feast of the Assumption and the bearer haltedwith it in the Forum, when the "Kyrie Eleison" would be chanted byhundreds of voices. 

Myth and legend invest every turn and footfall of the Eternal City, andthere are few that are not founded on what the church has always calledsupernatural manifestations, but which the new age is learning torecognize as occurrences under natural law. 

The story of Luther's ascent of the Scala Santa is thus told:--

 "Brother Martin Luther went to accomplish the ascent of the Scala Santa--the Holy Staircase--which once, they say, formed part of Pilate's house. He slowly mounted step after step of the hard stone, worn into hollows by the knees of penitents and pilgrims. Patiently he crept halfway up the staircase, when he suddenly stood erect, lifted his face heavenward, and in another moment turned and walked slowly down again. 

 "He said that as he was toiling up a voice as if from heaven spoke to him and said, 'The just shall live by faith. ' He awoke as if from a nightmare, restored to himself. He dared not creep up another step; but rising from his knees he stood upright like a man suddenly loosed from bonds and fetters, and with the firm step of a free man he descended the staircase and walked from the place. "

The entire legendary as well as sacred history is almost made up ofinstances of the interpenetration of the two worlds; the response ofthose in the spiritual world to the needs of those in the natural world. Pope Paschal recorded that he fell asleep in his chair at St. Peter's(somewhere about 8. 20 A. M. ) with a prayer on his lips that he might findthe burial place of St. Cecilia, and in his dream she appeared to himand showed him the spot where her body lay, in the catacombs ofCalixtus. The next day he went to the spot and found all as had beenrevealed to him. The miraculous preservation of St. Agnes is familiar toall students of legendary art. Throughout all Rome, shrine and nicheand sculpture, picture, monument, arch and column, speak perpetually ofsome interposition of unseen forces with events and circumstances inthis part of life. The Eternal City in its rich and poetic symbolism isone great object lesson of the interblending of the two worlds, thenatural and the spiritual. The first stage regarding all this marvellouspanorama was entire and unquestioning acceptance; the succeeding stagewas doubt, disbelief; the third, into which we are now entering, is thatof an enlightened understanding and a growing knowledge and grasp of thelaws under which these special interpositions and interventions occur. 

For that "according to thy faith be it unto thee, " is as true now in thetwentieth century as it was in the first. The one central truth that isthe very foundation of all religious philosophy is the continuity oflife and the persistence of intercourse and communion, spirit to spirit, across the gulf we call death. The evidences of this truth have beenalways in the world. The earliest records of the Bible are replete withthem. The gospels of the New Testament record an unbroken successionof occurrences and of testimony to this interpenetration of life in theUnseen with that in the Seen. Secular history is full of its narrationsof instances of clairvoyance, clairaudience, and of communications in avariety of ways; and the sacred and legendary art of Rome, largelyfounded on story and myth and legend, when seen in the light oflatter-day science is judged anew, and the literal truth of much thathas before been considered purely legendary is revealed and realized. One reads new meanings into Rome when testing it by this consciousness. It is a city of spiritual symbolism. It is a great object lessonextending over all the centuries. Making due allowance for thedistortion and exaggeration of ages of testimony, there yet remains aresiduum indisputable. The Past and the Present both teem with recordand incident and experience proving that life is twofold, even now andhere; that all the motives and acts of the life which we see arevariously incited, modified, strengthened, or annulled by those in therealm of the Unseen. 

 [Illustration: ENTRANCE TO VILLA PAMPHILIA-DORIA, ROME _Page 159_]

The intelligent recognition of this truth changes the entire conduct oflife. It entirely alters the point of view. It extends the horizon lineinfinitely. Instead of conceiving of life as a whole, as comprisedbetween the cradle and the grave, it will be regarded in its larger andtruer scope as a series of experiences and achievements, infinite inlength and in their possibilities and unbroken by the change we calldeath. This will impart to humanity a new motor spring in that greaterhope which puts man in a working mood, which makes him believe in thevalue of that which he undertakes, which encourages him to press on amidall difficulties and against all obstacles. Increasing hope, allactivity is proportionately increased. It was an event of incalculableimportance to the progress of humanity when the swift communication bycable was established between America and Europe. It is one ofinfinitely greater importance to establish the truth and enlarge thepossibility of direct communication with the world of higher forces andlarger attainment and scope than our own. This communication exists andhas always existed, but it has been regarded as myth and legend andphenomenon rather than as a fact of nature whose laws were to beascertained and understood. It must be made clear as an absolutescientific demonstration that the change of form by the process we calldeath does not put an end to intelligent and rational intercourse, butthat, indeed, instead of setting up a barrier, it removes barriers andrenders mutual comprehension far clearer and more direct than before. This realization alters the entire perspective of life, and is the newGlad Tidings of great joy. 

It is something of all this that the Eternal City suggests to one as hemakes his pilgrimages to shrine and cloister and chapel and Basilica. The mighty Past is eloquent with a thousand voices, and they blend intoa choral harmony of promise and prophecy for the nobler future ofhumanity. 

At the foot of the Scala Santa, on either side, are statues of Christand Judas, and of Christ and Pilate, very interesting groups byJacometti, and there is also a kneeling statue of Pio Nono. 

The statue of Judas is considered one of the most notable of the latemodern Italian sculpture. 

The Rome of to-day is in strange contrast even to the city that Page andHawthorne knew, in the comparatively recent past; and the Rome of theancients is traced only in the churches and the ruins. It is a _mot_that one hears every language spoken in Rome, except the Italian! Solargely has the Seven-hilled City become the pleasure ground of foreignresidents. The contrast between the ordinary breakfast-table talk inRome and in--Boston, for instance, or Washington, is amusing. In thePuritan capital it usually includes the topic of weather predictions andthe news in the morning paper, with whatever other of local or personalmatters of interest. In Washington, where the very actors and the eventsthat make the nation's history are fairly before one's eyes, thebreakfast-table conversation is apt to turn on matters that have not yetgot into the papers, --the evening session of the previous night, perhaps, when too long prolonged under the vast dome to admit of itshaving been noted in the morning press. But in Rome the breakfast-tabletalk is apt to be of the new excavations just taken from the bed of theTiber; the question as to whether the head of St. Paul could havetouched (at the tragic scene of his execution) at three places so farapart as the tri-fontanes; or a discussion of the marvellous freshnessof the mosaics in the interior of the Palace of the Cæsars; or, again, of the last night's balls or dinners, and matters most frankly_mondaine_, and of contemporary life. 

The American Embassy, whose location depends on the individual choice ofthe Ambassador of the time, is now in the old Palazzo del Drago on thecorner of the Via Venti Settembre and the Via delle Quattro Fontane. Thestreet floor, like all the old palaces, is not used for living purposes. The portiere, the guards, the corridors, and approaches to thestaircases monopolize this space. The piano nobile is the residence ofthe beautiful and lovely Principessa d'Antuni, the youthful widow of thePrincipe who was himself a grandson of Marie Christine, the Queen ofSpain. The young Princess who was married to him at the age ofseventeen, ten years ago, is left with three little children, of whomthe only daughter bears the name of her great-grandmother, the SpanishQueen. Perfectly at home in all the romance languages, an accomplishedmusician, a thinker, a scholar, a student, a lovely figure in life, abeautiful and sympathetic friend is the Princess d'Antuni. She is "of asimplicity, " as they say in Italy, investing the dignity of her rankwith indescribable grace and sweetness. The two long flights of stairsthat lead up to the secundo piano in the Palazzo del Drago--the flooroccupied by the American Embassy--have at least a hundred steps to eachstaircase, yet so broad and easy of ascent as hardly to fatigue one. These flights are carpeted in glowing red, while along the wall areniches in each of which stands an old statue, making the ascent of theguest seem a classic progress. 

The Palazzo del Drago has an elevator, but elevator service in Rome is athing apart, something considered quite too good for human nature'sdaily food, and the slight power is far too little to permit any numberof people to be accommodated, so on any ceremonial occasion the elevatoris closed and the guests walk up the two long flights. The total lack ofany mastery of mechanical conditions in Italy is very curious. 

The grand ball given at the American Embassy just before Ash Wednesdayin the winter of 1907 was a very pretty affair. Up the rose-red carpetedstairs the guests walked, the statues looking silently on, butapparently there was no Galatea to step down from her niche and join thehappy throng. In the antechamber each guest was asked to write his namein the large autograph books kept for that purpose, and then, passingon, was received by the Ambassador and Ambassadress in the first of thesplendid series of salons thrown open for the occasion. At this time itwas Mr. And Mrs. Henry White who represented the United States, and wonthe hearts of all Rome as well, and assisted by their charming daughter, Miss Muriel White, they made this ball an affair to leave its lovelypictures in memory. The scenic setting of an old Roman palace captivatesthe stranger. It may not impress him as especially comfortable, but itis certainly picturesque, and who would not prefer--at least for the"one night only" of the traditional _prima donna_ announcements--thepictorially picturesque and magnificent to the merely comfortable? Thelofty ceilings, painted by artists who have long since vanished frommortal sight, make it impossible to attain the temperature that theAmerican regards as essential to his terrestrial well-being, and as theonly sources of heat were the open fireplaces the guests hovered aroundthese and their radii of comfortable warmth were limited. In one salonthere was one especially beautiful effect of a great jar of white lilacsplaced before a vast mirror at sufficient distance to give the mirrorreflection an individuality as a thing apart, and the effect was that ofa very garden of paradise. The music was fascinating, the decorationsall in good taste, and the occasion was most brilliant, --_trèscharmante_ indeed. The American ambassadress was ablaze with her famousdiamonds, her corsage being literally covered with them, and hercoiffure adorned with a coronet, but the temperature soon forced theambassadress to partially eclipse her splendor with the little ermineshoulder cape that is an indispensable article for evening dress inRome. The temperature does not admit the possibility of _décolleté_gowns without some protection, when these resplendent glittering robesthat seem woven of the stars are worn. Among the more distinguishedguests, aside from the _corps diplomatique_ and the titled nobility ofRome and visiting foreigners, were M. Carolus Duran, the celebratedportrait artist of Paris, and among other interesting people were MissElise Emmons of Leamington, England, a grand-niece of Charlotte Cushman. M. Carolus Duran was very magnificent, his breast covered with jewelledorders and decorations from the various societies, academies, andgovernments that have honored him. He is a short man and has grown quitestout, but he carries himself with inimitable grace and dignity, and inhis luminous eyes one still surprises that far-away look which Sargentso wonderfully caught in his portrait of the great French artist, painted in his earlier life. 

The number of spacious salons with their easy-chairs and sofas enabledall guests who desired to ensconce themselves luxuriously to do so, andwatch the glittering scene. The supper room and the salon for dancingwere not more alluring than the salons wherein one could study thisbrilliant throng of diplomates, titled nobility, distinguished artists, social celebrities, and those who were, in various ways, each _personagrata_ in Rome. Among those at this particular festivity were theAmerican novelist, Frank Hamilton Spearman, with Mrs. Spearman. In lateAmerican fiction Mr. Spearman has made for himself a distinctive placeas the novelist whose artistic eye has discerned the romance in the newphases of life created by the extensive systems of mountain railroading, and the great irrigation schemes of the far West, which have not onlyopened up new territory, but have called into evidence new combinationsof the qualities most potent in human life, --love, sacrifice, heroism, devotion to duty, and tragedy and comedy as well. In his novels, "TheDaughter of a Magnate" and "Whispering Smith, " in such vivid anddelightful short stories as "The Ghost at Point of Rocks, " whichappeared in _Scribner's Magazine_ for August of 1907, Mr. Spearman hasdramatized the pathos, the wit, the vast and marvellous spirit ofenterprise, the desolation of isolated regions, the all-pervadingpotency and one may almost say intimacy of modern life made possible bythe Arabian Nights' dream of wireless telegraphy, "soaring" cars, long-distance telephoning, and lightning express train service in carsthat climb the mountains beyond the clouds, or dash through tunnels withten thousand feet of mountains above them. Mr. Spearman is the novelist_par excellence_ of this intense _vie modernité_. 

On Washington's Birthday, again, the stately salons of the AmericanEmbassy in the old Palazzo del Drago were well filled from four to sixwith an assemblage which expressed its patriotism and devotion toWashington by appearing in its most faultless raiment and in an apparentappreciation of the refreshment tables, from which cake and ices, teaand various other delicacies, were served. 

The informal weekly receptions at the Embassy are always delightful, andthe dinners and ceremonial entertainments are given with that faultlessgrace which characterizes the American ambassadress. 

The American consulate is always a charming centre in Rome, and in thepresent residence of Consul-General and Mrs. De Castro, who havedomiciled themselves on a lofty floor of a palace in the Via VentiSettembre, commanding beautiful views that make a picture of everywindow, the consulate is one of the favorite social centres forAmericans and other nationalities as well, who enjoy the charmingwelcome of Mrs. De Castro. 

Professor and Mrs. Jesse Benedict Carter, in their lovely home in theVia Gregoriana, add another to the pleasant American centres in theEternal City, Professor Carter having succeeded Professor Norton as theprincipal of the American Classical School. 

Mrs. Elihu Vedder, assisted by her accomplished daughter, Miss AnitaVedder, has a pretty fashion of receiving weekly in Mr. Vedder's studioin the Via Flaminia, and these Saturday receptions at the Vedders' are afeature of social life in Rome which are greatly sought. Thedistinguished artist reserves these afternoons for leisurelyconversation, and pictures and sketches are enjoyed the more that theymay be enjoyed in the presence of their creator. Miss Vedder has calledto life again the almost lost art of tapestry, and her productions ofwonderful beauty are considered as among the most desirable in moderndecorative art. Among these tapestries are "The Lover's Song, " "SalomeDancing before Herod, " "The Annunciation, " "The Legend of the Unicorn, ""The Lovers' Picnic, " and "The Lovers. " The tapestries were painted inRome and in the Vedder villa, _Torre Quattro Venti_ on Capri, where theartist and his wife and daughter pass their summers. The establishedEnglish Church has two chapels in Rome, one the Holy Trinity, of whichRev. Dr. Baldwin is the rector, and the other English chapel in Via delBabuino has for its chaplain Rev. Dr. Nutcombe Oxenham, whose ministryis one of the most helpful factors in Rome. Dr. And Mrs. Oxenham occupya charming apartment in the Piazza del Popolo, the most picturesquepiazza in Rome, with the terraced Pincion hillside crowned by the Villadi Medici on one side, and the "twin churches" on another; and thebeautiful salon of Mrs. Oxenham, with its wealth of books and classicengravings and gems of pictures, is one of the homelike interiors inRome. Mr. And Mrs. Oxenham receive on Wednesdays, and an hour with themand their guests is always a privileged one. 

The work of this church, largely through the active co-operation of Mrs. Oxenham, extends into wide charities which are without discrimination asto sect or race, --the only consideration being the human need to be metin the name of Him whose care and love are for each and all. 

Among the delightful hostesses of Rome is the American wife of CavaliereCortesi, an Italian man of letters, and in their apartment, in one ofthe notable palaces in the Corso, some of the most brilliant musicalsand receptions are given, the "All'Illustrissima Signora" being assistedin the informal serving of tea by the two little fairy daughters, Annunziata and Elizabetta, whose childish loveliness lingers with the_habitués_ of this pleasant home. 

In the Palazzo Senni, in the old part of Rome, looking out on Castel SanAngelo and the Ponte d'Angelo, across to the dome of St. Peter's, theListers had their home; and though Mrs. Lister, one of the mostdistinguished English ladies of Rome, has gone on into the fairer worldbeyond, her daughter, Miss Roma Lister, sustains the charminghospitalities for which her mother was famous. Her salons on the pianonobile of the palace are rich in souvenirs and rare objects of art. Mrs. Lister, who was of a noted English house, was evidently a favorite withQueen Victoria and the royal family; and her marriage gifts included twodrawings by the Queen, both autographed, and a crayon portrait of theEmpress Frederick with autographic inscription to Mrs. Lister. Anotherpersonal gift was a portrait of Cardinal Newman, with his autograph. Abust of Lady Paget of Florence, the widow of Sir Augustus Paget, formerly the English Ambassador to Italy, is another of the interestingtreasures which include, indeed, gifts and offerings from a large numberof those eminent in state, in art, in literature, or in the church. Thegracious hospitality of Miss Lister is dispensed to groups ofcosmopolitan guests, and her dinners and other entertainments are amongthe most brilliant in Rome. 

The Eternal City is not as hospitable to various phases of modernthought as is Florence, in which Theosophy, Christian Science, andpsychic investigation flourish with rapidly increasing ardor; but Romehas a Theosophical Society, among whose leaders is the BaronessRosenkrans, the mother of the distinguished young Danish novelist, andthe aunt of Miss Roma Lister. The society has its rooms in the veryheart of old Rome, and holds weekly meetings, often with an Englishlecturer as the speaker of the hour. A Theosophical library, in bothEnglish and Italian, is easily accessible, and the meetings areconducted in either language as it chances at the time. The accession ofAnnie Besant to the presidency of the Theosophical Society, succeedingColonel Olcott, whose death occurred early in 1907, was mostsatisfactory to the Roman members. Mrs. Besant is one of the mostremarkable women of the day. She is in no sense allied with any fadsor freaks; she is essentially a woman of scholarship and poise, ofgenuine grasp of significant thought and of brilliant eloquence. Theosophy, rightly interpreted, is in no sense antagonistic, but, rather, supplemental to Christianity. It offers the intellectualexplanation--the details, so to speak--of the great spiritual truths ofthe Bible. 

Rome seems fairly on its way to become an English-speaking city, sonumerous are the Americans and English who throng to Rome in the winter. 

There are now at least a dozen large new hotels on the scale of the bestmodern hotels in New York and Paris, beside the multitude of the olderones which are comfortable and retain all their popularity; yet thisincrease in accommodation does not equal the increase in demand. InFebruary the tide of travel sets in toward Rome, and from that dateuntil after Easter every nook and niche are filled to overflowing. Thedemand for apartments in Rome is greater than the supply, although thecity is being constantly extended and new buildings are rapidly beingerected. It would seem as if, with the present increasingly large numberof Americans and English, it might be an admirable financial enterprisefor capitalists to come and build comfortable modern apartment hotels. There seems to be no adequate reason why, in this age, people should becompelled to live in these gloomy, dreary, cold, old stone palaces, without elevator service and with no adequate heating, lighting, andrunning-water facilities. There would seem to be no conceivable reasonwhy these conveniences should not be at hand in Rome as well as in NewYork. As for the climate, with warm houses to live in, it would becharmingly comfortable, for the deadly cold is not in the temperatureout of doors, but only in the interiors. One is warm in the sunshine inthe streets, when he is fairly frozen in the house. Mentioning this, however, with wonder that some enterprising American did not begin suchbuilding operations, a friend who has lived for sixteen years in Romereplied that the Italians would never permit it; that no foreigner isallowed to come in here and initiate business operations. And theItalians continue building after the old and clumsy fashion of fivehundred years ago. 

Italy has a curiously pervasive and general suspicion of any latter-daycomfort. The new apartment houses of from four to seven stories arelargely without any elevator; if there is one it usually only ascendsabout halfway, and it is so clumsy and slow in its methods, so poorlysupported by power, that half the time it does not run at all. Thestreets of Rome are paved with rough stones; the sidewalks are verynarrow; the lighting is inadequate. Bathrooms are rare and insufficientin number, and all interior lighting and heating arrangements lack muchthat is desirable according to American ideas of comfort. 

Still the Eternal City is so impressive in and of itself that sunshineor storm, comfort or the reverse, can hardly affect one's intensity ofjoy and wonder and mysterious, unanalyzable rapture in it. Thetwentieth-century Rome is a very different affair from the Rome on whichHawthorne entered one dark, cold, stormy winter night more than half acentury ago. In the best modern hotels one may be as comfortable as helikes, with all the fascinations of life added besides. No wonder thatRome is one of the great winter centres, with some of the mostinteresting people in the world always to be found under the spell ofits enchantment. 

The Rome of to-day is a curious mixture of ruins and of modern buildingswhich are neither modern nor mediæval in their structure, but many ofwhich combine the most picturesque features of the latter with thelatest beauty of French and American architectural art. The classicbuildings are now largely in unpleasant surroundings; as, for instance, the Pantheon, which is surrounded by a fish market, with unspeakableodors and other repulsive features. "But the portico, with its sixteenCorinthian columns, is forever majestic; the interior, a vast circularcell surmounted by a dome through which alone it is lighted, there beingno windows in the walls, is massive and grim, but the magicalillumination, the eye constantly revealing the sky above, gives itwonderful beauty. Over the outer portals is the inscription of itserection by Agrippa twenty-seven years before Christ, so it has stoodfor nearly two thousand years. Colossal statues of Augustus and Agrippafill niches. In diameter the interior of the Pantheon is one hundred andthirty-two feet, and it is the same in height, which insures thesingularly harmonious proportions. The tribune of the High-Altar is cutin the thickness of the wall in the form of a semicircle, and isornamented, like the door, with four pilasters and two columns of violetmarble. The six chapels are also cut in the wall and ornamented by twocolumns and two pilasters. The columns and the pilasters support thebeautiful cornice of white marble; the frieze is of porphyry, and goesround the whole temple. Above this order there is a species of atticwith fourteen niches, and the great cornice from which rises themajestic dome. Eight other niches are between the chapels, and these arealso with a pediment supported by two Corinthian columns. They are nowconverted into altars. In this temple are buried several artists, amongwhom are Raphael, Giovanni da Udine, Baldassare Peruzzi, and AnnibaleCarracci. Raphael is buried beneath the base of the statue called laMadonna del Sasso, sculptured by Lorenzetti. This church is, however, without paintings or sculptures of much interest. Victor Emmanuel wasentombed here on the 20th of January, 1878, and King Umberto on the 9thof August, 1900. " One of the imposing ceremonies of Rome is that alwayscelebrated in the Pantheon on March 14, in memory of King Umberto Primo. 

A grand catafalque, surmounted by the royal crown, and surrounded bytall candelabra with wax candles, is erected in the centre of thetemple, draped with black velvet and gold lace, and lighted withelectric lamps. The mass is for a chorus of voices only. All the civiland military authorities, the state dignitaries, and the _corpsdiplomatique_ to the court of Italy are present. The troops, in fulldress uniform, file in the Piazza of the Collegio Romano, Via Piè diMarmo, and the Piazza della Minerva, enclosing thus a large square inthe Piazza del Pantheon. The spectacle is one of the most imposing ofall Roman ceremonies. 

The King, and Queen Elena, and the Dowager Queen Margherita, accompaniedby their respective civil and military households, assist at the requiemmass celebrated in the Pantheon, and at a commemoration service, on thesame day, in the Royal Chapel of the Sudario, where also assemble theladies and gentlemen of the Order of the Annunziata. 

On the same morning the feast of St. Gregory, Pope and Doctor of thechurch, is celebrated at his church on the Cælian Hill. He was born of anoble family, and was Prefect of Rome in 573. Pope Pelagius II made himregionary deacon of Rome, and sent him as legate to Constantinople in578, where he remained till the death of Pelagius, when he was electedPope (590). He introduced the Gregorian chant. His first great act wasto send St. Augustine to convert the Saxons of England to the Christianfaith. An inscription in the Church of San Gregorio Magno states thatSt. Augustine was educated in the abbey which was erected on the site ofthe present church by Gregory, and that many early archbishops of Yorkand Canterbury were also educated there. It was on the steps of thischurch that Augustine and his forty monks took leave of Gregory, whensetting out for England. He died in 604, after a pontificate of thirteenyears and six months. He was buried in the portico of the VaticanBasilica, and his body lies under the altar dedicated to him in thissame church. His church, on the Cælian Hill, was built on the site ofthe monastery founded by him. In the chapel of the triclinium, near thechurch, the table on which he served the poor is shown. Near the churchalso is seen his cell, where his marble chair and one of his arms areexhibited. 

During the Lenten season of 1907 one of the privileges of Rome was tohear the sermons of Monsignor Vaughn, in the English Catholic Church ofSan Silvestre. Monsignor Vaughn is the private chaplain of the Pope. Hisdiscourses attracted increasing throngs of both Catholic and Protestanthearers. This celebrated prelate is a brother of the late EnglishCardinal. He is a man of great distinction of presence, of beautifulvoice and fascination of manner. One discourse had for its theme thejoys of the life that is to come. The spiritual body, he said, has manyqualities not pertaining to the physical body. It is immured from alldisease and accidents; it is subtle and can pass through any substancewhich is (apparently) solid to us, as, for instance, when Jesus appearedin the midst of his disciples, "the doors being shut. " It is not a clogon the soul, continued Monsignor Vaughn; the spiritual body is thevehicle of the soul and can waft its way through the air; it can walkthe air as the physical body walks the earth. It is not--as is thephysical body--the prison of the soul, but the companion of the soul. This is all a very enlightened presentation of spiritual truth, and itis little wonder that such preaching attracts large congregations. HolyWeek in Rome bears little resemblance now to that of the past. The Popeis not visible in any of the ceremonials in any of the churches; and theimpressiveness of former Catholic ceremonials is greatly lessened. Indeed, with the passing of the temporal power of the Pope, thepicturesqueness of Rome largely vanished. 

Not, assuredly, from any lack of reverence for the colossal cathedral ofSt. Peter's is that Basilica a resort for Sunday afternoons; it suggestsa social reunion, where every one goes, listens as he will to the musicof the Papal choir in the Chapel of the Sacrament, and strolls about thevast interior where the promenade of the multitude does not yet disturbin the least the vesper service in the chapel. Here one meetseverybody; the general news of the day is exchanged; greeting andsalutation and pleasant little conversational interludes mark theafternoon, while the sun sinks behind the splendid pile of the PalazzoVaticano, and the golden light through the window of the tribune fadesinto dusk. Can one ever lose out of memory the indescribable charm ofthis leisurely sauntering, in social enjoyment, in the wonderfulinterior of St. Peter's?

In the way of the regulation sight-seeing the visitor to Rome compassesmost of his duty in this respect on his initial sojourn and goes therounds that no one ever need dream of repeating. Once for all thevisitor to Rome goes down into the Catacombs; makes his appallingly hardjourney over Castel San Angelo, into its cells and dungeons, and to thecolossal salon in which is Hadrian's tomb; once for a lifetime he climbsSt. Peter's dome; drives out to old St. Agnes and descends into thecrypt; visits the Church of the Capucines and beholds the ghastlyspectacle of the monks' skulls; drives in the Appian Way; visits thePalace of the Cæsars, the Baths of Caracalla--a mass of ruins; theForum; the Temples of Vesta and Isis; the Coliseum, and the classic oldPantheon. These form a kind of skeleton for the regulation sight-seeingof the Eternal City; things which, once done, are checked off with thefeeling that the entire duty of the tourist has been fulfilled, andthat, henceforth in Rome, there is laid up for him the crown ofenjoyment, if not rejoicing; that he may go again and again to study themarvellous treasures of the Vatican galleries, the masterpieces of artin the Raphael stanze in the Vatican, the interesting pictures andsculpture in the many rich churches and galleries. The deadly chill ofmost of these galleries and churches in the winter is beyond words todescribe. It is as if the gloom and chill and darkness of a thousandcenturies were there concentrated. 

One of the regulation places for the devout sight-seer, who feelsresponsible to his conscience for improving his privileges, is the MuseoNazionale, or the Tiberine Museum, a large proportion of whose treasureshave been excavated in making the new embankments of the Tiber. It islocated on the site of the Baths of Diocletian, the great ruins of whichsurround it in the most uncanny way. Built around a large court, thesalons of the museum are entered from the inner cloisters. In the centreof the court is a fountain, and around it are antique fragments ofstatues, columns, and statuettes found in many places. The famousLudovisi collection of antique statuary is now permanently placed inthis museum, --a collection that includes the "Ludovisi Mars;""Hercules, " with a cornucopia; the "Hermes of Theseus, " the "DiscobolusHermes;" the "Venus of Gnidus" as copied by Praxiteles; the "DyingMedusa;" the "Ludovisi Juno, " which Winckelmann declares to be thefinest head of Juno extant, a Greek work of the fourth century; a "Cupidand Psyche;" the two "Muses of Astronomy" and of "Epic Poetry, " "Uraniaand Calliope;" "an Antoninus;" the largest sarcophagus known; a "TragicMask" (colossal) in rosso antico; a bust of "Marcus Aurelius" in bronze, and many other priceless works. 

The splendor of scenic setting for art in the magnificent salons of theCasino Borghese has never been surpassed. They are, perhaps, the mostimpressive of any Roman interior, with lofty, splendidly decoratedceilings and walls, where recess and niche hold priceless sculptures. The splendor of these salons, indeed, quite exceeds description. In theprincipal one is a group on one wall--a colossal relief--representingMarcus Curtius plunging into the gulf in the Forum. There are busts ofthe twelve Cæsars; there are busts of all the Roman Emperors, withalabaster draperies, placed on pedestals of red granite. There areBernini's "Apollo and Daphne;" Canova's celebrated statue of PrincessPauline Borghese (the sister of Napoleon I); Bernini's "David" and"Æneas and Anchises;" Thorwaldsen's "Faun;" "Diana, " "Isis, " "Juno, " andmany other celebrated classic statues. All the great paintings whichwere formerly in the Palazzo Borghese--over six hundred in all--are nowin this casino. The great work in this collection is Raphael's"Entombment of Christ, " painted in his twenty-fourth year. Titian's"Divine and Human Love;" Raphael's portrait of "Cæsar Borgia;"Correggio's "Danaë;" Domenichino's "Cumæan Sibyl" and "Diana;" Peruzzi's"Venus Leaving the Bath;" Van Dyck's "Crucifixion;" Titian's "Venus andCupid;" and "Annunciation, " by Paul Veronese; Vasari's "LucreziaBorgia;" Botticelli's "Holy Family and Angels;" Van Dyck's "Entombment;"Carlo Dolce's "Mater Dolorosa, " and Sassoferrato's "Three Ages of Man"are among the great masterpieces in this museum. 

The Villa Borghese (by which is meant the park) is some three miles inextent, and was laid out some two hundred years ago by CardinalBorghese. As recently as 1902 it was purchased by the government forthree million francs, and its official name is now "Villa ComunaleUmberto Primo. " These grounds contain fountains, antique statues, tablets, small temples and many inscriptions, with statues of Æsculapiusand Apollo, and an Egyptian gateway. They are open all day to every onefreely and are one of the great attractions of Rome. 

The great palaces of Rome are of later date than those of Florence. There are some eighty principal ones, of which the Palazzos Veneziano, Farnese, Doria, Barberini, Colonna, and the Rospigliosi (containingGuido's famous "Aurora") are the most important. The Farnesina Palacecontains some of the most interesting pictures in Rome, and thetraditions of the residence of Agostino Chigi, during the pontificateof Leo X, are still found in Rome, --traditions of the lavishmagnificence of the entertainments given here to the Pope and theCardinals. 

The Monte Pincio is the famous drive of Roman society, and the promenadearound the brow of the hill offers one of the most enchanting views ofthe world. Near the Trinità di Monti stands the historic Villa Medici, the French Academy of which the great Carolus Duran is now the director. The view across the valley in which lies the Piazza di Spagna, the riverto St. Peter's, from the Villa Medici, is one of the finest in Rome. 

The architecture of the garden façade is attributed to Michael Angelo. These gardens have a circuit of more than a mile, laid out in the formalrectangles and densely bordered walks of the Italian custom. All mannerof old fragments of sculpture are scattered through them, --a torso, abroken bust, a ruined statue, an old and partly broken fountain, --andentablatures and reliefs are seen in the walls on every hand. No soundof the city ever penetrates into this dense foliage which secludes thegardens of the famous Villa Medici. 

One of the features of Roman life is the fashionable drive on MontePincio in the late afternoons. An hour or two before sunset the terraceof the Piazza Trinità di Monti begins to be thronged with pedestrians, who lean over the marble balustrade, gazing at the incomparable picturedpanorama where the vast dome of St. Peter's, the dense pines of theVilla Pamphilia-Doria on the Janiculum, and the dark cypress groves onMonte Mario loom up against the golden western sky. 

Compared with the extensive parks of modern cities the Monte Pinciowould prefigure itself as a drive for fairies alone. It comprises a fewacres only, thickly decorated with trees and shrubbery, with a casinofor the orchestra that plays every afternoon, and a circular carriagedrive so limited in extent that the same carriage comes in view everyfew minutes. 

The Eternal City has had so many birthdays that one would fancy them tohave become negligible; but it was announced on April 21 of 1907 thatthe date was a special anniversary, and she took on aspects offestivity. The municipal palaces and museums were hung with tapestries, flags were flying from the Capitol, the municipal guards were all infull dress uniform and the municipal orchestra played in the PiazzaColonna. The historic bell began ringing at eight in the morning inpeals that were well calculated to call the Cæsars from their tombs andwhich might, indeed, have been mistaken for the final trumpet calls ofGabriel. But the Romans take their pleasures rather sadly andsternly, --not like the light-hearted Florentines in song and laughter, or with the joyous abandon of the Neapolitans, --so there was no specialmanifestation on the part of the populace, and the day, cold, gloomy, and cheerless, did not inspire gayety. 

When the Republic of Rome was established (on Feb. 9, 1849) aprovisional government was appointed. In March of that year Mazziniproposed that the assembly should appoint a Committee of War, and it wasdecided to send troops to Piedmont. Later a triumvirate, consisting ofMazzini, Saffi, and Armellini, was formed, but disaster was near. InApril the French troops landed at Cività Vecchia, and the Italiansprepared to defend their country from the control of Louis Napoleon. Mazzini is said to have been "the life and the soul" of this defence. But the Republic was doomed, and when it had fallen the Pope returned, only under the protection of the French. But the French Empire, too, wasdoomed to fall; and when Garibaldi transferred his successes to VictorEmmanuel, the monarchy was consolidated by the union of Rome with Italy, and the present "Via Venti Settembre" in Rome--the street named tocommemorate that 20th of September, 1870, on which the Italian troopsentered the city and the Papal reign ended--perpetuates the story ofthose eventful days. "Victor Emmanuel, Cavour, and Garibaldi have beendesignated, along with Mazzini, as the founders of the modern Italy, "said Dr. William Clarke, "but a broad line divides Mazzini from theothers. " Dr. Clarke sees between Cavour and Mazzini "the everlastingconflict between the idealist and the man of the world. The former, " hecontinues, "stands by the intellect and the conscience; the latter bythe limitations of actual fact and the practical difficulties of thecase, " and Dr. Clarke notes further:--

 "It was pre-eminently Mazzini who gave to Italy the breath of a new life, who taught her people constancy in devotion to an ideal good. Prophets are rarely successful in their own day, and so it has been with the prophet of modern Italy. The making of Italy has not proceeded in the way he hoped it would; for the Italians, who are an eminently subtle and diplomatic people, have apparently thought it best to bend to the hard facts by which they have been surrounded. But if, as Emerson teaches, facts are fluid to thought, we may believe that the ideas of Mazzini will yet prevail in the nation of his birth, and that he may yet be regarded as the spiritual father of the future Italian commonwealth. For of him, if of any modern man, we may say that he

 'Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, And did not dream it was a dream. '"

 [Illustration: STATUE OF CHRIST, ANCIENT CHURCH OF SAN MARTINA, ROME _From the Artist's Original Cast_ Albert Bertel Thorwaldsen _Page 193_]

Between the period of the establishment of the Roman Republic in 1849and the consummation of United Italy in 1870 the years were rich to theartist, whatever they may have been to philosopher and patriot. The wayfor the painter and the sculptor seems to have been a flowery and apictorial one, --a very _via buona fortuna_, through a golden, artistic atmosphere. The perpetual excursions may lead the seriousspectator to wonder where working hours come in, but, at all events, those days are rich in color. Friends grouped together by the unerringlaw of elective affinities loitered in galleries and churches. SanMartina, near the Mamertine prisons, was a point of interest because ofThorwaldsen's bequest to it of the original cast of his beautiful statueof "Christ" which is in Copenhagen. This is, perhaps, the finest workever conceived by the Danish sculptor, and is one that no visitor ofto-day can behold unmoved. Both Canova and Bernini are also representedin this church, --the former by a statue of "Religion" and the latter bya bust of Pietro da Cortona. Beneath the present Church of San Martinais the ancient one containing the shrine of the martyr, under a superbbronze altar. Of this church, Mrs. Jameson says in her "Sacred andLegendary Art":--

 "At the foot of the Capitoline Hill, on the left hand as we descend from the Ara Coeli into the Forum, there stood in very ancient times a small chapel, dedicated to St. Martina, a Roman virgin. The veneration paid to her was of very early date, and the Roman people were accustomed to assemble there on the first day of the year. This observance was, however, confined to the people, and was not very general till 1634, an era which connects her in rather an interesting manner with the history of art. In this year, as they were about to repair her chapel, they discovered, walled into the foundations, a sarcophagus of terra cotta, in which was the body of a young female, whose severed head reposed in a separate casket. These remains were very naturally supposed to be those of the saint who had been so long venerated on that spot. The discovery was hailed with the utmost exultation, not by the people only, but by those who led the minds and consciences of the people. The Pope himself, Urban VIII, composed hymns in her praise; and Cardinal Francesco Barberini undertook to rebuild her church. "

The painter, Pietro da Cortona, entered into this feeling and at his ownexpense built the chapel and painted for its altar piece the picturerepresenting the saint in triumph, while the temple in which she hasgone to sacrifice falls in ruins from a raging tempest. 

In any stray ramble in Rome the sojourner might chance, at any moment, upon obelisk, a pedestal or inscription linked with the great names ofthe historic past. Hawthorne has recorded how, by mere chance, he turnedfrom the Via delle Quattro Fontane into the Via Quirinale and was thuslured on to an obelisk and a fountain on the pedestal of which on oneside was the inscription, "Opus Phidias, " and on the other, "OpusPraxiteles, " and he exclaims:--

 "What a city is this, when one may stumble, by mere chance--at a street corner as it were--on the works of two such sculptors! I do not know the authority, " he continues, "on which these statues (Castor and Pollux I presume) are attributed to Phidias and Praxiteles; but they impressed me as noble and godlike, and I feel inclined to take them for what they purport to be. "

While the Papal ceremonies are neither so frequent nor so magnificent asin former days, still any hotel guest in Rome is liable, any morning, on coming down to the _salle-à-manger_ for coffee, to find every woman(who is taking her Rome seriously) arrayed in a black robe with a blacklace veil on her head. One would fancy they were all a procession ofnuns, about to retire from the world into the strict seclusion of thecloister. But it is nothing so momentous. It is only that every lady, with the devotion to spectacles which every visitor in Rome feels, as amatter of course, has secured the pink ticket entitling her to admissionto the Vatican Palace to see the "passage" of the Pope, as he makes hisway, attended by the Cardinals of the Sacred College, to the SistineChapel where his Holiness "creates" new Cardinals. Although rumored thatthe spectacle will be a gorgeous one, that the Pope will be carriedaloft preceded by the silver trumpeters and attended by the Cardinalsand the ambassadors and other dignitaries in the full dress of theirceremonial costumes and their orders, the reality is less impressive. Some feminine enthusiasts fare forth at the heroic hour of eight, although the procession is not announced to pass until a quarter afterten (which in Italy should be translated as a quarter after eleven, atthe earliest, if not after twelve, which would be the more probable), inorder to secure good standing room. For everybody is to stand--ofcourse, comfort being a thing conspicuous only by its absence in Italy!Those of us too well aware by the experiences of previous visits toItaly that no Italian function was ever on time, from the starting of arailway train to the crowning of a king, only betake ourselves to theglories of the Palazzo Vaticano at the hour named, and we have then--asone's prophetic soul or his commonplace memory warned him--to wait morethan an hour wedged into a dense crowd of all nationalities, none ofwhom seem at this particular juncture, at least, to be at alloverburdened with good manners. And what went they out for to seek?Instead of an impressive spectacle--a thing to remember for alifetime--one merely sees Pius X walking, surrounded by his Cardinals ina group, --not a procession, --he alone in the centre with his mitre onhis head, --the whole scene hardly lasting over a minute, and as hisHoliness is not as tall as most of his Cardinals, he is almost hiddenfrom view. It had been rumored that the Pope was to be borne aloft inthe Papal chair, preceded by the traditional white fan and the silvertrumpets; but the present Pope is temperamentally inclined to minimizeall the ceremonials investing his sacred office. 

Yet there is always a thrill in entering the Vatican. To ascend thatsplendid _Scala Regia_ designed by Bernini, with one of the mostingeniously treated perspective effects to be found, it may be, in theentire world; to cross this _Scala_ with its interesting frescoes bySalviati and others; to see at near range the picturesque SwissGuard, --surely any pretext to enjoy such a morning is easily accepted ofwhatever occurrence one may grasp in order to obtain the hour. 

One curious feature of the past is to-day equally in evidence in Rome. Strolling at any time into the Church of San Agostino one beholds acurious spectacle. It is in this church that is placed the beautifulbronze statue of the Virgin and Child by Sansovino. It is approached bya platform on which is placed a stool that enables one to mount and thusreach the foot of the statue, which is kissed and the wish of thedevotee is offered. This Madonna is believed to have the power to granteach wish and prayer; to heal the sick; restore the blind, the deaf, andthe lame; to grant immunity from loss or illness; to grant success andprosperity. The poor Madonna must have her hands full with theseavalanches of petitions, but she sits calmly in state and, if thestriking testimony of votive offerings can be credited, she is mostamiable in granting the prayers of her devotees. For she is hung withpriceless jewels; necklaces, brooches, bracelets, diamond and ruby andsapphire rings on her fingers, she is a blaze of splendor. Around thisstatue there is a perpetual crowd, whatever hour of day one chances towander in, and from prince to beggar the bronze foot is kissed, as eachwaits his turn to mount the stool and prefer his secret wish. The wallsof the church are covered with the votive offerings to the Madonna forher aid, --rich jewels, orders, tablets, --offerings of all kinds. In thischurch is entombed the body of Santa Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, placed in an urn of verd-antique, in a special chapelbeautifully decorated. After preferring one's secret wish to the Virginone must wander on to the Fontane de Trevi and throw his penny into thewater to insure his return to Rome, and then he may rest, _mens consciarecti_!

Although Holy Week in Rome has less ceremonial observance in theselatter days than those of the impressive scenes so vividly portrayed byMme. De Staël in "Corinne, " it still attracts a multitude of visitorsand offers much to touch and thrill the life of the spirit, quiteirrespective as to whether the visitor be of the Catholic or Protestantfaith. In the great essentials of Christianity, all followers of Christunite. The Pope does not now take part in public services on Easter, andthat scene of the Pontifical blessing from the balcony of St. Peter'sgiven to the multitude below who throng the piazza remains only inmemory and in record. But the stately and solemn services of Good Fridayin the vast and grand interior of St. Peter's are an experience tolinger forever in memory. The three hours' service--the chanting of theMiserere--was a scene to impress the imagination. This service is heldin the late afternoon of Good Friday, in the tribune of St. Peter's, theextreme end of the church where the vast window of yellow glass gives aperpetually golden light. The chair believed to have been that of St. Peter's is here placed, enclosed in ivory and supported by statues offour Fathers of the church, St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom, and St. Athanasius, from a design of Bernini. 

In the tribune is the tomb of Urban VIII (who was Matteo Barberini), ofwhich the redundant decoration tells the story that it is also Bernini'swork. Opposite this tomb is that of Paul III, by della Porta, under thesupervision of Michael Angelo, it is said, and the beauty and dignity ofthe bronze figure of the aged Pope, in the act of giving thebenediction, quite confirm this tradition. On a tablet in the wall ofthe tribune are engraved the names of all the bishops and prelates who, in 1854, accepted the belief of the Immaculate Conception, --this tabletbeing placed by the order of Pio Nono. 

In this tribune on the late afternoon of the Good Friday of 1907 theseats were filled with worshippers to listen to the three hours' chantof the Miserere. Princes and peasants sat side by side, and an immensethrong who could not find seats stood, often wandering away in the dimdistances of the cathedral and ever and again returning. The high altar, where Canova's beautiful figure of the kneeling Pope always enchains thevisitor, was, as usual, surrounded. The lights burned--these perpetuallamps--and the moving throng went and came. The scene grew mystic, dream-like, as the solemn music floated on the air. 

The Chapel of the Holy Sacrament, on the left of the cathedral, was madeinto the sepulchre that day, and anything more beautiful than the myriadaltar lights and the flowers could not be imagined. At the altarblack-robed nuns were kneeling, and all over the chapel, kneeling on thefloor, were people of all grades and ranks of life, from the duchess andprincess to the beggar woman with a ragged shawl on her shoulders andher baby in her arms. St. Peter's was nearly filled all that day withpeople, not crowded, but apparently thronged in almost every part. 

The altar in the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament was one mass of deep redroses. The chapel was completely darkened, but the blaze of myriads oftall candles illuminated the roses and the black-robed nuns and theblack-robed devotees. It was a scene never to be forgotten. 

Even in the latter-day Rome, historic names are not wanting. One ofthese, the Princess Christina Bonaparte, _née_ Ruspoli, died in 1907 inher Roman villa in Via Venti Settembre. She was the widow of PrinceNapoleon Charles Bonaparte and a cousin of the Empress Eugénie. With herhusband in Paris until 1870, she fled (whilst her husband was fightingat Metz) as soon as the Commune was proclaimed. The princess wasconsidered a beautiful woman and her portrait had been painted by ErnestHébert, but it was lost when the Palace of the Tuileries was destroyedin 1870. 

With this princess dies the name of the Bonaparte family. Her daughters, Donna Maria Gotti-Bonaparte and Princess Maria della Moskowa, were oftenwith her in Rome. 

The Palazzo Bonaparte is very near Porta Pia. Although called a palace, it is simply a plain house of some five stories, with narrow halls andstone staircases, no elevator, no electric lights. The princess occupiedthe first floor, while the apartments above were let to variousfamilies. 

With the exception of the royal palaces there are few in which suitesare not obtainable for residence by any one who desires them. 

 [Illustration: CASTEL SAN ANGELO AND ST. PETER'S, ROME _Page 204_]

It was at a pleasant _déjeûner_ one spring day in Rome that the projectwas launched, that we should go motoring that afternoon to Frascati, Albano, Castel Gandolfo, Lago di Nemi, and all that wonderful region. Wewere lunching with a friend who had a charming apartment in one of thesumptuous old palaces of Rome, where, in a niche on the marblestaircase, the statue of Cæsar Augustus stood, --a copy of the famousstatue in the Capitoline, --where lofty, decorated ceilings, oldpaintings and sculptures adorned the rooms, and where from the windowswe looked out on the tragedy-haunted Castel San Angelo, with the dome ofSan Pietro in the background. Our friend who invited us to fly in hismotor had brought his touring car over from America. The one note of newluxury now is for travellers to journey with their touring cars. In ayear or two more it will be airships or soaring machines. On thiswonderful May afternoon, all azure and gold, we started off in thegreat, luxurious touring car which was arranged even to carry twotrunks, with a safe in it for the deposit of valuables, a hamper forrefreshments, and, indeed, almost every conceivable convenience. On weflew through Rome, past the great Basilica of San Maria Maggiore; pastthe wonderful pile of San Giovanni Laterano, with the colossal statuesof the apostles surmounting the façade; through the Porta San Giovanniinto the narrow, walled lane leading out on the Campagna; on, on, to theAlban hills. We flew past olive orchards and vineyards, and the vastgreen pasture lands of the Campagna whose vivid green was ablaze withscarlet poppies. Far away to the west there was a white shiningline--the line of the sea. 

At Frascati we stopped at the Villa Torlonia, the country place of theducal family, whose grand Roman palazzo is in the Bocca di Leone in theold part of Rome. The Torlonia have an only daughter, Donna Teresa, whose _débutante_ ball a year ago is said to have been the mostmagnificent entertainment in Rome for fifty years. A writer, in a recentarticle on the nobility of Rome, said of this family:--

 "The Torlonia figure repeatedly in the novels of Thackeray, who was never tired of portraying them. They have been most useful citizens, and since the days of the old army contractor, who founded the house, have augmented the family wealth by judicious investments, especially in connection with the draining and reclaiming of the marsh lands that abound in the former Papal States. They have contracted matrimonial alliances with the Colonna, with the Borghese, the Belmonte, the Doria, and the Sforza. "

The Villa Torlonia at Frascati is a very large estate with extensivegardens, terraces, and a cascade of three falls on the hillside, whichis turned on (the water) at pleasure. The house, however, is ashabby-looking affair, a two or three story, rambling, yellow structure, which, at Newport, would not be considered too good for the gardener. 

After the usual fashion of the Italians who seldom travel, the Torlonia, wealthy as they are, simply remove from their palace in Rome to theirvilla at Frascati instead of travelling to Switzerland, Germany, orelsewhere in the summer. 

The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland were the guests of the Torlonia thatday, the entire party enjoying themselves _al fresco_, and the beautifulcascade pouring down within the near distance. 

These outlying towns, Frascati, Albano, Castel Gandolfo, and Lago diNemi, the picturesque group in the Alban Mountains, are some sixteen toeighteen miles from Rome. These Alban hills rise like an island from thevast plain of the Campagna, the highest point being some three thousandfeet above sea level. They are covered with villages and castles andvillas, and have in all a population of some fifty thousand. The regionis volcanic, and the beautiful Lago di Nemi and Lago di Albano were thecraters of extinct volcanoes. All this region was the haunt of Cicero, Virgil, and Livy. At Tusculum, near Frascati, are the remains ofCicero's villa, and also of an ancient theatre hewn out of solid rock. The view to the west toward Rome is most beautiful. The dome of St. Peter's crowns the Eternal City; and the Campagna--a sea of green--is asinfinite in sight as is the Mediterranean. There are splendid villas andestates in these Alban hills that belong to the Roman nobility, andhere the Pope has his summer palace. "The Alban Mount is also full ofhistorical and legendary interest, " says a writer on the country aroundRome. "The Latin tribe, one of the constituent elements of the Romanpeople, had here its seat. Upon the highest peak of the range was thetemple of Jupiter Latiaris, where all the tribes of Latin blood, theRomans included, met every year to worship; and where the victoriousgenerals of the Republic repaired to offer praises and acknowledgments. In these mountain glens undoubtedly most of that ballad literature ofRome, the loss of which Macaulay so eloquently laments and sosuccessfully restores, had its origin. Nor need the scholar be remindedthat this is the scene of the most original and vigorous portions of theÆneid of Virgil; nor how the genius of the poet, which rather languidlyrecounts the traditions borrowed from Greece, wakes to new life, when hefeels his feet upon his own soil and deals with Latin names and Latinlegends. "

The Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati is celebrated for its fantasticwaterworks in elaborate fountains and cascades. In the gardens a statueof Pan with a pipe of reeds and one of a satyr with a trumpet are madeto play (both the pipe and the trumpet) by water. The hydraulic engineermust have found in Frascati his earthly paradise, for he commanded thewater to leap into foam and spray in the air, to rush down marbleterraces, and to form itself into obelisks of liquid silver. 

At Grotto Ferrata is a vast monastery of monks of the Order of Basilio(Greek), a monastery so colossal as to be mistaken for a fortress. Thechapel has frescoes by Domenichino. At Castel Gandolfo is the summerPapal palace, that has not been occupied by a Pope since theoverthrowing of the temporal power in 1870. It has a beautiful andcommanding view toward Rome. It was built by Urban VIII. 

All the magic of Italy is in this picturesque excursion. In the vastgrounds of the Villa Barberini are the ruins of the ancient palace andgardens of Domitian. On one hillside is a broken wall; a long avenue ofilex trees reveals here and there fragments of mosaic pavement. Crumbling niches hold fragments of statues. The hill itself is stillpierced with the long tunnels driven through it by Domitian that hemight pass unseen, --presumably safe from his enemies, --from the palaceto the gardens. From the parapet, Rome is seen across the shiningCampagna and the dome of Michael Angelo gleams against the blue Italiansky. 

"The wreck is beautiful, " writes Mrs. Humphry Ward, in "Eleanor, " ofthis romantic spot; "for it is masked in the gloom of the overhangingtrees; or hidden behind dropping veils of ivy; or lit up by stragglingpatches of broom and cytisus that thrust themselves through the gaps inthe Roman brickwork and shine golden in the dark. At the foot of thewall, along its whole length, runs a low marble conduit that held thesweetest, liveliest water. Lilies of the valley grow beside it, breathing scent into the shadowed air; while on the outer or garden sideof the path the grass is purple with long-stalked violets, or pink withthe sharp heads of the cyclamen. And a little farther, from the samegrass, there shoots up, in happy neglect, tall camellia trees, raggedand laden, strewing the ground red and white beneath them. And above thecamellias again the famous stone-pines of the villa climb into the highair, overlooking the plain and the sea, peering at Rome and Soracte. "

One could wander all day in the strange ruins of the old Barberinigrounds, and in the vast spaces of the gardens and through the VillaDoria. 

The beauty of the avenue of ilex trees through which we flew from CastelGandolfo to Lago di Nemi surpasses description. This lake, some fourmiles in circumference, lies in a crater hollow, with precipitous hillssurrounding it, the water so clear that the ancients called it the"Mirror of Diana. " In it was constructed an artificial island in thedesign of a Roman state barge. 

Over the long viaduct at Ariccia we flew; everywhere in the little townpeople, donkeys--an almost indistinguishable mass--filled the narrowstreets; and thus on to Genzano and the Lago di Nemi, with its fabledfleet at the bottom. 

The Chigi woods, that fill the deep ravine under the great viaduct atAriccia, were in the most brilliant emerald green. Past these forestslay the vast stretch of the Pontine Marshes; and turning toward Romeagain, the splendor of the sunset flamed in the sky. One could butrecall Mrs. Humphry Ward's vivid picture of a storm seen over this partof the Campagna:--

 "The sunset was rushing to its height through every possible phase of violence and splendor. From the Mediterranean, storm clouds were rising fast to the assault and conquest of the upper sky, which still above the hills shone blue and tranquil. But the northwest wind and the sea were leagued against it. They sent out threatening fingers and long spinning veils of cloud across it--skirmishers that foretold the black and serried lines, the torn and monstrous masses behind. Below these wild tempest shapes again--in long spaces resting on the sea--the heaven was at peace, shining in delicate greens and yellows, infinitely translucent and serene, above the dazzling lines of water. Over Rome itself there was a strange massing and curving of the clouds. Between their blackness and the deep purple of the Campagna rose the city--pale phantom--upholding one great dome, and one only, to view of night and the world. Round and above and behind, beneath the long flat arch of the storm, glowed a furnace of scarlet light. The buildings of the city were faint specks within its fierce intensity, dimly visible through a sea of fire. St. Peter's alone, without visible foundation or support, had consistence, form, identity; and between the city and the hills, waves of blue and purple shade, forerunners of the night, stole over the Campagna towards the higher ground. But the hills themselves were still shining, still clad in rose and amethyst, caught in gentler repetition from the wildness of the west. Pale rose even the olive gardens; rose the rich brown fallows, the emerging farms; while drawn across the Campagna from north to south, as though some mighty brush had just laid it there for sheer lust of color, sheer joy in the mating it with the rose, --one long strip of sharpest, purest green. "

The Villa Falconieri, in Frascati, which was built by Cardinal Ruffini, with the old ilex tree preserved in the portals, has recently beenpurchased by the Emperor of Germany, who proposes to transform it intoan Academy for the accommodation of German students in Rome. Thesenational academies draw their corresponding numbers of students from thenations thus represented, and contribute to the cosmopolitan aspects ofRome. The American Academy in Rome is now being transferred from theLudovisi quarter to a large and convenient building outside Porta Pia. 

Perhaps the eminently social quality of Roman life may be indirectly dueto the lack of library privileges which is a conspicuous defect in Rome. The Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele, under the courteous administration ofCommendatore Conte Guili, has, it is true, a collection of over half amillion volumes and thousands of very rare and valuable manuscripts. Ithas a large public reading room, and books are loaned on the signatureof any embassy or consulate; yet this library, while offering peculiaradvantages to theological and other special students and readers, doesnot afford any extended privileges to the general reader of modernEnglish and American publications. It is located in a grim andforbidding old stone palace, approached by an obscure lane from theCorso, where, as there is no sidewalk, the pedestrian shares the narrow, dark, cold, stone-paved little street with carts, donkeys, peasants, and beggars. 

The great monument to King Victor Emmanuel, of mingled architecture andsculpture, a colossal structure of white marble with arches and pillarsforming beautiful colonnades, the capital of each column heavily carved, and the sculpture, which is being done by a number of artists, will beof the most artistic and beautiful order. This memorial will occupy anentire block, and it is located very near the Capitol. All the oldbuildings in the vicinity will be torn down to give a fine vista forthis transcendently noble and sumptuous memorial. 

The directors of this work aim to have it completed and ready to beunveiled in 1911, the jubilee year of Italy's resurrection as a unitedcountry. 

Encircled by the old Aurelian wall and near the great pyramid that marksthe tomb of Caius Cestius, who died 12 B. C. , lies the Protestantcemetery of Rome, full of bloom and fragrance and beauty, under thedark, solemn cypress trees that stand like ever-watchful sentinels. WhenKeats was buried here (in 1820), Shelley wrote of "the romantic andlovely cemetery ... Under the pyramid of Caius Cestius, and the mossywalls and towers now mouldering and desolate which formed the circuit ofancient Rome. The cemetery is an open space among the ruins, coveredeven in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love withdeath, " he added, "to think of being buried in so sweet a place. "

 [Illustration: PORTA SAN PAOLA, PYRAMID OF CAIUS CESTIUS, ROME _Page 216_]

In the old cemetery (immediately adjoining the pyramid and separatedfrom the new one by a wall) is the grave of Keats (who died in 1821)with its unique inscription, "Here lies one whose name was writ inwater. " Beside it is that of his friend, Joseph Severn, who died in1829, and near these the grave of John Bell, the famous writer onsurgery and anatomy. In the new or more modern cemetery the visitorlingers by the graves of Shelley and his friend, Trelawney; AugustGoethe (the son of the poet); of William and Mary Howitt, who died in1879 and 1888. Not merely, however, do the names of Keats and Shelleyallure the visitor to poetic meditations; but here lie the earthly formsof many a poet, painter, and sculptor of our own country, with theirwives and children, who have sought in the Eternal City theatmosphere for art and who, enamoured by the loveliness of Rome, continued there for all their remaining years. These graves, thesesculptured memorials, are eloquent with the joys, the sorrows, theachievements and the failures, the success and the defeat, of theartistic life in a foreign land. Many of these memorial sculptures arethe work of the husband or the father, into which is inseparably joinedthe personal tenderness to the artist's skill. Especially noticeable arethe graves of the wives of three American sculptors, --William WetmoreStory, Richard S. Greenough, and Franklin Simmons. Each of these ismarked by a memorial sculpture created by the husband, and the threedifferent conceptions of these sculptors are interesting to contrast. That of Mr. Story is of an angel with outspread wings, kneeling, herhead bowed in the utter despair and desolation of hopeless sorrow. Thefigure has the greatest delicacy of beauty and refinement andtenderness; but it is the grief that has no support of faith, the griefthat has no vision of divine consolation. On the memorial monument issimply the name, Emelyn Story, born in Boston, 1820, died in Rome in1898, and the note that it is the last work of W. W. Story, in memory ofhis beloved wife. Here, also, is Mr. Story buried, his name and dates ofbirth and death (1819-1901) alone being inscribed. 

At the tomb of Sarah B. Greenough, the wife of Richard S. Greenough, themonument is designed to represent Psyche escaping from the bondage ofmortality. This Psyche is emerging from her garments and she holds inher hand a lamp. On this is the inscription: "Her loss was that as of akeystone to an arch. "

Mrs. Greenough was a very accomplished musician, and she had the uniquehonor of having been made a member of the "Arcadians. "

The memorial sculpture over the grave of Mrs. Franklin Simmons is, aselsewhere noted, the work of her husband, a figure called "The Angel ofthe Resurrection. " The angel is represented as a male figure (Gabriel)holding in the left hand a golden trumpet while the right isoutstretched. His wings are spread, his face partly turned to the right. The form is partially draped and in every detail is instinct with acomplete harmony; every fold of the drapery, every curve of the body, and the lofty and triumphant expression of the face in its ineffableglory of achievement proclaim the triumph of immortality. It stands on apedestal that gives it, from the base of the pedestal to the tip of theoutstretched wings, a height of some twenty-one feet. This monument, seen against a background of dark cypress trees, speaks the word ofpositive and complete faith in the divine promise of eternal life. 

 "Then life is--to wake, not sleep, Rise and not rest, but press From earth's level where blindly creep Things perfected, more or less, In the heaven's height--far and steep. "

The visitor lingers over the grave of that interesting painter, J. Rollin Tilton, whose landscapes from Egypt and Italian scenes were sovivid and picturesque. 

Richard Henry Dana, the elder, born in Boston in 1815, came to Rome todie in 1882. 

Very near the tomb of William Wetmore and Emelyn Story is that ofConstance Fenimore Woolson. Over the graves of William and Mary Howittis the inscription: "Let not your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. "

On the wall just back of the new tomb erected over the ashes of Shelleyby Onslow Ford in 1891 is a memorial tablet placed to Frederick W. H. Myers, bearing this inscription:--

 "This tablet is placed to the memory of Frederick William Henry Myers, born at Keswick, Cumberland, Feb. 6, 1843; died in Rome, Jan. 17, 1901. 'He asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest him long life ever and forever. '"

Over the grave of John Addington Symonds, whose best monument is in hisadmirable History of the Renaissance in Italy, is a Latin inscriptionwritten by Professor Jowett of Oxford, and a stanza from the Greek ofCleanthes, translated by Mr. Symonds as follows:--

 "Lead thou, our God, law, reason, motion, life; All names for Thee alike are vain and hollow; Lead me, for I will follow without strife, Or, if I strive, still more I blindly follow. "

John Addington Symonds, who certainly ranks as the most giftedinterpreter of Italy, in her art, her legends and associations, and herlandscape loveliness, died in the Rome he so loved in 1893. His wife wasill in Venice, but his daughter, Margaret, --his inseparable companionand his helper in his work, --was with him. It is Miss Symonds whoprefaced a memorial volume to her father with the exquisite lines:--

 "O Love; we two shall go no longer To lands of summer beyond the sea. "

Near the graves of Keats and of his friend, Joseph Severn, are those ofAugustus William Hare and John Gibson, the sculptor, who died in 1868. Some ten years before Hawthorne, meeting Gibson at a dinner given by T. Buchanan Read, wrote of him that it was whispered about the table thathe had been in Rome for forty-two years and that he had a quiet, self-contained aspect as of one who had spent a calm life among his clayand marble. 

Dwight Benton, an American painter and writer, who was for some time inthe diplomatic service and whose home had been in Rome for more than aquarter of a century, lies buried here. For many years he was theeditor of _The Roman World_, which still sustains the interestingcharacter that marked it during his editorship. Of his work in art afriend wrote:--

 "In painting, as in literature, Dwight Benton took his inspiration from nature. His paintings of Italian scenery are true and faithful representations of its character and atmospheric effects. His tramps on the Roman Campagna were long and often tiring, but he worked with all an artist's enthusiasm, unmindful of cold, rain, and even hunger. He would delight, as all true artists, in an old convent, a tree, a tower, a cross, which he would reproduce with a peculiar and striking perfection of tone and color. In his paintings of Keats's and Shelley's tombs, not only are the slabs and marble there, but there, also, in all their naturalness, are the stately pines and cypresses above, with the sunshine and shadows alternating between them, and in the background the turreted top of St. Paul's Gateway, the Pyramid of Caius Cestius, all lending effect and picturesqueness to the whole. "

The present King of Italy purchased one of Mr. Benton's paintings, called "Giornata di tristezza. "

While art abounds in Rome, less can be said for literature. There is alarge and admirable selected Italian library in connection with theCollegio Romano; but while these books circulate, under certainconditions, to visitors, and the courtesy of the librarian and his staffis generously kind, the location and the Italian methods render it amatter of some difficulty to avail one's self of its resources. In thePiazza di Spagna there are two circulating libraries, but although oneof these claims twenty-five thousand volumes, the majority are ofmediocre fiction and almost none, if any, of the important modern worksare to be found here. The visitor who is a subscriber to this librarypasses into a small, dark room, where one window looking on the streethardly does more than make the darkness visible, and he must take thecatalogue to the window and stand in order to decipher the list, whichis hardly, indeed, worth the trouble, as there are very few volumes ofany pretension to importance in the collection, and of late years noadditions, apparently, have ever been made. The other circulatinglibrary, while far preferable, is still in crowded rooms and theassortment is limited. The visitor in Rome who cares for reading matterlooks forward with delight to Florence, with its noble circulatinglibrary, to which access is so easy and whose conduct in all ways is soconvenient and grateful to the guest. 

In Rome, however, one finds his romance embodied in life and his historywritten in the streets and in the marvellous structures. His poetry isin her art, her ruins, her magical loveliness of hillside vistas, herinfinite views over the Campagna, her sapphire skies, and her luminous, golden atmosphere. 

 "_Here Ischia smiles O'er liquid miles, And yonder, bluest of the isles, Calm Capri waits Her sapphire gates, Beguiling to her bright estates. _"

 "_Oh, Signor! thine the amber hand, And mine the distant sea Obedient to the least command Thine eyes impose on me. _"

III

DAY-DREAMS IN NAPLES, AMALFI, AND CAPRI

 "With dreamful eyes My spirit lies Where summer sings but never dies. "

Naples is the paradise of excursions. It is set in the heart ofincomparable loveliness. Over its sapphire sea one sails away--to theFortunate Isles, or some others equally alluring. Its heights andadjacent mountains offer views that one might well cross the ocean toenjoy. Its atmosphere is full of classic interest; of song, and story, and legend, and romance; of history, too, which in its tragic andexciting episodes is not less vivid in color and in strange studies ofhuman life than is any romance. Naples is the city of fascination. Romeis stately and impressive; Florence is all beauty and enchantment;Genoa is picturesque; Venice is a dream city; but Naples issimply--fascinating. There is the common life of the streets and thepopulace continually _en scène_; the people who are at home on the sunnyside in winter, or the shady side in summer; there is the social life ofthe nobility, which is brilliant and vivacious. The excursions, of whichNaples is the centre, are the chief interest to travellers, and these, while possible in winter, are far more enjoyable in the early spring. Still even in midwinter the days are sunny, and while the air is crispand cool, it is not cold. The grass is as green as in June; but thefoliage and flowers are more or less withered. Naples has the high andthe lower town, the former the more desirable, and the fine hotelsperched on the terraces, with the view all over the Bay of Naples, Capri, Sorrento, and Vesuvius, offer a vista hardly to be duplicated inthe entire world. The lower town has its fine hotels on the water'sedge, with a beautiful view over the bay, less enchanting than when seenfrom above. The Bay of Naples is enclosed in two semicircular arms thatextend far out at sea, the southern reaching nearly to Capri, while nearthe termination of the northern, "Fair Ischia smiles O'er liquid miles. "

Far out at sea the sun shines dazzlingly on the blue Mediterranean. Thelandscape is full of those curious formations that are always inherentin volcanic regions. The region surrounding Naples is abrupt, picturesque, with the same irregular outline of hills that characterizesthe elevations in the Tonto basin in Arizona. The vegetation is of thetropical type. The cactus is common, although it grows to no suchmonstrous heights as in Arizona. Orange and lemon groves prevail as faras the eye can see. On every height towns and villages crown the crestsand sweep in winding terraces around the hillsides. Olive orchardsabound. Castles and ruins gleam white in the sunshine on the ledge ofrocky precipices. The curved shores shine like broken lines of silver, with deep indentations at Naples and at Castellammare. Between these twopoints rises Vesuvius, the thin blue smoke constantly curling from thesummit that, since the eruption of 1906, has lost much of its elevation. In many places there is hardly the width of a roadway between the lowmountains and the coast, but the cliffs are tropically luxurious invegetation. Everywhere the habitations of the people crowd the space. From the monasteries and the castles that crown the heights, bothdistant and near to the clustered villages of the plain and thoseclinging to the hillsides, the scene is one unending panorama of humanlife. For Naples is only the focussing point of these densely populatedregions of Southern Italy. The city stretches along the coast on bothsides her semicircular bay; but the terraced hills, the stretches ofland beyond, and every peak and valley are thickly sown with humanhabitations. Its commanding heights, two of which rise in the middle ofthe town, and its beautiful mirrored expanse of water give to it themost unparalleled variety and beauty of landscape loveliness. 

"What words can analyze, " says George S. Hillard, "the parts and detailsof this matchless panorama, or unravel that magic web of beauty intowhich palaces, villas, forests, gardens, vineyards, the mountains, andthe sea are woven? What pen can paint the soft curves, the gentleundulations, the flowing outlines, the craggy steeps, and the far-seenheights, which, in their combination, are so full of grace and, at thesame time, expression? Words here are imperfect instruments, and mustyield their place to the pencil and the graver. But no canvas canreproduce the light and color which play round this enchanting region. No skill can catch the changing hues of the distant mountains, thestar-points of the playing waves, the films of purple and green whichspread themselves over the calm waters, the sunsets of gold and orange, and the aerial veils of rose and amethyst which drop upon the hills fromthe skies of morning and evening. The author of the book ofEcclesiasticus seems to have described Naples, when he speaks of 'thepride of the height, the clear firmament, the beauty of heaven, with hisglorious show. ' 'See Naples and then die, ' is a well-known Italiansaying; but it should read, 'See Naples and then live. ' One glance atsuch a scene stamps upon the memory an image which, forever after, givesa new value to life. "

 [Illustration: CASTEL SANT'ELMO, NAPLES _Page 231_]

Naples gives to the visitor the impression of being a city without apast. If she has a history, it is not written in her streets. She ispoetic and picturesque, not historic. The heights of Capodimonte andSant'Elmo divide her into unequal parts, and there is the old Napleswhich only the antiquarian or the political economist would wish tosee, and the new and modern city which is such a miracle of beauty thatone longs to stay forever, and fails to wonder that the siren soughtthese shores. Naples has either been very much misrepresented as to itsprevailing manners and customs, or else it has changed within the pastdecade, for, as a rule, the gentle courtesy and kindness of the peopleare especially appealing. Augustus often sojourned in Naples, and it wasan especially poetic haunt of Virgil, whose tomb is here. Although thepoverty and the primitive life of the great masses of the people havebeen widely discussed, it is yet true that Naples has a very charmingsocial life, and that the University is a centre of learning andculture. One of the oldest universities in Europe, it has a faculty ofover one hundred and twenty professors and more than five thousandstudents. A large and valuable library, and a mineralogical collectionwhich specialists from all over the world come to study, are among thetreasures of this University, which was founded in the early part of thethirteenth century by Emperor Frederick William II. There is now inprocess of erection a new group of buildings which will embody thelatest laboratory and library and other privileges. Archæology is, naturally, a special feature of the University of Naples, and theproximity to Pompeii, Herculaneum, and to the wonderful Pompeiancollection in the Museum of Naples affords peculiar and unrivalledadvantages to students. A bust of Thomas Aquinas, during his life alecturer at this University, is one of the interesting treasures. TheArchives of the Kingdom of Naples attract many a scholar and savant tothis city. There are in this collection (which is kept in the monasteryadjoining the Church of San Severino) over forty thousand Greekmanuscripts, some of which date back to the year 700. The Naples Museumis the great repository of all Pompeian art, and it is rich insculpture; but it is badly arranged and the vast series of galleries andthe long flights of stairs make any study of its work so fatiguing thata visit to it might rank as one of the seven labors of Hercules. 

In the royal museum of the Palazzo di Capodimonte, which is located onthe beautiful height bearing that name, there are some pictures that arewell worth visiting, not because they are particularly good art, butbecause of the interest attaching to the subjects. This gallery islargely the work of modern Neapolitan artists. Here is the celebratedpicture of Michael Angelo bending over the dead body of VittoriaColonna, kissing only her hand, and haunted by the after-regret that hedid not kiss her forehead. Virginia Lebrun has here portraits of MariaTheresa and of the Duchess of Parma; there is one canvas (by Celentano)showing Benvenuto Cellini at the Castel Sant'Angelo; a scene depictingthe death of Cæsar and a few others of some degree of interest. 

Curiously, Naples has never produced great art. Salvator Rosa was, to besure, a Neapolitan, but his is almost the only name that has made itselfimmortal in the art of this city. Domenico Morelli, who has recentlydied, made himself felt as an original painter with certain claims thatarrested attention. He is not a draughtsman, but he is a colorist ofpassionate intensity; he has original power and, more than all, he has acurious endowment of what may be called artistic clairvoyance. Transporting himself by the magic of thought to places on which his eyenever rested, he yet sees as in vision their special characteristics. In one of his most important works, the motive of which is thetemptation of Jesus in the wilderness, he has painted the desert with astartling reality. Here is a great plain, the stony, parched Judeanplain, with the very feeling of its desolation pervading the atmosphere. The Royal Chapel in Naples was decorated by Morelli, the ceiling paintedwith an "Assumption of the Virgin, " which stands alone in all theinterpretations of this theme; not by virtue of superior artisticexcellence, --on the contrary its art does not make a strong appeal, --butby its originality of treatment. The "Salve Regina" and the "Da Scalad'Oro" are among the more interesting works of this artist, whose recentdeath has removed a figure of exceptional character in modern art, onewho had, pre-eminently, the courage of his convictions. Some few yearsago Morelli's "Temptation of St. Anthony" was exhibited in both Parisand Florence, and was generally condemned, perhaps because not whollyunderstood. The form of the temptation was supposed to be the shapestaken by a morbid and diseased imagination; but while as apsychological conception it was not without value, it was yet far fromattractive as a work of art. The finest conception, perhaps, everdepicted of the temptation of St. Anthony--a subject that has hauntedmany an artist--is that painted by the late Carl Guthers of Washington, a lofty and gifted spirit whose too brief stay on earth ended in theearly months of 1907. In this picture the temptation of the saintappears as a vision of all that is purest and sweetest in life, --wife, children, home; it was from all this peace and loveliness that St. Anthony turned, sacrificing personal happiness to the duty ofconsecrated service to his Master, in the exquisite conception of Mr. Guthers. Edoardo Dalbano is the typical leader of the Neapolitan schoolof painting of the present day, and his fascinating picture, called the"Isle of Sirens, " representing the sirens singing in the sunlit Bay ofNaples, might well be held as the keynote to all this enchanting region. Surely, if the sirens sing not in those blue waters, it were useless tosearch elsewhere for them. Buono is an artist of the Neapolitan shores, who paints its fisher-folk; Brancaccio catches the very spirit andanimated atmosphere of the street scenes of Naples; Campriani andPratello are landscapists of note; Esposito, too, despite his Spanishname, is a Neapolitan marine painter whose work is often most arrestingin its power to catch the flickering sunshine over blue water thatbathes the rocks rising out of the sea, --these isles of the sirens fromwhich float the melodies that enchanted Odysseus. 

The traveller may be surprised to find that in size Naples ranks fourthon the European Continent, --Paris, Berlin, and St. Petersburg, only, exceeding it. Naples should be, not only a port, a pleasure haunt, and aparadise for excursions, but one of the great cities of the world incommercial and in social importance. It has one of the finest naturalharbors of the world; it has a beautiful and attractive adjoiningcountry in which to extend, indefinitely, its residence and tradedistricts; it has the most enchanting fairyland of views that ever wereseen this side the ethereal world; it has an atmosphere of song andstory and a climate that is far from being objectionable. Naples isseldom the possessor of a higher temperature in summer than is New Yorkor Boston; the winters are mild, and they offer weeks of sunnyloveliness when Rome is swept by the icy tramontana from the snow-cladAlban hills. Naples offers, too, exceedingly good facilities for living;the groups of excellent hotels, both on the terraces and on the water'sedge in the lower town and along the Villa Nazionale, offer everycomfort, and the politeness and courtesy of the Neapolitans, as a rule, are among the alluring features of this enchanting city. 

What shall be said of one hotel, especially, perched on the cliffs, towhich one ascends by an elevator, finding it the most luxuriousfairyland that imagination can conjure? Leaving the street one walksthrough a marble tunnel lighted with electricity, wondering if he is, indeed, in the grotto of the Muses. Entering a "lift" truly American inits comfort and speed, he is wafted up the heights and steps out in--isit paradise? Here is a large salon entirely of glass with anincomparable view all over the gleaming bay, with Capri and Sorrentoshining fair on the opposite sides and Vesuvius, a purple peak, in thenear distance. The great city of Naples lies spread out below, with itsinterior heights of Capodimonte and others. It is a view for which aloneone might well sail the four thousand miles of sea from the Americanshores. Through open French windows one may step out on the terrace. Ifit is cold he may still enjoy this sublimely wonderful view behind theglass walls that reveal all its beauty and protect him from wind orchill. Elsewhere adjoining salons stretch away, where sunshine, music, reading matter, and dainty writing-desks allure the guest and create forhim, indeed, an earthly paradise. 

Of the drive on the Strada Nuova di Posilipo, skirting the coast whilefollowing the winding rise of the hill, with the sumptuous villas andgardens on one side and the blue sea on the other, --what words cansuggest its charm? On a jutting promontory on the ruins of the Palazzodi Donna Ana are seen the palace whose convenient location made itpossible for the royal hosts to throw their guests into the sea wheneverthey became tiresome, an accommodation that the modern hostess might, attimes, appreciate. On this road, winding up the Posilipo, is the villawhere Garibaldi passed the last winter of his life and which is markedby a tablet. And everywhere and at every turn are the beautiful views, commanding Bagnoli, Camaldoli, Ischia, Baia and Procida, Capri, Nisidaand the Neapolitan waters. The hill slopes are overgrown with myrtlesand orange trees and roses. Here and there a defile is filled with avineyard under careful culture. 

In the presence of all this marvel of nature's loveliness the visitorhardly remembers the historic interest; yet it was on the little islandof Nisida that Brutus and Cassius concocted the conspiracy againstCæsar. The vast Phlegræan Plain before the eye is invested with Hellenictraditions and is the region of many scenes in the poems of Virgil andHomer. In the years of the first and second centuries this plain wasdotted with the rich villas of the Roman aristocracy. Here, too, lay thecelebrated Lacus Avernus, a volcanic lake which the ancients regarded asthe entrance to Avernus itself. Truly it required little imagination tosee here the approach to the infernal regions. The air was so poisonousthat no bird could fly over the lake and live. Virgil's scene of thedescent of Æneas, guided by the sibyl, into the infernal depths is laidhere; and near this lake are resorts of the latter-day tourist, knownas the "Sibyl's Grotto, " the "Grotto della Pace, " the "Bagni di Sibyl, "and the "Inferno. "

 [Illustration: ANCIENT TEMPLE, BAIÆ _Page 241_]

Baia, on the coast, was the Newport of Rome in the days of Augustus, Hadrian, Cicero, and Nero. It was then the most magnificent summerwatering-place known to the world. The glory of the Roman Empire wasreflected in the glory of Baia. In one of the Epistles of Horace a Romannoble is made to say: "Nothing in the world can be compared with thelovely bay of Baia. " Some five hundred years ago this region became somalarial that no one could dwell in it. Fragments and ruins still remainof the imposing baths and villas of the Roman occupancy. An old cratercalled the Capo Miseno is described by Virgil as the burial place ofMisenus:--

 "_At pius Æneas ingenti mole sepulcrum Inponit, suaque arma viro remumque tubamque Monte sub aereo, qui nunc Misenus ab illo Dicitur aeternumque tenet per saecula nomen. _"

Cumæ was the most ancient Greek colony of Italy on the coast, and thelast survivors of the Tarquinii died here. This is the most classic ofall these legendary coast towns near Naples, as it was here that theCumæan Sibyl dwelt with the mysterious sibylline leaves, --the books thatwere carried to Rome. A colossal Acropolis was once here, fragments ofwhose walls are now standing; and the rocky foundation is honeycombedwith secret passages and openings. It is here that Virgil's "Grotto ofthe Sibyl" is supposed to have stood, --the grotto "whence resound asmany voices, the oracles of the prophetess. "

The journey from Naples to Herculaneum is easily made by electric traincars within an hour, and while there is not much to see it is still anexcursion well worth making. Dr. De Petra, of the chair of Archæology inthe University of Naples, and formerly the Director of the NationalMuseum, is warmly in favor of the proposed excavation of this buriedcity, as is Professor Spinazzola of the San Martino museum, who believesthat Italy may well become one vast museum of antiquities. "As thetheatre of Herculaneum is actually at present a subterraneanexcavation, " he observed, "why not excavate in a similar way the entirecity underneath modern Resina? In this way a perfectly uniqueunderground museum would be formed, which would have the merit ofleaving magnificent Roman art treasures exactly in their proper placesin the villas. Such a work ought to be perfectly practicable, with theresources of modern engineering, and would certainly be unique in theworld. 

"There would be no need to build a special museum for the objectsdiscovered. Not only would this money be saved, but I feel convincedthat so many visitors would be attracted as to more than pay for themaintenance. A subterraneous Herculaneum--surely a perfectly uniqueplace of pilgrimage, just as it was nearly two thousand years ago--mightbe lighted by electric arc lights. I feel certain it would attractsight-seers from the ends of the world. At the same time work might goon in the open parts of the city. 

"Pompeii was more of an industrial town, while Herculaneum was afavorite resort of the Roman patricians, who did not bring theirtreasures with them from their northern homes, but had them executed byGreek artists in the south. "

Under the mighty floods of _lava d'acqua_ that buried Herculaneumdoubtless lie temples, a splendid forum, magnificent villas, and mostvaluable art and literary treasures. In the eighteenth centuryexcavations brought to light rare bronzes, mosaics, and papyri. Thefamous equestrian statue of Balbo, in the Naples Museum, was excavatedfrom Herculaneum. Professor Lanciani and Commendatore Boni of Rome--thelatter the present director of the Forum, succeeding Lanciani--believethat some of the richest art of ancient times may be found inHerculaneum; as does Professor Dall'Osso, inspector of excavations atPompeii. 

Herculaneum is held to have been founded by Hercules when he landed atCampania, returning from Iberia, some three hundred years B. C. , and itwas in 63 A. D. That it was destroyed. Of this cataclysm Pliny, theYounger, wrote:--

 "The sea seemed to roll back on itself by the convulsions of the earth. On the other side hung a black and dreadful cloud, bursting with fiery and serpentine vapors. Naught was heard in the darkness but the shrieks of women, the screams of children, and the frenzied cries of men calling for children, for wives, for parents, --all lifting hands to the gods, praying and wishing for death. "

Dr. Charles Waldstein of Cambridge University, the eminent archæologist, whose efforts toward initiating the excavation of Herculaneum were anotable event of 1906, thus writes of this buried city:--

 "It is important to bear in mind that naturally all the best works in the Museum of Naples, especially the bronzes, came from Herculaneum and not from Pompeii. 

 "What is most striking is the marvellous preservation of these works. This fact of itself ought to counteract the strange but widespread misapprehension that, while Pompeii was covered with cinders and ashes, Herculaneum was covered with lava, and that the hardness of that material made excavation difficult, if not impossible. All geologists and archæologists are agreed that no lava issued from the eruption of 79 A. D. Herculaneum was covered by a torrent of mud consisting of ashes and cinders mixed with water. The mass which covers it, so far from being less favorable to the preservation of objects, is much more favorable than that which covers Pompeii. Pompeii was partially covered with hot ashes and pumice stones, which burnt or damaged the works of art. As it was not wholly covered, moreover, the inhabitants returned and dug up some of their greatest treasures. Herculaneum, on the other hand, had its actual life, arrested at the highest point, securely preserved from depredation, to a depth of eighty feet, by a material which preserved intact the most delicate specimens which have come down to us in a state so perfect as to be really remarkable. 

 "The most important of these delicate objects are manuscripts, of which that one villa produced 1750. The state of preservation is illustrated by one specimen, giving two pages from the works of the philosopher Philademus. Unfortunately, the possessor of the villa was a specialist, a student of Epicurean philosophy. While his taste in art was fortunately so catholic, his taste in literature was narrowed down by his special bent. Piso was the friend and protector of the philosopher Philo. Already sixty-five copies of that author's works have been found among the papyri. 

 "Yet the city of Herculaneum contained many such villas, and herein it differed from Pompeii. Pompeii was a commonplace provincial town devoted exclusively to commerce; it was not the resort of wealthy and cultured Romans. It was essentially illiterate. No manuscript can be proved to have been found there. It is true a wax tablet with writing has been found; yet this contains--receipts of auctions. Herculaneum, on the other hand, was the favorite resort of wealthy Romans, who built beautiful villas there as in our times people from modern Rome settle for the summer at Sorrento and Castellammare. "

The present descent into the theatre of Herculaneum is made by a flightof more than a hundred steps, slippery and cold, in total darkness savefor the candle that is carried by the guide, and the visitor sees onlythe stone seats of the amphitheatre and the stage with the two vacantniches, the statues that filled each being now placed in the Museum inNaples. 

The journey of thirteen miles from Naples to Pompeii is through asuccession of densely populated villages that seem to be an integralpart of Naples itself, for there is no line of demarcation. Portici, Torre del Greco, Torre dell'Annunziata, and others all blend with eachother and with Naples. However familiar one has become with theliterature of Pompeii, with both archæological descriptions andimaginative interpretations in romance, and however familiar with itsaspects he may have become from replicas in art museums, and frompictures, one can yet hardly approach this silent, phantom city withoutbeing thrilled by its deep significance. At a distance of a few milesover the gently undulating plain rises Vesuvius; one gazes on the pathswhere the rivers of molten fire must have rolled down. George S. Hillard, visiting Pompeii in 1853, thus described a house which thevisitors of to-day study and admire:--

 "The finest house we saw within the walls is one which had been discovered and laid bare about four months previous to the date of our visit, called the house of the Suonatrice, from a painting of a female playing on a pipe, at the entrance. This house was deemed of such peculiar interest that it was under the charge of a special custode, and was only to be seen on payment of an extra fee. It was not of large size, but had evidently been occupied by a person of ample fortune and exquisite taste. The paintings on the walls were numerous, and in the most perfect preservation. In the rear was a minute garden not more than twenty or thirty feet square, with a fairy fountain in the centre; around which were several small statues of children and animals, of white marble, wrought with considerable skill. The whole thing had a very curious effect, like the tasteful baby-house of a grown-up child. Everything in this house was in the most wonderful preservation. The metal pipes which distributed the water, and the cocks by which it was let off, looked perfectly suited for use. Nothing at Pompeii seemed so real as this house, and nowhere else were the embellishments so numerous and so costly. 

 "Pompeii, though a Roman city in its political relations, was everywhere strongly marked with the impress of the Greek mind. It stood on the northern edge of that part of Italy which, from the number of Grecian colonies it contained, was called Magna Græcia, --a region of enchanting beauty, in which the genius of Greece attained its most luxurious development. It has been conjectured that Pompeii had an unusually large proportion of men of property, who had been drawn there by the charms of its situation and climate, and that it thus extended a liberal patronage to Greek architects, painters, and sculptors. At any rate, the spirit of Greece still lives and breathes in its ashes. Its temples, as restored by modern architects, are Greek. Its works in marble and bronze claim a place in that cyclus of art of which the metopes of the Parthenon are the highest point of excellence. The pictures that embellish the walls, the unzoned nymphs, the bounding Bacchantes, the grotesque Fauns, the playful arabesques, all are informed with the airy and creative spirit of Greek art. 

 "The ruins of Pompeii are not merely an open-air museum of curiosities, but they have great value in the illustration they offer to Roman history and Roman literature. The antiquarian of our times studies the great realm of the past with incomparable advantage, by the help of the torch here lighted. "

From Pompeii to Castellammare, the beautiful seaside summer resort ofthe Neapolitans, "a lover of nature could hardly find a spot of morevaried attractions. Before him spreads the unrivalled bay, --dotted withsails and unfolding a broad canvas, on which the most glowing colors andthe most vivid lights are dashed, --a mirror in which the crimson andgold of morning, the blue of noon, and the orange and yellow-green ofsunset behold a livelier image of themselves, --a gentle and tidelesssea, whose waves break upon the shore like caresses, and never likeangry blows. Should he ever become weary of waves and languish forwoods, he has only to turn his back upon the sea and climb the hills foran hour or two, and he will find himself in the depth of sylvan andmountain solitudes, --in a region of vines, running streams, deep-shadowed valleys, and broad-armed oaks, --where he will hear theringdove coo, and see the sensitive hare dart across the forest aisles. A great city is within an hour's reach; and the shadow of Vesuvius hangsover the landscape, keeping the imagination awake by touches of mysteryand terror. "

The road to Sorrento, on a cliff a hundred feet or more above the sea, with mountains on the other side, towering up hundreds of feet high; aroad cut in many places out of the solid rock, supported by galleriesand viaducts from below, --a road that crosses deep gorges and chasms, always with the iridescent colors of the sea below, --and from Sorrentoto Amalfi again, only, if possible, even more wonderful, --is there inthe world any drive that can rival this picturesque and sublime route?Of it George Eliot wrote:--

 "It is an unspeakably grand drive round the mighty rocks with the sea below; and Amalfi itself surpasses all imagination of a romantic site for a city that once made itself famous in the world. "

Sorrento, with its memories and associations of Tasso, seems a place inwhich one cares only to sit on the balcony of the hotel overhanging thesea and watch the magic spectacle of a panorama unrivalled in all thebeauty of the world. Flowers grow in riotous profusion; the fairy sailof a flitting boat is caught in the deepening dusk; the dark outline ofVesuvius is seen against the horizon; and orange orchards gleam againstgray walls. Here Tasso was born, in 1544, fit haunt for a poet, withtangles of gay blossoms and the aerial line of mountain peaks. A lowparapet borders the precipice, and over it one leans in the air heavywith perfume of locust blossoms. Has the lovely town anything besidesunsets and stars and poets' dreams? Who could ask for more?

To La Cava, --to Amalfi, --still all a dream world!

 "O summer day, beside the joyous sea! O summer day so wonderful and white, So full of gladness and so full of pain!"

How Amalfi sets itself to song and music! Who can enter it withouthearing in the air Longfellow's beautiful lines?--

 "Sweet the memory is to me Of a land beyond the sea, Where the waves and mountains meet, Where, amid her mulberry-trees, Sits Amalfi in the heat, Bathing ever her white feet In the tideless summer seas. 

 * * * * *

 'Tis a stairway, not a street, That ascends the deep ravine, Where the torrent leaps between Rocky walls that almost meet. 

 * * * * *

 This is an enchanted land! Round the headlands, far away, Sweeps the blue Salernian bay With its sickle of white sand; Further still and furthermost On the dim discovered coast, Pæstum with its ruins lies, And its roses all in bloom. "

If ever a region was dropped out of paradise designed, solely, for apoet's day-dreams, it is Amalfi, and the even more beautiful Ravellojust above. One fancies that it must have been in the mystic lovelinessof this eyrie that the poet lost himself in a day-dream while Jupiterwas dividing all the goods of the world. When he reproached the god fornot saving a portion for him, Jupiter replied that all the goods weregone, it was true, but that his heaven was always open to the poet. 

The ancient Amalfi, the city of activities and merchandise, is gone. 

 "Where are now the freighted barks From the marts of east and west? Where the knights in iron sarks Journeying to the Holy Land, Glove of steel upon the hand, Cross of crimson on the breast? Where the pomp of camp and court? Where the pilgrims with their prayers? Where the merchants with their wares?

 * * * * *

 Vanished like a fleet of cloud, Like a passing trumpet-blast, Are those splendors of the past, And the commerce and the crowd! Fathoms deep beneath the seas Lie the ancient warves and quays, Swallowed by the engulfing waves. "

It is impossible to realize that Amalfi was once a flourishing city ofOriental trade. One looks in vain for any trace of ruin or shrine thatstill suggests the ancient splendors of activity. The strata of thepast, so visible in other mediæval cities, are not apparent here. Thegreat cathedral is a most interesting study in the art ofarchitecture, --its exquisite arcades, its delicate, lofty campanileglittering in the sun. The green-roofed cupola is a distinctive feature, and up the many flights of stairs the old Capuccini convent lies, --theunique, romantic hotel where the cells of the monks are now the rooms ofthe perpetual procession of guests. Does the wraith of CardinalCapuano, who founded this convent, still wander in midnight hoursthrough the dim cloisters? Does he still keep watch by the body of St. Andrew, the apostle, which he is said to have found and brought to thecathedral where the saint lies, as a saint should lie, gloriouslyentombed. St. Andrew was the patron saint of Amalfi, but at his deathhis body was carried from Patras to the Bosphorus, where it was placedin a church in Constantinople. The legend runs that Cardinal Capuano, being in Constantinople, entered the Church of the Holy Apostles topray, and knowing that the body of the saint was in that city, hebesought the heavenly powers to guide him to it. Rising from hisdevotions he was approached by an aged priest, who announced to theCardinal that the object of his search was in that very church in whichhe was praying for guidance; and, aided by unseen powers, he was able torecover it and convey it to Amalfi. All Italian towns that respectthemselves offer the allurement of an entombed saint and if, occasionally, the same identical saint does duty for more than one city, who is to decide the local genuineness of the claim? Nothing in allItaly is so curious as is this town of staircases instead of streets; ofhouses perched on the angles of impossible eyries suggesting that, asthe Venetians go about in gondolas, so the Amalfians must have airships, or the wings of Icarus, with which to circle in air from their dwellingsto the beach. 

The precipitous gorges and dark ravines have on their crests lowparapets of stone walls over which the visitor lingers and leanswatching the bluest of seas lying fair under the bluest of skies. Themain road, --there is only one, --descending from the hill to the water'sedge, makes its progress through a tunnel. 

The old Amalfi, with its palaces, its arches and colonnades, lies underthe sea. Just as the Pensione Caterina with its rose walks and terracesslipped into the sea in December of 1899, when two guests and severalfishermen lost their lives, so the ancient Amalfi fell, its cliffsswallowed up in the waters below. 

 "Hidden from all mortal eyes, Deep the sunken city lies; Silent streets and vacant halls, Ruined roofs and towers and walls; Even cities have their graves!"

When, on a May evening, the white moonlight falls in cascades of silversheen over terraces and sea, with Amalfi all alabaster and pearl like adream city in the ethereal air; when the stars hang low in the skies andthe fairy lights of the fishermen's boats twinkle far out at sea; whenthe summer silence is suddenly thrilled by the melody of Neapolitansongs on the air, as if it were a veritable _chant d'amour_ ofsirens, --then does one believe in the buried city. These rich baritonevoices are surely those of some singers of the buried ages. They arefloating across the centuries since Amalfi had its pride and place amongthe great centres of activity. Atrani, Amalfi's twin city, lies in theadjoining defile of the mountains which arch above them. The strange oldhouses are all dazzlingly white, transfigured under the moon to anunearthly loveliness. 

The tragedy of the ruin of Amalfi is related by Petrarca, who was thenliving in Naples. It was in 1343 that a terrible cataclysm--anearthquake accompanied by a tempest--caused the destruction and thesubmergence of the city in the sea. 

The believers in astrology will find their faith re-enforced by the factthat a bishop, who was also an astrologist, had read in the stars thatin December of 1343 a terrible disaster would occur on the Naples coast. It arrived on schedule time. Petrarca, writing of it to GiovanniColonna, states that in consequence of the prediction of the bishop, thepeople were in a condition of wild terror, endeavoring to repent oftheir sins and aspiring to a purer moral life. In this tide of religiousemotion, ordinary occupations were neglected. On the very day of thecalamity people were crowding the churches and kneeling in prayer. Atnight, after the people were in bed, the shock came. The sunset had beenfair, the evening quiet, and the people were reassured. But they wereawakened from sleep by the violence of falling walls and the terror ofthe tempest. Petrarcha was lodging in a convent, and he heard the monkscalling to one another as they rushed from cell to cell. They hastilygathered crosses and sacred relics in their hands, and, preceded by theprior, sought the chapel, where they passed the night in prayer whilethe tempest raged outside. The sea broke against the rocks with a furythat seemed to tear the very foundations of the earth. The thunderpealed, and mingled with it were the shrieks of the frightenedpopulace. The rain fell in torrents, deluging the city as if the seaitself were pouring on it. When the morning came the darkness stillcontinued. In the harbor broken ships crashed helplessly together. Thesands were strewn with mutilated dead bodies. Between Capri and theshore the sea ran mountains high. Amalfi was completely destroyed, andhas never regained her prestige. 

The cathedral at Ravello has traces of the rich art it once enshrined, and the rose gardens of the Palazzo Rufolo might enchant Hafiz himself. The terrace on the very crest of the mountain commands one of thewonderful views of the world. The cloistered colonnades of this oldSaracenic palace reveal views even to the plains of Pæstum. There arerare mosaics and fragments of bronzes and marbles yet remaining. 

The noble Greek ruins at Pæstum--the three temples--stand in all themajesty of utter desolation. They are overgrown with flowers, however, and they stand "dewy in the light of the rising dawn-star. "

 "The shrine is ruined now, and far away To east and west stretch olive groves, whose shade, Even at the height of summer noon, is gray. 

 * * * * *

 "Yet this was once a hero's temple, crowned With myrtle boughs by lovers, and with palm By wrestlers, resonant with sweetest sound Of flute and fife in summer evening's calm, And odorous with incense all the year, With nard and spice and galbanum and balm. "

The detour to Pæstum is full of significance. The massive columns of thetemples stand like giants of the ages. "It is difficult, " writes JohnAddington Symonds, "not to return again and again to the beauty ofcoloring at Pæstum. Lying basking in the sun on a flat slab of stone, and gazing eastward, we overlook a foreground of dappled light andshadow; then come two stationary columns built, it seems, of solid gold, where the sunbeams strike along their russet surface. Between them liesthe landscape, a medley first of brakefern and asphodel and featheringacanthus and blue spikes; while beyond and above is a glimpse ofmountains, purple almost to indigo with cloud shadows, and flecked withsnow. "

The sail from Amalfi to Pæstum is one incomparable in loveliness. Thesunshine is all lurid gold. The faint, transparent blue haze fills allthe defiles of the mountains; the cliffs disclose yawning caverns wherevast clusters of stalactites hang; and as the boat floats toward Caprifrom the Sorrento promontory its rocky headlands rise and flame intopurple and rose against the glowing sky. Across the Bay of Naples risesthe great city. It stands in some subtle way reminding one of the scenewhere one

 "... Rowing hard against the stream, Saw distant gates of Eden gleam. "

Capri is the idyllic island of prismatic light and shade, of gay andjoyous life. Here Tiberius had his summer palace, and it was from theseshores that he sent the historic letter which revolutionized the life ofSejanus. The letter--_verbosa et grandis epistola_--is still vivid inthe historic associations of Rome. Capri is one of the favorite resortsboth for winter and summer. Its former modest prices are now greatlyincreased, like all the latter-day expenses of Italy; but its beauty isperennial, and the artist and poet can still command there a seclusionalmost impossible to secure elsewhere in Italy. The distinguishedartist, Elihu Vedder of Rome, has a country house on Capri, and anotherwell-known artist, Charles Caryl Coleman, makes this island his home. There are days--sometimes several days in succession--that the sea ishigh and the boats cannot run between Naples, Sorrento, and Capri; andthe enforced seclusion is still the seclusion of the poet's dream. Forhe shares it with Mithras, the "unconquered god of the sun, " whose cultinfluenced all the monarchs of Europe and who holds his court in theGrotto de Matrimonia. Into this grotto one descends by a flight ofnearly two hundred feet; he strolls among the ruins of the villa ofTiberius, where the very air is still vital and vocal with those strangeand tragic chapters of Roman life. The Emperor Augustus first foundedhere palaces and aqueducts. Tiberius, who retired to Capri in the year27 A. D. , had his architects build twelve villas, in honor of the gods, the largest of these being for Jupiter and known as the Villa Jovis. In31 A. D. Occurred that dramatic episode in Roman history, the fall ofSejanus, and six years later Tiberius died. The vast white marble bathshe had built for him are now submerged on the coast, and boats glideover the spot where they stood. The Villa Jovis stood on a cliff sevenhundred feet above the sea, and the traditions of the barbarities andatrocities that took place there still haunt the island. The nativesapparently regard them as a certain title to fame, but the wise touristspersistently ignore horrors; life is made for joy, sweetness, and charm;it is far wiser to think on these things. 

And there is charm and joy to spare on lovely Capri. "Sea-mists arefrequent in the early summer mornings, swathing the cliffs of Capri andbrooding on the smooth water till the day wind rises, " says JohnAddington Symonds. "Then they disappear like magic, rolling insmoke-wreaths from the surface of the sea, condensing into clouds andclimbing the hills like Oceanides in quest of Prometheus, or takingtheir station on the watch towers of the world as in the chorus of theNephelai. Such a morning may be chosen for the _giro_ of the island. TheBlue Grotto loses nothing of its beauty, but rather gains by contrast, when passing from dense fog you find yourself transported to a world ofwavering subaqueous sheen. It is only through the very topmost arch thata boat can glide into this cavern; the arch itself spreads downwardthrough the water so that all the light is transmitted from beneath andcolored by the sea. Outside the magic world of pantomime there isnothing to equal these effects of blue and silver.... Numberless are thecaves at Capri. The so-called Green Grotto has the beauty of moss agatein its liquid floor; the Red Grotto shows a warmer chord of color; andwhere there is no other charm to notice, endless beauty may be found inthe play of sunlight upon roofs of limestone, tinted with yellow, orange, and pale pink, mossed over, hung with fern, and catching tonesof blue or green from the still deeps beneath.... After a day upon thewater it is pleasant to rest at sunset in the loggia above the sea. TheBay of Naples stretches far and wide in front, beautiful by reason ofthe long fine line descending from Vesuvius, dipping almost to a level, and then gliding up to join the highlands of the north. Now sun and moonbegin to mingle: waning and waxing splendors. The cliffs above our headsare still blushing like the heart of some tea-rose; when lo, the touchof the huntress is laid upon those eastern pinnacles, and the horizonglimmers with her rising. Was it on such a night that Ferdinand ofAragon fled from his capital before the French, with eyes turned ever tothe land he loved, chanting, as he leaned from his galley's stern, thatmelancholy psalm, 'Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman wakethbut in vain, ' and seeing Naples dwindle to a white blot on the purpleshore?"

The roses of Capri would form a chapter alone. What walks there arewhere the air is all fragrance of acacia and rose and orange blossoms!Cascades of roses in riotous luxuriance festoon the old gray stonewalls; the pale pink of the early dawn or of a shell by the seashore, the amber of the Banskeia rose, the great golden masses of the MaréchalNiel, their faint yellow gleaming against the deep green leaves ofmyrtle and frond. The intense glowing scarlet of the gladiolus flamesfrom rocks and roadside, and rosemary and the purple stars of hyacinthsgarland the ways, until one feels like journeying only in his singingrobes. The deep, solemn green of stone pines forms canopies under thesapphire skies, and through their trunks one gazes on the sapphire sea. Is Capri the isle of Epipsychidion?

 "Is there now any one that knows What a world of mystery lies deep down in the heart of a rose?"

One walks among these rose-lined lanes, hearing in the very air thatexquisite lyric by Louise Chandler Moulton:--

 "Roses that briefly live, Joy is your dower; Blest be the Fates that give One perfect hour. And, though too soon you die, In your dust glows Something the passer-by Knows was a Rose. "

Monte Cassino is one of the most interesting inland points in SouthernItaly, --the monastery lying on the crest of a hill nearly two thousandfeet above the sea. Dante alludes to this in his Paradiso (XXII, XXXVII), and in the prose translation made by that eminent Danteanscholar, Professor Charles Eliot Norton, this assurance of Beatrice toDante is thus rendered:--

 "That mountain on whose slope Cassino is, was of old frequented on its summit by the deluded and ill-disposed people, and I am he who first carried up thither the name of Him who brought to earth the truth which so high exalts us; and such grace shone upon me that I drew away the surrounding villages from the impious worship which seduced the world. Those other fires were all contemplative men, kindled by that heat which brings to birth holy flowers and fruits. Here is Macarius, here is Romuald, here are my brothers, who within the cloisters fixed their feet, and held a steadfast heart. And I to him, 'The affection which thou displayest in speaking with me, and the good semblance which I see and note in all your ardors, have so expanded my confidence as the sun does the rose, when she becomes open so much as she has power to be. Therefore I pray thee, and do thou, father, assure me if I have power to receive so much grace, that I may see thee with uncovered shape. ' Whereon he, 'Brother, thy high desire shall be fulfilled in the last sphere, where are fulfilled all others and my own. There perfect, mature, and whole is every desire; in that alone is every part there where it always was: for it is not in space, and hath not poles; and our stairway reaches up to it, wherefore thus from thy sight it conceals itself. Far up as there the patriarch Jacob saw it stretch its topmost part when it appeared to him so laden with Angels. But now no one lifts his feet from earth to ascend it; and my rule is remaining as waste of paper. The walls, which used to be an abbey, have become caves; and the cowls are sacks full of bad meal. But heavy usury is not gathered in so greatly against the pleasure of God, as that fruit which makes the heart of monks so foolish. For whatsoever the Church guards is all for the folk that ask it in God's name, not for one's kindred, or for another more vile. The flesh of mortals is so soft that a good beginning suffices not below from the springing of the oak to the forming of the acorn. Peter began without gold and without silver, and I with prayers and with fasting, and Francis in humility his convent; and if thou lookest at the source of each, and then lookest again whither it has run, thou wilt see dark made of the white. Truly, Jordan turned back, and the sea fleeing when God willed, were more marvellous to behold than succor here. "

Dante adds that the company "like a whirlwind gathered itself upward, "and that "the sweet lady urged me behind them, with only a sign, up overthat stairway; so did her virtue overcome my nature. But never herebelow, where one mounts and descends naturally, was there motion sorapid that it could be compared unto my wing. "

The time was when Dante and Beatrice met, and he "was standing as onewho within himself represses the point of his desire, and attempts notto ask, he so fears the too-much. " And then he heard: "If thou couldstsee, as I do, the charity which burns among us thy thoughts would beexpressed. But that thou through waiting mayst not delay thy high end, Iwill make answer to thee, even to the thought concerning which thou artso regardful. "

The vast monastery of Monte Cassino, lying on the crest of a hill nearlytwo thousand feet above the sea, has one of the most magnificentlocations in all Italy. This monastery was founded (in 529 A. D. ) by St. Benedict, on the site of an ancient temple to Apollo. Dante alludes tothis also in the Paradiso (Canto XX, 11). As seen from below thismonastery has the appearance of a vast castle, or fortress. Itslocation is one of the most magnificent in all Italy. The old entrancewas a curious passage cut through solid rock and it is still used forprinces and cardinals--no lesser dignitaries being allowed to passthrough it--and within the past thirty years a new entrance has beenconstructed. In the passageway of the mediæval entrance St. Benedict issaid to have had his cell, and of recent years the German Benedictines, believing they had located the original cell, had it located, restored, and decorated with Egyptian frescoes. Several of the courts of thisconvent are connected by beautiful arcades with lofty arches, andadorned with statues, among which are those of St. Benedict and hissister, St. Scholastica. Still farther up the hill, upon the monastery, stands the church which is built on the site of the ancient one that waserected by St. Benedict himself--this present edifice dating back to1637. Above the portals there is a long inscription in Latin relatingthe history of the monastery and the church. These portals are solidbronze, beautifully carved, with inlaid tablets of silver on which areinscribed a list of all the treasures of the abbey in the year 1006. Thechurch is very rich in interior decoration of mosaics, rare marbles, and wonderful monumental memorials. Either side of the high altar aremonuments to the Prince of Mignano (Guidone Fieramosca) and also toPiero de Medico. Both St. Benedict and his sister, St. Scholastica, areentombed under the high altar, which is one of the most elaboratelysculptured in all the churches of Italy. 

Among the pictorial decorations of this church are a series of frescopaintings by Luca Giordano, painted in the seventeenth century, representing the miracles wrought by St. Benedict. In the refectory isthe "Miracle of the Loaves, " by Bassano; and in the chapel below arepaintings by Mazzaroppi and Marco da Siena. Nothing can exceed therichness and beauty of the carvings of the choir stalls. These wereexecuted in the seventeenth century by Coliccio. 

The library of this monastery is renowned all over Europe--indeed, it isfamous all over the world--for its preservation of ancient manuscriptsdone by the monks. These are carefully treasured in the archives. Amongthem is the record of a vision that came to the monk Alferic, in thetwelfth century, on which it is believed that Dante founded hisimmortal "Divina Commedia;" there is also a fourteenth-century editionof Dante with margined notes; and the Commentary of Origen (on theEpistle to the Romans), dating back to the sixteenth century; there isthe complete series of Papal bulls that were sent to the monastery ofMonte Cassino from the eleventh century to the present time, many ofthem being richly illuminated and decorated with curiously elaborateseals. There is an autograph letter of the Sultan Mohammed II to PopeNicholas IV, with the Pope's reply, --the theme of the correspondencebeing the Pope's threat of war. The imperial Mohammed seems to have beenin terror of this, and in his epistle he expresses his willingness, and, indeed, his intention, to be converted as soon as he shall visit Rome!Apparently the Holy Father of that day laid little stress on thesincerity of this offer on the part of the Sultan. Here, too, is awonderful correspondence between Don Erasmo Gattola, the historian ofthe abbey, and a great number of the celebrated men of his time; andthere are hundreds of other letters, manuscripts, and documents relatingto kings, nobles, emperors, and many of the nobility of the age. 

In this monastery there is a most interesting collection of relics, inbronze, silver, gold, and _rosso antico_. The library proper containssome eleven thousand volumes, dating back to the very dawn of thediscovery of the art of printing. 

Mr. Longfellow, whose poet's pen has pictured so many of the Italianlandscapes and ancient monuments, thus set Monte Cassino to music, picturing the entire landscape of the Terra di Lavoro region:--

 "The Land of Labor and the Land of Rest, Where mediæval towns are white on all The hillsides, and where every mountain's crest Is an Etrurian or a Roman wall. 

 * * * * *

 "There is Aquinum, the old Volscian town, Where Juvenal was born, whose lurid light Still hovers o'er his birthplace like the crown Of splendor seen o'er cities in the night. 

 "Doubled the splendor is, that in its streets The Angelic Doctor as a school-boy played, And dreamed perhaps the dreams that he repeats In ponderous folios for scholastics made. 

 "And there, uplifted, like a passing cloud That pauses on a mountain summit high, Monte Cassino's convent rears its proud And venerable walls against the sky. 

 "Well I remember how on foot I climbed The stony pathway leading to its gate; Above, the convent bells for vespers chimed, Below, the darkening town grew desolate. 

 * * * * *

 "The silence of the place was like a sleep, So full of rest it seemed; each passing tread Was a reverberation from the deep Recesses of the ages that are dead. 

 "For, more than thirteen centuries ago, Benedict fleeing from the gates of Rome, A youth disgusted with its vice and woe, Sought in these mountain solitudes a home. 

 "He founded here his Convent and his Rule Of prayer and work, and counted work as prayer; The pen became a clarion, and his school Flamed like a beacon in the midnight air. 

 * * * * *

 "From the high window, I beheld the scene On which Saint Benedict so oft had gazed, -- The mountains and the valley in the sheen Of the bright sun, --and stood as one amazed. 

 * * * * *

 "The conflict of the Present and the Past, The ideal and the actual in our life, As on a field of battle held me fast, Where this world and the next world were at strife. "

The monastery of Monte Cassino entertains, as its guests, for dinner orfor a night, all gentlemen who visit it; but there is an alms box on theancient gate into which the guest is supposed to place whatevercontribution he pleases for the poor of the place. The Italiangovernment, in 1866, declared this monastery to be a "MonumentoNazionale, " and it is now a famous ecclesiastical school with some twohundred students and a resplendent faculty of fifty learned monks underthe direction of the Abbot. Some of the most celebrated prelates inEurope have been educated at Monte Cassino. 

Quite near Monte Cassino, as Longfellow depicts in his lines, is MonteAquino, a picturesque hillside where the "Doctor Angelicus, " ThomasAquinas, was born (in 1224), the son of Count Landulf, in the CastelRoccasecca. He was educated in the monastery, and one finds himselfrecalling here these lines of Thomas William Parsons, entitled "Turningfrom Darwin to Thomas Aquinas:"--

 "Unless in thought with thee I often live, Angelic doctor! life seems poor to me. What are these bounties, if they only be Such boon as farmers to their servants give? That I am fed, and that mine oxen thrive, That my lambs fatten, that mine hours are free-- These ask my nightly thanks on bended knee; And I do thank Him who hath blest my hive, And made content my herd, my flock, my bee. But, Father! nobler things I ask from Thee. Fishes have sunshine, worms have everything! Are we but apes? Oh! give me, God, to know I am death's master; not a scaffolding, But a true temple where Christ's word could grow. "

It was at Aquinum, too, at the foot of Monte Aquino, Juvenal was born. Near the peaks of Monte Cassino and Monte Aquino is that of Monte Cairo, five thousand five hundred feet high, from whose summit one of thefinest views of all southern Europe is attained. The Gulf of Gaeta, thevalley of San Germano, the wild and romantic mountain region of theAbruzzi and a view, too, of the blue sea are in the panorama, bathed inthe opalescent, gleaming lights that often invest the Italian landscapewith jewelled splendor. 

 "I ask myself, Is this a dream? Will it all vanish into air? Is there a land of such supreme And perfect beauty, anywhere?"

It might have been in this pictured dream-region that Hercules came torest. 

 "When Heracles, the twelve great labors done, To Calpe came, and there his journey stayed, He raised two pillars toward the evening sun, And carved them by a goddess' subtle aid. Upon their shafts were sacred legends traced, And round the twain a serpent cincture placed: 'T was at this bound the primal world stood still, And of Atlantis dreamed, with baffled will. "

But still in unmeasured space, still beyond and afar and unattained, still lost in the unpenetrated realms of the poet's fancy, --

 "Atlantis lies beyond the pillars yet!"

 _"Here Ischia smiles O'er liquid miles. "_

 * * * * *

 _High o'er the sea-surge and the sands, Like a great galleon wrecked and cast Ashore by storms, thy Castle stands A mouldering landmark of the Past. _

 _Upon its terrace-walk, I see A phantom gliding to and fro; It is Colonna, --it is she Who lived and loved so long ago. _

 LONGFELLOW. 

 _We are the only two that, face to face, Do know each other, as God doth know us both. --O fearless friendship, that held nothing back! O absolute trust, that yielded every key, And flung each curtain up, and drew me on To enter the white temple of thy soul, So vast, so cold, so waste!--and give thee sense Of living warmth, of throbbing tenderness, Of soft dependencies! O faith that made Thee free to seek the spot where my dead hopes Have sepulture, and read above the crypt Deep graven, the tearful legend of my life! There, gloomed with the memorials of my past, Thou once for all didst learn what man accepts Lothly--(how should he else?)--that never woman, Fashioned a woman, --heart, brain, body, soul, -- Ever twice loved. _

 "_Vittoria Colonna to Michael Angelo. _"

 MARGARET J. PRESTON. 

IV

A PAGE DE CONTI FROM ISCHIA

 "Unto my buried lord I give myself. "

 * * * * *

 Michael Angelo! A man that all men honor, and the model That all should follow; one who works and prays, For work is prayer, and consecrates his life To the sublime ideal of his art Till art and life are one. 

 LONGFELLOW, from "_Michael Angelo; A Fragment_. "

In that poetic sail along the Italian coast between Naples and Genoa thevoyager feels that it is

 "On no earthly sea with transient roar"

that his bark is floating; that

 "Unto no earthly airs he trims his sail, "

as he flits along this coast when violet waves dash against a brilliantbackground of sky. Ischia reveals herself through the blue, transparentair, gleaming with opalescent lights, quivering, fading and flamingagain as the afterglow in the east rivals in its coloring the sunsetsplendors of the west. Is there in the air a faint, lingering echo ofthe _chant d'amour_ of sirens on the rocky shores? Is Parthenope stillto be descried? Gazing upon Ischia there is a rush of romanticimpressions as if one were transported into ideal regions of song, before this impression begins to resolve itself into definiteremembrance of fact and incident. Surely some exquisite associations inthe past had enchanted this island in memory and invested it with themagic light that never was on sea or land. Traditions of beauty; of thelives of scholar and savant and princes of the church; of a court ofnobility enriched and adorned by prelate and by poet; traditions, too, of a woman's consecration to an immortal love and the solace of grief bypoetic genius and exalted friendships, --all these seem to cling aboutIschia in a vague, atmospheric way till memory, still groping backwardin the twilight of the richly historic past, suddenly crystallized intorecognition that it was Ischia which was the home of Vittoria Colonna, the greatest woman poet of the Italian Renaissance. Lines, long sinceread, arose like an incantation; and like bars of music, each note ofwhich vibrated in the air, came this fragment of one of her songs:--

 "If in these rude and artless songs of mine I never take the file in hand, nor try With curious care and nice, fastidious eye To deck and polish each uncultured line, 'T is that it makes small merit of my name To merit praise.... 

 * * * * *

 But it must be that heaven's own gracious gift Which, with its breath, divine, inspires my soul, Strikes forth these sparks unbidden by my will. "

 [Illustration: ISCHIA, FROM THE SEA _Page 282_]

Vittoria Colonna was called the most beautiful and gifted woman of hertime in all Italy. Her life of nearly sixty years (1490-1547) layentirely in that period when the apathy of ten centuries was broken, when the darkness fled before the dawning of a glorious day. New methodsof thought, revised taste in poetry, new discoveries of science, anobler progress in criticism, great discoveries, and a lofty andunprecedented freedom of conviction marked the century between 1450 and1550, stamping it as the marvellous time which we know as theRenaissance, "that solemn fifteenth century which can hardly be studiedtoo much, not merely for its positive results in the things of theintellect and the imagination, its concrete works of art, its specialand prominent personalities, with their profound æsthetic charm, but forits general spirit and character, for the ethical qualities of which itis a consummate type. "

It was peculiarly fitting that Italy should take the initiative ininaugurating this _vita nuova_. Italy had a language and literature andart. Dante had delivered his solemn message and Petrarca his impassionedsong. Boccaccio had taught the gospel of gladness. Who shall analyze thesecret springs of their inspiration and reveal to what degree Ovid andHorace and Virgil influenced the later literature? A new solar systemwas established by Copernicus. America was discovered. Science enteredon her definite and ceaseless progress, and religion and art becamesignificant forces in human life. Printing had been invented and thecompass discovered. 

Into this time of new forces, when everything was throbbing andpulsating with life, was Vittoria Colonna born into social prestige andsplendor. Her father, Fabrizio Colonna, and her mother, Agnesina diMontefeltro, a daughter of the Duke of Urbino, were then domiciled inthe castle of Marino, on the Lago d'Albano, a magnificent palace sometwelve miles from Rome, in which the Duke d'Amalfi (the father ofFabrizio Colonna) lived, and which is still standing, filled withmemorials and relics of historic interest. Urbino, the seat of theMontefeltro, is renowned as having been the birthplace of Raphael, who

 "Only drank the precious wine of youth, "

but who

 "... Lives immortal in the hearts of men, ... And the world is fairer That he lived in it. "

The Colonna date back to the eleventh century, and they gave manyprinces and cardinals to the country. At the close of the thirteenthcentury they were arrayed against Boniface VIII, the Pope, who accusedthem of crime, while they disputed the validity of his election to theholy office. In retaliation, the Pope excommunicated the entire family, anathematized them as heretics and declared their estates forfeited tothe church. The Colonna, far from being intimidated, commanded threehundred armed horsemen, attacked the papal palace, which they plundered, and made him a prisoner, --an incident referred to by Dante in the"Inferno. " The Colonna and the Orsini were also at warfare, and when amember of the former family was elevated to the papacy under the name ofMartin V, they despoiled property of the Orsini. 

Gay excursionists to-day, who fly over the Campagna in theirtwentieth-century touring cars to the lovely towns of the Alban hills, may look down from Castel Gandolfo on the gloomy, mediæval little townof Marino, part way up a steep hillside, whose summit is crowned by thecastle once belonging to the Colonna and in which Vittoria passed herearly childhood. "Nothing, " in his "Roba di Roma, " says Story, "can bemore rich and varied than this magnificent amphitheatre of the Campagnaof Rome, ... Sometimes drear, mysterious, and melancholy in desolatestretches; sometimes rolling like an inland sea whose waves havesuddenly become green with grass, golden with grain, and gracious withmyriads of wild flowers, where scarlet poppies blaze and pink daisiescover vast meadows and vines shroud the picturesque ruins of antiquevillas, aqueducts, and tombs, or drop from mediæval towers andfortresses. "

Flying in the swift motor-car of the time toward the Alban hills, Marinomay be easily reached in less than an hour from the Porta San Giovanni, and in the near distance Monte Albani, rising into the cone of MonteCavi, is a picture before the eye, while on the lower slopes gleam thewhite villages of Albani, Marino, Castel Gandolfo, and Frascati, withthe campanile of a cathedral, a fortress-like ruin, or gardens and oliveorchards clambering up the heights. The Papal town of Rocca di Papacrowns one summit where once Tarquin's temple to Jupiter stood and onwhose ruins now gleam afar in the Italian sunshine the white walls ofthe Passionist convent of Monte Cavi, built by Cardinal York. From thisheight Juno gazed upon the great conflict of contending armies, ifVirgil's topography be entitled to authority. And here, through a defilein the hills, one may look toward Naples, "and then rising abruptlywith sheer limestone cliffs and crevasses, where transparent purpleshadows sleep all day long, towers the grand range of the Sabinemountains, whose lofty peaks surround the Campagna to the east and northlike a curved amphitheatre.... Again, skirting the Pontine Marshes onthe east, are the Volscian mountains, closing up the Campagna atTerracina, where they overhang the road and affront the sea with theirgreat barrier. Following along the Sabine hills, you will see atintervals the towns of Palestrina and Tivoli, where the Anio tumbles infoam, and other little mountain towns nestled here and there among thesoft airy hollows, or perched on the cliffs. "

In this landscape there are three ruined villages--Colonna, Gallicano, and Zagarda--perched on their respective hills. The castle of theColonna family is now restored and modernized to a degree that leaveslittle trace of that former stately grandeur which is transmuted intomodern convenience and comfort. 

In this scene of romantic beauty, with the vista of beauty almostincomparable in any inland view in Italy, Vittoria passed her infancy, until, at the age of four, her childhood was transplanted to fairyIschia. In all this chain of Alban towns, including Marino, Viterbo, Ariccia, and Rocca di Papa, the great family of the Colonna ownedextensive estates, each crowning some height, while the defiles betweenwere filled, then as now, with the foam and blossom of riotous greenery. Then, as now, across the mystic Campagna, the dome of St. Peter'ssilhouetted itself against a golden background of western sky. 

One needs not to have had privileged access to the sibylline leaves ofthe Cumæan soothsayer to recognize that Vittoria Colonna was born underthe star of destiny. Her horoscope seemed to be inextricably entwinedwith that of Italy; and the events which created and determined theconditions of her life and its panoramic series of circumstances werethe events of Italy and of Europe as well--in political aspects and inthe influence on general progress, brought to bear by strong andprominent individualities whose gifts, genius, or force dominated themovements of the day. 

To her father's change of political allegiance, from the French to theSpanish side, in the war raging between those countries in 1494, Vittoria owed all her life in Ischia; and her marriage, and all thatresulted from her becoming a member of the d'Avalos family, was due tothis espousal of a new political faith on the part of Fabrizio Colonna. To the fact that in 1425 the war with France again broke out was due theloss of her husband and the conditions that consecrated her life topoetry, to learning, and that made possible the beautiful andsympathetic friendship between herself and Michael Angelo. Her lifepresents the most forcible illustration of the overruling power on humanlife and destiny. 

It was the political change of faith on the part of Fabrizio Colonnathat initiated an unforeseen and undreamed-of drama of life for hisinfant daughter, the first act of which included the command of the Kingof Naples that the little Vittoria should be betrothed to Francescod'Avalos, the son of Alphonso, Marchese di Pescara, of Ischia, one ofthe nobles who stood nearest to the king in those troubled days. Francesco was born in the castle on Ischia in 1489, and was one yearolder than Vittoria. Fabrizio exchanged his castle at Marino for one inNaples, which city made him the Grand Constable. The d'Avalos castle inIschia had at this time for its chatelaine the Duchessa di Francavilla, who is said by some authorities to have been the elder sister and byothers to have been the aunt of Francesco. Donna Constanza d'Avalos, later the Duchessa di Francavilla, had been made the Castellana of theisland for her courage in refusing to capitulate to the French troopswhen, after the death of her father, she was left in sole charge of thed'Avalos estates, and Emperor Charles V elevated her rank to that ofPrincipessa. The Duchessa was one of the most remarkable women of theday. She was a classical scholar, and herself a writer, the author of abook entitled "_Degli Infortuni e Travagli del Mondo_. " To the care ofthis learned and brilliant woman, a great lady in the social life of thetime, the care of the little Vittoria was committed, and she studied andplayed and grew up with Francesco, her future husband. The d'Avalosfamily ranked among the highest nobility of the Court of Naples, and thePrincipessa reigned as a queen of letters and society in her islandkingdom. It was under her care that the two children, Francesco andVittoria, pursued their studies together and acquired every grace ofscholarship and accomplishment of society. The circles which theDuchessa drew around her included many gentlewomen from Sicily and fromNaples; and "the life at Castel d'Ischia was synonymous with everythingglorious and elegant, " recorded Visconti, "and its fame has beenimmortalized. " Although Francesco (the future Marchese di Pescara) wasborn in Italian dominions, yet the d'Avalos family were of Spanishancestry and traditions. The musical Castilian was the language of thehousehold. The race ideals of Spain--the poetic, the impassioned, thejoy in color and movement--pervaded the very atmosphere of Casteld'Ischia. Vittoria's earliest girlhood revealed her exceptional beautyand charm, and gave evidence that the gods loved her and had dowered herwith their immortal gifts and genius, which flowered, under thesympathetic guidance and stimulus of such a woman as the Principessa(the Duchessa di Francavilla) and the society she drew around her, asthe orange and the myrtle flower under the southern sunshine. 

The literature of biography presents no chapter that can rival this inthe idyllic beauty of the lives of those two children on the lovelyisland in the violet sea. The perpetual conflicts that were waged inboth Rome and Naples awakened no echoes in this romantic and isolatedspot, whose atmosphere was that of the peace of scholarly pursuits andlofty thought that is found where the arts and the muses hold theirsway. 

But in 1496 came the tragedy of the death of the young king and queen ofNaples; four years later Rome celebrated a jubilee in which Naples tookpart, sending a splendid procession as escort to the famous Madonna thatwas carried from Naples to Rome and back, working miracles, it is said, on both journeys, as a Madonna should. A year later Frederick of Naplesand the queen, and two of the king's sisters, --ladies of highnobility, --came as guests to the castle in Ischia, --royal exiles seekingshelter. Five years later the new king and queen were welcomed withgorgeous parade and acclamation. A pier was thrown out over one hundredfeet into the sea; on this a tent of gold was erected, and all thenobility of Naples, in the richest costumes of velvet and jewels, thronged to meet the royal guests. Over the sunlit Bay of Naplesresounded the thunder of the guns in military salute and the cheers ofthe people. Among the distinguished nobility present, Costanza, Duchessaand Principessa di Francavilla, was a marked figure with her youngcharge, Vittoria Colonna, at her side. She made a deep reverence andkissed the hand of the king as he passed, as did many of the ladies ofhighest rank, and at the fête of that evening Vittoria's beauty charmedall eyes. Although it was well understood that she had been betrothedsince childhood to Francesco d'Avalos, yet many princes and nobles suedfor her hand and were refused by her father, who was at this timeestablished magnificently in Naples. Pope Julius II refused thepleadings of two dukes, both of whom wished to seek Vittoria inmarriage, as he considered the love of the young girl for her betrotheda matter to be held sacred. Three years later, when Vittoria wasnineteen and Francesco twenty, their marriage was celebrated in Casteld'Ischia with the richest state and beauty of ceremonial observance. Afew months previous to this time she had returned to her father'scountry home in the family castle at Marino, whither both Fabrizioand Agnese Colonna accompanied their daughter. When the time appointedfor her bridal came, Vittoria was escorted to Ischia by princes, anddukes, and ladies of honor, and the marriage gifts to the bride includeda chain of rubies, diamonds, and emeralds, linked with gold; a writingdesk of solid gold; wonderful bracelets; costumes of velvets, andbrocades and rich embroideries, and a portion of fourteen thousandducats. 

 [Illustration: LA ROCCA, ISCHIA _Page 294_]

"The noted pair had not their equals in Italy at this time, " writes acontemporary historian. "Their life in Naples was all magnificence andfestivity, and when they desired to exchange it for the country theyleft Naples for Pietralba on Monte Emo, where they assembled pleasantparties of ladies and gentlemen. Much time was passed in their belovedIschia, where the Duchessa, as Castellana, was obliged to receive muchcompany. And here were found the flower of chivalry and the men mostnoted in letters.... They listened to the poets Sanazzaro, il Rota, andBernardo Tasso; or they heard the admirable discourses on letters ofMusefico, il Giovio, and il Minturno. It was an agreeable school for theyouthful minds of Vittoria and Pescara. Thus passed in great happinessthe first three years of their married life. "

It is not strange that to the young Marchesa di Pescara, Ischia hadbecome an enchanted island. The scene of her happy childhood, of herstudies, of her first efforts in lyric art, of her stately andresplendent bridal; the home, too, of her early married life, --it islittle wonder that in after years she translated into song its scenicloveliness and the thoughts and visions it had inspired. 

Again, the ever-recurring war came on, and in the spring of 1512 theKing of Naples conferred the doubtful privilege on the Marchesa diPescara of serving as the royal representative. It is said that Vittoriapersonally superintended her young husband's outfit, --in horses, attendants, armor, and other details belonging to a gentleman of rank. Her father and her uncle, Prospero Colonna, were also among the militarywho led Italian troops. In the terrible battle of Ravenna (which wasfought on the Easter Sunday, April 11, of 1512), Pescara was wounded, taken prisoner, and carried to the fortress of Porta Gobbia. A messengerwas sent to Ischia, where Vittoria lived between her books and theorange groves; and the twentieth-century cynic of 1907 will smile at theform in which she expressed her sorrow, --that of a poem of some fortystanzas, which began:--

 "_Eccelso Mio Signor! Questa ti scrivo Per te narrar tra quante dubbie voglie, Fra quanti aspri martir, dogliosa io vivo!_"

A translation of this lyric epistle, made in prose, gives it more fullyas follows:--

 "Eccelso Mio Signor: I write this to thee to tell thee amid what bitter anxieties I live.... I believed that so many prayers and tears, and love without measure, would not have been displeasing to God.... Thy great valor has shone as in a Hector or an Achilles. "

In this letter Vittoria tells him that when the messenger reached her, she was lying on a point of the island ("_I_, in the _body_, my _mind_always with _thee_, " she says), and that the whole atmosphere had beento her that day "like a cavern of black fog, " and that "the marine godsseemed to say to Ischia, 'To-day, Vittoria, thou shalt hear of disgracefrom the confines: thou now in health and honor, thou shalt be turnedto grief; but thy father and husband are saved, though takenprisoners. '"

This presentiment she related to her husband's aunt, the DuchessaFrancavilla, the Castellana of Ischia, who begged her not to think of itand said, "It would be strange for such a force to be conquered. "

Just after this conversation between the youthful Marchesa and theDuchessa, the messenger arrived. The psychic science of to-day would seein this occurrence a striking instance of telepathy. In her poeticepistle to her husband, Vittoria also says:--

 "A wife ought to follow her husband at home and abroad; if he suffers trouble, she suffers; if he is happy, she is; if he dies, she dies. What happens to one happens to both; equals in life, they are equals in death. His fate is her fate. "

These letters--in keeping with the times--were, on both sides, expressedin literary rather than in personal form. Pescara, from his captivity, wrote to her a "Dialogue on Love, "--a manuscript for which Viscontinotes that he has searched in vain. 

The Marchesa di Pescara went from Ischia to Naples, after learning ofthe misfortunes that had overtaken her husband, in order that she mightbe able constantly to receive direct communication regarding his fate. Afew months later the Marchese returned, making the day "brilliant withjoy" to Vittoria, but after a year of happiness he was again called toservice, and the Marchesa returned to her beloved Ischia. She gaveherself to the study of the ancient classics; she wrote poems, and"considered no time of value but so spent, " says Rota. The age was oneof a general revival of learning. Royalty, the Pope, the princes andnobility were all giving themselves with ardor to this higher culture. Under Dante the Italian language assumed new perfection. This period wasto Vittoria one of intense stimulus, and it must have had a formativeinfluence on her gifts and her mental power. Having no children, sheadopted a young cousin of her husband, the Marchese del Vasto, toeducate and to be the heir of their estates. In 1515, Pescara againreturned and the entire island of Ischia was "aflame with bonfires, andthe borders of the beautiful shore bright and warm with lights, " inhonor of the event. Of this event, Vittoria wrote:--

 "... My beloved returns to us ... His countenance radiant with piety to God, with deeds born of inward faith. "

At a magnificent wedding festival in the d'Avalos family about thistime, it is recorded that the Marchesa di Pescara "wore a robe ofbrocaded crimson velvet, with large branches of beaten gold wrought onit, with a headdress of wrought gold and a girdle of beaten gold aroundher waist. "

When the coronation of Charles V was to be celebrated at Aix-la-Chapellethe Marchese di Pescara was appointed ambassador to represent the Houseof Aragon on this brilliant occasion, when the new emperor was to beinvested with the crown and the sceptre of Charlemagne. Charles haddecided to journey by sea and to visit Henry VIII on the way, anarrangement of which Cardinal Wolsey was aware, although he had keptHenry in ignorance of it, according to those curious mental processesof his mind where his young monarch was concerned. Shakespeare, in theplay of "King Henry VIII, " describes the meeting of the two kings, whichoccurred at Canterbury, "at a grand jubilee in honor of the shrine ofThomas à Becket. " One historian thus describes this scene:--

 "The two handsome young sovereigns rode into Canterbury under the same canopy, the great Cardinal riding directly in front of them, and on the right and left were the proud nobles of Spain and England, among whom was Pescara. The kings alighted from their horses at the west door of the cathedral and together paid their devotions before that rich shrine blazing with jewels. They humbly knelt on the steps worn by the knees of tens of thousands of pilgrims. "

On the return to Naples of the Marchese di Pescara he told the story ofhis regal journey to an assemblage of nobles in the Church of SantaMaria di Monte Oliveto, and he then joined the Marchesa in Rome, whereshe had gone to visit her family and to pay her devotions to Leo X, whohad just created Pompeo Colonna a cardinal. 

Pope Leo aspired to draw around him a court distinguished for itsculture and brilliancy in both art and literature. In this court theMarchesa di Pescara shone resplendent. "She was at the height of herbeauty, and her charms were sung by the poets of the day, " says acontemporary. 

A year later Leo X died, succeeded by Adrian (who had been tutor toCharles V), to the intense and bitter disappointment of Cardinal Wolsey, who had made the widest--and wiliest--efforts to gratify his ownambition of reigning in the Papal chair. Again the war between Franceand Italy, that which seemed to be a perpetually smouldering feud, andthe Marchese di Pescara, again summoned to battle, was wounded at Pavia. For some time he lay between life and death at Milan, and a messengerwas sent to beg Vittoria to come to him. She set out on this journey, leaving Naples in great haste; but on reaching Viterbo another messengermet her with the tidings of the death of the Marchese, which hadoccurred on Nov. 25, 1525. Overcome with grief, Vittoria was carriedback to Rome and for the solace of entire seclusion she sought thecloistered silence of the convent of San Silvestre, which lay at thefoot of the Monte Cavallo in Rome, almost adjoining the gardens of theColonna palace. To the Marchese di Pescara, who had the military rank ofgeneral, was given a funeral of great pomp and splendor in Milan, andhis body was brought to the famous Naples church of Santa DomenicaMaggiore, where it was entombed with the princes and nobles of hishouse. 

Before the death of the Marchese there had been a political plot to jointhe Papal, Venetian, and Milanese forces and rescue Italy from theEmperor's rule, and the Pope himself had sent a messenger to Pescaraasking him to unite with the league. The Marchese, Spanish by ancestryand by sympathies, used this knowledge to frustrate the Italian designsand to warn Spain. The Italian historians have execrated him for thisact, which they regard as that of a traitor. Vittoria, however, did nottake this view apparently, as in a letter to her husband she wrote:--

 "Titles and kingdoms do not add to true honor.... I do not desire to be the wife of a king, but I glory in being the wife of that great general who shows his bravery in war and, still more, by magnanimity in peace, surpasses the greatest kings. "

The inducement of the throne of Naples had been held out to Marchese diPescara. He evidently regarded this in the nature of a dishonorablebribe, and it is this view which the Marchesa plainly shared. 

After his death her first impulse was to take the vows of a cloisterednun. The Pope himself intervened to dissuade her, and she consented toenter, only temporarily, the convent of San Silvestre on the MonteCavallo. 

In the will of the Marchese di Pescara there was a clause directing thatanything in his estate unlawfully acquired should be restored to theowner; and under this, Vittoria gave back to the monastery of MonteCassino the Monte San Magno that had formerly been its property. 

From the cloistered shades of the convent Vittoria removed to the familycastle of the Colonna at Marino, where, on the shore of this beautifullake (which was the scenery of Virgil's Æneid), she passed some months, engaged in writing sonnets. Of one of these a translation runs inpart:--

 "I write solely to assuage my inward grief, which destroys in my heart the light of this world's sun; and not to add light to _mio bel sole_, to his glorified spirit. It is fit that other tongues should preserve his great name from oblivion. "

In another, perhaps her most perfect sonnet, she beseeches the winds toconvey to her beloved the message she sends:--

 "_Ch'io di lui sempre pensi; o pianga, o parli_, "--That I always think of him, or weep for him, or speak of him. 

Again, a year later, Vittoria returned to lovely Ischia, which, as onewriter has described, "rises out of the blue billows of theMediterranean like giant towers. The immense blocks of stone are heapedone upon another, in such a supernatural manner as to give a coloring tothe legend, that beneath them, in those vast volcanic caverns, dwellsthe giant Tifeo. " The castle where the Duchessa Francavilla and theMarchesa Pescara lived is built on a towering mass of rock joined to theisland by a causeway. The castle includes the palace, a church, andother buildings for the family and their guests and dependants. 

For some three years the Marchesa did not again leave Ischia. In themean time volumes of her poems were published. She received theacclamation of all the writers of her time. The crown of immortelles, often laid but on a tomb, was continually pressed upon her brow. She wasthe most famous woman of her time. Her beauty, her genius, her noblemajesty of character impressed the contemporary world. Her days werefilled with correspondence with the most distinguished men of the day. Ariosto, Castiglione, Ludovico Dolce, Cardinal Bembo, CardinalContarini, and Paolo Giovio were among her nearer circle of friends. 

 [Illustration: CASTELLO DI ALFONSO, ISCHIA _Page 306_]

Stormy times fell upon Italy, in all of which the Colonna family boreprominent part, and all of which affected the life of Vittoria Colonnain many ways. Her biography, if written with fulness and accuracy, wouldbe largely a history of the Italy of that time, for her life seemedalways inseparably united with great events. 

In the year 1530 (Clement VII being the Pope) a full Papal pardon hadbeen extended to all the Colonna, and their castles and estates had alsobeen restored to them. For years past Rome had been in a state ofconflict. Benvenuto Cellini, who had watched the terrible scenes fromCastel San Angelo where he was immured, has described the terrors. TheEternal City, whose population under Leo X had been 90, 000, was now--in1530--reduced to half that number. Palaces and temples had been thescenes of riot and destruction, yet to this very lawlessness of the timethe Roman galleries of the present owe their ancient statues, which wereuncovered by these assaults. The Coliseum was left in the ruined statein which it is now seen, and by the sale of the stones taken from it thePalazzo Barberini was erected. 

Vittoria, coming again to Rome and revisiting its classic greatness, exclaimed that happy were they who lived in times so full of grandeur;to which the poet Molza gallantly replied that they were less happy, asthey had not known her! Everywhere was she received with the highesthonors. She made a tour, visiting Bagni di Lucca, Bologna, and Ferrara, where she was the guest of the Duca and Duchessa Ercole in the ducalpalace. The Duchessa was the Princesse Renée, the daughter of Louis XIIof France, and an ardent friend of Calvin, who visited her in Ferrara. It was to this visit that Longfellow refers in his poem entitled"Michael Angelo, " when he pictures Vittoria as sitting for her portraitto the artist and conversing with her friend Giulia, the Duchess ofTrajetto, Michael Angelo begs them to resume the conversationinterrupted by his entrance, and Vittoria says:--

 "Well, first, then, of Duke Ercole, a man Cold in his manners, and reserved and silent, And yet magnificent in all his ways. "

To which the Duchessa replies:--

 "How could the daughter of a king of France Wed such a duke?"

 MICHAEL ANGELO. 

 "The men that women marry, And why they marry them, will always be A marvel and a mystery to the world. "

 VITTORIA. 

 "And then the Duchess, --how shall I describe her, Or tell the merits of that happy nature Which pleases most when least it thinks of pleasing? Not beautiful, perhaps, in form and feature, Yet with an inward beauty, that shines through Each look and attitude and word and gesture; A kindly grace of manner and behavior, A something in her presence and her ways That makes her beautiful beyond the reach Of mere external beauty; and in heart So noble and devoted to the truth, And so in sympathy with all who strive After the higher life. "

 JULIA. 

 "She draws me to her As much as her Duke Ercole repels me. "

 VITTORIA. 

 "Then the devout and honorable women That grace her court, and make it good to be there; Francesca Bucyronia, the true-hearted, Lavinia della Rovere and the Orsini, The Magdalena and the Cherubina, And Anne de Parthenai, who sings so sweetly; All lovely women, full of noble thoughts And aspirations after noble things. 

 * * * * *

 With these ladies Was a young girl, Olympia Morata, Daughter of Fulvio, the learned scholar, Famous in all the universities: A marvellous child, who at the spinning-wheel, And in the daily round of household cares, Hath learned both Greek and Latin; and is now A favorite of the Duchess and companion Of Princess Anne. This beautiful young Sappho Sometimes recited to us Grecian odes That she had written, with a voice whose sadness Thrilled and o'ermastered me, and made me look Into the future time, and ask myself What destiny will be hers. "

 JULIA. 

 "And what poets Were there to sing you madrigals, and praise Olympia's eyes?" ... 

 VITTORIA. 

 "None; for great Ariosto is no more. "

 * * * * *

 JULIA. 

 "He spake of you. "

 VITTORIA. 

 "And of yourself, no less, And of our master, Michael Angelo. "

 MICHAEL ANGELO. 

 "Of me?"

 VITTORIA. 

 "Have you forgotten that he calls you Michael, less man than angel, and divine? You are ungrateful. "

 MICHAEL ANGELO. 

 "A mere play on words. "

The Duca and Duchessa of Ferrara invited the most distinguished personsin Venice and Bologna and Lombardy to meet their honored guest. BishopGhiberto of Verona besought her to visit that city. Vittoria acceptedand was for some time the Bishop's guest in his palace, and she tookgreat interest in the historic city. With the Bishop she visited theancient Duomo, which in 1160 had been restored by Pope Urban II, andreconsecrated. It was a strong desire of the Marchesa at this time tomake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; but the journey was then so perilous andso long--none too easy, indeed, at the present time--that she wasdissuaded from the attempt. 

Verona, to do her honor, had a medal struck bearing her portrait. Thegroup of great artists--Titian, Tintoretto, and Giorgione in Venice; FraAngelico, Bartolommeo, and others of that day--were creating theirwonderful works which Vittoria must have seen and enjoyed during thistour. Raphael, whose death had occurred in 1520, Vittoria had, doubtless, known; but whether it was she who was the original of theMuse in his great picture of "Parnassus, " as is alleged, is not fullyestablished. 

 [Illustration: DETAIL FROM "PARNASSUS, " RAPHAEL STANZE, PALAZZO VATICANO, ROME Raphael Sanzio _Page 311_]

 "Unto my buried lord I give myself, "

wrote Vittoria Colonna in one of the sonnets to her husband's memory, and this line is the keynote to her entire life, both as woman and poet. It was no translation of her life into another key, no reckoning bystars that flashed from different skies, when there fell upon her thebaptism and crown of that immortal friendship with Michael Angelo. 

The Marchesa di Pescara returned to Rome, from this notable tour inNorthern Italy, in 1538. She was received with the honors that her fameinspired. Michael Angelo was then deeply absorbed in painting his "LastJudgment, " in the Capella Sistina. 

"Every one in Rome took an interest in the progress of this magnificentfresco, from the Pope (who continually visited the artist) down to thehumblest of the people. We may imagine Vittoria standing by the greatpainter to view his sublime work; but Michael Angelo did not require thepatronage, even of a Colonna, and it is possible that Vittoria herselffirst sought out his friendship. "

In the Casa Buonarroti, in Florence, hangs that exquisite picturepainted of Italy's greatest woman poet, in her early youth; and in itsrare and precious collection of manuscripts are the letters of Vittoriato the poet and sculptor. Her influence is said to have produced a greatchange in his religious views, influencing his mind to a more lofty andmore spiritual comprehension of the divine laws that govern theuniverse. 

Condivi, in referring to this chapter in their lives, has said:--

 "In particular he was most deeply attached to the Marchesa di Pescara, of whose divine spirit he was enamoured, and he was beloved by her in return with much affection. "

It was about 1535 when Michael Angelo left Florence for Rome, appointedby the Pope, Paul III, as the chief architect, sculptor, and painter ofthe Vatican. He was enrolled in the Pontifical household, and he at oncebegan his work in the Sistine Chapel. Mr. Symonds believes that he musthave been engaged upon the "Last Judgment" through 1536, 1537. The greatartist was not without a keen wit of his own as well; for on receipt ofa letter from Pietro Aretino, from Venice, in September of 1537, withpraises of his work that Michael Angelo deemed extravagant, he repliedthat while he rejoiced in Aretino's commendation, he also grieved; "ashaving finished a large part of the fresco, " he said, "I cannot realizeyour conception which is so complete that if the Day of Judgment hadcome and you had been present and seen it with your eyes, your wordscould not have described it better. "

Vittoria Colonna now passed some years between Rome and Orvieto, thatpicturesque town with its magnificent cathedral rich in mediæval art, where she lived in the convent of St. Paolo d'Orvieto. She varied thisresidence by remaining at times in the convent of San Caterina diViterbo, in that city. In Rome she had lived both at the convent ofSanta Anna and also at the Palazzo Cesarini, which was the home ofmembers of the Colonna family. A sonnet of Michael Angelo's written toVittoria reflects the feeling that she inspired in him:--

 "Da che concetto ha l'arte intera e diva La forma e gli atti d'alcun, poi di quello D'umil materia un semplice modello È 'l primo parto che da quel deriva. Ma nel secondo poi di pietra viva S'adempion le promesse del martello; E sì rinasce tal concetto e bello, Che ma' non è chi suo eterno prescriva. Simil, di me model, nacqu'io da prima; Di me model, per cosa più perfetta Da voi rinascer poi, donna alta e degna. Se 'l poco accresce, 'l mio superchio lima Vostra pietà; qual penitenzia aspetta Mio fiero ardor, se mi gastiga e insegna?"

Of this sonnet the following beautiful translation is made by JohnAddington Symonds:--

 "When divine Art conceives a form and face, She bids the craftsman for his first essay To shape a simple model in mere clay: This is the earliest birth of Art's embrace. From the live marble in the second place His mallet brings into the light of day A thing so beautiful that who can say When time shall conquer that immortal grace? Thus my own model I was born to be-- The model of that nobler self, whereto Schooled by your pity, lady, I shall grow. Each overplus and each deficiency You will make good. What penance then is due For my fierce heat, chastened and taught by you?"

The correspondence between Vittoria and Michael Angelo was undated, andall that now remains is fragmentary. 

The great artist, writing to his nephew, Sionardo, in 1554, says:--

 "Messer Giovan Francisco Fattucci asked me about a month ago if I possessed any writings of the marchioness. I have a little book bound in parchment which she gave me some ten years ago. It has one hundred and three sonnets, not counting another forty she afterward sent on paper from Viterbo. I had these bound into the same book, and at that time I used to lend them about to many persons so that they are all of them now in print. In addition to these poems I have many letters which she wrote from Orvieto and Viterbo. These, then, are the writings I possess of the marchioness. "

In Rome, 1545, Michael Angelo thus writes to Vittoria:--

 "I desired, lady, before I accepted the things which your ladyship has often expressed the will to give me--I desired to produce something for you with my own hand in order to be as little as possible unworthy of this kindness. I have now come to recognize that the grace of God is not to be bought, and that to keep it waiting is a grievous sin. Therefore I acknowledge my error and willingly accept your favors. When I possess them--not, indeed, because I shall have them in my house, but for that I myself shall dwell in them--the place will seem to encircle me with paradise. For which felicity I shall remain ever more obliged to your ladyship than I am already, if that is possible. 

 "The bearer of this letter will be Urbino, who lives in my service. Your ladyship may inform him when you would like me to come and see the head you promised to show me. "

With this letter Michael Angelo sent to Vittoria a sonnet which, in thetranslation made by John Addington Symonds, is as follows:--

 "Seeking at least to be not all unfit For thy sublime and boundless courtesy, My lowly thoughts at first were fain to try What they could yield for grace so infinite. But now I know my unassisted wit Is all too weak to make me soar so high, For pardon, lady, for this fault I cry, And wiser still I grow remembering it. Yea, will I see what folly 't were to think That largess dropped from thee like dews from heaven, Could e'er be paid by work so frail as mine! To nothingness my art and talent sink; He fails who from his mental stores hath given A thousandfold to match one gift divine. "

As a gift to Vittoria Colonna, Michael Angelo designed an episode fromthe Passion of our Lord, which Condivi describes as "a naked Christ atthe moment when, taken from the cross, our Lord would have fallen at thefeet of His most holy mother if two angels did not support Him in theirarms. She sits below the cross with a face full of tears and sorrow, lifting both her widespread arms to heaven while on the stem of the treeabove is written this legend: '_Non vi si pensa quanto sangue costa. _'The cross is of the same kind as that which was carried by the WhiteFriars at the time of the plague of 1348, and afterward deposited in theChurch of Santa Croce at Florence. "

In presenting this cross to her he wrote:--

 "Lady Marchioness, being myself in Rome, I thought it hardly fitting to give the Crucified Christ to Messer Tommaso, and to make him an intermediary between your ladyship and me, especially because it has been my earnest wish to perform more for you than for any one I ever knew upon the world. But absorbing occupations, which still engage me, have prevented my informing your ladyship of this. Moreover, knowing that you know love needs no taskmaster, and that he who loves doth not sleep, I thought the less of using go-betweens. And though I seemed to have forgotten, I was doing what I did not talk about, in order to effect a thing that was not looked for, my purpose has been spoiled. He sins who faith like this so soon forgets. "

 [Illustration: VITTORIA COLONNA, GALLERIA BUONARROTI, FLORENCE _Page 312_]

In reply Vittoria Colonna wrote:--

 "Unique Master Angelo and my most singular friend: I have received your letter and examined the crucifix which truly hath crucified in my memory every other picture I ever saw. Nowhere could one find another figure of our Lord so well executed, so living, and so exquisitely finished. I cannot express in words how subtly and marvellously it is designed. Wherefore I am resolved to take the work as coming from no other hand but yours.... I have examined it minutely in full light and by the lens and mirror, and never saw anything more perfect. "

She added:--

 "... Your works forcibly stimulate the judgment of all who would look at them. My study of them made me speak of adding goodness to things perfect in themselves, and I have seen now that 'all is possible to him who believes. ' I had the greatest faith in God that He would bestow upon you supernatural grace for the making of this Christ. When I came to examine it I found it so marvellous that it surpasses all my expectations. Wherefore, emboldened by your miracles I conceived a great desire for that which I now see marvellously accomplished: I mean that the design is in all parts perfect and consummate. I tell you that I am pleased that the angel on the right hand is by far the fairer, since Michael will place you, with all angels, upon the right hand of the Lord some day. Meanwhile I do not know how else to serve you, than by making orisons to this sweet Christ, whom you have drawn so well and exquisitely, and praying you to hold me yours to command as yours in all and for all. "

Again Vittoria wrote to him:--

 "I beg you to let me have the crucifix a short while in my keeping, even though it be unfinished. I want to show it to some gentlemen who have come from the most reverend, the Cardinal of Mantua. If you are not working will you not come at your leisure to-day and talk with me?"

It is an interesting fact to the visitor in the Rome of to-day that theconvent of San Silvestre where Vittoria Colonna lived was attached tothe church of San Silvestre in Capite, now used as the English-speakingCatholic church in the Eternal City. The wing which was formerly theconvent (founded in 1318) is now converted into the central post office. 

It was in the sacristy of San Silvestre, decorated with frescoes byDomenichino, that a memorable meeting and conversation took place, oneSunday afternoon in those far-away days of nearly five hundred yearsago, between Michael Angelo and Francesco d'Ollanda, a Spanish miniatureartist, --the meeting brought about by Vittoria Colonna. The Spanishartist was a worshipper of Michael Angelo, who "awakened such a feelingof love, " that if d'Ollanda met him in the street "the stars would comeout in the sky, " he says, "before I would let him go again. " Thisfervent worship was hardly enjoyed by its object, who avoided theSpanish enthusiast. One Sunday, however, d'Ollanda had gone to SanSilvestre finding there Tolomei, to whom he was also devoted, andVittoria Colonna, both of whom had gone to hear the celebrated FraAmbrosia of Siena expound the Epistles of St. Paul. The Marchesa diPescara observed that she felt sure their Spanish friend would farrather hear Michael Angelo discuss painting than to hear Fra Ambrosia onthe wisdom of St. Paul. Summoning an attendant she directed him to findMichael Angelo and tell him how cool and delightful was the church thatmorning and to beg him to join Messer Tolomei and herself; but to makeno mention of the presence of d'Ollanda. Her woman's tact and herfaultless courtesy were successful in procuring this inestimableprivilege for the Spanish painter. Michael Angelo came, and began theconversation--which was a monologue, rather, as all three of the friendswished only to listen to the master--by defending artists from thecharge of eccentric and difficult methods. With somewhat startlingcandor Michael Angelo proceeded:--

 "I dare affirm that any artist who tries to satisfy the better vulgar rather than men of his own craft will never become a superior talent. For my part, I am bound to confess that even his Holiness wearies and annoys me by begging for too much of my company. I am most anxious to serve him, ... But I think I can do so better by studying at home than by dancing attendance on my legs in his reception room. "

Another meeting of this little group was appointed for the next Sundayin the Colonna gardens behind the convent, under the shadow of thelaurel trees in the air fragrant with roses and orange blossoms, wherethey sat with Rome spread out like a picture at their feet. Thatbeautiful terrace of the Colonna gardens, to which the visitor in Rometo-day always makes his pilgrimage, with the ruined statues and thebroken marble flights of steps, is the scene of this meeting of VittoriaColonna, Michael Angelo, and Francesco d'Ollanda. On this secondoccasion the sculptor asserted his belief that while all things areworthy the artist's attention, the real test of his art is in therepresentation of the human form. He extolled the art of design. Heemphasized the essential nature of nobleness in the artist, and added:--

 "In order to represent in some degree the adored image of our Lord, it is not enough that a master should be great and able. I maintain that he must also be a man of good conduct and morals, if possible a saint, in order that the Holy Ghost may rain down inspiration on his understanding. "

Of the relative degree of swiftness in work Michael Angelo said:--

 "We must regard it as a special gift from God to be able to do that in a few hours which other men can only perform in many days of labor. But should this rapidity cause a man to fail in his best realization it would be better to proceed slowly. No artist should allow his eagerness to hinder him from the supreme end of art--perfection. "

Mr. Longfellow, in his unfinished dramatic poem, "Michael Angelo" (towhich reference has already been made), has one scene laid in theconvent chapel of San Silvestre, in which these passages occur:--

 VITTORIA. 

 "Here let us rest awhile, until the crowd Has left the church. I have already sent For Michael Angelo to join us here. "

 MESSER CLAUDIO. 

 "After Fra Bernardino's wise discourse On the Pauline Epistles, certainly Some words of Michael Angelo on Art Were not amiss, to bring us back to earth. "

 * * * * *

 MICHAEL ANGELO, _at the door_. 

 "How like a Saint or Goddess she appears! Diana or Madonna, which I know not, In attitude and aspect formed to be At once the artist's worship and despair!"

 VITTORIA. 

 "Welcome, Maestro. We were waiting for you. "

 MICHAEL ANGELO. 

 "I met your messenger upon the way. And hastened hither. "

 VITTORIA. 

 "It is kind of you To come to us, who linger here like gossips Wasting the afternoon in idle talk. These are all friends of mine and friends of yours. "

 MICHAEL ANGELO. 

 "If friends of yours, then are they friends of mine. Pardon me, gentlemen. But when I entered I saw but the Marchesa. "

Vittoria tells the master that the Pope has granted her permission tobuild a convent, and Michael Angelo replies:--

 "Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest art of all the arts. Painting and sculpture are but images, Are merely shadows cast by outward things On stone or canvas, having in themselves No separate existence. Architecture, Existing in itself, and not in seeming A something it is not, surpasses them As substance shadow.... 

 ... Yet he beholds Far nobler works who looks upon the ruins Of temples in the Forum here in Rome. If God should give me power in my old age To build for Him a temple half as grand As those were in their glory, I should count My age more excellent than youth itself, And all that I have hitherto accomplished As only vanity. "

To which Vittoria responds:--

 "I understand you. Art is the gift of God, and must be used Unto His glory. That in art is highest Which aims at this. "

The poet, with his characteristically delicate divination, has enteredinto the inner spirit of these two immortal friends. 

Walter Pater, writing of Michael Angelo, truly says:--

 "Michael Angelo is always pressing forward from the outward beauty--_il bel del fuor che agli occhi piace_--to apprehend the unseen beauty; _trascenda nella forma universale_--that abstract form of beauty about which the Platonists reason. And this gives the impression in him of something flitting and unfixed, of the houseless and complaining spirit, almost clairvoyant through the frail and yielding flesh. "

Again we find Pater saying:--

 "Though it is quite possible that Michael Angelo had seen Vittoria, that somewhat shadowy figure, as early as 1537, yet their closer intimacy did not begin till about the year 1542, when Michael Angelo was nearly seventy years old. Vittoria herself, an ardent Neo-Catholic, vowed to perpetual widowhood since the news had reached her, seventeen years before, that her husband, the youthful and princely Marquess of Pescara, lay dead of the wounds he had received in the battle of Pavia, was then no longer an object of great passion. In a dialogue written by the painter, Francesco d'Ollanda, we catch a glimpse of them together in an empty church at Rome, one Sunday afternoon, discussing indeed the characteristics of various schools of art, but still more the writings of St. Paul, already following the ways and tasting the sunless pleasures of weary people, whose hold on outward things is slackening. In a letter still extant he regrets that when he visited her after death he had kissed her hands only. He made, or set to work to make, a crucifix for her use, and two drawings, perhaps in preparation for it, are now in Oxford.... In many ways no sentiment could have been less like Dante's love for Beatrice than Michael Angelo's for Vittoria Colonna. Dante's comes in early youth; Beatrice is a child, with the wistful, ambiguous vision of a child, with a character still unaccentuated by the influence of outward circumstances, almost expressionless. Vittoria is a woman already weary, in advanced age, of grave intellectual qualities. Dante's story is a piece of figured work inlaid with lovely incidents. In Michael Angelo's poems frost and fire are almost the only images--the refining fire of the goldsmith; once or twice the phoenix; ice melting at the fire; fire struck from the rock which it afterwards consumes. "

Visconti notes that among Italian poets, Vittoria Colonna was the firstto make religion a subject of poetic treatment, and the first tointroduce nature's ministry to man into poetry. Rota, her Italianbiographer, states that she died in February of 1547, in the PalazzoCesarini. This palace is in Genzano, on Lago di Nemi, and has been oneof the Colonna estates; but from Visconti and other authorities it isevident that she died in Rome, either in the convent of Santa Anna or inthe palace of Cesarini, the husband of her kinswoman, Giulio Colonna, which must have been near the convent in Trastevere, the old portion ofRome across the Tiber. Visconti records that on the last evening of herlife when Michael Angelo was beside her, she said: "I die. Help me torepeat my last prayer. I do not now remember the words. " He clasped herhand and repeated it to her, while her own lips moved, she gazedintently on him, smiled and passed away. This translation has been madeof Vittoria Colonna's last prayer:--

 "Grant, I beseech Thee, O Lord, that I may ever worship Thee with such humility of mind as becometh my lowliness and such elevation of mind as Thy loftiness demandeth.... I entreat, O Most Holy Father, that Thy most living flame may so urge me forward that, not being hindered by any mortal imperfections, I may happily and safely again return to Thee. "

It is recorded by an authority that her body, "enclosed in a casket ofcypress wood, lined with embroidered velvet, " was placed in the chapelof Santa Anna which has since been destroyed. Visconti says: "Shedesired, with Christian humility, to be buried in the manner in whichthe sisters were buried when they died. And, as I suppose, her body wasplaced in the common sepulchre of the nuns of Santa Anna. " Grimmdeclares that he cannot discover the place of her burial, and Viscontideclares that her tomb remains unknown. 

But it is apparently a fact that the body of Vittoria Colonna isentombed in the sacristy of Santa Domenica Maggiore in Naples, thesarcophagus containing it resting by the side of the one containing thebody of her husband, Francesco d'Avalos, Marchese of Pescara. Thischurch is one of the finest in Naples, with twenty-seven chapels andtwelve altars, and it is here that nearly all the great nobles of thekingdom of Naples are entombed. Here is the tomb of the learned ThomasAquinas and here is shown, in relief, the miracle of the crucifix byTommaso de Stefani, which--as the legend runs--thus addressed thelearned doctor:--

"_Bene scripsisti de me, Thoma; quam ergo mercedem recipies?_"

To which he replied: "_Non aliam nisi te. _"

It is in the sacristy in which lie all the Princes of the House ofAragon that the sarcophagi of the Marchese and the Marchesa di Pescaraare placed side by side in the high gallery near the ceiling. The altarhas a fine Annunciation ascribed to Andrea da Salerno. The ceiling(whose coloring is as fresh and vivid as if painted yesterday) is bySolimena. Around the walls near the ceiling are two balconies orgalleries, filled with very large wooden sarcophagi, whose scarletvelvet covers have faded into yellow browns with pink shades, many ofwhich are tattered and are falling to pieces. The casket containing thebody of Fernando Francesco d'Avalos, Marchese of Pescara (the husband ofVittoria Colonna), has on it an inscription by Ariosto; and his portrait(showing in profile a young face with blonde hair and a full reddishbrown beard) and a banner, also, is suspended above the casket. Thatcontaining the body of the Marchesa, his wife (Vittoria Colonna), has anaperture at the top where the wood is worn away and the embalmed form, partly crumbled, may be seen. This seems strange to the verge offantasy, but it is, apparently, true. The writer of this volume visitedthe Church of Santa Domenica Maggiore in Naples in December of 1906, andwas assured by the sacristan that this sarcophagus contains the body ofthe Marchesa. Inquiries were then made of other prelates and of theArchbishop, who gave the same assurance. Later, learned archæologists inRome were appealed to, regarding this assertion made in Naples, and theconsensus of opinion obtained declares their assertion true. ProfessorLanciani has himself publicly expressed this conviction. Still, itremains a curious question as to when this sarcophagus was placed in thesacristy, for the date goes back into long-buried centuries. 

Adjoining Santa Domenica Maggiore is the monastery in which ThomasAquinas lived and lectured (in 1272), and the cell of the great doctorof philosophy is now made into a chapel. His lectures called togethermen of the highest rank and learning and were attended by the king andthe members of the royal family. The entire locality of this church isreplete with historic association. The most distinguished of thenobility of Naples have, for centuries, held their chapels in thischurch, and in these are many notable examples of Renaissance sculpture. 

The Accadémia des Arcades of Rome, founded in the seventeenth century todo honor to lyric art, celebrated the placing of a bust of VittoriaColonna in a gallery of the Capitoline, in May of 1865, by a resplendentpoetic festa. According to the gentle, leisurely customs of the land, where it is always afternoon and time has no value, thirty-two poetsread their songs, written in Latin or in Italian, for this occasion, which were published in a sumptuous volume to be preserved in thearchives of the Arcadians, who take themselves more seriously than theworld outside quite realizes. This bust of Vittoria Colonna was the giftof the Duca and Duchessa of Torlonia of that period. It was crowned withlaurel, as that of Petrarca had been, and the government took officialrecognition of the event. 

Goethe was made a member of this Accadémia that regarded itself asreflecting the glories of the Golden Age of Greece, and which was acentury old at the time of his visit to Italy. "No stranger of anyconsequence was readily permitted to leave Rome without being invited tojoin this body, " he recorded, and he wrote a humorous description of theformalities of his initiation. 

Mrs. Horatio Greenough was honored by being made a member of thisAccadémia in recognition of her musical accomplishments, and the recordof it is placed on the memorial marble over her grave in the Protestantcemetery in Rome. Every year, on Tasso's birthday (April 25), theAccadémia holds a festa in a little amphitheatre near "Tasso's oak, " onthe Janiculum, at which his bust is crowned with laurel. The gardens inwhich the seventeenth-century Arcadians disported themselves are nowknown among the Romans as _il Bosco Parrasio degli Arcadi_. 

Throughout Italy the fame of Vittoria Colonna only deepens with everysucceeding century. Her nobility of character, her lofty spirituality oflife, fitly crowned and perfected her intellectual force and brilliantgifts. Although from the customs of the time the Marchesa lived much inconvents, she never, in any sense, save that of her fervent piety, livedthe conventual life. Her noble gifts linked her always to the largeractivities, and her gifts and rank invested her with certain demands andresponsibilities that she could not evade. She was one of the messengersof life, and her place as a brilliant and distinguished figure in thecontemporary world was one that the line of destiny, which pervades allcircumstances and which, in her case, was so marked, absolutelyconstrained her to fill. She had that supreme gift of the lofty nature, the power of personal influence. Her exquisite courtesy and graciousnessof manner, her simple dignity and unaffected sincerity, her delicacy ofdivination and her power of tender sympathy and liberal comprehensionall combined to make her the ideal companion, counsellor, and friend, aswell as the celebrity of letters and lyric art. 

No poet has more exquisitely touched the friendship between VittoriaColonna and Michael Angelo than has Margaret J. Preston, in a poemsupposed to be addressed to the sculptor by Vittoria, in which occur thelines:--

 "We twain--one lingering on the violet verge, And one with eyes raised to the twilight peaks-- Shall meet in the morn again. 

 * * * * *

 ... Supremest truth I gave; Quick comprehension of thine unsaid thought, Reverence, whose crystal sheen was never blurred By faintest film of over-breathing doubt; ... Helpfulness Such as thou hadst not known of womanly hands; And sympathies so urgent, they made bold To press their way where never mortal yet Entrance had gained, --even to thy soul. "

This is the _Page de Conti_ that one reads in the air as he sails pastIschia on the violet sea; and the _chant d'amour_ of the sirens catchesthe echo of lines far down the centuries:--

 "I understood not, when the angel stooped, Whispering, 'Live on! for yet one joyless soul, Void of true faith in human happiness, Waits to be won by thee, from unbelief. '

 "Now, all is clear. For _thy_ sake I am glad I waited. Not that some far age may say, -- '_God's benison on her, since she was the friend Of Michael Angelo!_'"

 _So sometimes comes to soul and sense The feeling which is evidence That very near about us lies The realm of spiritual mysteries. The sphere of the supernal powers Impinges on this world of ours. The low and dark horizon lifts, To light the scenic terror shifts; The breath of a diviner air Blows down the answer of a prayer:-- That all our sorrow, pain, and doubt A great compassion clasps about, And law and goodness, love and force, Are wedded fast beyond divorce. Then duty leaves to love its task, The beggar Self forgets to ask; With smile of trust and folded hands, The passive soul in waiting stands To feel, as flowers the sun and dew, The One true Life its own renew. _

 WHITTIER. 

 "_For Thou only art holy. Thou only art the Lord. Thou only, O Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the Glory of God the Father. _"

 _Sometimes in heaven-sent dreams I do behold A city with its turrets high in air, Its gates that gleam with jewels strange and rare, And streets that glow with burning of red gold; And happy souls, through blessedness grown bold, Thrill with their praises all the radiant air, And God himself is light, and shineth there On glories tongue of man hath never told. _

 _And in my dreams I thither march, nor stay To heed earth's voices, howsoe'er they call, Or proffers of the joys of this brief day, On which so soon the sunset shadows fall; I see the Gleaming Gates, and toward them press-- What though my path lead through the Wilderness?_

 LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. 

V

VOICES OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI

 Oh, Italy! thy strength, thy power, thy crown Lie in the life that in Assisi stirs The heart, with impulse of self-sacrifice; Where still St. Francis gathers weary souls In his great love, which reaches out to all. ... His blessing falls In clear sweet tones: "_Benedicat tibi Convertat vultum suum ad te et Det Pacem!_" Hushed and holy silence breathes About the wanderer who lifts his heart To catch the echo of that voice of love. 

 CELIA RICHMOND. 

The mystic pilgrimage to Assisi, the "Seraphic City, " prefigures itselfalmost as a journey to the Mount of Vision. "Any line of truth thatleads us above materialism, " says Dr. Wilberforce, Venerable Archdeaconof Westminster Abbey, "that forces us to think, that encourages theimagination to pierce the world's cobwebs, that forces us to rememberthat we are enwrapped by the supernatural, is helpful and stimulating. Ahuman life lived only in the seen and felt, with no sense of theinvisible, is a fatally impoverished life, a poor, blind, wingless life, but to believe that ever around us is a whole world full of spiritualbeings; that this life, with its burdens, is but the shadow whichprecedes the reality; that here we are but God's children at school, isan invigorating conviction, full of hope, productive of patience andfruitful in self-control. "

To an age imprisoned in the fear of God the "sweet saint, " Francis, brought the message of the love of God. To an age crushed under theabuses of religion as an organization of feudal bishops andecclesiastics, St. Francis brought the message of hope and of joy. Herevealed to his age the absolute reality of the spiritual world thatsurrounds us. He was born into a time when there existed on the onehand, poverty and misery; on the other, selfish and debasingself-indulgence of wealth and its corresponding oppression of the poor. The Church itself was a power for conquest and greed. Its kingdom was ofthis world. St. Bernard and others had nobly aimed to effect a reformand had illustrated by their own lives the beautiful example ofsimplicity and unselfishness, but their work failed in effectivenessand permanent impress. 

 "Oh, beauty of holiness! Of self-forgetfulness, of lowliness. "

Not only in beauty, but in power does it stand. St. Francis brought tothe sad and problematic conditions of his time that resistless energy ofinfinite patience, of a self-control based on insight into the divinerelationships of life, and of unfailing fidelity to his high purpose. Through good report or through evil report he kept the faith, andpressed onward to the high calling of God. The twelfth and thethirteenth centuries had been a period of religious unrest and chaos. AsArchdeacon Wilberforce has so impressively said in the words quoted fromhim, a life lived with no sense of the invisible is blind andimpoverished. The movement initiated by St. Francis proclaimed anew thedivine grace and love. 

 "Tokens are dead if the things live not. The light everlasting Unto the blind is not, but is born of the eye that has vision. "

Something not unlike this trend of thought must drift through the mindof every one who journeys through the lovely Umbrian country to Assisi, one of those picturesquely beautiful hill towns of Italy whose romanticsituation impresses the visitor. Seen from a little distance, one couldhardly imagine how it could be reached unless he were the fortunatepossessor of an airship. The entire region is most picturesque incharacter. Journeying from Rome to Assisi there is a constant ascentfrom the Campagna to the Apennines, and the road passes through wilddefile and valley with amethyst peaks shining fair against the sky, withprecipitous rocks, and the dense growth of oak and pine trees. In someplaces the valley is so narrow that the hills, on either side, risealmost within touch of the hand from the car window. The hill towns arefrequent, and the apex of these towns is invariably crowned with acastle, a cathedral, or a ruin, and around it, circling in terraces, isbuilt the town. The charm largely vanishes when fairly in these circlingroads, for on either side are high walls, so that one's view iscompletely bounded by them; but from the summit and from the upperfloors of the houses the most beautiful views are obtained. The Umbrianregion, in which are located Perugia, Assisi, Spello, Foligno, Spoleto, Terni, Narni, and others, is simply the gem region of all Italy. TheUmbrians are the most ancient of the Italian people, and Assisi claimsto have been founded eight hundred and sixty-five years before thefounding of Rome. It was the scene of constant warfare, and the streetsare all underlaid by subterranean passages, in which the inhabitantscould disappear from their enemies. 

To this ancient Umbrian city, from which went out the life and lightthat carried wonderful currents of vitality and illumination to allItaly and into almost all parts of the world, one comes as to a specialand a sacred pilgrimage. For this mediæval town, perched on the top of arocky hill, is the birthplace of St. Francis, the founder of theFranciscan order; in it were the scenes of his early life, and here, in1226, at the age of forty-four years, he died. The convent-church of SanFrancesco, built to his memory in 1230; the lower church, completed atthat date, while the upper was finished in 1253; the magnificentCathedral of Santa Maria Degli Angeli, completed in 1640; the Church ofSanta Chiara and the Duomo, are the points of interest. 

 [Illustration: SAN FRANCESCAN CONVENT-CHURCH, ASSISI _Page 346_]

The purple Apennines, on one spur of which Assisi is built, are apicturesque feature of lovely Umbria. The old houses of Assisi risewhite in the sunshine. The ancient walls still surround the city, andits towers stand as they stood before the eyes of St. Francis, almostseven centuries ago. The peak of Mt. Subasio, a neighboring peak of theApennines, looms above the colossal rock that crowns the hill aroundwhose top Assisi clusters in winding terraces. The massive pile of theFrancescan church and monastery--the two churches, one above theother--forms an architectural group whose imposing aspect arrests theeye of every traveller for miles around. The pointed arches of thecloisters and the square campanile contrast rather than blend in aneffective and harmonious manner and resemble military fortificationsrather than an edifice of the church. The old walls still surroundAssisi, and the houses all rise white under the blue Italian sky. Thenarrow streets, hardly wide enough for one carriage to pass another, areso intricate in their curves as they climb the steep hill, that itrequires a faith hardly less than the traditional degree said to movemountains to lead the visitor to suppose that he will ever emergefrom one that he has entered. Many of the houses along these curiousthoroughfares have no windows, the only light and air coming through theopen door. The bells from the campanile of the Francescanconvent-church, from the Duomo and from the Church of Santa Chiara ringevery quarter of an hour; and this constant clash of bells is almost theonly sound that breaks the silence of the mediæval town, which lendsitself to visions and to dreams. On the very air is stamped the impressof St. Francis. His personality, his teachings, his faith pervaded theatmosphere in a way that no one could believe until he had himselfentered into the experience. In narration it cannot but seem like apleasing and half-poetic fancy; but the lingerer in this shrine ofreligion and art will realize that the actual personality of the man whotrod these streets nearly seven hundred years ago is strangely beforehim. Canon Knox Little, in a series of lectures on St. Francis of Assisidelivered in the Ladye Chapel of Worcester Cathedral a few years since, says of the panorama of the town:--

 "The scene which from Assisi presented itself daily to his youthful eyes must have had, did have, as we know, a lasting effect upon his mind. From thence the eye surveys a noble coronet of stately mountains. You look from Radicofani, above Trena, to Monte Catria, famous as the scene of some of Dante's saddest times of solitude, and ever is the eye satisfied with the grace and grandeur of the curves of mountain outline, and the changing hues of an incomparable sky. There are rivers and cities and lakes, --from Thrasymene, just hidden by a line of crests, to the Paglia and Tiber beneath, where Orvieto crowns its severe and lonely rock. With the changing lights and shadows always beautiful in the vivid spring or burning summer, tender-tinted autumn or clear and sparkling winter, with the bright and pure and buoyant atmosphere always giving life and vigor, what spot on earth more fitted as the birthplace of the saint who was, above all things, bright and tender and strong?"

Assisi was an important town in the twelfth century when Francis, theson of Pietro Bernardone di Mercanti, wandered over its hills, and aftersevere fasting and prayer communed with God. Born in the midst of theconstant warfare between Assisi and Perugia, he was first a soldier. Hewas captured and thrown into prison, and it was a remarkable dream, orvision, that came to him before he was set free, that determined hislife of consecration. Tradition invested his birth with legends, one ofwhich is, that in his infancy an aged man came to the door and begged tobe permitted to take the child in his arms, prophesying that he wasdestined to accomplish a great work. Pietro Bernardone was a wealthymerchant of Assisi. Pica, the mother of Francis, is said to have been ofnoble origin and of a deeply religious nature. The early youth ofFrancis was given to games, festivals, and pleasures that degeneratedinto dissipation, but the mother continually affirmed her assurancethat, if it pleased God, her son would become a Christian. In thisatmosphere was nurtured "the sweet-souled saint of mediæval Italy, " whois described as a figure of magical power, whose ardent temperament andmystic loveliness attracted to him all men. 

There is also a legend that Pica went to pray at the Portiuncula andthat, for seven years, she prayed for a son. Her prayer was answered inthe coming of the infant who was to be the great saint of all the ages. Francis, in his childhood, also knelt and prayed at this shrine. In theyear 1211, when Francis was twenty-nine years of age and had entered onhis ministry, this chapel was given to him, "and no sooner had they cometo live here, " it is said, "than the Lord multiplied their number fromday to day. " At one time he had gone to his devotions in greatdepression of spirits, "when, suddenly, an unspeakable ecstasy filledhis breast. 'Be comforted, my dearest, ' he said, 'and rejoice in theLord, and let us not be sad that we are few; for it has been shown to meby God that you shall increase to a great multitude and shall go onincreasing to the end of the world. I see a multitude of men coming tome from every quarter--French, Spaniards, Germans, English--each intheir different tongues encouraging the others. '"

At a distance of perhaps a mile and a half from Assisi, down in thevalley near the railroad station, four holy pilgrims founded a shrine inthe fourth century. Later, on this site, St. Benedict erected a tinychapel, called "St. Maria della Portiuncula" (St. Mary of the LittlePatron), and once, when praying in the chapel, Benedict had a vision ofa vast crowd of people kneeling in ecstasy, chanting hymns of praise, while outside greater multitudes waited to kneel before the shrine, andhe took this to mean that a great saint would one day be honored there. 

So the legends, still conversationally told in Assisi, run on and arelocally current. Undoubtedly the dwellers in this curious old town, whose streets have hardly one level spot but climb up and down the steephillside, realize that their saint is their title to fame and theirrevenue as well; yet through all the tales there breathes a certainsincerity and simplicity of worship. The little dark primitive shopsteem with relics, which make, it is true, a great draft on imagination, and by what miracle modern photography has contrived to present thesaint of Assisi in various impressive attitudes and groups it would beas well not to inquire too closely. It is a part of the philosophy oftravel to take the goods the gods provide, and the blending of amusedtolerance and unsuspected depths of reverential devotion by which thevisitor will find himself moved, while in Assisi, can hardly bedescribed. For, surely, here

 "... There trod The whitest of the saints of God, "

and Catholic or Protestant, one equally enters into the beauty of hismemory. The double and triple arches of the convent church enclosecloistered walls continually filled with visitors. No shrine in Italyholds such mysterious power. Simplicity and joy were the two keynotes ofthe life taught by St. Francis. "Poverty, " he asserted, "is the happystate of life in which men are set free from the trammels ofconventionalism, and can breathe the pure air of God's love. The richestinward life is enjoyed when life is poorest outwardly. Be poor, " hecontinued, "try a new principle; be careless of having and getting; try_being_, for a change. Our life in the world ought to be such that anyone on meeting us should be constrained to praise the heavenly Father. Be not an occasion of wrath to any one, " he often said, "but by yourgentleness may all be led to press onward to good works. "

The supreme aim of Francis was that of service to humanity. He gavehimself with impassioned fervor to this one work. For him there were noideals of cloistered seclusion or of devotion to learning and art, butthe ideal alone to uplift humanity. It was literally and simply, indeed, the Christ ideal. Of the "Rule" made, one of his biographers says:--

 "Amid all these encouragements the Rule was made. It consists, like other monastic rules, of the three great vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, differing only in so far that the poverty ordained by Francis was absolute. In other rules, though the individual was allowed to possess nothing, the community had often rich possessions, and there was no reason why the monks should not fare sumptuously and secure to themselves many earthly enjoyments, notwithstanding their individual destitution and their vow. But among the Brothers Minor there was not to be so much as a provision secured for the merest daily necessities. Day by day they were to live by God's providence, eating what was given to them, taking no thought how they were to be fed, or wherewithal clothed; 'neither gold nor silver in your purses;' not even the scrip to collect fragments in--as if God could not provide for every returning necessity. There had been monasteries in Italy for centuries, and the Benedictines were already a great and flourishing community; but this absolute renunciation of all things struck a certain chill to the hearts of all who heard of it, except the devoted band who had no will but that of Francis. His friend, the Bishop of Assisi, was one of those who stumbled at this novel and wonderful self-devotion. 'Your life, without a possession in the world, seems to me most hard and terrible, ' said the compassionate prelate. 'My lord, ' said Francis, 'if we had possessions, arms and protection would be necessary to us. ' There was a force in this response which perhaps we can scarcely realize, but the Assisan bishop, who knew something of the temper of the lords of Umbria, and knew how lonely were the brethren dwelling on the church lands--the little plot (Portiuncula) a whole half league from the city gates--understood and perceived the justice of the reply. 

 "Another grand distinction of the Rule drawn up by Francis was the occupation it prescribed to its members. They were not to shut themselves up, or to care first for their own salvation. They were to preach--this was their special work; they were to proclaim repentance and the remission of sins; they were to be heralds of God to the world, and proclaim the coming of His kingdom. It is not possible to suppose that when he thus began to organize the mind of Francis did not make a survey of the establishments already in existence--the convents bound by the same three great vows, where life at this moment was going on so placidly, with flocks and herds and vineyards to supply the communities, and studious monks in their retirement, safe from all secular anxieties, fostering all the arts in their beginning, and carrying on the traditions of learning; while all around them the great unquiet, violent world heaved and struggled, yet within the convent walls there was leisure and peace. Blessed peace and leisure it was often, let us allow, preserving for us the germs of many good things we now enjoy, and raising little centres of safety and charity and brotherly kindness through the country in which they were placed. But such quiet was not in the nature of Francis. So far as we can make out, he had thought little of himself--even of his own soul to be saved--all his life. The trouble on his mind had been what to do, how sufficiently to work for God and to help men. His fellow creatures were dear to him; he gave them his cloak from his shoulders many a day, and the morsel from his own lips, and would have given them the heart from his bosom had that been possible. "

These are the "voices" that still echo in the air of Assisi. In thesuburbs is still shown the spot where the chapel of St. Damian stood upa rocky path on the hillside in an olive grove. It was here that thescene of the miracle of the crucifix is laid. Before the altar Francisknelt, praying: "Great and Glorious Father, and thou, Lord Jesus, I prayye, shed abroad your light in the darkness of my mind. May I in allthings act in accordance with thy holy will. "

It is recorded that while he thus knelt in deep prayer, he was unable toturn his eyes from the cross, conscious that something marvellous wastaking place. The image of the Saviour assumed life; the eyes turnedattentively on him; a voice spoke accepting his service and he felt atonce endowed with the most marvellous tide of vitality, of joy, and ofexhilaration. At this moment he entered on that life whose impress isleft on the ages. Of the character and the peculiar quality of itsinfluence Mrs. Oliphant well says:--

 "It is not always possible to follow with our sympathy that literal, childlike rendering of every incident in the life of the Master, which sometimes looks fantastical and often unmeaning. He was a man of his time, and could live only under the conditions which that time allowed. He made visible to a literal, practical, unquestioning age the undeniable and astounding fact that the highest of all beings chose a life of poverty, hardship, and humbleness; that He chose submission instead of resistance, love instead of oppression, peace and forgiveness instead of revenge and war. Christ had died in their hearts, as said the legend of that Christmas at Greccia; and, as in one of the bold and artless pictures just then beginning to yield to a more refined and subtle art, Francis set forth before the world the image of his Master. The Son of man was lifted up, as on another cross, before the eyes of Umbria, before all Italy, warlike and wily, priest and baron, peasant and Pope. In this world Francis knew nothing, acknowledged nothing, cared for nothing save Christ and Him crucified--except, indeed, Christ's world, the universe redeemed, the souls to be saved, the poor to be comforted, the friends to be cherished, the singing birds and bubbling fountains, the fair earth and the sweet sky. Courteous, tender, and gentle as any paladin, sweet-tongued and harmonious as any poet, liberal as any prince, was the barefooted beggar and herald of God. We ask no visionary reverence for the Stigmata, no wondering belief in any miracle. As he stood, he was as great a miracle as any then existing under God's abundant, miraculous heavens; more wonderful than are the day and night, the sun and the dew; only less wonderful than that great Love which saves the world, and which it was his aim and destiny to reflect and show forth. "

That mystic union to which all the ages attest, the union that may, atany moment, be formed between the soul and God, that mystery which thechurch calls conversion and which finds its perfect interpretation inthe words of St. Paul, when he said, that if any man be in Christ he isa new creation, had been accomplished in the life of Francis. Herealized the fulness of the knowledge of God's will; he longed only forwisdom and for spiritual understanding. Nor is this experience one to berelegated to the realm of miracle. It is simply entering into thesupreme completeness of life. It is not alone St. Paul, but every man, who may truly say, "I can do all things through Christ, whostrengtheneth me. " Nor does this experience, when translated aright intodaily life and action, require any abnormal form of expression. It doesnot, in its truest significance, mean a life apart from the ordinaryduties, but rather it means that these duties shall be fulfilled in thelarger and nobler way. The exceptional man may be called to be thestandard bearer; to renounce all domestic ties and give his service tothe world; but such a life as this differs only in degree from thatwhich in the ordinary home and social relations finds ample means forits best expression. The persistent aim after perfection should be thekeynote of every life. No one should be satisfied to hold as hissupreme ideal any lesser standard of ultimate achievement than isinvolved in the divine command, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as yourFather in heaven is perfect. " This is the soul's ideal, whatever agesand eternities it may require for it to recognize this trackless path. 

St. Francis recognized joy as a factor of the nobler life. "It was hisconstant effort, " writes one biographer, "that there should be brightlooks and cheerful tones about him. To one of his brethren, who had thehabit of walking about sadly with his head drooping, he said, --it isevident, with a spark of the impatience natural to his own vivaciousspirit, --'You may surely repent of your sins, my brother, withoutshowing your grief so openly. Let your sorrow be between God and you:pray to Him to pardon you by His mercy, and to restore to your soul thejoy of His salvation. But before me and the others be always cheerful, for it does not become a servant of God to have an air of melancholy anda face full of trouble. '"

An incident in the early life of St. Francis, which had determiningsignificance, was his meeting with Dominic. The story is told "thatDominic, praying in a church in Rome, saw, in a vision, our Lord risefrom the right hand of the Father in wrath, wearied at last with thecontradiction of sinners, with a terrible aspect and three lances in hishand, each one of which was to destroy from the face of the earth adistinct class of offenders. But while the dreamer gazed at this awfulspectacle, the Virgin Mother arose and pleaded for the world, declaringthat she had two faithful servants whom she was about to send into it tobring sinners to the feet of the Saviour; one of these was Dominichimself, the other was a poor man, meanly clad, whom he had never seenbefore. This vision came to the devout Spaniard, according to thelegend, during the night, which he spent, as he was wont, in a church, in prayer. Next morning, while he mused on the dream which had been sentto him, his eye fell all at once upon a stranger in a brown tunic, ofaspect as humble and modest as his garb, coming into the same church topray. Dominic at once ran to him, fell on his neck, and, saluting himwith a kiss, cried, 'Thou art my companion: thy work and mine is thesame. If we stand by each other, nothing can prevail against us. '"

No magic mirror, however, revealed to Francis the wonderful panorama ofhis future. No sibyl turned the leaves of the records yet to unfold. "Hewas preparing himself for a life of penitence rather than a life ofactivity, " in the opinion of Paul Sabatier, and he had dreamed no dreamof becoming a religious founder. He was so entirely without any personalambition, save that of being obedient to the Heavenly Vision, that thisabsolute consecration of purpose enabled the divine power to workthrough him without obstruction. He became a very perfect instrument, soto speak, in the divine hand. After repairing the little chapel calledthe Portiuncula, on the level ground at the foot of the hill, some twomiles from Assisi, his plan was to there pass his time in meditation andprayer. But the legend runs that on the feast of St. Mathias (February24), in the winter of 1209, a Benedictine monk was celebrating mass andon his turning to read, "Wherever ye go preach, saying, The kingdom ofheaven is at hand, " Francis was profoundly and peculiarly impressed, andhe exclaimed: "This is what I desire, O Father; from this day forth Iset myself to put this command in practice. " He felt that Jesus himselfhad spoken to him through the priest. Love and sacrifice became to himthe supreme ideals, and in this moment, in that poor and bare littlechapel, was inaugurated one of the greatest and most far-reachingreligious movements of the entire world. 

 "Not always as the whirlwind's rush On Horeb's mount of fear, Not always as the burning bush To Midian's shepherd seer, Not as the awful voice which came To Israel's prophet bards, Nor as the tongues of cloven flame, Nor gift of fearful words, --

 "Not always thus with outward sign Of fire or voice from Heaven The message of a truth divine, The call of God is given!"

That great ministry of St. Francis, whose influence pervades alltime, --that lies between the opening years of the thirteenth and theopening years of the twentieth centuries, --was initiated the nextmorning in Assisi, when Francis preached for the first time. He spokesimply, emphasizing the truths he had learned to realize through his ownexperience: the absolute duty of following after perfection; theimportance of realizing the shortness of life and the need ofrepentance. The first disciple of Francis was a wealthy resident ofAssisi, named Bernardo. He was impressed with the conviction that heshould distribute his possessions and unite with Francis in all his aimsand work. Without definite organization, others joined them. They passedthat spring and summer going up and down the country, sometimesassisting the harvesters and haymakers, and everywhere entering into thecommon life of the people. The Bishop of Assisi, however, remonstratedwith Francis, saying that to him it seemed very harsh and unwise to tryto live without owning anything. To which Francis replied that he didnot desire temporal possessions, as these required arms for theirdefence and were an obstacle to the love of God and one's neighbor. Ithas remained for later years to discern the still truer significance ofthe teachings of Jesus, that neither possessions nor the lack ofpossessions form the real test, but the use which is made of them. Asspiritual insight is developed it is more and more clearly realized thatthe quality of the life lived is the sole matter of importance, and notthe conditions that surround it. 

The brotherhood increased. The abbot of the Benedictines on MonteSubasio ceded to Francis and his order the little chapel called thePortiuncula, now enclosed within the vast and magnificent church ofSanta Maria degli Angeli. M. Paul Sabatier, in his admirable biographyof St. Francis, points out clearly that the founder of the Franciscanscontemplated a laboring and not a mendicant order. During the decade1211 to 1221, which Francis and his followers passed at the Portiuncula, a portion of the time was constantly passed in industrial pursuits. "With all his gentleness, Francis knew how to show an inflexibleseverity toward the idle, " says Sabatier, "and he even went so far as todismiss a friar who refused to work. " Although Francis espoused poverty, declaring that she was his bride, he was unfalteringly loyal to theideals of honest industry and integrity. 

 [Illustration: ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI, THE DUOMO, ASSISI Giovanni Dupré _Page 366_]

The mystic legends of the life of their saint that abound in Assisi aretouched with poetic romance in that a companion figure is always seen byhis side, that of Santa Chiara. Not more inseparable in popular thoughtare Dante and Beatrice, or Petrarca and Laura, than are Francis andClara. Their statues stand side by side in the Duomo; they arerepresented together by both painter and sculptor in the churches ofSanta Chiara and Santa Maria degli Angeli in the old hill town. Chiarawas the daughter of a noble family, and as a girl of sixteen, comingunder the influence of Francis from hearing one of his sermons, she, too, became one of his followers and left her father's palace in Assisito take the vows of perpetual and voluntary poverty at the altar of thePortiuncula. Followed by two women, she passed swiftly through the townin the dead of the night, and through dark woods, her hurrying figureseeming like some spirit driven by winds towards an unknown future. Onething alone was clear before her--that she was nearing the abode ofFrancis Bernardone whose preaching at San Giorgio only a month beforehad thrilled her, inspiring her in this strange way to seek the life hehad described in fiery words. Just as she came in sight of thePortiuncula the chanting of the brethren, which had reached her in thewood, suddenly ceased, and they came out with lighted torches inexpectation of her coming. Swiftly and without a word she passed into attend the midnight mass which Francis was to serve, and the scene isthus described:--

 "The ceremony was simple, wherein lies the charm of all things Franciscan. The service over and the last blessing given, St. Francis led Clare toward the altar, and with his own hands cut off her long, fair hair and unclasped the jewels from her neck. But a few minutes more and a daughter of the proud house of Scifi stood clothed in the brown habit of the order, the black veil of religion falling about her shoulders, lovelier far in this nun-like severity than she had been when decked out in all her former luxury of silken gowns and precious gems. 

 "It was arranged that Clare was to go afterward to the Benedictine nuns of San Paolo, near Bastia, about an hour's walk farther on in the plain. So when the final vows had been taken, St. Francis took her by the hand and they passed out of the chapel together just as dawn was breaking, while the brethren returned to their cells gazing half sadly, as they passed, at the coils of golden hair and the little heap of jewels which still lay upon the altar cloth. "

Clara founded a convent and lived as its abbess, and the great church ofSanta Chiara is built on the site of this convent. She was born inAssisi in 1194, and died in 1253, surviving Francis by twenty-sevenyears. Her father was the Count Favorini Scifi, and he had destined hisdaughter--who had great beauty--to a rich and brilliant marriage. Heviolently opposed her choice of the religious life, but no earthlypower, she declared, should sever her from it. 

The beauty of the lifelong friendship between Francis and Clara is thustouched upon by Mrs. Oliphant:--

 "It was one of those tender and touching friendships which are to the student of history like green spots in the desert; and which gave to the man and the woman thus voluntarily separated from all the joys of life a certain human consolation in the midst of their hardships. They can have seen each other but seldom, for it was one of the express stipulations of the Franciscan Rule that the friars should refrain from all society with women, and have only the most sparing and reserved intercourse even with their sisters in religion. And Francis was no priest, nor had he the privilege of hearing confession and directing the spiritual life of his daughter in the faith. But he sent to her to ask enlightenment from her prayers, when any difficulty was in his way. He went to see her when he was in trouble; especially once on his way to Rieti to have an operation performed on his eyes. Once the two friends ate together at a sacramental meal, the pledge and almost the conclusion on earth of that tenderest, most disinterested, and unworldly love which existed between them. That he was sure of her sympathy in all things, of her prayers and spiritual aid, whatsoever he might be doing, wheresoever he might be, no doubt was sweet to Francis in all his labors and trials. As he walked many a weary day past that church of St. Damian, every stone of which was familiar to him, and many laid with his own hands, must not his heart have warmed at thought of the sister within, safe from all conflict with the world, upon whose fellow-feeling he could rely absolutely as man can rely only on woman? The world has jeered at the possibility of such friendships from its earliest age; and yet they have always existed, --one of the most exquisite and delicate of earthly ties. Gazing back into that far distance over the graves, not only of those two friends, but of a hundred succeeding generations, a tear of grateful sympathy comes into the student's eye. He is glad to believe that, all those years, Francis could see in his comings and goings the cloister of Clara; and that this sacred gleam of human fellowship, --love purified of all self-seeking, --tender, visionary, celestial affection, sweetened their solitary lives. "

Legends innumerable, attesting supernormal manifestations regardingFrancis, sprang up and have been perpetuated through the ages. One is asfollows:--

 "Hardly more than three years from the moment when the pale penitent was hooted through Assisi amid the derisive shouts of the people, and driven with blows and curses into confinement in his own father's house, we find that it has already become his custom on Sunday to preach in the cathedral; and that, from his little convent at the Portiuncula, Francis has risen into influence in the whole country, which no doubt by this time was full of stories of his visit to Rome and intercourse with the Pope, and all the miraculous dreams and parables with which that intercourse was attended. Already the mind of the people, so slow to adopt, but so ready to become habituated to, anything novel, had used itself to the sight of the brethren in their brown gowns, and, leaping from one extreme to the other, instead of madmen, learned to consider them saints. The air about the little cloister began to breathe of miracles, --miracles which must have been a matter of common report among the contemporaries of the saint, for Celano wrote within three years of Francis's death. Once, when their leader was absent, a sudden wonder startled the brethren. It was midnight between Saturday and Sunday, and Francis, who had gone to preach at Assisi, was at the moment praying in the canon's garden. A chariot of fire, all radiant and shining, suddenly entered the house, awaking those who lay asleep, and moving to wonder and awe those who watched, or labored, or prayed. It was the heart and thoughts of their leader returning to them in the midst of his prayer, which were figured by this appearance. "

When Francis died a pathetic scene is thus described:--

 "All the clergy of Assisi, chanting solemn hymns, came out to meet the bier, and thus they climbed the hill to the birthplace of the saint, the city of his toils and tears and blessing. When they came to St. Damian an affecting pause was made. Clara within, with all her maidens, waited the last visit of their father and friend. Slowly the triumphant crowd defiled into the church of the nuns, hushing, let us hope, their songs of joy, their transports of gratulations, out of respect to the grief which dwelt there, and could scarcely, by all the arguments of family pride, or the excitement of this universal triumph, be brought to rejoice. The bier was set down within the chancel, the coffin opened, and opened also was the little window through which the nuns received the sacrament on ordinary occasions. To this little opening the pale group of nuns, ten of them, with Clara at their head, came marching silently, with tears and suppressed cries. Clara herself, even in face of that multitude, could not restrain her grief. 'Father, father, what will become of us?' she cried out; 'who will care for us now, or console us in our troubles?' 'Virgin modesty, ' says Celano, stopped her lamentations, and with a miserable attempt at thanksgiving, reminding herself that the angels were rejoicing at his coming, and all was gladness on his arrival in the city of God, the woman who had been his closest friend in this world, whose sympathy he had sought so often, kissed the pale hands--'splendid hands, ' says Celano, in his enthusiasm, 'adorned with precious gems and shining pearls'--and disappeared from the little window with her tears into the dim convent behind, where nobody could reprove her sorrow. "

The personality of Chiara comes down to us through the ages investedwith untold charm. It is said that when she was dying there came "a longprocession of white-robed virgins, led by the Queen of Heaven, whosehead was crowned with a diadem of shining gold, each of the celestialvisitors stooped to kiss Chiara as her soul passed to its home. "

During all the life of Francis, whenever any new movement or work was tobe undertaken, he invariably sent to ask the counsel and the prayers ofChiara. 

The miraculous preservation of the body of Santa Chiara is one of thearticles of faith in Assisi. In 1850--six hundred years after herdeath--a tomb believed to be hers was found and opened in the presenceof a distinguished group of ecclesiastics, among whom was CardinalPecci, later Pope Leo XIII. In this tomb a form is said to have beenfound, and it has been placed in a reliquary of alabaster and Carraramarble especially constructed for it. This sanctuary is placed in thechurch of Santa Chiara, in the crypt, behind a glass screen, wherecandles are kept perpetually burning. Lina Gordon Duff, writing thehistory of Assisi, says of this curious spectacle:--

 "As pilgrims stand before a grating in the dimly lighted crypt, the gentle rustle of a nun's dress is heard; slowly invisible hands draw the curtain aside, and the body of Santa Chiara is seen lying in a glass case upon a satin bed, her face clearly outlined against her black and white veils, whilst her brown habit is drawn in straight folds about her body. She clasps the book of her Rule in one hand, and in the other holds a lily with small diamonds shining on the streamers. "

 [Illustration: SANTA CHIARA, THE DUOMO, ASSISI Amalia Dupré _Page 375_]

In all these churches--the great convent church, upper and lower, of theFranciscans elaborately adorned with frescoes by Cimabue and by Giotto;in the ancient Duomo; in Santa Chiara and in Santa Maria degliAngeli--statues of the two saints, Francis and Chiara, are placed sideby side. She shares all the exaltation of his memory and the fulness ofhis fame. 

The strange problem of the stigmata has, perhaps, never been absolutelysolved. Canon Knox Little says that as to the miracles of St. Francisgenerally speaking, there is no intrinsic improbability; that "his holylife, his constant communion with God, the abundant blessings with whichit pleased God to mark his ministry, all point in the same direction. "Latter-day revelations of psychic science disclose contemporary factsof the power of mental influence on the physical form that are, in manyinstances, hardly less wonderful than this alleged miracle of St. Francis. Whether the story is accepted literally or only in a figurativesense does not affect the transcendent power of his influence. Hisentire life and work illustrate the beauty of holiness. "Art in itswidest sense gained a marvellous impulse from his work and effort, " saysCanon Knox Little. The French and Provençal literature and the schoolsof Byzantine art preceded the life of Francis; but his influenceimparted a powerful wave of sympathetic and vital insight and awakened aworld of new sensibilities of feeling. Indeed, it is a proverb of Italy, "Without Francis, no Dante. " Certainly the life of Francis was theinspiration of the early Italian art. Cimabue and Giotto drew from theinspiration of that unique and lovely life the pictorial conceptionsthat have made Assisi the cradle of Italian painting. The great works ofGiotto are in the lower church of the Franciscan monastery. One of thesefrescoes represents chastity as a maiden kneeling in a shrine, whileangels bring to her branches of palm. Obedience is depicted as placinga yoke upon the bowed figure of a priest, while St. Francis, attended bytwo angels, looks on; Poverty, whom Francis declared to be his bride, ispictured as accompanied by Hope and Charity, who give her in marriage toSt. Francis, the union being blessed by Christ, while the heavenlyFather and throngs of angels gaze through the clouds on this nuptialscene. The fresco called Gloriosus Franciscus is perhaps the crowningwork of Giotto. Francis is seen in a beatitude of glory, with a richlydecorated banner bearing the cross and seven stars floating above hishead and bands of angels in the air surrounding him. Canon Knox Little, alluding to these interesting works of Giotto, says that "even in theirfaded glories they give an immense interest to the lower church ofAssisi. No one can look at them now unmoved, or wander on the hillsideto the west of the little city, with the rugged rocks above one's head, and beneath one's feet the rich carpets of cyclamen, and before one'seyes long dreamy stretches of the landscape of Umbria, without beingtouched by the feeling of that beautiful and loving life devoted to Godand man and nature, in utter truth, which therefore left such animpress on Christian art. "

The Madonna and saints painted by Cimabue are faded almost to the pointof obliteration, yet there still lingers about them a certain grace andcharm. The visitor to this Franciscan monastery church realizes that heis beholding the art which was the very pledge and prophecy of theRenaissance, and he realizes, too, that the Renaissance itself was theoutgrowth of the new vitality communicated to the world by the life andcharacter of St. Francis. He gave to the world the realization of theliving Christ; he taught that religion was in action, not in theology. He liberated the spirit; and when this colossal church was being built(1228-53) the artists who had felt the new thrill of life opened by histeaching hastened to Assisi to express their appreciation by theirpictorial work on its walls. The qualities of spiritual life--faith, sacrifice, sympathy, and love--began, for the first time, to beinterpreted into artistic expression. 

The tomb of St. Francis is in the crypt of the church. The stonesarcophagus containing his body was discovered in 1818, and then placedhere in a little chamber especially prepared, surrounded by an ironlatticework with candles perpetually burning. 

From the sacristy of the lower church, stairs ascend to the upper, withits beautiful nave and transept with a high altar, and the choir stalls. While the lower church with its great arches is always dark, the upperis flooded with light from vast windows. There is a series of frescoedpanels on either side, accredited to pupils of Giotto, full of forcibleaction and a glow of color. But the upper church, while it ismagnificent, lacks somewhat of that mystic atmosphere one is so swiftlyconscious of in the gloom and mystery of the lower church. 

Stretching behind the churches, along the crest of the high hill, is thecolossal monastery itself, with that double row of arches and colonnadesthat makes it so conspicuous a feature of all the Umbrian valley. Formerly hundreds of monks dwelt here; but the Italian governmentsuppressed this monastery in 1866, and since that time it has been usedas a school for boys. 

The ancient Duomo, whose façade is of the twelfth century, has threeexquisite rose windows, and on either side, as one approaches the highaltar, stand the statues of St. Francis and of Santa Chiara. In thelittle piazza in front of the church is a bronze copy of Dupré's famousstatue of St. Francis. 

The colossal church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, with its magnificentdome, is a contrast, indeed, to the primitive little Portiuncula whereFrancis knelt in prayer, and which is now preserved in the centre ofthis vast cathedral, --the rude structure encased in marble, anddecorated, above the entrance, with a picture by Overbeck, whose motiveis St. Francis as he stands, hushed and reverent, listening to the voicethat tells him to embrace poverty. There is a fine Perugino in thechurch, representing the Saviour. The cell in which St. Francis died, enclosed in the little chapel which St. Bonaventura built over it, ispreserved in this great cathedral. 

"And who was he that opened that door in heaven?" questions Canon KnoxLittle in reference to St. Francis. "Who was he that gave that freshlife and thought? Who but the man who had brought down in his own personthe living Christ into his century, who had taught men again the love ofGod, and then the love of man and the love of nature; who had liftedthe people out of their misery and degradation, and awakened the churchout of its stiffness and worldliness; it was he, too, who inspired, whomay at most be said to have created, Italian art, --the great St. Francis! Such are the deep, such are the penetrating, such are thefar-reaching effects of sanctity. If a soul is, by divine grace, givenwholly to God, it is impossible for us to say to what heights it mayattain, or what good, in every region of human effort, it may do. "

 [Illustration: BAIÆ AND ISCHIA, FROM CAMALDOLI _Page 382_]

Perugia, the neighboring city only fifteen miles from Assisi, is themetropolis of all this Umbrian region. Like Assisi, it is a "hill town, "built on an acropolis of rock, its foundations laid by the Etruscansmore than three thousand years before the Christian era, and itsatmosphere is freighted with the records of artists and scholars. ThePerugians were the forerunners. They held the secret of artifice inmetals and gems; they were architects and sculptors. The only traces oftheir painting that have come down to us are their works on sarcophagi, on vases or funeral urns, --traces that indicate their gifts for line andform. It was about 310 B. C. That all Umbria became a Roman province. The colossal porta of Augustus--a gateway apparently designed for theCyclops--still retains its inscription, "Augustus Perusia. " Theimperishable impress of the great Roman conqueror is still seen in manyplaces. Perugia was a firm citadel, as is attested by the fact thatTotila and his army of Goths spent seven years in besieging it. Thecenturies from the thirteenth to the fifteenth inclusive, when it wasunder the sway of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, were years of tragicviolence. Even the cathedral became the scene of riot, and its interiorwas entirely washed with wine, and it was reconsecrated before it couldbe again used for holy offices. The little piazza in front of thecathedral, now dreaming in the sun, has been the scene of strange andcontrasting crises of life. Strife and warfare have desolated it; thefootsteps of Bernardino of Siena have consecrated it, as he passedwithin the great portals to preach the gospel of peace. He was one ofthe most potent of the Francescan disciples, and Bernardino (born of thenoble family of the Albizzeschi, in 1380, in Siena, the year after St. Catherine's death) for forty years wandered over Italy, preachingpeace and repentance. Vespasiano da Bisticci, a contemporary historian, records that Bernardino "converted and changed the minds and spirits ofmen marvellously and had a wondrous power in persuading men to lay asidetheir mortal hatreds. " Bernardino died at the age of sixty-four inAquila, and the towns in which he had faithfully carried on hisapostolic work placed the sacred sign of the divine name (I. H. S. ) upontheir gates and palaces, in his memory. In the Sienese gallery is aportrait of San Bernardino by Sano, painted in 1460, representing thesaint as the champion of the Holy Name, with the inscription, "I havemanifested Thy name to men. " In one of his impressive and wonderfulsermons San Bernardino said:--

 "There still remain many places for us to make. Ah! for the love of God, love one another. Alas! see you not that, if you love the destruction one of the other you are ruining your very selves? Ah! put this thing right for the love of God. Love one another! What I have done to make peace among you and to make you like brothers, I have done with that zeal I should wish my own soul to receive. I have done it all to the glory of God. And let no one think that I have set myself to do anything at any person's request. I am only moved by the bidding of God for His honor and glory. "

Opposite the Duomo of Perugia, on the other side of the piazza, is thePalazzo Municipio, with a Gothic façade, a beautiful example ofthirteenth-century architecture. Here also is the colossal fountain withthree basins, decorated with pictorial designs from the Bible by NiccoloPisano and Arnolfo of Florence, and in the shadow of this fountain St. Dominic, St. Francis, and St. Bernardino often met and held converse. 

Perugia easily reads her title clear to artistic immortality in havingbeen the home of Perugino, the master of Raphael. Here he lived forseveral years working with Pinturicchio in the frescoes that adorn theCollegio del Cambio, now held as a priceless treasure hall of art. Theystill glow with rich coloring, --the Christ seen on the Mount ofTransfiguration; the Mother and Child with the adoring magi; and thechariot of the dawn driven by Apollo a century before Guido painted his"Aurora" in the Palazzo Rospigliosi in Rome. 

From the parapets of Perugia are views of supreme poetic beauty. Theplay of light and color on the picturesque hills and mountains of theUmbrian country; the gray-green gleam of olive orchards and the silverthreads of winding streams; the towers and ruins and castles of a dozentowns and villages that crown the slopes, and the violet shadows ofdeepening twilight, with Assisi bathed in a splendor of rose andgold, --all combine to make this an ever-changing panorama for the poetand painter. 

No journey in Italy is quite like that to the lovely Umbrian valley andits Jerusalem, Assisi, the shrine which, with the single exception ofRome, is the special place of pilgrimage for the entire religious world. Perugia offers the charm of art, and attracts the visitor, also, by anexceptional degree of modern comfort and convenience; but Assisi is theshrine before which he kneels, where the footsteps of saints who haveknelt in prayer make holy ground, and where he realizes anew theconsecration of faith and sacrifice. The very air is filled with divinemessages, and in lowly listening he will hear, again, those wonderfuland thrilling words of St. Francis:--

 "By the holy love which is in God I pray all to put aside every obstacle, every care, every anxiety, that they may be able to consecrate themselves entirely to serve, love, and honor the Lord God, with a pure heart and a sincere purpose, which is what He asks above all things. "

 _White phantom city, whose untrodden streets Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting Shadows of palaces and strips of sky; I wait to see thee vanish like the fleets Seen in mirage, or towers of clouds uplifting In air their unsubstantial masonry. _

 LONGFELLOW. 

 _Fair as the palace builded for Aladdin, Yonder St. Mark uplifts its sculptured splendor-- Intricate fretwork, Byzantine mosaic, Color on color, column upon column, Barbaric, wonderful, a thing to kneel to! Over the portal stand the four gilt horses, Gilt hoof in air, and wide distended nostril, Fiery, untamed, as in the days of Nero. Skyward, a cloud of domes and spires and crosses; Earthward, black shadows flung from jutting stonework. High over all the slender Campanile Quivers, and seems a falling shaft of silver. _

 THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. 

 _As one who parts from Life's familiar shore, Looks his last look in long-beloved eyes, And sees in their dear depths new meanings rise And strange light shine he never knew before; As then he fain would snatch from Death his hand And linger still, if haply he may see A little more of this Soul's mystery Which year by year he seemed to understand; So, Venice, when thy wondrous beauty grew Dim in the clouds which clothed the wintry sea I saw thou wert more beauteous than I knew, And long to turn and be again with thee. But what I could not then I trust to see In that next life which we call memory. _

 PHILLIPS BROOKS. [2]

FOOTNOTES:

[2] From "Life of Phillips Brooks, " by kind permission of Messrs. E. P. Dutton & Co. 

VI

THE GLORY OF A VENETIAN JUNE

 I have been between Heaven and Earth since our arrival at Venice. The Heaven of it is ineffable--never had I touched the skirts of so celestial a place. The beauty of the architecture, the silver trails of water up between all that gorgeous color and carving, the enchanting silence, the music, the gondolas, --I mix it all up together, and maintain that nothing is like it, nothing equal to it, no second Venice in the world. 

 MRS. BROWNING, in the June of 1850. 

The first glimpse of enchanted Venice, as her towers and marble palacesrise wraith-like from the sea, is an experience that can never fade frommemory. Like a mirage, like a vision invoked by some incantation ormagician's spell, the scene prefigures itself, bringing a thrill of somevague and undefined memory, as if a breath floated by, --

 "An odor from Dreamland sent, That makes the ghost seem nigh me, Of a splendor that came and went; Of a life lived somewhere, --I know not In what diviner sphere, -- Of memories that stay not and go not, "

which eludes all translation into words. Nor does the spell dissolve andvanish when put to the test of one's actual sojourn in the Dream City. It is an experience outside the boundaries of the ordinary day anddaylight world, as if one were caught up into the ethereal realm to finda city

 "... Of gliding and wide-wayed silence With room in the streets for the soul. "

The sense of remoteness from common life could hardly be greater if onewere suddenly swept away to some far star, blazing in the firmament; orif Charon had rowed him over the mystic river and he had entered theabodes of life on the plane beyond. Even the hotel becomes an enchantedpalace whose salons, luxuriously decorated, open by long windows onmarble balconies overhanging the Grand Canal. Dainty little tables piledwith current reading matter, in French, English, and Italian, standaround; the writing-desks are sumptuous, filled with every convenienceof stationery; and the matutinal coffee and rolls are served the guestin any idyllic niche wherein he chooses to ensconce himself, regardlessof the regulation _salle-à-manger_. One looks across the Grand Canal tothe beautiful Church of Santa Maria della Salute. The water plashesagainst the marble steps as gondolas glide past; the blue sky of Italyreflects itself in the waters below, until one feels as if he werefloating in the air between sea and sky. In the heart of the city, withthrongs of people moving to and fro, all is yet silence, save the cry ofthe gondolier, the confused echo of voices from the people who pass, andhere and there the faint call of a bird. No whir and rush of electriccars and motors; no click of the horses' feet on the asphaltpavement--no pavement, indeed, and no horses, no twentieth-century rushof life. It is Venice, it is June, and the two combine to make anilluminated chapter. To live in Venice is like being domesticated in theheart of an opal. How wonderful it is to drift--a sky above and a skybelow--on still waters at sunset, with the Dream City mirrored in thedepths, every shade of gold and rose and amber mirrored back, --the veryatmosphere a sea of color, recalling to one Ruskin's words that "none ofus appreciate the nobleness and the sacredness of color. Of all God'sgifts to man, " he continues, "color is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn. Color is the sacred and saving element. " If theenthusiasm in these words savor of exaggeration, Venice is the placethat will lure one to forgetfulness of it. One is simply conscious ofbeing steeped in color and revelling in a strange loveliness. One nolonger marvels at the glory of Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese. They butinterpreted on canvas the shining reality. A charming writer on Venicehas well said:--

 "The aspects of Venice are as various, as manifold, as the hues held in solution upon her waters beneath a sirocco sky. There is a perpetual miracle of change; one day is not like another, one hour varies from the next; there is no stable outline such as one finds among the mountains, no permanent vista, as in a view across a plain. The two great constituents of the Venetian landscape, the sea and the sky, are precisely the two features in nature which undergo most incessant change. The cloud-wreaths of this evening's sunset will never be repeated again; the bold and buttressed piles of those cloud-mountains will never be built again just so for us; the grain of orange and crimson that stains the water before our prow, we cannot be sure that we shall look upon its like again.... One day is less like another in Venice than anywhere else. The revolution of the seasons will repeat certain effects; spring will chill the waters to a cold, hard green; summer will spread its breadth of golden light on palace front and water way; autumn will come with its pearly-gray sirocco days, and sunsets flaming a sombre death; the stars of a cloudless winter night, the whole vast dome of heaven, will be reflected in the mirror of the still lagoon. But in spite of this general order of the seasons, one day is less like another in Venice than anywhere else; the lagoon wears a different aspect each morning when you rise, the sky offers a varied composition of cloud each evening as the sun sets. Words cannot describe Venice, nor brush portray her ever-fleeting, ever-varying charm. Venice is to be felt, not reproduced; to live there is to live a poem, to be daily surfeited with a wealth of beauty enough to madden an artist to despair. "

It was in the autumn of 1882 that the Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks, laterBishop of Massachusetts, visited Venice and wrote of San Marco:--

 "Strange how there is nothing like St. Mark's in Venice, nothing of the same kind as the great church. It would have seemed as if, standing here for so many centuries, and always profoundly loved and honored, it would almost of necessity have influenced the minds of the generations of architects, and shown its power in their works. But there seems to be no sign of any such influence. It stands alone. "

Dr. Brooks noted that Venice had "two aspects, one sensuous andself-indulgent, the other lofty, spiritual, and even severe. Bothaspects, " he continues, "are in its history and both are also in itsart. Titian often represents the former. The loftier, nobler Tintorettogives us the second. There is something in his greatest pictures, as, for instance, in the Crucifixion, at St. Rocco, which no other artistapproaches. The lordly composition gives us an impression ofintellectual grasp and vigor. The foreground group of prostrate women isfull of a tenderness. The rich pearly light, which floods the centre, glows with a solemn picturesqueness, and the great Christ, who hangslike a benediction over the whole, is vocal with a piety which no otherpicture in the world displays. And the Presentation of the Virgin, inSanta Maria dell'Orto, is the consummate presentation of that beautifulsubject, its beauty not lost in its majesty. "

Of other pictures Dr. Brooks said:--

 "In the Academia there is the sunshine of three hundred years ago. Paris Bordone's glowing picture of the Fisherman who brings the Ring of St. Mark to the Doge, burned like a ray of sunlight on the wall. Carpaccio's delightful story of St. Ursula brought the old false standards of other days back to one's mind, but brought them back lustrous with the splendor of summers that seemed forever passed, but are perpetually here. Tintoretto's Adam and Eve was, as it always is, the most delightful picture in the gallery, and Pordenone's great St. Augustine seemed a very presence in the vast illuminated room. "

Tennyson loved best, of all the pictures in Venice, a Bellini, --abeautiful work, in the Church of Il Redentore; and he was deeplyimpressed by the "Presentation of the Virgin, " from Tintoretto, in theChurch of the Madonna dell'Orto. "He was fascinated by St. Mark's, "writes the poet's son, "by the Doge's Palace and the Piazza, and by theblaze of color in water and sky. He climbed the Campanile, and walked tothe library where he could scarcely tear himself away from the GrimaniBreviary. "

Venice, though not containing any single gallery comparable with thePitti and the Uffizi, is still singularly rich in treasures of art, andrich in legend and story. The school of encrusted architecture isnowhere so wonderfully represented as here, and it is only in thisarchitecture that a perfect scheme of color decoration is possible. Inall the world there is no such example of encrusted architecture as thatrevealed in St. Mark's. It is a gleaming mass of gold, opal, ruby, andpearl; with alabaster pillars carved in designs of palm and pomegranateand lily; with legions of sculptured angels looking down; with altars ofgold ablaze with scarlet flowers and snowy lilies, while clouds ofmystic incense fill the air. One most impressive place is thebaptistery, where is the tomb of St. Mark and also that of the DogeAndrea Dandolo, who died at the age of forty-six, having been chosenDoge ten years before. His tomb is under a window in the baptistery, andthe design is that of his statue in bronze, lying on a couch, while twoangels at the head and the feet hold back the curtains. 

The sarcophagus that is said to contain the body of St. Mark is of therichest description, encrusted with gold and jewels on polished ebonyand marble. There is a legend that after St. Mark had seen the people ofAguilia well grounded in religion he was called to Rome by St. Peter;but before setting off he took with him in a boat the holy BishopHennagoras and sailed to the marshes of Venice. The boat was driven bywind to a small island called Rialto, on which were some houses, and St. Mark was suddenly snatched into ecstasy and heard the voice of an angelsaying, "Peace be to thee, Mark; here shall thy body rest. "

There is also a legend that in the great conflagration which destroyedVenice in 976 A. D. , the body of St. Mark was lost and no one knew whereto find it. Then the pious Doge and the people gave themselves tofasting and prayer, and assembled in the church, asking that the placebe revealed them. It was on the 25th of June that the assemblage tookplace. Suddenly one of the pillars of the church trembled, and opened todisclose the sarcophagus, --a chest of bronze. The legend goes on to saythat St. Mark stretched his hand out through the side and that a noble, Dolfini by name, drew a gold ring off the finger. 

The place where this miracle is said to have been wrought is now markedby the Altar of the Cross. 

Ruskin declares that "a complete understanding of the sanctity of coloris the key to European art. " Nowhere is this sanctity of color so feltas at San Marco. The church is like the temple of the New Jerusalem. 

The origin of Venice is steeped in sacred history. It is pre-eminentlythe city founded in religious enthusiasm. The chronicles of De Monici, written in 421, give this passage: "God, who punishes the sins of men bywar, sorrow, and whose ways are past finding out, willing both to savethe innocent blood, and that a great power, beneficial to the wholeworld, should arise in a place strange beyond belief, moved the chiefmen of the cities of the Venetian province both in memory of the past, and in dread of future distress, to establish states upon the nearerislands of the Adriatic, to which, in the last extremity, they mightretreat for refuge.... They laid the foundation of the new city undergood auspices on the island of the Rialto, the highest and nearest tothe mouth of the Brenta, on March 25, 471. "

The first Doge of Venice was Paolo Lucio Anafesto, elected by thetribunal of commonalty, tribunals, and clergy, at Heraclea, in 697. Theperiod of the subjection of the ecclesiastical to the ducal andpatrician powers followed. The "Council of Ten" was established in 1335, and the last Doge elected was Lodovico Manin in 1789, who exclaimed, "_Tolè questo: no la doperò più_, " as the French Revolution destroyedthe Republic of Venice. 

The finest example of Renaissance architecture in Venice is that of the_Libreria Vecchia_, the work of Jacobo Sansovino, completed in thesixteenth century. Never were the creations of poet and philosopher morefittingly enshrined. The rich Doric frieze, the Ionic columns, thestately balustrade, with statues and obelisks, the resplendent richnessof ornamentation, offer a majesty and beauty seldom found even in thebest classical architecture of Europe. On the ceiling of one sala is apicture by Titian representing "Wisdom" as a woman, reclining on acloud, her right hand outstretched to take a book that Genius isoffering her. There are two beautiful caryatides by Vittoria and richmural work by Battista Franco and De Moro. 

Petrarca, returning from his wanderings in 1362, pleaded with the Senateof Venezia to give him a house, in return for which he offered theinheritance of his library. This was the nucleus of the fine collectionwhich since 1812 has been included in the Palace of the Doges. In it aresome magnificent works by Paolo Veronese, one portrait by Tintoretto, and others by Salviati and Telotti. 

The Doge's Palace is a treasure house of history. One enters the Portadella Carta, which dates back to 1638, erected by Bartolomeo Buon. Theportal is very rich in sculpture, and among the reliefs is a heroic oneof Francesco Foscari, kneeling before the lion at St. Mark's. Onerecalls his tragic fate and passes on. Perhaps, _en passant_, one maysay that his pilgrimage through Venice and Florence is so constantly inthe scenes of tragedy that he is prone to sink almost into uttersadness, even, rather than seriousness. The air is full of ghosts. Onefeels the oppression of all the life that has there been lived, all thetragedies that have been enacted in these scenes. 

In Renaissance nothing more wonderful in Europe can be found than thecourt of the Palace of the Doges. Antonio Rizzo began the east façade ofthe building in 1480, and it was continued by Lombardo, and completed byScarpagnino. "Words cannot be found to praise the beauty of thesesculptures, " says Salvatico, "as well as of the single ornaments of thewalls and of the ogres which have been carved so delicately and richlythat they cannot be excelled by the Roman antique friezes. "

By the golden staircase one goes to the council chambers, --the hall ofthe Senate, the Council of Ten, and the Council of Three. In the greatcouncil chamber is that most celebrated mural painting in the world, "The Glory of Venice, " by Paolo Veronese, which covers the ceiling. In afrieze are the portraits of seventy-six of the Doges, but in one spaceis a black tablet only, with the inscription: "This in place of M. F. , who was executed for his crimes. "

The "Sala del Maggior Consiglio" (hall of the grand council) is veryrich in paintings. Above the throne is Tintoretto's "The Glory ofParadise, " and the walls are covered with battle pieces and symbolic andallegorical paintings. There is "Venice Crowned by Fame, " by PaoloVeronese, "Doge Niccolò da Ponte Presenting the Senate and Envoys ofConquered Cities to Venice, " by Tintoretto; "Venice Crowned by theGoddess of Victory, " by Palma Giovane, and many another of the richestand most wonderful beauty. 

Descending into the prisons and dungeons brings one into a vividrealization of the grim history of which these were the scenes. TheBridge of Sighs has two covered passages, one for the political and onefor the criminal prisoners. Here is shown a narrow ledge on which thecondemned man stood, with a slanting stone passageway before him, which, when the guillotine had done its swift and deadly work, conveyed thecrimson flood into the dark waters of the canal below, while the bodywas thrown in the water on the other side. There are the "Chambers ofLead, " where prisoners were confined, intensely hot in the summer, andas intensely cold in the winter. Many of these dark, close, narrowcells--in which the one article of furniture allowed was the woodenslanting rack, that served as a bed--still remain. In many of these areinscriptions that were written by the prisoners. One reads (intranslation): "May God protect me against him whom I trust; I willprotect myself against him whom I do not trust. "

The murderer, Giovanni M. Borni, wrote in his cell: "G. M. B. Wasconfined very unjustly in this prison; if God does not help it will bethe last desolation of a poor, numerous, and honest family. "

All visitors to these gloomy dungeons recall the lines of Byron:--

 "I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, A palace and a prison on each hand. "

The piazza of St. Mark's is a distinctive feature, even in all Europe. It is not large; it is surrounded on three sides with shops, which aremerely glittering bazaars of jewels and bric-a-brac; the sidewalk isblockaded with cafés _al fresco_, the ground is half covered with thedense flocks of white doves, but here all lingers and loiters. Thefaçade of St. Mark's fills one end--a mass of gleaming color. At onecorner is the tall clock tower (Torre dell'Orologio) in the Renaissancestyle of 1400, crowned with the gilded lion of St. Mark. On the festadays three figures, the Three Wise Men, preceded by an angel, come forthon the tower and bow before the Madonna, in a niche above, --a veryingenious piece of mechanism. With its rich architecture and sculpturesand masses of color, the piazza of San Marco is really an open-air hall, where all the town congregates from morning till midnight. 

To study the art of the Venetian school is a work of months, and onethat would richly repay the student. The churches and galleries ofVenice give a truly unique opportunity. In the Church of San Sebastianolies Paolo Veronese, the church in which he painted his celebratedfrescoes, now transformed into a temple for himself. Here one finds his"Coronation of the Virgin, " "The Virgin in the Gloria, " "Adoration ofthe Magi, " "Martyrdom of San Sebastian, " and many others. In the Scuoladi San Rocco are the great works of Tintoretto, "St. Magdalene in theWilderness, " the "Visitation, " and the "Murder of the Innocents. "

In the San Maria dei Frari is the tomb of Titian, --an exquisite groupingof sculpture in Carrara marble, erected in 1878-80 by the command of theEmperor of Austria, the work of Zandomenighi. In this church is Titian'smost famous painting, the "Madonna of the Pessaro, " the work of which isprobably, too, the greatest in all Venetian art. The Hall of Heaven isshown, supported by colossal columns. St. Peter, Francis, and Antoninusare commending the Pessaro family to the Virgin, who is enthroned onhigh. The beauty of line, the splendor of color, and the marvellouscomposition render this immortal masterpiece something whose sight marksan epoch in life. Canova's tomb in San Maria dei Frari is a wonderfulthing. It is a pyramid of purest marble, with a door opening for thesarcophagus, above which is a portrait of Canova in relief, and oneither side the door angels and symbolic figures are sculptured. 

The Church of Santa Maria della Salute, to which one is alwaysreturning, is a wonderful example of artistic architecture, as its snowytowers and dome seem to rise out of the water and float in the air. 

The fall of the Campanile in 1904 was regarded as a calamity by all thecivilized world. For a thousand years it had stood at the side of St. Mark's; but the disaster aroused the attention of experts to thecondition of the great cathedral itself, and it was found that the vastarea of over fifty thousand square feet of matchless mosaic neededrestoration in order that they should be preserved. 

The Palazzo Rezzonico, which dates to Clement XIII, usually known as the"Browning Palace, " has been for many years one of the special intereststo the visitor in Venice. In the early months of 1907 it passed out ofthe hands of Robert Barrett Browning, who had purchased it in 1888, andhad held it sacredly, with its poetic and personal associations, sincethe death of his father, the poet, in 1889. To Mr. Barrett Browning isdue the grateful appreciation of a multitude of tourists for hisgenerous and never-failing courtesy in permitting them the privilege ofvisiting this palace in which his father had passed many months ofenjoyment. It was from this residence that the poet Browning wrote, inOctober of 1880, to a friend:--

 "Every morning at six I see the sun rise; far more wonderfully, to my mind, than his famous setting which everybody glorifies. My bedroom window commands a perfect view; the still, gray lagune, the few sea-gulls flying, the islet of San Giorgio in deep shadow and the clouds in a long purple rock behind which a sort of spirit of rose burns up till presently all the rims are on fire with gold, and last of all the orb sends before it a long column of its own essence apparently; so my day begins. "

Later, of his son's palace, Mr. Browning wrote:--

 "Have I told you that there is a chapel which he has restored in honor of his mother--putting up there the inscription by Tommaseo, [3] now above Casa Guidi in Florence?"

In this palace Mr. Browning wrote some of his later poems, and it maywell be that it was when he was clad in his singing robes that heperhaps most deeply felt the ineffable charm of Venice:--

 "For the stars help me, and the sea bears part; The very night is clinging Closer to Venice' streets to leave one space Above me.... "

It was from these lofty salons in the Browning Palace that the poetpassed to the "life more abundant" on that December day of 1889, on thevery day that his last volume, "Asolando, " was published and also thelast volume of Tennyson's. Regarding these Mr. Gladstone said, in aletter to Lord Tennyson: "The death of Browning on the day of theappearance of your volume, and we hear of one of his own, is a touchingevent. "

From the time of Mrs. Browning's death in Florence (in June of 1861) Mr. Browning never felt that he could see Italy again, until the autumn of1878, when he, with his sister, Miss Sarianna Browning, came to Veniceby way of the Italian lakes and Verona. At this time they only remainedfor a fortnight, domiciled in the old Palazzo Brandolin-Rota, which wastransformed into the Albergo dell'Universo. This palace was on the GrandCanal below the Accadémia, and here he returned through two or threesubsequent years. Mr. Browning became very fond of Venice, and heexplored its winding ways and gardens and knew it, not merely from thegondola view, but from the point of view of the curious little dark andnarrow byways, the bridges, and the piazzas. 

It was in 1880 that Mr. Browning first met, through the kind offices ofMr. Story, a most charming and notable American lady, Mrs. ArthurBronson (Katherine DeKay), who had domiciled herself in Casa Alvisi, anold palace on the Grand Canal opposite the Church of Santa Maria dellaSalute. She was a woman of very interesting personality, and had drawnabout her a circle including many of the most distinguished people ofher time, authors, artists, poets, and notable figures in the socialworld. She was eminently _simpatica_ and her lovely impulses of generouskindness were rendered possible to translate into the world of theactual by the freedom which a large fortune confers on its possessor. Between Mrs. Bronson and Mr. Browning there sprang up one of those rareand beautiful friendships that lasted during his lifetime, and to herappreciation and many courtesies he owed much of the happiness of hislater years. In the autumn of 1880 Mrs. Bronson made Mr. Browning andhis sister her guests, placing at their disposal a suite of rooms in thePalazzo Giustiniani Recanati--a palace adjoining her own--and each nightthey dined and passed the evening with her, with music and conversationto enchant the hours. After Mr. Browning's death, Mrs. Bronson was thefriend whom all pilgrims to his shrine in Venice felt it a specialprivilege to meet and to hear speak of him. In her palace was a largeeasy-chair, with a ribbon tied across the arms, in which Browning wasaccustomed to sit, and which was held sacred to him. Mrs. Bronson was anaccomplished linguist, and the _habitués_ of her salon represented manynationalities. Among these was the Princess Montenegro, the mother ofthe present Queen of Italy. 

It is little wonder that the Browning Palace was for so many years afocus for all who revered and loved the wedded poets, Robert andElizabeth Barrett Browning. 

In the marble court, roofed only by the blue Venetian sky, stood Mr. Barrett Browning's statue of "Dryope" in bronze, on its marblepedestal, --a beautiful conception of the Dryope of Keats, --the dwellerin forest solitudes whom the Hamadryads transformed into a poplar. Herea fountain makes music all day long, and the court is also adorned insummer by great Venetian jars of pink hydrangeas in full bloom. Thegrand staircase, with its carved balustrade and the wide landing where arose window decorates the wall, leads to the lofty salons which were yetas homelike as they were artistic during the residence of the Brownings. Mr. Story's bust of Mrs. Browning, other portrait busts of both thepoets, sculptured by their artist son, and by others, and othermemorials abound. In the library were gathered many interesting volumes, autographed from their authors, and many rare and choice editions, amongwhich was one of the "Sonnets from the Portuguese" in a sumptuous volumewhose artistic beauty found a fitting setting to Mrs. Browning'simmortal sonnets. Among other volumes were a collection of signed"Etchings" by Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema; presentation copies fromTennyson, Matthew Arnold, Aubrey De Vere, Walter Savage Landor, and manyanother known to fame; and a copy, also, of a study of Mrs. Browning'spoetry[4] by an American writer. 

There is one memento over which the visitor always smiled--a souvenir ofa London evening in 1855 when the Brownings had invited Dante GabrielRossetti and his brother and Lord Madox Brown to meet Tennyson andlisten to his reading of his new poem, "Maud, " then still unpublished. During the reading Rossetti drew a caricature representing Tennyson withhis hair standing on end, his eyes glowering and his hand theatricallyextended, as he held a manuscript inscribed, "I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood. "

A reproduction of John Singer Sargent's painting, "The Gypsy Dance, "bore the inscription, "To _mon ami_, Browning. " From the library is aniche, decorated in gold, with memorial entablatures to the memory ofMrs. Browning. On the outer wall of the palace is an inscription thatruns:--

 "Robert Browning died in this house 12th December, 1889. 

 "Open my heart and you will see Graven inside it 'Italy. '"

There is a sadness in the fact that this palace, consecrated to thememory of the immortal poets, husband and wife, has passed into thehands of strangers; but that is a part of the play in a world in whichwe have no continuing city. In the spring of 1905, Miss SariannaBrowning died in the home of her nephew, near Florence, and her body wasburied in the new Protestant cemetery in that city; the old one, whereall that was mortal of Elizabeth Barrett Browning was laid to rest, being now closed. Mr. Barrett Browning, in his Tuscan villa, is againdwelling near Florence, his native city, which must forever hold to himits atmosphere of consecrated beauty as the beloved home of hismother, --the noblest and greatest of all woman poets. 

The centenary of Carlo Goldoni was celebrated in Venice in the springof 1907 by the publication of all his works and a monograph on his life;an exhibition of personal relics; the presentation of one of his dramasset to music by Baldassare Galuppi, the great Venetian composer of histime, and by a procession to lay a wreath of laurel on his monument inthe Campo San Bartolommeo. The drama given, entitled the "Buranello, "was the last work of the author, and it was presented in the theatreGoldoni. The Municipal Council of Venice voted the sum of fifty thousandlire for the _édition de luxe_, which consists of twenty volumes, inoctavo. In each volume is a different portrait of Goldoni, facsimile ofmanuscripts, and the reproduction of literary curiosities. 

The monograph of Goldoni was issued by the press of the VenetianInstitute of Graphic Art in a limited number of copies. 

It contains more than three hundred printed pages and a series of veryinteresting illustrations. Among these are the reproductions of ancientengravings which are most rare (such as the view of the Grimani Theatreat San Giovanni Crisostomo, a famous theatre existing in the days of theVenetian republic, but now demolished), frontispieces of destroyededitions, and other personal memorials. The revival of the splendid workof the famous artist was one of the attractions of the festa ofcelebration. The art exhibition of Venice in this spring of 1907 wasvery picturesque. One special salon was allotted to the artists of GreatBritain, and there was a fine loan collection of the portraits ofEnglish noblemen painted by Mr. Sargent. This salon was decorated withpanels by Frank Brangwyn. 

Venice forever remains a dream, a mirage, an enchantment. Has it arecognized social life, with "seasons" that come and go? Has it trade, commerce, traffic? Has it any existence save on the artist's canvas, inthe poet's vision? Has it a resident population to whom it is a home, and not the pilgrimage of passionate pilgrims?

There are those who find this Venice of all the year round a society ofstately nobles whose ancestral claims are identified with the history ofthe city and who are at home in its palaces and gondolas, but of thisresident life the visitor is less aware than of that in any other cityin Italy. For him it remains forever in his memory as the crowningglory of June evenings when the full, golden moon hangs over towers andwalls, when gondolas freighted with Venetian singers loom up out of theshadows and fill the air with melody that echoes as in dreams, and thatvanishes--one knows not when or where. Mr. Howells, in his delightful"Venetian Days, " has interpreted much of that life that the touristnever recognizes, that eludes his sight; and the Dream City still, tothe visitor who comes and goes, shrouds itself in myth and mystery. Oneof the poetic visions of Venice is that given in Robert UnderwoodJohnson's "Browning at Asolo" (inscribed to Mrs. Arthur Bronson), ofwhich the opening stanzas run:--

 "This is the loggia Browning loved, High on the flank of the friendly town; These are the hills that his keen eye roved, The green like a cataract leaping down To the plain that his pen gave new renown. 

 "There to the West what a range of blue!-- The very background Titian drew To his peerless Loves. O tranquil scene! Who than thy poet fondlier knew The peaks and the shore and the lore between?

 "See! yonder's his Venice--the valiant Spire, Highest one of the perfect three, Guarding the others: the Palace choir, The Temple flashing with opal fire-- Bubble and foam of the sunlit sea. "

Edgar Fawcett, always enchanted with his Venetian days, pictures thenorthern lagoon, some six miles from Venice, as "a revel of pastoralgreenness, with briery hedges, numberless wild flowers and the mostcaptivating of sinuous creeks, overarched by an occasional bridge, soold that you greet with respect every moss-grown inch of its drowsy andsagging brickwork. The cathedral, the ineludible cathedral of allItalian settlements, is reached after a short ramble, and you enter itwith mingled awe and amusement, " he continues. "Some of its mosaics, representing martyrs being devoured by flames and evidently enjoyingthemselves a great deal during this mortuary process, challenge thedisrespectful smile. But others are vested with a rude yet sacredpoetry, and certain semi-Oriental marble sculptures, adjacent to thealtar, would make an infidel feel like crossing himself for the crime ofhaving yielded to a humorous twinge. This duomo dates far back beyondthe Middle Ages, and so does the small Church of Santa Fosca, only astep away. What renders Torcello so individual among all the islands andislets of the lagoon, I should say, is her continual contrast betweenthe ever-recurrent idyllicism of open meadows or wilding clusters ofsimple rustic thickets, and the enormous antiquity of these two hoaryecclesiastic fanes. History is in the air, and you feel that the verydaisies you crush underfoot, the very copses from which you pluck ascented spray, have their delicate rustic ancestries, dating back toAttila, who is said once to have brought his destructive presence wherenow such sweet solemnity of desertion and quietude unmolestedly rules. "

History and legend and art and romance meet and mingle to create thatindefinable sorcery of Venice. It is like nothing on earth except apoet's dream, and his poetic dream is of the ethereal realm. Thewonderful music that floats over the "silver trail" of still waters; themystic silences; the resplendence of color, --all, indeed, weavethemselves into an incantation of the gods; it is the ineffableloveliness of Paradise where the rose of morning glows "and the June isalways June, " and it is no more earth, but a celestial atmosphere, --thisglory of June in Venice. 

FOOTNOTES:

[3] This inscription and a description in detail of all the memorials ofElizabeth Barrett Browning are given in full in a volume entitled "AStudy of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. " Boston: Little, Brown, & Co. 

[4] "A Study of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. " Little, Brown, & Co. 

 _Dear Italy! The sound of thy soft name Soothes me with balm of Memory and Hope. Mine, for the moment, height and sweep and slope That once were mine. Supreme is still the aim To flee the cold and gray Of our December day, And rest where thy clear spirit burns with unconsuming flame. _

 _Thou human-hearted land, whose revels hold Man in communion with the antique days, And summon him from prosy greed to ways Where Youth is beckoning to the Age of Gold; How thou dost hold him near And whisper in his ear Of the lost Paradise that lies beyond the alluring haze!_

 ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON. 

 _Great ideas create great peoples. Let your life be the living summary of one sole organic idea. Enlarge the horizon of the peoples. Liberate their conscience from the materialism by which it is weighed down. Set a vast mission before them. Rebaptize them. _

 MAZZINI. 

 _All parts array for the progress of souls: all religion, all solid things, arts, governments, --all that was or is apparent upon this globe, or any globe, falls into niches and comes before the procession of Souls along the grand roads of the universe.... Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of the universe, all other progress is the needed emblem and sustenance. _

 WALT WHITMAN. 

VII

THE MAGIC LAND

 More than five hundred years have passed over the country of Dante since the death of his mortal part--years of glory and of shame, of genius and intolerable mediocrity, of turbulent liberty and mortal servitude; but the name of Dante has remained, and the severe image of the poet still rules the destinies of Italian generations, now an encouragement and now a reproach. The splendor of no other genius has been able to eclipse or dim the grandeur of Dante; never has there been a darkness so profound that it could conceal this star of promise from Italian eyes; neither the profanations of tyrants and Jesuits, nor the violations of foreign invaders, have been able to efface it. "_Sanctum Poetæ nomen quod nunquam barbaries violavit. _"

 MAZZINI. 

The true life of Italy is not read in any record of contemporary factsor statistics. Mazzini once said of Dante, in an essay on the immortalpoet, that "the life, the true life of Dante does not lie in the seriesof the material facts of his existence. The life of Dante consists inthe sufferings and aspirations of his soul; in its dominant impulses; inthe ceaseless development of the idea which was at once his guide, inspiration, and consolation; in his belief as a man and as an Italian. "The real life of Italy is, by analogy, to be read in that atmosphereof aspiration and of noble purpose which characterizes the nation ratherthan in the material facts of its general progress at the present time. As a country Italy is young. It is still less than forty years since herunity was declared, and to merge the large number of separate Statesinto one harmonious whole is a task requiring the evolutionary progressof time; for a nation, like a university, cannot be a matter ofinstantaneous creation. It must germinate and grow. The country that, previous to so comparatively a recent date as the year 1870, was, in thephrasing of Prince Metternich, "a geographical expression, " can hardlybe judged by present national standards after an existence of onlythirty-seven years, although it need be said in no spirit of apology;for Italy is advancing in scientific development, in manufactures, andin the problems involved in civil and hydraulic engineering to a notabledegree in the northern part. Milan and Naples are separated by far morethan geographical distance. In modern progress Milan is divided bycenturies from all Southern Italy. 

Between Italy and the United States the _entente cordiale_ is notmerely that of diplomatic and ceremonial courtesy, but of an exceptionaldegree of mutually sympathetic comprehensions. In noble ambitions andlofty purposes Americans and Italians are closely akin. In zeal forcontemporary scientific progress, in an intense susceptibility to theglories of art, and in hospitality to all that makes for progress, bothnations meet in mutual recognition. Of no people is it more deeply truethan of Americans that "each man has two countries: his own and Italy. "The average traveller sees this fair land with a breadth andthoroughness seldom called into requisition elsewhere. In England he isusually content with London, the tour of the cathedral towns and thelake region of the poets. France is summed up to him in Paris and in thechateaux of outlying districts. But Italy beguiles the traveller intoevery lonely foot-trail in the mountains; to every "piazza grande" oflonely hamlets, isolated on a rocky hillside; to every "fortezza" thatcrowns a mountain summit. The unexplored byways of Italy are magnetic intheir fascination, and one special source of congratulation on the partof those fortunate tourists who travel with their own motor car is thatthey are thus enabled to penetrate into untrodden byways in Italy in amanner impossible to those who must depend entirely on the regulationrailroad service. All lovers of Italy are devoted to these originaltours of private exploration. A recent trip to Saracinesco, in theregion of Tivoli, was made by Mrs. Stetson (Grace Ellery Channing) withher husband, and in a descriptive record of the little journey into anunfrequented mountain region this paragraph occurs:--

 "Roused by 'an awful rose of dawn' which turned every solemn slope to strange amber and amethyst, we left that rocky eyrie next day, returning by way of Anticoli--beloved of artists. And if the ascent had qualified us for Alpine climbers, the descent qualified us as members of the Italian cavalry corps. Pictures of officers riding down the face of cliffs will never impress us again; we know now it is the very simplest of 'stunts. ' Our way down was diversified by the tinkling of thousands of sheep-bells, by the far too close proximity of bulls to Maria's crimson headdress, which nothing in the world would induce her to remove, and by sundry meetings with relations, long-unseen friends, and strangers, from whom we culled the whole register of deaths, births, marriages, and happenings for a month past. At last, beside a little bridge near the railroad station, Leonardo addressed his ten-thousandth adjuration to Beppino, whose poor little legs trembled under him. It was no longer, 'Ah, sacred one!--don't you see Anticoli!'--or 'the rock, ' or whatever it might be; now he said, 'Ah, sacred one!--don't you comprehend?--the Signora descends'--and Beppino looked distinctly pleased. 

 "Here we demanded the reckoning, skilfully evaded hitherto. 

 "'Well--a franc for each beast, --and half a franc for the room, --the rest was nothing--a _sciocchezza_. '

 "A franc apiece!--half a franc!--were _we_ brigands that we should do this thing?"

This typical picture of idyllic days in Italy, enjoyed in the impromptuexcursion and trip, reveals the delicacy of feeling and the sunnykindness that characterize the _contadini_ and which imparts to anysocial contact with them a grace and sweetness peculiar to Italianlife. There are parts of Italy where it is still the Middle Ages and nohint of the twentieth century has yet penetrated. The modern spirit hasalmost taken possession of Rome; it is largely in evidence in Florenceand even Venice, and it dominates Milan; but in most of the "hill towns"and in the little hamlets and lonely haunts where a house is perhapsimprovised out of the primeval rock, the prevailing life is stillmediæval, and only awakens on festa days into any semblance of activity. 

Somewhere, away up in the hills, several miles from Pegli, --on theMediterranean coast near Genoa, --is one of these sequestered little hilltowns called _Acqua Sacra_. The name is obvious, indeed, for the soundof the "sacred water" fills the air, falling from every hillside andfrom the fountain of the _acqua sacra_ by the church. Pilgrims come frommiles around to drink of these waters. Each house in this remote littlehamlet is of solid stone, resembling a fortress on a small scale, andthe houses cling to the hillsides like mosses to a rock. Though far upin the mountains, the hills rise around the hamlet like city walls, as if the life of all the world were kept outside. The unforeseen visitto these remote hamlets, suddenly chancing upon some small centre ofhappy and half-idyllic life, is one of the charms of tourist travel inthis land of ineffable loveliness. 

 [Illustration: RUINS OF THE GREEK THEATRE, TAORMINA, SICILY _Page 429_]

The approach to Italy, by whatever direction, by land or by sea, oneenters, is one of magical beauty. Whether one enters from theMediterranean or from the Adriatic, or by means of the Mont Cenis, theSimplon, or the St. Gothard pass, through the sublime mountain wall, each gateway is marvellous in attraction. Approaching from the seas thatcompletely surround Italy except on one side, the almost undreamed-ofsplendor of Naples, Genoa, and Venice, as seen from off the shore, exceeds all power of painter or poet to reproduce. The precipitous coastof Sicily; the picturesque city of Palermo; the wonderful ruins of theGreek theatre on the heights in Taormina, --all enchant the tourist. Toanchor off Naples, in the beautiful bay, serves the purpose of an hotelout at sea. It is like living in Venice--only more so! By the littlerowboats one may go, at any moment, to Naples, and it is more delightfulthan passing the days in the city itself. For at night as one strollsor sits on deck what a picture is before the eye! All Naples, on hersemicircular shores, with her terraced heights rising above, defined ina blaze of electric lights! Genoa, _la Superba_, is still moremagnificent when seen from the sea; and Venice, rising dream-enchanted, completes the wonders of the approach by water. 

As the new Italy has not yet achieved any homogeneous unity, Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice, and Milan differ in their characteristics tosuch a degree that no general interpretation of the residents of any onewould appropriately describe those of another. Paris and Vienna hardlydiffer as much as do Milan and Rome; and Venice, Florence, and Rome, each rich in art treasures, have little else in common. Certaincharacteristics of each of the large cities reveal themselvesprominently, even to a superficial observer. Milan, as has been said, isa centre of activity, as Florence is of culture and accomplishments. Florence has the largest and the most choice circulating library in allItaly and one that ranks among the best on the Continent. Her galleriesare treasure stores of art, and her social life is unsurpassed--onemight almost say unrivalled--in its fine quality. Music, philosophicculture, learning in all lines of research characterize Florentinesociety. Education has always been regarded in Florence as a matter ofprime importance, and when the government grant of funds is insufficientthe sum is made up by private contributions, so that the _Scuola delPopolo_ gives free instruction, yearly, to eighteen hundred pupils, inevery branch of technical and art education. This fact alone offers itsown explanation of that general intelligence of the people which soimpresses the visitor in Florence. But this is a municipal rather thannational fact. Every special development in any direction in Italy willalways be found to be the characteristic of the city or locality, not ofthe country as a whole; and thus the unity of Italy is still a politicalexpression rather than a political fact. It is a theory which is not yetdeveloped into an experience. Italy is in the making. Practically, sheis the youngest of countries, with less than forty years of experimentalattempt at _national_ life behind her. Not until 1919 will she haveattained the first half century of her united life. Educationalfacilities, inclusive of schools, libraries, and museums; railroads, telegraph and telephone service, electric lighting and electrictrams, --all the ways and means of the modern mechanism of life are, inevitably, in a nebulous state in Italy. The political situation isextremely interesting at the present time. That the "Blacks" and the"Whites" are diametrically opposed to each other is in the nature ofhistory rather than that of contemporary record or of prophecy; and thatthis is a traditional attitude in this city of the Cæsars is not a factby any means unknown; but the situation is complicated by the thirdparty--the Socialists--who, by allying themselves with either, wouldeasily turn the scales and command the situation. If they were ardentCatholics and were advocates of the Papal supremacy, the temporal powerof the Pope would be restored in less time almost than could berecorded, and Pius X would be in residence in the Palazzo Quirinalerather than Victor Emanuele III. But this great modern uprising inItaly--a movement that is gathering force and numbers so rapidly that noone can venture to prophesy results even in the comparatively immediatefuture--this great modern movement is neither for church nor state. TheSocialist uprising is very strong in Milan and through Northern Italy. It is much in evidence in the Umbrian region--in Foligno, Spoleto, Nervi, and those towns; and from Frascati to Genzano and in the LakeNemi chain of villages--Rocca di Papa, Castel Gandolpho, Ariccia, Albano--these villages within some fifteen miles of Rome. In these thereis a veritable stronghold of Socialism, where its purposes and policyare entrenched. Yet when one alludes to its policy, the term is rathertoo definite. If it had a settled and well-formulated policy on whichall its adherents were in absolute accord they would carry all beforethem. But Socialism is still a very elastic term and covers, if not amultitude of sins, at least a multitude of ideas and ideals. There isnow a rumor that the situation is forcing the absolutely inconceivableunion of church and state--of the Vatican and the Quirinale--that theymay thus withstand their common foe. A more amazing and extraordinaryturn of affairs could not be imagined; and if the rumor (which is nowbecoming more coherent in Rome) should prove to be the forerunner ofany truth, the situation will be one of the most amazing in all history. 

 [Illustration: PONTE VECCHIO, FLORENCE _Page 430_]

Epoch-making events in the course of progress are always preceded bycircumstances that form to them a natural approach and chain ofcausation. They are the results of which the causes stretch backward inthe past. One of the things that has an incalculably determininginfluence on the present situation is that of the character of thepresent Pope. His Holiness, Pius X, brings to the Papacy an entirely newelement. He is no ascetic or exclusive ecclesiastic; he is no diplomator intriguant, but rather a simple, kindly man, of a simplicity totallyunprecedented in the annals of the Palazzo Vaticano. Instead of clingingwith unswerving intensity of devotion to the idea of the restoration ofthe temporal power of the church, Pope Pius X would not be disinclinedto the uniting of church and state as in England; the Vatican to remain, like the See of Canterbury, the acknowledged head of the spiritualpower, while the Quirinale remained the head of the government to whichthe church should give its political adherence, the Quirinale in returngiving to the Vatican its religious adherence. Perhaps it is not toomuch to say that something not unlike this might easily become--if it isnot already--the dream of Pius X. But in the mean time there is anotherfactor with which to reckon, and that is the present Papal Secretary ofState, Cardinal Merry del Val. He it is who really holds the mystic keyof St. Peter's. He is a diplomatist, an ecclesiastic, an embodiment ofall that is severe and archaic in authority. The Pope is by no meansable to set his course by his own watch-lights. The College of Cardinalssurrounds him, and the College of Cardinals is practically one Cardinal, the keen scholar and the all determining Cardinal Merry del Val, whosepersonality dominates the court of the Vatican. This remarkable prelaterepresents the most advanced and progressive thought of the day in manyways, --as has been noted in preceding pages, --but as a Jesuit he isunalterably devoted to what he considers the only ideal, --therestoration of the temporal power of the Pope. Spain revealed herattitude when King Alphonso asked of all the monarchs of Europe that thename of each should be borne by his infant son, the heir-apparent; andfor Italy he asked the name of the Pope and not of the King, thusrecognizing Pius X rather than Victor Emmanuel III as the head of thenation. 

That the Socialists have very logical and serious grounds for complaintis true. That their leader, Signor Enrico Ferri, an Italian journalistand a Senator, is one of the most able men in Italy since the time ofCavour is equally undeniable. The Socialists are fortunate, too, inother leading men. Turati, the editor of the _Critica Sociale_, Pantaleoni, Colajanni, and others are absolutely the hope of Italy atthe present time in the struggle for better conditions. For theconditions of life in Italy, as regards taxation, the problems oftransit, the government restrictions on agricultural production and onmanufactures, are absolutely intolerable and should not be endured for aday. The taxation is so exorbitant that it is a marvel Italy is notdepopulated. On land the tax rate is from thirty to fifty per cent; theincome tax is not merely, as one would suppose, levied on a legitimateincome derived from a man's possessions, but is levied on salaries, ranging from ten to twenty per cent of these, and also, not content withthis unheard-of extortion, the tax is levied on the nature and sourceof his salary, and even the smallest wage is thus subject to an incometax. Again, there is a most absurd tax on salt, which, like sugar andtobacco, is held as a government monopoly. No poor person living on theseacoast in Italy is allowed to take even a pail of water from the seato his house, as the government assumes that, by evaporation, it mightyield a few grains of salt. The tax on sugar effectually checks anindustry that might be made most profitable, that of putting up fruit injams, jellies, and compote, and renders the price of these commoditiesabsurdly high. Again, when taxes are paid the process is even worse thanthe unjust and exorbitant tax itself. No one is allowed to send a checkor postal order; no tax gatherer calls at the home or the office. Eachperson must go himself or send a personal representative to a givenplace between certain hours. Here stand a long procession, each personin town going up, filling out pages of written formalities; talking ofeach item and discussing it according to the national custom, until theoffice hours are over for that day, and often not one-fourth of thepersons waiting have been served. All then must take their chances thenext day, and perhaps even a third or a fourth day, --a loss of time andenergy that in no other country would be tolerated for a moment. Buttime has not yet any recognizable value in Italy. Every enterprise andmanufacture is taxed in Italy, and as the returns of these areinevitably revealed so that no evasion is possible, and as the exactionsof the government consume nearly all the profits, the result is that allbusiness enterprises are discouraged and that Italy swarms with a greatidle population, while nearly all articles and supplies are importedfrom other countries, with the payment of enormous duties, making theircost far greater, proportionately, than their value. 

There are great tracts of country in Southern Italy suitable for tobaccoraising, but (as it is one of the government monopolies) people areforbidden to raise it; and in private gardens only three plants arepermitted. Again, all industries are crippled, if not paralyzed, by thetax at the frontier, and also by the tax at every gate of every city. Atevery _porta_ in Rome are stationed government officers who scrutinizeevery box, basket, and package; and all fruit, eggs, garden stuff, milk, and commodities of every kind are taxed as they are brought insidethe walls. 

The railroads of Italy are, at present, very poor in all facilities oftransit. Within a year the Italian government has "taken over" theseroads and better conditions are promised, which are, alas! not yet insight. There are many "counts" to the indictment against the Italianrailroads which are only suitable to adorn the very lowest circles ofthe Inferno described by Dante. They are uncleanly; the roadbeds are sorough that the miserably built compartments jolt and jostle over thetracks; the seats are so high that the feet can hardly touch the floor, and the facilities for light and air are as badly managed as is possibleto conceive. As is well known, these are divided into first, second, andthird class, these compartments all being in the same train, and betweenthe first and second there is little difference save that of price. Curiously, the price of even second-class travelling in Italy is overhalf a cent a mile higher than that of the splendid trains in America, with their swift time, their smooth roadbeds, their admirableconveniences in every way. Again, no luggage is carried free, and theprices asked for it are extortionate beyond words. One may check all hisimpedimenta from San Francisco to New York without extra charge; but ingoing from Rome to Naples, or from Florence to Genoa to sail, the sameluggage will cost from six to eight dollars to convey it to the steamer. Again, these railroads pay their employés so poorly that only the mostinefficient service can be retained at all; only those persons who arethe absolute prisoners of poverty will consent to accept such meagrelypaid service. 

The Italian government consists, like that of most countries, of anupper and lower house, the Senate and the House of Deputies. But theformer is rather a matter of miscellaneous honors than one of politicalinitiative. There is no limit to the number of Senators; they arecreated by being named by the King, and the office is for life. If a manattracts the favorable notice of the King, --because he is a good artist, engineer, archæologist, chemist, or financier, --presto, he is liable tobe made a Senator. Canova, the celebrated sculptor, was made a Senatorbecause, indeed, he was a great artist! There is one condition, however, that a Senator must be one who pays annually not less thanthree thousand lire in taxes. The Senators receive no salary, and theirtimes of meeting are uncertain and no man's presence is obligatory. TheHouse of Deputies has five hundred and eight members, all of whom mustbe Italian subjects over thirty years of age. They have no salary, butare given the entire freedom of the realm in all transit on railroadsand steamers. The Chamber of Deputies is largely made up of professionalmen, and it is little wonder that the Socialists are demanding an entirereform in the government of the country. There was never in any countrymore defective conditions than now prevail in Italy. The very fact thatthe young King is an estimable gentleman, who is personally not in theleast to blame for the prevailing status of unfortunate conditions, isin one way an added misfortune, as the personal loyalty he justlyinspires militates by so much against the revolution in government whichis so deeply a necessity of Italy before her better and more prosperouslife can begin. It is now a country of stagnation. All Southern andCentral Italy simply lives off its tourists; and every year prices andfees and extortion in general from the visitors to Italy become greater. 

Senator Enrico Ferri, the leader of Socialism in Italy, was born in 1856in Mantua. He had a university education, was admitted to the bar, andin 1881 was called to the chair of penal law in the University ofBologna. The Senator is a scientific Socialist, --a man of the mostexceptional gifts and qualities, and the author of a noted work, entitled "Criminal Sociology, " which is translated into severallanguages. Senators Ferri and Lombroso are special friends and alsoco-workers. 

On taking his seat in the University of Bologna, Professor Ferridelivered a lecture, entitled "New Horizons in Penal Law, " which was amost impressive effort. In it he said:--

 "It was in this inaugural discourse that I affirmed the existence of the positivist school of criminal law, and assigned to it these two fundamental rules: First, while the classical schools of criminal law have always studied the crime and neglected the criminal, the object of the positivist school was, in the first place, to study the criminal, so that, instead of the crime being regarded merely as a juridical fact, it must be studied with the aid of biology, of psychology, and of criminal statistics as a natural and social fact, transforming the old criminal law into a criminal sociology. Secondly, while the classical schools, since Beccaria and Howard, have fulfilled the historic mission of decreasing the punishments as a reaction from the severity of the mediæval laws, the object of the positivist school is to decrease the offence by investigating its natural and social causes in order to apply social remedies more efficacious and more humane than the penal counteraction, always slow in its effects, especially in its cellular system, which I have called one of the aberrations of the nineteenth century. "

Such is the man to whom it is no extravagance to allude as one of thepresent leaders of progress in Italy. He is in the early prime of maturelife; he is a man of education, culture, great original gifts, and ofsympathies with humanity as wise and judicious as they are liberal andall-embracing. Scientific Socialism tolerates no lawlessness, noviolence, nor does it, like the so-called Christian Socialism, attemptto graft impossible conditions on society. It regards the laws ofeconomics, and it is practicable and possible as well as considerate andjust. And the great inspirer, proclaimer, and leader of scientificSocialism is Enrico Ferri. 

Italy not only inspires the enthusiasm of the lover of beauty in natureand art, she inspires a vital and abiding interest in all that shallmake for her true progress, and she inspires, as well, absolute faith inher ultimate future. At present her monarchy is among the most liberaland progressive of Europe. King Victor Emmanuel is a man of integrity, of intelligence, and of devotion to the best interests of his country ashe understands these interests to be. If they might be better served bya more democratic form of government, it is hardly to be asked orexpected that such a view should present itself to an hereditarymonarch. Among the most liberal element there are not wanting men whobelieve that for the immediate future the present form of government isthe most feasible. In their conviction Italy is by no means prepared tobe a republic. The masses of the people are uneducated; and a greatwork, requiring time, must be effected in the popularization ofintelligence and of instruction, before democratic government could beadopted. Yet there is no faltering in the outlook on a glorious future. The noble words of Mazzini still ring in the Italian air: "Walk infaith, and fear not. Believe, and you will conquer. " By way of enforcinghis convictions Mazzini said:--

 "Upon a day in the sixteenth century, at Rome, some men bearing the title of _Inquisitors_, who assumed to derive wisdom and authority from God himself, were assembled to decree the immobility of the earth. A prisoner stood before them. His brow was illumined by genius. He had outstripped time and mankind, and revealed the secret of a world. 

 "It was Galileo. 

 "The old man shook his bold and venerable head. His soul revolted against the absurd violence of those who sought to force him to deny the truths revealed to him by God. But his pristine energy was worn down by long suffering and sorrow; the monkish menace crushed him. He strove to submit. He raised his hand, he too, to declare the immobility of the earth. But as he raised his hand, he raised his weary eyes to that heaven they had searched throughout long nights to read thereon one line of the universal law; they encountered a ray of that sun which he so well knew motionless amid the moving spheres. Remorse entered his heart: an involuntary cry burst from the believer's soul: _Eppur si muove!_ and yet it moves. 

 "Three centuries have passed away. Inquisitors, --inquisition, --absurd theses imposed by force, --all these have disappeared. Naught remains but the well-established movement of the earth, and the sublime cry of Galileo floating above the ages. 

 "Child of Humanity, raise thy brow to the sun of God, and read upon the heavens: _It moves. _ Faith and action! The future is ours. "

"Poetry, " added Mazzini, "will teach the young the nobleness ofsacrifice, of constancy, and silence; of feeling one's self alonewithout despairing, in an existence of suffering unknown ormisunderstood; in long years of bitterness, wounds, and delusion, endured without murmur or lament; it will teach them to have faith inthings to come, and to labor unceasingly to hasten their coming, eventhough without hope of living to witness their triumph;" and his finalword in this great invocation to the new potencies of the opening futureis an exhortation to believe in all greatness and goodness. "Faith, " hesaid, "which is intellect, energy, and love, will put an end to thediscords existing in a society which has neither church nor leaders;which invokes a new world, but forgets to ask its secret, its Word, fromGod. " In universal education must lie the first national aid to thedevelopment of Italy. "_L'anima del gran mondo è l'allegria. _"

As Florence is pre-eminently the city of culture, so is Milan ofactivities. Her keynote is _modernité_. The visitor is at once impressedby her energy, her enterprise, and her commercial prosperity. Milan hasthe best municipal facilities and conveniences in all Italy. Theelectric lighting of streets, public buildings, and residences, thestreet transit, the arrangement and conduct of shops and all industrialmatters, are in such contrast to any other city in Italy as to lead thesojourner to ask himself whether he can still be on the southern side ofthe Alpine range. In the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele Milan has the mostwonderful structure in all Europe. This arcade was built in 1865, andunder the magnificent glass dome it includes nearly one hundred of themost attractive and well-stocked shops, bazaars, and establishments. Thedome is decorated with frescoes and caryatides, and with the statues ofnumbers of eminent men, among whom are Dante, Raphael, Savonarola, andCavour. The offices and banks in Milan are centres of incessant energy. 

For all this stress of activity the visitor does not, however, forgetthe art features; the visit to the antique Church of St. Ambrosio; tothe old convent where Leonardo da Vinci's celebrated fresco, "The LastSupper, " is to be seen, though so faded that it is now difficult todiscern all the figures. Nor does he fail to climb the wonderfulcathedral that lifts its airy grace, as if about to float upward in theskies. Every flight of the steps, in the ascent, brings one to a newvision of beauty. On the roof of this cathedral one wanders as in a veryforest of sculpture. Its scheme of decoration includes more than twothousand statues, two of which are by Canova. From the summit, when theair is clear, there are beautiful views of the Alps. 

To the savant and scholar the Ambrosian library in Milan is one of thespecial treasures of Europe. It contains some of the most rare andvaluable manuscripts in the entire world, --some of Virgil's withannotations from Petrarcha; a manuscript of Dante's; drawings byLeonardo da Vinci, and other interesting matters of which no othercopies exist. 

The Magic Land is seen under its most bewitching spell in the region ofthe Italian lakes. The palace of Isola Bella; the charming gardens; thelake of Como, green-walled in hills whose luxuriant foliage and bloomform a framework for the white villas that cluster on their terracedslopes, --all form a very fairyland of ethereal, rose-embowered beauty. At night the lakes are a strange, unreal world of silver lights andshadows. 

The completion of the Simplon tunnel has opened between Italy and Parisa route not only offering swifter facilities for transit, but addinganother to the regions of beauty. This route has also still furtherincreased the commercial importance of Milan, the portal and metropolisof Northern Italy. Milan has become the national centre of allscientific and technical pursuits, and it is fairly the Mecca for youngmen of Central and Southern Italy who are entering into the professions, or into civil and electrical engineering and other of the technical artsand industries. 

Bologna, with her historic University, with the long covered arcades ofthe streets, the fountain, which is the work of Giovanni di Bologna, andthe gallery where many of Guido's best works are placed, has itsindividual interest for the tourist; and Verona, Pavia, Modena, Parma, and Turin all repay a visit from the leisurely saunterer in Italy. 

Pisa offers to the visitor four interesting architectural monuments inthe Duomo, the Baptistery, the Leaning Tower, and the Campo Santo, allof which are unique. The cathedral has unique designs in its black andwhite marbles that render it almost as much an object of artistic studyas is the cathedral in Siena. The view from the summit of the LeaningTower reveals the Mediterranean six miles in the distance, gleaming likea sea of silver. The Campo Santo dates from the thirteenth century, when the earth of which it is composed was brought (in 1228) from theholy places in Jerusalem, conveyed to the city (then a seaport) by fiftygalleys sent out by the Republic of Pisa. The interior walls of theCampo Santo are covered with fresco paintings by Orcagna which are oneof the artistic spectacles of the country in their extravagant portrayalof theological beliefs, so realistically presented in their dramaticscenes from Paradise and from Hades, as to leave nothing to theimagination. The fantasies in this emblematic sculpture of memorialmonuments over a period of seven hundred years can be seen in the CampoSanto of Pisa, --a strange and often a most grotesque medley. 

Genoa is well named La Superba. Her thoroughfares are streets ofpalaces. Her terraced gardens and villas, reached by the subterraneanfunicular street railway, are regions of unique and incomparable beauty, with the blue Mediterranean at their feet. Genoa is the paradise forwalking. The streets are largely inaccessible to carriages, but theadmirable street electric railway penetrates every locality. It passesin dark tunnels under the hills, reappears on the high terraces, andclimbs every height. From the crest of one of these Corsica can often beseen. All the hill-slopes are a dream of pictorial grandeur, with theirterraces, their palaces, their sculpture, fountains, and flowers. On thesummit of almost every hill there is a fortress, and often rampartswhich are silhouetted, in dark masses, against the sky. Orange grovesabound on the terraces, often showing the golden fruit, buds, andblossoms all at the same time. 

Genoa is fairly a metropolis of sculpture. The great families havethemselves perpetuated in portrait statues rather than in paintedportraits. In one of the grand ducal palaces in the Via Balbi thevisitor may see, not only the life-size statues and the busts of thefamily ancestry, but one group comprising nine figures, where threegenerations are represented, in both sitting and standing poses, ingeniously combined. 

The churches of Genoa are among the richest in Europe. That of theAnnunziata, the special monument of the Lomellini family, glitters andgleams with its gold ceilings and rich frescoes. The cathedral has thespecial allurement of the emerald dish which King Solomon received asa gift from the Queen of Sheba. The little "street of the jewellers" isan alluring place, --so narrow that one can almost stand in the centre ofthe road and touch the shop windows on either hand, and these windowsdazzle the eye with their fascinating glitter of gold and silverfiligree work and their rich jewels. 

 [Illustration: CAMPO SANTO, GENOA _Page 453_]

Beyond all other curious excursions that even a Magic Land can offer isthat to the Campo Santo of Genoa. A cloistered promenade encloses asquare, and above are terraced colonnades, each and all revealingstatues, and monuments, and groups of sculpture whose varied beauty, oddity, or bizarre effects are a curious study. Some memorials--as oneof an angel with outstretched wings; another of a flight of angelsbearing the soul away; another combining the figure of Christ with thecross, and angels hovering near--are full of beauty. Others are a marvelof ingenious and incongruous combination. One of the latter representsthe man whose memory it commemorates as lying on his bed in his lastillness; the physician stands by, his fingers on the patient's pulse;on the opposite side a maid is approaching with a dish holding somearticle of food, and near the physician are grouped the wife, with alittle child clinging to her skirts; the son, holding his hat with bothhands and looking down on it, and the daughter, a young girl, with hereyes raised to heaven. Each of these figures is in life size; the bed isreproduced in marble, with the pillows and all the coverings in the mostabsolute realism, and the entire effect is so startling in its bizarreaspect that one could hardly believe in its existence until by personalobservation he had verified so singular a monument. 

Yet there is beauty and symbolic loveliness, too, in many of thememorial sculptures of this Campo Santo, and turning away from thiscemetery in which lies the body of the noble Mazzini, one hears on theair the refrain of his words on Dante:--

 "It appeared to him of more importance to hasten to accomplish his mission upon earth, than to meditate upon the inevitable hour which marks for all men the beginning of a new task. And if at times he speaks of weariness of life, it is only because he sees evil more and more triumphant in the places where his mission was appointed. He concerned himself, not about the length or the shortness of life, but about the end for which life was given; for he felt God in life, and knew the creative virtue there is in action. "

Eighty thousand people followed Mazzini to his tomb, and his name livesin the Italy of to-day as one to be associated with that of Dante asprophet and inspirer. 

The enchantment of approaching Genoa from the sea at night is anexperience to remain as one of the pictorial treasures of memory. Themagnificent _lanterna_, the lighthouse with its revolving light, thatcan be seen for fifty miles out from the coast; the brilliantillumination defining the _fortezza_ on the summit of one hill; thecurving lights of the terraced residential district and the illuminationof the very forest of shipping clustered in the bay, --all combine into ascene not easily effaced from the memories of foreign scenes. 

It is only in close relations with Italian literature that Italy can beadequately enjoyed and that the sojourner may enter into sympatheticassociations with contemporary Italian life. Dr. Richard Garnettbelieves that the literature of Italy "is a less exhaustivemanifestation than elsewhere of the intellect of the nation, " and that"the best energies of the country are employed in artistic production. It is, indeed, remarkable, " he continues, "that out of the nine Italiansmost brilliantly conspicuous in the first rank of genius andachievement, --Aquinas, Dante, Columbus, Leonardo, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Titian, Galileo, Napoleon, --only one should have been a man ofletters. "

Contemporary Italian literature follows the trend of the day inreflecting the life of the people. The novels of Fogazzaro, the poems ofCarducci, the biography and history written by Villari, to say nothingof several other writers who, while not approaching these authors, havestill a definite place in the literature of the present, offerillumination on the outer scenery of life, and offer interpretation ofthe life itself. Art has declined; literature has advanced in Italy, even within the past decade. The law of progress is as inevitable as isthe law of gravitation. 

 "Onward the chariot of the Unvarying moves; Nor day divulges him nor night conceals; Thou hear'st the echo of unreturning hooves, And thunder of irrevocable wheels. "

The future of Italy inspires faith in the renewal of its noblest idealsof achievement. Its ineffable beauty is a heritage of joy to everyvisitor who comes under the indescribable spell of its attraction andfinds that, in all the panorama of foreign life which haunts his memory, it is Italy which shines resplendent as the Magic Land!

INDEX

 Accademia des Arcades, Rome, 334. 

 Accadémia di San Luca, oldest art school, 44; location of, 45; galleries of, 46, 47, 48. 

 Acqua Sacra, 428. 

 Akers, Paul, in Rome, 10; early death of, 53; work of, 54, 55; quoted, 56; Hawthorne's estimate of, 57. 

 Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, quoted, 387. 

 Allen, Elizabeth Akers, quoted, 53. 

 Amalfi, 253-257; destruction of, 258, 259. 

 Ambrosian library, Milan, 449. 

 American Academy, Rome, 214. 

 American Embassy, Rome, location of, 153; ball at, 164-167; receptions at, 169. 

 Anderson, Hendrick Christian, in Rome, 10. 

 Angelo, Michael, work of, 22, 23, 312; message of, 117; friendship with Vittoria Colonna, 290; Longfellow's poem on, 308-310; art of, 313, 314; quoted, 314, 316, 317, 318, 323; gift to Vittoria Colonna, 318; meeting with Francesco d'Ollanda, 322, 323, 324; Walter Pater's estimate of, 327, 328, 329. 

 Annunziata Cathedral, Genoa, 452. 

 Aquinas, Thomas, birthplace of, 276; tomb of, 331; monastery of, 333. 

 Aquinum, 277. 

 "Arcadians, " meetings of, 150. 

 Ariosto, 306. 

 Art, as leader of popular taste, 115; inspired by religious ideals, 116; Renaissance in, 117; national importance of, 117; ignored, 118; relation to ugliness, 119; falseness of, 121; influence on life, 122; united with religion, 123. 

 Assisi, pilgrimage to, 341, 344; founding of, 345; points of interest in, 345, 346; Canon Knox Little's description of, 348; as a shrine, 385. 

 Assisi, Bishop of, 354, 364. 

 Assisi, St. Francis of, 123, 124; message of, 342; birthplace of, 345; impress of, 347; parents of, 348, 349; early life of, 350; legends regarding, 351; quoted, 352, 354, 356; supreme aim of, 353; Rule of, 353, 354; prayer of, 356; character of, 357; incident in early life of, 360; first ministry of, 363; first disciple of, 364; at the Portiuncula, 365; friendship with Clara, 365, 367, 368; legends regarding, 370; death of, 372; miracles of, 375; tomb of, 378. 

 Bagot, Richard, in Rome, 11, 13. 

 Baia, 241. 

 Baldwin, Rev. Dr. , in Rome, 10, 171. 

 Ball, Thomas, work of, 52. 

 Balzac, quoted, 120. 

 Barberini, Cardinal, 72. 

 Baths of Caracalla, 139. 

 Baths of Diocletian, 184. 

 Bell, John, grave of, 216. 

 Bembo, Cardinal, 306. 

 Benedictines, 354, 365. 

 Benton, Dwight, grave of, 221; estimate of, 221. 

 Bernardino of Siena, 382, 383; quoted, 383. 

 Bernini, Lorenzo, work of, 22. 

 Besant, Mrs. Annie, 174. 

 Biblioteca Sarti, 48. 

 "Blacks, " 145, 146. 

 Bologna, 450. 

 Bonaparte, Princess Christina, death of, 203. 

 Boni, Commendatore, opinion of, 244. 

 Boni, Giovanni M. , 403. 

 Bronson, Mrs. Arthur, 409, 410. 

 Brooks, Rev. Phillips, in Rome, 15; quoted, 16, 39, 388, 394, 395. 

 Brownell, W. C. , quoted, 96. 

 Browning, Elizabeth B. , in Rome, 11; quoted, 60, 114, 125, 389; death of, 80, 408; meeting with Mrs. Bronson, 410, 411. 

 Browning Palace, 406, 410, 411, 412, 413. 

 Browning, Robert, quoted, 3, 407, 408; in Rome, 11, 70; in Venice, 406; death of, 408. 

 Browning, Miss Sarianna, 408, 413. 

 Buono, 236. 

 Byron, Lord, in Rome, 22; quoted, 22, 403. 

 Campagna, 73, 205. 

 Campanile, fall of, 406. 

 Campo Verano, 76. 

 Campo Santo of Pisa, 450, 451, 453. 

 Campidoglio, buildings on, 25. 

 Campriani, 237. 

 Canova, in Rome, 7; his genius, 33; masterpiece of, 42; realism of, 118. 

 Capella Sistina, 27. 

 Capo Miseno, 241. 

 Capri, island of, 262, 263, 264; roses of, 266. 

 Capuano, Cardinal, legends of, 256. 

 Capuccini, convent of, 255. 

 Carducci, 143. 

 Carter, Professor Jesse Benedict, in Rome, 169. 

 Carter, Mrs. Jesse Benedict, 34, 37, 169. 

 Casa Buonarroti, 312. 

 Casino Borghese, 185. 

 Castel d'Ischia, 292, 293, 294. 

 Castellammare, 250. 

 Castle Gandolfo, 286. 

 Castiglione, 306. 

 Cecioni's "La Madre, " 121. 

 Cestius, Caius, tomb of, 215. 

 Channing, Grace Ellery, 10, 91. 

 Chapel of Holy Sacrament, 202. 

 Chateaubriand, in Rome, 21; quoted, 21. 

 Cicero's villa, remains of, 207. 

 Cimabue, 376, 378. 

 Cole, Thomas, in Rome, 9. 

 Coleman, Charles Caryl, home of, 263. 

 College of Cardinals, 435. 

 Colonna, Fabrizio, 290. 

 Colonna family, 285, 288, 289, 306, 307. 

 Colonna palace and gardens, 131. 

 Colonna, Vittoria, home of, 282; quoted, 283, 303; parents of, 285; early childhood of, 286, 288; horoscope of, 289; destiny of, 290; betrothal of, 290; marriage of, 294, 295; early married life of, 295, 296; quoted, 297, 298, 300, 303, 305, 319, 320, 321; in Pope Leo's court, 302; her husband's death, 302; removal of, 304; fame of, 306; return to Rome of, 307; Longfellow's picture of, 308, 309, 310, 325, 326, 327; travels of, 308, 311; her influence with Michael Angelo, 313; life in Rome and Orvieto, 314; receives letters and sonnet from Michael Angelo, 317; receives present from Michael Angelo, 318; arranges meeting of Michael Angelo and Francesco d'Ollanda, 322, 323, 324; Walter Pater's comments on, 328; death of, 329; last prayer of, 330; burial of, 331; tomb of, 332; bust of, 334; fame of, 335, 336; Margaret J. Preston's poem on, 337. 

 Condivi, quoted, 313. 

 Contarini, Cardinal, 306. 

 Corsini chapel, 152. 

 Crawford, Marion, in Rome, 11, 13. 

 Crawford, Thomas, in Rome, 49; career of, 51; poem on, 52. 

 Crow, Hon. Wayman, 61. 

 Cumæ, 241. 

 Cumæan Sibyl, 242. 

 da Bisticci, Vespasiano, 383. 

 Dalbano, Edoardo, 236. 

 Dana, Richard Henry, 219. 

 Dante, quoted, 267-270; Mazzini's estimate of, 454. 

 d'Avalos, Donna Constanza, 291. 

 d'Avalos, Francesco, 290, 294, 295. 

 De Castro, Consul General, in Rome, 169. 

 Decline of art, 31. 

 d'Ollanda, Francesco, 322-324. 

 del Val, Cardinal Merry, 146-149, 435. 

 del Vasto, Marchese, 299. 

 De Monici, chronicles of, 398. 

 de Staël, Mme. , in Rome, 11, 22. 

 Dietsch, C. Percival, in Rome, 10. 

 di Francavilla, Duchess, 291-293. 

 di Mercanti, Pica, 349, 350. 

 di Mercanti, Pietro Bernardone, 348, 349. 

 di Pescara, Marchesa, 296, 298, 299, 300, 301, 302, 306, 311, 312, 322, 331, 332, 335. 

 di Pescara, Marchese, 292, 296, 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 331, 332. 

 Doges, Palace of, 400-403. 

 Dolce, Ludovico, 306. 

 Don Erasmo Gattola, 273. 

 Duca de Torlonia, family of, 205. 

 Duff, Lina Gordon, quoted, 374. 

 Dupaty, quoted, 16. 

 Duran, M. Carolus, in Rome, 166, 167. 

 Elena, Queen, 140, 142, 179. 

 Eliot, George, quoted, 252. 

 Emerson, Mary Moody, letters to, 12. 

 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, in Rome, 12; quoted, 85. 

 Emmons, Miss Elise, in Rome, 167. 

 Esposito, 237. 

 Ezekiel, Moses, in Rome, 10; studios of, 97. 

 Fawcett, Edgar, quoted, 417. 

 Ferrara, Duca and Duchessa of, 311. 

 Ferri, Signor Enrico, 436, 442; quoted, 442. 

 Festus, quoted, 30. 

 Field, Kate, in Rome, 12. 

 Florence, culture of, 430, 431. 

 Fra Ambrosia, 322. 

 Franciscan, 367. 

 Frascati, visited, 205. 

 Galileo, in Rome, 139, 445. 

 Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, 448. 

 Garibaldi, villa of, 239. 

 Garnett, Dr. Richard, quoted, 456. 

 Genoa, 430; features of, 451; as a metropolis of sculpture, 452; churches of, 452; enchantment of, 455. 

 Ghiberto, Bishop, 311. 

 Gibson, John, in Rome, 10, 36; quoted, 34, 37, 59; grave of, 221. 

 Giotto, 376, 377, 379. 

 Giovio, Paolo, 306. 

 Gladstone, in Rome, 11. 

 Goethe, in Rome, 11, 20; quoted, 20. 

 Goethe, August, grave of, 216. 

 Goldoni, Carlo, centenary of, 413; memorial of, 414. 

 Good Friday, service in Rome, 200, 201. 

 Greenough, Horatio, in Rome, 10; work of, 49; death, 50. 

 Greenough, Mrs. Horatio, 335. 

 Greenough, Richard, in Rome, 10, 58; grave of, 217. 

 Greenough, Sarah B. , tomb of, 218. 

 Grotto de Matrimonia, 263. 

 Grotto Ferrata, 209. 

 Guili, Commendatore Conte, 214. 

 Guthers, Carl, work of, 236. 

 Hare, Augustus William, grave of, 221. 

 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, quoted, 45, 57, 67, 195. 

 Healy, Mr. , in Rome, 19. 

 Herculaneum, 242; excavations in, 244; Professor Spinazzola on, 242, 243; destruction of, 244; theatre in, 247. 

 Hillard, George Stillman, in Rome, 12; quoted, 23, 24, 51, 230, 248. 

 Holy Week, in Rome, 200. 

 Hosmer, Harriet, in Rome, 10, 59, 60, 61; work of, 62. 

 Howe, Dr. Samuel Gridley, in Rome, 12. 

 Howe, Julia Ward, in Rome, 12. 

 Howells, William Dean, in Rome, 13, 416. 

 Howitt, William and Mary, graves of, 216. 

 Hugo, Victor, 41. 

 Ischia, 281; romantic impressions of, 282; home of Vittoria Colonna, 282; the d'Avalos castle in, 291; as an enchanted island, 296; Vittoria's return to, 299, 305. 

 Italy, land of romance and song, 6; Mazzini's opinion of, 65; true life of, 423; as a youthful country, 424; relation with United States, 425; traveller in, 425; picture of idyllic days in, 427; approach to, 429; cities of, 429, 430; in the making, 431; politics of, 432; Socialistic uprising in, 433; taxation in, 436-438; railroads in, 439, 440; government of, 440, 441; future of, 444, 457; lakes of, 449; contemporary literature of, 456. 

 James, Henry, in Rome, 11, 13. 

 Jameson, Mrs. , in Rome, 67; quoted, 193. 

 Johnson, Robert Underwood, quoted, 416, 421. 

 Juvenal, birthplace of, 277. 

 Keats, in Rome, 11, 132; memorial, 133; grave of, 216. 

 Kemble, Adelaide, in Rome, 68. 

 Kemble, Fanny, in Rome, 68. 

 Keynote of life, 359. 

 Khayyam, Omar, quoted, 1, 94. 

 Lacus Avernus, 240. 

 Lanciani, Professor, lectures by, 138, 139; opinion of, 244, 333. 

 Leaning Tower of Pisa, 450. 

 Libraries of Rome, 214, 223. 

 Lister, Mrs. , in Rome, 172. 

 Liszt, Abbé, in Rome, 18, 19. 

 Little, Canon Knox, quoted, 347, 348, 376, 377, 380. 

 Lodge, Sir Oliver, quoted, 120. 

 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, in Rome, 12; quoted, 16, 17, 125, 253, 274, 279, 281, 308, 309, 310, 325, 327, 387. 

 Longfellow, Rev. Samuel, quoted, 18. 

 Lowell, James Russell, in Rome, 12. 

 Ludovisi collection, 185. 

 Luther, in Rome, 80; ascent of the Scala Santa, 156. 

 Margherita, Queen Mother, 140, 141; palace of, 142; quoted, 143; relations with artists, 144; at requiem mass, 179. 

 Marino, 286, 287. 

 Mazzini, 191, 192; quoted, 64, 422, 423, 444, 446; works of, 190, 191; estimate of, 191; tomb of, 454. 

 Mead, Larkin G. , in Rome, 10; work of, 53. 

 Mediæval Museum of Rome, 139. 

 Meredith, Owen, quoted, 2. 

 Metella, Cecilia, tomb of, 145. 

 Milan, activity of, 430, 447; structures of, 448; Ambrosian library of, 449; as scientific centre, 450. 

 Mills, Clark, in Rome, 10. 

 Milton, in Rome, 11, 19. 

 Misenus, burial place of, 241. 

 Monte Aquino, 276. 

 Monte Cairo, 277. 

 Monte Cassino, 304. 

 Monte Catria, 348. 

 Monte Mario, 21, 133. 

 Monte Pincio, 188. 

 Monte San Mano, 304. 

 Morelli, Domenico, work of, 234, 235. 

 Moulton, Louise Chandler, in Rome, 13; quoted, 13, 14, 95, 267, 340. 

 Myers, Frederick W. H. , memorial tablet to, 220. 

 Naples, described, 227-231; University of, 232; Museum, 233; natural attractions of, 237; hotels of, 238; Bay of, 265. 

 Nardi, Monsignore, in Rome, 18. 

 Nero's tomb, 78, 80. 

 Nisida, island of, 240. 

 Norton, Charles Eliot, quoted, 267. 

 Obelisk in Piazza del Popolo, 77. 

 Oldest art school, 44. 

 Oliphant, Mrs. , quoted, 357, 368. 

 Orvieto, 314. 

 Osso, Professor Dall', opinion of, 244. 

 Oxenham, Rev. Dr. And Mrs. Nutcombe, in Rome, 171. 

 Pæstum, 260, 261. 

 Page de Conti, 337. 

 Page, William, in Rome, 66. 

 Palatine Hill, 13, 112. 

 Palazzo Barberini, 72, 90. 

 Palazzo Bernini, 32. 

 Palazzo Bonaparte, 203. 

 Palazzo Brandolin-Rota, 409. 

 Palazzo Cesarini, 314, 329. 

 Palazzo del Drago, 163, 164. 

 Palazzo di Capodimonte, 233. 

 Palazzo di Donna Ana, 239. 

 Palazzo Margherita, 142. 

 Palazzo Municipio, 384. 

 Palazzo Quirinale, 142, 143, 432. 

 Palazzo Rezzonico, 406. 

 Palazzo Senni, 172. 

 Palazzo Tamagno, 104. 

 Palazzo Vaticano, 27. 

 Pantheon, 177; ceremonies at, 179. 

 Papal supremacy, 432. 

 Parsons, Thomas William, quoted, 52, 276. 

 Pater, Walter, quoted, 327, 328. 

 Perugia, town of, 381-384. 

 Perugino, 384. 

 Petrarcha, 258, 259, 400. 

 Phlegræan Plain, 240. 

 Piazza Barberini, 18. 

 Piazza del Popolo, 76, 80, 134. 

 Piazza di Spagna, 70, 133, 146. 

 Piazza di Trinità, 133. 

 Piazza San Giovanni, 151. 

 Pietro da Cortona, work of, 194. 

 Pisa, architectural monuments of, 450. 

 Pistolesi, quoted, 43. 

 Pliny, the Younger, quoted, 244. 

 Poe, quoted, 136. 

 Pompeii, 243, 245, 248. 

 Pope Adrian, 302. 

 Pope Clement XII, tomb of, 152. 

 Pope Julius II, 23, 27, 28. 

 Pope Leo XII, 302. 

 Pope Leo XIII, tomb of, 154. 

 Pope Paschal, dream of, 157. 

 Pope Paul III, 313. 

 Pope Pio Nono, 64, 75. 

 Pope Pius X, 145, 147; "passage" of, 196, 197; ceremonial receptions of, 146; residence of, 432; character of, 434; dream of, 435. 

 Portiuncula, 365, 366. 

 Posilipo, 239. 

 Powers, Hiram, in Rome, 10; America's first sculptor, 49; work, 50. 

 Pratello, 237. 

 Preston, Margaret J. , quoted, 280, 337. 

 Principessa d'Antuni, 163, 164. 

 Quattro Fontane, Via delle, 72. 

 Raphael, work of, 22, 46, 47, 79; genius of, 26; masterpieces of, 27; Franklin Simmons, opinion of, 29; inspiration of, 30; decline of art after, 31. 

 Ravello, Cathedral at, 260. 

 Ravenna, battle of, 296. 

 Read, Thomas Buchanan, in Rome, 67. 

 Realism, kinds of, 118. 

 _Regina Madre_, 140, 142. 

 Regio Palazzo del Quirinale, 143, 144. 

 Reid, Hon. Whitelaw, 105. 

 Reinhart, William, in Rome, 10. 

 Religion united with art, 123. 

 Renaissance in Italy, 117. 

 Richmond, Celia, 341. 

 Rocca di Papa, 287. 

 Rogers, Randolph, in Rome, 10; early death of, 53. 

 Roman environment, 93. 

 Rome, features of, 1; as artistic centre, 6, 10, 114; under Pontifical régime, 8; Longfellow's love for, 16; Goethe's impressions of, 20; work of Michael Angelo and Raphael in, 22; oldest art school of, 44; latter-day artists in, 49; Brownings in, 67; social life in, 113, 127; new bridge of, 128; in May, 129; in winter, 129, 130; in spring, 130, 132; festas in, 136; discussed by Professor Lanciani, 138; society in, 140, 141, 170; two courts of, 142; modern features of, 145; enchanting views in, 151; poetic symbolism in, 158-160; of the present day, breakfast-table talk in, 162; American Embassy in, 163; elevator service in, 164; American consulate in, 169; delightful hostesses in, 171, 172; attitude toward modern thought in, 173; Theosophical Society of, 173, 174; demand for apartments in, 175; sight-seeing in, 183; great palaces in, 187; famous drive of, 188; birthday celebrations of, 189; Republic of, 190; rich years to artists in, 192, 193; Papal ceremonies in, 195; curious spectacle in, 198; Holy Week in, 200; Good Friday service in, 200, 201; motoring from, 204, 205; outlying towns of, 207; American Academy in, 214; libraries of, 214; Protestant cemetery of, 215; literature of, 223; modern spirit in, 428. 

 Rosa, Salvator, 234. 

 Rosenkrans, Baroness, 173. 

 Rota, 329. 

 Ruskin, in Rome, 12; quoted, 398. 

 Sabatier, Paul, quoted, 362, 365. 

 Sallust, Gardens of, 140. 

 Salvatico, quoted, 401. 

 San Agostino, church of, 198. 

 San Caterina di Viterbo, 314. 

 San Francesco, church of, 345. 

 San Giovanni, 153. 

 San Marco, 394. 

 San Maria della Pace, 27. 

 San Maria dei Frari, 405. 

 San Silvestre, 32. 

 Sansovino, Jacob, work of, 399. 

 Santa Anna, convent of, 314. 

 Santa Chiara (Clara), 365; takes vows, 366, 367; founds convent, 368; family history of, 368; friendship with St. Francis of Assisi, 368; at death of Francis, 372; personality of, 373; preservation of body of, 374. 

 Santa Domenica Maggiore, church of, 303, 331, 333. 

 Santa Maria Degli Angeli, 345, 365, 380. 

 Santa Maria del Popolo, 78-80. 

 Santa Maria della Salute, 405. 

 Santa Monica, tomb of, 199. 

 Scala di Spagna, 72. 

 Scala Santa, 155; Luther's ascent of, 156. 

 Scifi, Count Favorini, 368. 

 Scott, Sir Walter, in Rome, 20. 

 Sejanus, fall of, 263. 

 Sermoneta, Duke of, in Rome, 18. 

 Severn, Joseph, grave of, 216. 

 Shelley, in Rome, 22; memorial, 133; quoted, 215; grave of, 216. 

 Simmons, Franklin, in Rome, 10, 15, 91, 98; quoted, 29; works of, 98-112; early life, 100; degrees conferred upon, 103; marriage of, 103; latest success of, 107; studios of, 112; realism of, 119; beautiful creation of, 121; grave of, 217. 

 Simmons, Mrs. Franklin, in Rome, 104; death of, 112; estimate of, 112; grave of, 218. 

 Sindoni, Turillo, 144. 

 Sistine Chapel, art in, 177. 

 Sorrento, 251, 252. 

 Spearman, Frank Hamilton, in Rome, 167; work of, 168. 

 Spinazzola, Professor, quoted, 242, 243. 

 St. Ambrosio, church of, 448. 

 St. Andrew, 256. 

 St. Benedict, work of, 270, 271; tomb of, 272; chapel of, 350. 

 St. Damian, chapel of, 356. 

 St. Gaudens, Augustus, in Rome, 10. 

 St. Gregory, feast of, 180. 

 St. Maria della Portiuncula, 351. 

 St. Mark's, Venice, 396, 397, 404. 

 St. Mark, tomb of, 397; legend regarding, 397. 

 St. Paola d'Orvieto, 314. 

 Stebbins, Emma, in Rome, 58. 

 Stetson, Charles Walker, in Rome, 10, 91; work of, 113. 

 Stetson, Mrs. Charles Walker, in Rome, 11; quoted, 426. 

 Stillman, Mr. , quoted, 39. 

 Story, Julian, in Rome, 91; studio of, 97. 

 Story, Waldo, in Rome, 91; studio of, 97; works of, 98. 

 Story, William Wetmore, in Rome, 10; first visit to Italy of, 62; in Florence, 65; quoted, 70, 80, 89, 90, 286; in Palazzo Barberini, Rome, 71; works of, 81-86; estimate of, 82-90; literary work of, 90; grave of, 217. 

 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, in Rome, 11. 

 Strada Nuova di Posilipo, 239. 

 Symonds, John Addington, grave of, 220; estimate of, 220; quoted, 261, 264, 315, 316. 

 Tasso, 252, 253, 335. 

 Tennyson's choice of pictures in Venice, 395. 

 Thackeray, in Rome, 69. 

 Theocritus, quoted, 85. 

 Theosophical Society of Rome, 173. 

 Thomas, Edith, quoted, 82. 

 Thompson, Launt, in Rome, 10. 

 Thorwaldsen, in Rome, 7, 10; quoted, 35; realism of, 119. 

 Tiberius, summer palace of, 262; baths of, 263. 

 Tilton, J. Rollin, in Rome, 10; grave of, 219. 

 Titian, tomb of, 405. 

 Torlonia, Duca and Duchessa of, 334. 

 Trelawney, grave of, 216. 

 Trinità di Monti, church of, 133. 

 Tusculum, 207. 

 Umberto, King, 142. 

 Umbrians, 345. 

 Urbino, 285. 

 Vanderlyn, in Rome, 10. 

 Vaughn, Monsignor, 181. 

 Vatican, galleries of, 112. 

 Vatican palace, 196, 198. 

 Vedder, Anita, in Rome, 171. 

 Vedder, Elihu, in Rome, 10; art of, 91-95; appreciation of, 96; works of, 96, 97; country house of, 262. 

 Vedder, Mrs. Elihu, in Rome, 170. 

 Venice, first glimpses of, 389; Grand Canal of, 390; in June, 391; color and loveliness of, 392; art of, 395, 396; origin of, 398; first Doge of, 399; Renaissance architecture in, 399; Doge's Palace, 400-404; art in, 404; fall of Campanile in, 406; Browning Palace in, 408-413; centenary of Carlo Goldoni celebrated in, 413, 414; art exhibition in, 415; June evening in, 416; as a poet's dream, 418. 

 Vernet, Horace, in Rome, 10. 

 Verona, 311. 

 Veronese, Paolo, 404. 

 Vesuvius, 229. 

 Via Bonella, 45. 

 Victor Emmanuel III, 118, 215, 432, 444. 

 Villa Aldobrandini, 208. 

 Villa Barberini, 209. 

 Villa Borghese, 14, 187. 

 Villa Doria, 211. 

 Villa Falconieri, 213. 

 Villa Jovis, 263. 

 Villa Medici, 4, 134. 

 Villa Nazionale, 238. 

 Villa Pamphilia Doria, 149. 

 Villa Torlonia, 206. 

 Virgil, quoted, 241; grotto of, 242. 

 Visconti, 329, 330. 

 Vittorio Emanuele, 214. 

 Waldstein, Dr. Charles, quoted, 245. 

 Ward, Mrs. Humphry, quoted, 210, 212. 

 Watson, William, quoted, 9, 25, 86, 87. 

 Wellman, Walter, 9. 

 West, Benjamin, in Rome, 10. 

 White, Mr. And Mrs. Henry, in Rome, 165. 

 "Whites, " 145. 

 Whitman, Walt, quoted, 422. 

 Whitney, Anne, in Rome, 10, 58. 

 Whittier, quoted, 339. 

 Wilberforce, Rev. Basil, quoted, 125, 341. 

 Woolson, Constance Fenimore, tomb of, 219. 

 Zuccaro, Federigo, 44. 

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 TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

 The original language, spelling, language and punctuation have been preserved. The following corrections were made to the original text:

 Page xii: Vittoria Colonna, Galleria Buonarotti, Florence Vittoria Colonna, Galleria Buonarroti, Florence

 Page 6: artistic centre of the ninteenth century and artistic centre of the nineteenth century and

 Page 19: on the wall of the _casa_ in the Via delle Quattre Fontane on the wall of the _casa_ in the Via delle Quattro Fontane

 page 26: the Palazzo Sentoriale and the Palazzo dei Conservatore. The Palazzo Senatoriale and the Palazzo dei Conservatori. 

 page 27: the Stanza della Incendio and the Sala di Constantino. The Stanza dell'Incendio and the Sala di Constantino. 

 page 32: winds on the Pont San Angelo, and in the vast winds on the Ponte San Angelo, and in the vast

 page 32: the Music Nazionale--is the group of "Pluto the Museo Nazionale--is the group of "Pluto

 page 55: during hs stay in Rome are 'St. Elizabeth of during his stay in Rome are 'St. Elizabeth of

 page 72: The Via delle Quatre Fontane, on which the The Via delle Quattro Fontane, on which the

 page 138: given under the auspices of the Societa Archeologica, given under the auspices of the Società Archeologica, page 148: _gentilinomo_, who is gorgeously arrayed in knee _gentiluomo_, who is gorgeously arrayed in knee

 page 161: Jacomletti, and there is also a kneeling statue Jacometti, and there is also a kneeling statue

 page 163: and the Via dell Quattro Fontane. The and the Via delle Quattro Fontane. The

 page 163: for living purposes. The portere, the guards, for living purposes. The portiere, the guards, page 170: and in the Vedder villa, _Torre Quatro Venti_ and in the Vedder villa, _Torre Quattro Venti_

 page 171: the American wife of Caviliere Cortesi, an the American wife of Cavaliere Cortesi, an

 page 178: Peruzzi, and Annibale Caracci. Raphael is Peruzzi, and Annibale Carracci. Raphael is

 page 185: that includes the "Ludovisi Mars;" Hercules, " that includes the "Ludovisi Mars;" "Hercules, "

 page 200: he may rest, _mens conscia recta_! he may rest, _mens conscia recti_!

 page 205: whose grand Roman palazzo is in the Boca di whose grand Roman palazzo is in the Bocca di

 page 213: The Villa Falconicri, in Frascati, which was The Villa Falconieri, in Frascati, which was

 page 234: Benvenuto Cellini at the Castel Sant Angelo; Benvenuto Cellini at the Castel Sant'Angelo;

 page 237: of the street scenes of Naples; Camprani and of the street scenes of Naples; Campriani and

 page 244: Forum, succeding Lanciani--believe that some Forum, succeeding Lanciani--believe that some

 page 244: equestrian statue of Bulbi, in the Naples Museum, equestrian statue of Balbo, in the Naples Museum, page 260: The cathedral at Revello has traces of the The cathedral at Ravello has traces of the

 page 260: of the Palazzo Rufelo might enchant Hafiz himself. Of the Palazzo Rufolo might enchant Hafiz himself. 

 page 272: Mignano (Ginodone Trieramosca) and also to Mignano (Guidone Fieramosca) and also to

 page 272: are a series of fresco paintings by Luca Gindano, are a series of fresco paintings by Luca Giordano, page 272: by Mazzarappi and Marco da Siena. Nothing by Mazzaroppi and Marco da Siena. Nothing

 page 274: Terre di Lavorno region:-- Terra di Lavoro region:--

 page 276: to be a "Monumento Nazionali, " and it is now to be a "Monumento Nazionale, " and it is now

 page 286: in the "Inferno. " The Colonna and the Orsino in the "Inferno. " The Colonna and the Orsini

 page 286: look down from Castel Gondolfo on the gloomy, look down from Castel Gandolfo on the gloomy, page 287: Marino, Castel Gondolfo, and Frascati, with Marino, Castel Gandolfo, and Frascati, with

 page 295: for the country they left Naples for Pietzalba for the country they left Naples for Pietralba

 page 295: Musefico, il Givoio, and il Minturo. It was an Musefico, il Giovio, and il Minturno. It was an

 page 297: Per te narrar tre quante dubbie voglie, Per te narrar tra quante dubbie voglie, page 297: Fra quanti aspri martir, degliosa io vivo!_" Fra quanti aspri martir, dogliosa io vivo!_"

 page 304: San Mano that had formerly been its property. San Magno that had formerly been its property. 

 page 305: world's sun; and not to add light to _mio vel solo_, world's sun; and not to add light to _mio bel sole_, page 332: "_Bene scripsisti de me, Thoma; quam ergo mercedem recipris?_" "_Bene scripsisti de me, Thoma; quam ergo mercedem recipies?_"

 page 380: Bonaventuri built over it, is preserved in this Bonaventura built over it, is preserved in this

 page 385: the Palazzo Rospigliosa in Rome. The Palazzo Rospigliosi in Rome. 

 page 399: Anopeste, elected by the tribunal of commonalty, Anafesto, elected by the tribunal of commonalty, page 400: mural work by Battesta Franco and De Moro. Mural work by Battista Franco and De Moro. 

 page 400: One enters the Porta delta Carta, which One enters the Porta della Carta, which

 page 405: Peter, Maucis, and Antoninus are commending Peter, Francis, and Antoninus are commending

 page 426: Saricinesco, in the region of Tivoli, was made Saracinesco, in the region of Tivoli, was made

 page 436: too, in other leading men. Zurati, the too, in other leading men. Turati, the

 page 452: in Europe. That of the Annunziati, the in Europe. That of the Annunziata, the

 page 461: Annunziati Cathedral, Genoa, 452. Annunziata Cathedral, Genoa, 452. 

 page 462: Camprani, 237. Campriani, 237. 

 page 463: del Vall, Cardinal Merry, 146-149, 435. Del Val, Cardinal Merry, 146-149, 435. 

 page 466: Ossi, Professor Dall, opinion of, 244. Osso, Professor Dall', opinion of, 244. 

 page 467: Quatre Fontane, Via delle, 72. Quattro Fontane, Via delle, 72. 

 page 467: Revello, Cathedral at, 260. Ravello, Cathedral at, 260. 

 page 470: Villa Falconicri, 213. Villa Falconieri, 213. 

On page 235: "Da Scala d'Oro" should be "La Scala d'Oro" or"Madonna della Scala d'Oro". 

 * * * * *