Walks In Rome. Vol I.

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. INTRODUCTORY. PAGE THE ARRIVAL IN ROME I CHAPTER I. DULL-USEFUL INFORMATION 26 CHAPTER II. THE CORSO AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD 35 CHAPTER III. THE CAPITOLINE Il6 CHAPTER IV. THE FORUMS AND THE COLISEUM 172 CHAPTER V. THE VELABRUM AND THE GHETTO 244 viii CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. THE PALATINE THE COELIAN CHAPTER VI. CHAPTER VII. CHAPTER VI IJ. PAGE THE AVENTINE . . 37 l CHAPTER IX. THE VIA APPIA 39 6 CHAPTER X. THE QUIRINAL AND VIMINAL 459 2 93 33 8 INTRODUCTORY. THE ARRIVAL IN ROME. GAIN this date of Rome the most solemn and in- teresting that my hand can ever write, and even now more interesting than when I saw it last, wrote Dr. Arnold to his wife in 1840 and how many thousands before and since have experienced the same feeling, who have looked forward to a visit to Rome as one of the great events of their lives, as the realisation of the dreams and longings of many years. An arrival in Rome is very different to that in any other town in Europe. It is coming to a place new and yet most familiar, strange and yet so well known. When travellers arrive at Verona, for instance, or at Aries, they generally go to the amphitheatres with a curiosity to know what they are like but when they arrive at Rome and go to the Coliseum, it is to visit an object whose appearance has been familiar to them from childhood, and, long ere it is. reached, from the heights of the distant Capitol, they can recognise the well-known form and as regards S. Peters, who is not familiar with the aspect of the dome, of the wide- spreading piazza, and the foaming fountains, for long years before they come to gaze upon the reality My presentiment . of the emotions with which I should beholdthe Roman ruins, has proved quite correct, J Niebuhr. Nothing about them is new to me wrote as a child I lay so often, for hours together, before their pictures, that their images were, even at that early age, as distinctly im- pressed upon my mind, as if I had actually seen them. si souvent le Je ne saurais revoir, says Montaigne, tombeau de cette ville si grande et si puissante, que je ne 1admire et revere. Jai eu connaissance des affaires de Rome, long temps avant que jaie eu connaissance de ma maison. Je savais le Capitole et son plan avant que je susse le Louvre, et le Tibre avant la Seine. What Madame Swetchine says of life, that you find in it exactly what you put into it, is also true of Rome, and those who come to it with least mental preparation are those least fitted to enjoy it. That preparation, however, is not so easy as it used to be. In the old days, the happy old days of vetturino travelling, there were many quiet hours, when the country was not too beautiful and the towns not too interesting, in which Gibbon and Merivale and Milman were the pleasantest of travelling companions, and when books on Italian art and poetry served to illustrate and illuminate the graver studies which were gradually making Italy, not only a beautiful panorama, but a country filled with forms which were daily growing into more familiar acquaintance. Perugia and Spoleto, Terni and Civita Castellana, led fitly then up to the greater interests of Rome, as courtiers to a king. But now there are no such opportunities of preparation, and in spite of old landmarks, travellers who pay a hurried visit to Rome are bewildered by the vast mass of interest before them, by the endless labyrinth of minorobjects, which they desire or, still oftener, feel it a duty to visit...