The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862

Over the irregular walls of the subdued white and mellow gray houses and palaces, beyond the Tiber running red in the dying sunlight, over the round-walled castle of San Angelo, the dome of Saint Peter's rises full in the midst of the twinkling, hazy, red and golden light. Passing the stone-pines crowning Monte Mario, there gleam away to the left the far waters of the sea, over which the purple mist of young night tenderly, softly falls. Once thoughtfully noted, you will remember this glowing scene years after sublimer and wilder views are lost to memory or grown so faint that they are to you but as dull colors seen in dreams of old age compared to the flashing brightness of those presented to the closed eyes of youth.

As the sun sets and those in carriages and on foot slowly leave the hights of the Pincio, and descend once more to the old city, you will hear, as the evening star shines brighter and brighter, the first liquid, thrilling notes of the nightingales; then as you lean over the stone parapet, dreamily looking into the dense foliage of trees and shrubs beneath you, you will feel the beauty of those lines:

Seek the nightingale's sequestered tower,
Who with her love-lorn melody
So bewitched thee in the vernal hour:
When she ceased to love, she ceased to be.

It is from the months of May to November, when travelers have left Rome, and the city is in the hands of the Romans, that your walks on the Pincio will prove something more than a mere repetition of a stroll in Baden-Baden, or a revival of ideas common to the Prado or Prater. No longer the little prettinesses of the Medicean Venus flirt by you in the nervous silks that flutter along these walks, but something nobly womanly, of a solid past, slow and stately, moves solemnly, by. We know the lives of these copies of the Venus of Milos, we know its most commonplace and vulgar attributes, but we know, too, its strength! The city of Rome holds in its women the mothers of heroes, when Providence shall withdraw the black veil now hung over their rude minds, and let in the light of knowledge. We who laugh at their sad ignorance, think what we would be without liberty—our minds enslaved, geography tabooed! Egypt is a paradise compared to Rome.

The advantages of foreign travel to an intelligent American are to teach him … the disadvantages of living any where save in America. And though the artistic eye dwells with such loving repose on the soothing colors of Italy, and particularly on the subdued white and gray tones of Roman ruins and palaces, walls and houses, yet the owner of that artistic eye should restrain his wrath at the fiery red bricks of our own cities, for let him reflect that this color goads him on, as it doth a bull, to make valorous efforts—to do something!

Looking down from the stone balustrade of the Pincio on the piazza Popolo, we note two churches, one on either side of the Corso; their architecture is neither more nor less hideous than nine tenths of the other three hundred and odd churches of Rome; the same heavy, half-cooked look about doors and windows, suggesting cocked-hats of the largest size on the heads of dwarfs of no size at all; the same heavy scroll-work, reminding one of the work of a playful giant of a green-grocer who has made a bouquet of sausages and cabbages, egg-plants and legs of mutton, and exhibits it to a thick-headed public as a—work of art. O Roman Plebs! lay this nattering unction to your soul—we did not do that!

The history of all nations seem to indicate successive ages of grub and butterfly-life; certainly Rome has been a grub long enough. Let us hope the sun of Victor Emmanuel, the King of Gallant Men, will hasten the time when the Romans shall wing their way to the light of Liberty. These mockeries of architecture shall then stand as warning fingers to the Romans of the sad days that were; the days when mind and body were enslaved, and the grinning monkey held the dove tight-clutched in his brutal grasp. Through sword and fire public taste must pass before it is purified: the mountain-stream, dashing along with bounding steps, is clear and sparkling, but in the long stretch of level pastureland or prairie it is still and—dirty.

It may be well to descend and wander through those close and narrow streets where the waste-water of old Roman aqueducts makes green and damp the foundation stories of gloomy houses, and where the carefully-nurtured traveler sees sights of smoked interiors, dirt and rubbish in the streets, that terrify him; but let him remember that in the worst of these kennels the inhabitants have never forgotten that they had a Past, and the 'I am a Roman Citizen!' still rings in their ears, eats into their hearts, and is at their tongue's end. Monsieur About was in Rome when Caper was there; he saw these Romans through Napoleonic spectacles: while one foot was trying to stamp on Antonelli gently, the other was daintily ascending the shining steps leading to the temple of Gallic fame. He is impressed with the idea that the Romans are hangers-on of hangers-on to patricians, from which we are to infer, if the patricians are ever hung, there will be a heavy weight to their feet!

Rocjean, one afternoon, after a walk on the Pincio, was returning to his studio, when, as he descended to the Via Babuino, he met a Roman artist named Attonito, who cultivated the English.

'Ow arr you toe-day, my dear?' he asked Rocjean.

'Quite well, except a slight attack of bad English, from which I hope to recover in a few minutes.'

'Pray tell unto me th-hat weech is bad Englis.'

'Haven't you been on the Pincio?'

'Yas, I tak' consteetutionails up there avery afternoons; it is a costume Englis' th-hat I vary moche cotton to.'…

'W-hat! Cotton to? Why, that is a clear Americanism; where did you pick it up?'

'Meester Caper of Noo-York, he told unto me it am more elegant as to say, I love, or I affection. Bote, 'ave you saw that bu-tee-fool creechure with 'air of flags?'…

'What!'

''Air of flags; 'ow you name eet? Capellatura di lino?'

'Oh! you mean tow-head?'

'Toe! no, no! I mean lino.'

'Ah! yes, flaxen hair.'

'Benissimo! Vary well, flagson 'air and blue eyze. Shhe was in carri-adge with Lady Blumpudy. I go avery afternoons to inspect her as she takes the airs on the Pincio, Eet would gife me great pleasures to ally myself to her in marriage compact, bote I do not know eef she has a fortune. Do you know any theengs?'

'Yes, a great many; one of which is that it is my dinner-time, and as I turn down the Condotti—good afternoon.'

'Goo-ood by, my dear,' answered Attonito, as he slowly wandered up the Piazza di Spagna.

Another example of the beneficial effects of the Pincio on the bourgeoise, thought Rocjean. When will the alarm-bell in the clock of Roman time ring out its awaking peal?

ROME BY NIGHT

If one would realize the romantic side of Rome in all its stately grandeur, and receive a solemn and ineffaceable impression of its beauty, by all means let him, like Quevedo's hero, sleep 'a-daytime' and do his sight-seeing by moonlight or star-light; for, save in some few favored quarters, its inspection by gaslight would be difficult. Remember, too, that all that is grandly beautiful of Rome, the traveler has seen before he reaches the Imperial City—with the eyes of understanding, with the eyes of others—in books.

Nothing but a heap of old stones, bricks, and mortar is there here for the illiterate tourist—he can have six times as jolly a time in Paris for half the money that he pays 'in that old hole where a fellow named Culius Jæsar used to live.'

As if the night were not sufficiently dark in this city, there are always those who stand ready with the paint-brush of fancy to make it even of a darker hue; whisperings among the travelers in hotels of certain Jim Joneses or Bill Smiths who have been robbed. Yes, sir, early in the evening, right there in the Corso: grabbed his watch and chain, struck him on the head. You know he was a powerfully built man; but they came behind him, and if he hadn't have done so and so, the rascally Italians would have killed him, and so forth.

'Re-al-ly; well, you won't catch me out at nights!'

There rises up, as I write, the figure of a slim young man, of the day-time negro-minstrel style of beauty, who once dwelt three weeks in Rome. I know that he was profound in knowledge of trick and vice, and that he had an impediment in his speech—he could never speak the truth. He told a fearful tale of a midnight robbery in the Piazza di Spagna—himself the victim. It was well told, and I ought to know, for I read it years before in a romance, only the scene was, in type, laid in Venice. According to this negro-minstrel style of youth, he had been seized from behind, held, robbed of watch and elegant gold chain, red coral shirt-studs, onyx sleeve-buttons, and a porte-monnaie containing fifty scudi, etc., etc. He was the theatrical hero of the hotel for two days, and the recipient of many drinks. Time, the cater of things, never digested this falsehood, and months after the youth had left, I learned that he had lost all his jewelry and money at—twenty-deck poker.

A few nights after Caper was domiciled in the Via Babuino, Rocjean called on him, and as he entered his room, carefully extinguished a taper, and was putting it in his pocket, when Caper asked him what that was for?

'That! it's a cerina. Have you been two weeks in Rome, and not found out that? Why, how did you get up-stairs at night?'

'There was a lamp in the entry.'

'None there to-night, so I had to light this. It's only a long piece of wick, dipped in wax; you see you can roll it up in a ball, and carry it in your pocket, so! Without this and a box of matches, you can never hope to be a good Roman. You must have seen that where the houses have any front-doors, three quarters of them are open all night long; for, as on every floor of a house, there live different families, they find it saves trouble—trouble is money in Rome—to leave the door unclosed. These dark entries, for they are seldom lighted, offer a grand chance for intrigues, and when you have lived here as long as I have, you will find out that they—improve the chances. A cerina, in addition to keeping you from breaking your neck, by tumbling down stone stairs, gives light to avoid the stray dogs that sleep around loose, and to see if there is any enemy around who wants to give you a few inches of cold steel. You may laugh at robbers here; but you may cry for mercy in vain to a Roman who seeks vendetta—revenge, you know. Bad way to use foreign words; but we all do it here. Speak an Italianized English after a time, the effect of had examples. But come, if you want to see Rome by moonlight, it's time we were off.'

As they reached the street, Caper asked Rocjean where he could buy the cerina.

'At any dragheria' said the latter.

'Good, there is a druggist's store up the street—Borioni's.'

'A dragheria means a grocery-store in Rome. If you want molasses, however, you must go to the farmacia for it, [that is the Roman for druggist's shop,] and you will buy it by the ounce.'

'Live and learn,' said Caper, as they entered the grocery and bought the cerina-price, one baioccho a yard.

'And now let us walk out to Saint Peter's, and see the church by moonlight.'

'The want of sidewalks in this city,' remarked Rocjean, 'compelling the Romans to walk over cobble-stones, undoubtedly is the cause of the large feet of the women, added to their dislike of being in pain from tight shoes or boots. For genuine martyrdom from tight shoes, French, Spanish, and Americans—but chiefly Cubans—next to Chinese women, are ahead of the world.'

'But apart from the fact that they do walk on the narrow sidewalks in the Corso, I have noticed that in the side-streets, even where there is a foot-walk, nobody takes advantage of it at night.'

'For a good reason, as we shall probably see,' said Rocjean,' before we reach the bridge of San Angelo. But keep close to me in the middle of the street.'

The moonlight shone brightly down the narrow street they were then walking through, which, but for this, the occasional dim light of an oil-lamp hung in front of a shrine, the light from a wine or grocery shop, and the ruddy blaze of a charcoal-fire, where chestnuts were roasting for sale, would have been dark indeed. The ground-floor of very few Roman houses is ever occupied as a dwelling-place; it is given up to shops, stables, etc., the families residing, according to their wealth, on the lowest up to the highest stories; the light purses going up and the heavy ones sinking. They had walked nearly to the end of this street, when, happening to look up at the fourth story of a house, he saw something white being reversed in the moonlight, and the next instant a long stream of water, reminding him of the horse-tail fall in Switzerland, came splashing down where a sidewalk should have been.

'What do you think of the middle of the street now?' asked Rocjean.

'Let's stick to it, even if we stick in it. I'm going to buy an umbrella, and spread it too, when I go out of nights, after this.'

They reached the bridge of San Angelo, and studied for a short time the fine effect of the moonlight shining on the turbid, slow-flowing Tiber, and lighting up the heavy pile of the castle of San Angelo. Then they reached the Piazza of Saint Peter's, and here the scene was imperial. Out and in through the semi-circular arcade of massive pillars the moonlight stole to sleep upon the soft-toned, gray old pavement, or was thrown in dancing, sparkling light from the two noble jets of water tossed in the clear night-air by the splashing fountains. In all its gigantic proportions rose up, up into the clear blue of the spangled sky, the grand thought of Michael Angelo—the dome of Saint Peter's.

Returning from Saint Peter's, Rocjean proposed to walk through the Trastevere, the other side of the Tiber, and to cross over the river by the ponte Rótto or broken bridge. They found the street along the river very quiet; here and there a light showed, as on the other side, a wine-shop or coffee-room; but the houses had few lights in them, and spite of the moonlight, the streets looked gloomy and desolate.