Rollo in Rome Part 6

"Italian?" asked Rollo.

"No," said the boy, "not at all. All I know of Italian is _grazia_."[4]

[Footnote 4: p.r.o.nounced _gratzia_.]

"What does that mean?" asked Rollo.

"It means, Thank you," said the boy.

"He must be a German boy, I think," said Rollo to himself.

After pausing a moment, Rollo ventured to ask the boy what his name was.

"Charles Beekman," said the boy. He p.r.o.nounced the name in so English a fas.h.i.+on, that Rollo perceived at once that he must speak English, so he changed from French to English himself, and said,--

"So you are an English boy."

"No," said Charles, "I'm an American boy."

Rollo here laughed outright, to think how much trouble they had both been taking to speak to each other in French, each supposing the other to be some outlandish foreigner, when, after all, they were both Americans, and could talk perfectly well together in their own mother tongue. Such adventures as these, however, are very frequently met with, in travelling in foreign countries.

After finding that they could both speak English, the two boys talked with each other like old friends, for some minutes; and at length finding that the pillar between them was very much in the way, Charles, with his mother's permission, moved his seat round to Rollo's side of it, Rollo himself moving to the next chair, to make room for him. Mrs.

Beekman readily consented to this, having first observed that Rollo appeared to be a boy of agreeable and gentlemanly manners and demeanor.

When Mr. George at length came down, he was at first quite surprised to find that Rollo had thus obtained a companion; but before the breakfast was completed, he had become quite well acquainted with the Beekman family himself. Towards the end of the breakfast Rollo said that he was going out to take a walk, and he asked Mrs. Beekman to let Charles go with him. Mr. George was going to finish some letters in his room, and was then going to the post office and to the bankers, where Rollo did not particularly wish to go.

"It will be better for you and me to go out and take a walk by ourselves," said he to Charles, "if your mother is willing."

"Yes," said Mrs. Beekman, "I am willing. Only you must take care and not get lost."

"O, no," said Rollo; "I'll take care of that. Besides, if we should get lost, I know exactly what to do."

"What would you do?" asked Mr. Beekman.

"I would just take a carriage," replied Rollo, "and order the coachman to drive right to the hotel."

"Very good," said Mr. Beekman, "that would do very well."

Accordingly, after breakfast Mr. George went to his room to finish his letters, while Rollo and Charlie set out on their walk, to see what they could see of Rome.

Rollo's plan of taking a carriage, in case of getting lost in a strange city, and ordering the coachman to drive to the hotel, is a very excellent one; but one thing is quite essential to the success of it, and that is, that the person lost should know the name of his hotel.

Unfortunately, Rollo was going out without this requisite. Neither he himself nor Mr. George had observed the name of the hotel where the coachman whom they had employed, on their arrival, had finally left them; and in going out Rollo forgot to observe what it was. He did not even take notice of the name of the street. He did observe, however, that the hotel had a small open s.p.a.ce, like a square, before it, with a fountain on one side. The water from the fountain flowed into a small stone basin, with curious figures sculptured on the side of it.

"Let us go and look at this basin," said Charles, "and see if it would not be a good place for us to sail little boats."

The basin was in a cool and pleasant place, being overshadowed by the drooping branches of a great tree. Rollo, however, did not wish to stay by it long.

"Let us go now and see the streets of Rome," said he; "we can come out and look at this basin at any time."

So the two boys walked along, paying little attention to the direction in which they were going.

"We shall find some of the great streets pretty soon," said Rollo, "and then we will take an observation."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Charles.

"Why, we will take particular notice of some great building, or something else that is remarkable where we come out into the street, and by that means we shall be able to find our way back to the hotel."

"Yes," said Charles, "that will be an excellent plan."

So the boys went on, and presently they came out into what seemed to be quite a busy street. It was not very wide, but it was bordered with gay-looking shops on each side. These shops were for the sale of models, specimens of marbles, Etruscan vases, mosaics, cameos, and other such things which are sold to visitors in Rome. The number of mosaics and cameos was very great. They were displayed in little show cases, placed outside the shops, under the windows and before the doors, so that people could examine them as they walked along.

"O, what a quant.i.ty of mosaics and _cameos_!" exclaimed Rollo.

"What are mosaics and cameos?" asked Charles.

As perhaps some of the readers of this book may not know precisely the meaning of these words, I will here explain to them, as Rollo did to Charles, how mosaics and cameos are made.

In the first place, in respect to cameos. Imagine a small flat piece of stone, of different colors on the two sides, say white and black. We will suppose that the white extends half through the thickness of the stone, and that the remaining part of the thickness is black. Stones are often found with such a division of colors, not only white and black, but of all other hues.

Now, the artist takes such a stone as this, and marks out some design upon one side of it, say upon the white side. Perhaps the design may be the figure of a man. Then he cuts away all the white of the stone except the figure; and the result is, that he has the figure of the man, or whatever else his design may be, in white, on a black ground, and the whole in one piece of stone, all solid.

Besides stone, sh.e.l.l is often used for cameos; many sh.e.l.ls being pink, or of some other such color on the inside, and white towards the outside. In such a case, the figures of the design would be pink, or whatever else the color of the stone might be, on a white ground.

The artists of Rome are celebrated for making beautiful cameos, both in sh.e.l.l and in stone. The figures are very nicely drawn, and are very beautifully cut, and when finished are set as pins, bracelets, and other ornaments.

The _mosaics_, on the other hand, are made in a very different way. In these, the design is represented by different colored stones or bits of gla.s.s worked in together, with great care, in an opening made in the material serving for the groundwork. Rollo and Charlie went into one of the shops, and saw a man making one of these mosaics. He was working at a table. On one side was a small painting on a card, which was his model. He was copying this painting in mosaic. The bits of gla.s.s that he was working with were in the form of slender bars, not much larger than a stiff bristle. They were of all imaginable colors--the several colors being each kept by itself, in the divisions of a box on the table. The man took up these bars, one by one, and broke off small pieces of them, of the colors that he wanted, with a pair of pincers, and set them into the work. He put them in perpendicularly, and the lower ends went into some soft composition, placed there to receive and hold them. The upper ends, of course, came together at the surface of the work.

The man who was making the mosaic told Rollo, that as soon as he had finished placing the pieces for the whole design, he should grind off the surface so as to make it smooth, and polish it. It would then have the appearance of a painted picture.

You would think that as the colors of the design are thus represented by separate pieces of gla.s.s, put in one after the other, the result would be a sort of mottled appearance, or at least that the gradations of hue would be sharp and harsh in their effect. But it is not so. The pieces are so small, and the different shades succeed each other so regularly, that when viewed from the ordinary distance, the junctions disappear altogether, and the shades mingle and blend together in the softest and most perfect manner.

The mosaic which the workman was making in the shop where Rollo and Charles went in, was a small one, intended to form part of a bracelet.

There were, however, some in the same shop that were quite large. They were framed like pictures, and were hanging up against the wall.

Indeed, there was nothing but the circ.u.mstance that they were in a mosaic shop, to denote that they were not pictures, beautifully painted in oil. One was a landscape; another was a portrait of a beautiful girl; another was a basket of fruit and flowers.

In some of the churches of Rome, there are mosaics of very large size, which are exact and beautiful copies of some of the most celebrated paintings in the world. Strangers coming into the churches and looking at these pictures, never imagine them to be mosaics, and when they are told that they are so, they can scarcely believe the story. But on examining them very near, or in looking at them through an opera gla.s.s,--for sometimes you cannot get very near them,--you can easily see the demarcations between the little stones.

It is a very curious circ.u.mstance that the most ancient pictures in the churches of Rome and Italy are mosaics, and not paintings. Mosaics seem to have come first in the history of art, and paintings followed, in imitation of them. Indeed, the arranging of different colored stones in a pavement, or in a floor, so as to represent some ornamental design, would naturally be the first attempt at decoration made in the construction of buildings. Then would follow casing the walls with different colored marbles, arranged in pretty ways, and finally the representation of men and animals would be attempted. This we find, from an examination of ancient monuments, was the actual course of things, and painting in oil came in at the end as an imitation of pictures in stone.

Rollo and Charles were induced to go into the mosaic shop by the invitation of the workman, whose table, as it happened, stood near the door. He saw the two boys looking in somewhat wistfully, as they went by, and he invited them to walk in. He saw at once from their appearance that they were visitors that had just arrived in town, and though he did not expect that they would buy any of his mosaics themselves, he thought that there might be ladies in their party who would come and buy, if he treated the boys politely. It was on that account that he invited them to come in. And when they had looked about the establishment as much as they wished, and were ready to go away, he gave them each one of his cards, and asked them to give the cards to the ladies of their party.

"But there are no ladies of my party," said Rollo.

"Who is of your party?" asked the workman.

"Only a young gentleman," said Rollo.

"O, very well," rejoined the man, "that will do just as well. He will certainly wish to buy mosaics, while he is in Rome, for some of the young ladies of his acquaintance."