Pagan and Christian Rome Part 16

The inscription on the tomb of Innocent VIII. mentions, among the glories of his pontificate, the discovery of a new world. Thirty years before his election Constantinople had been taken by the infidels; but the conquests made in the West brought a compensation for the losses sustained on the sh.o.r.es of the Bosphorus. Innocent lived to hear of the capture of Granada and of the conquest of Ferdinand of Aragon, in the Moorish provinces of southern Spain; and just at that time the Hispano-Portuguese branch of the great Latin family seems to have burst forth with renewed vitality and religious enthusiasm, destined to give Rome new victories and new worlds. Bartolomeo Diaz had already doubled the Cape of Good Hope; the sea route to India was opened. The Pope could once again consider himself the master of the world, and was able to present John II. of Portugal with "the lands of Africa, whether known or unknown." Death overtook the gentle and peaceful pontiff on July 26, 1492. Eight days after his demise another Genoese,[118] another worthy representative of the strong Ligurian race, set sail from the harbor of Palos to discover another continent, and begin a third era in the history of mankind.

THE TOMB OF PAUL III. Historians and artists alike agree in placing the monument of Paul III. at the head of this cla.s.s of artistic creations. In a niche on the left of the high altar of S. Peter's the figure of the n.o.ble old pontiff is seated on a bronze throne. With his head bent upon his breast, he seems absorbed in thought. Great events, to be sure, had taken place during his administration, which were more or less connected with the affairs of his own family: such as the foundation of the duchy of Parma in favor of his son, Pierluigi, the marriage of his grandson Ottavio to Marguerite, daughter of Charles V., and the creation of the order of the Jesuits; and as some of these events had resulted differently from what he had expected, no wonder his countenance betrays a feeling of disappointment. Two female figures of marble are seen reclining against the sarcophagus: one old, representing Prudence, the other young, representing Justice; the one holds a mirror, the other a bundle of rods. It seems that Guglielmo della Porta modelled them according to a sketch proposed by Michelangelo; in fact, they bear a strong resemblance to the figures of Night and Day on the tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici, at Florence. The Prudence is said to be a portrait of Giovannella Caetani da Sermoneta, the mother of the Pope, while Justice represents his sister-in-law, Giulia Farnese, according to Martinelli, or his daughter Constance, the wife of Bosio Sforza, according to Rotti. The elder woman's profile is exactly that of Dante,--so much so that Maes speaks of her as the "Dantessa di S. Pietro." Her younger companion is, or rather was, of marvellous beauty, before Bernini draped her form with a leaden tunic. During my lifetime, this has been removed once, for the benefit of a Frenchman who was collecting materials for the life of della Porta; but I have not been able to obtain a copy of the photograph taken at the time. Formerly the statue was miscalled Truth, which gave rise to the saying that, although Truth as a rule is not pleasing, this pleased too much. The strange infatuation of a Spanish gentleman for her is described by Sprenger, Caylus, and Cancellieri.[119]

The original design of the monument required four statues, because it was intended to stand alone in the middle of the church, and not half concealed in a niche. The other two statues were actually modelled, one as Abundance, the other Tenderness; they are now preserved in one of the halls of the Farnese palace.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOMB OF PAUL III]

Paul III., Alessandro Farnese, was the first Roman elevated to the supreme pontificate after Martin V., Colonna (1417-1424). Pomponio Leto, his preceptor, had imbued him with the spirit of the humanists.

His conversation was gay and spirituelle; he seemed to bring back with him the fine old times of Leo III. He died beloved and wors.h.i.+pped by his subjects. We may well share a little of these sentiments, if we remember how much art is indebted to him.

The Palazzo Madama, now used as the Senate-house, and the Villa Madama, on the eastern slope of Monte Mario, still belonging to the descendants of the Farnese family, were given by him to Marguerite of Spain, after her marriage with his grandson Ottavio. The Farnesina, which he bought at auction in 1586, a.s.sociates his memory with that of the Chigis, of Raphael, Michelangelo, and Balda.s.sarre Peruzzi. Then comes his share in the construction of S. Peter's; in the painting of the "Last Judgment," and in the finis.h.i.+ng of the "Sala Regia," the richest hall in the Vatican. But no other work, in my estimation, gives us as true an idea of his taste and delicate sentiment as the apartments which he caused to be built and decorated, on the summit of Hadrian's Mole. I am writing these lines in the loggia or vestibule which opens from the great hall. Paul himself placed on the lintel a record of his work, of which Raffaello da Montelupo and Antonio da Sangallo were the architects; Marco da Siena, Pierin del Vaga, and Giulio Romano, the decorators. The ceilings of the bedroom and dining-hall, carved in wood, and those of the reception-room, in gilt and painted stucco, are things of beauty which no visitor to Rome should fail to see. The bath-room, a work of his predecessor, Clement VII., is copied from the antique. In 1538, while the building of this artistic gem was in progress, Benvenuto Cellini was thrown into one of the dungeons below, as a prisoner of state. He was accused of having stolen jewels belonging to the apostolic treasury; but the true reason seems to have been an offence against the Pope, which he had committed in 1527, while the hosts of the constable de Bourbon were besieging the castle. The offence is described by Benvenuto himself in the following words:--

"While I was performing this duty [of keeping guard on the ramparts]

some of the cardinals who were in the castle used to come up to see me, and most of all cardinal Ravenna and cardinal de' Gaddi, to whom I often said that I wished they would not come any more, because their red caps could be seen a long way off, and made it mighty dangerous for both them and me from those palaces which were near by, like the Torre de' Bini; so that, finally, I shut them out altogether, and gained thereby their ill-will quite decidedly. Signor Orazio Baglioni, who was my very good friend, also used to come and chat with me. While he was talking with me one day, he noticed a kind of a demonstration in a certain tavern, which was outside the Porta di Castello, at a place called Baccanello. This tavern had for a sign a red sun, painted between two windows. The windows being closed, Signor Orazio guessed that just behind the sun between them, there was a company of soldiers having a good time. So he said to me, 'Benvenuto, if you had a mind to fire your cannon near that sun, I believe you would do a good piece of work, because there is a good deal of noise there, and they must be men of importance.' I replied to the gentleman, 'It is enough for me to see that sun to be able to fire into the middle of it; but if I do, the noise of the gun and the shock it will make will knock over that barrel of stones which is standing near its mouth.' To which the gentleman answered, 'Don't wait to talk about it, Benvenuto, for, in the first place, in the way in which the barrel is standing, the shock of the cannon could not knock it over; but even if it did, and the Pope himself were under it, it would not be as bad as you think; so shoot, shoot!' So I, thinking no more about it, fired right into the middle of the sun, exactly as I had promised I would. The barrel fell, just as I said, and struck the ground between cardinal Farnese and messer Jacopo Salviati. It would have crushed both of them had it not happened that they were quarrelling, because the cardinal had just accused messer Jacopo of being the cause of the sacking of Rome, and had separated to give more room to the insults they were flinging at each other."[120] The cardinal never forgot his narrow escape.

From the point of view of archaeological interests Paul III. will always be remembered as long as the Museo n.a.z.ionale of Naples and the Baths of Caracalla of Rome continue to hold the admiration of students. In reading the account of his excavation of the Baths, we seem to be transported to dreamland. No one before him had laid hands on the immeasurable treasures which the building contained. Statues were found in their niches or lying in front of them; the columns were standing on their pedestals; the walls were still incrusted with rare marbles and richly carved panels; the swimming-basins were still ready for use. Pietro Sante Bartoli says: "The excavation of the Baths of Caracalla, which took place in the time of Paul III. (1546) is the most successful ever accomplished. It yielded such a ma.s.s of statues, columns, bas-reliefs, marbles, cameos, intaglios, bronze figures, medals, and lamps, that no more room could be found for them in the Farnese palace." The collection comprises the Farnese Bull, the two statues of Herakles, the Flora, the Athletes, the Venus Callipyge, the Diana, the "Atreus and Thyestes," the so-called "Tuccia," and a hundred more masterpieces, which were, unfortunately, removed to Naples towards the end of the last century.

THE TOMB OF CLEMENT XIII. From the golden age of Guglielmo della Porta to the barocco art of the eighteenth century; from the tomb of Alessandro Farnese to that of Prospero Lambertini (Benedict XIV., 1740-1758), we can follow, stage by stage, the pernicious influence exercised on Roman art by the school of Bernini. The richness and magnificence of papal mausolea increased in proportion to the decline in taste. The sculptors seem to have had but one ambition, to produce a theatrical effect; their abuse of polychromy is incredible; the grouping of their figures conventional; the contortions to which they submit their Hopes and Charities, their Liberalities and Benevolences, their Justices and Prudences are simply absurd.

Pietro Bracci, the artist of the monument of Benedict XIV., by pus.h.i.+ng mannerism to the extreme point, caused a wholesome reaction in art.

The tomb of Clement XIII., Carlo Rezzonico of Venice (1758-1769), was intrusted to Canova. There is the difference of a few years only between the two, but it seems as if there were centuries. This monument, which marks a prodigious reaction towards the pure ideals of cla.s.sical art, was uncovered on April 4, 1795, before an immense a.s.sembly of people. The whole of Rome was there, and the defeat of the partisans of Bernini's style could not have been more complete.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE FROM THE TOMB OF CLEMENT XIII]

Disguised in ecclesiastical robes, Canova mixed with the crowd, and was able to hear for himself that the reign of a false taste in art was once more over, so unanimous was the admiration and approval of the mult.i.tudes for his bold attempt. The tomb of Clement XIII. rests on a high bas.e.m.e.nt of grayish marble, in the middle of which opens a door of the Doric style, giving access to the vault. The two world-renowned marble lions crouch upon the steps, watching the sarcophagus; Religion stands on the left, holding a cross in the right hand; while the Genius of Death, with an inverted torch, is seen reclining on the opposite side. It is a graceful, but slightly conventional figure. One can easily perceive the influence of the study of the antique in the head of this Genius, which Canova considered one of his best productions. It is the Apollo Belvedere of modern times, the "Catholic Apollo," as Forsyth calls the archangel of Guido in the church of the Capuchins. The Pope is represented kneeling and praying, with hands clasped, and a face full of sentiment and thought. When, seated before this monument, we turn our eyes towards the tombs of Clement X. and Benedict XIV., and other similar productions of the eighteenth century, we can hardly realize that Canova was a contemporary of Pietro Bracci and Carlo Monaldi.

The tomb is also historically interesting. It was under Clement XIII.

that the order of the Jesuits was tried before the tribunal of Europe.

The kingdom of Portugal, where they had made their first advance towards greatness and fame, was the first to attack them. The marquess of Pombal, prime minister of Joseph I., taking advantage of the uneasiness caused by the earthquake of 1755 and by a murderous attempt against the king, expelled the order from the country and the colonies (January 9-September 3, 1759). One hundred and twenty-four were put in irons; one, named Malagrida, executed; thirty-seven allowed to die in prison; and the rest were embarked on seven s.h.i.+ps and transported to foreign lands. Charles III. of Spain, and his minister, count d'Aranda, followed the example of Portugal. The Jesuits were banished from Spain, February 28, 1767; and in the night between April 2 and 3, they were put, five thousand in number, on transport vessels, and sent to Rome. King Louis XV. and the duc de Choiseul used the same process in France. The attempt of Damiens, January 5, 1757, and an alleged scandal in the administration of the property of the order at la Martinique were taken up as pretexts for punishment, and the order was banished in 1764. King Ferdinand IV. of Naples, the grand master of Malta, the duke of Parma, and other potentates took their share also in the crusade. Whatever may be the sentiment which we personally feel towards this brotherhood, the figures of Lorenzo Ricci, the general who so bravely contested every inch of the battlefield, and of Clement XIII., who died before signing the decree of suppression so loudly demanded by Portugal, Spain, France, Parma, Naples and Malta, will always be remembered with respect. The pressure brought on the old Pope by half the kingdoms of Europe, which were governed directly or indirectly by the Bourbons, was not merely that of diplomacy. He was deprived of Avignon and the comte Venoisin in France, of Benevento in southern Italy; but to no purpose. The decree suppressing the order was only signed by his successor Clement XIV., Ganganelli, on July 21, 1773. Lorenzo Ricci died the following year, a state prisoner in the castle of S. Angelo.

FOOTNOTES:

[104] Garrucci has reproduced them in the _Storia dell' arte cristiana_, vol. ii. pl. 108-111.

[105] Garrucci: _Vetri adornati di figure in oro._--Swoboda, quoted by De Waal in the _Romische Quartalschrift_, 1888, p. 135.--Armellini: _ibidem_, 1888, p. 130.--De Rossi: _Bullettino di archeologia cristiana_, 1864, p. ----; 1887, p. 130.

[106] _Les tombeaux des papes romains._ Traduction Sabatier. Paris, 1859.

[107] _Roma sotterranea_, i., p. 283.

[108] The hypogaeum, discovered in 1617, excavated and pillaged in 1780-81, has, through my exertions, become national property, together with the Columbaria of Hylas.

[109] It contained the graves of Marcellus [Symbol: died] 308, Sylvester [Symbol: died] 385, Siricius [Symbol: died] 396, and Celestinus [Symbol: died] 422.

[110] Dyer: _History of Rome_, p. 344.

[111] See the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, edited by J. A. Giles, in Bohn's Antiquarian Library; and the excellent memoir of Domenico Tesoroni, _King Ceadwalla's Tomb in the Ancient Basilica of S. Peter_ (Rome, Bertero, 1891), from which I quote almost verbatim.

[112] De Rossi: _Inscriptiones christianae_, ii. p. 288.

[113] d.u.c.h.esne: _Lib. pontif_. ii. 258.--Marucchi: _Iscrizioni relative alla storia di Roma dal secolo V al XV_. (p. 74). Roma, 1881.

[114] Barbier de Montault: _Revue archeologique_, xiv.

244.--Frothingham: _American Journal of Archaeology_, 1891, p. 44.--De Rossi; _Bullettino di archeologia cristiana_, 1875, p. 29; 1891, p.

91.--Stevenson: _Mostra di Roma, all' esposizione di Torino_, 1884, p.

174.--Rohault de Fleury: _Le latran au moyen age_ (planches 45, 46).

Paris, 1877.

[115] _Storia delle arti_, edizione Fea, vol. ii. p. 144.

[116] Zizim died by poisoning, February 24, 1495, during the pontificate of Alexander VI., Borgia.

[117] Published by Muntz, in the _Archivio storico dell' arte_, vol.

iv., 1891, p. 366.

[118] The question as to the birthplace of Christopher Columbus seems to have been finally settled in favor of Savona. Unquestionable evidence has been discovered on June 17 of the present year, by the Historical Society at Madrid.

[119] Theodor Sprenger: _Roma Nova_, p. 232. Frankfort, 1660.--Caylus: in vol. xxv. of the _Memoires de l'Academie des inscriptions et belles lettres_.--Cancellieri: _Il mercato_, p. 42.

[120] _Vita di Benvenuto Cellini_ lib. 1, x.x.xvi.

CHAPTER VI.

PAGAN CEMETERIES.

Various modes of burial in Rome.--Inhumation and cremation.--Gradual predominance of the latter.--Columbaria.--Inscription describing the organization of one of these, on the Via Latina.--The extent of the pagan cemeteries outside of Rome, and the number of graves they contained.--Curiosities of the epitaphs.--The excavations in the garden of La Farnesina.--The Roman house discovered there.--The tomb of Sulpicius Platorinus.--Its interesting contents.--The "divine crows."--The cemetery in the Villa Pamfili.--Tombs on the Via Triumphalis.--That of Helius, the shoemaker.--The tombs of the Via Salaria.--That of the Licinii Calpurnii.--The unhappy history of this family.--The tomb of the precocious boy.--Improvvisatori of later times.--The tomb of Lucilia Polla and her brother.--Its history.--The Valle della Caffarella.--Its a.s.sociations with Herodes Atticus.--His fortune and its origin.--His monuments to his wife.--The remarkable discovery of the corpse of a young woman, in 1485.--Various contemporary accounts of it.--Its ultimate fate.--Discovery of a similar nature in 1889.

Inhumation seems to have been more common than cremation in prehistoric Rome; hence, certain families, to give material evidence of their ancient lineage, would never submit to cremation. Such were the Cornelii Scipiones, whose sarcophagi were discovered during the last century in the Vigna Sa.s.si. Sulla is the first Cornelius whose body was burned; but this he ordered done to avoid retaliation, that is to say, for fear of its being treated as he had treated the corpse of Marius. Both systems are mentioned in the law of the twelve tables: _hominem mortuum in urbe ne sepelito neve urito_, a statement which shows that each had an equal number of partisans, at the time of the promulgation of the law.

This theory is confirmed by discoveries in the prehistoric cemeteries of the Viminal and Esquiline hills, which contain coffins as well as cineraria, or ash-urns. The discoveries have been published only in a fragmentary way, so that we cannot yet follow their development stage by stage, and determine at what periods and within what limits the influence of more civilized neighbors was felt by the primitive dwellers upon the Seven Hills. One thing is certain; the race that first colonized the Campagna was buried in trunks of trees, hollowed inside and cut to measure, as is the custom among some Indian tribes of the present day. In March, 1889, the engineers who were attending to the drainage of the Lago di Castiglione--the ancient Regillus--discovered a trunk of _quercus robur_, sawn lengthways into two halves, with a human skeleton inside, and fragments of objects in amber and ivory lying by it. The coffin, roughly cut and shaped, was buried at a depth of fourteen feet, in a trench a trifle longer and larger than itself, and the s.p.a.ce between the coffin and the sides of the trench was filled with archaic pottery, of the type found in our own Roman necropolis of the Via dello Statuto. There were also specimens of imported pottery, and a bronze cup. The tomb and its contents are now exhibited in the Villa di Papa Giulio, outside the Porta del Popolo.

When Rome was founded, this semi-barbaric fas.h.i.+on of burial was by no means forgotten or abandoned by its inhabitants. We have not yet discovered coffins actually dug out of a tree, but we have found rude imitations of them in clay. These belong to the interval of time between the foundation of the city and the fortifications of Servius Tullius, having been found at the considerable depth of forty-two feet below the embankment of the Servian wall, in the Vigna Spithoever.

They are now exhibited in the Capitoline Museum (Palazzo dei Conservatori), together with the skeletons, pottery, and bronze _suppellex_ they contained.

Nearly every type of tomb known in Etruria, Magna Graecia, and the prehistoric Italic stations has a representative in the old cemeteries of the Viminal and the Esquiline. There are caves hewn out of the natural rock, with the entrance sealed by a block of the same material; in these are skeletons lying on the funeral beds on either side of the cave, or even on the floor between them, with the feet turned towards the door, and Italo-Greek pottery, together with objects in bronze, amber, and gold. There are also artificial caves, formed by horizontal courses of stones which project one beyond another, from both sides, till they meet at the top. Then there are bodies protected by a circle of uncut stones; others lying at the bottom of wells, and finally regular sarcophagi in the shape of square huts, and cineraria like those described on page 29 of my "Ancient Rome."

Comparing these data we reach the conclusion that inhumation was abandoned, with a few exceptions, towards the end of the fifth century of Rome, to be resumed only towards the middle of the second century after Christ, under the influence of Eastern doctrines and customs.

For the student of Roman archaeology these facts have not merely a speculative interest; a knowledge of them is necessary for the chronological cla.s.sification of the material found in cemeteries and represented so abundantly in public and private collections.

The acceptance of cremation as a national, exclusive system brought as a consequence the inst.i.tution of the _ustrina_, the sacred enclosures in which pyres were built to convert the corpses into ashes. Several specimens of _ustrina_ have been found near the city, and one of them is still to be seen in good preservation. It is built in the shape of a military camp, on the right of the Appian Way, five and a half miles from the gate. When Fabretti first saw it in 1699, it was intact, save a breach or gap on the north side. He describes it as a rectangle three hundred and forty feet long, and two hundred feet wide, enclosed by a wall thirteen feet high. Its masonry is irregular both in the shape and size of the blocks of stone, and may well be a.s.signed to the fifth century of Rome, when the necessity for popular _ustrina_ was first felt. When Nibby and Gell visited the spot in 1822 they found that the n.o.ble owner of the farm had just destroyed the western side and a portion of the eastern, to build with their materials a _maceria_, or dry wall.

The _ustrina_ which were connected with the Mausoleum of Augustus and the ara of the Antonines have already been described in chapter iv.